Cone rifle

(5 Armor, 35 Health Points)

Weapon  Damage   Abilities       Disabilities               Skill

Cone Rifle   18     Area Effect   Limited Shots (6)  Gun Combat (Auto-Fire)
                              Auto-Fire
                              Spreading


The cone rifle, a standard infantry weapon, fires rocket-propelled, explosive flechettes. These flechettes are cone shaped, allowing them to be stacked into tubes. The explosive cones accelerate after being fired from the rifle, hitting with greater impact at long ranges. Major Gadget.

(From Gordon R. Dickson's Childe Cycle; pic modified from MechWarrior)

Moss the Dungeon Master

In the new season of The IT Crowd, Moss entertains some visiting corporate bureaucrats buy giving them their first taste of D&D.

Klingon Propaganda Video

FASA's Star Trek RPG (which sadly I've never had the chance to play) was probably the only Trek RPG to publish supplements tailored specifically for gamers running a Klingon campaign. Modules like A Matter of Priorities, Graduation Exercise, and An Imbalance of Power were adventures for Klingon PCs seeking honor among the stars. I imagine those characters watched a lot of videos like this.

Caster

Casters, once called "spell guns," are magical weapons which fire shells that have the effects of spells. When the mana started to run out people started putting the spells in cartridges. Each of the 20 different types of cartridge has a diffrent effect. Caster shells are rare and expensive, and few wizards still know how to enchant them.

 Caster (for Tri-Stat)

  Item of Power 1x3 = 3
    Easy To Lose 
    Special Attack "#3 shell" 1x4+ 1 = 5  (60 damage attack)
      Affects Incorporeal
      Concealable   
      Hand-Held 
      Limited Shots 2x-20 = -40  (3 shots)
      Unreliable 
    Alternate Attack "#12 shell" 1x1 = 1  (20 damage attack)
      Incapacitating
      Limited Shots 2x-20 = -40  (3 shots)
      Unreliable  


Notes:

I was generous with the number of shots. Usually a character will only have one or two shells of a given type. There are obviously many more types of cartridge available, but they are hard to get and characters should be required to undertake a minor quest to acquire the very rare and powerful ones, like a  #4 or #13.

Another way to write this weapon up is to treat the caster as a Major Gadget (or two) and then write up each cartridge as a different Special Attack.

A Warp War Campaign

I was poking around over at BoardGameGeek and discovered there's a play-by-forum game of Warp War going on. They're using a variant of the rules and playing on a larger map from Stellar Conquest which should provide a little more scope to the game.

There are four factions slugging it out for galactic domination

1. B.A.S.H. Boskone Aeronautical Space Horde
2. P.O.T.W. People of The Wind
3. RHON Rhones
4. S.M.I.R.S Space Marines in Red Spandex

I'm rooting for the Space Marines in Red Spandex.

And I also discovered that Warp War is still in print. I don't know how this current version compares to the old Metagaming copy I have, but it's good to know it's still available.

Science Police Helmet

Some game stats for that helmet I posted pics of yesterday. In DC terms this is pre-Crisis, Silver Age stuff. The capabilities are conjectural but seem like what future cops would have.

Science Police Helmet (Major Gadget)

15 points Armor (head only); Police-Band Radio; Global Positioning System; Anti-Glare Visor and Ear Protectors (+6 bonus to checks to avoid the effects of Flare attacks and Flash-Bang Grenades.)



These stats are for the free Tri-Stat dX game, but will also work for BESM. To use it with BESM 2nd ed. change the "+6" to a "-3".

Wild '70's helemt

When Mike Grell was working on The Legion of Super-Heroes, he gave the Science Police these groovy helmets. I think the flash-back display is optional, but I bet they have a kick-ass set of built-in headphones.

Space Opera eye candy

By Paul Alexander