Mentor

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

Hmm. It says at the bottom that "Magic Items go here!!" on the Fantasy Hero board is a "Similar Thread". Who makes those calls?

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

Alright people. Lets quit wasting all the hot air on political threads. Surely someone titillating trivia to add. Or more of austenandrews pretty girl pics, anyway. (Bummer about the spyware, though)

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

HeroTina's gonna really be mad if we don't do something about this thread.

Re: Massive engineering projects?

Arcologies and artificial islands are also great concepts resulting changes in terms of the cultural changes just as would the orbital or zero G habitats.

Re: Favorite Master Villain

I would be most afraid of Menton. In fact I can't figure out why Menton doesn't already rule the world now that he kicked that pesky slavish devotion to Dr. Destroyer. And I play a Mentalist. But this guy is overwhelming.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

Uh....I dunno. It wasn't my fault. It was Mentor's turn...

 

as I see he already took the blame...the FOOL!

But I apologized, thus still get to be in charge.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

EXCUSE ME!!!!!!!

WHAT WAS THIS DOING ON THE SECOND PAGE!!!!!!

isitthelongesttreadyetpapasmurf

Um. Sorry. I forgot.

Re: Martial Cringe

So basically it's a PRE attack but the SFX on the attacked lie more in how they respond with self-confidence and "he's not worth attacking"? That's a good one' date=' in line with a few others here. So in extreme examples, let's say we have a 500 point Martial Cringer, he meets up with a mob that besets itself on him, he Martial Cringes, next thing you know they all "flee" (SFX = "he's not worth attacking, that loser!"). Eh?[/quote']

The problem with this construction, which is terrific BTW, is the original Martial Crnge concept already assumes a successful roll to hit. The desired results are more akin to; Mind Control, only to cause attacker to pull his punch, requires failed PRE roll. In other words, if you have to good a PRE, you aren't wimpy enough and the bad guy whoops up on you.

Re: The cranky thread

I can't get in to the political threads for the last few days. Everything posted (either political position) strikes me as an oversimplification deliberately intended to mislead. The world's biggest news items from September 11, 2001 on are greeted with demands for cites and and counter cites, or claimed as nonexistent. Google is free people and I do need to spend some f*cking time actually working. I am not going to link you to f*cking Scientific American and the Hubble telescope to prove the f*cking sky is blue.

That didn't really feel as good as I hoped. Oh, well. Maybe a vacation from the bords is in order.

Re: GMs: PC Scrutiny & Acceptance

Or more quality time with a significant other

 

(actually is there a Mrs. Trebuchet - there's not, is there?)

His game and character...er...detail (kinder than obsession, no?) would pretty well be a dead give away, I think.

Re: GMs: PC Scrutiny & Acceptance

I have Characteristics for all of them but didn't post those. I was more interested in seeing the level of detail the GGU needed. I wanted NPCs that could provide some plot hooks without doing the Aunt May or Lois Lane bit.

 

I have unfortunately seen over the years many PCs with far less detail than these NPCs. Most of our players have submitted short stories as well so we get some idea of how they see their character. A mere list of Powers, Disadvantages and Skills does not make a character in my book. Of course my character writeup for Zl'f is 3 full pages single spaced with narrow margins; it's almost 40K in length. Plus of course my short story and the new one I've been working on for 19 months.

 

Who says I'm excessive-compulsive?

We in the gaming group just say his diet needs more fiber.

Re: The cranky thread

That made me cranky too! I have one game every two weeks at best. This time it's likley to be 3 weeks between games.

Ours is even called the game of the month. My crank meter is definitely redlining.

Re: The cranky thread

What is it with people who think they're my boss? Look' date=' I don't work for you, and giving imperious orders is about the best way I can think of to make sure your task gets done last. A little respect goes a long way. Dick.[/quote']

Kwitcherbitchin' and get back to work.

Re: Project Orion and bomb pumped Lasers

Keep in mind that any fusion drive that delivers significant thrust becomes a vicious particle beam weapon at non-trivial ranges. I'd outlaw them in my spacelanes.

 

Keith "Kzinti Lesson" Curtis

Re: Needed: Organizations!

Definitely sounds like some interesting organizations ...

 

But what do they do? I've never even heard of any of those series.

The titles given by the posters are tremendously influential sci fi novels with a lot of background on the types of organizations your asking about. enjoayble reads as a bonus.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

I'm more worried about probes.

I thought mightybec was usually on the receiving end of probes.

Re: Martial Cringe

The context in which I always visualized was an all or nothing prayer, with an astronomical chance of success. Well maybe and 8 or less, with the resulting penalty of a negative Disad: Reputation-Wuss in the face of damage. Martial cringe was never something we visualized as being very heroic.

Re: Character Building Issues Midgame

There's a famous and oft repeated phrase in our gameing group: KNOW YOUR CHARACTER! That's really meant more as a "if you have paid for the power you should know what it does" kind of thing. But the phrase persists after all these years because it still happens! We still get into games where we think a power does one thing and the GM points out it does another.

 

What Supersquirrel pointed out is a fine example. In those cases we definitely allow a reworking, within existing point limits. After all, the character would get trounced and where would the fun be for the player?

Re: Character Building Issues Midgame

We have also usually given a two or three game moratorium on finalizing a character if they misunderstood or misapplied an intended power or ability within their original concept. Your example would probably fall into that category.

We don't allow changes to the basic structure, like, "Dang, that Flash last game took me out of the fight for four phases. I'm buying Flash Defense instead if those skills."

It seems to work well for us.

Re: GMs: PC Scrutiny & Acceptance

As a slight aside, I feel that too much emphasis is placed in the GM providing a good game FOR the players.

 

Gaming is a cooperative endeavor. It is ALSO the responsibility to the Players to entertain and provide a good game for the GM.

 

Player centric games are an insult to GMs because we are slaving to help provide an environment for the characters to interact with. As a GM for 20 years on and off Nothing makes me want to pack by bags and leave quicker than bunch of players sitting down and saying "What do we do now?"

 

You have a character...Play him! What would he or she BE DOING right NOW?

 

Hawksmoor

-Soapbox retracted

Re: GMs: PC Scrutiny & Acceptance

Any decent story requires something bad to happen. Whether it happens to the hero' date=' the environment, a DNPC, innocent bystanders, society, the world, the universe, etc., this is beside the point. Bad stuff has to happen for a game to be interesting. If all the bad stuff happens to everyone and everything [i']except[/i] the hero, what fun is that? In order to involve a hero, bad stuff must happen directly to the hero. Some people refer to this as "screwing the character over". I don't. I call it including the character in the plot.

 

Screwing the PC's over? Not likely. Attitude is everything, even in roleplaying games.

 

Mags

My definition of screwing PCs over would be along the lines of "Bad stuff happens and you can't do anything meaningful about it because you are just along for the ride in MY world."

In our campaign, we refer to to it as, to quote Trebuchet, interactive fiction.

If there is no give and take by both players and GM and no growth and evolution of the PCs, then by definition, no way they can be three dimiensional interesting characters.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

YES Balut' date=' also known as "hundred year egg" I won't tell you more, other than that it is from the Philipines, because I like everyone here and don't want them to [/quote']

Oh, I forgot about that one. I have a Filipino buddy whose mom could never get us to eat that. She made the best lumpias in the world, though.

Re: Generic Power Nullifiers

Okay' date=' I see. As a plot device, I can abide them, but I typically build anything I've done like this with very specific SFX and would prefer it be done this way in general. Also, by so doing, one eliminates the need to figure out "back doors" and the like - just let the SFX and the players interact and 9 times out of 10 they'll think of something.[/quote']

Exactly. Why would you put the heroes in a situation where they existed if you didn't want them to fail or be countered, releasing the heroes or villains restrained by them, precipitating the rumble? Or the pursuit.

Re: GMs: PC Scrutiny & Acceptance

Once again, the issue has to be one of trust. Players must have enough trust in the GM to accept that their properly constructed character will be valuable and powerful enough to beat most villains' schemes if they are smart and heoic (assuming that is the genre).

The GM needs to provide a fun campaign for the players in order that they know their heroes will never get srewed over for just being heros and three dimensional characters. Thus, it is preferable to have you character screened in advance so that your super is successful and cool in the game rather than getting its clock cleaned and the GM can then tell you, "See I told you so."

The GM has more points than the players thus nobody can build a character that will perpetually overbalance the villains, but they can build a character that ruins the game for the rest of the players who are being disintigrated by attacks that only stun the lame PC.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

Is there an ethnic food more inedible than Poi?

Haggis? Kimchee? Anything English?