Super Squirrel

Originally posted by keithcurtis

Heh, you've just described my Savage Earth map. I rotated the world 90°. The main action takes place in equatorial Nunavut (The territory west of Hudson Bay). I have climatology maps for the whole world. The north pole is approxiamtely halfway beween the closest points of S. Amerca and Africa. The history of the campaign has this happening to the world. It is not an alternate earth.

 

If you're interested, I have a spinning globe animation on my website.

 

Keith "Just can't beat an equatorial fjord" Curtis

My map was a combination of sheer laziness and dedication. I had the Wish Master make the world become more lethal. I then took photoshop and about five hours of my life and deleted between 100 to 250 landmarks in the State of Maine and cast the game there.

 

For most of the city names I dropped one letter and mixed the rest around (this was to make the cities seem more foreign to players). I also focused mostly on cities and towns I was familiar with.

 

Of course my favorite landmark is the fact that the worlds most corrupt and powerful slaver lives at my former address.

I'm frankly lazy at world building. Here is my strategy that works well.

 

First you need a concept. Like Keith Curtis said you need to know what it is... Genre first than the specifics.

 

I do most of my work based on inspiration. Things I like inspire me. So many of my ideas start there and expand.

 

In the case of Chronicles of the Wishes it came to me from listening to Poe music on repeat after rewatching Fushigi Yuugi by Watase Yu. I started to ask myself what would a world be like if there was someone who had the ability to make a wish whenever the felt like.

 

This gave my setting, Earth, and political structure, Dictatorship, and it only required recent history plus the history of one man.

 

After that I started expanding on issues such as races, magic, and so on until I have what I have now.

 

Previous to this game, one thing I found that works well is creating the "who". I create major organizations, businesses, and so on.

 

Once you have the macro down, let the micro come with time. I usually create most of my details on the fly.

 

For example:

Recently on CotW, the party reached a particular city for the first time. The city is really just a communications tower that collected a ton of residents over the course of 35 years. One of my players is a member of a gang and because he was enslaved the last year or so, he has been out of touch. Deciding to bring up that disadvantage, I had him encounter some old buddies that he didn't recognize.

 

A battle broke out when one of his teammates thought that the buddies playful challange was serious and went for a killing strike. It resulted in a very messy and complicated situation. In the end I had created a total of four places of interest in the city as well as two major NPCs who are now pivotal to the plot.

 

As the game advances and the players explore or stay within one region, the details will fill to the point that I will not have to do much. But it is important to keep a good record of these places and things.

 

As far as coming up with names... good luck. I steal mine. I took Cori from Keith's campaign (accidently in this case but it was where it came from) and Neko is Japanese for cat and so on.

 

I try and create my own but they often are too similar. Such as Tarkth (Tark - eth) and Coeth (Co - eth). I haven't even given a name to the major antagonist. He is known only as the Wish Master and I doubt he will ever be named.

You squash a beefed up version of the giant space amoeba with your casual STR.

The problem between X-Men vs. JLA has been summed up well already in a couple of posts. Just like you can pick Silver Age vs. Modern Day Superman you can also pick X-Men from any 'phase' and have a totally different power level.

 

My view is that if you found the proper point levels, the JLA is going to likely win. Now I say likely only because it is not a sure bet. The problem for the JLA is dealing with Rogue. In a one on one bout, the only one who stands a chance against her is the Green Lantern because his power comes from outside him and it gives him a cosmic level power that can't be absorbed.

 

This, however, is a team vs. team event. There are some clear members of the JLA that aren't on a level that can take on X-Men and there are those that are unstoppable. Batman is a very powerful superhero but he is one of the ones that can be taken down easily by the X-Men.

 

Really though, it gets down to the style of Marvel and DC. DC runs cosmically powerful heroes that are meant to be supernatural and well beyond humans. Marvel runs heroes that are powerful beyond humans but with clear ties to their human side. So, I admit that JLA will beat the X-Men but it is only because JLA runs them at that power scale.

Here is a hypothetical situation:

 

Wyrm has only 8 CON and currently has 0 END. He uses a 4 END power and takes 2d6 Stun from the power. If he rolls an 8 or more from the Stun is he Stunned from using the power?

Here is a crude example of how I would use a shield in my campaign.

 

Long Shield 20 Pt Multipower Reserve

1) +4 DCV, RSR(Shield Use[3/2 skill]) 1u

2) Armor 6 rPD / 6 rED, Cannot attack while using power

Originally posted by Steve Long

Wouldn't make much sense to develop mass combat rules and not provide instructions for how Tactics affects things, now would it?

I know a couple of people who would find Tactics pointless in influencing mass combat. They'd just throw down a couple of dice and declare the battle one way or another.

 

Player: "So you are telling me that we have more troops with better weapons and we all made or tactics rolls and we still lost against a bunch of peasants with pitchforks?"

 

GM: "Well I rolled a 4 so the peasants beat your army."

 

Player: "But I rolled a 3 on my tactics rolls and I drew you a battle attack map."

 

GM: "Well I rolled a 4. The peasants were just that good."

One note about Kenshin:

 

Analyze Combat: 23-

 

He knows just how good everyone is without any difficulty.

I would allow a player to build a gun with a trigger that is activated on a DEX roll or something. One of those hair-pin triggers.

Originally posted by Victim

Nothing, unfortunately.

 

I can't even find games online, because I prefer play by post to chat based games.

Have you tried http://www.herocentral.net yet?

 

I have an online game there Pits of Teska that could really use one more player. It isn't a long term campaign but it would help one of my players out greatly to only have to play one character instead of two. At this point in the game, I'd let you create your own instead of using the second one he made.

I have used Hero for the following:

 

Evil Superhero Campaign

 

Lethal Game Show

 

Murder Supernatural Mystery

 

Standard Superhero

 

Anime Hero

 

Post-Apoc Campaign (x2 at once)

 

I used UMA as a mouse pad. It was a great replacement for the Psionics Handbook.

Originally posted by zornwil

IVicious Rabbit - as in Monty Python, just couldn't pass it up

My hell hares make monty python rabbits look easy. They are a combination duplication/summon. They are normally encountered as a standard hare with a large jaw bite. However, they can recombine by swallowing another hare. This causes them to double in size and most charactistics. There are usually 16 hares in a pack making for one very large rabbit.

 

It was a 600+ pt. creature with a 3d6 Penetrating HKA.

Originally posted by keithcurtis

That's always one of the problems to world creation. If you have a world whose origins are lost to antiquities ("The Before Times") you can never TELL anyone what's really going on, or it destroys the mythic quality.

 

Keith "Silly player, can't you recognize a plot device?" Curtis

That is what a "will" is for. Put me down there please under arren@winds.org

Okay, so having dished out what I think is 20 points to the base, I'll basically sit back and let them take care of improvements. Considering they don't have a decent way into the base, they can make that their concern. (Megascale Teleport would be nice).

This may be covered in Champions and if it is, please tell me so. I have long wondered how to handle this.

 

Team bases are fun, but not if you are the character paying for the whole thing. That is the case in the case of my character in a campaign. I'm dishing out 20 points from my character to cover the team base. Should I be expected to pay for improvements or should the team cough it up?

 

What do you guys do for team bases?

Thanks Keith.

 

Someday you will tell us all the dirty secrets to your Reavers so we can add them to the list.

I don't even want to think about where to begin with Kenshin. He must be somewhere close to 500 points.

Re: Re: Post-Apoc Creatures

 

Originally posted by BasilDrag

Metamorphosis Alpha would give you a ship-load ()of ideas.

 

Or Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega, its descendant. I think Gamma World is a spin-off from Metamorphosis Alpha

 

--

OK, so who's this strange Ian the Cthulhu fans are always talking about?

Is this a book or a movie or a website or some sort of TV show I don't know about? I haven't heard of it before.

I guess you could say that.

Originally posted by Toadmaster

Letting people make up hit locations for special effects without making it a part of something they paid for is just opening up a can of worms. Id think that the Jugular veins and Carotid arteries (far more dangerous but located deeper in the neck) are already factored into the head hit location, otherwise soon your players will be buying greys anatomy and pulling this every week, I want to go for the femoral artery (hit location 14 thigh), lower decending aorta (stomach, groin 12, 13), take a shot at the kidneys, slice his hamstring or achilles tendon etc. These are all valid considerations for special martial maneuvers that are bought, otherwise I'd just stick with the hit locations as they stand or make up a super detailed hit location.

"Sorry, you can't attack someone in the eyes no matter how good of a roll you get. You didn't spend any points on a transform power to create blindness. Maybe in 6th Edition if they add it to the hit location chart you can."

I ran it as an attack to a specific location. I have it a modest penalty on the roll and the roll was rather successful. But you are right, attacks like that really should require a special power.

Background Information

 

The year is 2036. In the year 2002, a man known only as the Wish Master made his first public appearance. Making three consecutive wishes, he crushed human civilization and placed it under his control.

 

The first wish collapsed all governmental bodies.

 

The second wish caused all electronics in the world to begin to act unpredictable.

 

The third wish made the lands more savage and difficult to traverse.

 

Over the next ten years, he established protection within the cities through his guard force known as Templars. People who refused to live in the cities found themselves facing horrible beasts and creatures.

 

After the ten year mark, the world began to change again. This time gunpowder became unpredictable, magic reappeared and new species began to walk upon the world.

 

Ten years later and more changes appeared. These ones less significant and noticable but all present.

 

Now, in the year 2036, the world is beginning to fight back.

Rage's Stats

 

Rage is not dead yet. This is on HeroCentral, a play by post. Currently the Fire Fae Jin and the Earth Fae Enemy are in a stand off. It turns out Jin and the Earth Fae are old friends and what was meant as a friendly challange turned lethal. Jin has been asked by the Earth Fae to honor his friendship and membership of the gang by killing Caliban (Rage's character) for the death of Neko the Cat Fur.

 

At the moment we have just passed Phase 12 and Caliban has lost another point of BODY bringing him to -1. He has a normal BODY of 8. As I rule it, he has numerous broken ribs, a broken arm and shoulder. Not to mention he is pinned under a wall.

With Chapter 1 of my campaign, Chronicles of the Wishes, about to come to an end, I'm curious if anyone would like to hear the story thus far on here?

 

It is certainly a very interesting campaign with more twists and turns than even I anticipated.

Well, Rage got his payback (he's the player). He killed the buddy of an Earth Mage when he hit him. The final tally was 10 BODY, 50 STUN and a whole lot of bleeding. The Earth Mage kinda made the wall of a building fall on him. I mean it WAS suppose to be a friendly dual, not a fight to the death.