Smeazel

Re: Interstellar Era Alien Races OK, normally I wouldn't resurrect month-old threads, but I figured it was ungrateful of me not to have thanked Captain Obvious for his reply (which I should have done much sooner). So...thanks; yeah, actually, your reply does help. I should have thought of Alien Wars myself, but for some reason it slipped my mind; I'll add that to my list of books to pick up.

Okay, I figured this question had to be answered somewhere in either the HERO 5R book or the FAQ, but I've searched both and can't find it, so, at the risk of looking like an idiot for having somehow missed the answer where it's clearly laid out somewhere that I thought I'd looked, I'll go ahead and ask it here. Can a character move through a hex occupied by another character? Does it make a difference whether the other character wants to let him through or not? My gut feeling about this is that Character A would be able to move freely through a hex containing Character B if Character B is willing to let him by--otherwise, if the Character B wants to block his way, Character A would have to force his way through with a Move Through maneuver. But I'm not sure that's right, and I haven't been able to find the matter explicitly addressed anywhere (though again, it could be that it's there and I just missed it somehow). Actually, even if my gut feeling is right, it still leaves some questions unanswered--like is there any way for Character A to dodge past Character B without hurting him? (An Acrobatics roll, maybe?...) Again, sorry if this question has already been addressed somewhere, but if so I couldn't find it...

Okay, just something I've been trying to figure out for a project of mine... According to the Champions Universe document, the years 2200 to 2300 comprised the Interstellar Era, when humans had just discovered FTL travel and were starting to spread across the stars, but before their first major interstellar war (with the Xenovores). During this time, they come into contact with "many alien species"--and, in fact, recently survived an alien invasion, in 2153. So, my question is...which alien species? Which alien species did humanity encounter during the Interstellar Era, and which weren't encountered until later? (In particular, for my purposes, I kinda need to know which alien species man had encountered by the year 2250, specifically, but I'm still interested in the general question.) Yeah, I know I could just make up the answer myself, but I tend to be something of a stickler for canon, so I'm trying to figure out if there is a canonical answer (yet). The HERO sourcebook that's come out so far with the most information on alien species, so far as I can tell, is the Terran Empire, so that's mostly the one I'm using to try to figure this out. Thus far, here's what I've gathered: The Hzeel, the Sirians, the Qularr, and the Gadroon had all had encounters with humanity before the Interstellar Era, and even before the time of Solar Hero. However, none of them are likely to have been around much during the Interstellar Era. The Sirians were nearly wiped out by the Malvans in the 1970s; the Qularr were absorbed by the Thorgon Hegemony in the early 2000s; the Gadroon were decimated and what few were left became nomadic; the Hzeel were ruined by the Perseids. There may be some minor contact between humans and Gadroon and/or Hzeel during the Interstellar Era, but I get the impression that neither race is likely to be a major player--and the Qularr and Sirians even less so. The Perseid Empire is close enough to Earth that they seem to me to be the most likely aliens for humans to have been in contact with during the Interstellar Era. What kind of contact that would be, I'm not sure; I'm guessing probably formal but chilly diplomacy. The Thorgon Hegemony isn't as close to Earth as the Perseid Empire, but close enough it could easily have come into contact with Earth during the Interstellar Era. On the other hand, it's aggressive enough that such contact would likely have resulted in a war, and the Hero Universe document explicitly says that the war with the Xenovores was the first major interstellar war humanity got involved in...so maybe not. On the other other hand, the Thorgon Hegemony does strike me as the most likely candidate for the would-be alien invaders in 2153. (If there's any canonical explication of who those invaders were, I missed it--which is entirely possible.) The Conjoined Civilizations Republic is a good possibility--again, it's not too close to Earth, but it's close enough its representatives might have come into contact with Earth, especially given their penchant for exploration. The CCR could have had a somewhat warmer diplomatic relationship with Earth than the Perseid Empire. The Mandaarians could also have been in contact with Earth during the Interstellar Era--that was before their Exodus, after all, so there were a lot more of them around back then, and even if they controlled a relatively small amount of space, and that not all that close to Earth, they were advanced enough to have a wide-ranging influence. The Malvanians are a big maybe--Malva's pretty far from Earth, but the ancient and powerful Malvan race could still have been in contact with humans during the Interstellar Era. There may be some possibilities with the Elpaden, the original inhabitants of Osiris. How long ago did their civilization fall? Were they in contact with humans during the Interstellar Era? Probably not; the implication seems to be that their advanced civilization collapsed--or was destroyed--a lot longer ago than that, but it's not absolutely clear. Most of the other races and empires mentioned in the Terran Empire book either are explicitly said to have been first encountered after the Interstellar Era or are situated far enough away from Earth they're unlikely to have been among the first races that humanity came into contact with--though it's certainly not impossible that humans did meet wide-ranging members of some of these races and empires during the Interstellar Era. Naturally, it's also quite possible that there are other races that were in close contact with Earth during the Interstellar Era that aren't mentioned in the Terran Empire book, having waned in importance in the meantime. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject, but I'd be interested in hearing what anyone else thinks about what alien races humans were in contact with during the Interstellar Era. A canonical answer from Steve Long would be ideal, of course, but I'm not counting on that; I'll settle for some analysis by anyone who can point out something I've missed or just has some interesting ideas.

And what I'm saying is that's probably because in high school Spanish they only told you the simple part - the very basics. The very basics of English are pretty simple too. But taken as a whole, Spanish grammar is, if anything, more complex than English grammar. It has way more verb tenses, it has different forms of adjectives and articles for different gender and number, and so forth. It's probably just that in your high school Spanish class, they left out the complications. You're a native English speaker (I assume), so you know all the complications and exceptions in English - but you only know the basics of Spanish, so you're not familiar with how complex it is.

Whoa. If you want to give an example of simplicity in Spanish, verb tenses are about the worst possible example to pick. Verb tenses are one of the aspects in which Spanish is most complex - far, far more complex than English. First of all, First, Second, and Third are persons, not tenses. Tenses are as in past, present, future, etc. English has exactly two basic tenses, plus two participles and various compound tenses that are produced in perfectly regular fashion with helping verbs (future tense = will + infinitive, conditional = would + infinitive, etc.) Spanish has nine different non-compound tenses - present indicative, present subjunctive, preterite, imperfect, imperfect subjunctive, future, future subjunctive, imperative, and conditional - plus two participles and various compound tenses. (Ten tenses, actually, if you consider there are two different ways of forming the imperfect subjunctive.) The tenses are far, far more complex. (Technically, English grammar has some of these same tenses, but the verbs don't have different forms in them (for example, the English indicative is the same as the infinitive). In Spanish, all these tenses do have different verb forms!) And as far as person (first, second, and third), Spanish is way more complex than English there too. Spanish has six different combinations of person and number: first, second, and third person singular and plural. Each of these gives a different ending, which isn't necessarily the same for every tense. English has two combinations of person and number leading to different verb forms for most verbs - the only exception, the present tense of to be, has three forms, still half of those in Spanish. To get an idea of how very much more complex Spanish verbs are than English, compare the following: Here are all the forms of to be, the English verb with the most different forms: be, being, been, is, are, am, was, were. That's it. Eight different forms of the verb. (That's not counting compound forms like "has been" and "will be", of course, but those are formed in a regular fashion, and Spanish has at least as many different compound forms as English.) Okay, now let's look at the Spanish verb ser, one of the two Spanish verbs for to be. How many different forms does ser have (again not counting compounds)? Let's see: ser, siendo, sido, es, eres, soy, son, sois, somos, sea, seas, sean, seais, séamos, fue, fuiste, fui, fueron, fuisteis, fuimos, era, eras, eran, erais, éramos, fuera, fueras, fueran, fuerais, fuéramos, fuese, fueses, fuesen, fueseis, fuesen, fuésemos, será, serás, seré, serán, seráis, seramos, fuere, fueres, fueren, fuereis, fuéremos, sé, sed, sería, serías, serían, seríais, seríamos. That's fifty-four different forms of the verb, as opposed to eight forms for "to be" in English. And before you start talking about irregular verbs - Spanish is loaded with irregular verbs, too, and if you think remembering the irregularities for verbs that take eight different forms like in English try learning irregularities for verbs that can take fifty-something different forms. Then add on the fact that the pronouns in Spanish can be joined to the verbs, and in some cases the verbs change to accomodate them, giving rise to still more forms. Verbs in Spanish are far, far more complex than in English. I think the reason you seem so convinced that Spanish is simpler than English is because you've only had high school Spanish, and they don't teach all the complications of the language because they couldn't fit it into one or two semesters. I'll bet in your high school Spanish classes they didn't mention the subjunctive tenses, or conditional, maybe not even the difference between preterite and imperfect, despite the fact that these are all important features of the language that a native speaker uses daily without thinking about it. Along the same lines, a native Spanish speaker who only learned the basics of English (and didn't learn the subtleties and exceptions) might think English is a very simple language. Only one word for to be, instead of the two verbs ser and estar and having to figure out which one is appropriate? No imperfect tense? No subjunctives (or at least very rarely used subjunctives)? No genders for nouns, articles, and adjectives? No accents? Wow! English is much simpler than Spanish! Actually, if either language has a more complex grammar than the other, I'd say it's Spanish. Unlike English, in Spanish you have to worry about agreement of genders between nouns, adjectives, and articles (in English, an adjective or article has only one form, in Spanish it has four); you have all these different verb tenses and persons to worry about; and yes, there are at least as many irregularities and exceptions to the rules in Spanish as in English. But then, as I said, Spanish has much simpler spelling, so I guess it balances out...

Thanks for your reply to my question about RSR Limitations, but I just had a few minor followups: (1) Your answer to part 2 of my earlier three-part question (despite my having said my question was "twofold" - aargh; added the third part at the last minute and didn't go back and reread the beginning of my post) - that an Attack Roll has been used for a Required Skill Roll in the past - pretty much answered what I needed, and I think that's how I'm going to go ahead and do what I wanted. But what would such a Required Skill Roll be worth? Would it be just the same as a Basic RSR Limitation (-1/2), or would it be -3/4 since it's kind of subject to a Skill Versus Skill contest (attacker's OCV vs. defender's DCV), or would it be some other value? (2) Since your answer to part 2 pretty much took care of what I wanted for the moment, part 1 of my earlier question is moot for now - but I'm still interested in the answer just out of curiosity (and for future reference, in case a different situation comes up where I might need it). Part 1 was whether an RSR requiring a Characteristic Roll could be subject to a Characteristic Versus Characteristic contest, and if so what such a Limitation would be worth. Your reply to this part was simply "See 5E 199". Well... I did see 5E 199, in fact I read the page thoroughly, and I couldn't find the answer there. It refers to Characteristic Rolls, and to Skill Versus Skill contests, but never to Characteristic Versus Characteristic contests - and it's not clear to me what such an RSR should be worth, since the value of a Characteristic Roll generally depends on the numbers needed, as per the Activation Roll Value Table, and for a Characteristic Versus Characteristic contest the numbers needed would be variable (depending on the opponent's roll). If I had to guess, I'd suppose such an RSR Limitation would probably be worth -1 - -3/4 for a Characteristic Roll (taking the value from the Activation Roll Value Table for 11-, the "average" value), plus an additional -1/4 for its being subject to a Skill Versus Skill (actually Characteristic Versus Characteristic) contest - but I'm not sure this reasoning is correct...

Er... how so? Considering we don't have a gender system for nouns in English, we can't very well have exceptions to it. And if you're talking about exceptions in other aspects of grammar, Spanish is chock full of them. There are loads of irregular verbs. Now, I'll admit that the spelling in Spanish is definitely much more regular than English (though even there I've seen mistakes made with switching c's, z's, and s's, and omitting h's or inserting them where they don't belong), but as far as grammar it's not really clear that one language has more irregularities than the other...

Er... no offense, but there's apparently a lot you don't remember from high school Spanish, too. Not all Spanish nouns end in O or A. Most Spanish nouns ending in consonants (such as reloj, clock) are masculine, and most Spanish nouns ending in vowels other than O (which includes muerte) are feminine. Yes, muerte is a feminine noun. You can look it up in a Spanish dictionary and check for yourself. In fact, here's its entry in one online Spanish dictionary. Note the f for feminine. Incidentally, there are a lot of exceptions to the general rules, too. For example, mano (hand) is feminine, even though it ends in an O; tema (theme) is masculine, even though it ends in an A; and ciudad (city) is feminine, even though it ends in a consonant (the same is true of other words ending in -dad). So the old O masculine, A feminine rule doesn't always hold true even for words that do end in O or A. [Edited because initially I wasn't thinking straight and used "agua" as an example of a masculine noun that ends in A, which is incorrect - "agua" is feminine but takes the masculine article]

Oh, yeah, a few more... there's the shedu (or sedu), a guardian creature from Babylonian mythology in the shape of a winged bull with a human head... the lammasu, which is basically the Assyrian name for the shedu... the smaj, mythological protectors of Serbia who resembled winged humans and could shoot fire...

Heh... looks like we cross-posted there...

Re: Help with helpful "Monsters" Well, if you don't mind oriental themes (and apparently you don't, judging by your inclusion of "dragon" - Western dragons were definitely not "good"), there's always the ki-lin (also called the ch'i-lin). It's sort of a Chinese unicorn. More info [http://www.pantheon.org/articles/k/ki-lin.html]here'>http://www.pantheon.org/articles/k/ki-lin.html]here[/i]. (Other "good" monsters listed at http://www.pantheon.org include the gorgoniy, and the singa, but I hadn't heard of those before and don't know much about them.) There's also the kobold - despite D&Ds promulgation of the kobold as a nasty evil humanoid, the original mythological kobolds were actually basically good creatures that warned miners of impending disaster. Then there are various types of helpful fairy-type home spirit, like the brownie and the clurichaun (the latter being sort of a supernatural protector of the wine cellars), among many others - but I don't know if this is the kind of thing you're looking for, or if you want less humanoid creatures. Oh - right. The caladrius is definitely a "good" mythological creature. It's a bird that when placed by the bed of a sick person will either take the disease and fly into the sun with it, curing the afflicted, or, if there's no hope for a cure, turn its back (but hey, at least that way you know...) Hm... I'm sure there are lots of others, but those are the first ones that occur to me off the top of my head...

Re: Defining N-Ray Problem is, they go through everything too well to be useful for vision. Photons (light) work for vision because they bounce off things, so we can see the things they bounce off. Neutrinos, going through virtually everything, wouldn't actually allow you to see anything. Things that photons could pass through unimpeded would be invisible to conventional (photon-based) vision; everything would be invisible to neutrino-based vision. Then again, superhero comic books often fudge considerably on physics (to put it mildly). You could certainly concoct some hand-waving explanation on the eyes sensing what the neutrinos passed through by some sort of detectable resonance the neutrinos take on from what they pass through. Admittedly that doesn't really make much scientific sense... but it may sound plausible enough to work as comic-book physics.

Yeah, I've had players like that - although fortunately not an entire group of them at once. I think the most extreme example was a D&D campaign I ran my freshman year in college. There were other players off and on at various points, but two main players who were in the entire campaign. One of the two constant players not only barely participated, but actually frequently fell asleep during the game. He claimed to be having fun - and I guess if he was really that bored he would have just stopped showing up - but he did so little that he couldn't even keep himself awake. Fortunately, the other player was motivated and proactive enough for the both of them, but... sheez.

Re: Re: Need Help On Terror Incorprated, 5th Edition. A few nitpicks: (1) The word for "death" is muerte, not muerto. Muerto means "dead". (2) Technically, both muerte and calavera are feminine nouns - so the adjective should be obscura, not obscuro. (And, of course, the article should be la, not el, but I guess since it's a masculine character you can use the masculine article even though he's named after a feminine noun - hm, actually I'm not sure what the standard procedure is in such a case. You could skirt the issue by using different, masculine words for death and skull, like óbito and cráneo, but those are rarer words with slightly different connotations and don't have the same panache.)

Okay, here was a rather disturbing one. The GM just told the group that a certain encoding scheme included a "retinal scan" as part of its unlocking mechanism. One of the players, after a pause, said "I didn't hear 'retinal' at first." Use your imagination to guess what she did hear. Now imagine how, exactly, the body part in question could be scanned... or, better yet, don't... A somewhat less disturbing, but a bit blander, quote from the same session, when the PCs are rushing to escape a collapsing building and one wants to go back for a special power suit she had been given by an NPC: PC 1: "I need the suit!" PC 2: "Or you can escape with your life and ask Parker for a new one later." PC 1: "'Escape with your life' sounds good..."