John Desmarais

Re: Dyson Sphere (shell) - Dysonica Anyone? Too close. Actually, it's all very dependent on the mass (& radius) of the star, but we can use our sun as an example. The force of gravity depends on a few things: your mass, the mass of the body you are standing on, and the distance from the center of the star. The farther you are from the center of the star, the weaker the pull between the star and your body. The force gets weaker quite rapidly. If you double your distance from the star, the force is one-fourth. If you triple your separation, the force drops by one-ninth. Ten times the distance, one-hundredth the force. See the pattern? The force drops off with the square of the distance. In order for our sun to exert approximately 1G, you would need to be 3,614,000 KM from the center, or 2,919,000 KM from the surface. To put this into some type of perspective, Mercury is 69,800,000 KM from the sun, so 2.9 Million KM is really, really, really, close. Now, what wasn't worked into this is the gravitational pull of the Dyson Sphere itself, which will be substantial as it's mass is going to quite high (although due to the rather low radius to mass ratio it will be much lower than you'd expect for such as mass as gravitational pull is based in part on your distance from the center of mass). So, how much mass is your sphere going to have?

Re: Lost world of the Warlord Obviously insane, but probably happier for it.

Re: Converting For the most part I do conceptual level conversions. The whatever from the source system serves as the basis for the concept, then I create a Hero System thing that matches that concept. Direct "numbers to numbers" conversions are something I only do as an intellectual exercise and rarey if ever actually use in game.

Re: Converting stuff Nope. You're thinking of Teenagers From Outer Space - an earlier Anime inspired RPG.

Re: Class of the Titans Oh. My.

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? I'm definitely using this...

Re: Need designing a magic system From http://www.abhorsentrilogy.com/ In all honesty (and bearing in mind that I've only read the first book) the magic never struck me as being particularly unique from a mechanical standpoint - the uniqueness of it was in the flavor text. Your typical mix of Concentration, Gestures, Incantations, Magic SKill roll, & Side Effects (Charter mages have been know to burn their own lips mis-pronouncing a mark) seems to pretty much cover it.

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

Re: Valdorian Age world map (dear Mr Curtis...)

A little bit of technology to work into your science-fiction. http://news.com.com/2300-11397_3-6093888-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg

Re: Turakian Age: Changing the Future Interesting you should bring this up. In my Champions (yes, Champions) game the heroes were sent back in time and are currently running around in Turakia. There could very well be changes to the future (their present) as a result of their mucking about in the TA.

Re: Teen Champions Starting Level?

Re: Space Master by ICE Well, I guess we could - but, really, the good part of Space Opera was the setting, which can be used without doing any real conversions at all.

Re: Scooby-Doo Cthulhu http://www.herostuff.net/gnborh/groups/gnborh-Cartoon.html Scroll down to near the bottom. THe whole gang is there.

Re: DC / Marvel Characters in Champions Universe Kulan Gath http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/klgath.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulan_Gath

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Ring of Fire, Johnny Cash.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? California Dreaming by the Mamas and the Papas (I'm sitting in Moe's Southwest Grill again).

Re: 25th Anniversary Special Edition Now In Store! Yes, you do. It's quite cool (it may rate as my favorite of the Ultimate books once I've completely absorbed it). Of course, what I really need to fully appreciate The Ultimate Speedster is a set of Hero Designer prefabs for all of the powers in it (that's a big fat hint Steve - I'm ready to give you guys some more money.)

Re: Ultimate Speedster: Other stuff Personally, I thought this was a pretty keen concept. I'm not sure I would ever actually use, but I did think (on paper) it spunds like it would worked well. (Pocket description for those not in the know yet: it breaks DEX out into three 1 point stats, one drives CV, one drives DEX skills, one drives Initiative, and they all combine back to drive base SPD). It addresses one of my problems with speedsters: Why are thier OCVs always so high? This way you can pick and choose the DEX components you want high in a speedsters, but leave low those you don't want. I love to hear from someone who's used it in game regarding how well it works (or doesn't work).

Re: Can someone satisfy my curiosity? Too true - unfortunately. VA is quite cool but it I want more detail about the work outside of the city. Now, if you were looking to do a Thieves' World type of game, it would work really well. The magic feel is suitable and you have LOADS of detail on the city (which is where most of the storie would be occuring anyway).

Re: DC / Marvel Characters in Champions Universe

Re: Neptune City Well, not necessarily in the DC Universe, but I'll admit that the parts I create will probably have a very DC feel (I'm expecting that you'll counter-balance with Marvel-ous stuff - and lord only knows what kind of "monkey" business Chuck will inject.) So, E-Man, what are your thoughts on playing some Golden Age (In Neptune City) stuff?

Re: Shazam! yack!

Re: Ultimate Speedster: Other stuff Still waiting for the man in brown to deliver it.

Re: How would you use Takofanes? This is actually quite similar to how I am using him in my current campaign - although it ended up being the PCs who (inadvertedly) went back in time and now have to face Tak (or rather Kal-Turak) during the Turakian Age in order to get home again.