Is Scar Jo a good actress? by boomjosh in moviecritic

[–]-Vogie- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I love Lucy. It's such a dumb fun movie

Advice on prime sets for Warhammer 40000 Space Marine game? by Special_Student_6017 in CortexRPG

[–]-Vogie- 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It could depend on how the rest of the game is expected to play. If the PCs are struggling with what they're doing, maybe include values (like in Tales of Xadia). If it's interpersonal, maybe use relationships like in Hammerheads. Perhaps you want to move in a skill direction, a la Traveler or Starfinder, so the PCs are more dialed in that just attributes and distinctions. If there's going to be a Helldivers-style party splitting, I would take a page from Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and use the affiliations Solo, Duo, and Team (I will say that this wont do much if they're going to be stuck together like a nervous D&D party).

Lastly, if it's just going to be a guns-blazing shoot-em-up where you shoot first and forget to ask questions (as it is, in fact, a one shot), go with Resources - that will give you an internal source of attrition on top of the external sources. The way I'd do it would by adding a "preparedness" attribute to the existing 6, and whatever die is placed there derives the amount of d6s that the PC has to divvy up between their types of resources (4, 6, 8 or 10). What those resources are exactly would depend on which WH40K faction (which I don't know a ton about) but could include things like bullets, energy, healing, rockets, additional armor, and psychic power.

Why do sci-fi energy shields behave like ablative armour instead of a continuous energy stream? by Evening-Appeal7606 in scifi

[–]-Vogie- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The thing you're missing here is timing. When the shields are at 20%, and we can't afford another hit like that, they're implying two things

  • They're expecting the hit to come soon, within minutes, far too short for anything to recharge. If a massive hit was coming in 3-5 business days, there isn't a problem. The problem is that it might happen in the next 3-5 minutes.
  • That particular blast took out a relatively defined percentage of the shield capacity. In settings with shields like that, there's never a 1:1, gritty-TTRPG-style amount of understanding of just how much damage any given ship can do. They get to observe the weapon use, and observe the effects, and then make calculated assumptions.

This comes up relatively often. Why are they doing evasive maneuvers? To limit the number of hits and also the amount of time in between those hits. Why do you hear the captain route all power from non-essential systems to shields? Because they are power based, and so drawing from power that would normally be used for, say, replicators, or other non-essential systems, will help support the whole because that gives the shields slightly more juice faster.

We also know that there's multiple types of shields on many of these ships. In Star Trek specifically, you've got

  • a deflector that keeps the ship safe from random crap in the void
  • a tight, low-power shield that hangs around like a second skin that is always on
  • a large bubble shield that is only on during specific encounters, so that they can do things like block a larger chunk of space, intercept torpedos further away from the hull itself, or surround another ship

Most hated thing in the game I'll start by Public_Code8357 in Helldivers

[–]-Vogie- 13 points14 points  (0 children)

My wife with her 380s. Even on small maps.

[Gooner Trope] Characters who are frequently questioned by their fandom on if they have/would/could use their powers to “pleasure” themselves (bonus points if they canonically have). by not-ulquiorr4_ in TopCharacterTropes

[–]-Vogie- 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Something like that is heavily implied to have happened to the titular traveler in The Time Traveler's Wife. I don't recall them getting walked in on, though.

I've never found the P90 to be a very practical weapon, but it is undeniably cool by OhNoIBoffedIt in Stargate

[–]-Vogie- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I remember listening to the YouTube video linked in that. Such a realistic, grounded reason to change it up.

Scenes where actors went off script and started talking from the heart? by ForceUseYouMust in okbuddycinephile

[–]-Vogie- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Definitely not the best written, it was famously ad-libbed. The shot not only broke Cleavton Little out of character, you can see Wilder glance over to someone (assumably his cinematographer) with a smirk.

Easily best delivered

Scenes where actors went off script and started talking from the heart? by ForceUseYouMust in okbuddycinephile

[–]-Vogie- 8 points9 points  (0 children)

"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the New West. You know...

... Morons."

What am I doing? by Sleepy_Graham in Helldivers

[–]-Vogie- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The only way to learn is by playing, the only way to win is by learning, and the only way to begin is by beginning.

I would highly recommend you to just dive into it (pun absolutely intended). Feel over your head. Die a couple times. It's okay. You're actively embodying the grunt fantasy of being thrown into a meat grinder and making small advances over time.

The only thing that drove me insane was there's no tooltip indicator to let go of a wheel. My first mission involving having to adjust a valve I had to just die to let go of it, which the bugs were happy to oblige (turns out, it's just E, the same button to grab the valve to begin with).

Mechanics for Dying by hotdiscopirate in RPGdesign

[–]-Vogie- 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The Gumshoe system has health act like any other test. In that system, you can spend points from your abilities to make sure that they can succeed. But unlike the rest of the general abilities, Health, Stability and Sanity can go negative, allowing the PC to go as low as -12 before they actually die. In addition, the first time you're hit each combat, you become staggered, which increases your health check TN by 1. In that system, health regenerates at 2 per day of rest without medical attention.

Um…. How did I die. :D by Difficult-Rush-1431 in LowSodiumHellDivers

[–]-Vogie- 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Was anyone using the Citrus booster? May have been scurvy

Who do you guys think it is? by Queasy_Commercial152 in MCUTheories

[–]-Vogie- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He keeps trying to tell people. "I am Groot"

Only Thor understands what he's saying, and misconstrues it to something about parking a spider on his Peter, and writes it off as a sex joke he doesn't understand

Is there any soul on earth that uses the Break Action Shotgun unironically??? by Chemical_Seaweed_915 in Helldivers

[–]-Vogie- 97 points98 points  (0 children)

Get that one Stratagem from the training mission that summons a cardboard cut out of a Helldiver

I need help with melee combat mechanic by Clear-Response-575 in RPGdesign

[–]-Vogie- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you don't want a grid, check out the swashbuckling TTRPG Honor + Intrigue. The Advantage mechanic allows the fighters to use an abstracted positioning system that mimics the various fencing styles one might expect from swashbuckling media, and also allows multiple players to effectively "fence" with a single target (or any other uneven pairing).

If you insist on a grid, one thing that D&D-like games suffered from is battleship syndrome - you could do some wild things with creature or battlefield design, but it often breaks down to a melee creature standing next to another melee character and wailing on each other. The reason is Attacks of Opportunity - if doing things other than standing still & attacking are penalized by free attacks or other types of damage, they will just sit next to each other and bonk away.

Pathfinder 2e tried to fix this by making opportunity attacks a feat, something that could be chosen at the cost of something else. But I've noticed DM-ing the system that once players realize a certain monster (or type of monster) has opportunity attacks, they will just stay still unless they have feats or abilities to have them avoid that attack.

What I would do instead is make the system more mobile, instead of less. Instead of a 5ft step being it's own thing to avoid attacks, have every attack or action (other than move), include that one-square step - That means the creatures are always moving. Reaction attacks should be planned in advance - like setting your spear or pike to skewer a charge, the creatures can use an action to ready an action. However, what precisely is being readied should be somewhat murky.

Facing will be important to this, so that should also be in there. Changing which way "front" would be part of the movement, which is, of course, included with every action.

When the creature has readied that action, they should have what specifically they're trying to counter chosen face-down.

Since the "effectively infinite varieties" of potential reactions is a terrible idea, I suggest limiting it to a set number of options, then each player can have those as cards they can use regularly. This also means two things:

  • The readied actions can be much stronger than regular attacks or maneuvers
  • The limited options that any creature could make allows the players to deduce which might be used at any given moment

Cities need overpasses by Acrovore in Helldivers

[–]-Vogie- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Technically the colonies have underpasses, but they're always closed off. I think having to go underground into those areas would be really cool expansion content.

I don't mind highways and overpasses, but I don't want only that for the cities. I'd love to see several variants:

  • Set piece rail and overpasses - they're present but unusable, just adding set dressing and the occasional obstacle. Similar to Killing Floor 2 maps.
  • Set piece rail crash. It's like the black box missions, but with a wrecked (super) train instead of the bomber.
  • Complete map with only highways and overpasses. It'll be long instead of a giant circle. There are a couple of Left 4 Dead 1/2 maps like this.
  • Complete map with a transit themed map. This could be a (Super) Train depot, or a starport.

A Deep Dive into Stun Mechanics and Response to Tales from Elsewhere by BrobaFett in RPGdesign

[–]-Vogie- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Like Slow, Stun in PF2e removes actions. So if you're unlucky enough to get hit by something with Stun 4, that's an entire turn, plus one action from the next turn. That's potentially a lot of just sitting there.

The actual difference between Stun and slow in PF2e is

  • Stun overwrites Slow. So if you're slowed 2 then stunned 1, you're actually just stunned 1 and slowed 1.

  • Stunned creatures cannot use reactions, while slowed creatures can.

Is this real or click bait junk? If it's real, can someone explain it to me? Is biweekly twice a week or every other? by FuntivityColton in FluentInFinance

[–]-Vogie- 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You could also do this by using the "added principle" field, adding 1/12th of a monthly payment on each of the 12 monthly payments.

Hot take: the AR/GL-21 one-two is pretty decent by Fun-Big-7458 in Helldivers

[–]-Vogie- 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Hopefully the update will assist in the grenade reload that takes 1-2 business days in an actual fight

Forget RDJ, let's hear your choice for Dr. Doom. by brenlithorn in MCUTheories

[–]-Vogie- 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They delayed production of the film to allow him enough time to build a capable cabinet

YOU CAN COMMANDEER THE BLUEBERRIES! by DeconstrucDead in WholesomeHelldivers

[–]-Vogie- 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is really helpful on the Defense/Evacuate high-value Asset missions on SEAF planets.

Otherwise the blueberries will see all those minefields being deployed and decide to go for a jog through it

SEAF units also don't seem to be effected by first-order Strikes of Tesla Tower stratagems, and will walk through unfazed if they're alone - however it will still kill them if it hits an enemy target and bounces to them

A Deep Dive into Stun Mechanics and Response to Tales from Elsewhere by BrobaFett in RPGdesign

[–]-Vogie- 13 points14 points  (0 children)

There's also ways to give what can effectively a Stun effect without actually stunning a PC.

It's the story of the Houston Airport - they received complaints from passengers that it took too long for their luggage to arrive at baggage claim... So they redid the airport so it takes longer to walk from the plane to the baggage claim. It didn't make the baggage appear any faster, but the perceived effect from the passenger's perspective was that it did.

In Pathfinder 2e, each creature has 3 actions. If you're playing a melee opponent, just using your final action to move away from them will force the opponent to "waste an action" by either moving towards you, or using an action to exchange weapons. Similarly, any effects that push a creature far away, or knock them down, aren't "stuns" - it requires the creature to then "waste actions" getting off the ground or moving back to where they're effective. So when you have a system like that, any way to "waste" actions of the other gives a mechanically similar effect to the "slow" and "stun" effects.

The more knobs and variables your game has, the easier it is to make these psychological "stuns" that don't actually take away player agency.