HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: phill@crash.cts.com (Phillip Sunbury)
Subject: Re: Killing Attacks
Organization: CTS Network Services (crash, ctsnet), El Cajon, CA
Date: 12 Jan 93 05:00:22 GMT

In <1993Jan8.223807.8606@netcom.com> akuma@netcom.com (Steven E Barnes) writes:


>The high variance of killing attacks is precisely what bugs
>me about them.  Just last week, I was smashing a villian
>repeatedly with a 6d6 KA, and I kept rolling ones and twos.
>Pretty frustrating.  In contrast was the sidekick with the
>2d6 RKA autofire, AP, +1 STUNx.  With this type of attack,
>you will hit enough times so that you will roll more
>high multipliers and do some serious stun.

>Problem 1: the variable stun multiplier is a poor aproximation
>of the hit location chart.  The chances of rolling a head hit
>on the chart is 5%, but the chances of rolling a 6 are 16.7%.
>It is also inconsistant with normal attacks.  If variable
>STUNx is used for killing attacks, then there should be an
>equivalent multiplier for normal attacks:
>equivalent multiplier for normal attacks:
Page 162 bottom, Stun multiplier for hit locations! Imagine that! also statisti
cly it does more stun then killing because 12 is easier to roll then 13
>    1, 2: x1/2 STUN 
>    3, 4: x1 STUN
>    5:    x1 1/2 STUN
>    6:    x2 STUN

>Problem 2: the excessive variance distorts the damage system,
>and encourages characters to have excessive amounts of defenses;
>damage reduction is a virtual necessity for bricks.  As an example,
>suppose I want my brick to be able to laugh at normal cops.
>I give him a PD of 40.  A cop hits me with his nightstick,
>doing 6d6.  He has no chance of damaging me, at all.  If he
>shoots me with a 2d6K, on the other hand, he could max out
>multiplier for killing attacks.  If you check the math,
>you will see that this rule causes KAs and normal attacks
>to have the same minimium, average and maximium results.

Well because the average stun mult for a killing attack is 2.666 then I guess y

u just want to make your killing attacks stronger. Maybe the reason they made ki
lling attacks diffrent the normal attacks so they would be DIFFRENT! A gun can j
ust nick you, or can blow your head off, a club on the other hands damage is usually more average. 


Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: irvine@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Brent Irvine)
Subject: Re: Dumb Moves By Game Companies
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:44:06 GMT

In article <clanti55.726811528@ursa> clanti55@ursa.calvin.edu (Christopher Lantinga) writes:
>agapow@latcs1.lat.oz.au (p-m agapow) writes:
>
>>Amen. To cite a few examples, we have FGU's poor organisation,
>>inconsistent mechanics, terrible artwork, complexity, lack of support
>>materials and continual production of new systems that were entirely
>>incompatiable with any of their previous systems.
>
>I always thought V&V's artwork and support materials and mechanics
>were pretty excellent; perhaps it is the one exception to FGU's
>besetting sins.

V&V is the best thing that FGU did - The other games I played by FGU
were _Aftermath!_ and _Psi_World_ -- bothe suffered from numerous
'balance' errors and poor mechanics, though _Operation_Morpheus_ is
an EXCELLENT adventure - open ended and can be integrated into nearly
EVERY system with success [we used it in 2300, Traveller, AD&D]

>>Mind, this is not restricted to FGU. Post Twilight:2000 GDW is another
>>good example of how to do things wrong. 2300, a game with potential IMHO,
>>was plagued with soooo many bugs in the first edition that it should never
>>have been released. Why Space:1889 failed is slightly mysterious but
>>related at least in part to the terrible organisation of the rulebook.
>
>Probably the limited audience.  Only one of the many gaming friends I
>have is interested in the Victorian Era at all.

2300 failed because it competed with Traveller too much [though I LOVED
it in its heyday.  They tried to make it more 'cyberpunk' and failed
miserably.  It is a fun game to play, but 2nd edition is FAR better than
the first].

Space 1889 failed because there is no big market for that kind of game
really.  It is a bit too silly for a serious game.
Had they concentrated more on Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells a bit more, they
would have found probably more audience rather than the more ridiculous
Victorian Empire over the Solar System!


-- 
+-------------------------+--------------------------------+-----------------+
| Brent L. Irvine         | For a mere $50 these personal  | Ak! Its 1992 tax|
| irvine@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu | opinions can also be yours!    |  season! Yuck!  |
+-------------------------+--------------------------------+-----------------+
From: dunkelza@titan.ucs.umass.edu (KEITH C MCCORMIC)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: SF Poll
Date: 12 Jan 1993 14:29:57 -0500
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
NNTP-Posting-Host: titan.ucc.umass.edu

In article <1695@blue.cis.pitt.edu> seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp) writes:
>
>	Please tell me this is a nightmare.
>
>				Sea Wasp


  GURPS is a nightmare period.  Go ahead, Flame me.  Hi SOS. :)
From: chuahl@ocf.berkeley.edu (Chua HakLien)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: AD&D Dark Sun Info wanted
Date: 10 Jan 1993 14:08:11 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: sandstorm.berkeley.edu

In article <188@jptcs.COM> wolfman@jptcs.COM (wolfman) writes:
>Greetings Net Land, 
>Any suggestions and or comments are highly appreciated.  Thank you in
>advance.
Uhh.. Well, one of them would be to post to rec.games.frp.dnd instead
of .misc... =)
>
>Aram Mirzadeh

Chua
+==+

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: mnkobrak@ellis.uchicago.edu (Mark Kobrak)
Subject: Re: Opinions being requested
Keywords: Villains and Vigilantes
Reply-To: mnkobrak@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 18:55:46 GMT

You're locking a legendary supervillain up?  Give it a few runs, then run
his master escape plan (they always, have those, too).  If he's in a 
superprison, some outside group he had contracted in advance (or guard
he bribed, or program in the prison's security system) breaks in and
sets free ALL the prisoners, to provide your man cover to escape.  You
can have the heroes called in to quell the riot and recapture the folks,
and have them meet _lots_ of old friends.  The big guy should probably 
get away though, since he's so much fun on the outside.  Perhaps he'll
leave the heroes a personal note in his cell, telling them he's sorry
he missed their visit but hopes to renew their acquaintance shortly?

Mark Kobrak
"Hi, I'm with the adventurer's census.  You know, kicking ass and taking
names."

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: at731@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Troy L. Nothnagel)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: A Shadowrun Question (both 1st and 2nd ed.)
Date: 9 Jan 1993 02:04:30 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: at731@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Troy L. Nothnagel)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, dv52151@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (RedSwordTarga) says:

>KIRSCH@rhea.informatik.uni-bonn.de (Juergen Kirsch) writes:
>
>>Hello chummers,
>
>>How can a SIN less fly a Helicopter without getting shot by the first official
>>aircraft he meet?
>
>Well, that depends on what I feel is the most erroneous SR assumption, i.e.,
>that all the players are SINless. In almost all other cyberpunk style games,
>being totally removed from the computer banks is an advantage. Personally,
>I feel unless your character background explains your being SINless for

What we're doing in our group during character generation is as follows:
If you want to be a SINless character, fine, you get one free rating 6
false credstick.  If you choose to keep your SIN, you get the money it
would cost to buy a rating 6 false credstick.  Of course, a person can
both have a SIN AND a false credstick, in which case it evens out, or
they can have multiple false credsticks which of course they'd have to
pay for.  (We go with rating 6 as it sounds good, and there's the
'limit' of rating 6 devices for new characters.)


>a reason, you have one.
>
>Oh, on the flying thing...So much black ops stuff is going on that the
>"Police" aren't dumb enough to try and nab everyone doing something 
>sneaky. Yeah, one group may be Shadowrunners, but the other one may
>be a corp black ops team.
>
>Axly
>
From: apm272v@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: shadow world question
Date: 7 Jan 93 11:41:06 +1100
Organization: Computer Centre, Monash University, Australia

since we're talking about shadow world and stuff, here's something that's been
bugging me for a while ...

i can't find in the eidolon book, though sometimes i think i can remember
seeing it once (sigh, to be young again), anything that says how high up
the floating city is ...

to make things worse, the artwork is inconsistent (ie the apparent size of
the disc varies from picture to picture) ... do any of you out there have
opinions on how large eidolon should look from the stinking canals of
selkai?

the main reason i want to know is the issue of using eidolon as a naviagtional
beacon ...

hunter
From: leneis@ogicse.ogi.edu (Tony Leneis)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Star Wars max attribute question
Date: 10 Jan 93 23:42:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: ogicse.48317
Distribution: usa
Organization: Oregon Graduate Institute, Beaverton, OR


	I just got the second edition Star Wars rulebook, and have a question
about increasing attributes: is it possible for a human to increase an 
attribute above the species maximum of 4D?  The rulebook says something about
the player rolling their current attribute dice and the GM rolling the max
die code for the species, and if the character's roll is higher, the attribute
doesn't go up and the skill points are held in suspension until after the next
adventure is over.  Does this mean that the character has reached the maximum
for that attribute and can never continue farther (at least naturally)?  Also,
what exactly happens to those skill points held in suspension?  Can they be
used on something else, or what?

Tony Leneis
leneis@cse.ogi.edu
From: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Wrong board & Header (was: Re: SF Poll)
Date: 13 Jan 93 00:43:40 GMT
Organization: Plymouth State College - Plymouth, NH.

dunkelza@titan.ucs.umass.edu (KEITH C MCCORMIC) writes:
>
>  GURPS is a nightmare period.  Go ahead, Flame me.  Hi SOS. :)

Hi, Dunk.  Well, you certainly do deserve to be flamed for posting the
above on .misc instead of .advocacy, and for not changing the header,
since your post has nothing to do with the SF poll, but why bother?  I
doubt it'd do any good.

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: philipd@cs.kuleuven.ac.be (Philip Dutre)
Subject: Re: Game Systems vs. Worlds/Ideas
Organization: Dept. Computerwetenschappen
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 17:22:17 GMT

In article <1iujk8INN4k5@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, cg533@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (James Eugene Alloway) writes:
|> 
|> In readin g the net here recently, and the responses on my post of Ars Magica
|> product ideas, I found an interesting trend developing.  That is, that many 
|> people prefer an interesting, developed world OVER another system, because of
|> the learning curve.
|>    So what do prefer?  Would it take a Really unique system to get you
|> to experiment?  Or would a new environment for what you have be more 
|> attractive?

I think this heavily depends on the player's maturity in the gaming field. New
players often tend to try out different rule systems, and often discover new
possibilities to enhance their playing style that way.

Once you play for several years, mechanics become less important, and the
setting is indeed of major importance above a specific rule system. Also, once
you get used to a system that you like and you think is good, why should you
change?

IMHO, that's why Dangerous Journeys/Mythus doesn't attract a lot of players. 
Who is interested in learning a new complex system with a generic fantasy
background? It just isn't worth the effort... Only new innovative systems
that introduce some new technical and interesting aspects to the rules will
succeed because of their system alone.

Besides, this is clear if you take a look at the latest major releases: only
games with strong innovative backgrounds can hope to attract a lot
of new players (Vampire, Werewolf, TORG ...).

Systems don't sell (anymore), settings do! 

Phil


-- 
| Phil Dutre                            Dept. Computer Wetenschappen        |
| philipd@cs.kuleuven.ac.be             Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL)|
| Phone: (32) 16 201015 x3094/3552      Celestijnenlaan 200A                |
| Fax:   (32) 16 205308                 B-3001 Heverlee, BELGIUM            |
From: dmm@head-cfa.harvard.edu (David Meleedy)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: SR: Question about shielding
Date: 8 Jan 93 20:45:09 GMT
Organization: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA,  USA


I have a question about shielding.

As you know shielding can be used to raise the "willpower" of the caster
or someone of the caster's choice by X number of dice ( depending on how
many dice you allocate ) for the purposes of defending oneself vs. a
spell.

now, my GM, and fellow players have interpreted this to mean that the
reverse could also be true.  i.e. a mage could apply anti-shielding
to a person, in order to lower their willpower for purposes of
defending vs. a spell.

What this effectively means is this.  Say you are Joe Mundane, with
a willpower of 6.  So I say, hmmm Joe Mundane, I am TheWizard and
you are toast.  I merrily anti-shield him (allocating 5 dice) and
therefore reducing his willpower to effectively 1.  Now I want to
use a spell like mind-probe which people normally resist with their
willpower.  He now has 1 die to defend himself against this mind probe
spell.  It's not too hard to know every intimate detail of his entire
existence assuming that you need 3 successes to get the deep dark
secrets from him.

Well.. I thought about this for a while, and it seemed to me to be
a bit unfair.  Effectively, there is no resistance at all for a mage
to lower anyone's willpower, no matter what the willpower is.  This
to me seems to an attack of sorts, but the person being attacked has
no way to resist or defend himself/herself.   Does this really make
sense?

One idea that we came up with is that instead of lowering the number
of dice, it would lower the target number instead.  So now, Joe
Mundane, would get to roll all six dice to defend himself, and TheWizard
would get to roll his dice too, but his target number's for successes
would be 2's instead of 6's (also, only 4 dice need to be allocated this
way).

But if you now take this into the reverse, that means that a mage when
he is shielding to defend himself does not get extra dice anymore, but
instead raises the target number for success of the opposing mage.  So
if Jane Mage is now attacking TheWizard, and she normally needs 4 for
successes, and I allocate 4 dice to shielding, she now needs 8's for
successes.

Does anyone out there have any thoughts about all this?


-- 
=======
David Meleedy                           Smithonian Astrophysical Observatory
meleedy@cfa.harvard.edu                 60 Garden Street, MS 70
Phone: 617 495 7252                     Cambridge, MA  02138  USA
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc,rec.games.pbm
From: chadwick@world.std.com (Chadwick Ngan)
Subject: Need Players for IRC MegaTraveller Campaign
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 08:30:52 GMT


	I've just started a MegaTraveller campaign on IRC (Internet-Relay-
Chat) with another GM a short while ago, and I need 2 more players to
complete the group.  For your information, IRC is an online Unix program
which allows realtime communications between multiple users.
	Currently the party consists of a Navigator, a Science Officer,
an Engineer, a Gunner, and a Doctor.  I am looking for a Pilot type character,
plus an extra one of negotiable status.  Creativity is definitely encouraged.
	If you like role-playing in a space travelling enviroment, and are
interested in joining, send your inquiries to:	chadwick@world.std.com AND
dbernier@world.std.com	... we usually run a session each Monday at 12 midnight
Easter Standard Time (USA).


					Chadwick
					Sheeta "the Elf"
From: mwlucas@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Michael W. Lucas)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Small company advertising/smart moves?
Date: 11 Jan 93 15:38:45 GMT
Organization: Oakland University, Rochester MI.

In article <1993Jan11.132428.9992@vela.acs.oakland.edu> mwlucas@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Michael W. Lucas) writes:
>We're starting a new game company, and we're looking for cheap ways to
>advertise.  We're looking for fanzines, BBSs that do multi-genre games,
>and so on.
>And we've had this nice, long thread about dumb things companies have
>done; how about *smart* things that new, small companies can do to 
>stay in business?

Okay, I know it's gauche to follow up on one's own post, but I've had 8
email messages in 2 hours asking for more info on what we do, so here goes...

Hot Tub Dragon produces original RPGs and supplemental material for them.
Our first game, Gatecrasher, is a 208-page, industry-standard-quality
softcover book.  We have two more games in the works for release at a
later date (much later) and several supplements for GC due to be released
this year.

HTD is primarily myself, with several other people working as the 
situation demands (we have a graphic designer "on call," a couple of
freelance writers doing supplement stuff, a dozen editors who work for
pizzas and free books, and a few contacts in the industry for advice and
support.

We're primarily looking for ways to advertise our products, and writers who
are interested in doing modules/adventures for our games.

I would be very grateful for any information/leads on any further ways to
do this.  I'm especially interested in fanzine reviews, as they're fairly 
cheap.

Any suggestions, anyone?



-- 
Michael Lucas			mwlucas@vela.acs.oakland.edu
WARNING:  COMMERCIAL SUBLIMINAL IN .SIG FOLLOWS
Buy Gatecrasher, the new high-tech high-fantasy RPG from Hot Tub Dragon Games!
From: dunkelza@titan.ucc.umass.edu (KEITH C MCCORMIC)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: SF Poll
Date: 6 Jan 1993 12:42:47 -0500
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
NNTP-Posting-Host: titan.ucc.umass.edu

 
     Continuing on my previous thread about the potentially huge market for
Science Fiction RPGs, I figured to formalize my request as a poll.  So if
you in anyway care at all about this, please post a response, or e-mail me 
one.

  BACKGROUND:
    1.  Do you like a heavy background in a game?  Another words, do you like
        a game to have huge amounts of material available? Why?

    2.  If a background is very fixed, such as the one for Shadowrun, does
        it turn you off?  Why?  (I mean very fixed in that if you alter the
        background it totally changes the flavor of the game.)

    3.  Do you prefer Soft SF (High Tech, Low scientific accuracy)
        or Hard SF (Lower Tech, High accuracy)?  Why?

    4.  Do you prefer Cyberpunk ("Hoi, chummer.."), Space Opera ("Hand me 
        that hydro-spanner, will ya Chewie?"), Exploration ("To boldly
        go..."),   Future War ("We're gonna hit them bastards, and hit
        `em hard..."), or some mix and match of the above?  Why? 
    
    5.  Would you or do you by games just for the Background?  Why? 

  MECHANICS:
    1.  Do you prefer accuracy or simplicity in a system?  How far are you 
        willing to bend either way?  Why?

    2.  Do you feel that realistic combat at a cost of speed and ease is an
        acceptable trade-off?  Why?

    3.  Do you prefer combat that is quick and dirty, quick but clean-cut,
        just dirty, or just clean-cut?  Why?

    4.  Do you prefer realistic but challenging Random roll creation or
        less realistic but simpler to handle Point Allocation? Why?

    5.  How many die rolls are too many to perform an action (Shooting, 
        Driving a car, tying shoes, etc.)?  Why?

    6.  How long is the ideal combat turn (Time it take to perform one action)
        in your opinion?  Why?

    7.  Would you or do you buy games just for their mechanics?  Why?

  ART:
    1.  Do you consider role-playing game design, and role-playing in general
        to be an art worthy of notice? Why?
    
    2.  If so, can you find some examples of self-expression and emotional
        meaning in any well-known games on the market?  What are they?  
        What is the author saying?  Why?



   Thank you for reading this, hopefully you will answer it.  I'm sorry it's 
so long.  I promise you that I will post a compiled list of results if I get
a good number of responses.  Thanks again.

Dunkelzahn

    




Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: durrell@pinball.arcade.uiowa.edu (Bryant Durrell)
Subject: Re: Vampire: Some questions
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 15:22:59 GMT
Organization: University of Iowa
Keywords: Vampire

In article <C0JA4p.50M@sci.kun.nl> gip207@sci.kun.nl (gip2 course) writes:
>I just bought Vampire: The Masquerade (second edition) and have some questions
>for you experienced players out there:

>1) In the example of character generation given in the book they let the
>   character buy 1 willpower point for 1 freebie, while the table also given
>   there mentions a 1 for 2 cost. Which is the correct one? 

The first, as you guessed -- 1 for 1.

>2) In the `psychomania' story included in `Milwauky by Night' the NPC characters
>   spend blood points to activate Potence and Fortitude as well as Celerity.
>   According to the sourcebook Potence and Fortitude don't need blood points to
>   be used, is this a leftover from the 1st edition?

Uh...damn, I don't have my first ed. rulebook handy.  It's either a
leftover or a mistake, so don't worry about it.

>3) The `ambidexterity' merit given in the Players Guide allows a character to
>   fight with two weapons without the penalty on the `off' hand, unfortunate-
>   ly no rules are given for melee combat with two weapons, with or without
>   ambidexterity. How would you handle an ambidextrous character who wants to
>   fight with 2 knives?

I'd allow them to split their dice pool if they wanted two attacks;
if they wanted an attack and a parry I'd give them a bonus die or
two for use on the parry; if they wanted two parries I'd give them
a couple more bonus dice.

-- 
Bryant Durrell					   durrell@chop.isca.uiowa.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 I feed on the flesh of the living, and I vote.
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: mwlucas@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Michael W. Lucas)
Subject: Small company advertising/smart moves?
Organization: Oakland University, Rochester MI.
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 13:24:28 GMT


We're starting a new game company, and we're looking for cheap ways to
advertise.  We're looking for fanzines, BBSs that do multi-genre games,
and so on.

And we've had this nice, long thread about dumb things companies have
done; how about *smart* things that new, small companies can do to 
stay in business?

-- 
Michael Lucas			mwlucas@vela.acs.oakland.edu
WARNING:  COMMERCIAL SUBLIMINAL IN .SIG FOLLOWS
Buy Gatecrasher, the new high-tech high-fantasy RPG from Hot Tub Dragon Games!