Koshka

Re: Consequences ... Reliability will be the big issue here. I think Houdini is dead by this point, but there's plenty of other big-name stage magicians who could demonstrate "how to fake telepathy" to a court. Heck, I can toss in The Great Merlini (fictional, but written by a trained stage magician) as well, he challenged spirit mediums in some of his stories. I'm guessing I would have to prove Telepathy exists (or at least convince the government that it exists) in order to let the government enact laws against it. This might make for some interesting RP -- if Madame Mystique proves Telepathy is real, she won't be able to use it as freely because she could be sued for Mental Invasion.

Re: Consequences ... Thing is, there weren't any innocent lives or innocent anything else at stake. The heroes had already won. I would have been happier with the action if, say, the heroes needed to find out where the scientists were being held. Sigged

Re: Pulp Reading From this week's update: Sounds tempting, got a title/author for us?

In last night's Golden Age Champs game, the PCs defeated one of the mysterious Lord Raven's* generals, captured several of his soldiers and the prototype Weather Controller, and rescued the kidnapped scientists who had been forced to work on improving the prototype. All fine and dandy ... and then the mystic's player (who is more used to Iron Age games) announces that since there aren't any laws regarding telepathy yet, she's going to rip through the general's mind and grab all the information she can. Despite having a mind-linked teammate ask all the questions for her, thus pulling the appropriate thoughts to his surface mind and making it much easier to use telepathy, she refused (twice) to try to conceal what she was doing. Granted, she's got Incantations on that spell, and the verse she came up with is almost guaranteed to creep normals out, but she could have left him thinking the spell failed for heaven's sake! As is, everyone who was present knows Madame Mystique cast a spell on the general to get information, and the general knows and will tell anyone who will listen that the spell let her rifle through his brain. AFAIK, while the police could get away with coercing a confession in this time period, civilians could not -- and the group isn't sanctioned. I told the group back when this campaign started that while I had no interest in running a WWII Iron Age game, their actions would have consequences in the game world. My question for the group is what sort of consequences would fit here? ____ *I'm modifying the RAVEN organization from Super-Agents -- it's still a bit too early in game time to use Nazis on a 17- roll.

Re: Has anyone ever had... I was asked to run the first scenario from Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth as a one-shot once. I presented them with the mysterious postcard that was supposed to get them interested in the dude ranch, and the guy playing the party leader basically said "we don't have any reason to investigate this, so we won't". Oh, yes, the team leader's player was the guy who wanted me to run this. I should have just cancelled the game. Instead, I got some help from another player to toss choke chains around the "heroes" necks and drag them into the adventure. (The same player told off the team leader's player after the game as well.) That whole mess wasted an hour of game time, though.

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

Re: Could your Champions character beat... (using Trebuchet's writeup here) Falcon: 250 point gadgeteer/MA. Yeah, right. About her only chance would be if she hands out knockout gas grenades to all her teammates and gets everyone to coordinate a surprise attack on Cap. Of course, she's a golden age character, which means if she's fighting Captain America it's really a plan they came up with to trick a Nazi villain into thinking one of them is a mind-controlled dupe. The real "fight" between them would be keeping track of how many Nazi agents each of them takes out when they charge side by side into the mastermind's base; unless Falcon's rolling hot Cap will probably win this one, but it'll be a close contest. (Falcon will host the celebration afterwards, she's got more money than Cap.)

Re: Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich Review

Re: Teen Champions to critique I got to thinking over dinner ... and given that high school is a little early to concentrate that much on a single topic, what would everyone think about changing the Everyman PS 11- into two PS/KS/SS at 8- each? It should be balanced, it's the same point-equivalent as the "official" 11- skill.

Re: Teen Champions to critique The Everyman Skill list in 5ER includes a PS at 11- for the character's job/hobby. Swapping it out for a science skill at the same roll seemed fair to me.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... In last night's D&D game, we were trying to solve a murder mystery. Not that we have any real ability at this, but since one PC's boyfriend was framed for the murder we've got a certain amount of incentive. The party's ranger just took a level of some prestige class that's giving her a wolf's sense of smell, so she was sniffing around the murder scene to see how many people were there. She made her roll well enough to get a rundown from the GM, then the player asked about checking the scents of everyone else in the house. The GM pointed out that not only would the ranger have to get very close to those people to check their scents, but that the best places to check for scents would be armpits and crotch/rears. The ranger's player then asked the druid if she would change shape into a wolf and check the scents herself. The druid's player immediately stated "I don't want to sniff your butts, and you're my friends."

HyperdriveHyperdrivePlayer: Val** Char*** Cost 10** STR 0 23** DEX 39 13** CON 6 12** BODY 4 13** INT 3 10** EGO 0 13** PRE 3 12** COM 1 * 4/12** PD 2 5/13** ED 2 4/8** SPD 7 8** REC 6 56** END 15 24** STUN 0 *25"**RUN02"**SWIM02"**LEAP0Characteristics Cost: 88Cost** Power END 27** Hyperdrive: +4 SPD; Costs Endurance (-1/2)* 4 38** Hyper-Running: Running +19" (25" total)* 4 19** Armored Costume: Armor (8 PD/8 ED); OIHID (-1/4)* 0 Powers Cost: 84Cost** Skill 9** +3 with Move-By and Move-Through* 3** Breakfall 14-* 3** Paramedics 12-* 3** Sleight Of Hand 14-* 3** Tactics 12-* ** Everyman Skills* 0** 1) Acting 8-* 0** 2) Climbing 8-* 0** 3) Concealment 8-* 0** 4) Conversation 8-* 0** 5) Deduction 8-* 0** 6) Language: English (native)* 0** 7) Persuasion 8-* 0** 8) PS: Computer Use 11-* 0** 9) SS: Chemistry 11-* 0** 10) Shadowing 8-* 0** 11) Stealth 8-* 0** 12) TF: Small Motorized Ground Vehicles* 0** 13) AK: Home country or region 8-* Skills Cost: 21Cost** Talent 3** Lightning Calculator* 4** Speed Reading (x10)* Talents Cost: 7Val** Disadvantages 15** Social Limitation: Secret Identity (Frequently, Major)* 5** Social Limitation: Minor (14 years old) (Occasionally, Minor)* 20** Psychological Limitation: Code Versus Killing (Common, Total)* 10** Psychological Limitation: Showoff (Common, Moderate)* 20** Vulnerability: 2 x Effect from drugs/poisons/toxins (Common)* 5** Hunted: Ravenswood Academy 8- (Mo Pow, Watching)* Disadvantage Points: 75Base Points: 125Experience Required: 0Total Experience Available: 0Experience Unspent: 0Total Character Cost: 200 Height: 1.65 m Hair: Reddish Brown Weight: 51.00 kg Eyes: Gray Appearance: Personality: Mark, who chose the codename Hyperdrive shortly after he arrived at Ravenswood Academy, is a generally happy teen. He's adjusted well to both his powers and the radical change in schools (public school to private academy in another state). It says a lot for Mark that he doesn't blame his family or his original doctor for his misdiagnosis and the resulting months of health problems. However, his experiences with (accidental) drug overdoses mean Mark is the first one to volunteer if a Ravenswood teacher needs help putting up anti-drug posters or working on the local anti-drug programs. Quote:Background: It's unusual for a child to show no signs of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder until he turns 12, but not unheard of. When Mark Ruden started getting restless in school, the family doctor ran down the standard checklist. Mark matched enough of the criteria, and the doctor diagnosed him with late onset ADHD. Most of the next year was a blur to Mark.. For some reason, even specialists couldn't get his medications calibrated properly. Despite triple-checking every factor they could think of, dosages that shouldn't have had any effect on him were borderline-overdose. Finally, after the third time Mark wound up in the emergency room from a medication change, one of the on-call doctors pulled a few strings. Doctor Silverback flew into town the next day, and within another day he had confirmed that Mark's problem wasn't ADHD, but the onset of superpowers. Dr. Silverback got Mark a referral to Ravenswood Academy, and his family transferred him immediately. Powers/Tactics: Hyperdrive, when he gains full control of his powers, may be one of the fastest speedsters around. At the current time, though, using his "hyper-drive" powers tires him out easily. In combat, he concentrates on Move-By and Move-Through attacks. He also favors the "dash in and grab the innocent who's about to get creamed" maneuver. He hasn't yet developed any speedster tricks, but is developing a good tactical sense; largely because if he doesn't use his powers efficiently, he'll be gasping for END while his opponent is still going strong. Campaign Use:

I'm running a Teen Champions game at GenCon this year. To make it more of a "intro to Hero", I'm writing all the pregens using only Sidekick. (And HD, of course -- but it's set to run strictly Sidekick.) Here's the first pregen, more to follow as I get them done.

Re: GenCon Indy?

"The sleek, superpowered Black Beauty; streamlined car of the Green Hornet!" This writeup is based off the movie serials ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031394/ and http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032559/ ). The Black Beauty Val Char Cost 4 SIZE 20 30 STR 0 20 DEX 30 14 BODY 0 12 DEF 30 4 SPD 10 Characteristics Cost: 90 Cost Power 24 Motorized Wheeled Super-Speedster: Ground Movement +30" (36" total), x4 Noncombat; OAF Bulky (standard tires; -1 1/2), Only On Appropriate Terrain (smooth surfaces; -1/4) -2 Ground Vehicle: -2" Swimming 15 "Silence The Motor, Kato": Invisible to Hearing Group (+1/4); Nonpersistent (must be turned on [always off when car started]; -1/4) for up to 77 Active Points of Ground Movement 3 Wheel Well Armor: +4 DEF; Partial Coverage (covers 1 Hexes; tires only; -2), Activation Roll 11- (-1) 8 Superb Handling: +4 with Ground Movement Powers Cost: 48 Total Character Cost: 138 Pts. Disadvantage 25 Distinctive Features: "That's the car of the Green Hornet!" (Not Concealable; Extreme Reaction; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses) --------------- Notes: In the first episode, Kato comments that when he tested the Black Beauty, it did "better than 200". I'm assuming Kato was going noncombat for that testdrive, but it should be impressively fast at combat speeds as well, which is why I didn't just keep loading on noncombat multiples. If my math is correct, as written the Black Beauty would be able to do around 215 MPH. If the handling levels seem a bit high, the car can outrace a train in the middle of a heavy downpour. Yeah, Kato's probably got a 14- Combat Driving roll, but still .... The car isn't actually identified as bulletproof until the second serial, but I went ahead and figured it in on the grounds that it never seems to get banged up in the first serial. The main "power" of the Black Beauty was its ability to outrun anything on the road. I've got one radio episode that refers to a smokescreen generator built into the car, but without some more evidence that it was used I didn't want to add it in.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... One-shot game last night, and we were digging through the minis/shrinky-dink figures to see if we could come close to what the characters were. We'd given one of the guys a dwarf figure, then the woman playing the halfling decided she should have a shorter figure than the rest of us. She passed her figure (a bikini-clad superheroine) over to him to replace the dwarf, with the comment "Here, Rodney, you can have breasts for one night."

Re: Pirate-Theme Villains Needed You're welcome to anything I've brought up, Libra. I'm hoping to have time next week to bring my 5ER to work and start statting up a few of these. (One advantage to a theme team is that they can always recruit someone else -- I don't have to have everyone done at once .)

Re: Building John Carter of Mars +10 points to add the Alien class ... but actually, once Carter and Dejah Thoris got together, could Dejah ever communicate telepathically with Carter? If no, then we would be talking Mental Defense, probably Always On. Either that or Invisibility to the Mental Sense Group, SFX "there's something here, but I can't get through". (Still pricy, but probably not as bad as enough MD to keep members of a naturally telepathic race out of his skull.)

Re: Building John Carter of Mars It's been a while since I read the books, how much of that is Mental Defense and how much is Humans and Martians being different classes of minds?

Re: I Give Up!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Pirate-Theme Villains Needed

Re: I Give Up!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry about the thread necromancy, but I was just looking up Side Effect for something else ... and this isn't gonna work. 5ER, page 308: (boldface mine) He can trash the battlemap all he wants, but he won't do anything to his opponents except annoy them.

Re: Ten Best Superhero Martial Arts Stupid question incoming: is this a comic, or a RPG supplement, or something else? It sounds interesting, I just want to know where to look .

Re: Pirate-Theme Villains Needed Lots of good ideas here, thanks everyone One of my PCs has Mind Control, and is convinced it's completely useless at a 45 point cap -- mind you, so far every single time she's used it she's deliberately tried to override Strong Psych Lims . I may have to do Press Gang just to show her how to use the power. Supreme Serpent, you're right, it's a more lighthearted game. It's early 1939, but I could probably bump development of the Corsair up a bit. Jolly Roger might make a better name for the team leader anyway. Given that the player who spent the entire "War Of The Worlds" invasion arc trying to steal a Martian Tripod (from either the Martians or the US government, he didn't care) left due to time conflicts, it should be safe to give most of the pirates a magic item to allow water breathing and improved swimming. "Mermaid" just doesn't cut it as a pirate name, IMO.

Re: PULP HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See? The old Champions II "Mastermind" rule doesn't really fit, but something on how the Evil Mastermind/Mad Scientist gets his weird science goodies would be useful. A mind control ray that will cover all of Campaign City isn't normal tech by any stretch of the imagination, so he can't use cash; but if he's got to come up with enough XP to pay for the thing he'll be 98 years old by the time he can finally start his Evil Master Plan and probably die of a heart attack when the heroes charge in. (These rules could then be used for PCs whose players want to stick Art Deco ornaments on everything in Gadgets And Gear and use them in your Pulp game. I'm certain I'm not the only one who has run into that type of player.)