Super Origins

[Robyn]

Re: Super Origins

 

No. Not in continuity.

 

They retconned it?

[Wanderer]

Re: Super Origins

 

I think it's time to drop em.

 

OK. I think my point is abundantly clear by now, anyway

 

Daredevil did indeed battle the Hulk. He hit him in every nerve cluster possible... twice. Daredevil even went so far as to drive a bus into the Hulk. All it got him was broken and battered. The Hulk thrashed the Man Without Fear to within an inch of his life.

 

For once, things go as logic dictates they would

 

However, this (and all DC/Marvel cross-overs) is seen as being outside of a character's continuity. It never happened. (thank god)

 

Sadly, this is not entirely true, since I do believe that JLA vs. Avengers is continuity (at least for DC; it is heavily referenced in the last CSA story arc), which exposes this Thor fan to the very painful canonicity of Kal-el (barely) beating down Thor , with Supes not taking a beating from the supposed magical hammer and its equally magical energy blasts, no less

 

You need to be more careful which stories you consider character canon. (or do you believe that Wolverine can beat up Lobo too?)

 

Well, maybe Young (Slo-)Lobo he was kinda depowered and genetically sick

 

Often this is EXACTLY what happens. It's boringly apparent that you've never really read the Batman lines of books and that your personal convictions totally cloud the truth about the actual character.

 

Point taken. It still stands that Bats beating WW in no-holds-barred sparring match looks quite silly, just like the Hulk bit. I may concede a slight advantage for her having been blinded, but still.... it sounds more like some mysoginistic WW fanfic

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Super Origins

 

 

Point taken. It still stands that Bats beating WW in no-holds-barred sparring match looks quite silly, just like the Hulk bit. I may concede a slight advantage for her having been blinded, but still.... it sounds more like some mysoginistic WW fanfic

 

As I remmeber the scene bats didn't win the fight, just landed a flying side that knocked her down.

[Lucius]

Super Origins

 

Then there are specific ability bans like time travel, but that's not what this thread is about.

 

 

It might be relevant. If the origin INVOLVES time travel, even if the character doesn't have a time travel power ("I came from the future, and I can't go back - uh, forward - because my time machine broke down and the parts to fix it won't be available for a couple of centuries....") would you object to that too?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

 

Bitten by a radioactive palindromedary

[GrooveD70]

Re: Super Origins

 

OK. I think my point is abundantly clear by now' date=' anyway [/quote']

Actually you have made your opinion clear, but to me it doesn't seem to really have a solid point to it.

 

There are examples of bad writing in the decades of material for any major superhero. It doesn't break the charactor.

[GrooveD70]

Re: Super Origins

 

Sadly, this is not entirely true, since I do believe that JLA vs. Avengers is continuity (at least for DC; it is heavily referenced in the last CSA story arc), which exposes this Thor fan to the very painful canonicity of Kal-el (barely) beating down Thor , with Supes not taking a beating from the supposed magical hammer and its equally magical energy blasts, no less

 

This kind of thinking is bizaar to me. I love Batman, Superman, and Thor. When I read this story I didn't feel that Supe's magic vulnerability meant that Thor should win hands down. Anything could of happened. Magic doesn't = Supes gets his arse kicked. It means he could get his arse kicked. Who want's to read a story where A always equals B equals C. To me that is unrealistic. Real life is never that black and white.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Super Origins

 

As I remmeber the scene bats didn't win the fight' date=' just landed a flying side that knocked her down.[/quote']

 

Having checked the issue in question, I seem to have misremembered some details. Here's roughly how it goes down:

 

Black Canary, Martian Manhunter, Plastic Man and The Flash all attacked Wonder Woman in a training session.

 

Wally is shown to land a punch since he moves faster then the speed of sound and Diana was using her hearing to locate everyone. However, Diana counters and Bruce comments she is able to do so as she is now sensing movement based on air pressure.

 

Diana chides the JLA for holding back.

 

Batman then enters the fight with a flying kick, which Wonder Woman dodges with a backflip (this is the move I thought connected, but I was wrong). She then grabs Bruce by the neck and lifts him off the ground. He respond with a double ear clap, which clearly hurts and deafens her. This I find slightly implausible on a number of levels, but it's a slandared MA vs Brick maneuver and Wonder Woman even uses it on Supes a few months later in a different fight...

 

Anyhow, Batman screams NOW! and the rest of the League attacks en mass. They try to do a dog pile style beat down now that WW is further disabled. Wonder Woman tosses them all off her, at which point Superman comes in with a loaded gun aimed at her back and shoots at her. She deflects the bullet and the session ends.

 

Everyone except Supes, Bats and WW is shown to look extremely battered.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Super Origins

 

Having checked the issue in question, I seem to have misremembered some details. Here's roughly how it goes down:

 

Black Canary, Martian Manhunter, Plastic Man and The Flash all attacked Wonder Woman in a training session.

 

Wally is shown to land a punch since he moves faster then the speed of sound and Diana was using her hearing to locate everyone. However, Diana counters and Bruce comments she is able to do so as she is now sensing movement based on air pressure.

 

Here's where I'd get uptight about character origins: Wonder Woman spontaneously getting Daredevil level senses. That rings much less true to me than a human being more trained than a super human, really.

 

He respond with a double ear clap, which clearly hurts and deafens her. This I find slightly implausible on a number of levels, but it's a slandared MA vs Brick maneuver and Wonder Woman even uses it on Supes a few months later in a different fight...

 

I can see it having an impact on her hearing, super human physique or not. If her ear drums were hardened against vibration to the degree needed to be immune to an ear cuff, she'd not be able to hear in the first place. He just made her ear drums vibrate excessively and a little painfully. No damage, just a hearing flash. =D

[Bloodstone]

Re: Super Origins

 

Here's where I'd get uptight about character origins: Wonder Woman spontaneously getting Daredevil level senses. That rings much less true to me than a human being more trained than a super human' date=' really.[/quote']

 

First of all, she's had enhanced senses for quite a while. It's one of her gifts from the goddess Artemis.

 

That said, she didn't suddenly develop radar sense or anything like that. It's a trope of heroic fiction that if you rob the warrior hero of their sight, then their other sense will compensate. She'd been blind for a little while at this point and had been shown to be able to fight without the benefit of her sight previously. This is presumably due to her Amazonian training, though I don't believe it was explicitly stated. I'd need to bust out a few other issues to confirm that.

 

I can see it having an impact on her hearing, super human physique or not. If her ear drums were hardened against vibration to the degree needed to be immune to an ear cuff, she'd not be able to hear in the first place. He just made her ear drums vibrate excessively and a little painfully. No damage, just a hearing flash. =D

 

The issue in my mind was that she could sense Wally West's movements based on air pressure on just the previous page. She is fast enough to counter punch a man that is moving faster then the speed of sound.

 

Batman is a well trained normal. His fastest punch won't clock in at even a 100th of the speed of the Flash's punches. Furthermore, Diana is holding him by the throat with one hand. Let me tell you, it's a hell of a lot easier to sense an opponents movement once you are in contact with them... physical pressure vs air pressure.

 

But, not only does Batman's blow lands, it lands without Diana moving a muscle to counter with her free hand.

 

Had they not done the "she's sensing the pressure" thing just moments before.. had her ability to combat the league been based entirely upon her hearing... then I would have less issue with it...

 

And sorry to derail so much...

[assault]

Re: Super Origins

 

"Uh' date=' your character is supposed to be human, right? How does he justify that Damage Reduction, then?" Either he's going to end up a tech-based character, or he's going to go down quickly. Combat Luck only goes so far...[/quote']

 

Combat Luck goes as far as the GM says it does.

 

As far as justifications for Damage Reduction goes, check out pages 124-129 of Dark Champions. In fact, DC is full of crunchy goodness for "non-powered" characters.

 

You could probably loot Pulp Hero as well, since early superheroes in general, and non-powered ones in particular, drew heavily on Pulp roots.

 

A character can be quite nasty even before giving them any equipment.

 

Batman has a lot of equipment, of course. One key item that doesn't seem to be so heavily used in recent times (although I may have missed it) is the Batplane. In the early JLA, Batman was quite regularly "the dude in the jet". Supersonic flight and homing missiles are a pretty big equaliser.

 

Part of the "Batgod" phenomenon is probably related to the loss of that aspect of the character. He's gone from (often) being a pilot to being (almost always) an infantryman, and has to survive in the new role.

 

It's easy to build a high-point cost Batman, and he will be an effective and dangerous opponent. More dangerous than a competently built opponent on the same point totals? Not necessarily. Less dangerous? Not necessarily, either.

 

What might be a problem for him is the amount of non-combat stuff he has. That means that he probably wouldn't be an optimal combatant for his points. But he still wouldn't necessarily be underpowered - just average.

 

I suppose we could set a points total, and campaign guidelines, and see what can happen. We would have the problem, though, that the high-end DC characters are absurdly high end these days, and would be effectively built on infinite points. How about building homage characters on 700 points?

[OddHat]

Re: Super Origins

 

Actually, built Dark Champions / Pulp Hero style with Armor that Doesn't Stop First Point of Body Damage (-1/2), Non-Persistent (-1/4), Improved Combat Luck Damage Reduction (Restrainable -1/2, Non-Persistent -1/4), Martial Arts for offense, and using the Base/Vehicle rules for most of the Bat-Stuff, Bat-Homage holds up pretty well in HERO terms to a Super-Homage built on the same points. Part of the wonder of a point based system.

[Kali Magdalene]

Re: Super Origins

 

For Batman, as one of the top martial artists in DC (not the best, but I'm sure in the top 5), he could purchase DC to increase his hand-to-hand damage. As far as defense, I imagine he has skill levels to spare, plus Combat Luck, plus his costume doubles as body armor.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Super Origins

 

No kryptonians and no chemical X.

[Robyn]

Re: Super Origins

 

Wait' date=' he could forge a ring with a slice of some cosmic cube, I suppose.[/quote']

 

It wouldn't be a real ring, though

[assault]

Re: Super Origins

 

No kryptonians and no chemical X.

 

No Chemical X?

 

Who would there be to protect north Queensland without Chemical X? 1

And how could else could Seeker have gotten his powers? Ninja training?2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 Townsville is a large-ish city in north Queensland

2 See page 37 of the Champions genre book

[csyphrett]

Re: Super Origins

 

I tend to allow everything in a game. I've had superpowered flying bricks, freakish monsters, supersoldiers, tech guys, ninja weasels.

 

AS far as Batman, or anyone like that, not surviving a fight with superhumans, I don't see it. A lot depends on the superhuman, and what the the tech guy/weaponeer has on hand.

 

I've seen some of these guys wipe the floor with superior opponents.

CES

[Wanderer]

Re: Super Origins

 

This kind of thinking is bizaar to me. I love Batman' date=' Superman, and Thor. When I read this story I didn't feel that Supe's magic vulnerability meant that Thor should win hands down. Anything could of happened. Magic doesn't = Supes gets his arse kicked. It means he could get his arse kicked. Who want's to read a story where A always equals B equals C. To me that is unrealistic. Real life is never that black and white.[/quote']

 

I wouldn't dare to pretend such a result as necessity (although as a Thor fan and Supes hater, I'd have loved it ), since Thor may have the magical powers and weapon, but the Supes has the super-speed to dodge, but I would have expected the magical vulnerability to give Supes some serious trouble in the fight, yes, and in the light of of all factors involved, similar strength levels, eneryg projection powers, and combat prowess, and magic vs. superspeed, for the most likely outcome of the issue to end in a draw, much like the Supes vs. Cap. Marvel fight in Kingdom Come. The Supes clear win seemed contrived to me. I smelled some DC irontight contractual clausle there.

[transmetahuman]

Re: Super Origins

 

It might be relevant. If the origin INVOLVES time travel, even if the character doesn't have a time travel power ("I came from the future, and I can't go back - uh, forward - because my time machine broke down and the parts to fix it won't be available for a couple of centuries....") would you object to that too?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

 

Bitten by a radioactive palindromedary

Maybe, maybe not. My currently preferred cosmology has one single "now", with rare-and-costly time travel creating a finite number of parallel universes with diverging histories. So you can be from "a" 3007, and if you ever got back, the same amount of time would have passed "there" as it did "here" in 2007. There are two kinds of time travel: the kind that creates new timelines, and the (more common, requiring less than godlike resources) kind that just moves you to an already-established one.

 

As a GM with limited time to make up future histories, I would prefer to keep the mechanism away from the PCs. And to prevent the whole "knowledge of the future" thing, I'd prefer that a PC from a future either had amnesia, or came from a future whose history diverged from the campaign timeline long before campaign-present - long enough that any history they remember is irrelevant. If someone wants a PC from the future with all those restrictions, sure, they can have him. Basically I just don't want to have to deal with future knowledge or time paradoxes.

[assault]

Re: Super Origins

 

Basically I just don't want to have to deal with future knowledge or time paradoxes.

 

I had a lot of fun playing with my Legion of Superheroes homage universe. Time travel was one of its fundamental assumptions.

 

I built historical blind spots into the timeline, in order to simplify things. These were points in time when time itself had gone a little odd, probably due to the existence of paradoxes. They were intended as both a convenience for me, and a warning to the players.

 

The actual structure of the campaign would have been a bit awkward though. Technically speaking I would have had to run scenarios in two different historical periods, with only some of them involving crossovers between the two. It became even worse when I started considering adding a Supergirl-homage to the picture, since that implied a third period. (There were ways of working around that of course.)

 

It was a very interesting mental and literary exercise, but I fear it would have been unworkable as a campaign.

 

(The written part of my notes on it were lost a while back, but I could reconstruct them if I wanted to.)

[OddHat]

Re: Super Origins

 

In my default campaign, I use H. Beam Piper's Paratime theory, with slight modifications for my own tastes and simplicity of play. All time lines exist and have always existed, from the "beginning" of time to the "end". The Soul / Consciousness is timeless, existing at all stages of your personal time line simultaneously; you are only aware of the here and now and your current body's past because of limitations inherent in the physical brain, but flashes of your future can come through via the non-physical element of your consciousness. Similarly, flashes of your past lives and lives in alternate time lines can also come through. Physical time travel within a time line appears to be impossible; physical time travel instead drops you in an alternate time line. Time lines never really "fork"; in that time line, history includes your arrival and any actions you take.

 

Future knowledge isn't a problem, as you have no guarantee that your future knowledge has anything to do with the time line you're actually on.

[zornwil]

Re: Super Origins

 

In my standard campaign' date=' when Company X builds one more teleport suit, it's a fun complication. Five or ten years down the line (a length of time that passes in my campaigns), I need to deal with the implications of everyone having teleport technology. As that's not something I want to do, I require that the tech be irreproducible. Thus, it works but requires a shell of pure Implausiblium. In a more silver age game, or a campaign specifically designed to look at the effects of Supertech, conditions would be different.[/quote']

Not to argue the point, as I do understand where you're coming from and I agree we all have to draw a "reasonable" line somewhere, but I see this as a much broader problem than tech. There are mutants who can pick up buildings but they're "rare"? Great, it's a bit easier to find that DNA and start reproducing that ability. Magic? In most veins it's a form of science, essentially, just one we don't understand well, and therefore in most veins of any lengthy exposure it's basically implausible we don't see massive schools of adepts. Even someone building their own weaponry and the fact such gear is often found by all manner of governments and individuals leaves a glaring open question.

 

Of course, the Wildcards approach or such where you say "it's all psionic" can go a long way in resolving these issues, but not (to me) particularly satisfactorily - it basically waters everything down to a single origin and samey-ness. That said, it's not a bad thing, of course, just stating my preference. But that even resolves the "stolen tech" thing as well.

 

My point just being, I tend not to worry about "inflicted" world technologies since I see super stuff in general as requiring healthy Implausizine doses.

 

But of course, to a more central point, yes, any origin that unravels core setting assumptions is a problem. That's about the only line I draw for origins, and it's usually in the nuanced details if it's an issue at all (such as, "no, you can't have an origin in the 1940s because my world revolves around an event that caused super abilities in the 1950s, so let's move your origin up 10 years").

[David Johnston]

Re: Super Origins

 

I wouldn't dare to pretend such a result as necessity (although as a Thor fan and Supes hater' date=' I'd have loved it ), since Thor may have the magical powers and weapon, but the Supes has the super-speed to dodge, [/quote']

 

Something he's noted for not doing. He sometimes dodges but not generally at superspeed. I think for the default Superman I'd assume that his superspeed isn't really reflected in in OCV/DCV but just in megascale Flight and Running. Besides, it's cheaper that way.

[OddHat]

Re: Super Origins

 

My point just being, I tend not to worry about "inflicted" world technologies since I see super stuff in general as requiring healthy Implausizine doses.

 

Groovy, and I similarly don't worry that much about Mad Science and it's effect on my game world; I just like the feel of taking the extra step and asking why everyone in Campaign City doesn't have a personal robot butler and flight pack. Similarly, I'm happy to accept that a given player's character built himself a space worthy flying castle from parts salvaged from the junk yard; I would however have some questions about the technologies involved, and I'd probably ask for an in-game reason why flying castles can't be mass produced (unless the player wants to make being a pioneer in the flying castle business a major part of his character's story arc).

[input.jack]

Re: Super Origins

 

About the only origin I can think of thats a no-no in our campaigns is the Time Traveller.

 

No Cable, or Ahab, or whatever the names of the 3,567 characters in Marvel are, who all come from sililar but slightly different alternate futures.

 

Extradimensional characters from a parallel world; thats more acceptable. (I once played a character whose mother was secretly a spy from the Nazi world in the campaign). But out-ant-out tTime Travellers; no way.

 

Too many headaches.

 

That said, I just recently introduced an NPC into my campaign who IS from the future; a horrid nightmare future that she and her friends in 2021 were trying to avoid, and they did so by sending her back to 1986 (when the campaign is set) to prevent a sequence of events from taking place that led to her world being the way it was. (She is also the child of two of the characters on the team, but hasnt told anyone that, although she tends to get weepy when shes left alone with her (dead in her timeline when she was an infant) mother).

 

They have since taken several steps to prevent her future from ever happening.

 

And now...it wont.

 

She is now secretly dreading whether or not she is going to just...disappear.

[zornwil]

Re: Super Origins

 

About the only origin I can think of thats a no-no in our campaigns is the Time Traveller.

 

No Cable, or Ahab, or whatever the names of the 3,567 characters in Marvel are, who all come from sililar but slightly different alternate futures.

 

Extradimensional characters from a parallel world; thats more acceptable. (I once played a character whose mother was secretly a spy from the Nazi world in the campaign). But out-ant-out tTime Travellers; no way.

 

Too many headaches.

 

That said, I just recently introduced an NPC into my campaign who IS from the future; a horrid nightmare future that she and her friends in 2021 were trying to avoid, and they did so by sending her back to 1986 (when the campaign is set) to prevent a sequence of events from taking place that led to her world being the way it was. (She is also the child of two of the characters on the team, but hasnt told anyone that, although she tends to get weepy when shes left alone with her (dead in her timeline when she was an infant) mother).

 

They have since taken several steps to prevent her future from ever happening.

 

And now...it wont.

 

She is now secretly dreading whether or not she is going to just...disappear.

This is a good example of origin tweaking. Related, in a prior campaign, where someone wanted to be a master of time, the player and I agreed that it made sense for this particular character concept that the PC had this basic vow to "uphold the true timeline." This made it a lot easier on me since then I didn't have to worry about "I go back in time and change it!" and it also gave me great plot hooks. Also, later on in play, it provided for excellent interplay between PCs as another PC totally disagreed with Dr. Time about the "true timeline" business, especially after witnessing a murder in the past that Time insisted they do nothing about. This led to long-term drama and an entire story arc.

 

In our current campaign we don't make the same "true timeline" assumptions, and one PC can now travel in time, but we use the parallel branches concept instead and the PC's orientation isn't to change the past anyway, so this also works.