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Hudson City Blues


bschrempp

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Re: Hudson City Blues

 

I just got a copy of Hudson City Blues and was reading it. One of the first things it talks about is Getting "Dark Champions" and Justice, Not Law" as reference books. I have DC and "Hudson City the Urban Abyss", do I need Justice, Not Law also? What is Justice, Not Law?

 

 

Thanks Bob

 

Justice, Not Law was a 4th Ed sourcebook. IIRC it was the first appearance of Hudson City as a printed product.

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Re: Hudson City Blues

 

I just got a copy of Hudson City Blues and was reading it. One of the first things it talks about is Getting "Dark Champions" and Justice, Not Law" as reference books. I have DC and "Hudson City the Urban Abyss", do I need Justice, Not Law also? What is Justice, Not Law?

 

 

Thanks Bob

 

You have the 5th Ed versions in HC: Urban Abyss and DC. Some small changes but not enough to affect HCB. Super fun campaign - deadly, wild, and 100% Batman-esque feel (with guns and grenades of course).

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Re: Hudson City Blues

 

Just starting to read through HCB. On page 10 there is the "Reserved Villians List":

 

  1. Retro
  2. Optik
  3. The Machine
  4. Ashtray Ant
  5. Tenderheart
  6. Plain Jane
  7. Crusade
  8. The Card Shark Organization
  9. The Mafia
  10. Headless Hangman
  11. The Hanged Man
  12. Mr. Nobody

Flipping through HCB I find cahracter sheets and background for:

1 Retro,

2 Optik,

3 The Machine.

 

In Hudson City, the Urban Abyss, I can find:

8 the Card Shark Gang

9 The Mafia

 

In dark Champions there is information on:

9 the Mafia

 

I can not find references for:

4 Ashtray Ant

5 Tenderheart

6 Plain Jane

7 Crusade

10 Headless Hangman

11 The Hanged Man

12 Mr. Nobody

 

These might be spelled out in the text of HSB but they did not pop out at me. Are these villains in JNL? If so I will buy it as a reference, but I do not want to buy it if I do not have to.

 

Thanks for the help.

Bob

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Re: Hudson City Blues

 

Some of those villains are in JNL and were not re-created for any of our 5E Dark Champions supplements (Dark Champions, Hudson City: The Urban Abyss, and Predators). Some are from the 4E enemies book Underworld Enemies, none of whom have ever been re-created for 5E due to my growing-ever-fainter hope of getting Chris Avellone to do that for me. ;)

 

By and large you should be able to run HCB without any need for any of the old Dark Champions books. The three we've published (a) provide a lot more information about HC than JNL ever did, and (B) contain more villains you can easily use or adapt.

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Re: Hudson City Blues

 

Steve,

 

Good to see you are well enough to be back on a computer.

 

Thanks for the data. I just need to figure out who to substitute for who:

 

4 Ashtray Ant

5 Tenderheart

6 Plain Jane

7 Crusade

10 Headless Hangman

11 The Hanged Man

12 Mr. Nobody

 

Any suggestions?

 

 

Thanks Bob

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Re: Hudson City Blues

 

Substitute for:

 

Ashtray Ant - Any Pyromanic will do, this guy is sick in the head.

Tenderheart - Crossdressing romance novelist who has a flair for the dramatic.

Plain Jane - Use any normal but buy them invisibility when not directly interacting with someone. Basically the moment she stops talking to you, she fades out.

Crusade - Thing Captain America went nuts and figures the Punisher is too soft on crime.

Mr. Nobody - Normal with a real goofy power. Invisibility to Recall? Continuous Mental Transform? The effect is that you can interact with him but the moment you stop talking all memory of the encounter is erased.

 

Headless Hangman

The Hanged Man

I get these two confused. The important one for the story is the weapons dealer. He sells weapons to the gangs to increase intergang violence. The weapons are rigged and he can detonate them. They jam on a 16- and explode on an 18- ... maybe?

 

This is all from recall. I'd suggest reading Edsels campaign log the covers our whole campaign from start to finish through HCB.

 

Link to the original OMEGA TEAM thread.

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Re: Hudson City Blues

 

I don't know enough about 5th ed. Dark Champions to know who to substitute, but I remember most of these guys to give a quick summary, which may help...

 

4 Ashtray Art

Artist Arsonist. Believes fire is alive, and is his lover. Minor pyrokinetic powers.

 

5 Tenderheart

Female swashbucker, apparently trying to win the favour of one of the PCs

actually a man who believes he's a romance novel heroine. Remember to have "The Crying Game" theme cued up.

 

 

6 Plain Jane

A woman so meek and mild she effectively became invisible. Cannot be sensed by almost any means at all. Can either go the mad terrorist route, trying increasingly grand schemes to just get people to notice her, or the Oracle route, where she helps out sympathetic PCs by gathering information.

 

7 Crusade

The Champions Universe version of Azrael Batman. Crazed vigilante, trained by Crusader but now believing criminals must be killed.

 

11 The Hanged Man

Mad genius who has decided to end crime in Hudson City forever - by flooding the underworld with cheap guns and encouraging gang wars so the criminals kill each other off. His weapons tend to be booby trapped and equipped with tracking devices so he knows who's doing what to whom. Wealthy and with a host of contacts, he would make a terrifying enemy. Good excuse for the bad guys to have any gear they would otherwise be unlikely to obtain.

 

10 Headless Hangman

12 Mr. Nobody

 

No idea who these guys are...

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Re: Hudson City Blues

 

Thanks for all the replies.

 

4 Ashtray Ant

5 Tenderheart

6 Plain Jane

7 Crusade

10 Headless Hangman

11 The Hanged Man

12 Mr. Nobody

 

As I read though the HCB I and finding some descriptions of these NPCs. I have found in the back that I missed Mr. Nobody, he is there on page 87.

 

I was also flipping through Hudson City, the Urban Abyss some more and found the Headless Hangman on page 155 in the vigilantes section. There are so many NPCs listed in HC, has anyone out there compiled an index of them?

 

 

Thanks again for all your help, I think I now have when I need.

 

 

Bob

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  • 2 weeks later...

Re: Hudson City Blues

 

My advice to you is get Underworld Enemies for 4th ed. This is, without a doubt, one of the best gaming books I've ever read, and I've been gaming over 25 years. Every page you will say "Wow that's just cool" at least once. Don't worry about the edition, the descriptions and backgrounds are so great that you'll know how to write the character up without ever looking at the stats.

 

You could probably find it on ebay. I think I picked up Underworld Enemies, HCB, Justice Not Law all for under $10.

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Re: Hudson City Blues

 

The write-up that I did for Plain Jane has the following power:

 

Invisibility to All Sense Groups (Disinterest), No Fringe (+10 points), Area of Effect x16 radius (250")(+2), Costs No END (+1/2), Persistent (+1/2), Always On (+1/2), Not vs. Magic-based Senses (-1/4), Not vs. Robots (-1/4). 315 Active Points, 158 Real Points.

 

A very expensive power but since she is an NPC and not meant to be a combatant that is unimportant. This was a 4th Edition write-up so the updated 5th Ed. version would likely be a bit different. I also assumed that if the character chose to directly talk to you (specifically hold your attention) that she could become visible to you though she still came across as very plain and uninteresting.

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Re: Hudson City Blues

 

To echo what some others have said in this thread: you can't go wrong obtaining a copy of Underworld Enemies. I think it's the best Enemies book published for 4E, despite being marred by some editorial madness (with Creatures Of The Night: Horror Enemies and Classic Enemies in a close tie for second ;)). It's well worth buying regardless of the edition.

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Re: Hudson City Blues

 

Invisibility to All Sense Groups (Disinterest)' date=' No Fringe (+10 points), Area of Effect x16 radius (250")(+2), Costs No END (+1/2), Persistent (+1/2), Always On (+1/2), Not vs. Magic-based Senses (-1/4), Not vs. Robots (-1/4). 315 Active Points, 158 Real Points.

 

How do you figure the AoE on that, it's not like she makes a large hole in the fabric of reality?

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Re: Hudson City Blues

 

Thanks for all the help.

 

 

As a means to learn how to use the Hero Designer and to help me when I run HCB, I am walking through the book and creating all the NPCs in Hero Designer. This way I can print them all out and just have the character sheets in front of me when I run it.

 

Bob Schrempp

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Re: Hudson City Blues

 

How do you figure the AoE on that' date=' it's not like she makes a large hole in the fabric of reality?[/quote']

It has been a while but I think that the effect I was going for is that she could be seen in a crowd, not as an individual but as a person. In other words if you were counting heads in a crowd you would count her but not register her individually. If you were close enough to identify her as an individual then you would not register her at all. Looking back at it now the AE radius was uncalled for.

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Re: Hudson City Blues

 

I just got a copy of Hudson City Blues and was reading it. One of the first things it talks about is Getting "Dark Champions" and Justice, Not Law" as reference books. I have DC and "Hudson City the Urban Abyss", do I need Justice, Not Law also? What is Justice, Not Law?

 

 

Thanks Bob

Here is a Link to the campaign logs, NPCs and other data from my Omega Team Dark Champions Campaign. Killer Shrike hosts this for me. The stories featured in Hudson City Blues are featured prominently. Be warned there are spoilers on this web page. My current campaign the Weekend Warriors may be getting a similar treatment. It too takes place in Hudson City. I have been reviewing and catching up on the Weekend Warriors campaign logs so that I can send a package to Killer Shrike and hopefully resume the WW campaign later this year.

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