Lord Liaden

Re: For FREEDOM!(Freedom Force) At my age it takes a while to get up a head of steam.

Re: Strike Force Well, part of the unique appeal of Strike Force was that it included background and events from Aaron Allston's actual campaign, showing how developments in the game were affected by events in real life, and the lessons that Aaron as GM learned from those developments. Besides giving us a peek behind the curtain of a well-run Champs campaign, I found that his excellent tips on running a game seemed so much clearer when given the context of how he discovered them. Some factors which are different now may have affected DOJ's approach to their current Champs publications. For one thing, much of the official Champions Universe is apparently drawn from Darren Watts's own campaign. They may have thought that producing a "behind the scenes" book based on his campaign would be both too similar to and too different from what's already been published; and they're hesitant about putting resources into supporting another game world. For another, much of Aaron's gaming advice from Strike Force has been so widely disseminated in the RPG community that it's been worked into many books from many publishers in some form - the originality of it couldn't be duplicated today. IMO Strike Force also had that indefinable magic of various elements that come together just right. Magic is hard to replicate on demand.

Re: Strike Force

Re: For FREEDOM!(Freedom Force) When searching for HERO writeups of characters from any source, I always seek to draw first from the Well of Surbrook : http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptionsvideogame/videogamechar.html#FREE

Re: Strike Force My friend, you're asking for the Holy Grail of Champions collectables. Pretty rare to see them on sale, and often pretty pricey. Searching through my usual run of Internet sources, I found only one which is currently advertising any SF copies for sale. To keep anyone here from scooping up any or all of them before you get the chance, I'm sending the info on where to find it to you via Private Message. If that choice isn't satisfactory to you, I'll be happy to suggest other good online dealers who carry Champs stuff and have a chance of getting it in.

Re: Digital Hero Materials in your Champions Campaigns Well, there are quite a few of those in the run of DH. I find most of them to be well-written, with good art and charcter designs, and often including maps. Since Hero Games is no longer publishing adventures in hardcopy, this seems to be the main outlet for that sort of thing. I understand your preference for hardcopy, Kirby, but considering that individual issues are $5.00 US for 64 pages of HERO material, or a 10 issue subscription for $30.00, IMHO this is a real bargain. Especially since you can buy any issue at any time, in any order. The previews of the Table of Contents always help me decide whether I want a particular issue or not. Since I'm mostly running Champions these days I get the most use out of that material, but rules options and expansions by Steve Long and others, discussion of roleplaying issues, and You Gotta Have Character are all favorites of mine.

Re: Who's the most evil villain in CU? You know, back when DC was running their whole Eclipso: The Darkness Within mini-series, I recall a discussion between Eclipso and Darkseid comparing the relative ranking of their evil acts. For an example of the magnitude of his own evil, Eclipso recounted his bringing on a great disaster (IIRC it was the Great Flood of Biblical and other tradition), devastating the surface of the Earth and drowning millions. Darkseid countered with a story of a boy among the New Gods that he had met in his youth, a boy of artistic talent and a love of beauty. Darkseid tricked that boy into committing heinous acts, confusing and manipulating him until he became twisted, his only joy the suffering of others. That boy's name was Desaad.

Re: Who's the most evil villain in CU? We seem to be talking somewhat at cross purposes, because several different categories of "evil" are being compared without concensus on a working definition. We have: Psychopathic/sociopathic evil (Blowtorch, Black Harlequin, Masquerade) - don't truly understand the consequences of their actions, or don't care, or both; Chosen evil (Luther Black, Giacomo Sylvestri, Dark Seraph) - understanding the nature of evil, and deliberately embracing corruption; Embodying evil (The Dragon, the Kings of Edom, the Monster) - evil is the essence of what they are, and they simply follow their nature. It's also unclear as to whether scale should be a determining factor. Is it in fact more heinous to debase and destroy a whole world than a single innocent life? If the Princes of Hell have any say in his disposition, I would expect his immortal soul to experience an eternity of very creative torments. However, there's no guarantee that Black would even end up in the Netherworld. The Kings of Edom have a claim on him now, and if he failed in his plan to free them there's no telling whether or how they might choose to punish him. And as the DEMON book postulates, Sharna-Gorak has a claim there as well.

Re: Organization: The Tarot Council Fine work as always, Mr. S. I'd seen your Tarot Council notes on your website long before this - nice of you to update them. Not sure which execution of this concept came first, but there is in fact another super group based on this tradition,and a Champions group at that; part of the Global Guardians PBeM shared universe. There are actually several interesting parallels to your group, particularly regarding membership. As a point of comparison for interested parties, I present: Tarot You can click on the character picture frames for writeups and backgrounds of the various members. Note that many of them don't yet have entries on the website, but several who do have most interesting histories. EDIT: For some reason the Emperor does not have a working link on the page above, but does have a complete writeup on the website. Because he's so important to the group - and IMHO a cool concept in his own right - let me provide a separate link to him: The Emperor

Re: Who's the most evil villain in CU? Ah, but the GM isn't exclusive to the CU. It's a Multiversal menace.

Re: Who's the most evil villain in CU? This resembles Log's point about scale of evil. If we're defining evil as unfathomable horror, I think that any of the Kings of Edom would have to count as top dogs. They're totally alien and totally inimical to any form of life as we understand it. However, if we're talking recognizably human evil - base desires, corruption, joy in the suffering of others - the most epic embodiment of that in the Champions Universe is unquestionably the Dragon. It is by definition the incarnation and the source of all the darkest instincts in the human psyche, and it actively prompts those instincts in every man, woman and child to this day. Should the Dragon ever free itself from the unconsciousness of mankind, that would drive the entire race insane. That should be evil enough for anyone.

Re: Who's the most evil villain in CU? Very well put, Log, and Repped. Actually, though, I think that a case could be made for Blowtorch, Black Harlequin, and even the Joker being amoral rather than immoral. It's questionable that they possess the empathy to truly comprehend the consequences of their actions. Certainly that's the only justification for the Joker being constantly tossed back into Arkham Asylum rather than injected, gassed or electrocuted by the state.

Re: Game world Mark, will you be moving all your Gothik Empires material from Angelfire to the new site? How about the rest of your Cyber Empire O' Doom? If that would be the best move for you, more power to you. I'll just have a bunch of RPG conversion links to update.

Re: Invasions: Target Earth If you want to ask the Powers That Be for an official response, you'll probably have more luck posting this question to the "Company Questions" forum. Even if a Hero Games staffer sees the thread title, he might not realize that you're requesting company input. There doesn't appear to be anything on the publication schedule, at least through next year, that would likely cover this sort of material; nor any tentatively scheduled items mentioned. That said, I did find I:TE a very useful sourcebook for running comic-book style invasions in a RPG, and some of its guidelines would work as well for other genres. I would recommend it to anyone interested in this type of scenario/plotline. It also happens to be in the Online Store for a reasonable $7.95.

Re: Who's the most evil villain in CU? Well, Luther Black probably stands at the apex of what I'd call "cosmic evil." He actively seeks to forsake everything that we could call human in order to become something antithetical to life as we understand it. To me, though, there's a grandeur to his plan that almost puts it beyond the scope of what we define as good and evil. There really is no precedent for what he seeks to do. Some of the other master villains are like that. Takofanes, Mechanon... they have to be opposed because of the terrible consequences of their actions, but they're almost impersonal about it, with little concern for the feelings of individuals they affect. Other "satanic" types like Dark Seraph or Black Paladin are described as revelling in corruption, but their evil is described almost abstractly. Makes it hard to relate to. For me Evil with a capital "E" is very personal, reflecting an awareness of and satisfaction from the suffering that one's actions cause. I can't help thinking of the quotation in CKC attributed to Ironclad: 'The media often describes villains such as Takofanes, the Slug, or Dark Seraph as "the most evil being who ever lived," or something like that. But if that's true, what can you say about a man like Blowtorch, who sets children on fire for fun?'

Re: Worldbuilding exercise Okay, this is just a first pass. I don't really have the time at this moment to work out the details, so I'll just give my initial thoughts: The Runic Ring The Runic Ring began as an attempt to reign in some of the depredations of magicians who believed their powers placed them above the moral constraints of "lesser" beings. The founders of the group, among the foremost wizards of their era, established a school of magic ostensibly to train others in the art. Many were drawn to the school by the wizards' collective reputations. However, in addition to magical instruction the wizards also inculcated their students in a code of honor, ethical conduct and responsibility to others, not unlike the code of chivalry. The new-made mages went forth to use their knowledge and skills to help and protect their fellow men. However, under mounting persecution from the Church (ironically caused in no small part by acts of the unscrupulous mages that the school opposed), the school was forced to disband and its members flee or go into hiding - at least that was the public perception. In fact the founders and graduates of the school simply changed their tactics. Concealing any display of or association with magic, the members of the group assumed the guises of other roles and professions, some prominent and influential, others innocuous: noblemen, merchants, scholars, wandering healers or peddlars. Each member would be aware of the identities of only a few others, to prevent the Church from discovering and dismantling the entire group. Members are able to identify each other by special rings that they wear; the rings can be of any style, plain or elaborate, but all are carved on the inside of the band with distinctive runes which only members can read. This was the origin of the group's name. The Runic Ring has two major divisions. Actual members, who are fully aware of the Ring's purpose and have access to its knowledge and resources, are called the Inner Ring. The Outer Ring is made up of people with useful skills and abilities, and the proper ideals and motivations, who have been contacted by Inner Ring members to act as their agents. Those in the Outer Ring have no knowledge of the Runic Ring's existence and never hear the terms "Inner or Outer Ring." One of the Inner Ring approaches them under the guise of an employer or patron to undertake specific tasks, or is approached by them as a useful contact. The Inner Ring is constantly on the lookout for such people. Only those of the Outer Ring who have proven their quality repeatedly may be told of the Runic Ring, and if they have talent with magic may be invited to join the Inner Ring and learn deeper lore from the Ring's masters.

Re: Stacking force walls I really do think that stacking Force Walls as a deliberate tactic is reasonable to ban, and again, the chance of it happening by accident is too small to worry about. Of course I have to stick a big IMHO and YMMV in front of all that.

Re: Computer Controlled Power Armor Weapons Requiring a successful roll of some kind for the computer to activate the weapons seems to be the easiest way to account for computer malfunction. As far as hacking into the computer goes, you should define under what circumstances the computer can be "hacked" and what the result is. If it's just a matter of the computer being shut down by a Dispel of appropriate SFX, or something similar, that's a function of the Powers that your attacker is using, and you don't have to account for it in your character's writeup. OTOH if hacking the computer allows an opponent with appropriate Powers (e.g. "Cyberkinesis" Mental Powers) to actually control the armor's systems and use them against the will of the suit's operator, that would probably justify a Physical Limitation Disad for the character, "Affected By Cyberkinesis."

Re: Stacking force walls I don't have 5ER, so I don't know if it specifically forbids stacking of Force Walls. If so, this is rather more stringent than the ruling in the old rules FAQ: Q: Since Force Wall is a Constant Power, could a character establish multiple concentric Force Walls to protect himself (or someone else)? A: Subject to the GM’s discretion, yes — though in some cases (like forming a Force Wall dome or bubble around someone) the Force Wall has to be big enough to keep establishing larger and larger walls. Since this could obviously unbalance the game pretty quickly, the GM should control or forbid it as he sees fit. If the power is constructed to prevent significant abuse (e.g., each Force Wall costs a lot of END, or requires a lot of Extra Time to create), it’s a lot less of a potential problem than if the character has a 0 END Force Wall he can create as a regular Action. The ruling was already cautionary as far as allowing this, so perhaps Steve decided to be more definitive in 5ER? For my part I'm not sure I would want to limit a character to having only one Force Wall active at a time, with or without an Advantage, seeing as this is contrary to the way other Constant Powers function. Keeping the Force Walls from stacking seems reasonable to me, but allowing a character to set up multiple Force Walls on successive Phases - at different locations, or adjoining ones to cover a larger area or form a globe - also seems like a reasonable use of a Constant Power. OTOH I have toyed with the idea of requiring Constant Powers to take a 5-point Doubling Adder, like other such Adders, for successive uses of the same Power; e.g. 5 points for two successive uses, 10 points for four, etc. It might help reign in some of the potential abuses of powers like Force Wall or Suppress. This is much like your Advantage suggestion, Sean, but IMHO an Advantage would be more expensive in most cases than this capacity warrants. I've also considered harmonizing Extra Limbs with this construct by turning it into an Adder for Strength, and allowing successive uses of Strength in much the same manner as above. IMO some of the Limitations on Strength allowed for with Extra Limbs would make more sense if the EL were added directly to the cost of STR. You could still keep the current cost and construction for Extra Limbs just by making it a Naked Adder. I haven't had much opportunity to test this in play, other than with a creature in a fantasy game with TK defined as multiple tentacles. I used the Adder approach to define the number of tentacles, i.e. the number of uses of TK it could keep going simultaneously. That wasn't enough exposure to draw any conclusions from, though.

Re: Machine Class of mind Well, while the above is true, Steve Long has advised against allowing a character to take a non-Human class of mind as a default in most campaigns, and I think his point his worth considering. Since the majority of Mental Powers take the Human class as the default, that can lead to the character with a Machine mind being effectively immune to most of the mentalists it's likely to encounter, without having paid for that immunity. This is the reason for Mechanon taking a specific Disadvantage that it's affected by MP against both the Human and Machine class minds (under the pretext that its brain is so sophisticated it functions much like an organic one). The Machine class of mind is, according to Steve, meant primarily to be used for Computers and Artificial Intelligences (as defined by the rules), which typically fulfill a different role in a campaign than do "standard" characters. OTOH if artificially intelligent entities, and powers affecting them, were common in a given campaign (e.g. futuristic sci-fi based), IMO it would be reasonable to allow a PC to have a Machine mind.

Re: Going Crazy! Well, I think this may be possible using the Transform approach if any PCs involved would be willing to roleplay the result. For one thing, the effects of Transform are supposed to be visible before the Transform fully takes effect. With a Mental Transform affecting the target's sanity, that could manifest as a character becoming increasingly moody, irritable, paranoid or otherwise "twitchy" in his behavior. Not necessarily enough to affect combat or Skill use, although this might justify some of those penalties to related Skills that you were talking about. Secondly, you could use the Partial Transform Advantage to inflict "lower levels" of insanity at the one-third and two-thirds BODY damage levels (comparable to Cosmetic and Minor Transform effects). Besides the Skill penalties mentioned above, the lower levels of effect might result in less severe Psych Lims than with the full effect, or less frequent, or allowing for bonuses to the Ego Rolls.

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

Re: VPP question Another possibility is to not actually limit the VPP (or Multipower, if you follow Derek's fine suggestion) at all, but to take a Susceptibility Disadvantage (Endurance Drain) which occurs while the character is actively using his VPP.

Re: The Old World Ferret, Killer Shrike's site is excellent for this purpose, but since you're interested in running "The Enemy Within" you may also benefit from checking here: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24971 . You'll find not only .txt files converting many elements of First Edition WHFRPG to HERO system (Characteristics, Skills, Careers, Races, Professions, Disadvantages, Magic, Armor and Weapons); but also writeups for a number of characters from "The Enemy Within."

Re: Going Crazy! There have actually been several "official" approaches to sanity loss in published Hero Games sources. I'm not sure from your remarks if you seen all or any of them, or what would best suit your preferences, so I'll just direct you to what I'm aware of. One of the simpler ones is detailed in the "Genre By Genre" chapter of 5ER under the "Horror" section, as well as the comparable section of the HERO System Genre By Genre PDF. (If you don't have either of these, you can download the PDF from the Free Stuff section of the website, via the "HERO System Documents" link.") It suggests an optional Sanity Figured Characteristic, with some guidelines on how it can be affected and healed back. Another approach was first designed in the 4E Champions sourcebook Champions in 3-D, for the adventure/setting "Horror World." It's an actual Power based on Transform NND, with the Defense being a successful Ego Roll. Each time you're exposed to the sanity blasting effect and fail your roll, the "damage" accumulates until you finally snap. The stronger your Ego, the longer you can resist. There's more to it than that, though; you can see the full writeup on the website of the author, Allen Varney, where he's put up the text of the original adventure (with Hero Games's permission). You'll find it here: http://www.allenvarney.com/anopheles.html . It would need a little tweaking to update to 5E, but you'd probably have done that to suit your tastes anyway. The most elaborate sanity loss system is in the 4E genre supplement Horror Hero: Endless Nightmares. That gave detailed rules for exposure to both sudden extreme emotional/psychic trauma ("Shock") and long-term stressful environments ("Stress"). Steve Long told me that he prefers not to have those rules posted to these public forums, because he's not sure how he'll want to use them in future books. However, if you're interested you could PM me - I think I could set you up.