Behind the Screens 2008 · Page 13

If I can knock a guy out with a TK pulse on a botch, then I can do it on purpose.

Not necessarily. After all, you can give yourself brain burn, or create a psionic shock wave, on a TK pulse botch, but you can't do that intentionally that way.

The TK Pulse is an intentionally limited power skill. The limits are kind of seat-of-the-pants things--the size of the object doesn't matter, but the amount of force seems to vary with the mass pulsed. I can flick a penny across a table or, on a good roll, across a room; I can turn the prow of a ship a few degrees or get the vessel rocking, but I certainly can't knock it out of the water.

More importantly, you are abusing the Behind the Screens thread here. If you asked me that question at a gaming table, you would get my stock answer: "How would you know?" The fact is that there is no way you can know what you just asked me, except for you as the player to ask me as the referee. Because this is a teaching thread, I am obliged to answer--but because this is a real game, you are obliged to ignore my answer when making choices on behalf of your character, because he does not know the answer that I give you.

So, to be perfectly clear, what you as a player know is that against a 2@2 SAL and 2@2 BRA you rolled 41 on trying to build and hold a TK pulse and succeeded at doing something that seemed to feel like that, gaining a skill mark on your SAL for new use, and then on a roll of 76 nothing happened, and then on a roll of 28 you released an ordinary TK pulse. What you as a referee in training know is that it is not possible to store TK pulse energy that way, but that you can't just tell the player that it won't work because he has to try to do it for himself.

As to the nature of the botch in which you rendered the driver unconscious, it is apparent to me that what happened is there was an uncontrolled surge of telekinetic power which slammed his head into the steering wheel with enough force to cause concussion. You could indeed achieve the same outcome--by learning and using high speed telekinesis on human targets to slam them head-first into solid objects. You can try to do it with a TK pulse, but in general you don't get that kind of speed or force from them, and you can't build it up. But this answer must not control the choices made by your character, or I will stop running your game here, because it is essential to the integrity of the learning process that you not use referee knowledge to make player character choices.

Now, let's look at Harry's game, then John 2's, then Adam's.

Much to my surprise, Harry sounds like he just might be willing to settle down in Durnmist. This is awkward, because of course he is a ship's pilot and navigator, and thus is unlikely to be back here for an entire year after tomorrow. On the other hand, he's got enough wealth in those emeralds to live a peasant's life for fifty years or a wealthy merchant's for perhaps five, and it is inherent in the concept of the game that players can take the story in unanticipated directions. So perhaps he'll finish his run to Sardic, take his pay, and double back to Durnmist by some other transport to settle down. Let's roll the ball that direction and see what he does.

John 2 rolls 57 on the next TK pulse attempt, which is a failure.

Merlin shows Adam how to perform the next spell; he rolls 31 and gets a GE of 18.

--M. J. Young

Gotcha MJ. Makes perfect sense.

There were a lot of out-of-game threads, but my players tonight are Kurt, John 2, and Adam, so let me tackle them. I have about an hour before I have to run an errand, so I might be interrupted--but I guess this piece of information doesn't help until after I've finished, so there's not much point in saying it.

The question for Kurt is whether he will lose Zig, keep Zig at a distance, or wind up back in an open fight with him. A GE roll of 22 says that the last of these is the most likely.

John 2 has quite reasonably asked for a simple intuition check to determine whether his character realizes something that he as player did not realize until I mentioned it, but the character might have observed. Unfortunately, the roll is 27, which is higher than any intuition currently in play other than Adam and Geneice, so that's not going to give it to him. We will give him another three rolls on the skill to see whether he can make three rolls in a row and see that it doesn't work that way. He rolls 13, 22, 10, and that will do it.

I must be in a creative mood at the moment, because I just got an interesting idea for Adam's thread--one I cannot execute in this post, but which I can start to move toward. This burst of creativity is odd, because I am suffering with a tired headache most of today that has been slowing me and making me groggy--but hopefully I was able to manage some interesting game posts nonetheless.

--M. J. Young

Today I have two players to deal with, Kirk who is new to MultiVerser, and Ric, to whom I owe an update from Thursday.

Kirk finds himself waking up in a new world. I only have the First Book of Worlds, so when I say he is in early Medieval England as the time and place, some among us may know which Verse he is in. It's not exactly what he wants - no Steam Punk here - but the Mag bias is high enough that he can have some fun with it if he pays attention. He was, indeed, on the Titanic. I was feeling playful. Nothing much came of it, but I might develop it as a stall world - somewhere to drop a character for a couple of days till I come up with somewhere more useful to put him. The little girl he mentions, I gave him as an NPC because I feel that having her along with help keep him on task, give him a bit of an anchor, and keep him from doing anything too ridiculous (the concept is called a "morality pet").

Ric wants to fast-forward to something happening. You poor bas.. I mean, um, let's see what we can do. =^_^= Ric is learning to be a blacksmith. It will be a month before anything significant happens, and that is plenty of time for Higashi to show him enough new uses of the skill to raise him up to Average Amateur - 1@5 Blacksmithing, perhaps, 1@3 easily. Maybe it's not supposed to work that way. I feel like it is. He's learning with a reasonably high-level professional. He's a smart guy. He'll learn quick, at first. Fine. As for something useful happening, I'll start simple and see what he does.

Harry didn't ask so I won't take the time to explain how the learning process works. He has accelerated it a bit too much, and I do not think even an expert can raise a rank noob to an average amateur in thirty days, but since he's doing it by the seat of his pants he can assume that the player got the best of all possible rolls several times in a row, and that would get him there.

I have to address posts from Kurt, Harry, John 2, and Adam.

Kurt says he is going to turn around, but he wasn't clear as to how he wanted to do this. Some of those options will require driving skill checks.

Harry continues his discussion with the matchmaker. He's talking about settling down, but that will of course mean knowing what city he will call home, whether or not he does so. I might have to design a new trade route for another ship, if he's going to move to Durnmist. But maybe he'll take a local job.

John 2 asked for another simple intuition check to try to realize what happened in the jeep. I was thinking of letting him realize it anyway, but the roll is 28, so he doesn't. I should probably move the other elements in his world forward a notch or two, but I don't want to rush him.

I seem to have skipped a mental track in connection with Adam, but hopefully we can keep the story moving while we fix it.

--M. J. Young

John 2 asked for another simple intuition check to try to realize what happened in the jeep. I was thinking of letting him realize it anyway, but the roll is 28, so he doesn't.

So are you saying that if I hadn't asked for the roll, my character would have realized it? That hardly seems fair.

M.J. - If it makes your planning easier, my intention is that if Marta does find me a girl, I will indeed be resigning my position when we reach Sardic and returning to Durnmist post haste (I like Durnmist, and it means never having to go through Tempest again). My intention in Durnmist will be to invest my money - two years salary virtually unspent, plus whatever the Captain can get me for my almost-two-crates of uncut emeralds - in a diversity of local businesses, and then join the city guard, with the ultimate intention of running for the office of Sheriff or equivalent.

Also, as for Ric, I believe that the advancement rules are, in some ways, a bit unsatisfying to me. I think that when you are literally getting paid for something, you pick it up pretty quickly, simply because you're doing it for a long time each day, especially when you're being taught for a long time each day, and especially when what you're doing is small and repetitive. If you read his thread, I didn't say he became a competent swordsmith in a month, I said he learned how to melt metal without burning it and how to make rather a lot of nails in a month. It's not something he could get paid for on his own, but he's becoming a capable assistant, which I think is well within the realms of what a good teacher could do with a smart student and a month of twelve-hour days.

At the risk of turning this into something worth splitting into another "us haggling over something" thread: It seems to me that the skill learning rules give you a leg up on the initial Skill Learning roll for having a good teacher, but thereafter give you nothing. You don't get a bonus on advancing a skill for continuing to study under a teacher. That's the part that I find unsatisfying, and that's the part that I'm attempting - by trial and error - to correct for in giving Ric a quicker-than-normal advancement: he is continuing to be taught, which should lead to him advancing faster than if he were shown the basics and then left to improve on his own.
In much the same way that I would not be a 1@5 MultiVerser Referee (P 0@0 because it's communication? or M 0@0 because it's storytelling?) without you continuing to teach me - I would have learned much slower on my own, but I learned at the feet of a master, so I'm a bit better off than I would have been, and so is Ric.

To Ric and Kirk - Your update will come later. Like the Boss, I usually update at night to give my players a full day to get their word in. Also I'm waiting on four more newbies from MangaNext who may or may not find their way through to joining us.

You don't get a bonus on advancing a skill for continuing to study under a teacher.

Actually, yes, you do.

1 skill mark per 100 days of unsupervised practice.
1 skill mark per 50 days of practice with an instructor.
1 skill mark per 25 days of practice under the instruction of a skilled teacher/trainer who succeeds at his teaching skill check for that mark.

Thus a character who learned a skill at 1@1 could advance to professional level in that skill in as little as eleven months under a professional or expert teacher, or as little as nine months if he picked up the skill at 1@3. At minimum he will become professional in a year and a half (barring a freakish succession of botches). All of this is in contrast to learning on one's own, which would take at least three years (plus or minus three months).

Wodium - Interesting. I'll keep that in mind. One of these days I'm going to invest in a box of those little clippy note things like you put on textbook pages and index my rulebook in a way I can make easier sense of. Considering there's a Staples opening down the block from me, hopefully that will be sooner than later.

Kirk's first concerns are for his stuff, and his associate. Good. I'll give him what he's asking for, and plan for what will happen when he acts on it. He asks about other indications of life, but he has no means of telling that - his skills include nothing remotely outdoorsy.

Ric never gave me any indication that he knew first aid, but he seems to have a decent idea going. I'm not really sure whether or what to add to his sheet for this. MJ? Wodium? Suggestions? He's demonstrating knowledge he never claimed, which is a bit confusing to me. In the mean time, I'll reward his initiative and keep things moving. I know where this is going, too - a fact I'm rather proud of myself for, as my biggest failing as a GM is constantly forgetting where my plot is going.

Concerning Ric's first aid, I'm assuming that you're using the on the fly character creation system, and therefore he would not have listed anything at which he was not a professional. Medical skill is a bit tricky--you'll find it listed on page 140f under Special Tech Skills, first as Medical Diagnosis T?@0 and then as Medical/First Aid T?@1. The latter of those includes a level-by-level description of what is included in it. Most people trained in modern first aid know Cardiopulmonary Resussitation (CPR), which is 7@, and since he indicated checking for a pulse he probably was thinking along those lines. Thus he probably has an average to high intensity amateur SAL at medical diagnosis T7@0 and first aid T7@1, maybe 1@8 SAL--but I'd talk to him about it. The way it works is if the use of the skill is at a bias level lower than that for which he is qualified, he gets bonused by one skill mark for each level below that. Thus for his 1@8 SAL in T7@1 treatment he gets an effective 1@8 high amateur SAL for controlling circulation and major bleeding and similar skills, but if he's doing heat-based wound sterilization, a T1@1 application of medicine, he has +6 marks, which gives him a 2@1 SAL for those most primitive of medical applications--a better chance of success, and the other thinks that go along with professional skill such as doing the simple things more quickly and without a skill check.

And thanks, Scott, for calling his attention to the accelerated advancement for training and teaching--I was going to do that, and I'm always pleased when you get to it first.

John--it might not seem fair for me to say that I probably would have given you the insight had you not asked for the roll which denied it. On the other hand, you are the one who asked for the application of a specific game mechanic to the problem. To put it differently, you asked:

MJ, would I be out of line to ask for a second simple intuition check? What's the change in circumstance? Well, I just ruled out my first theory. Time to start looking for others. Slammed his forehead into the steering wheel would probably be my next guess. (Realistically)

I accommodated you, by doing what you asked. What, though, had you asked

MJ, is it possible that I might realize what happened now? I just ruled out my first theory. Time to start looking for others. Slammed his forehead into the steering wheel would probably be my next guess. (Realistically)

At that point, you're letting me decide what the appropriate way of handling the answer is. At that point, I might say, I'll give him another intuition check based on change of circumstance; or I might say no, he's going to have to play with it a bit to figure it out; or I might say yeah, there's no point in prolonging this, he's right that realistically he needs another answer and that's a really obvious one, so I'll give it to him.

At this point, all I can say is you now have a new theory, a working theory that you knocked out the MP by banging his head into some object, and you might find it worthwhile to look for ways to test this theory or you might merely tuck it into the back of your mind for later.

Now, let me address threads from Kurt, Harry, John 2, and Adam.

Kurt has proposed options based on conditions, so I need to figure conditions--and the best way to do that is with a GE roll. The roll is 9, As Good As Expected, and that's going to favor him well. Kurt's guns will have to be activated--they're not hood mounted, but hidden in the bumper--but on a roll of 27 he gets them visible to oncoming traffic. I'll also give him +1 mark for that, raising his SAL to 1@2 as he faces the combat.

Harry is going to meet his girl. I hope I have assessed him aright.

John 2 starts a day that finishes a few of his projects.

Adam and Geneice are learning some inner power skills. I'm discussing them in his game thread, but part of that goes here.

• Heightened Awareness P3@1 will require answers from him before I can roll it.
• Detect Enemy 3@7 he rolls 36, she rolls 83. That's an easy 1@1 for him; her psi bias is 10@1 against a 3@7 skill, and she adds her 2@3 BRA and the 15@ world bias, which the back of my brain says means she's got over a 100% chance of success, so she's at 1@3 even without teacher bonuses.
• High Velocity Telekinesis 4@5 Adam rolls 78, Geneice 72, and we have 1@2 SALs on this for both of them.
• Heightened Attributes 5@2 also has variants which will require discussion.

That's good for tonight.

--M. J. Young

MJ, I know I'm splitting hairs here, but sometimes they need to be split. I asked:

MJ, would I be out of line to ask for a second simple intuition check? What's the change in circumstance? Well, I just ruled out my first theory. Time to start looking for others. Slammed his forehead into the steering wheel would probably be my next guess. (Realistically)

Nowhere in there do I ask you to roll another intuition check. I asked if I would be out of line to ask you to roll another. I'm asking if it would be OK for me to ask you to roll one, I'm not asking you to roll one. You could have said "Yes John, it would be out of line in this case." and then decided how to answer my question from there.

Tonight I have only Ric with no post from Kirk.

Ric seems to be gathering supplies, or evidence, or something. I'll have to see what he does with a backpack full of stuff and an empty scabbard, but for now, let's see what he gets. I'll try his luck and use a GE roll to determine the state of the Elder's house (this will be the Large man he was talking to originally), and a 20 is listed in the book as "just bad enough."
Hmm... What constitutes just bad enough? Oh. Well, I think I know. We'll go with that.
And we've dealt with this elder enough times that he should have a name. I'll call him Kaidou - it means more or less "big guy" in Japanese.
Edit: I've looked it up and figured out what bias I would need if I feel like making Ric's experience of Dark Honor Empire a higher-than-normal magic one: M 2@18. 2@18? That's really sodding weird, why 2@18? Well, it's the bias that allows indigs 2@9 Counter Enslavement/Possession, while allowing outsiders 10@10 Possession, which is what I would need for my fancy trick...

John, I answer you in the other thread you started on the subject, Intuition Checks. Here I will address the game threads for Kurt, Harry, John 2, and Adam, despite the lateness of the hour.

Kurt is doing two things at once, but since they're designed to work together I'll not penalize him. I will make him roll, though. He is driving toward Ziggy, 41 a solid success, and firing his machine guns, for which I'm going to apply two rules at once--one, the rule for throwing lead, the other the rule for structural damage. A skill check of 22 says that he has successfully operated the guns. His aiming is entirely based on his driving here, which is a decent roll, so that will feed into the GE rolls. A 19 for throwing lead means that he's going to get some hits, and given the bonus of his driving skill check he's going to get a solid number of hits on the vehicle. A roll of 21, tough, says that these are mostly general hits, not structural hits. Still, Ziggy can't stay in a car that is being riddled by such bullets.

Harry asks a challenging question: can a spell designed to freshen food be used to freshen clothing? The answer is, it depends on how the skill is described. That description reads:

1@4 Purify Food and Drink M+3@1, sit in activated holy ground for 1:00:00 TF while invoking Hel, Baldur, and Heimdall, saying "Restore what was, for the good of all, that what once passed may all the sooner come again," +74SM.

The answer is not going to be so easy. The skill is named "Purify Food and Drink", but there is nothing in the skill which specifies that it must be used for that purpose--and the M3@1 listing is for "Remove Impurities". I think it fairness I should allow him to roll for it, and if it works I'll note the skill accordingly, including changing the name and giving him new use. Of course, it's hard to imagine it not working with that internal sit-mod--and a roll of 32 means that it should work. The only question at this point is whether any part of that sit-mod is based on a limitation that it applies only to consumables, and I think I will ask him rather than dig through threads looking for it.

John 2 rolls 50 on his attempt to TK Pulse with a stronger push by building the windup. Of course, that wouldn't work for a pitcher either, but it was clever thinking. He's got a 2@2 SAL and 2@2 BRA, which is 44% chance of success in this world, so that's not going to work anyway. He'll keep trying--but his second attempt rolls 96, and with a 44% chance of success he has a 56% chance of failure, a 5% chance to botch, which is 96 or greater, so he just botched.

To make it interesting, we'll start with the first botch being what he did before:

1. Cause head trauma to target
2. Slam target into wall
3. Knock self over
4. Slam self into solid object
5. Shake station
6. Brain Burn
7. Neural Breakdown
8. Psionic Shockwave
9. Pass self into/through object
10. Pass target into/through object

I like lists of ten, so let's roll: 9. I need a GE roll for how bad this is: 20 is just bad enough. Of course, he has a skill that can resolve this easily enough--if he can make it work without botching....

That leaves Adam, who is continuing his psionic learning. He wants to learn several forms of heightened awareness; it's evident that this includes the one that counters surprise, and also that he wants enhanced color discrimination, enhanced olfaction, and enhanced auditory discrimination, each as distinct skills. What is not clear is whether he means that he wants other enhanced sensory abilities as well, but I'll roll these for him and for Geneice, again being mindful that Merlin is teaching them. We'll do each skill in turn, Adam, then Geneice:

• Heightened Awarenes against Surprise 87, 30, that's 1@3, 1@1.
• Enhanced Color Discrimination 02, 74, that's 1@1, 1@2.
• Enhanced Olfaction 27, 69, that's 1@1, 1@2.
• Enhanced Auditory Discrimination 35, 30, that's 1@1, 1@1.

I probably should do his heightened attributes skill, but my day is wearing on and I've more to do before bed, so I'm going to wrap up here and let him answer my question before I proceed. Hopefully I will have more time tomorrow.

--M. J. Young

Ric remains my only poster, and he needs a skill check, to see whether or not he forged a good knife. Which means I get to look up how skill checks work. Oh joy. Well, we know he's a 1@3 Blacksmithing, and that's a T 5@3 skill for him because it includes both hammering and tempering. And I find on page 29 the chart for skill use modifiers... His decimalized skill ability level is 13, his decimalized BRA is 22, the lesser of the world or character bias... this is a Tech skill and he has a 10@6 bias, but the world's bias is only 5@3, so that gives him +10. Bias-adjusted chance of success. ... What? I have no idea what this means, and I can't find it in the book, so until someone can correct me I'm going to assume it's 0. So, all told, he has a 35% chance of making a decent knife, and a 9 says he did.

"Bias-adjusted chance of success" = "Total".

13+22+10 = 45, but of course that doesn't change the result.

I'm a bit surprised at the lack of gunpowder, but I suppose even in the Far East there's ancient and then there's Ancient.

I'm just going by what's in the papers on that one. I feel that introducing gunpowder into this world might change the balance of power - it negates the importance two of the Samurai's biggest advantages: heavy armor and superior training.
And yes I know I fail at math.

Osevens, just a two cent suggestions. The Chinese invented gunpowder in the 14th century if I'm not mistaken. However, they did not realize its value as a propellant for guns until much later. Explosives is what the Chinese developed first. Give the ninja and Samurai the equivalent of soft wrap bombs. (Made out of paper or other soft material, more for bang than explosion, although they can be quite dangerous) It doesn't change the balance of power. The Samurai armor would still protect them to a large extent, and the ninja would be hard to hit with one. Just a free suggestion, worth exactly what you paid for it.

Oh, I completely trust MJ's world design. I just had a different picture in my mind of what the world was. I was thinking along the lines of fireworks and smokebombs and such, too, but neither Chinese nor Japanese history is among my strong points, so don't make any changes on my account.

And yes I know I fail at math.

Nah, everyone makes mistakes. It's just that yours (pl.) are written down where I can see them.

We are addressing threads from Harry, John 2, and Adam.

Having settled the matter of Harry's freshening spell, we roll 25, so it works. It occurs to me that he might be able to get away with not taking showers using this--but then, there's something relaxing about a shower that should not be lost.

I have been reading the book in which I created the world in which John 2 is currently adventuring, and I am bothered by something. What bothers me is a discrepancy between my two sources. That is, subsequent to using this world in the novel Old Verses New (actually quite a bit subsequent) I started writing it up for Multiverser Triple Play 2. In the write-up, I made the psi and mag biases 0@25, one of my favorite biases because everything is difficult. I remembered that Lauren, when she used magic in this world, found it very difficult and limited, but she did some very potent tricks including teleporting between points in space and creating an environmental protection bubble. I assumed that the same was true of psionics. However, now that I am reading it, I find a Lauren who keeps saying that psionics come easy in this world--and she's just come from three consecutive worlds where the psi bias was very high. Thus I now think that I probably need to raise the Psi bias. At the same time, I want the three worlds of Triple Play 2 to be different in more than just setting. I already planned on a through-the-roof bias in Starship Destiny and a flatlined bias in Wanderer, and although indeed the differences in the mag bias can help distinguish them, none of these worlds are going to have mag bias levels above 0@ (they are, after all, science fiction not science fantasy). On the third hand (hey, I can create some pretty octopoid arguments) I have no interest in indigenous psionics in this world (I was toying with including them in Starship Destiny and intentionally ignoring them in Wanderer) and that makes me wonder why I would have a higher psionic bias level. Still, I'm thinking I should go with my gut, with the original novel description, and kick the bias level up to 10@. That means all of John's psionic skills just got a heck of a lot easier (only +10, not +20, because he's limited by his own 5@ bias--but he's probably going to change that, too); it also means that if he somehow survives the "big event" he initiated by his prayer, I'll have some resources for creating a future adversary for him.

In immediate terms, that means his chance to perform his Noncorporeality is BRA 2@2+SAL 1@1+2x5@ bias=43%. He would not have botched had I made this change yesterday, but I like botches, and part of being a playtester character is sometimes there are fundamental changes made to the world (or even the game, in the old days) while you are playing.

Unfortunately, 98 is again a botch. Here we go. This was so easy I hit 16 options without batting an eye:

1. Sink into floor
2. Solidify
3. Disrupt metabolism
4. Weaken strength
5. Weaken stamina
6. Weaken resistance
7. Increase density
8. Weaken hand/eye
9. Weaken agility
10. Decrease flexibility
11. Increase flexibility
12. Lose physical form (become amorphous)
13. Pain
14. Injury
15. Verse out
16. Non-corporeality (permanent)

And the roll is 13. Boring, but we'll go with it. He'll need to make a will power check to act after this. A 17 will power check against screaming from the pain is a failure, barely. We have torture in the Teepees here, as they say.

Adam is continuing his skill learning sessions. I've overlooked some important points on the Heightened Attributes skills, so I'll have to get him to address those.

I will, however, continue with the magic skills. The baselines for create fire against his model: He wants fatal damage, which is 3 damage categories greater than the baseline damaging, and thus -30. He also says 1000 cubic feet; since it is an exploding fireball, I'll treat it as a grenade-like area attack, 10' radius for fatal, -DC per 10' from there, which means 20' lethal, 30' dangerous, 40' damaging, 50' annoying. The range is problematic on its face, because he says 50' but does not say which range category that is; the baseline for fire is 10':30':60'120':+5/6', which means medium range is approximately equivalent to what he wants, and I'll go with that if he does not object. He wants a 0:12 casting time; I'm looking at RF 1/3. That means for +20 we switch from 1/3 RF to 3:00 TF, then work down from there to 1:30, 0:45, 0:24, 0:12, -40. He's got bonuses for appropriate words +5 in Latin +5 forcefully +3 with sound vital +2, both arms +3, and I need to put a magic value on six ounces of bat guano--something available in a lot of universes, but not always easily, and collection can be dangerous. I'll say that it's worth +4, and another +4 because it is destroyed. The vial is not part of the spell, and if it is not shattered it is reuseable. All of this adds up to -24 internal sit-mod. If he took the RF 1/3, it would mean that the negative sit-mod would be -4 instead of -24, and he could cast it in under six seconds, but he could not cast another spell until the three minutes had passed. I'll put it to him thus.

I can't see Merlin having a necromantic cause pain, given the circumstances of his universe.

I happen to know that this Merlin has dabbled in feign death and has accidentally done it; I think Adam knows that, too, based on conversations he had with Merlin at Ubercon (gee, they were both there and you missed it). Unfortunately the baselines are pretty stiff here. Oh, I love the design, by the way.

Let me roll, since it is not possible that Adam or Geneice at this point would fail to learn a M3@1 skill: 45, 75, so for Adam it is 1@1 Purify Food and Drink M+3@1 1:00 TF Appropriate words in Latin, sound vital, forcefully spoken, both arms, foci required, requires vial of pure water blessed by the caster, consumed in the casting, +42SM, and for Geneice it is the same but 1@2.

I think that's a reasonable amount of progress on his skills.

--M. J. Young

Having settled the matter of Harry's freshening spell, we roll 25, so it works. It occurs to me that he might be able to get away with not taking showers using this--but then, there's something relaxing about a shower that should not be lost.

I'll have a nice relaxing shower when I get to a Verse with indoor plumbing. Till then, I probably will do exactly that.

MJ, if you were any other referee, I'd think this was personal.

Ok, so, Ric is making me work out a Mag skill for him. Specifically, he wants an M 9@1 Create Light. This is well within this world's 20 Magic curve, so I get to learn how magic skills work. Yay. I had him fill out one of MJ's handy little worksheets, and it works out like so:

Is this arcane or holy magic, alliance, neutral, or anarch?
-Arcane, Neutral

What exactly will the magic do?
-Generates an intangible light source onto an object.

What distances, sizes, areas,or quantities are involved?
-The light is bright for a 20 foot diameter. It gets attatched to one object.

Over what variables does the character have control?
-The target.

What, if any, is the base damage category for the magic?
-No damage.

How long does it take to perform the ritual necessary for the spell?
-3 seconds.

How many times in a minute may an amateur cast it?
-Once.

How long will the magic last?
-Ten minutes.

Exactly what will the character say?
-Nothing.

Must the words be spoken loudly or forcefully?
-No.

Are the words in a language other than the character's native tongue?
-No.

Is the sound of the words vital to the magic, or will it work if the words are properly articulated within a place where there is no sound?
-Sound is not vital.

What does the character do?
-Touch the target while focusing on generating the light.

Which body parts must be committed to this action?
-The hands.

Which body parts can be substituted if necessary for the ones normally used (e.g., left hand instead of right)?
-Any Hand can be used, but must be your hand.

Is the ritual physically exhausting?
-You feel the effort on the body, but it feels more like sprinting up a flight of stairs.

What materials are required?
-None.

Which if any of these are destroyed or damaged beyond use during the ritual?
-None.

Are there any other limitations on the use of this skill?
-Only one active casting at a time.

I'm going to be honest and say I have no sodding idea how this works out, and I beg of those of you who do know - MJ, Wodium, and so on - please talk me through it. Or rather, I'm going to take a walloping swing at this, and beg you all to correct me after the fact. Ric is a very patient and understanding player so he'll forgive me if I need a retcon.

He has a slightly smaller than baseline area, so I'm inclined to give him a +5 for that. He's also taking a spell with a baseline range and reducing it to touch - I'm inclined to give him a +5 for that, as it's a pretty significant limitation. It has an "instant activation" casting time, and he is increasing it to 3 seconds. I have no idea what that's supposed to be, but I'm inclined to make it +5, the equivalent of going from a "free action" to a "standard action."
The way I figure it, he has:
-91 for the bias of the spell,
+0 for his own lack of a Mag bias,
+22 for his 2@2 Mag BRA
+5 for the diminished area
+5 for the diminished range
+3 for requiring both hands
+5 for the increased casting time
-51% chance of success total, 15% chance to botch.
Eric wasn't kidding when he said online dice hate him. He rolls a natural 100 so we need a botch list. Yay, my first botch list!

1 Explosion (because there's ALWAYS an explosion option)
2 Makes HIM glow for ten minutes
3 Makes his stick invisible
4 Sets his stick on fire instead
5 Radiates darkness, 20' radius
6 Sets his hair on fire instead
7 Magical anomaly: random things in the house become reflective, for that disco-ball effect.
8 Encases stick in ice
9 Stick wilts
10 (the good botch) His stick does light, only instead of lighting like a candle, it glows like the sun for five minutes, then disintegrates.

And he rolls... a 5. His stick radiates magical darkness for ten minutes. Yum.

"Instant activation" is equivalent to six seconds, actually. You don't get any faster than a six-second time factor for an amateur SAL. (There's a reason for that, but it's not all that important right now.) The lack of the +5 doesn't affect the outcome, of course; if it's within the curve, below a 91% chance of success, and he's rolled 100, it's a botch.

Edit: I just noticed that in response to "How many times in a minute can the amateur cast it?", he replies "once." That sounds like a RF of 1 to me, which is a significant step down from instant activation and thus worth a +20SM. (Going from a RF of 1 to a six-second instant activation is worth a -20.) /edit

(Other irrelevent-in-this-case modifiers: no materials + no verbal component + somatic component = -10 SM for only using one type of component; +2 for the world bias level, which counts once for skill learning; and ranged-to-touch is usually worth +20 rather than +5, but I'm not sure Create Light has a baseline range [my book is in a different city at the moment]. The adjustment rule of thumb is +/-10 for each doubling/halving, as appropriate, so if your +5 for area is accurate, that means the baseline in the book should be 150% of a 20' diameter.)

Edit the Second: ALL of the modifiers are listed in the beginning of the Magic chapter, after the theological-story-time section but before the holy magic section. That worksheet is just there to jog your memory and make sure you don't forget anything important. /edit2
__

Actually, I have my doubts that he's even attempting magic here. He's shown no sign of attempting to imitate the methods of any magic users or even the wizards of the PHB, and the actions he describes in his post sound awfully psionic to me. Fantasy fiction is full of "wizards" whose "magic" is Psi in the Multiverser framework, so you wouldn't be out of line to rule that he's attempting a P15@2 (I think) Create Light instead and just thinks of it as magic.

Here's why this could matter: if the Psi curve is at least 17, then of course a roll of 100 still botches, and of course a radius of darkness is a perfectly reasonable botch scenario. However, if you rule that this is an attempt to learn a 15@2 Psi Create Light skill, and if the Psi curve is actually below 17, then it's impossible for this skill to succeed in this universe - and if it is impossible to perform the skill, it is also impossible to botch it.

I guess at this point you'll want to stick to your "you tried to do magic" call, since you've already made the post with the botch in it, but I thought it was worth going through this as an example of the kind of thinking that might come up in the future.

Harry, concerning Ric's thread, I don't think that he's trying to do what he thinks he's trying to do. Where is he trying to get the power? It seems obvious to me. If that's too cryptic, drop me an e-mail at referee@mjyoung.net and I'll get it on Monday, or post an e-mail address here and I'll answer on Sunday.

John, you wroteMJ, if you were any other referee, I'd think this was personal.which strongly suggests to me that your problem with Adam has a lot more to do with your paranoia and lack of trust in referees than it has to do with any fault in his style. Think about that carefully, but don't answer it.

Now, it's late, it's the end of the week, it's the end of the night, and I've got three active players, so don't interrupt me unless it's important, right? Here goes with Harry, John 2, and Adam.

Let's see if I've guessed Harry aright.

It's an interesting question: what is it that John 2 is requesting in his prayer? On the one hand, what he thinks he is asking is for God to make him temporarily noncorporeal--a M15@7 effect. On the other hand, he wants to create a catch-all prayer that he can use to get him out of any trouble at all. I'm tempted to make it a teleport from here sort of skill, but there's nothing in anything he says that would support that. Given that he intends the outcome to vary, the best I can think is that there has to be an intermediary--the spell asks for intelligent supernatural assistance, so it will get intelligent supernatural assistance. It will be an Attract Off-World Sentient Servant, M+11@6. The base TF is 2:00, but he has only words, appropriate words spoken loudly, but that's only +8 against -10. I will assume the 2:00 TF, the -2 SM, and roll for success: 16 is going to work. That's 1@1 Attract Assisting Angel M+11@6 loudly say, "Please God Help Me" repeatedly for 2:00 while trying to think of ways God could deliver from the current mess, brings Terry, a garishly clothed slender effeminate male guardian angel with long blonde hair and an assortment of 2@ magical powers for solving difficult problems, -2SM. (I just want to make this something he's going to hesitate to use too often.) Now we decide what Terry is going to do; he will probably attempt that 15@7 skill, for which he has a 3@2 BRA and a 2@4 SAL and +10 for doing alliance magic in an alliance world, 66%. 75 didn't work. That means he'll have to try something else. It also means I have to start a sheet on him. I think that having tried what John suggested, my angel is now free to try what I would have suggested, so we'll give him a 2@9 Teleport Creature Out M12@6. John's luck is not running well--the roll is 97, and I'm looking at 32+29+10=73%, that is so close but not a botch.

This is actually becoming funny. I hope John isn't too upset by it all. Hopefully by Sunday one of us will be able to think of some other spell Terry can do to get John out of this.

Now I'm back to dealing with Adam's increasing skill work. We've got two distinct Heightened Attributes skills; they are

• Heightened Physical Attributes P5@2 increases all of Strength, Stamina, Agility, and Hand Eye by RS/10 intensities (on a single roll) by decreasing all of Intuition, Persuasion, Charisma, and Intellect by the same amount, for one hour or until cancelled, -15SM
• Heightened Non-physical Attributes P5@2 increases all of Intuition, Persuasion, Charisma, and Intellect by RS/10 intensities (on a single roll) by decreasing all of Strength, Stamina, Agility, and Hand Eye by the same amount, for one hour or until cancelled, -15SM

Now we roll, first first for one then the other, first for Adam then Geneice. 98 looks like it might be bad for Adam, but it's a 5@2 skill and he's got good support for it, so let me run the numbers: I've got a 2@9 BRA+10@1 bias+15@ world bias+Merlin's rather weak 1@5 example (not something he would do often) against a 5@1 skill with a -15 SM, that's 160-66=94%, so it's only a failure. Geneice on the same skill rolls 91, I'm looking at cold dice tonight, she's got the same 10@1 bias but a lower 2@3, no that's wrong it's 2@4 BRA +15+15=154-66=88%, also failure. Let's try the reverse; Merlin will have a 2@5 skill at taking from his physical to support his non-physical attributes, so that's going to make these 10% easier and that means automatic for Adam but 98% for Geneice, and the rolls in that order are 45, 05.

Interestingly, that means that they have given themselves increased best relevant attributes for psionics, and that means they get a second chance to do the first skill at slightly higher numbers--Adam's 2@9 Persuasion--no, that was 2@10, I undercounted that, too, but it doesn't make a difference to the previous roll--is temporarily inflated to 3@5, and Geneice's 2@4 Intuition goes to 2@5. The rolls again are 01 and 28.

We've also agreed that the fireball is

Throw Fireball M9@2 RF 1/3 ranges 10':30':60'120':+5/6', fatal to 10' radius -DC per 10' radius, appropriate words in Latin, Sound is Vital, words said forcefully, caster thrusts both arms out, as if shooting the fireball out, foci in hand ok, 6z Bat Guano, destroyed in casting, -4SM.

The rolls are 67, 75, Merlin probably uses this quite a bit so we're looking at 2@8 example, and that's an easy success for Adam, but I'm going to have to check the numbers for Geneice, who has 11@5 bias+2@5 BRA=140+15@ world bias=155-9@2 skill=63-4SM=59 and she'll make the 75 easily enough with the example alone, so we're good. Both are 1@2.

We've also agreed on a very short casting time and duration for the feign death skill, but there is the question of the intervening skill since we've agreed to dump the Cause Pain as not useful against undead and thus unknown to Merlin. I'll make some suggestions. He'll probably like at least some of these, so we'll fill in some gaps in his magic.

And I will attempt to fill in some gaps in my sleep.

--M. J. Young

Who was it that was talking about a condensed field guide version the rules? The more I try to do things like this and can't find any mention of relevant terms in the book, let alone all in one place like I hope for, the more frustrating it becomes.

Well, the stuff for magic sit-mods kind of is all in one place (the Magic chapter introduction under Arcane Magic), and there are all sorts of charts and tables collected in Appendix 4 (including the list for skill acquisition).

You do have to read through the section to pick out all the magic adjustments, though; they aren't gathered into one place. If you like, I could whip up a chart to post for reference, organized in a way that makes sense to me.

__

Best advice for knowing the rules: read it through twice, use it, read it again. Imagine using it in your spare time, then ask questions on the forum about the problems you ran into in your imagination. Everything hangs together in a way that's easy to remember once you know it, but individual mechanics can be hard to find if you don't. I'm at the point where I only open the book for skill baselines (or for effect during live play), but I got there by absorbing knowledge out of the book. The format is better for learning than for reference, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

This is actually becoming funny. I hope John isn't too upset by it all. Hopefully by Sunday one of us will be able to think of some other spell Terry can do to get John out of this.

Yeah, it is kind of funny in a sick, twisted kind of a way. And no, I'm not upset by it. I've had worse times than this.

So if I treat it less like a gaming rulebook and more like a textbook I'll be better off? I'll have to try that.

and that makes me wonder why I would have a higher psionic bias level. Still, I'm thinking I should go with my gut, with the original novel description, and kick the bias level up to 10@. That means all of John's psionic skills just got a heck of a lot easier (only +10, not +20, because he's limited by his own 5@ bias--but he's probably going to change that, too); it also means that if he somehow survives the "big event" he initiated by his prayer, I'll have some resources for creating a future adversary for him.

MJ, in all fairness to me, I hope that the bias is 10@15. I would still have the same range of ability. If it is 10@1, that's still better than 0@25, so I wouldn't be complaining. However, I just think, in fairness to me, it should be 10@15. Who knows? Lauren might teach me some 15@10 tricks, ya know?

Regarding an adversary, I've never really considered that. I've often considered what it would be like to have an AK-47 and a 9mm in an old-west town. Can you imagine if someone made you dance, by shooting at your feet with 6 shots. Then you make them dance with 16 shots from a fully-loaded 9mm. After you fired 6, they would think they could relax, but you keep shooting. I always thought that would be funny. They would never know when you were out of ammo.

MJ, you're easily the most patient man I have ever met in my life. I just wanted you to know that.

Sorry I missed your magic skills post Friday--it appears that it was written while I was writing my post, and I did not notice it after I posted. It was rather late.

Scott has probably hit everything, or nearly everything, but I'm going to give my reactions without comparing his; if we duplicate, well, you'll have confirmation, and repetition is essential to building long term memory anyway.

• Seat of my pants, I'm pretty sure he's going to botch, because creating a small amount of light may be a simple spell in Dungeons & Dragons, but in Multiverser it constitutes creating energy, and that's a 9@1 skill. For someone with no magic experience, -90 is a pretty steep challenge to overcome. I note on the side that there are a lot of things built into the Dungeons and Dragons system. consider that casting a spell includes time spent "learning" it, which must be done prior to every casting. From my perspective, that suggests that in Dungeons & Dragons the "casting time" is really much longer than the book says, but the casting is split into the time spent in the first part, the ritual of learning, and the second part, the ritual of releasing, making the casting time much longer in total but splitting it at a slight penalty. This also explains the "fire and forget" aspect, since what's really happening is that "read and memorize the words and actions" primes the spell and is a necessary part of casting it. Anyway, it's not impossible for the skill to have enough positive sit-mods to overcome a -91 negative, but it seems unlikley.
• "Alliance", "Neutral", and "Anarch" apply only to holy magic, not to Arcane magic. Had it been holy magic of a neutral affiliation, that might have meant an adjustment to probability of success based on the affiliation of the world, but since it is arcane, it is not "neutral" in that sense--it just isn't anything
• The bonus for a skill that requires direct contact, given both in the book and on the cheat sheet I gave you, is +20. It should also be noted that if the target might resist, you need to include a strike value and an appropriate resisting number, usually target value (but it can be an attribute such as resistance or will power), because it is then considered a type of attack. This would count if the skill were being used on a person, but also possibly if it were being used on a magical or psionic object that might resist spells (although in that case you might instead have a contest between the light spell and the resistance spell--and I'm getting too far off topic here).
• As mentioned, "instant activation" is six seconds, but the game does not allow anything shorter than that. This is because combat is ticked off in seconds, and professionals and experts divide their casting time by level, making three and two seconds respectively, which have to fit against the clock. Even in a repeat factor skill, it is assumed that the amateur takes six seconds to do as much as "point and shoot". Thus you would say that the three seconds is six seconds, the nearest value divisible by both two and three, and that's the baseline.
• And Scott is right that if it can be cast once per minute it is a repeat factor skill instead of a time factor skill. I would not normally give credit for that in this case, because once you cast the light it's going to be a minute before you can get out of the area and cast it again anyway, but I can see that if you were casting it at range you have the distinction between casting one every six seconds or one every minute, so yes, +20 for converting to RF if that's what you think he's doing.
• The 20 foot diameter is two thirds that of the baseline 30 foot diameter. Since +10 is good for half and +5 is good for a quarter (half a half), this 33% reduction in size, 66% of a half, is good for about +7. Still, doing it by the seat of your pants, +5 is probably close enough.
• You wrote "+3 for requireing both hands"; but he wrote "Any Hand can be used, but it must be your hand". That means that it requires one hand, but you can substitute the other hand, which is -2. (The logic here is that he can cast the spell with his right hand, but if his right hand happens to be weilding a sword at the moment, he can do it with his left hand instead, so he's not limited by needing a particular hand for it.)
• No words and no materials (the object on which the spell is cast is not a material but a target) means -10 for having only one component (action).

It's still quite a good job for your first stab at it, and certainly he did not build enough bonuses to get a successful learning result, or to avoid a botch on a roll of 100.

I also had the same impression Scott expresses: what Ric does appears to be psionic, not magic. He seems to be drawing the power from within himself. (That was the meaning of my somewhat cryptic post previously.) But apparently you and he have agreed that he did magic, so just keep it in mind in the future.

Oh, and it appears that the ritual here is, touch an object intending that it light up. That's going to create penalties on future skills when the ritual is, touch an object intending that it be healed, or touch an object intending that it be softened. Part of the function of ritual in magic is focusing your intentions; that means having distinct rituals is important to creating distinct spells, and if your rituals are not distinct you can wind up with an increased probability that you will botch by casting the wrong spell. That does not apply to psionics (another reason why I think it's psionic), because in psionics it is entirely about what's happening in your mind. In magic here would be the difference would be simply a difference of thought, a word in the mind where words are often elusive, "light" or "heal" or "soften", and the wrong word is simple. It would presumably be very different to do any of these things psionically, as the difference in "thought" between creating light, healing, and softening an object is as distinct as, say, focusing your attention on an image, relaxing your body, and moving your hand--all mental processes, difficult to confuse, very distinct from each other.

--M. J. Young

Now to do the important posts: the games. Harry and John 2 are my players.

And yes, John, I did not lower the curve.

Harry is having a talk with a wonderful girl he might just marry. We'll see how that goes.

John 2 has indeed come up with another way to fix the problem, and we know that Terry can do it because he just tried (and failed) to use the same skill on John. Since my numbers above say 66% and he rolls 61, that's a strong success. John will need an agility check, a simple one, 18 is rolled against his 1@4 agility, so he's going to fall.

I'm going to like Terry. He's certainly going to inject a fair amount of comic relief into some very desparate situations.

--M. J. Young

Today I'm gaming, and taking the day off from refereeing. Ric will get his update tomorrow.

Getting my post in before the Boss posts his, so I won't see his Behind the Screens before I've read my own game, as is my custom.

Thankfully, Ric does nothing that requires me to learn another game mechanics. I'm not sure if that's a mercy, because it spares me a headache, or a blight, because I won't learn if I never practice. Ah, well. Nonetheless, tonight's update for him is pure plot, a sort of minor setpiece scene, and I know where this is going regardless of which direction he goes, which is a comfortable feeling I almost never get refereeing tabletop.

I am really run down after a sleep-deprived night and a long and rough day; but people are depending on me for the game, so I'll tackle what I can. After Harry, I see the long-awaited return of Scott, then John 2, and finally Adam.

Harry didn't ask his date any questions, and I don't know whether I'm adept enough at conversation to give her a lot more to say without some hint as to what he'd like to hear--but I am adept enough to make side comments and ask more questions, so I'll do that and see where it takes us.

It has been so long since I did anything with Scott that I'm piecing together what is happening from his comments. I do know that he was trying to teach magic to a thorough naturalist, and that won't work; he was laying the foundation of a belief in supernaturalism through his discussion of religions. I think, though, that there is another problem, and that is that magic is flatlined. Probably Alice can learn the idea of religion, and even embrace a religion of some sort in a real way; but if the mag bias is 0@2 (as I think must be what I was thinking for this world) then it's not going to be easy to get her to do magic. On the other hand, that might be exactly why Scott is shifting away from trying to teach her something: if he wants the bias to rise, he has to get indigs to explore concepts within the bias and reach their own discoveries of the principles and applications. It will not be easy for Alice to reach metaphysical realities.

For some reason, I've always found that Chinese delivery is more expensive than Pizza delivery; maybe it's just me. Anyway, John 2 gets an 18 GE roll, which is only moderately off center.

I'm doing questions on Adam's new spells. The first one has quite a few points to clarify, but the individual fly spell is easier, the group fly harder, so I can do the one. Unfortunately, in addition to being exhausted, I am also committed to doing something else tonight, so I must go before I can finish this.

--M. J. Young

Well, I am again not happy to be this tired up this late, but I've had a lot of things to do today and now I'm here. Yesterday I promised Adam that he would be first because I had to leave him before I was finished, but then we'll continue with Harry, Scott, and John 2.

No, it looks like I'm not--once more life has disrupted life, and I have been on the phone for three hours when I should have been here. I have to be up in an hour, and it is likely to take me that long to get to bed, so I'm going to have to boot this once more into tomorrow.

I am more sorry than I can express.

--M. J. Young

I am more sorry than I can express.

We know you're sorry, now apologize to us. (kidding)

MJ, I've said this several times, and now I'm saying it again. As a customer of yours, that makes me your boss. As your boss, I am giving you an order. GET SOME SLEEP!!!!!!!!!!

I am back--sort of.

Maybe I'm back. We'll see what the night holds.

For now, I'm going to post this and go deal with pressing matters. If things resolve, I will be back to run the game; if they take too long, well, maybe there will still be tomorrow.

--M. J. Young

Take your time. I'm about the last person here who could criticize.

For now, I'm going to post this and go deal with pressing matters. If things resolve, I will be back to run the game; if they take too long, well, maybe there will still be tomorrow.

I hope that the pressing matter you had to deal with at 11:30 at night was a date with your pillow.

Are you anticipating the world to end tomorrow? I almost hope so.....

Actually, what I had to deal with was transportation issues--we've got some extremely complicated problems with cars at the present time, and one of the resolutions is that I wind up driving someone to work and back so that I will have a vehicle in the afternoon. It is very disruptive, because I can't really get started on anything until nearly dinner time, and I have interrupt everything before midnight. The pressing matter also involved making sure that the person needing transportation also got fed, but since my own dinner plans were disrupted by the fact that everyone I usually feed made other plans, it included getting dinner for myself as well. I didn't meet my pillow until sometime after three, I think.

Let us try at least once more, to start (I remembered) with Adam, then Harry, Scott, and John 2. At least no one else joined the queue, so it's not like the line kept getting longer, and the discussions did continue apart from the game, so it's not like the forum was dead.

I was about to roll for the fly spell for Adam and Geneice, but I have to backtrack to it to do the numbers. I've got a 1:36 TF, RS/20mph, appropriate words +5 in Latin +5 forcefully +3 and sound is vital +2 using both arms +3 requires a feather of a bird that can fly (no ostrich or penguin feathers) +2 (there are worlds without feathers), destroyed for double. Adam rolls 74, Geneice 62. The internal sit-mod is +19, Adam's bias is 15@1 and Geneice's is 11@5, their BRAs are 2@6 and 2@5, and they have Merlin's example, instruction, and teaching, so this is a certainty for Adam, 1@2 Fly M12@7 use both arms and a feather from a bird capable of flight which is destroyed, may hold focus, forcefully speak appropriate words in Latin, sound vital, RS/20mph until character lands +22SM. A quick thumbnailing of Geneice's numbers says hers is also a success, also 1@2.

Now the Delayed Teleport skill, M12@8. We've stretched the baseline 0:96 to 30:00, which is four point once seven doublings (calculators are our friends), so that's +42. The spell is cast in the desired destination point, and when the trigger, "Suck it Trebek", is spoken, the magic activates and carries the skilled user to the destination, provided it is within the same sub-universe. Appropriate words +5 in Latin +5 with sound vital +2 spoken forcefully +3 using both arms +3, may hold focus, must have an object or substance belonging to the destination +1. The rolls are 35 and 83, so it's 1@1 Delayed Teleport Self M12@8 precast 30:00 TF at the intended destination with appropriate words spoken forcefully in Latin, sound vital, using both arms, may hold focus, then upon speaking the trigger phrase "Suck it Trebek" the caster is carried within the same sub-universe to the destination point, provided he has with him an object or substance originating from that point, +61 SM for Adam, the same with 1@3 for Geneice.

O.K., looking at the group fly spell, I just wrote

Fly M12@7 use both arms and a feather from a bird capable of flight which is destroyed, may hold focus, forcefully speak appropriate words in Latin, sound vital, RS/20mph until character lands +22SM

Let's do the tweaks directly. The first is that he wants the feather of a "large" flight-enabled bird, at least as large as a hawk. That is a slight limit on the available feathers, and although the fact that he ordinarily has a bird with him makes me hesitant, I have to allow that he does get separated from Horus at times, so I will make the feather +3 instead of +2, and again it is destroyed so double that. That raises the sit-mod to +24, but there is another quirk, and that is that the skill takes -2 per person actually in flight, which will be two people for the learning run, and thus -4. The bias is 12@8, which is Geneice's current bias so that's a wash. 65 and 39 give Adam 1@2 and Geneice 1@1 on this. That's too bad for Geneice, because of course she has Snowbeard whom she would take flying with her, and Adam's Horus does not normally need the assistance of magic to accomplish that. But we now have for Adam 1@2 Fly with Others M12@8 use both arms and a feather from a bird capable of flight, may hold focus, forcefully speak appropriate words in Latin, sound vital, RS/20mph until character lands +24-(2xnumber of flyers)SM.

Now we turn to Harry, who hopefully has a lot less happening in the details, even if it's more in the substance. Indeed, we have a conversation going here.

Speaking of conversations, we left Scott in the midst of quite a serious one about the very nature of reality, and that after he had been gone for a bit himself and was just hitting his stride afresh. I note that he has a 1@2 teaching skill, and I roll a 22 on his efforts to explain all this to Alice, in the process raising that to 1@3. (I was going to go with an intellect check for her, but I've not really considered how intelligent she might be and don't have a sheet on her at this point; the teaching skill check is a much better choice.) I think Scott has himself a disciple. Eris would be proud?

I remember being annoyed with myself that lasers fell into three distinct categories in the bias system, depending on their application. However, power lasers are 12@, so we'll give John 2 a roll, which is 10, which teaches him 1@1 Operate Heating and Cutting Laser T12@1. We'll also give him a skill mark, which is the fourth which he needs to take his blacksmithing from 1@10 to 2@1--he is now professional at metalworking skills.

We'll also give him skill with the gadget that analyzes materials, which we'll call T14@1 Operate Molecular Analyzer; but he rolls 77 so he hasn't learned it yet.

--M. J. Young