Ranxerox

Re: Foxbat Went a Courtin'....

But ... but... what about Lenore !??

Re: What kind of aliens?

There is a saying that goes, 'To a hammer, everything is a nail.' We are tool users and any alien species that we encounter that could threaten us is likely to be tool users; and to a tool user, everything is a tool. Therefore, I would expect any intelligent life we run into to try to exploit us for there own benefit and exterminate us alright only if it became apparent we were too grave of a threat to leave alive or too big of an obstacle for them tolerate in their path.

We are also social beings and as such like to form relationships. I think any alien life forms that we would view as being intelligent would also more likely than not be social beings, though there are admitly other possibilities. So unless we are simply too alien to one another to permit the forming of relationships, I would expect them to occur. Those these are not necessarily going to be relationships of equals.

So as the songs says, we'll make great pets.

Re: Help with Alien Wars

Hi. I run a play by post Alien Wars campaign over at Hero Central. This certainly doesn't make me an expert on the subject of running one but I have at least given the subject some thought.

My advice get the players out of their starships as often as possible. Battlecruiser versus battlecruiser combat is only interesting to the person playing the captain, and it is hard to mimic a 3-dimensional dogfight on a flat table top. Therefore your best bet is get your players fighting the xenovores face to ugly face whenever possible.

In the early part of the war this means a lot of sabotage and rescue missions as the characters try to save lives while slowing the xenovore advance. Think spacestations, colonized asteroid belts, ice moons and planetside for your adventure locations. The characters should be adhoc groups of the 'best of the best' which have been thrown together and told to get along so that they can fight this new enemy.

Campaigns later in the war should be largely planetside as the characters fight to take back planets from the xenoes and eventually push to take the fight to the xenovore homeworld. Most missions will revolve around taking out hard targets and and securing locations. Unlike early war campaigns the characters will all probably belong to a single branch of the service which limits character concepts a bit. To make up for this, they should have access to better hardware and have more opportunities to kick butt.

My $0.02

Re: Comics you loved...but apparently no one else did

I would like to mention a couple recent additions to the died too young category - Wildcats v2.0 and The Intimates.

Also, curious, does anyone else remember The Jam?

Re: Cities of the Future

 

The second discussion point would be the cyber-city presented by Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash. Virtual real estate and its associated technologies could be just as important in a high-tech setting as the physical spaces. The hero lives physically in a U-Haul shipping container but spends most of his interactive life in a virtual city running across multitudinous computer systems. If telepresence technology is ingrained in society then all bets are off - the laws of physics needn't apply to virtual worlds.

 

I've read Snow Crash and liked it a good deal, but I would like to propose a city that takes idea of virtual real estate one step farther. Perhaps being plugged into the net will become such the normal, that cities will assume that their residents are always plugged in and the distinction between the physical and virtual world will blur to the point of near meaninglessness.

In cities of the future, buildings may project virtual representations of themselves and host virtual visitors. So as you walk around your city you could choose to view the actual buildings or virtual conterparts (of which you may have a selection to choose from depending on what channel you are monitoring).

Alternately, you could visit other cities as a 'ghost' and observe and interact with people and other 'ghost' in these cities in real time. So city could have an actual population of 5 million and a virtual population that is 10 times that. How much of this virtual population you would interact with at any given time would depend on your channel settings.

Re: Cities of the Future

This is a Star Hero forum... instead of imagining that The Evil Oppressor is going to come and tear down people's homes' date=' rob them of their cars, and make them live in a communist distopia, how about we focus on cities build without legacy systems and structures already in place? Say we've got 10,000,000 colonists in cold storage, and a robot construction force to set up our new colony world, including its capital city. What do we build, and why?[/quote']

 

Yes, if I had wanted a debate on pros and cons of urban planning, I would have posted in NGD.

 

I'm running an Alien Wars campaign, and since Worlds of Empire is not yet out, I have a lot universe to feel in the details concerning.

 

That is not to say that I'm only interested in cities that fit well in the Alien Wars campaign setting. It would be good if this thread could provide ideas for people running other types of Star Hero campaigns. Most of us are not Isaac Asimov and have a hard time describing the future to our players in way that makes it more than just the present with better weapons.

Re: Cities of the Future

I figure if you enlarged the scale horizontally sufficently you could have multiple cities stacked on top of each other, and restrict vertical movement between say 40 floor sectors to particular central areas of these mega buildings (spanning 4-9 city blocks maybe?), so as to reduce elevator requirements overall in the building.

 

TB

This notion is definitely cool to visualize, but what sort of light do people in the bottom cities get?

Re: Cities of the Future

There are technological/architectural movements that aim at trying to improve the livability of cities. The New Urbanist movement is an example of one such movement. They are approaching the issue from a number of angles. Some are approaching in terms of esthetics' date=' others are approaching in terms of technology. Interestingly enough, there is some convergence here and there.[/quote']

 

Thank you for your highly informative overview of the New Urbanist movement. Assuming these views become popular (and they sound good to me), I could see them be extremely influential in the city design during the next century. As such they could provide a guide to 'Old Town' districts in cities 300 years from now.

 

Of course todays New Urbanist will be suplanted in time in time be some other group of Young Turk architects and city planners. Maybe this new school will call itself New Ruralist, UltraUrbanist, or Subjective Experimentalist. Still, by the year 2300, the views of New Urbanist might be once again in vogue.

 

What is your best guess on this matter, Mutant for Hire?

Re: Cities of the Future

Depends a lot on what technology you think will be available, and if you think we will be building new cities, rather than just continuing to occupy and modify existing ones.

 

I think that what a (new) city looks like is largely determined by how people, goods, and utilities get moved.

 

If your technology includes Cheap, safe teleportation and cheap, decentralized power generation, then cities have a good chance of becoming relics. People might still live in them, but only because they have been living in them.

Well, of course what the form the cities take will depend on social and economic variables. Part of what I'm asking for is that you take your best guesses concerning those variables.

Also, I'm asking you guys to play philospher. What would constitute an ideal human city (if cities can be ideal and not just a functionality of the moment), and how much closer or further away from this ideal do you suspect humanity to be in 300 years.

I recently saw the movie Aeon Flux and while I found the movie to just okay, I really liked the fictional city in which it is set, Bregna. Bregna is pretty much the exact opposite of the city from Blade Runner. It is clean, elegant and its technology, rather than being in your face, has made itself all but invisible.

Even though I thought Bregna was cool, it doesn't seem like a very realistic city of the future to me. It was too elegant. Elegance is something that people like to visit, not somewhere that they really want to live. Somehow, I don't see the the mere passage of 3 or 4 centuries changing that about us as a specie.

So, I'm posing the question, 'What will cities look like in three hundred years?'

Will the rise of virtual spaces diminish the need for people to congregate in actaul physical space so that large cities become less common, or will improvements in building technology and transportation herald in an age of megalopolii? Will humanity strive for elegance or continue to wallow in the tacky? And most importantly, what cool new gadgets and features will the cities of the future have?

Re: Okay, Dream Park from scratch. Help please (longish)

The other choice would be to make all the ingame abilities into a VPP.

As a house rule for this one game, both he base and the control cost of the VPP could have the limitation "Only in DreamPark, Only During the Game, Only to Effect Items and People/Creatures of the Game" (-4).

This would bring down the VPP cost to the point where competent normals could afford a good size pool and let their "RL" stats carry into the game - i.e. a triathlete can go on longer without being winded than a couch potato regardless of what the holograms say.

YMMV

Re: Comics are getting too steamy...

Keith "Any more non-beautiful heroes?" Curtis

Emty Vee from The Intimates has a serious weight problem, and Punchy from the same title looks kinda dorky too.

I'm posting to plug The Winter Men, an 8 issue mini-series by Wildstorm that's first issue just shipped this week. The premise of the series is that all the former Soviet Super Soldiers are working as cops, gangsters and bodyguards in modern Russia.

In addition to an interesting high-concept idea, the first issue had strong writing and a setting that just dripped of atmosphere and little bits of information about modern day Russia. I don't know how accurate the depictions is but I can say that the Russia it depicts would be a fascinating place to take a group of DC characters or to hold a complete DC campaign.

Check it out!

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

The Hero INT stat mainly represents speed of thought, memory and perceptiveness as well as less quantifiable forms of intelligence. You could be a scientific genius who was self absorbed and absent minded, and thus had a lowish Hero INT but very high Science skills. So, I'd do it by skill level in the science in question:

 

11- May maintain and develop modern technology, by the standards of the culture in question

15- May maintain and develop cutting edge technology

21- May maintain and develop technology that is nearly miraculous for the culture in question

30- Miracles.

 

In a fairly realistic Pulp campaign, a hero with 11- Weaponsmith could maintain his weapons and make small real world modifications. 15- would get him the very best pistols possible for the world at the time. 21- gets him an Uzi. 30- gets him a nuke.

 

In a four color world with low realism, you can build a Death Ray out of stuff in your garage with no statted skills at all, as long as you have the points. Call it Everyman Skill: Silly Science.

I would like to say yes and no to your assertion that it is skill level and not INT score that matters.

Using your own table 15- is cutting edge science which is by definition where current science stops. Consequently, at this point you are as far as any normal teacher can bring and from here on out have to blaze your own trail scientifically to bring your skill higher.

Personally as a GM, I would normally limit what a person can acheive through purely self instruction to 2 or possibly 3 points of skill improvement. Someone with normal or lower INT, I might limit to 1 or 0 points of skill if they were already at the 15- level. So, even at the most generous level of 3 points improvement by self study we are capping out at 18-.

InfiniteMind, with her INT score of 50 on the otherhand, starts all sciences she chooses to seriously study at 19-. In other words, just by turning her vast intellect to a subject she automatically makes deduction and leaps gaps in ways the would revolutionize the field. By devoting serious time and energy to a field she could potentially improve her level to 22-.

Borrowing some rules from Star Hero, InfiniteMind could work develop technology 2 tech levels above the current involving completely new concepts with an even chance of sucess (she would be at a -3 for each tech level beyond her own and a -5 for the new concept, so after deduction she would have an 11-). Alternately, she could project up to 3 tech levels above the current with a good chance of sucess as long as only extensions of known concepts were involved (she would be at a -3 for each tech level above the current, so after deductions have a 13-).

Still, the fact that I had to invent a character with a 50 INT to illustrate my point shows that the vast majority of the time it IS skill level and not INT that matters.

Re: Altered time perception

Is that correct? If so, then maybe buy levels with INT/PER with a limitation 'can take no other actions' and then perhaps buy Extra dimensional movement 'forward in time' with an advantage that you can 'view' the time travel.

 

Is this close? If not, my suggestion is to let us know more detailed game mechanics (from GM & Player perspective, not PC) you are wanting to produce and let us go from there.

Actually, Cratermaker pretty much nailed the character (or a more idealized version thereof) that I was going for. However, the power that you just described is a cool one, and if I'm ever making a Timelord style character, I will certainly use it.

Thank you.

Re: Altered time perception

I'd keep it subtle, like the overall levels idea.. but definately buy the Power Skill with it, so you can experiment as your imagination prompts you.

 

How about a high Sleight of Hand skill, which would represent both his ability to foil other sleight of hand users (sure, buddy, TRY to misdirect my attention!) and his ability to REALLY plan out small movements and observe his target to coincide with maximum distraction.

 

Cramming would work for this character, as would deduction, meditation, simulate death, and a host of reaction type skills (I.e. breakfall, combat driving, etc.).. His physical reactions aren't any faster, but he is (to the outside world) lightning fast in deciding on an appropriate action, and modifying that action in response to the actions of others. It's a cool idea for a power, definately! What confidence he'd have, with all the time in the world to decide on a course of action and internally debate what ramifications may come..

 

Maby a low level of danger sense to represent his ability to immediately spring into action when attacked (i.e. no suprise bonus for attackers in most situations), perhaps a Combat Manuever would be appropriate.

 

Heck, I could see this guy with a high level of martial arts, as well. They say that if you just lightly touching an incoming punch robs the punch of much of it's power.. He could combine punches and blocks and dodges like Jackie Chan and Jet Lee rolled into one, with a little practice.

 

Please post a writeup when you're done!

 

-CraterMaker

Boy, there are a ton of great idea here! Unfortunately, I turned in my character to my GM earlier today. Since, I only had 250 pts to work with I don't think I could have made a character near as cool as the one you described even if I had seen you post in time. Still, you have just claimed my next hundred or so experience points with you ideas.

Re: Altered time perception

Nice power idea' date=' but have you ever thought about the power [b']Change Environment[/b]: Make it Megascale and buy multiple combat effects get some personal immunity and stack up the characteristic, movement, and perception penalties for everyone other than your character remember to link it to a couple dice of spd Drain and your in business!!!

 

RPJ

That is VERY funny. My GM would have to be on drugs to let me get away with it, but it is still very funny.

Re: Altered time perception

Thanks for the reply Kirby. Unfortunately I don't own USPD, though maybe I should get it.

The powers that you suggested sound like time altering power, however. The character that I'm working on has no control over time. He can just control his own personsal perception of it. He can speed up the firing and recovery of his mental neurons as to make make time seem slower relatively speaking, or he can slow down the rate of neuron fire to make time quicker by comparison.

Re: Altered time perception

No extra levels of SPEED? Hmmm. OKay....

 

Additional levels of Perception to reflect that he can spend extra time studying events as they happen in slow motion (to his perception, anyhow).

 

Some Overall Skill Levels to reflect his ability to "take extra time" while employing skills.

 

Speed Reading

Eidetic Memory

etc.

Actually, I was planning on giving him extra levels of speed with the limitations cost endurance and can't be used for movement. I figure the slow motion quality will give him time to pick out extra targets and he can probably coax a few extra squeezes of the trigger out of his body.

However, I had forgotton speed reading and eidetic memory, and Pinecones reduction in stun by fast forwarding past the initial pain is clever too. So, posting the question has already paid dividends for me. Thank you.

Additional thoughts and ideas are warmly welcomed.

I want to make a character that can alter his own perception of time. He can speed it up to fastforward through lifes boring parts, and slow it down to allow himself to catch every detail and give himself plenty of time to consider his own next move. Note: When he slows down time in his perception he doesn't move any faster than he normally can, he just has more subjective time to choose his actions and get maximun gain out of what he does.

I'm looking for suggestion on how to translate this ability into game terms. Thanks in advance for all ideas given.

Re: War of the Worlds

you would think that some of the warmachines would have been found over the years being buried maybe 200 feet underground

 

the war machines being bio mechanical was cool and could have been the reason for the end of the dinosaurs

the alien hopes that an intelegent life form will dominate the planet and mine it's resources(mostly metals)making for easier pickens

of course we are now talking about a culture that is millions of years old

and they stagnate for that long

Hmmm, the question of why we hadn't detected any of the warmachines through mining, drilling or geological surveys bothered me too. I don't recall the figure of 200 feet mentioned for their depth. Perhaps they were buried much deeper, like over a thousand feet. Still, you would think that we would have discovered atleast 1 of them. However the surface of the planet is very large and we have explored deep beneath it only in a scattering of places so maybe not.

Personally, I don't think the aliens were waiting on intelligent life to make taking over easier. The aliens seem more than capable of clearing their own space and making their own things. I'm more inclined to think that the aliens were making a preemptive strike against an emerging rival and the buried warmachines were just an act of considerable forsight. Alternatively, maybe the aleins realized a long time ago the the galaxy had a limited number of habitable planets, so they 'dibbed' them all early.

Re: War of the Worlds

it's ok so long as you don't pay any attention to the gapping plot holes

they need to play up what the red weed did

other than needing to be fertlized

The whole movie happens in about 2 and a half days of character time. What reason is there to think that the red weed would necessarily come into play during such a short time?

I just got back from seeing The War of the Worlds, and I think that it is destined to be a classic right up there with the 1953 version. Speilberg's experience making Saving Private Ryan get put to good use here in some scences of chaos and devastation that few other director could have composed. In addition to being visually strong, the movie has enough intellectual meat on it's bones to spark countless conversations about politics, morality and human destiny.

A few caveats though, while the movie does well with the big issues it often falls down when you apply logic to the small details (it is afterall a big budget, summer action film). Also I would recommend taking the PG-13 rating seriously - don't take small children. Personally I feel bad for star Dakota Fanning. My daughter is about her age and I would not take her to see this film much less let her play a lead role.

Re: Favorite Pulp Character

Fu Manchu, hands down favorite.

Re: Culture HERO

The Culture books make for some fascinating reading. You won't regret the time you spend with them Uhlan.