DC Compliments and Criticisms

[Just Joe]

I've only read bits and pieces of DC so far, but so far I'm impressed. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on compliments, however, because I don't think that doing so is very productive. As I proceed with my criticisms, I hope that all readers, and especially Steve, will understand that I respect and admire the book, it's author, and the company, and that my criticisms are intended to be constructive.

There is one compliment I will state specifically, however (or perhaps it's more of a thanks). I very much appreciate the way that DC gave suggestions for comparitively realistic gaming. I would not expect or even want most Hero products to be written specifically for those comparitively few of us who prefer more realistic games, but it was nice to have portions written with us in mind.

[Just Joe]

There are two characteristics which I believe should be higher in many DC campaigns than the example characters and discussions in the characters suggest: BODY and SPEED.

Body can be handled more easily. I suggest that players and GM's simply build PC's (and maybe some special NPC's) with high body. DC pages 188-9 discuss possible rule changes to make NPC's easier to kill compared to PC's. Why not just buy high body for most PC's, who "may get beaten, battered, bruised, and even crippled, but . . . don't die"? (p. 188). 15-20 body should not be rare for characters whose STR, DEX, and CON are in that range. But almost every member of Libra, for example, has BODY as the lowest or tied-for-lowest of his first four characteristics. The only exception still has two of his first three characteristics lower than his body. Building typical thugs in this way (e.g., with just 8 BODY even when their other CHARS are 10-13) can help solve the problems discussed on pp. 188-9. But PC's should have BODY more in line with their other physical characteristics.

The tendency to build characters, monsters, and vehicles with what I would consider to be too little body pervades Hero products, and I intend to discuss this in a subsequent thread on the Hero System board, but I found it particularly striking in DC in light of pp. 188-9.

[Just Joe]

With all of the incredible super-skills and discussion of cinematic drama in DC, I was surprised to see that speed 5 characters are considered rare and speed 6's seem not to be discussed at all (see p. 60 and sample characters). Even as a GM who tends to prefer comparatively low-powered and realistic games, my main objection to high speeds is their effect on movement rate per turn. If I were running a 200 point cinematic or street-level supers game, I'd set the speed NCM at 6 and advise PC's to have speeds of no lower than 4. I might even do this in a 150 point game of the right style. It seems to me that Batman, Captain America, and almost any character played by Steven Segal or Jean Claude Van Damme, for example, should have speeds of 5 or higher.

[Sketchpad]

I love the book the way it is In fact, I just posted a review at EN World
http://www.enworld.org/reviews/index...ad&product=DC2

[Metaphysician]

Oh, Batman or Cap would have a SPD of about 7. However, they are bad examples to use for Dark Champions characters, as they are both more Champions-ish.

[Sketchpad]

Oh, Batman or Cap would have a SPD of about 7. However, they are bad examples to use for Dark Champions characters, as they are both more Champions-ish.

Yup ... while Batman from B:TAS or the Watchmen (well most of them) are closer to DC

[Metaphysician]

Even then, Batman is more DC:TAS than DC, with Champions power levels.

In fact, the Speed gap is the biggest issue with crossover. The average Champions character will have at least one point of Spd on the average DC character, even one built on the same point total. Then again, you could probably solve the problem easily enough, just by putting one extra point of Spd on all of them when playing Champions.

[Sketchpad]

Even then, Batman is more DC:TAS than DC, with Champions power levels.

In fact, the Speed gap is the biggest issue with crossover. The average Champions character will have at least one point of Spd on the average DC character, even one built on the same point total. Then again, you could probably solve the problem easily enough, just by putting one extra point of Spd on all of them when playing Champions.

Gotta disagree here ... in the original run of B:TAS, Bats occasionally had problems with thugs, let alone psychopaths. Sure, in JL and JLU he's a Champions character

[Just Joe]

Oh, Batman or Cap would have a SPD of about 7. However, they are bad examples to use for Dark Champions characters, as they are both more Champions-ish.

I think Batman has had a number of DC-ish incarnations and Cap has had at least street-level supers incarnations. But I'll agree that they're bad examples because they also have straight Supers incarnations and their speeds (as well as a lot of other things about them) vary considerably one incarnation to the next.

Frankly, I was trying not to limit myself to examples from the movies, but I'm just not that familiar with Punisher or other paradigmatically DC comics.

[Toadmaster]

As far as Speed goes remember most "normals" are Speed 2, highly competent normals (Spec ops soldiers, race car drivers etc) are speed 3 and world class martial artists (Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan) might be speed 4. So if you look at it this way most movie heros are most likely 1.5 - 2x faster than a normal thug. We have always played with Speeds of 3-4 for PC's with the very rare exception of a speed 5, but its all relative to what speeds you are used to allowing. Now with Street supers I could see Spd 4-6 being somewhat common but even in Champions Speeds greater than 7 were rare. Sounds like your games use higher speeds which is fine but I've found setting Speed lower is a key to keeping the games point value lower (Speed and Dex "arms races" will jack up the point values very quickly) as long as the Speed range is controlled it really doesn't matter much if it ranges from 3-6 or 8-12, where you find problems is when you get a speed 5 character in with a group of mostly speed 9-10.

[Just Joe]

As far as Speed goes remember most "normals" are Speed 2, highly competent normals (Spec ops soldiers, race car drivers etc) are speed 3 and world class martial artists (Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan) might be speed 4. So if you look at it this way most movie heros are most likely 1.5 - 2x faster than a normal thug.

I'm not so sure spec ops shouldn't be 4 and Bruce Lee 5. But regardless of that, I disagree with your conclusion that you can reason from these "real world" speeds to action movie hero speeds. To settle this, we'd have to sit down and watch some action movie scenes, try to distinguish what should be represented by multiple attacks per phase and lost NPC actions due to presence attacks as opposed to genuine differences in speeds. I'm not going to do this, and I doubt you will either, but it's my guess that if we did, we'd find many movies in which it's plausible to assign the hero a 6 speed, especially in movies where the hero faces numerous highly-trained opponents who could plausibly be assigned 3 speeds themselves.

We have always played with Speeds of 3-4 for PC's with the very rare exception of a speed 5 . . . even in Champions Speeds greater than 7 were rare. Sounds like your games use higher speeds . . .

Actually, I think our practices are similar, but I often think that higher speeds would be preferable. If I ran a cinematic DC game, I would definitely go with higher speeds. In any event, with the exception of speedsters and some VERY powerful supers, I'm not convinced Champions speeds (as opposed to STR, CON, PD, and especially points in powers) should be significantly higher than those in cinematic DC.

I've found setting Speed lower is a key to keeping the games point value lower (Speed and Dex "arms races" will jack up the point values very quickly)

I'm not sure I see your point. Why can't you set a fixed point level, declare that the NCM for speed is 6, and encourage speeds of 4-6. Obviously, the extra 10-20 points has to come from somewhere, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.