Duke Bushido

True. See? There just is no balance..... Though John could train really hard and put reduced END on his STR.... Then Bob spends similar points and becomes a quick-draw artist..... It's just a fallacy. There is no balance. I am sorry.

Agreed. Between the heroes you described and Road Kill, you could have an all-metal remake of Jem. (Laughing _near_ you; not at you. Frankly, I love the idea. ) Duke

And of course, Bob can not only draw his fists faster than John can unlimber his gun, he is far less prone to losing them or running out of ammo than is his partner. Admitted odd-man-out here: My personal opinion is that "balance" is a farce, as it changes depending entirely on the angle from which it is viewed. The only "perfect balance" I ever strive for is the feedback that indicates all the players are equally happy (perfectly balanced happiness? We probably can't tell without a mechanic in place) with the game at each stage of progression.

Gadzooks! You're right!

Just glad I'll be dead and gone before the "Ponyfinder" crowd is old enough to move in with me.... ugh...

I disagree, but as always, with great respect of you, Doc. And of course, a "here's why." So here's why: We have all agreed (at least in the past; I know that things come up that can change our minds) that rolling an "uh-oh" on those Hunted dice doesn't always mean that Doctor Pownjerfaysen is here to pound your face in. Sometimes it means his sinister plot has advanced a bit. Sometimes it means that he has received some juicy tidbit that will help him in his quest to destroy you. None of these things rely on his ability to put his finger on you right at this very moment. You have associates through your adventurer persona as well as you do through your private persona. There's no reason that the Amazing Helpful Guy or even a simple information or police detective won't fit into that death trap previously reserved for Aunt Kitty. Short version is that having a private persona doesn't really hinder the Hunted in any appreciable way. Conversely: Should we come to the consensus that keeping your two lives perfectly separate from each other should reduce the value of a Hunted Disadvantage / Complication, than should actually taking a for-points Disadvantage: Secret ID no similarly _increase_ the value of that Hunted? After all, if you've listed this particular Disadvantage and taken points for it, you are spelling out that maintaining a dual identity is already problematic for you: one life gets in the way of the other, or perhaps there's just too much chance that you'll be exposed, either through a quick snapshot of you halfway through a costume change, or your glasses fall off during a news broadcast, showing the whole world who you are. Maybe people will just start wondering why you've only got a suntan on your chin and mouth box area while the rest of you is pale as a ghost. Again, we all agree (at least, once agreed) that there are reasons why not taking a Secret ID Complication doesn't mean you can have a secret identity, and we all understand why taking it as a Disadvantage shows that you have problems keeping it all together. So if you have the Complication, it stands to reason that you Hunted being "oh so close" to finding out who you are might very well be part of that Complication. Here! Here! And as far as a "relic from days gone by," I disagree there, too. Frankly, look at our society. People suing because they got the hot drink they ordered. People suing because they were born. People suing one guy because the other guy didn't have enough money: The guy that shot you didn't have enough money? Let's sue the guy that made the gun!" The Secret Identity is the only way we ever _could_ have super heroes: I don't care if Doctor Doom _did_ knock over that entire building onto my car, it was because _you_ weren't stopping him hard enough! Hey, yeah! me too! Me, too! You're gonna pay for my car, too! And all my collectibles that were inside of it! Yeah! And my trauma! And my lost wages because of the trauma! Oh, and that light pole you used to whack away his flying gun gizmo like it was a baseball! You're paying for that, Buddy, and for the suffering of all those folks who didn't have any electricity for the rest of the day. Man, that was SuperBowl Sunday! The networks are going to sue you for the lost revenue, and the advertisers are going to figure out their pro-rated loses via advertising that never reached it's target audience! Etc, etc, etc. No Secret ID? No heroes. It's just not going to happen. Yeah, cameras and drones and surveillance and facial recognition and on and on and on-- it's everywhere. (and maybe that's why we don't have superheroes in the first place). We're talking fiction here, though. Just make it work. I can totally see your point. I haven't had too much trouble with it personally as, if the scene is busy, I shorthand it with "there's a closet on the far side of the room; you can probably change in there. It's going to be x Turns (or Phases, or whatever is appropriate) before you can join the action" then move to the rest of the party until "I don't have instant change" guy rejoins the fray. No. I don't feel this is an unfortunate penalty, as it doesn't come up very often, and with such urgency even less. Again, though, that's at our games. Further, all of these possibilities are explained during character generation for the first few characters a new(er) player makes. They go into it forewarned, and by choice, knowing up front the potential consequences of their decisions. That, and the majority of supers characters at our table tend to have secret IDs, wether they are complications or not. Wierdly, very few have instant change, so it's not unheard of for the entire dinner party to rush to the restroom all at once... Still, as I stated, I totally see your point, and commend you for your decision to tweak the meta a bit for the benefit of the group. Makes you a top-tier team player in my book.

EDIT LIST: P001, c1U, p1: Under first "E" and "S" in Western Hero splash banner: noise that shows on printing P006, c1, p3: under last paragraph: Noise. Immediately under paragraph, then a spatter of three or four further below and to the left. Ghost margin on LH side

I misread that as "duffelmunchkins," and now I have to write that up for my bestiary...... (thanks) Duke

Right. Because the money that I am willing to pay for something new for 3e and the money that you (or someone else, if not you) is willing to pay for something new of 6e are both green. Let's not look at the current state of HERO games and issues like being stuck with tons of copies of MHI, after paying for licensing of the property, etc, because of misguided political activism, the drop in interest overall in the brand, etc--- Let's look at the business sense aspect: There's just no understanding it. Sure, there are schools and programs and degrees built around the unspoken agreement that we will all pretend it's possible to predict every time how to market, but it isn't. So lots of things get tried. How does it make good business sense for Coca-Cola -- who sell products that I watch people pay two bucks a bottle for-- to then show up at our local barbecue festival and spend two days giving them away to a couple thousand people? People who have proven they will pay two bucks a pop for them? There's a lot that we can condemn, and ten times as much we can scratch our heads over, but at the end of the day: what will bring some cash? Honestly, I would _love_ to think that more "4 and before" adventures and characters and such would appear. I'd likely buy them. But I won't count on it, because, as you say, 6e is the thing to push. But right now there's an old-school revival going on all through the hobby. Letting someone dust off and reinvent 3e has a decent cash-- at least while the revival wave is going-- of bringing in some needed cash. I never got an answer to my "how much to actually _be_ a unique villain" question, or I'd have kicked in more than I have.

That make sense? Let's do us all a favor and use the quote box for edit notes only. Any conversation, questions, etc-- put them outside the box like this one, or make a new box thusly: Tedious, perhaps, but you guys did sign up for this. Not too late to change your minds. Thanks! Duke

Okay, if our volunteer proofreaders will kindly PM me the e-mail to which I can send the drive link, we can get this party started. It _seems_ to have uploaded. I have been thinking on a method of keeping a log, and this is what I've come up with: Post it right here. I will start with a random example. When you have a short list, simply quote the post above you and edit your find into the quote in page / column order. This will make it a lot easier for me to keep track of. As changes are made, I will quote the list and edit indicators as to repairs as they are addressed. This should keep us all on track with each other. When the list gets really long, I may post a new edit that removes older listings for repaired items. I would prefer _not_ to do this so as to prevent redundant entries, but honestly, we have to be able to read it, too. So, just as an example: P400 c3L p 21: cloud of noise in right margin; two weird blobs in middle of paragraph between text lines The format is Page #, column # including upper or lower indicator if page is divided (leave blank if page is not divided), and paragraph number, coating from top of column. In the example, it would be page 400, third column on the lower section of a divided page, twenty-first paragraph of that page. I found what's listed: a cloud of noise in the right margin and two weird blobs of ink I missed while doing final clean up. Then, perhaps tomorrow, I decide to read a little more, and I find two new problems. I will quote the most current post and edit into the quote what I found, thusly:

I've never done3e, simply because I have both the boxed set book (books and map; box and dice disappeared years ago) and the glue-bound all-in-one, but no "spares." That, and I don't open either of them often enough to worry about damaging them into fragility, so.... I've got a _great_ scan of Champions III (though it's not up to my current standards; it was my second-ever scanning project. _unfortunately_, my cover for that was becoming ink-bare, and I tried to make "repairs." I have much more talent in the area now than I did then-- which is to say that now I have _almost_ no talent for it. While the recoloring came out great (the majority of the cover), the areas that had to actually be _redrawn_.... Well, they're passable, but clearly not in the same style _at all_, and in one spot are just _wrong_ (the gray section of "computer wall" in the background really was so worn that I wasn't even certain what it was supposed to look like until years later, when I stumbled across an original replacement). I might redo it, if I live long enough, but there are so many completely unscanned things out there still....

I think I mentioned it before, but I bought a "brand new" bootleg of 2e a while back. I can't tell you how much I wish I had the scans those guys were using!! Made my homemade scans of 2e look like absolute _crap_! To be fair, it was my very first scanning project, but _still_.... To give you an idea of how good those scans were, I dumped my original scans and took apart the bootleg, and scanned _that_!

New Millennium, from what I'm told, wasn't _exactly_ Fusion, but was close enough you could pick it up if you were familiar with Fuzion at all, much the same way that if you were familiar with Justice, Inc, you could pick up any other game HERO had going at that time, I suppose. I had no other experience with Fuzion, really (having already found Champions / HERO and liking that system enough to run pretty much everything I have ever played since on that platform), but I wanted to chime in to let you know that you have some support. I think there were one or two of us on this board that like New Millennium. I never really felt like it was "Champions," but I felt that the system was solid enough and easy enough to learn. It just wasn't-- in my opinion, of course-- as good or as comfortable as the Champions system I had been using. serious question: Is the Fuzion system still around? Is there anything out there using it today?

There is a woman that I work with who evidently eats fish once every three weeks. I know this because she brings her leftovers for lunch the next day. My desk is situated such that the door to the break room/conference room/kitchenette is to my back. Once every three weeks it's all I can do to keep from vomiting into my keyboard. Until I took this job (started back in July), I had always heard "don't _ever_ microwave fish!" Now I know why. UGH!

Good news! Completed the proofing PDF tonight. Thought I'd get it sent out to our wonderful pair of volunteers, but I can't seem to get Google Drive to recognize the Zipped file.... As soon as it's done uploading (and it's big: about 148 megs-- like i said: I wanted high resolution so that changes and tiny edits here and there would not turn the entire thing into a chunky-looking mess. If you print one of these pages, it _will_ look like it was actually typeset and pressed. That was my goal from the outset), I get a "file type not supported" message, and then it isn't there. I mean it really isn't there: there is no change before or after to my available storage on Google Drive. Weird. I suspect it might be the encryption I chose (as I mentioned, I really am against piracy; I hope you all feel the same, but even if you don't, I trust you will at least understand). Got to get to bed, though. Tomorrow I'm going to try to upload it in a different format and with different encryption and see what happens from there. I know it's been a long time, guys, but I swear it's here. It's right here, right now. I just have to figure out how to get it to you to help me proof, and then to Jason for actual distribution (though I don't know what reservations he may have about the file size, given the current events here the last week or so). While I hope you will examine everything as I am quite certain that there are certain flaws I am so used to seeing that I flat don't know if I'm overlooking some of them as being "right," there is one thing I'd like to point out, and a couple others I'd like you to pay particular attention to: 1) The art is either grainy or it's black blobs. Believe it or not, that is _not_ the scanner. I know: it's so common on low-quality scans that it would be my first assumption, too. Unfortunately, the art in this book was... well, it was pretty bad. Mostly it was (as best I can tell) old over-exposed sepia tones (for photos) converted to black and white with 1990 technology, and then set to be printed on a tight budget. Other art includes what I can only guess are photos of hundred-year-old lithographs rendered the same way. All in all, the art was pretty bad in the original book (the only downside to the original book, really), and it was done in real ink. That was what? Thirty years ago? Heavy black ink on paper for thirty years.... Yeah, the art was bad. Comparing the final results (I have gone through so much paper, printing comparison sheets to hold next to the originals) demonstrates that all but one are indeed accurate to the book I sacrificed to this cause. Are there better copies out there? Maybe. I can't say, because I can only afford to buy and throw away so many antique books, ya know? At any rate, there is one that I think is supposed to be a pair of bobcats. It looks more like the black panther tattoo my 80-something year old father had done on his forearm in the 60s: it's just a blur with a line under it, instead of a panther with his name under it. In fact, the art is _so_ bad even in the source book, that I spent _many_ nights cruising the web just on the off-chance I could find better copies. I know that 150 and the rare 300 dpi image look like total crap at 1200 dpi (the PDF I put together for proofing has been dropped to 600 PDF to reduce the file size, believe it or not, while retaining excellent print quality), but seriously: there is a chance it would have been better. I came up empty on pretty much every piece of art in the book. And I understand: there's nothing there to really want to immortalize. However, the PDF should print a perfect recreation of the blobbish glory of the originals. Okay, that was the thing of which I wanted you to be aware. Things I would like you to pay particular attention to: As I mentioned way up-thread: The guy who decided to replace boxed entries or underlines with stippled gray bars on charts in books was a sadistic criminal who hated his fellow man. Not only does that crap age horribly, smearing in with the actual letters and other characters on a printed page, it has never scanned as anything less than utter crap. Reprints of those scans create all kinds of weird patterns, most typically variants of herringbone, which was a whole different crime against humanity. Some of this scanned so badly that it had to be rebuilt manually. Yes: new layers created, text rebuilt whole cloth (after I came to the conclusion that copy-and-pasting individual letters and words was for way, _way_ smaller jobs than this) and then re-stippling manually (let's talk about a fun thing to do! Ugh). Fortunately, my brother clued me in to some ways to do the stippling less manually; I just wish he had taught me that sooner! "Did I hear you say 'retyping text'?" Yes, you did. Some of it simply couldn't be cleaned up enough in any reasonable amount of time. Now you can tell I mean that, given the amount of time I've spent on this project. If you recall, at one time I thought I would be done by Thanksgiving. I hope the time and effort proves results that justify it, but you will be better able to judge that than will I. The retyping went better than I could have ever hoped, simply because the author (publisher? Printer?) was beyond-kind, and provided the name of the font that was used for the body text of the book, which was a _tremendous_ (as in a time savings of _weeks_ or _months_ !) help. unfortunately, I could not afford that font. I found an identically-themed and identically-weighted font of very similar name, from the same creator. The only differences appear to be: The asterisk for this font is five-pointed; the original is six-pointed. There is a difference-- a very, very slight difference-- is the weight of the serifs (and on two letters, an almost-unnoticeable difference in the shape of the serifs), and the curvature of one leg of the "V" and the "W" (lowercase in each instance). However, this font was only thirty-five bucks, and it was so incredibly close..... Yes: I am almost positive I could have not mentioned that and no one would notice ( and I am still confident that even forewarned, you won't accurately find every place I did it without accidentally naming some that I didn't), but I would rather have honest feedback: Was it something you noticed as you were reading? Does it jar you in any way? Does it alter the reading experience? In short, should I remove the re-typed text and attempt to further-salvage the original images from those places I deemed "too far gone?" I ask, because if this really does feel like cheating or provides an inferior experience, I am willing to try. I would like to mention, however, that this was done only in places where the text would have taken literal _weeks_ to salvage any other way. Still, I would rather have some damaged text here and there than a reading experience that is less than "authentic" to reading the original book. And of course: noise. The largest part of this project was cleaning noise-- random spots, blurriness or "trash" on the page that proved distracting or drew attention to the fact that "this is a scan, and not an actual book." If you find any areas that need to be improved, let me know. If you would be kind to an old man who has been drying his eyes cracked on this screen for several months now, please list page#, column 1 or two, and paragraph # relevant to that column. If the page features a break, then list the columns as "1 upper" or "2 lower." This will help me find and eradicate it more quickly. Also remember that there is some noise that simply won't print, and is related to the fact that I had to take a momentary step into converting the scans to jpg ("We hates it!") to more easily compile the PDF you will be proofing. If you have doubts about whether some noise will print, then by all means: print that page and find out. Seriously. I think I have roughly eight copies of this book at this point, all stacked here on my desk waiting for the next bonfire. At any rate, I hope to have the upload issue corrected tomorrow. I'm going to take a quick tour around the board and go to bed. Night, All. Duke

Peel the labels off of all spray-on deodorants, and glue them back onto cans of hair spray or spray adhesives. nylon zip ties around all rolls of toilet paper. Go into any computers or digital devices: replace all music files with the Kidz Bop versions of the same songs. Reverse switch all ceiling fans. install carpet in all bathrooms. (glue-down type carpet) Install wallpaper with pink, orange, and yellow plaid. Install doggie doors in all doors, interior and exterior. Microwave thirty-seven pounds of fish. Install handicap ramps to all attic accesses. Change door locks.

Deleted for being unnecessary. Just noticed these questions were answered months ago. My bad.

Oh, good. So he's a middle school student planning on majoring in drama, then?

Perhaps this, more than anything, is the crux of our congenial disagreement: what we as play groups want out of our games. Much as Scott and his group are not heavy into the theatrics side, my own groups are more interested in exploring the impact they can make on their world via the choices they make and the actions they follow. This is completely at odds with the idea of inverting the game to see the world make changes in them. How about that: you got me to see it as plausible. It's still something I have no use for at all, but I can accept that someone does.

If I recall, the rules specify delivering that rousing speech (though they may not; I haven't re-read Presence Attack for a long, long time). I draw this belief based on the variability of the bonus and how the soliloquy must be judged to determine the value of the bonus: appropriate for the situation, appropriate for the audience, etc. The mechanic in this case demanded a theatrically-skilled player. The _GM_, however, threw it out in favor of player willingness, and player participation as best he was able. I chose that example specifically because it was one of my favorite memories: the kind of moment where I gleaned an insight that has served me well. It wasn't, on the surface, the best one I could have chosen to make my point about how the GM has not just the authority, but the _responsibility_ to bend, tweak, and outright discard rules in order to ensure that all characters have access to in-game effects without respect to player ability or talent. Again, I feel this is a GM thing, not a "thirty more pages of rules" thing. But- and I say this kindly, and with all the respect I have for you, it also flies in the face of what you are suggesting, in as much as it _is_ a book-legal mechanic, and it is a social interaction, and it straight-up requires, as Scott so eloquently put it, theater majors to use it to maximum effect. If you cannot pull off a stirring performance, you are shafted, per the mechanic. In this instance, the GM ignored the mechanic (rightly so) and based the bonus on a different set of intangibles: is the player enjoying the game? Is he, in his way, really getting involved? Does it seem that, we're he able, he would deliver something really powerful, commanding, and tailored to the situation? He based everything on a gut interpretation of what the player saw in his head and was not able to get out. Personally, I will take that any day over "roll eleven or less to not join their campaign and totally belive their rhetoric for the rest of your natural life" or "on a fumble, you won't be brave anymore." It's never come up in my games (baring the one space opera where I forced it as an effort to get a bunch of "lone wolf's" to act like a team), but reading through the quote of the week stuff, people's campaign write-ups, talking with folks over the years, it seems that it's not unusual for characters to pair up into romantic relationships. What dice are rolled for that? It's a social interaction, after all. So is your undying quest for revenge against your Hunted. What is the mechanic that gave you that motivation? It's all player decision, based on the history and personality he gave that character the moment he conceived of him. If we are pushing for personality traits by rolling D100 on a chart every time we interact, why are we _buying_ characteristics? Or powers? Or anyrhi g else we can determine equally as randomly?

Now _that's_ how it's done!

As others have pointed out, it has the disadvantages of Flight: turn mode, double knock back, etc. One thing I just want to point out because I see people forget about this a lot at the worst possible time: If you stop moving, you're not Flying. So if you are "flying in contact with a surface" across a body of water and something stops you, you're either swimming or sinking. Just so you know. Duke

Now that I'm parked in front of a proper keyboard, I wanted to say: That was _awesome_. Kudos, to you Sir, and maybe something with oatmeal and raisins in it. I can hear the grin I am still wearing. Two things: I (and possibly others) have noticed that my posts are the meagerest percent of their normal breadth and extent when I'm using one of those Satan-inspired touch screen interfaces. Horrible way to communicate, and I have no idea why texting caught on like it did. My empathy, Sir. Second: Hospital bed?! Whatever it is (other than not my business), I hope it's resolved both favorably to you and soon. I will freely admit that I've made this next comment multiple times before. Before I make it again, I will also acknowledge that the primary active membership of this board is from that set of people who derive at least half their fun (and some far much more than half) from straight-out dithering around with the rules, tweaking this and that, and wanting to ensure that there is a mechanic in place for _everything_. "okay, Turn 16, according to the bylaws, all players whose characters have an odd-numbered SPD score are due for a pee break; even numbers can get refreshments. Forty-five seconds, then switch." Ready? Seriously, because here it comes: This is a GM problem. The GM needs to understand his players enough to be able to balance out for the shortcomings of certain individual players. Now go ahead, everyone; pile on. I've gotten used to it. Ultimately, for the "there _is_ a mathematically-perfect balance possible for each and every aspect of this game; we just have to find it" camp, this has generally proven to be akin to blasphemy, since the ultimate goal is get a perfect flawless mechanic that determines when the mosquitos are biting _just so_, and how many times you've been bitten, and a chart detailing how to turn 3D6 into a scatter pattern showing the distribution of those bites with regard to armor, clothing, and naturally funky body odor, thereby legislating the GM out entirely. Ironically, it was done way, way, back when already, and the game was wildly popular, and called "Choose Your Own Adventure!," featuring many, many published scenarios that could be re-run multiple times. But I digress (no surprise there). Even if it's just for laughs, I don't want to get too far off my point or I'll never get back to work catching up the scanning project. To explain: Well, I did already: the GM should _know_ that his players are going to be of different ability-- even different comfort levels with regard to making the effort-- when it comes to over-the-top theatrical role playing. Honestly, even among friends, i still remember how goofy it felt the first couple of times. While it is _not_ the GM's job to cater to every little thing, in the interest of everyone's good time-- the Thespians and monosyllabic mumblers, the talented improv guy and the "I do this" guy, are likely playing at the best combination of talent and comfort possible for them in that moment. That may change later, but if they are all having a good time, then the GM should keep it going: he should be able to compensate for those folks who simply "aren't there yet," even if they never actually get any closer to there. I was alluding to this quite specifically earlier today when I mentioned-- well, the "I resist it" and "I tell him I don't like it." And there are even lower (forgive me; I didn't want to use that word, as I don't want negative connotations, but I can't think of a better one at the moment) levels of "role play:" My character does this. My character talks to him to find out about x. My character is going to resupply at a store. Don't hold it against him. If your entire group played like that (and some do), you wouldn't think twice about still letting the spicy things happen: you have swayed the heart of the Count, and he considers strongly the implications of what he has set in motion. Or "Don't think I don't see you there, Traveler, standing apart from the crowd. Don't think you'll find sympathizers in this sorry lot. If the King orders it, they obey or die. Your fancy speeches won't fall on deaf ears, though. Many a peasant fancies he might make a coin passing on what he heard or seen to the ears of his betters....." You don't _have_ to ignore the fact that his character is a part of the world, and you don't have to deny him the ability to affect it the same way as the more gregarious players. Remember: it is the _character_ who is in the story; the player is doing his best, but you can't honestly penalize the character for the player's inability. If the player can confer the gist of the character's actions, let that be enough. Not true. THACO still exists. I understand where you are coming from. I simply find it unnecessary. If a _character_ is being penalized for player skills, then the problem is not "we need a new list of mechanics." The problem is GM skills. You need a new one of those. Well of course you can. What else have you got to do, anyway, lying in a hospital bed? Last I heard, the nurses can hit back.... I recall the post rather well, actually, simply because it put me in mind of my earliest RPG experiences. Fortunately, way back then, RPGs on the whole were fairly new, and spreading as slowly as things did before the internet, so we were all pretty wooden and embarrassed for a while. And yes, we had a few run-ins with other groups (used to be a lot more people doing this, from what I recall) at various rec-centers, and hearing their flowery speeches and impromptu tirades made us almost want to pack up and go play in the parking lot. We got better, and we eventually settled at where we are now, and that's fine for all of us. But no; I didn't fault you for the idea that "my guy goes here" and "my guy does this" is perfectly valid. I _still_ don't fault you for it. If that's what your guy does, but you don't have a lengthy speech to go with it, then fine. Oh! My favorite example of this was actually from a Presence Attack, way back when. We were "better" (again: judgey word, but I don't mean it that way, nor do I have a better word) by the time Champions rolled around, and very shortly after we started with that (back when all there was was just "Champions." Not even a second edition) we picked up two new players from a Traveller group that couldn't quite get itself going: no one could get over stage fright enough to be the Ref very effectively. Anyway, about their second adventure with us, one of them flies through a skylight, crashing down into the battle to reinforce the two of us hemmed up by a group of henchies. Now this character was conceived as a well-known and admired public figure, renowned for his toughness and fighting prowess. So he crashes in, lands with a mighty thud directly between us and them and prepares instantly to start blasting with his energy beams. Jim (GM at the time) rules that the guys are startled; yay, free action! :). One of the other players tells the new guy "Oh, hey-- you've got a rep and you smashed in through the ceiling. You should _totally_ do a Presence Attack!" "Do a what?" A Presence Attack." "Instead of blasting them?" "No; that's not what it is. It's a free sort of thing you can do, like a speech to make them surrender. You can like scare the bad guys enough to make them run away or surrender." "And I still get to blast them if I want?" At this point, Jim had taken over: "Yes; a simple Presence Attack doesn't take away from your turn. Since you have a reputation, surprise, and a have made a show of force, you can even get a bit of bonus on your chance of forcing them into submission." "Okay; I do one of those." "A Presence Attack?" "Yeah; I wanna do one of those." "Do you have a soliloquy?" "A what?" "You can make a brief speech to your opponents: a threat of violence, a command to do something, or order them to surrender. Anything that plays up your position and gives them a quick, instinctive understanding of what you want and what you are willing to do for it." "Okay, I do one of those, too." "It's part of the Presence Attack, if you chose to do it." "Cool! I want to Presence Attack them and use a soliquy [sic]" Jim stared for a second, waiting, but not too terribly long. Then he rolled right along like everything was buttered donoughts. "okay, are you going to threaten them, command them to do something, or order them to surrender?" "I'm going to tell them to surrender." "Okay, then." A quick glance at the Character Sheet) "roll six dice...." Like everything was just normal. Like he had done it as fluidly and dramatically as anyone at the table, and never gave any indication of criticism. I learned a lot from Jim before going on to GM myself, but I learned some of the most absolutely useful stuff right there, in that moment. After the game I asked him about it. I wish I could claim to remember his exact words as well as I remember "Soliquy," but it was something to the effect of "remember when we were learning how to do this?" "Yeah. We kinda sucked. We got a lot better since then, though." "You suppose it's because no one told us we sucked?" That has stuck with me for a long, long time. That was the flashback your initial post gave me. Now you know. I could not agree with you more. I just think that this falls more to the group and its members-- in particular the GM-- than it does to any game system.