From: blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se Subject: blakes7-d Digest V98 #318 X-Loop: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se X-Mailing-List: archive/volume98/318 Precedence: list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/digest; boundary="----------------------------" To: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se Reply-To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se ------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blakes7-d Digest Volume 98 : Issue 318 Today's Topics: Re: [B7L] RPG [B7L] worst cast Re: [B7L] worst cast Re: [B7L] T.'s Offer to S. in 'The Keeper' Re: [B7L] RPG Re: [B7L] RPG Re: [B7L] RPG Re: [B7L] RPG Re: [B7L] RPG Re: [B7L] RPG ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1998 02:12:53 -0000 From: "Neil Faulkner" To: "lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] RPG Message-ID: <003001be3075$ecb45260$7918ac3e@default> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Since these characters are already 'established'--meaning, they're not just >starting out--they would have higher total points than a new player >character. Part of the GURPS premise is that new characters can be hardened veterans, but they still start off with the basic 100 points. This thread's in grave danger of turning into a theoretical accounting exercise, with people not seeing the point for the points (I would say it was getting pointless, but...). I think, perhaps, it might be better to forget about point totals altogether, and just allocate stats, skills, ads, disads etc that feel right. Fit the rules to the character, as it were, rather than try to squeeze the character into the rules. But that still wouldn't solve all the arguments over the actual values of such stats. Most players designing their favourite characters in such a free form way would probably inflate the more vital values, even if they thought they were being scrupulously fair (I wouldn't trust myself to design Cally, for instance, and I'm not sure I could go along entirely with anyone else's version). A basic rule of thumb I've devised over the years: players are more likely to be truly roleplaying if they don't always take decisions in their character's best interests. Like spending half the loot on a really cool pair of mirror shades rather than getting yet another megakill handblaster. Or beefing up some obscure academic skill that will almost certainly never be of any use in play. Thinking about it, my B7 character of choice would probably be Dayna. A precocious whining brat who likes heavy weapons, a perfect vehicle for wanton mayhem and carnage. And if everything goes pear-shaped you can just pout and go sulk in a corner. What a gal! Neil ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1998 20:58:01 GMT From: Roger the Shrubber To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] worst cast Message-Id: <199812262058.UAA10360@axis> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit BLAKES 7 THE MOVIE "THE UNDISCOVERED INSURRECTION AT FARPOINT" Starring: Roj Blake.........................Jonathon Harris Kerr Avon.........................William Shatner Jenna Stannis.....................Pamela Anderson Lee or Christine Applegate Cally.............................Marilyn Manson Villa Restal......................Paul Reubins(pee wee herman) Olag Gan..........................Dan Ackroyd Servalan..........................Boy George ORAC..............................Judge Judy Zen ..............................voice of Majel Barret Tarrant...........................Leonardo Di Caprio Travis(I).........................Ice-T or Bruce Willis Travis(II)........................Jonathon Harris (again) Special guests - The Two Fat Ladies as the Decimas Basil Fawlty as the manager of Freedom City Andie McDowell as Cancer George Michael as Egrorian Michael Jackson as Zil Kevin Trudeau as Trooper Par Crew: Directed by.......................That English prat from the Cyclone exercise machine informercial Written by........................Paul Darrow Music by..........................Muriels Wedding soundtrack ___________________________________ from Darren r ..... Comments are welcome ! powerplay@cheerful.com ____________________________________ Culture is a synthesis of reason and religion, attempting to hide the sharp distinction between the two poles. ______________________________________ Traditions had a beginning that was not traditional. ________________________________________ ________________________________________ http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/2634 Anxiety & Panic _________________________________________ http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/2634/powerplay.html Blake's 7 FAQ & free screen savers ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1998 02:48:44 PST From: "Penny Dreadful" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] worst cast Message-ID: <19981226104844.25044.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain Roger the Shrubber horrified me with the prospect of: >Written by........................Paul Darrow And speaking of celebrities who should be prevented in future from writing, at gunpoint if necessary, I just got Drew Carey's Cash-Grab Celebrity Autobiography (Now Appearing in a Sub-Discount Bin Near You) for Xmas, and the first, like, ten pages are Drew Carey swearing the thing was not ghost-written, which harked back to how many many moons ago I received "Avon: A Terrible Aspect" for Xmas, and after reading it, in desperate search of praise, latching upon "He obviously wrote it himself." Which makes me wonder now I think about it whether there is a market for ghost-writers who can convincingly simulate inept amateur prose, for that sense of verite... (I should add here that I really did enjoy the latter book, and spent all Xmas afternoon irking my relatives by reading excerpts out loud from the former. And using my chilling powers of prescience I predict I will finish reading it long before I finish "Mason & Dixon", which I got *last* Xmas) In conclusion, Blake - Drew Carey Avon - Don McKellar Servalan - Woody Harrelson Travis - Juliette Lewis And A Merry Boxing Day To You and Yours, Penny Dreadful ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1998 03:15:52 PST From: "Penny Dreadful" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] T.'s Offer to S. in 'The Keeper' Message-Id: <199812261115.DAA01634@f282.hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain Pat pined: >Hey, this story has everything for a tragic love story. Who wants to >write it? Please post it to the list in time for a "broken hearts" >Valentines Day gazette here. What, you mean here, or on the Naughty List? >Altho Servalan/Jarvik has undeveloped potential! Yeah, the interaction between those two was what made it *plausible* to me, after the fact, that Servalan and Travis could reasonably be considered to have had Something Going On. -- Polymorphously Perverse Penny Dreadful ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1998 23:33:53 GMT From: dixonm@access.mountain.net (Meredith Dixon) To: "Neil Faulkner" Cc: "lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] RPG Message-ID: <36867023.1279603@cyberplanet.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >How do people go about rolegaming B7? Do you use the series characters, or >originals? My husband and I have done a little bit of B7 RPGing, but we've found it very difficult to do because the Seven are very vulnerable. The GM creating the missions has to remain aware of the group's limitations at all times. This is especially true for us because my husband is a strict "rules" gameplayer; he'd never think of fudging a roll in the interests of the story line, and he'd be offended if I did so. The first B7 mission I ran, I think the only people who survived were Vila and Cally, and while that may do for an ending it makes a lousy start to a campaign. (We started over with a revised mission....) We experimented with using the *Price of Freedom* rules for B7, but in the end, as we usually do, we went back to using Marvel Super Heroes' rules. They worked fairly well, all things considered. It never occurred to us to attempt a B7 RPG without the series characters, or even with the series characters as NPCs. Meredith Dixon dixonm@access.mountain.net ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 1998 01:51:42 +0100 From: calle@lysator.liu.se To: "lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] RPG Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII dixonm@access.mountain.net (Meredith Dixon) writes: > This is especially true for us because my husband is a strict > "rules" gameplayer; he'd never think of fudging a roll in the > interests of the story line, and he'd be offended if I did so. Weee, my very opposite. One of my players once calculated that on the average, I use dice in almost every third gaming session :-) If you'd like to see what sort of system I use when GMing, have a look at http://www.lysator.liu.se/~calle/gm/goodnesspoints.html And I'd like to point out that not using dice does *not* mean that the characters always succeed. It only means that they fail in dramatically appropriate ways. I have lots of GURPS books (50+ of them), but only use them for background and inspiration. > The first B7 mission I ran, I think the only people who survived > were Vila and Cally, and while that may do for an ending it makes a > lousy start to a campaign. It makes for a great prequel, though. You tell the players to choose characters from the series crew, then you run a really, really bad blood'n'guts session killing off all but one or two of them. For the next session, they get to play the new recruits. A small group of rebels, led by a *seriously* bitter and nasty (NPC) Cally (or whoever is left over from session one). For added spice, put her in a wheelchair, give her a couple of bad burn-scars and boost her psychic powers so that the PCs can't keep anything secret from her. Sort of like Santa Claus on a bad angst-trip. "She knows if you've been good or bad..." > It never occurred to us to attempt a B7 RPG without the series > characters, or even with the series characters as NPCs. The only way I can see it working at all is with the series characters as NPCs. NPCs important for the story, but still NPCs. Having the players be a presidentially appointed team out to get Blake&co behind Servalan's back might be fun. -- Calle Dybedahl, Vasav. 82, S-175 32 Jaerfaella,SWEDEN | calle@lysator.liu.se Try again. Try harder. -*- Fail again. Fail better. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 1998 03:00:46 +0100 From: calle@lysator.liu.se To: "lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] RPG Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII "Neil Faulkner" writes: > Part of the GURPS premise is that new characters can be hardened veterans, > but they still start off with the basic 100 points. No. New characters start with as many points as the GM wants them to start with. 100 points with a 40-point disadvantage limit is the suggested values for "hero-material" characters. If the PCs are supposed to be something else, they'll have other point values. Most worldbooks suggest several different values for differently flavoured campaigns. For example, GURPS Camelot suggests that starting Knights of the Round Table be built with 200 points or so, and GURPS Martial Arts suggests 300 or 400 points for a "Kung Fu Movie" campaign (and 25 to 50 for a "total beginners" campaign). In a B7 context, all the series characters are clearly not equal in point value, since the point value is a combined measure of talent and experience. Even though Dayna is a very talented weapons designer, Avon's going to have more points since he's not only talented but also educated and experienced. At a rough guess, I'd put Dayna and Gan at 100 points, Tarrant, Vila and Soolin at 150 and the rest at 200, if they were PCs. If they were NPCs, I'd forget about limits and just design them as I wanted them. > I think, perhaps, it might be better to forget about point totals > altogether, and just allocate stats, skills, ads, disads etc that > feel right. Fit the rules to the character, as it were, rather than > try to squeeze the character into the rules. That's how you're *always* supposed to use the rules! The rules are there to *help* the game, not hinder it. > Most players designing their favourite characters in such a free > form way would probably inflate the more vital values, In my experience, reasonably mature players generally don't. If they want to play Cally, they want to play Cally, not a superheroine with her face. In over 16 years of GMing, I've only had the supercharacter problem with teenage boys. Actually, the opposite problem (giving characters so many disadvantages that they become totally dysfunctional) is in my experience much more common. > Or beefing up some obscure academic skill that will almost certainly never > be of any use in play. I once had a player who put more than half of his character's points into "Aristotelian physics". In a modern-day campaign... > Thinking about it, my B7 character of choice would probably be Dayna. A > precocious whining brat who likes heavy weapons, a perfect vehicle for > wanton mayhem and carnage. And if everything goes pear-shaped you can just > pout and go sulk in a corner. What a gal! I once got to play Servalan in a Travaller game. She was the commanding officer for an expedition to some frontier planet. It was enormously entertaining. Several times I managed to get other players so filled with impotent hatred that they couldn't even talk :-) -- Calle Dybedahl, Vasav. 82, S-175 32 Jaerfaella,SWEDEN | calle@lysator.liu.se Try again. Try harder. -*- Fail again. Fail better. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 1998 02:34:29 +0100 From: calle@lysator.liu.se To: "lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] RPG Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII "Neil Faulkner" writes: > Jenna estimated the contents of the Liberator's strongroom at 300 > million credits, which between the six of the crew makes 50 million > each. This is 10,000 times average starting wealth and would have a > character point cost of several thousand... No, it'd cost 100 points ("Multimillionaire" advantage, introduced in GURPS Imperial Rome to model people like Crassus). And personally I wouldn't charge nearly that much for it, since they can't really use it, being outside of ordinary society as they are. It's more like Comfortable Wealth (they don't have to care about cash when they go down to a planet). > Blake at least would certainly have a high Reputation. That he would. Note that it'd be a double-edged reputation, though. He'll be recognised, but he can't know if he'll be thought of as a bloodthirsty terrorist or as a valiant freedom-fighter. The GM would have to balance this according to hir view of the B7 universe. > (what does GURPS Cyberpunk say about characters who start with > implants?). "Pay points for it". > More to the point, how do you stop it cracking open top secret files > and ripping the GM's plot to shreds? Through its wonderfully pleasant and helpful personality, most probably. If played correctly, they should be ready to toss him out the airlock after the first session. Unless it's a very, *very* strange campaign, Orac absolutely should not be a player character. > which doesn't leave much to spend on stats and skills. Huh? Why would starting-character limits apply to people like Servalan? The Servie we see in the series very clearly is not a fresh beginner. You could center a campaign around her rise to power, I guess, but then she wouldn't have most of her advantages at the start. > All in all, I think GURPS is a very silly game - it leaves far too > much open to interpretation (and hence argument). Also known as "flexible enough to fit the GM's vision". It's just about the only game I know of that manages to have a rigid structure without turning into a straightjacket. But I guess that's mainly a matter of taste. -- Calle Dybedahl, Vasav. 82, S-175 32 Jaerfaella,SWEDEN | calle@lysator.liu.se Try again. Try harder. -*- Fail again. Fail better. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 1998 02:17:21 +0100 From: calle@lysator.liu.se To: "B7" Subject: Re: [B7L] RPG Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII "Taina Nieminen" writes: > A doctor, say, who has electronics operation (medical equipment) is > able to, by default, repair, say, radars or computers. No, she isn't. According to the rules book, she's able to do simple repairs _on equipment she's familiar with_ (so, ok, she *can* change a fuse in the radar on her yacht). GURPS is far from perfect, but we can at least pick on the faults it actually _has_. > Most of my GMing in the last five years has been using a skill-based > system I created myself, but it's in limbo at the moment between revisions Before designing a system, the designer-to-be should at least have played one level-based system (AD&D, RoleMaster), one skill-based system (RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu), one advantage-based system (GURPS, Ars Magica), one very simple system (TWERPS), one extremely detailed system (Timelords (no, it doesn't have anything to do with Dr Who)), one very serious game (Pendragon), one very silly game (Paranoia, Toon) and a just plain odd one (Over the Edge, Amber). And this isn't any sort of criticism of you, Tania, I'm just ranting at the world in general. > The Champions game I'm running (which I've started only recently) > faces a similar problem in that it uses established characters from > a comicbook series (Legion of Superheroes). Phage Press' Amber game has this problem built right into it. The entire game is built on Roger Zelazny's series of books[1] and characters from the books are very important. How it works out in practice is that what you see in the game is different interpretations of the original characters. One GM's Benedict will be a lot different from another GM's Benedict (or, indeed, from the same Gm's Benedict in another campaign), but that's no problem since what we see of Benedict in Zelazny's books isn't anything close to his whole story. Different GMs give different views, and I think it would work the same with the B7 universe. After all, a whole lot of that sort of reinterpretation is already going on in fanfiction. [1] "Nine Princes in Amber", "The Guns of Avalon", "Sign of the Unicorn", "The Hand of Oberon" and "The Courts of Chaos". -- Calle Dybedahl, Vasav. 82, S-175 32 Jaerfaella,SWEDEN | calle@lysator.liu.se Try again. Try harder. -*- Fail again. Fail better. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1998 22:09:29 EST From: AChevron@aol.com To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] RPG Message-ID: Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-12-26 21:06:26 EST, you write: << One of my players once calculated that on the average, I use dice in almost every third gaming session :-) >> Well, I use dice about every 2 actions that the PCs take, but only about 1 in 10 rolls actually count for anything. D. Rose -------------------------------- End of blakes7-d Digest V98 Issue #318 **************************************