OddHat

Re: Re: Tag Added and HDC I have a few thugs that might fit. If I get time tonight I'll be glad to re-work one and send it in. I liked your Incubus caracter. I was thinking of submitting my version of Casca the Eternal Mercenary, but one immortal thug in a group is probably enough.

Incubus That was one epic origin story. Well done.

Tag Added and HDC Added the tag to DIANABOL (though dropping the punctuation means also dropping the sad pun, such as it was). Made some small changes to backstory to make it easier to get her involved with Enforcers Inc. Here's the HDC file.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Champions Universe: Through the 'Ages' Why should they deal with "problems" that don't directly involve them at all (if it's not actually their job)? Note again that I'm not saying that supers shouldn't fight crime, but it's part of a wild-cards style "realistic" game to ask very carefully why they bother to do so. Helping your friends or preventing a lunatic from blowing up your city? Sure. "To avenge the deaths of my parrents" is trickier; in a RWWP game, you have to be very clear on why such a character would not either (a) join an organization or ( seek therapy. Absolutely, but then you have to be clear on down time from what. "World saver" is not a job title. Agreed, but again the key to keeping a Wild Cards / RWWP feel is to be clear on what exactly that group is, what they do, and why. Twelve Step Supers, the All Supers Bowling League, and the Naughty Tentacles Club are all realistic gatherings of Supers, but very few of them are going to get involved in adventures that don't directly involve their members...er...the people who participate in the groups. The Scooby Gang might. It's keeping the motivation clear that keeps the setting "realistic." Absolutely. I was thinking much more Buffy / Angel / Wild Cards than Marshal Law. Agreed on all counts here.

What if you're Powdered Toast Man?

Seanbaby rules all.

The powers shouldn't be that much of a problem. A high PRE minor brick (Bulldozer +10 PRE, +15 Mental Def and a skill or two) would be appropri ate, or a Nazi-ideology spouting occultist (use Witchcraft's sheet with a few stat alterations and maybe a power boost). How powerful he needs to be depends on what you actually plan to do with him. Imo, too powerful would be a mistake, but again that's a judgement call on th GM's part.

One more note on this. Dr.D has enough technology to make himself the richest man on Earth. Look what people like Gates accomplish with far, far less (though I understand that Bill does have a powered battlesuit now). Dr.D has the brains (and tech) to turn that money into influence. So why doesn't he already controll the political process in the US, Japan and the EU? Why isn't he already ruler of the world? Because, as written, he's a loony. He spends two years with a good therapist and maybe a twelve step group, and all shall (finally) bow down to Doctor Destroyer.

Re: Re: Re: Champions Universe: Through the 'Ages' It depends on how you define supergroups. Wildcards has the best modern-day Super Hero Fiction examples of "realistic" teams I've seen, but there are plenty of others. Socializing? Sure. Going to the same semi-exclusive clubs, dating, working for the same government agency or mafia boss? No problem. It's when you have a half dozen grown men and women hanging around in their tights in the Secret Headquarters waiting for the Trouble Alert to go off that you lose that real-world-with-powers feeling. Also note that I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with a more gold, silver. or bronze age approach. It just doesn't fit the genre I was describing. It can also be fun to play a Seanbaby campaign. I submit: http://www.seanbaby.com/super.htm

Dr. D-Evil would be a heck of a fun foe for a commedy game. Maybe the next time the PCs go dimension-hopping...

Re: aw shucks Golden age he'd be Doktor Hitler, mad Nazi Genious, out to create the fourth reich. Iron age he'd be exactly the same, but not played for laughs.

Re: Champions Universe: Through the 'Ages' I'm not even going to try to match that level of fan-fict without three cups of coffee and a couple of hours for re-writes. Well done. That said, the idea for an adaptations thread is a good one. I've been doing a Wild Cards - Philip Jose Farmer- Roger Zelazny - Champions world for years, with liberal thefts from Nightlife and (more recently) Aberrant. I think the current default Champions universe is fairly easy to turn into pure Silver, or even Gold. Turning it into a "real-world-with-powers" setting requires a little more work. Suggestions for "real-world-with-powers:" 1. Don't worry about power level per-se. Gritty is in the way you play it. Plenty of gritty action-movie level realistic characters are best represented as built on far more than 350 points (though you can also do lower point versions; again, it's in how you play it). 2. Drop the costumes or keep them as something worn only by publicity seekers and the odd government agent. It's amazing how much more "realistic" a world with supers feels if only a few people are running around in spandex. 3. Real governments. No government is going to realistically let bands of rampaging lunatics, "heroes" or "villains," casually smash center city to rubble twice a week. No cash economy is going to survive the strain of never being able to trust a bank, not to mention the costs of re-building the entire city monthly, and then there are the medical costs and the lost work time and displaced citizens every time a building gets knocked down by a thrown car...Real governments in a world with Supers means the government grabbing every super they can get there hands on, by fair means or foul, and pressing them into service. Any Super Teams that do exist are likely to work for the government as part of a larger police or security force. Which leads us to... 4. Drop the teams, or at least think them through carefully. Criminal gangs that include supers, FBI teams of supers, the odd cult with supers at the top, all fairly easy for players to accept in a RWWP game. Fantastic Four / Avengers style teams only work if you're very clear on why exactly this band of folks is willing to operate together. Villain teams are even worse, though making them part of a larger organization (i.e. Drug Cartel enforcers, terrorist groups, etc.) does work. The Wild Cards books have some great examples of this, and are a must read for team dynamics. 5. Ask why a telepath hasn't casually wandered into the White House and made himself president for life. Ask why Supers-Tech hasn’t put us all into flying cars. The Aberrant world does a fairly good job with this, though again they assume a very strangely passive government (and then the whole conspiracy within a conspiracy within a conspiracy the computer is your friend vibe that White Wolf products always have). 6. Why petty crime? Someone like Bulldozer could make millions as a wrestler, prize fighter, or government agent. Give him that Super-Class Wrestling Federation he dreams of in his write-up and he becomes a much more interesting character. Any time you feel like doing the old "Ogre Robs The Bank" scenario, ask yourself why someone with these extraordinary powers is risking jail or death for a fraction of the money he or she could make legitimately. 8. Mick Farren, Roger Zelazny, Steve Perry, The Wild Cards books, the Aberrant RPG, and a hundred other good sources for this type of campaign are out there. Steal freely. Oh well. That's it.

Bravo! Encore! Suggoi! Hen How! Whoot!

Visible is already covered by the Obvious part of OIF, unless your armor is constanly flashing bright lights and making "Ping" and "Beep" noises.

Body odor NND DS, 60% physical and energy DamRed. defined as "too dumb to die", Armor, Life Support: Extreme Cold and KB resistance defined as "Layers of Protective Blubber," bonus to pre attacks with an OAF: Banjo, Gestures: Must play banjo, and incantations "You have a pretty mouth, boy."

Hadn't remembered that. Your point. I guess you'd best define your slavishly loyal robots (now that we're done with the toasters) as actually being slavishly loyal and thus only useable by you. As to your slavishly loyal car, you'd best take the keys out of the ignition when you go into the store, or define it as only driveable by you. You can do the same thing with any other device you've paid points for; a reasonable GM should let you do it here. If you start asking for a cost break because your summoned useable by anyone non-unique toaster may possibly be stollen, the GM had best steal that thing every time you leave the kitchen, otherwise you're getting those points for free.

As house rules, I'd have no serious problem with this system. My own house rule is that summoned devices default to only being useable by the summoner. If you wanted a point break for a stealable summoned device, then I'd rule that you couldn't summon that device or its equivelant back in that game session. If it makes a difference in play, it's worth points; if not, it's just special effects.

There are countless very qualified and successful engineers, scientists, etc. who only score somewhat above average on IQ tests. In an RPG we're talking about an approximation of an approximation of "intelligence." So I'm not too worried if Dr.Destroyer is only one of the 800 smartest people in the world. The others all majored in the humanities and ended up working in comic book shops while Dr.D majored in engineering and learned something useful.

No it isn't (or not by much), because you can always get another one, and thus lose nothing by having Dr.Destroyer steal one of your Talky Toasters to prepare his breakfast. You've gained something, you've lost nothing; it's a net advantage. If you can find a cheaper way to do things (cosmic gadet pool defined as summoning gadgets, etc., etc.) that's cool too. Tweaking things to your liking in your home game works as well. Summon is a very broad power, and very easy to abuse. The built in advantages and limits reflect that.

Interesting. Two suggestions: 1) Kind of a low DCV vs. ranged attacks (iirc, your kung fu levels can't help you there), though the high defenses help offset that. 2) You ended up spending points on PD, REC, Stun, and a HtH DC while missing out on a 1/2d6 of damage from Str. Unless you're intentionally avoiding min-maxing, Paying 7 points for a 25 STR would save you 3 points and add 1/2d6 to your HTH attacks. 40 STR would probably be a good bet from a pure cost efficiency point of view, though at that point he's a light brick with a MA theme.

If you don't have the "summon specific van" advantage you'd better make sure you don't leave anything in the back of the thing.

Have you SEEN the normal people out there?!?

Of course the guy who stole your summoned mini-van is going to be fairly surprised when you come out of the 7-11 and just summon it right back.

Re: Re: And now for something different. ...entirely out of coconuts.

They have to get you out of your summoned mecha before they can try to controll it. The chance of abuse using this power is sky high. That's why the advantages in the general rules are priced to keep it expensive, and why it's a STOP power. If you want to lower the price in your home campaign, that's cool. House rules always trump the book.