Manic Typist

Re: A question to the physics-minded... Furthermore, on the DSG: Two "shot" types: One is let's say a 6 to a 12d6 energy blast. This simulates that the projectile fired is made from a lighter, more fragile materiale (though in any other situation calling this material "fragile" would be ridiculous!) that completely disintegrates upon impact with the atmosphere, leading to just a pure shockwave of force and sound. Indeed, the projectile's destruction might help ensure that ALL of the force is shunted into generating this shockwave, rather than some of it being kept by the projecticle as it continues on. This would be ideal for situations in which the weapon's operator wanted to capture individuals, disrupts mobs, and lower total collateral damage. The other type would be "hard" vs. the previous "soft." It would have Killing Damage, in whatever amount you found appropriate. There is only one real use for this. Killing. Now, there is one thing you need to decide. Should this hard shot "scatter" after it enters the atmosphere? If it does, then this weapon might be a bit unbalancing since it would have extreme range. I think a range limitation such that rifles could be accurate at a longer distance would be critical to help ensure that players (who fought smart) could defeat the people carrying these. Insted, I suggest that it the projecticle immediately be slammed into an alternate course once it enters the atmosphere. This would not hinder the gun's original purpose, since if the shooter was accurate, the shot would enter the atmosphere so close to the target that no matter how severe the deviation caused by the atmosphere, it would HAVE to pass through the target. However, this leads to it careening unpredicatably into something as determined by a scatter die. Up down, left right, the whole works. This would be hilarious, since NO ONE would know where it was going, haha. To justify this vs. any attempts to make the shot more accurate: the forces are so powerful that any attempts to add any stabilizing wings or reshape the projecticle so that this won't happen have met with failure, because the forces at play are so powerful that the shot is immediately condensed into a roughly (VERY roughly) sphere upon "re-entry." Savvy?

Re: combat luck Go down! Not up! Use the soapy water to your advantage! Slide man slide!

Re: A question to the physics-minded...

Re: Star Wars - Balancing Jedi with everyone else and heroic vs. superheroic I know I'm inviting myself to get flammed hard but... In my OPINION... which I think I have come to reasonbly........ based off of MOVIE Jedi (it's been a while since I've read ANY Jedi literature).... I think a well-trained commando could rip a Jedi to pieces. Once he got within arm's reach. Thoughts?

Re: Labs in Bases... 1-5 ratio in terms of 1 character point gets them 5 base points yes? Well, I just don't see it as being DANGEROUS enough to the campaign as to rake the players over the fire over it. Not to mention, they could still end up spending a good 2-3 points on it anyway, even with the disads I would allow, so, that sounds like a reasonable cost for a rather limited bonus that they gain, as only one PART of their base (surely they have other areas they need to spend the points), AND most likely only a select few of the characters in the group can makeuse of it.

Re: Labs in Bases... Granted, and valid. But, I still would allow the player to build in the disad. I'm all for allowing him to have something like this for as cheap as he can reasonably build it. I don't see it being dangerously overpowering, so I would lean towards the player's benefit.

Re: Labs in Bases... I'll confess, I haven't had a chance to do look up the rules on bases on such. But, just thinking about it, here's my view: The lab is a sub-part of the base. The lab can be destroyed, while the rest of the base survives. The lab can be seized and held against the heros. This denies the hero access to the powers/abilities granted by the lab. This is the criterion of a focus. Thus, I would call it an OAF: Immoible, probably with the additional disadvantage of (-1/2) or (-1/4) saying "Requires 10 points in Science" or somesuch, etc. Because, unless you are trained in the field of science, most people are only going to hurt themselves attempting to operate a lab unaided.

Re: A question to the physics-minded... Ok, to simply address the original problem: "Why would you bother with the projecticle when you have a laser that powerful?" This, to me, is the only real flaw. Because, it is a flaw of logic and not reality. You can ignore and alter reality all you want, but if it has some sort of flaw in its underlying premise (such as in this case) the players will be saying, "Well that's just silly! They should just shoot us with the lasers and be done with it! Oh crap, did I just say that?!?! I mean........ NOOO!!!!! *zap*" Here is my suggestion: Tear a fricking rip in space time. "What madness is this?" you might be asking. Please, just hear me out. Have the weapon work on the premise that it emits a field of energy which basically displaces ALL matter within said field into another dimension, or at least somewhere else entirely. Now, assuming you have some sort of superaccelerator with a very advanced timing device, and your very deadly projecticle, you are ready to start reasoning out the method of destruction. Now, however, we still have the original problem of "Why not use it directly on the heroes and skip the projectile?" Here is why: say that the field cannot interact with living matter. Anything completely inorganic and not alive, it can cut through no problem. However, once the field reaches something that is alive, it stops. Maybe it is because of the inherent electromagnetic field in all organisms of any significant size. In which case, this gun would also most likely not function in other areas with significant electromagnetic disruptions. That might be a fun secret for the heroes to figure out on their own. Maybe organic matter, with all of its shifting and complexity, just cannot be broken down by this field into a transportable packet ready for some alternate dimension. There is more to this gun though. Based on this........ the only thing that stops this field is organic matter. So.......... this thing can cut through walls, of nearly any type, simply by moving a chunk of it elsewhere, leaving a nice hole for this to travel through. This offers wicked possibilites. Strap on a special thermal/x-ray scope-interface for the users, so that they can take advantage of their ability to shoot through virtually anything. Of course, to both make sense and help balance this out, let it take a second or 5 for the capicitator to charge up (or whatever) and let it emit a distinctive whine as it does so. Now, of course, let's look at the project. Make it from whatever the hell you want really, all it really has to do is be able to be shaped so it will fly in a vacum straight. So really, its shape is irrelevant. Heck, it doesn't even need to be that big, considering the speeds it will be going at. The size of a marble would almost definately be overkill for most living things. Work out the specifics to your whim. Maybe you can only fire one the size of a grain of sand because of the energy needed to superaccelrate even something of even that LITTLE mass. This would help you keep the damage in check. Or you can just say it does less damage than physics might call for. Actually, my next point sort of addresses this. Remember, the field is stoped by organic matter. So, your temporary vacum extends only up until near or right at the begining of the hero itself. That means, once it is done traveling through the vacum, the first thing it hits will not be the hero but the air itself. This will lead to a significant soundburst and most likely a shockwave as it slams into the air molecules, and THEN careens into the poor sap behind the air. You can use this as a plausible reason for "rapid deacceleartion of the projecticle" to what would be for the gun users less than ideal speeds. It would still be EXTREMELY nasty, but it would be a reason to say "Well, just be glad that it has to slow down at least SOME, at the VERY last second, before it hits you." Also, this is an excuse for lots of glass to explode in the immediate vincity from overpressure. And then the glass might be sucked in somewhat as the empty funnel fills back in with air. Depends on how powerful of a suction you want there to be. This gun could really provide you with some COOL special effects going on in the background. Let's recap with a cinematic, shall we? Black clad storm troopers creep up the stairs, moving slowly so as to minimize noise. Their face-concealing visors glance back and forth, and each member covers a different sector. Finally, they reach and landing and assemble around a door. Raoul jerks awake, sputtering and wiping the drool from his face and pulling the pencil stuck to his forehead off. He thought he heard something. Glancing around in confusion, he begins to hear an increasing whine as somethign gathers power. His faces goes white. He recognizes that sound. "DSGs!!!" he screams, (Dimensional Shift Guns), and throws himself to the side. A black shaft appears instantaneously through the door and even his chair and past the desk beyond, until the range of the weapon is reached and the projecticle passes out of its silent tunnel and back into its old friend, the atmosphere. Upon which, a shockwave of force and noise ripples out, shattering all the windows in the small office in which the reaction was taking place. A nanosecond later, the atmosphere manages to catch up with everything going on, rushing into where the shaft used to be and causing glass and papers to be sucked in towards the main warehouse floor. All of this happens faster than the eye or even the mind could hope to track, but Raoul isn't looking or even thinking about it. He knows that his only hope is to keep moving, because the only way for these guns to miss him is for him to not be where they are aimed when the trigger is actually pulled, since the slowest component of these deadly weapons is the highly elite soldiers who wield them. Doding and jumping, constantly shifting his speed and stopping entirely, Raoul barely manages to throw off anyone drawing a bead on him as spears of unreality dart through the three foot concrete walls and go beyond him. He pulls his pistol from his pocket, and aiming while running, fires off a succession of shots. He doesn't waste his time aiming at his would-be execution squad, becuse it is doubtful he would be able to squeeze a bullet through one of the perfect holes now smattering the wall and puncture their body armor. Instead, he aims at a control station with wires running from it to a grate running the length of the warehouse floor, between him and the door. Slugs rip through its thin metal frame, causing its inner circuitry to short out and deactivate the sealing mechanism. The grates slam upward as the pressure needed to keep them down disappears, and a horde of bats comes screaming out of their pen. Cursing, the commandos try to fire at Raoul through the bats, but the shots are always stopped by the press of bats, the field cut short by their furry bodies' living tissue. Explosions of force and and vortexs rip through the horde of bats, making it looking less than a seething ocean of fur and wing swelling with tidal waves of force. "By my mother's tits, can I get some backup in here people!" Raoul bellows as he goes in search for his assault rifle, which he can hopefully find before the soldiers finish off the bats. Like? At all? I thought it was pretty neat. Does this make any sense though? Limit the range of the gun of course, give it a hell of a recoil (either directly from the shot or from the vacuum created, would might cause the gun to go DOWN when fired rather than up. Interesting...), work out weaknesses to the viewing system, and add in the delay between shots.......... And I think it might just be a reasonable creation.

Re: Omega Team Campaign Logs If you aren't going to go back and finish off this campaign........ can you at least share what the ultimate plot towards the end was going to be? Like, all the shadowy stuff going on behind the scenes that they will never be able to find out since they aren't going to play it out, who might the final boss you would have pitched them up against would have been, etc?

Re: combat luck Hehe, let's say that I'm speed 4. I was just trying to postulate how I would respond in that situation such that: A) It is neat It is feasible and C) The GM would reward me for my thinking by giving my combat luck and hopefully pluses to a few rolls. Also, by now the water would be draining onto the floor, so depending on what the floor was made of (tile etc) I would slide forward towards the gunman (A cool move, deserving +s I would hope) and stop between the gunman's planted feet........ and ring him hard on the bell, so to say. Gosh, I should SO do this. Haha.

Re: combat luck I'm reclining in a bath tub. A gun wielding maniac slams through the door, plants his feet, and levels his gun at me. My eyes go wide, I stare at him for what seems an eternity, and my tight-knuckled fist sends the soap bar squirting high into the air. Time catches up to me, and everything starts moving. Rather than go up, which is what he expects, I decide to go down. He might be distracted by the soap bar (GM makes a roll, people have a habit of watching objects that move like that) and I slam my self down into the soapy water and let the natural curvature of the tub slide my body to the opposite end, where I ball my body up. By now the assault rifle is chattering right where I was, and maybe progressing down to where the madman thinks I am. Since I would be *** to porcelin at this point (Unless I was smart enough to be using a cast iron tub, in which case I am nearly invulernable), I don't try to right myself. That would take to long. Instead, I further flip myself so that my head is on the bottom with my hands planted on either side of my hair, and my lower body (still VERY tightly curled up against myself) is now pointed towards the surface. I launch myself upwards using my arms, hoping I make a good acrobatics roll to land on my feet. The gunman is reloading his clip. He seems my pale naked self come exploding out of the tub, UPSIDE DOWN. Soapy water is flying and the phallus is flopping. I land on my feet. I turn to my assailant and say "You dirty, dirty boy!" And at that point (depending on the circumstances) I either fling soapy water at his eyes and hope I get him, or I jump straight through the window and damn the fall! If going for the window, I will see if I can snatch a towel on the way for slight protection against the glass. If going for him, snatch it as a makeshift garrotee.

Re: Omega Team Campaign Logs -What factors did you take into consideration to actually design these house rules? -So, a person could only use a max of 30 character points to buy equipment, period? Both during creation and the rest of the game? Variable I understand...... but it was 1 for 5 (I think I understand, just making sure) correct? Allowing a max of 150 Active Points of equipment per person? -Why was the bonus listed under the disads? Where they give 2 raw points to spill, or 2 points "given" to them on disads (Which frees up 2 points indirectly, but can be slightly less convinient considering that disads typically work in increments of 5.) Also, how do you think some/any of these rules, or other House rules entirely, should be used for a Fantasy campign? I'm still new to GMing and trying to stay alert for what I should watch for. I soooooooo wish I could get in on some of this Dark Champions action you are running.

Re: MetaCyber Do you think the "epiphany vs. max-effect" for nat-3s would work in a fantasy campaign? How do you prevent this from becoming abused?

Re: Omega Team Campaign Logs Loved the logs. Few questions: First- What were some of your House rules and how did you come about selecting them? Second- How did this equipment allowance work? 1 point got you 5? Third- What is this "character background bonus" under the disads? Did the donations to the equipment pool etc mean that if you "gave" these points up, you had permission to access these goods?

Re: Advice for Drawing Maps Hehe, well, I might just fuge on the population aspect. Because, I want the city to be big to allow me to cram anything unexpected in there, but wowza, I hadn't realized what I was proposing. I figure I will put the population at about 1-5 million. All these ideas are still great and I think I will try to use all of them if possible! Now I want to make my next city TRULY huge, like you guys are talking about. I do plan to have flying ships. Like from some of the Finaly Fantasy games: essentially sailing vessels etc, but instead of going in the ocean they go everywhere via ballons they are tied to with some arcano/magical enhancement. But that's a little suprise for the players, hehe.

Re: building villains A suggestion I learned from my GM. For the primary liutenants of the "Big Boss:" same starting points as the charcater, and +25 points for every player in the game. Thus, a 150 campaign with 4 players would face Lt. Volkorov of the Dark Sun Army, and he would be at 150+25+25+25+25= 200 points. For the "Big Boss:" add +50 points per player. So, General Vlad would be at 150+50+50+50+50= 350 points.

Re: Advice for Drawing Maps Great stuff! I think I am going to go with a happy medium: not as detailed as some are suggesting (because I lack the time and capacity), but at least one full district mapped out, and if it becomes necessary, I will map out others as the characters' speheres become larger. BUT WOW! Great stuff. I am going to save this stuff, and when I build my next city.... start it out right. Hardcore stuff you are giving me. I just hope I have the skill to make it all work! Anything else? High Fantasy in size, but more like medium fantasy in atmosphere. Btw: the city has been a planned city from foundation, but there has still be tons of deviation in individual districts. Very cramped quarters. I am hoping to encourage some roof-dancing, so to say. Hehe. And maybe some chases too...

Re: Advice for Drawing Maps Great stuff guys! Seriously! I wish I had been thinking along these lines all along. Unfortunately, some will be hard to implement, because A) I am a novice, I am already partway done, but I can go back and rehash. I have already done that some when deciding what particular features are were and C) My "unique" city concept. The name Semona came from Verona. You know, "Romeo and Juliet?" The "bite my thumb scene" just inspired me hehe. Anyway, imagine the animosity between House Montague and Capulet, and now make 7 Houses like that. Semona isn't the capital, but it is a MAJOR trade hub, for the entire planet. Each House is actually a merchant House, but they have become so rich and longlasting (and therefore entrenched) over the past 500 years or so that they are for all purposes considered nobility, at least within the city. Each House got started by making a dye, and this represents the bulk of their profits even today, although they have expanded into products of similar color. For instance, House Verdigris makes an amazing emerald dye, but they now also deal a lot in jade products, etc. Yes, each House has actually taken the name of their dye as their surname. Their original family names have been lost in the flow of time. Just to give you an idea: Nobody besides Semona can produce these dyes. Elves, Dwarves, even Drow recognize the quality of Semona dyes. The Governor-Prospector is appointed by the country's ruler, and his job is to make sure that House in-fighting doesn't reach such a point where A) collateral damage reaches unacceptable levels and the taxes from all this trade flowing through Semona don't falter. Thus, there is an unusually heavy military presence within the city, specifically to ensure that even if all the Houses' private armies rose up at once, united or separate, it would be squashed. Now imagine the fact that most of the city prefers to use rapiers and dueling dirks etc.... Magic is fairly prevalent. This is essentially New York, except more so, in the fantasy genre. Maybe more liky Byzantium during its hayday? I was thinking I would have it set up so that the sheer size would mean you would need about 2-3 days to actually cross the diameter of the city. That way, I just have the biggest area to play with. Not to mention, I will need to justify all this trade being exported from and imported into Semona. Thoughts? Seriously, this is amazing stuff guys. Wow. Thank you so much.

Re: Advice for Drawing Maps Unfortunately, I have already somewhat committed on this city by showing the players my first map so far. For future reference, I might do something like what Curufea suggested. Shrike: Thnx for the tips. I will see what I can work in. I guess I need to think more about the transition of time. For the most part, I am just doing random roads, but sticking with mostly angular appraoches with the occasional "sidwinder." Any ideas about where certain things should be, like the market vs. the local barracks? Well, the barracks should go near a main road, obviously. Anything else? I can only hope to attarct the attention of Keith. I have seen a few of his posts. Good stuff. Thnx guys.

Hello all! My first time posting here, though I am familiar with various other forums, so I should be able to navigate myself around mostly. I have done several searches on this site for help on this topic, and while I found lots of nice and useful ideas, I figure maybe I could get a little bit more by asking specifially about what I need. In a week or three, I am going to be GMing my first campaign. While I have numerous concerns, right now my focus is on mapmaking. Basically, I have created a new world, country, etc. However, the campaign will primarily be focused within a single city, Semona. Think "Three Musketeers" derry-do (or is it daring-do?) mixed with Italian intrigue. Anyway. It has become necessary for me to draw 4 maps, just to begin the campaign. One map is of the country and other cities, as well as immediate neighbor nations etc. One map is the city's immediate area, focusing primarily on what is outside the walls. This is where I will actually put the city walls, the outlying farms, maybe a small outpost, the Wizard's Island at the mouth of the river that runs through the city.... etc. One map is of the city slightly closer up, showing the different districts and major, major thorough fares. I have this completed. The last map is one of the districts up close, showing the important roads, sites, neighborhoods, commerce areas, etc. I am drawing these by hand, so thus I am looking for advice concering any aspect of the process. How to best draw road lines, where to put this and that, things I need to consider, etc. Right now I am working on the detailed district map. It is hard, since the scale will be hard to keep even remotely workable. Still, I shall make do. It is important to note that this city is highly segregated between 7 Houses, although only 6 have any actual territory. The only reason that there aren't walls separating each House's territory from another's is because the Governor-Prospector won't allow it. His job is to make sure this vital trade city keeps producing cash for the kingdom, and he can't allow the various factions to become too entrenched, literally. Any tips? I can provide more details for the campaign if necessary. Thnx in advance for anything you can offer.