Jhaierr

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Alive, Da Buzz

I've been reading The Mystic World quite a bit in preparation for my upcoming mystic superhero campaign, and one thing seems to confuse me a bit: Can a mystic only reach the planes within Yetzirah, Briah, and Atziluth using astral travel (i.e., in an astral form)? At first read, it appears the answer is "yes"... but then I encounter other places in the text that seem to indicate that you can physically travel to these planes. (I wish I could ask the author of the book, actually. I'm trying to determine his original intent, and I'm curious if anyone else has any interpretations.) Interpretation #1: All planes that are not a plane like the "material world" (Malkuth) can only be accessed using an astral form and leaving your body behind. I don't think this is correct. This would limit travel to any of the weirder realms to a 24-hour period (because of astral form limitations), plus you'd never get to bring any magical items there. Enter just one place in Faerie where time passes incredibly slowly, and your body dies back on Earth. Interpretation #2: Some planes are accessed astrally, and others are accessed physically, with no mixing. I don't think this is the answer either. You can get to the Netherworld and Faerie from the Astral Plane pretty easily, and there are gates to the worlds on the material realm as well. Interpretation #3: All planes can be accessed either astrally or physically, with different results. Perhaps this is the best answer so far? You can visit other worlds in the physical realm astrally, but only as an "astral traveller" with the limitations and advantages of such. But when your astral form goes to Faerie, Babylon, Netherworld, and Elysium, you are as solid as anyone else there. You don't have any physical or focus-derived powers, however. If you physically travel to those planes, however, you may bring foci and physical powers. The same with the higher planes and other magic dimensions. If we go with #3, this would lead me to think that astral projection is really just the first step in extra-dimensional exploration. EDM powers would eventually supersede astral form as a mystic advances. Who wouldn't want to take their magic items with them? Any thoughts on this, official or unofficial?

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Mauro Picotto - Proximus

Re: Mystic Masters campaign (old vs. new) Great points and notes, everyone. Thanks! I'll probably return with my own thoughts after receiving and reading the new 5th-ed books.

Re: Mystic Masters campaign (old vs. new) At the moment, it isn't. If it does turn into one, I'll definitely let you know!

Re: Mystic Masters campaign (old vs. new) Now I can't wait to get The Ultimate Mystic and my other books! Argh.

Re: Mystic Masters campaign (old vs. new) Hmm. Ah, that's true. It's been so long I forgot about the extra 100 points we get now. It had all been absorbed into my psyche.

I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts about how the old "Mystic Masters" rules compare to the newer way of handling magic in Champions. I'm mainly thinking about how in the old MM book, they recommended making all EGO-based powers have x2 effect. In the 5th edition, that idea doesn't seem to be used. Any thoughts on that? Which do you like better? I'm a huge comic-book magic fan, and I'm thinking of running a mystic campaign. I just ordered the Ultimate Mystic and the Mystic World and so forth, but I'm very curious to see what everyone else things of how things are done now compared to the old MM way. (I do think that using Duplication to handle astral forms works very well, though I haven't delved into it yet.)

Re: M&M pees in HERO's cheerios... That is MY oven, beeotch!!! I discovered this thread by doing a search for "gay scatalogical" because I saw it in Trained Chicken's sig and had to know the origin of that statement. ... I've never searched for that before...

Re: The Meta X MR Wild Card Gene Syndrome Virus is Female Dominant! Hmm. I usually always play males in FtF roleplay. I played female maybe 2-3 times in brief campaigns. I just tend to like male characters better. In MU*s... yeah, mostly all male... video games... mostly male... But City of Heroes was different. For some reason the females looked really cool in certain clothes and "fit" powers better. (Just my past comic book experiences, I guess.) So I had several female heroes there.

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ... I posted this review of a recent book I read on my LiveJournal. I'll repost it here: Book review: The Jesus Mysteries I originally found this fascinating and enlightening book while reading articles on www.religioustolerance.org (a great site with tons of information about all religions). It's not often that I delve into religious topics since I am mostly agnostic and humanist in my beliefs, but I have experienced more interest in history lately, and religious history is pretty fascinating regardless. The full title of the book is actually: The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God? It was written by British authors Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy. A good portion of the book focuses on the question of whether Jesus (the Christ) actually existed. It presents compelling evidence that in fact Jesus did not exist and was deliberately created as a mythic figure as a way of adapting the ancient Mystery religions (a common, cross-cultural, pagan religion that had existed for hundreds of years before 0 BC) to Jewish society. However, this myth was not meant to deceive -- it was meant to enlighten. The Mystery religions were filled with idealized "man-gods" (one in practically every society -- Dionysus, Osiris, Attis, Mithras, etc.), but the members were completely aware that their man-god was was imaginary. He was merely a representation of internal rebirth and enlightenment, a goal which each follower would aspire to achieve within him or herself. (No doubt this will be an emotional issue for many who are Christians, particularly fundamentalist Christians.) The inner beliefs of the original Mystery religions are amazingly similar to the core of Christianity (e.g., love, compassion, spiritual improvement and enlightenment). The idea of an ultimate single God of love and compassion, with whom each person could have a personal relationship, was very appealing to many followers (like Plato and Socrates). But there is more to this book than the idea that Jesus is a myth. Below the top layer of this theory lies another idea (much like the Inner Mysteries of the ancient religions): the idea that Christianity has lost its way and forgotten the core and inner meaning of what Christ represents. He represents rebirth, compassion, love, and understanding: he is what we aspire to be, not something we worship from afar. It is like staring at a light shining from someone else instead of trying to be a beacon of light ourselves. This book was fascinating and well written. My only complaint would be that the authors chose to use endnotes instead of footnotes. There are hundreds of references and other pieces of information cited (as this is a heavily researched book), but I feel it would have been more effective if they had been cited directly on the page. But this is a relatively minor complaint, as the substance of the book is what is important here. If you are at all a spiritual or religious person, I would highly, highly recommend this book. If you aren't religious, I would still highly recommend it.

Argh! That drives me INSANE. Aarrrrgh!

Yeah, I know one or two people like that. The guy we know isn't hard of hearing, and as far as I know doesn't have any hard-of-hearing people in his family. He's just kinda loud. LOL His brother is the exact opposite, too. Weird.

I think the same thoughts were going through my mind after I wrote that. He always complained about us complaining about how the chairs hurt, but I think he felt the same. hehehe.

I used to be involved with a group of players. After about five years of playing various roleplaying games (fantasy, anime, sci-fi, Star Wars, Star Trek, Starcraft, Valdemar), I decided to just stop playing with most of them some time last year. I rarely ran any games (just one, maybe two), but after a while I just couldn't take it any more. Hopefully this will amuse you or at least allow you to identify with some of this. A little background information: Two of the players had been working on their own universal roleplaying system for years. It's not a bad system at all. The only thing is: only about 40% of it was written down. For anyone trying to learn it, it made it very difficult, and for me (who likes to be able to build everything perfectly) made it really difficult to run a game in it. The reasons I (and a good friend of mine) left: 1) The homegrown system was an All Powerful Diety. All other systems sucked in comparison, no matter the problems with the homegrown system. If we ever played in any other system (which, toward the end, was becoming more and more rare), a good portion of the playtime would be them talking about how much this other system sucked in comparison or how something would be done in their system, hence making it better. 2) Physical discomforts: All games were run at their apartment. Their apartment was always too hot and very messy. The chairs we sat in HURT. The lights were too bright and hot. There were other things dealing with personal hygiene that got too much to bear, too. (Nothing really bad, but... ugh.) 3) There was someone who did not (and still doesn't) understand the concept of "normal speaking voice." I would constantly be attacked by endless, ear-piercing "speak-yelling"... I think that's the only way I can describe it. He's one of those people who you eat with at a restaurant and EVERYONE in your area can hear half of the conversation you are having (his half). Does anyone know someone like this? 4) Said person was overbearing, defensive, and liked to manipulate (via guilt and "poor me" tactics) to get his way. He would make conversations go in a way that would always make someone else be the bad guy. 5) Said person always turned out to be the leader or spokesperson in our characters' groups. *le sigh* 6) Said person (hmm... he's a big part of this, huh?) would always play generalist characters and look at things a *little* too practically. For instance, in our anime campaign I played a ward-mage (based somewhat on Marron from Sorcerer Hunters). His focus was on dispelling/breaking magic and banishing things... all through throwing mystical pieces of paper. This was by far my favorite character ever, actually. I finally decided that I didn't need to play the tough-guy characters, and this one rocked: he was contemplative, careful, and an expert at what he did (only). Through the course of the game, the I found a couple of magic books on healing magic. They (this person and the GM) encouraged me to learn this magic because it would be useful. Well, I knew that this wasn't in my character concept, so I didn't want to. They just didn't see why I didn't want to do this! Argh! 7) One of the guys would almost always play a "clueless innocent" type or someone really shy or socially inept. Regardless of what he played, he was stubborn. It was taken to extremes at times, and we grew tired of it. One running joke we refer to now: The fantasy game I ran, he played a telepath who kept her telepathy a secret in general... but refused to tell the other players about it! After 5-6 sessions where her telepathy would have been really useful and the characters wondering "Why are we bringing this useless librarian around with us?"... well, she FINALLY told us. It was like pulling teeth. Argh! The running joke is "but I'm not a telepath!!!" (said in his voice which I can't do here). He never actually said that, but that's one of those things that get changed over time. LOL 8) One player would start out the game sitting with the rest of us, but eventually would start altering his position slowly until he was leaning over the chair, sitting on the floor against it, his legs on the chair while lying on his back, lying on the floor... Actually, this is more amusing than irritating, although he actually RAN A GAME like this once. We thought he'd probably come out with a GMing book: Running from the Floor: How to GM, Have a Nap, and Not Really Care... All at the Same Time 9) Same player was also endlessly negative and mildly insulting about characters and players alike. 10) They were all jaded beyond belief. Also, no romantic involvements with NPCs, ever. Not a huge beef, but sometimes we need a little something extra to make things interesting. Well, several other friends and I left eventually. Our lives are much better now because of it. hehe. I'm not without my problems either: I tend to 'relax' a bit too much (like I said the chairs HURT). I sometimes take a while to decide what to do. The ward-mage character had a set number of spells, and I had to be careful about what to cast... which was hard for me. I would be deciding which ward to throw for several minutes sometimes. (I think in the future I would re-make that character so the spells are more variable, so I can always have 'just the ward I need' instead of worrying about using 1 charge out of 2 of a big spell. The wards would just become a special effect of the magic.) There were good things about that group, too, but I'm just listing the bad stuff. hehe. Unfortunately, now we are without an experienced group to play with. Argh!! And my friend and I had such a great fantasy campaign all planned out... one that would blow their socks off. Oh well.. Others will come, I hope...

Good points. (Another author of fantasy books that tends to "equalize" sexualities is Mercedes Lackey.)

I'm curious if there are any fan-created Transformers write-ups and/or supplements out there somewhere. Does anyone know of any sites that have any? I've seen some of the Mekton conversions, but I'm looking for Hero writeups, of course.

I forgot to mention: Our one-shot(?) Star Trek adventure went very well. Everything seemed to be appropriate as far as characters went. We didn't get to use the starship combat portion, though. Actually, I was curious if you have given it a run yet. Looking at the Defiant, it looked like two Defiants could never do damage to each other. I could be wrong, but it seems like the maximum attack would never cause the shields to hit their Ablative limitation at all. I'm curious if Star Trek shields would work better as Shields: BODY that costs END (non-persistent) Threshold: Forcefield (which would be 1/3 or so of max BODY), max cannot go above remaining shield BODY, 0 END (since the BODY already has the Endurance cost) Shield regeneration: Regeneration for the shield BODY If I weren't at work, I would write this up with more detail and with more research. I'm mainly thinking about how the Spacedock shields work and trying to come up with a parallel. What do you think?

This is looking just more and more awesome. You must spend HOURS working on this. A labor of love, I'm sure.

I'm mainly looking for updates to the TNG Hero document. I think that some of the text still refers to TOS uniform colors, for instance (in the package deals section). If you could give it all a look-over and purge the old TOS references copied from the other document, that would be great! Also, it would be really nice to have a list of Star Fleet's ranks and their appropriate Perk costs. I like Star Trek, but I don't know quite enough about it to be able to spot things like that, and I also don't know the command structure very well. Aside from that, I love your TNG writeup. Awesome work, Eodin. I'm very impressed. My friends and I are probably going to run a "pilot episode" of TNG Hero in a couple of weeks, and we are definitely going to use your great document as a reference.

http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/innovation40603.asp I ran across this today, and I couldn't help but think about the universal "sensor technology" that is very common in sci-fi. Looking at how this works (especially the paragraph after the tooth images), I wonder if we are closer to something like that. Just thought I would share this with you guys.

I'm currently trying to find a store (or someone) where I can purchase Justice, Inc., the 3rd edition Hero supplement for the pulp genre. Does anyone know of an online store (or a brick & mortar store) where they have an old copy? Does anyone have a copy they would like to sell me? (If you have a copy to sell, just send me a private message here on the boards.) Your suggestions/recommendations are welcome. Thanks very much.

It's nice to know that other people have had problems with sleepers in their games! It happened once to me and I was a little disappointed, but now I know that's it's not so uncommon. It looks like there are lots of people out there with tons of sleep debt!

I also second what Geoff said.