Scott, you're very good at explaining things. The other thing though is that, with guns, to sabotage it, all you really need to do is plug the barrel with something. Dropping it barrel first in the mud would do. Plugging the barrel would cause it to explode the next time it was fired. Or is it that you could drop the gun, thereby accidentally sabotaging it, but not know how to clean the mud out? (Fixing the gun is curved out) Or that you couldn't drop it in the mud with the intention of plugging the barrel with mud? This sounds like it would be very complicated for a referee to remember.
Scott, you're very good at explaining things.
Thank you! I try, and I think I've learned a bit from watching MJ do it; I notice bits of his style creeping into mine.
Or is it that you could drop the gun, thereby accidentally sabotaging it, but not know how to clean the mud out? (Fixing the gun is curved out) Or that you couldn't drop it in the mud with the intention of plugging the barrel with mud? This sounds like it would be very complicated for a referee to remember.
Yes, exactly. Dropping the gun into the mud with the intention of plugging the barrel requires a level of practical technological understanding that is simply not permitted in a flatlined bias world. And it's that same lack of understanding that prevents you from fixing the gun if it happens to get plugged with mud by accident.
As for being complicated for the referee to remember . . . well, yes, a little. I always study up on the bias listings before I try to run a world with flatlined bias (or any unusual bias, really). Looking it over again before every session doesn't hurt, either.
Also, I imagine it's most challenging the first time, and that after you've run flatlined tech a few times you get more familiar with it and more used to adjudicating it. Running Men of Psience was hard at times ("Hm, Graham wants to get dressed; is that curved out?* Let's see, cloth technology is level two . . ."), but Bah Ke'Gehn was easier because I'd done low-tech before.
__
*Answer: no, it's an @1 device operation skill
Thank you! I try, and I think I've learned a bit from watching MJ do it; I notice bits of his style creeping into mine.
Ah, but no offense to MJ, I think you're much better at it than he is.
Scott might be better at explaining things than I, and I agree with all of his examples--but for one minor oversight on his problem. The "repair rule" works top down, and since "design and build explosive driven slug thrower", that is, a gun, is a 6@4 skill, modify is 6@3, repair is 6@2, and sabotage is 6@1--within the flatline. Thus you could sabotage a gun by clogging the barrel (or removing the firing pin or disconnecting the trigger mechanism or any other intelligent approach to preventing the gun from operating), but you could not reverse the problem and repair it.
Also, as Scott says, smashing a gun with a rock does not constitute sabotaging it; but quite apart from his excellent observations that this involves simply attacking the gun with blunt force, there is the additional problem that you can smash a gun with a rock and not damage any of the functional parts--a revolver or a rifle with a damaged handle or stock can still fire. To prevent the gun from operating you would have to smash a part that is critical to the function of the weapon, and that indicates that you have to, under the current bias, understand what parts are critical to the function. If you simply put the gun down and smash it with a rock, a general effects roll is the best you've got for whether you managed to break the gun--and it opens the possibility that you managed to shoot yourself or otherwise cause internal explosions.
And concerning explosions and fire, both are oxidizing reactions, and in fact are the same reaction; both are expansive. However, why the gun works is a mystery in a flatlined bias world. Still, nothing says that you can't have a fire in this world--only that you cannot intentionally start one.
That is the issue in connection with the hot stone: can Graeme intentionally start a fire with a magically superheated stone? As Scott suggests, there are no fire ignition skills in the flatlined bias, so the question becomes whether because of what Graeme does a fire accidentally starts, and what sort of fire he gets. Fortunately, skills are possible which will contain, transfer, maintain, and extinguish a fire, so if he manages to cause an accident through the careless placement of a superheated stone near flammable materials, he hopefully will be able to get that fire under control.
I've received something of an emergency interruption and must leave for the moment. I hope to return.
--M. J. Young
Here's one for you. As I understand it, "Push the button" is technology that anyone can do. After all, you don't have to know how the time machine works to push the button that starts it. So, why can't the indig use a gun? "Push the button" "Pull the trigger" What's the difference? If the indig has hands capable of gripping the gun, and his finger is capable of curving around the trigger, why can't he use it? He doesn't have to know why it goes boom in order to make it happen.
As far as sabotaging guns, if the verser IS the only one capable of using them, why would he sabotage his own gear? Of course, just because he is able doesn't mean he would.
I am back, but trying to beat back a headache. I'm going to call it a night and put this off until tomorrow, with apologies to all.
--M. J. Young
That's what I get for not looking up skills before I talk about their bias . . .
If something really is just "push the button," it's classed as an @0 skill. Apparently, the designers didn't think firing a gun was quite that simple. Consider that the gun must be loaded, cocked, aimed (taking into account gravity over the distance), fired (accounting for kick), and occasionally reloaded. If you had a gun where you could push one button and have the gun take care of all of that for you, that would probably be an @0 skill.
It might not be 6@0, though. For example, if it was all done by computer, that's 11@0, or 12@0 if it's a robot, or 13@0 if it's a human-level AI . . .
Edited to add that I'm sorry to hear about the headache, and I hope it abates with merciful speed.
Scott, what I said was said under the assumption that the gun was loaded and ready to fire. I guess under those circumstances, it would work.
And MJ, do you know the easiest, fastest way to get rid of a headache? Drop a brick on your foot. You forget all about the pain in your head. Hope you got some good sleep.
Hey, for once at least I know I am not the CAUSE of your headache HAHAHAHAHA.
Ah, more on guns.
You have to pull the trigger, of course, but you also have to be ready for the kick, don't you? Using the gun means more than pulling the trigger; it means understanding some of the concept of what the gun does and how it does it, so you can point it the right way.
There was a wonderful D&D module, something like Mission to the Barrier Peaks, in which the medieval D&D characters find and explore part of a crashed colony space ship. To facilitate play, the authors drew pictures of objects the characters would encounter, but made them such that you would not be able to guess their function based on modern knowledge. For example, the device that appeared to have a screen and several buttons was not a communicator or computer, but a heat weapon. The device that looked like a gun was a translator. If you did not know what a device was, you were taking a serious risk attempting to use it.
I certainly do not expect that a verser would want to sabotage his own weapon--unless of course he was concerned that that other verser was going to steal it and use it. He also might want to sabotage that other verser's weapons.
Failure to use a device does not necessarily mean that it does nothing. Someone who does not understand a gun could pull the trigger and shoot you, or himself, or the tires, or the gas tank, or the unstable nuclear device, or the dirt. Of course, if the safety happens to be on, he won't know how to change that, and if he's trying to operate the weapon himself he might turn on the safety--the trigger is not the only part that moves.
--M. J. Young
You have to pull the trigger, of course, but you also have to be ready for the kick, don't you?
Yeah, but by that point, the gun is fired, the bullet has left the muzzle, and has hit whatever it was pointed at. Not knowing that there is a kick would do very little to change that.
I've actually had a 44 magnum come flying out of my hands. I still hit the target. My uncle (who owned the gun) caught it as it went over my head, hit me over the head with it, and said "Grip it tighter this time." That's also why the largest handgun I will get is a 357 magnum.
Things have been a bit unpredictable around here, but let's see if we can catch up on threads from Maxx, Harry, Nikolaj, John 2, Adam, and Graeme.
Maxx is teaching himself a new pain-relieving prayer. It reads something like this:
In a relaxed position, touch area of pain; once per minute perform "Pain fly away gesture" then clap (dot) and drum (dash) "BYE" in Morse code while saying "Bye", for 30 minutes, and pray repeatedly that the pain will be more bearable. Effective through the present pain event.It is holy alliance magic, a M+2@1 curative. Since both remove fatigue and limited damage repair have one minute time factors, we will assume a one minute baseline time factor here, and give bonuses of +49 for almost five doublings (2, 4, 8, 16, 32). It should be good for up to eight hours, which I will add to the description. He has +5 for appropriateness, +5 for the use of another language (Morse code), +3 for loudly (hard to drum quietly), +3 for two hands, and that comes to +65, probably an automatic success so let me roll before I finish the math: 49 is certainly in there for 1@1 Eliminate Pain M+2@1 In a relaxed position, touch area of pain; once per minute perform "Pain fly away gesture" then clap (dot) and drum (dash) "BYE" in Morse code while saying "Bye", for 30 minutes, and pray repeatedly that the pain will be more bearable. Effective through the present pain event up to eight hours +65SM.
Next we're looking at a P7@6 Redirect Energy, a more limited application perhaps but also requiring more precision, so we'll call it baseline. He wants to capture the light that emanates from his body and focus it in the direction his right hand points. He also intends to rest at least two hours before, and expects to be exhausted requiring at least 4 hours rest after, the skill. I am thinking that this is +25 (+5 for the advance rest, +10 for using a body part for a focal point, +10 for significant exhaustion), and we are building from P6@1 bias and 1@10 BRA and 15@ world bias, so a roll of 38 is in there (I thumbnail 45% as the target), 1@1 Redirect Light P7@6 must rest two hours before, use right hand to direct focus, will gather local light and beam it outward for RS/5 minutes, exhaustion following use requires immediate rest for four hours, +25SM.
The prayer for the deer is probably best handled as a M+1@4 bonus checks, focused on the deer's ability to find food. It's a one hour prayer instead of a one minute prayer, but the one minute prayer is for RS minutes duration and Maxx wants to carry the deer through the winter. The bonus for TF is +59, but six doublings of d100 minutes is d6400 minutes, averaging 3200 minutes, 53:20, or two days, five hours, twenty minutes. If we want to make that last a week, that's 3.15 times as long for 168 minutes; one doubling to reach 106:20 and another 0.6 to reach the target. So that's -16 SM for the balance between an hour of prayer and a week of bonus. We can give him +5 for appropriateness, and a roll of 20 gives him 1@1 Bonus Survival Skills M+1@4 pray for one hour using appropriate words, provides one week of RS/10 bonus to all survival skill checks of intended target -16SM.
That was a lot of work for such a short post, but we've added a couple of skills to his sheet.
Harry rolls 14 on the conditions at the fire.
There's not much to cover for Nikolaj at present, but things are still moving forward for him.
I think John 2 needs a charisma check for his apology for Lauren, and he's got a 1@5 charisma; but she's not going to fight an apology. His roll is 13+1=14, as close as he can get.
I'm raising Adam's Use Holy Symbol to 1@10 and adding a 1@7 SAL version for Geneice. She rolls 91 on the holy symbol skill, which is not going to work here. It appears that on Tuesday I wrote
Geneice rolls 23, saving me a lot of trouble on math and tricky questions, and her SAL combined with her 2@8 MSV means dangerous+DC=lethal damage, 5 intensities, on a target with a 2@ damage value means 2 effective, but she still has her rider, as soon asand left the sentence hanging, forgetting to add the part about getting the information on that.
The vampire I'm using has a 2@1 MSV, 2@8 Bod BRA, but no stated skill at weaponless fighting on the sheet I'm using; but it's clear that he is a fighter, so I'm plugging in a 2@3 Brawling skill for his basic attacks. That means his chance to hit here is 86 minus defensive values (assuming a 7@ bod bias); Geneice presents with her 2@5 TV and -48 custom armor (without the helmet here). That means the punch has 86-25-48=13% chance to hit for annoying+3DC=dangerous+10 damage. He rolls 29, a failed hit. Adam wanted a fight; I think he's got one.
Graeme rolls a 20 GE on the effect of the heated stone; that's just bad enough. I note as an incidental that I never copied the spell to Graeme's paper, which if I compile notes from various sources comes to
1@2 Create Heat M9@6 By any means possible, I draw an icon for fire on a red stone, then place or toss it and say "Aduro!"; the stone will heat to 2000 degrees. It will remain hot for RS/10 minutes. The stone is consumed by the heat. +172SMI could hardly think of a better demonstration that the laws of physics are unreliable here.
--M. J. Young
Grame, I've been meaning to ask you for years. How do you pronounce your name? Is it like Graham? Or is it Gray-me? How do you pronounce it? I've been pronouncing it Gray-me this whole time, I hope I wasn't wrong....
Same as Graham (Grey-um). Scottish spelling.
Cool Grame.
MJ, is rolling a perfect Charisma check like that cause to raise the charisma? How do you raise charisma anyway?
Two Posts
MJ, just checking to make sure you saw the post above your last. It's got an amusing anecdote, if nothing else.
John, good question about Charisma. I'd love to know that too. I would imagine you could raise your charisma by learning something about people (reading through "How to Win Friends and Influence People" a couple of times) or simply by practicing (using a lot of charisma-based skills).
The one I'm more curious about is AnMag. How exactly do you practice that? O.o;
The one I'm more curious about is AnMag. How exactly do you practice that? O.o;
The cool thing is that the referee doesn't have to answer that. The player tries his best, and the referee makes a yes/no judgment.
In other words the player can waste his effort for years of game time just for the referee to decide he gets nothing. Doesn't qualify as 'cool' to me.
Not exactly what I said. Let me try again.
The player finds out pretty quickly if the program is working or not. He can tell. What I meant is, it's not the referee's job to think up the program; he just evaluates programs the player thinks up. The burden of creativity is on the player, in this case.
If you follow Maxx's thread, you can see this in action repeatedly. He's trying to come up with a level two advancement program for intuition. So far, I don't think he's "wasted" much more than a month, if that, and he's gone through several program ideas.
Absolutely right.
I figure that an-mag is some combination of good grooming, self-confidence, body language, and the ability to read and respond to people, all reduced to an innate character trait. Charisma is similar, but with more focus on a talent for interpersonal interaction, the abilities to put people at ease and make them feel comfortable around you, probably courtesy and chivalry and the ability to make others feel as if they matter to you, but again doing so innately and rather evenly, not as a targeted approach. Persuasion, then, becomes the ability to harness these concepts in a focused way for your own purposes, to get someone to agree with you not merely based on the logic of your argument but on the force of your personality, which you bring to bear through the use of interpersonal skills.
And indeed, I am obliged to say whether or not any particular method of improvement you try seems to be having some benefit, within a few character days of initiating it (and I usually do so more quickly than that, primarily because it's easier for me to say "that's not going to work" than to remember later to say "that's not working"). I am not obliged to create methods that work, unless as part of the creation of a world I devise a means of improving your attributes. In those cases, I do not necessarily have to explain how it works in detail, as long as I have a plausible explanation for how it works in general.
For example, on the Mary Piper Alpha, anyone who is a Deck Hand will improve his strength one intensity per four hundred days through 2@10, and anyone who is a pilot will improve his intensity one intensity per eight hundred days through 2@10; anyone in security will improve his strength one intensity per two hundred days through 1@10, and anyone who is an engineer will improve his strength one intensity per four hundred days through 1@10. I don't explain in detail how that happens; I assert that in the normal work connected to the job, you get enough of the right kind of exercise for that improvement.
Very similarly, anyone on that ship who serves as a Department Head (Pilot Commander, Chief Navigator, Chief Engineer, Doctor, Security Chief, Chief of Deck) improves his persuasion one intensity per two hundred fifty days through 1@10 and his charisma one intensity per three hundred twenty-five days through 1@10, because the demands of the job require him to exercise the kind of leadership and interpersonal authority that builds those attributes. Anyone who serves as first officer, for the same reasons, improves his persuasion one intensity per five hundred days through 2@10 and his charisma one intensity per seven hundred fifty days through 2@10, and in addition improves his animal magnetism one intensity per five hundred days through 1@10. Become captain of one of those boats, and you'll improve that an-mag one intensity per thousand days through 2@10, and if you live so long you will improve your persuasion one intensity per thousand days and your charisma one intensity per fifteen hundred days through to the inhuman level of three at ten. Captains can also achieve third level intuitions and will powers, both by advancing one intensity per two thousand days.
Note that a thousand days is about three years, and a captain would probably be pretty old already if he came up through the ranks--which he would want to do so that he already had 1@10 attributes when he became first officer and 2@10 when he became captain. If he did not come up through the ranks, it's a long slow road to a 3@ attribute at captain's rate.
How do I explain that? In brief, the leader's job puts him constantly in a position in which he has to practice those aspects of his character which are covered by these attributes, and on a ship he has to do it constantly--if he's awake, he's in command. He learns to delegate, to build the trust of his subordinates and his superiors, to interact with others in an effective manner--or he doesn't get the job.
Can you copy that "program" somewhere else? Well, in fairness, if you've never had the job you probably are not aware of the impact on the attributes, and cannot consciously copy a training method about which you know nothing. Harry might argue that as a Junior Investigator he has a certain amount of responsibility and leadership, but I'm sure he recognizes that it is nowhere near the amount that falls on the shoulders of a ship's department head, never mind the captain. Over the course of time I might decide to bump his persuasion and/or charisma up a notch, and more inclined to do so if he stays here long enough to become senior investigator; but I don't think he'll stay even another year--just long enough to get married, settle down, and then look for a dangerous way to get sent to another universe.
That's a long introduction, so I'm going to end the post here and start another for the day's game.
--M. J. Young
Sorry for the brief interruption. Let me turn my attention to Maxx, Harry, Nikolaj, John 2, Adam, and Graeme, finally.
It looks like Maxx might finally have come up with a way of improving his intuition, although the details are still a bit sketchy.
Harry is fighting a fire.
Nikolaj already has the T1@4 color leather products skill as part of his leathercraft package, but I'll up that to 1@2 for new use, based on his improved understanding of leather colors. I could sever the subskill to its own listing, but it's premature for that and makes for messy character sheets.
John 2 rolls a 9 GE on getting a medical robot. One of the advantages of being in a high tech mall is that there are high tech gadgets available, and he's asked for a few.
Oh, I forgot the hatchet. You know, you're not really supposed to use those that way--they're a bad design. Hammering with the back spreads the grip on the handle and increases the probability that the head will fly off. You're supposed to hammer with the side of the head. But he got a 19 GE on it, so it's probably still available.
Adam is 3@10 with the FN-7, pistol, which is RF10 dangerous 20 bullet clip and he's got a 2@9 RSV, 2@6 BRA, and is limited by the local 5@ tech bias. He's not within 10' of the target, so he's at short range, the unmodified distance. That gives him one attack per second, sixty in the minute, but that he's out of bullets after the first twenty, and +2DC+10 for base fatal attacks. His sum is 105 minus defensive values. It's a 1@7 TV he's shooting, which means 88% chance to hit. The monster is using his 2@ MSV, but no other skill to multiply attacks, so Adam will be able to exhaust his clip before it can strike again. It has taken 2 intensities against its 2@5 DV, so it needs 23 more to bring it to death's door. Adam could finish it on a single great shot, but 11 is only a good shot, +10=21=11 intensities divided by two is 5 makes 7; roll 68=78=39, and that's all she wrote.
A GE of 20 is just bad enough for Graeme, so we'll do something...interesting.
--M. J. Young
I get it MJ. You explained (in a nutshell) that bias was supposed to "level the playing field" so that the versers wouldn't be able to trounce the indigs immediately with their modern weapons.
What I didn't understand though was that explosive-driven slug throwers are @1, so they work in a flatline world. The verser can still trounce the indigs. However, the verser only has the advantage, UNTIL his gun jams and he can't fix it... What does he do then? I get it. That's really cool.
(Doing Therapy)
You missed another not insignificant detail, John.
Anyone who can operate an explosive driven slug thrower has a bias not less than 6@1 (6@2 if he can also fix it). That means whenever he uses it, his bias adjustment should be 2x6@=+12. Your own tech bias is 12@1, so you get 2x12@=+24 on your use of a gun. That's a 24 percentage point bonus on your chance to hit, and an increase in the amount of damage you can do.
But that's limited by the bias of the world. So if the tech bias is 0@2, you can operate the gun, but your chance to do so just lost that bias bonus--the guy with the 6@ bias is 12 %age points less likely to hit, and you are 24 points less likely to hit. For you, that's as much as one in four shots more that won't hit. If your chance to hit was 70%, it's now 46%; and if your damage was lethal, the maximum just fell from 14 to 10.
Of course, the same lack of bonus applies to swords, and thus technological combat in a magical world is significantly slower than it is in a high tech world.
Here's hoping that after several setbacks this week I can finally address game threads from Maxx, Harry, Nikolaj, John 2, Adam, and Graeme. I apologize for the delays. I kept trying to get here, only to be interrupted and derailed yet again.
Maxx as usual addresses a lot of points. The question about Morse Code means an ed lev check, I think a difficult one, roll is 9+10=19, which is within his ability. That means I don't need to roll his other memory skill. There's a lot more to cover, but nothing else to roll.
Harry is about to give himself teaching skill: the ability to get someone else to understand how to do something you know how to do. 70 is rolled, but he's got a 5@1 psi bias and 1@9 BRA against a 0@1 skill, and of all the ridiculous things he's only got a 69% chance of success on this. Meanwhile a 21 GE roll says things are still bad enough.
The probability of a time keeping device in the leathershop where Nikolaj works seems slim to me, but a GE of 11 covers slim, so there's something there.
John 2 has used up the rest of my immediately available time, so I will have to leave this open and come back to finish the rest.
I've returned for a bit more time, and tackled the denoument of Adam's battle.
Graeme is in a considerably more magical world, and it seems to me that in such a world the relationships between people and animals will be a bit different. That's what I'm exploring with the jaguar.
--M. J. Young
I am again looking at Maxx first in line, then Harry, Nikolaj, John 2, and Adam.
Maxx again has a lot happening; let me consider his prayer for the deer:
- While eating a meal, pray repeatedly by thought that the target can feel satiated by such food as he finds find while caster is eating. Some of the food consumed by the caster is destroyed such that it feeds the subject rather than the caster; after eating use a leaf for a napkin, wipe mouth, shred and scatter leaf symbolizing plenteous food around the target; clap and tap "TQ FOR FOOD" in Morse Code with hands and say "thank you" aloud; pronunciation of the word is not essential as long as the effort to speak is made. TF 30:00, causes target to find sufficient food for one day.
Harry has a plan.
Nikolaj has that dreams and visions skill over which he has no control, which means among other things that when he's been praying I'm obliged to consider whether there might be a vision. He rolls 44 on it, so I've got to check numbers: he's got a 1@2 SAL in a 7@ world, and his BRA is 1@8, 18+14+12=44, and you'd almost suspect me of cheating, but there it is. Now I've got to figure out what God wants Nikolaj to do--but we've got an app for that.
John 2 is being offered a tool he doesn't want to do the job he describes.
We'll recap the map for Adam, and let him decide the next move.
Oh--that's all she wrote. It's later than I'd have liked, but we're done here.
--M. J. Young
I had a weirdly disrupted night last night, so I'm a bit groggy tonight; hopefully it will not deter me from running enjoyable game sessions for Maxx, Harry, Nikolaj, John 2, Adam, and Graeme.
We are going to tackle Maxx' prayer again; I think we have all the details now.
While eating a meal, pray repeatedly by thought that the target can feel satiated by such food as he finds find while caster is eating. Some of the food consumed by the caster is destroyed such that it feeds the subject rather than the caster; after eating a napkin or any object which can serve the function (including leaf, napkin) is used to wipe mouth, then shredded and scattered symbolizing plenteous food around the target; clap and tap "TQ FOR FOOD" in Morse Code with hands and say "thank you" aloud; pronunciation of the word is not essential as long as the effort to speak is made. TF 30:00, causes target to find sufficient food for one day.
I had some concern that this might be a different skill entirely, because of the aspect that some of the food eaten by the caster would count toward the target; but on reflection it seems best to keep this as a bless foraging skills spell. The baseline is a 1:00 TF for an RS minute duration; he's going for a 30:00 TF so that's +49 for almost five doublings. He wants a 24 hour duration, which is about the same number of doublings, so those will cancel. His elaborate ritual includes eating a meal, but for most of that it will be done in a manner that no one would know he was casting a spell while eating the meal. Still, it is part of the ritual, and involves both hands at least, so +3 for the second hand and I'll give an extra +2 for the mouth. We'll also give +2 for "food" as a material component, since he has to eat something; +1 for something like a napkin. He has appropriate words for +5 and the use of another language (the code) for +5. So we're looking at +13 on this one, and he rolls 28, 1@1 Bless Foraging Skills M+1@4 while eating a meal, pray repeatedly by thought that the target can feel satiated by such food as he finds find while caster is eating. Some of the food consumed by the caster is destroyed such that it feeds the subject rather than the caster; after eating a napkin or any object which can serve the function (including leaf, napkin) is used to wipe mouth, then shredded and scattered symbolizing plenteous food around the target; clap and tap "TQ FOR FOOD" in Morse Code with hands and say "thank you" aloud; pronunciation of the word is not essential as long as the effort to speak is made. TF 30:00, causes target to find sufficient food for one day.
I'm going to stop there, because I have too much still to do tonight and nowhere near enough time to do it.
Harry is moving forward with his new idea.
The GE roll I get for Nikolaj is a 19, which is slightly unfavorable; it tells me that God is going to move slowly here, and Nikolaj is going to be a bit frustrated.
John 2 is still shopping.
As Adam continues his explorations, he rolls a 21.
Graeme has a temporary guest in his camp, who is being as perfect a gentleman as a predatory jaguar can be, and then some.
--M. J. Young
Let's see if I can make the long story short. I hit the main Gaming Outpost page early yesterday evening, but was having trouble with my mouse (I often have this problem with the mouse software that the cursor doesn't want to move, sometimes only that it doesn't want to move up and down and sometimes that it gives me a lot of trouble moving at all). Since so much of what I do here requires point and click, I decided to reboot the computer to see if that fixed the mouse problem--and then I kept getting five hundred level error pages telling me that I couldn't connect to the site or the database or something. I turned my attention to other work, including another proofread of the articles in the new Bender's Big Score temporal anomalies series, and then found that I was falling asleep, so I gave up for the night. I apologize for the delay in game, but it happens. Let me see what I can do for Maxx, Harry, Nikolaj, John 2, and Adam tonight.
I think I will attempt to slow Maxx' posts to working on one or two skills at a time; tonight I'm going to try to get to the heart of the know thoughts from observation, and get started on the new concentration-enhanced read visual information skills.
Harry is making a good argument for a fire department; there are also good arguments against it. But let's give him five intensities of persuasion for a check, and skip the will power check against it because this is a pretty good idea and there's no obvious reason for opposition. Simple check is 17+6=23; 1@9+5=2@4, you'd think I'd planned it.
The next steps with Nikolaj seem straightforward enough. We'll see how it twists and turns.
John 2 is on day 19, and is offered another skill.
Geneice rolls 36 on a lockpicking attempt, which is an easy success for her; but my GE roll of 16 tells me that if there's something valuable behind this door (which I think there is) the vampire did not trust mere locks to protect it, and so has also placed a magic hold on it. I could have Merlin detect it, but I also see that Adam has a detect magic and might want to use it himself.
--M. J. Young
I apologize for the disruption tonight. I decided it was my turn to make dinner, and then I had to have an extended training session to prep someone to work as my assistant (to "be Kyler") at this weekend's live demo in Vineland (and possibly also at Ubercon), which took a while (and he's got a fair amount of material to absorb, because he's played but never run the game). Now I find that I'm out of time for tonight, so I'm going to fall back and punt into tomorrow--something I've been doing quite a bit lately, but that's because a lot of other matters have been pressing.
--M. J. Young
Here's hoping that there are no disruptions tonight, and that I can turn my full attention to posts from Maxx, Harry, Nikolaj, John 2, Adam, and Graeme.
I think I can roll for Maxx to get that Understanding skill, and he rolls 50, which given his 7@6 bias is going to be an easy success, 1@1 Perceive Purpose P1@0 enables user to recognize in detail what a target is doing, e.g., identifying that the target is "looking for something" including what it is he seeks, baseline assumes familiarity with target.
Looking at Harry's proposal, I note that he has requested a roll on his English Writing skills, at which he has professional 2@5 level. He also has a 1@9 BRA, but he's got several days on which to work on this, so we'll give him +20 for the luxury of taking his time about it. That gives him a 64% chance of success; he rolls 54, which is a solid success. I've got a lot of questions, though, which he will have to consider.
Nikolaj used a phrase that's bound to be misunderstood, but that's fine, because it gives him an opening for more conversation.
John 2 gets a 15 GE roll on his order of additional shredders. Meanwhile, Lauren rolls 48 on her skill pattern transmission skill, so John has his example; he rolls 50, but with a 2@10 example I don't need to go into detail.
Adam has a detect magic, but I see neither a dispel nor a release lock or hold skill on his sheet; but he wants his sheet anyway, so I'll post it and gently call attention to the oversight--it might be mine.
Graeme is attempting a transmute to same state. He is using a very short TF, but he's also limiting the quanity--so I need to figure what the ordinary quantity would be. Seeing nothing else, I figure the default must be the area of effect, a thousand cubic feet, a 10x10x10 block. Ten halvings gets me just below one cubic foot, and a gallon is just less than a cubic foot, so two more halvings brings me to a quart. That's +120 for volume. On the flip side, the baseline TF for real transmutation is an hour, and he's doing it in a minute--but that's only about 5.9 halvings, so we'll give him -59 for that. That brings us to +61 to this point, and we still have details to check. The water cannot be a component, because it is a transmutation; he prepares the stick by stripping it smooth by hand, so we'll give him +2 for a prepared stick. It looks like the words are appropriate, +5, and I think it requires two hands to stir, so that's +3. I've been tossing these numbers into a spreadsheet (which I opened because I lost count on the halvings of the volume so I figured it would be easier to use the computer to do it this time), and I get a +71 sit-mod. He also gets the +15 for the world area bias, his own 12@9 bias, and his 2@2 BRA, which looks like automatic success for this 3@7 skill, so the die roll is for how well he does: 64 means 1@2 Transmute Water to Milk M3@7 with a smooth stick from which the bark has been removed (not part of the ritual) draw a circle on the ground and draw within it the G-in-Gear symbol, place a container of one quart of water in the circle, stir with clean end of stick while reciting, "In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn a stately pleasure-dome decree. For he on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of paradise." Permanently changes one quart of water to one quart of fresh milk, 1:00 TF, +71 SM.
I'm not done with the cat, but there will be a brief intermission before we see him again.
--M. J. Young
John 2 gets a 15 GE roll on his order of additional shredders. Meanwhile, Lauren rolls 48 on her skill pattern transmission skill, so John has his example; he rolls 50, but with a 2@10 example I don't need to go into detail.
Actually you do, so I know what to put down on my sheet. I think that's 1@1, but 1@1 what, exactly?
(Doing Therapy)
"He's got a 1@7 TV"
What does that stand for?
Target Value. How hard you are to hit, akin to Armor Class, if I remember correctly.
Sorry, John--1@1 Interrupt Thought P8@1. I think it was mentioned in a previous post, but I should have included that.
Brock--TV=Target Value, one of the four "Averaged Attributes" which appear on your sheet. The other three are Ranged Strike Value, Martial Strike Value, and Damage Value. Target Value is the average of your Density (which represents the degree to which attacks will be deflected by your body), Agility (which represents your ability to dodge and deflect), and Intuition (which represents your ability to anticipate incoming attacks). For nearly all physical attacks and some non-physical attacks, the Target Value is included as a defensive offset against the Strike Value of the attacker.
And it's good to have you back; I admit to having been a bit worried. Now if I can just remember where I was putting you (shouldn't be hard) we'll start with Brock, then Maxx, Harry, Nikolaj, John 2, and Adam.
Brock has tossed a new skill onto the sheet, something he neglected to mention; it's still early days yet for him, and I don't see this as something he's trying to list so he can use it right now. What's not so clear is how it works; it is unusual for psionic skills to bonus success at anything, never mind everything. Yet he makes a good argument for a design of such a skill. On consideration, it appears to function by preventing the character from being distracted, and thus I'm going to list it as a P2@0 defense, giving him 1@5 Enhanced Concentration P2@0 focuses attention on single task of any sort, giving +10SM to performance of that task but shutting down awareness, -10 penalty to intuition checks while it is functioning. If used with awareness or sensory enhancing skills, restricts such enhancement to the focus and excludes awareness beyond that.
Assuming that the skill Maxx learned is based on a minute of observation, that would mean that two minutes of observation would be +10; but given that this is not a use of psionic power but a technique of drawing conclusions from observations, it seems best to make it one skill and bonus it as needed, thus:
1@1 Perceive Purpose P1@0 enables user to recognize in detail what a target is doing, e.g., identifying that the target is "looking for something" including what it is he seeks, baseline assumes familiarity with target and one minute of direct observation. Each doubling of observation time grants +10, provided the target is still doing the same thing.We'll also advance the calendar to ten months, January
I still like the direction Harry is going with this fire department idea, but he's going to have to work for it a bit more.
I think Nikolaj would be best served if Gaian religion had something like angels in it to provide the link; but his GE roll is 19, so I would say that whether there is such a thing, these men know nothing about it.
John 2 is still trying to get something he's not going to get, but he's also trying to get something he is going to get, so that's fine.
I'm moving Adam forward. In fact, the door is magically held; but I'll move through some of the other options before I confirm that. Geneice will attempt her remote sensory presence, 56 is a doubtful roll, but she does have 2x10@ bias, 2@4 BRA, and 1@1 SAL--55%, so very close, and it would have worked for the 1@2 clairvoyance. We'll roll for that skill, 03, and an 18 GE roll, and that gives her a change of circumstances on which she might be able to piggyback a success on the remote sensory presence--which with a 48 she does. I'll give her new use on both, increasing her to 1@2 in the sensory presence and 1@3 in the clairvoyance.
That finishes tonight's show.
--M. J. Young
Sorry for worrying you MJ. I tried to use a friend's cell phone (which has limited internet access) to let you know my quandary, but it wouldn't load this site. I had no way to tell you that I had no way to post. Bit annoying, really.
Shouldn't be a problem this month, but I can make no promises for others.
Mistake, sorry.
(Doing Therapy)
Wow, is it really five days since I last posted? Things have been a bit strange around here, I guess. Let's tackle the posts awaiting from Brock, Maxx, Harry, Nikolaj, John 2, and Adam.
It took me a moment to figure out what was happening in Brock's story--I was running this same world for someone over the weekend, and I run it fairly often because it's one of the worlds I use in the convention demo. But I think I've got it now.
Concerning psionic skills, without some other guideline they are done once per minute. What Maxx is doing seems to be taking that once per minute but putting the actual skill performance at the end of the minute; and since it's a skill that has an RS minutes duration, that reversal of the minute should be worth something, and I'll give it +10 as if doubling the time. (It could be argued that he's altered it from an RF to a TF skill, and that I should give him +20, but I'm uncomfortable with that already in psionic skills, so +10 will be the bonus.) The two-minute variant will be +20 because the TF doubled; the four minute skill will be +30 because it doubled again. We'll roll all three learning attempts, as soon as I figure out where I left the dice after the weekend game--I bought new ones to replace all those I lost to the Floor Triangle here. Rolls 36, 86, 25. That 86 is questionable, so I'll have to crunch some numbers. He's got a 7@6 psi bias, the world bias is +15, his BRA is 1@10, there's a +20 inherent sit-mod, and he's working against a 1@1 target, so that's a strong success. That gives him
- 1@1 Read Sensory Information (Visual) P1@1 with one minute of preparatory concentration +10SM
- 1@3 Read Sensory Information (Visual) P1@1 with two minutes of preparatory concentration +20SM
- 1@1 Read Sensory Information (Visual) P1@1 with four minutes of preparatory concentration +30SM
Harry is going to be promoted and transferred, if he wants the job of fireman.
Nikolaj is preaching the gospel; he gets two rolls on this, I think--one his persuasion check against the other man's will power, the other that teaching skill to explain it. We'll do the explanatory part first, 70 rolled is not a success; but just because his audience of one does not understand it does not mean he has not been persuasive. I'm also considering that there are others around who are going to hear and observe this, and a GE roll for that is appropriate. Unfortunately, Nikolaj rolls 8+10=18 on his difficult persuasion check, and he has a 1@7 persuasion; but he rolls 8 on his GE roll, so we've got a very positive outcome otherwise. Robert rolls 1+10=11 on his will power check, so he's sticking by the old religion.
I've looked at John 2's new skill as compared with the one that brought Lauren here, and think I should get him to check the differences. Also, he got a 20 GE on the buckshot, which means it's going to arrive later than he would hope.
Adam rolls 83 on a detect magic, a skill with a +104 SM so I'm not going to have to crunch any numbers here. A strong success means a lot of information, so I'll give him that. Maybe he'll do something even more interesting (like create a spell to spoof the identity of the caster). But it's up to him.
--M. J. Young
Maybe he'll do something even more interesting (like create a spell to spoof the identity of the caster). But it's up to him.
I'm stealing this idea for use by some very clever NPC magician in the future. How would you feel about a M4@8 Manipulate Magic effect attendant on the caster which, for the duration, fooled any magical effect he encountered into treating him as it would its own caster? Does that strike you as roughly baseline, or as wildly off it?
Reminds me of a villain concept I used (you're welcome to borrow it, but this is really mean): a skilled illusionist, making himself invisible while projecting an illusion of a very skilled swordsman (only applies if your system allows illusions to deal damage - fairly easy in D&D, harder but doable in WoD, not sure in MV as I haven't tried). My PCs fought the swordsman something like eleven times before they figured it out.
Anything that's done in D&D is doable in Multiverser, let alone the stuff that's fairly easy.
Hell, why not have the illusionist permanently invisible? Most of the time his illusion is superimposed on his invisible self, but any time he might be in danger (e.g., before any encounter with our heroes), he separates from it.
I'd go with permanent gaseous form, as well, but that's diverging somewhat from the illusionist motif.
Hmmm--M4@8? I suppose it could be done that way. It depends to some degree on how many different kinds of things you want to spoof--a M15@6 Temporarily Change Life Form has obvious advantages, and a 4:00 TF with RS minute duration sounds promising for baseline (that's the skill there). I can also see doing it with a M8@3 Personal Disguise variant. Those, of course, assume that the skilled user knows the identity of the person he's trying to spoof, but I think that might be necessary to some degree anyway (the idea was to find a way to make the lock believe you were the person authorized to pass). But I think a 1:00 TF on a M4@8 manipulate magic skill could have the effect of making the lock believe that the person passing was authorized--sort of like adding a password to the computer password file. Making it "any magical effect" is a penalty, probably -10; but then, I don't think I'd require the roll to beat the original casting (which I might for a dispel--you have to muster more power to break the spell than the original caster did in placing it), so there's a significant advantage here. Also, I might allow one casting to activate the spell for RS minutes, but require additional rolls to determine whether it worked against multiple objects--if there's a lock and an alarm, the casting working might mean that you beat the lock, but you'd need to roll again to see whether you also beat the alarm. Either that, or I would use relative success of the original casting against the various spells/devices targeted. That is, I would know that the door has a 33, the alarm a 57, and when the spoofer rolls 45 he beats the lock but not the alarm. (I might allow a bonus on the value of the roll akin to damage points--that a 45 was equivalent of a 55 for comparison purposes--but that, too, might be at a penalty on chance of success, which I would anticipate being offset by longer casting time.)
Make sense?
I'm late and it's tired. Seriously, I've not been feeling well this week; but I see posts from Maxx, Harry, John 2, and Graeme, so if I can get through them in the time I have before I have to run my next evening errand, we'll be golden (and if I get far enough maybe I can finish when I return).
Lelach rolls an 18 intuition check, and I'm pretty sure that she's not that high on her intuition, so she's not going to figure out what Maxx is doing. We'll let him advance to Month 11, which is February.
I figure that a GE roll will tell me whether Harry's house is a better spot for the preliminary meetings than the central office, but a 17 says they're about the same.
John 2 rolls 35 on his new skill, 1@1 Call On- or Off-world Sentient Informer M11@8 pray for 1:00:00 appropriate words will bring an effective teacher to him to teach skills in the limited area he specifies +32SM. I bonused the other skill +25 based on the extended TF and +5 because he's not specific about what kind of teacher he gets. Now I have a problem, because I have to bring him a teacher for boxing, but we've established that boxing is illegal on TerraNova Habitat; but I don't have to make that decision tonight. Meanwhile, Lauren will introduce her next skill to him on the next day, Day 20
I said the cat would return. Graeme has just been offered dinner, although if he wants it cooked he's going to have to make that spell work--which shouldn't be too difficult, given that he's now going to attempt to control an effect he just accomplished.
I'm almost on time.
--M. J. Young
All the open threads tonight are active games, so let's move to them directly, beginning with Maxx, Harry, Nikolaj, John 2, and Graeme.
As per the discussion in his thread, I am adding a 2@1 Teaching P0@1 skill to both Morach and Maxx.
Harry is moving forward into his new job--and his new salary, which will come with it soon.
Nikolaj rolls an 11 on a GE for getting this meeting together, and that's better than good enough, Good But Below Expectations.
Since he has that uncontrolled dreams and visions skill, I feel I probably ought to roll it, and particularly as he is praying so much in the evening. 44 suggests yet another dream.
It strikes me that the new skill he is designing has a component that might best be considered a summoning; I don't know whether such a summoning is possible in this world (I'll have to open the world description and check the mag bias against the skill bias, which I'll also have to find from the rules), but if it is I'll need to know more details concerning how he does it.
In teaching the new skill to John 2, Lauren has to roll her project skill pattern skill, for which 36 is an easy success; John then rolls 81, but with all the bonuses and his now 8@1 bias that's going to be successful as a 1@3 Block Memory of Presence P8@2. Yes, I'm stalling on the other--Ah, I just remembered someone I could bring into this scenario. That would be passing strange, I assure you, but it might just work. Yes indeed--I'll have to remember to launch Claude on him shortly.
Graeme again runs into tech bias limits: using a knife as a knife is a 3@3 skill, combining levers and wedges in multiple ways, and he is limited to 3@1 use, a wedge or a lever, but not both, and thus no slicing or cutting. He's still going to be able to rend the bird into parts without too much trouble, but the limits on the knife use are going to be something he has to grasp.
He gets an 18 GE on finding his stone, but seriously a stone that is flat on one side is not going to be that difficult to find in a stream.
Of course, all my notes are in Fahrenheit, but I do have rough conversions available to me, and his 0C is equal to 32F, and from there I could keep to the 9/5 F/C ratio, but it's just easier to use 2/1. This is again a M9@6 Create Heat, and I've copied the relevant descriptive text for examination:
I search around the stream for a large flat stone, hopefully the size of a large platter and quite smooth on top. I use the following spell to write the words, "Caution: Hot Surface" a few times around the edge of the stone.
1@3 Write on Surfaces M7@1 chant words desired in intended language while using both hands to position words as desired on smooth surface, image etches, sound is necessary, +8SM.
Then I will place both hands on the top surface of the stone and say "Aduro!". I want it to heat up 25 degrees C for an hour. However, I want to be able to control the temperature. (Maybe this is another spell using the current set-up as the required components.) I want to be able to say, "Hotter" and pass my left hand over it to raise the temperature another 50 degrees and "Cooler" and pass my right hand over it to lower the temperature 50 degrees. Each time I do this, the temperature will raise or lower an additional 50 degrees. I will limit it out at 500 degrees at the top end and 0 degrees at the bottom.
The stone is not completely common, but it's a rather common natural element, so we'll go with +2 for that. He's got appropriate words written on the surface, which gives +5 to the value of the object (because of the words written on it being appropriate, but it's the only appropriateness bonus he gets). I'll roll for the use of the spell, but I have to ask him about it. The roll is 39, a solid success for Graeme who is already getting +24 for his 12@ bias in a 15@ bias world.
He is using a magical language for +5; he does not mention if sound is necessary, nor if it has to be forceful.
The baseline of the skill says six minute time factors for ten degree increase in a 10,000 cubic foot area. He's trying to heat something about one cubic foot by about a hundred degrees initially with continuing maintenance and control for an hour. He does not say how long he expects the initial casting to take.
We're looking at -23 for the difference in heat, but that will be swamped in the difference in volume. Twelve doublings of 1 is 4096, another makes 8192, and we've got about 0.2 doublings more to reach 10,000, so +132 for the volume to be affected.
The normal expectation is that the temperature would be maintained for a minute and then would cool normally; he wants it to be maintained for an hour, which is just shy of six doublings, so -59 for that.
There are two other factors that are significant. One is that he wants to be able to repeat the increase as part of the skill, and if I'm reading him aright he wants a thousand degree (F) cap on it, which could be ten bumps including the first; but I might not be reading it aright.
It strikes me that if it can control the temperature of the stone within a specified range, it might be a M4@6 Manipulate Temperature skill. I'll know more when I get the answers to that round of questions. It could instead be a combined create heat/create cold skill.
--M. J. Young