DShomshak

I can only guess at the reasoning behind such design, but I'll try.

One thing you sometimes see in comics is the giga-villain who fights multiple teams of heroes at once. They come at him in waves, he bats them back, the next wave piles on and gets scattered in turn, etc. This is tricky to do in Champions, because a single team of, say, 5 heroes can dish out an awful lot of STUN in a Turn. Even giving the giga-villain high defenses and lots of Damage Reduction might not be enough -- and yet you still want it to mean something if a hero manages a Pushed, Haymakered, Called Shot to the head. So it's not a good idea to push the villain's defenses too impossibly high.

Ditto DCV. It's a boring adventure if the fight consists of whiff after whiff because nobody can hit Big Bad with any roll over a 5. Okay, so players might be able to devise a clever use of Powers to reduce Big Bad's DCV, but when you publish Big Bad you don't know who the PCs will be.

Or you use the STUN rules. Give Big Bad such overpowered attacks that any hero he hits is Knocked Out, or at least Stunned. That way, you don't have a dozen or more heroes launching 5+ attacks per Turn. You have the few who are conscious at any given moment, not all of whom will hit, while the others regain consciousness and take Recoveries.

So that's my guess. I still think it sucks. I think it's based on a comic-book trope that just doesn't translate to the gaming table. Don't have a fight with large numbers of NPC heroes. (Or if you do, have them engage in a separate fight off in the distance, which you as GM merely allude to now and then. No dice rolls, good God.)

Though as LL recounts -- some campaigns have run so long the PCs *can* fight even the most apparently overpowered published villains and win handily. That's why 6e versions include notes on adjusting character power up and down... one of few 6e innovations of which I approve.

Dean Shomshak

I have two volumes of Hite's columns, called Suppressed Transmission: The First Broadcast and Suppressed Transmission: The Second Broadcast. I suppose I should see if further collections were published.

Well, yes, the key to a good investigative scenario is that the players can be rewarded for thinking, but don't actually need to do so. It's a good idea to have something ready if the player *does* make a great Deduction roll. It lets you skip the step where the NPC posts the snarky comment that, "I don't see Jesus. I see a road map to Eveleth, Minnesota. And I should know because I live nearby in Hibbing." Then add another Fortean event or two.

As GM, you have also primed the pump by describing how Fortean events, both loud and subtle, followed Dr. Macabre -- and that the heroes he fought used this to track him. 

It's still possible that the players won't trust you to supply clues to the Janus Key even though they said they wanted an adventure built around searching for the Janus Key. Or, yeah, that they won't realize you are trying to give them what they asked for. Then you'd probably go to your Plan B. Maybe go big and have Eveleth suddenly be replaced by a swath of long-devastated land patrolled by Martian war tripods. See, the new owner's latest experiment replaced the town with a section from an alternate history where the Martians won the War of the Worlds. (In the CU, it was the Orson Wells version that really happened, and the "Martians" were actually Sirians, but whatever.)

As always, know your players. But at least try to give them a chance to feel smart.

Dean Shomshak

Someone in my family checked out the first P. D. Q. Bach record from the library when I was young, and I was hooked.

Seeing Schickele/P. D. Q. Bach in concert in Seattle was a high point for my 1980s. It featured the 'Unbegun' symphony and a fall of sheet music onto the stage.

I hadn't known Schickele was still alive.

Dean Shomshak

Mystic "echoes" of the Janus Key being used? How about Fortean events? As the Key's wielder warps reality, unintended alterations also happen. Back in the day, PCs would have needed to read the Weekly World News for sightings of Elvis (or Batboy), rains of toads, images of Jesus appearing in tortillas, and the like. Nowadays I assume there are websites for this stuff.

Oh, hey. Let's work more with Tortilla Jesus. There are lots of lines going hither and thither in the taco, and okay, a person with a vivid imagination could imagine some of them as forming a vaguely human outline. But someone who makes a really good Deduction roll (or applies computer analysis) finds the lines form a map. The tortilla isn't showing Jesus, it's showing the roads and rivers around Eveleth, Minnesota. What's significant about Eveleth, Minnesota? Well, the PCs don't know until they go there. But it's a breadcrumb along the trail to the Janus Key. Or at least on the trail to something the Janus Key wants done.

Maybe the PCs encounter other people who are follow their own similarly obscure investigative trails. Maybe they're just nuts, engaging in a more abstract form of pareidolia; maybe it's connected to the Janus Key; or maybe the world genuinely is far stranger than the PCs imagined.

Dean Shomshak

And try to establish a precedent for punishing the nonconforming. Or at least virtue-signal your eagerness to punish the nonconforming.

Dean Shomshak

11 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

Wrong!  The other best setting is 5th century Europe:

 

• Arthurian myth
• Continued Existence of the Byzantine Empire

One of Kenneth Hite's excellent "Suppressed Transmissions" columns, "Justinian and Arthur: Historical High Fantasy," described a campaign based on bringing these two together, with Justinian as Evil Overlord. Dead tree publication in Suppressed Transmission: the First Broadcast.

Dean Shomshak

For many years, my sister and her family celebrated "theme Christmas" -- Polish Christmas, Scandinavian Christmas, South African Christmas, etc. ONe year they did Saturnalia, then Roman precursor to Christmas and found that... a lot got ported over. Including one subtle cultural attitude: that it used to be better, especially before it got so commercial and people forgot the True Meaning of Saturnalia.

Our long-established holidays such as Christmas, Tet, or Eid might continue far into the future and on other worlds, even after original contexts are gone and forgotten.

I hear Thanksgiving has spread beyond the US. That seems like a good candidate for long-term survival. "Yearly fest to gather with family and be glad for what you have" seems pretty basic and easily ported to future circumstances and other cultures.

Dean Shomshak

16 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Or we simply rule that exotic defenses are resistant by default and assess AVADs and NNDs with care.

That's what I assumed in my Ultimate Supermage playtest campaigns, which began before there was any official word on things like Resistant Mental Defense. And since exotic-defense Killing damage can only exist by creating an NND/AVAD, the only reasons to postulate Resistant versions of those defenses are a) to create such an arms race, or b) an obsession with pattern that demands that because PD and ED exist in normal and resistant forms, *all* defenses must exist in normal and resistant forms.

I do not consider maintaining a consistent pattern to be a crucial consideration for game design.

(OK, Mental Illusions can deal Killing Damage, but the rules for this are idiosyncratic. You defend by having enough Mental Defense to keep the final effect below the +20 threshold. If you don't have that, whether your pitiful insufficient Mental Defense is Double Hardened Impenetrable Resistant or not doesn't matter.)

Dean Shomshak

Star Trek: Lower Decks Season One came in at the library. Smarter and funnier than it has any right to be, and some of the best Trek I've seen since Next Gen and DS(. The people who make this aren't just Star Trek fans: They are perceptive Star Trek fans, who aren't afraid to poke fun at the tropes while still loving them. And occasionally calling out places where the franchise genuinely has fallen down, or at least where attitudes have, one hopes, evolved -- such as treating all members of a particular alien species as one-note stereotypes.

I look forward to Season Two, on hold at my library.

Dean Shomshak

Speaking of ring-shaped structures in space, yesterday's NPR science roundup included a story about Odd Radio Circles (ORCs) found around a few galaxies. There may be an explanation. (Topic begins about 6 minutes into story.) Hint: It involves GREAT BIG EXPLOSIONS.

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/12/1198909135/radio-circles-coming-from-the-centers-of-galaxies?ft=nprml&f=1007

dEAN sHOMSHAK

Oh for sure, Seal Team 6 would never obey such an order. But Trump could find people who would.

Trump has done and gotten away with (so far) enough things that we thought nobody could or would try that I don't think this hypothetical can be dismissed as pure hysteria.

The core issue, I think, is that when presented with such an absurd extension of his argument, Trump's lawyer didn't immediately reply, "No that's ridiculous, it could never happen, the President would be in jail so fast it'd make your head spin." His response at the time seemed to be. "...Maybe?"

It can happen here.

Dean Shomshak

HERO is so good at representing everything and anything in mechanical terms that I think it's easy to slide into thinking that everything *must* have a mechanical representation, paid for with points on a character sheet. I can unfortunately imagine an exchange something like this:

Rubber Band Man's Player: "The Sun Stone could be a source of limitless energy! I need to get it back to my lab to study."

GM: "How do you plan on moving it? Like the name says, it's as hot as the surface of the Sun. It isn

't burning anything right now because it's magnetically levitated. If you take it out of the starship engine, it won't be."

I'm On Fire Guy's Player: "My costume doesn't burn up when use my Damage Shield, so let's make a bag from my costume. We can carry it that way."

GM: <fixes glittering eye on player> "Oh? And did you spend points on your costume being fireproof all the time? If it's not on the character sheet, it doesn't exist."

Now, I think The GM is being a jerk. Players should be rewarded for clever use of resources and capabilities. Sketchpad found the phrase I was looking for before: Using the costume this way is a *power stunt,* which is a thing in HERO but mentioned so briefly that it's easy to forget about it. And even that's been "mechanic-ized" by adding the Power skill, with rules for your chance to fail depending on the Active Points of the stunt effect.

(One way, and not the only one, in which I think earlier editions were better *because* they were looser.)

Dean Shomshak

I'm sorry if I became snarky; I was rewriting my post while you responded.

In most cases, yeah, being immune to a character's own Powers is just handwavium. The comics often seem to be fine with that; I am fine with that; many other people seem to be fine with that. One can say "Unstable Molecules," or "Magic," or just dramatic license.

May I suggest your question about unstable molecules was perhaps unclear. Would a more precise question be, "How (if at all) do you write up a costume being immune to a character's own Powers? Assuming circumstances in which this goes beyond the mere fact that the costume isn't instantly destroyed by Powers that, in the real world, would destroy ordinary cloth." If I work at it, I'm sure I can think of situations where, say, the Human Torch's non-burning costume could be used for purposes other than not leaving Johnny Storm buck-naked when he turns off his flame aura. Under those circumstances, a GM might want to specify what can and can't be done with a costume when the character isn't wearing it -- even if one isn't charging Character Points for it. (Or it's a campaign where characters are not limited to arbitrary point totals.)

Am I getting closer?

Dean Shomshak

46 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

Indeed. A costume is a Focus, even if its only Power is the 0-point one that you avoid indecent exposure, and whether Foci are breakable or unbreakable does not affect the point cost.

 

Dean Shomshak

Re-read post. Emphasis added. If a costume has confers Resistant Defense and can change color or shape, those are additional Powers that can be written up normally.

(Though I agree to the extent that I don't recall many, if any, costumes being literally indestructible. Just, hm, "minimally destructible.". Rips or bullet holes when dramatic, but not shredded when someone super-sneezes.

Dean Shomshak

Reading the article, I'll say that Ashcroft almost has a point in saying that Democratic efforts to keep Trump off the ballot invite Republican attempts to do the same to Biden, and that a determined person can find (or invent) insurrection to justify the attempt. He is quite correct in that it can result in electoral chaos.

He and the Texas lt. gov. are wrong in claiming migrants at the southern border as their grounds for attacking Biden, because the Biden administration seems to be following the law as best it can. It's just that the laws don't accommodate conservatives' cultural and racial paranoia very well. Which is why Ashcroft only almost has a point. But such legal nicety is irrelevant when one is motivated by white-hot cultural grievance.

Dean Shomshak

Indeed. A costume is a Focus, even if it's only Power is the 0-point one that you avoid indecent exposure, and whether Foci are breakable or unbreakable does not affect the point cost.

Dean Shomshak

A good, focused one from Isaac Arthur this week. He's mentioned statites in passing in several episodes. This time he describes them (and variations) in depth, and why they could be a foundational space technology.

(I'm particularly reminded of the solar mirror that helps warm the planet Komarr in Bujold's "Vorkosigan" series. Turns out, it could be a considerably more sophisticated piece of technology... and not nearly as expensive as presented. Komarr alone could probably build as many of these mirrors as they wanted.)

Dean Shomshak

Time for another small update. The Monad will receive additional robots, including humans it wired into obedient "hubots" because who doesn't love a cybermen/borg homage?

And speaking of Doctor Who villains, dedicated fans of the series might recognize the source of the title for this Story Seed for servobots. Beware even the least of the Monad's robots!

Quote

• The Power of the Monad: A servobot is a tool of nigh-unlimited utility. Someone (government, corporation, whatever) obtains a damaged servobot, repairs it, and tries reprogramming it to build Monad technology they can use for their own ends. It seems to work for a while granting the group a trove of super-tech… until the servobot, and all the other servobots it built, turn on their human masters. The industrial park they built is actually a new Monad hive… and the fools who thought they could exploit its technology become its first victims.

Dean Shomshak

"Unstable Molecules" are a Special Effect for powers such as Instant Change, not a thing that needs a write-up in its own right.

Dean Shomshak

10 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

I read the article and it turns out it's not Soylent Green after all!

Well, yes. I should have added, "...And the solution isn't to shoot them in the head or force them somewhere else,"
 but I was in a hurry.

Dean Shomshak

A little good news: In the last year, New Jersey has reduced its population of unsheltered homeless people by 23%, and its latgest city Newark has done so by 58%. Here's a brief story on how they're doing it.

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/12/20/newark-may-have-found-a-fix-for-chronic-homelessness

Evidence that government cansometimes  solve social problems if the people in government want to do so.

Dean Shomshak

Reports on Maine's secretaty of state ruling Trump ineligible to be on the ballot don't generally say anything beyond that fact -- at least, most of what I've seen in passing hasn't -- which sounds awfully arbitrary. But today she appeared on All Things Considered to explain exactly what she did and how Maine law operates in this respect. Short take: Yes, she acted under the authority of Maine law; but this is only the first step in a long court process to *actually* keep Trump off the ballot. Trump is receiving due process.

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/01/1222405966/maine-secretary-of-state-discusses-decision-to-disqualify-trump-from-primary-bal

Dean Shomshak

On 12/30/2023 at 12:36 PM, Cancer said:

 

AND THEY SAY NOTHING ABOUT WHERE IN THE SKY IT WAS??? 

 

Belongs in the Fail thread.

No, it does not. I think you're asking too much from a one-minute story in a nionspecialist medium, intended for lay people. What do you expect, right ascension and declination?

But for everyone who wants more information, here's a somewhat more detailed story, and probably the basis for NPR's:

Ancient celestial map found at Castelliere di Rupinpiccolo in Italy | Archaeology News Online Magazine (archaeologymag.com)

It wasn't hard to find.

And here's the original article, with statistical analysis of the chisel marks.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asna.20220108

The final section discusses the extraneous(?) chisel mark. It might represent a known but dim star in the Orion or Scorpio regions of the sky, though one might wonder why it was chosen. (And I'm wondering why the person who made the map did those famously opposing asterisms on the same map.) But since the mystery star might be in the same region as the hot, fast-burning stars of Orion, a supernova is an intriguing possibility that might be confirmed through a telescopic search for such a remnant.

That also explains why NPR actually *could not* say where in the sky it was, because it is not yet certain which asterism it is meant to be near. Which is, in turn, more detail than was likely possible given the time budgeted for the story. Fortunately, I have no such limit.

We aim to please.

Dean Shomshak

Well... From a certain point of view, Haley's first statement was factually correct. The Civil War was fought about the relation between government and individual rights. It's just that the Confederacy's core principle was that government must, above all else, prevent a certain caste of people from enjoying any rights at all.

Dean Shomshak

An ancient constellation map that includes a star that's no longer visible? Plug that into your "Stargate: SG-1" campaign. Or maybe your "Call of Cthulhu" campaign, as there could be far more sinister explanations for a missing star than it going supernova.

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/28/1222056316/an-ancient-celestial-map-recently-found-in-italy-includes-an-unknown-star

Dean Shomshak