Duke Bushido

Interpret as you will: The Knight Foundation (yes; _that_ one) had _way_ less money than they thought, and the Knight Rider car was built as a Pontiac Fiero. For reasons that were never really clear, it had a cab-over camper on it (with a little TAG axle under it to help support the crippling weight). There was only enough of the invulnerable car wax to cover the Fiero, though, and every time they would jump the car or get into a firefight or--- well, pretty much anything, the 1962 vintage cab-over camper would get destroyed. For some reason, that camper was the most vital part of maintaining the inconspicuousness of the Pontiac Fiero, so I was constantly rebuilding it. My job was to follow along behind it in the support vehicle (for the same budgetary reasons, they never got the big semi truck with the nice-looking brunette technician; I was given a 1974 Bultaco Sherpa with a stand-on sidecar and toolboxes secured as saddlebags. It did not get the bullet proof car wax, because there was "no point. Who was going to notice the little antique Spanish-imported two-stroke motorcycle with the weird sidecar full of panelling, aluminum siding, and power tools training valiantly to keep up with the Pontiac Fiero with the cab-over camper on its back? This is foolproof!" I was getting really good at ducking when my wife called from work and-- mercifully- woke me up. insomnia: the gift that keeps on giving, even when you finally get to sleep..... (and I thought I hated that show _before_! )

Uhmm... That's my O face, and I think it might not be appropriate!

First off: Love it! I love the idea behind it, and the unpowered parts of it. I confess: I'm not big on generational heroes, though there is one in my campaign world (my daughter's first character. Really lengthy post on that process way back when). If you are genuinely soliciting feedback on the costume, I'm pretty much with Christougher: Everything he said, including the three thumbs up. I would, if you are tying direct homage to the characters you mentioned, reduce the amount of Batman. Not because it's not a valid influence, but because there's an awful lot of it, to the point that he looks like Sword Batman. With the brown color scheme and the amount of Batman, I personally-- and I know crap about comics compared to most people who play this game-- I thought "The Owl with a Sword." When you think of a fox-- no; sorry. When _I_ think of a fox (because there is nothing wrong with what you've got going, and your enjoyment should be the final decision maker, regardless of my ridiculous opinion. ), I tend to think lithe, spry, agile-- almost "cat-like, but having fun doing it and maybe being a little dopey now and again just because that's fun, too. In that vein, I'd personally like to see a less "padded" look. Same with the big heavy cloak / cape. To me (again-- just me, and ultimately, it doesn't matter)-- the cloak says heavy, ponderous, dragging-- the horror-type elements that Batman allegedly went in for way back when before it became just stylish to swish it around from frame to frame. I totally get the mask is fox ears, but Batman has owned that armored-face-with-horns look for so long at this point that it it just says "Batman." my thoughts would be to go with a face covering more in line with one of your other inspirations-- Zoro's bandana-that-covers-the-eyes has always, to me, held that sort of playful, cocky swagger I tend to associate with foxes. Maybe something like that, perhaps with very small ears, not too unlike Cheshire Cat's 4e mask ('cause the new one is... not the best look he's ever had. Granted, triangular, broad-based, black-edged fox ears-- stick with that motif. If you like the idea of him having a cape, perhaps a lighter, shorter one-- akin to Zoro's cape from the movie serials as opposed to the much longer one that crept in because it was cool to see flapping behind him-- something that doesn't actually require manhandling, and will never really get in his way. Zoro's old cape, Captain Marvel's (the real one: SHAZAM!) half-cape; something like that. I also like Christougher's idea making him more black / orange / red / white. You are completely correct: there are brown foxes; there are gray foxes. Typically, though, people here "fox" and they think of "those playful orange ones you see on the internet." For brand recognition, you might want to consider including at least a bit of orange, and maybe black "points" in the ears, gloves, and boots. To be clear, however: brown foxes are real, and you're reasonably accurate with the colors. For Phantom influence-- if you are wanting that to show-- well, you've opted for supers-style instead of poofy-shirt style, and that's got a bit of Phantom in it. bold colors (purple) reinforce the idea that the orange/ red/white/black combo might be the way to go. If you're not hip to the Zoro face wrapper, then the Phantom-style "individual eye masks" are nice and pointy and would reinforce-- perhaps even draw attention to-- small "fox ears" at the top of the head piece. Zoro folded boots and similar gloves would make for lively and fun cavalier-like costuming, and would also make excellent "points" by being rendered in black. A different-colored set of trunks and a pair of holsters (or oversized "pouches," if you're one of those pouch guys) would draw the feel of the Phantom as well. Of course, all of this at once kind of downplays the Batman influence...... So, ultimately, I got nothin'.

Woo-Hoo! I just got another downvote! (if one of you guys will show me how to pretend to be bothered, I promise I'll try ). The hazards of not crowd-sourcing opinions, I guess. Or of being a jackass. At least one of these is correct. Has to be, right? It's still cool though. We still have Canadians.

There's no doubt that keeping a group is the hardest thing about face-to-face gaming, and it becomes more difficult the older you get: first there's "adult things" that start getting in the way-- work, overtime, rescheduling, marriage-- There there are spousal things; then there are childcare things, then you cruise along for a couple of years and then there are medical things.... Yeah; it's not easy. I won't lie: mostly, I've just been very, very fortunate with my groups.

Being honest, guys: I see what you are saying. It's just not something I have seen people have any special trouble with. I accept that I may have been very lucky, but most new player I have ever had the pleasure of twaching suss out Endurance management in just a session or two.

Most of my,groups have been,playing for years. My,youth group is fairly,new, though. I tracked it for them until they more or less,inderstood it, but they were being so careful and meticulous that it qas dragging the game a bit. I posted this a while back, but cant find it now, but heres the vervlbal: Quite by accident I found some thin metal rulers about 18 inches long. They had a slit up the center, and one side was graduated into cm and mm. I bought six of those and some brass brads and made little sliders. Not only did it make teackinf EanD kind of amusinf for them (1 END was 1 mm ), I could tell at a glance roughly where everyone was at on their END. Granted, it only tracked 45 END, but with the characters in play and the scenarios at hand, it worked remarkably well. And dont sweat language. English is my first and only,language, but look what I just did to it.

Well that makes sense, put that way. My thought at the time was that using three powers at x amount is the same either way. You know: a mutlipower that allowed Y points to be in use at any moment versus an EC character using an amount of powers that also totalled Y. I coulsnt het my head around players nit being able to figure END expenditure for only one of these.

Hmm.... A handful of six sided dice, several pairs of glasses, notes, two tape measures, a pack of gel insoles for workboots, an old hardrive, a nearly-twenty-years-old iPod that sees periodic use as a hard drive, a stapler, a drone I never learned to fly but did manage to feed to a lawnmower, a couple of hole saws, an old Sony Mavica, the camera the kids shoot the youtube videos with (and Karen thinks a phone mount will somehow help with that. Go figure. I _upload_ through a phone; we shoot with an old camera. A Sony Mavica, actually. Ha! ) and about nine USB hubs of assorted quality levels, running the gamut from "questionable" to "highly dubious." (yeah: it's a Mac, so even when all the usb ports worked, there were two. Idiots.) Oops-- make that three hole saws. Well, two complete and one cup. a fingerprinting ink pad from a bank, and about forty USB dries. Four sets of keys that I no longer remember what they go to but can't quite throw away, two old ink cartridges, a stack of photo paper that doesn't work in my printer, and a ziploc bag with instructions to something I remember as well as I remember the doors for these damned keys. Any of that count?

I'm not doubting you. I am, however, trying to get my head wrapped around why they have END issues with EC and not with MP. A little help?

See?! That's kind of my point, really. An arbitrarily-assigned measurement of time is _meaningless_ in terms of deciding the goodness or the badness of something, or if it will start or begin-- or change in any way. The only thing that arbitrarily-assigned unit of time is good for is record keeping: you have a nice shared-vocabulary handle that you can use to record what started when, and what ended when, allowing you to use those same or other arbitrarily-assigned measurements of time to assess and communicate in shared vocabulary how long "whatever-the-heck-it-was lasted. PERIOD! The internet habit of blaming the measurement of time itself is a insane a thing as I have ever seen, and I am alive today, in the United States, amidst some truly insane snickety-snit. Yet blaming the year itself trumps _all_ of it, and always will.

Agreed. Honestly, I've seen this done several ways (I've done it several ways), and Aid has never proven itself to be my favorite. However, if you wish to do it with Aid, I encourage you to consider the Standard Effects Rule-- not because it will make it cheaper or more effective, but because it removes the dice; that is to say, you will get _exactly_ this much Aid applied to X; exactly this much applied to Y, etc. None of the "I gain the strength of two or three, maybe even five men!" nonsense that Black Rose discussed (and yes: that's one of the reasons I've never found Aid to be my favorite way to build a "powered up" type character. Options included buying "boosts" by buying additional stats and dice directly on RSR, Only in Powered Up Identity (make sure there is a way to prevent or make assuming that identity difficult, or it's just a rebate with no strings attached), Time Limit, Burn-out, Activation, and even Multiform. But not Aid. Well, Aid _is_ an option. I've simply found that in play, it's kind of a poor one to demonstrate a massive all-over increase in more than one or two abilities.

Yes, and yes. However, I don't generally let NPCs notice in time (unless, of course, the needs of the scene demand at least an attempt) for two reasons: 1) they are not the focus of the story, and their actions should not reduce the value of the player characters 2) generally, they have SPD 1-3, centering on 2.25 (yes; I just checked my most recent batch of NPCs and did the math). They rarely have an action available anyway. Even in combats, most of them have already either declared dodging or blocking, or aborted to something self-serving.

I've always played that anyone with an available action-- and access to do so-- has a chance to interrupt something. Honestly, I've allowed characters to Abort to pin the arm of a wizard beginning to make his summoning gestures. I leave it more up to the dramatic appropriateness than anything else, but again-- they have to have both the access to do it (be close enough, see what's going on, etc) and n available action while it's going on.

Man, your timing is awful. I've had a bulk of time off -- five day weekend for Christmas; four-day weekend (-2 for my other job) at New Years. My first thought was "I can start scanning that book Spence sent me!" but that was not to be owing to my wife's sleeping schedule (scanning is noisy work, and the bed isn't far enough way from the office, apparently ), so I thought "I can catch up on at least two of those writing projects I started!" And have sat here, faithfully, for hours, with the worst writer's block I've had in _years_. Every single holiday since the first day off for Christmas. It _sucks_! Though I guess that's not really motivation. I mean, it _feels_ like it, because it's the ideas that compel me to write. But motivation itself? That _drive_ to write? The best things I have ever heard don't work on people enduring depression-- forgive me for being forward, Sir, but I recall you admitting to some depression just a few days back. They don't work because one of the problems with depression is an inability to appreciate the value of personal goals or the importance of outside influences, so anything along the lines of "make it a priority to write x pages a day, no matter what else is going on" doesn't really work. Don't let that stop you from trying, though! Seriously-- it might just work for you. So motivation.... That really goes to why you _like_ to write, doesn't it? What you get out of writing? Study that. Think about what it is that you enjoy about writing. Maybe it's just watching your coffee cool in the monitor reflection; maybe it's time away from the television-- maybe it's just fighting the cat for desk space. What makes writing pleasurable to you, specifically what is there about writing that you can't get out of anything else? You don't have to tell me; I have already learned far too many things about far too many relative strangers these past few days, and I totally understand that personal things can embarrass you to talk about. So I will embarrass myself first, if only to show you that this isn't a trick. What do I get out of writing? First and foremost, it slows my brain down. No; I'm dead serious. My jobs are both think heavy (at least, the larger parts are) where I have to track, extrapolate, analyze, project, and just flat-out guess for hours at a time. There are nearly three hundred guys whose jobs are screwed if I botch something at mine. As a result, I get really keyed up at that job, and I'm there eleven to thirteen hours a day. When I come home, if I'm not careful, I'm still _doing_ that job, sometimes for hours. It's really hard to shift out of it once you get deeply embroiled in it. The second job is just as stressful, for different reasons. So when I come home, my wife has already gone to work (nightshift nurse) and the kids are hungry. So I dive right right into the whole cook supper for the kids, etc, etc, etc. Insomnia is a serious problem for me, just because I get _that_ keyed up. I can't relax. I have, over the years, damaged my molars from grinding my teeth in my _sleep_. No; I wish it was a joke. I can't chew gum because it triggers the jaw muscles to resume their "work face" tension, and the pain of a few hours of that is _miserable_. Writing slows my brain down. It _forces_ me to pay attention to something that is outside of work. Notice I said "pay attention to" and not "focus on." That's because it's the one thing I can do in a day that _doesn't_ require me to focus. Focus seems to reduce both the output and the quality, at least in the rough draft. I pay attention to what I'm writing, because I just start with a notion, and I am looking for things in that notion that can set wheels spinning. No; I'm not looking for anything deep or any hidden meanings or subtext or anything else. I am just looking for things that either move the notion along or might be changed by that notion. Mostly, I let that notion grow in ways that periodically surprise me. I enjoy the characters, when there are characters, and I find that, given the chance, they will develop on their own and begin to express themselves in unique and interesting (at least to me) ways. And most of all, the chance to _become_ them, for at least a little bit: to experience their problems, their frustrations, their personalities, their motivations and their triumphs-- it helps me to put the "work brain" problem to the side. It teases the brain away from focusing on work problems to learning who these people are. Even if it never comes out in the writing-- if the paperboy is just a paperboy-- a left-handed paperboy who has to throw across his body because the bike lane is on the right-hand side of the road, so he never gets the paper on the porch, and has to listen to complaints about the paper being in the grass or in a puddle or breaking a gladiolus stem every two weeks when he goes to collect for his route-- even if the only thing that comes from that is "and just like clockwork, the newspaper was waiting for him, in the impatiens planted in the shade of the live oak tree, soggy from the automated misters that kicked on every morning at five-thirty. 'Well,' he thought to himself, 'things aren't that bad. At least this day is starting off like any other.'" It gives you a chance to say what you want to say, and to be creative saying it. You can have the same conversation nine times in your head, but when you write it down, it comes alive. Suddenly, it's not you talking to you, but two different people, with different backgrounds, different educations and backgrounds, and different motivations and goals. The conversation in your head will never be as alive as the conversation between the two people you just made up. Seriously. I know: it doesn't make sense, but the more you learn about the characters, the more you understand them, the more "true to them" you want the conversation to be, and it will change in subtle, glorious ways that will never see until you read it back to yourself seven or eight times, making small, seemingly-insignificant changes each time, and each time learning more about the guy who said it. I like to see where a story goes, and how it ends. if you don't write it, you will never know. You are literally (literarily?) _trapped_ inside your head with a thousand-thousand maybes and branches and forks and alternate endings, all of which are "well, that would be okay," but will _never_ be right because you haven't weeded out all the forks and choices. Nothing is concrete until you commit it to paper (or electrons, I suppose). It is then, and _only_ then, that Thing X _happened_. That Decision A _was made_. That Character 4 _did_ the thing. In your head, it's all could have, would have, maybe instead. Let it out. Make that choice, and let the world suffer for it. Hell, you don't even know _how_ the world suffered yet, because The Thing has never actually happened; instead it might be The Other Thing, or perhaps No Thing At All--- So there is nothingness. The world plods along, uninteresting, and doomed to an endless uninterestingness, because no one recorded the _real_ history of your setting. Nothing happened; no on persevered. This _only_ happens when it is set in stone. And even if you don't make that decision, what good is your setting? Even if you have no story to tell, no characters to share-- you still have that place, pictured in your mind. You know why it's a sit-com? Because there are four, maybe six sets. None of them are _truly_ connected the way they ought to be. When you're done in the living room you drop a curtain, raise a curtain, step through a door and you're at your job. Step through the next door and you're relaxing with your friends at that tavern across town, totally _killing_ 80s Trivia and racking up free drinks for the whole table. Or maybe you completely _suck_ at 80s Trivia! Maybe your friends are all low-key _pissed_ that you and you alone are the reason that they are in fourth place, behind even the twenty-somethings across the room. We don't know. Hell, _you_ don't know, because you haven't made that decision! We don't even know that the tavern is across town, near the river bridge, in the old industrial district that saw a lot of "revitalizing" during the mid-nineties and now most of the old warehouses are trendy loft apartments and the place right next to the tavern is that smoothie shop you like to sober up at because they get all their ingredients fresh from the farmer's market across town, and there is _nothing_ like a kale a smoothie to make you vomit up excess alcohol still in your stomach. We don't know that because these locations in your head _aren't_ those locations. That set in your head is nothing more than a few stages for scenes that you haven't completely nailed down yet because you haven't started writing. You don't even know there _is_ a river bridge, because in your mind's eye version of this setting, it hasn't come up. _You_ haven't needed that information, so it doesn't exist. You know what? You will _never_ need that information until you start writing it down. Seriously: you won't. You won't, because as long as you keep it all in your head, all those unmade choices and uncertain decisions and the undeclarible results of undecided actions will simply adjust themselves to make you instant leap from place to place convenient. Write it down. Write it down. When you can simply pop from the wall phone in the kitchen to the seedy bar located who knows where, you can have a few laughs with Joey then teleport to his place, have heartwarming discourse with him on the underrated value of friendship, then appear magically in your bed-- two days later!-- waking up to the alarm just in time to see your roommate sneak into the shower during your slot, then boom! Your workday is halfway done. If you have to write it down-- the events-- even just the _setting_!-- things change. Let's look at just the setting, and how knowing certain things change the story completely: Your apartment is a fifth-floor walk up. Boom. Setting. Why is it a fifth floor walk-up? Well, it's a much older building than you would have liked, but because it's older it was built with sturdier walls, affording you more "noise relief" from your neighbors. Not only that, but the rent is lower, so for the same budget you actually get a lot more apartment than you would elsewhere. The walk-up is a nuisance on Grocery Day, but you've adapted by stopping at the little market near where you work and you never buy more than you can carry up in one trip. Stopping every day wasn't a hard habit to get into-- why not? Well because the market is located in a low-traffic area-- in fact, it's across the street from your job, and they don't mind if employees from your job park in their lot, so long as the stay out on the "road end" of the lot. So you work in a low-traffic area, too; it's pretty easy to walk past your car-- what kind of car is it? How much do you make, and how much would you spend on the means to get back and forth to work? That's going to start nailing down some specifics about who you are, isn't it? Before you know it, you've completely fleshed out your character without actually telling us a thing about him. This _only_ works because you _wrote it down_. Joey doesn't die when the setting isn't solid, and it's not going to be solid so long as it's just wetware in your head. See, you love that apartment, because it's only about twenty minutes from work, it's quieter and larger than what you thought you could afford when you moved here, and the added bonus of an actual parking garage (though there is a fifty-bucks-a-month additional charge for that) made it a done deal for you. Joey lives in a newer place, further in town, but then, he makes a lot more money than you. Even in college, you understood that Joey had some kind of "it" that you didn't. You weren't lazy; you just dreamed smaller than he did. You've got decent income and a lifestyle that lets you keep setting aside a little for your retirement, and the land lady allows pets (no cats! No cats, and no snakes! You can have a dog, maybe some mice, but no cats and no snakes!). In fact, you might get a dog. A little companionship, and the exercise of walking him at least twice a day seems like something that would get you off the couch a bit. it will certainly make sure you get some fresh air. And even though Joey lives in the middle of town, in an upscale expensive corner apartment, you still see each other every other weekend over at Anchor Port, that little tavern in the renovated industrial district. That's only thirty minutes across town, fifty if you take the bus. Then you get that phone call. Joey's drunk. Bad drunk. You've never seen him this drunk-- well, never really seen him _drunk_ at all, just that level of tipsy that lets you both know it's time to get some air and sober up a bit before calling it a night. He's lost his wallet and his keys. He's so blind drunk that they asked him to leave The Anchor. He's calling from Bridgeshadow, that dive way on the outskirts-- literally named for the gloomy lack of sunshine because it's built literally under the river bridge. You check your clock, and it's two AM. What the Hell? He tries to spill it out to you-- his massive screw up, how he got fired, how he started to call you then decided to just go get blind drunk. He thinks he may have left his wallet at The Anchor, but he's go not cab fare, and the busses stop running at midnight. He's not sure where his car keys are, and you are actually deeply relieved to hear that. "Just sit tight, Joey. Sit tight, and don't talk to anyone, Joey: you're a real ass when you've had too much, and you know the reputation that place has...." "S'noght'pro'lum. I cuh wa'sigh. Cmm... Cmm gi'meee." You climb out of bed and get dressed quickly-- not in a panic, but quick enough that it's easier to slip on the clothes you took off and left on the chair than to hunt up fresh ones from the closet. You know that since the steady renovating of that district that crime is nowhere near what it was, but you can't stop thinking about the rumors of how Bridgeshadow was once the worst biker bar in the city. Still, it's only thirty-five, maybe forty minutes away. How'd he walk that far in the shape he's in? He can't still be drinking; he said he lost his wallet... Where? How? When? Before or after getting there? He's too drunk to know... Your tires bark once as your car bumps onto the street-level exit of the parking garage and you head off to pick up the best friend you ever head. Thirty five minutes. What could happen to him in a bar in thirty five minutes? Well, maybe he'd listen to you and keep his mouth shut. You hope to God he was too drunk to actually go outside like he said he was going to do... You arrive just ahead of the police car. You go in, anxious, looking for Joey. No one in this place is the sort of person you want to ask anything of, and you feel conspicuously over-dressed even in the wrinkled and cigarette-scented white shirt and grey slacks of yesterday's business suit. The police find Joey. He's still warm. His heart has stopped, but the blood on the ground hasn't fully coagulated yet. Minutes. Just _minutes_ before you arrived. You feel your stomach drop, and your heart falls completely through it. Your breathing is ragged and for a few heartbeats your diaphragm can't decide between up or down and you stop breathing all together. How--- how did this happen? Why did this happen? Why did you never tell him-- your best friend since high school. You were on the baseball team together, you ran track together. He never had secrets from you-- he'd even cancelled a date with the girl he claimed he was going to marry (and never did; turned out she would marry someone else, and leave him heartbroken) just because you needed company when your father died. And you were there for him when Lydia dumped him for that computer sciences guy in college. He never kept anything from you, and the only thing you never told him was just how much you were in love with him...... What's your next move? What do you do? Do you become a police detective? Are you already an attorney, or perhaps a DA with the clout to make this case a number one priority? Does this motivate you to become the superhero this setting has been designed for? Is this just the background that drives you to enlist in the military, traveling the universe, killing bug-eyed monsters on command? Do you notice the tell-tale signs of witchcraft, and dive into the seedy world of the occult and the hidden-from-view fantastical that lives amongst us in the shadows? Are the bikers disguised demons, the bar the church and headquarters of a vile army? What did Joey learn when he came back in for "one more look" for his keys? In your head, none of this could have happened, because you can pop from bed, to bar, to Joey's, then back to the apartment, where you play with the puppy you bought and named Joseph, after your secret love. And all of this-- this is what motivates me to write. I didn't know any of that stuff either, until I started banging it out. Jm, I really don't know what to tell you; I don't believe that there really are any magical buttons that can be pushed for everyone. But I really hope something here help you, Sir.

Careful there, Son.... If we have too many more discussions about PRE, it's going to disappear in the next edition and become "Startling Appearance" or some such nonsense. Seriously, though: all the reasons you stated in your Farmer vs Bad Guy argument? Those are the reasons I allow EGO (force of will) to defend against Presence Attacks. However-- and man, I really hate reaching back to this thing over and over, but not only was it our most successful "western" game, it was the longest-running of all of our non-supers stuff (I will happily run supers; I will happily play supers. I would _rather_ run or play pretty much anything else. Such is life. ) except for the space opera, and even that is only "long running" because we keep playing in the same universe, same characters and stories or not. Anyway, during our occult western game, I had cobbled up an ability (when 4e came out-- about mid-way through our western campaign, I took to calling it a "Talent") called Strength of Conviction. Essentially, it allowed you to make a modified EGO roll. If you succeeded, then you could add the higher of the amount by which you succeeded to your EGO (again: I defend PRE attacks with EGO, not with PRE. For "normal" use, you'd add it to your PRE) _or_ the value of any relevant Psych Lim you had on your sheet that might be triggered by the situation. For example, a strong code of ethics might be listed as a disadvantage on your character sheet. Not the value of the whole thing, mind you, but the value of the "results in this kind of action" part of that limitation. If you only had 5 points of that section (say, "well, I'll be unhappy, but I'll go along with it"), then you could add the higher of the Conviction roll's success or that 5 points. If you had the 15-point "I will kill everyone in this room over this!" level of reaction, then you could add the higher of the Conviction Roll's success or the 15 points for that (odds are, it was going to be that 15). Okay, before everyone breaks out into "But Disadvantages can't be advantageous!" complaint, let me get in a couple of comments: First, we had that discussion here a few years ago, and we accepted (some more grudgingly than others) that within limited bands, it is conceivable that they work to some advantage. Second: an untrained farmer whose strength of conviction has encouraged him to stand fast before Lightning McFastdraw, Killer of a Hundred Men, is hardly doing something "advantageous." Third: failing the save v psych lim is going to put him doing something stupid anyway. This Talent simply let him channel and control that stupid into something other people might consider brave. This was simply buying the ability to voluntarily trigger a psych lim. For all the arguing and protesting that can come out of the idea, I'd have to say that politics and the public the last couple of years have demonstrated this actually far more common-- and likely less-expensive-- than I actually priced it. Fourth: Let he who has _never_ taken a Berserk or Enraged with the idea tickling the back of his mind that it might somehow prove "accidentally" useful cast the first stone.

Thank you for doing what I could not do. I have been trying for a decade to say that, but the best I have ever been abke to do is to very tihhtly compress my thoughts into a seven-hour rage-gueled tirade on the abject stupidity of vilifying the artificial constructs we use to track our wait dor death, and pining believing that these artificial segments alter our lives simply by existing or not existing. Ten years, and I couldn't do it. I couldnt separate the "the measuremnt of time doesn't work that way" from the "what kind of red-hat climate-change-denying flat-earth-believing crap logic is this idea, anyway?" Thank you again.

Nearly a thousand pages, and I still do not understand this thread at all.

First and foremost: really neat idea. Second and equally foremost: as the first to champion this in most "but you _have to X if Y" conversations, I am well-aware that there are _no_ mandatory powers and no _mandatory_ complications for _any_ build, period. That being said, it should be clear that this is not a critique of your idea; it is simply an observation that juxtaposes a game construct with the real world. But can you imagine running into battle with a very large and likely heavy (flywheel version) gyroscope strapped to your forearm? Wow! (yes: unless you state this problem exists, then steampunk science includes a method of dealing with this and has included a countermeasure, but still-- it almost sounds like _fun_ to try! )

See? No one plays the same game, no matter how many more rules get packed into the game. I don't use that particular option. The same way E assumes learning magic involves combat training (which, I confess, put some really amusing images in my head trying to combine "let's build a road through this swamp, but we'll need to add some combat practice" and "okay, these guys are here to fire cannon, whack you with sticks, push you around, and throw spears. No matter how difficult that is, do _not_ let them get pregnant" from the other thread . Again, because it seems to be the only way people communicate anymore: _not_ sarcasm. I'm trying to share two brain pictures that gave me a good laugh), I have always assumed-- No; that's not right. It's not an assumption, per se; it's part of several of my magic systems over the years: magic users learn the spell. That is they practice the spell, and they get better with the spell, and they (eventually, through experience), are able to create and cast larger, more powerful and variant versions of the spell. Ultimately, it means there's no place for that particular option in the bulk of my magic systems. In some, yes-- particular in the ones where I want to keep magic tightly regulated and on a level akin to a non-magical person having a really, _really_ good sword. Now this I've always done-- I mean like since we started using Champions to emulate other genres. It's part of the basic rules, and it never occurred to me that there might be a situation where it would _not_ apply to using a skill or taking a shot or whatever. I _do_ make one exception, and that is the Extra Time Limitation [digression: for magic, rather than calling it "Extra Time," I usually flavor it with descriptive titles such as "Ritual" or "Complex Gestures" or "Component Arrangement" and things like that. Yes; they are pretty much just "Extra Time," but for me, it's like naming Powers (and Spells), and I like the flavor. Players seem to get into it, as well, with comments like "I start pouring my sulphur on the nearest stone and tracing the Seven Sigils" instead of "I throw up the earth barrier spell for next Phase."

I have absolutely no idea. You'd have to ask Simon. I'd recommend against doing that, though. For what it's worth, I don't think anyone here takes these ratings too seriously. There aren't as many regulars left as there once where, and we all know who's who, who we enjoy talking with and about what. The ratings just aren't that important. I mean, I just looked at mine and noticed I'm pushing 2900, and I'm a complete jackass! Figure that a ton of folks here really only participate in certain kinds of discussions-- politics, jokes, etc-- and the data determined by glancing at the ratings is meaningless in terms of trying to determine if this person is a "real contributor" or "super nice" or just what. So consider perhaps looking at it the way I do: I have around 10 of these every day, and only around 10 (I swear to you, every time I try to figure it out, I forget I'm supposed to be tracking them before I run out, but ten feels like a safe-ish guess) every 24 hours. So I should try to really only give them out as a really _special_ kind of "Wow! Thanks! I am in a better place for having read that!" kind of acknowledgement. It doesn't slight anyone (unless you've put up the Downvote or the frowning "sad" face, which each deduct from poster's rep count. I mean, it _could_ be just a default that was never toggled to something else, but even if that's the case, it just kind of drives home that we don't really put a lot of stock in it (Heck-- a year or two ago we had a lot of fun on a thread dedicated to down voting each other. ). Anyway, welcome aboard! You'll like it here: we have Canadians.

Two disclaimers: 1) I purposely do not read this thread / subforum thingy. It's better, I think, for my mental health to actually _not_ know the political leanings of every random stranger whose company I otherwise enjoy. Even as I type this, I am making a forced effort to not look at so much as even the post directly above this reply box. 2) (perhaps 1b; I don't know) I am not at all certain that this is the correct forum in which to post this, but it seemed a safer bet than the Funny Pictures thread, given the nature of it. If I am wrong, it was not an attempt to start something so much as it was a misunderstanding of the interpretation of "political" around these parts. If I have erred, I encourage the first moderator to find this to delete it immediately. I am sharing it because, politics aside, it was damned funny. That is all.

A random musing that occurred to me while checking my e-mails on my lunch break today: I haven't seen that "We need a new plague!" meme in quite some time.... Be careful what you wish for.

See? that's what I'm talking about! Clean, crisp lines, real anatomy (except for the seven and eight heads tall stuff. I know-- that's apparently comic book tradition, but it gives me this Uncanny Valley / Barbie doll vibe.... Still, it's _miles_-- hundred and _hundreds_ of miles-- ahead of that atrocity up above. (and thanks, guys. You're the greatest! )

It's too late to edit my last post, as it's been seen at least twice now (I don't want anyone to think I'm playing that "I never said that!" game), so let me just post this here: I made an error of omission (typing too fast): Originally, for an EC, the cost of the forth and subsequent Power was not "1/5 the price," but was in fact 1/5 of the cost of the Reserve. Thus, in keeping with the sixty-point reserve I used in the example, the cost of these subsequent powers would be one-fifth of that 60 pts (12 pts) and not 1/5 of the thirty points you'd pay for an unmodified power. My mistake, but this means that effectively you were paying 2/5 the actual price. Still a bargain; yes, but not quite the massive discount that EC _continues_ to be reported as. I apologize to anyone who may have been misled by my error.