KawangaKid

Re: Hip-Hop Culture Heroes/Villains Static Shock came from the Milestone universe of comics, which had a lot of interesting character concepts... few of which had WASPish characters. Blood Syndicate was my favorite series (Icon, Static, and a few others were also-rans for me)... it was a "gang" of "bang-babies" that had survived some strange conspiracy to destroy the two roughest gangs on Paris Island with some big experiment / explosion. Strictly Iron Age characters, though. The original members were: Tech-9, first leader of the group. He had access to guns that never ran out of bullets. No, really! He died (issue #3 I think), immediately following their biggest triumph, as an aftereffect of the big bang melted his body. Sort of this Strikeforce Morituri riff, but it freaked me out. Nationality: African-American (I think). Fade was insubstantial (he was spread out across 3 seconds of time). He could fly, and had some funky premonition abilities. He also had a delayed effect on his punches and kicks. Nationality: African-Puerto Rican American (and closet gay). His sister Flashback could go back in time by a few seconds. She was also an addict. Third Rail (Nationality: Korean) had the ability to absorb any form of energy which caused him to grow in size and strength. Brick House inherited the strength of the brick wall she was standing in front of during the big bang. Sorta like a female Ben Grimm with dreadlocks. Nationality: African-American? Several "interracial romance" plotlines here because of her relationship with Third Rail. She had a tragic miscarriage due to the influence of the arch-nemesis of Kwai... DMZ was one of the most mysterious of the group and a fan favorite, because he was somewhat a loner but would always show up when trouble started. His exact origins are not known. He seemed to be an alien from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. No heat vision, though. Always wore a full face-covering pullover mask. Nationality: African-Alien? Dogg was an ordinary mutt who took on human characteristics after the big bang. Wise Son was a black muslim who became indestructible, he took it as a sign from Allah. The indestructibility allowed him to punch and kick harder than normal, since he didn't have to endure the pain as much... He later became leader after Tech's death. My fave character in terms of development... we went from the stereotypical "angry black man" to a "wiser son" in the course of the series due to the pressures of leadership and the consequences of his decisions. Masquerade a female shapeshifter masquerading as a "he". This character could transform herself into virtually any animal; though her loyalty to the group was always questioned. Boogieman was a were-rat type with the ability to command rats. He was actually a white dude who was, er, "down with the brown" so to speak. Like Masquerade, he was considered part of the crew until their secrets were discovered when a powerful villainess knocked out mosta the team. The villainess was the eternal arch-nemesis of Kwai. Kwai was kinda like a Vietnamese warrior-mage. Here's a reference for the series. I added some characters that were left out. Oro and Aquamaria were also there... and I forget the nationalities of most already. Sorry for any errors. Here's a place where you can look at slightly deformed versions of their costumes if you search a bit.

Re: Code VS Killing Poll I normally play the #1 and #2 guys. I associate superheroes with persons with some kind of moral authority to champion issues of right vs. wrong. I don't necessarily believe that that's right vs. wrong is always a black and white issue, but superheroes are supposed to represent the struggle to choose in favor of the more difficult, better parts of our natures... IMHO, for superheroes a choice to kill isn't ever the right decision. Sometimes, however, it's the necessary decision.

Re: Timelines I use a similar approach to the timelines, primarily because I need to establish (along with another document) what kind of origins are acceptable, and which are not. For example, a player wanted to have his powered armor derived from the anime show Voltes V - the "Ultra-electromagnetic energy" weapons, miniaturized. I had to establish when exactly the Bozanian alien invasion took place... I also like to keep the recent past more vague. Such as... "Now, Superman patrols the skies again. No one knows if he's the original one, or his son who mysteriously disappeared in the 1990s..." Serves to keep their presence there, and prevents the "I KNOW YOU'RE BRUCE WAYNE, Batman!" event down to a minimum.

Re: Using d20 instead of 3d6 (DON'T KILL ME!) Isn't the point of the bell curve with the modifiers supposed to be like that? To reflect the heroic paradigm? If two opponents with equal CVs square off, then it's more or less a 50/50 chance to hit with a slight edge for the attacker (Who dares wins!). If there's a high CV vs. someone with a low CV, then chances are the person with the high CV will regularly trounce the low CV, with a very rare chance of the "lucky shot". In the d20 version, you have always have a 5% chance of succeeding, true. But that also means that your experienced fighters will have a 5% chance of missing (through no fault of their own).

Re: Jeff Dee and the KawangaKid At last! I finally find out what the REAL name of the character was. : I was also a fan Jeff Dee's Art. Not only in V&V, but also in the AD&D modules... Heck his halfling in the D&D and AD&D games were kick-@$$!

Jeff Dee's art (viewable here) inspired the creation of a number of my early Champions characters. One of them was the KawangaKid. The jumping guy with the rope wasn't named so I asked Acroyear to name it. And it stuck...

Re: Building a Robin/Nightwing inspired Hero NEED HELP!

Re: Faster than a speeding bullit... Ah! I forgot you have that compilation of the early / best Supes comics. hardcover, right? Used to have that too... but it's gone now... gone...

Re: Firefly Hm. I understand that Tim Minnear isn't involved in the making of the Firefly movie... anyone know why that is? I kinda thought that both Joss and Tim were responsible in more or less equal parts for the finished product... And is that Ben Edlund of "The Tick" fame appearing as Producer as well? Cool!

Re: Converting the Arduin Grimoire to Fantasy Hero Is there a place I can download that from too?

Re: Firefly Hey, they say Shepherd Book may not be in the movie! Oh well. I've only seen the pilot and the 1st two episodes from the series so... I guess I won't miss him that much. I was curious however where they were taking his particular plot thread.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Hm... could've sworn Yao Ming was taller than that...

Three co-GMs are gonna try to do a shared world / multi-GM campaign. Actually, each GM has his own plotlines, but they all take place in the same city. It's one of those DC / Marvel timelines meshed with the Champions Universe bits... except that almost all the heroes and villains have aged or died, giving way for the new generations of metahumans. No "I know who you really are... Bruce Wayne!" here. Since all the big names are not coming in except maybe as very rare guest stars, they get to appear in the campaign's reputable newspaper... and in the equivalent of the tabloids (this is where I stick all those Hypertime/Continuity headachess) along side the city's own heroes (the PCs). Here's the rough timeline preceding the game that I'm trying to merge with the CU timeline... (note that I don't quite follow the Champions' Age genre terminologies... but that's only because of the lack of familiarity of our players with the terms): The 20th Century has been heralded as the Heroic Age, due in no small part to the astonishing array of heroes that have emerged and fought for good throughout the decades. In the early 1920’s, the Pulp Age of Heroes had its guardians immortalized in slightly exaggerated and edited version of their adventures in pulp novels. Notable adventurers like Doc Savage, The Shadow and The Spider raced across the globe righting wrongs and defending the weak. From the late 30’s to the early 40’s the Golden Age of Heroes saw the likes of the Justice Society of America, the All-Star Squadron, the Invaders and the Liberty Legion all fighting against the tyranny of the Nazi menace. Led by Superman and Captain America, these costumed mystery men fought along the homefront and deep behind enemy lines to bring World War II to a satisfactory end. From the late 40’s to the early 50’s, the Golden Age of Heroes lost its luster. After the HUAC hearings, many Golden Age heroes went into hiding or retirement; some entered the service of the U.S. Government and performed secret missions for the good of the country. By the late 60’s, people had all but forgotten the Golden Age and relegated the stories told about the mystery men to mere myths and dubious war tales. New sightings of metahumans were now tinged with fear and suspicion, forcing many heroes to operate in secret. The 70’s had even more rumblings of metahuman activity, most notably the activities of the New X-men and the increasingly popular Fantastic Four, but these were quickly subjected to ridicule and suppression by the powers that be. Then, in the early 80’s the Silver Age of Heroes burst onto the scene. The spectacular entrance of the second Superman, the relentless crusade of the second Batman, and the return of Captain America spearheaded the metahuman population explosion. New teams formed from their ranks, such as the Justice League of America and the Avengers. These incarnations, while no longer as innocent as the Golden Age heroes, fought to keep the sterling ideals of heroism in a stagnating world of mediocrity and self-involvement. For a time, they succeeded. The late 90’s heralded the Chrome Age of Heroes. Perhaps spurred on by the horrors of the alien invasion of 1995 or by the slowly escalating battles between metahuman criminals and heroes, a new standard replaced the ideals of earlier ages of metahuman heroes began to take hold. More and more costumed vigilantes began acting as judge, jury and executioner. Consquently, anti-mutant, anti-alien, and anti-metahuman sentiment began flooding the airwaves. The lines between hero and villain had been blurred, and the world hurtled towards a dark, apocalyptic end. Near the end of the year 2000, a god-like being labled Galactus Prime entered our Solar System and began to devour it. In what should have been our final days and nights, heroes and villains alike fought and died to defend our home from Galactus Prime and his heralds and armies. At the moment of Galactus’ defeat, his enormous energies were released into the Sun and the revolving planets, flooding them with cosmic energies from untold stars and planets giving rise to more metahumans and planetary anomalies. It is now the year 2004, four years after the Galactus Incident, the dawn of a New Age of Heroes. The post-Galactus metaplot is cribbed from Gold Rush Games' San Angelo, actually... two time travellers trying to influence the present to avoid the terrible future that they come from. Only problem is, they both approach this end in radically different ways... both of which could be considered as admirable from their own perspectives.

In the Universes of DC & Marvel, the existence of alien races is quite well-known. In DC, there was an "anti-alien" push very similar to the anti-mutant push of the Marvel Mutants. All folks know that Super is an alien, and certainly Starfire of the Titans and the Silver Age Hawkman were known as other aliens. And let's not forget INVASION! when several alien races decided to invade earth to control the meta-human population. In Marvel, there's the Shi'ar, the Skrulls, Galactus is more of a force of nature but I think he's pretty alien... and so on. How many alien races in your campaign? How do you deal with the issue? Or do you ignore it (in classic comics tradition)?

Re: What?? Bruce Wayne isn't Batman???

Re: Using COMliness I was actually considering that - only problem is... COM is so cheap! I don't want it to become a cheap alternative to PRE attacks.

Re: Invulnerability to Fire Using Desolid is okay, but note that the person may need some kinda life support to be able to breathe properly in an inferno. Desolid may cover shock damage but the poor sod may be overcome by the fumes (the normal Desolid doesn't give you the ability to ignore the effects of gases)... or just a plain lack of oxygen.

Re: Using COMliness Thanks all! I wanted to help players who beefed up their COM to get something more out of it... despite the fact that each +1 COM only costs .5 points. The COM complementary roll sounds good, and I think the PRE Attack bonus only relying on looking good will be excellent. Since I'm running a Fantasy HERO game I suppose that some races would find her "attractive for a human" if they were humanoid...

A character in my High-Powered Fantasy Hero campaign has 30 COM. I've used it to clarify why PRE attacks tend to result in folks becoming enamored with the character, but are there any other mechanics that might be used with this? Has anybody used a COM roll? If so, for what and how?

What particular aspects of the Culture Novels would you like to emulate? The sentient ships of the Culture are basically AIs on vehicles, unless you're planning on having someone roleplay them... in which case you build them as characters. A non-Culture Banks novel "Against a Dark Background" has the Lazy Guns, which are perfect example of a weapon with a variable special effect.

Shadow World I only have the boxed set, and no other modules or settings... There was a bunch of HERO stuff for almost all the monsters and races. They were statted out. The "spell lists" are a problem. I'm already into character creation with my players, and allowing them to create their own backgrounds to interweave with the defacto setting... even sticking in some Jorune stuff. Thanks for the links and the PDF tho! I'll enjoy using those to convert some of the stuff... Been toying with the idea that the "dimension" that the Shades from Forgotten Realms were sent to was actually Kulthea. Random thought.

Does anyone have any ready HERO material for Kulthea? I only have the old 4th Edition stuff from the boxed set.

As a setting Rifts is really great for HERO. The whole "cross-genre" thing would show how HERO shines with its mechanics. Obviously, you've got Fantasy & Science Fiction elements which would be tackled by Fantasy Hero and Star Hero. Some of the more over-the-top elements can swing you into Champions territory. And with all the Mecha running around... you've got a place for a lot of the Vehicles rules. Hell, bases would rule as well... I'd love to see the ARCHIE complex detailed. As for Martial Arts, well... perhaps in the cities like Chi-town and some of the areas like Rifts China and Japan. But these approach and exceed the StreetFighter levels already and dip back into Champions territory.

Registered too!

Thanks - I was wondering if there was a way to quantify - in the same way that you can quantify magical "levels" technology. In the Grimjack comic, they'd have low-tech places that couldnt' support circuitry, and a robot... with a portable reality generator that allows it operate anywhere...