Xavier Onassiss

Re: Jokes Did you hear about that topless car wash? The sign out in front says "Convertibles Only." Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: Your Top Ten Science Fiction Writers, and then some. Re: Weber. I consider his Honor Harrington novels my 'guilty pleasure' in SF reading. I know it's not great writing, but it's so entertaining I don't care. No, he doesn't make my top 10, but back when I was into military SF, he might have. The trouble with top ten lists and the ensuing debates is that they inevitably come down to "Well if he's so great, how do you explain the fact that I don't like him, Mr. Smarty-pants?" Don't blame me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life. Explaining my screwed-up life: "It's like this: Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement. That makes me just about the most experienced son of a b**** who ever lived!" Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Lots and lots of Loreena McKennitt! Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: Fiction resources for Solar HERO. Another Kim Stanley Robinson title which might be useful for Solar Hero: Icehenge. A couple of others: Schismatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling, and Accelerando by Charles Stross. And for something really far-out, Wil McCarthy's Collapsium series. Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life. From our weekly trivia competition on Tuesday evening. The discussions can get pretty weird.... Scooter: "You've never heard of Chippendale cabinets?" Me: "Well, yeah, but I thought they were made by male dancers." Scooter: "Look, I do not wanna know what goes on in your brain, okay?" Me: "Hey, I don't know about these things...for years, I thought 'Art Deco' was a game show host!" Susano: stares across table, pantomimes stabbing motion with table knife Me: shrug "It's not my fault. I'm an inferior decorator." Later that same evening: the subject was advertising slogans, one of which turned out to be "Let the Dance Begin." No one on our team knew that, apparently because none of us need Viagra. We noticed several other ads would also make good copy for Viagra: Mazda: Zoom, Zoom! Coca-Cola: The pause that refreshes. And the #1 slogan for another product which should have been used for Viagra is... Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: Your Top Ten Science Fiction Writers, and then some. I've been reading a lot of the "new space opera" over the last few years, and loving it. So finally, I decided to take a crack at adapting it to Star Hero. From Wikipedia: This "new space opera", which evolved around the same time cyberpunk emerged and was influenced by it, is darker, moves away from the "triumph of mankind" template of space opera, involves newer technologies, and has stronger characterization than the space opera of old. While it does retain the interstellar scale and scope of traditional space opera, it can also be scientifically rigorous. The new space opera was a reaction against the old. New space opera proponents claim that the genre centers on character development, fine writing, high literary standards, verisimilitude, and a moral exploration of contemporary social issues. McAuley and Michael Levy[7] identify Iain M. Banks,[6] Stephen Baxter,[6] M. John Harrison,[6] Alastair Reynolds,[6] McAuley himself,[6] Ken MacLeod, Peter F. Hamilton, and Justina Robson as the most notable practitioners of the new space opera. I haven't read Harrison and Robson yet, but the rest I've found thoroughly enjoyable. And I'd include some of the works of Charles Stross in this category as well. Creating a Star Hero setting in this vein has been hard work, but the effort has paid off. I've been running games like this at conventions for a couple of years, and I always get the same reaction: "When are you going to publish this?" I'm not telling. Don't blame me, Xavier Onassiss ps -- I forgot Wil McCarthy and Chris Moriarty!

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Type O Negative - Love You to Death

Re: Charging points for tech gear? Hmmm...lengthy response in moderation limbo. Please stand by.

Re: Charging points for tech gear? You can handle equipment in SF campaigns several different ways: have the PC's buy it with money, or with character points, or...use some other method. It's entirely up to you. In my campaign, the 'alien' races aren't really playable as PC's (they're a little too alien) so I don't worry about balancing them. I can't really answer your last question. But in regards to the rest: I've found that high-tech equipment can be a real game-changer in terms of the power levels it provides to the PC's. Depending on the tech level, advanced equipment can give a 'normal' PC the equivalent of 'super powers' quite easily. For the GM of a high-tech SF campaign, this creates a dilemma: this equipment, and the power it gives the PC's, is a basic element of the genre. So you need to account for having it in the game, and you must be able to design scenarios which will be challenging for PC's with 'extreme tech' capabilities. The alternative is to restrict the PC's access to high-tech equipment, but then the campaign loses one of its most important genre elements. (And that's enough genre-policing for today, I think....) In my SF setting, high-tech equipment is ubiquitous and powerful -- it's a given that the PC's are going to have access to it. In the next round of playtesting for my SF setting, I'll be making use of the rules for resource points. Charging full price for equipment in my campaign would lead to serious point inflation. (or some very short equipment lists!) So...resource points. And there are other perks to cover really unusual equipment: advanced tech level for alien tech, wealth for high-priced items, improved availability for military gear. This will give the PC's a lot of flexibility with respect to acquiring and choosing gear without breaking their point totals, it'll give me an idea (based on the perks they take) what kind of gear they want, and none of us will have to fiddle with price lists. (Hurray, no price lists!) My best advice: do some playtesting, find out what works best for you, and do it that way. IMHO, 'free' equipment = too much, but paying full price = too little. So I want to try a 'middle of the road' cost structure, and resource points looks like the way to go next time. Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion This comes as a considerable relief to hear. (I've been known to understate, just a little....) On the other hand, another potentially very cool SF idea gets kiboshed. Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion Far-fetched as it may be, this is great stuff for apocalyptic SF stories. Reminds me of Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross. This makes me wonder about the use of relativistic weapons (as opposed to thermonuclear devices) against a system's primary star. If it's possible to start a 'runaway' fusion reaction in the atmosphere of a star, would a relativistic impact create enough heat/pressure to initiate a reaction like that? The massive bombardment depicted in Pellegrino & Zebrowski's The Killing Star would be wholly unnecessary if a single R-bomb could be used to detonate the Sun! I'll have to look into this. The future history of my campaign might be due for a revision. Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: The Singularity? Probably because he's been nagged by smart women. My experience has been very similar, unfortunately. Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Akin's Laws Of Spacecraft Design: http://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/old_site/academics/akins_laws.html I found a great deal of wisdom and humor in this list. It seems like quite a few of them apply to rpg design as well. Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Walk the Walk -- Poe BTW -- I think this is my all-time favorite thread. Checking out what everyone else is listening to is a blast.

Re: The cranky thread Moving sucks. Winter sucks. Moving during the winter REALLY sucks!!! I've got a back-ache, a sore throat, a migraine and worst of all, I'm sober. Fortunately, I've got this ice-cold bottle of Jager which is going to cure all of the above.... :drink: <--- I think that's me in the middle. Not sure tho. Don't look at me, Xaver Onassiss

Re: Announcing Kazei 5, Second Edition That's what SHE said!!!

Re: Looking for a technobabble Term Good point. And if you have Psi abilities in your campaign, a Xeno-psychometricist (object reader) would also be an interesting addition to the team. I imagine this would be one of the more hazardous duties. "Sir, Wozniak's burnt out. He took one look at this memory crystal and now he's just sitting there gibbering." "Crap. That's the third one this week! Okay, put him in the freezer. Any replacements left?" "Uh...he's the last one, Sir." "Damn...we can't freeze him, then. Is he still in one piece?" "Well, his head didn't explode like the other two, Sir." "Alright, then. Get him in the scanner, then give his brain a good zap...maybe he just needs a jump-start." "Sir?" Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: The Singularity? My favorite SF novel about the singularity is Accelerando by Charles Stross. YMMV. This story takes 'future shock' to a whole new level. Synopsis (many spoilers!) here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando_%28book%29 Or read the whole thing online: http://manybooks.net/titles/strosscother05accelerando-txt.html Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Cynical Girl -- Marshal Crenshaw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR7gXt9GeVM&feature=related

Re: Announcing Kazei 5, Second Edition It's pretty much impossible to provide a complete overview of such a big sourcebook as Kazei 5 in an interview under 60min, but this pod-cast came about as close as humanly possible. Kudos to Atomic Array and Susano for excellent questions and answers. Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: Looking for a technobabble Term Another ethical consideration: are the activities of these xenoarcheologists approved of by society? How do alien societies view them? If there are aliens (or humans) who consider the remnants of this vanished civilization to be sacred or otherwise off-limits, then those aliens (or humans) would consider the xenoarcheologists to be grave-robbers. That could make things very interesting. Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: Plasma Rocket! This could be built as a partially-limited power, with a few meters of flight (say 10m/segment in a 1g field) purchased with the 'only for levitation' or 'vertical movement only' limitation. Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Anxia by Rhea's Obsession

Re: The Singularity? One version I heard had it that the Singularity would occur when AI's acquired the capability to upgrade their own software -- in other words, when they could direct their own evolution at whatever processing speed is available to them. Now, what if some of the AI's in question choose to optimize themselves to evolve even faster...and their 'descendants' continue to do the same? The word 'god-like' comes to mind.... Don't look at me, Xavier Onassiss