HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ratinox@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu (Richard Pieri/Stainless Steel Rat)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Re: SR: waiting for the falmes :-)
Date: 10 Apr 92 23:09:11 GMT
Reply-To: ratinox@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu
Organization: 3WA, Boston Office. Or Nu Meta Chi. Take your pick.
In-reply-to: vanor@vax1.mankato.msus.edu's message of 10 Apr 92 19:12:40 GMT
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>>>>> On 10 Apr 92 19:12:40 GMT, vanor@vax1.mankato.msus.edu said:

No ``falmes'' for this one. :-)

vanor> Also has any one ever thoght about posting stuf about Shadowrun
vanor> tricks like when you have both a smartgun link and vission mag. that
vanor> you can shot at any rage and still have a target number of 2

This is a hack. You don't get a higher target number for range because it's
harder to see, you get it because the further away the target is, the
harder it is to hit. It don't matter that you can see a fly perfectly well
at 100 meters, or a human-sized target at over 1 kilometer, it's still
going to be nigh-impossible to hit either with a handgun.

If you're using a target-shooting rifle or a sniper rifle, it's a different
story, however, because they *DO* have the range and accuracy.

--Rat
--
||||| | | | |  |  |  |   |   |    |    |    |   |   |  |  |  |  | | | | | |||||
                                                   __        ___ 
Richard Pieri, Northeastern's Stainless Steel Rat/   | /| / /   | The Worlds
Internet: ratinox@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu /__  |/ |/ / /| | Welfare Works
    UUCP: ...!northeastern.edu!splinter!ratinox/   | /| / / / | | Association:
  BITNET: UA_RLP@NUHUB{.BITNET}               /__  |/ |/ / /  | | I will solve
  USNail: 14 Westdale RD  Holbrook, MA 02343 /   | /| / / /___| | any problem
 ICBMnet: 42 deg 1 min N, 71 deg 0 min W    /    |/ |/ /_//_____| for you.
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp,rec.arts.startrek.misc
From: jogle@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Jim Ogle (Ks. Jim))
Subject: Re: Star Trek RPG
Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro NM
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 92 09:38:00 GMT

In article <mumble> Steve@celeborn.UUCP (Steve Slade) writes:

>does anyone have any information on the rumor that west end games is coming out
>with a new star trek rpg game to replace the one fasa did?
>thanks.

Hey, great!  Now it'll be even easier to compare Star Trek technology
with Star Wars tech!  8-)

Haven't heard anything about it; West End is pretty busy now with Torg
and Star Wars as it is.  I don't think they have the manpower to keep
up with what they're promising for Star Wars and Torg in the next year
AND handle an all new system that's going to demand a lot of material.

But it would be interesting....


-- 
Kansas Jim (Jim Ogle, Torg guru)
jogle@nrao.edu (NRAO-VLBA, Socorro New Mexico)
"I'd be apathetic if I cared."

Organization: Junior, Art, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 11:14:01 -0400 
From: Faye Levine <fl0m+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Problem player

>I've got a minor problem in one of my campaign's that I can't seem to
>work out.  I've got a player running a character that, through it's
personality,
>doesn't work well with the rest of the party. 

The subject line "problem player" is a little unfair...it doesn't sound
like it's thee player that's being difficult, but that the *character*
doesn't click with other *characters*.  Unfortunately, because you
declined to give specifics over the exact nature of the problem, it's
hard for me to give solutions.  Could you elaborate?  i.e.:

Is the character too moral/not moral enough for the rest of the party?
Does s/he have different goals?
Is s/he anti-social?

In the most general sense, all I can suggest is working things such
that, whether the characters like it or not, they need to work together
to get a problem solved.  Some tension can be fun.  Perhaps they all end
up with the same goal, but for different reasons.  Perhaps they're not
aware of the difference in reasons, and, if you're patient, you can have
a couple of cool subplots going on.

In the campiagns I've been in where we have a characterthat "doesn't
work", my GM has tried to get the character (and sometimes the player)
more involved in the plot at hand, through a series of coincidences,
twisted subplot, or whatever.

I'd like to comment further, but like I said, give specifics....(You can
send me private mail if you'd like).

FLOM.
From: sfellows@slate.mines.colorado.edu (sfellows@csm9a.colarodo.edu.  (Steven B. Fellows))
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Re: DMing Question: Player/Character IQ differences
Date: 17 Apr 92 14:56:55 GMT
Organization: Colorado School of Mines

It is always a big problem when it comes to the player's intelligence
versus the character's intelligence.

As the case with riddles, I usually have them roll the dice and then if
they do a good roll as compared to their intelligence I will give them a 
hint.

Another way to use intelligence, if the player rolls well on his intelligence
he can have help from other players.  (Not the character)
This involves the others and usually
comes across pretty well.

I use character intelligence for a few other things: observation skills
like detecting hidden objects, or determining whether a person is being
truthful or not.

I enjoy the player that has a much higher intelligence than his character.
Thinking of a something nifty they might play out an extremely stupid person
trying to communicate this idea.

Steven B. Fellows
sfellows@slate.mines.colorado.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Re: Playing yourself in GURPS
From: hzhao@eagle.wesleyan.edu
Date: 13 Apr 92 11:55:22 EDT
Organization: Wesleyan University

>  Anyone else ever try this?

   Well, several years ago, as a 1-shot game, a group of us at Wesleyan made up
ourselves as CHAMPIONS characters. A rather wild gang ourselves (who actually
possess real armor, axes,a nd assorted odd weaponry and gadgets), we had a
fairly interesting mix. My own character had martial arts with an activation
roll (if I made it, I got the extra mods for having remembered how to do the
manuever), for example. It'd been a while since I'd had Tae-Kwon-Do.

       Everything was going fine, until the Killer Squirrels from Outer Space
came and started Mind Controlling the campus.....

From: dlc@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Dennis Clark)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 17:24:05 GMT
Subject: Re: GURPS combat time.
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp

  I never seem to have the "hive-mind-mentality" with the PC's in GURPS when
I GM, perhaps it's because the group automatically fragments when the going
gets tough 8*()  Anyway, usually they have a battle plan, each using their 
talents to best effect before battle starts, usually with one person in 
reserve ready to jump in when someone is overwhelmed.  One must be careful
about restricting the "hive-mind" of the PC's though, because the GM DOES
have a hive-mind and this can put the PC's at serious disadvantage!

  I have mostly played GURPS in modern or high-tech campaigns so I don't 
know how they deal with long term endurance problems.  In Fantasy HERO, which
is much like GURPS in most things (GURPS is better for modern+ combat IMO),
I have a modification of their overly complex Long Term Endurance (LTE) 
system.  Which is:  If a PC or NPC uses more END during their turn than they
can get back with REC in post-segment 12 recovery then that extra is taken 
off of their available END until they can spend as many minutes resting as 
the LTE accumulated.  Resting is UNENCUMBERED walking or just sitting and
panting with your gear on the ground next to you.  Hanging around with your
armor on is NOT resting (anyone who has spent a day in armor can tell you
that!)  When the NPC or PC runs out of END, it comes out of STUN.  This means
that you had better win quickly, have really good REC or avoid combat/stress.
This system works fairly well - with only minor mods for extenuating circum-
stances, but the is an RPG no?  There are always exceptions.  Does GURPS use
END for physical activity?

DLC

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
From: lozanoj@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Jones)
Subject: Re: Inspired character names
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 01:57:18 GMT

sue%miracle@merk.com (The Dragon Queen) writes:
>What is the silliest or most unusual name you have ever given a character?

>sjs28257@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Stelter) writes:
>>In a Champions solo adventure, I played a ninja with the inspired name
>>"Katana."  (Hey, I was young.)

>Before I started DMing, I played a ninja named Kawasaki.....

When our gaming group was into 1st Ed. Oriental Adventures, I played a
ninja/wu-jen named "Joe Isuzu" :-D.

And occasionally (very occasionally) I play a barbarian named Condom the
Trojan. Yeah, I know I ripped it off from someplace; sue me!

Jones
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
From: elk@cblpo.cb (elk)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: GURPS: net.....well you get the idea
Date: 6 Apr 92 18:50:43 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs


I tried to post this yesterday, and it seems to have failed on me.
(Just changed mail readers, you know how it goes.)  So, here goes
again.....

I'm trying to compile a collection of ready-made NPCs and/or
archetypes to [ab]use in a Fantasy based GURPS game.  (*NOT* Yyrth,
but fantasy nonetheless.)

In the process, it dawned on me, that there might be other folks
interested in a similar sort of thing.  Rather like a net...book for
things GURPS-ish.

If folks are interested (based on the number of things submitted to me
:), I'll collect it up and blast it to the net in the tradition of the
net....books.

Thanks.

--------------
Ed King
elk@cblpo.att.com

 Some fellow said that I had the wit and sophistication of a donkey.
 Oh, an absurd suggestion, sir.
 You're right. It is absurd.
 Unless, of course, it was a particularly _stupid_ donkey...
        -- George and Edmund : Ink and Incapability
           "Black Adder"
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
From: tgt33358@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Deus Imperator)
Subject: Re: Blind mages
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 19:39:48 GMT

In article <33430075@hpcvnb.CV.HP.COM> moursund@hpcvnb.CV.HP.COM (David_Moursund) writes:
>|/ hpcvnb:rec.games.frp / cspas041@eursus (Kwek) /  9:11 am  Apr 10, 1992 /
>|
>|I'm currently DM-ing a campain in wich the party have just met up with
>|this blind man and this young boy. I was originally planning on making
>|the old man a Diviner, to make up for his loss of sight, but all the
>|divination spells recuire him to stand still and concentrate for a turn
>|and when he does that he can only scan a 10' wide path 30' long or
>|something. Now I know I can just introduce some kind of new magical
>|item wich allows him to see, but I've always hated DM's who tried to
>|solve problems with dimension shifts and time distortions and other
>|easy ways out. 
>|
>|Does anybody have any suggestions on how I can handle this ?
>|
>| Erwin
>| cspas041@sus.eur.nl
>
A good way is to give him an item that is not magically charged, but
psionically charged.  Rules for this can be found in "The Complete Psionicist
Handbook."  Some disciplines put into the Item, such as Hear light would 
allow the diviner temporary vision without overbalancing him.  This is how 
it would work:

	The Ruby Eye of Hadros:
		Hear Light:  PSP's 30.  Initial PSP cost:  5.  Maintain:
			3/rd.  Roll WIS-1.

When the Eye is placed on the brow and the user concentrates, he can use
the psionic ability "Hear Light" as the vision necessary for a Divinatory
spell.  He would have to roll his wisdom minus one, on a d20.  Starting it
up costs 5 out of the thirty, and the remaining 25 may be used to 
maintain the power, at a cost of three points each round.  Points are 
regenerated back at a rate of 2 / turn.
	This is a hell of a lot better than an item that allows sight
3 / day, since he can limit the application (using it for only one round,
to get his bearings.  Also, since it is not magical, it does not detect
as such.  I do not see this as unbalancing in any way, as a simple 
silence spell will take it out (he can't "hear" the light.).
	I've bastardized the numbers, but if you want a complete write up,
email me.



-- 
Thanatos, DeathUrge, Master of a Bunch of Stuff tgt33358@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
"Why would you think a priest any more moral than the rest of us?  Heavens
 sake's child, why do you think they're called 'Father?'"
					-The Company of Wolves
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
From: dicksion@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Matthew W. Dicksion)
Subject: Re: HERO: critical hits (was Re: CHAMP: 1/2d6 vs d6-1)
Organization: University of Hawaii
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 20:51:08 GMT

In article <RATINOX.92Apr13233315@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu> ratinox@meceng.coe.northeastern.edu writes:
>It is lethal, depending on the power level of your game. I personally don't
>like it used in 4-color comic style games. That's where I lost both Lynx
>and Serpentine.

Wait, wait, wait--you were using a critical hit system in a *Champions*
game?!?!  Oh, God, that is f*cking scary.  My apologies; I had assumed
you were running a heroic campaign, since you were using crits.  I would
*never* play a Champs game with critical hits.  Brrrr.  I am impressed, in fact,
that you only lost two characters that way.  8d6HKA is not hard to get on
a 250-pt Champs character.  "Hah!  A crit!  48 Body, and (rolling stun mult)
only 96 stun!  Spuh-LAT!!"

I, too, strongly feel that critical hits don't belong in four-colour comic
campaigns.

>Yes. I think that CyberHERO will possibly make critical hit rules the norm,
>and leave the ``normal'' rules as an option for less-deadly games.

I expect CyberHERO to be even more lethal than FH, having played two or
three games of Danger International.  The difference between a fantasy
character and a modern one is that the former is much more likely to be
well armoured... But, then, nobody runs four-colour cyber campaigns...

>--Rat
>Richard Pieri, Northeastern's Stainless Steel Rat/   | /| / /   | The Worlds
>Internet: ratinox@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu /__  |/ |/ / /| | Welfare Works
>[.sig trimmed to appease dicksion's news server]

--Matt Dicksion, irate skywatcher:
"Can't the $&#@!*% Earth hold still while I calibrate my scope?!"
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence)
Subject: Re: CHAMPS: question on turn sequencing
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 00:56:24 GMT

sasso@flounder.phy.anl.gov (John F. Sasso) writes:

>The rules state that activating a defensive power like FF is a 
>0 phase action, and can be done anytime during your own phase.
>There is never any need to abort to FF activation.  (I looked this
>up yesterday.)

Yes, there is.  If someone attacks you on a different phase, then
it would often be better to be able to abort your next action in
order to get the field now.

>You know, I'm going to have to start bringing my book to work with me
>to quote pages.  I think we all should!!!

Yes, they don't think that I'm loony enough here yet, but I'll show
'em.

-- 
Dustin Laurence            "Someone please stop me, before I net again."

laurence@alice.wonderland.caltech.edu
From: kohathi@world.std.com (Kathleen E Coady)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Re: Sex and RPG's - Why Oh Why ?
Date: 17 Apr 92 02:26:05 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA


	Yes, there are female GMs, and I'm one of them.  I run a GURPS fantasy
campaign online (my own world, not Yrth).  I'd do a near-future hard SF/cyber-
punk type game if I had the time.
	I give points for role-playing, not orc-bashing; it seems nonsensical
to me to base awards on living through fights a great many of which shouldn't
have occurred in the first place.  Senseless violence, in my campaign, will
probably get you killed; if the PCs lose a necessary fight, I tend to cheat in
their behalf and not actually kill them...just wind them up in some ghastly
predicament the escaping of which is more plot material.  I'm actually afraid
that I'm more intolerant of the stupidity of getting into fights for no terri-
bly good reason than I am of the violence itself, at least in a game setting.
	I tend to use the PCs' characteristics and backgrounds as plot mater-
ial, rather than having preplanned scenarios that don't have any necessary
connection to the group.  You have to have a group of good roleplayers to get
away with this.  Actually, my style is almost completely improvisational, to
an extent that I've never seen any GM of either sex do.  I know what the 
people and the culture of the lands the PCs are in are like, but a lot of 
things some people plan, I deliberately leave vague so I can work them into
the plot when I need them on 30 seconds' notice.  As you've probably guessed,
I don't draw maps.
	One thing I've never done, and never expect to do, is roll up a random
encounter and use reaction dice to see what happens; if the PCs run into some-
one, the NPC has reasons of his own for being where he is, and an internal
logic of his own to follow, and we play the encounter out.  I guess you could
say my NPCs are people, not random obstacles.  The things I tend to roll are
those that aren't easily played out, don't really have an internal logic, or
that I want decided on a chance basis.
From: nexus@karnak.cgd.ucar.edu (Jeff Berry)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Re: Swashbucklers vs. Knights in Armour,and more!
Date: 15 Apr 92 15:35:36 GMT
Organization: Climate and Global Dynamics Division/NCAR, Boulder, CO

In article <167C913DCC.MHART00@ricevm1.rice.edu> MHART00@ricevm1.rice.edu (mason hart) writes:
>applying weapon speeds and individual initiatives in my games, and a
>good rapier will beat a two-handed sword every time.  A fencer is a
>dancer, relying on speed, agility, and skill to evade his opponent's
>weapon, where his opponent depends on armor.  In my experience, neither
>-- the redoubtable Silverwolf
>-- aka mason

Of course, there is also the whole range issue.  If the Rapier fighter gets into
his range, the 2-hander is in trouble.  Of course, to do so, he need to get past
at least one and maybe more shots from the 2-hander-which is not always an
easy proposition.

To drag this arguement back into gaming:-)

There are so many variables involved in even a simple combat system that
many if not most _must_ be abstracted out.  In other words, it works out
to a question of granularity.  For instance, I can simply say "Skill includes
everything up to playing range games and proper deflection of blows."  Which
means I don't need to have any weapon modifiers at all.  Carry it the other
way, and you get something like Aftermath! with all the rules in (anybody
ever actually use all the combat rules for Aftermath! by the way?), with
different weapon ranges and attack/defend modifiers and pushing opponents
back and keeping them at range and...and...and..., well you get the idea.

Now, back to this thread-
there are a couple of issues
1) The Weapons/Armor involved.  This is a fairly minor issue.  Any weapon if
you hit it hard enough will break.  Any armor can be penetrated.
2) Who wins K in A/Fencer.  In a gaming sense, this depends on the system.
In a real life sense, who knows?  There are too many variables.



badger                                      Don Alexandre Lerot d'Avigne
Jeff Berry                                  Seneschal of Caer Galen, Outlands
               nexus@ncar.ucar.edu
NCAR doesn't tell me what to think, and I return the favor.
"You're a notch and I'm a legend"-------Alice Cooper
"You're still doing the things that I gave up years ago.."-----Lou Reed
From: nigel@rs733.GSFC.NASA.Gov
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Re: Shadowrun: Controlling magicians
Date: 9 Apr 92 22:22:59 GMT
Article-I.D.: rs733.NIGEL.92Apr9172259
	<1992Apr9.143305.24786@u.washington.edu>
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md, USA

In article <1992Apr9.143305.24786@u.washington.edu> mkkuhner@milton.u.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) writes:

>After considerable thought, we decided that the Awakening must have made
>it literally impossible to keep a sufficiently complex machine off the
>Matrix--that is, the Matrix is at its heart a magical phenomenon.

Hmmm...sorry I wouldn't buy this...then again I decided on something
similar.  It isn't that the Matrix is a magical phenomenon but that
the ability (through extremely wide bandwith networking schemes) to
use the Matrix as a whole with a distributed processing OS is
extremely powerful.  Tasks can be farmed out to systems with spare CPU
cycles anywhere on the matrix concurrently.  The only reality no-no is
the fact that the max data rate in real life is limited to the speed
of light...but we can ignore that for the pruposes of the game ;-).

Anyway anyone with real research to do would need this ability to do
real number crunching real fast...which might explain why all these
nifty large prime encrytion algorithms don't work in the SR universe.

The Matrix as an entity has sufficient computing power to break the
old fashioned large prime encoding schemes.  I haven't a clue what you
might use next...the only thing off hand I could think of was one-time
pads but how do you propagate the things safely?  I suppose truely
secure system would use a OTP key disk of some sort...how you
propagate that around would be by courier...expensive but possibly the
only way for "secure" transfer of information.

Less secure systems would still be relying on the RSA (or whatever)
encryption schemes assuming that the cost of breaking the encrytion
would be far more than the gain.  Legitimate systems would purchase
cycles from host systems for some preset fee...which means that
research teams would need large budgets for their computational work.

Deckers on the other hand may simply be stealing cycles much as
current day phone thieves operate...which means that the corps have
even more reason to hunting down deckers...a sucessful run may be
costing the Matrix as a whole millions in stolen CPU cycles.

>Otherwise all the SR scenarios which have top-secret corporate data on
>on-line computers get a little hard to swallow.  I know people do it
>today, but they are under increasing pressure to stop, and with rampant
>decking it just wouldn't make any sense.

Hmmm...but treating any machine in the world as automatically
magically linked is a tad too far fetched for me.  At least this way
there is a reason (if somewhat physically bogus) that research systems
are on the net, why encryption schemes are easy to crack and why
systems in general are "easy" to get into.  The entire architecture of
matrix capable machines is optimised for easy network sharing of
computing resources...

>Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@genetics.washington.edu

--
Nigel Tzeng
.sig under construction
From: jkirn@eagle.wesleyan.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Cyberpunk netrunner question
Date: 15 Apr 92 16:03:22 GMT
Article-I.D.: eagle.1992Apr15.120322.1
Organization: Wesleyan University

To those with experience in Cyberpunk.

I'm looking for information on how to better play a (R. Talsorian) Cyberpunk
netrunner, if anyone has reams and reams of totally useless information on
playing such to spare.  It's a new campaign, and the first time I have used the
system, which I like considerably.  The only problem is that there is a
definite lack of information available to the prospective netrunner in CP:2020. 
So what gives?  One specific question that I have is whether it is possible to
add a second CPU to a deck, and what the result would be (twice the memory?).

Anyways, if anyone has information that might be of use please post it here or
drop it to jkirn@wesleyan.bitnet or jkirn@eagle.wesleyan.edu.  

Much appreciated,
Josh Kirn