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Re: How (un)realistic are Street Samurai? Street samurai tend to carry weapons. Lots of them. ARs, SMGs, Pistols, Grenade Launchers, Miniguns, the lot. How many of each depends on your GM. Some Street Sams are simply buying into the bushido mystique. Some want the badass factor. Some know that when you're surrounded by half a dozen mooks carrying found weapons, the ability to slash in a big circle with something vicious looking is very useful. The ultimate reasons (from a gaming point of view) are ammo and armor. Swords don't run out of ammo (old wisdom, but wisdom nonetheless). It's one reason that modern soldiers still carry knives (or hatchets, in some cases). If you've fired everything, you still have a chance of killing a bad guy and taking his gun. Armor gets interesting in cyberpunk. Personal firearms are assumed not to get significantly more powerful than they are today. Whether that's realistic or not is up for debate. What does get better is armor. It's lighter, more flexible, and better at stopping incoming rounds. Decent armor in Shadowrun will stop even heavy pistol rounds more often than not (no damage). Good armor will let you take bursts from ARs and maybe still be standing. Swords will, in some systems, penetrate those selfsame armors more readily, especially if you have a buffed up blade (diamond-coated, vibro, monofilament, etc). Since you can probably stop a couple of pistol rounds with your Black Trenchcoat without breaking stride, the 20 feet mentioned above becomes much farther. Now, different systems give different grittiness. CP2020 will kill you in a heartbeat, and the only reason anyone carries a sword is to look cool. Shadowrun offers a more heroic feel, and the sword becomes useful in light of the armors available (not to mention magic). HERO and similar systems can be modified how you like, of course, but a certain amount of dirt goes along with any real cyberpunk campaign.

Re: Long tours-of-duty on industrial/mining ships Buddy of mine used to work as an actual, honest-to-god nuclear engineer on a boomer. I never asked him how long the deployments were, but he said that most waking hours were spent in maintenance of one kind or another, running drills or just ship's operation. The difference between the space station and a sub, however, is size. Subs have zero extra space, and hot-bunking is (or was) the norm for most. On a station big enough to crack a planet open and suck it dry, there'd be more than enough space to avoid such things. Even adding a few million extra cubic meters to keep the crew happy would be defensible as a long-term investment and insurance reduction. Depending on the number of crew, providing a small internal economy (restaurants, bars, prostitutes, gambling, gyms, etc) would be worth it, if only to drain the crew's pay back towards the company. For a thousand labor-crew, add 75-100 'support' crew and things'd work out just fine. See 'Outland' with Sean Connery and remove the overcrowding. And psychosis-inducing drugs, of course (unless you're a GM).

Re: Looking for Everyman Skill ideas While there can be some value in listing clearly defined skills and abilities that 'every' person has, I generally just roleplay it. If it's something that I could ask the average person on the street to do/know/have, with reasonable expectation that they could/do, it qualifies. If not, then you have to buy it. Same with equipment/gear/resources. This becomes a lot more important when playing in a campaign set outside of 20th-21st century . Medieval characters, for instance, are pretty much guaranteed to own a knife for eating that could be used in a pinch for combat. Fantasy characters are going to have a KS:Magic to some degree or other, whether accurate or not. That said - Skills: Transport Familiarity: Car (including pickups, jeeps, and the like) Transport Familiarity: Bicycle One AK (usually the local city, but a character from elsewhere would probably have that, instead) Basic CuK to go along with AK and language Arithmetic (NOT Mathematics) Systems Operation (for TVs, PCs, Cell Phones, and the like) Survival: Urban (8- only) Pop Culture Largely Misunderstood/Misremembered Science KS: Religion (Christianity if the character doesn't practice anything particular, modified by campaign setting) KS: Sports/Hobby/Specific Interest (everyone's into something) KS: Law and Police Procedures (the useful aspect of Pop Culture) General Knowledge (anything you're likely to have picked up in school) I generally allow Boy Scout skills for free if the character specifies. Gear/Equipment/et cetera : Job or other source of basic income Personal vehicle Living space Cell Phone PC/Mac/Laptop with generic software (office suite, browser(s), games, e-mail client)m Internet connection, e-mail address(es) and printer/scanner. Maybe has own webpage. Entertainment Center - TV/Stereo, Gaming console, DVD/Blu-Ray, Mp3 player Clothing Credit Card, ATM card, gas card, shopping club card Flashlight Basic tools or access to same (both hand and power tools, but only home-market items) Personal library of media - books, movies, games, magazine, so one Basic camera (digital, film or polaroid, nothing fancy) Contacts appropriate to general background - friends, family (even if no DNPC), co-workers, boss, et cetera Perks including Driver's License (depending on age), Citizenship, Registered to Vote, Mailing Address (more important than you might think)

Re: Need another name for Juggernaut... Roller might work, from the steamroller comment. Tectonic, from plate tectonics. Hey, you try stopping a continent from going where it wants. There's the old joke about 'where does an 800 pound gorilla sit? Anywhere he wants to". 800, Gorilla or Anywhere might be references to that. Relentless There's The Limper, from the Black Company books. He was in many ways similar to Juggernaut, although he was also Full of Fail.

Re: Tropes Revisited: Beautiful Female Martial Artist. Ideas sought For those of you who haven't, here is a link to her Wikipedia entry. As to her cyborg status, most definitely. But it wasn't her gear that defined her, it was the "I gotta tussle" part. And when cybernetics are commonly available, most of your opponents have the same advantages, and you're back to training, skill and natural ability being the defining factors. And how many of the previously mentioned characters have magical help of one kind or another?

Re: Mental Powers based on Grief, Solace, or Sorrow I experimented with an NPC once with no particular name. He wore an amulet which generated an AOE Always On EGO Drain (something like a 64 hex radius). Only a d6, but the overall effect on his environment was eventually a total apathy in everyone. He knows what's going on, he just doesn't care enough to do anything about it (I handwaved that the amulet left him just enough willpower to eat, get out of the rain, and so on). That could also simulate a Fear or Depression effect, where the target ends up having to make EGO rolls to take any action, if affected strongly enough or for enough time. And, unlike Mental powers, Drains don't automatically identify their use to their targets.

Re: Tropes Revisited: Beautiful Female Martial Artist. Ideas sought Just for completeness' sake, I would suggest Molly Millions. She defined the entire trope of the Street Samurai. No canon imagery, but lots of fan interpretations of her seem to be available.

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't? We actually have two separate RuneQuest campaigns right now that somewhat address this issue. Both Jerrin and Enlo are run (ironically) by the same player, Rudy. Rabbit Hat – Jerrin, after mustering out of an elite military force, was put in charge of growing the small frontier town of Rabbit Hat. His title was mayor. Another PC, quite unknown to Jerrin, was growing drugs in the forest. This was discovered, and the other player managed to pin it on Jerrin. As his criminal punishment, Jerrin was reduced to slave status. This is in the Lunar empire, roughly based on Rome, where criminal slaves were fairly common. Along comes Blingus, run by Matt. He is the new mayor of Rabbit Hat, and has been assigned Jerrin as his slave. So we have one PC who legally owns another. Abuse has occurred, but not downright torture. It's an interesting situation, especially as the rest of the party likes Jerrin, and is convinced (legitimately) that Blingus is using the development of Rabbit Hat to line his own pockets. The Seven Cities – In this campaign, Rudy plays a Trollkin character named Enlo. In Trollish, Enlo means slave, but the character does not really understand this. Most Troll children don't become full trolls, and are roughly equivalent to goblins. Rudy has had great fun playing a very low-IQ character who is currently bursting with pride because he has not only three walls for his house, but half a roof, as well. He recently lost his most prized possession, a book, when a fellow Trollkin ate it. While it is largely played for laughs, Rudy is maintaining a very strong commitment to thinking like a freed slave, and it does occasionally bring up some of the issues being discussed. Note that there are several types of slaves in Trollish society, and the food slaves do not work in the kitchen (Trolls' most notable attribute is the ability to eat literally ANYTHING, including metal, dirt, and stone).

Re: How would you make: characteristic drain/aid You could also take the Transfer as fueling an END Batt (don't know if those are still around in 6th), and the END Batt fueling a Healing or Aid power. Adds the possibility of Transferring from people and keeping the points around. Probably best with a small battery or some kind of fade (based on the fade of the Transfer) built into it. An interesting Limitation (however you build it) might be that both the target of the Drain and the Healing/Aid have to be touched at the same time.

Re: Does This Seem Shady? Of course, the first adventure may involve the death of WunderKind, and the whole campaign could revolve around his resurrection... that could be done well, maybe. But he still lied. Rule 1 in my group is no lies. Secrets are okay, as long as they're part of the plot, but lies are right out. I'd be very wary of this situation.

Re: Telepresence robot suits. Buy them as vehicles, purchased by the organization the pilots are working for. A Mind Link, Affected as Another Sense (Radio), will allow the pilots to control them. If the robots have the ability to function without a pilot to any degree (beyond standing still), then they should be purchased as Automatons. If you want some ideas as to builds, BattleTech has hundreds of pre-designed mechs available, with all kinds of weapons load-outs.

Re: Fractal Branching Ultra-Dextrous Robots This sounds like the Christmas Bush robot from Robert L. Forward's Rocheworld, so that might be a good sourcebook. Purchased as Automaton, but probably without the STUN specific advantages. All appropriate Life Supports, of course. Vulnerability to electiricty is highly probable, maybe magnetics, as well. Might or might not operate well under water. VPP/MP with Growth/Shrinking (if it can change it's mass, it would be by taking in mass from the surrounding area), Stretching, Duplication (splitting into multiple bodies), Characteristics (it can be strong, or fast, but not both at the same time), Clinging, Gliding, possibly Flight, Tunneling Transform (matter/object) into (other matter/object), with Extra Time All basic senses with 360 degrees and high levels of Microscopic on Vision and Touch. Vision types covering everything from radio to UV built in, probably passive sonar as well. The more realistic you're going for, the more fragile the thing will be REC may be tied to an external power source (solar, wall current, etc...), possibly an END Reserve to represent stored energy, maybe Absorption of some kind VPP/MP with special senses, both passive and active, including radio communications and Clairsentience (can send out tendrils with sensors) Change Environments, produces light, heat, sound, maybe Images or Darkness, possibly chameleon-style Invisibility Extra DEX only to represent manual dexterity, or levels with such skills Extra Limbs, however many necessary, but the more it has, the weaker and shorter they have to be. Defensive options, curl into a ball, flatten into a shield, etc... Might be able to send tendrils into a target's brain for mental powers Lots of possibilities for attack powers Could turn itself into tools/weapons to be used by other characters. Shape Shift, if you want to take it that far

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life. At dinner a few days ago, I was explaining that the origin of the graham cracker was an attempt to create a food that reduced feelings of lust in people. Brother-in-law: Maybe if it was a Billy Graham cracker...

Re: Your favorite SF gear. A Galactic Express Neutronium Card. For when you need to buy the occasional giga-corporation on short notice.

Re: Remote control vehicles?

Re: Music to Kill Zombies By Okay, a few options, selected thematically. Sci-fi: Weapon - a well designed monomolecular whip, with a monomolecular extendable knife blade in the haft (for cutting open anything I need Music - the fight music from ST:TOS Companion - Molly Millions Fantasy: Weapon - the sword belonging to the Death entity from Nehwon (slays whatever it touches) Music - Di Fortuna, by Apotheosis Companion - Pug Real-World: Weapon: any reliable, drum-fed semi-auto shotgun with plenty of ammo and a bipod Music: Still Alive Companion: George Romero

Re: Remote control vehicles?

Re: Fantasy locations that should be real Personally, I'd like to visit Amber and the Courts of Chaos (with appropriate protection, of course).

Re: An idea for a multi-purpose device There's a reason we don't allow Cosmic Power Pools in my group's Champions games... and that's it.

Re: Template List for Space Opera Noir: what to include? It wouldn't really fit in as a template, but maybe some broad strokes on the 'unknowable alien'? I have always liked the idea of something living in a space and nobody is really sure what it is, why it's there, or what it wants. Station management doesn't have time to track down every individual who isn't posing a direct problem. Think Ambassador Kosh without the title. Total mystery that can range from minor flavor in a campaign to a major plot hook.

Re: The criminal level list Only one possible choice for name #2: Mook. And toss Goon and Thug in there somewhere.

Re: THE HERO SYSTEM EQUIPMENT GUIDE -- What Would *You* Like To See?

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20100815.html And no, that's not a fake eye.

Re: Template List for Space Opera Noir: what to include? I would include a template for the Engineer/Mr. Fix-it types who design and work with hardware of all kinds (hyperdrives to androids to farm equipment), and Medics. Other than that, looks like a good list.

Re: Zero Information Many of our campaigns run roughly like that. The Players get a variable amount of information ranging from "We're gonna play Horror on the Orient Express" to "Make a super on x points". Given that we've been playing together since forever (I'm the New Guy, and I've been playing with these guys for 20 years), we trust each other enough to do this. We also don't do much of the 'balanced party' thing. My current Champions/Apocalypse campaign has three MAs, a teleporter, a rifleman and a basic EB. The key is the trust. They all know that I'm going to give them something worth playing, and that we can all figure out ways to address any shortcomings the group as a whole has. Of course, it's also a great way of building trust, in the first place. All in all, I highly recommend this method.