MrJealousy

Yup its there, dead tree and pdf

Fractured Hopes

now then, where's my credit card...

oh actually it says "...in stock on Wednesday 28...". Drat!

Wǔxiá

Thats nice!

Jiānghú

And that one reminds me of the Water Margin tv show from the 70's, thats a good thing btw!

Water Margin - Wikipedia

Excellent! I can't wait. Just what I've been waiting for too.

Funny you should ask... No :-)

I've always gone by the idea that a parry skill is seperate from the weapon skill. Goes back to my RQ days.

So you would have a long sword attack skill and a seperate long sword parry skill, and a seperate shield parry skill (opening up the possibility of a shield attack skill too).

Excellent work Rod! I'm glad your project is coming together.

Hurrah!

...BRP Jonah Hex as I've taken to referring to it ...

Jonah Hex was an influence, so i'll take that as more compliments... Have you read Loveless?

If a character with a negative DB uses a weapon that adds 1/2 the DB is the DB really doubled?

According to page 29 BRP? Yup!

Getting a -2d4 penalty on damage rolls seems excessively harsh ...

Yup! But look at Halflings on page 345 BRP they have a -1d6 DB but they also get a cheeky get out clause.

I seem to recall that in RQ, the 1/2 DB only occured for thrown weapons, bows and slings didn't use the DB at all. Hadn't really noticed this rule in BRP, I would think twice before using it.

I dont see it in LoN but its there in Vikings!

Works something like this...

POTency for Alcohol is accumulative.

Each type of alcohol has a POT from 1 to 9, each POT point that PC drinks comes off skills and INT & CON.

Each time POT exceeds a multiple of PC CON they have to make a CON x 5 roll. Failure means PC feels sick (two failures in a row mean PC vomits), Fumble means PC passes out.

Something like that anyway... its been a while!

What's funny is I know people who still "complain" that attributes are 3-18 but skills are 1-100....they wonder why attributes can't be on a 100 scale.

Ah! But you see attributes aren't just 3-18, thats just the human range. Other critters can effectively have any value in the attributes. What's the strength for Cthulhu? 140!

I believe it is a little more work than they originally counted on though and I go for months without hearing from them.

Well it is a lot of work, requires dedication, fixed attention, and perseverance. If they said they could help, I'm sure they wont mind if you give them a gentle prod now and then. If they can't do it, hopefully, they will tell you.

I am often tempted to just forget the monograph and to post what I have already written here in the Shared world again.

That sounds like giving up talk! Stick to yer guns mate. It'll be worth it in the end :-)

This is not a problem that has ever bothered me. The stats are different because its a different species (as mentioned above).

But, sometimes when I am feeling a bit evil I will make the characters roll their stats straight, no extra dice, no re-roll 1's, no juggling the dice results between stats. It all really depends on the kind of game I want to run.

Besides which, unless the characters have one or two extreme stats then it doesn't really matter what they are.

I suppose an RQ/BRP alternative to feats would be chaotic features. Determined randomly, some good some bad. In the long run it balances out but individuals can get a bum deal, or exceptional deal. Of course, the main hiccup comes with the fact that you do not select the feature.

I used a modified chaos feature list (kinda) for Aces Highs extraordinary abilities. I think it works. But needs to be generated early in character creation so that the player can choose to build their character around the abilitiy, or choose to ignore it...

Whew!

When I saw the title of the thread I throught maybe they sold Chaosium to another company. :eek:

Calm yourself! Everything is going to be fine.

What! Has no one noticed the chasoium 30% sale?

Chaosium Inc. - Chaosium Inc.

Hi Skunk, I've been looking and thinking about exactly what you are asking about. Watch this space (but don't hold your breath).

I sometimes wonder if I missed out on something by never looking at Deadlands. It seems to come up quite a lot. But despite being into westerns for a long time, Deadlands just never appealed to me.

So welcome to Aces High. I hope you enjoy your stay!

...anyone know in which BRP/RQ book I can find the charnjibber...

That would be the RQ3 Gloranthan Bestiary. sorry don't know where you can get one of these now. 1988 mine says on the back!

Ook! maybe I should read all of the posts before replying...

Looks like mine is one of the limited run versions.

Congratulations!

To me the gods provided are more like really powerful spirits than gods...

A lot of the American Indian mythology is heavily based on falible entities. Even the Great Spirit makes a mess sometimes. While doing the research, I don't remember really coming across anything that god like powers (apart from the Great Spirit). There are heroes and demons and they all have powers but most of them are not overly extreme. So, of course, I had to introduce some! But the overly extreme entities, mostly, also have an opponent of equal power.

The otherworld powers section was fun to write. Most of that was based on American Indian legends too.

I would imagine that spirits in the far north might have all sorts of snow and ice related powers, spirits living close to major rivers and estuaries or the ocean might have water related powers.

Yes, yes, yes! That is exactly right. Aces High could have had a lot more detail here, but I was trying to keep it manageable. Both as a first time writer, and as something to read. Spirits and their powers could quite easily have been a book in itself.

Thanks Nick.

Glad I could be of service Agentorange!

I got me a collectors edition...

ACES HIGH IN CONTENTIOUS COPYRIGHT COCK UP!

Ok, maybe not quite so dramatic as that, but close never the less.

First Some History...

I actually put pen to paper for Aces High about 15 years ago and the original BRP cover went at the front of the notes. It was based on an album cover by Fields of the Nephilim, Dawnrazor. A band I was heavily into at the time...

Dawnrazor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So after having that as a cover for 15 odd years I completely forgot to revise it when Chaosium accepted the monograph. A stupid, and potentially deadly, mistake on my part.

Luckily someone visitng the Chasoium website had heard of this rather obscure band from the 80's and pointed out the similarities to Charlie. Who sent me an email saying 'Is the cover of Aces High based on blah blah..'. My reply was along the lines of 'AHHHHHHH, shit. Yes.'

So I redrew it.

I like to think that I learnt something rather important from that mistake. The real problem with the original BRP cover is that I ripped off a bands image. Not intentionally, I like the Fields of the Nephilim and wouldn't want to infringe their copyright. But then, Aces High was never originally intended for anything other than personal use. I had just got used to that image at the front of my game...

Luckily the mini print run sold out and I got the chance to correct a real mistake!

I must say that Charlie and Dustin were entirely reasonable with me, considering the possible implications, and didn't pull Aces High all together. However, we are in the unique situation now where the first 50 issues are a 'limited edition contentious copyright print run'.

This cock up was all my fault and I can only say that it was due to my inexperience and enthusiasm to see my project printed by the people I respected.

Sounds like you have got it right to me. Highest Dex goes first, but a high DEX only allows multiple attacks with weapons that can do that, eg. firearms. Melee weapons usually only allow one attack a round.

In my games we don't normally write down the sequence of who goes when, but that would probably make a quicker combat round. We normally just call out for the highest and then count down.

...WWI fighter pilots.

Yes, I was a little worried about that myself. I can only justify it as a poker term. Not that poker is a big part of Aces High, but there you go.

Unfortunately 'West World' was not an option!

...the more eyes you have looking at the text, the better off you'll be.

Couldn't agree more.

I had a good friend reading and re-reading everything I did. He offered suggestions, options and criticisms, some of them quite difficult for me to swallow. He's a picky bastard too and I didn't take all of his suggestions without consideration. But I knew if he thought something was strange or wrong it probably warranted another look. That and the play testers all got a look at the book before it got a seal of approval. All in I would say 6 people looked at it in depth and I think it helped hugely.

I've just skimmed through this and it looks good....

The description of religions is OK, but is a bit sketchy in places ... the descriptions of Mormons as sitting for an hour in stoney silence doesn't really fit, but I'm a Mormon so I'm probably overly sensitive.

Thanks. Thats nice to hear coming from the RQ Fogey.

I admit that the religion section was hard to write for me. I didn't want to get too bogged down in detail, trying to keep it open and flexible while also trying to high light some of the 'alien' concepts. Its really only supposed to be a guide that gives you the power to find out more if you want to, while also supplying the minimum to role play it.