BoloOfEarth
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Posts posted by BoloOfEarth
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MOVIE I HATE: Being There
MOVIE I THINK IS OVERRATED: Lord of the Rings
MOVIE I THINK IS UNDERAPPRECIATED: Sneakers
MOVIE I LOVE: My Favorite Year
MOVIE I CAN WATCH OVER AND OVER: Sneakers
MOVIE THAT MADE ME FALL IN LOVE WITH MOVIES: Monty Python and the Holy Grail
MOVIE I WISH I MADE: Fletch (I actually really liked the variations they did from the book, but I would have cast *anybody* but Chevy Chase in the lead)
MOVIE THAT CHANGED MY LIFE: Jaws. (We saw this just before the family went down to Florida - no idea what Mom and Dad were thinking. It kept 11 year-old me out of the ocean.)
MOVIE THAT SURPRISED ME: Ant-Man
GUILTY PLEASURE: The Tuxedo
MOVIE I SHOULD HAVE SEEN BY NOW BUT HAVEN'T: E.T.
MOVIE TRILOGY MASTERPIECE: Back to the Future
MOVIE MASTERPIECE: The Princess Bride (It's got everything - fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...)
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How long is the Extra Time? If it takes a full Phase to cast, then Grailknight is correct, the Haymaker'd spell hits at the end of Segment 9. If it's an Extra Segment, then I'd think it would hit at the end of Segment 10. And if it takes 1 Century, then it hits at the end of Segment 9... on February 28, 2123.
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1 hour ago, Bazza said:
And I’m hearing Head of Corn is extremely popular.
I knew a guy who was Head of Corn in the Army. He was a Colonel.
- wcw43921 and Duke Bushido
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33 minutes ago, slikmar said:
I recently watched a show on evolution of supers on tv and they covered the Reeves Superman, West's Batman, Carter's Wonder Woman and of course the Bixby/Ferigno Hulk. The interviews with West were fascinating with his early fights with the Suits over the seriousness of the character (they wanted more, he wanted it just as it was played, he won but it too its tollon Adam. Also, the outfits he and Ward wore were some of the most uncomfortable costumes existing).
Long ago I ran a Champions adventure involving Foxbat attempting to kidnap Adam West and Burt Ward from a mall opening (at which he had arranged for them to appear). Foxbat of course had various gadgets, including the Costumatron which "instant changed" West and Ward into their Batman costumes from the show. Adam West's first comment was, "Yep, it still chafes like hell."
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As GM, I typically create most villains' powers with Half END, figuring that brings the END cost down enough that I don't have to worry about it. Because I don't track END for the villains unless one has gotten temporarily KO'd and wakes back up with END down below 10. (And even then I rarely track it, because the PCs are very likely to put that guy back down into GM-Discretion-Land pretty quickly.)
The players in my game rarely create Drains, and haven't gone with END Drains at all.
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2 hours ago, Hermit said:
Of course, I don't speak Bulgarian, and I wonder how many of them speak mangled Tennesean. Ah well.
Would "English" be "mangled Tennesean"? Or is Tennesean actually mangled English?
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On 2/18/2023 at 8:48 AM, Ockham's Spoon said:
In physics, Rate x Time = Distance
In bed, Rate x Time = Prostitute
What do the three women in a man's life say?
There's the prostitute, who says, "Are you through yet?"
The mistress, who says, "Finished already?"
And the wife, who says, "Beige. I think we'll paint the ceiling beige." -
4 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:
Is there any point holding a phase that you use at the beginning of your phase?
I'm thinking he meant at the beginning of a Segment. (Though Christopher can correct me if I'm wrong.) If you normally move on Segments 4, 8, and 12, and on 12 declare you're holding your action, then I think he's saying that he would be fine with you deciding you want to do a recovery at your DEX in 3, but not at the end.
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On 2/17/2023 at 10:15 PM, Duke Bushido said:
True, but ultimately, if I have a held action and act in Phase 4, and decide to use my held action in Phase 3 so I can recover on Phase 4, what is the effective difference?
The effective difference is that when recovering on Phase 4 rather than during a held action, then from Phase 4 until your next phase (which could be Phase 8 if you're SPD 3) you're at half DCV (with Placed Shots modifiers being halved as well) and any Constant powers that cost END (even if only to activate) are turned off while you're recovering, possibly making you a bit of a sitting duck. (Which, to be fair, you'd have instead been a sitting duck until Phase 4 if you recovered on the prior Phase rather than holding your action, doing a non-recovery action on Phase 3, and then recovering on Phase 4.)
Whereas if you could use your held action to recover, you'd only be a sitting duck for that fraction of a second at the very end of Phase 3 when nobody can attack you. Hence, the rules not allowing you to do that.
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3 hours ago, Cygnia said:
In the "we STILL gotta worry about the willfully ignorant" file...
These are the same people who wanted to make dihydrogen monoxide illegal, aren't they?
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On 2/14/2023 at 6:38 PM, BNakagawa said:
I've often found it irritating when a PC collects a gaggle of NPCs that start to infringe on the spotlight, especially when they start crowding out PCs when it comes to specialist knowledge or capabilities.
If the stock answer to an esoteric question is: Let me consult with my staff, then you know that you and the other players are guest stars in a solo campaign.
You're right there, NPCs (with rare exceptions) shouldn't outshine the PCs in special knowledge / skills the PCs have, unless they're being set up as a distinct rival. However, having NPCs who cover skills the PCs don't have, can be quite useful. For example, none of the PCs in my current campaign have any chemistry skills, so a quirky chemist could be useful if a particular plotline calls for it. But that sort of thing should just be a "guest shot" and not a constant presence, unless one or more of the players feel differently.*
* I've introduced NPCs before with the intent of them just being background help or one-shots, but a player sought the NPC out afterward. For instance, a superheroine was dating the team's rich financier, and one time I had her work with his personal assistant, who was a bureucratics whiz who also acted a bit like the financier's surrogate mother. The superheroine ended up taking the assistant on a spa day (along with the team's other superheorine), got involved a bit in the assistant's personal life, and so on. She became a semi-regular in the game, but that was driven by the players so I figured it was fine.
- drunkonduty and Hermit
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On 2/13/2023 at 1:42 PM, Hermit said:
You can argue it's very 'in genre' for superheroes to have few relations, to be orphans or so on; but I've found most Characters my players present appear to be single children and often with parents who died young.
Strange, I have the opposite. Of the 7 players in my current game:
- Four gave me family ranging from close relations (kids, spouse, parents, siblings) to extended (Escudar, above), along with some friends / acquaintances
- One gave me mostly friends / acquaintances
- Two didn't give me any NPCs
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At the start of each of my Champions campaigns, I offer my players 5 free XP if they provide me with 5 NPCs (note: *not* DNPCs) to flesh out their personal world. They can be family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, acquaintances, what have you. I promise them that they won't be used as DNPCs, nor can they really be used as Contacts (unless the PC want to pay for them), though I've been known to use them to move the story along or help the PC in small ways. That doesn't mean that nothing bad ever happens to them - hey, life can get messy sometimes - it's just that it's stuff that doesn't involve the PC. (I don't kill any of them off, though they might have been witness to a bank robbery or get in a car accident or something similar.) But mostly, they're just there for day-to-day stuff.
Without fail, one or two players go overboard - for example, the player of Eddy / Escudar (the PC martial artist in my current game) gave me a list of 20 people - most are family members, though some are neighbors and friends. In those cases, I generally concentrate on a handful of them, and maybe bring in other individuals at odd points along the way, or just mention them in passing. Last time I ran, Eddy's great-grandmother had her 93rd birthday, and Eddy's mom decided to throw a big party for her. A few individuals got mentioned in passing (one of Eddy's cousins was flirting with a friend / bandmate of Eddy's, and Eddy's sister was crushing on Escudar's teammate Jack Frost, who was at the party in secret ID playing in Eddy's band.
I've found such NPCs can really add depth to the game world and be a lot of fun for the players.
I do have a few players who take the 5 free XP bu fail to provide me with NPCs, or only give me one or two - out of laziness, rather than malice. In those cases, I create NPCs for them... and mine aren't always as easygoing as those the players come up with. These might be the nosy neighbor, or the obnoxious coworker, or the cop with an attitude who keeps pulling the PC over for piddly stuff. You'd think they'd learn...
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16 hours ago, Bazza said:
What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
This reminded me of a joke I told here back in November 2020:
A woman finds an old brass oil lamp, rubs some grime off, and a genie pops out.
"I'm required to grant you three wishes," he says, "but I'm rather irritable after being trapped in that lamp for hundreds of years, so whatever you wish for, I'm going to give double that to your ex-husband."
"That jerk!" says the lady. "He cheated on me and left me for a younger woman! I don't want him to get anything!"
The genie smiled. "Nonetheless, that is the deal. He gets double what you get."
"Fine," huffs the woman. "For my first wish, I wish I had ten million dollars."
"As you wish," says the genie, "And your ex now has twenty million dollars.""I wish I had a private island where I could live, with a mansion and dock for my yacht and all the amenities - electricity, clean water, satellite internet access, the works."
"No problem, says the genie. "Your ex now has two private islands. And your last wish?"
The woman smiles. "I wish you would scare me half to death."
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55 minutes ago, Cygnia said:
But... what size would they be in Standard Giraffes?
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2 hours ago, Trencher said:
You learn something new everyday!
People like that don't. Ever.
- Duke Bushido and Pariah
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On 1/21/2023 at 12:12 AM, Michael Hopcroft said:
NT: More surprisingly useful things you can buy from Foxbat Industries (purveyors of fine comedic weaponry since last Tuesday!).
The Photonic Optical Waveform (POW) hologram generator, which makes visible sound effects for your next battle. Because who doesn't want "POW!" and "BLAM!" and "KER-SPLAT!" visible for miles as you battle your arch-enemies?
NT: Unfortunate arch-enemies for your favorite heroes. (For example, the Flash's new enemy, the Flasher.)
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47 minutes ago, Starlord said:
Back in college, one of my classmates talked about wanting to get one of those powerful commercial aircraft lights and mounting it behind his car's front grille, with a switch inside to turn it on or off. There's been a time or two when I wished I could do that.
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40 minutes ago, Cygnia said:
I disagree with 2/3 of this. IMO, all ducks are evil.
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41 minutes ago, Cancer said:
NT: Sights that really make the groundhog go back down his burrow and sleep for six weeks.
The latest news coverage.
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19 hours ago, Michael Hopcroft said:
A: What did you do to tick off all these cops?
Colored in the stripes on all those "thin blue line" flag stickers to turn them into LGBTQ+ flag stickers.
NT: Inadvisable things to get your spouse / partner / significant other for Valentine's Day.
Funny Pics II: The Revenge
in Non-Gaming Discussion
Posted
I had to share this pic with my daughter. When she went to visit her college (Michigan Tech) for the first time, she stayed in a room with the RA (the person in charge of that floor of the dorm, which had rooms for both boys and girls). And while she was there, one of the students came to the RA because he and some of his friends had tried to flush a pear and it got stuck. When asked why they were flushing a pear down the toilet, their response was, "Well, the apple went down without a problem."