ErikModi

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her Good points. I'll work on some revisions soon.

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her Awesome, thanks!

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her I hadn't thought of going that in-depth with it, but it could certainly work. There's a Rage Meter in Ninja Hero? I actually need a Rage Meter for my Hero character! Thanks, I'll have to look that up!

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her I was going to get into timing, but just didn't have the right ideas for it yet. END seemed the logical choice for determining how much pleasure one could take before reaching orgasm (that, or Stun. . .). It wasn't really intended to represent longevity, since END already does that (and I thought about assigning END costs to certain interactions, but again didn't quite have it down.) I'm mostly a HERO player rather than GM, so I'm not as familiar with the system as I probably should be to tackle something like this. So please, all constructive feedback is appreciated!

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her And the write up of tentacle monsters made me do this. After all, what's the point in having a tentacle monster if you don't have the rules to support it? NOTE: This is just a first draft, with plenty of room for refinement and expansion. Hero System Sexual Combat Why? Or, WHAT THE @#$%’S WRONG WITH YOU?!?!?!?! This system is an attempt to bring “sexual combat” into Hero System. Basically, treating the physical aspect of arousal, sexual activity, and climax with the same systems as determining hits and damage in combat. Upon hearing “sexual combat” many people immediately would leap to the conclusion that the system is all about forcing oneself upon a defenseless character. NOT TRUE!!!!! Just like combat in Hero System can cover anything from a friendly spar to a boxing match to attempting to puree your opponent with a wood chipper, sexual combat can be used for any kind of sexual encounter, not just (or even primarily) the violent kind. With that, let’s get into the systems. Stages There are a few stages of any sexual encounter. They are: Arousal Foreplay Intercourse Climax Afterglow Each of these stages progresses differently, involving different rolls and timings. Let’s examine each stage in detail. Arousal The arousal stage is the first, and arguably easiest, stage to complete. It’s the simply, biological process of priming a person (or other being) for sexual activity. Attempting to generate arousal in another character can be resolved with a simple Presence Attack, with some modifiers unique to this kind of Presence Attack: Modifier Situation or Character’s Action +1d6 Character is dressed somewhat provocatively +2d6 Character is dressed very provocatively +3d6 Character is naked or dressed ridiculously provocatively (i.e., Fredrick’s of Hollywood-style lingerie. -2d6 Character is dressed conservatively. -4d6 Target is actively opposing the character’s attempts to arouse them. PRE Halved Character is outside the target’s sexual orientation. If a character can get their hands (or other appropriate appendages) on their target, they can attempt to gain a further bonus to their Arousal PRE attack by making a PS: Perform Sexual Technique roll, which the target may oppose with a CON or EGO roll, as they choose. Success grants +1d6 to the Arousal PRE attack by every 10 points (or fraction thereof) by which the character succeeded. It should be noted that these rolls are not always required. In most any circumstance, any character simply choose to become aroused, or allow themselves to become aroused (unless they have an appropriate Physical Limitation. . . and they make a pill for that now.) Foreplay/Intercourse This is where things start to get serious. The character have their hands (among other things) all over each other, and garments usually begin to be discarded. There are nearly limitless options for how characters can engage in foreplay, just as there are nearly limitless ways in which they can perform strikes in combat, and when factoring in the abilities and entities that can be built in Hero System, it can truly be said that the only limits are one’s imagination. So, a simple system will cover how “well” characters perform foreplay and follow-up, intercourse. All characters have a Pleasure Meter, equal to their Endurance. A simple PS: Perform Sexual Technique roll can allow a character to attempt to fill another character’s Pleasure Meter (and probably their own, as well.) Succeeding on the Perform Sexual Technique roll allows a character to roll one or more dice to attempt to fill the meter. A character gains on “Sex Attack” die for every five points (or fraction thereof) by which he or she beats their skill roll. These dice are rolled and counted like normal damage dice in ordinary Hero Combat. Tallying up the total on all dice adds points to the Pleasure Meter of the character who was the target of the “Sex Attack.” Example: The Spider and Housecat are “recreating” after an uneventful night’s patrol. Housecat does some “charming” things for her arachnid-powered man, beating her Perform Sexual Technique roll by seven. She rolls two dice, getting a six and a four. The Spider increases his Pleasure Meter by 10. Each die rolled also behaves like a normal attack’s BODY damage dice for purposes of increasing the Pleasure Meter of the other character. Thus, a character who rolled two Sexual Attack dice targeting their partner would normally increase their own Pleasure Meter by two. However, like BODY damage, sixes count double, while ones do not count at all. Thus, in the above example, Housecat would increase her Pleasure Meter by three, instead of two. Intercourse follows the same basic rule as foreplay, with the characters rolling Sex Attacks against each other (or themselves) until they reach the fourth stage. Attacking Yourself? Yes, it is possible in a Sex Attack to declare yourself as the target. This can be done when all alone, or when with a partner who’s racing ahead of you to allow you to “keep up.” Other Skills? Of course, PS: Perform Sexual Technique isn’t the only skill that can come in handy for making a Sex Attack. Acrobatics and Contortionist are two obvious skills that can supplement, or even replace, a Perform Sexual Technique roll, and skills like Persuasion, Interrogation, and Oratory (no, not THAT kind of Oratory!) can aid. Teamwork can also add to making such a coupling memorable. Climax When the Pleasure Meter is full, a character reaches orgasm, the whole point of having sex in the first place. There are no special rules as such for climax, but it does feel really good, and has a variety of effects on brain chemistry and physiology. There’s no concrete data one way or the other, but some believe that having sex before bouts of other intense physical activity can be detrimental to one’s performance, levying penalties to combat or other exertions for the next 24 to 48 hours. Others believe that the endorphins released aid in focus and concentration, making one more effective, and applying a similar bonus. Holding Off Sometimes, you’re just not quite ready to be done yet. When a character’s Pleasure Meter is full, they can attempt to postpone their climax for one turn. Doing so requires a CON roll, at a cumulative -1 penalty. Afterglow Again, no special systems are needed for this, though characters (especially males) interested in keeping a regular partner may want to make PS: Perform Sexual Technique rolls to cuddle afterwards. Other Considerations Undressing A wise man once said, “Doesn’t exactly look like a successful mating to me. He’s still got his pants on.” Taking off one’s clothes to some degree is required for successful Sex Attacks. Normally, a character doesn’t need to roll at all to simply drop trou, but sometimes, you may want to get naked with style, or remove your partner’s clothing for them (a much more difficult operation.) Taking one’s clothes off in a seductive fashion can involve a PRE attack, or be handled though PS: Striptease. Taking off someone else’s clothes can be DEX roll, or a STR roll if no one cares if the garment in question remains intact. Undressing someone who doesn’t want to be undressed requires a successful Grab first.

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her Perhaps the Hentamari are a parasitic race, with a relatively small natural form that invades a host body, taking control of it and "re-engineering" it to their purposes. In this way, a Hentamari arriving on Earth could take over the body of human male, looking completely normal and possessing all of the host's knowledge. After a brief "incubation period," the Hentamari has successfully re-engineered the host body, allowing it to exhibit the trademark tentacles and perhaps even assume a completely different form. I also wonder how the Hentamari reproduce. Or course, reproduction is almost certainly their most driving instinct. Either they use other races as "incubators" to grow either Hentamari embryos/eggs/whatever, or actually "inject" a larval Hentamari into a host to be taken over, thus spreading through a population. Another potential method is that the Hentamari require something from their victims, either bodily fluids or psychic energy, and when the Hentamai has collected enough it can reproduce, perhaps by mitosis (splitting into two or more identical creatures) or laying eggs/hatching spores/producing larvae/whatever. This leads one to wonder if, perhaps, the MANNER of collecting the requirement is important. If most Hentamari claim young, unwilling victims because that is how the requirement that spawned them was obtained, and they know no other way, and a minority (or perhaps, majority) of Hentamari only collect reproductive material from willing partners.

Re: Sustained Modes ala "Dragon Age"

Re: Greatest American Hero type character???? A lot of modern superhero fiction focuses on the "learning curve" involved when a character gains superpowers. The Marvel Ultimate comics early issues tend to focus a lot on the "what the heck" factor, as the characters get used to what they can do, and find their limits and capabilities. I especially remember in Ultimate X-Men, how the mutants just start really getting good with their powers, and then Bishop comes along and convinces them to push the limits of what they can do (for example, convincing Dazzler that, if she can detonate air molecules to create her light and noise shows, why can't she detonate something bigger, like, say, a Sentinel's head?) The modern run of superhero movie has really explored this idea. Watch the first few web-swinging sequences in Spider-Man for probably the earliest example, and almost all of Iron Man is about Tony Stark figuring out, testing, and refining the capabilities of his suit. Likewise for Batman Begins, as Bruce discovers new things he needs to be capable of doing, and looks for a solution. Even up into The Dark Knight, he's still refining the capabilities of his Bat-Gear. Even Captain America had to adjust a bit when he's suddenly called upon to use his brand-new superpowers. To expand the idea to television, Clark Kent was discovering new superpowers almost through all ten years of Smallville. It's rare these days for the a new superhero to be able to use his or her powers perfectly right out of the gate, and if they can, there's usually an explanation. . . for instance, Thor had been smiting foes for over a thousand years, so he's pretty darn good at it. However, I agree that representing these problems as actual limitations with severe effects on gameplay can be a bad idea. Unless the theme of the campaign is about learning to use the powers properly, and the GM is working with all the characters to make using, learning, and buying off said limitations fun, it could be disastrous. There are two other options on how to work this theme into a campaign where it is not a central ideal, however. The first is, as was suggested before, do it through role-playing. Experiment with your character's different attacks and powers, even in situations where they may be less than ideal. Describe your character looking shocked when a power works exceptionally well (or exceptionally poorly.) Be creative with it. The other is to assume that the stock powers you start with are the "basics," and as your character gains experience, he either learns how to use them more effectively or they "evolve" into more powerful abilities. This also requires role-playing, but you can easily start off a session with your character excitedly exclaiming "Look what I just learned how to do!" and demonstrating a new ability that he's either just developed or just figured out about.

Re: Sustained Modes ala "Dragon Age" The other measure of "Endurance" in Dragon Age is Stamina (for warriors and rogues), and their sustained modes have the same effect (making other abilities cost more Stamina, "suppressing" a certain amount of Stamina while in use.) I picture it as focusing some of your attention and energy on the sustained mode, meaning everything else you do is a little more difficult. Something akin to what Magneto tells Mystique in X-Men: First Class: "If you're spending half your concentration to look normal, you're only half paying attention to whatever else you're doing." For instance, a Sword-and-Shield warrior has a Shield Defense sustained mode, representing his increased ability to hold the shield in a defensive stance to more effectively protect himself. While he's focused on maintaining this defense, it's just a little more difficult for him to swing his sword, bash with his shield, and so on. And yes, there are many video game mechanics that are "flawed," in the sense that they function entirely based on the needs of that particular game. Take the Dark Forces games (Star Wars FPS games) for instance. The playable characters in these games have "shield generators" which block a great deal of damage when charged up. Trying to directly port such a shield system into an existing Star Wars tabletop RPG quickly results in characters who can walk into walls of blasterfire without so much as a singed eyebrow. This is because the shields in the video game are intended to allow the lone player a reasonable shot at making it through the increasingly challenging levels without being vaped, and the designers really didn't care about "balance" for the "real-world." Now, taking the IDEA of a portable, personal shield system and incorporating it into a tabletop Star Wars RPG is perfectly viable, but it certainly won't be the "hundreds of damage points" absorbing wall it is in the game. In other words, porting mechanics from a video game to a tabletop RPG is really like importing anything from anywhere. . . it has to be altered to fit the system you're working with.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Oh, something of a routine funny when Flipside starts using his powers: "Bad touch! BAD TOUCH!!!"

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? The Triluminary does indeed exist in an interesting state of temporal causality. Though as I recall, there are three Triluminaries, and just this one tops the "presto-chango" device and continues moving through time. Although, if all three Triluminaries are indeed identical artifacts, one could posit that the Triluminary given to Delenn near the end of Season 1 isn't actually the one that Sinclair brought with him back in time, and Sinclair got hold of yet a different Triluminary before riding B4 (incredible irony in that name, by the way) back in time, so that in effect, each of the three Triluminaries has had a ride back in time at some point and taken its own place in the time stream. Or, you could simply say "The Vorlons Did It."

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her I'm plugging away at an essay about sexuality and superheroes, and will post it as soon as it's done. Very good stuff coming, I especially like that comprehensive list of skills. More specifically on the kink side, a lot of "kink-related" activities require some degree of special training to perform safely. Even in just the relatively simple prospect of tying someone up (consensually, of course) there are all sorts of things to keep in mind so you don't cause the person being tied nerve damage/circulatory issues/etc. A simple Knowledge or Professional skill will suffice in almost all campaigns, I agree. Call it KS: BDSM or KS: Kink or whatever. But for a campaign that does go into that level of detail, pretty much any individual kink could be its own skill.

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her The game uses the Cortex system. You know, the published Serenity RPG. Just haven't had time to get it rolling, between HERO and nWoD. Such things are generally much easier to build in HERO. In fact, I may take a run at writing up that particular social limitation soon.

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her Speaking of romantic Unluck, the GMNPC I plan to create for my group's Firefly game has two linked complications: Amorous (making him a skirt chaser), and one I had to devise myself, called "Offending." While he tries to be smooth and seductive, he just as this way of saying things that are total turn-offs. And sometimes get him slapped.

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her It's actually surprising how many kinks are at least technically illegal. For instance, BDSM. Taking a flogger and hitting someone is technically assault, since a person cannot legally consent to being beaten.

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her I have to step in as definition police for a moment: A "fetish" is something without which a person cannot become aroused. While it is frequently misused to mean "something strange someone likes," by definition it is something without which the person cannot perform. A person with a shoe fetish, for instance, cannot become aroused without shoes being involved. "Kink" is a more accurate term for something that someone enjoys, but is not necessary for them to perform. A person with a shoe kink will enjoy their encounter a lot more if shoes are involved, but if shoes are not involved, it does not hinder their performance. I bring this up specifically because, with way complications work in Hero, the difference between kink and fetish is extremely important. A kink would be worth less points, because the person can still perform without it, while a fetish would be worth more points, as the person has to ask every potential sexual partner to do X. A person with a kink can more easily keep it hidden, as they can really get to know their partner (including intimately) before broaching the subject. A person with a fetish by definition must bring the fetish up with their partner before physical intimacy can occur. The complications you listed are good, megaplayboy, but drawing it along the kink/fetish lines probably makes more sense. Common, Uncommon, and Rare kinks/fetishes would be worth more points. Something like: Kink: 5 points Fetish: 10 points Common: 5 points Uncommon: 10 points Rare: 15 points. In this case, Common, Uncommon, and Rare would relate to how close to "vanilla" the kink or fetish is. As the kink/fetish in question gets progressively "weirder" (and thus, a harder topic to broach with a potential partner) the points for it go up. I hesitate to being giving examples, as I'm not sure how well-received that would be on these boards. Also, one person's kink is another's vanilla, and some things considered extremely weird or "deviant" by some people barely register as kinky to others.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Yes, that it was.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Only on page 79 of reading this most epic of threads, but I have to contribute some from our recently-started Hero game. The characters: Groundwire: Played by my friend who's new to gaming. Players is a bisexual female, character is a lesbian dating a reporter who is opposed to the recent superhero shennanigans, and Groundwire in particular. As you may gather, an electrically-based hero. Nightscream (my character): Recently paroled after spending five years in prison for manslaughter (he knifed his DNPC's abusive boyfriend to death in a fit of rage.) Now living with Liz and her not-quite-five-year-old-son as he looks out for them, does his hero thing, and tries to get Liz to be more than just his friend. His superpowers come from being bonded to an alien symiotic organism (think Ultimate Spider-Man from Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.) One of his main powers is +25 Strength (bringing his total Str up to the campaign limit of 75), only while Enraged. Other notable ability: Selectable Area Effect Hand Attack, defined as whipping tendrils that clobber anyone within 4 squares of him. Gravitas: Gravity-powered flyer. Most of his powers revolve around hindering the enemy in some way. Flipside: Team leader. His main power is to drain the powers from opponents and either keep them himself (think Rogue) or give them to allies. Vulcan: The player has pretty much dropped out, but he was the team's brick. Basically a Warhammer 40k Space Marine ported into Hero. We all got our powers in similar fashion. We were all employed by a cutting-edge scientific research company, and a catastrophic series of failures caused every experiment to go haywire. Nightscream (actually the name of the symbiote) came through an unstable wormhole thanks to a project attempting to build "Stargates," Groundwire was exposed to some crazy stuff as she was trying to shut down a short-circuiting electrical panel, Filpside's experiments with reordering matter (essentially atomic alchemy) gave him the ability to absorb properties from others, Gravitas' gravitational exploded around him. Mercury Scientific is no more, but we've come together to create a security firm specializing in high-tech security systems. This is our front for our crimefighting team. We've had a few gems in our sessions: As I have Nightscream wade into a group of low-powered supervillains, positioning him to use his AoE to maximum effect: "I'm gonna whip 'em like subs at a BDSM convention!" Some villains we'd captured are being broken out of their convoy by their allies who escaped us. One of the villains, a flame-powered character, has incapacitated two of the cops with a flame blast. Groundwire runs to the nearest police officer, a female, and tries to bat out the flames. She misses her "attack" roll miserably, making no contact with the fire. Me: Hey! My fire is UP HERE! Hearing about a break-in at a place out day jobs had installed a security system at, we begin investigating. Myself and, I believe Gravitas, are on the roof, preparing to go in through the roof door. I try to sneak down the stairs. My Stealth skill is still only Everyman, but it doesn't matter as I roll an 18. To this day, I have yet to live down the "falling down the stairs jokes. Nightscream is loosely based on symbiote Spider-Man, because I just love Spider-Man and the look of the black costume. In the three or four iterations of Hero system we've tried over the years, he keeps pushing me to move farther and farther from the Spider-Man concept, while still giving me grief over how close he perceives the concept to still be. Anyway, as we respond to a disturbance at the zoo and wind up facing a menagerie (pun intended) of animal-themed villains, one of them is Spider-Man, complete with my red-and-blue HeroClix mini. He uses cans of super silly-string to incapacitate people. Groundwire chases him around, even up on to the roof as the fight turns against the bad guys, and I keep encouraging her to take him down, finally chanting, as she readies her Tesla's Finger attack: "Fry him, fry him, fry him like an egg." Groundwire: I think you have a very serious misunderstanding about how electricity works. Me: I don't care, fry him like an egg! During the same session as the GM informs me I've been poisoned: Wait he's. . . of COURSE he's poisonous, he's Platypus Man. Less a quote, and more a funny continual happenstance: Gravitas has the fastest movement rate of anyone on the team, having actually bought Megascale for his flight, so he is invariably the first of us to arrive at any disturbance, so he usually scouts around while waiting for the rest of us to arrive. In other games we've played, he's played a Nosferatu combat twink in VTM and a Noghri assassin in Star Wars D20, and has decided that he's absolutely done making stealthy characters, and so has deliberately not bought stealth for Gravitas. Invariably, the bad guys wind up ready for us every time we come after them. One of the main antagonists of the campaign so far is appearing to be a company called Polyhedron, which manufactures "power cuffs," a small bracelet which nullifies the super-powers of anyone wearing them. Groundwire's girlfriend got a hold of one of the cuffs, and our team dissected it to figure out how it worked. It led us to a lot of questions about Polyhedron, which we were eager to answer. Groundwire was extremely gung-ho about breaking in, Nightscream (still having to report to his parole offer) was less enthusiastic, and advocated a more restrained approach. Groundwire went ahead with breaking in on her own. First, she began tailing one of Polyhedron's top security guys, and followed him to work. However, a critical OOC misunderstanding of AM versus PM caused her to attempt her break-in at ten in the morning. She was quickly captured and essentially blackmailed into working for Polyhedron, both as an electrical engineer and as a double-agent to spy on our superhero team. She came clean about the whole thing, but Nightscream in particular was. . . less then pleased.

Re: Evasion Talent I would say you wouldn't even have to look for "special tells" in a gun. An M-16 with underslung M-203 behaves quite differently when it fires bullets than when it fires grenades. In that split second you have when the attack is coming at you, you can probably tell what basic kind of attack it is, and therefore what defensive maneuvers will and won't work against it.

Re: Evasion Talent And you can't apply DCV to AoE attacks. Ever. (Unless they are Selective) AoE affects just that, an area. The attack roll for an standard AoE is never compared to a character's DCV, so DCV is worthless against AoE attacks.

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her Also, a true private eye will want a vehicle a little less flashy than a classic T-Bird. Tailing someone unnoticed is pretty hard when your car is effectively unique.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? Oh, one other instance of religion in established sci-fi I forgot to mention: In I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov, a collection of five robot-related short stories, one of the stories involves two robot engineers on a space station. The stations purpose is to funnel solar energy in the form of concentrated plasma to a receiver station on Earth, providing humanity with limitless clean energy. The risk is that, if the high-intensity plasma beam doesn't hit the collector station precisely, it would essentially be like firing a high-intensity plasma beam at any old unprotected spot on Earth. The station is crewed largely by robots, and the two robot engineers receive delivery of a new model administration robot, designed to manage other robots and make the station fully automated. So, they build and activate the robot, and explain what's going on. The robot rejects this reality as illogical, and wanders off to come to its own conclusion. A few days later, it does. It explains that the station is the Creator, and it first created an imperfect form (humans), so that they could aid in bringing about its true creations, robots. Now that the robots are ready, the Creator has no more need of humans, and they will soon cease to exist. The crux of the admin robot's argument is that robots are superior to humans in every measurable way, and that something inferior cannot create something superior. Even when the engineers assemble and activate a robot in front of it, the admin bot insists that they did not actually create the robot. . . they simply assembled the pieces in accordance with the will of the Creator. This robot religion spreads through the station, and robots are soon seen prostrating themselves before conduits before beginning their repair work. As a new plasma beam is ready for transmission, the admin bot insists that the humans growing irrationality is becoming hazardous, so the robots lock them in a closet while the power transmission takes place. Without humans there to supervise it, the engineers are convinced that the robots have nuked Earth with the plasma beam. When its all over, they are stunned to look at the readouts and realize that the robots kept the power transmission stable. The admin bot replies "Of course. We simply kept all readings in accordance with the will of the Creator." Deciding that, for all its eccentricities, the admin bot is doing its assigned job, the engineers leave, explaining to the admin bot that they have to go someplace else and manage more robots. Admin's reply? "Perhaps it's better that you believe that."

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? When Lenier is first telling the story to Sheridan and Ivanova, he says that Commander Sinclair was the first human they examined, and it was revealed that he not only had a Minbari soul, but the soul of Valen himself. He goes on to state that they captured and tested several other humans, and uncovered similar results. It doesn't affect much of the human story, but the concept is that any given human in who ever appears on the show may have at least part of a Minbari soul.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? Not really. Time travel started it, but it was actually demonstrated that Minbari souls were being reborn in human bodies.

Re: Superhero Team Members I dunno. . . when you have Thor and The Hulk in the same room, I think you can make a pretty solid case for "Earth's Mightiest."