Lamrok

Re: Musings on Random Musings People outside the south can't begin to comprehend what is meant by a "Catfish Restaurant." In Shreveport, people would "go out for Catfish" like they "go out for Chinese" most places. Gotta have hushpuppies with your catfish.

Re: Musings on Random Musings In the city I grew up near, Shreveport, Louisiana, the State Fair was the biggest event of the year. I think we even got out of school for it. Pretty much everyone went, and you'd always run into lots of old friends.

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Re: Whoot! Pulp Maps! I know where the Necronomicon is - I used to work as a page in the sub basement at Harvard's rare books and manuscripts library. There was one peculiarly aged, metal bound tome that had a lock on it to prevent browsing. Unlike all the other tomes around it, it was not labelled. There was a lot of cool stuff down there for sure - the "Science Fiction" room (locked off from the staff-only part of the library, and known mainly by legend around campus) contained a full run of Weird Tales and a bunch of other pulps. I'd love to see that collection show up on the Internet someday.

Re: Whoot! Pulp Maps!

Re: Here on Earth-2: your evil counterpart! In Zornwil's game, we essentially covered this last session as Nexus "Master of Dimensions" got kidnapped and replaced by his "bizarro" double. Much fun was had by all - well, by me anyway. Half the group was swapped, and the other half wasn't informed. The two of us who were swapped were informed that we would be trying to carry off the charade. Bizarro Nexus is a slacker who just wants to do cool stuff, have people think he's cool, and not spend too much time doing dull research. He's happy being the world's most intelligent man, and he thinks people should leave it at that. He's fairly amoral, with no ethical compus, but he tends to stay out of trouble since he fears repercussions. He also tends to get bullied a lot by other members of the Bizarro team. Red Flags went up when Nexus decided to be a "real hero" and designate himself a one man clean up crew for downtown Detriot. He was finally undone when he passingly referred to his much-beloved mentor as a "loser," inciting our team Mentallist (played by Lemming) to have a closer look. He and Bizarro Laughton (aka Chromatic) managed to escape, though, and head to Vegas, where he had a large sum of cash transferred to himself from the account of the real Nexus, then departed this dimension for good. Or did he?

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Re: Pulp Hero Cometh The Spider is my avatar. He embodies the essential essence of the crazed psycho avenger.

Re: The supporting cast - in the limelight Hey! I bet that would speed up combat considerably!

Re: The end of the world as we know it... Its all about fear. Villains are a "Cowardly and Superstitious Lot" and you have to exploit that when you get a chance. I think we would all agree that huge hoardes of otherworldly beings singing "Its a Small World" exploits those fears...

Re: The end of the world as we know it... I'm around fairly often. I just don't have much to say. So, what are you doing here? You need to answer that email!

Re: The end of the world as we know it... As I was writing the "Nexus" parts above, I was humming the title of this thread. That cannot be good. Zornwil, let me know if I should bug out. Lamrok aka Nexus/Prof. Sihn

Re: A question about dungeons. Last time I ran a dungeon-centric game, I framed it like this: Erko is the god of magic and tricks. The preferred way to curry favor with him (and acquire the highest levels of magical power) is to construct elaborate magical deathtraps designed to lure powerful "adventurers" to their deaths - more renown the victim had, the more power the wizard gained from his death. Deaths should be avoidable to the quick or quick witted, and preferable at least mildly amusing in a darkly humerous way. "Dungeons" were engines designed to provide immortality to their designers, as each death that they cause moves the builder a bit closer to his mad deity. This practice is, of course, outlawed in most civilized lands. When a dungeon is discovered, it is destroyed or sealed. Archmage builders know this, and tend to hide them well - but not so well as to keep the greediest of adventurers away.

Re: So I'm thinking of running a Western HERO scenario... Having watched more than my share of westerns over the course of my life... Another thought would be to unlink DCV from dex. You don't see a lot of gun fighters using fancy acrobatics to make their opponents miss. Defense for most gunfighters is standing still and shooting first. Evasive maneuvering during a showdown would likely be viewed as cowardice, and cowards will tend to be treated badly. Heroic gunfighters do often have a sort of mystical ability to get missed by bullets fired by scrubs, but I'd make them buy that as DCV levels with limitations ("only vs combat-oriented badguys who don't have their own character sheets", and "requires PRE roll"). Epic gunfighters should buy "Penalty Skill Levels" equal to the penalties for the locations they will be wanting to hit - vitals, head, or perhaps, hands/guns. You save time in not having to roll hit locations, and badguys go down a lot faster - especially if you use a base body of "8" for normal folks. Finally, hitting a scrub once ought to take them out of the fight even if it doesn't kill them. It doesn't take much imaginiation to figure that once they are badly wounded, and sure that the second shot _will_ kill them, they will be content to lie on the field till the fight is over, then escape if they can. Scrubs who do decide to get back up and fight seem to invariably do it when the heroes back is turned. Nearly 100% of the time, they do this in full view of the Heroe's sidekick or friend, giving him/her a chance to do something useful. "Healing up" is an important part of many Westerns. It should give time for role play and for developing skills. Heck, a significant number of epic gunfighters learn their trade while they are healing up from the beating the bad guys put on them - staring angrily into the horizon and putting bullets in tin cans. Or, the wounded good guy might be starting a new romance, or just learning the background about the place he is in.

Re: Champions fans on COH, read up! The Justice Squad really doesn't have a leader per se. At this point, all decisions tend to be made by a consensus of the original players (basically our ftf gaming group + a few rl close friends.) The Justice Squad wound up on Justice instead of Champion for a number of procedural reasons - partly because we were "The Justice Squad," partly because we were able to reserve our beta names on the Justice Server (and not on Champion), partly because we didn't know for sure that there would be a Champion server when we started our planning, and partly because Justice was the first server we knew for sure was on the West Coast. By the time Champion came into the picture, we were committed, and it would have been a bit hard to explain a change of server to the non-Hero Boards folks. I managed to reserve the name, "Champion" on the Champion server. It is thus my destiny to play there one day. My battle cry will be, "Get the Hell off My Server!" For now, though, one of our teammates has been zealously watching over me for any sign of server jumping treachery, and I've been staying largely in line. I think it would be great to add other Hero Boards people to the Justice Squad, as long as you maintain a sense of fun and derring-do (Experience point debt is a Badge of Honor in the Justice Squad.) Being able to run the Teamspeak client on your PC without overwhelming the channel with static is also highly desirable. Our levels range from 1-35 (I think), and we are always happy to sidekick folks who want to play with the higher-level characters, or to otherwise re-arrange things so everyone can participate.

Re: what character concepts -HAVE- Gm's allowed that you thought they wouldn't? Zornwil is a Champion of the People. [and I'm adding more mental defenses.]

Re: what character concepts -HAVE- Gm's allowed that you thought they wouldn't? I was surprised that Zornwil let The Troll/Eliot Sihn into his game. The character was a very dark character developed for a previous dark game who proved a bit too dark for the GM. His original design was for a vigilante-type who was far more brutal than the thugs he faced. He was supposed to instill fear into their hearts, partly through his powers, and partly through his stunted understanding of morality. His sfx was "super regeneration." He could detach body parts and use them for various things. He could rip out his eye, will it to develop spindly spider legs, and send it off to spy (or stow an extra eye under a couch in case he got flashed.). He could pull his ear off and stick it in someone's pocket. He could pull off his hand and throw it. He could yank off his left arm and beat criminals into unconsciousness. All of his body parts had some degree of sentience, and he had a mind link with them when they were separated. Doing all of this hurt the same as it would normally hurt if a normal person got his eye gouged out. This tended to make him more than a little crazed, and, in my interpretation, tended to blur his ideas about how criminals should be treated. Zornwil didn't bat an eye. The character has entirely reformed now. Or has he..?

Re: GMs: PC Scrutiny & Acceptance Byrd Jackson - "The Bird" "The Bird" was based on a follower from Zornwil's game (Bob Rogers), who I thought would be fun to flesh out - a disabled African American businessman with very strong contacts and social skills, and with a very positive outlook on what can be achieved by anyone with the guts to try their very hardest. He was very conservative politically (and a prominent player in state politics), but (or perhaps "and" depending on how you feel about politics) his faith in the human spirit was boundless. I thought it would be interesting to put him in a set of powered armor, and see how things turned out.

Re: GMs: PC Scrutiny & Acceptance Interesting discussion. I've played in Magmarok's (briefly) and in Zornwil's (quite a while) games, and the games do indeed reflect the philosophies portrayed by these folks. I am a fairly strict adherent to what Zornwil calls the PoP school, though, and that's where I feel most comfortable - as a GM and as a player. I think of a game as a cooperative story - both sides have input into evolving the plot, and both sides must act responsibly (or irresponsibly if that's the point) in furthering this. As a GM, I don't want to be the engine that drives the game - I prefer to think of myself as the ringmaster who directs the spotlight. As a player, I want some time in the spotlight. That's about it.

Re: What would you character do...

Re: A Thread for Random Musings I am rather annoyed that I still have not been invited into the stupid City of Heroes Beta. I've become obsessed with this game, but I cannot play it. I think. Or, maybe I've just had a mild case of the flu, and been generally down. In any event I'm sick of being on the outside of the NDA. On the other hand, I'm feeling quite a bit better today despite anothger wave of invites passing me by. Maybe I have just been sick. I've been amazingly productive at work today. On the other hand, the weather is nice, and I'll probably take the gang to the park tomorrow, game or no game. At least this way I won't have any desire to stay home and play computer games.

Re: What would you character do... Prof. Sihn, aka Nexus, would be ready to rumble - looking for the new team to take the first aggressive move first, though. He might have to subvert some of the more diplomatically-minded members of his own team.

Re: Campaign Advice: How to Enforce Style? http://www.movieflix.com has a bunch of old serials avalable for free.