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LatwPIAT
Jun 6, 2011

Cythereal posted:

America was generally pretty restrained in that regard, though. Except for a few things like Project Habakkuk.

Which was British... but the US did manage to invent the bat bomb:

"Bat bombs were an experimental World War II weapon developed by the United States. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with over a thousand compartments, each containing a hibernating Mexican Free-tailed Bat with a small timed incendiary bomb attached. Dropped from a bomber at dawn, the casings would deploy a parachute in mid-flight and open to release the bats which would then roost in eaves and attics in a 20-40 mile radius. The incendiaries would start fires in inaccessible places in the largely wood and paper construction of the Japanese cities that were the weapon's intended target."

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Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?
Well, I mean, the US did have one ridiculous experimental weapon that worked out pretty well for them right at the end.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Night10194 posted:

I see someone's never seen the XP55 Ascender.



Admittedly much less insane than most of the wunderwaffen of the war, but that was probably a function of the US itself never actually being under a lot of threat.

We pretty much left that for the Cold War.

Chrysler TV-8 nuclear-powered tank?


Project Pluto?

wdarkk
Oct 26, 2007

Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten

Cythereal posted:

America was generally pretty restrained in that regard, though. Except for a few things like Project Habakkuk.

Lots of people don't count the Manhattan Project (or the B-29, or the B-36) as wonderwaffen when they maybe should.

wdarkk
Oct 26, 2007

Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten
Edit: Double post.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


I think to be napkinwaffe it has to be theoretical/never past prototype, which none of those were.

Maxwell Lord
Dec 12, 2008

I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.


:smith:

Grimey Drawer
I feel like there also has to be an element of "visually insane".

E: OK the B-36 is up there.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Kavak posted:

I think to be napkinwaffe it has to be theoretical/never past prototype, which none of those were.

Yeah, best examples I can think of for the Americans during WW2 would be the T-95 superheavy tank and XF-85 Goblin jet-powered parasite fighter.

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

There's a couple other weird projects the US did, like trying to dose Hitler's veggies with estrogen to make him more "womanly" and lose supporters from being too effeminete, and the Gay Bomb.

This tells more about the mindset of the project creators.

Vox Valentine
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.



GAME SYSTEM

Rocket Age’s system comes around kind of late in the book, which is a bit annoying but not a problem. The rules are somewhat simple and use a d6 system. Basically, if you need to do something and there’s a reasonable chance of failure/dramatic failure and you’re under pressure, you should roll.



2d6+Attribute+Skill(+/-Modifiers)=Result matched up against a Difficulty number. There are varying degrees of success or failure depending on how over or under you roll. You can choose which Attribute and Skill you use to roll but it has to make sense. Go with your gut feeling but the GM has final say.



Contested rolls are a recurring thing you’ll see in these games. Basically one person is an acting character and the other resists. The one who resists rolls first and the result sets the difficulty for the one who acts. You can also Cooperate and help someone out if you have one rank in the same skill and all you do is add a +2 bonus to their roll (up to a reasonable limit of helpers).

Did you lose a conflict? That’s bad but you’re not necessarily going to get hurt. Depending on what’s at stake, you may get hurt or you may lose an argument or you may fumble a gun. There should be a sort of loss and sometimes you take damage. So what is damage? You may have noticed that there is no health pool or health track. All damage is deducted from your Attribute scores. You can split up the damage you receive and spread it across Attributes that make sense.



Injury comes in three forms: Stun, Normal and Lethal. Stun damage knocks the victim out for the rest of the scene or 1d6 minutes and deals 4 damage against armor (if it doesn’t penetrate, it’s shrugged off). Normal damage hurts Attributes and can be reduced by armor. Lethal damage outright kills and one point of Lethal is enough to kill a character. Lethal damage is marked with a L instead of a damage ranking and counts as 8 physical damage for armor or inanimate objects. Damage dealt is stable per weapon or item and increases or decreases depending on levels of success: normal damage, good damage and fantastic damage. For example: A RAY Pistol has 4/8/L for damage when not on its stun setting. A regular shot deals 4 damage, a good shot deals 8 and a really good shot instantly kills the enemy. If you remember the equipment charts for weapons, you'll see a lot of these attacks deal Lethal damage on the higher end of things or are just generally good at dealing damage. This is because physical injury is, well, dangerous and the game reflects that.



Reduced Awareness means that the character is dazzled or distracted or concussed. Reduced Coordination is exactly that, able to still stand but having trouble moving or coordinating. Reduced Ingenuity means that the character has lost their cool and is thinking irrationally or is confused. Reduced Presence means that the character's is feeling scared and timid and unable to speak. Reduced Resolve means that the character is close to giving up, feeling defeated or overwhelmed. Reduced Strength means that the character is weakened. When one Attribute is reduced to 0 from damage, it can't be used for rolls, the character is staggered and they take -2 to all rolls. Two Attributes means that the character is incapacitated somehow. Having Resolve and Strength incapacitated means that the character is beaten down and unable to muster the strength to continue without a rest. Having Presence and Awareness at zero means that the character is dazed and confused and unable to communicate, dumbfounded until they get their wits back. If three Attributes are at 0, that's really bad. This means that the character is severely injured or impaired in some way and will require the cost of a Story Point to keep them in the story and put them on the road to recovery. Insanity, fatal injuries, devastating emotional trauma and heavily impaired limbs are examples of being on the threshold of being kicked out of the story. At three Attributes at 0, the character can even be near death.



Mental damage is normally the result of a psychic attack, emotional damage or fear. Most of the time this targets Resolve to weaken the character and make them more susceptible to control.

Social damage is caused by arguments, debates, seduction attempts or intimidations. Social damage has some different rules compared to the other forms. Social damage is only limited to Resolve and Presence and any injury is recovered immediately when the scene ends. Losing both Resolve and Presence means that the character is worn down and concedes. Because social damage only targets these two, you can't put a character out of a story through social combat, only impair them.

Physical damage targets Strength and Coordination and might spill over to the other attributes. There are some specific rules for physical damage:
  • Falls: 1 point of damage for 3 meters fallen, 10 damage max. If you fall from a failed roll, it's 3/5/8 damage for Failure/Bad/Disastrous.
  • Crashes: take 1 damage per level of movement of the traveling thing.
  • Drowning: 8 damage every 10 seconds, modified by how badly you failed the roll (4/8/12).
  • Fire: 4/8/L damage depending on how badly you failed putting out/fighting the fire.
  • Extreme Temperature
  • Radiation
  • Vacuum Exposure: Treat it as Drowning in Extreme Cold with 500 REM exposure. 30 seconds exposed to space is Lethal but can be resisted.



Disease gets its own table and list and actually these diseases are interesting! Resisting disease is Strength+Resolve and requires a flat amount of successes (+/- 1/2/3 depending on success or failure). Ingenuity+Medicine can be used to add to the patient's successes (or subtract if you're a bad doctor).
  • Bahmoot Fever: skin rash from a virus commonly carried by Bahmoots, generally transmissible to other mammals. Causes fever, spreading rash and lethargy. Not generally lethal, just annoying. Try and take care of your Bahmoots to avoid it.
  • Canal Choke: Bacteria that grows in stagnant Martian water or is caused by poor filtration. Common in more rural principalities, requires the water to be treated. Symptoms: burning throat, trouble breathing/swallowing, abdominal pain/cramps, stomach/throat rupture. Until recovered, a patient can only whisper.
  • Europan Mind Burn: Bacteria that targets psychics. Symptoms: loss of psychic abilities, fever, headaches, bleeding from the eyes and nose, cerebral hemorrhaging, paralysis, coma and death. Europan Mind Burn is rare but nasty without medical care.
  • Flowering Sickness: Allergic reaction caused by exposure to Ganymedian spores during Flowering. Coughing, sneezing, runny nose, rashes caused by Ganymedian spores taking root in the skin. Cure: limiting exposure around Ganymedian in question, anti-fungal medication followed by exfoliation of the skin.
  • Io Ick: Cocktail of pollutants and microorganisms around Io. Setting foot on Io exposes the character to Io Ick, also carried by Ioite bodily wastes/fluids. Symptoms are mild but long lasting: headaches, lethargy, sinus swelling, running nose, hair loss, blurry vision, nosebleeds.
  • Jovian Lung Mist: airborne gribbly found in the atmosphere of Jupiter. Lungs are basically the ideal place for the critters to live. Infection is quick and fatal: heavy breathing, chest pain, internal bleeding.
  • Martian Red Sand Fleas: Blood-drinking arachnid critters that everyone on Mars knows about and hates. They're pests that ruin crops and hassle animals. Chanari remedies are the best for repelling them second to Earthling clothing and smells and such. Symptoms: fatigue, itching, rashes. Sand fleas aren't fatal but they might kill weakened animals.
  • Space Madness: the cause is unknown but it seems to affect people confined to a rocket or space travel for a prolonged period of time. Space Madness eats away at mental attributes over time and doesn't actually impair the character, it just tracks the progress of Space Madness. Symptoms: headaches, paranoia, rashes, violent behavior. One attribute at zero: paranoia. Two attributes: homicidal urges. Three: suicidal compulsions. Cure: psychotherapy or getting off the rocket and getting your wits together.
  • Venusian Bloat Worm: Larval parasite form of the Jade Winged Bee, an important pollinator. The wasp lays eggs in the orifices of large animals which hatch in three days and burrow into the soft tissues before forming a cyst and hatching. The worms hatch in a week. Symptoms: intense pain, disgust from having worms in you, rash, infection in egg site.



Poisons: Strength+Resolve to fight the poison and medical help can add successes to the patient's attempts to fight off the poison.
  • Brain Slug Juice: Distilled from the Brain Slugs of Venus, the poison is effective against psychics. Venusians like to coat their weapons with the poison before fighting Europans.
  • Death's Head Mushroom: Venusian mushroom, a white shroom with brown mottling that looks like a grinning skull. Eating it causes abdominal pain and internal bleeding. Making a syrup out of boiled mushroom causes all of the wounds inflicted to bleed without clotting and cause muscles to cramp and spasm.
  • Io's Tears: Refined from toxins in the soil of Io. When eaten, the victim is paralyzed and damaged.
  • Jeweled Scorpion Venom: Found on Martian scorpions and prized by assassins for its necrotizing properties. Runs roughshod through the blood stream when injected.
  • Mustard Gas: mostly used by the Nazis and Italians on Mars because the Geneva Conventions don't apply against Martians.
  • Succession: an Ancient Martian poison, rare and deadly and only found in ruins. Odorless, colorless, tasteless and leaves no telltale traces. In actuality, Succession is a deadly nanobot poison that destroys itself when the job is done.
  • Tear Gas.


Armor is simply subtracted from the inflicted damage. Anything that penetrates armor halves the armor reduction. Hardened armor protects against all physical damage that doesn't have Armor Penetrating.

HEALING

So you caught the Space Madness, got kicked around by a bunch of Martian Warriors and fell off a large rock for good measure. Let's get better! As previously mentioned, social damage heals instantly. Without medical attention, recover 1 Attribute point of damage per day of taking it easy. With medical attention, heal 1/2/3 Attribute damage (depending on success level). All damage is healed at the end of an episode. You can never take so much damage that an Attribute is permanently reduced; you might get a Bad Trait but losing a limb won't make your Strength go down for good.



STORY POINTS

Story points have specific uses and using them doesn't lower your max total. Story points are gained for heroic actions, humorous roleplaying, self-sacrifice and overall driving the plot and engaging in the game. You should get 3-4 per 6 hour game session and your pool is totally refreshed at the end of a whole story. You can also add complications to the story to get story points. Example: you may be a rocket pilot but you can claim you've never flown this rocket before. The complications can only affect your character, so you can't force another character's Foe to show up to benefit you. Uses of Story Points:
  • Get a hint or a clue from the GM, not a solution. Don't let the players rely on this.
  • Defy death/bad things from having three Attributes at 0. There's still a price to pay in the form of Bad Traits or recovery time.
  • Increase a roll by +2d6 in a life-or-death situation or when the needs of the plot need the PCs to succeed.
  • Spend 1 point to lower the impact of a roll's failure or turn a failed roll into a minor success, one point per degree of success.
  • Lessen the severity of your wounds during downtime and recovery, recovering half of your lost Attribute points with a story point to realize that the injury wasn't as bad as you thought.
  • Improve reacting to an attack by an enemy to increase your dodge/parry/resistance.
  • Suppress a Bad Trait for one action.
  • Use a Story Point built into a Gadget to use it.
  • Borrow the Skill level of someone telling you to do something to do it exactly as they tell you (with your own Attributes and Traits though).
  • Give a story point to an ally that needs it.
  • Activate a Trait.
  • Bend the plot.


ACTION!

Rocket Age uses the Vortex System which was not developed for this game, just adapted. Originally it was created for Cubicle 7's Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space. What does this mean? Well you might have noticed that physical combat is pretty lethal and the damage system means that when one person has an advantage, they will probably keep that advantage and keep pushing the advantage. Because it was originally developed for Doctor Who, the main purpose of the system is to start with talking and escalate to violence as a last resort. This is best shown by how action and combat goes down.

An Action Round is the amount of time it takes everyone to do something. Action Rounds range between two and ten seconds and is broken down into four phases: Talking, Moving, Doing, Fighting. The GM should set the scenes and sights and sounds and players and make it clear to the players what they're doing. Initiative is calculated by 1d6+the Attribute the character wants to use for their action that round. Each phase takes place in order of presentation.



Talking: Debate, diplomacy, bluffing, using your words. You can tell someone commands for their phase or try to talk enemies out of their actions before the other players open fire.

Moving: Each phase can have a little bit of movement but the Moving round is for when your main action is going to be moving, jumping, running, dodging.

Doing: Anything not covered by the other phases, like repairing a Gadget under fire, treating a wound, picking a lock.

Fighting: Inflicting harm and damage on someone.

Characters can take one action per Action Round with no issue or spread a complex action across multiple phases. When a phase passes, it passes; you can't use a non-combat skill during the Fighting phase. You can also take one free Reaction per round to dodge or parry. Multiple actions can be taken but with a cumulative -2 per action past the first.

Combat goes last to emphasize other courses of action before killing people and solving problems with bullets. Attacking is generally Strength/Coordination+Skill vs. the Defender's Coordination+Skill roll to react. No reaction? It hits. The only defense beyond armor is staying out of the way of the enemy's weapons or aim. Damage depends on the Attacker's result vs. the Defender's.



Range has three increments in meters: close, medium and long. All attacks at medium range are at -2, all attacks at long are -4. You can also attack at extreme range at -6 which is double the long range. Double the ranges in a vacuum, cut them in half if it's higher gravity. Aiming a weapon requires spending the entire Action Round aiming without doing anything else then makes a roll against a DC of 12, giving +2/+4/+6 to the next attack. You can only aim for one round but can fire the aimed shot at any time in the next round.



Chases are contested rolls and you can move equal to their Speed in Areas. Being on foot is way different from being in a rocket. Chases and pursuits are somewhat abstract in their execution; the important thing is trying to catch up or get away. There are rules for doing things during chases but I don't want to split hairs too much. Vehicles work the same was as people but with things like Handling and Sensors acting as their Attributes. Vehicle Attributes limit the relevant Attributes of the drivers, so if it has poo poo handling there's only so much your own Transport skill can provide. Vehicles have Handling, Communications, Sensors and Structure.



Psychic Powers are in a league of their own, barely understood by anyone but the Europans. Most psychic powers are only line of sight and requires Resistance by the target.

Gadgets are only available through purchase and permanently cost Story Points but have their own point pool.

And that's it for the mechanics chapter! This really did take me quite a while to do, it's a bit hard to chew through and digest but it's interesting. I dig the fact that it allows you to be a person of action but there's a place for negotiation and using your words over killing. Your job is to fight to make the solar system a better place and if bloodshed can be avoided and minds can be changed, great! You can save fighting for when words won't work.

NEXT TIME: the GM advice chapter.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Robindaybird posted:

There's a couple other weird projects the US did, like trying to dose Hitler's veggies with estrogen to make him more "womanly" and lose supporters from being too effeminete, and the Gay Bomb.

This tells more about the mindset of the project creators.
The Gay Bomb was more recent, I thought.

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

Nessus posted:

The Gay Bomb was more recent, I thought.

Ah, you're right - but still.


If I recall, the British had an attempt for an Ice Ship to save up on iron, including throwing a prototype block into Chruchill's hot bath to show it won't melt. Then it turns out production was so prohibitively expensive and time consuming to even think about.

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine

Robindaybird posted:

Ah, you're right - but still.


If I recall, the British had an attempt for an Ice Ship to save up on iron, including throwing a prototype block into Chruchill's hot bath to show it won't melt. Then it turns out production was so prohibitively expensive and time consuming to even think about.

It was less prohibitively expensive than it was insufficiently less expensive to bother with compared to just making ships as they already had

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Robindaybird posted:

Ah, you're right - but still.


If I recall, the British had an attempt for an Ice Ship to save up on iron, including throwing a prototype block into Chruchill's hot bath to show it won't melt. Then it turns out production was so prohibitively expensive and time consuming to even think about.

Project Habbakuk and the amazing pycrete

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

LatwPIAT posted:

Which was British... but the US did manage to invent the bat bomb:

"Bat bombs were an experimental World War II weapon developed by the United States. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with over a thousand compartments, each containing a hibernating Mexican Free-tailed Bat with a small timed incendiary bomb attached. Dropped from a bomber at dawn, the casings would deploy a parachute in mid-flight and open to release the bats which would then roost in eaves and attics in a 20-40 mile radius. The incendiaries would start fires in inaccessible places in the largely wood and paper construction of the Japanese cities that were the weapon's intended target."

And the main reason Project X-ray got shelved wasn't that it was impractical (It was) or that they managed to burn down part of an air force base when some armed bats got loose (They did) but because they'd built the A-bomb and had it ready to deploy before the Bat Bomb was ready to roll out.

If I ever run Night's Black Agents/Dracula Dossier it's strongly tempting to have the Vampire Conspiracy respond to too-successful agents poking around the edges of things with incendiary bat bombs. Because of course Dracula wants to burn down your house, he's a jerk.

unseenlibrarian fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Jul 1, 2016

bewilderment
Nov 22, 2007
man what



I know there was at least one plane that got all the way to the test flight stage before people realised it didn't have a way to safely land.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Night10194 posted:

I see someone's never seen the XP55 Ascender.



Admittedly much less insane than most of the wunderwaffen of the war, but that was probably a function of the US itself never actually being under a lot of threat.

Well, the Ascender is a little basic, yeah. But it's cool, because we had the Flying Ram.



The XP-79B here has a silly sounding name, until you realize it's just literal. The Flying Ram had a superhard magnesium leading edge along its wings, and was designed to fly through enemy airplanes, to cut off their wings and tail surfaces. Also the pilot is lying down in there.

I've always wanted to do a weird war game using all the ludicrous theoretical airframes from the end of the war. That german swing-swing design where instead of folding back, the wings just rotate 45 degrees along a central axis, the Triebflugl, the bombers with gunner pods mounted on the wingtips, that asymmetrical Blohm and Voss BV141, there was just so much cool stuff. Maybe mix in a little mysticism with that Nazi secret bell thing and the spear of Longinus, whatever. Just such a great setting. WW2, 1947.

theironjef fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Jul 2, 2016

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

theironjef posted:

Well, the Ascender is a little basic, yeah. But it's cool, because we had the Flying Ram.



The XP-79B here has a silly sounding name, until you realize it's just literal. The Flying Ram had a superhard magnesium leading edge along its wings, and was designed to fly through enemy airplanes, to cut off their wings and tail surfaces. Also the pilot is lying down in there.

:black101:

Need that thing in War Thunder ASAP.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
The Amerikabomber was a German project to build a plane with enough range to attack the continental United States from Germany, and then come back. That's a distance of about 6 400 km. Later, this was revised to being able to attack CONUS from the Azores, reducing the trip to just 4 120 km from there to New York.

In 1944, B-29s already had a range of about 5 600 km with a four-ton bomb load, with some of the farthest strikes being 3 000 km runs from Sri Lanka to Palembang.

By the time the B-36 was operational, it'd have a combat radius of 6 900 km with a five-ton bomb load.

So what I'm saying here is that the US did develop "wunderwaffe", it just usually doesn't get put in the same category because they worked and weren't just secret projects on drawing boards and/or prototypes.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



unseenlibrarian posted:

Congratulations, you just re-invented the premise of Better Angels!
That too. :v:

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

gradenko_2000 posted:

The Amerikabomber was a German project to build a plane with enough range to attack the continental United States from Germany, and then come back. That's a distance of about 6 400 km. Later, this was revised to being able to attack CONUS from the Azores, reducing the trip to just 4 120 km from there to New York.

In 1944, B-29s already had a range of about 5 600 km with a four-ton bomb load, with some of the farthest strikes being 3 000 km runs from Sri Lanka to Palembang.

By the time the B-36 was operational, it'd have a combat radius of 6 900 km with a five-ton bomb load.

So what I'm saying here is that the US did develop "wunderwaffe", it just usually doesn't get put in the same category because they worked and weren't just secret projects on drawing boards and/or prototypes.

Amerikabomber could have been worthwhile if they developed that prior to 1940 instead of trying to build it two years after the Battle of Britain when the Axis nations had started to suffer losses in manpower, resources, and territory. The only reason they authorized it was because Hitler and Goering thought they could put pressure on the U.S. with them, pulling anti-aircraft guns and interceptor planes back to America so they could have an easier time bombing England. The Azores? Really? The only reason they remained neutral was to keep Spain out of the war. I doubt basing bombers there would have kept them neutral for long.

Young Freud fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Jul 2, 2016

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



Hostile V posted:

Yeah the sad thing is that he doesn't even get a good set of powers. I agree that he'd be better as a Tough or even as an Ace actually piloting a tank himself and doing crazy poo poo with it. Instead they make him a Genius, a power set with barely any real use against the players because how exactly is +5 to all Smarts rolls supposed to be executed when you're a Nazi commander and the PCs will never see your (nonexistent) sheet?


It doesn't even give you something new to do on a narrative level! Without powers, he's a brilliant tank commander. With... he's a brilliant tank commander. Dude was treated like a superhuman genius in the press in real life. Actually making him superhuman there just takes away some of the fun failings and weaknesses.

It does, however, allow the writers to keep to the theme of "Anyone important is a Delta." Because nothing makes a world feel real and lived in quite like every historical figure getting laser eyes.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015
I think my favorite part of crazy WWII hijinks were Germany's attempts at designing giant gently caress-off super tanks. Especially that after their first design got axed because it would've turned out to be a big, slow-moving target practice for the Allies that couldn't make use of rail transportation, bridges or even normal roads, they then decided they should attempt to make a tank that was even heavier, with pretty much the same results.

theironjef posted:

So we put an Afterthought episode out on Monday, and it included the listener question of "What's the dumbest thing in RPGs you see people arguing about?" I went with people arguing over fictional characters alignments. Jon went for the jugular and said "people arguing over what HP represents." We both agreed that it's a bullshit argument that no one should care about anymore. It's gone on long enough. The answer depends on the players and the edition, etc. Whatever. So far the comment thread argument about what HP is is the largest bulk of comments we've ever had. Of course.

Seeing how Armor Class, the other most important combat stat, is also very abstract and somewhat non-intuitive ("What? So people have an easier time hitting me when I'm not wearing that plate armor?"), it is fascinating how some grogs can see D&D has some kind of real life simulator.

theironjef posted:

I've always wanted to do a weird war game using all the ludicrous theoretical airframes from the end of the war. That german swing-swing design where instead of folding back, the wings just rotate 45 degrees along a central axis, the Triebflugl, the bombers with gunner pods mounted on the wingtips, that asymmetrical Blohm and Voss BV141, there was just so much cool stuff. Maybe mix in a little mysticism with that Nazi secret bell thing and the spear of Longinus, whatever. Just such a great setting. WW2, 1947.

I think Warbirds could work.

Doresh fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Jul 2, 2016

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Did anyone point out that under Dennis O'Day they call T.E. Lawrence "T.H. Lawrence"?

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Doresh posted:

Seeing how Armor Class, the other most important combat stat, is also very abstract and somewhat non-intuitive ("What? So people have an easier time hitting me when I'm not wearing that plate armor?"), it is fascinating how some grogs can see D&D has some kind of real life simulator.

Arguments over why not taking any damage because your DEX modifier to AC is high is the same as not taking any damage because your plate armor's armor bonus to AC is high, is the worst.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

gradenko_2000 posted:

Arguments over why not taking any damage because your DEX modifier to AC is high is the same as not taking any damage because your plate armor's armor bonus to AC is high, is the worst.

At least there's no argument over by how much the attacker has to fail before it was not the armor that stopped the attack, but an actual dodge. It's obviously the touch AC, right?!

Now figuring out the exact moment your Shield AC bonuses kicked in is another story...

SirPhoebos
Dec 10, 2007

WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!

on the topic of wunderwaffe (and quasi-wunderwaffe) one can't forget the Dambuster that eventually inspired the Star Wars trench run.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


SirPhoebos posted:

on the topic of wunderwaffe (and quasi-wunderwaffe) one can't forget the Dambuster that eventually inspired the Star Wars trench run.

If you watch that bomber movie scene alongside the trench run it goes way beyond homage. I'm like 90% sure someone put a video up on youtube with the star wars audio over the other one.

Speleothing
May 6, 2008

Spare batteries are pretty key.

gradenko_2000 posted:

The Amerikabomber was a German project to build a plane with enough range to attack the continental United States from Germany, and then come back. That's a distance of about 6 400 km. Later, this was revised to being able to attack CONUS from the Azores, reducing the trip to just 4 120 km from there to New York.

By the time the B-36 was operational, it'd have a combat radius of 6 900 km with a five-ton bomb load.

Well, the B-36 was drawn up during the Battle of Britain just in case the Brits got invaded and lost like everyone else in Europe had. It was intended to fly from the east cost, bomb Germany and come back, but then it turned out we didn't need it right away and it got put on the back burner. It and the Amerikabomber were pretty much the same strategic idea.

Comrade Gorbash
Jul 12, 2011

My paper soldiers form a wall, five paces thick and twice as tall.

wdarkk posted:

Lots of people don't count the Manhattan Project (or the B-29, or the B-36) as wonderwaffen when they maybe should.

100% agree. The Manhattan Project in particular is exactly that sort of super weapon bullshit... except ours terrifyingly turned out to be as-advertised.

Young Freud posted:

Project Pluto?

Oh lord the SLAM (Supersonic Low Altitude Missile). Cold Warrior thinking at its worst and best.

I have to explain so people realize just how loving insane this thing was. It's a nuclear powered supersonic, potentially hypersonic, cruise missile. Not nuclear armed (though it is this as well), nuclear powered. It uses a light weight, un-shielded nuclear reactor to apply heat to a ramjet engine. In theory it could fly for months at a time, and supersonic speeds at near treetop height, all the while spewing fission products out its tail pipe.

It was designed to carry multiple nuclear bombs to drop, but that's actually the boring bit. Just the shockwave from its low level flight could cause significant damage, and remember its supposed to be making these passes for days, weeks, months. And when it finally did run out of fuel, the plan was to crash it into a final target at top speed. It wouldn't be a nuclear explosion, but it would gently caress up whatever it hit real bad AND throw all the remaining radioactive waste on board all over the landscape.

They canceled the project because they were scared they'd prompt the Soviets to build their own, and because ICBMs seemed more promising.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Doresh posted:

At least there's no argument over by how much the attacker has to fail before it was not the armor that stopped the attack, but an actual dodge. It's obviously the touch AC, right?!

Now figuring out the exact moment your Shield AC bonuses kicked in is another story...

One of the best rules I encountered in HackMaster 4e was that if you were hit on your AC exactly, that meant the hit went to your shield and you were supposed to apply the game's item integrity/destruction rules against the shield with the damage dealt.

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN
http://www.somethingawful.com/news/my-tank-fight/

Zack Parsons wrote a bunch of articles and a book about the Wunderwaffen.

quote:

Rocket Age uses the Vortex System which was not developed for this game, just adapted. Originally it was created for Cubicle 7's Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space. What does this mean?

It means both games benefit? The Doctor gets a cool new setting to adventure in and Rocket Age can benefit from the best Cryptic Godlike NPC Mentor? And you can do Spitfires in space?

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HirwnpeugNM

Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Jul 3, 2016

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.
As my Mother's moving out of her house and I need to take back all those big carboard boxes full of books I didn't use I'd stashed there, I find myself surprised at all the stuff I bought and never played. Ah, the halcyon days when I had a job and could spend money so freely.

One of them is a western RPG called Aces and Eights. A quick scan shows it to be a weird mess with lots of random parts in characters creation and advancement (something I've come to strongly hate) and an alternate history where the South won (although unlike Deadlands they're still slavers and their economy is poo poo). I'm curious if anyone ever ran the drat thing or if there ever was a deeper look at it. Seems like something that would fit in a System Mastery episode.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



MonsieurChoc posted:

As my Mother's moving out of her house and I need to take back all those big carboard boxes full of books I didn't use I'd stashed there, I find myself surprised at all the stuff I bought and never played. Ah, the halcyon days when I had a job and could spend money so freely.

One of them is a western RPG called Aces and Eights. A quick scan shows it to be a weird mess with lots of random parts in characters creation and advancement (something I've come to strongly hate) and an alternate history where the South won (although unlike Deadlands they're still slavers and their economy is poo poo). I'm curious if anyone ever ran the drat thing or if there ever was a deeper look at it. Seems like something that would fit in a System Mastery episode.
I'm pretty sure i was made by the same guys who made HackMaster and for the same reasons. (It appearing in the Knights of the Dinner Table comic series.)

Tendales
Mar 9, 2012
I tried it a little bit, but we never got past the 'roll up characters and have a bar fight' stage.
Things I remember:
It's like those old RPGs where random chargen can cripple or kill you before you even play, but instead of killing YOU you're rolling to see how many of your siblings died of syphilis.

The combat system is agonizingly granular. Like, I think it's broken down to tenths of a second, and you track movement separately from attacking.

To shoot something, you lay down a clear plastic sheet with a targeting reticle on it over a paper with a silhouette that matches your target as much as possible, then draw a card and roll a die to see where the shot actually goes. If the shot lands on the silhouette, you hit. Cover can be represented by slapping a barrel or a wall or something over the silhouette. Hit the barrel, then yay cover helped. This is super janky in practice, and there's not NEARLY enough silhouettes for realistic play. On the other hand, it makes me think the system could be designed around an app. Choose a silhouette from a list, drag cover onto it, have the app scale the silhouette size based on distance, and touch the screen where you're trying to shoot.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
Yup, HackMaster 5th Edition used a bunch of stuff from Aces & Eights, notably the combat.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
Am I misremembering or doesn't Aces & Eights have detailed subsystems for things like standing trial, I seem to recall a writeup where there was an example of someone's character being put on trial for some crimes and there was like an actual Old Timey Western Courtroom minigame.

Vox Valentine
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

"I got a natural 20."
"Uhhh...let's see. Governor's pardon and a monetary compensation for trouble."
"gently caress yeah, that's Bragging Spurs money."

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Imagine if Boot Hill had caught on and D&D hadn't.

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Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
Yep, turns out I was right.

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