Koshka

Re: Tentative 2006 Schedule I seem to recall a comment in one of the "what's coming up" threads to the effect that Hero would probably get someone else to write this. Do you happen to recall an author for it? (I'm hoping for Ken Hite.) As far as the rest of the list goes, I'm really looking forward to Thrilling Places and Golden Age Champions, but there's a lot there that I'll probably end up buying.

Re: Pregnancy and combat I've never been pregnant, so Edsel and I are in the same boat as far as frame of reference goes. I wouldn't do anything to ranged OCV. There were plenty of overweight kids in my JROTC class who could still shoot effectively in the prone position, a "baby on board" (as it were) would be no more interference. Hand to hand OCV ... my first question for the player, to be honest, would be "where are you getting maternity armor?" Is she superpowered, or a normal? Superpowers such as a Force Field would "adjust", heroic-level body armors aren't going to fit well. (I would have said "at all", but I just remembered that the Army could find a bulletproof vest that fit Rikishi one of the times the WWE sent a group of wrestlers over to Iraq. If you're not familiar with pro wrestling, Rikishi's build is closer to sumo.) I'd still allow Dive for Cover; since you say she's athletic she should be able to roll away instead of belly-flopping. I would, however, limit the dive since she's having to be careful. Maybe -2 per inch, instead of -1. DEX adjustments ... it really depends on the skill. A DEX-based "PS: Play Violin" shouldn't be bothered at all, Acrobatics will be seriously affected. You may need to break down the skill list by whether it calls for precise small-muscle control (not affected by pregnancy unless she goes into labor in the middle of performing the skill) or involves the whole body (I'd probably go with a -2).

Re: Hudson City Sightings I've got an almost-sighting in Omaha -- I walked into The Game Shoppe today after lunch and the manager called out to me that they'd already sold all of their copies of "the latest Hero book". The're going to hold a copy for me from the second order, due in Friday

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence I'd probably go a little stronger (0 DCV concentration to stand), but then a friend of mine has severe Meniere's Disease and I've seen her fall because she can't feel herself tipping over lots of times.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... The session before last, we polished off a major story arc, so last session had a lot of bookkeeping and "what to spend XP on". One player wondered if they would be penalized for not spending all their XP right away. I said no, they could save some up if they wanted. Another player immediately asked "Do we get interest on them?"

Re: Adult themes in gaming, a rant of sorts Repped. I am a female gamer, and I can say I haven't had anyone rape my character in game -- but that's because I'm selective about who I play with. If my current GM developed temporary insanity and tried that, his wife would take him apart, and I'm not entirely certain it would just be verbally. As far as the other players go, anyone who tried an inter-party rape would no longer be part of the group. On the other hand, when I joined my first RPG (1st edition AD&D), the GM's city guards immediately became obsessed with doing strip searches .... That game might have gotten icky; the GM's buddies tended to look on the rest of the party as walking XP/treasure reserves to be killed as needed, but had they been into more sexual forms of dominance, who knows? I left before I could have found out (and am just as glad).

Re: Pulp Hero If you're sticking with the more "realistic" serials, such as The Green Hornet or (so far, I haven't finished watching it yet) Phantom Empire, 75/75 should be plenty of points. Personally, I like building 100 base/50 disad -- but that's because several of the disads really don't apply to regular people.

Re: Crisis of Infinite Boredom The closest I've come to this as a player was once in a chatroom game when the GM hadn't given us enough clues to figure out what was going on. After I got bored with the constant rehashing, I declared that my brick Samson was doing macrame with the fire irons. As a GM, I don't think I've ever done something like this, but it might be interesting.

Re: Money is no object... Unless he's had lots of time to practice with the flight, I'd have him get the best portable GPS unit he can find. Being able to fly 100 MPH is nice, being able to find the place you're flying to without having to land every 10 minutes and read road signs is better . A heads-up display on his goggles would be nice, but might be iffy on the "real-world" and "legal" factors -- I'm not sure, but would suspect that sort of setup would be military-tech instead of Sharper Image.

Re: PREDATORS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: Flash vs Touch In addition, if this happens during a fight, the character will have no idea how badly he was hit (or possibly if he was hit at all) unless he spends a phase or two checking himself over.

Re: A Golden Age Bulldozer? Thanks for all the help, everyone

Next game session should wrap up the "Martian" invasion of 1938. I'm expecting lots of alien-property damage -- not only does the team include two bricks, but I'm letting the players run the tank unit that's coming in from the other direction as well. (I figure having to fight off an invasion force should have some impact on US military tactics, and this is the fairest way I can think of to determine what changes the Army will go into WWII with.) It occured to me on the way home that, as always assuming the PCs win, I've got the perfect setup to create Bulldozer. Someone's got to clean up the fight scene, after all. First off, can I keep the name? I know many of the pictures from the Depression show crews of men with shovels on construction sites, but CCC projects were designed to put lots of people to work. And I'm pretty sure all the players have seen Mystery Men, so calling him "Shovel" is asking for a jokefest . Second, he's going to need a trim -- I like having him be weaker than the PCs, and this is a 250 starting point campaign. I'll be dropping his STR to 35 or 40, but any other ideas? Third, IIRC pro wrestling wasn't around in 1938. Is this correct?

Re: Hypothetical Axis Amerika 2005

Re: Hypothetical Axis Amerika 2005 This last one could be argued. I've seen references to Nazi propaganda aimed at American Indians calling them Aryan (or "carriers of Aryan culture"). What I haven't seen is how much of that was the propaganda teams trying to pull a divide and conquer and how much some Nazi actually believed. And were the Catholics and blacks killed because they were Catholic or black, or for some other reason? I know Hitler was trying to keep the Pope on his side (or at least not actively on the other side).

Re: Hypothetical Axis Amerika 2005 And is in the perfect position to host a panzer army waiting to sweep down on the central US. Assume the Battle of Britain/Operation Sealion was a sweep for the Nazis (and if they're pulling off world conquest, it probably was), Churchill dead, a puppet monarch* and Prime Minister in place. In a realistic world, it would take a little time to get the British military working with the German, but this is a superhero world -- use "super-brainwashing", or just get them into the habit by bringing them into the front lines of Barbarossa. Even if the commonwealth countries split from Great Britain after Sealion, an Anglo-German alliance would be in a much better position to kick the world around. ------ *There's plenty of stories about the Nazis bringing the Duke of Windsor back to the throne, but whether the British would have accepted him is a different question. However, Princess Margaret was only 9. If she'd been "rescued" by German troops during the invasion, they could have stuck her on the throne with a full complement of Nazi regents and spent the next several years brainwashing her to be a good little Aryan maiden and marry whoever Hitler wanted to control Britain.

Re: The Champions Do they suck? I always read it as Ironclad's experiences turning him off killing, and his player taking advantage of the move to Earth to ask the GM about trading in his Subject To Orders for a CvK. Just me, though.

Re: The Champions Do they suck? Katherine, have you been talking with one of my players? I happen to like the Champions, but whenever I'm running a convention game playtest with them I can count on at least one of the people at the table spending half his time complaining about how "badly built" (translation: not munchkined out) they are. Personally, since they're example characters, I'm just as glad they're not munchkin wet dreams. I would have changed a few things had I been writing them, but overall they're good examples of character creation. (I've got a one-shot villain game on the back burner; two of my players will probably be taking their dog in to be put to sleep within the next month, and if it happens close to our game day they may want a "stress-relief" session instead of our regularly scheduled storyline. It is so tempting to send them against the Champions and show that the heroes can accomplish something if the person running them quits griping and plays. But neither of them is the one I was talking about above, and it would be mean.)

Re: Let's Talk CvK I was thinking a Social Limitation myself, but Reputation might work better. The character is female (that player always cross-genders), so it's not like she could be considered a draft dodger .... Given that Cap knew beyond any doubt that Baron Blood was a real vampire, I'm certain that's what let him do it. And after watching the Mythbusters holiday special the other day, I'm thinking the "don't barf" look on his face might have been as much from the aroma of decay as anything else. We'd never seen the full "Stinky Car" test, but the clips in that special almost had my friend heaving.

Re: Let's Talk CvK Go offline for a day and a half while my brother installs my CD-RW drive, and the boards take off

Re: Let's Talk CvK I once ran a vigilante with this sort of attitude. However, she didn't have a CvK. What she had was a Code Of Honor that wouldn't let her escalate force over what her opponent was using. So, go after Steel Demon hand-to-hand and she would just beat you up with Kung Fu. Pull a weapon on her, and she'd draw on you. If that meant you wound up dead, you should have known better than to draw in the first place.

Re: Let's Talk CvK I wasn't in the game where he got his introduction to Champions, but I've heard it described as "Cthulhupunk: The Masquerade" run with the 4th edition Dark Champions book. Apparently, literally every NPC the players encountered was 1) built on at least as many points as them and 2) out to kill them. I suspect he's thinking of CvK as "Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder" -- and in the courts, self defense isn't murder. If I have trouble with him (and I don't expect to* ), I've also seen a reference to a commando unit in WWII where all the stretcher bearers were pacifists. Between them and Gandhi, I should be set. _____ *While we didn't know each other then, it seems we were in the same high school. The last time he got his old yearbooks out, he discovered I was on the honor roll. It may be a really low-level Reputation bonus, but I'm certainly going to use it .

Yes, I know we've had other threads on this topic. One of my players gave me a really bizarre interpretation, and I'm wondering if anyone else has run across this one. I'm running a Golden Age Champions game. The player in question was talking with another player outside the game, and her reaction was "let's check this interpretation with the GM". This should be an accurate representation, even though I got most of it from the other player, because Player In Question was sitting right there -- and while he's getting a few points for his speech impediment, there's nothing wrong with his ears. 1) 20 points CvK means the character must actively oppose war by all means possible. 2) 20 points CvK means if the character's country goes to war, the character will not serve in the armed forces under any circumstances -- including noncombat roles. 3) 20 points CvK means if the character's country goes to war, the character will not take any job that will support the war in any way. It wasn't clear if this included appearing at the USO or not, but it definitely included working in a war industry in your secret ID, helping at War Bond rallies, or signing on with the government as Official US Heroes Protecting The Homefront. Now, this same Player In Question is the one who thinks 20 points CvK means you can kill all the bad guys you like . It's nice that he's willing to accept some limitation for his points, but this is ridiculous! Needless to say, the GM will not be using his custom interpretation of CvK. Is it just me, or has anyone else run across Bizarro-world interpretations? And Darren, is there room in the Golden Age Champions manuscript outline for a paragraph or two on CvK and war?

Re: Viperia/Champions matchup: Define Witchcraft's VPP Personally, I like using her Spell of Vitality as a default setting. In my (limited, usually I'm GMing a playtest with her as a PC) experience, she's too prone to running out of END otherwise. If she doesn't get that roll to know about Viperia's weakness until the fight is about to start, then she should be using her default. She needs her spellbooks to change the VPP, and I can't see Viperia agreeing to a 15 minute timeout while Witchcraft runs back to the V-Jet to get her backup tomes out of Storage Locker 84. If she gets the roll with enough time to set her VPP ... you know, if it weren't for that darn Underconfidence disad, there's a whole lot more she could do. (I know, I know, that's why she's getting points for the disad.) Since I don't think anyone is getting surprise, Images won't do much. I like it for surprise situations, though. Using her VPP to whip up a Spell Of Puissance (naked Armor Piercing advantage for one of her other spells) is a double GM's permission only, so I'm assuming that's out. However, she could "double up" -- load a Witchfire spell into her VPP and fire both that and the one from her MP at once for 15 dice. (Technically, her Witchfire is half END cost, but I think she'd get more benefit from +6 dice with normal END than +4 with half END.)

Re: Dark Galactic Champions Two assumptions coming up: 1) Replicators need to be "told" somehow what they're making. 2) Governments are taking advantage of assumption 1 to keep unauthorized people from whipping up dangerous items in their home replicators. Given those assumptions, why bother smuggling items when you can stroll through customs with a perfectly legal MP3(000) player that has instructions coded into Track 7 to make a kitchen replicator pump out ultramethamphetamine?