Funksaw

Re: Character: The Doctor (?) How would you write the OTHER Doctor up, though. Although I think the Buffy/Unisystem might work better.

I was going to ask how to build the Hitchhiker's Guide in Hero, but I realised that such a build would also be applicable for the "usually accurate" Wikipedia. How would you build those two things?

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... (The Next Night.) Caleb: "Erin, you got a moment?" Erin: "Yeah, what's up" Caleb: "I wanted to ask you if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And if so, if you could tell me how to trick Jesus into thinking that I have..." Erin: (Doubletake, lifts brow, scratches the back of her neck.) "I don't think you can trick him, Caleb" Caleb: "It's regarding my stalker...ers... Basically, Reg suggests that a little faith can work miracles. Problem is, I'm so desperate I'll try anything, but not desperate enough to do the whole religion thing." Erin: "You can't fool him. He knows more about you than you know about yourself. Either you believe or you don't, but religion isn't part of it. It's between you and him alone." Caleb: "See, I don't buy that. If it was direct between two people - then why the need for the middlemen? Wouldn't we all be priests? Maybe, just maybe, the reason there's so much bureaucracy in place is because it's nessessary. And in any bureaucracy, there's loopholes. I used to work for congressmen. If you follow the idea that incompetence rises to it's own level, Jesus should be even more gullible."

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Yeah, Regina's hilarious in a down-home country wiseass sort of way. (Because Regina's player is.) Most of these gaming quotes come from online gaming... I've been putting it off if only because I didn't want you to get the wrong impression, and I don't want to ruin it, but there's a V:TM irc channel that, well... it's not that it's gone far off cannon but they ditched the system, threw in house rules, and basically said "f-it" to the whole "You're supposed to play vampires a specific way, all angst and gloom and personal horror." The end result is that it's ostensibly VTM, but it plays kinda like Buffy if it was written by the writers of the West Wing. Give me a PM if you're interested in joining in. They could always use new players.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Caleb is worried that he may spend too much time chasing after women. Caleb: "Would you say that I'm an inveterate philanderer?" Erin: "Is that a nice way of saying you're a ladies man?" Caleb: "Actually, 'ladies man' is a nice way to say 'inveterate philanderer." Later... Caleb: "Besides, we've already established I'm an inveterate womanizer" Regina: "Spineless womanizer?" Caleb: "I really have to get a thesaurus to look up a synonym for inveterate. It sounds too much like 'invertebrate'..." ------------ Regina: "Maybe I can help you with your little ghost problem.. " Caleb: "So... any details? What should I be doing?" Regina: "Lemme ask you somethin' Caleb.. you believe in God?" Caleb: Just the vengeful, vindictive one. Why? Regina: "There's other sides too.. and when you start to see those ghosts.. I want you to rebuke them.. you ever hear of that? " [pause] Caleb: "Reg, doesn't that mean calling upon the power of Christ to compel demons to leave the mortal plane and return to hell? *That* rebuke? I don't think I can do that." Regina: "Why not?" Caleb: "For one, don't you need to be A) a priest, somewhat faithful, C) entertain the possibility that God might actually listen to *my* prayers, and D) require a God that isn't a complete choad? Can't I rebuke them with one of the fun gods? I like Bacchus." Regina: (slow, deliberate breath.) "No.. you don't have to be a priest.. but you do gotta have faith.. and you already know that demons exist... They hear you.. what makes you think God doesn't? " Caleb: "Oh, he hears me. He just doesn't *listen.*" Regina: "Maybe he does Caleb... it'll work.. trust me.. if you believe it will." Caleb: He's like a Jewish mother whose son grew up to be a gay stripper in the East Villiage rather than a doctor... he doesn't acknowledge that I exist, I'm such a dissapointment. Goin' out. Murdering people, taking his name in vain, coveting women of all stripes. Putting Bacchus before him. Ach, such a schundik!" Regina: (Shrugs) "You could always keep livin' with the hauntings." Caleb: "Oy, gevalt!"

Re: Here on Earth-2: your evil counterpart! Why is your evil twin more fun than you?

Re: Fullmetal Alchemist: How to model? Well, I'd imagine that Alchemy wouldn't be an everyman skill, just like Chemistry isn't an everyman skill. Sure, people might have learned Chemistry in high school, but how much do you remember? I'd say that an untrained person trying to use Alchemy would be at a 8-... add that to the standard "per active point" penalties, and you've got a major problem. I'd imagine that a pro Alchemist probably has a 15 or so - enough to weild 30 AP or so with a reasonable chance of success, while State Alchemists have up to 20 in the "Alchemy" skill - enough to wield 30 points without fear of failure and able to take on maybe 100 points in a crunch. I'd also consider the possibility of "aiding" devices, something like the State Alchemist's Pocketwatch adding 30 active points to the Alchemy (with OAF.)

Say, how would you guys model the assorted powers in "Fullmetal Alchemist" I'm thinking, obviously, "Transform" would be the appropriate power. The problem is that alchemy (as portrayed in the Anime) requires a transmutation circle. Sometimes this circle can be drawn. (Most Alchemy) Other times the circle can be engraved. (But engraved alchemy can only do one type of transform effect per transmutation circle) Other times, it can be improvised, but this is rare. Would you buy it as two separate transform powers? General Alchemy Transform, Gestures (draw the circle) (Only Matter) (Obvious Accessible Focus: "Matter") (Usable as Attack) Specific Alchemy Transform, (One transformation only) (Obvious inaccessible focus: Engraved Transmutation Circle) (Usable as Attack)

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Let me put it to you this way. It was a new session, new players, nervous as hell GM... Mateusz's player just said "Found it!" referring to the "I found a bathroom" rather than "Found it!" "I found the spear that pierced the side of Christ." In other words, Meteusz's player was trying to defy expectations.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... The group is a bunch of supernaturally-based supers and occultists searching for the Spear of Destiny in a humongous castle during WWII (think Hellboy.) Five minutes into the first session of the first game: Mateusz: "Found it!" (The GM looks shocked.) Mateusz heads into the bathroom that he was searching for. Mateusz: "You try holding it since Cherbourge" ---------------- Mateusz is a Polish national. GM: Letizia and Mateusz find each room they search empty of any signs of recent activity. They search a dining hall, a kitchen, several bedrooms, an armory. Finally the hallway comes to a a set of stairs heading up and one going down. Letizia: "Up or down?" Mateusz: "I'll take down." Mateusz: "When have you ever heard of a monster on the roof?" Mateusz: "Unless it was some sort of tradition." ------------------- Mateusz: "Keep your eyes peeled. Unless, there's something here that actually peels eyes. In which case, don't let it peel them." -------------------- GM: Carved into the circle in the center are the roman numerals 1 through 10, where each of the red robed individuals are. Mateusz: "It's like a fancy clock... in... the metric system..." -------------------- Letizia and Mateusz come across a tunnel only big enough to crawl through. Letizia: "This way." Mateusz: "I'll go in first." Letizia starts crawling through the tunnel. Mateusz: "I *said* I'll go in first!" Letizia: "I'm smaller." Mateusz crawls in after Letizia... Mateusz: "Not by much." Mateusz: "On second thought..." Mateusz keeps his eyes ahead of him... GM: The tunnel Letizia and Mateusz are traveling down goes on for about 20 feet before exiting out into a medium sized room. As they come out they hear the sound of guns being cocked. That's when they notice the four men in Nazi uniforms holding MP40's at them. Their skin is a strange shade of white-ish grey. Letizia stares at the Nazis for a moment. Mateusz: "If we die, I just want you to know that I enjoyed looking at you in the tunnel." Letizia can't help but giggle. Letizia: "If we don't die, I will kill you." ----------------------- Mateusz: Okay... there will be Nazis there. Here's the plan. Step one, I will run in and kill everything. There is no step two.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... I think it's funnier this way.

Re: Women!

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... You know, everyone says that it's funnier out of context, but that's rarely the case. The reason for this is because, "out of context," "Quit Stalling and smash our balls" is a single entendre - pummel my testicles once you've stopped prevaricating. If the balls were some sort of jewels or crystals or something like that... that would make it funnier, making it a double entendre. I want to know the context. Things are *much* funnier in context than out of context, always.

Which thread would win in a 3 way rumble? Assume each of the threads is built on 350 points.

Re: [4color] Why do you dislike the Iron Age style? (No flames, ok?) Dude, have you gotten a load of humanity lately? People really *do* suck that much and we're (at least in the U.S.) living in a dystopia.

Re: Early "What do you want to see?" for Teen Champions Here's one thing about the Teen genre that I think many people would be inclined to overlook: In today's uber-security climate where you can get expelled, jailed and brought up on terrorist threats for writing a story about zombies that involves a high-school if you are a high-school student, how do you deal with high school when you're carrying a weapon (your superpowers) into school everyday? Why would you put up with high school when you can raise money from product endorsements or something and put yourself either through private school or skip right ahead to college?

Re: Early "What do you want to see?" for Teen Champions Ah, Batman Beyond. Teen Dark Cyber Champions: the Animated Series. The Five Supplimenter.

Re: Setting up super-prisons Hmm. "The Island" was a pretty effective way to hold at least one superspy... I'm wondering what would happen if a supervillian escaped - and was followed endlessly by one of the rovers... I mean, even the most powerful supervillian has to sleep eventually. Unless they have life-support sleep... but... you get what I mean.

Re: [iron] Why do you dislike the Four Color/Silver age (No Flames please) I'd like to talk about something. Somewhere in my still-packed book collection is the Graphic Novelization of Kirby's New Gods. I couldn't get through it. I really couldn't - it did a poor job of introducing characters and concepts, there were these four human characters tacked on for no good reason, and the writing was completely comic-book cliche. I'm sure if someone took the entire New Gods mythology and rewrote, redesigned the entire thing, it'd play better today. And I'm sure there's a great story in there (it was said to have inspired Star Wars) but as a modern reader, I just can't cut through it. During the silver-age, comics were semi-literate kiddie fare, and because all conflicts had to be posited in a good vs. evil -- so be good! -- background, it couldn't evolve beyond that.

Re: What is it about Champions? Yeah... plus, the moderation there... Let me put it to you this way. Quality of posting? Analytical reasoning? Even being funny and entertaining? Anyone who exhibited any degree of "forum competence" left that place (indeed, it's why you find alot of WW threads on other forums, such as RPG.net) The reason is the forum and chat moderator, Conrad Hubbard, who, if you do a search for him on RPG.net is about the lowest human being in the state of Georgia that knows how to type, chooses to moderate based not on appropriateness but upon loyalty to him. Disloyal to him? Get the boot. Complain? Get the boot. Point out something? Get the boot. Act like a jerk, boost HIS company's system, boost HIM, boo other systems? You can stay. I started with White Wolf/Storyteller and find that it's very, very good for limited-scope games. All the "powers" are pregenerated, character creation is simple as hell (except in Exalted) so you can make characters and play in one session, and they've got some very good settings. (Some pretty bad ones, too...) But White Wolf the company has pissed me off enough that I just won't buy their stuff. (Hubbard, DRM, Pimp: The Backhanding...) I do think that there are a disproportionate number of jerks who play White Wolf, I think this has less to do with the games themselves and more to do with the people who create the games. Jerks are the type of market that they seem to be marketing towards.

Re: What is it about Champions? Having been on all sides of the debate, let me try to explain what I think about this whole debacle. I think one of the reasons for this elitism is that the RPG world is composed of - you guessed it, fanboys. A critique on "your system" is a critique on them. It's rare that a Rolemaster booster will come right out and say: "Yep, Rolemaster does have alot of charts, but I'm willing to sacrifice the time in order to get the information from those charts." It's rare that a HERO gamer will come out and say: "Yeah, there is alot of math, and it's not always the most intuitive to create a character. What's more, you CAN min-max a character pretty easily. But I'm willing to sacrifice the simplicity for the flexibility." It's rare that a d20 gamer will say: "Yeah, the game is really built so that you have to min-max in order to create an effective character compared to other PCs and published enemies, and almost every character of the same class and level is pretty much the same, but I'm willing to sacrifice the flexibility for the familiarity." It's rare that a Storyteller gamer will say: "It does take a long time to resolve combat and the game does seem to attract very scary people, but I'm willing to sacrifice that time in order to have a fleshed out world-background." It's rare that an Unknown Armies gamer will say: "Fuck you! I like it because the book talks to me! Me alone! Only I WILL SIT AT THE RIGHT HAND OF THE GOD OF TIME AND YOU WILL ALL BURN IN THE PORK FAT PITS OF KLLKKEK, the ALIEN SATAN FROM BENEATH MOUNT FUJI!"

Re: Iron Age Champions campaigning Would he be a "villian" then?

Re: Foriegn Captain America's One more thing... when designing Indian or Hong Kong superheroes, keep in mind the bollywood/hong kong style. Romance, comedy, action, drama, suspense... inexplicable musical interludes - all these should fit into the adventure and the character. The reason Bollywood epics are multi-genre and 3 hours long is because you don't go to the movies that often when you don't have alot of money to spend. So, you get ONE movie that has something for EVERYBODY! I think there's something out in DC right now called Vinarmaroon or something like that that's a Bollywood superhero epic. On the other hand, do NOT go with the "Spider-Man India" route - which... quite frankly, is kinda insulting. Spiderman's an American - indeed, a New York - phenomenon. Don't take existing characters and try to retrofit them into the cultures.

Re: Foreign Icons I'd also be interested in a Captain America type who felt that the country left him, not that he left the country. I was actually thinking of playing an American in Europe, called "Emigre."

Re: Foreign Icons New Zealanders could use something from Maori culture. Whatever the hero, though, he'll be more "patriotic" dressed in all-black rather than the colors of the New Zealand flag - which is getting changed soon anyway.