Kesedrith

I get this quite a bit.

This reminds me of a game I played in, in which we role played, as a team, coming up with "calls" for particular tactics. Since our tactical leader was a Braves fan, most of them were baseball terms: squeeze, bunt, go for the fence, etc. In combat, he would actually call out one of these terms, and people knew to hold actions or get ready to coordinate the attacks as appropriate. To me, that is the tactics and intelligence part of the equation.

This. Not everything needs a build. To me a smart phone would be, at most, an environmental factor allowing for a bonus to a skill roll or a minor change environment (using it as a flashlight really isn't that good due to the rather limited range, but might be useful to see the wires you're working when trying to defuse a bomb in the dark, so +1). In the end, that means it's kind of like the rain, fog, snow, etc. It provides a modifier as appropriate and decided by the GM at the time and for the circumstance. Seriously, you just don't have to build everything, unless it's as a mental exercise, which is cool and all, but sometimes futile. I could see a smart phone adding up to quite a chunk of CP if you seriously entered -everything- they can do: eidetic memory (camera and audio recorder), +1 to pretty much every skill out there (it's amazing what you can find on the internet), flashlight (1 hex change environment), radio communication (okay, so technically microwave, but how nitpicky do you really want to get). In short, the bloody things can be as good, or as limited, as the skill and knowledge of the user allows for. When you consider how fragile the things actually are, and therefore easily removed from the equation anyway, and to me it's just not worth it except as that mental exercise.

I'm not disagreeing on that, but there are other means of extracting energy other than respiration. Fermentation works good, and while we don't have any evidence that complex organisms can use this method, there's nothing that would preclude it. Considering the fermentation reaction only produces 2 ATP in the reaction chain (as opposed to like 8 - if I'm remembering the cycle correctly - for the respirative chain), we could make some suppositions about what such organisms would be like. First, they would likely be much slower moving than we are. Slower in thinking, if that's an issue, also. They would also need to ingest huge quantities of complex carbohydrates to fuel that more inefficient digestive reaction. Cosmetically they would also likely stink to high heaven from our perspective (think of a giant, walking, fermentation vat). Of course oxygen would be horribly toxic to them, so that last may not come into play as one of us would have to be in environment suits the entire time. There's also sulfide reactions that are known to be bufferable and can produce energy for biology, and recently some methane and ethane based reactions have been proposed to account for the lack of certain organics in the atmosphere of Titan. Again, these reaction chains are lower efficiency than the aerobic reactions that have appeared, but it is possible.

Now, are we talking about life, or intelligent life? Because I'm thinking if we get out there we're going to find we're tripping all over life. There's been extremophiles found on our own planet at the bottom of the deepest drill cores, in glaciers, in nuclear reactors, in acidic and basic waters that will eat steel, in methane and brine seeps at the bottom of the oceans, and pretty much everywhere we've looked on Earth. Therefore this notion of "the right mass, temperature range, etc." is likely incorrect, as we're having to adjust that with our sample size of one. If there's liquid water, an available source of energy, and the right mix of chemicals, life's there. I may amend that as we learn more about Europa and Enceladus, but it does seem the case. (Mars may have once had life too, but it's looking increasingly unlikely that it's still "hanging on." As the list above shows, if life exists, it doesn't just hang on, it adapts and fills the environment.) On the other hand, we unfortunately have a sample size of only one for intelligence, but we do know from that size of one, that complex life is less likely, and right on up the chain. It seems reasonable from the energy standpoint too, as roughly a third of your caloric intake per day goes to fueling that 3-pound lump on top of your shoulders. If it doesn't offer a pretty significant survival advantage for your environment, it's reasonable to say that that energy is going to be expended elsewhere, or simply not taken in in the first place. So I think in all the space opera and everything else, that they're right in showing life everywhere, but I think it's going to be mostly bacteria/microscopic, so lots of seaweed and slime, etc., and I also believe much of it will prove anaerobic. (Oxygen really is vile stuff! Our type of life just developed means of countering its toxic effects....for awhile.) I'm just not so sure that we're going to be bumping into ruins of ancient civilizations, or have them meeting us with smiles and open arms when we kick on the first warp field. Of course I've always thought it could be quite fun to run the constant threat of all the things on another planet that could think we, or our innards are delicious and with no defenses against them, even without intelligence behind it.

I must admit that this is also a favorite source of speculation for me. Examples from our own history include things like the Baghdad Batteries or that the steam engine was actually invented at least as early as 100 BC in the form of the aelipile (Hero's engine as an example). Basically, technology is not a linear process, and it does not necessarily all advance together. It is not impossible that we could have had automobiles, but only just be discovering antibiotics. So how does this tie in with the discussion of this thread? Well, perhaps we get out into space and meet an intelligent species that has an evolutionary history derived from a hypercarnivore. They have ridiculous weapons, "okay" space flight technology, but their medical skills are pitiful by comparison. They just didn't think that way because it was all about the hunt, the kill. One of your family/clan/team gets hurt? Well, you bring them food, keep them warm, and hope they get better. In short, humans could be dangerous simply because, as is the case here on our own planet, we're just damn good generalists. We're not super at anything, but we're "good enough" at pretty much everything.

What do you get when you cross an octopus with a cow? A visit from the ethics committee and immediate revocation of your funding.

Pretty much right, yes. Even with a rate of large star formation that was higher than present, there's a huge volume to spread material through in even a small galaxy. Now, again, it's not a model that doesn't go without protest. There's galaxy collisions going on to get all those heavier elements mixed in at a higher rate than just turbulent flow in the rotating galactic system, stirring from supernovae and high stellar winds involved with lower mass stars going to planetary nebulae, and things such as that. Still, the thing to look at is that even a 300 solar mass star (the believed limit in the primordial universe), it's still going to produce a comparatively small amount of its mass as heavy elements, an even smaller amount of that (since it's at the core) is going to get expelled before the core collapses to a black hole, and when you spread that around a galaxy...there's just not that much being mixed into new stars from any one. Therefore, yes, it could potentially take several billion years' worth just to get appreciable levels into the new stars. Consider that roughly 8 billion years passed between the Bang and our Sun forming, and it still only has 1.34% of its mass as elements heavier than helium. Granted that means it doesn't take a lot of those heavier elements to allow for planets like Earth, but at the same time, wow! In that much time, that's all that got mixed in. I would say you're correct about it not changing the Drake Equation much. All it really does is shift that it's not 13.4 billion years for it to be in operation, but more like four to maybe six. I'm also not trying to say this is what happened, but it's something to consider: humans may very well be one of the first emerging intelligences, which is why we haven't heard or seen anybody else: we're all at about the same level, just starting to make steps off of our starting rocks. To me, it's an interesting bit of speculation to work with, as you can likely guess from this.

Exciting as in, "Oh god! Oh god! We're all going to die!"?

I'm not recommending this, but it -is- an option: the character is the mecha with a multiform to a ~50 or 75 point base "human." I don't think I'd go that route with Robotech, where all the mecha come in pretty standardized forms, but there are some mecha-anime out there, that could be used as source material, where the mechs take on abilities and capabilities based on their pilot.

I'm going to bring up an unpopular, but quite likely, answer to the Fermi Paradox: we're one of the "Elder Civilizations." Many people don't like this idea, but the original universe was hydrogen and helium with a beyond minuscule smattering of lithium, beryllium, and boron. Folks, you just aren't likely to put together life, much less complex, intelligent life, with that combination. Given that we've got a pretty good handle on even early universe star formation and supernova events (that latter is both how you get heavier elements and get them scatter about galaxies), as well as mixing rates to get those heavy elements mixed in so they're both spread and in sufficient quantity to enable rocky planets, much less this whole life thing, and when you run the numbers, our Sun was likely one of those that formed in the earliest time frame where there would have been enough of the elements needed (carbon, oxygen, silicon, iron, etc.). Now, that is plus or minus a few million years, and a lot could happen in a few million years, but the point is, there may not -be- any older intelligent life out there. We very easily simply could be among the first. Now, feed that into your "here come the humans!" scenarios. To me another issue in human-alien interactions is that even if they are out there, and more advanced technologically and otherwise, I find it doubtful that our planet would be terribly hospitable to them, or theirs to us. That said, perhaps interactions will be on the amicable side as we can mine and get into places after resources that they can't, and vice versa. But I suppose that's a whole different conversation, isn't it?

I've been reading this the whole time and can't help but think of the Kung Fu movie I saw once with a "master" who could still be kicked/punched/etc., but throws and sweeps just failed. He simply rolled around the individual, using the force of motion intended to knock him down, to keep his feet, no matter what they did. Seeing him doing this was funny, whether it was intended as such or not. All that said, the best way to model that, I'd think, would simply be obscene levels of DCV, only vs. throws, sweeps, etc.

To counter this move by the speedster, there's always spreading out the thugs, so he can only reach one or two, or having a sniper in place and ready, holding an action, for when he starts that move. Tag! Your it! Seems to be simpler counters than chaining guns to heavy objects.

Hmmm....I think I'd have to see the build on this one. I mean it is a defensive power, so the abort is technically allowed. That said, I've seen too many builds where the Damage Shield was clearly designed to be its own attack, rather than just a "back off" sort of thing, where anyone too close (or in one case a mental DS) got a buzz for the duration they were there. Edit: I see eepjr24 beat me to this response, and was a bit more articulate in the issue.

I'm hoping the players can exert -some- control over it. Otherwise this sounds like it'll end up being a "Sliders" campaign with them constantly trying to find the puzzle combination to send them....home.

I'll offer the alternative that I'm not sure the standard drone wouldn't be better modeled as an automaton. They really don't seem possible to stun is why I'm saying this. Yes they suffer some blowback from taking non-killing hits, but then they just keep on coming. They're almost zombie like in that regard, and since the recommendations for making zombies that I've always seen involve making them as automatons....Well, there it is. Even the rudimentary intelligence/training could be simulated as "programs" from a computer type perspective with little to no individual volition. Again, definitely subject to interpretation, and this would only be in regard to the common drones. All of the others seemed able to be stunned and had a lot more in the way of personal motivation.

If you're using turn mode on flight powers, I'd also suggest putting some skill levels to counter the turn mode on it to simulate that whole insta-warp thing it does.

Because it doesn't? It's completely unrelated to the hit roll unless you specifically try to hit a particular target location, and then, of course, it makes even making the contact harder to do. The hit location is a completely separate roll, if it's even used, so there is no connection to the hit roll at all....unless you're doing that specific targeting, in which case, yes, it makes it more difficult.

This is getting close to how I have come to view things, and part of why I no longer even entertain the notion of "critical hits." The hit roll itself has absolutely nothing to do with accuracy of the hit. It is simply a roll made to determine whether or not you made contact on this attack. The DAMAGE roll is where accuracy comes in. A good damage roll is a well placed hit. A low damage roll....eh...not so much. This gives incentive to not "sandbag" (to use a term from the card game Spades), and simply throw everything you have into OCV when it's not needed. You already have a base -14 roll to hit that target (translated as you seem to be making contact anytime you please), then maybe you don't need to focus on just trying to hit him, and instead shift some of those skill levels to DC and place the shot well to do more damage instead. Rolling well above what you need on the hit roll is not being more accurate, it's just going overkill on making sure you at least tap them on the shoulder.

I can't believe I missed mentioning this one: Nickola Tesla (1856 - 1943). He was even accused of being a time traveler from the future because of his brilliant, forward thinking. He laid down the principles for radio, radar, modern AC power, and many other things. On the subject of radio, Marconi is given credit for its invention, but the issue with that is he used Tesla's designs and 20 of his patents. Tesla himself, when told of it, was said to have commented, "Great. Marconi is doing good work."

For a town this size, there should likely also be a theater and/or music house.

Nanny McPhee is another story/movie along this line. The movie has one of my favorite quotes, and to me is indicative of the "cost" of magic - there are rules. There is something you should understand about the way I work. When you need me but do not want me, then I must stay. When you want me but no longer need me, then I have to go. It's rather sad, really, but there it is.

I didn't notice anyone mentioning gem cutter. Sure you might be able to fashion the nice, soft metals with silver and gold smithing, but if you want any gemstones in those settings, you need someone that knows how to properly cut (it's actually quite difficult getting the crown, facets, girdle, pavilion, and table right to make those things sparkle and shine) and polished correctly. You could just stick with the overarching "jeweler." It just depends, again, on how specialized and nit picky you care to be.

Looking at this thread, and suddenly I'm thinking of a Bleach-style campaign. Possibly because I'm reading the manga currently. How to keep everyone from wanting to be damn lieutenants or captains with their shikai and bankai though? Hmmm.

I guess there's why I've never seen this be an issue then, Outsider: I've not seen anyone use the abort maneuvers. I've even had games where myself and the other Hero System GM have specifically assigned each other tasks of showing the other players in setting just how effective that can be....to no avail. They'd rather attack, attack, attack than use an abort maneuver or take a recovery or anything. Not even a near TPK shook them up enough to get them to see it. I will admit that it -DID- show them the point to combining attacks though. Edit: Nevermind. I went back and looked at the characters from the last FH game I ran, which was fairly typical. There are no traditional Bricks in there. Everyone has SPD 4, average DEX is 15 with only one 10 and one at 18, the real differences came in in the equipment and skills they chose.