seneschal

I've tried to get rust to submit his campaigns as official supplements and contest entries for years. (Hint. Hint.) Duat may lack known metals, but it looks as if it has all the resources for a ceramic/glass-based technology. Ceramics are as malleable as plastic, and ceramic composites can be made harder and tougher than steel. But ... if the region has several active volcanoes and lava beds, why doesn't it have metals? We might expect the surface rocks to be sandstone, but surely the stuff bubbling up from the planet's core contains useful minerals. And most of Earth's solar system consists of iron-bearing rock. What makes Duat different? Also, did Duat have ancient monster-filled jungles and seas that have become petroleum and hydrocarbon beds? Is there coal buried somewhere beneath the sands? If the Porta inhabitants have to import all fuel in addition to metals, wood and tools they really are in a fix. If water and soil fertility isn't a problem, perhaps they could plant groves of trees to supply lumber in the future (as well as fruit, resins, charcoal and other useful products). At least then they'd have wood to work with. Also, establishing a small and expanding forest near Porta would begin to change the climate, at least locally. It would be cooler, the rare rain clouds would tend to stop and release their contents more often. The leaf and stick detrius would begin to improve the surface topsoil as well, and once the older trees' roots became deep enough for them to survive on their own, young volunteer trees could begin to live in their shade. It would be a slow, gradual, sustainable means of terraforming. Presumably the colonists have already imported Earth insects such as bees to pollinate their crops. Their presence would also ensure tree reproduction as well.

Sounds like the basis for a fun campaign, introducing a ruthless, amoral secret organization which may sometimes oppose and sometimes aid the player-characters, depending on what they're up to. With a history spanning about 200 years, the Society has had plenty of time to recruit members, build infrastructure, gather resources, establish policies, develop traditions, etc. Since it has got an inter-dimensional Jamestown to care for, just how large is the Pegasos Society at this point? How many members on each side of the portal? Is it centered around or near a specific location, or does it have branch offices scattered around the globe? Just how advanced is the group's knowledge and technology? Are we talking merely cutting edge, or crazy Buck Rogers stuff? Since they've got a city to supply and maintain on the other side, how has the Society managed to maintain discipline and secrecy? Obviously, colonists sent to Duat are essentially trapped there and can't squeal, but workers and agents on this side could spill the beans, even accidentally. How does the Society fund its activities? On the Duat side, what are conditions like in this alternate world? Obviously, it can't be too hostile to terrestrial life or the settlement wouldn't have survived. How big is the colony and how is it run? What local resources does it have and what does it need to bring in from Earth? If the portal were suddenly shut down (for instance, by PC activity), could the colony maintain itself and keep going? How big is Duat and how much of it has been explored so far? Are there any sentient beings there to challenge the colonists for supremacy? What notable flora and fauna exist to make the colonists' lives ... interesting?

Stumbled across this while browsing the web: http://www.wikihow.com/Survive-a-Call-of-Cthulhu-Adventure Strangely, supposedly related articles are "How to use a turkey call" and "How to become a video game tester." Perhaps appropriately, one of the first advertisements on the page is for "Superior Lasers."

Glad to have you back.

Dan Proctor, Goblinoid Games head honcho, describes Pacesetter's system and answers questions here goblinoidgames.com • View topic - The Pacesetter System Part 1: Intro and Characters and here goblinoidgames.com • View topic - The Pacesetter System Part 2: The Action Table Goblinoid's products are well-written, carefully proofread and corrected, and laid out in an easy-to-read fashion. They are definitely American and, while not cheap, are reasonably priced. Typical hardback is in the $30-$35 range. Softback titles vary from about $18 to $28, depending on length. My first edition copies of GORE and Mutant Future have held up well enough. Pacesetter's games featured glossy color covers and decent black-and-white line interior illustrations. The layouts were tight and had small print but that was true of products for Champions, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu and other games of the era.

Back in the '80s horror role-playing was pretty much a two-way competition between Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu (Lovecraftian cosmic horror) and Pacesetter Games' Chill (Universal/Hammer style Gothic horror). CoC kept plugging along while Chill changed owners several times and foundered after a third-edition fundraiser failed. Control of the license was split among multiple parties, and the game was effectively dead. This week, however, Goblinoid Games -- which has acquired rights to the Pacesetter Games brand and the games TimeMaster and Sandman -- announced a new Pacesetter System horror RPG: Cryptworld. The game will be more generic than Chill, supporting more styles of horror campaigns. Cryptworld will be available print-on-demand; Goblinoid plans to announce an order date once the final proofs arrive. goblinoidgames.com • View topic - Wild speculation welcome! Other new Pacesetter System titles are Rotworld (zombie apocalypse) and Majus (magic noir). So Chill isn't back, but this new creature bears an eerie family resemblance.

http://www.lski.org/pictures/tabletopgaming/gw/wd%20magazine/White%20Dwarf%2011.pdf FYI, Issue 11 had a review of RuneQuest. Which edition I'm not sure.

Meet the mysterious men behind Oklahoma's monument to Azathoth The folks who deposited the Azathoth monument have come forward and explained themselves.

A year and several months ago ... So, the Advanced Sorcery project is ... advancing?

I'm sorry. And I understand. I've played pulp, superhero, science fiction, and cartoon games exclusively myself. Fantasy role-playing was considered evil in the late '70s and early '80s when I got involved, so alternate genres were a way to get my "weirdness" past my parents. Even though I played Traveller instead of D&D, they still worried that I'd turn out to be the family warlock. Call of Cthulhu would have been a non-starter. One look at the cover and ... (Sigh. They always knew where I was and what I was doing. I didn't roam the streets, didn't get involved in crime, wasn't drinking or doing drugs, wasn't getting the high school cheerleaders pregnant, etc., etc. Grumble. Grumble.) I've been (re)watching Disney's Gargoyles with my daughter. It's essentially superheroes with bat wings instead of capes.

How's this for a superhero team-up? Space Ghost was the first character I drew up when I acquired Champions 3rd edition around 1983.

A difficult challenge, but not insurmountable. Naturally, you'd like to play Daredevils or Justice, Inc., but any pulp-friendly RPG system could work. As GM, you have the opportunity to mold your elves and hobbits campaign into something more pulp-ish. Now, before anyone cries, "Bait and switch; bad! Bad!" let me explain. After all, it's been done successfully before, and I'm not talking about Shadowrun or Rifts. In fact, sword and sorcery is already a pulp fantasy sub-genre, sort of fantasy noir with its antiheroes, sordid back room social and political schemes, its presentation of magic as rare and corrupting, its focus on humans and humanoid monsters instead of an encyclopedic array of demi-humans and creatures. Give your players a gritty, low-magic setting and you're halfway there. When you say "Gunsmoke," most people think "Western." Yet audiences were surprised by it when it debuted on radio in 1952, as it was unlike the Westerns that had proceeded it. In fact, the writers had pulled a fast one, presenting the tropes of hard-boiled detective fiction in Western drag. Matt Dillion was a lonely, isolated man whose nobility was compromised by his ongoing relationship with a local prostitute, Miss Kitty. His adventures were grim. Sometimes he failed. The bad guys got away unpunished. The good guys died instead of being rescued at the last minute. The producers claimed it was Western adventure for adults; but really it presented Western adventure through the world-weary eyes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. You can do the same in your "mandatory" elves and hobbits game. Fantasy, like science fiction and superheroics, is amenable to all sorts of genre-bending. You've just got to keep it subtle. If your player-characters are up against foreign spies and saboteurs -- and why wouldn't they be? -- it's just as easy for the villains to be representatives of a Roman-ish or Spartan-ish evil empire as Imperial Japanese or fascist Germans. Mad science, super weapons, mutant creatures? Sure, why not? You've already got evil sorcerers and "science for science's sake" alchemists running around. Urban adventure has become a fantasy standard; who says Los Angeles and San Francisco have a monopoly on corrupt officials, hired goons, and insidious crime lords? Fantasy heroes often travel to strange new lands; lost worlds adventures are a no-brainer. Ditto, trading in strange ports and battling pirates. Keep the focus on solving problems and solving mysteries rather than on dungeon crawling; on the other hand, Allan Quartermain and Indiana Jones weren't averse to treasure hunting. Ditch the dragons and wandering monsters, keep the crazy deathtraps, give the PCs human opponents to deal with. Westerns? Fantasy folk settle the frontier, herd cattle, have to get them to market, must fight off rustlers and savage tribesmen just like anyone else. Sheesh, since some fantasy settings include winged mounts and flying ships, you could even sneak in some pulp air combat adventures. Much of it is a matter of attitude and presentation. It may be a while, if ever, before your players realize they've been in a pulp adventure campaign instead of a vanilla fantasy one. Steve Devaney's "The Skull of the Sleeper" in A Nation Ransomed is an excellent example of this. It presents itself as a fantasy adventure. In reality, it's an old-fashioned South Pacific pulp yarn worthy of Louis L'Amour and L. Ron Hubbard. Leave the scary natives intact, replace the wizard with a mad scientist, give your PCs fedoras and pistols instead of swords and breastplates, and you're there. Only, you'll be doing this in reverse.

On the other hand, Spartans make great adversaries. They're ruthless, conscienceless killing machines who will sacrifice anything for victory, and ninja-sneaky to boot. Boys thrown into the barracks at an early age weren't given rations. They were expected to steal their food and were punished severely if caught -- not for stealing but for getting caught! Men were permanently separated from their wives except for the procreation necessary to produce the next generation of soldiers and were told by their darling beloveds to either come home with their shields or on them. In other words, win or die trying. Females underwent rigorous physical training so they'd be in shape to be effective child-bearers. Geez, so even the Spartan women and children are scary. They make both the Japanese and the Germans of World War II look like wimps in comparison. Eek!

Yes, Kato. Fire up the Black Beauty! I own Daredevils and several of the modules. I adapted them for Justice, Inc., back in the day. My group and I had a great time. Each module does an excellent job of catching the essence of a particular pulp sub-genre.

Psi World. For under $20 you can get the core game and two of the three supplements that were published for it. And the Daredevils! modules, at $6 apiece, are valuable for any pulp adventure campaign, regardless of system. I'd buy the core boxed set only for the included adventures, since Daredevils! game system is (like many FGU titles) a convoluted mess.

The problem is that often the equivalent of a book that cost $15 in '82 doesn't cost only $36 today ... it costs $45 to $60. Exceptions: Classic Traveller, The Traveller Book (containing the original 3 Little Black Books) is still around $10-$12 and you can get Books 0-8, the whole original rules, for about $40, about what it costs for the Mongoose starter book. Call of Cthulhu 3rd edition hardback (from 1986) costs about $27 used on Amazon.com (don't even think about the original boxed set unless you've got an allowance worthy of Bill Gates). Champions 4th edition (1992) costs $4-$8 used, while Champions Complete (the 6th edition equivalent) is $25 on Amazon.com, not too bad. (I think I paid about $20 for the 3rd edition boxed set back in the day). 1st edition (1983) can be had for $5-$9, if you avoid the sellers demanding almost $200 for the same thing. I didn't price D&D editions, but you can download the art-free version of Labyrinth Lord for NADA DINERO from Goblinoid Games! RuneQuest 3rd edition (1984) is $40-$45 on Amazon but 2nd edition (1980) will set you back anywhere from $42 to $200, depending on who's selling. TOON (1991) is $30 used on Amazon, but that's the compilation version with all the supplements included. Steve Jackson Games is sold out of the hard copy version (they asked only $25). Noble Knight still has 1st edition (1984) for about $15, $38 for the deluxe edition above.

Lords of Tarsa Chaosium Inc. Looks as if Chaosium has a new print run in the works. Is supposed to be available ... today!

I, too, like supers although the BRP veterans on the site insist that the system is a bit clunky for the genre. The powers suite in the Big Gold Book is limited compared to other supers games I've played but is workable. One of our co-posters here got several relatives into role-playing by running a BRP supers campaign, although he later switched it to another game system. Still, we've got a number of super hero write-ups posted in the general forums done by me and others.

Obviously, the monument was transported from somewhere or somewhen else. It may have fallen through a dimensional gate. Oklahoma City has gamer and science fiction communities but I am not aware of any Lovecraft fan clubs there. I wonder if anyone has told KFOR News that "Azathoth" is a reference to a 1920s pulp author? Another news story: http://io9.com/why-an-oklahoman-restaurant-has-a-monument-to-the-dark-1223993407 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/monument-god-chaos-materializes-front-oklahoma-city-restaurant-article-1.1439431

When I think of 1910, I don't necessarily think of Lovecraft and Howard. Rather H. Rider Haggard (She, King Solomon's Mines), Sax Rohmer (Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, Brood of the Witch Queen), Arthur Conan Doyle (The Lost World and other Professor Challenger novels), Edgar Rice Burroughs (A Princess of Mars, Tarzan of the Apes, The Monster Men), Hugh Lofting (Doctor Dolittle), P.L Travers (Mary Poppins), Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre (Fantomas), and A. Merritt (The Moon Pool, The Face in the Abyss). With evil geniuses, sexy immortal sorceresses, dinosaurs, rampaging apes and Martian hordes, talking animals, and eerie evolutionary offshoots running amok, Old Squid Face might have to wait in line to destroy Civilization As We Know It, assuming one of the other suspects didn't do it first.

Required viewing: Jonny Quest, Monsters in the Monastery Monsters in the Monastery is the twenty-fifth episode of the first season of Jonny Quest (1964) - YouTube

I like the way you've created a believable ecology and sociology for the yeti, making them not just another monster but people (albeit, strange people).

Advantages/Disadvantages in Champions (1981) were originally intended to encourage genre emulation in a game where characters had Powers and Abilities Far Beyond Those of Mortal Men. Having a love interest or feeble relative to protect or a sworn enemy to avoid or a fatal allergy to Whatzitnite was designed to provide plot hooks, which the GM was supposed to employ regularly in the campaign. The bonus for taking a weakness was never intended to be "free" build points. Hero Games kept this structure when it moved into other genres, such as espionage and pulp adventure, stories where a character having an unusual edge (the assassin Jaws, super strong and smart Doc Savage) still made sense. In RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu, and many other BRP games, this sort of thing doesn't fit the genre and isn't necessary. On the other hand, if you're delving into rip-roaring pulp adventure, super spy gimmicks, or superheroics, it might be more useful. Regardless of game system, though, the GM is expected to use weaknesses/failings/disadvantages on a regular basis -- not to be a jerk but to enforce the genre. Not too hard if you've got a small group of players but tougher if you've got six or eight, since it becomes more difficult to squeeze all those character-specific problems into a single adventure (the task would be easier in a longer campaign). One way around this is to build adventures around the heroes' weaknesses: the vengeful ex-wife mutant shows up, the one-of-a-kind weapon or gadget falls into The Wrong Hands, the recovering alcoholic runs into an Oktoberfest parade while chasing the Big Bad, a homeless guy steals the super suit off the clothesline.

Interesting point. And depending on the campaign, it fits many adventure genres, too. How many times have you read a novel or seen a movie where the hero struggles to overcome the Big Bad's minions and then his powerful lieutenants? But when the protagonist finally confronts the villain, he turns out to be some dude the hero could easily kick around the office -- if he could figure out the bad guy's identity and actually get his hands on him. That's why villains always seem to have secret doors, holdout weapons, stunt doubles, and other dirty tricks up their sleeves: to enable them to escape at the last minute.

So, it is prairie plain that historical supplements are a steppe in the right direction? (Sorry, couldn't resist.) Nothing wrong with shameless plugs, BTW. Small publishers need all the buzz they can get.