seneschal

The aliens couldn’t be TOO cat-like. Otherwise they’d sleep 98% of the time and never get around to conquering vast swaths of the known universe. Poor animated Star Trek Kizinti!! That’s what happens when those Starfleet SJWs get their hooks in a noble carnivore race. 🙀

It is all Buck Rogers’ fault. He had cat people human enough to tempt interspecies romance decades before Andre Norton’s “Plague Ship” or Batman’s Selina Kyle or Japanese animation or “Cat Women of the Moon” or Cheetara on Saturday mornings. And his imitator/competitor Flash Gordon introduced Lion Men. It’s a legit science fiction trope. At least the Kizinti aren’t cute and snuggly. (5d6+12 STR, 4d6+10 SIZ ??? You gotta be kidding me! Even real-life sabertooth tigers aren’t that tough. How do they cram themselves into a spaceship cockpit? A giant plunger?)

Tiger Man: DEX 2d6+12, Move: 12, Fast Talk, Night Vision, Failings: Disdainful of other sentient species

Yes, Aslan are sex differentiated. Males are the big, brawny warriors and landowners who — while sentient — may have less than human intelligence. Females are much smaller and slimmer (but still dangerous combatants) but have all the brains in the family — conducting business, science and diplomacy on behalf of their husbands and other male relatives. Because the Aslan are so large they don’t (in Traveller) get any bonus to their DEXterity. The Tiger Men From Mars (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century) started out very much like bipedal tigers in medieval armor but gradually morphed into a much more human-like form (in sort of a Thundercats way), able to disguise themselves as human with the right clothing and cosmetics. They weren’t necessarily stronger than humans but were very agile and sure-footed and were able to see in the dark — all of which made it easy for their scouting party to spy on and steal technology from the recently liberated Americans. Their subsequent invasion of Earth launched Buck Rogers into interplanetary space and away from its previous post-apocalyptic storylines. If the Kizinti and Aslan are savage brutes, the Tiger Men are the consummate conniving sneaks, talking friendship and cooperation while planning to stab those gullible humans in the back. (Sorry about ruining your childhoods but all that heroic Lion-O stuff was just Tiger Man propaganda intended to subvert American youth!). 😱

Crossovers have been a thing in comic books (and their related media) since Superman teamed up with Batman on radio and in World’s Finest. What crossovers would you like to game out with BRP/Superworld? Batman (World’s Greatest Detective) vs. Arsine Lupin III (World’s Greatest Thief) Both characters think fast on their feet, are acrobatic athletes, puzzle out mysteries, use nifty gadgets, are masters of disguise, and are supported by a team of colorful sidekicks. They lack super powers but possess outrageous levels of skill in their chosen activities. Batman is trying to stop crimes; Lupin is attempting to commit them (although he often thwarts worse bad guys and becomes a hero in spite of himself). Batman is the superior combatant but Lupin typically avoids confrontations in order to trick and sneak his way to his goals.

Picard should nuke Sauron’s Dark Tower from orbit: it’s the only way to be sure. (Besides, the tower is actually a Saturn XIV rocket, which the tyrant plans to use to conquer the rest of the solar system.)

Based on your description, it doesn’t sound like overreach. Your scenario and the different worlds having different physics seem entirely reasonable to me. In fact, the concept that different dimensions operate by different rules has been used in fairy tales, The Chronicles of Narnia and Marvel comics among others. You didn’t make your aliens super beings, they just had primitive firearms. The failure of flintlocks to work in the PCs’ world could have been explained by any number of mundane factors — damp powder, misadjusted parts, the fantasy characters being unfamiliar with how to maintain and repair the technology, inability to duplicate the formula for gunpowder.

Easter is coming. We need Bun Fu

In the movie serials of the '30s through the '50s it was the villains who always had the gee-whiz gadgetry. Super gizmos plus Mythos spells? How will our intrepid investigators prevail?

For some reason I read the thread title as "Shogun Era" and thought they'd done a supplement for 17th Century Japan.

Interesting. I wonder if they will eventually adapt it to the BRP system?

The real challenge will be finding extant MERP materials at an affordable price to adapt. Never played Rolemaster/MERP but those Angus McBride covers were gorgeous.

I contend that instead of sending out the Fellowship only (stealth mission), Elrond should have sent additional groups of “heroes” in random directions, each equipped with a bright shiny blatantly magical ring. The Ringwraiths would have had to scramble all over the continent to run down all the rumors and appearances these, ahem, ringers generated.

That’s the weird thing about popular fiction; stories written to be on the cusp of modernity at the time often come to associated with a certain mileu instead. Sherlock Holmes’ adventures, Lovecraft’s horrors, Philip Marlowe’s cases were all intended to be hip and modern at the time they were published but they somehow feel off if you move Holmes out of the late 19th century, Lovecraft’s antiquarian narrators out of the Twenties, or Marlowe out of the Thirties and Forties. Example, the Holmes movies set during World War II. For what it’s worth, Professor Armitage and Company’s contemporaries include Tarzan, the Saint, Fantomas and Fu Manchu, the Hardy Boys, aviators Anthony “Buck” Rogers and Carson Napier (of Venus), and veterinarian John Doolittle. Also detectives Philo Vance and Lord Peter Wimsey, Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto, among others. With all those bold adventurers and brainy crime busters running around, how did the entities of the Mythos get away with anything?

As if SIZ all by itself wasn’t complicated enough, they added another stat? Ouch! Godzilla. Automatic success (but it does you no good)

An unsavory crowd if I ever saw one. And the innkeeper actually rented them a private room? Call the guard while you still can!

Are said hungry trolls still about when the professors come digging?

https://nerdist.com/article/10-spooky-valentines-gifts/ The holiday is past, but does the candy shoggoth remain?

Maybe they developed super glue early. 🤯

The real test of the game is ... how many former players have had to be confined? 😱

Gee, I just asked. I really don’t know. 🥺

“DoD 2020” sounds like the name of an Eighties sci-fi game. 😉

Ouch! Haven’t worked with trains but have done tech support for computers, cell phones and console arcade video games. Robot pilotless airliner? Do you really want to encounter the blue screen of death at 30,000 feet?

Do Gloranthans have strirrups?

Hmmm. Great sage is what I put on my poultry dishes, but I’ll check out the link. 😉 Whew! That was a mass of technobabble worthy of Star Trek. In general, I am as skeptical of philophers as Krugman is of creationists. I think they should all spend a minimum of four years flipping burgers at Wendy’s or cashing groceries at Walmart (surviving meanwhile on ramen noodles and mac and cheese) and only then dare to tell me how the world works. Comparative advantage is one of those clever ideas that sounds great but may not pan out in reality. Should nations excel economically in what they do best? Sure, but not to the exclusion of all else. Swiss watches, precision German machinery, fine Italian leather shoes are all great. But creating a world where you can only get time pieces, car parts or footgear from those places would be a mistake, for national security reasons if nothing else. Western businesses are pursuing short term profits while leaving themselves and their countries increasingly vulnerable to capricious and potentially hostile foreign interests. So enjoy your German sports car, but keep your local auto industry alive in the meantime. China is currently the cheap labor powerhouse but its huge population now consists largely of aging single men (because of the one-child policy, all the girls got aborted). Once they get too old to work, there won’t be an equivalent rising generation to replace them. The few young potential mothers remaining won’t be able to pop out babies fast enough. Because human beings are each nation’s real essential product. Yikes! On second thought, Meints, forget the books but make sure everyone on the Chaosium staff has at least 15 kids ... right now! 😳