Basil

Re: Hugh Neilson and D.U.H.S.

I'd recommend not using anything of the form {yadda-yadda} Hero System, since the abreviation "__HS" looks like it stands for {wossname} High School.

Seriously, I saw the title of this thread and wondered "What high school is this thread about." Reading it, I learned otherwise. It's still a valid concern, IMO.

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

From a rules standpoint though... perception has nothing to do with sensing anything about the character sensing; it's about perceiving the world around the character.

While an important ability' date=' and assumed by the players (and probably the game designers when they wrote the rules) to be present and functioning, the proprioception senses don't really count as perceiving anything in Hero System.[/quote']"Merely" what every limb that's not being looked at is actually doing. All motion is a feedback process: the brain says "tighten these muscles and relax those", and the percepton nerves in the muscles say "these muscles are tightened/relaxed X amount." Without that feedback, or visual "feedback" to replace it, controlled motion is impossible.

 

Has there been much discussion on how to deprive one of these senses and the effects thereof?

Other than in threads like this one, where plenty of people deny the last couple of centuries of research and say "there's only 5 senses," or say "the other senses have no game effects"? No, not to my knowledge.

 

BTW, how much game effect does the sense of taste reallly have? The sense of smell, yeah, but taste? I mean, from a game-effects POV, why not call it the Smell Sense Group, and not bother with taste? Oh, and for those who are going to come up with examples of usefulness for taste, I can come up with just as many examples for balance, kinesthesia, and even hunger or full-bladder-ness.

Re: Making Money redux

She lives in Berkeley' date=' US federal and California state laws apply fully. She doesn't actually *need* to work, her parents earn a quite good living, but sooner or later it will occur to her that she should at least try to put her powers to some productive use.[/quote']

 

OK, those are the laws you'll have to do research on.

 

Child-labor laws apply to volunteer work too. AFAIK, with no lessening of restrictions.

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

Except that there are five senses' date='...[/quote']

 

No.

It has long been known there are more. The "five senses" idea goes back to Aristotle, and like many of his ideas, he was partly right at best.

 

 

 

See:

1) http://sun.science.wayne.edu/~wpoff/senses.html

2) http://sun.science.wayne.edu/~wpoff/cor/sen/other.html

3) http://www.skidmore.edu/~hfoley/IM3.doc

4) http://sws.iienet.org/public/articles/index.cfm?Cat=59

5) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12953620&dopt=Abstract

6) http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:I68vpcY7EVYJ:www.psych.co.uk/Chap12.pdf+%22more+than+five+senses%22+physiological&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

 

Of especial note, from link #5:

"The five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, enumerated by Aristotle, were incremented in the early-nineteenth century by the muscle sense, multiple dimensions of touch, and a movement sense. ... The division of touch into several sensations...was given anatomical, physiological and psychophysical support in the late-nineteenth century. A separate muscle sense was proposed in the late-eighteenth century, with experimental evidence to support it. However, before these developments, behavioral evidence of the vestibular (movement) sense was available from studies of vertigo,..."

 

And from link #6:

"In this chapter, we will be looking at how the nervous system gathers information from our external environment.We have many more than five senses which convey information to the brain: at the very least, we have sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell and proprioception (the sense which tells us about the internal state of the body, such as the position of joints and muscles) -- although really proprioception consists of several senses, not just one.We have one set of receptors which inform us about balance, another which informs us about movement, and so on.The empiricist philosophers were mistaken when they assumed that human beings had only five senses -- and if they had taken our internal senses into account at the same time, they might easily have developed a very different kind of philosophy."

Re: Making Money redux

I'm just wondering' date=' what might be some some good ways for a character to make money? The particular person in question is a 16 year old gir; she's shy, quiet, timid, bookish, and uses drilling rigs for workout weights (STR 80). Basically, she's a very high-end flying brick who hates drawing attention to herself.[/quote']

 

If she's 16, there will be severe restrictions on possible jobs. Due to federal law, she will be barred from working more than X hours per day, and per week, barred from working during certain hours and certain days, barred from working certain jobs, barred from certain industries, etc. I'd suggest researching these matters before choosing a specific job for her.

 

BTW, though I'm referring specifically to USA law, I'm sure similar laws are in place in most other industrialized countries; they may indeed be even more restrictive than in the USA. Third World countries will have, generally, less restrictive laws, and such laws as they have will be much less rigorously enforced, by and large.

Re: PREDATORS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

I think a wide selection of "realism levels" would be good; everything from Mafia/Yakuza/Triad goons and bosses, to mystical-weird-stuff guys.

And among the latter, I beg for an updated Mr. Rapantap (from Normals Unbound). I always liked the idea of a "bogeyman" whose agents are little kids. But without the picture of Mulletkid, please.

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

Personally, I think there's a need for a new Sense Group: Bodily Senses. This would include Balance, Kinesthesia, Hunger, and so on. That way, this sort of thing could be easily integrated into the existing structure.

Re: Freezing Water and Raining Hail

{snip}Also transform has a way of measuring how much you can freeze: not sure what the body of a hex of water is' date=' but make the power cumulative and eventually the whole lake will be solid.[/quote']

 

Water is a megagram ("metric tonne") per cubic meter. 8 cubic meters is, therefore, 13 BODY (using the "Unliving" column of the chart on page 304 of 5th Ed.).

 

A pond, in the form of a spherical segment, 50m in radius and 10m deep, has a volume of ~59,690 cubic meters, masses ~59,690 Mg, and has 23 BODY. A 13d6 Minor Transform average 45.5 points, nearly the 46 points needed to Transform that pond in one roll. Naturally, a fewer dice will take longer.

 

BTW, Cumulative would not be needed; Transform "damage" remains until it is "healed". OTOH, Partial Transform (+1/2) might be used, to reflect the gradual freezing (though this is not the usual method for Partial Transform, and would need GM's permission).

Re: riddle me this, "Mind Control on Computers"

Can transform effect the class of mind of something?

Yes. See "Body, Mind, And Spirit" on p153 of 5th ed, and "Based On Ego Combat Value" on the following page. Though for a non-AI computer, you'd use INT instead of EGO.

Re: Champs Worldwide: Whaddya want?

IMO, the new one should reduce the US's share of supers to no more than 40% (and that's being generous). Superheroes & supervillains work best as a world-wide phenomenon; anything else is the "ugly American"/"geographically-illiterate American" syndrome at work.

40% would be a bare minimum I would accept as a proportion of american supers for a number of reasons.

1> Genre emulation: In the comics Supers almost exclusively reside in mid-sized and larger American cities.

Is everything in the comix worthy of emulation?

2>Versimilitude: Supers represent geopolitical power' date=' and redistibuting geopolitical power proportionate to population would result in a world unrecognisable as a variation of our own, which the champions world explicitly is suppoesed to be.[/quote']

I never said that supers should be distributed in a strict, exact 1-per-million manner. Just that the USA, with <5% of the world's population, is unlikely to have >40% of its superpowered people. It completely kills suspension of disbelief. It also likely looks smug and self-centered to folks from other countries.

3>playability: The vast majority of Champions games are going to be set in america both for genre emulation reasons and reasons of familiarity more local supers makes those games work better.

I've covered "genre emulation". Are we to limit Herogames Inc to mostly USA sales forever? Are we to limit USA players & GMs to such US-centrism?

 

I used to live in a fairly small town adjacent to a fairly large University in the US. There were a good many foreign-exchange students. I got to know some, and hung around one of the favorite "watering holes" of the exchange students. From time to time, I asked many of them, "When you go home, what will you tell them is the most noticable feature of people in the US?" The answers I got most often were "They take their fun much to seriously, and they know NOTHING about other countries."

 

These, mind you, were students exposed in the main to other college student.

 

I think it is a shame --- no, a horror --- how little most USAians know about other countries. Now, yes, this is a book for gaming and gamers, not a textbook. I don't expect a long, dry lecture on other countries and cultures. However, in a book that's supposed to be about the WORLD-WIDE "superbeing world" I would hope some attention is paid to how little the USA's population is, and how many supers ought, reasonably, to be found elsewhere.

 

Or, as they say on Usenet: TWIAVBP --- The World Is A Very Big Place.

Re: Champs Worldwide: Whaddya want?

This is true, Basil. The only reason the US has so many superbeings is, basicly, the US is the birthplace of comic books about people with amazing powers and who wear there underwhere on the outside of there pants.

 

Acualy...the "known" superbeings from the Earth and are still living here (or, at least, still call this planet home) should be about 10% of the population (give or take a precentage point), with the total population of beings with some superpower being about 25% total. Basicly, the 15% should be the guy who has a small power and/or no desier to dress up in fancy spandex and fight crime.

Ten Percent?!?? 635,000,000 superpowered people?? Twice the total population of the USA?

No way! I'm sorry, but that's ludicrous. 1 per million world-wide average is much better.

Re: Hypothetical Axis Amerika 2005

A couple of off-the-top-of-my-head ideas:

Re. the difficulties Japan would have (as others have pointed out): make the dividing line 105° E, rather than the Mississippi.

Do a repeat of the "Zimmermann telegram". For those who don't know, this is from WWI--the Germans made an unofficial offer to Mexico, that if they would invade (or at least distract) the USA, the Germans would see to it Mexico regained all the territories lost due to the Gadsden 'Purchase', the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalago, the rebellion of California and the rebellion of Texas. That is, all of CA, NV, AZ, UT< NM, and TX, and parts of OK, KS, CO, and WY would be returned to Mexico. This would mean (A) a southern front to the invasion of the USA, ( another race for the Nazis to scapegoat ("It was dos shtinking Mexican dat shnuck up on you; ve fought you fair und shquare"), © another way to reduce the size of the Japanese "holding" (if you want to go that route).

As for cultural impacts: there would be more "Japanification" on the Pacific Coast than at present. There would be a strong "Teutonification" along the Atlantic Coast, and a strong sense of "enthic identity" in areas with a strong German heritage (e.g., parts of the Midwest).

Politically, I agree that Germany and Japan would rule through puppets. However, Mexico would rule directly (if you go that route); due to its history of less rigorous government, I'd expect the biggest "freedom fighter" organizations to be headquartered in that area (or exist only in there). This could lead to Germany and/or Japan gaining as much influence as possible over Mexico; one or both might (even by 2005) have essentially made it a puppet state. One result of that could be that Germany/Japan pays so much attention to the sourthern parts of the USA that the northern-tier states are "freer" due to be less noticed.

BTW, don't forget that during WWII, Hawaii and Alaska were not states, and probably won't be in the alternate time-line you're talking about --- neither occupying powers would give Congress much power for the first decade or so, and by the late '50s the contributions to the war effort of both territories would be (A) little thought on and ( nothing a puppet government would want to call attention to.

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

Activation of Powers covers changing appearance without the need for Shapeshift.

{snip}

In the Animal Form Guy case, if you use your VPP to gain STR, Clinging, and some Damage Resistance and call that your "Ape Form", then Activation of Powers allows you to look like an Ape if you want.

{snip}

Excuse me, but I can't find anything in 5th Ed. to that effect. Indeed, I can only find (via the index) one section called "Activating Powers". It says:

"Unless a Power's description says otherwise, activating or 'turning on' a Power is a Zero-Phase Action, even if activating it causes or requires physical changes in the character,...(for example, the character transforms from a human into a man-beast,...)... and switching slots in a Power Framework are also Zero-Phase Actions."

I don't see how switching/activating the Powers in a VPP can be considered "transform[ing] into a man-beast". If the character actually alters his physical being, that is not the same a gaining STR, DEX, a HTH (claws) attack, etc. A different physical configuration should be done via a separate power. That IMO is what the above quote is referring to, it is not saying "you can get a free Alter Self effect by turning on/off a Power or three."

Re: Champs Worldwide: Whaddya want?

I'd also like to see a goodly dollop of information on the world's economy and how superheroes have effected it. (This point may have been raised before)

I'd like information on border-crossings, especially how flying, teleporting, etc. how heroes are dealt with, when they're entering "officially" and when they're not.

Supervillains taking over small countries has been mentioned, but what about them bribing/"buying" a country's government, either outright, or to get diplomatic immunity. As a bit of inspiration, here's a quote from the CIA World Factbook (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/tv.html) "In 1998, Tuvalu began deriving revenue from use of its area code for '900' lines and in 2000, from the lease of its '.tv' Internet domain name. Royalties from these new technology sources could increase substantially over the next decade."

If you can get a country to sell its Internet and telephony "identity", what about getting it to, under the table, sell an "Ambassadorship at Large"?

I'll mention any other ideas I have.

Re: Champs Worldwide: Whaddya want?

One thing I'd like to see:

The "Prevalence of Superhumans" chart from page 31 of Champions Universe fixed. Sorry to be snarky, Darren, but you &/or Steve L. goofed big time on that.

First: where are the Koreas, and South Asia other than India? Second, the one-per amounts don't work. Specifically, I made a chart, using the population amounts from the brand new National Geographic Atlas, adding the Koreas as their own 'region', and adding other countries to India to get "South Asia". I've tried to attach a version of the full chart to this post; after downloading it, rename it from Pop_dist.txt to Pop_dist.csv. You can then import it into any spreadsheet or spreadsheet-using program I've ever heard of.

As a condensed form of the full chart, I give you the below, which uses the highest amounts gotten from the CU chart, where a range of prevalences is given, or the single rate if that's what's given. I've added "Korea", assuming one-per-one-million, and changed "India" to "South Asia":

US----------------2915

Canada-------------127

Mexico--------------21

Central America------13

South America------119

British Isles----------85

Western Europe-----319

Eastern Europe------100

Russia---------------49

Saharan Africa-------33

Subsaharan Africa----63

The Middle East------23

Central Asia----------17

South Asia----------146

The Koreas-----------71

China---------------264

Japan---------------128

Oceania---------------1

Australia--------------4

Total--------------4547

Two things to note: #1, the US has 64.1% of all supers,which is way too high IMO. #2, with a world pop currently at ~6350 million, a one-in-a-million world average would be 6350; 4547 is ~71.6% of what it "should be"! And note, this is for the *highest* numbers; for the lowest,the world total is 1434. Obviously, the chart from CU should be tossed, and a new one put in.

IMO, the new one should reduce the US's share of supers to no more than 40% (and that's being generous). Superheroes & supervillains work best as a world-wide phenomenon; anything else is the "ugly American"/"geographically-illiterate American" syndrome at work.

Re: Super Names

Blues (Rhythm’s new partner)

Hey, that's my PC!

That's why I only mentioned him in parentheses. I wasn't claiming him or anything

Hm.... Now that I think about it, I should've phrased that as a suggestion. OK, I"m off to edit that (and the other one like it)

Re: Super Names

A few notes on names already accepted or rejected:

It’s spelled Pheidippides.

You have both "Celsius" and "Celcius"; the second is misspelled, is that on purpose?

It’s spelled Felonious, not Felinious.

"Destruga" is a "state", not a person.

"Carpathia" is in European Enemies.

Re: Super Names

Here's everything I've gotten ready so far:

2-D Man, and his archenemy Two Demon

Anime Schoolgirl

Apocalypso

Attitude Dude

Barbarossa

Barbette

Bartizan

Bluff Prince Hal

Bobolink

Crazy Wind

Curfew, The

Dane Bread

Drain Bed

Defiler, The

Degenerate

Degenerate-Matter Man

Destruction

Destructionizer

Dislocator, The

Easter

Eastar

Fruitcake

Future Shock

G. Robin Fellows

Gael Force

Go-go

Good Friday

Goliath Beetle

Halbeard

Halfbreed, The

Hammurabi

Hamster, The

Hop-Toad

Hyper-Hype

Linen Lover

Lucky Man

Missionary Man

Mistress Wilde

Mister Zipp

Necrostasis

Nightbloom

Omnimorph

Partisan, the

Pimp, The

Plug-Ugly

Radar Lover

Ready Eddie

Sharkman

Slump

Stalactite

Universal Soldier, The

Wet Blanket, The

Will-O’-the-Wisp

Wolfram

Re: Super Names

Some partnerships:

Woofer and Tweeter (partners)

Blood Frenzy, Blood Lust, Kill Crazy (partners)

Snark & Jubjub Bird (partners. Suggestion: could be partners with Boojum and/or Bandersnatch, too)

Blues (Suggestion: Rhythm’s new partner)

Re: Super Names

A few that need parenthetical explanations:

Korax (Greek [in transliteration]: raven, crow)

Thanatopsis (Greek: a view of death. Famous poem by William Cullen Bryant)

Vesta (4th largest asteroid, and a type of strike-anywhere match)

Cheaters (slang for spectacles)

Chilblane (BTW, this is the *correct* spelling of the word)

Photoma (A rudimentary subjective visual sensation, as of sparks or flashes of

light or color)(I ran into this in the dictionary looking something else up, and decided I *had* to use it)

Carronade (a type of short, light iron cannon)

Tiger Swallowtail (type of butterfly)

Re: Super Names

OK, here's a batch of Latin ones (except for one that's mixed Latin+English, and one that's pseudo-Latin)

Aeternitas (Latin: eternity)

Arcus (Latin: Rainbow)

Aspera (Latin: Difficulties; Astra’s new partner)

A.U.C. (Latin: abbreviation for "Ab Urbe Condita": "since the founding of the city"

or for "Anno Urbis Conditae" "In the year of the founding of the city")

Bellum (Latin: war)

Corvus (Latin: raven, crow)

Cunctator (Latin: delayer; byname of Quintus Fabius Maximus, the Roman

general who, by cutting Hannibal’s supply lines and refusing a

knock-down-drag-out fight, saved Rome--until they threw him out for not

fighting, and ran headlong into the disaster at Cannae)

Eheu (Latin: Alas!)

Festina and Lente (partners) (Latin: festina lente = make haste slowly)

Gallia (Latin: the bulk of the area now known as France)

Germania (Latin: Germany)

Ignis Fatuus (Latin: Will-O’-the-Wisp --- literally, foolish fire)

Imperator (Latin: Emperor)

Imprimatur (Latin: let it be printed)

Interregnum (Latin: a period between rulers)

Lady Duritia (Latin: harshness, strictness)

Later Solus (Latin: just a brick. Pronounced approx. "Latter Solace")

Livor Mortis (Latin: lividity of death)

Lusor, The (looks like "luser" but is actually Latin: gambler, player, joker)

Magister (Latin: chief, master, guardian)

Magistra (Latin: directress, mistress)

Messor (Latin: Reaper)

Metus (Latin: Fear)

Mons Tarpeius (Latin: the Tarpeian Cliff of the Capitloine Hill, from which

criminals were thrown to their death)

Mors (Latin: death)

Nihil (Latin: nothing)

Nil (Latin: alternate form of Nihil)

Non Sequitur (Latin: "It does not follow")

Omnincessor (Latin: one who can go [or walk] everywhere: Secret ID is Al

Walker)

Personae (Latin: masks; personalities)

Smaragdus (Latin: Emerald)

Smaragda (pseudo-Latin feminine form of Smaragdus)

Talio (Latin: in law, punishment in kind; hence, retaliation, revenge)

Talpa (Latin: the mole)

Vexillarius (Latin: standard bearer)

Viator (Latin: traveller)

Vinculum (Latin: chain, fetter)

Vis (Latin: power, strength, force)

Vulpes (Latin: Fox)

Re: Super Names

Dang, got too busy over the hollow-days to notice there's a new Master List. Well, I hope none of these are on it (I doubt very strongly they are). I'll check the rest I've got waiting against the list before posting them.

I've got a bunch of non-English ones for you all. I've mentioned the language and the translation in parentheses after each name.

Hemel-Brand (Dutch: sky-fire)

Het Leven Dijk (Dutch: the living dike)

Sterke Man (Dutch: strong man)

Puissance (French: power)

Der Gelbe Funken (German: the yellow spark)

Die Lachende Löwe (German: the laughing lion)

Ewig (German: eternal)

Kraft (German: strength)

Kreuzfahrer (German: crusader)

Tier-Mädchen (German: beast-girl)

Ãœberall (German: everywhere)

Resistenza (Italian: resistance)

Velena (Italian: poison)

O Navegador (Portuguese: the navigator)

O Viajante (Portuguese: the traveler)

Fuerza (Spanish: force)

Yasimin (Turkish: jasmin)

Two that are "foreign" without be translations of any English word.

Zoroaster (Persian prophet)

Hatshepsut (Ancient Egypt: first female Pharoah)

Re: Twisted magic items

Potable Hell Do you really want to know?

Re: Weird Conspiracy Hero

A couple more books for you, both unfortunately long out of print

Pandemonium! Adventures in Tabloid World from Atlas Games

Tabloid! from WotC; part of their "Amazing Engine" series which they, stupidly, dropped.

They are extremely similar; both are based on the idea that everything in the supermarket tabloids is true. Both play this for laughs, by and large, but there's no reason a GM couldn't change that POV.

Another idea: most of the rumors are false, planted by the govt/big business/the Masters Of Knowledge/the aliens/whoever. Finding the ones that are real is a major part of what the heroes have to do.

Re: Need help with a spell (or two)

I'm trying to design some basic spells in my campaign, but they are tricky...at least to me. Here they are:

 

1) Shadow Snap: Can hold a person to a spot by pinning their shadow by a dagger, etc.

My idea: Some kind of Entangle, maybe usable only in sunlight.

Add Gestures, OIF, and "instantly undone if the OIF is removed from the ground (-3/4)" and I think you've got it mostly written up.

2) Light Spell: Can illuminate an area for a set duration of time, but can be placed on an object...like a dagger, sword, or stick.

My idea: Change Environment, or Images, with a Duration. Maybe Usable on any OAF?

See 5th Ed., p.122, sidebar, "Flashlight".

Or, if you don't have that to hand, here it is with the necessary changes:

Torch Spell: Images, Sight Group, 8" radius (17 Active Points), OIF (any object of opportunity; -1/2), Only To Create Light (-1), No Range (-1/2), 1 Continuing Charge of 1 hour (-1/4). Total cost: 5 points

You can add Incantations, Gestures, etc., as appropriate for magic in your campaign. BTW, the original effected a 1 hex diameter area, which is way too small. Note that you'll either need to decrease the time on the Continuing Charges, or accept it as an advantage, if you go above 2. Or, replace with Uncontrolled, and spend X amount of END when you cast the spell.