Funksaw

Re: Hiya QUARK-dude... Forbid her to drink in your gun shop?

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... What's Rep?

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... What do I have to do with Pimp, the Backhanding, other than my vocal opposition to it?

Re: Where else do you roll down? Sorry, I forgot how skill works. Still... instead of figuring "characteristic rolls" - why can't skills be 3d6 > 12 + difficulty untrained 3d6 + Stat/5 + Skill Levels > 10 + difficulty trained. (3 points to train, + 2 per skill level.)

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... I don't get it... When did "Funksaw" come up in a game? Huh?

You know, I understand that HERO is a roll under system. This made sense back in the day when HERO 4 was designed. But why has HERO just not gone to "3d6+OCV > 10+DCV?" In other words - why go with the roll-under, rather than roll-above mechanic? It sure would simplify stuff for players coming from any of the big "gateway" games of Storyteller or D&D. Hell, I *prefer* 3d6, roll-under systems and I think it'd make more sense. I'm thinking about writing a PDF showing how the system and it's rolls are affected - but other than combat and skills, what other rolls are "roll under" rather than "roll high?" That said: How do you simplify skills? Like this? Skills 3d6+Skill Level > 10(?) + difficulty modifier? Costs 3 to train a skill, +2 for each skill level? Untrained skills have a +2 difficulty?

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Regina: Then again.. it's not suprising that you'd fly off the handle without even asking what the deal was....without taking into consideration all the times I yanked your ass outta the coals. Caleb: Regina. You *are* the coals. Regina: Oh right.. and you never weren't yourself, right Caleb? You never had your hand forced to do anything you didn't want to.. right? Was never influenced...? Not you....no. Heaven Forbid! Caleb: That's different! Regina: How? Caleb: I don't know. (pause) Caleb: I'm too mad to think. Caleb: My life is a comedy of errors written by Stephen King. Kaylyn: We can go shopping together.. if that'll make ya feel better." Caleb: I had this whole revenge thing planned out. Figured the fight would take about two hours, the gloating another hour... but, um, with the whole thing kinda getting messed up due to incompetence, my night just opened up. So... yeah, I'm game. Caleb: Oh. Hey Stokely. When did you get here? Stokely: A couple of hours ago. Caleb: Oh... yeah. I... tend to develop tunnel vision when filled with murderous rage... and you're kinda a wallflower.

Re: The President wants to talk to you It turns out that the press correspondant he's allowed into the white house press briefings in order to throw him soft-ball, partisan questions, and to leak classified CIA information to used a pseudonym to hide the fact that he worked as a gay hooker. The heroes are sent to create a catastrophe in order to knock it off of the news cycle. Suggestions include some sort of explosion in Iran.

Re: (In Character) The Q.U.A.R.K. Column begins anew! I don't know. Your advice intrigues me, but, well, I'm just not evil by nature. And, well, the truth is, I wouldn't know how to start being evil. What if being evil doesn't work out? Worse, what if it doesn't work out and she's not interested in me at all? Also - uh... if she leaves perfume scented clues for you to follow, is that flirting or trying to lure me into a deathtrap? Is trying to lure someone into a deathtrap a kind of flirting? Frustrated in Vibora

Voodoochili My sidekick just got picked up by the local capes, and soon he'll tell them all my big plans and secret hideouts, only I don't have any. Just a two-story condo and a half-baked idea using scratch off lottery tickets and scratch-and-sniff pheremones. What's worse, I'm sleeping on the couch tonight... See, whatserface, StarStrike or whatever, tried to break into my apartment, and the security system dropped her through the trap door to the cage. Which would normally be a good thing, but my girlfriend got home before I did... Anyway, my girlfriend finds a scantily-clad woman in caged up in the dungeon/basement, and of course she gets all jealous and lets her out (her words were "kicked her out of the goddamn house") Now I've got to find a way to convince her there's nothing between me and "the glowing hussy." *sigh*

frustratedvibora So I was out last night with pretender and silentstrike382 on patrol, and who do I happen to run into but her. That's right. Little miss red-leather herself. *sigh* You know, I HAD worked up the courage to ask her out... really. And she was just doing lookout for some other group or something, so it wasn't like I was interrupting her in any sort of major crime or something that I had to foil... I could have just gone up to her... but I hesitated. All of a sudden, silentstrike382 just blurts out "Stop, Miscreant!" I just about do a slow-burn right there... She takes off, of course, and we never do figure out what she was the lookout for because she didn't even *need* to warn them - the whole neighborhood heard. "Silent Strike of the Orient," my ass! She dropped a clue, though. I picked it up - it was scented with perfume. I think (I hope!) she wants me to find her... ...Easy now. Best not to get my hopes up. Probably *just* another trap.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Stokely: All that I've seen is people being mean to me and to eachother. I've always known that because I've always been picked on and hurt! So is that how it's always going to be for me? I'll never be happy, just miserable? (Long Pause.) Caleb: I'm sorry. Did you want me to disagree? ------------ Caleb: People aren't making fun of you half as much as you think they are. And if they are, it wouldn't hurt to hit back once in a while. Unless, of course, they're bigger or stronger than you. Stokely: I'm not going to hit people. It would make me no better than the bullies that they are. Caleb: And if this were an after-school special, I would agree with you. ------------- Stokely (a fledgling vampire): I really know how to screw things up and all I'm trying to do is make sense of it all. I just want these bad feelings to go away and never return, or at least not return for a very, very, very long time. Caleb (an experienced vampire): Oh, that's simple. You just have to get numb to the pain. Eventually, you'll stop feeling bad. You'll stop feeling anything right around the time you start to get competent. Caleb: It's kinda like working an entry level job at a corporation.

Re: I need advice... Dear Q.U.A.R.K. Hi. I'm a hero in the local "hero scene" - but, well, there's this girl that I like. She, uh, well, she's intelligent, charming, witty, beautiful, witty... and it turns out we have alot in common. She's also horribly evil. But, well, I can't stop thinking about her. And I don't think it's mind control either. What should I do? How do I break the ice? All I know is that between the red leather, whip, and lasso, I'm having trouble keeping my mind on my work whenever I have to deal with her. Sincerely: Frustrated Sidekick in Vibora

Re: PREDATORS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Heh! Not that this hasn't been done in DC -- or real life, for that matter -- but I'd love to see crooked politicians who made it all the way to the top. That's right - give me a President Luthor, or a President Smiler - perhaps with a mislead: "Oh, this only goes up to the CIA - it couldn't possibly go all the way up to the President..."

Re: PREDATORS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Angel's Woflram & Hart Halliburton.... Let me second this idea - also, it might be cool to give the GM ideas for creating evil -groups- along the lines of VIPER or DEMON. ----- And... well, what about predators in the more normal sense - those who feast on humanity. Some Giger-inspired creatures living in the sewers, or perhaps a rip-off of Unknown Armies "Ordo Corpulentis" (Texas Republicans who believe that social darwinism gives them the right to literally eat the poor. Gaining mystical power of some sort from it is optional.) Also give us a couple tempters. But don't make the "tempters" obviously villianous - tempters are best when they don't do evil but when they entice other people to do the evil things instead. Satan, as written by Rod Serling. I know this may sound weird. Give us "remorseful" villians too - "It hurts! Except when I hurt you back! Stay back!" is a great line... I don't know if "redeemable" villians are possible, but those can be fun. The other archetypes would probably be the "villian who literally can't help it." (perhaps someone with a need for human parts like blood, brains, or liver to stay alive... ) and the "villian who you can empathize with." - something like a killer who is going after the corp that killed his wife.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Caleb: My current problem isn't mental. Fury: Did I miss 'let's randomly beat the hell out of somebody' night again? Caleb notices a woman's zombielike state... "You're not interested in me for my brains, are you?" Caleb: Why do all the women interested in me have to be psycho or zombies! Suicide: Maybe it's your aftershave... (Cornered by three demon possessed women.) Caleb: You may think you have the upper hand, but you forgot one thing...I can run really fast, and none of you are wearing support bras. Fury: This is just sport. It's like bobbing for apples. Suit: If bobbing for apples involved guns and killing people, yeah. Fury: You've obviously never played it my way. Suit wipes away an invisible tear. "I didn't know you cared, Fury." Like a little teddy bear...a little, sarcastic, murderous teddybear." Fury: "Is there a cult I should know about, because if I'm missing virgin sarcifices. I'm going to be pissed. I always miss out on the fun shit. Drawing first blood, devirginizing virgins, the ice cold beer, jacking the new shipments of mercedes, alternating tuesday fright night fights."

Re: Skill Tricks "I've Got You Covered" isn't only paying for the invisibility of the power, as far as I can tell - it's paying for the Dex. Specifically, a 20 Dex "I've got you covered." is really a +20 dex I've got you covered. (thus the 60 AP) Here's how I would do it though. Instead of making the *whole* DEX invisible, I'd just make the Dex that makes the fast-draw possible invisible- i.e., if a character has 15 dex, I'd treat "I've got you covered as a +5 dex power and have the PC roll/move as if he had 20 dex when getting off the shot. That 5 dex is 15 points, after limitations it's 7 points. The rationale is that it's not the first 15 points that makes the draw so fast that it might as well be "invisible." Alternatively - and this may not work, the power could be bought as +1 SPD at 10 points, for the *previous* phase only. I.E., if you didn't get a move on, say, phase 7, it turns out that you *did* get a move on Phase 7 after all - right at the end of Phase 7, right before Phase 8... 1 SPD is 10 points, -1/2 lim is 5 points.

Re: Thinking About DARK CHAMPIONS BATTLEGROUNDS I'd love to see a Campus/University. GMs might want to remove "Hudson City" from "Hudson City University" and add "Miskatonic" in, somedays... I'd also like to see more a government-conspiracy cracking caper, and a madcap romp for a McGuffin left in the back of a taxicab...

I'm not a big system guru, and don't follow the "Champions" setting - this will be my first purchase. I also want to be able to use the Vibora Bay setting in Unknown Armies, Buffy, and possibly WoD (classic) if I ever get a chance to run it. Can I do that, and can you give me reasons why you would reccomend - or not - the book. Pros, feel free to shill. I'm sold on the concept and kinda like proof of execution.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... *There's a warning plaque on the closed coffin lid. It says: "DANGER: Do not expose contents to sunlight. Do not expose contents to flame. Do not open unless accompanied by an expert. Fragile.* On the coffin lid seems to be a series of pictograms designed to be read by a civilization thousands of years in the future depicting a person opening the coffin and pulling out the stake. The first one shows a happy spaceman from the future opening the lid. You know he's happy because he's got a smiley face. The second shows him pulling the stake. The third shows the stick-figure in the coffin sitting up. He's got a frowny face with fangs. The fourth shows the stick-vampire eating the spaceman. Now the spaceman is frowning, and the stick-vampire is smiling. The fifth shows the stick-vampire frowning, hunched over the dead body of the spaceman.

How would you write up a racial design for the Rats of Nimh in a campaign where the characters are sentient rats in a urban shopping mall, warring with rival rat gangs for turf? Like bunnies and burrows with Rats. And... for the gearheads out there. I need a mousetrap in HERO terms.

Mage the Ascension Okay, yes, I could port in Tri-Stat's "Dynamic Powers" or even write up totally new powers. But I was thinking, each sphere and each sphere level has a very limited set of what you can do with that sphere. These can be represented as multipowers... it might be possible simply to write up each sphere and sphere level as seperate multipowers... a total of 45. The question arises... how do I model, say, "Transform Matter to Energy?" (Forces 3, Matter 3?) within such a multipower framework, where if you have either or, you can't do it, but if you have both, you can do it. Venn diagram time: Power (Forces) allows you to transmute forces into other types of forces or any other pattern sphere you can transmute in. Power (Matter) allows you to transmute forces into other types of forces or any other pattern sphere you can transmute in. How'd you write that up?

Re: Fantasy Campaign Ideas Actually, I'm not looking to know how to create one for myself. I just want some quick-and-ready concepts that we can brainstorm and then I can figure out for my own. Indeed, I love exploring themes. But I find it's better to come up with a cool idea and explore the themes that would result from that rather than come up with a theme and then try to base a cool idea around it. I do it all the time when coming up with sci-fi, modern, conspiracy campaigns -- I'm just a bit weak when it comes to fantasy... mostly because I don't get much call for fantasy gaming that's not D&D. Really - most fantasy campaigns are exactly the same, thus, my attempts to point out how HERO can broaden the scope. My friend once had a idea for a game where characters played literary tropes and cliches and themes... the idea is that you play, say "The local boy done good" or "The Beast (of Beauty and the Beast" or "The Tortured Genius" (The Archetypes from Unknown Armies might be a good start...)- and you, as characters of fiction, are able to travel to different realms - Romanticism, a place of natural beauty and idyllic life, Modernism which could have a quasi-retro art, Dystopianism and Utopianism - twin cities... and the characters are fighting off all-consuming PostModern Myth -- the idea that there are no more new stories to be told.

I'm going to be running a HERO seminar soon and was wondering if people could come up with some not-terribly cliched roleplaying game settings/cliches which would work in the HERO system and capture the imagination of the players. Here's a couple I've come up with: 1) A world where mad science has been secretly fueling the world's innovations since 1945... 2) A world where God only exists because people believe in him - and you play one of the creatures that only exists because some people believe in you... 3) The Lord of the Rings - where Hobbits are particularly known for Punk Rock, the big love interest is between Elvisgorn and Pricillwen, and magic is "manipulating the music of the spheres," Eowyn is the Backup Maiden of Rohan, and Gandalf coordinates the raid on the black gates from a Lead Zepplin.

Anyone go some good fantasy campaign ideas? I don't just mean quests or dungeons that would fit within a D&D/Tolkien framework... , I mean, complete world creation...