AmadanNaBriona

Re: Spell Casters are Lucky, not Skilled it occurred to me that Luck is a frequently used to portray pacts with supernatural entities. This dovetails in quite well I'd think. The Apprentice sees the Master cast spell. He learns the rites. If he attempts them, he probably fails and dies horribly, unless he's lucky to start with. Once he's completed his apprenticeship he gets to find a patron spirit/demon/daemon/djinn to make him lucky enough to dabble in magic with some confidence. Even then, anything based on luck is quite perilous if you require massive Side Effects and don't use HAPs. Keeping the luck at manageable levels (I'd say 8d6 max, for your Evil High Priest Miracle Worker types) would probably go a long way too.

Re: Black Powder Arms in the Hero System. Gun Nuts and reenactors welcome! I've got a LOT of suggestions up on this general topic over the years. Count me in

Re: Spell Casters are Lucky, not Skilled (Note: speaking from a 5th frame of reference here, so adjust accordingly) Seems to me this is a perfect use for the RSR option based on Luck "Requires Luck Roll?", possibly in a compound RSR also requiring a successful KS. To successfully cast a spell, you'd HAVE to have luck, or you'd automatically trigger the side effects and fail even if you had the skill.

Re: Mars Colony? Like the kind of BOOM you hear with 800 sequential bombs going off in a big chain?

Re: John Carter (of Mars) Trailer Madness? This is BARSOOM! *Boots Mouse into hole* now I feel better too edit: Hmm, wonder if I can get the scanner working...

Re: John Carter (of Mars) Trailer that was pretty much how I took it when I was researching for my illustrations for our Barsoom campaign. Loincloths, drapings, pouches and other decorative or supportive gear always pretty much attached to the harness. Harness quality shows in materials, design and decoration. I'm pretty sure the many, many harness ideas I played around with were the under-foundations of what would later become my main product line

Re: Krim The Winged Prisoner, He Of Many Crowns. the term "now" is very four dimensional of you.

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life. Last night, rewatching Repo, The Genetic Opera, I reached for my ashtray and realized it was on the keyboard shelf of my gf's computer. She had her legs propped up, so the clearest path to grab it was through the gap in her legs. I wormed my arm in and scooped it up. She made exaggerated happy noises as I slipped it out deftly, then purred if it was good for me too. I paused a second and replied... "Just taking the path of least resistance"

Re: A Thread for Random Musings I got profiled again today. Heading through downtown, I watched as the cop I passed did a u-turn and came back around to chaeck me out. What a surprise. When I decided I wasn't gonna fit in the easily available parking space, I pulled out and circled the block to get parking alongside the side street to the corner store (getting road supplies before to driving up to Grandma's, y'know). He followed me, nice and slow, staying back at intersections watching me. He drove off when I parked. So, I fumed for a couple of hours while I drove, dreaming of how I'd respond if I was a supervillain. I have been known to consider myself a bad man. Then I met Lynn, my g/f's maternal grandmother. Her old hippie dyke grandmother. Who, over the course of the next two hours announced that she thought I was the second coming of someone.... Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, Gandhi... It was kinda a weird feeling. The last time someone put me in such lofty company they also included Hitler and Satan. Yeah, I was socially Godwin'ed

Re: The cranky thread Tried that. It sucks

Re: A galaxy of humans

Re: Steam punk genre The Widening Gyre sounds pretty steampunk from what I've read Edit: Scratch that it is steampunk

Re: A galaxy of humans I suddenly got this image of a colony planet whose colonists consist entirely of re-enactors. The Ren Folk & ECW get one continent, the SCA another and the Age of Sail/Revolutionary War/Buckskinner folks get a third. Heh. Either everyone'd get along fairly well, or ideological differences would lead to genocidal wars

Re: The cranky thread my lass may have a serious reproductive system problem, according to Planned Parenthood. Apparently, they can't/don't do ultrasounds. Now we have to figure out how to cover a hospital visit, on my way less than poverty line income (with no insurance). Last time she had to go to the hospital they denied her every kind of aid because I earn "too much". This is how reasonable people end up becoming terrorists.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? my handfast lassie reading the logic puzzles from The Lady and the Tiger aloud to herself

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ? As a sidetrack/tangent: In a realistic Heroic setting, I've thought about allowing some STR to add DC's to bows (overdrawing the bow) but it'd add a Jammed (bow breaks) to the shot (probably following the 14-/11-/8- model, per DC/+5 Str) with an associated Side Effects (getting smacked by the broken bowstaves).

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Re: A Thread for Random Videos The Law of Unintended Consequences is biting society on it's collective butt. If you wipe out the middle class, some very smart people are going to get angry the Age of the Super-villain is upon us http://www.worlddominationtoys.com/drsteel/enter.html

Re: Magic systems based on science? The Magic of Recluse Series has something like this in it's origins as well, going back to a lost colony rediscovered by a misjumping warship. Those who had been exposed to the hypernet control systems on board star-ships found that there was some kind of native energy field (from the trees of the planet, turns out) they could manipulate in the same way they could manipulate the ship systems. And so could their descendants.

Re: Musings on Random Musings The one on my kitchen wall has a dial. pretty sure its a pre-1960 model

Re: John Carter (of Mars) Trailer 'Struth. As it looks like they're looking for something that could take over the audience they hooked with the PotC movies. They know they've got a huge body of work they could milk for a BUNCH of canon films, with built in breakpoints where the leading man changes which will save them in contract talks. There are potentially great rewards for making this not suck.

Re: Ok GM's weigh in. We've been talking players CvK...how do you handle these things I see total CVK's to be a genre trope, primarily. It works well with the vanilla ruleset because the original Champions rules were designed to mimic this particular genre, coming from the late Silver/early Bronze view of comics in 1980. I generally dislike CVK's because I'm not fond of the Silver Age or it's sensibilities, being the result of what was left to the Comics after the repression and censorship of the McCarthy era. I can cope with CVK's in a bronze game where there are logical consequences to such an extreme POV, but even there I prefer lower levels than Total. The "Kill or let the world be destroyed" example is just one of the many possible paradoxes a total CVK can find themselves in, and the "logic" applied to these beliefs are usually full of contradictions. I guess, in summary, I see many if not most Total psych's as something close to irrational/aberrant mental states, as they can over-ride the brains survival imperative, which is usually the sign of something that has it's roots in a place of fear. Fear of being labeled a monster, fear of the damage you can do, fear of what killing will let you become... I've seen all these in bronze treatments of Supes & Bats. They are, IMO, a valid way to approach a CVK realistically, but the conditions to create such an abberant state should make those characters with CVKs noteworthy rather than commonjplace. My Champs games are usually pretty close to Orion's methods above

Re: A Thread for Random Musings One thing leads to another... my Golden Submarine build led to a revelation today. A lightbulb went off over my head as I realized the implications of the proofs I created for the submarine. I can now build a push button automated battle arena, with the ability to summon monsters and/or victims and force them to fight Buhahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!! *eg*

Re: Musings on Random Musings I don't think I have the appropriate software on my box for video capture, but I should be able to come up with some screencaps

Re: A Thread for Random Musings I kinda feel like I just reached some intangible personal goal. I spent the day building a Nautilus style Golden Submarine in Minecraft Complete with working airlocks, pressure hatches, gun-decks, airship landing pad, impellers, and running lights. Not to mention, of course, the very posh captains cabin. And the docking platform, with the powered rail system running in a glass tunnel beneath the sea floor. Had to do SOMEthing with all those spare resources I had lying around, and now I'm one step closer to achieving my Skullcrusher Mountain dreams...