Yansuf

Re: Las Vegas 5E

Re: GM Question: Social Equity Being old enough to remember those things personally, I can tell you that the US is a VERY Different place today. Yes, we have wackos who want to expell/kill all the (fill in the blank.) But none of these wackos have widespread popular support, and the US and state governments will move in fast to close down any that actually do anything. (40+ years ago that was not true.) I can accept that Marvel's universe has more bigots and wackos than ours, but not that major portions of the population and government support them. A fear of super powered beings is quite believable, but I cannot "suspend my disbelief" at people being utterly respectfull of Thor but feeling hatred of Kitty Pride.

Re: GM Question: Social Equity Bravo!

Re: WWYCD my hero a villian? Please understand I am NOT trying to be insulting, or start a flame war. But, you sound like you are not old enough to remember the 1960's. Am I right? Back then many USN warships carried nuclear weapons. Putting a SSBN in the South China Sea would have nothing to do with Viet Nam, if the US wanted to nuke Viet Nam any of the CVs off the coast could do it, as could the missile cruisers. The US still had bases on Luzon within easy range, and nukes were stored there. Etc. In any event, I believe SSBNs in the Pacific did operate in the South China Sea routinely. Even without the two crews, a commisioned USN ship cannot disappear without it being noticed and questioned. The only way to make it disappear is to say that it was lost at sea. There are MANY other reasons why the "cover-up" you discribed would not work, BTW. To answer your question: If Undertow would not (could not?) get us or the US Government in contact with a Lemurian government for talks, my character(s) would help the US Government recover (or destroy) the sub and weapons. I would try to talk Undertow into accepting this, but if he wouldn't (seems likely from your discription) my character(s) would use force. If I was running the US Government in that campaign, same answer. We would try to negotiate, but if that failed we would use (overwhelming) force. Regarding your question: "What form could negotiations take? What reperations could the US govt offer that would seem to be right, but not a corrupting influence?"; I don't know. It would depend on what Undertow/the Lemurians do. Reparations are normally money, but I am sure the government would be willing to offer the equivalent in almost any kind of supplies or raw materials. What would the Lemurians value that the surface world has?

Re: 1d6 1/2 vs. 2d6-1; your thoughts For low level games (normal characteristic maxima applied) I like to make every point of STR count. For normal damage, 10 STR is 2d6, and 15 STR is 3d6; so I use STR=12 -->1d6+1 STR=13 -->1.5d6 STR=14 -->2d6-1 STR=15 -->3d6 STR=16 -->3d6+1 STR=18 -->3.5d6 STR=19 -->4d6-1 STR=20 -->4d6 STR=11 gives an extra point of stun over STR=10, as does STR=17 vs 16. For superhero games I generally don't bother though.

Re: Casual Survey: Age of players and Hero's utility vs. other games I started wargaming in the late 50's early 60's with Avalon Hill's games: Tactics II, Gettysburg, D-Day, etc. I started RPGing in 1973 or 74, while I was in the army. That was D&D, the 3 small booklets. I started playing Champions in 1981 or 82, first edition. Oh, I'm 57. Maybe I should call myself "the old man"?

Re: WWYCD my hero a villian? Interesting. Before answering your questions, I must make a few points. First, I have looked through Champions Universe a few minutes ago, and cannot find any reference to the Bikini test hurting a Lemurian City. Can you provide a page reference? (And which edition.) Second, it would be impossible for the US Governement to hide the loss of a commisioned USN vessel for more than a few months, even if it wasn't an SSBN, which have two crews which switch off. For your backstory to make sense, it should be that the sub was "lost at sea". It is possible the USN might say its patrol area was not in the South China Sea, but that is about as far as a coverup could go. (Why they would do this is beyond me, in that time period SSBNs routinely patrolled within range of the USSR, in the North Sea, the Med, and even the Artic Ocean, and everyone knew it.) Minor quibble: in 1968 such a sub would have had 16 missiles, although one or two might have been satellite launchers (to replensh commo and spy satellites during a war); the posidon missiles were MIRV'd, I think 14 warheads each, but my memory might be faulty. In any event, it would have many more than 40 nukes aboard, even assuming it didn't carry any Subroc's or Mk45's. But that is not important. Your questions are: Where does your character come down on this. Is Undertow a villian, or Hero? Yes (What happens next will determine what he will be in the future, but to date he has been a hero whose country was in conflict with the US.) Does he have a right to keep the missiles? Depends. Is he acting for the Lemurian governement? (Do the Lemurians even have a government?) If so, then there is another nuclear power in the world. My character(s) would insist that Undertow get the US Government in touch with the Lemurian government to open talks. If the answer is no, would explain to him that individuals with nukes make everyone very nervous. Would expect discussion to be extended. How would your character try to resolve the situation? With negotiations, unless Undertow initiated violence. How would the Government in your campaign respond? Since I am not currently GMing, I have no clue. If this was in the old campaigns I used to GM, they would try negotiations. If the talks were with a Lemurian government, the US would apoligize for the loss of life, explaining that we didn't know they existed. If we had known that they were there, we wouldn't have done the test there. Offer reparitions, but try to get the sub back. If the negotiations go nowhere, eventually force might be used, but I would do a bunch of die rolls for the government leaders to check their reactions. (I might also consider the nature of who were the national leaders at the time, or I might just say there were different ones in my universe, I really don't know. It might depend on my mood.) If Undertow does not put us in touch with a Lemurian government, the first step would be trying to talk, but it would probably (eventually) lead to use of force to recover (or destroy) the weapons.

Re: An Avengers Campaign

Re: Classic Sci-Fi Novels for Scenario Ideas Wow! I can't believe he has a copy of "The Runaway Skyscraper!" Looks like some good stuff, thanks.

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars Special operations is the most likely to have multi-service, except for higher HQ which are often "joint" but probably wouldn't be much fun to play. If all but one are in the same sevice, the other could be either a liason officer or on an "exchange" program. For example, the Navy player could be a naval gunfire control officer attached to either an army or marine unit. I don't know how well that will play in the game however. It largely depends on what kind of "missions" you plan on running. If they are a special ops team to be inserted "behind enemy lines" they could easily be multi-service. While in recent generations the US has tended to go with single service teams, in WWII this was not always the case.

Re: Battlestar galactica pistols. Did Barret make the new round, or are they just using the 25mm round that the US Army used in the last trial of the new "individual weapon system?" That one is a controlled fragmentation munition.

I have always felt that having the "only one hex" modifier the same as the "explosive" modifier wasn't right. I think that +1/4 would be a more appropriate modifier. Anyone agree with me?

Re: UV vision IR vision is defined as seeing heat, it is therefore equivalent to "thermal imagery" sensors. Yes, very hot sources can blind such sensors, just like a bright light in your eyes can dazzle you. Flares are used to dazzle night vision gear, for example.

Re: UV vision

Re: Superconductors

Re: Rubber science or revolutions in physics? There is a post on this in the superconductor thread. BTW, the most important point from that, IMHO, is showing one of the places where quantum theory and general relativity give radically different results. Since, it is relativity that predicts causality problems with FTL, I find this encouraging.

Re: Superconductors

Re: question about Israle soldier character. Shin Bet is roughly equivalent to the FBI.

Re: Making a Post-Apoc "logical" Yes. Modern "smokeless" powder is very different from old time "black" powder.

Re: question about Israle soldier character. You might check out the following site: http://www.isayeret.com

Re: Martial Arts in the Pulp era

Re: What I learned playing a fighter... As a retired SCA fighter (with more than 12 years) I endorse the above. As a seperate lesson: find some friends and train together. A shield wall (even a short one) backed by long spears is deadly, just make sure they cannot turn your flank.

Re: Weapon of war vs. Weapon of terror Actually, that is a direct quote from Col O'Neil in one episode. For infantry combat in atmosphere, projectile weapons have many advantages over DEW. Any Directed Energy Weapon with a high enough energy density to be deadly will leave a visible trace in an earth type atmosphere. It may interest some of you to know that most of the devices of the original Buck Rogers (actually he was originally named Anthony Rogers) are currently obsolete. The gyrojet corporation had weapons very similar to the ones he (and his friends) used available in the 1960's, they went out of business because standard firearms were more efficient. Actually, in the TV series Stargate SG-1 the Air Farce is shown as having no clue about how to run ground operations. Against modern American or NATO troops with normal heavy weapons (mortars particularly) the Jaffa would have no chance at all unless they have orbital support.

Re: What I learned playing a fighter... The first rule of the gunfighter: Be sure you have a gun. With you.

Re: Making a Post-Apoc "logical" The old FGU game "Aftermath" had a nice section on different ways "the world" (or civilization) could end. However, to get to a "Gamma World" status, you need centuries or even millenium after the fall if you are trying to be "realistic" or logical. The death rate would have to be so high that the survivors would not include enough people with technical skills and knowledge to restart civilization in the short term (a generation or three) and so the knowledge is lost. If you have read "Earth Abides" that is a reasonable scenario. If the game is set 500 years or more after the fall, some "mutated" or genetically engineered critters could be there, but to get many varieties you either need a "someone was doing a massive genetic engineering project" that released its results just after the fall; or you have to ignore conventional reality and use comic book type logic. BTW, the nuclear winter theory was totally false. They took two data points and put a non-linear curve through them to get their results.