Scott Heine

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Destroy? Hmm. Would have been a nice title, actually. If I remember correctly, I originally named the book something simple like Betryal! or Betrayal of the Protectors. The folks over at Iron Crown changed it to To Serve and Protect (which bugged me for a while, because our local police department at the time had a different slogan plastered all over their vehicles: "To Protect and Serve"). And if you are really missing your copy, there are usually some available from resellers at places like Amazon.com. (Check here for the current list.)

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine ...Helios, Brainstorm, Maelstrom, Silverfist, Coatlicue

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Wow! This thing is a blast! I had to listen to a bunch of audio files this morning, and it gave me the perfect opportunity to fiddle with it. So here are the Protectors and Coatlicue from To Serve and Protect (at least, as close as I could come using just the tool). In order of appearance: Quasar, Ace, Huntsman, Renegade, Dr. Wraithe, Doc Sonic (more in next post)...

Re: Doktoberfest! ADMINISTRATOR'S NOTE: I've deleted the text of Scott's post so that I can OK this shirt thing with Cryptic. I'd prefer that they be OK with it before money starts exchanging hands. Once I get their OK I will restore Scott's text and link post-haste! SCOTT'S NOTE: Oh, fine. See what happens when you've got a lawyer running the company? (I luff you, Steve!)

Re: Mind Slayer ADMINISTRATOR'S NOTE: I've deleted the text of Scott's post so that I can OK this shirt thing with Cryptic. I'd prefer that they be OK with it before money starts exchanging hands. Once I get their OK I will restore Scott's text and link post-haste! SCOTT'S NOTE: Oh, fine. See what happens when you've got a lawyer running the company? (I luff you, Steve!)

Re: Doktoberfest! Just so we're clear here, I want royalties from all the swag. And the home brew custom label. Or, like, free beer and stuff. EDIT: Hmm. Should I just set up a Cafe Press store for anyone who wants it on a shirt or whatever? Or does someone know someone in the shirt-making biz?

Re: Mind Slayer So... Who has a buddy in the T-Shirt printing business?

Re: Mind Slayer Well, see, what we *really* need now is for someone to turn it into a T-Shirt for GenCon! Perhaps with a big ol' "DOKTOBERFEST! The Brew of the Destroyer" splashed on the bottom. (Yes, I'd be happy to supply the artwork.) I just *know* that Steve would want one.

Re: Mind Slayer For what it's worth, the pencils for Dr. Destroyer in lederhosen are done. Hopefully I'll ink it this week and send it off with the other (assigned and official) art for Book of the Destroyer. It'll just be up to Steve if he can find a way to squeeze in the good Doctor at a local Oktoberfest into the book (I wouldn't hold your breath)...

Re: Mind Slayer Of course, you know I wouldn't have really thought of it until you said that. Now where did I put my sketch pad...?

Re: Mind Slayer When I updated Mind Slayer for Mind Games, I was essentially thinking of her as a purely homicidal threat with a stone-cold heart. Plain and simple: she's messed up. And a run-in with her during an adventure can very well result in someone being dead before it's over. I really like the new write-up of Mind Slayer for the MMO. The text flows well, and the story captures a lot of what I had in mind. As for the visual of her, a lot has already been said over at the CO boards about the objectification of women in the comics and I doubt I could add much to that discussion. Personally, I always wince a bit whenever an artist crosses the line between rendering the human form and rendering in such a way that it feels unnecessarily sensual and even pornographic (anyone else remember the wave of nipples in the X-Men for a while?). That being said, I think the artist for the MMO design kept it tasteful despite a very revealing costume design. Does the new look fit the character? It certainly does as far as Cryptic is concerned, because this is the new Mind Slayer. Do I like it? Well, I like the idea that she is so overly self-confident and brazen that she would walk around that way in public as if she's almost daring a guy to take a second look. I kinda prefer the more gothic/punk design with black hair simply because that's the way I've always pictured teh character. But this new one is kinda cool. But the real truth is that I'm just thrilled to see the character brought into the game. And I'm excited at the idea of meeting the rest of PSI. (I'm eager to see if they've done something with the idea of Inquisitor!) There's something really personally gratifying to watch any of my creations evolve like that. It's why I always get a kick when someone sends me a story about how they used the Protectors or PSI or whatever in one of their games. I think that's a hoot! Hey, I'm as eager to play this game as the rest of you. This is gonna be an absolute BLAST!

Re: Foxbat? Why am I not surprised... Actually... CLOWN might work in an MMO where (as Steve complains) the organization fails in a tabletop RPG. But they would have to be reduced to "monsters with a clownish motif that need to be defeated for experience points or whatever" instead of "plot devices that exist to humiliate the players and erode their sense of fun." Still, I'd be really surprised to see them in there. What I'm wondering about is PSI... Will they be in there? How in the world would mental powers work in such an MMO setting and still preserve the feel of the characters? (Personally, I would find extraordinary pleasure in running into Mind Slayer in game... Mwa ha ha ha!)

Re: Who's Who on the Champions Online forums? Going by Scott.Heine over there. (Figured it'd be easy enough...)

Re: I am so, so old...

Re: I am so, so old...

I remember signing up for a demo game of this new fangled Champions thing way back at DunDraCon 25 years ago. Now I'm going to teach the game to my kids. I've got three teenagers, and they've always wondered about this Champions thing their dad was into. Spending the weekend up at HeroCon in Baltimore only piqued their interest. So they've asked if I would run a campaign for them and introduce them to the Hero System. When did I become so old? I'm going to be GMing for my kids! My teenagers-that-drive kids! Oh my... It's funny how I'd forgotten what it's like to introduce total newbies to tabletop RPGs. I think I've helped them understand by talking about the art of "shared storytelling;" at least my daughters seem to get it. They're already thinking through character personalities and backgrounds and how they'd like to see a character develop through play. My 17-year old son, on the other hand, is thinking much more like a wargamer, and is interested in how the stats of the game will give him the greatest chance of beating the opponents he'll eventually face. He wants to "win the game," so it's gonna be a bit of a challenge to help him get into the episodic nature of what we're doing. All three of them spent a big chunk of last night trying to figure out what exactly is possible in the Hero System. "Can I have some kind of mind control?" "Is there a way to turn someone into a completely different object, like Medusa turning a guy to stone?" "Ooo! I want to be able to create illusions in people's minds! Can I do that?" Yes, yes, and yes... thought not necessarily in the game we'll be playing. (I'm nervous about my first-time newbie kids having Mind Control or Mental Illusions as a primary ability. "Hey, guys, let's think of something more simple. Sweetie, what about a character that is really strong and can punch things?") Then my son discovered that Champs characters get to roll a lot of dice. "Wow! I bet that's cool to see all these dice rolling on the table and then counting up the damage!" "Yes, son, that's really cool." They don't know it yet (and don't read these boards, so I can share here), but I'm going to set up a simple campaign world for them. They'll begin their adventures waking up in the wreckage of some really strange vehicle or machine. They won't know it, but they've been sent from the distant future -- a time when aliens have invaded and enslaved the human race, introducing all sorts of funky technology. A small band of freedom fighters has been holding out but facing a losing battle. They use all their efforts to send an elite team of their best fighters -- people who have been genetically altered or cybernetically enhanced using alien tech -- back in time to the day when the first scouts of the invasion reached earth. But a side effect of the time-travel process has been the complete erasure of their memories. The players will have no idea who they are or why they're there. There will be other survivors of the crash; some will become allies, others will become enemies. Everyone will be trying to figure out who they are and why they can do all these wonderful things. There will be an increasing presence/threat from aliens. Not-so-nice scientists are gonna want to steal some of the wreckage to assimilate the far-future tech, creating another source of enemies. Every once in a while, events will trigger flashbacks (flashforwards?) in the memories of the players that will fill in a bit of the storyline so they discover what they're up to. I'm finding the whole thing really, really interesting to put together -- primarily because I'm a dad doing this for my kids. (Man oh man I feel so very OLD!) Just thought I'd share...

Re: Which Villain Do You Want to Play? Easy choice: Mind Slayer. She's eeeeeevil. (I have yet to run a game with her as a villain where one of the players didn't end up calling her a b**** at some point. Heck, when Rob Bell sent me back the first round of editor notes for Mind Games way back when, he had only one word written in red ink next to her writeup.)

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? Yeah, I was always sad that we never published that book. It would have been similar to Aaron's Strike Force, and would have included a lot of info on using San Francisco as a backdrop for a campaign. But, well, you know... Iron Crown Enterprises had some real problems with paying people back then... (Grrr. Don't get me started...) At this point, it would pretty much have to begin from scratch. It would also have to be a collaborative effort with another author doing the bulk of the work. Heck, it's been over 20 years since the original players of the Protectors campaign were together; I've got some moldy notes in a cardboard box somewhere, and I certainly have a head full of memories and design ideas that I think would be fun to see refined. But I just don't have the time or passion to do it myself at this point in my life. Besides, my style of characters doesn't always fit well with the more modern take on Champions. I was really into comics from the 70s, and those were sometimes a bit more "four-color" and reductionary compared to today (Wolfman's run at Teen Titans, Englehart's Detective Comics, any of those great old Justice League - Justice Society summer crossovers, etc.). I think that's why some people really liked Alien Enemies (they were all cliches, after all) and some people didn't find it useful. A bigger example would be my rewrite of Deathstroke -- I still think the humorous approach fit a niche in the Champions Universe, and I was already making fun of the original team anyway. But some people just hated it. The Protectors, on the other hand, are pretty classic and diverse. They've got an alien, a ninja, an archer, and a magician. There's the super-strongman, the cyborg, and the scientist. One is armor-based, another ties into ancient Greek mythology. There's a guy who controls weather and one who reads minds. Blaster, Brick, Martial Artist, Mentalist... yup, they're all there. In fact, just about every major cliche from comic book teams is represented, and you can find elements of most major heroes represented on the team somehow (with perhaps the exception of Spider-Man, now that I think about it). We even had an academy for younger heroes that would have made Champs by the Bay at some point. The gimmick was that each hero at the academy had a pretty limited power and could never solo well. So, for example, there was Oracle who could read minds but had no offensive or defensive capabilities, Aegis who was pretty much invulnerable but had no attacks, Proxy who could teleport and switch places with anyone else (great for jumping in front of a bus and hoping she made her activation roll), Lightning who could run really, really fast (but didn't have all the other abilities of the classic speedster... just movement), Spook who was always desolid and could turn invisible, etc. They were a lot of fun as a team, because we didn't hold back on the humor. The classic adventure was when the decided to pull a mean-spirited prank on one of the Protectors who had been harsh on them; they decided to activate an old Mechanon unit with a command like "destroy his car," without realizing that the unit only understood one word commands (i.e., "destroy"), and then they had to try and turn the thing off and get the base repaired before the Protectors got home. Anyways, I doubt anything like Champs by the Bay will ever happen, but it would be fun to at least see the old heroes be resurrected for a new generation. (Oh, and someone really needs to get me an Adam Hughes illustration for these guys at some point... check out the credits for the cover for Alien Enemies... the wonderful cover that never happened... *sniff*) -- S

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? How 'bout the Protectors? Hey, I had to say it. All bias aside, I'd love to see 'em updated at some point. Even if they're near and dear to my heart, I think they're a pretty classic team in that they represent each of the major superhero cliches, serve as templates for other basic characters, and are pretty distinct from the Champions in terms of style and design. And every comic book campaign needs at least a couple of hero teams that can turn bad, fight with the good guys, come to their senses, and combine to fight some bigger-than-is-reasonable bad guy, right?

Re: Playing with characters provided by the GM When I've run listed games at conventions, I often give the players pre-made characters. In fact, I ask the players to sit in a particular order around the table, organized by DEX so that it's easy to run combat. Then again, when I've run listed con games, there's usually a very specific story to tell. I'm assuming that at least some of the players won't know each other (in fact, they may all be strangers), and that they'll arrive with varying degrees of Hero experience. Sometimes I've had a binder full of just about all the major archtypes for players to choose from (i.e., fire blaster, big rocky brick, magician, storm-summoner, flying energy shooter, shrinking guy, etc.), and sometimes I've had them play a specific team (Big Blue version of Champs was most common for a while, because the characters were so familiar and easily played by a newcomer). However, for pick-up games, back-in-the-hotel-room games, or just goofing around with friends (new and old), I'd usually let people bring in their favorites. Oh, sure, there was always a quick glance to make sure the final mix would be relatively balanced, and I'd have to think quick on my feet to see if there were any specific plot hooks I could add to customize the adventure for those characters, but it was usually more fun. For any kind of ongoing game, of course, the adventures always begin with character creation to make sure that the final team was cool, well-balanced, and diverse enough to foster a wide variety of storylines.

Re: Powerpuff Girls Ahem...

Re: Bennie's Head Swells, Film At 11 Congrats, Scott!!!

Re: Scott Heine - Protectors Of course! I really should finish the set someday, eh? I sort of became overwhelmed and never completed the other characters. Shame on me! Maybe (and that's a big maybe) early 2006? (We're moving into a new facility in January, and my attention is pretty distracted with the details right now. Oh, and then there's Christmas, of course... )

Re: Queer Eye for the Superhero Guy Um... Isn't that the Phantom Stranger from DC?