soltakss

Nah, he's our forum-slave, doing whatever we want to make us happy.

Historically, such a profession has been accepted in mainly-male fronteir/pioneer societies. So, a mining town in the Wild West or in the frozen wilds of Alaska would welcome a profession. It's only when the number of women in the society increases that the profession is downgraded and ultimately degraded. In a futuristic SciFi setting, the asteroid mines would be a perfect place for such a profession. Largely employing men for a long period of time with no easy way to travel back to their wives/girlfriends or to find other female companionship, it would be in the mining company's best interests to employ a number of comfort-girls, courtesans or companions who would be well-paid and have good medical care. Crime normally comes in to play when the profession is outlawed or the act is criminalised. Properly licensed companions would not attract a criminal element. However, given that there are only a cdrtain number of them and that they may charge a high price for their services or access to their services might be rationed, the criminal element might seek to introduce people who are not licensed, charge less and do not have the correct medical checks. A courtesan who performs sexual acts would have the Perform (Lovemaking) or similar skill. One who merely acts as a pleasant companion to lonely men would have different skills. Perform (Massage) and Perform (Social Intercourse) might be useful.

I hope you liked it. Is this the section on P16? "If the character had previously vowed to make the pilgrimage, then his POW devoted to gaining Blessings can increase by the appropriate amount for the Vow". Not exactly. Don't forget that Merrie England is based on the Mongoose RQ SRD which has the concept of Dedicated POW, interpreted in Merrie England as the ugly phrase Vow POW. So, character give some of the soul over to the deity in return for Blessings. What happens in this case is that the character vows to go on a pilgrimage, this is typically a 1 point Vow and allows him to gain an extra 1 Blessing. Once he completes the pilgrimage, that Vow is now worthless, as it has been superceded, but the Blessing associated with the Vow is transferred to the POW dedicated as part of the pilgrimage. So, Simon the Simple is a monk with 15 POW. He takes the normal 3 monkly vows of Chastity, Poverty and Obedience, reducing his available POW to 12 but gaining the use of 3 Blessings. After a pleasurable encounter with a Lilitin, he vows to travek to Jerusalem to purge the stain on his soul. This Vow reduces his available POW to 11 and gives him an extra 1 Blessing, taking the number of Blessings he can use to 4. After many months of travel and adventure, he reaches the Holy City and washes himself, purging himself of the demon's stain. His VOW POW increases by 4, reducing his available POW to 7 but increasing the number of Blessings he can use to 8. Yes. Yes, and yes, although you do not have to take the Blessings or take the Vow POW, it is there if you want to. If you don't increase the Vow POW then your effective POW does not decrease but the number of Blessings you can get doesn't increase. In Mongoose RQ, having a high POW isn't that important as you resist spells using your Resilience skill which can increase. You could also resist certain spells using your Piety skill instead, depending on the spell and the situation. So, a harlot using a Secude (Man) spell could match against Simon's Resilience skill of 50% or his Piety 70%, since he is resisting someone who is trying to make him break his vows, he can use his Piety skill instead. Skills in Mongoose RQ are increased by rolling 1D100, if the roll is over the skill then it increases by 1D4+1, otherwise it increases by 1, so having a low POW doesn't impact on this. The Bless skill should be increased as a normal skill as that is all it is. Piety, however, should only increase or decrease based on the actions of the character. In Mongoose RQ, characteristics can be increased by spending 3 Improvement Points and by rolling over the Characteristic x 5, increasing the characteristic by 1, but increasing a related skill by 1 if the roll is equal to or below Characteristic x 5. POW is just a characteristic, so can be increased in the same way. However, as a GM, I would limit such rolls to times when the character has succeeded in a critical way or has done a specific deed. Finishing a Pilgrimage may well be one of the triggers to allow POW to be increased. How can POW be increased in a Merrie England/Stupor Mundi setting? Completely off the top of my head, the following would seem probable reasons: Successfully completing a Pilgrimage Successfully completing a vowed action (I vow to take revenge on those who raped and killed my wife) Scoring a critical on a skill that has POW as a contributing characteristic Successfully summoning or banishing a demon, angel, elemental or similar spirit Travelling to the Otherworld (Heaven/Hell/Purgatory, Fair Elf Land, etc) But, Merrie England is supposed to be a very flexible setting, so if you have any ideas of how to improve it then use them in your game and let us know. The Vow POW mechanism would be slightly different if used in a RQ3 or BRP game.

Isn't cider just apple-beer?

As someone who has done a fair number of software upgrades on client sites, the following are important: 1. Only upgrade if it is completely essential, or if the client has paid for it, not just for upgrading's sake 2. Always take a full backup beforehand and test that the backup works before continuing 3. Make sure that minor things are included in the backup 4. Perform the upgrade on a copy of the system first to see if it all works 5. 20-20 Hindsight is always better than the upgrade itself Still, at least most of it is still working, which is always a plus.

That doesn't look half as interesting as this forum. It's got some blue aliens wearing g-strings. Oops!

Thanks for the links. I hadn't seen that they were OGL. At a quick glance at the Space one, there doesn't seem much that we don't already have, but I just skimmed through the first few chapters. The Space Ships supplement would probably be more useful.

Hmmm, having actually seen the film I might comment on what it contains. If you look at in terms of "good" and "bad", the mining company, or rather its representative, is a corporate bad-guy as is the commander of the mercenaries. They have a clear objective in the film and want to achieve this, on the whole, without violence. However, things are taken to the extreme and get out of control, but in a realistic and believable way. The film isn't about the evil military killing defenceles aliens, far from it. Man for man, the aliens far outclass the humans and are not afraid of showing it, which is why the military reponse needs to be heavy or extreme. There is a tactical response that itself causes a counter-response and subsequent escalation. In many respects, it is like Dancing With Wolves, in that a military man finds peace in another environment. But enough of defending the film. Anyone who is anti-Avatar won't want to see it and fans of Sci-Fi and fantasy will go to see it anyway. Anyone else should watch it because it is really good. If you have the choice, watch it in 3D as it is the best 3D film I have seen.

That would be answered in Avatar 2.

I haven't read either of these, but the Wikipedia articles show that all three worlds are forest based, all have some kind of human exploitation and mining but that's about it. In the same way, Discworld is a rip-off of LOTR and all vampire novels are rip-offs of Dracula.

Sorry for starting the CoC-Bashing. I'll go away now.

Well, I enjoyed it ...

Like Scooby Doo for professors. Or it can be deeply irritating and pointless. Aaaaaargh!

I've just been to see Avatar and I would recommend it to anyone interested in Fantasy/Sci Fi films. The effects are spectacular and don't look CGI-ish at all, in fact there wasn't one point in the film where I thought "that's a good effect" as it all looked very natural. Watching the film made me realise how powered body armour/walkers really work. The battle scenes are as exciting as anything from Starship Troopers, not as bloody but just as exciting. The world of Pandora would suit a BRP writeup and most thijngs would fit quite easily. There's even a magical substrata that fits in with SciFantasy. All in all, quite superb. I watched St Trinians straight afterwards - what a contrast. I wouldn't recommend that one, despite it having 24 year olds dressed as schoolgirls.

WATCH IT! WATCH IT IN 3D!!

Thank goodness, for a minute there I thought you were going to say that I insulted your favourite band. Ha! I eat your poisoned marshmellows. Uh, hang on, that's not right ...

Playing Call of Cthulhu is a bit like listening to The Smiths? I like that, I like it a lot. Something that you have to do but don't really like? Something that everyone else says is really cool but you don't see the point of? Something that is depressing at every possible level? Spot On.

A Minoan supplement would have bare-breasted women on the cover and be historically accurate.

I haven't seen any comparisons, but everyone has theirt own opinions. RQ2 was full of character and Glorantha came alive through the excellent scenarios. When RQ3 came out, the rules just didn't have the same character as it used an Alternate Earth model rather than a Gloranthan one. There was a Glorantha chapter but all that contained was a long writeup of Ernalda (good), a restating of Dragonewts (OK) and a scenario (so-so). Many of the skills from RQ2 had been dropped and many had been combined into new uber-skills. Magic-wise, many of the spells were changed slightly, some were changed a lot and some were dropped. Cult Comon Magic was cut down and some formerly common spells became Cult Special. When Gods of Glorantha came out it had some oddities that changed the character of some cults. Overall, RQ3 is a far better designed ruleset than RQ2. Character Generation is better, but suffers from the overskilled pensioner syndrome. Skills progress in 1D6s rather than in 5s, which is a vast improvement. Characteristics are handled better. Experience is done differently but is no better than in RQ2, just different. RQ3 dropped Crushes and Slashes, which made combat less interesting. RQ3 had rules on town sizes and econics, which are good, and better rules for travel, disease, poison, and adventuring. The Ship rules are very good and are still used with very few changes in BRP and RQM. RQ3 Sorcery is OK, to a certain extent. However, a starting sorcerer with one spell could cast a bigger spell than an experienced sorcerer with many spells, which is clearly wrong. There are some rules fixes that sort all this out, Sandy's Sorcery is one way of doing it. Spirit Magic is handled well, especially with local Spirit Lords granting single spells to worshippers. I'm not that keen on the casting chance but I could live with it, althogh having a Spirit Magic casting skill is a better way to go. I don't have a problem with Divine Cults granting Spirit Magic as I don't see Spirit Magic as being provided by Spirits but as being a secondary or lesser magic. Divine Magic is handled very well. The Cult Templates are a bit limited and could have done with a few more examples. The RQ3 rulebook had very sketchy magic examples, mostly for generic sorcerers olr generic cults. It took a number of supplements to get the cults back to the level that they were in RQ2. Troll Gods provided the cults of Trollpack and a few more, River of Cradles provided some of the cults from Cults of Prax, Lords of Terror and Dorastor provided most of the cults from Cults of Terror, Gods of Glorantha provided sketchy cults and Elder Secrets had a few more cults. Shadows on the Borderlands has a kick-ass version of Thanatar but there was no Vivamort cult for RQ3 and the RQ2 one didn't really work. Various fanzines filled a lot of the gaps with a lot of new cults written up in long form. So, although RQ2 had some good supplements, cult-wise, RQ3 had better ones, but they took longer to come out. So, overall, RQ3 is better than RQ2. RQ2 had a better flavour but RQ3 soon caught up with some excellent supplements. All IMO of course, YOMV.

Being a fan of heroic games and settings, I voted for Ancient Greece because that's the sort of blood and gutsy, wide-ranging, mythologically active setting that I like. Taking part in the Trojan War, sailing with the Argonauts or facing off against the Gorgons, that's adventuring. Ancient India is interesting, but heavily tied up with religion in the early (Bronze/Iron Age) part and very complicated later on, with each era being very different in a way from earlier eras. Indian history seems, to me, to be a continual flux of religions and empires and, as such, seems difficult to do in a single game. A Vikings setting is coming out, hopefully, with Mythic Iceland, but I'm nor sure if that has stalled. Nippon is covered with Land of Ninja (RQ3) and Land of the Samurai (Mongoose) and never really interested me. There seem to be a couple of BRP settings based in Cathay and they seem interesting. I prefer ancient/medival Chinese to Japanese settings, but have never really played in them before. Byzantium doesn't really appeal to me at all. It's a holdover from the Roman Empire, albeit one that lasted for 1000 years, but seems to be a bit of expansion and then a series of wars holding back the tide of continual expansion against it. In religious terms it's even worse, it started Christian and ended up Christian with not much changing in the meantime, except for a falling-out between the Patriarchs and Popes and a few schisms here and there. Aztecs/mayans etc seems an interesting setting, but one in which there are a number of very distinct cultures at different times. The religions look interesting as well, but how much mileage would you get from such a setting? Ancient Celts is always a good setting, from pre-Christian Ireland to the Roman Invasion and Romano-Britons, to King Arthur's Celtic Court. Throw in some druidic wierdness and conflicts with Christianity and the Old Ways and you have a setting. Dark Age Europe is OK, you have post-Roman shennanigans, possibly King Arthur, certainly Charlemagne, the Moorish invasion of Iberia and the movements and changes in the kingdoms. There is some religious tension, between Christian and Muslim, Christian and Pagan and different Christian sects, but not a great deal. Ancient Middle East only really appeals from an Arabian Nights viewpoint. That would be a really good setting. Renaissance Europe is OK, lots of little wars, some religious tensions, new sects appearing all over the place and a sense of enlightenment. However, it is extremely magic-light and I like using magic in settings.

Perhaps. Dragonmeet put me off and it is quite expensive, especially as Continuum is only two months afterwards. I missed the last Tentacles, so I am due a visit, but I really don't know if I can make it.

There is a preview at http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/rq2dvpre.pdf?PHPSESSID=6cd8e76b53dc69a76117127158c93c22 which looks OK, to a certain extent.

It doesn't sound my cup of tea, really. The medieval setting is good, being a member of a clandestine Order of the Church going against supernatural beings doesn't appeal to me at all. It sounds like a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Robin Hood, which of itself isn't a bad thing. However, the good thing is Deus Vult, Stupor Mundi, Merrie England and Val de Loupe should all be broadly compatible and usable with each other.

Possibly coming not so soon to a Merrie England campaign pack. The Cathars almost border Aquitaine and I can see that Crusade being important to the knights of Merrie England and the Angevin domains.