And leave rectangular white marks on people like a boss!

It pleases me immensely to read reports of people who had a good time in The Darkest Hour. And I'm super-giddy that your group had the presence of mind to play for time with Master and turn his mania to their advantage. "Well done," to them!

Parminder Nagra for the New Doctor!

(This has been your daily anarchist yelling-slogan. Carry on.)

[Lost Actions]

Here's the key: Fumbling is all about flavor. It has to be. If you're using fumbles to actively punish your players, you're a dick and need to stop it.

Ultimately, there are only a handful of actual mechanical effects you can rationally expect to inflict on somebody because of an error. Those come down to three, in my mind:

Lost Actions (I usually go 1 die per half action lost)
Die Roll Penalties (skills have error details built in, but when using a skill for a combat trick I'd consider spending a die for a -2 penalty on doing that for one round, more dice for more rounds)
Gear Problems (like "now it needs to be fixed." Just dropping it is a lost action. Breaking it or destroying it is a 3 or 4 dice proposition for me)

In the example you cite, all the fluff could be stripped away to "One NPC ally loses 2 half actions". I've got no problem with that for 1 action die (since it's happening to an NPC, and the PCs are supposed to be the ones who are awesome), though at my table I try and keep the fumble effects personal, and would instead inflict the penalty on Brungil rather than his allies.  

I'm not a big fan of fumbles causing damage (see "don't be a dick", above), but FC has some nice damage types that can get used if you're into that (stress is a great one). In certain specific cases, I'd consider "hitting the wrong guy", but that's very moment-specific. You're not going to trip and shoot somebody nowhere near your target. But if the target's got your ally in a headlock, or is using him as cover, or you're trying to shoot a rope before your ally finishes being hanged to death, there's fumble room in there.

The Spycraft table for this went, as I recall: 1 die for a lost half action, 2 dice for 2 lost half actions, 3 dice for losing an item (usually temporarily), and 4 dice for having an involved item catastrophically destroyed, dealing 1d6 damage to the fumbler. Take that as you will.

In many cases as a player and as a GM, I find stripping a half action from a fumbler is just the right kind of penalty. The trick is flavoring it differently every time. 

Wow. I had never put together that FC uses whole-square centers for spells. I've just used a junction at a corner of the spellcaster's square.

Traveller 5th Edition

And my copy just came.

How many pages is T5, Krensky? There's *a* Traveller on super-sale at DTRPG, but I can't tell if it's this new T5 or not.

I echo the sentiment for the Personal Lieutenant, though you *could* go Animal Partner, depending on the precise build of the NPC construct and what you're willing to tolerate in your game. I had a player who created an unborn lancer with a unborn battlemech exoskeleton he could link into (via clockwork gears and big bolts and whatnot) using the mount rules. We statted it as something akin to a construct Ape, and since it was also an Animal it couldn't do much without him.

But yeah.. I think I'm tossing out the possible failure of a hint house rule.  Only because it leads very easily to meta'ing.  (as I learned...)

Indeed. This is probably the best takeaway. The meta cost of getting a hint (which the players understand will never be outright false--they have to trust that a hint will always be helpful in some way) is giving the GM an action die. I've never seen the hint mechanic turn into a free-flowing spigot of information. Typically, I've seen hints get asked for less than once per session, and typically to confirm some about-to-happen dangerous decision ("Okay, before I pull this lever I want a hint") or to confirm a conclusion ("Is this a sound interpretation of the clues we've got so far?"). Letting the GM have an action die in order to be reassured that you're not about to all die feels like a good tradeoff to a lot of groups.

And of course, the free hints available to the players are like gold. 

Yeah, this is a question of hints. Fortunately, FC has a mechanic for that--and that would have saved some heartburn if (as Krensky has said) it went like this:

Player: I want to roll wisdom to figure out this writing.
You: Okay, you're actually asking for a hint, and that's fine because there are actually rules for that. I'll just give you a hint.
Player: Awesome. What is it?
You: You think opening that door's a bad bad idea.
Player: Got it.
You: Cool (give yourself another action die).

Note that you don't need to tell your players that you get an action die for giving a hint (or, to attempt a Law Enforcement metaphor, there's no need to Mirandize a player who asks for a hint: "I'll give you a hint, but remember that I'll get an action die" ). In fact, reminding them in the moment may disincentivize them from actually accepting a hint, which leads to problems like what you're describing (trying to circumvent the rule with a roll and then overthinking the roll's result to tragic effect). They'll eventually figure out on their own that you're getting action dice for hints, but by then they'll recognize the utility of the hint mechanic and will probably regard it as an appropriate trade-off in certain story-critical situations.

Why write "your own stuff" at all? There's a living to be made off an existing fanbase that can't get enough of their show. Why not just treat this like a television writing career?

An epic length poster for Pacific Rim, and a trailer for the inevitable Atlantic Rim

Stay classy, Asylum. Stay classy.

I might actually watch Atlantic Rim. It's what Pacific Rim might have looked like as imagined by Toho in 1980. Awesome!

I'd allow certain types to be applied to an animal companion, with the caveat that Animal must be one of them (and the overriding caveat that everything about both AP and PL is "GM approval only" and nothing in either feat can be considered campaign canon without direct GM blessing). A clockwork horse could therefore be a construct animal. "Animal" denotes specific rules restrictions (like limited intelligence and tweaked skill resolutions), and the NPC gained by Animal Partner must have that type in its mix someplace.

Note that making your Animal Partner a construct carries an xp cost. But if you want to carve out points for it, and it makes sense/adds to fun, I'd be game.

And over 1500 already sold. Capitalism ftw!

I create the fluff first (A Scottish highlander who joined a paladin order. A jaded swordsman seeking atonement for a lifetime of sins. A high-functioning sociopath who can talk anyone into anything, etc.), and then find an origin and class to suit it. Feats and skills go back and forth in a messy overlap as I turn the concept into mechanics. I give little or no thought to the "build" until I've played through a few levels and gotten a sense of where the campaign is going.