Cancer

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Idiocy Financial Planning! We can advice on ALL our Pure Idiocy means of handling your money! State lottery tickets ... dog & horse race tracks ... pyramid investment plans ... dirt cheap stocks of bankrupt companies ... short-term speculation in merchandise of questionable origin ... fund transfers from Nigerian banks ... MAKE MONEY FAST, and other forms of financial Idiocy! A wholly-owned subsidiary of Halliburton, Inc.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings On a completely different note ... At least where I am, there'll be unusually low tides for the next few days. If you have a beach near you, could be a great time to take the kids -- mine have their last day of school today -- out there and look for critters. US tidal predictions can be had from http://140.90.121.76/tides05/ (and despite the numeric URL, that's a NOAA official site).

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Hi, we're from Sixty Minutes...

Re: Musings on Random Musings Thanks folks ... we'll see what happens. It turned out to be just "for observation", but it sounds like congestive heart failure to me, from the information in the phone calls I got.

Re: The Last Word

Re: A Thread for Random Musings It's never a good night when your mother is in the hospital.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Things have advanced in the last few years. It's evidence of conspiracy, but conspiracy rumors now are promulgated by opposing groups in order to "out" their enemies. So Old Man is not with the Feds; that's what they want you to think.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER I recently was told that at the last part of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, when USS Washington opened fire on Kirishima with her 16-inch rifles, the elevation angle was 1.5 degrees. If true, then one could have looked through the barrel of one of the guns and seen the target, neglecting that it was nighttime, of course.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings I had a conventional but good Middle American Father's Day yesterday. Went bowling with my son and my father-in-law, both of whom are more enthusiastic about bowling than I. (The women in the family were present, but among them only my step-mother-in-law bowled as well.) Strangely, the bowling alley was almost empty. I suppose the nice weather can be blamed for that. The prime rib at the bowling alley's attached restaurant was quite good, and also it was cheap: between a third and half the price it would have been at steak house.

Re: What are some interesting disadvantages you have used? I haven't used it yet in Champions, but an "imaginary friend" psych lim can be HILARIOUS to roleplay. Gotta know when to put a cork in it so it doesn't bog down the plot, but if used properly, it can be a huge amount of fun. I haven't yet used the "shrew" ploy with it, either. If the activation roll really goes bad, then the guy could end up having a three-way argument with himself, out loud. "HAVE YOU BEEN SEEING ANOTHER HALLUCINATION!?!" "No, no, it was just that last attack." "THAT'S WHAT THEY ALL SAY! You don't fool me. Hmph. You're seeing another hallucination. Is she pretty? Purple spots, just as you like 'em?" "No! It was just Freakout's mind attack!" "Oh, so you're seeing someone else's hallucination! Does the other guy know he's being two-timed as well?" ...

Re: Most Feared Disadvantage We take Unluck, but buy it off quickly, for a strange reason ... our GMs don't take advantage of it often enough. To me, that means you're just "storing up trouble" and when it comes home to roost, the screws will be applied in a long, slow, powerful way. We have one guy playing a really weird character whose main power is a variable-effect Aid, bought with a Berserk disad. It's a really low-threshold Berserk, too, so it is common for him to wig out and keep buffing up the same friendly character in the same way for big chunks of a fight. With our GMs, for me, it's Vulnerability. Guaranteed, it'll show up every time it matters, and when it does, forget it. You might as well turn your back on the table and play Minesweeper, or do a run up to Canada to buy more good hard cider. Or deliberately try to get your character killed so you can create a new one that won't get turned into a boat anchor every adventure.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Just between us, I would recommend you start putting resumes out there. An outfit that cheap cannot afford your level of expertise. If they could, they'd take your advice and come out ahead in the long run. Also, that sort of goobers are ripe for the first fast-talking offshoring representative to walk in the door, and that's an even better reason to give the exits some serious inspection.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Yeesh! What infection was this? Crap, if you have to do that, you need to start firing people for getting your system infected. (I've worked in places where that was done.) And go to air gap security.

Re: Exponential VS Linear ? As a matter of principle, if you have to keep track of effects of vastly different magnitude -- which is approximately always true in superhero situations -- then doing it without the use of log scales is hopeless. (I prefer the word "logarithmic" to "exponential" to describe this kind of manipluation, but I also know that a lot of people -- my students, anyway -- consider "logarithm" to be either a direct invocation of Satan or an auto-sexual act of the vilest sort.) When it comes time to compare grossly different values, well, an example: you start needing to keep track of how many zeros are in the brick's lift capacity versus anyone else's. ... but whether you realize it or not, counting zeros like that IS the first step toward a logarithmic scale. So accept the math, make your system work that way. Life ... well, actually, RPGs, but that's more important than life ... gets a lot easier.

Re: Fumbled Seduction Roll I think an 18 roll is carte blanche to do what you want. But there's no point in getting too creative with an NPC; it's just a situation-specific botch. In this situation ... evil NPC femme rolling an 18 on Seduction of an intoxicated male player character ... I think she gets vomited on, he passes out immediately (and has no memory of the event) and she cannot wake him up, and one of the inn staff [assuming that's a relevant feature for the campaign setting] happens by and asks what's going on, draws conclusions that she's not a person one wants in one's establishment, and ends up escorting her off the premises. That's assuming that rendering him unconcious wasn't what she wanted. If it was, well, something else happens. Make it up; that's what you're paid the big bucks for, right?

Re: Musings on Random Musings When Lemming says "Life is good", I am inclined to put in the same bin as when I hear someone declare, "Life sucks." Got a new girlfriend named Life, eh?

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "Today we'll describe a recipe I got from my new hubby ... Nymphet on Green Jello with Truly Unspeakable Slime Sauce."

Re: Best Section Header *Ever* Funny. I don't find the word "yak" all that much of a non sequitur from standard game setting parlance. In Shadowrun, "Yak" is cut-down slang for Japanese organized crime (yakuza), and in the WW2 and post-WW2 era there were a number of Soviet combat aircraft which were Yak-something, where something was a number (in the same vein as Mig-21, etc.). Either one is perfectly in place ... in its genre. In fact, when I first glanced at the thread, I assumed that "add more yaks" meant that the standard bad-guy NPCs were Japanese crime figures, and if the fights weren't challenging enough, just increase the number of opponent mooks.

Re: A Thread For Random Links Things to do tomorrow

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER If you've never heard of it before, spywareinfo.com is a HUGE help for the "mere mortal" side of the population. Probably not so much so for the sysadmin types. Still, it might be worth checking out.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER WA is large enough that there are substantial differences across the state. Seattle's pretty pricey, especially stuff like rent, real estate, etc. They deny it vehemently, but Tacoma can be thought of as an outgrowth of Seattle. Spokane is very different and cheaper. I would not advise any sentient being visit Yakima. I know nothing about Vancouver, and I have only very limited knowledge of Richland/Pasco/Kennewick. If you can let us know where in particular, and we can provide more detailed guidance....

Re: The Last Word Heat death.