DShomshak

When I attended the University of Washington (and starting my first Champions campaign), I was delighted to learn the UW had its own small nuclear reactor. How convenient for radiation accidents and faculty members who become mad scientists! Dean Shomshak

Well, that's one on me. I onlyt thought in terms of pipelines from the Caspian itself; I never thought of a pipeline across the Balkaqn Peninsula as an alternative to sending tankers through the Bosporus. Which is, I admit, a smart idea, considering how crowded the Bosporus is even without tankers. The Guardian article suggests the real motivation for assisting the Kosovars was to sweeten Albania on the pipeline deal. Did that make saving more than a million people from murder and expulsion wrong? I don't think so. If a pipeline is the price for stopping ethnic cleansing, then God bless the oil industry. (Wow, those are words I never thought I'd write.) For the rest... Okay, that's fair, too. Trumpist craziness is way beyond the bounds of anyone I can think of for the last 40 years or so, and I did not mean to suggest that far-left craziness was of the same quantity or virulence. Not yet, anyway, which means non-crazy people on the left can try to make sure it never gets that bad. (One possible tactic being to listen to non-crazy people on the right and trying to understand their concerns.) In fact, I actually have to withdraw the suggestion of "blue lies" from the left. Social scientists such as Jonathan Haidt and Arlene Hochschilde have found that team loyalty forms the moral and emotional center of far-right beliefs: loyalty to flag, faith, race, community, leaders. Repeating a blue lie is a way of showing that your loyalty is so total and passionate that you are willing to say blatantly crazy and extreme things. The moral and emotional core of liberalism, however, consists of care for those who suffer and liberation for the oppressed. (See Haidt's The Righteous Mind.) It results in different forms of virtue-signaling, with different lunatic extremes. But that is a discussion for another time. Dean Shomshak

ADDENDUM: In fairness, I can cite examples of equally delusional blue lies from the Left. My personal favorite came from the Kosovo campaign, when a woman calling i to a local public radio program insisted that the campaign had nothing to do with stopping genocide and mass expulsion, it was Evil Imperialism to help the Oil Companies by securing a Mediterranean terminus for a Caspian Sea oil pipeline. Never mind that Kosovo is land-locked, and the Balkan peninsula is rather overshooting the mark for such a pipeline, which was merely hypothetical in any case. But it's a good orthodox far-left America Is The Root Of All Evil rant to show one's political and moral superiority to the common herd. Dean Shomshak

Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress tries to stay away from Trump directly, but Pinker admits that Trump's election gave the impetus for the book and he does discuss Trump followers' ability to loudly cheer and repeat whatever insane thing he says. He calls these "blue lies," by comparison with incidents where cops lie to protect each other. Statements are not believed (or at least claimed to be believed) because there is evidence for them, but as a show of loyalty to one team and hatred toward another. For instance, he cites claim circulating in far-right circles that Barack Obama must have known about the 9/11 attacks -- and even been part of the plot! -- because on that day, he stayed away from the White House. Does any sane person need to be reminded that in 2001, was not president! Not even a senator yet? But it's repeated and affirmed to show how deeply one hates him. Likewise, the other alternative facts of the Trumpverse, such as the crowd at his inauguration being the biggest ever. You say it to show the other cultists that you're loyal, and to show contempt for the elites whom you believe feel contempt for people like you. Dean Shomshak

I picked Houston, because I like Obsidian and for the space adventure vibe. Seattle would have been too easy. I live nearby, and I already set my two Seattle Sentinels campaigns there. (Plus my two Keystone Konjuror supermage campaigns based in Tacoma.) Pittsburgh was mentioned. Pittsburgh is cool: perhaps the closest the real world comes to Millennium City. Once notorious as a symbol of Rust Belt post-industrial urban decay, it has rebuilt itself as a high-tech hub. Three major research universities, one of which boasts the Gothic skyscraper "Cathedral of Learning," as cool a setting for a super-battle (or super-team base!) as you could imagine. Except maybe for the PPG, Inc. corporate headquarters, which looks like Superman's crystalline Fortress of Solitude from the movies. Villains who are into subterranean lairs can find plenty of room in the old coal mines. I had the heroes of Avant Guard visit Pittsburgh in pursuit of the mad biotech mega-villain Helix, and it worked really well. Dean Shomshak

If you don't have fun running this campaign, soon enough your players won't have fun playing in it. End it. (It sounds like it's near its natural senescence point anyway.) Come up with a final adventure or story arc that'll resolve some hanging subplots, give the PCs a chance to defeat a longtime enemy once and for all, and you can go out on a high note. If the other players are absolutely determined only to do D&D/Pathfinder and this doesn't interest you... eh. Hm. Do you remember anyone expressing interest in any other games? Because trying something completely different now and then can be refreshing. Star Hero. Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. Barbarians of Lemuria? Compromise between interests with Fantasy Hero, giving a chance for a type of setting that D&D doesn't support so well? Dean Shomshak

I can't watch the trailer over my home connection, so I can't comment upon it. But yeah, there's sure a lot of deconstructions, subversions, parodies, blah blah blah of Superman. After a certain point, it's no longer clever. When "subverting" a trope becomes the trope, it's actually more "subversive" to try going back to the original and play it straight. In the case of Superman, this is the common man given godlike power -- born an alien, but raised in idealized small-town America -- who does *not* misuse that power. Who is indeed in all ways good. Dean Shomshak

As far as common-or-garden wands go, the only example we have is the scene in Ollivander's wand shop (book 1). Ollivander starts by taking numerous measurements of Harry. One may presume these figures mean something to Mr. Ollivander, suggesting he has some occult science (like palmistry or moleosophy) for calculating what properties a wand should have. Only it doesn't work with Harry. Eventually, though, Ollivander has Harry try the wand that is "brother" to Lord Voldemort's, and that's the one. Curious, as Ollivander says. In Hero terms, it looks like Ollivander has some kind of Skill for matching wands with wizards. At first he seems to have failed his Skill Roll. But then he looks beyond the mechanical, calculated system -- thinking in deeper, mystical terms. And that Skill Roll succeeds... incidentally giving the first clue to a deeper, ongoing connection between Harry and Voldemort. Or possibly, there's only one Skill Roll here. Normally, Ollivander's system matches each customer with a wand that's good enough. In most cases, there's no special difficulty. When the system doesn't work with Harry, Ollivander succeeds at his KS: Wand Lore roll to get some idea why the system isn't working, and what he should try instead. The Elder Wand is something different, though. It has very precise requirements for who can use it. In this case, one might actually represent the Elder Wand as a Follower, a computer with, hm, Detect Victory and Defeat? Dean Shomshak

My local newspaper, the Tacoma News Tribune, reprinted this story from the Tri-City Herald on Sunday: Hanford observatory detects black hole waves | Tri-City Herald www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article222554785... The LIGO Hanford observatory near Richland has detected gravitational waves in space from 4 more black hole collisions. The black hole detections were in collaboration with Virgo and LIGO Livingston. Possibly more for the "local news" angle than for the pure science angle, but I won't complain. Dean Shomshak

Hagrid was no squib: With the broken wand in his umbrella, he was able to light a fire and give Dudley a pig's tail. Okay, he was trying for a whole pig, but he seemed well ahead of, say, Filch. The Elder Wand was no psychological crutch: It had power of its own, which it did not grant to Voldemort because he hadn't met its conditions. It's also a running theme through the books that magic has deeper mysteries that Voldemort persistently ignores. So, I'd say that there really is such a thing as having "the right wand," which gives an advantage to the witch or wizard who owns it. Perhaps Ollivander's insistence that "the wand chooses the wizard" is a clumsy attempt to enunciate a resonance that no one really understands... but is nevertheless quite real. In Hero terms, it might be something like levels to a Skill Roll on a personal Focus; or even a small separate VPP that only adds to a character's VPP, again on a personal Focus. Dean Shomshak

Heard on the evening news: InSight sends back the first audio from Mars. The seismograph and, IIRC, wind gauge register the sound of the Martian wind. Dean Shomshak

Speaking of Ebling Mis, the Mule's driving him to discover the secret of the Second Foundation might include an INT Aid as a well as an induced obsession. The obsession is the "special effect" for the INT Aid, though -- Mis was driven to "push" his own thought processes, raising his Deduction high enough to infer the Second Foundation's true location. Dean Shomshak

I remember the song, too. Heard it many years ago on the Doctor Demento radio show and taped it off the air. (Wow, I'm old.) I also thank Death Tribble: It's a classic! (Classic of what, let us not say.) Dean Shomshak

<bows> I live to serve. Dean Shomshak

So. I'm not sure how useful these examples may be to Scott (or anyone else). All I can say is that back when I frequented White Wolf's Exalted forum, I never saw anyone demand more information on the parliamentary procedures of the Scarlet Empire Deliberative, or the differences in family structure among the five tribes of Harborhead. What got positive response was the cool image, character or story hook that people could drop into their games. Whatever you're designing, present that as quickly as possible. Once you've hooked the reader, maybe they'll stick around for the explanations that make sense of it all. Dean Shomshak

Moving along: Since I, ah, do not quite share the particular historical/political filters of the people who devised the Guild for Exalted, I also lobbied to include a few sample characters who enage in trade without being horribly evil. This bit, in which I attempted to give the Guild a little more complexity and nuance, came from a little section on voyageurs, solitary merchant-explorers inspired by fur trappers and such ilk. Raksha, btw, are Exalted's answer to elves. They are beautiful humanoid masks for soul-sucking Lovecraftian entities from the Outer Chaos. And they love to play with their food. Dean Shomshak

First: Thank you, Your Dukeness! The next writing sample omes from my last paid work for Exalted, in Chapter Two of the supplement Masters of Jade. That book dealt with the Guild, a worldwide trading network whose chief businesses are slaves, mercenaries, hard drugs and PURE, UNADULTERATED CAPITALIST EVIL. Put together the East India Company, the Triangle Trade and the Opium Wars, and that's the Guild. One could perhaps suspect that White Wolf is showing a hint of a political viewpoint here. So in a chapter describing Guild activities in various parts of the Exalted setting, I gave 'em what they wanted. Word count was extremely tight, and I and my partner for the chapter were told to give brief sketches of characters who exemplified the Guild's activities. No character sheets; just a paragraph of description that had to be as concise and evocative as possible. Here's the Guild officer who oversees a region of slave-run sugar and rubber plantations: Dean Shomshak

GHWB knew how to make a campaign promise to get elected, and then how to break it in order to govern responsibly. "Read my lips: No new taxes!" But when it became fiscally desirable... he signed a bill into law that raised taxes. I am sure he paid for it politically, but I prefer it to the sort of Republican who thinks deficits are just dandy once they are the ones running them up. He also did good as an ex-president. High point may have been his fundraising with Bill Clinton after the Dec. 26, 2005 earthquake and tsunami. As one pundit put it, in much of the world leaders cling to power no matter what. But here the world saw a leader who had the power to, no kidding, destroy the world if he didn't get his way, who gave up that power without a word of protest. And standing next to the man who beat him to take that world-ending power. Who then left office as gracefully, after seeing his anointed successor lose an election to the son of the man he defeated. Both of them saying, "Help these people, because it's the right thing to do." That, the pundit concluded, is moral authority with teeth. Dean Shomshak

Okay, here's a bit from my very first Exalted writing job, for the 1st edition Storyteller's Companion. The job was to provide background for the Scarlet Dynasty, the aristocracy of the Scarlet Empire, a.k.a the Realm, which has dominated the world for centuries. Dynasts are Terrestrial Exalted, a.k.a. the Dragon-Blooded, set apart from mere mortals by their elemental powers. Since this was the first supplement after the Exalted corebook, there wasn't much more defined about the Scarlet Dynasty. And since it was a short chapter, writing had to be tight. The developer rightly rejected my first draft as derivative drivel. For my second draft, I decided to structure the chapter as a look at the lives of the Dragon-Blooded from childhood to death. Forego the systematic encyclopedia-speak, give the barest outlines and then illustrate through evocative detail. Get at the experience if being a Dynast. As Duke Bushido says, sell the reader on the Dragon-Blooded. Along the way, slip in a few ideas for how to use Dynasts in stories. Other people can work out the details later. As an example, here's a bit about late youth for Dynasts. Anime is a big influence on Exalted, and I gather that school drama is a significant subset of anime, so I gave the Scarlet Dynasty boarding schools: ---------------- YOUTH After primary school, young Dragon-Bloods attend six years of secondary school. The parents have considerably less choice about the school their child attends. Just four academies cater to Exalted students alone. The headmasters of these schools, called the dominies, accept what pupils they will. The mightiest Dynast must still petition for a child’s acceptance, with letters of recommendation, cash donations and the pomise of more grants to follow. (The four academies do not charge fees for services; they expect gifts to honor their labor.) ... Two secular academies claim the Empress herself as their sponsor—or the Regent in her absence. The House of Bells emphasizes the arts of war; its name refers to the clash of swords on shields and armor. This academy occupies a sprawling estate on the southern coast of the Blessed Isle, not far from the port of Arjuf, where warships and legion troop-ships depart for the mainland. Every year, veteran officers re-create entire battles at the House of Bells using cadets as junior officers and people from the nearby villages as make-believe soldiers. The estate’s varied terrain lets young warriors practice combat and related arts in diverse environments. Three times a year, the students hunt condemned criminals through the grounds as a way to burnish their tracking and riding skills. ------------------ So yeah: You don't know who runs the House of Bells, how it's administered, the layout of the place, blah blah blah. But if you're playing a Dragon-Blooded character, I hope you have some idea what it would mean that your character attended the House of Bells, and based on that you could hand your GM (pardon me, Storyteller, la-de-da) a few bits of personal history to work into adventures. And as GM, you have a few ideas about why PCs might visit the House of Bells and what they might do there. Dean Shomshak PS: How do I do a quote box, other than quoting someone else's post?

Fortunately, D&D doesn't do that anymore. Yes, spellcasters have a certain number of "spell slots" that say how many times per day they can cast spells. And characters have lists of what spells they know, which some classes can change each day according to what they think they'll need. But you can use a spell slot to cast any spell you know that's of appropriate level. (D&D magic is still about resource management. Just like so much else in D&D. But it's not as extreme as it used to be.) End of digression; back to Scott's thread. Dean Shomshak

If I may be so bold as to speak for Bolo... <bows apologetically> Teleporting the hostages to safety was not a demonstration of Bolo made a mistake in allowing a UAA Teleport. The PC did not "utterly and effortlessly sidestep the story" because -- I strongly suspect from what Bolo's said -- rescuing the hostages was not the story. It was in fact handing the character a chance to be cool and show off their powers. A good Champions GM gives players a chance to show how powerful their characters are by, now and then, handing them situations in which they easily overcome challenges that other people would find horribly difficult or dangerous. The issue was the mage suggesting that the situation was easily resolved by letting the hostages fall and healing them later. Treating the hostages as props with no intrinsic importance, rather than as people who should be protected. Dean Shomshak

For me, this seems especially likely since the Aquans probably believe they're the "real heroes." After all, in the Aquans' eyes MI is UTTERLY EVIL. They fight it; therefore, they must be good, right? The Aquans probably send out a steady stream of accusations of MI's villainies, which of course are not widely believed (in part because of the Aquans' criminal actions). If they're smart, they'll want to establish their credibility -- because if they prove they told the truth about Croc dying, maybe some people will wonder if they're telling the truth about MI. I agree, the problem is not really the HKA. That's a valid Power to represent feats such as a brick tearing apart steel plate and smashing through walls. The issue is entirely about whether a character would use that kind of force on another person. Dean Shomshak

Hm. I've never paid much attention to the published Fantasy HERO stuff, sticking exclusively to homebrew. I've also never paid much attention to package deals. If you like, though, I could post a few samples of writing I did for Exalted (and got paid for!) that people told me were both evocative and concise. (And it will have to be brief, sense posting more than a few paragraphs of material that other people now own goes well beyond Fair Use.) As for wordiness: I feel your pain. I have felt it many times. Dean Shomshak

The nastiest -- but still, IMO, fair -- setup against a killer PC I've heard of comes from another campaign one of my players was in. (I wasn't there, so I'm getting this second-hand.) The PC was a super-patriot type who had an Enraged triggered by disparagement of or hostility to America. So in circumstances where there are apparently no witnesses, a Middle Eastern bloke confronts the PC, saying "Death to America! Al-Qaeda will triumph over you decadent infidels!" Etc. etc. And the PC promptly killos him. At which point, a man with a camcorder pops out from hiding and says, "Oh my God, what you did! That's horrible! But I got it all on camera and you're doing hard time for this, you murderous fraud!" Still apparently no other witnesses. So the PC kills this guy, too. The third man, who has filmed both homicides, does not show himself. But the footage goes to the media. Why this was fair, in a way that "The Gilt Complex" is not: * It is done by an enemy of the PCs who has already been established as cunning and ruthless. (In this case, I think it was Al-Qaeda, given super-agents and established as an ongoing campaign villain group. But I could be wrong, and it doesn't really matter.) * It uses aspects of character the player had already established for the character, both the Enraged and an above-the-law arrogance I was told was developed in play. So you can't say it was an arbitrary set-up by a dickish GM. * And the latter part is most important. The first death was a consequence of giving the character a severe Disadvantage, which the PCs' enemies knew about. You want the points, you accept the complications. The second death wasn't dictated by dice rolls; the player could have chosen differently. It was clearly murder. Now I wonder how the campaign dealt with the aftershocks of this situation. Next time I see the player, I'll have to ask. Dean Shomshak

Scott gave an excellent summary of the Gilt Complex, and why I think the scenario was an extraordinarily bad suggestion. Dean Shomshak