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Jane's Superhumans


tinman

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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

Speaking for myself, I prefer more Iron Age style campaigns, which in fact involve military, law enforcement and paranormals of all sorts trying to act fairly intelligently and using their resources to the best of their abilities. I don't mind reading Silver Age stories, but I find it very difficult to play within the strictures of the Silver Age genre conventions.

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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

Then why are you even reading, much less posting, in the Champions forum? :stupid:

 

(That's a rhetorical question.)

 

You obviously haven't figured out that there's no such thing in an online discussion...

 

I'm reading and posting here because I like the superheroic genre.

 

I also happen to think the that superheroic genre can rise above the kind of silliness that includes modern, elite, highly-trained special-forces troops attacking the supervillain's base in a human-wave attack, screaming and firing their M-16s from the hip, as the villain's thugs gun them down from cover. Scenes like that are insulting to the intelligence of the reader and only serve to degrade the genre and the medium of superheroic comics, or in this case superheroic RPG.

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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

You obviously haven't figured out that there's no such thing in an online discussion...

 

I'm reading and posting here because I like the superheroic genre.

 

I also happen to think the that superheroic genre can rise above the kind of silliness that includes modern, elite, highly-trained special-forces troops attacking the supervillain's base in a human-wave attack, screaming and firing their M-16s from the hip, as the villain's thugs gun them down from cover. Scenes like that are insulting to the intelligence of the reader and only serve to degrade the genre and the medium of superheroic comics, or in this case superheroic RPG.

Well said, Kristopher. I only regret I can't give you rep yet.
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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

Speaking for myself, I prefer more Iron Age style campaigns, which in fact involve military, law enforcement and paranormals of all sorts trying to act fairly intelligently and using their resources to the best of their abilities. I don't mind reading Silver Age stories, but I find it very difficult to play within the strictures of the Silver Age genre conventions.

 

I agree, with a caveat...

 

I'm of a mixed opinion on the Iron Age. On one hand, I like the shift in the basic underlying mentality from one of fantasy to one of science fiction (if someone can remind me where I saw that analysis of the shift posted online, I'd appreciate it). The powers become the "what if?" of a setting, and things proceed fairly rationally and analytically from there. That's the good aspect of the Iron Age.

 

IMO, the bad aspect of the Iron Age was the juvenile, hipper-than-thou cynicism, gore, and titilation -- the festival of gratuitous violence, sex, corruption, and futility.

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Guest bblackmoor

Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

Presumably because he likes doing supers campaigns that *don't* involve lobotomizing all the participants.

 

The superhero genre is based upon a rather large set of blatantly unrealistic assumptions. If you remove those conventions -- if have people do what they would do in the real world, rather than what Kristopher describes as "acting like an idiot" -- it would not be, in any respect, a superhero game: neither Golden, Silver, nor Iron, nor any combination thereof. It would not be a Champions game, period, which is why it is questionable for someone to come into the Champions forum and insult the people who are playing that sort of game.

 

To be clear, I am not making any kind of judgements about the game Kristopher wants to play. I am pointing out that it is inappropriate for Kristopher to come to this forum and insult the kind of games Champions is used for.

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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

CPs in our game range from about 370 to 402 (350 + XP). My character Zl'f currently has the most XP at 52; but then she's the only PC who has been played continuously since we started our campaign back in 1992. We currently have eight PCs total' date=' but typically only 5 or 6 are playing at any given session.[/quote']

Ah, I see. All the campaigns I've been involved in were 4th Ed and based on 250 points or less. We received from 3-7 points per adventure, with 6 & 7 being for either exceptional playing or very long games. Our GMs didn't like handing out too much xp. (And yes, that irked me verily.) Over five years of playing, the character of mine with the most xp was 67. And while we rotated GMs and games, we gamed twice a week every week. (With summer bonus playings compensating for missed ones.)

 

PS: We tended to have five players and a GM. The most players we had at once was seven.

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Guest bblackmoor

Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

We received from 3-7 points per adventure' date=' with 6 & 7 being for either exceptional playing or very long games.... Over five years of playing, the character of mine with the most xp was 67.[/quote']

 

Interesting. In our local games, we typically hand out 3 or 4 XP per game session. Most of us play a variety of characters, so it takes a long time for anyone to get as much as 67 XP. Personally, I tend to reboot my characters when they get that many experience points.

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The superhero genre is based upon a rather large set of blatantly unrealistic assumptions. If you remove those conventions -- if have people do what they would do in the real world' date=' rather than what Kristopher describes as "acting like an idiot" -- it would not be, in any respect, a superhero game: neither Golden, Silver, nor Iron, nor any combination thereof. It would not be a Champions game, period, which is why the Champions forum is an incongruous place to discuss such a game.[/quote']

Good grief. I've discussed my "Champions" game on the Champions, Fantasy Hero, and Star Hero boards, as appropriate to the topics at hand. I'm still waiting for the jackbooted thugs to come haul me off for my badwrong fun.

 

What is congruent is that people participate in discussions where they have something to contribute to the topic. This certainly is the case here.

 

---------------

 

TOPIC: While I agree that the militaries would probably like to have super-types in their ranks, I think that a lot of the strengths of a military organization would work against utilizing super assets in any effective way.

 

Standardization and conformity are two strengths of militaries, and typical superpower setups don't support either. If superpowers are random and more-or-less unique, it's going to be difficult for a military to plan for their use. They'll be left to deal on a case-by-case basis, which is terrible for military planning.

 

At best, you'll end up with commando or ranger style teams, which isn't really the best way to exploit super assets. More likely, you won't have anyone in the command chain who is sufficiently knowledgeable about using super assets. I think it's more likely that you'd see the super-units ignored for what the commanders know works (standard military units), and then deployed only against enemy super-units -- no matter how poor the match up might be.

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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

The superhero genre is based upon a rather large set of blatantly unrealistic assumptions. If you remove those conventions -- if have people do what they would do in the real world, rather than what Kristopher describes as "acting like an idiot" -- it would not be, in any respect, a superhero game: neither Golden, Silver, nor Iron, nor any combination thereof. It would not be a Champions game, period, which is why it is questionable for someone to come into the Champions forum and insult the people who are playing that sort of game.

 

To be clear, I am not making any kind of judgements about the game Kristopher wants to play. I am pointing out that it is inappropriate for Kristopher to come to this forum and insult the kind of games Champions is used for.

 

In other words, it wouldn't be a superhero story if the soldiers didn't charge across open ground at the enemy? OK...

 

More importantly, one of two things is happening -- either you're mistaking my disdain for the idiotic as a general dislike of all the genre conventions of superheroic comics, or you're purposefully portraying my position as such.

 

To be clear, it is my opinion that the only crucial underlying "what ifs" of the genre are A) that superpowers exist and B) some people will use them to do bad things and/or stop bad things from happening / being done.

 

(There are also some fairly sound reasons that some of those people would use costumes to establish alternate identities under which to use their powers in public, especially for those who are using their powers to do bad things.)

 

There are serious differences in the other underlying assumptions of most comics, especially as one goes further afield in pursuit of material to examine. Take, for example, Golden Age DC comics VS Watchmen VS The Authority VS the various DC-based animated series.

 

EDIT: vs Aberrant.

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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

Ummm, no, the whole point about Aberrant's "elites dominating warfare" was that Aberrant elites were notably above starting Champions characters.

 

Notably.

 

Furthermore, they didn't take on established First World military forces. They went out and overthrew entire Third World nations. There's a reason the majority of elite warfare happened in places like Kashmir and the Congo.

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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

Well said, rep for this. THere are strengths and weaknesses to any era or Genre.

 

 

 

 

I agree, with a caveat...

 

I'm of a mixed opinion on the Iron Age. On one hand, I like the shift in the basic underlying mentality from one of fantasy to one of science fiction (if someone can remind me where I saw that analysis of the shift posted online, I'd appreciate it). The powers become the "what if?" of a setting, and things proceed fairly rationally and analytically from there. That's the good aspect of the Iron Age.

 

IMO, the bad aspect of the Iron Age was the juvenile, hipper-than-thou cynicism, gore, and titilation -- the festival of gratuitous violence, sex, corruption, and futility.

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Guest bblackmoor

Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

This thread kind of shoots down Aberrant's whoke"Elites dominating warfare" situation and makes Godlike's no real impact set up seem far more likely.

 

"No real impact" may be overstating it. Supers could be quite effective at guerilla tactics, just not (generally) at open warfare. It'd depend on the powers of the specific super, of course.

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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

To respectfully disagree that isn't the impression I received from the material. More that Elites just dominated warfare, period. Better, faster, cheaper, not good against tin pot armies useless against modern armies.

 

And this thread, as I understand it isn't just started characters but any characters short of Cosmic 1000 point types.

 

 

You don't need 1000 pt characters to crush the military. You merely need characters designed to take them on.

 

Most Champions characters are built to fight other Champions characters according to genre convention. IOW, they trade shots on the battlefield. This type of character plays into the standard military's strength and is least effective against them while "sniper" types who can attack safely from miles away and many exotic character designs are discouraged by most GMs.

 

Here are some character types who can crush regular militaries:

 

1) Long range teleporters

2) Desolidifiers

3) Subtle mentallists

4) Anyone with a reasonably broad VPP

5) People with Danger Sense and even remotely useful powers

6) Tunnellers

7) People with Extra Dimensional Traveller

8) People with properly designed Change Environment

9) Creative uses of Transform

10) Summoners

 

There are probably a few types I'm missing.

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Guest bblackmoor

Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

What is congruent is that people participate in discussions where they have something to contribute to the topic.

 

You are right, of course, which is why I went back and revised my post 14 minutes before you replied to it. You must type reeeaally slooowly. :)

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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

This thread kind of shoots down Aberrant's whoke"Elites dominating warfare" situation and makes Godlike's no real impact set up seem far more likely.

 

It's situational, and therefore campaign/character specific.

 

Superman from the 70s could have ended WWII in minutes.

 

WOlverine or the Punisher would probably be able to assassinate most leaders if necessary, but would have more problems wiping out an army.

 

 

Godzilla in the movies was LITERALLY invulnerable to conventional weapons. The writeups on the internet source page are nowhere near as tough. I'd give him something like 30 PD ED Hdnd armor, with at least 1/2 PD Dam red.

Probably regen too..

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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

Here are some character types who can crush regular militaries:

 

10) Summoners

Since I've played LotR: The Third Age on my PS2, I could imagine the oddity of a super summoning 100's of 75-100 point orc archers. They couldn't take on mechanized infantry, but they'd wreak havok on light infantry for a little while. Though, summoning a 1,000 point dragon might not be so nice.

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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

Interesting. In our local games' date=' we typically hand out 3 or 4 XP per game session. Most of us play a variety of characters, so it takes a long time for anyone to get as much as 67 XP. Personally, I tend to reboot my characters when they get that many experience points.[/quote']

I wish we had been given even 3 per session. It was annoying to game every week for 4-8 weeks (usually from 5 or 6 p.m. until 1-2 a.m.) and then be given generally from 3-5 points for all that we did.

 

I am in a Fantasy Hero game where I was shocked when the GM handed me 3 xp for our first game. I was excited. Though, he hasn't given me any xp since. :( (Granted, we've only gotten together 3-4 times total.)

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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

Since I've played LotR: The Third Age on my PS2' date=' I could imagine the oddity of a super summoning 100's of 75-100 point orc archers. They couldn't take on mechanized infantry, but they'd wreak havok on light infantry for a little while. Though, summoning a 1,000 point dragon might not be so nice.[/quote']

 

 

Actually, a dragon could be taken down eventually with enough artillery and airstrikes. It could do a lot of damage, but it's too slow to fight a modern military. What would be more dangerous would be summoning a few ghosts who can desolidify into tanks and planes and wipe out the crews wholesale.

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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

Since I've played LotR: The Third Age on my PS2' date=' I could imagine the oddity of a super summoning 100's of 75-100 point orc archers. They couldn't take on mechanized infantry, but they'd wreak havok on light infantry for a little while. Though, summoning a 1,000 point dragon might not be so nice.[/quote']

 

 

Depending on the writeup, dragons might be easier! BIG targets for missiles and guns. ;) Though of course, on 1000 points they might be getting Godzilla. :(

 

Now summoning a couple fire elementals inside a city...

 

Earth elementals would be nasty against military, if they were used intelligently.

 

SUmmon Sucubi. make films. Take over country. Repeat as needed.

 

:P

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Re: Jane's Superhumans

 

you beat me to it, and yeah, Ghosts would be Devastating

 

Actually' date=' a dragon could be taken down eventually with enough artillery and airstrikes. It could do a lot of damage, but it's too slow to fight a modern military. What would be more dangerous would be summoning a few ghosts who can desolidify into tanks and planes and wipe out the crews wholesale.[/quote']
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