seneschal

Hey! We're pen-and-paper RPG Luddites. None of this Buck Rogers electronic nonsense for us!

VTT = paper miniatures a la Cardboard Heroes?

These are beautiful, Puck. Thank you! Since I'm more a sci-fi kinda guy, they will be "indigenous galaxy inhabitants."

Anyone who entered a scenario in the BRP Adventure or Cthulhu Invictus contests heard anything yet? Last word I had was that Chaosium would make a decision in late July. We're now in mid-August.

So ... it's been a month. How did the space campaign go?

No, NO, NOOO!!! Don't play BRP in New England. You know what always happens!

Congrats! You came, you saw, you conquered.

Sounds like it was really fun, and the map and miniature making provided an artsy craftsy break from gaming itself that even the kids could get into. Were the "shoggoths" made from Sculpy or something similar? My nephew made a monster board game with game pieces of similar material. Sigh, I haven't been able to attend my local conventions, much less a big regional or national blow-out like Kraken or GenCon. Re: Photo #1 - Are those alien genital organs protruding from the Cthulhu napkin holder? Ugh! No wonder the poor sailors went insane! Besides, the napkins are the right color; if he had any decency, he'd fashion a pair of purple shorts for himself a la The Incredible Hulk or Fin Fang Foom! http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26p%3Dfin%2Bfang%2Bfoom&w=441&h=480&imgurl=www.leaderslair.com%2Fmarvelvillains%2FFoom.gif&size=142.7kB&name=Foom+gif%0A++++&rcurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpalgn.com.au%2Fviewtopic.php%3Ft%3D31740%26view%3Dnext&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpalgn.com.au%2Fviewtopic.php%3Ft%3D31740%26view%3Dnext&p=fin+fang+foom&type=gif&no=1&tt=904&oid=6157e5e2c19e146a&tit=Foom+gif&sigr=11j8i01b9&sigi=11b834hqb&sigb=11nh94v0t&fr=yfp-t-701

You guys are really trying too hard on this one: or for you old-timers, like me:

Well, some time ago in the "How can BRP become more popular" thread IIRC I suggested New Age Commune: The Sixties Countercultural RPG. So far, none of our intrepid BRP publishers have asked me to submit a manuscript (even though it could be considered a historical game, which BRP is said to do well). I'm not saying how well it would sell, but it would be different!

But does BRP lend itself to toonish hijinks? Lethal combat, complex skill system, lots of magic and powers but not necessarily cartoon ones. That was at least one reviewer's criticism of the Elfquest RPG: that BRP was great and Elfquest was great but, unlike chocolate and peanut butter, they just didn't mix well.

You're right. Call of Cthulhu was "the" horror RPG in much the same way that Traveller was "the" science fiction game, although they had minor competition from Chill, Space Opera and lesser-known, less durable titles. At the time, those genres had never been done before. Today, of course, there are constellations of sci-fi games and crypts full of horror ones. So what RPG genres haven't been done to death and offer a similar opportunity? Sword and planet (Interplanetary), ancient historical (BRP Rome), Western (Aces High, Supernatural Western), and espionage (Berlin '61) are semi-neglected niches our intrepid BRP fanatics have already tackled. Any others you can think of?

You're not a fan of RuneQuest Ducks, per chance? http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=527432

What? You mean, you don't have an old aunt who is growing webs between her fingers and toes whose locked library is filled with musty tomes of materials better not described, written in ancient indecipherable characters? Some of us found Call of Cthulhu, what's the politically correct term? Ah, inclusive.

The Call of Cthulhu Character Generator ( http://wstryder.org/coccg/index.php?balance=-4&nof=1&monster=Cthulhu ) gives Mighty Cthulhu's SIZ as a mere 210. Reminds me of the scene in Gappa The Triphibian Monster where Daddy Gappa showed up with a giant octopus (a monster in its own right) in his beak to feed to Baby Gappa. Since Cthulhu has been BRP's gold standard for "big freakin' critter" its pretty clear the system wasn't designed with Jeff Russell's Starship Dimensions scale battles in mind. I'm a HERO System veteran but a BRP newbie, so these sorts of differences kinda throw me off. On the other hand, I see a surprising number of parallels between the two systems. But it's clear that an encounter between Godzilla and Cthulhu would be no contest. Godzilla would be picking tasty tentacles out of his teeth.

The problem with SIZ-ing up Godzilla is that his dimensions and mass vary from movie to movie. Looking again at Kaijuphile.com and The Monster Archives, his mass is estimated from 20,000 to 24,000 tons (20,000 to 30,000 metric tons) with at least one version at 55,000 tons (60,000 metric tons). But even at his "smallest" he's waaaaay beyond the scope the SIZ chart by a couple orders of magnitude. The 1998 American version of Godzilla (renamed Zilla by the Japanese) might be more manageable, but neither Godzilla fan site deigned to list stats for him. Poor guy, doesn't get a lot of love from G-fans.

On the other hand, Kong went on to best Godzilla despite the latter's fiery breath and lashing tail (the Toho version(s) are much larger than the 1933 original). While choosing a large lion as a template for a chimera or griffin seems logical, we run into the issue of density. Same with statting up Barsoomian denizens or other light-world aliens. For instance, a Green Martian warrior may be 15 feet tall but it weighs only as much as a terrestrial 5-foot female gorilla (400 pounds) because Mars' lesser gravity requires less dense and stocky body structures. With that in mind, how would you ever calculate reasonable SIZes for banths, thoats, calots, hairless white apes, apts, etc.? In the same way, that griffin may be as large as a lion but as a flying creature it has to be lighter (lower mass) than a earthbound critter of the same size, hollow bones and all that. How do you handle that? (Most games handle it by not worrying overmuch about mass at all.) You could say, "It's just a magical creature; why worry about it?" But as a GM, you're still stuck with putting together a write-up for your players to tangle with.

But as we all know, it's not easy being Green.

Another things is that those exciting new settings and campaigns need to be originals, not licenses of a comic, movie, book series, or TV show. Most of Chaosium's past successes have been licensed products ... but once the license expires or is passed to another publisher, the TV show or comic book is canceled, the blockbuster fades into film history the show is over for the game as well. RuneQuest/Glorantha used to be such a setting, but somehow it moved on, too. We need a new "Glorantha" for BRP, whatever genre or historical period it happens to be for. (Ducks in ancient Rome ... hmmmm. Naw, Disney might sue. )

I'm grateful to Alephtar Games and others who have been putting out solid historical and semi-historical campaign settings for BRP. It's a niche that most other game publishers have ignored or addressed only as supplemental to their fantasy lines (D&D, Rolemaster, I'm looking at you!). Let's face it, too, BRP needs to find a new niche. With the publications of Nemesis, Trail of Cthulhu and Realms of Cthulhu, Call of Cthulhu is no longer the only game in town for Lovecraftian horror. Chaosium can no longer afford to coast along on Mr. H.P.'s tentacles. So I agree that the BRP renaissance of the last couple years really is a renaissance, a positive and tangible thing. And the Enies nominations are good press, whatever you think of the validity of the Enies themselves. That said, despite all the shiny new product BRP has only minimal shelf space at my local game stores. I can find the Call of Cthulhu core book and one or two of its most recent supplements. But the Big Gold Book, BRP Rome, Merrie England, et. al., are absent. If I wasn't a regular on these discussion boards, I'd never know they existed. One can argue that online sales are supplanting brick-and-mortar shops, but that's preaching (or selling) to the choir. You have to have attractive product on retail shelves to draw in the next generation of players and customers - and to persuade the old farts that you're still alive and worth playing. So, in addition to diligent fans pumping out award-winning material, how can BRP grab more attention for itself?

By comparison, based on mass, Rodan would be SIZ 262 or 263. Gyaos would be SIZ 121 or 122 (the wimp!). So the Crimson Bat might terrorize Gloranthans but would be in trouble if it ever encountered Godzilla; on the other hand, it might be an even match for Gamera. The solution, of course, is for your Gloranthan PCs to start worshiping Mothra, protector of all life on earth (although not necessarily overly concerned about humans). It's Be Kind to Six-Inch Fairies Week!

The blind Japanese swordswoman? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Bat http://www.girlswithguns.org/long/crimsonbat.htm I dunno. She looks all of 5'2" to me. SIZ 7? Oh! Were you referring to a Gloranthan entitiy? http://www.herowars.com/library/religions/cult-bat.html Brrrrr! Gives a new twist to the term, "Batman"! Kills people, takes their stuff. Hey! Or perhaps, The Devil Bat? (Bela Lugosi, the sultan of sinister!) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032390/ I'd say it looks about the SIZ of a conventional condor. If you mean the Gloranthan terror beast, we actually have some comparative data to go on since the kind folks of Kaijuphile.com and The Monster Archives have provided us with tonnage estimates for similar beasts. http://www.kaijuphile.com/rodansroost/kaijustats/kaijustats.shtml http://monsterarchives.proboards.com/index.cgi? According to the experts, the giant pteranadon Rodan is 15,000 metric tons/16,500 tons. Gamera's recurrent foe Gyaos, an extremely bat-like "bird" that drinks blood, is estimated at 75 metric tons/25 tons. I'm using the stats for the Showa (original) series versions, just for consistency.

I've finally had a chance to actually sit down and read these scenarios. I'm about three-quarters through the book. I'm generally pleased with how well-written the adventures are, although I wish Chaosium had seen fit to have an editor give them at least a once-over. The second impression is how lethal they are. If this was a HERO System or Savage Worlds supplement it wouldn't be quite so bad. But BRP combat tends to be pretty deadly from the get-go, and some of these modules are real meat grinders. I'm wondering how many adventuring parties will survive long enough to make it to the big finish of each, since RPG player-characters (unlike movie stars in an action flick) don't have plot protection. All-in-all, I'm happy with the book but saddened that it didn't get more buzz at the time of its release.

So, based on your viewing of the clip, did you estimate his height as 20, 24, 30 or 36 feet? Since it affects our SIZ calculations and all. The battle between Kong and the Tyrannosaur was the inspiration for the whole movie. According to the extras on my Kong DVD, the producers made exotic nature films much like the fictional Carl Denham. Their initial concept was to stage a fight between a gorilla and a Komodo dragon (how they were going to explain creatures from different hemispheres meeting each other, I don't know). Acquiring real apes or reptiles proved impossible, so they contacted animator Willis O'Brien. O'Brien, of course, realized that with animation you weren't limited to a regular gorilla or conventional (if exotic) reptiles and he literally expanded the idea.

Thanks for your input, by the way. It helps me to better understand how the system works. And it's good to have a non-humanoid example to work with. I was going to ask you to calculate the SIZ of Clifford the Big Red Dog (literally as big as a house), so you got off easy with the sea snake. Well, I chose to ressurect this thread rather than create a new one because it seemed to me the gist of the OP was how to correctly calculate SIZ - whatever sort of campaign you're in. After all, once you've figured out how big King Kong or your sea serpent are in game terms, you still need to calculate their increased STR, CON and Move rates just as you would for an iconic super-strong, super-dense superhero. Kong isn't faster than a speeding bullet but his strength and toughness would be superhuman and his stride would be much greater than that of a smaller creature, affecting his rate of travel. And if you're playing in any sort of superhero campaign, particularly a Gold or Silver Age one, I can guarantee you that you will eventually battle (or be transformed into) a giant ape or sea serpent. Superman had to do it. The Blue Beetle had to do it. What makes you think your character is going to be immune?