Captain Liberty

Re: Still another try at a superhero base

I have a base for you.... Here's the original thread:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32904&highlight=viore

 

 

The PDF is too large for this site, but I'd be happy to e-mail it to you for your perusal.

Could you send a copy of that to steve@perrinworlds.com?

Thanks,

Re: Your characters, favorite by Archetype

Brick - Hard to choose, but I will go with Manta, an aquatic brick I actually played as a GMPC in my Aberrant campaign. Essentially a water polo jock who got empowered in line with his enthusiasms. One of my favorite images was him "leaping" from swimming pool to swimming pool to get from one end of Los Angeles to another in a timely manner; as you might expect his major movement power was swimming.

Energy Projector - Energy Projection is generally a secondary ability of my characters. Probably the one that matches the archetype best is Anthem, who is energy thanks to a stay in a runaway nuclear reactor. Essentially absorbs all kinds of energy and dispenses all kinds of energy. Originally (as fan fiction long before RPGs) an attempt at Superman with an entirely different premise.

Gadgeteer - Not something I usually deal with. Probably my detective-chemist Doctor Darkness would be the closest thing to this archetype.

Martial Artist - In my usual way of mixing and matching archetypes, my favorite of this ilk is actually a mini-brick named Hardcase; he's a street kid with permanent growth and the ability to dense up and go desolid. His Martial art is street fighting. Second would probably be Lady Chi, a mercenary TKer who has to do martial arts katas to activate her telekinetic powers.

Mentalist - My first mentalist was Tele, another fan fiction character I turned into a Champions character. He's also another aquatic type (actually from the equivalent of Atlantis) mutated by atomic testing.

Metamorph - Rubber Baron, my M&M Plastic Man type formerly the Champions villain Rubber Robber, out on parole to be a hero to get time taken off his sentence in the Champions New Millenium world.

Mystic - Golden Angel, my gestalt (in Scott Bennie's campaign) of Heavenly Retribution.

Patriot/Avatar - Captain Liberty, my namesake for the message boards here. Equal elements of Captain America (acrobatics, shield) and Lancelot Strong, the Shield (adaptability to any environment, super strength) with a libertarian slant. Also the afore-mentioned Anthem.

Powered Armor - Psiborg, a mercenary mentalist who had major medical problems compensated for by a cybernetic suite of augmentations.

Speedster - Bullet, the pride of the Texas Titans. Originally an NPC in a campaign who became a PC when a player took him over, and then I've played in a few scenarios. Pretty straight forward.

Weapon Master - Justicar, a gun-wielding female vigilante in a world in which super powers are virtually unknown. Also Archer, a trick-arrow using "police consultant" in Steve Long's SVTF games.

Re: Ps238

Having said that, I have to say this is great news and I look forward to the book. I recently discovered PS238 and have been thinking about playing/GMing that kind of game. Actually, I don't think I am up to GMing such a game, it has been too many years. I would just end up GMing a game for short adult supers.

I wanna play Captain Clarinet!

Re: Ps238

To the Game Room!

For Justice!

Re: WWYCD: "I" in Team

Sent to this planet as a child? Did his parents hate him or something? They sent him to a place where the stuff to which he has a deadly allergy pretty much covers the planet...!

Turns out there were a number of reasons for him getting sent to Earth, all of which involved him otherwise being enslaved to a dominating race (think War of the Worlds Martians) and being his peoples' "last best hope" and like that. The allergy, while deadly, could be shaken off by his monumental constitution except in large concentrated amounts. Algal spores were not a problem, salads were right out. We had a biologist in the gaming group who passed on the concept.

The main idea, of course, was for him to have a "green" weakness.

Re: WWYCD: "I" in Team

Lessee. I'll just take a group consisting of characters I have played (often as GM PC) in various campaigns run and participated in since I moved to Southern California 12 years ago.

Golden Angel - Wings, sword, angel of vengeance attitude. Not a leader, but a front-line fighter.

American Avenger - Essentially a Telekinetic Superman, leader of his own team (appointed to the position rather than voted into it).

Plastics Man - A golden Age character from a lower-powered campaign. Essentially Tony Stark in bakelite. Doesn't like the limelight so he would defer to others. Lends an inventor-archtype to the mix.

Lash - Essentially Lash Larue, the whip-using cowboy star of the 30s and 40s who decided to use his abilities as an adventurer. Originally played by my friend Steve Henderson, but I used him on a few occasions in the Golden Age game I ran for several years. Strictly a pulp adventurer.

Jo-Tan - The sumo-wrestling brick from my VOICE of Doom scenario for Hero. He was a GM PC for a modern-day campaign set in St. Louis. Older and wiser, he acted as mentor for a group of young mutants.

Bronze Spectre - Essentially J'onn J'onzz before he became the Martian Manhunter, he masqueraded as a Negro (this was set in the early 1950s) ghost - though no one was particularly fooled, even when he casually walked through walls.

Redman - Red (really red)-skinned alien who was sent as a child to this planet and was raised by Apache Indians in the late 1800s. Adventured with a mixed group of adventurers in 1900 and 1901. Strong, tough, leaped medium-sized buildings with a running jump. Had a deadly allergy to chlorophyll.

Captain Liberty (you were waiting for him, right?) - actually only played once in this period in a test M&M game, though he is a long-played Champions and fan fiction character of mine from an earlier time. He would want to be leader and probably conflict mightily with American Avenger, who tends to follow the government line. Lib is a libertarian.

Rubber Baron - formerly a very flexible jewel thief known to the papers as the Rubber Robber, he took an offer to become a hero as an alternate for a long term in prison. Plastic Man grade stretcher and morpher.

Justicar - gun-toting female vigilante from a world in which super powers work, but only with great difficulty. Much like the world of Watchmen.

And that's about it, discounting a pulp hero with no super attributes, a heavy-planet galaxy's greatest detective, another pulpish hero who was the descendent of Solomon Kane, some space-going heroes, and other non-supers played along the way, including Brother Herbert, the 12th century Engrish (intentional spelling) monk I'll be playing in a Fantasy Hero game tonight.

The above heroes would probably work together fairly well. It's a bit top heavy in bricks - which I often use as GM PCs because they are simple to work with. Mentalism is taken care of by Bronze Spectre and Rubber Robber has the infiltration tasks covered. Probably a bit short on energy attacks, though Captain Liberty packs a thermal gun and Golden Angel's sword flames. American Avenger also projects a heat attack. And Plastics Man can rig up almost anything doable with 1940s technology.

Decidedly disproportionate number of females in the group, of course, but there has always been someone else playing the feminine side of the business. I think I may have played two female characters in the last 12 years, and only one, Justicar, was a super - and that only by courtesy.

Re: WWYCD:The Artifact

This is actually happening in my M&M campaign, based around the excellent scenario The Zodiac Ring.

The main problem is there is a powerful ghost-sorcerer whose existance depends on the ring (which cannot be destroyed) and all attempts to imprison him have failed in the long term. So they buried the ring on the Moon (where one team member has a base), and the ghost attacked them. They locked it away under a spell to foil the ability to find it, and the attack of a relatively unrelated foe broke the spell. They broke it in half unintentionally and attempted to take their half to Alpha Centauri. When they left Moon orbit the half disappeared and appeared where the bad guys could find it.

Currently one of the PCs and her super-powered (through the Ring) roommate keep it in their apartment refrigerator freezer compartment and just try to be alert. The PC's friends stay on call. Something must be done, and that particular plot thread is on its way.

Re: Hero Alliance Sourcebook?

The same people who did Hero Alliance also did another series that only lasted two issues. The basic idea was that the Mob had gotten organized and assassinated every hero around. The heads of the Eastern and Western mobs kept trophy rooms of the uniforms, as the bodies were stripped and dumped in dumpsters so no martyr cults could form. The story followed a small group of heroes who stole the costumes back and operated as all of their assassinated fellow heroes.

Of course, after showing a bunch of heroes getting killed, all of whom were the fairly standard WASP characters, the group of heroes who assemble include a black basketball player, about 7 feet tall. For some reason, the costumes fit him, and no one figured out that the former white heroes had been replaced by one overly tall black hero.

Lots of holes, but an interesting concept. The various ways the Mob managed to trap and kill the original heroes were interesting, too.

Re: Looking for Cthulhoid Monsters/races

Hey Steve' date=' I've got a Champions writeup of this somewhere in my hoard at home. I'll dig around for it when I get home tonight, and I'll post it if I can find it. (I moved recently, and my gaming stuff is still scattered hither and yon...)[/quote']

 

I'm still very interested, Derek.

Re: Looking for Cthulhoid Monsters/races

Dholes devour planets. There was no hyperbole in that title.

As for sketchpad's question, the game never happened. Half of the old friends who showed up haven't played RPGs of any sort since before I left the Bay Area 12 years ago. We ended up playing Arkham Horror straight. So now I have a scenario handy...

Re: Hero Alliance Sourcebook?

Now I am definitely looking forward to the sourcebooks. Bart Sears earned his cheesecake chops on those books.

Realistically, I don't think the licenses are worth much as licenses, per se. After all, neither series managed to hit the big time. But the artwork alone is worth something, and the worlds and metaplots were very interesting. I've used variations on the Hero Alliance theme several times in campaigns.

Re: Who Is... Your Favorite Villain?

I have also used Dr. Lirby Koo to good effect. He was mostly special effects performed by his retainers, such as the holographic "growing" to immense size backed up by TK devices. In another campaign he was a presence in the background who was mostly trying to get "Brick" (original concept) away from Viper because he was actually the good doctor's son...

Everyone does realize that "Dr. Lirby Koo" is based on an old friend of the original heroes named Kirby Loo, yes? I think he might even be a PhD these days, but I only met him once.

Re: Who Is... Your Favorite Villain?

There is no villain in the world who can match up against the greatest, most powerful, villain to ever cry "I was robbed!"

Who else but the ever-lovable BULLDOZER!!

Re: Hero Alliance Sourcebook?

I'll chime in with assents for both Justice Machine and Hero Alliance. Don't quite agree with the Watchmen-esque characterization of the characters. There were many with very interesting powers, though Victor was certainly the Superman of the setting.

Re: Convention Game Idea - Classic Champions

The name Snowblind might be better than Icicle given that DC Comics has a fairly popular villain named Icicle already.

Re: Looking for Cthulhoid Monsters/races

Actually, I may very well have written them. I remember them, even. Unfortunately, I also sold off all my Different Worlds issues in past years when I was short on funds.

Any hard copies I kept for myself are either buried after three moves or discarded as never going to be used. Electronic copies are in an OS (CPM) that my computer does not read.

Re: Convention Game Idea - Classic Champions

Well, as I think about it, Icicle has to be either Glenn or Stacy's, since they are the only members of the Hero group who continued to license their characters to Dennis Mallonee, who does the comic. Everyone else decided they didn't like the way Dennis was taking the characters and pulled their characters out.

Icicle was never Icestar's sister in the original campaign, though I happened to be talking to Glenn when he found out what Dennis was going to do and he was fine with it.

Re: Convention Game Idea - Classic Champions

A second question: Do you think I should upgrade the characters' backgrounds and the adventures to modern day or should I leave them as a "period piece" (set them when they were published)?

Just to be sure, you are intending to update the game stats to modern day, yes?

In that case, I think leaving their backgrounds and the adventures in the period written in would be cool, especially if you toss in some more flavor text to firmly set the adventure in its time of writing.

Re: Favorite Tactics against High DCV?

Dex Drain/Suppress

This one needs a high OCV or an area effect. As a straight attack it has the same problem any other attack against a high DCV has.

Re: [Character] Paragon

Now is when Kirby should say "Just yankin' your chain, dude. Joking!"

I've rarely seen such elaborate cloaking of some good points with overabundant pickiness. Have you been reading what you are writing? Did Psylint kick your dog? Or your brick?

Have you looked at anything but the FW and the killing attacks Paragon is using? 13 Body damage in a 12DC game happens all the time. And a brick who bounces once off of Paragon is going to do the pushed attack for 14DC (which can easily get 15 Body), if not the haymaker. So a normal energy blast happens to do 13 Body. That's probably at least 52 Stun (4 x 13). Including the FW, Paragon has a stun number of 40 against energy attacks. So he is stunned. Since he is Spd 4, he loses 1/4 of his actions for that round, and is without a force wall. Since the Energy Projector is likely Spd 5, another shot comes in before he can recover. Now it's 12DC for an average of 42 points, but he only has 8 defense, so he takes another 34 Stun and probably 4 Body. That's a total of 66 Stun. He's out of the fight (I think, I didn't memorize his stun total). If he isn't, he soon will be.

It's a perfectly valid build. If all he faces are agents, it will be very effective. If he and his teammates face a halfway competent team, he will be a liability because they will have to drag his body along until he recovers, just about every fight.

Oh, and he has no movement capability and no ranged attacks.

I would disallow the character because it would not be any real use in a campaign. Oh, and I would not allow the multiple attack stuff against one opponent.

But it's a perfectly valid build.

Re: Favorite Tactics against High DCV?

An often-overlooked method: Presence Attack. Set him up and let someone else take his startled ass down.

Re: Looking for help with some Monkey Business.

Gorilla-Man is from Marvel's Agents of Atlas - highly recommended. Essentially a soldier of fortune heard that if he kills the special ape, he will be immortal. What he doesn't know until killing the special ape is that he becomes the immortal special ape.

Former SHIELD agent, current Agent of Atlas.

Re: Adventuring in Heaven

I came up with a campaign idea in which essentially Purgatory is a supers world. People who are right in the cusp of becoming angels or demons go there as supers, and what they do determines whether they move on or go back to try again. Sort of a supers version of Albert Brooks' Fighting for Your Life.

Re: Convention Game Idea - Classic Champions

Icestar was (and is) Glenn Thain's character. Heavy on the sarcasm and witty put-downs. I am not sure where Icicle came from originally. She might be one of Glenn's villains, but is just as likely to be George MacDonald's, or even Stacy Lawrence-Thain's.

Re: Convention Game Idea - Classic Champions

On your list, the main problems are Gargoyle, Icicle, and Dove. All the others are available in some form or other in one of the main books. You can, of course, use the current version of Icicle - there's not much difference. Dove is all flight and levels and martial arts. He is also a pacifist, though I have seen him in action when mad, using a baling hook.

Gargoyle is a bigger and buffer version of Gremlin, from some versions of GRAB. Gremlin's original origin was she stole the Gargoyle formula from the original.

And I think Voice of Doom would be perfect for your project. The characters are supposed to be strangers to the Freedom Squad.