bcholmes

Another Thought Does anyone remember the Holmes and Yo-Yo TV show (I know that I was doomed never to forget it). Holmes was a cop whose new partner, Gregory Yoyonovitch (aka Yo-Yo) was a robot. Had such great powers as the ability to take polaroid photos by pressing his nose.

There was a 70's Invisible Man with David McCallum, and I also remember a similar "invisible man" series that started at around the same time called Gemini Man.

Afreet Val Char Cost 18 STR 8 18 DEX 24 15 CON 10 20 BODY 20 10 INT 0 10 EGO 0 16 PRE 6 16 COM 3 4/13 PD 0 4 ED 1 4 SPD 12 7 REC 0 40 END 5 40 STUN 3 6" RUN02" SWIM03 1/2" LEAP0Characteristics Cost: 92Cost Power END 20 Fire Shield: HKA 1d6 (1d6+1 w/STR), Damage Shield (Offensive; +3/4), Continuous (+1) (41 Active Points); Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Cosmetic Transform to horribly burned person; -1) 18 Gunfire: RKA 1d6, Uncontrolled (+1/2), Continuous (+1) (37 Active Points); OAF (Gun; -1) 19 Burnout: RKA 3d6, Explosion (+1/2) (67 Active Points); 1 Charge (-2), No Range (-1/2) 15 Small Object Burn: Missile Deflection (Bullets & Shrapnel) Powers Cost: 72Cost Skill Everyone Skills 0 1) Acting 8- 0 2) AK: Downtown 8- 0 3) Climbing 8- 0 4) Concealment 8- 0 5) Conversation 8- 0 6) Language: English (idiomatic) (4 Active Points) 0 7) Paramedics 8- 0 8) Persuasion 8- 0 9) Stealth 8- 0 10) TF: Small Motorized Ground Vehicles 3 Bureaucratics 12- 3 Combat Driving 13- 1 Computer Programming 8- 3 Criminology 11- 3 Deduction 11- 1 Forensic Medicine 8- 2 PS: Police Detective 11- 3 Shadowing 11- Skills Cost: 19Cost Perk 3 Computer Link: Police Database 2 Fringe Benefit: Local Police Powers Perks Cost: 5Cost Equipment END 25 .44 Magnum: RKA 2d6, +1 Increased STUN Multiplier (+1/4) (37 Active Points); Real Weapon (-1/4), 4 clips of 6 Charges (-1/4) 5 Kevlar Vest: Armor (9 PD/0 ED) (14 Active Points); Activation Roll 9- (Only protects hit locations 11-13; -1 1/2), Real Armor (-1/4) Equipment costs shown above are for reference only, and are not included in Total Cost.Val Disadvantages 5 Distinctive Features: Unusual smell, high body temperature (Concealable; Noticed and Recognizable; Detectable By Uncommonly-Used Senses) 10 Psychological Limitation: Capricious (Common, Moderate) 10 Psychological Limitation: Likes to shoot things. A lot. (Common, Moderate) 15 Social Limitation: Subject to orders of the summoner (Occasionally, Severe) 20 Vulnerability: 2 x STUN Water (Common) Disadvantage Points: 60Base Points: 75Experience Required: 53Total Experience Available: 53Experience Unspent: 0Total Character Cost: 188 Height: 1.77 m Hair: Black Weight: 80.00 kg Eyes: Redish Brown Appearance: Afreet generally look human, but have several distinctive features. They tend to be very attractive, although they smell, vaguely of burning meat, and their skin is always abnormally hot; someone shaking hands with an afreet will notice immediately. Caucasian afreet often have very pinkish skin, coppery red or stawberry blond hair which stands up and almost appears to move around like a flame. Non-caucasian afreet have jet black hair and reddish-brown skin. Personality: Afreet are impulsive, often behaving capriciously and, more often than not, cruelly. Most Afreet seem to have an unusual fascination with guns especially because of English-language slang about firepower and firefights. They wryly play with such phrases. Having said that, Afreet are creatures of few words. Given a choice between negotiation and gunfire, they'll choose gunfire every time. Quote:"'Opposing fire'. An interesting turn of phrase, don't you think?" Background: Afreet are elemental creatures of fire summoned into human form. Their names come from arabic legends, but they are very different than Afreet of legend. When someone dies by fire, their bodies become target vessels for Afreet who have been summoned to our plane by a spellcaster. Often, the Afreet take the bodies of firefighters or police. Once the Afreet has inhabited a body, it often resume parts of the deceased person's life. The Afreet may, for example, return to a police job, but separate from family members who may notice the host's sudden personality change. Powers/Tactics: The Afreet have a variety of fire-based powers at their disposal. The most commonly used power is their "gunfire". They will "shoot" someone with a gun, and the victim bursts into flame upon being hit. These flames can be extinguished with water. Afreet can use a form of missle deflection in which they cause knives, arrows and/or bullets to burst into flames before having a chance to affect them. If necessary, an Afreet can burst into flames and attack an opponent, but they are hesitant to do so -- the flames burns off the skin of the bodies they inhabit, and it takes them several hours to regenerate. As a last-ditch defense, the Afreet can explode into a ball of fire. The bodies they possess are not immune to this effect, and this may have the effect of killing their host bodies. Campaign Use:

Wow. I had no idea I was so much in the minority on this. I almost never get into a game that doesn't have good art. I don't "use it" in the sense of passing it out to players or whatnot, but the look of a game setting hugely influences my feel for a campaign.

Was Green Arrow ever a member of the JSA? (I think that even pre-Crisis, Green Arrow only belonged to the All-Star Squadron and the 7 Soldiers of Victory).

Re: Australian heroes There's an old Australian comic called the The Southern Squadron. One of the main characters of that team was called the Southern Cross. Other members included The Dingo and the Nightfighter (and their leader, Lieutenant Smith).

Re: Justify this Villains and Vigilantes: Marionette

Fictionalized? What do you mean fictionalized? Ahhhh! Everything I thought I knew about the universe is suddenly cast into doubt! BC

Visualizing Weird Justice I imagine Martian Flashman as a wearing a suit and cape like many of the golden age heroes, but with a bizarre retro alien helmet. Perhaps even something like Dream/Morpeus wears every once in a while. The helmet should convey "alien" and "victorian" at the same time. The flashray is a large, round device with two handgrips -- one on the bottom and one of the top. Again, it has a certain retro alien look. Bat-Hunter, in my mind, looks a bit like a somewhat punkier Faith the Vampire Slayer. Leather pants, tank top, and perhaps a jacket with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows. Perhaps facial tattoos for distinctiveness.

Re: Rivarlies with other Super heroes In my Northern Guard campaign, The Lumberjack has a rival: The American Woodsman (a somewhat more famous hero with similar powers). To date, it's mostly been played for gags. When UNTIL was showing the team how to use the hero/villain look-up software, they described the Lumberjack's outfit to the software and it immediately brought up the files for The American Woodsman. When the Lumberjack fought Bulldozer in a bar while visiting New York, the papers credited The American Woodsman. And so on.

The Weirds The Green Man -- legendary old England forest spirit. Known by many names: Herne the hunter, Attis of Anatolia and others. His control of the plant kingdom gives him immense power. Man/Woman -- ancient texts talk about the alchemical significance of the rebis -- the mystical hermaphrodite. Man/Woman was forever changed by a ritual that was intended to grant great powers. Now s/he is the group's most unusual member. Hir mastery of the occult, however, has saved the group many times. Martian Flashman -- Dr. Barry Jones' family has, for generations, held on to an object of great power -- a device left over from the Martian invasion of London in the late 1800s. The flashray can be a weapon, a portal and a tool for discerning the truth. For many years, the Jones family hid the device, knowing that the British government wanted to keep all such devices for itself. Now, Dr. Jones has decided to use the flashray to rid the world of evil and hypocracy. Bat-Hunter -- Few people know of The Bat, the evil demonic presence that guides the various nightmarish entities on the planet: vampires, wraiths, and succubi. Van Helsing learned of The Bat after years of pursuing vampires such as Dracula, and he assembled a team of Bat Hunters to finally rid the world of this evil. But that was many years ago, and The Bat struck back, destroying Van Helsing's legacy. Now, only one Bat-Hunter remains. Johanna Wayne, the only offsping of two Bat-Hunters and the only survivor of The Bat's deadly pogrom. By the age of 11, Johanna had mastered the sword. By 13, her mastery of four different martial arts seemed supernatural. Now, at 16, is she able to succeed where an entire team of Bat-Hunters failed? The Aqua Wonder -- Arthur Prince doesn't know what happens to him when the Aqua Wonder takes over his body. Arthur himself is a boring insurance salesman. But the Aqua Wonder appears to be the world's greatest acrobat. And is his bluish-green skintight costume really a costume, or... something else? Where does the Aqua Wonder come from? Why does he never speak? And what are those strange spray-painted blue-green symbols that he leaves everywhere? On buildings, on vehicles, and even on the crooks he captures. Lanternman -- When Hal Curry agreed to become a human guinea pig for the Air Force, he could not have imagined how his life would be changed forever. His body was transformed into pure light. Unfortunately, the Air Force had no idea how to return him to his human form. Eventually, scientists built for him a large glass-like body which helped him to interact with the real world. The glass body stands over seven feet tall, and has strength and hardness, but it's glass structure doesn't obscure Lanternman's bizarre 360 degree awareness. And when he opens the body's faceplate, he can exit the body and sneak into any place that light can reach. Super Plastic -- Clark O'Brien was a petty crook who broke into the Kent house many years ago and discovered the most incredible find of career: the Kents had been hiding a spaceship, sent from a doomed planet. The aliens had sought to preserve their technology and had sent various devices into space. Unfortunately, most of those devices could not function properly due to Earth's yellow sun. But one device still worked: a wrist-cuff that can create a super-hard plastic in any shape that its wearer could imagine. Giving up his life of crime, O'Brien started using his "super plastic" for good. (I think that leaves me with one "man" left over).

<nod> I'm with ya there. I loved V&V, but more because of how much my gaming groups evolved in terms of role-playing than because of the system. Some of my favourite gaming moments come from old V&V campaigns. (I also fondly remember playing against Jeff Dee and Jack Herman at GenCon one year). In fact, I resisted Champions for a long time because V&V had so much nostalgia for me. Then I briefly played a metamorph in a Champions game, and decided to buy the rules to understand how the system worked. Hero has been my favourite system ever since. I've often bought games and played them under the Hero rules -- FASA's Star Trek, a Shadowrun-like campaign. I even ran a Mage campaign briefly using Hero rules. (I'd love to do Castle Falkenstein some time, and maybe Fading Suns). BCing you

More educated heroes... Just a wild thought. One of the things that I always like about the Buffyverse is that the characters were aware of the genre conventions and cliches. Wouldn't it be interesting to have a hero who was fluent with the conventions of the genre. "Say, Investi-Gator, what's with all these old newspaper articles?" "Well, Nebraska Man, I've been tracking these three unsolved murder cases. All of these kids watched loved ones killed before their eyes. Two of them have thrown themselves into the study of martial arts and the other has been heavily involved in electronics." "But... why? These cases are fifteen years old." "True, but this is classic superhero origin stuff. I fully expect at least one of these three to don tights any day now." "I see your point. We've been looking to fill out our ranks ever since Wombattallion and Groovy Girl left the team."

Re: Villains From Games Gone By I've reused a lot of the characters from my old V&V campaign as back-story characters for my current Champions campaign. Mostly, that's just been a bunch of names and stories about historical battles. There have been one or two reappearances, though.

Convention #28 Remember: he's faster than he looks.

For the record, I think Normals Unbound is a much, much, much better name than Everyman. I mean, in addition to the issue of gendered language, it sounds like I'd be buying a medieval morality play.

Re: San Angelo - Your input

I just purchased Shades of Black as well (now I have all the 5th-edition Hero Games products, bwaa-ha-ha!) I just wanted to say that I think it has some of your best artwork to date. Really impressive stuff.

Oooo. Good one.

My player group is biased toward female players. One of them plays the most obnoxious male PC in the group. He has the Psych Lim: Can't attack women ('cause there's a chance he might get lucky)

Oooo! Or how about the version of the characters from ten years in the future suddenly appear and warn them that killing the villain is going to cause Grave Consequences!

Re: NEW Fantasy Ideas? I haven't personally played the game, but I find Nyambe really inspiring. Other than that, my interest in fantasy is primarily oriented toward Urban Fantasy settings like Unknown Armies and the like.

For what it's worth, that sounds like a really interesting campaign.

"Gazebo Boy's singular power of transformation proves useless against The Evil Termite!"

Re: Your Meta-Plot. There are three big story arcs that have been happening in my campaign. The first, now mostly answered, is, "what happened to the second Northern Guard?" Since the beginning of the campaign, the PCs (the new, fourth incarnation of the Northern Guard, Canada's official super-team) have had clues that the second Northern Guard didn't disband, but actually disappeared. The PCs just recently discovered that most of them were killed by Dr. Destroyer in 1989. When the team discovered the bodies, it was in one of Destroyer's underground bunkers (from which they also discovered the evidence that Dr. Destroyer wasn't killed in the Battle of Detroit). The second meta-plot is that the team knows that they're going to fight Dr. Destroyer one day. (Captain Chronos let that slip). They're nowhere near ready for that yet, but they know that things are building up to that. (I've just recently picked up a second-hand copy of Day of the Destroyer, which could be fun). The third meta-plot is that the PCs are convinced that Multicorp (a corporation from Champions of the North) is up to something. They've just recently learned that members of the Multicorp executive have ties to DEMON. I recently ran the players through "Murder in Stronghold" (from Champions Presents #2, although in my campaign it was "Murder in MISSION Lock-Up"), and decided that one of the key villains, Amarylis (who never actually appears in the adventure) is actually the CEO of Multicorp, and has improved her powers significantly since her old mentor, Master Magus, died (part of the back-story to "Murder in Stronghold"). The Canadian government simply sees Multicorp as a fine, tax-paying Canadian corporation. In the coming weeks, Multicorp is going to initiate a takeover of the technology company that one of the PCs works for, and Multicorpo also going to "help" the government by revealing some data that they've "stumbled upon" about VIPER nests in Toronto and Montreal. The PCs haven't been able to prove anything about Multicorp, but they're itching to take them down.