sinanju

Re: Power Time! Seeing as I'm muching on chocolate-covered peanuts while surfing the Herogames Forums, when the powers descend on me without warning, I'll probably gag, choke, and fall over and die from the horrific nut allergy I never had before. Thanks a pantload, whoever!

Re: Hero System Sixth Edition Concise I'll add my voice to those crying for ONE big book with ALL the rules. Toting two college textbook-sized hardbound books around to the weekly Champions game gets to be a pain. As does inevitably finding that whatever rule I want/need to look up is in the OTHER book. So: one large tome with all the rules. A couple of pages at the beginning explicitly spelling out that GM's are always free to revamp the rules for their games as they please, and that if a power description doesn't EXPLICITLY give you an ability, believing that it does is an assumption on your part. And you should check with your GM about such things. That a GM can and should (and sometimes must) make judgment calls to avoid unbalanced effects that might be rules-legal but will hamper everyone's fun. NO OTHER immense hardbound tomes. If you WANT to carry around an additional half dozen softbound supplemental books, fine. But you should be able to play the game (create characters, build equipment/spells/powers/whatever, adjudicate combat and caucus with the other players/GM on exactly how a given rule works) with that one core book.

Re: The Cage Opens Alternatively, the aliens are nonviolent because IT DOESN'T WORK. They live in a society of ubiquitous surveillance (David Brin's "transparent society"). It's IMPOSSIBLE to achieve your ends by violence because YOU WILL BE FOUND OUT. You will be punished. The punishments may not be draconian, but they don't have to be, because they're as inescapable as gravity, and this very, very long-lived (by human standards) society has had plenty of time to determine just how much punishment is required to deter everyone when the possibility that you might not be caught is off the table. Robbery, burglary, assault, rape, muggings, murder--you can't get away with it. Ever. And everyone knows that. Then the humans show up, barbarians from a world where it IS still possible to use violence to get what you want, and they haven't learned yet that the rules are different here.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

Re: Jokes Speaking of rhymes... There was an episode of Charmed once where the new sister, Paige, (replacing Shannon Doherty's character) had to write the spell the three sisters recite together to smite the Bad Guy du Jour. She whips out a scrap of paper at the dramatically appropriate moment, they read the spell, and the bad gad is annihilated. It wasn't the usual rhyming doggerel. It read: The brutal winter gives way to flowers of spring, Ludlow is vanquished. After the bad guy is destroyed, her sisters ask "What the hell was that?" Pagie says, "A haiku. I suck at rhymes."

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? Eh. If I run a Champions game again, I may well have "ignore END costs" as a house rule. No power advantages to reduce END cost, no limitations to increase END cost. I think it would be worth it to not have to track END costs in combat.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? Circumventing rule restrictions is one thing. If the GM says "No Speeds above 4," or "No Speeds above 4 unless..." and you try to work around that, yeah, that's a problem. But rejecting a character because the player had the temerity to create the character sheet first, or even worked out the concept and the character sheet at the same time is just silly. I don't always work out the concept first. Sometimes I want to build a character around a particular powerset. Or, I'm not sure a workable powerset I'd be happy playing is POSSIBLE under a given point cap and set of campaign guidelines. So I try to build it first, to see if it's workable. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't, in which case I'll look at other character concepts. All of which is made more difficult by an arbitrary requirement to submit a character concept first and only then work out the mechanics. I actually like shiva13's SPD cap. If I were to run a game, I'd probably do something similar. I've long thought that SPD in particular, and stats in general, suffered from inflation over the years as published characters and player characters in campaigns struggled to keep up with one another. Dragging stats back down into a more reasonable range for most characters is a good idea. Ditto for the number of disads characters have to take. One of the best things in all of Sixth Edition, in my view, is the drastic way Complication totals were scaled back, so you only take the ones you really want to play, not everything you could think of just to fill a quota. (I can hit a 50-point cap on Psychs very easily, but hate taking Physical Limitations; Accidental Changes, Enraged, Susceptibilities and the like were seldom appropriate the characters I designed. Which meant a ridiculous number of Hunted, Social Limitations, Reps and the like.)

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? So I work out the character sheet first, based on the campaign guidelines. Then I reverse engineer the concept. THEN I give you the concept. Wait a few days, then show you the character "I created based on the concept we discussed." Same result in the end. Unless, of course, "work with the player to create an acceptable character sheet that matches the likes and desires of both the player and the GM" translates to "I won't be satisfied until I've piddled in the ice cream sufficiently." I've played with GMs like that. Life is too short.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? Well, then, I'll just have to work out the "BS mechanical exploit" first and then reverse engineer a character concept to fit. Then explain to you how the mechanics evolved organically out of my pristine character concept.

Re: X Ray-ted Vision Iron Maiden would accept. She'd get a thrill out of it, in fact. Raven would not. She has cultivated a well-earned reputation as a half-crazy, feral superheroine who always seems to be lurking in the shadows nearby. A nude pictorial, however tasteful, would dilute that hard-earned reputation and isn't worth it. Black Mask would do it for the charity involved, and he would find the whole thing rather amusing. The Black Knight would be glad to do it. He's never been the subject of a pictorial before, and never been photographed nude either. He's all about doing new things. So he's in. Rose Hancock would probably do it. It's not like she's got a lot to hide at this point, what with having a Public ID and paparrazi bothering her all the time. At least this way, someone deserving (the charity in question) will be making money off pictures of her, rather than those vile paparazzi.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? "Too predictable" is not a complaint I've seen. The one I've most often encountered is the difficulty of keeping of who goes when. Which, yes, in theory can be done easily enough if you use some kind of chart. But which in practice, in games I've seen or played in sometimes, proves troublesome. People (players or sometimes NPCs) get overlooked when their segment comes around, only to realize too late that they missed their phase. There's also the issue of a potential wide disparity in a player's involvement in the game. Especially if he's new to the game and doesn't grok the importance of speed, he could find himself sitting through long stretches of combat with nothing to do while players with considerably faster characters are busily engaged in smiting the bad guys. But really, the guy in our gaming group who least likes Champions (we play it sometimes, in rotation with GURPS, Fudge, Seventh Sea, D&D and other systems) doesn't care for that--but has more issues with calcuating OCV & DCV and counting the stun and body on large handfuls of dice, and comparing it to defenses which can vary dramatically from one character to another (or on the SAME character, depending on what kind of attack it is). I think he has a point, frankly, but I still enjoy the game.

Re: Background help please You stumbled across the nanotech suit, and have no idea how it works (or how to repair or upgrade it), but that's okay. The suit knows. Maybe you picked up a nifty foam cushion (about the size of a yoga mat, but heavy, and an inch thick) from a second-hand store (or anywhere else you like). Only, when you stepped onto it, your feet sank into the "foam," which then ran up your legs and enveloped your entire body. For a moment you were terrified because it covered your mouth, nose and eyes--but then you could see again, and breathe as well. And you had a suit of armor on. The suit fits like a glove, thin as a condom on your fingertips (but still heavily armored), thicker on your arms and legs, thickest on your torso and feet and head. It may have a HUD, it may even have an AI interface (like Jarvis in Iron Man's suit in the movies). Either way, it learns to anticipate your instructions so quickly that you hardly even have to think about it and the suit does it (whatever "it" is). It's also self-repairing. One downside of this, is that the suit will scavenge raw materials or elements from the nearest convenient source (except living creatures, one hopes). It sends out a swarm of microscopic 'bots to find and retrieve microscopic quantities of whatever it needs, like ants bringing food back to the nest. Ordinarily, the damage it inflicts on the local environment is undetectable, but if it takes a lot of damage and you leave it in the garage, you may find tools or your car or whatever have been damaged/ruined while the suit acquires the necessary materials to repair itself. Or to make upgrades to its functions when it senses a need for them (i.e., when you spend points on new abilities or upgrades). So, you're not beholden to any government or corporation, and needn't be filthy rich to afford the suit. It takes care of itself. Where it came from, and whether anyone will eventually show up to reclaim it remains to be seen.

Re: Jokes A priest, a rabbi, and a protestant minister are all out fishing on a lake. The minister gets thirsty, but they left the drinks in the car. He stands up, steps out of the boat, and walks across the water to the shore, get the cooler and brings it back. The Rabbi is shocked by this demonstration of his faith. He tries to do the same, but splashes into the water and they help him back into the boat. A little later, the priest realizes he left his lunch in the car. He, too, steps out of the boat, walks across the water and returns with his sack lunch. The rabbi, shocked, announces that he needs to get something from the car, steps out of the boat, and splashes into the water. The priest and the minister help him back into the boat. The priest turns to the minister and says, "Maybe we should show him where the rocks are."

Re: Do random power SFX games work? I've played in such games, and sometimes they've been enjoyable. But--I don't really like them. If I'm going to play a superhero, I want to play a character with a powerset that _I_ designed because I'd find it entertaining to play. There's no guarantee that'll happen in a random-generation game.

Re: A very useful online site/tool for your campaign Well, I signed up for Obsidian Portal (as Sinanju, unsurprisingly). Created a campaign page (Superfolk), but mostly just so I could play with the system and try out the wiki. There's a link a Textile help page onsite. I used it to practice a little last night. Sadly, it's not close enough to Mediawiki in formatting for my experience with that to carry over much.

Re: Pixar's the Incredibles A "knockout" punch generally works by sharply accelerating your head, so your brain (suspended inside your skull in its cozy cushion of fluid) gets slammed by your moving skull... If you can endure the punishing forces involved in instantly accelerating your whole body to hundreds of miles per hour (or a big fraction of lightspeed)...you really ought not to be troubled by the puny efforts of someone punching your face.

Re: Discussion: One-origin world Idea based on the Grimm TV series. I'll suggest something I've thought about doing--and may do yet, though probably in my fiction rather than a game: a world where the supernatural is common knowledge--but not common. (And always has been, unlike the urban fantasy trope where it only recently was acknowledged.) Think of vampires (or werewolves, or ghosts, or...all of the above) as being like the mob. Everyone knows the mafia exists. But most people have never (knowingly) interacted with mobsters. Maybe they haven't. Maybe they have and just don't know it. But they don't (as a rule) refuse to believe that the mafia exists. They'll be shocked and appalled if a mob war breaks out in their city (or neighborhood), or if John Smith down the street is discovered to be neck deep in mob activities--but they won't refuse to accept that it's happening. THey'll read newspaper stories about people killed by vampires or werewolves and (depending their personality shake their heads or rage at the injustice...but they won't say, "Vampires? Hah! Another tabloid headline." Ditto for discovering blood-drained corpses in dark alleys of Campaign City. Or mangled corpses after the full moon. Or whatever. Instead of a handful of believers in a world of people who cannot/will not see the truth, the reaction is more like: Your typical hard-bitten cop: "Well...****. We've got a vampire/werewolf/voodoo problem. I'm getting too old for this ****." And then the detectives on the vamp/were/whatever task force (or the dedicated squad if the problems are common enough) get called in to investigate. Your typical citizen: Will react the way they'd react to violent gangsters turning up. They'll be a little more wary in general, a lot more cautious about going places or seeing people who might be involved. Some will flood the police with bogus tips. Others will carefully see NOTHING, no matter how overt. But they won't pretend they don't know it's real. The thing is, in this world the supernatural is very real, and everyone knows it. But it's also very rare. Aside from cops/feds (and amatuers) who follow it, study it, and obsess over it, most people will never knowingly interact with the supernatural. But they won't think your character is a lunatic if he starts talking about vampires and werewolves and whatnot--at least, no more than they do when your average PI starts unraveling a more mundane plot that leads to unexpected bad guys.

Re: World-building: When what works for the heroes works for everyone? I'd think that rather than "physics as we know it" is a guideline, not a rule, it's more like Movie Physics rules the day. Ordinary humans can survive amazing things (which makes developing superpowers from radioactive spider bites or chemical accidents somewhat less bizarre). This ties into ordinary humans being capable of Olympic level shooting/fighting/acrobatics--it's simply easier in this universe. "Over the top" action and kung fu movies are far less outlandish in this universe. The Wild Cards novels (22 and counting at this date) have some interesting ideas too. Many "supers", as you mentioned, never get into crime-fighting. They use their abilities in their daily lives, or to make a niche for themselves doing things nobody else can do (or can do only with great effort/expense).

Re: Do you run Sandbox style? and how? I wouldn't say that I run "sandbox" games--but they do tend to be heavily player-directed. My approach is to work out who the bad guys are, what they want to accomplish (and why), what resources they have, and how they'll respond to attempts at interference (will they try to buy or scare off trouble? jump immediately to trying to kill them?). Then I create some plot hooks (some ways of getting the players to stumble across the bad guys and their machinations). Then I leave it up to the players to decide how to handle the situation. Because I haven't planned specific encounters, I only need to determine whether (and how effectively) the PCs' plans would uncover more info, and when/where they'd encounter the bad guys (or their minions). If the players come up with really inventive ideas, as they often do, things I never would have thought to plan for, I can wing it. If they seem to be floundering without direction, THEN I'll throw another hook in their path. If you work up a number of different bad guys (or bad guy groups) all with their own agendas, and you know what they want to do and how they plan to do it, it's not hard to find a way for the PCs to stumble across one or another of them. Of course, you do need proactive players who understand that THEIR part in the game is to be out there digging and fighting the good fight. If they're going to wait around to be spoon-fed the plot or ride the railroad from plot point to plot point, this approach doesn't work. These are both excellent ideas. Think of a PC's disad/complication list as their way of saying "I want this to be part of my experience in the game." (Just because a character has a secret identity doesn't mean he HAS to take that as a disad. Maybe it never causes him trouble in his personal life. That's a choice. The character who DOES take "Secret ID" as a complication/disad should have to deal with missing or being late for work, for dates, explaining his absences, etc. Having the players create several NPCs they know, a "supporting cast" as it were, is another good idea. Not necessarily DNPCs. In fact, they shouldn't all be DNPCs. They should be people the character knows and interacts with. Family, friends, co-workers, employees, employers, neighbors, the local barista, whoever. It provides good role-playing opportunities, and you can build on (and around) the ones who are most interesting.

Re: Worst Hero Names (of your campaigns) Hmmm. "Speed Demon", whose mutant power was to gain superspeed from uppers, and who used downers to sleep. A drug-addicted, twitchy "hero". "Plague", who used tailored viral sprays to dispense justice, and who was quickly renamed "Plaque" by gangbangers who didn't take him seriously. "Prophylactus", he of the prehensile, stretchy penis (the ONLY part of his body that could stretch). Designed by the player as the exemplar of the statement, "Of course my gun is a penis substitute. If I could defeat bad guys at 30 yards with my penis, I wouldn't NEED a gun!"

Re: Reavers: Revisited Yeah...the Reavers don't really make a lot of sense if you think too hard about them. I mean, maintaining and flying a spaceship without killing everyone on board isn't easy. It's impossible if you're a raving psycho all the time. Raving psychos don't generally take the time to dot their i's and cross their t's, and space is a very unforgiving environment. So, "unhinged psychotics"? Not so much. Absolutely brutal culture in which the first, slightest sign of weakness means your doom, and everyone competes to prove he's One Of Us by being more vicious and depraved than the next guy? That I'd buy. (In fact, there's a ritual, a group bonding experience, that an LEO friend of mine calls the "group monkey dance"* in which the members of a group do just that--compete to prove their loyalty to and membership in the group by beating/torturing/killing an outsider. If you have the misfortune to become the target of the group monkey dance, it's not really about you. And nothing you say or do will save you from the beating/torture/murder you're about to experience. If you resist, or try to talk your way out of it, you've "dissed" them and must be taught a lesson. If you cower or try to run, you've proven your weakness and deserve what you get. I can believe in a violent subculture amongst the Reavers in which they behave this way toward all outsiders. But not in one where they are really, truly raving psychotics. *The regular "monkey dance" is generally non-lethal. That's when two guys eyeball one another, usually followed by a verbal challenge ("What are YOU lookin' at?"), followed by chest bumping, or other displays, typically culminating in a shove or a poke to the chest, and then a looping overhand punch to the head. Unless someone falls down and hits his head on the curb (or something else hard), it's unlikely to result in serious injury.

Re: What FTL Drives do people use in their campaigns? And what techno bable do you us SSgt Baloo has it pegged. RELATIVITY, my boy, RELATIVITY. The passengers of each ship see the whole rest of the universe--including other Dark Matter drive-equipped vessels--moving around them. And they're both right.

Re: Creepy Pics. &$%#^$%%! but this aggravating. If I hit "quote", I can see the 'quote' and 'image' tags, and a URL, which I can cut and paste to see the image--but only in the posting window. Even in this message, my "quote" from Mattingly remains blank. But otherwise Mattingly's posts look blank to me. I've tried turning off Adblocker and NoScript and other add-ons for Firefox, but none of that makes any difference. His posts look blank. Anyone else having this kind of trouble? Any ideas what's going on? I'm using Firefox on Windows 7, just FYI.

Re: Weird ship names requested. I've been collecting ship names for use in writing. Among them are these: Just Desserts Honoria Shining Path Surrender Dorothy Heavy Metal Raging Queen/Queenie Too Many Spaniards

Re: Mentalist name needed MINDWORM. I used it for a villainous mentalist in my game once, many years ago. He used subtle, vicious mental attacks to manipulate people. I thought it was fitting.