Old school is the best school

[Christopher R Taylor]

I have a few things saved off from the old Red October BBS and Hero mailing list from decades ago that I will post here.  Others might have some as well. 

 

First up: You know you're a Hero player when... (names of the people who came up with them included -- some real blasts from the past here)

 

...When you ask everyone you meet how many "Total Points" they are "built on".
...When you refer to your glasses as your "OIF Focus for Enhanced Normal Sight".-

 

Capt. Spith...
...Instead of covering a friends eyes and saying "Guess Who?" you say "Make a perception roll"

...During a snowball fight, you start cataloging who has a high DEX and who has skill levels.

...You refer to your friends' and family's idiosyncrasies as Psych Lims

 

Curtis Gibson...
... you tell someone waiting, 'Be back in a segment'. 

... any movie seen is instantly cataloged as Wild Ninja Hero, Streetlevel, ect.

... You refer to getting your second wind as 'taking a post 12'

 

Happyelf...
... you get annoyed in a fun run if your second wind doesn't come ever 12 seconds. .

... nobody else seems to understand what "ouch!  NND me will ya!" means....

... you don't understand how people can learn to play the piano without first saving a bunch of orphans from a burning building or at least beating up a thug

 

Bob Greenwade...
...what's going through your mind during a movie is what each character's Characteristics, Skills, and Disadvantages would be.

...you count off segments when watching an action sequence.

...you tune in a martial arts tournament just to see what hwarang-do actually looks like.

...you're being hurried by someone and you ask for one extra level on the Time Chart.

...you express your computer's speed as a one-digit number that is not in Megahertz.

...someone in an AOL chat room offers you a a celebrity nude pic and you ask for Quantum.

...your computer's hard disk has more space devoted to CHA files than EXE files.

 ...your line of thought when vacationing is what would be a cool place to stage a superhero battle.  (Side note:  the tide pools at Yaquina Head just north of Newport, Oregon would be an *excellent* locale!)

...someone mentions four armed guards, and you wonder how many there are and whether they have weapons.  (You may have to read that one multiple times to understand it.)

 

John Lansford...
...You calculate your own statistics and wish your personal STR were just a point or two higher

...You write vacation spots for brochures to use in your campaign, not to plan a vacation with (I did this for New Orleans)

...You judge building materials on how much knockback they subtract off before getting knocked through them

 

William G Geiger...
...Every time you research, your sweetie says it is for gaming purposes.

 

David Fair...
... you look for places to attach a swingline as you walk from your office to the Metro (or your car).
... you compile lists of people you meet whose names would sound good on your PC's & NPC's (maybe that one's just me?)
... you trip on a crack in the sidewalk you say "I'm OK, just failed my DEX roll"
... you know what a photographic memory is really called. (Eidetic Memory, in case you don't have one)

 

Devan...
...You keep thinking, "Damn, I've got all these disadvantages.. Where the hell did I spend my points?"

 

Michael Surbrook...
...all you *really* had to do in order to learn a new language (like Japanese) is spend a coupla points somewhere...

[Tjack]

I still do some of these.

[archer]

5 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

... you don't understand how people can learn to play the piano without first saving a bunch of orphans from a burning building or at least beating up a thug

 

 

I used to do that before I realized just how many people are completely incapable of adding up numbers to come to exactly 250 in their heads.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well, clearly they didn't buy PS: Hero Character Designer with 2 of their points at creation.

[Lord Liaden]

Red October Files

 

On the website of lawyer and Hero Games author, Shelley Chrystal Mactyre. Many of the links to other parts of Shelley's Hero resources are dead now, but these extensive original files can still be downloaded.

[Dr.Device]

Red October is how I found my first Champions campaign. 

 

I posted there that I was looking for a game to join and Bob invited me to play in his Sentinels campaign. I have a lot of fond memories from that campaign. I joined right around the time they were switching over to 4th edition to help playtest it before publication. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

A bunch of the stuff I have saved off might have made it into later publication in things like Hero's magazine or books like Ultimate Speedster (parts of CHampions on 3D were first published on Red October, for example).  This bit on Agents might be one of them; I don't know who wrote this, sorry.

 

During a recent Champions run, at 9:30 in the evening, the GM started pulling thirty figures from the box and began laying them around the table. "This should take about a half hour..." he said. He guessed three and a half hours short. In the end, the characters were defeated. Worse, the players were bored stiff.

 

Why are agent fights often so boring? What can be done about them to make them  more involving?  I've played with people that I consider to be exceptionally good GMs. Yet, invariably, when the GM goes to the figures box and starts pulling out large numbers of agents, I have to work to suppress a groan. Agent battles almost invariably mean a long, tedious fight. 

 

Boredom occurs in RPGs (for me) for three reasons. First, when an activity (a scene or a combat sequence) goes on longer than the reward (in this case victory, plot development, or a good character bit) is worth, robbing the activity of interest. Second, when an activity is repetitious and uninterestingly presented. Third when an activity breaks down the suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoyably run a character.  Agent battles often acerbate all three conditions.

 

Agent battles are often filler. They serve as a buffer between the heroes and the main bad guy. Player characters have to mow through the agents as a barrier to getting to the point of the scenario; realistically, most master planner villains will set up as much as a buffer as possible between themselves and their enemies. Agent battles are necessary for a believable simulation of the comics. Unfortunately, except for Super Agent or street level campaigns, agent bashing is not seen as a particularly glamorous or rewarding profession for a hero. Agent fights to protect the master villain or McGuffin is really an artificial barrier to frustrate the players. Worse, it's fairly obvious to the player. It's hard to enjoy something when you're forced to spend two to three hours on the preliminaries, worse still when it's a single long fight.

 

The worst part of agent battles is the logistics. It's easy to run six or eight villains, even complex characters, than dozens of simpler ones.  Referencing Stun totals, positions and weapon types is a huge chore. Players are often willing to help. Unfortunately, this often involves jumping out of character to serve as a GM's assistant, and players may get more involved in the logistics of the agents than the actions of their PC. This is bad role-playing, and really blows suspension of disbelief out of the water.  Agents fights also take longer to cycle between PCs than villain fights. Dealing with twenty separate attacks, especially when some of the agents have a reasonable chance of hitting (say, a 9- or a 30% chance) will bog down the combat with a lot of die rolls. The longer it takes to get to your phase (especially if you're not going to be a target), the more bored you're likely to become.

 

Agent battles are more difficult to balance than non-agent battles. If the GM's dice are hot, the sheer number of agents will effectively screw up the fight.

Agent battles are difficult to run tactically. Properly run, agent battles use teamwork and a large variety of weapons. This is really difficult to keep track of, and it's hard to effectively use 

 

AGENT ADVICE AND PCs
Beware of making the agents significantly as tough as the PCs. My rough recommendation is that the average agent (something you can throw up with
3:1 odds) should be:

        -4 to -5 CV lower than the average PC.
        80%-100% damage than the average PC.
        Defense totals at 50%-60% of the average PC.
        CON and STUN totals at 50-60% of the average PC.

 

My recommendation for an elite agent (or low powered supers) that you can throw in as a commander for an agent squad, or run as a full squad at 3:2 to 2:1 odds over the PCs.

        -2 to -3 CV lower than the average PC.
        90%-100% damage compared to the average PC.
        Defense totals at 60%-80% of the average PC.
        CON and STUN totals at 60-80% of the average PC.

 

These totals assume a damage to defense ratio of about 2:1; that an attack that lands will on average do about double the player's defenses.

 

Beware of giving agents a lot of explosions or 1 Hex AE attacks. These should either be only powerful enough to present a nuisance to the PCs, or should be employed sparingly by the agents, at say, 5:1 numbers over the PCs. Beware 1 Hex AE flash attacks; they're often too effective against unprotected supers, and will usually trigger a flash defense arms race. When everybody's buying a defense, you know you've been doing a special attack too often.

 

OTHER SUGGESTIONS
Make the agent battles count. Give the agents a clear motive and a target.  Make them important. Give your players sufficient motivation to care about what's going on. Make them the main event.

Staging. Staging. Staging. Don't just line up agents as cannon fodder on a battlefield. Don't run the warehouse of the week. Make the environment interesting. Give the agents some good position to set up crossfire zones and use cover. Have places where a heavy weapons platform or a vehicle can be set up; it gives a sense of achievement to the PCs when they take out something big (but beware of Hero system tanks, since the Simulations junkies have statted them to be impossible for most PCs to penetrate their armor). Have lots of props that a cunning hero can use against the agents, or better yet, multiple agents. The single greatest joy in an agent fight for a PC is the opportunity to take multiple targets at once.

 

Use electronic dice for damage rolls. Use a calculator with a die roll program. If you can't, roll out damages beforehand (although calculators are better, since rifling through many sheets of papers for the die roll page can slow down the game.) Appoint one player as an assistant GM for agent battles. Have his PC at monitor duty (or something) during the fight and let him worry about the logistics. Keep the other PCs out of the bookkeeping and keep them in character.

 

Design your agents with tactics in mind. Develop agent teams. Know what they'll do when they're trying to get into position, when they're winning, and when they're losing.  Keep weapon types reasonably simple. Slap your hands when you're trying to be baroque! If you have to spend ten seconds looking over the weapon to remind yourself what it does, that's five seconds too long. Pacing is more important than detailing every piece of the simulation. If you run an agent, and they connect, their entire phase should take no more than twenty to thirty seconds to run. If they miss, it should be five to ten seconds to run a phase.

 

When agents are knocked out, they don't get recoveries unless they're a commander or elite level, or if another agent spends an action to bring  them around. Don't prolong the fight by having the agents continually coming back.  If an agent is getting considerably lucky in a fight, and the PCs notice him, elevate him to a minor villain after the fight (provided that he survives). Reward PCs for forging role-playing bonds.

[Tech]

It's fun to see this again. Thanks Christopher.

[Christopher R Taylor]

This one is pretty long, but its a section of GM advice I've stored away from the 90s which people might find useful.  Because its a bit longer, I've posted it as text file attachment, with just the question that prompted the response.  Dave Stallard wrote the response, the question's author is lost to time, but its kind of irrelevant who it was.  When I saved this off, I added another response by David West as well, the Appendix.

 

I really recommend this for everyone, because its an excellent breakdown of GM diplomacy, player  and GM philosophy, and how to deal with problematic situations or characters in a game.  A version of this will end up in my Master Guide for Jolrhos.

 

Quote

One thing that's been frustrating for me is that one of my players is an extreme (that word is too subtle) rationalist, and will carry on at great lengths about why this should or shouldn't be allowed (his favorite phrase: "It's just stupid!").  Both players (yep, small group) don't seem to take GM word as law, ever...I decree that something will be handled in such a way, and I get bombarded with shaking heads, looks of disbelief, and (usually irrational) reasons why that's the wrong decision.  I find that somewhat arrogant on the part of my players, seeing as I'm the only one willing to read the rules in the first place...they are constantly trying to catch me being inconsistent: "why can I do X1 now but you wouldn't allow me to do X2 earlier?"  Any advice for handling such a group?  I know a lot of people on this list would say just stop playing with those people, but  given the choice of playing with them or not playing at all, I'll find some way to deal with them.  From their reaction, it would seem that I'm some horrible, tyrannical GM, but from what I've seen on this list, I'm not that different from everyone else.  Not to sound cocky, but I think the majority of the problem lies with the players...  Every rules decision seems to be a thorny issue with them, especially if it's not in favor of the PCs.

 

GM Bullying.txt

[Christopher R Taylor]

This is just a fun jam session that happened on the Email list

 

Super Powered vPP based on ads in comic books

 

-Summon toy Soldiers Set: 4 tanks, 4 Jeeps, 4 Battleships, 4 Cruisers, 4 Saliors, 4 riflemen, 8 machine gunners, 8 Sharpshooters, 4 infantrymen, 8 officers,8 waves, 8 WACS, 4 bombers, 4 trucks, 8 jet planes, 8 cannons, 4 bazookamen, 4 marksmen

-Hypno coin
-7 Foot monster
-venus fly trap
-disappearing ink squirter
-phoney arm cast
-spud gun
-Exploding pen
-10 in 1 tool: (Binoculars, microscope, telescope, compass, mirror, reading glass, fire lighter, transmitter, solar time clock, 
-u Control Ghost 
-1001 super put downs
-money maker kit
-bloody mess soap
-finger smoke/smoke bombs
-one way mirror
-whoopie cushion
-dog whistle
-magic dice
-invisible gum
-ventriloquist device
-Secret book safe
-Fake vampire blood
-Red Hot pepper Gum
-mini spy camera
-Live sea creatures
-joy buzzer
-x ray glasses
-mini atomic pistols
-giant evil snake
-bald head wig
-electric shock book
-coin changer

[Lord Liaden]

You forgot the mind-controlling cupcakes and fruit pies.

[Christopher R Taylor]

A short one, made up of a list of classic Comic Book tropes and well-used stories

• We meet a Cosmic Entity Of Unlimited Power
• We all lose our powers and have to beat the bad guy with just our guile and wits. (We're dead.)
• We enter a parallel dimension
• Time travel to a fun or interesting time period or event
• Someone's parent/child/sibling shows up and is a villain
• Someone dies. "The passing...of a HERO!"
• Someone quits. "Watchtower...no more!"
• We meet aliens.
• We meet a Golden Age hero.
• One of us is granted near-godlike powers and for no readily discernible reason turns on the rest of us. ("My ally...my enemy!")
• We all sit around the campfire and do flashbacks to our origins.
• We meet another team of heroes and attack them, again for no readily discernible reason. 
• We have to collect a number of ingredients or parts for something from various points around the world, which happen to number exactly half or exactly the number of our group.   
• Our greatest enemies as individual heroes have banded together into a villain team.
• A foreign member's home country/planet/dimension is threatened, and he brings along his buddies to help.
• The base computer goes screwy for some obscure reason/something in the "treasury room" becomes a problem
• Somebody's created an international haven for supervillains.
• The mantle of a slain (or otherwise "retired") villain has been taken up by a mysterious newcomer.

Most of these are kind of overused in comic books but every Champions Campaign should run this kind of stuff.  What may be boring or cliche in a comic can be fresh and fun in a game, and they're overused cliches for a reason: they make for dramatic, interesting stories.

[Tech]

You know you're a player when:

- you see a movie or show, and start guessing what the character's Dex, Con, PD & ED, etc. are.

- you see a movie or show, and start figuring out the disadvantages as well.

[Jhamin]

On 2/27/2021 at 9:37 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Agent battles are more difficult to balance than non-agent battles. If the GM's dice are hot, the sheer number of agents will effectively screw up the fight.

Agent battles are difficult to run tactically. Properly run, agent battles use teamwork and a large variety of weapons. This is really difficult to keep track of, and it's hard to effectively use 

 

AGENT ADVICE AND PCs
Beware of making the agents significantly as tough as the PCs. My rough recommendation is that the average agent (something you can throw up with
3:1 odds) should be:

        -4 to -5 CV lower than the average PC.
        80%-100% damage than the average PC.
        Defense totals at 50%-60% of the average PC.
        CON and STUN totals at 50-60% of the average PC.

 

My recommendation for an elite agent (or low powered supers) that you can throw in as a commander for an agent squad, or run as a full squad at 3:2 to 2:1 odds over the PCs.

        -2 to -3 CV lower than the average PC.
        90%-100% damage compared to the average PC.
        Defense totals at 60%-80% of the average PC.
        CON and STUN totals at 60-80% of the average PC.

 

These totals assume a damage to defense ratio of about 2:1; that an attack that lands will on average do about double the player's defenses.

 

Beware of giving agents a lot of explosions or 1 Hex AE attacks. These should either be only powerful enough to present a nuisance to the PCs, or should be employed sparingly by the agents, at say, 5:1 numbers over the PCs. Beware 1 Hex AE flash attacks; they're often too effective against unprotected supers, and will usually trigger a flash defense arms race. When everybody's buying a defense, you know you've been doing a special attack too often.

 

I go further than the original poster.  Rather than going in % of heroes I like to build agents for end results:

- The agents should have about a 20-30% chance to hit the hero.
- A hit from an agent should do about 1/5 the Hero's stun after defenses.
- Regular Agents should go down after 1 hit from a hero (their Stun + Def should be equal to or less than an average damage roll)
- Elite Agents should go down after 2 hits from a hero

Nobody is excited that an agent just got con-stunned and has 3 stun left and will be back in the fight in 6 phases.  Just let them go down.

The official Viper agents are *way* too tough for a satisfying Captain America vs 20 Agents type of fight.  (Although I maintain that the old Kirby version of Cap had skill levels only to offset Sweep Penalties vs multiple attackers)

[Christopher R Taylor]

A Quick one today, some hero formulae

 

Formula for Strength and lift:
25* (2^ (STR/5)) = Kg maximum lift

 

Formula for NC movement (for 5th edition and earlier)
(SPD*Move/2*NCM)*0.6 = KPH (or *0.37  =MPH)
 

[Lord Liaden]

On 3/4/2021 at 3:26 PM, Jhamin said:

The official Viper agents are *way* too tough for a satisfying Captain America vs 20 Agents type of fight.  (Although I maintain that the old Kirby version of Cap had skill levels only to offset Sweep Penalties vs multiple attackers)

 

Of course that depends on how Cap is built. But I agree with you about Sweep. Kirby often drew Cap knocking three or four opponents flying with one swing of his shield, or arcing throw.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Related to the previous formula one, another 5th and earlier edition post (more on that in a bit), by Damon:
 

------

 

Yes, I know a hex is "2m across", but as far as I know it's never explicitly stated whether this is 2m side-to-side or 2m corner-to-corner, and it makes a big difference.  Timothy Sallume, in his "Headquarters Supplement Rules" (late of the Digital Hero page) says that a hex is about 43 square feet.  From this I take it he measures his hexes side-to-side.  I found measuring corner to corner a tiny bit easier:

 

Imagine a "Y" shape within the hex that divides it into three equal sections, each tine of the Y ending in a corner of the hex.  If the hex is 2m from corner to corner, then each side of the three resulting parallelograms is 1m long, and each parallelogram is 1 square meter in area; the entire hex is 3 square meters.  

3 x 39.37^2 = 4650 sq. in., or 32.3 sq. ft.

 

If the hex is 2m side to side, well, it's still easy to calculate total area using the above corner to corner method.  Hexes are shaped such that any hex that is 7 inches across side to side will be 8 inches across corner to corner.  Use any measurements you like, those are the proportions.  So a hex that's 78.74 inches (2m) side to side will be about 90 inches corner to corner.  

3 x 45.00^2 = 6075 sq. in., or 42.19 sq. ft.

 

So which is correct?  The BBB never says, even where "hex" is defined in the Glossary.  Illustrations on pages 143, 186 and 191 may be interpreted as defining hexes side to side, but the "Area Effect - Cone" illo on page 91 suggests otherwise; that cone is clearly using a hex corner, not a side, as its point of origin, so the character is facing that corner.  The Hero Games logo on the front of the book also argues for a corner to corner definition:  a generic hero is 2m tall for purposes of calculating Growth, Shrinking, etc.  The illustration in the logo shows the character in front of a hex balanced on one corner.  If the character were standing with feet together, instead of spread out so far, he'd be the same height as the hex.  For characters moving at low velocities, it may not make much difference in most games.  But when I build a headquarters, I need to know whether the hexes I pay for contain 32.3 or 42.19 square feet of space.

 

------

 

As I said, a related (not old school) thought: hexes are still in the game.  Its true that 6th edition uses "2m areas" for measuring most of its activity, but what is that on a map?  On a computer screen using Maptools?  The hexes are still there, just not mentioned.  its basically impossible to really play the game in person using undepicted 2m areas without any grid or indication to work from.  You'd have to continually use a measuring device to move around and get ranges etc.  Hexes are still there, just, shy I guess -- in the background, invisible until movement and combat actually takes place.

 

[dmjalund]

2 m side to side, as that is the direction you move through a hes, thus that is what determines movement

[Christopher R Taylor]

This one is actually from me, a few tactical call outs from a Champions campaign in days past that I posted.  In Strike Force, Allston listed a few of the moves that the team had as well as their shout outs to announce it or call for it; these are the ones the team in my campaign used:

 

Birdglass: throw/teleport a flier into a surface combining their momentum with the throw.
Blind Swing: start a haymaker, then teleport/throw/carry a victim into its path.
Disrupt: knock down/throw in the air/stun/blind a target so they are reduced DCV for special low-OCV attacks.
Fastball: Throw a slower melee ally at a target for extra impact damage.

Piledriver: fly straight down at the ground with target as a move through and at last moment teleport away, leaving target to hit
Sandwich: two attackers hit the same target at the same time from opposite sides to stack knockback and coordinate for stun.

Unleash Hell: Use AE attacks even though they will hit me.

[Duke Bushido]

I admit that I have likely made an assumption somewhere, as I don't see it spelled out anywhere but on the map, but 1e says this:

 

 

Quote

Hex: Standard area in the game, a six sided area 1 game inch and two real meters across.

 

 

 

 

2e says that same thing, and adds a bit more:

 

Quote

(25mm)

 

25mm is the accepted approximation of one actual inch: an inch is actually 25.4 mm; dropping 2/5 of a mm is reasonable enough to keep things clear, I think.

 

Now all the early editions have similar examples of how movement, Turn Mode, etc, work, and it's telling that all those examples from 1e to 3e show the movement as passing from "flat side to flat side" of the 1" hex, but still, that could just be for clarity.

 

 

Most of the Red October stuff drew from 4e, and I am going to assume that the original hex questions originated there as well, so I'm not going to wake up enough to search that, since it apparently doesn't have an answer.  If I find that I remember the question when I am more alert, I may look into 4e as well.

 

 

The definitive nail in the coffin of this question, though, comes from 5e.  It's probably somewhere in that massive book, too, but what springs to mind is the Hero System Resource Kit, which features a cut-and-tape "range template" you can lay on your 1" hex map to determine just how far away something is, regardless of angle (yes; most of us use tape measures or something of equal ubiquity and simplicity, but those things can't actually address the question at hand.  This range template, however, _can_ address it, as each hex it labeled (from 1" to 25").  If you open the resource kit (or use your template, if you happened to have cut it out and pasted it together), and lay a measuring device across it, those hexes are exactly 1" across the opposing flat sides (must as was the old Roses map packed in with 2e, 3e boxed, and lightly revised for this same resource kit).

 

 

So ultimately in terms of "how far do I move" and "how far can I shoot / does the cloud spread," I think it's safe to say this depends entirely on which measurement across the hexes yields a 1" measurement per hex.  As far as area goes, though, it would seem that the system has always defaulted to 1" across opposing sides as opposed to vertices, even before the original question was actually asked.

 

 

Still, it was interesting to see the math figuring area both ways.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

The Deathtrap.  Someone, sadly I dont have the name down, shared a deathtrap from a game they ran.  It reminds me of the stuff Dr Doom used to do in Byrne Fantastic Four issues:
 

------

 

I've only ever run a deathtrap scenario once, but it turned out so well I thought I had to share it.  >evil laugh<

 

First, a little background info on the trapped character in question.  He's a scientist who had had been doing a little 'recreational chemistry': he gained his powers as the result of an overdose of an 
experimental hallucinogen.  This overdose also give him a 'vision' of being in Hades and having conversations with various Greco-Roman gods.  When he awoke, he found that he was super-strong and could fly.  So he became Oraclese, research scientist and herald of the gods.  As you can probably guess, he's a little loony.

 

Anyway, Oraclese awoke (after being captured by agents with really big guns) inside some sort of container, packed in by balloons.  He couldn't move much without the risk of popping a few, but there was enough light that he could see that there were six different colored balloons: red, white, clear, pale blue, pale yellow, and black.  He realized after a couple of minutes that his air was running out, so he started popping balloons.  He popped (at random) a clear one and was greeted by a breath of fresh air.  Further movement and experimentation revealed that the white ones were full of helium (his voice jumped two full octaves), the yellow ones were full of chlorine (which was bad, because he takes double damage from chemical attacks), and the red ones were filled with some gas that floated but didn't seem to effect him otherwise.

 

He managed to get to the outer edge of his container and found that he was in a glass cylinder.  There was a wire attached from the top of his cylinder to the ceiling many meters above, and the ceiling was covered with pipework of some kind.

 

Anyway, it was at about this time that he popped a blue balloon, which gave him a face full of nitrous oxide, which set off a flashback.  (Aren't disads great fun?)  He thrashed about for a bit and broke several balloons, including (just as he came out of the trip) a black one.  He detected a scent of almonds (which meant cyanide gas) and deduced that he had to get out of that jar fast.  [Important thing to note here: he's now figured out what's in all the balloons except the red ones.]  So he broke the glass.  This is roughly the conversation that followed when he did it:

"Three things happen when you break the glass.  First, the glass shattters, which pops most of the rest of the ballons."

"Oh well, I can't do anything about that."

"Second, the wire from the top of your jar goes slack, and the pipes above you start putting out flame."

"Okay..."

"Third, several panels in the floor open, releasing hundreds of red balloons that begin to float toward the flames above."

The look of realization that crept across his face was just classic:

"Hydrogen...SH*T!" 
--

[There was a happy ending, though.  Oraclese used all his formidable speed and strength and did a full move-through on the ceiling.  He got through the pipework and through the masonry--barely--and found himself in a hallway.  Then the big boom went off and he got knocked several dozen meters down said hallway.  The blast knocked him silly.  Or sillier, depending on who you ask.]

[Christopher R Taylor]

Some of this I think was printed in different format later on, such as these ideas for how to build a speedster probably made it into Ultimate Speedster.

 

=========

 

CHARACTERISTICS: 

Ego:  The speedster's thought processes are so fast that mentalists have a hard time of "grabbing onto" the speedster's mind.

 

SKILLS:

Overall Skill Levels: Using Overall Skill Levels, you can take levels off a time chart for the purposes of determining "how short" it takes for super-speed. Overall Levels also can be applied towards OCV and DCV as well.

Skill Levels with Intelligence Skills: Reflects the fact that she thinks really fast.

Combat Skill Levels devoted to DCV: Call it "Why yes, I can dodge bullets."

Cramming, obviously

 

TALENTS:
Absolute time sense
Bump of direction (I'll run ahead and make sure we're going the right way!)
Eidetic Memory:"Hmm..I'll run across town and look that up again, just to be sure!"
Fast Draw: for that heroic level speedster (?!)
Lightning calculator (obvious)
Simulate Death: "My complete control over my hyper metabolism, allows me to slow my heartbeat to a crawl!"

Speed reading: [with 6th edition and rapid as a sense modifier, that probably works even better.]

Universal Translator: I just thought of this one. "Damn, I don't speak Chinese, Let me run to china inbetween sentences, to ask someone what you are saying!" (perhaps only with earth languages as a limitation")
Lightning Reflexes: This is obvious.

 

POWERS:

Absorption : how about a speedster that absorbs kinetic energy, hence that's why they move so fast. Put the points into flight/running.  

Aid: Here's an odd one, aid (or drain) to flight while running. Basically the wind currents from your fantastic speed add to your people in the area. (Use area effect, must be moving)

Change Environment: Create fantastic winds as you breeze past. OR change the currents of the stream/ocean.  (Flash often made winds, or caused tidal waves. Be careful your not using another power here though).   The speedster tricks like cleaning the house and writing the note are best handled by Change Environment, IMHO. [In 6th this is probably best done with AE Cosmetic Transform]

Clairsentience: Move around so fast, it's like seeing in two or three places at the same time! (use all senses, not through locked rooms, limited range)

Clinging, Only with feet (-1/2), Linked to running (-1/2) allows him to run up the side of buildings.  Often cheaper than buying Flight and avoids the turn mode but doesn't work on liquids, for example

Darkness: Clouds of dust as you run, breezing whirlwinds, and probably some others.

Duplication: well, this is an odd way of doing a speedster. Duplicate only lasts while moving. ("Damn, He moves so fast it looks like theres 4 of him!)

Energy Blast: Energy blast, defined as a punch.Good way to attack hand to hand and still end up in a different hex from your opponent. (How did he hit me from there?!) Also of course, Autofire, area effect selective target (wow, he ran past and punched everyone in the room).  Energy Blast vs. PD - Range Based on Strength:  This is throwing a hyper-accelerated object.

Enhanced Senses: Enhanced PER (for just being able to look around a lot faster than normal people) 

Entangle: Coils rapped around people, nets, wind tunnels or vortices preventing movement (combined with NND attacks that remove air), bags over the head, building steel cages around the person, building a small fort, whatever...

Flash: Dust, placing a blindfold on someone, putting a bag on their head, pulling their shirt over their head, many more..

Flash Defense: for simulating that he might be able to close his eyes so fast/turn his head/block the effect with an object so he can avoid the Flash

Flight: This is the best way to by truly super running. with running, you can't go up buildings (without clinging), Run across water, move across flying shards of glass on an exploding building (the flash again...i loved this one) and all those other cool tricks. Of course running doesn't have a turn mode, so you could buy both if you wanted.

Hand Attack with various advantages such as Autofire, area effect, etc

Images: Make after images of yourself across the room. Basically keep moving back and forth so fast, that it looks like theres two of you, or a trail of you.

Invisibility: ("Wow. He moves so fast I can't even see him")

Knockback resistance: just moving forward to counter being knocked back. 

Life Support: Well, in reality, if you COULD run at MACH 1+ you'd need to not have to breath, immune to heat.

Missile Deflection vs. Bullets and Shrapnel - OAF:  She uses something to bat bullets out of the air or just grab them and deflect or take.

Regeneration: "Good thing my super metabolism heals at such an extraordinary rate"

Running: useful for those gritter mood speedsters. sometimes you might add running and flight, just in case, to avoid those turn mode difficulties flight gives you. 

Stretching: LIke EB, just define it as actually moving to a place, and moving back.  Probably a better choice since then it triggers damage shields

Summon: "Wait here guys. I'll run out to the woods 75 miles away, and grab a forest animal at random" OR "We're lost in a desert with no one around, I'll run into town really quick and get someone to help us, then bring them back here."

Superleap: Another movement power, this can work fine. Legs that can run that fst, can surely jump, plus extra momentum: moving at 700 mph you're just going to go further with a jump

Swimming: Movement powers rule!

Telekinesis: "Watch, I can run over to that table, pour myself a drink, and bring it back here so fast, you'll never see me move!" Add area effect for even more creativity like scattering things around a room or throwing objects so fast nobody sees you do it.  Also useful for disarming everyone with AE.

Teleportation: Second only to flight in simulating amazing movement. Just like Invisibility, basically moving so fast no one saw you move. (No floating locations, not through locked rooms) "Damn, how'd he get out here, we left him in there".  Can also use as an attack to get things and bring them to you.  [Position Shift in 6th edition can simulate standing up instantly if knocked over]

Transform: There's always uses for transform. As others mentioned, changing someones clothes MIGHT be a transform, Transform full glass to empty glass (see telekinesis), empty gas tank to full gas tank: barren wall to painted wall, dirty kitchen to clean kitchen, Tall grass to mowed lawn...etc..

Tunneling: Fastest shovel in the west!

 

 

[IndianaJoe3]

If you've ever referred to your co-workers as DNPCs, you might be a Hero gamer.

[Opal]

I used to wear a t-shirt that said DNPC.

People often assumed it was from a computer company. It got the odd laugh at cons though.

[Christopher R Taylor]

And now a few teleport tricks, by various people on the boards and email list:

 

==========

 

DEFENSE
Teleport bullets/beams/etc. to somewhere else:  Deflect/Reflect or extra DCV

Rapid Random 'porting within your same hex:  Extra DCV

Even faster teleporting, but to the exact same place (your enemy can shoot at you, but you'll be out of phase): Desolidification

Beginning to teleport, then pausing mid-port: Desolidification

OFFENSE

Teleport move-by (Nightcrawler's multi-bamf): Area Effect Selective Hand-to-Hand Attack Linked to Teleport

Telexplode (the further you teleport, the nastier the explosion you leave in your wake):  EB Explosion Linked to Teleport
Teleport objects only to self: Teleport usable as an attack, ranged

Teleport small stuff at target (ink on the face, itching powder, oil on the ground,  Any of: Flash, NND, Blast, Entangle, Telekinesis etc.)

Teleport small stuff into target:  EB, RKA, potentially AVAD

Disintegrate (teleport others without reforming them): RKA, Body Drain, also potentially AVAD

Ranged grabbing (opening a small portal to put your hand through):  Indirect Stretching

Teleport Others: Teleport Usable as an Attack, position shift, ranged + Flash Direction Sense
Teleport that goes through another dimension, and anyone watching during the transition goes mad: Ego Attack Linked to Teleport

MOVEMENT

Long-Range Teleport: Non Combat Movement

Super-Long-Range Teleport: FTL

Extra-dimensional movement: Extra Dimensional Movement (plus possibly Usable By Others Nearby)

Momentum cancellation: Flight (Only to cancel momentum -1/2, linked), Dispel movement (with advantage to be any kind of movement)

Teleport without error: Linked Clairvoyance or Detect Safe Landing Point

Teleport fastball special (if you use your own teleport at the same time that I teleport you, you go a lot farther): Aid to any one teleport power

Tesseract teleport (reappear on a perpendicular plane): Position Shift

Shadow-walk ("Travel is so much more comfortable when done in one's armchair."): Extra Time

Teleport Pads: OIF

Place-swapping ("castleing"): Teleport UAO at range (only to self) & Teleport self (only to target) linked

Pocket universe: Base (+25 Impossible to get to) & EDM or Advanced Player Guide II "Extradimensional Space"

Teleport into cyberspace or other altered reality: Extra Dimensional Movement

Time-stop: EDM to group of dimensions where time is stopped or (more likely for GM to approve) Advanced Player Guide II "Time Stop"

 

MISCELLANEOUS

Reintegrate yourself without disintegrating first: Ranged duplication

Afterimage (it looks like you're still there even though you've teleported away: Linked images & invisibility

The Fly gene-splicing teleport: A good excuse for bizarre stats and powers, Transformation if used on others