Duke Bushido

Ahh, Casey Kasem. Man of a thousand jobs. Only one voice, but still got a thousand jobs..... Sometimes doing three characters in one scene.... All in the same voice..... A lisp and a bad accent is not a different voice.... So many confused kids way back then....

A little help with the pink grumpy cat?

To briefly answer OP's question (and hopedully not derail the interesting discussion going on), I always dound the Figureds to give a hint at "how this universe works," so to speak: the foundation of this is that; this and this contribute to that. This is derived partly from this, and partly from those. A person with a lot of this and rhis will just naturally have more od that, and a character without much of this or that must train hard (or spend points) to make up for a natural shortxoming in that right there." Granted, I never understood how having a proper adventurer's robust constitution made you more resistant to electric shock, but it didn't matter; there it was in the math: a glimpse into the mechanics of this imaginary realm, and into the minds of the designers. An invitation to imagine alien life forms whose x and Y did not yield Z, but whose Z was derived from A, B, and Vitamin 7. (Then, fourth or so years later, Marc Miller would start to do something similar with the characteristics of his aliens and creatures, and I immediately wanted to apologuze to players I havent seen in decades. Sorry guys. Feels great; plays awful. That one's on me.) Still, the glimpse was there, and a fundamental building block was presented in an easy and immediately-graspable manner. Without figureds, you just have a really long list of characteristics and no real understanding of the interplay between them, or any grasp of what a "normal" amount would be, or what a decent ratio is, or even what is meager and what is fantastic. "Okay, my Strength is... Fifteen, so I guess a reasonable PD would be... Eighty-four? Okay, that is an absurd, but not as much as you might think. That simple little chart on the character sheet gave you more than just formulae: it gave you a quick grasp of scale and relationship in a way that even the mountain of text in the currrent rules can't offer. Today, it is just a laundry list of characteristics, and to figure out how they work, you're just going to have to buy some and practice. Is it good or bad? That's up to you, obviously. It is certainly lauded by those folks whose feedback was considered- or at least solicited- before the chaange was made. It was lauded by those folks who still believe that points equate to balanced or evenly-matched characters in spite of really mathy folks like Hugh pointing out that characteristics still don't yield an equal amount of good stuff dor equal points expenditure. So is it good? Is it bad? It is. It just is. Use it if, after some experimentation, you decide you like it. Don't use it if you don't like it. I can seriously say that I can state that objectively- or at least without fanboy zeal or hater venom. I am still using the rules books published in 1982. Ironically, I am willing to bet I can tote a character to Ninja-Bear's table, and get him squeezed in essentially as-is, the same as he could slip a hero into my game, and he would most likely work flawlessly. There are over a thousand pages of rules these days. Get choosy with them.

The "first" is completely redundant: one can renew, refresh, reinvigorate, tighten, cement, and secure an aquaintancy. One can scorn, reject, or ignore it as well. One cannot, however, remake it. One can repair it, but not remake it. So "when I first made your acquaintance" shows off a rather more poor command of grammar than intended. "When I made your acquaintance" is _always_ "when we first met;" no exceptions. [/pedantry] Carry on.

I am not the guy shopping for suggestions, but I do like that one! Nazis, right here on our turf, in our town, and they are doing somethinf awful, and succeeding!

I will throw in the suggestion of electricity: you still have a nervous system, and it does not like electricity at all. And of you are altering nothinf but your density, heat as well as the above-mentioned cold.

OP: just keep following this conversation, and imagine it coming from your players, eating into game time..... Avoid reality; too many people are familiar with it. As someone said quite nicely a bit upwind: go with the _idea_ of the thing, id you decide to have any tie in to the real world.

Thanks, Assault. Yeah- I pointedly requested a definition to avoid beinf accused of "politics." If I could as for clarification, is the viewpoint you presented considered "neoliberal?" Thanks again.

That right there. You have seen the conversation: "Well, in reality, steel blag blah diamond blah blah blah crushed blah blah but melts before the other burns blah blah..." (Note: the 'blah blah's are not condescension; I was recently bitten by a 50's vampire, and it is starting to affect me... Nah; seriously: it was just faster than both quoting or retyping entire chunks of the conversations above. No offense intended to anyone) Anyway, you have seen this conversation burst out here where you just asked a simple question (there was an early edition villain named Black Diamond, later renamed Diamond. Use her outrageous defenses if you have access. If not, visit the HERO store and snag aome access. ). Anyway, if you do this thing-- Professor Tumanidolers has built a robot entirely from diamonds! If only he hadn't done this! He would still have his millions of dollars and have no need to be a super villain! But hey, he has done it now, so roll dice! You are going to have this exact conversation at the table, and while it is not without genuine merit, it also isn't going to help the game get moving. So, as Doc suggested, give RoboBux the defense you want it to have, and keep moving. Justify it as diamond if you want (at your own peril). Personally, I find that avoiding game-stopping discussions of the in-game values of real-world things leads to the creation of the entire spectrum of plotonium, from simple Bolognium to Collapsium to Bullcrapium. Probably how Marvel got Vibranium anyway: "Hypothetically, how thick would armor made of vanadium steel have to be to protect against an anti-tank rifle? Really? How about if we add some chrome molybdenum? What? Seriously? Okay, I am making this new guy's armor out of a rare space metal called Vibranium. How stronf is it? It is as strong as I say it is, and not one bit less, okay? Perhaps the unobtanium of your universe happens to be visually indistinguishable from diamonds. Have fun with it.

Someone kindly define "neoliberal" as used in this context so I can decide how inciteful and/or stupid that comment was. Thank you.

Thanks; I already knew about the Musk thing (am I mis-remembering, or did he try to so the same rhing with PayPal? What is he? A twelve year old trapped in the 90s, where X was like the coolest part of the alphabet?) As for the other thing, thanks again, but I know that, too, _now_. anyway, I am goinf to bleach rhe phone before I go to bed, so everything should be fine.

Thanks a lot. All the times I ask for help, and there is always that one guy who whines that I didn't just Google it. So I did, and I am going back to asking for help; I dont care who whines.

"Bounce light" and "images", if you expect both of those to have an in-game effect. If bounce light does not include lasers, radiation, or other veraions of Energy Blast or RKA, then I wouldn't build it, either, amd just go with "images" with a limitwd build suggesting two-dimensional reflections. If the images wont have in-game utility, then I wouldnt build that either. Short version: What in-game abilities does the player have with this power (or powers)? Build those. "He creatws a reflective surface" is one-hubdred percent special effects and needs only to be declared.

What is it about misogyny? Has anyone ever, even _once_, nit seen it go hand-in-hand with an over-inflated sense of self-importance? It is just the weirdest thing, they way they go together... Though, just like the loud stereo cars, every time I am exposed to it, I cannot help but remember the findings of the howler monkey study....

Okay, I will be that guy. I dont want to be that guy, but I have hit a roadblock. Which standard,mirror things are you after? The image you see part, or the bouncing light part? If it is that second part, then the Reflection, light effects only works fine. If it is the images part, well then Images.

Missed,rhis the first time through. I appreciate the invite, Sir, but if I didn't board the ship when it was,in ita Prime, I am certainly not going aboard when it is sinking.

The PCs are riding on on the new ultra-modern underground train- perhaps they are persons of note locally and were asked to attend a ceremony and inaugural run; perhaps one of them is filthy with lucre and has funded it; perhaps it is the fastest way to get to where they think they need to be; you decide. As the elevated section of track plays out and the track slopes downward to make its decent under the city, it seems to be picking up too much speed (roll to notice). Sabotage is afoot, and the operator has been killed; as he slumped over the controls, he pushed the throttle a bit. Within moments, the train is hurtling through the darkness of the tunnel, the gas lights passing by like fireflies blinking in the distance. Inspection of the engineer's area reveals blood, a hand-carved stone that resembles a tiny charm or totem, a bizare symbol painted in red on the wall, and an ornate gold-handled dagger- too fancy for utility use- sticking from the engineer's back. The train turtles through a cave, leans sickeningly and rolls off the track, metal screeching and rending as the train slides on its side next to the track before crashing into the wall of the new tunnel and then through it, where the engine and the first two cars dangle precariously into a natural cavern. The only light seems to be a fire, but the blackness makes it impossible to tell how far away it is or how large. Twenty feet beneath the dangling engine, brave explorers will find a cold body of water- aquifer? Underground river? Who can say? In the distance, with a row of burning torches before it, even more courageous souls will find a temple of gold, lapis, and onyx. It is almost Incan; almost Aztek; almost Myan. Almost. What's going on? Is it an ancient cult? A forgotten or unknown native civilization? A Bass Pro shop? That's up to you. To be honest, this one isn't my favorite, but with the temperature on the sun-baked asphalt today, you can understand why a swim in an underground river came to mind today, I think....

Shouldn't 2/3 of that chart be magenta? Or is that just my players?

"Gradual Effect." That's what I suggest we rechristen it.

Agreed. And because of that, I prefer "effect over time" or "slow to affect" to Damage over Time. It seems more inviting to non-damage-oriented powers.

Yes; I meant Limitation. When you think "opposites" and you are working with a world like "advantage," which actually has more than one opposite... Well, anyway.... I appreciate the insight on naked advantages, however I wont be doing that. I mean, I do it when I have need of it, but having been putting limitations (and other advantages sometimes) on advantages and limitations since 1e (since no on really said we couldn't), thirty-odd years after the fact is just too long to expect me to wait for official rules. I didnt even wait what-three years for official vehicle rules? I'm just going to keep doinf what I have been doing for forty years now; thanks all the same, but the bugs arw well-worked out of it at this point.

Well, in another thread I just learned that I was apparently the only GM who saw an inhetent advantageous version of Uncontrolled. Does that count? I have mentioned several times allowing 1/8 level advantages or limitations for "realistically. Yes; it is limited, but not much or not often" limitations and similarly trivial advantages ("extra STUN multiplier only against chronic smokers" being one I will never forget) One,thing I assumed most folks would allow- up until a casual discussion with our own Chris Goodwin, that is- was advantages with disadvantages on them to limit the advantage. A favorite use of this amongst most of my players was putting a limited amount of range of on normally unranged powers (such as Drains). Thus, they would have the advantage Ranged with the limitations "reduced range," recorded as Range(reduced range) X Where X was the range limit. The disadvantage did not modify the cost of the power construct, but the value of the Advantage. If an Advantage worth +1/2 took a modifying Disadvantage worth -1/2, then the result was new "custom advantage" with a value equal to 1/2 of the original Advantage value, or in this instance, +1/4. Similarly, Lumitations could take advantages to... Well, the best way to say it is "reduce the limit on the power" or "limit the limitation." A limitation worth -1/2 that is modified by an advantage worth +1/2 has a new value of -1/4. Should any modified Limitation end up with a positive value, refigure ("pedicure?!" Really, autocorrect? Really?) it as a modified advantage; do the oposite for modified aevantages that end up with a negative value. I know (and mostly reject, on behalf my points-paying players) that newer editions state "you don't have to use all of what you pay for" or "use only the amount that is right for your concept, but I find that no player, upon having paid the full cost of Zero Endurance will willingly pay 1/4 END when it is much more advantageous to tweak his concept a bit so that he has full access to what he paid for. "Build what you want" and "get what you pay for" are going to but heads constantly when you are expected to pay for more than what you want but not use all of what you paid for. (This is one of the two reasons I have never adopted the two-steps-to-Zero-END-cost first presented in 4e). Anyway, out of time; I have to run.

Thank you, Sir, for stating that better than anything I could come up with. I can only speak for the group I was in at the time, but yes: we _never_ considered Disads as part of some sort of great overarching role playing experience- do _not_ misunderstand: we we're all completely familiar with ideas like character concept, roleplaying to character, etc, etc, and when we did take disadvantages, we selected even then as we do today: what is appropriate to the character that I envision? But Disads were, to build on what Scott said, seen first and foremost as a trap! A trap loaded with tasty, tasty, extra building points, just oozing with increased characteristics and dripping with extra damage dice and defensive abilities, lightly seasoned with a few new skills... Tempting.... Oh, so very tempting.... But the trap! The trap! The GM had new ways- with in-gake mechanics!- to get his murderous hooks into you.... Yeah. Again, I would like to remind people of the general theme of us versus him that D and D brought, and that it took a couple of decades to finally drift out of gaming... But that was our impression of them: take only the absolute most vital amount of points, and select the disadvantages that were the least likely to make you the GM's plaything.... (A lot has changed since then, obviously)

The cleanest way to do this is to build a limitation into your necromantic spells: does not work on consecrated bodies. Then make "consecrated bodies" anything you want, from a major Transform to a one-point perk. How major a thing is this going to be? Is it almost a given that the dead will be magically molested? Then make it a Transform. Is necromancer unusual, with littke restriction on what corpses can and can't be used? Make it Perk, since it is little more than peace of mind for the bereaved that out of the hundreds or thousands of bodies that _can_ be used, _this_ body is safe. In short: if it is overall little hindrance to a necromancer, I don't care how expensively it _can_ be built; it shouldn't be expensive or difficult. If it causes no end of nuisance to m necromancy as a whole, then it should be priced accordingly. It hinges on putting the limitation in the spell you wish to disrupt.

Like spelling "Gareth" and saying "Garth," or pronouncing Amos as "AY- moss" and I cannot make any sense at all of how they spelled Alouicius. And on and on. The first time I saw "Hermione" spelled, I couldn't even make the connection between the name and the spelling. Too many competing root languages, I suppose.