Publius

Re: Alternative terms for archtypes? Brick: Physically Enhanced Combatant, Kinetic & Energy Resistant (PECKER) Sorry, I had to do that. G'night folks! I like the idea of a typology myself. You just have to figure out what you are going to type them on: power level, abilities etc. You could have a multiple typology going on as well (the following designations are just off the top of my head): "Zippy" Kress, Class II Translocator (Green) The Class II might be the threat level, as a Class two he is neither a world class threat (Class I) nor a Tactical Null (Class V) but probably pretty powerful, "Translocator" of course refers to his abilities (Teleportation) and (Green) might indicate his status, Green=loyal to gov't, Blue=friendly to gov't, Red = Hostile etc. Again, these specific designations are just off the top of my head, the point is that there does not have to be just one typology, we can use more than one of them to get more specificity without being clunky.

Re: Sex as a skill Allow me to say this from the outset: this issue has not come up in my games, my players doen't really obssess over the "quality" of their PCs sexual interactions so I really don't bother worrying much about a mechanic for sex at all. In the situation which started this thread, which I recall was something about a race which has a significant edge in sexual relations over other races, I think superskills would be the best model. That being said, it is just an opinion about a game mechanic question for an interactive improvisational storytelling system.

Re: Jane's Superhumans There are a lot of cool ideas in this thread. Most of them are erfectly reasonable under given types of circumstances and with some advance thought. Lets change gears, maybe a separate thread altogether would best handle this, kind of a version of the WWYCD stuff. Paranormal humans have emerged. You are a government official. What are you going to do? you perform action "x" Now flip around. You are a paranormal human (or a terrorist organization, or a foriegn government etc.). The government has performed an action "x". What is your reaction "y"? Flip Repeat. Flip Repeat. ...And so on. I actually think that this would be very instructive. There have been a lot of issues on both sides that have been brought up that I would not have necessarily thought of myself. The only thing is that it will be hard is to keep it organized in one thread. Please assign the various Options a designation (A, B, C, etc.) so that we know which one you are starting/continuing. Also clearly state any underlying assumptions that you are making; other folks who disagree with those assumptions (or simply want to see another set of assumptions in operation) may want to start a new option with different assumptions (you may want to designate these A2, A3 etc.). Option A: Paranormal humans have just emerged. I am a government official, say someone running for the Presidency. I immediately press for the conscription of all parahumans; in fact I run for office on this premise. "Save humanity" and "Paranormals who have no cause to give us fear have no reason to hide" become my slogans. (Assumption>) A worried public, following one or two nasty dust-ups between powerful parahumans (see Wilder Napalm for details) votes in my favor. Claiming a "mandate" I proceed to whip congress into serving this up in the form of the Paranormal Registration Act. Next person can either take on the role of a Parahuman or someone else (the ACLU protesting or another Lobby affirming, the Military using this list to 'recruit' from or conscript, a Foreign government using this to their advantage etc)...

Re: Supers without costumes I have had a problem as communicating this type of concept accurately to my players in the past. When I tried a game in this non-costume style, two of the three players created essentially costumed characters. I ended up taking the "Movie-style X-men" route and suggested a cotume-like uniform (also armored, which helped) which struck a sort of happy medium. In my present Hero game, Secret IDs are more important for setting reasons, so I have more-or-less costumed characters (it matches my current trend towards using Animated-style artwork). Although these are definitely not "over the top" either: Minuteman sort of wears an overcoat and domino mask (his ID is an "open secret"; the mask gives him plausible deniability and at the same time gratifies his desire for attention) and Specter wears a face-mask with a duster. I go back and forth over the costume issue for my settings, I prefer the greater suspension of disbelief for the non-costumed setting, but understand the need to go full out 4-color as well.

Re: Sex as a skill Again I agree, if this is a "power" of sorts it does. I still think that a superskill would be best (as in Mind control or Transform sexual partner into blissful person or something along those lines) and it has the benefit of costing END to use (I would at least Double END, Extra Time -- but not too much extra time, the power of the Quickie).

Re: Jane's Superhumans Two excellent points among excellent points. These are some things I have not necessarily thought of, and would form the basis of a very neat role-playing setting. One of the things I have long wondered about was the use of secret identities. Poo-poo it if you will, lawsuits are an excellent reason unless some shield law is developed (the likelihood of which is pretty-much dependent on the feelings that the public has towards Supers in your setting). But this sheds a different light on the "Secret ID" issue, and an additional good reason: to avoid government pressganging you into service as an "official super". You want to help people and perform heroic acts using your paranormal abilities? Well heck, if that is the case you'd either better not be public about it or you'd better do something to cover your identity. The only problem here is that it would only be a matter of time before blood left at the scene of a titanic battle or something would allow the government to "CSI" you out in the open. This may be something to consider even if it is only in the history of your setting. If the government was irradiating soldiers in the 1950s, why not trying to pressgang or brainwash supers? What would the reactions be to this among the public and the supers? (Shock, relief, hatred, distrust of government, etc.) What are the counterreactions of government to this? (a protest movement fostering greater distrust of government giving rise to official disavowal of further pressgang programs et al.)

Re: Sex as a skill The point was not about the emotional baggage around sex at all, but I can see that I was off on the wrong direction in explaining because this was apparently the impression I left some of you with. Blame the touchy-feely approach. Allow me to restate: I do not think sex should come down to a dice roll at all, unless as I acknowledged in my followup to Megaplayboy, you are using sexual techniques in a "Feigned Erotics" situation (see last two paragraphs below). My central point I guess is this: If you reduce the act to a dice roll, you are treating it just like Piloting or Tracking or Computer Programming. I just don't see it that way for a number of reasons. If you have a skill for some specific sort of activity, like acting, and someone does not have it, we either would not allow someone to use the skill, or we would penalize them with a stat roll et al. I don't see that translating to sex based on real-life (or even comic-book reality) very well. Even counting sex as an "everyman" skill means that most people, essentially everyone but a professional porn star, would be at 8- for sex. So what are the implications of using a sex skill as the mechanic? First, if we do it this way most folks are not very good at it. If we judge the quality of the skill use by a dice mechanic, you are not going to get many stellar performances without having this skill as a full 3-point selection. That makes a certain presumption however about people who do it well under normal circumstances (i.e. non-courtesans) that I don't think is accurate. Now GMs might argue that there are heavy modifiers for using the skill with people that you "love" or something, but this isn't really all that accurate as well -- there are enough cheating spouses and one-night standers that can prove that this sort of modifer is not always applicable. Yet neither of these categories (philanderers and barfly-types) would have the sexual repitorie of a skilled courtesan who has a "sex skill" no matter how they brag. You could argue that just like someone would not have to roll combat driving to go to the grocery store under normal circumstances the average sexual encounter would not require one either. Thus the 8- everyman skill that most people would have signifies some 'basic knowledge' not necessary for dice rolling. That is fine at fiurst blush, but it really does not capture the essence of what this post is about either does it? Because that gets us back to the first point about quality being generally low because of the 8- that most people are going to be using. I'm not sure what anyone else thinks, but this is kind of off-kilter for me. In sum, what I mean is that presenting this as a skill does not seem to track logically with other examples of things we break down as "skills". I attempted to explain before how each technique could be modelled after a particular set of stats (because I do agree that as a game this system can accomdate something like that) but I'm not sure I want to specify something more conceretely than that game-wise. Alos, as I mentioned in another post above, I would agree that using sex as a courtesan or a high-priced call girl (most "Hookers at the Point" prostitutes would not count here I think) would indeed constitute a separate skill. In other words a skill "to evoke a specific response using sexual means or to gratify some unusual taste or even to feign said responses physcially and emotionally". I called it Feigned Erotics there half in jest. The roll might not be for the quality all by itself, it might be for the thing that you are trying to accomplish through your sexual technique: i.e. getting someone to believe that you are genuine or something similar. It might be used for example to satisfy a particular desire in a particular 'target' (fetishists etc.). The parallel to acting is a good one: it is not as much about the act itself as the response you are trying to ceate in another, and while this could equate to "quality" in some technical sense in some situations it does not have to.

Re: The Kingpin, the Maggia and Intergang I totally agree with Zakuens on this one. In fact, I think that the Soze figure (I'll use "Dzuga" here) should never be seen in a regular adventure. Just make certain that they constantly hear about him. Here is a sample story you might want to use, excuse the length, but it contains a lot of different elements on how a meta can be brought down by this type of guy. It is actually pretty vanilla as far as violence goes, but I'm not sure how many Hanoi Hilton type stories would be tasteful on a public board like this: "There was a brick I knew by the name of Armageddon Pete. Ol’ Petey was a hard guy ya know? bullets–bounce-off-his-chest sort of meta. Anyway, Pete got hired by one of Dzugha’s cutouts, only he didn’t know the job was for Dzugha (which is of course how these things usually get done right?). The job was to protect a shipment of smack from South America that was coming into the harbor. The money was good and the job looked straightforward and easy for someone with his meathuman talents, so Armageddon Pete took it without asking too many questions. Then a vigilante came along, do-gooder type with a cheap mask and a bag of tricks. Pete and this guy tussled, but somewhere along the line the smack got blown to hell. Apparently the vigilante had it wired before he even started in on the hired help, maybe a stray blaster bolt I dunno. Whatever it was, a cloud of primo Columbian was drifting over the wharf near the end there and black-and-whites were coming to the scene by the dozen. The vigilante slipped away in the confusion, and so did Pete. Strike One. Dzugha’s cutout shows up at Pete’s favorite nightclub and said that Pete owed him for the job gone bad. But Pete’s a hard-ass right? so Pete tells him to get the hell out and when this guy mentions the name ‘Dzugha’ Pete told him he don’t care. Strike Two. Suddenly, all the jobs dried up for Pete: Legitimate and illegitimate alike. Nobody wanted to touch him cuz the word got out that he and Dzugha had ‘unfinished business’. Pete had some money saved up though, so Pete figures that this aint nothin’ but a vacation you know? Then the nest-egg gets cracked. A mixture of hackers, ID theft and the untimely intervention of the Law made his portfolio just go away. Still he had all the stuff in his house at least to keep him company right? At least for a few minutes he did. First his car blows up then his house blows up; both at different times and both with him in them. Like I said though, Pete was a tough guy and came out of it without too much trouble but now he had nothing. Literally. Still, a half-dozen blocks of C-4 have a way of making a statement don’t they? One of Dzugha’s boys came by after that and offered him a last chance: not that everything will be forgiven they say, but nothing more will happen if Pete does this thing and sets it straight with Dzugha. But Pete was mad by that time, and tore the errand-boy apart. They found the errand body stacked up in four juicy piles. Strike three. Then the cops start dogging Pete. Everywhere he went they showed up. They had evidence of most of the illegal stuff he had ever done, and they were hanging some stuff that he never did on him too. Kind suspicious aint it? Pete managed to escape every dragnet, but they kept finding him time and time again. Pete knew he really couldn’t keep that up so he lit out altogether. Pete was three hundred miles away and working a series of unconnected home invasions within a month, leaving behind dead families and empty burnt out homes. It seemed like it had worked too. The cops had stopped dogging him by that time and even though the FBI had him on their most wanted list and set up a task force, they suddenly got a ‘red hot lead’ in Los Angeles and dropped everything to head in the other direction. Pete was in a little shore town called Dunhollow when everything came down. He’d been there for two days, and was in the process of giving the missus of the house little special attention when somebody shot him through the window with a Barrett .50. The missus started screaming and managed to crawl away just as Pete got back up and took another round to the head. Like I said, he was pretty much bullet proof, but those depleted uranium slugs must have really rung his bell. What happens next is pure supposition backed up by what evidence the FBI was able to uncover: apparently they gassed Pete (the lady of the house was nearly dead because of the dosage so it had to have been pretty powerful stuff), then chained him to their Hum-vee and dragged him three miles to a sea cliff (leaving a very nasty trail behind). There, they threw him into a concrete mixer and turned it on for a while before driving the whole thing over the edge. The spot they picked was deep, it took the divers a good while to find it even after the anonymous tip. By that time, Pete was long since dead, but by all accounts he survived the Barrett, the gas and the dragging, because he was still trying to claw his way out of the cement when he drowned about three hours before the divers got there. Bottom line: Don't mess with Dzuga man..."

Re: Help with Racist Slang I call this "casual racism" and in a way it is even more pernicious than the overt type because it has a way of sneaking into people without them being truly cruel. Of course, you are describing someone who is on the edge of this form of racism, really a kind of crude individual who is thoughtless, but you know there are still a lot of people today that harbor feelings largely unknown to them (consciously I mean) that they manifest from time to time. I went to a speech by Cornel West once and he described that this is true even of Black Americans; he referred to it as "the racist inside" as I recall. Everything from hair-straightening to a madison avenue version of feminine beauty that does not include physical characteristics common to black women. I am White and when I met him in the reception line he called me "brother" and he was not using any slang I believe that he meant it quite literally, and he called my girlfriend (who is Black) "sister" in the precise same tone of voice. Back to your topic, I think the laundry thing is appropriate for this kind of boorish behavior. Maybe they assume he does not speak or understand English and so speak... to... him... slowly... Perhaps they comment him on how wonderfully westernized he is because "his people" often have a problem with dressing "like real Americans".

Re: Sex as a skill If you mean feigning closeness or something like that, fine I concede the point. But with all the technical talk of dicerolls and such I thought I'd just throw that out. In a way it is like the acting skill I guess. No one would require you to make an acting role to be yourself, but they would make an acting role to act like someone else. If I sounded a little Polyanna back there I hope you don't just give me a biscuit and send me home because I think that the point I was trying to make is still valid even in "game terms" where everything cannot always be subjected to dice rolls. What I mean is that some of the stuff about PS and KS and such might be appropriate for this form of sexual act, but lets not forget that it isn't needed for the genuine part of the equation and in fact 'Feigned Erotics' (or whatever you would like to call it) might constitute an "everyman skill" in that we all have the capacity to 'fake it' on an emotional level.

Re: Jane's Superhumans

Re: The Kingpin, the Maggia and Intergang I have always felt that 'Keyser' was just a way to remind folks of Caesar. Maybe it is a real name that dervies from this root, I dunno. Rex is good in a similar vein, Rex Kassar, Avarex Kassar... Tyrant, Tyran. Gosh. Maybe lets take a leader from that area, a particularly nasty one, and play with it. 'Stalin' was the code name of Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, hmmm, lots of good stuff there. He also went by the code name Koba. Stalin itself is a combination of Stal (Steel) and Lenin (whose name was also a code, some river I think) Some options: Iosif Vissar, Dzhuga Villar, Joseph Koba, My favorites: Alois Vissarion ('Alois' being pronounced AH-loh-ehs, which kind of sounds like alloy to me, like as in 'steel'). Problem: too many syllables. KAI-zer SO-zay has a short choopy sing song about it that makes it easy. This one is too hard. I like it, but it is too hard to say and lacks that punchy quality. Rexar Dzuga (REX-ar ZU-ga) Problem: what the heck is a Rexar? I dunno, but I use Rex as the base, as in King. 'Regis Dzuga' has the right syllabic content but I expect him to kill you while wearing monochrome tie/shirt combos. Tyran Dzugha (TIE-ran ZU-Ga). Problems: No such thing as a Tyran. Could be short for Tyranus or something. Still, I like it.

Re: Sex as a skill I'm with toadmaster, superskill this one. Mind control would be the ticket, or maybe a projective empathy (happy, very happy). I was hoping that this would decend a little by now so I could write up some funny. You guys are handling this like sober adults. Curses! In all seriousness, if you are not going to superskill for the funny, I don't like the idea of having any skill at all, or a stat roll to say it is good or not. Sex is not something that should break down to a die roll or a stat. Some folks are clumsy as hell and great in bed, others are kind and warm and thoughtful and awful in these terms and nevertheless a "success". Describe the sex by describing the person, their true 'vital characteristics' (no, not their stats, their personality, behavior and that sort of thing); but since it is a game use their stats as well because those help to describe the character in some measure. Just don't be a slave to it, and I wouldn't break it down to a roll for success/failure. Someone who has a high Dex might be a skillful lover, a high Con/END might be a robust lover, high INT might be resourceful or funny. More importantly is the type of person they are. A high-Dex jerk is a skillful lover, but they might not "rub someone the right way" no matter how technically good they are at the physical act. A low-Dex mediocre PRE character who is nevertheless genuinely decent is going to attract someone, and that someone would describe them (hopefully) as "successfull". We are all compelling in our own way, and Sex is rarely ever like it is depicted in mass media (or porn, okay, maybe especially not like porn) it is filled with little missteps and sublime moments, acts of unimpeachable sweetness and all levels of embarassment from mild to profound. In the end we all make funny faces and we all can be good, or bad, no matter if we take it as a KS or not. Am I sharing too much?

Re: The Kingpin, the Maggia and Intergang You need Keyser Soze. Keyser Soze didn't need to be in the same room with you to mess you up. Kaeyser Soze didn;t have to have power. He had to have will. The will to do whatever was necessary to prevail. Killing his wife and children, then the wives, children, friends and pets of his enemies one by one until the very mention of his name made hardened criminals soil themselves. He doesn't have to be there, he just has to be pulling the strings. Moderately powerful bricks will take orders from the puny human (for fun, call him Verbal) who relays his orders. They follow them to the word or their world will turn into utter hell. You'll need some good stories. Scary stuff. Horsehead on the bedpost is okay. Hubby, wife and 2.5 kids stuffed into a single suitcase and set on fire because they took Soze's name in vain is better. Sprinkle them around. Have nasty villains (and heroes, although ironically less of them then the villains) end up meeting nasty deaths in foul circumstances (as in the stuff they did in Se7en was mild). Keyser Soze man. That's hardcore. (actually, Hardcore is a pretty good name too, hmmm I might be using that in the near future).

Re: Jane's Superhumans If we go with an "official product" look, i.e. limited color, I would suggest the following for Blackstone's Metahumans. The text under the pic I have condensed heavily, but as usual, I would be happy to take suggestions on where to move things around (the suggestions have been great thus far).

Re: Firefly HERO Website Up Nice gorram site there, mighty kindly of you to be in a sharin' kinda mood and all. I will be looking over the characters soon for some interestin' viewin'.

Re: The Meta X MR Wild Card Gene Syndrome Virus is Female Dominant! As a GM I strongly discourage gender switches in FtF play. It might seem hopelessly out of date or something but Bud the 6'6 450lb hairy fellow playing the beautiful elven princess in his deepest baritone just does not work. It’s the suspension of disbelief that suffers and that means that the play is more likely to dissolve into comedy or nonsense. It also tends to be the case that only the rare guy can play a female character sufficiently well to justify the switching. They act like... well males in female bodies rather than as females. There are always exceptions of course. One of the best examples of this was in an Amber game, when a male player wanted to play a slightly effeminate male character (Strong Xander! Strong Xander!) that happened to be a female that simply masqueraded as male (for a reason I only half recall, suffice to say it was actually a valid plot device integrated into his character’s personal history). So he was a man playing a woman that dressed and acted like a man (kind of). This became really confusing when the character disguised herself as a woman when breaking into a stronghold. I kept passing notes to the other players like "He really seems to be amazingly comfortable in those clothes" and “he makes a completely convincing female†etc. I told one bad stuff character (they use up more than their allotted points during character gen and GMs can mess with them more freely) that he started having a "crush like feeling" for the character he thought was a male once he saw him as a female (albeit one he thought was a male in disguise). This of course continued when the gender-switched character went back into his ‘male persona’ and I kept sending the bad stuff character notes like “Marion looks kind of sexy in the tight leather outfit he picked out todayâ€. Great shades of Shakespeare! The only time I had female gamers outnumbering male gamers was in a Vampire campaign. That ended up being quite long running and it was extremely satisfying in terms of our collective role-playing. I wish I had more female players now.

Re: Animated Series Style Character Images Kris Kringleborg?

Re: Limited (restricted) Varaible Limitations? What about a END reserve linked to his powers called "Hydration" with a Limited Recovery modifier (must drink water)?

Re: Animated Series Style Character Images Working name "Emerald", a brick type character with a "rage"-based strength ability that allows her to get stronger (and tougher) the more STUN damage she takes.

Re: Character For Review

Re: Animated Series Style Character Images Privateer

Re: Animated Series Style Character Images Excellent work Chimpira. I especially like Dr. Mayfair. I am a big fan of the pulp settings myself.

Re: Animated Series Style Character Images The figure on the right has more vibrant color. The shadows are better with deeper tones. I like the bow from the one on the left though for some reason, but since it is the only thing that I do like better I'd go with the right for personal preference. Now, I am fully aware that there are times when the more vibrant color is NOT the right choice, so when I say 'preference' it is more of a personal thing than any 'right' or 'wrong' way.