Ranxerox

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities Possibly, but I think massey is closer to the mark with his Mortimer Snerd character. A lot of nerds (myself included) started lives as the omega males of there school playgrounds. Unable to gain acceptance and respect with their peers commonly they attempt to secure the goodwill of their teachers by being studious. For some nerds this eventually translates into good paying jobs and a road out of their omega status. Others aren't so fortunate and the only respite they get from the stress of there omega status is in their fantasy lives and the company of their fellow nerds. Girls and women tend to painful reminder of their omega status. So, they adopt a strategy of rudeness and condescension in order to push these painful reminders away. Better parenting will only help if it can save them from there omega status in the first place (and it's possible that someone has to be the omega unless we change our social structures), and the other guys calling him out ignores the underlying issues.

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities Why isn't it as important? If the why could be adequately addressed, the behavior would take care of itself, and it would be a win for the guys also.

Re: Small Town Superhumans? Great story. It was the first thing I thought of when I read this threads title.

Re: The Good and Bad about Marvel and DC She is not just dead? She is in hell?

Re: Evil Some animals are extremely social and everything that they do is for the good of the pack/herd/hive. That is their evolutionary strategy. They take care of the pack and the pack takes care of them. This is how they make sure that genes get passed down the the next generation even if they are not always the ones get to do the passing. Maybe they are called upon to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, but as long as their brothers or their queen passes along their genes from an evolutionary standpoint it's all good. Other animals are solitary in nature and consider other members of their kind competitors for food, space and mates. Generally they want enough of their kind around that its not difficult to find a mate when the time comes and no more than that. Forget letting brothers or cousins pass on their genes for them. They will do that for themselves, thank you very much. This evolutionary strategy can work also. Humans and most other primates exist kind of in the middle of these two evolutionary strategies. We are social beings and are willing to sometimes die for our brothers. We are also capable of unilaterally deciding that our brother needs to die for us. Good and evil are social constructs invented to describe the two* evolutionary strategies we are capable of following; work for the good or at least in harmony with the group or work for our own good possibly at the expense of the group. As good and evil are social constructs, it is not surprising that the more social of the two options gets all the good press and the anti-social option is demonized. Still, from an individual standpoint they are both potentially working strategies for a human being and neither one of them is going anywhere. * Yes, I know that their are numerous cross options that mix group first and individual first strategies. But I don't want to write a book here, so work with me on this.

Re: What "Pulp" have you read lately ? It's not so much that they are bumbling goons, though they do tend to travel with too little backup, as that they are hopelessly outclassed. Smith is about a 100 point character and Petrie about 50 points. Fu on the other hand is at least 300 points of pulp villain. Without Karamaneh Nayland Smith and Petrie would be toast.

Re: Black Collar With running I wasn't shooting for 3 times as fast as a normal human being. I was shooting for 3 times as fast as they could run without the black collar, which would have been a have been a bit faster than your average Joe.

Re: More space news! NASA Plans Lagrange Point 2 Space Station

Re: Black Collar If you move their SPD to 6, they might not be 3 times as fast as they are without the collars but they will be 3 times as fast as normal people. Toss a Dex bonus and 4 meters of running and they will be plenty bad ass.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Heh, I just finished Mystery of D Fu-Manchu, the first book in the series. They get rescued by a girl all the time in it too. I got the Fu-Manchu Omnibus for my kindle. It has the first 3 books and cost me something like five bucks. I was planning on writing up the Devil Doctor after finishing the omnibus.

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities I doubt it. I think everybody has sent rep Cygnia's way already. Hey, they have been really interesting articles.

Re: Experience and multiform Yes, spending xp points on your multiform is versatile but so is spending points to up your multipower or your VPP. Indeed, the rule book (6E1 pg 286) mentions how similar multiform and multipower are in what they offer the player. So given other ways of spending xp that allow the character to magnify the utility of the points spent, I don't see how multiform is a game breaker.

Re: Experience and multiform How is this different from giving 10 XP to a character with a multipower? The guy with multipower can add 5 points to the multipower's base and then increase 5 powers within the multipower by 5 active points. So in effect the guy with the multipower is getting 25 points of utility out the 10 experience that was awarded.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Just read A Brave New World for the first time. Even though Huxley got all the details about the future wrong (he wrote it in 1931), I kinda think that he was spot on about the general gist of things.

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities It is really easy and common to make photos that visually reduce women to objects of sexual gratification. All you have to do is focus the picture on model's breast, ass, vagina or dress and/or pose the model in such way as to make her breast, ass or vagina particularly prominent. A person can look at such a picture and not be lead to sexist thoughts just like a person can listen to a sad song and not be made sad, but that is more in spite of the "art" than because such pictures are neutral. It is possible to make pictures of women cooking, cleaning or raising children that through composition visually reduce to the women to domestic servants or child care providers at the expense of their greater humanity. However, this takes more skill than hypersexualized pictures require since the photographer needs to find visual ways to deemphasize the models' individuality . Lacking that skill the photographer will merely make pictures of women who at that moment happen to be cooking, cleaning or helping a child. Still, if we were to devote am entire thread primarily to such pictures the net effect would be pretty sexist.

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities That would make for a good sci-fi story. You should write it up, QS.

Re: What "Pulp" have you read lately ? Just finished reading The Intrepids TP Vol.1. Great pulpy goodness set in the modern times. Also, a really sweet set-up for a campaign. [ATTACH=CONFIG]44492[/ATTACH]

Re: NBC Revolution I've seen the commercials for this show and I keep getting stuck on the clothes. Everybody in the commercials is wearing clothes that look new, clean and modern. How do you manage that in a world with no washing machines, mechanical looms, or ability to transport things global distances? Really, I'm not asking that the actors run around naked. I just think that their clothes should look either hand sewn or old and patched together. Also, it would be nice if all the actors didn't look made up and perfectly coiffed. If the idea was to show a people who had been forced by circumstances to get back to nature IMHO they should look like they had gotten back to nature.

Re: Earth Girl Nice character. I like her. If she can be broken down into mud and come back from that, shouldn't she have the resurrection adder on her regeneration?

Re: Gods with Off Switches vs. Loaded Guns. DC vs. Marvel in Character Design. Emphasis added by me. Nope, nobody said this. What was said was that Superman could live in a less simplified universe with his moral code intact and not get killed over it. That is not the same thing as saying the DC universe is not simplified. Everybody that you debated with understands that both the DC and Marvel universes are very simplified relative to our own.

Re: So: What Superpowers would your Parents get if they had a "Radiation Accident" Dad died a long time ago. My mom, judging by her books, would want to a super cowgirl with detective skills thrown in.

Re: Gods with Off Switches vs. Loaded Guns. DC vs. Marvel in Character Design. The bombs in the schools was your example. Don't gripe when people reply to the specific example that you give. I responded to your example by bringing in Batman, because your example was straight out of a comic book itself. Given the "superficiality" of your example what is the point in giving a response that assumes a more complex universe? You come up with a plot that only Lex Luther or the Joker could pull off and cry foul when I bring in Batman. In something closer to real life, your criminal mastermind would get ratted out by one of his henchmen or the people who sold him the explosives before the explosives were ever planted. For that matter the explosives wouldn't even be real, they would fake explosives provided by undercover FBI agents. You see the bad guys always getting beaten by the superhero as opposed to being taken down by the local SWAT team is also a genre convention. In real life law enforcement can be extremely competent, and would totally curb stomp a lot a of supervillains. The genre conventions ultimately do as much to protect the villains as the heroes. So, if you want to talk about a world with Superman but without genre conventions we can do that. In such a world, Superman would have to change many things about his methods. He would not however find it necessary to abandon his beliefs or get killed. People far squishier than the Man of Steel with belief systems just as demanding manage to function in our world, I see no reason that Superman couldn't also. To convince me otherwise you are going to have to do a lot better than some stolen from a comic book/action movie bomb plot. That is just Space 1999 ragging on the physics of Star Wars and Star Trek. It certainly isn't real life.

Re: Gods with Off Switches vs. Loaded Guns. DC vs. Marvel in Character Design. What was the last school full of children that Lex blew up? And has this had the effect of making cease to function or abandoning his beliefs.

Re: Gods with Off Switches vs. Loaded Guns. DC vs. Marvel in Character Design. And Superman will find the actual person or persons behind the cut-outs, capture them, and send them to jail or the Phantom Zone for a long, long time. If he needs help finding the person behind the cut-outs, he will ask. Cause he is Superman and he is not afraid to ask his friends to help him out occasionally.

Re: Jeremiah - the Watcher It's all good. Different build philosophies. Also, somehow I missed the the Watchers contact. Seeing it now your build makes more sense to me (than it did before, not than my build.) Probably just means we have been reading different characters, but I haven't noticed an over usage of Clairvoyance. If anything to me it seems like Detect is getting ran into the ground. I mean how is Universal Translator a Detect? You already hear them just fine; you just don't understand what they are saying. What was wrong with Universal Translator being it's own separate ability. However, from me this is a red herring. Really, I don't care what power is used or how the special effect is defined as long game effect is what is desired and cost is in line with the value of the ability. So define your hellhounds as a Summons or an Indirect, Damage Over Time Blast. Either way is fine by me. Well, no. After you factor in the cost for the Detect and the Contact, Jeremiah spent 20 points on the ability and the Contact is 12 or less. With the same 12 or less chance of success and a little Extra Time and Incantations, the Clairsentience could have been built for 20 or less points. So, no your method wasn't really more cost effective.