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The dickering over numbers or whatever is just that, genre emulation of having the bad-ass street level guy plow through the goons to get to the 'real' fight.  Sure, you can narrate it, but it's more fun to roll dice.  As we've established, Heroic has that covered. :)

HAHAH true. Dickering about numbers in RPG's is no different than arguing about who would win in a fight between Cap and Batman (We all know it's Cap. Right? RIGHT?)
Since we're going to discuss it at this level nuance, I'm going to chalk it up to the GM making it *feel* right for his players. I don't like to just recite numbers and then lower health scores - I like telling my players when their PC hits for 30-points of damage, describing the feeling of slamming 1-ton's worth of force into the jaw of his opponent. Or better I like letting them tell me where/how they make their attack and I embellish it as needed to really make them feel just how powerful they really are.

I'm with you 100% that a gaggle of thugs *shouldn't* be a problem. I think it's a matter of which system gives you that "perfect" expression in play that sticks with you. A lot of that might be your GM.

We haven't really played MEGS or any other Supers in forever. Just haven't found the right fit. Heroic looks like it addresses a lot of my irritations in this area. Have to read over it more for the other minor things we worked around, but I'm definitely interested in it.

Do it! and let us know how it turns out.

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Media and Inspiration / Re: The Movie Thread Reloaded
« Last post by yosemitemike on Today at 03:04:30 AM »
The crossdressing psycho that Gene Simmons played in Never Too Young to Die was entertainingly bizarre.
3
It's hilarious that he think that the community pushes back against UA content because we're just not ready for it or think it doesn't fit this specific game.  I have never encountered a DM that disallowed UA content for either of those reasons.  DM's disallow UA content because it's poorly thought out and imbalanced.  Take the silvery barbs spell for example.  It imposes disadvantage on an opponent of your choice and gives to an ally of your choice advantage on their next attack, save or ability check.  It's castable as a reaction.  This would be quite good for a 3rd level spell.  It's a 1st level spell.  People don't disallow this because they just ready for that.  They disallow it because it's way too good.  The flipside of this are all the UA options that are just bad but no one wants to take those.
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The RPGPundit's Own Forum / Re: Greta is at it..AGAIN
« Last post by jhkim on Today at 02:54:02 AM »
I agree that neither pollution should be discounted -- but they should be evaluated fairly. I'm reading through your recent links, but they don't seem to be doing side-by-side comparison. An EV battery is good for 100k to 200k miles -- which is the equivalent of 4000 to 8000 gallons of gasoline, or about 200 to 400 barrels of crude oil. So the question is:

1) What is the damage from drilling, refining, and then burning the gasoline from 300 barrels of crude oil?
2) What is the damage from mining the materials and manufacturing one EV battery?

I don't have exact answers for these. Battery manufacture produces toxic material, but it's a question of how much is produced and how much of that will get into people's bodies -- compared to breathing in output from car exhaust like carbon monoxide, ground-level ozone, and particulates.

I do know that around 5 million people a year have early deaths from air pollution. How many would you guess have early deaths every year from battery waste? I'm skeptical that it is anywhere close to 5 million. You can say "battery waste is toxic" but that's like saying "nuclear waste is toxic". It's technically true, but nuclear waste is relatively tiny and extremely well-handled -- particularly when compared to dumping toxins directly into the air that people breath.

So the water pollution from mining the lithium doesn't count? https://media.istockphoto.com/id/1399997488/photo/greenbushes-lithium-mine.webp?b=1&s=170667a&w=0&k=20&c=_pJKX6mjys2DVjDsFz7smuxqiYFHDFXykI4LWfJLBWc=

ALL the air pollution from the mining, shipping the Lithium to China doesn't count?
All the air pollution from the manufacturing of the batteries in China doesn't count?
All the air pollution from shipping those batteries to the US?
What about the air pollution from manufacturing and shipping the EVs to the US?
What about the air pollution from producing the electricity to charge the batteries?

You KNOW I live in México City right?

GeekyBugle, how is this disagreeing with anything I said? Yes, everything should be counted, both for EVs and for gasoline cars. So it counts the pollution from mining for material for the gasoline car, shipping the gasoline car, running the refineries, shipping the gasoline to the gas stations, etc. Here's one analysis of both for several different options for lifetime emissions, for example:

https://www.osti.gov/biblio/2228291

Browsing, most other estimates are similar. The lifetime emissions can range from 20% less to 60% less than a gasoline car, depending on how its made and especially on what source you're charging it from.

Living in México City, I can see that would make you mad about air pollution. From what I read, it does seem to be getting better than in the 1990s, but it's still bad - especially NO2 and particulates. Here's the graph I'm looking at:


Source: https://thecityfix.com/blog/expanding-mexico-citys-air-quality-forecast-to-help-citizens-live-more-healthy-lives/

What do you think should be done to help clean it up further?
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Can’t pick the lock? Maybe it’s rusted shut.

That sounds suspiciously like a variant of quantum ogres.

I am going to clarify here: if the expert player character has a 90+% chance to pick the lock…AND FAILS THE ROLL… Then perhaps IT WAS NOT DUE TO LACK OF EXPERTISE THAT CAUSE THE FAILURE, but rather it was due to some other circumstance that was beyond the control of the character. 

If you fail the roll, you don’t pick the lock.  That’s the exact opposite of “Quantum Ogres”.
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The RPGPundit's Own Forum / Re: Greta is at it..AGAIN
« Last post by yosemitemike on Today at 01:43:32 AM »
Right, and fracking took place because world conventional production peaked in 2015, which the IEA confirmed in 2010 and King predicted correctly in 1976.

If any, fracking supports what the Club of Rome said. Otherwise, there'd be no need to resort to uncoventional production in the first place.

The same with the Ehrlich wager: they were focusing on price, not diminishing returns, which is what the mining industry has been experiencing for decades:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFyTSiCXWEE

A century ago, you could get lots of high-grade copper with no heavy equipment. Now, you need the latter to get lower amounts of copper and of lower grade. It's the same with oil: you start with an energy return of a hundred barrels for each barrel used, then after several decades it goes down to three, and then you resort to fracking.

No, it proves that the Club of Rome's basic premise is wrong.  We have proved reserve than before, not less.

It's not unconventional production that we are resorting to.  It's a new method of extraction that was invented.

There is a direct connection between supply and prices.  Prices were used as a proxy for supply.

Then you come up with a new technology to access resources that were not previously accessible at an economical cost.  Saying that we are "resorting to" this doesn't change anything.
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Streaming tonight talking about HEROIC Mechanics.

I'll be a guest if anyone is interested.

https://youtube.com/live/whzme7xsX8E


Although I owned DC heroes and MSH back in the day, they never really clicked. largely I suppose because I never played with a group that knew how to make them sing.

But tenbones praise was enough to get me to watch the video, and I gotta say...

Mad Props to Tenbones for actually resembling his avatar. That's next-level forum street cred right there.


Also, I am intrigued by the game. My free advice would be; if he does a backerkit to pour all his money into layout and art. Now granted, how it actually plays at the table is what really matters... But a superhero RPG should have kickin' superhero art to get peoples attention to sell.

Semi-interesting story. After I broke up with my girlfriend many years ago, she went on to become a developer on City of Heroes (not to my knowledge). In the early days of that game development, they needed assets for the game. She still had a lot of fondness for me, and she ended up putting my face in the game. Here's the kicker - I later got married and me and all my friends were playing, then I noticed that actual photographs I had taken with her were used in some of the movie posters, and in-game advertisements. That's when I looked up who the team was and how the fuck did they get these pictures - and there she was. I contacted her and had a good laugh. So yeah, that face is actually my face. Granted I was a lot less of a fatass back then. But yep. That's me.

I've had this avatar for a long time, a little homage to her (and I love City of Heroes).

As for Heroic - Bear has shared some of the art from the game. What I've seen so far is pretty good. Obviously he doesn't have the budget to hire named comic artists, but he's got some solid art. I'm in the dark of what the whole book will look like, I'm mostly consulting on rules and now GMing sections.
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I think part of the reason why character INT isn't just the attribute score on the player's character sheet and sometimes instead maps to the player's intelligence is that INT is a relatively abstract concept. You can quantify STR in various concrete ways, max press, for example. But distinguishing between what types of puzzles or riddles someone with a 13 INT should be able to solve compared to someone with a 15 INT isn't as readily quantifiable. How would you really know whether you were accurately role-playing an INT score of 13 versus 15? Compare that with physical attributes like STR. You typically don't role-play STR. Your character either has the requisite strength to do something or doesn't.

And INT shows up in more places than puzzles and riddles. Problem-solving in combat is another area where player intelligence (and experience) matters. I don't think most DMs would disallow some clever tactic or strategy on the ground that the fighter in question lacked the requisite INT score to have that insight in combat (and players typically do not place one of their better attribute scores in INT when playing fighters). If so, then why get bent out of shape about a character with a mediocre INT score solving a difficult puzzle or riddle based on the player's ability?

Old-school D&D is a messy amalgam of character ability and knowledge and player ability and knowledge. I think it works fine, despite the inconsistencies, and that there is no problem to solve here. With a hard-to-quantify attribute like INT, it would strip player characters of a lot of their agency if the DM was routinely adjudicating whether they were intelligent enough to take "x" action or think "y" thought based on INT scores.
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The RPGPundit's Own Forum / Re: Greta is at it..AGAIN
« Last post by GeekyBugle on Today at 12:02:29 AM »
Bill Gates: The Net Zero transition will require the energy grid "to be about three times bigger than it is today".

"Consumers can help us by stretching to buy an electric car, or an electric heat pump, or food that's made a low emissions way."

"The rich countries owe it to the world not only to reduce their emissions, but to drive down the cost of these green products."

https://archive.is/l8M85

Exactly! So why is the Club of Rome seen as wrong? In order to meet the basic needs of the world population, we'll need at least an additional earth in terms of energy and material resources. To meet wants including EVs for personal use, three more.

BECAUSE all their predictions, since the 70s have been wrong and BECAUSE your lñeaders are buying beach front property comrade.
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Constant gaslighting makes reactionaries of people who wish to end such practice. I also see trannies lurking in every slob who wants to play an anime girl. You have chosen to die by stay-puft marshmellow man and i feel fine.
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