If you're learning how to use it, you have to use it right. If you choose to use it now in a way that does not facilitate practice, it will not work for that purpose later. I will remove it from your sheet and replace it with skill at lucid dreaming--the ability to dream whatever you choose. You can try to learn the other skill later.
John, I think you've got to learn not to fight with your referees.
My browser just informed me that it has updated itself and needs to restart, so I'm going to let it do that.
--M. J. Young
John, I think you've got to learn not to fight with your referees.
I'm not trying to fight with you, I'm trying to understand how the flipping skill works. I thought this roll was strictly teaching myself to use the skill. Well, I've taught myself to use it, so what I do with it now is my choice. (Or so I thought) I didn't realize it was so precise. I mean, you haven't really explained all of this very well. I still am not at all clear on exactly what this does. I'm trusting you. I'm just trying to understand the skill.
(Doing Therapy)
My response to John is not visible at the moment, but will be when I finish this post, so I'm content with that. Let me address Eli, Michael, Brock, Harry, John 2, and Adam.
Eli is trying to bargain when he has no chips; but it's an interesting notion.
Michael missed an opportunity to learn another skill, and one that the witches and warlocks won't teach him because they expect he can't learn it. But we won't let that stop us.
For Brock, the question of whether there is a tetsubo available can range from George having it in his hands to keeping it in the rec closet to having it in his room to using something like it to not having it here at all, I think. 16 puts it in the middle.
Harry's GE roll is 19.
There was a slight miscommunication with John 2, which I should have anticipated since in the real scenario he was thrown into a backspin by his shot, and this time he's flying not drifting weightless, so he was only spun back slightly before he could compensate (the equivalent of having your aim jarred off target by an unexpected kick, but that it's his whole body). We'll get it straight.
Adam asks a good question. I'm not going to prevent Adam from having the first words in this situation if he wants them (now that he knows this was not expected), but if he doesn't Merlin will speak in the next frame.
--M. J. Young
My response to John is not visible at the moment, but will be when I finish this post, so I'm content with that.
And I responded before you posted this. Make sure you check it. I'm not trying to fight with you, I'm trying to figure out how this skill works.
(Doing Therapy)
I'm tackling posts from Eli, Michael, Brock, Harry, John 2, and Adam, but today was unexpectedly disrupted and disjointed, so it's late and I might have to short some of the posts to some degree; I apologize in advance.
Eli will need to beat the samurai in a comparative difficult check, his 1@5 persuasion against the opponent's 2@4 will power. Although that's not promising, it's not impossible, so we'll roll our d30+10 for each: 32, 14, oh well.
Michael rolls 30 on his effort to read the new skill pattern from Tobias, which I'm sure enough is successful that I'm not going to check the numbers. That gives him the benefit of Tobias' considerable example in addition to instruction bonus, so when the skill learning roll is 02 I don't have to think twice about it: 1@1 Fly P4@10.
Brock is going to learn Han Karon from George. He's got a 7@7 bod bias against a 7@1 skill, George is a teacher and there's a 2@1 example here, so looking at a roll of 36 I'm comfortable with the addition of 1@1 Han Karon martial arts style B7@1 poke attacks hand and foot weapon utilizing -15 def SM, -5 def Dam mod, x2 att, no offensive modifiers.
I had forgotten--well, not forgotten, exactly, but failed to make the connection--that Harry is afraid of heights. That ladder could be a problem, but maybe he is dealing with it.
I'm not entirely certain what John 2 wants me to adjudicate, but I think he's decided to withdraw from the dream now.
In theory, I could have Merlin roll a persuasion check against the will power of the wolves. The problem is, I don't actually have those scores--and while I could create them, the quicker way is to do what is done whenever actions and outcomes are out of the hands of the player character and there is no more suitable way to resolve them: general effects roll. Merlin makes his speech; the roll is 12, good enough. Adam has at least temporary allies in this.
--M. J. Young
Looking at five open threads makes me ask who is missing; but since the people present have shifted slightly from week to week of late, it would be foolish to consider, and I'll do better to address the posts from Eli, Michael, Harry, John 2, and Adam.
Eli thinks highly of his abilities, but I don't know that he can defeat an entire bushi squad even if it did not contain three mounted samurai. However, I'm assuming he is attacking one of the non-samurai bushi (because the samurai would not be on the flanks), and an ancient bushi has a 77% chance to hit with a katana before defensive values, a -4 cover value and 1@5 TV, and Eli is attempting to steal the initiative so that the defender's chance to hit him won't matter to who hits first. I don't see such a skill on his sheet, though, so it's time to find out what he's thinking.
Molly will almost certainly tell Michael what skill he ought to try to learn next; this, though, is tricky for me. I know that nearly all witches and warlocks can do a Teleport to known place P13@8, but that's a huge jump from a P4@10 bias so he really needs at least one intervening skill to have any hope of making it to that. I know several skills that are demonstrated by various characters in the book; but only one of them is demonstrated by witches or warlocks here at the castle, and that's a Precognition (weather forecasting) P12@4, which is almost as serious a jump. Next below that is a Force Digger P10@7, but that's only done by the elves. Gwendylon (who is not here) demonstrates a Douse fires/torches P7@2 and a Crash Sonic Force Field (Tech shield) P7@2 skill; no one else would have encountered such a shield so she's the only one who ever did that, but the dousing of torches might be more common. Gwendylon can morph into any normal animal, but I have that listed as a P14@7 morph and not a P5@9 shape change. Brom also has some skills, but none in the targeted range. So the question really is whether the next skill available from anyone here at the castle is
- Shape change P5@9
- Douse fires/torches P7@2
- Force digger P10@7, or
- Precognition P12@4
Harry chooses not to make a prayer of his hope (mostly because he doesn't want to deal with creating the prayer, but that's not unreasonable). Because of his fear of heights we're going to make him do a skill check on climbing the ladder--he's got a 1@1 climb (rigging), ladders are +10, bias 2x7@, BRA 2@2, 57% chance he can do this, he rolls 64.
John 2 is steering the dream to something else. The first question is whether he can do it, and that will require a successful skill check: 92 is not successful but not, I think, a botch, since that would suggest his chance of success was less than 11%, and he would need serious penalties to have that low a chance.
Adam has put forward a good beginning of a plan; we'll see what we can do with it.
--M. J. Young
Does someone have to know what a skill in use is, mechanically, in order to benefit from an example, or does he merely have to know what it does? (And is the answer different for Arcane vs Divine magic?)Gwendylon can morph into any normal animal, but I have that listed as a P14@7 morph and not a P5@9 shape change.
Your verser never knows what anything is mechanically, but only what it does and a rough sense of how difficult it is.
I have no input on magic skills as I haven't encountered magic at all yet.
As for psionics, I've had to observe the skill pattern in peoples minds in order to get the example bonus. Without that, even with someone showing me, I only got the instructor bonus.
Harry: in the particular instance, it is the difference between a person conforming his body to the shape of a sparrow or a mouse and a person becoming a sparrow or a mouse. A better example would be a viper--if you take the shape of a viper, you look frightening, but if you morph into a viper you have genuine venom in the venom sacks that feed through your fangs. And thus in the particular instance it is not simply a matter of knowing the mechanics but quite fundamentally knowing what it is the skill does: are you becoming a viper, or merely taking the form of one?
Mike is right that your character need never know the mechanics, and in fact is not permitted to speak or think in terms of game mechanics; but he does need to be able to express what he is attempting to do, and to answer questions which distinguish what he is attempting to do from something similar which he is not attempting.
As far as an example is concerned, the character needs to understand what he is doing and how you do that. Mike doesn't need to know that psionic flight is a 4@10 skill in order to learn it. However, he does need to know that he is attempting to lift himself by means of some type of telekinesis (not the words, but the concept) and he needs to have observed how this is done by those who do it.
I read a line in a book earlier today which said that the character feeling bile burning in the back of his throat spoke the words of the waste spell (used in this scenario to dispose of body wastes and other organic garbage, if I understand aright) to eliminate it. That tells me what he did, but not how he did it, so I can't cite that as an example. If, on the other hand, I found that spell in a role playing game manual which told me what a character had to do to cast the waste spell, that would count as a low-level example (low because the guy who wrote the book actually never cast the spell, I assume). Also, if you were in the world in which this spell was used and you watched someone do it, assuming you were able to observe all the relevant elements of the spell (which in this case seems to have been only the words spoken) and understood what it was supposed to do (which you could not have observed in this case, but might have been told or gleaned from a different use), you could count it as an example because you saw how it was done.
It is possible to get an example from a finished product if the finished product is of a sort that its origin can be tracked from it. For example, if you had a Model T you could disassemble it, study all the parts, and learn how to design and build a motor vehicle from the example of a completed motor vehicle. If you wanted to do the same thing with a computer you could, but you'd probably need at least a scanning electron microscope to examine the circuitry in the processor chips and other semiconductors.
Hopefully that answers the question; we can attempt to get play going for Eli, Michael, Kurt, Harry, John, and Adam, if time permits.
Eli is going to attempt to teach himself a Weaponless Steal Initiative B7@1 which works in essence because he can move into an attack in a single strike. He has a 7@3 bias which gives him +2 against the target skill bias, and a 2@1 strength for BRA makes 23 and +13 for the world bias makes 36. 24 means it is successfully learned and done; he steals the initiative and attacks one of the bushi, 1@1 Steal Initiative Weaponless B7@1 in starting combat. He is moving it into the 1@8 Aggressive Running Side Slide B3@10 uses one attack +RS=SM to next side-arc kick-based attack (Side Kick, Flip Kick) for which he rolls 33, an easy success here giving him +33 on his roll for the 1@8 Flying Side Kick B7@3 base dangerous RF1 -10SM, on failure lose balance and forfeit next attack, which roll is 39, and before I say sure that hits let me review numbers, his 2x7@ bias+2@1 BRA+33 SM from the run -10SM in the skill+MSV which has not yet been calculated but is the average of his 2@1 strength+2@1 hand/eye+1@10 intuition, which will be 2@1 (an easy one to eyeball there), +DC for that incidentally so we're looking at +2DC (one for style, and style will launch automatically on this type of maneuver I think) which makes it fatal, 20 intensities of damage if it hits. At his end it comes to 79, from which the defender's defensive -19 leaves him still with 60. I should also roll for the 1@6 Kiai P8@0 shout to intimidate gives -10 sit-mod to opponent skills for one minute (almost missed that--Brock you should note when something you say you are doing is listed as a skill, particularly when it could be mistaken for color), he's got a 1@10 BRA (intuition) giving him 36% chance of success on it (no bias in a flatlined world), 18 means that his opponents will be hampered.
Michael gets an early wake-up call for his job.
It's good to know that Kurt has not abandoned us; we'll try to move him forward in increments, at least.
Harry gives himself a pep talk, closes his eyes, and I think creates enough of a change in circumstances that I can roll again on the climb skill: 24 will succeed, won't it? Yeah, quick check says not a problem. This is, I perceive, the first time Harry has ever cast a grapple, and his tech bias is so high (12@4) that it's going to be an easy learn even if I penalize him for doing it from a ladder. He rolls 11, so we'll give him 1@1 Use Grapple T3@1 and get him on the rope, another climbing check, 02. He's going to be a hero, I think.
I had to scan back through a month of posts to find that John 2 was last reported to be six months old, so we will finally advance him to seven months old, and check his development. He is gaining weight and increasing size rather rapidly, but I don't know that he would notice this; I'll cover the new stuff in thread.
I think we'll have intel for Adam in the next post, after he sends Horace to explore.
--M. J. Young
We were blacked out for a few hours today thanks to a storm which one county away was accompanied by tornadoes. I always thought of tornadoes as Kansas weather, thanks to the fact that they had one in the Wizard of Oz and we never had them in north Jersey, but it seems that Salem County, New Jersey, has them often enough that they don't cause panic among the locals even though they toss trailer homes around sometimes. I actually had to drive through Salem County on an errand, and was just coming into it at a gas station near the border when I heard that there was a tornado warning in effect, but I also heard that it was in effect until 3:15, and it happened at that moment to be 3:16, so I guess I was safe. That strikes me as terribly silly, actually, that one minute could make a difference, particularly since the difference between a watch and a warning is that a watch means the conditions are favorable for the type of weather indicated and a warning means that there is a confirmed sighting of such weather in the vicinity. And after crossing Salem County I had to cross the Delaware Memorial Bridge, forth and back again, with the perhaps humorous lit sign, "High Winds".
But I am here, so let me see what I can do for Eli, Michael, Harry, John 2, and Adam.
Eli gets multiple attacks with the style and his strike value; meanwhile, I've been wondering why he was daring to attack a full squad of trained soldiers (he's probably more than a match for the standard bushi, but not for the samurai) and what could possibly go right--but I've thought of something that can go right, partly because he mentioned wanting his mentor to make his escape. Let's roll a GE to see whether it does: 20 is just bad enough. He reminds me that his style also has a +10 Dam Mod which I missed; I'll have to be more careful. I may also have missed the style's +10SM. The elbow strike is SAL 1@8, +10 for style, the 2@1 MSV and 2@1 BRA, 2x14@ bias, -10 for the maneuver and -19 for the bushi's standard defenses, 98-19=79%, and his roll is 58, dangerous +2DC+10=fatal on an effective roll of 68 which is 34 intensities, another kill shot. Since he has 8 attacks and a bushi has only 1, he gets to make 4 of his before the bushi can respond because he has the initiative. He's going for a roundhouse kick on the next, 11 rolled, it is base damaging and guaranteed to hit, +DC for style, +DC for MSV, and +DC for the 2@1 SAL, +10 damage points for the style and one of the damage category bonuses gets converted (because you can only have two) to +10 which means this is an effective roll of 31 on a lethal attack, 7 intensities of damage.
With a 1@1 SAL Michael is unlikely to get a successful read on Durer with a roll of 58, but I'd better check the numbers because he's improving. His recent lesson in telekinetic flight increases his bias to 4@10 which means +8 for bias, and his BRA is 2@1, but that totals 40 and I'm not yet going to give him familiarity bonuses for Durer.
Harry recalls his 1@5 Night Vision P5@1 and wants to attempt to use it to find the child in the top floor of a burning building in the middle of the night. 09 is a certain success, and I'm going to give him new use for using it to penetrate smoke. I had debated whether the child was hiding under the bed or already headed down the stairs into the fire, but the GE roll is 10.
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around John 2's latest spell. He wants to use thirty bottles of baby formula as a spell component, with the requirement that he consume them over the course of several days. Of course, he's a baby, and he's going to be fed a couple bottles of formula each day as long as his mother has it, and he really is not in a position not to eat it.
My thinking on this is that it is not a valid component in the present circumstance. It seems to me as comparable to someone saying, "While I'm casting the spell, I'm going to breathe, and the oxygen I breathe is a necessary component to the spell which is destroyed in the casting."
Adam is sending his hawk Horace to spy on the undead horde. Geneice will send Mange. It's been a lot of years since I worked with a familiar in a game, so I'm trying to remember how it works and get Adam's feedback on what he's attempting.
--M. J. Young
In the Jhiaxus Jotunn game, Lady Mnemenysos?? refers to Whisp as a pig. I justify this by Whisp being the source of the quote 'the verse is a great place to pick up girls'. Girls who don't appreciate a particular attempt at a pick-up have been known to refer to the guy who tried as a pig. And given that Lady M is reasonably attractive, about 1@8, I'm sure Whisp would have been willing to make a pass at her, unless he has issues about trying to charm other versers.
Mistake
I think most of the female versers known to Whisp were not versers until after he picked them up, and are pretty angry at him for having done so; but I don't think he'd have an a priori aversion to picking up a verser, as long as he was pretty sure he could put her down again.
My time is short, but the list is not long--Eli, Michael, Harry, and John 2.
In trying to put Eli's new maneuver together, I wonder whether I should treat it as a tactical or a leveraged attack. I'll ask a question to that effect and see where it takes us.
Michael is going to attempt to read Durer's thoughts again. Nothing important is happening today--no Banshee last night--but we'll keep up the efforts, 83 again fails.
I'll give Harry the best of his three personality scores, plus four intensities for the circumstances, and set him against the kid's fear, but the kid only has about 1@4 will power at his age so has very little chance of succeeding at a will power check. Harry's score is 1@10 for either persuasion or charisma, 2@4 with the bonus, but he rolls 38; the kid rolls 33, so even though Harry's roll is that bad, the kid did worse. But something goes right: a 10 GE on the rescue. She rolls 24 on her check, which isn't going to work for her either.
John 2 is complaining that I am unfair. That's not likely to make me change my mind, actually. I have always been uncomfortable with the idea that he was using his regular food as a spell component; it just took me a while to put a finger on why and how. The fact is, drinking the formula is not doing anything different, and therefore does not qualify as magic ritual. So since he's only complaining, there's not much to answer.
--M. J. Young
bit busy this last week, back now.
John 2 is complaining that I am unfair.
No, I'm complaining that you're going back on your word. Which you are.
@General question: Is it just me, or is John getting even more rude and offensive as time goes on?
Let's see. He said I could use baby formula as a spell component. We used it in a spell. The spell failed. Now he's saying that I can't use it as a spell component. Is that not going back on his word? What if that spell had succeeded? Would he now tell me that the spell was no good? You keep saying you didn't want to allow it. Then why did you allow it? If you allowed it in spite of not wanting to, well hey, that's was a decision you made, and now you should live with it. You didn't let me take back that I was going to TK pulse the MP once I found out it was a bad decision.
I'm asking legitimately. Why did you allow it before if you keep saying that you didn't want to? Allowing it before and not now sounds a lot like going back on your word to me.....
You don't seem to understand. I fully intend (or I did fully intend) to continue using baby formula as a spell component for a very long time. It's not a throwaway component. Baby formula was going to be used as a spell component well into the character's adult life. It was to become my trademark component.
Just so you know John you are going against a point I just made to you 2 days ago. You absolutely MUST stop arguing with you referee.
Also, why would your character expect baby formula to work as a spell component? It's in no way similar to past material components, as it required NO effort.
MJ made a mistake in allowing it. He couldn't place his finger on why before, and now that he has he isn't willing to repeat the mistake just because you want him to. He never promised you would always be allowed to use baby formula, and your character has no reason to believe it helped the first time anyway.
As to if it worked there was recently an error found in Max's thread. The past doesn't change but the mistake doesn't get repeated.
You know perfectly well that material components are only as good as how rare they are. The baby formula just isn't rare at all, on top of the fact that it's being brought to you and you need it anyway.
And yes Brock, he's been particularly bad this week.
Just so you know John you are going against a point I just made to you 2 days ago. You absolutely MUST stop arguing with you referee.
And If my referee was doing things which made sense to me, I would.
Also, why would your character expect baby formula to work as a spell component?
Mother's Milk has always been regarded as magical. What is baby formula, but a chemical approximation of Mother's Milk?
And yes Brock, he's been particularly bad this week.
Actually no. The last time something like this happened, I wrote a 2 page ALL CAPS tirade about how unfair it was and how stupid my referee was being. I'd say I've been remarkably civil by comparison.
All of which is to say forget it. I still think it unfair, I still think you're going back on your word, and I still think you should allow it. However, I've found arguing with you to be like arguing with a brick wall. So forget it. It's not worth fighting over, even if I think you're completely in the wrong. But it's not worth fighting over. So forget it.
I am going to attempt to get through threads from Eli, Michael, Brock, Kurt, Harry, John 2, and Adam. I've been a bit run down this week, and can't seem to focus, and am worried about finishing the stuff for The Time Traveler's Wife (starts two weeks from yesterday and is I'm guessing about half finished), but the game is important, so let's play.
I'm going to give Eli's new manuever a -10 sit-mod as a 7@2 tactical which does annoying damage to the person thrown and to as many people as he hits. The distance thrown will be RS/20', and we'll use a GE roll for how many people are caught in the throw. His chance to learn it is his 7@3 bias+13@ world bias+2@1 BRA+his 2@1 MSV-the 1@9 defensive values of the target individual-7@2 skill bias. I think that makes 37%, on a rough sketch, but if it's close I'll check. The skill learning roll is 84, that's not going to work, and that puts us back at the beginning of the round.
We'll move Michael out of the dining room and into the mess hall, and let him decide what he's going to do this morning.
Brock gets a look at a tetsubo. I'm afraid I'm relying mostly on images in my mind from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons™ Oriental Adventures and the fact that it's been in a couple of my AD&D games over the years, all of which are at least a decade gone. But I'll give him the description I imagine.
Kurt starts practicing his skills as a bowyer/fletcher.
Harry is taking another stab at calming the kid, and since Tara made the attempt between that will count as a change in circumstances, so what's 24? Ouch--ties fail on attribute checks, so the bonus almost makes it. Still, we've got to get the kid out the window....
John 2 is impatient, trying to change the world before he's out of diapers. We'll have to work on his latest prayer.
Adam has sent his hawk Horace to survey the area looking for vampires and ghouls. It's daytime, as I recall, so they're not on the move; but Mange is also searching. We need a GE roll for the outcome: 23 is Nearly As Bad As Anticipated. It will be a while before they return, of course, so I'll sit on that outcome for a bit.
--M. J. Young
John 2 is impatient, trying to change the world before he's out of diapers.
Kyle Reese changed the world before he was even born. Like father like son.
I'm impressed, John has decided that arguing with MJ is pointless. We can logically move from this to Glantri's point--don't argue with your GM (even if Glantri has a different reason for this statement.)
There is a syllogism that goes like this:
1. Premise: Arguing with MJ is pointless.
2. Premise: John does not like to waste his time.
3. Conclusion: John should not argue with MJ even if John is right.
There is a further syllogism.
1. Premise: Most people are largely irrational except in spots.
2. Premise: This applies to the person speaking as well as the person spoken too.
3. Conclusion: Arguement based on reason should only be undertaken if the opposing party seems open to it which is infrequently the case.
I have a long list of cases where I argued with people over very long time spans because I believed, silly me, in Reason as a major guiding force in human affairs.
Second post.
John, and others, you can try to use Reason as a club to force others to your point of view. But it does not work. It requires a heart willing to learn, or actual force to get the point across. Jhiaxus is dealing with Lady Memory in his game, and she is blatantly unreasonable and messed up in the head. Unfortunately, said the GM, he's doing a very good job of unwrapping her nuttiness. One key part of it is he is giving her time to consider and he's going off to do something else.
So instead of arguing about John and MJ, let's go create something neat like a hovertank or star destroyer or something for Multiverser.
What irked me the most was that it just came out of nowhere. I had this whole list of things I was planning to do, using baby formula as a spell component. Now my whole list of ideas just flew out the window. Cie La Vie!!!!
(Doing Therapy)
So let me correct the French of someone who gets in trouble for correcting everyone else's English: C'est la vie, pretty close literally to It's the life but idiomatically to that's life. I can correct French because France has decided that when it comes to French there is a right and a wrong, and there is a French government agency whose job it is to determine what words are legitimately part of the vocabulary and to protect the syntax from decay. So while the linguists might argue that there is no morally or technically correct way to speak any language, there is a legally correct way to speak French. Gotta love the French.
Oh, and let me apologize for missing yesterday. I have been very run down of late (still not feeling well today) and behind on everything, and yesterday I simply fell asleep for a couple hours in the evening when I ought to have been getting all this work done, wound up kicking much of the work from yesterday into today including particularly the forum, and worrying about it.
So on that note, let me see what I can do for Eli, Michael, Kurt, Harry, John 2, and Adam.
What are the odds that Eli can persuade a samurai of something completely outside the man's world view? Well, we'll give him a persuasion check against the samurai's will power, which happens to be listed as 2@4, with Eli using 1@5, rolling Eli first, 15, 18, not a contest. It is too soon, I think, for another GE roll; we're still working from the last one.
Michael gets a 19 on a GE roll for finding that bar.
I'm thinking that Kurt should start to settle into a routine for a few weeks, at least, but I want to make sure I have all the details of that routine clear.
Harry got a particularly bad 23 GE roll, so nothing is going to happen to fall into place for him; but I'll still give him another chance to talk to the kid with the situation changing around him. He rolls 18 on the persuasion check, which makes it. A roll like that might just give him his exit, although not directly.
John 2 is doing another summoning, without control, to get a teacher for Sarah. I'm thinking that a teacher must be an informer, and that if it can draw either local or off-world it has to be biased for off-world, but he says "train and protect" so that means informer plus fighter which raises it to 11@9 and doubles the TF so that's M11@9 Attract Off-world Sentient Fighter-Informer; that's a curve of 20, which is within the 7@13 curve; its baseline TF is 6:00x2=12:00 and he's doing five times that, which is 2.25 doublings, +23. We've got +5 appropriate words, -10 for single aspect, so the internal sit-mod is +18. Since he doesn't have to do anything other than talk, it doesn't much matter what Sarah does unless she silences him, and another 23 GE roll pretty bad but probably not as bad as all that. He rolls 61, so let me check the numbers: 2@2 BRA+12@6 bias+half 1@8 religion (=9)-5 for affiliation conflict+18 on the internal sit-mods-11@8 for the target skill bias is 52, and he failed.
I'll move Adam toward a conflict and work out more details in the next post, I hope.
--M. J. Young
Oh, and let me apologize for missing yesterday.
MJ, I really hate it when people apologize for things that aren't their fault.
yesterday I simply fell asleep for a couple hours in the evening when I ought to have been getting all this work done
And believe it or not, I wouldn't mind a bit to see you say this more often.
and worrying about it.
Why? I don't think anyone else here had a problem with it.
(Doing Therapy)
Two
I read the chapter on skills, and read and reread the section on learning skills. I still can't make heads or tails of this. It needs to be put into plain English.
Glantri is trying to learn how to shoot 3 different guns. How do we do this?
He has a 2@2 BRA, 10@3 tech bias, the tech bias of the world is 15@10 (just because I want to keep it simple for my first run) He has an example of a trained Special Forces soldier who is going to demonstrate, so that's 2@10, plus half the instructor's BRA, plus Glantri has a 1@10 RSV.
How do I add this up so he can shoot the zombie? I told you, I read the chapter, it might as well have been in Latin.
HELP!!!!!!!!
MJ, I really hate it when people apologize for things that aren't their fault.
Two drivers collided downtown. One immediately leapt from his car and said to the other, "Oh, I'm so terribly sorry, this was entirely my fault!"
The other answered, "Nonsense. I saw you coming two blocks away and had plenty of time to pull up on the sidewalk."
The fact that I did not post is at some level my own fault. I could have told my wife to find her own supper and go bed without me. I decided that the consequences of that were not worth the benefits of posting, but it was still my decision, and thus still my fault.
I think I've covered the mechanics question in your thread. Could have done it here, but there was a lot more information in the thread (some of which I missed) and I always read all the other posts including games I'm not running before I come here and to the games I am running, so I hit it while I was there. It means you don't have to wait as long, either.
Let's see what I can do for Eli, Michael, Brock, Harry, John 2, and Adam.
Eli's first action is the Kiai, which intrigues me. Initiative is determined by rolling against the chance to hit of the best chance to hit (active) on each side for that minute for whatever the first attack is going to be. In one sense, a Kiai is an attack; in another, it is not. I think, then, that I'll treat the Kiai as a skill use comparable to any defense activated, and use the power front kick as the attack. I still have some questions, but we'll roll the Kiai first: 77 is unlikely to work, as it is a psionic skill in a flatlined psi world, if memory serves, and he doesn't have much of a psi bias anyway, so the difference is inconsequential. I see no bonus on the skill listing, so we'll leave it that it had no impact this time. I have to ask about his "improved defenses" suggestion, but I also have to figure out whether he has sufficient room to use his run to bonus his kick. Usually I figure five feet is the minimum for this; the guy just avoided a grab that was going to be a throw, so he's not that far away. We go directly to the kick, the 2@1 Power Front Kick B7@3 base damaging -10SM which with a 2@1 MSV, 2@1 SAL, and style bonus is going to get +3DC, and there being no opposing DC penalties one of those turns into +10 damage points. I know the chance of success is above me in this thread somewhere, but I'll roll first and then do numbers: 46 is going to succeed, so that's a strong initiative roll; his opponent rolls 58, though, so I have to check whether that would hit: the Bushi's use of the katana is 77% minus defenses, which means 1@5 TV leaving 62; but he's talking about "learning improved defenses", so I've got to get whatever that means. If he succeeds, he could lower their chance to hit him below their 58 roll (he only needs 5 points) and he'll have the initiative.
I realized that the area where the parties are held, where Michael is intending to do his practicing, is on the roof, and therefore subject to the weather. So I rolled a GE roll, and decided that an 18 was not bad enough to be a problem but was going to include something a bit negative.
I'm actually interested in Brock's reaction to the very baseball-type style George uses. Sure, Han Karon was created as a bit of a joke (it is named for a famous ball player), but I still try to make the jokes credible styles, so the question is whether it's strange merely for being unusual or because there are weaknesses in it I don't perceive (having had minimal training to real martial arts).
The questions that rattle in my head are whether the ladder is both strong enough and stable enough to hold Harry and Tara and the kid all at once. 15 is just barely on the good side, so we're not home yet. Harry rolls 08 on his climbing skill so he's good there, even if a bit unsteady. I'm feeling the tension of the moment; I wonder if he is?
John 2 has some odd questions, but I think I can answer them.
Adam and I are both trying to figure out how to move this to the critical position without stumbling into problems along the way. I think I've got it; we'll need a GE roll in response to his situation after he makes decisions about what to do next.
--M. J. Young
The biggest problem I see with the style is mobility. In order to get the POWER that baseball players put into their swings, you have to set yourself. if you set yourself, you're not going to move around well.
uhm...hmm. here's hoping MJ is OK. he doesn't usually take this long to return.
Oh, and MJ: I agree with John in that you needn't apologize, but for different reasons. I think a beforehand alert that you will be late or missing, where possible, is all that should be needed. I think apologies would only be necessary if you disappeared for an extended period of time without saying why, and even then only because it is worrying to your friends here on the boards.
Sure, it is your fault you were late; that doesn't mean it is as bad as you sometimes make it seem. Savvy?
Hmm...I have a nagging feeling something in that might be construed as rude, somewhere....but I don't know where to rectify it if it is...
With you on that one Brock. I'm starting to worry too.
Get well soon, M.J. Young. And, don't overexert yourself
I just hope he's using the time to get some sleep.
MJ has about 1 or 2 stretches during the year where issues come up, lack of time, sickness. If there is something series, one of his kids or friends will come on and let us know. I did read a blog post on Monday about him pushing work back.
I am trying to lower the temperature in here, and have defragged two of the three drives in the hope that this will help stabilize everything long enough for me to finally get to all these game posts. If the computer crashes once more before I'm finished, though, I'm going to turn my attention to the remaining necessities of the day and try again tomorrow. Post order looks like Eli, Michael, Ahmetia, Brock, Kurt, Harry, John 2, and Adam, and if I don't get to all of you you have my apologies in advance--except that probably this won't have posted either, but maybe on the reboot it will reopen this window and let me post whatever I've got.
Eli is trying to devise a dodging defense which I'm going to treat as a B7@4 special dodging with a one-minute RS-SM application. He rolls
Well, presumably everyone can see how far I got before the computer froze. Hopefully we'll do better today--I've gotten an earlier start, at least. The list is the same--Eli, Michael, Ahmetia, Brock, Kurt, Harry, John 2, and Adam.
I was talking about a skill learning check for Eli, so let's roll it. I admit that I rolled the stopwatch last night, but the computer crashed before I got back to it, so I'm going to ignore that roll and get a fresh one: 11, which is much better and gives him a 1@1 Defensive Martial Dodging B7@4 RS=SM per minute. He then wanted to use the power front kick, and looking back to the previous page we were working on initiative:
We go directly to the kick, the 2@1 Power Front Kick B7@3 base damaging -10SM which with a 2@1 MSV, 2@1 SAL, and style bonus is going to get +3DC, and there being no opposing DC penalties one of those turns into +10 damage points. I know the chance of success is above me in this thread somewhere, but I'll roll first and then do numbers: 46 is going to succeed, so that's a strong initiative roll; his opponent rolls 58, though, so I have to check whether that would hit: the Bushi's use of the katana is 77% minus defenses, which means 1@5 TV leaving 62; but he's talking about "learning improved defenses", so I've got to get whatever that means. If he succeeds, he could lower their chance to hit him below their 58 roll (he only needs 5 points) and he'll have the initiative.The -11 he gets for this skill success means he did take the initiative, and now he rolls for whether he connects, 77 is rolled but I don't see the numbers. I remember that the Bushi's defensive values total -19; Eli has 2@1 SAL-10 SM for the kick, +10 att SM for the style (and +10 damage points if he connects), +2@1 MSV, +2@1 strength BRA, +2x7@ bias, that's actually conveniently 11x7=77, -19 is 58, not a hit; but he's got three more before his opponents can retaliate. He's listed a punch and an elbow strike against another; the punch is a standard style attack, 2@4 SAL, +10 for the style Sit-mod means 68% chance to hit, annoying +3DC is dangerous +10 points, and he's got +10 points for the style, so if he can roll 68 or lower he's going to do some damage here, 37 is the equivalent of 57, which is 6 intensities of damage on a previously injured adversary; looking back I see 7 intensities inflicted, this makes 13, but he specified the elbow on another so we'll give him that and let him state what action he wants to take on the one before the bushi respond. The elbow roll is 46, which will be successful, get +2DC from dangerous to fatal and +10 points for 56 which is 28 intensities, which will kill another bushi.
We're going to move Michael forward a bit more. I'd like to give him a week or so to build up some familiarity with Durer before we move to the next event, but I don't want to run roughshod over his plans. He rolls 58 on the mind reading at lunch, which doesn't look good for a 1@1 SAL+2x4@ bias+2@1 BRA=40%. Dinner rolls 52, also a failure unless he manages to kick his bias up six intensities over the afternoon, so I'll sit on that for the moment. It occurs to me that he probably has plans to learn something this afternoon, but I'm not sure I remember what. (Mea culpa, it's been a rough week.) Ah, there it is: dousing torches.
Ahmetia asks for more information about the queen. Some of this I have to extrapolate from what I already do know, but it's probably all stuff they would tell her.
We'll get back to the routine with Brock; I should roll a GE roll pretty soon for what happens next (and how long it is until it does), but for the moment we'll bring back to memory the fact that a bunch of equipment was just acquired and needs to be installed.
I should give Kurt a GE roll; if it's moderately good we'll move the routine forward over a period of weeks. 21 is not at all good.
Harry makes another successful climbing check--02, almost as poor as it can be. I'm going to make his life, er, interesting.
It looks like I have to go back to Friday July 30th to get the chance of success on the prayer John 2 is trying a second time to learn. The roll is 58; the previous post says the chance of success is 52. I've been fretting over this, but now I have some ideas concerning what could constitute a teacher for Sarah, so maybe once John succeeds on this she'll learn something.
I'll toss in a spell that I remember Lauren having learned somewhere, I think probably from Merlin, and I don't remember having seen in this scenario before, so maybe it will be something that will interest Adam before his vampires arrive.
Again I apologize for the delays, and apologize in advance if for any reason I do not make it here on Sunday. As I mentioned in Blogless Lepolt #908, And the Heat is Back, I have scheduled a visit for my computer to a tech center Saturday night and hope it will be back in my arms again by Sunday night, but can make no promises.
--M. J. Young
The computer is back, but not completely stable; I'm still assessing. I'm also quite swamped with work, which I will probably discuss in tomorrow's Blogless Lepolt posting if I survive that far. For now, let me see what I can do for Eli, Michael, Ahmetia, John 2, and Adam.
We have Eli still in combat, and he has one more attack before he is attacked, and a -11 SM in addition to his other defensive values against them. He's doing the punch again, 77 is above his 68% chance to hit, so that's a near miss. Two bushi will attempt to hit him; their chance has been calculated at 62%, with the -11 making 51%. The rolls for two attackers (one attack each) are 30, 80. That first will do 3 intensities of damage, but the second is clearly a miss. Then he lists four more attacks which will finish out the minute, 21 on the elbow strike will finish the first man (I don't have to look it up--it's a powerful attack, and he's almost dead). He moves to a punch, 24, annoying+3DC+10=Dangerous+20=5 intensities (the dangerous damage for a roll of 44). 77 misses with the flip kick; 93 misses with the roundhouse kick, and we're back to the beginning of a minute. I'll need to know his action before I can roll the next initiative roll, and I'm sure he'll want to use the defense again but I told him to say so; however, I think another GE roll is needed: 16. He's not getting good rolls, but at least this one is not bad.
It occurs to me to wonder whether Michael's wizarding friends can also light torches; but that's going to be a create fire, if they can, and there are a lot of easier things on the list than that. I'll try to remember to use a GE roll for it later.
Ahmetia asks some good questions; I'll give her answers. The left-handed thing is because they're supposed to be nearly identical, and that would be a physical difference.
John 2 is going to do something, but I'm not sure what, so I'll ask.
The "comfort bubble" Merlin uses is drawn from Lauren's magic lists, a M5@2 force field. It's listed in the rules with an 18:00 TF baseline and an RS/2 duration, but Merlin's is a lot faster and probably doesn't have to last as long (particularly given that at expert level he triples the duration; he also cuts the TF to a third, so that helps). If I make his TF 3:00, and make him an expert (so it only took him 1:00 to do it), that's -23; if I decrease the duration to RS/4 that's +10, so I'm looking at a sum of -13. He'll have shortened range, +10 because he has to be in the middle of it, +5 appropriate words, +5 magical language, +3 for both hands, and that puts it at +10. I'm going to take away the ten because I'm thinking the baseline would be a 10' radius and this is larger than that, 15' probably doing significantly more than doubling the inside volume but acceptable since rarely is it the volume that matters. I'll comment more in Adam's game thread.
--M. J. Young
I'm pressing through the end of a long workday, and looking at posts from Eli, Michael, Ahmetia, Brock, Harry, John 2, and Adam, and hoping I can get through that many in under an hour.
Eli is going to use the Kiai again to steal initiative, and launch the defensive dodging again, so I will roll those in that order: 46, 90. The dodging didn't work; and 1@10+2@3 in a flatlined bias is only 36% on the kiai, so those also fail. He puts the punch first on the list, which as I recall has a strong chance of success--68% noted in the last post, so that will be his target for initiative, he rolls 02, which means he only has it if the opponent fails (or rolls 02 or less). The opponent rolls 37, they will move first. He is specifically not following the injured man into the crowd, and thus is on the edge where two can strike, 80, 24, the second hits for another three intensities. His rolls for punch 49, elbow strike 46, elbow strike 30, roundhouse kick 83, are going to be 7, 28, 20, miss.
I'm going to give Michael an unrequested intuition check, because there is something odd in the banshee account that someone ought to notice. The roll is 13+10=23, which beats his intuition badly.
Ahmetia asks about her personal possessions, and we'll take a moment to get that settled.
Brock asked me a question which really he has to answer.
I'm going to give Harry a simple will power check to deal with his fear; the rolls are 11+15=26, dice are definitely cold tonight. Even with a hefty bonus, I can't give that to a 1@9 will power. An 11 GE roll is going to save him this time, though. 64 on the climbing skill is not a good roll, but he won't fall. We're still riding on that 11 GE (GE rolls that are farther from the center also tend to last longer, particularly when there aren't really dynamic possibilities).
Off the record, I'm really pleased with the way the system worked there.
I guess I can't really complain when players try to bring in "superheroes" to help them--David Marcoe used to do it with angels, and looking back it was very clever, although at the time I kept feeling as if he should be beating them himself. Now John 2 is doing it, trying to summon something he can't prove exists except from the theory that all worlds must be real, and if you can imagine it, it must exist somewhere. However, a terminator is not actually a sentient being; it is not even what we call an artificial intelligence (although SkyNet probably is). It is a programmed decision machine--a robot capable of making decisions concerning how to accomplish its programming. That means it can't be summoned as a sentient being. What he's really doing is teleporting an object from another universe. That's a 12@10 Teleport from Off-World, curve of 22, and not possible in this 7@13 world. In play, I would have him roll the dice and tell him that he failed. Actually, not even that--his skill does not require that the object materialize in his immediate presence (and if I said it did, he would probably be upset, because Sarah would certainly assume that a person materializing in her presence was from the future, and immediately suspect a terminator). So he doesn't know yet.
I almost feel sorry not doing more for Adam, but we'll give him the chance to make decisions about the recon before it starts, and I'll get out of here "on time", and Lord willing I will see everyone tomorrow.
And I learned tonight that Adam is a time travel fan. That's one of the fascinating things about this game--we learn so many interesting details about each other.
--M. J. Young
However, a terminator is not actually a sentient being; it is not even what we call an artificial intelligence (although SkyNet probably is)
Yes it is. I'm the expert in Terminator, don't forget. It's as much a sentient being as Commander Data. SkyNet obtained sentience on August 29, 1997, at least in one timeline. It endowed all of the machines with that. The tanks, the fliers, they're all sentient. It sees its created machines as its children, in a fashion. The prayer is summoning an off-world sentient being.
How do you think the Terminators can function in the past outside of SkyNet's control? It's not a puppet that SkyNet controls. It's an artificially intelligent, sentient, artificial lifeform. I've been studying Terminator since I was about 15. I know this.
Just saying it's cruel and unusual punishment to dangle a tread in front of me that says do not read. You could have put Political Debate thread and I never would have gone in it :P.