Jason D

If you feel they'd be happy there, go right ahead!

I use Campaign Cartographer 3, Perspectives, and have used Dunjinni in the past. I've also used the level design system for Heroes of Might & Magic 4 to put together some nice isometric maps.

I had it as "unknown" because as far as the BPRD knows, HB's real name is unknown. I'm fairly certain he hasn't told them about his true identity and the nature of his destiny.

I think I'll do that.

Splitting watermelons.

I'm not overly terrified... I mean, the notion of being stabbed is plenty bad enough. I can only assume that if you're going to stick a knife into someone and keep it in there, you're hoping they die pretty quickly.

That's a pretty good idea! It's either that or paraphrasing Johnny Rotten's letter to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, or sending Sacheen Littlefeather. Seriously, though, as cool as seeing BRP win a Best RPG Ennie award would be, though, there is zero chance of it happening in the same period the new edition of D&D came out, especially given the Ennies' predisposition towards d20. Mark my words, next year's Ennies will be a huge 4E love-in.

I'd make it equivalent to a normal dagger, but on an impale, instead of the special effect, it does an additional 2d4 damage to the target, with no armor protection. For a hit location system, it's going to be deadly to almost anywhere it sticks into, and will be pretty deadly to even if normal HP are being used. I'd also make it only effective against living beings, so the special damage has no effect on skeletons, robots, etc. In those cases, it's just an impale. It looks like it only has a few charges before it needs a new gas cannister.

That's an artifact from the earlier, generic all-in-one version of the powers system (where there was a power called "Armor"). Since there is no Armor spell, eliminate the "or the Armor spell" part of that sentence. Normal armor and the Countermagic spell work against Blast; Protection and Resistance do not.

Ah... I did a little reading, and it looks like the publishers have to submit their product for contention. Chaosium didn't, so therefore it's not on the ballot.

As I understand it, Basic Roleplaying came out in 2008, while the 2008 Ennies are for games that debuted in 2007.

I'm an avid reader of anything Moore writes, and a fan of much of it. I agree completely with the above statement, though. Though Moore has many rightful reasons to be critical of film adaptations, he's an incredibly intelligent man and he obviously profited quite a bit when he originally sold the options to those properties to film studios. Hollywood has had almost a century of history screwing up adaptations of literature. It's unlikely that Moore thought things would be different. It's sad that now, years later, when those options he sold are actually being made into films, the entertainment press is so desperate for a fresh "angle" for the story that they inevitably go talk to Moore just so they can get him doing his curmudgeon routine. "Look, he's English! He's very tall and hairy! He wears many rings! He says he's a magician! Oh, and he's peevish!" I've seen the exact same approach taken for articles covering From Hell, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta, and am fully expecting to see it happen when Watchmen comes out.

To the best of my knowledge, and I am admittedly not a lawyer, posting writeups for copyrighted characters on a not-for-profit fan site is one of those "it is unsanctioned use of IP but not harmful or for profit" issues. For Chaosium to put such writeups on their site would be a strict violation of IP law, because it could be construed as them using copyrighted materials to profit from. If this forum had a subscription fee, it would be a similar matter. In a case like this, it is essentially fanfic, and it is extraordinarily unlikely that the copyright holders would bother to pursue the issue with more than a cease-and-desist letter. But again, I'm not a lawyer.

As am I. And to bring it remotely back to the topic of this forum, I actually ran a few sessions of an adventure I wrote using the Watchmen back in the day, using Super-World (the Worlds of Wonder version). The most fun was when the players realized how fragile they were once fisticuffs began, and how outside their comprehension Dr. Manhattan was (he was a "guided" NPC I let the player handling Silk Specter handle). It probably wasn't very good (it concerned someone trafficking in illegal aliens being used for medical experimentation, a suppressed cure for cancer, and was set during the Summer of Love). I pitched it to Mayfair only to learn they'd just lost the license for DC. Ah, good times. I wish those writeups and the adventure itself were even remotely accessible. As it is, I suspect they're on some 5.25" floppies in Apple II format. I may have a printout of it somewhere. I'll have to check.

The philosophy there was that all of the rules to play one session would come first, then be followed by the rules for continued play. Should the day come when a BRP 2.0 is written, and should I be involved with it, I'd probably reorganize it so that characteristic improvement is covered after the section on characteristics, and information about skill improvement would go in the skills chapter.

Good catch. Normally, training time is supposedly equal to hours per percentile in a skill, but with a 0% in a skill, I'd suggest that the GM require a minimum of time (1D3 hours, for example) for an instructor to drill the character on the rudiments.

Good to hear!

That was a boy, actually. The same actor, in fact, played the "strange youth born with the key to genetic salvation" in Ultraviolet. Talk about typecasting.

Species 8472 from Voyager were almost immune to phaser fire, even when set on disintegrate. Used to work on Star Trek Online... so I had to know that.

I didn't miss the questions - I've just been swamped at work and haven't had time at home to address them. I'm also babysitting solo for my 18-month-old daughter today through Sunday (wife out of town to see a friend), so my time online will be extremely limited.

As another note, not necessarily an errata, here's the way I treated disintegrators a long time ago when I ran a Star Wars BRP-based game: Disintegrators did double rolled damage with a special success. They ignored all but energy-based armor. Damage was rolled and used in a resistance roll vs. the target's HP total (not current - their normal total). If the damage won, the target was simply disintegrated. Blown to component atoms. If the damage lost the resistance roll, the target took half damage. If there was a tie, the target took normal rolled damage. If the subsequent damage killed the target, he was simply blown to atoms. We toyed with hit locations for a session, and the decision we made was that if the damage took the location to its normal total as a negative number (so a 5-point location reduced to -5 HP), the hit location was completely destroyed... joining Alderaan in nonexistence. No healing allowed - the location was just gone. If it happened to be head/chest/abdomen... the target died immediately (droids might survive, but were rendered into component parts).

Before armor. That way, the piecemeal armor gives different protection as intended.

No apologies necessary. More BRP-compatible stuff is a blessing for everyone on this forum.

Genius! (someone should get that guy to write a book!)

This is where I come clean with everyone. I wrote BRP for me and my own convenience. I've got the following: Call of Cthulhu (3 boxed sets of 1st edition in various conditions, 3rd edition softcover, 5.6th edition hardcover) Stormbringer (1st edition boxed set, 4th edition softcover, and 5th edition) Elric! (2 copies) Basic Roleplaying (the 16-page pamphlet, around 4 or 5 copies) Super-World (the WoW version) Magic World Future World (a 20-year old photocopy... really) Hawkmoon (boxed set, plus The Shattered Isle) Superworld (the boxed set) Ringworld (no box, just the loose books and the companion) Thieves' World (2 boxed sets) RuneQuest (2nd edition, 3rd edition boxed set and deluxe book) Cthulhu Dark Ages ElfQuest (the paperback edition) Nephilim ... and more than a hundred or more supplements for all of those games. And I just got tired of carrying them all around whenever I wanted to run a BRP-based homebrew. That I got Chaosium to foot the bill printing it up is a nice benefit... (Note that before anyone wonders... yes, I'm joking. Mostly.)