Stephen Mann

It helps to be the scribe From an old AD&D game: We're fighting a group reputed to be much more powerful than we are. After a few rounds, the other group tries to intimidate us with their massive reputation. Our fighter/mage is dueling the other team's weaponmaster, who's supposed to be practically unbeatable. The F/M responds to the weaponmaster's taunts with: "My weapons are bloody, are yours?" Later, we were facing waves of undead. My cleric had turned the first few groups, then botched his turn rolls on the next couple. When the others accused him of incompetence: "My holy symbol gets tired after a while!" We'd been fighting hobgoblins for a while, and were really getting sick and tired of them. The fighter/mage declares: "I see a hobgoblin, I kill the man wearing it." In an underground city, we needed some prisoners to interrogate. While fighting a bunch of derro, our mage fireballs a group of richly dressed temple leaders who used some kind of Horn magical item to attack us. They would have been good sources of information, so we were a bit peeved at the mage. His reply was: "They blew a horn right at me, what was I supposed to do?" To the (new) unscrupulous fighter in the group who had problems hitting in his first few fights: "They're unconscious, Oridio, we'll let you kill them." The mage insulting the ranger: "The only inanimate object I talk to is Jimmy." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - In the very temporary Aberrant game, the energy blaster is facing a foe who is immune to energy blasts. Desperate, he tries to impress his opponent with his martial arts battle cry: "Hong Kong Phooey! General Tsoa! Kung Fu!" Our group split up to case the grounds of a public ceremony we were supposed to protect later in the day. Our telekinetic didn't return until after the ceremony started: "I was getting my mustache darkened." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - During a Rifts game, the group is watching a gladiator prize fight. In this particular fight was our blond, blue-eyed ex-military team leader versus the new guy on the team who was playing the chaotic stupid jerk. Everyone bet their money on the team leader (and won). The jerk asked later why we had done that. The most polite answer was: “Always bet on the blonde.†Assorted lines I don't remember the circumstances for: “You really are an idiot, aren't you?†“The time for subtlety is gone.†“Now that it’s been explained to me, it makes sense!â€

Super-powered Fantasy (longish). The I ran two Super Fantasy games a few years ago. Powered people in my setting could be mages, Talented, or Godlings. Mages are self-explanatory, Talented were magical mutants, and Godlings were semi-divine. Mage spells and Talented powers could be suppressed with Dispel Magic, Godling powers could not. PCs were 75+75 characters (so I would get powered fantasy characters, not superheroes with chainmail) with an extra 50 points for skills or powers (so 200 points total). Roughly 2000 years ago, the Elder Gods tried to destroy the world. They were stopped by their children (the Young Gods) and a vast army of mortals. The only survivors were the New Gods (children of the Young Gods) and some mortals. The New Gods stuck around for a while helping recreate civilization, and mating with a few worthy mortals. In the present, the Godlings have lost the last of their Divine Aspect, but retain some of their Divine Attributes. In some isolated villages, they are still worshipped. In most countries, the powerful families had co-opted the mages, Talented, and Godlings by marrying them. The token monotheistic religious fanatic country persecuted Godlings because their powers were non-magical in origin, and everyone knows that magic is the Gift of The One True God. The Godling rebels in this country were Balor (He of the Fiery Eye) and his Merry Men, obvious X-Men knockoffs. My GMNPC was the martial artist/ranger son of Mace, the Merry Men's metal-bodied brick. A southern desert city hired a group of powered people (all three types) as a shield against raids from desert nomads (JLA knockoffs). The various PCs included an elven thief with laser and light powers, a human ranger with enhanced senses, a human super-soldier military man, human elemental mage/swordsman, human earth elementalist, etc. The world had recently started a magical tech renaissance, so normals with enough magical weaponry could go toe-to-toe with powered people. The game unfortunately ended before the final act, which would have revealed the true history of the world and how magic, the Talented, and Godlings worked. - - - - - - - - - - - - - I won't go into the cosmology of this world, but the Godlings were the descendents of the New Gods, a superhero team stranded on this world during an apocalyptic battle between the original high-tech settlers of this world (remembered as the Elder Gods) and their primitive descendants.

A mild worst con game Well, having read the previous stories, I can safely say that I've led a charmed gaming life. My worst con game had a table staffed with what seemed to be wonderful gamers, and a teen GM who hadn't really read through the adventure before the game started. Then he admitted he hadn't GMed before. The experienced con GMs at the table assured him that GMing a con game wasn't that different from GMing a home game. "No," he said, innocently, "I've never GMed before at all! A friend on the con council asked me to do this. I've played a lot, though!" What was truly sad, though, was the table across the hall that was running the same adventure. We could hear very clearly how much fun they were having! At the end of the session, we hadn't even gotten off page 1 of the 20-page adventure. Sigh.

More books Wizard of 4th Street series by Simon Hawke (9 books)

Right. He performed psychic surgery on them, changing their values and habits, and added "willing and enthusiastic servants of Smilodon, and mothers of the new catpeople race". Actually, that's debatable. Or, at least, I hope it is. That's why I created my version of The Pride.

Yup, and that's what I was hoping for. On the other hand, a number of the catwomen he enslaved were pretty heinous villains; mass destruction, multiple murders, etc. I wanted somebody to take the other side of the argument and see how successful they were.

The Rough Mechanicals This reminds me of a Tom Holt book called "Flying Dutch". The story was about the Flying Dutchman, an immortal Dutch ship's captain and his immortal crew. They sail the seas in their 17th century sailing ship, making landfall only once every 7 years (because of The Smell). Their immortality and invulnerability come from beer mixed with an elixir stolen from an alchemist passenger.

Another Pride I started creating (but never finished) another version of The Pride for an adult superhero game (adult meaning possible romance and intimate moments). The leader was Smilodon, a light brick/martial artist with some magical abilities. In reality, he was the Lord of Cats, a semi-divine figure who was the next best thing to a Cat God without actually being a God. He used to his control of felines to mind-control several female villains with cat themes/mutations. With new costumes and names, he presented them as the Pride. When off the battlefield, they were his harem, intended as mothers for a new race of powered cat people. Smilodon was intended as a moral quandry for the heroes. While on the one hand, his use of mind-control was bad, he was using it to rehabilitate the women.

The fact that other people can use them doesn't make them Independent... it just makes them Universal Foci. They're only Independent if the Character Points he spent buying them would be lost forever should the crystals be lost. Since they're (relatively) common in your world, it doesn't sound like that's the case to me. It sounds more like a normal Focus situation, where if he loses the Focus, he can gain a new one after some inconvenience. OK, that makes sense. So, it sounds like Independent would be used for one-of-a-kind or rare items rather than generic guns and stuff?

I'm building a mage character who uses several magic crystals. The mage can use his abilities without the crystals, but only at very weak levels. The crystals focus and amplify the mage's natural magical abilities. Any mage can use these crystals, and mages are a significant minority of the population (cities have at least several dozen). Crystals are common enough that every mage has at least one, though it may be a poor/weak crystal. The natural versions of the powers are limited to 10 active points in the powers (2d6 EB, 5" flight, etc). The crystals are both Focus and Independent. Focus because he can't get the enhanced powers without the crystals, and independent because other people can use them. The problem is that not "everyone" can use them, only other mages. Is this enough of a difference to modify the Independent bonus? Or should I just say that "everyone" means other mages in this case?

"Let's get dangerous" and "I am the Terror that flaps in the night!"