BcAugust

Re: WWYCD: The Orb

Cyrande would likely be called on to investigate what the alien artifact is. Surprisingly, she would have a fairly good chance to recognize what the artifact does. And when she does... Well, she'll wonder who made it. (Malva in our world having full immersion Holodecks, tazz, and thought reading AIs, this kind of stuff is hardly new to her.)

Nox would hardly be called in on her own, though her powers would be helpful for an evac. However, if Diomedes is there, and this does so... Well, the question is whether the unconscious desires would be Nox's... or Shadowstrike(evil spirit she's possessed by).

Artemis is surprisingly the most likely to find it, in her world(Hey, full life support, likes to explore, and can shapeshift to anything to survive down there) Of course, given our group, it's likely to end up a time traveling trap... *sighs* Ah, Tuesday.

Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening.

To note, the original theme was posted, Pendaren posted it in his own words. And he does have a sense of humor, as anyone whose read more then just his posts here.

But considering the posts lately used against people lately have stripped me of patience, they've likely done the same to his sense of humor. Perhaps if the people responding to threads would do less "You are a munchkin" whenever someone comes up with something different then what they expected. Given that two of my major characters can survive nukes, I hate being told what they can't do. I can tell you that myself. And quite frankly, I'm a vampire gm, I can come up with tons of no win situations on my own, thank you. I can recognize them quite fine, thank you.

Re: WWYCD: So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish...

Microman II: Would be at a loss to come up with an explanation, as while it sounds like the kind of thing that would result from a villainous plot of dubious sanity, the scale seems beyond the norm. If there isn't some greater menace afoot at the moment, he'd probably see if anyone he knows has contacts with Atlantis, for further info.

 

On being told they all just flew away into space. . . ". . . so how come thousands of dolphins died caught in fishing nets?"

 

Hermes: Wouldn't likely even notice for years, and thats assuming anyone would actually realize that no more dolphins hanging around ships was more than just an ill omen. Hermes himself certainly wouldn't spot it.

 

( this is assuming that the flying spacen dolphins didn't get noticed on the way up, but I'm assuming they are reasonably stealthy, otherwise, they'd get automatically spotted in the modern scenarios, too )

Artemis: "See, this is another way human gods don't pay any attention to my domain." *sighs, goes to talk to all the creatures, especially whales to figure out what happened.

Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening.

This doesn't really sound much more far fetched than half the 'realistic choices' WWYCDs people post. It's gotten to the point where too many are just "Do this obvious choice." that it's weakened the concept to mere political and iron age comments on superheros.

Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening.

I'm reminded of the solution Jonathen Swift made to the Irish problem. Though I do have to admit, it needed more buildup.

(Note, for those who haven't read it, it basically takes the "solutions" the English were talking about the Irish problem, and taking it a tiny step further into cannibilism. Simile exists.)

Re: The Ultimate WWYCD: Ninja or Pirate!

Cyrande: Pirate, of course. who ever heard of a Ninja Queen? Flamboyant, showy, having fun sailing the skies and seas.

Nox: Ninja, of course(Please, shadowmagic and martial arts?). A good Ninja, only going sneakly after the bad guys.

Artemis: Lets see, she's a scout, loves changing into small forms to fight, can sneak in almost anywere, and packs more punch then it appears. Poor Thera, she's a ninja again.

Amusingly enough, each team split exactly up the middle.

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

Hmm... interesting. My experience with CvKs has been limited.(I had one character with no CvK, one with total, one at strong,and my current has a zero point reluctent)

I don't think people with totals should be penalized for having only non lethal attacks. Heck, I would look very, very askew at a Total CvK having an overtly lethal attack.

Of course, I also think most heros should be, at most, Strong CvK. Total CvKers are fanatics about it. And that should be obvious. Heck, my total CvKer nearly had a breakdown about members of her team killing Nazis, in a WWII situation.

However, I don't know that having no CvK makes it any better on a team. A mixture can be good, but it can be an explosive one with lots of infighting if the gm isn't careful. One or two people may have to leave, or change drastically if it goes wrong.

Re: [Online Game]New 'Marvel: Next Generation' game

I'd say just short of common.

 

Sure, if you're reading Doctor Strange, then it's super-common... But elsewhere it only pops up every now and again. Of all the Avengers, how many had powers based solely on magic? According to Avengers Forever web site about 2% (both fairly weak; Scarlet Witch & Doctor Druid).

 

Of course, magic items are available enough... but that's just an easy explanation for powers... Also, I didn't count anything divine, which seems to be a Marvel favorite.

 

For the longest time Wanda was referred too much more as a mutant than a sorceress. The X-Men rarely deal with magic and when they do its origins are often from other dimensions.

 

Of all Marvel's titles the Defenders dealt with magic the most... But everyone else, not so much.

 

Just my perspective based on allot of comicbook reading. Of course, I haven't read everything.

 

I thought it was made pretty clear in JLA/Avengers where it was clearly stated that magic in the DC universe was much stronger than magic in the Marvel universe.

 

Let's just ask ourselves how Dr. Fate would fare against Magneto or Dr. Doom...

 

Who knows... It's a matter of perspective.

Hmm, I wouldn't so much say uncommon as.. quiet. I mean, heck, at least two of the Avenger's foes are heavy magic(Morgan Le Fay and Cthon, with Set being an honorary contender), and *coughs* I certainly count Thor in the "magic" user catagory, along with Black Knight. Or, any of the Midnight Sons stuff or Hellstorm. Heck, even Agatha Harkness... which just gave me an idea for a character, but I won't post it. Hmmm.

There's a lot of magic, it's just most of Marvel's magic seems to be items, gods or supernaturals, not spell wielders.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

I just finished all 7 volumes of the Dresden Files that are out in paperback. A friend lent them to me. Much more interesting than the Anita Blake books.

Hmm, I read the first one and liked it... but I got badly burned on the Anita Blake stuff.(Seriously, her first few books were interesting and good, then...)

So, can I ask how badly they "level up" the main character? Or does he stay a real person throughout. I know it sounds silly, but... don't want to get burned again.

Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/...

... Well, shucks. I only bought a couple of books for the old WOD (eg, the were-rat book), and none so far for the new one. Now I'm torn between asking you for more details, and wanting to keep using my own imagination...

 

... Oh, heck, I've viewed so much fiction my imagination is completely comprimised anyway - feel free to offer any references you like.

Not much details. Basically, they're the new Spider spirits(2.0 has only werewolves as were creatures now), that when they slip through the cracks in the world, take on Spider form. If they can find a human sleeping, who is weak enough and small enough, they coccon them at night, then climb in, starting to eat the brain, becoming grossly fat and taking it over...

As they eat more and more of the body, they start taking on spider traits on the outside. Plus, since their main "goal" is more, they try and capture other people to do this too, using the body. Foolish ones use force, elder ones... well, you can imagine if you were the spirit of Spider what webs you could weave.

Re: Boogiemen that are actually /scary/...

I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that Coraline is mainly spider-free' date=' and entirely boy-eating-spider-free - that's just something I came up with, and am deciding whether to work out some more details or not. (Of course, first I'd have to figure out what sort of /universe/ would allow the basic premise...)[/quote']

 

*coughs* Actually, the WOD has human eating spiders who change into what they ate. Or at least the 2.0 one does.

 

Hmm, on the main question...I've never done specifically childhood fears, but WOD I had a couple of moments, mainly by being very careful with my descriptions. Make the world... well, slightly off, not obvious, but use words that sound slightly off for how you'd describe things in the normal universe.

Re: Yet ANOTHER WWYCD: Against your team

Wow, interesting one.

Cyrande: Never actually played this out, but...Warmaster Fielan(mentalist), she's toast against(No MD). Everyone else, she has a small(Horus, Starguard) to very good chance against(Warp, Microman). Then again, it's very unlikely anyone on the team besides Cyrande would be so easily controled to go after the rest. (In case you need the small print, Cyrande's main powers are a 180pt VPP of Quantum Powers, Armor 30/30, a Quantum sense(which would be a nasty surprise to Warp, given she can sense him, his ports and stop them while still being able to blast him) And about 15 pts in MA skills. Then again, her last build was at 800 pts)

Nox: Ok, given that the rest of the team just faced her evil self, and that everyone's been prepping for that... given the conditions, most of them are still toast. She'd seperate them, the Diomedes would be the one Nox would take out first(Least Armor, tactician, plus can build something to hurt her), Perigrine next(Darkness field, entangle, then just a plain beatdown), and Mallable Man(basic beatdown.) Then, she'd try and run Valor ragged, see if she could get an entangle to stick and shadowbolt him down, running if she gets too low on End.) (What can I say. Shadowmage, with desolid, darkness, entangles, Clarivoince and teleportation, with an MAs dex and the third best armor in the group. There's a reason evil me can take on the team.)

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

I still prefer the two novels that make up Cordelia's Honor. As much as some may consider Cordelia a Mary Sue' date=' there is just something about her that appeals to me. Of course, I may just like Mary Sues.[/quote']

 

ooo. I like them a lot too(Cordelia reminds me of my mother, actually), and the quotable lines in there are great. I just think Chaldin is a better novel, though it's completely up to taste at this point. Heck, I'd make a vote for Memory or A Civil Campaign being almost as good.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold, a very good standard fantasy novel. Has a bit of a political slant to it, but most of her novels do.

 

Caz is a very interesting character. There is a potential for him to remind you uncomfortably of Miles at the beginning (a certain amount of superficial similarity), but very quickly it becomes clear this is not Miles.

Oh, yeah. I actually think this is one of my favorite books by her, though I reread Paladin of Souls more often(Avoid Wild Hunt like the plague. The first outright bad book I've seen from her.) Though, I found it disturbing, which is one reason I don't reread it often. It's much more viscerial then the Miles' books.

Re: How important is presentation...

Hmm, I would have told both of them to go back to the drawing board. Or more likely, sat down and found out why they wanted to play "that." Quite frankly, both of those descriptions made my head hurt.

Oh, and I can see why the GM wouldn't think the first one "clicked." It feels very jumbled, as if the person is just adding stuff to make his character "cooler". The second... well, like it or not, Superman is an easily grasped archetype for the game. It's not simplier, but it feels simplier. That might be what your gm meant. Sadly, when you're gming, you tend to want simple starts, the players add more then enough complications on their own.

Re: WWYCD: The rest of the world's Supers just changed sex.

Cyrande: Doesn't bug her especially. Admittedly, it would very much bother her teammates. Then again, given how much the gender relationships change on Earth... (Cyrande is from Malva. Gender is mostly a preference. And she's already noted in background as culturally bisexual.) Though I can just imagine how Sunguard and Isis are going to take the fact that Cyrande would still be flirting with Isis.

Nox- "Just, please, please, tell me you all aren't evil me's harem. I don't want to think of my teammates like that. And how the heck did Shadowstrike possess him when she can only possess females?" A short pause, blush "oh." (The rest of Aegis are male. It looks very different when it's four girls and one guy and the guy is a darkness mage/martial artist.)

Lightshow- "Um, I was a guy? I know the light's kind of blinding, but I didn't think it was... Oh, god." Embaressed look at Kolabrandr and Banner "Um, I come in peace? Or what the hell are you supposed to say? I know Captain America would know...oh, geeze." Looks up at the sky "I want to go home."

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

I suppose I should list one of the bad ones. Guardian of the Balance, by Irene Radford. It's supossed to be a "desendents of Merlin" type of story... and while technically, it is, it doesn't work well at all.

Starting with the overly gratiutious sex scenes(Yes, I know how that sounds, but when the book opens with one even before we know the characters), basically makes Merlin an idiot, user, and an almost general bad guy, I'm not impressed. And trying to make this book insultingly "girl power" is even worse. Nothing happens unless Merlin or one of the females is making it happen. Though, it delights in raping and abusing the female characters. Arthur is treated like an idiot(Which, by the one, is not Uther's son. The person speculates that Merlin was keeping a lot of boys on the string to pick which one would become King), that the best knights were his childhood friends, and various other twistings. And despite all that, it couldn't even hold my interest for more then a few pages.

In other words, avoid.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

I slapped some ofuda on the wounds and sealed them. useful things' date=' [i']ofuda[/i]. And yes, Christopher Masakai Jones is pure death on wheels in that game. My body count is several kumo (spiders), two nezu (rat) assassins/ninja, three bakemono, and... two(?) gaki (hungry ghosts). And as a shih he has no money, so I keep swiping cash from my kills. This has lead to scenes of my renting a room at a love motel so I can get a bath and a few hours of sleep, stealing bottles of saki and jars of picked ginger from the back of a restaurant, and other equally whacked bits.

... I once ran a game of Demon Hunter X. Never got to play...And the shih are my favorite WW group, bar none. Your's sounds like a great game.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

*whimpers* Oh, I am so envious....

The Neon Labyrinth is a HERO adaption of White Wolf's World of Darkness. It's set in Tokyo and the heroes are fighting an attempt by the demon king Mikiboshi to enter our world and make Tokyo into the "Wicked City."

 

In the last session we ran across four WOD bakemono, people possessed by evil spirits and consumed by them. One was large and lumpy and looked like John Merrick (the Elephant Man), another had a long (very long) jaw and couldn't speak, another was small, thin, skittish, and giggled non-stop. The last guy had, and I quote: "genitalia consisting of an eyeless serpentine thing flanked by dark green tentacles."

 

The four were attacking a woman, so my character (Devil Hunter Jones) jumped in and started cutting them down. Exotic genitalia guy managed some sort of mental attack on me described as "fingers in the brain" -- leading to the term listed. Of course, the worst part was when hornets started issuing from all of his wounds....

Re: [interest in an online game?] Avengers: Generation 3

Well, reply to my PM.

Honestly, I'm slightly wondering if I should have put the force wall power in now. I don't mind spending my first action sheilding people, but it may be more then that... or at least, spend some of that saved xp to take concentration off it. It does free up some of the rest of the team, but I'd like to fight too... and keeping that up long means I cant. Or actually... I need a better Rec. Hmm... *takes more notes*

Re: WWYCD - a deal with the devil

...I really, really hope this isn't someone pulling a trick.

Nox wouldn't even listen. She already accidently made one deal with a devil(She was dying, someone offered to help her... she later found out it's an evil spirit trying to come back into the world through her.)

Cyrande, on the other hand.... Ok, one, she's a Malvan princess, she's watched what would be worse then the most horrendous atrocities on Earth as court entertainment. So if it's a "human" devil, she's likely laugh in his face. Humans, evil? Oh, of course some are, but the race is fairly close to angels from her persective. And if it's someone showing up as a "Malvan" devil.... congratulations, you just called all her team in, as either it's a King of Edom or a Elder Worm. And Cyrande's reaction to that, is well "Die now, foul being, before you can spread your foulness any further." to the worm, and if it's a King of Edom... well, that's what Malvan battlefleets are for.

Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001

Cyrande is an alien princess who would consider it a "nice gesture*" to stop the planes. And she is quite capable of doing so(She's got a 180pt No Endurance Quantum Power VPP). Afterwards, she'd likely try and use her celebrity to focus on her first objective, seeing if humanity can be "uplifted" to the stars. In fact, this world makes a better subject then the Champions one....

*IE, she's doing it because the very idea pisses her off, but she comes from a world with no heros. So, she uses her old vocabulary.

Nox, on the other hand, plays hell with the terrorists. Blackouts the Boston Airport, turns the terrorists over to the cops babbling everything they know.(*coughs* 60+ Presence for Intimidation), then nearly killing herself porting to the other airports, which she likely would have called in bomb threats while she was in boston waiting. And if she was late... well, she can't do anything while the planes are in the air, but hope. In all likelyhood, would go into hiding after this, waiting for the rest of Aegis to show up, and tries to figure things out in this strange future world.(She's from 1993. Plus, Nox and Sherry(her human form) are completely different, other then both being female.) If they don't... Sherry will live the rest of her life out, just trying to make a difference. That's what heroes do.

Re: WWYCD: The Vanishing!!!??!!!

Cyrande would sigh, turn to the rest of the team, and go "I'm sorry, Father must have been a little more interested then I thought. I'll go see what he did." (Hey, when you're the Crown Princess of Malva, you expect your father to pull stunts like this.) If it wasn't him... then it would get interesting.

Nox would be... stunned(By the way, Nox is set a year after Detriot got destroyed) First thing she'd think is a supervillian or master mage got carried away with a plan. She'd try and use her Postcognition to "see" what happened. Then she and her team would go from there.(Surprisingly, her team would scale up well to higher levels, if needed.)

Re: WWYCD: "Dude, you stole my shtick!"

Cyrande would be furiuos, looking to kill the person in the shortest time possible. Who would dare claim the name and position of the Crown Princess of Malva?

Nox would probably go and check them out. *shrugs* her name is hardly origional, after all, and she'd enjoy meeting another darkness manipulator. If they're a villian though... well, that's what teams are for.

Re: WWYCD: Flipside

eek

Crown Princess Cyrande would go from being a paranoid, but decent person to someone who's open about herself, hates Malva and says so, and has the moral sense of Paris Hilton. Oh, and if Flipside is handsome, he's getting bedded... unless Horus is there, in which case he's the one getting dragged off.

Nox... I feel sorry for Flipside. And sorry for anyone else around. (20pt Code vs Killing, 15pt Believes Good will win, and a few others that support it) Reverse all of those... and Nox becomes a villian who truly supports evil for it's own sake, for about 6 or so days before her possessor takes her over.(And given Nox is a Shadowmage/MA, with Desoliod, teleportation, and a whole host of other darkness tricks, it's going to be very tough to stop her.)