zornwil

Re: An Open Call to Action Maybe we have a commission already...Warp9, are you ready to pay the fees?

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Back when there were 2 of us alone up in this office, years ago, that never stopped people from just neglecting their technology. And I've had people say outright to me "Why should I run a scan? That's not my job, that's YOUR deparment's job" (Just like it's GM's job to drive them to work every day...) So kudos!

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER You're...a user...and you do this yourself???? GOD BLESS YOU!

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Yeah, been there, too. In some respects that certainly still happens - in one respect I can't even repeat it (well, I'll PM you...). But mostly we're much better. Is the company growing? Often there just isn't cash and/or time to go as that happens. Once the growth stabilizes many companies will then consolidate and invest in the future. Anyway, good luck. I know what a drag that can be.

Re: GM Question: How to torture, errrr, 'improve' PC's over a campaign. Respectfully, I beg to differ. Not on the general topic of fleshing out characters with appropriate skills and non-super/non-combat abilities, but as to the specifics of what to enforce in the name of realism along with super-abilities. I think if you have Mach 3 filght, you already can handle "some" coldness, and you can get around, kinda, in the sky, in that you can get from, say, New York to Paris, or, if you have a map, pretty much any reasonably sized city (after all, you just swoop low and follow the highway). I worry more about the rules/Play Experience going the other way, I know, from experience, neither you nor KA are advocating getting to that silly level of granularity (as discussed in another thread, "you can't throw a bucket of water at someone because you don't have water attack" or such). But I see that as a real consequence of what I would call a level of nit-pickiness there, if I read the example correctly. Now, that being said, I wouldn't let Mr. High-Flier hang out in -60 even if he can fly through it - as the emphasis is "through". Then again, I wouldn't object too much if he were locked up in the cold like that and he kept flying around to generate body heat (you could argue over whether 0 END means he really does so, but that's really getting nuanced and more or less beside the point at this level). I think, as you stated later in this thread, that it is a communication issue. If a GM wants players to have certain abilities/knowledge, he needs to call it out. Personally, as to KA's example, I always figure someone can more or less find an alarm from hearing it, at least a super-person, as that's what the genre pretty much calls for in my view. I'm bad at documenting "Everyman" but I'd agree people know their cities about 8- as that sort of skill. I've read enough of KA's posts to know that he's a good communicator; I would just, then, point out to others, if it isn't obvious, that springing on a player that "oh, you can't find the bank being robbed because you don't have a Sense and you don't have City Knowledge" is really buying a big stink on the spot. Many players will assume a sort of simplistic 4 color ethos where the good guy just gets to the scene, anything up to that is simply a plot device to get there. GMs need to be clear with players about this sort of thing. All that being said, I have certainly allowed villains to get further in plans or get away because PCs couldn't travel fast enough or didn't know enough. I'm just objecting at a certain level of detail here.

Re: YOU KNOW THE d20 WELL HAS RUN DRY WHEN... I can't believe there's a d20 erotic book. And I thought I was sexually open - but elven/halfling....uh.....NO! But anyway, this original post from Bishop of B&W was great, so bumping! (will catch you later rep-wise BoB&W)

Re: Campaign length As lemming said re the current supers campaign. My prior supers campaign, when I lived in South Carolina, went for about 4 years, then we moved. This one is currently languishing a bit as I want to try out other projects. It sucks, because it's hard for our group to get together too often, so basically by doing other things it puts off JS for a month at a time. We've done 1 M&M game set in the same world as the one lemming mentions but over in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, we've also done a couple modern occult games (that campaign is named Disavowed after the comic book even if I hated the ending of that one), and have done "one and a half" (first was just a brief session after considerable discussion/character creation) sessions of Cyber Ninja Pirates (swashbuckling sci-fi space opera weirdness). Oh, and we've done a couple super-villain games also set in the same X-Champions supers world that lemming mentioned as well; those are fun to do. PS - and lemming, it won't be your last, sometime I'm sure you'll be off Saturdays or we'll work it out; also, I've been thinking about PBEMing X-Champs while we do other stuff F2F, at least for a bit, although I just don't have time as of now.

Re: Millenium City... Salt Mines?

Re: Millenium City... Salt Mines? Ah, yes, the salt mines, another thing I learned about from this hobby, as our game is set in Detroit - not Millennium City, but my world's version of Detroit, more monster-ridden, more toxic, more mutant-friendly, and even less populated. Home to the Justice Squad. The JS' base is in the salt mines, and so is one of the cells of Magneto's (now badly fragmented) Brotherhood; it's not even all that far, one could drill a few hundred feet and get from one to the other! The JS got the idea to locate there after facing the revived Purple Hat Gang which operated out of there.

Re: The cranky thread BONK! Or *kick if you prefer, but that's Ben's thing...

Re: The cranky thread

Re: The cranky thread Good luck! Is this an internal transfer or brand new job?

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Yeah, been there. Here's a pretty fun and annoying little thing - we have a significant piece of software that won't run (server-side not client, thankfully) if there's any virus protection. Even with the current release. Idiots.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER That sucks, you guys should keep at them. (just on general principle) Anyway, glad to know you see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Re: An Open Call to Action Cool, I'll look forward to reading it. I think I know more or less what you'll say, at least in general I mean, but I wouldn't want to presume. I just think I know largely because there was some discussion on it before, but I think it was a tangent in a thread as opposed to a main topic.

Re: Ch'i Ki Qi ... They can't be Chinese Ninjas? Huh? Just kidding. Maybe you're right, that's a solid point. It does look "smarter" if someone knows the terms and sees Ninja and Qi or Ch'i they might snort a bit. Of course the game isn't very serious, but it's nice to get some of the small stuff right. I'm happy so long as I can get rid of Ch'i - dang spell checker and auto-correct...

Re: The Size of a Hex I normally clutter the map, no problem. Characters are often in the same hex.

Re: Alternative Religions in Champions Campaigns I pretty much leave religion alone. Well, that's not true, I seem to "pick on" the Catholic Church and make it part of conspiracies, but really for no reason other than an obvious one - what better communication mechanism than via an international network with private confessionals? Anyway, as to the actual question, I don't really touch the non-mainstream religions. As a player, though, Blazing Arrow regularly tramples on any Native American spirituality with his half-baked ill-informed intellctually-lazy version of such; it's made clear that he's basically a suburban kid playing at being Indian because he's inspired by being half of that heritage, and so far everyone seems okay with it. I don't think I'd change it even if a Native American started playing, I would hope they would be okay with it. But if they weren't I'd change.

Re: Character type specific weapons Favorite anti-brick weapon... ...2 points per 1 STR.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Ah, thanks!

Re: Ch'i Ki Qi ... It's a distant galaxy in long time "away" and there's no direct relation, so it's more a nebulous concept - much like The Force, if you will, in Star Wars, I guess. So I don't have to worry in terms of "real" authenticity, but it's at least nice to use a term that isn't flat-out wrong.

Re: Ch'i Ki Qi ... OWWWW! That HURT! Too bad they got rid of negative rep...

Re: A "tactics elemental" Just as Hawksmoor's character has pre/retrocognition, one could design a character with a limited (semi-uncontrolled or varying dependability) clairsentience/precognition that allows him to study the opponents and playing field, or, if suitably brilliant, simply have him able to do this on the spot on initial encounter, and basically if successful the GM gives tips immediately about certain things being likely and other things not being likely. We are doing something kind of similar with a dimensional mage who goes into alternate dimensions to study probabilities in preparing for situations or combat. We put quite a bit of structure around it, though, to prevent abuse.

Re: Setting up super-prisons The prisons in my world are tight as well. Criminals are classed according to the level of power of their mutation with very little, if any, mitigation for their intent and psychological history. The highest class of villains are simply locked into a Gotti-like model but one step more extreme, imprisoned in solitary 24 hours a day under extremely tight observation and usually (depending) drugged, with no access to lawyers or the like. In fact, the highest class of mutants can be locked up that way without a trial - only medical evidence is necessary. However, mutants one step down do need access to lawyers and such, so they are not generally drugged and have limited access to visitors. They are kept in usually very specific containment fields depending on their abilities. While they are not allowed to communicate, guards have been known to be corrupted to carry messages, and sometimes powerful telepaths go unnoticed and can push to simply do telepathic messages and no more. And the lesser powerful are the ones who can get away with this more easily, often serving as the "glue" to the more powerful ones, as they have more freedom to get connections outside and bribe guards or put something onto an insect and get it snuck over to someone in solitary or the like. Still, villains can and do get out. One simple way is death if it's a supernatural elemental, of course. For "mere mortals" it's usually a conspiracy from outside that releases them. And a few leverage Luck and such heavily, as well as Escape Artist, by my way of thinking, such as the Artless Dodger who has been imprisoned many times and broken out each time after a relatively short duration. So, in other words, some favored villains do get that 4-color Silver Age "aw, shucks, he got out AGAIN?" treatment, but mostly they are pretty well locked up and it takes something special to get them out. The biggest weakness ongoing in the super-penal system is transport and exchanges, there's often vulnerabilities as supers are moved, particuarly in local to national exchanges. Despite this being a vulnerability, federal faciltiies often move supers around to keep them from getting too familiar and to discourage outsiders from knowing as well enough about where they are and how to get to them.

Re: Setting up super-prisons I never knew that - you run a game IN a prison? That's really cool!