Michael Hopcroft

This bringe me back to the dragon example. A dragon in RQ6 has about half the STR and SIZ scores of the same dragon in BRP (or at least possibly the same dragon -- hard to tell with the things). A RQ3 dragon has the BRP stats, so evidently this was a conscious decision on the part of the MRQ/RQ6 designers. Have dragons been nerfed?

There is the rather alarming possibility that their victim aren't really devolved after all -- merely oppressed to the point that even speech is forbidden to them, never learning to speak because there is nobody who can teach them. Which would make the Morokanth even more monstrous than cannibal slave-masters already are.

I understand that historically the North (mainly New England) supported Cromwell, and that the Southern colonies (at the time Virginia and the Carolinas) were more likely to attract Royalists seeking safe exile. The South certainly built up an aristocracy (on what basis I'm not entirely clear), while the North disdained any such airs.

One think I'm wondering about is the difference in the Damage Bonus calculation between RQ6 and BRP. In BRP, a dragon with STR 30 and SIZ 50 has a damage bonus of +4d6. In RQ6 it's only 2d8. I'm curious about the difference. I'm thinking the reason might be that the two games do damage differently. So a RQ6 dragon who bites you for 1d12+2D8 is still going to do enough damage to wherever it strikes to, at the very least, ruin your day. In fact, few PCs could survive such a chomp (or, at the very least, any limb that gets chomped is gone). The typical BRP dragon is many times stronger and larger and does 11d6 with one chomp. One resultant to the RQ6 dragon still does 7d6 impaling, which will again ruin your day unless you happen to hail from Krypton. Why is this?

I've been looking over the Naseby chapter of the C&C core roles. And given that the Royalists are fighting on with powerful magic at their disposal, I'm wondering whether there is an endgame that does not involve mutual annihilation. Given how rapidly and enormously the destructive potential of both armies has escalated and how deeply entrenched they are, I wonder if the only peace is possible when both sides have destroyed each other. I imagine a lot of people will find North America an appealing prospect. This of course assumes the war doesn't spread to the colonies, in which case the English-speaking world looks pretty much bleeped. I also imagine that a lot of the activity of player characters takes place in the aftermath of campaigns -- picking up the pieces, so to speak, and helping survivors with the aftermath so they can have communities again. How attractive it is actually serving one side or the other in the war seems an open question.

Took my hardcover home this afternoon (I'd really been hoping I could wait until my convention, but it didn't work out that way). My, it's big. I'd been reading parts of it electronically, but having the thing actually in front of me daring me to delve deep into its pages is another thing entirely. Looks like I'll have to keep Bladesharp handy for this one.

In at least one filmed version of the story, Frankenstein deliberately chose the brain as that of a recently deceased mentor. He hoped that some of the intellect of his friend could be recovered and that he would be essentially be resurrected -- opening the path to the immortality of the best and brightest of human minds (including presumably his own). It didn't work out that way -- even though that version of the creature was highly intelligent (enough to teach himself to read without any instruction, and to comprehend very complex written material) he didn't have the knowledge possessed by the original owner of his brain, and had a quite different sense of ethics as well.

Chaot's writeup illustrates how very unclear I am on some of the core concepts. Like what could be described for want of a better terms as "the POW economy". Unlike the other core attributes, POW is apparently expected to fluctuate: certain things cause you to gain POW, and if you have enough POW you can sacrifice some of it to do things like buy spells like this. Here's another example: you're a magic-utilizing Victor Frankenstein who wants to build a person out of parts from the dead. Not an obedient golem -- anybody can built a golem -- but a complete person with their own mind, will and (if you believe in that sort of thing) soul. Mechanically speaking such a creation will have a POW score. Where does that POW come from? Can our creator sacrifice a little bit of his own POW as a "starter", and the creature gradually adds to his score as he gains knowledge and experience?

What sorts of weapons can you use without thumbs? I wonder what human adventurers would do should they encounter "men reduced to animal intellect"? Would you be able to identify one at a glance?

The tent is not an option given that I have a roommate coming in from tri-Cities, but I do now have both PDFs at least -- RD from Drive-Thru and C&C from the current Bundle of Holding. Print books might have to wait a while, as I do want to be able to eat and drink at the con.

Guardian just called me to say my copy was in. Which is really terrible timing -- I was actually hoping it would come in about three weeks later so I could pick it up at Game Storm. Now I'll probably have to dip into my convention fund if I want to be sure I'll have my copy. I wish they'd taken my payment in advance so I could be well done with it....

It seems that one of the items in the new Bundle of Holding is the core rulebook for Clockwork & Chivalry. I picked it up, but feel a little guilty about paying a prorated $3.60 for a $25 game (and yet I did it -- I never said I was a good person). Well, off to DriveThru for the Renaissance core rules.

Just how powerful is the Elemental Sharpness spell I posited earlier, and how would it work mechanically?

When Donald Duck (re)joined the Navy in the Duck Tales series, he was posted to an unnamed aircraft carrier. He was a common seaman -- er, seaduck -- and intensely disliked by his Captain. Needless to say he was not allowed anywhere near the aircraft. (apparently nobody ever pointed out to the captain that harassing a relative of one of the richest and most powerful moguls in the world was potentially unhealthy -- especially since Donald had apparently done nothing to deserve his enmity).

I have the Magic Book, copies of some other d100 games with magic in them, and so on. I'm wondering about adding some new spells specifically if I run something -- things that will hopefully surprise players and people who read about them. But I don't want to go overboard in terms of spell power either -- I want these to by things a PC can cast (if she can learn them) without ecxhansting all their Magic Points in one shot and without totally upstaging the rest of the party. Example: I want to be able to enchant a blade with Elemental Sharpness so that it can cut through any inanimate material. Things like pesky knots of the Gordian variety, reinforced wood-and-steel doors, obscene idols to the Unhallowed Ones, and so on. But the knife or whatever cannot penetrate living material at all, and does no damage to living things in combat from the edge (it would probably still leave a thin welt if it struck exposed flesh, but it wouldn't cut or penetrate the skin). You could cut a steak with it, but not a live cow. The spell would be of limited duration -- you might get one or two cracks at your slicing, but after that it either goes back to being a normal blade or becomes useless (losing its edge altogether, until you have the chance to go see a weaponsmith to get it sharpened again). In an extreme case the weapon could be utterly destroyed when the spell ends, shattering into a million pieces or crumbling to dust. Now in a points-based system like Hero modeling this is a relatively easy collection of advantages and drawbacks that affect the spell's point total. There is no such guidance in most BRP fantasy settings or games. I'm wondering about things like the MP cost to cast, the number of spell levels it would take up, and so on. It would, of course, function differently if it were a Divine spell as opposed to a Sorcery.

The Fantasy grounds people hav e a distinct preference for TeamSepeak as their voice program. They even have a dedicated server. In teamSpeak there's the option of the mike turning on every time you raise your voice to a certain voplume, which didn't work too well for me. The alternative is to designate a key on your keyboard that you hold down while you speak. Choosing F1 as that ket caused all kinds of issues for me. There is an anecdotal story about someone who set aside the spacebar, not quite realizing that one has to do some typing while playing in Fantasy Grounds. The key I have been recommended to try is the right Alt key.

Don't forget the eleven-year conflict (from 1810 to 1821) that threw out the Spaniards and won Mexican independence.

"But when you reach the scene of crime, Macavity's not there!" -- T.S. Elliot

I know, I know. I'm saving up for a convention next month and hoping I'll have enough to pay for my hotel. And I can't decide between Renaissance Deluxe or Clockwork & Chivalry as a starter set. But ah, the temptation to drop $30 or so on a print book.

I like this. A famous industrialist has gone megalo -- or so everyone thinks. But in reality his alien, telepathic cat (who is probably telepathically linked only with him) has reached into his mind, learned all his secrets, and is controlling his industrial empire for her own nefarious purposes. What does she really want? It might be difficult for humans, even super humans, to fully comprehend.

I was actually referring to this.

Looks like a job for a Dimetrodon! (Now just watch that reference fly merrily over everyone's head. WHEEEE!)

IIRC, it may have been the Fawcett Comics Captain Marvel series of that period that introduced (or at least popularized) the supervillain as we know him today. Among Captain Marvel's wartime enemies was a super-powered German agent called, appropriately enough, Captain Nazi. He also had to square off against an arrogant semi-divine being who called himself, in mockery of Captain Marvel, "The World's Mightiest Immortal". Then again, his real nemesis was Professor Sivana, a prototypical comic book mad scientist who was the first to derisively dub him "The Big Red Cheese".

One of the reasons the lamented DC Heroes was originally designed the way it was was to make survival possible for the Batman types the DC Universe was populated with -- characters for whom gunfire is dangerous. (This was before the movie conception that Batman wears an advanced suit of armor to protect himself from gunfire, so the designer was wondering how he could take on so many armed foes and not take some bullets.) Batman homages seem quite doable in BRP, though their players have to be clever and try to pick their fights well. But they clearly face challenges. Gunfire is deadly to them, and one sniper could easily take them out. In BRP you can kill someone with your fists or feet if you hit them hard and often enough, as opposed to many supers games when a punch from an unpowered character is only an annoyance. You could, if you liked, build a Batman-style campaign where nobody has real superpowers. Heroes and villains wear costumes, villains stage outrageous crimes, and heroes are extremely competent, but nobody cal bench-press a Buick or shoot atomic flame from their hands. A hero's main advantages are his training, intellect, and whatever gadgets and weapons he can come up with. You can have a villain like the Heath Ledger Joker -- technically human and no more durable or tough than anyone else, but as much a force of elemental chaos as a person.

According to d20srd.org, STR 96 lets you lift at the maximum 150,073,280 pounds, or roughly 7.5 kilotons. That isn't just unthinkable in BRP terms -- it's practically unimaginable. There is almost nothing encounterable that the Sentinel can't lift with effort. We may not be talking kick-the-moon-out-of-its-orbit or tow-the-island-of-Manhattan-back-into-place power, but for most gaming purposes this seems a bit much. Calculating a STR score in BRP is a task I would not wish on anybody -- even if I could find the formula in the index, which I can't.