noumena

Do you have a reference naming Khamul? I'm not doubting anyone, I just missed that name in LOTR and the Silmarillion. Oh, I seem to recall from the Silmarillion that the Nazgul who ruled Minas Morgul in LOTR took the name Gothmog (originally the name of Morgoth's chief Balrog).

Dependence How about a dependence? That way, the ghosts can leave the location of their haunting for some time, but get progessively weaker the longer they are gone. -noumena

Ah, I see. You want something with a longer duration than what PRE attacks normally get. If you want someone whose intimidation is slightly more than human, you could construct this as Mind Control with (maybe) Incantations (talking to target), extra time (the time it takes to present your case), trigger (since it will affect their decisions later), reduced circumstances (must be able to open up can of something or other on the target), side effect (opening the aforementioned can), etc. All that having been said, I've handled this sort of thing in play before as simply a type of Persuasion, with a bonus dependent on the level of intimidation. ("I will bad-mouth you at my RPG group." -2 "I will break your kneecaps." +2) Again, I don't have my book at work, but I find it easier to stretch an existing skill than to add a new one. (Naturally YMMV; your meta-game sense of what "feels right" may differ from mine.) -noumena

I don't have my FReD at work, but I recall that there are situational modifiers to PRE attacks for things like helplessness, violence or threats of the same, etc. Since these are pretty much the things people do when they are trying to intimidate someone, PRE attacks seem the way to go.

Genre limitations can keep this kind of behavior in check, but which genre limitations are you interested in enforcing? A number of people here have suggested that it simply isn't heroic for a PC to pick up and use an AK-47. Perhaps not, but do your PCs consider themselves heroes? We might be pretty disillusioned if Superman did this sort of thing, but from what you've said, you're not in that type of campaign, so your players might not take well to that line of reasoning. Most people here seem to incline more towards the comics code, but that doesn't really sound like your cup of tea. (Side note: Gritty heroic doesn't necessarily mean a vigilante campaign. I played in a relatively gritty superhero campaign where our characters were policemen, and we had the kind of views on lethal force you would expect to find from policemen. Similarly, we didn't feel to bad about taking advantage of an enemy's OAF, since enemies took advantage of our OAFs.) The question, then, is how to encourage PCs not to do this. Your players are only "looting" since it's worth their time to do so. Make it otherwise. One way to do this (YMMV): In our campaign, AP caps allowed a PC to have a more powerful attack power than was usually available from a handgun (AK-47, etc). Consequently, only one character (my mentalist) was usually interested in snagging an enemy's weapon, and that was usually limited to when robots got the drop on him. Even then, it usually took him a couple of phases to get ahold of someone else's weapon, and, in those phases, he was pretty much dead weight. After the scene in question, he'd drop the weapon and move on. The concept of "looting" wasn't really attractive. Most of the PCs already had attacks more powerful than anything they could loot. As for wealth, I don't think using wealth to acquire an weapon is terribly unbalancing, as long as it doesn't happen regularly. In fact, my PC did this once (5pts wealth, RSR: Bureacratics - departmental budget) when he knew that the group was going to be walking into a situation where he would be drastically outgunned. The thing is, he only did this once, and, due to AP caps, he was still outgunned. Just less so. -noumena

Regarding the volatility of methane, rember that you need an oxidizer to get it to ignite anyway. Once the reaction starts going, it's exothermic, so it should keep going until you run out of fuel or oxidizer. That having been said, I don't think Charon has pools of oxygen lying around, so igniting the methane probably isn't going to be an issue normally. Regarding diminished sunlight: Sunlight is going to be so diminished in the outer planets that using genetic engineering to enable photosynthesis sort of strains plausability in a hard science setting. I think you'll probably want to go with my genetically engineered mushrooms or Balok's nutritious paste-forming microbes. His microbes are probably far more plausible in the near term. However, I do think you'd probably want to keep these microbes in a vat rather than just set them loose on a moon somewhere. Not out of ecological considerations, but simply for ease of gathering. Your Martian remnants are going to have a serious advantage over the rest of the solar system in their ability to grow and export crops. Seriously. Mars gets enough sunlight for photosynthesis, its atmosphere is thick enough to block out the requisite amount of solar radiation, and (with fertilizer) the soil could probably support agriculture. Growing crops on the moon isn't really a good idea - you'd get enough sunlight, but you'd need too much radiation shielding to prevent solar flares from killing your plants. As for exporting, remember that Mars' gravity well is much weaker than Earth's. It's going to be a lot easier to get high-bulk low-density things (like most foodstuffs) off Mars. I don't know what kind of propulsion scheme you're planning on right now, but remember that one of the most expensive parts of current space exploration is simply getting to orbit. I still like the idea of Neptunian pirates raiding Mars for brussel sprouts. I imagine after a lifetime of eating tasteless paste, piracy for vegetables might become seriously attractive, and it has this nice combination of Buck Rodgers pulpishness and hard science plausibility. -noumena

Re: Chemistry question I'm not a chemist, so: 1. I don't know. 2. Distillation, I think. These compounds have different melting and boiling points. 3. (Numbers from the Web, confirm independently if accuracy is important to you.) Charon is at about 40 K, and methane melts at around 90 K and boils around 110 K. I can't seem to find the specific heat of liquid methane, so I'm not sure how useful those numbers are to you. The specific heat of gaseous methane, however, is approximately equal to twice that of air, roughly the same as steam. The upshot is that a given one-off heat source (laser, explosion, etc) will only affect gaseous methane about half as much as it will air. Granted, you're most interested in the outer planets, but this link has some info on Mars colonization. The papers on In-Situ Resource Utilization might be useful to you. http://www.nw.net/mars/ For flavor, consider reading Joe Haldeman's book The Forever War. The opening section has the recruits training in their battlearmor on the surface of Pluto. One of their big concerns is learning to fall so that they land on their stomach. The heat radiator on the back of their suit will sublimate the surface of Pluto and cause an explosion, killing the recruit. (It's also a good book to read in any event.) Making food is going to be pretty hard for people in the outer planets (or in space, period). The amount of energy it takes to equal sunlight is pretty amazing, so growing plants purely by hydroponic means is probably going to be prohibitively difficult. Since you're indulging in speculative science here, how about genetically modified mushrooms that grow on decomposed organic compounds harvested on the outer planets? It also allows pirates to try to intercept food shipments from the few Martian survivors to the dominant outer-planet faction, since freeze-dried broccoli is a luxury worth more than its weight in gold. Hope this helps. -noumena

Player: I kill him. GM: OK. Tomorrow comes. You see a lion. That brightened up my day. Thanks -noumena

Purple people eater? Sorry, I couldn't resist. Seriously, though. Not every team has to have a brick. It's these little weaknesses that add character. -noumena

I think you have a good point, Kevin. Players will likely take steps to deal with a mentalist who is abusing his fellow PCs. The only trouble is, what if no one else on the team has mental awareness? An even worse problem: Far too many PCs are going to be just fine and dandy with the team's mentalist abusing his powers as long as they aren't the ones being abused. "Gee Martin, we really need to know what the suspect's been up to, and normal police interrogation procedures take so long. Wouldn't it be nice if someone could do something?" This is where I think the (in many ways quite reasonable and well-grounded) social stigma of being a mentalist becomes very important to PC mentalist regulation. If a mentalist isn't known as being such, it should be pretty important to him that no one finds out. On the other hand, if they are a known mentalist, they need to be conspicuously honest in their dealings with others to try and live down the mentalist stigma.

Re: Re: Ruining plots Yes. But the example assumed the +20 modifier "telepathy cannot be detected by target." So the net effect is telepathy at EGO + 10 (well, +12 actually) that cannot be detected by the target. That's what I was trying (in my own ineffectual, rambling way) to get across. The effectiveness of a mentalist is often (in practice) reduced by their desire to avoid detection. If you start casually reading the minds of people you come across, someone is liable to become angry. Hope that was clearer. -noumena

Ruining plots Up front, forgive me for pontificating again, but: The thing about mentalists is... No one trusts them. No one. No matter how nice they are or how trustworthy they've been. There are some very good reasons for this. First of all, mentalists are at their most effective when they're manipulating people and being deceptive. No one likes to be manipulated, and no one likes to be deceived. Also, mentalism, under the HERO rules, is one of the less observable powers. If the TK, EP, or Brick is using his powers, people tend to notice, but how can you be sure the mentalist isn't reading your mind? Mentalists know this and seem a little more likely than others to abuse their powers. Moreover, everyone has something to hide. Anyone with a secret identity or hidden motivations will almost certainly view the team's new mentalist as an adversary. (I speak with experience, here. ;>) However, it's not just those with secret agendas and criminal pasts who are uneasy around mentalists. Would you seriously want anyone to have front-row seat to your mind? Few people are really nice enough that they don't occasionally flirt with nasty and insensitive thoughts, even if only at a basic level. ("No, I love your new haircut!") What makes most of us (more-or-less) nice people is that we keep these unworthy thoughts to ourselves, suppress our baser desires, and try to behave as we know we should. Having a mentalist around makes it difficult to do this. I'm not talking about closeted serial-killers here. Do you really want it getting around to all your coworkers exactly how you feel about the guy in marketing? However, I personally think that there's something even deeper than this. It's kind of hard to describe. If you search around, particularly in the threads from the old boards, you can find some fairly heated debates as to the morality of mentalism. Serious people have maintained that mentalists cannot be heroic. It has even been argued that mentalism is worse than murder. Now, I would rather be subjected to mind control or telepathy than killed, but... Frankly, I think it would be kind of hard to have a heroic mentalist in a Silver Age campaign. Manipulation and deceit probably don't fit in the genre. However, it's more than that, I think. The EP may kill you, but he's killed you. The mentalist can change you. People are afraid that, once a mentalist is through with their mind, it won't be their mind anymore. They'll have been completely remade in the mentalist's image. They'll be someone else. In philosophical terms, their autonomous moral agency has been irrevocably violated/compromised. "The ambition of Cæsar and of Napoleon pales before that which could not rest until it had seized the minds of men and controlled even their unborn thoughts." from the King in Yellow, by Robert Chambers. So, given that people (rightly) are a little afraid of mentalists, there's a big temptation to hide that one is a mentalist. Naturally, this reinforces the belief that mentalists cannot be trusted - after all, they've been lying about being a mentalist, right? This is where HERO mechanics help to keep mentalists in line. I don't have my book in front of me, but I think most mental powers require a +20 above the normal level of effect to keep the target from realizing what you're doing to them. With 60 AP in Telepathy, you get 12d6 (average roll: 42). That will get you a +10 effect (roll of 40) on a normal person. Enough to go through their conscious thoughts. Most of the time. Just don't roll an 18 on your targeting roll. And hope that no one with mental awareness is around. Are you still willing to risk it? Given the social stigma on mentalists and the fact that, in our (superpowered police) campaign, mentalism was considered "unreasonable search and seizure," my character wasn't, most of the time. His anonymity was just too valuable to risk casually. I mean, I'd probably have gotten away with it for quite some time, but the law of averages would have caught up eventually. I got pretty good at using conversation rolls to get people to think about the things I was interested in (a +0 effect for telepathy) and talking people into allowing me to use telepathy on them. "I'd like to telepathically check that the Idiot King hasn't left any kind of post-hypnotic suggestion in your mind. He's done that before." "No way." "Sure, I understand how you feel. You haven't, by any chance, gotten the urge to take an icepick to your daughter, have you?" "Why, has that happened before?" "Not that I'm at liberty to discuss." "Oh. Just don't tell my wife anything you learn, OK?" Sorry for another tome. Hope this helps. -noumena

Re: Bah. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't complaining. Quite the opposite really. Please don't take offense. I said I was appreciative. Very appreciative in fact. I thank you again. Mostly because: Yes, it would. In fact, it would have fit very well. I was really more surprised that you didn't engineer an excuse for the Lt. to find out. I had expected that you would. And I would have demanded a roll on that whole "spy on the count" thing. That's not a little thing, and it clashes with the whole implicit PsychLim:Not-Get-Killed.

Re: Mind games. Thank you, Houston. I did try to incorporate some of your best ideas (nastiest tricks). -NCL

Follows orders. This character believes in the system. He or she may display a great deal of drive and initiative, but, when The Chief speaks, this character will shut up and soldier. I would expect GMs to love this one. After all, you've basically volunteered to do something against your own best interests simply because The Boss told you so. What GM can't take advantage of that? While you're at it, have The Boss order them to do something that violates one of their other psych lims. Role-playing opportunities galore. Oddly enough, however, my GM never really used this one against me. It was nice of him, but quite surprising, really.

Never read Squadron Supreme, but I'm not surprised that this is a common trope. An illusory proxy is just too useful. It's great for getting the bad guys to shoot where you want, frighten them ("Look the bullets pass right through her! She's obviously way too powerful for us."), etc. My favorite, as I mentioned though, is starting NPC gunfights. Thug A sees Ms. Marvelous about to whack Thug B from behind. He shoots Ms. Marvelous (who isn't there) and hits Thug B. Thug B, has A. Been shot B. Been shot by Thug A, and C. Knows that there's a mentalist around. Thug B comes to the obvious conclusion that Thug A is under mental compulsion and shoots back at him.

Needless to say, the following is my opinion. Though this opinion was formed from the experience of playing a mentalist, your experience may differ. YMMV. I've found playing a mentalist to be quite challenging. In practice, a good mental effect requires a lot of quick thinking, and very often I've gone with a quick ego blast since I couldn't think of anything better to do. The payoff, of course, is that when a mentalist succeeds, he can be devastating. The key to playing a mentalist, I feel, is to start with the question "What do I want to happen?" and then deduce what would have to change about the target's beliefs to cause him or her to act in the desired fashion. Consider this example: His tactical expertise having temporarily deserted him, the team brick has dropped Thug A on top of my mentalist, who is then pinned under an unconscious thug. Capitalizing on the situation, Thug B puts a gun to the mentalist's head and orders the rest of the team to back off. What do I want to happen? I don't want my character to get shot. Ideally, I'd like to do this in a manner that disadvantages Thug B and allows my teammates to get back in the fight. What does Thug B need to believe to accomplish my goals? At some level, Thug B needs to believe that he can't or shouldn't injure my character. This can be accomplished by removing the means to injure the mentalist, putting the mentalist out of reach of the Thug, or leading the Thug to believe it's in his best interests to keep the mentalist healthy. There are many ways to accomplish this (disappearing, etc.), but I'd really like to disarm Thug B, if possible. This allows the rest of the team to jump the guy. The trouble, of course, is that dropping the gun is something Thug B very much does not want to do under the circumstances, so mind control is way too risky. Solution: mental illusions. Thug B feels his gun suddenly become red-hot, and the natural human reflex when holding something hot is to drop it. The team brick then KO'd Thug B. In my experience, this depends a great deal on context, which gives the GM's mentalists a big advantage, since they can brainstorm in advance based off of what types of situation they are likely to encounter. Few people, for instance, are going to put themselves at risk trying to injure superheros. A woman might (this happened to us once) hand you several live grenades imploring you to "save her baby." In this same scenario, the mentalist bad-guy created an illusion of himself running through doorway A. When a brick in hot pursuit opened doorway A, he found it booby trapped with explosives - the mentalist had really gone through doorway B. The key to all of these, as you pointed out, is using a relatively small effect. Ideally, your mental effect should induce the target to believe something quite plausible or do something they wanted to do anyway. It's even better if the effect is something that demands reflexive or immediate action, preventing the target from thinking about whether they are being deceived. Concrete examples (which I think was what you wanted anyway): Switch the appearances of a hero and a villian in a fist fight. This is an old standby, but it's still quite effective at getting the opposing team to injure each other. It's very difficult to get friends to act like enemies, but it's easy to get them to look like each other. Fortunately, in this case, they're acting in the same manner. "You are held by a powerful telekinetic and cannot escape." I got this from Mike Surbrook's site. Some people think it's munchy, but if you have a TK on your team, it's also amazingly effective, since people are predisposed to think that the effect is something that might very well happen to them anyway. "That guy behind you just insulted your mother." or "Nothing interesting is happening." The first is good for getting normals to start a fight (useful for creating a distraction in a non-silver campaign), while the second is good for crowd control (preventing normals from going berserk when you attempt to capture a bad guy in the middle of a truck stop). "You hear nothing on your radio but static." Good for preventing a group from coordinating against you. "Shoot at the brick." The bad guys really want to shoot at someone. Wouldn't you rather it be someone else? After all, the brick probably has disgustingly high PD and ED, damage reduction, and regeneration. Most mentalists, sensitive intellectuals (effete wimps) that they are, don't. I also had some minor success with "Ms. Marvelous," a completely over-the-top illusory superheroine. Enemy thugs have shot each other, aiming for the illusory heroine. An enemy brick fell off a boat when he overbalanced by taking a swing at her (well, he would have, if our brick hadn't clocked him from behind). She had many uses. This has been rather long. I hope I haven't bored you, and I hope this helps. -noumena

For the kind of mild illness that keeps you home from work: Drain to various stats (End, Str, Con) with the recovery time extended to about a day. For a minor cold that makes you cranky but isn't enough to justify some dedicated recovering: How about a negative skill level/PSL or two?

another couple A couple of my favorites: 1. What if Charles Martel lost the battle of Tours in 732 and Spanish Moors conquered France? 2. What if the Crusader Kingdoms had managed to hold on at least for another couple of centuries, giving the Byzantine Empire time enough to regroup. Might Constantinople be the superpower of today?

I also played a mentalist with a power like this. In my version, I simply bought invisibility with Only vs. minds (-1/2). Though it worked reasonably well in our game, it does seem plausible that someone with mental defense might not be fooled. Perhaps you could play with the "fringe" rule for invisibility -- 1" of fringe per 2 pts of mental defense sounds reasonable off the top of my head.