input.jack

Re: NOBLES, KNIGHTS, AND NECROMANCERS -- What Do *You* Want To See? If this is to be more than a book about NPC's, Id like some kind of guidelines about how to build a Kingdom. I mean, how much land do you need to farm to support how many people? How many Knights can a holding support? How tough are castle walls? How much income can a Noble expect to receive from the land they own (either before taxes to the Crown, or after if its easier). Stuff like that.

Re: Irksome players Conversely, (and Im not saying unmotivated Players arent a problem, they are) I realluy dislike it when the GM gives the Players NO idea of where they are supposed to go or what they are supposed to do, unless "spining your wheels" is the point of the game. Ive been in games where my character went out on patrol (superhero game), checked with contacts, and got NOTHING from the GM about what was going on, and then got chewed out by NPC's for "letting that villain get away with it" when I had NO IDEA what was happening. No clues. No fortuitous happenstance of being in the right place at the right time. Apparently since I didnt specifically =state= that I was going by the Airport, I missed the "plot" and then got chewed out for it. I dont game with him anymore.

Re: Compensating for PC Abilities "Within his first three appearances, Prof X used his mental powers to strip one villain of any knowledge of who he was and what his powers were, and a second of all knowledge of the X-men, Xavier's school and the fact he was a mutant. Xavier's pretty far down the "mentalist slippery slope", IMO." As has been said, that was Silver Age. Now, personally, I tend to go with how characters were in the Bronze Age (but that should come as no real surprise, given my tag line). Ive had to object about people calling Batman a gun-toter for using pistols and machine guns in his first couple of appearances, too. I guess I just sort of assume that until a character has been around for about 10 issues or so, the writers are -totally- sure what theyre doing with the character's personality and background, and if later they want me to "selectively forget" a few incedents, Im happy to oblige. (The original batplane was a modified World War I biplane, too, which doesnt make a whole lot of sense in and of itself in the context of a modern batman. But in 1938 it was completely reasonable. You just gotta let some things slide ). As for Ressurection, there have been a couple of characters in my campaign that have had that Power. (Not counting the occasional person who can Rez themself. They -always- have limitations and parameters on that ability, even if its unlikely that anyone will figure it out any time soon). NPCs with Ressurection power include Ankhesenisis, God-Avatar of Isis, and Deathwalker, Living Avatar of Anubis. However, both are loathe to use that ability unless the circumstances under which someone died were...unusual, to say the least. Also, as both are effectively divinely powered, they both understand that bringing someone back to life can easly DENY them their rewards in the afterlife. Not a nice thing to do, and not to be done lightly. Ive had characters Rez'ed by NPC's a couple of times. Not EVERY time; not hardly. Characters dont get killed often in our games, and when they do its meaningful. But in one case, a character was effectively murdered and then brought back by the same evil Sorcoress, in order to reincarnate her former identity so that the undead Sorcoress could glean mystical information that the past-life incarnation had possessed (before killing her again and stealing her beautiful young body, as any evil undead Sorcoress would). Of course, the PCs saved her from the Sorcoress, and then had to deal with their friend being basically trapped in her own body by the consciousness of her former incarnation. They went through some pretty impressive hoops and managed to seperate out the pre-incarnation, binding her spirit to an amazingly crafted, animated wooden body, and restored the original girl to her own body. Usually those capable of ressurrecting people understand that it skews the "cosmic balance" doing so, and also that if word gets out that you can do things like that, people will NEVER leave you alone. People like the NSA.

Re: Superhero Images A-thank yew! *Bows*

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Along the lines of the AI thing, I was in a game where there was an evil machine intelligence determined to take over the world. The GM wanted it to be the lead-in to a very "Terminator" kind of campaign, and was looking forward to it being taken very seriously. However, the initial encounter involved the computer being able to subvert -anything- that had any kind of processor and a transciever. Which sounded fine, until one of the Players stumbled into the groups' meeting place and managed to get out a warning before falling unconsci9ous. What was that warning? "Beware....be...ware...the....Furbees!" *clunk* The GM was somewhat..nonplussed

Re: Jokes "You have given out too much Reputation in the last 24 hours, try again later." Sorry, man, I tried!

Re: Superhero Images *Slaps forehead* >_< Um...err...Bargirl was the sidekick of that communist conspirator from the south, Johnny Walker Red. Yeah! That was it!

Re: More Bat-tyness Actually, Pheemeys idea is the only one Id like! Im SICK AND TIRED of writers killing off characters for no good reason! If Batman gets killed for real, it HAS to be by the Joker, and no one else. And we KNOW he doesnt get killed, cause then who would Terry McGuiness have gotten the Batsuit from?

Re: My Ferris Bueller Writeup. Ferris seems a bit light in the Int, Ego, and COM departments, to me. The guy figured out how to get away with EVERYTHING! Thats Mastermind level INT, in my opinion

Re: WWYCD: This Is A Very Delicate Operation... Meanwhile Revenant makes sure that she is stable, quietly summons the Skullplane, and silently spirits her away, back to our headquarters, while McCoy's character is keeping the Big Bad talking rationally (Batman characters are fun that way)

Re: Superhero Images I still need to do the shading and highlighting, but here are the three characters from my current supers game that Im running for my roomates. Revenant is the leader of the team, and kind of a batman type character (although hes also the NPC. He will be "busy" or "out of town" alot). Jade Spectre is next to him; she is the grand-daughter of Fu Manchu, and a martial artist. The other guy is Goblyn, who has been Revenant's sidekick for a while now. The game is set in 1986. My roomate is also running a game set in the same campaign world, in 2006, where Goblyn has changed his identity to Requiem, kind of like how Dick Greyson went from Robin to Nightwing. The characters fill the "ecological niches" of Batman, Bargirl, and Robin, but are -very- different in the details. So far its been pretty cool!

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... "You threw a DOG at a CHURCH RANGER??!!? Oh you are SO going to Hell"

Re: Daily Superhero Art Findings... Thanks

Re: Daily Superhero Art Findings... This is the game group Im currently running. (I havent done the shading yet, so its just a flatcolor, but its the best I got for now) The guy on the left is The Revenant, in the middle is Jade Spectre, and the guy on the right is Goblyn. These are the characters I was talking about in the "Quote from my Game Group" thread

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Another one, this time from a little while back. We were playing a Space Opera setting campaign. The GM had created the setting himself, and it was, overall, based equally on Original Series Trek and Babylon 5. Our characters were all somehow involved in the marriage of a Princess of one stellar nation to the Prince of another. These star nations had been at war for a very long time, and hated each other on "general principal", but were trying to rise above it and create peace. The Princess was a PC, the Prince an NPC. All the other PC's were in the Princess' retinue, including her bodyguard (me), and the captain of the flagship. The Prince and his entourage arrive aboard our ship, and all they do is make snide comments and complain. The Prince, especially, is extremely vocal in how unimpressed he is with our Navy and its vessels. The most memorable exchange came during the wedding reception. The Princess was standing with the Prince, as the new bride and groom, and there were dignitaries and officials, as well as bodyguards, milling about. "Well," said the Prince," that ceremony was...adequate, I suppose. Not as sumptuous or grand as the ceremonies we have back home. But I suppose that would be because of the cramped accomodations aboard this small little starship." "But Milord," the ship's captain protested," this is the largest starship in the Astarri Star Navy. It is the flagship of the fleet!" The Prince looked down his nose at the Admiral. "How...unfortunate, that your entire star navy should be crowned by something so small and unimpressive." At which point the Princess smirked and interjected," It is my fervent hope that your government has not supplied me with anything with which I would have a similar complaint."

Re: Youth Potions I ran a Pulp campaign where they found a Fountain of Youth. I worked it as a Transformation with a permanent effect, unless the character was killed, in which case the Transformation was broken. This meant that once a character was killed, they would rapidly skeletonize and then turn to powder, if they were old enough

Re: Group Perception For Group Perception rolls Ive been using the PER roll of the character with the highest roll, and adding +1 per other person trying (actively) to look at the same area. This makes guards only -slightly- more likely to spot characters, as most places with multiple guards have them looking at different areas to try to cover everything at once. Also, with regards to an earlier comment, in our groups PCs have widely varying PER rolls, even if they dont have Powers relating to perception. Most PCs have bought their INT up, usualy a Hero in our games will have between a 13 and 20 INT.

Re: Flight Question As far as I know, Flight doesnt have any special rules concerning movement and carrying, other than the usual penalties to movement speed and DCV listed in the Encumbrance rules.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... In my new campaign, the characters are associates of Revenant, who is a Batman-like hero. One character is Goblyn, his teen-aged sidekick, and the other is Jade Spectre, grand-daughter of Fu Manchu. Goblyn and Jade Spectre have both recently arrived on the scene of a bank job in probress. Goblyn finds a position on a nearby rooftop from which he can observe. Jade Spectre arrived independantly, and made a fantastic Perception roll to spot Goblyn. Jade makes a killer Stealth roll, and glides up behind Goblyn while hes peering through his mini-binoculars. ...."Two on the roof, on opposite corners." Jade says. Goblyn, startled, said "Gyaaaah! Cant you ever make some noise when you walk?" Jade gets a thoughtful expression, has a contemplative look on her face, and then says ".......No."

Re: Ravenswood Academy Yearbook Incredible work, there, Doc. Great job! As far as the "all supers look good" topic, one thing to consider for people promoting "average looking" supers is that the very lifestyle of a superhero is going to promote physical fitness,a nd physically fit people are more attractive. The only "overweight supers" in comics are those whose powers directly link to their shape. Matter Eater lad, Big Bertha (and her size is variable), and people like that. Characters like the Thing arent overweight, just differently structured. Just something to keep in mind.

Re: Queer heroes "Well, hopefully since this would be a gay science fiction con, this problem would be solved. I know my local group razzes me when I play a transgendered D&D character." Get into a better group, my friend. (Also, what exactly do you mean by a "transgendered" character? One who is the opposite gender of the Player? Or one who was originally one gender, and is now another?) In the main game group I play with, we have five male Players and one female Player. Usually a game will have one or two NPC's as well as one PC per Player. Often the groups are fairly evenly mixed, gender-wise. And its a toss-up of who is playing whom. All of the Players in my group play either male or female characters, as the game and concepts they have dictate. And everyone is fine with that. Likewise, in one of the Fantasy games currently running, one of the Players has a character who was a male Human Rogue, who was reincarnated as a female Half-Elven Rogue, and while the Player has been having fun Roleplaying the inner conflicts and trauma of the change-over (especially because Ferret begins to think and react a little more like a female Half-elf and a little less like a Human male every day), all of the Players take the game, and the character, quite seriously. I think if your fellow Players are giving you a hard time for playing a character who is cross-gendered from yourself, or has undergone a transformation or proceedure to change genders, that you need more mature Players As for the character described above as "Gargoyle", yes I can see how that name has been done to death. May I suggest "Stoneheart"? (I mean, having your family turn you over to a rabid demonologist and transforming into a monster has GOT to make him rather...shall we say...bitter?) Hope this helps

Re: Flying, mini's and combat My group has a collection of "rice dice" (those tiiiiny little dice). We use white dice for "ones" and green or black ones for "tens", and its worked well for years. But I -like- the clear chessex boxes concept....

Re: Self Defeating Powers "I Cant Get that Tune out of My Head!" Radio Reception, (Music Only -1)(No Conscious Control-1/2)

Re: City of Heroes Based Campaign /Bitterness on Remember, when running a campaign based on current COH, that villains do more damage, and are better constructed, than Heroes. Which is a problem, because more than half of your Players will be Villains. Also, remember, you cant have a cape unless City Hall says you can. Hero or villain, makes no difference. Further, "Brick" characters are forbidden to have any resistant defense, any defense over 20, or a Con over 20. They also cannot have a presence over 15, as that might make them seem dangerous and allow them to taunt villains. Finally, remember to change fundamental game mechanics every so often, without warning. For added fun, allow the Players to -think- they know about upcoming changes by discussing them with them, and then do something completely different. When possible, try to come up with three or four different ways to solve balance issues. Then implement -all- of them in as draconian a manner as possible. So balance shifts, and you can do it again. Blasters get 25 more points to build characters on than other Heroes, Villains get 75 more, and Statesman is the most powerful master villain in the world. That should about do it /Bitterness off. *Ahem* Sorry about that. I played COH from early Beta and the three day head-start until Issue 5 and "Special Ed" (Enhancement Diversification). In that time I saw Jack Emmeret change from a cool guy with a cool vision to a pompous "visionary" obsessed with his own agenda to the point of destroying what had once been a phenomenal MMORPG. Im still a bit riled.

Re: Question from a non-Hero player Even so, the damage and resistance mechanics for HERO are far more user-friendly and, to my mind at least, intuitive, than that of GURPS. Ive played a LOT of HERO, and several GURPS games, and I always know about how much damage I can dish out in HERO and what it will most likely do to my target. GURPS characters...I have no idea. I once had a Pulp-era explorer shoot another PC in the leg with an elephant gun in GURPS and it didnt even slow him down. (I hate in-party conflict, but when it happens I dont shy away from it. He betrayed us; he got shot). Maybe it was a bad roll. Maybe it was a bad GM. but every GURPS game ive played has either had PC's doing so little damage that it had no effect, or instantly splatting the opposition. No middle ground. HERO for me, please And yes, the chase and intercept combat rules are awesome. Ive been in HERO science fiction games ranging from absolute hard science fiction (run by a physics professor, no less), to wild-hare space opera. Ive run campaigns simulating Star Trek, Star Wars, 2001, Stargate, Aftermath, Gamma World, Mai the Psychic Girl, Mobile Suit Gundam, World War II (with werewolves) and countless others in HERO. If the Ref puts the time and effort into constructing the setting to be balanced with itself, then the campaign will have the right feel. Some campaigns are harder to construct than others, is all. HERO starts with the people, and provides a logical, consistent rules framework for them to operate within. The rest just sort of takes care of itself