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Dragons

Ishmael said:
SPI's "Airwar" had a scenario involving a dogfight with a dragon.
Click to expand...

I still have that game. The cursed dragon could turn on the inside of any plane you used, but a single Sidewinder was usually enough to finish it off. You had to fight in the vertical, though, to gain the advantage, so anything that had a high zoom potential was a good plane. Separate, run up speed, zoom climb, roll over and dive at full power, try to roll out or fly past faster than the dragon recover to roast you as you go by.

Genies were in the game, too, but using one against the dragon was risky since your own closure rate was always very high, but against the UFO (in that scenario) a Genie was pretty much mandatory or you wouldn't scratch it and there was no way you could outrun the UFO so one shot was all you got.
 
sabredog said:
I still have that game. The cursed dragon could turn on the inside of any plane you used, but a single Sidewinder was usually enough to finish it off. You had to fight in the vertical, though, to gain the advantage, so anything that had a high zoom potential was a good plane. Separate, run up speed, zoom climb, roll over and dive at full power, try to roll out or fly past faster than the dragon recover to roast you as you go by.
Click to expand...

There was a magazine article in Adventure Gaming #8 that provided a SAR variant that had Skyraiders. They could turn with a dragon, but usually ended up as charcoal anyway.
 
So I blew up that pic I originally posted, and it would appear to be a mother dragon getting somewhat peevish about warrior types cracking open one of her eggs nested among a gold horde.

Fantasy/medieval types being what they are, I can't see this is being a very rational thing to do.

I wonder how a group of sci-fi characters might go about doing the same thing. Would you even try? Or might you say "A dragon? Give me a break! I'll go get your great grandfather's gold watch from that mountain, and NO, I won't need your silly sword. Hey Jim! I'm heading up to the mountain peak for a couple of nights. I'm taking my ACR. Throw me a pack of caseless will ya?!"

I just wonder :smirk:
 
I guess that's where you'd have to be one of those dictatorial Refs;

You; "Okay, you've survived your crash landing after exiting jumping."
Players; "Huh? What?! We didn't even scan the area!"
You; "Nevermind. You're down. You vessel is resting on a mountain slope at a thirty degree incline."
Players; "Well, at least we still have our grav plates."
You; "But your grav plates give out."
Players; "What?! Oh that's bull-s__t! Well, our engineer has both a mechanic and electronic's rating."
You; "But he left his tools back at the starport."
Players; "You've got to be kidding!"
You; "Okay, so now what do you do?"
Players; "Test the atmosphere."
You; "The only way to do that is to go outside."
Players; "What?"
You; "Someone rolled a crit failure on operating your atmospheric tester. The batter ejected from the side, crashed into the ship's bulkhead, and cracked open, rendering it useless."
Players; "When the hell did that happen?!"
You; "Just now."
Players; "What?!"
You; *cutting to the chase*; "Apparently the only way out is to explore that cave some fifty meters from your ship. You're getting signs from your dimming ship's sensors that there may be the spare part and tools that you need in there. But you're getting real wild life sign readings too ... *snip* ... and as you step out into the cold night, armed only with shotguns, handguns and hunting rifles (the rest of your gear is lost in space) you smell brimstone." :smirk:
 
If I did that to my group, my wife would be mad at me... :)


...she's in my group... ;)






Don't take that the wrong way, they're used to character death when something goes wrong, but railroading like that is a fast way to marital issues... :)
 
Oh, okay. Say there's a pile of chain mail and swords next to tree just outside the ship. See what a nice Referee I am? :)

I would think handling a dragon would depend on how benevolent or malevolent your Ref was feeling that particular night.

As to marital issues. Well...to each his own ;)
 
Blue Ghost said:
So I blew up that pic I originally posted, and it would appear to be a mother dragon getting somewhat peevish about warrior types cracking open one of her eggs nested among a gold horde.

Fantasy/medieval types being what they are, I can't see this is being a very rational thing to do.
Click to expand...

In my experience, 'rational' rarely describes the activities of Fantasy types...

Blue Ghost said:
I guess that's where you'd have to be one of those dictatorial Refs;
Click to expand...

I'd go with:

You; "Okay, you've survived your crash landing after exiting jumping. Scans revealed a breathable atmosphere and a varied biosphere."
Players; "Huh! Not much use!"
You; " You're down. Your vessel is resting on a mountain slope at a thirty degree incline with a shattered Power Plant and cargo bay. Your supplies are scattered across three valleys."
Players; "What?! Oh that's bull-s__t! Well, our engineer has both a mechanic and electronics rating."
You; "Yep, but it'll take him some time after he's found his tools to smelt the necessary ores and fabricate the new parts..."
Players; "You've got to be kidding!"
You; "Okay, so now what do you do?"
Players; "I suppose we'll have to go outside."
You; *cutting to the chase*; "As you step out into the cold night, armed only with shotguns, handguns and hunting rifles (the rest of your gear is in the neighbouring valleys) you smell brimstone." :smirk:[/QUOTE]

Does that make me dictatorial? :devil:
 
DaveChase said:
Rick Cook addressed some of this in one of his books of the Wizardry series.

It was slightly amusing but made sense in his fictional worlds.

Dave Chase
Click to expand...

Whatever happened to him? He wrote several books in the Wizardry series and an SF book, but then I stopped seeing anything new by him.
 
Icosahedron said:
In my experience, 'rational' rarely describes the activities of Fantasy types...



I'd go with:

You; "Okay, you've survived your crash landing after exiting jumping. Scans revealed a breathable atmosphere and a varied biosphere."
Players; "Huh! Not much use!"
You; " You're down. Your vessel is resting on a mountain slope at a thirty degree incline with a shattered Power Plant and cargo bay. Your supplies are scattered across three valleys."
Players; "What?! Oh that's bull-s__t! Well, our engineer has both a mechanic and electronics rating."
You; "Yep, but it'll take him some time after he's found his tools to smelt the necessary ores and fabricate the new parts..."
Players; "You've got to be kidding!"
You; "Okay, so now what do you do?"
Players; "I suppose we'll have to go outside."
You; *cutting to the chase*; "As you step out into the cold night, armed only with shotguns, handguns and hunting rifles (the rest of your gear is in the neighbouring valleys) you smell brimstone." :smirk:
Click to expand...

Does that make me dictatorial? :devil:[/QUOTE]

Yes! :rofl:
 
DangerousThing said:
Whatever happened to him? He wrote several books in the Wizardry series and an SF book, but then I stopped seeing anything new by him.
Click to expand...

Heart attack or something like that. He was in the hospital for months.

You can find his blog in a search. He was going to or did release the last part of the Wizard series on it. (never got around to reading it yet, but I need to.)

Dave Chase
 
Blue Ghost said:
Kind of a cool pic very close to what we're talking about here;

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bVtGlUaW-tA/TMsFZXcf-yI/AAAAAAAAQHE/E7ikKzDRklQ/s1600/1.jpg
Click to expand...

Great picture, but the physics look just wrong....:oo:

Something about dragons and cube-squares....they always seemed to me to need magic to fly.

Now, with thick atmosphere on a lower G planet (how the OTU does this, I'm also sketchy on), maybe they've got carbon fibre bones and an anti-grav gallbladder; one of our engineer types can help with the pseudo-science, maybe? ;)
 
Icosahedron said:
In my experience, 'rational' rarely describes the activities of Fantasy types...

I'd go with:
....
You; *cutting to the chase*; "As you step out into the cold night, armed only with shotguns, handguns and hunting rifles (the rest of your gear is in the neighbouring valleys) you smell brimstone." :smirk:

Does that make me dictatorial? :devil:
Click to expand...

I suppose it depends on what level of stupidity or other unfortunate choices brought the players to their current location, for one. ;)

I enjoy throwing a healthy dose of Clausewitzian friction in (Murphy in 4D!!), so that the game is just not an exercise in writing checks for uber-tech and pushing buttons. Weird stuff happens in assymetrical confrontations (giant crossbows vs landing helicopters), which does not completely remove the advantages of technology, but reduces and removes the regularity of these advantages.

I don't think dictatorial, but rather I have a veto, and Murphy's party holds 34% of the seats....
 
I read the Wizardry series, and enjoyed it. For years I wondered why mister Cook hadn't cranked out another book.

An antigrav gallbladder, huh? neat :)

p.s. science fiction types of all stripes, I find, skew on the rational side of things. :)
 
samuelvss said:
Great picture, but the physics look just wrong....:oo:

Something about dragons and cube-squares....they always seemed to me to need magic to fly.

Now, with thick atmosphere on a lower G planet (how the OTU does this, I'm also sketchy on), maybe they've got carbon fibre bones and an anti-grav gallbladder; one of our engineer types can help with the pseudo-science, maybe? ;)
Click to expand...

Remember: Titan's atmosphere is denser than Earth's..

You just change the inert chemical mix.
 
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