StGrimblefig

Re: "Your girlfriend works for VIPER!" Huh? It seems to me that for him to not know, she would have to have a more "behind-the-scenes" job with VIPER. I would think that it would be more difficult to keep it hidden if she were one of the basic shock troops. It would be kind of interesting if she worked in their IT department, or developing software for their payroll system.

Re: Deconstructing skill levels Are you applying this to all skills/levels, rather than just CSLs? If so, how do you account for the difference in single +1 cost between Characteristic-based skills (2pt/+1) and background skills (1pt/+1)? Or is this intended to show that the individual skill +1 costs are (or should be) obsolete? I agree that it is desirable to encourage and extend the Hero System's internal consistency via this kind of exercise. I don't know about gaining a "profound understanding," though.

Re: Not the Dark Age -- the Dork Age! I am surprised that they mention neither the "black costume" of Spidey (although it is still around and causing trouble), nor the utterly unlikeable Robin (that was so bad that the fans actually voted to have him killed).

Re: Overhauling mental powers If it is a sense, and doesn't cost END to use, does that mean that the telepath is always hearing the surface thoughts of everyone within a certain range? That would match the telepathy presented in some genre fiction (the "please turn it off -- WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT UP!!!" type of telepath). In my opinion, a sense that doesn't require END is always passively "receiving" (like normal hearing, in this case), and it is up to the person to filter out the noise. If the telepath must make a conscious effort to use the ability, and is not bothered by it otherwise, that implies to me that it should cost END. Or it should cost extra for the privilege of not costing END (i.e. a specific advantage on the ability). Making it a passive sense then more closely matches the PER analogy. You are trying to pick a specific person's thoughts from out of the background noise. Like trying to find Waldo in that kids book, or following just the Oboes in an orchestra concert. I might even go so far as to suggest making it a separate Telepathy skill, that starts out like a PER roll (9+(INT/5) ), but is improved separately. To go beyond surface thoughts is a different matter, and would require something like your opposed roll(s) or some form of mental combat. I like the idea of schir's mental combat values, but to make it more analogous to physical combat, I would base both on INT, making INT the "mental DEX" and EGO the "mental STR." Then, digging beyond surface thoughts could be a mental combat between the attacker and defender. This really seems like an active ability, separate from passively hearing surface thoughts, however.

Re: Urban Fantasy Recommendations Now you've done it: Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (and sequels) Yes, it is mostly science fiction. But there was a leprechaun.

Re: Urban Fantasy Recommendations I don't suppose Isaac Asimov's Azazel stories count? They are pretty tightly focused on George (the mooch) and his pocket-sized demon friend, and played for humor, but they are still stories about a modern world where a guy has a demon doing things for him.

Re: New Guy On Board Welcome, Banditt! Always happy to see new talent joining the Hero fold.

Re: Urban Fantasy Recommendations And let's not forget Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury, along with probably a dozen or so short stories that escape me at the moment.

Re: Urban Fantasy Recommendations Nobody has yet mentioned the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony.

Re: Looking for recommendations for Power Armor information The 4th Ed book "High Tech Enemies," if you can find it, has several power armor builds. Although, scanning through it, all of the PAs in the book use the same "OIF, doesn't affect figured Characteristics" style of build. Still, there are a couple of interesting ones there.

Re: Suggestion Box: name our Teen Champions team ...or the Mongooses. That's a cool team name. (with apologies to Futurama)

Re: Shorthand for character personality? It sounds like you lifted that from GURPS.

Re: Shorthand for character personality? I looked over at Treasure Tables (http://www.treasuretables.org/) to see what I could find on NPC personalities and shorthand notation. I didn't come up with anything like what you proposed -- their articles and references seem more about adding more detail to NPC motivations, rather than boiling it down to a few easily-referenced stats. However, there was one article that gave me an interesting idea. It is a reference to a post on another site (http://www.abuliasavant.com/?p=172) that talked about associating color consistently with NPCs. I wonder if the color scheme you use for a NPC's motivation could be influencing that character's color choices? Using your example, the character would tend to prefer dark yellows and medium-bright reds in clothing and other color choices. Once the PCs start to "get it" this could be used to associate similar "motivations" to other things in the story. Just a thought that you might find interesting.

Re: Heroes Linderman (the gangster with the green thumb?) is also quite dead. There are a few scenarios by which Nathan could have survived, but the writers chose to leave it ambiguous. Like a good cliffhanger in a two-part comic book story. They get to reveal the results in the next issue (and, knowing these writers, they will draw it out for a couple of episodes). I find it quite interesting that the Heroes web site has a link to a "research foundation" site (headed by Hiro's father, no less) that has a series of short videos detailing the story of the original owner of Hiro's sword. Since Hiro found himself in exactly that time period at the end of the finale, I expect he will be spending some time there and have some influence upon that story before returning. Ando, on the other hand, has no idea what has happened to his friend. It will be interesting to see how he deals with this.

Re: Shorthand for character personality? Hmm... The Seven Deadly Sins combined with Myers-Briggs. Very interesting. How does this relate to the creation of Psych Lims for the character sheets? Or is this only for NPCs that you do not plan to make sheets for? I see no mention of fear or courage. Or is that adequately covered by the EGO stat (assuming you have a sheet for the NPC)? As for me, when I have GMed in the past, if a NPC was important enough to write anything down for, I would write out basic motivations in text form. If they were not that important, or an unplanned NPC encounter, I would wing it with a "generic" personality (nothing very extreme, mostly interested in self-preservation and the latest hot reality show).

Re: HEROic Werewolves (not WoD) Interesting ideas. I will have to read this comic when I get home. (just thinking out loud, bear with me) It sounds like there are two components that together cause Lycanthropy. Since most werewolves are born into it, there is some genetic component -- something that is passed down from parent to child via conception. For a thrall to be "created" via an exchange of "bodily fluids" there must be something other than DNA that can be passed from one person to another, to act as a catalyst. For a child born of a werewolf, both happen automatically. however, for an outsider, it is rare for a thrall to be created. It almost sounds like the thrall would have to have some minimum amount of werewolf genetic material in their DNA for the exchanged fluids to activate. Kind of like what the old-WoD Werewolf called a "kinfolk" (sorry, haven't read the new-WoD version, so I do not know if they have a similar concept). It would be interesting to learn if all birth-weres are born of were mothers (heh, weremothers), or if a normal mommy and a werewolf father (not going for that joke twice in a row) can also produce a little monster. It would make sense that children born of normal mothers would not automatically become werewolves, but would have the potential. That would also cause the werewolves to discourage such unions for the potential danger that they represent. I guess from a game perspective my first question would be, "what is the underlying goal of playing in this universe?" In the old-WoD, the Werewolves had a cause to champion, however futile it may have been. Ir is it just a kind of inverse survival horror, with hordes of normal people instead of zombies to avoid. Sorry if this is obvious from reading the comic -- as I said, I will look it up when I get home tonight. As an aside, I assume that werewolves generally do not drive, or they would be outed when one (or several) of them couldn't handle the frustrations of the license branch.

Re: Heroes Yeah, that is the sticky point. Perhaps he takes them back to his lair (apartment, whatever) to examine them? It wouldn't be good to be deep into examining the details of a brain's workings and have someone walk in on you. Realistically, I whole-heartedly believe that the writers never intend to reveal HOW Sylar does his thing; they may not even have decided themselves. For one, whatever it is, they would never be able to show it on TV anyway. And for another, it is much better for generating fan discussion.

Re: Cyber Hero Resources Just FYI (since you have question marks there), Shadowrun is now licensed to Catalyst Game Labs (http://www.catalystgamelabs.com/), and has an official web page at http://www.shadowrun4.com/ The interesting thing about the license change is that all of the people involved with the development of the game are still there -- they just are now employees of Catalyst rather than FanPro.

Re: Heroes You'll have to explain that to me. Better in what way? In my opinion, what they have done (leaving it unspecified what he does once he opens the head) is better, because it lets the viewer's imagination take over. And it lets people talk about it (i.e. argue about it) long after the show is over.

Re: Post-Apocolyptic Hero Campaign Idea: My first thought was that it sounded a little like the beginning of System Shock 2. Of course that gave me the idea that you could reveal the fate of the awake crew by having the PCs find a series of log entries from the crew members. Perhaps they are only cached on certain terminals because of system failures, or saved to disks that the PCs find, or even hastily scribbled on whatever paper is available just before some important (i.e. likely fatal) event occurs.

Re: Heroes Maybe the actor will ask for this, so that he can focus on being Spock.

Re: Heroes

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game FYI: I was looking for the latest update to CityBinder, when I discovered a little thing called HeroLCD that puts CoH information on the G15 LCD. Note that you have to be running HeroStats for it to work, though. This looks like a way to get the information from HeroStats, without having it take up any of the CoH play screen. Just though you would find it interesting.

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game I have not been able to live without my Nostromo™ SpeedPad n52 since I got it a couple of years ago. If I set it up properly, I hardly ever have to take my hands off the n52 and mouse (except to chat). For CoH, I set it up the main (unshifted) set to activate the things in the primary tray (showing tray 1), the red shift to do the secondary tray (showing tray 2), and the green shift to do the tertiary tray, then I use the red shifted wheel to cycle the tertiary tray through the available trays. It works well for me, even if it sounds confusing.

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game I have used CityBinder to get specific kinds of binds set up -- especially the ones that need multiple files created -- but I copy the base bind from the file that it creates to my character's bind file. It is quite useful for generating all of those little bind files, though.