Hippogriffs: Egg Layers or Livebearers?

I was working on a post, and I was trying to decide if Hippogriffs laid eggs or gave birth to their young live?  Hhhmmm...

I checked my old AD&D Monster Manual, and according to the description of the Hippogriff, and the Griffon, they both lay eggs.  In the RMSS ( Rolemaster Standard System ) Creatures & Monsters no mention of either species being egg layers is made.

However, Griffin/Gryphon females are described as  giving birth to cubs, so that would seem to contraindicate them being egg layers.  Also, Hippogriff offspring are described as foals.  Again with the rear end of a horse that would seem to preclude the laying of eggs?

Now, I know I don't have to follow ANY description of Hippogriff's.  I can decide if they're egg layers, livebearers, or something else.  I've actually reached a decision, and it's kind of fun.  I always like to twist memes inside out, and change them to suit my warped imagination.

Doing my research I also found these terms...

Parturition is the act or process of giving birth to offspring. The terms used to describe parturition vary with the species of animal it is being used to describe. The following are examples of parturition terminology:


A dog whelps and gives birth to puppies
A cow calves and give birth to a calf
A sow farrows and gives birth to piglets
A ewe lambs and give birth to lambs
A horse foals and give birth to a foal

Parturition

So I guess a Hippogriff would foal? What's the term for Griffin's giving birth?

Same Flavor, Less Crunch, and Hopefully with the Same Amount of PUNCH!

No, I'm not talking about a breakfast cereal or snack chips.  I'm talking about Rolemaster Unified.

I downloaded the playtest PDFs of Character Law, and Spell Law, and so far I like what I'm reading.  RMU is not nearly as crunchy as RMSS ( Rolemaster Standard System. ), and is looking to be very playable.

I've been participating in the Official ICE Forums, and discussing the new version of Rolemaster in the playtest forums.  It's been interesting, and fun for the most part.

I'm hoping things don't get changed too much.  There's a lot of different ideas being put forth in the playtest forums, and some I don't like at all.  No levels?!?!?  Anyway, it's still early in the process, and I'm looking forward to seeing the final versions.  The Arms Law PDF hasn't been released yet, I guess it's still in beta playtesting.

One cool thing is that I managed to get the spreadsheet to work.  All I had to do was load it into OpenOffice, but now they have versions for both Excel and OpenOffice!  Man, does this make chargen easy in RM!  It's still being designed, but once it's finished it's going to be wonderous.  The trick is formating it, so a print out doesn't look too "junky".  I've been trying to work on that, but I've had very little success.

Anyway, I alway had a great time playing and running Rolemaster.  Hopefully, RMU will be good, if not a great game.

I'm also working on a spreadsheet for GURPS 4E.  My spreadsheet design skills are poor at best, and I've got a long way to go.  I know Steve Jackson Games has a program to do that, but I'm cheap.  Maybe I'll get it in the future, but for now, a spreadsheet will work just fine.

Rolemaster Unified

Once I read that Rolemaster was being "reworked" for publication I had to find out what was going on. So I went to the Iron Crown Enterprises website, and sure enough, a revised version of Rolemaster is coming out. ICE has also undergone a change in ownership.

Now I like the Rolemaster Standard System, but from what I've read so far, this new version looks good.

They're calling it Rolemaster Unified. Two of the core books are in public playtest, and you can download the PDF's. The two PDF's available are, Spell Law, and Character Law. There's also a Excel spreadsheet to help in creating characters, but since I can't use Excel, it doesn't do me any good. Oh well.

I've skimmed both, and plan on an in depth reading later this week. As I mentioned before, I like what I'm reading. Character creation is somewhat different, and gives two options for stats. You can generate the ten stats randomly, or spend points on them. It's been done both ways in past editions, but I like the option of picking which method. In RMSS you generated your stats by assigning points.  In earlier versions I believe it was always random. I plan on creating a character later this week in both RMSS and RMU and comparing the two rule sets.

It really looks like they are streamlining things somewhat, and this could be a good thing. RMU could be more "playable" than RMSS, and this is also a good thing!

One drawback to this "new" Rolemaster is that I'm spending far too much time in the Official ICE forums...

This was kind of a quickly written post, but I will have more on what was always one of my favorite RPG's later this week.

I Trudge Onward in the Blogging World

First of all, I want to thank those bloggers that kept me on their blogrolls. So, "Thank you!". I've decided to continue blogging, and hopefully coming up with some stuff worth blogging about.

The Sandbox Dilemma

I'm sure this topic has been discussed ad nauseam in blogs and elsewhere, but it's something I have been thinking about. How much is enough when it comes to a sandbox setting? ( I think I may have written about this before? I didn't go back and check... ) Unless, you are using published material, who has the time to fully flesh out a fantasy campaign? Much less a star-spanning science fiction campaign?

I've thought one solution would be to use a patchwork method. Using a variety of sources, I could patch together a fantasy sandbox world. There's plenty of free material on the web. An almost endless variety of dungeons, and other adventures that could be used without any or very little preparation.

The only problem I could see is that it wouldn't feel... cohesive. Well, it would feel that way to me, maybe not the players. I guess that's not really a problem, just my opinion. With a little work, I'm sure it could be made to feel cohesive.

In fact, in the early days of role playing, I think a lot of players used the patchwork method. I can imagine most DM's used the TSR modules set in their own worlds, along with some of their own creations. It worked for the most part, and was enjoyable. In fact, I think I probably had more fun in the early days of role playing, than later in life. Maybe because it was all so new, and exciting?

I guess, in the long run, it doesn't really matter, unless it's going to be a multi-year, long running campaign? I don't see that happening for me anytime soon, and I'm not getting any younger. So I think I can get away with just getting enough together for a few gaming sessions, and feel good about it. In fact I think I've got a good idea to base a few game sessions around. I'll have more on this idea later this week.

Rolemaster Gets a New Edition?

Okay. Fine. This happens after I've reacquired many of the Rolemaster Standard books I want. I guess I need to go check their website. UGH. Oh well, who am I kidding? If the books are priced right then I will be buying them. In fact I will probably buy more than one copy. I've been a Rolemaster aficionado since the beginning.

Until next time, Happy Gaming!

the Dragonbone

Mage Knight figure added for scale.

I'm surprised this ancient gaming artifact has survived, and is in working condition.  I bought it in the mid-1980s.  Well, as near as I can remember, that's when I bought it.  My brain cells aren't good at making their saving throws, and thus my memory suffers...

Anyway, if you don't know, or weren't even alive when these came out, the Dragonbone is an electronic dice roller.  It's got eight settings on a sliding switch, i.e. you can set it to "roll" a three, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, twenty, a percentile dice.  It uses light-emitting diodes, that light up by the numbers printed on the case.  The photo above is not that great, and the details can't be seen.

I used it quite a bit when gaming, whether I was playing in a game, or running one.  I liked it because, it was silent.  I could hit the button behind the screen, and the players wouldn't know I was making a roll.  If they heard dice rolling they would get more alert, or paranoid ( take your pick ), and start scaning their character sheet, or whatever.  I liked being sneaky about rolling dice.  Sometimes I would roll dice just to keep them on their toes.

Now, I didn't use it exclusively.  There's something intrinsic to roleplaying about rolling dice.  It just feels right. I'm a gamer.  I like dice.

I don' think I would use the Dragonbone anymore.  I don't actually think it is all that random.  I've thought about making some "rolls" with it and entering them in a spread sheet, and do the same with analog dice, and make some kind of statistical comparison.  However, I think watching grass grow would be more exciting. Plus, I know nothing, or well, very, very little about statistics.  So... don't hold your breath.

What's Next?

I think I can finally get back on track concerning this blog.  I lost focus the past few weeks, mainly because I was kind of busy, and the heat just sucks the life right out of you.  I'm going to start working on the Kinship project again.  It's one thing I really want to concentrate on, and get completed.

Another thing I want to work on is creating stat blocks for Mage Knight miniatures, in the Rolemaster Standard System.  Now, don't get me wrong, Mage Knight is fun, but it lacks the chaos that RMSS would have at a skirmish level battle.  I literally have access to hundreds, if not over a thousand Mage Knight figures.  Some were mine, and the rest are my brothers.

I'm also getting this itch to create a superhero game using Rolemaster rules.  Why?  I just think it would be fun, but I'm not sure it would work.  It's just an idea, and also I'm not sure if I will work on it.  If I do I would call it Powermaster!

So that's all for today.  I hope most of you are still reading this old gaming blog of mine.  Now, I really want to go see Captain America today, or maybe Conan... or Rise of the Planet of the Apes?  There are too many movie choices!  I hope everyone has a great day!

Long Time No Blog

I think I made my last blog post on the eleventh.  I figured it was time to check in and say hello.  I'm currently blogging from a remote location. i.e. the hospital.  My mom needed a break.  She's hardly left the hospital since my sister was admitted.  Today makes two very long weeks my sister has been here.  Fortunately, the hospital has a nice WiFi, and since my sister is mainly napping this afternoon, I have some time to write something, between visits by the doctors and nurses.  She has about a half a dozen doctors working on her case.

Needless to say there hasn't been much going on concerning gaming.  I found a copy of the RMSS Arms Law on eBay for the "Buy It Now" price of $2.75, or best offer.  Of course I make an offer of $2 which was fairly stupid because the $2.75 is a great price.  So I immediately went ahead and bought it, and I'm glad I did, because it is in great shape, and even with shipping it was a lot better price than the $16+ at the used book store for a beat up copy.  My final cost was $6.75.

So I now have the three main core Rolemaster Standard System rulebook.  I could actually run a game.  There are still a few of the RMSS books I want to get, which shouldn't be that difficult, except for Castle & Ruins which always seems to run at least $50 on eBay, and other sites.  I need to check around a little more I think.

Well, I think I will close for now.  This was my second attempt, the first time I lost the connection, and for some reason it wasn't auto saving.  So I only managed to save the first paragraph.

My sister isn't out of the woods yet, but she seems to be feeling better.  Thanks to everyone who left the kind thoughts and words on the comments sections.  It's been a long, rough, and stressful two weeks, with no end yet in sight.  Take care people.  I hope to be back soon.

A Dragon Versus Soldiers With Firearms

It's been a lazy Sunday, with plenty of naps between blog reading sessions.  I also finished watching another Republic Serial, "Zorro's Fighting Legion".  It wasn't as good as the first one I watched, "Zorro Rides Again", but it was okay, even if the plot was a little wonky.

The other day Christian mentioned on a blog post about something called "gun nibble", and asked about lethal gun combat in game systems.  I replied that I thought Rolemaster's Weapon Law: Firearms could be very lethal.  This in turn reminded me about something I've been wanting to try.

I want to run a one shot with a Special Ops team going up against some fantasy elements.  The main antagonist would be a dragon.  The dragon would have some orc henchman, plus one or two surprises.  I mainly want to see how the rules work, and if firearms could take out a dragon, before the dragon takes out the special ops soldiers.

The mission involves the special op team having to recover a piece of equipment, a trans-dimensional sensor probe.  A top secret government scientific group sent the probe into another dimension to gather data.  It was moved underground, and the signal is no longer being received.  The team has to be sent to the dimension to recover the device.  The only data they have is some grainy video of something very large and reptile like moving by the camera.  After that the signal is lost.  The team plans on going in armed to the teeth.

So it's going to be a highly trained special ops team versus a dragon, orcs, magic, and ?.  Who would win?  The first time I try this I want to use the Rolemaster Standard System.  Then I might try it with other systems to see how they compare.  It should be fun.