The Weapon

Re: Your evil army

Ok, first of all you have only his word they're evil. Select a few at random and question them about their background, morality, homeland legal codes etc. If it turns out that they are both evil and utterly incapable of disobeying your commands (which is a big philosophical contradictions in my mind) simply tell them "Be good, respectful of the rights of others to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and all the rights that flow from them, and don't steal or start a fight.".

Re: The Treasure Thread

Bat-Man's drug recovery recipe: Lock yourself in a cave for a year.

With a year's worth of food, adequate toilet facilities and a time lock.

Re: Help me populate a dying space colony

Alvin Chin, guide and wannabe bodyguard/mercenary.

Alvin is 12 years old, thoughly streetwise and an excellent guide for strangers in Omicron. If you want wine, women, song or just not to get cheated or robbed, he's your guy when you're new. Ask anyone. He makes a good living helping out spacers would don't want to walk down the wrong corridor and supports his mother and younger sister.

But what he really wants to be is a hardcore mercenary, a lethal bodyguard whose clients always survive, a cold-eyed killer. He has some skills in that direction, but he is still a 12 year old boy, with the strength, coordination, maturity and experience of one. If there was a war against other 12 year old boys he'd certainly be worth hiring since he's formidable for his age. He is willing to hire on to any enterprise as a merc, bodyguard or other hardcore gunslinger, which will probably get him killed the first time someone takes him up on it. Trying to dissaude him only makes him angry, he resents being weaker than the violent thugs that plague the station and wishes he was someone they feared. Other than that he's fairly rational, intelligent and experience in life on the station.

Re: Help me populate a dying space colony

Mr. Unaccountable. a.k.a. Mr. A. , Jones the German Spy, Mr. Walker, and well really too many psuedonyms to count.

He's a spy. For who? Well there's the bookies have The xxx Empire at 4-1, Interstellar Insurance (Kidnap & Rescue Division) 2-1 and various other organisations, governments, crime syndicates and pirate groups at various odds. He put a $50 bet that he was working for the illegimate son of the present King of (minor kingdom) to arrange his eventual succession he got 1000-1. The name he answers to changes about once every 3-4 weeks. For 2 or 3 days after a change he will tell people looking for him with his former name that he only looks like that person, but he can pass on a message. After that he doesn't even acknowledge that he ever answered to that name.

He has no visible means of support, he refuses work for various criminal gangs, even though he has the skills. Offers to fight in the gladiatorial pits, either in a deathmatch or knockout bout he turns down politely, often with a joke that implies he gets enough combat. He is known to be an effective and alert fighter with blades, beams, projectile weapons or bare hands. He has survived at least 3 known major assasination attempts and god knows how many muggings. It's generally considered a mark of skill if he has to kill you rather than disable you.

He has piloted a variety of small ships to various places and done things in those places. Some of those things were heroic (e.g. saving several orphans), some were larcenous, some were just bizarre (why hijack a pirate ship just to make it yaw 90 degrees and then leave?). Sometimes he hires people to help him do these things, sometimes he does them alone. Those who have been hired by him report that he is a competent, calm, professional operator, who gives his team mates any "acquired" goodies other than what was going for. He usually rents the ships, although at other times his access to them remains unexplained.

He also interfers in crimes on Omicron, although not with any particular consistency, one week you can cut a throat right in front of him, other weaks robbing a fruit store gets your arm broken. He often questions people, sometimes about things that are clearly important, other times about seeming trivialities. He does not take kindly to being lied to, but honest mistakes are fine. He trades information but only for other information, he does not pay in cash or goods.

He is curious, friendly and willing to pay for drinks and entertainment for anyone who isn't obviously hostile towards him and might talk. Curiousity generally gets you a punch in the face or worse in Omicron but people have stopped trying with Mr A.

Rumours about his source of income include blackmail, smuggling, bounty hunting (the number of pirate ships that operate out of Omicron has gone up since he came, but the number destroyed or captured has stayed fairly steady), arranging ransom payments and/or rescues for kidnaped people covered by insurance, liason between criminal groups and intelligence agencies and an allowance from his familly to stay away from civilised areas where his bizarre behaviour would embarass them. All of these are allegedly done through intermediaries since he clearly doesn't work for anyone directly. The most biazrre explanation is that he is in fact the bastard son of a powerful ruling family (he looks a little like one of them), who gets a huge family stipend and that he stays here because it's actually the safest place for him. Due to the every-shifting, ever-lethal nature of (ruling family) politics all it's members have to be combat and intelligence trained to even have a chance to survive. Anywhere else in known space assasins could infiltrate, subvert or otherwise nullify the security forces and get to him. Here he knows everything that happens before anyone else. Sneaking up on him is almost impossible and he is allowed to carry whatever weapons he likes. People are alert to the possibility of attacks, unlike in calmer places, and tend to shoot people who they find planting mysterious objects under people's cars. Since Omicron is the last place you'd look for a rich man who wants to stay away from violence it's a great place for him to hide.

Re: WWYCD: "Dear Superhero" (Warning: Ugly situation)

Violating sovereign territory? I did cross a border. I have the official visas and a passport which I swear is in my real name and was certainly not obtained by bribery. While innocently wandering through your beautiful country I observed several people attacking innocent villagers. As is legal in your country and all others that I know of, I defended them using reasonable force. I had been told that some assailants wear army uniforms and so when I observed someone in army uniforms committing violent crimes I did not assume he was a member of your military. I restrained that individual with the minimum use of force. I there have been claims that the man I so restrained was in fact a member of your military. This in no way affects the legality of the situation because I reasonably believed that I was witnessing an illegal sexual assault and reasonably defended the percieved victim of that assault.

While of course you have the right to investigate violent incidents in your own country it's plain that there is no case against me. Of course if you continue to persue my extradiction I am willing to give you, and the international media, extensive footage of what happened including scenes of people in army uniforms assaulting civilians. In fact I'm prepared to deliver these to your President personally at his residence. I am informed that the roof is more than adequate to support my chosen method of transport. Please inform the bodyguards that I might be arriving so that they do not overreact. That would be unfortunate as I have no wish to injury anyone.

Yours sincerely,

Version One.

Re: Shapeshifter : The Hawk-whale strategy

But mass doesn't have an effect on falling the blue whale and a human would fall at the same rate(well maybe the whale would fall slower because of it's larger surface area)

No the whale falls faster because it's mass to surface area ratio is higher. The surface area determines the air resistence and the mass the force downwards. When these are the same that's terminal velocity. Since mass increases with the cube of lenght and surface area by the square the amount of air resistence per kilogram at any speed goes up with the cube root of the square of size. Since air resistance goes up by the square of velocity this means that terminal velocity goes up by the cube root of size.

Re: Heroes for pay

Exactly. Does this mean 11% of shots fired by police officers in self-defense were mistaken, while 98% of citizen gunshots were, in fact, in self-defense, or does it mean that 11% of all police officers (all of whom have been trained in firearm use, carry firearms in the course of their duties and are very likely to find themselves in situations where they must defend themselves) in the have fired a gun and were found not to be shooting in self-defense, but only 2% of citizens (including citizens who have never handled a firearm) have fired a shot which later was determined not to have been in self-defense?

 

I have never, and never expect to, been in a situation where, while carrying a firearm, I yelled "Freeze" at a fleeing person suspected of having committed a violent criminal offense, only to have this person whip around with his/her hand reaching to their waist or a pocket. As such, I have never had to make the split second decision whether to fire my weapon out of concern my life may be in immediate jeopardy. I suspect that, if we determine the percentage of qualified police officers who are in such a situation in the course of, say, a one year period of employment as a police office, that percentage will be more than 5.5x the percentage of the general population who found themselves in such a situation.

 

Assuming I am correct in this regard, then the fact that the percentage of police officers who made an error in such a situation is less than 5.5x the percentage of the general population who has been in such a situation and made such an error indicates the police do, in fact, make fewer mistakes in this regard.

Of course it's percentage of self-defence shootings that were mistaken. I don't know what you're trying to pretend I was saying. Cops AREN'T likely to be in a situation where they have to use lethal force, most cops never have that situation in their entire careers. Therefore it couldn't possibly be that 11% of cops mistakenly shoot people, that's more than the percentage who ever have to fire their guns. Hell it's probably more than the percentage who ever had to draw them. That the police create situations where they might be mistaken about whether or not people are reaching for a gun is part of the point. Relying on the experts is not safe. It's 5.5x more dangerous. Police are given minimal training, much of it bad (e.g. they are trained not to confront a "spree shooter" with armed force, despite that being 100% effective and 100% non-lethal to the person confronting them). They train yearly to qualify on their firearms, much less than people who actually think it's likely they'll have to defend themselves, who don't miss a week.

Re: Alien with a big brain

Even if he had a gender' date=' a being of this completely alien species would be unlikely to find humans attractive at all unless you're in a '50s B-Movie inspired campaign where everyone in the Universe "needs our women". He would be immune to uses of charm involving romance but not other uses. The main thing about this guy is that his thinking would be as alien as his appearance. A telepath who tried to actually enter his mind beyond his defensive shell would find most of its contents utterly incomprehensible. A creature that has no concept of gender (how does his kind reproduce) would be very alien mentally -- the concept is that pervasive among biological beings. Will his plans or desires make sense to anyone but himself (if he's the only one of his kind on Earth)?[/quote']

 

Superheroes (and villains) are notoriously open-minded about interspecies Romance. Superman and Lois, Martian Manhunter and Rose, Nightwing and Starfire, Karolina and Xavin (Runaways), most of the members of the Green Lantern Corps, etc.

Re: Heroes for pay

I would think: God damn' date=' is he nuts? Depending on the weapons of the robber and himself people could have gotten hurt. People tend to get overconfident when they have a weapon and thinking "I can take him on" without having training will just get bystanders get into the line of fire or the line of swing.[/quote']

 

In the US cops have about 11% mistaken self-defence shootings, citizens have 2%. It's a bit hard to argue that it's safer to leave it to the experts. In fact of course the cops are likely to never actually have an on-duty gun fight or even draw their guns. Given this most had the minimum level of skill that allowed them to pass their qualification last time. And since then it's gone down.

Re: Weird ship names requested.

Unlikely To Explode

Unlikely To Implode

Unlikely To Fragmen

Unlikely To collide

Unlikely To melt

Unlikely To Warp Into A Star

Engine Needed But Otherwise a Bargain (they never bothered/were too cheap to take this off after buying it at a scrapyard)

Latine Sonat, Hoc Solum Bonum (according to google translate this means "This only sounds good in latin" but g.t. is a bit dodgy)

Playing Piano At A Whorehouse

Re: Billionaires: Supervillains earn, Superheroes inherit

I also remembered an even older story than all of our examples so far.

 

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White

The evil stepmother has made herself rich (by marrying the King). Wheras Snow White and the Prince that kissed her were born wealthy.

The original story it was the evil mother. Grimm's tales were far more twisted in the original.

Re: Heroes for pay

I would think: God damn' date=' is he nuts? Depending on the weapons of the robber and himself people could have gotten hurt. People tend to get overconfident when they have a weapon and thinking "I can take him on" without having training will just get bystanders get into the line of fire or the line of swing.[/quote']

 

Actually I've never seen any evidence that civilians are more likely to get people hurt than cops. In fact cops are about 5 times worse at not shotting the wrong guy.

Re: Long tours-of-duty on industrial/mining ships

1. They will pay closer to 0.1 % in Bonuses. Why give them $2M/week when $10k/week motivate them enough?

2. Most likely they will also compensate for it with lower normal pay or even no salary at all, only a workload dependent wage.

2b). Perhaps you even have to pay for food or the air provided during your trip or rent your 4x4 meter cabin.

3. That would be 15 Years working straight through. It asumes you do not go mad from it and do not use most of the money earned to compensate for the time you spent aboard a isolated spaceship. Both the "cinematic reality" and what I heard of (for example) drilling rig crews indicate different.

The saying "a women in every port" does not comes from nowhere.

1) This is the pay per week saved in a 5 year tour, a crew smart enough to get it there a week early is smart enough to realise they'll pay way more than $10K for a $2M benefit.

2) There is no way they'd skimp on non-bonus pay. There is just too much that can go wrong that is beyond the control of the regular crew and could completely nullify their bonuses. So why should the crew gamble a decent living on the company not screwing up? The difference between 5*1300 years of upper class pay is trivial compared to the difference between the profitability of a good and bad crew. Remember the company wants good crewmen BAD. There's not way they'd risk losing one for what is a rounding error on a rounding error on a rounding error on the interest of this sort of investment.

3) Actually my example had 2 year breaks between each trip. The point is that these crews get considerably more than even drilling rig crews, by probably an order of magnitude. With judicious investment they need not work at all for the rest of their life after a good trip as middle range personel. Bear in mind that the company is looking for people who can handle this sort of social situation in the first place. One of the assets you need to get the job is the ability to keep your sanity (and therefore productivity) in those 60 months. People who have to blow off steam in disruptive ways after a week need not apply.

In fact now that I think of it these ships are ideal hideouts for illegally genetically enhanced humans. The company does care as long as they consistently exceed quota, the doctors on board have bonus pay in their eyes and the government can't get on board without going light years out of their way (and then anything that slows production will have a rich corporation taking some politicians out of it's pocket and siccing them on the cops). Having to constantly spoof roving DNA scanners is a) expensive and totally unnecessary onboard. The position of fall guy should the presence of illegal enhanced be discovered is probably an unofficial part of the corporation budget. You know for when the board are "Shocked, shocked!" to find enhanced on their ship.

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

Anything that can be hacked is not to be connected to my consciousness. I know cyberphones seem cool, but I'm prepared to push a few buttons if it means nobody can rearrange my neural net to make me vote Republican. Or Democrat.

Re: Long tours-of-duty on industrial/mining ships

Oh I agree that they would be well-paid. Probably include hazard pay and Away-from-home pay etc. Benefits would kick butt. However, I seriously doubt if the megacorp would offer profit sharing other than allowing the employees to buy some stock as a part of their retirement package.

 

In the scheme of things, workers in such a job could save enough to be considered to be very well off if not mildly wealthy when they retire and that is the main goal of the working class for the most part.

Whether they get profit sharing is irrelevant, profit sharing is a form not an amount of renumeration. Let's look at some numbers. Say 10% of the usable stuff is iron ore 62% Fe which was at $177/t last august. Assuming prices are 1/10 present in real terms due to more efficient extraction. That's still $177 *0.1 *0.1 * 10^13 = $1.77 * 10^13. Assuming an interest rate of 5% each day the crew can speed up deliver means 0.01336% of this extra or about 0.00001% extra per crewman or almost $2 milliion extra profit per crewman. Bear in mind this is for speeding up delivery by one day and only covers one of the less valuable parts of the cargo. Assume the company only pays about 20% of the extra profit in bonuses, it's still over $2M/week early delivery for the AVERAGE crewman. Higher ups will get much more. Anyone with a decent 3x5 year trip career will retire more than "mildly" wealthy and pretty young really. Even if their first trip was at 30 and they spent two years training between trips they're not even 50 on their third trip payday. Sign up straight out of a 2 year tertiary degree and you might not even be 40.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Actually' date=' I [i']do [/i]know about that one. And while I haven't seen any of the Monty

Python movies, I have seen some of the MPFC shows on PBS when they've

been on in the past -- so I'm not a total heretic here where Monty Python is

concerned.

 

 

Major Tom 2009

Don't worry about being a heretic, we're pretty easy going here, you shouldn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

Re: The Treasure Thread

A detailed recipe for recovering from addiction to drugs that enhance combat abilities. This works just as well if your campaign doesn't have combat drugs yet. It could be the first hint that those suprisingly tough thugs who've been harrasing people are tough for a reason.

Re: Blasters: why?

I see what you mean' date=' although I'm not sure you're being entirely fair to the SW blaster. It was next to useless in the hands of stormtroopers, but seemed much more potent whenever somebody else grabbed one. (Han and Luke, for example.) Oh, and the ST phaser: it can one-shot [i']anything[/i] when set to 'disintegrate' so why would it need anything other than semi-automatic fire?

 

I don't know about the rest.

SW blasters are next to useless in the hands of stormtroopers _aiming at force capable characters_. When they're not facing main characters (and I think we can assume that almost all the main characters have significant force-potential) they're pretty much continually kicking butt, even in situations where they have to force their way through a narrow door. Presumably the Ewoks had higher than average force-potential in their population. So why are the STs useless against force capable characters? Well no is in charge of their training? Someone both force capable and paranoid. Who knew better than him that a large enough force of STs could kill even the strongest force-practitioner if they weren't nobbled?

Re: Long tours-of-duty on industrial/mining ships

Lots of boardgames, videogames, movies, roleplaying (yes, the pen and paper type) and more reading than you could possibly imagine. However for the vast majority of their time they will be working and sleeping. If the ship has extensive exercise facilities, many of the workers will spend their off hours working out (like prisoners do).

 

Such a vessel would be a prime stop for travelling entertainers of both the legitimate and the intimate types. Especially if the crew is large (over 1000) and well-paid (which is likely). As far as the crew getting rich off the haul, that is unlikely because such an endeavor as dismantling a planet for its primary resources is likely being spearheaded by a wealthy corporation, and they are not known for their willingness to profitshare.

Actually any competent corporation will pay really well for this sort of work. Consider, if the crew is as small as 1,000 (and for the amount of resources gained that's small) and works for 5 years then then direct labor costs are only 5,000 person-years. This means for a Mars-sized planet there is over 10^15 tonnes per person-year to take. Say only 1/10 is worth extracting and it's 10 smaller than Mars, that's still 10^13 T/py. Even at much lower prices than materials currently get that's still a lot of value for the labor. Paying more for quality labor to get that value more quickly makes a lot of economic sense both in terms of better use of a huge amount of capital and getting a huge payout earlier so it can be reinvested. This and the less than ideal workplace environment, long commitments required etc. make it important and hard to persuade quality crew to sign on. Mucho dinero is the obvious answer, although no doubt there are other inducements that can be offered. For instance if you serve successfully for one trip you can get your entire family off that hellhole you call your home planet.

Re: "Holy Silver Age, Batman!"

With horrible puns ... like reminding the villain that he'll soon be betrayed, because Thyme Is On My Side!

 

And he can try to run, but I'm certain to ketchup! He can't cut the mustard, and I'll relish taking him in!

 

Seriously, for most of my characters, this would be like a vacation.

How do you know you can ketchup? He might have a souped up car.

Re: "Holy Silver Age, Batman!"

With horrible puns ... like reminding the villain that he'll soon be betrayed, because Thyme Is On My Side!

 

And he can try to run, but I'm certain to ketchup! He can't cut the mustard, and I'll relish taking him in!

 

Seriously, for most of my characters, this would be like a vacation.

Then you'd assault them, peppering them with attacks, but being careful because his weapons are all new and far from being worn out are in mint condition. But the chips are down and there is too much at stake. You could try to track him back to his lair and capture the rest of his organisation but the main thing is to capture him, the rest is gravy. Of course then he'll end up doing porridge*.

* English slang for jail.

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

For most part I just think that with Kigatilik on the loose' date=' the walking dead, the ice-demons and the hunder patriots on the move he was just slightly to busy to hit on anybody...[/quote']

 

There's always time to hit on someone. Not always time to go through with it, but flirting in Hero System is a zero phase action.

Re: A galaxy of humans

To me' date=' a human-only future is plausible, but only if it includes genengineered, mutated, and cyborg humans. Which wind up standing in for the aliens. Conversely, a galaxy populated with only mundane humans seems really unlikely. Does the Battletech universe try to explain the absence of development of people themselves? I know it's vaguely postapocalyptic, but still.[/quote']

 

The BT universe does have genengineered humans. The Clans have genetically engineered warriors, although AFAICR nobody engineered for any other purpose.

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

Of course' date=' Mages won't spend the time. How about Priests? It would be quite natural for a Priest to Heal and perhaps help out the weather, crop yields etc. They would do it for "free" as that would promote their god(ess) and encourage regular worship. Now not all gods are concerned about the same things, but you would probably find the gods that cover the concerns of farmers near the farmers, the gods that are about mercantilism near markets etc. I think it's easy to forget or dismiss divine Magics. I am sure that the gods would want to show their worshippers that Gods are worthy of being followed.[/quote']

 

Of course the priests do it for free. Of course they may not get around to blessing your farm if you haven't regularly attended services or donated.

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

I think magic tricks should definitely figure in: but you also need to think about how you want to apply them. Magic-users generally require both a decent amount of XP to be terribly useful and also - if they are being terribly useful - are going to require decent feeding' date=' housing, pay, etc. So it's unlikely that a pack of goat-herders will have powerful mage or that a wizard will spend his time making sure the local peasants get good crops: his time is almost certainly worth more than 4 cartloads of potatoes. If it [b']does[/b] happen in game, that even modest villages will have a goodwife or hedge wizard who can mess with the weather, cure ills and mend wounds, then by definition that GM has decided that his game is a high magic one, where pretty much everything will be affected by magic.

 

Not a bad thing, just a different kind of game.

 

I'd expect that to have a major effect on economics (and more than economics): such a world wouldn't resemble medieval Europe much, if at all. And the logical consequences extend in all directions: any mage powerful enough to mend a dagger wound is theoretically powerful enough to stop aging or conjure his food out of the air ... or send a message across the country faster than the fastest physical message system.

 

In my current game, for example, I deliberately limited magic so that it can be powerful - but it's hard to use in combat and hard to make long-lasting magics. So mages co-exist alongside armies of soldiers, and trade carries on much as it would in a medieval world - with some exceptions. For example, the Lord of the Thorn, has a magic map that shows all ships in his domain. He has little trouble with pirates or smugglers ...

 

cheers, Mark

Of course it's possible that these sorts of economically useful magics are common, but that mages who spend their time learning these skills don't learn PC-type skills. So the party mage is more useful to the party, but less useful to the average village than the average mage. Or magic can do these things but there's some sort of cost that wizards are reluctant to pay (sacrifice, years off your life, etc).

I have to agree that common low-cost abilities of the type most fantasy games have would change the society completely. Empires would be bigger with easier communication and transport. Preservation spells could end famine by keeping years of grain ready for bad years (during which the owners of the grain silos get to own a lot of peasants). Since local famines would be unknown (just move the food) if a famine came it would have to be huge. Castles would be much less useful as the best warriors fully "buffed" by best wizards wouldn't find walls all that difficult to get over. Since they can move fast you don't need that many of them to keep your vassals in line. But if your small elite group of castle-crackers gets ambushed (say a basilisk in the wine barrel, or something equally treacherous) the kingdom could go from strong to overstretched pretty quickly. Could get really ugly. And what about the dozens of sons the centuries old rulers have. Are they all just going to wait the thousand years or so it takes daddy to die? Or will they be more - proactive? Sounds like a good for a group of expendable assets, I mean heroic adventurers.