HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: adray@Chaos.mcs.kent.edu (Adam Dray)
Subject: Re: GMs: historical politics
Keywords: improvisation
Organization: Kent State University
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 18:42:59 GMT


In article <1992Aug19.003235.1@wharton.upenn.edu>, millerl@wharton.upenn.edu writes:
|> 
|> Leaving aside the difference between Louis XVI and Deryni style of
|> political play (like what IS the difference?), how DO you plan and carry
|> off a political style campaign? What do you write down? 

I am one of those 99% improv GMs.  When I have time, I pre-plan more,
but who has time?

I suppose having the framework of a political structure already 
created helps.  If you put enough work into creating a campaign
world, it starts to breathe on its own, so to speak.

Then I just stay 60 seconds ahead of the players while GMing.  
That way, I can't cheat them (I've already made key decisions),
and I can still tailor the adventure to the PCs.


|> Do you detail factions, nations, guilds, individuals? 

I have a 40-minute commute to and from school every day; this is 
my thinking time.  I might loosely decide upon key players and
weave plots in the car.


|> How do you choose what to detail ahead of time, and who will be the
|> enemies and allies of the players? 

I detail nothing.  However, I go into a game with a feel of what
each key character is like.  My campaign has a life of its own
sometimes, and I just mop up afterwards.


|> Do you make the players central or peripheral figures in the action,
|> and how would you adjust for plotting depending on central or peripheral
|> status?

I let the players' actions decide what their part will be.  Given 
any political situation, the characters can either get into the
thick of things, or they can remain at the periphery.  Both methods
have their purpose.

--
					Adam.
From: swann@acsu.buffalo.edu (Stephen Swann)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Music & Roleplaying
Date: 13 Aug 92 01:02:50 GMT
Organization: UB

In article <RATINOX.92Aug12152410@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu> ratinox@meceng.coe.northeastern.edu writes:
>AAS> For Cyberpunk genre games - (mostly just band names, * for especially
>AAS> apropos)
>AAS> Hawkwind
>
>Try some Blue Oyster Cult if you're looking for Moorcock-inspired stuff;
>Veteran of the Psychic Wars, Black Blade, The Great Sun Jester; these I can
>remember.

In case anybody cares, there's a Hawkwind/Blue Oyster Cult discussion
list, and Moorcock/Lovecraft are frequent topics of discussion.

    boc-request@spcvxa.spc.edu

-- 
Steve Swann                 |    Speak to me in many voices; make
swann@acsu.buffalo.edu      |      them all sound like one...  -BOC
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: jwtlai@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Jim W Lai)
Subject: Re: SRun: Firearms range (was Mag 3 Cyber Eyes in Combat
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 00:43:37 GMT

In article <1992Aug13.203652.14547@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu> praxis@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Laura L Perkinson) writes:
>	Hmm, I'm no expert, but I'd assumed that the range modifiers for
>firearms had nothing to do with vision. Vision mag or rangefinder shouldn't
>help, because a pistol should still have big problems hitting something
>100 meters away.

Yeah, there are hardware limitations.  There is variance for each round of
ammunition unless you have particularly strict quality control.  And the
weapon flexes and warps a bit as it fires.  Forget about autofire hitting
except via sheer volume (exception: burst-fire for caseless ammunition).
Then steadiness of aim counts for those single shots.

Seeing the target is one thing.  Being able to hit it is another.  Movement
should, IMO, have more severe modifiers for medium and long range.  One is
simply not going to be able to snipe at a target a kilometer away while
walking merely by having cybereyes with vision mag 3 and smartgun link.

(Well, actually you might, but it would take a lot of practice.  And I mean
a LOT.  If it were easy enough for the smartgun link to compensate, we could
make smart weapons that would shoot all opponents based on an IFF system.
I'd rather not have corps adding such systems to their security.)
From: kcrook@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Prince Of Amber)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: (amber question at bottom)  about Chaosites
Keywords: Amber, Chaos, Zelazny
Date: 19 Aug 92 19:04:41 GMT
Article-I.D.: usenet.Bt8vnt.DwB
Organization: Indiana University

I agree that Chaos powers are treated 'unfairly' in the game, especially
the Logrus, but I don't think that the ranks of Amber, Chaos, Human are
too far off (except the Human part, but that's another matter all
together...).  What I would suggest is that they are viewed as the base,
AVERAGE, person of those lineages, and I believe the book takes this
view as well.  It is perfectly reasonable for those powerful and noted
individuals from the Courts (Mandor, Dara, Suhuy, Swavill, Sawall,
Hendrake, etc.) to have highly placed Amber ranks in some of their
stats.  Where I think the distinction must be made is where they start
as a base.  While Mandor, for example, might have a high Psyche, higher
than most Amberites, and even a good to moderate Amber ranked Endurance,
his Strength and Warfare would probably be Chaos rank...  (I really
don't like the feel that Warfare is needed 'to-hit' with physical-type
spells, BTW).  Whereas all Amberites 'should' be ranked in one or more
stats and have a minimum of Amber rank in what they aren't good at.
This does help to explain how a handful of Amberites were able to defeat
the Courts in their own backyard...  BUT, some of the things which they
state about the Logrus is purely assanine as far as I'm concerned.  For
instance, they state that if the Logrus tendrils were to touch anything
real (ie. an Amberite) that they'd recoil with an unpleasant discharge
for the Chaosite.  This, and the fact that the Tendrils can't touch a
Trump is IMHO, foolishness.  They've take one scene, from the Merlin
books, and miscontrued it to mean something completely different than it
should.  When Merlin saw Jasra outside the Blue Crystal Cave, she
attempted to Trump away.  Merlin, not knowing what she held in her hand,
tried to hack at it, ie. destroy it, with the tendrils shaped as a
sword.  Granted, destroying an active Trump should give backlash, but to
anyone who tries it, Amber or Chaos.  And touching a Trump shouldn't
blast a Chaos mage from here to eternity, either.  I've completely
re-written the rule for the Logrus adding "Minor Logrus", "The Gift of
the Logrus" ie. (Frakir or Mandor's Metal Balls), and re-defining the
existing parts to make a Chaosite a more useful/even character type.  If
anyone is interested I can post it here, as it is fairly long I won't
append it to this reply.
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: juola@bruno.cs.colorado.edu (Patrick Juola)
Subject: Re: SRun: Mag 3 Cyber Eyes in Combat
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 22:37:16 GMT

In article <BszxGt.9pI@news.cso.uiuc.edu> dv52151@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Axly) writes:
>
>If you can see the target better, like as if it were in front of you, it's
>easier to hit. I'd say a full sized image of the person vice the reduced 
>size you see at a large distance just might be helpful.

How?  It's not going to be any easier to figure out if your gun
is pointed in the right direction.

Otherwise, why doesn't the Army just strap a pair of binoculars to
every GI's face, sinc that will make it easier to see the target.

	- kitten

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: juola@bruno.cs.colorado.edu (Patrick Juola)
Subject: Re: Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0.
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 22:57:42 GMT

In article <batemanc.713806651@p4.cs.man.ac.uk> batemanc@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Mad Chris) writes:
>juola@bruno.cs.colorado.edu (Patrick Juola) comments:
>
>>  [ That I really like first edition Cyberpunk mechanics ]
>
>I'm not trying to flame you, but I think you vastly overrate first edition
>Cyberpunk.
Gasp!  Shocked horror!  Someone disagrees with me!  Call for the Holy Seeker
after Penitance and Truth!  8-)

One of the biggest flaws with this ( And second edition ) is that
>high attributes greatly outvalue skills. With a skill of +10, you are supposed
>to be an expert in that skill - but if you only have an Attribute of, say, 4,
>then someone with an attribute of 10 and a skill of +5 is better than you.
>This is a rally stupid problem, which I admit I'm not too bothered about
>rectifying in my Cyberpunk game, because the mechanics themselves ( apart
>from the dreadful penetration problem ) aren't too much of a problem in
>play, where the role-playing ( role-playing? In Cyberpunk? I kid you not. )
>starts to take over.

I accept this criticism of the system.  I find it remarkably easy to
correct, however.  Someone builds an abusive character, I waste it 8-).
Seriously, though, if you don't have characters floating around with
godlike stats (I suggest all stats in the range 3-7), the system is
*extremely* smooth and well-balanced.  Maybe I've got my players too
well-trained, but most of the people I play with are even more
suspicious of one-sided characters than I am.  Someone with REF 12
and APP 0 is, of course, going to be the one who needs to talk his
way out of an experimental nuclear lab.

At low attribute levels, the system seems to work quite well.

	- kitten
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com (Dennis Heffernan)
Subject: Re: Improvisation!
Organization: Xanadu Enterprises Inc.
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 04:07:40 GMT

In article <BtALB5.6rH@acsu.buffalo.edu> swann@acsu.buffalo.edu (Stephen Swann) writes:
|Alright, fine, you don't have pre-determined endings.  And yet, you
|insist on having a "proper" way for the players to confront a
|scenario, while I say that the way they confront a scenario 
|(including "ignore it and leave") is entirely *their business*.

	If my players started ignoring my scenarios, I'd stop playing with
them.  If I can't tell what they'll like and how they'll react to it, then
clearly we're too far out of sync to game together.

|
|Why should I have a handle on what they're going to do with it?  I
|can't read their minds.  And furthermore, what do I care what they do

	You should be familiar with your players likes and dislikes and their
mannerisms.  That's the GM's job.

|with it?  Figuring out what they should do about all this stuff (if
|anything) is the players' job - if I wanted to do that, I'd run a
|solo campaign with nothing but NPC's. :-)

	And if all I wanted to do was write adventures, I'd keep GM'ing all the
time.  GM's are obligated to provide some kind of meaningful scenario for
their players.

|Ok, so suppose they don't have anyone in the party who can do that, so
|you didn't take that into account.  But suppose they have a lot of
|money, and go back to a big city and HIRE a wizard who can do magical
|tunneling?  Or do you just restrict them from being able to do
|anything that would throw your planned scenarios out of whack?

	If a given means is available to the PC's, I'll have contingencies
ready to cover it.  In your example, I would already know what spells were
available to any for-hire wizards the PC's could get in the scenario's time
frame.  (For what it's worth, the answer to this question is 'zero', since
wizards are not for-hire in my fantasy campaigns.  IMAO, the proper role of
the practioner of magic is 'figure of mystery', not 'hired gun'.)

|
|Do you know the location of EVERY knothole in that whole floor, so if
|a wizard tries to drop a wizard eye through it, you'll know whether he

	Floors are solid objects where I come from; we don't have holes in them
that go all the way through to the next floor.  It would sort of defeat the
purpose, nicht?

|can?  Do you know whether the floorboards are held down by nails or
|dowels, in case the players want to pry them up and then later return
|them to their places without anyone being able to tell?

	Nails, unless they were MEANT to be removable for some reason, which
would be in my notes.

dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com   ...uunet!tronsbox!dfrancis     GEnie: D.HEFFERNAN1
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I don't understand why you make such a big deal out of everything...haven't
you learned; if it's not happenning to me it's not important?" -Murphy Brown
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Subject: Re: RPG's for disabled kids
Reply-To: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Organization: Plymouth State College - Plymouth, N.H.
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 18:14:26 GMT

Prince Valiant would be a good system to start with for two reasons:

It's an easy system to learn; and

You don't need dice.  There must be some Irish coin that blind people
can use to easily distinguish heads from tails.  All that I have lying
around are old 1s coins, and I can feel the difference between the bull
and the harp, and I'm not blind.

As for describing things:  I've found blind folks to be very
forgiving.  They are quite used to sighted people using color words and
so on.  As a professional storyteller, I used to practice my stories on
some blind friends.  This was excellent for me and for the audience:
they gave good feedback, and storytelling is a natural thing for blind
people to love.

I'm sure the kids will love it, even if you do slip into "sighted"
speech - and who knows?  Maybe they want to play characters who can
see, so they *want* to hear those descriptions?

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu
From: porterg@gems.vcu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: inappropriate subject lines (argh)
Date: 18 Aug 92 09:48:34 -0400
Organization: Medical College of Virginia

argh!

Sorry about that.

Greg

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: mxr@neptune.dsc.com (Max "Bombastic Dislocated Laughter Retribution" Rible)
Subject: Re: RPG's for disabled kids
Organization: Digital Sound Corporation
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 17:56:03 GMT

v124pz9t@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (David Cheng, using Mark S Cheng's acct) writes:
>>                              Perhaps I could, buy large dice, give each
>>player a different type of dice [eg. Player #1 gets all d6's, #2 gets
>>d10s etc] whenever a player dice needs to be rolled they ask the player
>>who holds that dice to do this, reading the result with their finger
>>tips. Do brail dice exist? Small problems like this can be surmounted,

>I have never seen braille dice.  I might suggest contacting Lou Zocchi,
>and/or Koplow Dice, our industry's dice kings.  Maybe they would 
>even consider casting some for you (that would be _awfully_ generous
>on their part, considering the economics of it, but who knows?)

>I have found that the dice are a real attractant for new gamers.
>They are so used to d6's, that these new dice are regarded as 
>"really neat." 

I have in my dice collection pipped d8's and d10's.  d8's can be
converted to d4's easily, and d10's to d20's rolling a d6.  The shapes
are quite distinctive, so I would advise letting each kid have their
own set of dice.  If they're used to reading Braille, feeling a 3x3
pattern of depressions shouldn't be too difficult.  (The only d8's
I've seen are a bit tricky since they're not large, but the d10's must
be an inch along their long axes...)

However, Braille dice would not only sell to the blind, but also to
weird gamers like me who collect bizarre sorts of dice...
/-------------v--------------------------------------------------------\
| Max Rible   | "There are no personal problems which cannot be solved |
| mxr@dsc.com | through suitable application of high explosives."      |
\-------------^--------------------------------------------------------/
--
From: skeksis@pdrome.UUCP (Clayton Miner)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: "LACE & STEEL" IS NOT DEAD & GONE!
Date: 7 Aug 92 11:51:43 GMT
Organization: The PowerDrome BBS [(716)825-3614 CNet]

Well, I dunno, I got the one adventure Castle Keitle and read it to get some
ideas, but I found that I was just as happy not to have a ton of 'source
material' telling me how the designer thought it should be played.  Kinda left
more room for me to sculpt it into my fantasy version of the Age of
Exploration.  BTW, who ever said The Renaissance is a little off the mark.. ;)
 
The one catch..my players gave up as usual...
 
Skeksis
From: u9035281@cs.uow.edu.au (Paul John Davis)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Dark Con Magic and Psyonics
Date: 13 Aug 92 08:32:58 GMT
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Wollongong University, Australia

eebonar@sn01.sncc.lsu.edu (Dave Bonar) writes:


>	I'm looking for ideas for adding limited magic and or psionics to
>a Twilight 2000 game.  Can anyone give me some info on how Dark Con
>handles both of those subjects.  

>Dave 
>__________
>Dave Bonar
>eebonar@lsuvax.sncc.lsu.edu
>__________
	Check out some older Challange Magazines.
	I think I saw a module like that.
-- 
   	Paul Davis, [RENEGADE]	u9035281@wraith.cs.uow.edu.au
	University of Wollongong Simulation Games Secretary
	"Of course I'm Psycho - I'm a SOLO"
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: littlefield@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Subject: Pendragon
Reply-To: littlefield@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 15:14:50 GMT

	I've been kind of out of the rpg scene for a while, but I'd like to
know the status on the rpg Pendragon. Is it still in print? If so, how much
does it go for these days, and where could one pick up a copy?

	Thanks in advance for any info.

--Kevin

littlefield@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
From: mkkuhner@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Player influence over scenario
Date: 19 Aug 92 19:32:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Aug19.193203.7663
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

A thought about player influence on the course of a scenario:

In a PBEM game, my PC had a rather appalling nightmare.  She was
inclined to dismiss it, until further events started piling up evidence
that it was true--not literally true, but symbolically--and that the
distressing portrait it provided of a major NPC she hadn't yet met was
substantially correct.  (She met the person in question a few days after
the nightmare, and had a very difficult time keeping her cool when she
recognized her....)

I wrote the nightmare myself--it just occured to me one day; I wrote it
out for amusement, and decided I liked it enough to send it to the GM,
who then (to my surprise) included it in the flow of play.  It was based 
on hints he'd given, but only very loosely.

Watching those images reoccur in the PC's waking life was *creepy*.  
It vividly re-created the experience of the character, for whom they were
repressed memories.

If the GM had stuck to his prepared idea of what the NPC was like and
what was going on, we'd have missed out on some very disturbing and
interesting roleplaying opportunities.

The nightmare-turned-reality didn't ruin the sense of campaign reality
for me; I didn't feel as if I was dictating the course of events, more
that I'd had a mysterious insight into them.  I didn't know what the
dream meant when I wrote it.

I know that there are dangers in allowing the player(s) to influence the
game world.  There are lots of neat things you can do with roleplaying,
most of which have some tendency to explode if mishandled.  This one
worked out well for us.

Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@genetics.washington.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Speaking of ambushes (where we?)...
From: steiner@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu (jason "Think!" steiner)
Date: 15 Aug 92 13:56:03 EST

sl9b4@cc.usu.edu (Deep Six) writes:
> Ambushes have been sort of a big topic in my campain lately. Both for
> the players and for me. Here is my dillema. 
> 
> My characters are fairly bright (for mortals), and they are really 
> paranoid about getting ambushed. For that reason, they routinely
> avoid  areas on the map where there is the slightest chance to be
> ambushed. I'm  perplexed on how to ambush the characters. The party
> is a squad in a  military organization, so they often go on patrol.
> Lately,I have been  marking areas on my GM's map where there will be
> ambushes, but the party  never goes into my kill zones. Now, I don't
> want to kill the PCs off, but  I would like to see them have to
> react and defend more, rather than being  always on the offense. 

sounds like they're already doing a better job of defense than you'd
like them to. (avoidance & intelligence, after all, is the best
defense.) it also sounds like they're probably taking an active part
in the roleplaying if they're usually on the offensive while planning
enough to defend themselves.

congratulations! you've got an experienced group of gamers. now you
can move beyond cheap tactical tricks like ambushes. (which are
useful for teaching players to always be on their guard, but
not one of the most interesting possibilities in the book.)

> So, I have been toying with the idea of setting up ``unavoidable'' 
> ambushes, where I as GM say, ``where ever the party goes, there will
> be  an ambush.'' Is that fair to the players? Like I said before, I
> don't  want to kill the players, I just want them to be on the
> receiving end a  little more often.

then hit them with something that can dish out without having a
superior ambush position. if you -must- use an ambush, give the
players a -good- reason to walk into a dangerous area. if they
outthink you smile and hand out lots of experience. gaming doesn't
have to be a space invaders "things come at you, and you destroy them"
type of thing. intelligence & imagination count for a lot.

jason

"horror films wouldn't be half as much fun if the characters had
 played role playing games before. how many roleplayers do you know
 who, while wandering through a dark, misty forest at midnight while a
 supernatural killer is on the loose, spies a group of ghostly
 children singing in the distance and says to himself, 'y'know, maybe
 i should follow them?'"

--
`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,
`, "Get off the cross. We need the wood." steiner@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu `,
`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,
From: holmes@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Krishgan)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Astral Adepts-
Date: 19 Aug 92 17:27:36 GMT
Organization: the Night Crafters Associated Press

->>>>>[This here is what -I- would call an "Astral Adept" guys....]<<<<<
    -Reflex

Astral Adepts-

   Priority        : B or 3
   Abilities       : As Follows-

   1. Astral Projection and Astral Perception both as per a -normal- magician

   2. Sorcery and Conjuring Skills in -Astral Only- with the following 
      restrictions...

      a. Cannot effect a spell to the Physical in any way, this includes 
	 Grounding down a link.
      b. Can only effect spell defense to others in the Astral Plane/Medium.
      c. Can use Conjuring to -Banish- spirits, as long as they are encountered
	 in the Astral (aka, they aren't manifesting).  Sort of a "I belong
	 here, you don't attitude."
      
   3. Enchanting is allowable, but only objects that will function once the
      user is Projecting (a sort of foci limitation, something that works ONLY
      in the Astral).

   4. Astral Reaction would be a -total- bonus equal to the magic attribute
      of the caster, which would include any initiation they might receive.

   5. No bonuses to Assensing.

->>>>>[But hey, this is where we differ again, so there....  ;-)  ]<<<<<
    -Reflex
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc