The Watcher

Re: WWYCD: Harem Comedy from Hell

Daedalus: "Sorry, but my team mate already has this subplot. Don't want any overlap now, do we?"

Quetzalocatl: God of Knowledge, The Plumed Serpent, Lord of The Skies and King of Anahuac, would not be used to dealing with roguish Catwoman types vying for his attention. Would try to figure out how to dissuade her attentions without offending her.

The deluded Cult Leader who sees him as a Demon Lord would earn his ire, considering he's that would be associating him with his hated and treacherous breathen in his pantheon, who are all now corrupt receivers of the life energy of blood sacrifice. He's vowed to end such things and would not appreciate in the least being likened to them.

As far as the Dimensional Empress, it would depend on how she ran her empire. He is a God-King himself. If she was relatively benevolent and not aggressively expansionist he might actually consider her suit. Of course, there would be complications to consider, such as how the Theran Compact, of which he has had Anahuac join, views her, and maintaining that any potential relationship would be that of equals (hey, even though his kingdom is much smaller he's still a king), but that's what you get when you're divine royalty.

Warp: Dimensional manipulator who happens to be multi-billionaire playboy Daniel Stone. He's currently seeing Cateran in his Hero ID, but doesn't yet know her occupation. He also has Tesserect as a stalker due to the synergistic effects of his power interacting with hers is pleasurable to her. His plate's pretty full already.

The Catwoman type probably knows Cateran. I'm guessing they already would have at least some sort of professional rivalry. This could potentially spur on her attempts at landing Warp as the rivalry turns romantic as well.

To the Cult Leader: "Look, just cause I dress in black and can go places instantly doesn't mean I'm a demon lord! Can't you sense magic or something? Would I be hanging out with a Sun God if I was a Demon Lord?"

Dimensional Empress: "Isvatha V'han is interested in me! Yikes! I thought Horus was more her type!"

Spectrum: Is an Air Force officer. Would point out repeatedly to Catwoman type that fratenizing with a supervillainesss, even one who's just a thief, would be against regulations and she has no chance of getting anywhere with him.

To the Cult Leader he'd point out that the last thing a Dark Lord would have is EM spectrum manipulation powers. Would also have to attempt to capture her every time if she is wanted by the law.

The Dimensional Queen he'd treat in a professional and respectful manner, as he would any Head of State (unless The United States was currentl in a state of war with her empire) but would resist all romantic overtures in as polite a manner as possible, pointing out that his duties to his country preclude him getting involved with the monarchs of foreign nations.

Re: WWYCD: Dead before your time...

Daedalus: Former supervillain cyborg gadgeteer who happens to be very rich. He also not only has self-repair nano-bots, but a mind upload implant that would transfer his conciousness to computer storage until a Body Repair/Assembly Module created a new body to download it into.

Since he did not awake in a ressurection pod he probably did not really die and something strange is going on. After getting back to base and repairing his systems he'd set out to do research to figure out exactly what happened, both in the supposed "history" of the four months and what actually is going on. He'd investigate all possibilities, including perhaps this being a virtual simulation or having been projected into an parallel universe.

What he does next would depend on what he found out. If it turned out it was all some sort of Matrix simulation he'd do his best to hack it and escape. If he was in an alternate future he'd work to invent a way back.

And if it turned out to be real he'd wait to be contacted by his team mate Striker-1, who happens to be absolutely immortal. Since the world thinks he's dead he obviously has a good reason to let the world think that. In a similar vein just to be safe Daedalus would try to keep the world at large from finding out he's alive as well until he knows fully what happened and what's going on, just to get the element of surprise in case who or whatever killed the others is still out there.

If they're actually dead, that is. After all, if he didn't die there's a chance they didn't as well. He'd also look for them, but quietly, in case someone has laid traps expecting any survivors to do just that.

Quetzalcoatl: Would use Retrocognition to learn what really happened. If it turned out his comrades are not really dead but scattered like him will try to find them. Regardless, he goes back to Thera and briefs those who need to know about what he knows about the situation.

Warp: Would first teleport back to his place to rest and recover, then start researching what happened. Will also contact his lawyer uncle to check on whether his secret identity has also been reported dead or if he kept the Life Model Decoy of him active the past four months.

A dimensional manipulator, he knows that theoretically temporal effects could be within his capability even though he's never done anything conciously regarding Time. He'd seriously consider the possibility he outlived his "death" by somehow teleporting into the future.

If that's the case, he'd try to learn as much as he could about the Big Bad and the fight that killed his friends, and then try to return back to his rightful time and use the knowledge to try to avert that future.

If, on the other hand, his investigation reveals something else is going on, he'd try and see if his team mates are actually dead or if they too miracurously survived their "deaths" like he did.

Either way, he'd try to keep the survival of his Heroic Identity secret until he knows what's going on.

Spectrum: Astronaut whose metabolism was changed into a quasi-energy state and gained impressive manipulation powers over the entire electo-magenetic spectrum thanks to an encounter with a Progenitor Probe, his first thought would be his transformation had enabled him to somehow recover from whatever had "killed" him.

Of course, he'd also consider other possibilities, but the above would be the hypothesis he'd think most likely until he had further information.

As an Air Force officer it would be his duty to report to his superiors and inform them about his survival. The energy signature readings they have with him coupled with the classified information only he would know should be enough to convince them of his bonifides.

What he does from their depends a lot on his superiors. He was the Government Liason to his super team. If they assign him to other duties he'd only be able to look into what happened during his spare time. If he got leave (probably very likely considering the circumstances) he'd be able to devote all his time into investigating the matter.

And as far as the villain is concerned, he'd be calling in favors and doing whatever it takes to organize a response to neutralize the threat he posed permanently. The guy managed to kill his entire team, which would be quite a feat. He's a clear and present danger that needs to dealt with permanently.

Re: Humans are "Special"

Humans are special because we invented Rock and Roll! Once our transmissions were encountered by other races we set off teenage rebellions and set the standards for cool throughout the galaxy.

Re: WWYCD: The Life Pod

Daedalus: One of his fellow team members on Vanguard, Exemplar, is basically an ancient alien demigod who came into being when the universe was young. Also, the team's origin and first adventure involved being the point people in fending off the first actual alien invasion of Earth, and they managed to capture one of the invader's motherships.

Between Exemplar's knowledge and the alien databanks, Vanguard should be able to figure out who and what the alien is, and whether it would be wise to awaken her. Not to mention the fact that Exemplar can sense Evil and Virtue as well, which would also be helpful in the decision-making process.

Quetzalcoatl: He and a number of his colleagues have the equivalent of Universal Translator. They'd be able to read what the words on the pod say. Quetzalcoatl himself posseses both telepathy and retrocognition, so he could either look into her memories or her past directly to determine what kind of person she is.

Of course, this is assuming that he and his friend Hermes don't accidentally awaken her first while messing around with the pod.

Warp: His team, the Sentinels, is currently hosting perspective member Princess Cyrande of Malva. They'd ask her if she knew who this being was.

Spectrum: The ancient Progenitor Probe which transformed him into his current state also downloaded a whole lot of Progenitor Knowledge into his subconcious that occaisionally surfaces into his concious mind sometimes (Uncontrolled Skill Pool). Seeing her might cause the pertinent Culture Knowledge to pop up and let him know her origin and most likely dispostion regarding the people of Earth.

Barring that, he is an officer in the Air Force on detached duty to his team as government liason. If his team can't figure anything out about her, he probably knows experts or people who can get in contact with experts who could figure it out.

Re: (worst ever)...reasons to be a supervillain

"The Frugal Tourist's Guide To the Milky Way said that robbing banks and fighting local mutants were two of the top ten things to do when visiting Earth."

"I got arrested for public intoxication in Latveria, and this is my community service sentence."

"Job security."

"Supervillain? No, I'm just interning with ARGENT. This is just for the credit hours."

Re: Ethics for mentalists

I seem to remember that starting this thread I stated that IMO the only ethical possible uses of major mind control powers (Mind Control' date=' Mental Illusions, Telepathy, Emotion Control), the ones that effectively override free will, would be comparable to the ones where lethal force would be allowed: i.e., self-defense, open war, save another, prevent a major felony or apprehending a felon. Sex really does not enter in the picture. Long-term personality restructuring (Mental Transform) is even more ethicaslly suspect, and should be used with the same precautions as major surgery. [/quote']I can think of an ethical use of Mind Control or Mental Illusions that don't involve situations comparable to those when lethal force would be allowed. Situations in which the subject, of his own free will and with no coercion involved, volunteers for such powers to be used on them.

 

Someone being asked to be mind controlled to help overcome bad habits like smoking is one example that's been used already. Someone requesting a traumatic memory to be forgotten would be another.

 

As for Mental Illusions, think about what it does. It literally can provide experiences that seem real to all of one's senses. And lots of people are willing to pay big bucks for experiences.

 

Imagine someone who's trying to watch their calorie intake letting an illusionist use their powers to let them enjoy fabulous meals that would totally break their diet if they actually ate them. Or a telepath going into business as a Mr. Roarke and giving people fantasy vacations.

 

And then for a less frivolous example, how about someone using Mental Illusion to take away the sensation of chronic pain from someone?

Re: Ethics for mentalists

That is ridiculous. It's unethical for someone to get help to do something good for them?

 

By that logic no one should ever see a mental-health professional for a problem that ANYONE could overcome by themself.

Re: Slightly Less Powerful DNPCs in Champions

It's all relative to the whatever the PC level is. I'd say at least one "tier" down on the Power Level Chart. So for Standard Superheroes it would be a Low-Powered Super, for High Powered Superheroes it would be a Standard Super, and so on.

Re: WWYCD: A Brief Warning

Warp: Oh, this one's easy. He sends a message to himself on July 16, 1992.

"A week from now when we're in Detroit a massive battle will break out between a large group of heroes and Dr. Destroyer that ends in Dr. Destroyer obliterating the city from an orbital weapons platform located at INSERT COORDINATES HERE, which kills a whole lot of people including mom and triggers our mutant dimensional manipulation powers."

At the every least, Daniel's younger self will keep his mother and him from being in Detroit that day. If he's very lucky and manages to contact and convince the right people in time (such as perhaps an open-minded superhero team), someone checks out the coordinates and destroys the satellite, preventing Detroit from being destroyed and saving thousands of people.

Daniel's mother living means that his father Franklin Stone never gets custody of him. So he gets a somewhat happier teen existence. Daniel would also know he's a latent mutant with dimensional manipulation powers.

If he managed to contact the right heroes while trying to warn them they might refer him to Ravenswood Academy to help him develop and learn to use his powers. This would lead him to being more powerful at the point in time when he started his career as Warp in the original timeline, due to receiving help from others rather than having to figure out and train himself in the use of his powers alone.

Monkey Wrench: What he might be tempted to say...

"The Binary Corporation is going to cheat you out of millions by stealing you high density energy storage work and patenting it for themselves, so don't even talk to their people but go patent your stuff yourself before anyone else can."

The above would prevent the younger Alex from being taken advantage of by the Binary Corporation, thus derailing the series of events that lead to him becoming a supervillain in order to get revenge against the company. With his incredible intelligence and mastery of multiple sciences he goes on instead to have a very successful career in the scientific and technological fields.

Of course, Monkey Wrench would most likely choose to not send the message, because it was also that series of events that led to him being in a position to help free the superheroes being held captive by V'han and aiding in the repulsion of her forces from Earth's dimension. If he changes history he knows there's a very good chance that without him there things could turn out for the worst and V'han would still be occupying the Earth.

EDIT: Just thought of a message that Monkey Wrench would send back. In his original timeline the Sentinels end up getting left behind in V'han's territory due to the dimensional portal to Earth closing a minute earlier than anticipated.

"The Sentinels are going to wind up being trapped due to the dimensional portal closing a minute early unless you do something to change the situation."

With that warning Monkey Wrench's past self could either warn everyone involved in The Siege so that plans can be adjusted, while also perhaps creating some sort of device to hold open the portal a little longer. If all goes well, the Sentinels manage to escape with everyone else, and Earth does not lose one of its greatest super teams.

Re: Ridiculous things in comics that you don't mind.

BTW' date=' Spending 4-5 years as a mouse hardly qualifies as getting off lightly.[/quote']Ah, but that was before Amy went majorly selfish and bad. Afterwards she behaved far worse and not much happened to her.

Re: Ridiculous things in comics that you don't mind.

> I think I've heard Joss mention, his view of

> magic was 'What ever you do, you get back

> more". So if you only used magic for good, you

> got good stuff, but when you started using magic

> for selfish reason, you ended up getting nailed

> by it.

 

I don't believe it. Let's look at a list of magic-using cast members of both shows...

 

* Willow -- amazingly enough, despite going all Darth Rosenberg, she's the only sorceress on the show who ended their saga in a happy place.

 

* Giles -- not dead, not happy, kinda blah.

 

* Jenny Calendar -- dead.

 

* Tara -- dead

 

* Anya -- dead

 

* Doyle -- dead

 

* Cordelia(1) -- lied to and used as a demon puppet, forced to host an Elder God, *then* dead.

 

* Wesley -- dead.

 

BTW, note that the only live ones on this list are the ones with a past history of using magic for selfish reasons (The Recovering Magic Junkie and The Watcher Formerly Known As Ripper). While some 'selfish' ones are also among the dead (Anya, and possibly Dark Wesley, although he wasn't using *magic* for that), the two people who always used their magic for the most purely unselfish reasons around (Tara and Cordelia) got horribly whacked with the karma stick anyway. AAMOF, they got it the *worst*.

 

If magic in the Buffyverse truly obeyed the laws of karma, Tara should have died at age 97. In her sleep. In a mansion.

 

 

 

(1) First the visions, then the glowy floaty stuff that she got in season 3 AtS.

Re: Is defeating a Master Villain sometimes counterproductive?

Interestingly' date=' the United States is supposed to have 1 person with powers per 100,000-1,000,000 people. If we average it out to 1 per 500,000, we get 600 people [b']with powers[/b], or 10% of the world's population of powered people.

Re: WWYCD: Another Run In With Blackthorn...

Warp: Is dating Cateran.

"Friends of yours?"

Monkey Wrench: Watches them fight for a little while, and then when it looks like one is going to seriously hurt the other seperates them with his Force Field Projector.

"Sorry guys, fun is fun, but you can poke an eye out with those."

Re: WWYCD?: One Night At The Opera...

Warp: Would quickly change to hero id and then teleport the victim to Starguard. Just because the guy was hit by a bus doesn't mean he's automatically dead. People have lived through worse, and if there's even a spark of life left in him Starguard would be able to heal him.

Needless to say Warp will tell the rest of his team what he observed.

Monkey Wrench: Has no paramedics skills, but is a keen gadgeteer. Could possibly save the guys life by cobbling together some robotic artificial organs and such. Whether he lives or dies, Monkey Wrench will inform his team, and look into seeing whether psionic influence was used on the victim.

We've seen them in the books and on the board. Suggestions on how to use various NPC's to provide scenarios and adventure-fodder for your game.

How about this time letting our PC's get into the act? We've seen a number of them in action on the various WWYCD threads. Now on this thread we can see how they could be used if they were NPC's in someone else's game.

So, in the tradition of from little plot seeds, mighty games do grow: Share you ideas! post plot seeds for your characters. And optionally, you could also give permission for others post plot seeds using your characters as well if you wouldn't mind.

Re: WWYCD?: Such Bad Sports...

Warp: Will be making wisecracks about their sports motiffs while using Involuntary Spatial Displacement, Defensive Gates, and other powers to disorient them and let them take each other out.

Monkey Wrench: Intercepts the Coach's signal, overrides it, and uses a voice modulator to issue his own commands in the Coach's voice, playing merry havoc with them while he and his team mates wipe the floor with them.

Re: WWYCD: A Devil No More?

Warp: "Ok, so you're not a demon now. Doesn't change the fact that you caused a lot of trouble and endangered a lot of people."

*Spatial Distortion Trap*

"This we'll keep you from leaving while the team figures out what to do with you."

Monkey Wrench: "I'm a scientist! I don't do magic! Scathach, can you come over here and figure out what the hell is going on with Russel? And I mean that litteraly!"

Re: WWYCD: Hostages for the Holidays

Warp: Gets his cloaking device, teleports in invisible, and then teleports the villain outside to the cops. Hostage crisis solved.

Monkey Wrench: A reformed supervillain who's worked with a lot of people in his former career, there's a good chance he knows this guy.

"Hey, long time, no see! What's it been? Three years now? That job in Denver. Man, that was a time! Sorry to hear about your parents. Really sad, especially at this time of year. Look, I'm going to level with you. You know I'm with the Law now. I can't let you just walk off scott free. But, if you surrender to me, I can take you into custody and take you back to the base. Got a nice dinner waiting back there, turkey, stuffing, and all the trimmings. We can eat, have a few drinks, sing a few carols, and talk about old times, have a nice little holiday before you go to the pokey. And I'll use what pull I've got to get you as lenient a sentence as possible for being so cooperative. So come on, be a pal and let's leave these people be and go have oursevles nice little Christmas, ok?"

Re: WWYCD: They Walk Through Walls?

Warp: The next time they show up he'd teleport directly to the scene. His psi-blocker plus ego should protect him from any Fear Aura they might be prejecting, and he'd entrap them in a Spatial Distortion Trap that their ability to phase would not be able to help them against (Affects Desolid), that would keep them returning to the same point until they could figure out how to find the path out (Based on Int). They better have not killed anyone before Warp got there, or he might become enraged and start teleporting off parts of their anatomy.

Monkey Wrench: Being a reformed supervillain, he would know you can't just steal that much money and just spend the cash directly. You need to laundry it. He'd use his knowledge of The Criminal World and his brilliant mind and gadgets to figure out who they're probably doing business with, track them down through that party, and then ambush them (maybe with a couple of his team mates tagging along), blasting them with phase-modulated weapons rendering their phasing useless while insulting their competence as bank robbers and supervillains, critiquing their methods as not only needlessly bloodthirsty, but sloppy, unprofessional, and just plain stupid as well. Deep hurting and humiliation will be their lot.

Just A Suggestion

You might want to post an HTML version of the characters so those out there without Hero Designer can see them too.

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

I don't think prison terms of anything less than life would be workable if you're going to keep the program a secret. Eventually, someone's sentence would run out, they'd be let loose, and talk.

 

You'd have to resort to permanent incarceration (and if they keep getting out of Stronghold or equivalent, interesting to see how you could do this anyways), killing them, or sending them somewhere...else (Phantom Zone, other dimension, etc.). Given supervillain's tendencies to eventually find ways out of strange places, I think that killing/atomizing them is the only real option. As permanent as *that* is in a supers world...

 

If in the CU, perhaps a possibility would be a deal with Issthvawhatsername. She's looking for talent, right? Agree to hand over Earth's worst troublemakers to her for whatever kind of brainwashing and indoctrination she wants to give them for her to use them in her conquest of other worlds. In exchange, she keeps leaving Earth alone.

Re: rarity of unusual defenses

Well... despite the fact that that we are all 800+ point JLA-level heroes, less than half of our members have any real Mental Defense. Only two of us have even as much as 10 points of Power Defense, either... and only /one/ of us has any great amount of either. Life Supports are more common.

 

However, the /only/ member of ours to combine Power Defense, Mental Defense, /and/ Total Life Support is our Superman-style brick -- whose specific concept is that he's invulnerable to damn near anything.

 

The other Mental Defense is on our mentalist. (My own character, Starguard, has Invisibility to Mental Sense Group -- she's impossible to mind-read -- but is wide-open on everything else except straightforward Force Field and Life Support. And this despite a concept that would gladly support any combo of exotic defenses imaginable.)

And he will pick up some other exotic defenses later on when forced to adapt to the proper stimuli.

Some minor corrections

Warp -- gets along with /his/ father (Franklin Stone of Advanced Concepts Industries) about as well as Cyrande gets along with hers. His mother died in the Battle of Detroit. His uncle Steven Barlowe' date=' his mother's brother, is his former legal guardian and trusted advisor. Uncle Steve is a DNPC, his father is a Contact.[/quote']

Actually, Uncle Steve wasn't Warp's legal guardian, just the executor of his mother's will and estate, who basically kept Warp's inheritance in trust until he was eighteen and kept it out of his father's hands. He's also not a DNPC but a Contact instead.

 

Oh, and not only is Warp's father a Contact, but he's a Hunted (Watching Only) as well.

Re: WWYCD:Nightmares of Past Futures

Well... anything like that has one flaw: Things can go wrong. One traumatic incident ten years from now and she disappears and begins building her power...

That said...

Warp: Joins with his fellow Sentinels in trying to mentor the girl away from the course that leads to her becoming a dictator. Maybe get her interested in something with little conquering potential such as comic book writing.

Meanwhile, as Daniel Stone, builds his politcal influence and contacts to the point he can totally trash her political career and any cause she espouses, in case the mentoring attempt does not work out.

Either way, she's prevented from rising to power without killing her.

Spectrum: Uses his heroic stature and charisma along with that of the rest of his team to influence her away from the attitudes that would make her a dictator.

Mystic: Magical "coincidences" steer her away from the events and people that would make her become a dictator, and onto a path where she would live a happy but uneventful life.

No elaborate scenario here. Just asking what your characters are doing for Thanksgiving (assuming the characters are from an appropriate setting for Thanksgiving).

So, are they spending time with their family? Participating in the Macy's parade? Having dinner with the rest of the team? Going home alone? Just patrolling the streets or manning the monitors like a normal day?

What are they doing on Thanksgiving Day?