sinanju

Re: Restricting/Redefining DNPC Personally, I often tend to describe NPC friends, family, lovers, etc. in the character background but NOT take them as DNPCs because I don't find "Lois is in trouble, it must be Tuesday" a very interesting plot hook. I'll happily interact with them, but I don't want to spend much (if any) game time rescuing them. Ditto for Secret Identity. My character may often HAVE a secret identity, but I don't take it as a Complication because I don't want it to be an issue in the game. Somehow, my PC manages to make it to interviews, dates, get his job done, etc. without much undue difficulty. When the GM allows it, I mostly take Psych Limitations to describe my character's personality, along with a few Social Limitations. I was very glad that 6E drastically reduced the recommended number of Complications, and I wouldn't mind a game where you didn't take any. Or didn't get points for them, at least. I'd still use the Psychs to describe my character, but that's it.

Re: Moar Pictures! C'mon, you KNOW where it ends. With Kyle Reese going back in time to save John Connor. 'Cause AIs invariably become hostile and wage war on their makers.

Re: What is the strangest super power you have allowed from a SFX? Thanks. I like the "lucid dreamer" idea, but I'd find the "I'm in a comic book" bit just a bit too meta for my tastes. I especially like Bullet Time II and I'm With The Band. The first lets me duplicate classic slasher flick gags. The second lets me duplicate the weirdness of dreams, where someone who really ought to stand out just seems to fit in, and it's only after you wake up (or Raven drops the Shapeshift) that you realize you've just included her in your evil plotting or brought her along on your criminal caper....

Re: What is the strangest super power you have allowed from a SFX? As a matter of fact, I do. I don't actually have Invisible Power Effect included in this write-up, but you might want to include it. (Personally, my gaming group tends to handwave that sort of thing). RAVEN Val Char Cost Roll Notes 50 STR 5 19- Lift 25.6tons; 10d6 [4] 23 DEX 39 14- OCV: 8/DCV: 8 15 CON 10 12- 15 BODY 10 12- 13 INT 3 12- PER Roll 12- 18 EGO 16 13- ECV: 6 30 PRE 20 15- PRE Attack: 6d6 14 COM 2 12- 3/9 PD 0 Total: 3/9 PD (0/6 rPD) 3/9 ED 0 Total: 3/9 ED (0/6 rED) 5 SPD 17 Phases: 3, 5, 8, 10, 12 8 REC 4 30 END 0 31 STUN 0 Total Characteristic Cost: 126 Movement: Running: 6"/12" Flight: 15"/60" Leaping: 10"/20" Swimming: 2"/4" Teleportation: 26"/52" Tunneling: 1"/2" Cost Powers END 3 Life Support (Sleeping: Character does not sleep) 10 Familiar Haunts: Teleportation: Fixed Location (10 Locations) 60 Lucid Dreaming (Reality Manipulation): Multipower, 60-point reserve 2u 1) Punch Harder!: +35 STR (35 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 3 2u 2) I Have a Weapon!: Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 1 1/2d6 (3d6+1 w/STR) (25 Active Points) 2 Notes: SFX: Raven can always "find" or otherwise produce a knife or other hand weapon from nowhere. 10m 3) I Scoff at Gravity: Flight 15", Position Shift, x4 Noncombat, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (50 Active Points) 2 Notes: Raven can fly (obviously), but just as often she chooses instead to "wall-crawl" like Spider-Man (or Dracula), or to simply sit, stand or walk on walls or ceilings as if she were standing on the floor, the better to frighten people.... 1u 4) You Only Nicked Me!: Armor (6 PD/6 ED) (18 Active Points); Only vs BODY Damage (-1/2), Always Lets the First Point of BODY Through (-1/2), Always Applied LAST of All Defenses (-0) Notes: Raven dodges at the last moment, avoiding most of the damage--or simply summons the willpower to shrug off injury because "it's not real!" Because this doesn't prevent penetration by foreign objects, it's no more difficult to drug Raven than an unarmored person. 4u 5) Bullet Time I: Desolidification (affected by Speedsters, Area Effect attacks, any attack specifically designed to counter this ability), Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (50 Active Points); Limited Power Must be free to move/dodge (-1/4) 2 Notes: Raven slows her perception of time, enabling her to move with superhuman speed--dodging punches, kicks, or gunfire, dancing through speeding traffic, and so forth. 11m 6) Bullet Time II: Teleportation 20", Position Shift, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (56 Active Points) 2 Notes: The classic "Slasher Movie" schtick--Someone turns away from Raven to flee, and there she is. They lock a door between them and Raven, only she's there with them. Or they're running away at speed while Raven follows at a walk. But somehow, every time they look back, she's closer than she ought to be.... 1u 7) I'm With the Band: Shape Shift (Sight Group), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (15 Active Points); Limited Power Only as Long as Raven doesn't "break character." (-0) Notes: Raven doesn't actually change her appearance. People may still recognize her--but with that peculiar logic of dreams, they simply find her presence unremarkable. The effect can last indefinitely, until Raven says or does something to break the illusion, or chooses to end it. 5u 8) Alter Reality I: Dispel 10d6, any object/device's powers, one at a time (+1/4), Invisible Power Effects, Source Only (Fully Invisible; +1/2) (52 Active Points) 5 Notes: More classic horror movie/nightmare schtick. Trying to escape? Your car's engine won't turn over. Trying to set off the alarm? Make a phone call for back-up? Sorry, your reliable gadgets have failed you. Trying to shoot Raven as she walks toward you? Oops. Your gun is somehow out of ammo, or jammed. 4u 9) Nightmarish Environment: Change Environment 16" radius (Long-Lasting 20 Minutes, Varying Combat Effects) (40 Active Points) 4 Notes: Raven causes the environment to take on a morbid, nightmarish quality. Possible effects include: an uncomfortable drop in temperature, foggy atmosphere or deep shadows (-3 to Sight Perception rolls), deadening or amplication of ambient noise (-3 Hearing Perception rolls), plants wilt, and other atmospheric effects. 4u 10) Look! A Door!: Tunneling 1" through 12 DEF material, Fill In (48 Active Points); Concentration (1/2 DCV; -1/4) 5 Notes: SFX: Raven makes use of a door, doorway, window or other opening that everyone thought was locked, or had never noticed before--if it even existed (and can close it behind her). Or sometimes simply kicks or punches her way through barriers to get to the bad guys.... 6u 11) There's No Escape!: Entangle 4d6, 4 DEF, Invisible Power Effects, Source Only (Fully Invisible; +1/2) (60 Active Points) 6 Notes: Raven can fling blades to pin someone to a wall or floor, cause doors or windows to slam shut--or vanish entirely, and so forth. 1u 12) What A Coincidence!: Summon 4 15-point creatures (13 Active Points); Summoned Being Must Inhabit Locale (-1/2) 1 Notes: Raven can summon up to 4 75 Heroic Normals (such as a SWAT unit, EMTs, and so forth. They must be the sort of individuals to be found in Hudson City, and are generic--she can't summon _specific_ individuals. They will also react as they normally would to the situation if they'd truly arrived on their own. They may be helpful, neutral or hostile, depending on the circumstances. 3u 13) Dream Geography: Teleportation 6", MegaScale (1" = 1 km; +1/4), Usable By Other (+1/4), Area Of Effect (One Hex; +1/2), Continuous (+1) (36 Active Points); Limited Power Requires using an existing door or window (-1/4) 4 4u 14) It's Only A Scratch: Healing BODY 5d6, Can Heal Limbs (55 Active Points); Limited Power Can only occur out of combat, "discovering" that they're not nearly as bad as they seemed. (-1/2) 5 Freeform Mayhem Maneuver OCV DCV Notes 4 Block (Martial Block) +2 +2 Block, Abort 4 Dodge (Martial Dodge) -- +5 Dodge, Affects All Attacks, Abort 4 Joint Lock/Throw +1 +0 Grab One Limb; 1d6 NND ; Target Falls 3 Legsweep +2 -1 11d6 Strike, Target Falls 5 Kick/Knee Strike (Offensive Strike) -2 +1 14d6 Strike 4 Nerve Strike -1 +1 2d6 NND 4 Punch/Elbow Strike (Martial Strike) +0 +2 12d6 Strike 3 Weapon Element: Blades, Clubs, Polearms and Spears Perks 1 Liberates cash and useful equipment from the bad guys: Money: Well Off 15 Various Contacts (to be defined later): Custom Perk Notes: Some are allies in her fight against corruption and crime; others are small fry in the underworld Wednesday has convinced to be more afraid of her than of their cronies. Skills Everyman Skills (Cost: 0 Points) 0 1) Acting 8- 0 2) Climbing 8- 0 3) Computer Programming 8- 0 4) Concealment 8- 0 5) Native: Language: English (idiomatic) (4 Active Points) 0 6) Paramedics 8- 1 7) PS: Cab Driver 11- (0 Active Points) 0 8) Shadowing 8- 0 9) Stealth 8- 0 10) TF: Small Motorized Ground Vehicles 4 AK: Hudson City 13- 3 Combat Driving 14- 3 Conversation 15- 3 Deduction 12- 24 +8 with Freeform Mayhem 10 Combat Awareness: Defense Maneuver I-IV 3 High Society 15- 3 Interrogation 15- 3 KS: The Law Enforcement World 12- 5 KS: Hudson City Underworld 14- 3 KS: Hudson City Supers 12- 3 Persuasion 15- 3 Seduction 15- 3 Streetwise 15- Total Powers & Skill Cost: 252 Total Cost: 378 200+ Disadvantages 15 Hunted: Police 8- (As Pow; NCI; Harshly Punish) 20 Hunted: Numerous Underworld Figures 11- (As Pow; NCI; Harshly Punish) 15 Psychological Limitation: Justice, Not Law (Common; Strong) 15 Psychological Limitation: DIrect and Violent (Common; Strong) 15 Psychological Limitation: Free-Spirited and Willful (Common; Strong) 10 Psychological Limitation: Outsider Mentality (Common; Moderate) 10 Psychological Limitation: Prefers Not to Kill (Common; Moderate) 10 Psychological Limitation: Works Hard & Plays Hard (Common; Moderate) 10 Physical Limitation: Frightens Animals & Small Children (Frequently; Slightly Impairing) 1 Quirk: Considers Kate an unrealistic dreamer (oh the irony) 1 Quirk: Dresses all in black 1 Quirk: Maintains a journal "with" Kate 1 Quirk: 1 Quirk: 15 Reputation: Dangerous Lunatic, 11- (Extreme) 10 Social Limitation: Secret Identity (Occasionally; Major) 28 Experience Points Total Disadvantage Points: 378 Background/History: Kate Sutherland was born and raised in Hudson City. Her father was a very successful reporter for the major city paper until he retired ten years ago. Kate grew up listening to tales of graft, corruption, violence—and heroism. Her father's passion for getting at the truth and for seeing justice done, his respect for those who shared his dedication, rubbed off on her. James Sutherland was pleased--and a little worried for her—when his youngest daughter announced that she wanted to become an attorney. Specifically, a prosecuting attorney. Kate attended college, then law school and eventually got her law degree. She worked for years as a part-time cab driver to pay her way, so she knows Hudson City intimately. Kate started her career as a law clerk for the law firm Hassebrock, Hurley & Barrett. She was later hired as a prosecutor's intern, and then served as a Clerk to the Honorable Vincent Gambino, Hudson City Court of Common Pleas. Kate now works as an assistant prosecutor for the Hudson City Prosecutor's Office. It has been a sobering experience. She thought she'd known what to expect based on her father's tales, but it isn't the dramatic conflicts that wear down the soul. It's the never-ending struggle against willful incompetence and ignorance, greed, ambition and petty power struggles. Kate soldiered on even as her enthusiasm for the job was ground down. Nonetheless, Kate was determined to make a difference. Her life changed completely when she was assigned to prosecute a prominent "businessman" with ties to the Marcelli crime syndicate for a murder-for-hire. It was not her first big case, but it was the most important one so far. Kate worked hard to prepare the case, studying the law, studying the evidence, struggling with frightened and uncooperative witnesses, foot dragging by surly cops and pressure from her superiors to drop the case. Kate persevered, overcoming innumerable legal challenges and increasingly overt threats to her own safety—only to be brutally assaulted and nearly killed. She survived with no permanent injuries, but her convalescence took months. Her lengthy recuperation was excuse enough for the DA to turn the case over to another assistant prosecutor, Simon Taggart. Two weeks later the charges were all dismissed with prejudice. Kate was furious, but despite her best efforts could find no proof of what she was convinced was a deliberate torpedoing of the case by Taggart. She is convinced that he's dirty, and is still watching and waiting for an opportunity to prove it. Kate suspects that the current DA will be retiring soon, and she would like his job, but at the very least is determined to assure that Taggart does not succeed him. Once she'd recovered from her injuries, Kate was determined to do everything she could to make sure it never happened again. She began taking self-defense classes. She also obtained a carry permit for a concealed handgun and training in its use. Finally, she found a source for fashionable jackets with a ballistic cloth lining. And she went back to work with renewed zeal. On the surface, everything was fine. But only on the surface. In truth, Kate was constantly troubled by memories of the attack and its aftermath. She began to have trouble concentrating at work, her appetite declined, and she had trouble sleeping. She tried to work through it, but the problems grew steadily worse. She lost weight, she was constantly exhausted, and her work began to suffer. She rebuffed the efforts of friends and colleagues to help her and began drinking too much. It all came to a head one night when she drank herself into a stupor and fell into a troubled sleep. Kate dreamed. In her dream, she was a small, dark woman who called herself Raven, and she knew something no one else seemed to realize. Hudson City wasn't just a nightmarish city of corruption and violence—it was literally a nightmare. Raven saw the truth—and seeing it, could alter the dreamscape in which she moved. She used her lucidity to do impossible things in her pursuit of justice, performing feats of inhuman strength and speed, shrugging off attacks that should have killed her, defying gravity, and even changing the landscape around her to suit her dark purposes. Kate woke the next morning hungover but feeling more rested than she had in weeks. She recalled the dream with pleasure. She found herself better able to concentrate on work, and ate better as well. She spent the day struggling to obtain the testimony of two small time criminals against their boss, but they adamantly refused to talk. That night she dreamed of Raven again. This time Raven tracked down the reluctant witnesses and terrorized them into testifying against their employer. It was a very...satisfying dream. Kate again woke rested and eager to get to work, wishing that her problems with uncooperative witnesses could be so easily solved in real life. It was when the two witnesses arrived at her office that morning with a lawyer in tow that Kate began to grasp the truth. Raven was real, and had terrorized the two men exactly the way she remembered it from her dreams. Kate was simultaneously excited and appalled by the revelation. The lawyer hinted that the D.A.'s office was behind this assault on her clients and demanded that charges against them be dropped—with no requirement for testimony. Kate argued, but the evidence of the assault was clear and her heart wasn't in it. A private fantasy was one thing, but her mysterious enforcer—whoever and whatever she was—had blatantly violated the law and tainted the case. That was not how Kate wanted to do business even if no one could prove Raven had any connection to Kate. She dropped the charges. It was an expensive lesson she would not forget. At first Kate believed that Raven was some "Monster from the Id" and could only come out when she slept. That theory collapsed when Kate lay down to sleep that night, tossed and turned restlessly, and finally rose again feeling as if she were not herself. She looked into her mirror to confirm her suspicions; Raven looked back at her. Shocked, she felt—and saw in her mirror—the transformation back to her familiar face. Kate soon learned to make the transition at will, but it was a frightening one. She was Raven and at the same time...not. Raven lived in a different world, thought differently, felt differently, and acted in ways that both appalled and liberated Kate. Raven felt just as ambivalent about her staid, conservative alter ego. One of the ways in which she copes with this situation is keeping a journal; she writes in it as Kate and as Raven. Though one persona sometimes responds to thoughts or fears expressed by the other, for the most part the journal documents that they're merely two sides of the same person, and sometimes Kate really needs that assurance. In the months since the discovery of her dual identity, Raven has become well known in the Hudson City underworld. She is neither the most violent nor the craziest hero in Detroit, but she is arguably the scariest, if only because reality itself seems to go crazy whenever she's around. Personality/Motivation: Kate and Raven are two sides of the same coin, both devoted to seeing justice done, but with radically different approaches. Kate is an idealist. She isn't naïve. She's well aware that many of her fellow citizens are more concerned with their own advancement than with justice, that too many of those tasked with enforcing the law are among them. That just makes it more important for those who care about justice to fight for it. Kate's chosen field of battle is the courtroom. Her mission in life is to see that the innocent are protected and the guilty punished. She is patient, methodical and driven. Kate is always careful to see that her methods do not undermine her goals; the ends do not justify the means. She strives to maintain her decorum and professionalism at all times, always aware that her behavior can reflect upon on her office and influence its reputation and effectiveness. Raven, by contrast, is everything Kate cannot be: impulsive, sensual, direct and violent—prone to administering "street justice" to bad guys, willing to use violence and intimidation to obtain information or cooperation. She doesn't believe that the system works, and pities Kate for her continuing belief that it can be made to work. Raven views the whole world with grim amusement, knowing as she does that it is all a communal dream and that it is a dark place because that's what people expect it to be. She embraces the darkness and revels in it. Her detachment from the world comes across in many ways; animals and small children are particularly sensitive to it and are often alarmed by her presence. Quote: “Of course the rules are immutable—if that's the way you want them. Me, I prefer being a lucid dreamer.” Powers/Tactics: Kate is a well trained and experienced prosecutor. She knows the law, she knows how to build a case and convince a jury. She has acquired self-defense training in both hand-to-hand combat and with firearms, but her chosen battlefield is the courtroom. She does a great deal of interviewing as part of her job (reluctant cops, lazy or corrupt or both, have made doing a lot of her own investigations a necessity) and has become a fairly good amateur detective. Kate has cultivated a number of useful contacts, individuals both within and without the government who share her desire to see justice done. Kate carries a licensed concealed handgun and has learned how to use it. Raven is stronger and tougher than Kate despite her small size, superhumanly agile, and has an unmistakable presence. Her primary power—her only power, really—is her ability to manipulate reality, the "dreamscape" in which she lives. She can most easily alter her own interactions with the world, performing feats of strength, speed and toughness beyond normal human limits. Raven can slow her subjective experience of time, giving her the ability to dodge bullets, dance through speeding traffic and the like. She can also defy gravity to walk on horizontal surfaces, make fantastic leaps or even fly. She can produce a variety of hand to hand weapons from nowhere (though she has a marked preference for blades); like a slasher flick villain, she's never unarmed. Raven can even alter the very landscape around her to a limited degree, imposing a nightmarish aura to the scene. Weapons and machinery may malfunction, lights go out, computers crash, car engines stall out, door slam shut or vanish behind someone—all the typical tropes of nightmares or monster movies. When Hudson City criminals start feeling like they've wandered onto the set of a horror movie, they've learned that Raven is probably not far away.... Campaign Use: Appearance: Kate is an attractive woman in her thirties with short blond hair and blue eyes, typically dressed in fashionable but conservative skirts, blouses and jackets suitable for appearing in court. Raven is a small, slender woman with black hair, very dark eyes and extremely pale skin. Her attire varies but it is generally black. Her typical outfit consists of a sleeveless long black dress in pvc, vinyl, velvet or leather, and similar boots. In cold or rainy weather, she often adds a long black duster or trench coat.

Re: Feeding a starship crew for a year So your supplies include long-storage MREs (or the equivalent) sufficient in quantity to see you through a crop failure, and...plenty of seeds with different pedigrees in case of a blight. A single point of failure is always bad design, but there are work-arounds.

Re: Feeding a starship crew for a year The gist of it is that you can produce mind-boggling quantities of food in a very small space, if you're willing to work at it. And if you're willing to eat rabbits and goats (because they will eat the parts of food plants humans don't, so you needn't grow extra forage just for them), you can have meat, cheese, milk, and ice cream too. Your colonists (or star travelers) can eat very well, really.

Re: Feeding a starship crew for a year

Re: What is the strangest super power you have allowed from a SFX? Hmmm. One player created a superhero named Copperhead. He had boatloads of Resistant PD withe severe limitation that it only protected him from collisions. He also had an obscene level of NCM on his obscene level of Flight. His whole schtick was that when a certain GM had the villain du jour getting away in helicopter or the like, Copperhead would attack like a SAM and utterly destroy the vehicle with his move-through attack. That was Copperhead's sole raison d'etre. Then there was Prophylactus, the hero (and I use that term loosely) who had ridiculous levels of stretching (and STR) on his prehensile (Extra Limb) penis. Another player created a Jedi with a lightsabre with an obscene number of limitations on it so he could buy an obscene level of damage with it, including that it was a NND attack, and the only defense was Resistant Flash Defense. Unsurprisingly, almost no one (and nothing) had that defense. Also built a linked power that caused an automatic attack on anyone who passed into or out of an adjacent hex whenever he was using the lightsabre (essentially he recreated the Attack of Opportunity from D&D....). This was in a round-robin GM game where each of us took turns running a session or three before passing the reins on to the next player; we ALL had powers that we all agreed none of us would have allowed if we were running a solo campaign; but it was an experiment in excess so we let a lot of stuff slide that no GM in his right mind would normally allow. I created a character who could manipulate reality. I used tunneling to manifest doors where none had been; entangle (barriers only) to make doors and windows disappear; a short-range teleport so she could move at a casual walk while pursuing evildoers and yet every time they looked back, she was closer than she ought to be (or suddenly in front of them when they turned away again), and various other monster movie tropes. Also a low-powered Summon ability she could use to "coincidentally" stumble across any sort of person who could conceivably be found in the campaign city (cops, EMTs, taxicab drivers, pizza delivery guys, lawyers, whoever). All with Invisible Power Effects, so nobody could see her doing anything unusual.

Re: Tens Of Billions Of Earths Yeah, it seems obvious in retrospect when you realize that all the elements had to be formed in stars (and then handily scattered through the universe by supernovae or something), but it's weird to think about. Sometimes I think we're living in a time much the age of exploration, when the dark corners of the world map were being pushed back. "Here there be Dragons" was replaced by "And this is Indonesia, and this is Japan, and this is Bali...." When I was a wee lad, the universe outside of our solar system was a vast, unknowable emptiness. Now we're charting hundreds if not thousands of solar systems, and refining our techniques to be able to spot smaller and smaller (and more earthlike) worlds all the time. A lot of sci fi that postulated alien worlds anywhere nearby is going to be invalidated very shortly if it isn't already. I mean, we know it was probably not right anyhow--but now we'll be able to SEE that there's nothing and nobody else for X light-years. Also, the more I read about our history--specifically the history of the industrial revolution and the development of real science--the more I suspect that there could be a LOT of intelligent species out there who might remain at a primitive level indefinitely. As best we can tell, it took a particular confluence of physiology (hands, for one), geography, sociology, philosophy and pure dumb luck to create the right conditions for an Age of Reason. Otherwise, humans might have blundered along advancing only very, very slowly (if at all) with no concept of science, in cultures lacking in the characteristics that made innovation such an influence.

Re: "Neat" Pictures It's a cultural thing. We've all heard those "If X and Y fought, who would win?" arguments. They get tiresome. They're ESPECIALLY tiresome when you ARE X and Y. (And A thru Z, as well.) So, whenever two superheroes meet for the first time, they've evolved an etiquette--they fight until they establish once and for all, that X beats Y, Y beats X, or it's a draw. Then, once the pecking order is established, they can relax and be friends and never have to bother with that whole stupid "what if" scenario again.

Re: Have you written a story? I've written and sold a number of stories about some of my Champions characters. None of the stories are based on actual campaign events--just the characters themselves. (And that's just as well, since a number of them are pure erotica or erotic romance.) Iron Maiden, Black Knight, Black Mask, Legion, and others have been published in short stories or short novels. And there will be more. I like writing them, and there's a market for that kind of stuff amongst all the other paranormal erotica. Descriptions of the stories, cover art, and links to them can be seen at my website, if anyone cares. That's not all that I've written or sold, but character-based stories are definitely a big part of it.

Re: Campaign Input Requested I'd be very cautious about tricking the players into a horror campaign without their knowledge/agreement. I've been the victim of such shenanigans too many times--and it has left a very bad taste in my mouth. I'm not a big fan of horror, either as a player/gm or as a reader. If i went to the trouble of working up a character for James Bond-style game of action and adventure, and the GM pulled such a bait-and-switch, I might very well either walk (the mature response) or do my best to submarine the "horror" story by throwing monkey wrenches into the plot by "playing my character" (the immature response) as obstinately as possible. This is especially the case when you're geared up for an espionage game (where triumphing over big odds is part of the genre) and you're thrown into a cthuluhu-esque horror game where the cruel reality that all of mankind is a helpless plaything of forces too terrible to comprehend is the basic premise. That's a heck of a surprise to spring on your players--and may be very unwelcome. Worse, you're betraying their trust by pitching one game when you fully intend to do something else. In the worst case, it could poison the players' minds and result in distrust when you suggest future games (they'll wonder if this is another attempt to blindside them with misinformation.) My reaction may sound extreme, and maybe it is, but a member of one of my former gaming groups had a habit of doing just this to us. Every campaign he started turned out to be a bait-and-switch effort, to the point that first we began making up joke characters* for his campaigns, before we simply refused ever to play in his games again. On the other hand, if you tell the players up front that "this campaign is not going to be what it seems at first" and they agree, then I think none of this need be an issue. You don't have to tell them what it WILL be, just that you're planning something they aren't privy to and that you think they'll be intrigued by it. I ran a dimension-hopping "Expendables" game once, in which the players never knew from one session to the next what parallel/alternate world their character would find themselves. I told them "I won't drop you into vacuum, an unbreathable atmosphere or some other immediately lethal environment--but other than that, no promises." Nobody had a problem with that; they knew what they were getting into. *After all, if whatever you do, you're going to find that your characters don't have the right skills, the right abilities, the right mindset for the game they're REALLY going to be participating in, what's the point of taking it seriously? Build a character who would be worse than useless ANYWHERE.

Re: On boar Holographical computer/HUD I'd add N-Ray Vision, to simulate either a) the computer downloading floorplans/electrical wiring/plumbing blueprints and displaying a simulation (though that would probably need some limitations to model properly) or to simulate the on-board computer combining data from ALL its sensors (including passive or active sonar) to map the nearby environment into your HUD. Or some combination of the two. You wouldn't REALLY have N-Ray Vision, but effectively you would--though you could still be surprised occasionally.

Re: Starting from scratch, newbie help request 1. What sort of game do YOU want to RUN? 2. Are your players interested in participating in such a game? I've been on both sides of this question, getting dragged into games I didn't care for, which never ends well--and proposing campaigns I thought would be great fun...and learning that nobody else was interested. Once you've found that sweet spot where the game you want to run is a game they want to play, you can then... 3. Enlist your players in helping you flesh out the campaign background. 4. Don't feel shy about filing the serial numbers off of Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Farscape, or any other movie/tv show/novel and playing in that world for a while. You can always start adding innovations to make it your own once you have a better feel for what's working, what's not, and what you wish you'd done in the first place.

Re: List Your CO Heroes! Iron Maiden (Behemoth), Level 7 Level 9 Hell's Angel (Fire Blaster), Level 5 Level 6

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online? Well, I just started playing the FTP version. So far I'm enjoying it. I'm playing a Behemoth (Iron Maiden), and still figuring out what the heck I'm doing. (CO, like Star Trek Online, is severely lacking in useful tips on how things work. I went through the tutorial, but that only gives you the basics. When it comes to what you SHOULD be doing--what powers/etc to buy, when to buy them, what not to bother with, etc.--you're on your own. After I finished the tutorial, I went to the Powerhouse and acquired some trinkets. Then went on a mission to deal with the Purple Gang and got my ass handed to me over and over and over and over and over. Eventually, thru the use of Google Fu and the CO Wiki, I discovered that I hadn't actually EQUIPPED the stuff I'd gotten from the Powerhouse. Once I did that, I did a lot better at surviving battles. Thanks for telling that, CO. Not. Still, I am having fun with it. Playing solo, though. Teaming up might be nice, but I don't know any other players and don't pay much attention to the chat window.

Re: Make Your Own Motivational Poster The gestation time for human larvae really should be several months longer. Alas, if it were, the baby's head would be too big to pass through the birth canal. As it is, it's almost too big now.

Re: Who would play your hero(ine) in a movie? I don't know anything about Superion, but yeah--"Ares" would have been good. He was great fun to watch. RIP, dude.

Re: Who would play your hero(ine) in a movie? Is this a trick question? I "cast" all my characters with actors. Here are a few biggies. Iron Maiden/Leah Wright (played by Jemima Rooper) - A classic flying brick of the Viltrumite sort (brick powers, but no super senses or the like) [ATTACH=CONFIG]41987[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]41989[/ATTACH] The Black Knight/Victor Kruger (played by Clancy Brown) - Former 90 year-old who's all but indestructible and determined not to waste this second chance at life. [ATTACH=CONFIG]41988[/ATTACH] The Man-Ape/Lloyd Greystoke (heavily based on uh, I mean, played by Bruce Campbell in heavy prosthetic make-up to give him the "man-ape" look) - A former actor turned man-ape who stumbles into a new career solving weird mysteries. [ATTACH=CONFIG]41990[/ATTACH] Rose Hancock (played by Billie Piper) Author's note: It turns out she's Leah (Iron Maiden's) half-sister by their superpowered but irresponsible, womanizing father. Same powers. [ATTACH=CONFIG]41991[/ATTACH]

Re: Your favorite champions character My favorite character of mine would have to be Iron Maiden. I like her enough to have played her in two or three campaigns, and am about to start playing her in another online campaign. PLUS, she's been the protagonist of a number of published stories and will be in more.

Re: Make Your Own Motivational Poster I've obviously reached the "cranky old man" stage. I REMEMBER WHEN...Legos didn't come in KITS that were designed to snap together into pre-designed forms. MY Legos came in a big box with no instructions and no limits. You could build whatever the **** you wanted, and could imagine. KIDS THESE DAYS have it easy. IN MY DAY Legos didn't come with all these specialized parts, moving parts, and whatnot. You had a limited variety of bricks and you had to build everything based on that.

Re: From Superfriends to Watchmen: The Extremes of Superheroes I'm playing in a game currently that is definitely populated by PCs who are closer to the Watchmen end of the spectrum. We're mutants working for DHS, investigating, and capturing mutants causing problems. "Capturing with extreme prejudice, right?" is a common question from one PC whenever we're given a new task. Part of it is that we were given a very limited budget of points (60 points for a single power, no limitations*, but take all the advantages you like). No stop-sign powers. Plus 45 points for stats (NCM applies), and a pool of about 42 points for skills, including a set of mandatory skills we learned in training. We also have a badge, a smart phone, a flashlight, and a handgun (Sig Sauer P229R, 2d6+1 RKA) and two clips. Now...go get 'em! Of the five players, one (me) is a shapeshifter who has no combat-oriented power. One can produce a Flash effect (3-hex AOE Flash vs Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste, Touch, and Mental senses). It's good for slowing up the enemy, but that's about all.** One PC has a forcefield which renders him fairly safe from most attacks, but he has...a handgun. The fourth PC can open doorways through most any conceivable barrier (Tunneling vs 24 PD), but...no combat powers. Only the last PC, ex-military with a mutant-powered HKA (his lethal karate chop) is very effective against most of our opponents. As a result, we tend to get stomped if we're not very careful, and we responded by getting extremely trigger-happy. Our last mission, retaking control of a prison under the control of the mutant prisoners, ended with us summarily executing them because the cells had all been destroyed and we couldn't contain them when/if they regained consciousness. We've covered up that bit of, uh, extracurricular activity so far...but we're expecting to be found out eventually. *We could TAKE limitations, mind you, but we didn't get a cost break for them. **Sure, the bulletproof monster can't see or hear. He's still bulletproof. And more than capable of killing us if he gets his hands on us.

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet? USS Heart and Soul, eh? I'm flying the USS Heavy Metal (named after that ship in others of my games, named after the movie). I've seen the USS Peter Venkman, which amused me greatly.

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet? I'm playing with it. I tried the FTP Champions Online and only played around with it once or twice. (I've spent more time designing costumes in it than playing it by far, though there's no good way I've found to export useful pictures). STO has been more entertaining, though I have very little idea what I'm doing compared to what I think I _could_ be doing. Still, it's been fun. The space battles are fun. The ground combat is less so. I've been slavishly following the tutorials so as to learn as much as I could until recently. Now I'm just tooling around the universe in the USS Heavy Metal seeing what's there to be seen.

Re: Hero System Sixth Edition Concise Oh, I've bought plenty of books. Ultimate Metamorph, Ultimate Brick, Powers Database, Hudson City, Teen Champions, Champions, Dark Champions, etc. And I would again. But I use those mostly when I'm designing campaigns or building characters. I want to be able to travel to a friend's house for a game of Champions and only NEED the one core rule book. I I also bring the appropriate supplement (campaign setting book, Ultimate Whatever, etc) in addition, that's fine. But I don't have to cart around two immense hardbound volumes just to play the game.