Hero System women are all insanely attractive

[starblaze]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

When I saw the thread title I thought to myself "Well true, Tina is a babe, but I didn't think there were any other women working for HERO..."

 

 

I tend to put at least a few points into COM on any character I make (or buy it down by a few if appropriate for the character history), male or female. I'm not overly interested in playing plain characters. I'm plain every day of the week. What I am every day of the week isn't what I want to do for fun.

 

Could we see a pic of Tina? You got me all curious.

[archermoo]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

Could we see a pic of Tina? You got me all curious.

 

Link to the DDC stuff thread.

 

The post with several pics including Tina are about 3/4 of the way down (post #45).

[Dust Raven]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

It is reversed now, many artists are using the same techniques to draw their pretty characters and as a result everybody is starting to look the same and that is boring. You might not think it but pretty can be pretty boring.

I don't want comics to be filled up by ugly people I want more individuality among the faces. In the old comics people looked much more different.

Let me give you example: Astro city is a comic book where many of the characters have different faces but still remain on the un-ugly side.

How true. But if it's gonna be boring anyway, might as well have some eye candy!

 

But I do agree, I'd rather have a cast of individuals with average faces than a cast of cloned super-models in the whatever story I'm reading/watching.

 

But then again, a cast of individuals with super-model faces wouldn't hurt.

[Trencher]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

Offcourse having average faced persons in the story helps making the pretty people look good.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

Offcourse having average faced persons in the story helps making the pretty people look good.

We don't need them in the story, we have them in reality.

[Katherine]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

Yes, we're all incredibly good looking and don't you forget it.

 

Wait...you're talking about CHARACTERS. Sorry, never mind.

[jursamaj]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

Speaking as an artist and a woman' date=' normally I would have a snit about how the figure is always rendered with current beauty aesthetics in mind and no variation. [i']But in the comics[/i] most people are average to really good looking, with the only ugly characters being ugly because it's part of their concept or history. So it makes sense the chicks have 16" waists and DD breasts, and the men are all 6'6" and ripped. That's just the genre, and that's why it's so cheap to buy up your COM.

 

And I also tend to play characters that are cute or good looking (without being crazy good looking), but that's because it's fun to be something you're not for a few hours on the weekend. I can't fly, but my Champions character can, dammit.

 

If I wanted to play ugly, I'd play in a different system.

 

It's not just that it makes sense for the Super genre (and in all young-male driven fields). It's also a game balance issue. Things that are very useful in the game cost more. And honestly, in terms of game benefit, COM is a waste of time. That's why its so cheap.

 

As for different from Real Life: I'm not a wizard in real life, nor a fighter, nor a crack shot with a laser. I may play any of those in a game, but not all of them in almost every game. Yet, as the original post mentioned, nearly every character in every game is above average in looks, especially the women.

[tomd1969]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

How many of your male characters are fat guys in old t-shirts who need a bath' date=' deoderant, a haircut and a shave?[/quote']

 

Have we met somewhere? I could have sworn you were describing me.... or my twin brother... yeah, that's it.

[CorPse]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

It's funny, my mind has really been warped by living in Hollywood. I now expect people to be above average to utterly hot. When I go home, or take a trip almost anywhere, part of me thinks - why is everyone here so average? And then I remember...

 

Like the typical guy, I thought Hollywood would be chock full of chicks with big plastic boobs. And while you can certainly still find those sorts of women here, what stunned me was how different all of the insanely hot women here look. If you can think of any attractive woman you've ever seen in your life, you can bet her somehow hotter counterpart will eventually be standing in front of at the check out line.

 

The other funny thing is that if you see a really attractive woman out here that reminds you of an actress or model, then it's probably them. I had this experience with Denise Richards last weekend at a Whole Foods here in LA. She was getting her child out of her black Mercedes... and even though she wasn't wearing any make-up and has probably ganged a pound or two from her new baby, I thought, damn, Denise Richards is an attractive woman.

 

Anyway, all of the my long term characters have been pretty ugly but with (imo) compelling personalities. My character de plume, CorPse, had a COM of 0 and he smelled pretty damn bad, too. My favorite D&D character, and now we are getting in the way-back machine, was a hideously overweight and incompotent 'trader' that turned out to be an assassin.

 

But maybe this is a case of you are only interested in being something you're not. I'm not overweight and I'm not a smelly dead guy with bits of me falling of all the time. (Although my recent bout with food poisoning did remind me of how mortal we all are.)

 

Well, that's my self-indulgent $0.02.

 

Rouge Love & Lipstick Kisses,

CorPse

[Weird Ollie]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

You're so right that most Hero System women are hot. You only need to keep an eye on the side bar art while posting to see that this is true. (Who's the Scottish red-head with the claymore? Who's that girl that looks like Princess Jasmine meets Shadowrun?) But I was disappointed in the ladies of "DEMON: Servants of Darkness" (all 2 of them). Demoiselle Nocturne is listed as having a COM of 16, but the illustration of her dispels this belief. Cloaca(unfortunate name, the term also refers to a shark's reproductive parts) actually has an unmodified COM of 10. I know that DEMON is made up of misfits and outcasts, and maybe it would have been too cliche to have a coven of gorgeous satanic witches, but when compared to the rest of the Champions universe, the ladies of DEMON seem pretty darn doggie-dog...

[Sean Waters]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

Look attractive, generally treated better by society. Get superpowers become a hero.

 

Look unattractive, shunned by society. Get superpowers, become a villain.

 

Ridiculous oversimplification, but it may explain a trend.

 

Note also used 'attractiveness': some people can be theoretically not very good loking, but can be attractive and popular. Mind you, interestingly, men seem to get away with this more than women. I can think of far more actors than actresses who are not 'good looking' but are considered attractive/popular.

 

So maybe it isn't just roleplayers....

 

Also, in my little world, people subconsciously have a lot of say over how their powers manifest, so being above average good looking could well be a manifestation of the superpowers.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

Hmm. I also tend to increase INT by a few points for almost all my characters. I have no idea my male and female characters have different average INT and, frankly, I'm scared to look....

[MikeyMitchell]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

(Who's the Scottish red-head with the claymore? Who's that girl that looks like Princess Jasmine meets Shadowrun?)

The hot redhead is Cateran. You can find her writeup in CKC. She's an immortal mutant who's been around for about 350 years. She also stands 6'4" tall, so you'd have to be into tall women...Don't know who the other one is (primarily because I don't know who you're referring to). If it's the one with the blue outfit and the blue glowing choker, it's Sapphire of the Champions. Otherwise, I don't know.

[susandwyer]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

Why thank you! I know, it was hard to keep up with some people here but they're not here any more and only the truely beautiful ones are left. Nice to type you all here ladies!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whaddya mean it wasn't a personal comment? We are beautiful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, I see...

[CorPse]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

Referring to female characters in the DEMON sourcebook... Cloaca (unfortunate name' date=' the term also refers to a shark's reproductive parts) actually has an unmodified COM of 10. [/quote']

 

Oh, Ollie, see then I had to look - and it was worse than I thought.

 

The definition of the word CLOACA from the fine folks at dictionary.com:

 

1. A sewer or latrine.

2. The common cavity into which the intestinal, genital, and urinary tracts open in vertebrates such as fish, reptiles, birds, and some primitive mammals.

3. The posterior part of the intestinal tract in various invertebrates.

 

It comes from the Latin for sewer/canal.

 

Look on the bright side... maybe this is some sort of subtle character note?

 

I tease, but Allen is a HeroGod ( ) So as far as I'm concerned he can name a character Colostomy Boy and I'll still buy the book.

 

'What do you have in your Bag of Tricks for me this time Colostomy Boy?'

 

Rest In Peace,

CorPse

[Phil]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

I have to say, this thread has only added to my firm conviction that COM has no place in any mature roleplaying game. Ooh, slightly trollish. OK, I'll rephrase that.

 

What's the value in making people pay for good looks, when looks are nothing more than a roleplaying hook. Let PCs be as gorgeous or as ugly as they want. After all, comic book characters are. You dont think that Stan Lee sits down and think... hmmm, Johnny Storm is better looking than Reed Richards, so I've got a few extra points to spend on Reed's KS?

 

Dont have any problem with attractive PCs. Just have a problem with arbitrary and pointless scales. It simply panders to immature players ("Hey dudes, look how hot my chick is!"). Tell them they can all be as gorgeous as they want and the novelty will soon fade.

 

Of course, the other reason I take this position is that my COM is off the scale, and feel that it's unfairly penalising other PCs in this crazy Real World game we're all playing.

[Tech]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

My older brother put it this way:

 

"The better genetics in superpowered individuals generally makes them better looking people (stronger, more agile, etc.)."

 

Works for me.

[Ehreval]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

I agree. And it is particularly evident in the more modern comics I think. Does anybody remember the old fusion champion’s book? All the women there looked alike in the face except for the hair.

The only comic book artist that regularly draws women with varied faces are John Byrne.

 

And the recent Wonder Woman artist who couldn't manage to make her look like the same person from panel to panel.

 

-- Ehreval

[yamamura]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

The ugliest woman I have ever played was semi-based on a Wild Card character and certain creatures in Fritz Leiber universe, she was totally invisible but her skeleton. Now maybe she would be a total knockout if she wasn't so transparent, but she never did anything to pass as a normal person, generally she wore a a full mask and cloak to hide her appearance.

 

G

[TheEmerged]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

The NeoChampions campaign has a female NPC with a normal COM of 30 and a possible COM of 60 (costs END), and a male NPC with a normal COM of 0 with potential scores of +/- 20, +/- 40, and +/- 60 depending on his activation roll. I try to be equal-opportunity with these things

[Jhamin]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

I think a high Com is just a character trait. Kind of like a 12 Int on a non-brain character is kind of fun but doesn't contribute much to the play.

 

A ludicrous Com on the other hand just gets weird.

 

A few weeks ago I dug out my 4th edition copy of Golden Age Champions when the PCs got stuck in some temporal paradoxes. They ended up clashing with half the German Ubermench in America before the night was over.

All in all, they cleaned house until Germania showed up & knocked Hex's character on her butt. My two female players got a funny look when all the male NPCs looked at her 50 Com (2.5x NCM) and started missing actions staring, but the male player didn't see anything wrong with it.

[Hex]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

My two female players got a funny look when all the male NPCs looked at her 50 Com (2.5x NCM) and started missing actions staring' date=' but the male player didn't see anything wrong with it. [/quote']

 

 

It was just unexpected, that's all.

[Citizen Keen]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

I have a house rule that for PCs, you can sell of COM at 1 point per point of COM. So, an 8 COM gives you two points to spend. That's another Knowledge Skill. Man, do I live in an ugly world!

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

I have a house rule that for PCs' date=' you can sell of COM at 1 point per point of COM. So, an 8 COM gives you two points to spend. That's another Knowledge Skill. Man, do I live in an ugly world![/quote']

There seem to be two approaches. Either use rounding points to buy COM, or sell off COM to round.

 

As far as the source material goes, look at Callisto when she first appears in X-Men. Then look at Excalibur. She's now drawn as gorgeous (ignoring the tentacles, and they don't detract from her facial features at all), and she was definitely "less than pretty" when she first appeared. Spending xp to raise COM is clearly justified in Supers campaigns - the artists just gradually dreaw them better looking.

 

This isn't a uniquely femal issue - look at Golden Age Superman, or the Ditko issues of Spider Man and compare to Superman/Peter Parker in later years.

[Just A Guy Name]

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

 

I have a house rule that for PCs' date=' you can sell of COM at 1 point per point of COM. So, an 8 COM gives you two points to spend. That's another Knowledge Skill. Man, do I live in an ugly world![/quote']I don't like COM as a stat at all, but prefer to treat attractiveness as a Perk. I kind of like your idea, though... it looks like it would have a normalizing effect overall.