Mister E

Re: WWYCD:Little Girl Lost Squid-Kid doesn't relate to girls very well, but he'd probably get a kick out of tooling around in a jungle-scape, and have a lot of fun playing make-believe in a real-life Tarzan-type treehouse.

Re: Batman Begins I'd rather see Ghost Rider... but that's me.

Re: Batman Begins To be honest, I wouldn't begrudge the studio if they had thrown in an Adam West cameo, somewhere in Batman Begins. Oh well... The movie was near crystal-perfect, IMO. I've seen it twice. A few of my friends thought the intro was a little too Highlander-esque, but I ate it up. I loved everything about this movie. There were moments in it, that reminded me of the style of some action films in the 80's, which was super-cool. I especially liked the cop-scenes. This is going to be an instant cult-classic, though I think the sound-track could have been more distinct, at least it won't overly "date" the movie, in the decades to come.

Re: How to: Overload This is a really cool concept! I totally dig it. When you get the nuts and bolts hammered out, could you please post the build for this power, on this thread? Thanks for the great idea, Nexus.

Re: Is Punisher the problem? I haven't read through this whole thread (i'll get to it later), but I would like to say that: I too am seriously thinking about letting PC in my future Champions campaigns have normal equipment for free, as long as they can aquire it reallisticly in game. Right now, I'm organizing a Dark Champions campaign, in a new continuity, as a base-line in preperation for this, and (A) I think it gives the players the kind of freedom they deserve to have, to let them use everything in their surroundings to complete a mission, and ( from the experiences I've had in the past, running Champions campaigns with bullet-proof bricks and such, I really don't think it'll be a problem. As far as Punisher-type characters running wild with more character points than they know what to do with... if you check out the DC's genre book, there's tons of "powers" they can pick up, as hyper-skills... and many of them wouldn't be realistically portrayed if they were put into multi-powers, and stuff, (there are exceptions, of course )... so I think they'll be fine. There is a point, of course, where if a character were to pick up an item that was so useful, and got used so often, that it became a main schick-type object for the character... I would request that the player pay character points to continue using it, which is cool. More than anything, this would represent super-tech items, anyway, so it probably doesn't aply to the topic. Grenades... kevlar-vests... walkie-talkies from Radio Shack... these things are other-wise fine, IMO. Even if everone on my super-team wants to use these objects... I'm cool with it. For the most part, I think having the players pay into a community VPP, or what ever, is a waste of time. Beyond that, really, the sky is the limit for me. If a brick with a military background wants to pick-up a rocket-launcher, (that he knowes how to use), off the battle-field, nail Doctor Destroyer with it, and take it home for later use... how can I fairly deny him the right to do so, without being overly heavy-handed as a GM? Like-wise, for an energy-projector, (whose hypothetically an ex-test pilot for the Air Force), that jumps into an alien spacecraft from the Pink Nebula, flies the party back home to planet Earth, and stores it away with hopes for letting a contact reverse-engineer it for the betterment of humanity. ALMOST, BUT NOT QUITE, OFF TOPIC: Do you give the players free Reputation/Contact/and other Perk bonuses, for in game roleplaying? I do. This kind of stuff, to me, is more important than Experience Points, in a lot of ways, as far as campaign rewards are concerned. I think, really, it boils down to this simple question: "How dynamic, and interactive, are you willing to let the players be, in your campaign setting?" IN CLOSING: I hope I haven't rehashed to many previous threads.

Re: Starting A New DC Campaign There are some great ideas here. I've rep'd everyone except for Agent-X, (I need too spread it around, first. ) for the thoughtful, and helpful, contributions. The campaign is still a few weeks away from starting, so if anyone has any more juicy good stuff for me, I'd love to see it. AS A SIDE NOTE: I just picked up Hudson City, and I highly recommend checking it out, if you plan to run a DC's or Champions game. It is a excellent setting book, full of detailed gritty/realistic urban city source matterial. I will no doubt get a lot of mileage out of it, in the years to come.

Re: Exponential VS Linear ? "Cyber Ninja Pirates?" Golly... with a campaign title like that, you can't go wrong.

Re: Exponential VS Linear ? You just named an example.

Re: Exponential VS Linear ? I just discovered something I hadn't noticed before, and it's driving me nuts, because it just seems so ridiculously stupid... Okay, an object's BODY get's +1 when it doubles in size... but the BODY of a wall, doesn't. I don't have my books on me, right now... but if I recall, most walls get something like +2 when they double in thickness. WHY? Is it just to mess with me? Are the game designers trying to drive me crazy? It's just so feaking inconsistant, I can't get over it.

Re: Comeliness: Yay, nay or indifferent I like the COM as it is. Keep it. Use it. Love it. It is what it is, and I've never had a problem with it. AS A SIDE NOTE: I don't have my books on me, right now, but I remember being disappointed with the COM of a few of the supposedly hideous NPC villains in the game... like the Monster, for instance. Shouldn't character like the Monster, by definition, have Negative Comliness?

Re: The Animated Series Art Resources I've had a hard time finding the characer templets with the "Animated Series" style of art. I know they are out there... I've seen them. "REVEAL YOURSELF TO ME! I DEMAND IT OF YOU!"

I need help. I'm starting a new campaign... It's going to be the premier campaign for a fresh new world that I'm introducing the players to. I don't want there to be any prior history of super-heroing, or otherwise colorful/flashy, themed or custumed heroes. This is intended to make the player's characters the first of a new breed of modern-day mystery-men/vigilantes hunting the streets of America's Cities. The begining of the campaign will focos on one particular city, that is extremely corrupt at all levels of government and industry, full of violent criminals, and is generally in really bad shape. Later on down the line, I will introduce superheroes to the world, but that is neither here nor there... Anyhow... my players are very excited about making lethal, heroic level, characters for the game... but they (and I) are having a hard time figuring out how to get the characters to get together to found a team. ??? My question for you, (the estemed, and learned, posters of the HERO GAMES Discussion Boards), is what kinds of cool ideas can you come up with, on ways to form a modern vigilante team, composed of the usual loner-type personalities that you would normally find in a Dark Champions campaign? ??? IN CLOSING: I think this thread could be a useful resource for other GM's starting their own new campaigns... but, as long as I get the help I need to start mine, that's all that really matters.

Re: Exponential VS Linear ? This has cost me a lot of time (as I put the effort into analysing the character write-ups, to try to determine what constituted a ballanced PC), and is the reason I consider all of the villains in the game's suppliments, to be unplayable as they stand. My players are largely unaware of these lame system-wide design flaws, because I don't bother using the Champions Universe as a setting, even though it would make thinks a lot easier to do so. It's my guess, that a lot of Champions books published by DOJ don't get sold because people are off-put by this problem. I'm done... So, yeah! "Linear vs. Exponential"... hmm... interesting topic. What's the problem again? Ah, yes. Well, for those that want to use house rules to fix the problems, lets come up with a list. So, what's on the list?

Re: Exponential VS Linear ? "What's that astroid doing, up there?" "I think it's Analyzing the Earth's combat style." "Oh. What's it doing now? "Finding Weakness." "Damn."

Re: Exponential VS Linear ? Imagining Juggernaut doing Knockback on the Earth, is funny. Imagining him at dead at the bottom of a 144 hex deep crater, is even funnier. My two questions would be... 1) how big of a meteor would it take to wipe out the dinosaurs... 2) and how big of a meteor would it take to wipe out Earth Mk. I, which existed before our current Earth Mk. II, and whose destruction created our huge moon? Both of these are basically super-fast Move-Throughs by large objects with huge amounts of BODY... but really, they are more like Alteration Powers... Change Environment, or Transform, for instance.

Re: Exponential VS Linear ? To paraphrase: The Earth appears to be, "a little too easy to destroy." This section comes up with two possible solutions, that basically involve GM fiat: 1) Consider most attacks to have the Beam Limitation when used against the Earth, to simulate the fact that they only puncture relatively small holes in the planet, that don't have the potectial to endanger its structural integrity. 2) Usume that surface AoE/Explosion attacks, "take the path of least resistance and conform to the planet's surface (otherwise, nuclear test explosions might have cracked "the" Earth open!). Thus, only weapons specifically designed to effect huge swaths of a planet at once, or to burrow deep within it before taking effect, have a serious change of destroying it." Also, as far as the 86 BODY of the Earth... this assumes quite a bit, appearantly. (, mostly, that the Earth is made of stone [19 BODY, 5 DEF]) For GM's that wish to more accurately represent the Earth's BODY, and such, they are encouraged to re-calculate, the Earth, and "account for the molten and solid metals at the Earth's core". Now, I haven't tried to figure this out yet, (and I would dig it if someone would do it for me, and save me the trouble), but IMO, this also doesn't take into consideration all of the other forces involved in keeping the Earth together... primarily gravity (which I could see being built as some kind of cosmic level Power Defense/Force Field/ or some such thing). The following is a brainstorming excersize... When you start thinking of something the size of the Earth as a single, targetable, object... you are stepping into a whole new level of reality. It's not necessary, but using the Beam Limitation, as an example, you chould perhaps come up with a few "stop-sign" Power Advantages to simulate the Earth's defenses, and the attacks required to damage it. Likewise, you could think of the Earth on a macro-cosmic scale, in comparison with people, and have it exist on another dimension, size-wise. You could even say that the Earth is Desolid to all normal attacks, except those specifically bought with the Affects Desolid: "Planetary Threat" Advantage. I am just spit-balling... an official ruling would really solve everything, and I think "Target: Earth!" on page 197 of Star Hero, is all we are going to get. Maybe the Ultimate Brick has something in it. I've only glanced through it, so far, in the store.

Re: Exponential VS Linear ? As far as game play is concerned, there really isn't that much of a problem, no matter how you look at the system... That said, the exponential aspect of the game works really well, and I like it. But the game has left many unanswered questions. For instance: If the quality of STR doubles every 5 points. And we use that as a model for ever other stat, (except for BODY, which doubles every 1 point), consider the significance of that on the INT attribute. If we were to universally assume that the average INT of humans is 8... unless I'm mistaken, that would equate to an I.Q. of 100. From that, it's simple enough to come to the conclusion that an INT of 13 (8+5) equates to an I.Q. of 200. Now, in the real world, an I.Q. of 200 is fairly significant. But in checking out my new copy of Dark Champions, I note that the Army Ranger Package Deal states it requires characters to have a 13 INT in order to qualify for the package. Okay, I don't want to be insulting to anyone who's served in the Army Rangers, but I've met a dozen or so, and being a genius is definately not a requirement. What follows is a little off subject... It bugs me when I see players build characters with what I consider to be "casual" stat-inflation, that totally disregards the meaning of the vallue of a particular stat... especially when those characters are writen up in suppliment books, and especially when it involves the insideous secret DEX arms race. I will use "the Champions," from the Champions genre book, as an example: Defender: 25 DEX Ironclad: 20 DEX Nighthawk: 25 DEX Sapphire: 23 DEX Witchcraft: 20 DEX CON is the other stat that gets inflated, so that the heroes don't get stunned too often, and practically for no other reason: Defender: 30 CON Ironclad: 30 CON Nighthawk: 20 CON Sapphire: 23 CON Witchcraft: 18 CON Okay, I'm done with that... As far as Casual STR is concerned, I think modifying it as a house rule, might be an exciting solution. Would you say that applying only half your strength constitutes casual application of strength? In that case, anything you do at -5 your STR would be an effortless action. I could probably be persuaded to go with "one-quarter" strength, and -10 STR, instead. Especially considered that one-quarter seems a lot more casual than one-half. As far as 200 sticks of Dynamite blowing up the Earth is concerned... This is broken. For every +1d6 of damage, the amount of dymamite should rightly be doubled, (unless there is some sort of synergistic property of dynamite, I am unfamiliar with). This could just as easily be corrected with a house ruling.

Re: I touched it! I've been a fan of these kinds of stories, since I started reading... so yes, I'm picking up this book. I just finished Dark Champions, and I really liked it. It might even be by favorite genre book, so far... though that's a tough call I'm not going to make. Another interesting fact, at least to me, is that one of my best friends, (a guy in my gaming group who, up till now, still only owns the main 5e book), has told me that Pulp Hero, if it's as good as you say it's going to be, will be the first suppliment he buys for the game. He's a big fan of Flash Gordon, and has even picked up a few of the old talking black+white movies, as well as several hours of the really old radio broadcasts, (which I've listened to... and I must say, Max Von Sidhow's voice is much easier on the ear, than the freak they used for Ming the Merciless, back then.)

Re: The Price (Character) Ah, yes. I'm tired, and missed it. EDIT: I agree with your idea of how the extra BODY with the -2 modifier should work.

Re: The Price (Character) 63 BODY for 6 character points... minor typo? EDIT: Nice write-up, btw. I'm looking forward to finding out what the character's background is like. It seems somehow legendary, or mythical, so far.

Re: How to build this power Okay, I've got a new idea... check me out on this: What about impregnating the victom's mind with an astral clone of yours, using Transform xd6 (Target's Spirit into Caster's Spirit). With a Mind Link, you'll have totally access to the victom's actions and memories, via remote control. After an Extra-Dimensional Movement into the victom's mind... you get the whole thing for only 3 powers. Heh?

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe I just talked with Stan Lee... he says hi... Anyhow... apparently, a few months back, he and Long sat down together, at the Pentagon, and during their conference... figured that Spider-Man's DEX was definately, positively, 39. Phew...well, I guess that's settled. You can't argue with that. You can, of course, check all this with the archives at the Library of Congress. It's all there. Every word. Once they hammered out Spider-Man's DEX, I guess they talked about the Thundercats for another couple hours. 16 minutes of that part of the conversation is missing, though. Not that it's a big deal. I mean, what could they possibly be trying to hide about the Thundercats. It's silly to even think about it. What the hell is a "samophlange"?

Re: Person of Steel, Significant Other of Tissue paper

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe You did mention absurdity, and the comment was mixed in with your response to my statement about Spider-Man's DEX. I said Spider-Man probably has a DEX of 53... isn't that what you were referring to, in a polite, round about way? It's cool, man. I think your observations are very thoughtful.

Re: How to build this power