lapsedgamer

Re: A Thread for Random Videos This was as sad as it was funny. 1) Why in the world would you let a game bother you to the point where your voice got that high. 2) What prevents you from just logging off and coming back when this troll is not around or just switching to another server. 3) You could always just read a book instead or something.

Re: Foods for those that just don't care anymore Turnip and collard greens are great when made just right. That usually means that there's part of a pig in the pot when they are cooking. I've seen some healthy recipes that seem like they might be good, but I'm a traditionalist with it comes to soul food. Spinach is great raw. I've only had chard once, and it was OK. I had this great Caesar salad the other day that was made with kale instead of lettuce. It was awesome. Come to think of it, I really like kale.

Re: Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains when will it be on the shelf? True. How much longer can anyone earn a living in pen and paper gaming. The economy being what it is, and the industry being what it is.

Re: Half Human/Half Snake Character I have an extra limb with Stretching, and it wishes I could manipulate fine things. *rimshot* Thank you. I'll be here all week. Come see me at the Laugh Factory in October. I apologize, and I swear never to do it again, but I couldn't resist.

Re: What do you think of supervillain teams? There is nothing about the CU teams that is completely inconsistent with what DC and Marvel shows in their books. The Brain Trust is almost an exact rip-off of the Brotherhood of Evil, though I don't like some of the write-ups. The Ultimate are a variation on the Frightful Four. Come on, Binder...Trapster. Actually, he's probably closer to an amalgam of Trapster and the Wizard, but you get the point. I will agree that the CU teams show more consistency in membership and longevity than most of the comic books villain teams, but that's easy to change in your own games, so I don't consider it an issue. The published stuff is designed to make it easier for the GM to put something together. It is sometimes helpful to be able to just pull out five or six balanced and matched characters to oppose your players if you didn't have to come up something on your own that week. However, how the dynamics of the teams play out in the long run is up to the GM and to some extent the players.

Re: Questions about the Champions 6E core rules book Champions is the Hero System's flagship line. I don't see any problem with making that book fully functional on it's own and not the others. Of course, I'm assuming that they are not more concerned with selling the two-volume rules set than Champions. I may be prejudiced, as I don't use Hero for anything other than Champions play anymore.

Re: What do you think of supervillain teams? Those are all excellent examples. The point about a good team is that it makes sense. When villains have a motivation for joing forces and remaining together, the team makes sense. If they have some sort of connection outside of crime it is even more interesting. By the way a couple of them are stolen. Rep to you. Look, in the real world we have had Bonnie and Clyde, The Dalton Gang, even all the way up to the Crips and the Bloods. Sometimes you need more manpower to get everything together.

Re: Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains when will it be on the shelf?

Re: Questions about the Champions 6E core rules book In both of the last editions, I felt that DOJ missed the boat by not having a copy of the basic rulebook in the Champions book, as the previous owners did in 4th Edition. That being said, your players only need to invest in the basic rulebook to be savvy enough to play. Most of the stuff in the Champions genre book is more helpful to GMs, with the exception of the quick character generation templates, and your players really shouldn't be turned loose to generate characters without the GM if they are that new to the system. To GM the game long term, you really need both full rules books and the genre book, possibly Champions Universe and Champions Powers. Of the lot, Champions Universe is the easiest to avoid buying.

Re: Why do people post power costs on their character sheets? Having seen some of the convention formats, I actually like them. It makes sense on a casual use basis to have a clean, uncluttered sheet, especially for new players. I think the problem is that the game has just become much more complex over the years. When I started playing this game in 1983 or so, I regularly did up entire characters on 5x8 index cards, front and back (without the backgrounds). I had a plastic recipe file I stole from my mom to keep them in when I was GMing. If a character was really complex, you might need a sheet of yellow legal paper or a couple of cards, but most did not. It didn't matter because a lot of the options we have in character generation now simply did not exist. Heck, there were only like ten skills in the whole game. Nowadays, I would have to look at the person I was working with to figure out if they needed, or wanted to look at, all those numbers. You know, the character sheets are a turn off to some new players. I have heard Champions called the Star Fleet Battles of supers games more than once. When dealing with totally new or inexperienced players the question would be, "As a GM, could I turn this guy loose in a game with a modest VPP and not want to slit my wrists?" If they know the rules well enough to handle something like that on the fly, they won't be bothered by the numbers. So I kind of agree with Doc D. Maybe there should be a working copy of the sheet and a full math version for the GM for many situations.

Re: Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains when will it be on the shelf? I agree wholeheartedly.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? History is a lot more fluid concept than most people want to admit, or even think about. A lot of people that we lionize have a lot of dirt in their backgrounds.

Re: Foods for those that just don't care anymore Dude, if greens cooking gets to you, I can't imagine how you respond when someone is cooking chitterlings (or chitlins if you aren't being all seditty). Greens I'll eat by the bushel, especially if my grandma made them. You can't get me anywhere near chitterlings, which smell just like what was once inside them when cooking. For the uninitiated, they are pig's intestines. Here, read the prominent food safety warning in this article if you really want to put off them forever. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitterlings

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Booth at the End is a triumph of writing over budgetary considerations. Very clever, and it really holds your attention despite the limitations imposed by the set-up. Starlost was kind of cool for what it was, if quite dated. Still, I enjoyed a great sense of nostalgia when looking at the way they handled the effects and costuming. Sometimes I miss models filmed on blue screen and little miniature cities.

Re: Champions Villains, Volume 3: Solo Villains I am waiting for the hardcopy. It will give me a complete 6th edition set. I have owned every edition of Champions since the second. I have a lot of 5th Edition stuff in PDF, but it's just not the same.

Re: Else Earth: Schreckensherrshaft ( The Reign of Terror) aka Terror Inc. I immediately think of Max Schreck, the actor who played the actor in the silent film Nosferatu. He has the look for your master villain, without the makeup, and the name is apropos. Nice write-ups. Rep to you.

Re: "Neat" Pictures I suspect that she is cold.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: Gravity Nullification

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? It's just that with an infinite number of Elizas available it becomes possible that one of them would actually date me. It boggles the mind.

Re: Gravity Nullification Limited form of STR or TK is probably the easiest way to do it. Otherwise, you are looking at a Transform. Gravitar has something similar on her write-up IIRC. You can crib from there.

Re: Percy Jackson and the Olympians I don't know. In a modern or near future setting, the severely ADD or dyslexic character should not be able to have certain skills at a high level of proficiency, or have to pay some extreme sort of premium. Being illiterate alone in our society is such a disadvantage that I would expect it to be valued at about 10 points. Add onto that the inability to learn at all, and I would say 15 points is about right. In a fantasy game, maybe not so much.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? I know there is a genuine question in there somewhere , but I'm still fixated on the concept of infinite Elizas.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: Conan: The Current Movie in Progress..... Isn't it also possible that the movie isn't any good? The reviews are universally poor from what I've seen, taking Ebert into consideration or not. We geeks have to stop accepting crappy movies if we want the standards to rise. The fact that we will go to see anything just to get a fix is the reason why we are soon to be treated to another horrible Underworld movie, which will probably be followed by another Resident Evil POS.