EvilGM

Were you looking for free maps, or would you be willing to spend a buck or two on some? I'm a freelance writer and cartographer - if you've read Digital Hero you've seen my work, as I've done many of the maps for the mag - and I've got about all kinds of fantasy maps available for sale. If you head on over to http://www.hartfeltproductions.com/fanmaps3.php you can see a listing of the fantasy floorplans I have available.

We use Harbinger. It's has its basis in the history we created for our campaign universe. There was a famous speech by a professor of modern history at Yale who called people who had superpowers as "harbingers of humanity's fate". The press liked the term, and it stuck. Later, when the gene that caused people to have superpowers (as opposed to people with magical abilties) was discovered, the term was then more narrrowly defined to cover those people with the gene, but in practice, anyone who's not proven to be a mage (or user of magical foci) as called Harbingers.

Could you post the url for that web site, if you still have it?

You know, Michael, the method you use is pretty much what I follow myself when creating a character for the games I run. I usually have in mind the character's background and a concept (or schtick or specific purpose) before I do anything else. I then do the stats first, then I jump to either skills or powers, depending on the nature of the character. Once I have the basic framework for what the character can do, I do the disads. However, if I'm doing up a character for someone else's game, I fully develop the concept first before I even think about spending points. I find it's a lot easier that way, when the GM knows what I'm trying to do before I hand him a character sheet with the points all spent.

With everything that's been going on lately, it got me thinking about the effect that paranormals would have on the world they exist in, and about the often found storyline of attempts to control/regulate them. In a world where it is felt paranormals need to be controlled because they are dangerous, has anyone ever taken it to the extreme where they have been declared a world-wide danger, on par with conventional weapons of mass destruction? If so, how did you handle it?

Here are mine: Clan of the Cats (http://www.clanofthecats.com/) The Devil's Panties (http://thedevilspanties.keenspace.com/) Diesel Sweeties (http://www.dieselsweeties.com/) Fans! (http://www.faans.com/) Flipside (http://www.flipsidecomics.com/comic.html) Geebas On Parade (http://geebasonparade.keenspace.com/) It's Walky (http://www.itswalky.com/) Kung FOOL! (http://kungfool.transpect.net/index.php) Mystic For Hire (http://pagancity.com/index.shtml) Scary-Go-Round (http://www.scarygoround.com/) Something Positive (http://www.somethingpositive.net/) Of these, Clan of the Cats, Flipside, It's Walky and Mystic For Hire (currently on hiatus while the author deals with real life problems) could easily be HERO System campaigns. Geebas on Parade is about LARPing, and Fans! is about a bunch of SF fans. The rest are assorted silliness.

I was just at the Irony Games games web site (http://www.irony.com) and both the web based dice roller and the PGP-signed dice roller where it emails you the dice rolls are working. Now that they are, I'll definitely be looking to use these when I'm doing my pbem stuff now.

I wrote a series of articles, published at RPG Times (http://www.rpgtimes.net) that talk about this exact thing. Do a search for the column "Ignore the GM Behind the Curtain", or for "Lisa Hartjes" and you should be able to find them.

Re: Mind Control - "Shoot yourself?" Yeah, but we're all assuming that the "shoot yourself" command will automatically make the person kill himself. Since there's no location in the command, the person could end up shooting himself in the foot. Yes, it is semantics, but perfectly valid point, IMHO.

Re: Boll Weevil I don't need to Walk Like An Egyptian to actually get the points, do I?

Ummmm..... This is not a game construct. ProFantasy is a company that makes mapping software. Here's their web site: http://www.profantasy.com They haven't given out a whole heck of a lot in the way of details, but I suspect that the program will be able to accomodate just about any level of tech that a GM desires to have in his or her game.

Re: Hey, waitaminnit! New thing they're working on at PF. Here's a quote I've found from the CC2 mailing lst: "CC2 Space (which is currently called "Cosmographer") is progressing well. Ian's part is now a very sophisticated star and planetary mapper, and the rest (deckplan mapping etc) is on its way. I suspect that Perspectives will be out first. We are hoping for a week of solid programming from Peter Olsson towards the end of March, so expect a flurry of activity then." And this: "We are discussing the transfer of data from CC-Space to FT in such a way as the CC-Space parameters will produce the same results in FT every time. This still presents the problem of what to do with worlds that have already been mapped in Traveller publications - some form of editor will be put together to allow this, but I can foresee problems occurring where the final output/map will not always match the Traveller-source map. When editing a map, CC-Space will have to do a lot of intermediary calculations to "fill in the gaps" that FT will require... Experimental, is the best I can say." And here's the link to a screen shot: http://www.farfuture.net/n0003.html Apparently the program has evolved significantly enough that this screen shot is considered "old". There's a lot more info about the program scattered through the mailing list.

Bloodshot and I run games in the fictional city of St. Augustine, Oregon. It is located where the real world Smith and Umpqua rivers meet (yes, those are real river names). I have also run a pbem set in York, Ontario (Toronto by another name .

Yup. That program/add-on is definitely on my list of stuff to buy when it comes out.

I know there are reprints of old Sears & Roebuck catalogues available for sale. Amazon has one for the S&R catalog for 1902 available on CD-ROM. Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0972170901/qid=1047050378/sr=1-7/ref=sr_1_7/104-2707270-3800710?v=glance&s=books And there's this one (1897 version) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0791046265/ref=pd_sim_books_4/104-2707270-3800710?v=glance&s=books Yeah, I know these are all before what you're looking for, but it's a place to start.

I've played around with the program, and I am in love! It was so easy, and when I've finished the current campaign I'm running, I'm seriously thinking of doing something using Star Hero. I haven't decided yet exactly what. There's enough info generated that I can use Fractal Terrains from ProFantasy to generate maps of the planets, and then I can import them into Campaign Cartographer 2 to detail them as needed. Hee hee hee... This is going to be a lot of fun...

That was a very nicely reasoned out and presented analysis, tesuji.

I think in those cases, however, their races as a whole weren't affected by them, so it might have been a racial, not just a good EGO thing.

Re: Re: Magic in a Champions game? I'd like to playtest the SoB stuff, but I run my games in a homebrew universe. Maybe I can fudge some names to get it to fit, but otherwise run it.

A couple of questions for you: 1) How often does magic appear in your Champions game? 2) Is there a structure to it, or is it just like any other sfx?

Pyramid is a great magazine. I've gotten all kinds of great ideas and advice on how to deal with stuff. And no, Scott, I'm not going to tell you which articles so you can try and find out which one's I'm springing in the game.

Re: The Ultimate Sacrifice... I tried to, but the dice were against me. Our team was fighting a villain team called the "Natural Disasters". In the area where the fight was going on, one of the bad guys had brought down a pea soup thick fog, and our team members were being picked off one by one while the city was being destroyed. My character was up on the roof of a 30 storey building. The next building over was only 10 storeys, and my character suspected that the fog creating guy might be somewhere in the fog over the 10 storey building. So, she decided to sacrfice herself to save the city, listeed to try and figure out where the bad guy might be, and then took a running leap off the building at where she thought the guy was. To my satisfaction, she did manage to grab the guy, but the impact knocked him out and they fell 17 storeys to the rooftop below. To my disappointment, my character survived, after hitting the roof and going through to the 8th floor of the building. She was in the hospital for a couple weeks afterwards, and woke up to the news still showing the amateur video footage of her hitting the bad guy (he was under the bank of fog) and the two of them falling into the building.

I'm starting up a new campaign and one of the PC's has the following compound power: Altered Perspective: (Total: 50 Active Cost, 33 Real Cost) Flight 9", Usable Underwater (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2) (40 Active Points); Only In Contact With A Surface (-1/4) (Real Cost: 32) plus Clinging (normal STR) (10 Active Points); Linked to Compound Power (-1/2), Cannot Resist Knockback (-1/4) (Real Cost: 6) Would this be a legal construct to put in an EC? I understand that Clinging doesn't normally cost END, nor does it in this case have the Costs END limitation, so under the rules it would not normally be allowed in an EC, but it is linked to a power that does normally cost END (though it is purchased with Reduced END in this case).

Re: opinions of hero products I like the free map that's available for download on the Free Stuff pages. Of course, I'm kind of biased because I made the map. It's been a long time since I've looked at my copy of the book, but I remember that I liked it. Now, I have heard of some complaints about the book - about racial stereotyping and so on - but I didn't find the book offesive in the least.

It's easy. Come up with an idea, send in a proposal to DOJ, and they'll tell you what they think. As Bloodshot said, I have been working on the book for a very long time. The original contract I had signed was with the owners of Hero Games before Cybergames entered the picture. To make a long story short, the contract was declared null and void. By this time, the book was completely written and had run through two editors and was ready to go but under 4th edition. When DOJ announced they would be willing to enter licensing agreements, I lept at the opportunity. I prepared an proposal, sent in the table of contents and some sample text, and then waited for DOJ's answer. Obviously, it was yes. If you are interested in doing the same thing - self-publishing under license - I would suggest that you start writing and getting your HERO System work published, either in Digital Hero or some other venue. DOJ is going to want to see that you can create quality product before they are willing to have their property associated with it. The more of your work they can see, the better they can evaluate what you're capable of. I submit to two Amateur Press Association magazines, and have had a two part article published in Digital Hero, so Steve and the guys had a pretty good idea of what was capable of. You'll also have to be willing to make the effort to find you own editors, artists and so on, as it's your product, not DOJ's. [And as a completely self-serving notice, I do freelance editing. ] It's been a great experience, and it was a pleasure to work out the fine details of the license agreemet. It was *really* easy, and DOJ's terms and requirements are very reasonable.