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Doc Democracy

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Posts posted by Doc Democracy

  1. Shapeshifting plot...

    in Champions

    Posted

    My immediate thought was that the courts seem likely to exonerate the hero.  This is a ploy by friendly law-enforcement folk to flush out the villain.  When the villain doubles down (see what I did there?) and commits another crime, the real hero turns up to capture him.

     

    It is classic four colour stuff, enough that friendly heroes may not be able to know whether their team-mate or the villain is victorious...

     

    Doc

  2. No Damage Knockback

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    Yeah, this comes under the banner of looking at the effect you are looking for.

     

    Knockback is an adjunct of damage.  Damage powers have a primary purpose of doing damage.  It is "odd" to use a power in which you limit away it's primary purpose.

     

    As GB suggests, a movement power, usable as an attack, provides the primary purpose of movement.  Movement, usable as an attack, can be extremely effective unless you properly define it and think about how targets might resist.

     

    In this case, I think you are already there. Choose a movement power, apply UAA, then indicate what resists that movement.  You can simply indicate that everything that defends against KB defends against your attack.  If your attack moves someone 12m, that gets reduced by density increase, clinging, bracing, etc.  I would allow a -1/2 limitation of (reduced by 2D6m) to provide the same variability of KB.

     

    Doc

  8. Coronavirus

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

     

    8 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

    Can any of you folks with more desk time that I have during the day point the way to a similar thread on any forum or website that wants to keep up spirits, share the news, but leave the farcking politics the track out of it?

     

    Duke, this is a totally political thing and, as it gets more serious, will become more political.

     

    I think you are too late to find anything politics-free.

     

    Doc

  9. Recommend a Sports Movie

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    So many good films.  I thought it might be useful to leaven out the testosterone heavy fare in front of us with two alternative suggestions.

     

    Gregory's Girl (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0082477/)

     

    Bend it like Beckham (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0286499/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0)

     

    Doc

     

    PS: if you are going to watch Gregory's Girl, then do it in the original Scottish accents, not the dubbed for the US market version...

  10. Coronavirus

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    7 minutes ago, L. Marcus said:

    It being pert and grippable is a bonus.

     

    Marcus are you talking about yourself or LL??!

     

    8 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

    You know, when things have gotten wild in my life I've tried holding onto my butt. It actually gave me some comfort. :winkgrin:

     

     I classed holding onto someone else's butt as the wild times in my life...

  11. Robinson Crusoe Quarantine

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    I am in the happy position if having a job that is not going to vanish.  A guaranteed income makes everything else much easier.

     

    That job is, unfortunately, also pretty much doable from home, so much of my time will be in the study, working.

     

    If I dig out time it will be playing Red Dead Redemption, Destiny, virtual golf etc on the Xbox.

     

    My quarantine plan is to put together a Skelton of a game powered by HERO, to send to Jason.  (You will all appreciate that this is a fever dream, unlikely to ever happen...)

     

    Doc

  17. Odd Power Design Question

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    39 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

    A power running from an END reserve, RAW, does not need Persistent to continue to draw on the reserve when the character is KOd

     

    I would say my no conscious control, charges would continue in much the same way, and they don't need persistent either.  So my 18 point power is pretty cheap compared to your 50 point monster.  🙂

  18. Coronavirus

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    British people all over the country have just gone out and clapped the NHS.  Will put a video on YouTube and link here what my street looked like.

     

    Doc

     

    Well, I ballsed that up, finger over camera on phone, lots of clapping, no video. 😞 Am sure there will be lots of coverage from UK media outlets.

     

    Twitter has lots of examples, folk better than me at using their phone!:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/ClapforNHS?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc^tfw

  19. Coronavirus

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, ScottishFox said:

    The UK epidemiologist Neil Ferguson that originally predicted 500,000 deaths in the UK with mitigation measures now says it will probably be under 20,000 and many of those are so sick they would have died by the end of the year anyway.

     

    That's a hell of a reduction.

     

    Don't trust politicians!  Trust the media.

    Don't trust the media!  Trust the scientists.

    Don't trust the scientists?  :(

     

    Hmm.  My recollection was that he said a prediction of 400,000 deaths "was not absurd" if the government stuck to its mitigation strategy rather than actively seeking to shut it down.   He has now, like a good scientist, revised his estimates in light of new data.

     

    I would stick with the problem that the media is there to make money, not to educate or inform.  If they achieve all three then it is a happy coincidence.

     

    Trust the scientists when they are talking science, when they stray from science they are just another opinion.

     

    Doc

  22. Coronavirus

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    11 hours ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

    On Quora today, I was asked to answer a question of why Edgar Allen Poe's classic short story "The Masque of the Red Death" can tell us about dealing with COVID-19. It turned out that it was actually very relevant thematically, if not in relation to this particular disease (COVID-19 does not spread so suddenly and with the near-instant fatality of the Red Death) because it is the story of a callous man paying the ultimate price for his cowardice and hubris.

     

    For those of you who don't remember Roger Corman's classic film, the story concerns a ruler, Prince Prospero, whose land is ravaged by a near-supernatural plague known as the Red Death.  Rather than try to make things better, he gathers his friends together in his magnificent palace and locks himself away from the plague. In the palace, which Poe describes in exquisite detail what makes the palace itself an ominous presence, the prince throws the wild party to end all wild parties, with all thinking they are absolutely safe from the Red Death and are free to do whatever they want.

     

    As it turns out, they are catastrophically wrong. The Red Death does enter the palace, and in nearly an instant the party-goers are annihilated. The Red Death reigns triumphant over all the land.

     

    I took a powerful warning from the story. Not that a particular virus would wipe us out, but that we must be wary of our own character flaws -- our pride, our selfishness, our lust for all we survey.

     

    Cory Doctorow wrote a modern take on that story and his publishers have made it free to download (on Cory's request).  I will see if I can find a link...

  24. What makes a complete game "complete"?

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    smoelf, you should dial it all back. Buy the first edition Fantasy Hero pdf from the store and see if you can run that.  It IS a complete game and was written to be played from that one book.  Ignore the 6E right now.

     

    Fantasy HERO is easy to get your head round.

     

    In fact, ignore that, buy Justice Inc, my favourite of the complete games.  It is a simple task to play some pulp.  When you have played that a few times and gotten your head round the basics in there, the 6E books then just open up the opportunities to do more, or add to what you have been doing. 

     

    You've gotta get your toes wet but you should not need to go out your depth to do that.  Not now all those PDFs are just sitting there...

     

    Doc

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