Michael Hopcroft

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "What's the matter? Haven't you ever seen a ten-foot-tall purple sabertoothed gerbil before? What sheltered lives you must lead!" NT: Signs the extreme sports craze has gone too far.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? I've always wanted somebody to ask Pete Townshend how he felt about not getting his wish.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Ripple Ripple.

Re: Anime Champions? How mad will you go from over-analyzing David Bowie lyrics? And isn't it odd that the first four letters of the word analysis happened to turn out to be what they were?

Your PC is in the middle of an adventure when a version of the PC apparently from the future, who looks much older and apparently has been battered aroudn pretty severely, appears in the middle of the adventure, says "Beware! Beware of the ******!", and then collapses and dies at your feet. Now whatever replaces the asterisk has not appeared in the campaign yet, but apparently when it does it is going to be noticed. Apparently you will be so concerned about it in the future that you sacrificed your own life to alter the past to prevent it from becoming a threat. What will your character do?

Re: Anime Champions? This coulkd pose problems down the road, as Hegu has a cousin who is a teacher at that school and who still thinks of her as a vulnerable child. Much like how I, as an older brother, had a hard time accepting that my little sister Alida had grown up, even when she was a teenager (and, to put it bluntly, a knockout).

Recent discussion of characters like C-ko has made me ponder how to build an Essence of Desrability power. This power would essentially mean nthat everyone who comes into contact with the character likes them and wants to posess their company almost exclusively. Depending on the observer, this could represent paternnal/maternal feelings, romantic/.sexual desire, hero worship -- but whateevr the effect the observer will want to simply bask in the character's presence as long as possible, and seek to prevent their rivals from doing so. C-ko and certain other characters would also have Phsyical Limitation: Looks Younger Than They Really Are -- the character is actually a teenager or young adult, but can frequently be mistaken for a pre-teen child. A variation on the first power would be You Are Too Cute!, in which the character is just so adorable that you simply cannot bring yourself to resent or envy them when they show themselves to have abilities, skills and resources that you lack. An example from anhime would be Chiyo Mihama -- brilliant, rich, resourceful, and so sweet and adorable that absolutely no one considers her a rival or competitor.

Re: Anime Champions? Reminds me of an interesting cultural question that might come up in some anime-related games. One of the hot shows on the current fansub scene is Honey & Clover, a comedy drama set at University. The female lead is hegu-chan, a frresman art prodigy who is, in all other respect completely childlike in appearance and perosnality. She is even about as tall as a pre-pubescent girl. Here's the kicker -- the girl is actually eighteen years old. Yet if you put her and a fifth-grader side by side and dressed them the same way, you could not tell which was older. The question is this: at least one of the male characters is in love with Hegu. Does that make him a pedophile? (Actual, subsantial age differences pose another cultural problem for American anime fans. Characters like Kaho Mizuki and Namura-sensei are much more despised by American fans than Japanese fans. Of course, eevryone despises Kimura, but he's such a piece of work that you're supposed to hate him.)

Re: open door spell why do I have a feeling Transform: Wood to Air would be a really nasty spell to put in the hands of an Orc shaman in a dungeon? You're trying to run away froman overhwelming number of Orcs. "Bar the door!" "Door? What door??" "That d--- OK, just how screwed are we?" "Pretty damn screwed, sir."

Re: Usagi Yojimbo HERO

Re: Nanotech! "This Molecular Disintegration Device was intended to store energy, but we must be caution -- it would be a terrible weapon in the wrong hands!" "There are right hands?" There are some technologies (some would say nuclear fission and fusion are among them) that are so inherently dangerous that their very eixstence poses a threat. Nanotech could be one of those technologies.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Randy Johnson pitching for the New York Yankees against the Kansas City Royals. Later tonight I'll be listeining to Seattle phenom Felix Hernandex taking on the White Sox. In both cases I'll be wishing I still had cable to I could watch the games on TV.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "That's funny, I heard the same thing from my secretary this lunch hour."

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "You just criticized the President. That'll be a $50 fee."

Re: Anime Champions? One thing that is lost in the translation is that when the Tachiokoa return at the start of 2nd Gig, they introduce themselves with the Japanese word that is used when meeting someone for the first time, implying that the government had wpied their memories. Batou in particular took that very hard, and the reaction of the viewers I talked to was the kind of horror you egt when reading about someone doing something really emotionally nasty to soemone. The implication is that sentient life in geenral has little to no meaning to the people who employ Section 9 and the society they protect. the tragedy of Major Kusanagi is that she often finds herself fighting on behalf of people who are unworthy fo her protection, both in terms of capability and in terms of morality.

Re: Nanotech!

Re: Concept help! Hair Powers Force Wall or Armor with the special effect that the hair spreads around the area and hardens into a shield. I don't know how you would model it in system for sure, but the use of very small nimbers of hairs for really find manipulation tasks like picking locks or undoing knots. Flash vs. Sight Group, HTH (wrapping your hair around an enemy's eyes to blind him). Cosmetic Transformk (the hair changes color for disguise purposes and grows and shrinks as needed -- about the only possible way a Secret Idenitiy can be maintained) Regeneration: Hair -- cut it off and it grows right back (so a villain can't render you powerless with clippers and a straight razor). Aid REC (defined as using your hair to make a really comfy, cushiony place to rest, making it easier to recover from fatigue and even injury)

Re: Nanotech! Most real-world developments, yes, because the planet is spiraling towards utter disaster. But there are some things that certain human beings do that do actually cause me to appreciate things. Mostly artists -- a species that could produce great art might actually have a place in the cosmos. But when one realizes that one's own life has been essentially a waste of food, water and oxygen, it's hard to feel good about the world as a whole. There are cattle that will never exist again because I have eaten steaks from them, and for what? Someone who has acoomplished more than I have in my life is homeless in Portland right now because I have an apartment he could be occupying. Why?

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "Adam West? ADAM WEST? You said I was going to be CHRISTIAN BALE!" NT: Signs that your "Summon Greater Divine Being" spell has gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "I was hoping that when tranformed from a frog into a prince I would not still be green."

Re: Anime Champions? There is one phrase that both Usagi and her cat have obviously thought at one point, as a consequence of magical tiem travel: "She's my what?!?" which implies that sometime in the future both of them will either a.) finally get it right or b.) forget their protection. (when i was involved with the AVA community I wrote a script for someone in which Artemis proposed a romantic night out: "You, me, a dead fish. It'll be perfect." Ah, sapient feline live.) By the way, there's a nice little riff on the magical-girl paradigm in the new series Ask Dr. Rin! which I thought was amusing. A middle-school girl with the power of Feng Shui secretly runs a website to give advice, but can't advise herself properly. Strangely enough, her castings are alwasy right, but in her case they often work in unexpected ways. Unfortunately for her, someone with their own mysic powers is trying to get at her -- and seems willing to kill anyone who gets in his way. So the comic premise (mystcially powerful girl who is inept in her own life) is crossed with a more serious adventure saga.

Re: Anime Champions? You must be one of those people who think the best couple in the history of American animation is Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. Although getting Harley out of that relationship with the Joker would do her a world of good..... hmmm...... Isn't ironic that the least dysfunctional couple in all of animation is Sailors Uranus and Neptune? Compared to them, Usagi and Mamoru are amateurs at this love thing.

Re: Anime Champions? You'd never see Tony Stark put on a swimsuit like that, though, at least not on camera. Apparentrly Daitokuji-san is the sort of doting father that scares a lot of people, and there is a throwaway gag in which he and B-ko are framed more like lovers than like father and daughter. If you think about Project A-ko too hard, you will go mad. Utterly, completely mad.

Re: Anime Champions? The epsidoe of 2nd Gig where the major finds that shop had me nearly in tears. It may have been setting up a story point, but it was to my mind incredibly moving -- a tale of sorrow and loss for the ages. Have you seen the Tachikoma-kun omakes for SAC? Although they are mostly comic, they are ina way sad too. The Tachikoma really do ahve feelings, needs and desires, yet they are essentially disposable weapons. Are they any less worthy than the heavily-cyberneticized beings referred to as "humanity" in that series? Is a being any less of a being because it was manufactured rather than born?

Re: Anime Champions?