Energy Weapons

[Rockwolf66]

That's right this little thread is about Energy Weapons in Nightspawn/Bane.

In the back of the core rulebook it has about 7 different energy weapons. now the question becomes Who, what, where, why, how?

Who has them

what are they doing with them

where are they

why are they using the energy weapons like they are

how are they being used.

So who has some sugestions?

[Prince Cherico]

The first question is why bother using the bloodly things?
regular guns do more damage for less money, so you need
a reason to use them beyond well this looks cool.

Personally I think a good reason to use them is that they automatically
by pass natural AR. Being able to do damage reliably to supernatural
creatures is a good reason to invest in said weapons.

Still at the end of the day I think only the spook squad would have them.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Yea. Pretty Much...Spook squad, and maybe Special forces military if you mix them in somehow.

[taalismn]

Area 51/Groom Lake...definitely....

[Rallan]

They're there because no Palladium book would be complete without badly edited cut-and-pastes from older Palladium books

[TechnoGothic]

Spook Squad, and various government agents might have access to Energy Weapons for Anti-Supernatural Ops.

I once introduced the AtB (Empire of Humanity) Exo-Suit Armor in our HU2/Nightbane/BtS game. I gave it chromium armor (like a Glitterboy). I named it the Chromium Guardsman Power Armor Mark One. Yes the First of the "glitterboy armors" before they became even more heavily armored and with greater firepower.

[The ineffible GM]

Who has them

As everyone has suggested, it makes the most sense for them to be Spook Squad weapons, probably experimental prototypes. They could also work well as something for a Heroes Hardware character to invent, if you're crossing genres at all.

what are they doing with them

That would depend on who had them. Going with the Spook Squad theory, probably pulled out the prototypes and started using them as frontline weapons wherever they could.

where are they

Standard answer to the location of any shadowy organization (i.e. EVERYONE in Nightbane) would be "They're EVERYWHERE".

why are they using the energy weapons like they are

Because it hurts monsters real bad. Lasers would be quiet, too, so good for keeping things quiet.

how are they being used.

Violently.

[The ineffible GM]

New Idea: Screw Spook squad. energy weapons 'aren't real', and are way too high tech for anyone on earth to be building. And the Nightlords would never bother with them.

The Children of Domhaim Dorcha (appeared in a Rifter) or some other faction from the Dream Stream has found a collection of individuals that watch way too many sci-fi movies, and these Dream Stream denizens have been plucking weapons out from the dreams of these individuals and binding them with PPE to make them 'real'. Now they ahve the firepower to encroach upon the real world.
In heart, they are moving against the Nightlords because if the Nightlords win then there will be no 'happy' dreams any more, only dreams that are hostile to the faction's existence in the Dreamstream.
At the same time, they are capturing and imprisoning people (children?) in bunkers, where they are then supplied with sweets and video games and movies and all sorts of fun things, and a healthy dose of sleeping pills. These happy dreams filled with fun imaginings give the faction somewhere nice to dwell and the like it that way.

Damn, I think I have a new Rifter article brewing.

[LostOne]

Top secret weapons developed from technology recovered from the imaginary spaceship that never crashed near Roswell, New Mexico.

Or highly top secret prototypes from advanced weapons research from military contractors. Possibly stolen from a top secret storage facility or hijacked in transit to the facility.

But I think rail gun tech will become infantry portable long before plasma ejectors, ion cannons, or even laser pistols. It's closer to current tech, only the propulsion method is different. In fact, the only thing preventing rail gun tech from becoming the new standard is a limitation we'd need for any of the others, making power packs portable enough to not be a bulky and heavy hinderence to a soldier (they already carry something like 90lbs of gear on them in combat situations).

So the only believable method of having an energy weapon in Nightbane that doesn't have a 60lbs backpack is if it is of alien origin.

[Prince Cherico]

Top secret weapons developed from technology recovered from the imaginary spaceship that never crashed near Roswell, New Mexico.

Or highly top secret prototypes from advanced weapons research from military contractors. Possibly stolen from a top secret storage facility or hijacked in transit to the facility.

But I think rail gun tech will become infantry portable long before plasma ejectors, ion cannons, or even laser pistols. It's closer to current tech, only the propulsion method is different. In fact, the only thing preventing rail gun tech from becoming the new standard is a limitation we'd need for any of the others, making power packs portable enough to not be a bulky and heavy hinderence to a soldier (they already carry something like 90lbs of gear on them in combat situations).

So the only believable method of having an energy weapon in Nightbane that doesn't have a 60lbs backpack is if it is of alien origin.

In a world where you have magic users shapeshifters angels vampires
and evil soul eating monsters why are aleans so unbelivable?

[LostOne]

In a world where you have magic users shapeshifters angels vampires
and evil soul eating monsters why are aleans so unbelivable?

I apologize if the post wasn't clear, but I never said they were unbelievable. In fact the last line says the only way to explain an energy weapon that uses a small power source is if it is alien.

The first line about the imaginary spaceship was intended to be a nod to the government coverup that would have occurred (as many people believe it really did) if a GM decided to say it had happened in their game world.

[Beelzebozo]

The Children of Domhaim Dorcha (appeared in a Rifter) or some other faction from the Dream Stream

Y'know, I'm always shocked whenever someone remembers that little gem.

[The ineffible GM]

They appear in Revised Heroes Unlimited & Heroes Unlimited 2nd Ed. I'm not sure, but I think that they're also in the original Beyond the Supernatural, and in Ninjas and Superspies.

[Nekira Sudacne]

They're there because no Palladium book would be complete without badly edited cut-and-pastes from older Palladium books

what other book(s) are the energy weaponsin the bacck of nightbane in?

Heros Unlimited.

[Rockwolf66]

Maybe i should clarify things

same questions but limited to Official sources...

I have been looking through my books and note that Area 51 uses Energy Weapons but who controls Area 51 is the mystery.

[Beelzebozo]

Area 51 is a Spook Squad project, run by the Pandora Project if I remember correctly.

[Rallan]

Personally I'd avoid non-magical energy weapons like the plague unless you plan on fundamentally changing the groove of Nightbane by introducing adventure sci-fi elements into it. The game is about modern world, about finding out that the country you know and live in has been taken over by monsters and that you're a monster yourself. Putting laser rifles and particle beam weaposn into the game is basically like putting up a big sign saying "Nope, not the modern world after all guys, we're actually playing Stargate with demons". Which is great if you want a campaign about secret government supersoldiers dishing out the hurt with ultratech, or a campaign where Dark Day happens way off in the future and the Nightlords are trying to take over a more technologically advanced planet, but if you're not going for those things then you're probably better off putting the Buck Rogers guns back in the cupboard and playing it so magic and the supernatural are the only X Factors that make the game different from the real world.

Although thanks to the "Any Sufficiently Advanced..." rule, you could probably get away with dropping in a couple of vaguely technological-looking weapons that had been made by the Lost Race, just as long as you're suitably vague and mysterious about explaining how they actually work.

[Rallan]

Personally I'd avoid non-magical energy weapons like the plague unless you plan on fundamentally changing the groove of Nightbane by introducing adventure sci-fi elements into it. The game is about modern world, about finding out that the country you know and live in has been taken over by monsters and that you're a monster yourself. Putting laser rifles and particle beam weaposn into the game is basically like putting up a big sign saying "Nope, not the modern world after all guys, we're actually playing Stargate with demons". Which is great if you want a campaign about secret government supersoldiers dishing out the hurt with ultratech, or a campaign where Dark Day happens way off in the future and the Nightlords are trying to take over a more technologically advanced planet, but if you're not going for those things then you're probably better off putting the Buck Rogers guns back in the cupboard and playing it so magic and the supernatural are the only X Factors that make the game different from the real world.

Although thanks to the "Any Sufficiently Advanced..." rule, you could probably get away with dropping in a couple of vaguely technological-looking weapons that had been made by the Lost Race, just as long as you're suitably vague and mysterious about explaining how they actually work.

Umm the core clear states the laser weapons are few and far inbetween and that they are very rare and only groups like the spook squad has them, AND that the tech for these weapons was being developed when dark day happened. So NO they don't take away from the fun of the game.

I'm not saying they take away from the fun of the game, I'm just saying they make it different. Unless the whole point of what you're doing is a bit of genre-bending fun, you really need to sit yourself down and think things through when you decide to add stuff from unrelated genres into a game (like, oh I dunno, laser rifles into a modern horror game). Throwing in stuff that's got absolutely nothing to do with what the players thought the setting was about is a good way to kill suspension of disbelief if you don't handle it well, and an "everything but the kitchen sink" approach is a good way to make any game cheesy.

That's not to say you have to limit yourself strictly to existing technology, especially with a group like the Spook Squad. After all, the game's supposed to be cinematic rather than realistic, and there are crack secret agents who've looted some of their gear from top secret US government R&D projects. But (apart from the supernatural side of things), it's a cinematic version of the real world. Stuff on a par with Tom Clancy spy gadgets can fit. Laser beams or cybernetic implants and other such stuff are going to seem out of place without a much better explanation than the little blurb in the main book's weapon section, in the same way that guns on a par with 20th century automatics are gonna need a better explanation than "oh I guess some dude who's really clever at engineerin could've figured out how to make submachineguns" to fit into a western.

Remember the big epic battle at the end of Moonraker? Remember all the baddy's goons running around with laser guns for no apparent reason? You don't want your game to be Moonraker

[Beelzebozo]

The thing is, though, Nightbane isn't Call of Cthulhu or one of those other horror RPGs where the player characters are weak and frankly expected to die like flies. It's heroic horror, where the Big Bads may be unmentionable, nigh-invulnerable Things That Should Not Be, but the good guys are powerful in their own right and have the cool stuff (whether magic or technological) to bust up minions. Secret government conspiracy types having access to technology beyond the norm is very much in-genre, whether reverse-engineered from alien gadgetry, or developed right here on planet Earth.

Look at Gargoyles, for example (which IIRC was one of the big influences on Nightbane originally). I mean, if you can combine giant ******* robots with nigh-immortal demigods and reawakened 10th-century gargoyles and make a good story, it's something to respect.

That said, these energy weapons shouldn't be a dime a dozen - even for the Spook Squad, these would be prototypes, and with them being driven underground (mostly), they don't have the resources to build many more of them. Funny you should mention Stargate there...y'ever really stop to think about the kinds of weapons the average soldiers use in that show? That's right, normal old-fashioned slugthrowers. Even though the main characters of the show may run around with zats from time to time, but most of the time they stick to the usual conventional guns. You notice that they don't use energy weapons all the time - they're for special circumstances, since they can't be manufactured. Human heroes in Nightbane should be about the same (don't get me started on supernatural heroes getting their hands on them - they shouldn't, if only because I really don't see the Spooks trusting anybody that ain't human).

[Rallan]

Yeah but Bob, it's already a game where the heroes aren't weak. The big bads of the setting might be virtually gods but everything else goes down with sufficient firepower, and if there's one thing groups like the Spook Squad do before they send dudes out to a fight, it's ensure that they've got more than sufficient firepower.

You don't need laser beams to distinguish it from Call of Cthulhu. The fact that you've got a squad of commandos in full body armor with machineguns and rocket launchers instead of two librarians with a baseball bat and a .38 is already enough to distinguish Nightbane's "evil is among us and we must KICK ITS ASS" style from more depressing horror. Especially since if that squad of guys know what they're doing, they'll only lose if it turns out they're walking into an ambush.

[Beelzebozo]

I think you missed the point. I was pointing out that in this kind of heroic horror genre, it's entirely within the feel of the setting for the Government Conspiracy Faction (whether good guys, bad guys, or somewhere in between) to have something with a little more panache than conventional firearms. Not that such things should be common, but that it's fine for this kind of group to have a touch of science fiction.

[Rallan]

I think you missed the point. I was pointing out that in this kind of heroic horror genre, it's entirely within the feel of the setting for the Government Conspiracy Faction (whether good guys, bad guys, or somewhere in between) to have something with a little more panache than conventional firearms. Not that such things should be common, but that it's fine for this kind of group to have a touch of science fiction.

Just depends on whether that touch really fits the groove. Energy weapons kinda go a little beyond "secret agents get all the best toys" heroic horror and into the realm of "right, we're going to pretend that guys in labcoats can invent anything as long as they say 'reverse the polarity' often enough" heroic horror.

Sort of like the difference between a spy/action/conspiracy movie where they have dramatic, not very realistic portrayals of stuff like satellite surveillance, nightvision goggles, hacking, stealth aircraft etc... and Moonraker

[Rallan]

I think you missed the point. I was pointing out that in this kind of heroic horror genre, it's entirely within the feel of the setting for the Government Conspiracy Faction (whether good guys, bad guys, or somewhere in between) to have something with a little more panache than conventional firearms. Not that such things should be common, but that it's fine for this kind of group to have a touch of science fiction.

Just depends on whether that touch really fits the groove. Energy weapons kinda go a little beyond "secret agents get all the best toys" heroic horror and into the realm of "right, we're going to pretend that guys in labcoats can invent anything as long as they say 'reverse the polarity' often enough" heroic horror.

Sort of like the difference between a spy/action/conspiracy movie where they have dramatic, not very realistic portrayals of stuff like satellite surveillance, nightvision goggles, hacking, stealth aircraft etc... and Moonraker

If you could do better why don't you?

I'm sorry, did you have anything to say that actually has a point?

[Beelzebozo]

Just depends on whether that touch really fits the groove. Energy weapons kinda go a little beyond "secret agents get all the best toys" heroic horror and into the realm of "right, we're going to pretend that guys in labcoats can invent anything as long as they say 'reverse the polarity' often enough" heroic horror.

Well, I'm really advocating a middle ground between the two. A bit beyond cutting-edge, but not enough that high technology edges out supernatural powers completely. A few primitive energy weapons and the like (the ones in the back of the main book are good precisely because of their clunkiness and low damage - despite that, they do have the advantage of bypassing natural AC). Even a gadgeteer-type hero from HU could work as a Spook Squad agent, given the right mix of gear (Hardware or whatever it's called - I don't actually read my Palladium books anymore).

And, uh, be nice and don't scare the kiddies. They don't know any better.

[Beelzebozo]

You know...I almost had some sympathy for you up until that post.

Regardless, it's not just his opinion that the mechanics suck (take that as you will, whether I mean to put emphasis on "his" or "opinion"). Some of us know what we don't like and therefore buy books put out by companies other than Palladium, you know. And yes, some of us do write things for modern game systems (as opposed to the one Palladium uses), and do indeed do better than the people at Taylor do. So we're not just complaining here - and if we were, Palladium's message boards would be the place to do it, so they can fix the problems we have and possibly win us back as customers (not very likely at this point, considering their consistent lack of quality in recent years).

But back to the topic at hand, he wasn't complaining. He was just disagreeing with your opinion on what fits into the setting and what doesn't, and for some reason you got insulting. My question is, why do you get so hostile and change the subject when someone disagrees with you? Do you not have any points to defend your opinion with, that you have to resort to "oh yeah, well why don't you do better"?

By the way, please try putting some effort into typing instead of just randomly banging on the keys like a spastic monkey; it'll automatically make you look smarter.

[Rallan]

I think you missed the point. I was pointing out that in this kind of heroic horror genre, it's entirely within the feel of the setting for the Government Conspiracy Faction (whether good guys, bad guys, or somewhere in between) to have something with a little more panache than conventional firearms. Not that such things should be common, but that it's fine for this kind of group to have a touch of science fiction.

Just depends on whether that touch really fits the groove. Energy weapons kinda go a little beyond "secret agents get all the best toys" heroic horror and into the realm of "right, we're going to pretend that guys in labcoats can invent anything as long as they say 'reverse the polarity' often enough" heroic horror.

Sort of like the difference between a spy/action/conspiracy movie where they have dramatic, not very realistic portrayals of stuff like satellite surveillance, nightvision goggles, hacking, stealth aircraft etc... and Moonraker

If you could do better why don't you?

I'm sorry, did you have anything to say that actually has a point?

yeah sence you know how Palladium should runs things WRITE A BOOK AND FIX THEM otherwise shut-up and stop telling everyone how to or things should be done! INFACT why don't you start your own company put palladium out and buy everything up and re-write it all and make a forutne. Just stop posting all your bullcrap about how the mechinces and everything sucks!

Throwing temper tantrums because other people don't like something as much as you do and aren't afraid to point out the bits they didn't like only makes you look silly dude. If you want forums where nobody's allowed to criticize what you like, I'd suggest opening a DeviantArt account

[Rallan]

Um, Shinitenshi? I did explain what I liked about Nightbane the last time some of you decided to have a big ol' cry about how I don't love it enough. And in this thread the entire gist of my argument has been that I don't think energy weapons should be thrown into Nightbane games unless you're giving it a sci-fi makeover because it clashes with what I do like about the game.

Seriously dude, suck it up already. If you want a forum where it's against the rules for anyone to post unless they think every Palladium book ever written deserves an eleven out of ten, you can run off and start your own Yahoo Group where nobody's allowed to subscribe until they've emailed you a ten page essay about how nothing ever published by Palladium could possibly be improved on. But don't waste everyone's time with whining about criticism, crappy personal attacks against critics, and half-assed attempts to lay down the law by declaring that only people who post gushing uncritical praise all day long should be allowed to post here.

Now have you got anything on topic to say, or did you just turn up on this thread to try and look badass?

[Beelzebozo]

If you have something constructive to say about a system fine, but Rallan you constantly ***** and complain about Palladium. When asked what you do like about Palladium you never answer.

Probably because for some of us disillusioned old hands, most of what we did like has been buried under a mountain of Rifts-branded feces.

Bunny isn't throwing a tantrum because you don't like the same **** as him.

Actually...he was. Completely randomly, in the middle of a conversation about whether or not energy weapons and other science fiction-y stuff fits into the Nightbane world, he brought out the "oh yeah? Why don't you do better?" nonsense. You might want to actually read the topic instead of automatically jumping in on the side of the "poor kid the evil mean grumpy old men are picking on".

His point is if you don't like ANYTHING that palladium does then why are you here?

Which wasn't related to the conversation at all, as I just pointed out.

To the other guy who said Bunny's typing is like a spastic Monkey, not everyone is capable of having perfect grammer especially those who have disabilities. To attack someone for that is immature.

So...expecting someone to type in a way that another poster can read without having to run it through a decrypter is "immature"? You do realize that on the internet, the way you type is analogous to the way you speak in the real world, right? People form opinions about users' intelligence based on the way they type. Making a minimum effort at spelling, grammar, and breaking up thoughts should be expected. Someone shouldn't be surprised to be treated like a half-wit when they type like one.

I'm raising my expectations of people's behavior online, and I'm calling them on it when they can't act civilized.

By the way, people, please trim your quotes down. It's not that hard, and it makes it much easier to reply (and see the parts you're replying to) when you don't have to wade through a page and a half of a conversation.

[Rallan]

I'm raising my expectations of people's behavior online, and I'm calling them on it when they can't act civilized.

Not to be pedantic, but you're raising your demands of people's behavior online. Surely you've been around long enough to know that raising your expectations of online behavior is a bitterly disappointing exercise in futility

[Beelzebozo]

I'm already bitter, so I suppose that'd have no effect on me.

[NMI]

People cant play nice, I lock thread.

Next step warning and then bannings.