Kevin Schultz

Re: What does OMEN stand for? Were they actual Acronyms (taking the first letters of a series of words and putting them together, like SCUBA), or the opposite - taking a series of letters and trying to find words that fit them? I ask mainly because we're technically doing the second here, rather than the first - and I think the Icthus thing from early Christianity may have been the same. That is, the fish was a symbol of early Christianity, and so they took the word for fish and found a phrase that fit it. Which is not to say that they DIDN'T use acryonyms before the 20th century - I'm not nearly enough of an expert to know. The only real thing I know about it is that S-H-I-T never stood for "ship high in transit", according to an etymology page that I was reading. (It's just the modern prononciation of s-h-i-t-e, the middle english/german word for feces.) That's where I got the "acronyms are a 20th century thing" factoid.

Re: The Last Word I bought a couple hundred bucks worth of camping equipment. A friend of mine is going to hike the Appalachian trail this summer, and she's starting to do day hikes and weekend camping trips to start getting in shape. (She's been doing gym exercises during the winter, but now it's all about actually getting on the trail.) So, I (as an Eagle Scout in good standing) went out and got myself a bunch of dayhiking gear - boots, first aid kit, Leatherman, compass, poncho, energy bars, plus some bolts to repair my toliet, but that was incidental. We're gonna start hitting the various trails around Seattle here over the next 2 months or so, to get her into better shape. (Ooh - I learned what happens if you leave one of those choline tablets in your toilet tank for 3 months without flushing: it eats through the metal! And if you're wondering, I have 3 toilets in my house, but only use one. That's why I could not flush 2 of them and still be, y'know, not gros.)

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Orinoco Flow, by Enya.

Re: What does OMEN stand for? Minor point - note that acronyms are pretty much a 20th century invention - before that, they just spelled things out.

Re: What does OMEN stand for? My personal favorite thing to do with myserious names is to have a perfectly banal explination: the founder's name was Bill Omen, or something like that.

Re: WWYCD: Hi! We're your Sidekicks! Jake the Troll actually (had) a minor following back in Vancouver, BC, before he went to school at the Angelus acadamy - they were the local chapter of the Fantasy Writer's Club. He called them his "Mercedes Lackeys". Mainly they were a group of middle-aged housewives who thought that a real-life troll living next door was the greatest thing since slashfic. His parents weren't particularly amused, but they allowed him to go to fantasy conventions with them, and such. Also, he's had a blog for a couple of years(underthebridge.org), so it's entirely possible that someone could have read up on him and decided that he was a good 'hero' to emulate. Anyway...this implies that the individual in question is probably 10-12 years old, as Jake is 16. As he isn't really a hero yet, he'd simply point them to his instructors, and have them take it from there. Shinji Miromoto, on the other hand, would probably take them in. If they have Dark Energy powers, he would NOT want them going down the same road he did, which consists of hiring yourself out to japanese supervillians in return for training. He'd also consider it kharmic payback for all the things he did while a Loyal Lieutentant for his various Dark Masters. (Which mostly consisted of being an administrative assistant, actually.)

Re: Regeneration (sort of) question For the resistance to Drains, I think you can purchase a separate version of the Heal/regeneration ability, with the Expanded Effect (Any power or characteristic affected by a Drain that affects the character's physical form, +2). I put the "physical form" qaulifier in there so that the character would still be affected by non-metahuman-based drains. For example, the character can still be frightened, and a Drain ability could concievably be the game mechanic someone would use to simulate a really scary encounter. You may also want to put Inherant (+1/4) on it and your regeneration/Life Support, to protect the regenreation powers themselves from being drained. Also - note that this is not a particularly useful TACTICAL ability, but is a pretty good STRATEGIC ability - ie, it won't help you much in a fight, but it'll get you up and ready to go faster for the next fight (assuming you survive).

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power Heh - most of the characters I was thinking of have specific weapons, shrinking, or enough practice to ensure that this wouldn't happen: having the opponent not be there a known issue for this maneuver. Althought if your team had more than 3 people, some of the attacks would be moveBYs, rather than moveTHROUGHs.

Re: What power would you buy (with a twist) Oh, is this 15 point active, or real? Cuz if it's real, that opens up a LOT more... Kevin "yeah, it takes a week, but it blows up the Earth!" Schultz

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power Three words for you: coordinated. pushed. movethrough.

Re: WWYCD: The Famous Guy Hypotheticals Phase 1: I'm assuming that the Dark Avenger has the reputation of being able to take out the Big Boy in Blue whenever he wants to, knows everything about any meta he meets, has 3 contingency plans for taking that meta down even before he meets them in person, is impossible to kill, probably has that meta's hotel room bugged, and has no compulsions about completely and utterly destroying someone (socially, emotionally, if not physically) if anyone gets in his way. With that in mind... Jake the Troll: "Oh my God, I mean, Gosh! You're, like, the Dark Frickin' Avenger! That's just, so...Oh my gosh! I'm talking to the Dark Avenger!" *Calls up parents on cellphone* Mom, you'll never guess who I'm talking to!...wow, good guess! Um..he's scowling at me now. Gotta go! *hangs up phone.* "Um..Hi! Look, there's this, um, guy, and he took a thing...which you probably already know more about than me. So, um, I'll just let you handle it. Bye!" Jake's not even a junior-level uperhero yet. If the Dark Avenger wants to handle it, the Dark Avenger can handle it. Shinji Miromoto: "Aaaah!" *Teleports away* The Dark Avenger could so kick his butt, and would probably have no compulsions about arresting him, turning him over to the Gothic PD, and making sure he was extradited back to Japan. Then, after teleporting madly away, Shinji would realize that if the DA was planning on doing that, Shinji would already be unconcious and in police custody. Thus, he would assume that the warning was some sort of professional courtesy, and would respect it. Phase 2: Both characters would let the DA handle it, and probably wouldn't even go with him via interrogation. Assuming that the DA got back to them with the courtier information, though... Jake the Troll: "Wow, thanks! Um...I don't do the sunlight thing very well, either - troll, turn to stone, all that sort of thing...which you already know about, so I'll just shut up." Jake would assume that the DA knows the situation better than he, and therefore it must be ok for him to go in one of his forms that isn't affected by sunlight. So, he would. This would be in his trollknor form, which is pretty much there for social interactions. He'd probably charm his way through to the courier, and then call the police on them. Is the gizmo in police custody? Great! Misson accomplished! Shinji Miromoto: "Aaaah!" *tries to teleport away, but is blocked by the anti-psionic resonators that the DA put in place.* "Ano...greetings, Dark One. Ah, want me to...go get person, then leave? OK." If the gizmo ended up in police hands, Shinji would also not have any problem with it, unless there was some specific reason for him to get it. In that case, he'd have to balance stealing the evidence from the police locker room (and thus getting the DA mad at him), and then realize that there's nothing he could gain that would balance that out. So, he'd leave.

Re: What power would you buy (with a twist) Min-maxing point fiend response: Transform: 1 point, Major, Enhanced Effect - Anything into Anything Else. Sure, it'll take a while, but it pretty much opens up the entire game system. Which means it completely breaks the spirit of the question, and as such our real-life GM wouldn't let me take it. Slightly More realistic response: 10 point VPP....which would also get the GM axe. Even more realistic response: Hm....one thought would be 1" of Teleport, useable on others, AoE, Gate, 0 END, Persistant, plus the "teleport to floating fixed location" adders. Sure, you can only go to a couple of locations at a time, but you can basically create permanent zone gates between, say, London and Los Angeles. $1,000 a pop to step through the gate? OK...

Re: Transformation I've usually used the following, which is (basically) what White Wolf does with their Physical/Mental/Social split, and what the DC Heroes game did with their core game mechanic: All attributes can be split on two two axis: the Mind/Body/Spirit axis, and the Power/Endurance/Agility axis, as follows: BODY Power - Strength Endurance - Constitution Agility - Dexterity MIND Power - Intelligence Endurance - Willpower Agility - Wisdom SPIRIT Power - Charisma Endurance - Mana Agility - Luck Spiritual Endurance may be a bit iffy - I think I may have thought of something better when I last made this up. Anyway... Thus, Physical transformations affect the body (obviously), mental transformations affect memory and the ability to process information, while Spiritual Transformations affect the underlying Self and one's relationship to existence in a Metaphysical sense. However, I'll agree that to an extent it's just SFX - for example, a Transformation that granted Luck could easily be a physical transform (grants you the Luck-based mutant gene), a Mental Transform (grants a subconcious ability to predict and thus avoid dangerous situations) or a Spiritual Transform (actually grants a metaphysical abilty to be Lucky).

Re: WWYCD: Bodyparts Away! Jake the Troll - would probably be his left hand or right eye, as loosing either of those sounds suitibly norse and quasi-mythic. Jake, not being particularly norse nor mythic (at least in terms of thought processes) would go "Bwa?!" Then he'd probably ask one of his teachers what he should do. This is assuming that he's not bleeding toxic blood all around the room, of course - if that was the case, he'd try VERY hard to get away from anything that may melt, and wait for his body to stop squirting. Then he'd remember that he's a troll, and that it would grow back in a couple of hours. Shinji Miromoto would assume that one of his teammates (a couple of whom have really wierd powers) was experimenting on him. Either that, or he was having a prophetic vision, or something. As he doesn't have the ability to heal himself, he'd try to get his limb back, and figure out which teammate was doing this - if anything happened to (say) his leg, he'd be a cripple for life, and that's pretty darn serious.

Re: Teen Champions My personal favorite grading system? The one used at MIT: 80 - 100%: Pass 0 - 79%: doesn't show up on your transcript I think there's also an "honors" category, but that's pretty much it. They switched to this system after they realized that a non-trivial portion of the student population was comitting suicide over their less-than-perfect GPA's. MIT students. Wacky, wacky, wacky.

Re: "You're not a REAL Hero!" While I agree (generally) with your discusson of what makes a hero, I'd argue that those definitions are culturally-specific to modern Western thought. For example, I don't think the ancient Britons would have considered Beowulf to be less of a hero because he killed Grendel instead of trying to rehabilitate him. In fact, anyone who TRIED to rehabilitate Grendel would most likely have been considered a madman, or maybe a saint. Grendel was a monster, and by his actions showed that he deserved no mercy: to give him such would have been the mark of a coward and a fool. Not to say that I specifically agree with that assesment of Grendel, but that's pretty much how the story goes, and how Beowulf is portrayed: he was a hero BECAUSE he killed Grendel, not despite of it. Nor do I think that the ancient Briton's societal standards of virtue are better than ours - I do think that society has (generally) moved forwards in terms of moral and ethical thought. However, that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not Beowulf was a hero to the ancient Britons: he was a hero because he couragously killed things that needed to be killed for the good of the people. Now, because of that act, he may not be as much of a hero to you, or to many modern Westerners. But, again, that's my main point - heroism is culturally-defined. Your virtues may or may not necessicarily match up with the virtues of another culture, and as such their heroes may not be yours.

Re: "You're not a REAL Hero!" A hero is someone whose actions embody the virtues espoused by the society who labels them as such. That's why Hercules was considered an archtypical hero of the Greek people - his actions embodied the virtues of the ancient Greeks, even though he was more than a bit of an ***, got a lot of his friends killed, and (from what I recall) raped more than one Amazon in his day. So - was Hitler a hero of the German people? Yep. For a time, anyway: he embodied their desire to overcome the situation they were in, and his actions radically transformed German society. So, while he isn't a hero to (most) Germans NOW, he was certianly their hero to most Germans during the late 1930's. This is not to say that I agree with societal or moral relativism. Rather, the word "hero" is by definition a culturally-based word. That being said, most (stable) societies have a great many common virtues, including courage and self-sacrifice. No surprise there, as is seems resonable for a group to value someone who sacrifice their own well being for the good of the group, and who has the courage to maintain that conviction in the face of opposition. Anyway, a hero of one culture is perfectly able to be the hero of another, inasmuch as both cultures have overlapping virtues (such as courage). It's just not absolutely necessary for a hero of one people to be the hero of another - Vlad "the Impaler" Tepes, for example, is a hero and cultural icon to certian cultures in Eastern Europe, but most of what he did would be considered by today's standard to be barbaric and cruel. Re: heroism and stupidity - I will disagree with the belief that these are a continum. In fact, it has nothing whatsoever to do with being an exemplar of societal virtues, but it DOES have a related issue to Courage. As stated before, courage is a common societal virtue, as is self-sacrifice for the greater good. Thus, the heroes of most soceities will have large amounts of both. That being said, one who has courage is someone who stays in a dangerous situation until their job is done, and not one second longer. (That being the definition I got of 'courage' from a military digest I was reading.) Once your job is done, staying where you are isn't couragous: it's stupid. Thus, it sin't a continum - there's an explicit demarcation between the two.

Re: WWYCD: Crisis of Champions! Jake the Troll would spend the last hours with his parents and siblings. Other than that? Probably hang around a nearby Catholic church, talking to the priest and praying. He'd probably get really nervous as well, seeing as he's only really started learning how to be a superhero, and really hasn't done much of the 'save the city' thing, much less 'save the universe.' In the Earth II, he was probably some sort of 'monster occasionally on the side of right', like the Sub-Mariner. Shinji Miromoto is buddhist, and would consider this the ultimate in kharmic resolution. However, he's not THAT buddhist, and would probably get a bit panicky as the time got closer. Back in the alternate reality? Silver-Age asian supervillian, most likely. Probably some martial artist's nemesis, complete with fu manchu mustache and lots of rings.

Re: If You Had To Play a DC Character… Nope - I stopped keeping up about a year or so ago, when I realized that I was buying comics but not actually reading them. Nowadays, I pick up the occasional trade paperback that interests me (I do like Ultimate Spiderman for this reason), but mostly I'm taking a break from the publishing side of comics.

Re: If You Had To Play a DC Character… Tim Drake as Robin - mainly because I know him best from Young Justice and the (new) Teen Titans. He's a good martial artist, he's got the bat-charisma going, but he's more of a team player than Batman. I'd probably like Nightwing as well, but I just don't know him well enough to play him in a con game. I like Clark's personality and ethos more, but I'd probably prefer to play Kon-el as Superboy: Champions as a game system could handle his power level better than Superman, but Kon's got many of the same character elements and backstory. I also like that recently, he's living with the Kents. (Didn't care much for the "oh, the angst of being related to Lex Luthor!" thing, though.)

Re: If You Had To Play a Marvel Character…

Re: Invisable : Features I designed a character once that had "Farie Mists", of the White Wolf kind - the kind that made people's mind's hazy when trying to recall the individual's appearance. I did it as Invisibility, with the limitation "only vs. Identification". It worked OK for 1 or two senses, but in retrospect I probably should have taken it for all senses, which would have gotten pricey pretty fast.

Re: Can a Follower be bought with a Focus Limitation? I've built Followers with OIF as a variation of Summon that doesn't have the built-in "limited number of actions" effect. Basically, the OIF was the ritual/empowerment stone that summoned the Guardians of the Gates, but as long as the stone was empowered, the GoG's would hang around and, well, guard the gates. (it was a base power). That being said, this was coming in at the problem from a slightly different angle - bases are allowed to have followers (I think), so I just slapped the OIF on top of that in order to make it fit more with the character concept.

Re: Danger Sense vs. Invisibility (and vice versa)

Re: If You Had To Play a Marvel Character… Note that I'm answering this as "which would I like to play as or with in a con game and why, rather than which characters I think are really cool." Anyway, another chime-in for Spiderman: in terms of playing him as a character, his powerset is simple enough (and well-known enough) that people understand both its versatility and its limitations, and as such would be more comfortable using the Champions write-up as a guideline, rather than as a limit. Also another vote for the professional, competent Cyclops - he's a one-trick pony that has built up enough experience to have more depth than he started out with, and is by necessity an excellent team player. Also another character whose power is easy to understand ("I blast stuff") so that the inevitable multipower write-up would be looked at as a starting point, rather than as a restriction. Not Wolverine - I'd say that a write-up loyal to the actual adamantium-based character (don't care for the bony version) would be too hard to balance in team play: either he's neigh-unstoppable, or else he's Magneto's sock puppet. He also tends to be too much of a loner to be really fun for RPing, unless it was a duo with Jubilee or the movie Rogue.