From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Sat Dec 23 03:04:15 2000 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (majordom@lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id DAA27125 for ; Sat, 23 Dec 2000 03:04:15 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.3/8.9.1a) id DAA11017 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Sat, 23 Dec 2000 03:04:07 -0600 Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 03:04:07 -0600 Message-Id: <200012230904.DAA11017@lists.io.com> From: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com (in_nomine-digest) To: in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Subject: in_nomine-digest V1 #1986 Reply-To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com Sender: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Errors-To: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Precedence: bulk in_nomine-digest Saturday, December 23 2000 Volume 01 : Number 1986 In this digest: Re: IN> Seraph of Flowers attunement Re: IN> Seraph of Flowers attunement Re: IN> Another newbie GM seeking advice... Re: IN> Another newbie GM seeking advice... Re: IN> Another newbie GM seeking advice... Re: IN> Cleverest use of attunements... IN> My (overdue) review of Sonic #91 Re: IN> My (overdue) review of Sonic #91 Re: IN> Merry Christmas and somesuch! Re: IN> Merry Christmas and somesuch! Re: IN> GURPS In-Nomine Re: IN> Another newbie GM seeking advice... Re: IN> Arisia Re: IN> Arisia Re: IN> [NPC] Dr. Zoltan Karolyi Re: IN> Arisia IN> Unicorns in In Nomine Re: IN> Cleverest use of attunements... Not really Re: IN> Use of words anymore IN> The Black Mark of Discord (WAS: GURPS In-Nomine) Re: IN> Seraph of Flowers attunement Re: IN> GURPS In-Nomine ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 10:41:22 -0500 From: "Krishnaswami, Neel" Subject: Re: IN> Seraph of Flowers attunement Jo Hart wrote: > > Manipulating its own, private Symphony is basic to the Balseraph > > shtick. Sure, it creates a hole in the Seraph of Flowers protection, > > but then so do thrown rocks and sticks. It's not all-powerful. > > OTOH, perhaps the Balseraph can convince itself that it isn't really > dissonant either ... Hm. I'd say that if a Balseraph tried that, it would face an immediate contradiction with the fact it does have a point of dissonance and would thus gain another. However, note that a Balseraph can "fix" notes of dissonance when it changes its story to remove the apparent contradictions. ("I didn't shave off your hair, you did.") So I'd permit a Balseraph to remove dissonance by convincing itself that its victim /really did/ believe its story. (It should clearly do this when its victim is no longer present, so that they can't give it more dissonance with a well-timed "Yeah, right.") This is, of course, a highly dangerous and foolish thing to do, since the Balseraph now believes that its enemy believes when they actually don't. IOW, good for hours of fun. :) - -- Neel Krishnaswami neelk@cswcasa.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 10:41:24 -0500 From: "Krishnaswami, Neel" Subject: Re: IN> Seraph of Flowers attunement Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > > At 8:45 AM -0500 12/21/00, Krishnaswami, Neel wrote: > > >Um. A Seraph of Flowers' attunement is a psychological effect: > > No, it's a _miracleous_ effect. It suppresses violent actions. It supresses violent *impulses*, not violent *actions*. That's why there's a Will roll to resist, and if someone does somehow take a swing at the Seraph the sword isn't transubstantiated into Jell-o at the last instant. If a Balseraph can alter its psyche so that strikin swing at the Seraph is not the result of a violent impulse, then I don't think the attunement should offer any protection. For example, if the Balseraph tells itself that the Seraph is actually a sophisticated Vapulan practice robot it's sparring with, then I'd rule its blows lack a violent impulse behind them and won't be stopped by the attunement. Obviously, editing your own personality according to the needs of the moment is a good way to go completely nuts, but then no one said the Balseraph resonance was safe to use on yourself. It's just convenient and powerful. > I would no more allow a Balseraph to self-resonate itself into > violence for this than for the various Songs of Harmony, or into > believing that because it's not _really_ a demon (e.g., Balakites) > it can withstand the Light of Heaven, or that the Master of the > Armies of God didn't _really_ say "NO" and end the conversation, or > that the Servitor of Lust didn't _really_ hit the Bal with Dark > Desire for picklejars. Actually, I would let the Balseraph modify itself to evade the last two restrictions. The player would just have to tell me a good story about how he's changing his character's worldview, and play it out. Odds are they will get into much more interesting trouble that way. :) Plus it's a good thing IMO that mindscrews can go wrong in hideously unpredictable ways when used on a creature as highly-delusional as a a self-resonating Balseraph. As usual, this is just how I do it. - -- Neel Krishnaswami neelk@cswcasa.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 11:14:50 -0500 From: Andrew Stoner Subject: Re: IN> Another newbie GM seeking advice... Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > > At 12:14 PM -0400 12/19/00, pbarkow@is2.dal.ca wrote: > >What books should I get to start off? So far, all I have is GURPS: In > >Nomine. What would complement that well? > > The Game Master's Guide (GMG), the Superior books, Liber Castellorum, > Liber Canticorum, Liber Reliquarum. In that order. O:> Liber Servitorum > might be useful, but requires lotsa conversion. You Are Here should > require very little conversion. Funny, that's the exact opposite of the order in which I got mine... Starting for G:IN, nonetheless. But then I'm kinda crazy and can't find canticorum or GMG around here (I _know_ that I can buy them from warehouse 23, but I REALLY want to see if Pandemonium can get them first.) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 11:52:35 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Another newbie GM seeking advice... At 11:14 AM -0500 12/22/00, Andrew Stoner wrote: [...] >> The Game Master's Guide (GMG), the Superior books, Liber Castellorum, >> Liber Canticorum, Liber Reliquarum. In that order. O:> Liber Servitorum >> might be useful, but requires lotsa conversion. You Are Here should >> require very little conversion. > >Funny, that's the exact opposite of the order in which I got mine... >Starting for G:IN, nonetheless. Hee! Yes, well, those were just _my_ reccomendations... > But then I'm kinda crazy and can't find >canticorum or GMG around here (I _know_ that I can buy them from >warehouse 23, but I REALLY want to see if Pandemonium can get them >first.) Luck! (And I hope the conversions worked well...) - --Beth, typing w/a uncoopertive baby (iolanthe) causing typos. "I'm nursing a TROUT! With legs!" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 11:54:15 -0500 From: Jason Schneiderman Subject: Re: IN> Another newbie GM seeking advice... > I'm kinda crazy and can't find >canticorum or GMG around here (I _know_ that I can buy them from >warehouse 23, but I REALLY want to see if Pandemonium can get them >first.) We're generally happy to special order stuff like that - and I'm pretty sure I saw a GMG on the shelves last night. Jason, who does a Thursday night shift there... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 09:43:32 -0800 From: Daiv Subject: Re: IN> Cleverest use of attunements... Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > Servitors of War. Gotta love 'em. To quote Klingons, "Today is a good day to > die." > Huh. personally, I always saw them quoting PTerry Pratchetts discworld dwarves; "Today is a good day for someone else to die." (and you know that the Klingons did not say it first, right?) - -daiv Much too early for a clever sig file Haiku; check back with me later. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 16:41:50 -0500 From: "Rolland Therrien" Subject: IN> My (overdue) review of Sonic #91 Sonic #91 Crash! (Either they're calling Sony's Bandicoot for a challenge, or they just couldn't think of anything else.) Written by Karl Brollers Pencilled by Ron Lim Inked by Jim Amash We begin this issue by catching up to everyone's favorite missing freedom fighter, Rotor the Walrus (Yay!) who's climbing up a mountain in the Forbidden Zone (Which is apparantly an Archie Writer's term for any spot on Mobius you don't want to bother defining), and as soon as he reaches the top, sees two meteor-like objects falling to earth near Robotropolis, covering the nearby area in a cloud of dust. Dispite knowning the area is mobian unfriendly, he goes in to investigate anyways, and encounters Mina, who's still looking for Sonic, who disappeared in the crash. But as soon as they start to wonder about the Hedgehog, he pops out from under the earth, having used his Sonic Spin to drill his way underground to escape the crashing meteors. We cut to inside Robotropolis, where Robotnik, holding the Sword of Acorns, wants to try out it's ability to restore a Robian's free will, only to find that Chuck and Muttski aren't responding to it. Of course, in proper scientific method, Doc Robotnik immediatly dumps the sword on the floor and storms out of the room sulking when the experiment doesn't work out. (Yes, it's part of the scientific method. Hadn't you learned that part?) We then go to Knothole, where Elias and the Secret Service investigate the Treasury, looking for clues. The best Ol' St-John can figure out is that the thief targeted the Sword of Acorns specifically. No Duh, Geoffery. You should be a detective or something. Finally, back in Medical Center, King Max finally gets the visit of Nate for a while, before Dr Quack orders them all out so Max can rest. So much for the emotional moment... Back to Sonic, Rotor and whatsername, where Rotor and Sonic muse about this being like old days, only with a different Robotnik then the orignal, this one 10 times worst. Like any of us needed to be reminded of Penders and Brollers' cheap "Let's get around the "Robotnik is Dead for Good" promise me made" explanation... Either we didn't know by now, or we don't care anymore. Either way, we don't want to hear it said again. Anyways, Sonic soon orders Rotor and Mina to go back to Knothole while he goes get the Sword of Acorns back. Unbeknownst to our heroes, however, Robotnik's HQ has a mysterious intruder: Uma Arachnis, who sneaks into the control room and swipes the Sword of Acorn right from under Uncle Chuck's nose. More specifically, right under Uncle Chuck's now free willed nose. Turns out he did get his free will back, he just did the smart thing and didn't let Robotnik on to it. Which is a small comfort when Robotnik walks back into the room, seeing the comp screens that show Sonic going through troops and troops of Shadowbots. Robotnik sees the sword shining through it's abscence, and thinks up a plan to have Sonic leave his city for a while. More on that later... Back in Knothole, Alicia and Nate greet one another, before Nate tells her to catch up with her daughter, who's troubled by her father's condition and how her brother's handling things. Alicia tries to reassure her, telling her he's born to it. But a a mysterious thought from Sally ("Born to it, Yes, but definetly not bred") seems to imply that Sally has serious doubts on Elias' potential as an heir to the Throne. Elsewhere, Rotor and Mina reenter Knothole, chatting a bit. Rotor learns that Mina is just a baby-sitter, not a freedom fighter, so he wonders what she was doing with Sonic. ...And in so doing, Rotor echoes the thoughts of many Archie Sonic readers. Underneath the streets of Robotropolis, we find Uma Arachnis sneaking back to a base, where she meets with Kodos the former warlord, giving him the Sword of Acorns, launching another sub-plot. (Like we weren't getting enough of them...) Finally, back in Robotropolis, Sonic finds himself out of Shadowbots to fight, only to turn around and face a marching squad of Robians coming to attack him, including ol' Chuck himself. Gee, I guess this new guy IS smart then the average Robotnik. Lord knows THAT is the first "Keep the Good Guys out of my place" trick I'd try if I had an army of robotic zombie slaves made up from the friends and family members of my enemies... Sonic, forced back, runs out of the city and sees the fallen meteorites, which are actually space-ships. (Remember, back before the Sonic Adaptation? About time they got to this sub-plot...) We'll find out who's about to step out of those ships next time, kids. Rating: 3 Rings out of 5. Ok, this issue wasn't bad, just mediocre at best. Nice to see Rotor's back in Knothole, even if his return is celebrated with nothing more then a small "Look Geffoery, Rotor's Returned" from Elias. Seems anti-climactic from Brollers, but then what isn't these days? I was honestly rather cold to the art, not loathing it but not loving it either. Ron Lim and Jim Amash aren't my favorite creative team, but I assume it could be worst. And now, the Knuckles Story. ...If we can call it that. Hired Guns Written by Ken Penders Penciled by Steven Butler Inked by Pam Eklund Ok, before we start the review, is anyone else put off by the fact that the bloody back-up story had better art then the main story itself? I know I am... But let's continue anyways. We start this story in a watering house of ill repute (Or, as we more mature folks call it, a sleezy dive), where Nack the Weasel is chatting up a lovely vixen, apparantly wanting *ahem* "company" for the evening. He gets rudely interrupted when his sister Nic (from an old Mighty back-up story) shows up, chases off the girl and offers her brother a share off a bounty on Knuckles the Echidna, if he helps her with it. Catch is, they have to go to Albion to get the specifics on the job at Albion. Meanwhile, Knuckles is meditating on his status and his destiny, aware that he's in store for big troubles ahead. No duh... Back to the weasels, who go to the rendez-vous coordinates and find the secret city of Albion. There, they meet up with the Echidna Council, who tell him of Knuckles' abilties and his recent actions (Displaying more "Big-Brother" skills then the Guardians themselves, up to the point they can see stuff that went on amongst the Dark Legion.) Then, the Echidnas ask the Weasels to bring back Knuckles, alive if possible, so they can handle him themselves. End chapter. Rating: 4 Rings out of 5. Ok, not a bad story, really. Nic and Nack are used pretty well, and I can see a lot of good character dynamics looming there. And I dunno if it's intentional on Penders' part, but the Echidnas seem less and less sympathetic as time goes on. Kinda makes all their trials and tribulations look more like negative karma biting them in the butt then unfortunate bad luck. On a more generic note, Ken Penders' writing seems a bit erradic these days. Sometimes his stories are good, sometimes they're bad, and it's all heck trying to guess when the stories will be good or bad on any givin month. Maybe Ken needs to get his creative juices mixed a little better... Overall Rating: 3 Rings out of 5 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 18:45:47 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> My (overdue) review of Sonic #91 At 4:41 PM -0500 12/22/00, Rolland Therrien wrote: >Sonic #91 > >Crash! >(Either they're calling Sony's Bandicoot for a challenge, or they >just couldn't think of anything else.) > >Written by Karl Brollers >Pencilled by Ron Lim >Inked by Jim Amash [...] Methinks someone needs to differentiate the aliases for a couple of mailing lists... - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor RPG links; Random name list, Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 20:17:30 -0400 From: Douglas Muir Subject: Re: IN> Merry Christmas and somesuch! >Amy Borden, one of the coolest froods known, did up an IN Christmas >Card she wanted shared with everyone here. It features Tiphareth, >Bright Lilim of Lightning, the mighty Malakite Skritcher, along with >Tatiel, Cherub of Creation. > >See them at http://www.eyrie.org/~genchaos/xmasangels.cc.jpg I only see two angels here; possibly the Mal has gone celestial? Still, it's a nice piece of art. Has she considered going pro? Doug M. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 21:27:30 -0400 From: pbarkow@is2.dal.ca Subject: Re: IN> Merry Christmas and somesuch! On 22 Dec 00, at 20:17, Douglas Muir wrote: > >Amy Borden, one of the coolest froods known, did up an IN Christmas > >Card she wanted shared with everyone here. It features Tiphareth, > >Bright Lilim of Lightning, the mighty Malakite Skritcher, along with > >Tatiel, Cherub of Creation. > > > >See them at http://www.eyrie.org/~genchaos/xmasangels.cc.jpg > > I only see two angels here; possibly the Mal has gone celestial? There are only two angels in the pic. 'Malakite Skritcher' is a title held by Tiphareth (read the logs of the In Nomine 2070 campaign to find out why), rather than reffering to an individual. > > Still, it's a nice piece of art. Has she considered going pro? > Agreement. > > Doug M. > > > > "30) Love is when you stare at each other from across the dinner table and make suggestive Pikachu noises at each other... While guests are present." -Mini Philip Barkow pbarkow@is2.dal.ca http://is2.dal.ca/~pbarkow/ Harbinger of Keener-sama Vice President DPG Official Fashion Consultant and Hentai of the DGML Shameless Faith/Buffy shipper. Lapsed Discordian Head of the Keiko-chanian faction ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 20:42:51 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> GURPS In-Nomine At 7:55 -0500 12/21/00, Perry Lloyd wrote: >> >There're different levels of Essence Control? >> >>Yes... >> >> >Songs versus Boosting Skill Rolls versus Going Celestial versus ??? >> >>No, the levels indicate the units of Essence you contain and have >>control over. E.g., Soldiers have about 6, celestials have about 9, >>etc. > >oh. So, in theory, your Essence Pool in infinite, it's the amount of >essence that you can "control" which is the issue (in GIN). Well, not precisely. The base cost of the advantage is the ability to control whatever Essence you have, and the final cost includes the size of the pool as well. (There's also an upper limit based on the GURPS HT stat, which functions roughly similar to how Forces limit it in IN proper.) The advantage just lumps the two things together, since they never appear separately in GURPS IN. Mundanes have an Essence pool, but it costs them no points, since they can't actually use it for anything directly. (The "mundanes spend Essence unconsciously" stuff is still present, but mechanically it's subsumed into the normal dice results -- partly this reflects the fact that mundanes aren't totally pathetic at their major skills in GIN, due to the bell-curve centerpoint offset between the two systems.) The size of people's Essence pools couldn't be infinite, or Impudites would run rampant. (No Andre jokes, please....) Most individuals would have the same Essence in GURPS IN as in IN proper, though it can vary a little more for mundanes. >> >that the Song cost : Essence Pool ratio has stayed about the same? >> >>Yes. > >Excellent . . . so my Song of Form should still only cost 1 point of >Essence, and my the size of my Fatigue/Essence Pool will relfect that fact. The sizes of Essence reserves and Essence costs for things are almost totally consistent with IN values. (And may be completely so -- I'm weasel-wording here, since there were a lot of late changes in this area.) >>(Frankly, if you know IN and want to stick to that, you just give out >>the basic numbers and pitch the 2/3rds HT suggestion. We only stuck that >>in so that Soldiers wouldn't go wonked to heck and gone.) > >??? 2/3 HT? OH! (2/3)14=9 (rounding up) gotcha. :) Actually, it's rounded down, but I assumed most GIN celestials would blow 10 points on +1 HT to get their Essence level to 9. >Perhaps I'll just have Soldiers get their full HT as Essence. Then again >(2/3)10 does equal 7 (rounding up), which is a bit more . . . especiall with >Soldier not necessarily having a mere 10 HT. No, it rounds down also, so a Soldier has to have +1 HT (HT 11) to have a chance of getting anything more than 6 Essence. >Ooooh . . . What about Discord? All the standard (main IN book) ones should be in there. Some of them translate a little weirdly to GURPS mechanics, because we kept the 6 levels, and most GURPS disads don't have that many levels. - ---- [my comment on G:Supers point-balance problems] >I've never really had any problems/complaints from my Supers players. >I dunno. As a playtester, I had a lot of problems with it. But that's off-topic here, mostly. >[body-hopping] >>80 points. Kromm wanted something around 120 as I recall. Eventually >>the fix was to make Celestial Form be a prereq for Body-Hopping. Basically >>Kromm didn't want the "bare" Body-Hopping ability to migrate into GURPS >>proper at the 80-point cost. >Euw. Okay, I can see that. What about the point cost for being able to >switch vessels, let alone owning more than one vessel (I imagine the first >one is free, and would negate the "Vesselless" disad, akin to the No >Physical Body disad from G:PSI) The ability to enter a vessel or host is inherent in the Celestial Form advantage, and doesn't cost additional points. To preserve some of the flavor of IN mechanics, vessels *always* cost points in GURPS IN. To completely *lack* a vessel is a disad, and normally a temporary one for one for PCs, so we opted to make having at least one vessel the default, but did not include the cost for the first one. The Vessel mechanics were probably the single biggest mechanics design mess I ran into, mostly because the GURPS mechanics for multiple forms are broken, and known to be broken, and planned to be fixed. So I couldn't use those. I wound up having to create new rules for this effect from first principles, with lots of discussions with Kromm and SJ on the subject. I think the result is playable, and not too painful, and not *too* trouble-prone. There are some unfairnesses in the Vessel mechanics, but they shouldn't crop up much except with munchkinoid characters. I hope.... >Looks like my GURPS midset caused me to feel limited by a system that was >meant to be freeing. I dunno. My players have felt that their characters >feel kinda, well, bland. They're regular players of White Wolf and enjoy >the Merits and Flaws system provided there. To tell you the truth, I had a similar feeling, being a devoted fan of GURPS, and detailed mechanics in general. On the other hand, you don't need a hundred+ pages of detailed skills, advantages, and disadvantages to play IN. I think this is a common tradeoff in game design: simple, but inflexible and unrealistic, or complex, but flexible and realistic (or at least true-to-genre) - ---- >> (Admittedly one of the more innately powerful ones... note >>that the original IN power has *no* weight limit -- try to find a finite >>GURPS cost for that!) >Well . . . G:Supers has Invulnearable costs, and that shrugs off an >*infinite* amount of damage, depending on the source of damage. Yes, but that's present primarily because it's a genre staple, I think. And ignoring an infinite amount of attack damage is rather different from being able to cause an infinite (or near-infinite) effect. As written in IN, Cherubim of Stone don't *leap* tall buildings, but they could, in theory, *pull them down*. Ouch. [ST:hits HT:fatigue swap in GURPS] >Yeah, I probably will do that. Though Essence/Fatigue Pool /size/ will >probably still be based off of HT. That's probably appropriate; attaching the limitation to HT in GURPS was mostly because HT doesn't do much for celestials, otherwise, and doesn't really correspond to a stat in IN. So making it a partial stand-in for Forces made sense. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 20:57:45 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Another newbie GM seeking advice... At 8:51 +1300 12/20/00, Alex Liddell wrote: >>What books should I get to start off? So far, all I have is GURPS: In >>Nomine. What would complement that well? > >The Angelic/Demonic players guides and the GMG. Something for the players >and something for you! The APG and IPG may not have enough value-add initially, and include some stuff that needs to be converted. We did sneak in a few of the most critical game-mechanics bits from the APG and IPG in the Choir/Band descriptions. Some of the Choir/Band mindset stuff in the APG/IPG is quite useful, as is some of the other background material on being an angel/demon (though the APG has some substantial poor spots). I'd definitely recommend the GMG to get a good overview of how the IN Symphony works. For the players, the Superiors books may be a better value than the APG/IPG, *if* the Superiors the players want to use are covered. The Liber Canticorum is something the players will probably want around, but it does require a little GM effort to convert Songs from IN to GURPS IN. The Superiors books have a similar problem with the additional attunements, but you'll generally only have to worry about a few of these, and since attunements are granted at Superior (i.e., GM) whim, you can control access to the additional ones easily, if you want. The Corporeal Players Guide is another useful book, especially if you want to deal with Sorcerors in the game. We didn't have space to touch more than lightly on Sorcery in GURPS:IN. The CPG is also good if you want a mixed human/celestial party. The IN game mechanics won't be much use, but the background material on humans in the War is very good. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 21:03:34 -0500 From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Arisia At 2:55 -0400 12/19/00, Douglas Muir wrote: >Well, I'm going. Will I see any of you there? Elizabeth and I expect to be there, though we won't be on panels this year (the baby requires too much attention). We'll show up at the SJGames Roundtable, if there is one on the schedule. We *might* be talked into doing an IN game; that can be worked around the baby to a sufficient extent, and Elizabeth's feeling gaming-deprived.... (Pregnancy and babies tend to interfere with gaming life for a while. Not to mention finishing GURPS:IN.) - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 21:36:23 -0500 From: Whistling in the Dark Subject: Re: IN> Arisia On 12/22/00 9:03 PM, "Walter Milliken" alleged: > At 2:55 -0400 12/19/00, Douglas Muir wrote: >> Well, I'm going. Will I see any of you there? > > Elizabeth and I expect to be there, though we won't be on panels this > year (the baby requires too much attention). We'll show up at the SJGames > Roundtable, if there is one on the schedule. > Weirdly, I *am* on panels this year. Come to the Online Journalling presentation. Drink deep of the Online Journalling goodness. > We *might* be talked into doing an IN game; that can be worked around the > baby to a sufficient extent, and Elizabeth's feeling gaming-deprived.... If nothing else, we clearly need an IN-List dinner at some point. - -- Eric A. Burns - in-sabre@annotations.com - http://www.annotations.com Whistling in the Dark "It was then I felt my heart break like a fragile Scooby Snack upon the harsh teeth of Reality -- and it's been broken ever since." - --Johnny Bravo ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 00:24:05 -0400 From: Douglas Muir Subject: Re: IN> [NPC] Dr. Zoltan Karolyi Hey, Neal -- just for the record, I liked this one. Doug M. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 00:31:17 -0400 From: Douglas Muir Subject: Re: IN> Arisia I could run something one-shottish, if everyone could agree on a time and a place. And, yes, dinner at a minimum. Doug M. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 01:29:24 -0500 From: "Charles Phipps" Subject: IN> Unicorns in In Nomine Hey has anyone ever done anything up about Unicorns in In Nomine. Maybe it's watching "The Last Unicorn" with my niece for the first time but I've got my favorite mythological beasts on the brain and frankly submitted a pyramid article regarding them and another popular creature (I hope it isn't automatically unpublishable because I mentioned it online....theres alot of strange rules) But I thought I'd get people's thoughts on them. - -Charlemagne ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 00:52:48 -0600 From: "Tafka J." Subject: Re: IN> Cleverest use of attunements... At 1:45 AM -0400 12/21/00, Douglas Muir wrote: > What's the cleverest use of a Band or Superior attunement that you've seen > yet? Imagine the scene. It's a small little Diner in some obscure corner of L.A. There a Balseraph of the Media, an on the scene reporter for FOX, sits and waits for the next big scoop. Due to some Superior-hi-jinks, the News Van crashes into the Diner. Quickly thinking, said Balseraph uses his Attunement (with the GM's permission of course), to quickly change the 'media' logos to CBS. The poor human never saw it coming. . . Be seeing you, - - Tafka J. = Balseraph of Fate, Marquis of Delusions of Grandeur # http://www.thrifty.net/~tafkaj/in-nomine ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 23:06:54 -0800 (PST) From: Maurice Lane Subject: Not really Re: IN> Use of words anymore Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 14:14:56 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> Use of words > Malakim aren't listed as a warrior Choir in the >sources I've seen. I have seen "malakh" (I think >that's Arabic) and "malaika" (Swahili) as generic >words for angel. Malakite is derived from those >terms. J. Gregory Keyes uses the term malakim in his Age of Unreason series: seeing as (AFAIK) he didn't get them from IN... ...that means absolutely nothing: I just wanted to say again that the series would make for a really interesting campaign. Well, it _would_... ;) Moe ===== In Nomine stuff: http://www.stormloader.com/users/moelane/innomine.html Last updated 11/25/00 (this is usually way out of date) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 01:16:39 -0600 From: "Tafka J." Subject: IN> The Black Mark of Discord (WAS: GURPS In-Nomine) At 8:09 AM -0600 12/21/00, Perry Lloyd wrote: > [IN frustrating] was no real game mechanic way given to support such things > which are typical GURPS advantages and disadvantages (stubborn) without > resorting to Discords, which for a celestial are a literal mark on their >soul. [...] > My players have felt that their characters feel kinda, well, bland. Everyone has different playing styles. If it were up to me, I'd just _roleplay_ the quirks and disadvantages. I've had loads of fun playing characters that don't load up on the Disadvantages -- not when I can play the seriously flawed characters I tend to prefer. > They're regular players of White Wolf and enjoy the Merits and Flaws system > provided there. Which might explain why they're having so much trouble relating. They're coming from a system that makes it almost required to buy up those 'flaws' so you can truly make your mark. . . Instead of relying on their roleplaying skills to talk their way out of any skin-of-your-teeth situation. (I'm not saying you _should_ swear off of Discords, but that your players should have a more open mind where 'flaws' are concerned.) In the end, too each their own. Be seeing you, - - Tafka J. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 17:13:13 +1000 From: "Shane Curtis" Subject: Re: IN> Seraph of Flowers attunement On 22 Dec 2000, 10:41, Krishnaswami, Neel wrote: > It supresses violent *impulses*, not violent *actions*. That's why > there's a Will roll to resist, and if someone does somehow take a At least in the core book, it says "violent action". On 22 Dec 2000, 10:41, Krishnaswami, Neel wrote: > For example, if the Balseraph tells itself that the Seraph is actually > a sophisticated Vapulan practice robot it's sparring with, then I'd > rule its blows lack a violent impulse behind them and won't be stopped Bal: "Your peace aura is preventing me taking violent action. I will self- resonate to make myself believe you are a Vapulan practice robot I am sparring with!" . o O (so that I can then beat the crap out of you) Seraph: "You may deceive yourself, but you will not deceive the Symphony. Your blows against me will still in Truth be acts of violence, and it is to the Symphony you are accountable." (my translation from the Angelic) Or at least, that's the way I figure it - that it is the Symphony that's opposing violent actions, and the Seraph merely the catalyst. The Bal's Will roll is to resist the Symphony itself, not to resist the Seraph - otherwise, why isn't it a contested roll, Bal vs Seraph? Basically, the Bal's self-delusion is an attempt to pull a fast one on the Symphony. Lucifer might be able to do that. Your average Bal can't. What is the Truth of the situation? That an act of violence is being attempted on the Seraph. That the Bal may be delusional is irrelevant. This is also why a falling rock will not be stopped by the Attunement, since a falling rock does not 'do' anything. It falls, and that is the all of its existence. It has no choice, nor ability to make a choice. Note that since the Symphony is an outside observer, even if the Bal was delusional before meeting the Seraph and always thought everybody it met was a Vapulan sparring robot to be sparred with, the Symphony would still oppose the violent action. The Bal is making a choice, even if that choice is delusional. Shane. "Now if you want to get tricky, posit a Vapulan sparring robot *programmed to attack the Seraph*. It's just doing what it's built to do, and has no choice, nor ability to make a choice..." ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 09:02:43 From: "Perry Lloyd" Subject: Re: IN> GURPS In-Nomine >At 7:55 AM -0500 12/21/00, Perry Lloyd wrote: > >> >There're different levels of Essence Control? > >> > >>Yes... > >> > >> >Songs versus Boosting Skill Rolls versus Going Celestial versus ??? > >> > >>No, the levels indicate the units of Essence you contain and have > >>control over. E.g., Soldiers have about 6, celestials have about 9, > >>etc. > > > >oh. So, in theory, your Essence Pool in infinite, it's the amount of > >essence that you can "control" which is the issue (in GIN). > >The Essence Pool probably is "infinite" -- but is handwaved a great >deal and doesn't really go into that. Ah. Weird. So, when you "give" someone Essence, you're really just shifting "control" over that Essence and not actually "giving" then anything. > >>It went the other way around, though -- since celestials were slinging > >>around more stuff... But thankfully, it was fixed. Though it had some > >>nice special effects for Impudites, the rest was a "that way lies >madness" > >>hack. > > > >ha ha ha . . . but madness can bring such an excellent POV to light. > >Maybe, but when it's a madness only a gearhead could love... true . . . > >> >that the Song cost : Essence Pool ratio has stayed about the same? > >>Yes. > >Excellent . . . so my Song of Form should still only cost 1 point of > >Essence, and my the size of my Fatigue/Essence Pool will relfect that >fact. > >Yup. (I think Song of Form may be one of the ones which got "normalized" >somewhat, so that it's got a base duration, and is maintainable for extra >Essence.) Okay, Good. > >>(Frankly, if you know IN and want to stick to that, you just give out > >>the basic numbers and pitch the 2/3rds HT suggestion. We only stuck that > >>in so that Soldiers wouldn't go wonked to heck and gone.) > > > >??? 2/3 HT? OH! (2/3)14=9 (rounding up) gotcha. :) > >Yup! You see, Soldiers get one level of Power Investiture (what Forces >_mostly_ turned into), so one can't compute "total Forces" with humans >anymore. Makes sense to me. > >Ooooh . . . What about Discord? > >Most of the main-book Discords were translated in (if they were unique to >IN); the others are covered by regular disads... paired with the Discord >disad. (Basically the Discord disad is linked to a regular disad and gives >it all the Discord special effects. A regular disad is treated as disads >normally are in GURPS and won't have any special tendency to show up in >celestial form.) Well, except that they have a social componant as well. Discord among Angels might be enough to warrent negative reaction penalties, depending on the Discord and how bad it is. Especially for Malakim. >[...] > >>with point balance. And personally I don't believe Supers games *can* > >>be balanced using a mechanical point-based system without introducing a > >>lot of GM fudging.) > > > >I've never really had any problems/complaints from my Supers players. > >I dunno. > >It's probably because the GM is good... But that's edging away into another >rant entirely, which should go in email if at all. O:> Certainly. Basically > >>Kromm didn't want the "bare" Body-Hopping ability to migrate into GURPS > >>proper at the 80-point cost. > > > >Euw. Okay, I can see that. What about the point cost for being able to > >switch vessels, let alone owning more than one vessel (I imagine the >first > >one is free, and would negate the "Vesselless" disad, akin to the No > >Physical Body disad from G:PSI) > >Being able to switch vessels is a freebie. Vessels cost a base of 30 points >(35 if they have some kind of micro-Role in the form of ID, or 40 if they >are Zeroed), and all ads and physical disads apply to that, but cannot >reduce >the point cost below 5. It's never a disad to have a vessel. (Since non- >human vessels still have celestial stats, it's _more_ expensive to have, >say, >a cat vessel. C'est la vie.) Makes sense, unless the Celestial would be willing to assume a form which gave it a reduced ST and so forth. IQ . . . yeah. >Yes, if you have two attractive vessels, you have to pay for each. We were >thinking about percentages and stuff, but it all depended on how many >vessels people had, and they could lose them in play, and it was just sick. >So we went with simplicity. You pay for the goodies on each vessel >separately, >even if they're the same goodies. (Unless you get the goodies from an >attunement; I think Malakim of Lightning get Double-Jointed for the >Mechanic >bonus.) iiiinteresting . . . I think using the one-body, one-life form the original game would have made conversion into GURPS a bit easier. Then, rather than "switching vessels" you'd merely use a shapeshifting ability, with the Non-Transferable Damage advantage (guess who just got his copy of Compendium 1 (finally!)). Except that it would eliminate the "coolness" of the Body-bag, which I imagine was someone's brain-child. It also doesn't work with Kyriotates and Shedim all /that/ well, not that I like the fact that Shedim and Kyriotates doesn't actually *possess* anyone, since their own Corporeal forces are used, not the host's. They merely borrow/steal vessels and muck around with people's lives (IMHO). Hrm. I'll have to see how my players feel about it. I'm already planning to introduce Will and Perception as two new attributes, increasing typical PC pt total by at least 25pts. Although the Body-bag might only cost as much as the number of Extra Lives it provides. It also would have to include the Teleportation as a special effect or a feature . . . Do you (or anyone else) know why the "Vessel" idea was introduced and used in the American In Nomine? > >OTOH, I found In Nomine frustrating because there was no real game >mechanic > >way given to support such things which are typical GURPS advantages and > >disadvantages (stubborn) without resorting to Discords, which for a > >celestial are a literal mark on their soul. Granted, celestials are > >supposedly "perfect" but such characteristics are part of any character's > >"personality". > > I had a bit of a time getting over that myself. You have to do a lot >more "verbal" defining of character in IN. Interestingly, when we did up >a set of characters for a demo game, I found myself giving them very few >actual disads. Lots of quirks, though... Makes sense, since Celestials *are* "perfect" beings, in theory. But disads make the character, in my opinion. After all, without all those GM hooks? But then again, I prefer flawed (read: interesting) people and characters to the "perfect" individual. _boring_ >Something I have noted is that the immunity to fire is over-priced in >non-Supers games. Fire is _not_ a common threat in games that don't >have Flamin' Jane clones running around loose! And so Ofanim of Fire >only pay 75 points for that instead of 150... Um, yeah. I guess. Is that b/c you're not in pre-modern game worlds where fire is still, like, everywhere? It's the universal intimidator. People fear it, animals fear it, plants, well, plants would fear it if they're capable of fear. Only fire's just not that common in modern day. (at least, my modern day. discounting all these candles in my apt to keep me warm . . .) - -Perry perrylloyd@hotmail.com pl312993@oak.cats.ohiou.edu http://www.geocities.com/llloyd.geo "And that's the hardest thing for a human being to do - be wrong. Do you know that people would rather die than be wrong?" - --from A Matter For Men by David Gerrold _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1986 ******************************** The material here is (C) 2000 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.