rust

"Operation: Sprechenhaltestelle"

"Sprechenhaltestelle" ... =O=O

Well, this will keep my mind busy for a while with futile attempts to find an expla-

nation for this incredible term.

My first helpless guesses would be something like "phone booth", or perhaps even

"switchboard" ...

And I thought the German in 2300 AD was weird ...

Edit.: My favourite bad online translation program offers "speech stop" as the trans-

lation - and now I wonder what that could be ...

Yep, cotton, linen and silk have all been used for body armour, and they provided

a surprisingly good protection until the development of the metallurgy made im-

proved types of metal weapons with better edges possible.

1) There was a rather elaborate experimental archaeology project about the lino-

thorax. Unfortunately I have only a German description of the project and its re-

sults, but an online translation program should make it possible to understand the

basics of the content:

http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/technik/0,1518,675814,00.html

2) The correct name of the shield was "Aspis", because "Hoplon" is a general term

for military equipment (and almost the same in modern Greek).

Edit.: Found an English website about the linothorax project:

http://www.uwgb.edu/aldreteg/Linothorax.html

The basic stats of BRP and D&D are indeed quite compatible, the conversion only

becomes a bit more difficult when it comes to skills and feats. However, if you go

more for the "feel" of a character than for the precise mathematics of the con-

version, there should be no major problem.

You're mixing your mythaphores, you know.

I know, but as Homer wrote in The Odyssey, "So it is that the gods do not give all men gifts of

grace - neither good looks nor intelligence nor eloquence."

I may be wrong but, I think Pete Nash mentioned something about an Ancient Greece MRQII or BRP Supplement. It was on the Mongoose Forums. I know a few of us were trying to encourage him.

You are right, and he also mentioned it just a few days ago here on this forum.

However, as I understood it he has a lot of projects in his new job, and so the

book about Ancient Greece had to go to limbo for now.

Perhaps. But I doubt everybody peaks at the same spot.

What I was trying to get at is that in an RPG our characters WILL be able to reach ANY level of proficiency with ANY skill given enough time. In other words, I could become just as good (or better) physicist as Einstein, as good a test pilot as Chuck Yaegar, or even as good a guitarist as Eric Clapton, with enough training, and improvement rolls.

Personal experience seems to disagree with this.

A way to avoid this would be a system with maximum levels of skills, based upon

the characters attributes, similar to the way many systems calculate a beginning

level of skill from the attributes.

The Ringworld RPG went a step in this direction with the maximum root skills for

general knowledge or skill in a field and the necessity to specialize in one of the

branch skills once the maximum of the root skill was reached.

Well there is a general belief though I'm not sure how strong the evidence is that 10,000 hours or 10 years of deliberative practice or experience will see an individual reach their peak ability with a skill or practice of some sort.

I think it would depend a lot on whether the specific skill is a static or a dynamic

one. Someone learning a static skill, like for example to read and write Latin, has

less difficulties than someone who is learning a dynamic skill, like one of the sci-

ences, where much of what he learned early on has to be replaced and there is

a steady stream of new, additional knowledge to learn. So one can doubtless be-

come a master at a static skill with ten years of experience, but not necessarily

a master of a dynamic skill.

It seems I really should finish my "Mysteries of Pavis" supplement for Call of

Cthulhu, the one about Griselda and her trained schoggoth (with frikkin' laser,

of course), before someone else writes something of that kind ...

... when it is announced that Wizards of the Coast have bought the rights to RuneQuest and Glorantha, for a D&D4E version.

Do you have any more nightmares to offer to ruin my day ?

I got the impression from pansophy that it was "round to nearest", i.e. halves round up. That was the usual principle in AHRQ3.

Ah, I see, my bad. I looked at the example at the beginning of the book, where

Critical Success is explained, and there it is rounded up. However, on page 175

it reads "Round fractions using normal rounding.", which most probably means to

"round to the nearest".

In the BGB a critical success is based upon 5 % of skill rounded up.

Wait a moment, that wouldn't be retro, that would be forward-looking ...

You can always become the inventor of the protro-clone ...

I can't have enough versions of 1d100!!! I want more!

Ah, I see - another serious case. It is not very infectious, so your familiy mem-

bers and others are probably safe, but the medication is somewhat expensive,

the standard treatment is 1 book / month ...

What's all this nonsense I hear about RPGs teaching kids math then? Percentages and rounding is pretty damn basic, and easy.

For most of us, but there are surprisingly many people who have serious problems

with numbers, at least as many as those who have problems with spelling. I had

some of them as players, and I soon realized that I was really torturing them by

asking them to do calculations, even simple ones. Since games should be fun, not

difficult (for them) work, we others also switched to tables.

It's funny Claudius, because my introduction to Harnmaster rules was via a Call of Cthulhu game where the GM had grafted some of HM's combat and resolution mechanics. The graft was seamless.

Many of the earlier roleplaying games used the Runequest system or a very close

relative that was obviously inspired by Runequest, some with official permission

like the first version of The Morrow Project, some without such a direct connec-

tion like The Expendables. In fact, there are some roleplaying "sages" who claim

that Runequest, all in all, was the most influential system ever published.

Edit.:

To give an example, this is what Ron Edwards, the author who came up with the

GNS Model of roleplaying, wrote about BRP/Runequest in his essay on simulatio-

nism:

Pound for pound, Basic Role-Playing from The Chaosium is perhaps the most important

system, publishing tradition, and intellectual engine in the hobby - yes, even more than

D&D. It represents the first and arguably the most lasting, influential form of uncompro-

mising Simulationist design.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/

... although I can't remember the COC rule ...

There are two such rules in CoC, the standard 1/5 for a critical hit and the optio-

nal 01-05 critical success / 96-00 fumble, if both rules are used and they collide

during the same action, only the critical success takes place.

I just talked to the owner of my FLGS, and he is definitely not amused. Right now

he has no idea how to get rid of his stock of MRQ II books without making a se-

rious loss, especially as Mongoose is now selling those books as cheap PDF bun-

dles on DTRPG. He has already decided that he will not keep Wayfarer in stock,

because he does not expect that it will sell over here, and he has ceased to ac-

cept preorders of Mongoose books a while ago, after several announced books

failed to materialize. I very much doubt that I will see any new Mongoose books

on his shelves in the near future ...

I thought I saw somewhere a sheet you can download that lists all the optional parts of BRP and the GM can check yes or no on each and hand it to players for character creation or something similar. Does anyone know please where I can find a player aid like this? There is one in the back of the book.

This sounds suspiciously like the game template in this forum's download section:

http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=123

I will readily admit that I have no love for Mongoose Publishing or they way of doing business.

While I have a certain "brand loyalty" for Mongoose, more because of Traveller

than because of Runequest, this is rapidly eroding. Yesterday I wrote a rant si-

milar to yours on another forum, but I will not repeat it here, because it had the

developments around Traveller instead of Runequest at its centre.

The core book handles it more like a form of organization-member relationship; cults and religions may provide divine magic access for the most part, but you could belong to an order of sorcerers, a guild, or even a battle-mage's fraternity. I think the presentation as given in RQII is widely applicable to various settings, even if it owes its roots to Glorantha.

RQII Empires has a lot of interesting and useful ideas for organizations of almost

every kind, the material that once was the RQI supplement Guilds, Factions and

Cults. It is really not at all difficult to replace the Gloranthan cults with other

organizations, and in my view it even enriches the game and gives it more co-

lour and depth to have more different kinds of organizations.

Kidding aside, I don't see how Wayfarer is going to survive.

Judging from what I know about the roleplaying games market over here, the

chances really are slim. There is hardly a niche for yet another fantasy sys-

tem, this part of the market is saturated, and Wayfarer would need a true

"killer setting" to make people even look at it. Well, perhaps things are diffe-

rent in Britain and the USA, and make Mongoose's decision look a bit more

reasonable.

With Pete gone, Mongoose also has lost another excellent author of its Traveller

line, and the turnover of the authors there is becoming a bit annoying - every

time I am beginning to look forward to something new from one of my favourite

Traveller authors, the next news I read is that he has left Mongoose.

My group is only 2 sessions into a new Mongoose RuneQuest II campaign. What does this mean for us?

If you have all the books you need for your campaign, there is no problem for

you. Mongoose's decision only means that there will be no new Glorantha 2nd

Age books published, and that those already published will cease to be avai-

lable this year. Otherwise the game system of Mongoose Runequest 2 will be

continued, now renamed Wayfarer, but with other settings. However, I doubt

that Wayfarer will have a long life.

Still, when you decide something that might hurt one of your partners, it is considered good manners to inform him, at least.

Yes, I agree. The partners have to be informed at least an hour before any press

release, not after a press release - this is really very bad style.