Mutant for Hire

Re: Medieval Wages Any decent rules of thumb for how a good or bad harvest can affect food prices? For that matter, what constitutes a good or bad harvest in general?

Re: A couple definition topics "Power Gamer" "Munchkin" "GM Fiat"

Re: Help with translating concept to creation. Another way to get immunity to fire attacks is "Desolid only versus Fire Attacks" which does a fair job of simulating immunity fairly well. That's one of the traditional uses for Desolid, simulating immunity to certain types of attack.

Re: Medieval Wages Of course the real complicating issue here is magic, which is in essence technology that pushes one out of the medieval period. My own view on most systems of magic is to picture what would have happened to the industrial revolution without fossil fuels such as coal and oil. The reason I go that way is that under most systems of magic, one is limited in effect to "human power", what an individual or a group of individuals flexing their mystic muscle can do. The sacrifice of animals is analogous to using animals for mechanical power, after a fashion. In short, you can build very sophisticated machinery but to some extent you're still limited to a very narrow range of power supplies. That limits to the extent that machinery is built, or in this case, magical items are created. Magicians would be constantly looking out for sources of energy, terrestrial, celestial and other, with which to drive their enchantments. The bright side is that it more or less preserves the medieval feel. The poor are not going to see much in the way of magic. Every bit of mystical power in general goes to the upper class with some spillover into the middle class. It's very doubtful any enchanted items would automate farming in any way. The normal shift for labor from the farms is the factories, but with energy being limited to humans and animals, it's not clear that such factories would be particularly cost effective.

Re: What do you do onboard a starship? That is one of the big questions about the STL generation ship. What tech level is the ship, and whether it's a reasonable extrapolation of modern technology or its more retro-tech in feel, when computers were big and men still used slide rules to do calculations. As for having kids aboard the ship, remember that genetic diversity is very important aboard your ship. The gene pool of the colony is going to be fixed by the gene pool that is aboard the ship. To some extent, you want to have as much genetic diversity up front as possible and you want to maintain that diversity over the course of the voyage. From that viewpoint, you want to have as many people up front as possible and keep strict track of geneological records (not to mention genetic scans of individuals) to make sure that genetic diversity is maintained. And for that matter, you'd probably want to have a huge rack of frozen embryos somewhere for when you reach your destination to refresh the gene pool there.

Re: (Silliness But Interesting Dep't) Build an Alarm Clock! Okay, now build this alarm clock.

Re: Religious that won't emigrate There are Christians who seriously want everyone to move to some low densely populated state and set up a Kingdom of God. I expect those types to be the first to volunteer to set up a new world and set up some theocracy. Incidentally, I wouldn't be shocked to see some hardline political types also decide to set up their own utopias. Libertarians, Marxists, etc. Getting back to the religious types, remember that man is a rationalizing creature, not a rational one. In the end, a lot of these religious worlds will decide that they are probably holier and purer and so they can have holy sites on their own worlds. Powers help these worlds after FTL is invented because two worlds both founded by religion X are likely to have drifted in different directions.

Re: Religious that won't emigrate Well, the important thing to realize is that there are hardliners and then there are people who are a little more flexible about their religious faith. And for that matter, there can be things like collective vows for their descendants someday to return to Earth. If Jews were that fanatic about Israel, you'd never see a Jew living outside of Israel, they would have all emigrated there. I can easily see some more relaxed Jews deciding to found a New Israel on some world far away. Likewise a New Mecca. Muslims on the trip could bring stones or other relics from the real Mecca to set up a proxy on the world that they are going to. While there will be fanatics who will be against emigration to the stars for the reasons that you cite, most people aren't nearly that inflexible.

Re: The Wheel of Time You really should ask Steve Long. I mean he did the WoT RPG book. I'm sure he'd love to help out with more WoT stuff.

Re: Re-imagining the Star Wars universe. Well, I wouldn't mind going back to the core concepts and doing some careful worldbuilding, not to mention rethinking more carefully how the universe itself works and holds together. Some things bugged me even in the original series. For example, the fact that there's this thing called the Force and Luke had to be explained what it was. And yet in that same dialog Obi-Wan Kenobi says that for a thousand generations the Jedi were the guardians of the Old Republic. To me, there's a fundamental contradiction here. If the Jedi were the guardians for thousands of years (define "generation"), wielding the Force, you would think that knowledge of the Force and the Jedi Knights would have completely and totally permeated the Republic, in the same sense that samurai were a core part of the Japanese culture. Lucas, sensibly, ducked religious issues and hence a lot of controversy, but the interaction of the Force and religions is something that I felt was distinctly lacking. After thousands of years, you would think a lot of religions would have the Force as a central element to it, just as ki was a part of Japanese metaphysics. Yes, I suppose he wanted to keep it mysterious and dramatic, but after a thousand generations to think that everyone's going to forget it in one is a bit screwy. In a reimagining of the Star Wars universe, the first question is "what does everyone think of the Force".

Re: Star Wars "Science" On the whole R2D2 issue, one can almost rationalize it, not to mention communication issues with things like Moisture Vaporators. Unfortunately the movies fall just short of that. Think about it. Computer programming languages as they stand right now are very logical, determininistic, precise things. Human languages on the other hand, carry an inherent degree of fuzziness to them. Words can shift meaning on context and have a degree of ambiguiry to them, then there's things like metaphors and complicated modes of speaking such as sarcasm. Protocol droids are droids that are designed to be able to handle the ambiguities of the languages of organic beings, which are very fuzzy things themselves. They can translate between fuzzy and imprecise languages of organic beings and just as importantly, they can translate between the languages of organic beings and the highly logical and precise droid languages. Unfortunately what breaks the concept is that R2D2 doesn't seem to have any problems understanding Luke, or for that matter C3PO when he's speaking in the standard language of the Star Wars universe. More realistically, C3PO should be communicating in the same tonal language that R2D2 is speaking in when he's talking to the droid, and Luke should be depending on C3PO to interpret/translate. However Star Wars is space fantasy and so any attempt to be really logical about such things is inherently doomed to failure. Still, there's a difference between scientific and consistant. I can perfectly deal with something like the Force, and the existance of droids, I just like some consistancy and exploration of the ramification of the existance of these things.

Re: Women! Is anyone but me getting flashbacks to the old "sexist language" flamewar we had once upon a time. Does anyone here but me remember that?

Re: Things to put in an abandoned magicotechinical area. Look around your house. Think of magical equivalents. A lot of this stuff would be the magical equivalent of a vacuum cleaner or a toaster.

Re: Super Day Jobs Look, the whole concept of a secret identity is more than a little implausible. It's very much a golden/silver/bronze age thing which is grounded in something other than realism. Don't worry about the mechanics of it. Just assume that they've gone through the paperwork. Figures like the Martian Manhunter manage to set up secret identities somehow, the details don't matter.

Re: Technocracy HERO To me, the World of Darkness had so many good ideas which it had a rather shallow and sometimes immature implementation to them. The Technocracy was one of them. Mankind was besiged by monsters, in the thrall of powerful sorcerors, and so they restructred reality to create science and technology which would be available to everyone. They drove back the monsters and they've been trying to make the world a safe and ordered place. In their own eyes, they're the heroes. Sadly, like most WW implementations, the implementation fell way short of the concept. Alas. WW books tend to be excellent source material for campaigns using better systems, but on their own they tend to fall short.

Re: Queer Eye for the Superhero Guy No, I didn't say to shorten the cape length, or to make it wrap around like the Stranger's does. I also favor a darker color for his suit.

Re: Kill Bill I viewed Go-Go as playing to the Japanese schoolgirl Thing more than anything else. Sort of a wierd juxtaposition of a schoolgirl and a killer. I don't see her as supposed to be particularly scary, more like jarring in terms of contrasts.

Okay, the rules of this thread are very simple. Take a superhero, and despite the thread title it doesn't have to be a male superhero (we're not requiring the posters to be gay either) and give them a makeover. Heroes with especially tacky or tasteless outfits are given preference. Let's go where we're needed the most, people. I'll start with Doctor Strange. The man's outfit was clearly designed by a man on drugs. The colors are just garish and frankly while it does give an otherworldly fear, it makes him look like he's from Dimension Las Vegas. Is this the sort of look we want for our world's Sorceror Supreme? I don't think so. Now while the trenchcoat and fedora look are good for the street savvy magician, I think that the Sorceror Supreme of Earth should be a cut above that. He should have an indication of style and class. A good suit is timeless. Doctor Strange really needs to toss out his old costume for a really well tailored suit. Something that probably costs at least five figures to produce. Possibly European in cut, certainly made to order for him. As for the color, I tend to prefer a very dark shade. Given his profession, you want something that won't show dirt or blood easily. As for the cape, likewise it should be a dark and matching color. The fasteners to hold it in place should be gold, of a simple but properly occult pattern. Matching cufflinks wouldn't be the worst idea there either. An occult pendant likewise of simple yet suitably elderitch style is also preferable, possibly something to symbolize his position. No top hat or gloves. That's just a little over the top for me. A good suit and a dark cape and an occult pendant and he's ready to go. The idea here is understated. Showing off is a sign of weakness and insecurity. The Sorceror Supreme is the most powerful magician on Earth. He does not need to show off to anyone. He's reached that level of power where he doesn't have anything to prove to anyone. So he should focus on a classy and stylish look with just a modest designation of his station and a few occult gestures here and there. Comments?

Re: Kill Bill I'd say more like an insanely high CON score.

Here are a couple of devices that I'd like to build under HERO powers. One of them is an AI with a failsafe mechanism against hostile takeover. Essentially, if the AI's loyalty circuits are subverted, the system is designed to shut down, or at least to shut down the higher brain functions. In short, the AI has a Psych Lim. If any sort of reprogramming is done (Mental Transform of the Psych Lim), the INT and EGO of the AI go to zero until the Psych Lim comes back. I'm thinking of just purchasing the INT/EGO with an advantage (technically it's a Limitation, but since it actually provides a benefit, I think it needs to count as a new type of advantage) that makes it dependent on the existance of the Psych Lim. Is this a valid idea, and if so what would the size of the bonus be? The second one is for a wizard's artifact. It's a pair of stones. While the wizard has one stone, any spell that they cast can manifest at the site of the other stone. I don't want to boost the basic spells of the wizard, as this is to be an Indepenent artifact and if they lose the stones, so does the power.

Re: Need Stats For A Llama (quote deleted) Crap. Didn't post fast enough. Oh well, anyone up for moose?

Re: Need Stats For A Llama In case you were remotely worried, I expect it will take them a couple of years to make it. From personal experience, super secret black death ninja llamas have a very terrible sense of direction.

Re: PREDATORS -- What Do *You* Want To See? I'd like to see some true mastermind villains, folks whose main strengths aren't in personal combat (and in fact tend to flee if it comes down to just them and their opponents), but who have the bulk of their points invested in perks of various sorts: contacts, wealth, followers, etc. And their followers follow them because they're a brilliant planner rather than having the biggest zap around. Maybe even has connections to the media which could cause far more problems for the heroes than sending a group of thugs could. I'm thinking along the lines of a politician or CEO.

Re: Transform for fun and profit It depends on the genre, honestly: Silver Age: Not done by heroes, not in genre, next question? Superman did not make himself endlessly rich by squeezing out diamonds. At best they do such things sparingly for charity. Bronze Age: There is always some flaw with the results which means ultimately said attempt backfires on them. That's how the Bronze Age conventions typically work. Iron Age: Superheroes and supertechnology are restructuring the world economy. You simply do your level best to deal with it head on. Given this heads over into the area of SF and speculative fiction in general, let's try to tackle this. First off, as has been previously noted, most superheroes aren't going to be able to do anything on a sufficiently large scale to have a direct impact. However that does not mean that there will not be some impact. Remember that the economic value of items is purely psychological. The fact is that gold is valuable mainly because we see it as valuable. So the question becomes how much of a psychological impact will it have on the value of gold if it becomes clear that some people can manufacture as much gold as they want, given sufficient time. There will be economic dislocations due to the knowledge that gold is no longer a finite quantity but in theory could be limitless. Second off, if supertech is involved, in an Iron Age/SF game, all bets go out the window. If you can make devices that transmute elements, then you have vast economic disruptions that will completely transform the planet in time. Incidentally, on a real world note, diamond companies out there are growing increasingly worried about the manufacture of artificial diamonds. They are growing increasingly larger and more natural looking, and at ever decreasing cost. While the primary market for these types has always been industrial dimond manufacture, I would not be surprised to see a massive plunge in diamond prices within the next decade.

Re: D & D Diatribe Dwarves are mortal, just long lived by human standards. There is no indication that Orcs are immortal. The fact that they were formed from Elves that Morgoth messed with does not mean anything. It is entirely possible they have degenerated so far as to be mortal.