Sougen

Re: Armour/Power Suit that can retract into a non-functional state. Your idea #1 is the simplest and best approach, IMO. Place the OIHI on all non-perm powers / abilities. Leave it to special effect how they 'phase out' and 'phase in'. Worrying about trying to build something that is in essence the 'lack' of a power, is odd. The lack of having your power is best design by showing what it takes to get your power (putting on your suit, etc). All other designs to the opposite effect seem ill placed.

Re: Interview with Prometheus writer Jon Spaihts on io9 Personally, I just like my SciFi to be fun and entertaining. I guess I'm the weird one around here because I don't come with many other pre-conditions. I'm not a fan of camp - no matter the genre- and Star Trek TOS struck me as being too much like that. I did like TNG but the lack of consistency and the last moment techno bable bits did annoy me. Enterprise was good for a lot of itself, but it did start to get a bit repetitive. B5 was one of my favorites; not because of its use of techno babble and whatnot, but because it had a consistent and progressive plot that took time to develop characters you felt you could fully invest in. This is also why I liked StarGate. But the eventual run on of mega villains and convoluted techno blah got to me. The reboot in Atlantis was also good because even if they used techno babble, it felt like we were part of it. That it came at a good time in their reasoning. All in all, a good show. A lot of the harder scifi out there doesn't grab my attention because it really wants to focus on the strictness of how we understand physics now, and not on the compelling human story wrapped up in it. IT leads itself well to stories of person despair, distress, and the un-yielding environment we are all caught up in, but not much else, IMO. All the other story ideas don't really need the hard sci-fi. It doesn't seem to add to the value - just let certain people geek out about how 'realistic' it is. But to be honest, it is fiction. Its not even 'based on a real story' kind of fiction, it is whole clothe fiction. So, I'm okay with it as coming off as fiction. It shouldn't be ashamed of itself so much as to try and hide itself in the vestiges of 'believe-ability', only shine in the realm of 'compellingness' and 'relatability". ^^

Re: [Xenozoic Tales / Cadillacs and Dinosaurs] Lost technology idea needed. Wow, it has been forever since I saw any mention of Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. I never played a game of C&D and only ever thumbed through the book at my friends place. So I can't say I got much of a 'feel' for the game but I don't think it ever struck me as pulpish. Also, I think you might get more traffic in the General roleplaying forum. All that said, I think the undergrowned cities that were a mainstay of the C&D I remember had computers that still could run various functions in the city. Maybe if your city has one on the frits or has already gone down, a quest to find a replacement control program / AI might be good. Maybe they heard stories of a shutdown city that has a still working computer core just 'out yonder'. It gives the Players a environment challenge from the surface creatures. It gives them a since of distance and scarcity by being so far away from home. It also gives them the chance to 'interact' with the locals of the 'what should have been" abandoned city. What strange customs do they have? Maybe they aren't the original inhabitants. What happened to the fore generation? Were the new 'residents' innocent in the previous groups disappearance? How will the players know before it is too late? As to tech, beyond the Comp Program, there could be a wealth of data that goes with it. There could also be access to various advanced weaponry or vehicles that are more than the gas guzzlers. Just my two cents. It has been a long time since I saw any mention of the game setting, so my knowledge has all but been lost to the flow of time.

Re: Sign Language I think your view of "RAW" would mean that anything is possible since the RAW also says the GM should modify any part of the rules they see fit. At this point the RAW gets so abstract as to not mean anything at all. But maintaining a strict view of what RAW means helps us better understand what isn't explicit in the rules. The above example of getting two languages (ish), being fairly clear example of what isn't RAW.

Re: Sign Language Indeed. Although you said it in a less and more direct way than I, that is in essence my point. Is the above RAW? No. Does it absolutely have to be? By no means. GMs can grant any allowances they deem fit for their game given the full context of the character, the setting, and the other PCs. Actually, the idea of a super hero team that uses sign languages is kind of entertaining.

Re: Sign Language

Re: Avatar: The Legend of Korra Found this on youtube just now and it gave me quite a laugh. Hope it does so for you all. Also, it is most certainly NSFW

Re: Sign Language

Re: Evil doubles from another dimension In one game we met not our evil doubles per se, but rather our evil post-apoc selves from the future. One of the characters does something to cause the apoc and the rest of the team apparently ended up turning on him (probably for good reason). Our team consisted of the guy who would cause the problem and two others. Their team consisted of of one of our current team, one of our teams past character (who left and was replaced with another PC - same player, though). And then one NPC who had just been introduced to the PC who causes all the troubles. It caused us worry that one of the current team was shown as being present in the future verse, too. But we never got a clear answer as to why. And the PC character that caused all the troubles was assumed dead in the future verse but no body was ever found so when he (our version) showed up, it caused a lot of alarm. In retrospect, it was way too believable that the Player in question might cause an apoc. And after the story arc ended it, it stayed with him so that he was always trying to figure out exactly how he would cause it (probably leading him to be so paranoid as to actually cause it! ). Anyway, that's my tidbit.

Re: A Thread for Random Videos Well, its Saturday morning and rather than recovering from a late night, I seem to be up watching a lot of TED... Anyway, here is another good vid: http://www.ted.com/talks/amory_lovins_a_50_year_plan_for_energy.html

Re: Make Your Own Motivational Poster What? There was text? ^^

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works? I can't remember, is the TSAR bomb the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated (well, largest weapon period, really)? Also, did anyone ever try to make anything larger with success?

Re: A Thread for Random Videos Although I enjoyed the video, I really can't understand the appeal of vocaloids. Their voices are so hard to listen to.

Re: Beaks and Speech

Re: Sign Language To the best of my knowledge, you also know a new set of grammar too. I could be wrong (never studied sign lang), but to the best of my knowledge, American sign is as distinct from American English as English is from Spanish. Some things are indeed shared but the syntactic, morphological, and of course phonological rules are distinct and different.

Re: Beaks and Speech Although I veered away from using the words phonology and phonetics and a whole host of other such words, I'm well aware of them given that my degree is in linguistics. And as a side note, English (at least American English) is accepted to have about 10/11 discrete (possessing phonemic distinction) vowel sounds. There is some variation but rarely does it drop below 10 nor rise above 11. Now, maybe someone is trying to account for dipthongs as being wholly different and also including simi-vowels, otherwise the 19-23 range would be hard to achieve. As a side note, Phonetics is the study of sound production: a very mechanical field. Phonology is the study of a language's use of sounds: pattern / rule generation, acquisition, adaption, etc. Last thought on this tangent of phonology, as an issue of phonology, humans have a tendency to 'hear' X sound and think it is Y sound because X doesn't exist in their native language but is relatively close to Y in acoustic value. This is why we also have a tendency to hear certain sounds from animals and think they are saying reasonably well formed words in our native language even though the acoustic values are quite different. --- But at the end of the day, I was trying to echo the comments of the earlier posters on this thread about what sounds a bird like creature could make. Certain sounds would be generally absent from their speech. It would have a variety of other sounds, though. Many of which you make good point to note. It could also likely produce many of the sounds native to human speech (t, d, k, g, and r to name but a few). What the exact sounds that would exist would be determined by a lot of biological issues (glottis control, nasaling ability, fine motor control of tongue, exact specs on oral cavity). But then again, those would determine the upper max available, not what is actually used. English uses less than a forth of the total sounds available to humans (uses in the sense of discreteness - phonemic distinction), and other languages use a third of English's usage but still can convey the same level of information. There is no reason to assume birds would need more than a handful of discrete sounds nor that they couldn't use an extreme range either. Perhaps the biggest determinate in a 'beaked races' sound production for language will be on how that language is used. Will they need to convey information over great distances or short? If the latter is true, low tone sounds more akin to human language will probably prevail. If the former is the case, high pitch squawks and sounds that can travel a distance before losing acoustic value will prevail. This would also have major effects on the culture of the race, too.

Re: Beaks and Speech Christopher, I do not think you and I are talking even remotely about the same thing here. I'm now quite confused why you have been quoting me at all. I have from my first post never mentioned HERO or any rules therein. I have been talking about general biology and linguistics. You have quoted me and continued forth with saying I shouldn't make assumptions about dolphins and whales to which I responded; once again without ever referencing HERO. So you'll excuse me if I'm a tad bit perplexed by this sudden move to talking about HERO.

Re: Beaks and Speech No, there is a light year of difference between animal communication and actual language.

Re: Beaks and Speech You seem to operating on the idea that bird sounds are somehow extremely mysterious to us. By looking at bird heads we can know with great precision what sounds that can and can not hear. We can know with great precision what sounds they can and can not produce. And we have all the tech needed to record, measure, and analyze all those sounds with as much precision as any bird ear. But the noise being made hasn't been show to indicate discernible patters akin to language. Communication, yeah. Language, no. There is a light year of difference between the two.

Re: Beaks and Speech It isn't the limited nature of the sounds they can produce. Again, there are animals who can produce far far more than 10 discrete sounds but have no 'language', while there are human languages that only require ten sounds. It is a matter of the brain of any given species having the resources needed to develop a language center. The evolutionary process doesn't favor language. Communication, yes. Language, no. Likewise, I'm not making any wild assumptions, I am communicating accepted fact in the linguistic community. There are indeed creatures who can break some of the barriers for gaining access to actual language, but no animal has been shown to break them all. Bees can move out of the limited nature of the now and talk about far off places. This is a functional aspect of all known bees and one that is necessary for their survival. The ability to create new words inside a single lifetime isn't, though. Bees lack this because it is not normally necessary for their flourishing. These issues with being able to acquire full language are rather tough challenges. As to whales and Dolphins, I know their is a lot of myth surrounding them, I know there is a lot of love for the idea of the intelligent sea brethren, but there isn't enough evidence to support the idea that they have language. Complex communication is about as far as current research has gotten. And this isn't a matter of analyzing the 'sounds' they produce, it is a matter of analyzing what other members of the species do with the sounds they hear. How does it affect their behavior and is there honest reason to suggest that the sounds communicated in the complexity that is language. That is the weak link in the Dolphin and Whale font. Many animals have complex communication, none but human has been shown to have language. Something that is inherently abstract / arbitrary, capable of communicating about events that have, are, and will happen; and of the here, there, and way over there; capable of formulating, expressing, and explaining new lexicon adders inside a single lifetime, and capable of the infinitely complex string of communication. Chimpanzees were once thought to have the ability to learn human sign as a language and not mere communication - many researches tried to press the idea that they were breaking the barriers and creating new thoughts and discussing non-now events. But at the end of the day, there wasn't the evidence to support it but a lot of bias on the part of the researches to question it. As to the bird example you listed, I'm not sure what you were trying to convey. Is there a specific event you are talking about? PS: although I've mentioned sound and that is the standard medium by which language is thought to be conveyed through, it isn't the only one. Bees use dance and chemicals. Chimpanzees were using sign. There is far more to language than just the medium chosen to convey it.

Re: Beaks and Speech

Re: Beaks and Speech I'd have to side with all the people who already noted that they would sound the way they sound ^^. Certainly there are certain human produced sounds that would be difficult to imitate much less reproduce. Some sounds that require the existence of dynamically mobile lips would indeed be hard ( /M, B, P, W, U, O/ for example). Depending on the nature of their nasal cavities, things that require nasality would also be hard ( /N, M, Ng/ ). Also, I'm not sure if they have uvulas, but sounds that use the uvula would likewise be hard. Then there is just the general question if their oral cavity is set up in such away as to be able to create the sound compressions needed to generate the whole host of other sounds we produce. Or if their tongue has the level of mobility as ours. And wither or not they have a great deal of control of their glottis so that they can voice and unvoice various sounds. So, could they mimic human speech? Probably not too well unless they were very strange beak bearers. Could they have their own oral language, yeah, easily. There would probably be a variety of vowels, several different kinds of fricatives and perhaps the interior plosives (stops). They could even make use of various clicks and such depending on the exact nature of their mouth. And then there will also be a whole host of sounds that they could possibly make that we don't. Then there would also be issues regarding the sensitivity of their hearing. If they can greater variance in sounds than us, then they could also have the ability to make fine distinctions in sounds that we don't already do (and to be honest, human ears have a great range for detecting difference given that we can make and detect well over 100 discrete sounds). Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Re: Make Your Own Motivational Poster

Re: Make Your Own Motivational Poster

Re: Sign Language I have the same feeling about apply gestures and not usable in the dark. There are generally certain limitations on language that we just accept as 'standards' and not worthy of price reduction. Spoken language can't be done in vacuum or in truly loud places. Do we discount it for that? No, we just realize that is the nature of the beast. Likewise, we don't require incantations for it either. We just accept that they can't talk while performing incantations.