What are y'all up to these days?

[Bill Reich]

Once travel is somewhat realistic I'd like to consider a move to Portugal. At least for a year is so so the kids get a feel for another culture. My mothers and her parents are of Portuguese descent but American for several generations so it's more out of faux nostalgia than any true close cultural contact. I have been to Portugal and stayed in Lisbon, Coimbra, Porto and cruised the Duro river to Salamanca.

Anyone here live in Portugal? I'd like to get a feel for what living there with four kids might be like.

Never been there but there's lots of Portuguese spoken in my neighborhood. It is the most beautiful langauge in the world. Really; I took a poll. Portuguese won, one to nothing.

 

[3rik]

It is the most beautiful langauge in the world. Really; I took a poll. Portuguese won, one to nothing.

Really? Tastes differ of course, but I wouldn't expect it to be that popular.

 

[Tulpa Girl]

Saturday's BF game was almost pure roleplay, as the PCs got to know some of the locals of the village they helped last session and have decided to use as a base of operations for the nonce, with varying amounts of interaction, negotiation, flirting and seduction. They considered their options for some of the information they learned last time in the cursed wizard's tower, and also picked up some more tidbits via alcohol-aided rumor gathering. They also opted to visit a local blind seer... which of course is a totally original idea, and not at all ripped off from myth and media.



*cough*

The highlight of the session was probably when the elven M-U, whose visage can still drive people mad who see it, going back after the group had asked their questions to ask the seer out on a date.

 

[Bill Reich]

Haven't gamed since I ran Thursday's game but I finished the module "A Misplaced Prince" in the Glory Road system and put it on Drivethru and now I'm waiting for the playtest of the OSR/D20 conversion.

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

 

[Certified]

PSI, Part 2: Story Elements
This week we learn more about the world of PSI. Learn about events that happened in this world, who some of the key players at the Institute are, along with some locations the investigators might visit.
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#TTRPG #RPG #Superheroes #PSI

 

[Bill Reich]

C.J. ran our Nobodies Gang game Wednesday. Slinky, my character, is getting frustrated because he keeps getting in fights using a dagger. Reach matters a lot in the rules we play and he is either having to overcome the disadvantage or facing someone who also has a knife, so it gives him no advantage. He would also like to carry a crossbow but he knows that the constabulary would jump on that toot suite. They were going to sell a short sword that they had captured but he was able to convince the others that it wouldn't bring much money. This week, some goblins from a rival gang found our secret hideout (secret even to the rest of the gang) in the swamp and had to be eliminated. Fortunately, our hideout is the one place where we have crossbows and the cops aren't around. After we killed them, Slinky found that one of them had a short sword that looked brand new and decided that he wanted it. The ogre, who is a half-Mage, said that it is magical, so I am going to have to compensate the other guys for their share.

I ran my "Someone is summoning demons over on Tenth Street" campaign Thursday. Brother Ameet's demon bane mace proved irrelevant to the first encounter, which was with five apparent muggers. However, the survivors when questioned, said that "a creepy little guy" had hired them. They had a last known address for the creepy little guy. Of course, he wsn't there anymore but a six-armed demon was. Brother Ameet's demonbane proved decisive but the still haven't run down the summoner.

 

[Certified]

Steel Aces 8: Military Intelligence
Back at Ft. McNair, we learn more about the missing people, and scope of Chimera's operations, throughout the Arlington Metro Area. Even if those gathered don't yet know who is behind the abductions.

Playing Jacks, Page 8 - House Dok Productions

Military Intelligence Returning to Fort McNair we learn a bit more about the scope of the abductions in the Arlington area. Have you ever heard the phrase, a very punchable face? I’ll leave it up to you to decide who in this room needs a smack. Artist: Jake Perez Writer: T […]

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#Metahumans #Superheroes #RPG #TTRPG #Comic #SteelAces

 

[E-Rocker]

My Savage Worlds group normally meets fortnightly, but we had to postpone last time because a player had a migraine. We will pick up again this Thursday. Last time we did meet, we left on in the middle of a battle because of real-life time pressures. I generally prefer to conclude a battle in the same session it started, but an unfinished battle is an easy cliffhanger, and, IME, cliffhangers tend to keep people excited for the next session, so I don't mind too much.

Beatrix's D&D 5e group, which has met weekly like clockwork for 2+ years, just had a highly unusual two-week break because she was out of town. We play online these days anyway, so being out of town wouldn't really matter, but she was in a rural area with unreliable internet.

Red Ted's Curse of Strahd group is supposed to meet on Wednesday. I think we'll finally get to have our ultimate battle with Strahd! I thought that was going to happen quite a while ago, but we ended up going back to the Amber Temple for ... reasons. Red Ted's group often ends up postponing sessions at the last minute, though, so we'll see...

 

[Fenris-77]

I have a quick rules question. If you were doing fules for ships in an OSR game, which of the following would ypu prefer:

1. Ships have HP as normal but only certain weapons can harm them.

2. Ships have Hull Points where an attack need to do, say 10 damage to do 1 Hull point. So 23 damage does 2 Hull Points, and attacks that do less than 10 are ignored.

 

[Bunch]

S

I have a quick rules question. If you were doing fules for ships in an OSR game, which of the following would ypu prefer:

1. Ships have HP as normal but only certain weapons can harm them.

2. Ships have Hull Points where an attack need to do, say 10 damage to do 1 Hull point. So 23 damage does 2 Hull Points, and attacks that do less than 10 are ignored.

Ships are one of those things I'd have hit locations with. Maybe on a critical you get to specify location like sail or rudder. Depends on what you want. I would see ship to ship combat being this long slog of manouver and fire until someone gets lucky and hits a sail. Then it degrades rapidly as the more agile ship blasts the other out of the water or the less agile ship surrenders.

 

[Fenris-77]

S
Ships are one of those things I'd have hit locations with. Maybe on a critical you get to specify location like sail or rudder. Depends on what you want. I would see ship to ship combat being this long slog of manouver and fire until someone gets lucky and hits a sail. Then it degrades rapidly as the more agile ship blasts the other out of the water or the less agile ship surrenders.

I didn't want hit location grit. I was going to use a damage table that gets rolled on every so many Hull Points, if I went that way. So kinda Hit Locations, but not that need to be tracked.

It was more about the choice between 1 needing the whole weapon list to be altered to identify ship damaging weapons or 2 having a little more up front math. In both cases the goal is a stripped down OSR version of the Ship rules you might find in a weightier game.

 

[AsenRG]

I didn't want hit location grit. I was going to use a damage table that gets rolled on every so many Hull Points, if I went that way. So kinda Hit Locations, but not that need to be tracked.

It was more about the choice between 1 needing the whole weapon list to be altered to identify ship damaging weapons or 2 having a little more up front math. In both cases the goal is a stripped down OSR version of the Ship rules you might find in a weightier game.

I would also use hit locations, but if you're against it, probably the latter. This way an insanely strong PC could hurt most ships on a good day with a heavy weapon.
But an armoured location would add its armour to the number needed for damage, so no attacking the armoured hull with a hammer.
Still, you'd also need a rule for critical hits for when a PC climbs a mast and can just cut a mainsail and bring most of the ship's speed down (without major damage, but it takes time to bring it back up).

 

[Stan]

One thing you can do is just give ships and large vehicles damage resistance in the range of 5-20 depending the size and armor. This is applies to each hit individually. Then regular weapons will do little to no damage without a crit. It's simple and doesn't require changing any other rules. But it's not very exciting - it depends on how much focus you want on damaging ships.

 

[Fenris-77]

Well, this is going into a Black Hack based rules set, so ships would also have the equivalent of Armour Dice, which can be discarded to negate all damage from a single hit, and which can be repaired afterwards. Void Shields.

One thing you can do is just give ships and large vehicles damage resistance in the range of 5-20 depending the size and armor. This is applies to each hit individually. Then regular weapons will do little to no damage without a crit. It's simple and doesn't require changing any other rules. But it's not very exciting - it depends on how much focus you want on damaging ships.

This is sort of what I was going for with Hull Points. In your terms, lets say damage under 10 is ignored, and Hull Points are stripped off at a rate of one per full 10 damage, with remainders having no effect. Mostly ship based weapons and large creatures can damage ships. PCs could, sure, but at the rate you'd expect when someone attacks a large wooden structure with a pointy stick (barring a crit). From a usefulness standpoint I want to go with something that other OSR stuff ports to easily, and also something that doesn't mean I need to revamp whole weapon lists. Your idea would do that, so I'm going to noodle around with it and try some different conversions and examples to see how it stacks up to Hull Points.

AsenRG Sabotage whist on the ship could be handled as an action without any real need for damage inflicted I think. You just cut down the sails, or snip the power cables, or whatever. Make a skill roll and adjudicate.

 

[Tulpa Girl]

I have a quick rules question. If you were doing fules for ships in an OSR game, which of the following would ypu prefer:

1. Ships have HP as normal but only certain weapons can harm them.

2. Ships have Hull Points where an attack need to do, say 10 damage to do 1 Hull point. So 23 damage does 2 Hull Points, and attacks that do less than 10 are ignored.

I'd go with option 2, but either seems workable.

Just don't call it Mega-Armortm and Mega-Damagetm.

 

[Fenris-77]

Just don't call it Mega-Armortm and Mega-Damagetm.

Good lord. I was hoping no one was going to notice the superficial similarities. I think something in the range of 10-1 is a lot more low key than the mechanic that shall not be named. Now hush, we don't want to wake the Rifts fans...

 

[Brock Savage]

I have a quick rules question. If you were doing fules for ships in an OSR game, which of the following would ypu prefer:

1. Ships have HP as normal but only certain weapons can harm them.

2. Ships have Hull Points where an attack need to do, say 10 damage to do 1 Hull point. So 23 damage does 2 Hull Points, and attacks that do less than 10 are ignored.

Option 3, use the vehicle rules in the Old School Essentials Rules Tome.

• Vehicles use hull points and armor class
• Vehicles are immune to most normal attacks (swords, bows etc)
• Spells and giant attacks do one hull point of damage per 5 points of regular damage.
• War machines like catapults do direct damage to hull points

 

[Fenris-77]

Option 3, use the vehicle rules in the Old School Essentials Rules Tome.

• Vehicles use hull points and armor class
• Vehicles are immune to most normal attacks (swords, bows etc)
• Spells and giant attacks do one hull point of damage per 5 points of regular damage.
• War machines like catapults do direct damage to hull points

Well, there's no AC in the Black Hack. Otherwise what I'm doing is essentially that, except for the last point, which is well taken.

 

[Tulpa Girl]

Good lord. I was hoping no one was going to notice the superficial similarities. I think something in the range of 10-1 is a lot more low key than the mechanic that shall not be named.

10:1 or maybe 8:1 sounds feasible. Ideally, a strong warrior with a bigass weapon and a good damage roll can actually damage the hull of a ship, but most 'average' attacks will be wasted effort. Maybe give axes a bonus, since that's the sort of thing they're designed for.

Now hush, we don't want to wake the Rifts fans...

"Do not call up that which you cannot take out with suppressive fire put down."

 

[Brock Savage]

10:1 or maybe 8:1 sounds feasible. Ideally, a strong warrior with a bigass weapon and a good damage roll can actually damage the hull of a ship, but most 'average' attacks will be wasted effort. Maybe give axes a bonus, since that's the sort of thing they're designed for.

I prefer the more granular approach that you propose but would use Damage Threshold to make it simpler. In 5e I had vehicles as a bag of hit points with DT 5-10. So yea a mighty blow from a hulking brute with a great axe can put a hole in a small ship or smash a cart but most attacks are ineffective. Sails and rigging were vulnerable to fire and acid. Hmm and vehicles had resistance to piercing attacks that aren't war machines like ballistae, plus obvious stuff like immunity to poison, charm, necrotic etc.

 

[Fenris-77]

That whole second set of alternatives I'd handle on an adjudication basis. I could write those rules, and would if my goal was more granular, but it isn't currently. I do like damage reduction though, I'll play around with that tonight.

 

[AsenRG]

Good lord. I was hoping no one was going to notice the superficial similarities. I think something in the range of 10-1 is a lot more low key than the mechanic that shall not be named. Now hush, we don't want to wake the Rifts fans...

On this forum? Man, I spotted it, and I'm not a Rifts fan...

That said, it's been used for hardness in different systems that I can't remember off-hand, so it's not just Rifts.

 

[Fenris-77]

I was joking really, I noticed it while I was writing it up and winced a little.

 

[Raleel]

this last friday was the conclusion of Meeros Falling with a climatic battle between the PCs and some thugs hired to kill them. Things started bad as Testikles lost initiative to one of the thugs, who promptly tagged him and tripped him. A lot of worry, but ultimately the blow was a minor wound. The min-maxer was quite worried about the d4 damage modifier and the skill approximately the same as the party, but didn't have knowledge of the action points available (the bad guys all only had 2, several of the party has 3).

The astrologer-priest of fate went very late in the round, so he got to see one of the thugs take a javelin in the head from one of his hoplite companions. The other charged across the courtyard and knocked down Testikles assailant. The toxotai waited his turn and took a guard out at the knee. Then the astrologer opened one of the thug's mind to the possibilities of fate, and it reduced his mind to that of an animal. The thug leapt on him, leaving behind the tools of man and grabbed his left and started gnawing.

the battle raged on a bit more, and a couple more lucky criticals (we had at least 3 that I can think of), including one from the toxotai shooting the thug on the merchant-warrior in the head, but ultimately the min-maxer's assessment was wrong and they handily dealt with the battle.

I will need to sit down with the min-maxer (who is a dear friend) and walk through why it worked just fine.

 

[Tulpa Girl]

This week's Basic Fantasy game was pretty much preparation and travel, with a few minor encounters along the way, as the players focused on their goal.

Even though this is D&D, they've never actually faced a dragon before, and I want to make sure the encounter is a memorable one.

 

[Stan]

This week's Basic Fantasy game was pretty much preparation and travel, with a few minor encounters along the way, as the players focused on their goal.

Even though this is D&D, they've never actually faced a dragon before, and I want to make sure the encounter is a memorable one.

If you go with something like this, I bet they'd never forget it:

 

[Tulpa Girl]

If you go with something like this, I bet they'd never forget it:

Ehh, that would be just another hook-up for them.

 

[Nemesis]

This week's Basic Fantasy game was pretty much preparation and travel, with a few minor encounters along the way, as the players focused on their goal.

Even though this is D&D, they've never actually faced a dragon before, and I want to make sure the encounter is a memorable one.

How are you liking running basic rules?

 

[Tulpa Girl]

How are you liking running basic rules?

Oh, I like it just fine. It's not that far off from AD&D 2e, which is what I grew up playing and the first thing I ran when I got back into gaming a few years back. Also, it's ridiculously easy to tweak and mod as needed.

 

[AsenRG]

I was joking really, I noticed it while I was writing it up and winced a little.

No need to wince, IMO. If it works, it works.

Ehh, that would be just another hook-up for them.

What's wrong with that?

 

[E-Rocker]

My Savage Worlds group's last session was shortly before Halloween, so I gave that session a Halloween-esque theme. We didn't finish that adventure, though. Hopefully people won't mind carrying on with Halloween even though it's almost Thanksgiving now.

 

[Giganotosaurus]

I started looking up deserted Detroit neighborhoods for post-apocalyptic inspiration and found out that the pictures of foreclosed homes on Zillow are fantastic urban horror inspiration. Looking at the rotten half collapsed houses makes me want to run Kult.
One even had a rotten crib sitting in a empty room, just creepy.

 

[Baulderstone]

I started looking up deserted Detroit neighborhoods for post-apocalyptic inspiration and found out that the pictures of foreclosed homes on Zillow are fantastic urban horror inspiration. Looking at the rotten half collapsed houses makes me want to run Kult.
One even had a rotten crib sitting in a empty room, just creepy.

You see some weird shit as a real estate agent.

 

[Giganotosaurus]

You see some weird shit as a real estate agent.

One house had a room where the floor was completely covered in clothes and an overturned mattress laying on top of them. You just can't help but wonder what the heck happened there.

 

[Bunch]

I started looking up deserted Detroit neighborhoods for post-apocalyptic inspiration and found out that the pictures of foreclosed homes on Zillow are fantastic urban horror inspiration. Looking at the rotten half collapsed houses makes me want to run Kult.
One even had a rotten crib sitting in a empty room, just creepy.

Detroit is crazy. In 2008 I started looking into what it would take to buy some of the old homes out there and break them down for parts that are valuable out here on the coast where not much is over 50 years old. The homes were almost free. I think you might have been able to actually buy whole blocks where the homes were selling for ~$500-$1000 each. The shipping and my estimate for how much it would cost/how long it would take to sell made it not too feasible for me. Later I ran into a guy doing just that on the east coast.

It's an amazing statement on the cost of sprawl and the ingenuity of people/governments to deal with any problem. I think around that same time they were offering people on mostly empty blocks replacement homes in higher density blocks as an incentive to move so the city could shut off services to whole swaths of the empty city.

 

[Giganotosaurus]

Detroit is crazy. In 2008 I started looking into what it would take to buy some of the old homes out there and break them down for parts that are valuable out here on the coast where not much is over 50 years old. The homes were almost free. I think you might have been able to actually buy whole blocks where the homes were selling for ~$500-$1000 each. The shipping and my estimate for how much it would cost/how long it would take to sell made it not too feasible for me. Later I ran into a guy doing just that on the east coast.

It's an amazing statement on the cost of sprawl and the ingenuity of people/governments to deal with any problem. I think around that same time they were offering people on mostly empty blocks replacement homes in higher density blocks as an incentive to move so the city could shut off services to whole swaths of the empty city.

I went onto google maps street view and sections of the city had streets lined with empty lots and a couple houses.
Detroit seems to have a website dedicated to selling foreclosed and abandoned houses super cheap. Although you have to either rehabilitate or tear them down within 6 months of purchase. I've yet to see one that I would consider salvageable.

 

[Bunch]

I went onto google maps street view and sections of the city had streets lined with empty lots and a couple houses.
Detroit seems to have a website dedicated to selling foreclosed and abandoned houses super cheap. Although you have to either rehabilitate or tear them down within 6 months of purchase. I've yet to see one that I would consider salvageable.

12 years can do a lot to a home not lived in. Even back then there were a lot of losers but you would have been amazed an how many homes were abandoned with amazing features in them back in 2008.

 

[AsenRG]

12 years can do a lot to a home not lived in. Even back then there were a lot of losers but you would have been amazed an how many homes were abandoned with amazing features in them back in 2008.

Makes me wonder what exactly happened to those people to lead to such a flight.

 

[Bunch]

Makes me wonder what exactly happened to those people to lead to such a flight.

Zombiepocolyse. It was a quiet battle covered up by the government.

 

[Bill Reich]

I started looking up deserted Detroit neighborhoods for post-apocalyptic inspiration and found out that the pictures of foreclosed homes on Zillow are fantastic urban horror inspiration. Looking at the rotten half collapsed houses makes me want to run Kult.
One even had a rotten crib sitting in a empty room, just creepy.

Reminds me of a still picture from the Harlan County Wars. A gravestone with a teddy bear hanging on it.