Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

[Susano]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

My opinion on the discussion is as follows: each GM has a different style, and not all CU characters are a perfect fit to each and every GMing style. Some GMs, such as Balbatino, aren't going to want to use Nebula. Others, such as lapsedgamer, can find many ways to use her. In addition, as I said before, the characters Steve presents in various Hero publications aren't inviolate, and can (and be should) modified to fit your (the GM's) needs), if you think you can use the character in some fashion. Don't like the idea of an alien cop on Earth who can send people to an EDM prison? Take away the EDM pistol. Don't like the idea of an alien cop on Earth period? Don't use Nebula. It's as simple as that. Presuming that your game is the gold standard for how all games should be played, and thus anything that breaks your game is unworkable period just smacks of arrogance.

[kahuna's bro]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

it seems to me that any super-hero or costumed crimefighter thats heard of nebula would be too scared of being kidnapeed by an alien cop and ILLEGALLY banished to a prison dimension to operate as such ruining a capaign unless she was used as a movie character[ie judge dread or the predator her presense and activites were considered an act of war/invasion by the un

[Dr. MID-Nite]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

Well..the likely scenario is that at least one player gets zapped and sent to Duress. The other players/heroes would probably either get zapped themselves..or defeat Nebula before she can zap them again. Now...while the players may at first think Nebula has incinerated her targets, she'd probably be very willing to explain the "punishment". That said....I wouldn't allow a simple "press the rewind button" answer to the scenario. I'd make the players have to go in and retrieve their comrade somehow. Wa la....another adventure(or two)! I don't see the big problem here unless you're really unflexible.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

I think it could be interesting if something or someone on Earth tampered with Nebula's "programming," either accidentally or deliberately. Nebula might begin to develop independent thought and conscience again, and come to question the Supreme Code. She could start acting like a true hero, respecting local law and custom, using her Duress Gauntlets only as a last resort, if at all. Out of guilt she might try to free the prisoners in Duress, and end up dumping a pack of alien super-criminals on Earth. She may even want to start a revolution to overthrow the Republic, and recruit PC heroes to help her, voluntarily or by coercion.

 

OTOH some scientifically-brilliant Earthly villain might twist Nebula's conditioning into unswerving loyalty and obediance to him. Nebula enforcing the will of Dr. Destroyer is a frightening thought. Or she and her (modified) Duress Gauntlets could be put to work capturing experimental specimens for Teleios, or by Tateklys to "recruit" gladiators for the Forum Malvanum.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

I see Nebula as a GM's McGuffin Character... Designed to send the Superheroes on an Galactic (Champions) Adventure.

 

IMOHO

 

QM

[Balabanto]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

Personally, I would say the challenge Nebula presents for the GM is to find a way to use the character that does not degenerate to "zap - make a new character". If the GM is not able or willing to find a way to use the character in such fashion, then the solution is to not use the character. Whether that means modifying her to better fit the model the GM can use, or simply not using the concept at all depends on the GM. There is no requirement that the GM use each and every character presented in any Hero publication, or that the GM use them exactly as written.

 

Personally, I've never used Nebula. But I think having some further backstory on her, her society and the extra dimensional prison itself could flesh out the character and provide opportunities for those GM's who care to use them. It could also illustrate how to use the "one shot zap" to further an entertaining story, rather than to destroy a character, or even a campaign.

 

Balabanto, when I read your posts, it seems like you are looking for excuses to keep Nebula in the "zap-your character is removed from the game" model. I'm glad you wouldn't want to use a character in that manner, but my preference would be to look for ways the character can be useful, rather than just eliminate the character. Lapsedgamer, in particular, provides some good in-genre examples like:

 

- role playing the character's endeavours to escape from Duress. You dismiss this, but it is very much in genre. To the jealous players, perhaps they would be less jealous in a game built around this model, knowing that their turns for off-screen attention would come. That may not be a viable model for your game, but it may well be viable for others. You point to "realistic" skill modifiers. I counterpoint with the source material, where those penalties do not seem to prevent an escape.

 

- role playing the other characters' efforts to locate and free their teammate also seems like a valid, in genre approach. Whether by getting the weapon away from Nebula, analyzing the effects of the weapon ("we need to get her to fire again so I can get a better read on the EM and Dimensional Field Variances and try to recreate the pathway to her prison dimension"). Cutting back and forth between the two could be quite interesting, and invokes memories of a lot of great source material where some of the team is working to get out of an area while the rest is working to find them and rescue them. When the two (or more) threads combine at the end of the story and everyone has a hand in pulling off the rescue, that makes for a pretty memorable climax.

 

- not every problem needs to be solved by beating someone to unconsciousness. Having one or two team members stranded extra dimensionally, followed by capturing Nebula and having to reason through her morals and ethics to determine an argument that she has violated her own code of conduct and should make redress by rescuing the target could be an engaging arc revolving around skills outside combat, and role playing. Again, this depends on the game.

 

If your players are going to turn this into a war of escalation, then it's not good for your game. My players don't game that way, but then they would also expect me not to run a "zap - you're dead" scenario either. They would expect a challenge they can win. If a GM runs a game where any failure on the part of the characters results in character removal, or long-term damage to the character, no surprise the players don't want to leave any way their characters can lose. If failure means looking for a way to recover and do better next time, then the players tend to find losing much less distressing, and may even find it spices up the game as they role play their reaction to the loss, and their planning (not "player plans a character rewrite", "characters plan how they will better deal with a similar issue in future, using their existing abilities") for coming out on top in the inevitable (in the source material, anyway) rematch.

 

In my games, I like to have backup plans. If things don't work well for the heroes, what will the consequences be? I don't want a failed die roll, or bad luck in combat, or what have you, to mean the campaign ends, so I either remove those elements, or I figure out what will happen that allows the player characters to recover from a failure. Sometimes, that means having to take a break when something unexpected occurs in game to figure out what happens next. In some instances, "what happens next" may be a bit contrived to make the game work (hey, the source material also seems contrived sometimes). Where you find creating solutions to keep the game progressing to be "CHEATING", I find a GM refusing to make the game work is abdicating his responsibility to keep the game fun for all involved.

 

I find your description of players who simply buy a defense to every attack they come across to indicate immature players and/or an adversarial game style. I doubt that's the case in your games, and I have only a limited description to go from, but it is what your description suggests to me. In my games, players routinely accept that certain attacks are very effective against them, because that's part of their concept. They trust the GM to recognize those complications, and use them without abusing them. So they don't buy up mental defenses because they expect to face mentalists - they expect the GM to present them with challenging, but winnable, scenarios. The GM who accepts a weakness in a character and is then unable to highlight that weakness without rendering the character ineffectual is just as bad as the GM who allows an ability which renders the character undefeatable and impossible to challenge.

 

In fact, a lot of good gaming really is about trust. Good players can be trusted not to abuse the rules, and good GM's can be trusted not to abuse the weaknesses a good player will leave in a well-constructed character. Take away that trust, and the game becomes adversarial. If you shunted half a dozen of my characters off to Duress and defined that as "out of the game - make a new character", of course my next character would be somehow immune to that attack. You have shown you cannot be trusted to refrain from abusing my lack of such defense. Just as I would make a character with resistant defenses if history in your game showed a lack of such defenses meant near-term character death by killing attacks. If lack of a given defense means the character will be ineffective, the players will contrive to justify those defenses. If having an Achilles' heel makes the character more fun to play, not more easily exploited by the GM, then such weaknesses become acceptable, even desirable, to the players.

 

You highlight a lot of very realistic results from being away for six weeks. How often do you see those results occur in the source material? Yet Supers are routinely away for extended periods of time, and these details are glossed over. If they are a feature of a given game, then I think you have entered an unwritten contract with the players that you will use scenarios in that game that do not require or result in extended absences for the characters. Those complications should be used to enrich the story, and even add challenges. Your comments suggest you will simply make those challenges insurmountable, so clearly I should not take those complications. They will not be used to make my character more interesting, but to make him less playable and less fun.

 

There's no question that part of the problem is the one shot nature of Nebula's power. But an equal or greater part of the problem is any GM who will just throw that into a scenario without considering the consequences. If a GM is going to run Nebula as a PC Eraser, such that the only way they can keep a character in play is to buy defenses against her EDM power, then I agree that GM should not be using the character. But such GM's will abuse pretty much any NPCwho possesses an unusual ability, or has some other advantage over one or more PC's. ["He has extensive non-combat influence, and so your character is now Hunted by every law enforcement agency on earth, hated by the general public, and hundreds of investigators and profilers are working out his secret ID, so they'll certainly know who you are within a couple of game sessions."]

 

Such a GM should restrict his games to tactical combat simulations where the characters are relatively balanced. He should probably rule against any character with a vulnerability or susceptibility, since he likely can't take advantage of it in any way other than demolishing the character. In my view, that will make for less interesting games, so maybe that GM should step down and let someone able to run a richer game, with a greater variety of challenges, take the reigns.

 

For me, I really detest GM statements like "well, that's what it said in the module" or "that's the character as written". The GM is responsible for the characters and scenarios he puts on the table. When using published materials, part of the GM's job is to adapt them as needed to suit his playstyle, and that of the group he is gaming with. The few pages devoted to an NPC villain in their published appearance provides a framework for that character. It should not be considered a straightjacket. We know Nebula views justice differently than we do. What are her rules? We know she sends evildoers to an extradimensional prison. What happens there? How does it work? She DOES NOT kill them, so they must still be in play. The GM is the only one who can fully flesh these out, and every GM will put their own take on them. The suggestion that Champions Beyond, or some other publication, flesh out Duress seems completely reasonable to provide more tools to the GM. Tools that the GM can work with, customize, modify and/or discard at his discretion to make a structure that works best for his GM style and the players in his game.

 

The problem is that Nebula's views are not the issue. The character as it's designed is. For what reason would Nebula ever, when confronted by a team of superheroes who outnumber her, not simply send one character to Duress every action phase? This is simple survival. It's not any great test of intelligence to see that Nebula is not going to take hostages. That's not how she operates.

 

If the PC's do capture Nebula, there's no way she would ever negotiate with the PCs. Imagine that you're the cop who captured Jeffrey Dahmer, and some people have captured you and told him to release him. The cop's response would be "I refuse." or "No way. Are you crazy?" Multiply that response by five, and you have Nebula's reaction.

 

The thing here is that if my PC got sent to Duress, I KNOW that no matter what, every solution my PC comes up with to get out SHOULD fail. Any success is a bone thrown at me by the GM, who I now owe a huge favor to for allowing me to keep a character I like. Plus, if the other PC's negotiate my release, I would walk on the group if I'm a real superhero. "Thanks guys. You let her go? No damn way." I would then make it my business to hunt down Nebula and bring her to justice, as a hero should. Negotiating with people who kidnap others and send them to an extradimensional prison is insane. It's no different from offering terrorists land in Washington DC. This is a NO-WIN situation. No matter what, the character is undermined and ultimately fails. Because I now am either hosed by the agreement of my fellow PCs, or I betray my principles of superheroism and let it go. This is not a situation where the PC's should negotiate with Nebula. Period.

 

Remember, too, that with published materials, the WRITER assumes that the material CAN be used as written. This is why I playtest everything I publish. To make sure that it's balanced and doesn't make people's lives miserable. Yes, the combats and situations I design can be tough to deal with, or extremely nasty, but the material can be used as written without a significant problem. As game designers, we aren't just writers who throw numbers down. We are ROLE MODELS who show people how the game should be played and how the numbers work. This requires a lot of walking on eggshells. You guys are my audience. But at the same time, I have to make sure that people don't send me letters like "What the BLEEP? Why did you do this?" And if I do get a letter or a question like that, I had better have a good answer.

 

My players don't turn things into wars of escalation. I do always have backup plans. But I don't like to play fast and loose with the rules, because it leads to things like Extra Dimensional Movement, only to stop Extradimensional Movement. The problem with the character isn't just the broken power, though. It's Nebula's personality COMBINED with the broken power. I hope I've made that clear. My point isn't that players buy a defense for every attack like that. My point is that the attack shouldn't exist in the first place. There shouldn't be a need for people to think, in a published product "If only I had this simple seven point ability, this won't happen to me again."

 

As for the source material, results like that? Well, you know, there's this comic. It's my favorite. It's called Amazing Spider Man.

 

The problem with your theory is this: There's no way to predict who is going to roll well and who is going to roll poorly. No GM can ever predict all the consequences of a combat or what a villain, in character will do until the dice are rolled and the result is on the table. And this is the real reason why Nebula is a lousy villain. Because most PC's need to succeed three times in order to Kayo Nebula. Nebula only needs to succeed ONCE.

 

Now let's look at Lapsed's Doctor Destroyer argument. There was a time when Doctor Destroyer was meant to be fought. That's right, meant to be fought. He threw 16 dice, he was seriously dangerous, and six heroes of decent power level would have a very tough time defeating him if he was run properly. Those days are gone. I can't understand why. It's like people don't care about learning the rules anymore. And when I ran that character back in the day (Before I had to hit time with a hammer and change his very nature because of the CU's disastrous reworking), people were BLEEPING SCARED of him. He could throw 12d6 Area Effect, and all by itself, that would put the hurt on people. I didn't need a 150 Active Multipower, and two backup multipowers and a gadget pool. It wasn't necessary in any way to challenge my players.

 

I just don't like the massive reams of dice escalation and power creep that I've seen since 5th edition came out. There's absolutely no need for it. Nebula is a representation of that as surely as 6th edition Doctor Destroyer is. And it's led to massive problems with the numbers, and my players actually saying to me "I thought you were wrong at first, but there are some serious numbers problems with the 5th and 6th editions of the game."

 

Game designers should be role models, because new players use or imitate what is already there to use. Otherwise, no one will learn anything, and the game will die because there's no standard by which to play it. That's my position, and I'm sticking to it, Hugh. You can crucify me if you like.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

if I ever used Nebula with my group. I'd have really two choices. I could do away the the duress gautlets entirely ( or have NPC heroine Glitch Girl short them out before they could ever be used) or have to make up her homeland because my players would figure she was a plot hook to overthrow the evil empire which sends crimminals (apparently even minor ones or people who try to defend them) to a hellish place to be tortured.

[lapsedgamer]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

The problem is that Nebula's views are not the issue. The character as it's designed is. For what reason would Nebula ever, when confronted by a team of superheroes who outnumber her, not simply send one character to Duress every action phase? This is simple survival. It's not any great test of intelligence to see that Nebula is not going to take hostages. That's not how she operates.

 

If the PC's do capture Nebula, there's no way she would ever negotiate with the PCs. Imagine that you're the cop who captured Jeffrey Dahmer, and some people have captured you and told him to release him. The cop's response would be "I refuse." or "No way. Are you crazy?" Multiply that response by five, and you have Nebula's reaction.

 

The thing here is that if my PC got sent to Duress, I KNOW that no matter what, every solution my PC comes up with to get out SHOULD fail. Any success is a bone thrown at me by the GM, who I now owe a huge favor to for allowing me to keep a character I like. Plus, if the other PC's negotiate my release, I would walk on the group if I'm a real superhero. "Thanks guys. You let her go? No damn way." I would then make it my business to hunt down Nebula and bring her to justice, as a hero should. Negotiating with people who kidnap others and send them to an extradimensional prison is insane. It's no different from offering terrorists land in Washington DC. This is a NO-WIN situation. No matter what, the character is undermined and ultimately fails. Because I now am either hosed by the agreement of my fellow PCs, or I betray my principles of superheroism and let it go. This is not a situation where the PC's should negotiate with Nebula. Period.

 

Remember, too, that with published materials, the WRITER assumes that the material CAN be used as written. This is why I playtest everything I publish. To make sure that it's balanced and doesn't make people's lives miserable. Yes, the combats and situations I design can be tough to deal with, or extremely nasty, but the material can be used as written without a significant problem. As game designers, we aren't just writers who throw numbers down. We are ROLE MODELS who show people how the game should be played and how the numbers work. This requires a lot of walking on eggshells. You guys are my audience. But at the same time, I have to make sure that people don't send me letters like "What the BLEEP? Why did you do this?" And if I do get a letter or a question like that, I had better have a good answer.

 

My players don't turn things into wars of escalation. I do always have backup plans. But I don't like to play fast and loose with the rules, because it leads to things like Extra Dimensional Movement, only to stop Extradimensional Movement. The problem with the character isn't just the broken power, though. It's Nebula's personality COMBINED with the broken power. I hope I've made that clear. My point isn't that players buy a defense for every attack like that. My point is that the attack shouldn't exist in the first place. There shouldn't be a need for people to think, in a published product "If only I had this simple seven point ability, this won't happen to me again."

 

As for the source material, results like that? Well, you know, there's this comic. It's my favorite. It's called Amazing Spider Man.

 

The problem with your theory is this: There's no way to predict who is going to roll well and who is going to roll poorly. No GM can ever predict all the consequences of a combat or what a villain, in character will do until the dice are rolled and the result is on the table. And this is the real reason why Nebula is a lousy villain. Because most PC's need to succeed three times in order to Kayo Nebula. Nebula only needs to succeed ONCE.

 

Now let's look at Lapsed's Doctor Destroyer argument. There was a time when Doctor Destroyer was meant to be fought. That's right, meant to be fought. He threw 16 dice, he was seriously dangerous, and six heroes of decent power level would have a very tough time defeating him if he was run properly. Those days are gone. I can't understand why. It's like people don't care about learning the rules anymore. And when I ran that character back in the day (Before I had to hit time with a hammer and change his very nature because of the CU's disastrous reworking), people were BLEEPING SCARED of him. He could throw 12d6 Area Effect, and all by itself, that would put the hurt on people. I didn't need a 150 Active Multipower, and two backup multipowers and a gadget pool. It wasn't necessary in any way to challenge my players.

 

I just don't like the massive reams of dice escalation and power creep that I've seen since 5th edition came out. There's absolutely no need for it. Nebula is a representation of that as surely as 6th edition Doctor Destroyer is. And it's led to massive problems with the numbers, and my players actually saying to me "I thought you were wrong at first, but there are some serious numbers problems with the 5th and 6th editions of the game."

 

Game designers should be role models, because new players use or imitate what is already there to use. Otherwise, no one will learn anything, and the game will die because there's no standard by which to play it. That's my position, and I'm sticking to it, Hugh. You can crucify me if you like.

 

Believe it or not, I am actually closer to agreeing with you than not on Dr. Destroyer's power level in the latest editions. I just use him as an example of someone that the average character really should not even think of engaging tactically. My real point is that not every threat has to be seen tactically. Even in the source material, there are plenty of examples of characters who cannot be fought directly, so that the heroes must come up with a strategic or diplomatic approach to things. To me, those are valid options in gaming.

 

When I first started playing Champions in the 80s, a 16D6 attack was a big attack, IIRC a 10D6 EB was like the standard. However, as time went on, there was a gradual increase in those standards. I think it was based on peoples desires to really be able to build characters like Superman or the Hulk who could effect the physical world the way that they did in comics. People knew what the DEF and BOD stats were for tanks and the like and they were dissatisfied that their character couldn't trash one even though he was supposed to be very strong. I can remember reading a write up of the X Men in a gaming magazine back then, and they gave Cyclops a 15D6 EB for his uncontrolled eyebeams. I remember thinking, yeah that's about right. However, at some point, in the comics, he sliced the top off of a mountain or something, which you can't really do with 15D6. Now some of that can be taken as hyperbole on the part of the writer, but there also some people who would get some enjoyment out of building a version in Champions that could do that. A lot of folks are into that type of play.

 

If you look at the big guns in DC, they all have like 100 STR, with a bunch of other powers thrown on top of that. Look at Thor in Marvel. What I'm saying is that some people wanted to play at that level, and the early versions of the CU didn't really give you that for better or worse

 

The thing that Mr. Long did was try to make that level of play logically consistent with the stats for real world items as written. The new Dr. Destroyer can successfully blast his way through tank armor or vaporize a person without trying too hard. Now, that also means that he can one-shot even tough supers. It's a trade-off, but it is supported by the source material. Only the toughest folks really stand toe-to-toe with Dr. Doom. I actually think that the new Dr. Destroyer is closer to Darkseid or Thanos for the purpose of comparison, while Dr. Doom is sort of like the Warlord, but you get the point.

 

There is a certain segment of Herodom that don't think the newest editions have gone far enough. There is still a lot of people who think it is too hard to break a tank. There are a lot of house rules that amp up the super in your supers game, and I fully agree with this. It's really up to the GM to get across the flavor they want. In JLA world it works like this. In Watchmen world it works like this. Mr. Long kind of got something in between in the rules as written. You might have tweak it a little for the game play experience you want.

 

Running roughshod over the rules may not be advisable, but being flexible within the context of the rules is essential. I'll give you an example. I was playing with a group of folks I don't know that well. I was trying to get back into gaming, and I was itching to play Champions, which is my favorite game. The other folks were really fantasy gaming nuts, but the GM liked Champions too, so he offered to run it. The other folks were willing to give it a try, but they were skeptical. We do character creation, and they do what a lot of folks new to supers gaming do. They make pastiches of characters they are familiar with from other genres. This one guy makes a Jedi clone. At one point, we are facing off with VIPER agents. The Jedi clone uses his energy sword to attack an agent's gun. Very nice in genre playing for a relative newbie. I think the sword is like a 2D6 HKA, maybe armor piercing. He hits , but rolls average. The GM uses the rule that bases the DEF and BOD on the active points in the gun and the attack biffs on damage. You should have seen the player's face, He was like, "This game is stupid."

 

I try to never contradict a GM at the table, especially when I am a guest, but I hope everyone can see why that was maybe rules correct, but wrong. What would it have hurt to use the generic DEF/BOD for a medium gun, or to say treat it as max damage, this is a mundane object? The guy would have had fun, and the story wold have kept cooking along. The rule of cool would have been served, and the newbies would have had a better experience. It isn't cheating, because everyone knows that that one Viper agent is going down anyway. The players could have riffed off of it with a one-liner, and so on. The rules, or least that literal interpretation of the rules got in the way of the fun. Never let the rules get in the way of the fun.

 

As a GM, I think you have to mix it up a little. You have to give the players some satisfying palpable victories, but there should also be some room for playing out negotiations or finding alternative solutions. As a player, though I tend to play combat monkeys, I understand that some folks like that other stuff, and I will play along if that's where the game is going. I know that I will eventually get to hit something.

 

Nebula doesn't bother me, as long as she leads to fun. Dr. Destroyer doesn't bug me as long as he can be part of a scenario that's enjoyable.

[Balabanto]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

Believe it or not, I am actually closer to agreeing with you than not on Dr. Destroyer's power level in the latest editions. I just use him as an example of someone that the average character really should not even think of engaging tactically. My real point is that not every threat has to be seen tactically. Even in the source material, there are plenty of examples of characters who cannot be fought directly, so that the heroes must come up with a strategic or diplomatic approach to things. To me, those are valid options in gaming.

 

When I first started playing Champions in the 80s, a 16D6 attack was a big attack, IIRC a 10D6 EB was like the standard. However, as time went on, there was a gradual increase in those standards. I think it was based on peoples desires to really be able to build characters like Superman or the Hulk who could effect the physical world the way that they did in comics. People knew what the DEF and BOD stats were for tanks and the like and they were dissatisfied that their character couldn't trash one even though he was supposed to be very strong. I can remember reading a write up of the X Men in a gaming magazine back then, and they gave Cyclops a 15D6 EB for his uncontrolled eyebeams. I remember thinking, yeah that's about right. However, at some point, in the comics, he sliced the top off of a mountain or something, which you can't really do with 15D6. Now some of that can be taken as hyperbole on the part of the writer, but there also some people who would get some enjoyment out of building a version in Champions that could do that. A lot of folks are into that type of play.

 

If you look at the big guns in DC, they all have like 100 STR, with a bunch of other powers thrown on top of that. Look at Thor in Marvel. What I'm saying is that some people wanted to play at that level, and the early versions of the CU didn't really give you that for better or worse

 

The thing that Mr. Long did was try to make that level of play logically consistent with the stats for real world items as written. The new Dr. Destroyer can successfully blast his way through tank armor or vaporize a person without trying too hard. Now, that also means that he can one-shot even tough supers. It's a trade-off, but it is supported by the source material. Only the toughest folks really stand toe-to-toe with Dr. Doom. I actually think that the new Dr. Destroyer is closer to Darkseid or Thanos for the purpose of comparison, while Dr. Doom is sort of like the Warlord, but you get the point.

 

There is a certain segment of Herodom that don't think the newest editions have gone far enough. There is still a lot of people who think it is too hard to break a tank. There are a lot of house rules that amp up the super in your supers game, and I fully agree with this. It's really up to the GM to get across the flavor they want. In JLA world it works like this. In Watchmen world it works like this. Mr. Long kind of got something in between in the rules as written. You might have tweak it a little for the game play experience you want.

 

Running roughshod over the rules may not be advisable, but being flexible within the context of the rules is essential. I'll give you an example. I was playing with a group of folks I don't know that well. I was trying to get back into gaming, and I was itching to play Champions, which is my favorite game. The other folks were really fantasy gaming nuts, but the GM liked Champions too, so he offered to run it. The other folks were willing to give it a try, but they were skeptical. We do character creation, and they do what a lot of folks new to supers gaming do. They make pastiches of characters they are familiar with from other genres. This one guy makes a Jedi clone. At one point, we are facing off with VIPER agents. The Jedi clone uses his energy sword to attack an agent's gun. Very nice in genre playing for a relative newbie. I think the sword is like a 2D6 HKA, maybe armor piercing. He hits , but rolls average. The GM uses the rule that bases the DEF and BOD on the active points in the gun and the attack biffs on damage. You should have seen the player's face, He was like, "This game is stupid."

 

I try to never contradict a GM at the table, especially when I am a guest, but I hope everyone can see why that was maybe rules correct, but wrong. What would it have hurt to use the generic DEF/BOD for a medium gun, or to say don't worry about damage this is a mundane object? The guy would have had fun, and the story wold have kept cooking along. The rule of cool would have been served, and the newbies would have had a better experience. It isn't cheating, because everyone knows that that one Viper agent is going down anyway. The players could have riffed off of it with a one-liner, and so on. The rules, or least that literal interpretation of the rules got in the way of the fun. Never let the rules get in the way of the fun.

 

As a GM, I think you have to mix it up a little. You have to give the players some satisfying palpable victories, but there should also be some room for playing out negotiations or finding alternative solutions. As a player, though I tend to play combat monkeys, I understand that some folks like that other stuff, and I will play along if that's where the game is going. I know that I will eventually get to hit something.

 

Nebula doesn't bother me, as long as she leads to fun. Dr. Destroyer doesn't bug me as long as he can be part of a scenario that's enjoyable.

 

Then weaken the tank, don't strengthen the attack. A lot of people just don't understand that a tank is just as ineffective if you turn it upside down as if you smash it completely. It may take 100 STR to smash one. It only takes a 55 to flip it over and leave it there. The worst part is, once you do this, the people inside the tank are hosed, AND it's entertaining. Champions was built on the late 60's to early 80's Marvel Model, when their comics were awesome and DC was writing stories like "The Eraser that Tried to Rub Out Batman". The game works best when played sort of in that era of power. Years of experience have taught me this.

 

Some people can't accept bad die rolls. In your example, the player was a jackass. That's the difference between a superhero RPG and a comic book. In the comic book, the characters have writer's fiat. In a game, the characters can't have writers fiat because otherwise, you're not playing a game in a room with other people. Champions is a shared experience. Reading a comic book isn't. And I don't think it was rules correct, but wrong. I think it was perfectly fine. It's okay to have an "oops" moment. In fact, it's better to have "oops" moments because it shows that characters are FALLIBLE. It HUMANIZES them and makes them more three-dimensional. In a good roleplaying group, the player takes that failed result and turns it into good roleplaying. In a bad roleplaying group, the player whines and has the reaction you just described.

Gameplay is just that: Play. It's more like sports than it is like storytelling. And that's okay. If it's fourth and long with 33 yards to go, and you decide to go for it, you take the risk that you could get the first down or you could get bad field position. There's no difference. And that, to me, is the essence of gaming. Good sportsmanship. Your example shows a player who is a bad sport. The GM shouldn't be blamed for that. That "get the ref" mentality persists in our society, and it's bad. Because you know, most of the time, the referee knows the rules the best out of anyone there, AND is usually right. (See The GM is GOD Tee Shirts everywhere you go at conventions for the reason why this is so.)

 

As a GM, I think the key to a good game is mixing it up a little and making sure everyone gets their ten to fifteen minutes a night. But I also think that people have become too much of prima donnas when they get a bad die roll or screw things up. It's okay to make mistakes, you just can't make the results lethal all the time. Characters in Champions are hard to kill. My advice is not to worry so much about whether or not you can kill PC's, but to just build the villains within the same reasonable limits as the player characters (for the most part, a few notable exceptions notwithstanding) and let the chips fall where they may. My game runs very naturally because of this. Every so often, some bad die rolls mess up things, but that's what makes the game FUN and CHALLENGING. Right now, one of my groups is fighting cheesy dinosaur men. They're having a blast. The dinosaur men are supervillains, but they're not the mightiest bunch of supervillains in the world. It's okay. They have an invisible vehicle that's hard for this particular group of characters to find. It's okay. They're building a dinosaur man army. Yippee. It's a classic, but it works.

 

Sometimes, I've learned that people overcomplicate the numbers in order to get what they perceive as the exact nitpicky thing. In general, this is my biggest issue. It's better to have a simple, playable character where you don't have to overthink what you do than have a confusing ball of numerical hoo-hah that makes things complicated.

 

Keep it simple. Roleplaying will thrive, your players will be happier, and you will be, too. Plots can be as complicated as you like, but building things realistically in a comic book game?

 

Here's a hint. I say this about once every two years here. Realism isn't real. It's just realism.

 

Play hard. Play fair. Play smart.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

The problem is that Nebula's views are not the issue. The character as it's designed is. For what reason would Nebula ever, when confronted by a team of superheroes who outnumber her, not simply send one character to Duress every action phase? This is simple survival. It's not any great test of intelligence to see that Nebula is not going to take hostages. That's not how she operates.

 

If the PC's do capture Nebula, there's no way she would ever negotiate with the PCs. Imagine that you're the cop who captured Jeffrey Dahmer, and some people have captured you and told him to release him. The cop's response would be "I refuse." or "No way. Are you crazy?" Multiply that response by five, and you have Nebula's reaction.

 

And, as I said, if that's the only way you can see using the character, then the best answer is "don't use the character". For negotiation to be a solution, you have to accept that the character can be reasoned with. Personally, I hate characters that never grow beyond their initial conception. Some years back, we had a fantasy group including a cleric whose backstory resulted in a great dislike for thieves. So he doesn't like the thief - fine. But, after several years of play, and numerous occasions where the thief saved the group, and saved the particular character, at significant personal risk, the character still dislikes him, because he's a thief. No growth. Maybe in-game experiences should contribute to some growth. The best characters in the source material grow and change as a result of their experiences. In the best games, such growth also appears.

 

But let's assume Nebula is destined to be one of those backdrop characters, rarely appearing and always the same two dimensional personality. Perhaps the characters must find a way out of Duress. The comics are filled with examples of the superteam "doing the impossible". If that can't translate over without being a gimme from the GM, then we've lost some of the source material in the translation. Game designers who cannot simulate the source material aren't doing their job either.

 

Maybe the characters must find some way of retrieving their teammate without Nebula's co-operation. In the comics, we would see the Reed Richards/Bruce Banner/Hank Pym super-scientists analyze the gauntlets to determine how they work and either rescue the captured hero, or (more likely - more adventure) send in a rescue squad working against the clock to locate and retrieve their teammate. Maybe the PC's have a super scientist. Maybe they have to get assistance from allies or contacts derived from their backgrounds, or from prior adventures.

 

I fully agree that a character who has a "zap - you're dead" power (whether it takes one shot or half a dozen shots, frankly) is not appropriate to the game. So if that's all I can think to use the character for, it won't make its way into my game.

 

The thing here is that if my PC got sent to Duress' date=' I KNOW that no matter what, every solution my PC comes up with to get out SHOULD fail. Any success is a bone thrown at me by the GM, who I now owe a huge favor to for allowing me to keep a character I like. Plus, if the other PC's negotiate my release, I would walk on the group if I'm a real superhero. "Thanks guys. You let her go? No damn way." I would then make it my business to hunt down Nebula and bring her to justice, as a hero should. Negotiating with people who kidnap others and send them to an extradimensional prison is insane. It's no different from offering terrorists land in Washington DC. This is a NO-WIN situation. No matter what, the character is undermined and ultimately fails. Because I now am either hosed by the agreement of my fellow PCs, or I betray my principles of superheroism and let it go. This is not a situation where the PC's should negotiate with Nebula. Period. [/quote']

 

So how many absolute no win scenarios do you see presented in the source material? Lapsedgamer's ideas are much more consistent with the source material. Again, if the only thing I can think to do with the character is create a no win scenario, then I should not use the character. You should be credited with knowing that Nebula will not work well with your playstyle and not using her. That does not mean she is a "bad character", however, but that she is a character who is inconsistent with your playstyle.

 

Remember' date=' too, that with published materials, the WRITER assumes that the material CAN be used as written. This is why I playtest everything I publish. To make sure that it's balanced and doesn't make people's lives miserable. Yes, the combats and situations I design can be tough to deal with, or extremely nasty, but the material can be used as written without a significant problem. As game designers, we aren't just writers who throw numbers down. We are ROLE MODELS who show people how the game should be played and how the numbers work. This requires a lot of walking on eggshells. You guys are my audience. But at the same time, I have to make sure that people don't send me letters like "What the BLEEP? Why did you do this?" And if I do get a letter or a question like that, I had better have a good answer. [/quote']

 

I'll bear this in mind when I get around to reading the scenarios I picked up in detail. I find there is most commonly something in any given published scenario that I will have to change. Maybe it doesn't fit my game world. Maybe it doesn't fit my play style, or that of my players. Maybe there's some pre-existing element in my game world, or the PC's backstories or prior adventures, that can be linked in. That's not a flaw in the author's writing, but a difference between the playstyle and world elements he envisioned and the playstyle and world elements of myself and my group. It could be as simple as a character name - our current GM had to decide whether to change the name of an NPC in a module or run a riff on it, as it happened to be the same as, or very similar to, a PC's name.

 

My players don't turn things into wars of escalation. I do always have backup plans. But I don't like to play fast and loose with the rules' date=' because it leads to things like Extra Dimensional Movement, only to stop Extradimensional Movement. The problem with the character isn't just the broken power, though. It's Nebula's personality COMBINED with the broken power. I hope I've made that clear. My point isn't that players buy a defense for every attack like that. My point is that the attack shouldn't exist in the first place. There shouldn't be a need for people to think, in a published product "If only I had this simple seven point ability, this won't happen to me again." [/quote']

 

As a player, what I think is that this should be used as a plot hook, and I trust the GM not to use such a power as a character wrecker or a game wrecker. I trust him to find the middle road between "unchallenging" and "unbeatable". I don't need to have a defense to every offense. In fact, I prefer there to be a way for the GM to readily take my character down, if this should be appropriate to the story at hand. I find myself more commonly thinking "I'm glad I didn't have that simple seven point ability that would prevent the fun and challenge this has added to the game". And, again, since you can't seem to come up with a backup plan for Nebula's EDM power, I credit you with recognizing that, and refraining from using her entirely. Not every character will fit every game style. I know some GM's who refuse to use Foxbat because they want to keep their game more serious (an example which has some relevance compared to your GMing style, as I'm sure you can appreciate). Every play style favours some characters and disfavours others.

 

The problem with your theory is this: There's no way to predict who is going to roll well and who is going to roll poorly. No GM can ever predict all the consequences of a combat or what a villain' date=' in character will do until the dice are rolled and the result is on the table. And this is the real reason why Nebula is a lousy villain. Because most PC's need to succeed three times in order to Kayo Nebula. Nebula only needs to succeed ONCE. [/quote']

 

To me, that simply means the GM's plans should be designed around the possibilities that:

 

(a) the PCs will somehow defeat Nebula without losing anyone to Duress (unlikely)

( the PCs will eventually defeat Nebula, but only after some are banished to Duress (most likely)

within this possibility, they will either have captured her, or she will have escaped.

© the PCs are all banished to Duress.

 

I recall a game some years ago when, well into a battle that was not going well (and which I had not expected would be as challenging - some lucky rolls and bad target choices made it much tougher), one of the players said "I think this is one of those battles we were just meant to lose". As a GM, I find it high praise that the player was enjoying the game, despite the characters' losing badly, because he trusted that the loss would make for a better story than the win would. I had the between sessions time to assess what could happen as a result of the loss, and the next session was great as they licked their wounds and planned for the rematch. And the rematch was far more successful, and probably more memorable and enjoyable than if they had won the first fight, as they watched their carefully considered tactics, gleaned from their observations of what went wrong and how they could better approach their opponents, resulted in a fairly easy victory.

 

I can certainly envision losing a character or three to Duress, followed by having to hunt her/her gauntlets down, obtain assistance from scientific advisors, and venture into Duress to rescue their teammates, making for a rousing adventure arc. The planning issue I'd be most concerned with is ensuring that the captured characters' players have something to do while the remaining characters seek a solution, and that the free characters' players have something to do while playing any activity within Duress.

 

Now let's look at Lapsed's Doctor Destroyer argument. There was a time when Doctor Destroyer was meant to be fought. That's right' date=' meant to be fought. He threw 16 dice, he was seriously dangerous, and six heroes of decent power level would have a very tough time defeating him if he was run properly. Those days are gone. I can't understand why. It's like people don't care about learning the rules anymore. And when I ran that character back in the day (Before I had to hit time with a hammer and change his very nature because of the CU's disastrous reworking), people were BLEEPING SCARED of him. He could throw 12d6 Area Effect, and all by itself, that would put the hurt on people. I didn't need a 150 Active Multipower, and two backup multipowers and a gadget pool. It wasn't necessary in any way to challenge my players. [/quote']

 

I find Dr. D frustrating because using him in a typical game is impractical. While I agree to some extent with Lapsedgamers' comments on power levels, I differ in a couple of respects. First, Supers as a genre isn't about progressing from VIPER agents to Dr. Destroyer like fantasy characters grow from being challenged by Orcs to taking on dragons. As such, a wide range of power levels isn't nearly as appropriate. Second, while I agree with the power level comments, CU is a game setting, and should have a consistent power level. Perhaps the high end Dr. Destroyer would fit better in a higher end campaign setting where the heroes are also at a higher power level - a level where a team would have a tough fight against someone of his power level, but where victory is still a possibility. Unlike Nebula, I see no plot hooks or story arc to be derived from a character who is simply an overwhelming combat force. He could certainly be a background player, but a means for a satisfying ultimate confrontation eludes me. Maybe that's a failing on my part as a GM, and someone else can suggest a use for Dr. Destroyer where he's not just a background element, and doesn't need a deus ex machina depowering (eg. some McGuffin that depowers his armor) to make him usable. Or maybe that's the approach to use - you can't beat him so you need to find a way to depower him.

 

I just don't like the massive reams of dice escalation and power creep that I've seen since 5th edition came out. There's absolutely no need for it. Nebula is a representation of that as surely as 6th edition Doctor Destroyer is. And it's led to massive problems with the numbers' date=' and my players actually saying to me "I thought you were wrong at first, but there are some serious numbers problems with the 5th and 6th editions of the game." [/quote']

 

I could live with power creep, although I see no need for it. We could easily have a game where the average Super CV is 4, the average Super SPD is 3, and DEX ranges like INT, and the characters would differ by the same margins they do now, spend less points on these attributes and still be interesting to play. We could have a game where CV's average 12, SPD averages 8 and any character with a stat below 23 is considered seriously deficient in that area. We would spend more points, and the game would be interesting. What I don't like is a structure that suggests the characters should have, say, CV's of 8-10, SPD of 5-6, about 12 DC's, about 25 defenses, and we then toss in an adversary who almost never misses, is very tough to hit, has a much higher SPD, much larger attacks and defenses that prevent the heroes doing more than scratching his armor. A character too weak to be a challenge is a useless opponent, in my games. A character too powerful to be challenged is just as useless - except, perhaps, as a one-off whose purpose is to force the PC's to come up with a solution other than straight combat, such as discovery and exploitation of a weakness, discovery of motive and reasoning with it, or finding a depowering mechanic. If Dr. D is intended to be an ongoing campaign factor, he needs to be powerful enough to fill that role, but not so powerful as to be undefeatable unless the characters grow in power to the point that other opponents become laughable.

 

Game designers should be role models' date=' because new players use or imitate what is already there to use. Otherwise, no one will learn anything, and the game will die because there's no standard by which to play it. That's my position, and I'm sticking to it, Hugh. You can crucify me if you like.[/quote']

 

What's the game? I suggest the "game" is Champions in the Champions Universe. Within that framework, I can see uses for Nebula. I cannot see uses for Dr. Destroyer (as currently written). Hero is not the game - it is a game design system. Dr. D could be a very useful character in a higher power level game/setting, but I don't see him as being useful in my 12 DC, 25 defense, etc. game. In fairness, I never used the character much as I had other arch-villain characters I preferred.

 

Oh, and the GM who deserves to be crucified is the one who tosses Nebula in, takes out one or more PC's, then shrugs and says "sorry, that's what the character design says - make a new PC". A GM recognizing the character doesn't fit his style and will not add to the fun of the game is doing his job. But I don't think the designer of the character, or the GM who can find a way to make Nebula add to the fun of the game, deserves to be crucified either. Different game styles carry different results, and none of them have any rightful claim at being the standard by which other games should be judged.

[Susano]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

Remember' date=' too, that with published materials, the WRITER assumes that the material CAN be used as written. This is why I playtest everything I publish. To make sure that it's balanced and doesn't make people's lives miserable. Yes, the combats and situations I design can be tough to deal with, or extremely nasty, but the material can be used as written without a significant problem. As game designers, we aren't just writers who throw numbers down. We are ROLE MODELS who show people how the game should be played and how the numbers work. This requires a lot of walking on eggshells. You guys are my audience. But at the same time, I have to make sure that people don't send me letters like "What the BLEEP? Why did you do this?" And if I do get a letter or a question like that, I had better have a good answer. [/quote']

 

I never assume anything I buy will be usable as written. Especially scenarios, and especially superhero scenarios. The nature of the scenarios, the villains presented, the combats, technology, and/or MacGuffins may all be wrong for my universe. Buy anything I buy will often be with an eye towards "can I adapt this to my needs?"

 

At the same time, when I write something, I try to avoid anything that smacks of "GM's okay required" and/or handwavium. I want to present things in a generic manner as possible, so people will be able to use my creation(s) in as many different settings as possible. I even say as such in the intro to Kazei 5. I readily admit that you, the reader, may not be interested or want to use all of what I've done, but hope you'll adapt some of it and use that.

 

So, Steve needs to create and/or update and expand on hundreds of villains, both new and established. He also needs to fill all niches. I'd never use the CU was written. It has numerous characters I don't like, don't want, don't need, or don't fit my idea of a supers setting. But Steve can't make those assumptions. He needs to give the readers the Doctor Doom clone, the Lex Luthor clone, the Joker knock-off, the Hulk analog, and so on. One, so GMs can easily grab a character and go, and two, so people can read between the lines and say "Aha! This is how I could build [insert name here]." Heck, I'll readily admit that Kazei 5 is loaded with that sort of thing, some of which are far more obvious then others.

 

In addition to creating numerous characters, Steve also has to deal with numerous play styles. He needs to create some high-end world beaters. He needs to create some low-end thugs. He needs lots of 400 point supers. He also needs martial artists, bricks, blasters, mentalists, and even a few wonky types with really weird powers (like Captain Chronos and his manipulation, and... Nebula.) So, you end up with basic bricks (Ogre) and guys most people would look at and say "I dunno." Nebula is one of those "I dunno" characters. I'll admit, I was one of the "I don't think I'd use this one" responses. But I an see that people can. and will use her, and have a lot of ideas on how to make it work. And many of them (IMO) are perfectly, in genre, methods to dealing with Nebula and her EDM Duress Gauntlets.

 

And... that's all I'm going to say.

[lapsedgamer]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

Then weaken the tank' date=' don't strengthen the attack. A lot of people just don't understand that a tank is just as ineffective if you turn it upside down as if you smash it completely. It may take 100 STR to smash one. It only takes a 55 to flip it over and leave it there. The worst part is, once you do this, the people inside the tank are hosed, AND it's entertaining. Champions was built on the late 60's to early 80's Marvel Model, when their comics were awesome and DC was writing stories like "The Eraser that Tried to Rub Out Batman". The game works best when played sort of in that era of power. Years of experience have taught me this.[/quote']

 

I could see that point, but the books seem to be trying to make things as universally playable as possible, so theoretically a superhero could appear in a fantasy world or vice versa. Most of the house rules I have seen for supers basically weaken real world objects without changing the published write-ups. I like that power level you are describing too, but other people like to go all Galactic Champions. I might not want to play with them, but who am I to tell them that they are having bad wrong fun.

 

Some people can't accept bad die rolls. In your example, the player was a jackass. That's the difference between a superhero RPG and a comic book. In the comic book, the characters have writer's fiat. In a game, the characters can't have writers fiat because otherwise, you're not playing a game in a room with other people. Champions is a shared experience. Reading a comic book isn't. And I don't think it was rules correct, but wrong. I think it was perfectly fine. It's okay to have an "oops" moment. In fact, it's better to have "oops" moments because it shows that characters are FALLIBLE. It HUMANIZES them and makes them more three-dimensional. In a good roleplaying group, the player takes that failed result and turns it into good roleplaying. In a bad roleplaying group, the player whines and has the reaction you just described.

Gameplay is just that: Play. It's more like sports than it is like storytelling. And that's okay. If it's fourth and long with 33 yards to go, and you decide to go for it, you take the risk that you could get the first down or you could get bad field position. There's no difference. And that, to me, is the essence of gaming. Good sportsmanship. Your example shows a player who is a bad sport. The GM shouldn't be blamed for that. That "get the ref" mentality persists in our society, and it's bad. Because you know, most of the time, the referee knows the rules the best out of anyone there, AND is usually right. (See The GM is GOD Tee Shirts everywhere you go at conventions for the reason why this is so.)

 

He wasn't being an jackass. I was sitting right there, and I have played Hero for a long time and knew what the rules said, and I thought it was a bad call. The player didn't say anything much, but I saw the look on his face and understood what he was thinking. Listen, in this life there are black-and-white folks and there are gray area folks. When it comes to gaming, I am definitely a gray area person. What makes for fun play without breaking the game, or completely nerfing the genre, is fair game. I wouldn't let the guy one shot Binder's gun, but random peon Viper agent is a background character who gets like one or two phases of screen time at most. This is one thing that Savage Worlds handles well. There are named characters (Wildcards) and there are mooks. We treat them differently to keep things entertaining and moving along briskly. This is not outside of the Hero concept and is addressed in several places in the Hero rules. Fallible, human characters, yes. However, they are meant to be larger than life. In a heroic game, I might not be so generous. It depends on the mood I am going for.

 

To me there is no comparison between RPGs and sports. Why? There is no way to win an RPG. No one is really keeping score. The only objective measure of success is the enjoyment level of the people at the table, which is totally subjective. This is why we don't see this issue the same way for the most part. To me, the GM is not in competition with the players. To me, there is no way that this would be fun. I admit that there are some people who try to make everything into a competition and enjoy that. I 'm just not one of them.

 

As a GM, I think the key to a good game is mixing it up a little and making sure everyone gets their ten to fifteen minutes a night. But I also think that people have become too much of prima donnas when they get a bad die roll or screw things up. It's okay to make mistakes, you just can't make the results lethal all the time. Characters in Champions are hard to kill. My advice is not to worry so much about whether or not you can kill PC's, but to just build the villains within the same reasonable limits as the player characters (for the most part, a few notable exceptions notwithstanding) and let the chips fall where they may. My game runs very naturally because of this. Every so often, some bad die rolls mess up things, but that's what makes the game FUN and CHALLENGING. Right now, one of my groups is fighting cheesy dinosaur men. They're having a blast. The dinosaur men are supervillains, but they're not the mightiest bunch of supervillains in the world. It's okay. They have an invisible vehicle that's hard for this particular group of characters to find. It's okay. They're building a dinosaur man army. Yippee. It's a classic, but it works.

 

It sounds like a fun scenario. That doesn't mean that a scenario that is not laid out like this might not be fun too.

 

Sometimes, I've learned that people overcomplicate the numbers in order to get what they perceive as the exact nitpicky thing. In general, this is my biggest issue. It's better to have a simple, playable character where you don't have to overthink what you do than have a confusing ball of numerical hoo-hah that makes things complicated.

 

Keep it simple. Roleplaying will thrive, your players will be happier, and you will be, too. Plots can be as complicated as you like, but building things realistically in a comic book game?

 

Here's a hint. I say this about once every two years here. Realism isn't real. It's just realism.

 

Play hard. Play fair. Play smart.

 

Since we don't necessarily disagree on the increased power levels of the last two editions, I'll just say that the guys who like to play at higher levels are just as right as guys who like a lower level. I wouldn't want to play Galactic Champions all the time, but some people do. I'm not a stickler for realism all the time, but some people want the information. If people are having a good time, and you're getting the tone you want out of the plot points, it's all good.

[lapsedgamer]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

I find Dr. D frustrating because using him in a typical game is impractical. While I agree to some extent with Lapsedgamers' comments on power levels' date=' I differ in a couple of respects. First, Supers as a genre isn't about progressing from VIPER agents to Dr. Destroyer like fantasy characters grow from being challenged by Orcs to taking on dragons. As such, a wide range of power levels isn't nearly as appropriate. Second, while I agree with the power level comments, CU is a game setting, and should have a consistent power level. Perhaps the high end Dr. Destroyer would fit better in a higher end campaign setting where the heroes are also at a higher power level - a level where a team would have a tough fight against someone of his power level, but where victory is still a possibility. Unlike Nebula, I see no plot hooks or story arc to be derived from a character who is simply an overwhelming combat force. He could certainly be a background player, but a means for a satisfying ultimate confrontation eludes me. Maybe that's a failing on my part as a GM, and someone else can suggest a use for Dr. Destroyer where he's not just a background element, and doesn't need a deus ex machina depowering (eg. some McGuffin that depowers his armor) to make him usable. Or maybe that's the approach to use - you can't beat him so you need to find a way to depower him. [/quote']

 

I agree. I don't believe that in supers you have to progress up the levels from orcs to dragons, or agents to Dr. Destroyer, but there is a learning curve even in the source materials. Batman started off with thugs, moved up to thugs with wacky gimmicks, and eventually became world class. The New Mutants couldn't deal with other mutant teenagers at first, now many of them are on par with the X-Men. Buying new powers and skills with experience is perfectly in genre to me.

 

Still, I have no idea who can face down 5th/6th Ed. Dr. Destroyer with brute force. I don't think even the Justice Squadron or the Sentinels could do it without a lot of help, and that's before you add in the agents, robots, and the Destroyers.

[torchwolf]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

Several good and interesting suggestions of how to run Nebula has been put forth already. Some other ideas for Nebula:

 

• the recurring Star Trek plot idea of Paradise achieved only draconian measures (death penalty, personality wipe, etc.), traditionally resolved with a philosophical argument (though not always to mutual satisfaction)
  
• the classic "alien justice" plot (Marvel Universe examples: Kree Empire (Ronan the Accuser); Shi'Ar Imperial Guard; judgments on Phoenix or Galactus; etc)
  
• plot device character for weeding out villains (Nebula as NPC hero/villain methodically removing unusable villain concepts from the campaign world)
  
• does the Republic has a Prime Directive of non-interference with primitive cultures, and if so, does Nebula in effect violate it?
  
• what if, for budgetary or whatever purposes, Duress officials decides all Earth criminals should be returned to their place of origin, being a local problem rather than a concern of the Republic?
  

I would think that any attempt at using characters strictly as written invites both inconsistency and logical disconnects with other elements of a given campaign world, even within the Champions Universe itself. Depending on GM ambition, logic should probably not be strictly enforced on every aspect of a superheroic campaign world if it is supposed to emulate the genre faithfully, but consistency in the presentation of characters becomes in some ways more important with some loss of logic.

 

As has been stated, interpretations of characters and writeups will invariably produce different results from any given GM. Even with extremely elaborate descriptions, there is still the GM's interpretation of how any given character will be represented in a specific campaign.

 

In general, I would think that extremely powerful villains (and, for instance, Nebula; characters neither heroes nor villains but operating by an alien or divergent moral code) would often be more concerned with achieving their own goals than simply fighting heroes.

Given that Nebula wants to enforce her particular, slightly mosaic, brand of law enforcement, and provide an illustrative example of how superior her own methods are, she would likely use her investigative skills to prioritize her own "wanted list"; at the very start of her Background/History description in CKC, she obviously interviews "snitches and lowlifes", so she cannot be as uncompromising as it might seem, rather being draconian mainly in her view of herself as both enforcing the law and administering justice (with extremely harsh judgments as part of her native penal code). She may even consider herself in a position close to a nineteenth century US Marshal on a trek to a lawless region; not opposed to cooperation with locals, but wary of their motives and methods.

 

Many will disagree with these words and my interpretations, which is as it should be; it's up to the GM to interpret how NPCs act from their personality and motivation, but every character writeup I have ever seen still leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and/or re-imagining. Personally I think that revamping character writeups (not at all necessarily having anything to do with numerical representations), whether for published characters or for lackluster homemade characters, is one of the most essential, and one of the more enjoyable, parts of my job as a GM.

 

Your Mileage Will Vary From Your Selected Routes

[Susano]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

I agree. I don't believe that in supers you have to progress up the levels from orcs to dragons, or agents to Dr. Destroyer, but there is a learning curve even in the source materials. Batman started off with thugs, moved up to thugs with wacky gimmicks, and eventually became world class. The New Mutants couldn't deal with other mutant teenagers at first, now many of them are on par with the X-Men. Buying new powers and skills with experience is perfectly in genre to me.

 

Still, I have no idea who can face down 5th/6th Ed. Dr. Destroyer with brute force. I don't think even the Justice Squadron or the Sentinels could do it without a lot of help, and that's before you add in the agents, robots, and the Destroyers.

 

The issue here is that the CU has lots of 1,000+ point villains but no analog for Thor, Superman, or any of the other high-end heroes (that I know of.) Partially, I think, is so the PCs can fill that niche, and partially so the GM can create his own heroes. That said, it would be nice to see a CU Supes or the like.

[Susano]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

I would think that any attempt at using characters strictly as written invites both inconsistency and logical disconnects with other elements of a given campaign world, even within the Champions Universe itself. Depending on GM ambition, logic should probably not be strictly enforced on every aspect of a superheroic campaign world if it is supposed to emulate the genre faithfully, but consistency in the presentation of characters becomes in some ways more important with some loss of logic.

 

Exactly.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

The issue here is that the CU has lots of 1' date='000+ point villains but no analog for Thor, Superman, or any of the other high-end heroes (that I know of.) Partially, I think, is so the PCs can fill that niche, and partially so the GM can create his own heroes. That said, it would be nice to see a CU Supes or the like.[/quote']

 

The official CU is slowly starting to add statted examples of characters in that class. We have the Drifter of the Justice Squadron, a very powerful mystic; Tetsuronin in Japan, probably the world's foremost powered-armor hero; the cosmically-powerful Celestar in Canada. It looks like the Star*Guard are going to approach that level as well, based on the write-up for the Star*Staff in the new Champions Universe book. And if the published books follow events from Champions Online, Robert Caliburn is now the Archmage. Other major-league heroes have been mentioned in various books but not yet statted, such as Albion and Hyperion in Britain, and Ushas in India. That said, I agree a few more would be appropriate. (I still think Vanguard could make a comeback somehow. After all, Takofanes reanimated him even though his body was burned to dust.)

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

Keep in mind that Nebula does not have to be a recurring character. She can be brought in as the impetus for a story arc, and by the time that arc is finished she may be dealt with and disposed of permanently as far as the campaign is concerned. Comic books are full of such villains.

[Balabanto]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

I never assume anything I buy will be usable as written. Especially scenarios, and especially superhero scenarios. The nature of the scenarios, the villains presented, the combats, technology, and/or MacGuffins may all be wrong for my universe. Buy anything I buy will often be with an eye towards "can I adapt this to my needs?"

 

At the same time, when I write something, I try to avoid anything that smacks of "GM's okay required" and/or handwavium. I want to present things in a generic manner as possible, so people will be able to use my creation(s) in as many different settings as possible. I even say as such in the intro to Kazei 5. I readily admit that you, the reader, may not be interested or want to use all of what I've done, but hope you'll adapt some of it and use that.

 

So, Steve needs to create and/or update and expand on hundreds of villains, both new and established. He also needs to fill all niches. I'd never use the CU was written. It has numerous characters I don't like, don't want, don't need, or don't fit my idea of a supers setting. But Steve can't make those assumptions. He needs to give the readers the Doctor Doom clone, the Lex Luthor clone, the Joker knock-off, the Hulk analog, and so on. One, so GMs can easily grab a character and go, and two, so people can read between the lines and say "Aha! This is how I could build [insert name here]." Heck, I'll readily admit that Kazei 5 is loaded with that sort of thing, some of which are far more obvious then others.

 

In addition to creating numerous characters, Steve also has to deal with numerous play styles. He needs to create some high-end world beaters. He needs to create some low-end thugs. He needs lots of 400 point supers. He also needs martial artists, bricks, blasters, mentalists, and even a few wonky types with really weird powers (like Captain Chronos and his manipulation, and... Nebula.) So, you end up with basic bricks (Ogre) and guys most people would look at and say "I dunno." Nebula is one of those "I dunno" characters. I'll admit, I was one of the "I don't think I'd use this one" responses. But I an see that people can. and will use her, and have a lot of ideas on how to make it work. And many of them (IMO) are perfectly, in genre, methods to dealing with Nebula and her EDM Duress Gauntlets.

 

And... that's all I'm going to say.

 

Mike, I really don't want to challenge you on this, but this brings up a fundamental flaw in the design, and it's this. There has to be an unwritten assumption that the characters can be used as written, or there is no point in giving them stats at all. It isn't something I want to debate, but I've always believed that if you're given a set of stats, that they're meant to be used exactly as written because the writers have playtested the material and it functions properly under all those circumstances. That is worrisome to me, in the same way that "never been playtested" is worrisome to me. That argument leads to "Just write some backgrounds, and gerrymander some stats, because you know they're going to be edited anyway."

 

I'm not comfortable with that as a gamer. I want to know that the material has been playtested and that it works pretty much as written. When things aren't playtested, there are problems. Sometimes big ones.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

Remember that Nebula's Duress Gauntlets are not a "character killer." The victim of her gauntlets isn't dead, but banished to another dimension, which while harsh is intentionally non-lethal; and the means to follow after and try to rescue him (a classic superhero trope) is right there. If you introduce Nebula with the intention of ultimately getting some or all of the PCs into Duress, and running a survival/escape adventure there, then Nebula is eminently usable as-is.

[Susano]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

Mike, I really don't want to challenge you on this, but this brings up a fundamental flaw in the design, and it's this. There has to be an unwritten assumption that the characters can be used as written, or there is no point in giving them stats at all. It isn't something I want to debate, but I've always believed that if you're given a set of stats, that they're meant to be used exactly as written because the writers have playtested the material and it functions properly under all those circumstances. That is worrisome to me, in the same way that "never been playtested" is worrisome to me. That argument leads to "Just write some backgrounds, and gerrymander some stats, because you know they're going to be edited anyway."

 

I'm not comfortable with that as a gamer. I want to know that the material has been playtested and that it works pretty much as written. When things aren't playtested, there are problems. Sometimes big ones.

 

Well, that's just it. You say Nebula can't be used as written, and I say she can. Let's face it, Nebula's power set doesn't violate any written rules and is perfectly legal. The difference comes down to "do you want to use her?" Some people don't care for the power set itself and won't use her, others see plot possibilities. But either way, it doesn't change the fact that she's a by-the-book legal character.

[Tom]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

Just going to insert a couple of only semi-random thoughts here. Thinking on Nebula's EDM attack, the first thing which comes to my mind is the Phantom Zone from Superman followed immediately by any number of extra-dimensional prisons I've stumbled across in various settings and material I've come across over the years.

 

Now initially, my first objection along these lines is having that sort of power in the hands of a single character as a 'typical' weapon issued as standard equipment. Until I remembered ROM: Space Knight. (not a series I ever read much of, but the char and his stories crossed into some of the Marvel stuff I did read back then).

 

As given, Nebula and her EDM attack fit within established genre conventions and storylines. That does not mean I as a GM have to use her, or even want to use her. In fact, I've never used her as written. I've used her sheet (minus the EDM attack) as a template for throwaway NPCs, so even as a char I have no use for story wise (to date) I've been able to use her writeup in CKC for my game. This is true of any number of the characters HERO has produced.

 

There are any number of stories I have no interest in telling/re-telling as either a player or a GM. That doesn't mean other people might want to explore those stories, and as a producer of game materials, HERO is best served by producing as wide a variety of potential NPCs and plot hooks as they can manage.

[assault]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

If you introduce Nebula with the intention of ultimately getting some or all of the PCs into Duress' date=' and running a survival/escape adventure there, then Nebula is eminently usable as-is.[/quote']

 

Absolutely. That's most of the point of the character. (The other part is the alien morality bit, but that's not really my cup of tea.)

[Balabanto]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

Well' date=' that's just it. You say Nebula can't be used as written, and I say she can. Let's face it, Nebula's power set doesn't violate any written rules and is perfectly legal. The difference comes down to "do you want to use her?" Some people don't care for the power set itself and won't use her, others see plot possibilities. But either way, it doesn't change the fact that she's a by-the-book legal character.[/quote']

 

And that's just fine...for us. We're all EXPERTS, Mike. We all have played this game here for years and years, and I guess this is what it boils down to, for me. Hero is sufficiently arcane as a system that it's difficult to get new players as is. Releasing entire supplements where things can't be used straight out of the box is inimical to having a larger player base, and that bothers me a heck of a lot. My players barely know the rules compared to me, and most of the people who know Hero best I meet at Origins and Gencon.

 

In order for our game to succeed and thrive, supplements and adventures need to be simple. (I am guilty of breaking this rule also, actually. Undead Skull? Really? That was the most overcomplicated power ever designed.) My goal is usually to do everything with as few variable power pools as possible, except where necessary, and keep things easy for the guy who's reading what I write.

 

Mainly, what I want is more people to play Hero. I'm not sure this is served by characters that can't be used out of the box by a novice.

[Susano]

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

 

And that's just fine...for us. We're all EXPERTS, Mike. We all have played this game here for years and years, and I guess this is what it boils down to, for me. Hero is sufficiently arcane as a system that it's difficult to get new players as is. Releasing entire supplements where things can't be used straight out of the box is inimical to having a larger player base, and that bothers me a heck of a lot. My players barely know the rules compared to me, and most of the people who know Hero best I meet at Origins and Gencon.

 

In order for our game to succeed and thrive, supplements and adventures need to be simple. (I am guilty of breaking this rule also, actually. Undead Skull? Really? That was the most overcomplicated power ever designed.) My goal is usually to do everything with as few variable power pools as possible, except where necessary, and keep things easy for the guy who's reading what I write.

 

Mainly, what I want is more people to play Hero. I'm not sure this is served by characters that can't be used out of the box by a novice.

 

Hmm... by your definition of what supplements best serve the Hero Community, Gestalt and Kazei 5 should never have been published, as both of them (IMO) require a certain degree maturity in their players as well as a certain understanding of the rules beyond that of a novice.