gregghelmberger

Hell in Paradise The Ministry of Tourism of Brazil would like to welcome you to wonderful Sant’Amador, a beautiful tropical island of sandy beaches, endless sunshine, and the friendliest people you’ll find anywhere! Whether you’re here as a tourist at any of our seven internationally renowned resorts that range from family-friendly to “adults only”, to learn at Sant’Amador Medical College or one of our splendid archaeological sites that date from the earliest colonization of Brazilian soil, or visiting on business, you’ll find plenty to delight you on this warm and wonderful island just 70 miles off the coast of mainland Brazil. Whether you’re here for a day or a lifetime, we know you’ll agree that Sant’Amador really is Paradise on Earth™! Of course, you probably wanted to leave yesterday, because today the dead arose hungry for living flesh. And when Paradise on Earth goes to Hell, it’s taking you with it… *************** Hell in Paradise is a game of survival horror set on the fictional tropical island of Sant’Amador, just off Brazil. As the game begins, the island finds itself cut off due to a near miss by a Category 4 hurricane that knocked out electricity and telephones, blocked roads with tens of thousands of fallen trees, and sent massive waves crashing into coastal villages. And after that, things get really bad when the hordes of ravenous, relentless undead make it likely that Sant’Amador will be the last place you ever see! This game will use the Hero System 5th Edition (Revised), and characters will be Skilled Normals (25 base points + 25 points of Disadvantages). No knowledge of the system is necessary to play, but for those of you not familiar with Hero, please know that the above point totals represent people who are only slightly more skilled than the average man on the street. Your PCs won’t be fearless zombieslayers cutting down swaths of undead cannibals, they’ll be fragile and terrified people trying to stay alive in a world suddenly become indescribably hostile. Think “Dawn of the Dead,” not “Resident Evil,” and you’ll be on the right track. The game had been on an unintended hiatus for a few months because of the two most dreaded words in the gamer’s lexicon: real life. However, it’s back on track now and I’m looking for a few more players to (ahem) flesh things out. It's near enough to the beginning of the game that you'll be able to play your characters from before the initial outbreak of weirdness, so you won't miss a thing. Posting for the game will be done by mailing list and will average posts twice a week. For more details please go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hellinparadiserpgooc/. When you join the site you will be sent character creation guidelines and more information on Sant’Amador. Please be aware that this includes a large JPG map of the island, so be patient with the download.

Re: Fighting Game Hero I'm considering running a PBEM game of this nature for a small group (I know combat-heavy games don't run to PBEM's strong suit but I can keep things moving and make the pretty, pretty Campaign Cartographer 3 maps to keep it visually interesting) and I was wondering, basically for, advice on how this kind of campaign works over the medium and long term. So for those of you with experience in this kind of thing, how does it play with Hero? Can you sustain interest among players with a game based closely around the tropes of the video game (lots of single matches using nifty powers in funky arenas) or does it tend to become more of a standard RPG group adventure sort of thing? And does this sort of combat play well with Hero or would I be better off looking for another system?

Re: WWIYCL? Living Among Giants To Miss Shadow: "I'll...be...standing over there for a while. No, you stay here. Please. No, seriously...stay here. You frighten me." To Sandboy: "Sorry, I don't have any spare change."

Re: Good Luck, Superchuck The only character I have who this could apply to is Sandboy, and I can see it being a great storyline for him. Since he's not a deep thinker, the first two or three gals who turned up all superpowery would produce a, "Whoa! Bitchin'!" reaction from him, but after that the strangeness of the situation would begin to penetrate even his geef-addled brain and he'd start to get seriously freaked out. He'd get even more freaked out when he remembered that along the way he's nailed some chicks he probably should have kept his hands off of (like friends' moms or teachers) and eventually he'd probably just isolate himself in his bedroom in his parents' basement and hide in the closet.

Re: WWYCD: <Your character>: The Clone Saga!! Sandboy would be terribly confused by the whole thing. In fact, it would make his head hurt. He'd probably listen to his group's conversation for a while as they tried to decide what to do, then eventually drift off and burn a jay, deciding to go along with whatever the group decided. Miss Shadow would be strongly in favor of thoroughly investigating this matter. The idea that she might be a clone under the secret thrall of someone like Teleios...Tellius...Teal...whatever would never allow her to get any rest. She'd need to know which one was real and whether she needed to destroy herself in favor of her actual progenitor. Aeon would be terribly fascinated by the whole thing, and before anyone could stop him he'd awaken his duplicate to compare notes. Of course both of them would then insist that they were the real Aeon and refuse to be confined, and wackiness would ensue.

Re: WWYCD 101:A question of faith Aeon would be all for avidly watching and documenting the proceedings, but he wouldn't interfere. He'd think the whole thing was quite fascinating and he'd try to get a good interview with the sacrificial victim before the knife fell. Miss Shadow would definitely not interfere as long as there was no coercion. She'd think the whole thing unutterably silly and probably tell the eventual victim he was being a fool, but that's the extent of it. Sandboy would inevitably befriend the victim and then be all for fighting to stop the sacrifice no matter what else happened. He's that way.

Re: WWYCD:Little Girl Lost Sandboy would be very much for leaving the kid where she is. By his line of thinking, she's got her life there and would be very upset by being removed to a strange world. His solution would be just to not tell anyone she was there so the Grandparents wouldn't miss her or send anyone else after her. Aeon would strongly consider tampering with the timelines to go back and rescue the girl at the moment of her parents' deaths and bring her to her grandparents then, but then he'd probably get distracted and forget about it a few minutes later. Miss Shadow...wouldn't care, actually. LOL

Re: WWYCD #124 or so:Peace on Earth Aeon has no arch enemy that he knows of, but he's rather confused. I suspect he'd wind up in the company of someone he hasn't met yet (in his own convoluted timeline) who hated his guts for something he hadn't done yet. He'd find the whole thing endlessly fascinating, of course, and he'd be a rather disorganized chatterbox the whole time, pressing his enemy for information on what happened between them. Miss Shadow would wind up in the presence of some neo-fascist would-be warlord or other, and she wouldn't say a word. She'd just stare angrily. Without blinking. For 24 hours. Straight. Sandboy would be stuck spending time with Vin Diesel, of course. Since Vin Diesel is actually a giant, evil reptile with whom no negotiation is possible, they would probably spend most of their time hurling insults and threats at each other and watching the clock until the 24 hours was up so they could fight each other again.

Re: Simulate Claustrophobia/Cabin Fever

Re: What happens in Vegas... It seems to me that a lot of people have a weirdly disproportionate reaction here. So the guy was getting his freak on in Vegas and missed a random mook encounter that came to no harm anyway. What's the big deal? That said... Miss Shadow utterly and deliberately acts spooky and freaky, even to her own teammates, so she would be standing outside the door, motionless, when Zapper came out. She would stare at him wordlessly and unsettlingly until he spoke, then wait some more until he spoke again, then say, "I hope you had a good time..." After another few moments of staring, she would teleport away through the dark dimensions, leaving nothing behind but an instant of numbing cold. She's an odd one. And the worst thing is Zapper wouldn't know whether she was being sarcastic or making an honest inquiry. Aeon, never being sure precisely what decade or century it is, would give Zapper a good scolding about sullying an innocent young girl's reputation and counsel him to think what Queen Victoria would say if she knew. Either that, or he'd quietly offer Zapper a super-enhanced biogenetically engineered pleasure-magnifying cybercondom from the 23rd century the next time he saw him. Sandboy's reaction would be simpler: he'd just press Zapper for details.

Re: Pyromamia (Possible Adonis Henchwoman) Nicely done. I think she adds depth to the original concept and does so in a clever way.

Re: WWYCD: "He'll be back." Sandboy: Dude, um...can you go over that again? The part about the machines? (When that was done) Whoa! That's like messed up! We can't let those machine dudes kill all the humans for no reason! (After it was explained again) Um...I...I guess I'll do what you guys decide. Anybody got any Oreos?

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Hero -- What Do *You* Want To See? First of all, let me say that I am EXTREMELY geeked about this book, and I intend to buy it the first instant I can. As far as suggestions go, one thing I'd like to see is a section on frequently-unconsidered consequences of a sudden, dramatic decrease in human population and the attendant collapse of infrastructure. For example, diabetics would run out of insulin and die, mere scratches can become lethal if infected, and a common cold can kill you if it turns into peneumonia. Likewise, assuming that the cause of the apocalypse didn't completely disrupt climate or cause massive ecological damage, the years following the apocalypse would see enormous boom-and-bust cycles of various fauna since the regulator of animal populations, humans, had been removed. Obviously there are a great many examples of this kind that are logical consequences of the collapse of civilization and the near-elimination of humanity but that most gamers don't know or don't think about. Having a wide selection of them gathered into one place can provide a lot of flavor to a campaign as well as serving as adventure seeds. Another idea would be to take a selected few products that people in the post-apocalyptic setting would logically want -- firearms and ammunition, basic medicines, alcohol, electricity, etc. -- and talk about the infrastructure necessary to produce them. This wouldn't need to be an exhaustive catalogue, but it could serve as an example for GMs and players who are focusing on rebuilding civilization rather than just surviving the collapse. Anyway, this is an anwesome product that I've been wanting for...decades now, actually, and I can't wait.

Re: Mutants and Materminds Great, thanks for all your input! That will help a lot.

Ok, I know this is a subject liable to ignite a flame war, but I'm wondering about Mutants and Masterminds. I'm currently running a Champions PBEM and I'm always on the lookout for source material to make my life easier. I just picked up a lot of M&M stuff (Noir, Crooks!, Annual #1 Sourcebook, Freedom City and Foes of Freedom) off eBay for very little money, and I want to know what I can expect. Is the game generally high quality? How does it differ from Hero? And are there any guidelines for converting M&M stats to Hero? Please note, I'm definitely not considering changing the game itself to M&M, I just want to use some material. Any advice or info is appreciated.

Re: C25 Island of Dr. Destroyer: Official?

Re: Pyramid in the Sky? I'll second the opinion that nothing grabbed me when I read through it. It seemed disjointed and a little obtuse, and I thought it would require more work to make usable than would be necessary just to come up with my own scenario, so I shelved it and haven't looked at it since.

Re: C25 Island of Dr. Destroyer: Official? I'm not dumping on them for doing it. I understand why they did it, and I understand the pressures pushing them toward not releasing it in another format. I'm just saying they've got a product I want and I would be willing to pay a reasonable price to get it in a format that requires no, or minimal, additional work on their end. If they choose not to do it, well, OK, fair enough, it's their company and their choice. I'll keep my money.

Re: C25 Island of Dr. Destroyer: Official? The point, of course, is that he's already done the work. This would just be making more money on already existing product that, as it stands, he's never going to make any more money off of, ever.

Re: C25 Island of Dr. Destroyer: Official? That would be unfortunate. I'd pay $10 for a .pdf, and I'll bet a lot of other people would too. They're cutting themselves off from a lot of money that people are willing to pay for work that's already been done.

Re: Combat in PBEM One thing I've found useful is for players to inform me of their characters' actions in OOC before they write them in a post -- then I resolve the actions and inform the players of the results, so action and result can go up in the same post. I haven't had a real problem with combats taking too long in games, but I do have problems with people going out of sequence. My solution was to always post the name of the PC with the next initiative at the bottom of the post, i.e.: "Polaris delivers a mighty blow to the robot, ripping off one of its arms in a squeal of tearing metal and a shower of sparks! OOC: Turn 3, Phase 2. Major Victory, you're next" I've found it helpful to have as many GM-controlled characters going on the same segment as possible; this isn't a big deal in tabletop, but it's a major boon in PBEM. Also, when writing responses, I try to be as floridly descriptive as possible, and to encourage my players to do the same. It's emulating a comic book, after all, so it gets everyone in the right frame of mind if you use three adjectives where one would do. I use comic sound effects like KAWHAMMMMM and SPOK and KALANNNNGGGG, followed my lots of exclamation points. Also, and this is huge, if you have access to a mapmaking program like Campaign Cartographer, making battle maps can save everyone enormous headaches. I make these for every combat of note and post .jpgs of them on my Yahoo Games site, so people can see at a glance what the tactical situation is. It's a little extra work, but not much when you factor in how much time I save trying to EXPLAIN a situation that a map makes plain instantly.

Re: C25 Island of Dr. Destroyer: Official?

Re: DC inspired by TV I came within an eyelash of running an A-Team-inspired campaign in PBEM, and I may wind up doing so anyway. The setup would have been that the PCs are all the very best in the world at whatever their speciality is, and they all independently stumbled over the existence of some sort of weird quasi-governmental project that was up to no good. They were all "disappeared" and thrown into a super-secret prison in the southwest, where some were approached about joining the evil project but all of them were tortured to find out how they knew about the project -- after all, so many top-quality experts stumbling over the secret entity at the same time in different locations would never be beleived to be a coincidence, even though it was. Then, an earthquake and an escape, and the team is on the run from a powerful and mysterious organization. The setting appealed to me because it was perfect for an action-adventure game: fairly lighthearted (though considerably darker and grittier than the series), with both a reason to get into adventures (the PCs are the best at what they do and they keep stumbling into situations where their talents can be of use) and a reason to keep running while they figure out how to fight their powerful and mysterious foe.

Re: Bodyjacking Nexus, when you're done with this, I expect you to give Regeneration the same treatment. The way it's done in 5th Ed. is utterly absurd and several orders of magnitude more complex than it ought to be.

Re: Help me with master villain point levels Thanks to everyone for the excellent advice. We'll see how it all shakes down during those first few runs. I have a feeling that I'll either be scaling up or scaling down the opposition mid-flight until I get my legs under me.