Jagged

Re: 'Hero System' online I think the hardest thing would be to create a game where players had a reason to spend points on non-combat abilities. Your Ref can find ways to make those points you spent on archeology have value. Much harder for a computer to do. Which is why CoH and CO, as nice as they are, are mainly about hitting things. The Hero System is very nicely balanced and well tested. So in balancing a Hero System MMO I think issues will be in the "house rules" that say you can only spend x on defense and having OCV/DC balance and DCV/PD&ED balance. OCV - Max DC (Active Pts) 07 - 12 (60) 08 - 11 (55) 09 - 10 (50) 10 - 09 (45) 11 - 08 (40) DCV - Max PD/ED 06 - 30 07 - 27 08 - 23 09 - 19 10 - 15

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game This is true. These are both great facilities, rare amongst MMOs. Coincidentally I campaigned on the CoH Forums for the ability to turn off xp. You would be surprised at the hostile and negative response I got for suggesting such a thing! (Or maybe not if you where there too) Anyway the point I was trying to make was that the way CoH is designed is that the content is there to get you to 50. Not waiting for you at 50.

Re: Discussion: Taxonomy and Pathology of Halloween Monsters Regarding lycanthropes: perhaps the idea that you catch it from a scratch or bite is just myth. Maybe lycanthropy runs in families skipping generations. Other lycanthropes can smell a carrier and what the rest of us know as the werewolf myth is actually part of the initiation process. The carrier starts to believe they are being stalked by a monster (which is true) but its all part of the process of triggering the change through fear and adrenalin. Once they change the "stalker" says "Boo! You should have seen the look on your face!" and they both go off for a beer and a rare steak.

Re: Discussion: Taxonomy and Pathology of Halloween Monsters One of the plot ideas often used for vampire stories is the idea of vampires turning the world perma-dark, an idea I always found lazy and stupid. Vampires are presumably as intelligent as us and therefore know that the human population (as large as it is) can only support a certain number of predators. So I am sure they can work out the inevitable consequence of shutting out the sun and destroying global crops. I mean it is speculated that the last time that happened (due to volcanic action) the human race dropped to about 10,000. Since vampire can "live" forever I expect them to plan for the long term. I therefore suspect the green and climate campaigns have a lot of vampiric backers

Re: Discussion: Taxonomy and Pathology of Halloween Monsters Agreed. Same is true of the Zombie Apocolypse, but at least they usually are apocolypse stories. I believe in the Bram Stocker original there is some comment about bringing earth from his homeland. So while Dracula could create new vampires he only had the ability to maintain a small number. Might be wrong though, its been a long while since I read the book.

Re: 'Hero System' online

Re: Disappointment I would love to see "Hero System Lite". I believe all you'd really need to do is drop the idea that you get more powerful as you play. So your reward would not be "levels" but something else. I think a brave developer could implement a true points system and use a combination of templates and package deals to make a system that offered an easy build system and an expert build system. You would of course have to "hard code" some of those rules that we see as house or campaign rules, such as a max of # points in defenses, OCV limits vs Damage Class etc etc.

Re: 'Hero System' online Its strange but true. I played City of Heroes for a long time and also spent far too long on their forum You might have been surprised by the number of "MMO vs Genre" arguments that would develop. CoH had a great many players that played the game because it was a MMORPG. CO will be the same. The fact that its genre is "super heroes" was irrelevant to them. They view MMOPRG as a genre in itself. Suggestions/arguments would be made that "in the comics" things are done this way and the rebuttle would always be "this is a MMO not a comic". People that like MMOs as a genre will typically ask for "loot", "rares", "special costumes" and for levels, gated content and stuff that only the "hard core" can access because these are the kinds of things MMOs do or because thats what WoW does. I think Cryptic were quite brave with CoH. They were one of the first to let you design your character as you wished. They had no loot for most of the game (have to say I hate the idea of Heroes looting corpses ) and what they have is still very gentle. I believe they very nearly went with a class-less system but got dissuaded by Richarh Garriott. Shame. With CO I Feel they were brave in other areas. Within the boundaries of an MMO it feels more conservative, more "mainstream", more WoW. I hope they can maintain their audience, add more content and open up the console market and maybe push the boundaries again

Re: 'Hero System' online I hope so. What I am really looking for are the tools that will allow us to Ref online. Its not hard to imagine a world where something like Google maps could give us access to 3D New York or London.

Re: Long Distance Communication I suspect most people are aware of the weird feature of light and how it seems to travel all possible routes. And that polarisation effects at one end of a possible path can be seen and measured along a different possible path. Imagine all the various hurdles were jumped and someone discovered a way to use this or similar phenomenon for communication. Communication relays could be setup throughout space that fire small beams of information into hyperspace* to other relay stations. The beam could take a week (or longer) to perform the round trip but once established instantaneous communication could take place. Starships travelling through space could use similar methods to communicate with the nearest relay. This would allow them to have face-to-face real time conversations with family or Admirals or whoever but such communication would still take hours/days to initialise. Such a system would allow a GM the ability to offer face to face communication and at the same time keep his/her players nicely isolated when appropriate. * warp/subspace/whatever

Re: The Incredible Shrinking Species But think of all the people eaten by their own pets when they couldn't reach the cupboard to get their tinned food

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game I don't know. Some MMOs are designed so that all the "real" action occurs at the highest level or after a certain point. However CoH is designed so that all the real content is in the leveling. If you race to 50 you will have missed most of the game

Re: Oxygen on Europa Dang methane breathers! *Jagged xenophobia momentarily gets the better of him* Apologies to any methane breathers reading this

Re: Free Champions Online Weekend! What are they thinking picking a holiday weekend? They need to pick a quiet weekend when its rainy

Re: Building a "Superhuman Scanalyzer" Perfect!

Re: Senses as Superluminal Speeds I thought the problem was if you travelled towards a source of light at the speed-of-light the light still reached you at the speed-of-light not twice the speed-of-light? Although I suppose if you are travelling FTL then all bets are off? I wonder if the bookies know?

Re: Containment - FRED *donates 1 xp to thread*

Re: Another view of Damage Negation (6e) Any time anyone mentions small arms over the weekend I shall shout "T-Rex!"

Re: Building a "Superhuman Scanalyzer" How about "Detect Active Points" ? You could then freak out your players with characters with really powerful non-combat abilities.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Ooo ooo. I keep forgetting that thats available on my cable service. *makes note to self* Must watch it before they take it off. I take it the movie is a decent antidote to sparkly vampires?

Re: Captain Undrainable!!!!!!

Re: Another view of Damage Negation (6e) There were so many. Was it me?

Re: Another view of Damage Negation (6e)

Re: Power sources in the universe that the PCs can't have Since 2008 it has been mandatary law for any referee asked such a question to pick up the nearest heavy/blunt instrument and then in a slow and deliberate manner ask the player the question, "Sparkly or non-sparkly?" If they answer incorrectly you are not responsible for your actions. Its the Law. *serious*

Re: I ruined my campaign That reminds me of one campaign I played in: the referee said it was going to be just a simple combat oriented game with no sneaky complicated plots or surprises just lots of action. Then he snuck in a sneaky complicated plot and more than a few surprises. Worked really well, the rotter! Hmmm. Maybe time to have that difficult discussion. Everyone maybe happy with that situation, even you. But really its better for everyone if you can arrange that breath of fresh air before the burn-out! From your replies I get the feeling that guest refs for the odd game session is what you need. Will give you time to work on your plots and builds up anticipation in your players while you all try something a little different. Hope all goes well