seneschal

The Emirates aren’t totally without precedent. Both the Cat from Pinocchio and the Tiger Men Fro Mars were wheeler-dealers, although not honest ones.

I don’t want to derail the Monster Creation thread. But I do want to discuss what monsters you find disturbing and why. As I mentioned earlier, some critters scare me more than others. Gollum, The Stepford Wives, and the Pod People from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” are creepier to me than, say, the Universal Monsters or King Kong. Maybe it is because the threat is more personal than Godzilla, who will stomp anybody, or a horde of zombies, who will eat anybody. In the former case, they’re coming after YOU specifically. In the same vein (pun intended), the modern day vampire from the original “The Night Stalker” TV movie scared me more than any version of Dracula I’ve seen. He drove a car, raided a blood bank for supplies, kidnapped and kept a woman prisoner as a potential snack (after casually strangling her attack dog), and lived in a rental house that could be just across the street from yours. Yikes! Somehow, the vicious orcs from “The Two Towers” or the titular apes from the original “Planet of the” series didn’t affect me the same way. Sure, I wouldn’t want to meet them in a dark alley (or in a daylit street) but the fear factor, the eerie chill down one’s spine, wasn’t the same. Likewise, the assorted androids from the original Star Trek (or the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica, or Doctor Who’s Daleks) weren’t nearly as terrifying to me as the Borg. The others merely want to kill or enslave you. The Borg want to make you one of them. Why do you think this is so? What monsters scare you particularly and what makes them so eerie?

Agree. I found Gollum from Lord of the Rings much scarier than Sauron. The latter might be more powerful but the schizoid little cannibal who might crawl through your kitchen or nursery window really creeped me out. Same with many B-movie monsters. The big rubber carnivore might be scary but The Stepford Wives coming after you ... (shudder). The Wolf Man seems cuddly by comparison.

Once saw a real Roman helmet in a museum. It was tiny! Because of diet and nutrition, the tough guys of yore were as tall as a modern 8 to 10-year-old child. It is entirely possible our brawny female soldier is only 4 or so feet tall.

But surely the classic Red Sonja chainmail bikini derives its armor rating from its distraction value. ”I’ll carve up your guts —whoa Momma!”

Obviously, the pot and helm are on the end of things so she can quickly fling them in the face (or dump them on the toes) on an attacker! 🤗 Notice the fresh scars on her limbs and how muscular and, um, chunky she looks. No skinny Wonder Woman or lithe Xena here. Make sure you SMILE when you greet her, stranger.

Same with OpenQuest, GORE, and other members of the BRP extended family.

I would say a discussion of how to derive monsters' motives and methods would be helpful. Slapping together a critter that can slap around the PCs isn't hard, but making it interesting, unique and memorable can be. For instance, a grizzly bear, a werewolf, Bigfoot, and a gorilla are all strong, hairy mannish things that can mess up your day. So how do you take that basic monster template and make it special and scary for your players?

"Berlin '61," if it is still around, might fit the bill. It is set in divided post-World War 2 Berlin with Germans, Americans and Russians vying with one another. And the Mythos is crawling around, too. The monograph was published before nu-Chaosium but might still be available in PDF form.

“Cthulhu. The Animated Series”? I’m in! Where are Bruce Timm and Paul Dini now that we need them?

But of course the Marsh is shrinking. It’s all the fault of those Bison Riders and their accursed farting mounts! 😤

A lie spell? As in cheating with magic? Bah! That’s what Fast Talk is for. You never saw Bugs Bunny or Woody Woodpecker resorting to the occult to bamboozle their victims. ”Rabbit Season!” “Duck Season!” “Rabbit Season!” “Duck Season!” ”Actually, Doc, its baseball season.” “Batter up?” BLAM! ”You’re despicable!”

The Chinese just burned one of your licensed supplements and you are rewarding them with a full version of the game? Hmmm. If they did it to your licensee, they will do it to you.

But “Q” is waaaaaay too recent. Go back to the innumerable black-and-white films of the 1930s through the early ‘60s starring Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, J. Carrol Naish, or George Zucco (among others). Mad scientists, world-weary detectives, apes with human brains (or vice-versa), space aliens of all descriptions (did you marry one? some of them are hotties), zombies and werewolves and indestructible murderers and vampires created by SCIENCE!, old dark houses, cults that meet at the same cozy home where you attended a Tupperware party last week. It is too much popular culture to allow to go to waste.

The irony is that cheesy B movies make great RPG scenarios. Of course, with tabletop games you have an unlimited special effects budget.

Pretty! Hmmm, no scabbard. What do you sheath it in? An anvil atop a stone that mysteriously appeared in the churchyard on Christmas Day?

Oh, the set also includes a Bast figure who could easily be Michelle Pfeiffer.

Sorandib ... sort of like Detroit then? Only their fire demon got outsourced overseas.

I recently printed out the silhouette paper miniatures available in the downloads section as well as a Scooby Doo set found elsewhere on the web. The Scooby figures are true 25mm but the Call of Cthulhu minis are around 35mm when they are in scale at all. They look truly menacing beside Mystery, Inc. The CoC set also includes a bunch of slinky feminine silhouettes that I didn’t think I had a use for at first. Then my wife picked out her three favorite gun-toting babes. Suddenly its Charlie’s Angels vs. The Mythos! Immortal aliens vs. sexy detectives who can’t get their hair mussed no matter what dangers they face. Its an even match.

Re: painting. Yikes! Where’s the Orkin man when you need him?

No, no. It is pronounced “Fronk-en-steen.” 😉

Superheroics are very flexible in terms of genre since the comics blended science fiction, fantasy, horror and detective stories and poured the mixture into a colorful costume. Since the source material incorporates so many elements, it isn’t a big deal for your average hero to battle gangsters one issue, bug-eyed saucer men the next, then hop through time to give King Arthur an assist in Issue No. 3. And while most supers fight crime and injustice in the modern day (whether that’s the 1930s or the 2020s), it isn’t a stretch to put them in the far future (Space Ghost), the distant past (Mighty Mightor), or the medieval Mid-East (The Arabian Knights). But in role-playing games, game mechanics matter. The rules determine what kind of characters a player can create, what abilities that character can have, and what results a player can expect from a fight. That, in turn, influences the tactics a player will use and the tone of the game. Hence the the OP’s creation of this thread. Champions does a good job of modeling superheroic brawls, where characters get knocked all over the place, property damage ensues, but most fights won’t end in death or even serious injury. Heroes are just tougher than average folks, and it is generally safe ( if not wise) to wade into combat. Villains & Vigilantes, Heroes Unlimited, and to an extent Superworld present players with a different paradigm. Characters are essentially normals with powers. They can do cool stuff but are mostly as fragile as anyone else. Given these game mechanics, heroes will tend to act more like a SWAT team, sneaking around maneuvering for advantage, seeking to strike first and strike hard. Both play styles can be fun, neither is wrong, but tactics and tone will be different. If Larry pokes Curly in the eyes and bops him on the head in a game system with good non-lethal combat mechanics, its comedy. If he does the same thing in most BRP variants (or in Classic Traveller), he’s just committed murder.

Gatchaman — Science ninjas in colorful theme uniforms clobber gun-toting costumed goons. Being ninjas, they don’t necessarily have a code against killing, and their opponents certainly don’t.

Giant Robo, an anime inspired in part by Johnny Socko and His Giant Robot. The PCs are “espers” — special law enforcement agents who can do weird things and dish out lots of damage but who can die from a bullet or stab wound like anyone else. Oh, and both the good guys and the bad guys have an astonishing variety of giant robots.

The main thing I need to be a Keeper is ... players.