To: wmnabors@flash.net
Subject: Turn 5 appended
FCC: /u/ruban/mail-archive
--text follows this line--
[I forgot a few points in last turn's email that should have a chance
to affect your move. Sorry. :-(.

1. The green-and-black armored man is wearing a belt carrying 4
grenade-sized canisters. Besides that, the armor itself (helmet,
boots, etc.), and the blaster pistol, he is not carrying anything
obvious, though you could get closer and scrutinize for details. The
helmet has a short antenna on the side. The blaster has a sighting
scope (yes, even though it's a pistol. It's a Large pistol, something
on the line of the types Bishop or the IMAGE comics characters
carry. A BFG, IYKWIM. :-). ).

2. Another option to reach any of the distant enemies is to half-move
towards them and dodge. You won't reach them this phase, but you will
have +3 to your DCV should anyone, say, shoot at you. :-). Also range
modifiers are generally -2 for 4" to 7", -4 for 8" to 15", -6 for 16"
to 31" etc.

3. In fact, if you flip through the Combat section of the Hero
rulesbook, it will have a few tables with the bonuses various combat
maneuvers give. There is nothing wrong with specifying your maneuvers
free-form, as you have been doing, but I will try to interpret them in
game ways according to those rules. For example, I have been trying to
give +1 to +3 OCV bonuses for new, interesting, and appropriate
surprise moves so far. Also, the rules might give you some more ideas
for moves you wouldn't have thought of otherwise - many moves are
possible without buying any extra skills or powers. Finally, if you
look through that chapter, you shouldn't get any awkward surprises if
NPCs use maneuvers from it. In general things in that chapter make
sense, but they make sense in a comic-book way - in other words,
dramatic maneuvers and unexpected turnabouts are encouraged, and every
attack has a defense, especially if you anticipate the attack.

4. I *like* your freedom to interrupt my narration and say
that your character would actually do something else. I try to
"over-write" to keep the campaign moving, since we have a 2 day or so
turnaround between turns - I try to guess what your character wil do
as far as I can within reason, but if I make a mistake in making
decisions for your character, don't hesitate to correct it. This is,
for example, to say that just because the last 3 paragraphs have been
combat oriented, your are not at all forced to keep in the combat.
I've got easily half-a-dozen potential plots waiting
* the Lotus crack attack
* the mysterious cracker-recruiter email
* the old man Alexis met
* background for two of the Sons of the Tiger
* motivation of the Wordsmen
* and, at least a couple of supers Cheetax hasn't met yet
Also I hope I will be able to react to any other interesting choices
you make. I do not at all want to "railroad" you, force you into any
choices. I hate the GMs that have only one plot and will force you
into following it no matter what. 

5. Comments? It's been a month, what do you think so far?

For me, the turn around time is a bit of a minus. In the last month
we've done about the equivalent of a Face-to-Face session.
But then presumably each turn has been more detailed. A few days ago, I
sorted my old comic book collection, and of course read some of
them. Our time scale seems to be like that - one month between issues,
even though normally each issue only covers about a day in the hero's
life. I guess as soon as we finish the immediate combat, and maybe the
next few days, we will go into a period of "Marvel Time" - pretend a
month in the characters' lives goes by without much happening, just so
we can catch up to the player's time scale.

How do you like the general tone?
I've been trying for a just slightly grown-up comic book. All the
characters have motivations, but are quite a bit larger than life. The
tone I seem to like is closer to 4-color than gritty. My comic book
collection centers around the late 70's. :-).

Too complex? Not complex enough? Too much combat? Not enough?
Opponents too easy? Too tough? Too early to tell?

George
]