misterdeath

Know that I'm thinking about you and hope that things get better for you soon.  

If you need anything, I'm a PM away.

D

I chose S.O.N.J.A. because the last supers character I played was Doctor Amazing.  Go figure.

D

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

OK' date=' I'm going to assume that Dryad is one of those "Nature is Good, Technology is Evil" type of villains. [/quote']

 

You assume correctly.

 

If that is indeed the case, wouldn't it have been easier for the PCs to try to convince her that setting off a nuke would do far more damage

to the environment in the long run than high technology?

 

Just wondering.

 

Major Tom

 

Yes, well, if they'd tried that, I'd have let them make the rolls. But by this time, the PCs had thwarted her plans often enough that she was more willing to wipe the blight of the city off the map and take the damage to the environment. A cross between an Enraged at being Thwarted by Dumb Monkey People, and "Sometimes you have to take out healthy cells to remove a cancer."

 

The PCs in turn, were also looking for some payback, since Dryad's been a thorn in their side for most of the campaign. Hiring people to steal stuff, sending hit teams after people, blowing up her minions to keep them from talking. Y'know, supervillian stuff.

 

So, they weren't likely to talk, either.

 

Now, the funny thing is, that Shadowknight took DNPC: Girlfriend of the Week. I provided a list of various women, so he could pick one. Of course, for that week, his girlfriend was ... Dryad.

 

'Course, he don't know that yet.

 

Heh.

 

D

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

Not a quote per se...

The Big Bad is Dryad, a plant character, who hates high technology, and so, steals a nuke to have it blow up the headquarters of the High Tech Company (owned by one of the PC's, Shadowknight).

The PC's use Shadowknight's secret entrance to sneak into the building, so they can get close to the hostages and bomb without getting caught.

They sneak up to the commisary, where the hostages and the bomb are, and prep an attack.

Gryphon, the Telekinetic, grabs the failsafe keys out of the bomb. Winter, the energy projector, surrounds the hostages in a icewall. Tank and Dr Dinosaur, the bricks and Guardian, the powered armor energy projector all engage the minions, to keep them from attacking the hostages. (I've got lots of "protects innocents" Psychlims.)

Shadowknight has "must punish the guilty" and so engages Dryad in combat.

Dryad used her mind control spores on Shadowknight, played by Chris of my quote. "Get the keys, put them in the bomb, turn them, and then activate the bomb."

So, he goes to get the keys, which are still being held by Gryphon, telekinetically. He uses Takeaway to grab one. Gryphon crushes the other. Dryad knocks Gryphon unconscious. Shadowknight grabs the crushed key, and runs over to the bomb. Puts the key in, realizes the other key won't fit, busts out the Lockpick Set from his Utility Belt.

Rolls Lockpicking, gets three sixes.

Heh.

D

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

That's a classic. On the verge of priceless.

 

I hate to be the grumpy old man, but do we have any non CoC quotes? Too many of the same spoil the bunch. Anyone with a quote on a super being a hero? A player with a spoonerism? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?

Session one of my Gestalt Campaign.

Shadowknight, multimillionare crimefighter (think Tony Stark if he built Batman Gadgets) and Gestalt of Justice (played by Chris, from my quote) is engaging the Firestarters, a malevolent band of villains. He squares off against Flayer, the Gestalt of Sadism, a hot chick in leather.

He gets his ass whupped. When he comes to, the first words out of his mouth were, "Crap, I forgot the Safe Word."

-----

The media was there taking pictures, and he said, "there's no pictures of me, I bought Sight Group Invisiblity to Machines." Says I, "Sure, but there'll be artist renditions of the battle."

So, I whipped out a piece of scratch paper, drew a stick figure with a cape, X's for eyes and a tongue hanging out of his mouth.

-----

About Shadowknight, "I think he's the Gestalt of Arrogance."

About Tank, Gestalt of Toughness, "Gestalt of Macho Posturing?"

________

Session 2

provided my signature quote. "Just call me Chris, the Gestalt of Incompetence."

In character Guardian the Gestalt of Guardians (think Bruce Wayne, if he built a suit of power armor), "Blood Red King. Bah. We can take him."

Everyone else stares at him. Out of character, "I think my character isn't right in the head."

The PCs are rescuing Dr Dinosaur (the Gestalt of Dinosaurs, and team scientist)'s DNPC Assistant has been kidnapped by one of the campaign villains.

When discussing the Assistant, "She's his 'Assistant'." (with finger quotes). "Is that anything like 'Ward'."

Gryphon, Chain Gestalt created by his dad, another of the campaigns villians, Shadow telekinetic, was getting blasted at by the bad guys. "Where's Tank to hide behind when he's needed."

_____

Session 3

The PCs are involved in a Street Festival with some other Gestalts. One of them is Anklyosaurus, powered armor guy and friend to Dr Dinosaur (they were college roommates) and Rival to Guardian.

There's a Car Toss against the Gestalt of Thunder (thor clone). There's a Boxing Match against the Gestalt of Brawling.

And, then, the main event. Dr Dinosaur and Anklyosaurus vs Guardian and ...

He looks around the table. "What NPCs do I see?" "Well, there's Mike, from the car toss. And then there's Leo who's been showing off his acrobatics skills. He's a Pure Gestalt of the King of the Beasts." "I'll pick him, I wonder what he can do."

They're in the ring, Leo says, "What do you want me to do?" Guardian, "Go after Anklyosaurus."

Phase 12. 33 Dex. Leo Flying Tackles Anklyosaurus. 18d6 with movement. I rolled 93 Stun and 26 body. Anklyosaurus is down. It's two on one.

"Daaaaammmmn."

"I got the right guy as my partner."

Guardian tries to grapple Dr Dinosaur, to throw him out of the ring, and finish the fight early. Dr Dinosaur’s having none of that and busts out of the hold.

Guardian smacks Dr Dinosaur for some damage. Dr Dinosaur hits Guardian for some damage. Guardian, with his 6 speed is taking advantage of Dr Dinosaur’s 4 speed. Especially, since Dr Dinosaur isn’t using his full power to attack. Dr Dinosaur gets Stunned (-2). Leo poses for a couple of phases, Guardian gets into the act and poses too.

Dr Dinosaur takes a recovery. His opponents attack. Dr Dinosaur gets Stunned (-1) again. His opponents let him get his breath again. They pose some more.

Dr Dinosaur gets and action, stands up, says "Screw this", and uses his Tail Sweep 16d6 AoE 1 hex attack on … random roll (Unluck kicks in) …Guardian. Pow. 79 points of Stun, 23 body. Guardian flies from the ring, Unconscious. It’s now one on one.

Leo calls out the classic, "boot to the head". And puts Dr Dinosaur down. He gets Winter's, the Gestalt of the Joy and Beauty of Winter, phone number.

After the fight, "I don't know that we'd want Leo on our team, he lacks a killer instinct," from Guardian.

____

Session 4

It's a new game week, so Chris, player of Shadowknight picks a random Girl off the "Girlfriend of the Week list" I created for him. He gets Kelly, who's a scientist in his R&D division. "She works for me?" "hey, you said, and I quote, 'I'm not above fishing off the company dock.' Of course she works for you."

perhaps more later...

D

Re: Gestalt Sampler

{puts money aside}

Yay!

D

Re: The Last Word

That would explain the regularly scheduled part, yes?

D

Re: The Last Word

Are there really any more interesting subjects to write theses on?

It's far more interesting that "comparison of wavelet mathematic techniques for noise removal in spectroscopic data" or whatever my MS thesis was.

D

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Like "Stick with your dayjob?"

No, that's a tip for the "comedian".

D

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

Hot college chicks come out in spring to start working on their tans.

D

Re: The cranky thread

And she crossed two hours ago. At this point, it was a good thing.

 

Lot's to process now.

Best wishes my friend.

D

Re: The cranky thread

So, it's a new month. That's a good thing. Last month was horrible. At least my cousin's surviving baby is doing well. The funeral for the other one sure was hard. (my cousin had twins, one wouldn't eat and the other had a heart problem--she had to have open heart surgery, and she caught an infection. She didn't make it.) Grandma's out of the hospital, and doing much better. Work is less hectic, we're getting unburied.

Things are looking up. They'd better.

D

Re: The cranky thread

My SIL is pregnant. She's 5 weeks behind me.

 

Something tells me it wasn't much of an accident...or they had been trying before we got pregnant and just never told us they were trying for another baby when we announced.

 

Grumpy grumpy grumpy right now.

Heh. I've got that person in my family. She got my cousin to marry her one day before my wedding; her husband's older brother got his wife pregnant, she was within a 5 week span, also.

"Hey, look at me, look at me, I'm special too. Hey, nobody gets attention unless I do too. Hey, look at me."

D

Re: The Last Word

It teaches us a habit of treating money as something you'll have someday, rather than keeping it close at hand and only spending it when you have it. This gets one into a rather complicated pattern of making it a habit to whip out the credit card, spend anything that DOES come your way (because who knows how long it'll be before THAT happens again?), and borrow more than you pay back.

 

I'm sure a lot of people can escape this trap, and in the end, those who don't only have themselves to blame. But it's easier to understand, from that standpoint.

I think you're spot on.

D

Re: The Last Word

Oh, I wasn't that great a student. I pulled a 3.25 GPA (I think), and coasted a lot of courses.

 

And I wasn't abjectly poor, at least not as far as the financial aid people were concerned. That I couldn't pull $5000 out of thin air didn't concern them overly, nor did the fact that my older sisters' going to college severely impacted my parents' potential to help me out. When you fill out a FAFSA, there's an assumption that your parents WILL help you through college; I hate that.

I picked undergrad based strictly on the amount of money they threw at me. That it was a good school was nice. That my family was po' (we were so po' we couldn't afford the other letters) helped.

D

Re: The Last Word

$1500 from undergrad. My dad was pissed at the amount of money the bank charged as fees to process my student loan first semester freshman year, so we told the college that we weren't taking any more out. They found me another academic scholarship to cover $1000 (I had to write a nice thank you letter every year to the sponsor), and my parents and I had to cover the rest.

$17500 from the grad school. Everyone was getting them, and, well, we wanted cool things too. Felt bad about it, so we didn't get another. Good thing too.

I got both debts, and the credit card debt in the divorce. She got the car and the dog. (is it any wonder I live in Nashville and work in the music industry?)

Fortunately, I got a nice job and have paid it all off. Took some time, and some help from my sugar mama covering the rest of my expenses.

Guy I went to grad school with had over $100,000 worth of college debt (private school, wealthy family) and was wracking up $17500 a year while he was in grad school. You think us chemists would be better at math. "Hmmm, I'm going to pay how much a month for all these loans?:eek:"

D

Re: The World of Via

Um, more please.

D

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

So, they cleaned the carpets on the 5th floor, and apparently decided to dry them out by cranking the heat up to 85 degrees. So, the break room is not only hot, it's humid, and smells like carpet shampoo.

Today is a good day to go out to lunch.

D

Re: The Last Word

Which? Getting better?

 

I'm certain they do.

That was what I meant, yes. The boss came up asking a question, so I hit Submit.

D

Re: The Last Word

I think they have a shot for that too.

D

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Unfortunately, the death that is the wages of the "cut customer service" sin, happens after the execs/directors who initiate the plan are gone. Strip-mining (or, perhaps better, slash-and-burn) the company's service base takes a few few years to hit the bottom line, by which time the FIGMO's who are modern business leaders have taken their checks and run.

 

A lot of this would be taken care of if directors and execs were paid normal salaries with bonuses paid in options that mature in 3, 5, and 10 years, but being FIGMOs in bed with each other, that's not going to happen.

Fortunately, being "not for profit" means that explaining that,

"Sure, while 90% of the money goes to the 10% of people that have their own account rep, so cutting the people that talk to the other 90% seems like a good idea. But, we want not only to keep Toby Keith, but get the next Toby Keith as well. In order to make money for everyone, we need to keep that next Toby Keith happy too." can stick. If the reason the board is pushing is to get more money to songwriters, keeping songwriters to pay is a good thing.

And we're keeping the coffee stations too. Not that I drink coffee, but having tea provided is nice too.

D

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Pretty much any multimedia company these days behaves that way' date=' or similarly. [/quote']

 

Make that any company with a customer service department.

 

When we had the "sit down with the CEO" luncheon couple weeks back, Del (our CEO) told us a story about the board of directors. Apparently, the board wanted to get our overhead down from 12% to 11%, and thought a great way to do this was to gut the number of people in writer/publisher relations (our customer service division). "Less people could do more by using email and voice mail."

 

Now, we work for the songwriters and publishers. That's the reason we exist, and we don't do anything else. And, the board wanted to cut the people that talk to the people that keep us in business to save a percent in overhead.

 

"Hi, I have questions on my statement, why didn't I get paid for X?"

"I'm sorry, you've reached customer service, please leave a message at the prompt and the first available rep will get back to you. Welcome to phone tag hell."

 

We have people that leave the other guys for us because of the customer service we provide, and they want to cut that.

 

Idjits.

 

D

Re: The "Nice Happy" Thread

Woo-hoo! When do we get directions?

 

 

In other news (and for those that don't post to any other boards I post to)...the Doctor and I are moved into our new place...and engaged. :dance: :dance:

Engaged. Wow.

Grats.

D

Re: The "Nice Happy" Thread

The best cheesecake I've ever had I made myself. And everyone who's ever enjoyed a piece will heartily agree.

 

Yes, I would be happy to share. But you have to come over here to get some.

Hmmm. My danger sense screaming "It's a trap. Get the guns."

D

Re: The "Nice Happy" Thread

The best cheesecake I've ever had was the Caramel Apple Cheesecake from the local Costco.

Damn that stuff was good.

D