Storn

Re: If You Had To Play a Marvel Character… Y'know, I know I said Cyclops... but I have always had a hankering to play Dr. Strange (or Dr. Fate over in the DC thread)... but I would never do it in Champions. Champions just isn't set up to handle such characters easily. Doc Strange would almost be better in a narrative driven mechanic like Capes or even Noblis. Aint that a kick in the head.

Re: (Plot Seeds) Title Tag--Fantasy Edition Stars Count Too High (I'm actually doing this in my FR campaign as a very long underplot). The Gods are weakening. Man and Elf and Dwarf and all the sentient races are coming into their own. Magic flows more freely in the world,f or good and for ill. Elven and Dwarven birthrates are at historical highs, their races are saved...even more, ascending. Social democracy is in its infancy. But the cost. Religious wars are breaking out left and right. Old societal norms are crumbling. Former holy people who had powers and the ears of their gods are commiting suicide, or worse, unspeakable atrocities in desperate attempt to regain divine favor. Is it a Reformation? A Reineissance? Or a new Dark Age? {btw, this has been evolving at my table in my game for about the last 3 years. And it has led to some delicious, huge world building, birth of nations, death of nations gameplay. I have great players tackling this stuff}

Re: Home Brew Magic Systems As a GM and as a person who loves magic... it makes fantasy... my philosophy is LESS control is better. Magic is wild, unpredictable...even when constrained by rituals and knowledge and experience... it can still bite ya in the ***. If you DON'T write down the effect... then there is much more flexibility.. and get AWAY from the idea of the side effect doing damage. I used to just rough estimate the Side Effect to 30 active pts or 60 active pts and not really worried about even that. I recently had a fight with a mage in my fantasy game that I was GMing. He screwed up his "Spell of Scales" (ie, get armor) roll as he was ambushed by the PCs in his cabin on a ship. Now, I am using Savage Worlds... where are "1" on the spellcasting die is a critical failure. But it could easily have been a Hero Games miscast roll. Instead of blowing him up with "oh, he takes damage" which would have ended the fight too early in the scene... I had him armor up everyone in the room...so all the PCs got the benefit of the spell as did he. My players liked that. It really frelled the bad guy as the PCs then mobbed him w/o regard as only the magic sensative PC knew what had happened...and the other PCs thought they had been cursed! If you get away from the concept of Side Effect = damage... then a whole world of possiblities opens up. A botched Summoning Spell turns sidekick, mage casting or other PC invisible (he moves a 1/2 dimension in vibrational space) for a couple of hours. Side Effects then move from just a combat mechanic to something more....This can be funny. It can be socially akward. It can be deteremental on a battle field... Glowing during a night raid is pretty bad thing... yet no dice of damage was applied (directly) to the mage... but those arrows coming his way now...well... that is a different story. My beef with Fantasy Hero is that magic feels too mechanical... too dependent on the superheroic power engine. By doing Side Effects this way... it makes it more "magical" for me. It becomes more about roleplaying and storytelling when it is open to interpertation. Botching a casting of Clairvoyance should have a different side effect when trying to impress the Princess and the court and when trying to suss out what is behind the trapped lock door as guards are pressing on your friends. Duress and situation should color how the Side Effect is applied, IMO. Your own mileage may vary. But that is where I'm coming from.

Re: If You Had To Play a Marvel Character… My first choice would be Shang Chi... as if he was played by Jet Li and approaching 40 something and gets pulled back into the games of death and deciet. But that is a really difficult character to put into anything but a team of espionage oreinted teammates. 2nd choice: Scott Summers/Cyclops. Being anal and in love with a fiery woman somehow appeals to me. Oh, and be able to sink every ball on the pooltable with one optic blast... that's cool too.

Re: If You Had To Play a DC Character… Nightwing. I like the idea of being in a legacy. I like the idea of being a nice guy. I like the idea of ubercompetence.

Re: Home Brew Magic Systems I prefer Side Effects: Appropriate to the spell attempted. That way, you don't have a Illusion (Creation) spell create an explosion. I think Illusions should fall under Awareness, not Creation. As Creation is physical things mutating. Illusion is playing with the perception of hte universe. Sure, they are the same thing in a way... but hey... its magic. But otherwise, looks doable with a player who is really interested in exploring magic in that Ars Magica mold. I would be one such player, but I play with several who would find this complicated and not worth the investment to learn.

Re: Storn Art from idea to full picture Year 3 I just did that one, albeit a male. For my druthers, the ice-brick sounds interesting. And that would be a "I'd rather not" to a Wildstorm ode.... enough of that creeps into my work w/o having to go seek it.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. We got in late Friday night anyhow... and I went totally last minute. But thanks for thinking of me! Here is an older pic that I did while playing in a Hero/Champions game many moons back. I just found it and scanned it in. Might recognize who it is. You can see it some type from the cheap paper that I was doodling on. Heh.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Edsel, I got your payment to paypal notification... but I never got Sweeper's description. I'm not sure if you sent it and it got stuck somewhere or you are still compiling. And if you got any reference for that .454, I would sure appreciate NOT having to track it down. It will be a bit before I get to it. Unfortunately, I've been traveling and will be traveling on the weekends. Tough to get stuff done. However, this last weekend, I spent 2 days looking at art of hardboiled guys with guns blazing, as I went to my very first "Pulp" con at the Windy City Pulp Convention. Just thousands and thousands of magazine & paperbacks and their covers from 1900 to 1960s. Lots of originals too. Steranko brought his entire Shadow reprint Painting line (musta been 20 paintings in his collection). So, I'm a bit charged up!!!! A couple of George Sander's western covers originals are just action packed, beautifully and vividly painted. Met his son, who was a really cool guy. Met Gary Gianni, who is doing Prince Valiant now, and had a couple of dynamite covers for the Conan limited ed that are being published now. Stuff that made me go wow! I might have to channel some of that two-fisted Pulp energy into Sweeper. After all, the Pulps are before comics, and then kissing cousins as comics evolve.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. This illustration was created as an award for a contest at the Liberty Hall Writers forums. More information about Liberty Hall is available here: http://www.libertyhallwriters.org/phpbb/index.php As for other threads: http://www.peginc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5263&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0 http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=204165 http://www.atomicthinktank.com/viewtopic.php?t=3740&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Re: Herophile Fantasy art i've been doing a few winged folk of late. But dang, are they fun to do!!1

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. ya know, winged folk are just one of those fantasy concepts that can jump over to supers. So I'm cross posting this one.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Not offended in the least. These are weighty issues (for me, at least..) and they need to be occasionally retouched upon. I"m never quite sure how folks heard of me, most come from this or the M&M boards, but I get patrons from all sorts of places. Its complicated stuff. Thank you for giving me a chance to spout off.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Publishers try and get all rights to the artwork. It makes their bookkeeping easier when the reprint or want to use the artwork elsewhere. Artists try and keep their work. Good publishers will negotiate better deals than work for hire. I'm at the point where from the gaming public at least, I can keep my rights to my work. As I have plenty of commissions and patrons (thank y'all kindly, btw). And it is the right to MY work, not the CHARACTER. Black Swan is your creation. YOu can go and do other artwork of Black Swan and publish it or put into a video game, that is not my business... But MY visual, my work of Black Swan IS my business. And you are not paying publisher's rates. My rates for full color is $240.00 per page. A head to toe pose like most commissions, is a 1/2 pager. A head shot is a quarter pager. You pay me $120.00 for a commission. You can have full rights. But I don't think that something that is digitally colored, is really worth $120.00 to an INDIVIDUAL. Publisher? Yes, they make money off of art indirectly. But collectors? not really. If you want a painting, something physical... I will be happy to do it. But it costs. Digital is a lot faster than traditional paint. And if you come to me in a year and say "I would like to publish Black Swan in a Hero or M&M license product, can I use the pic please"... I will charge you a small fee and say "sure!".... I just made some money again off the pic and my approval was needed... I'm happy. If you want a 8 foot tall painting, own all the rights, of Blue Ray... I'm gonna charge $2000.00 (because that is 2-3 weeks of work and I lose all future income on the pic)... if you meet that price... I would be thrilled to do it. My website has my philosophy on all of this. I spell it out, I think pretty clearly.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. If you don't want me to post, you have to tell me. Pretty much everyone has me post stuff. Out of all the commissions I've done, maybe 5 asked me to hold back til their players have seen it. Its a totally reasonable request... but I need to know it up front. As for the ethics of sharing...I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say.... But I think that is my call, I own the rights to the artwork. I share artwork from my patrons so everyone can enjoy. My patrons should know this going in. It is admittedly advertising for me, advertising for my patron's games, and sure, it gets swiped... but no one is making money from these artworks but me (or there will be problems!). But for me, it is how I support the general roleplaying community. By putting up artwork that might inspire a character, or fit a pre-existing character. It is how I give back.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Here are the changes on Black Swan, went a different direction with pose (torso shot as opposed to head to toe):

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Here are a couple more...

Re: Player problem - opinions .... Sir William, I'm trying to see your side too. but this got to me: He is NO LONGER A PALADIN WHEN YOU TOOK HIS OPPORTUNITY TO TURN DOWN THE STRUMPET. In his mind, it is quite easily concieved that the PC had been stripped of his divine charter. And paladin by what cultural standard? What he did was extremely samurai-like. NO one would blink an eye at this happening in L5R. Now who is being constrained by MMMORGs and WoW and D&D? Why can't one be a paladin with a samurai ethic? But I think one of the missed warning flags that you guys made is that you allowed a PC to come to the table who has very little interaction built in with other players. The I pray, I kill, I worship thing is great for a monk in a cave... an NPC. But this would have sent my radar a' pingin' immediately. And I would have started negotiating... "Is there a way for the Paladin to have a passion in a social context.. chess? cards? storytelling and story gathering? Singing and performing?" Paladins do not have to be this dour, stuffy person. Most of th holy men I've met have great senses of humor. The Templars were known for their banking, libraries and the beginning of the modern hospital (the HOspitalars)...pretty social beings... those our historic analogs... but a Paladin who is also a doctor/healer and then you slip in, oh "Famous Dr. so-n-so is going to be at the party and would love to trade ideas!" And if he wants to just play the stoic... and y'all are okay with that. Let him. Don't blow his character-view based on one die roll. And you say that he "wasn't in character"... how do you know? It is his character. Maybe he wasn't playing YOUR version of a Paladin. And what a freakin' missed opportunity. The best way to get tot he root of another person's button-tight character is to ASK QUESTIONS... not manipulate him into being a laughing-stock. Hell, in my opinion, you dropped the ball as a courtier/spy/face man. If you had honestly gone up to him and asked, in character, "why does your God feel the need to bar you from Sex? From Drink?"... you would have FORCED HIM to think about an answer and, gosh!, roleplay an answer. Even if he gave you no answer, that was a roleplaying CHOICE. And if you were deadset on doing the social manipulation that you did, you should have broken character and said: "Listen man, I'm doing this to have some fun with your character. I fully expect you to turn down the woman. I fully expect it to generate some heat between our PCs. " and not even LET it become a die roll. Its the classic wink-wink while WE, the BOTH of US, screw our own characters... let's have fun together.

Re: Player problem - opinions .... Whether it was rape or not... it was breaking the trust of the social contract. The paladin player was intruded upon. He probably shouldn't have taken down Sir William's PC in his tragic death spiral... but he did. What I am interested in is CAN THIS BE SALVAGED? Can the two of you come up with new characters, connected to the old characters, to make amend the wrongs? And really, what the GM should have done is say "wow, your really blew your Ego/PRE roll... your character is sorely tempted... keep that in mind and tell me what your character does." Leaving the control, ALL of the control, in the hands of the player to dictate the rest of the scene. It could have easily played out as some kissing and heavy petting and our Paladin hero tearing himself away muttering; "I cannot..." and then going to Sir Williams character and beating the crap out of him, but not killing him... all the while the Players are having a blast....knowing that this is a potential great, rich arch of redemption of their friendship in the adventures to come. That scenario is possible, but takes good communication between the players. But at the very least, you and your GM should apologize. AND he should apologize for the retaliation. Then sit down and discuss how to avoid this in the future.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Gotta love superhero physics! I've done Sonya here before, but the patron wanted another shot, this time, tanks for the memories! btw, Checkmate, thank you... that painting is one of my personal favs.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Y'know folks, I don't mind a critique. I think RP's critique was dead on. I was confused about what I was looking at... compound bows are confusing visually, I looked at a lot of pics... and I don't know what all those doo-hickeys do... or that the shaft is on the outside of the bow when pulled... what the hand position is. So I don't mind being taught. Illustration is so much about giving the impression of being "real"... maybe real in a superheroic context... but its own reality. The more an artist knows, the more they can bring to bear on creating that coherent, inclusive reality in the pic. So. It is totally cool with me if folks try to help me do that.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. The grip i pulled off a photo of a compound bow being drawn... I didn't quite understand the grip, but there it was. And I simply mimicked what I saw. The compound bow itself was made for a left handed firer as there is a groove and guide for the shaft... which DT asked me to make Killshot a lefty. So either the photo on the website was flipped or it is more research than I want to do for a commission.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Here is Death Tribble's Killshot idea given some sorta visual life. which was spoken about here. Hope y'all enjoy.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Another from the universe of Snowfire, Entrapment and Cap Cardiac (some of the recent pics)... here is Stretch.