Shaira

I'm using the SAN rules at a very low level. Anything which would "normally" cause insanity (say, a RQ Lune / Moon Elemental, seeing Something Awful In The Woodshed) requires a SAN check. Other nasty critters (such as RQ Broo, Trolls, etc) do not. Also using the "Getting Used To Awfulness" rule. The upshot is that for my fantasy game it's a way mostly to deal with temporary insanity - it's not going to play a major role at all (nothing like CoC), but is a background long-term mechanic which makes sense. Cheers, Sarah

That George Carlin joke is a killer. What the heck is in that crate?

I ended up opting to use the Sorcery powers rather than the Magic powers in my campaign, but for a while I was toying with using the Magic rules, with a level cap equal to your "spell skill score" divided by 10 rather than INT/2. It struck me that most beginning Magic users would have 50-75% max, meaning 5-7 levels of magic spell, rather than a pretty-much-standard 8. Then, really serious magic users with 100%+ skills would be lethal, whilst beginning cantrip-level hedge-wizard apprentice types would struggle to cast a couple of levels. It helps you a bit with the magnitude issue, but admittedly doesn't resolve it. But then, powerful wizards *should* be scary and dangerous - dirty great warriors with 90% halberds and a +1D6 damage bonus certainly are (4D6 damage on a normal hit unlimited at *zero* PP cost ... never mind specials and criticals... urk). In the end I opted for Sorcery. It's "magic as augmentation" much more than "magic as artillery", but the choice is definitely an issue of campaign style. Cheers, Sarah

Small world! I worked for Nova for about a year back in the early days (c 1991) when they only had a handful of schools. I was in Shimokitazawa in Tokyo, which was v. cool, and I stayed on there for several years after I left the school. Nova hadn't yet become the bloated monster it later became (although it was still the Big Mac of English schools), and I made some good friends there. There's something about Japanese bars. I had one in Shimo called "Gasoline Alley", the most appalling little hole-in-the-wall that had hung on to life with a load of rock music devotees since the late sixties. Mellow old place, down by the railtrack, full of muzos and writer types. Never seemed to close, reeked of incense. I think because of the nature of Japanese society, when you go into "subculture life" as a Japanese person, you're unlikely to get out again, so everyone makes the most of it. Daijobu yo. Atashi mo. Agreed - :focus: before the natives get restless! Sarah

Actually I'm part of the English Re-invasion. Chuffed with longbows and axes, but generally bewildered by shield walls. This time we're armed with curry and lager though, so are generally thought invincible... :thumb:

I was in Shikoku just once, over in Kan'onji interpreting for the fisheries ministry. Smelly work, but the sushi was great! Most of the time I lived in Tokyo with the space aliens and mutant ninja. After living there Blade Runner didn't really look scifi any more... I was there for 5 years - amazing to think at the same time as Jason! Shame indeed our paths never crossed... there was a games shop not far from Shinjuku I used to frequent... Where were you, Ars Mysteriorum? (With belated apologies for naked threadjack) Sarah

The RQ3 supplement "Sun County" sort of dealt with "set shields" in a shield wall, but you've basically hit upon the same thing. In RQ3, slung/set shields protect at half their value - I haven't found if BRP uses the same rule or not, but it sounds reasonable. Sun County had the shields covering left arm, chest, abdomen. Also, the tactic was sufficiently stationary to prevent *any* parries, including weapon parries - you had to rely on Dodge or just hoping you got hit in the right place. For shield pushes, I'd use the Knockback spot rules a heckuva lot. For a Phalanx, too, I'd rule that only the front rank could be targeted by melee attacks, although I don't know if that's historically correct. I'm not sure how I'd deal with attempts to break the line - whether Knockback would be resisted not just by the front rank, but also supported by the ranks behind, etc, etc. It'd be cool to drum up a "Shield Walls" Spot Rule for this - I don't know enough about how they work(ed) historically to be too precise, but it'd be handy to have. Cheers, Sarah

It's nailbiting stuff... Half Cannonball Run, half Wacky Races... We should start a sweepstake... :thumb: Sarah

"In forum threads which sleeping lie, with sudden news even thread death may die!" I've just picked up the Masks of Nyarlathotep PDF from the Chaosium website for $23 (bargain price at UK exchange rates!). It's the "Third Edition" from 2006 with "the Lost Australian Chapter and Four New Episodes". Back in my CoC days I regretted never getting hold of this classic baby - now here at last it is, in glorious PDF! At this rate, I might even start up a CoC game... with the BRP rules, of course! Oh frabjous day, calloo, callay! Cheers, Sarah :thumb:

Hi Sverre, This is a good edition of Clarke Ashton Smith: http://http://www.amazon.co.uk/Emperor-Dreams-Fantasy-Tales-Masterworks/dp/057507373X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213776306&sr=8-1. I don't know whether it contains absolutely everything he wrote on Zothique, but it contains a very large number of short stories, Zothique, Averoigne, Poseidonis, etc. Cheers, Sarah

Check out p5 or so of ATWM3 - "How to convert ATWM brutes into RuneQuest nasties". Should do the trick. (BTW - was there ever a 2nd ed of ATWM? It sounds a bit too organised for that era! ) Cheers, Sarah

I've been fiddling with KloogeWerks on and off for a year or so, although I've never actually used it in anger. It's a very cool tool, tons of features, nice look n feel, marred only by the fact that it doesn't have a complete "definition file" to enable you to play BRP out of the box. I've been hacking one up myself which is semi-usable, but it'd be cool to see a fully-featured one hit the shelves. Maybe one of these days, when I have some time... Cheers, Sarah

You can actually get PDFs of ATWM1-3 on DriveThruRPG. Classic stuff - there are some very cool ideas in there, and of course some totally mad ones! Cheers, Sarah

Personally I'd say so, yup. That's how I've been playing it, although the rules aren't explicit. Otherwise you've got an effect which ignores armor - which seems very powerful for a "Special" result. I'd say the Special attack which has a Bleeding result must do at least 1HP damage for the Bleeding to kick off, otherwise no effect - that seems to be the principle which the other Specials use (ie Crush adds to your damage, but doesn't automatically punch through armour). Re: poisons and so on - definitely. You need to at least do 1HP damage for poison to affect the target, IMHO. You can walk through a pit of poisonous vipers in steel boots, as long as one of them doesn't score a critical and clamber over the top! :-) One thing I did notice in the rules when playing recently: the Chaotic Feature "Spits Acid 2D10 POT" doesn't automatically gel with the Acid Spot Rules (unless I'm missing something - quite possible ). We had a case where a Legionnaire in 7pt chain got sprayed with POT12 acid, and the rules didn't overtly cover that. I'm GMing a fantasy campaign, so scientific accuracy isn't all that critical with acid effects, etc, so I'm in two minds as to whether to just treat Acid almost as Poison (in this case with armor protecting, and the damage getting through requiring a CON roll to resist, possibly with 1pt of AP damage to the armor too) or to just say that the Chaotic Feature uses "Very Strong Acid" and use the spot rules, although the Chaotic Feature then becomes very powerful. Cheers, Sarah

Absolutely - I wasn't suggesting people sent in their scenarios yet! I haven't even started writing mine ... *ulp*... :eek:

Nurse! The screens! Quick! My god, somebody calm that man down! Mind the walls... no! nooooo! Damn, I just had those whitewashed... Anyone know a good drycleaners? ... Nice one, sunwolfe. Had me chuckling. :thumb:

I was just reading Dustin's blog on the Chaosium site and saw he was getting a bit antsy at not hearing from anyone on the scenario comp yet. Sort of one of those "Is there anybody out there?" moments. Although it's v early days I thought I'd put him out of his misery by dropping him a line saying at least one person (moi, natch) was planning on submitting something! Drop him a line if you fancy - I'm sure it'll cheer the man up! :thumb: Cheers, Sarah

Bunnies with assault rifles. No contest. >:-> Gamma World roolz! >:->

I should think so - my guess is that is the intention of the rule. You can easily define a variety of styles, "Way of the Blade of Fire"-type special shao lin manoeuvres, etc, which apply to one or more weapons and let combat specialists learn them - making them as accessible or inaccessible as you want. It allows combat specialists to get special abilities, and differentiate themselves massively from more stealth- or magic-oriented types. My own feeling is to make these "martial arts" something you have to belong to a particular guild / school / legion etc to learn. I'm toying with the idea of capping your martial arts skill with your Status in that school / guild / legion / etc - or at least tying them in somehow. At least it gives fighters a chance of punching through all that demon armor flying around in my high level campaigns! Cheers, Sarah

Hi badcat, Did you get it all sorted? Not sure whether you already tried, but when I paid via Paypal, nothing happened: I then went to the Chaosium site and clicked on "downloadable PDFs" and then on BRP, and the "requires purchase" icon (or whatever it was) had changed to "Download", allowing me to get the copy there. It's a bit arcane, but it worked! Cheers, Sarah

Good luck and stay safe! Cheers, Sarah

That's cool - just picked up a copy myself. That's great to finally have the 1st edition seeing the light of day! Neat things I'm picking up on from a quick flick through that weren't in BRP0: Psychic Combat, Missile Fire Hit Locations, quite a bit of additional new artwork, cool bunch of ref sheets including weapons tables at the back of the book... I'm sure there's *plenty* more but this is just from a first glance. Congratulations Jason - it's out at last! Cheers, Sarah

Isn't that what the Wiki is for? I think you can just add stuff already... if not, I'm sure Sverre will sort it out... :-) Good idea, though. Gather them nuggets!

Thank you! I'm glad she gave everyone a run for their money! Keep watching this space - I'm hoping very soon to be able to introduce a lot more of Ulega-Bagu's friends! :happy: Cheers, Sarah

This is more or less the idea I'm toying with too - it's similar to the HeroQuest idea. A character can have a handful of such traits if desired - although on the understanding that the character generally behave in accordance with them. A character with "Hate Lunars 50%" will *actually* hate Lunars, for instance. You can use traits directly as skills, or you can use them as a Complimentary Skill (BRP Zero p50) in appropriate circumstances. You could even use them in appropriate opposed rolls. In the above example, the GM may allow a character with Hate Lunars 50% to gain up to a +10% Complimentary Skill bonus in combat against Lunars - or a -10% penalty in Persuade or other "influence" type skill checks... Or, for example, a character with "Brave 75%", who constantly gets combat attack bonuses for going hell for leather, also gets a combat defense penalty, and has to *fail* a Brave check to be able to run away. GMs can also "gift" particular traits as a result of cult geases, horrific experiences, insanity, heroquests, etc. This "casual" system feels a lot less like the prescriptive straitjacket which "heavier" systems like Pendragon might be - it's voluntary, lightweight, and relatively informal. Campaign depending, of course. Cheers, Sarah