Trebuchet

Unless this guy is the only player whose house you can play in, I'd just tell him to hit the road. It's obvious he has no concern at all for his fellow players. Players like that lessen the enjoyment of everybody. I believe it is possible to have lots of fun with almost any point total. If the players remember that "normals" have stats of 8, a CV of 2 to 4, and a point total of 25-35 points, 250 or 350 points is rather powerful. I still find it useful in my game to occasionally throw agents, thugs or soldiers against the characters. Once your 250 point martial artist has personally stomped 20 members of the Crips street gang into the pavement with his bare hands, he won't feel underpowered. (In a recent game I ran, one of our team's martial artists singlehandedly defeated a group of 100 heavily armed neo-Nazis attempting a coup in Austria. Since he took care to always be amongst them, they couldn't use hand grenades to get him because they'd kill their comrades. After he'd knocked out about 30 of them without being touched, the rest broke and ran. It was awesome.)

I like 350. My character was not only able to purchase some good "candy" skills such as horseback Riding (A luxury when you can run 100+ MPH), but was able to buy several skills to represent her Secret Identity as an executive assistant to a billionaire (Since her boss is also the superhero team leader/cofounder, maintaining that level of expertise was not strictly necessary). But I bought her Bureaucratics, Computer Programming, and KS: Executive Assistant anyway because she wouldn't be satisfied just faking doing a good job. She would want to be really able to do it well. I also bought her 3 points of Norwegian since she's been living in Norway for three years and upped her 2 Pt. English to 3 points (Fully Fluent w/ Accent). The trick is to make certain the character's skills complement each other without overriding each other. The best way to prevent that is to have the players discuss it amongst themselves. We have two M.D.s on our team, but only one is a surgeon.

El Paso is bigger than Minneapolis and St. Paul combined with it's 570,000 people. So we should have at least 2, and you gave Minneapolis 3. If you count El Paso's sister city of Juarez which is as close to El Paso as St. Paul is to Minneapolis (Right across a small river you can literally wade across), Mexico, with a population of between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000 then this area should rate at least 4 if not 5 supers. Viva El Paso!

In my campaign several characters have low levels of rPD (including my own with 8 rPD). To allow that to not be overly lethal, few opponents in my campaign have killing attacks except normals. Supervillains with Killing Attacks seldom target them at the heroes. (I run a 4-color campaign, but this applies to other types to some degree.) I'll give a 3 SPD, 4 OCV soldier or agent a 2d6 RKA, but his odds of actually hitting someone with a 9+ DCV are rather poor. The more solidly defended characters have lower DCVs, but their defenses can handle such a small attack. I would sit down with the players and explain that you are not looking to screw them, but to challenge them. If no normal can ever be a threat, then they won't run into normals. They'll miss a lot of fun if they don't get to stomp agents, ninjas, and the occasional bank robber. As long as the players understand that the comic is titled after their characters, they should be more agreeable to low rPD.

Thank you. It's managed to keep the players and my fellow GMs guessing for 12 years.

My current campaign used the common origin thing as well, although there are also "Atlanteans" groups who have amazing mental and/or magical powers but have been operating secretly for centuries. Our common origin involves a small crystalline gland somehow imbedded in the brain of recipients. This gland somehow orchestrates changes to the body down to the DNA level, slowly granting the person super powers. No real pattern to the acquisition of these glands has been discerned, although everyone who has recieved one was already extraordinary in some way before they got their powers. (No "Joe Sixpack" characters.) The majority (80%) of non-player characters with powers are in the 150-250 point range, and PCs are 350 points. There are a few ultra-high level types as well (Perhaps a half dozen). I have only about 500 superhumans on Earth, so our 7-member hero team MidGuard constitutes a significant percentage of the superhumans on Earth, and an even larger percentage of the world's higher powered beings. The most amazing thing about these tiny (pea-sized) crystalliine organs in the brain is that they appear to be advanced computers, although whether they are artificial or themselves an alien life form is a subject for hot debate amongst scientists in my campaign world. In at least one documented case a person who had his crystal surgically removed retained his powers, and in another case a crystal apparently "grew wrong" and became deformed, thus causing side effects like a tumor. No one but me knows the actual origin and purpose of these crystals, and I ain't talkin'.

Metahuman is high on my list so far, and 'meta' sounds like a good term as a slur. What I am looking for is a general term to describe any human with super-powers, including powered-armor guys and people with magical or mental powers. In my campaign of 12 years "supers" have only been public since June of 2000 (We're currently in mid-2004). So legislation is just finally beginning to be written to deal with this new potential menace, and I expect a few hate groups will also inevitably arise. I don't want to take it anywhere near as far as Marvel did with the X-Men "mutant menace", but let's be realistic: Some people are not going to like the idea that other human beings have these fantastic powers. Some because they fear the unknown, some because of jealousy, and some because they distrust anything they cannot control. Bigotry has many sources. And some of those people will have the ability to act on those fears.

Re: Re: Comliness? Perhaps that explains why I didn't like Julia Roberts much in "Erin Brockovitch": In it she played a bitchy, foulmouthed, "trailer trash" type of character. Julia Roberts is not classically beautiful, but pretty in a "girl next door" kind of way I personally find more attractive than most supermodels. I like Sandra Bullock for the same reason, although I think she is prettier than Julia Roberts. I'd rate Julia Roberts as a 16 or 18, Sandra Bullock as a 20 COM. I've always assumed personality has at least some impact on COM. Looks can get you by until you open your mouth, but then personality kicks in. My writeup for my superheroine describes her personalty thusly: "Elena is friendly, effervescent, and slightly naïve. She makes friends easily and is quite popular both at work and school; she is one of those people that virtually everyone likes. She has an innocent way about her that most people find very appealing. Elena always has a kind word and a warm smile for everyone." So she's pretty, but nice too.

Steve Long also ruled in another thread when I asked that Combat Luck does not apply versus damage from the character with it deliberately exposing himself to harm. Examples were Move Throughs/Bys and Damage Shields. (50% of my character's total defenses of 12 PD/ED are Combat Luck.) In the campaign we have also decided this applies equally to squeezing damage in some circumstances. It is very important to remember the Luck-based aspect of Combat Luck. Get thrown off a four story building? Combat Luck means you landed on a car roof (which collapses and reduces your damage) rather than on the concrete pavement. It does not mean you can do Move Throughs casually unless you have other more conventional defenses. My character's largest attack can do 13d6 (Move Through at full 30" speed), but if she fails to do Knock Back to her target she will knocked herself unconscious (-10 STUN with an average die roll. Even if she does do KB, she is in serious danger of Stunning herself due to her mere 6 PD and 18 CON. For obvious reasons Move Throughs are not part of her normal combat repertoire.

High COM is a standard of comic books. Except for teens such as Kitty Pride, virtually every female in comicdom is drop-dead gorgeous and has breasts that qualify as national monuments. (Even extraterrestrial women in the comics have breasts.) Virtually every male has a washboard stomach and rippling muscles. The superpowered are the beautiful people. In my campaign paranormals are often treated just like Hollywood celebrities, supermodels or star athletes, with SuperPeople© Magazine, papparrazi chasing after them incessantly, and pornographic websites with phony nude pictures of pretty superheroines. (And woe to the Public ID superheroine foolish enough to sunbathe topless somewhere!) Even the male PCs in my campaign all have COM higher than 10. Keeping that in mind, I think it is reasonable to allow minor bonuses to interactions for people with high COM. It's true that attractive people are more aptly listened to or trusted. And in a comic-book universe, pretty much everyone is pretty or handsome. I give most male characters 12 or 14 COM, my females go between 14 - 20. Because she's cute as hell, my current character Zl'f has an 18 COM, which I intend to raise more as she gets older and begins to grow up a bit physically (She ages at 1/4 normal rate).

I'd like to see if we can come up with some alternate terms for superhumans. I use "paranormals" in my campaign, and I've seen "metahuman" and I think "novas" mentioned as well. But none of these really float my boat except "novas", which I think is sort of campaign specific. Anyone else have any other terms? Perhaps in foreign languages?

I think you've hit on it there: If everyone tries to let everyone else have fun, everyone will have fun. It's amazing how cool it is when every single player in a group is trying to help everyone else's character shine. Even if your character can't do something himself directly , he might be able to help another character out. That's what teamwork is all about. My own martial artist Zl'f is continuing her long-established trend of being knocked unconscious in 3 out of every 5 games she plays in. She gets KO'd often, but thanks to her 9 SPD & 12 REC, she always gets back into the fight before it's over. Plus of course the teammates who cover her tiny unconscious butt while she's out cold. I'm the only military veteran in my current group, so that blows that theory.

Interesting. My current group is all conservative (The prime attribute we require for admission into our by-invitation-only group is personality compatitibility), and our teamwork is extraordinary. We cover each other carefully, giving our team a synergy far beyond what would appear on paper. We would (and have) clobbered much more powerful teams pointwise. I don't know if that has anything to do with political orientation, or just this particular group. It might be interesting to discuss it further (Perhaps on the non-gaming forum?). Are conservatives more cooperative? I don't know.

Wow, you have a lot of paranormals! In my campaign there are somewhere between 500-1000 paranormals of all levels, but at least half of them are 250 or fewer points. The very few above 500 points are all extradimensional/immortal in nature. (My biggest villain weighs in at a mere 1600 points. Of course, since he rules Columbia he has a few other assets to utilize.)

Re: Most indispensable Hey, whatever works! At least we never have trouble getting the bad guys pissed off. But I miss the detective too.

Let's hear it for the rule of the super-gymnasts!

In our current campaign my character has become the leader since she has the most seniority, was deputy team leader, and the original leader/founder is taking a year long leave of absense. That's been an interesting role-playing challenge for me, because I am not a leader type myself. So far she's done OK.

I'd still prefer Killing Attacks be a +2 Advantage rather than a separate Power. It would allow them to avoid such absurdities as "Ranged Killing Attack; No Range -1/2".

Excellent and well thought out analysis.

Re: Worthless Disadvantages Also keep in mind that a DNPC is not necessarily a friend or relative; it's just someone who occasionally gets involved in the hero's adventures. I once ran a character who had a DNPC whom he hated. The PC was a university physics professor in his Secret ID; his DNPC was his department head, Dr. Irwin Ledbetter. Dr. Ledbetter was an incompetent and self-important man who only got his job because his uncle was the Dean of the university. He spent most of his time harassing and spying on his subordinates in order to steal their research. He always was trying to figure out what the PC was up to. My character despised Dr. Ledbetter, but had to rescue him at least twice. Keep in mind that J. Jonah Jameson could easily be one of Spiderman's DNPC's.

1) I'm not exactly certain where a Duplicate is when it is created? Standing directly next to the original, or at some distance? 2a) If a character with Duplication can create several identical duplicates who also have Duplication, can these duplicates help create additional duplicates up to the maximimum number? Or is only the original character capable of duplicating? Example: Crazy Ivan A can make 6 identical duplicates of himself. He takes a half-phase to create a single duplicate, B. On their next Phase, can A & B each act to create another duplicate, thus creating an additional two, C & D? 2b) Or if each identical character with Duplication can create X duplicates, can he end up with X squared duplicates? (I.e., could Crazy Ivan above make 36 duplicates?) 3) Can a character purchase the Autofire Advantage in order to create multiple duplicates more quickly?

1) Bring back "Shockwaves" for Bricks. It's absurd to have to spend 50 points on what amounts to a "Power Trick". 2) Consider a Power "Invulnerability" vs. single attack types or special effects, rather than using "Desolidification" as a bass-ackwards way to do it.

Another approach is to have combat-light characters have lots of useful non-combat skills. Batman may not be powerful in combat compared to Superman, but if there's criminal investigation or scientific reasoning needed Superman takes a back seat. Thor may kick butt, but set him in front of a computer and any 12 year old can outperform him. As long as players get as much "face time" from the GM during a game, they can still enjoy themselves. So go skill-heavy with combat-light characters. Another method (one I like) is to make certain the bad guys have lots of low-level minions for the less powerful characters to beat up on. As long as my character is laying the smackdown on somebody every phase, I'm a happy camper. However, for beginning players, I recommend following Monilith's suggestion and starting with more equal characters pointwise. Once everyone has some experience with the system, you can diverge a bit more.

Yeah, I remember Flashback. He was a weasel. Yes, that might be a good psychlim for this character. Where in Cincinnat do you live? I was born there and lived in Westwood until I was almost 13. Isn't your icon the symbol on the chest of "The Greatest American Hero"?

I'm trying to design a character that creates duplicates of himself by pulling them from time nearby, so they are himself from only a few seconds before or after the current segment of time. I want each duplicate to be able teleport to represent moving through time. Additionally, I want the number of available duplicates to be totally random each phase, anything from 1-6 copies at any given time. The character never knows when each of his phases starts just how many duplicates he'll be able to manage. Any thoughts on the best way to do this (Obviously Duplication, but I mean relevant Limitations and cautions)? I'm blatantly stealing this idea from Roger Zelazny's classic Creatures of Light and Darkness.