Basil

Re: Answers & Questions Q: You can teach at a junior high-school, or be shot at point-blank range. Make a choice. A: Not that they're much different.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat NT: I got a burning resentment of proselytizers for Christmas. I'm going to use it to celebrate Yule.

Re: Hmm, didn't find these Sciences listed in Ultimate Skill... The OED has no such word as "terato-biologist," but it does have "teratologist." A teratologist, of course, studies teratology. As defined in the OED, it's: "Arcanobiologist" seems equally a made-up word. Arcane, as per the OED: Hidden biology? Say what?

Re: Hmm, didn't find these Sciences listed in Ultimate Skill... I've just been looking through the online OED, and I see nothing to support this. In fact, it looks as if "terato-" is related to malformation not caused by genetic screw ups. While, of course, "muto-" is. However, I can't say my research has been all that "in depth."

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat It falls apart.

Re: Help me flesh out a kernal of a setting idea Oops, sorry I didn't see this before my other posts. OK, I'll let it drop.

Re: Help me flesh out a kernal of a setting idea

Re: Help me flesh out a kernal of a setting idea First, remember we are talking about societies, not individuals. Not all reactions are comparable. Second, any society that gets out of its "natal" stellar system is ipso facto not paranoid; if it were paranoid it would self destruct. Indeed, this is true of any society that fully settles its stellar system, or even gets well on the way to that state. Any species that has settled its stellar system is going to be so near to ineradicable as makes no difference. Finding all the 'colonies' in the Oort Cloud is like finding a needle in 1,000,000,000 haystacks. Not practicable. Again, a planetocentric viewpoint that is pretty much irrelevant. The important thing is all those 'colonies' out in the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. The asteroid belt may also have a few settlements. Remember, a star is a well, and most of the good stuff is on the rim. Jumping down into the well is a dumb idea, 99.99% of the time.

Re: A multisensorical virtual reality The most important thing to remember is this: "CyberSpace" (or whatever you call it) is a different dimension. It has its own rules, and its own topography. Things do not work there the same as in "meatspace" (at least, they don't have to). Thus, you can handwave a lot of details. In particular, if Room A and Room B are next to each other in CyberSpace, but are "associated with" different computers in cities 5000 km apart in meatspace, you don't need FTL to get between Room A and Room B!!. This was one of the dumbest errors in Cyber HERO. Places in CyberSpace take as long to go between as the distance in CyberSpace. Second: do not worry about how to do something as a "program." It's a power in CyberSpace, so figure it out as a power. Call the deck an IIF, or give the power "Only In CyberSpace," or some other simple, straight-forward Lim, and you're done. All this fiddling with trying to make "programs" work from the meatspace POV made Cyber HERO nearly unplayable.

Re: A multisensorical virtual reality The most important thing to remember is this: "CyberSpace" (or whatever you call it) is a different dimension. It has its own rules, and its own topography. Things do not work there the same as in "meatspace" (at least, they don't have to). Thus, you can handwave a lot of details. In particular, if Room A and Room B are next to each other in CyberSpace, but are "associated with" different computers in cities 5000 km apart in meatspace, you don't need FTL to get between Room A and Room B!!. This was one of the dumbest errors in Cyber HERO. Places in CyberSpace take as long to go between as the distance in CyberSpace. Second: do not worry about how to do something as a "program." It's a power in CyberSpace, so figure it out as a power. Call the deck an IIF, or give the power "Only In CyberSpace," or some other simple, straight-forward Lim, and you're done. All this fiddling with trying to make "programs" work from the meatspace POV made Cyber HERO nearly unplayable.

Re: A multisensorical virtual reality The most important thing to remember is this: "CyberSpace" (or whatever you call it) is a different dimension. It has its own rules, and its own topography. Things do not work there the same as in "meatspace" (at least, they don't have to). Thus, you can handwave a lot of details. In particular, if Room A and Room B are next to each other in CyberSpace, but are "associated with" different computers in cities 5000 km apart in meatspace, you don't need FTL to get between Room A and Room B!!. This was one of the dumbest errors in Cyber HERO. Places in CyberSpace take as long to go between as the distance in CyberSpace. Second: do not worry about how to do something as a "program." It's a power in CyberSpace, so figure it out as a power. Call the deck an IIF, or give the power "Only In CyberSpace," or some other simple, straight-forward Lim, and you're done. All this fiddling with trying to make "programs" work from the meatspace POV made Cyber HERO nearly unplayable.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "All characters, now 20% less angst! Tying oneself in mental knots over trivia & unavoidable situations; 40% reduced! All impossible lines-of-descent, and relations, 60% reduced!" Well, some people seem to think that'd be terrible.

Re: Help me flesh out a kernal of a setting idea The problem with this is its total "planetocentric" viewpoint. Assuming the laws of physics as we now know them are essentially correct --- correct enough that there is no FTL, no reactionless STL, so "magic space drive" --- then the question is not "what will make a species top dog on its planet" but "what will make a species able to exploit and settle its stellar system." There is one quality above all that will be needed: cooperativeness. NOTE!: I didn't say "peacefulness," I didn't say "passivity." I said cooperativeness; the ability, even the urge, to find mutually acceptable (even more important, mutually profitable) plans of action. A species that does not become cooperative will not be able to fully "move into" its stellar system. Seriously, the level of effort needed is so extremely much more than settling a single planet (one, moreover, it will have evolved to fit), that an equally extreme increase in cooperativeness will be needed. In an environment innately hostile to all life, a person who cannot learn to be cooperative will be deadly to all around him/her. If the society doesn't evolve to fit the needs of the new environment (outer space), then it will collapse back into its cradle. Cooperativeness will be a central tenant of stellar-system society, and even more so any society that "slips the surly bonds" of a star and goes off into interstellar space. With such a viewpoint so inherent to any society that reaches another star, point #2 is badly weakened; oh sure, they'll be alert, and ruthless when necessary (note: necessary). But aggressiveness will be channeled to "do better than him/her/them" because non-cooperative aggressiveness will have been known to be deadly for centuries if not millennia . I guess you could call it #2A: Any sapient species that makes it out of the confines of its planet will learn cooperativeness well before it makes it out of the confines of its stellar system. Anyway, "kill them before they kill us" is paranoia. And a paranoid species will no more get out of its stellar system than a non-cooperating one.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: What's the best response to a mermaid's invitation to join her? A: 33 1/3, 45, 78, or 932 11/16

Re: Help me flesh out a kernal of a setting idea

Re: Durability of shotgun shells As long as any kind of "gunpowder" round. I have no idea how long that would be.

Re: "You Homo sapiens and your guns!"

Re: Help me flesh out a kernal of a setting idea Things to consider: Why no other sapient races? Why was a comparatively late "born" star like Sol the first to give rise to sapience? How different from humanity are the various "created" races? Are any of them essentially "altered people" or are they all built out of animals or are they made "from the ground up" or any combination thereof? Are the "artificial intelligences" stuck in immobile computers, or can their bodies move? If mobile, how human-like are their forms? Can/do they shift from container to container, as need and/or whim take them, or do they need to stick with one body shape? If the later, do all AI's use the same (or at least similar) body shape, or is there a wide spectrum? What about aging---which types (if any) age, and at what rate? And the most important questions: Has humanity completely disappeared? If so, why? If not, how hidden are the remenants? Do the remaining humans know they're the "Ancients"? Does anyone else?

Re: Ben 10 type character: questions Problem is that (AIUI) the power always works for 10 minutes, no less. Your way (except for the last sentence) he could run it for less than 10 minutes, if the END Reserve is partly charged. Your last sentence (with a delayed full REC) doesn't differ from a Continuing Charge with Extra Time. Which would be simpler by not having to have a second power (the END Reserve) involved.

Re: Ben 10 type character: questions OK, some ideas of my own. Continuing Charges is the most direct way of handling the limited time it works. The delay before it can be used again would be Extra Time. The "doesn't work or gives the wrong result" bit could be run three different ways, AFAICS: 1) Activation straight up, with missed roll being no change at all, with a second Activation roll and an accompanying Side Effect into a random form. 2) One Activation roll, with a Side Effect "Doesn't work or changes to a different, randomly-chosen form" 3) No Conscious Control at the -1 level ("...for Powers which he can turn on and off at will, but whose effects he cannot control while the power is on."). Just reach an agreement with the GM that usually the PC gets the form he wants, but the GM is free to say no power, or some other form. This is the simplest method, but you had bloody well better completely trust the GM; if not, then either he may screw you over, or you may think he is even if he isn't. Either result is highly detrimental to your enjoyment of the game. Without knowing how you and your GM get along, I would recommend method 2 for simplicity, or method 1 for completeness.

Re: Sticky AoE Entangles Actually, I think you're misusing Sticky. A Sticky power effects someone who shouldn't ordinarily be effected, but who touches someone who is effected and thereby becomes effected. IOW, someone outside the AoE touches someone inside it and becomes entangled. I'm sorry, but I don't see a pile of snow doing that. As Log says, what you (sound like you) want is a Continuous Entangle. Sticky is unrelated to what (it sounds like) you're talking about.

Re: Rail gun damage?

Re: Fantasy Hero Printing Error Oh. OK. Sorry to intrude.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Any.

Re: Answers & Questions