From: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org (deltagreen-digest) To: deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Subject: deltagreen-digest V1 #131 Reply-To: Delta Green List Sender: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Errors-To: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Precedence: bulk deltagreen-digest Sunday, September 6 1998 Volume 01 : Number 131 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 20:38:43 +0900 From: "David Farnell" Subject: DG: RE: YUKI ONNA / deltagreen-digest V1 #130 Hey folks, I just wanted to apologize to the digest subscribers. I noticed that my story post absolutely funked out in the digest version and produced major, major bandwidth noise. Don't know why, but I'll try to take care of it before the next installment. David Farnell ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 23:15:23 +0900 From: ft203004@fsinet.or.jp (Jay and Mikiko Noyes) Subject: RE: DG: GM's out of control... >Nope, DYoSN aren't affected by heat or blast, so the marine and her hand >grenades did nothing but obscure it's actions in smoke and give everyone >bleeding eardrums! WHEE! What a sense of overconfidence they had about those >grenades. Of course, that was the FIRST encounter, where it laid waste to Of course, most of the damage grenades do are from the shrapnel, so they actually would do quite a bit to DYoSN. - ------------------------------------------ Stercus, stercus, stercus, moriturus sum Terry Pratchett, "Interesting Times" - ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 10:19:31 EDT From: CroakerJr@aol.com Subject: Re: DG: DGfiction: YUKI ONNA, pt. 1 Excellent! Most engrossing. BTW, did anyone else have problems with the punctuation characters? It's probably just An AOL Thing (tm), but on my screen they appeared thus: << “You should not have remembered,” she says. >> Shane Ivey ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 1998 10:24:43 -0500 From: Nightstar Subject: Re: DG: DGfiction: YUKI ONNA, pt. 1 At 10:19 AM 9/5/98 EDT, you wrote: >Excellent! Most engrossing. > >BTW, did anyone else have problems with the punctuation characters? It's >probably just An AOL Thing (tm), but on my screen they appeared thus: > ><< “You should not have remembered,” she says. >> > >Shane Ivey > > Yeah, they wierded out on me, too. << “You should not have remembered,” she says. >> - ----------------------------------------------------------- Finally, a light at the end of the tunnel......heh heh heh. Nightstar ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 12:20:39 -0400 From: "Duran Goodyear" Subject: Re: DG: DGfiction: YUKI ONNA, pt. 1 >>BTW, did anyone else have problems with the punctuation characters? It's >>probably just An AOL Thing (tm), but on my screen they appeared thus: >> >><< “You should not have remembered,” she says. >> Just an AOL thing..... Now theres the real conspiracy... A network of computer software and hardware developers bent on producing sub-par products for the masses. And in the back ground there is a resistance group pushing the wonders of Linux.... ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 1998 09:59:50 -0700 From: Gil Trevizo Subject: Re: DG: DGfiction: YUKI ONNA, pt. 1 At 10:19 AM 9/5/98 EDT, you wrote: >Excellent! Most engrossing. > >BTW, did anyone else have problems with the punctuation characters? It's >probably just An AOL Thing (tm), but on my screen they appeared thus: > ><< “You should not have remembered,” she says. >> It's not just an AOL thing - I got it too, off of a Eudora account on Mindspring. Having administered the X-Files fan fiction mailing list for over a year, I ran into this kind of thing all the time. They're called "smart quotes" - the kind of punctuation characters that wrap around the text when you write in Microsoft Word or any other sophisticated word processing program. Even if you save the document as a Text file, there's no guarantee that the smart quotes won't still be there. There is a setting in Word that allows you to disable smart quotes (forget where though, sorry, should be info in Help though), and if you open it up in Notepad or Simpletext, you should be able to see the bad characters, which you can then just go about deleting and replacing. For my money though, the easiest way to go about this is just to write long pieces in Notepad or Simpletext - - it's not pretty, and gets to be a pain once the file reaches 30k in size, but it saves having to go through all this extra work if something like this happens. Gil Trevizo furrylogic@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~furrylogic ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 1998 10:08:44 -0700 From: Josh Shaw Subject: Re: DG: DGfiction: YUKI ONNA, pt. 1 CroakerJr@aol.com wrote: > Excellent! Most engrossing. > > BTW, did anyone else have problems with the punctuation characters? It's > probably just An AOL Thing (tm), but on my screen they appeared thus: > > << “You should not have remembered,” she says. >> > No, it's not just AOHell. I'm using Netscape on a local ISP and it came out like this: “You should not have remembered,” she says. but I agree, excellent story so far. - ----Josh ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 1998 10:47:38 -0700 From: Josh Shaw Subject: Re: DG: GM's out of control... Shane Jackson wrote: > Maybe I could have made this clearer, but changing the motives of the > lady didn't further the plot in any way. It was simply a matter of me > overcoming (with finesse) a fair obstacle that he had thrown my way and > him changing the nature of the situation to say that it hadn't _really_ > been an obstacle and I hadn't _really_ overcome it. He just did it > because he appreciated the irony and because it was a clever idea of his > own. Not trying to be argumentative for it's own sake, but I (as the GM) would think of it differently Not that Shane hadn't -really- overcome a -real- obstacle with superior role-playing. Of course you did and I would have (have done so in similar situations) applauded as loudly as any of the players. The point, had I done so, would have been the creation of an entirely new obstacle. "OK, Shane evaded the "good little old lady", now lets see if he can weasel (via superior role-playing again) out of splitting his take with the "evil little old lady". heh. Not just an obstacle, but a opportunity for more role-playing. And of course he appreciated the irony. If the game isn't amusing for the GM why are we doing this? The point of extending your scene (which is what he did....extend the scene where you were the star instead of going on to the next bit) is the amusement he *and the other players* got out of watching you talk your way out of this new problem. Otherwise we could have gone on to some other players business. > . The moral of my post is > that a GM should ask himself when he decides change something "am I > doing this because it furthers the story (and therefore benefits > everyone) or simply because I think it's a clever idea and entertains > _me_ (and shows everyone how clever I am). Which again is, in my mind, a legitimate motive. You don't want to be clever to the point where it interferes with the story, or actually tromps on the players good bits (which I don't think he did in your case) but part of the fun of being the one telling the story is entertaining yourself and showing your friends how clever you are. (Of course, we're all telling the story together, but part of the fun for the player is showing your friends how clever you are too.) > . It's important to me that each player has their own > moment in the sun and that I don't rain on it. I completely agree. Only to me your moment wasn't getting the money, that's only solving the problem. Your moment was getting to do that marvelous religious rant that had all your friends applauding your playing. That's why we play Cthulhu! - -------Josh PS: About that GPS locator. What I ended up doing (after shouting "What!!!" a couple of times) was tell the player: "OK, you're in the Peruvian mountains, miles and miles from anything that could even laughingly be described as civilization, surrounded by endless god-forsaken wilderness, without any form of transportation or communication; but the good news is; you know *exactly* where you are". Then I just moved all the stuff I wanted them to run into in to a straight line to where they were going anyway. Adapt and improvise!! - ----J ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 1998 11:13:11 -0700 From: Lech Von Oxen Subject: Re: DG: GM's out of control... Well put Mr. Shaw! My thoughts exactly. I'm the one who spends all my money and time making this stuff up, so I'm the one in charge. And it's much more fun to watch the player fuck with each other's minds after I've done some initial mucking about, than have to do it all myself. Whatever it takes. Although... I don't worry about money, usually, and my players rarely roll for initial incomes. If they want to play rich folk, they got the money. If they want to play poor folk, they don't. It's that simple. This is one way I eliminate some accounting, and it's one way I force better role-playing from my players. That is all. Lech out. p.s. To illustrate my point I will shortly post a transcript of my last year's run of The Revival from TUO #12 -- assuming no one minds. It shows perfectly how to let your players do the damage themselves... Josh Shaw wrote: > > Shane Jackson wrote: > > > Maybe others of you will disagree with my feelings about this, but now, > > when I'm GM, I try to stay on guard and not steal a players "thunder" > > by changing the rules when they come up with a clever solution to a > > problem. > > Nope, I would have done it to you too. > > Remember, there's a bunch of them against just poor little you, their all just > as smart as you are, > they all GM too and they're in cahoots. > > Controlling " the adversaries, the weather, the terrain, the basic rules of > physics, > and the true nature of the universe" is little enough advantage when dealing > with this > pack of sneaky bastards. > > You call it changing the rules, I call it adapting to circumstances. > > I'm the GM, my job here isn't to fuck you up, my job is to fuck with your mind. > > ------Josh > > > Shane ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 15:04:04 -0500 (CDT) From: Don Juneau Subject: Re: DG: DGfiction: YUKI ONNA, pt. 1 On Sat, 5 Sep 1998 CroakerJr@aol.com wrote: > Excellent! Most engrossing. > > BTW, did anyone else have problems with the punctuation characters? It's > probably just An AOL Thing (tm), but on my screen they appeared thus: > > << “You should not have remembered,” she says. >> Hmm. Reading it in Pine produces high-ASCII characters, typically what I find from foreign ASCII-sets. (Not the "American" standard one - or rather, they're using those funky letters that Yanquis usually don't. ) Here, editing in pico, they come in as "control-". ("^" is the usual display-shortcut when typing.) It's interference from Daoloth... pay no attention to that Pallid Mask behind the curtain.. Don ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 17:32:29 EDT From: CrazyYog3@aol.com Subject: Re: Bullets and Beasties (was RE: DG: RE: Re: Trail of Tsathoggua) In a message dated 98-09-01 12:45:43 EDT, you write: > You're missing one other crucial element: the Dark Young (as well > as the Gnoph-Keh) are both intelligent creatures. If there were two > or three toughs with submachine guns running around after you, you sure > as hell wouldn't come out into the open to get them. You would use the > terrain and its knowledge of human society to lead them into > traps (artificial or natural), attack in conditions where it's difficult > to fire back, and the like. These creatures are as smart as (if not > smarter than) humans, they know their environment, and they can survive > through its extremes longer than the players can. This doesn't mean that > it won't make mistakes, but it's likely the characters will make more. Then again these creatures are completely alien to you or I. They will not necessarily do what an intelligent human would consider wise. The DY might just charge out into the open to scoop up lunch or then again it might just leave and ignore silly little humans. Gary ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 18:00:48 EDT From: CrazyYog3@aol.com Subject: DG: Delta Green: Countdown Questions First, I was wondering when it will get realeased. Second, what in general will it contain? This would help me plan where I want my campaign to head. Thanks! Gary ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 18:01:37 EDT From: CrazyYog3@aol.com Subject: DG: TUO 16/17 When is TOU 16/17 coming out? Gary ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 1998 15:13:18 -0700 From: Josh Shaw Subject: Re: DG: GM's out of control... Lech Von Oxen wrote: > Well put Mr. Shaw! Thank you Mr. Von Oxen > I don't worry about money, usually, and my players rarely roll for > initial incomes. If they want to play rich folk, they got the money. If > they want to play poor folk, they don't. It's that simple. > > This is one way I eliminate some accounting, and it's one way I force > better role-playing from my players. I entirely agree, within reason. Generally, as I think I said somewhere I just tell them that if they can buy it on the open market and they think of it in time they can have pretty much anything they want. On the other hand, 100,000 acre ranches in Texas, private airfields, ownership of security agencies, are definitely pushing the envelope. And while I don't make them account for every hotel room and meal, enough money to say things like "Quick, here my check for a million dollars, I want to buy your yacht and I want to buy it NOW!" is a little more than I think a GM should have to put up with. Would *my* players pull shit like that if they thought they could get away with it? That was a rhetorical question, wasn't it? - -----Josh > > > That is all. > > Lech out. > > p.s. To illustrate my point I will shortly post a transcript of my last > year's run of The Revival from TUO #12 -- assuming no one minds. It > shows perfectly how to let your players do the damage themselves... > > Josh Shaw wrote: > > > > Shane Jackson wrote: > > > > > Maybe others of you will disagree with my feelings about this, but now, > > > when I'm GM, I try to stay on guard and not steal a players "thunder" > > > by changing the rules when they come up with a clever solution to a > > > problem. > > > > Nope, I would have done it to you too. > > > > Remember, there's a bunch of them against just poor little you, their all just > > as smart as you are, > > they all GM too and they're in cahoots. > > > > Controlling " the adversaries, the weather, the terrain, the basic rules of > > physics, > > and the true nature of the universe" is little enough advantage when dealing > > with this > > pack of sneaky bastards. > > > > You call it changing the rules, I call it adapting to circumstances. > > > > I'm the GM, my job here isn't to fuck you up, my job is to fuck with your mind. > > > > ------Josh > > > > > Shane ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 1998 19:01:54 -0700 From: Shane Jackson Subject: DG: Old CoC adventure request Could someone who has a copy of the old Games Workshop/Chaosium double adventure THE STATUE OF THE SORCERER/THE VANISHING CONJURER please contact me via private email? Thanks, Shane "still not Ivey" Jackson liche@mindless.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 19:46:01 EDT From: CroakerJr@aol.com Subject: Re: DG: GM's out of control... In a message dated 98-09-05 18:19:15 EDT, you write: << On the other hand, 100,000 acre ranches in Texas, private airfields, ownership of security agencies, are definitely pushing the envelope. >> On the OTHER other hand, Delta Green characters have access to all kinds of hardware and resources. I played in a game last year where our three agents called in a company of military police from a nearby base, complete with helicopters and APCs, to support our Big Raid on the Baddies. Of course, the Baddies were smart enough to give us some good misdirection and we wound up with most of those folks cleaning up after the sabotage went off while the players got in a helicopter with three or four troops and tore-ass after the ones that escaped, reducing our armada back to a squad pretty handily. I say, if a player wants to be a millionaire, let him. It won't matter a bit when they run into the true horrors of Lovecraft's universe. Even some clever little cultists can still screw things up for them! Shane Ivey ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 17:49:44 -0700 From: Joseph Camp Subject: Re: DG: Delta Green: Countdown Questions >First, I was wondering when it will get realeased. Second, what in general >will it contain? This would help me plan where I want my campaign to head. >Thanks! It's coming this fall, though Pagan hasn't announced a release date for sure. Offhand, I know it contains the following: SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING * The Skoptsi, a Russian Shub-Niggurath cult * Material on the USSR's (now Russia's) equivalent of Delta Green * Material on the UK's equivalent of Delta Green and the UK Shan conspiracy * The Cult of Transcendance * The ghouls of New York City * A SIGHTINGS-style television show, suitable for an alternate campaign a la SAUCERWATCH * The Hastur Mythos * Material on an Air America -- Big Tobacco -- Tcho Tcho organization * A brainwashing/psycheval facility run by MJ-12 * A Karotechia paramiltary training center/demented amusement park for kidnapped children run by a reclusive pop star (a version of this appears in the next issue of SHADIS magazine). * and probably some other stuff. Some of the above may end up being spun off into chapbooks instead; that's still under discussion. A planned companion volume will consist entirely of scenarios, mostly tied to the above material. be seeing you, Alphonse ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 1998 21:13:07 -0400 From: Daniel Harms Subject: Re: Bullets and Beasties (was RE: DG: RE: Re: Trail of Tsathoggua) At 05:32 PM 9/5/98 EDT, you wrote: >In a message dated 98-09-01 12:45:43 EDT, you write: > >> You're missing one other crucial element: the Dark Young (as well >> as the Gnoph-Keh) are both intelligent creatures. If there were two >> or three toughs with submachine guns running around after you, you sure >> as hell wouldn't come out into the open to get them. You would use the >> terrain and its knowledge of human society to lead them into >> traps (artificial or natural), attack in conditions where it's difficult >> to fire back, and the like. These creatures are as smart as (if not >> smarter than) humans, they know their environment, and they can survive >> through its extremes longer than the players can. This doesn't mean that >> it won't make mistakes, but it's likely the characters will make more. >Then again these creatures are completely alien to you or I. They will not >necessarily do what an intelligent human would consider wise. The DY >might just charge out into the open to scoop up lunch or then again it >might just leave and ignore silly little humans. Perhaps - but just because the creature is alien doesn't mean it can't or won't react intelligently to threats. CoC is unique among RPGs in that about 70% of its non-deity monsters are either as smart as or smarter than the average human (and yes, I checked). A group of characters going up against one in its own terrain should be up for a challenge. Yrs., Daniel Harms dmharms@acsu.buffalo.edu "Wool is wool. Wool is a pack of lies." -- Richard S. Shaver ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 1998 21:24:00 -0400 From: Daniel Harms Subject: DG: First Aid and Medicine Medicine was a new skill included in the 5th edition CoC rules to supposedly keep physicians from having to split their skills into Diagnose Disease, First Aid, Treat Disease, and Treat Poison. As written, the Medicine skill does have some (unspecified) effect on disease and poisons, but aside from its aid in long-term treatment, it doesn't work much differently in game terms than First Aid. In fact, I'm not certain whether someone can be treated with First Aid followed by Medicine, or if only one or the other can be used. How does everyone use Medicine in their games? Yrs., Daniel Harms dmharms@acsu.buffalo.edu "Wool is wool. Wool is a pack of lies." -- Richard S. Shaver ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1998 12:59:15 +0900 From: "David Farnell" Subject: DG: DOH!!! RE: DGfiction: YUKI ONNA, pt. 1(Cult of Bill pt 3) - -----Original Message----- ol : Gil Trevizo : Delta Green List : 1998N96 2:20 : Re: DG: DGfiction: YUKI ONNA, pt. 1 Gil Trevizo, Shane Ivey, Don Juneau, and several others (probably most of the people on the list) suffered problems with reading "Yuki Onna." Sorry about that. I wrote it on Word 97. I had planned to send it as an attachment, but my OS is the Japanese version of Win95 (and my version of Word is the English one), and for some reason I can't seem to send anything as an attachment. So I just copied it into an email and sent it (after a little tweaking--the paragraph indentations had disappeared while copying). After posting it, I checked the list and it came back to me just fine--no problems. But apparently not so for most people. (Weirdly, one of the examples of screwed-up characters that someone posted came to me as Japanese kanji--but lots of foreign characters, like E's with accents, come to me as Japanese kanji.) Anyway, I've already got parts 2 and 3 written, and I may finish the rest this weekend (probably 5 parts in all), but I want to try to at least lessen the scrambled-characters effects before I post any more. I think I'll try Notepad as per Gil's suggestion, and make sure there's no smart-quotes thing going on (write it in Arial or something). If anybody else has any ideas, please let me know. But because of my OS, I may not be able to completely get rid of the crap. Sorry again! And thanks for the praise and compliments. David Farnell PS: (Revenge of Daoloth, or Billbur Gatesly?) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1998 13:30:34 +0900 From: "David Farnell" Subject: DG: RE: Bullets and Beasties/Alien Intelligence - -----Original Message----- ol : Daniel Harms : Delta Green List : 1998N96 10:29 : Re: Bullets and Beasties (was RE: DG: RE: Re: Trail of Tsathoggua) Agent Gary (Crazy Yog) wrote: >>Then again these creatures are completely alien to you or I. They will not >>necessarily do what an intelligent human would consider wise. The DY >>might just charge out into the open to scoop up lunch or then again it >>might just leave and ignore silly little humans. To which Agent Daniel Harms (wouldn't that be a great name for an action hero?) replied: >Perhaps - but just because the creature is alien doesn't mean it can't >or won't react intelligently to threats. CoC is unique among RPGs in >that about 70% of its non-deity monsters are either as smart as or smarter >than the average human (and yes, I checked). A group of characters going >up against one in its own terrain should be up for a challenge. I agree absolutely. Aliens having completely different intelligence from ours does not mean that they'd be stupid. If they are able to recognize their danger, they would act in self-preservation, unless laying down their lives would be of greater benefit. For example, Cthulhu doesn't much care if he gets killed, since he's coming back pretty soon anyhow. Drone cratures with no individuality will sacrifice their lives to protect the collective, the eggs, whatever. But I think that, usually, individualistic creatures that die when they are shot at a lot will act at a level equal to their intelligence for self-preservation. They're not going to show a heck of a lot of difference to what you'd expect from a terrestrial creature in that respect, except of course they'll use whatever odd abilities they may have, which may result in apparently non-logical actions that only become clear later. I think it's when you get into non-life-or-death situations that the real differences of their alien thought processes will come into play. They may have damn weird senses of humor, strange rituals (biting off the little toes of their victims and stuffing them up the victims' noses), maddeningly frustrating attention spans, constant distractions from being able to see in several more dimensions, stuff like that. They may communicate at entirely different rates, veeeerrrrryyyy sllllooooww or very, very fast, from what we are used to. Not that we often have a chance to hold conversations with such creatures, but it might come up. Of course, most of them don't speak English. In combat, I make my monsters as clever as possible. My players (on two continents) still remember that ONE Byakhee that plagued them for an entire adventure, killing a couple of them and sending others to the hospital, and in each case only dying when it had taken just a little too much of a risk (it was getting to be a cocky Byakhee) and got taken down by a lucky shot. In an old Chill game (yes, I played it, too), the GM got another friend to play a vampire we were supposed to take out. The guy playing the vampire of course wanted to live, so he played with extreme cleverness. It ended up with about half of us dead, and the other 2 (me and another guy) severely beaten up and humiliated, tied up, and left for a first snack for our significant others (NPCs) who'd been "embraced" by the vampire. After such a debacle, the GM let us get out of it alive, but the aftermath was very interesting. I'll certainly never forget that one. So I suggest giving that a try for an extremely cocky group that yawns at DYoSNs. Get a friend with a nasty streak to play just one moderately-tough critter (a sorcerer, byakhee, ghoul, something like that)--let him be on his own territory, so he can set up traps and such, and then send the players in after him. They may take him out, but they'll probably have a hell of a tough time doing it. And you, the Keeper, are clear of any charges of trying to wipe out the characters. You're just moderating a fight between two opposing groups. Be seeing you, David Farnell ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 19:51:17 -1000 From: "M-Zodiac" Subject: DG: Re: First Aid and Medicine Well, I use Hero. Paramedic is a 3-Pointer that allows basic combat medical/ Paramedic type activities--stopping bleeding and the like. Medicine, a skill of my creation, is a 5-pointer which allows use of Paramedic, Medical Doctor accreditation, and the ability to use Hospital facilities, surgery, etc. It's also required to learn Forensic Medicine. Got tired of one of my players always running Pathologists with no ability to work on the living. - -Marc http://www.lava.net/~mzodiac "Total Destruction will come to those who laughed at me and failed to heed my warnings" -Darkest of the Hillside Thickets "Big Robot Dinosaur" - -----Original Message----- From: Daniel Harms To: deltagreen@nocturne.org Date: Saturday, September 05, 1998 3:34 PM Subject: DG: First Aid and Medicine >Medicine was a new skill included in the 5th edition CoC rules to >supposedly keep physicians from having to split their skills into >Diagnose Disease, First Aid, Treat Disease, and Treat Poison. As >written, the Medicine skill does have some (unspecified) effect >on disease and poisons, but aside from its aid in long-term treatment, >it doesn't work much differently in game terms than First Aid. In fact, >I'm not certain whether someone can be treated with First Aid followed >by Medicine, or if only one or the other can be used. > >How does everyone use Medicine in their games? > >Yrs., > > >Daniel Harms dmharms@acsu.buffalo.edu >"Wool is wool. Wool is a pack of lies." > -- Richard S. Shaver > ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 06 Sep 1998 07:26:22 -0700 From: Lech Von Oxen Subject: Re: DG: DOH!!! RE: DGfiction: YUKI ONNA, pt. 1 Uh-huh. Sure. Know how many times I've told myself that? I mean, wouldn't we *all* like to know how the Queen in Red ends? Be honest with yourself, laddy, it ain't ever gonna happen... Cynical in his own mind, Lech. p.s. My version of your story had the “ stuff as well -- at first glance I thought it was a character's name! David Farnell wrote some stuff that I snipped like the bastard I am: > > Anyway, I've already got parts 2 and 3 written, and I may > finish the rest this weekend (probably 5 parts in all), ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1998 13:15:58 -0400 From: graemep@immagene.mcg.edu (Graeme Price) Subject: Re: DG: First Aid and Medicine Daniel wrote: >Medicine was a new skill included in the 5th edition CoC rules to >supposedly keep physicians from having to split their skills into >Diagnose Disease, First Aid, Treat Disease, and Treat Poison. As >written, the Medicine skill does have some (unspecified) effect >on disease and poisons, but aside from its aid in long-term treatment, >it doesn't work much differently in game terms than First Aid. In fact, >I'm not certain whether someone can be treated with First Aid followed >by Medicine, or if only one or the other can be used. >How does everyone use Medicine in their games? Well, I guess I have a little bit of expertise in this matter (trained first aider, semi-medical education, works in med school research institute), so here's my take. First aid is basic medicine to cover emergencies and what to do immediately on arriving at the scene of an accident (for example). Things like CPR, stopping bleeding, dealing with the immediate effects of shock using only basic equipment (bandages, splints etc.). It does not allow the use of sophisticated medical devices (cardiac massage paddles, saline drips, oxygen etc.) or drugs (painkillers, anaesthetics, antibiotics etc.). Apart from immediately obvious things (his leg is missing and he has a broken arm) it does not allow diagnosis of subtle (or underlying) conditions. For example, you may realise that someone has had a heart attack and be able to make him comfortable until the ambulance arrives, but you would be unable to diagnose or treat the underlying cause (blocked arteries due to high cholesterol diet and smoking 60 a day). First aid does not deal with long term care or consequences of immediate treatment. I will go into this in a bit more detail below. Medicine actually expands and replaces first aid (in my games). So a competant physician will be able to do everything a first aider can, and more (can use drugs and equipment noted above: if he happens to have them on him that is...). He is also capable of practising medicine in either a hospital or private setting, perhaps with a sub-specialisation. Thus medicine differs from first aid in that it allows provision of long term care and more sophisticated diagnosis (leading to better overall treatment). The downside is that most people do not have the medicine skill, this being taught in medical schools to those who have 5-9 years to spare (and can afford it). A reasonably comprehensive first aid course (like the St.John's Ambulance Adult First Aid Course) lasts maybe 6-10 afternoons (3-4 hours each) and is reasonably cheap (used to be about 30 pounds stirling - maybe 50 dollars). There are two other skills (surgery and pharmacy) which are also related to medicine, and should be discussed. I treat surgery as a seperate skill from medicine (personally, I rule that you need to have medicine at 50% plus to learn surgery). The two are quite different skills. Whilst medicine will allow you to do _minor_ surgery putting in stitches, taking out teeth, setting bones etc. Surgery would be used for major operations (as a rule of thumb, if a procedure involves general anaesthesia, or is life threatening, surgery would be the appropriate skill). This is logical as a local country doctor would not know how to carry out a heart transplant (as an extreme example) and surgeons require specialised training once gaining their medical degree. Pharmacy relates to the mechanisms of action and manufacture of drugs. Whilst physicians would know which drugs to prescribe to have an effect, pharmacists would be more likely to know how that effect is achieved. Pharmacists would also be able to design (or select) drugs to have a certain effect based on a knowledge of biology and chemistry, but not have the ability to use them in a clinical setting (this would require the medicine skill in addition). I hope this is clear - bottom line is that physicians don't need the pharmacy skill above a low level to do their day to day work (but might need it to treat something really odd, or to do research into new medicines). This brings us back to what first aid can do as far as long term treatment goes. As a reasonably kindly Keeper (imagine the disbeleiving laughter in the background...) I would suggest that first aid principles could be applied to long term care (for instance in the wilderness). To set a broken bone, or put stiches in, is possible without the medicine skill, and can be attempted with a first aid roll - but at a penalty (half to one third skill depending on circumstances). The better situation would be to take the casualty to a doctor who could use his medicine skill at no penalty for the same effect. Or better still to a hospital, where there might actually be a bonus applied for superior equipment (depending on the hospital). Note though that not seeking medical attention after being injured is a really bad idea. Infection can set in to poorly dressed wounds and be fatal in a matter of days (this has been discussed in more detail on the list before) and shock (due to blood and fluid loss) can be fatal in hours. Bottom line: go see a doctor when you are horribly mangled by hideous mythos creatures and their allies (unless circumstances dicate otherwise). Hope this helps some. Graeme graemep@immag.mcg.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1998 13:22:41 -0400 From: graemep@immagene.mcg.edu (Graeme Price) Subject: DG: Guns on planes Here's another one which has been bugging me for a bit. How do Feds (and Cops/Marshals etc.) transport firearms on commercial flights? Are they allowed to carry them holstered? Loaded? In a locked box? In the hold? As hand luggage? And what about civilians? Is there paperwork involved? Just wondering, as I have a half idea for a mini-scenario which would be easily circumvented by the use of guns (although shooting on plane is a dumb idea at the best of times, but you know what players are like!). Cheers Graeme graemep@immag.mcg.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1998 13:13:10 EDT From: CroakerJr@aol.com Subject: Re: DG: First Aid and Medicine In a message dated 98-09-05 21:31:16 EDT, you write: << How does everyone use Medicine in their games? >> The rules always indicated to me that First Aid was for short-term treatment, while Medicine was to facilitate long-term healing. First Aid can be used once after an injury to mitigate the effects of shock, bleeding, to set bones, or just to give the right dose of Tylenol or a draught of whiskey to dull the pain, however you want to describe it. Medicine is used after a character has been recovering for several days under the care of one or more skilled healers, to reflect surgery, ongoing muscular therapy, care of bone fractures and sprains, treatment of infection, and so on: the expert in question makes the roll after a period of time (the book says a week, but I regard everything as mutable based on the circumstances and the flow of the story). A successful roll indicates the injured character recovers more quickly due to the treatment, to the tune of another 1d3 HP in the proper circumstances. These effects are cumulative; first aid can deliver an "instant fix" of 1d3 HP, while Medicine can allow natural healing of 1d3 HP after a week plus the medical treatment of another 1d3 HP at the same time. This is a whole lot of healing, but I think it's about right in modern games; I might reduce all those bonuses a little in 1920s and 1890s games. As for the roleplaying, just because a character has recovered most of the HP of an injury does not mean that the injury should no longer have any effects. Let's say, for lack of a better example, DG-Friendly Agent Mulder gets abused by a DYSN to the tune of 10 HP damage before the thing goes all alien on him and dumps his still-living frame in a ditch to be rescued. The injuries were described as a broken leg, torn up flesh and muscles, and general bloodsucking and intrusions into Places That Man Was Not Meant To Know. (Poor Fox.) Agent Scully finds him and succeeds in her massive First Aid skill roll, setting bones and taping on gauze and such for 2 HP. She hauls him to the hospital, where he recovers under the care of local doctors while she goes out and kicks DYSN butt with that "This is weird but I'm still pissed" look in her eye. The doctor makes his Medicine roll, getting Mulder's infection under control and helping the bones to knit themselves properly and so on, and after several days Fox recovers 2d3, for 5 HP. He's now down by only 3 HP, so like any self-respecting investigator he's not going to stick around in the hospital while the others have all the fun. But fate (meaning the Keeper) rules that it takes more than a week for a broken leg to get completely knitted, so Fox will be at reduced DEX and Movement, and, by the way, any time he tries to Dodge or fight hand-to-hand he needs to make a Luck roll or take 1d6 HP (the damage level of a solid kick or clubbing) from his bone collapsing again. Once Fox recovers those last 3 HP, the Keeper might still say that his DEX and Move and physical skills are down a little for another week. Now that I reread the original question, I guess Daniel already knew all that stuff I just wrote, so what about other uses for Medicine? Well, I wrote a bunch of chunky rules-suggestions a while back that included a suggestion to inflict infection on characters who don't respect their injuries. I think that should certainly be played out with the Medicine skill: if a character gets First Aid for that .22 gunshot but otherwise leaves it alone, give her a Luck roll or a CON x 5% roll to see if infection sets in for the loss of 1d3 HP a week until the injury is fully healed. This will almost certainly require treatment with Medicine to augment the 1d3 natural healing rate. Diseases are certainly left vague in the rules. I have just about zero knowledge of how most diseases really work, so if I had an urge to dump one on somebody I'd probably ask the docs on this list for some juicy tips or poke around on the Web for some appropriately nasty articles and photos to adopt into the game mechanics, and allow Medicine skill to alleviate the effects. Poisons are detailed in the rules in a simple manner: POT vs. CON to see if the victim is truly screwed or just mostly screwed. I would usually allow Medicine rolls, with the proper equipment and drugs available, to give a bonus to the roll or maybe a chance to repeat the roll, or just to treat it like a normal HP loss and aid the victim's recovery. One option would be to disallow using First Aid to treat poison damage, but to allow Medicine to act as First Aid in such cases, for an "instant fix" of 1d3 HP if the doctor has antidotes or whatever on-hand. Then there's always death. (Or usually, anyway.) Personally I have always disliked the 'now you're at positive, now you're gone unless you get a Heal-3 spell within 10 Strike Ranks' aspect of Chaosium's HP system. I tend to treat it a little fluidly, allowing possible resuscitation (in the CPR sense, not the Karotechia sense) with Medicine skill depending on the circumstances and the nature of the injuries. A victim of 20 HP damage from six knife cuts (blood loss, shock, muscle trauma) might have a better shot at surviving than a victim of 20 HP from one shotgun blast (destruction of vitals or massive fatal shock from the sudden absense of a limb). I might allow the former victim to be kept alive at negative HP for a short while with First Aid, then for up to a week with Medicine treatment. If the victim is still at zero HP or lower after a week, it's time to talk to the estate lawyers. I'll shut up now so the aforementioned docs can give the REAL answers. ;-) Shane Ivey ------------------------------ End of deltagreen-digest V1 #131 ********************************