Quote:Your choice. But you lose so much of the effect then.
>Well, maybe you can come by one night and we'll have Helen's husband Attila demonstrate all those moves on you the way he demonstrated them on me.
Although I do hope to someday meet you in person, I think I'll just go ahead and pass on having my fingers bent around creatively by your friends. ^.^;;
Quote:Well, to absolutely honest, so do the Warriors.
The JLA ... get by often more on raw power than tactics.
And while it's on my mind, this seems to be a good place to reiterate something I know I've said elsewhere, both here in the forums and in other places. The Warriors and Warriors' World as you see them in Drunkard's Walk are not precisely canon from the campaign. The individual Warriors are on target (a certain three women would not have let me make it otherwise, even if I had wanted to), as are the tactics and such I describe, but in general the team's style is far more comic book than it appears in my writings. To accomplish what I wanted in the story, I needed certain things to be true about Doug, and those required certain things to be different about Warriors' World. As it appears in DW, it's about 75% original campaign world, and about 25% the GURPS I.S.T. world. The campaign's Japan is not the hotbed of radical racist nationalists that it is in DW, for example, and the Warriors are closer to a traditional superteam than we are the story's paramilitary organization.
re: Other Warriors' character sheets
Quote:Well, it's pretty much a case of "are you cool with this?", along with an implicit promise that if they weren't, away it would go. I didn't negotiate any kind of extended rights.
Darn... I don't know what to say about that. I'm not sure what kind of reassurances they'd be wanting. You've put Doug up for view, and now have portrayed the Warriors (some of them) in fiction. All the rights issues have been seen to, I assume, so I'm not sure what the problem would be.
Quote:Well, the issue is complicated. There's a lot more going on with these characters than just their stats, as I think I made clear in my earlier reply. And because they are in some cases literal self-insertions, there is a certain proprietary interest in keeping them "safe" and personal. For example, Kat has refused in her usual gracious manner, partly for that exact reason. (If she gives permission, I may post part of her reply on the topic here.)
I can assure you Peg and the others that I wouldn't use the characters without permission. Like I said, I'm just interested in crunching numbers and maybe doing conversions. That and going "Oooh! Ahh!" ^_^
Quote:So you might think, yes.
> However... can you imagine the reaction of Gendo Ikari and the Central Dogma Bridge Bunnies to a manifestation of Hexe or Silverbolt taking on an Angel?
Well, I think we got a taste of that from one of your previews, I think. ^_^
Quote:If I keep my cosmology consistent, yes, she probably could. In fact, she probably does -- and the folks at home in WW just don't see it that way, given that in the original material we (occasionally) see AT fields used for stuff other than simple force fields.
Seriously, though, the scales are so intensely out of proportion, I don't know if even Hexe could take on some of the more powerful or weird Angels. Silverbolt may be powerful, but she'd just get swatted by a majority of the Angels. The whole A-T field thing is another factor. Could Hexe generate one?
Quote:Ah. Now I can picture it. Thanks.
Jim Carrey as the Riddler to Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face in Batman Forever,
Quote:Well, at least we got to see Alicia Silverstone in tight-fitting rubber. I know what you mean; despite the occasionally clever dialogue ("I guess we'll just have to kill her", "it's the car, chicks love the car"), it seems like it's starting to slip inexorably back into Adam West territory. Gods, anything but that.
And, bad as it is, at least it's not Batman and Robin. (SHUDDER) That's nearly two hours of my life I'm never getting back... Joel Shumacher has yet to pay the price he so richly deserves for utterly destroying that franchise...
re: Arcanum
Quote:That he was. We never actually nailed the bastard, just his various henchmen. And we never got definitive proof that Gideon Manley actually was Arcanum; not before he bailed from the planet. And John ("Skitz"/"Major Canis") Freiler and Helen did such a good job GMing him that even now, years afterwards -- and out of game -- we still aren't 100% sure that Arcanum and Manley were one and the same. 99% sure, but there always is (and probably always will be) a hair of a doubt. What makes it more frustrating is that they never put definitive information on Arcanum's identity in the Big Binder of WW GM Info. So despite the fact that the GMship has rotated through several other players since then, we still don't know for sure.
Sounds like a smart man, and very very dangerous.
Quote:Well, that was my intent -- I mean, what Doug did, even with his declaration of intent at the end of chapter 11, was so far beyond "believable" even given their knowledge of his abilities, that to have it happen had to have been a big shock. (Of course, if Doug hadn't called for a Hexe simulacrum, he'd've never succeeded, but that's neither here nor there...) That's the purpose of Linna's one line after the Warriors manifest but before they fight. It was intended to sort of sum up the "uh-oh, this is the deep end of the pool, isn't it?" feeling they all got at that moment.
Perhaps a line could have been added to the effect that Sylia _tried_ to open it up a little, but was being pressed too much by Hexe? A little late for that now, unless you want to Stalinize it. If it makes you feel any better, I got the sense that Sylia was being pressed and was off balance mentally anyway.
And btw, for the people who think the Sabers are anything but "just battlesuit goons", well yeah, that's part of the point, too. Doug is, in his own personable way, a bigot -- he's very mildly contemptuous of "mundanes" as a collective group, although it rarely affects his day-to-day interactions with individual mundanes -- like, say, Lisa, for instance. And he's very contemptuous of "mechanics" like the Sabers. This is far from fair or reasonable in Warriors' World (or any other superhero world -- I'm sure Iron Man would gladly have a word or two about it with him). Doug's characterization of them as "goons" doesn't say anything about the Sabers -- it says something about him. After all, one of those "goons" handily took down his wife...
Quote:Oh, the current GM is quite understanding about these matters. And with one catastrophic exception, an incoming GM rarely overrules anything that was established or accepted by the outgoing GM -- because these things are often informally decided as a group anyway.
> (No, he didn't have any Warriors simulacra songs in-game before that. He does now.
Oh ho! I wonder what your next GM is going to say to that? ^_^
Quote:The bad guys would boggle, too...
I wonder what would happen if he manifested a couple of them while the real ones are actually still there and present? Imagine having two of Silverbolt or Hexe running around (for approx. 5 minutes anyway). The mind boggles...
Hm. I was about to say Doug couldn't actually do a Hexe simulacrum without the same results as he had in chapter 12, but if she's there on the field with him at the time, well, there's no need to invest so much belief in the sim, so I would suppose there would be no "summons" effect. She'd probably be less effective than the original, though.
Quote:You and couple other people I've heard from.
I think I'm going to save that line and put it in my quote file. ^_^
Quote:Sye no more, sye no more, a wink is as good as a nudge to a blind bat, eh?
Humorously specific -- Yeah, if I were to make a V&V character based on myself as I am today and kept the exact same STR score from my first V&V character, "I'd" be able to lift a lot more. And that's all I need say about that. ^^;;
Quote:Actually because the sonar runs at a considerably lower volume -- Nene didn't have to use nearly as much power to make her jamming "louder" than the active signal part of Maggie's sonar.
> No, not 100%, at least against the sonic attack; she was able to overwhelm Maggie's sonar at least briefly, though, which helped Nene get the drop on her.
Because she had more to sample from in the case of the latter, of course, since Maggie was broadcasting that constantly.
Quote:Actually (and I think someone has already posted this elsewhere in the thread), but the Norse pantheon is the only pantheon in UF -- all other gods worshipped in that universe are either non-existent, or just different names for the real ones.
This actually makes more sense in a way than Eyrie Productions Undocumented Features universe. There it seems that (unless I'm missing something) the Norse Pantheon is the one that's made a real comeback, but no one else.
Quote:I've covered this in a separate post on this thread, but I'll expound a little more here. Belldandy, in any of her manifestations across an infinity of timelines, is an incredibly small subset of the member of the Three whom I've described as having a voice like the chiming of bells. In most of those universes, she is effectively autonomous and not being "puppeted" by her Overself although at any time the Overself can "look through" or "step into" her. All that Belldandy is, is part of "Bell-tones", but "Bell-tones" is not only Belldandy. Another way to look at it is as a vastly more sophisticated (and complicated, and sincere) version of a chatroom identity.
I mean, I see Belldandy, as she's presented in AMG, as her own entity, not an avatar or filter. Your method of presenting things so far makes me wonder what, in your version of AMG, she really is. And who she is, as well. I mean, Belldandy really loves Keiichi with all her heart. Does that apply to her other aspects as well? And if not, and Keichi really understood what Belldandy was in these terms, what would it mean for their relationship?
This doesn't make what Belldandy feels for Keiichi false by any measure. But the sincere and intense emotion that Belldandy feels is far from the only component of the emotional state felt by "Bell-tones"; it gets averaged across what's being felt by all the Overself's avatars and vessels. (Still, given how many Keiichi there are in the multiverse, it's no surprise that "Bell-tones" isn't exactly a dour deity... )
Now, on the subject of filters and viewpoints. A given deity may play several roles in a single given universe, in different guises. And their "rank(s)" may vary from universe to universe, depending on the ineffable rules by which these Beings govern their insertions. This is why the Three may be the ultimate authority on destiny in one universe, and the notably weaker "daughters" of a Supreme god in another. Or saints, or angels. (Or Vorlons... ) Or all at once. They're not linear to our timesense, and they aren't limited to being in one place at any given time. Or behaving consistently between vessels.
There is an exception to this: Occasionally a "protogod" gets spawned by a universe -- they are often limited to their initial form/vessel/body until they reach a certain stage of development/power/control, at which time they make a quantum leap to a "higher form" -- what I've been calling an "Overself", which is almost always in the "metaspace" with the other Overselves. And that becomes a new level of "sink or swim". Most protogods don't last long (gods have high infant mortality rates ).
Quote:I'll just say that Evangelion universes tend to spawn protogods.
And then we get into some really wild territory in Evangelion. I'm beginning to think this subject deserves an entire seperate post! ^_^
Quote:True. Well, maybe I can do something about that.
> Doug's definition of the Sabers as "slavehunters" is as uncomplicated and incorrect as Nene's definition of them as "shining heroes"; the truth is somewhere in between, and it's doubtful Doug will have the time to realize that.
Are you sure about that? I'd be somewhat dissapointed if Doug couldn't realize some of the grey nature of the Knight Sabers and their conflict before he left the BGC universe. He's certainly intelligent enough.
Quote:And initially not planned for. Finding all these nicely consistent subtexts in what I write (most of which I didn't actually plan), I'm starting to believe some of the crap I used to write for English papers in college...
Yeah, strangely enough. Doug is an actual superhero who thinks of himself more as a soldier. Nene is a mercenary(soldier) who thinks of herself as more of a superhero. The irony there is pretty intense.
Quote:The material over her "eyes" is like the cloth on stereo speakers. It's opaque but it doesn't interfere with the sound going through it.
That's great, but she has a mask on over her "eyes", so wouldn't that interfere? Or is this another case of "Don't examine this too closely"? ^_^
Quote:Yeah, that's it, really. It's evolved a lot from their early relationship in the late 1980s, when Doug at least perceived it as very adversarial. He felt that Hexe was holding a grudge against him because of the "audition" attack he made on Dwimanor, and kept holding that grudge for a long time. Helen will say it's not the case, and it probably wasn't, but Doug saw it that way. The relationship between them started to change for the better when he found out that (contrary to his expectations) she was his primary advocate in the long discussion/argument that led up to the vote that ended his probationary status. It was about that time that he stopped being an obnoxious jerk simply for the sake of it, and started relegating that to his "combat persona".
Concerning the dressing down by Hexe and her short visit with Lisa - ... She's not cold at all, despite her snootiness. She still has to get in her digs, but it's more as an "older sister" type thing.
I'm glad Hexe comes across so well, btw. Helen wrote (or rewrote) much of her dialogue, and offered bits of business and description for me to include in the text. It's very much the case here that I was more of a director for an actor working in text than a writer.
Quote:Well, protectiveness and territoriality.
This is of course reinforced by her show of protectiveness towards him that is shown when she tells off the triune.
Quote:No comment. Although I'll forward that to Helen. (I really ought to try and talk her into joining the forum.)
The more I think of the way her personality comes off, the more I think of her as embodying prominent aspects of the goddess Athena. If that isn't who she is at least in part, I'd be really really surprised.
Quote:I know how that feels. I've been getting exhausted and drowsy by 10 PM every night this week.
Whew! Man this got long! Need sleep before work tonight...
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.