sinanju

Yes. Video games--especially gigantic MMO games--are a bigger industry now than HOLLYWOOD. Major games take many millions of dollars and thousands of people to create and maintain. Producing these games requires a huge investment, just like making movies (barring small art films) takes a huge investment. And, like movies, everyone remembers the big, flashy successes but not so much the failed projects that soaked up huge quantities of money but never went anywhere...if they were ever even finished.

Yes, "unwieldly" is putting it kindly. I like GURPS. I've played many, many campaigns using GURPS over the years and will probably play more. But it works best for "real world" (or at least merely cinematic) gaming, not superheroes. I'd go so far as to say that GURPS is broken when it comes to superheroes. Or at least it was in the early versions of the Supers book. Maybe it's different in Fourth Edition. For that matter, GURPS doesn't work well for really high-tech gaming either...if you want long, adventurous combats. At the higher tech levels, GURPS tends to result in combats with two outcomes: either your armor can stop everything they throw at you...or one hit and you're instantly dead. There's very little middle ground. Which may, in fact, be realistic, but it's not very cinematic/pulpish. If you like skills--lots of skills, specific skills--GURPS is your thing. If you prefer a lighter, less granular system, HERO works better.

If you're dissatisfied with CO, I would suggest that you go take a look at the City of Titans kickstarter page. The kickstarter is over (and well over its funding goal), but it tells you about a new superhero game that's in the works. I'll be buying and trying it when it comes out. It's not going to Champions online, but it might be more to your liking.

I've been playing RPGs since 1977, when I discovered that RPGs existed with the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons. I've played a huge number of games in avast array of systems. I've been--and continue to be--a rules lawyer and power gamer when it's appropriate (with other players who enjoy that kind of thing). I still enjoy playing Champions, though mostly I do it online as face-to-face games are hard to find. But over the years, my tastes have shifted toward more and more "rules light" games. Fudge was the first one. But I've been buying more and more indie games over the last few years, games with a greatly simplified system of rules that rely more on--and demand--more role-playing and storytelling and less die-rolling. In those games I'm far more likely to handwave things. When I'm playing Champions (or GURPS), I'm more prone to following hte rules as written. It just all depends on what we're hoping to get out of the experience.

GURPS, yes, has a lot (a lot!) more special cases and exceptions to general rules. Also, HERO SYSTEM works very well for superheroes and not quite as well for normal humans. GURPS is just the opposite. It works well for normal humans, but trying to play superheroes can go awry very quickly.

Or they move on to some other universe or state--like the Ancients in, you know, Stargate. They'll still out there, they just have better things to do than play in our sandbox.

Eh, more seriously, I've often considered that while life may be very common in the universe, and that even intelligent life, it doesn't necessarily follow that all intelligent life will develop high technology. I mean, the Chinese had gunpowder long, long before the Europeans but mostly never did anything with it. The Romans had steam engines--as toys--and never did anything with them. It may have taken a very specific combination of geography, politics, philosophy and economics to kick off the industrial revolution. Otherwise, western europe might have followed the same path China and Rome did, discovering interesting things but never really leaping forward so relatively abruptly and setting in motion the whole idea of constant progress. Maybe it would have happened inevitably. But maybe not. There could be lots of intelligent species out there somewhere who spend their whole existence without ever inventing the sort of devices necessary to communicate with anyone else.

Unless you're running a Special Ops game (and probably not even then), I wouldn't worry about skill decay. Just assume that a character practices enough to keep his skills sharp (barring long hospitalizations, imprisonment, and the like). They're heroes. Presumably, that's their primary focus in life. At most, you might apply a short-term penalty to the use of skills that a character hasn't had a reasonable chance to practice. But really, I think worrying about skill decay is taking simulationism too far. Yes, in the real world SpecOps soldiers' jobs are basically to practice, practice, practice all day every day and then occasionally use the skills in the field, then practice some more. But that would be boring to play and a major pain to keep track of even if it's assumed to be happening when the "camera" isn't following the PCs.

If I were going to do something like this, I'd just make a campaign rule that a certain level of power (Active Points) in a spell required a certain level of vicimization of an innocent. Or maybe your powers work off of an END Reserve, which can only be refilled by doing horrible things to innocent people. Want to power up? Torment that helpless farmboy. Mock him for his ignorance, stutter/limp/looks/whatever. That widower you've been courting for just such a situation? Time to dump her in the worst, most painful, most humiliating way possible--and then revel in the power of her tears. Want a really big/quick jolt of power? An evening of torture works wonders, though it requires isolation and privacy. Or maybe a nice bit of rape. For the biggest charge, of course, a human sacrifice is always a good way. In this version, I admit, it's not so much that magic makes you evil as only evil people are willing to do what it takes to be good at magic. Your average magic-user is going to be a Grade-A ***hole. The most potent magic-users are going to be sociopaths. Have fun with that world.

Yeah. This. "Hey, [Player Name], did you miss the part where this is a superHERO game we're playing?" Turn the PC into an NPC villain locked up in Stronghold (or the equivalent) until his trial, at which time the locking up becomes a lifetime punishment. Or maybe he's just killed while resisting arrest. I wouldn't even give the player the fun of playing out the final battle. Just announce it as a fait accompli and he is free to make a new character, one who will actually fit into the game. Or to leave the game, if he'd rather. His choice. It's not the mind control/possession power that is at issue*. It's how the character/player uses it. Superman, to name one character, has phenomenal potential for evil. He's strong enough to go on a rape/robbery/killing spree that almost nobody else could stop. He's got potentially lethal heat vision. Et cetera, et cetera. But he doesn't use his powers that way. *Although of course, when your only tool is a hammer every problem looks like a nail. If you can't do much else with your powers but turn people into puppets, the game may not be much fun if you restrain yourself. Still, mind-controlling heroes do exist in the comics.

Almost any superpower could be entertaining or useful. (Almost. There are exceptions, of course.) But my favorites would be: 1. Flight (preferably with LS: Cold, LS: Self-Contained Breathing, and Night Vision for flying at night and at high altitudes). 2. Teleportation 3. Telekinesis 4. Regeneration/LS: Doesn't Age

Power gamer! (Points finger accusingly)

Neither Iron Maiden (the flying brick version) nor the Black Knight nor Hell's Angel nor Man-Ape nor Rose Hancock nor Legion nor Black Mask nor The Dark would know how to deal with this problem. In fact, most of my PCs are not computer hackers or techies. They would have no choice but to defer to the opinions of teammates more technically inclined than they. Doctor Syence, a suuuuuuper-genius, would probably be able to crack the problem. But she's really the only one. Iron Maiden (the powered-armor version) probably could too, but as she's a villain, she's more likely to have planted the device than to help deal with it.

I agree. I'm also keen on mages whose magic is wide-ranging, but limited by a technique. For instance, a mage whose magic is all focused through graffiti or tattoos (a character I've written). She can do a few quick spells with spraypaint just about anywhere, but they're not very subtle. With enough time, she can draw, paint, or engrave marks that let her do all kinds of things. She can put the marks on inanimate objects, on people or animals (though only if they cooperate or are restrained) or on herself. Tattoos tend to the most potent body-magic, but they are necessarily limited by being fairly permanent--so you want to be quite sure it's what you want. (As a GM, I'd expect the player to be able to explain the symbolic link between the rune/pictograph/whatever and the effect she hopes to achieve. If you can justify it, I'll probably allow almost any effect at least once. If you can't, well...you can't.)

Yeah, there has to be some kind of "crash field" in play. Otherwise, yeah, the armor stops bullets real good--but getting hit by tank shells (F=MA), falling vast distances and smashing into the ground, getting punched across large distances by Thor's hammer...those might not harm the armor but they should still kill Tony. It's like wearing a form fitting race car and plowing into a wall at 60 mph. No airbags, and seatbelts are not going to help.

Having read (and written) fanfic for many, many years, my diagnosis would be: the fanfic is about what the authors find arousing. I like straight slash* or girl-girl stuff, myself, though I've read plenty of guy-on-guy fanfic because the story was interesting. I'm reminded of the scene in Supernatural where Dean and Sam discover the existence of a) their fans (in the tv show world) and slash fic written by the fans about them, about the Winchester boys being together. As in "together-together". Sam: They do know we're brothers, right? Dean: Doesn't seem to matter. *Even if "slash" originally meant mostly gay relationships, now it gets used interchangably.

I completely agree. And as a fan of VPPs, whenever I create a character using one of those, I always include a list of basic builds for the VPP on my character sheet. I can switch to any of those (or some combination of them) in an instant. Anything I have to design on-the-fly (which I must admit is half the fun of a VPP for me) I work out while it's not my turn to act. I think of it as basic VPP etiquette. Yes, I have this nifty variable power--but it's up to me not to derail the game with it.

Yeah. I think a lot of the restrictions on special powers in frameworks is a pointless obstacle to building fun characters. I also think VPPs can be used a lot more frequently than a lot of players/gms seem to like. Yes, I confess to being (more than little bit of) a rules lawyer/powergamer. But there's nothing inherently wrong with that, as long as the "is it fun for everyone?" test is applied. In which case the GM may say, "That's very clever, but you can't do it in my game." At which point the player has had his cleverness recognized and should be willing to tone things down in the interests of everyone having fun.

Iron Maiden grew up in an abusive setting full of criminals. She's hypervigilant (which is exhausting), constantly on guard for trouble, and while she will move heaven and earth for people she likes and trusts, if you prove untrustworthy she'll cut you out of her life forever and you get no second chances. Black Knight, a 90 year-old WWII vet who was mysteriously rejuvenated with the kind of healing powers that Wolverine would envy, is going through his second adolescence and doing all the things he never got a chance to do the first time around, as a responsible married man. He's chasing women, boozing it up, brawling for fun, and generally making sure not to waste this second chance by letting temptation pass him by ever again.

You're stunned. You can't make sense of what your eyes are seeing and and the only thing you can hear is a high-pitched whine (ringing) in your ears. (People who play online military shooters probably will recognize what this description means.)

I was going to make this exact point. Lifting strength and squeezing, crushing strength are probably going to be the same. But your ability to punch something is based as much on how fast you can accelerate your fist as how strong you are. Force = Mass X Acceleration. A very slow punch isn't going to do as much damage no matter how strong you are. Unless you can crush the target against a solid wall. Think of being in zero-g in orbit. A fully loaded railroad boxcar is moving toward you at a fraction of an inch a second. If you're in open space, it's just going to push you along in front of it. If you're caught between that boxcar and another solid, heavy object, you're going to be slowly crushed by it.

I'd change "during the segment in which it is acquired" to "for the duration of the current encounter" and that decribes my approach. If you disarm a guard upon your arrival on Skull Island and take his weapon, you can use it for that scene, and maybe against any other opponents in the immediate vicinity (already there or who arrive in response to trouble). But that's it. You can't carry it for the rest of the adventure on Skull Island in case of more guards elsewhere. If you want to acquire a weapon from a guard (or whoever) early on and keep it, that's a character schtick that will have to paid for.

Iron Maiden, her as-yet-unnamed half-sister, Hell's Angel and Silverstreak all have a megascale flight power for when they have to get there Right Now. Inferno and Tempest can fly, but not at great speeds. The Dark, Raven, Le Fantome, Black Mask, Alexei Torshin and Lahar Vulcan (a villain) all have teleport with varying ranges and SFX. Doctor Syence, Iron Maiden (a villain with the same name as my heroine--yes, it's confusing) and Marauder all have powered armor with flight. The rest of my characters (more than half) do not have any kind of flight/teleport power, and must rely on leaping, running, or a vehicle of some kind for swift or long-distance travel.

And I've seen it done. A player in our face-to-face group built a "Jedi" (with the serial numbers filed off), who possessed (among other powers) the ability to make Attacks of Opportunity with the same restrictions as in 3.5 D&D. It was abusive as hell*. CHAMPIONS combat isn't designed to deal with that mechanic. If it had been MY game I'd have disallowed it; since we were taking turns GMing this round robin game, I let it slide since we were all kinda stretching the rules to the breaking point. *ETA: Although part of it was the lightsaber design was ALSO abusive as hell, with a NND HKA (yeah, I know) so his attacks of opportunity were almost always one-shot kills on top of everything else.

Well, yeah...but they were in a puppeteer-built indestructible hull WITH a stasis field for backup. Any normal vessel (and certainly any ordinary asteroid) would have been vaporized when it was hit by the mile-wide solar-pumped X-ray laser "meteor defense".