Publius

Re: How do you feel about Superheroes that kill? LOL! Actually, I'd say that it is the kissing cousin of youth, often (but certainly not always) youth's accomplice in mischief: immaturity. The kind of immaturity that would be quite natural for someone who believes themselves to be "better" than the rest of humanity by dint of their special abilities. Then back that up with the power to do something about your "superior wisdom"...

Re: How do you feel about Superheroes that kill? I have had the pleasure of playing with some players that share my own basic viewpoint, that heroes should not go out of their way to kill, yada yada; but this brings up I think why it is important not to kill. If the players leave some schmuck dead on the street there should be a wave of negative reaction by the public, which could have the effect of creating a negative reaction by government. This might be true for sanctioned heroes as well as unsanctioned vigillante types. Governments, at least democratic governments (note small "d"), are very sensitive to public reaction and indiscriminate killings are going to produce all kinds of negative reaction. Government leaders have proven quite willing to let their assets hang out to dry in public-relation meltdowns. Unless there is some attempt to either (a) sweep these things up before they can get out or ( censor the media the public is going to find out about it and react (note also that a and b would both be considered "fishy" if evidence of them surfaced publically). Some reactions are going to be positive and/or accept that lethal force is necessary. Civil lawsuits of course have become the bette noir of the modern legal system, and while I can see sanctioned heroes being immunized in some way by laws (assuming of course that the courts accept such laws as being constitutional, which I think could go either way) unsanctioned/vigillante heroes open themselves up to these sorts of things. And as assinine as some of these suits are, the fact of the matter is that some of these dumb suits do get into the system and thus they will have to be dealt with. In the end, it might be like police officers, a complex network of regulations and legal precedents might create a zone where lethal force can be used; then when lethal force is used there is some sort of investigation which follows. Or it might force government sanctioned heroes to come in two different varieties, the open heroes (which are backed and protected by PR machines) and the more secretive "black ops" heroes which tend to use more force. Interestingly enough, the use of codenames and costumes might be useful here in that a government agency might want to use its heroes in both roles (or switch from one to another on a more-or-less permanent basis if a blowup happens) and covering their identity would make this much more helpful. Of course, the public reason would be that "...these brave men and women, and more importantly their families and friends, need to be protected."

Re: How do you feel about Superheroes that kill?

Re: Support for Low Level Supers style Dark Champions

Re: Fake TV-Shows The Itchy and Scratchy Show One of Alien Nation movies had a show about a Newcomer that got cancelled after the first commercial by Fox. It featured the fellow that played Bud on Married with Children as a Newcomer. I forget the name but the self-deprecating humor killed me.

Re: Firefly: The Reavers

Re: On balance...when no one else follows it. I agree, re-submit a character design that you tell her is "more in keeping with the new tone of your campaign". That way you can control the level of contraryness you want to use. If you still wanted to make that point, you could always show her how these things you can do now are so much more powerful since she adopted her "let it all hang out" attitude. Sticking to your principles is fine, but getting splattered or running for cover (by necessity) in games is not fun. On the GM's side, it might just be that some of the abilities that other characters developed were appealing to her and so she allowed them, and then sort of painted herself in the corner. Hey, I don't know anything at all about the situation, I'm just putting out something reasonable that may just seem like "caving in". You would know better how this applies in your situation. I have been in a situation where I asked the players to design characters that would have fit into a particular genre (Dark Champions) and most of the PCs came out with four-color superheroes (flight, frickin' lasers coming out of their eyes, etc). I just came to the conclusion that 'Hey, this is for the enjoyment of all of us' and steered the Dark Champions setting into 4-color-ville. One fellows character was good for the original DC tone and when we went Full-Color I gave him leave to re-allocate his characters points. When it comes to ceilings, Factor of X, and disallowed areas however I am quite firm (although I also try to give players leeway to be 'special' and let each bend them slightly in one single area to give them that unique speciality). Of course it helps that I (normally, not in that case) shape their characters after they make them so I will just tone something down that violates the standards provided. Here you are talking powers and abilities and so that is squarely between the tone-issue and the hard number issue (at least for me). A line-call. Still, as many others have said, it is her game now and her rule.

Re: Speedster Name Needed Whichever one of these fine names you choose, give some thought to making his real name Petey Kyoo

Re: Latin for thumb No no. Thumbus Maximus

Re: The cranky thread Here's my cranky Walking to my insurance agent's office the other day I slip on the icy sidewalk and go ass over tea kettle manuever right in front of their window. (Cue 'Irony') While some very nice fellow driving by actually gets out of his vehicle and helps me up, the insurance agent folks just watch. Then I hobble into the office, they express lukewarm platitudes. "Gosh was it icy?" My thought was 'Hmmm let me think about that a minute' but I just gave them the arched eyebrow. One of them runs out to put salt on the sidewalk ("just to make sure no one else falls")) and then after I am finished with my business one of the office workers walks outside. "Gee, it doesn't look icy. Well I'll put a note in [the agent]'s inbox" (as he was out at the time). "Bye." No call, no letter, no nothing from them in two days. Given my aversion to (a) hospitals and ( paying for hospitals I have not gone in for an X-ray or anything. I'm getting steadily better but I'm not entirely up to speed yet, still swollen and sore but I can walk (okay, hobble) on it without a cane. That's been the physical side of my crap week. The business side of the crap week is that I may be shutting down my magazine. I'll still keep the publishing company but the magazine has generated very few Ad sales (the only sales that count) despite rave reviews. No one in my little slice of home (Flint, MI) wants to put any money into advertising. Gee, I wonder why the businesses are failing and everyone thinks the place is a hellhole? (Which btw, it isn't, it is not all Roger & Me here. Just because the business community has been unwilling to assist this is still not a bad place to live. Small minded and tight-fisted maybe, but that trait is shared by a lot of communities.) On the plus side, I never really wanted to do a city magazine (I have been keeping the magazine my brother started afloat because of my parent's investment in said venture). Maybe I can start using my publishing corp for something I really like (gaming, scifi literature, etc.)... Any ideas?

Re: The cranky thread Thank you... thank you... Try the veal and be sure to tip tour waitress Ninja Ferrets coming your way

Re: The cranky thread

Re: The cranky thread I am not thinking happy thoughts. I am glad the cranky thread is here, but I am still not thinking happy thoughts. I cannot say anything funny at the moment. I only have spite on tap. This is not a good sign.

Re: WWYCD: Sleeping With The Enemy (Gee, now I can participate since I have a PC in a new supernatural campaign) Jack Malleus: Well, I have the same situation with the Enchantress, not to mention someone else I would rather not discuss, so I can't really tell you what to do. One thing I do know however is that rehabilitation is not in the cards.

Re: Need an Idea Just to get this thread back on topic, what exactly are you looking for Yamamura? A good idea for a Super Heroine in this setting? Someone who already lived there and was a defender of the city? The concept btw sounds interesting and gives more than enough good reasons for adventuring.

Re: Jane's Superhumans No worries' date=' I did not consider it presumption at all. In fact, I did yours for an entirely practical purpose: to see how long one would take me to do without having to supply the artwork et al. Not really that bad in fact, it only took me a few minutes (plus a little for the extra text), although if I get a ton of them it might be a bit more difficult to keep up (I'll have 5 classes next semester at two different institutions plus [b']perhaps[/b] my regional magazine if I don't close it down for a lack of advertising support, ack!). I'm very glad that people are happy with the end results. I think that there are a few more tweaks that need to be made to the basic structure, but overall, I think that this project is at a pretty good stage.

Re: Jane's Superhumans

Re: Jane's Superhumans

Re: Jane's Superhumans Okay, here you go with Sillhouette, glowing eyes and all (I experimented with making the glow stronger and had mixed results). I'll eliminate that last image of the character but leave the first one for now for comparison. re: Zlf, as long as it is the look you are going for, cool. BTW, I didn't mention it before, but I am aware that I left most of the DOB's and such on the last pdf either wrong or undone. I will change it or make it "unknown" for the final version.

Re: Jane's Superhumans The other face... actually it turned out interesting, I think it gives a whole different look to the character. I like the other face betterm this is just different. I might want to change the size a bit, but again that changes the face and thus the poic significantly. I dunno, I'm just playing around here.

Re: Jane's Superhumans Oops. When the description said she doesn't wear a costume I meant that meant street clothes rather than ala mode (sort of). Is this closer then? I didn't know if you were deliberately going for the whole "faceless" look or not so I left a face in. The pic is actually a significantly modified version of the character "Steamer" I did for a player (which has been modifed and renamed, but I cannot remember the new name at the moment) based on one of the standard templates (now modified well beyond that on the one side). The face is essentiually the same as that character with color change and different hair. If you liked the last face for the character I can always exchange them (vector graphics are nice that way) (Note: eventually, this will be deleted to conserve space)

Re: Gay and Bisexual Superheroes As a GM I have played just about everything as an NPC. My players aren't really very sex oriented during play, but we have had an assortment of gay NPCs that brings the subject up. There haven't been any problems or issues that have come up whatsoever. One of the NPCs that my players deal with is a Metahuman named Tox. He is gay, and the one area that they know they can find him is at one of the gay clubs in their home city. The players made their pilgrimage there in the last adventure to get some information. Most of the folks I know who are gay fit into every sort of category, so the people they encounter at the bar/club range from Xandir clones to macho looking and acting types and everything in between. I usually sneak other NPCs into the crowd there that they have met in previous adventures, these NPCs have an interesting assortment of responses to the players being there. The best thing of course is when the PC Minuteman comes into these places in full costume. The character is completely oblivious (actually it is more correct to say that he acts oblivious) and simply enjoys being the center of attention (signing autographs, dancing when asked et al.). Some of the other characters are a little more reserved but no one has a problem with it at all. In the spirit of this I think that perhaps my next PC in Hero (I am talking with some of my players about running something in the next few sessions) will be gay. Why not? I have not played a gay player character yet to my recollection (but I haven't played much lately anyway) and it might be an interesting dynamic in the game.

Re: Jane's Superhumans Okay, Merry Christmas Trebuchet. Finding myself somewhat frazzled after the holidays, I worked on this today (this sort of stuff is a release for me, kind of a mental holiday thing). Based on the descriptions of the characters I have come up with the following images. I do not think that they will "fit the bill" for your PCs, but I am hoping that they come at least somewhat close for the purposes of illustration. I will be using them myself for characters of my own design in any case. http://www.digitalindalo.com/rpg/Knight.gif http://www.digitalindalo.com/rpg/Vess2.gif http://www.digitalindalo.com/rpg/Sill2.gif I also retouched the Zlf pic I did a while back, you mentioned she was somwhat more "grim" looking than the smiling image. The face did not turn out well IMHO, but you might like it better in any case, I am certainly not the only (or even best) judge as it is your character. http://www.digitalindalo.com/rpg/Zlf-3.gif And finally, the Blackstone Metahuman Files (I avoided "Guide to..." because there is a "Blackstone's Guide to..." series already out there. The name Blackstone's itself should not cause too many problems even though there are numerous examples of it in the marketplace (as well as evey other name under the sun), but I would not want to use it in a specific phrase that has already been "taken") http://www.digitalindalo.com/rpg/midgaurd2c.pdf I am not overly happy with the way the images turned out, but the print-quality file is almost 4meg and the press quality (which I use for my magazine) is obscene (in size f course, the content is the same). Once I get done, I will make the print quality available to you by email Trebuchet. I posted the above gifs so that people can see the images as they should have been. Just to let folks here know, I will be starting a thread with the name "Blackstone's Metahuman File" sometime soon as the bulk of this thread has a lot of other stuff not really about this project.

Re: Pulp Hero: Solomon Kane I recieved the Soloman Kane and two of the Conan's (I think that is all that is presently out in this newest version) for X-mas this year. I look forward to reading them, and now I will have a benchmark to look at for Hero-izing. Many thanks.

Re: Jane's Superhumans Hey Trebuchet, do you have any pictures for those heroes?