sinanju

Yeah, I read a few of them wa-a-a-y back in the day, just to see what all the fuss was about. The most interesting thing tome was how the hero, Tarl Cabot, was initially horrified and repulsed by the sexual slavery aspect of Gor culture--but very quickly came to see it as right and proper.

Here's an idea: instead of a single, unified game world, maybe provide options? Characters, organizations, artifacts, adventure ideas--they all could be tagged to indicate what sort of background assumptions work for them. [Character A] exists in a world where superpowers only came into existence a few years ago. [Character B] exists in a world where Pulp Heroes first appeared in the early 20th century, but now costumed supers are common. [Character C] has lived for millennia, revered as a god in the ancient past, and now is part of a team of modern-day superh

My late father once told me about a sheriff of his acquaintance when he was young who was notoriously corrupt. Said sheriff routinely included "graft" as a category of income on his taxes precisely so that the IRS could not go after him for failing to report income (and because his tax returns could not be used as evidence against him in criminal trials). Absent any other evidence of his corrupt behavior, he got off scot free. My dad also told me about a general store that was burgled once when he was a kid. The general store included a post office. The burglars drew a chalk line a

Self-employed writer selling books on Amazon, Kobo, Apple, etc. You can make your own hours, and if you're at all prolific, you can make a decent living (or even get rich) in relatively few hours per week, allowing you to spend more time crime-fighting. Also, even if your face is known to the public, if you keep your nom de plume secret, nobody will know that it's Iron Maiden writing all those pulp-style thrillers. (I have a PC, Iron Maiden, who is in fact doing just this.)

Speed Freak (he took uppers to speed, downers to throttle down to normal human speeds). Mach the Knife (a speedster with a knive and bloodlust).

Really? I've been reading about outrageous abuses of "no knock" warrants (and the deaths of innocents as a result) for a very long time. Ditto the "asset forfeiture" scam that permits the authorities at the local, state, and federal levels to commit blatant robbery, which has also been going on for decades. Just goes to show: you learn something new every day. You--that "no knock" warrants even exist. Me--that despite how well known they seem to me, plenty of people still haven't heard of them.

Or steal the idea from the short-lived Morituri Project comic from Marvel (I think): the drug gives you superpowers--but it WILL kill you within a year. Who would take such a drug? In the comic, people willing to accept an inevitably short but glorious career fighting an alien invasion. In a more conventional superhero world? People with terminal diseases who figure, "Why not?" People willing to trade their own lives in return for the chance to get revenge on an individual/group/nation/the world. People willing to trade a short, glorious career as a superhero (or supervillain) for

The first thirteen years of my role-playing experience took place primarily in one gaming group, under--with rare, short-lived exceptions--one GM. Said GM was a huge fun of pulp fiction (SF, fantasy, all of it). Every player had several characters to choose from, and we mixed and matched them from one adventure to the next. As such, getting captured and escaping were staple plot elements. As were recurring villains. And most of the time we went along with it. But not always. Occasionally, one or more of the players would decide, "not this time." Death before capture. An

Wait. What? That's the first I've heard that they'd put him into a patrol car--and then took him OUT again to kneel on his neck? I've been saying that if he were resisting even while handcuffed, put him the back of a patrol car where he a) can sit up and breathe, and b) won't be a threat to anyone. But he was IN a patrol car and THEN they killed him? [bad words here]

Traditionally, wizards/mages/whatever have always been rare. If just anybody can learn magic and use it easily, that's certainly a viable campaign environment, but it doesn't fit historical model (where mages, real or imagined, were rare) or mythology or fiction. If that kind of Xanthian "Everybody has magic!" campaign is what you're after, go for it. But most campaigns are going to have relatively few mages. And as Chris said, if you're gating off magic to that extent, giving mages access to Multipowers isn't unreasonable.

For the Germans...Storm Trooper. He can summon winds, rain, lightning, etc.

It occurs to me that one way to deal with the issues raised is to decree as GM, "No combat spells allowed." Mages learn magic to do OTHER THINGS. A "wizard" is a wise man (or woman). He KNOWS things that most people don't. That means lots of interesting knowledge skills, and spells that let him learn things (Detects, Mindscan, etc). It doesn't necessarily mean he flings bolts of arcane energy to smite his opponents. If a mage wants to learn, say, staff skill in order to be able fight with the staff he probably carries anyhow, then great. Ditto with a bow, or even a sword. (Gandalf

Well, yes, they're unpleasant--but, in my experience, not nearly as unpleasant as I was led to believe before my first one. Like many things, the unpleasantness grows with each retelling. I'm not looking forward to my next one, mind you, but it's just...unpleasant.

My campaign (currently on hiatus while I run a Traveller game online) is one in which superpowers are new. It's been just over a year since the Wild Card virus imbued 7,000 residents of Hudson City, NJ with superpowers. It's been a chaotic year, to nobody's surprise. The current approach is placing captured superpowered bad guys into a single federal prison where the warden is a Wild Card. Her power is the ability to a) boost the stats of normal people to haman maximum for a period of several weeks, and b) to neutralize the powers of wild cards for an equal length of time. So she e

Also--do the AUTHORITIES know the supervillains' secret identities? If so, that makes things considerably harder for the former victims now supervillains. If not, as long they abandon the supervillain identities, they should find it considerably easier to build new lives for themselves.