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.

Originally posted by Zeropoint

Darien Fawkes, from the SciFi Channel's Invisible Man series.

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

Base Points: 75Experience Required: 53Total Experience Available: 53Experience Unspent: 0Total Character Cost: 188

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.

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.

"'Opposing fire'. An interesting turn of phrase, don't you think?"

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.

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.

Originally posted by Storn

And every time I see posts here or over on RPGnet about "art in gaming and do you use it".. it really comes down to the art users are a minority. Even in something as art centric is a superhero comicbook emulation. I wish that weren't so, but I've heard over and over "I don't even look at the pictures in the rulebook".

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.

Originally posted by levi

Green Arrow v. Hawkeye

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

Originally posted by Bunyip

...but have now been thinking of Australian equivalents and trying to get something that doesn't reek of cheddar... I'll set down my own ideas and throw it open to the field?

 

Southern Cross (either a team name or a flag-suit Captain America type)

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

Originally posted by JmOz

A mentalist who can shink to about 2" tall

Villains and Vigilantes: Marionette

Originally posted by Nightfly

As a sidenote, the controversial exploits of MJ-12 were featured (fictionalized) in the epic short-lived (Bryce Zabel created) tv show Dark Skies.

Fictionalized? What do you mean fictionalized?

Ahhhh! Everything I thought I knew about the universe is suddenly cast into doubt!

BC

Visualizing Weird Justice

Originally posted by bloomann

now we just need an artist...

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

Originally posted by Hermit

Does anyone utlitize a rivalry with other heroes in their campaigns? I'm thinking more of NPC rivals to be honest. Anyone have their PCs trying to outdo, say, the Champions?

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).

Originally posted by Yogzilla

Don't remember exactly when I got introduced to Champions, but I do remember the reason why...

 

Sophmore year at college (1987), and a friend of mine was starting up a supers game using V&V.

 

[...]

 

The martial artist was doing unholy amounts of damage with a single punch (modifiers were his friend), while PK - the then-only super strong character on the team - could barely knock someone unconsious after repeated blows.

<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

Originally posted by CrosshairCollie

For those of you who have run other supers games (Marvel, DC, GURPS, Silver Age Sentinels) as well as HERO, have you ever wanted to 'port' over a villain team that you created from that game to a new Champions game, because you and your players liked it?

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.

Originally posted by Steve Long

NU was a fantastic book; I hope we can replicate its quality and utility when we do our own planned book of normals for Champions, Everyman.

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

Originally posted by RPMiller

With all the new hype and interest in the San Angelo line, I wanted to pick your brains and get some feedback. A while ago I ran a poll asking who had heard of San Angelo and who was using it.

What I would like to know is:

[*]For those of you that own, but don't play in the world, why?

[/list=1]

 

Well, I'll respond, but I don't think there's much you'll be able to do with my feedback.

 

I bought San Angelo a few months after it first came out. I pestered my game store about ordering it 'cause they didn't order it on their own.

 

I really enjoyed the book. I thought that the material set a new benchmark for campaign settings. The information gave a very real seeming flavour to the city.

 

The book also really appealed to the part of me that loves rich campaign history.

 

I think I would have preferred slightly more "game" material for the city (more character write-ups, more maps, etc.)

 

In the end, there were really two things that prevented me from running a campaign in that setting:

 

1. I prefer real cities over fictional cities. There's something about the blending of fact and fiction that appeals to me.

 

2. I tend to set my campaigns in my own country (Canada). There's a very definite American feel to San Angelo that would need to be changed a lot to move San Angelo to Canada (and where would you put it?)

Originally posted by Nato

And thanks for the kind words on my artwork -- always appeciated.

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.

Originally posted by Lord Liaden Upgrade

Oooo. Good one.

Originally posted by James Gillen Unless your players are all female, this seems best as an idea for an NPC group.

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)

Originally posted by KnightShade

I think there are always things that can be done to avoid that. Cops/UNTIL/Intergalactic police/etc. can suddenly show up and tell everyone to freeze right as the character is about to make the killing blow.

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?

Originally posted by Kajaro

I'm curious to here if there are completely different campaign worlds out there and what they are like.

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.

Originally posted by Ghost who Walks

Note1: As you might guess, the theme of my campaign is mostly philospohical, entire episodes revolve around "what it means to be human." And "do we have a right to exist" Over all, I like it as a theme, because often non-humans are more noble than humans.

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

Originally posted by BobGreenwade

It could be worse. It could have been a gazebo.

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

Re: Your Meta-Plot.

Originally posted by Herolover

Many GM's and games have Meta-Plots. Kinda like Babylon 5's five year plan.

 

I have used them before in other genres, but never before for Champions. What kind of meta-plots have you used?

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.