Ghost who Walks

Re: The Harmons endure! Defender always reminde me more of Electrode, from the Southern Nights comics. They had a cross over with the HERO comic, at one point. Electrode was a an engineering/comic book geek who decided to give himself superpowers. He used electricity to zap himself, getting electrical powers. (of course!) Anyway, his powers were flight, extra strength and an energy blast. Defender just bought them as focuses. He was also the team leader, chiefly because no one else wanted to be. Sound familiar?

Re: All this evil without a Champion to oppose I don't really like the Paladin in fantasy, but this writup looks pretty good. The only problem I see is his lack of being able to do anything once his focuses are taken away. I would expand his personality a bit, have him "protect innocence". Fights evil, keeps kids out of R-rated movies, and drinks milk. Don't like the flight. Fighting evil should not be a chase scene. Give him a vehicle, and the ability to drive and modify it (mechanics). Could also buy him a Force wall, with the idea that he can't attack through it either (sanctuary). That way he could protect people. I assume he is coming from some alternate reality, with only 3 points of english. Perhaps he could have the ability to sense dimensional distortions? For extra disadvantages: ~Enraged at corruption, lust, or any of the seven deadly sins (allow evil into the world) ~DNPCs: shelter he works at/protects ~Rivalry: Law enforcement, that do little to fight evil/demons As for "holy" it could be defined several ways... (game definition) 1) Blessed or considered sacred by an organized religion, made up of worshippers who generally believe in its tenets. 2) Protected or imbued by the mystical/divine power of divine being, or one who claims divinity. 3) The remains of someone "touched" by the divine, such as a saint. (notice good is not mentioned, but thats me) A lot would depend on the campaign. Has anyone ever run a scenario, where Takofanes stomps the heroes, and is defeated by a mob of nuns wielding holy relics?

Re: PCs as the NPCs In order. 1) Yes, multiple times. When I first started playing Champions, there weren't many examples of characters, and no internet. A bunch of my early characters were clones of characters from enemies I, or (bad) conversions of DC/Marvel. It was mostly due to being unfamiliar with the system, I think. 2) Yes. I had a player play Green Dragon, who still had his rivalry with Seeker (who was an NPC hero). There have been other examples, but that one ran the longest (about 8 years in real life). I don't see anything wrong with playing Grond (or Kid Grond!), so long as defenses and attacks are comparable to the other characters. 3) Clones are a bit iffy for me at least. I have numerous clones running around my campaign, but they are all evil, or at least misguided. Most of them are either children, or adults that were rapidly matured.

Re: European Enemies... Let's See, I used some, but I altered them heavily ~I put all the Nordic types together, and proclaimed them their own superteam. Raised Mammoth's intelligence to around 35, made him leader. He is kind of like Reed Richards, but in Iceland, so he is cooler. They have their own Rocket Ship and everything. ~Think I used stats for the Druid, when I had an NPC hero get into trouble. It was Fortress, fron the "Havoc" module. I needed a druid fast, and he was there. ~Das Wall actually joined the PC team for a while. Having committed various acts (while under orders) for the East German government, he was hunted by the reunified German government. He was like an East German Golden Avenger/Captain America. Lot of fun, actually. For personality, I just used Dolph's character from the Rocky movies. ~The Bastion of Budapest is mentioned frequently in my campaigns, he is a super detective in Eastern Europe (like Columbo, not like Batman). He never appears however. ~The Leprechan has been mentiond on several occasions, but never appears. The PCs are terrified of him, due to the stories Shamrock has told. (Who being an Irish villain, of course is only wanted in the UK, and comes to fundraisers in the US) As you notice, at the time I adapted most of them to being heroes. They were jokes as villains. But as heroes, they were messed up enough. I take a lot of names from the Champions books for my own characters, then greatly rewrite them. Thay way my players only know the characters "reputation" (if they bought the book).

Re: I've brought you all here today because... Random Ideas: 7) They have been hired by local business leader to demolish his own building. It seems the Millenium City business climate is unfavorable to his industry, and he wants the insurance money so he can retire. 8) Similar to above, but the villains are coming here to take over the local underworld...they will need some high tech skills, due to MC infrastructure. 9) The villains are on vacation, and want to live it up...MC style! (this can actually be fun for an investigative group, especially if the villains are not activelly wanted)...Example: "OK, Ogre is buying another ticket to see Shrek II...how many times is he going to see it? He must be meeting with some kind of contact...eventually!" Also, a good way to show the players around town, if they are new to the city. 10) UNTIL or PRIMUS is facing opposition to their latest request for more money. "Rogue elements" in the agency in question have hired the villains to do some mayhem, so the agencies can look good. (requires cynicism to work) 11) Similar to 4, but the villains are here because their arch enemy (a well known superhero) is here helping his girlfriend move (in his secret identity, which the villains believe they know). Can the Heroes help poor Clark move, defeat the bad guys, all without revealing his secret identity to his girlfriend? 12) Bachelor party...one of the baddies is getting married. Will the heroes wreck his wedding? What do the newlyweds plan to do on their honeymoon? (Note: #12 only exists because I was compelled to do one more than Vanguard00)

Re: Make Your Escape! I've found this works on occasion, if you limit the person being trapped to a DNPC or a teammate (such as one who didn't show up to a session). The best one another GM ran on me was when he kidnapped my characters DNPC (her mother, a retired WWII superheroine), hung her from the ceiling by a rope in a wet sleeping bag. A giant fan divided the room in two, and the DNPC was being pulled into the fan! Needless to say, the DNPC was saved due to a "3" being rolled on my character's attack dice. Later, the PC petitioned her congressman to have "Giant fans" listed as a hazard to public safety, and made them unavailable for non-industrial applications. It was part of a session where Eurostar hired some villains to kidnap people from our lives and threaten them, in order to punish them for past misdeeds. Deathtraps seem to actually be more common in movies/TV than in the comics. I'm trying to remmber some "good" comic deathtraps, but they elude me.

Re: Team HQs Plans for bases are hard to find, unless you do them yourself. What I usually do is paste a series of pictures into an excel document, then print it out. This gives the players a feel for what the place looks like, which is the original intent (and its free) For money, the best product for plans of a superhero-style base is Stormhaven. Find it, Buy it, or steal it. Someone really needs to do a reprint of those plans sme day. http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/mercen.htm They ain't mansions, but I have also used these places before. http://www.missilebases.com/

Re: Team Shuttle Help? All teams should be able to go to the moon... http://www.wvip.co.uk/images/dvd/Space1999/Space1999_Eagle.jpg

Re: Reagan's Alien fighters Interesting idea. George Bush I would of course be running the covert side of the war. Assuming the alien invasion is secret, theere is a lot of potential here, especially if you use it as an earlier event in a prior timeline. Aliens would: ~cause holes in the ozone layer ~Chernobyl ~assasinate several pre-Gorbachev leaders of the Soviet Union (there were several inbetween him and Breznev) ~Make friends with Libya ~Get involved in the Iran-Iraq war ~All of this would eventually become public, Iran-Contra was the cover story. ~Manchurian Candidate style politicians would threaten Reagan...his name? Walter Mondale. ~Democrats get involved. Learning of the threat, ex-President Jimmy Carter starts constructing shelters and bunkers across America, to save the threatened populations. Will the aliens discover the secret behind 'Habitat for Humanity?'

Re: Help with team name Inspired by Hermit's quote: "Society for the Creation, Establishment, Spread and Manipulation of Justice" Reporters: Fabulous Four Aukland's Own First Brigade Danger Squad Local Legion Guardians of the Commonwealth of Virginia

Re: Campaign Idea DP7, an old comic from the late 80s had this theme. Worth mining for ideas, the interesting part was that all those who got powers were mostly ordinary people. There were some other comics in the ssame universe, but DP7 was the only one worth the money. The government's reaction would be to contain the people. They would perform experiments, but they would really have no idea what they are doing, unless of course this roblem has happened before. Given enough time, and dissections, the government might eventually figure out how to make their own people with powers. They will then use them to round up everyone else. If it has happened before, then older records might hold a clue. Ancient gods/demons/angels may have just been people with superpowers, for example. If powers are first occuring, the legal issues may be interesting. A city may pass "zoning regulations", for example. Or restraining orders...prohibiting certain people from entering the city limits. Then place the affected person's ex-husband and kids within the city, and a new supervillain is born! Forget about the US federal government trying to regulate powers...when was the last time Congress did anything? Try the state legislatures...

Re: Suggestions? Telepathic PCs just captured VIPER agent Anti-Mind Control Conditioning: Simulate Death, Only to resist mental Powers(-2) After putting the poor flunky into a coma, the authorities pull the evil telepath away from their victim. Its also in how you handle telepathy. If the subject (The VIPER guy) is actively resisting, the player may only get images of stuff. If asked about their headquarters, he gets a building. If asked about their weapons, they might see images of weapons that guy has used. Asked how many people are in VIPER, he flashes an image of how many he thinks are in it...millions and millions. He may also show images of people he thinks/suspects are in VIPER, but actually aren't. An especially strong psionic may be able to relive specific events of the subjects life, almost like retrocognition (I use that IMC a lot) That way the PC's get the info, but at least we get to have fun doing it. Just remember, the human mind is not an open book. IMC, there is a lot of anti-psionic prejudice (they replace mutants and lepers). A lot of it is encouraged by VIPER, just for this reason.

Re: The green alien's burden I actually had this happen in my game. The aliens have been taking over subsaharan africa, and the natives couldn't be happier. In that case, the aliens were arriving through a Stargate like device. Different countries, would do different things. Most countries barely care about their nearest neighbors, and are unlikely to do anything about internal problems (Example: EU policy in the Balklans for many years) Other countries are very protective about their "spheres of influence". (Example: Russia in Central Asia, USA in Central America, and France in the former French colonies) All this only applies to internal stuff. Once the aliens turn expansionistic, the world will go against them. (at least publicy, through the UN. Thats what its for). Behind the scenes, everyone will try and cut deals with the agressor, chiefly to make sure their economies don't get hurt. All this above is from a IRL perspective, for superheroic... Villain groups may try and form alliances with the alien conquerors. The aliens will most likely need locals to run the areas they take over, unless they have an instictive knowledge of human psychology. Politically, effots would be made to split the alien alliance with the humans. Divide the aliens from the human leadership, and the human leadership from the locals. When the actual wars start, the aliens will have to spend a lot of time guarding their rear areas. With both guerilla warfare and supertypes, nothing will be secure. Besides sending in superheroes, hostile governments would also try and destabilize the alien regime. Weapons to rebels, drugs to the populace, and parachuting in counterfeit currency (to wreck the economy) are all effective methods. As a side note, an interstellar power that can turn an average country to first world status in less than a year can easily do it repeatedly. The aliens could simply outspend everyone in foreign aid... I notice you mentioned the aliens were stranded...perhaps a first world government is holding their ship? Provides a reason for the war, dang government!

Re: The Last Hurrah (adventure for your use) At the risk of bucking a trend, I rather like this scenario. If for no other reason than detailed scenario ideas are rare in this forum, they should be encouraged. I would change it, but I change everything. I like the idea of Reagans' gang getting together (would rename them "Reagan's Raiders" though). I would also have them topple some dictator somewhere...North Korea springs to mind. Any "good" organization can have rogue elements. Any casual reader of history can determine that. One of the reasons it works for me, is the controversy. Of course, I also run a campaign world where years ago where I had a bunch of fired Bush-era DEA superagents steal thousands of tons of drugs (by attacking drug cartels), contaminate it with poison, then rerelease it onto the streets. (Note: Drug War reference) The intent was to get rid of the problem. The heroes talked the DEA guys out of their murderous scheme (that was expected to kill millions of Americans), by informing them that there was a secretive group of aliens who were threatening to invade the world. (at that point, there was). It was resolved through RP, rather than a fight (for reference I used the 4th edition characters on Mongrol and his Pack, cannot remember the source right now) [NGD]The only comment I will make about Reagan is that he kept us out of a lot of pointless foreign wars (except Grenada). That is in marked contrast to his successors. He will be missed, in a lot of ways he was our last President that united the country.[/NGD] Anyway, thanks Crackerjacker for giving me the idea of having a Reagan-themed story.

Re: Oh, those pesky politicans-Who are they anyways in your campaign? I tend to use real ones, more often that phony ones. I modify them heavily however. Example of some of my politico types: ~Al Gore retired from being VP in 96', so he could run America's first extraterrestrial colony (I have stuff like that in my campaign). He did it so he could protect the colonies environment...later gold was discovered, and a bunch of low-tech aliens immigrated, and are wrecking the place. Al is rather unhappy. ~Ollie North: During one of my many Alien invasions, Ollie callep up the NRA to do battle against them. ~John Glenn: Blasted off in a rocketship to battle Aliens, Thunderbirds style. ~John Kennedy: Got abducted by a time travelling sorceress. ~J. Edgar Hoover: ex-Sorceror Supreme of Earth. Think about it. ~Bill Clinton turned out to be a demonic invader from dimension X, who had killed the real Clinton while he was out cruising for babes while Governor. He was later killed in a hail of gunfire when aliens captured the White House, and ordered him to launch nukes at the other nations. ~Hillary Clinton: Abducted by Aliens. ~Clelsea Clinton: Still in her powered armor, still a supervillain. ~Prince William: Determined to restore England to glory, with the help of his school "chums" Gets advice from his Grandmother. ~Bora: Minister of Finance for Italy ~Durak: President of the Republic of Georgia, major arms dealer For made up Politico's I had: ~A Captain America type, who got disillusioned and started his own talk show, "The Metahuman Group". Four other metahumans join him each week to discuss the issues of the day. Most of my foreign politicians I make up, the real ones don't have enough material. Politicians usually show up when the aliens show up. Sometimes they fight the aliens, sometimes they surrender.

Re: Looking for ideas for my campaign (Danger: Long) Depends a lot on your campaign theme...some random ideas. Playing up the fame bit. ~Have one of the characters ex-girlfriends/boyfriend or cousin write a tell-all book ~Someone claims to have been affected by the origin explosion also, only with negative results...lawsuit ensues. The Inevitable alien plotline (is a FF homage) ~Aliens from dimension F are affected by the explosion, and decide to invade the dimension that attacked them (provides a reason to have that babe who rules a billion dimensions to show up...) Cataclysm Scheming Inc. ~Develops a way to boost other people's intelligence, like herself. Creates a gang of supersmart crooks, with genius intelligence. ~Alters records, showing Brainwave did not have authorization to handle radioactive materials...resulting in her arrest. ~If you have her as a European, she can bribe/blackmail the EU into doing all kinds of fun things to the PCs. Future Character Ideas ~Scientist with mental powers? This is easy. Another scientist accuses her of stealing or intervering with his research...with her mind! ~Dervish: A personal enemy in an AI computer program...can he run faster than the program can transfer itself to Istanbul? ~Impact: The obvious one here is the crook I put away as a cop comes after me for revenge. More fun might be found in dealing with police corruption, or getting "drafted" by the government. ~Firepower: The best use for the NPC heros are to have them make mistakes, before your players do. Some things NPC heroes have done in my campaign include: Own comic book, own action figure, Pay-per-view fight with villain of PC hero, dating Dracula, and looking in PC's rooms for evidence of "drugs". Red Ghost idea: Tweak his orgin, say he was conducting similar experiments in the 1950's, only they propeled him forward in time (like Captain Atom). This gives you a 1950's era commie, who is wandering around looking at all the McDonalds. He'll start with a ton of hunteds, can build a nuclear bomb, and breaks into Brainwave's lab for parts. Doesn't know anything about microchips... Best powered animal I had in the campaign escaped from a VIPER lab. It was a superstrong, teleporting rat with heat vision (normal size). They also bread at the same rate as normal rats...whole cities were placed under martial law. Could do the same thing with rabbits or squirrels, I suppose. For the Namor plot: have Atlantis be a colony of aquatic aliens who have been secretly living under Lake Superior for the past few centuries, hidden from mankind. (like Gorilla City). For a Neo-Galactus plot, what if Galactus was already defeated, centuries ago? Have him be one of the moons in the solar system, a villain (or the mayor) visits, and he wakes up. He starts eating the solar system, some aliens show up, ally with the PC's, and beat him up. Alien hero (who has powers just like the Superskrull) then gives long speech about the folly of mankind. Best I can come up with right now.

Re: Generation Ship Campaigns Imagine a a ship, where generations of people have lived. Assume technology is not much more adavnaced than our own (no FL, no artificial gravity, spinning ship, no clones) Clearly, the oldest people would be in charge, they would no where everything is. New people would be easy to make, humans breed like rabbits, especially in a sealed environment. The younger generation would be an excellent source of spare organs for their elders... Diseases would be wiped out, no one would have any resistance or immunity to anything... So the question is, if they ever reached their destination, would the people (especially those in charge) actually want to leave? Its very likely they would have difficulty surviving... Enter the PCs.

Re: 'Empire': a cliché? Consortium: Based on your camaign premise, a "trust" basicly took over. However, the trust was probably created from assets left behind by a corporation of some sort. A consortium is a grouping of corporations... The Legacy (I always liked that show): Interstellar civilization is the resule of one guy leaving behind a fortune to the people in his will. An Inheritence is sometimes referred to as a Legacy. The interstellar organization could be named after what it looks like on a map, same as Italy is "the boot". The "Sphere" perhaps, if everyone settled around Earth. If you have aliens, they may call the people something else. "Dirt-People" is always good. As a side note, few empires in history were called "empires" at the time. These are titles historians gave them. If you can't use the Greek, try "Pax Eichberger"

Re: Hârn Resources (free) Been a while since I checked, and a bunch of new stuff is avaialble. Most of them are under places. "Ravin" is one of the best villages/manors I have ever seen, for any game system.

Re: What super hero concepts would you like to see more of? Responding to the above posts, at random. I wouldn't mind seeing some more stupid heroes. Not stupid in concept, but in mind. Heroes with the power of Grond, and the brains to match. Heroes who are to stupid to be villains, so they become sidekicks of Heroes. I'd like to see a short, out of shape brick once. Preferably with a Canadian accent who smokes cigars. A gadgeteer who invents one thing...then retires. So far as the fat hero: I have Dioneyseus, the ancient Greek God as a hero. Originally the patron of wine, and athletics, he was ruined by TV dinners. Very different than Thor. (Who in my campaign is a drunken, 8th century pillaging barbarian) Strangely, I ran Bulldozer the same way. I once had my players help me design a military team, for kicks. Not Special Farces military, bu the other guys. They all had to have a military specialty, and less than 50 points of powers, below 150 points of skills/characteristics, and the rest in equipment. They came out very interesting...they all carried guns, flew around in helicoptors, and bombed their enemies. All were NPCs. The best was the leader, whose only power was 10 str Telekinesis, who carried a bag of grenades. There were over 75 of them, at one point. Later, the unit they were in got disbanded, and they all became civilians...the PC heroes had "to retrain" them for civilian superheroing. So far as skills vs powers, I've run entire campaigns (lasting several months in real time), where the PCs used no powers, only skills. I've found players like using skills, when they have an effect on the plot. They rarely have an effect in comics, however. On ethnicity: Maybe I should try and right up my Whizzard character. He was the black teenaged genius who made billions off the dot com industry and decided to become a superhero. He bought/made a bunch of gadgets, hired some trainers, and fights the problems all the other heroes ignore. His costume is made out of "solar blnaket" material, as he found tights too cold. Agree that the comics are stuck a bit on this, but so is most of the entertainment industry.

Re: Name for a "I-hit-all" girl Hmm...names... Atlan? I usually do several names for the famous/powerful heroes. Often the media or villains will call them something else, to annoy them. An example for this character might be "Teen Aztec", or if her origin is known "Pyramid Power Princess" (PPP for short).

Re: Help: Sniper Syndrome Aren't all power-armored heroes munchkins? I didn't use then much in my campaign, except as NPCs Back when I ran one as a player, I was farily abusive of the system (before I discovered 'rules') The GM dealt with my power armor characer by developing a lot of stuff for background, that had nothing to do with the armor. Just the character going around in their real life, and how it interacted with his heroic one. ~Instead of playing Iron Man blasting Dr. Destroyer ~I played Tony Stark developing ways to disrupt Dr. Destroyer's cash flow Basicly, try and give the character a life so he is not living inside his armor. If you want a villain/rival for him, have someone make a copy of his armor, and use exactly the same tactics he does. Or have mirrorman, who can reflect back all his attacks... If he insists on having powers so he can do everything, give them all activation or burnout rolls. If they are unreliable, you can at least all have some fun out of it.

Re: Real World Issues in the Game World The question is, would you want to? Possible negative consequences... 1) NASA assigns the player to go to the moon, and collect moon rocks. Several tons should be sufficient. NASA knows they already have a bunch of moon rocks, but they need some more to give to VIPs to improve their public image. 2) "We realize your character can go to Mars, but..." We really need that sattelite fixed. The Sperbowl is coming up, and Dr. Destoryer's ray gun destroyed the last telecommunications satellite! 3) And of course, the regular astronauts who think the character is trying to put them out of work. "It's time to give this guy the right stuff" (BAM!, POW!SOCK!) 4) And if he does to good a job for NASA anyway, the military will just come along and draft him. Cigar-smoking General: "We need you to put this spy satellite over Syria in the next 48 hours, before the President there moves his troops into Israel! You: "Can't I just go there and grab their President for you? I'm sure the Syrians will be happy if you do." Cigar-smoking General: "Quiet Private! Don't you know how much we spent to build this sateliite?" Your character might be better off going to these places himself, then posting what he finds on his pay-website.

Re: Real World Issues in the Game World Lets see... ~Iraq was taken over by a new President, who is secretly the Babylonian goddess Ishtar ~The moon got colonized once Earth made friends with the smart plants that were left there, by the bad aliens ~Russians are terraforming mars, and colonizing it as a penal colony. Thousands of metahumans from around the world have been sent there. ~A 7 year old supergenius has begun terraforming Venus, to show up her rival, the 16 year old genius. ~Oil is a scarse resource, ever since the aliens blew up all the oil infrastructure during an invasion. Gave alternative fuel a big boost in funding. ~Most of the major plagues of the 20th century have been blames on extraterrestrials. ~Never bothered with terrorists much, except the eco-terrorists, who were allies of the aliens who blew up the oil. ~An Asteroid was moved into orbit, so Earth's space station was built on it. The International Space station still got built, but was recently condemned for being a deathtrap. ~A powerful ex-PC (who retired her character) decided to do something about Africa. She brought in two groups of benevolent aliens, who peacefully took over and have been fixing the place up. The rest of Earth is pissed of course, because the aliens are investing where it is cheap, and they can do what they like...places like Mozambique. The Wierd thing is...My campaign started off as a real world, gritty Dark-Champions thing. How the times have changed. By the time Osama came, my world was already wacky enough. He would have been a bug on the windshield.

I dislike posting, just to post a link. But in this case, I have been compelled to do so. http://bbspot.com/Images/News_Features/2003/09/zombie_elvis.jpg