http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Gaming Outpost Discussions » Recent Topics en-US Thu, 24 May 2012 11:38:39 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/search.php http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/questions-you-should-ask-players#post-17590 Tue, 23 Mar 2010 05:15:49 +0000 JohnA1nut 17590@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>The question you were asking was "Would John get involved?" The question you <em>should</em> have been asking was "How far would John go to stay UNinvolved?" If I had known where I was beforehand, I'd have been surprised if the game got past day 1. I would have never gotten arrested. I drew the line at cold-blooded murder. Shooting a man in cold-blood is a might bit different from shooting at an approaching jeep to discourage the driver. Running from an MP who is a quarter mile away is a might bit different from running from an MP with a 45 automatic in your face. Tell me it's not. I drew the line at cold-blooded murder. I won't draw that line again. I hope you're proud of that. </p> <p>If I had known where I was, I would have <em>actively resisted involvement.</em> All you had to do was make me cognizant of where and when I was BEFORE anything else happened. "Oh but John, the game isn't played like that." Well, just because you've been doing something the same way for 30 years doesn't mean you're doing it right or that you couldn't be doing it better. You've got a non-involvement player? Give him as much information as you can before anything else happens. See if he resists involvement. What could you learn about a player then? Once the MP got to me, I was already more involved in <em>that particular scenario</em> than I would have ever chosen to become. A hundred other players would have run through it better? A hundred other scenarios, we wouldn't be having this discussion. I would have <em>actively resisted involvement</em> if I had known where I was. You could learn so much more about your players like this. </p> <p>What you found out about me is that I would take the million dollars. Well, how does that really help run games? If we had gotten to the base unscathed, there's no question in my mind I wouldn't have warned them. Not warning them would be the easiest decision I ever made in my life. Again, you learn very little. On the other hand, if I had known where I was, you might have found out that I will empty a 30 round banana clip at an approaching jeep rather than get arrested. I'm willing to bet that would be a bit more helpful than knowing I would take the million, aren't you? </p> <p>That's why I keep saying I was forced to get involved. I never got the chance to <em>resist</em> getting involved. The MP instantly pushed me to the line I wouldn't cross to stay UNinvolved. Unfortunately (Thankfully??) cold-blooded murder wasn't an option. Now it is. I hope you're proud of that. </p> <p>(Doing Therapy) </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/super-kyler-kyler-youngs-game-continues#post-38 Sun, 19 Aug 2007 18:14:01 +0000 M. J. Young 38@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Kyler was last playing in <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=82755&#38;st=440&#38;start=440">Kyler in a New City</a>, which was filled with superheroes and supervillains. He got a job, got in a few scraps with some villains, and is now trying to enroll in school.</p> <p>My last comment there was:<br /> <blockquote>Actually, Saka has to get to work. She told them she would be late, because she needed to help you register for school, but she figures you'll be all right getting home from here (she does ask, but it's pretty obvious to both of you that her presence with you is not protector so much as partner). So if it's all right with you, she'll catch a bus to work and let you get home on your own.</p> <p>--M. J. Young</blockquote> Pick up from there.</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/an-unfamiliar-familiar-forest-john-oakmaster-alone-in-a-new-world#post-4669 Wed, 16 Apr 2008 02:38:19 +0000 Oak 4669@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p><em>Here continueth the adventures of Professor John Oakmaster (AKA "Oak", AKA "Dr. John Oakmaster", AKA OOC "John III"). Just when you thought it was safe... :)</p> <p>These adventures begin in the <strong>B Movie Monster World Gather</strong>, in the archived threads <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=82881">"Stretching the Yellow Ribbon"</a> and <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=82772&#38;st=624">"John II Is Not At Home"</a>.</p> <p>After versing out of that world, my character sheet looked something like <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=82716&#38;st=505">this</a>, plus or minus some of the items I had bought in that world (which were specified <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=82716&#38;st=527">later</a>).</p> <p>These adventures continue in the current world <strong>Sherwood Forest</strong>, starting in the archived thread <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=82995">"An Unfamiliar Familiar Forest"</a>.</p> <p>The action resumes in response to <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=82995&#38;view=getnewpost">this post</a>.</em></p> <p>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=</p> <p>I nod my head thoughtfully in response, and respond softly.</p> <p>"I know. As it is written, <em>'Without faith it is impossible to please him...'</em>"</p> <p>I continue to get to know the others as best I can, and to make myself useful, and to minister to the needs around me.</p> <p>I continue to learn what I can from the others. Outdoor skills, survival skills, quarterstaff and longbow, stories and songs and bardic ways and how to play instrument(s), ministering to the sick, woodworking skills (making quarterstaffs, longbows, arrows, musical instruments), etc.</p> <p>I keep my eyes open for a hunk of oak suitable for making an oak quarterstaff, and work to make one. If it doesn't come out well enough, I repeat the process until I have a good quality oak quarterstaff.</p> <p>I continue to look for ways to gently and lovingly promote <em>Biblical</em> faith, such as by singing suitable psalms and hymns and spiritual songs that include Biblical doctrine (as opposed to Romish doctrine).</p> <p>I look for an opportunity to make or acquire a musical instrument suitable for a bard (small celtic harp, lute, etc.).</p> <p>And I continue to ponder how best to serve the LORD here. For I know that I am sent to help these people... but how? By doing what I am already doing? By manifesting His power to heal the sick? By manifesting His power to help free King Richard from his captivity? Could I do such things? Should I?...</p> <p>Hmmm... I sought the LORD's guidance once, and He clearly directed me here. Perhaps I should do so again... </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/count-shawn-fighting-shawn-kelley-continues-play#post-35 Sun, 19 Aug 2007 17:59:08 +0000 M. J. Young 35@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Shawn's last post is at the end of <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=80964&#38;view=getnewpost">King Shawn Arises</a> in the archives. He long ago saved the throne of Ruritania for his near duplicate King Shawn (avoiding the masquerade usually pursued toward this end), was installed as Count of Zenda, and began preparing for the major political events of the upcoming twentieth century. He has fortified the borders of this little Germanic state against the expansionist interests of Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm, trained what may be the first modern special forces units, and made a deal with the future manufacturers of his own semi-automatic pistol for the production of similar pistols, while buying the best military supplies and support mostly from England.&nbsp; He has also taken steps to support the Russian monarchs Nikolaj and Alexandra and to bolster the Russian economy against the Bolshevik revolution. He is currently at a ball at the Ruritanian palace in Strelsau, where he is in conversation with the Duke of Kent, second son of the English monarch. In continuing that conversation, he wrote:<br /> <blockquote> Well,</p> <p>"It's oddly complicated.</p> <p>You see, my family tells a story whereby five generations ago my very removed grandparents, Mother's side, immigrated from Ruritania to Britain due to some land title they had been granted near Gloucestershire.</p> <p>My Father's side were lesser nobility from Italy, specifically from the Milan area.</p> <p>As you know, that's about the same time that nobles began to have to sell off bits of property, titles, etc to keep the lifestyle they were accustomed to, and both sides of my family immigrated to America to seek the fortunes and prosperity that is always promised by that place. It was several generations before my parents were born, met and married - but I have always been facinated by Europe and my family heritage.</p> <p>As soon as I was comfortable enough to do so, I sold my business and moved to Europe to live the life of a mercenary and perhaps idle gentleman. Thus I was surprised when on a cassual hunting trip to Ruritania I found a man related to my mother -and that man happened to be the King of Ruritania.</p> <p>I had no idea really, but I am pleased to have tracked down at least one part of my family.</p> <p>By the way, your party would be welcome at Zenda to observe a demonstration of both the Beretta and my military preparations if that would please you."</blockquote> "Indeed! But, you are entertaining Her Majesty the Czarina at present, and it would be too much to impose upon you at the present time, I think--although I would love to see what you have done, when the time is better for you."</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/harrys-game#post-1666 Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:04:05 +0000 johnosevens 1666@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Hmm... Alright I played this at UberCon and I just found my character sheet. I want to play but I'm probably going to get this wrong. I apologize in advance if I do anything too horribly noob-ish. Anyway, I read that I was supposed to post my character sheet and past adventures. I'll post my sheet - what I have filled in - here, and my adventures in the next post, so if anyone wants to move my sheet to a Behind the Screen or some such thing it's that much easier.</p> <p>Harry Smith (Stage 2)<br /> AKA<br /> Lucianos Northfire - A numerologically agreeable name, used only by witches and gods.<br /> John O'Sevens, Minister of Information - Used only online.</p> <p>Attributes<br /> 1@3 Flexibility<br /> 2@2 Agility<br /> 2@3 Intellect<br /> 1@7 Intuition<br /> 2@2 Education Level</p> <p>Weaknesses<br /> Thin Blood<br /> Caffeine Addiction<br /> Phobias: Heights, Bees/Wasps</p> <p>Physical Description:<br /> Height: 6'1"<br /> Weight: 260lbs.<br /> Current Hair Style: Short<br /> Facial Hair: Rogue's Goatee<br /> Markings: Left earring</p> <p>Skills<br /> 2@5 English Writing Psi 0@0<br /> 2@5 Witchcraft Mag 1@0<br /> 2@1 Smallsword Duelling Bod 7@1<br /> 2@1 Philosophy Mag 0@0<br /> 1@5 Robotics (Function Machine) Tech 12@4<br /> 1@7 Psychometry (This is listed on my sheet as Mag 7@5 but I wonder if it's more Psionic)<br /> 1@10 Influence Luck Mag 1@5<br /> 1@5 Military Hand-to-Hand Combat (specialty in disarming maneuvers) Bod 7@1</p> <p>Equipment<br /> Brown Tunic<br /> Black Jeans and Sneakers<br /> Green Plaid Boxers<br /> Wallet - Three forms of ID, $20 US cash, photos, credit card<br /> 20 Dice, various sizes<br /> Irish bamboo flute, in D<br /> Red-Bladed smallsword, meteoric iron, nicknamed "SoulMourn"<br /> Swordbelt and Scabbard<br /> Jedi-style black cloak, cotton twill, heavily waterproofed<br /> Wide-brimmed black hat<br /> Red and black metal-framed hiking backpack<br /> Hatchet, Rope, and 10 locking carabiners<br /> Three five-subject notebooks, 2 boxes of pens, book on Native American crafts, Army Survival Handbook<br /> Extra clothes (three sets)<br /> $50 in gold dollar coins<br /> 2 4-packs of Amp </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/to-adam-mj-etc#post-35834 Fri, 22 Jul 2011 02:24:17 +0000 JohnA1nut 35834@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>I keep saying "Does MJ make it a habit of blaming the victims of his own incompetence?" I do think you had more than enough reason to know that Pearl Harbor would be a terrible world. You just didn't read it right. I probably would have sent me there too. Not because I thought the player knew the scenario or because I had any notion of what they would do. Just because I would have taken inspiration from Final Countdown. I've been doing the same thing. I've heard a saying "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." This made me think of Adam. He was either sadistic or stupid. Then I realized, I was in fact blaming the victim of my own incompetence. I blamed Adam for giving me the single most appropriate botch in that situation. I blamed MJ for sending me to a bad world. It wasn't caused by malice, it was caused by stupidity. My own stupidity. I could so see myself doing that though. That world either went 100% completely wrong or 100% completely right, depending on how you look at it. </p> <p>You will never convince me though that there isn't a better way to test non-involvement. Give me some time. I'll give you the better way.</p> <p>You will never convince me that Adam "Did the right thing" there. So you killed a fly with a bazooka. Was the dead fly worth the collateral damage? I don't think it was, but that's for you to decide. </p> <p>If anyone, especially Adam and MJ are still reading here, I'd love to hear back from you. </p> <p>(Entering Dextroland) </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/mj-stands-for-mainly-junk-mj-game-continues#post-301 Wed, 05 Sep 2007 15:50:19 +0000 Blue Canary 301@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p><em><br /> This follows on from <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/perplexing-m-j-youngs-game-continues?replies=5">PerPlexing, M. J. Young's Game Continues</a></p> <p>MJ dies and needs a difficult Flexibility check. 18 is very close but still a failure so he remains at Stage 2</p> <p>I'm not sure exactly what to do about Mitsuki. Technically she died before MJ did, but it was pretty close. Any input MJ?<br /> </em></p> <p>You wake up in agony. You are in a vast shallow pool of some kind of acid. All of your equipment has corroded and lies broken. The skeleton of your practice dummy stands frozen in a mockery of a defensive stance somewhat reminiscent of the movie The Terminator. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/scott-frees-the-oppressed-scott-hortons-game-continues#post-37 Sun, 19 Aug 2007 18:08:01 +0000 M. J. Young 37@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Scott was in <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=83061&#38;st=60&#38;start=60">Scott Free or Not</a> in the archives. My last post there read:<br /> <blockquote> Alice has never seen anything related to superheroes or supervillains, or any fiction about nuclear war or tensions that might lead to nuclear war, or stories about what might happen in the future. She is puzzled at the idea that something like this would be entertainment, and wants to know if it's a children's history book in another universe.</p> <p>--M. J. Young</p></blockquote> <p>This is the reaction he has gotten from his hostess, a waitress named Alice, to the famed graphic novel <em>The Watchmen</em>. I will ask him to fill in other details as we progress.</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/molecular-biology#post-35801 Tue, 21 Jun 2011 01:47:18 +0000 JohnA1nut 35801@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>I was about to write a long-winded argument that needs to be dropped. From the subject, you should be able to guess the nature. I just wanted to record this for posterity. </p> <p>(Doing Therapy) </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/weeding-out-the-mj-problem#post-33524 Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:01:04 +0000 M. J. Young 33524@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <blockquote><p>MJ, I've heard it said that you cannot be both Catholic and pro-abortion. Being pro-abortion flies in the face of everything that Catholicism stands for. Likewise, I don't see how anyone can be Christian, and declare the creations of God, whatever they are, to be bad or evil. Harmful certainly, but God didn't create anything evil. If God didn't want the human race to have everything that's here, then why did He put it here to begin with? I don't see how a Christian can say that. That's just my two cents. </p></blockquote> <p>I probably do not need to say who posted that on the <em><a href='http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/when-oak-returns#post-33411'>When Oak Returns</a></em> thread; I asked him not to continue proselytizing for the use of marijuana on this board, and this was his response. I want to say that he deserves a reply to that, but I don't know that that's not too strong a statement. Let's say that since he is in some sense a friend it would be rude for me to ignore him.</p> <p>Some time before we had a Food and Drug Administration, someone invented Sulfa-based antibiotics, which were effective in a lot of ways that Penicillin-based ones were not. These were marketed by drug manufacturers in pill form. There was a problem, though. Southerners--that is, adults in the southern United States--did not at that time take medicine in pill form. They wanted all their medicines as elixirs, liquids they could drink or swallow off a spoon. Sulfa drugs did not dissolve in water; they did not dissolve in alcohol, either. So they wouldn't take sulfa drugs, and their physicians wouldn't usually prescribe them.</p> <p>Everyone knew that the company that could make a liquid sulfa drug would get a huge boost in sales. Then one company head hired a friend who was a chemist, who was highly intelligent and innovative, and in a very short time this company was marketing a liquid sulfa drug. It became very popular in the south, and the company grew substantially.</p> <p>In an apparently unrelated event, there was a rash of renal failures. Patients died; others were very sick and would never fully recover.</p> <p>Researchers determined that nearly all cases of renal failure in the outbreak were in patients who had several months previously taken the sulfa elixir sold by this company. Not all those who took the drug exhibited such symptoms, and the company insisted it was mere coincidence--a lot of people took their drug. But the evidence grew stronger, and the drug was pulled from the market, and ultimately demonstrated to be the culprit.</p> <p>The chemist knew that he could get many things dissolve in another sweet-tasting liquid which could then be mixed with water to create the elixir. The liquid was ethylene glycol, commonly used for antifreeze and highly toxic, enough so that small doses have effects over a long period. Renal failure--the destruction of the kidneys--is the usual ultimate cause of death, but there are other effects before that.</p> <p>I have no objection to using ethylene glycol for antifreeze, or in other chemical applications. I do, however, object to using it in foods or medicines.</p> <p>Maybe that's a bad example; I don't know whether it is found naturally.</p> <p>Nightshade is, though. Belladonna grows rather freely in most places. I don't know what the berries taste like, but I do know that they are poisonous.</p> <p>Everything in the world has the potential to be useful. Not all of it should be ingested. Probably none of it should be burned and inhaled--smoke is itself bad for you.</p> <p>Hemp makes excellent rope, and I would certainly use hemp rope. But the fact that if ingested or inhaled or otherwise put in the blood has effects on the brain tells me that it is something to be used only under the supervision of experts who understand it.</p> <p>John, based on your argument, I don't know why you wouldn't eat mushrooms, or nutmeg. Sure, they'll kill you--that is, they'll kill you faster. But I am not at all persuaded that marijuana is safe.</p> <p>At one point one of our presidents announced that he wanted the FDA to take over the regulation of cigarettes. The FDA responded that it was not possible for them to do so under their mandate. They were charged with determining that dose of a drug which was safe and effective. There is no level of cigarette smoke that is safe, and since it does not cure anything no level is effective.</p> <p>I personally would like to see stricter controls on tobacco and alcohol, and maybe if anyone cares we'll talk about that, too. I would tighten controls on marijuana, because it has not been demonstrated to be safe or effective.</p> <p>Now, maybe in your particular case, John, there might be an argument for prescribing marijuana as a treatment for your condition. You should find someone willing to run clinical studies and include you in the test group. Until then, I don't think there's enough evidence that tampering with your own brain without supervision is ever a safe practice.</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/i-dont-get-it#post-5637 Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:54:31 +0000 JohnA1nut 5637@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Why are versers supposed to save the worlds they land in? I've had this discussion before, but I still don't get it. If something bad is about to happen to the world, it would have happened whether you were there or not. Why should the verser get involved? MJ told me that I had a non-interference philosophy. No, it's more like a "Why should I really care?" philosophy. Scott and I discussed this once, but I can't seem to recall his reasons. I'd love to hear them again, if you're reading this, Scott. </p> <p>Let me give you a scenario. You've just versed in. You're sitting up, getting oriented. It looks like a late 19th century city. After you get set up, you hear a woman screaming. Going to investigate, you see her. Eight months pregnant, being mugged at knife point by two thieves. It's clear that they are trying to kill this woman. So you dive in, use your 3@10 martial arts, and they run away. You help the woman to her feet, and she says "Thank you so much. My name is Mrs. Hitler. My unborn baby Adolf and I will never forget you." If you had done nothing, things probably would have turned out better in the long run. Don't get me wrong, I would have helped the woman. Then probably blown her brains out once she identified herself. Really though, why are the versers expected to be messiahs? Why do we have to save every world we land in? I don't quite get that. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/john-2-john#post-16425 Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:41:29 +0000 M. J. Young 16425@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>This continues John "A1nut" Cross' game from <em><a href='http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/terrraterraterranova'>John Cross in TerraTerraTerranova</a></em>.</p> <p>You are awakening. However, it is dark. In fact, it is so dark, your eyes are registering no light; your ears no sound. You smell nothing, taste nothing, and the only tactile sensations you have are that you are comfortable, warm enough, and floating weightless as you were a few minutes ago, with no sense of up or down and no points of contact.</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/riddle-me-hiss-paul-soldiers-on#post-6354 Sat, 02 Aug 2008 01:19:01 +0000 WilliamTWodium 6354@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Once his long-overdue play summary is finished and posted, this thread will continue Paul's game from <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/omega-academy">Omega Academy</a>. He'll be writing it, or at least most of it, but I've gone ahead and saved him the trouble of starting the thread for his new world. When his story reaches the point of his demise at the tentacles of a sentient cephalopod of mysterious origins, he'll link to this thread and continue the story here. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/maxximum-reality-maxx-starts-play#post-11161 Sat, 06 Jun 2009 17:42:02 +0000 M. J. Young 11161@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>This picks up the story of Maxx from the fourth page of <a href='http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/the-character-generation-thread/page/4'>The Character Generation Thread</a>.</p> <p>You still feel yourself floating, weightless, without any sensory input apart from that--no light, no sound, no smell or taste, nothing at all.</p> <p>You realize that you are tired; then you realize that your consciousness is returning. You may have been asleep, but you do not know even whether that is so, never mind for how long.</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/the-moon-is-a-cruel-mistress#post-11518 Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:20:36 +0000 Graham 11518@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>This continues my game summaries from <a href="//gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/six-is-better-than-seven&quot;">Six is Better than Seven</a>, and takes us to my current world. I should be seeing Scott soon, so expect another summary before online play.</p> <p>I woke up in a field of some wheat based crop. I stood up and looked around, realizing I was on farm land, with farm house nearby. I went over to check it out, and heard a dog whimpering under the porch. Going in to the farmhouse, I looked for food to try and coax the dog out, after trying and failing to do so with normal means. I found, on the kitchen table, an uneaten meal. I grabbed the porkchop, sufficiently scared at this point, and was about to go outside when I was confronted with a skeleton. I dropped the porkchop (and a werelight I had summoned) and began to attack it. When I destroyed the first and discovered the second, I decided to invent a magic spell that bathed me in holy light, causing damage to the undead (a 9@2 create light with a 1@something torture spirt incorrporated in, 1@10 I think). I demolished the skeletons, discovered the torn up corpses of the children of the farm house, and left with much haste, dog in tow. I traveled for a while, created a magic spell to talk to the dog, and walked for most of two days or so.</p> <p>Rain plagued me, I ran into the dog&#39;s original owner, and arrived in a cross-roads town. I found the inn and used my rings as collateral for a night&#39;s rest and food. In the morning, I went to the silversmith and exchanged one of my rings for paper money, paid the innkeeper and got my other ring back. On the advice of the silversmith, I went to the church and waited till the father showed up. When he did, I asked if I could work for him. He allowed me and gave me a quick run down of what I&#39;d do, mostly involving cleaning. On each Moon Day I was to ring the bell (the next one was in 3 days). I began cleaning the chapel and the gravestones, stomping down the grave dirt as was asked. I went and ate dinner with the silversmith, Johnson, that I had met before. I told him that my family had been attacked by the undead, and that the neighbors decided it was best to use fire to deal with them. This got very interesting responses. They were very quiet about it and immediately changed the subject. </p> <p>That night, I was woken up by something (or was just about to fall asleep) when I noticed lights in the graveyard. I went up to the bell tower and looked out on the graveyard. I saw a few shambling people and assumed the worst. I ran downstairs and outside, and then something horrible happened. I tried to use my holy light spell and botched, calling to Jared and Jamaal instead of Bah Tor. Therefore, every corpse in the graveyard rose in an eerie blue light. I ran inside and up to the bell tower and saw as they formed a giant crescent, the symbol of the anarch gods, and began to talk to each other (well, those that could make noise did at least). </p> <p>The exciting conclusion when I feel like updating it! </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/dragons-welcome#post-6345 Fri, 01 Aug 2008 23:37:26 +0000 WilliamTWodium 6345@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>This thread continues the adventures of James Marsh, lately of <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/simian-circus-james-joins-the-game">Simian Circus: James joins the game</a>. The transition from that world was made during live play, so I'll continue the summary here.</p> <p>When James came to (after a dream-like experience which I won't attempt to recreate), he found himself lying on his back in a dank, rocky place, most likely a cave or cavern of some kind, in near-total darkness. <em>Near</em>-total, thanks to the great green slitted eyes, each the size of his face, which gleamed at him reflectively from the dimness. In their light he could just make out a scaly sort of snout - which might perhaps explain the alternating drafts he'd been feeling across his body, first warm, then chill.</p> <p>As he sat up, there was slight motion from the direction of the head and eyes. A great voice rumbled out from the darkness, deep and contented and patient, each syllable enunciated with a connoisseur's relish:</p> <blockquote><p>"Ah, you're awake. How . . . <em>wonderful</em>."</p></blockquote> <p>___<br /> <em>James, if you have anything to add or any questions to ask, now's a good time. Otherwise - your move, slick.</em> </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/katarinas-story-so-far#post-30975 Tue, 09 Nov 2010 23:35:57 +0000 M. J. Young 30975@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Katerina Nastasya Campbell posted her character information in <a href='http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/the-character-generation-thread/page/7#post-30588'>the character generation thread</a>, and I'm sending her here to give a bit more of her background story.</p> <p>Katarina had previously started play a year ago at a previous convention, but had lost her character papers. Rather than start her again the same way, given that at the time she was the only new player, I put her in Haunted House, and versed in a duplicate of Michael (he could thus play himself) to be her companion. But I'm hoping she'll tell you what happened to her and to him, and I'll invite him to add to her telling anything he remembers that he'd like included, although it wasn't really his character, just someone exactly like him.</p> <p>So, Kat, tell us what happened from the moment you arrived to the last thing you remember of the game.</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/other-thread-was-screwed-up-1#post-35669 Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:31:19 +0000 JohnA1nut 35669@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>The other thread wasn't recognizing my post. Just wanted to make sure MJ saw this. </p> <p>I figured I'd let off on this for a few days. Give you some time to relax and think about it. Really, all I want from you at this point is confirmation that the proposal that I made would work as well if not better than the immediate arrest by an MP. And at this point, I'm not even picky about it. If you want to stretch the truth a little, I'll accept that.</p> <p>For the future, a gun collector will be FAR MORE LIKELY to have a problem with authority than be interested in military history. That and the fact that you gave me all of these awesome psionic powers, then you have the AUDACITY to get annoyed when I get into trouble with them? The warning signs were there, you just didn't know how to read them. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/other-thread-was-screwed-up#post-35668 Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:28:50 +0000 JohnA1nut 35668@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>The other thread wasn't recognizing my post. Just wanted to make sure MJ saw this. </p> <p>I figured I'd let off on this for a few days. Give you some time to relax and think about it. Really, all I want from you at this point is confirmation that the proposal that I made would work as well if not better than the immediate arrest by an MP. And at this point, I'm not even picky about it. If you want to stretch the truth a little, I'll accept that.</p> <p>For the future, a gun collector will be FAR MORE LIKELY to have a problem with authority than be interested in military history. That and the fact that you gave me all of these awesome psionic powers, then you have the AUDACITY to get annoyed when I get into trouble with them? The warning signs were there, you just didn't know how to read them. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/the-only-opening#post-35544 Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:02:27 +0000 JohnA1nut 35544@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>More than one</p> <p>Brock suggested that I could have killed the MP and then gone on a destructive rampage. Brock, do you honestly think that I could fire a gun and kill an MP, and no one would hear it and come running? Then I've got swarms of MPs after me, and the plan of doing surreptitious sabotage is kind of blown. There's more than one way to get involved, and the MP opening completely kills the viable option of causing havoc of your own creation. </p> <p>You gotta remember, from my point of view, the destruction of Pearl Harbor was a good thing. It caused the US to rear her head and strike back. More destruction means striking back harder. In my mind, that WOULD be improving the world. The MP opening ended all hope of seeing my path of involvement. </p> <p>So MJ, do you still think Adam "Did the right thing"? His opening, best case scenario, you would miss out on seeing that I was not dedicated to non-involvement. Worst case, well, we've seen the worst case, haven't we? </p> <p>(Doing Therapy) </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/random-chat#post-23245 Mon, 20 Sep 2010 07:08:12 +0000 kyler 23245@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>JohnA1nut wants a random chat off-topic thread, so here it is. On that subject, if you meet someone at a gaming convention, and they claim to be the head of the art department for a well-known game company, would you call this person a con artist? </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/are-you-too-stupid-to-know-youre-stupid#post-20148 Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:03:41 +0000 M. J. Young 20148@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>I'm posting this here in large part because I don't want to lose the link, but also because I think it would be of interest to others on this board. My little brother sent me a link to an article: <em><a href='http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/'>The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 1)</a></em>. I've read part one, but not pursued the other four parts as yet (time constraints, particularly on days when I retrieve my e-mail, because the e-mail usually creates the time constraints). The gist of it is that the same skills you use to decide what to do are the skills you use to determine whether what you've decided is a good decision. That means if you are stupid, you'll never realize it on your own.</p> <p>It was of particular interest to me, because I have noted that before and expanded it into other areas. I have wondered whether I might be autistic, and whether anyone would tell me if I were--because if you were autistic, how would you know? If you were an idiot savant, would you be able to recognize that about yourself? A recent episode of <em>In Plain Sight</em> had a witness with Asperger's Syndrome; did she understand that she was different from other people, or simply know that she had a talent for remembering and working with numbers?</p> <p>Someone once asked one of the world's great physicists (I think it was Freeman Dyson, but it may have been Gerard O'Neill) whether when he was growing up he wondered why he was so much smarter than everyone else. He answered "Not exactly--I wondered why everyone else was so stupid." I never wondered why others were stupid, but always assumed that I was the norm and everyone else was like me. It wasn't until I was in college that I had any inkling that I had more than just a knack for taking tests, and it was half a decade later that I discovered I actually was as smart as my mother and my wife always said I was. (Not that being that smart is worth much in the real world; intelligence is a useful tool, but there are quite a few that are far more marketable, including marketing skills.)</p> <p>The fact is, we measure the world by the yardstick of ourselves. We perceive ourselves as the norm against which everyone else is measured. We are the political moderate; everyone else is to the right or left relative to us. We are the normal intelligence; everyone else is smarter or dumber. We are the social norm; everyone else is gregarious or withdrawn. We are honest citizens; others are either compulsives or criminals.</p> <p>That is not the reality. Objectivity is elusive, though. If you ask the five most reasonable people you know, they will probably agree with you--because you find them reasonable largely because they agree with you. If you take a general survey, well, half the people in the world have below median intelligence, by definition.</p> <p>So how do you know whether you're as smart as you think you are, or simply unable to perceive your own ignorance and stupidity?</p> <p>That is the elusive question.</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/michael-from-planet-dirt#post-34273 Thu, 09 Dec 2010 08:51:53 +0000 Glantri 34273@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>On my last day of the rotation in the galley I want to make sure to thank Little Joe and the Chief of Galley for all they've taught me and for being patient with me.</p> <p>Then I'll make sure I'm on time for my first day of the rotation on the bridge. I'm very excited for this. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/sabbat-cal#post-35528 Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:36:51 +0000 Tadeusz 35528@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>My keyboard has malfed. The 'i' works w. greater problems, as does the 'o' to some extent. A vacat-on seems reasonable for about a week and a half. Upon return, - w-ll hope to move to the new forum ent-rely.</p> <p>Thanks for your k-ndness. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/oak-on-coruscant#post-35052 Sun, 16 Jan 2011 01:05:17 +0000 Tadeusz 35052@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Suddenly, one of the White Court vampires rushes you, and before you can blink, your head is in one hand, and your body in the other.</p> <p>You verse out, startled at the awesome speed and brutality of the attack.</p> <p>Dreams of Vampire Meter Maids trying to ticket your clown car move from a suburb of gingerbread houses to a large city with a windy day.</p> <p>And then you do feel a steady wind. </p> <p>You open your eyes, and look down over the plasticrete edge down a mile and a half through dozens of aircars and walkways to the surface so very far away. </p> <p>"Gaaaah", and you look around. You're on a walkway between two towers. A thundering space freighter passes a few hundred yards overhead.</p> <p>No railings are in evidence on any of the walkways. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/magnus-moon#post-34658 Fri, 17 Dec 2010 21:46:06 +0000 Tadeusz 34658@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>You see the Doctor. And then all the other Doctors, one at a time. Each promendading down the runway of an International Airport, showcasing various length scarves. Somehow the Jumbo Jets, the mechas, the hovercars, and the At-at walker all miss each of them.</p> <p>Its mighty cold and foggy and brisk out here on the runway.</p> <p>And it is. </p> <p>Its in the high thirties Fahrenheit, and you can see about forty feet over slick gray rock piles with the occasional bit of scraggly bush. It might be day. If there is day here. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/jhiaxus-in-june#post-24333 Fri, 01 Oct 2010 17:23:16 +0000 Tadeusz 24333@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>You wake quicker than the time before, with only fragments of bad dreams haunting you, and you're laying between two cars with the smell of gasoline in your nose, and cooling asphalt on your back. Above you, you see the Big Dipper, and in the distance you hear the roar of a crowd in approval and a mechanically amplified voice...</p> <p>"And Dizzy Dean rounds second base, folks, I do believe he's going for..." And the crowd's roar covers the announcer's voice. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/john-journeyman#post-34157 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:30:07 +0000 Tadeusz 34157@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>With your armor shrieking, you stepped up and into the building. The armor peeled off you, ripping chunks out of your body, lungs, kidneys...And a fearsome light out of which flew a great pteradactyl, the Thunderbird, wrapped itself around the armor...</p> <p>At which point, things got weird.</p> <p>Coca-cola bottles played Pepsi bottles for the World Cup of Soccer in front of an audience of intelligent, redneck hamsters. And the referee was yourself, and you were the ball as well, and then some Pepsi bottle got up in your face about a call you made, and it knocked you flat and into the dust which got up in your nose, and made you sneeze.</p> <p>And you realize, you really did sneeze.</p> <p>The temperature is in the nineties. Smooth stone is under your face. A feeling of dust is in the faintly moving air. You can smell salt somewhat. And cooking sausage. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/jack-lalanne-in-memorial#post-35199 Mon, 24 Jan 2011 08:01:24 +0000 JohnA1nut 35199@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Fitness pioneer Jack Lalanne died yesterday at the age of 96. He was Arnold Schwarzenegger's inspiration. He also proved an immutable fact. The only advantage to working out and eating right is that you're healthy when you die!!!!!</p> <p>(Doing Therapy) </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/well-if-thats-what-you-want#post-35005 Wed, 12 Jan 2011 22:24:36 +0000 JohnA1nut 35005@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <blockquote><p>And this attitude is part of the reason I have no intention of reviving your game now that you have jumped ship to another referee.</p></blockquote> <blockquote><p>Adam--I've already stated that John has left my game a second time and I have no intention of expectation of picking it up again.</p></blockquote> <p>Ya know, it's kind of arrogant of you to assume that I would want to anyway. I've been thinking about leaving the board for some time. I don't go where I'm not welcome. I guess you got your wish MJ. I'll check back to see the responses to this, but I'll probably be gone within a week. I've been thinking about it for a while. I didn't think anyone would mind. You just solidified it. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/edgar#post-31280 Thu, 11 Nov 2010 23:31:58 +0000 M. J. Young 31280@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Edgar Michael Causey III has his character information posted on the seventh page of <em><a href='http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/the-character-generation-thread/page/7#post-30512'>The Character Generation Thread</a></em>, and is beginning his adventures here.</p> <p>Edgar, Brock got a new gadget he wanted you to try. It connects your Gameboy to various games in a way that's supposed to make them run faster; it has a label on it that says "Scriff Inside" in a fancy logo. It does seem to make a difference in the loading speed at level changes and such. But you drop it, and when you pick it up you take a nasty shock and black out.</p> <p>You are now awakening. You hear slowly pulsing white noise with occasional burst of a mid- to high-range squealing, feel heat both above and below you and find yourself lying supine on a scratching level surface that to some degree seems to have formed itself to your body in a brightly lit location that discourages you from opening your eyes too quickly. It is definitely not your game room.</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/murder-mystery-the-three-sisters-and-the-landlord#post-33760 Thu, 02 Dec 2010 15:14:59 +0000 Tadeusz 33760@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>The verser wakes under a kitchen table in an old house with wallpaper that is coming loose at the corners, he hears a tumbling noise to his right, and sees the bald head of a man come to rest above his shoulders at the foot of the staircase. From the way the head is tilted, its clear, it is a final rest.</p> <p>You hear a thudding sound of what could be a number of footsteps on old oak floors upstairs. </p> <p>Going over to the man, you see what looks like a pair of hickey's on him. One on his neck down amidst the collar, and the other on the back edge of his bald ring of hair.</p> <p>At the top of the stairs are three women. They stand in front of their respective doors from left to right.</p> <p>Letitia is the most attractive of the three, and the most shocked looking. She has a dry toilet plunger in her hand, and the door behind her to her suite is closed. </p> <p>Maude, in the middle, looks wild-eyed, but with penetrating glances. Her door is flung wide open, and a half-moon observation window in her door to her suite seems half broken out. She says vexedly that their landlord was always going to fix it, but he did not, and in her excitment she flung the door open, and smashed the door handle against the wall, jarring the glass loose.</p> <p>Rayna, to the right, has a thin cavalry sabre in her hand. She is standing in front of the wall vent from which puffs miniscule amounts of heat, and she is shivering. She claims to have been frightened at the noise and come out with a weapon that her father, the late Captain of Horse gave her.</p> <p>They agree that the Landlord, a cheap so and so, who lived in the attic, was inclined to come down before breakfast, stand at the top of the stairs, and stretch before walking down. The general consensus among them is that he must have overbalanced this one day, and fell. Terrible tragedy.</p> <p>And you say? </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/post-ludum-martial#post-34593 Thu, 16 Dec 2010 02:03:02 +0000 Tadeusz 34593@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>For Magnus' short Martial Arts Tourney game world....</p> <p>Also, Magnus, if you could rerun your list of preferred world types, I'd be glad. I think I may try to stick to fiction book worlds for now (just cause) so Mischief is off the board (besides, I'm scared what you'd do in a world with that much chi and anime would have a lot of that.) </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/the-peanut-gallery#post-23064 Wed, 15 Sep 2010 22:21:27 +0000 kyler 23064@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>This thread BELONGS here. Let me explain; when I sit at the table during a game o Multiverser, I tend to comment on other players' games. (Frequently my commentary isn't entirely appreciated, hence "no comments from the peanut gallery!") There have been many times that I've wished to comment on someone else's thread, but there's the irrefutable rule that game threads are in character, and I certainly wouldn't want to break that rule. That's why the peanut gallery! I don't know if the rest of you have this experience in your live games... I apologize if you dislike it, but if you do like it, or if you feel the urge to "contribute" to someone's game in a non-rules oriented way, please, by all means, post away. On that note... that's really a low blow, Harry. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/multiverse-express-999-ahmetias-game-begins#post-12136 Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:45:36 +0000 johnosevens 12136@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>We started Ahmetia off at Anime Next.</p> <p>She did... my usual twisted version of the Tropical Island (unlike MJ who flatlines the biases there and leaves a new Verser there for days, I run the biases through the roof but my Versers are only there for like an hour and don&#39;t have time to learn anything useful). She met with a man who was as much machine as man, who explained that there are things out there both subtle and gross, but it&#39;s not for the faint of heart.</p> <p>((Edited: Apparently Ahmetia&#39;s memory of this was clearer than mine - her Senior Verser was a slim-figured man dressed like a Spanish nobleman, complete with rapier and dagger, with slightly foxlike features that remind her of Shakespeare&#39;s Puck.))</p> <p>Then the island blew up.</p> <p>She spent an eventful couple of days on the Orient Express (I love putting Versers in familiar but twisted worlds. and it was 2am and seemed like a good idea). She managed to be framed for murder, accuse a lieutenant colonel of the Royal Marines of the same murder, and then be murdered in her sleep when it turned out she was right. Oh well. At least the look of &#39;wtf?&#39; on his face when he watched her Verse out was probably worth it.</p> <p>When the Scriff spat her out again, she felt the feeling of rising and falling. She was promptly arrested. Again. This time by an engineer with a thick Russian accent and a very large wrench, who turned her over to a security officer, who brought her to Captain Elizabeth Larkin-Johnson, who informed her that the <em>Piper Marie III</em> (why? because artistic liberties, and because having a number gives that &#39;used universe&#39; feeling) allows no stowaways and carries no passengers. She who does not work does not ride. And seeing as it&#39;s another seven weeks in hyperspace to Emerald Station, it would be a long walk. </p> <p>So they assigned her to Astrogation, which proved to be sufficiently above her tech level and mathematical abilities for her to wash out after two days. The security officer, Benjamin Harrison, took pity on her, and while he was willing to teach her some fighting skills, it wouldn&#39;t be enough to get her a spot in security. Ultimately she wound up in the galley, working with a fat cook named Gopher.</p> <p>And so it is that she is in a unique position of getting to meet pretty much the entire crew at one point or another. Regardless of rank or department, everyone has to eat. So far they all like her well enough, and various people are willing to include her in their interests. Harrison wants to teach her martial arts. Gopher is teaching her to cook and tend bar. One of the girls from Astrogation still thinks she could learn it if she put her mind to it. And there is a tall, stick-thin man who claims to be from Emerald Station, who is earning his passage home by entertaining the crew with his music in the dining hall.</p> <p>And that&#39;s where we left her, en route to Emerald Station aboard a cargo ship that is the third of her name. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/sir-adam-and-lady-geneice#post-3038 Tue, 01 Jan 2008 04:28:19 +0000 M. J. Young 3038@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p><em>This continues the game for Adam Keller from <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/adam-against-continuing-adam-kellers-game?replies=168">Adam Against, continuing Adam Keller's Game</a>.</em></p> <p>You feel the blast above you, crushing you into the ground; then there is an abrupt hush, and you hear birds--not tropical birds, but song birds, woodland, not jungle, creatures.</p> <p>You are groggy, but already have the sense that points you to Horus, this time pointing in two directions, and the sense that points you to your equipment in one of those.</p> <p>You are lying face down, as you were, in dirt, thick loam, soft and untrodden.</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/ahmetia-travels-to-ruritania#post-14594 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:39:34 +0000 M. J. Young 14594@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Ahmetia Campbell played in a new game at Ubercon (somehow everyone thought that I would simply take over her game from Harry in the middle of a world, which I was not going to do). A lot has happened to her, in part because as memory serves she played Friday night, Saturday morning, and Sunday midday, so probably got in more table time than anyone else.</p> <p>That means she's got quite a bit of summary to write, or at least might have. I'm eager to read it, for many reasons, including that it gives me feedback on what parts of the game were truly memorable for the players involved.</p> <p>--M. J. YOung </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/falling-off-mountains-for-fun-and-profit-rics-game#post-30552 Sun, 07 Nov 2010 20:59:18 +0000 NeoZero 30552@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Hello, I started playing at your table at Ubercon this past weekend. Here is my character information and my story so far. I've only listed the stats and attributes I was told during play, the rest are still blank.</p> <p>CHARACTER SHEET</p> <p>Attributes:<br /> 1@8 Strength<br /> 1@10 Stamina<br /> 1@10 Resistance<br /> 1@1 Density</p> <p>1@5 Flexibility<br /> 1@8 Agility<br /> 1@10 Hand/Eye</p> <p>2@1 Intellect<br /> 1@10 Intuition<br /> 2@2 Education Level<br /> 1@8 Will Power</p> <p>Averaged Attributes:<br /> 1@10 Ranged Strike Value<br /> 1@9 Martial Strike Value<br /> 1@6 Target Value<br /> 1@7 Damage Value</p> <p>Weaknesses:<br /> Extremely Nearsighted, Overweight</p> <p>Physical Description:</p> <p>Height: 6'2"<br /> Weight: 260<br /> Hair Style: Short &amp; Combed Back<br /> Hair Color: Dark Brown/Black<br /> Age: 26<br /> Eye Color: Dark Brown<br /> Facial Hair: Sideburns, Mustache, and Beard</p> <p>Skills:</p> <p>Tech:<br /> 2@5 Photographic Printing Chemistry 8@1<br /> 2@5 Repair Advanced Mechanics 4@4<br /> 2@5 Use Computer 11@0<br /> 1@5 Build Computers 11@5<br /> 1@1 Operate Kinetic Blaster</p> <p>Bod:<br /> 1@2 Boxing 7@1<br /> 1@5 Fall Impact Absorption 4@6</p> <p>Psi:<br /> 1@8 Empathetic Response 1@0</p> <p>Equipment:<br /> Blank Black T-Shirt, Short Sleeve Cotton<br /> Blue Buttoned Shirt, Long Sleeve Cotton/Poly Blend<br /> Red Boxer Shorts<br /> White Athletic Socks<br /> Grey Running Shoes w/ Blue Highlights<br /> Nearsighted Eyeglasses w/ Light-Sensitive Black Tint<br /> Stainless Steel Analog Watch<br /> 10" Matte Black Finish Boot Knife w/ Durable Hard Plastic Scabbard (RF 1 Damaging)<br /> Black Jeans, Cotton<br /> -Black Leather Belt<br /> -House Keys x4<br /> -Bottle Opener keychain<br /> -Can Opener keychain<br /> -iPod Touch<br /> -Smartphone-type Cell Phone<br /> -Pocket Jack Knife w/ Faux Pearl Handle<br /> -Stainless Steel Money Clip<br /> --Green Debit Card<br /> --NJ Drivers License<br /> --Microfiber Eyeglass Cleaning Cloth<br /> Black Leather Laptop Bag, Heavy-Duty, Bulky<br /> -PowerBook G4 Laptop<br /> -Powerbook Power Adapter charge cord<br /> -Cell Phone link cord w/ wall charger adapter<br /> Durable Red Hiking Backpack<br /> -Flint/Steel/Magnesium Fire Kit<br /> -Stainless Steel Zippo Lighter, Mirrored Chrome Finish<br /> -Ronsonol Lighter Fluid<br /> -Roll of Clear Duct Tape<br /> -Phillips/Flathead Dual-Bit Manual Screwdriver</p> <p>Stage 2<br /> World List:<br /> Home<br /> Snowy Mountain Peak<br /> Starship Destiny</p> <p>--------</p> <p>I died while handling some Scriff-enhanced electronics on Earth, and woke up, lightly dusted with snow, on top of a snowy mountain. As I gathered my things, I saw a man watching me from a little way up the peak, so I approached him and we talked. The man, Shawn (Daniels?), gave me the "nickel tour" of the concept of the Multiverse and scriff. As he had arrived shortly before me, Shawn offered to join forces in an attempt to explore the bottom of the mountain. I agreed, and we started off on what seemed to be a grand journey. I soon discovered a buried patch of ice, and slipped, careening off the mountain. After an ominously long fall, I landed, died, and woke up on the bridge of a starship.</p> <p>After a fruitless discussion with the captain about my entrance, I was taken to Sick Bay for examination. Marilyn, the woman running the scan, tells me that there's nothing physically wrong, and I convince her to implicitly believe my explanation of my arrival. She informs me that I was far from the 21st Century, but that Earth still existed. Not only that, but it's the core of the Federation, the oppressive governing body that the crew of the ship is rebelling against. Luckily for me, she doesn't appear to care that I'm from any version of Earth, even one in the past. I soon have a discussion with John Alexander, the captain, about my immediate future.</p> <p>It is decided that I'm to assist Burt "Burly" Bentley and his wife Toni(?) in Engineering. I met Toni shortly afterward and she shows me around the Engineering Bay and what "Situation: Normal" looks like from there. I'm then given time to rest and told I'll start the main duties with Burly when I wake up.</p> <p>As a few days pass, I quickly learn the basic tools needed for the basic maintenance of the ship's mechanical systems. Then, a meeting is called for the crew to discuss giving a rebel VIP, Anne Hughes, a ride. This is brought up because there is always the chance that this is a Federation ambush. It's decided that we will go pick her up. The landing party is to consist of Ishara(?), one of the ship's Security, who has met and worked with Anne before, Tom, an "entry expert," and myself, as I would be less useful on-board should there be trouble. (I'm not sure if you added anyone else, I was concerned with jotting down names at the time.)</p> <p>Ishara then takes me down to the cargo bay to give me the basics on using their ranged weapon-of-choice, a Mark IV(?) Kinetic Blaster. We stopped right when you gave me the 1@1 skill for using the Kinetic Blaster. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/magnus-martial#post-31956 Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:31:05 +0000 Tadeusz 31956@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Its hard to remember. You seem to recall yourself sleeping, and then someone suddenly shooting you three times in the chest while you were dozing in a nap. Before you completely shook off shook off the hunh, whazzats? of being ripped awake, you were versed out.</p> <p>Dreams of a long-toothed dragon conversing with a frantic Domino's Pizza delivery driver.<br /> "But I thought you were the meal, and this pizza thing was the Phasers Set to Maximum"<br /> But Captain Kirk comes in to save the day.</p> <p>And you, watching this, collapse to the hard stone floor in relief.</p> <p>And then you realize you are laying on a hard, cold, slightly wet, irregular stone floor. Scaly, feverish arms lift you up, and you can't help it, you open your eyes to a nightmare.</p> <p>The face is four feet long, brown gold, scaled, slightly narrower at the base, and fringed with moving stalks at the top. It has a very bony structure under its scales which sit tight to the bones.</p> <p>You're laying across his? upper arms. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/buddypress#post-34447 Sun, 12 Dec 2010 17:28:51 +0000 Aaron Powell 34447@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>I turned on BuddyPress. If you go to the GO home page, you should see it running. The forum system built into it is setup a little differently from bbPress. First, to get to the NEW forums, click the "Forums" tab at the of the BuddyPress site. To get to the OLD forum (i.e., the breaking-down one I'm typing this in now), use the "Discussion Forums" tab. (If we decide to keep this, I'll change the labels to make that a little less confusing.) (And I don't know at this point if there's a way to import the old messages into the new setup. If we decide to keep BuddyPress, I'll look into it.)</p> <p>Okay, so now forums are associate with groups. If you go to the Groups tab (<a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/groups/" rel="nofollow">http://gamingoutpost.com/groups/</a>) you can create a group for, say, Multiverser. When that's done, you'll automatically have a forum for Multiverser, too. You can get to that forum by EITHER going to the Multiverser group page OR clicking the "Forums" tab.</p> <p>There's a ton of new functionality now -- including private messages -- that you guys will have to play with.</p> <p>Let's try this out for a week or so and see how we like it. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/novel-torchthrower#post-24813 Tue, 05 Oct 2010 02:16:02 +0000 Tadeusz 24813@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Wake, wake, wake.</p> <p>The words came through his skull from a great distance curled about with chill fog and lack of interest. </p> <p>&lt;/i&gt;"Okay, young feller, next time, don't leap so hard for the ball." The eighty-five year old doctor said with a warm smile and bright eyes. His hands were deft with generations of practise, and the something... It faded on him. </p> <p>"Next time, I'll incorporate my jeet kune do falling techniques into the snatch dive for the ball. I won't break my collarbone again, that way, anyways." The young boy said, his voice earnest and analytical and accepting.</p> <p>"But its not neccessary for you to try so hard." The doctor said with soft eyes shared by the boy's parents.</p> <p>"Isn't it?" He asked back, a bit hurt himself, and he saw pain in their eyes. He was eight. Their combined age was two hundred ninety-three.&lt;/i&gt;</p> <p>Words came to his mind. They were insistent, and demanding.</p> <p>Wake, wake, wake.</p> <p>He ignored them.</p> <p>"But I am creative. Look, at my science fair. Not just the teachers, or my fellows in the multi-continent study group, but even that doctorate with the four degrees was impressed." The boy waved his hand at a diorama which showed the glaciers melting (due to heating coils as unshielded X-ray lasers were forbidden to middle school elementary students which had been his first choice), and the seas rising. After that, little robot men fled inland, and began building boats to send forth armadas to attack Egypt and its freshly built Pyramids.</p> <p>In truth, the man knew, it was a little crude, but making the whole thing with human Bronze Age warriors at the scale of a ladybug, his younger self had hoped to impress. It had combined the New History, Robotics, and even a battle tactics sim as differing beginning conditions could result in different armies sweeping the simulated Mediterranean Sea. Just moving one captain could tilt the war for new lands after the sea stole Atlantis from the Cretans to the Egyptians. It was a living, breathing (or so it seemed) refutation of both the Great Man and the Historical Forces Theories of History.</p> <p>His younger self waved at the diorama, and his teacher over the Net, a rather young sixty year old sighed in sympathy.</p> <p>"It is superlative." And then he delivered the fatal thrust. "Better than all but four percent of the seventh grade science projects in the category of Multi-disciplinary Creative."</p> <p>"Oh." Four percent. The magic circle was two percent. If you could do something better than ninety-eight percent of humanity, and it was deemed valuable, you could make your own way with others hurrying to open doors for you. Or you could take a well-paid job, do useful work and all at someone else's bidding for decades until you reached at least sixty minimum, and your real career finally started, maybe. If you still cared to be more than a worker at that time.</p> <p>More insistent and louder the words came, covered in ice, and ice crackling all around them at their power.</p> <p>Wake, wake, wake.</p> <p>"The world could be worse, you know." The truly old man said with a faint smile. He was nearing his second century, and given the job of counselling the gifted children as he waited for the death angel. </p> <p>"How?" Michael snapped.</p> <p>The man smiled in the gentle way that was common in the world of the early twenty-second century After Death.</p> <p>"You told me you enjoy reading the fiction of my youth. Alas, Babylon. Mad Max. Deathworld." The old man grinned, having a liking for those books of the days before even the Fall of Communism.</p> <p>"They're so...crazy." Michael looked embarrassed, but he had been taught to be honest first, and polite and respectful second.</p> <p>"Indeed. They are. Our half-pagan ancestors locked in a death struggle with a system devoted to looting and rampaging and sadism under the name of brotherly love and equality of outcome. How could our ancestors be anything but mad? But that's not my point. I tell you indeed, that those books might have come true."</p> <p>"And Max's world would be worse than this one?" The older boy, still a boy, Michael did not sound wholly convinced.</p> <p>"It would be an easier world than this one."</p> <p>"Easier?" Michael is incredulous.</p> <p>"Oh, absolutely. There you only have to fight for your life. Here you have to be brave and honest and love and be kind and dream great dreams of a bright future we don't let you make without a decades long apprenticeship first."</p> <p>"There I could be a man. Right now." Michael said sobbing as he sat by the old man on a bench in a park that was not unusual in the slightest for its great beauty, and its hundred year old designer.</p> <p>The old man patted him on the shoulder. For some tragedies, there was no cure, but love and patience.</p> <p>Still louder, and Michael wanted to flee, so he did. </p> <p>Wake, wake, wake. The words came softer toward the end as he slid away from something.</p> <p>"I'm sorry." Michael did not know what to say. He knew it was his fault. Yet, he could not see where he had made a mistake except in attempting to be more than society was glad to give him.</p> <p>The older man, a father of five, a young eighty, bowed his head after an all-seeing glance that seemed to read Michael's soul. It was as if he expected more from Michael, but upon not getting it, he turned to his private grief. To the inanimate body of what had been his son, torn and twisted by the hangglider's crash, that lay on the floor between them.</p> <p>Michael had a vision of a great future, and so he enlisted a few others like himself who wanted more than a corner office for the next sixty years. He thought he could take his microbots and use them to load up a hanglider, and use a solar celled glider with a human pilot to get around legal restrictions on in city flight by robots. Then the microbots would jump off from the glider and bring the item they were delivering piece by piece, and assemble it in front of the customer without the pilot having to do anything but fly.</p> <p>It worked well for two weeks. People were enchanted by the idea. And then Bor got hit by a crosswind and swept into a lightpole above a tollway. It was a long way to the ground wrapped around a lightpole which prevented the opening of his safety cube which should have protected him.</p> <p>And now Michael wept for his friend.</p> <p>The voice came and with it some concern. Michael needed to heed it the voice seemed to suggest. And Michael was happy too now.</p> <p>Wake, wake, wake.</p> <p>The man leaned back with a small smile, and put his cowboy boots on the empty desk in the small room. Michael stared at him, and took the proffered chair.</p> <p>"Not quite the terror I'm made out to be, eh?" The man said wryly.</p> <p>Michael said nothing, as his base core of terror suggested even though there was an overlay of curiosity. The man, with pale green eyes, did not seem to be offended.</p> <p>"Michael Roger Hammer. That's a good name."</p> <p>"Um, thank you sir."</p> <p>--Inside, something exulted. He knew his name. He remembered.</p> <p>"Do you know why you're here, Michael?" The man tossed in a piece of bubblegum into his mouth, and began to chew it.</p> <p>"I've messed up royally. You've got the power to kill me if you decide too."</p> <p>"I do." The man nodded. "Never used it once."</p> <p>Michael's eyebrows rose in shock. Officers of the Last Court were fabled to go through life executing waitresses who brought them burnt toast.</p> <p>"We do not advertise that. Simple fact is, some people won't pay attention until you have a blaster stuck up their nostril. Although most who are bent that way are dealt with before now. Either in crime, or they're given positions where their natural predilections do little harm to others or theirselves."</p> <p>"Mort got that job as a fire ranger a bunch of us wanted." Michael burst out. The man flicked his eyelids, and a tiny screen flickered in front of one eye for a second.</p> <p>He nodded.</p> <p>"Got it in one. Mort does not realize it, but he is disbarred from over fifty percent of the jobs out there. No one would hire him. Because one day, he'd do something. It might be an accident. It might be deliberate even, although that's unlikely. Its even possible, he might go violent and mad. Mort believes the universe owes him. He deserves what those who have spent decades honing their skills have as a matter of right."</p> <p>"But...is he wrong?" Michael asked thoughtfully. It was not a question the culture overmuch encouraged. But they did encourage honesty.</p> <p>"That's a philosophical premise, and thus, in some sense, unprovable. Since we base our society on the Textus Receptus, the revelation of God to man, by our premises, yes, he's wrong. The universe owes you nothing."</p> <p>"I-I don't think he's right." Michael said slowly. It did seem to him that someone who spent the last seven decades learning to be a violinist and was thus arguably better than Michael with his ten years of practise would probably have more power, more status, more money, more freedom, more connections than Michael. And Michael could not argue with that.</p> <p>"It hurts doesn't it?"</p> <p>Michael nodded intensely.</p> <p>"You're somewhat like Mort. Oh," He waved off Michael's instant protest. "You respect others, and yourself, and your God. You respect reality which is the same thing really. But you find yourself in the intolerable position of having to wait. And so you try, so very hard. First with Active Team Sports, even in our time, more of a young man's game. Then Creativity. Then Dangerous Testing. Then Charm. Then your Hanglider Company which was very clever."</p> <p>"But even now, Michael, you're burning the candle. I can see the incredible determination, the willingness to take the dangerous route to the top of K2 or Olympus Mons, a favorite of mine, by the way, is flagging. We made this route available for people with that determination."</p> <p>"But I'm not good enough."</p> <p>"No, you're not." The Judge paused. "I think in about five years, you'd finally give up. You'd spend the next fifteen as an apprentice. And then you'll kill yourself."</p> <p>Michael almost sobbed again. It was all too likely. The fire inside him would end up destroying him.</p> <p>"There are options, Michael. Other paths for someone like you. In fact, you, might be almost the ideal candidate for these."</p> <p>Michael looked up to see an approving smile on the man's face.</p> <p>"One, the JumpGate out on Triton. And two, a little secret project called the Torchthrowers."</p> <p>"Torchthrowers?" Michael said curiously, having never heard of it. The JumpGate, where a man went naked into the gate because only biology survived through the gate, he had heard of, and indeed he had done a school project on it. Torchthrowers was tabula rasa to him.</p> <p>"Yes, Torchthrowers, Captain Michael Hammer. Wake, wake, wake." A female voice intruded into his ears, and ice cold water dripped off him. With his vision blurry, he looked up to see the dark skin, and evenly parted hair of Doctor Tanya Morrow.</p> <p>Suddenly, he felt dizzy, and grabbed the sides of the cryobath he was sitting naked inside of. Icebergs suited for tiny robot soldiers bumped into his pectoral muscles.</p> <p>"Thought you were going catatonic on us, for a moment, Captain."</p> <p>"No, me?" Michael scoffed even as he remembered his pain and fear.</p> <p>"You're allowed to be human sir, especially after you've been frozen for three hundred forty nine years."</p> <p>"Whoah?" Michael said, feeling the dizzy rush come back again. Hopefully it would pass. Now he needed to find out what crisis had called his battallion of operators out of cryo to solve. But first, a uniform, and some hot oatmeal with raisins.</p> <p>End of Chapter One. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/torchthrower-again#post-33446 Tue, 30 Nov 2010 02:53:13 +0000 Tadeusz 33446@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>I'm going to try to rewrite and recopy this, and drop out the dead ends so that it reads smoother.<br /> =======================================================================================<br /> Torchthrower Project<br /> By Eric R. Ashley</p> <p>Chapter One<br /> -----------</p> <p>Wake, wake, wake.</p> <p>The words came through his skull from a great distance curled about with chill fog and lack of interest. </p> <p>"Okay, young feller, next time, don't leap so hard for the ball." The eighty-five year old doctor said with a warm smile and bright eyes. His hands were deft with generations of practise as an intern, and twenty years as a family practitioner, and the something... It faded on him. </p> <p>"Next time, I'll incorporate my jeet kune do falling techniques into the snatch dive for the ball. I won't break my collarbone again, that way, anyways." The young boy said, his voice earnest and analytical and accepting.</p> <p>"But its not neccessary for you to try so hard." The doctor said with soft eyes shared by the boy's parents.</p> <p>"Isn't it?" He asked back, a bit hurt himself, and he saw pain in their eyes. He was eight. Their combined age was two hundred ninety-three.&lt;/i&gt;</p> <p>Words came to his mind. They were insistent, and demanding.</p> <p>Wake, wake, wake.</p> <p>He ignored them.</p> <p>"But I am creative. Look, at my science fair. Not just the teachers, or my fellows in the multi-continent study group, but even that doctorate with the four degrees was impressed." The boy waved his hand at a diorama which showed the glaciers melting (due to heating coils as unshielded X-ray lasers were forbidden to middle school elementary students which had been his first choice), and the seas rising. After that, little robot men fled inland, and began building boats to send forth armadas to attack Egypt and its freshly built Pyramids.</p> <p>In truth, the man knew, it was a little crude, but making the whole thing with human Bronze Age warriors at the scale of a ladybug, his younger self had hoped to impress. It had combined the New History, Robotics, and even a battle tactics sim as differing beginning conditions could result in different armies sweeping the simulated Mediterranean Sea. Just moving one captain could tilt the war for new lands after the sea stole Atlantis from the Cretans to the Egyptians. It was a living, breathing (or so it seemed) refutation of both the Great Man and the Historical Forces Theories of History.</p> <p>His younger self waved at the diorama, and his teacher over the Net, a rather young sixty year old sighed in sympathy.</p> <p>"It is superlative." And then he delivered the fatal thrust. "Better than all but four percent of the seventh grade science projects in the category of Multi-disciplinary Creative."</p> <p>"Oh." Four percent. The magic circle was two percent. If you could do something better than ninety-eight percent of humanity, and it was deemed valuable, you could make your own way with others hurrying to open doors for you. Or you could take a well-paid job, do useful work and all at someone else's bidding for decades until you reached at least sixty minimum, and your real career finally started, maybe. If you still cared to be more than a worker at that time.</p> <p>More insistent and louder the words came, covered in ice, and ice crackling all around them at their power.</p> <p>Wake, wake, wake.</p> <p>"The world could be worse, you know." The truly old man said with a faint smile. He was nearing his second century, and given the job of counselling the gifted children as he waited for the death angel. </p> <p>"How?" Michale snapped.</p> <p>The man smiled in the gentle way that was common in the world of the early twenty-second century After Death.</p> <p>"You told me you enjoy reading the fiction of my youth. Alas, Babylon. Mad Max. Deathworld." The old man grinned, having a liking for those books of the days before even the Fall of Communism.</p> <p>"They're so...crazy." Michale looked embarrassed, but he had been taught to be honest first, and polite and respectful second.</p> <p>"Indeed. They are. Our half-pagan ancestors locked in a death struggle with a system devoted to looting and rampaging and sadism under the name of brotherly love and equality of outcome. How could our ancestors be anything but mad? But that's not my point. I tell you indeed, that those books might have come true."</p> <p>"And Max's world would be worse than this one?" The older boy, still a boy, Michale did not sound wholly convinced.</p> <p>"It would be an easier world than this one."</p> <p>"Easier?" Michale is incredulous. In those worlds, people were glad to find an expired can of food.</p> <p>"Oh, absolutely. There you only have to fight for your life. Here you have to be brave and honest and love and be kind and dream great dreams of a bright future we don't let you make without a decades long apprenticeship first."</p> <p>"There I could be a man. Right now." Michael said sobbing as he sat by the old man on a bench in a park that was not unusual in the slightest for its great beauty, and its hundred year old designer.</p> <p>The old man patted him on the shoulder. For some tragedies, there was no cure, but love and patience.</p> <p>Still louder, and Michale wanted to flee, so he did. </p> <p>Wake, wake, wake. The words came softer toward the end as he slid away from something.</p> <p>"I'm sorry." Michale did not know what to say. He knew it was his fault. Yet, he could not see where he had made a mistake except in attempting to be more than society was glad to give him.</p> <p>The older man, a father of five, a young eighty, bowed his head after an all-seeing glance that seemed to read Michale's soul. It was as if he expected more from Michale, but upon not getting it, he turned to his private grief. To the inanimate body of what had been his son, torn and twisted by the hangglider's crash, that lay on the floor between them.</p> <p>Michale had a vision of a great future, and so he enlisted a few others like himself who wanted more than a corner office for the next sixty years. He thought he could take his microbots and use them to load up a hanglider, and use a solar celled glider with a human pilot to get around legal restrictions on in city flight by robots. Then the microbots would jump off from the glider and bring the item they were delivering piece by piece, and assemble it in front of the customer without the pilot having to do anything but fly.</p> <p>It worked well for two weeks. People were enchanted by the idea. And then Bor got hit by a crosswind and swept into a lightpole above a tollway. It was a long way to the ground wrapped around a lightpole which prevented the opening of his safety cube which should have protected him.</p> <p>And now Michale wept for his friend.</p> <p>The voice came and with it some concern. Michale needed to heed it the voice seemed to suggest. And Michale was happy too now.</p> <p>Wake, wake, wake.</p> <p>The man leaned back with a small smile, and put his cowboy boots on the empty desk in the small room. Michale stared at him, and took the proffered chair.</p> <p>"Not quite the terror I'm made out to be, eh?" The man said wryly.</p> <p>Michael said nothing, as his base core of terror suggested even though there was an overlay of curiosity. The man, with pale green eyes, did not seem to be offended.</p> <p>"Michale Roger Hammer. That's a good name."</p> <p>"Um, thank you sir."</p> <p>--Inside, something exulted. He knew his name. He remembered.</p> <p>"Do you know why you're here, Michale?" The man tossed in a piece of bubblegum into his mouth, and began to chew it.</p> <p>"I've messed up royally. You've got the power to kill me if you decide too."</p> <p>"I do." The man nodded. "Never used it once."</p> <p>Michale's eyebrows rose in shock. Officers of the Last Court were fabled to go through life executing waitresses who brought them burnt toast.</p> <p>"We do not advertise that. Simple fact is, some people won't pay attention until you have a blaster stuck up their nostril. Although most who are bent that way are dealt with before now. Either in crime, or they're given positions where their natural predilections do little harm to others or theirselves."</p> <p>"Mort got that job as a fire ranger a bunch of us wanted." Michale burst out. The man flicked his eyelids, and a tiny screen flickered in front of one eye for a second.</p> <p>He nodded.</p> <p>"Got it in one. Mort does not realize it, but he is disbarred from over fifty percent of the jobs out there. No one would hire him. Because one day, he'd do something. It might be an accident. It might be deliberate even, although that's unlikely. Its even possible, he might go violent and mad. Mort believes the universe owes him. He deserves what those who have spent decades honing their skills have as a matter of right."</p> <p>"But...is he wrong?" Michael asked thoughtfully. It was not a question the culture overmuch encouraged. But they did encourage honesty.</p> <p>"That's a philosophical premise, and thus, in some sense, unprovable. Since we base our society on the Textus Receptus, the revelation of God to man, by our premises, yes, he's wrong. The universe owes you nothing."</p> <p>"I-I don't think he's right." Michael said slowly. It did seem to him that someone who spent the last seven decades learning to be a violinist and was thus arguably better than Michale with his ten years of practise would probably have more power, more status, more money, more freedom, more connections than Michael. And Michael could not argue with that.</p> <p>"It hurts doesn't it?"</p> <p>Michale nodded intensely.</p> <p>"You're somewhat like Mort. Oh," He waved off Michale's instant protest. "You respect others, and yourself, and your God. You respect reality which is the same thing really. But you find yourself in the intolerable position of having to wait. And so you try, so very hard. First with Active Team Sports, even in our time, more of a young man's game. Then Creativity. Then Dangerous Testing. Then Charm. Then your Hanglider Company which was very clever."</p> <p>"But even now, Michale, you're burning the candle. I can see the incredible determination, the willingness to take the dangerous route to the top of K2 or Olympus Mons, a favorite of mine, by the way, is flagging. We made this route available for people with that determination."</p> <p>"But I'm not good enough."</p> <p>"No, you're not." The Judge paused. "I think in about five years, you'd finally give up. You'd spend the next fifteen as an apprentice. And then you'll kill yourself."</p> <p>Michale almost sobbed again. It was all too likely. The fire inside him would end up destroying him.</p> <p>"There are options, Michale. Other paths for someone like you. In fact, you, might be almost the ideal candidate for these."</p> <p>Michale looked up to see an approving smile on the man's face.</p> <p>"One, the JumpGate out on Triton. And two, a little secret project called the Torchthrowers."</p> <p>"Torchthrowers?" Michale said curiously, having never heard of it. The JumpGate, where a man went naked into the gate because only biology survived through the gate, he had heard of, and indeed he had done a school project on it. Torchthrowers was tabula rasa to him.</p> <p>"Yes, Torchthrowers, Captain Michale Hammer. Wake, wake, wake." A female voice intruded into his ears, and ice cold water dripped off him. With his vision blurry, he looked up to see the dark skin, and evenly parted hair of Doctor Tanya Morrow.</p> <p>Suddenly, he felt dizzy, and grabbed the sides of the cryobath he was sitting naked inside of. Icebergs suited for tiny robot soldiers bumped into his pectoral muscles.</p> <p>"Thought you were going catatonic on us, for a moment, Captain."</p> <p>"No, me?" Michale scoffed even as he remembered his pain and fear.</p> <p>"You're allowed to be human sir, especially after you've been frozen for three hundred forty nine years."</p> <p>"Whoah?" Michale said, feeling the dizzy rush come back again. Hopefully it would pass. Now he needed to find out what crisis had called his battallion of operators out of cryo to solve. But first, a uniform, and some hot oatmeal with raisins.</p> <p>End of Chapter One. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/the-power-inside-brocks-seventh-world#post-28274 Mon, 25 Oct 2010 08:29:47 +0000 kyler 28274@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Your flexibility check was passed.</p> <p>§</p> <p>You don't experience any blackout at all; rather, when you are burned to death, you feel yourself pulled from your surroundings and into a golden liquid. You feel yourself being pushed through it, and see Kyler pushed off in another direction.</p> <p>You see it coming, a grassy area with no people around, a road running through it. You have control over your body to land however you wish or begin performing an action before you arrive, as long as it doesn't involve interacting with the area.</p> <p>You arrive how it is you wish to arrive, feeling temperate sunlight of perhaps seventy five degrees. The road stretches behind you and in front of you; in front of you it turns to the left, and behind to what would also be left if you were facing that direction. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/kylers-new-journey#post-34206 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 14:29:07 +0000 Ryan Young 34206@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Your fiance's sister shows you the latest and greatest in handheld devices, a Nintendo 3DSeye, which boasts the ability to simulate a three-dimensional representation of two-dimensional sprites by projecting the image directly onto the retina with a laser. The end result is that all of your favorite Gameboy, Advance, and DS games can be played in 3D without any additional hardware.</p> <p>The battery starts to run low, so she plugs the charger into the wall. You notice a gold substance has leaked out from the battery compartment onto your hands, but before you can react she connects the other end of the charger to the unit. A massive spark shoots out the back, and the house breaker fails to trip, electrocuting you very thoroughly. You black out.</p> <p>You have the sensation of weightlessness, gently floating, rising and falling. You open your eyes to see that you are laying in a giant ceramic bowl, and there are cherries skateboarding around you. Wow Wow Wubbzy and Dorer the Explorer are skipping in circles, and there are sunflowers singing unintelligible words in musical sing-song voices. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/elis-nine-lives-continues#post-33923 Sat, 04 Dec 2010 14:20:07 +0000 kyler 33923@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>The other thread is clearly broken, as I can't see any of my most recent responses unless I'm logged in under my name; interesting fact, that. Maybe I was mistakenly singled out as a spammer.</p> <p>§</p> <p>-- Your attempt to read his mind fails. He sees you, and asks aloud, "Eli? Is that you?" </p>