Evilschemer

No, once it lapses, it becomes generic. No one can trademark it after that. Barsoom has become generic. At least as how I understand it. Be aware that I am not a trademark attorney and am not an expert on copyright or trademark law, though I have researched the topic for my own purposes.

Correct. The book has gone into public domain in regard to copyright, but certain names and terms can be trademarked, which can remain in force indefinitely as long as the holder enforces its trademark. from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain#Public_domain_in_trademarks Doing a trademark search at the United States Patent and Trademark Office web site shows: Barsoom is a dead trademark "John Carter", however, is still trademarked. As is "John Carter of Mars". "John Carter, Warlord of Mars", interestingly, is a dead trademark that lapsed in 1996. Trademarks apply not only to names, but also certain images, toys, products, etc. For example, the "John Carter" trademark applies to:

Hah! I was thinking about this earlier! GM: "The orc hits, roll to dodge." Player: "I fail" GM: "The orc does 6 points of damage. You fall down dead!" Player: "Foul! My character wouldn't do that! You're taking control of my character! My character dodged and the blow missed! I keep on fighting!" ...as opposed to... GM: "The orc calls you a really insulting name in front of your friends. Roll to ignore." Player: "I fail!" Gm: "The insult does 6 points of bravery. You are intimidated and wet your pants in fear!" ...as opposed to... GM: "You see a giant octopus-head monster rising from the water. Roll your sanity." Player: "I fail!" GM: "You lose 6 points of sanity. You go insane and try to kill yourself!"

Every time I see this thread title, Queen's "It's a kind of magic" springs into my head and refuses to leave.

It's neither Howardian, Burroughsian, Buck Rogers, or Thundarr. It's closest to Lin Carter's Gondwane (World's End) series. There's an element of Jack Vance Dying Earth. Probably more than a little Zothique as well (though I'm not as familiar with those books). I've heard it compared to Moorcock's Hawkmoon, but I am completely unfamiliar with that series. It's millions of years in the future. There are absolutely no touchstones to our modern day or our current society. It's a completely fantasy world with strange non-human races, magic, demons, the mutating force of chaos, and other dimensions. There are ancient artifacts created of a poorly understood "techno-magic" which bears little resemblance to anything we, today, would call "technology". The world of this time is given no detail. The book focuses on the Imperial capital of Korudav, located in what we today call the Iberian peninsula. One of the criticisms of the book is that it barely mentions the rest of the world at all, and that it gives tantalizing name-drops of other races, along with a half-sentence description, but provides no other information.

Reaper has some good minis in their Chronoscope line. http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/Chronoscope Are you looking for military? Street? Action-movie? EM-4 make some good SWAT/military/near future/cyberpunky minis, both pre-painted and un-painted. http://www.em4miniatures.com/ Chaosium sells some good minis for modern characters. http://catalog.chaosium.com/index.php?cPath=36 Here are some more: http://www.frpgames.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=41018&ref=goog

I would like to point out that in first post I suggested a mechanic for quickly resolving intractable social conflicts that were boring to roleplay. Then, in my second post, I essentially recanted my first post, suggesting instead that GMs, when faced with an intractable social conflict that no one is having fun roleplaying, should instead take a break and think of a third alternative that disrupts the conflict or causes it to come to a swift resolution. It's a twist on the classic "..and then, suddenly, ninjas attack!" trope in RPG story-telling.

Unfortunately, this thread somehow became about the incident that inspired my thinking about stand-offs, not how to handle intractable non-violent (but with the implication of possible violence) stand-offs more in general. I didn't really mean to talk about the original incident, but somehow it became the focus. A better hypothetical stand-off might also be two guys with holstered guns, both paranoid that the other guy might shoot him in the back, waiting to go through a door one at a time. Each guy saying "You first", "No, after you", "I insist", "No, by all means", "I said you first", "age before beauty", etc. Neither guy wants to actually pull a gun and shoot the other, but neither one trusts the other NOT to pull a gun and shoot him. This kind of intractable stand-off becomes BORING quickly! And the GM has the weaker hand. Either I continue arguing about who goes first forever, which is un-fun (and it's part of the gm's responsibility to make sure everyone's having fun), or I just give in and go through the door first. No player will ever willingly go through the door first if they are paranoid about the other guy. So my first post was a mechanical way of ending the argument and determining who the hell goes through the door first.

Read it again, no weapons were drawn. All weapons were holstered. Everyone was calm. The setting is a fantasy-sci-fi-western setting, so the "authorities" was the local baron in charge of a small western town, equivalent to a town mayor with a gang of henchmen (Brian Dennehey in Silverado, Gene Hackman in the Quick and the Dead). The murder victim was an associate of the "town boss". The PCs were lying to cover for their buddy, who was nowhere to be seen. But, essentially, a wild west "Town Boss" and his henchmen telling some suspicious dudes "Surrender your weapons and come with me. I'd like to talk to you privately." The PC response was "We'll come with you to talk privately, but we won't surrender our weapons." NPC response, "That's unacceptable. Surrender your weapons, come on, let's go." PC, "You'll have to kill me first." NPC, "I don't want to kill you." PC, "And I don't want to kill you." Etc. etc.

that's because the game ties dice damage to height fallen, not to velocity/momentum. Your velocity increases exponentially with height, but damage is linear with height. So, either you can assume that the damage progression is not linear, meaning that 4D6 is not twice the actual damage of 2D6 but actually some greater amount, or you can change the falling damage rules. Of course, this is REALLY because equating falling damage to distance fallen is a lot easier than trying to communicate damage times velocity at time of impact in an RPG.

A few things to keep in mind from my original example: a) In the original example, the PC's didn't want to start a fight. The NPC's didn't want to start a fight. NOBODY wanted to start a fight! The NPC authorities wanted to ask the PC's some questions and they needed the PC's to be disarmed during the questioning, Just a polite "We're not accusing you of anything, but to be safe we'd like you to disarm while we sit down and have a talk.". The PC's did not want to be disarmed and said "We'll come with you and answer your questions, but no way are we giving you our weapons!". The PC's weren't threatening anyone. They were just wearing their weapons on their gunbelts. The authorities were just trying to be prudent, as they usually are. THAT was the stand-off! In the real world, the NPC Authorities wouldn't start a gun-fight because the PC's refused their request. In the real world, they'd negotiate with the recalcitrant until they got tired and gave up their weapons, or they could taser them. I didn't feel like role-playing a 4-hour stand-off as the authorities tried to get someone to put down their weapon. In the real world, the PC's might actually acquiesce and temporarily hand over their weapons on the promise of their return. But because this is a game, I had no bargaining position and I was trying to move the story along to the next part, the part that WASN'T about a 4-hour stand-off negotiation. Thus my first attempt was for rules that simulate and resolve a 4-hour stand-off negotiation. Then my second realization that I should have just by-passed the scenario with a third option. the guy who sent me the e-mail wasn't even in the stand-off! He committed the murder, but was hiding. The other PCs were covering for him. His e-mail and attitude aside, this thread wasn't about him. His comments, however, got me to think of alternatives to a mechanical resolution.

Here's a better table that converts meters/sec to km/hour to MOVE (assuming 1 MOVE = 3 meters per 12-second combat round) with damage. m/sec km/h MOV Damage 8 28 31 1D6 11 39 43 2D6 13 48 53 3D6 15 55 61 4D6 17 62 69 5D6 19 68 75 6D6 20 73 81 7D6 22 78 87 8D6 23 83 92 9D6 24 87 97 10D6 25 92 102 11D6 27 96 106 12D6 28 100 111 13D6 29 103 115 14D6 30 107 119 15D6 31 110 123 16D6 32 114 126 17D6 33 117 130 18D6 33 120 134 19D6 34 123 137 20D6 35 127 141 21D6 36 129 144 22D6 37 132 147 23D6 38 135 150 24D6 38 138 153 25D6 39 141 156 26D6 40 143 159 27D6 41 146 162 28D6 41 149 165 29D6 42 151 168 30D6 43 154 171 31D6 43 156 174 32D6 44 159 176 33D6

Two places. BRP page 61, Grapple Effects, Throw Target. If your character wins, the defender is thrown: he or she flies 1D6 meters, is automatically knocked down, and must make an Agility roll or suffer 1D6 point of general damage. BRP page 223, Falling. A falling character takes 1D6 base damage for every 3 meters fallen. If the character was thrown with conderable velocity, the gamemaster may even double the damage dice for a fall. This is over-simplistic, of course. But you can translate the above into damage per velocity. the velocity at a given impact is sqrt(2*9.8*distance in meters) 3 meters = 7.67 m/s = 1d6 6 meters = 10.84 m/s = 2d6 9 meters = 13.28 m/s = 3d6 12 meters = 15.34 m/s = 4d6 15 meters = 17.15 m/s = 5d6 There's no easy formula for determining dice of damage per meters per second velocity. Essentially, use the table above, then add +1d6 for every +1m/s after 17.

The situation last Friday came about as the result of the OPPOSITE of railroading. I was ad-libbing, responding to player choices and throwing plot twists in to spice up the situation. Let's just say PCs robbed a pawn shop, one of the PCs murdered the pawn shop and his friend and the other PCs tried to cover it up. When the authorities arrived, a witness accused the PCs of being involved, the authorities wished to detain the PCs for questioning. I wasn't even accusing them of anything, just detain them for questioning. The entire stand off was the result of a combination of player-driven story and my ad-libbing the response. The stand-off was terribly not fun. Ending the campaign with a TPK after the entire episode would have been terribly unsatisfying for everyone. I just wanted to get everyone back on a less skeevy track.

I just had an e-mail conversation with one of my players, a player who emphatically states: He has a great point. His reaction is representative, I think, of the thinking of almsot ALL players I've ever gamed with, whether they realized it or not. If put into a situation where the only three options are fight, flight, or surrender, the players will ALWAYS choose fight! I, as GM, should be more aware of this. Instead of trying to get THEM to change THEIR thinking, or implementing game rules to FORCE them (fair or not), the campaign would probably be better served by not getting them into these stand-off situations in the first place. Or, failing that, because stand-off situations can and sometimes do happen because they are the only logical direction for a story given the PCs' actions, then it's my duty to provide a THIRD ALTERNATIVE to fight, flight, or surrender. In my situation in last week's game, I could have interrputed the stand-off by having the rebels side with the PCs. A fun fire-fight would have ensued and the story would have advanced in the direction I wanted. Or I could have interrupted it with a bandits raid, or a retributive attack by the lizard people, both of which would have changed the dynamic, either allowing the PCs to slip away or allowed the two stand-offs to team up. Again, the story would have been advanced with a cool battle. These are all in hindsight, of course. The lesson for me is, when this happens again, stop everything and think of a third alternative.

I had a situation pop up in last week's game where the the PCs and the NPCs faced a stand-off. The NPCs had no wish to start a fight, but they needed the PCs to put their guns on the ground and come in to the local jail for questioning. The PCs did not trust the NPCs and had no wish to put their guns down (PC's never do, ever). That being said, the PCs had no desire to start a fight either. No one had drawn their weapons yet. It was a tense stand-off. And very annoying for me as the GM! I did everything I could to reassure the players that nothing bad would happen to their characters. I wasn't going to screw them. These NPCs were trustworthy. I also pointed out that the PCs were outnumbered and out-gunned and if fighting started, they would probably all die, and a TPK over this would be stupid. I was unable to negotiate in character because the PLAYERS had the advantage, not in game but meta-game. They were essentially forcing my hand, "We'll die before we give up our guns" and I, as the GM, didn't want that to happen! Ultimately, I dropped the plot-hammer on them and explained that they needed to give up to get to the next phase of the story. The whole side-story in the town that ended in the stand-off was an unexpected side trip that was NOT the main focus of the story I wanted to tell and the players wanted to play, and I was trying to get everyone back on track. They agreed and we proceeded. However, thinking about this today, I came up with a fair in-game mechanic for resolving these stand-offs. A kind of social combat mechanic. Rules for Resolving Stand-offs For situations where neither side really wants a fight, but neither side wants to back down, use the following procedure: Step 1 – Everyone gets one skill roll to make a plan. Knowledge, Insight, Strategy, Psychotherapy. (Optional) Step 2 – Everyone gets skill roll to make their case. Persuasion, Fast Talk, Command, Perform: Acting, Bargain, Etiquette. (Optional) Step 3 – Both sides make a POW x 5% rolls, modified by the following: -20% per fumble from steps 1 and 2. -05% per failure from steps 1 and 2. +05% per success from steps 1 and 2. +10% per special from steps 1 and 2. +20% per critical from steps 1 and 2. If one side succeeds and the other side loses, that loser capitulates and gives up peacefully. Otherwise, repeat steps 1-3 until one side wins and the other side loses. A fumble in step 3 means you have escalated the stand-off to fighting. Begin combat. If, at any point, either side changes their mind and wishes to escalate, then combat begins. If, at any point, either side wishes to voluntarily capitulate, then the contest ends. This, of course, only works if both sides honestly don’t want to start a fight, but at least one side doesn’t trust that the other side won’t, or won’t take undue advantage of them if they capitulate.

Hey DreadDomain, I have created spreadsheets for other games (Fuzion, Mutants and Masterminds) to calculate the zenith of a jump and the duration of the leap. A super-leap is essentially the same as firing a ballistic projectile. If you know the total horizontal distance, and the angle of the trajectory (I assume all super-leaps for distance are at 45-degrees), and the gravity (assuming 1), there are formulas for calculating the launch velocity, height at zenith, impact velocity, and duration of leap. If you know the distance in feet, here's the EXCEL formula to determine launch velocity in feet/second: =(([DISTANCE IN FEET]*32.17)/SIN(90*PI()/180))^0.5 Using that, you can calculate the height in feet: =([LAUNCH VELOCITY IN FEET/SECOND]*SIN(45*PI()/180))^2/64.34 Time aloft in seconds: =([LAUNCH VELOCITY IN FEET/SECOND]*2)/32 From there, it's just a matter of multiplying by seconds-per-round, feet-per-second into miles-per-hour (=([LAUNCH VELOCITY IN FEET/SECOND]*0.1136)), etc. Ironically given the complicated math above, I'm keeping things simple by ignoring things like wind resistance, aerodynamics, etc.

Hey Conrad, I think you're being over-sensitive here. I understood Rosen's comments in the spirit in which they were intended: as constructive criticism of my review. He had some good points. My review would be more useful to potential new buyers if I didn't even mention the other review. Mentioning the negative review in my own review, making my review a response to the first, hurts my credibility as an impartial reviewer. It makes my review immediately look reactive and defensive. My review is a reaction to seeing a product receive an undeserved negative review, not out of a sense of loyalty to the product, but my review made it look like I was just being loyal. I have edited my review to remove references to the negative review. Also, I don't see "fanboy" as a pejorative. It simply means someone who is loyal. Personally, I try not to be "loyal" to any rpg brand. I have been in the past, and would get defensive if someone criticized my favorite game, but I have come to recognize the silliness in that behavior. I'm a consumer, an rpg is a product, and an rpg company is a producer. I have preferences, but I really have no reason to be defensive about my preferences.

I tried to balance praise with my honest criticism. I honestly feel the book didn't deserve a 1 star review and wished to provide a more balanced review for potential buyers. For those that don't know what we're talking about, here's my review:

I'll remedy that negative review by posting my own review. It's not all positive, I mention what I think are its warts, but I give the book 3.5 to 4 stars (rounded up to 4). Definitely doesn't deserve 1 star.

I think a stat block might include: Goblin (HP 8, AP 2 [Leather Armor], MOV 6, Short Sword 40% 1D6+1-1D6, Target Shield 40%) Lizardman (HP 13, AP 4 [scaly Skin], MOV 8/6 swim, Scimitar 50% 1D6+2+1D4, Tail Strike 50% 1D4+1D4) Orc (HP 12, AP 4 [Leather with metal bits], MOV 8, Scimitar 50% 1D6+2, Martial Arts: Scimitar 20%) More complex NPCs and boss monsters will still need a full write-up.

I'd be more likely (and have considered) condensing all melee weapons into: light melee weapon: 1d4 damage+db, +10%, short small melee weapon: 1d6 damage+db, +5%, medium melee weapon: 1d8 damage+db, +0%, medium large melee weapon: 1d10 damage+db, -5%, medium heavy melee weapon: 1d12 damage+db, -10%, long You might be able to trade off +/-5% for a longer reach.

I have added a preview of Swords of Cydoria, the monograph I just completed, to the files section. The preview includes the first 11 pages plus representative sample pages from throughout the 206-page book that I hope provide a taste of what to expect from it when it's made available. I also included the full index in the sample to show that the book will have one.

I have uploaded two versions of the character sheet to the files section. One is the official character sheet, the other is an unofficial sheet that I have optimized to my own personal preferences in my campaign.