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Doc Democracy

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Everything posted by Doc Democracy

  1. I lost track there. Son came and asked me to implement his first home haircut.... .... anyway. I was saying a game needs a way of determining what is real and what is super powered deception. We accept perception rolls for invisibility because we don't want it to be absolute. I think Duke's drive to be about focussing first on game effect is right. If I want to pass investigation by an entymologist that I am a fly, then I use Shapeshift. For 25 points I can look, feel, sound like anything within my weight-class. Growth, NCC (only for appropriate shapes -1) and Shrinking (same limitation) means for that extra 25 points, I can assume the shape of anything from 25cm to 4m and 25g to 800kg. When I really got down to building the power, I reckon I could bring it all in at about 35 points. The same as 22 or less in Disguise and MUCH more useful. An incredible feat (optional rules for fantastical campaigns) is -10 to a roll, so that master of disguise would still have 12- on virtually impossible stuff, the power just does it. And just looking at the rules, it says "Other characters cannot make PER rolls to 'percieve through' shape shift [which kind of undermines bits of my argument - why has noone looked at the rules!] or determine that a person is shapeshifters. They have to detect that Shape Shift is being used in other ways". Hmm. Ground has shifted, huh? Doc
  2. I have not had much call for shapeshifters to be honest. It is a niche product. The only one I built (and noone played) was built on a huge multipower in second edition with several pages of "allowed power sets" that corresponded to particular forms. Never got played so never ran into the problem of noticing if a form was real or not. I was pointing out the real difference (to me) between skills and super-powers. I think it is good for the game to make a distinction. Are you aware of any special-effects man that could achieve something that would make you look like a deer? At a distance, I'll bet that answer is yes. Up close and personal, with someone that knows deer? No chance. Buying a super-power allows you to do stuff normal folk can't. In a comic, that power is absolute, you become the animal. In a game? You need something that gives people a chance. How pissed off would your players be if their stronghold was invaded because Doc Menagerie's minions got in disguised as mosquitoes? What chance did they have to notice those six were not real among the several thousand flying round as it was Northern Canada in the high Summer? Doc
  3. Let me tell you why I might choose to buy shapeshift rather than disguise. As I said, in my head, it is the super-power version of disguise. What does that mean? Well, I am a master of disguise. i can create things that you would not believe are not real. I can walk into a room and look almost a foot taller and a smidgeon smaller than I am. I can create materials that will make you believe that I have fur, or scales or a slimy mucoidal skin. I can create perfumes that will make you believe I really am a musk cat, or lion or antelope. There are limits though. My disguise as an antelope will not allow me to have spindly legs. I might fake that from a distance but not up close. I need time to do these things and access to special materials. I may also need access to special equipment or materials that are not cheap. In other words, even at its most super, this is still a skill and still bound by what >might< be achievable. Shapeshift? In seconds I can look, feel and smell like an antelope. With no access to kit, cash or materials. It just happens. Can I achieve the same effects using other powers, yes, but I would have limitations on them. When Fariq changes into an elephant to access his superstrength then it will be only for the time he is using that strength. I would not allow him to walk about using a tiny fraction of the strength just to look like an elephant. I might be persuaded to do so if there wa some dramatic tension, if there were limits (like it is not a fraction of his strength, he is using the full END cost the whole time, or something else that added to the tension of the room). There is a value in using shapeshift over disguise, just like there is a value in using invisibility over stealth. Though I am now wondering whether shapeshift is a version of invisibility. Both are normally used to go places unnoticed by others... Hmmm... Doc
  4. could also be a test of those effectiveness percentages... 99.9% would be good, 99% makes a big difference... 🙂 I think it was Cory Doctorow who was saying our understanding of risks and percentages get hazy when things get bigger and/or faster... (punning unintended but left in intentionally)
  5. I have another song, Queen, Play the game. So very close to being a bond tune, but even the heavy link to falling in love is not a million miles away...
  6. What folk are telling you is to ignore, for a moment, what the power's SFX are and list the things you want to accomplish. So, for example, "I want to be able to detach my hand and allow it to crawl along and flip switch's, grab things, bring them back to me". That raises some questions that will be related to the SFX. If the hand goes into the next room, can it see? Would you need to also detach an eye? If you fall unconscious, can that hand continue to act? If the hand is attacked, does it hurt you? You can wash and repeat with everything else you want it to achieve. Once you have nailed down the actual things you want to do AND tidied up SFX related questions you will be good to go. In addition, another option might be duplication with variable options. You do your duplication and become two separate entities, one a hand and one a one-handed person. It would be expensive but give you a lot of built-in advantages. Doc
  7. Good man. Hope it all turns out a non-event
  8. I think you slightly contradicted yourself. The game itself suggests GM approval in all kinds of places. Duke's suggestion of the in-game penalty is part of the player GM negotiation that you can have rather than the more stark yes/no situation. I think, if the GM allows it, he allows it at book cost. He is entitled to require penalties and limitations on the power (on the promise of allowing it) but those should reduce the cost (as per rules). I am all for a GMs companion to the HERO rules. It would be a great discursive book, talking about the full rules and how to implement them to run a game. All we need is an eloquent author with an in-depth knowledge of the rules and an inclination to put it all down on paper. @DeanShomshak, I am looking at you.... Doc
  9. Well, in Shadowplay, by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz, one of two graphic novels in a book called Brought to Light they were talking deaths caused by the cold war. They extrapolated numbers in terms of swimming pools of blood (that is an adult human body has one gallon of blood with each pool representing 20,000 dead). The imagery in the story is quite stark...
  10. It is a fine point of detail but it is less that the UK banned the stuff, we just have not come to a positive decision to allow it to be used. All medicines allowed to be used have to go through some analysis by NICE that shows they are efficacious for the money they cost (side effects and the treatment of those would come into the equation). Doc
  11. And a lot of people use Yanks, which annoys more than half the population (as my short tenure in Tennessee taught me!). 🙂
  12. You know, I always bristle when Americans castigate the NHS, it is why I waited a couple of days before responding. The NHS means that everyone, regardless of geographic location will get the same help (good or bad) and that noone will get a bill when they come home, simply for getting sick in an epidemic. I also note that NHS staff workers are applauded every Thursday night be the citizens of the UK while some US doctors are having their wages cut because ER staff are making them less money just now? When people talk about British values and what makes them different from other countries, my go to is to point to the NHS and the BBC. They are not perfect but they are kind of unique to our country and embody a lot of the principles of my nation. I am proud of both of them and the NHS is the principle reason I moved back to the UK rather than staying in the US when I had the opportunity. I reckon the numbers are much more about the delay of the PM and the government to implement epidemic measures. We could have been on top of this and now we are playing catch up. Of course, there is no way the NHS can cope with simple stupidity of British people.... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-52221688 Duke - we are competing with your stories of stupid people in a pandemic here. 660 parties in a small city over a weekend and one woman arrested because they had to go back to the SAME party multiple times. Those people almost certainly deserve to get ill and I would wish it on them if they would not simply clog up the services for more deserving folk... Doc
  13. I think the message here is that you really need to look closely at all triggers to see how they would work in your game. There is no blanket recommendation. I think a cleave effect is decent for particular kinds of game. If you are a HERO in combat with waves of very weak, mook type characters then you want a way to clear the combat area pretty quickly - so a good attack can move through and attack another enemy in range. Obviously this would be useful for enemies in adjacent hexes - several good rolls could clear a space all round the HERO. VERY appropriate for some games, not for others. I might require that the attack takes out an opponent (takes it below 0 BODY) AND does at least half the original BODY of that enemy to trigger an additional attack of another enemy within reach. I do not think that anything can be entirely ruled out, or ruled in. Completely GM discretion. I would also tell any player that I give the nod to that I would want to re-evaluate after three or four sessions to see if it is too effective and needs another look. Doc
  14. OMG! Why would you go and look at the rules!!! 🙂 So dodge benefits etc also lapse at that point?
  15. The first segment you can use the second phase of a speed 3 character is indeed segment 8. If you know you are going to use the second phase action on segment 11 why can you not hold the first phase action until segment 10? My biggest restriction is that I would not allow more than four action in a 12 second turn, three actions plus a held one from a previous turn.
  16. I think sometimes folk are a bit too rigid in their definition of a phase. If a SPD 3 character holds a phase on segment 4, when is the last segment he can use that and still utilise next phase? To me, he can hold it all the way to segment 11, then act on segment 12 and again segment 1 (though he would sacrifice his post-seg 12 recovery doing this). To my way of thinking, segment 8 is the first point he could use his second phase, if he holds it into segment 12 then it is lost and he is using his third phase action. I used SPD 3 because the effects are so extreme at low speeds. There is an argument to be made that as long as there is a segment to carry out the second phase action he could carry it through into the start of the third phase but I think that is too much.
  17. I think the big element of Officer Bigfoot should be his ability to show up unexpectedly using his people's innate ability to exist unseen except for the odd footprint... Every now and then when the heroes are considering straying from the path of righteousness they may hear the same refrain "Dont you think that would be...unlawful??" 🙂 Doc
  18. Well, we went about three weeks trying to find a way to get hold of eggs. I tried several different options with the same (zero) result. Today, all of those methods all worked at the same time and we now have 30 eggs with the potential of at least another dozen arriving in the next couple of days.... Omelette all round I think... Doc
  19. Personally, I think the player knows they took that action, there is no way to know whether it was successful or not (though at my table the dice are open, so it would remove that bit of tension. Some heroes will be confident in their DCV or PD to risk it, others wont. As for opening every encounter with a chat and a pointed crossbow, it would indeed be my optimal encounter strategy in many situations and I like that there is something in the rules to make it so. Too often players charge into combat and it ruins so many different options you might have as a GM and this would provide those face characters with a chance to shine... 🙂 Doc
  20. Duke, I am completely with you on the sentiments, so this is just number stuff. To give all 800,000 employees $1m, he would need $800 billion dollars. My googling reckons he earns $150k a minute rather than $32m. However, if you are right, it would still be 17 days rather than 41.5 hours. (800,000 divided by 32). If I am right then it is just over 10 years. Either way, even using my numbers Jeff could forego his whole salary for three months (I don't think he would miss it) and give each employee $24.5k. I think that might tide folk over coronavirus time... Doc
  21. Interesting graph. Neither UK or US yet showing any levelling off and US seems to have squandered a good start...
  22. Just in case UK folk think conspiracy myths around the virus are a speciality of the US, here in the UK they are harassing telecoms workers and burning down 5G towers because 5G either causes COVID-19 or the disease "theory" is a cover-up for the effects of 5G operation.... https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/03/broadband-engineers-threatened-due-to-5g-coronavirus-conspiracies?__twitter_impression=true
  23. CI do not think it IS analogous. 🙂 That's why this is a conversation, right!? 😄 The actual action in cover has been taken last phase. All that is left is to resolve the damage of that action and the character covering has taken a slight disadvantage to defer the decision on whether or not to actually resolve that damage. I think if covering was out of combat, then it exists, it is a surprise round action. The action has been taken and the damage hovers like a sword of Damocles. If the covered character makes a break for it the damage happens and phase 12 occurs as normal (including an action for the person that was covering). Doc
  24. OMG. My last post was "shortest Duke post ever" this must be the longest AND the saddest. 😞 Duke, you have lived SUCH a different life from me. You are probably the epitome of what I think of when I think American. So DO cry, that is American, DO look after your family, DO think about and look after your neighbours, DO have hope for the future, DO care about what is right because they too are all American. I don't think our leaders have managed this pandemic well but lessons are being learned and nature has given us the benefit of doing that learning on a "relatively" benign disease. It could have been more deadly and faster moving. We have seen the amounts of money that actually CAN be spent making things better, it will make scare stories about spending on other things less credible. There are so many stories of people doing good for their friends and family. You know what made me cry? It was so many people, all over the UK, coming out of their respective safe spaces every Thursday night to cheer for the NHS. That simple thing. So cry now, be strong in everything else you do and remember that your posts here are one of the reasons I keep coming back. Stephen
  25. This pick up and play notion attracts me. I so want to do a Golden Age adventure with templates for key heroes and stripped down rules. It might need to be my coronavirus project that I can share with folks here informally even if, once he has seen it, Jason does not think it Hall of Champions material.
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