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Old 11-16-2018, 11:30 AM   #671
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Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2 View Post
Theodore Gessel (Dr Seuss) was in that unit, as was director Frank Capra and novelist/screenwriter William Saroyan.

Getting these guys to all collaborate on projects postwar would be a major project for any Inp-Earth literary fans.
Even their cooperation during the war is going to be of great interest to many of those fans.

In case anyone didn't know, films about how to get along in other Allied nations, and/or with other Allied personnel, were actually made in our WWII, because many of the troops were just off the farm. One of them (not recalling the title, but it was somewhere on YouTube) had an actor that I recognized but can't recall the name of (just that I'm used to seeing him looking older than that) explaining that a black man being invited to a white woman's house for tea is not at all unusual in England. He obviously couldn't just say directly 'please don't lynch the black troops,' but that was a big part of the implied message. There were also books that were put out, with things like 'don't make fun of their accents, you sound just as funny to them as they do to you.'
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Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted.
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Old 11-23-2018, 08:38 AM   #672
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Infinity is Coming

Robert Giancarlo stumbled against a wall. Merubaal had been right about the banestorm; this sure wasn't Melkart-2. Looked like a parallel close to Homeline in its 21st century.

Pulling off his shoe he pulled out his mini parachronic relay. Not only would it relay his location to Infinity but tell him what quantum he was in. He smiled at the readout. Q5! He was right in Homeline's backyard.

"Are you alright?" asked a voice.

Turning Giancarlo saw a cop. "Been better."

"You're dressed funny. You from one of the other Earths?"

'Other Earths?' Thought Giancarlo as he looked at his relay. Red light. So he wasn't in Homeline and it had the wrong quantum to be Engstrom. Never mind it certainly didn't look like 1943. Well at least the signal would lead Infinity here to pick him up and based on what the cop said he had discovered something similar to The Nine Worlds.

"Something like that."

"Based on your dress I'd hazard Earth Four but they don't have spaceships. How'd you get here?"

"One moment I'm walking the plank and the next thing I'd here."

The cop chuckled. "Sounds like that piece of weirdness last October. So you might be from another earth we don't have direct access to. Means odds are we can't get you home. I have a friend that can put you up for a while. Hopefully you can fit in."

~Several days later~

One of the perks with being part of Patrol was the ability to fit in. But here he was forced to do it on his own rather then having Infinity to create an identity. Walking past a local book store he noticed a book in the window. His blood went cold. On the cover in formal dress was an agent of Infinity. Going inside he found a copy on the shelves and skimmed through it. His feeling of unease turned to dread. It was like a synopsis of Homeline and Infinity. Even his encounter with Merubaal was in the book. He put the book back on the shelf and left. Pulling out his relay he saw the red light was now blinking. That meant there was a retrieval team here.

They had to be told. What Infinity had long feared had come to pass and it was worse then they could have imagined. This world and the others it was in contact with knew not only the Secret but everything.
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Old 11-23-2018, 06:12 PM   #673
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OK, it's been added to my .sig. Thank you.

For those who are wondering where that should go in the timeline, all I can say is that it hasn't happened yet.
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Old 12-20-2018, 10:06 AM   #674
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A question came up on the SB.com thread, that I though seemed relevant, here:

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I have been going over the options for Magery in GURPS and was wondering how, from the prospective of the bace system, would write magery. Obviously Magery (Book/Path, psionics replaces mana) is part of the package but what else is there?
This question would make more sense in the SJGames forum, but I can answer it here and then copy it over.

* Magery (Psi) 0 is a 1-point perk called Active Thoughtform Creation, because it's that much more common (advantage costs in GURPS are often less about how useful an ability is, than how common or rare the GM wants that ability to be). If you buy Magery (Psi) 1 or higher, under the name Thoughtform Talent, the point spent on Active Thoughtform Creation is absorbed into the cost of Thoughtform Talent 1.

* 'Sanctity' replaces Mana, in the sense that it's easier to use a specific type of magic in areas where that type of spirit is more common, and spirits that are hostile to that type of spirit are less common (trying to summon a Fire Elemental while swimming out of sight of land is massively difficult, for example, though doing so while on a ship that has a fire already going, or a lot of prepared fuel, is rather less so). This is true even if you're building up thoughtforms rather than summoning existing spirits because the local spirits will help or hinder you.

* Specific individuals, or groups, may have other enhancements or limitations, such as deeply faithful folk who get Power Investiture - they psychically contact servitor spirits of their god or gods, who generally help them. This is distinct from the Divine Favor ability, where your god or goddess likes you so much that they give you a direct line to them - though that also means that what you get may be rather different from what you expect, and that your god(dess) is paying more attention to you than to someone with Power Investiture, for good or ill. Religious magic isn't the only case of people having other enhancements or limitations, just the one I thought of first. In all cases, including True Faith and other faith-based magics, the abilities are still based on psionics.
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Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted.
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Old 12-20-2018, 12:22 PM   #675
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A question came up on the SB.com thread, that I though seemed relevant, here:


This question would make more sense in the SJGames forum, but I can answer it here and then copy it over.

* Magery (Psi) 0 is a 1-point perk called Active Thoughtform Creation, because it's that much more common (advantage costs in GURPS are often less about how useful an ability is, than how common or rare the GM wants that ability to be). If you buy Magery (Psi) 1 or higher, under the name Thoughtform Talent, the point spent on Active Thoughtform Creation is absorbed into the cost of Thoughtform Talent 1.
AFAIU this is not how the cost of advantages in GURPS are supposed to be calculated. 1e Supers tried this and it broke the whole universal part of the game.

Magery 0 is 5 points regardless of the world being normal or high mana. Heck based on the progression 1:100 people have Magery 0 on Merlin-1 and in the high mana areas it doesn't matter.
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Old 12-21-2018, 07:25 PM   #676
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AFAIU this is not how the cost of advantages in GURPS are supposed to be calculated. 1e Supers tried this and it broke the whole universal part of the game.

Magery 0 is 5 points regardless of the world being normal or high mana. Heck based on the progression 1:100 people have Magery 0 on Merlin-1 and in the high mana areas it doesn't matter.
I had trouble figuring out how to phrase a search to find the quote I was looking for, and eventually had to resort to doing a site-specific search on Google. This thread seems to be the best one, though I still can't find the quote that I recall reading that confirmed that it's not just a first-edition thing (though Kromm's post on the first page certainly implies it very strongly).
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Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted.
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Old 12-23-2018, 05:45 PM   #677
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I had trouble figuring out how to phrase a search to find the quote I was looking for, and eventually had to resort to doing a site-specific search on Google. This thread seems to be the best one, though I still can't find the quote that I recall reading that confirmed that it's not just a first-edition thing (though Kromm's post on the first page certainly implies it very strongly).
Given the way Path and Book magic works there are already things in the system to deal with this without invoking GM fiat.

Limited Non-Mage Ceremonies with “Fractional” Magery 0 (1 point/level; max 5) solves all the issues.

Non-mages can work Path/Book magic but are at -5 to skill to do it. Each level of “Fractional” Magery 0 removes a -1 until 5 levels is reach when the other benefits of magery (like magic item detection) become available.

Remember with ritual magic one still needs to a IQ/Very Hard skill (Ritual Magic or Thaumatology) to cast spells. (GURPS Thaumatology 72, 123). Yes both have defaults but at Religious Ritual (same)-6 and IQ-7 respectively the default skill level is going to suck.

If that isn't enough Path and Books are at -6 default to the Ritual Magic or Thaumatology skill and learned as IQ/Very Hard skill (GURPS Thaumatology 72, 123). Then there are the defaults of the spells from the book which are learned as Hard techniques

For example, take Empower from The Hierarch Book (GURPS Thaumatology: Age of Gold 18) which is at a -4 to the Path/Book and takes 10 minutes (GURPS Thaumatology 160).

To get that at IQ level costs [8] for Ritual Magic/Thaumatology skill, another [8] for The Hierarch Book and [5] (max per "cannot exceed prerequisite skill level" for Ritual Magic techniques) for the Empower spell itself. Even if the optional Magery Adds to Rituals rule is being used it only effects effective skill not the base skill.

The point is there is more here then just how common Magery (psi) 0 is.

Last edited by maximara; 12-23-2018 at 05:56 PM.
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Old 01-01-2019, 11:50 AM   #678
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Infinity is Coming
...
This world and the others it was in contact with knew not only the Secret but everything.
I like it.

I ran a game several years ago that dealt with an interdimensional version of Starfleet: ships that travel the void between worlds and such. They were aware of Infinity, sort of the way an interstellar civilization was aware of a world that had moved out into their solar system but hadn't discovered FTL yet.
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Old 02-23-2019, 02:46 AM   #679
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I like it.

I ran a game several years ago that dealt with an interdimensional version of Starfleet: ships that travel the void between worlds and such. They were aware of Infinity, sort of the way an interstellar civilization was aware of a world that had moved out into their solar system but hadn't discovered FTL yet.
Well canonal Infinity does have a space station that does exactly that - Space Station Peregrine but it is limited to Quantum 5.
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Old 02-24-2019, 09:40 PM   #680
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Sorry that this isn't an update. I wanted to call attention to a History Guy episode about some of the often-unsung heroes of WWII, so if you have a bit over twelve minutes to spare, I recommend his video on the Sub Chasers of the Civil Air Patrol.


Of course, things are a little different on Earth Two, as the US entered the war a bit earlier, the public has a better awareness of 'being at war' due to attacks on the continental USA, and the Dsp-USN knows in general that the convoy system saves lives (even if some of them grumbled and dragged their feet on it), so the U-boats aren't having a 'Great American Turkey Shoot' in the Atlantic. U-boats are still dangerous, though, and the new satellites can't spot everything (or more accurately, the people examining them take time to find everything, and only have a few satellites watching a rather large area), so the CAP sub chasers are very much still needed.
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Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted.
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