Roy_The_Ruthles

Re: His Power Is Faster... So I'm not going to say that your method is incorrect, but it isn’t how I would have done it. I probably would have done it either of two ways: +3 Speed, only for Weather powers (thus he uses weather powers only on 2, 6, 10; and acts normally on 4, 8, 12). +7 secondary speed, only for weather powers, (from the Advanced Players guide) with some limitations. The real question is, how do you want it to work, and when do you want to do non-weather actions?

Re: Superpowers and Ethics First I want to thank you for organizing this post in a way that is easy to read. I think this is the crux of the matter. There seems to be a problem that I was working from the assumption of “what is the ethical nature of the use of mind control powers (defined as those that suborn free will) in the real world. From my reading of your post, it seems you are more concerned about ethics inside of a game construct rather than in real the real world. From outside the game world, the answer is that Mind Control is generally ethical unless it decreases the fun other other players (we should attempt to reach maximal fun for all players, with an eye towards equally distributing fun). From inside the game world, the question becomes “What does character X think about the ethics of Professor Persuasion's ability to convince people very well”. I am not character X so I cannot answer for him. My guess is that if he felt his free will was being suborned, he would think Professor Persuasion was being unethical, and if he did not feel that he would think it was ethical. I hope you don't believe that. Hypothetical situations and ethical theories can teach us valuable lessons about ourselves and others. Not to mention scientific theories which are non-practical. because we agree on this, I will not respond to all of the legal questions. Fraud is a legal term, and you continue to refer to buyer's remorese laws. If you rephrase them as “is X an ethical activity” then they are questions about ethics, and that is what I am discussing in this thread. Thank you for asking me to redefine. I will attempt to do so: sexual assault: touching or contact by one party to a non-consenting party. This touching is sexual in nature or overtone rather than violent (see assault). Court case is irrelevant as courts do not decided ethical behavior. We have agreed on that already. If he believed she had freely given consent, then he was acting ethically. See my post about if you are radioactive and do not know it. If you have reason to believe consent was not given freely, you can conduct tests to clarify while preventing harm. I am not sure if you are arguing in good faith or not on this point. I will assume you are arguing in good faith and are trying to reductio ad absurdum me (disprove me by taking my argument to a logically absurd conclusion). I am trying to influence the opinions or beliefs on Assisted Suicide of those who believe it is wrong. That is correct. However, because I am not suborning their free will (they can chose to disagree with me) what I am doing is ethical. I am trying to make a rational argument in which I convince the other side to adopt my beliefs. This is ethical. Forcing them to adopt my beliefs is wrong. Let me ask another question: Is tolerance of believes a belief? We seem to be debating the ethics of toleration of believes now. This gets into an argument about how your rights and beliefs end when they harm me. Ethics are not objective but we must act as if they are in order to apply them to others. We cannot agree on an objective set of what is right and wrong. The original post specifically asked for thoughts and arguments however. To address the substance of your point, I can both believe that a point is wrong and believe in the right of others to have a wrong belief. That is not mutually exclusive. I do not believe that it is my responsibility to remove all wrong beliefs from the world. That is analogous to saying that “I don't agree with you, but I believe you have a right to disagree with me” is inconsistent. As I previously stated, I enjoy arguing on forums. I am not trying to convince you because I believe it is ethical or because it is required of me, but rather because I enjoy it (and I'm waiting for an RPG to start). I would also suggest that this point is off topic from the original post. I will refer you to post #21 We should carefully examine why we are restricting their actions and the least limiting way to do it. We may decide that restricting the actions of either Ms. Pretty or the store is required for safety. I unfortunately do not have to draw up another case study, but I can refer you to post 21 for an example of my thought process for restricting freedom of choice.

Re: Superpowers and Ethics

Re: Superpowers and Ethics In real life we cannot know the true minds of others. If we could, then we could give that objective proof. I suppose it would be possible to look at the concentrations of neurochemical levels or EEG machines but translating those into thoughts is beyond our current understanding. This is why we should debate without using the term persuasion, or mind control. We should be talking about “does free will exist?” “Is removing free will wrong?” (with the caveats I have already stated in previous posts). They are wrong. Dear people who believe assisted suicide is unethical: you are wrong. It is not ethical to restrict the freedom of beings with sound minds and bodies. If they are mentally incapapble of making that decision, then they are incapable of making that decision (tautology). Otherwise it is ethical. Used under consent, already covered. Yes it would. If you had no knowledge, you could not act in such a way to reduce your impact. Thus your actions were ethical. Once you obtain knowledge, you should act in a way to minimize your harm to others. If you had reason to suspect you were radioactive, you should take actions to prevent harm and determine if you are radioactive. That is like debating if murder, torture, or rape is worse. While it may be an interesting debate, I do not see it as either productive or in the scope of this thread. OP clearly wanted to debate ethics of mind control.

Re: Superpowers and Ethics That and the knowledge available to you at the moment of choice. If all available information suggested that the only possible option, or best possible option was the one you took, it was ethical at the time. Future knowledge should not invalidate this ethical determination, though as I pointed out in my first post, insufficient information can lead to wrong determinations. Lawyers have nothing to do with ethics. They determine what is legal, philosophers talk about what is right and wrong. I do agree with your thesis however, that there is a different between what is ethical/unethical and if the person is seen as a good/bad or law-abiding/criminal person. Also, I need to point out that mind controlling a villain who is not actively engaged in building/pressing the button to kill hundreds of people is unethical. Otherwise there is nothing ethically wrong with mind controlling everyone on Earth to not kill people which is unethical.

Re: Superpowers and Ethics The predetermination of the universe is outside of the scope of this thread. According to OP, this is about the ethical use of powers, and there can be no ethics without choice. Thus we are assuming free will. From my understanding of the OP, this is about real world ethics for real world mind control. If this is not what the thread is about then you can disregard this post. In real life, any power or skill use that removes the free will of an agent possessing free will is unethical. As I postulated in post 21, we should make the words Persuasion and Mind Control Taboo, forcing us to define what we mean. For example: – does that mean all uses of [the social skills in the hero system 6th ed rulebook] are unethical?The [social skills in the hero system 6th ed rulebook] remove free will if you make your roll by enough Not on NPCs because they don't have free will. They actually do live in a universe where a grand puppetmaster is controlling their thoughts. On PCs it is true that there is a puppetmaster, but that puppetmaster is unique to them. Also the character does not have free will, only the player. Removing free will from the player is unethical if they expect to have free will. However, most players understand that they will be occasionally railroaded and mind controlled; and accept this if they can still roll dice. Or did you mean: does that mean all uses of [convincing people via social interaction in real life] are unethical? This seems to be Hugh Neilson's opinion. This is not unethical because it does not remove free will. If you blackmail me, torture me, drug me, or otherwise use coercion to suppress my free will, that is unethical.

Re: Superpowers and Ethics It is not unethical to make money. The way our society is supposed to function is that when you provide a good or service that benefits the society, you are rewarded with money. Pursuit of money is not inherently a bad thing. Making money at the expense of others, or in such a way that others are injured is unethical. Athletes make money at the expense of no one. You could claim that money spent on them is money not spent in a more productive way, but the market has decided that the entertainment they create and the jobs created by the sports industry is valuable. Their high pay not only rewards their prowess, but the very few years they can work and the massive health damage incurred by professional sports Ease of perception does not effect ethics. All of your examples are unethical. Natural persuasiveness is not unethical because people have the option of ignoring you or saying no. Any persuasiveness (natural or otherwise) that denies these choices is unethical. Please name a use of persuasiveness (to the degree that the recipient cannot say no or deny the desire) that is not unethical. The only examples I can give are “defense of immediate danger to their life or the life of a innocent 3rd party”. Please give other ethical examples for discussion. EDIT: If consent is explicitly given by the target, it is ethical

Re: What sort of technology do you use in yiour games? Googledocs. for char sheets, laptop for surfing the web when i'm not on stage

Re: Superpowers and Ethics I would point out that hitting a person with a Fire Bolt, acid bath, electric shock or burst of freezing cold is still assault. If you defined it as “I give them a warm hug” it's assault because you do STUN and/or body damage. If you roll no damage, attempted assault is still unethical. If you make your special effect the most wonderful thing in the world, you are still inflicting harm on someone, even if the special effect is not harm. You can objectively determine that in a game world. I think there is some confusion on mind control vs. persuasion, and both terms are being used as shields. Please try to debate without using either term, as if we were playing Taboo. http://lesswrong.com/lw/nu/taboo_your_words/ That may increase productivity in this thread. I can for example state in simple terms: It is wrong to remove the freedom of choice from an agent who possesses the ability to understand the choice. In laymans terms, it is wrong to restrict people's options. If all people were beings of pure moral goodness, we would never need to do this. We do this in real life because people are not beings of moral goodness. However, when we restrict the free agency of individuals, we must examine why we are restricting them and the least limiting way to do it. Case Study: Is a car with a built in breathalyzer wrong? Restriction: No longer able to operate that automobile while beyond an objective blood alcohol limit. Reason: Possessing a 100mg/dL BA concentration or higher can result in diminished judgment. This impaired judgment can cause the potential driver to be a hazard to them self, others, or property. The trade off, is a restriction from driving, in return you will not be hit by an intoxicated individual (who is driving an automobile, not physical). I would claim this is a beneficial restriction, although improbable. As long as there is money to be made from a non-breathalyzer car, someone will make it. Either that or there will be instructions on how to disable it, or have a friend start it for you. Also, there is the question: Is someone with impaired judgment (in this case due to alcohol) possessing the ability to understand his choice to drive? If his judgment impaired enough that he does not understand this choice, it is ethical to remove it from him in the first place. Unfortunately we cannot quantify a person's understanding, so there can be no hard or fast limits. That is a question that must be debated as a society, and determined as an individual. In HERO games (and I do love HERO games) I don't think very much about special effects, and worry much more about the effect. It's a personal flaw, when I see a blast, I think about how it is constructed rather than what color it was. However in real life the construction is irrelevant with regards to ethics. If you remove free will from an agent, it is unethical. If you build it as Mind Control, that is unethical (because breakout checks are subconscious). If you build it as +30 to all PRE skills, and the GM treats it as if you automagically coerce/force/hug/snuggle/love/reason anyone into compliance with your views (or whatever views you wanted them to have), it is unethical in real life. In a game, NPCs do not have free will. They are not people. They are philosophical zombies. Thus, removing their free will is not unethical. This is because it is A GAME. Players do have free will. they are upset when it is removed. This is why railroading is bad. Note that because it is a game, and because this sometimes happens (NPCs use mind control), we still let the player control a character who has been mind controlled. Otherwise it is the equivalent of telling them to go sit on the couch and watch everyone else play while you play their character. Ironically, if I was so convincing in this post that you had no choice but agree with me; that would be unethical. If you agree with me because of my excellent rationale and examples, you have made the choice that my opinion is correct, and thus have chosen to agree with me which is ethical.

Re: Superpowers and Ethics This depends on what system of ethics you use, and how ethical behavior is determined. I would for example say using mind control to prevent a crime is unethical. I am defining crime prevention as the aversion of a crime that has not been committed. Stopping a crime in progress is ethical, to the same degree that any citizen can ethically try and stop a crime (e.g. killing in self defense). In your example, it is unethical to mind control a cop to not give you a speeding ticket or escort you. The ethical solution is to have the cop call emergency medical personnel to provide aid to the dying person. If you are speeding with a dying person in your back seat, that doesn’t make you any less of a danger to yourself or others on the road. Thus if you get caught, you should be appropriately fined. Subgrades of ethics is a better way of saying “I know what I’m doing is wrong and I’m rationalizing it to feel better”. Ethical situations are binary, an action is either ethical or unethical. Some situations may require further clarification (if X then ethical, else unethical), but the end result is either Ethical or Unethical. EDIT: shades of gray are the result of insufficient information to determine the ethics of a situation, they are unavoidable in real life, but that doesn't excuse acting unethically if a determination can be made. For other powers the ethics are different. For example healing has many ethical implications, resistant protection has very few ethical questions. Tl:dr Ends don’t justify the means. Double Edit: To cover myself, I'll claim that ethically neutral actions can exist, and I'm sure people this forum will give examples, but this is not one of them.

Re: Limitations on Combat Skill Levels - same as the attack itself?

Re: Limitations on Combat Skill Levels - same as the attack itself? In this case, I’d say OAF was a -0 limitation because it is not limiting. If you lose the OAF for the base attack, you can’t use the CSLs regardless if they have OAF or not. I’m not saying that CSLs can never have limitations, but their limitations should be limiting, so as to justify the points saved. For heroic gear, it is far less relevant because characters buy equipment with money and the GM makes all the equipment. I’m more concerned with superheroic games.

Re: Here be dragons... or Dragon? If they want to just stab it in the face, you should determine if this problem can be solved by face stabbings. If you feel that this problem is one where the application of face stabbings is appropriate, I would change it to a monster which you are not attached to and want to see the players kill. If you want this to be a huge “don’t attack this, it will kill you” sign, that’s harder. Modifying player behavior really depends on the PCs and I don’t know yours, so you should discount my advice if you don’t think it would work: Usually my groups investigate things we plan to kill if we can, so drop lots of hints that this dragon totally kills epic heroes and is considered a heroic way to die (fighting this thing). If they still want to fight it, use a giant PRE attack to open up the combat. Losing your first action is a solid way to suggest that leaving is appropriate. Sprinkle that with “the dragon is disinclined to pursue” or else players will just reason that they can’t outrun it any more than they can outfight it (since chases are completely non-random)

Re: Limitations on Combat Skill Levels - same as the attack itself? Depends on the limitation. If you had a gun with OAF, then bought the skill levels with the same OAF, I would see that as double dipping. You can't use the gun unless you have the gun, and you can't use the skill levels that only apply to the gun unless you have the gun. OTOH if they were broader levels, limitations seem more applicable.

Re: Stunning enemies (and Dragons too!!)

Re: Stunning enemies (and Dragons too!!) I'm not sure, It's an NPC power for NPCs. PCs just buy "No hit locations" and justify it somehow. If I were guessing i'd say -1, because the people who have it would otherwise get headshotted down.

Re: Damage Reduction Vs. Extra PD/ED More DEF can make people so tough they cannot be hurt, wears DR scales nicely. DR also works on many other things (AVAD, Drain STUN, etc). Often in games I play, we have a limit of X amount of DEF, with Y amount of DR = Z amount of DEF (So X = Z + DEF). It is more expensive to get DR and DEF, but usually provides more protection. DR also makes recoveries better.

Re: Stunning enemies (and Dragons too!!) My group had headshot issues with dragons when we first started playing. The solutions we use are: 1) No hit locations when it makes sense 2) +8 DCV, only to avoid head shots 2) may seem cheap, but it works quite well to keep characters with targeting PSLs from casually headshotting large things with low DCV. These fixes are not needed for things with high (or average) DCVs obviously. Also, HERO has a "generic hit at the body" it's called Chest Shot and has a -3 OCV penalty. Basically what you did was eliminate the x1 and x2 STUN locations (for killing attacks), and replace them with x3. This moves the average higher, and thus you shouldn't be supprised that people take more stun.

Re: Anime Hero - What would be in it? If I thought this was a needed book (and I’m undecided on that), here is how I’d do it… I’d include a list of sub genres that specifically feel “anime”: giant mecha, magical animal fights, magical girl anime, harem animes, etc. Then I’d have a bunch of ways to cross over anime with other genres (anime fantasy, anime champions, anime star hero). Add in a bunch of anima based character concepts, tropes, plots etc. You’d want some extra optional rules to model things but I can’t think of any that aren’t “too silly”. I would try and stick with widely popular to keep anime-phobic people from needlessly hating (they will still hate but no reason to give them valid arguments).

Re: Stunning enemies (and Dragons too!!)

Re: Star Trek: How dangerous are phasers? Which Star Trek are you modeling? They are different “ages” TOS: Golden Age TNG: Silver Age DS9: Iron Age Voyager: Iron Age And obviously they blend into other ages and have some mixup, none of them is pure “one thing” but if I was modeling a TNG phaser it would be different from a DS9 phaser, as well as the campaign caps are different (in TNG, everyone has a 3 OCV, no CSLs and spreads their phasor, in DS9 people actually have training and skill).

Re: Stunning enemies (and Dragons too!!) I would have expected the dragon to have Damage Reduction if it was meant to be a "solo" monster (meaning a challenge to a party of PCs). If you meant for it to be part of a group, DR isn’t as important. Targeting PSLs should be rated as DCs, (not at 1 for 5 but 8 targeting PSLs is about +1/2 (+2 Stun Multiple)). HKA would have probably been even better for headshotting (x5 stun multiple), and +1/2 in increased stun multiple rather than autofire. So if it is broken, it’s not optimized to be broken. If you are using the bestiary, make sure you add CSLs and defenses as needed.

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't? Depends on the genre and players, it's not inherently bad.

Re: removing/reducing the STUNx The question is, do you want people to go unconcious before death? With low stun damage relative to body damage, people are more likely to die before they go unconcious.

Re: Electromagnetic pulse as ranged attack? Shut down permanently? Or shut down temporarily? Have you pondered a killing attack that only works on electronic foci and is AVAD power defense?