Ian Absentia

To be fair, though, I'm descended from at least one of the "Mayflower" families, and I never get invited to family reunions. Blood gets thin out at the margins and the gate keepers seem to care about maintaining legitimacy. !i!

Pikas and peanuts! !i!

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Which raises the question of the merit of skills over 100%. UA, as well as some other d100 games, doesn't scale over 100. !i!

Be sure to send royalties to Greg Stolze. 🙂 !i!

Unknown Armies featured a similar flipping mechanic, though I forget how it was implemented. It also had a clever method for calculating special/critical rolls. Each double-digit of a skill level (i.e., 11, 22, 33, etc.) was assigned a special effect -- roughly 10% of whatever skill level you possess That's neither here nor there, but it filled the gap for un-flippable die results. !i!

I understand your position and appreciate it. However, Sandy, under the handle of "SandyofCthulhu", used his recognition and authority in the gaming community to promote fundamental misunderstandings regarding both the transgender community and sport. I stand by my decision to draw attention to it here, where his opinion has influence and to refute his statements. I disagree with the position that "we've just got to suck it up" when others are leveraging their right to free speech as a means to misinform. !i!

Not directly anti-transgender, perhaps, but obliquely by invoking the bugaboo of men masquerading as women -- through sport in this case, but we haven't forgotten more odious arguments about other situations in recent years. And he doesn't raise the spectre of doping, only the perception of chromosomal advantage, which carries more far-reaching baggage as I pointed out. And I've already discounted his appeals to emotion for being a grandparent trying to protect the children. Your remarks on doping and over-zealous sports parents are much appreciated, but I believe a separate issue. For the record, in my somewhat limited experience, I've yet to see a transgender youth athlete train and compete at championship levels. I can only assume that they and their parents are dealing with far more important issues. And if participating in sports along with every other kid who doesn't make the podium gives them some sense of relief and normalcy, then more power to 'em. !i!

Fair question. I encountered this story through my news feed, apparently at the intersection of Track & Field (which I follow) and Chaosium (which I also follow), and not Sandy or his Twitter account (neither of which I follow). It's a timely issue being discussed by a prominent member of the Chaosium team, and I wanted to bring it here to the "grab bag" (thanks, svensson) arse-end of the official Chaosium discussion board to disabuse people, both in general and specific, of several misconceptions that Sandy was perpetuating and/or promoting. I've no wish to argue points made by others since my original post, but I will expand on my comments. In the interest of fair disclosure, I coach and train young athletes and have a stake in this discussion. My interest in Chaosium's games I believe is evident. Sport is the domain of outliers. World-class and professional sport even moreso. A huge array of genetic advantage is on explicit display regardless of the level of participation or the specific sport in question. Muscle mass as a metric of physical excellence is a common infatuation and misconception. While conferring certain advantages, it carries disadvantages as well. We all remember the big kid everyone wanted on their football team, but who turned out to be clumsy or lacked that "killer instinct" Physical excellence, regardless of sport (though there's specific variation, of course), is a convergence of A) physical capacity, B) access to training, and C) the will to excel. The dubious advantages of someone altering their identity and body in order to leverage physical mass in hopes of doing better at sport relative to others is grossly outweighed by the stigma, the contempt, and the hurt they face on and off the playing field. The fear of unfair advantage is a false dilemma in this case. Getting back to muscle mass as a genetic advantage, this is an argument that has historically been used to categorise and denigrate whole groups of people, particularly black people, and especially black women. Did I just go there? Yes, I certainly did. At best, it's a slippery slope toward the racism that permeates sport, and at worst it's a smokescreen for existing opinion. I encounter these arguments about perceived advantages regularly among coaches, trainers, officials, and parents, and they'd be laughable if they weren't so hurtful. Honestly, I'm not surprised to see arguments about "unfair advantage" coming from someone devoted to developing and implementing theoretical rules intended to provide expected outcomes. And I'm willing to apply that statement to both game industry professionals and politicians. !i!

...in which Sandy displays and conveys fundamental misunderstandings regarding both sport and gender identity: Leaving aside emotional appeals to the virtue of being a grandparent and "for the children!", to be clear, the question has been framed wrong. Sandy's granddaughters will always be competing against people with a genetic edge, regardless of gender identity at birth. That is the nature of sport. Also to be clear, Sandy's linking genetic muscle mass to superior athletic performance becomes dangerously bigoted very quickly. !i!

Mm-hm. Random personal history tables that provide characteristic modifications aren't the value-added aid-to-play they're presented as being. Fortunately, for most games they can be circumvented with a little forethought or published alternatives. !i!

Snacking healthy on plant-based doughnut substitutes here, thank you! !i!

HeroQuesting and LARP are flipsides of a reiterative Ouroboric cycle that can only be broken through Illumination. That's why "real" people are so utterly terrified of it. !i!

I actually recall the actor (Matt Ryan) favorably in the role, but the show not so much. And the "Arrowverse" is probably the best overall cinematic realisation of a DC universe (as long as they don't dip too deeply into the soap operatics), and I like how they've been able to cross characters over from other networks and unrelated series. Constantine himself is at his best reserved as a guest star or one-shot, otherwise you end up circling the supernatural drain before long. !i!

Okay, this player character team, for instance, is way over the top. !i!

You could probably cobble the same effect together in generic BRP from the BGB, because these things aren't exactly rocket science, but Pulp Cthulhu has the character types ready to play. Taking Constantine himself as an example: Archetype is either Harlequin or Rogue Talents draw heavily from the Mental table (Sharp Witted, Arcane Insight, maybe Resilient) and probably Smooth Talker from the Physical table Occupation is probably Occultist, but leaning into the overlap with Confidence Trickster Credit Rating is the low end of Average, just this side of Poor (almost always extended beyond his means) The Mythos isn't exactly a proper fit for a Hellblazer-ish world, but it's not that far off and can probably accommodate much of the magical/demonic detail from Advanced Sorcery (I used to run vampire and werewolf games with CoC before the World of Darkness saw print). And the Pulp version of the Sanity system and use of Luck points seems like a good fit for Constantine (survivable if you're a title character, still dismal if you're in a supporting role). The background and adventures won't really help you out, but it's a good book all-around. Assuming you're playing with just two or three player characters, you're looking at something akin to Blade: Trinity, but with the dial turned down from 11 to maybe 5 or 6. Players would put their heads together like they would for a straight-up game of Pulp Cthulhu and choose their specialist roles on the team, then personalise from among the Archetypes and Talents -- I'd keep them more suggestively mystical than overtly magical. Plots could be borrowed liberally from the first couple of years of the comic, and guest appearances could be made by some of the genuine magical talent from your game world. I'd play the hell out of that game. Pun most certainly intended. !i!

As allowed previously, the movie was okay as it's own thing, even good in its own way. Oof, but that TV show...I'd rather you hadn't reminded me. But, hey, how 'bout that Pulp Cthulhu suggestion? Among other virtues, it's a game I don't hear nearly enough about. And, I have to admit, it's pretty much how my friends and I tended to play Call of Cthulhu in our day. !i!

And Zatanna (at least when she's not throwing balls of flaming msalpotce), or even Batman (when he's just, you know, a man). But again, how do you like your Constantine? Hard boiled, well done, or à la mode? !i!

Ah-hem. This is why Constantine should not be paired with actual superheroes... I'll take the holy shotgun over this any day. As stated above -- whore's drawers. !i!

It's doubtless a sign of growing old and becoming, almost by definition, "post-modern", but I envisage roleplaying games set in the era of the Old or New Testaments but outside of the Levant, set in Tolkien's Arda but outside of Gondor/Mordor, set in Glorantha but outside of Dragon Pass, all where life is exciting, and desperate, and full of adventure, but where everyone looks over at these hotbeds of feuding bumpkins and say, "What the hell are they doing?" That, and a different take on elfs that I discussed already in the Dumbest Theory thread. !i!

So the ironic thing about John Constantine is that just as he threw shade at The Spectre in Neil Gaiman's The Books of Magic: He's been up and down the occult league tables faster than a whore's drawers. Which version of Constantine do you want to model? The canny con man in the know? Or the occult Batman and most dangerous wizard alive? Or the many version in between? Me? I want the first option, and I think you could do this with straight-from-the-bottle Call of Cthulhu. Well, okay, Pulp Cthulhu. !i!

Non, non. That's Ars Magica, pre-World of Darkness Plenty of people were confused and/or disappointed that Mage: the Ascension wasn't a modern-day AM, but it was probably fortunate for both games in the end. No, M:tA was very much of it's time, replete with hastily drawn spot art from Darrell Midgette (of Macho Women with Guns fame!) featuring off-brand takes of Vertigo characters, including John Constantine with a katana. Or something like that. Anyway, Constantine was also very much of that time, and thus the Hollywood treatment, the Americanisation, the demon gun, etc. But that's not bad, really. I mean, Tilda Swinton as Gabriel! The tar dripping off Satan's feet! It's just not the comic Hellblazer. But it is very World o' Darkness. And it's kind of John Wick, too -- I'm not kidding about that. All the bits are there in BRP and it's many spawn to pull together an occult action game. !i!

Truth be told, I'd borrow liberally from M:tA for a BRP/Hellblazer-ish game. There's some good pickings on those old bones! !i!

But at least your precious bodily fluids were unsullied. So I was visiting my daughter in East LA, we're driving along, and I pointed out this big ol' storm water culvert and she just laughed, "That's the Los Angeles River, Dad!" Now, back to the John Wick: Hellblazer RPG, and the system that was meant for it -- Mage: the Ascension. !i!

It actually has at least as much to do with water rights and resource management. Now that's what I wish the Rivers of London game was about! But, yeah. Recognise this from Repo Man? Or Grease, for that matter. [Edit: Or, duh-doi, GTA!] !i!