bigdamnhero

I'm looking for some ideas for non-hero mutants, who have powers that are beyond the ken of mortal men but not of much use in combat/crimefighting. I'm not looking for completely useless comic relief stuff, like "causes lightbulbs to glow in 10' radius" or "can transform boxers into briefs" and the like. I'm thinking of low-level powers that might be moderately useful in real life but doesn't qualify you to put on a cape and take on Dr. Bad. The kind of powers the Hero's kid-sister DNPC might have. Ideas? bigdamnhero "Oh, yeah, this is a laugh-riot. This is where I would most like to be - standing in the freezing cold being called a liar by a nun and coerced by a Wax Lion to commit crime. It's so much fun!"

Re: Help with Serial Killer story

Re: Help with Serial Killer story Personally, I feel this is the most over-used (not to mention nonsensical) cliche in all of modern fiction. But that's just me. If you want some insight into how real-world serial killers work, read Mindhunter by John Douglas, the guy who founded the FBI's profiling unit. I recommend reading it with the lights on. [Edit: Douglas didn't found the profiling unit, but he is it's most famous and respected head.] Apart from that, I have to second KA's warning - if your (and your players') intent is to switch to a Dark Champs game, then valle con dios. Just be aware that once you start down that road... bigdamnhero "Rasputin, bring in the bucket of soapy frogs and remove his trousers."

Re: Top Ten All-Time 'Favorite' Superhero RPG Books Ever I've never actually read it ... is it good? I thought it was a hysterical read, `tho I never actually got to play it. bigdamnhero "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"

Re: "To Save The World" references

Quick question: The super-hero soap opera "To Save The World" is mentioned briefly in CU, and gets more detail in Champions Battlegrounds. Is it featured/mentioned in any other books? Thanks in advance, bigdamnhero "You've been wounded deeply, haven't you Hannah?"

Re: Top Ten All-Time 'Favorite' Superhero RPG Books Ever What? Not a single vote for "Foxbat Unhinged"?! bigdamnhero "You can get more with a kind word and a two-by-four than you can with just a kind word."

Re: Sci-fi wear swords? http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36768 bigdamnhero "Your sister's not capable of cold-blooded murder. She's never been a planner."

Re: Where's Amelia Earhart? And here I thought it was inside Al Capone's tomb? bigdamnhero "Seasoned? That’s a hell of a thing to say to a man!"

Re: Sci-fi wear swords? My understanding is that was Lucas' original intent. But somehow by the time he got to RotJ, he had convinced himself that the Wookies weren't "primitive" enough anymore. So instead we got "Attack of the Killer Teddy Bears." bigdamnhero “Will someone get this walking carpet out of my way?â€

Re: Exodus 2025: A campaign idea looking for input!

Re: Exodus 2025: A campaign idea looking for input!

Re: Knockback on the moon?

Re: Quark! Sign another one up for the "I thought I was the only one who remembered that show!" nostalgia train. Oh man, now instead of fond (if fuzzy) memories of Quark I'm going to have images of "Gene Gene the Dancing Machine" stuck in my head all afternoon. bigdamnhero And that’s when I shot him, your honor.

Re: Knockback on the moon? Thanks for your help, all. I agree that using the KB rules as written is close enough to what I want to achieve. Give the characters some extra leaping and call it good. Or good & silly anyway. But I was kinda curious what the “real†numbers might look like, if this were my usual hard-SF game instead of camp space opera. So I tried running a few numbers. Those allergic to math can skip the blue text. Those who feel like checking my assumptions and methodology, I’d be much obliged. I pulled a number of assumptions out of this air, so if anyone has any better ones please feel free to let me know. (I’m not a physicist, nor do I play one on TV.) Olympic punch = 3400 N Let’s assume that half of the force is absorbed by the elasticity of the target body so 1700 N are transferred to acceleration. Target body = 100 kg a = f / m, so a = 1700 N / 100 kg = 17 m/s2 Let’s say the impact lasts 0.1s to make the math easy: Initial Velocity VI = a * t = 17 m/s2 * 0.1s = 1.7m/s Let’s say the blow was delivered at a 45-degree angle up and back. So 1/2 of the velocity (0.85m/s) would be vertical and the other half is horizontal. On Earth: Looking at the vertical component first 0.85 m/s ÷ 9.8m/s2 = 0.087s for gravity to decel vertical velocity to 0 (ie – apex of move) Total time airborne = 2 * 0.087 = 0.17s until tgt’s feet are back on the ground Average velocity (vertical) is 0.85m/s * 1/2 = 0.43 m/s 0.43 m/s * 0.087s = 0.037 m = 3.7 cm vertical displacement, ie apex of move Horizontal velocity stays fairly constant (ignoring air drag) until feet are back on the ground 0.85 m/s * 0.17s = 0.148 m = 14.8 cm horizontal displacement So target is knocked backwards in a parabola, 3 or 4 centimenters up and 15 centimeters back, and is airborne for 1/5th of a second. Not much, as you would expect. In reality, boxers don’t lift their opponents off the ground with every punch, which probably means that my assumptions were crap. (Or they all have KB Resistance!) Most likely more than half of the force is absorbed by the elasticity of the body, and the blow lasts less than 1/10s? Anyway, while I’ve never been hit hard enough to lift me completely off my feet, I’ve certainly been knocked backwards more than 15cm, so in game terms we’ll call it close enough. Meanwhile, on the moon: Gravity is 0.16G = 1.57 m/s2 Force, mass and starting velocity are all unchanged 0.85 m/s ÷ 1.57 m/s2 = 0.54s upward move Total time airborne = 2 * 0.54 = 1.08s Average velocity (vertical) is still 0.85m/s * 1/2 = 0.43 m/s 0.43 m/s * 0.54s = 0.23 m = 23 cm vertical displacement (apex of move) Horizontal velocity stays fairly constant until feet are back on the ground 0.85 m/s * 1.08s = 0.92 m = 92 cm horizontal displacement So target is knocked backwards in a parabola, 23 centimenters up and 92 centimeters back, and is airborne for just over a second. Still only about 1/2" in scale. Kinda disappointing, really. bigdamnhero “There's no such thing as Silicon Heaven.†“Then where do all the calculators go?â€

Re: Sci-fi wear swords? Yeah, makes about as much sense as a battlesuit with the same armor as a battlestation. I've always treated ship weapons & defenses as being unofficially megascaled in terms of damage as well as range. In other words, I assume that 3d6K from a starship weapon is not the same as 3d6k from an assault rifle; ditto for defenses. (It's heroic, so I don't sweat the points too closely anyway.) If you think about it, if your battleship's hull can't even stop ordinary bullets, it's not going to last long against ship-size phasers/railguns/whatever. So the whole "swords don't pierce the hull" argument never made sense to me either. Even if I was concerned that my high-tech AP bullets might pierce the hull, I'd still be more likely to switch to normal or RP bullets (or some kind of non-penetrating energy weapon) before I'd reach for a sword. Don't get me wrong: I love swords, both in reality and in game. I'm just playing logic-guy. If you want to have swords in a sci-fi setting, you either need to come up with a plausible tech-or-social reason, or just swallow your suspension-of-disbelief in the name of a cool game. bigdamnhero "I've never seen anyone work so hard to get someone else laid in my entire life. You're like the total mack daddy bird pimp."

Re: Sexual Orientation=Psych Lim? It occurs to me we've been talking about this mostly from the superhero side. What about from the Mild-Mannered Secret Identity side? The orientation is the same (except in some very wierd cases) but the out-ness may not be. Maybe Steve Schlepman is in the closet -- his poor mom's heart couldn't take the shock -- but as Captain Fantastic he's quite flamboyantly out. Or the reverse. I'm not sure if one would be any better/worse than the other, although presumably Cpt Fantastic doesn't have to worry much about getting beaten up by random drunken homophobes. But you've added a further element of conflict to the character's dual-identity. Plus, if people discover that Stevie is gay they might be more likely to connect him with the Capn. Whaddaya think? +5 pts? More? bigdamnhero "Having great purpose isn't all it's cracked up to be. I've had great purpose and I've had no purpose. And I have to say, no purpose is a lot easier. Expectations are low. People don't ask you for anything. Count your blessings."

Re: Role-Playing Exercise #1

Re: Knockback on the moon? But this is, as I said, a Heroic game which means we're not normally using knockback at all. I'm just looking to see how closely using the knockback rules might simulate a fight in low gravity. In other words, I want to change the flavor of things; I'm just seeing if this is the direction I want to go. Thanks for pointing out that knockback damage would NOT be increased by the low gravity. (And you remembered right, BTW: lunar gravity is 0.16 G.) bigdamnhero “I’m a busy man and I can’t be bothered to punch you at the moment. Here is my fist; kindly run towards it as fast as you can.â€

Re: Knockback on the moon? Um...well...when you put it like that... OK, now I feel REALLY dumb. 3.5Gs I can believe. Thanks, Basil!

Re: Role-Playing Exercise #1 Bial Astalon, wealthy galactic playboy who is secretly a master thief. Think Jim "Stainless Steel Rat" DiGriz crossed with Cary Grant's character in "To Catch A Thief". He steals not because he needs the money -- athough he's not nearly as rich as he pretends, and basically all of his money comes from his crimes -- but because living an honest life is just soooo boring. Despite it all, he does have an innate sense of honor and duty... he just hasn't found anything to inspire it yet. bigdamnhero "Raise the defensive shields!" "An excellent idea sir but with just two minor drawbacks. One, we don't have any defensive shields and two we don't have any defensive shields. I know that is technically one reason but it was so glaring that it is worth mentioning twice."

Re: Star Wars - Balancing Jedi with everyone else and heroic vs. superheroic Or perhaps I should clarify: MT are you thinking in terms of "reality" or in terms of game mechanics, ie - "If I can grab him he won't be able to use his OAF and he's hosed!" bigdamnhero "Well, my days of not taking you serious are certainly coming to a middle."

Re: Star Wars - Balancing Jedi with everyone else and heroic vs. superheroic Sorry, MT, but I don't think your argument makes the least bit of sense. You're essentially arguing that a laser sword capable of cutting through anything is worthless at close range. Of course you don't see the Jedi throwing a lot of joint locks and finger strikes: why go for the 6d6N attack when you're carrying a 6d6K attack? That said, Lucas has %&$#@# up the SW universe so badly (I'm not a fan of the new movies, does it show?) that the only real lesson we can draw from them is: Jedi can effortlessly take out any number of non-Jedi, until/unless the plot requires them to die in which case they automatically blow all their rolls. Or maybe they just "lost the will to live." Getting back to Greg’s original post I think you’re on the right track here. One thing to consider would be to give Jedi and non-Jedi the same number (or close) of base points, but allow the Jedi to take more points from Disads. So you wind up with Jedi who are more powerful but have so many codes of conduct that they’re constrained a bit. I also like the suggestion of giving non-Force users a gadget VPP (with restrictions) to allow them to swap out equipment. And don’t forget luck – plenty of luck! bigdamnhero “Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?â€

I'm writing a sci-fi adventure set partly on the moon. `Tho it's a heroic game, I thought it'd be funny to use knockback to reflect people getting knocked around in the reduced gravity. It's a total space opera game, so I'm not too fussed about being realistic. But my logical brain got curious, and I tried to figure out how it might actually work in the real world. I failed. I found a study where they measured olympic boxers as punching with a force of 3427 Newtons (standard deviation of 811). Obviously that's not typical, but we'll take it as a heroic high-end. I remember F=ma from my "Physics for Poets & Lovers" course in college, but does that mean hitting a 100kg target would impart 342 m/s^2 acceleration to the target? That's 34G!? Even allowing for imperfect energy transfer, I'm clearly missing something; probably several things. Anyone else care to take a stab at it? Thanks, bigdamnhero "Hell I dunno, if I wanted schoolin' I'd have gone to school."

Re: Need Help with Scenario ASAP! Let's see...power useage? Already brought up. Traceable side effects? Covered. Trangulating with some sort of countermeasures unit? Check. What does that leave me...? Depending on the characters and the villain, they might be able to use streetwise +/or contacts to find out where Dr. Bad is holed up these days. Or maybe one of Dr Bad's henchmen was arrested several days ago, and might be willing to sqeal if it's cut his sentance. Or it might be funny if Dr. Bad's ex-girlfriend narcs him out, which is what happen 9 times out of 10 in RL. As a last resort, some kids snuck into a "desterted" warehouse and saw this Mean-Looking Guy with a lot of computers, so they snuck out and called the cops (or the PCs). But you can save that one for if the players are completely stumped. Assault is right IMO: those sorts of plots work better if you've already set some of it up before Dr. Bad pulls the trigger. That way you can throw the PCs a few clues ahead of time, even if they don't yet understand what they mean. Then when Dr. Bad turns on the device, it's an escalation rather than a starting point. bigdamnhero "This sounds like a twelve change-of-underwear trip."