Dr. Anomaly Posted January 26, 2006 Report Share Posted January 26, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings Books tend to accumulate around my computer area as I bring them in for reference, but don't return them to their shelves until I've got a bunch of them, which I put back all in one trip. If someone didn't know what I'd been working on, but did know I used these books for reference, they might be wondering just what the heck I was doing: HERO System 5th Edition Revised The Complete Works of William Shakespear A Book on C Fundamentals of Topology The Shadow of the Ship (fiction) Edith Hamilton's Mythology Gamer's Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Vol. 4 Quantum Gravity To Seek Out New Life: The Biology of Star Trek The Essential Plato The Physician's Desk Reference Vegetarian Times ...on the other hand, if you know I'm a gamer, it probably doesn't raise any eyebrows at all... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted January 26, 2006 Report Share Posted January 26, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings I overlooked a minor feature of this course I'm teaching ... it's full of pre-meds. The fact that they might not get the A they need to go to med school is a life-threatening event. And the fact that I place more importance on understanding physical principles than getting the answer that's in the back of the book is another thing. Now, the test was too long; either I mistimed myself (I was interrupted when I did the test key, so that's a possibility) or my standard factor-of-5 rule isn't generous enough for this situation. Bah. Well, I'll start grading this evening, which should put me in a mood to bust heads in tonights gaming session. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted January 26, 2006 Report Share Posted January 26, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings Sometimes the best solution is to sit back, take a deep breath and laugh for a minute. Everyone understand laughter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted January 26, 2006 Report Share Posted January 26, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings The Check's In The Mail by Al Yankovic Lyrics: Well, hey, how ya doin', have a seat, have a drink Boy, it's good to see you, what can I say Whoa, sorry, gotta run, we'll get together again Say, what was your name, anyway Well, we're workin' on the problem We'll get back to ya soon (yeah) But don't try to call me I'll be in a meeting every afternoon For a year, maybe longer, keep in touch Thanks for droppin' by and have a nice day The check's in the mail (hey) You're beautiful Don't ever change You know what I mean My girl will call your girl We'll talk, we'll do lunch Or leave a message on my machine So baby, won't you sign On the dotted line I'm gonna make your dreams come true The check's in the mail Would I lie to you Well, hey, wait a minute What's the matter, hold on You want me to fork over the loot You say you hate my guts You wanna take me to court And you got yourself a lawyer with a three-piece suit Well, I'm proud to say you're not The only critic of mine (yeah) So if you wanna sue me I'm afraid you're gonna have to wait in line Take a number, thanks for calling Who loves you, baby Don't forget to read the fine print See, the check's in the mail (hey) You're beautiful Don't ever change You know what I mean My girl will call your girl We'll talk, we'll do lunch Or leave a message on my machine So baby, won't you sign On the dotted line I'm gonna make your dreams come true The check's in the mail Would I lie to you Aw, trust me The check's in the mail (hey) You're beautiful Don't ever change You know what I mean Why don't you leave a message with my girl I'll have lunch with your machine So baby, won't you sign On the dotted line I'm gonna make your dreams come true The check's in the mail Would I lie to you The check's in the mail Would I lie to you (giggling) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zornwil Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings Cyber Ninja Pirates' last hurdle, vehicles is finally coming into a sharp, cool focus. I have to brag - here's a briefing I sent to my F2F play group: Vehicles have a Speed Rating. Each Speed Rating is a 5% bump over the prior one in actual MPH/KPH and therefore in game-units at any scale (don't worry, it's all in a table). And there are different scales - "personal" scale is the normal character scale of 2 meters per game-unit (I would love to go with 6 feet, but it got messy in dealing with space distances which are all metric), land/water-based is 8 meters per game-unit, air (atmosphere)-based is 56 meters per game-unit, near-atmosphere/very fast travel/"slow" space travel is 2 km per game-unit, and space travel (excepting hyper-jump) is 12,000 km per game-unit. Tables demonsrate the number of inches for each Speed Rating for each scale. Each vehicle has a "normal" maximum Speed Rating. To go faster in a Turn, roll Piloting. If you make it, you go faster by as many Speed Ratings as you make your roll by, up to as many as TEN Speed Ratings higher, but if you go that high there's a severe price. For each 1 level in excess of the vehicle's default Speed Rating, you incur a -1 to all Piloting rolls in the Turn. If a vehicle moves at 4 or more Speed Ratings higher than the default, you have to make a Vehicle Stress Roll (btw, of course, you can go slower than the degree of success of your piloting roll). For Vehicle Stress, roll 3d20; any PC who has Vehiclesmith (i.e., a Scotty) can use their skill to help offset this ("She cannae hold, Cap'n!") - you want to roll low! A vehicle's basic Engineering Rating (see below) can also help with this (or hurt, if it's a poorly-constructed vehicle). Basically, failing the Vehicle Stress Roll causes damage - either the Engineering Rating gets reduced (potentailly a lot) and a critical hit occurs, or you can actually experience COMPLETE STRUCTURAL FAILURE. But, see, this is kinda cool - because at an excess of 4-5 Speed Ratings, a pretty good Pilot and Engineer can keep it together fairly reliably. But each step up gets to the point where, at 10 in excess, you are almost guaranteed (you only avoid damage on a 3!) to start having your vehicle tear apart. So if you HAVE to go fast, faster than the vehicle was ever intended ("She was never meant to go past Warp 9!") you can risk it all - and I mean nail-biting risk it all at extremes! And of course, if you go at much slower speeds, you get pluses to piloting rolls. Blowing piloting skill rolls when going fast or taking turns can lead, of course, to losing control (not necessarily that bad - could just be a slight skid/roll/flip depending on vehicle type and environment, impairing your movement, but could be worse, too). Making one 45 degree angle turn (as in a hex or square, to be consistent with likely mapping scenarios) is free during a Turn, the more you make as well as (and in combination) the more severe the angle, a piloting roll is required with mounting penalties the more you do. Vehicles can help or hurt - each vehicle has a Handling Rating and an Engineering Rating. I pretty much covered the Engineering Rating above - but note that also comes into play for vehicle repairs and maintenance time and so on. The Handling Rating can be important, too - it helps offset (or if poor Handling, it penalizes) turning and speeding rolls. Okay, here's another cool thing - there's a random environmental obstacle/encounter table. Great, okay, so what? Well, here's so what - you need a "spotter" in your vehicle - a sensor/communications officer! Get your character with high Perception to do this. Because basically the pilot is heavily penalized against Perception rolls, if he's using his Piloting skill much at all. The guy helping with Perception gets a roll against obstacles. The more he makes his roll, the better the pilot can make his roll against these. Some of this was the result of the playtest and player comments - the guys correctly called out that lots of people stand around while the pilot does stuff. Consider now, if you want to do lots of neat space movement/combat, you need: a pilot; a spotter/sensor; an engineer; and people to fire weapons! Oh, and of course the cyber guy can be doing his thing, too. Lots for everyone to do. oh btw - copyright notice 2006 or something like that...but if you steal it, that's fine, please give me credit though and ask permission before publishing if you do - I'll get around to employing a Creative Commons licensing, I just have to think it out first (http://creativecommons.org/) but I'd rather just get the ideas out there, anyway whoops, one more note - and of course this is just a sort of brief basic idea thing - there's more to it, and some bits I left out, I just wanted to get the basic idea across without sending entire rule extracts (especially since at this point the rules are written only in a purely mechanical way for myself to work with, I have to go through and completely edit/rewrite before any publishable form takes shape - they need flavor embedded, more examples in some areas, more elaboration on why some things are as they are, and so on) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted January 27, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings Bono always wears sunglasses. Always. Even indoors in the dark. How can he see anything? Was he bitten by a vampire at some point in his career? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Gillen Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings "Telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -George Orwell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings It may be heresy to say this but the Dolph Lundgren Punisher film is better than the recent one. I saw the new one last night rented from a video store and I am so glad I did not go to the cinema to see it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings I've come the the conclusion that Batman Begin's is not a super-hero movie. To me it is just another Hollywood action film like Die Hard etc. Just because it is focused on Batman doesn't make it a super-hero film. There are way to many formulaic Hollywood action sequences to make it a superhero film unlike Spider-man or X-men which to me can be classified as super-hero films. I will say that some aspects involving Bruces home are super-heroic elements but to me they are not enough for me to classify it as a super-hero film. Disclaimer: it has been a while since I saw the movie and would have to see it again to reassess my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zornwil Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings I really really love the Pavement song "Gold Soundz" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings How to get every single Elvis Presley fan to scream for your blood. Ready ? And a one and a two.. We can't go on together with suspicious mimes and we can't build our dreams with suspicious mimes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanguard00 Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings Two quotes attributed to James Dean I've come to love... "Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." "The gratification comes in the doing, not in the results." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings Somepeople really need to be smacked. Today they are all in my office. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings One of these days, my bladder is going to explode when I'm at work. I wonder if it'll make a popping noise? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings My thinking is rather disjointed today Bazza 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted January 28, 2006 Report Share Posted January 28, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings In accordance with the prophecy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mightybec Posted January 28, 2006 Report Share Posted January 28, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings I like to eat eat eat apples and bananas..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted January 28, 2006 Report Share Posted January 28, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings Moving next week. We're moving out of the 364 sq ft studio into a 2 bedroom house. It's small compared to the house we had in Portland, but it will be HUGE compared to the last 10 months. And we won't have neighbors on the other side of the walls, a yard, and a shower that drains! And it looks to be a good chance I'll be in New Orleans soon after. It will be a hectic month, but good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted January 28, 2006 Report Share Posted January 28, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings I don't much mind having labyrinthitis, nor is the fact that I'll have it most of my life much of a problem, considering there are MUCH worse health problems to have. But does it really have to be so hard to explain? Sure, I could just call it "dizziness" or "vertigo," but neither of those sound like medical disorders. They just sound like I spun in a circle too fast, or looked down a tall building. And I even get blank looks when I call it "vertigo." The problem is, periodically (especially when it's dry), my inner ear retains fluid, and swells up. When it gets to a certain point, it registers that I'm tilting in 360 different directions, all at the same time. It feels like being on a tilt-a-whirl. There's sometimes some nausea, but nothing that makes eating impossible. The hardest part about it is that it makes concentration impossible, and focusing on a given task quite difficult. Even lying down induces this sensation, though a good night's sleep staves it off for a couple of hours in the morning. The treatments are steroids and some medicine that makes me sleepy. The steroids make me impatient, overly warm, and irritable. The other medication is so powerful, I almost fall asleep standing up. Taking them in tandem, sadly, doesn't make the side effects cancel one another out. I just get cranky and impossible to be around. So I prefer going without the medication, since, the last time I went without meds, it went away on its own. They really only help ease the symptoms. And they don't even help that well. I'd rather be dizzy than snapping at everyone between falling asleep standing up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted January 28, 2006 Report Share Posted January 28, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings "I read that women still make 30% less than men, and I like that because if women made as much money as men did, they'd be marrying...eachother. That 30% is all we have" - Mike Birbiglia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Gillen Posted January 28, 2006 Report Share Posted January 28, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings "Come on! You're a figment of my imagination! The least you could do is take your top off!!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted January 28, 2006 Report Share Posted January 28, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings anyone else think that The Simpson's should just finish? it is getting lame? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted January 28, 2006 Report Share Posted January 28, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings I have a great way of getting rid of the "spread rep rule". There are lost of posters with only one post. rep those posts and clear your rep queue. then rep the same people all over again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hermit Posted January 28, 2006 Report Share Posted January 28, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings The spirit is willing, but the flesh is geek. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SatinKitty Posted January 28, 2006 Report Share Posted January 28, 2006 Re: A Thread for Random Musings I eat too many Pop-tarts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.