AmadanNaBriona

Re: "Wizard Proof" firearms?

Re: "Wizard Proof" firearms? Wizards in the Dresden Files setting regularly make the laws of physics sit up and beg, so as a side effect things that rely on said physics occasionally pout. Primers don't fire, powder burns wrong, tolerances get all tweaky. electrical currents freak out, microchips whimper and die. Loads of Quantum Uncertainty. A H&K is precision German engineering. Pretty good choice for a lower powered Warden if you can work around the misfires. A stronger Wizard would probably break it tho.

Re: How (un)realistic are Street Samurai? Molly Millions' style razor nails have reasonable uses as well. Built in weaponry should be very intuitive to fight with. Still nothing I'd want to take against another augmented human using a slugthrower without one of my own.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Groovy link! live, it looks more like a Woodsman

Re: Cool Guns for your Games My old props master was a professional antiques restorer, and I managed to catch a bit of the bug. I have been sort of itching to dust off a few of those skills, so I might make a project out of , if not actually repairing them, prettying them up so at least they'll pass the 30 foot rule

Re: "Wizard Proof" firearms? Yeah, mechanical action weapons all around. Pump shotguns, lever guns, wheelguns, bolt actions for super accurate fire. I recon the Wardens probably have some wicked good old school gunsmiths they can tap for custom work. Spring wound drum on a lever action 12 gauge sounds nasty, and I've always liked me a good Mare's leg. But for specific suggestions... The LeMatt revolver, in a modernized model, would be nearly ideal for a warden, I'd think. 9 rounds in the outer cylinder and a shotgun shell in the middle for extra oomph and an easy gunbelt sized slayers kit of special shells. Alaska Arms makes a stubby little sawn off lever rifle called the Bushmaster designed to kill Kodiac Bears. The also market a cop model for blowing out engine blocks. .500 Alaska Magnum, baby. Probably do just fine against your average tentacled monstrosity or Ogre. Edit: Hmmm... return of the Gatling gun? We've figured out most of the tricky mechanicals over the last hundred years, just need to replace the electric motors we have now for an updated mechanical way to move the action. Big clockspring coil might do the job without getting too mucked up.

Re: How (un)realistic are Street Samurai? I'd say that stealth is a strong point of a sword in this sort of setting. Mythbusters can give one an idea of what swords driven with machine levels of precision and force can do. An enhanced Samurai doing recon in force, for instance, against unenhanced opponents. He could probably accomplish most of the same things with his bare hands (or a rifle butt) that he can with a sword, but the sword is the next best tool man has devised for killing each other, former reigning champion over thousands of years of practical development. It is a very good way to reach out and kill someone. You can do it very fast, pretty quiet, and it leaves your opponents in little condition to rally... the guy you gutshot is far more likely to put a round in your back than the guy with no legs. The Dermal Armoring point raised before is a valid one for the rise of some sort of bladed backup. An 11" monomolec alloy combat knife is just as effective, but the sword does give you a lot more range and combat options. Combined with thermal imaging you can strike through walls with minimal loss of effect, they don't trigger gunfire sensors. That said, I support the use of the Munroe effect against overarmored samurai. Under-slung launchers, don't leave home without them. Yeah, if cybernetics are somewhat uncommon then swords could be a useful tool again. Pretty much, the cybernetics give a sufficient advantage that they can afford to use a less efficient force multiplier because they have so many others.

Re: Long tours-of-duty on industrial/mining ships This thread keeps bringing up images of the Vegas strip in my head. Ever wander around the "marketplace" at the Aladdin, the canals of the Venetian.... A single Vegas style outfit with a few suitable tweaks (less emphasis on gambling, more variety of activities), combined with what amounts to a typical local community center would probably cover most morale points.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games I was moving our inventory of prop weapons today and stumbled across a few noteworthy bits among the dreck. we have a remarkably solid selection of actual antique guns from the 19th century, all of which are totally destroyed (unfortunately, but predictably) I also, however, came across what appears to be a potentially fixable Daisy Targeteer .118 caliber air pistol, blued with adjustable rear sights, which pretty well dates it at 1949-52 if my research is solid. hopper barrel, super-low velocity spring gun (around 100 fps). I have deemed it neat and might try and fix it up. [ATTACH=CONFIG]39815[/ATTACH]

Re: A Thread for Random Musings I occasionally wonder how many remnant populations of various otherwise extinct species have been encountered by mankind and slain as monsters in the thousands of years before we gained an appreciation for natural history.

Re: How (un)realistic are Street Samurai? And it's occasionally easy as gamers to forget that cover is different for different types of attacks. To a cutting/slashing weapon with no real point (Like a machete or kukri) a steel post can be used as cover, to name an example off the top of my head. My overall opinion is that, realistically, a larger bladed weapon might be useful, but the majority carried would fall into the long knife/shortsword class, possibly paired

Re: How (un)realistic are Street Samurai? Oh, yeah. Big Time.

Re: How (un)realistic are Street Samurai?

Re: How (un)realistic are Street Samurai? I see it as a practical comparison for the following reasons.... Japanese troops were the last major instance of trained swordsmen in CQB (jungle fighting) They were using the most common sort of sword associated with Street Samurai (the katana, considered to be close to the best sword design) Their opponents (us) came from a culture that similarly values firearms competence Using early examples of modern firearms tech (The M1911 was really kinda ahead of its time) Check out some details of the medals given (esp. posthumously) and it becomes clear that given approximately equal factors on both sides, the .45 just seems to prove itself as the better force multiplier. The key word in your statement, to me, is "possible". Yeah, it's possible to close, draw and strike before the other guy can draw, point, and fire, but possible is far from likely, or common. Anything that requires years of additional training to achieve approximately the same level of effectiveness isn't that great. And sticking with one main weapon means not splitting ones focus either in the field or while training. The guy who uses the same tool for ranged and CQB won't have to worry about the whole drawing part, and can deal with multiple targets in multiple range bands. (I used to teach swordfighting. I love blades. I just don't see them as realistically practical against guns unless there is some other factor involved that alters the equation)

Re: How (un)realistic are Street Samurai? The Japanese bought into the "Melee weapons are faster in close combat" thing back in WW2 in the Pacific. It didn't work out so well (to be fair to them tho, their service handgun was pretty *meh*) Another circumstance where bladed weapons might be an advantage in a near future setting are places like East Palo Alto (IRL, now) or Hong Kong in Deux Ex that have gunfire detection systems, although even then suppressed firearms are still prolly the superior choice.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Yeah, I was just going to post of some Alestorm, as I've been listening to their whole catalog on shuffle/repeat while playing my heavily modded (community Mod Build13, in fact) version of Pirates of the Caribbean (the original from 2003-4, which was actually Bethesda/Akella's Sea Dogs 2 bought & Disney-ized) Captain Morgan's Revenge, Nancy The Tavern Wench, Wenches & Mead, Wolves of the Sea, & Black Sails at Midnight are other great songs they do Oh, and they did an amusing cover of Lazytown's kid song You are a Pirate as a bonus track http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os5TXyJlEMc

Re: A Thread for Random Musings I was talking about Stargate: Universe and a topic related to my thoughts about the Lovecraft Mythos for my (hopefully actually upcoming) Post Apoc steam-punk game sparked a thought. Godhood is sign one has moved up the Kardashev scale. The ability to conceptualize something like the Kardashev scale is the first step towards recognizing that higher beings may not, in fact, be gods. The Elder Race were probably a K1.X civilization in decline. The Great Old Ones vary, but range from K1-K2 The Elder Gods are pretty much up in the K3-K4 range, as are the elusive "Outer Gods"

Re: Order of the Stick damn skippy... payback time

Re: Repercussions of mass-producing comic book technology In a similar vein, I just got a flash of Invader Zim inspired house-tech. How about a unit that disassembles your garbage then uses the components (carbon, mainly) to build a home geo-thermal tap with the built in smart drill-bot

Re: Conan: The Current Movie in Progress..... OK, finally got to go see this today. It generally met my expectations. Jason Momoa pretty much nailed the Conan I've been rereading these last few months, with the possible exception being the whole thing was a bit light on the "Crom!"s. I suspect that was due to Arnie's swearing the same being a major component of the more unintentionally funny scenes from the earlier films. I'd say the fight choreography caught the REH feel well. I thought they did a good job conveying the whole Cimmeran "The man is the weapon, his strength, his cunning and his will: the sword is just a tool." philosophy without wasting a lot of dialog on it (The fact that the bad guys advocated such in the original movie is what I consider to be one of it's most non-REH aspects). Both Momoa and the kid they got to play his younger self did a great job with it. It was like Violence Parkour, exactly what I'd expect from Conan. Supreme opportunistic fighting. Kind of reminded me of the woods fight from Last of the Mohicians. Speaking of Young Conan, I really dug that kid. He had great emotional intensity. Hope this opens some doors for him. Howard-esque touches I liked -The occasional name dropping was inevitable, but I enjoyed it nevertheless -The supernatural bits were Lovecraftian in feel -The costuming (and occasional lack thereof. The slaves and dancing girls were pure Howard). -The sets & setting -Devolved sub-human warriors who haven't managed to re-evolve speech -The carnage It tracks as a remake of the Conan movie rather than gestalt of Howard stories, but I kinda figured that was inevitable, to ease movie fans into the stylistic transition from the more Marvel Conan approach of the 80s movies to the Howard paradigm. That said... I thought the writing lacked oomph, the sound editing was pretty poor... a lot of lines were hard to hear or unclear, and that's not the actors fault anymore unless you're watching live. The Original Movie soundtrack/score is both iconic and stirringly appropriate, and I wish they'd used it as a leitmotif. Arnie got a lot more quotable lines, but they were written that way specifically for him, the format they used in Terminator to minimize the impact of his accent, and whose success led to Arnie's particular "catchphrase" acting style. Even so, the writing in the first movie had a bit more dramatic impact. No single line in the new movie stuck with the kind of impact as, say "Contemplate your sins upon the tree of woe." I think Rose McGowan's costume and character design actually hindered her performance in the role. It was a bit too impractical for my tastes... I saw a couple of points where her fetish boots almost caused a tumble, and I'm kinda glad that the obvious weakness in her fighting style was her downfall, as it sorta hangs a lampshade on the whole thing. I'll be buying a copy, and hoping for an unrated extended edition and a lot of behind the scenes extras I was glad to see, when looking up showing times, that it has a Yahoo Movies rating of B. I'd really like to see what they'd do with the remaining two movies they have planned.

Re: Zeppelins

Re: Zeppelins The underground airship movement will not be quelled. Of course, said movement is fairly pro-hydrogen. The relative number of air hours logged versus hydrogen accident related death ratio is terribly small. The Hindenburg, while amazingly dramatic and visually stunning, still had less casualties than a bad bus crash. Using a cheap lifting gas that can be cracked out of ballast allows buoyancy adjustments without needing a supply of expensive & slippery helium.

Re: A galaxy of humans Plagues & Nukes spoil resources. Orbital Kinetic Impactors are much Greener

Re: Conan: The Current Movie in Progress..... Yep, I'm psyched. Got panned in a local review, but it was also REALLY clear that the writer both knew nothing about REH and was a fan of the 80's movies. He cited a lack of character growth. Yeah, Conan changes a LOT in the stories. Oh wait... no.

Re: Plucking out the eye that offends thee... This, because in my paradigm the Kill Bill movies are (in Hero terms) a Heroic Martial Arts scenario using most of the combat options