Numtini

On 8/9/2018 at 11:22 AM, Atgxtg said:

I don't think Lou owns Gamescience anymore. Based on some of his videos it seems like someone else owns it and he works for them now. I don't know what the arrangement is, or how amicable, but the employee who seemed to be fed up with Lou might not have been his employee and it might have been the other way around. 

My understanding is he sold the company in 2009 and regained control in 2014.

My problem with the RQ dice is the same as the CoC dice, I can roll a d10 in any other games, but if I'm playing a BRP percentile based game, I have to have proper 20 sided 0-9 twice percentiles. It just doesn't feel right otherwise. I'd be up for the hit location die though. It'd even be good as "flavor" for other games.

On 8/7/2018 at 9:38 AM, Jhsjhs said:

Is there any idea when this edition will be for sale?  I looked for the now first edition at gencon but it had sold out.

The first edition is available at Indie Press Revolution in print and PDF.

I'm a bit taken aback by the notion of new art because to me the artistic cohesion (which looks, to me, to be in the style of Aaron Douglas) and excellent use of three color layout is one of the high points. 

What really makes the book is the writing. It's vibrant and brings the vibe of the city to life. This is the jazz age? Well, you feel the jazz.

There's an attention to the little details of life that make it feel more human and immediate than most of the "city books" I've seen for games. "Where do the locals go?" is a cliche about tourist guides, but this strikes me much more as a local inside view where most RPG city guides come across like tourist guides. It also occurred to me that because racism creates very real barriers to the neighborhood, it provides a far more easily manageable size location while at the same time, being part of one of the larges cities on the planet.

One of the tidbits I found out in one of my research binges was that the Mass state police were still riding horseback circuits until the late 20s because of road conditions and reliability of motor vehicles or lack thereof. They first switched to motorcycles and only later to cruisers.

And I'm pretty sure chip sealing is different than oiled gravel. Chip sealing, at least around here, is a resurface for an old pavement road done by laying down a layer of small gravel, then sealing it. It throws up the occasional piece of oily gravel for a week (if one believes the letter section of the local newspaper--that primarily happens to rich wash-ashores in white luxury SUVs which are RUINED!!! ), then rides rough for about six months, but cars eventually pulverize it into the existing road bed and it seems like a normal road. 

My memory is that oiled gravel is just some oil/sealer sprayed onto a dirt/gravel road without any other preparation at all. It's done primarily to avoid huge clouds of dust when a car goes over the road, but doesn't do much at all to act as a surface. My memory is the sprayer is almost like something a farmer would use to spray crops.

2 hours ago, André Roy said:

That's something I didn,t know (not a native English speaker) and that's good to know.

Jameson's Brook it is than.

It's not so much an English thing as it is New England/Massachusetts. You hear "creek" more in the south and midwest. New England it's usually brook or river. We like to be a little weird.

FWIW we'd be more likely to use brook or river than creek.

I agree with the OP that it's not really a great option for organized play in the classic sense of a night at the FLGS. I don't think we finished any of the chapters in a single session. I felt like there was a significant amount of referencing earlier sessions as well, which would make it tough if you didn't at least have a core of players. We had a great time with it, but it was run as a campaign with a few of us as core players and people coming in and out was just an unpleasant aspect of life on roll20, not really a goal unto itself. OTOH in terms of bringing players into the fold,  while I go back to 1st edition, I hadn't played more than a handful of games in the last 20 or so years and finding a ATtH game on roll20 dragged me back in and I'm now involved with two to three per week. So mission accomplished I guess.

I'd disagree that modular scenarios can't do investigation well. You can easily do single session one shots within some kind of frame and which follow a theme to a longer term conclusion. I'm not sure that's the kind of book that Chaosium wants to publish though and I know that was one of the things they wanted from ATtH. Stygian Fox is doing well with shorter scenario anthologies, so there's a market, but it doesn't really "feel" like where Chaosium's at right now.

9 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I can't swing an elder sign without hitting a Dunkin' Donuts now. I think there are at least a dozen in Worcester.

Exit 9 off Route 6 in South Dennis. Three within sight of each other. One full on each side of the road and a mini-store inside a gas station.

And on quarries, leaving aside where there actually were functioning quarries, I'm not sure how many places you couldn't put a marble quarry and have it be plausible to someone who isn't a geologist.

I've yet to find anything that doesn't chug seriously with Chaosium PDFs.

Time for 7.1!  *ducks*

Five miles between Dunkies? Times really were hard back in the 20s.

36 minutes ago, Aldaron said:

Excellent pick, Numtini. Hailing from the opposite end of the planet, I completely missed this!

I think in light of this I might rejig the scenario and have the guy travelling from Arkham to somewhere else to see his girlfriend. I have a bit more time, since I'm actually running "The Darkness Beneath the Hill" tomorrow instead.  

I noticed it because I was working on a FoDG scenario set in Turner's Falls (where I lived for a year or two in the early 90s) regarding the rock and roll cult that used to be there and the ancient Native curse supposedly on the town because of the massacre during King Phillip's War. I wanted to know what the dominant tribal group was in the area so I could pick a monster from their lore.

Abanaki would be more to the north. Route 2 used to be Highway 7. In Lovecraft terms, it would lead out of Arkham west, Dunwich would be north in about the middle of the state. Out west, the Turners/Greenfield area and later the Pittsfield area are relatively prosperous manufacturing centers. 

My understanding of driving at the time was the average speed was around 20mph and that it was extremely fatiguing compared to today's cars, so a night over on a trip to the western half of the state wouldn't be out of bounds. But not so much going a couple of miles between towns along the coast.

Interestingly, the handout makes reference to the Abanaki and the Connecticut River Valley. If we were talking about heading out to that area, it would make much more sense. Perhaps this was rewritten to put it into the Arkham area without really thinking about the implications?

Sample player characters can't be opened in some/most non-Adobe PDF readers. Probably autocalc issue.

The problem here is that piloting an airplane is largely an additive skill. You master one aspect and then move on to more complex functions. CoC and most skill games don't do well with that concept. I'd look at the chart on p 54 about what various skill levels mean for inspiration. Someone with a basic private pilot license who's absolutely capable of safely flying for a lifetimes worth of recreation or a short vacations might only have a piloting skill of 15% or 20%. Maybe an advanced PPL with instrument rating and some time in small multiengine might be the 40% top of amateur. The problem is then GMs always seem to want to roll dice, so you've got your 40% and it's a bright beautiful day and you take off for a quick flight from Boston to Arkham, roll a 41 and everybody dies.

I'd agree on the slowing down, I'd all but forgotten that aspect because overall, I was shocked at how crunchy combat felt.

The language on runes p227 is kind of odd. It makes a distinction that elemental runes can only be used with a "single" skill and almost makes it sound like you need to pre-select the one skill that you'll be able to augment. I think the point of the paragraph is there's a table for elemental runes and what they can augment, but for power/form the GM is going to wing it on what can be augmented. 

When I played the QuickStart, we went nuts augmenting every single roll. I didn't think it was particularly a problem, but if that isn't the intent then I think the once per session makes sense--kind of a hero point sort of thing. For what constitutes a session, if it's a 10 hour marathon, I'd call a session break when the group broke to eat, which could be once or twice and is probably going to be follow some kind of natural break in the action. I'd also do a refresh anytime they're in a safe spot for a day or two whether that's in their village, at a temple, or just getting drunk at Gimpy's (though the safety of the latter is certainly up for debate).

My first impression based on sneak peaks at work (it's a software manual--really!) is that this is really really good. I was very worried the Glorantha aspects would be unapproachable for new players and I think it completely nailed it. If you want to sell a whole bunch of new people, I'd publish Vasana's Saga as a free PDF. Biturian was what sold me on Glorantha mumble-mumble years ago and this is a quite good  equivalent. It gets the feeling across so much better than rules and discourses. I'm just really liking this.

On 5/20/2018 at 9:46 PM, Toadmaster said:

 Is "here" USA, or other?

So you are saying an officer can directly run wants and warrants on an individual, run vehicle registration etc without going through dispatch? 

Massachusetts. The software includes a VPN between the cruiser and an "agency switch" at the station. There's a second VPN between station and state police CJIS. (Some departments still have an old ISDN between the station and CJIS.) The software is IMC. 

I think the cops are starting to look at me funny over the questions. That was this week. Last week I cornered the chief after a department head meeting to ask about morgue procedure and who would get brought in if a mutilated body was found in the woods.

On 5/19/2018 at 3:21 AM, Toadmaster said:

The computer largely provides internet access, and email to do the stuff anybody uses a computer for. Most of the information you list would be requested through a dispatch center, not accessed directly. Due to privacy concerns there are strict rules about releasing personal information, regular law enforcement definitely has to go through dispatch, and I expect an FBI agent would as well. 

Here, it's the opposite. The cruiser laptop (actually a tablet PC with a portable keyboard because they're easier to use than the toughbooks we used to have) is basically a one function computer with our database client and a VPN to an intermediary "switch" at the station, which can grab info from either our local database or pull stuff from the state police system, so they don't need to go through dispatchers.

I know there's been a big push to have compatible radio equipment for all public safety in the state for joint ops. I know our town is updated, but no idea of the overall state. In practice though, frequencies aren't shared in the sense of being able to regularly hear each other's radio chatter or randomly call in assistance.
 

On 4/8/2018 at 9:18 AM, MysteryHand said:

Why do Listen and Spot Hidden still exist as separate skills? 

If I could have one wish for 7.1 or 8, it would be skill consolidation.  Spot/Listen to detect, rifle/handgun to firearms, jump/throw/climb to athletics, and social skills to persuade.

Few people take the athletic skills because there's too many to cover, so many GMs defacto combine the social and search skills, and there is nothing more frustrating than having a decent firearm skill in one, then needing the opposite skill.

You could probably write the pulp rules on a single piece of paper. Even in the rules section, most of it is just tables of things you can spend luck on.

On 3/13/2018 at 1:28 PM, smiorgan said:

My basic reasoning would be that each Gloranthan rpg deserves its moment in the spotlight.

If you want everyone to have their time in the spotlight, that's what Gumshoe is for. Roll a d100 for the number of months until it comes out!

Seriously. Tables. I actually had a job at a lab just typesetting tables for publications. It's irritating, time consuming, and dull as hell.