jackalope Posted August 22, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! Battle Bear: A hyper-intelligent circus bear who built himself a battlesuit. Since he couldn't talk' date=' the suit's AI would translate his thoughts for him, but the AI would only refer to him in the third person, and generally sounded either bored or exasperated. It would also translate inappropriate thoughts with a certain glee.[/quote'] That's not lame, that's awesome! I love that concept. I would totally okay that if a player brought it to me, given a good enough explanation as to how a bear got so smart. And got thumbs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John T Posted August 22, 2004 Report Share Posted August 22, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! The "silliest" character I ever had for Champions (in a Toon-like game) was Super Mister Potatohead. He was a flying Brick... err, potato... with something like a 30- Disguise Roll. New lips, new eyes, etc. and voila, unrecognizeable. These days, I'd probably be even sillier and build him with Shapechange, Based on Skill Roll (no lim. value for such a high skill, though). John T Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haerandir Posted August 22, 2004 Report Share Posted August 22, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! That's not lame' date=' that's awesome! I love that concept. I would totally okay that if a player brought it to me, given a good enough explanation as to how a bear got so smart. And got thumbs.[/quote'] Um... I'm afraid he was a mutant. Actually, there's no evidence that his thumb situation was ever addressed. He did have a follower who ran his corporation for him (he was rich like Tony Stark, you see, but he couldn't actually own anything, since he was a bear). Maybe he had more people to do his soldering for him. Here's the 4th edition writeup we used during his brief stint in our campaign. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gewing Posted August 22, 2004 Report Share Posted August 22, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! I just remembered... In a somewhat silly, high powered more or less NON SUPERS game... I tried to run Miowara Tomokato. AKA Samurai Cat. If you have read any of the comics, you will understand why he had something like a 23 dex and 12 skill levels with sword... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Archer Posted August 22, 2004 Report Share Posted August 22, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! The guy who played Ninja Beaver (Craig) moved to Richmond to go to school, along with a few others who gamed at White Heron (I never did: I was living in Fullerton, CA at the time). Ninja Beaver was one of the founding members of one of the first super teams they played, the Renegades. I met some mutual friends of Craig's when I started gaming with them at H.D. Oliver's Funeral Apartments, and eventually I was spending weekends in Richmond, hanging out and gaming (I lived in Norfolk then; I live in Portsmouth now). By the time I started gaming with them up in Richmond, though, Ninja Beaver was mainly a comic-relief NPC. I don't think I ever saw Craig really play him. Small world, eh? Wow, very small. I never played in the Funeral games, did all mine at the Heron. In fact, for the last two years or so, I ran the place on week ends. Randy'd left and the cops where letting it die on the vine. Once they closed the place down, mostly everyone moved to my place. All the character I listed were from that time frame, from about 1982 when I started playing Champions with Jody until what, 1989? Just for fun: Hello Randy (Chameleon), Jody (Captain New Jersey), Bob (Bud Man), Bobby (Voltage), Jim (Steeler), Craig (Ninja Beaver), Larry (Silar), Bill (Daimon), JJ (War Eagle), Duwood (Zorro), Eric Curtis (Stryker), Rich (Star Knight), Dan (Crusader), Troy (Darkwing), Rene (Hellcat) and Mark (Sarge). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuckg Posted August 22, 2004 Report Share Posted August 22, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! I just remembered... In a somewhat silly, high powered more or less NON SUPERS game... I tried to run Miowara Tomokato. AKA Samurai Cat. If you have read any of the comics, you will understand why he had something like a 23 dex and 12 skill levels with sword... Talk about under-statting! (Seriously, Tomokato's unleashed Dragon-Ball-sized ass-whuppings on entire nations. As his own books state, "The Dark Side of Absurdity" makes you omnipotent so long as the audience is entertained.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gewing Posted August 23, 2004 Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! Thinking about it, he may well have had 28-33 dex. It was... Ludicrous. I once asked the GM, Completely appropriately for the character, imo, what the penalty to hit would be to flense someone off of their bones. I was... under stress. I couldn't figure out how to write up the ability he demonstrated on the "Death Star" Talk about under-statting! (Seriously, Tomokato's unleashed Dragon-Ball-sized ass-whuppings on entire nations. As his own books state, "The Dark Side of Absurdity" makes you omnipotent so long as the audience is entertained.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KawangaKid Posted August 23, 2004 Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! There was a monk... but he had an upside down face. A brain in a jar that controlled a robot suit of armor with devastating HKA blades based on a lawnmower. A guy who got earth manipulation powers from eating a radioactive gopher (because gophers, you know, tunnel...) Beer-kinesis (actually quite well built) - beer generation and projection powers. Hand Man. One hand the size of a person... which was dressed up and acted as a decoy for the owner (ventriloquism, and all). Because, you know, hits to the hand do half stun and body. "I let my fingers do the walking..." I remember being told some of these. I think the villain joined in in killing upside-down face guy, right? The next is... BDM (Bladed Death Machine)? Radioactive Gopher? Okay... I don't know that one. Beer-kinesis. Heh... I know him. A trusted member of the Associates. Hand Man. Argh... A shame I never got to build... The Terrible Were-leaf! ("Even a man who says his prayers by night... may become a were-leaf when the moon is full and bright!") Dr. Follicle... a man with the power to make a single strand of invulnerable hair elongate and wrap around him... making him a fearsome, indestructible, and incredibly clumsy plague on crime... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thrakazog Posted August 23, 2004 Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! For some reason, the bear in the battlesuit makes me think of the original Master of Orion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted August 23, 2004 Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! I tended to lay it straight. However there was the woman with the bunny ears, large fangs and cloak. Yup you got it, Thumper the Vampire Bunny woman. Lame one to someone else ? Well I did sick a butterfly on someone. They were humanoid butterflies but close to normal butterfly size. With str 80. And an autofire punch. My friend was not impressed. But I liked it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom McCarthy Posted August 23, 2004 Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! Hmm, well. Not completely useless, but definitely in the "I can't believe..." category. A telepathic cat with a small pack of telepathic kitten DNPCs. Very intense player who stirred up inter-character and inter-player conflict. So the other heroes put the kittens in a sack... A blue collar guy who won the lottery, got drunk, ran someone down, and sought redemption by raising the dead guy's kid as his ward while he fought crime as Hardhat. Illustrations of the 'blue collar' power armour, while earnest, did not inspire me. A living shadow (pretty playable really) whose weapon was a two-dimensional shadow yoyo. Sorry, I've never been impressed by combat yoyos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PoorWandering 1 Posted August 23, 2004 Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! Aw, no Amazing Yo-Yo man for you then i take it? Re: The AY-YM i almost got the PS:Classical Cello past the GM, almost.... Drat! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Misery Lad Posted August 23, 2004 Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! Okay. I think I've got one. Years ago, I played a character called Jam. He was a guy working in a stereo equipment manufacturing plant when he was caught in an unforeseen explosive accident of cosmic proportions. He awoke in the hospital, a changed man. Getting up to look in the mirror, he found that, where once he'd had hands, there were now portable speakers. Where once a human head had sat upon his shoulders, there was now only a boom-box. Jam had the power to launch sonic blasts from his speakers and an entangle from the cassette tape stuck in his player. There was, of course, the requisite Radio Hearing (not to communicate, just to dance to) and he could tune other people out with blasts of static when he didn't want to hear whatever they were saying. The best part, however, was the fact that he could only speak in rhyming street rap. I, of course, had no talent for the process but another player in the game was brilliant (In a Whose Line Is It Anyway kind of fashion) at it. So, during games, we always sat next to each other and I would designate the actions of the character and whenever he needed to talk, the other player would take over. Consider the fact that I'm black without a shred of "street" in me and that the other player was as white as white gets and tell me how sad that picture must have been. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoctorItron Posted August 24, 2004 Report Share Posted August 24, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! Cars have designated drivers and baseball has designated hitters. Now RPGs have designated rappers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shocker Posted August 24, 2004 Report Share Posted August 24, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! I was once exposed to a character named Captain Crunch. He was a flying brick with a ring that transformed him from normal to hero ID while making crunch crunch crunch noises. Fortunately most of the people I have gamed with have come up with pretty good character ideas. It was the players themselves who were lame. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobCRogers Posted August 24, 2004 Report Share Posted August 24, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! I sometimes brought in an NPC hero named Vehicle. The basic concept was that an alien spacecraft had landed on an SUV (we called them "jeeps" back then), crushing it and its driver. Dismayed, the aliens worked quickly to fix what they'd done. Not realizing that the jeep and the driver were seperate things, they made them completely integrated--the poor driver could never leave the jeep again, but could control it as if it were part of his own body. And it had guns for some unknown reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hawkfu Posted August 24, 2004 Report Share Posted August 24, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! Mold Man! A player in my group from way, way back made Mold Man. Human sized animated mold that fought crime. A college student's refrigerator experiment gone way wrong, Mold Man could project mold and had a slight area effect nnd mold stink damage shield. I hated Mold Man. That same player created Dinosaurian - a man who could assume the form of several dinosaurs. Full, actual sized dinosaurs... But my favorite was Dreams! He was the master of the dream realm, and he could induce your worst nightmares or trap you in your own dream. Yes, all very useful, except that he was always in the "dream realm". Really hard to get him in the game... "So Dreams, what are you doing?" "I'm floating in the dream realm." "Er, okay..." I ended up creating Nightmare as a villain and killing Dreams. Still one of the most satisfying things I have ever run. Hawkfu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
st barbara Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! To Äcroyear" Don't knock paper powers ! If you haven't seen it check out the "Read Or Die!"anime. Ägent Paper"is a gal not to be messed with ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teh bunneh Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! "Hand Grenade Boy" had no powers. He was just a mentally unstable guy who carried a hand grenade. Whenever a fight broke out, he pulled the pin and threatened to throw the grenade. The player wanted to give him a PRE of like 70, because he figured everyone would be afraid of this unstable guy and his grenade. I tried to convince him that bad guys with 30 PD/ED wouldn't be afraid of a single grenade, but he would not be deterred. He wasn't invited back. Bill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supreme Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! Worst Ever: I don't remember the name, though he probably never had one. The player wasn't too big on names or even costumes. He played Champions as if it were Car Wars. The character was a vampire gadget-archer with light and darkness powers. The capper? He actually tried to put all of that in an Elemental Control. I said, "pick one -- and not the vampire." He went with the gadget archer, I suspect, so that he could take -1 for OAF on all of his powers. He killed three agents (who weren't even evil) by firing an explosive arrow at them when they were getting away on a skiff in a swamp. They were knocked, the boat was in pieces, and they drowned. "Why the HELL didn't you just shoot an arrow into the propeller?!?" The player was a nice guy and would play ball once you explained things to him. You just had to explain more to him than the other players. I think that Anime/Manga fans and Classic American Comic Book Superhero fans just don't mix all that well. The morality and outlook are just too different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
levi Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! I have not laughed so hard while reading a Thread ever! But let's turn things around here. Who was the worst GM you ever had? Mine was about 10 years ago, I was new to the group and one of the regular players decided he would like to simultaneously run a 2nd Edition D&D Campaign (Tuesday nights) and a 4th Ed Champions Campaign (Thursday nights). The D&D Games were so awful that the players collectively tried everything we could to kill off our characters. DM: "You walk into a room with a floor of sand. You see something moving in the sand out of the corner of your eye." Player: "Well then, being exhausted from just fighting Tiamat with my Lvl 5 Bard, I take off all of my gear and leave it outside the room. Close the door and take a nap." of course he never would kill us and if it looked like we might actually die in a fight, we would fall through a secret wall and into a VAT of Healing Potion. Why Tiamat kept so many of these handy secret vats lying around for adventurers to go falling into was beyond me. The Champions games were even worse. He would actually encourage the players to fight amongst themselves by having NPCs egg them on, "You don't have to take orders from him Cosmic Surfer! Show him who's boss!" And the Villains were all invulnerable madmen bent on destroying the planet. Not a dime store crook amongst them. One guy was an insane Chemist named Dr. Insanotron (who had no robotics/cybernetics) and stood us all off with a small, glass test tube full of insano-juice which he said would annihilate the city. When he tired of us trying to talk him down, he dropped the tube and our team Speedster (instead of rushing up to catch the tube before it could shatter and release the Insano-juice) began a Non-Combat Move for Cover. NC this guy was able to cover 100 miles in a second. The GM described the Speedster as standing at the edge of this crater 100 miles radius and 100 miles deep with Dr. Insanotron laughing, unscathed, at the center and the rest of the team were smoking, charred heroes (but still alive, even though we prayed for death). Shortly thereafter when we all stopped playing in his games (something always seemed to come up) he threw an "I'm sick of these games and I'm selling all of my stuff" fit and never played again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bblackmoor Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! He killed three agents (who weren't even evil) by firing an explosive arrow at them when they were getting away on a skiff in a swamp. They were knocked' date=' the boat was in pieces, and they drowned. "Why the HELL didn't you just shoot an arrow into the propeller?!?"[/quote'] Sound to me like he didn't kill the agents: the GM did. In that player's place, I would not have expected agents to all drown when their swamp-boat is blown up, either. For one thing, it's a swamp, not an ocean: I'd be more worried about alligators and snakes than drowning. For another thing, I would expect the GM to mention the fact that the guys who were getting away are now sinking silently into the muck and need to be rescued, rather than simply declaring them to have drowned as a fait accompli. As described, the character's behavior doesn't sound particularly irresponsible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrosshairCollie Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! "I'm sick of these games and I'm selling all of my stuff" What a tragedy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrosshairCollie Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! The player was a nice guy and would play ball once you explained things to him. You just had to explain more to him than the other players. I think that Anime/Manga fans and Classic American Comic Book Superhero fans just don't mix all that well. The morality and outlook are just too different. I half agree with this, as I have two players who are big into anime to the point where it scares me. One of them actually grasps that I don't like 99 percent of anime, and therefore doesn't try anime stunts or anime-inspired characters in my game. The other one doesn't quite get that ... though I confess to getting a certain thrill when he tries to pull a 'Goku move' and it blows up in his face. "But that wouldn't happen to (insert anime character here he's emulating)!" "No, it wouldn't. But you're not him, he's not in this world, this world is not his show. So it did happen to you." I also suffer significant frustration when he tells me he's going to do something 'just like (insert show here)' and I have to ask him what that means, and we get a conversation like this ... "Okay ... I'm gonna do Ubidubi's signature move from UberMunchkin Anime Delta." "And what's that?" "Dude, you've never seen UberMunchkin? Man, it's awesome, it's got this ..." (five minutes pass) "... and then Goonicus does ..." "I meant, what's the maneuver?" "He runs up the wall, across the ceiling, then holds his sword straight down and drops frop the ceiling point first! It's, like, the coolest thing ever!" "You got Clinging?" "Uh ... no." "Then you can't do it." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParitySoul Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! Worst Champions character I've GMed must be the Half Rakshasa/Half Chinese Dragon, raised by a clan of ninjas, later abducted by an evil megacorp who turned him into a cyborg, thus awakening his latent psionic powers. His newfound powers allowed him to mind-contol the leaders of the evil corp, giving him access to vast wealth and an host of followers. This shapeshifting, spellcasting, cybernetic, psionic, billionnaire martial artist was the most misshapen collection of inefficient, badly assoted powers I've ever seen. The player got the boot halfway through session #1, when he tried to torture a petty criminal the group had captured. Months later, I met the player again. He claimed to be gaming regularly with a group (I think he lied about that), to have taken his character from 250 to over 2000 points ("Champions is unsuitable to play under a thousand points anyway", he said) and to have a 200-points Cosmic Power Pool "for his dragon breath". Hey! I know this type of player! Let see: Wanted to play...get this: A day walking vampire, martial arts trained in ryu-like attacks, who was psionic (vamps are right?) who could control people and machines, rides a motercycle all the time, pratices a forbiden dark magic, hords info from others...even a risk to life, katana weilding, teleporting, cybernetic hacker, pan asian wuxia yakuza member turned rogue agent...with Gambit like powers and accent. (Or some variation there off.) And EVERY time, his character would be some variation of this. He wouldn't help the other players, would walk away when actions started to keep alive, mutilated point totals to get as much as he could to get some variation of above. Oh boy. Then..suddenly every so often he would do something to help the part. Mostly to serve his cause. But it was so rare it startled us. Otherwise, business as usual. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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