Supreme Serpent

Both. When have creative spurts want to run more, and can be frustrating not getting to run ENOUGH to get through all the plots quick enough. Love playing too, being part of a team, character interactions. When I run, I often think "gee, I'd love to be a player and have a character on this team", and when I play, I often think "gee, I'd love to throw this team up against X or get them involved in Y". Guess I'm never entirely happy in one role. If I absolutely had to pick one and never do the other again, it would be tough, but I guess I would play. Less work and time involved, but I would hope the GMs would accept input, lest all my evil ideas go to waste...

A while back Marvel put out a magazine-like "Marvel Year in Review" that included a best dressed/worse dressed list from the Wasp, Janet van Dyne. There were several issues of it.

Yup. "Doogie Howser: Psychic Gestappo" was our subtitle for that movie. But hey, it's not like they were all whitebread folks from Argentina or some...oh, never mind. Back somewhat on topic, yes, take what your players throw out and run with it, even if it destroys your previous work. If it's better than what you had, USE IT.

Still going with the "unlimited power source" angle. Howabout some unusual power - something most scientists (ok, at least in a comic book world) would see as possible, but requiring too much energy to do. Not having to worry about energy limitations, this guy can do it. Teleportation, extra-dimensional travel, time travel, massively fast space travel come to mind.

Since he has an unlimited energy source, perhaps some way to power other things? ie city blacks out, he hooks his suit up and turns the lights back on. Maybe some massive attack as he REALLY unleashes what the power source can do. Something like a big AE line no range (so has to start right next to him) that burns out his regular EB until he can repair the suit? A way to overload other tech things by pouring more power into them than they can handle? Transform tech into junk or something like that. Since his big schtick is the power source, I think it'd be cool to see that reflected in some of what he can do, make him different than other battlesuit characters.

Omega - loss of powers no big deal, just have to be more careful. Can hunt and survive, so would be OK until he can start contacting whoever's around, and try to help build a civilization. Red Star (WWII character) - try to find a group, start farming/teach them farming, try as best he could to build communist utopia. Lei Kung - actually pretty glad to be free of the rampaging thundergod. Try to find folks, use his medical skills to help. Most of my characters are pretty social people - otherwise wouldn't work well on a team. Would all try to find/relate to whoever was around. If couldn't find someone, get by as best they could, maybe make some side project in whatever spare time could be found to help stay sane in isolation.

Well, Lady Blue IS a hero already, so leave her out. Established characters off the top of my head: Icicle (young enough to try again) Esper (finally starts to "grok" humanity, understand right vs wrong) Hideous (some therapy and plastic surgery & he'd be fine) Utility (why not get thrills vs. villains instead? ) FOXBAT!!!!!!! Though I think most players would prefer to make their own. But if you're going to have it as an NPC group, by all means.

Maybe the virus crossed over into another species? A super-powered grizzly bear might give them problems... In some parts of the world, a huge part of the population dying off could actually be "good" in the long-run. Europe didn't really take off until AFTER the plagues. Some overpopulated countries (India, China, etc) might turn into real world-class powerhouses, especially if the US, etc. collapes into "Road Warrior" mode. They might keep themselves together well, and start to expand, or at least send expeditions to the savage areas to scavenge nukes, etc.

Depends on which version of the mythos. I think the mainstream universe, it's Joe Chill. Movieverse it was the Joker, Jack Napier. Plus all the elseworlds/alt universe versions.

Make it a collaboration among major universities...maybe call the team "The Big Ten" And their villainous nemesis is the NCAA - "National Council for the Advancement of Anarchy"

Genre Convention #39 Any villainous base built for that purpose will have a self destruct system (ie Viper Nest will, warehouse crash pad will not). Also carries over from Sci-Fi Genre Convention #17, to include all spaceships.

Ah, em, ignore that last post. Thought I was logged into Serpentine, not Hero Talk . Carry on.

RE: MC Metahumans, "Rampagers" vs Grond, et al A little training to channel their wanton destruction and death-dealing tendencies into more focused forms and they'd be quite employable. As the NL on the scene, I instruct you to investigate the matter further. Funds and detailed instructions will follow shortly. -SS-

Genre Convention #12 Few if any deaths of supers/villains are ever final. Mysterious improbable escapes, resurrections, etc. are the norm. Corrolary: Despite this, most people will generally assume the death to be final until proven otherwise. Also known as the "Nobody could survive that!" Law.

I think Kristopher has the right idea here. If the KS person doesn't have anything to fall back on, I think he'd lose an actual courtroom battle. But he would make a great guy to give a complementary skill roll bonus to PS man. If they were going for a law school job, KS man should win. If they're going for a job as a trial lawyer, PS man should win. In my mind a PS is more than just knowing how to do something, it's also how to deal with other people involved, the business end of it, etc. It's the difference between KS: Local Criminals and Streetwise. You could implement something like what you suggest, with the reduced rolls for crossing over between KS and PS.

Genre Convention/Cliche #2 Superheroes will somehow get involved in even the most thoroughly-planned nefarious schemes. (In game terms, one of the reasons so many villains have unluck) Heroes happen to patrol the right areas at the right times, be present in Secret ID at place being robbed, be eating dinner at restaurant Mob boss is being hit at, have a unique item or ability that is needed to power a villain's latest device, etc.

Corrolary to Cliche #1 Any attempt to disguise will function as said "mask" - strange goggles, glasses in secret ID but not in hero ID, wig and flashy costume, etc. Also, no one will recognize their voice.

Messiah Prophet Salvation Savior

Mystics are generally much cooler. And don't knock the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth, much less the Rings of Raggador or the Vapors of Valtorr for that matter! Mentallists are powerful because of their mind. Mystics are powerful because of what they know . Generally cooler. The various foci you want would work better with a mystic too, IMO. As far as names go, mystics can often get away without codenames, just going by their real name -"Vassilya Rubinikov", etc. Could go the Russian folklore route for names, like Baba Yaga, Naina or somesuch. "Dr.Something" would be good, especially as your character IS a doctor. Apparently the Russian for "witch" is Ved'ma, so maybe "Dr. Ved'ma"?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34024 You can find other, similar info as well. One highlight is that data from terrorist suspects from the 1980s has just recently been translated. A few years ago, the NSA computers crashed, and it was estimated at that time they were something like 85 days behind, just on the computer end, not counting human factors. There will be priorities, of course. Anything suspected to directly involve Osama bin Laden or Dr. Destroyer, for example, would be pretty much up to date, while just raw "possibilities" like random surveillance would be last on the list, just being pulled up if it may help with another piece.

Another problem with this surveillance stuff is that it is just data - you need someone to go through it/analyze it. You may have three weeks worth of footage of every street in the city from ten different angles each, but unless you know when/where to look, it will take you longer to look at it then it took to happen. Useful for reconstructing events ("OK, the Ultimates hit MegaBank yesterday at noon; pull up the tapes in that area starting at 11:30 and see what happened.") but not really as surveillance. The "real" US govt has a huge backlog of signal intelligence that has yet to be listened to, much less analyzed, due to a lack of translators, especially Arabic at the moment.

Big menace that everyone responds to is a good jump-off point. My most recent campaign started out with time-travel villain attacking the various heroes, knowing that they were GOING to be a team in the future and cause him problems. Unfortunately, his attack is what actually brings them together. I'm playing in a game starting with the "branch team" idea - Hero Team X is expanding to your area, looking for recruits. Common origins work well too, if you can pull them off with the characters - all know each other in normal ID, and all get powers in same incident (ala FF). Can get watered down later on as people switch characters, new players come in, etc. but hopefully the group will have "established" by then. Startup I WANT to do someday involves a moon-based villain team of mine, including one whose EB's also destroy memories. Heroes will wake up together, obviously having just been flattened, but having no memory of the fight or the last few days. Must piece together what happened, retrace own past detective work (including how/why they all teamed up the "first" time), etc and fight the villains again, hopefully with a better conclusion this time...

I played in a game where we encountered a Gender-Bender world. In my current campaign, I have an other-dimensional character (and another other-dim character in the campaign's past), and an ex-Soviet hero. Thinking about campaign ideas, I simply had to do a Soviet World encounter. Thus was born the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Realities) - cross-dimensional commie empire expanding from one earth to another...and another...and another...

Don't be afraid to recycle agents if needed to advance the plot. If you throw those 24 agents at the heroes, and the heroes somehow walk all over them, have "Assault Force Beta" arrive. If the plot can't advance without the hero being captured, make sure that happens. May also want to be sure some of the agents have "anti-electrical hero" weapons - NND's designed to take him down, entangles that don't take damage from electricity, etc. Makes it easier to take him down faster, so you can scoot off with him while the rest hold off the rest of the team. Also makes it kind of obvious to the team that he was the target, making them wonder what VIPER wants with him...

Well, I think some of these are coming from those of us that don't feel that every single facet of a villain/NPC, especially a master villain, needs to be on the character sheet. If you come up with a great plot that requires your mastermind to be a bonsai expert, what are you going to do? Not run the plot? I'd just add it on as needed. The story is the important thing. Don't worry about the details on the master villain's KS skills - just rough outlines and general ideas, fill in as needed.