From: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org (deltagreen-digest) To: deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Subject: deltagreen-digest V1 #48 Reply-To: Delta Green List Sender: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Errors-To: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Precedence: bulk deltagreen-digest Monday, June 22 1998 Volume 01 : Number 048 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 17:16:22 -0500 (CDT) From: Don Juneau Subject: Re: DG: Trepanation. On Sun, 21 Jun 1998, Stephen Joseph Ellis wrote: > Amanda Fielding stood for Parliament as the 'Trepanation for the National > Health' candidate. Her platform was that the NHS should freely drill holes > in peoples heads, claiming that it provides "increased freedom from the > strangulation of chronic repression". She didn't succeed, despite her > impeccable credentials: she had personally cut out a hole in her own head > in 1970, even going to the extent of making a film of herself doing it > with an electric drill and naming the movie 'Heartbeat in the Brain'" A movie? Where can we rent it? Don ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 17:26:23 +0200 From: Morten Kjeldseth Pettersen Subject: Re: DG: Report forms (was: Re: Modified Rules and Cops.) Elliot A. Rushing wrote: > > Howdy, Phil. :) [snipski] > I'd be leery of posting forms to the net, but you can easily simulate such a > report yourself. A report has to answer the who, what, when, where, why, > and how. Each case also has a unique number (preferably a long one, it's > more annoying) for tracking purposes. There needs to be specific contact > information (addresses, phone numbers) and ID info (height, weight, et al.) > for victims and witnesses. As your investigators develop information, they > need to file additional supplemental reports to update the paper trail -- > the purpose for this is so that superiors and other officers can keep up to > date on the status of the investigation. > > You could simply draft and print two forms for this, and hand 'em out. > Watch them blink. Twice. ;) [snip again] If anyone's looking for down-and-dirty version of autopsy and crime report forms, I suggest you take a look at "Protect & Serve" by R.Talsorian games. It's a Law Enforcement sourcebook for CyberPunk, but it might do as a rough guide for your DG needs (p.94 has an autopsy form, p.96 a report form). If you can't find it anywhere I'm happy to help you getting a copy of the desired pages. - -- Morten Kjeldseth Pettersen - morty@os.telia.no "Now you see why Evil will always triumph, because Good is dumb!" - Dark Helmet, Spaceballs ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 17:44:02 +0200 From: Morten Kjeldseth Pettersen Subject: Re: DG: Re: Modified Rules and Cops. Elliot A. Rushing wrote: > > David mentioned combining shotguns and rifles into one skill. You can > certainly do this for ease of use and to create more competent characters > with fewer points, but I'd like to offer some practitioner's notes. [snipped a very informative bit about shotguns/firearms] > When all's said and done, there's a good argument that rifles and shotguns > are different creatures, thus justifying different skills for each. As an > aside, I've often thought that perhaps there should be an *aiming* skill and > a separate "mechanics" skill for various firearms. Aiming and pulling a > trigger is relatively easy -- it's properly manipulating the safeties, > slides, buttons, and reloads within your given time frame that can get you. [a bit of trimming] Howdy guys! Being more a of a gamer than a police officer(read: I'm not a cop), I think "Millenium's End" by Chameleon Eclectic has a rather nifty approach to the shotgun/rifle question. There's a Longarm, Smallarm, and Autofire skill division. Although there's a decisively difference in firing hunting rifles and assault rifles, I think it's a good a solution as anything. (But, I haven't implemented it in my game..) [more editing] > It strikes me that all tactical firearm use is "under time constraints," > particularly when facing Chthulhuoid horrors. Hmmm, makes me think of when I introduced CoC 5 1/2 by Pagan a while back. A fresh character had _no_ skill in shotgun and yet he picked up a shotgun dropped by someone else in a fight with a Byakhee. Not a good idea, he failed to reload it 6 times, all the while being under attack. A friend of his guarded himself and his companion with a treebrach, managing to fend of the Byakhee enough that it didn't grab any of them. As the character dropeed dead, he picked up the dice and rolled _one_ last time, finally making the required roll under 30%. Needless to say everyone thought it great fun, and the next character was a much more qualified shooter... Not that that helps... - -- Morten Kjeldseth Pettersen - morty@os.telia.no "Now you see why Evil will always triumph, because Good is dumb!" - Dark Helmet, Spaceballs ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 00:45:25 +0200 From: Morten Kjeldseth Pettersen Subject: Re: DG: cell letter and status Imandos@aol.com wrote: > > R. Menzi asked about my plans for my characters: [slight snip] > The other reason I was not really looking at Cell Z is the lack of > names for the members. I considered Zachariah, Zedekiah, and Zane, but this > would only seem to work in Amish country. How about Zebediah and other variations? Must be a cracking experience to introduce oneself to to the agents with "cooler sounding" names, just imagine the jokes they'd hear... > So what I will do instead is have one player create a DG operative "I'm not certain what Cell yet" and have the other two or three players do friendlies. How about doing your intro for the agent character prior to summer '94 (i.e.. no cell designations). It will buy you some time to decide on what cell to use. I did this in my game and so far it has worked, my players are up to '94 now and have just been assigned to cells. Besides, I'm using N-Cell, and O-cell because my agents are relatively known to each other with regards to real names and occupations. Two of them are long time agents, three friendlies just recruited. So far so good. > I may have each one create a member of a DG Cell and friendlies of the other players Cell members and alternate between groups of characters. I think that's a very good idea. It will break up the monotony of the X-files episodic feel. Only time they do something is when "strange" things are about. > I am new to Delta Green, but have gamed for close to 19 years and have run Cthulhu campaigns since the first edition of the rules long, long > ago. Wow! [Bow down in reverence for Old Timer] Impressive, and I thought I had been gaming for a long time (10 years). Oh well, can't win them all I suppose.. ;) - -- Morten Kjeldseth Pettersen - morty@os.telia.no "Now you see why Evil will always triumph, because Good is dumb!" - Dark Helmet, Spaceballs ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 19:33:54 +0200 From: Morten Kjeldseth Pettersen Subject: Re: DG: Cops. Elliot A. Rushing wrote: > > Y'know, cops make good friendlies/enemies/flavor for DG, generally. ;) > > Take care, > > Elliot. > > ---- > Elliot Rushing > lex@trellis.net Although, this was intended for Phil, I have been enjoying these bits of info on cops. Excellent! Now I have some flavour for one of the characters in my campaign, an ex-beatcop gone DEA. Great, thanks! - -- Morten Kjeldseth Pettersen - morty@os.telia.no "Now you see why Evil will always triumph, because Good is dumb!" - Dark Helmet, Spaceballs ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 08:32:02 +0900 From: "David Farnell" Subject: RE: DG: COPS! (filmed on location) - -----Original Message----- 差出人 : Elliot A. Rushing 宛先 : Delta Green List 日時 : 1998年6月18日 23:19 件名 : DG: Re: Modified Rules and Cops. Elliot and Phil were carrying on a delightful discussion of the details of police work and guns (two great tastes that go great together): >David mentioned combining shotguns and rifles into one skill... >However, I have difficulty qualifying with a shotgun (although I manage), >for various reasons that may be informative. > >First, I'm about 6'1", 195 lbs, so it's not a size issue. Our issue >shotguns are 12 gauge pump-action shotguns (which represent the *vast >majority* of police shotguns in the US -- folks are moving away from the >autos for liability/cost reasons, although feds and special ops groups may >still use them). As David and Phil correctly pointed out, there is little >difference between rifles and shotguns when you get to the pointing and >firing end, although the recoil from a twelve gauge is *significant*, and if >you're not wearing proper padding, *will* probably cause bruises to your >shoulder (and perhaps your face (in the cheek area) if the weapon isn't >properly seated) after 2-3 shots, and certainly will after firing through >reload. [lots snipped] Yeah, I had left all that out before, but definitely true. In fact, I made use of it in this past weekend's game. One of the players didn't come from a gun-using background, and had never fired a shotgun (or any other gun) before. In fact, her original concept was that she wouldn't use guns (obviously, she was a friendly, not DG). Of course, when the screaming started and one of the DG agents had an extra shotgun in the trunk, she gladly took it. He demonstrated the pump action and safety, and then they went into the adult book store... When they started shooting at Senor Sock, I made sure she got walloped pretty bad from the kick of the shotgun. Not that she noticed much, considering she came pretty close to going insane, but she sure felt the livid bruises later. Anyway, it was a lovely chunk of verisimilitude to drop in. >As an >aside, I've often thought that perhaps there should be an *aiming* skill and >a separate "mechanics" skill for various firearms. Aiming and pulling a >trigger is relatively easy -- it's properly manipulating the safeties, >slides, buttons, and reloads within your given time frame that can get you. Yes, but that would really be too much trouble for my tastes. I mean, I thought about what you said about how a person can actually stun himself by firing a shotgun, and it's definitely true--I did it the second time I fired one! I had to sit down for a little while, and I felt like I'd broken my shoulder. And yet, I hit the target dead on! So you couldn't exactly call it a "fumble" of the "to hit" roll. But in spite of all the rules commentary I've been making lately, I hate making a bunch of rolls. The worst thing to do come combat time is to introduce more dice rolls than absolutely necessary. On the other hand, all 3 of my players in the recent game were absolute beginners--never even played an RPG before. They were complaining a bit when, after the first 3 hours, they hadn't made a single roll. Of course, they hadn't needed to. In fact, in the whole game they only made a couple Idea rolls, a couple Climb rolls, a Spot Hidden, and then a bunch of rolls (Sanity, weapons, Sanity, resistance, Luck, Sanity) during the big fight. I loved it, but I guess some newcomers kind of like the mechanics stuff--I know I was enamored of it when I first started. Anyway, they ended up loving it, which was a big relief--it's kind of hard to find good players out here in the boonies of Japan. This list added a lot to the game. We're even using the code name "Senor Sock" for the deity they encountered, as they wisely didn't read the book (they'd been warned by "Ms. Green," later Laura), so they don't know his name. To avoid further infection, I'm doing the same on this list. And I'm happy to report that "Love's Lonely Children" from _The Stars Are Right!_ makes a very good DG intro scenario for beginners, with a little modification. It can also be rather short--DGs resources make it almost too easy to acquire the police and coroner reports, find the victim's parents, etc. Arigato, David Farnell ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 08:00:39 +0900 From: "David Farnell" Subject: DG: RE: The list jamming? - -----Original Message----- 差出人 : Cindy Burnes 宛先 : Delta Green List 日時 : 1998年6月22日 2:04 件名 : DG: The list jamming? >Hey, I ain't got a single letter from this list since early yesterday >afternoon. I sent out a letter at about 7 o-clock last night and it >stills hasn't showed up in my mail box yet..Is this list normaly in this >state of flux, or is something more dastardly going on? No problem receiving on this end. David Farnell "You can tune a screaming-reanimated-head pipe organ, but you can't tuna fish."--Mr. Squick's Book of Deep Thoughts ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 21:34:19 -0500 From: Nightstar Subject: Re: DG: The list jamming? At 11:41 AM 6/21/98 -0500, you wrote: >Hey, I ain't got a single letter from this list since early yesterday >afternoon. I sent out a letter at about 7 o-clock last night and it >stills hasn't showed up in my mail box yet..Is this list normaly in this >state of flux, or is something more dastardly going on? > >No clue when/if this letter is going to be recieved; > >-agent Adam TUNAFISH > > Greetings, I haven't noticed any problems with the list. I received this posting on Sunday evening. Maybe your account is being intercepted and rerouted by THEM. - ----------------------------------------------------------- Finally, a light at the end of the tunnel......heh heh heh. Nightstar ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 23:28:27 EDT From: theherald@juno.com (Michael Layne) Subject: Re: DG: Trepanation. On Sun, 21 Jun 1998 18:54:00 +0100 (BST) Stephen Joseph Ellis writes: >What Ho All!, > >Dear God, I hope you forgive me for what I am about to unleash. >Right, I came across an article that might be amusing, possibly useful >and >might even be well worth researching. Its from a British magazine >called >Focus (October 1997). Personally, I think we need this info like we need a hole in the -- er, let me put that another way.... :) >Please, no Mr S. jokes on this thread.(You know who I mean) I'm >thinking >of my sanity and lunch here. Second the motion! Michael theherald@juno.com Famous Last Words: "Don't worry -- I'll be right back!" _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 00:18:45 EDT From: Imandos@aol.com Subject: Re: DG: cell letter and status Morten Kjeldseth Pettersen replied to my earlier posting with the correct reverence for this Old Timer: Thanks for the response. As for being an Old Timer, I have gamed for two thirds of my 30 years. I recently met a 70 year old gamer who had learned to play AD$D from his great grandson. He has gamed for nine months now. I hope he doesn't call me an Old Timer too. Thomas Woodall Imandos@aol.com "The Old {One} Timer" ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 00:28:03 EDT From: TUO@aol.com Subject: Re: DG: Sword Bearing Fractured Statue In a message dated 6/19/98 12:37:37 AM, you wrote: << What is the scene on the cover of the DG book? Is it a reference to a playtest game or just a pretty picture? Does anyone know?>> Research into this figure has concluded that it is known as the "Father of Knives" and is another manifestation of the Black Buddha I originally encountered in Cambodia during Operation OBSIDIAN. The entity is said to have a thousand forms, or aspects. Agent Charlie (see DG website for more details) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 15:56:40 +0100 From: Nick Subject: Re: DG: cell letter and status Imandos@aol.com wrote: > > R. Menzi asked about my plans for my characters: [slight snip] > The other reason I was not really looking at Cell Z is the lack of > names for the members. I considered Zachariah, Zedekiah, and Zane, but this > would only seem to work in Amish country How about Agent Zebedee, as in that thing on a spring with a moustache from 'the Magic Roundabout'? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 16:24:32 +0100 (BST) From: Stephen Joseph Ellis Subject: Re: DG: cell letter and status On Mon, 22 Jun 1998, Nick wrote: > > I considered Zachariah, Zedekiah, and Zane, but this > > would only seem to work in Amish country > > > How about Agent Zebedee, as in that thing on a spring with a > moustache from 'the Magic Roundabout'? > Or Zed, Zee, and Zebediah? SJE ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 12:18:18 -0400 From: graemep@immagene.mcg.edu (Graeme Price) Subject: Re: DG: cell letter and status >On Mon, 22 Jun 1998, Nick wrote: >> How about Agent Zebedee, as in that thing on a spring with a >> moustache from 'the Magic Roundabout'? >> > >Or Zed, Zee, and Zebediah? Or Zoe, or Zephraim, or Zippy (even better if his cell contacts are Rod, Jane and Freddy!), or Zarathrustra the Zoroastran?! Just a few worthless thoughts... Graeme ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 18:31:59 From: Davide Mana Subject: Re: DG: cell letter and status Greetings. >> > I considered Zachariah, Zedekiah, and Zane, but this >> > would only seem to work in Amish country >> >> >> How about Agent Zebedee, as in that thing on a spring with a >> moustache from 'the Magic Roundabout'? >> > >Or Zed, Zee, and Zebediah? > Don't forget agent Zoe! Cheers. Davide Mana Torino, Italy doctor.dee@iol.it ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 12:51:24 -0700 From: John Michael Alldredge Subject: Re: DG: below and beyond At 08:43 PM 6/19/98 -0500, you wrote: > >>overall stress level while you're at it). Too bad about >>having to skip the free/cleared support group, though; DG >>seems to have a real need for in-house shrinks. > > >I would bet there is many a trained psychotherapist in the ranks. ;) > You bet! One of the PCs in my game is a brilliant psychologist/profiler. One of her recent 'assignment' from A-cell has been to take over the therapy of Agent "Nancy" (you Keepers know what I mean) after something (undisclosed but no doubt awful) happened to her earlier shrink.... >-Oscar Wilde (when passing through U.S. customs) >Tenebrae@Earthling.net >ICQ UIN:5409084 >Cam #:9607-020 >http://home.gvi.net/~tenebrae >+ | + > > ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 15:59:03 -0400 From: Viktor Haag Subject: DG: Talk about source verfication... - ----- original message ------- Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 11:45:10 EDT From: Olaughing@aol.com Subject: Re: DG: Satanists in the military Odd this sould come up now. According to the ivestigatioins of the San Francisco Weekly, the Church of Satan is starting to crumble, especially since the untimely death of Anton LaVey eight or so months ago. With a contested will and at least one daughter who has utterly repudiated Satanism, LaVey's legacy is looking pretty grim. - ------------------------------ I imagine that Mr. LaVey is just now discovering the (in)validity of his previous convictions... my irony-detectors are tingling! Agent Eduard ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 13:19:29 -0700 From: John Michael Alldredge Subject: Re: DG: cell letter and status At 07:18 AM 6/19/98 -0400, you wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Hash: SHA1 > >Thomas Woodall wrote: >===============================> >>>>Still preparing a Cell and name, "my group wants Z cell >since they want all the dirty work and view Z as the bottom >of the ladder." opinions welcome<<< >===============================> > >I don't know about that theory. It's way to simple. Their >may be some corellation between the letter-names and power, >but (with few exceptions, like A cell) I think all the cells >do some legwork. They all put their asses on the line and >they are all fucked if the word gets out. After the first >few letters, I don't think that the sequence of the alphabet >designates rank. > >Are you making them all a bunch of recruited agents, or >sveral groups of agents and their friendlies? Even if the >agent is killed, the friendlies can be brought in by the >other agents if the player want to use them. I want to know >how it works for others that might be using this idea >because I plan on using it with my players, but my gaming >group is out of the city for the summer. (Where they go, I >don't know. If it's farther west than than the GW bridge, I >don't know too much about it, unless its a cucuit town.) > >Regards, ><<>> > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >Version: PGPfreeware 5.5.5 for non-commercial use > >iQA/AwUBNYpJHKhFxkX3nANTEQIu/ACghJzJail+F/FtWbAjXHZvNDg0EcUAoPYi >4V73B4H7/7HhPplEqLWNBhhb >=PPx6 >-----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > Some where in the DG book (I can't give a page ref. or an exact quote right now) a statement is made concerning the lack of formal rank within DG, except for the overall command of A-cell. Apart from that, 'rank' was suppposed to be a nebulous blend of seniority, experience, and prestige. So the idea that the members of Z-cell are lower in rank than the memvbers of I-cell who are lower than the members of F-cell does not hold up. Also, if Z-cell is full, where do new recruits get their names? My opinion is that new recruits are simply slid into empty alphabetical slots (Adam: "Hmmm...'Isaac' was just dissolved into jello last week....why don't we call this new guy 'Ishmael?"). To continue my rebutal, if alphabetical 'height' represented rank, wouldn't DG agents have to be reassigned code-names periodically to reflect promtion/demotion? This could lead to (potentially disastrous) confusion (DG agent: "Don't shoot, it's me, 'Frederick!' "uhhhnnnn....sorry, you guys knew me as 'Grady', I got bumped up last week...." ..... I trust you see my point... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 20:59:23 -0400 (EDT) From: The Man in Black Subject: DG: Organlegging and Extracts After the highly successful Operation Quirk Skills (over 50,000 people clandestinely innoculated, with minimal side-effects) I have found quite a bit of work has piled up. First, Agent Zelda of the Honolulu Police Department gained custody of a female in her early twenties. She was found naked and covered in an unidentified slimy substance near Biosyndrome Systems Incorporated's facility in Kaneohe, HI. She claimed to be suffering from total amnesia and was remanded into Queen's Medical Center's Psychiatric Intensive Care ward. While Agent Zelda, and a resident psych were questioning her, I noticed several MJ operatives approaching the hospital. I planted a surveillance device and an explosive device on their vehicle while warning Agent Zelda via encrypted cellular telephone. Agent Zelda and myself then took the girl to the hospital rooftop and departed via helicopter to HPD's helipad at Honolulu International Airport. The resident Psych was able to recover her medical records and samples before the MJ agents could confiscate them. Subsequent analysis has shown that our amnesia victim was producing all manner of exotic biochemicals in her bloodstream. Her entire body, from bone marrow to skin, to the extra organs we could not identify, was suffused with known and unknown Alien Biochemicals. It was theorized that she was altered or created, possibly from alien DNA to serve as a living factory for pharmeceuticals. We named her, and any others of her kind "Extracts." Sounded pretty cool. We took the victim to Tripler Army Medical Center (aka Crippler Army Hobby Shop) and into it's Bright Pink fortress-like confines. A TAMC officer assigned to CID checked her into a secure room and posted a US ARMY bulletstopper PFC complete with M-16A2 to watch her. I was able to inject a tracking device into the girl at this time. Agent Zelda returned to duty and I went to check on the dolphins we recovered and turned over to MJ after their LFAS (Low Frequency Active Sonar) testing a few months back. The Dolphins displayed the same mutations as before and the MJ personnel were rather surprised to see me at their PLUTO facility. I gave them the old "break stuff and be real irritating" song and dance. I suspect the dolphins will be in San Diego next week. When I called my contact at TAMC later that evening, he did not answer his cellular, office or BAQ number. This was not good. I called up Agent Zelda and Zorro and requested that they meet me at the big pink military hospital. I suggested that they bring the big guns (they always do that anyway, but WTF :) We found absofucking nothing. No bulletstopper, no amnesia girl, and no backstabbing, CID, traitorous, soon-to-be-room-temperature SOB. Pretty annoying, no one to kill, brought the big guns for nothin'. I checked my surveillance tracking and found that our MJ buddies were at Barbers Point NAS. My amnesia girl was going to be flown out to gawd knows where. The three of us borrowed a US Army medical helicopter and flew out to the Naval Air Station, but we were too late, A-girl was long gone. The MJ agents were pretty steamed, and tried to follow and arrest us when we took some fighter jock's car. But I blew them up as soon as they started shooting at us. Pretty funny, actually. I told Agent Zorro to solve our CID problem, since CID didn't know his face. But I think CID isn't in Hawaii any more, if he knows what's good for him. I wonder what the MJ dolphins in San Diego will think of the mutants I'm sending them? I'm going to Arizona, where Amnesia Girl's tracking device is. It might be a trap, so I'd like to request some volunteers to go with me. The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 21:14:36 EDT From: CroakerJr@aol.com Subject: DG: Silly Rulesmongering Okay, we all know that the prime element of Delta Green is roleplaying and that paying too much attention to the game system will cause minor but possibly irreperable right-brain damage and may make one less prone to creative writing, painting, and sensing the dream-speech of Great Cthulhu. But, what the hell, sometimes I kind of like tweaking the rules, and I've had just barely enough exposure to real-life tactical stuff that I like messing with the combat rules. So, here's some brief, possibly useable, and altogether meaningless (from a "What are we going to do tonight, Brain?" standpoint) notions... 1. ATTACKING THINGS Earlier I was reading some online promotional materials from a company that teaches tactical training methodologies to military and law enforcement organizations, and they had some interesting articles on the distinctions between physical action in training and in actual combat; a lot of brief discussion on the effects of the sympathetic nervous system on perception and motor skills, particularly the fact that once the SNS kicks in ("fight or flight") fine motor skills (like shooting a gun or doing complicated maneuvers) deteriorate badly while gross motor skills (like punching someone or swinging a stick) remain relatively unimpaired. In game terms, the skills that are written on the character sheet are treated as the effectiveness of the character at performing the action in actual combat; a character with a 50% handgun skill can be assumed to hit the bullseye pretty consistently at a range, while only occasionally getting the bullet into the target when the target is shooting back or extending sloppy tentacles or whatever. As a rule of thumb, I would suggest doubling the attack skill in a situation where the attacker is not being attacked or shot at, and thus doesn't have to worry about instinctive flinching and all that business interfering with his or her aim. This works just about right for guns, but not quite as well for hand-to-hand attacks, where according to the standard rules you have the uninspiring spectacle of normal human beings flailing about in thin air with something as simple as a club. I would solve this with a new melee attack option, by which a character can flail about and have a better chance to connect with the target, but would be less likely to connect with something vital; characters with high skills would be adept at hitting the good bits and doing real harm. I'm calling the new option "Strike" (imaginative, huh?), and it just means that a character can opt to attack at double skill, but will inflict half weapon damage; as a collory (sp?), impales would only be possible on a roll of 01-05, but would inflict their full damage (double the normal weapon damage). The damage bonus applies after halving the Strike damage or doubling the impale damage. So, your Arnold Swartzenegger clone with the +1d6 db but base club skill could swing a baseball bat at 25%, to inflict 1d8+1d6, or could Strike at 50%, to inflict 1d4+1d6. Using a switchblade, he could attack normally at 25%, inflicing 1d4+1d6 (2d4+1d6 on an impale), or he could Strike at 50%, for 1d2+1d6 (but still 2d4+1d6 on an impale). It is noted that at base skill of 25%, the chance for impale is the same between a regular attack and a Strike, but altering that would mean making things more complicated than I'm willing to bother with at this point. ;-) 2. ATTACKING THINGS REALLY WELL First off, special success attacks. You have impales for puncturing weapons, which is appropriate. According to "The Book of the Sword," a 19th century treatise on primitive weaponry, the puncture wounds of bayonets were more deadly than the cutting wounds of swords; this was due to infection as much as the immediate shock of having an organ pierced, but the Impale rule is a handy way to represent that extra deadliness. But that leaves cutting and blunt attacks out in the cold. I would suggest adopting "Incapacitation" as the special-success result for non-impaling attacks: a special success cutting or blunt attack is treated exactly as a special Knock-out attack, but without the reduction of total damage: compare the rolled damage against the victim's current HP (after the new injury) on the Resistance Table to get the percent chance that the victim has been incapacitated by the blow, due to a cut muscle or tendon, a strike to the groin or head, or whatever your fiendish imagination (a property of every good Keeper) can come up with. If the attacker is using a weapon which can cut or stab, use the effect that makes the most sense: if the player said, "I'm going to slice him with my knife," then use incapacitate, not impale. There are also specially-aimed shots, like when the expert pistoleer in your group wants to take out the cultist with one head shot to save the hostage. Easy enough: the attack is performed at half normal skill, but the result is automatically a special success (impale for double damage, or incapacitation). Extras like laser sights or aiming for a full round or two will increase the final attack chance normally. Fully automatic fire will not increase the chance to hit on such an aimed shot. 3. HITTING THINGS WITHOUT A WEAPON The Martial Arts skill is boring. Double damage: your foot is better than your rifle. Scary, but . Here are some options: (1) You can use Martial Arts skill to block melee weapon attacks. In the official rules, the target of an attack with a hand weapon can either (a) parry with another hand weapon, or (b) Dodge and forfeit all attacks, or (c) soak it up and hope for the best. With this option, a martial artist can block a melee weapon attack with a personal weapon parry (Fist, Kick, or Grapple) if the parry roll is lower than both the personal weapon skill and the martial arts skill. (2) You can use the Martial Arts skill percentage instead of a characteristic-based resistance roll when resolving Grapple attacks (great for that Aikido expert doing joint-locks with STR 8--in real life, it happens); as a follow-up option, you could use the MA skill to determine the TARGET's resistance roll percentage instead of using stats: if the attacker's MA skill is 55%, the defender's resistance roll would be 100 - 55 or 45% (or his or her own MA skill, if any) instead of rolling STR vs. STR. (3) You can Dodge and still attack in the same round (melee attacks only!). If the Dodge takes place before the character attacks that round, then if the MA fails the character can Dodge but cannot attack; after attacking, failing MA means the Dodge fails. To keep the martial artists humble, I would recommend allowing only one of these options (OR double damage) to be used in a single round. As a side note on martial arts, I advise dropping Kick attacks to 1d4 damage, not 1d6. I mean, take your pick: .45 slug in the chest, or Bruce Lee's foot? Neither would be fun, but I mean, really... Look at a gunshot autopsy sometime if you don't take my word for it. ;-) INFECTION Ordinarily this is one of those things that role-playing games gloss over with a blurb like "if you feel like playing this out, go for it." Even the first edition of AD&D had infection rules for hanging out in a swamp, but not for taking a rusty knife into your skin. For a quick and dirty way to work it into your game, do this: If a character is recovering from injury under unsanitary circumstances (such as in the wilds, on Yuggoth, or in the 1890s), roll the damage taken vs. victim's CON in a Reistance Roll. Double the chance if the victim took mainly puncture wounds; halve the chance if they were all blunt wounds. If the damage beats the CON on the resistance roll, bad infection sets in: the victim takes 1d3 damage per week until dead, until fully recovered despite infection, or until successfully treated with the Medicine skill for one week. If infection sets in and no medicine skill is forthcoming, it could take a long time to recover: 1d3 recovered per week - 1d3 taken per week. GUNS! GUNS! GUNS! (or, "Settle down, Beavis") .357 damage: The official rules have .357 damage at 1d8+1d4 (avg. 7, max 12, with a 3% chance of maximum damage), and .45 damage at 1d10+2 (avg. 7.5, max 12, with a 10% chance of max damage). A .357 is less dangerous than a .45? The bullet is smaller, but it moves at a terrifically greater velocity and thus has greater penetration and kinetic impact and accuracy. Move it back up to 1d8+1d6, not 1d8+1d4. .45 ROF: I haven't fired either enough to make a reliable first-hand comparison, but a couple of studies I read indicated that the accurate rate of fire for the .45 semi-automatic was not much different from that of the 9mm; it sometimes came in slightly higher, in fact. For game balance and to give the venerable .45 semi-automatic some respect, move its ROF up to 2 per round. 10mm damage: Velocity and kinetic energy for the 10mm round are frighteningly high; it's not a step between the .45 and the 9mm, it is more powerful than either one. Damage should be 1d10+1d4, equivalent to the other Magnum rounds. .50 AE damage: Scary as it sounds, the Desert Eagle pistol can be chambered for a .50 round (just in case that .44 magnum round didn't make quite a big enough hole in your enemies before). This will be bigger and badder than the .44 that is listed in the rules. When your players find out about this and want to carry one, put its damage at 3d6+1 (yep, that's a whole lot of dice on an impale--"Are you SURE this isn't a Dark Champion game??"), with base range of 30 yards, ROF 1 per round, Fumble/Jam rating of 97-00, and a clip of 7 (I think). Don't let them talk you into allowing a silencer on one or hiding it from prying eyes in a shoulder or ankle holster. "Is that a tank in your shirt, or are you just happy to see me?" ;-) OK, that's out of my system. Back to the conspiracies and biological nastiness discussions... Shane "Honest, I'm not a rulesmonger most of the time!" Ivey http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/6580/dg.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 21:41:42 EDT From: Escutcheon@aol.com Subject: Re: DG: Amish Country > The other reason I was not really looking at Cell Z is the lack of > names for the members. I considered Zachariah, Zedekiah, and > Zane, but this would only seem to work in Amish country. You guys might want to suggest other possible names, but I see the potential now: Amish DG - a completely untapped subgenre! And now: Z Cell vs. the Hollywood/Dunwich Horror! ************************************************************************** Agent Zedekiah: What art thou called, neighbor? Handsome Stranger: My name's Whateley: Wilbur Whateley. Zedekiah: Ye'll pardon my asking, but I heard tell that ye were a tall fellow, and .... Whateley: Hideously Deformed? Zedekiah: Summat Eccentric. Whateley: After I left that squalid little burg, Dunwich, I sought out ways to improve myself. I attended the finest schools, consulted the finest plastic surgeons. Once I moved out to California, I fit right in. Zedekiah: I heer'd thee'd bin killed in a museum. Whateley: That was actually my cousin, Larry. Zedekiah: So thee hast come to Pennsylvania to turn from the worldly ways of California and seek a simpler life? Whateley: Absolutely not! Zedekiah: Then why hast thee come here? Dost thou seek to bring forth the horror of the great old ones? Whateley: No way! I'm going to help cover this landscape with strip malls, tanning salons, and video stores! Now that I'm a babe magnet, I'm going to become obscenely wealthy! Zedekiah: This cannot be! We shall stop thee! Zerubbabel, Zebulun, ye must help me! Zebulon, bore him to sleep with old testament geneologies! Zebulun: The descendants of Gad by their clans were ... (etc., etc.) Whateley: Nooooo! By the silicon breasts of Pamela, please stop! Zedekiah: Zerubbabel, ye must summon the Elders! (Zerubbabel starts hitching up the wagon) Zebulun: ... Ethan son of Kishi, the son of Abdi ... Whateley: Aahgh! (flees) ***************************************************************************** (Next time: Z Cell vs. Senor Sock) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 22:21:45 EDT From: theherald@juno.com (Michael Layne) Subject: Re: DG: cell letter and status On Mon, 22 Jun 1998 16:24:32 +0100 (BST) Stephen Joseph Ellis writes: > >On Mon, 22 Jun 1998, Nick wrote: > >> > I considered Zachariah, Zedekiah, and Zane, but this >> > would only seem to work in Amish country >> >> >> How about Agent Zebedee, as in that thing on a spring with a >> moustache from 'the Magic Roundabout'? >> > >Or Zed, Zee, and Zebediah? > >SJE > Or (for a scientist type) Zharkov? Michael theherald@juno.com _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. 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