Erasmus1966

Damn fumble table - I ended up playing D & D for 4 years because my GM managed to cut his own character in half when we were playtesting RQ combat - in the first round....

Ah, but is it useful for a Pacific Rim Sim?

One of the great joys of my life is when discussions like this get technical I hated the Byrne reboot - the art, the story, all of it - the origin was told far better in 'Birthright' (otherwise known as 'how to make a REALLY good Superman story') ... and if I found the right file, using Atgxtg's doubling progression, Earth is Siz: 620 (approx)

I'd have to admit my collection is a little more wide ranging, though it does include several editions of CoC, RQ II & III, Stormbringer (including the Corum sourcebook ), Superworld Creature books from several systems including MRQ - Loads of GURPS worldbooks, Classic first edition AD & D, Golden Heroes, Star Frontier etc etc... (am I showing my age? lol) I've found the best place for them is 40cm wide shelving units from IKEA (Billy I think) - sturdy, no bowing, protects the more venerable books nicely To Dreadnought, I'd suggest CoC Japan and Malleus Monstrorum - both excellent additions to any collection

True - Mustn't grumble lol All that database/spreadsheet stuff we did helped me get my new job too, methinks Ahem - sorry When we say 'Mass produced', Atgxtg means we applied sound scientific and mathematical principles (well, it was HIS math and science almost entirely - I just did the storage, coding and data entry )

Don't feel bad Seneschal... I've worked with Atgxtg on a major project for the last year or so and I STILL get confused when he gets all Math-y

I love the TV show and am in the process of reading the books - and I think the suitability of BRP is high, based on the lethality of combat in the game AND the show... off the top of my head I think its a good fit

I think keeping schtum would be the best approach - discretion being the better part of valour... and of cowardice

Ah, the Lensmen series - I have an old and rather battered copy of Gurps Lensmen, and its starkly* brilliant, in a pleasantly old-fashioned and nostalgic way... cool aliens too And regarding the Monkey King (and yes, I'm of an age where I have nostalgic feelings about the TV show 'Monkey' as well), I've been trying to find a good eBook copy of 'Journey to the West' online... my colleague at work is of chinese descent, and has been introducing me to aspects of chinese culture between work items... As an aside, NEVER mention the TV show 'Monkey' to a Chinese person ... it was made in Japan (oh, the earache I got for that one) * Anyone who has read a copy of GURPS Lensmen will know why I used that particular word

I played in a similar game at a Con once... weirdly, as a soft southern shandy-drinking B*****d I ended up playing Lister, the bluff northerner in the group ended up as Kryten, and our extra player ended up as 'Bob the skutter' .... didn't do much but crawl around behind the players, leaving the occasional note saying 'Death to the Fleshy Oppressor'...

Perhaps this is the wave of the future... remote gamers playing virtually... While a virtual group is way better than no group at all (and I do like the idea of having a global gaming group), I always enjoyed the face to face interaction of sitting round a table... that being said, I found and courted my wife on Facebook, so I can't criticise ...

There IS such a thing as sticking too closely to the rules It reminds me of a discussion I once had at school (far too far in the distant past for me to think about): Me: (Noting my friend had a sticking plaster on his ear) How did you hurt your ear? Him: I bit it by accident Me: How did you manage that? Him: I stood on a chair

Zomben, your story pretty much explains why my old DM, who was ever in search of a 'better' role-playing system (better than AD & D), only tried RQ ONCE... In his first combat, he apparently cut himself in half in the first round, so that was the end of that idea

Yob-Soddoth probably... who's arrival is heralded by the chant 'YerWhatYerWhatYerWhatYerWhatYerWhatYerWhat' (with profound apologies to Sir Terry Pratchett) I seem to remember he was a priest of Yog-Sothoth or maybe Azathoth.... sadly my Lovecraft Encyclopedia is buried under a heap of other gaming materials and I'm too tired to find it right now... Big thank you to Daniel Harms for producing all three editions of that wonderful tome, btw

Er...no... I don't think we could find a 'Save versus being crushed to death by a 1000 ton statue falling from 3000 feet'...Bend Bars/Lift Gates just didn't seem to cut it...it wasn't technically death magic, though it was just as effective... Plus I think even I found it so funny that I didn't protest.... and my PC was subsequently used as the God of Magic in a setting we developed afterwards

I agree monsters should be weird and unique, but they should still make sense (for a given value of 'sense')

This story is at least a quarter of a century old, maybe a bit more.... and it was using the venerable AD & D 1st edition rules... My character, an elven mage, and his cohorts (all around level 15-18 I think), were desperate for cash... after many advetures robbing banks, stealing the Crimson eye of the little yellow god etc etc (and one very odd situation where we were hired to ruin our patron's rival's business (it was a restaurant)), we were hired by a mountain village to eliminate the huge bird of prey that was munching happily on their flocks... By force of habit, whenever my character was about to enter combat he cast Polymorph Self (for those of you who don't know, a kind of lesser shapeshifting spell), and this he duly did, as we crept up to the nest of said large raptorial avian...the bird was away, but there were eggs, which we proceeded to break (Homage to Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, methinks).... then mummy-bird appears, swoops down, grabs a random (yeah right) PC... that would be me... I'm knocked down below 0 HP, Polymorph Self ends, giving me back 12 HP....I wake up, spell-less, and suspended in the claws of a large bird that was circling at approximately 3000 feet... thinking quickly, I manage to worm one arm free, and grab the magic wand I'd found in the previous adventure and not had a chance to identify... 'Here goes nothing', thinks I... Wand use 1: a Live rhinoceros appeared in mid-air and had little time to become aware of its own existence before it plummetted to the ground, decorating a small portion of the World of Greyhawk with ungulate giblets Wand use 2: A stream of live butterflies 'Oh', thinks my character... 'It's a Wand of Wonder' (random (again, yeah right) spell effects to be determined by rolls made by the DM).... Wand use 3: grass sprouts on the belly of the beast Wand use 4: Flesh to stone......... For a few moments, my character was suspended in the talons of a Rock Roc.... They couldn't find enough bits to resurrect....

If the Elder Sign is rationalised as the human interpretation of an elder thing footprint (which is odd, given that an elder-thing's footprint was sort of shovel shaped... maybe they meant the grave markers?) , then why does it work on non-human mythos nasties? Unless, its the belief that it will work that empowers the symbol... this has two interesting implications: 1/ That human belief is an actual force in the universe and 2/ It explains why holding a cross up to a vampire works... a true believer should in theory be able to use whatever their holy symbol was to do the same job... A potential third implication is that human belief in their own supremacy over nature might be why we haven't been eaten by (*insert favoured mythos carnivore)...

I don't know which one is supposedly official, but to me, given the non-human nature of the mythos beasties, the twig makes more sense, as it is less representative of any human referents...though I believe a willow wand was thought to be a protective device... on the other hand, maybe the human use of pentagrams and eye symbols is derived from the elder sign... [ramble] It's five-sided nature could be related to the symbology of the Elder Things, who used the five-pointed star a lot...though that may be related to their 5-sided radial symmetry [/ramble]... I guess its a matter of personal taste ...

If I had any PCs right now, I'd let them unravel it, but sadly I don't... but when I do I'll ensure they are hapless

Good grief... imagine the Pet Store... I do want to take a look in Barnes & Celaeno though ... and maybe an S-Mart hehehehehe

Thanks for the suggestion, Link... I'm kind of in the middle of a VERY major project at the moment, so it may be a while before I get to 'The Void'. However, it sounds extremely creepy (excellent ).. Was this a creature of your own creation or was it taken from literature? Either way, as much info as possible is good.. I do like to get my beasties accurate

It's a matter of personal taste, of course, but personally I like to make sure I get some of the science right in an SF scenario or setting. I wouldn't recommend GURPS Space as a be-all-and-end-all one-stop-shop for developing a campaign, but as a cherry-pickable source for ideas its rather nice in my opinion.

Oooh creepy... Brown Jenkin strikes again! (yes, I know he was a familiar )

That's a nice cover Looking forward to seeing the completed item