Nevelon

Re: A super school

This is the staff I have so far:

 

Principal

Vice Principal

Secretary

Math Teacher

English/language/social studies teacher

Science teacher

Law teacher

Custodian

Homeroom teacher / gym coach

History/ancient mysteries teacher

Chaplain

Librarian

Speech, drama, art teacher

Cafeteria Workers

Medicine Teacher

Criminology teacher

 

I want to keep the staff relatively small, but am I missing anyone important?

(I am not a teacher, and havn't finished my first cup of coffee, so take the following with a grain of salt)

You are going to need multiple teachers in each field. It looks like you have ~400 students (number from upthread) If you had one math teacher and 8 periods to teach in, he/she would be doing 50 in a class all day long. That assumes a high school-ish type schedule (every class, every day). If you move to a more college type schedule, where each student needs 4 hours a week the numbers change. 400 students x4hrs. ea/40 hour work week=40 students per class. These are not the best student/teacher ratios. Of course, these numbers only work for subjects that every student needs to take.

I went to a tiny high school (~150 students total) with a good student/teacher ratio. Each grade had its own english teacher. 2 math teachers. 3 science (physics, chemistry, biology) 2 history, 2 language (spanish, french) 1 PE. I'm probably missing a few, its been a while. Teachers would wear multiple hats; ie the physics teacher also did an astronomy class, the french teacher taught one section of german, etc.

If you want to keep things small, you may be able to combine some roles. Your law teacher could also be your librarian, the vice principle could double as the chaplain. You might want to add a college placement/job councilor. Seems an important role to help transition super students into the rest of the world. Super powers on the staff's part could free some of their time. A custodian with plant control powers spends a lot less time mowing the grounds, Librarians with duplication/TK spend less time reshelving.

just a few early morning thoughts, hope they help.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares

Who is' date=' sadly, not nearly as cool as the original Captain Iron Chef from Japan.[/quote']

 

Good thing Captain Iron Chef America spends most his time in the european kitchens fighting the soup nazis.

Re: Those Meddling Kids...

The campaign premise is fine. The question is your players. The hijinks-filled teen campaign is not for every group. The trope does mesh very well with RPG mechanics though. It's an ensemble group, so fine with multiple players. You can have episodes, longer story arcs, continuing themes, character development. All the good stuff.

I don't think my group would enjoy it, but YMMV.

Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

On a tangent...

Floating cities would work in a pulp version of Venus just as well as a hard sci-fi one. When the surface is covered by hostile jungle, you can float well over the treetops (and hopefully about the razorbeaks and other airborne predators) You could get something like a cruise ship, where you can take safaris to the surface. Or a working city, where rare extracts are processed from the wilds below and packed for shipping across the aether to the other colonies.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

Was in a movie mood last week, watched a broad spectrum of quality.

"The Losers" Fairly formulaic action movie, but done well. If I didn't have free tickets I'd not have seen it on the big screen, but worth renting.

"Hidden Fortress" Kurosawa film, major influence of Star Wars, worth watching. Are there any of his films that havn't been redone by Hollywood? I'm slowly working my way through his library of movies, the've all been good.

"Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla" Monster flick + Beer = Any day better.

"Van Helsing" Giant plot holes, kinda cheesy, fun action flick.

"Clue" Every game to movie translation wishes it could be as good as Clue. If you have not seen it, go get it. One of my favorite movies.

"Big Bang Theory, season 1" I'm told this is hilarious, focused at my generation, and worth watching. I could not get past the awkward comedy. Skipped around a bit on the disk to see if it got better, a sampling showed no improvement.

Re: Cloud cities of Venus: I am totally gonna use this idea!

I wonder if you could stick some probes into the acidic atmosphere and get free battery power? Or have a post hanging down into the hotter clouds for a psudo-geothermal thing. That's it! STEAM power! Pipe down water, have it boil up the pipe, turn a turbine, condense, return, etc...

Because if you are going to have a stained glass balloon city on Venus, it needs to be powered by steam!

Re: Foods for those that just don't care anymore

So anyone try the new thing from KFC' date=' the Double Down?[/quote']

 

I had one Friday. It was not bad, but I kinda missed the bun. When you bill a sandwich as a cheese and bacon sandwich where the bun has been replaced with FRIED CHICKEN! it seems so much worse then it is. If it was listed as "boneless chicken with cheese and bacon", or as "2 chicken sandwiches, hold the buns" it would not seem so bad.

 

It was 2 pieces of chicken, 2 slices of processed american cheese, some bacon, and possibly a smear of sauce (hardly noticeable). I think if you are going to replace bread with chicken, use the extra-crispy recipe. It could have also used a slice of tomato and lettuce, but they would ruin the "bad-boy" vibe the 2xdown is going for. I'd give it a 3/5; worth trying once on a lark for the experience, but not worth adding to your regular diet.

Re: "Wee Folk", traditional or furry

It's been a while since I've run anything, but I would expect that if the PCs were intelligent rats or leprechauns (or some other smaller-than-human critter), I would set the campaign norms as usual, with the humans having whatever powers and characteristics best represent their increased size relative to the PC critters/race. In other words, STR 10 represents the usual strength of an athletic baseline creature (with 8 being the nominal average for non-adventurers). I'd give humans more STR to represent their (relatively) huge size, with possibly a lower speed and/or dex to represent that they aren't as light and maneuverable as the baseline critters.

 

(I'll be back later to elaborate, but I'm about out of time on this [public library] computer.)

You might have to redo the strength chart, or make a note that your mouse brick can only lift a mouse sized car and chuck it at the bad guy, not a full sized one.

But it would be easier to do that then to run the whole thing at negative STR and mandatory shrinking.

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life.

"A couple of beers and a Godzilla movie will make any day better"

Re: Interplanetary Distances Calculator

One of the problems is even if you had locations of all the planets you'd need to plot flightpaths from getting from one to the other. And getting those requires knowing what kind of ship/drive/tech is making the trip. And math, lots of it.

I used to have a astronomy program that would tell you what the stars in the sky looked like (with planets) that you could adjust the date to see what it looked like at different times. Name of the program was Starry Night. I might be misremembering though, it was a while ago.

Another thought would be to find some astrology sites. While I try to avoid the stuff, The Wife has a mild interest in it. They like to pay attention to where the planets are for portents, etc. Might be worth a search. Won't help with travel times, might might get locations.

Re: Foods for those that just don't care anymore

That is entirely made of awesome.

Needs a side of sawmill gravy to dip it in, then we can talk.

Re: Foods for those that just don't care anymore

To warm them up, or to make sure they're dead?

 

In this thread, that's a relevant question.

You forgot "to make them mutate"

Re: Foods for those that just don't care anymore

Octopus Tempura -- On a Stick!

 

How many SAN per serving?

Re: Need helps coming up with "arm" powers

Suport your right to arm bears!

Extra limbs, useable against others, only on ursines.

Or your right to bear arms;

cosmetic transform, person with sleeves to person without.

If you are using hit locations, PSLs only to get rid of the penalties to hit the arm locations

So many bad puns, so little time...

Re: "Neat" Pictures

... Imagine one of those blown up tenfold ...

Toss some stats on that and you have the next giant monster to attack your hero's favorite city. Radioactive monsters: now with pictures!

Re: I love me some xenomorphs!

I recall most people on the Boards were pretty happy with this version.

22 Xenomorphic Physiology: LS (Immunity All terrestrial poisons and chemical warfare agents;

Immunity: All terrestrial diseases and biowarfare agents; Safe in Low Pressure/Vacuum)

Isn't being shoved out an airlock one of the leading causes of death for these guys? Just wondering about the vacuum part... Otherwise nice write up.

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

I have a question. What the heck does "deprotagonize" mean?

I'm guessing:

protagonist=the hero

deprotagonize=the act of making the hero less of a hero.

at least that's what I'm taking from the context.

Re: The Reveal

The best way to do this would be to use some sort of metagame hero/action point system. It could also be a special effect of luck. If you want to use a sort of bank and spend system, you could save up times you could have rolled luck (but didn't), and cash them in all at the end in one big reveal.

If you wanted to have one character who did this sort of thing rather then a whole campaign, you could take things like uncontrolled variable pools, or invert mystery disads. just block off a set number of points and tell the GM to use them for what he needs to make for a cool story.

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

where we seem to be disconnectting is i dont see those examples as fish out of water at all. they are fish IN WATER and yet still drowning.

 

they are taking the character's strength, his focus, his schtick, deliberately hobbling it, and forcing him to then answer a challenge in that theme.

 

its taking what he was intended to be good at and spitting on it and still asking him to perform.

 

he did not play a computer guy to have to handle simple computer tasks, regardless of whether he is hurt or not.

 

I dont believe in neutering the character at his strength.

 

that imo tends to annoy and deprotagonize more than it spotlights his heroism.

 

imx

 

when i do fish out of water, i do fish out of water.

the warrior gets put into a situation where he has to cook something

the computer guys gets put in a fight.

 

remember die hard?

 

did john mclean wind up injured taking easy kill shots to highlight that he was hurt but still able to shoot as well as an untrianed grandma?

 

no, even hurt at the end he was faced with a difficult challenge with low ammo and wife threatened needing quick snapshot one shot kills.

 

meanwhile it was funny when the limo driver punched the compiter geek.

 

in one game i ran in, the party combat guy cut through a kitchen and "for fun" the gm had him beaten up and knocked uncomscious by the irate chef. she did not think twice about having his focus be basically shat upon.

 

out of water scenarios are great, often humorous and dont squat onto the character's focus, the player's vision.

 

but hobbbling his strength and then providing easy enough "challenges" isn't imo an out of water scenario.

 

i prefer to let the character shine in his strength, excel in his focus and overcome difficult challenges and be awesome in those areas and play out of water with his weaknesses, using them for unusual and funny, not his main theme.

 

a difference in styles, but imx the more you as gm degrade the character's main focus the less enjoyment the player tends to get, tho others sometimes take extreme joy in seeing them "taken down a peg".

 

in hero terms - i let him use what he pays a lot for to its utmost and exploit his complications or areas he did not pay for for the "out of water" challenges.

 

to me that seems reasonable and fair.

 

but my way is certainly not to everyone's taste.

When you bring up Die Hard I thought of something completely different. For RP reasons he takes off his shoes. Then the excrement hits the air conditioner and he's fighting shoeless. This opens up a lot more story options, adds some twists to combat. Was the writer (GM) laughing maniacally while saying "I'm going to take your shoes away and make you walk on broken glass MWahahaha" No. It makes for a more interesting story, that's why he did it. Not to say there arn't bad GMs out there who cruelly do that kind of stuff for a power trip, but I wouldn't write off a whole trope just because of them.

In hero you pay less points for things on a focus. Expect not to have them from time to time (no power armor at black-tie events) Your GM -should- scale things to where the fight is appropriate to the conditions.

An example from my D&D game last night: We just killed the evil monster that was secretly running the city and part of a conspiracy to cause a planer rift to some demon realm. We gather the who's-who of people we trust to let them know everything is about to drop into the crapper. The more social members of the party (the fighter type and myself, the rouge) change out of armor into our social duds. Some crazy mage and a bunch of berserkers port in during the meeting. Fight is a little more interesting then it might have been. Frequently we as the players restrict ourselves more then the GM might, for RP reasons. On the flip side in the same group we have someone who takes his greatsword everywhere (It's my holy symbol!) and tries to keep his armor on at all times. Mithril chainmail is not appropriate to wear to the high-end nobles club.

A lot of it boils down to trust. I trust most of the GMs I game with only to jerk me around for plot-driven reasons. One GM I don't trust, and with him I never let anything out of my sight and minimize disads he can use to screw me with.

Re: Would you play a game with pre-generated characters?

One of the GMs in my group has used cards to fill roles (with spotty success depending on the time, sometimes it works, others... not so much) It's a nice area between pre-gens and free form character generations. If done right, you make sure you get a balanced group, with plot hooks where you need them. Before making characters everyone gets a card with something like "hero" "scholar" "country bumpkin" "Tri-D star" "noble" (an assortment of cards from various campaigns) You can give free feats/skill levels/powers to the roles to help focus things and make sure they are doing their job. You do have to make sure you think things through (we had a D&D campaign where he totally spaced on having a card with anything close to "healer" on it)

Re: Would you play a game with pre-generated characters?

I had a surprisingly good experience playing Amphibion (who I think was actually a published character from Vibora Bay.)

 

So I have to say, it's not my first choice, but I don't necessarily have a problem with it.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary suggests a regenerated character

I've noticed that my players in my group tend to make the same kind of characters from game to game (myself included). Pre-gens help get people out of their ruts and try role-playing something different. In a D&D game I'm currently playing I was given an NPC to play after my character died. Not a character I'd ever had made, but I'm having a lot of fun with it.

Re: Would you play a game with pre-generated characters?

Pre-gens are also good if you have different levels of players. My group has a mix of munchin power-gamers and people with a fuzzy grasp of the mechanics. Even on the same point scale, the characters are on vastly different levels. Pre-gens also ensure that all the characters fit the world. I've seen a lot of cool characters made that just didn't work in the setting. Sometimes it's the GM not communicating clearly what he wants. They also help with toe-stepping and party balance. If you make a super-strong brick, and find that someone else casually bought their strength higher then yours, you might be a little bitter.

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery

This would have to be a pretty low magic world. I'm thinking Conan without as much high powered magic. That or magic is not readily available to PCs. The thing about chambara and westerns is that skill at arms and cunning decide the day. Think about it, magic would be like the pistol in Yojimbo. It was around, but there was only one of them, and it was noteworthy that it was there at all. Similarly in westerns, something like a Gatling gun, or a war wagon would provide the proper analogue.

 

In ronin movies and spaghetti westerns, part of the the point is that you are playing the underdog. You would not be the emperor's favored retainers or the sheriff (unless that was a sucker's job).

 

I also agree that transport would be slow, as magic is kept out of the foreground. Healing potions and the like would be sparse or less efficacious than normal.

 

This would be a fun game to play, unless you are the type that has to play magic users all the time.

I think there still is a place for magic, after all it's half of "swords and sorcery". I would restrict the lightning bolt from the fingertips stuff. Unless sorcerers are replacing gunslingers. You could be a ronin lightning-slinger, fastest spell in the outer providences. If you want the trappings of high magic, keep it at rituals and potions/magic items. A mage on the street will be cut down with a man with a sword, leaving space for spaghetti heros. But you can still have the demon summonings and other plots of the S&S genre.

Re: Toons

It occurs to me that, for Toons, the maximum of 5d6 for Unluck should be ignored.

 

Come on -- you don't really think Wile E. Coyote has only 5d6, do you?

Dice implies that there is a chance it won't occur. He has a physical limit "always fails"

Re: Toons

...Nowadays I think I'd just have the toons created as characters w/o the "body" characteristic...

How would you deal with transforms? It seems in-genre to have them work at full effect. Anyone with an ACME grimoire and a "Alakazam!" can turn you into a toad. or plaid. or an elephant. Removal of body for toons has a few quirks that ego doesn't have for automatons.