Ternaugh

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Suspicious by Dennis DeYoung. JoeG

Re: Compensating for PC Abilities So, what happens if they accidentally target the wrong person with the mental attacks? "Your Honor, I will show that that so-called 'hero' did willfully and maliciously assault my client, and then ripped his personal memories from his mind..." What if the information that they need is in the mind of a schizophrenic? Or someone high on drugs? Heck, tinfoil hats just might work as effective shields. Maybe, with all of the combat, they just hit someone a little too hard, and he has a case of amnesia. Detect Truth? How about on someone that insists in speaking in metaphors or euphemisms? Or a pathological liar? Or someone who always tests bad, even when telling the truth? How about a villain who tells each henchman a different story, so that the party doesn't know who to believe. What if the target is overly sensitive to mental damage, and enters a coma, or worse yet, dies? There are lots of roleplaying options here. JoeG

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Mad Man Moon transitioning into Robbery, Assault and Battery both from Genesis' "Trick of the Tail" album. JoeG

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel JoeG

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Steve Hackett links in on my "Genesis" side of things, and GTR bridges it to "Yes" and "Asia" through Steve Howe. And I've got lots of stuff from all of 'em. Since you mentioned it, Now playingWhen the Heart Rules the Mind by GTR JoeG

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Land of a Thousand Autumns and the title track, Please Don't Touchby Steve Hackett. It's a remastered version, with much better sound than my old import disc. And for the musically curious, you can find mp3s and more about Steve Hackett here: http://www.stevehackett.com/ JoeG

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Robbery, Assault and Battery by Genesis. JoeG

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? "Fortunes of War" by Fish, from his Suits album. Highly recommended song. JoeG

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Just finished Deryni Checkmate by Katherine Kurtz. This was the new "Author's Cut" version, which, other than being a new hardcover, seems to only have been changed for a few typos. Good book, has a bit of an "Empire Strikes Back" feel to it, as it's the middle of three books. JoeG

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? "Just Good Friends (Close)" by Fish, duet version, from Bouillabaisse One of the few works to survive the Accidental Reformat of 2006.* JoeG *But that's why I've got the original CDs--time to re-rip!

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? "Star of Sirius" by Steve Hackett, with Phil Collins on vocals and drums and Mike Rutherford on base guitar (on Voyage of the Acolyte 2005 remastered album). It cleaned up really nice. JoeG

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? "The Meaning of Life" followed by "Knights of the Round Table (Camelot)" and "All Things Dull and Ugly" by Python (Monty). Your Mood May Vary, JoeG

Re: Comparing starship speeds. Which makes Voyager all that amazing for how fast it couldn't go. But, you know, when God needs a starship... JoeG

Re: Comparing starship speeds. And just to mess everything up, the Millenium Falcon's hyperdrives are broken in "Empire", so they can't jump anywhere. Instead, they have to find a repair facility--Lando's Cloud City on Bespin. Problem is, it's in another star system altogether, so the trip would have to be done sublight. That they manage to do it in anything shorter than several hundred years either shows that Bespin is part of the Hoth system, or that the "speed of drama" truly is faster than hyperdrive jumps, and definitely functions in normal space. Of course, it's easy to overlook this bit of plot, because the rest of the movie is so enjoyable. JoeG *Now, if I can only believe that Jack Bauer can drive across the LA basin in 5 minutes, I can enjoy "24".

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? "That Night" by Tony Banks (Bankstatement) JoeG

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? "George of the Jungle" as played by "Weird Al" Yankovic. JoeG

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? PDQ Bach....the last and the least of the many children of Johann Sebastian Bach...is the alter-ego of Peter Schickele. Think of it as the "Weird Al" of the Classical set. Oh, and I'm now listening to "Physical" by Olivia Newton-John through the usb line from my Hi-MD unit into my computer. JoeG No choirboys were harmed in making this posting.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? "The Short-Tempered Clavier" by PDQ Bach, followed by "Hello Radio" by TMBG Edit: followed by "Hello, Helicopter" by OSI--Yet more shuffle weirdness. JoeG

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Styx, playing "I Will Be Your Witness", followed by Damn Yankees playing "Damn Yankees". Apparently, my jukebox program was in a Tommy Shaw mood. JoeG

Re: [Fraggle Rock] Really Odd Question

Re: Seemingly Silly Things to Model Unlikely Servant: Summons a supermodel to perform household chores. Format Wars: Breaks (Dispels) any electronic device by making vital components no longer available, with a bonus of +10 to the effect if the device has the letters "s","o","n", and "y" inscribed anywhere on it. JoeG

Re: Seemingly Silly Things to Model Render Slightly Less Dead: The character has the ability to "freshen" any dead object into something slightly less dead. 3d6 Cosmetic Transform (Dead to Slightly Less Dead), Only on formerly alive objects (-1/2), Does not work on Mostly Dead--Use the Big Chocolate Coated Pill for that (-0). Active Cost: 15. Real Cost: 10 JoeG

Re: If YOU have been playing Hero since the 80's why do you still keep coming back? I was introduced to Champions in '82, and started playing in '83. It was a fun system that allowed us to create the characters the way we wanted. At the time, AD&D, Boot Hill, Gamma World, Traveller, V&V and Top Secret were all big in my various gaming groups. Of these, only Traveller and Champions were systems that I enjoyed enough to GM. The release of Fantasy Hero fundamentally changed the dynamics by producing a flexible fantasy system. While a lot of time was spent converting 1st and 2nd ED AD@D concepts and spells over, we soon learned that the system was robust enough to support just about anything that we wanted to do. My time as a player shrunk, as I would end up as the GM more and more. With the release of Hero 4th, my GMing went exclusively Hero. I weathered the storm as Hero de-ICEd itself, went through its Cybergames Fuzion illness, and ultimately was reborn under DOJ. During the lean times, I invested heavily in GURPS material. Much of it makes great source material for inclusion in a Hero-driven game, and some of it is just a really cool read. It cushioned the blow of my two favorite games (Traveller and Hero) both going through hard times. Forgive the rambling, here are the points that I like the most about Hero: 1. It is an easily-customized system. 2. It is, at runtime, a simple system. No saving throws, no active defense rolls, no looking through several rulebooks to find out if a Feat applies or not (it's right there on your sheet, or the GM decides), ranges work the same way for weapons (unless you bought it differently, then you can figure it out). For the most part, you don't have to refer to the rulebook at all for most combats or character interactions, especially if you have a few common charts handy. 3. It allows for extensive solo play (with creation of characters, items, etc--another reason that I was first attracted to Traveller). 4. Character creation, while time-consuming, is actually easier than many other RPGs on the market (a current character in D&D 3.5 required me to flip pages constantly, often to find a line or two hidden on a different page that could have easily been included in the section), and offers more control for the end result. While the size of the rules is daunting, the vast majority of characters in a Heroic situation won't have to deal with most of it. It is like a cookbook: you only need to read the sections that apply to the current "recipe", not the entire book. And, like a good recipe, it's easy to season to taste. 5. It uses 6-sided dice. Very important for an excuse to collect as many different kinds as I can find--which, in Las Vegas is quite a lot. That Classic Traveller also used 6-siders is an added benefit. JoeG

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? "Exocet" by Anthony Phillips. Very strange song. Then "Theme to St. Elmo's Fire" "Cursum Perficio" by Enya "Atom Heart Mother" by Pink Floyd JoeG

Re: Exclusive: A Serenity Sequel? My guess is it's all going to be based on the sell-through of the DVD of Serenity. If that does fairly well, then it would benefit Universal/Sci-Fi to do a few tv movies. BTW, the street date is 12/20 for the movie, so it's just over a week away. JoeG