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Spence

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  • RPG Biography
    Was introduced to RPG’s with the original D&D game and the Arduin Grimoire supplements. Judge’s Guild’s City State of the Invincible Overlord became “the” city.

    Played/Ran many games in the early years including in no particular order:
    D&D
    Empire of the Petal Throne
    Chivalry and Sorcery
    Runequest
    Champions
    Villain & Vigilante’s
    Boot Hill
    Gamma World
    Metamorphosis Alpha
    Traveler
    Tunnels & Trolls

    Joined the Navy after high school and found that there were many other people very interested in RPG’s, considering the very very small space needed. One book and some dicer was all you needed and that fit nicely in the seabag.

    While in the Navy I became dissatisfied with the “kill’um take their stuff” style of play I had been involved in from day one. I started playing updated versions of the above plus discovered new systems such as:
    Call of Cthulhu
    Top Secret
    Espionage
    Justice Inc.
    Rolemaster

    After a while as I gained rank and responsibility and with the increased ops tempo, my RPG time cut way back. Sometimes to zero.

    In ’04 I retired started playing again, but with a different outlook. While I preferred thinking and investigative games on one hand, or super’s games on the other hand, I still played a lot of the video game driven generation of “kill’um take their stuff” with the kids that came into my FLGS.

    After I left the Navy, I ran/wrote up many games set in the 30’s (I love the interwar period for RPG adventure) and have accumulated a library of support publications and every RPG game/system/publication I could lay my hands on paper or electronic.

    In the recent years I have tried/run/played a lot of different games including updates of old standards as well as FATE, Ubiquity, Savage Worlds and Gumshoe.

    Now I am back to Call of Cthulhu and think the 7th edition update is looking pretty good. Plus, the addition of an organized play program fulfills one of my other gaming needs, games I run at my FLGS must be available for purchase in the FLGS.
  • Current games
    GUMSHOE: Fear Itself, Trail of Cthulhu, Night Black Agents
    Hero System: Champions, Home brew.

    Starting up Call of Cthulhu 7th: Organized play, Homebrew.
  • Location
    Marysville, WA
  • Blurb
    Retired Navy Chief
    Avid reader and RPG gamer.
    Love to play historical miniatures, though the call for it is much less these days.
    Read a lot of scifi and fantasy novels/series.
    Satisfied with the number of watchable genre movies and TV series we get these days.

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  1. Awesome info. Any way you can post a link? Edit: Nevermind, I found it 🙂
  2. Has there been any mention of a real world timeline for Gaslight? I've read/watched a number of mentions about it and several about the campaign for it. But nothing about a estimate of when we'll see the 7th Ed Setting book itself.
  3. Sorry about taking so long to reply. It has been a busy couple weeks at work. I appreciate all the suggestions and links. I have been able to find enough general arrangements to be able to start on a couple intelligent designs for RPG usable deck plans. I really really like the style that Chaosium has been using recently for ship layouts. Adding to the various existing plans like the one svensson pointed out I'm the CoC box, I now have a plan. Now if I can get my minds eye onto a drawing. Thanks all.
  4. Thank you 🙂 Those are great for references. I don't think I will find exactly what I looking for the table. But I definitely have enough samples and ideas to make one of my own. Now for the difficult task of getting my mental picture onto paper...or onto the computer I guess.
  5. My plan was to make a general plan at the detail level of the passenger ship in Pulp Cthulhu and then make sub maps of the various critical locations with greater detail. They will (I hope) be large enough to read but far too small for miniatures. I have had many scifi deck plans printed out ion 11x17 sheets and they work great at the table. I know many people are addicted to mini's, but for games that are not non-munchkin hack n' slashes such as CoC and STA, they are more of a deterrent. I have found the game runs smoother and better if the players can see enough detail to make informed plans without being too bogged down in counting distance for everything. I'm way up in Smokey Point (just north of Marysville). Except for that first couple days we haven't seen much of anything from the fires up here. Here is hoping that things get cleaned up without too much damage. Someone was lighting fires in the I-5 medium between the Stanwood exit and Mount Vernon just before the fires broke out which suddenly stopped about the time the fire out past Gold Bar started. We were speculating if they might be connected. The only real conclusion we came to was the general stupidity out there.
  6. Gah..... you made me spend money...... Not what I was looking for, but still worth backing as a resource. I always wondered why we have a zillion maps for inns, taverns, manors and so on because they are locations. But as soon as we say "ship" we get nothing. In an RPG a ship is just like an Inn, it is a location that the PCs wander around in. Oh well, I guess I am going to have to try to create my own. At least we are heading toward winter and the nights are getting longer.
  7. Not a bad idea. I have a couple partial deck plans for one, but the Altair is a smaller and already has passenger staterooms in the design that go well with an adventure with investigators. I appreciate the idea.
  8. I am planning a Halloween one shot using CoC circa 1890. I am using Gaslight 6th, Hudson & Brand and Down Darker Trails for CoC source material. Though I sure would like to get an official 7th Ed Gaslight book and character sheet 😉. Anyway, I am looking for a deckplan for a period iron hulled steamer along the line of the MV Altair. While there were many seagoing iron hulled merchant steamers built starting in the late 1880's, I cannot find any legible deck plans. The vast majority of ones i have found were scanned in with low enough resolution you cannot read the writing. The Altair plans I found are one of the rare exceptions, but it is a little larger than the norm at 435 feet in length and a 59 foot beam and is post WW2. To be honest there is not too much difference in the internal arraignments of small steamers from 1880 all the way through the 1950's. The big issue is finding legible deck plans for merchant steamers. Passenger liners galore, but nada for a merchanter. Note: I am fully prepared to buy a good deck plan designed for use in RPG's if I can find one. I have found a couple passenger liner ones that are pretty good on DriveThru and the one in Pulp Cthulhu is the perfect style. But all the deck plans I have found for merchanters have been bad. No research or even a peek at a ships layout. I'm not looking for life like perfection, but I do expect at least 5 minutes of research. Anyway, if you know of any good prospects please let me know. I am going to try to make a gaming version using CC3, but I don't know if I will be able to be done before Halloween. "I don't know" will probably be "I can't get done".
  9. I tend to run a lot of One Shots at area FLGS and for the last year or so I've also gone back to running them at Cons. While I run other horror games in addition to CoC I use the same yard stick for all of them. 1) I only run horror games for Adults, no minors at the table. 2) I run horror, not a social interaction romance/relationship game. The object is the horror situation, not acting out a 3 hour tea party. 3) I populate the NPC cast based on the time historical period. The NPC cast is not there to allow arguments about morality through the modern lens. The NPC cast is to support the horror by helping players immerse themselves in the period. 4) Horror is horror. Sanitizing horror turns it into a scary story on Goosebumps. Make up your own guidelines and be right up front with everyone at the table, if they don't feel it is for them they don't have to play. And that is not just to be mean, it is needed for the modern gaming environment. At a Con I make sure the "adult" and "horror" is emphasized on the sign up sheets. This is all because of an incident from a few years ago that almost made be give up on cons all together.
  10. Holy BatCthulhu Batman!!! Now that is something. And thanks again for the catalog. especially the excel version. Being able to filter has fast become the only way to be able to find items in the time period you like to play. I really wish I could read Korean 🧐 Such a long list of intriguing titles.
  11. You'll find that there is not too much difference tramps freighters, cargo liners and passenger ships from 1900ish thru the 1940's if you steer away from the juggernauts of cutting edge tech. Most of the common vessels that were more readily available were not as flashy. For an immediate reference, do you have Pulp Cthulhu 7th? It has a very well done RPG passenger ship set in 1931 for the scenario, but is easily fits for any far east liner of the 20's. I also have a doc about Tramp Steamers that is marked as being "Complied by Greentongue" that is a very good overview for RPG's. I also have two pages of deckplans and a couple pictures of the ship used as the documents reference, SS Semiramis. Once you have the title they are easy to find or if you have an email address I can send them. I'll look through my various deckplans and floorplans to see what I have that I am free to share. I have bought a ton of them and they are all currently mixed on my harddrive.
  12. I have spent a lot of time hunting down and location deck plans. Of course that doesn't mean I have found and lot of usable deckplans. But first. What is your definition of "luxury steamship"? It is a rather generic term that can be applied to a very wide range of vessels from the 1800's thru the 1950's. River craft to ocean going.
  13. Don't forget that there are goldmines of great ideas for games during other timeperiods besides the 20's. Some covered by CoC products, but a lot of material and ideas can be mined from adjacent games such as ToC and Slasher Flick.
  14. Dear Chaosium, The momentum system used in the 2d20 Conan and 2d20 Star Trek Adventures (STA) actually works great and really drives the cinematic action in Conan. The adjusted version in STA works great as well and can actually make engineering and scientific research take on an exiting tone. When we first played Conan there was an initial learning curve, but once got the hang of it. Or in other words dropped our paranoia about out PC's getting hurt, it got great. I don't understand how the GM was able to accumulate a very large Doom Pool, unless he didn't realize the spend requirements. I'll admit I play with role players as opposed to a Roll Players so the idea of stopping play to analyze the exact percentages prior to every action never crossed our minds. I've played Conan 2d20 as both player and GM, and if you actually PLAY the game the action is fast and furious. And leans pretty heavily in the PC's favor, they are larger than life heroes after all. STA also is a great game and one of the few that succeeded in making non-combat roles actually fun. I have no doubt that Cloud64 has had a bad encounter with 2d20. But for many people that grok it, it is fantastic and their Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 version looks like it will be another great game. Anyway, before condemning the system, take another shot at playing it. Perhaps with an experienced GM. Experienced in 2d20 that is 😉
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