godfish

Re: SuperHEROing for humor

I played a game where the characters were serious but the situation was not. The "League of Unusual Individuals" was run by the "Department of Metahumans Bureau"' date=' and commanded by the "Special Tactical Undersecretary for Personal Intelligence Director". We fought the Invincible Clonemaster and foiled his plot to clone Ron Revolta and the Osmonoids (Dummy and Mary).[/quote']

 

Those are the best ones. Playing the "straight men" to the comedy punchlines of the world around them...

Re: SuperHEROing for humor

Only six more posts and I can show my appreciation...if ya know what I mean.

I'm taking it slow. Lurking is more my specialty.

Re: SuperHEROing for humor

Mystery Men...how can that not be funny?

That's my thought as well.

Re: SuperHEROing for humor

The thing about humor/strange games is that they tend to suddenly appear, a spontaneous event that everyone in the group thinks is hilarious for a while.

 

I never seen a humor based game work when it was preplanned to be funny.

 

Of course that is my experience. Has anyone else played in or ran a humor game that was intended to be funny from the start and had it work?

My "Second Stringers" game worked as a humor game, but it was one of many games being run in our gaming group during that time, so it was the easy "pickup" game we did any time we needed something quick and easy...or if people had started drinking earlier...

Re: SuperHEROing for humor

It sounds great. Were The Gamer's d4s his only Killing attack? If it's not too straight a question - what did you set as a points total? Or did you just let the concepts lead the way?

 

I ask cos I'm thinking of running a back-up strand for a campaign: minor villains trying to eke out a living.. it'll be played pretty po-faced, but with the meagre powers as the underlying gag.

 

Ned

Actually, I think the d4s were RKAs, but they had the limitation of Stun Only unless used against robots, objects, or the like.

I think I did something like 150 total (75+75), but there was a lot of play in the numbers for character humor. The villains were all plot devices with a theme, with few if any real stats - just foils for the PCs.

I love the loser villain angle too.

Re: How to build: Ghostbuster Gear (5e)

The traps are a basic Entange with Affects Desolid and perhaps some limitations about working only on paranormal entities. The tricky part is the Proton Packs...they're like an EB with a linked Drain any Movement power and Drain SPD, I'd think. That's why they keep trying to tag the ghosts with the proton packs. Also, the throwers might incorporate a stackable transparent entangle that requires constant maintenance via a skill roll (perhaps "Ghost Wrangling" or the like) to keep the streams focused on the ghost enough to bind it?

Re: Lucha Libre?

I'm not a fan of wrestling myself' date=' but the camp factor can be appealing to non-wrestling fans. Maybe you could talk your guys into a one-shot, pull out the stops with supernatural weirdness, and see if they'd be up for making it a two-shot...[/quote']

 

That is a good idea. I second it! I've found that a large majority of players are more interested in chasing werewolves, Aztec mummies or space aliens than in the kayfabe and/or actual in-ring wrestling performances. I played LLH with two guys last year who didn't even know how wrestling "worked", what a pinfall was, and who had never seen a lucha film. It still worked. Maybe not my best GM performance, but we played it and it was worth it.

 

One of the best comments from a player that I got after the session was, "I had no idea what intricate plots were possible with this game. I thought it was all about wrestling." So, the lucha genre and LLH can really surprise people.

 

That kind of thing does work, and I have had wrestlers, especially luchadores, involved in standard HERO and even Champions games, but it's not quite the same. I mean, honestly, what gamer worth his dice doesn't get jazzed up about a game that involves battling werewolves, mummies, mad scientists, and evil aliens from outer space in a mask and spandex?

Re: SuperHEROing for humor

Without harm? Or with normal, natural consequences?

 

Sounds like the Legion of Substitute Heroes.

I called the campaign the Second Stringers.

And The Big Gulp would fit right in.

Re: Pulp Hero Resources

Wow. My eyes started to glaze over due to overexposure to the pulpy goodness. Many, many thanks.

Has anyone else ever done this one? I once ran a game centered around a group of "loser" heroes on about the level of Arthur from "The Tick." The characters included the likes of Ratman (with the ability to turn into a completely normal - if slightly more intelligent than usual - rat, and who was strong enough to - in his player's colorful terms - "lift a really, really fat guy!"), the Gamer (who threw different-shaped dice at people, and that was it), 2 Ton Mary (a librarian who was made of steel - literally - she only fit into the set because of her utter and complete lack of any skill relating to making the best use of her strength and toughness), and Mr. Nobody, whose only real ability was a minor Mind Control limited to suggesting bad ideas to people while being invisible. They battled the likes of Dairy Queen (a villain obsessed with dairy products and terribly inappropriate cross-dressing for his size and body type), The Sheepmaster (he could Mind Control sheep), and Magnudo (the former members of a Hispanic boy band who had magnetic powers), with their last climatic battle being against The Iconoclast, who impersonated a classic theme villain-types to confuse law enforcement and the heroes while he actually committed completely normal crimes like robbing a bank across town while the heroes were waiting at the location his thematic clues led them to. He also used a device called the Existential Quandrifier, that had a multipower that was randomly assigned each time he activated it.

Re: Lucha Libre?

I'm in a similar boat as others have mentioned. I am a big fan of lucha libre and pro wrestling in general, but absolutely NONE of my gaming buddies are, a game like this requires that everyone have some interest in the subject. This is yet another gaming book on my shelf that no live group I can find will actually play.

Re: Who's still playing and when?

@godfish

Crucible

Taniwha

I'm very irregular. My wife and I are sort of working out when I'm allowed to use the big TV to play the Xbox and when she gets to use it to watch the latest crop of weird science-fictiony shows. Usually, I'm on between the times of 21:15 (right after the kid hits the sack) and 23:30 EST during the week, and sometimes later on the weekends.

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online?

I've come back to it after getting a dose of it in the beta version. I'm really liking it right now, but to be honest that could be due to the utter dearth of 4-color superhero gaming in my current PnP queue (which only has urban dark fantasy and post-apocalyptia in it right now). I am still a little iffy about the "cell-shade" thing, but it's grown on me. I really like the character generation options, but I do find the interface for the creator a little unwieldy. I am a little disappointed that I can't change some of the colors on my power effects. For instance, on my gadgeteer's entangle grenades, the goop is always white, although my designated effect color is green. Being able to preview what some of the weapons (especially guns) look like would be a great option - maybe there's already a way to do this, but I haven't found it, and it's bloody expensive, especially early on, to change the costume. I can't explain how annoying it is to a superhero generation geek like me to see my undead gunfighter whip out modernized .45s.

I kind of accept the boss-poaching as par for the course, but it does get irritating. It's so easy to just group up quickly to snag the guy and let everyone get credit. **insert old geek grumbling here**

Re: List Your CO Heroes!

Crucible (gadget wonk)

Taniwha (big bruiser type)

Hopefully more to come.