comments from another forum…thought he had some good points perhaps others had these same questions so here is Boo's post and my answers…
Just remember, you asked for it⌠Wink
He heh⌠he he he he⌠heh heh. Well, I certainly bet you didnât intend to run into anyone like me here. 20 years, 85% of which has been spent running games instead of playing them (sigh), with roughly 5 years of D&D, 5 of WFRP, and 10 with the various WW Storyteller systems, in that order. I also know Core D&D 3.x, though I havenât really played it, along with various Palladium games, and probably a dozen systems youâve never even heard of. Unfortunately I have only a vague, superficial knowledge of D20-Modern mechanics. Currently Iâm working on my own FRP system using the original WW Storyteller core mechanics as a base. Working verrrrry slowlyâseven years now I think itâs been⌠at least 5 anyway.
So with credentials duly submitted, itâs Hammer Time!
First off, you realize that pretty much every key physical change youâve made in your setting is totally impossible without magic to explain it, right? (Or, alternately, extensive, purposeful tailored genetic engineering along the lines of âhuge project of 1000âs of top scientists eating, sleeping, & breathing it for the last 20 yearsâ or âwhat if Lex Luthor, Dr. Henry Pym (Ant-man), Dr. Hank McCoy (Beast), and Mr. Fantastic got together toâŚâ).
This: With transportation a necessity of modern life people have reverted back to man powered technology. More people are bicycling, roller blading, or just using their own two feet for transportation. This has caused huge drops in the level of obesity in Americans.
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This: Females are growing larger and developing more quickly. The average breast size in America increased from 34B to 36C during the end of the 20th century. This coincided with an increase in dress size. However, with environmental factors causing an increase in athletic activity as well as additional hormonal factors women of 2020 have an average breast size of a 38D yet there overall body fat has decreased.
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This: The new generations of female champions possessed muscles of extraordinary sizes yet had none of the secondary male sexual characteristics of the early female bodybuilders that used steroids.
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Does not compute.
Canât be done on a chemical level; it simply will not work. Absolutely requires genetic engineering to cause those kinds of contradictory changes to take place.
Now, if you were going with âyou are what you eatâ and âsloppy science causing things to get⌠messyâ then fine. But, and itâs the big but; meat producers donât give a flying fuck about fat production, in fact, they actually want to cut it down. Fat isnât meat; itâs a waste product cut off at the processing level. Sure, it can be used to make stuff, but no one is going to purposefully engineer an increase in any type of fat production for a byproduct that only has some secondary value. Producers only care about size and meat production vs feed input. So no big boobies for you! Wink
Second: Whatâs good for the goose is good for the gander, & vice versa. I.e.- congratulations, every woman is Wonder Woman⌠alas, every man would also be Superman (albeit a Superman with boobs Wink Razz ), so overall, no gains except the superficial. Use the basic rules and just assume everyone can break objects & injure non-affected living things to a greater degree. There, done; all it is is a superfical setting change. Albeit not the one you want⌠Razz
Third: The bullets had barely penetrated 3/8âs of an inch into Juliaâs pectoral muscles. The bullets when removed were severely deformed resembling a flower blossom. Doctors hypothesized that because of her mitochondrial density the muscle flexed around the bullet crushing it as it entered.
âŚyou do realize this is idiotic on a biological level, right? If someoneâs muscle fiber density is high enough to stop bullets from doing any serious harm theyâd have to have at least a 100 Strength in the D20 system. Plus, the reason modern bullet-resistant materials work isnât because theyâre dense, itâs because they distribute, absorb (muffle), and/or deflect the kinetic impact of a shot. Increasing density is the last way you want to go because dense = heavy, hard, inflexible, & prone to catastrophic failure (i.e.- shattering) if itâs hit at itâs break-point or harder.
So⌠either itâs some God(dess) waking up, a secret cabal of ancient Amazon Sorceresses defrosted from stasis, or, someone did this on purpose (or multiple someones). In which case, people would know it was done on purpose, if not necessarily by who, because only a complete idiot would miss the signs of tailored genetic tampering.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know; all you want is a setting where females have pretty faces, big boobs, and big frames with big muscles on them. But if I can quickly read this & realize it isnât worth the paper itâs written on because itâs got all the plausibility of a piece of wet tissue paper, your setting is too flawed for any serious player to ever put up with, because theyâll be seeing the same inconsistencies I do, & theyâll want an explanation thatâs better than âthese are my half-assed reasons so I can make the setting the way I wantâ. Seriously, drop the pseudo-science bullshit and just bust out the tried-and-true âitâs magic, now STFU, ok?â At least then it works⌠Or alternately, the âsome crazy genius released a retrovirus into all of the earthâs biosphere that was centuries ahead of itâs time, designed to radically re-write half of the human genetic code. Itâs everywhere, everyone was exposed to it, and no oneâs smart enough to figure out how to fix it. Deal with itâŚâ
Fourth objection, again:
The bullets had barely penetrated 3/8âs of an inch into Juliaâs pectoral muscles. The bullets when removed were severely deformed resembling a flower blossom. Doctors hypothesized that because of her mitochondrial density the muscle flexed around the bullet crushing it as it entered.
Do we really need this? Seriously. Still basically impossible except using magic, and stupidly ludicrous as well if your setting isnât Superhero based. I need to start carrying around anti-tank weapons in order to deal with 1 more-or-less human being? Please, gimmi a breakâŚ
Now if it is a Superhero setting, well, fine and dandy, but as far as I can tell, it isnât.
And last but not least, you overlooked some things that donât seem too important to begin with, but actually are:
Increasing athleticism (usually) increases sex drive, increasing strength and physical prowess along with societal acceptance of it (usually) causes increased confidence, leading to increased sexual activity if the person is so inclined, if not necessarily the drive itself, and unless youâre using magic as the cause, the biological changes required will also result in increased sex drive. Basically, all these super-hot women are going to want to have a super-lot of sex (comparative to the âold numbersâ under the previous female archetype).
You didnât mention any geniuses coming up with a cure for AIDS or other STDs in your setting. A new sexual revolution could skyrocket STDs to epidemic proportions, and possibly result in new strains of old favorites, or even entirely new killer infections.
âRaceâ wars. Sorry, but again, unless magic is involved, thereâs no way many third-world countries would ever accept these changes, let alone embrace them. Many, many cultures follow the rule âwomen exist to serve/be subservient to menâ, âfemale circumcisionâ is still prevalent in many African countries, most Chinese peasants still put little to no value on âgirl childrenâ, and so on and so fourthâŚ
Sure, it might take a while for the effects to âtrickle downâ to these countries if we stay with your crappy explanation for why itâs happening, but they invariably will. Someone is going to buy some of those âcows the size of rhinos/pigs the size of cows /chickens the size of pigs and that eat half as muchâ and introduce them to the local stock, or start up these alternate energy sources for their countries that require the bio-engineered stocks to make them work.
Once that happens, well, lookout folks, things will be getting messy.
These are things I quickly thought of that Iâd want answers to in your setting. Got any?
Whenever you build a setting if you want to do it right the first rule is always âcover your basesâ (or ass, itâs all the same Razz ). Donât start with your superficial theme & work backwards from it to âmake it workâ, start with the foundation, making sure everything is plausible, firmly grounded in the mechanics of the system, and survives a reasonable âsuspension of disbeliefâ test, and then work your way up towards your setting themes and points of interest. Otherwise, people like me can come along and rip it to shreds in a few minutes time⌠Wink Razz
As well, if you can manage to find it, I suggest you check out the old Aberrant game by White Wolf Game Studios. You could easily modify it to run your setting with little to no trouble, and I think the mechanics would better support what you seem to be going for.
Yeeouch Dude! I really think you need to get laid.
Your first argument is that women with larger breasts and lower levels of body fat could only be conceived by comic book scientists? Okay well here is an article that supports that womenâs breast size has been increasing. Iâve taken the liberty of quoting it directly.
So if activity levels are increasing because of higher fuel cost wouldnât it make sense that women would decrease their body fat bellow current standardsâŚ.yet if breast size is increasing from hormonal factors as discussed in the article above wouldnât that mean that even if they lost some adipose tissue from exercise that the women of 2020 would still have larger breasts and lower body fat than the women of the current era????
Second part âŚthat female bodybuilders are larger and more muscular without secondary sexual side effects produced by anabolic steroids. This is all based on Myostatin research. Testosterone and growth hormone produce muscle by effecting myostatin production however if myostatin is controlled without the use of hormones then presto changoâŚ.bigger muscles no sexual side effects
Okay to answer the âif women are more muscular âŚthen men are tooâ Well women possess and inert chromosome. There are arguments whether it is active or not. So my explanation is that this inert chromosome has allowed for direct manipulation of myostatin in women where as men are lacking the genetic code that women haveâŚthe manipulation of the male gene is not possible. In D20 AMAZON men can take myostatin inhibitors however females can be turned into a myostatin mutant. You said you are familiar with palladium well if you know Rifts then this my have similar repercussions to a Juicer conversion.
Stopping bulletsâŚ.mitochondria are considered the power house of the cell. If you would like I can draw a mitochondria under the effect of a densifier to illustrate A person with larger muscles has a greater amount of mitochondria. So if a person has been taking a mitochondrial densifier then the amount of mitochondria is increased even more. So being shot is like breaking the surface tension of water and trying to penetrate something like sand. A spear or an arrow will penetrate much deeper than a bullet into sand because the velocity and the mass of the projectile. My reference was to a .45 ACP round which is a big slow round. Now if that was replaced by something else âŚ.such as a Barret .50 cal then the bullet would not be as easily stopped.
You said someone would need strength of 100 for their body to stop bullets. I personally canât think of any gaming system where strength has any barring on armor or hit points. D20/D&D bases hit points on Constitution, War Hammer Fantasy Role Play damage you can take is Toughness, and in Palladium it is Physical Endurance. In my game the rules to avoid damage from a bullet would be similar to damage reduction however there would be fortitude save required. And this would only be available to someone using mitochondrial densifiers.
Where the hell did you come up with the whole athletes are sluts idea??? The most athletic woman I know (also a state champion bodybuilder) is 28 yrs old and still a virginâŚso in the next 16 years prophylactics disappear???
Interesting that you bring up the Chinese and no worth on females in the cultureâŚ.did you notice the Asian with the big gun? She is a Taiwanese soldier who was Chinese born but adopted by agents from the Taiwan government for the Myostatin solder project. Ever heard the female of the species is deadlier than the male???? Basically cast away female Chinese are being turned into elite military by the Taiwanese.
