CorpCommander

Re: Post Apoc. campaign started on Hero Central.

Yes. I still haven't figured out HeroCentral totally. I don't seem to get email when something new is posted. Let me get in there now and accept you.

Thanks for your interest. I can accept up to 8 players.

Re: Post Apoc. campaign started on Hero Central.

I've finished outlining 13 missions. I'll get as much material converted and put up in Hero Central as possible over the next week. looks like this should be viable.

Re: Post Apoc. campaign started on Hero Central.

Cool. Do all characters have to be from the military? Are all characters starting out just out of Cryo-freezing?

In fact most of those frozen were not military. Some are, many aren't. Final decision making on who went into the safety of the vaults was determined by criteria generated by AIs wargaming the end result thousands of times. A mix of technologists, artists, scientists and even people expert in Earth's religions were sent below. You must pick one of these types as your main specialization but for the most part a specialization is only 9 points of your character.

The characters will start from the moment they are awoke by old friends...

Re: Post Apoc. campaign started on Hero Central.

In your initial post you say that the world was destroyed in war' date=' but later mention that it was hit by asteroids. Is it one or the other, or both?[/quote']

 

Good Question. I've only been able to give a synopsis of the 20 page back story so some things are probably vague.

 

The 3 part storty goes like this:

 

Man advances to populating the Solar System and exploiting the outer planets for their resources. Life on Earth is a life of plenty. In part this is because we have so many other planets to exploit. But still we compete as nations for their wealth and get good at fighting each other in space. First contact is made during a battle near Saturn. Man stops waring with himself and seeks to meet and understand the new visitor. The Xenos have come to fight.

 

Part 2 - the war with the Xenos rages. While we are good at fighting in space the Xenos have a strength in advanced technology. They have a weakness and that is they have no supply line. A Mother Ship that feeds the others is discovered and a desperate plan is put together to attack it. It is beyond the range that humans have traveled so great cooperation and sacrifice is needed. In the end the majority of the Xenos are defeated but they remain just beyond the Solar System.

 

Part 3 - Final Revenge. It is surmised the Xenos came for our planet. There is just no other reason to fight intersellar war because it is hard and unlikely to succeed for the attacker - even with advanced tech as is shown here. They make a desperate bid to take the Planet by killing off our race. The launch a bio-war, using drop ships. A terrific war is fought on the ground against a species designed for nothing but genocide. The threat is contained on the ground and an offensive is launched again at the Xenos.

 

Realizing their doom and following, perhaps, their own code of honor they kick asteroids into a collision course with Earth. Global Killers. However, it is an agonizing and slow death for humanity because it will take years for the asteroids to reach Earth. Two plans are put into place. The first is to freeze the best and brightest in deep shafts to emerge a few years after impact to restore the Earth. The other plan, more desperate is to get the top side population, who don't know about the vaults, to crash build space systems to deflect the asteroids. Chance of survival is minimal.

 

That is the world you left.

 

You emerge not a few years later by almost 2 centuries. Your AI is the defacto command personality. There is no apparent contact with the other vaults. Radiation levels on the surface are surprisingly high. Your mission remains; see what life remains on the planet and restore civilization.

 

Questions you'll want to answer:

Were the Xenos finally defeated in Space?

Are any of the colonies still operational in Space?

Are the ground based Xenos still in existance?

What current civilization, if any, exists now?

Why were you woken 190 years later than specificed in the Operation Plan?

 

Your HERO (Humanity Emergency Rescue Operation) Team awakes destined to answer these mysteries.

 

--Pete

Re: Post Apoc. campaign started on Hero Central.

As a teenager I came across The Morrow Project at a regional gaming convention and desperately wanted to get a copy and play. During that time period I got to play AD&D, Gamma World, Champions, Twilight:2000 and Warhammer Fantasy Role Play with a couple of other games tossed in there but never Morrow or Aftermath!, which was very similar.

Other inspiratons were the film Aliens, the book Neuromancer and some hard SF books I can't remember the titles to.

6th edition

Characters are built to 175 points and must take 50 points in complications. No characteristic stat can go above 20 naturally. However in the world there are cyber and wet 'ware enhancements. AI is obviously advanced. So long as the technology is plausible without needing a miracle substance or a miracle power source you can create what you want. Iron Man's suit is out. A flying R/C robot that can do observation and analysis is in. Teleportation is out. Time travel is out. Personal jet packs you can fly around in all day are out. Anti-gravity is out.

A good character can adapt to the three main challenges in this environment which are personal, environmental and military. My suggestion at this stage is people can create characters but as a group you should decide what you need to survive.

More later!

I was fortunate enough this week to come across an old CD with all my backups of a post apoc. campaign I designed a few years ago. It is called "The Broken Earth" and reflects the World after it has been destroyed in war and the attempts of small bands of pre-apocalypse survivors to bring back civilization and technology to the above ground survivors. Well, that was the plan. The main computer has kept your team frozen for 198 years instead of the 8 you were expecting. The survivors on the surface might not consider you a rescue team but another warband.

What happened to the other vaults? Why did the Main Vault Computer keep you in hibernation so long? The planet was hit by asteroids, so why are radiation levels so high? You bring a New World Order but what is that order and how will you implement it?

Players are 175/50 points with advanced technology aiding them.

You can find it here: http://www.herocentral.net/campaignInformation.htm?campaignId=947728

I have three players and could take as many as 8. It will be played entirely online.

Re: Total Joy, campaign notes I lost are now found!

Dan, author of the Hero Designer software, wrote it. HD is one of my favorite applications, hands down. If you don't have it I suggest you put some money into it. It is constantly updated and just mega awesome.

Lets see how Hero Central works. It hasn't been updated in almost 2 years. Maybe it is just that perfect. I'm new to the whole running a campaign on line. I am excited though. It should be fun.

--Pete

Re: Total Joy, campaign notes I lost are now found!

Ok! I found Hero Central and I already had a profile there of sorts. I've created the campign with a very basic premise/summary. I'll work on the player handouts and add them as files. If you seriously want to get in on this I would love to GM this campaign.

Pete aka CorpCommander.

*edit*

Campaign name is "The Broken Earth"

6th edition rules

Schedule TBD

4-8 players

Characters build points will be something equivilent to the old 75/75 point characters in 5th edition

Re: Total Joy, campaign notes I lost are now found!

What is HeroCentral (pardon my ignorance)

I will post it. It needs some clean up but it is do able. I had an interesting mechanic in the game. If the party was 4 or fewer players they got a 4 man airborne platform for world travel. If it was 8 or less they got an APC.

I'll go through the world notes this weekend and get those posted first as they will probably remain intact.

Pete

A few years ago I wrote up a post apocalyptic world campaign that derived from many sources including Paranoia, Aliens, Damnation Valley and the Fallout series of games. I had lost it when my old computer died and I thought it was all gone... until tonight when I found an unlabled CD with all the files on it! Hoo yeah! Time to convert to 6th edition.

Re: Rewatching The Lost Room...

The wiki articlde is great but the page on the objects and their abilities is a bit too spoiler filled I think.

Definitely watch the series. 6 awesome episodes.

Re: Rewatching The Lost Room...

Yeah every object has it's own disadvantages built into it. That hasn't stopped some from collecting as many as they can. Others seem happy to be obsessed with just one.

Re: Rewatching The Lost Room...

I agree. Really well meshed - certailnly better than most of the crap that is on SyFy.

I will have to work out the more interesting combinations of powers for a new set of objects. That alone will be fun.

The Lost Room was a Lionsgate production shown on the SciFi channel (now SyFy, blech!) It was really well written and acted. If you haven't seen it you can get the DVD set (which its massivly broken menu system). From the Netflix description:

After Detective Joe Miller (Peter Krause) finds a key that opens a mysterious motel room, he discovers it's a portal to an alternate universe when his young daughter Anna (Elle Fanning) disappears inside. Desperate to retrieve the key and save her, Miller comes up against a host of bizarre characters who also want access to the room. Julianna Margulies, Kevin Pollak, Dennis Christopher and Margaret Cho co-star in this eerie fantasy.

The story revolves around the mystery of these seemingly innocuous objects (like a plastic comb, a ball point pen, a room key, etc.) that have totally fantastic properties. The comb allows non-bald people to stop time for 10 seconds, for example.

The main character discovers that there are 2 current groups and one extinct group that have been seeking to collect ALL of the objects. Everyone has an agenda. No one is totally sure how they all work.

So now enter the idea spawned off of it.

A Champions game were every superpower is granted by a focus and the existance of super abilities is kept secret by all involved. Add in secret and non-friendly cabals and keep the origin and meaning of the objects a mystery and you have a great template for a unique campagin. The purpose of the campaign, then, is not designing your character but sluthing for the objects that grant powers and finding the right combination of objects as well as figuring out their purpose and either being for or against that purpose.

The implications of the powers and certain locations in the film are all carefully considered by the authors. One of the most tightly written pieces I've seen in a long time.

Re: CHAMPIONS 6E -- What Do *You* Want To See?

25 years later is Secret Wars still good? By that I mean given the ever rising bar and looking back, was the story, the dialog and the graphics of Secret Wars up to par? I saw it when it first came out (yes that makes me old now) and I wasn't into comics at all. I was in college. But I remember reading it and finding it interesting as my roommate was into it. He later convinced me to buy TMNT of which I have #1 through #12 in mint condition... the first and last comics I ever collected. Back when the Turtle's shtick was new it was good. Now its a bit of a predictable gag. So, with that in mind, does Secret Wars hold up? If so how do you fit something like that into a campaign?

Re: And 6e print books start to arrive

While I like the prior edition, I am very sure the density of this one will cause the bullet to shatter and spread it's energy. I could be wrong. My .223 has no trouble going through a 1/4" steel plate at 125 yards. The density of this though is something special. Still - we must wait for imperical testing!

BTW - while I have the PDFs already, I was surprised just how beautiful the new edition is. It isn't the best edition of Hero but the best RPG I've seen in a long time. All I can say is the team really pulled together, through tragedy and all, and hit a 3 run homer (kinda like the Phillies last night!)

Pete

Re: And 6e print books start to arrive

If you get one with invisibilty turned on do you get a refund?

Depends on the level. If only a few points of invisibility were on it would be hard to see but you could eventually get it back to normal.

I think it would be kinda cool if it came covered in eternal flame. No points (just a SFX) but still pretty cool. Not enough heat to burn, not enough light to read by, just cool to look at... blue and yellow flames gently lapping over the surface. From all reports it is possible some came that way.

Maybe Tina and Co. can recreate the .223 penetration test again. I think this version can easily defeat an assault rifle. Next time I'm at the range I may replace my Mk III plate with the Vol 1.

Re: And 6e print books start to arrive

Got my books today! Wow! Heavy. As in really heavy. As in delivery guy glared.

No wonder they got hung up in customs, they must be made of yellowcake or something because they are just unnaturally dense... or was that just my copy? Maybe Density Increase accidentally got shook on in shipping.

My sincere sympathy to those who got theirs with the Damage Shield advantage turned on!

Re: What if: Ironman vs. Bruce Lee

heck, even a moisture farm boy can defeat Darth Vader...

Re: What if: Ironman vs. Bruce Lee

For me it represents what role playing in Hero is about. The heroic boost in Hero makes it possible for someone with non-superheroic special effects to have a superheroic effect.

Thanks for all the comments!

This "controversial" film examines how the scenario of Ironman and Bruce Lee fighting it out might end up:

Re: 6th Edition Hero System

Jason is slowly but surely getting everything uploaded and organized. Burning Man is just starting pretty much on his doorstep' date=' so we've been wondering (in all seriousness) if that might not be slowing down his net access some. But in any event it's all coming along. [/quote']

 

I'm confused. Is Burning Man a new character in the 6th edition universe?

 

Re: Hero Games Flyer for GenCon

That looks great! Thanks for sharing. I am really excited for this. Too bad I can't make Gencon.

Re: In the news!

I just came across this AP story on iwon.com. Other than the lack of any mention of the existing Champions Universe or the face-to-face game' date=' it's quite good press![/quote']

 

I came across a version of the story that does mention Champions as a pen-and-paper game and mentions Champions IP characters. Quite good.

 

I'm getting more excited for 6E and Champions Online

Re: Secrets of Gamma World

I played GW 1 (suited PSH scanning ruined city block before entering). It was a fun game idea. Implementation was nuts though. The idea of having 80hp with a first level character was really amazing to me at the time. But the combat was different from D&D and necessary.

To truely get the background though you need to read "The Long Afternoon of Earth" and other Brian Adliss books.

I was working on a Post Apocalyptical setting for Hero a few years back and lost everything when my drive crashed. I still have the drive. Maybe someday I'll get the data off of it (also had irreplaceable photos on it. sigh.)

A PA setting needs a definite campaign direction in order to be fun in the long term. In my campaign the players were PSH exiting their mine shaft, directed by a paranoid and somewhat tyranical Artificial Intelligence with the mission of restablishing the New World Order. Alas, some things have gone wrong. It's not 10 years after the apocalypse, its 200. The Apocalypse wasn't total and so there is a already a strong culture in place. It's a nasty fudal structure but still one strong enough to put up some good resistance to the idea of a new power structure.

The cause of the apocalypse I chose was a bit interesting. It was the result of having won a first contact war with an alien race, the enemy survivors resorted to vengance weapons.

It was a lot of work and a lot of writing. I'll get around to redoing it someday.