Labrat

Re: Victorian Women's Art of Self Defense

Re: llama = the new geek Me likey! There would be an "LS: Limited need to breathe" attached to the Female Victorian package deal due to that girdle. Also a huge running penalty, let alone any kicking maneuvers.

Re: Marry early. Marry well. They could perform a few sweep maneuvers with those high falutin' hoop dresses of theirs... and I think parasole (sp?) fighting would be something that I would want to see. I won't even mention how much combat protection those camasoles and girdles would give... Forgive me if I'm stereotyping or completely out of reference. My 'Victorian' knowledge is largely dictated by Hollywood.

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts There's been some good discussion here, thanks. Historically, I would have preferred to give total free reign to the players to PC type, background, etc. Only recently have I started to 'pre-assemble' the PCs into some related group just to get the game underway. For example I ran one game that the PCs were all just awakening in a military base and soon learned that they were all experimental soldiers with individual psychic powers. It was a cyberhero game so the 'power level' was low, but the 'pre-assembled' background let me write a few sessions ahead even before the character sheets were approved. That also let me get away with handing out a loose PC-wide package deal that related them. I'm not about to be a tyrant about backgrounds, I say if the players want to have the maximum fun they should have the maximum (allowable) control over their PC creation. I'm just wondering why certain backgrounds are such a recurring phenomenon. It's not like it's a non-issue, the background defines the character from the point of concept. I always encourage my players to start with the character's story and pile on the game mechanics afterwards, it seems to work best that way. The 'hero-born-from-tragedy' is an absolute staple of the fantasy genre (as well as sci-fi, and especially superhero), it just seems to manifest itself in parental-separation somehow almost by default in my experience. Well, after all, not everyone wants to become a hero that herded cows up until he had an inkling to leave the ranch, but there's so many more options that seems outside of casual consideration. This casual lack of creativity seems to be independent of age, sex, playing experience and education in my experience... but like Curufea said, a wider appreciation for the scope of the genre seems to be the key to finding an interesting 'road less travelled' for a PC concept. I'm not really surrounded by people with the time or the drive to expand those horizons for themselves (RL issues, etc), and if you find that you are, then you should consider yourselves fortunate! Either way I can totally sympathize and this shouldn't detract from the game, I'm willing to work with any concepts that fit into the overall structure. Strange, though, even the PBeM players I tend to attract have the same issues. I am now able to look at this more introspectively in order to see if I'm somehow attracting these people with the games I put together (all of them excellent players btw), or somehow else subliminally suppressing innovative concepts... Nah! Next step: required background applications! Thanks for the link, CourtFool.

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts Yes, I agree, GM involvement is key... but left to their (our) own devices, many players seem to default to backgrounds that aren't only old and played out, but not very original at best. Only the names and places change. And those are the ones who even bother fleshing out their PCs by filling in the 'background' boxes.

Has anyone toyed with the idea of pre-writing PC 'birth conditions' for new characters? More specifically: Argument: I believe that there should be an element of tragedy to every superhero (I think Green Goblin said that in Spider-Man, but I can't be sure...) HOWEVER I don't think I can take each fantasy PC having a murdered father/family in their background anymore. Just once, in my 25+ years of RPGing, I would like to be approached with a PC concept that had nothing to do with family-tied-vengance or family-tied-disgrace. Proposed Solution: I may be a control-freak, but people are born out of circumstances beyond thier control. I was thinking of starting a PC applicant off by saying something like "Ok, you are the second son of a family of six, you can tell me who else is in the family. You are from a shepherding community. Your mother is overbearing and your father is addicted to tobacco. Your grandfather was a priest of the local diety, and so zealous that your mother rebelled and turned into an anti-theist of that same diety. Since your grandfather was a temple warden, it had minimal impact on your upbringing. Both mom and dad come from shepherding families themselves and only have seen a real city maybe three times in their entire life..." On one hand that may be too controling, but on the other it may inspire some untapped creativity as opposed to allowing the player to fabricate their entire history. Now I, being a control freak, may not like this approach myself but it sure would be a welcome change. Would you think that these would work? Has anyone had success in doing it this way? Would you tend to play in a game that imposed such restrictions? I'm currently on the fence with this type of proposal. I also think that it may be the gaming company I keep, is such narrow-minded PC conception universal? I hope not.

Re: PS: Competent Design Well that's kind of my point. If it were allowed (barring all munchkinism and looking to the practicality of how a real spell-caster would align his skills), how would it affect the Focus limitations of spell write-ups? I would agree that not every player could be trusted with this, but if one could then I think that it might be considered as a realistic skill for wizard types to have. I'm not really sold on the idea of allowing it for PCs, NPCs sure, and if it was used I fully agree that sub-sections of the KS would be necessary as you described. I'm surprised that this hasn't been discussed before, frankly, so thanks for your input!

Re: PS: Component Design Thanks for your answers, guys. I would think that any required 'KS' in a school of magic would allow knowledge of how to obtain these components if the caster can't make them him/herself. How much would the PS: Component Design cost? Would it be allowable for the caster's 'primary' school of magic? I don't see this as too abusive seeing how there were CPs spent for the use of such spells. It would still take time, the right tools and money, though. Should it be considered as part of the KS: Magic College? On one hand I'd think this would be reasonable knowledge for one who spent so much time studying the arts that rely on them. I could go either way though, seeing the clear probability of abuse inherent in it. I'm also getting ideas that this would make a cool campaign. The PCs are component merchants, or gophers for a component merchant that are constantly spanning the globe looking for raw materials, transporting component crafts, and looking for better resources to use... hmmm...

Hey there, I was just putting together a Wizard NPC and I thought of something that, with further thought, made for an interesting question to put to the boards or to the very hights of Mt Heropolis itself. What would the implications be for having a PS in 'component making'? Would that decrease any penalties for 'Difficult to Obtain' so that it's only material-biased? Sure you might need some finely crafted crystal, but as long as you bought the crystal you could 'finely craft' it yourself... or does this commom limitation assume that the Wizard makes his own components? Surely I can't be the first one to think of this, so if this is a repeat then I'll settle for a point in the right direction of previous discussion.

Re: Turakian Age Freebies!

Re: Turakian Age Freebies! 1. Yes, that's the language chart I knew had to be in there... thanks. I haven't had the opportunity to really digest the entire tome so I jumped the gun. I looked for 'language chart' in the index and didn't find it so I assumed there wasn't one. Owa tana siam. Sorry about that... 2. As for #1, I'm simply wondering if there is a more extensive cross-referenced index. The Encyclopedia (as I mentioned above) is great for looking up the definitions to some of the flavor words and ideas in TA (and I do like that flavor!), but if I needed, say, pirates from TA then I am currently at a loss of finding where they would most likely be found in the already-established world. Also when looking for good sites of 'lost treasure' or 'mysterious legends' I have to go on a text hunt through the book. The TA index is only 1/2 page long and from what I can see the subjects are largely character-related, game-mechanics or broader tid-bits which I agree are the essentials. The book is spectacular and tight, and I'm not implying that expanding the index is your burden, Steve. I'm inclined to do it myself, as I do think it would be an accepted gaming aid. Again, I am humbled by my oversight for #1. There's so much in TA that I admit I haven't been able to get through it page-by-page! You did a great job.

Re: Turakian Age Freebies! Thanks! I second a language table! I don't know why Steve, as thorough as he is, left that out. Not to be greedy as much as practical, but what about an expanded index as compared to the one currently in TA? I would love to see a listing of towns, people (or groups... like 'pirates' for example), hot spots, treasure-laiden ruins, you get the picture. On one hand it's neat to be flipping through and catch some interesting little tid-bit like 'the living statues', but on the other hand it would be nice to have some kind of extended compilation. Is it do-able? The Encyclopedia only goes as far as your TA knowledge and that's asking a lot! Thanks.

Re: Well they can Awesome clips. I can just imagine the person that my PC is talking to laughing at him. It'd be more like '...good doggie... trying to talk? That's so cute! Say 'I want my mamma'!" Titter giggle snort.

O Wise Herophiles I'm currently playing a gnome thaumaturgist (highly recommended) and using 'Jezric's Spell of True Seeming' for the first time (FHG p190) and has morphed into a combat dog. He's in a 1st Turn combat situation where he needs to communicate with another person. Here's the question: Since the spell involves 'Personality Loss' over time, does that infer that certain human-like traits are retained upon the spell's onset, say, speech? I do think that dogs could form words physiologically btw if you want to be a stickler about it... not like a bird or a fish. Anyway, can a gnome-turned-combat dog use human language or does the spell force limited communication? Is it a matter of 'speech-once-learned-is-always-usable', or is it 'a-dog-is-a-dog' answer? Quick Opinion?

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes Well I'm running a game called Arcane Apocalypse on yahoogroups (just now moving to HeroCentral) that has four classes of archtypes: Plane Mage (Dimensional Wizard... nothing new) Enforcer (More or less a light fighter... nothing new) Explorer: Sort of new. Sure you can say that they're like thieves without the greed, but their main purpose is to scout ahead and get into places normally not accessible... Envoy: New. Politician and smooth-talker, necessary because the PCs are representatives of a culture not of this dimension... They are all considered 'Wardens' and have crossed over as a landing party to see whether or not the Material Plane is once again inhabitable after a wild mage-war devistation left the earth a wreck. There was enough time for the Plane Mages to teleport two kingdoms to safe pocket dimensions, but the endurance needed to keep them there after a full generation is getting low and there are side effects of 'thinning reality' that are giving an immediacy to the landing party's mission. Is that what you're looking for?

Re: tickle In terms of combat maneuvers and not 'powers' why wouldn't just be categorized under the distraction rules?

Re: Call Me "Sandy" And I'll Crush You A person made of sand should get de facto bonuses to skill levels for trying to hide on a sandy beach. Just as if a normal human were trying to hide in a warehouse full of stock. Plus where do the 'skill levels' apply when it comes to shapeshifting? (Unless you mean for PER rolls against...) Anyway it's beyond images because he's not trying to 'look like sand' he actually transforms into sand.

Re: tickle Tickling can be a touchy thing (pun intended). I came up with a villian for my little kids when I become 'The Tickler' (cue dramatic music). Having had some time to think about it I honestly think that it would be a NND... not everyone is ticklish. True, EVERYONE has a reaction to being tickled but there is a good fraction of the populace that is 'immune' to it. The tough part is how do you randomize who is ticklish? I'd give it a 11- predetermined and constant after the initial roll is made. I agree with the minor DEX drain with perhaps some levels due to how far away the roll is failed from 11-. If you miss the roll by rolling an 18, you crumble and it could be as good as a high STR hold maneuver. My brother used to pin me with a single finger under the armpit or in the soft part of the neck. I would collapse and then after that he'd just have to get close to me with a pointed finger and a threat... so the PRE attack is also very valid with pre-existing conditions. Now... is spandex tickle-proof? I'd say that 1 point of Power Defense would cover it. YMMV.

Re: Call Me "Sandy" And I'll Crush You I don't think that Invisibility is the goal though. Hey Raven, could somebody pick up a chunk of him and walk away leaving him with 'a chunk missing'? This isn't character specific, I always wondered this about Spidey's Sandman and Hydroman. Shapeshifting doesn't quite cover all the granularity of sand. He's going to be 'broken up' infintessimally so I do think that shapeshifting AND desolid are in order... but as usual YMMV.

Re: Call Me "Sandy" And I'll Crush You

Re: Not reasoning from effects I always separated the two like this: Duplication... more help with you Multiform... more help available to you How would switching bodies in different locations do either? It sounds like a special effect to me. Just put a limitation on the Multiform that says that all forms retain previously sustained damage (-0, or -1/4 at best). I can't remember if this is an 'automatic' rule or not so forgive me if it's redundant.

Re: One Thousand! You're the boss! Consider it done. And Congrats. Now if you'll excuse me... I'm going to try to hobble her so she'll stop running from me. Well done!

Re: Two! w00t w00t! 969! I DO have a life!

Re: Five! w00t! ...believe me I should have something better to do, but... well I don't. Carry on, laddie! The champagne isn't going to wait!