HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: alex@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: RQ: Yelmalio (Sun County)
Date: 21 Jan 93 20:41:12 GMT
Organization: Computing Sci, Glasgow Univ, Scotland

In article <loren.285@wmkt.wharton.upenn.edu>,
 loren@wmkt.wharton.upenn.edu (Loren Miller) writes:
>And parts of peloria too. I tend to agree with the theory that originally 
>Yelmalio was an Elf cult, and that the Sun Dome folk adopted Yelmalio, the 
>solar-family god of sunlight, over Elmal, the storm-family god of sunlight, 
>for political reasons, and heroquested to justify the change.

I don't follow this last bit: what kind of heroquest would be necessary?

>I don't know... do the western trolls still worship Zorak Zoran? If they 
>did, and assuming their Zorak Zoran had fire powers, he could easily have 
>obtained them from a different mythic occurence.

They do (see Troll Gods, Elder Secrets, or my last post (which has easily
the best artwork of the possible sources :->)).  I suspect they get the
fire powers from much the same source, and doubt whether they would get
them otherwise.  Why would they "just happen" to get the same powers,
by two completely different routes?

>Why do I say this? Because I have secret information, which I will be 
>posting as soon as I get the logs complete.

Do!  Please!  Pretty please!!

> On America Online last friday I 
>asked Greg Stafford if heroquest paths for gods that had different 
>characteristics in different regions could differ. He emphatically said yes. 

That seems eminently reasonable, since hero cults are often regional,
as illustrated by the Humakt hero cults.

[Aside:  do the Chaosium people have accounts on aol?]

>I had asked it about Uleria, who is a kind and gentle goddess of love in 
>Prax, but let's posit she is a bloodthirsty goddess of orgies in Vormain, 
>and whether a Praxian Ulerians priestess could get her spells from Uleria 
>while in a Vormain temple to their aspect of Uleria. He said yes

[Other aside: is Uleria much worshipped in Prax?  As part of the Paps
 complex?  Or what?]

That's interesting: this would seem to provide a canonical test to
discover whether people worshiping a) God X in two different manners
or b) Gods X and Y in much the same manner were in fact worshiping
the same entity.

Examples:
a)  Humakt in Sartar vs Kingdom of War, errr, good examples escape me...
b)  Yelm/Somash, Dayzatar/Furalor, etc, Ernalda/Dendara

>I believe the proper attitude would be: "Who believes those crazy trolls and 
>their insulting stories about Orlanth and Yelmalio anyway?"

Hmmm.  Not sure about this.  Because myth comprises the substance of the
Godplane, different viewpoints tend to agree at least as to the basic facts
of some mythic event (until they manage to change them), and just put a
different gloss on them.  Consider all those Yelm/Orlanth stories, for
instance.
-- 
Alex Ferguson.
ARPA: alex%dcs.glasgow.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    UUCP: alex@glasgow.uucp
BANGNET: ...!mcvax!ukc!dcs.glasgow.ac.uk!alex     JANET: alex@uk.ac.glasgow.dcs
"You mean you could have walked the galaxy and you simply never bothered?"
From: miller_su@swam1.enet.dec.com (LLOst in Spaaace...)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: GURPS: Advice needed for sci-fi campaign
Date: 26 JAN 93 08:55:44
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
NNTP-Posting-Host: DELREY
Keywords: GURPS, Space, Lensman


In article <C1FAu4.52B@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu>, jszeder@napier.uwaterloo.ca (John Szeder) writes...
>I want to play a sci-fi campaign with 
>a bunch of alien races (I already have GURPS BASIC and GURPS UPLIFT) and I 
>would like to know what supplements will enhance my campaign.. GURPS SPACE is
>a definite from what I've heard, but are there any other supplements worth
>mentioning? 

GURPS Terradyne is near-future hard sf, or if your campaign is going to be 
space opera, you may want to pick up GURPS Lensman, coming this fall to 
better gaming stores everywhere.
 __
/()\ Sean Barrett <sbar@genie.geis.com>
\__/ Free the Terran Five Billion!

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Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: jaymin@maths.tcd.ie (Jo Jaquinta)
Subject: Re: English as a Celtic language? - HaHaHaHaHa
Organization: Dept. of Maths, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 10:06:52 GMT

In article <C1A1AJ.Cz6@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> jacobus@symphony.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) writes:
>Will you please demonstrate that English is Celtic and not Germanic?
	1) Ask anyone who has been through the Irish educational system. They
all hate Irish (a Celtic language) beacause it is nothing like English
(which is what most people speak).
	2) Look in any competant dictionary, you know, the ones where they
have a big language tree in the back.
	3) Get out a copy of Encyclopedia Brittanica. Loads of references
there.
	4) Dutch is related to German. Freis is related to
Duch. (The Fresian Islands are the string of islands just off the
coast of the Netherlands) Freis and English have large areas of
overlap ("Good milk and good cheese is good English and good Freis"
-- i.e. this sentence is the same in both languages). Thus English
is related to German, i.e. a germanic language. I challange anyone
to find a sentence that is mutually understandable in English and
Welsh.

		Nuf said?
					Jo

_______________________________________________________________________________
Jo Grant			| "Love is blind, or so it seems, to make me
jaymin@maths.tcd.ie		| offer you my dreams. But after all is said and
44 Bancroft Ave., Tallaght,	| done, a blind man's dreams are not much fun."
Dublin 24, IRELAND		| -- Horslips, "The Blind Can't Lead the Blind"
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: boliv@Mari.Unit.NO (Olivier Banessy)
Subject: Re : Rolemaster 
Reply-To: boliv@Mari.Unit.NO (Olivier Banessy)
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 09:57:31 GMT


	I am glad to hear about Monte Cook. Good to hear that ICE is safe from
bankrupt.

	BTW, I would like to say a few words about the companion. RMCI and RMCII
are extremely useful. They are not compulsory since the basic game is really
enjoyable by itself but they add a good spice to the game. However, the other
companions are more or less useless : some points may be added to the game but,
90 % of them is to be discarded. Is it really necessary to have millions of 
classes. We usually play with the Character Law classes plus the RMCI & II classes
and that is far enough. You can get the others by changing one or two costs and
by "moving" some plus per level. No need to release a 100 pages book to give
unbalanced classes. Most of them are not conformed with the others (see RMCIII).
Same thing with most of the spell lists given in late companions !

	The best companion since RMCII is the War Law, easy to use, good realism
very good stuff indeed ! On the contrary, the Alchemist Companion is simply 
useless. It adds nothing to the game and some points that was not clear in the
Char.Law and RMCI are still unclear ! No explanation about the cost or the way
of fabrication of some useful magic items... We still have to use Home Rules.
This companion is really disapointing, it is just the same stuff than if the 
previous books with no changes, even in the presentation !!!

	The RMCVI is may be the most useable of the last 4, with 20% useful 
things, but who needs 100th level spells ??? 

	As was saying Luc Maillet, Rolemaster (the best game I know anyway) 
really needs a good rewriting with a good selection of the various options. SM
has been republished, why haven't you done the same to RM ? I have two different
editions of the game but nothing has been changed and, there are lots of mistakes
in the "new" spell law ! So we still refer to the "old" edition !!!


					Terken !
From: lore@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Lore Christian Sjoberg)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: HERO: Killing attacks as pseudo-NND's
Date: 21 Jan 1993 01:25:21 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz
Distribution: scruz
NNTP-Posting-Host: ucscb.ucsc.edu


In <1jki8gINNf10@gap.caltech.edu> flowers@cco.caltech.edu (Dave Flowers) writes:

>While the BODY from killing attacks only goes against resistant defense, the
>STUN goes against the full defense (if the target has >any< resistant defense).

Eeeeeewwwww. I missed that "if." Does this mean that if Squiggy the Thief
gets hit with a sword in an unarmored portion of his body, he takes FULL
stun, no PD allowed?


-- 
Lore Christian          +     rec.arts.comics    + "Well, red means       
     Fitzgerald Sj|berg = Rarely Asked Questions = 'caution.' Or 'beef' if
  lore@ucscb.ucsc.edu   + #3 -- "So, who's this  + it's a bullion cube..."
  lore@cats.ucsc.edu    = Superman guy, anyway?" =  --Alastatia, "Toys"   
 

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: ua796@freenet.victoria.bc.ca (Robert James Heggie)
Subject: Re: HERO:Power Pools
Organization: Camosun College, Victoria B.C, Canada
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 23:50:19 GMT



I think you have missed an important point about Variable Power Pools,
Pools.  If your Fantasy mage takes this (and it is Very costly)
then he/she can only create a power whose maximum active cost
is No more than the points in the pool.  This means that if your
mage has a 30 point VPP and he wants to create a Blast Spell
for it then the maximum strength of that Blast can be
no more than 6d6....etc

    Bob H (rheggie@ra.UVic.CA)
From: klaus@diku.dk (Klaus Ole Kristiansen)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: RQ: river of cradles out? SPOILER
Date: 22 Jan 93 14:21:45 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen


I have two questions about the Troubled Waters adventure:

1) The venerable Sa'ar refers to the 3 bean circus. What is that?

2) Is there a way out of the caves in the last scenario? Waiting
   for the next eruption is impractical, as they come several
   days apart, at unpredictable intervals, while the heroes can
   only breathe water for 2 hours.

Klaus O K
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: DragonQuest?!
From: scasterg@waltham.columbus.oh.us
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 20:04:39 -0500
X-Mailer: rnMac Buggy, I mean Beta, Test Version

> In article <1993Jan26.043540.29698@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> jwolf@nyx.cs.du.edu 
(The WolF) writes:
> >In essence, DragonQuest is a stripped-down version of D&D (not AD&D). Its
> >intended to be a gateway into D&D. Seems T$R is aggressively pursuing the
> >novist gamer. :)
> >
> 
> Exactly.  The old SPI _DragonQuest_ game (which is ok BTW) is not the same as 

> the current TSR _DragonQuest_ game.  Since TSR owns the rights to the name, 
> they can slap it on anything they choose.  It's a simplification of D&D, 
> intended to compete with HeroQuest and BattleQuest, and provide a stepping
> stone to D&D and/or ADnD2.  Term it "D&D Lite."
> 
> It does include 6 NON-LEAD metal figures.
> 
> -Coyt
> 
> 

Oh, God. I think I'm going to puke.

Alas, poor DragonQuest, I played it....

Burn, TSR. Burn.

Stu Castergine
scasterg@waltham.columbus.oh.us
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: gray@visix.com (Gray Jones)
Subject: SRII:  Fetishes
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 17:52:52 GMT
Reply-To: gray@visix.com (Gray Jones)
Organization: Visix Software, Reston, Virginia


Can you ground a spell through a fetish?

Does the fact that they are not bonded make a difference?

`--gray
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: burke@vxdesy.desy.de (Stephen Burke)
Subject: Re: SRII magic
Organization: (DESY, Hamburg, Germany)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 17:34:20 GMT

In article <1jnpb8INNeha@crcnis1.unl.edu>, pmenard@cse.unl.edu (Patrick Menard) writes:
> Oh, could some kind soul post the prices from the old Grimoire for Radicals,
> Orichalchum, etc...  I sold mine at a used bookstore to finance the Grimoire
> II. :)

The prices in Grimoire I didn't make much sense, anyway. If you work out how
long it takes a moderately good enchanter to make a unit of orichalcum from
scratch, it comes out as something like a week or two - at 88k yen/unit, who
needs to be a shadowrunner? The prices for magic items are also silly - again,
it works out *much* cheaper to make them yourself (and costs less karma to
bond).

e----><----p | Stephen Burke           | Internet: burke@vxdesy.desy.de
 H   H   1   | Gruppe FH1T (Liverpool) | DECnet:   vxdesy::burke (13313::burke)
 H   H  11   | DESY, Notkestrasse 85   | BITNET:   BURKE@DESYVAX or SB2@UKACRL
 HHHHH   1   | 2000 Hamburg 52         | JANET:    sb2@uk.ac.rl.ib
 H   H   1   | Germany                 | Phone:    + 49 40 8998 2282
 H   H 11111 | HERA, the world's largest electron microscope!
From: thornley@myria.cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: META:  Un-powered characters
Date: 26 Jan 93 23:07:33 GMT
Article-I.D.: news2.C1HHLL.xo
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, CSci dept.

In article <1993Jan26.130758.26004@vela.acs.oakland.edu> mwlucas@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Michael W. Lucas) writes:
>
>Hello, world!
>
>What are people's opinions on playing characters without "unnatural" 
>powers?  

I've had a lot of fun with "normal" characters in various venues, whether
medieval fighters or modern adventurers.  I had a lot of fun running the
bombing raids on R'Lyeh (you drop your bombs, the ground sorta shifts and
you seem to be headed for it, how good is your piloting?).

>Do most gamers require that they have the ability to create a
>character with psi, magic, cybernetics, or whatever, to make their 
>character more than human?  

Well, if you want to play more-than-human characters, you gotta have some
sort of enhancement.  If you mean do most of us require superhuman
characters, no way.

>Has anyone out there run a game with just
>normal humans, setting their skills against the universe?  If so, how well
>did it run?
>
My Call of Cthulhu campaign had magic, but only one player actually used the
stuff (and he wound up with *serious* problems).  Most of the players stuck
to dynamite at first, and graduated to bigger things (a Zeppelin with parasite
fighters carrying a small bomb load) later.  Of course, having done a favor
or two for Naval Intelligence didn't hurt.

Currently, I have characters (a) in a 30s pulp campaign, where I am a Great
White Hunter, (b) in a campaign featuring normal humans and advanced
equipment, run more or less in conjunction with a superhero campaign
(we are SHIELD agents, if you read Marvel), (c) in an Arabian Nights
campaign where all magical abilities, etc., are forbidden to the players.

One thing about a lack of magic:  it does slow down healing a lot.  If a
good healer is available, non-fatal damage is not all that serious.  In
a non-powered campaign, it lasts for a *long* time.

DHT
Xref: sparky rec.games.frp.misc:11549 rec.games.frp.advocacy:3816
From: esper@cs35b.cs.umn.edu (Dave Sherohman)
Subject: Re: Obscure Shadowrun Rules Questions (and my answers)
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 03:50:17 GMT

In article <93027.160715CSD108@psuvm.psu.edu> <CSD108@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>
>In article <C1Hx2w.63H@news2.cis.umn.edu>, esper@cs35b.cs.umn.edu (Dave
>Sherohman) says:
>>>Sigh. Here we go again. All those new abilities listed in the Grimoire 2 are
>>>only available to PA initiates.
>>
>I got the "idea" from pg. 38 of the Grimoire II
>
>"Once a magician reaches a certain level of initiation, he automatically gains
>new abilities. Physical adepts, for example, gain access to additional phys-
>ical adept abilities (see Additional Powers, p. 34) simply upon achieving
>initiation."

"...simply upon achieving initiation.  Because each grade of initiation beyond
Grade 0 adds another point to the adept's Magic Attribute Rating..."  Rather
weak, I'll admit, thanks to the period before the "Because", but I think the
placement of the PA powers in a seperate chapter from all of the abilities
gained by initiating and (to a much greater extent) the appearance of a
reference to "the _initiate_ physical adept" (emphasis mine, of course)
appearing in only one of the power descriptions make a stronger case than the
(mildly) ambiguous passage you cited.  Yes, PA's do "gain access to additional
physical adept abiliies" when they initiate - enhanced centering plus whatever
"additional physical adept abilities" they choose to "gain access to" with their
extra magic points.

esper@ima.umn.edu
>
>--Presto
>
>_______________________________________________________________________
>|  Trouble with Tribbles? Try  |  Internet: CSD108@psuvm.psu.edu      |
>|       - N E R P S ! -        |  Bitnet  : CSD108@psuvm              |
>|        For Tribbles          |  "668: Neighbor of the Beast"        |
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------


Xref: sparky rec.games.frp.misc:11443 rec.games.frp.advocacy:3780
From: dunkelza@titan.ucs.umass.edu (KEITH C MCCORMIC)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc,rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Random Rolls
Date: 21 Jan 1993 15:20:56 -0500
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
NNTP-Posting-Host: titan.ucs.umass.edu

In article <20JAN93.23287310.0073@VM1.MCGILL.CA> CX6L <CX6L@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA> writes:

>So: what *do* you like, Sea Wasp? Murderous powergaming systems?
>Clunky ROLL-playing system (complete with 20 dice)? Restrictive
>random-rolled, class-driven systems? I'm curious!
>-Kromm

  Oooh...  Now you've got my hackle up!  Random roll restrictive??!!??!!

  Only for those infantile wimp gamers who can't cope with a character
that doesn't fit their stereotypical concepts of what "THEIR" character
is like.  Again and again I hear the same thing...  "I don't like it
when my character isn't exactly what I wanted.".  Maybe you should learn
to play unconventional characters.  Or amybe you should realize that
everyone is not the same.  What is this Advangtage/Disadvantage crap?
Since when has it been true that if you add up everyone's advantages and 
disadvantages, they come out equal?  Since never!  It's a lame argument
and a lame excuse for designing a point allocation system.  Get some
real role-playing ability.

Note:  This post was only intended to insult Kromm.  If anyone else is 
       insulted, apology quickly rendered.

Dunkelzahn
From: akuma@netcom.com (Steven Elliott Barnes)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: RQ: River of Cradles (*Spoilers*)
Date: 26 Jan 93 00:41:37 GMT
Organization: Radio Free Arcadia


I went through the original version of this scenario; I don't
know what the new version is like, but I had some major gripes
about the RQ II version.

Basically, the entire scenario seemed to be a giant flow-chart,
with things contrived so that the players couldn't possibly
deviate from The Plan.  First off, they specified that no
rune-level characters were allowed.  Naturally, we ignored
this and brought along a couple priests and lords.  However,
the forces thrown against us were so overwelming that it
didn't make much difference.

In one scene, the boat is being stormed by mercenaries.
As my initiate struggled to help defend the boat, I just
looked at things, and thought "Why are we doing this?
there is no way we can win."  Sure enough, events forced
us to hide in the interior of the boat.  Of course, my
Humakt initiate died before this happened.  In hindsight, 
we should have just ran for the hold as soon as we saw trouble.

An interesting note was that it was raining in that scene;
I believe the Lunars were dumping burning oil on the
cradle.  The scenario had a note that any Yelmalio
initiates with the geas "never seek shelter from storm"
had to stay on deck!

Finally, things looked grim; we were hosed; there was nothing
we could do.  But wait, Argrath the Hero shows up to save
our asses.  Talk about un-satisfying.  Basically, our entire
effort was irrelevant.

Lastly, as our reward, we got: all the gold we could carry.
This seemed pretty arbitrary, and unsatisfying.  I mean,
here we are on a boat filled with awesome magic goodies,
and they give us gold?  Aren't giants darkness creatures?
What about us low-strength characters?  I ended up with
11 STR * 100 gold; the rune lord, on the other hand,
got 21 * 100 gold, plus he loaded up his sky bull ally
with so much gold it couldn't fly.

But there was a final indignity waiting for us.  The scenario
had a note, something to the effect that:  "now that your 
characters are so amazingly wealthy, they should retire; 
besides, you don't want all that gold to unbalance your campaign".

My group considers this to be part of a greater pattern; the 
chilling influence of Sandy Peterson on RQ.  We call it: Call 
of Runequest.  Basically, an attitude that characters must be 
kept weak and ineffectual.  But that is the subject of a 
different flamewar...

-steve
From: dunkelza@titan.ucs.umass.edu (KEITH C MCCORMIC)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Faerie Folk (more pedantry that has nothing to do with gaming)
Date: 21 Jan 1993 14:25:36 -0500
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
NNTP-Posting-Host: titan.ucs.umass.edu

In article <1jkftr$pcd@agate.berkeley.edu> chuahl@ocf.berkeley.edu (Chua HakLien) writes:
>Hey, guys. COOL DOWN ON THE FLAMES, WILL YA? I can see that both
>Steffan and Keith are pretty knowledgeable on the subject, and 
>all the posts have made highly interesting reading, but try not to
>stoop to insults.....
>
>Nuff said,
>Chua
>+==+

  I will if the others do too.  Handshake Steffan?

Dunkelzahn