Vanguard00

Re: A counter for Dr Destroyer: Tomorrow Man I've always been fond of the team that makes the villains go "Oh crap!" rather than one particular hero. Don't get me wrong; I think the write-up is a good one, and I don't see anything wrong with the SFX of the powers. I might not have made him the super-scientist/inventor he seems to be, but that's more a personal preference than a critique. Worldmaker had a historical figure in his campaign world (Quantum, I think he was called), who was the premiere hero, pretty much of all time. He died before the campaign officially began, but was a great idealogical role model without overshadowing any characters. That's a cool idea. A role model NPC (or, as in my case, NPCs) are good to have, because it give just a wee bit more incentive for the players. A sort of "Hey, we could be as good as they are one day...maybe even better!" Tomorrow Man probably fills the bill in SG's universe. YMMV, of course, but I see nothing wrong with having an uberhero or an uberteam in one's campaign universe. Quite the opposite, in fact, assuming they are used as plot devices only and not to overshadow the PCs. Doesn't sound like that's the case, but I thought I'd share.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Making an effort to find the bright side here... I got my Girl Scout cookies today. I'm gonna go pig out on vanilla ice cream and Thin Mints and watch some TV show or movie of absolutely no redeeming qualities.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Approximately 10 days after the ordeal began, my girlfriend is finished moving. Ten days. That's me going over there every friggin' day for ten days, regardless of whether I worked that day or not, and spending at least 2 hours every day (the average is more like 4-5) helping her with something. But she's done. Oh, and in the process of getting screwed by my now-former web host--I paid my bill, they automatically billed me AGAIN, and then AGAIN, after I expressly told them not to--I ran out of money. Completely. My girlfriend owes me $500. You remember, she's the one who bought a couch and a loveseat right before the move. Yeah. Does she offer to pay it to me? Not recently, no, and certainly not when I told her I my account had just been emptied. She asked if anything was going to bounce, and my reply was, "I don't think so, but there's nothing I can do about it anyway." Still no money. If I wasn't such a wuss and didn't think the break-up would drag on for friggin' years I'd end it right now.

Re: Setting up super-prisons I've almost always story-lined prisons, with very little reference to actual technical writeups. If I want someone held, they stay held. If I want someone to escape, they escape. I come up with plausable and realistic reasons for this to happen, but I don't worry about the mechanics of it. I have used reinforced walls, restraints, power negators (very much like those used in the comic "Powers"), and "control collars". I've capitalized on known disads, vulnerabilities and susceptibilities and used 'em in cell construction. I've also put super-prisons in some inhospitable places (desert, underwater, arctic, in orbit, etc) to inhibit any but the most serious-minded escape attempts. I have yet to use "hot sleep" options, though. For some reason I can't imagine even the Champions Universe have reached that point yet. Temporary measures, sure, but not long-term suspended animation. YMMV, of course.

Re: Secret Crisis?

Re: A Thread for Random Musings I have no idea when or how this happened, but I just noticed that the time difference between posts is now in actual increments rather than actual time posted. For example, the last post before this one was "1 hour ago", whereas in the past it would have told me that it occured at 10:28am PST. Also, it appears that I now have more page-jumping options at the bottom of a thread. Just something I noticed and figured I'd muse on it in a random fashion.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Bah! Friggin' company mistakenly charges me $250, then tells me it could be 10 days before I get my money back. Gee, if only I had an accounting department so I could screw with people's money! And my wrist hurts, too! Double Bah!

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves - Behind The Cottage Doors..." NT: Game shows that never quite made it on the air.

Re: A costume challenge I beg to differ. Well, not beg beg, but differ. Or whatever. Crap. Nevermind.

Re: Musings on Random Musings I'm probably painting a worse picture than necessary. Most of the time these aren’t really serious issues. By “serious†I mean nothing I can’t handle. I adapt and overcome, and I can usually mollify her more extreme issues with patience and understanding. Right now, though, I’m a little out of sorts because of the amount of stress she’s put on me recently, plus my own issues I have to deal with. This is a girl I’ve been with for three years, and my previous record for lengthy relationships was something along the lines of eighteen months, so she’s already a winner by default. Too, she’s one of those people who (most of the time) I can hang with in just about any environment. Out to a nice quiet dinner, movies, snugglin’ on the couch, partyin’ hard, dancing the night away, listening to a band, drinkin’ in the neighborhood dive bar, friendly bbq gatherings…she’s the sort I like having by my side because she can keep up socially. She’s intelligent, has a good sense of humor, is a decent singer, is attractive and generally a good person. We were also voted “couple most likely to whoop ass†in our favorite hang-out. Gotta luv a girl who can kick as much arse as you can (if not more, when properly motivated). I’m just focusing on the negatives at the moment because I need a break from being so friggin’ positive all the time. Kinda like putting down the weight to rest my shoulders, if you know what I mean. Oh, and the sex is good.

Re: A costume challenge Ayup.

Re: Musings on Random Musings Not those. She got too many comments regarding the zebra-patterned fur to want to bring 'em to work anymore.

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Re: Avenger/Justice League in the "real" world

Re: Why that costume I give my characters a costume because there’s excellent psychological reasons for standing out in a crowd. To me, though, these questions are pretty much the same. All my characters have in-game reasons for the costumes they wear. For Morningstar, his costume is simply evolution of his original: that is to say, when he first appeared on the scene, he wore motorcycle leathers with a jacket. It fit his “cool†self-image and he didn’t have access to any uber-tech cloth. Now, though not necessarily off-the-rack, he still holds with that overall image. Raptor is a young fledgling hero, and his costume is basically traditional spandex-like outfit, modified to fit his winged back. He’s simply trying to portray himself as the superhero he wants to be, and feels he should “dress the partâ€. It helps him get into the mindset of being a hero and, he hopes, let others know he’s trying to be a good guy. Ballistic wears modified military gear with an overcoat because he carries a $#!%load of guns. The coat hides them from casual looks, and he goes for the intimidating vigilante look because it helps in his job. Wylde (currently not in play) wears spandex thigh-length shorts because he’s super furry and prefers as little clothing as possible. He otherwise usually only wears a tank-top, a coat, and (untied) high-tops (which get kicked off in combat). He’s all about practicality. I think a costume should always have in-game reasoning behind it, even if it’s only “because I think this character would believe this color scheme is neatoâ€. Colors, designs, symbols (if any) and materials all have in-game reasons for each of my characters. I might not always express that to the GM or the other players (unless they ask), but I know what they are at the time of creation.

Re: A costume challenge I got a "404" error on this. Any chance of being emailed the pic? I hate being left out...

Re: Role play during combat IIRC, there's already a mechanic (or sorts) in place for just this sort of thing. A GM-controlled "surprise bonus", but I think it can be used for just about any good role-playing. I occasionally forego rolling if I think a player's action was particularly well played/written (since I pretty much only deal with PBEMs these days). If they write up a great description of their attempt I might let it happen just cuz it was so cool to see. As another incentive, considering giving an extra point of XP to the person who role-played the combat the best. The guy who uses descriptions of how his character acts and/or the power he uses rather than just gives the tech version. A little incentive like this goes a long way to bringing everyone on board.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings I really, really, really friggin' hate double standards.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings The g/f found her missing cat. It seems she (the cat) was hiding in the garage for several days, sneaking out only rarely to eat and...um...do her bidness in the litter box. One issue down, several more to go...

Re: Use the news I like this a lot...

Re: Use the news I don't think it's a matter of being "too early". Some people will never be comfortable with such things. For example, you’ve expressed a negative reaction to the 9/11 event being worked into a game, which is a fair and reasonable feeling. By the same token, others might take offense to certain political/religious characterizations offered in other posts, and still others (like myself) hate to see such notable events and persons completely ignored within a campaign. I’m just one of those types of people who like to see real world events blended with the game world, in whatever form. Some folks have kept 9/11 fairly intact, but used supervillains to take over the planes (for example). Others have ignored it. Others did what I did—changed it so that it bears only a passing resemblance to the real event, but maintains the integrity of game-world history overlaid with real-world history. Not true. Nothing breaks apart suspension of disbelief faster than sucky role-playing. It shouldn’t matter what the setting, real-world-vs-game-world events, political characterizations, etc, turn out to be. Role-playing is just that, and if a particular person has difficulty getting past a specific event, real or otherwise, then perhaps that game isn’t for them. That's not an assigning of blame or guilt or anything else--sometimes people and games just don't mesh. Feelings are always valid—and personal--but projecting those feelings as broad generalizations isn’t a reasonable or even particularly rational response.

Re: Use the news I do that sort of thing anyway. In fact, I think my first time as GM was based on news items. I was just curious as to what sort of news items others had incorporated into their campaigns.

Re: Use the news Thanks for the input.

Re: Musings on Random Musings Yeah, it occurred to me, too. And it'll come up in conversation when I talk to her about it (maybe this weekend). There's so much stuff I could go into--it's just all coming to a head right now. Again. I'd hate to see it go kablooey, but I'm not planning on doing this again later on down the road. Of course, that brings up the unenviably task of actually talking to her, which will no doubt go horribly wrong as she completely shuts down, internalizes, and gives me absolutely nothing to go on... ...but I'm not bitter.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Almost two hours later I have 20 demo cds for the band, all with pretty cover booklets (4 pages including front, middle and back), rear inserts (and there's just no way to say that without giggling), and pretty labels on the cds. I gots ink all over me fingers, screwed-up labels all over the floor, perforated edgings all over the desk, and a big grin all over my face. Now we just need some good gigs...