HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hall@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Robert J. Hall)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Some thoughts on Clerics in GURPS
Keywords: GURPS Clerics
Date: 2 Oct 92 22:12:18 GMT
Organization: Boeing Computer Services, Seattle


  The recent postings about Clerics in a GURPS campaign got me to thinking
about the subject. Something I was tinkering with is the concept of an 'agent'.
The 'agent' is a manifestation of a deity in response to a prayer by the
Cleric. The 'agent' would depend in part on the nature of the prayer, and the
type of deity. It could be the appearance of one or more followers of the
deity showing up at the right moment; an ally or construct of the deity; or
even the partial presence of the Diety itself.

  The type of agent would be determined semi-randomly by the GM. It's power
and abilities would be specified in a number of 'Magic Point' equivalents.
I.e. it could show up and cast a number of spells until the Magic Point total
is expended, or it could be the number of magic points needed to summon that
particular creature.

  If the agent can cast spells, the type will depend on the success of the
prayer. Thus, a highly successful prayer would allow the 'agent' to cast spells
from several Colleges of magic, while a weak prayer result would limit the
spells to a few that are strongly associated with the deity. (Eg. restore
health spell from a Deity of Healing.)

  Now the nature of the 'agent' can range from a particular entity or 
manifestation, to a series of events. However, the amount of control the
Cleric has over the agent will depend on his or her rank in the church,
devotion to the Deity, nature of the events that led to the prayer, etc.
A lowly acolyte would have little control over a very successful prayer, and
the 'agent' would act as an independent NPC. However, a very high ranking
Cleric who has spent a lifetime of devotion to the Deity would have almost
complete control over the agent, including the type of spells cast, etc.

--

  Anyway, that's as far as I got along this line of thinking. I'm not sure
how this would be expressed in game terms. Perhaps the Cleric would be more
successful at prayer and controlling 'agents' by acts of devotion and studies
of the teachings of the deity. These could be expressed in terms of skills
and/or advantages. (Piety points?)

-- 
 Bob Hall,                 | "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
 Workstation Peripheral    | Then give up. No use being a damn fool about it."
 Boeing Computer Services  |                                     -Groucho Marx
From: rlebeau@cats.ucsc.edu (Robert Charles Lebeau)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: SRII -- a suggested Rep tweak
Date: 1 Oct 92 23:02:53 GMT
Organization: A GM looking for players
NNTP-Posting-Host: si.ucsc.edu


>
>I am not going to argue with your formulas.  I just thought that if a runner
>did a good enough job on a run, no one would know who did it.  If you have
>characters that like to brag though...
>
>Th Foss
>"Duck...Where?" Famous l works goodrds of Thud

	One thing I think works good with reputation is that the rep
is about the street name.  And the chance is for the name to be recognized.  Now
if a runner did something stupid like let his picture get broadcast on the
trid, then that's a whole different situation.  If a runner is 
successfull then his name is going to get spread around, and this
can actually be beneficial to a runner (command higher payments 
because of his rep).  This is a lot different from someone recognizing
the character in public or knowing anything like their real name,
if that happens then the character screwed up.
From: smccauli@csws15.ic.sunysb.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Battle Lords of the 23rd Century
Date: 1 Oct 92 19:19:38 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Originator: smccauli@csws15.ic.sunysb.edu


    I believe that someone was asking for a review of Battle Lords of the
23rd century, in refrence to the fact that they were trying to find out
if the game was any good beyond the designer's opinions.

	For those of you who don't know what Battle Lords of the 23rd
Century is:

	BL23 is a sciencefiction rpg, which is sold by a small company 
called Optimus Design System located near Buffalo NY.   The name of the
guy who wrote it is Larry Sims.
	The game tends to be bulky and dedicates much of its volume to
character types weapons and yet more weapons.  It's kind of like a palladium
game in that respect.  Character generation tends to be centered around which
alien race one pics to be at the beginnign of the game.  The races themselves
tend to fall into fairly standard sterotypes.  You have the noble warrior,
the psychotic, the basher, the small puny intellgent masters of the known
universe, the werido, the con man, and of course, one can be a human.  These
are not the actual names of the aliens, but a fairly good representation for
them.  This tends to lock people who would rather role play than just
shoot things into this reather drab character molds.  This is one of the
weeknesses of the system.  If, however, you like to blow things up then and
not waste anytime on chracter development then you should definately look at
this as an advantage.  There are also a few neat quirks to the character
generation system such as the fate tables.
	The combat system trys to be realistic and fast paced.  It does not
really accomplish either, but can still be fun to play.  As mentioned before
there are lots of weapons, some of them are bit pseudo-scientific, which
can be fun to play with.
	There are also psionics, called matrices.  The system for them tends
to work fairly well as long as you don't give the characters access to the
real high matrices where one can destroy an entire solar system with a bad
dream.
	For those of you looking for a game with star ships, this is not the
game because there aren't any rules (yet) for star ships.  Considering this
is such a tech oriented game I was suprised.
	The setting for the game is a corrupt future empire run by
genitically engineered humans and the afore mentioned small intellgent aliens.
Corporations are the real muscel behind the Alliance, they are presumably
who the characters work for.  Even though the section dedicated to the
setting is small compaired with the rest of the book it does give a good
job of at least giving you the flavor of the setting.


	Final score: The game is ok.

Sean McCauliff
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: mkkuhner@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner)
Subject: Re: A few minor SRII points
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 15:16:28 GMT

In our campaign (1st edition SR) we allowed a stat to be raised more
than once but at the square of its normal cost.  This isn't an ideal
formula, because it means characters with interestingly low stats
can still buy them up to normal levels quite cheaply.  But I prefer it
to the SRII method.

The rule was only used twice during the campaign; to raise Charisma both
times, oddly enough.  I winced at paying the 16 karma for Charisma 4->5,
but both the GM and I felt it was necessary to represent what had
happened to that character's ability to lead.

Maybe a better formula would add a fairly large constant for each raise
after the first, so that raising a stat a second time would cost (normal
cost + 5), the second (normal + 10) and so on.  Double or triple this
for raising above racial maxima, something I really don't think should
be encouraged.

Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@genetics.washington.edu
From: mortimer
Subject: Re: A few minor SRII points
Organization: Rice University  
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 03:00:49 GMT

Re: raising of attributes.  Under the first edition, this could
only be done once.  The new rules suggest that this can be done
repeatedly up to the racial maximums (even past them, at the
GM's option).
 
Suggestion:  Allow players to raise attributes ONCE at normal
cost.  The second time an attribute is increased with Karma,
double the cost.  Triple it the third time, etc.  Characters
should quickly turn their Karma to better uses.  Do not allow
players to raise their base attributes above the racial maximums
(or alternatively, double the Karma cost yet again).
 
"Life IS pain.  Anyone who tells you differently is selling something."
-- mason hart, rice u.
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: jmkaraka@eos.ncsu.edu (JOHN MARTIN KARAKASH)
Subject: White Wolf in general
Originator: jmkaraka@c00029-118dan.eos.ncsu.edu
Reply-To: jmkaraka@eos.ncsu.edu (JOHN MARTIN KARAKASH)
Organization: North Carolina State University, Project Eos
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 20:22:55 GMT


>> 
|>> I ordered a subscription in January of this year, but I had to phone
|>> them up to actually receive the first issue (#30).  I received #32
|>> (the July/August issue) in the mail on Saturday, just finished reading
|>> it, and am as impressed with it as I was with #31.
|>> 
|>
|>this gels with my experience with White Wolf, too.  Sounds like they either
|>have no mail department, or need to get a new one!
|>
	After speaking with one of original founders of White Wolf, (way back
when it was a high school project) I found out that 
	a) a lot of them still treat at as a hobby rather than a business
	b) the reason the technical editing is so bad is that most of those
	   fellas are lib-arts majors and they don't really have a
	   technical editor (I'm sure you all have seen the infamous
           see Pg. XX scattered throughout Vampire and Werewolf)

	With this new knowledge in hand, you can probably figure out where
all the problems are coming from.

	-john 'Yeah, I'm a Caitiff. So?' karakash-
From: peiper@athena.cs.uga.edu (Garfield)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Rifts
Summary: Atlantis Book
Date: 30 Sep 92 15:44:52 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <1992Sep30.124111.4355@ncsu.edu> bkdavis@eos.ncsu.edu (B K DAVIS) writes:
>
>I am in a game now and the party is made up of an npc titan cyber knight
>a full con borg
>an operator with powers from heros un
>a rogue sci. with powers from hero un.
>a techo-wizard
>an orc jucier
>a glitter boy
>and me a Rahu-man Cyber knight.
>Can anyone tell me what they think of Rifts and the new Alantis book.
>Whew rough stuff.

	I have seen the atlantis book. As powerful and cool as your characters
are (as my group is about the same) they will run like dogs with there tail
between there legs from the atlantis dudes. Finally a supplement that 
wil challenge the players, not just slightly amuse them. I would recommend the
book. Lots of new classes, ideas, races, etc. And a WHOLE slew of new bad guys
Have to see it for yourself to believe it. BTW, Good choice on the Rahu-man
Cyber KNight. That is what I play and it is sooooo great.. I love it.

			Richard
From: lavonius@plootu.Helsinki.FI (Ville Lavonius)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: WFRP: Castle Drachenfells
Date: 30 Sep 92 18:56:53 GMT
	<JAMIE.92Sep30183440@kauri.vuw.ac.nz>
Organization: Cthulhoid Entities for a Better Tomorrow

In article <JAMIE.92Sep30183440@kauri.vuw.ac.nz> jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Jamieson Norrish) writes:

	      THE DOOMSTONES SUCK RAW WARP PHLEGM! STAY AWAY!


   Well, there you have it; the general consensus. :-)

Mind you, these four modules still beat many other modules for other games...


      That said, let's move on to Castle Drachenfels, which (I'm guessing) is
      probably the last WFRP thing we'll see in a long while to forever from Ca
      Sargent. There is no adventure, per se, although a good half-dozen narrat
      hooks are included in the back of the book to get your players going ther
      (my favorite one is "I Left my Heart in Castle Drachenfels").

   Carl Sargent has left? Or is he working on something else for Games
   Workshop? Or what? Anyone who can write an adventure that's as good as
   Power Behind the Throne (that was him, wasn't it?) needs to be chained
   to a wp.

Yes, that was Carl Sargent (my favorite rpg author since mid-eighties)'s 
handwork. But there is NO Wfrp to write for, GW has axed the game for good.
No material has appeared lately (except another edition of the early modules,
how many times do the expect to rip us off), and there has been no ads in
White Dwarf. And there's no mention of the whole game in the GW's new
catalogue. 

   Jamie
--
Ville Lavonius	        University of Helsinki, Dept. of Computer Science
lavonius@cc.helsinki.fi : "Some of my best friends are nukes" - R. Reagan
From: v124pz9t@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (David Cheng, using Mark S Cheng's acct)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Sanctuary/Glorantha
Date: 1 Oct 92 04:50:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <92274.130046ICECW@ASUACAD.BITNET>, ICECW@ASUACAD.BITNET writes...
>Before I pose this question, I would like to mention that I am an avid fan
>of both the Santuary series edited by Asprin and the world of Glorantha
>by Stafford.  But....doesn't anyone else see the parallelisms of the relation-
>ship between Sanctuary and Ranke in the Santuary series and the relationship
>between Pavis in Glorantha and the Lunar Empire?  Just curious.

As the stories go, the Chaosium house campaign put their "Sanctuary"
in the Holy Country/Kethaela.

Rankan Empire = Lunars
Beysibs = Waertagi


-David Cheng
 drcheng@stern.nyu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 11:24:57 -0400 
From: Robert Everett Brunskill <rb6t+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: SRII -- a suggested Rep tweak
	<1992Sep30.094230.14065@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>

On the idea of reputation,
    I have experimented as well with reputation "attributes" for
characters.  I got the general idea off of Mekton 2, and the actual
numbers were just a gauge, not an actual applicable number.
    I don't remember all of the areas of reputation that I came up with
but only a few of what I thought of were ever used.
    Good Reps:
        General good
        Professionalism
        "Stealth"
        Success

    Bad Reps:
        General Bad
        Record (ie. Police, media, etc.)
        Destructiveness
        Over-violence

    Neutral or either way:
        Skill area
        "Charisma" (ie. with opposite sex, smooth talker, etc.)

    The only one I ever used was record (I had a player whose PC REALLY
didn't like police).  The concept was more of just an idea for helping
me as GM decide how NPC's would react to the PC's.  Not really
necessary, and not often used.

Rob Brusnkill
From: CX6L@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA (CX6L)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: GURPS: Quick Contest (Update)
Date: 29 Sep 92 23:14:22 GMT
Organization: McGill University

In article <1992Sep29.200650.20936@ncar.ucar.edu> urban@stout.atd.ucar.edu (Art Urban (PROFS)) writes:
>Consider yourself fortunate. We have been gaming in GURPS for over six years
>and found our combats to be tedious and lethargic. Perhaps you should try a
>combat with 40+ participants. Eeeek!

Hmmm...I've been doing GURPS since it hit the shelves ('85), and
I've run many 20+ combatant battles, several 30+, a few 40+ and
an epic 60+: no mass combat! Full Advanced Combat rules! These
epics took about 6-9 hours to game out. My players have informed
me that they love this, since it gives such epic battles two
important qualities of an epic: memorability and significance!

To each his own, I guess! I think mushified and unrealistic
combat systems like AD&D's have spoiled us into thinking
combat systems should be quick. Realism has a price. I like the
way GURPS handles combat, and the fact it's time consuming
reduces the tendency towards hack n' slash!

______________________________________________________________________
|      From the Most Holy Keyboard of:                               |
|      Dr Manfred Kromm, Reverend of the Temple of the Squid God,    |
|      Professor of Quantum Parapsychology.                          |
|____________________________________________________________________|
|           )                               "This won't hurt a bit.  |
|  |========|OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO>------      Afterwards . . . you'll |
|           )                                see things MY way!"     |
|____________________________________________________________________|
From: uldry@eig.unige.ch
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Net.Plots.Books
Date: 1 Oct 92 08:36:04 GMT
Organization: University of Geneva, Switzerland

Hello
Can ypu tell me in which FTP sites I can get the Net.Plot.Books volume I 
and II ?
	Thanks,
          
	The Great and Lonely FU
	Francois Uldry
	19, Village Suisse
	CH-1205 Geneva
	Switzerland
From: mshaver@pyrhard2.eng.pyramid.com (Matthew Shaver)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: SJG and Secret Service
Summary: I wonder...
Keywords: Secret Service Steve Jackson Games
Date: 2 Oct 92 17:27:25 GMT
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corporation, San Jose

Gee, I wonder if they will reenact the Steve Jackson Games raid on the
new "Secret Service" show?  :-) :-)

Matt.
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: jjohnson@ccscola.Columbia.NCR.COM (Jeffrey H. Johnson)
Subject: Re: GURPS: Body Location Table Usage
Organization: NCR CCSD Columbia SC
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 92 14:41:03 GMT

In article <1992Oct4.164236.5187@ncar.ucar.edu> urban@stout.atd.ucar.edu (Art Urban (PROFS)) writes:
>I hope I can keep this question short...
>
>In the Advanced Combat rules, an attacker has the option of aiming an attack
>at a body location, or randomly rolling for the body location. My question
>is: does the negative hit modifier apply to the person *randomly* attacking 
>like it does for the person aiming their attack?

After reading Kromm's and Steffan O'Sullivan's followups, it seems apparent
that  the negative is applied.  Personally, I don't play this way, and I will
explain why at the end.

>Example: If a character runs up to an opponant and makes a wild swing, the
>rules say you are at -5 to hit, and to randomly determing body location. If
>I randomly determine the "near arm", is the character at -5, or -7? I assume
>that it is -5, since the table appears to take into account the likelyhood
>of hitting difficult targets.

Our group uses random location only for wild swings and long-range missile
fire.  The location is rolled only after it is determined whether or not
the attack hit (i.e., after the defender has missed his defense roll, if
applicable).  If the official rules are different, as it appears they are,
then I think they are in error.  If I am making a wild swing and it is
randomly determined that I am targeting the brain (-7) rather than the torso
(0), why should I have less chance to hit?  I had a lot less chance of
rolling to target the brain, so that should cover the odds all by itself.

If the rule was made to maintain balance over reality, I'd like to hear of
an instance where it would profit a character to go for a wild swing
rather than a normal swing, ceteris paribus.

As the rule currently stands, if I fire a rifle at long range and roll a
large-negative area to be hit, the chance of my gun jamming goes up (!).
This could be a problem either with the firearm critical miss table or with
the application of the body area penalty.

>Our gaming group has submitted this question directly to SJG, but now with
>three weeks gone by, no word from them at all... ('course we did ask about
>50 questions... :^)

Probably got pushed to the bottom of the stack :)

>--
>Art Urban 					       urban@stout.atd.ucar.edu
>===============================================================================
> "Oh no! The canary exploded!"                                      -Tom Servo 
>===============================================================================

Jeff
--
Jeffrey H. Johnson
jjohnson@ccscola.columbiasc.ncr.com

		"More human than human is our motto."
			-- Dr. Eldon Tyrell
From: moursund@hpcvnb.CV.HP.COM (David_Moursund)
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 11:57:40 PDT
Subject: Re: New spell for Ad&d 2nd
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, Oregon
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc


(... Spell description deleted...)

1)  Interesting spell, but probably should only have been posted in
    rec.games.frp.dnd, and not in .misc

2)  As was mentioned, this is pretty potent for a first level spell,
    as it can (virtually) automatically destroy large numbers of
    zombies and skeletons, assuming a medium level caster.

3)  What if we try to collect the holy water which is raining down
    from heaven?  Is this some special unstable holy H2O, which only
    exists until it falls on something, and then evaporates?

Oh, BTW, I access USENET via the Hewlett-Packard 'notes' system,
and, as far as I know, I have no way to get at the distribution
lists for messages.  If someone knows how to do this, please feel
free to clue me in.

dm

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: mkkuhner@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner)
Subject: Re: SRII and reputation
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 19:57:44 GMT

Here's an conceptual question about reputation and the Street:

A small-time 'runner happens to offend someone really Big; say, a novice
street mage pisses off a topnotch freelance mage-assassin.  The assassin
retailiates, and due to some peculiar circumstance (after all, anyone
can screw up) *dies*.

What happens to the hapless street mage when word gets out, assuming it
does (and a power vacuum like this is liable to be noticed)?  Is he in
trouble?  In clover?  What does it mean to have a Rep that's bigger than
you are?

The more I think about this question the more puzzling I find it; I can
see arguments for all sorts of outcomes.  The street mage's life is
shortly going to become very interesting, this much is clear.

Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@genetics.washington.edu
From: chestr@buitc.bu.edu (Stephen Dyer)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Aftermath
Date: 29 Sep 92 19:33:30 GMT
Organization: BBN Systems & Technologies, Cambridge, MA

In article <smeinel.03he@guild.socal.com> smeinel@guild.socal.com (Steve Meine) writes:
>Say, some time ago, I heard that the post-holocaust game Aftermath was going 
>to be re-released. Does anyone have any information on this? Rumor? Truth?
>
>--- Via UCI v1.11 (C-Net Amiga)
>Steve Meinel                smeinel@guild.socal.com   Guild BBS (310) 641-6909

I don't know about this, but I do know that I recently stopped by a local
game store to ask if it would be possible to try to order it, and not only
was it in his catalog of available stuff, both places he checked had it
available for shipping.  I have to admit, I wasn't the only one surprised
by this, the guy in the store wasn't expecting it either.  I believe it 
was ~$24 for the boxed set.  It's certainly possible it was a newer copy,
I believe the coloring of the book covers is different (white/black instead
of yellow/black) from the older copies the people I game with have.  It's
a decent game system, though we've got a few modifications, of course (and
our Aftermath GM was one of the original playtesters, so I'd say he's been
using it long enough to know how to tweak it).  And I didn't even realize
until a month or two ago that it was created by two of the Shadowrun guys!
(I believe Paul Hume and Robert Charrette, though I could be grabbing the
wrong names out of my jumbled mind.)

Anyway, if you're interested in it, I'd suggest going right on out and 
trying to order it from whatever local game store you may use.
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: hodgkik@reis53.alleg.edu (Kenneth Hodgkiss)
Subject: mechwarrior
Keywords: computer game
Organization: Allegheny College
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 13:04:30 GMT



A friend of mine just gave me the disks to the IBM game Mechwarior the  
problem is that he lost the codes to get into the game so i was wondering  
if anyone ou t there hade them and could help me.  If you can just e-mail 

				Thanks
					ken
		
				hodgkik@alleg.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc