Nolgroth

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Started watching a documentary on Hulu called Needle Through Brick. Two things struck me about that show. One, the titular style is retarded and looked to me like it was made up to get on camera. Two, Malaysia is absolutely crawling with ancient Kung-Fu masters disguised as cooks, cobblers, bakers, or whatever. There are more of them than you can shake a bo staff at. Don't invade Malaysia because you are going to be schooled and sent home crying by a bunch of stooped, old men reliving the glory days.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Indeed. The Mayor almost took on a healthy, paternal role for Faith. It was twisted and corrupted because he, you know, wanted to have a picnic with the graduation class. As the meal. Still, evil should be pompous, arrogant, sneaky, grim, murderous or a whole bunch of other traits. It should not be somebody reminding you to mind your manners and put the best foot forward. That was some twisted stuff.

Re: Anyone running any online games? I had a potential name, based on one of the NPCs; Dealer of Fate. Let me know what you think.

Re: Need game advice, *Quick* I try describing the actions of the NPCs in terms of colorful exposition. I forgot to save my message log from last game so I cannot post any "live" examples. Here is what I would do for the skellies. Assuming no real barriers but some colorful debris.... Segment 12, Dex 10: Skeleton Warriors The nearest skeleton, wearing a tattered red tabard with threadbare gold embroidery, approaches you slightly from the right. It swings a spiked mace in a vicious arc that... [dice rolling commenses] ...you manage to deflect with your shield/weapon. ...smashes through your defenses and nearly crushes your shoulder [assuming hit location is rolled] for X Body and Y Stun. Calculate your defenses and subtract the remaining damage from Body and Stun. ...misses you by the barest of margins. Its similarly garbed companion rushes straight in, launching itself off of a falling log and slashing at you in a powerful overhead arc (Offensive Strike). [dice rolling] ...The great sword rings off your own blade as you successfully block the attack. ...You feel the closeness of the blade as it passes by you and clangs into the low rock wall behind you. ...The heavy blade rips into your chainmail, laying open a nasty wound across your chest. Subtract your defenses from X Body and Y Stun and figure out how much of each you have left. Took more Stun that CON? The force of the blow, combined with the pain send your head to reeling. Luckily you come to before the skeletons can recover their balance to attack again. That sort of thing. Ad lib. If you have described the terrain, use it however you feel is necessary to get the feeling you want to express out. Skeleton rolls a really bad attack roll? Its foot gets caught in the spokes of a fallen wagon wheel causing its lunging attack to wildly miss. Have fun with it. Don't go over the top. And if something important happens, don't be afraid to interrupt combat in order to describe it. Your last slash drives the skeleton back a few steps. You suddenly realize that the screams of the villagers have hushed. Turning around, you see the mayor's home explode in flames and splintered wood. Something large and vaguely human shaped steps through the smoke. An ogre! Save that you have never seen an ogre with its flesh so rotted you can see half of its jawbone exposed. The unholy monster bellows a challenge and swats away one of the town guardsmen as though he were an annoying child. The undead fiend then charges off between two houses and you hear the sounds of battle erupt. You can then resume combat, with the character(s) knowing that after they finish off the skeleton warriors, they have a much tougher opponent who is somewhere out there on the battlefield. And those poor village militia pukes ain't going to slay it.

Re: Anyone running any online games? Cool. Thanks.

Re: Anyone running any online games? Just as a note. I went over the tokens and found some errors with the characteristics. Please check them before or during next game and make sure they are correct. Luckily, I was testing a new SpellAttack macro for Geoffrey and noticed that he was doing very little damage to anybody. When I checked, everybody had 8 PD and 8 ED. Sounds like I might have copied over a single macro multiple times or had multiple macros selected when I did an edit, so it is likely my fault. Just help me out with the grunt work a little please. I also put Combat Luck into hrPD and hrED (hardened, resistant). May have to change that to its own thing later, but for now that works.

Re: Anyone running any online games? Okay. I have two suggestions for a Campaign name; Fortune's Wheel and Winds of Change. I was tempted to combine them into something like Winds of Fortune, but I really don't want the name to engender thoughts of a Kansas song when somebody reads it. Any other suggestions? I am going to let this simmer over the weekend and then make a decision on Monday based on input I get during that time. I want a new thread so that I can take the first few message post positions to place Campaign guidelines and character write-ups. And there you have it.

Re: FH Player who wants character to BE an amulet Cool. Would you be willing to post a Character sheet so wee can see how it was built?

Re: FANTASY HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See? Except that the Basic rules have no discussion about Damage Negation or Time Limit. While those two are very easy concepts to grasp, it brings up the point that not all power builds will be understood by those with just the Basic Rulebook. I think it would be advantageous to note which powers are useful to the Basic Rulebook crowd. If only one or two power builds, out of 20, have the little B Hex, then it might inspire those on the cusp to purchase the full books so that they have all the good stuff. I would think the B and A are more than sufficient flags. If it doesn't have a flag, the default assumption is that you use the main HERO rulebooks. Just my thoughts on the matter.

Re: CON Only to Resist Stunning I would agree that -1/4 is about where I would place the limitation.

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply! I don't think the two styles of play are exclusive from each other. In one game, you can have all the Tolkien races and a bunch more besides. In another, strictly human. In yet another, something different than Tolkien rehashes but more than human. My present game is human only, save for a few "behind the veil" type critters. Usually those are or will be unique characters. Have not decided if there are any defined species from the Netherrealm though. Next big campaign may have more species than you can shake a stick at. Depends entirely on my inspiration at the time of campaign genesis though.

Re: Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits Need Not Apply! I really loved the Dark Sun setting. I still have the 2nd Ed boxed set and I think the 1st Ed boxed set is in my brother's garage.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Murder of One - Counting Crows

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? I used to listen to a Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits on 8-track. That was my favorite of them as I recall. Later, 20 Years Ago, usurped the position of favorite Kenny Rogers song.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Sounds like The Gambler by Kenny Rogers.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Need You Now - Lady Antebellum

Re: FANTASY HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See? I'd be happy with less expensive, yet still talented homage artists.

Re: FANTASY HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: Anyone running any online games? And an Update. While I am trying to keep macro coding talk in the Other Software forum thread, I think this bears some discussion. Right now, I have two working campaign files. The first one is what I have been working on. The Weapons macro (a reference of weapons stats) clogs up the Java memory stack, requiring a larger Java Stack Size when we start MapTool. That really isn't much of a problem, but in case it is difficult for you to change that setting (not sure for Macs as an example) that could lead to some problems. The other file (a backup of the main one with some changes) does away with that, instead storing individual weapon lists in a macro and allowing the player to designate which weapon is drawn/ready. That loads a much shorter list (4-6 weapons instead of well over 100) which then sets token properties with the weapon stats. That one works at the default Java Stack Size of 2m. The only drawbacks are that it does take a second or two for the token properties to be set and when you add a weapon, you have to edit the Draw Weapon macro. The benefits are running with a default Stack and it allows for an easy way for me to set up the Disarm maneuver later (a successful Disarm essentially sets the primary weapon to Unarmed Attack). I think the benefits of method two outweigh the benefit of method one (which is potentially having access to the whole weapon list). I can, however, run either way.

Re: Anyone running any online games? Like I said, might be fun. Might not be. I just thought it was an interesting mechanic. Another interesting one is the concept of Raises. In that, the player decides on taking a negative to his success chance in return for a potentially cool outcome. An obvious HERO example is Called Shots. Another potential example is using Oratory to really rally a crowd. By taking a negative voluntarily (and the player decides how much of one) and succeeding at the roll, the character could potentially whip a crowd into a riot. All in all, the 7th Sea system looks like one of negotiation between the PCs and the GM for the purpose of creating dramatic storytelling play. The combat system is way too vague, even for a pro rules-lite guy like me, but the concepts I've brought up seem to be potentially fun. I'm not sure how we could implement or even if we should implement such concepts in our game. Mostly it was a point for discussion.

Re: Anyone running any online games? And to totally get away from macros, I have been reading the 7th Sea book. Aside from the cool setting, I actually like some of the mechanics of the 7th Sea game. One of the more interesting one was the mechanic of Drama dice. Instead of just randomly rolling a Hubris (Complication), the GM has a limited amount of Drama dice. To activate the Hubris, he must spend one of his Drama dice. If the player decides to roll with it, he gets an XP bonus. If he decides that he doesn't want to roleplay that particular Hubris at the time, he can spend one of his own Drama dice to cancel out the GM's activation. The GM can either let that go or reactivate the Hubris with another Drama dice, potentially causing a bidding war between GM and Player. Usually the GM has more dice, but at the same time more people to spend his dice on. So even though the GM could "bully" a player into having to play one of his Hubris(es?), he has to balance which ones he wants to use for which player. Conversely, the Player may spend a Drama dice to activate the Hubris of an NPC. For example, Lulu is trying to bribe her way past a couple of city guards into the rich district. ghost-angel decides that one of the guards is probably going to be greedy or have some other flaw. He spends a Drama die to activate it. The GM decides that the small squad of guards is, for this purpose, one NPC. Lucky for Lulu, as a whole they have the Greedy Complication. She drops some coin in the hands of the leader and continues on her way to the much larger score at Lord Dumblemoth's manor. For more individual NPCs, such as the aforementioned Lord Dumblemoth, the PC has to know, by reputation or first hand knowledge what potential flaws the NPC has. Unlike PCs, NPCs cannot counter with their own Drama dice. One of the benefits of being a PC. Now, whether or not this has any bearing on our own game or how to implement it, I thought it was an interesting idea to toss out on the table.

Re: Tooling around in a ship Interesting. I tend to go for a more narrative style of play, but this could help me before the voyage begins.

Re: Anyone running any online games? Not sure. I have a crack team of coders working on this as we speak.

Re: Anyone running any online games? For Mac.... http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11385 For Linux and Windows..... http://lmwcs.com/rptools/wiki/Stack_Size

Re: Anyone running any online games? Something I changed in the way the attack macro works is causing the need for a large Stack size. When you start up for Thursday's game, set your stack size to 6 mb.