RexMundi

Re: If you Had to Pick, ONE (already) Setting, to Run in, What is it? True that, one should take the entire setting instead of piecemeal. That could end up with a LOT of additions though ......if you include the Trio, then you have to include Birdman, and if you include Birdman and more heh..... ~Rex....

Re: What's in YOUR future history? True, I was wondering though, if anyone had seriously looked at the religious upheaval, that not being the center of the universe, or "gods Image" and what not, could play in a campaign. Especially one saying, where the technology could effectively return the dead to life so to speak at certain levels, or cloning, or all that fun sci fi stuff, up to and including stuff like you see in the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons? ~Rex

Re: Best, Worst and Strangest Police Cars I just can't bring myself to pull over for a Cop Car that I could backhand with a copy of Fred and probably knock it 360 degrees. ~Rex

Re: What's in YOUR future history? No one has Religious Issues in their Future? Usually an interesting one, once "other things" show up. ~Rex

Re: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Urban Fantasy Campaign Fodder? *shudders* Ashamed I ever Did the premier and the Demo's of Scion. You don't WANT, to mine Scion for Ideas. It's horribly broken rules wise, and as for Continuity, it was Developed initially, as a post apocalyptic WESTERN with extra stuff *cough`DEADLANDS`cough* and mutated into an example of what you get if you take ONE piece, of every previous system edition, and tape it all together with spit and baling wire, under one cover. It is, however, oddly fun to Run and Play. But's it's fun in that running around with an M-80 way. Good time until it blows off a few fingers. The Idea is sound though. The Books are actually written well. More of a Modern day Tom Swift and Tom Swift Jr. level of writing as opposed to the Harry Potter stuff which is meant to be Read To small children, or let slightly older children read them, the Percy Jackson stuff is actually written at the Teen Level, as entertainment for an older age group, very much like the Tom Swift stuff was back in the Day. You can easily grab one of them at the Library. Quick read and unlike a Potter book, won't pollute your brain with writing that wouldn't get past a creative writing 101 intern. ~Rex

Re: If you Had to Pick, ONE (already) Setting, to Run in, What is it? NICE choice. Think I'll dig those out of the box and read them again. ~Rex

Re: Fantasy or Pulp? True that. Well worth the scratch and they make FINE Christmas presents. All my friends for example, got a Robert E. Howard collected edition (1 got Solomon Kane, the Other Bran Mak Morn etc) this year, so they can actually absorb some cool entertainment, via a way other then an Xbox or a Playstation this year heh.... ~Rex

Re: If you Had to Pick, ONE (already) Setting, to Run in, What is it? Oh the serenity sheets he can read. It's the opening Blue Screen of the site itself, heh. I suppose if someone mentions the Space Ghost setting then the Herculoids can be included as well. ~Rex .....You play a human in the Herculaoids setting, unless, you can master the sound effects.

Re: Fantasy or Pulp? Exactly. Oh and good call on The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, that's a GREAT fantasy example from a rather "not often thought of in relation to Fantasy" Author. Kind of like using Pigeons from Hell from Robert E. Howard, as a Horror example. Roots end up in the strangest places. ~Rex

Re: If you Had to Pick, ONE (already) Setting, to Run in, What is it? Yeah I pointed a few of those out to some rabid "Serenity is the Greatest RPG EVER!!! Cortex Uber Alles!!!!!" folks ....they took one look, looked back at the Serenity book, and went and bought 6e HERO. Hell's I've moved over 3K of 6e Product through three stores in the last 2 days....heh, I should be getting commission. For those not familiar with Mr. Surbrook's site I recommend hitting the link and looking. It's worth the time and the only complaint I've ever gotten is from a guy that's blue green color blind. ~Rex ......Fires up the Space Ghost Youtube clip above really loud to scare the office.

Re: [Vehicle] The Ram This is a great ship. ~Rex

Re: WWII Dark Reich Hero Just define your limits. The nice thing really about 6e, is that it gives you fantastic scaled examples. So, define it simply, by limits. How big a hole, do I want my players to be able to put in something. Then, How REAL do you want it. Low End makes for very realistic. 75, is Really Low. You might want to give them a touch more. Once you have your limits firmly in mind, then work on things like templates. Look over the character examples in the 6e books as well. Randall Irons for example would fit your basic concept, very well. ~Rex

Re: Fantasy or Pulp? True, but so far, every example you have given, is Pulp. Folks tend to think, that Pulp is chained to the 30's, and Crime Noir, but it's really not. You are talking about a Genre, that included roughly EVERYTHING, ever written, from 1896 to the 1950's. It includes coverage of genre's like fantasy/sword and sorcery, gangster, detective/mystery, science fiction, adventure, westerns (and the prequel Dime Western), war, sports, railroad, romance, horror/occult (including "weird menace"), "spicy/saucy" (soft porn), and Série Noire (French crime mystery). Many classic science fiction and crime novels were originally serialized in pulp magazines such as Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, and Black Mask. You've got an author coverage the likes of nothing ever seen: Poul Anderson (a huge favorite), Isaac Asimov, Robert Leslie Bellem, Alfred Bester (one of my other favorites), Robert Bloch, Leigh Brackett, Ray Bradbury, Max Brand, Fredric Brown, Edgar Rice Burroughs, William S. Burroughs, Ellis Parker Butler, Hugh B. Cave, Paul Chadwick, Raymond Chandler, Arthur C. Clarke, Joseph Conrad, Stephen Crane, Ray Cummings, Jason Dark, Lester Dent (BOOYAH!), August Derleth, Philip K. Dick (Who called himself nothing more then a Pulp Hack), Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock is a pulp defined Character), Lord Dunsany (If you have never read any, you NEED to), C. M. Eddy, Jr., Arthur Guy Empey, C. S. Forester, Arthur O. Friel, Erle Stanley Gardner, Walter B. Gibson, David Goodis, Zane Grey (the IMMORTAL), Edmond Hamilton, Dashiell Hammett, Robert A. Heinlein (To whom many are compared), O. Henry, Frank Herbert, Robert E. Howard (Who practically Defined the Immortality of Pulp), L. Ron Hubbard (Who, besides giving Tom Cruise Scientology, also wrote a fantastic Authors Intro in his Battlefield Earth, Explaining what "TRUE" Sci Fi was), Donald Keyhoe, Rudyard Kipling (yes, HIM), Henry Kuttner, Harold Lamb, Louis L'Amour (I still lean more towards Zane Grey, but they are very comparable), Fritz Leiber, Murray Leinster, Elmore John Leonard, Jack London (I make it a point to read The Sea Wolf at least once a year), H. P. Lovecraft (Without whom, there would be no real knowledge of what not to say in a mirror a few times in the dark), Giles A. Lutz, John D. MacDonald, Elmer Brown Mason, F. Van Wyck Mason, Horace McCoy, Johnston McCulley, John D. McDonald, Merriam Modell, C.L. Moore, Walt Morey, Talbot Mundy, Philip Francis Nowlan, Emil Petaja, E. Hoffmann Price, Seabury Quinn, John H. Reese, Sax Rohmer, Rafael Sabatini, Richard S. Shaver, Robert Silverberg, Upton Sinclair, Clark Ashton Smith (Another Favorite), * E. E. Smith (What can you say about Doc?), Guy N. Smith, Jim Thompson, Thomas Thursday, Mark Twain (One of the originators), Jack Vance (Whom without, DnD wouldn't have a magic system), H. G. Wells (As Pulp as It Gets), Tennessee Williams, Cornell Woolrich, and many many many ,many MORE writers, from nowadays, that are returning to that Style, and that feel of writing, because Pulp, makes you FEEL. You can Feel the adventure. If you were to ask ANY of those authors, if they wrote Pulp, they would say, Yes. When you put down a piece of Pulp Work, you wanted to go PLAY that story out somewhere, somehow. Nowadays, you might get a Trilogy out of a Fantasy Author, a Sci Fi Author (Sometimes more, and then, it's More then you really want), but Pulp? Pulp's often had HUNDREDS of stories written about it's characters. The Wealth and variety within the field, is second to none. The only thing longer then a list of Pulp Authors, would be a list of Pulp Characters. Pulp, simply isn't Chained, to a Time, or a Gimmick, It's the Poetry, of Settings. If it makes you feel the wind in your hair, hear the clash of the sword blades, smell the gunpowder, then it's most likely, written in the Pulp Style. Pulp is The Glue that holds all the other settings together, or the Foundation, upon which they are built. There's been some fantastic books written on the subject of Pulp actually. Not to mention, as far as published folklore goes, it already WAS, and quite easily, fit into the Pulp Machine, and printed out with that fantastic cover art, for folks to buy at the news stand. To chain it simply to the 1930's, zeppelins, and rocket pack cats (which undeniably is very Pulp), is only looking at PULP the genre, through a keyhole. Even if the paint on the house, is done in Noir Black, or Lovecraftian Grey's, or Phillip K. Dick Hallucinogenic Neon's it's Still, Pulp. ~Rex

Re: WWII Dark Reich Hero My campaign setting is extensively built, (many times since I make a new setting each edition of HERO ), and I develop each genre and time frame, with as much detail as possible. Granted, the notes tend to read and run in a similar format to the Wold Newton project, but I've done many the Adventure, in Alternate WWII. It's definitely, a Pulp setting, if a touch dark (though not as Dark as let's say, The Spider, whom is a Pulp Archetype). There are tons of examples to draw from from things like Golden Age Comics, the current re-surge of Golden Age character (like Project Super Powers for example from Dynamite comics), to fairly unique game settings like Godlike (as mentioned above), and Weird War 2 (also mentioned above). You could as well take a look at a little known Poul Anderson novel called Operation Chaos (And it's sequel Operation Luna), since that is an excellent source of info for tossing in magical stuff, very unique track on that sort of thing. I'd also highly recommend any of Harry Turtledoves Alternate History novels as well (all fun reads). Such things will give you the info you are looking for without necessarily constraining your build by trying to match up something to another systems presentation. ~Rex

Re: Fantasy or Pulp? Reads to me more like the venue of Solomon Kane, which last I looked, had, Pirates, Ghosts, Historical Romance/Adventure, Magic, Swashbuckling, and the hardest hitting Puritan that ever sailed with Sir Francis Drake. And, it's undeniably, Pulp. ~Rex

Re: If you Had to Pick, ONE (already) Setting, to Run in, What is it? Some very interesting Spread of picks there. Got to say, Space Ghost would get my interest at least out of Nostalgia, not to mention the Pulp Elements inherent in it as well. Alien Nation is an Interesting pick, one that could lead into many other similar kinds of stories as well (District 9 on one side, V on another). I'll also give props to Mr. Surbrook's Kazei 5, though while it has one foot in cyberpunk, the other in various anime, both still have the Sci Fi "Swoosh" on the side of those cross trainers. I'm not gonna bust him for recommending his own material though because he did also sort out Firefly as well, and did at one time (been awhile since I looked and last time I looked it wasn't complete), have Firefly write up's off his site, that put the current Serenity RPG to shame. *Takes a few notes* It's interesting to see the scope of views as well. I did notice, that the trek, leans uber heavy towards the original crew, not so much in the way of Next Gen and Next Gen spin offs out there apparently. ~Rex

Re: Champions Universe--Megavillain teamup idea... *cough* Last I looked Binder was something of a Technical Villain. ~Rex

Re: Champions Universe--Megavillain teamup idea... Still needs Binder. ~Rex

Re: Champions Universe--Megavillain teamup idea... No Binder? That team is doomed. ~Rex

Re: If you Had to Pick, ONE (already) Setting, to Run in, What is it? Again, one of the reasons I chose Well World. You HAVE to build. Hell the Well World itself, has over 1,560 Unique Alien Environments (half carbon based, half not), and Tech ranging from None, Steam, Magic, Uber Science, etc etc etc .....Other then, 6 races, you need to make the rest, and even those 6 can change and or have changed. Alien Legion (Got my fingers crossed for that new Series from Dark Horse 2010), is much the same way. You're not really, Playing in something someone else Made. ALL of us serious HERO folk, Love the build process. It's why we play HERO. All you are really doing, is using their Christmas Present wrapping, to provide some visual, Then, everything else is yours. Then you use the visual as bait, and POOF. Game on. Divergent point or not, Sci Fi, especially TRUE Sci Fi, has been around so long, that in the end (much like the comic books) What you THINK, is original, really isn't. It's all been done. However, you can always offer, a Unique APPROACH to that. That's where the building comes in. So simple even Jugger Grimrod can do it. ~Rex

Re: Lovelace -- The Origin That character still scares me. The Actor though, was QUITE the ladies man.......Robert Conrad passes on some pretty interesting tales about the man. ~Rex

Re: About 6th edition It not only handles that game better, it handles the opposite End better as well, And I've been with Hero products, from the ground floor, 1st year you could get them, til now. That's a long time to have a comparative baseline to measure improvements against. 6e, IS a better game. It scales better, and allows you to do more, with less. We didn't lose anything terribly important, and if it was something that was Insanely important to you (Comeliness for example), then you can add it back in (the toolkit rules are there), or modify what IS there to fit your Ideal better (setting up Striking Appearance for example, to be on the same Scale, as Wealth). ~Rex ....who btw, didn't switch to Fred Revised, but did switch, to 6e.

Re: I'm building a gold dragon on 350 points I'm still lost on the Teeth element myself. I can see it, as an extra add on for an MA maneuver, for something that normally doesn't Bite. But as I wouldn't buy, FIST element for a boxer why would I by TEETH element for something that bites? ~Rex

Re: Fantasy or Pulp? Pulp is as slushy as it gets. It's all encompassing, and you can find aspects of it, in any other genre, should you choose to look for it. Everything you described above in the quote, is pulp, right down to the appearance of biblical power houses like Samson himself, in the Project Super Powers comics from Dynamite. Robin Hood, is Pulp, Tarzan and Zorro, are Pulp. 99% of Westerns even as they are written today, are Pulp. SO, by posting in the Pulp Genre, you are where you should be. THIS, is a Pulp Character. And guess what, there's Magic associated with the genre. Die Hard Fantasy people seem to think that when ever there is magic, it's theirs. Pulp however, has had magic in it far before Tolkein and company established Fantasy as a viable genre. Know what that genre was before that. Mythology, or Religion, depending on who where and when you were, and it was ALL Pulp, when it started. Pulps the glue that holds everything else together. So if the above, is your Diet, then you belong over here in the Pulp thread with the rest of us. Oh and the above Cover, Samson is obviously the Hero, Dagon is the bad guy since they are introducing all the bad guys to go with their truly Heroic and Pulp Origin Heroes. Pulp trumps any other Genre, since it covers, EVERY other Genre. ~Rex

Re: What is the best thing to Drain to incapacitate? Drain, Follower. Buh Bye Side Kick! heh.... ~Rex