Kristopher

Re: Nova?

Their exectutives or their leaders still live somewhere. That somewhere is vulnerable.

Re: Social resolution mechanics for Hero

Again' date=' I can pit characters against unbeatable physical challenges. I can give The Dark Sorcerer an 8d6 Killing NND, Does BOD, AoE Selective, with an OCV of 20, and he will kill the 75+75 point fantasy characters with a single spell. That's not "challenging", it's just abusive. For some reason, whenever the possibility of a social conflict system is raised, it is immediately opposed with the belief that the GM will use it to place similar unbeatable challenges in the path of the players, rather than using it to create interesting and fun challenges of a non-physical nature. If I can't trust the GM to focus on creating a fun game with interesting challenges, then the addition or removal of a social conflict resolution system doesn't change the fact that the game will not be fun.[/quote']

 

It seems, based only on my experience, that GMs who use mechanics to dictate PC actions also tend to be the GMs who would do the social equivalent of the Dark Sorcerer to their players.

Re: Social resolution mechanics for Hero

Because in most cases' date=' when the GM places the characters in a physical situation, the [b']external[/b] environment is dictated by the GM - but he's essentially asking the players "OK, what are your characters going to do in response to this situation?". When he places them in a situation where PC actions are dictated (in part or whole) by die roll, now the internal environment is also dictated by the GM - he's essentially saying "OK, here's what your characters are going to do". Very, very, verrrry different situations, and not really analogous.

 

 

Realistic, certainly. Challenging? Probably. But fun .... probably not. In that regard, it's like the discussions about realism in modelling death/injury. We could certainly make our physical simulations more realistic and challenging, if we wanted, but my experiences in that direction suggest that it's at the cost of fun.

 

cheers, Mark

In both cases, that pretty much covers what I was going to say.

Re: Social resolution mechanics for Hero

Surely role playing is all about dealing with situations that the character has no control over: the villain attacks the character, pinning him to a wall, the NPC runs off with the suitcase full of money, the weather turns suddenly stormy and the boat starts to sink...the player can not suddenly say 'No, my character would never have gone out whene there was likely to be a storm and just re-write the scene.

 

Why is it that people seem happy to deal with physical situations that they have no control over - well - I say no control - they can attempt to influence the situation - but they are happy to let the dice and the GM determine the situation they are in and how it affects them - but are not willing to deal the same way with emotional or social situations?

 

I mean, any decent social interaction system is not going to hand 'Amazona, Princess of Purity' a requirement that she go on a killing rampage and slaughter innocents just because someone suggested she should and got a good persuasion roll. Amazona MIGHT be persuaded that the only way to save a bunch of innocents is to kill someone - in spite of her code against killing - but how she reacts to that and deals with it is still a matter for role playing.

 

Any good social interaction system would have to be relatively subtle, IMO, but there is no reason that players should not be placed in emotional/social situations in exactly the same way they are placed in physical ones, and expected to deal with them through role playing.

 

I suppose one answer is that PHYSICAL situations necessarily have to be abstracted by the system - you can't fly through the air and energy blast the villain really - but interaction systems can be 'entirely' role played - there is no good reason though why that is necessary - and I'm sure that everyone would agree that the choices you make in combat are a matter of role playing, so a system that involves a dice based PLUS role playing system is clearly something we are comfortable with.

 

I'd argue that role playing is far more challenging and realistic if we do not have absolute control over teh thoughts and emotions of our characters - after all none of us have absolute control over our own emotions and thoughts.

Who's looking for a "challenge"?

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

With with FTL, you can get some of the same effects. With ships that can make the insane speed of 1 LY / day, you're still probably talking weeks between inhabitable planets. Communcation is at the same speed. The local government is going to have to have a lot of power, especially on short-term issues.

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

There's always the chance, with a big gas giant in the life zone, that you'll get a sufficiently terrestrial satellite for life to be a real possibility.

Re: Social resolution mechanics for Hero

Personally, I'm leary of things that take role-playing control of the character away from the player.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MareNostrum

For when your secretive genius, urbane master villain, or retro-stylish aliens need a machine with sophistication to go with massive computing power.

Re: Hellish Weather on Other Planets

Good read as usual.

(Rep if I can, because you post this stuff on a regular basis.)

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

... Then I think the volume of the Galaxy is about 2.6 times 10^64 ...cans of beer.

Re: The Singularity?

Bah' date=' we waste more money on "Give Aways" to other countries , Stimulus, and other bogus BS Big Guv'ment Bridges to no Where then what we did on the Space Program. Ah well, it will be a moot point anyway once the Chinese and the Indians get up there and Pitch up claim markers all over the place.[/quote']

 

Than we did in raw terms, sure. Adjust those Apollo costs for inflation, or as a percentage of GDP, and what do they look like?

Re: The Singularity?

Yeah we went from Balsa Wood and cloth' date=' to an f-22 in no time. But 38 years ago, we were on the Moon, and now, we have to struggle to get into low Orbit. I'm not impressed with the last two generations what so ever. But hey my cell phone is smaller now. Sometimes, it even gets reception.[/quote']

 

If we tried to go to the Moon today, we could, and it would be faster, better, and safer than the Apollo program. I think people don't realized just how hard that endeavor pushed against the edge of what was actually possible at the time.

Re: The Singularity?

It's not just accelerating technology -- it's the accelerating acceleration of technology, so that there's a point beyond which we cannot image the future.

I'm not at all convinced by it.

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

at a density of 2.45x10^-4 sol systems per cubic light year, you'd need about 4,100,000 cubic light years.

Volume of a sphere is 4/3 pi radius^3, so you'd need a sphere with a radius of about 99 light years or a diameter of 198 light years

So if the typical ship in a setting runs at about 1 ly/day in FTL, you'd be looking at a direct trip of 200 days, which still seems to work well for what I'm going for.

The concept of "the singularity" has gained popularity both with science fiction authors, and with futurists. There's a movement out there of people who call themselves "Singulatarians", some of whom have earned the singularity the nickname "rapture for nerds" -- for them, it's not just speculation, it's a fervent belief.

However, for your setting -- gaming or fiction-writing -- there's no reason to view such a future as inevitable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_Singularity#Criticism

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

That's a very good estimate to know.

So how big of a volume around Sol should it take to find, say, 1000 Sol-type systems?

Re: What Happened to the Hominids Who Were Smarter Than Us?

Hominids Of Unusual Intelligence? I don't think they exist.

Re: 10 Sci-Fi Weapons That Actually Exist

Giving a "nice" state the ability to quash protest without guilt is a dangerous thing, IMO.

Anyway, interesting weapons, none the less.

Re: Taser Shockwave

Friend of mine who was in 1-1 Cav talked about the guys in his troop trying to find a way to wire remote-control Claymores all over the outside of the tanks in case they got into the "stuff" in an urban environment and had people trying to rush the tanks with bombs or whatnot. (Would have been right before they deployed to Iraq in GW2.)

Re: Instantaneous Communications plus Time Dilation Equals ???

Not sure where to go with that, then. I never really had any doubts about the subject until this thread. I'm just going to drop it, there's no progress to be had.

Re: 10 Sci-Fi Weapons That Actually Exist

I actually haven't yet seen one that was. There's a lot of power required' date=' yes, so it's expected to be pretty much limited to ground-based platforms, and it's not yet in the field, but they're underway[i'], [/i]with no nuclear bombs involved.

I don't think anyone has built one, but the only theoretical designs I'd seen were bomb-pumped.

Re: 10 Sci-Fi Weapons That Actually Exist

If you're a cop and I'm coming at you, I'd much rather you got me with a Flash Bang, Bedazzler, Active Denial System, or even a taser than have a choice of either shooting me (even if it's just with a beanbag round) or letting me seriously injure you.

 

Still, the list could have gone to 20, including the Metal Storm system RexMundi mentioned. I've seen stuff on X-ray anti-aircraft lasers, gun-mounted periscopes (I forget what those around-the-corner gun mounts are called), and all sorts of other crazy stuff. By mid-century America will have these kinds of things all over the place.

"Cornershot".

X-ray lasers? Has someone come up with a way to make one that isn't "pumped" by a nuclear bomb?

Re: Instantaneous Communications plus Time Dilation Equals ???

In all meaningful frames of reference (and "meaningful" is one that is not moving at c' date=' that is, riding with a photon), the photons are [u']always[/u] moving at c. Clocks slow down and measuring rods change length as you change reference frames in just such a way as to ensure that the velocity of a photon is c no matter what reference frame you're measuring in.

So everything is moving at "c - c"?

EDIT: it was supposed to be a question, and not just based on Cancer's statement, but on the context of the discussion, and the question I was asking.

Re: Instantaneous Communications plus Time Dilation Equals ???

Really? Because from our perspective' date=' it looks like you've been answered quite adequately, but you are rejecting that answer and won't tell us WHY.[/quote']

 

Because of terminology, it's a hard question to ask, because terms like "relative" are already taken up.

 

I've tried to dig down to a question that doesn't deal with "observers" or "frames of reference" or "simultaneity", to find an actual answer that can be built back up from. No matter how far I dig, people just keep saying "it depends". So far, there hasn't been an answer regarding the actual relationship between the motion of the photons and the motion of the car -- the train car cannot be moving at both "c - c" and at "c - (c-x)".

Re: Instantaneous Communications plus Time Dilation Equals ???

You're always allowed to walk away, if you're of that opinion of me. No one is forcing you to continue if the conversation is "rediculous".

So far, all I've been told is that there is no answer to the basic question raised by the "train car" thought exercise.