DShomshak

Chimney Rock National Historic Site

Heh, or Apollo: Sun/Light, Archery and Athletics, Medicine, Music? A bit of a grab bag. But then, if the gods are people with personalities and life stories of their own, why would they be tightly consistent any more than mortals are tightly consistent? Over time, my interests have included paleontology, Star Trek, librarianship, vampires, superheroes, and writing. Among others. I'm sure anyone here could list similarly scattershot interests.
 
Dean Shomshak

I'm starting to think the Universe really doesn't like pure reason.

There are some pessimists grousing that they'll need to build the next-generation lepton (electron-electron and electron-positron) collider to get new physics rather than just colliding protons together (which what LHC is doing) or even protons and antiprotons.  The trouble is: to do that, you're going to need an entirely new bunch of hardware to do that.  You will probably have to build a new, gigantic linear accelerator ("linac").
 
The reason for that is physics.  When you accelerate a charged particle, that makes radiation (light, radio waves, x-rays); and making the particle turn *is* acceleration.  How much radiation depends on the kinetic energy of the particle, and the particle's rest mass, and the amount of acceleration.  It turns out that the fractional energy loss (that is, what fraction of the kinetic energy of the particle gets lost from the particle and turned into radiation) is proportional to the particle mass raised to the minus 4th power.  Electrons are about 1/2000 of the mass of a proton, so the radiation loss from making electrons run around a circular racetrack is MUCH larger than that suffered by making protons run around the same racetrack at comparable kinetic energy.  Now, the acceleration is inversely proportional to the radius of curvature, so a bigger curvature would diminish the lateral acceleration and the associated energy loss, but it also means a bigger machine.  The 8.5 km ring that's at CERN and now is the site of the LHC was the location of the LEP (which was an electron-positron collider), which ran from 1989 to 2000. 
 
With foreseeable magnet and accelerator technology, you're going to need a much larger ring, or settle for a "straight-line" accelerator where the radius of curvature approaches infinity.  And that's going to be expensive, and those who remember the SSC fiasco in the US in the 1990s know that there are limits to what you can raise money for.
 

Count yourself lucky.
 
Dean Shomshak

The latest issue of The Economist had a story about the Large Hadron Collider getting ready for its next run. Its last period of operation found the Higgs boson. Physicists hope that with greater power and improved instrumentation it can bring equally significant discoveries that perhaps resolve difficulties with the Standard Model of particle physics. Inconsistencies are piling up, especially with regards to the muon, and theoreticians don't know where to go from here. (Well, actually they have lots of theories with very pretty math, but no clue which are true.) The Standard Model also relies on mathematical hacks that seem arbitrary, but they make the numbers come out right. (Thinking of the famous cartoon where the theory on the blackboard includes the step, "And then a miracle happens.") Physicists hope that new data will suggest the reason behind the math jiggery-pokery. Some hint as to what dark matter is made of might be possible, too.
 
The prediction of the Higgs boson was the high point for theoretical physics. Now the experimenters are firmly in charge again. The Universe will not give up its secrets to the exercise of pure reason.
 
Dean Shomshak

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01660-9
 
GAIA Data Release 3 ... the linked item has maps of the Galaxy with over a billion measured stars
 
EDIT: The documentation for the data release is a 1580-page PDF

Example: The Sun Travels across the sky each day, bringing Light to the world, and ferrying the Dead to the underworld.

Actually an easy example, although not so much if you have established the Sun as a separate domain from Light.

Poseidon was a neat historical example: the Sea, Horses and Earthquakes.

Whatever you pick is probably fine. Speaking from my 40+ years of experience as a GM and worldbuilder, I can say your players probably will probably neither notice nor care about your choices for such details... unless they get in the way of a PC getting what the player wants, in which no amount of internal logic will prevent complaining. So don't stress about it.
 
In fact... it might be more interesting to try this exercise: Write down the domains you want available on slips of paper, Put the slips in a bag and shake them up. Pull out three domains at random. See if you can make up a god for that set of domains, no matter how deranged the combination may seem. With a little work, you can probably come up with a myth to justify why the same god deals with, I don't know, Death, Light, and Travel.
 
I also recommend the World Creation Superdrafts threads in the Non-Gaming Discussion forum. A game of competitive shared world construction, in which each participant takes the role of one of the gods making that world. There've been six so far, I think, in which people came up with amazingly creative gods In the last one, I went rather conventional with a God of Love; but other people produced gods of Metal, Colors, Moons, Doors, and a truly terrifying God of Tyranny -- among others. I guarantee these will broaden your horizons when it comes to designing gods.
 
EDIT: Here's the link to the last one. Enjoy.
World Creation Superdraft 6: May 2022 - Non-Gaming Discussion - HERO Games
 
Dean Shomshak

When I ran a Fantasy Hero game in the Myth Adventures 'verse we had a PC who was a parody of Luke Skywalker and NPC parodies Oben-wan Oldfogie, Darth Sajak, and Princess Vanna Organna.

Sword and Sorcery Superdraft.
 
We are building new fantasy Sword and Sorcery series from scratch. Worlds will be separate, except that elements can be shared if another player agrees.

You must create your own characters and other elements, not draft them from elsewhere. Close analogues are fine, so you can have characters like Conan, Elric, King Arthur, Thor, Hercules, etc., but not the actual characters.
 
The setting is completely blank. You will need to contribute your ideas to build your setting and populate it with a variety of life.
 
Here's what you'll need to choose.
 
Protagonist: This is the main character in the stories. They may or may not be heroic.
 
Ally/Companion: This character assists the Protagonist, but may be an equal Protagonist in their own right. (Fafhrd/Gray Mouser style.) They may be a regular partner, or someone who just shows up and gets killed off.
 
Primary Antagonist: This character is the primary opponent of the story/series.
 
Secondary Antagonist: May be a lackey, rival or someone unrelated to the above.
 
Person(s) in need of help: Somebody who needs the Protagonist’s assistance.
 
Monster: It’s not Sword and Sorcery without a Monster.
 
Locations: You get to choose THREE (3) Locations. These may be continents, countries, cities or individual sites. Build your world!
 
A McGuffin/Gadget: A thing to help drive the plot.
 
A Deity: They might be driving the action, a name to swear by, or anything else.

Option: Anything else your fiendish imagination comes up with.
 
Round one will be your Protagonist, but the rest can be selected in any order.
 
---
We will begin Saturday July 9th, 6 AM Australian Eastern Standard Time, which is 4 PM, Friday 8th,  Eastern Daylight Time in the States. We take the US weekends off. (So the first post is a Saturday in Australia, the second a Tuesday. That’s a Friday and a Monday in weird US time.)
 
Format copied from earlier Superdrafts, naturally.

Ask for any clarifications you need, obviously.

Scientists discover new water lily hiding in plain sight
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61725827

I met Lady P 17 years ago today.

I should have mentioned, Honor + Intrigue is based on Barbarians of Lemuria, modified and customized for swashbuckling.  I'm not familiar with BoL, so I can't list the differences.
 
Don't post blocks of rules from games.  Absolutely! 👍

Barbarians of Lemuria does the same thing. It works well for what the game is.
 
/
Not sure what you mean by "post it here," but in case it needs to be said... Don't post blocks of rules from games. Ever. Respect the copyright and the effort for which writers and developers were paid. If they wanted it given away for free, it'd be Open Games License.
 
Sorry, sore spot. I've been in the biz.
 
Dean Shomshak

Here's one for 6th edition fans. 

I finally noticed Shang-Chi and Eternals on the shelf at my local library, so I finally saw them. Shang-Chi was okay but seemed very checklisty. Threat to the world. check. Cameo advertising another part of the MCU, check. Funny sidekick, check. Daddy issue, double check with underlining.
 
I found Eternals rougher but a bit more interesting due to the conflict among the characters, and because it gave a significant expansion to the MCU. Huh, so the Celestials have sort of been merged with Galactus. OK I guess that Eternals and Deviants have been made something completely different from the comic book originals. One point of "Boy, they're stupid": After Sersi gets her infodump from Arishem about how Celestials are born but they're necessary to preserve life in the Universe, nobody says, "And of course we believe the guy who just told you our whole lives are a lie?"
 
Dean Shomshak
 
 

I finally noticed Shang-Chi and Eternals on the shelf at my local library, so I finally saw them. Shang-Chi was okay but seemed very checklisty. Threat to the world. check. Cameo advertising another part of the MCU, check. Funny sidekick, check. Daddy issue, double check with underlining.
 
I found Eternals rougher but a bit more interesting due to the conflict among the characters, and because it gave a significant expansion to the MCU. Huh, so the Celestials have sort of been merged with Galactus. OK I guess that Eternals and Deviants have been made something completely different from the comic book originals. One point of "Boy, they're stupid": After Sersi gets her infodump from Arishem about how Celestials are born but they're necessary to preserve life in the Universe, nobody says, "And of course we believe the guy who just told you our whole lives are a lie?"
 
Dean Shomshak
 
 

I finally noticed Shang-Chi and Eternals on the shelf at my local library, so I finally saw them. Shang-Chi was okay but seemed very checklisty. Threat to the world. check. Cameo advertising another part of the MCU, check. Funny sidekick, check. Daddy issue, double check with underlining.
 
I found Eternals rougher but a bit more interesting due to the conflict among the characters, and because it gave a significant expansion to the MCU. Huh, so the Celestials have sort of been merged with Galactus. OK I guess that Eternals and Deviants have been made something completely different from the comic book originals. One point of "Boy, they're stupid": After Sersi gets her infodump from Arishem about how Celestials are born but they're necessary to preserve life in the Universe, nobody says, "And of course we believe the guy who just told you our whole lives are a lie?"
 
Dean Shomshak
 
 

When my group plays Champions we play 5th Revised, and will never switch to 6th/Complete. Those of us who GM have no interest in rewriting villains *again.* I, ah, acquired 6e in pdf, and then bought Champions Complete, because I wanted to write for them, but I have never looked at any sections except character creation rules (inc. writing up Bases and Vehicles).
 
The changes I saw in 6th are for me, well, whatever. I suspect some of the more dramatic changes to Powers (such as Barrier replacing Force Wall) were done to facilitate a computer game. Since we stick to tabletop, these are fixes to problems we don't have.
 
Looking at 6e writeups in the Champions Villains books, though, I actually think they are too backwards-compatible, and this adversely affects the standards for creating new characters. For instance, Duke mentioned the game's chabging END economy: So why are most sample characters still built with an END that's about twice their CON? It perhaps makes more sense to give characters high END, and use Reduced END a lot less on Powers.
 
But that may be mere esthetics. More seriously, perhaps, most characters still have OCV/DCV at or close to the old DEX/3 standard, when there is no longer any reason to couple those values -- especially given that CV is now a grseat additional expense, and only the difference in CVs matters. Due to such changing costs, I find that a 350 point 5e character often cannot be rewritten as a 400 point 6e character. It takes more points. But that problem could likely be resolved if the usual range for character CVs was 5-7 (still well above human standard) rather than 8-10.
 
I have a soft spot in my heart for 4th, because it's the edition we played most and for which I wrote Creatures of the Night, Ultimate Super-Mage and Supermage Bestiary. But I find 5th hit a personal sweet spot in building PCs, because 350 point is enough you don't have to scramble and shave points to get the character you want. OTOH we now adopt 6e-style Complications, because trying to find 150 points of Disadvantages often resulted in Disadvantages that didn't really disadvantage, or that the GM didn't have time to use (frex, multiple Hunteds).
 
Like other people here, I think 4th gave better presentation that 5th, 6th or CC. But I credit 5th and 6th for one important addition: the copious sidebars of sample Power writeups. CC would have benefited from their retention.
 
Dean Shomshak

But sane Americans are outnumbered by simple folk who only care about their pocketbooks, exemplified by the woman interviewed on ATC who said Democrats were wasting time with the Jan. 6 commission hearings instead of doing something to lower food and gas prices.
 
So, the midterms will be a landslide for Republicans. At which point, expect a blizzard of highly publicized "investigations" of the Biden administration, and likely a few impeachments. And an interview with a co-founder of the Lincoln Project offered an even more horrific possibility: House Speaker Donald Trump. Because nothing in the Constitution says the Speaker must be a member of the House.
 
Dean Shomshak