Rene

Re: Looking for HERO stats for: "Bullseye" But Bullseye's attacks *can* be deflected and dodged. Personally I'd avoid the Area of Effect thing and just buy lots of Levels to go with RKA, OIF: Objects of Opportunity, Range Based on STR. And maybe I'd add some other kinds of attacks built with TK, Drain, Transform...

Re: The Authority:What the heck? Batman has this super-obvious thing of being one of the few superheroes to keep several younger boy partners and all that Seduction of the Innocent stuff, so I don't know. And the Bruce Wayne persona sometimes comes off as effete. Wolverine, OTOH, don't look gay to me, no matter which way I look at the character. He started to wear leather clothes fairly recently (together with all the other X-Men) and leather clothes more readly suggest S&M than homosexuality to me. Logan's ultra-violence and his "getting hurt and always coming back for more thing" also suggests this sado-masochist thing, not necessarily homosexuality. Otherwise, Wolverine seems pretty much a all-around macho man. And not the "I'm compensating for something" kind of macho guy but the real, "connected with my primal nature" material that seems to have some ladies sighing (lots of women dig the X-Men movie for Hugh Jackman alone). I'm not surprised that many gays would sigh for him too (the web is packed full of Wolverine slash fan fic). Now that isn't the same thing as the character being gay.

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome I think the Characteristics House Rules are just fine if you want a "realistic" superhero game in the vein of "he can fly and shoot plasma bolts, but otherwise is a pretty ordinary guy." Sure it's at odds with comic book heroes. In the comics (even the more realistic ones) "I am a superhero" is reason enough for having at least 23 in all Primary Characteristics. But then again, not all campaigns must follow comic book conventions.

Re: The Authority:What the heck? I'm not sure if the above proves that Batman isn't so smart, but it certainly proves that Mark Waid wasn't in a good day when he wrote that.

Re: How do you get players to role play the genre? They pretty much *admit* in the Dungeon Master Guide that D&D's "default" style of play is "dungeon crawling", i.e. kill the monsters, avoid the traps, get the loot. Of course, "default" don't mean all D&D groups play like that. To Dr. Mid-Nite: Man, I feel your pain! I've been in very similar situations before. Mostly with anime/WoD/Image fans. Really, I think you only have two options. Try to meet them half-way, crafting a hybrid game between what you like and what they like, or simply give up. You won't turn them into Bronze/Silver Age players, I just know. Guys with the kinds of attitudes you're describing are all but incurable. The Silver/Bronze Age superhero genre is a acquired taste, you had to be there to really enjoy it. Yes, sometimes it's possible to teach someone mostly ignorant of superheroes (who starts from a position of neutrality) but someone who actively thinks such stuff is silly is very hard to change. Im my old group, I just gave up on most players, and retained a few I thought had potential if shielded from the other players' influences.

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome This is a official rule now. It was a little unclear in 4th edition, but in 5th it's clarified that this is the way Reduced END should work.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

Re: The Authority:What the heck? Yes, yes. I don't really care if they exterminate the Blues, they're worse than Nazis. But was everybody there a Blue, a descendant, or a willing accomplice? What if the Blue had innocent human slaves in Italy? That is the kind of question that no one in the Authority seemed to bother asking. Not even a "well, maybe we killed some innocents to make sure many more wouldn't suffer." Instead, stuff like that isn't even acknowledged.

Re: Authority, we just need a few good men.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

Re: Authority, we just need a few good men. Green Arrow, it could make sense for him to be in such a group. Short-tempered, impulsive, political radical who gets tired of seeing the big sharks go free while superheroes stop the muggers... The Flash I don't know. Wally's prime motivation has been to honor Barry's legacy.

Re: The Authority:What the heck? Glad you agree with me Haerandir. The Authority was kinda fun, but I'm not sad to see the book go, it probably should have ended with issue 29 already. It had it's high points (I personaly am fond of the story where they battle that Cthullu thing they keep calling "God"), but it got old and I don't think there is much more that can be done with the concept. Ultimately, the book wasn't this work of genius with deep things to say about politics and society that many of his fans think it is. IMO, the major merit of the book was to encapsulate many of the then-current trends of the genre into a single witty package. Now that is done, let's move on. BTW, I think both Ellis and Millar have written better things. In "Planetary" Ellis has superheroes that still are cool and commited and stuff, but considerably more human and sympathetic than the Authority, not to mention that Planetary has a lot more original ideas and a lot less gore. As for Millar, I think "Ultimates" is the best superhero thing he did. Yep, the heroes still all talk tough and witty (Millar seems unable to get rid of this, like a poster said) but there is more diversity and complexity in their personalities. And because they're often in conflict with each other and themselves, there isn't this thing of the writer siding too much with the characters that seemed to taint the Authority.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

Re: The Authority:What the heck? Doom probably would be afraid of them. As a ruthless dictator, he'd be a prime target for "permanent removal" Authority style. I agree with Nexus, BTW. The most disturbing trait in the Authority isn't the killing (you could say many killings in the book are justifiable) but the way they joke and have fun while killing.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

Re: The Authority:What the heck? Well, everyone is entitled to their oppinion. When I first read an issue, my reaction was lukewarm. Everybody had been praising it as the best superhero series ever written, and I've found it to be just a fun and somewhat shallow super-action series with one or two more original touches. But it grew on me slowly. What I like most about the Authority is the high-scale, almost-absurd extremes and mind-blowing ideas. It's like a crazy Silver Age comic, only with gore and paranoid political conspiracies throw in (and a gay superhero couple). I don't think it's nearly as deep as many people think it is, and the personal character stuff is light (Millar run) to almost non-existent (Ellis run). With their level of power and the way they keep murdering ever more powerful threats, I agree they have a short shelf life. I understand that many fans are turned off by the way they kill their enemies. I'm mostly neutral to that. I mean, in a fictional contest, of course. Many fans think the Authority are the only heroes who fight the good fight in the right way, many haters think they're moral monsters, I dunno. I don't think the book is as deep as that, I don't think they really explore these questions. It's a complete fantasy world, where everybody they kill is shown to the reader to be equivalent of sadistic child molesters or else faceless thugs in the employ of said sadistics. There aren't any real moral dilemmas to allow us to weight in one way or the other.

Re: Character Concept Question: Jack Hawksmore? Several of the superhuman origins for characters written by Ellis, Morrison, Millar, etc. depend on the fact that the universe itself (and aspects of it) has much more sentience than rationalism would accord to it. For instance, Jenny Sparks and the other Century Babies from "Planetary" seem to be defense mechanisms created by Earth itself. I particularly like this kind of "post-Iron Age surrealism". Pure magic origins, OTOH, I'm not crazy about. I mean your simple "well, it's magic I gain from learning to tap these extra-dimensional beings" thing, like Dr. Strange and Dr. Fate. Swamp Thing is cool. I would imagine that those advanced aliens that abducted Jack would know so much more about how the universe works that we could as well call it "magic". Or to put it another way, maybe their science wandered in fields that on Earth are still the domain of occultism alone. Anyway, I like it because it's weird and half-unfathomable. Like I think aliens and magic should be. One of the things I dislike about old comics is the way this stuff is too familiar and pat.

Re: The Authority:What the heck? Yes. Batman always was cut from the pulp hero mode, but Morrison took this to new extremes. Get Sherlock Holmes, Bruce Lee, Reed Richards, James Bond, and Captain America, multiply their talents tenfold and combine them, and perhaps you'd approach Batman as he sometimes been portrayed when there are other superheroes around. And some Bat-fans still say he is "the only one human from the bunch"? Jeez, I find him the most unbelievable of them all. An unenhanced human being doing all that? Right.

Re: The Authority:What the heck? Okay. I was only saying something like this: You get a ordinary guy and inject him with superpowers, chances are we could luck out and he'd be a more or less decent human being. Now you get someone from a pool of high-power execs, career politicians, hot lawywers and other people likely to be presidential stuff, and I think chances are greater that you'll get someone rotten, someone raised in a diet of power jockeying and ambition. Still, I don't think this oppinion make me a monarchist, because I still prefer the elected politician over the superhero king. Because if both prove to be really rotten, the elected politician would be easier to remove.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

Re: The Authority:What the heck? Another thing I just thought. A superhero also would be different from a king in that he/she starts as a ordinary person who gained powers by accident, while the other was raised from an earlier age into his role, probably resulting in a quite different mindset. Another reason why I wouldn't equate my oppinions to monarchism. Of course, if a setup like the Authority goes on for more than one generation, then we could really have hereditary superhero rulers. The opponents of the group at least can rest asured that two of them aren't likely to breed. BTW, the gay marriage of Apollo and the Midnighter was the cutest happy ending I've ever seen in comics.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

Re: The Authority:What the heck? I've just finished reading Millar's run on "the Authority". Funnier than I thought it would be. I have to admit, seeing them bully China out of Tibet and the Russians out of Chechenya was satisfying in a power trip, wish fulfillment kind of way. I still think it wouldn't work in continuity-heavy universes like Marvel and DC, though. I'm not sure they portrayed the US government alone as eee-vil here. To be be exact, they portrayed ALL governments as eee-vil. I don't have much trouble with that, though I'd rather say governments, being primarily interested in self-perpetuation, are more *ammoral* than evil, in that they're highly capable of potentially evil acts to protect their interests. The only thing that irks me is that, for some unfathomable reason, the UN alone is depicted as a noble organization, since the Authority trusted them enough to gift them with highly dangerous equipment they confiscated from a supervillain. That makes the Authority seems more like deluded liberals than the sexy cynical anarchists they seem to be most of the time. Why, oh why, when you collect several eee-vil governments in a worldwide organization they suddenly become noble? Maybe because they'd act as checks and balances on each other? That'd make them more inefficient, not necessarily nobler. Oh yes, and it was fun to see how the Authority dealt with Seth in the end. The hillbilly's final fate was pretty wicked, but I'm damned if it didn't beat Batman escorting the Joker to Arkham Hotel after the clown mass murdering his monthly diet of innocents. No, I don't believe in "kill them all and let God sort them out", I just think heroes should think harder about how to deal with repeated offender mass murderers who've proven ridiculously immune to conventional incarceration.

Re: The Authority:What the heck? Captain America is the closer thing Marvel has to Superman. But I think he is been portrayed as slightly less infallible than Supes over the years. And in lots of stories he is shown as more more indecisive and at a loss about what his role should be. Still, yes, I'd prefer that they avoided using Captain America this way too.

Re: What super hero concepts would you like to see more of? I've read the first 3 or 4 issues of Top 10. Like I've said, I'm not much of a fan of comedy and satire, I'm bitter and depressed. And the "serious" stuff in the comic never really connected with me either, because I've found this mix of superhero satire and hyper-realistic police show just too weird. To top it all, I find the artist's style weird too. I enjoy all the other ABC titles though and I'm a big fan of Alan Moore. I think Top 10 is the only stuff from him that I didn't loved (and the First American in Tomorrow Stories). PS: One superhero meets cops comic I really like is Bendis's "Powers". But it treates the superhero elements more seriously and the cop part is more old noir than modern TV cop show. More to my tastes, I guess.