naughtyI wonder what implications that might have for Martian mathematics and technology, would computing come easier to them? Strange things you end up thinking about...
1. Chinese/Japanese Western - The chinese/american colony of the 1420s succeeds much better, landing on the west coast long before columbus lands eventually resulting in a chinese dominated America with a more modern, frontier outlook than China. This eventually results in a revolt against the homeland influenced by European traders and settlers in the east. Possibly derived from the Revolt of the Three Feudatories. Haishangxin being the capital in the West, probably heavily Manchu settled and more traditionally minded, New Amsterdam being the settlement in the east much more influenced by the western traders and settlers.
Possibly replace the civil war with an East/West war in the 1800s between traditional culture and slave ownership in the west and more progressive eastern ideas and technology.
Key concepts...
* No mass production, pistols and other weapons produced on small scales by master craftsmen with varying reputations and properties in the same way sword smithing was held up.
* Gun blades.
* Gun Fu.
* Martial arts.
* East/West fusion.
* Steampunk.
* Bamboopunk.
* Very low magic (crafting/martial arts) setting.
2. I worked out a way to make my battle card game work, I think.
3. Decided Cthentacle has to be done, really.
How phat is that?
You can pledge HERE
I may do a charity game, when I get the time, with profits going to the foundation.
Reference 2
Of course it was bound to happen sooner or later. In quite so timely a fashion and in Canada of all places is more unexpected, but it has happened.
And guess what?
As usual what's being pointed at. The shooter's psychological state? Their possible motivations? How they got hold of the guns? Yes, but not so much as the fact they wore black, a trenchcoat and had a mohawk.
Ten minutes cruising the news sites and various discussion forums confirms the same old bugbears are already cropping up. 'It was the music', 'its these outcast kids', 'this is proof gun control doesn't work!', 'it's because the world is a sinful place!' all the hogwash we might remember from Columbine or, if you've a good memory you might recall that The Hungerford Massacre was attempted to be pinned on a Play by Mail game.
Along with the delightful thrashings of pundits with an axe to grind (oh... there goes someone about videogames now) I've recieved some delightful hate mail because of my card game. So, listen up, here's the skinny on the what and the why and why and the how.
As with most things I write there is always a political or social commentary subtext. Yes, even in Macho Women With Guns, even with Hentacle. Final Straw exists on three levels...
1. The Meta Game - Whoever scores the most points, wins.
2. The Game World - You're a disgruntled teen who 'goes postal'.
3. The Sub Game - Your point, the impact of your attack, is reduced by the inane obscuring chatter and bullshit of the self-important pundits and other circumstances.
Since the satirical black humour seems to escape people with White Knight syndrome, there it is, plain as day. It's actually pretty hard to get a good score in the game because any and all irrelevent bullshit reduces your score. You can even get minus points. It is a commentary on precisely the same sort of kneejerk hysteria that YOU and the media are displaying, what is even worse is that many of you are decrying the media for feeding this stereotyping while in the same instance getting up in arms about a fucking game that makes the same FUCKING point that you're trying to make!
However, given that OGL usually means d20 I think they'd still need to be accompanied by some text or something, if used.
www.postmort.demon.co.uk/RQOGL.zip
Anyone's welcome to use 'em though I'll probably spruce them up when I get around to publishing my own stuff for it.
This is a tricky project for me, I love the original game and want to do it justice, improve on it and bring it up to date with some of the modern material we've seen come out since the game was published in 1990. I want it to be recognisibly British at the same time and I want to retain what made the original Blood! great.
Horror's developed since 1990 I think, or at least people's tastes, the extremes that are being shown and the black humour have all shifted. There's a lot of homage to the 1970's shock and splatter going on, as well as the tongue-in-cheek stuff like Sean of the Dead, Scream and so on and that needs to be reflected in the write up.
Just think of horror genre stuff that's come around in the last... what... 16 years? 1990 is before Buffy and Angel - if you can really call them horror. It's before Saw and House of 1000 Corpses, it's before Silent Hill, Resident Evil, before The Ring or The Grudge, before all the current, modern icons of horror. I don't think doing the Jason/Freddy Kruegar type 80's horror would work so well any more.
So, the genre information needs an update and, to keep it in the right splatter/British vein I guess I should throw in some Sean Hutson and Graham Masterton type nastiness. For a more mythos type vein perhaps some Barkeresque weirdness and begin to develop a slightly different mythos.
So, yeah, it's going to be challenging.
Pluses of the old game
- Dark sense of humour.
- Wicked illustrations.
- Percentile system.
- Just the right amount of rules crunch.
- Blood points!
- Rules for transfusions.
- Interesting skill/career system.
- Encouragement to play normal people.
- Good skill 'level up' system.
- Good combat system with 'ticks'.
- Cannibal starting adventure.
- Weapon stats for EVERYTHING.
- Gory critical hit tables.
- Not all of the old illustrations were exactly top notch.
- Character creation had a LOT of mathematics to it.
- Many, many sub-stats.
- Slow combat.
- Not enough career packs/skills.
- Advancement by levels.
- Price lists in 1990 UK money.
- Combat ticks are good, but unwieldy.
- Martial arts a bit gooby.
- Sanity/Fear rules relatively undeveloped.
- Not enough monsters.
- No line support.
- Sample weapons unordered.
- No rules for defining own improvised weapons.
- Crappy character sheet.
- Better rules explanation.
- Streamlined character creation.
- Line support.
- Streamlined combat.
- Additional art (but we're keeping the good stuff from the original too).
- Proper vehicle rules.
- Better sanity rules.
- Find some actual use for energy points and exhaustion.
'W' bullethole identifier added to pistol2.psd
- Space & Time:Courting Controversy
- Status of Brain Meats:
tired - Cacophonics:The slow roasting of my soul in hell
I've got just over 50 themed ideas but if anyone can think of any more (one word or one sentence concepts) then they'd be greatly appreciated.
Mostly, when we do things, we perform only within a fairly narrow band of ability. Slightly under our skill level, equal to our expectations, or slightly better than we expect. Exceptional luck either way is rare.
I've been wondering how to reflect this in a game, d4-d4 does this pretty well and I recommend it as a pick-up system for your odd little ideas but it doesn't quite work for me in some ways in regard to this question.
What about coin tossing?
The scale would need to be compressed, probably a 1-5 scale, to make it work but if the protaganist and the challenge each tossed a coin that either increased their level by one (heads) or decreased it by one (tails) that would give you the right range.
EG:
Dirk is an Average (3) Warrior, fighting an Average (3) opponent.
He flips and scores Heads raising his ability to 4.
The opponents flips and scores tails, taking his ability down to 2.
Dirk defeats his opponent.
Complications would be hung off that to increase the granularity of the system and to describe specific instances and special cases, but that would be about right.
Over The Edge or HeroQuest style trait descriptions would probably suit best.
In all the above you see a back and forth, a flurry of parrying, holds, entanglements or flying bullets smashing into everything before, finally, someone gets the advantage and there's a hit or it's all over.
I've been trying to think of ways to replicate this for a while now. Cloak of Steel has it with the marginal failure/success mechanic in it and other times while tinkering with ideas I've tried to replicate it but it just doesn't quite mesh right for some reason.
One way it might work would be in allowing people to 'carry over' their accumulated successes in a dicepool game.
For example (Xpress)...
Kung Fu Master Hung Lo is facing off against a demonic opponent armed with a giant club. He knows the Dim Mak Poison Hand Touch of Death but it is a difficult maneuvre to pull off, especially against such a gigantic opponent.
Turn 1 - Hung Lo has initiative being smaller and faster and describes his action as a flurry of blows designed to distract and enrage the demon.
Hung Lo has a Dex of 4 and Kung Fu/Internal/Dim Mak 4, he rolls 4 dice with a target of 3-6 getting 3 successes total.
Demon has a Dex of 2 and Melee/Club 3 he rolls 2 dice with a target of 3-6 and gets 1 success total.
Hung Lo decides not to apply the remaining 2 successes to damage, but keeps them back to aid his attack.
The Demon counterattacks and scores 3 successes.
Hung Lo describes his counter as leaping atop the club as it smashes down and running up it, he scores 4 successes and adds that 1 extra to his pool for a total of 3 dice stored up.
Turn 2
Hung Lo launches the Dim Mak Poison Hand Touch of Death with his saved up dice as a bonus.
Because of his specialisations and the extra dice he is now rolling 8 dice and only needing 2-6. He scores a massive 11 successes.
The Demon feebly attempts to counter and gets 1 success, reducing Hung Lo's successes to 10.
Hung Lo elects to use this as his strike and with 10 successes equal to double the demon's consitution doubled the Dim Mak takes effect. The demon will not die instantly, but within the day from a blockage to its chi flow.
Hung Lo backflips back and says something smug.
Of course, fights need not be as straightforward as this, two equally matched kung fu masters may play 'tug of war' over a dicepool with the one with the advantage spending from their pool to reduce attacks from their opposite to nothing.
EG: Hung Lo is fighting his courtesan nemesis Wang Suk, he currently has the advantage and has saved up a pool of three dice he intends to use in a devastating attack on her when the dice betray him. Suddenly she has hit him despite his defences with at attack of 3 successes. He spends his pool to negate her attack with a desperate block and, again, they're back on an even keel...
- Status of Brain Meats:
thoughtful
--------------
Against a Static Target
-----------------------
Add your Skill Ranks + Attribute Bonus to 10. If it is above the difficulty, you succeed. If it is below, you don't. Tough. If you take twice as long acting out what you're doing you can add 20 to try and succeed instead.
Against another Player
----------------------
Add your Skill Ranks + Attribute Bonus together and compare your total to your opponents. Take the lower number away from the higher number. This is how many times the 'underdog' must beat the one with the higher total at a game of 'knuckles' or 'slaps' in order to win, but they must not lose once! The person with the higher number goes first.
Combat
------
As 'against another player' above, but based on modified attacks score + Armour. The person with the higher number gets that many tries first without the other person getting a go.
Every hit does damage based on the average (rounded up) damage of the attack.
Amtrak Wars would have made a good game...
*goes back to writing about Detroit*
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