Stress is where Heroism can be better viewed. Stress Mechanics

Because of the Stress Mechanic (its like HP but the Stress doesn't go away so quickly without coping mechanisms like Vices and Habits; unified Conditions see 200425 GITB Quick Combat - Combat Mechanics,), I can now impose some tangible costs for very SMALL spaces and very difficult and frustrating equipment. 

the way I handled Load (Level of Effort), Stress, and Wounds is a Single Track of Penalties: 0, -1, -3, -7 and -10 and one of the 4 Modifiers to a Roll (so players don't get overwhelmed by the number of factors). 

I don't know yet how, but the NASA data on the crew would be my baseline. Noting that NASA crew is the exceptional or Elites and PCs fall under lower levels unless the GM sets it to more heroic competence levels. This means PCs require more maintenance and not as stable (no psych evaluation and filtering). 

It also helps that I have a Level of Effort aka Burden or Load Mechanic for operating Space Suits. The Time and Motion of Operating a Space Suit (like Space welders) and the physical toll even if in Zero G reminds me of Rapid Changes in Temperature exhausting the Body which leads to the superstition of Rain Causing sickness - that rapid changes in temperature exhausts the body because the body will switch gears and have to recalibrate itself (as it will always try to maintain equilibrium). It is the exhaustion that causes a weakened immune response and not the "rain" which leads to adequate rest and managing the transition to reduce the exhaustion. 

Interestingly it was discussed in the chapter of Embodied Emotions has started talking about Proprioception (I'm currently listening to Boosting your Emotional Intelligence by Jason M. Satterfield and a lot of CBT and Mindfulness studies seem to give me Ideas how to simplify my Management of all these factors: physical, energy levels, and stress). 200510 Cepheus Engine Variant Rules

Title: Stress is where Heroism can be better viewed. 

You explain to your Kids that Courage is Overcoming Fear. Then you reflect on that statement and where that saying leads oneself. Does that mean Virtue is overcoming Internal Weaknesses and Vulnerabilities? Is the Heroism found in overcoming the Physical Obstacle or the Internal obstacle? Is it heroic to overcome prejudice, intolerance, engendered bad behavior, and biases? When you think about the Economic vs Moral decision -what is $2 to a person who has nothing vs yourself, vs the moral/ethical act of providing aid - there is a disconnect between the Economic Decision (measuring the Physical Obstacle) vs the Ethical Decision (overcoming the Bias, prejudice, internal weakness). 

In an interview Jim Dinnigan (Who I never heard of until last night when Jay Duggar sent me the link and I listed to this while looking him up in Wikipedia) noted that Wargaming allowed them to Simulate and Model the situation so as to Systematically review Alternatives and review the Forces. Breaking the GAME, disrupting the prevailing forces in a situation is what we always look for when the Forces are against us. When it is to our advantage, we look at how the Opposite party can disrupt our advantage. The Change of Perspective lead to More information, and Actionable information to affect outcomes. 

Behavior and Cognition are the same, imagine what Jim Dunnigan was talking about but the battlefield for your attention and your behavior. To be able to MODEL the forces that affect your behavior and to disrupt these forces with levers and mechanical advantage. 

After Jon Oliver's lesson on how we teach history (I'm more studied in Filipino and Chinese and Roman History but his video is TRUE to Filipino and Chinese history; instead of race in Filipino history how the Poor has been used and vilified) the BIASES and false dichotomies/equivalencies that surround it is a ready example of Overcoming Internal Conflicts, not to remove conflicts but accept and make sense of them (example: Humans are capable of incredible compassion and love; while capable of cruelty and evil beyond comprehension - that cognitive dissonance is healthy and actually true to a degree).  

The thing about any good intention, action plan, and self improvement through Games is that these are tiny changes that can be easily disregarded and belittled. But over time allows us to shape our behavior and our gamer mindset. We seek to understand and play, I realized Gaming is emotionally ENGAGING with something I otherwise would not care for. Learning science, math, business, and all these things because I want to play or test these forces in a theoretical model gives me hope that the hobby is a wholistic way of self-improvement. echoing the domain: game in the brain. 

Learning Children of a Dead Earth Orbital Mechanics and Phasing.

Children of a Dead Earth was about 1usd because of the steam Summer sale. So I got it. 

Unlike Kerbal, I KNOW I can skip to the Orbital mechanics and I can barely grasp the concepts

And I don't understand it still. I have to do some "homework" and study. 

Trying to learn the Orbital Controls in Children of a Dead Earth. Still looking for the links that explain the concepts of how the 

Radial (Green, B), 

Ok this is in the 2D orbital plane with 2 axis of: Away from or Towards the Orbiting Body. So all rockets tend to try to get AWAY from the Orbiting Body, while METEORS go towards the orbiting body. Green ROCKETS and METEORS. 

Tangential (Red, V), 

It's supposed to be Perpendicular to the Orbited Body, but wasn't that supposed to be out of Plane? But still in the 2d Plane of Orbit. 

AHHH!!! Ok so its perpendicular relative to the Axis of Away and Towards the orbital body. Now I get it. its V in the Wikipedia diagram. ??? So I have to think of either the Relative relationship of the Place I want to go.... that's confusing I can use both to get out of the orbit of the Orbiting Body. My brain can't figure this out. 

AHH! Oh i can imagine it as the Velocity I'm going to be Orbiting. If I want to SPEED UP to catch up to something in the Same Orbital Plane OR slow down TO CATCH UP. (which is actually WRONG because of Orbital Phasing ). 

TANGENTIAL RED is Go Faster or Reverse Along the Track (Orbital Path). 

Out of Plane (Blue, N), 

So this is Perpendicular the Orbital Plane. So I guess its going towards the Poles - North and South. So the Axis is North or South. 

If I'm imagining it this makes me Change my Orbit clockwise or counterclockwise to the Orbiting body. 

The Infolinks in the game says its used to line up on the same orbital plane as the object. 

BLUE is Changing the Orbital Plane. I should Imagine it as Changing Lanes of some kind. 

Temporal (White, M).

Can't find it. Hope I bump into it again. 

Orbital Phasing 

Holy crap! 

"If spacecraft is behind the final position on the same orbit, the spacecraft must slow down to enter a smaller, faster phasing orbit to catch up to the final position."

That's Counterintuitive!!! 

A quick Video of me trying to figure it out and actually getting it WRONG but still finishing the mission!

Knowing your self is a Skill

My wife and I are getting into running, and because we tend to have more friends older than us we are more aware of the anecdotal problems with running. Also, since we are both geeks and we research a lot there are a lot of interesting studies and discussions that make the simple feat of running more complicated.

This brings me to Knowing yourself as a Skill. I grew up with a weak constitution, despite being athletic as a kid. Where i'm weak is in disease resistance and various other alergies and nuances. I come to realize there are so many nuances to being me, I can organize and make a cheat sheet that would fill pages.

Then I realize where is it in my Character sheet where I know my limits? People don't normally know what their stats are unless they know some statistical benchmarks (to differentiate from anecdotal benchmarks) and have taken the time to measure against such and figure out all the assumptions and factors that should be inconsideration.

Like I'm tracking my Treadmill performance (because it is so damn polluted where I live) and consider it Ideal, and going by my wife Tread mill to Jogging around our area to 30% diminished performance. You have to do it before you know how much you can do, and you have to be careful not to injure yourself. Now that I'm going to take running as a crosstraining for my airsoft I realized I have to get a sports medicine check up if all the parts are working as it should.... how often do characters know what is really going on in their body... only the GM knows.

Since I found out in a random office test that i have Hepa B (a disease I was supposed to be vaccinated against) I am acutely aware I don't know squat whats going on in my body. Its only with age am I more hyperaware of pain and carefully documenting my conditions that I'm able to see patterns and learn from mistakes.

Its even worse in a non-scientifically literate environment like mine, where many horror stories are people who just started running without a checkup and consideration of their family's medical history losing kneecaps and having a heart attack.

I consider myself lucky so far, when I was younger I would push myself to breaking playing while having shin splints. That was stupid, but not as stupid as diving into concrete for a soccer game and having a very bad wound that didn't heal good as new.

What I'm getting at is that, even your body needs gaming. I can't advance my health level until I get a medical check up and build a strategy with the limitations with the doctors' help. Seeing my father who is in his 60s slowly shrink should really emphasize how damn fragile bones are and  how I should be taking better care of them if I want to be an ass kicking old man.

Funny that there is no skill for that in GURPS or in any system, which is ok. Although I do have a feeling "personal health" will be a skill eventually, when there are better ways of tracking our patterns and using hard data versus anecdotal information. Its going to be one of those skills that may be essential like basic science, being able to fill taxes and bureaucratic forms, research, ethics, and practical economics.

False Sensations

Tao of D&D's talks about Hearing Checks.

GURPS B358 has a similar table but only in ranges. Decibel reference would be useful.
Since the Average person should be able to hear this in the distance given, the Basic Task Difficulty Modifier would be +4 (routine or mundane). In D20 this would be a DC5. when circumstances have more Stress and Distractions then you can have TDM +0 or worse and for D20 about DC10 or worse.

False Sensations

Note that in the real world we have false sensations of sounds, especially when we are expecting it. The cool thing about this is that you can make failed rolls, quirks or disads, play in the way of false sensations.

in Fast Twitch Games and in Combat Simulations like Airsoft, we have a Ton of Sensation Noise and False Sensations. When I first began I was struggling to filter these out, and we learned a lot from our Captain and in about 7 years of playing.

There is this thing called Pareidolia and the Cognitive "hacks" our brain has to increase our response time by gaming the statistics its a foe before confirmation results in friendly fire. I've had about 4 friendly fire incidents where I accidentally took out an ally in 7 years of airsoft and a innumerable number where I was lucky not to hit them.

Friendly Fire and Decision Making is well discussed in The Art of Critical Decision making by Micheal Roberto in chapter 20 Practical Drift.

In the Game

What does False Sensations mean? It means the GM can F*ck you up. 

Seriously the GM can pull out sensations from inside his @$$ and play it on a character with disads and a circumstance that would fit well. Verification of information is a SKILL, which can be summed up by GURPS observation skill or a Multi-Sensory Skill like perception in some games. 

Getting back to the Game Applications of False Sensations - PCs will needs skills to verify and Noise is part of the game. This incentives a well rounded character or Old School Player Skill Virtues.  

I don't know where "ROLE-players" stand in Problem Solving exercises, because I get the impression such Versmilitude gets in the way. I on the other hand, I believe Information asymmetry adds to the believability and realism of a Story, because life is without enough certainties and too many doubts. Making bad decisions that hurt yourself, loved ones, your team, and your career, because of many distracting and noisy factors is just Simulative Decision making that pushes us to think of better strategies or try out other strategies. 

Its nice to Know that because of the growing number of people playing RPGs thanks to Roll20 I may find other like minds who will help me and each other grow and learn better problem solving through the games. 

the Running Craze and GURPS

Running is a very basic and very well understood athletic activity now more than ever. Right now the country is experiencing a running phase and I'm somewhat caught in it because of my wife.

Basically I'd rather know the results of a per hour or hours instead of making a roll for every minute.

Paced Running Rules - Half Move in yds/s (m/s)
Rolling per 10 minutes is -3 to running checks with every margin of failure is an additional  FP lost.
Rolling per 30 minutes is -5 to running checks with every margin of failure is an additional 2 FP lost.
Rolling per 60 minutes is -6 to running checks with every margin of failure is an additional 3 FP lost.
Rolling per 120 minutes is -9 running checks with every margin of failure an additional 4FP lost.
Rolling per 180 minutes is -11 running checks with every margin of failure an additional 5FP lost.
Very Fit Cuts the loss to half (rounded to worse)
You cannot use an increment where the penalties will bring a skill below 8.
just add time of rest to time performance so if the total cost of travel over all is 20fp 1FP is 10 minutes of rest.
every level of encumbrance adds one to the loss.

Disclaimer - Forgot my probabilities lessons.
I assumed running-18 and took the probabilities in anydice.com and checked how many rolls it takes for the number to come up. Using the frequency i compared it to Skill-18, and tried to make a penalty to reflect the frequency in one roll. The FP loss is a guess. 

So a character with Running 14 (HT12, Fit, Move 5) can attempt to run  hour at -6. If he fails by 2 he would on average lose 4FP ever hour.
A character with Running 18 (Move 8, HT14, Very Fit) can run a marathon in 3 hours and finish it at 5-6 FP loss.

now imagine this with encumbrance penalties
0.6 (med) * 3yrds/s = 6.4kph travelling 3 hours at (ST11 carrying 72lbs, HT12+1 from fit, Fit) means the character can only take the 30-min increment (-5). Assuming average roll of 10, he loses 1+2FP x2 for a total of 6FP per 30 minute run. He has a pace of 3.24kph since He rests ever after 30min, for 30mins recovering  for a 30min covering 3.2km per hour and losing up to 3FP.

IF the character takes a meal and 4 liters of water, he can recover 1FP faster per hour (1L per hour) which translates to 5minutes saved or translates to an 8.3% increase of pace to 3.5kph. 3 hours a day about 10.5 km carrying 72lbs. Able to sustain 4 hours every day. Excess hours per day is about 1hp of damage per day.

Sustained Pace Ad-Hoc ruling HT or Running -9 in hours per day. Negative means the number of days needed to rest to an HT of 8 is at negative 1 probably 1h every other day. If HT 8 person runs for about 2 hours he would have taken 1hp damage. This reflects shin splints and stress fractures on the legs.

This also helps make GURPS health goals for RL. I want to be ST11, HT12, Fit, and Running HT+2 [8]. After the Zombie Run I realize the importance of Sprinting vs Long Distance running I want to be able to run in an emergency with a load while having the strength to sprint and evade.

I "killed myself" mid run because I couldnt take the increased heart rate of being overly alert to my wife's disappointment LOL. Prior to the Run I was only able to go 3km on the tredmill and after the run with follow up sprints I can now reach 4.8km in 30mins (non-sustainably) Go Science!

My personal goal is to be able to travel 30km in a day with about 60lbs kit (because there is a possibility of having to carry my son).  The distance of 30km is enough to leave the city of metro manila. Its such a simple physical feat in GURPS terms but it can spell survival or death in RL.

Social Advantages requirements

Some advantages have a cost to maintain. Contacts and networks are something I am terrible at maintaining, my best bet of being better at it is if it ties in with my hobbies (LoL!). My dad is a good example, his hobbies are golf, wine drinking, motor biking cross country, men's clubs (like the rotary, makati biz groups etc..), fine dining etc... As compared to mine which are RPGS and airsoft.

Contact and networks are very powerful because of all the uncertainty, we do business with people who are vetted and whose background we can check. If the GM emphasizes this reality, then my character will need the same hobbies as my dad.

When I found out that a bunch of BPO country heads were playing paintball, my dad was telling me to join them... What a quandary - I'm part of a team, one where camaraderie is made up of bonds that is organically grown. Joining them is creating that user-user relationship, it will diminish my credibility (not that it is advertised or gets around). Right now I just can't, I'm afraid of the complexity it will bring to my life, at what may be a very negligible opportunity.

Like the maintainable of a game group or a team, social advantages have a cost. Even the ownership of wealth is scary - I've experienced a lot of theft of company resources. A reality I noticed not a lot of GMs point out, unless it's traveller and there is always someone out to rob you of your ship. Wealth and assets are a story of itself, without anyone trustworthy it's gone. I guess it makes sense why all these owners are talking about loyalty. I personally don't need loyalty, I just need honesty - I'm not offended if the person leaves for greener pastures... But it sucks to realize that they are leaving because they have stolen your leads and mean to compete. Business is not for the soft hearted, and there seems to be a low value for a good working environment vs money.

In reflection if some RL limitations, I'm thinking of adding a social cost to social advantages. Merely X no. Of hours a month equal to the Point cost. 1cp contact is 1hr a month, 20cp worth of contacts are 20hrs a month. Quality and competence modifiers don't count, at the same time the GM hides these details, resolving it like a save system.

Wealth has some hours guidelines, which I will follow more closely.

Sufficient to say, my social networks are only those in airsoft and freethinkers. I guess it's a blessing that it is not complicated by work.

Is there a bias against ak? Scientific damage

Ok GURPS calculates damage based on barrel length, diameter and mass of the bullet. The ak101 is an ak that uses the same rounds as an M4/m16.

In GURPS high tech ak101's 410mm barrel deals a little less damage than the m16 508mm and more than the m4's 370mm barrel. At least 5d-1 (average of 16.5), vs 17.5 of m16 or 16 of the m4. Just a .5 better damage.

Anyway it seems that GURPS is not using joules or kinetic energy for damage so I hope I can claim this and make it open - meaning anyone can use joules * area of impact/effect * mechanical efficiency as an open method of calculating damage.

By this method an ak47 does more damage at 2100 joules. I don't know where that bias is coming from, although I've never touched a real ak I can from thinking about it see how 2100 joules will screw you with recoil.

Waiting for my dad to get back from south Africa so he can transfer his gun to me, so I can learn to shoot real steel. Mulling the grey area of Philippine gun ownership, regarding assault weapons - sigh- some weapons are cheaper than the airsoft version.

Reflections on GMing after Simulations; Random Generating Flaws and Perks

There are a lot of ideas that come to me from converting my airsoft experience into GMing. One thing that just came up was, how Perception Checks should be handled.

My Captain has excellent perception, everyone else has average. from his description of how his perception works in GURPS its Tactics+Perception roll. He tells me that he uses a process of elimination going through all the best hiding spots in his field of vision. I've tried it and it really needs practice to get good at, but also it makes more sense than a raw perception roll.

My first time to play airsoft, and as we bring in newbies, confirms that there is a BIG default penalty. There is a -4 to -6 default penalty in seeing opponents in cover and concealment. Tactics+Per (or Soldier+Per -1) roll is not an option, its the only way to make sense of information overload. A high perception is not enough, you need to efficiently go through your field of vision as quickly as possible.

A person having at least 1CP or a familiarty will be much better than someone who doesn't know what to look for.

How to resolve Perception Checks with Group effort. 
- first players have to declare what they are doing, what they are paying attention to.
- the GM can roll the average of everyone's Per. The margin of failure tolerance is equal to the highest relevant skill+per. Its like having one roll and checking who would have made that roll.
- Filter who would have made it, by the relevance of their current activity. GM adjudicates, adding bonus or penalty based on their current actions - by how specific the character is looking for it. The more specific the better; the more general the more ambiguous the threat or data.
- This allows Van and Flank guards are able to react better; people busy with logistics worse; and fatigue penalty affects mental performance (unless one is a believer of substance dualism; then why does alcohol change one's behavior?).

These set of rules/guidelines allows me to fit what I have observed and experience, to in the game. Of course, players who don't clearly and definitely focus on what they should be focus would be a more unaware and flatfooted group.

Which brings me to why was a group of soldiers so easily ambushed in this show i was watching. EASILY ambushed.

I actually got "killed" in a game taking the time to tell allies to cross their vision and firing arcs. Talking and command is an action, I was in 90% cover BTW.

When covering 35' angle I notice I can catch anything that occurs within a second, any wider and my mental FPS is much slower than a second. at 90' i can be easily ambushed by a quick pop-up attack. at 180' even easier. This basic FPS rule, emphasizes the economics of mental resources. Unfortunately it takes practice for a pair or a group to optimize their alertness. If only there was a way to practice it without looking to weird.

In a GURPS second by second game, this would be an awful amount of detail. I run my gurps in 6 second rounds, like DND. In a narrative combat, as opposed to tactical combat, a perk should cover this, otherwise I'll throw penalites. When this mode of activity (room clearing) is on, players should be allowed to dodge or wait-attack.

Here is a funny side note about Keen vision in real life, it may be 2cp but if your asian it might as well be 5cp advantage. 70-90% of ethnic asians are near sighted. At least if your asian Bad Sight (mitigation glasses) is definitely easy to justify. What is weird is that in the Philippine Mil. Academy, you need unaided 20/20 vision (since Lasik is best taken in your mid 20s, when vision changes less)... that removes up to 90% of potential candidates(its modeled after the US, funny how it fails to take into consideration ethnic biological circumstance). 

Murphy's Rule makes me biased for Randomly Generated Characters. 

I see my RPGs as problem solving exercises more and more. It comes to the point that my bias towards some randomly generated characters are a necessity for the game. People really need to have the expectation MOST of the time they screwed by circumstance  but with in that situation their choices matter a whole lot more.

Its a head ache making a table for random disadvantages and advantages. That should be my first python exercise if I get around to it. a program that allows me to randomly generate a list of flaws and advantages for my open system.

The Spear, the AK 47 of pre-modern times; Lessons on Tactics

http://goo.gl/aQEa5 this is a reddit discussion which I concur with, and want to save for use later on.

Been Playing Airsoft more, and learning more and more about tactical implementation.
I'm a bit of a slow learner, because I tend to be very uncertain and can't see all the datum very clearly. It takes me more tries than the average person to learn a particular lesson. It doesn't improve my understanding so much that I can perform better, but it does make it easy for me to teach and communicate.

I guess thats the draw back. Slow learner, but better Teacher.

Currently when it comes to tactics and flow of a skirmish, I find myself being predictable. Which is a good thing. In fact, I'm surprised how I'm exactly on the same page as my captain. There is this "second-thought" that has begun to happen when I realized I am predictable.

Before I act, I try to visualize what I'm going to do. I string the line of cover and displacement positions in my mind (as much as I can in a given situation; sometimes 2 steps, more depending on the complexity of the situation). Then the awareness of my predictability kicks in, it is a nagging voice that acts almost like an instinct.

But I need more data than most people, so I get pretty choked up what to do when I don't have enough information. Like when were were clearing a room, they were asking me to clear Left because I was right (cross fire position) and they were saying "clear left" to me :P which I figured out later meant I'm clear to move forward.

So i'm still struggling with predictability, but I'm getting there. I need more repetition and visualization. Even a chance to exercise buddy buddy movements with imaginary guns with my partner in an empty parking lot. I bet It looks weird but damn its satisfying when its executed well :P

Anyway I'm tasked to make the handbook for the team. Which is pretty sweet, and I'm converting stuff in my combat handbooks into meaning that is easier to digest for laymen... although they are rather easy to digest - those books are pretty straight forward but I'm the only one geeky enough to go through them (in my circle).

Still thinking my brothers would be awesome in this. One has already tried and joined me, when our parents were away (he drives them around on sundays). The other is a larp game writer.

the World Builders Spreadsheet Dream

I'm trying to learn as much about LibreOffice spreadsheet as possible. Currently work, Philippine BPO industry, has me dealing with a lot of Key Performance Indicators and trying to make sense of it all or present them in the easiest understood way possible.

As a Gamer, seeing the potential in what I am learning in LibreOffice I see first its uses to my hobby: The World Builders Spreadsheet. A spreadsheet that will allow a World Builder Given certain Parameters to populate a World in a near Realistic/Historical manner.

I also see that the Form Section in LibreOffice Writer can make an awesome character sheet.

Anyway, what this spreadsheet should be capable of doing based on what it can possibly do becomes clearer and clearer. basically given a set of Parameters:

• Regional Area,
• the Largest and the number of these social units units
• Natural resources (with the option to generate it randomly)
• Technology Available
• Domesticated Animals or Plants Available
• Level of Organization
• Various templates of religious institution and their method/pattern of spreading
• Current Economic Condition
• Influence of various States: Warfare, bountiful season, Peace, Famine, etc.
• Geometric Relationship

and many more.

The product is detailing the region and its inhabitants down to the smallest social unit: the Household. Each of this household will have a productivity value for future reference and further random detailing. The spreadsheet, through a Macro, will create households, their professions, and their villages and communes based on a lot of economic factors and rules. The Macro would also group these villages based on a randomly determined political/social balance (many semi-equal regions, one more powerful with many lesser that are equally weaker, or decending levels of resources and influences etc.).

It should assign where the Specialist/Professionals based on resources and other factors or allow the World Builder to move these around. These then affect Price Modifiers and availability of Goods as well as offer a sheet for the World Builder to place all products and goods to allow the World Builder to generate regional price lists.

Such a spreadsheet and macro should be able to track these details. It illustrates these all by the story it tells with its Income Statement, which takes a snapshot of the year. Ideally the program can lists certain expenses by the season, so that the World Builder can better tell the story.

Outputs:

• Households and their Professions, and where they can be found.
• farmsteads, mines, mills, villages, market villages, manors, fiefs, and towns and where they are
• Regional Price and Availability List
• See where demands and supplies of goods, skills, people, or social needs can be found.

Details and even More Details. It would be nice if that there is already a World Builders Spreadsheet Project, at least as a spreadsheet the barrier of learning is much lower than if it was a software. As an open spreadsheet projects copying variants, data ranges and tables is much easier and anyone can create increasingly detailed and customization outputs.

Anyway just started checking out WorldBuilders and despite how many of the topics there might appear similar, it has made me realized this one I'm talking about has key words like: realistic, historical, human-centric, economics based, simulationsists, etc.