Simlasa

Well, there's a lot of potential room for fantasy Westerns, but that's sort of a different issue.

I don't have a problem with fantasy Western... but I don't need rules for it... I just want a few rule bits that account for the differences in weapons and equipment... skills... the rest I can pretty much handle the rest myself... and add the weird stuff if we've a mind to go that direction.

For fantasy: The Lord Dunsany stuff, E.R. Eddison, Mervyn Peake... Shakespeare... Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Burroughs... The Black Company series.

Master and Margherita by Bulgokov, Rose Red by Robert Coover.

If Chaosium is still selling the Worlds Beyond book that is a fairly Traveller-esque setting based on BRP. It's got cool starships and techy bits...

It's the far future of a decade or so ago... but still pretty entertaining.

Anything by H.P. Lovecraft.

Seriously.

I think you're gonna have to justify that comment somehow... I think most of Lovecraft's stuff stands as a fairly decent 'homage' to Dunsany... which I much prefer to all the Tolkienesque Eurofantasy that litters the shelves.

The worst I've ever read was The Sword of Shannara... maybe not so much for the writing... but I'd just finished reading Tolkien and went straight into that mess of pilferage. It was pretty shameless... and served to warn me of ever trying to recapture that initial experience I had reading LOTR.

:shocked:

Have you seen the Long Riders recently? It has a gritty feel for sure - until the gunplay starts.

Got me there, I haven't seen it in years... and don't much remember the actual shooty bits.

I was mostly thinking of the parts where the Youngers were all laid up in hospital after getting shot up... surprisingly Cole survives. It seems like a lot of the deaths in the film were some time after receiving the wound.

Regardless of the cinematic gunplay I think it has a really 'plausible' feel to it... where violence is not something to be entered into lightly.

Another recent one I liked was 'Open Range'... and usually I discare for the Costner. The big gunfight at the end is pretty tense... lots of sneaking around.

I like the idea of wounding/delayed fatality... it seems really fitting to the period, where relatively minor wounds could be problematic even with medical care. I'd think it would lead to characters avoiding open confrontations and seeking out more advantage... bushwacking, assasination, murder...

From what I've read there weren't really any/many 'showdowns' like seen in movies, but a certain segment of the populace was definitely concerned with carrying weapons they could get into action quickly.

I'm picturing lots of drunken anger that crosses over into sloppy gunplay (which seems to be the story behind most of the gunfights in my (small Western) town's history).

I'm less interested in the wider cinematic tropes... but I'd like to play out something that felt like Deadwood or The Long Riders.

Just as a pedantic note, I do have to note that when talking about Burroughs proper, the princesses were red, not green; the green martians were the big, savage four-armed types.

Just so you know, I know that... I just like the idea of green princesses... probably because of the Orion slave girls in Star Trek.

Not that I see a need to add Cthulhu to everything... but one thing I've always wondered about was what the rest of the universe was up to in the background of Lovecraft's stories... there is a suggestion of a lot of varied races out there who are more or less aware of each other.

Lot of very strange stuff that might melt the brain of the average neophyte... but once gotten used to I picture something kind of like the Dreamland stories (The Silver Key, Unknown Kadath) spread out across cold and uncaring space.

None of Lovecrafts aliens seemed to travel in 'spaceships'.

I don't know of any stories or games that have focused on that setting, with seems like it would be a kind of space-horror-fantasy.

I know that sort of thing isn't the focus of Interplanetary, but I can't imagine being able to resist dropping in some suggestion of that Dunsany/Smith/Lovecraft element...

I wouldn't have much need of maps myself...

Maybe some equipment lists and prices... some career/skill sets...

Why 'half' naked? :innocent:

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Well, actually... IIRC just about EVERYONE in those stories was half-naked... men, women, giant 4-armed martians... the only ones I remember sometimes being clothed were usually evil cultists... most often bent on doing bad things to the afore mentioned half-naked green princess.

yeah... more princesses than Disneyland... mind you, there were a whole lotta princes too.

Yeah, I can't say I've read any examples of the genre that weren't overtly sexist... I'm sure that can be overcome without too much trouble, but I still want to rescue a green princess...

I'm glad it isn't a licensed version of ERB's settings... that frees it up a lot, content wise, and keeps anyone from having to pay exhorbitant licensing fees.

If this really comes off it's gonna be pretty darn great...

I've already got a minds-eye full of swashbuckling sabre fights on skyships zipping over alien ruins and strange jungles full of dinosaurs... with some half-naked green princess eagerly waiting rescue.

My first thought was a 'Wild Wild West' type setting... less supernatural, more steampunk... Deadlands kind of does that but like someone said, it's even more cartoony.

But then I remembered a long ago game I played in that was kind of spaghetti western grit and grunge... with a hint of Voodoo. The Voodoo never came into the spotlight enough to be clearly 'real' and may have been purely superstition but it added a bit of mystery to certain parts of town.

These days I'd probably jump at a game with a 'Deadwood' sort of sensibility... that crazy gangland lawlessness... with lots of moral ambiguity.

That and I've always wanted to try writing up a background based on 'Gangs Of New York'... the book, more than the movie... not Western exactly but in the same period. With wild characters like Lizzie the Dove and the Dead Rabbits... not historically accurate but not supernatural either.

Traveller (LBB version)

Arduin Grimoire (the setting, not the rules)

GURPS (still a fan but haven't played lately)

WFRP (older version)

Whispering Vault

Cyberpunk

Paranoia

Kult

Fading Suns

Dark Sun (again, the setting, not the rules)

Jorune

We also play a lot of wargames:

Rogue Trader (original, and best, 40k)

Confrontation 3 (no interest in 4th edition)

recently we've been playing a lot of Songs Of Blades And Heroes... a cool little fantasy skirmish game that lets you use whatever figs you want.

'Planetary Romance' was what I cut my SF teeth on way back when... reading ERB's Pellucidar and Mars series...

As I recall they never really explain how John Carter ended up on Mars... it had somewhat occult overtones... it definitely wasn't a spaceship.

Much as I'd like to see a bonafide Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon setting come to life I think I'm more excited about Interplanetary...

Moorcock's Kane stories and Lin Carter's Green Star stories oughtta fit well under this tent also...

I was a big fan of the HBO series and have been gobbling up lots of related fiction since the final episode aired... including grabbing a copy of GURPS Imperial Rome off of Ebay.

That sourcebook was okay but seemed more like an expanded encyclopedia entry than really being a game setting. It either didn't have enough detail or had way to much... but never really came to life. It gave me lots of facts but I didn't come away with any better an idea of what I'd do there... reading fiction based in the period seemed better for that.

I'm hoping BRP Rome will go right where the GURPS book went... the other way.

Great idea!

There's definitely a hole out there in gameland where a 'John Carter of Mars' game oughtta be...

This sounds like it will do all that and more... (I'm assuming the Earth is hollow as well?)

I generally prefer just fighting less, than having fate points. You can change things quite a bit just by tweaking hit points though

That's one reason I don't care for fate points generally... I feel that combat, generally, should be a last resort... a desperate move... dangerous enough that you will try all sorts of things to avoid it... and if you have to fight, you'll fight dirty... within the game you'll do all you can to make matters weigh in to your advantage... like setting up traps and ambushes.

As a player I want to really feel the tension of heading down a path towards violence... I want there to dire consequences.

Knowing I can get a roll-over mitigates too much of that tension for my tastes.

I can understand though, that for a lot of people the kind of stories they prefer, like the afore-mentioned James Bond scenarios, don't really feel right if you steer away from spontaneous gunplay...

Maybe that's where increasing hit points and making good use of luck rolls comes in handy.

Another neat thing about them was that players could spend them, with GM permission to make minor alternations to the game world. For instance a character who is inside the villains Castle, could spent a Point to find a sword on the wall, or maybe even a loaded flintlock pistol.

I've heard of some games doing that sort of thing...

I think, for myself, I'd make the player justify why the 'alteration' should take place... why is there a loaded gun in the drawer? why would there be a sword on the wall?... and base the decision to allow it on how convincing his/her justification is.

That sort of thing doesn't bug me as much as re-rolls... it's proactive and imaginative.

A mix of all of those... depending on the skill.

How did you gain them in the James Bond game?

Did they have some sort of in-game rationale or where they purely meta?

Yeah, I'd think they oughtta be precious enough as a commodity that people weren't tossing them around for every little challenge... that they saved them for the BIG STUFF.

Don't the WFRP fortune points respawn every day? That's how we've played it but since we haven't used the points much I'm not sure... anyway... that seems a bit... loose... to me.

If I wanted to play in a game that let me effect the odds that way I might be inclined towards a system somewhat like what I've seen in some MMORPGs I've played... such as in City Of Heroes... where you have a bank of 'Inspirations' that you get randomly while playing. They come in different 'flavors'... some beef up your damage, some increase your defence or give you HP.

When you're headed towards a difficult fight you can pop as many as you have available to juice up for the battle.

I'd make them have some sort of in-game relevance... such as being magic tokens... or combat drugs... or over-clocking my bionics... something.

Still not what I want in most of my games... but I can see it working in a 4 color superhero game... or something really cinematic.

As long as it's not post-roll revisionist metagaming... which is how re-rolls feel to me... I'd get along with em fine.

I like the lethality of BRP combat... if I wanted a game that 'pulled it's punches' I'm sure I could find one.

Maybe so... still feels wrong... maybe cause in my head, once the dice roll... that's it... the thing happened.

If, supposedly, fate points are there for storytelling purposes... so the character doesn't fail when, in dramatic arc of the story, he should succeed... then it seems the point should be spent in ANTICIPATION of that dramatic moment when he finally gets to take a swing at the arch-villain... rather than after having botched it.

The whole re-do thing just 'feels' less heroic... to me and mine.

Y'know... after looking at those links... I've seen those books at the local shop for years and never even picked them up for a thumb-through... in fact I think some of them are still there... maybe even in the discount bin...

It certainly sounds interesting for that sort of 'other earth' style fantasy.