seneschal

"Armor Points" or how much protection that body part has. A black leather jacket might give 2 AP to a character's torso, for instance

Good catch, Murgen. On the lighter side, there's "Nanny and the Professor" (1970-71) and "The Girl With Something Extra" (1974). The former was a sort of American Mary Poppins, with Phoebe Figalilly anticipating events and apparently reading minds without displaying any overt powers. Her abilities, or whether she actually had them, were never explained. (One of The People who moved to the big city?). In "Girl" a newlywed telepath discovers that the power to read minds isn't necessarily a marriage enhancer. Fortunately, hubby is the understanding sort.

My original post was about mechanics but I've been doing a little research into the genre. Paranormal powers have been part of science fiction for a long time but psychic kids having to deal with government interference seems to have roots in 1950s literature. Zenna Henderson wrote a series of stories about The People between 1952 and 1966 which were compiled into collections in the 1990s. The titular People are psychic alien refugees attempting to live quietly in rural obscurity in remote sections of the United States. Inevitably a human school teacher from out of town begins to wonder what's up with her students. For the most part, People are the kinder, gentler ESPers. Instead of killing the outsider or frying her brain, they prefer to make friends who will swear to silence. Unfortunately the stories were adapted into a sole TV movie in the '70s. John Wyndam's 1957 novel "The Midwich Cuckoos" has gotten more cinematic traction, adapted into "Villiage of the Damned" in 1960 and 1995 and "Children of the Damned" in 1964. These telepathic grade schoolers -- born after all the women in an isolated town became pregnant at the same time -- are downright murderous. Where was Professor X when we needed him? (Busy training "Uncanny X-Men" 1963-1970, new international team in "Giant Size X-Men" 1975.) "Scanners" (1981) came at the tail end of the general interest in extra sensory perception and the occult of the 1970s. The original "Tomorrow People" debuted on British Tv in 1973. Stephen King published "Carrie" in '74, movie in'76. Alexander H. Key's 1968 novel "Escape to Witch Mountain" launched a Disney franchise in 1975. John Farris' 1976 book "The Fury" became a movie in'78. King came back with "Firestarter" (1980), movie four years later.

I never saw the 1973 and 1990s Tomorrow People series, just the 2013 remake which isn't kid friendly

I have frequently looked at Psi World online. The box set is $12 and you can get three adventures for about $18. But the reviews have been mixed. People either felt let down, as you did, or loved it. A common beef is that the setting is thin, but since the psychics and their foes operate in a relatively realistic near-future setting how much world building is required? Many superhero games are light on setting details for the same reason, especiyin the core product. Have tried anything in a similar mode with BRP?

Elsewhere on the web I read a discussion about the best game system for a "Scanners" style psychics campaign. Someone suggested the Big Gold Book's suite of psychic abilities. It got me wondering. I haven't seen the horror movie but I have skimmed a couple episodes of "The Tomorrow People," which seems to be the love child of "Scanners" and "X-Men." It has the grim outlook of the former and the teenage angst of the latter. Unlike in X-Men, I suspect the reason normal folks dislike Tomorrow People is not their scary powers but that they're prettier than you and they know it. No ugly mutants here. Anyway, the BGB gives four power levels providing our maudlin mentalists with anywhere from two to ten powers apiece. (Keep in mind that famous pulp hero psychic The Shadow had ONE ability.) Since the book only lists 21 powers total, ten seems excessive. There wouldn't be much differentiation among the player-characters. Four to six powers apiece would allow them to specialize in different areas and be unique. Also, our cinema and video mutants have a few abilities that are covered by other of the BGB's power suites. To put together a campaign, the Game Master would have to be flexible. So what do you think? How would you build such a campaign? I'm not sure the setting is my cup of tea. I think the best way to bust a secret organization that murders and experiments on people would be to go public and expose it. And I have difficulty feeling sorry for the members of Homo superior. "We're smarter, stronger, prettier than you, have cool powers that can turn your bodies and brains to Jello, and (sob) we're being picked on!" Oh, go get a job you mutant snowflake!

Hard to make a definitive identification when you're trying not to get eaten. 😉

My beef with this thread is that we got to see the goofy monster illustrations but not the cheesecake warrior ones. Nearly four decades of hungry dragon newts can't be wrong -- scantily armored soldiers are a Runequest staple. Sorry about them losing their shield arms. 😁

Morlocks Source: H.G. Wells, The Time Machine, 1895 The Morlocks are one of two subhuman races encountered by the Time Traveler in England’s far future. Their literary depiction might surprise those familiar with them only from the movies, in which they are portrayed variously as short but brawny Neanderthals, black-clad skinheads with glowing eyes and truncheons, or Bigfoot cousins with bloodhound-like tracking ability. Rather than hulking brutes, Morlocks are (compared to modern humans) small and frail, feral but child-sized like the other race met by the Time Traveler, the beautiful, doll-like Eloi. Dwelling in subterranean complexes inevitably located near Eloi palaces, Morlocks have a symbiotic relationship with their preferred prey. They furtively gather fruit and manufacture utensils, clothing and footwear for the indolent, pleasure-loving Eloi. In return, as carnivores in a world without large game animals, they raid the surface people’s homes at night in search of careless, unwary victims for their dining tables. Morlocks have large, lemur-like eyes, pale skins, and are covered in soft dirty white fur. They rarely exceed 4 feet tall, and the Time Traveler described the touch of their hands as soft and squishy. Having more intelligence and initiative than their daytime cousins, Morlocks are more likely to respond to human visitors and their gear with childish curiosity than immediate aggression. They love gadgets and tools and given the opportunity will steal anything that is not nailed down. If it comes to fighting, a Morlock has small chance against an adult human. The Time Traveler, who described himself as middle-aged and not athletic, was able to fight them off with a metal club. However, a real confrontation won’t be one-on-one but will present adventurers with dozens or scores of persistent, cunning opponents. The Time Traveler speculated that Morlocks were descended from the construction and factory workers who built luxurious cities for the rich upper classes, who eventually degenerated into the Eloi. When he encountered the two subspecies, the cities and palaces were in ruins but the Morlocks still operated ancient, arcane machinery in their underground workshops. STR 2D6 (7) CON 2D6+3 (10) SIZ 1D6+1 (5) INT 1D6+3 (6-7) POW 3D6 (10-11) DEX 2D6+6 (13) APP 1D6+2 (5-6) Move: 10 Hit Points: 8 Damage Bonus: -1D6 Armor: None Attacks: Bite 44%, 1D6+DB; Grapple 44% (special) Skills: Climb 59%, Craft (Apparel) 24%, Dodge 45%, Heavy Machine 20%, Hide 30%, Language (Morlock) 35%, Listen 44%, Repair (Mechanical) 34%, Spot 44%, Stealth 30%, Track 30% Notes: Morlocks have excellent (+20%) low-light vision but are extremely photophobic.

The Assassin Queen, a scenario for Pacesetter Games' Timemaster rpg, is set in colonial India and is currently available in PDF from Goblinoid Games vie DriveThru RPG

But by approaching the game shops within 30 minutes of your house you just increased your local exposure by 50 percent, even though the second shop said no. Now, during our scattered conversation I've been encouraging you and brainstorming marketing possibilities. Meanwhile, you've been systematically shooting them down, saying how impossible each idea is and basically telling me to shut up because I'm an ignorant so and so. Which of us is being positive and which of us is being negative?

Sorry you felt lectured, Loz. If I wasn't rooting for you, I wouldn't have bothered to say anything. Steps 1, 3 and 4, however, are relatively cheap and low risk, something anyone with a smile, a phone, a library card, a computer, and an internet connection could do -- and that was half of my suggestions.

Fine. But I'm tired of hearing why this or that suggestion is impossible. Remember Step 1 -- Change your attitude. Instead of telling me what won't work, find and explore new tactics that will. Because what Chaosium, et. al., is doing right now is not working. People don't know that Chaosium/Moon Design/The Design Mechanism exist. People don't know their products exist. People can't examine product before buying and can't accidentally discover it on a store shelf somewhere. Product is not available through channels that potential new players are likely to encounter or know about. And product is put out too slowly to generate and maintain customer interest and enthusiasm. Step 2 -- Hire a crazy, determined marketeer and salesman. So again, if bookstores are out, toy stores? Dollar stores? Truck stops? Independent grocery stores that have book or toy sections? Don't tell me it can't be done. Find someone who can figure out a way to make it happen. Again, it does no good to devote blood, sweat and tears to create beautiful books and games that no one will ever know about or purchase. You and your co-creators have worked too hard for your stuff to rot in obscurity. Marketing is the second half of writing. You must, you must, you must promote your work and you must make it available to potential customers. If traditional methods of selling books and games aren't working, you have to adopt and discover non-traditional ones, whatever they may be. Otherwise, all your hard work is wasted.

I agree. Both my local game shops and my local Barnes & Noble stores devote valuable shelf space to a good half-dozen Lovecraftian card and board games but Sandy "Mister Cthulhu Himself" Petersen's Cthulhu Wars is not among them. I hear he's doing a Kickstarter campaign for a CW II. Sorry, Sandy. Get version 1 on real-life store shelves first. Other folks' products are getting the spotlight that should by rights be yours. If Barnes & Noble and Walmart are too big or too expensive to carry Chaosium product, what about Walgreen's or CVS Pharmacy? Both chains have prominent book and toy sections. Dollar General and Family Dollar? Independent bookstores? College campus bookstores? Flying J truck stops? Remember, you're trying to get out of the comic book/game shop ghetto and bypass the Big Three distributors who won't give you a fair shake. And you're trying to reach new customers who wouldn't necessarily know about or go to a game shop.

Whatever rules set they go with, they need to PROMOTE THE HECK OUT OF IT. Old Chaosium's marketing was nearly non-existent. Not impressed with the other guys' efforts, either, since they apparently have as much success getting their stuff on store shelves as the former. I've heard that they've published some great books (on these forums, mind) but have rarely or never seen these titles. If I -- an aware veteran gamer -- have never seen their products, prospective new players definitely haven't. My previous marketing suggestions elsewhere were serious: 1. Change your attitude. Ditch the "We're a niche market" nonsense for "A copy of RuneQuest in every house!" Plus one alongside each Gideon Bible in hotel rooms. 2. Hire a crazy, determined marketeer and salesman. We know Chaosium/Moon Design/The Design Mechanism are all lovely creative people. Fine. Now it is time to actually sell the stuff you've worked so hard to create. Get someone who knows how to do that, even if he or she isn't a gamer. 3. Compile a current national list of game shops, town by town, state by state. Don't rely on old, outdated lists that you may have had to purchase. Contact these folks directly, let them know that you and your product exist, ask them to stock your stuff. 4. Solicit reviews in small sci-fi and gaming magazines as well as in online venues. Small publishers and bloggers need copy. They might as well be talking about you! 5. If the Big Three distributors aren't working for you, find a way to bypass them. Can't sell stuff you can't get to your prospective customers. Websites, RSS feeds, Amazon.com listings, and Facebook pages are no substitute for actual books on actual shelves where actual customers can take them in their grubby hands and pore over them. Find ways to get out of the comic shop/game shop ghetto so that people who aren't already grognards can discover your glorious tomes and buy them. You are seeking to create new players. 6. Advertise in key locations where sales are highest. Direct mail postcards to a 5-mile radius around shops carrying your product. Billboards featuring Bronze Age babes touting RQ or Cthulhu, specifically mentioning the local stores carrying your product. Brief radio spots touting your product and mentioning specific local retailers. Bottom line: You must create widespread awareness of your product among prospective new role-players. Then you must get those books out in the wild where people can discover, examine, and ultimately purchase them. As Stan Lee would say, ""Nuff said." Addendum: Keep selling your existing product. Don't compost copies of RuneQuest 6, Call of Cthulhu 6, the assorted Guides to Glorantha, HeroQuest, the Big Gold Book, etc., just because you've had an ownership shake-up and your current logo isn't on the cover. Sell, sell, sell like, um, heck, heck, heck. All the profits from "obsolete" product go to the same place, you! And the stuff will still win converts for the shiny new books you plan to put out.

I on the other hand think a cheap, brief, affordable RQ2 version would be a nice alternative to the pricey and massive RQ6.x.

So how come fantasy football is accepted and even advertised on TV and radio while fantasy role-playing is still often considered a strange activity participated in by strange people? When was the last time you heard a radio spot offering you instant cash to role-play? Why can't Hasbro cough up money for TV spots for D&D 5th when these fantasy football leagues are recruiting during prime time? I mean, pretending is pretending, right? They are both numbers games with colorful logos and fanatical fan bases. Games Workshop did real fantasy football in 1987 with Blood Bowl. That other hobby, while conceived in 1962, didn't hit the big time until 1997.

"There was a lot more talked about and some under a secret oath (and I don't want to find something nasty at the foot of my bed tonight)." As long as the Nasty Thing At The Foot Of The Bed doesn't have percentile stats, you can still oppose it with the Resistance Table.

Thanks for the chart. The mass seems to match my own research. I'll keep plugging away with the rules and see if I can "get" them. My problem is, partially, that since mecha aren't real-world vehicles and nothing like anything that exists, it is hard to find something comparable to base them on. The main reason we have Robotech stats is that the series was wildly popular in the EIghties and Palladium got the game license and already made everything up. But many robots don't have a Star Trek-like technical manual. Gigantor? Voltron? What if you want to make up your very own special robot rather than copying one? Since Voltron is mystical and Invid craft are biological, do they even have power plants that produce kilowatts? Perhaps I'm overthinking things, But if it is mostly guesswork and hand-waving, we might as well be using FUDGE instead of BRP. And I don't want to get carpal tunnel syndrome.

OK, I am late the the BRP Mecha party but I had to wait until I could afford to grab a copy. Upon my initial skim of the mecha creation rules, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around them. They seem a little vague. Point-buy may become painfully crunchy, but at least you have a concrete starting point. For my first foray, I figured I'd start with something small. I always thought the Invid Scout "Iigaa" from Robotech: The Next Generation looked cool and was generally creepy. This cherry red alien infantry robot is roughly triangular in shape and resembles a crab with a single cat-eye view port. It is lightly armored but is agile and fast, capable of flying rings around Earth spacecraft and aircraft. It also can walk swiftly on land on a pair of short legs with over-sized, blade-like feet. It has a single rear engine and a single pilot, seated behind the "eye." Its primary armament is a pair of thick crab-like pincers cable of slicing enemy craft like cheese. Scouts are usually employed in swarms, overwhelming opposing anti-aircraft fire in order to latch upon or ram enemy robots and ships. There are two Scout variations: The Scout Fighter adds a pair of fixed, top-mounted plasma cannons. The Armored Scout has the cannons and adds heavy shields on the fronts of its claws. For a giant robot, the Scout is tiny. It stands a little over 8 feet (2.5 meters) tall, is about 12 feet (3.75 meters) wide, and is about 11 feet (3.25 meters) long. It weighs between 3.5 and 4.5 tons. Powered by the organic substance "protoculture," the Scout is a sort of biological machine. The alien pilot floats in a blood-like substance, and the machine smells like blood. The view port, although small and hard to target, is the robot's Achilles' heel. A direct shot can pierce the cockpit and kill the pilot, with icky results. Performance descriptions online (I looked at about eight websites) vary widely. The Scout walks or runs at 40 mph (64 km/h). It can make 20-meter hops with the help of its thrusters and can hover in place. Its flight speed is variously described as 980-992 km/h, 2,345 mph, Mach 7 in a vacuum. The Scout may be wimpy as robots go, but it an eerie opponent, capable of stalking stealthily through heavy brush and wooded areas to surprise humans not safely encased in powered armor. I can almost see one of these babies confronting a party of Call of Cthulhu investigators. In the TV series, the aliens themselves were never actually seen, and their motives were inscrutable.

Love the warrior duck illustration.

Hmmm. BRP, Hero System, Mini Six, Action! System, GURPS, FATE Accelerated, TOON, Teenagers From Outer Space, Classic Traveller, Legends of the Ancient World. In TOON you'd be playing the giant lizard. If you wanted to do ALL those scenes in one scenario, Doctor Who: Adventures In Time And Space or Mutant Future.

We're talking fantasy role-playing now. Those bikinis need to be of chain mail or studded leather. Otherwise, this is Step 4 or 5, as a billboard in a market city identified as a good sales area, containing the address, phone number and/or e-mail address of a local game shop that has agreed to carry Chaosium product. Alternate scheme: Place junk cars on their tops along the highway; spray-painted on their sides: "I flipped for RuneQuest" and the phone number or e-mail address of said local shop carrying Chaosium product.

Pathfinder Society is an excellent example of what a company and its supporters should do to introduce newbies to role-playing using their game system. The Society dominated the gaming tables at a convention my wife and I attended two years ago. They had a team of experienced GMs running a rotating schedule of scenarios, some for new players, others for veterans. The GMs had maps, miniatures, scenery pieces. At the sign-up table were stacks of pre-generated character sheets representing the usual party members. The game schedule ran like a well-oiled machine. After the newbie session the GM asked the players what they had liked, pointed out that the game hadn't involved any real world occult shenanigans, gave players the Society website where they could register their characters, and answered questions about local gaming groups. My wife, who has always been skeptical of my hobby, enjoyed herself instead of being freaked out by the game or by her fellow players.

Both Call of Cthulhu and BRP got loving attention from the Game Geeks broadcast on YouTube. As to Moon Design energy, I've read about their products but I've never actually seen them in a store. Ditto Sandy Peterson's Cthulhu Wars -- and my local game shops AND Barnes & Noble have a slew of other Lovecraftian board games. But nothing from Chaosium, Moon Design, et. al. They've got a lot of creative types but what they need is a ruthless, determined salesman on the team.