Last weekend I travelled to Madison for some quality role playing. Rather than go over the results of the session (we started two wars, and got a commendation rather than a court martial-- I'm still flabbergasted about that), I'm going to discuss my trip home, and the skill roles executed.
(If you're unfamiliar with the GURPS system, they use three six sided dice, for rolls between 3 and 18. Lower being better and higher worse.)
I had planned to leave early that afternoon, but the weather was poor. Snow, sleet, bits of hail, scattered storms and high winds. Not pleasant driving conditions. I elected to wait a bit of time to see if the weather improved. This decision, amongst others, leads me to believe that I failed to take the [Common Sense] advantage. The weather failed to improve, and seeing as I had to be back Monday morning, I had to leave as it was getting dark.
Driving roll: 9- Success
Despite the sleet I did not crash my car. Driving rolls will continue to be made throughout.
Navigation: 12- Success
I manage to escape Madison with a minimum of fuss.
Area Knowledge (Wisconsin): 12- Failure
My windshield wipers need replacing. I don't find an open store that carries them on a Sunday night. Imagine that.
Driving: 11- Success. I successfully make it to the next town, despite the right side of my windshield being partially obscured. This town also gives me the opportunity to make another check for windshield wipers.
Area Knowledge (Wisconsin): 10- Success
Despite a false start, I manage to find some wipers in a Wal-Mart
Mechanic (Automobiles): 4- Critical Success!
Despite previous failures in this department, I manage to replace my windshield wipers in inclement weather without fuss. Huzzah! This roll is actually a default off of Driving; I don't have the Mechanic skill myself.
Driving: 13- Success
The roads aren't pleasant, I have to take extra time, but I manage to drive.
Health: 11- Failure
Driving in poor condition requires quite a bit of attention, and I'm worn somewhat from a marathon gaming session. I'm required to pull over and take a short nap.
Driving: 5- Success
Just a success, not a critical success. My driving skill isn't that high.
Health: 10- Failure
Again I have to take a break before I can continue driving.
Navigation: 12- Failure
I attempt a new route passing through Eau Claire. I get my exits confused, and take extra time.
Driving: 16- Failure
The local roads I have to return on are covered in snow. Deep, too. Someone is stuck on the other side of the intersection. When I stop, I can't start again.
Mechanic: 16- Failure
Luckily, as I get there the other guy had summoned help, in a guy with a truck and a tow cable. Unluckily, the first attempt takes off my makeshift bumper.
Mechanic: 14- Success
The second attempt pulls me out
Strength: 7- Success
We push t'other person's car out of the snow.
Will: 13- Failure
This is a self control roll, as apparently I have the disadvantage [Overconfidence] Against my stated intentions and better judgement I try taking the next road over back home. It is also covered in snow. Driving conditions are abysmal, I'm forced to make driving rolls every minute here. Skipping ahead to
Driving: 15- Failure
I manage most of the distance on this road, but get myself stuck again, right in the middle of the road.
IQ: 16- Failure
Despite the obvious presence of winter and the bad conditions, I failed to plan ahead and provide myself with a snow shovel.
Driving: 14- Failure
I don't manage to extricate myself from the middle of the road. After some time, a truck arrives behind me and lends me a shovel. I get to roll again
Driving: 11- Success
After some shoveling, and some shoving, we get my car moving again. I pull it over to the side. I decide to leave my car here, to retrieve it in the morning.
IQ: 6
I remember to retrieve my bottle of Coke from the backpack, preventing it from freezing, exploding and melting all over the GURPS sourcebooks. Tragedy averted.
Survival (Winter): 10- Success
Having decided to leave the car where it is and walk the next two miles, I make it home with no more ill effect.
Breaking out of the skill roll narration, in the morning we retrieved my car, and I made it in to school on time. If I had taken four hours less traveling, like I would have in clear weather, I could have spent some time studying. Then maybe I wouldn't have had to default on my IQ for the essay questions on the test.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Tales of RISK
While poking through older files on my computer today I found this account. It tells of an unusual game of RISK, which predates the blog. Rather than, y'know, do actual work and write something up, I'm going to post it here. I'd say the names have been changed to protect the innocent, but there's a rather large assumption there. Matter of fact, I'm not entirely sure why the names have been changed.
The thing about RISK, it’s all about the cards. You might think that taking one extra country to deny Steve his fourth army next turn is sound strategy, but it hardly matters when Steve turns in cards, takes out John, turns in his cards and gets an extra seventy five armies. Even if he says “There’s nothing that can stop me now!”, well, there’s not much you can do to actually stop him.
I played in an awesome game of RISK today. Y’see, the guy in North America had to leave, so he went on one final rampage, which pushed me out of South America and weakened me in Asia. Since Napoleon was going next, and didn’t have to worry about that other guy anymore, he took me the rest of the way out. This put him up to eight cards, forcing him to turn in in the middle of his attack. He turned in cards, and got four armies. Four armies-- it was the first set of cards of the game.
Maybe I should start from the beginning.
There were four of us playing RISK. It’s been a while since we’ve played, having generally moved onto other games. I suppose a dramatis personae is in order. To my left is Barbarossa, I’ve known him from High School, and we’ve played many, many games of RISK together. Across from me is McClellan, a highschooler himself and currently an unknown quantity. To my right is Napoleon, so named for his proficiency at this game in years past; when in high school we organized a RISK tournament, Napoleon emerged victorious. Lastly is me, Havoc Jack, a man who talks entirely too much. Four players, thirty armies, shuffle and deal the cards, four piles of eleven. I got a pretty bad mix of countries; five in Asia, two in South America, two in Europe, Ontario, and one wild card. Barbarossa to my left got two in Australia and Siam, so he went the Aussie route. McClellan, after him had four or five in North America. Napoleon had North Africa, Egypt and East Africa, so he was building up in that continent. I put in enough to make sure I could take South America, without leaving so much in there that I’d lose if either of my more powerful neighbors wanted to take me out. The rest I spread over Asia and Europe.
When people first start playing RISK, they tend to go for continents. Two extra armies per turn buy you a significant advantage in the early to middle game. But these extra armies are dwarfed by the card turn ins that happen later in the game; two armies each turn for ten turns only nets you twenty armies, while a single set of cards late game is worth thirty, forty, fifty armies. So later on in their strategic development, people focus on staying alive, making sure nobody can gut them for their sweet, sweet cards. This game was odd in that, since people weren’t really worried about the number of armies that continents generated, people nobody did much in the way of continent breaking, so people actually got to use those extra armies.
See, I was in a pretty bad position; South America is a death trap. In the first turn, I took South America, Barbarossa took Australia and Napoleon took Africa. Naturally, I was the only one who didn’t manage to hold their continent. McClellan consolidated North America over the first couple turns. With strong North America and African neighbors, South America really doesn’t have the wherewithal to defend itself. The other option, taking Asia one neglected backwater at a time, mostly doesn’t work. For one thing, you’re not getting the whole continent. Australia always holds it’s army in Siam, and you won‘t lever them out of it. And you don’t want each and every player eyeing your seven armies a turn and deciding that you are winning. But the continent bonus isn’t the objective, the objective is to stuff yourself into enough nooks and crannies that you’re annoying to root out, and maybe hold enough countries to get four armies a turn. It’s possible to succeed with that strategy. It doesn’t help if you’re legitimately weaker than each other player, and that they’re all eyeing you to see if they can carve off a slice.
In the first couple turns, neither Africa nor Australia were strong enough to break into the other person’s continent and deny them the bonus armies, so the continents held. When McClellan finally unified North America, Napoleon decided he wasn’t going to play world police and unduly weaken himself by denying McClellan armies. Napoleon owned the most armies, and he was factoring in McClellan’s relative inexperience with the game (which, sad to say, by that point was obvious.) Barbarossa in Australia took a poke or two at America, but he couldn’t unseat McClellan. In the second round I had lost a significant force in South America (six armies without getting one kill!), and more armies in Asia just trying to get a card for the turn. I went from pretending to be weak so people would look the other way to actually being weak and desperately hoping that people look the other way. Not a good place to be. Still, I had my options.
When you’re in the position I was in, odds are you’ll be able to keep South America, less Venezuela or Brazil. Y’see, it’s in both Africa and North America’s best interest to leave you there; you provide a buffer against incursions by the other side, and having a little pocket of your guys there hedges against your annihilation. Since you obviously don’t threaten their empire, they’re in favor of that, since they want to knock you out and steal your cards yourself.
Then McClellan had to leave. Since it was his last turn, he went on one final rampage, kicking me out of South America and weakening me in Asia. Napoleon went next, and he had enough forces to take me out. So I handed my four cards over to him, bumping him up to eight, mandating a mid turn reinforcement, getting his four armies. All this had happened within the first five turns, that was the first card turn in. If he had gotten forty armies, he’d have taken out Barbarossa and won it right there, but he didn’t have the resources.
At this point Napoleon controls all of Africa, half of Europe and most of Asia. Barbarossa controls Australia, and Siam. More importantly, he’s got an army of about twenty units there, and four cards. McClellan controls Americas both north and south, some in Asia and the other half of Europe. Since he left, his forces degenerated into an inactive neutral side. Barbarossa can’t turn in cards, but he conquers into Africa.
What followed were a series of attempts by Barbarossa to break Napoleon in one or two turns before Napoleon turned in too many cards, and a series of attempts by Napoleon to try to break Barbarossa in one or two turns before Barbarossa turned in too many cards. Barbarossa would push Napoleon mostly out of Africa, Napoleon would push back at Australia, only to be stymied in Siam. In one memorable battle, Napoleon easily took down four of Barbarossa’s troops, but lost ten trying to pick off the last one. Ten! Roughly speaking, the odds of that happening are six in a million. If it hadn’t been for the escalating card values, it’d have settled down into a steady state of warfare eerily reminiscent of 1984. We are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia.
In the end, it was the card reinforcements that ended the game; the incursions got deeper, the comebacks more dramatic. Napoleon got up to five cards, turned in, pushed Barbarossa back to one territory in the Australian outback, with one soldier left to defend it. One soldier attacking one soldier; Napoleon rolls a six, Barbarossa rolls a six! The day is saved, temporarily. Barbarossa turns in cards, rolls back Napoleon as far as Great Britain. Napoleon turns in cards, drops down to zero left, and rolls Barbarossa all the way up.
The final battles were dramatic, and this was one of the most memorable RISK games I’ve ever played, but the thing I keep coming back to was how little a difference the cards made for such a long time that game. Napoleon held Africa for four turns, netting him twelve armies, which outshone all but the last two sets of cards. The little things like taking that twelfth country so they don’t get a fourth army really did make a difference.
The thing about RISK, it’s all about the cards. You might think that taking one extra country to deny Steve his fourth army next turn is sound strategy, but it hardly matters when Steve turns in cards, takes out John, turns in his cards and gets an extra seventy five armies. Even if he says “There’s nothing that can stop me now!”, well, there’s not much you can do to actually stop him.
I played in an awesome game of RISK today. Y’see, the guy in North America had to leave, so he went on one final rampage, which pushed me out of South America and weakened me in Asia. Since Napoleon was going next, and didn’t have to worry about that other guy anymore, he took me the rest of the way out. This put him up to eight cards, forcing him to turn in in the middle of his attack. He turned in cards, and got four armies. Four armies-- it was the first set of cards of the game.
Maybe I should start from the beginning.
There were four of us playing RISK. It’s been a while since we’ve played, having generally moved onto other games. I suppose a dramatis personae is in order. To my left is Barbarossa, I’ve known him from High School, and we’ve played many, many games of RISK together. Across from me is McClellan, a highschooler himself and currently an unknown quantity. To my right is Napoleon, so named for his proficiency at this game in years past; when in high school we organized a RISK tournament, Napoleon emerged victorious. Lastly is me, Havoc Jack, a man who talks entirely too much. Four players, thirty armies, shuffle and deal the cards, four piles of eleven. I got a pretty bad mix of countries; five in Asia, two in South America, two in Europe, Ontario, and one wild card. Barbarossa to my left got two in Australia and Siam, so he went the Aussie route. McClellan, after him had four or five in North America. Napoleon had North Africa, Egypt and East Africa, so he was building up in that continent. I put in enough to make sure I could take South America, without leaving so much in there that I’d lose if either of my more powerful neighbors wanted to take me out. The rest I spread over Asia and Europe.
When people first start playing RISK, they tend to go for continents. Two extra armies per turn buy you a significant advantage in the early to middle game. But these extra armies are dwarfed by the card turn ins that happen later in the game; two armies each turn for ten turns only nets you twenty armies, while a single set of cards late game is worth thirty, forty, fifty armies. So later on in their strategic development, people focus on staying alive, making sure nobody can gut them for their sweet, sweet cards. This game was odd in that, since people weren’t really worried about the number of armies that continents generated, people nobody did much in the way of continent breaking, so people actually got to use those extra armies.
See, I was in a pretty bad position; South America is a death trap. In the first turn, I took South America, Barbarossa took Australia and Napoleon took Africa. Naturally, I was the only one who didn’t manage to hold their continent. McClellan consolidated North America over the first couple turns. With strong North America and African neighbors, South America really doesn’t have the wherewithal to defend itself. The other option, taking Asia one neglected backwater at a time, mostly doesn’t work. For one thing, you’re not getting the whole continent. Australia always holds it’s army in Siam, and you won‘t lever them out of it. And you don’t want each and every player eyeing your seven armies a turn and deciding that you are winning. But the continent bonus isn’t the objective, the objective is to stuff yourself into enough nooks and crannies that you’re annoying to root out, and maybe hold enough countries to get four armies a turn. It’s possible to succeed with that strategy. It doesn’t help if you’re legitimately weaker than each other player, and that they’re all eyeing you to see if they can carve off a slice.
In the first couple turns, neither Africa nor Australia were strong enough to break into the other person’s continent and deny them the bonus armies, so the continents held. When McClellan finally unified North America, Napoleon decided he wasn’t going to play world police and unduly weaken himself by denying McClellan armies. Napoleon owned the most armies, and he was factoring in McClellan’s relative inexperience with the game (which, sad to say, by that point was obvious.) Barbarossa in Australia took a poke or two at America, but he couldn’t unseat McClellan. In the second round I had lost a significant force in South America (six armies without getting one kill!), and more armies in Asia just trying to get a card for the turn. I went from pretending to be weak so people would look the other way to actually being weak and desperately hoping that people look the other way. Not a good place to be. Still, I had my options.
When you’re in the position I was in, odds are you’ll be able to keep South America, less Venezuela or Brazil. Y’see, it’s in both Africa and North America’s best interest to leave you there; you provide a buffer against incursions by the other side, and having a little pocket of your guys there hedges against your annihilation. Since you obviously don’t threaten their empire, they’re in favor of that, since they want to knock you out and steal your cards yourself.
Then McClellan had to leave. Since it was his last turn, he went on one final rampage, kicking me out of South America and weakening me in Asia. Napoleon went next, and he had enough forces to take me out. So I handed my four cards over to him, bumping him up to eight, mandating a mid turn reinforcement, getting his four armies. All this had happened within the first five turns, that was the first card turn in. If he had gotten forty armies, he’d have taken out Barbarossa and won it right there, but he didn’t have the resources.
At this point Napoleon controls all of Africa, half of Europe and most of Asia. Barbarossa controls Australia, and Siam. More importantly, he’s got an army of about twenty units there, and four cards. McClellan controls Americas both north and south, some in Asia and the other half of Europe. Since he left, his forces degenerated into an inactive neutral side. Barbarossa can’t turn in cards, but he conquers into Africa.
What followed were a series of attempts by Barbarossa to break Napoleon in one or two turns before Napoleon turned in too many cards, and a series of attempts by Napoleon to try to break Barbarossa in one or two turns before Barbarossa turned in too many cards. Barbarossa would push Napoleon mostly out of Africa, Napoleon would push back at Australia, only to be stymied in Siam. In one memorable battle, Napoleon easily took down four of Barbarossa’s troops, but lost ten trying to pick off the last one. Ten! Roughly speaking, the odds of that happening are six in a million. If it hadn’t been for the escalating card values, it’d have settled down into a steady state of warfare eerily reminiscent of 1984. We are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia.
In the end, it was the card reinforcements that ended the game; the incursions got deeper, the comebacks more dramatic. Napoleon got up to five cards, turned in, pushed Barbarossa back to one territory in the Australian outback, with one soldier left to defend it. One soldier attacking one soldier; Napoleon rolls a six, Barbarossa rolls a six! The day is saved, temporarily. Barbarossa turns in cards, rolls back Napoleon as far as Great Britain. Napoleon turns in cards, drops down to zero left, and rolls Barbarossa all the way up.
The final battles were dramatic, and this was one of the most memorable RISK games I’ve ever played, but the thing I keep coming back to was how little a difference the cards made for such a long time that game. Napoleon held Africa for four turns, netting him twelve armies, which outshone all but the last two sets of cards. The little things like taking that twelfth country so they don’t get a fourth army really did make a difference.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
GURPS: Suburban Office
FROM: Bob Cowan, Manager of Human Resources
TO: Accounting new hires
SUBJECT: Welcome!
Hi there!
I'd just like to extend a personal "welcome!" to all you new hires in the Accounts Receivable department. Midstate is the region's leading supplier of office supplies, and I'm glad to have some new teammates to carry the tradition into the future. Despite what you may have heard, Midstate is a company where you can set down roots.
You've already met the head comptroller, Gerald Luckenbill, and your immediate supervisor, Irving Weinbaum during the interviewing process. In addition to them, I expect you'll work closely with Myron Schabe, the Accounts Payable supervisor. None of that bickering which characterized the department in times past.
Thanks, and enjoy your stay at Midstate!
Sincerely
Bob Cowan
Manager, HR
~~~
By request, I'm setting up a short GURPS campaign based on the life and times of Herbert Kornfeld. Players will start the game as new hires at Midstate Office Supply. Play will revolve around accounting and the grand traditions of the Accounts Receivable brotherhood. As such, I'll be making a few modifications to the standard GURPS rules. These are by no means final, and I may add more as they occur to me.
The "Business Acumen" talent will be banned. Raise the points manually. The use of weapons is provisionally allowed, although don't go overboard. I suggest you look at the "New Skills" section.
New Advantages:
Ivy League: 10 points
You got your degree from one of our nations top colleges. This doesn't mean you know any more, but people will be act more favorably to you. You're automatically one pay grade higher than your fellow accountants with similar experience, and you'll get +1 on reaction rolls with people who know where you matriculated. (So be sure to mention it as soon as possible.) In addition, you may know people from your school in other accounting departments. See the Frequency of Appearance Table on B36
Additional Education: 5 points.
You may purchase another set of initials behind your name, which gives you an additional +1 to your reaction rolls and an additional pay grade per level. Don't let it go to your head.
New Disadvantages:
Temp -5 points
Your days are numbered, and what's worse, everybody knows it. Being a temp means you're subject to losing your job at a moment's notice. People will be wary of making long term plans around you, giving you -1 to your reaction rolls.
Compulsive Accounting: -5 points
You live for the ledger. Your life revolves around the office, and making those numbers dance. You'll volunteer for overtime, every time, and you'll resent days off. Holidays are a nightmare. You may find yourself breaking into the office just to keep adding those numbers on weekends. You get a positive reaction roll from people who rely on your accounting, but -1 from the public at large, who see you as something of a deviant. This condition would we worth more points if it wasn't so darn handy around the office.
New Skills:
Crooked Accounting: (IQ/VH)
Defaults: Accounting -6
This is the variant of accounting which lets you make the numbers fit your predetermined outcome, and to not let anyone know that you've done so. Note that failures can be embarassing...
Weapon: Letter Opener (DX/E)
The letter opener is the classic weapon of Accounting. Quick, deadly, capable of either stabbing or throwing, you're never half as safe as you are when you've got your letter opener by your side. Take the skill once for melee and again for thrown.
Weapon: Staple Gun (DX/E)
The use of common office staplers as projectile weapons. Although technically a ranged weapon, their half damage range is 2 hexes. This skill also covers the use of construction grade staple guns, which although they do significantly more damage are of a lower legality class.
Weapon: Three hole punch (DX/A)
The office weapon of choice if you're in favor of clubbing, this counts as an unbalanced weapon.
Exotic Weapon: Paypa-clip Chain (DX/H)
If you want to go for real style, you can swing around a whip of paperclips. This skill has the advantage of allowing you to assemble a new weapon whenever you get access to paper clips, but it is significantly harder to wield.
Weapon: Binder Clips (DX/A)
This is a thrown weapon. They do very little damage, but you can carry many of them without raising (much) suspicion.
Jeet-Kun Do (DX/H)
Technically, this is a variant of the Karate skill already listed in the book. Jeet-Kun Do is the favored martial art of the suburban office environment. It comes with a variety of techniques, most notably the Office Supply attack (hard) that lets you incorporate the use of one of the other office weapons into your Jeet-Kun Do attack. As a prerequisite, you also have to have skill in the weapon.
The specific details of the weapons tables entries for these items to follow.
TO: Accounting new hires
SUBJECT: Welcome!
Hi there!
I'd just like to extend a personal "welcome!" to all you new hires in the Accounts Receivable department. Midstate is the region's leading supplier of office supplies, and I'm glad to have some new teammates to carry the tradition into the future. Despite what you may have heard, Midstate is a company where you can set down roots.
You've already met the head comptroller, Gerald Luckenbill, and your immediate supervisor, Irving Weinbaum during the interviewing process. In addition to them, I expect you'll work closely with Myron Schabe, the Accounts Payable supervisor. None of that bickering which characterized the department in times past.
Thanks, and enjoy your stay at Midstate!
Sincerely
Bob Cowan
Manager, HR
~~~
By request, I'm setting up a short GURPS campaign based on the life and times of Herbert Kornfeld. Players will start the game as new hires at Midstate Office Supply. Play will revolve around accounting and the grand traditions of the Accounts Receivable brotherhood. As such, I'll be making a few modifications to the standard GURPS rules. These are by no means final, and I may add more as they occur to me.
The "Business Acumen" talent will be banned. Raise the points manually. The use of weapons is provisionally allowed, although don't go overboard. I suggest you look at the "New Skills" section.
New Advantages:
Ivy League: 10 points
You got your degree from one of our nations top colleges. This doesn't mean you know any more, but people will be act more favorably to you. You're automatically one pay grade higher than your fellow accountants with similar experience, and you'll get +1 on reaction rolls with people who know where you matriculated. (So be sure to mention it as soon as possible.) In addition, you may know people from your school in other accounting departments. See the Frequency of Appearance Table on B36
Additional Education: 5 points.
You may purchase another set of initials behind your name, which gives you an additional +1 to your reaction rolls and an additional pay grade per level. Don't let it go to your head.
New Disadvantages:
Temp -5 points
Your days are numbered, and what's worse, everybody knows it. Being a temp means you're subject to losing your job at a moment's notice. People will be wary of making long term plans around you, giving you -1 to your reaction rolls.
Compulsive Accounting: -5 points
You live for the ledger. Your life revolves around the office, and making those numbers dance. You'll volunteer for overtime, every time, and you'll resent days off. Holidays are a nightmare. You may find yourself breaking into the office just to keep adding those numbers on weekends. You get a positive reaction roll from people who rely on your accounting, but -1 from the public at large, who see you as something of a deviant. This condition would we worth more points if it wasn't so darn handy around the office.
New Skills:
Crooked Accounting: (IQ/VH)
Defaults: Accounting -6
This is the variant of accounting which lets you make the numbers fit your predetermined outcome, and to not let anyone know that you've done so. Note that failures can be embarassing...
Weapon: Letter Opener (DX/E)
The letter opener is the classic weapon of Accounting. Quick, deadly, capable of either stabbing or throwing, you're never half as safe as you are when you've got your letter opener by your side. Take the skill once for melee and again for thrown.
Weapon: Staple Gun (DX/E)
The use of common office staplers as projectile weapons. Although technically a ranged weapon, their half damage range is 2 hexes. This skill also covers the use of construction grade staple guns, which although they do significantly more damage are of a lower legality class.
Weapon: Three hole punch (DX/A)
The office weapon of choice if you're in favor of clubbing, this counts as an unbalanced weapon.
Exotic Weapon: Paypa-clip Chain (DX/H)
If you want to go for real style, you can swing around a whip of paperclips. This skill has the advantage of allowing you to assemble a new weapon whenever you get access to paper clips, but it is significantly harder to wield.
Weapon: Binder Clips (DX/A)
This is a thrown weapon. They do very little damage, but you can carry many of them without raising (much) suspicion.
Jeet-Kun Do (DX/H)
Technically, this is a variant of the Karate skill already listed in the book. Jeet-Kun Do is the favored martial art of the suburban office environment. It comes with a variety of techniques, most notably the Office Supply attack (hard) that lets you incorporate the use of one of the other office weapons into your Jeet-Kun Do attack. As a prerequisite, you also have to have skill in the weapon.
The specific details of the weapons tables entries for these items to follow.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Max Damage
Despite the somewhat ambiguous name, this is another GURPS character that we used in the last session. Again, it'll be carted around in my briefcase
ST: 12 HP: 12
DX: 12 Per: 10
IQ: 10 Will: 10
HT: 12 FP: 12
Basic move 6. Dodge 11
Advantages:
Combat Reflexes
Daredevil
High Pain Threshold
Disadvantages:
Clueless
Impulsiveness (12 or less)
Tobacco habit
On the Edge
Pyromania
Quirks:
Believes all beautiful women are attracted to him
Catchphrase "Take it to the Max!"
Dislikes college educated nerds
Frequently smokes cigars
Never leaves enemy buildings without trying to blow them up.
Skills:
Pistol 14
Rifle 12
Light machine gun 12
Machine gun turret 12
Minigun 14
Knife 12
Brawling 14
Explosives 11
Fast draw (pistol) 13
Interrogation 9
Intimidate 9
Motorcycle 11
Gambling 9
Now, I didn't have the Max Damage sheet done when the holiday session came around, so I handed it off to one of the experienced min maxers-
Ok, I'm writing this as another role playing session is going on in the background. We've been ordered to kill all the rebels, and found out that there are women and children behind them, who we've also apparently been ordered to kill. (I took a nasty sword wound, so I'm unconscious and out of the battle, so I've got time to blog.) I'm hearing them discuss what to do about the orders:
Nuba: Do we really have to kill them all?
Sprok: I could leave the children, kill the women.
Nuba: What? NO!
Kimball: What? NO! Sprok; we're near a coastal town. We can sell them into slavery.
If you could pay off moral bankruptcy on an installment plan we'd be making payments into the next century.
Back to where I interrupted myself: Ok, I had handed the character sheet over to one of the min maxers, who promptly fiddled some extra stuff on here. So if you're reading this, this is where berserk went. Didn't fit the character. And the skills have been shuffled around.
The discussion behind me has gone into auditing someone's parry skill. As far as we can tell it's five points higher than he thought it was. Fascinating stuff. Maybe I should keep blogging...
ST: 12 HP: 12
DX: 12 Per: 10
IQ: 10 Will: 10
HT: 12 FP: 12
Basic move 6. Dodge 11
Advantages:
Combat Reflexes
Daredevil
High Pain Threshold
Disadvantages:
Clueless
Impulsiveness (12 or less)
Tobacco habit
On the Edge
Pyromania
Quirks:
Believes all beautiful women are attracted to him
Catchphrase "Take it to the Max!"
Dislikes college educated nerds
Frequently smokes cigars
Never leaves enemy buildings without trying to blow them up.
Skills:
Pistol 14
Rifle 12
Light machine gun 12
Machine gun turret 12
Minigun 14
Knife 12
Brawling 14
Explosives 11
Fast draw (pistol) 13
Interrogation 9
Intimidate 9
Motorcycle 11
Gambling 9
Now, I didn't have the Max Damage sheet done when the holiday session came around, so I handed it off to one of the experienced min maxers-
Ok, I'm writing this as another role playing session is going on in the background. We've been ordered to kill all the rebels, and found out that there are women and children behind them, who we've also apparently been ordered to kill. (I took a nasty sword wound, so I'm unconscious and out of the battle, so I've got time to blog.) I'm hearing them discuss what to do about the orders:
Nuba: Do we really have to kill them all?
Sprok: I could leave the children, kill the women.
Nuba: What? NO!
Kimball: What? NO! Sprok; we're near a coastal town. We can sell them into slavery.
If you could pay off moral bankruptcy on an installment plan we'd be making payments into the next century.
Back to where I interrupted myself: Ok, I had handed the character sheet over to one of the min maxers, who promptly fiddled some extra stuff on here. So if you're reading this, this is where berserk went. Didn't fit the character. And the skills have been shuffled around.
The discussion behind me has gone into auditing someone's parry skill. As far as we can tell it's five points higher than he thought it was. Fascinating stuff. Maybe I should keep blogging...
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Some more considerations for spaceship design
Today we're doing more work on the properties of spaceships. If you'll recall, in October (good lord I need to update more often) I wrote that spaceships have the following properties:
How hard it hits
How many hits it can take
How accurately it fires
How fast it can move
How much it can carry
Again, all of these numbers depend on the other ones, so defining them will be difficult. Let's go over them.
How hard it hits
Your spaceship will be flinging around nuclear bombs. As I discussed earlier, there are other options, but none seem nearly as efficient. I'm perfectly willing to allow different kinds of weapons, but I'm not going to make some miracle sci fi death ray when A-bombs are available (No dessert until you finish your Uranium!)
So how much damage does a nuclear weapon do? Depends on how you build it. After a little bit of googling (Putting myself on FBI watchlists so you don't have to!) I find this page. If you look at the B-3 Gravity bomb, it has a yield of 9 megatons, weighing roughly 9,000 kg. Since we're talking about the future we can upgrade those stats; call it 15 MT for 5,000 kg
We'll call that the upper bound on weapon strength, starting out. Of course you'll be able to upgrade it later on. If we look at the last one on the page, we've got bombs you can dial as low as .3 KT, weighing only about 300 kg. Since those limits are largely dependent on the physics of the bomb, not the engineering problems (you have to have a certain amount of material to get a chain reaction), I don't think this is going to get much smaller. So I figure those are the same starting stats for our low end. When we outfit ships, we can feel free to use bombs of any size in those ranges.
So what does that work out into game terms? Well, I'm not yet sure. If I detonate a warhead of energy E0 at a distance R from a spherical spaceship of radius R0, how much energy does the ship absorb? Still haven't figured out the math. What's worse is that I'm having trouble figuring if it's actually a hard question or if I'm just incompetent. Or both. Depending on how I eventually work out that math, we'll have to tweak...
How many hits it can take
This is entirely dependent on the properties of the Langston field. Which I've gone over in a general sense previously. I'd like to leave the specifics of the field functions until the end, so we can shove all our fudge factor into one mass at the end. Neat.
How accurately it fires
This I've got very little idea on. I'm going to say that right up. If we take a quick stop over at the invaluable project rho, the first blue box on that page explains, in part, why we'd prefer attaching our warheads to missiles. Roughly speaking, it's very hard to predict where your opponent is going to be when your projectile hits them. Seeing as we can build targeting computers into the missiles and such, then you can have your projectile constantly accelerating towards the target. Maybe even launch it out of an electromagnetic gun so it's got a very high starting velocity...
Haven't given nearly enough thought to this so far.
How fast it can move.
This is tricky. In space, you don't have a top speed, you have a maximum acceleration. That all goes back to Newton's second law:
Force equals mass times acceleration. F=ma
To get a higher acceleration you have to increase the force (in this case you have to shovel more reaction mass out the back, or shovel it out quicker), or you have to decrease your ship's mass. Unfortunately, we're still in the realm of rocketry, which has some really complicated equations to solve. (In this case I successfully figured out that the equations are well beyond my skill level. I take what victories I can.) Fortunately for you, I can't take this through the rigorous math like I would like to, so we're going to do it all talky style.
Your acceleration depends on your ships mass.
Your mass is the sum of all the stuff you put in the ship; some for engines, some for living space, some for missles, and some for whatever else you want to bring along. Look, I understand it's a nice grand piano. And they don't let you make synthetic ivory anymore, I know. But it'll slow us down in the battle. But I digress. Again.
We're going to have to estimate masses for a lot of stuff.
How much it can carry.
This is actually almost a subset of the previous topic. Each ship will be able to carry some volume of cargo. If you make it a troop transport you should include need more mass for life support, where an ore freighter wouldn't need it.
I suppose there are a couple other parameters that constrain our ship design that I should mention, volume and cost.
There are practical limits to volume; how much air you're willing to ship up to space to fill it, how many reactor shafts you're willing to have open into the Emperor's throne room, that sort of thing. Realistically, they all are cost issues though. I'm also considering imposing an upper limit to volume based on shield physics, just so you know.
Cost as a constraint, well, that's why we're not in space right now. If I could build an atomic rocket for the cost I spend on a luxury car I'd be surfing the spaceways right now. A little more down to earth, well, all of our ships and components and a bombs and whatnot are going to cost resources. Resources which the game will allow you to produce by leveraging the massive industries of space, and so forth. Again, another really complicated can of worms.
Just some food for thought.
How hard it hits
How many hits it can take
How accurately it fires
How fast it can move
How much it can carry
Again, all of these numbers depend on the other ones, so defining them will be difficult. Let's go over them.
How hard it hits
Your spaceship will be flinging around nuclear bombs. As I discussed earlier, there are other options, but none seem nearly as efficient. I'm perfectly willing to allow different kinds of weapons, but I'm not going to make some miracle sci fi death ray when A-bombs are available (No dessert until you finish your Uranium!)
So how much damage does a nuclear weapon do? Depends on how you build it. After a little bit of googling (Putting myself on FBI watchlists so you don't have to!) I find this page. If you look at the B-3 Gravity bomb, it has a yield of 9 megatons, weighing roughly 9,000 kg. Since we're talking about the future we can upgrade those stats; call it 15 MT for 5,000 kg
We'll call that the upper bound on weapon strength, starting out. Of course you'll be able to upgrade it later on. If we look at the last one on the page, we've got bombs you can dial as low as .3 KT, weighing only about 300 kg. Since those limits are largely dependent on the physics of the bomb, not the engineering problems (you have to have a certain amount of material to get a chain reaction), I don't think this is going to get much smaller. So I figure those are the same starting stats for our low end. When we outfit ships, we can feel free to use bombs of any size in those ranges.
So what does that work out into game terms? Well, I'm not yet sure. If I detonate a warhead of energy E0 at a distance R from a spherical spaceship of radius R0, how much energy does the ship absorb? Still haven't figured out the math. What's worse is that I'm having trouble figuring if it's actually a hard question or if I'm just incompetent. Or both. Depending on how I eventually work out that math, we'll have to tweak...
How many hits it can take
This is entirely dependent on the properties of the Langston field. Which I've gone over in a general sense previously. I'd like to leave the specifics of the field functions until the end, so we can shove all our fudge factor into one mass at the end. Neat.
How accurately it fires
This I've got very little idea on. I'm going to say that right up. If we take a quick stop over at the invaluable project rho, the first blue box on that page explains, in part, why we'd prefer attaching our warheads to missiles. Roughly speaking, it's very hard to predict where your opponent is going to be when your projectile hits them. Seeing as we can build targeting computers into the missiles and such, then you can have your projectile constantly accelerating towards the target. Maybe even launch it out of an electromagnetic gun so it's got a very high starting velocity...
Haven't given nearly enough thought to this so far.
How fast it can move.
This is tricky. In space, you don't have a top speed, you have a maximum acceleration. That all goes back to Newton's second law:
Force equals mass times acceleration. F=ma
To get a higher acceleration you have to increase the force (in this case you have to shovel more reaction mass out the back, or shovel it out quicker), or you have to decrease your ship's mass. Unfortunately, we're still in the realm of rocketry, which has some really complicated equations to solve. (In this case I successfully figured out that the equations are well beyond my skill level. I take what victories I can.) Fortunately for you, I can't take this through the rigorous math like I would like to, so we're going to do it all talky style.
Your acceleration depends on your ships mass.
Your mass is the sum of all the stuff you put in the ship; some for engines, some for living space, some for missles, and some for whatever else you want to bring along. Look, I understand it's a nice grand piano. And they don't let you make synthetic ivory anymore, I know. But it'll slow us down in the battle. But I digress. Again.
We're going to have to estimate masses for a lot of stuff.
How much it can carry.
This is actually almost a subset of the previous topic. Each ship will be able to carry some volume of cargo. If you make it a troop transport you should include need more mass for life support, where an ore freighter wouldn't need it.
I suppose there are a couple other parameters that constrain our ship design that I should mention, volume and cost.
There are practical limits to volume; how much air you're willing to ship up to space to fill it, how many reactor shafts you're willing to have open into the Emperor's throne room, that sort of thing. Realistically, they all are cost issues though. I'm also considering imposing an upper limit to volume based on shield physics, just so you know.
Cost as a constraint, well, that's why we're not in space right now. If I could build an atomic rocket for the cost I spend on a luxury car I'd be surfing the spaceways right now. A little more down to earth, well, all of our ships and components and a bombs and whatnot are going to cost resources. Resources which the game will allow you to produce by leveraging the massive industries of space, and so forth. Again, another really complicated can of worms.
Just some food for thought.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Min maxing and fractal mechanics
Some people are crazy.
Ok, lots of people are crazy. All of us, in fact. But this is a particular kind of crazy I want to talk about. The min-maxers. The munchkins, the optimizers and power gamers who will spend hours poring over sourcebooks trying to find half a percentage more dodge rating. The kind of person who will spend literally forty minutes taking a turn just so they're sure they've eked out every last scrape of advantage. Randy. Err... someone who's name I've certainly changed to not reflect on the guilty parties. Let me start over.
Last night I spent a couple hours playing Torchlight for the first time. Yeah, I know it's been out for a while, but I just don't play new video games nearly as much anymore. Torchlight is mostly a repackaging of Diablo II. Close enough that, after spending years playing D2 in high school, I was preemptively sick of torchlight. Even so, I was reluctant to put the game down when it came well past time to go to bed. So naturally I fell asleep reflecting on what made Diablo II a good game to begin with. In my mind, one of the most significant factors is the character creation process, together with the vast range of potential equipment. (Even if you do go for the Burrito Dough Cannon every time.) Which brings me to my topic:
What if I design a game that offers min-maxers unparalleled opportunities to manipulate the rules to maximize their character?
Now check your mouth. For most of you, the bile is rising in the back of your throat. That's good news. It means you're (relatively) normal, and that you should hit your "back" button and flee for your life. This way madness lies. If, on the other hand, you're unconsciously salivating, well, this is the place for you.
So what would be the characteristics of such a game? Well, it'd necessarily be single player. Waiting for five other players to take long, complicated actions and then explain them to everyone else sounds perfectly miserable to me. Maybe two player, if you can convince them to do their setup elsewhere, on their own time.
The main thing is, the rules have to be incredibly complicated. Or at least they have to have incredibly complicated implications. Just having the rules pointlessly complicated is frustrating and boring. So Fizzbin wouldn't qualify. No, we want rules that allow for any amount of complexity you're willing to endure, and most importantly we need a buzzword to describe it:
Fractal mechanics
Fractals are... you know what? Let the power of song explain it, if you don't already know. Here; build your own. Draw a triangle. Then make it into a triforce by drawing an upside down triangle in the middle. Continue by drawing upside down triangles in the rightside up triangles until you can't draw anymore; they're too small. You've made a Sierpinski sieve. The point is, it only requires a simple procedure to make, and yet you can make it as complicated as you want. Neat, huh?
So how would you make fractal mechanics? Well, let's define fractal mechanics to have three basic properties:
The main principle of the rules is easy to grasp; like the way you draw the sieve.
The majority of the benefit gained from the mechanic has to be in the first one or two iterations
The more effort you're willing to put into maximizing the mechanic, the more benefit you'll get out of it.
Let's talk about this in the context of a fantasy RPG. In most of these games (I can't think of a counterexample, but one might exist) the relationship between your character's strength and the damage he does swinging his sword is linear. That is, you add +10 strength you get +20 attack power (WoW), or going from ST 10 to ST 12 increases your basic thrust by the same amount that going from ST 12 to ST 14 would (GURPS). Let's say we change that.
If your sword damage went up proportional to the Square Root of your strength, you get some interesting results. Larding on more strength will always increase your damage, regardless. But the more strength you add the less and less it benefits you. Now, if we also allow that the game has items that either increase or decrease your strength, you have the option of using those. The more strength you have, the less the penalty of decreasing it somewhat, particularly if the item has better bonuses to compensate for the normally large minus.
That's three levels of complexity (+str is always good-> +str gets worse and worse -> items that reduce str aren't always as bad as they seem). The fourth level is much more difficult. Suppose you start with a low strength, and use items to push it in the negatives. What happens? Most games would just redefine that as zero strength to make the math easier, but suppose we don't. If you take the square root of a negative number, you get an imaginary amount of damage. What's that mean? Anything we want it to. Let's say it works like elemental damage in normal games; I can attack for 200 damage +50 fire damage. Instead I'm attacking for 100 real damage and 40 imaginary damage. As long as imaginary damage takes away real hit points, we're still in business.
That's a fourth level of complexity; modulating into imaginary damage for whatever benefits that provides you.
So there you go, a fractal mechanic. Four isn't infinity, but it's close. Is it possible to do better? I'm sure it is, I'm coming up with an example on the fly here. Let's broaden our horizons a bit, to see what that'd accomplish.
Imagine a game where every single one of your stats worked like that; a simple relationship that encompassed hidden depths of complexity. Imagine that every item and modifier you got changes one or more of your stats, or offers other benefits. Imagine doing all that arithmetic by hand. Yeah, I'm thinking this will necessarily have to be a computer game of one sort or another just so you don't have to work things out yourself.
It's an interesting idea. It's only marketable to a certain type of hardcore gamer, and games that require you to be hardcore don't generate fans easily, so I don't see making this as a for profit venture. Maybe as a project, after the Terrible Secret of Space winds up. Actually, I'd better get back to that.
Ok, lots of people are crazy. All of us, in fact. But this is a particular kind of crazy I want to talk about. The min-maxers. The munchkins, the optimizers and power gamers who will spend hours poring over sourcebooks trying to find half a percentage more dodge rating. The kind of person who will spend literally forty minutes taking a turn just so they're sure they've eked out every last scrape of advantage. Randy. Err... someone who's name I've certainly changed to not reflect on the guilty parties. Let me start over.
Last night I spent a couple hours playing Torchlight for the first time. Yeah, I know it's been out for a while, but I just don't play new video games nearly as much anymore. Torchlight is mostly a repackaging of Diablo II. Close enough that, after spending years playing D2 in high school, I was preemptively sick of torchlight. Even so, I was reluctant to put the game down when it came well past time to go to bed. So naturally I fell asleep reflecting on what made Diablo II a good game to begin with. In my mind, one of the most significant factors is the character creation process, together with the vast range of potential equipment. (Even if you do go for the Burrito Dough Cannon every time.) Which brings me to my topic:
What if I design a game that offers min-maxers unparalleled opportunities to manipulate the rules to maximize their character?
Now check your mouth. For most of you, the bile is rising in the back of your throat. That's good news. It means you're (relatively) normal, and that you should hit your "back" button and flee for your life. This way madness lies. If, on the other hand, you're unconsciously salivating, well, this is the place for you.
So what would be the characteristics of such a game? Well, it'd necessarily be single player. Waiting for five other players to take long, complicated actions and then explain them to everyone else sounds perfectly miserable to me. Maybe two player, if you can convince them to do their setup elsewhere, on their own time.
The main thing is, the rules have to be incredibly complicated. Or at least they have to have incredibly complicated implications. Just having the rules pointlessly complicated is frustrating and boring. So Fizzbin wouldn't qualify. No, we want rules that allow for any amount of complexity you're willing to endure, and most importantly we need a buzzword to describe it:
Fractal mechanics
Fractals are... you know what? Let the power of song explain it, if you don't already know. Here; build your own. Draw a triangle. Then make it into a triforce by drawing an upside down triangle in the middle. Continue by drawing upside down triangles in the rightside up triangles until you can't draw anymore; they're too small. You've made a Sierpinski sieve. The point is, it only requires a simple procedure to make, and yet you can make it as complicated as you want. Neat, huh?
So how would you make fractal mechanics? Well, let's define fractal mechanics to have three basic properties:
The main principle of the rules is easy to grasp; like the way you draw the sieve.
The majority of the benefit gained from the mechanic has to be in the first one or two iterations
The more effort you're willing to put into maximizing the mechanic, the more benefit you'll get out of it.
Let's talk about this in the context of a fantasy RPG. In most of these games (I can't think of a counterexample, but one might exist) the relationship between your character's strength and the damage he does swinging his sword is linear. That is, you add +10 strength you get +20 attack power (WoW), or going from ST 10 to ST 12 increases your basic thrust by the same amount that going from ST 12 to ST 14 would (GURPS). Let's say we change that.
If your sword damage went up proportional to the Square Root of your strength, you get some interesting results. Larding on more strength will always increase your damage, regardless. But the more strength you add the less and less it benefits you. Now, if we also allow that the game has items that either increase or decrease your strength, you have the option of using those. The more strength you have, the less the penalty of decreasing it somewhat, particularly if the item has better bonuses to compensate for the normally large minus.
That's three levels of complexity (+str is always good-> +str gets worse and worse -> items that reduce str aren't always as bad as they seem). The fourth level is much more difficult. Suppose you start with a low strength, and use items to push it in the negatives. What happens? Most games would just redefine that as zero strength to make the math easier, but suppose we don't. If you take the square root of a negative number, you get an imaginary amount of damage. What's that mean? Anything we want it to. Let's say it works like elemental damage in normal games; I can attack for 200 damage +50 fire damage. Instead I'm attacking for 100 real damage and 40 imaginary damage. As long as imaginary damage takes away real hit points, we're still in business.
That's a fourth level of complexity; modulating into imaginary damage for whatever benefits that provides you.
So there you go, a fractal mechanic. Four isn't infinity, but it's close. Is it possible to do better? I'm sure it is, I'm coming up with an example on the fly here. Let's broaden our horizons a bit, to see what that'd accomplish.
Imagine a game where every single one of your stats worked like that; a simple relationship that encompassed hidden depths of complexity. Imagine that every item and modifier you got changes one or more of your stats, or offers other benefits. Imagine doing all that arithmetic by hand. Yeah, I'm thinking this will necessarily have to be a computer game of one sort or another just so you don't have to work things out yourself.
It's an interesting idea. It's only marketable to a certain type of hardcore gamer, and games that require you to be hardcore don't generate fans easily, so I don't see making this as a for profit venture. Maybe as a project, after the Terrible Secret of Space winds up. Actually, I'd better get back to that.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
"Black" Tyrone Gallowglass
A while back I expressed my desire to cart around a mobile GURPS session in my briefcase. As such, I've slowly been accumulating a cast of generic characters to let people borrow. The idea is to be ready at a moments notice, and be able to introduce the game to anyone who's willing to try it. This is one of those characters. First, a bit of background.
He's named for the Black Tyrone, a famed British regiment in India. And by "British" I mean it served the crown, but was composed of Irishmen. Kipling wrote about it. I figured that Black Tyrone makes an excellent name, so I borrowed it. Yeah, stealing names isn't very creative, but I want simple names that evoke the character for this suite. So by appending to him the title "Irish Mercenary" you know most of what you need to know about him, and his character. If you're still annoyed, well, save your complaints until we get to Max Damage, ok? Cause they'll be even more relevant then. On with the sheet:
Oh, wait, one more thing. I abbreviate things on the sheet to make it slightly less confusing to the new player. If you want calculate a basic lift for encumbrance and such, go ahead but I'll ignore it.
ST: 11 HP 12
DX: 12 WP 10
IQ: 10 PE 10
HT: 11 FP 11
Basic move: 5, dodge 9
Advantages:
Combat Reflexes
Patron (Irish Underground)
Danger Sense
Fearless (1)
Disadvantages:
Paranoia
Chummy
Duty (Irish Underground)
Greed
Compulsive Spending
Quirks:
Hates Englishmen
Dirks Irish Beer, Whiskey. Will drink other things, but will complain about them not being irish.
Uses Colorful Profanity
Tells great stories, carefully scoured of identifying details
Always believes the fight is going well.
Skills:
Streetwise 14
Fasttalk 12
Brawling 15
Lockpick 10
Stealth 10
Pistol 15
Rapier 14
Intimidate 9
Gambling 11
Move Silently 9
So yeah, one big amalgamation of Irish jokes, right? I'd apologize if I felt there was anything to apologize for. Be thankful that I didn't give him "homemade explosives" as a skill. Still, I expect he's a lot of fun to play; he certainly looked like it when my brother Sam took him for a test run over the holidays. Greed means he's willing and eager to take any mission for money, compulsive spending and chummy mean that he'd rather buy a round for the bar than hoard the money. And paranoia means he's never too trusting of his new drinking buddies. Oh, and he hates the English. Of course he does.
So let's ask Private Mulvaney what he thinks:
"Now there are Oirish an' Oirish. The good are as good as the best, but the bad are wurrst than the wurrst. 'Tis this way. They clog together in pieces as fast as thieves, an' no wan knows fwhat they will do till wan turns informer an' the gang is bruk. But ut begisn again a day later, meetin' in holes an' corners an' swearin' bloody oaths an' shtickin' a man in the back an' runnin' away, an' thin waitin' for the blood-money on the reward papers-- to see if it's worth enough. Those are the Black Oirish, an' 'tis they that bring dishgrace upon the name av Oireland, an' thim I wud kill--as I nearly killed wan wanst."
(From Soldiers Three, by Ruyard Kipling)
He's named for the Black Tyrone, a famed British regiment in India. And by "British" I mean it served the crown, but was composed of Irishmen. Kipling wrote about it. I figured that Black Tyrone makes an excellent name, so I borrowed it. Yeah, stealing names isn't very creative, but I want simple names that evoke the character for this suite. So by appending to him the title "Irish Mercenary" you know most of what you need to know about him, and his character. If you're still annoyed, well, save your complaints until we get to Max Damage, ok? Cause they'll be even more relevant then. On with the sheet:
Oh, wait, one more thing. I abbreviate things on the sheet to make it slightly less confusing to the new player. If you want calculate a basic lift for encumbrance and such, go ahead but I'll ignore it.
ST: 11 HP 12
DX: 12 WP 10
IQ: 10 PE 10
HT: 11 FP 11
Basic move: 5, dodge 9
Advantages:
Combat Reflexes
Patron (Irish Underground)
Danger Sense
Fearless (1)
Disadvantages:
Paranoia
Chummy
Duty (Irish Underground)
Greed
Compulsive Spending
Quirks:
Hates Englishmen
Dirks Irish Beer, Whiskey. Will drink other things, but will complain about them not being irish.
Uses Colorful Profanity
Tells great stories, carefully scoured of identifying details
Always believes the fight is going well.
Skills:
Streetwise 14
Fasttalk 12
Brawling 15
Lockpick 10
Stealth 10
Pistol 15
Rapier 14
Intimidate 9
Gambling 11
Move Silently 9
So yeah, one big amalgamation of Irish jokes, right? I'd apologize if I felt there was anything to apologize for. Be thankful that I didn't give him "homemade explosives" as a skill. Still, I expect he's a lot of fun to play; he certainly looked like it when my brother Sam took him for a test run over the holidays. Greed means he's willing and eager to take any mission for money, compulsive spending and chummy mean that he'd rather buy a round for the bar than hoard the money. And paranoia means he's never too trusting of his new drinking buddies. Oh, and he hates the English. Of course he does.
So let's ask Private Mulvaney what he thinks:
"Now there are Oirish an' Oirish. The good are as good as the best, but the bad are wurrst than the wurrst. 'Tis this way. They clog together in pieces as fast as thieves, an' no wan knows fwhat they will do till wan turns informer an' the gang is bruk. But ut begisn again a day later, meetin' in holes an' corners an' swearin' bloody oaths an' shtickin' a man in the back an' runnin' away, an' thin waitin' for the blood-money on the reward papers-- to see if it's worth enough. Those are the Black Oirish, an' 'tis they that bring dishgrace upon the name av Oireland, an' thim I wud kill--as I nearly killed wan wanst."
(From Soldiers Three, by Ruyard Kipling)
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