Robyn

Re: Power fuild help needed: Transform+AOE I would say, to prevent the "transformation into lava" that was pointed out in the other thread, that the power should be forced to take the limitation "must also affect the Body of all other substances on top of it". So, if the player wants to turn a bay into steam, he has to get a high enough result to Transform all the ships too, and their inhabitants (this will probably be just impossible, if you let the highest Body of each substance stack).

Re: Power fuild help needed: Transform+AOE One of the options for an Area of Effect power is "Nonselective Target", meaning you must roll to hit against each individual target. This seemed close, but doesn't directly bear on what you're trying to do here. However, my belief is this: like any AOE attack that affects an area in which several characters are standing, you affect all of those targets equally (you don't split damage between them). So, you would roll once for damage, and apply that individually to each Hex in your Area of Effect. Your friend may be thinking of trying to "spread" an Energy Blast, which does reduce the damage for each target, whether you hit them all or not.

Re: Heat of the Moment One of the first games I was in had a player who was arguing with the GM as I tried to create my character. The first time, the GM asked "Tom. Who's the GM?", and Tom (not his real name, I'm using 'Tom' to protect him from identification) said "You are." The second time, the GM looked up from his books and said "Tom, roll 6d8 instead of 10d8 for hit dice." The player looked up and said "What? Why?" and the GM interrupted him by repeating, more firmly, "Roll 6d8 for hit dice." Tom got the hint and shut up, rolling 6d8 (or at least I assume so, since I was too busy with my own character to try and figure out what everyone else around the table was doing). I took the hint too, though. One of the nicer things about The Dying Earth was the number of "core gaming assumptions" that it spelled out in the rules, after reading through so many other gaming sourcebooks that didn't mention anything of the sort (even a little note from the makers of the game saying "we don't care how you do it"). For example, But letting the players know about rules that have been eliminated and altered isn't such a big problem, even when the rules have been heavily modified from their original form; The rules in TDE were amazingly simple; roll 1d6. If you got a 3 or above, you succeeded. There were complications (like bonuses or penalties to the roll), but nothing complex. You just had to remember that there were no "naturals"; if the GM asked you to roll with a 3-point penalty, she was essentially telling you that the task was impossible, but seeing if you were so dense at math as to attempt it anyway I also loved The Overarching Rule of Efficacious Blandishment: The Dying Earth game is, in many ways, about creating the most amusing story. If good fun is what you're after, and you're willing to sacrifice realism and strictly enforced rules for it, you'd probably enjoy just reading the book if you can't find a game in your area

Re: Need Clarification: Extra-Dimensional Movement

Re: Heat of the Moment

Re: Characters that give you nightmares trying to design Hey, I didn't say they could make time resume again That would be an interesting "useless power": time stops, the effect wears off, noone realizes that anything had happened. Now, making the effect have "extended duration" might kill people from starvation

Re: Heat of the Moment

Re: Heat of the Moment It's when they have conflicting Disadvantages that I'm thinking about, and I've been wondering how to handle Variable Point Disadvantages to balance it, but all in all I've not yet seen a way to implement it that isn't more trouble than it's worth.

Re: Heat of the Moment There is a difference between "real" and "realistic". Most people either don't realize or don't acknowledge this difference, however.

Re: Heat of the Moment Exactly . . . I have a house rule called "the Metagaming Influence" which, in retrospect, was another of those mechanics I put into place which are really nothing more than a formalization of what every sane gaming group already does . . . but, I think I'll keep it as a rule, since I remember now why I did it: because of those rules lawyers who insist that you can't do anything if it's not explicitly spelled out in the book. The effect was to allow me, as GM, to over-rule any player in their description of the campaign world or of their character (or their character's actions), based on information that I had not made available to them before. The reason I called it the "Metagame Influence" rule was that this information could have been unknown to them either because I simply hadn't had a chance to tell them yet, or because the influences were due to some larger part of the world and the plot which was keeping itself secret (in other words "I know it doesn't make sense for these politicians to be acting like this, and I can't tell you whether it's because of pressure from above or something else, but that is how they're behaving; you'll just have to trust me on this, for now."), and naming it for the former wouldn't have resulted in nearly such a cool name In the case of the former, the passing of time in-game would take a short break as I filled in the player on what they hadn't known, whereupon the player says something like "Oh, I wouldn't have done that if I had realized . . . " (when I've just revealed a difference from the situation that would be expected in the real world), and then we resume with some alteration of past actions, and the player proposes other actions after reconsidering, in light of the new information. In the case of the latter, my invocation of this rule would be my promise that, eventually, the reasons would become available later on as in-character knowledge. I deem this a good balance since, normally, "metaplot" reasons would only become available to the players

Re: Need Clarification: Extra-Dimensional Movement

Re: Characters that give you nightmares trying to design Speed Drain, AOE Megascale: the planet, No Visible Power Effect (All Sense Groups)

Re: Where would you go? And are you going to give it to them?

Re: Spell build help needed: Transform + AOE Does the Transform in 5ER automatically make it easier to change substances into related substances, or would I be able to take that as a Limitation? For example, if I wanted to change glass into sand, would that be cheaper than changing glass into ice?

Re: Need Clarification: Extra-Dimensional Movement

Re: Where would you go? I don't understand, are you saying the players will be going somewhere special for spring break or their characters will?

Re: You've taken over the world. Now what? I take myself and all the money to a big hole in the ground, have my minions build a big dungeon around us, and then take up guardian positions. We wait for the heroes to come to us.

Re: Need Clarification: Extra-Dimensional Movement

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... In the first episode of Sci-Fi's "The Invisible Man", he tries to meet up with an agent in a foreign country by "the usual means". This means, apparently, hanging out in the marketplace with half a ticket of some sort, trying to meet up with the person who has the other half of your ticket. Lounging around there, he spots this guy who is obviously a government agent (tall, well-muscled, wearing a suit). The guy has been eying him, and steps forward to ask if he's looking for someone. So he answers "Yeah, I'm supposed to meet someone here.", and pulls out his ticket. The agent shows an obviously different ticket, and they both look down for several seconds, then uncomfortably glance around for a few seconds, not wanting to look at each other, then the agent saunters off.

Re: Need Clarification: Extra-Dimensional Movement I can picture a strafing run with the hero blipping sideways to evade defensive fire, maintaining their general course and heading.

Re: Need Clarification: Extra-Dimensional Movement

Re: Heat of the Moment

Re: Heat of the Moment I'm actually thinking of a slightly broader concept, one which wouldn't require the player to stat their character's entire personality (basically, reducing it to numbers, which, though I believe can be done in approximations {to indicate probability for large groups of people}, is a daunting task at best when it comes to the finer points of any individual). I'd like a "conflict" to be recognized from more than just what is written down on the character sheet and gives them points; I want it to include anything that is known about the character. I like the "points in game", it nicely reflects the "tagline" system in The Dying Earth (players would draw 1-3 taglines from a hat when the game began, then earn experience in-game for using them in an appropriate and amusing way). There's not much parallel between working out a way to use a given line in play, and finding a way to make your Disadvantages enter play, but I'll have to think about this one.

Re: Need Clarification: Extra-Dimensional Movement

Re: Need Clarification: Extra-Dimensional Movement