   Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 23:51:15 -0400 (EDT)
   From: Motatumbo@aol.com
Subject: [gworld] Terminology Article

Hi all,
If you're interested in getting the Dragon article on terminology from me,
e-mail me your address and I'll get it out in the mail to you as soon as I
can. I have neither scanner or any other way to get it to you via e-mail (I
am obviously not an Examiner) and must use snail mail. But, thanks to the
wonderful people I work for, photocopying will not cost a thing (I've finally
found a use for my bosses) and depending on response, neither will postage.
As well, if anyone has past Dragon articles, I am definately interested in
obtaining the ones I dont have in exchange for ones that you may not have.
Regards,
Matt
Motatumbo@aol.com

p.s. Bob, thanks for the copies

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   Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 23:39:21 -0400 (EDT)
   From: Motatumbo@aol.com
Subject: Re: [gworld] Espers, a new concept...

In a message dated 97-06-04 17:42:37 EDT, you write:

>I believe (IMHO) that the character with the lowest chance of survival
>is an Examiner who does not aquire a tech V weapon to start off with. If
>anyone needs party protection in the first level it is the examiner.
>Only AFTER the battle does he show his worth. (ie: deciphering
>instruction manuals, repairing broken artifacts, or figuring out the
>artifacts.) All of these skills only benifit the party AFTER someone
>else is killed and their weapons or items are found. In the event he is
>killed before any higher tech weapons are found, he has been completely
>worthless. Now once he aquires a decent weapon he becomes a formitable
>ally; but then again any party member with a good weapon would be.
>
>

I agree that the Examiner, or for that matter the Esper, are very formidable
depending on mutations and toys.  But, if everyone has the combat ability of
an Enforcer, whats the muscle-head good for? The Examiner's prime job is not
to be a frontline combat machine (or Esper for that matter, depending on
mutations and background etc.) but to decipher artifacts and tell the rest of
the party why they may have only a few minutes to live when strange things
start happening around them in that installation.  I'll tell you one thing,
if I was one of the other classes, I'd be very protective of the guy that can
tell me what my new toys do.

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   Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 23:32:13 -0400 (EDT)
   From: Motatumbo@aol.com
Subject: Re: [gworld] New GW site: Impressions of GW over time...

In a message dated 97-06-04 17:35:48 EDT, you write:

> but since I can't find anyone
>around here willing to play, it's all academic, anyway

Tell me about it.  Except for the occasional one nighter, where it tends to
be a wild and wahoo kind of thing as a filler, I have no luck convincing
anyone to play a worthwhile GW campaign. So, for those of you with a GW
group, count your blessing and I hate you :)
Matt

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  Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 08:41:39 -0400 (EDT)
   From: TimC27@aol.com
Subject: Re: [gworld] Espers, a new concept...

In a message dated 97-06-04 13:47:19 EDT, you write:

>
>  I believe (IMHO) that the character with the lowest chance of survival
>  is an Examiner who does not aquire a tech V weapon to start off with. If
>  anyone needs party protection in the first level it is the examiner.
>  Only AFTER the battle does he show his worth. (ie: deciphering
>  instruction manuals, repairing broken artifacts, or figuring out the
>  artifacts.) All of these skills only benifit the party AFTER someone
>  else is killed and their weapons or items are found. In the event he is
>  killed before any higher tech weapons are found, he has been completely
>  worthless. Now once he aquires a decent weapon he becomes a formitable
>  ally; but then again any party member with a good weapon would be.

This is all assuming that your game is totally centered on melees.  There is
a lot more to the game than slicing through the next enemy.

Of course all characters are supposed to be fighters.  They may be the thing
most worth protecting, the most significant figure in the game, and have far
more to do more of the time than the next slugfest.

Tim

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   Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 08:41:38 -0400 (EDT)
   From: TimC27@aol.com
Subject: Re: [gworld] hit point thing.

If I were to start out GM-ing any RPG, I would make sure that a dagger could
kill as assuredly as laser beam.

Lasers just do it to the nth degree.  I have long advocated abandoning the
idea of 'hit points' equalling your body's ability to suffer damage.  Let
that be your constitution.  The remaining points are 'defense points', luck
points, whatever.  The point is that if you don't have your guard up, a knife
toss can pretty much take you out.

How about this....

An unguarded-against hit with a dagger might take 1-4 points of damage
against a character with a 15 CON score who has an average HP total of  45
(15 X 3).  Say the injury is 3 con points, then multiply it by the average
dice score of 3, and suddenly you are talking about some real damage.... 9
points, with the added deficit of subtracting 3 from the base con score,
lowering resistance to poisons, radiation, etc.

Make recovery of actual con points take 3 days for the first third, 6 days
for the second third, and 9 days for characters whose CON scores drop that
low

Thus, if our CON 15 character drops to 2 CON points he has a lengthy recovery
in store ([3X5=15 days] + [6X5=30 days] + [3X9=18 days] = 63 days or about 2
months.).  If he goes into minuses, give him an added bonus of 3 months to
recover, barring some mutational healing or artifact.

If the character is in an active melee, then treat the hit points as normally
done, except when a characters hit points are lowered to a score equal to or
below his CON score, then he is taking hits on his actual CON as above.

This is just a quick summation I am thinking up as I peck on the keyboard,
but what do you think?

, and you have yourself a system that makes far more sense than treating a
well thrown dagger with impugnity.
