Category: RPGS

John Wick’s “DragonCon Part 2: Antitheism and Forbeck’s Law.”

Did you wince at the ‘antitheism?’ Come, I will conceal nothing from you: so did I.  But it’s all right; John Wick was merely discussing how to handle a problem RPG player who likes to go around, in-game, trash-talking another player’s deity.  The solution to that kind of jackwagonry is quite elegant: go ahead and read it.  As for Forbeck’s Law:

 

“Whenever the panelists outnumber the audience, 
the panel moves to the bar.”

 

This is… brilliant. More of a rule of thumb than a law, but still brilliant. I must remember it for future conventions.

 

Item Seed: Practical Demon Breeding.

Practical Demon Breeding – Google Docs

Practical Demon Breeding

 

This book (written by one “Mary O’Brien, Jermyn Chair of Exotic Zoology, OBE”) is not for the faint of heart.  Not that Practical Demon Breeding is actively pernicious; indeed, it is scrupulous about presenting a strong, credible, and practical case against encouraging evil behaviors and traits in one’s demons.  It’s just that it’s profusely illustrated; and… it’s a book about breeding demons.  Some of the pictures are nigh-impossible to credit.

 

And what are demons?  Well, they’re pretty much what people think of when they hear the word ‘imps:’ small, rather humanoid, supernatural creatures with an aptitude for destruction, and the native intelligence of a fairly bright dog.  From context clues, ‘demons’ have been a side effect of ‘spontaneous Hellmouth incursions’ since ‘the Monte Bello Disaster of 1952.’  Fortunately, demons are also apparently fairly tractable, and easily enough bred.  The book was published in 1990, which was enough time for the breeding program to reach its fourth generation.

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Item Seed: Reverse-Gravity Bullets.

Reverse-Gravity Bullets – Google Docs

Reverse-Gravity Bullets

 

The name says it all: getting shot with one of these bullets (which can, quite inexplicably, fit into virtually any chemical-reaction firearm, somehow)  will cause gravity to reverse for the target for about five seconds. In practical terms, on Earth the target will accelerate upwards at about 30 feet per second, go up about 150 feet or so, then probably fall right back down again as gravity reasserts itself.  All of which assumes that there isn’t a ceiling or something in the way.  

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Savage Sell-Blades of Dayton [The Day After Ragnarok]

City_ Dayton, Ohio – Google Docs

 

Savage Sell-Blades of Dayton

[The Day After Ragnarok]

 

City: Dayton, Ohio

Population: 30,000/180,000

Controls: Montgomery County

Government: Democratic, for the moment

Problem: Hostile City

Heroic Opportunity: Mercenary Work

City Aspect: Militaristic and Mercantile  

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Mole Nose Doom [GURPS 4E]

Mole Nose Doom – Google Docs

Mole Nose Doom [0]

 

This is, strictly speaking, a curse: the victim’s nose is replaced with a horrible wriggling appendage (much like a mole’s nose) that both horrifies and disgusts most people who see it.  It’s almost impossible to hide the curse, either. Between the wriggling and the smell of burned earth, Mole Nose Doom is very hard to miss.  

 

However: the victim can now shoot waves of seismic force out of his nose. At the earliest stage of the curse (the sufferer can put more points into Innate Attack, but may not buy off Hideous or Unnatural Features), this isn’t enough to kill anyone — but it can be a nasty surprise to an unarmored enemy, and the psychological effect can be pretty alarming. Some people are willing to accept looking like a monster in exchange. And rather more rulers are willing to enlist the services of somebody suffering from Mole Nose Doom.  Not to mention, encourage them to train up in its use…

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Item Seed: Eel Juice.

Eel Juice – Google Docs

Eel Juice

 

Be very careful when handling this stuff; Eel Juice is a sticky, rather toxic liquid that also happens to be a room temperature superconductor. The species of eel that produces the juice is also an apex predator on its home dimension / planet / elemental plane, so getting the stuff isn’t exactly easy or cheap, either. But, hey: room temperature superconductor.  That’s worth a lot of money, and if it can be synthesized (Eel Juice may be esoteric, but it’s not inscrutable) then the stuff will rapidly start being worth even more.

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Adventure Seed: Operation MONOGRAM AZURE.

Operation MONOGRAM AZURE – Google Docs

Operation MONOGRAM AZURE

 

Twelve hours ago, six test subjects completed an eighteen month joint NASA/ESA experiment where they stayed, isolated, in an facility located underneath Mount Sermitsiaq in Greenland. The goal was to simulate, to an extent not attempted before, the conditions of a voyage to Mars; the ‘astronauts’ were deliberately kept even more isolated than in other experiments, and were informed ahead of time that the experiment would not be halted for anything less than an emergency with a high chance of literal death.  The six subjects volunteered anyway, and appeared to go on to have a remarkably straightforward and drama-free test session.

 

We are using the term ‘apparently’ because the exit interviews of the six subjects have provided some extremely alarming results:

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Creature Seed: Psionic Tongue Zombies.

Blame this.

Psionic Tongue Zombies – Google Docs

Psionic Tongue Zombies

 

Install a chip in people’s tongues to help them with their sleep apnea, they said.  Bathe their craniums with regular doses of electromagnetic energy, they said.  Make it all accessible via the Internet Of Things, they said.  You can probably see where this is going, right?

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Item Seed: Tennis Shoes.

Tennis Shoes – Google Docs

Tennis Shoes

These magic items subtly alter the path of projectiles, thus aiming them at the person wearing the Tennis Shoes.  It won’t unnaturally curve the trajectory of a projectile, but ‘in the general direction of’ is usually good enough to ensure a hit.  If somebody is actually aiming the projectile at someone, a hit is almost assured.  The top velocity of the projectile must be no more than about one hundred miles an hour, which means that it works on baseballs — but not, say, arrows. Also, the projectiles generally aim for the center of mass; this is not a spell for headshots.

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In the Mail: @SJGames’ GURPS Dungeon Fantasy.

Isn’t Dungeon Fantasy pretty-looking? Basically, this is everything that you’d need to run a much more modular fantasy RPG adventure campaign while at the same time using the GURPS system (hence, the entire ‘Powered by GURPS’ thing).  It looks real nice, but I’m the wrong person to ask about that. I may not speak Fourth Edition, but I understand it well enough that I’d just sort of paper any problems over in my head and just keep on going.

So why did I buy it?  Gee, well, it has GURPS in the title.  That should be a pretty strong hint as to why, yes?