ORtrail

I'm looping when trying to checkout. It might be something to do with only buying PDFs, having a stored address and using PayPal, but it keeps asking me to choose a billing address. I've sent an email and am waiting to see what happens.

It's the first time I've had a problem ordering from the Chaosium website, though.

The above describes my typical Chaosium shopping experience. Other than being here in the States and not across the pond, though that might be enough of an issue in itself. Imagine how it will be after they upgrade the software/system? I expect at least a week of, uhh, chaos at Chaosium after they change over.

Well, now DrivethruRPG is having a sale. From now to the 27th you get 25% off anything that was on your 'wishlist'. I only had two items, and one I had just added yesterday. The sale pushed one item down from $15 (where I was debating getting it) to $11.25, which makes it a near certain purchase.

Edit: FYI, you cannot add items to your wishlist and get the discount. I tried.

Version 1.7 of this tool will generate characters, an adventure, and summarize the adventure along with skill increases. Why waste time actually playing when technology has you covered?

Seriously though, very cool of you to code this up for us, pansophy.

If Mythic Iceland in paper will be available "any day now" (see Mythic Iceland thread), then I sure hope that day is before the sale ends.

It will be the day after the sale ends. Search your feelings, you know this to be true.

Yeah, navigation can be a pain on their website. I spent a good hour going through the left side links, as price can really change my interest level in a book. Even a large book in PDF is seldom worth more than $15 to me, most I wait till it is closer to $10, and anything at $5 or so is almost an automatic purchase. I finally created a 'wishlist' and have a number of items in there. I will get at least 2 more from that list before the sale ends.

I still love the smell and feel of dead trees and ink though, so that upcoming BRP Pulp resource book is probably not going to be a PDF purchase.

I'm not sure where to post this, so mods feel free to move it. From now through May 28th there is a sale at the Chaosium website. This is one of the rare times a Chaosium sale overlaps with my payday, and I can purchase with much less opposition from the wife. To quote from the email:

"So, while this is going on, we thought that we would reward our loyal and patient Chaosium customers with a 30% OFF SALE! It's been some time since our last sale and you can now help us clear some virtual space on our cloud for new e-product.

This is store-wide but for a limited time, ending at midnight on Memorial Day (28 May 2012). The sale includes all product, e-books, knick-knacks and doo-dads on our site. Remember, we recently lowered our prices on Chaosium pdf-books, and this sale is in addition to those improved savings! "

I also found Justice Inc. to be an excellent Pulp resource, but one created for BRP is most welcome. Probably a day one purchase for me.

I don't have a copy of OpenQuest, so I won't be of much help. I understand it is a fairly similar system to BRP. Since the BGB is designed with the idea of picking-and-choosing how you want to run BRP, I think you are just going to have to combine what interests you about both and adjust as needed. I doubt anyone else has tried to do what you are asking about. In fact, I would expect that if you asked 10 different gamers how they ran BRP, you'd get 8 of the 10 doing things differently from all the rest.

Well, why not combine the two ideas? I ran a Star Trek adventure years ago (Prime Directive BTW) where an ancient collector ship that had crashed centuries before was found by some of the new Federation colonists and they accidently released a number of dangerous lifeforms. I created an Orion Slaver-Plant that was semi-intelligent and collected lifeforms to defend/attack as needed by the host plant. These were floating pods with tendrils/vines attached to the heads of the enslaved colonists. There were several plants with 2-3 slaves each. I let the slaves retain some intelligence too, enough to use weapons to defend the master plant.

Anyway, I digress, but you could have a Triffid-type plant that is turning humans into zombie slaves and using them to host the seed pods of the next generation. Perhaps the seed pods are attached to the brain stem and removal kills the victim, but this still leaves them free to roam. The characters must deal with the zombies first, then find and destroy the master plants to end the crisis. I'd set the characters up in a relatively isolated area of course, perhaps an island where the boats are already gone as people fled, and any bridge was destroyed by the military as they set up a "safe zone". Or a desert area where the only water supply is in storage tanks and delivered by truck every week, I think parts of Arizona have communities like this? The Triffids need water and blood to feed the seed pods.

As long as this is a one-shot deal, I think the players would probably be cool with a "bait-and-switch". Especially if they have played CoC, they know things will NOT END WELL, most of the time.

My first thought, especially if you wanted the characters to be fairly well prepared, was to have them be some elite police/military squad. Perhaps a special strike team to deal with the Mexican drug lords? The characters will be heavily armed, armored, and well equipped to start. The adventure starts with them preparing to raid a drug lord stronghold out in the desert somewhere, maybe just across the border so they are out of contact until they get back? No cell phones, no radios on till they get back across the border? By then, say a day later, the outbreak has hit the border town and things are closed off by the military to avoid spreading the disease? Maybe they notice some strange blotches on some of the drug lords men, so they may realize they have probably been infected/exposed?

My second thought, and with a zombie adventure it's more fun when played with more "normal" characters, is something you had listed above. The characters are part of a reality show camera crew, following the adventures of, The Crimson Sentinel. A high-tech super with an anti-gravity open platform vehicle perhaps? Plenty of room for the crew, and he likes the attention. He mostly fights ordinary crminals, and the occasional super villain. The crew can still be armed with some pistols, stun guns, body armor and helmets as needed. The adventure starts with the Crimson Sentinel destroying a huge meth lab complex just across the border, but the hero gets bitten during the raid and quickly shows signs of infection. A minor villian is helping defend the meth lab and EMP (Electro-Magnetic Person, as the villian calls himself) shorts out all devices within a 30 mile radius during the battle then drops unconscious from the effort. Crimson Sentinel drops them off near the border town just a few miles away (he needs to hurry back at maximum speed to the his secret lab to work on a cure. The Sentinel Sled was of course mostly shielded from the EMP attack). The film crew is left in the infection zone to fend for themselves and the full-on zombies are soon everywhere.

I'll probably get the PDF version of this. Looking forward to seeing some reviews. I don't know if it's advancing age (mid 40's) or just getting lazy, but I find familiar game systems much more attractive then learning a bunch of new rules. Now get off my lawn!

Feel free to give details of the game, and what advantages do you think OP has over, say, Basic Role-Playing?

The news about Superworld really jumps out at me. I'd love to see a more streamlined version than the boxed set edition. In fact, a reprint of the original WoW (Worlds of Wonder) booklet with the designer notes from Different Worlds would be better.

It download fine for me, I had to drop it into Word from Notepad to get decent formatting though. So, what is the history behind these digests? Oh, and thanks for making them available.

At a mere $1, how can you go wrong? I'm surprised my Nook is handling the PDF fairly well, though I prefer dead trees and ink most of the time.

I think BRP works well with a "limited" type of Supers game. I wouldn't try to have characters much beyond the level of Spider-man. Try to stat up the Hulk or Thor and things get funky rather quickly. That said, I love the lower level type heroes and have run both pulp heroes and low level supers campaigns very successfully with BRP. Some, maybe most players, would prefer the higher powered characters so you'd be better off looking at a different game system, IMHO. That is why, I believe, we have not seen any real BGB Supers stuff.

Wait, the Brown Bess was a breech-loader? I've only seen it as a muzzle-loader. Were you refering to some rare variant model?

I actually kinda like the random armor bit as you can't take anything for granted. It will slow down combat that much more though, unless you are really into rolling dice early and often.

The named seemed vaguely familiar, he was the author of The Eternity Brigade which I read, about 25 years ago? You can also download a sample of the Parsina books here:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/2162?ref=sgoldin

Where are the charts for generating Fantasy Football stats for players with characters in leagues?

Posted with Nook just to see if it works

No problems here, on our PC. The Opera browser on our Wii can't load the BRP Central website though. Which is strange since I can get here with my Nook!

Not that any of this is helpful to you, but I had to share.

I feel I must DEMAND a review, sir. At least some "first impressions".

My very minor quibble would be that I always prefer the title to be across the top of the character sheet. Still very cool though.

I'm thinking of running a superhero game, but the players would like more superpowers to choose from. I'm probably better off just making new superpowers from scratch. I may give that a whirl.

I'd direct you to the X-Men character creation article in DW #23. The opening paragraphs point out how you can break down powers into effects.

Bubble Man shoots out Superbubbles that trap the victim inside them until they try to break free and then the popping does damage to them. This would break down into Snare Projection and Energy Projection (with, say, a 1 meter range). The strength of the snare and the damage done when broken would depend on levels purchased of course.

Some powers will no doubt be harder to 'break down' but with some imagination it should be possible. Your players might find it more interesting to describe what they have in mind anyway and let you figure out the needed powers and costs. In the above example the player of Bubble Man might want to have the bubble automaticlly transport the the person to the nearest police station. So, add some Flight levels to the Super Bubbles and maybe an idea roll by Bubble Man so the "flight path" is programmed in at the time he creates it? Let the player spend an extra two or three points to make the flight path automatic if he wants?

It probably won't take long for the player to figure out he could use the Superbubbles as a great way to evacuate innocents from the scene of an accident/fire/supers battle, just reduce the bubble damage down to one point (a nasty pop that's hard on the eardrums). Of course Bubble Man is going to burn through a LOT of Energy Points....

The point is, don't get caught up in looking for a certain power on a list.

Doesn't this just figure. I just got laid off (temporary, 3 months) from work on Friday and have to be a little more cautious with my spending for a bit. I always manage to "fumble" my Luck roll. Oh well, at least I can finally find the time to finish Classic Fantasy 2... hopefully.

Rod

I dunno, sounds like a 3 month paid vacation. I do get having to spend carefully though, the wife has not worked in almost seven months due to health issues.

Your pain is the gaming communities gain -if you spend that free time wisely.