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1d8+DB

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Posts posted by 1d8+DB

  1. How did it go? Can't offer any advice for managing a table that large, I can't even get two players to a game anymore. Logistically it sounds difficult, especially in a modern setting, with  the group splitting, and then the sub-groups sub-splitting; yet still 'linked' by their smart-phones.

     

  2. So one thing that occurs to me, is that Humakti  are probably very specific  in what oaths they give for this reason.  It's probably a bad thing if  a  Humakt   is forced to  return to the  Mundane plane, as  a spirit, to simply protect some individual, for an indefinite period of time;  they might return to enact a select act of vengeance against a personal foe, or  to avenge a friend or leader's death, but  I think the cult would frown upon the idea of long-term  'ghost' body-guards.

     

    Delekti on the other hand...

  3. So in the   'Duel At Dangerford' scenario there's something called an Arkati Shadow Guardian,  which is the ghost of a Humakt  hero who acts as a kind of incorporeal referee at  a sacred dueling ground;   making sure that  the fights there  are  kept strictly mano-a-mano.  So yeah, there's  an established precedent for Humakt ghosts;  probably attached to  sacred tests, trials, and ordeals;  as judges and arbiters, I would imagine.

     

     

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  4. So I'm about 50% of the way through  reading the classic 'Beyond the Mountains of Madness', and   there's a geographical detail that 's threatening me with a SAN  test.

     

    Now, I do realize that  the  whole  idea of a titanic mountain range (two in parallel actually) through the center of the Antarctic  continent is a physical impossibility;  and is obviously an intrusion of  some other reality. It's also quite possible I've misread what the campaign  is actually trying to layout, which  I've done before.

    It's also been a few years since I read the original source novelette,  so I'm not sure how much of this is actually present  in the original source.

    And 'mild' spoiler alert,  I  don't believe this has much to do with how the  campaign plays out, and is more of background detail than anything else, but I'll include spoiler tags.

     

    Spoiler

    So there's an ancient river-bed that  winds through the Elder Thing city,  its  source  is  in  the center of the plateau (near the Tower where  some fairly significant plot-points occur).  The river is described as flowing into the city, disappearing in a pit/well,  and  then, by under-ground channel, flowing parallel  to the Mountains to the sea. So we have  a  river that,  back in the mesozoic age, flowed towards  the Mountains, and then flowed parallel to them?  The  city has bridges across the river, so it was clearly  there when the city was inhabited, and the Mountains, as vast as they are,  probably go back to pre-Cambrian times.  Assuming that the plateau has a kind of  saddle-shape in cross-section, this ancient river   would have been flowing uphill. The text  certainly suggests  that this river  flowed 'into' the city, before plunging into the  sunless void beneath.  I can explain its bend towards the sea with the Elder Things creating a subterranean channel  to reach the ancient ocean. Perhaps  colossal  'shoggoth' powered  pumps  brought water up to the city,  and the river was it's outlet, perhaps watering crop-lands beyond the city, or perhaps I simply didn't get what the author(s) were telling me.  So reading some more (and its always dangerous to  post something  like this if you haven't completely read the material) I see I'm suffering from  a misunderstanding: I'm assuming that the Elder Thing City is  on the 'foothills' of the Mountains. But that is not  at all how the City is described, its clearly on a flat.  So apparently the   Mountains on that City-side  descend as a near vertical escarpment, with City   sitting in a kind  of a huge ditch/gutter that runs along the range, with the  ground then  raising in a slope beyond towards the farther range.  Again,  the terrain  of the region is weird, and  any geologists in the expedition are probably wanting a good drink now. 

     

     

  5. So 'Manifest Destiny' vs.  'Imperialism' vs. 'Corporation' vs. 'Pod People'. Sounds like  a lot of conflict. Dare I say ' there is-- Only Conflict'.   Want to be careful  I don't incur the wrath of the IP  lawyers of a certain other gaming franchise. 

  6. I kinda  like the idea of  some eccentric inventor trying  to baby some balky and temperamental piece of equipment across the Gobi desert and the Himalayas. "Sand! This blasted sand! No matter what I do I always keep finding sand in the valves of the thaumic relays!"

     

    Mystic/psychics, from some  suitably 'Eastern' theosophical school or movement would thematically work as well, as been pointed out above.

     

    Spoiler

    Tenzin Kalsang's role could be dramatically diminished, or done away, if  'gifted' Player Characters  are directly getting visions of the Gates of the City of Fear  being opened, or otherwise psychically communicating with  the Tokabhaya themselves.  Conceivably Kalsang could become a player character himself!

     

  7. I pretty much like the idea  used in  Delta Green/The Laundry Files that 'magic' is just math, or  'hyper-geometry'.  Cannonically HPL  kinda hints at this in 'The Dreams in the Witch-House'. Ritual and incantation are just a kind of debased equation that manipulates space and time in some fundamental fashion.

    Outside of CoC  I suppose we could see a parallel with 'sorcery' in Elric/Stormbringer  and RQ. 

     

     

     

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  8. I would say that's mainly a story/plot point than anything that's going to have a lot of mechanical effect  within a typical session.

    I guess it could come into play during  character creation;  if your starting character is  200+ years old, she's going to have a helluva lot of  points to distribute among skills. 

  9. So has anyone tried porting  some  OSR games (Old School Renaissance)(though I prefer to think of them as  minimalist RPGs), like Mork Borg,  Neverland,  or Ultraviolet Grassland  to BRP or a BRP derived system?

    I love the idiosnycratic settings and the simple, parsed down systems;  though I think over time the fact that the systems are so simple that game-play might start to get monotonous.

     

  10. Perhaps this is an issue  that should be addressed  by how the GM runs the campaign and encounters; if you have a noble among some peasants, make sure  to have a good part of the game take place out in a  desolate rural region, where the noble  would be completely helpless and dependent upon  the peasants for  his/her every need.

    The idea being that every character gets, at least at one point, a stage  suited to their profession/career to 'strut their stuff'.

    Otherwise I guess  you could handle out extra 'Free Points' to players who take 'Disadvantaged' professions/careers. 

     

     

     

     

     

     

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  11. So there's a Latvian movie, '(The) Baltic Tribes'  that's available on Prime that might be of interest to anyone looking for inspiration/setting guidance  for either CoC  'Dark Ages'  or  'RuneQuest' (or the 'Crusaders of the Amber Coast' for BRP). 

    It's a kind of 'cinematic documentary'  that follows a Danish trader through the pagan lands of  the Prussians and Balts during the early 13th century. 

    There's no dialogue per see, just  someone reading the trader's first-person account, interspersed with with a  narrator providing a kind of historical back-ground overview: and its not likely that anyone is going to get too invested in the narrative.

    But you might pick up a few details that you could use in your own games (such as the  the trader's guide,  after he saves the traders party from hostile tribes-people by leading them through sacred woods,  atoning for his violation of taboo  by cutting off his hair, short hair indicating someone who occupies servile status).

     

     

     

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  12. It was an interesting  game.  Modern settings, particularly militaristic ones,  are  difficult to do properly. Typically they  bog down under massive layers of crunch (and this is from someone who tried to tried to run a 'Living Steel' game once).  'The Company' might have been a little too 'light';  though I started writing a scenario for it (a kind of mash-up with the basic premise meeting sword and sorcery), I never actually got  around to running a game so  I'm not sure how things would've come out on the table. 

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  13. As I've got  the CoC (7th ed.) PDF up; a Natural World skill test for both avoiding, and escaping, quicksand, and other boggy perils? In the latter instance, the skill informs your actions so you  'don't' do the wrong thing; struggling and flailing in the quick mud. Its almost more of a intellectual than a physical trap; you have to overcome your natural instincts. 

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  14. Way back in the day there was a 'Nocturnals'  supplement for 1E   Mutants and Masterminds. There's also of course  a 'Hellboy'  source-book for GURPS.

    I had some ideas for some Lovecraft inspired superheroes: 'Kid Shoggoth',  'The Color', and  'Richie Pickman and his  pet Tomb-Hound'. 

    'From their secret vaults beneath the  Mikastonic University Library  come  'The Cosmic Outsiders',  to do battle with with unspeakable evil!'

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