Land Tax Issues, Uranium, Gaming, Evil Awards

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Green Left Weekly published my letter on the land tax cuts for the rich. Meanwhile housing affordability hits a new low. Compare land and house prices and housing affordability (links via erudito). An international phenomenon Slums Growing Around The World.

I will be presenting on all these issues on Wednesday June 28th at 6.30pm at the Hume Global Learning Centre, 1093 Pascoe Vale Rd at a forum entitled "Please Explain Mr. Brumby"; please come along.

Martin Ferguson spoke at the Unitarians last Sunday on the global energy debate; possibly presented the best arguments for expansion in uranium exports I have heard - and was steadfast in his opposition to it in Australia. This follows a presentation by Jim Green (who has a rather different opinion) on the same issue.

Ended up continuing to play GURPS Australian Noir, rather than the Retro AD&D game which I set up to balance the numbers. Meanwhile droog64's Arthurian HeroQuest game just gets better and more devious. Next Sunday is my Paranoia/Cyberpunk crossover alongside Middle-Earth Role Playing. Have noticed that Mongoose are getting seriously canned on the various RuneQuest mailing lists. On topic, scored big time at the local opportunity shop last weekend; someone had donated their roleplaying collection. Several Kult supplements, three copies of Empire of the Petal Throne (a roleplaying game designed by a Muslim convert and professor of linguistics), Atlantis, and some D&D supplements.

Two awards of evil this week. One to korgmeister who believes that Australia's indigenous people lost to the British and they should just put up with it, stop whining and appealing to pity. Number two to Japan for leading the charge to declare the IWC moratorium on whaling invalid.

Comments

[cardinal-sodom.livejournal.com]

They must have completely rewritten it since the edition I have was published. "Clean" and "easy" are hardly adjectives I would apply to it. "For beginners" is possible if the phrase "because they don't know any better" is added.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The core mechanic is just roll d100, add your bonus, subtract the negatives and look up the result.

What's the hard part?

[cardinal-sodom.livejournal.com]

The fact that everything is determined by their bizarre tables rather than a much cleaner success and damage roll system makes it cumbersome and not nearly as playable as better systems. Even d20 is a cleaner, esier system.

It also uses a class/level system (unrelated). This may be easy, but it leaves much to be desired in terms of character development.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ahh, see I always thought the "bizarre tables" were cleaner than seperate "to hit" and "to damage" rolls. The situation where (in D&D) you hit by six or seven points and then roll a 1 for damage never occurs in MERP. A good hit is a good hit!

As for the class level system, it must be acknowledged this in no way prohibits development in any skill area; it just means (for example) learning magic is harder for a fighter. In D&D it is prohibited.

Levels are just a means of graduated equilibrium. Even level-less systems (like RuneQuest) are graduated by scenario.

All this said, I started playing MERP after playing 1st ed Rolemaster for a few years... So I guess MERP intuitively seemed easy to me!

[cardinal-sodom.livejournal.com]

Point taken on the "good hit/craptacular damage" part, but I still prefer splitting it. It seems more realistic, especially with guns, and even more so with critical hits (real criticals, not the MERP "almost every hit is some form of critical" thing) and fumbles.

A D&D 3E fighter can learn magic very easily -- once he gains a level, he can multiclass into a spellcasting class. I was soured on the class system in general when I first picked up GURPS. I prefer the flexibility.

I also greatly prefer designed characters over randomly-rolled ones. The problem of one character potentially being a superman while his (supposedly) equally-powerful partner is Melvin Ferg (before the toxic waste swim) always annoyed me when I was a D&D player. It also leads some players to fudge their rolls or simply roll up 50 characters before they get a decent stat block.

Being a Rolemaster (not to be confused with the Georgia Pacific "Rollmastr" toilet paper dispenser) player would explain why you can tolerate MERP. I've used it as a punishment for players who annoyed me.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

A D&D 3E fighter can learn magic very easily -- once he gains a level, he can multiclass into a spellcasting class.

Very true; D&D 3E was a great improvement in that regard.

I was soured on the class system in general when I first picked up GURPS. I prefer the flexibility.

Again true. Of course, I had experienced classless systems a long time prior to GURPS. RQ really set the path in this regard.

I also greatly prefer designed characters over randomly-rolled ones.

I'm actually pretty neutral about this; random-generation often seems faster for inexperienced players I've noticed. The exception of course is HeroQuest where you can literally make it up as you play.

[cardinal-sodom.livejournal.com]

1st and 2ne edition D&D Fighters could also (if human) dual-class (not to be confused with nonhumans' multi-class option) into a spellcasting class. It was usually more trouble than it was worth, but if enough effort was applied it could result in a very powerful character.

GURPS recently (in the last five years or so) introduced a "template" system that lets beginners (or overworked GMs) take a basic character and modify it for the specific situation. Since templates are more or less compatible (some minor tweaking has to take place if combining templates) a basic character can be assembled in minutes.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yeah, AD&D dual-class options sucked. Really bad.

I've heard about the GURPS template systems and have heard good things about them. A little overdue, imo!

Actually RQ III would have done well if it had a templates book as well. Character generation was great, but damn it took ages!

[cardinal-sodom.livejournal.com]

The template system is very nice. Designing a generic orc fighter consists of combining the "Orc" and "fighter" (depending on just what kind of fighter, you would obviously choose between a half dozen appropriate ones like "Archer" or "Heavy Footman") templates. Clean up overlapping traits, and your character is complete.

I (and I assume most other GMs) have been doing it that way for years, but they finally formalized it in two template books and templates included in most of the newer sourcebooks.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Presumably however the templates are sufficiently minimal to allow the standard starting point cost for race plus profession plus some player choice?

[cardinal-sodom.livejournal.com]

Racial template costs vary widely. Kobolds (not the D&D version, more like borderline retarded humans) and a few other races have a negative cost, and others are over 100 points. The occupational templates from Warriors are mostly 75 points, since they were mostly designed for 100 point campaigns.

Occupational templates usually have an interactive format that allows the player to choose from a list of options (usually # points chosen from a short list) for each category. They're pretty well-designed overall.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Do I have you on my RPG design list? If not send me an email. You should be there. You know this stuff.