The Mad GM

Re: Whimsical Ninjas

When they make the movie, Ninja-man's shuriken will shoot from glands in his wrists.

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

When eating at the restaurant, one of the PCs is handed a menu in an undecipherable and possibly alien or arcane language. It is immediately swapped out by the embarrassed, frightened waitress. No one on the staff ever mentions it again.

Or, the pages of the menu change subtly (or perhaps not so subtly) when you page back and forth. You can never find the drink list or the list of salad dressings until the waitress points them out, and even then they change when you go back to reference them. You order an entree, and the waitress says they don't serve it, and when you point it out in the menu it is something different. The only constant is the Soup of the Day.

Out of the corner of your eye, the text reads 'human' but reads 'hunan' when you look closer. The photos look horrific as the pages open, but when you look directly at them, they appear normal, though vaguely unappetizing for no particular reason.

Other tables seem to be served by a different menu entirely. Not better, necessarily, but different (Italian versus Mexican).

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

A man in the uniform of the hotel is seen watering the plants in the lobby. The plants are obviously plastic. He doesn't acknowledge any questions, and merely cowers if threatened. He seems to live in a basement store room, but that room holds nothing but mannequins, some of which resemble other people in the hotel, people you haven't seen in a while. The plants, meanwhile, are growing.

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

Okay, I get the creepy, I'm just not sure how this relates to a hotel.

Re: Power Build: Super Archery

And remember. It's your game. If you find something that you like, and it's not strictly legal, do it anyway. Steve Long will not come over to your house and take away your dice.

 

Then go and rip all the tags off your mattresses.

No, that's Osiris's job

Re: Super Metals

A friend of mine had something called Heartstone in his fantasy campaign- a magical metal that could only be worked when bathed in tears, but was invulnerable otherwise.

I had a type of wood that could only be carved or worked in any way by the pure of heart. Pure good or pure evil didn't matter. That meant a staff used to smack a demon would shatter, unless there was a smidgen of good in him.

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

Has everyone seen the trailer for 1408?

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/31366

Re: Batman's Utility Belt

Batman utility belt should be a at least a 50 pt reserve so the devices and weapons can use the proper special effects. He should have at least a 30 PT vpp for those omni gadgets with the limitation-can only changed back at the batcave.

But to simulate the fact that he always has the appropriate gadget, it should'nt be limited.

Found this link on Wired News:

http://members.fortunecity.com/kainwind/archive.html

Supposed to be a well researched list of the items Batman has ever pulled from his utility belt.

Re: Wizard's immunity to the magical SFX they use

A no-value modifier? That would neatly avoid criticisms of either approach' date=' though it does raise once more the questions of whether mandatory -0 Limitations / +0 Advantages need to be present on the character sheet at all, or can just be "campaign rules".[/quote']

 

It helps to have it explicit in the power, especially if they ever want to port the character to a different game three years later, and seemed to remember being immune to fireballs for some reason.

Re: Wizard's immunity to the magical SFX they use

I hadn't thought that far. To go with the single (if still rather vague ) character idea I had in mind, though, the magic either envelops or is just inside a wizard; it's with him at all times, and any effects that make contact are absorbed/dispersed and drawn back into the source by that same connection which allows the wizard to cast spells in the first place. Assuming they share that source, of course. Equipment might be affected.

 

On the bright side, if multiple fire mages were on the same team, one of them could lure the opponents into combat and then another could center a fireball on the melee

A little off topic, but is this ability one the character has to turn on, or is it just something he has? Can he pump up that ability to protect others, etc? Just thinking out loud.

I think it would get swallowed up, though AOE spells (such as fireball) would not be entirely cancelled (a single fire mage standing with arms akimbo against an onrushing wall of flame would leave a mage-sized hole in the wall as it rushed onward, perhaps leaving room for others to dash through).

 

For continuous effects, the GM might rule that the flame was constantly renewing (how else does it avoid flickering and going out?), and therefore heals up "holes" made in it as the mage passes through, so the mage's body can't be used like an extinguisher/eraser

Skippy's brother Pinky Pearl, otoh...

Not to be picky about details, but Parallax wasn't part of the Central Battery; he just lived there. To answer your question in the spirit with which (I think) it was intended, contradicting limitations and immunities are resolved in accordance with the will of any entity responsible for all of them.

I withdraw the question.

If the spell has worn off (so the forest fire is only raging because his magic is still keeping it that way), I could look to SFX for whether the spell was just keeping conditions hot and dry (fanning the flames), or actually making things burn. Of course, since Skippy cast the spell himself, I might disallow immunity anyway (he only gets immunity to the spells of other fire magi, his own have to be let through or he would never be able to use beneficial spells on himself).

 

Secondary consequences of spells aren't blocked. You can use Levitate to lift something heavy, move it over the target's head, and let go; you can't slam it directly into them, because your magic is the only thing making it move, and it harmlessly comes to a stop when it gets near the target's body.

 

There are, of course, other uses here that a clever player may try. My intent is not to lay out exact rules for them to try finding loopholes in; most of these questions will be up to the GM running a game, possibly decided at the moment such a situation arises.

I was just trying to get a sense of the effects.

The problem with doing this as a defensive power was that they're linear; the cost varies depending on how much you put into it, meaning that more powerful magi (with more points to spend) will be "absolutely defended" and their magical strength can easily overwhelm the defenses of weaker magi. Even the highest level of Damage Reduction doesn't provide 100% resistance.

Personally I'm a more dramatic storyteller than a rules person. But I prefer to have a consistent view of something so others can work out unusual uses I hadn't thought of, and still be in line with me initial intention. One of the ways I do this is try to think of what-if scenarios. I'm not trying to find loopholes, I'm trying to refine a concept.

Re: Wizard's immunity to the magical SFX they use

Reasoning from effect: If a bad guy cast a fireball at a group containing a fire mage (let's call him Skippy), does it fizzle (dispel/suppress)? or does the fire mage and any equipment he's carrying simply not get effected while his compatriots burn?

Alternately: Skippy throws himself in front of a flame arrow to save a companion. Does it fizzle on his chest or zip through as if he wasn't there?

Or: Skippy's group is entangled in a cage of solid flame (work with me here), Skippy can just walk out and leave his friends behind?

In other words, can Green Lantern walk through yellow walls?

Or: Skippy accidentally starts a forest fire. Will the normal fire affect him? If I was Skippy, I'd have some sort of fire defense, above and beyond anything campaign specific.

If an intelligent being is granting the powers, he might simply not allow a spell to go off that would hurt a follower. That would be a limitation on the spell. Almost everything else feels like a defense power.

Personally I'd make it some sort of defense power, possibly Damage Reduction, only versus "college of magic"

Re: Real-world artifact suitable for gaming

You can find images of the pages at this link:

http://highway49.library.yale.edu/photonegatives/

enter voynich manuscript in the search field. I don't think it's the whole thing, but if nothing else it's a great visual aid source.

Re: The Rainbow Orchid - a pulp era webcomic

Yeah, I just lost a morning reading through the archives myself! I came over here to post it but you beat me to it! Rep for you!

Re: Millenium City Salt Mines

It's odd that the story resurfaces (no pun intended) after almost exactly a year. I like the Slug references!

Saw an article on digg that talks about salt mines under Detroit:

http://info.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?id=17&category=business

Re: Moden Ruins

Really cool. I especially like the armory.

If you google "urban exploration" you can find some stuff like this, but I like the photographic quality of these.

Re: Power Build: Super Archery

okay, that was silly. If you want to do three separate attack powers, buy three separate attack powers: Entangle arrow, Damage Arrow, Flash Arrow, and do an MPA.

If you want to hit three targets with a single type of arrow, buy autofire (or Area of Effect, Selective).

If you want to do three different attacks on three separate targets in one phase, buy three powers, with AoE, selective, and do a MPA.

If you want to hit one target with three of the same attack, just buy more dice and call it a special effect.

Re: Power Build: Super Archery

Or you could buy two Duplicates, make it instant, so they only stick around long enough to fire off the other two arrows.

Re: Raiding the Icebox

Hmmm... wasn't Plan Orange for Japan? See, e.g.,

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Color-coded_War_Plans

 

In any event, you're right that there's some fascinating material for alternate history Pulp military campaigns out there! See also Hector Bywater's book The Great Pacific War.

I wonder if that's where Quentin Tarantino got his idea for character names for Reservoir Dogs.

"Why do I have to be Mr. Pink?"

Re: Clever Future Weapons

I'm lazy and didn't check the rest of the thread. Has anyone mentioned this centrifugal slug-thrower?

Yep. It sounds a little pie-in-the-sky, but what the heck. I keep thinking that round bullets were replaced by their modern conterpart in large measure for accuracy. This seems like a very powerful shotgun more than anything else.

I like the lack of a significant heat signature.

Re: Clever Future Weapons

My character Slingshot needs one of these:

http://www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=526

I like the weapon in "Footfall" that basically consisted of a meteor strike launched from orbit. Like mini-nukes without the radioactive fallout. Admittedly, this works best if the planet in question has a much lower tech level, no space forces, etc.

I think most big weapon advances will be in the disabling or containing variety. Until armor gets much better, putting holes in things is not a big problem. Locating which thing to put the hole in is a much bigger problem.

Re: Jack-Jack Parr

...on only what ability he may need in that instant.

Doesn't really qualify as a limt.

Re: Herophile Fantasy art

What, no uvula?

 

Nice.

We have to keep the boards PG.

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

Rape Man

I think I know this guy.