BlackSword

I thought about this too. Also with Robin's quote "I already have a father" and the short Batman riff and bats flying above them both. This episode had a lot of references to Batman. However Slade did several things that don't seem to fit with Batman. I think him letting Robin live and running off after the fight was more of a comic book plot then "the bad guy should just let them meet a gruesome fate." It also may be Slade's ego, Slade wants to win on his terms, not Robin's terms. One of my favorite scenes in the episode was when Raven jump kicked Beast Boy across the room. Cyborg's reaction was great. Raven should have some points in Martial Arts too, though not nearly what Robin has.

I just watched my taped copy, very good. The hour long episode makes it easier to follow the two story lines. Very cool the way they had Jonn reconfirm his faith in helping humanity. Also when the police were attacking AMAZO my first thought, well there are the real heroes, they can't do anything to stop him, but they're trying their hardest. One jumps up and tries a choke hold, the police force doing everything they can to stop the robot.

In the Star Trek vs Star Wars debate someone mentioned adding a "technobabble" talent for when an engineer pushes "physics" to its limits. In the Farscape RPG they have a feat (which can easily be transfered to a talent) called "the touch" which allows a charcter to encourage a machine to work with a bit of physical violence (a rather common concept for most modern and sf films). (I can give details if someone wants the details on this one). What other talents can be used by the under appreciated engineers (or other professions) to encourage technology to work in your favor in a sci fi campaign? Suggestions for new ones, or ones that you use in campaigns.

Hurricane Isabel recently hit the eastern seaboard. There are numerous military bases on the eastern coast, and many of them moved their assets to other bases further inland. In particular numerous aircraft were moved from bases on the middle part of the east coast to the midwest or the southern states. With the military protecting its assets, what a perfect time for the supervillain to attack, especially if he has someone in his employ who happens to control the hurricane. So a weather master parks the eye of the storm on the city of interest, say DC, and allows the villain in charge to take over the capital. Any other ideas from real world occurences?

Re: Effects of new building materials I had let the effects of building materials pass me by. As steel brought the age of skyscrapers, new building materials could greatly change buildings. A few decades ago during the cubist movement there was an idea to make all buildings based on cubists designs. While odd looking, part of the idea was to give every room a window to the outside world. This may be less odd in a future setting. I will see if I can find a pic and post it. Has anyone seen the shows on Discovery channel about engineering super structures. Two come to mind. One I saw was an idea to build a ship that was the size of a small city, I believe it was about one mile long, long enough for a decent size aircraft to land on it with out cable arresters. It was meant to house several tens of thousands and float around on the high seas. The second was a design by a Japanese firm to build a large hollow pyramid made up of smaller pyramids. Each of these small pyramids would be large enough to house several large buildings so that you basically stacked cities on top of each other. All of the transit was done through mass transit systems. The technology for both of these ideas is available (though the plans push the limits), but of course financing and need is not. Both these ideas can also be stolen for future structures. The ship could be an ultra large space faring vessel which people live and work on, giving up planetary life to live amount the space lanes. The pyramid city could be placed as a capital of planet (or right where it is planned in Tokyo's harbor), or could be an idea for a interconnected fleet of ships traveling as a city, but able to break up to be more manueverable. Few more thoughts for the fire.

Re: FH Perks Since in modern times the ranks of nobility are defined, it is easier to work with those as people know what to expect, that a duke ranks higher than a baron. As is often repeated, you can make up your own titles, but then you have to explain in detail what they mean to your players, while if you use titles with current or historical meaning then it doesn't require that extra time for you to explain to your players that a Gloof is a Baron, but I didn't want to use the term Baron so every time you meet someone that has the benefits of the rank of Baron call him a Gloof. I am not up on my English royalty, but I believe that the different ranks come with different perks and responsibilities, also while the points spent for rank don't determine what your demense is, the GM can put a cap on the number of points put into a base or followers dependant on rank. As badger3k pointed out, since this is a world-building toolkit it will ultimately be up to the GM to define what each rank means, its just handy to have the ranks in one book so you don't have to grab the big book of heraldry just to look up noble titles for the game world. For the example you gave, the big difference between a king and a duke with the same population is autonomy. The king is the sovereign, the duke owes a lot to his sovereign either in terms of income, food production or soldiers, the duke will have to provide to the kingdom as a whole. Ultimately it is up to the GM's discretion, as with Disadvantages, a Disavantage that is not a Disadvantage is worth no points, an Advantage that provides nothing adventageous, or less than is expected should be scaled appropriately.

Re: Goblin Kingdom Shadowpup began some points I was thinking about driving home from work (hey, its better than screaming curse words at drivers who will never hear them). Basically what makes the wine unique to the region the goblins inhabit and how do they keep others from stealing it? Depending on the side the characters are on (stealing or protecting it) this could lead to some interesting issues. Some real-world considerations: -Seeds of plant need special fungus in the soil in order to germinate (found in some types of orchids) -Special yeast in the air, this is found in some of the lambic beers produced in belgium -Particular composition of the soil gives the fermented juice a unique(and delightful) flavor -Plant unique to region, but can grow elsewhere (this requires a more active protection of the fields) For the first three examples the characters will need some alchemical skills in order to determine what the unique ingrediant is. As for protection the goblin kingdom can be placed between two kingdoms which don't want their neighbor to change its borders so in a peace treaty neither side can occupy the goblin kingdom without invoking war. The players can try to force on side to start the war so their allied kingdom does not appear the aggressor but is able to take control of the goblin kingdom for its own safety(and profit to the king from wine sales). Alternatively the characters can stop the war.

I have only seen a few shows of Ruroni Kenshin, but reading your post I like the idea of learning techniques/fight school styles as a way to have characters grow.

We had captured a person we were supposed to assasinate. None of the characters use sharp weapons (all empty hand or blunt weapons), but the person we were supposed to assasinate did have a sword. The doctor of the group was a bit sickened by the act of violence so he wanted to do the dee quickly and painlessly, he volunteered with, "I will kill him as quickly as I can with my staff." The GM just looked at him and said, "You're a doctor, why don't you just nick an artery instead of using blunt trauma to painlessly kill him?"

Q. What do you expect to happen to you on a date with a woman with 45 PRE A: Yes, I do have a socket wrench and a bottle of chianti.

As I said its been a while for me too. I know I own the book, but I don't remember the last time I cracked it open. True, I hadn't thought to mention them, but they are not a starfareing race. Who knows, maybe in the end we will find out that Harrington's success is solely due to treecat meddling. However, for both those books, the central conflict is between humans. In Citizen of the Galaxy I don't particularly remember (its vague now that McCoy has jogged my memory) the trading scene, but I do remember the battles between the protagonists and pirates and slavers (both humans IIRC). The Harrington series revolves around war between two warring human 'empires.' Reading the review on Amazon it appears that aliens may have been more involved than I had thought, guess I have to put it on my pile to reread. Since most stories are based on conflict, in an all human setting the conflict will most likely between two (or more) human factions. Heinlein had another story,

Weber's Honor Harrington series deals solely with humans in space. Some of Heinlein's novels are solely human based (Citizen of the Galaxy is one I can think of off the top of my head). Dune (at least the first few novels), was soley human, though the navigators were mutated by the spice. I think there are a lot of novels available with solely human characters. All of there provide examples and seeds for campaigns. For the most part it seems that if there is an alien race(s) then humanity is united against it, if not then humans go back to killing each other. Most alien races seem to be based upon exaggerating certain human qualities or externalizing parts of humanity we disagree with to make it easier to war against. Klingons were of course a representation of the USSR, but made more brutal, hateful and violent so killing them wasn't so bad.

I recently picked up Champions Battlegrounds, but I have no other Champions products. I picked it up as adventure idea that could be used to either introduce friends to the genre, in which case I don't want to purchase any more until I decide I might GM a long game. Also I may use it as a plot device in another genre. Including short description of power level and abilities would be handy and might make the book more available to players who use other systems (perish the thought), but would like a good adventure. I have only ready through the first adventure fully, and glanced through the rest of the book, but it looks great. I really like the write-ups for the VPPs so that its easier to get started with the NPCs who utilize VPPs.

I was at a conference this last week. The conference center was a heavy, dark place, with some tall hallways and rooms (Hynes Conference Center in Boston), and it got me to thinking about goverment complexes in sci fi settings. Obviously the rooms and hallways have to be made wider and taller in order to make more room for the larger races in the empire/universe. In addition, in common sitting rooms there would be a variety of funrniture so that multiple races would have comfortable* places to sit and wait. In addition rooms would have to be made larger (taller and wider) in order to provide room for races which take up more volume and area. For those with special atmospheric requirements their might even be a special area where they could remove their SCBA equipment and breathe normally for a while. This would obviously cause quite a shock to someone who came from a rather homogeneous environment to see the mix of different styles (don't go in that room kid, the atmosphere is toxic). In addition to these I began to think about different areas in a city for different races to live. Shorter races could exclude larger races from apartment buildings by building shorter entrances and rooms. Most apartment buildings and hotels would have different floors for a mix of sizes, shapes and requirements. Diplomats or ambassadors could have special meeting rooms designed to make a guest more comfortable, or decidely uncomfortable. While probably subtely included in world and not required for gameplay (unless adding particular flavor to a chase scene) it can be used to add flavor and reality to a world. When some PCs go to visit a suspect or get information they walk through a 10'x10' door made for larger races to get into the apartment complex, but end up in a human sized-room several floors up to meet their contact.

What is the only thing missing from the Fantasy Hero book? Answer: Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

I would say the best style is definitaly a mix. You need some gamist aspects (at least in Hero) because everyone must operate in the same rules, otherwise people begin to whine, "Why can't I do that?" "Well you didn't think of it, and he did so he gets to outside of the rules and you get to clean up after him." Narrativist is good because otherwise you might as well play a war game without a good story (though I do enjoy playing wargaming as well). And simulationist is good for keeping everything real and more down to earth (for that particular genre). Obviously anyone of these three can be abused, and each area has its good and bad examples to take from it. Myself I am probably more 40 simulationist 40 gamist and 20 narrativist. I don't tend to be good at describing my character's action in play, but I enjoy writing up recaps at the end of session for players who missed and as a campaign history. If you want to see some people who get really touchy about the different classificatinos jump over to the NWN forums. Some people want to completely role-play in a D&D CRPG, while others are pure power-gamers, and so you get to hear the wonderful complaining going from side to side. Both sides tend to go way overboard and miss the point that the game is meant to have fun. With any game you have to do some power gaming during character creation, my example for D&D is that you wouldn't make a cleric with 10 wisdom so you don't get any divine spells, if thats what you want you make your character a pious fighter.

Real SciFi Here's an idea currently in the works, smart dust. Small computers networked via wireless connections transmitting collected data to a local computer. Might have to consider this when I get back to my books. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6515370.htm

Well, since prison wardens and guards are terminally stupid in comics, this is obviously a great way to start a prison break. But who cares about a bunch of car jackers, thugs getting out? Well again (depending on the genre), bring in the comics ability of disbelief and uncommon sense to use either supers such as Mr. Freeze, or common masterminds (like Luthor in the Justice League cartoon where he is a prisoner, not the comics where he is president). While entertaining to see Lex Luthor doing manual labor, wait until he figures out a way to stage a massive break of all the convicts. Since this a game, there has to be some sense of rational or logic, either other prisoners are busy someplace else, or the massive strength of Bane or another super-villain is required to help speed up the building of a firebreak. Of course you have superheroes watching over the super convicts, but is that a child in danger over there?

There will probaby be several "Schools for the Gifted" spread throughout the world, and perhaps a team similar to Young Justice. Some friction between the cities of different eras could aid in role-playing experience. "Oh you're from Glory City, well here in Arcadia we have real problems to deal with, move over, they need to get a picture of my good side." And of course cross-city issues. A corporation pushing a drug in New Orleans and happens to help fund a particular super in Arcadia could lead to a bit of tension. All the super cities mentioned were American, and surely America will have all that diversity, but what about European supers, anyone from across the pond want to take on a city or two which might fit with a particular country? (comments on Asia are welcome too)

My main problem is that I am not familar enough with Hero to be able to build this structure. Guess its time to hit the Hero books and try to get familar. Still will take some thought on how to build it as well. I like your idea of each 'class' having its own skill, so that one can be familar with Defense Against the Dark Arts, but be less skilled with another area. This fits in with the frame work of their classes and the OWLs presented in the latest book.

I have been reading the books recently and was thinking that it would be an interesting scenario to run, a little less dark then most of the modern occult games (like CoC or Unknown Armies). The main problem I was having was how to do the magic system, but hopefully Fantasy Hero (or the Grimorie) may help some. It seems that with study some spells can be learned quickly. In the forth book it took Harry a while to perfect the call spell (Accio), while in the fifth book he was able to cast Crucio (though poorly) on probably his first try (though he had it done to him). It should be built so that some wizards or witches, such as Hermione have a high degree of skill and knowledge of spells, while Harry has a decent grasp of spells, but is excellent in flying. There is much that can be done outside of the books and certain aspects of the books can add a lot of flavor, knowledge of current Quidditch standings can help with social rolls in bars and other casual situations. Some changes from the written world would probably include increased interaction with the muggles. While the two cultures wouldn't entirely overlap I find it hard to believe that wizards born in wizard houses can't turn on a light switch. Magic would still be very secret though and hiding powers would be of utmost importance. However it wouldn't have the paradox effect of M:tA, but more of hierarchal issue.

You could also have the rest of the PCs accidentaly delayed while Damage Inc runs into congress making his demands. As the rest of the PCs approach he turns into a mess as depleted uranium rounds provide a counterpoint to his speech. The PCs walk away whistling thinking about other less violent approaches to life and death.

I looked for similar programs a few months ago(to use in fantasy games too so that I have a real world). There have been several substandard programs out there that try to evolve a planet through several billion years and give the major landmasses and climates. One in particular always tended to end up with worlds that looked slightly like earth, one major continenet, two smaller continents connected by a small landmass. The authors of the program said they had difficulty with stability, and with only one data point (the Earth), its difficult to build a model of a complex system. I don't have the links with me, but I can find them and send them (or post them here) if you are interested. It seemed that most people working on world-builder software have given up, but quite a few provided information on how to do more research. If I remember right the software did not give the distance for a moon, just the landmasses, so that may be one failing.

If/when things get out of hand, since they enjoy being hard-luck cases then they can lose but not be killed. Escape to a sewer, or some other way out of the situation after the fact. This way now they are hunted and distrusted by a great many people. If a villain is used to help defeat them then it becomes even more of a challenge. How do you get the government and regular people to see that a villain is now pulling the strings when you are seen as the villains. The government will cover everything up and call the players a bunch of conspiracy nuts who watch too much T.V. The villain is now pulling the strings of the government and may start up a 'wholesome' family entertainment hour with subliminal messages. How do you get people to believe in the real conspiracy when you're considered a nut? If the government is corrupt (which sounds like a reasonable bet since they kidnapped innocents to use as bait), then the players will need to somehow get popular support. Have them be defeated when they try it on their own, they may be strong, but they can't just walk into the DC call the government corrupt show some videos and say see. They need to move the people and others to realize the government is corrupt, except now they may be distrusted and hunted.

As the president enters his secret office in Cheyenne Mountain, the major villain of the campaign (if there is one), a Magneto or Dr. Destroyer stands up from his desk and says, "Mr. President, you have a problem, I have a solution, lets make a deal." After a bloody fight the heroes are defeated. Next campaign, heroes dealing with the fact that the supervillain has just ingratiated himself with the government by being its savior.