In another thread, Harry wrote
I wish there were a way I could overdrive that like I'm doing with my Night Vision now. Spend a minute focusing on it to have it hit like the Hammer of Thor. That would be nice. But we're de-railing. Let's stay on-topic and be nice guests in someone else's thread.I would not speak to this at the game table, but since it is assumed that everyone playing here is trying to learn to run the game, it seems appropriate to make a statement about it for the sake of any referee confronted with this.
The thing is, the TK pulse really doesn't need to be enhanced, because it's already far more powerful than most players ever imagine. Remember, the size or mass of the object is irrelevant: you can nudge planets out of orbit and shift stars ever so slightly, if you so desire. (It might take a couple of nudges on the planets to actually disrupt an orbit, and since the people on the planet are within the gravity field they wouldn't feel it, but would move with it.) The "nudge" adjusts to the object nudged, really.
At the same time, it would never "hit" because it is not a solid force. You need a 10@ force generative to focus telekinetic force into something that "hits". There are a lot of pseudo-rational justifications for that, but the simple reason is that the rules distinguish force generatives from telekinetics, and make the former considerably more advanced applications than the latter.
--M. J. Young
I knocked a guy out with a TK pulse. (Worst botch I've ever had) I tried duplicating that to knock someone else out, but couldn't do it. Now it seems I know why. But yeah Osevens, I know exactly what kind of effect you were going for here.
What I meant in saying that, is that I want a BIGGER effect out of it. It's all well and good to say I can nudge a planet out of orbit, but why can't I use the same ability that could move a planet 10 feet to fling a ship five miles? I'm still using my mind to impart a sudden burst of energy. I want to be able to impart LOTS of energy all at once. Don't make it more reliable, necessarily. Just make it so that if I focus a bit, gather myself, before I touch it off, then instead of pushing a ship away from me, I capsize the bugger and everyone on her along with. That's what I meant when I said 'hit harder'.
You get an instant's movement. You want greater speed during that instant; is that right?
(My initial reaction is "then get a better SAL," but there may be other ways.)
Osevens, do you know what a nanosecond is? It's .000,000,001 seconds. That's about how long a TK pulse lasts. How much movement do you expect to get when you can only touch the thing for .000,000,001 seconds? What I would like to learn to do is chain them to fire faster. Like once a second. Almost as good as simple TK, but it works in a flatline world. Unfortunately, you can't do that either.
Wodium - More or less, yeah. And 'Get a better SAL' isn't really an explanation seeing as I'm not the one responsible for my SAL. Ostensibly, I have, in character, been practicing things like TK Pulse, flute playing, and so on, ever since I arrived in-Verse, but I'm at MJ's mercy when it comes to whether or not my SAL rises. I'm looking for a way I can achieve the result I want more directly, under my own power, as it were.
No, it's not the solution you want; it's just the first one that came to mind. I was mostly posting to clarify the goal, not to make suggestions.
Skill advancement is actually pretty well defined in the rules, and I could argue that practice is advancing your skills under your own power - but I won't, because I'm pretty sure I know what you mean. You're not willing to wait the three or four years it would take in game to advance a skill that you invented yourself to professionally polished level by unguided practice. It's an understandable frustration.
Osevens, what I did to practice TK pulse was I was working as a blacksmith. Lots and lots of hammering. I would use the TK pulse to push the hammer down faster and harder than I could with just my own swing. Since I was working 6 days a week 12 hours a day, that's A LOT of TK pulse practice. Find a job like that. Maybe not blacksmithing, but something you can do to practice your TK pulse a lot on the job.
What I don't like about it is that you can't advance faster, whether you're practicing the minimum amount or 100 times the minimum amount, you STILL advance at the same rate. I think that's incredibly unrealistic.
A1Nut - Agreed.
Yeah, doing the TK pulse on the hammer, I was practicing that 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. I went from 1@6 to 2@2. Practicing it that much, I would have thought I would have gotten to 2@10 at least.
O.K....
The rule is that you can only advance at a "level one" rate when you are level one; you can't benefit more by doing "level two" practice, although if you can do the level two practice you will gain the level one advantage.
Part of the reason for the rule is that the practice you imagine is all imagined, and you can imagine quite a bit--probably quite a bit more than you can actually do. John says that he was practicing "12 hours a day, 6 days a week", driving the hammer with a TK pulse every time he struck. I am sure that is what he is imagining, and just as sure that that's not the way it was. Let's analogize this. Let's say he was trying to increase his strength, and he told me that he knows he can do ten pushups in a minute, so he's going to do ten pushups per minute for twelve hours a day six days a week. In that context, I'm going to laugh. If he had a 2@10 strength, maybe I would allow such an outrageously exaggerated exercise program. Besides, John already knows that his blacksmith work was more than hammering--it was melting and molding, heating and bending, fetching and delivering, and scores of other jobs that are part of the blacksmith's daily work. So he was working all day every day, but he was not hammering all that time, and even when he was hammering, he was using his TK pulse when he could remember it and activate it, and sometimes his brain was too tired to do it. In the end, he improved to a professional level of ability with it--in part because when he reached 1@10, the program he was trying to follow was still tough enough to improve him to 2@1, and he undoubtedly was using the pulse more successfully, more frequently, and more consistently.
It takes a hundred days for someone without a coach to improve any skill one intensity by practice. There is a minimum threshold for what constitutes "practice", and that threshold rises with level. There is a ceiling on the rate of improvement, precisely because what you can describe doing and what you can do are not really the same thing. Ask anyone who made a New Year's Resolution four months back to go to the gym every day whether they've kept it. I give you the benefit of that doubt, that if you say you are following this course of practice, you actually are; I also limit it, that you can't really practice in a way that gives you more benefit without someone looking over your shoulder to tell you what you're doing wrong and how you can do it better. I also sometimes give you the advantage of "new use", simply because if you genuinely discover some new way of using a skill competely separate from "practice", that demonstrates an improved ability on it. But although I might think that flicking a penny off the table is one use and rocking a ship is another, I'm not going to give a different new use for flicking a spoon off the table or rocking a boat, and I'm hesitant to allow "new use" for skills that have been in use for a long time, because it's a lot harder to be certain that this is really something new. If John were to say, "I'm going to use my TK pulse to tip the cup of coffee on the tray the waitress is carrying, hoping that it will unbalance her or the tray," I'm probaby not going to consider that "new use" for someone with a 2@2 SAL, because even if he's never done exactly that before, he's probably done enough things enough like that that he's stretching the meaning of "new" to get that.
I tried to count days rather carefully for John in Dancing Princess. I admit I've not been as careful with Harry--I've kept a calendar, but not always recognized the training schedule against it, because there have been so many other events that had to be connected to it (port and travel events and schedules while he was on the Piper, the trip back against the anticipated wedding, and so on). Harry, if you think a hundred days have elapsed since your last skill increase, say so, because I might have missed it--particularly now, when we're being a bit vague about the days (we've described one night at work and events over the course of a week without considering the intervening nights, for example--we're not counting the days as precisely).
--M. J. Young
Footnote:
The particular concern with TK pulse is that it is defined as a very minor effect. It's supposed to be the sort of thing that that a mentalist could do in a world where psionics are unknown--flick small objects around, tip larger ones, upset someone's balance. If you want to throw someone across the room, I want you to have to use a 10@ force generative--a 10@2 pusher at least, maybe a 10@8 grabber. Give me an argument for one of those skills being used to move an object a serious distance, and I'm listening. They're the ones that should be used for that kind of combat strike.
Of course, if you want to "throw" a person across the room, you can lift him with 4@3 heavy TK and place or drop him somewhere else. You can't get the same impact of slamming someone into a wall, unless you've got gravity or some other force on your side, but you can use heavy TK to capsize an oil tanker, if you want.
--M. J. Young
This is rather fascinating. I found MJ's site a week ago, and then found Multiverser, and I eagerly await the moment when I have 50$ to drop on this game. So, anyone who can dedicate themselves to playing and has the rules can play here?
The psionics rules, a personal fascination of mine, sounds rather in depth and complicated. Searching for AD&D rules to incorporate different psionics into my campaign truly paid off in MJ's site, because Multiverser has the absolute most original premise I have come across yet-though, being 18, I can't say with any degree of certainty that there isn't a more original idea out there. E.R. Jones and M.J. Young really know what they were doing!
Just out of curiosity, which site did you find? I ask because he says I am the only person known to find Multiverser through the time travel site. I was wondering if you found it that way as well.
Welcome to the board, sir or madam! Glad to see you here. It looks like you found the game the same way I did, so I'm feeling a bit of affinity with you already.
Yes, anyone can play; the aim is to educate new Multiverser referees by example (and thus spread the game about to new players and sell more product), which is how MJ can justify spending his valuable time running games here on the forum. It's done me a world of good*, and I expect you'll find the experience rewarding as well.
You'll want to start with these two threads: Yes, You Can Play, But... and The Character Generation Thread. The first posts of each should be enough to get you started. MJ comes by once a day (usually), and most new folks are playing within a week.
I'm looking forward to your participation. (Oh, and my given name is Scott; when folks say Scott, that's me.)
___
* no pun intended
I already found the Character generation thread, and the other is useful. as for the site I found that led me to Multiverser, it is:
http://www.mjyoung.net/dungeon/
BTW, Once I figure out how to change my screen name shown, my name will be up. Give me a bit.
Figured it out easily-this forum is very user-friendly. First option on the profile page.
So, I have been reading stories of character's like Phil Michael White and the Architect and the Psientist, and I have noticed that they are in some of the stories on the boards, apparently as NPCs. Who made these characters, and if they weren't made by MJ, why aren't the creators playing them?
The short answer is, they're future versions of the original playtesters (including MJ Young and E.R. Jones). The long answer is, ask MJ.
is there a more appropriate thread for comments on my observations of the game system, and any questions I may have?
Hmmm....I rather like the idea of playing yourself, as you don't have to extrapolate what the CHARACTER would do, and instead can just react to the story. Metagame thinking is still there, and insidious, but much, much less pronounced.
I'm reading http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/new-players-coasting-in?replies=1, and it mentions a character having a cat with them. What would happen if a companion who came with you verses out and you don't? I'm assuming you would end up separated and have a hell of a time finding each other, particularly in the case of an animal companion.
is [scriff infection] always an electrical malfunction, or is for convenience's sake that they all seem to be that way?
If the companion (called an associate) goes first, they stay in their next world until you verse. When you verse, you go to their world. The Scriff tells you how to find them.
The Scriff infection (I believe, I could be wrong) requires an electrical jolt to activate. Once infected, you just keep versing.
I see. That was very illuminating, I'm sure I will have more questions. On a repeat note, is there a questions and answer thread?
There's link at the top that says "Topic - Add New". Just click that and ask to your heart's content. That's what I do.
For the moment though, just chill out. MJ should be here tomorrow. He can tell you anything you need to know.
OK, thanks much
This is one of those threads that became very active in a very short time, and I've got to do a bit of catching up to answer all the questions, so bear with me.
I certainly do not want to discourage anyone from buying the game, and we do have copies in stock. It is right now still a bit difficult to get them through retailers--a couple years ago it was on all the online retailers, but we hit a snag in our distribution chain and have been struggling to repair it for a while. Meanwhile, you can order the game directly from Valdron Inc, as instructed on the site.
But (and this is the "don't discourage" part) you do not need the rules to play the game. If you're not running the game, you never need to see the rules at all--you just play yourself in response to what the referee says. This has actually been a problem for us as publishers: we wanted to publish a player's handbook, but there didn't seem to be anything to include in such a book, because the very tiny bit that the player needs to know is best explained by the referee.
And I'm very pleased you like the concepts.
I am The Bryant Andrew Stevens a.k.a. The Architect. E. R. Jones is Philip Michael White a.k.a. Michael di Vars. My eldest son Ryan is Dylan Edward Stevens a.k.a. The Psientist. We actually played these character in-game during the pre-publishing phase. The Architect did build Umak Tek in NagaWorld, creating everything he needed from the materials around him and experimenting with psionics and more before versing out, but he has been extrapolated significantly for the published version. The Psientist proved his ability to explore and use psionic abilities very early, branching out and giving us some of the most creative uses by an early player we had seen (Ryan has always had a very good head for seeing the imagined world), but is also heavily extrapolated into a future version. Di Vars is very close to the version being played--Ed had about half a decade's head start on us in playtesting. They, along with several others, were included in an appendix in the back of the rules to be used as special characters at the referee's discretion; however, we could not obtain permission of all the players (because over the course of playtesting Ed had lost touch with quite a few of them) so we changed all the names of any characters who were not fictional originally. (Mother and Dog were both fictional). I use the uber versions of these characters in some worlds, mostly as a way of introducting new player characters to what's happening to them.
I do not play The Architect here, first because I was still playing him in live games when I started here, and second because the character I play here was developed at the request of forum participants, that I would play and let them trade off running my games to learn how to do it. My two characters are somewhat different because of their varied experiences, and because they were about a decade apart in age when they versed out.
Concerning "companions" and the cat, the short answer is--well, not simple. Let me go for the long answer.
First, there are two kinds of companions: "associates" and "equipment". That is, in the starting thread you read, the player brought his cat as a piece of luggage. Graeme has an elephant he took as a piece of luggage originally (he was driving it at the time). For a companion to be equipment, it has to be the sort of being that would not object to the concept that it belongs to you--you can't take a friend, but you could take a slave. It also has to be within the limits of what you can take under the equipment rules.
An associate comes with you because he/it wants to. There is a system for determining whether a non-player character wants to go with you, although the first question is always whether you want the character to do so. No one takes an associate from home at the beginning of the game.
Either way, there is a scriff connection between you and your equipment, and between you and your associates. Your equipment goes with you when you die, and you can always sense which direction it is (but not distance). I have never had to answer the question of what would happen to a companion taken as equipment killed before its owner, so I'm not going to answer that now. If you are killed before your associate, your associate goes with you immediately. If your associate is killed first, well, because of the scriff connection you will be reunited--but it might not be immediately, and either you or your associate might have adventures in the interim. For example, if your associate verses out first, you might go to some other world when you verse out, do whatever, verse out again, and then find that you're back with your associate, who just versed out of that world where you were together; or you might verse into a world where your associate has been for a while, and find that he has been to some other world without you. Usually, though, associated characters travel together with their principal, and unless the relationship is broken (also determined by a combination of player and character interactions plus mechanics) they always reunite.
I have had one player verse out in a car accident, but the scriff was in his car stereo. The thing is, in a technological society the place where scriff will first start being used is in electronic circuitry; it has an affinity for electronics, because it attaches itself to electrons--which is also why it infects a human so quickly in an electrical accident, as it rides the conductive paths of the nervous system. It is activated by an electrical jolt, including the electrical jolt that occurs at death. Thus it is most common for people in our universe to verse out from some sort of electronic accident. In universes where scriff is used for magical or psionic purposes, this would be different--but we've done very little work in such worlds.
Oh--I generally take Saturday off, there's a long and irrelevant story behind that. Sometimes I will come in on Saturday particularly if I've had a bad week and missed Friday or missed more than one day. I have lost computer access a few times and so missed a stretch, and I have had nightmarish days that kept me away sometimes in stretches, but I'm pretty regular.
I suspect there will be more questions somewhere, but I'll find them.
--M. J. Young
(Mother and Dog were both fictional)
For some reason, I always assumed Mother was based on your wife Janet. It seemed as good an explanation as any.
Mother existed in the game before I had ever played or observed. Chris Jones, who plays Whisp (Shadow in the original) went through the Zygote Experience, and Mother was the fictional character who was his mother.
--M. J. Young
Oh yeah, just to clarify. I could easily see how someone might take offense to the notion that they were the basis for that character. I simply meant that Janet was a tough, strong-willed woman. It's actually a compliment.
Two Posts
Ya know, I just read the sheet on Michael Di Vars. It doesn't say anything in there about him killing versers who ask "You're joking, right?" when he tells them about the verse. MJ said that if a verser questions him on the truth of versing, he proves it by killing them. It didn't mention that on his sheet, or is that just one of MJ's signature moves?
I think I've seen him do it. I know he's talked about it.
The description of Michael di Vars in the Referee's Rules is not specific to any particular world, and the referee has a lot of latitude in how to use him. The description of The Tropical Island world specifically states that di Vars has little patience for new versers and will shoot them if they challenge his claims about the multiverse.
I probably should not have posted that, since I suspect Brock is going to be in a world with di Vars once he gets started--but then, I could be mistaken.
--M. J. Young
I had already noticed some of those things about the early characters. Before I came here, I actually surfed most of your site, MJ, and I read the stories from the verse section all the way through. Then, searching for the verse in google, I found here.
I know about several characters. I know how the Psientist got his name with his experiments on that desert world, I know about Scriff mail, etc. However, in the game, for the sake of a better story, my projection of myself will ignore all my knowledge of the verse, in character.
(Insert appropriate emoticon here.)
--M. J. Young