dbsousa

Games filled with role-players lead to more role-playing. Although I always preferred low-level games to high level games, I think the level of roleplaying depends on the players and the GM. The key to bringing more role-playing to high powered games is to let your players own more of the world. Nothing is more stifling to role-play than character who can only affect his world by smashing it. If your PC's can change the course of mighty rivers, give them the opportunity to change the course of politics. In my last Good Guys Incorporated game, Golden Eagle the filthy rich owner of GGI came across a home in Harlem where the tenants lacked basic neccesities, after the team gathered clues in the basement, Golden Eagle bought the building to restore it to a livable condition. I gave him the opportunity to do so, and have developed a series of encounters that depend on his actions to beautify this neighborhood. I think the most extreme comic book example of this is the Authority. Cosmic Powers lead to Cosmic Responsibility.

Teams I have belonged to... 80's Heroes: Good Guys, Incorporated 50's teen heroes: Junior Achievers 40's Pulp Heroes: The Midnight Syndicate NPC Groups I have used or imagined. 1890's Circus Heroes: The Wonders(short for the 7 Wonders of the Modern World, managed by PT Barnum) Modern Secret Agent Group: S.P.A.R.T.A.C.U.S. (Special Prosecutor's Agency to Remove Terrorism And Crime in the United States)

I just read on Compubox that the average heavyweight boxer throws 48 punches in a round. 48 attacks in 180 seconds equals one every 3.75 seconds, which translates to a SPD of between 3 and 4. Hero looks pretty accurate from that perspective...

This need to draw the US in... ...resist it. I think the coolest part about this game is how the world would change if NZ and OZ became the dominant nations. The US and Japan and China would put pressure on them to share the tech with the world, and NZ would say "not until you dismantle your nuclear programs". And when the US cooks up a reason to invade NZ, the Sydney Flying Rugby Team takes out the US 7th fleet...

OK here is dbsousas patented list for speeding up combat Prepare, Prepare, Prepare Have everything you will need to run any likely combat that night at your fingertips. this includes a Combat order chart with every Villian and Hero on it, STUN/BODY/END charts for all villains, with checkboxes to make the counting of damage quicker, and a List of rules that you expect might come into play. Fighting near or under water? have the enviromental movement rules handy. Defending the city from Grond? have the thrown objects rules at your right hand... At Bat, On Deck, In the Dugout When announcing combat, let the players know whose turn is next. If Speedy goes first, say "Speedy is up, and then it's the Slugger's turn". When Speedy has taken his turn, ask the Slugger to declare his action while Speedy is counting his damage dice, and let the Slowpoke know that he is on deck. If Possible, Involve a Computer... a simple spreadsheet can do all of your die rolling for you ( I will be uploading my super spreadsheet soon...) and keep track of your NPC's. The computer can always total dice faster than you... Less variety in DEX and SPD Race If you have PC's going at SPD 5, 6, 7 and 9, you have a lot of confusion over who goes when. Pick a set SPD (I like 5) and have your fast characters go 6, and your slow characters go 4. A vast variety of DEXes have the same effect. Everyone Fudge Let your players make stuff up, and don't worry about the rules. If your PC's are in a hardware store, tell them not to ask you whether they are standing near the hammers. Instead encourage them to assume there is a hammer nearby and say "I throw a hammer from the bucket full of half-off hand tools at my side" He Who Hesitates is Holding Give Speedy a reasonable time to make a decision. When he exceeds that time, tell him "You are holding your action. Slugger you are up". You can return to Speedy after Slugger has declared his actions. I'm tired... I'll think of more later...

This is how I would build it... Cost Power END 75 Singularity: Telekinesis (50 STR), Area Of Effect (8" Radius; +1) (150 Active Points); Only To Pull Objects toward point of origin (-1) 15 Powers Cost: 75

Golden Eagle would use his Gauss Reflection Electro-Magnetic Linear INverter (GREMLIN) Ray on Destroyer's armor to deactivate it, then use his Diamagnetic Tractor Arrays to airlift him to medical help. Revenant would reach a ghostly hand into Destroyer's chest and remove his soul. Once he had done this, he would let the souls own weight drag it to hell...

For the metamorph Patriot, how about Pluribus? I seem to recall the name from the old boards...

Actually, Wolverine acted within state and federal law. When armed men enter your home without announcing themselves, you are not required to retreat, and are allowed to use deadly force. This doesn't mean he is a hero for doing it, though...

I disagree. Unless you have a 12 SPD, dive for cover is not a perfect solution. At any other SPD, if you spend all your time Diving for Cover, you spend all your off segments prone. Even with a SPD of 12, a team of two with decent tactics could ensure that one of them always attacked you while you were prone.

Try this... Cost Power END 12 +30 Mental Defense (32 points total) (30 Active Points); Side Effects (Psych Lim*), Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (-1), Only Works Against Incapacitating Attack (-1/2) Powers Cost: 12 *Psychological Limitation: Robotic Personality (Very Common; Total)

Children of the Scalpel They came from all walks of life: doctors, artists, housewives, drifters. All they shared in common was an emptiness, a feeling that something was missing from their lives. Each of them felt shut out of their own lives, alienated in some way, until the Children of the Scalpel took them in and showed them their true destiny. As cults went, the Children were pretty typical. what was shocking was the speed at which this cult grew. In six months it grew from twelve disciples to nearly 5,000 members in all fifty states. Neither the FBI nor the Cult watchers were prepared for it, nor were they prepared for the Night of Knives. Through a broadcast transmitted simultaneously to 100 meeting halls, warehouses, and abandoned buildings, an enigmatic figure introduced himself as the Surgeon. He spoke of knowledge and ignorance, and the thin blade that separates them. Balanced on that knife edge is power. Some call it religion, some magic. the Surgeon promised to wield that knife. To some it would be a butcher's tool. But to others, it would be a scalpel, cutting out the sickness in them and transforming them. That night, 100 meeting halls, warehouses, and abandoned buildings erupted in flames and chaos. 4,500 men and women perished in the explosions heard around the world. 500 did not perish, though. Emerging from the rubble, and changed forever by the skill of the Surgeon, they have gone into hiding. Soon they will gather, and recieve the word of their spiritual leader. UNTIL estimates their combined might would exceed that of all known superheroes. What will that word be? Who is the Surgeon, and what is his motivation? (personally, I am using this concept to trot out my character clones, so that Good Guys, Inc. can clobber twisted versions of the original X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and the Doom Patrol...) Children of the Scalpel More Children of the Scalpel More Children of the Scalpel

Bob the Nagging. This is what he heard when his mentor called him "Brobdignagan".

Yes those are Hero Machine 2 Beta. Well worth the $10 donation to www.heromachine.com They are meant to be twisted versions of the Original X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Doom Patrol. Children of the Scalpel More Children of the Scalpel More Children of the Scalpel

My favorites: NYC's power-armored police: Emergency Xenogenic Threat Response Agency Our world's answer to SHIELD: SPecial Agency for the Removal of Terrorism And Crime in the United States

Effigy.

Don't forget this classic... If you haven't read A Canticle for Liebowitz, let me post a review from amazon.com... Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz, that reads: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma." To the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness and ignorance. As 1984 cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959's A Canticle for Leibowitz warns of the threat and implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleak Canticle tackles the sociological and religious implications of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections--Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light), and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Thy Will Be Done)--Canticle is steeped in Catholicism and Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how and why a person is canonized. --Paul Hughes --

Go to the Source... The ThreePenny Opera is a Kurt Weill/Berthold Brecht Musical that equates capitalism with organised crime. from Culture Vultures... Perhaps Mac the Knife is a symbol in your game for the failure of the system to provide justice. He sits at the top of a vast criminal empire, acknowledging no law but his own. Everyone knows him, but no one provides the same description. He has an empathic mind control that make men see that which they fear, and women that which they love...

The Children of the Scalpel belong to a cult that exposes its members to unstable, explosive mutagens. Those that survive tend to look like this... Children of the Scalpel More Children of the Scalpel More Children of the Scalpel

But how would you teach the mice to speak spanish? I would give this a -1 Limitation at least.

You might consider a Limitation RSR: Sleight of Hand...

Revenant Pulp Hero who returned from the dead to foil the Bund-ists who killed him. Johnny Angel. 60's Teen Hero with Magnetic Propulsion Wings (built by Doctor Daedalus) and a precog ability that foretold the Kennedy assassination. Citizen Pain, Johnny's Nemesis. Freewheeler, 80's rollerskating speedster, inspired by a spring break trip to Venice Beach. Kid Ninja, a 12 year old samurai whose player refused to pick a hero name. Never let the New York Post pick your nom de guerre...

I thought the article said quite the opposite. The number of alternate universes is in fact finite, and limited to the rules of physics.

Try this Cost Power END 12 Twin Blast: Energy Blast 10d6 (vs. ED), Adds to Twin's power (+1/2) (75 Active Points); Increased Endurance Cost (5x END; -2), Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (-2), Conditional Power (Only in contact and in conjunction with conscious twin; -1) 35 Powers Cost: 12 I suggest using the custom advantage "adds to twin's power" as a variant form of cumulative at 1/2...

The point is that at the Star Hero Gravity rules work OK for Star Hero. Just as there are Heroic and Superheroic rules for knockback, bleeding and impairing, Star Hero gravity are designed for a heroic campaign, where NCM is the rule and Strengths rarely exceed 20...