Old Man Henerson

13 hours ago, Dethstrok9 said:

That sounds awesome, I love reading so I'll be sure to check it out. Have you yourself published anything? @Old Man Henerson

No, I have not published anything yet. I will probably publish my first book sometime in the next year or two from now.

12 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

- his horror scifi genre as a whole lend itself well to third party and fans creation, because it's not just one odd monster... it's a conflict of civilizations... between human.... and whole species of otherworldy beings.... and human cultist who study them....
- it's also heavy on conspiracies... which is quite an endlessly popular theme

Mm.. that's as far as my thinking went...  

It was stuff like this that inspired the book I am working on. It is about superheroes in the near future fighting against cultists and the growing powers of darkness as their alien god awakens on the Earth. I would basicaly describe the setting as Overwatch vs Cthulhu.

The other thing that really inspired my book was the game Earthbound, which gets pretty lovecraftian by the end of the game. It is also a big inspiration in the campaign I am currently working on now.

1 minute ago, g33k said:

If you liken POW to STR, then you look to "skill" to apply either, in BRP terms.

Traditionally most BRP games set a couple of skill breakpoints... 75%, 80%, & 90% are all common, sometimes 75 & 90 both; and 100%, of course.

Then a PC has to get 3 skills above a breakpoint, or 5 skills, or 3 above a lower and one above a higher, or whatever the game-design calls for...

Then the PC is deemed to have achieved a certain degree if "mastery" and new options open up.  In the explicitly AD&D-esque "Classic Fantasy," this is part of the "levelling-up" mechanism.  In the old Mongoose "Land of..." supplements, it was "Ki Powers".  Etc etc etc. 

To tell you the truth, what I trying to do with the game was use the psychic powers as a base and expand it into Easter Chi powers than anything else. Though those kind of powers sound more like they belong to the super power range don't they?

I never played a very long game of AD&D, but the concept of leveling up does appeal to me a bit since that is what I am more familiar with. Still, it would take a long time to reach those brackets with BRP skill roles, how would you get around that?

Well, I first learned about Cthulhu from the video game Super Scribblenaughts of all places. It was a while later that I learned about who H.P. Lovecraft and his other works.  I have never read any of the books, but even just looking up and reading about the strange and alien monsters of the mythos left such a great impression on me at the time that they inspired me to try and make my own monsters like them in the books I am working on.

For something that goes back before Lovecraft's work and even inspired him, I recommend you check out William Hope Hodgson's book The Night Land. Despite its premise, It is a lot more positive than H.P.'s work from what I gather, which is more my style anyway.

On 12/14/2019 at 10:24 PM, Atgxtg said:

I think  so too, mostly becuase the terrain matches up  better. You could just mirror where the cultures a re with the coastline being  equvilant to the  West, with the inland mountainous regions (Monggloian , Tibet) being like Mordor. In fact, I'd  probably have the Great Wall be built to keep out Saurons men.

Well even  mountain is a potential volcano, so you got plenty of options there. Everest is a good choice.

That would be a cool idea to use the great wall like that. I I think it would be a cool idea to use the wall in one of the great battles of the story, though I do not know if it would be better to use it for the battle of Helm's Deep or Minas Tirith. The wall runs through some of the capital cities of China so it could be used for either. the plateau of Tibet would be a good arid location for mordor especially with Everest as a Mt. Doom, it would also fit better than my original idea to use Mongolia.

On 12/14/2019 at 10:24 PM, Atgxtg said:

Well,  here's one way to do it:

The Uruk -hai (the hobgolins or the advanced orcs), I beleive share the name  with what the  Mongols used to call thsmelves. So you could either make the ORc s Mongols,  or if you wanted them as men, come up with something similar. There are no d oubt  some s ort of Chinese or Mongolian goblin to use. Maybe Trolls could be Yeti?You could use the Lin Kueie, a sort of Chinese proto-ninja who were masters of  throwing weapons as elves. Maybe some sort of craftsmen could be the dwarves?

It's really up  to the Gm.  I'd suggest seeing what  you  need to change to  con vert the s etting, and then  go with  anything interesting that comes with the new setting. For instance, a lot of Asian monsters  an d creatures t hat could be fitting into he story. Replace Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits with Hengeyokai  (Japanese shapeshifters) or some such. Then see what ideas that  gives you, Typically, after a little  time working on it it becomes something that isn't all that recognizable, at least until the players go over the key story points, and notice a  pattern.

I did not know the Mongols used to call themselves the Uruk-hai, maybe that is where Tolkien got the name from? They would probably be a good substitute for them anyway, though I am not sure how to make Saruman fit in with them. Those are some good ideas for putting in monsters though. Another thing that should help me is the Pathways Through Mountains and Seas book I got a while ago for my own writing purposes. As the literal Chinese Bestiary, it has some really weird monsters that can give me some Ideas for the creatures of the world. I will defiantly have to look up the Lin Kueie, they sound cool.

On 12/14/2019 at 10:24 PM, Atgxtg said:

I  believe there  used to be some sort of Chinese version of the Knight errant that might work better for Aragon. THere are some sort of hobbit in Japeansese Lore so part of Japan could be the  Shire. I don't think  I've give them all of Japan.

Yeah, a Knight errant like a Ronin would work well for Aragorn. Perhaps we could even have a special guest appearance of Mulan in place of Eowyn, that would certanly throw off the PCs.  Yeah, giving the hobbits all of Japan might be too much. Korea on the other hand might be more suitable for them. 

On 12/14/2019 at 10:24 PM, Atgxtg said:

It's not really that hard to  do, especially if they disguise things enough so that the players can  identfity what is going on right away. For instance, for the LOTR idea                                      I'd suggest changing the  One Ring  to a Katana or some such. It fits the setting better.

I am not sure about the katana, it might be too easy for the PCs to use its power and would defenatly be hard to hide from prying the eye(s) 😉 of the enemy. Speaking of which, for this kind of game would you give the players characters of the books for their PCs or would you allow them to make up their own and just let them fall into the story?

On 12/14/2019 at 8:37 PM, seneschal said:

Another idea I never got to game out.  But you know the climax had to feature an aerial battle between flying Nazghul and Crimson Skies style biplanes.

Now that would be a cool game to play.

On 12/16/2019 at 4:42 AM, Mugen said:

Other possible RPG sources for Psionic powers are GURPS Psionics (3rd edition) and White Wolf's Trinity/Aeon.

GURPS breaks Psionic abilities into Power Levels and skills. PL is your raw "Psionic Force", while skills help you control it. For instance, Psychokinesis PL 20 let you lift a truck, but unless you succeed at a Telekinesis skill roll, you won't be able to control its trajectory. It offers a good range of Psi abilities and settings ideas.
Conversion to BRP will require that you find a way to set characters' Power Levels.

Trinity has 6 Abilitites, which are all broken into 3 sub-abilities. For instance, Psychokinesis has 3 sub-abilities : Telekinesis, Thermokinesis and Force Fields (in 1st edition it was Telekinesis, Cryokinesis and Pyrokinesis).

I will have to look in to it. Thanks for the tip. Perhaps the character's power level could be related to how high their POW score is?

Not to mention a very easy attack bonus

6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Okay, I'll send you an email with the math in game terms.  Basically use use the SIZ tablre I send you to work out mass and engine thrust (STR) and can work out some other details using real world math,  simplified  into game terms.

Okay. Looking forward to getting them. Thanks again.👍

4 hours ago, seneschal said:

My take on this was to adopt a pulp adventure trope, where one of the PCs buys a ring at a dodgy pawn shop and the adventurers find themselves being stalked by shadowy, half-seen figures in dark trench coats and slouch hats plus a pint-sized would-be assassin who seems to follow them everywhere.

That sounds like a cool twist on the story. How did it work out? Did they take the hobbits to Leningrad? 😉

6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

 

THat's an interesting concept.   For starters:

• I'd equate the advanced Culture of the West  (Elves, High  Men, etc.) to Fedual Japanese Society.
• I'd use RQ3 Land of t he Ninja to get the basic stats  for gear, professions and monsters.
• I'd probably equate Orcs to Bakemono (Japanese Goblins) and  Trolls to Dai-Bekemono (great goblins or Ogres.)
• I'd have to decide of  Elves and Dwarves existed  or replace them with something more Japanese such as Kenku and Kitsune or some such.
• Since Japan is  a series of islands, rather than a continent, I'd have to decide if everything takes  place on Japan (with a Japanese Mountain standing in for Mount Doom) or use all of Asia, putting Mount Doom in China, Mongolia or Tibet.
• The Low Men would end up being everyone who wasn't Japanese, which is a bit snobbish, but fits the culture and story. The Nabinjin (Europeans) with firearms and ships could be the minions of Sauron, as could the Mongols if I set it earlier. 
• I'd want to go over everything to make it more Japanese when possible.
• I'd want to change some stuff just to keep the players guessing and keep them from being able to anticipate  what is going to happen. 

I did actually think that the setting might be better by putting it in China, 1, because I know a little more about Chinese myths and legends than Japanese ones, and 2, because I thought it would be a much bigger land to work with, potentially using the mongols as a replacement for the men of the East.  I have no idea who to replace orcs, goblins, hobbits, elves and dwarves with. I will have to look up those creatures you suggested. Maybe Japan could be the Shire? The other problem I would have with moving the setting to china is that I could not make Aragorn's into a ninja, which would be the only suitable replacement for being a ranger.

Perhaps mount doom could be Mt. Everest itself.  To my knowledge China does not have any volcanoes and only Japan does since it is on the ring of fire, I guess we could make up our own though. I liked your suggestions though, they are all very good ideas.

6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, I've d one stuff like that at times. Normally not something as well know as LOTR,  but I did run a campaign where I ran the players through a  bunch of Celtic Myths. To do something like t hat you  first figure out what the key points are, and how much freedom the players have to divert from the "Story". Then you figure out what happens if the players do divert, and  rework the story to allow them some choice.  Then decide how obvious you want it to be and alter/vary stuff to obscure the source if desired. Usually you'll want to make some changes to ensure that the players don't figure out the story and shortcut to the ending--  or instance using the Great Eagles to drop ol'  Bilbo's ring into  Mount Doom, "just in case", bypassing 95% of the adventure. Plus you would probably want to make it your adventure and leave you own mark on the  story. 

I';ve often taken whole stories from books, old movies, TV shows, or historical events. Just how much  I change it depends on how well known it is and how well it fits into the setting. I once ran an "Antony & Cleopatra" storyline in a Star Trek campaign,  making the story more high tech, changing  Antony to a  Romulan Commander, and Cleopatra the leader of an ancient but weak civilization on  the borders of the  Romulan Empire.   Most of my players didn't catch on to what I was doing.

Generally I find it  better to take some  elements and add them to a campaign rather than try to copy a  story exactly., and for multiple reasons.  First off, I want t he players to be able to affect things with their actions, so I want  some flexibility with the story. Secondly,  it can often be more fun to react to other things going on in the story.  For example in my Star Trek  campaign,  I had planned for the "Antony & Cleopatra" storyline to end badly when the Romulan Empire attacked,  but Star Trek Nemesis had the Romulan senate get killed off and greatly altered the political  landscape, which opened the door for a different,  happier ending. And that ending played out much better in game, too.

That is a cool Idea with the Celtic myths and Antony and Cleopatra. I have not gamed enough to start doing stuff like that but I have always imagined it would be fun. I am a little hesitant to try it though since I usually like to be more creative and think up my own stories rather than copy books and movies, but with The Night Land, and this Japanese Lord of The Rings, I have been more than interested in the Idea, so one day I may have to try it out for real. 

You are very right about having to change up some of the story elements, to make things more interesting for the players and give them more choices. I was wondering weather I should keep the plot and NPCs the same while having the players bring their own creativity and choices to the story or to just keep the general plot outline and have the players go wild on their quests, minus the obvious fly the Eagles to Mordor bit. 

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 was thinking of using some stats that the big golden book gave on the mecha that was on the back of the book, but I did not know if I should just take them or get creative and make my own. The mecha for my game would be 10-15 feet like in my other post to you. Thanks for the offer on the formulas, I would very much appreciate it.

On 12/13/2019 at 9:59 AM, seneschal said:

Thank you.  Hey!  Its even my favorite color.  But wouldn't bright yellow make it an easy target against the snow?  Don't want to scuff the paint job.  Unless that's a form of camouflage ("Don't eat the yellow snow!").

Glad you like it. I suppose that the gold coloring on it would make it an easier target in the snow, though seeing that much yellow snow charging towards you would be enough to make anyone run in terror LOL.  Sill, you have to live with the paint job, otherwise, you have to get used to the dull black and red of these jokers.

Speaking of adapting clue into a scenario though, the big golden book had similar suggestions of how you could try to adapt your favorite books and movies into a campaign setting. The one in the book that caught my attention the most was a suggestion to take the setting of The Lord of The Rings, and set it in feudal Japan, renaming it The Shogun of the Rings. 

How would you go about doing something like that? And have you ever adapted a popular story like Lord of The Rings into a campaign and run your players through the story?

34 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

It's major point, is that it breaks down a ship into "modules" and uses those to  do  most of the math/heavy lifting. I think BRP Mecha might have been better suited to your camapign idea,  but it is out of print. 

Anything is good, though I am now very sorry that it is out of print.

13 hours ago, seneschal said:

Recovering from surgery, didn't get to run it.  But I did watch the Clue movie with my extended family on Halloween night.  No mecha though (daughter can't afford robot insurance).

But mecha make everything better! Don't tell me you haven't ever wanted to ride around in one of these babies.

Hope you get better from your surgery.

The 

On 12/11/2019 at 2:47 PM, rsanford said:

I uploaded a BRP fantasy character sheet not developed by me here ->

 

 

Cool Sheet.

21 hours ago, Questbird said:

Not really.

In both systems, I am assuming you failed a parry and your opponent succeeded in his/her attack roll.

In a normal hit points system (let's say a non-hit location one for simplicity), here's how to die:

1. They roll damage, you subtract armour. If the total is more than your hit points, you are dead.

In the hitpointless system in order to die 'on the spot':

1. You must fail a Resilience check (which factors in the damage of the attacker's weapon and your armour) -- that takes you out of the fight
2. After the fight you must roll a Fumble on a CON x5 roll. If so you are beyond help. Otherwise you are alive, for now.

I see, thanks for the Ideas, I am not sure I am ready to leave hit points behind yet, I am was a AD&D after all, but they are a very interesting set of rules to work with.

Wow, I have not been back here for a while, a lot of good replies. 

14 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

here some untested yet Psionic idea I had.. it was written for Mythras, but might give you some idea anyway!  

While the ruleset might not seem too important... there is some flavor to each game system's power system.. so you probably will have to tweak those powers, even if you like them!  

 

MyScifPsioninc.docx 184.46 kB · 1 download

Thanks for the rules set, it has a lot more things that I think the Psychic powers should have included like the ignore pain power. I wanted to include a power like that in the campaign I was working on too.  You should check out the video game Earthbound, they have a lot of cool psychic powers you could use as inspiration.

13 hours ago, Questbird said:

This thread is related, though more about tropes in a psi campaign than mechanics of the powers (though it started off that way):

 

Thanks for the link, I will defenately be watching this thread now.

8 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It's a generic set of SCi-Fi rules, mostly based around a simplified system for creating and running  spacecraft.  Originally it was written for BRP, but due to financial reasons was changed to use Mythras as it's core system.

It looks interesting, I might have to check it out some time.

Have any of you ever played Earthbound? It is a pretty good game based around psychic powers. Lot more powers that could fit either in the super powers list or the psychic list. One of the more powerful abilities would defenately be the psychic power shields that could deflect both physical and psychic damage back onto the enemies.

8 minutes ago, seneschal said:

Man, this thread has drifted far afield!

"Colonel Mustard did it, on Penopolous III, with plasma cannon mounted on his Danguard Mark VII!"

Have you heard the tragedy of Doctor Black The Wealthy?

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Realistically, some sort of dedicated vehicle  (tank, APC) would probably do the job better.  That's why we don't get such craft in the real world. But in a RPG there are more possibilities. 

 

Yep. There are all sort of possibilities out there, I will just have to see how they work out in the long run.

47 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

It's been possible for decades, it just not all that practical.

What you need to do is  look at any design as having 100% of total "stuff" in it. Now any area  that you want to improve comes out of that 100%. This is why mecha, transforming mecha and such aren't all that great an idea. What tends  to  happen is that the end result won't be as good as dedicated vehicle designed to do one of the things the mecha does. So am armored mech that can fly will be inferior to a tank  as far as  protection goes, and to  an airplane  as far as flight  goes. It's actually hard to find something that mecha can do better than  something else.

The more I think about it, the more practical it seems for this particular story. The colonists have limited resources at their disposal so having a well rounded mobile arms platform like a mecha is actually a bonus in this situation as opposed to more specialized but resource intensive alternative.

The Mecha types I am going for probably more belong to the real robot genre anyways, looking and acting like this mech here from the Command & Conquer series but than a transformer or Voltron.

Apparently, my plot for Elon Musk cyber mecha was a lot more plausible than I first thought. 

12 hours ago, Questbird said:

If you want to go the other way from hit locations and beyond even general hits, I tried a hitpointless system based on Ray Turney's Fire and Sword for my Swords of Cydoria campaign, which is a science fantasy campaign. I wanted a system where carrying swords and blasters was practical. It does cut down on management of NPCs in combat because you only care about one thing: can they still fight? (Morale is a different matter). You don't track hit points at all, and it's only players who you care if they are alive at the end of the fight. It worked pretty well for that system. It works quite well for guns because shock from a ballistic impact can knock someone out of a fight even if it doesn't kill them.

Ray's design notes for Fire and Sword are gold, by the way. They are in the download section.

 

It sounds like an interesting system, but it sounds like rolling a fumble might be mor lethal than having hit points.

14 hours ago, g33k said:

Yeah, but only for large numbers of minor NPCs; major/recurring NPC's got a full work-up including a full character-sheet.

IIRC the "minor NPCs" sheet was 6 (or 8?) mini-sheets on each page, so each NPC had a roughly index-card sized mini-sheet of their own.

Each mini-sheet was about half-filled with the little minifigure icon, and beside it was a VERY abbreviated statblock:  just name (or other identifier), 1-3 skills, a relevant stat or two (e.g. in case STR-v-STR contest came up, or whatever).  Combat skills for a combat encounter, social skills for court, etc.  If I was really confident there'd be no combat, I used a different format without the diagram:  that diagram is a pretty combat-centric thing to be half of the sheet in a noncombat scene.

# # #

There's a few sheets online that show different versions of the figure in question... 

Here's the free "RQClassic" handouts (with the old "Sapienza Mk iv" sheet on page 14).  Note it's a VERY primitive sheet, laid out AFAIK on a typewriter!

https://www.chaosium.com/content/FreePDFs/RuneQuest/Classic/CHA4002 - RQ2 Classic Player Handouts.pdf

 

See the official RQG sheet here:

https://www.chaosium.com/content/FreePDFs/RuneQuest/Character Sheets/RuneQuest Glorantha - Character Sheet - Fillable.pdf

 

Or this sheet (found online a while ago, don't remember where; I just now uploaded here):

https://basicroleplaying.org/files/file/787-rq2_charsheet_landscape/

 

If you're going to try HP-by-location, I cannot praise this approach highly enough!   OTOH, I know some people who just like the little table of d20-location, as per the sheet I originally pointed out to you... and ALL THREE of the sheets above are specific to RQ, not general BRP let alone anything sci-fi-ish (which is what you want?) .

 

Thanks for the help. I am working on a science fiction campaign, but I think your first sheet was general enough to work. I amusing psychic powers in it anyway so powers are not an issue. I think what I should do is try out the system and see if it is good, then I will decide if I want to keep it or go back to major wounds. Thanks a lot.

5 hours ago, g33k said:

I find per-location HP's very quick, very easy... with the right character-sheet.

When I discovered RuneQuest as a player (back before "BRP," which was the game Chaosium got by striping away all the RQ-specific setting stuff & genre-inclined mechanics, and generally simplified RQ), the character-sheets had a little figure of a humanoid... not so much "stick figure" as boxes stacked together.  Each box had a micro stat-block, and listed both the location-name and the d20 roll for hitting it.

Recording HP's onto this figure (and adjusting for per-location armor) was just as easy as doing it for a single-line "sack of HP's" track.  It had the intuitive visual structure, and it had the descriptive labels, and it had the numerical hit-locations... whatever your preferred way of looking or thinking, it worked.

Yeah, maybe I should try it out before I decide wich way to go. The character sheet you gave me should do the trick for my game. And they will look sufficiently sci-fi for the setting.

5 hours ago, g33k said:

===

I advise against giving the GM ANY combat-bookkeeping chore (for multiple NPC's) that is too onerous to ask each player to manage for their own single PC!!!

When I began GM'ing RQ, I quickly discovered that there wasn't an equivalent sheet for dealing with multiple NPC's, and my quick tricks for handling bunches of NPC's in D&D (or the similar systems) didn't work.

I had to write up my own sheets (which I never translated into any online format, so I can't share), but I found the little "humanoid-shaped group of micro-statblocks" was critical to managing things quickly.  I wouldn't even attempt to GM a game of RQ anymore, without pre-creating these. 

So did you do the same thing for NPCs as what you did for the PCs with the little boxes?

4 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

SO you really only want hit locations to play  up vulnerabilities or for window dressing.

Well you  could use hit locations there or just allow for called shots (at half ability) to hit the desired location. You don't need to go into more detail than that.

If hit points by location don't work out, I think I will try it that way or go back to the original major wounds system.

4 hours ago, g33k said:

If you're using any sort of "called shot" system, you need some way to decide not only if that called shot HITS, but if it disables the location...  FrEx, Inigo Montoya famously got pierced in the shoulder, but did NOT drop his sword...

Good point, though obviously, the sheer power of saying, "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die," is more than sufficient for sustaining the human body. 😉