sinanju

We could have, but we voted against her.

I threw out my idea (for dealing with multiple fantasy races) on another thread. They're all the creation of some ancient civilization (elder gods, traditional gods, ultra-tech/magical mortal civilization, whatever), and effectively different breeds of humanoid. Humans are what you get when any of the other races don't carefully police their bloodlines, i.e., mutts. The elves (and dwarves and goblins and et cetera) have specific appearances (as opposed to humans, who can vary widely) because that appearance is *the definition* of an "elf" or "dwarf" or whatever (again, like breeds of dog). Vary from it by too much, and you're considered a "half-elf" (etc). Vary even farther, and you're just another mutt (i.e., human). Some cultures practice infanticide on those who don't meet the criteria, others will simply banish you, or just view you as definitely a second-class citizen or worse, and would never let you marry their daughters. In this world, humans are more numerous than the other races (they can breed like rabbits and nobody cares--other races have to police such things, so tend to be fewer in number), but also the least respected--albeit, to quote the News Monster from Futurama, "numerous and belligerant." This is *why* elves are graceful and beautiful (they were playthings). Dwarves were bred to labor in mines and other enclosed places. Halflings were intended as quiet, unobtrusive servants). Giants, goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, and the like were bred as cannon fodder. More exotic forms ( minotaurs, for instance) were bred to be hunted for sport. This rationale satisfies my desire to explain how and why so many different intelligent races co-exist.

Slaying Monsters for the Feeble, by Annette Marie. Second book in a series (the third drops on Thursday). The heroine, Robin, has accidentally become a Contractor (i.e., someone who holds a demon in thrall based on a contract). Contracting is a thing in her world, where magic is common and widely practiced (in secret), and demon summoning is well known and regulated by the magical authorities. Demons are bound by lengthy, detailed contracts in return for the summoner's soul when he/she dies. Except for Robin's demon. They made a very hasty verbal agreement to avoid both being killed by bad guys trying to bind the demon, and using her as their sacrifice. her demon is bound to "protect her" (as HE defines protecting her, since she didn't specify) in return for...cookies she bakes. (He likes her cookies, and she refused to part with her soul, and they were under severe pressure, so....) Unlike most bound demons, he retains free will and his magic, and if anyone finds out they'll both be put to death because an unbound (or loosely bound) demon is insanely dangerous. I like this series, which is a spin-off series of another set in the same world, following the adventures of Tori, a human (i.e. non-magical) bartender for one of the magical guilds, along with the three powerful (and hot, of course) mages she hangs out with.

Well, see, I'm not opposed to paying for access to an ongoing game like that. Sometimes. I've done so in the past, though I so seldom play computer games (especially online games) anymore that it wouldn't be worth the money now. It's discrete software packages (Office, Excel, publishing software, and so forth) that I refuse to pay for on an ongoing basis. Either I own it or I don't.

Yeah, that point for me was the end of S1 of LOST, and I did care. A lot. Because it meant a lot of the stuff we saw--the polar bear, the smoke monster, the hatch...ultimately meant nothing. And I didn't care much for the characters because they were (in my opinion) too stupid to live in most cases. Same reason I never got into The Walking Dead. I can't care about characters (and their conflicts, growth, relationships, etc) if I find them to be ignorant morons who would all have long since been eaten by walkers if they weren't wearing plot armor. On the other hand, I'll forgive wooden acting, laughable SFX, and cheap sets...if the writing is tight, and the characters are smart. I like Brisco County, Jr. I'm a big fan of Bruce Campbell. But I thought the main bad guy (whose name I can't even recall now) was horribly miscast and/or a horrible actor. I thought several of his minions were FAR more entertaining to watch. "You touched Pete's piece! Nobody touches Pete's piece!"

Yeah, and The X-Files (Chris Carter, not Abrams). I was a big fan of that show---until I realized there was no master plot of The Conspiracy (tm) above Chris Carter's desk, that he was just making **** up as he went. I continued watching the show, but only really cared about the "Monster of the Week" episodes that had nothing to do with the overarching "plot".

I don't hate JJ Abrams. I don't allot him that much brain space. But I have no use for him. I watched the first season of LOST, but gave up after that because it became clear me at that point that there was no "there" there. That he was happy to create an endless series of mysteries, but there was no answer forthcoming--well, other than an ass-pull at the eleventh hour, if that. Life is too short for that kind of crap.

I like Classic, but while I still have a bunch of classic Traveller books and a bunch of supplements and JTAS supplements, I only have my original Book 3. The first two basic books have gotten lost in the last 40 years and umpteen moves. Funny how that happens. I *have* the Hero Traveller books, but they don't appeal to me. I'd run GURPS Traveller if my gaming crew were up for it, but they don't like GURPS. Plus, with either one I'd end up doing a lot building/conversions of weapons and equipment. So I'm going to go with Mongoose 2nd Edition Traveller. I have the Core Rules, Companion, High Guard, and Central Supply Catalog. That's pretty much everything I need all in one ruleset. Plus, if I'm gonna play a game from my personal Golden Age of Gaming, I want to use essentially the same game. So there I am.

Nope. Not gonna happen. I considered that. I considered running GURPS Traveller. In both cases, it's too much work for too little return. When/if I run my Traveller game, it's gonna be straight-up Traveller (Mongoose 2nd Edition flavor). If my Champions group don't want to try it, I'll find another group somewhere for it. (Maybe online, at this point....)

Nope. No subscriptions. It's nothing but a money grab. If I buy Software 1.0, and it serves my purposes, I don't need or want anything more. IF and when I find it lacking, I can *choose* to pay for an upgrade (Software 1.1 now with flavor!) or a whole new iteration (Software 2.0). But I'm NOT going to pay a monthly or annual subscription just to maintain access to a product I bought.

Except that it's not. I agree with Duke Bushido on this. Transform *actually* turns you into [whatever]. Multi-form *actually* turns you into [whatever]. Shapeshift only presents the ILLUSION that you have turned into someone or something else. And illusion that, unless you buy every sense group in existence, will always be seen thru eventually. Next time I want to play a shapeshifter, I'm going to use Transform vs Self.

Working on a Traveller game. I've been working on it in fits and starts for a couple of years now, but now that my Champions game is on hiatus, I'm spending all my game-prep time working on Traveller so I can eventually run it. I don't know when that'll happen. My gaming group is pretty much a dedicated Champions group. But I guess we'll see.

Just got back from a short 20-minute walk outside. First time I've been out of my apartment in several days. There's very little traffic on the street, and I saw...two other pedestrians? One waiting at a bus stop, one pushing a shopping cart (too far away to see if it was a homeless person or someone policing carts from the nearby Albertsons). In a bit of good news, I videoed(?) my girlfriend while on my walk. She sent a video back--she got to tell one of her patients that he tested negative for COVID, so he gets to go home tomorrow. So there's that.

I was, at one time, interested in InDesign for doing covers and layout for my books, but that was before they went to a subscription model. To hell with that. If I can't *own* the software, I'm not interested. I ended up learning GIMP for doing book covers, and I used Jutoh for formatting ebooks for a long while. Now I'm using Draft2Digital's website to format my ebooks. They have a pretty decent system, it's free, and Amazon accepts them. I might eventually look into Vellum, but not yet. I'm not sure I'm really interested in publishing anymore.

No, I think it's more just taking care that IF she catches the virus, she won't spread it. She described the laborious, time-consuming, detailed procedure for masking, gowning, and gloving up before entering a patient's room, and then the even more laborious procedure for de-gloving/masking/gowning, and sterilizing the area where this happens when between patients. Also, each nurse is assigned four patient rooms and that nurse and ONLY THAT NURSE enters those rooms. And they have to do this procedure every time they go into or out of the room to do anything. The time-consuming nature of these precautions is why they're each only handling four patients.

My girlfriend, an RN, sent me a Marco Polo video last night. As of last night, she's officially caring for Covid patients--so she's quarantined. She won't be able to visit for a while. Bummer. At least we can send videos back and forth. Meanwhile, I am now officially under house arrest by Governor Brown, so my Hudson City Wild Cards campaign is on hiatus for a while. Unless we figure out how to play online....

Duke Bushido is a man after my own heart. I love shapeshifting characters (like Mystique), but 6ED Shapeshift sucks for that. I transform into a Schwarzenegger-sized thug or a slinky asian female. If I want it to be convincing, it's gotta cover sight, hearing ,smell, taste, touch--and those are just the basic senses. If you to want to cover *everything*? It's ridiculous. And as DB points out, you never *really* turn into whatever it is, you just pretend to. There's gotta be a better way.

You and me both. I hate it when I follow a link to some news item and I get a video instead of text. I want TEXT. A transcript I can skim to see if it's worth my time to read more closely, or to actually watch the video. Usually, I just hit the BACK button and move on. Life is too short to watch a 10 minute video that turns out to be pointless.

I work at a hospital (in the liver transplant clinic offices, not dealing with patients). I'm in a group of four, two pre-transplant, two post-transplant. Last Friday they had us begin working from home 4 days a week, each of us coming in on a different day to do the tasks we can't do from home (printing and mailing letters, scanning documents, etc). Today they announced that starting next week only ONE of us will come in each week to handle all of that for the whole group. So my next trip to the office will be April 9th. The game store where I play in a twice-monthly game has suspended hosting games there til at least mid-April (though they're still open for business). My gym closed too. Fun fun fun.

Secret from the other players, not the GM. We use a Google group to email one another about the game(s), and discuss characters. He doesn't want his character sheet posted, or for anything more than the bare minimum about his character to be revealed until the game begins. His rationale is that PCs should learn about one another by interacting in the game, which I understand, but it does make it harder to create a cohesive group--especially beforehand.

Yeah, I'd be happy to do a Session Zero character building session before a new campaign, but many players in our group--John, in particular--really likes keeping his character concept/powers/build a secret until the game starts.

Yeah, I got in (I created an account years ago)--but then the software demands that I "claim" my account before I can do anything, but it won't send the verification email so I can do it.

Well, I finally found the mod in my TTS and got it launched. As for talking to you--or anyone--on the Discord server, I can't verify my email address because their idiotic software won't send me the email I need.

How the **** do I get INTO the Hero mod for Tabletop Simulator? I can't find anything to download.