AmadanNaBriona

Re: After The Magic What if it's Iron that made Magic go bad? Iron corrupts the energy, electromagnetism suppresses it? EDIT: Lest it seem like I'm claiming this as an original idea, it sure ain't. Good examples include Prachett's Lords & Ladies, Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides, and Ray Feist's Faerie Tale

Re: A Thread for Random Videos I almost broke one of my friendships winning with that gambit

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance I keep looking in on this thread and thinking about Pendragon. I don't recall having to roll for most of our emotional responses particularly limiting our Role playing, although it did mean that sometimes our characters acted in unexpected ways and we had to handle that on the fly. If anything, I found it tended to knock players somewhat out of their RP comfort zones, which often resulted in better roleplaying.

Re: Familiar group, wanna teach 'em Basic 6th first, for a Girl Genius campaign

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life. "Are you combining the dark chocolate mousse and the creme brule? That might cause a taste singularity that'd implode your head."

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life. I'm deeply in the red when it comes to my squee quotient, alas. Having fallen back into crazy reclusive artist mode doesn't help my socializing much, although it does up the mystique factor when I make a rare personal appearance

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life. "I underprice my work because, for the most part, when I price it at what it's worth, I don't like the people who can afford it. I try and set my prices so that the punk girls who I make go squee can afford to buy what I make."

Re: New Math suggests that Warp Drive may actually be possible D'oh. Right. That was kinda derpy of me

Re: New Math suggests that Warp Drive may actually be possible

Re: New Math suggests that Warp Drive may actually be possible It drops the power density requirements from "Impossible without a pet black hole" to something that we might be able to achieve with antimatter. It's really really groundbreaking and AWESOME news, but I doubt we'll see it in our lives unless we extend our lifespans. I expect we'll be able to take advantage of this discovery in about a century unless we go all Singularity, in which case we might solve all the technical problems pretty quickly. Then it's just down to actually building it and testing... but yeah... crazy exciting news, and not something I ever expected to hear

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Just found a rather good FMV for the song I was listening to...

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? one of the enduring theme songs of my life. Unfortunately, this seems to be my current leitmotif

Re: Stop Hits Of course, the RAW gives options for applying a DS to a focus hitting the DS rather than the focuses wielder, and Cap's shield is pretty much an Unbreakable Focus, so this build might not be needed, but it's a creative build nonetheless

Re: NBC Revolution Actually there are quite a few others as well. I looked at the map they have at Battery Chamberlain, and there are still quite a few scattered across the Presidio and Marin Headlands. My favorite is the 5" pop up model they have on display at Chamberlain. Yeah, I watched it. I was generally unimpressed, but I'll give it a chance. J.J. Abrams is kinda hit or miss with me. I hope he has a more coherent metaplot than he did for Lost... I gave up on it and have had a hell of a time motivating myself to finish watching it, despite the vast number of hours I've already logged. Uncle Drunken Badass amused me quite a bit, I confess. He's totally the kind of character I'd play. Everything did strike me as too clean as well. It just didn't really scream "We're 15 years after the Apocalypse" to me, and I really, really hope he gives us a semi-plausible explanation for the magic amulets (I know a plausible explanation for the magical internet is too much to ask)

Re: Stop Hits I've done a bit of this in training myself, and seen a wicked demonstration of what I think was a Kung Fu style (it looked very bear inspired, might have been an Animal style) where virtually every block was also a hard strike to a major muscle group or joint on the attacking limb. I think the Trigger option is going to be the most accurate depiction of this sort of stop-strike, whereas the armed combat version is more to slow an opponents advance or interrupt an attack, and I think that Defensive strike is a perfect model for that sort

Re: "Neat" Pictures 'You brought no food but how many boxes of bullets?"

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

Re: Cool Guns for your Games here, then http://www.mossberg.com/products/rifles/mossberg-464/mossberg-464-spx

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Ooooh, shiny. Tactical lever .30-30 http://www.slickguns.com/product/mossberg-464-spx-30-30-win-1625-barrel-400-shipped

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Re: 6E - Low Fantasy Hero - Game Balance Issues - Advice Requested Yeah, learned that right out the gate when we first tried out the playtest edition of FH at Dundracon. It was originally Champions style pay-points-for-everything, and got unwieldy quickly without firm GM hand on the reins. Indeed. To provide a non D&D example, my FH setting has basically 4 types of powers: (Raw) Magic: Chaos/Entropy/Change Does all the nifty magic stuff everyone thinks of as magic. Only works for people with entropy in their system. If you weren't born strange, you have to become strange to work this magic. It generally kills you, drives you crazy, mutates you, or otherwise makes you pay. Nasty Side Effects. Think Warhammer Magic, Lovecraftian and Moorcockian influences plain to see. Also somewhat inspired by the Magic of Recluse Chaos mages. Order Working: Not really magic. More like mystical anti-magic. Removing all the Chaos/Entropy from a given system and hardening it. Expensive points wise, generally persistent effects more like powers and can include enhanced stats. Come with some drawback limitations/disadvantages/Side Effects. A lot of the kinda Paladin/Monk powers fall under his heading, as do the natural abilities of some of the Elder Races. Very inspired by the Black Mages of Recluse Wild Magic: Nature has a way of balancing out the order and chaos in it's systems. It forms patterns which transform the entropy into energy. Tapping this natural energy is usually very, very, very dumb. And Fatal. But there are a couple of races native to my setting's world (Most of the races are transplants) that can do so, and every once in a while someone with the right stuff will figure out a way to ride the power for a while. Doesn't usually end well. Tamed Wild Magic: This is your land of miracles, rituals, gods, and the like. The Otherworld that overlays our own is far more susceptible to intangibles like belief and faith, and when intelligent minds start believing in things, they form intangible patterns in the otherworld that beginning channeling the raw magic in the world in given directions. besides the obvious Celtic legendary roots, I also draw pretty heavily on the Hero Plane from Glorantha for the way I envision the Otherworld. Generally, crating a link with an Otherworld source for controlling wild Magic requires either aforementioned natural affinity, or deliberately creating a false affinity by introducing Entropy deliberately by ritual. This can range from mostly harmless (A vow of chastity violates your nature, for example, and scars or tattoos can as well) to expedient, powerful, and often vile (insert any of the number of ways one could become Chaos ridden. Lots of ways to break a part of your mind, body or spirit). At one point in the not too distant past, during what passed for my Renaissance/Reformation, a bunch of rather serious philosopher types decided to prove that Gods were just false imaginations of men. They succeeded in creating any number of what were effectively Construct Gods, but discovered that once a God in the Otherworld was made manifest, it was no longer strictly tied to the belief of just it's worshipers, but also the other inhabitants of the Otherworld, and still wielded full access to their given suite of powers. A lack of worshipers, while hampering and greatly reducing their spheres of influence, did not in fact exterminate them. And wiping out a God's followers makes them really cranky, and likely to try and create a new generation of followers by coming and giving a nice personal show for the survivors to talk about for a few generations after raining down molten sulfur from the skies. Not a lot of the Constructs survived the Apocalyptic war that followed, but a few still lurk in secluded spots, most notably the Spirit Forges, which were sort of like Unbeliever munitions factories. They still are capable of manifesting a number of interesting disposable wondrous weapons, but generally require some kind of sacrifice in return, life force being the preferred coin. (stolen lock, stock, and barrel from Legacy of Kain, because I thought they were awesome). That whole bit of background grew out of the possible ramifications of that last magic style. And so it goes... just thought a quick example without any grit might help spark ideas.

Re: 6E - Low Fantasy Hero - Game Balance Issues - Advice Requested

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Yeah, Pratchett reads aloud brilliantly! I've read Hogfather and Wee Free Men as bedtime stories.

Re: How do you Hero GMs prepare for new campaigns? I just deleted a big response. Let me 'splain. No, is too much, let me sum up. Player Packets are golden, Cliffs notes are just the right speed. Give your players a bit of homework, an email to explain how they mesh with the setting packet you gave them. Then you can design personalized info-dumps for them based on the characters they built, throw them a lot of plot hooks while you show off your loving world-crafting skills, and roll the rest under the "This is something you should know..." bit as the situations arise. BTW, if you want to see how I freestyle brainstorm a setting check my blog. I also have a semi-serious write up of myself in what I consider the Surbrook style, drawn heavily from the Character examples on Surbrooks Stuff. I find the personalized descriptions and quotes attached to the various abilities makes it a LOT easier to keep a coherent overall character design, and often makes Hero style Reasoning from Effect a lot easier by giving you a target goal for your mechanical builds to reach

Re: How do you Hero GMs prepare for new campaigns? One thing I've seen Susano post about his campaigns is his use of Tropes to identify the game elements and get everyone on the same page. I think this is absolutely bloody brilliant, and can and should be used in conjunction with self identification from Roleplayer Type list in a freestyle brainstorming session with your players, if you're having issues coming up with direction. Take your direction from the gestalt. Done right it gives you a solid handle on what each player wants to have in the game, and a list of elements you can use to build such. maybe we can get Susano to chime in with some advice or exampleage... Hey Mike?