Captain Liberty

Re: Looking for Cthulhoid Monsters/races

Nice lineup, Michael.

Where's the Nightgaunt?

Anything for the King in Yellow? I have a great M&M writeup, but would like a real Champions one.

Re: Looking for Cthulhoid Monsters/races

You could probably borrow a few encounters and creatures from Allen Varney's classic 4E HERO, Lovecraftian horror/supers adventure:

 

ANOPHELES: Atrocities From Beyond

I've played in that adventure. Truly classic, very Lovecraftian, but too post-Apocalyptic for me. This is supposed to be pre-apocalypse, with a chance of staving off the apocalypse.

I'm going to be visiting with a bunch of folks I used to play Hero system with this weekend. I came up with the following idea.

Each player is playing a character from a previous campaign (possibly each from a different campaign). However, they have no real memory of that - they are essentially in their secret/normal IDs and all they know is that they have come to a town "where time has stood still" to investigate possible supernatural phenomena. What has happened is that they have entered a zone where the main villain (one or more Cultist mad sorcerers) has taken control of reality in order to perform a magical ritual that will bring the Mad Old Ones to this reality. The PCs will start out as normals and every time they run into a sanity challenging situation, there is a chance that one of their special abilities/powers will manifest and a bit of their memory will return. Eventually they will stop the mad sorcerers.

This could be a mega-week campaign but I only have one evening, so shortcuts must be taken. I also don't have a lot of time to work up monsters and such.

So to get to the point, does anyone have any writeups of Cthuhlhoid monsters and races that I can use?

And if anyone has any ideas for encounters and such, please pass them along.

Thanks,

Re: Looking for help with some Monkey Business.

Suggestion based on a character named, strangely enough, Ape, that a friend of mine once ran.

Ape was a scientist who was trying to invent a regeneration formula. He succeeded, too. There was just one slight side effect...

Just as soon as he figures out how to avoid turning into a gorilla, he's going to make a mint!

He could not speak, so he learned sign language.

Re: List of Forum Members - Super Teams & Members

I can't tell you anything about the characters played by Steve or Darrin, but the original Hero gang had several campaigns. The central campaign was George MacDonald's Guardians campaign, set in New York. Membership consisted of, as I recall,

Icestar, classic wise-cracking ice projector, played by Glenn Thain. Glenn also played The Hornet in the same campaign, an insect-powered mini-brick who later became a shrinker.

Marksman, sarcastic sharpshooter with his signature sonic rifle, played by Bruce Harlick.

Flare, classic fire-projecting product of Nazi genetic breeding, played by Stacy Lawrence-Thain.

Hunter, grandson of Doc Savage, played by Steve Peterson. Steve also played Goliath, who was initially just a strongman but later became a growth brick.

Rose, teleporting mentalist, played by Tom Toomey.

Gargoyle, bizarre flying brick, played by Mark Williams.

Force, battlesuited master of kinetic force, played by Steve Goodman.

And other players and characters wandered in and out of the group. But these were the ones you saw on the covers and interiors of many of the early Champions books.

Re: List of Forum Members - Super Teams & Members

Champions of the Golden Cube an Exiles-like group of six people from different timelines who were bored or oppressed in their current lives and jumped at the chance to ride the Cube (by putting one hand against one surface) to different worlds to solve whatever problem is happening there.

Initial Group

Lacustos - Water mage from a fantasy world

Abdul the Bleeder - thin-skinned but mega-Bodied brick from a world where Moslems had finally conquered

Sebastian Tombs - Norman secret agent from Lord Darcy's world (Randall Garrett) where the war against the Poles had just concluded

Snow - older female superheroine with cold powers unjustly imprisoned

Green Hummingbird - Aging Imperial agent from a series of novels (third one is on the way!) in which the dominant cultures on Earth are an Aztec-Japanese combination

Justicar - gun-wielding vigilante from a world like that of the Watchmen. She is a GMNPC because there were only five players.

Since the start of the campaign, Lacustos had dropped off on a fantasy world in which water was very important and was replaced in the next stop by Master Orange, a mutant inventor type with a natural force field and various light-based technology. Then the team found themselves on a world which was almost identical to the one Justicar came from, except in that one she was killed by gangster hitmen. She ended up staying there and was replaced in the next world by Rhyanna Sen Tairngaire, a Shadowrun elf combat mage.

In the previous campaign for the same group, it was set in the 1950s in Chicago and the core team consisted of:

Argent - powerful but slow psychic type (both mental and physical)

Golden Warrior - Former Nazi hero who switched sides after she saw some of the deathcamps. Essentially an embodied valkyrie, complete with winged horse.

Steel Wind - Nisei swordmaster

Sequin - World class gadgeteer

Scarlet Avenger - Ghost enabled by Hell to mark the damned for future reference

Bronze Spectre - essentially the Martian (actually Skrull, but he was born on Mars) Manhunter in his very early years, before he settled down into being John Jones.

Re: PRIMUS - A Mystery Solved

And why are we assuming that the US military doesn't have its own cadre of Cyberlined super-soldiers?

It's not publicized, of course. Essentially a couple of SEALS or Ranger or whatever units all juiced up and ready to go. Veterans of these units might well move on to working for PRIMUS, under an NDA to not tell anyone they work with where they first got their drugs and training.

As long as everything is secret, the potential opposition won't be sitting on tear gas countermeasures.

Keep in mind that not a lot of people can safely take the Cyberline treatments. Between a couple of special ops outfits and PRIMUS, the potential users are probably pretty much covered.

Re: The artwork drives me nuts

Sketchpad,

So I looked at the three relatively recent Hero books I have here (and have been commenting on) and see you did not do the artwork in any of them. A quick look at your blog tells me that this is a real shame.

The three books are Villainy Amok, Evil Unleashed, and Champions Worldwide. Villainy Amok's artwork ranges from the slightly cartoonish to the realistic and is universally good comic book art. So I am not complaining about Cuenca, Gorham, McEnvoy, Derek Stevens or Greg Smith. The latter two I recognize from earlier efforts and are excellent artists for the purpose. Good job getting artists, Scott.

Evil Unleashed uses artwork from previous volumes, and it all does the job very well. Besides some of the artists above, it has good work from Cremeans, Davenport, the Crams (related?), The Fraims, Robert Hawkins, Jeff Hebert (who apparently did work for the book directly (and therefore most recently) and would be an excellent choice for future projects), Lofgren, Rademaker, Ridley and Chris Stevens.

Champions Worldwide has some good stuff from the aforementioned Robert Hawkins, Reilly Brown and Dominika Klosowiscz (apparently one of the few women doing this artwork - unless I am misinterpreting Dominika as a European name) but the work by Elissa Cain just barely evokes the characters being depicted. Simply put, I could not imagine that artwork in a superhero comic book. Bland is probably the best I can say for it. She uses blacks to obscure rather than delineate. Good superhero art is line art, not shade art.

I'm not an artist, but I've been married to one for almost 40 years.

I haven't seen the book mostly being discussed, VVV, so I don't know if my disappointment would be heightened or decreased by the artwork therein.

My two cents.

Re: WWYCD: Fans and cons

Captain Liberty would love the attention and take the opportunity to give small lectures and demonstrations on the priniciples of Libertarianism. He'd also do acrobatic demonstrations and maybe staged combats with other heroes he knows. And he might hook up.

Re: Single Green Superhero seeks.... (personels for your characters)

Captain Liberty: SWM looking for strong (literally) SF humanoid (race, ethnicity, and planet of origin not important) with taste for extreme environments and extreme sports. Libertarians preferred.

Anthem: SEBM (Single Energy-Being Male) looking for SOF with taste for adventure. Must be able to deal with assassination attempts from major crime organization.

Rubber Baron:SAMasH (Alien Masquerading as Human) looking for flexible SF who appreciates a man with total control of his physiology. Telepaths preferred.

Bronze Spectre: SAMasH looking for SFAMasH for long talks about the strangeness of Earth culture, and perhaps some attempts at this thing they call sex.

Re: The artwork drives me nuts

As was pointed out above, artwork sells comic books, and it can help sell a game about comic book action.

I haven't seen VVV (and probably won't) but I picked up Champions Worldwide at DunDraCon and finally got around to looking at it a month or so ago - my loot bag got buried in my office. Some of the artwork puts my teeth on edge. Some of it directly contradicts the descriptions of the characters, some of it might tie in with the descriptions but is too amorphous to be sure, and almost all of it (except for some re-used pieces) is just not superhero comic book art. Part of what makes you want to use a character in your game is a picture that gives you an idea what they are about. Mark Williams (called "the hack" mostly because of his speed and dependence on certain poses) gave you a drawing of a character that told you something about the character. A book full of "Lump Man" just isn't very inspiring.

Re: Villain Campaign: need help

I was in a villain campaign several years ago that fell apart mostly from GM apathy, he lost interest. But it had a couple of good premises.

1. The PCs were all beholding to a "Mr. Big" who had various ways of controlling them, somewhat like the Secret Six.

2. There was a superhero team that was designated as the villains chief adversary. The GM had been sick and a Champions product had come out with a random hero generator in it (this was a LONG time ago) so he had time to roll up a half dozen heroes, and turned them into the hero team. I ended up using one of the heroes as a basis for my villain, thereby setting up a conflict.

Since you apparently want to play a superhero character, set up a group of the heroes you have devised (c'mon, you know you have a bunch) as a hero team and use them to chase the villains. With any luck, the players will provide you with a chance to play your heroes.

Re: Villain Campaign: need help

A small correction:

Prometheus,

The villain is Ragdoll. Ragman is a hero who works with Shadowpact. Ragdoll is the Golden Age villain you are referencing.

Re: Another Brick in the Wall (Tell me about your Brick!)

A friend of mine created a density brick called Velvet Glove. Her costume was a green velvet prom dress. She was a scientist who was trying to make herself taller (she was 4'10") but instead made herself denser. Essentially she was the steel fist in the velvet glove (dress).

Re: CHAMPIONS REVISED -- If We Do It, What Would You Like To See?

I like the life cycle idea.

Re: Another Brick in the Wall (Tell me about your Brick!)

I've been thinking about a speedster brick and/or an archer brick (with a really big bow) which I think I mentioned on another thread.

I once tried (4th edition) to stat out a mentalist who "looked" like a brick. He tried to do everything with Mental Illusion, Mind Control, Ego Blast, and so on. One of my players tried playing the character but was not terribly successful. The character ended up being a mini-brick with mentalist aspirations.

Steve Perrin

Re: CHAMPIONS REVISED -- If We Do It, What Would You Like To See?

Having settled that (1) the new pages should not duplicate anything in print and (2) the Resource Kit is essentially out of print except for the copies found at the printers.

The obvious thing is to put the resource kit material, or at least the Champions-pertinent material, in the new version of Champions.

Re: Sand Staff

I dunno.

I can't really see making a distinction between silicon particles from a beach or desert and silicon particles from a chunk of dirt in Iowa. Maybe make the staff less powerful outside of a strictly sand area, and the character may not initially believe it will work outside of a sandy area, but fine dirt is fine dirt. Having it not be able to use dirt clods and rocks is certainly within concept, which is another reason to have a decreased effect in non-sandy regions.

Re: Sand Staff

You can't bring in STR costs unless you want to start STR with 0 instead of 10. STR will always be anomalous in Hero System, since you get two dice of damage free and all of its other benefits.

HtoH has to relate to Energy Blast as HKA relates to RKA. If you want to cut the cost of HKA, then we have another discussion.

Re: How to kill characters?

Serious suggestion:

Have a "The Villains Strike Back" scenario.

Each of the heroes is attacked while alone by a potentially overwhelming force.

Run all the scenarios as simultaneously as possible.

Make sure the individual opponents/situations can kill the designated targets.

One possibility. The Supreme Serpent has helped the heroes do in VIPER. The heroes get a clue as to where the central core of the Supreme Serpent is and go after him, just to make sure everything Viper has been taken care of. The HQ of the SS is full of killer robots and mechanized traps, and the first thing that happens is the various heroes are separated from each other by sliding walls, collapsing floors, Walls of Force, etc.

I used this with a character that the player wanted to kill off, and this PC found himself with a ticking nuclear bomb. He had to defuse it, and the only way to do it was to expose himself to killer radiation, then absorb the blast in his power suit when his defusing failed. He had a glorious dying speech (the whole bomb did not go off) and essentially set up his next character in the process.

In another game I had the badguys (a VIPER type operation) find out the secret IDs of the heroes and catch many of them at home without all their gear. One character crippled (the player wanted to move on to another character) and two killed (purely by chance - I overmatched them accidentally). I also killed a couple of NPCs to set up new plot lines.

In short, divide and conquer.

Re: Sand Staff

For reasons known only to residents of the Carolinas, Hero 5 insists on putting a 1/2 limitation (only hand to hand) inherent on Hand to hand attack. I think they are just trying to justify the 3 point cost it had in 4th Edition by saying the price is really 5 points but it has a limitation.

Why they could not realize that the limitation only hand to hand is balanced by the advantage Adds To Strength (just like with KAs) is beyond me. I have to take the stupid limitation off of any automated character creation sheet I use.

As you may gather, I use the above version in my House Rules.

Re: Calling all Archers

As far as archers who are supers are concerned, John Byrne's Lost Generation mini-series for Marvel featured a character called Ox-Bow who seemed to essentially be a brick with a bow. Never actually saw him in action, he was mostly in the background in action sequences. His girlfriend was an Eternal, as it happens.

Re: How to kill characters?

I have killed several characters in my time in Hero system games, usually with the consent of the players. Generally it was a matter of the players getting tired of the characters.

Your situation leaves several questions open.

1. Is this the first (or I suppose 2nd) role playing campaign these players have ever participated in? As someone else asked, how old are these players? This sounds like a situation where the players might decide that, if the campaign is ending, that's the end of their roleplaying career. Maybe it's just time for them to stop role playing.
    
   
2. What do you consider a long campaign? Six months? Six years? Somewhere in between?
    
   
3. Are there no other role players around to fill in the ranks if these people leave?
    
   
4. Some people always want to play the same character. I know people who always play the same character (including appearance, habits, mannerisms, etc), changed just enough to fit the parameters of whatever game they are in. Does this seem to be the case with these guys?
    
   
5. Or are they so used to the campaign world that they cannot conceive of playing in anything else?
   

Re: What Age?

Despite my gray hairs, I wasn't old enough to read comics during the Golden Age (except right at the end), so having had the alternative of Retcon Golden Age waved in front of me, I'll join the line under that one. The callous disregard for people of non-white ethnicity is one of my major turn-offs for that period, so I prefer the retconned versions.

That said, perhaps I should change my favorite group from the JSA to the All-Star Squadron.

Re: I am a comic book dinosaur.

Forget the comics. Buy the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited DVDs instead.

Not a bad bit of advice at all. Particularly for someone with your background, these stories will probably fit your idea of the DC universe almost exactly.

Lamentably, there has not been something similar for Marvel. But I have just about given up on Marvel except for some individual quirky series. For recent Marvel, I'd suggest, and this is just me:

Avengers by Kurt Busiek

Avengers by Geoff Johns (though Kurt was better, in my opinion)

Alpha Flight (recent series, by Scott Lobdell, may be too quirky for you)

Thunderbolts by Busiek and by Nicieza (sp?). I avoid the current version, though that is mostly because they chose a cast of the Marvel characters I avoid most.

Gravity (a nice little superhero coming into his own miniseries - Marvel just killed the character off, which pretty much sums up why I don't read much Marvel)

I read good things about recent She-Hulks, but I haven't been following them.

There was a nice Heroes for Hire (not the current one - though that has its charms) a few years back, but I don't think it sold well enough to get its own TPB. Pity.