ErikModi

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? There are plenty of examples of religion in Sci-Fi settings, with varying degrees of "veracity." Babylon 5 has been mentioned many times, and it warms my heart to see that. Pretty much every major race had some kind of religion, whether provably true or not. One could argue that Minbari faith was provably true, and thus that most human faiths were provably false, given the transfer of souls between humans and Minbari. However, the fact that Minbari souls were being reborn, in whole or in part, in human bodies, does not necessarily prove all other tenets of Minbari faith. In fact, several core tenets of Minbari faith were rocked to their foundations by certain revelations throughout the series. In similar fashion, the Narn Book of G'Quan is part religious text, part historical record of the previous Shadow War, and the Book of G'Kar was meant only as a philosophical text/thought diary that was elevated to Holy Text status by the people who read it. Finally, in Babylon 5: The Lost Years, we have an actual, honest-to-evilness demon on the station, with the idea that the God banished demons to the black of space to keep them from humanity. Farscape is another excellent Sci-Fi show that deals with the concepts of religion. Primarily, the character of Pa'u Zotah Zann, A Delvian Priestess. Her faith affords her many abilities which may be construed as "magical." She is the sole member of the crew who can deal with metaphysical threats like sorcerous psychic vampire Maldus. Stark is a Banak slave, a partly non-corporeal entity who can help others pass on to the other side. At one point, one of the characters is questioning the show's sole human about how his race survives, pointing out that "there's nothing remotely physically or spiritually imposing about you," indicating that being a Religious Badass is just as valid a defensive technique as being a seven-foot tall tentacled bruiser with a stun tongue. Star Trek has occasionally tackled religious issues, without making a stand one way or the other about a religion's veracity, or the veracity of any kind of faith at all. Though sometimes, they have dropped hints. . . Dead Space brings us Unitology, a sort of post-modern Scientology, revolving around ancient artifacts left behind by either Sufficiently Advanced Aliens or "Divinity." Why these Markers turn people into mutant zombie freaks has never been adequately explained. Firefly has two major religions represented, a sort of generic Christian denomination represented by Shepherd Book, and Inara being a practicing Buddhist. Even Malcolm Reynolds was a deeply religious man before the Battle of Serenity Valley. Seeing how religion does and does not matter to those characters is just one of the MANY interesting things about that show. Of course, Star Wars has The Force, which as George Lucas once described is "sort of boiling religion down to it's most fundamental concept, that there's some 'force' in the universe beyond us." (I'm paraphrasing, because I can't remember the exact quote, but that's pretty darn close.) In the Expanded Universe, there are a few additional religions, most notably the Cosmic Balance, a sort of Zen-like belief that accumulating things in this life causes someone else to lose them, and that giving things up in this life awards them to someone else. Living your life giving things away to better your cosmic "other" reaps rich rewards in the afterlife. In some versions of the religion, Jedi are regarded as evil, selfishly making themselves more and more powerful at the expense of others. The convicts in Alien 3 developed a religion to provide meaning and structure for their incarceration. An even more extreme version was detailed in one of the original scripts, where the penal colony was instead a monastary for a religious sect who wanted to escape from the high-tech life of most of humanity. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri had, among it's factions, the Believers, who were a very fundamentalist Christian sect. Religion in a sci-fi setting, like anything else, must be in tune with what the setting intends to accomplish story-wise. The conflict between religion and science can be fertile ground for storytelling, and could play out beautifully in a science-fiction campaign. But perhaps the more satisfying tale would be about how science and religion DON'T conflict, how the two can live in harmony. Religion really is just another step of the world-building process. Does religion still exist in your sci-fi world? Does it play a major role? Have current Earth faiths survived more or less intact, or have they been relegated to the realm of mythology (mythology simply being religion that has fallen out of vogue) as new cults (cults largely being religion that has yet to come into vogue) have grown to full-fledged faiths? Has humanity finally (and probably very, VERY violently) been united under one official religion, or is Earth littered with more eminence than ever? Have extraterrestrial faiths been adopted on Earth, and have human churches set up shop among alien populations? Does a given religion provide for species other than its own, or does, for example, a human faith declared that only humans have souls, and thus any non-human, no matter how sapient, is a soulless abomination? Has the existence of "ancient aliens" such as Stargate's Goa'uld, been proven? Has this had any effect on humanity's will or desire to believe in the divine?

Re: Superhero Team Members Pretty much EVERY hero in the Marvel Universe has been a member of the Avengers at one point or another. Even Spider-Man and Wolverine have both been on the team's roster at some point.

Re: New Campaign Idea: "X-Men: First Class" As The Only Canon True, but in expanded continuity, ignores all the other "ethnic" X-Men, like Storm, and. . . uh. . . well. . .

Re: Welcoming Women Who Game Yeah, I was being a little flip, but the basic point is that we focus so much of our "entertainment" energy on violence, and yet so little of it on sex, compared to the roles they play in our actual lives. On a side note, if you haven't seen the documentary "This Film Not Yet Rated," see it. It's a real eye opener. Someone in the movie raises an excellent point, which I shall paraphrase: You take a James Bond movie, and Jimmy blows away two hundred guys in ten minutes, yet there's no blood or even visible wounds. Compare to a movie like The Godfather, where they kill just over a dozen people, but do so in horrific, brutal fashion. The former instance of violence is cleaned and sanitized and firmly in the realm of fantasy, while the latter showcases the horrific consequences of violence. The more mature mind is the one capable of realizing that the former is an unrealistic, "fantasized" portrayal of violence, so it's the FORMER sequence that should receive the more mature rating. PS: I gotta ask. . . what's with the palindromedaries?

Re: Welcoming Women Who Game Well, you know, we can't let little Jimmy see a penis. It just might turn him GAY!!!!

Re: New Campaign Idea: "X-Men: First Class" As The Only Canon Some things to consider: The X-Men are outnumbered two-to-one by the Brotherhood at the end of First Class: X-Men: Havoc, Beast, Banshee. Brotherhood: Magneto, Mystique, Riptide, Angel, Emma Frost, Azazel. Of course, the X-Men have the capability of finding new mutants with Cerebro, since they have Beast to build it and Prof X to use it, but how long will it take to build a new one? To say nothing of finding and training mutants to fight. Magneto already pretty much has a trained strike team ready to go. So, how long before Magneto begins waging his war against mankind? Will he pause to recruit new mutants, or will he set out immediately to start bringing humanity to its knees? Will Xavier need to send his X-Men into battle outnumbered and ill-trained? The population at large may or may not be aware of the existence of mutants. The resolution to the missile crisis was fairly extreme, but only military personnel were on hand to witness it. The intervention of mutants may be a classified government secret. The X-Men are certainly not ready for the existence of mutants to become public knowledge. . . as Xavier said, "anonymity will be our first line of defense." The Brotherhood will certainly want to keep humanity in the dark until they're ready to strike. And the US and Soviet governments will definitely not want to admit to their people that two groups of homo superior A) almost started World War III and were instrumental in stopping it. To me, this says that mutants are still not a publicly known phenomena in the years succeeding the end of First Class. As the Civil Rights movement sweeps up, mutants may want to become involved, but how? I really can't picture a white, normal-looking guy like Charles, Havoc, or Banshee walking into a group of black people fighting for their right to be treated as people and trying to talk about mutants feeling their pain. Especially as things turn disgustingly violent, I imagine most mutants are simply trying to keep their heads down and not get swept up in it all. Xavier may believe in mutantkind biding their time, waiting for this conflagration to die down before trying to do the same thing for mutants. For one, Xavier believes in peaceful cohabitation between mutants and humans, and much of the Civil Rights movement is far from peaceful. For another, much of the Civil Rights movement is tied up in affairs that mutants really have no part in. Third, Civil Rights is asking for something relatively small. . . accept a black man like you would a white man. Asking people to accept a red man, or a blue furry man, or a man who can walk through walls, or a steel man, or a man who can make you think you're a five-year-old-girl. . . well, that's a bigger pill to swallow, and humans are having a hard enough time with this one. The US and Soviet governments, however, are certainly aware of the existence of mutants, and know that they are dangerous, and that their first attempt to "deal with the problem" failed rather dramatically. Plans are almost certainly drawn up immediately to begin dealing with mutants should they become a threat (and possibly, even if they don't.) Weapon X almost certainly starts up in this time, perhaps with the initial goal of exploring the feasibility of mutant "super-soldiers" in Vietnam. Getting wind of America's Weapon X program, other governments around the world begin similar initiatives. Mutants may become common knowledge through the actions of Weapon X in Vietnam, or Weapon X may be successful enough to hide its involvement. The Brotherhood would almost certainly step in to try and dismantle Weapon X, and recruit its "subjects" as "victims of the dying homo sapiens." Ironically, Weapon X traces its lineage directly back to the X-Men. . . "the government's new mutant division." And perhaps as a backup to Weapon X, the Sentinel program starts. I agree that the idea of Sentinels as "Iron Man" clones is much more interesting idea than the giant robots we're used to seeing. If you want to nod to other Marvel continuities, perhaps Tony Stark gets the government contract to design 'mutantproof' battle armor for the government, and his Iron Man suit is just the prototype for a full production run of Sentinel armor. From my studyings on the Marvel Wiki, there was indeed a set of Stark-designed Sentinel armor, known as Sentinel Squad O*N*E*. It's well known that Vietnam was a "proxy war" between the superpowers, to avoid the actual destruction of a third World War. How does the Brotherhood react to this? Do they, taking a page from the Sebastian Shaw playbook, attempt to escalate the conflict in Vietnam to bring it to a full-scale war between superpowers? Do the X-Men try and stop them, indirectly becoming involved in the Vietnam war? As someone mentioned earlier, what happens when mutants show up in "undeveloped" nations? Does a mutant in Africa set himself up as a warlord? Does a mutant equivalent of Doctor Doom lead a coup in his home country and install himself as Emperor? Does a new Hitler arise, with dreams of global domination and mutant powers to back them up? Are mutants hunted and killed in less-developed nations, without full knowledge of what they are? Are they worshiped? If people think of them as gods, do they begin to see themselves the same way? The late sixties and early 70s are amazingly fertile ground for setting such stories, though the root could be "aged" into the modern day, though things could be vastly different then they are today. When did humanity at large become aware of mutants, and how? Are mutants accepted members of society, or are they still fighting for their human rights? How quickly are mutant births overtaking human births (i.e., what percent of the birthrate is human, as opposed to mutant? And how many of these births are "spontaneous mutation", that is, mutants born from human parents, and how many of them are mutants bearing mutant children?) Is Xavier's School the only place mutants can go to be among their own kind, or have mutant schools and communities been established across the country? Are mutants isolating themselves, or are they rejecting this idea as a form of "voluntary segregation?" Are Mutant Pride parades marching down the street, shouting "We're here, We can read your minds, Get used to it?"

Re: Welcoming Women Who Game This is something that REALLY bothers me. I used to work in a video store, and I can't tell you how many times a parent or grandparent would be in renting their 8-14 year old kid Halo or Call of Duty or somesuch. And, as was required of me by both store policy and state law, I'd ask the adult "are you aware that this is a Mature-rated game, intended for those 18 years or older?" And more often then not, the reply was "Well, it's just shooting and stuff. There's no sex in it." This, to me, is a TOTALLY BACKWARD way of thinking. Look at it this way: Every single person, at some point in their life, will have to come to terms with their view on sex and sexuality. Even if it is to live a celibate life and not be sexually involved at all, they still have to make that decision. By contrast, VERY FEW people, especially in modern America, will have to really come to grips with the potential of taking a human life. And yet everyone seems far, FAR more comfortable with giving us endless ways to explore how to introduce another living human being to his spleen then helping us decide how we really feel about breasts.

Re: Evasion Talent That's easy. The character is inspired by Symbiote Spider-Man (think Ultimate Spider-Man from Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.) He has a number of "precognitive" powers thanks to the alien symbiote's abilities. Precognitive Offense and Precognitive Defense are increases to OCV/DCV respectively, that make the character extremely accurate with his blows and very hard to hit in return. His defenses have recently been raised by adding Resistant Allocatable protection, 4 points each PD, ED, and Power Defense. For this ability, his precognition and speed are most important, allowing him to contort his body around sustained bursts of machine-gun fire, shrapnel from an explosion, gouts of flame, etc. He effectively dodges all the damage-causing effects of an AoE attack by not getting hit by them. I admit this raises a bit of problem when considering pervasive effects of an AoE attack, such as the pressure wave of an explosion or a massive fireball, but for most AoEs, the ability to know where you won't get hit by it is sufficient. I have toyed with the idea of really making it a kind of Desolidification, since we have established that they alien symbiote has access to interdimensional space (it's where the symbiote itself is "stored" when not in heroic identity, and it draws on interdimensional energy to generate excess mass necessary for other "symbiote tricks," such as tendrils and an increase in overall mass required by "rage mode.") In this instance, drawing inspiration from Spider-Man: Edge of Time, the ability would behave somewhat like Amazing Spider-Man's dodge ability, where he spends a brief period of time invulnerable. The symbiote would, instead of drawing interdimensional energy and converting it to extra mass, take its own mass (and the mass of its host) and convert them to interdimensional energy, essentially "blinking" in and out of existence. I did have another, more Venom-inspired idea. . . a shield made of symbiotic mass, which would be interposed between the character and the attack. This would be written up as a Barrier, and forgo any attempt at actually "evading" the attack, instead "blocking" it.

Re: Evasion Talent The latter will come up in pretty much any "defense power," won't it?

Re: Evasion Talent Thank you. And yeah, I've already seen some pretty interesting power builds!

Re: Evasion Talent Oh, I'm not exactly new. My friend as taken runs at four Hero campaigns over the years, going back to Fifth Edition. There's just some abilities that don't plug neatly into the lists of powers, and require some. . . finessing I tend to want to avoid using Dive to Cover for two reasons. The first is that it isn't entirely reliable. The second, and much bigger concern for me, is that it takes your action. I want to keep the pressure on the bad guys, not spend all my actions diving for cover.

Re: Evasion Talent Now, I'm not trying to exactly mimic the effects of the Evasion talent from D20. Rather, I'm trying to create an ability with a similar effect: mitigation/avoidance of damage from AoE attacks. It doesn't have to precisely mimic what Evasion does in D20 because, as was pointed out, AoEs dont' work precisely the same in Hero as they do in D20. So far, it seems like the basic Desolidification vs. Damage is the best option.

Re: Evasion Talent Ah, I see.

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her On the subject of telepathy and intimacy: Who remembers Babylon 5? Arguably one of the finest sci-fi TV shows in history. one of the conceits of the universe was that telepaths were real, and not exactly uncommon. Nearly every race had some number of telepaths among their population. On Earth, telepaths are regulated by PsiCorps., for the protection of the privacy of normal humans. Rogue telepaths are hunted down by "PsiCops," the strongest telepaths humanity has thus far produced. In an early episode, a rogue telepath is being hunted through the station by PsiCops, and it turns out that the rogue was a former lover of the station's commercial telepath. She tells Commander Sinclair: "Do you know what it's like when telepaths make love, Commander? You drop every defense, and it's all mirrors, reflecting each other's feelings. Deeper and deeper, until, somewhere along the line, your souls mix, and it's a feeling so profound that it makes you hurt. It's the only moment in a telepath's life that you no longer hear the voices." Another conceit of Babylon 5's telepaths is that most people broadcast their thoughts, and telepaths can't help but pick up on them. Training is necessary to be even remotely functional, but there's just no way to ever stop hearing the thoughts of everyone around you. So, for mental powers and intimacy, the effects can be profound. Imagine that you can make your partner feel your love for them, how they make you feel, how much you mean to them, and you can feel the same from them. Even without physical intimacy, this connection must be incredible. When expressed physically, telepaths in love must have sex that's a thousand times more pleasurable than any normal human could dream. Of course, there's a flipside. Imagine knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the person you're with just doesn't love you. To them, you're only having sex or Efing. Knowing that they don't care for you the way you care about them. . . heartbreak times a million. Or the reverse. . . the typical "commitaphobe" being able to feel someone falling head-over-heels in love with them, experiencing the intensity of emotion that scares them so much. Another point to address is the old "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" issue. Now, I think we can all agree that, unless a character has a Complication specifically stating otherwise, any superhuman powers are controllable in ordinary situations, including sexually. What I think is the more interesting question is this: is this sort of "holding back" enjoyable for the super-powered? I wouldn't think so. I picture it as being similar to someone who "likes it rough" paired with someone who doesn't. The former has to continually hold back, denying what s/he likes for the sake of their partner. After a certain point, sex probably begins to feel like a chore. For the super-powered, the question become, would they be more sexually attracted to other super-powered individuals, who could "keep up" with their superhuman abilities?

Re: Evasion Talent

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her This is a fascinating thread, with a lot of interesting ideas. I'm especially please at how reasonably everyone is treating the material. Well done.

Re: Evasion Talent Wow. Great ability, Lucius! Unfortunately, my campaign is limited to 75 Active Points in any one ability at the moment. Folded: Great point about balance. Yes, the GM has thrown a lot of AoE attacks at us, especially in the earlier sessions, which is where we all realized this weakness in my character. As an aside, my character was originally the "glass cannon" or "paper tiger" of the group. . . pure DPS, if you want to think in MMO terms. Another player was playing a sort of Iron Man type - actually a Warhammer 40k Space Marine converted to Hero terms - and was intended to fulfill the role of "main tank." He's failed to show up for the majority of sessions, and we're pretty sure he's not coming back in the foreseeable future, so my character is having to evolve into more of a "main tank" concept. Part of delivering on that potential is finding a way to mitigate damage from AoE attacks. A great number of my character points after character creation have gone towards shoring up his defenses. Anyway, I suppose the point I'm trying to make with the above ramble is that, I agree with what you said about the idea of balance. It's somewhat of a core concept to the superhero genre, the idea that all superheroes have some kind of "kryptonite" that affects them or their powers.

Re: Evasion Talent Yeah, so not my original point.

Re: Evasion Talent Yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing. Of course, that's also taking into account the effect: the ability of a character to not take damage from area effect attacks, through "evading" them. The default "evasion" ability, DCV, does not apply to most AoE attacks. The thought process is this: My character has very high DCV, so he is very difficult to hit. From the get-go, AoE attacks were one of his major weaknesses, since he could not avoid them without aborting to a defensive maneuver. Several times, one good AoE knocked him out of the fight for at least a phase or two, if not a turn or more. Shoring up this weakness required some new ability. The Evasion talent from Star Wars Saga Edition was the sort of ability I was looking for: an ability specifically geared towards mitigating/eliminating the damage from an AoE attack. This ability does not exist whole-cloth in Hero. Thus, it must be made. How do I make it? None of the powers I saw in Hero seemed to me to be readily applicable to this sort of ability, so I finally got around to asking on the boards here. I'd considered using Damage Reduction or Damage Negation, but it just feels wrong to me to apply these only to specific circumstances. If I'm going to buy Damage Negation, why not buy it for EVERYTHING? I know the same could be said of nearly any power in Hero System, and this is just an irrational personal hang-up, but still. The idea for using Desolidification seems a nice fit, though I'm curious to see what else people come up with.

Re: Evasion Talent I was talking more about how AoE attacks work in a D20 game, rather than Hero System, and how the Evasion ability applies to them, so that those more knowledgeable in Hero could help build an ability with a similar effect.

Re: Evasion Talent That could work. . . thanks!

I'm wondering how to go about building something not unlike the Evasion talent/ability from various d20 games. For those unfamiliar, I'll use the Star Wars Saga Edition variant: Normally, when taking damage from an area effect attack, if the attack "hits" the character takes full damage, and if the attack "misses" the character still takes half damage. With the Evasion talent, a character takes half damage from an area-effect attack if it hits, and no damage if it misses. I'd really like to design a similar ability for my Symbiote Spider-Man inspired hero, but I'm kind of stuck as to how to go about it.