Troll Lord Games

Tentative scedule of future games (we will edit in and out the games people can/can't do. The tricky question is, _when_ each game is scheduled):

Jaybird: Twilight 2000 or Top Secret (with Get Smart expansion pack! )

Titania: C&C or L5R

Orpheus: Go For Your Gun

Treebore: Traveller/Star Siege

Aramis or maybe Slimykuotoan: Gamma World

Aramis: Paranoia

Aramis: C1- Tamoachan

Aramis: Untitled Stealth Module

Jaybird friend (or someone else): Call of Cthulhu

Spak Man: C&C? (can't recall, he mentioned something)

Keep in mind, there is no reason we cannot run vanilla TSR or C&C modules too. It doesn't _have to_ be non medieval type gaming. Rather, this Thursday slot is a place where there is _some_ non-medieval type gaming, as a bit of an outlet

EDIT: Also, if we did follow through on most of the above games, plus add a couple more as people have some ideas, we would have enough gaming for the next year, I would guess. 4 weeks a game x 13 different games=52 weeks.

So we are now booking for anyone who wants to run a game in 2009
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"Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try"

Homer Simpson

Sounds like a good line-up to me.

Twilight has some good player handouts and character generation sheets (both of which I assume would be OK to send to players in PDF form), so I'm tempted to run it without conversion to SIEGE. It's a percentile-based system, so task resolution is quite easy. I think it'd be a speedy learning curve.

Hopefully it'd last more than one session. I looked through some old modules and think I've found a winner.

So... are pregen characters the way to go, or should we reserve a familiarization/character-building session at the beginning of each new genre-hop?
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Jason Braun
Art Monkey for Hire
Three-Headed Troll Art Wurks

'Treebore: Traveller/Star Siege'

That sounds freakin' cool.

Slimy the Thread Hopper

Treebore wrote:
Mutants and Masterminds 2E

I am game for anything that looks to be fun.

I picked this up myself because of this online review, and it looks great so far:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP14BKN_veM

jaybird216 wrote:
Sounds like a good line-up to me.

Twilight has some good player handouts and character generation sheets (both of which I assume would be OK to send to players in PDF form), so I'm tempted to run it without conversion to SIEGE. It's a percentile-based system, so task resolution is quite easy. I think it'd be a speedy learning curve.

Hopefully it'd last more than one session. I looked through some old modules and think I've found a winner.

So... are pregen characters the way to go, or should we reserve a familiarization/character-building session at the beginning of each new genre-hop?

I am fine either way. Maybe we should have a rule that as the time needed to make a character goes up, the DM is more likely to give pregens.

Plus, for one offs like this, pre gens won't cramp too much style.

But, I know some don't like pregens, or at least, view character creation as one of the most interesting part of the game. I am a bit like that myself for some games. But pre gens are cool too.

For Twilight 2000, pretty much all I saw of the game was character generation...and that part seemed fine
We should have some kind of general rule for dead characters. In one offs, we don't want DMs to shy away from giving someone a dirt nap, but we hate to have players sitting out too long as well.

One obvious way is to integrate the new character in in some clumsy way, but in a 4 week adventure, it can get a bit old the third time we find a dwarf locked in the wizard lord's dungeons, who offers to join up.

I have tried to solve this with my patented "luck point/death as disabilty" rule, which is not perfect, but works for this kind of one off.

Something for each DM to come up with a solution to themselves.

I just have this feeling that such a rule would be needed for Twilight 2000.
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"Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try"

Homer Simpson

slimykuotoan wrote:
'Treebore: Traveller/Star Siege'

That sounds freakin' cool.

Slimy the Thread Hopper

Howdy Slimy

You up for running us through a SIEGE Gamma World some time in the future? I know we had talked about it before in the general section of the forums
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"Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try"

Homer Simpson

I'd certainly be up for it, if there's room for me in the SKYPE conference call.

slimykuotoan wrote:
I'd certainly be up for it, if there's room for me in the SKYPE conference call.

Always room for slimy

Aramis, you're out!

Hey, wait a minute.
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"Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try"

Homer Simpson

We have room for 3 more, I think.

Jay,

Yeah, over alll I think it would be best if we talk about the character types, so we can all get a feel for what is what, and then let whoever the GM is to be create them.

Like when we do Traveller there are:

Space Scouts

Scientists (not as boring as it sounds)

NAvy, which usually turns out Pilots instead of scouts

Marines if you want to be the security muscle of the group

Merchant, yep the money makers of the universe.

And others. Fortunately I have it all on disk. so I should be able to send copies of characters to everyone.

Character generation can be fun, but has to be done one on one. Since it is highly unlikely that will happen the final write up will be done by me, after the players tell me what kind of character they would like to end up with.

So unless character gen is very easy I think having the GM do the actual write ups would work best.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

I'm good with playing anything. In L5R I would probably have to do pregens..... except for the few players who would be willing to contact me on skype and have me work with them for their own character, because in my opinion character generation in this game is alot of fun. One thing I will insist on people telling me, is if we were going to play L5R, you guys would need to tell me what kind of PC you want to play.

Samurai

Spellcaster

Ninja.... uh I mean scout

then put on qualifiers like, Sneaky, secretive, honorable, philosophical....

this will help me determine your clan if you don't already have one in mind.

And those of you who want to have a history behind your characters... go ahead, it would actually help with the character generation.

Neway a 'just in case' notification of how it would work,

Titania

PS I would also send you guys a word document with basic rules and how it works for any of those who don't have the books.

On another note. Aramis.... where is the installation of last gaming session in the crusades section? You know... the one you said you'd get done quicker than the previous ones? Becuase you usually post the other summaries today...

I'm kind of addicted I guess
Titania

Titania Lefey wrote:
On another note. Aramis.... where is the installation of last gaming session in the crusades section? You know... the one you said you'd get done quicker than the previous ones? Becuase you usually post the other summaries today...

I'm kind of addicted I guess
Titania

Good point, I better get on that.

The problem with this week is it was all combat, all the time. Fun to play, but not necessarily fun to read. Plus, it is the combat things that I forget, whereas the memorable lines, insults, blunders, oddities, and so on, I remember until I write the summary.

I do need to write it just to summarize the resolutions of the various storylines, though
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"Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try"

Homer Simpson

We're on for tonight, right? Level 3 and all. W00t!
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Jason Braun
Art Monkey for Hire
Three-Headed Troll Art Wurks

jaybird216 wrote:
We're on for tonight, right? Level 3 and all. W00t!

should be. I confirmed with the Treebore clan last night, so spak man is the only one we are not sure of.

As the summary will show (some day! ) you all rested up for a week in Dead Mule after your climactic Leone-esque battle with the Red Hat and Matomoros gangs (as well as the inscrutable Mo Kwei), so everyone is at full 3rd level HPs.

(roll your new HP at home or in OPENRPG- take either the roll or 50% of your hit die. Although now that I think of it, some of you don't have the rules and thus don't know your HD, so we can do that when we start)
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"Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try"

Homer Simpson

I can't wait to cast "Magic Missle"
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Jason Braun
Art Monkey for Hire
Three-Headed Troll Art Wurks

OK the summaries are posted. Barely under the deadline this week!
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"Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try"

Homer Simpson

actually your one day late.... your deadline is wednesday....

OK - we have our first vict-...I mean volunteers to run games. (as I continue to DM, we are getting more and more DMs eager to get someone, anyone to take over! )

1st up- January slot (ish)- Titania's L5R bloodbath. Post the type of oriental style character you would like

2nd up- February slot (ish)- Jaybird's Twilight 2000 bloodbath

Still to come for March and April: Slimy's Gamma World or Treebore's Traveller?
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"Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try"

Homer Simpson

Rules Discussion: They Shoot Horses Don't They?

I have a house rule in GFYG that when shooting at a mounted opponent, a succesful ranged attack requires the attacker to then roll 50/50 to see if that attack counts against the rider or the horse

This rule makes some sense, in the same vein that firing into melee is penalised in various games, and so on

However, it also has some notable flaws. It treats a person on a horse as having the equivalent of a 50% miss chance floating beside them, which makes horse riding better than plate mail for protection.

(this is partly compensated by the fact that it is difficult to stay on a horse that is under fire, and also the 50/50 rule does not apply when you are unhorsed, which often happens.)

But still, it seems it makes riders too hard to hit

Also, the rule hiccups if someone actively targets the (easier to hit) horse, and then rolls a 50/50 roll to try and actually hit the rider by "accident"

As I said in game on the latter issue, we would compare the to hit roll to the person's DC (rather than the horse) so that is kind of solved

But the fact that a horse makes a rider so hard to hit is problematic. It makes a certain sense in realism terms that a ranged shot can accidentally hit a horse, but it might make horse riding too defensively powerful

Anyone else have some better solutions?
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"Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try"

Homer Simpson

3E rule, if they hit... they hit. If they miss they risk hitting the unintended target.

Titania

I would impose a rule similar to what you did for firing into a melee, make a seige check, PASS=fire and hit your target as normal, FAIL= -X to hit (I don't remember how much it was ATM) or X% chance to hit the wrong target Players choice.

Although I might make it a little easier hitting a rider on a horse as opposed to firing into a melee, as in a melee the combatants are spinning, grappling, and pummeling each other where as a horse/rider stay more or less, one on top of the other, and the order rarely changes
just my .02

-Andre
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"A DM is like a duck." -Aramis

"thats the one where you explode. You sure you wanna do that?" -Titania

"It has a Rate of fire bonus of ... Ouch!" - JarredMcgee

I hate to seem like an idiot, but I just realized that the "revolving DM" game will take place from 6-9 PST (it's in the thread title, I know ). Being the elitist Eastcoaster I just assumed that it was EST. I might have to bow out and run the GFYG game from 6-9 EST. Don't take it as a definite yet, but I'm just giving everyone a heads up.

Orpheus wrote:
I hate to seem like an idiot, but I just realized that the "revolving DM" game will take place from 6-9 PST (it's in the thread title, I know ). Being the elitist Eastcoaster I just assumed that it was EST. I might have to bow out and run the GFYG game from 6-9 EST. Don't take it as a definite yet, but I'm just giving everyone a heads up.

YEah, 6 to 9 PM EST pretty much eliminates pacific coast players because they aren't even home from work yet, let alone had dinner. Then 6 to 9 PM eliminates east coasters if they can't handle staying up late because of when they need to get up to go to work.

Definitely not "easy".

As for the horse and rider rule, I obviously don't like it. The riders AC is (usually) the highest, if you roll high enough to hit him you should hit him.

To give him a 50% miss chance is like giving him 9/10 cover in C&C or making him invisible in 3E.

So not only do I not think it is even close to realistic or fair, it is much to powerful/effective. Still, it works both ways, so I'll do my best to stay on a horse and get armor plating for him.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

I'd say if you're aiming for the rider and hit, you hit the rider. If you're aiming at the horse and hit, you hit the horse. A miss either way would then have a slight chance of hitting the other target. But definitely not 50/50.

As for gaming 6-9 EST, I'd have to either take a rest or come late every day. Being in Central, I don't even leave work until 6:30 EST every Thursday, which puts me home at 7:15 or so. I'm thinking of moving closer to work, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm still hard at work at 5 EST.
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Jason Braun
Art Monkey for Hire
Three-Headed Troll Art Wurks

Treebore wrote:
As for the horse and rider rule, I obviously don't like it. The riders AC is (usually) the highest, if you roll high enough to hit him you should hit him.

.

Not only that, but I realised after the game that my merging together of the GFYG rules and my house rules had a bit of a problem (or rather, another problem ). That ruleset has a -2 to hit a rider, which I just blindly pasted into my rules. I assume that is straight out of C&C. But now I think that this is their solution to the rider/horse problem. Then I added on my own solution, making it doubly hard to hit a rider.

So one of those 2 must go!

However, it is very realistic that ranged weapons hit horses as much as riders. Any competent survey of mounted combat will show this to be the case, from Agincourt to WWII (yes, there was still mounted combat in WWII, unfortunately for the practitioners)

However, sometimes realism must be ditched in favour of quick resolution (quick resolution being something I generally favour as a player), so I think we will just use the -2 to hit a mounted target and leave it at that.

As to time, I could not possibly make anything before 6 PST. That is already a struggle. I realise 9 PST is a bit late for our eastern brethren (just ask poor spak man! ). But 6-9 PST is as early as I can go.

No reason that Orpheus can't set up a 6 EST game for all those eastern fancy pants and dandies . It's the wild west Orpheus, are you sure those citified sissies have got the "sand" to handle a wild west shoot out?
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"Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try"

Homer Simpson

Aramis wrote:
It's the wild west Orpheus, are you sure those citified sissies have got the "sand" to handle a wild west shoot out?

Perhaps an entire party of Muckrakers.

jaybird216 wrote:
I'd say if you're aiming for the rider and hit, you hit the rider. If you're aiming at the horse and hit, you hit the horse. A miss either way would then have a slight chance of hitting the other target. But definitely not 50/50.

That's right. I'm quoting myself!

In brushing up on the 1e T:2000 rules, I came across their rules for firing at a mounted target. Just as I described, if you hit, you hit. If you miss (which is often, on full-auto), there's a 10% chance you nail the horse.
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Jason Braun
Art Monkey for Hire
Three-Headed Troll Art Wurks

OK- summaries posted. You will note the summary takes you up to where you got to last session.

However, I think I will either write up a follow on summary or just verbally do a summary before we start, to bring you near to the "dungeon" at the start of play.

We only have one session, so it is important to get the "dungeon" done. We may have to fiddle with the fast forward button a little in session. We shall see.
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"Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try"

Homer Simpson

You got it in on time! lol

Love the beginning, and I am glad that I finally got to do some real sniping! Also love the "nice day for a jog" LOL. You should become a writer, people would love the books just because of the humor.

Titania

"What are you doing girl?"

"Just jogging in the desert."

"If thats jogging, then I am slower than a two legged turtle."
"Since you say so."
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"How can I glare into these eyes and not... stab them." -Richard in Slaughter your World

"I was just going to look! With fire...and lightning...and reanimated chipmunks....and raccoons... on fire."-Richard