Old Man Henerson

9 hours ago, seneschal said:

The insidious Dick Dastardly has an appearance in the movie as well.

What the world really needs is a Dastardly and Muttley/Speed Racer crossover!  In the meantime, t is good to see a couple of HB's superheroes flex their biceps on the big screen.

"Reanimated Scooby Doo," eh?  Up for Mystery, Inc., vs. Herbert West?

12 hours ago, soltakss said:

Are we getting to the point where there are two Hanna Barbara Universes?

One with Scooby Doo, Captain Caveman and one with Wacky Races, Dick Dastardly and Mutley and the various spin-offs?

Infinity War is the most ambitious crossover ever!

Hanna Barbra, hold my scooby snacks.

3 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Yea I was starting to think I should look at some police shows too!  

Numbers is a good cop show to watch as well, especially if you are in to a more science based show. Or, if you want something more classic and independent from the cops, Magnum P.I., the A-Team, Kightrider, or Macgyver should do nicely. I hope it helps.

Although, now that I think about it, the idea of piting all these heroes against the mythos sounds prity cool.

4 hours ago, davewire said:

Another book on DTRPG is John Wick’s Curse of the Yellow Sign.

I hope Hastur has not been kicking any puppies, because otherwise, no yellow sign is going to stop John Wick from blowing him to kingdom come.

4 hours ago, davewire said:

Personally, I’ve been toying with the idea of retooling “A Night at the Opera” from Tales from the Sleepless City into a Hastur story, swapping the opera house for a theatre, switching “Massa di Requiem per Shuggay” for “The King in Yellow”, and Azathoth for Hastur. Unfortunately that collection isn’t on DTRPG either.

Also, now I have the image of the Phantom of the Opera trying to ruin Hastur's plays so that more people will go to the opera instead. Might be an interesting scenario.

1 hour ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

I am looking for inspiration.. And also investigative story is my weak point...

Could you advise me any totally mundane investigation story. Maybe hunting a drug lord or fighting corrupt cops kind of story.

Cheers!  

If you are looking for ideas, the various N.C.I.S. shows and Hawaii 5-0 should be the kind of stories you are looking for. Hope it helps.

10 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Had to google the Nightland.. 😮   

From what I can see on Wikipedia... Having a Diskos is like bringing a machine saw to a gun fight. It's indubitably a powerful powered melee weapon... But how does that help you against gun wielding opponents?!  

Unless you are fighting cultists or other humans, most mythos creatures (and those of the Nightland) don't really use guns. In the Nightland BRP OLG project I am working on, I was going to add an item called a funnel gun which could fire an intense blast of lightning/energy charged from the Earth Current that powers the Great Redoubt in the book. Though other sources both in the book and elsewhere suggest that people don't use weapons like this very much to save energy for the forceful and not to attract any unwanted monsters.

Back to guns, you might not have to worry about bullets when you are walking around in a wicked suit of armor that is build specifically to withstand the horrors of the Nightland. Like this one:

How about a Discos from the Nightland book.

One of these bad boys can cut through nearly anything, gives of an electric charge and light, comes complete with a telescoping handle, has a power reserve that can last well over two months, and is so attuned to your psychic makeup, that it will zap any monster foolish enough to try and take it from you.

A weapon like this will make short work of most mundane monsters, and perhaps even a shoggoth.

The art is not mine.

If it all works out, I may even make supplements for my project after it's initial release.

On 4/12/2020 at 10:46 PM, Nakana said:

Is anyone planning to? (Sincere question)

I am still planning on using the OLG. I was hoping that I would be able to see another project go through before me so that I could see how to format my work with the actual SRD document, though if I am the first, that won't be so bad either. I just need to learn the game more and improve my art skills.

1 minute ago, MOB said:

We aren't asserting any restriction to use of mechanics except to the extent that they are specifically covered in Prohibited Content, like Call of Cthulhu's Sanity mechanic.

(BTW, questions like this should ideally be asked in the BRP System Reference Document/OGL Questions Thread, so the answers are all in one convenient place.)

 

Thanks a lot. I realized that I posted in the wrong thread just as I finished. I moved it over just now. Thanks again for all the help and for making this posible. I can't wait to get to work on my new project!

I am reasonably sure that this is my final question, (you guys have done a great job answering them all ) are the superpowers in the big golden book prohibited since they are from superworld?

Oops, sorry, wrong thread. I will move it.

On 3/25/2020 at 2:29 AM, soltakss said:

The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, The Famous Five, Mystery Incorporated and the Teen Angels are all good examples of investigators and would fit in well with the Investigator theme of Call of Cthulhu. 

You would dare unleash the mighty Shaggy upon a poor and unsuspecting mythos? How cruel!

On 3/24/2020 at 8:56 PM, seneschal said:

I've previously discussed drawing CoC adventure inspiration from the Hardy Boys since the classic mystery series launched in 1927 and the pre-1959 editions give a good feel for the era.  However, Nancy Drew (1930) may be an even better fit.  She's 18, out of school, has a fast car, enjoys a high Credit Rating, can call on her well-connected lawyer father for introductions and legal advice, is nosier than Pinocchio (regardless of what the Narrator says about her tact and good manners), and sometimes packs a rod.  She looks like a debutant but thinks like Batman (who won't appear for another nine years).  She doesn't have Bruce Wayne's dough but also doesn't have a job to tie her down -- lots of free time and freedom of movement.  Who better to become a shoggoth-stomping sister?

 

I remember reading these books as a kid. I don't remember much of the stories, but I do remember loving them. Comparing Nancy to Batman and piting her against the mythos has to be one of the strangest and coolest things I have heard.

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

If you charge money for it you would. Or your publisher would and hopefully you would get some of that money. Chaosium takes 0% unless you need a license for Prohibited Content or we are selling it on our site or some other service we are adding.

Wow. That is a great deal. You guys are the best! Thanks!

Um... I have another question. If we publish an RPG using the SRD would we get to be paid for it?

12 minutes ago, ORtrail said:

Okay, here is a specific product.  Cleaned up public domain, 450+ pieces of art for $10. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/204569/Publishers-Choice--Fantasy-Collection?src=hottest_filtered

Thanks, these look like they could help a lot. I think the setting I am going to work on might require some more unique artwork so I will mostly use my own, but a lot of this will help for more generic things. Thanks.

4 minutes ago, ORtrail said:

There is stock art you can buy to include in your products, such as over on DriveThruRPG.  Check the details of course, but a bunch of stuff is on sale at the moment. 

For example: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/3865/Fat-Goblin-Games

I don't see any of the art available for purchasing, but I never knew that I wanted to play a Super Mario Bros RPG. Super Smash Bros Assemble!  

8 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Just don't use what is listed as Prohibited Content - so don't repackage the RQG magic system for example. If you want to play around with the ideas in the BGB, go forward!

Okay, I will just make sure everything in The Nightland is public domain and I will be set. Thanks for all the help! 

4 minutes ago, Jeff said:

You need to include the license material. Beyond that, you can make what use you want with the OGL material - ie, create derivative works of it.

Thanks for the info. Just what I needed to hear. I already have a lore book started so I will just need to add the license and the basic mechanics than I will be golden.

Absolute final question, do we need to totally make up new magic and power systems or is it okay to use and expand upon the ones in the Big Golden Book?

5 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

The SRD document is not meant to be a layout template. You are welcome to use any software like MS Word, Pages, Quark, or InDesign that you want for layout.

Any products you produce are free to include as much of your own artwork as you want.

Alright, thanks. I was just confused weather you had to write up all the material yourself, or if you were supposed to include the document within the product.

The logo is good, but I think the dragon was cool too. It made it feel classic.

What kind of program would you use to make a project like this? Is Word sufficient? Also, are you supposed to take the SRD and edit it, or is it just the guidelines? Finally, is it acceptable to add your own art work to the product?

This sounds great! I need to play the game and get the hang of it, but then I might make some time to work on a Nightlands RPG.

23 hours ago, Questbird said:

If you wanted to represent different amounts of loot you could have a limited number of wealth checks to share between the players. So for example if you had four players but they hadn't found much wealth that session you could make them share 3, 2 or 1 wealth checks -- someone would miss out.

Of course, the wealth levels is an abstraction meant for games where loot gathering is not the prime goal. If your game is truly an old school shoot and loot dungeon bash, you mght be better off counting coins, gems, statuettes, necklaces, goblets, silks -- and encumbrance!

Yeah, abstracting wealth levels is more what my current games require, and then again, money will probably not even have any value to the PCs. If, however, any of my campaigns need it, i will certainly use these rule ideas. The limited rolls is another good way to go with wealth piles, thanks for the idea.

On 2/24/2020 at 5:30 AM, Darius West said:

That is a very pulp take on the setting, and is a bit like making the Nazis all involved in the mythos.  Idk if it actually makes the story better.  One of the main adversaries in any CoC game is the fact that very few people in authority understand that the mythos is real, and consequently the players have to come up with plausible explanations for terrible things that happened that will satisfy the local police etc.  Scale this up in Soviet Russia, where your actions are scrutinized more harshly unless you are some sort of "party darling" who can do no wrong in the eyes of Stalin and Beria.  If you blew up a coal mine outside of Magentogorsk you had better get your stories straight:

(a) We blew it up to stop the Fungi from Yuggoth= State facility for the insane, and sleeping in your own feces.

(b) We blew it up to stop dangerous counter-revolutionary activities= Gulag or firing squad for you. You are counter-revolutionary saboteurs.

(c) It had nothing to do with us.  I had a smoke with a guy at the Dept of Energy, and he told me  that they are using the mine to store nuclear materials long term. = Just right.

There is a tendency, given the threat of the mythos, to think that it needs to be involved in human politics and can be used as an explanation for human evils.  In a way this is something of a cop-out.  Not only does it dehumanize human evils, but it also sort of lets these acts off the hook, because "the mythos dun it".  I think it adds something to a game when players are forced to come to terms with what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil.  Part of the real horror is when your players have to start making very uncomfortable moral choices to survive in a world where bad people are in charge.

I mean, it is great to have the potential for the mythos to be infiltrating the Party, but to have a top-down approach where it is all Stalin's fault is fine if you are aiming for a pulp plot, and the notion of getting involved in an aerial chase where Stalin is firing a KSVK 12.7 at the party from the door of an Antonov A-7 is amusing, but it isn't really horror.  The fact is that the Communist party was segmented into thousands of branches with millions of members, and many of them lived in out of the way places, barely on the rail line, where they lived in modernist buildings overlooking the endless taiga, and oversaw a ball-bearing factory or some such.  This is where the mythos would take hold imo.  If it isn't stopped on the small scale, it grows, and it's all the PC's fault.  Sometimes less is more, especially when it comes to horror.

So, in essence, one of those plots would be great, but having all of them piled in on top of each other would be overkill I think.  I am not dismissing any of the ideas, just thinking that toning it down a bit might make for a better setting horror-wise, and suspension-of-disbelief-wise.

If you want some real pulpy Russians go no further than the Command and Conquer Red Alert 2 games. 

On 2/24/2020 at 5:30 AM, Darius West said:

One of the main adversaries in any CoC game is the fact that very few people in authority understand that the mythos is real, and consequently the players have to come up with plausible explanations for terrible things that happened that will satisfy the local police etc.  Scale this up in Soviet Russia, where your actions are scrutinized more harshly unless you are some sort of "party darling" who can do no wrong in the eyes of Stalin and Beria.  If you blew up a coal mine outside of Magentogorsk you had better get your stories straight:

(a) We blew it up to stop the Fungi from Yuggoth= State facility for the insane, and sleeping in your own feces.

(b) We blew it up to stop dangerous counter-revolutionary activities= Gulag or firing squad for you. You are counter-revolutionary saboteurs.

(c) It had nothing to do with us.  I had a smoke with a guy at the Dept of Energy, and he told me  that they are using the mine to store nuclear materials long term. = Just right.

However, while the PCs would be under heaver scrutany from the party, it would also be very hard to question them should they claim to be from the party. Boris the woodsman knows not to ask questions when people claiming to be with the KGB are doing strange things, even lesser party members would have to let it go if they don't want to get in hot water with the higher ups.

13 hours ago, Questbird said:

And how do you carry it home without revealing to all and sundry that there's an empty dragon cave filled with loot? That's what caused the Battle of the Five Armies..

You could just take back enough to supply you for a while and return when you need more, of course, leaving a whole cave full of gold could just attract another angry dragon, as they learned in the Lonely Mountain.  Granted, in Thorin's case, he could afford to help out the people of Lake Town and give the elves a chest full of diamonds with out making a dent in his new loot pile.

13 hours ago, Questbird said:

On the original topic, Swords of Cydoria (science-fantasy) had a wealth 'skill' too. The rewards for various artifacts and so forth tended to be a permanent increase in Wealth. One thing you could do is use checks against wealth. So if you find a bunch of loot, you could have an experience check against your wealth at the end of the session. If you make it your wealth increases (like any other 'skill'). Super wealthy characters wouldn't increase their wealth level much by finding loot in this way; poor characters would get wealthy faster. Once everyone is Jeff Bezos, finding some gold in some dungeon is not going to cut it. Maybe characters with Bargain or Appraise or something might get more points from this method (eg. +1 skill points on a successful check).

You could also have a monthly wealth check to see if you maintain your standard of living, if you have those in your game. Failure could indicate a loss of 1d6 Wealth (like a negative experience check). Special failure means you drop a lifestyle level. Special success means your lifestyle level increases for this month. A fumble could mean a catastrophic financial event (fraud, bankruptcy, lost investments, sunken ships, burned home or  warehouses etc). A critical might permanently increase your standard of living (a windfall, inheritance, promotion, stipend, title, magic fish etc.) In either of those cases it would probably be a good idea to drop straight into roleplaying the event.

Yeah. I think the rolling system sounds like the right way to go on loot. It is distinctly a BRP solution, and it is very easy. Moving into roleplaying would be a good way to get down into it.

5 hours ago, soltakss said:

The GM needs to decide whether a Treasure (Wealthy) is still a Treasure (Wealthy) split up between the party, or if each person gets a Treasure (Affluent). 

I also think that roleplaying out the situation here would be good as well.

6 hours ago, soltakss said:

I have mixed feelings over using Wealth Levels.

On the one hand, they abstract things so you don't have to track things coin by coin.

On the other hand, it can be satisfying to track things coin by coin.

Treasure is an example. You could say that you need a certain amount of money coming in to meet a certain lifestyle,  so to act Wealthy you need to be Wealthy. Nobles and Merchants may not have a problem with that, as they could have estates or businesses that provide that level of Wealth. However, Adventurers generally don't, so how do they stay Wealthy? Do they need to find a Treasure Hoard (Wealthy) every so often to remain Wealthy? If they don't, does their Wealth Level go down to Affluent or Standard?

What I would do is:

• Assume that an Adventurer needs to maintain a Wealth Level in order to keep that Wealth Level
• If an Adventurer finds Treasure of some kind, that can be used to maintain their Wealth Level or provide a very temporary one-level boost, so someone who is Poor and finds a Treasure (Standard) might be standard for a while, but then goes back down to Poor, or could maintain Poor for a while.
• Finding a particularly large Treasure (More than one Wealth Level higher) could mean moving permanently to a higher Wealth Level, so the Poor Adventurer who finds a Treasure (Wealthy) might permanently go up to Standard, or might temporarily go up to Affluent and then back down to Standard.
• An Adventurer who spends more than their means should probably go down a Wealth Level
• Discuss on a case by case basis with the Players

 

Thanks for the Idea. You are right that abstracting all the little things is great, but counting out all that good loot from the dragon's nest is pretty sweet. Now the only problem is how to you split the loot with your friends?