seneschal

I read the original novel but not the rest of the series. To me, the Dune universe would be a pretty depressing place to live and to role-play. Never got into grim games. Real life is hard enough.

One of the major differences I see between older and newer gamers is that older gamers are readers. The early D&D and Traveller players could handle rulebooks hundreds of pages long because they'd enjoyed the works of Tolkien, Lewis, Moorcock, Asimov, Anderson, Wells, Verne, etc. Most early games were based on favorite literary genres: fantasy, sci fi, westerns, espionage. Younger gamers prefer TV and iPods to books and tend to gravitate toward card, miniatures, and electronic games that require much less reading, preparation and (dare I say it?) imagination. When they do play pen and paper RPGs, they tend to prefer games based on movies, comics and other pop cultural influences rather than on lengthy traditional novels. And they tend to be drawn towards rules-light systems rather than old-school systems that require either 1,001 charts or a Cray computer to calculate stats (can't say that I blame 'em). So to make an admittedly unforgivable series of generalizations ... older gamers play Runequest (bulky manuals, 50 kinds of dice); younger gamers play Runescape (Internet connection and credit card). Younger gamers play Resident Evil (DVD or Xbox required); older gamers play Call of Cthulhu (vocabulary required). Older gamers play Boot Hill; younger gamers blink and say, "Sam Houston who? Was he named after that city in Texas?" Older gamers play Champions; younger gamers play Hero Clix. I agree with previous posters who insist we must attract younger players for the hobby to survive. And we must attract younger people to reading in general. Hmmm, maybe those rolling electric blackouts aren't completely a bad thing. >:->

Hero System is a good example of a favorite game resurrected by fan support. The company ran into problems, partnered with Iron Crown to do its publishing, toyed with electronic book versions on floppy disk (this was before ubiquitous Internet access and PDFs), and pretty much went into limbo when ICE itself went bankrupt. But Hero Games had a web site with an active chat room community that kept hope (and the game) alive for several years. Then a new fan owner with lots of ideas and cash purchased the company and began pumping out new product on a regular basis. Fifth Edition products are back on the shelves. Traveller has had a harder row to hoe. A fifth edition has been promised for years now, and the official web site was pretty lame last time I visited. But there are scads of fan websites with sample sectors, ships, and NPCs. And the game has migrated to other rules systems such as GURPS and d20, even Risus. I'd still like to get my paws on the reprints of Classic Traveller, although the PDF of Megatraveller is available online. Wish Action! System had that sort of online support. Gold Rush Games has been in limbo for some time now, and an active fan chat room is invaluable for keeping interest alive.

FASA's Doctor Who RPG and Timelords. Loved Doctor Who, couldn't get into the game systems. Ditto Mayfair Games' James Bond RPG. I know it had gobs of fans, but I didn't "get" the system

Child protection laws, huh? What kind of games are you guys playing, anyhow? :eek: I cut my role-playing teeth on tactical board games such as Metagaming's Melee and Wizard, in which the loser "died" in supposedly grisly ways when his sword-weilding character ran out of hit points. Traveller combat could be pretty lethal as well. All those nasty laser rifle holes. Champions (the 3rd edition box said it was for ages 8 and up) combat was less fatal but quite violent, with fists and energy blasts flying. And Toon, well, if you've seen any of the old Warner Brothers or MGM shorts, you know how brutal those can be. Yet I played and enjoyed all these games with my younger siblings with few qualms from my parents, who would have freaked if we'd been playing a fantasy game that included pretend magic. Of course any such "recruiting" group would require parent knowledge, approval, and possibly supervision. That'd be true whether the kids were 8 or 16. At local game shops, parents routinely come with their children to watch them play whatever it is, Pokemon or Hero Clix or whatever. In a role-playing situation, you'd have an age appropriate storyline and theme. All my games are G- or PG-rated anyway, regardless of age group.

It's good that we got some newer players in their 20s, but what we really need to snag to keep the hobby alive is the 8-11 year olds. These are the folks being lured away by collectible card and electronic games. We need a new generation of imagination junkies. The original gamers were readers. They could handle a 300-400 page rulebook because their love for RPGs was fuelled by their love of the fictional genre a particular game was based on. Our potential crop of younger players don't necessarily have that foundation, and there are a lot more competitors for their time and money. I ran into role-playing late in high school, then kept it up during and after college. Today's card and miniatures games could possibly lead to role-playing, if a kid is willing to read like I was and become the referee for his friends. But the easier and more seductive route is to sign up for Runescape at the local public library's computer bays. My first attempt to introduce my kids to role-playing, using Teenagers From Outer Space, was a failure. My son said he didn't like "imagination games." On the other hand, my kids like more miniatures oriented games such as Monster Island or Hero Clix. A second attempt with toys as props using the Buck Rogers High Adventure Cliffhangers game was more successful.

Will pray for your safe return. What news on the GORE monster manual?

The problem I see is that so much of Earth oceanic life depends on relatively shallow water near the coasts to survive. For example, squid may live in the depths, but octopi, crustaceans, trilobites,and marine worms need shallow water with rocky caves or other cover to survive. In the same way, think of all the other species that need shallow water to spawn or who depend on plants growing in sunny shallow coastal waters (including coral reefs and volcanic islands). The truly deep, cold oceans are deserts whose food chain depends on plankton floating on the surface. But much of plankton consists of the beforementioned spawn: tiny eggs and larvae. Whales and sharks may roam the deep, but the fish they live on have to spawn somewhere, and whales need relatively warm shallow water for calving. If your planet is all deep, dark water, where does seaweed grow (if it grows)? Where do corals and barnacles attach themselves? This isn't to criticize your idea but to point out that the environment would be truly alien, and that your poor colonists have their work cut out for them. They couldn't just introduce terrestrial species. They'd have to build the whole ecosystem from scratch based only on deep water critters. And some of those might be "monsters." A giant squid, shark, or marine reptile is plenty scary to me. And it would be a shame not to have at least a few remnants of the planet's original fauna lurking around somewhere.

Are you looking for existing pictures? Or design ideas? If the latter, I'd envision a globe-shaped structure whose entrance could be located on the top or bottom rather than on the side (since the inhabitants swim in without having to fight gravity). There might be terraces or shelves along the walls of the globe for sleeping or storage, sort of a modular nook approach, with a large open central area. Details could vary a lot, depending on how the place was lit and heated/cooled OR whether the place was lit or temperature controlled at all. I envision a translucent glassy structure, possibly warmed and powered by undersea geothermal vents. It would be like a giant blown glass bubble rather than a structure of plates and portholes like surface dwellers might build. There'd be a system for keeping water flowing through the structure to keep things oxygenated. What do you think?

Teenagers From Outer Space. Very simple TOON-ish game mechanics and feel. But by the time I ran across it, my gaming group had dissipated. Plus it was a hard concept to get across to combat-oriented players: what the lives of Judi and Elroy Jetson might have been like. Daredevils. Loved the well-written scenario modules, which truly captured the pulpish flavor, but the game mechanics were incomprehensible. So I used the modules but converted the NPCs to Justice, Inc. Danger Quest. A quirky take on pulp with a fun character generation system. But the actual play mechanics were confusing, and the publisher vanished soon after the core rulebook came out. It seemed as if I were the only fan who visited Torchlight Games' web site.

The Wind in the Willows -- anthropomorphic animals co-exist (not always comfortably) alongside humans and normal animals in Edwardian England. Beware the hostile denizens of the Wild Wood, which has grown over a ruined Roman city. And the Great God Pan is still active. So you have early 20th Century technology and fantasy.

So ... even if the Moonbase Alpha folks had managed to escape, they wouldn't have had an Earth, or at least not the one they knew, to return to? ;-(

I always wondered why, if the nuclear waste that caused the propulsive explosion was stored on the dark side of the moon, the satelite wasn't pushed into the Pacific instead of knocked out into the cosmos? But then we'd have Thundarr the Barbarian instead of Space 1999.

Tut, tut. Stale sugar cookies make excellent throwing weapons. We should draw up stats and link this discussion to the one on weapons charts.

I always thought the Macabbean period of Jewish history would make an interesting RPG. You've got the epic struggle against the Selucid Greeks, 200 years of nasty political intrigue and infighting, and the territory hungry Romans waiting in the wings to take over. I applaud your efforts. I learned more world history gathering RPG campaign background material than I did in four semesters of college humanities. Look forward to the finished product.

I second the motion!

If so, you might enjoy the Matinee Monsters supplement for GORE and Berlin '61, currently under development by PK Games. For myself, I'd lean towards a science fantasy or historical type campaign, either something Flash Gordon-ish or an Ivanhoe/Robin Hood scenario.

As a BRP newbie, I'll have to look things over and make up my own mind. The problem is, you can teach ANY game mechanics to a 6-year-old (I had my little brother and sister playing Melee, Toon, Traveller and Champions). Once folks hit 8 or 10 years old something changes in the human brain and the rules become harder to learn. My parents couldn't grasp the basics of Melee, which is why I corrupted, er, taught my siblings.

Can't remember the channel. The host was "the most sinister man to kuh-rawwwwwl on the face of the Earth, Seeeeeeeeeeymoooooooore!"

Oh, they were. They just stopped narrating when they went nuts. Personally, I think Lovecraft does a wonderful job of creating suspense and has a good grasp of regional dialect. His monsters were unique. On the other hand, he doesn't even try to write dialogue. His atmospheric descriptions of scenery sometimes drag on and on. And he doesn't so much present a plot as pile bit upon disturbing bit. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Although Lovecraft's writings and Chaosium's game can each stand on their own tentacles, they have a symbiotic relationship. People stumbling upon the one tend to find out about and become interested in the other. I knew about the game long before I got my hands on Lovecraft's stories, but it sparked my curiosity. At this point, I've read lots of stories but only played the game once.

It often eclipsed the other genres. We played it frequently enough that a friend compiled "The Villains of Toon," funny animal bad buys with names such as Moose-ilini. I menaced the players with the mobile Egyptian mummy, Ra Mihn Nudal. The drug of choice was Jolt, an over-caffienated beverage of the era. To appreciate Toon I suppose you had to grow up in the days where Looney Tunes, Woody Woodpecker, and Tom and Jerry cartoons dominated Saturday mornings from 6 a.m. until the Creature Feature began at 1 p.m.

Although I encountered a few other games, the ones I actually played regularly were: Melee/Wizard Classic Traveller Champions/Justice, Inc. Toon Monster Island I must be the only gamer alive who didn't cut his role-playing teeth on any version of D&D. Sat in on a session once, years later. My paladin got killed in the first 15 seconds. Didn't exactly whet my appetite for more. THACO? I just don't get it. As a Hero System fanatic, I never saw the point of GURPS. Liked the multitude of campaign supplements, though. I actually wrote a campaign supplement for Rolemaster, and I still didn't get it. I suppose having a group of Shadow World fanatics as gaming buddies would have helped. Games I'd like to try (looking for something simple to play with my kids): GORE Risus Plain-English Role Playing Action! System Faery's Tale Always thought the back story for Candyland would make the basis for a great fantasy campaign. I mean, you've got a missing monarch, a kingdom in crisis, strange locations, monsters, a board full of suspects, a moustache-twirling villain, and all the bitter chocolate bats you can eat. What's not to like?

I thought the Gunsmoke radio show was rather grim. Folks get killed every episode, and it isn't always the bad guys. The show's concept was actually a departure from previous Western shows, applying the world view and attitude of film noir and the hard-boiled detective genre to the 19th Century. Not that it wasn't well done, just sooooooo depressing, especially if you listen to several episodes back-to-back. Red Ryder and Hopalong Cassidy are more to my taste, and they have radio shows, too. http://www.radiolovers.com/pages/westerns.html Radio Spirits - The World's Largest and Greatest Selection of Old Time Radio!

I'm currently reading Alan Weisman's "The World Without Us," a book of scientific speculation about how the Earth would or wouldn't recover if humans magically vanished overnight. Hope it'll provide some game-able ideas. The movie series' nuclear holocaust and genetic manipulation aside, Weisman doubts surviving primates would learn to become grassland walkers a second time. Without human industry and agriculture, Africa's vast forests would quickly return, and apes wouldn't need to adapt to new environments or develop higher intelligence to survive. Even dense urban areas such as New York City would be reduced to forest again within several hundred years without humans to maintain them. Especially NYC, which was built on top of 40 Manhattan Island rivers and streams and which requires constant pumping to stave off floods. Seasonal temperature fluctuations would crack open skyscrapers to the ravages of rain and mold while the flooded subways would undermine their foundations. The damaged towers seen in films such as "Beneath the Planet of the Apes," "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" and "The Omega Man" would remain standing only several hundred years, although older stone buildings and overbuilt suspension bridges from late 19th and early 20th centuries might endure longer. Without human garbage to feed them and human furnaces to keep them warm, rats and roaches would die out rather than evolving into giant mutants. Wildlife, meanwhile, would colonize crumbling human buildings quickly (finishing off the rats and most domestic cats and dogs). Individual homes and smaller buidlings would vanish within a couple decades. So ... some of our favorite movie images may be mere human hubris. Our mighty monuments and structures wouldn't endure after us in stately decayed grandeur, or at least not for very long.

I know it would be the GM's call, but just how "hot" would those hot spots be in "Planet of the Apes"? The Forbidden Zone prohibition was ancient, the nuclear war had occurred thousands of years ago. Taylor defied the Forbidden Zone twice and didn't catch radiation sickness, and his spaceship apparently crashed in the nuke-created desert. "Damnation Alley" style mutant critters may not quite fit, but it would be a shame to have no strange creatures running around out there, even if they didn't appear in the movies. Of course, the apes didn't get around much.