A New Scenery Project - An Inauspicious Start

Not exactly a game, so this is a bit out of bounds, but I recently had a desire to try one of those castle kits made by Hirst.

I've been aching to try this out for some time now, and I finally had the excuse to buy one of the molds, this one to be precise, and today I tried casting the first of what I'm told will be seventeen batches needed to make this particular model.

I've cast in plaster before, and I've cast in quick setting resin. I've even cast in five minute epoxy resin. What I've never done is cast in Hydrocal, a special scenic plaster used by railway modelers for making rock-faces, tunnel mouths and bridges.

The fist mix was way too thin, I only mixed enough for half a pour and so this was an immediate tip-it-out-and-start-again job. The second mix seemed okay but also seemed to form a skin of thicker plaster over a watery liquid. Very odd.

I decided to give it a go and made the pour into the mold, getting the plaster everywhere on account of making three times too much. Clean-up was a joy.

The Hydrocal sets up in about 40 minutes, at least it does well enough to demold the castings. Mine were quite disappointing. Crumbly and covered in bubble voids.

The voids were caused by my mixing technique which trapped a lot of air in the thick layer. I'll use the same technique I use to debubble resin castings by using my scroll saw as a vibrating table.

The crumbliness of the castings was caused, I think, by having too wet a mix in the pour. I'll know better next time.

Pictures to come, hopefully of a perfect set of castings.

Meanwhile, you should check out Hirst Arts molds yourself. I should mention that even the bad castings will be useful in the finished model and that even my poor first attempt produced some outstanding detail in the finished castings. The workmanship of the molds and the ingenuity of the kits themselves is a pure delight. Not only that, the subjects are atmospheric and cover a wide range of architectural subjects.

The only problem I can see is finding somewhere to display the finished models.

New Arrivals

Pathfinder core rulebook (okay, I'm a late adopter, so sue me). I had been told that this thing had a bestiary in it and it doesn't, so not quite a game in a book. All the D&D 3.5 monsters will work in it so I guess if you are transitioning it still works out. Why buy? I'm hoping to get involved in a game soon, as a player. Piked it up in paper and pdf becasue that's how I roll - redundantly.

Redshirts: card game from Weaselpants dotcom. An amusing little number that involves giving missions to members of "away teams" with the objective of getting the other players' teams to succeed and your own to fail miserably. First one to kill all his/her Redshirts wins. Much fun, superbly funny artwok and every time I take it out I see something clever I missed the last time I looked. The expected puns are to be found aplenty. Rulebook is horribly vague in places. Even so, highly recommended.

Seven Dragons: card game, in which the object is to play cards in a two dimensional array to make a sequence of your color before the others do so. Fun and challenging.

Cthulhu by Gaslight: expansion for Call of Cthulhu. A new edition of the Victorian setting sourcebook. New scenarios and a little new material, but if you have the original the pdf will probably suffice.

Savage Worlds Horror Companion: An explorer's edition format book that provides setting rules, suggestions and a bestiary for running Dark Horror games (or adding a dash o' dark to any other setting). Recommended.

Smith and Robards' Catalog: Another Explorer's Edition book, this time for Deadlands:Reloaded. Inside there is a huge inventory of Weird Science gadgetry and the rules on how to order it from Smith and Robards. There is background info on Smith and Robards. There are some new rules for mixing it up with Weird Science. A very desirable addition to any Marshal's toolbox.

Some Thinks About BRP

I like the fact that BRP has an APPearance stat rather than a nebulous CHArisma one. I think it more accurately models something people react to the first time they see someone: their physical prettiness or ugliness. It is a stat that is helpful when it comes to roleplaying where Charisma isn't. It is a stat that give lots of traction to a player trying to bring the character to life.

Recent rewrites of BRP derived games have replaced APP with CHA. The latest version of BRP derives CHA from APP directly. I think both of these are wrong and miss a rather neat point.

Charisma in real life often works at odds with a persons appearance, but we don't ignore that appearance when we interact with an ugly or deformed charismatic individual. A pretty charismatic is more appealing than a homely one.

My thinking about this was long and twisty but finally zeroed in on three BRP characteristics: APPearance, INTeligence and POWer (defined as a person's "inner reserves", Chi, what-have-you). My thinking is that charisma could be expressed in terms of a combination of these stats, derived from them. Let's talk cases.

Bill Clinton: Highly charismatic, highly intelligent, good looking (so I'm told), very centered but poor impulse control - lets say moderate inner power.

Alistair Crowley: Highly charismatic, highly intelligent, very average looks, high inner power (we might suppose).

Hitler: Highly charismatic, distinctly average intelligence, good-looking by the standards of his day, very driven (high power).

Now admittedly the sketches above are highly subjective but they are based on other people's assessments I've noted over the years (but cannot cite of course).

Anyway: I was thinking that perhaps charisma might be arrived at by averaging the APP, INT and POW characteristics, which allows for people who are ugly (in some way) and yet still fascinating.

Lets take a case:

STR 9, INT 13, SIZ 12, APP 5, POW 15, DEX 8, EDU 13. This is a character of average strength, above average intelligence, big, distinctly homely, possessed of high inner/psychic resources, a tad clumsy on occasions and educated to around A-Level (associates Degree) level.

The BRP charisma stat for this character would be 25%, for too low in my opinion given that outstanding POW. Lets average out APP, INT and POW rounding down, giving 11 which converts to 55% in the BRP scheme, which multiplies by 5.

Conan: POW ~ 10, INT ~ 9, APP ~ 18 - Charisma from BRP: 90% Charisma from my figures: 60% (His attraction is all about his looks).

James T. Kirk: POW ~ 16, INT ~ 16, APP ~ 18 (can't argue with the man himself) BRP Cha: 90% My value 80%

So. Hmm. Not a finished system perhaps, but definitely better than "APP times 5".

Why do I care? I play mostly Call of Cthulhu, which is played using a stripped-down BRP. In that game it seems to me that first impressions are highly important, it being at heart a detective game. I need a way to express "The guy has terrible wounds, obviously a result of some WWI injury, but you can't help but feel a strong fascination for him" and "This woman is drop-dead gorgeous but there is something repellent about her".

Something else occurs to me: Charisma is used to modify NPC reactions to PCs in negotiations and interractions. Call of Cthulhu (and by extension BRP) models this mechanism by the skills "Persuade" and "Fast Talk".

All this suggests to me that BRP doesn't need a Charisma stat as much as other systems do, and providing one can be done without throwing out the existing stats in the interests of political correctness.

Azathoth forbid anyone should admit there are ugly people out there.