HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: chem7l@jane.uh.edu
Subject: Re: SRUN: Toning down mages
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 18:08:00 GMT

In article <ward1.712333221@husc8>, ward1@husc8.harvard.edu (Lester Ward) writes...
>chem7l@elroy.uh.edu writes:
>>First, I treat any item or effect (including Quickening) that a mage has put 
>>karma into as a suitable link for ritual magic.
> 
>Then why bother Quickening?  If I can pay 1 karma point to lock a spell
>or many karma points to quicken a spell for the same effect, why pay more.
>It can't be the money; any moron can make a spell lock for near nothing.

Several reasons:  First, spell locks are always considered force 1 and always
do 1L1 damage in astral combat.  Quickened spells can be any force, and the 
damage in astral combat is the same as for the spell: force(drain code).  
Second, spells CAN ground into a spell lock, which can be REALLY nasty.  Lastly,
a mage can quicken astral barriers, etc. to protect his own home.  Quickening
spells in controlled locations would not really leave you vulnerable to ritual
magic.

>>Second, I consider any sustained spell to be astrally active, and therefor  
>>vulnerable in astral space. 
> 
>The rules do to.
>

Really?  I couldn't find it...

>> Spells can't be used on them of course, but they
>>can still be destroyed.
> 
>Spells .can. be used against them, they just can't .ground. through them.
>A spell can be cast an any astrally active object (mage, foci, other spell)
>and will engage it in astral combat.  A particularly effective technique
>in astral combat is to cast a high force spell at a mage, then attack the
>mage yourself.  He'll have to split his pools between two simultaneous
>attacks.
> 

I use the astral combat rules in the Grimoire, which (if I remember correctly)
say that spells cannot be used against other spells in astral combat; they 
ignore each other. 

> 
>>Most importantly, my NPCs (and PCs) take advantage of the vulnerablility to 
>>sudden astral attack.  However, I also rule that foci are not actually astrally
>>active except when in use.  This keeps people from being killed by their power
>>focus while asleep.  (Spell locks, however, are always in use...)
> 
>I didn't used to agree with the last sentence, but I've been persuaded (and
>so has FASA) otherwise.  In SRII foci (including spell locks) can be turned
>on and off.  I'm still not sure I like that.  I completely agree with that
>first line.
> 

I think I like the idea of turning foci on and off.  I think I'll use it.

>>And does SRUN II put more emphasis on astral combat?  

>Yes, and they also make it much easier to mix astral and non-astral actions,
>as far a timing goes (meaning that astral and normal combat use the same
>initiative and action phases).
>

I have been playing this way...  I never realized that the rules said anything
different. <shrug>

>Wordman
> 
>"And with my meager earnings from my TV ministry, I purchased...
> Wayne Newton."
>                    -- Steve Martin

Jim Corbit
chem7l@jetson.uh.edu
From: canders@isr.harvard.edu (Carl E. Anderson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Military Mechs?
Date: 28 Jul 92 15:25:32 GMT
Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

In article <Bs323p.GC3@acsu.buffalo.edu> v131p9t3@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Ninstar Cybermage - Back Again from the Mists!) writes:
>Mind you, sufficiently developed mechs would be more versatile than tanks
>and more maneuverable.  But believe me they would never replace the tank
>as a mobile gunnery platform.  Like so many vehicles in the military, it would
>have it's own Niche to fill.

	Tanks in BattleTech can be pretty annoying, and the self-propelled
guns are a bitch too.  I was in a game where a light Mech Lance ran into a
Lance of tanks (big mean tanks mind you) and the Mech's nearly got taken
apart.  Even more recently one of the players in my Lance decided to ignore
the tank in favour of attacking the nearby Mech.  Got shredded next round
by the tank ...

	Of course the the GM in this campaign was also a player who worked
with tanks in the game alot and was very good at using them.

Cheers,
Carl

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl Edlund Anderson	            	"Hefi ek ok aldri sva reitt vapn
canders@isr.harvard.edu			at manni at eigi hafi vidh kommit."
OR
anderso2@husc.harvard.edu			- Skarphedhinn Njalsson 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Genres
From: steiner@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu (jason steiner)
Date: 21 Jul 92 22:29:39 EST
Distribution: world

a_copeab@ccsvax.sfasu.edu writes:
> 
> 	I used the comparision of a half-dozen Leopard II's meeting an equal
> tonnage of 'mechs for showing how anemic gun ranges are in BT (of course, 
> all I got was 'yeah, but today's tanks need a lot more maintainence than 
> 'mechs ... blablabla...'; this point does not matter in actual combat, and 
> since the tanks would waste the 'mechs, it wouldn't matter afterwards 
> either :-)

how do tanks need more maintainence? i'd expect one turbine engine,
a cannon & some treads to be much easier to maintain than something that
actually has to walk & uses a fusion engine. headaches galore.

give me a tank any day. besides, mechs make great targets, towering
over trees & such...

--
,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,
,` "Get off the cross. We need the wood."  steiner@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu `,
,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: braca2@cspyr1.cs.adfa.oz.au (BRAY CHRISTOPHER)
Subject: Re: New Name for Flesh Golem wanted!
Organization: Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 12:22:24 GMT

From article <1992Jul25.060419.6281@mtu.edu>, by mrmach@mtu.edu (MARK R. MACH):
> In article <1992Jul25.043223.546@njitgw.njit.edu>, cxc4107@hertz.njit.edu (Christopher Lee Cavender) writes:
>> Okay all you creative net-types! I need a new name for Flesh Golems! And DONT
>> give me varations on Frankenstein! There is no reason to name a medivail monster
>> after a 19th centuray fictional creation!
>> 						Chris

 I will give you something frankenstienisnesm, but more Shelley I guess:

	A Promethatom - Frankenstein was also called a modern Prometheus
			and I crossed that with automaton. take it or leave it.


                              -=[   hook   ]=-
-----------------------------                  ----------------------------
 braca2@cspyr1.cs.adfa.oz.au          |    "If you've got it shake it" - hook
       ========			      |    "My heart beats just like yours, 
      /        \                      |    When I dream, my mind soars,  
      |        |                      |    but no fantasy will pay my bills
      \        /                      |    Another dream unfulfilled"
       ---  ---                       |                - Living Color
	 / /                          | "Right now there are hundreds of
	 | |                          | sceptics falling of the edge of the 
	 \ \   /|                     | Earth"  Clem Turner (LEUT, RAN)
	  \ --/ |                     |
	   \---/                      |
copy this sig and help `Just Say No' to Big Brother monitoring public bandwidth
      NSA KEYWORDS:  AVIARY, OCELOT, KIT GREEN, JOHN ALEXANDER, ED DAMES

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: winterh@emunix.emich.edu (Twist)
Subject: Re: SRun: Armor spells equal to dermal? Limits can be made...
Organization: Detroit Institute Of Criminal Arts And Sciences
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 12:52:58 GMT

In article <55180@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> olds@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Angel) writes:
>>
>>I have a question to all of you Shadowrun gurus.  I am playing a mage and
>>wanted to cast a spell locked armor spell on myself, after watching our
>>big troll go down in one shot.  I have the spell at force 5, a magic pool
>>at 6 and an elemental at force 4 and used him for 3 dice.  We used a
>>target number of 3 and I rolled 14 dice, resulting in 10 successes.  The
>>GM was not amused by the prospect of me having 10 points of dermal armor
>>permanantly locked on.  He said that there _must_ be some kind of upper
>>limit on these things but we couldn't find anything.  Are we missing
>>something?
>>
>	Ok, I am not a guru, however I have an answer/suggestion...
>	I know the book says to treat the armor spell like dermal,
>	but something about a sam having to pay 45,000 for 3 points
>	of dermal and loose 3 points of essence makes me think that
>	this spell is *TOO MUCH*.  I think, since you don't need it
>	from the looks of the number of dice you are throwing, you 
>	shouldn't ask for help from that pretty elemental.  But that
>	is your personal choice.  I, and everyone else in our campaign,
>	use armor spell successes as dice for body, no autos.

	Where in the rules does it say that dermal armor gives auto-
  successes? I thought it was just supposed to add to body dice.
-- 
===============================================================================
winterh@emunix.emich.edu    "Ours goes to eleven" - This Is Spinal Tap
          Twist             "Never trust a woman or a government" - Yellowbeard
                *Bill Of Rights  - Void where prohibited by law*
===============================================================================
From: cassidy@cps.msu.edu.cps.msu.edu (John J Cassidy)
Subject: Re: Rolemaster Character Creation Aid: What would you expect from it?
Originator: cassidy@indian.cps.msu.edu
Reply-To: cassidy@cps.msu.edu.cps.msu.edu (John J Cassidy)
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Michigan State University
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 14:33:17 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.123901.1598@corax.udac.uu.se> aha@meryl.csd.uu.se (Anders Hallberg) writes:
>In article <1992Jul24.015215.18694@pacifier.rain.com> michael@pacifier.rain.com (Michael Smith) writes:
>>>I have begun the tedious task of writing a character creation aid for
>>>Rolemaster.
>
>>	Sir, thou art truly a hero of our times.  May the Gods bless you
>>and your race to the nth generation.
>
>  I have written such a program.  
[He then goes on to show his randomly created character created by his
system, among other things.]

>
>Foo                       Common Man                Rogue 5
>A short description of a rogue goes here.
>
>CO   AG   SD   ME   RE   ST   QU   PR   EM   IN   AP    Spell points: 0
>92   90   73   66   92   98   96   55   45   90   43           AT/DB: 9 / 17
>12   10   9    2    12   26   17   0    0    10   0             Hits: 60
>
>Broadsword............90  Stalk & Hide..........50  First Aid.............35  
>Thrown Dagger.........73  Streetwise............50  Trading...............26  
>General Perception....61  Gambling..............46  Swimming..............25  
>Brawling..............56  Bribery...............46  Duping................25  
>Climbing..............55  Appraisal.............42  Maneuver in Rigid L....5  
>Picking Locks.........51  Drug Tolerance........41  
>Disarm Trap...........50  Riding................40  
>

	with a name like "Foo", is this a LISP program by any chance?
(*)
	John J Cassidy		Cassidy@indian.cps.msu.edu
	~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 21:15:15 -0400 
From: William Henry Timmins <wt0b+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Military Mechs?
Distribution: world

Responce to the point that in Battletech, apparently, Myomer muscle must
be over a meter in length (for some reason).

I just realized that ALSO fails to support mechs: use a coil.

Heres how you do a wheel assembly with myomer:

Have a shaft. Around the shaft are wrapped two myomer muscles, one
wrapped clockwise, one counter-clockwise. Attach a piston and wheel
arrangement to the shaft, and stimulate the myomer muscles alternately.

Presto! All the neat things you said about fusion power and electrical
stimulation now work for vehicles as well. (At greater efficiency, too)

If you want a realistic game, don't invent too much bullshit to support
certain ideas. The problem is, there may be LOTS of ways to get around
your bullshit, and having to make up more exceptions is annoying.

I think Occam's razor is a good tool to use with game backgrounds.


-Me
[Pooh Bear incarnate.]
<B1 c+ f+ w g+ k+ s+ r- e+ p>
From: jacobus@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Best Super system
Date: 27 Jul 92 21:12:36 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center

In article <0095E0D3.B5E39540@abby.chem.ucla.edu> doug@abby.chem.ucla.edu writes:
>false.  You may have an astounding Dodge, say (in a Supers game), but if
>someone who happens to be more skilled comes up to you and uses the
>most wonderful of combat maneuvers, the FEINT, you can find your dodge
>slipping away as you are faked out horribly....




How does one feint with a range attack?????




Just wondering.
From: wt0b+@andrew.cmu.edu (William Henry Timmins)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Huge Robots as weapons, are they valid? Does it matter?
Date: 28 Jul 92 00:06:00 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

>    So in closing let me say again.  Stop trying to defend the science
>behind your game.  You can't.  And using "Anything is possible through
>magic, er, I mean science" is kind of silly.  If you like Robot combat,
>then play it, if you like superhero games, play them (with me
>preferably, I can't find enough people), play what you like.  We wont
>say it's silly.  We promise. after all, 

   I would argue about the AI. I'd say more on the range of 50-100
before a completely independent machine intelligence for units is
useful, but this is merely a digression.

   There is one hole in your logic- what if we like realism? What if we
DON'T like having to not do certain things, say certain things, know
certain things, because it would make the universe fall apart? What if
we, using a twisted reality, find a really good way of doing something
that, apparantly, no smart person ever figured out before?

    THAT'S why I like realism... people are free to use logic in their
plans, war or otherwise. People feel free to QUESTION, without fearing
the 'well, that's just the way it is'. Too many 'because' answers
discourages creativity, IMO.

    That's why I don't mind fantasy... it has it's own TYPE of logic.
You can get used to the explanations and logic systems. You can run
across holes, but good GMs can design things self-consistently. Anything
that is supposed to be based on reality, however, should be tight to
reality. Otherwise, you have to start shutting off your logic.


-Me
[Pooh Bear incarnate.]
<B1 c+ f+ w g+ k+ s+ r- e+ p>
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: hutch@hutch (Stephen Hutchison)
Subject: Re: Point or Random Systems, What about both?
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 17:26:46 GMT

In article <1992Jul26.154444.18818@u.washington.edu>
mkkuhner@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) writes:
+Having both point and random generation for the same system is a
+possibility, but one or the other is likely not to work well.  If you
+design the system with random generation, you know that some characters
+will have much higher attributes than others with no compensation, so
+you know that you have to insure that even low-attribute characters will
+be playable.  With point generation, this is not the case.  Conversely,
+with point generation you have to worry a lot about the possibility that
+two rare abilities will synergize overly well, since players are likely
+to spot and exploit such a loophole.  In a random system it will be very
+improbable to get such a character, so it's not as big a worry.

+Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@genetics.washington.edu

Actually, even though I like to tease the Wasp about this (because he
responds so nicely - must be some hint of Kender in my background)...

I agree that point-based lets you get some pretty obnoxious interactions.

My solution to this is to provide (and require) kits for certain things.
They're attractive, because they give a grouping of desireable things,
for a lower apparent price, and I give a slight point cost break, because
they exist as definitions of the kind of cultural and social artifacts that
I want in the game world.  For instance, "Knight of Poremis" is one I was
throwing together - there's a social status, offset by a strong duty, a
very nice set of combat skills, offset by another duty and a vow to aid,
a religious gets-to-call-on-god, offset by a vow of personal poverty.

The other thing I try to do is to prohibit certain toxic combinations,
just flat out veto them because I don't want to deal with the kind of
party interactions they'll cause.

I've considered something, which I'll try next time I restart my game,
which is to provide a random "obnoxiousness" roll, which can be combined
with Karma from a previous character well-played.  When the roll is good,
the player gets to pick some combination of things that's worth more than
it really should be.  Or gets some free points to spend in whatever nasty
way they feel like.

I've also partitioned points into basic-stats and skills, with some
limits on how many disads can be applied to each.

Hutch
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Subject: Re: GURPS: Alien races -- Too powerful?
Keywords: GURPS Aliens Space
Reply-To: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Organization: Plymouth State College - Plymouth, N.H.
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 22:18:10 GMT

I never allow races with more than a +1 to IQ or DX.  That cuts down on
most of the abuse right there.

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: tag@hermes.ecn.purdue.edu (Tony A. Gibbens)
Subject: Re: Dark games
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 18:19:20 GMT

In article <ajross.712299155@husc9> ajross@husc9.harvard.edu (Andrew Ross) writes:
>dfn@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Nalle) writes:
>
>>6: MONSTERS
>>For the purposes of this code, the term "monster" is defined to mean non-human
>>creatures and/or violent beasts whose primary purpose is destruction and/or
>>criminal activity/  As foes of the protagonists, their evil should be defeated
>>adn the criminal punished or destroyed.
>
>How many folks immediately realized that this excludes Sesame Street?

Hey, I happen to think the Cookie Monster is very destructive, criminal, if
not down right evil.  I mean eating everyone's cookies, leaving crumbs all 
over, and making such noise when he is eating cookies.  Why death is the 
least that this evil spawned creature deserves.  :-)

>
>Andy Ross
>ajross@husc.harvard.edu
>                                                that's right, no .sig

tag@ecn.purdue.edu

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: jen@athena.mit.edu (Jennifer Hawthorne)
Subject: Re: HERO vs. GURPS
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 23:28:50 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.194442.19451@news.columbia.edu> jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim) writes:
>joshua salter <jsalter@silver.ucs.indiana.edu> writes:
>> Suggestions on what supplements to buy? (For each.)
>

I've only used two GURPS supplements extensively, but I'll tell you
what I think of those:

GURPS Space:  Excellent.  It had everything I wanted for my
space-opera campaign and then some.  

GURPS Psionics:  Good as a campaign source book, but the Psionics
mechanics are, IMHO, simply unsatisfactory.  Although the rules given
for Telepathy are detailed and complete and in general work well, not
a single one of the other eight Psi powers (Antipsi, Astral
Projection, ESP, Electrokinesis, Healing, Psychokinesis, Psychic
Vampirism, and Teleport)  has been given similarly thorough treatment.
Although I should add that it does a better job than any other system
I've seen -- which is damning with faint praise.  (A specific example:
Although it gives nicely detailed rules for some specialized uses of
Telekinesis, _nowhere_ in the supplement does it tell you how to go
about using TK to simply grab an opponent, or an opponent's weapon, or
to trip up said opponent -- all of which I would consider to be basic
TK maneuvers that should have been covered.)  (A side note: if anyone
else out there is using this supplement extensively and wants to
compare notes and mechanics hacking, I'd love to hear from you.)

My $.02 worth.

Jen H.
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 21:03:32 -0400 
From: "Mark A. Baxter" <mb8p+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: SR: Blood 'n guts games

    One of the difficulties I have with SR is that it's a very heavily
combat oriented game but that the characters are forced to
super-specialize to such an extent that only street sam's and mages
(shamanic or hermetic) have any real use in combat.  (I don't think
riggers have a place as player characters, more about that later)  The
discussion about deckers and guns has sort of covered this to some
extent.  For the record, deckers *will* die if they look armed, the
enemy will target and waste them with boosted reflexes and firearms 6 or
a manabolt, while if they don't show threat they will be ignored in
favor of those who do. The same goes for anyone else without heavy
combat emphasis, the boosted reflexes, dermal plating, etc. are all that
keeps the sams alive. 
    So basically you have two groups of characters, the fighting types
and the non-fighting types, with each pushing for the spotlight.  This
is one thing D&D WAS able to avoid by giving everyone combat abilities. 
SR, by contrast, has characters like deckers, the rocker(!?), the ganger
and others, who were not specifically designed for combat and therefore
are left behind when combat starts.  My last GM, who had GMed shadowrun
for a long time, said that in his last campaign they'd had only mages
and hadn't missed the difference.  He would simply have a decker NPC to
work for them.  Now admittedly this edges toward munchkinism.  My point
is, players shouldn't have to sit on their hands while one character
gets to deck, or go astral scouting, or FIREFIGHT.  
    I don't really know how this can be addressed so I'm tossing it out
into the ring for discussion.                    Hugs folks, Mark
Mark Baxter              |One is for sorrow,
<mb8p+@andrew.cmu.edu>   |Two is for joy,
ext #4690                |Three for a girl,
                         |Four a boy,
         I               |Five is for silver,
       Have              |Six is for gold,
         A               |And Seven's a secret
      Secret             |Never to be told.
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc