seneschal

Or really, really massive. The original Golem of Prague was solid clay, disgustingly strong and tough.

Future World was obviously influenced by Traveller but has some nice concepts of its own. Superworld gives me a few powers not listed in the BGB. I don't recall seeing the WoW boxed set at my local game stores but the later edition of Superworld hung around for quite a while. By that point, though, I'd already begun playing Champions, although my group dallied with almost every other superhero game published except SW.

Because Hanna-Barbera superheroes never seem to get the love they should ... Captain Caveman Source: Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, Hanna-Barbera Productions, 1977-1980 Quote: (As his Flight power fails) “Ugh! Bad time for energy crisis.” There are those who insist that Superman was the original superhero. However, the latest DC Comics reboot indicates that the Man of Steel arrived rather recently (and is much younger than we thought). Hanna-Barbera, on the other hand, says the world’s first superhero was Captain Caveman, predating even Mightor, another prehistoric crusader for justice. We don’t know Captain Caveman’s origin or what his early career was like. He never speaks of it. He rarely speaks coherently, period. He survived into the present day frozen in a block of ice. Found and thawed by a trio of youthful investigators – Dee Dee Skyes, Brenda Chance and Taffy Dare – Captain Caveman became their assistant and protector. He accompanied the girls during a series of seemingly supernatural mysteries similar to those encountered by the kids of Mystery, Inc., in Scooby Doo, Where Are You? Captain Caveman is a squat, wiry man – approximately 4’8” tall – completely covered in thick, matted brown hair except for his limbs and prominent nose. He wears a leopard skin cape (nothing else that we know of) and carries a stout club. He isn’t the sharpest tool on the bench, but he is outrageously strong and tough. He routinely hoists animals the size of Brahma bulls overhead and runs around with them. “Cavey” is perfectly willing to let others handle deductions; he just wants to bash the bad guys. His club enables him to fly and serves as a sort of utility belt, its hollow interior concealing a number of useful tools. In addition, Captain Caveman can pull assorted helpful “pets” from beneath his hair ranging from parrot-sized lizards to small mammoths to giant carnosaurs. The latter are particularly good for intimidating modern felons. Exactly where these creatures come from and what happens to them when the Captain is done with them isn’t clear. Each animal can perform a specific task the Captain needs done – providing a ride, acting as a leaf blower or vacuum cleaner, providing local illumination. Although this ability is technically a Sorcery spell, the effect occurs instantly. He doesn’t have to prepare for so many turns in advance. STR 50 CON 28 SIZ 7 INT 8 POW16 DEX12 APP 9 Move: 10 Hit Points: 18 (35 CON + SIZ) Damage Bonus: +3D6 Armor: 10 (kinetic, cold) Attacks: Brawl 63%, 1d3+db; Grapple 63%, 1d3+db; Projection 62%, ?d6; Club 63%, 1d8+db Skills: Climb 78%, Dodge 62%, Fly 54%, Jump 63%, Language (Caveman) 40%, Language (English) 38%, Listen 63%, Parry (with club) 63%, Projection 62%, Spot 63%, Swim 63%, Throw 63%, Track 48% Powers: “Thick, Matted Hair” – Armor, 10 points vs. kinetic and cold damage; 20 power points “Throw Club and Hang On” – Flight, 8 levels, 8 power points; costs 2-8 energy to activate (depending on whether Captain Caveman is carrying someone in his free arm), plus 1 energy per turn to maintain. He can carry a person or object up to SIZ 15 while flying. Super Characteristics – + 33 STR, +11 CON; 44 power points “Cartoon Character Tough” – Regeneration, 4 levels, 4 hit points healed per combat round, 12 power points Instantly Summon Prehistoric Beast, no range Extra Energy, +80 energy points (total 96) Failings: Dependents (Teen Angels), significant involvement, +3 power points; Noxious personal habits (Uncivilized, eats anything, no manners whatsoever), +3 power points Notes: Captain Caveman’s stats were randomly rolled at the “Mighty” level on the online Call of Cthulhu Creature Generator, but his SIZ, INT and APP then were greatly reduced to meet the character concept. He had 86 power points based on these modified characteristics, plus 6 for Failings, total 92. He had 500 skill points plus 80 personal skill points based on INTx10, total 580.

Not necessarily Athurian, but I recently saw the movie "The Magic Door" on Netflix. It was a 2007 direct-to-DVD release, not a good movie either as a fantasy film or as a kids' movie. However, what caught my attention was its portrayal of feral elves. The creatures weren't Tolkien's noble, cultured beings but child-sized barbarians with feline fangs as well as pointed ears and armed to the teeth with bow and sword. They went around hissing like cats at humans, trolls, witches, and even each other. In addition to the villain's plot, the elves were involved in a sort of civil war/dirty politics among themselves -- not nice people at all. Sure, the fairy princess was sexy and offered favors to the folks that rescued her. But she was scary, too, like Miley Cyrus running for president. You got the feeling that despite whatever boons she might grant at the moment, it'd be easy to get on her bad side and that she wouldn't be a good person to cross. Even the elvish hero who helped free her from the witch did it more out of spite or for his own advantage than because it was the right thing to do or because he was loyal to her. Definitely not the sort of folks you'd like to have living in the woods next to your home, which is exactly the position the human characters found themselves in.

Merry (belated) Christmas, and happy Boxing Day! I got Cryptworld (Pacesetter/Goblinoid Games) for Christmas, so now I can compare it head-to-head with Call of Cthulhu. For starters, Call of Cthulhu clocks in at 320 pages while Cryptworld is a slim 90 pages. Both include game master advice on running a horror game, critter stats, magic abilities for player-characters, and introductory adventures (three in CoC, one in CW). Neither book details a default setting, although CoC leans toward the 1920s while CW favors the 1980s. Both games have a backlog of published adventures (CW is the successor to Chill and can run scenarios by both the old Pacesetter and Mayfair Games). At this point, I've got several years' experience creating characters and critters for BRP. We'll see how easy it is to do the same for the Pacesetter system.

But Klingons and Romulans are (as far as stats are concerned) humans with bumpy foreheads. Especially in TOS. Sure, Klingons are fierce and Romulans are sneaky, but in episode after episode they're no stronger, faster, smarter, etc., than the Enterprise crew. I'd use the normal attribute rolls and add appropriate skills.

I didn't get to follow the series, mainly read a Micronauts/Man-Thing crossover issue, but what I saw looked good. Fun characters you could care about.

I still say you need to get your Varun and Pharos IV material into publishable form and bless us with it. Glad River has finally seen print. As discussed elsewhere, D100 needs more good sci-fi material.

Elsewhere, in the Doctor Who thread, I mentioned that some DW plots seemed inspired by Lovecraft. Recently, while watching Justice League episodes with my kids, I ran across two story lines that contained Lovecraftian, or Howardian, elements. In the episode "Eclipsed," the Heart of Darkness gem was created by prehistoric snakemen to punish the humans who were driving them extinct. Sounds like Robert Howard's Children of the Dark cycle. "The Terror from Beyond" was an unabashed Cthulhu reference -- the Justice League teaming up with Aquaman and Doctor Fate when the stars were right to prevent apocalypse. I remember a G.I. Joe episode in which COBRA attempted to contact an ancient entity dwelling in a well as part of one of its schemes for world domination. Any references you all have run across?

The beauty of writing up a superhero without an established origin or detailed history is that you can fill in the blanks for yourself. Stretch Armstrong Source: Kenner toys, 1976-1980; Cap Toys, 1993-1994 “Stretch Armstrong” is the adventuring persona adopted by members of a family possessing the ability to modify the density and elasticity of their bodies. The original was pro wrestler and bodybuilder Adam “Flex” Armstrong. During the vitamin and food supplement craze of the 1970s he discovered that the muscle-building potions he ingested had altered his molecular structure, enabling him to stretch his body almost 40 feet. In addition, the increased viscosity of his bodily fluids made him extremely resistant to physical damage (and made his punches really hurt). Unfortunately, other users of these products gained similar powers along with nasty side effects. Initially rather self-absorbed and focused on his ambitions, Armstrong felt compelled to abandon his sports career in order to combat these menaces to public safety as the superhero Stretch Armstrong. Photos from the era show a grim, determined muscular blond man in dark wrestling trunks. Stretch Armstrong battled various criminals, most notably the reptilian Stretch Monster and the eerie translucent Stretch X-Ray. Adam Armstrong hoped that his sons would follow in his footsteps as crusaders for justice. But like other children expected to carry on the family business, they rebelled. The older son, Stan, devoted himself to surfing and playing disc-toss on the beach with his dog, Fetch. The younger, Rex, had ambitions of duplicating the sports and motion picture career Armstrong senior had left behind. Their destinies changed when their aging father nearly perished in a battle with Stretch X-Ray. Stan, grieving, finally fulfilled Dad’s wishes and became the new Stretch Armstrong. Despite his resolution to fight crime, Stan retained his surfer haircut, goofy grin, and short-sleeved beach clothes. His decision to feed the stretching formula to Fetch was probably not a good idea, but it did provide him with a sidekick possessing like abilities. Rex, meanwhile, was embittered both by his lackluster prospects and by the senseless (he felt) crippling of a parent. He took a double-dose of the stretching formula with disastrous results. Rex did indeed acquire his father’s powers but was mutated into a skull-faced monstrosity. He angrily shaved his yellow hair into a Mohawk and became the villain Wretch Armstrong, causing his brother no end of trouble. STR 28 CON 12 SIZ 14 INT 12 POW 13 DEX 14 APP 10 Move: 10 Hit Points: 13 (26 CON+SIZ) Damage Bonus: +2d6 Armor: 15 (kinetic) Attacks: Brawl 76%, 1d3+db; Grapple 76%, 1d3+db Skills: Climb 51%, Dodge 79%, Insight 51%, Jump 76%, Listen 76%, Martial Arts (Wrestling) 52%, Perform (Acting) 53%, Perform (Showmanship) 56%, Spot 76%, Stealth 61%, Throw 76% Powers: “Increased Viscosity” – Armor (Kinetic) 15, 15 points “Writhing Limbs” – Defense, 10 levels, -50% vs. incoming attacks “Slingshot Maneuver” – Leap, 7 levels (+14 meters horizontal jumping distance, +7 meters vertical jumping distance) Stretching, 12 levels (12 meters, approximately 40 feet, can expand to SIZ 26 or compress to SIZ 2), 36 power points “Increased Density” – Super Characteristic, + 10 STR, 30 points Failings: Dependent (sons), infrequent, +1; Hunted by Stretch Monster and Stretch X-Ray, +2; Vulnerable to cold and sonic attacks, +1D6 damage each, +2 Notes: Stretch Armstrong’s stats were randomly rolled at the “Fantastic” level on the online Call of Cthulhu Creature Generator. He had 93 power points for unmodified characteristics plus 5 for Failings, total 98. He had 500 skill points plus 120 personal skill points based on INTx10, total 620.

Good news! Convenient as PDFs are, I find a physical product much more useful at the gaming table. I've generally been pleased with the Lulu titles purchased from other RPG providers.

Is the super martial artist a hero, a villain, or a minion of someone else?

I don't know about scholarly articles. My playing experience indicates that making characters with some rules sets could improve basic math and algebra skills. As a GM, I found that researching potential game settings taught me as much or more world history as my college humanities classes.

My high school group also had a copy of FASA Trek but the game master was not an inspired one and our campaign, too, fizzled after an initial session. We spent too much time following shipboard duty schedules and not enough time downside on away team missions. It is a shame because we were all enthusiastic Star Trek fans.

Other child heroes are routinely summoning giant apes, massive weapon-packed robots, and flying turtles the size of office buildings -- and the adults worry about this kid? Perhaps she needs a better publicist. Or her critters could shape-shift themselves into more acceptable forms.

Whether it is wunderbar depends on who is wearing that Wonderbra. Any other language translations in the works for RQ VI?

Aw, you don't have to beg. Some of these other fellows differ with me and don't even say "please."

If the vile necromancer is an NPC, I'd let him do whatever is cool and scary and forget about trying to rationalize his powers. When was the last time you saw Sauron, Maleficent, or Skeletor agonizing over Magic Points? Being the Big Bad means never having to explain or justify how you did it. The exception to this is if you want your heroic adventures to be able to defeat the villain by forcing him to run out of juice; he's helpless after casting one or two really flashy spells.

"Could it be because of the not-so-successful early release of Ringworld combined with the huge success of CoC?" I think more of the latter than the former. Most of Chaosium's early products, successful or otherwise, were licensed properties -- RuneQuest, Elric!, Elfquest, Call of Cthulhu, Ringworld. Once they lost the assorted licenses, they clung like Tindalos hounds to their remaining cash cow, and for a long time it was all Cthulhu all the time as CoC replaced RuneQuest as their flagship product. Worlds of Wonder (1982) was an early attempt to develop original content but only Superworld was developed into a full, stand-alone game. Magic World didn't get a shot as its own entity until recently. Future World remains an anomaly. Tri-Tac Games' Fringeworthy, published the same year, had a similar concept and a second edition two years later. And other game companies were willing to compete with GDW's Traveller. FGU launched Starships & Spacemen in 1978; Space Opera hit store shelves in 1980. TSR's Star Frontiers debuted at the same time as FW and Fringeworthy, as did FASA's Star Trek: The Role-playing Game. Pacesetter's Star Ace appeared in '84. Perhaps Chaosium's difficulties after parting ways with Avalon Hill in the 1990s prevented any sort of sci-fi followup. I was a devoted Traveller player and missed out on most of its competitors. Folks who talk about how gritty BRP combat is forget how grim Traveller could be. Player-characters weren't epic heroes; they were middle-aged retirees tooling around in a deadly environment. As in BRP, all attacks were lethal ones. At least RuneQuest warriors had decent armor and a chance to parry. Traveller spacemen had limited access to protective gear in a universe where advanced weaponry did gobs of damage and accidentally leaving the porthole open would instantly suffocate and flash-freeze them.

I'm not sure, but I think my wife and I had deutsch ausgabe at Desi Wok the other night, along with chicken kabobs and spice chai.

I submitted an undersea adventure, but I don't yet know if I'm one of the winners (2 years later). I think it is too bad there isn't more sci-fi for BRP since the play style would seem to support it. I came to BRP by way of GORE, and my first impression wasn't runes or writhing tentacles but Serentiy-style space adventure.

So each of you took steps to acquire the steppes? (I'll be stepping along now ...)

Rats! The website won't let me transfer the chart itself, doesn't like the file type.

Here's what I got from various discussions: http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/4518/brpsiztablemetriccorrec.png I spotted a couple of errors that I need to fix. 1) SIZ 3 should be 38-51 pounds not 38-54. 2) SIZ 248 should be SIZ 240 to match with the table in thew BRP rulebook. However, according to the mathematical progression used in the table, SIZ 235 is probably the correct SIZ. I got to check with Jason on that and on a couple of things I discovered while working on the Expanded SIZ table that covers everything up to SIZ 330. THe table in the BRP book uses a increasing progression from SIZ 96 up to around 272 or so. SIZ 96-103 is +1 ton per SIZ point 104-111 is +2 tons per SIZ point 112-119 is +3 tons per SIZ point ...and so on up to over +23 tons per SIZ point. Unfortunately, the table breaks with the progression in a couple of spots that I believe are typos rather than intentional changes. For example SIZ 232 is listed as 1220 tons, only 36 tons more than the value for SIZ 224,but according to the mathematical progression used, it should probably be 1320 tons. 1320 would fit the progression perfectly (+16 tons per SIZ at that point), and smooth out the SIZ values from 224 to 232. But it would also throw the values over 232 off by 100 tons up to 330. Give me a little time to work out the expanded SIZ table before we talk wiki. If it's roughly humanoid (including Godzilla and T-Rex style dinosaurs) then use the Giant stats of 3D6+6 SIZ per 2m as a rough guideline. If you think they should be a bit chunkier then turn some of the D6s to 6s, if they should be weedier then change some of the 6s to D6s. For non-humanoid creatures, find a creature that is roughly similar and use this as a basis. Once you have statted a few of these then you will be able to use those as reference points. Unfortunately there's nothing scientific about generating stats and any attempts I've seen that tries to use equations always needs tweaking. Er.. what is your poblem? Just figure out how much it should weigh in metric or imperial tons, then consult the weight-to-SIZ chart in the book, or atgxtg's revised version. Please note that unless you wish to use the Strike Rank option (which does not represent creatures bigger than SIZ 20, though), it is only mass that you have to figure out, not height. Well, some estimation is always going to be needed with doing up stats. I find the sqaure-cube law very helpful. That is, is you double the height, width, and depth of an object 8or critter), you should multiply it's lifting ability by 4 (+16), and mass by 8 (+24). You can pro-rate that so each +1 height is worth +2 STR and +3 SIZ. It hold well up to SIZ 88 or so, where they stopped using the fixed progression. If it help's I did have some notes for working up SIZ by volume (and/or density). It might help with ballpark figures. If we dropped the CoC SIZ values after SIZ 88 and just continued on with the normal progression, things like battleships and daikaiju would be a LOT easier to stat out. Last edited by Atgxtg; 5 Hours Ago at 15:20. More on SIZ SIZ in general uses a logarithmic doubling progression where each doubling of mass adds 8 to SIZ. SIZ 8 is about 50kg, SIZ 16 is about 100kg, SIZ 24 is about 200kg and so on. This holds true from around SIZ 8 to around SIZ 88. If you want a formula to convert a mass to a SIZ score for a spreadsheet or calculator try log (kg)* 26.575-37.15 (round down). Because I've brought this up before. In fact I posted a "revised and expanded SIZ table"on the forms a few years back that fills in weight and mass values for the "missing SIZ" stats on the BRP SIZ table, and attempts to correct the errors on the BRP SIZ table. I think Rosen even used the table for his SIZ stats in BRP Mecha. I'm the guy who has been working on a vehicle design system for BRP (off and on) and a BRP Bestiary (with Erasmus1966), and both use the x2mass =+8 SIZ progression along with stuff like the cube-square law to extrapolate good BRP game data from real world numbers and existing BRP stats. The cube-square law really helps when making up giant or midget creatures. Basically if you double all of a creatures dimensions (length/width/height) you would add 16 to STR and 24 to SIZ. The 2 STR per 3 SIZ ratio holds true here and is why insects are so strong relative to their mass, and why giants can only get so big before their body can't support or move the mass. I got a bit more real world formulas converted into BRP terms, too. Such as the relationship between SPEED, Thrust (read STR in BRP) and Power (i.e. POW). It did take a little more effort to work that stuff out in BRP terms but the payoff is that I have a consistent scale for turning real world data, such as mass, thrust, velocity, and power into SIZ, STR, MOV, and POW. Eventually I'm hoping to boil it down to the point where a GM can just plug the real world data into a spreadsheet and it will spit out BRP game stats. I got it to the point where it does most of the work. There are a few tricky bits, but I've got working formulas for most things. Right now I am working on simplifying a few things, adjusting scales, and trying to find a better formula for armor and weapons, plus a few spot rules to account for the differences in tech (for example, sailing ships probably need longer turns in chases, and modern aircraft can often chase targets beyond visual range). But, if it helps, I got the vehicle top speed formula simplified down to: SPD= (STR-DRAG)/2 or SPD = (POW-DRAG)/3 You read SPD on the SIZ table using m/s instead of kg. STR is kg thrust POW is in decajoules (I think). DRAG is the vehicles SIZ plus modifiers for vehicle type, streamlining, and medium (air or water) http://basicroleplaying.com/showthread.php/3544-Size-Attribute/page2 Child Sizes Chart Male Male Female Female Age Height(") Weight(#) SIZ Height(") Weight(#) SIZ 2 32-34-37 24-28-35 2 31-34-37 22-26-34 2 3 35-37-41 28-32-40 3 34-37-40 26-30-40 3 4 37-40-43 30-36-45 3 36-40-43 28-35-48 3 5 39-43-46 32-40-55 3 39-42-46 32-40-55 3 6 42-45-49 35-45-62 4 41-45-49 36-46-64 4 7 44-48-52 40-50-70 4 44-48-52 38-50-72 4 8 46-50-55 45-56-80 4 46-50-55 44-55-84 5 9 48-53-57 48-65-96 5 48-52-57 48-64-96 5 10 50-55-60 55-70-110 6 49--57-59 52-72-112 6 11 51-56-62 60-80-130 7 51-60-65 58-80-130 6-7 12 53-59-64 65-90-140 7 54-60-65 66-90-146 7-8 13 56-61-67 70-100-155 7-8 57-62-67 72-100-160 7-8 14 58-64-70 80-110-170 8-9 58-63-68 80-110-170 8-9 15 61-67-72 90-124-184 10 59-64-68 86-115-180 9 16 62-68-74 100-135-196 10 59-64-69 92-120-18 10 17 63-69-75 106-142-205 11 59-64-69 96-122-190 10 18 64-69-75 114-148-215 11 60-65-69 98-125-192 11 19 64-70-75 116-152-218 11 59-64-69 98-128-196 11 20 64-70-75 120-155-224 12 60-65-69 100-128-196 11 And that's about the SIZ of it.