Captain Liberty

Re: league of extraordinary PULP HEROs Actually, they are Doc's Super Six (six players in the group). And at this point I have no idea who they are because I haven't even briefed them on the game. We are in the midst of a Fantasy Hero campaign at the moment that will probably go on for a few more months. More time for me to prepare.

Re: league of extraordinary PULP HEROs In 1912, Jim Thorpe was the sensation of the Olympic games, winning both the pentathalon and decathalon and three individual events. But in 1913 it was revealed that he has played semi-pro baseball as a youngster and he was stripped of his medals. Many believe that his being a Sac and Fox Indian may have contributed to the zeal in which the Olympic Committee took away his medals. Whatever that case, when the 1920 Olympic Committee was confronted by an equally gifted Navaho athelete named Bartholomew Techumseh Manyshadows from the Navaho tribe, they were quick to pounce on the fact that he had fought four semi-pro boxing matches to disqualify him at the Olympic trials. Batholomew, disappointed, went back to Harvard, where he graduated with a PhD in physics and an MS in Engineering. For a gifted athelete with a PhD, there was only one obvious career, adventuring. Several patents made him rich. He acquired the heroic nickname of "Doc" Amerind, and used his scientific expertise and ready fists to assemble a group of similarly gifted adventurers to fight evil wherever they could find it. "Doc" has the build of a Middleweight fighter, though expanded to Heavyweight proportions. His bronze skin is smooth with very few blemishes. He wears his coal black shoulder-length hair in a traditional navaho style of braids or sometimes loose with a headband, and generally wears American Western garb with a distinct Indian approach. He is well-spoken, with a trace of Harvard accent. He often indulges in stereotypical Amerindian phrases such as "many moons ago," and "In his wigwam, my grandfather had many scalps of enemies like you." This often sets up a quote from Shakespeare or the Bible. He is a top pilot, in superb shape, and a crack shot with several different weapons, including the bow and the machine pistol. He always carries an elaborately decorated Bowie knife, though he has never used it in combat (to anyone's knowledge). "Doc" is the lead NPC of a pulp game I am slowly assembling that will actually be centered on his followers.

Re: league of extraordinary PULP HEROs Our own Darren ran the Pulp All-Stars game at several conventions about four years ago. The lineup included Doc Savage The Shadow Tarzan Mandrake the Magician Indiana Jones (for players who have no idea who the others are) Nancy Drew (whose adventures actually started in the early 30s and she was a gun-toting daredevil as well as a first rate detective) The Saint (Simon Templar) who people also tend to forget was originally a pulp hero. At DunDraCon I got to play The Saint and put as much into it as I could, as the actress said to the bishop. It was a lot of fun. We had an ideal Doc Savage, a well-done Tarzan, a Shadow who didn't have much flare as a player but had the attitude and motifs of the character down pat. The Saint is an old favorite of mine, so I had a great time.

Re: What is 'Animated Style Write-ups'? Animated Style simply means the writeup is based on the character as it appeared on TV or DVD, rather than from the comic books. Sometimes this is not much difference at all, sometimes there is a distinct difference.

Re: Thou Shalt Not Speak Its Name You mean, of course, an entirely serious CIA team.

Re: Songs that inspire(d) you to make a Champions Character I put together an entire super team called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Gang (which tells you when I was listening to rock...) Sponsored by "The Fool On the Hill" Headquartered in "Strawberry Fields" Members included: Maxwell, who was actually the silver hammer. It is a cursed object that attracts punks who pick it up and are very nasty killers until finally put away. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds: Tripped out LSD-head with an extensive multipower that she accesses at random. Blackbird: Sonics using flyer who only operates "At the Dead of Night" Nowhere Man: Everyone's favorite invisible assassin Eleanor Rigby: Often the most effective member of the team, because "no one knows she is there." Rocky Racoon: used only for the name, your basic feral hand-to-hand type Norweigian Woods: Golf-club using energy projector I'm Getting Better: absorbing brick who gets better as he is pounded on And so forth

Re: Foxbat....Where have I used him? A few years back I was running an ISIS campaign. One of the PCs was a young light manipulator who was part of the group as work furlough/community service. Seems she had a weakness for glittery objects. In this world, Batman existed in the Golden and Silver Ages, but retired in the 60s and his successor (Dick Grayson) was killed in action in the early 80s. Since then, Huntress (Helena Wayne) and Nightwing (Bruce Grayson) have guarded the Batman legacy and there has not been another Batman. Foxbat decided that (1) Radiance was his sidekick, or maybe girlfriend, or maybe both and (2) the way to best impress her was to be the ultimate super hero, Batman. So Foxbat became Batman. He was surprisingly effective, merging both Freddy and Batman into a super-suave man of the world impressing the impressionable young super heroine. He "flew the bat" for several arcs until he received an off-screen visit from Huntress and Nightwing and went back to being Foxbat.

Re: WWYCD: The Seven Deadlies Chastity includes being faithful to a spouse/lover.

Re: Old "butt" Champions Mini's I'm unfamiliar with Heroscape. What are the non-Marvel figures like? Are they superhero-oriented, or more fantasy? Or what?

Re: Old "butt" Champions Mini's I will concede that there are differences between Hero and HeroClix. I will also concede that players might play both. I will point out that a gamer might, at some point, have to make a choice whether he will follow the Clix or the Champs, if only financially. Both are games; both take up gaming time and money. Both fill the superhero gaming niche, though each in different ways. They are competitors. Lord knows I hope I am wrong. I would love to have me some Champsclix. But I don't think it is likely to happen, especially considering the fact that Hero would have to put out money they might not get back.

Re: Old "butt" Champions Mini's Why would HeroClix support another superhero game? Clix are competitors to Hero. A license with a comic book publisher makes sense for HeroClix. But Hero is another game company. And miniatures manufacturers in general are in the business to have the publishers pay them for the privilege of having their creations immortalized in pewter or plastic. Steve and Darren would not be giving the license to a manufacturer. They would be paying a manufacturer to provide miniatures to support their game.

Re: Old "butt" Champions Mini's Someone needs to want to do miniatures. To have miniatures done on command, Hero would have to have its own miniatures company. Not in the budget, as I understand what's going on. I imagine various figure makers are assuming that there isn't enough market for Champions figs. Besides, you can always kitbash HeroClix...

Re: Old "butt" Champions Mini's That's the aforementioned "Aluminum Man."

Re: Old "butt" Champions Mini's The armored figure was never originally named. He was a random illustration Mark Williams did for one of the original Champions books. Later, Steve Peterson did a version of the character he called Aluminum Man. I used the miniature for a late 1930s character, painted garish early age of plastic appliances colors, calling him Plastics Man - the Hero of Plastics. Others in the hero box include Flare, Icestar, Marksman, Gargoyle, Dove, the aforementioned Aluminum Man, the platinum blonde wearing pretty much nothing from one of the original Champions covers, Crusader, and maybe a couple of others.

Re: The Super Darwin Awards Some time back, during the early days of RuneQuest, a bunch of the players at the regular Chaosium game decided to put together a beast team. It was, and is, fairly easy to play non-human, beast-oriented, characters in RuneQuest. So they had a Baboon (from the intelligent baboon tribe), a newtling, a duck, a morokanth (intelligent animal that herds humans), and some others. A mutual friend heard about the game and decided that this was for him. His main role playing experience was with Arduin Grimoire, where any race can be just about anything. He looks at a copy of RuneQuest and sees the Scorpion Men (totally Chaos-oriented - which most animals are not). So he makes up a Scorpion-man and the character approaches the other beast men saying "Hey guys, I want to join up." Probably the last words spoken by that character. In Glorantha, people take things like Chaos very seriously.