Old Man Henerson

20 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Sounds interesting! 😮

I wanna play with you as GM now!
Could I play Tracer back then when she was fighting alien monstrosity in unknown corner of the time streams?! 😮 

And.... does Winston knows about Cthulhu? What does he plan to do about it?

is Cthulhu's daughter a monstrosity herself or it's just propaganda?

So many questions! 😮 

Why thank you. 😁 Tracer vs a time warping monster like those hounds of tindalos would be an epic fight. As for Winston, I think the best course of action would be for him to get D.Va and her friends to build a giant mecha to distract Cthulhu, with support from Genji since he is aparently good at fighting giant robots that fire car sized rounds. Meanwhile Winston and a few other heroes would fight there way through deep ones and cultists in the streets of R'lyeh guiding Winston's latest antimatter bomb to its center of the city and obliterate Cthulhu and his island once and for all.

And if they are lucky, Genji will only need to be healed once. XD

I have actually though a lot about if the omnipotent power of mythos beings was all just a massive propaganda campaign from them and their cultists to demoralize their enemies before attacking. I want to tackle questions like this in my book.

20 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

I forgot to ask.. where to buy those books once published?!  

 

Most likely I will publish on Amazon. It seems like the best place for a new author to start out. If I am still on this fourm by then, I wil be sure to boost a link to it. Fair warning though, I have a very different take on the concept of the mythos, more like Lovecraft Lite.

I am actually working on a book series centering around superheros vs my own version of the Cthulhu mythos,  plus the influences of Overwatch and Command and Conquer. Some of my prequel series will deal with pulp inspired heroes fighting against Nazis trying to raise my version of Cthulhu's daughter, who moonlighted as a polynesian death goddess back in the day and fought against Maui and his people with an army of deep ones.

On 1/5/2020 at 10:47 AM, Ian Absentia said:

In all fairness, we've all been there, on one or both sides of the equation.  A moment of appreciation for our parents and our former teenage selves.

Now, back to them railguns and such.  I'm totally into statting out the shoggoth-suit again, but that's more appropriate to a separate thread in the CoC forum.

!i!

I had a similar idea to that earlier, only I was using a shogoth type monster as an enemy for the PC's mechs only they would be a kind of symbiote for the "mech pilot." I talked about it with some others on this thread over here if you are interested.

10 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

I wouldn't worry about that level of details.. because, obviously, going that way we wouldn't even be in space yet!  

Yeah, details are such a bother. we have much more important things to focus on...

10 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

A-hem.

Eldritch horrors + Elon Musk + Neon Genesis: Evangelion = shoggoth-powered mecha.

I'm just saying.

!I!

Like how teens with attitude are going to bring down Cthulhu with their Elon Musk mecha. XD

3 hours ago, g33k said:

Ordinary magnets won't power a railgun.  You need mag-fields you can turn on and off very quickly, e.g. electromagnets; electromagnets need portable power, e.g. batteries, and the speed of discharge to fire a railgun says capacitors (all this is with our current state of the art tech & science, of course).  That can be resource-conservative, none of this gets used up.

Or build it with "Ancient Martian" Clarketech, or other Handwavium.

I can just say that batteries and capacitors have advanced over the 300 years that the Martian colonists have lived on Mars out of need to squeeze every last drop of power they can from wind turbines and solar panels. As they say, "Necessity is the mother of invention."

Of course, the backstory involves Elon Musk helping to save humanity with his secret fleet of spaceships and going on to help build the first generation of mecha suits the PCs will use to fight eldritch horrors, so some Elon Musk brand Cyber-Hadwaveium TM would not be too unreasonable either.😉

2 hours ago, Dethstrok9 said:

My favorite kids show about terrorists descended from alien snakes who love shouting at each other to retreat, much like my second favorite kids show about terrorist "robot" aliens just trying to return home who also love shouting at each other to RETREAT! 

So all those years Cobra Commander was just trying to phone home. BRILLIANT!🤣

On 1/1/2020 at 4:29 PM, seneschal said:

"The Beast With A Million Eyes" (1955) has a different execution but similar premise to "The Color Out of Space."  A rural family is menaced by crazed animals and people after a "plane" buzzes their homestead and lands in the desert.

Then there was the "G.I. Joe" cartoon episode where Cobra was trying to release an entity from an ancient well, thinking the creature would assist their efforts at world domination.  You can imagine how that little scheme worked out.  😱

Armitage: "There are things Man was not meant to know."

Duke:  "And knowing is half the battle!"

In the book I am writing, the cultists are very militaristic, much like Cobra. I think it comes from my days of playing Command & Conquer with Kane and the Brotherhood of Nod. Someone like Kane makes a good analog for my Nyarlathotep stand in.

13 hours ago, seneschal said:

Well, Matango involves spore infection and the other two long distance mind control.  If your creature can psychically lure victims to it and/or give them orders, it doesn't need to roam around and hunt.  Or it can ride its prey as it consumes them, exercising its powers on the hoof to infect as many people as possible.  It can spore-blast would-be rescuers even if they aren't under its domination -- and they'll still turn into a fungus brain even if they retain their personalities to the last.  Transformation could be as slow and horrible as you want to make it.  Or a proto-fungus could go on a murderous rampage before collapsing into a mycelium heap, with each corpse supporting a new brain growth.

Your fungus brains are not mindless zombies.  They can read a target's thoughts, call to him or her with the images or voices of loved ones, lie in wait where they know the potential victim is going to hole up.  They don't even have to be violent.  Perhaps contact with a victim's skin or breathing/swallowing passages is enough.  They explode in a cloud of choking spores or a sticky tangle of mycelium as soon as prey gets within range.  Yuck!  No combat occurs, and the host is toast unless he is encased in a hazmat suit.  Its only a matter of time.

I love your ideas. I think I will have to implement a few of them into my game now. I should make the fungus more prevalent in the wilds, it would actually give a reason why most of humanity on Earth is crammed into three great cities in the story.

I also though, to avoid the problem of combatting this thing and getting spores all over, that the PCs could try and engage the fungus brains in psychic combat and destroy them that way potentially.

1 hour ago, seneschal said:

Must be the hot chocolate and ski babes.

Oh wait, that was "On Her Majesty's Secret Service."  Darn!  Why can't Delta Green have as much fun as George Lazenby?

James Bond vs the church of Dagon would be fun to see.

1 hour ago, seneschal said:

It doesn't fit the tone and morality of the rest of the series.  The Rebels were the good guys, resisting the ruthless Evil Empire.  Our Heroes didn't slaughter Imperial minions for sport, but the latter were clearly on the wrong side of the moral scale.  The heroes could defend themselves without remorse.  Just like Legolas could pick off cannibalistic orcs without shame or James Bond could eliminate SPECTRE agents that were trying to kill him anyway (not that he had qualms in the first place).

If you humanize and make sympathetic the heartless foot soldiers that casually murdered Luke Skywalker's family, an entire clan of Jawas, and the unresisting population of the planet Alderan, you've changed the dynamic and inner logic of the whole saga.  And, as I mentioned, that's exactly what happened in the last three movies.  The bloodthirsty troopers are now victims and the self-sacrificing Resistance fighters are ruthless killers.  With competent plotting and characterization (not in evidence in the sequels) that sort of thing might make an interesting story -- but it wouldn't be Star Wars.

FN-0000 is a missed opportunity, and as a character he never gets a break.  He refuses to participate in a massacre (good) but strips off his gear and runs away from Captain Phasma rather than fighting her and attempting to thwart her evil plans (is he a coward?).  He never gets to be the hero but is consistently depicted as incompetent comic relief (but we already have C3P0 for that).  In fact, the first thing that happens to him after his escape is that he gets beat up by a a girl half his size with no military training (Rey).  Later, it is implied that he is falling in love with Rey -- but since she is the Messiah-ess she's above such things even if FN wasn't merely the hired help.  Except she heals and kisses Kylo Ren, the emo villain wannabe who has only been trying to kill her for three movies.  Women!  Poor FN eventually meets a nubile former Stormtrooper with a life story similar to his own --  but the relationship goes nowhere and he STILL doesn't get the girl.  No fair!

When I first saw the trailers for The Force Awakens, I thought that Fin was going to be the Jedi and Ray would be his companion. I thought it would be so cool to have a stormtrooper defect and become a Jedi, but that is not the film we got in the end.😑

In my opinion, though, I have not read much of it, Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy makes a much better sequel trilogy than what Disney made. The rebels have actually become a legitimate government, and the Empire is actually a splinter cell that does not have the capacity to make planets into super Death Stars.

30 minutes ago, seneschal said:

Matango meets Donovan's Brain meets Beast With One Million Eyes.  I like!  But you consider it a minor threat???  It's like three or more B movies in one!

Well, I have not play tested it yet, so it might be more deadly than I think, but it will probably only be a threat for the first few adventures before the PCs find their mecha suits, then they will have bigger, more eldritch, fish to fry.

Perhaps though it will appear more often in the big city sewers or dungeons where mecha cant go and only psychic powers will help my PCs.

I have also not heard of any of those movies before. I take it they are very similar to my fungus brains?

I have a modified yellow mold from AD&D in the game I am working on. In universe, it is a fungus that was warped by cosmic forces so that it now develops giant fungus brains that use psychic powers like mind control to lure prey in were it can brain blast them and smother them in a cloud of spores. It is a minor wilderness monster though, not exactly a major villain.

35 minutes ago, seneschal said:

Favorite line from "Scooby Doo On Zombie Island" (as the Mystery, Inc., gang are surrounded by the shambling undead):

"You're not a skeptic, Freddie.  You're in denial!"'

 

Or how Scully in the X-Files is always sceptical of the supernatural, no mater how many monsters she kills.

3 hours ago, 4Acrossisemu said:

To expand on what senechal said which is spot on. 

the mythos is also real, the point is the sceptical scientist would make the argument for it being a rational phenomenon where science can explain it even if the answer is not apparent, the limits are only from the starting of the PC, there is meant to be a breaking of the archetype as its non believer status is removed offering good RPing candy and an personal arc as everything they hold dear is torn away. This is much like vehemently defending their theories even in the face of mounting evidence it was wrong. The extra Intel roll to deny the reality of the mytho is there for this reason. 

Wouldn't the scientist's belief that there is a rational explanation somewhere out there in the universe for these monsters give them a kind of shield against insanity? Even if they never personally find it themselves? No matter how horrible the monsters get, the scientist can always fall back upon the refrain that "Magic is just science we don't understand yet."

2 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

Hodgson offers a very playable universe, with the imminent likelihood of utter catastrophe.  Very cool👹

I am very surprised that nobody has thought of building a game around The Night Land before. Call of Cthulhu is so popular these days, and H.P. even wrote a whole essay on this book, so it seems rather strange no one has looked into gaming it before.

There is some good stuff in this thread I made a while ago to if you're interested. 

On 12/23/2019 at 11:11 AM, seneschal said:

"Your temperament's wrong for the priesthood, and teaching would suit you still less; So be a dentist.  You'll be a success!"

We've had CoC adaptations of Clue, RUR, even Murder On the Orient Express.  Has anyone tried to adapt "Little Shop of Horrors"?  It's got a setting similar to "The Horror At Red Hook," a cast of  disreputable characters/suspects, and an unusual (and ravenous) monster.  I'm not so much a fan of the original 1960 black-and-white movie, which I found boring, but I absolutely love the musical and the 1986 film.  Why throw mere cultists at your players when you can confront them with all-singing, all-dancing critters of ultimate destruction?  I can envision a buzzing Mi-Go chorus line accompanied by kazoos in addition to whatever main monster you want to include.

Call of Cthulhu, The Musical, I love that Idea. You could even have "music war" thing where the PCs must come up with better songs and comebacks to battle the forces of evil. Bonus points if they can somehow convince Hugh Jackman to join their side. 

I personally prefer a more Lovecraft Lite kind of perspective when I am writing or working on my game. Though I have never read any of H.P.'s or Darleth's work, I much prefer William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land to the Cthulhu mythos, where the monsters are still dark and powerful cosmic beings, but they are not the only force at work in the universe and must always give way to the power of The Light.

While I have never read any of the mythos books, I have read plenty about them, and above all the characters the one I have liked most is Darleth's Character Nodens, as one of the lonely heroes who faces off against the mythos. I have even made a character based of Nodens in the campaign I am working on to help the PCs in their adventures.

You can see a little bit about my campaign idea over in this thread. 

2 minutes ago, seneschal said:

I like it.  Fits the genre stereotype well.  Only thing lacking is an assistant/henchman.  These come in three flavors:  nubile (often a daughter), sinister (pencil-thin mustache, big and brawny or a wiry hunchback), or robotic.  The scientist doesn't have to be a bad guy for his NPC associates to go wrong.

I think you forgot the unquenchable hatred for certain blue hedgehogs.😏

20 minutes ago, seneschal said:

No movie made after 2005 counts.  But the Marvel/Dark Horse Comics continuity is a must!  My Star Wars heroes need to meet a race of green Bugs Bunnies and fierce psychic feline bounty hunters..

Star Wars vs Space Jam? I sadly can't help you with the comics, my experience only comes from the movies and a little bit of the Thrawn books By Timothy Zahn. (The one true sequel trilogy)

1 hour ago, seneschal said:

Nearly 2,000 views and nobody has statted up Rey or Kylo Ren or FN-whatever or a double-bladed lightsabre yet?  Gee, Disney really has ruined the franchise.  Not a fan of the prequels but those locust/lizard  things from Attack of the Clones were sort of interesting.  Anyone ready to stat them up?

As for geonosian stats, try something like this:

Characteristic   Role              Average

STR                      2D6                16-17

CON                      2D6                   9

SIZ                       1D6+6             12

INT                       2D6+6            17-18   

POW                     2D6                    6

DEX                      3D6                15-16

APP                      1D6                    3

Move: 5 (10 when flying)

DB: STR+SIZ

Hit Points: CON+SIZ

Armor: 1 Point Carapace

Attacks: Sonic Rifle, 30% Stun Lance, 30% See Big Golden Book

Skills: Fly, 70% Stealth, 65% Listen, 50% Spot, 30%

Powers: None

I Just made this up so you might want to adjust it to your liking.

50 minutes ago, seneschal said:

Nearly 2,000 views and nobody has statted up Rey or Kylo Ren or FN-whatever or a double-bladed lightsabre yet?  Gee, Disney really has ruined the franchise.  Not a fan of the prequels but those locust/lizard  things from Attack of the Clones were sort of interesting.  Anyone ready to stat them up?

But what about the droid attack on the wookie stats?

On 12/20/2019 at 9:57 PM, Atgxtg said:

The do, indirectly, because they are more powerful, have better stats and are more skilled. But, on the other hand, that typically means their opponents are tougher and more skilled too, so it might actually get harder on the players! Cricals and specials in BRP can take down most experienced characters, and there often isn't much a player can do if some  NPC gets a lucky critical hit and  does a dozen points through armor to a vital location. That's the kind of thing that might even drop an elephant.                       

On 12/20/2019 at 11:46 PM, g33k said:

I'm about to add HR's on skill checks, myself...

• Gain 2d4% on a successful check.  Avg is 5%, usually within 4-6, occasionally lower or higher.
• On a fumble, gain a special check worth 3d4%
• On a Critical, gain 3d4% as a flat gain (no need to check, but only gained when otherwise making checks, i.e. you have time to consider the learning, practice and reinforce it), taking rolls of 3% or 4% as if they were 5%

I don't expect this to break anything.  I note that Crit's get a bit more common at higher skill levels, and may revert Crits to 2d4% as a rolled check, for skills over 100... Or I may not, I'm actually rather interested in seeing the upper tiers of play, skills over 100% ... over 200% ...

On 12/21/2019 at 6:00 AM, Atgxtg said:

No it won't break anything. Play at high skill levels is fine. The only worries tend to be the increased chances of NPCs getting a lucky critical and some fights where it can take time  to get past each other's defenses.

Thanks for the advice, I think I could use the fate points system to off set some of these critical hits at least until the PCs are powerful enough to take it.

13 hours ago, Mugen said:

Sorry, I don't understand your question.

Do you mean, for instance, giving each character a number of PL equal to their POW ?

That would make a huge difference between a character with POW 10 and POW 18, even if the second one doesn't put all his points in one power.
For instance, the first one could have one power with PL 10, and the second one would have the same power at same PL, but also a second one at PL 8.

Note that this is something that is also completely possible in GURPS, but the one with only one power gets points to spend on other skills and advantages.

The game also allows for characters with very small power levels, less than 5.

Sorry for the confusion, I was talking about the setting the campaign's power level like Normal, Heroic, Epic, and Superhuman, that the Big Golden Book talks about, and how people can start with more powers and more mastery over their powers. I was wondering if people with higher power levels would have the benefits given by the higher campaign levels.

On 12/13/2019 at 9:53 AM, Atgxtg said:

Well it's  not too hard to come up with something, depending on what you want to do. What size vehicles do you need for the game? There are some basic formulas I can give you that can be used  to help stat up vehicles.  

I actually found BRP Mecha on the internet just now so I will have to give it a good look through over the next few weeks to see how everything works. I will probably end up using your character scale system too since the first class of Mecha is just a few feet too high for what I was thinking.

On 12/18/2019 at 2:27 PM, Lloyd Dupont said:

Your fresh to the genre sounds promising!

Thanks for the support!   If I am still on this forum by then, I will be sure to post a link to the book around here. The book in general is probably going to be Lovecraft Lite though just to forewarn you.

On 12/17/2019 at 7:59 PM, g33k said:

The Mongoose edition of Runequest (a BRP game (that is to say, RuneQuest begat BRP at Chaosium, but then RQ got licensed to Mongoose, who begat a variant (but similar, and easily translated) system as THEIR game) had an Eastern setting, with Land of the Samurai & Land of the Ninja.  These had Ki Powers.

That branch of the "family tree" isn't really pursuing the "eastern" line at the moment, but TDM's Mythras is a linear descendant (mechanically speaking), and typically in Mythras you'd implement the "Mystic Warrior" idea -- whether Shaolin Monk or Jedi Knight -- using the mechanics called "Mysticism."

Yeah. I was looking for something more like Jedi powers, plus the power of a raw chi attack, and the usual psychic powers of cryokineses and pyrokineses.

On 12/17/2019 at 7:59 PM, g33k said:

The BRP mechanism is good as written, as @Atgxtg says!  The organic character-growth (getting better at the stuff you actually DO, needing to specially-train to improve stuff you haven't done) works really well.  There's no "moment" of level-up where you're suddenly better-at-everything (even stuff you've never done?!), but getting a little bit better (much more often) has its own satisfactions.

That said, there's several ways to speed up BRP progression if you want to.  I have seen: give bigger improvements on any skill-check for improvement; or make it be automatic bump, instead of a "check;" or allow the improvement-rolls more frequently.

I actualy like the organic growth approtch of BRP, much more realistic than D&D, I will just have to figure out if I need to have the higher experience rolls like the others were talking about or not.

On 12/18/2019 at 1:31 AM, Mugen said:

To be clear, a GURPS character has as not one Power Level, but one per broad Psionic category.

That is, a character with ESP, Psychokinetic and Telepathic powers will have 3 different PLs. Also, PL tend to be exponential, and PL 10 is already very strong.
If anything, POW could be used as a limit to the total PLs of a character.

Trinity can be more directly translated into BRP, as it has a single Psi attribute, which can be set equal to POW.
Each Psionic ability can be treated as a skill.

Would power levels like this be like changing the campaign level for a character and letting them start out with more powers or just making their current powers more potent?