keithcurtis

Re: Plot Seed: Six Places to Nuke When You’re Serious How about the Panama Canal? It would really disrupt world shipping for a while. Or the five richest oil fields on earth? Keith "economic devastation" Curtis

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen - The Andrews Sisters 50th Anniversary Collection Keith "It means you're the fairest in the land" Curtis

Re: What to do with your stuff... Most FRPG characters I have known carry every material item they own strapped to their bodies at all times. They even sleep in their armor. Some even insist they never sheath their sword or unstring their bow. Keith "Twelve bags of holding" Curtis

Re: Plot Seed: Six Places to Nuke When You’re Serious One megaton is not enough, but if a master villain figured out a precise place to strike, the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice sheet would raise ocean levels by 20 feet. A good percentage of humanity lives below that level. Granted, they would have time to run, but imagine a near-global New Orleans scenario. Keith "Actually, the best target would be a pile of other one megaton bombs" Curtis

Re: TA: Wizards and Armor Keith "Oh, yeah" Curtis

Re: Micronauts Art It depends on what point in the series. I've forgotten, but I believe for the majority of the original run, he was energy, though it was not revealed for some time. From Wiki: Keith "fuzzy recollection" Curtis

Re: Another Clarification: Narrative meaning of combat Phase. Yes! I would expand that to other genres, though. Not just a comic book panel, but a discrete narrated action. When I run combat for the Savage Earth online campaign, I run several segments worth, perhaps even up to a turn, based on stated intentions and tactics. Then I take the log of the phases and re-write it into prose. It works very well. Sometimes it even allows you to inject some more reason into the combat. Character A fumbles. Character B misses. You can narrate this as Character A trips and bumps Character B's arm just as he was firing. I sometimes change the order of events slightly during the "prosification", for narrative or dramatic purposes, but never in any way that would invalidate the actual rolled combat. Keith "I have dibs on 'prosification' " Curtis

Re: Micronauts Art Very cool. It's when I see villains like this I always wonder how they would look curled up with a good book. Or looking in the fridge for a snack. Or sleeping. Or on the commode. Keith "OK, Karza's not corporeal inside, I know" Curtis

Re: "Thing ring, do your thing!" Cite, please. Keith "I remember none of this" Curtis PS. People might be confusing the 70's show with the 60's show (yes, there were two—the 60's show had the Human Torch.)

Re: "Thing ring, do your thing!" I remember the Magneto episode of the FF very well. The thing that got me is that Reed revealed he had made the wooden gun right in front of Magneto! Before he was incarcerated! I mean, all Magneto had to do was say, "Oh, the gun is made of wood? well then I don't give up." And then take over the world. But no, it was like he was following some playground rule of order. "Sorry Magneto, you surrendered. No take-backs!" It deeply irked me. As for Benjy Grimm, yes I watched every episode. I always expected poor Benjy to do the Thing Ring bit and then cut to a scene in the nearest hospital. "I'm sorry Mrs. Grimm, he has broken every bone in his body. No, we don't know where those rocks came from, but they pretty well pulped him." It was like SpiderMan and his Amazing Friends. Everytime Ice Man iced up by creating a huge block of ice around himself I expected to hear him say, "Spidey! Help! I can't move! Or, uh, breathe!" Keith "kids today don't know how good they've got it" Curtis

Re: STR vs. Gravity

Re: How's the Turakian Age working out for you? It's called a ligature, for those who are interested. It was developed during the early days of typesetting to reduce the time spent setting a job and supposedly to increase legibility. Most high end computer fonts have a full set of ligatures. The Æ ligature does have some history as a full letter, though. For the typographically curious, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Æ Keith "The other 99.99% of you can go on with your lives" Curtis

Re: Trigger Clarification The guy better hope that he never gets hit by a poison dart... Keith "Well the poison should run it's course in about a week; he should be out of danger then." Curtis

Re: STR vs. Gravity That would work for me. I just don't think the mechanic already in place for the game addresses the problem in any way, shape or form. A 500 ton boulder held down by 5 pts. of STR will only require 5 pts. of STR to lift. Keith "Personally, I never stat out that kind of stuff anyway" Curtis

Re: Book Recommendation: Anatomy Of A City I just saw this today in a bookstore downtown. Very nice. I'd say indispensable if I were running a modern urban campaign. Keith "cool" Curtis

Re: STR vs. Gravity But why use STR? In what way does it have a useful game effect that makes 5 STR any different than 300 STR? Keith "???" Curtis

Re: STR vs. Gravity

Re: Teleportation: Fiction or Fact? I'll wait. Keith "It'll be here shortly after room temperature superconductors and cold fusion" Curtis

Re: STR vs. Gravity Gravity is misrepresented by STR anyway. 5 points of STR should pull objects downward with STR 5, and resisted as all other STR vs STR contests are resisted. But feeble old Aunt Mary can't lift a battleship in a 5 STR field. Gravity should be it's own thing, like temperature. Keith "my opinion, anyway" Curtis

Re: Gravity, Inertia, and Star Hero If you can do that, why bother with a laser? Use the superheated and pressurized mass of the star as propellent. You won't even have to carry any reaction mass. I came to the same conclusions researching the Solar Colonies. I eventually settled on a Nivenesque "Fusion Drive". The problem is that to make them work with anything approaching the efficiency of Known Space Fusion Drives, you need a thrust akin to a whopping gigantic particle cannon. It's no wonder the humans were able to defeat the Kzinti. It raised a lot of questions beyond the math of the situation, too. With thrusts that powerful, every ship is a navigational hazard and a severe danger to any nearby settlement (nearby in astronomical terms, that is). How do you protect yourself from an inept or psychopathic or terrorist ship pilot? Keith "Mucho handwaving" Curtis

Re: 6000 non NGD posts.

Re: 6000 non NGD posts. What none of you realize is that between posts 1 and 2, there was a Crisis of Multiversal Proportion. Nobody remembers that before the CMP, he was known as Enforcer83. Now he has been retconned back to the beginning of history, and only I, from my vantage point of, uh, here, remember the difference. Enforcer83 has indeed left these boards forever. Indeed, he never existed! Keith "The Watchitor" Curtis

Re: Valdorian Age world map (dear Mr Curtis...) I have sent the map to Ben and Steve. Look for it as soon as Ben puts it up. Keith "I gots me almost real internet again" Curtis

Re: Dealing with Anachronism If he has a skill that relates to the use of a glove box (PS:Chemist or even KS:Science!), he should at least know of glove boxes and could call the university to find if they have one. If not, have him roll a general Int roll to know of their existence. If it's important to the plot, the suggestions could come from an appropriate NPC. Otherwise tell him, "Sorry, it's 1938, and you just have never heard of such a thing." OTOH, if it's a fast and loose campaign with zeppelin pirates and ether ships, then the weird old scientist down the street probably has two or three of them in his basement. Keith "context" Curtis

Re: WWYD: The Perfect Partner (potentially controversial) For some more classic thought, try reading Marionettes, Inc., by the masterful Ray Bradbury. Keith "Loves me my SF classics" Curtis