Michael Hopcroft

Re: Marna the Manslayer - Valdorian Age Warrior Woman I'm glad you didn't take the clcihe way out and make her powers dependent in some way on her avoiding men. if i were to use her in a campaign, I would play her as someone who is renowned for her beauty as well as her deadliness, someone who would take a lover for a short time before moving on to other adventures. She might well have left a string of broken hearts in her wake as she has adventured. Of course, she will never use her body to get an advantage. Her favors would be given to men who have, in her eyes, earned them by being brave, honorable and skilled.

Re: Valdorian Age Sorcery - eternal youth doable?

I'm trying tio figure out the best way to write up this device: It is a wristwatch-sized controller that gives you access to a time control machine that is remote in time and space. It enables you and any other person within a radius of one hex (in other words, in any of the hexes around you with your hex in the center) to travel in time and, to a limtied extent, space. As long as it is activated you can go back and forth as needed. If the people travelign with you step outside the radius, they are out of your range and, if you leave before they get back in range, are stranded. In addition, you can activate a "cloaking" feature that makes you undetectable by anyone in the other times you visit. This enables you to observe just about any activity you wish. However, while you are "cloaked" you cannot interfere with anything you see -- any attempt to do so makes you visible. The watch does not use your own END, but you only have a limited amount of time to get back to your starting point in real terms. Usually the limit is one hour. What does this look like in rules terms? (In case you're wondering where I got this, Otto has a device like this in The Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi. I'd tell you what he does with it, but that would be an enormous spoiler.)

I'm thinking of posting some writeups for some of the characters from The Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi by Bleedman. I wanted to post a prelimnary message to let you know that many of the writeups will feature spoilers. So, when in doubt, read the webcomic first.

Re: Shoujo HEROine This is a really good seed. I would very much like to see what sprouts from it as this girl explores more of her world and the people around her. I've got to see the guys, of course. And naturally she has friiends, who have problems of their own -- story fodder! You can do a lot with this basic setup, depending on where you want to go with it.

Re: It's not a Robot... It's a Golem... Honest.

I'd like to do a writeup for Gold Dragons, as they appear in Slayers (particularly NEXT and TRY). Gold Dragons are the noblest dragons, directly linked to the Gods on whose side they fought in the War of the Monster's Fall a thousand years ago. Asdie from being powerful and intensely magical, they can also shift into human form quite naturally and shift back in an instant. Gold Dragon culture is very complciated depending on where you are. In the Inner World, Gold Dragons predominantly dwell in the vicinity of Dragon peak and the Valley fo the Dragons, where they guard the purest copy of the legendary magical tome, the Claire Bible. The leader and high priest of these dragons is Milgasia, who when he assumes human form takes the shape of a large, handsome blonde man. They bear a keen hatred for the Mazoku (Monster Race), particularly Xellos, who had personally slaughtered thousands of their number in the War of the Monster's Fall. In the Outer World the Gold Dragons, who were uteerly unaware of their Inner World counterparts, had a darker past. They had fought a war with another race of Dragons,.the Anicent Dragons, over a powerful weapon the Ancient Dragons were guarding. The latter race was untterly exterminated save for one child, Val, who made a pact with the Mazoku and became the half-demon Valgaav. Valgaav's revenge was terrible indeed, and a thousand years later a massive battlke over the weapon led to the virtual exterimiantion of the Outer World's Gold Dragons. Only Filia, a young priestess who had been chosen to be the intermediary between Dragon and Man, survived. Gold Dragons are as much anti-demons as beings. Unless killed by violence they are practically immortal. Their breath weapon resembles a laser and can destory a ship a mile away. They can fly phenomenal distances and can also teleport with virtually the same range.

Re: It's not a Robot... It's a Golem... Honest. Reminds me of the Orihalcion Golem from Slayers NEXT, an enormous man-shaped weapon that was impervious to normal magic. The thingwas over a thousand years old when it was revived, required a human pilot and could blow the top off a mountain ten miles away. Lina Inverse wiped out an entire city in the prcoess of detsroying it. I also forget what they were called, but one of the groups of warriors in Nausicaa in the Valley of the Wind was trying to revive an anicent weapon with a very similar concept. (Nausicaa defies genre classification -- it has elemnts of traditioal fantasy, science fiction, and post-holocaust stories in its setup.)

Re: The Adventures of Mikael Not only do i want to know what this world is Like, I want to know what happens to Mikael. I like what I've seen of his character so far.

Re: Requirements for Fantasy Hero Although the $50 book is chock-full-to-the-brim with Heroy goodness and very much worth the price, you should be able to run a good game in any genre with just the rules in Sidekick. The main rule you may want to cisnsider that is not in Sidekick is Megascale, for spells that can bring down castles. Spells work basically like Powers with certain limitations applied to make them look and feel like magic. The full book details many of these limitations -- I don't have a copy of Sidekick handy, but you should be able to replicate many of these with those rules. If you already have a clear idea of what you're doing, that's really all you need. You can certainly expand your game, and make it better, with the rules from Fiver and from Fantasy HERO, of course, but if funds are tight Sidekick will do the job.

Did anyone ever do 5e writeups for the cast and mecha of Gundam Wing? I don't even know if this series, which turned out to be ground-breaking when it was aired on Cartoon Network five years ago, could be shown even on cable now. It would be too controversial. Are the Gundam pilots heroic rebels or murderous terrorists -- or both? Ir Relena Darlian/Peacecraft idealistic, incredibly naive, a romantic, a masochist, or all of the above? Is Une a patriot or a monster? Is the Romefeller Foundation a dangerous conspiracy, or a genuine force for peace? Very few series deal this intensely in shades-of-grey morality.

Re: Heroes By Gaslight As a Holmes buuf it is a p[leasure for me to see "The Woman". As an anime fan, it was espeically pleasant to see a whiteup of the original Lupin. I don't know what kind of circumstances could draw all these characters together, but it would be a fine adventure that they all shoiwed up in. Kudos all around. And consider yourself repped.

Re: "24" Challenge I would agree -- Jack Bauer has such a flawed personailty that he is almost an anti-hero. Some of his actions indicate that he has a very flexible morailty -- if he sees something as a greater good, there are no lengths to which he will not go, or depths to which he will not stoop, to achieve it. This is also one of the few adventure series where the President of the UNited States is a viable character -- and also a signficantly flawed and ultimately tragic one.

I recently got to rent a few episodes of the anime series Lupin III, which ran for about 250 episodes and alos spawned numerous theatrical films (including the legendary Castle of Caglisotro, one of the first feature films directed by Hayao Miyazaki.) As I saw the various capers in the episodes, I thought "This would make a smashing RPG campaign, but it may be hard to handle". The setup: Arsene Lupin III, grandson of Europe's most famous thief, travels the world searching for the bigger and bigger scores, not to mention hot babes. He is assisted in his crimes by Jigen, a master gunfighter, and Goemon, who can cut through anything with his sword and is a deadly martial artist. He is sometiems aided and somtimes hindered by his One True Love, the gorgeous and mainpulative Fujiko Mine. And an Interpol officer, Inspector Zengiata, has devoted his life to bringing him to justice and follows him everywhere he goes. Although Lupin's heists never turn out quite the way he intended (more often than not the prize slips through his fingers at the last minute), he has over the years managed to put a lot of much nastier criminals out of their misery and even bring down powerful crime syndicates, all in the pursuit of the one score that will make his name forever. Lupin's main abilities are unyielding determination, the ability to come up with extremely clever and audacious plans, and the ability to think on his feet faster and better than almost any man alive. To Zenigata's endless frustration, he is able to slip out of restraints the way most people take off gloves. The inteerelationships, while not as complex as in many other anime adventure series, are quite interesting. Jigen can't seem to decide when Lupin is his best friend or an annoying jerk. Fujiko leads Lupin on outrageously, but is always working to her own advantage. And Zengiata has an almost symbiotic relationship with Lupin, because without the goal of putting him in prison his life literally has no meaning, and Lupin in turn feels that no job is compkete unless it ends with Zenigata hot on his trail.

Re: "he's Dumb as a Sack of Hammers...."

Re: Dolls I just finished a marathon of sorts, watching the final seven episodes (out of twelve) of Rozen Maiden. I was blown away by how good it was, by how involved I got in it, and how they pulled everything together at the end to show that this was, essentially, Jun's story. Jun turned out to be much more interesting than I thought he would turn out to be. In fact, I recognized many parts of myself in him. Jun, it turns out, isolated himself because he was afraid of a world that he believed had rejected him, that he had failed once (due to illness) and felt himself to be utterly unworthy of being loved (or even liked) in consequence. shinku coming into his life and giving him something to fight for is the only thing that saved him from complete despair and ultimate suicide. Indeed, the villainous doll Sougin Tou came very close to driving him to such total despair that he was ready to curl up and die. (Sougin Tou is a clasic example of a character with a noble desire -- to be loved and admired by her "Father" -- that led her to commit horrible, sadistic acts to others.) The dolls all have the power to enter "N-space", an alternative dimension in which they can fight their battles without outside intereference. Each of them has her own version fo this space, just as every human has a dreamscape in their hearts (which the dolls can also enter) -- Sugin Tou's version of N-Space in full of the ruins of dolls that Sougin Tou has "killed". The dolls also have a verity of special abilities, many of which are directly related to the dreamscapes in the heart of humans. Susei Seki, for example, has the power to nourish the "heart trees" that everyone has in their dreamscape by watering it, which her twin Sousei Seki has the power to trim the weeds that might choke it. Shinku herself is a natural leader (despite her imperious nature), is surprisingly empathic when she wants to be, and is capable of some formidable combat effects. She fights several duels with Sougin Tou, some of which are quite spectacular, and also has a unique 9among the Rozen Miaden dolls) capacity to make others of her kind want to fight by her side even though only one of them can truly win the Alice Game (the goal of which is to gather all the Rosa Mystica and be reborn as the perfect, flawless maiden Alice). Jun, it turns out, is extremely speical. He has a gift with objects, and can repair a living doll to the point that it functions perfectly even if parts have been seemingly destroyed. Ironically, this quality is why Sougin Tou wants him dead so badly.

Re: "he's Dumb as a Sack of Hammers...." The prime example that leaps to my mind is Gourry Gabriev of Slayers, who totally forgets earth-shaking historical events in which he was a direct participant. Some would say something similar about Trigun's Vash the Stampede, although in his case it's more that he plays the fool. Which can be an amusing type to play (if the rest of the group finds his off-kilter random comments amusing rather than strangulation-worthy, that is). I think in these cases it's more a question of the character not paying any attention to things that aren't important to him -- and in this case what is important to him is being as effective a combatant as he possibly can and protecting his friends. You could use a smiliar model for other specialized skillsets such as burglary, mechanics, and countless other things.

"But Gods Above can he fight!" What is the best way to built a character who is excaptionally skilled at everything related to combat in his chosen style of figthing, but who has probelms with things like remembering past events, getting names wrong, not having very good overall judgement (although when it comes time for a battle he can assess the situation with an eerie near-prescience), saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time, etc. Simply giving him a low INT wouldn't do it because in combat situations his perception skills would be virtually uncanny. But he would be a constant struggle to deal with outside of battle, because no matter how often you explain the overall situation the party is in to him he'll never get it. He doesn't even neccesarily know who he is fighting from one situation to the next -- but when he has to fight, he shows amazing expertise for someone supposedly so dense.

Re: Early "What do you want to see?" for Teen Champions One fun variant on that is the teenage character who is a racing-caliber driver but who doesn't have a license to drive on the street in his secret identity. Robin may have tacit permission to drive his motorcycle at insane speeds while pursuing criminals, but if Dick Grayson still has his learners permit he can't legally drive the rest of the Titans to the movies. Sailor Uranus didn't even bother trying to get a license -- she just drove around anyway (and raced cars and motorcycles comeptitively in her Secret Identity). Keep in mind that most jurisdictions today place extremeyl heavy restrictions on young drivers, and place requirements on them that young superheores might not be able to meet. (A teenager who lives by himself because his parents have been killed doesn't have a legal guardian with which to log the required training hours to get a license, for example). One other thing about teen superheores who use vehicles is that they may get into a lot of trouble driving normal vehicles if they never get out of combat mode. Just because you have the skill to do all srtos of flashy manuevers doesn't make it a good idea anytime you feel like it.

Re: Ultimate Thief/Scout Although they are less useful as scouts, there is a sub-set of thieves that rely on misdirection 9aided at times by various powers) to cause people to look in one direction while they are doing their dirty work somewhere else. Powers that enable one to diguise oneself, cause objects to seemingly move by themselves, or create false images on security devices are handy for these types. A classic example is the anime character Kaitou Saint Tail, who used a wide variety of effects inspired by stage magic. When designing such a character as a PC or NPC, one has to think about why they steal. A character who only takes back things that were wrongfully taken, or who only robs criminals as a sort of vigilante justice, would be a viable PC. So is a PC who acts like he's just out for himself but who in reality ends up fighting the good fight in the process (such as Lupin III).

Re: Different Kinda Dark Magic It would be a strange campaign if this were the only way to do magic. It would mean that magic simply could not be used by morally good people because you have to do unacceptable things to do it. If all practicing mages had to perform murderous blood sacrifices to use their powers, one could build a camapign around player-characters who hunt down evil mages, even in cases when the mages are in control of the society and manipulate it to maintain their power. (In which case you have a "rebels against the Witch-Kings" campaign.)

Re: Hey kids! I don't know if this tale was ever published professionally, but it has a long hisotry at science fiction conventions. People would get together and one person would read from it until they couldn't stand to anymore, then pass it along to the next person. Sometimes they inhaled helium to add to the effect. I get the feeling that if one of those groups were to ever FINISH the thing, the world would come to an end ala Ray Bradbury's classic story "The Seven Billion Names of God".

Re: Orson Scott Card To Write Ultimate Iron Man... Outdated. it has been more than ninety-five years since the mainstream of the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints practiced polygamy. Only fringe groups still cling to the practice. The rest of us get a little bit tried of the jokes.

Re: Gun multipower I've wanted for a long time to play a rifleman who uses trick ammo. Sort of a Green Arrow type who uses a gun rather than a bow. Sometimes he uses lethal rounds, but some of his rounds are also designed to do things like kock people out, knock them to the ground, or entangle them. easy enough to do in game in theory, but trying to eplain the concept in such a way that it makes sense is difficult. There's only so much you can cram into a bullet, after all. Even with supertech, can the contents of one hollow round of ammunition really fill even an entire HEX with gas?

Re: XXXholic The more I think aboutit the more experience I realize CLAMP has with the Urban Fantasy genre. Into what other genre could you put things like Tokyo Babylon and X/1999? So it's obvious the ;ladies from Osaka know what they're doing. I still wonder if we'll ever find out what Yuko is smoking....