HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gharris@jade.tufts.edu (George W. Harris)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Random Rolls
Date: 26 Jan 93 16:14:50 GMT
Organization: Tufts University - Medford, MA

In article <C1FKFr.KGD@cs.uiuc.edu> silber@cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>In article <1993Jan22.220046.1900@news.vanderbilt.edu> talbert@athena.cas.vander
>bilt.edu (Robert Talbert) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan22.163503.7783@news.tufts.edu> gharris@jade.tufts.edu (Georg
>e W. Harris) writes:
>>	Yes, there has to be some effort made to improve, but character points
>>are not a good way of measuring this effort.  For instance, suppose our Group of
>>
>>Hardy Adventurers (tm) is setting out on an Adventure (tm).  Now, one of these
>>Hardy Adventurers has taken the Poor disadvantage.  When our group returns from
>>their adventure, they have each gained 6 million zorkmids, and some small number
>>
>>of character points.  Now, while everyone else is using their character points 
>to improve their skills, our poor Poor friend must use his to buy off his dis-
>>advantage.  So, he can't learn any skills because he used to be poor?
>>
>>	Much more sensible is a method whereby skills improve through use or
>>training, and if a character does something to get rid of a disadvantage, like,
>>say, our poor Poor friend above, or a cripple who gives 10,000 Semolyans to a
>
>Or, on the other hand, you could assume that "poor" also refers to a 
>persons ability to hang on to money. The "poor" character ends up investing
>5,999,000 zorkmids in a plan to sell fried basilisk to the trolls, and ends
>up broke as before.

	You could, but then, that's not how the disad is defined, is it?
In that case, you should take a psychological disad, Spendthrift/Bad with Money.
Not the same thing.

>ami silberman - janitor of lunacy
>	silber@cs.uiuc.edu
--
gharris@jade.tufts.edu          
George W. Harris              	"He'd kill us if he had the chance."  
Dept. of Mathematics            
Tufts University              			The Conversation  
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim)
Subject: Re: Burn, GURPS, BURN!
Reply-To: jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 22:57:18 GMT

CX6L@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA (CX6L) writes:
>The attributes, as they are described qualitatively in the Basic Set, are 
>screwed. Comparing to real-life, something like this is more appropriate:
>
>        ST                             DX
>11-12   Athletic                       Graceful
>13-14   Beefy as hell                  Amazingly graceful :)
>15-16   Pro weightlifter               Hands of surgeon, feet of boxer
>17-18   World's best weightlifter      World's most agile athlete
>19+     World's strongest person       Hermes himself
>
>        IQ                             HT
>11-12   Gifted                         Athletic
>13-14   Near-genius                    Hale and hearty, never been ill
>15-16   Genius                         Constitution of Rasputin
>17-18   World's smartest person        As close to immortal as possible
>19+     Smartest person in history     Healthiest specimen in history


	I would say that 17+ is definitely inappropriate for any 'realistic' 
campaign for *any* character, even the best in history. Remember that the 
best in history is very likely going to be in modern times, just given 
proportions of population. And modern man is much better fed and educated 
than his ancestors (nasty, brutish, and short). 

	If you want to simulate the truly great, take a hint from GURPS 
Special Ops. Put their primary stat(s) at 15, and take a bunch of skills 
and advantages. 16 starts to push the limits of believability, just 
because a attribute roll becomes such a sure thing (less than a 2% chance 
of failure). 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Kim                    | "You're on the cutting room floor, Chaplin.
jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu | Not a good place to be."
Columbia University         |                  (from the movie 'Chaplin')
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow)
Subject: Re: Burn, GURPS, BURN!
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 03:43:40 GMT

talbert@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (Robert Talbert) writes:

> Sea Wasp writes:
>
>+ I never had any problem, myself. I've run SF in a D&D game, fantasy in a
>+ Space Opera universe, spies in CoC and superheroes, and so on.
>
> Sure, you can *do* it, but isn't it easier to just use a generic system to
> start with?

Not necessarily.  Familiarity with a system is a big factor.  Also, the tone
of a system may be more important than the substance of the rules.  GURPS
probably doesn't have much of a tone (realistic, heroic, etc), and simple
overlays (sourcebooks) can't change the lack of tone in the basic framework.
You might be *able* to provide the same tone with GURPS, but it might be
easier to use a system that already has that tone as an inherent part of
itself.

--

Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: dv52151@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (RedSwordTarga)
Subject: Re: Burn, GURPS, BURN!
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 21:29:50 GMT

durrell@pinball.arcade.uiowa.edu (Bryant Durrell) writes:


>Um, I hope nobody's under the impression that Hero stat costs are
>balanced just cause they vary by stat.  The same argument -- that
>a given stat has differing value depending on the genre -- applies
>to Hero as much as it applies to GURPS.

Well, they are at least a step in the right direction. For the most part,
I've found the point cost for the statistics to be rather well thought out
in most of the genre. Did you have a specific problem in some genre?
We've already heard plenty of complaints from those who've dumped their
points down the STR sink playing modern era GURPS. 

Axly


Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: jnephew@tirith.carleton.edu (John A. Nephew)
Subject: pricing and stuff
Organization: Carleton College
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 21:06:00 GMT
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.40    
Reply-To: JNEPHEW@CARLETON.EDU
X-Posted-From: tirith.acc.carleton.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

First off, thanks for the comments on length.  It looks like longer works are
the way to go -- especially since they're not that much more expensive to
print.

I received a copy of THE MALEFICIUM from White Wolf today, and noticed the
price count.  "Whoa!" I thought.  "$18 for 144 pages, I've been charging too
little!"  For instance, our NIGHT CITY STORIES anthology of last year (also 144
pages) was $15.

So I'm toying around with ideas for a new price structure.  I think the
MALEFICIUM tag is a bit high for *my* taste, but ARS MAGICA is not exactly a
best-selling system.  Neither is our OVER THE EDGE game, however.  Getting a
little more income would encourage me to do more stuff, pay the creative folks
a little better, and not rely on TSR freelancing for my own bread and butter. 

I thought I'd suggest a price structure, and see what NetLand thought of it. 
If an adventure, supplement or anthology interested you, would you be willing
to pay these prices?  Would you find them excessive?  Please comment!

On the left are more sensibly staggered prices; on the right are prices rounded
to the nearest dollar.  Would the difference matter to you?

OVER THE EDGE

This is a smaller run line, so it needs a higher price to be worth doing.  But
the price can't be too high, or people won't pick the items up.

Size	Price	Rounded Price
16	$5.00	$5.00
32	 8.50	 9.00
48	10.00	10.00
64	11.50	12.00
80	13.00	13.00
96	14.25	14.00
112	15.75	16.00
128	17.00	17.00
144	18.25	18.00
160	19.75	20.00

CYBERPUNK

This line sells better, which can lower prices; but we also have to charge more
to pay for royalties for the license from R. Talsorian Games.

Size	Price	Rounded Price
16	$5.00	$5.00
32	 8.00	 8.00
48	 9.25	 9.00
64	10.50	10.00*
80	11.75	12.00
96	13.00	13.00
112	14.25	14.00
128	15.50	16.00
144	16.75	17.00
160	18.00	18.00

*No, this is not properly rounded; but since RTG publishes 80-page CP books for
$10, going higher seems inappropriate.

Do people feel like paying twice the money for 3-1/3 times the product (48 vs
160 pages) is a good deal?  Is one or the other overpriced?  Why?

Again, thanks for all the comments on the previous questions.  I'm looking
forward to your remarks.  (E-mail responses are welcome, too.)

-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games
jnephew@carleton.edu
From: mavra@cpac.washington.edu (Peter D. Adkison)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Review: Legacy
Date: 24 Jan 93 08:43:41 GMT
Organization: Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: bailey.cpac.washington.edu
In-reply-to: Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca's message of Sun, 24 Jan 1993 02:16:51 GMT

Count me in as one who really likes to see a nicely done thorough
index.  I'm very proud of the one in TPO (it took one person nearly a
week, fulltime, to do it).  Indexes aren't as easy as they sound, and
there are proper and improper ways of doing them (checkout your handy
dandy Chicago Manual of Style for tips).  If you still have the
energy when you get that far, one of the classically fun things to do
in books is what are called "index jokes."  For example, in TPO if you
look up "Loop" it tells you to see "Infinite," and of course when you
look up "Infinite" it tells you to see "Loop."  And there are a couple
of others, but I don't want to say what they are and spoil the fun for
those of you who are grabbing your copies and flipping to the back. .
. .  :-)

				--Mavra!
				  Peter D. Adkison
				  Janitor, Wizards of the Coast
				  mavra@wizards.com

The above internet address should be used for e-mail if it is
different from the e-mail address in the header.
From: gray@visix.com (Gray Jones)
Subject: Re: ShadowRun HEROIC??? (was Re: Burn, GURPS...)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 14:51:41 GMT
Reply-To: gray@visix.com (Gray Jones)
Organization: Visix Software, Reston, Virginia

I have the books for GURPS CP and Shadow Run II.  I have played
Shadow Run (the original) and GURPS (fantasy, not CP).  I am 
currently looking for a Shadow Run II game.  There, now
you know the context of this message.

GURPS CP:  tons of source material, but the Cyberware and Netrunning
sections of the manual are too generic.  I know this is the GURPS way.
The advantage/disadvantage system is good for making characters with personality
traits, but the personality traits are too canned for my taste.  I also hate
all the references to other books I may not have.

CP 2020:  Talk about AD&D with Guns, this game even has character classes.

Shadow Run:  Never played with vanilla rules, combat wasn't deadly enough,
magic was too deadly (or just too powerful), many of the archetypes sucked
(i.e. didn't have the skills/equipment to fulfill their functions)

SR II:  I like it (although I haven't played it, so I might actually
learn to hate it later).  They fixed the combat system (although it
still breaks down in some boundry cases), they eliminated the stupid
archetypes, they limited mages (can't add more magic pool to a spell 
than your magic rating and target number to resist is spell force).

As to Shadow Run being AD&D with guns, it's what you make of it.
If you play in a paranoid Seattle where firearms are really tough
to get (or where ammunition is tough to get) and where characters have
to pass through cyber detectors to get into the downtown district or
on to airlines, it's not anything like AD&D.

--gray
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: dv52151@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (RedSwordTarga)
Subject: Re: ShadowRun HEROIC??? (was Re: Burn, GURPS...)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 18:21:42 GMT

cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner) writes:

>The GURPS CP Adventures book is -not- hard-linked with anything in the GURPS
>CP book. 'DNA/DOA' and company -are- hard-linked to the base SR rules. Do you
>get what I'm trying to say here?

>(And, for the record, I didn't like GURPS CP Adventures anyway. Felt too much
>like SR.)

Aha! So FASA can be indicted for crappy modules, but GURPS can't be...
I see the logic here..NOT!

Axly

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: seurer@rchland.vnet.ibm.com (Bill Seurer)
Subject: Re: Random Rolls
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 16:17:49 GMT
Reply-To: BillSeurer@vnet.ibm.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM Rochester

In article <C1FKFr.KGD@cs.uiuc.edu>, silber@cs.uiuc.edu writes:
|> 
|> In article <1993Jan22.220046.1900@news.vanderbilt.edu> talbert@athena.cas.vander
|> bilt.edu (Robert Talbert) writes:
|> >In article <1993Jan22.163503.7783@news.tufts.edu> gharris@jade.tufts.edu (Georg
|> e W. Harris) writes:
|> >	Yes, there has to be some effort made to improve, but character points
|> >are not a good way of measuring this effort.  For instance, suppose our Group of
|> >
|> >Hardy Adventurers (tm) is setting out on an Adventure (tm).  Now, one of these
|> >Hardy Adventurers has taken the Poor disadvantage.  When our group returns from
|> >their adventure, they have each gained 6 million zorkmids, and some small number
|> >
|> >of character points.  Now, while everyone else is using their character points 
|> to improve their skills, our poor Poor friend must use his to buy off his dis-
|> >advantage.  So, he can't learn any skills because he used to be poor?
|> >
|> >	Much more sensible is a method whereby skills improve through use or
|> >training, and if a character does something to get rid of a disadvantage, like,
|> >say, our poor Poor friend above, or a cripple who gives 10,000 Semolyans to a
|> 
|> Or, on the other hand, you could assume that "poor" also refers to a 
|> persons ability to hang on to money. The "poor" character ends up investing
|> 5,999,000 zorkmids in a plan to sell fried basilisk to the trolls, and ends
|> up broke as before.

More like they buy tons of useless and expensive stuff and end up broke 
anyway.  Sort of like many (most?) winners of lotteries.  They don't know how 
to handle all the money.  I remember reading about some study done on
lottery winners but the details are all fuzzy.  Anyone else remember it
better?

By the way, this is how we always have played "lotsa cash goes to the
poor or average wealth character."  They may end up with a few nice
things but they'll probably blow most of it.  Except misers of course who
will go off and bury it somewhere.
-- 

- Bill Seurer     Language and Compiler Development      IBM Rochester, MN
  Internet: BillSeurer@vnet.ibm.com    America On-Line: BillSeurer@aol.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow)
Subject: Re: Burn, GURPS, BURN!
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 03:43:20 GMT

slouie@ocf.berkeley.edu (Shelley Louie) writes:

> Points systems -> Balanced. Requires a decent GM and non-munchkin players
> to maintain a sense of realism.
>
> Random systems -> Realistic. Requires a decent GM and non-munchkin players
> to maintain a sense of balance.

The "point allocation is more balanced than random generation" argument seems
to have been suitably disproven.  Some random generation systems have a good
chance of generating unbalanced groups, but have a very good chance of
generating balanced groups.  The same is true of point allocation systems.
You can't generalize.

--

Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: dv52151@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (RedSwordTarga)
Subject: Re: Burn, GURPS, BURN!
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 18:24:58 GMT

doug@abby.chem.ucla.edu writes:

>DX is only the most important stat if you're trying to hit things a lot. 
> Believe it or not, there's more to roleplaying than combat!

Ever see an RPG without a combat system? Unfortunately, that seems to
be the only constant between RPG's. While some games include things
with spaceships and others things with unspeakable things from another
dimension, they all have a combat system, and almost all adventures
wind up having some combat in them. The only game I've played extensively
enough to note a distinct lack of combat in was COC. I suppose if your
game depended equally on all stats, then I could see having them cost
the same.

Axly

********************************************************************************
*   Axly      *  "Is Axly tough? Yes. Talented? Yes. Brave? Oh, certainly.     *
* Red Sword   *   He is also erratic, irresponsible, accident-prone, and a     *
*   Targa     *   constant threat to public safety. The trick is to keep him   *
*             *   pointed in the right direction. "                            *
*             *         -Niki                                                  *
********************************************************************************
From: dunkelza@titan.ucs.umass.edu (KEITH C MCCORMIC)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Random Rolls
Date: 22 Jan 1993 12:44:34 -0500
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
NNTP-Posting-Host: titan.ucs.umass.edu

In article <1993Jan21.220026.12671@news.vanderbilt.edu> talbert@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (Robert Talbert) writes:

>What's wrong with getting the character you want? At least in GURPS you have
>to *pay* for what you want. It's not like you can just whip out a godlike 
>character with no disadvantages or anything. Face it, nobody who plays in a 
>game where the character stats are random *wants* them to be random. Players
>will ignore random rolls for stats every time if you don't watch them. So 
>why fight it? Instead, build it into the system so at least designing a 
>character is fair for everybody. It's much more fun this way.

  You wanna bet?  About half of the people who responded to my survey
wanted some element of randomness in character creation.  Much more fun?
Maybe for people who can't deal with weird characters...

>That's why GURPS characters don't start out with 0 points. They start out with
>some positive number (usually around 100) that they can spend on things 
>*before* taking anything extra. And any advantage, skill, or what-have-you 
>that exceeds the initial point value must be countered by an equal and 
>opposite disadvantage. What's lame about that? Would you rather make it so
>that characters can get outrageous powers without a counterbalance? That's
>the D&D way, and it's just not the way things work in real life. 

  I never said that power gaming was the way to go, but in real life, 
people often do get something for nothing.


>One parting comment before I drop this thread:
>   A few years ago I sat down to write the perfect game system. I figured 
>that my mathematical training and experience as a gamer qualified me to 
>come up with something new and fun. So for a year or so, I came up with 
>various statstical models, systems, and ideas: probability-based values 
>should adhere to the normal distribution (like everything else in real life
>that has different levels of success), the game should be ready to accept 
>any genre of input, combat should work like this, skills should work like 
>this, etc. 
>   The end product (what there was of it anyway) was so much like GURPS I 
>just gave up and bought the damned thing. Y'all can flame away, but I am 
>convinced. 

  You must not be as good of a game designer as you thought, huh?

Dunkelzahn
 
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim)
Subject: Re: Random Rolls
Reply-To: jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 23:11:47 GMT

	Uh, Kromm. While I dislike random roll systems as well, you 
seem to be putting forward *game balance* as your main motivation. 

	In my experience, random roll systems have usually resulted 
in a *more* balanced set of characters than complex point systems 
like GURPS or Hero. The only way we were able to balance those games 
was by having 'experts' in point allocation help those who were less 
experienced to design effective characters. 
	If everyone had designed their own characters, we saw alot 
more difference in effectiveness than I have seen in a random game. 
My first GURPS game was a futuristic espionage game, with 150 points. 
I played a 15 IQ spy with Eidetic Memory, and proceeded to constantly 
overshadow the other characters. That was simply obvious to me - building 
an effective character. 

	Points are more flexible than random rolls, and they do form a 
*rough* guide for balance. But if you let people design their own 
characters, there will be an imbalance of effectiveness directly cor-
responding to skill at manipulating points. In general, random roll 
systems tend to be more balanced, I have found. 

	Sure, there are plenty of random roll systems which are 
unbalanced, and there are point systems which are more balanced (these 
are the simpler ones like Toon and such). And if people guide all 
players in designing effective characters (or if all the players are 
equally skilled at point manipulation), then point systems can be 
balanced, too. 
	But balance is *not* a good reason to reject random roll systems. 
Most random roll systems have a large number of rolls, and the resulting 
bell curve will mean that characters are very likely to be within a 
certain range. Chances are very good that a given set of characters will 
be roughly balanced. I cannot say the same about complex point systems. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Kim                    | "You're on the cutting room floor, Chaplin.
jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu | Not a good place to be."
Columbia University         |                  (from the movie 'Chaplin')
From: cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: ShadowRun HEROIC??? - The Final Chapter
Date: 27 Jan 1993 04:42:23 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX
NNTP-Posting-Host: mickey.cc.utexas.edu

The perpetrator (and, it appears, the sole SR-hater on this froup) of the 
Running Shadowrun Flamewar hereby apologizes for (accidentally) insulting any
SR players out there, and for wasting bandwidth on a personal opinion which is
quite obviously flawed, but which is held nonetheless.

I may continue discussions on the nature of CP itself, but I'm going to stop
flaming SR as of this point. It's not doing any of us any good.

-- 
    "Well, do you ever get the feeling that the Story's too damn real
                        and in the present tense?"
               Christian Wagner - cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu 
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy