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Mmm, there is a certain degree of that...which is a shame because CK and EU3 both allow countries like France and Britain to explode into little factions (Britain not so much in EU3) if the country is doing absolutely terribly. America, for sure, is a pain in the neck for not splitting up into its individual states...Almost no matter what happens it will not seperate (and if it does the Union is way too overpowered anyway) Germany can easily schism if you start losing wars, as can Austria and Italy. And Vic2 does allow for changing political parties, political systems, ect...But Communist Britain can still found the BBC, still create Scotland yard...ect...so yeah, there is a limited amount of mallablity...But there isn't really a way to get around that, unless you are editing the game files =P

On an entirely unrelated topic, finished my first Victoria 2 A House Divided Playthrough: [hide] [/hide] Its quite easy to see that AHD creates a much less stable social order in some countries (notably France which just had revolution after revolution) but does nothing to break up their empire (and so you effectively have a deadweight country because it controls most of Africa, which will revolt every half year, so large scale occupation is neigh impossible, which means you end up stalling at 60% warscore). On the other hand, countries like Austria-Hungery generate the total break down of the social order AND the break up of their empire, so halfway through the 'make puppet' war, Eastern Austria broke away and joined me (peicemeal fashion)...which was nice...but lead to a dozen more revolts, eventually making the war unwinnable. So peaced out, taking almost 200 prestige for failure to complete wargoals, Austria ceeded, and over the next five years they cycled aimlessly through political systems because their capital took too long to occupy. Also Germany being the same colour as the rebels....was not impressed by that. I was, however, impressed, by some dynamic renaming...So Austria became the Confederation of Danubia at one point. The British Empire became the Worker's Commonwealth, The Ottoman Empire became the Republic of Instanbul...Its quite nice to not only see the flag change, but to see the name change =P. Though I have to say that France didn't change its name much.... One of the majorly annoying things is the obsession with navies...France, after having been puppeted by me, refused to build an army (despite constantly being in a state of revolt) until it had built 200 ships, then it raised 6,000 troops and did nothing else. Spain, similarly, was conquered back in 1840ish, and maintained a tiny army from then on. Definately the AI finds it easier to bankrupt countries...It says quite a lot when countries basically die part way through the game (like Spain, France, CSA) simply because they borrowed too much trying to fight a war/industrialise/ect, and then never pose a credible threat again. The CSA was an interesting case...Initially they were doing terrible, I ally with them, the USA carries on, France and Austria declare war on me while my army is in transit. I land in the CSA(Which has the best possible starting hand, they even have Texas) and they are getting smashed, haven't mobilised, but the USA has, so they have no real chance. I land, they suddenly mobilise and send the fresh troops into battle, so my first action is wasting most of my strength on this silly 'Please don't die off' campagin, and have to draw off troops from Europe to assist with that. Meanwhile Austria and France have fully mobilised, Russia has come to my assistance, but is worthless (and Austria ignores it), so I am mostly trying to survive long enough to bring my troops back. Then Switzerland and Belgium suddenly raise these large stacks and suddenly there is a chance of victory. Meanwhile in America the German-Augemented CSA troops manage to defeat the USA. After five years they declare war on America (lose horribly) and it is only through direct intervention they are not wiped out then and there. For my trouble, given that my Infamy is already near max, I get to free Liberia, while the CSA takes Maryland. Anyway, CSA becomes a Great Power, forms an Alliance with Canada, Canada attacks the USA, and then white peaces, the USA adds 'Annex CSA' so the CSA is forced to stay in the war and I can't intervene. Fortunately I get a humilate USA event and, once again, charge to the CSA's rescue. Thinking to anhilate the USA I then justify 'free people' of the CSA, Washington DC....This has no real effect, other than to relocate the US capital to Sitka. But the war is long, the USA and CSA's armies are virtually wiped out, its mostly German troops occupying American cities, while the rebels of both countries dominate...By this point I am sick of saving the CSA and so I begin massing transports for evac. Peace breaks out, the USA loses Washington and is humilated, and looks like it is gonna get taken over by a revolt, and there is...New England breaks off, and then, of course the USA then pulls another army out of the ether and survives the reactionary/communist rebels. I head to New England because its a safe evac point...No, Canada decides to invade it, and I go to protect it. The Canadians are FAR better fighters than the USA and so my 130,000 troops take alot of casualties, but suceed. Meanwhile the CSA has gone Communist, then bankrupt (Or visa versa), so allyless and peniless, they then attack the USA to humiliate them...and are, of course, annexed. I mean COME ON, the CSA has no chance of long term victory! They can't annex the USA, they can't even remove the no Infamy War Goal that the USA pulls EVERYTIME they get into a war...They just fight and fight and fight until they get annexed at any point over the next 50 years. So with America abandoned, I look closer to home and find I am still at war with France and Austria. Switzerland and Belgium have added war demands, and I feel like I should honour them...88 if I negotiate with the French, 108 if I negotiate with the Austrians...So I have to trek across Africa, India and Bruni to get up to the 85% (from 61) to successfully force France to give up....TAKES 8 YEARS AFTER FRANCE HAS ACTUALLY FALLEN! As I said earlier, rebels EVERYWHERE. After that France enters a downwards spiral, while Austria eventually becomes world number 2. France changes government every other year, then every year...and eventually their economy is so shot that I am capable of stealing more territory, then fighting another war to puppet them. During the first war my fleet of 20 Dreadnoughts 70 Cruisers and 32 transports is defeated by France's 73 Cruisers...In the following engagement by 92 Dreadnoughts and 184 Crusiers make short work of their fleet...But still...the principle! Austria, on the other hand, stays united until I attack, then, the moment it's armies die, revolts everywhere and Italy (my nominal ally) invades it independantly. The resulting mess prevents anyone from achieving their goals and eventually I peace out. Then Italy peaces out for no reason...I reload and...no...Italy stays in...So reload, peace out, Italy follows directly after, I roll my eyes, amass my forces, and then Austria collapses. My final point is on the endgame...From 1900ish I had +25.00 Infamy...I ended the game at almost 70. Does anyone launch containment? NO! The USA is the only country with the sheer capability to attack and it sits there, building a massive industry (twice the size of mine, but they still are 1,000 points behind on overal score...200something dreadnoughts make for +4,000 military points...and they only really cost anything during war...I think a 2 year war costs 5 million, taxes set to normal and such, which I can make in 4 years of peace with the same sliders) Its good on some levels, bad on others. In short, the game is more like EU3, while keeping the economic attitudes of Victoria 2...Which makes for a game that is both easy to lose and hard to win, a fact inverted when the computer makes simple mistakes and loses entirely...leaving you to try to fix the situation...all the while the USA just sits there building factories without a care about bankruptcy or the threat of revolt...

Square Tip...Interesting...Consult a medical professional? Surrendering yourself is always symbolic of something...Even if all that is is that you place a higher premium on the lives of others (Specifically the lives of those who are higher up the chain of command) than you do on your own life. The cat doesn't really need to represent anything at all, it is just another example of 'Its life is more important than mine' rational. Another interpretation would be that it is your brain's way of trying to tell you that you do things that have no rational explaination, but simply do them because you do them. You could then read into 'You brain is showing you these things so you can identify them and then move on to a more rational responce' or 'You brain is showing you these things because it is how your mind words and there is nothing you can do to change it.' You can then draw all sorts of other inferences which would be a waste of time for me to explain, given that your brain is only as capable as you are (Not entirely true), me talking about the highly abstracted versions of reality, theory and all that jazz that goes on in my brain, and figures in how I understand the world, wouldn't be amazingly helpful unless you also thought in the same highly abstracted way. In my experiance few people do think in abstractive ways for more than a short while at a time...largely because abstraction is rarely very helpful, except when you are looking at systemic analysis...and I am going off on a massive speech that is unnecessary. Ultimately it doesn't matter what I say because dream analysis doesn't give you definative answers...It could just have easily been that while you were browsing the internet you saw something that registered on a very minor level, which was being processed while you were sleeping, and that span out a series of consequental dream sequences... Vaguely like when I am creating a new area in Crossroads/Space/whatever, it is rarely well thoughtout, but much rather dependant on something I saw or did earlier. However I will nominally weave several aspects together with no one factor being massively noticable and I would assume that the human brain (I know my brain does because I have done days of dream analysis, combined with life analysis) is not entirely different from person to person (Though my sample of one person is hardly conclusive). But, ultimately, in the words of Samual Clements "The Best Person to Write Your Story is You". What I/Anyone-else can do is give you possible guesses based on what those dreams might mean if we dreamed them. (Personally I was just being silly, to my mind dream analysis rarely yields tangible results, and when it does it is usually from the 'What the hell did that mean' rather than the dream itself. Not to dismiss the field completely though...."Even a Blind Squirrel Finds Nuts Sometimes".) So yeah, try thinking about it, coming to whatever conclusions you can come to, file them under F for Forgetaboutit.

Archi's dream analysis. Bolded for Sublimation. Italics for inference. Summery: Subject needs to spend less time in the Tavern and lacks companionship, and a true moral paradigm. Recommendations: Subject needs to reassess moral priorities and buy a cat.

Or ? Both are technically 'Van Dyck' beards.

It kinda is. The Tavern simply does not have the will power to play the same game over and over, and doesn't have the creativity to reinvent playstyles. So innevitably Hegemony isn't viable.

CENSOR EVASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSION :rolleyes: On a more serious note I have it on good authority that avoiding the censor is MASSIVELY against the rules, so it may be a good idea not to use it anyway.

Unfortunately, due to wanting to collect Spain as well, I was almost 2 years late for my target of Continental Germany by 1886. However, it was completed: [hide] [/hide] After the war of Unification (1840) and the war of French Reconquerment (1848)(They wanted Elsass-Lothringen back, so I took Normandy and Picard) France restored the House of Bourbon to their throne under the auspious gaze of German Imperialists. However in 1884 the House of Bourbon was deposed and Germany felt that France could no longer be trusted to look after its own affairs. Russia, Spain and Brazil(of course) tried to check German Imperialism, but it was to no avail as Russia was fighting Austria at the time, and by the time their war had ended France had been subdued and Germany was ready turn on them. Brazil played no major role in the war. While Spain earned the wrath of Germany by interfering during the Battle of Limoges, and, though they only played a small part, were also deemed unfit for self governance. The majority of the war was fought within the first year, with a triple encirclement tactic employed by von Molke, which saw the German armies facing the French Armies in Nacey (53,000 German Guards to 98,000 French Peasants), Dijon (36,000 German Guards to 60,000 French Infantry) and Chateauroux (23,000 German Hussars to 40,000 French Peasants). With some assistance from a roving band of 30,000 German Guards the French army was smashed, allowing the long process of occupation to begin and the Russian Menace to be destroyed. :thumbup:

To be fair, spam only begets more spam, and threads like Last Post to Win just forge senses of 'Its ok to spam because other people spam'. You could also argue that Last Post to Win is a lot of Falador Tavern...Group of people who think they are entitled to bypass certain rules by virtue of not being 'adequately' modded in the past, or who close ranks when the Admin/Mod try to 'reason' with them. Really, if you focus is on law and order, it is better to spread spam out amongst the whole forum...Because the Admin/Mod team is large enough to fight that, but a single thread with dedicated posters, and more importantly, the idea of a unified thread FOR posters...that is something the Admin/Mod team are very ill-equiped to handle.

To me...1930s would be difficult at the best of times, and the lack of a concrete system would make it worse. I mean imagine how the game would work...Say myself, Wyvern and Mather were on...Wyvern goes off to see if he can murder his don to get ahead, I go off to see if I can use my two henchmen to rob a bank, and Mather decides he is gonna off that person who, three sessions ago, wouldn't give him a gun. Wyvern's needs: Needs a Mafia Don's hideout, complete with guards, as well as any of Wyvern's Henchmen. Also needs some benefit of taking over the Mafia. My needs: Needs to know where I am, where two Henchmen are, where the Bank Security Guards are, where the money is, how far away are the police, any alarm systems. Mather's needs: Need to remember who 'that guy that sitched me up' is, where he is, what cars Mather has access to, what guns he has access to, if he has henchmen, where the police are. Ect. Thats just for three people, if you have a bunch more people playing MMORPG-style then soon you are overloaded and the game falls apart. With Space and Dungeoneering people were, more or less, confined to the ship or didn't really have BIG targets to go after so it was ok to make it up as you go along. If you stick it in the modern day then you either need a system, or you need to keep people together...Or you are stuffed. Hence why I suggested the future, where if you blow up a building (as the Tavern frequently do) it doesn't end the game...Also why myself and Wyvern suggested systems, rather than ad-hoc gameplay.

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Mmmm, I use a headset at home (a wireless one) because they are considerably better....But headsets are a pain in the neck to use when you are out and about. And it is actually surprisingly hard to get headphones in this town...you can either buy headsets or excessively cheap headphones...but the interrim part, the brandname cheap headphones seem to be nowhere in sight... :thumbdown: As to Wargame:EE From what I hear the game is...too realistic. Tanks run out of petrol (By some accounts way too early) You can't see the rest of the battlefield unless your tank is actually within line of sight (Which is to say firing range, so 9 times out of 10 you see the enemy tank just before it blows you up) If you make a mistake at any point your game gets a hell of a lot harder (Where as if you ambush the enemy really well, they just have more tanks/such) There are literally hundreds of units, so its not like you can build a spearhead of 4 Sherman(Not the name they use, but I like it) Tanks and they all move at approximately the same speed...Instead you have maybe 2 Shermans, a Firefly and some other tank, which all move at different speeds and usually just blow up when you wander into the computer's ambush. The battlemaps seem rather sterile at this point as well, mostly flatland....everywhere...No cityscapes or mountain ranges. No planes(You get helicopters but mostly for recon, so don't expect to lead air charges), and Infantry are semi-overpowered (By sheer weight of numbers). Artillery, though powerful, is excessively vunerable and lacks ammo (Which is good and bad. It means you can blow up the enemy if they are caught with their trousers down...but more often than not it means that your hard won unit is blown up before it gets to its firing position...or it runs out of ammo so...) Anti-Air weapons are too accurate, Anti-Tank weapons are not accurate at all. In short, lots of little issues which are inherant to all games, from Grand Strategy to Tactical Combat...basically you need to work out how to play it, then it is fun, though occassionally you make mistakes and everything goes to hell in a handbasket and you rage quit. So....Not really a breath of fresh air...but synergy of two imperfect game types. ---review ends---- Reminds me a lot of playing MoW:AS, having the enemy tank coming round the side of a building, you have set the speed to 1(slowest), got your bazooka ready....And you click....and nothing happens...you click again...nothing...The tank clicks and your whole squad is blown away, while the tank proceeds to slaughter your army at a distance...You get angry and quit the game, come back after a few hours and vow to build better defences...you build them, they prove inadequate and the 1 medium tank the enemy sends destroys two heavy tanks you have salvaged, your heavy artillary and one of your AT guns....Meanwhile your ultra heavy tank has been destroyed by a lucky shot by a single AT gun after you shot at it twice. Eventually you decide to just go with all infantry and the whole thing repeats =P On another unrelated note:

Sigh...If I ever say I need new headphones remind me that buying cheap headphones is ALMOST as annoying as having ones that don't work...One side cuts out every time I make any sort of movement....Its rather annoying.

I like the shadowrun game system, though unless Ico has been Roleplaying without us, you would have to be our on hand expert.

Ok, my approach would be thus: (Mostly because playing a series of crime lords requires a system that is massive in scope, or you very quickly assassinate person X, Y and Z and win the game) The future (2170) is not all that pretty. Global Warming was never tackled and, as a result, climate change (And man needing more food) has destroyed a large part of the world's ecosystem...and still was starvation, still they have smoke and fire factories belching forth every minute of every day. Economic ties grew stronger across the world as America shattered into seperate states, the industrialised northwest becoming hegemon on the contient. Gradually, after 2050, there were moves towards a World Government. The resulting organisation finally looked like it had the ability to cut competition and maybe reverse the economic collapse...But instead it just tried to hold onto everything and soon archologies were springing up around major cities while smoke and fire continued, its production orders spurred by the construction...Greater the Irony. To pay for these great works the Government cut public spending in all ways, reducing its presence until, eventually, it had less than a dozen police and fire stations serving populations approaching 100 million. Of course society didn't collapse, instead Industrial Giants moved into the power vaccum and dominated certain quarters of the town where their workers lived. The World Government signed laws after the fact to make this legal and retreated to gated communities, small enclaves within each Archology. And gradually, though the World Senate still exists, each Senator no longer stands for election, but choses his or her replacement. Forges and the Inner Sanctums are well represented, often the chief law enforcement offical or Chairman (Himself usually more concerned with security than profits) is the Senator, each of them running private armies to keep law and order in their own enclave. Of course they don't run the whole operation themselves, often they have a set of trusted agents, known universally as Lord Quistors, who themselves has a set of trusted agents known simply as Quistors, and below them are the rank and file, the Jusiciars. This structure, known as the Inquisition, or the Senate (by the charitable) represents the major source of power on Earth. Conflict between Senators is not unheard of, indeed their have been numerous wars between Archologies, some of which have used atomic weapons. These attacks have been futile against the advanced shields of many of the Archologies, but have spread radiation into the ecosystem, further destroying the planet. Conventional warfare, though, has its downsides as well. Very rarely could an army hope to actually enter another Archology, though a few have changed hands over the years. Instead the prefered course of action is small scale, assassination or otherwise. The greater threat lies in scum of Archologies though, and the outlanders, semi-mysterious mutants who survive beyond the Archologies. But what of the unemployed, the poor and the sick? What Giant took care of them? The answer, of course, is everyone else. Beyond the law of the Inner Sanctums, beyond the semi-law of the Forges, there are the vast Hives of Humanity. Here, amongst the scum and the infirm gangs vie for power. --------------Important bit----------------- And this is where you find yourself. Some of you will have come from this land, others will have come from elsewhere, but you are all under the authority of [senator's name here] charged with carrying out his orders. Character creation: You choose a Homeland from four options. You choose a Class from five options. You spend 400 XP on character development. You spend a set amount of money (Homeworld Money + Class Money) on additonal equipment. Homelands [hide] Forge [hide] Forge worlds are the beating iron heart of the Senate and the sovereign domains of the Corporation that owns it. They are given over to the demands of vast industrialisation and eternally hungry for new resources to consume. A forge’s wheels never cease to turn and day-in-day-out for decades, the reactors blaze and the foundries thunder, turning out refined materials and high technology to meet the Senate’s unending needs. A forge world is also far more than the sum of its archologyspanning industrial core; each is blessed with a higher level of technological advancement than the wider world as a whole, and many strange wonders are common currency in their baroque labyrinths of ferrocrete and steel. Forge's are not environments that reward, let alone tolerate, weakness in body or in mind. To have survived and prospered enough to leave a forge world’s rigid society, your character must possess a great deal of drive, ambition and good fortune, or at the very least be bloody-minded and ruthless enough to have endured. You find yourself in a wider Earth society that is at once familiar and strangely alien to you, where fools baulk in superstition at technology without understanding its spiritual mysteries and purity of essence. Nor do they seem to understand mankind’s survival demands power and, power is knowledge incarnate. Forge World Skills Common Lore (Tech) (Int) and Common Lore (Machinery) (Int) are Basic Skills for you. Forge World Traits Fit For Purpose A forge's inhabitant is repeatedly tested, channelled and trained from birth for their chosen station and role in life. Weakness is not tolerated and failure met with painful incentives to do better. Even those who follow a rogue’s path must strive to be better than their peers to survive. Effect: Increase any chosen characteristic by +3. Stranger to the Cult Although forge born citizens know that the Senate is their ultimate master, they see the Declaration of Man through the lens of Corporate doctrine. As a result, they can be surprisingly—and sometimes dangerously—ignorant of the common teachings and practices of the Ecclesiarchy, often failing to offer its clerics the level of deference they expect. Effect: Forge world characters take a –10 penalty on Tests involving knowledge of the Declaration of Man, and a –5 penalty on Fellowship Tests to interact with members of the Ecclesiarchy in formal settings. Credo Officinas Rather than being fully indoctrinated into the Doctine of Man, even the lowliest member of a forge's society is brought up to venerate the spirits of the machine and to know and trust the basic rites of tech-propitiation. Effect: You gain the Technical Knock talent. Starting Wounds Forge world characters start with d5+7 Wounds. Fate Points Roll 1d10 to determine your starting Fate Points. On a 1–5, you begin with 1 Fate Point; on a 6–9, you begin with 2 Fate Points; on a 10, you begin with 3 Fate Points. [/hide] Sanctum [hide] A bewildering variety of societies are known to the Senate. From hyper-technological democratic societies to drudging medieval feudal law, all to the particular bent of their lord high master, the Senator. Agri-communes, for instance, are little more than vast farms, producing food for the good of the Senate. Similarly, Geosects produce ore and raw mineral for use in the vast factories of the hives. Cardinal worlds are ruled by the Sacristans and are given over entirely to the mysterious Ecclesiarchy. Stranger still are the garden worlds, which serve as havens for the rich. Paradise, however, comes at a price, for temptation and heresy may be rife in these places. Some enclaves are utterly remote, having had no contact with the rest of humanity for any number of reasons. As a result, cultural and societal diversity is to be expected from enclave to enclave, sometimes even within the same Archology. To have broken away from the dogmatic constraints of Enclave life, your character must either be of exceptional spirit or have real potential. Perhaps you are an adventurer or soldier, or a true believer beginning a long pilgrimage to prove your faith; maybe you are a mercenary, brought in to defend a enclave during wartime. You have undoubtedly seen conflict, madness or perhaps even heresy, and now, for whatever reason, you are embarking into the unknown in the name of the Senate. Blessed Ignorance Sanctum citizens know that the proper ways of living are those that are tried and tested by the generations that have gone before. Horror, pain and death are the just rewards of curiosity, for those that look too deeply into the mysteries of the universe are all too likely to find malefic beings looking back at them. Penalty: Your wise blindness imposes a –5 penalty on Forbidden Lore (Int) Tests. Hagiography Meditation upon the lives–and, more importantly, deaths— of the blessed saints grants Sanctum citizens a wide knowledge of the Planet Earth. Benefit: Sanctum Dwellers treat the Common Lore (Imperial Creed) (Int), Common Lore (Senate) (Int), and Common Lore (War) (Int) skills as Basic Skills. Liturgical Familiarity Surrounded as they are by folk of the faith, Sanctum citizens are accustomed to the preaching of the Ecclesiarchy. Benefit: Sanctum characters treat Literacy (Int) and Speak Language (High English) (Int) as Basic Skills. Superior Origins The sanctum dweller know that their's is the highest form of civilisation that can be attained. Benefit: Increase your Willpower by +3. Starting Wounds Forge world characters start with d5+8 Wounds. Fate Points Roll 1d10 to determine your starting Fate Points. On a 1–9, you begin with 2 Fate Point; on a 10, you begin with 3 Fate Points. [/hide] Hives [hide] Hives are home to countless teeming millions. The population is so dense that frequently the residency blocks reach the Archologies protective dome, and the zones themselves stretch from horizon to horizon. Many hivers labour in thankless obscurity, manning huge factories that churn out endless streams of weapons, chemicals or other vital goods. Others run with violent gangs in the dark of the underhives, living off their wits, guts and firepower. Hives are vital to the welfare of the economy. They are industrial, producing munitions for the Senate's armies in vast factories, mining valuable minerals and refining fuel for the Imperial skyfleet. Not all hivers are content to serve their world in the timeless fashion: some dream of better lives, driven by a desire for wealth, freedom, power or adventure, or just the urge to escape bludgeoning poverty. You are one such hiver—a young adventurer, willing to chance all for a taste of wealth, prestige and power. Hivers are resourceful and quick-witted, more likely to rely on gadgets and fast-talking than outright confrontation. All hive worlders can converse in the common cant of their home, each one unique to their hive of origin. Hive worlders gain the Speak Language (Hive Dialect) (Int) skill. Hive Worlder Traits Hive worlders gain the following Traits. Record all of these on your character sheet: Accustomed to Crowds Hivers grow up surrounded by immense herds of humanity. They are used to weaving through even the densest mob with ease. Benefit: Crowds do not count as Difficult Terrain for hivers, and when Running or Charging through a dense crowd, hivers take no penalty to the Agility Test to keep their feet. Caves of Steel To a hiver, surrounded at all times by metal, machinery and industry, the arcane mysteries of technology are not so strange. Benefit: Hivers treat the Tech-Use (Int) skill as a Basic Skill. Hivebound Hivers seldom endure the horrors of the open sky or the indignity of the great outdoors. Penalty: Hivers take a -10 penalty to all Survival (Int) Tests, and while out of a “proper hab” (e.g. places without manufactured goods, solid ceilings and electrical power) the hiver takes a –5 penalty to all Intelligence Tests. Wary Hivers are constantly alert for the first hint of trouble, be it a gang shoot-out, hab riot, or hivequake. Benefit: All hivers gain a +1 bonus to Initiative rolls. Starting Wounds Forge world characters start with d5+8 Wounds. Fate Points Roll 1d10 to determine your starting Fate Points. On a 1–5, you begin with 1 Fate Point; on a 6–9, you begin with 2 Fate Points; on a 10, you begin with 3 Fate Points. [/hide] Outlander [hide] The Outlands are tough places in which to survive. Whether living in a steaming death-filled jungle or upon the burning sands of a desert, man has reverted to a more primitive existence, living in tribes, gangs or creeds without much care for technology or the soft living ways of the so-called “civilised folk”. The outlands are a harkback to the most primitive eras of humanity, partly due to the environment and partly because they have long been out of touch with the rest of Humanity. With a technological base that is pre-black powder, even Stone Age in the most backward cases, and the inhabitants have often descended into savagery. When outlanders lies in a war-zone, the Senate's Armies may supplement the natives’ armaments and train them in the use of lasguns, heavy stubbers and the like. Despite a rudimentary knowledge of such weapons, the outlanders have no concept of how to manufacture or maintain them. Outlander characters are those who have made it off-world and remained sane—for the most part. They are robust, straightforward characters, most usually following the Guardsman career, and they excel at close combat due to their size and strength. However, feral worlders are uncomfortable in any strange situation, and do not react well to psychic phenomena, extremes of technological accomplishment or the polite society of the Senate nobility. They are born to fight and to survive, and they do it well. All Outlanders can converse in their regional tongue, unique to their area of origin. Outlanders gain the Speak Language (Tribal Dialect) (Int) skill. Feral Worlder Traits Iron Stomach Food is often scarce in the Outland and those born there learn to set aside their revulsion and eat whatever they must to survive. Benefit: You gain a +10 bonus to Carouse Skill Tests made to resist the effects of ingested toxins, poison or tainted foods. This bonus applies to Tests made to consume unusual or unpleasant meals—rotting meat, corpse starch rations, to name a few—as well as Tests made to resist throwing up. Primitive Outlanders have no time for the mysteries of technology or the rubbishy constraints of etiquette and social niceties. Penalty: You take a –10 penalty on Tech-Use (Int) Tests and a –10 penalty to Fellowship Tests made in formal or civilised surroundings. Rite of Passage Life is harsh for a Outlander, and blood spills all too frequently. Whether through surviving a brutal initiation ritual or through tribal teachings, feral worlders are adept at tending bleeding wounds. Benefit: You may spend a Full Action to make an Intelligence Test to staunch Blood Loss. This is a Full Action. On a success, you manage to stop the bleeding. Wilderness Savvy Feral worlders are accustomed to hunting their own food. Benefit: Navigation (Surface) (Int), Survival (Int) and Tracking (Int) count as Basic Skills for feral worlders. [/hide] As some of you may have guessed by this point I am doing a blatent rip of Dark Heresy, and while not exactly neccessary for the players to have a rulebook, it would be helpful. For character genning it may be an idea to use this: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/dhadvanced.html If Ico does decide to run the game (Which I hope he does) then please ask him on what is allowed as supplements. Forge=Forge Sanctum=Imperial Outerlander=Feral Hive=Hive [/hide] Class [hide] Lawkeepers (See Arbitrator) [hide] They ensure that the Enclave’s/Forge's laws are maintained, whilst also acting as executioners for rebels, seditionists and trouble-makers. Lawkeepers do not serve on any local police force, rather they are members of a higher organisation: the Arbites. Lawkeepers are not very strong, and they sometimes lack social graces. When it comes to sheer ability to soak up damage and to track down their prey, however, they are certainly the ones you want on your side. Starting Skills: Speak Language (Low English) (Int), Literacy (Int), Common Lore (Arbites) (Int), Common Lore (Senate) (Int), Inquiry (Fel). Starting Talents: Basic Weapons Training (SP), Melee Weapon Training (Primitive), *Quick Draw or Rapid Reload* Starting Gear: Shotgun and 12 shells, club, brass knuckles, knife, *chain coat or flak vest or mesh vest*, uniform (Good Quality Clothing), 3 doses of stimm, injector, Arbitrator ID, chrono, pack of *lho-sticks or flask of amasec.* Starting Rank: Trooper [/hide] Guardsman [hide] Guardsmen are the fighters, killers and warriors of the 22nd Century. Some may be members of a formal army, or even part of the Sky Fleet. Others may be nothing more than mercenaries and thugs. Some may even be convicted criminals, fitted with explosive collars and sentenced to serve in penal legions to pay for their terrible crimes. Needless to say, Guardsmen are neither particularly smart nor sociable. They more than make up for this with their ability to make things die in loud and unpleasant ways. Starting Skills: Speak Language (Low English) (Int), Drive (Ground Vehicle) (Ag) or Swim (S). Starting Talents: Melee Weapon Training (Primitive), *Pistol Training (Primitive) or Pistol Training (Las)* Basic Weapons Training (Las), *Basic Weapon Training (Primitive) or Basic Weapons Training (SP)*. Starting Gear: *Sword or axe or hammer*, *flintlock pistol and 12 shots or las pistol and 1 charge pack*, lasgun and 1 charge pack, *bow and 10 arrows or musket and 12 shots or shotgun and 12 shells*, knife, guard flak armour, *uniform or stealth gear or street clothes (Common QualityClothing)*, 1 week corpse starch rations, *mercenary licence or explosive collar (still attached) or Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer.* Starting Rank: Conscript [/hide] Mutant (See Scum+1 roll on the minor mutation table.) [hide] Mutants are the criminals, outcasts, conmen, gangers, thieves and desperados of the Senate, all of them marked in some way by the less than perfect protection of the Archology which makes them less than employable. They are the flotsam and jetsam of society. For all their dubious origins, they do have numerous skills that are highly useful for secretive, quasi-legal tasks. From picking locks to street, stabbings, forgery and fencing illegal goods, Mutants have what it takes to get dodgy things done. Whilst neither strong nor particularly tough, Scum are good at social skills, as well as being rather agile. Perfect for getting in and out of trouble. Starting Skills: Speak Language (Low English) (Int), Blather (Fel), Charm (Fel) or Dodge (Ag), Deceive (Fel), Awareness (Per), Common Lore (Senate) (Int). Starting Talents: *Ambidextrous or Unremarkable*, Melee Weapon Training (Primitive), Pistol Training (SP), Basic Weapon Training (SP). Starting Gear: Autogun and 1 clip or shotgun and 12 shells, autopistol and 1 clip, brass knuckles or club, knife, *quilted vest or beast furs*, *street ware or rags or dirty coveralls (Poor Quality Clothing)*. Special: Roll once on the minor mutation table. (See Book) Starting Rank: Dreg [/hide] X-Man [hide] X-Men are individuals, or the children of individuals, who were exposed to a varity of experimental chemicals over the last hundred years. They are, essentially, the surviours who gained supernatural powers. They have many and varied abilities, from reading minds to throwing bolts of bio-electrical energy. These strange powers come with a terrible price however, for each X-Man is a doorway to the hellish dimension of the immaterium, the abode of Daemons, psychic predators and worse. Each X-Man risks his very soul every time he uses his abilities, knowing that the cold edge of a mercy blade is the kindest fate the Daemon-possessed can expect to meet. Starting Skills: Speak Language (Low English) (Int), Psyniscience (Per), Invocation (WP), *Trade (Merchant) (Fel) or Trade (Soothsayer) (Fel)*, Literacy (Int). Starting Talents: Melee Weapon Training (Primitive), *Pistol Weapon Training (SP) or Pistol Weapon Training (Las)*, Psy Rating 1. Starting Gear: *Axe or sword*, staff, *compact stub revolver and 3 bullets or compact las pistol and 1 charge pack*, knife (psykana mercy blade), quilted vest, tatty robe (Poor Quality Clothing), *book of Imperial saints or deck of cards or dice*, Psy-Focus, sanctioning brand. Special: Roll once on the Sanctioning Side Effects Table (See Book) Starting Rank: Sanctionite [/hide] Engineer (see Tech-Priest) [hide] Engineers are the guardians of machine-spirits and the preserver of the traditions of tech. They tend to incredibly arcane machines and learn many mysteries, such as the rites of ignition and the art of maintenance. As they learn of ancient science, they seek out lost technology, and also replace their frail flesh with gleaming steel or chattering circuitry. Starting Skills: Speak Language (Low English) (Int), Tech-Use (Int), Literacy (Int), Secret Tongue (Tech) (Int), *Trade (Scrimshawer) (Ag) or Trade (Copyist) (Int)*. Starting Talents: Melee Weapon Training (Primitive), Basic Weapon Training (Las), Pistol Training (Las), Electro Graft Use. Starting Traits: Mechanicus Implants (See Book). Starting Gear: Metal staff, las pistol and 1 charge pack, las carbine and 1 charge pack, knife, flak vest, glow lamp, data-slate, Mechanicus robes and vestments (Good Quality Clothing), 1d10 spare parts (power cells, wires, chronometers etc), vial of Sacred Machine Oil. Starting Rank: Technographer [/hide] .[/hide] Money: [hide] Lawkeeper: $50 Guardsman: $70 X-Man: $50 Mutant: $10 Engineer: $150 Outlander: +1d5 Hiver: +3d5 Sanctum: +10d5 Forge: +5d5 [/hide] XP: [hide]You start with 400 XP to spend. You level up only once XP is spent. So level 2 requires 1,000 xp spent. If you have spent 950 xp and have 250 xp left over, you would need to spend at least 50 before you could level up and access the level 2 advances. Consult Book for more details. I have no real problem in providing assistance to people. :thumbup: [/hide] Characteristics: [hide]Roll 9 sets of 2d10 and record the scores you get. You can then allocate these scores +20+mods, to your 9 characteristics: You may reroll one, but must keep the new result, even if it is worse. Weapon Skill (Melee) Ballistic Skill (Ranged, including lasers and such) Strength Toughness (Increases your damage resistance) Agility Intelligence Perception Willpower Fellowship [/hide] Finally, Death...If you die then you are dead. You will need to roll up a new character and rejoin at the disgression of the Mod...preferably at a point where the story allows your Quistor to send another person to replace your fallen comrade.

Aye. Starting in about an hour. I need to go and have a shower. The channels will be: Verdant (Mask-Ross-John-anyone else who was in the Hellfire Tavern and isn't Iey) Ravensgate (Iey) Lightgate (Earth) Inn (Discussion) Password for all of them is tavern.

Sorry, bolded bits are massively incorrect...as you would know if you had played...any...game that I mentioned. 1) The DLC should not exist, or, if it does exist, should be sold as that and not then packaged as PART OF THE GAME, unless they were actually PART OF THE GAME, in which case they should have been released WITH THE GAME. This idea was originally summed up by reference to Paul's picture, which states, quite clearly, that you would originally get a game, and then the expansion packs for those games would be games in their own right, building on the original. Modern games, instead, sell the game, and then add in the bits they didn't include in the beginning as expansions. 2) If you are basically starting in EXACTLY the same position as you left the game then you haven't finished playing the game (hence my original argument). If you looked at Mass Effect, or Geneforge, or Avenum, or Exile (Not Avadon since only 1 game has been published as of yet) then you would see that you start each game as a relatively new character, either with the story being a natural continuation with your skills reset to their base level, the skill tree reworked and a number of system changes....Or the same basic systems with minor refinements, but all new characters so you can get another side of the story. I didn't make any reference to how much it should cost, or that the game should basically have you start at level 50. My 'contempt' (Which you blow out of all proportions, I am mildly entertained by the example) is that they are selling the complete game 17 months after releasing 'the game'...Ergo fufilling the exact specifications laid down by Paul's Picture. Sigh. So they have developed new close combat graphics and new ranged graphics? How terribly exciting, I can press a button and see a different graphic and hear a different sound, and fighter monsters slightly more powerful than before, though on aggregate the take the same amount of time to defeat because the difficulty is scaled. Burned Man = Background Character Ulyssess = Background Character Elijah = Background Character Christine = Background Character In and of themselves, yes, it is nice to know stuff about the background characters...not massively relevant considering Ulyssess can be forgotten about almost as soon as you hear that there was supposed to be a different sixth courier. They are not really developing the character, plot or the story in any real way...Which is the basic requirement for an expansion in roleplaying game. Ultimately you will disagree because you think they are expansion packs; because the truth that you have been conned into paying almost double price for a game (I hesitate to say paying but still) that has been released in stages, is beyond you. I will disagree because it is through disagreement that ideas are refined, and because I am very disagreeable. At any rate.

Worst line ever. In actuality I explored all/many of the other parts. I didn't 'finish' the game (Though the majority was done) but I never claimed to have finished the game, I said I tired of the system...The game has a very limited replayability, and the stories are not hugely different from one and other...You also don't really have that much of an impact on the world. In short I grew tired of hoping that the next quest would do something that I could point to and say 'Yes, I achieved that thing'. Skyrim has the same problem, as do many of the current crop of games...Flashy graphics are all very well and good, but they actually need something to change between quests, between missions...some sense of progress. Red Alert is a perfect example of that because the map would alter as you completed missions (Not substantially it is a very linear game made in 1995) but you actually felt like you were progressing, rather than merely doing something and, oh, wait, I appear to be in the same place as I was with a slightly better gun. You mean they have a new graphic, with a new sound effect, with a new animation? Unless they added something like the slave device/explosive collars from Fallout Three, or they actually developed some sort of new way of interacting with the game (At the end of the day you have remote combat (Mines) ranged combat (Lasers and bullets), close combat (Fists), unless you actually expand on that it is all pretty much the same) If I brought paint and watched each brushstroke dry it would take more than 1,000 hours...That doesn't mean those 1,000 hours wouldn't be the most boring 1,000 hours imaginable. There are only so many times you can wander down the corridor, into the obvious trap, and go 'Man I am so psyched!!!!'...Or wander into the building and search for the McGuffin after defeating a hoard of bandits/ghouls. Or wander towards the map marker, find a few enemies, shoot the enemies and then steal whatever it was they were guarding... You would think that someone would have the imagination to combine the Resident Evil style puzzles with the Fallout/Skyrim massive world system and come up with a game where you could walk into 150 dungeons where each one had some degree of cleverness about it (I mean I would be happy with a dozen dungeons with a degree of cleverness about them), but as it is you walk into the dungeon/building (Skyrim/Fallout) and lo and behold its a 'press these buttons in the right sequence' or hack this terminal (In fairness I MUCH prefer the word puzzles of Fallout to the simplistic button puzzles in Skyrim) after slaughtering your way through myraid beasts. Compare that to something like Avadon, where you have an actually endless tunnel that can only be reconciled by giving up and leaving. Or puzzles where you need some degree of rational thought to work out what the clues mean. I am not, in many ways, a completionist...I like to complete things, but it is not an overwhelming desire. Far more I want to see the game respond to my decisions...and to make decisions of merit and note...One of my pet annoyances right at the minute is that games seem to be tuning down the variation between the ends (and the effort required to achieve those ends). Deus Ex being an example of that. The Fallout Vegas endings were not impressive, true there were many of them, but but you got a simple clipshow of very slightly different endings. Avenum, Geneforge...hell, even Exile managed to do more than that. I want several pages of information with a dozen sentences altered on each about what happened after the game ended. I want to know that I actually made a difference in more ways that 'The people in this area lived happily ever after' or 'The people in this area were all killed' Thats some real fine slight of word there. "DLC=Downloadable Content. This game has a rubbish DLC. Therefore all DLCs are like this DLC. Therefore this other game's DLC isn't a DLC." No, more accurately: DLC= Downloadable Content....Which doesn't really mean anything more than saying CD-Rom Content or DVD Content or even Floppy Disk Content. The medium by which the content is transfered is rather insignificant. The real issue here is whether I, or you, would have gone to the store, brought the 'DLC' on a disk with our hard earned monies, gone home and installed this extra content. That the content is downloadable, and that we have more money, has lead to the expansion content being reduced tremendously, down from the hugely expanded games of Counterstrike and Aftermath, to the fairly trifling DLCs that accompany Assassin's Creed and Fallout. Really expansions for Roleplaying games should be, either Mass Effect->Mass Effect 2...Where you play a new game, where your changes carry over from one game to another. Or they need to be Avenum/Red Alert/Most Series games, where you play one game, and then it takes one of those paths and moves forward with it in the next game. Basically so your understanding of the game world expands the more you play the game, and the decisions you made/decisions you could have made, have outcomes which you didn't neccessarily envision when you made your choice... Not simply 'Hey, look, you have a slightly larger map, with slightly more levels and slightly more perks and slightly more graphics, oh and we have this plot that isn't AT ALL related to the plot you were doing earlier and actually probably won't be carried over to anything else...' That isn't an expansion of the game in the true sense...it is the completion of the game...including the stuff that SHOULD have been in there from the start. I can understand it from the other side...I can understand the add-ons as being interludes, intermissions or otherwise between this game and the next...That much is fine, and yes Fallout does provide quite hefty interludes...But there is a somewhat large difference between providing an interlude and repackaging the game as 'The Ultimate Edition'.

I disagree. Compare them with the old expansion packs for C&C Red Alert (Aftermath and Counterstrike) which had an advanced plot, units and was generally AN EXPANSION...as opposed to a major mod, which adds some mildly new places (though really nothing that wasn't seen in the original in another form), maybe a bit of dialogue and a minor incrementation of perks and such. It is, ultimately, a matter of defination and personal preference... My personal issue with them is that they are selling the game, complete with all the DLCs, just 6 months after the last of them was released, and only 17 months after the original game was released...Which is barely 'old'...for £10 less than the original game cost at release. Portal 2 is a puzzle game, not a roleplaying adventure. Battlefield and Black Ops are first person shooters with a sembalance of plot. Assassin's Creed is a linear roleplaying game, I think 2 days for revelation(15-25 hours) and never got round to playing the other. Could add Deus Ex to that list, 27 hours by Steam's counter. Honest Hearts took the better part of a day to complete (Say 10 hours), while the original game took a few days(Maybe 30-40 hours). I would say the actual system held my attention for maybe 60 hours overall. In the same vein, Mass Effect 2 held my attention for several days because it was worth playing through again for a different story, and I liked the game so much I brought Mass Effect as well, the played through from one to the other. However I would venture that the game itself (Without multiple play throughs*) was perhaps 20-25 hours long, while the DLCs were maybe 5 hours long each, 8 if I was willing to play them again...but really the story is straightforwards and has an impact (Arrival) or is complex but has no impact (The other ones). All of which I include as DLCs and which I would be pretty hacked off about if Bioware tried to sell me the ULTIMATE MASS EFFECT 2 for £29.99. *If we included the time the system actually held my attention we are going into the hundreds of hours. Compare that to Red Alert (easily 150 hours) or Avenum/Geneforge/Ur-Quan Masters (easily 100 hours per game) or, to a lesser extent, Avadon (maybe 50 hours), and the comparision is rather clear. (The latter games would be what I would call RPGs with multi-linear paths.) Yes, compared to modern games, with their weak overall storyline and a propensity to being insanely short, Fallout 4 can be considered to have 'Expansion Packs' rather than DLCs, but, in reference to Paul's picture, all Bethesda Softworks has done is COMPLETE the game that they released 17 months ago, they haven't expanded it in any serious way...If they had we would have Fallout 5 out 6 months ago, or coming out soon.

You will all be happy to hear that after months, years even, of anticipation, they have finally decided to publish Fallout New Vegas. I know many of you will have played the demo they released a while ago, and some of you might have even played the extended demo, but sources say that they have finally finished and are willing to release the actual game now: http://store.steampowered.com/app/2028016/ :rolleyes:

:rolleyes: Anywho, my foray into the arts of text to audio now require me to buy new headphones (since my old ones have lost a dozen frequencies...so the 1812 overture plays fine, while popcorn sounds like...well...I don't know what it sounds like...but not popcorn =P) Hopefully it will help me get through the immense tedium of reading the Information Retreival reports.

Hehe. I can't say my underwear ever rides up, let alone far enough to need trouser based readjustment. As to extra room...I have fat hips and a thin waist, so I am almost always left with a slight gap where the skin doesn't follow so straight a line as the trousers...So I tend to wear longer shirts and such.

Awwwww I get that sometimes(Not pants sagging...I wear pants and trousers that fit), its annoying, gratifying and silly, all at once :mrgreen: