Steve

27 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

To what purpose? The OP hasn't been around in nearly nine years.

I’ve been contemplating running a campaign, so wondered if anyone had any thoughts that hadn’t been posted previously.

Cast Thread Necromancy 

Cast Thread Necromancy.

Would the city have clusters of superhuman activity with other areas of the city only ever seeing them when they’re flying by overhead?

When mapping out the city, any superhero bases will pretty much automatically become cluster points for superhuman activity. Zoning laws could come into play here. Maybe a team wants to build their base in a certain place, but the area isn’t zoned for that. Just getting the permits to exist there could inspire the locals to protest it.

Would a city support a superhero presence? The mayor may like them, but how do the different departments in the city government feel about them?

Just look at how much effort goes into putting up an office building in New York and then imagine having to get approvals and permits for a location housing Persons of Mass Destruction.

Would a team just starting out rent floors of an office building like the Fantastic Four once did with the Baxter Building? That could be some interesting roleplaying there. Not every team has a Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne.

How do individual supervillains or supervillain teams get their lairs? Is there an underworld economy with front companies they can use to acquire space? Or are they just squatting someplace?

You could do it pretty cheap with just one meter of Tunneling and then throw the Megascale Advantage on it.

10 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Because the Empire is not unequivocally Evil. Istvatha V'han genuinely wants to govern well and improve the lot of all her subjects. In most of the dimensions she's conquered, the quality of life has markedly improved for their inhabitants. Taxation is not onerous, justice is administered even-handedly, war is abolished, crime and corruption are vigorously rooted out. The benefits of advanced technology are shared with all in education, medical care, communication, transportation. The opportunities for increased trade with other dimensions in the Empire bolster conquered worlds' economies, and V'han makes sure the profits are spread around equitably. The vast majority of the Empire's citizens approve of and support her rule, and in time most conquered worlds come around to that viewpoint. Istvatha herself is ageless, with the power to move herself across time and dimensions; so she has plenty of patience.

The problem with her view of things is that she won’t take a polite ‘no’ for an answer. No matter how benevolent her rule seems on the surface, it is imposed on those outside her empire by force, gradually expanding its boundaries by force whenever diplomacy fails.

A society of nazis was mentioned in another post. Consider a version of earth peopled by benevolent societies that have no interest in joining her empire, mostly out of a strong belief in individual liberty and that kings and queens are a bad idea, but they are also charitable sorts who love their families and don’t hurt or steal from each other.
 

V’han’s emissaries arrive and ask them to join her regime. They consider the offer and say no.

That’s not going to be the end of it. If various offers of carrots still don’t get them to join, the stick then comes out. After the conquest of this peaceful people who just didn’t want any part of her empire, and potentially millions of dead, they are now unwillingly made part of that empire they didn’t want to join in the first place.

Their children are then indoctrinated to be loyal followers of V’han, convincing them over time that their parent’s society was a flawed concept because they didn’t appreciate what glorious things they were being offered. After a few generations, the troubling parts of that society are excised. Their quaint local customs and the aspects of their culture that don’t threaten the maintenance of V’han’s rule over them are left alone. They’ve been sanitized.

To those who support V’Han, it’s all for the greater good. Yes, HER view of what that is.

In addition to those who have pledged themselves to her cause, fervent believers in her grand vision for the multiverse, she also has fembot clones of herself that act as her viceroys throughout her ever-expanding realm. They act as her emissaries and overseers.
 

Doctor Doom does much the same thing in Latveria, I hear. He just doesn’t have the good publicity that V’Han enjoys.

But it’s all okay because everyone who obeys her and her minions enjoys a pretty nice life, the trains run on time, and there’s a good economy with plenty of wealth made in trading.
 

They just aren’t free, and they can’t ever leave her empire and strike out on their own.

2 hours ago, Tjack said:

   Wow, what comic books are you reading?  I can get behind a less sunny take on things.  More of a shades of gray style like in Marvel’s Imperial Guard or the run of Alien Legion, but what you’ve just described is more of a Villians campaign and I’ve never enjoyed those.  If that’s what you want to run, and you have players willing to give it a go then best of luck to you.

If you believe V’Han to be a heroine, a shining light bringing about her benevolent rule over the masses who will just get into trouble if they make their own choices, then her foes can be easily portrayed as criminals by her supporters. Either misguided and just needing of re-education or genuinely evil and so should be eradicated.

If you work for her, you’re part of a candy-coated version of the SS, eagerly rooting out all subversives to her rule. If you don’t, you’re not part of the grand society she is building and are instead a potential threat to it.

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

I can tell Steve was laying on the sarcasm more heavily than I did, but what he's describing is essentially what BOTE outlines. V'han's rule very much uses the carrot-and-stick approach. If you conform to her policies life is usually good, but criticism or protest is censured fast and hard, and actual defiance is ruthlessly crushed, up to and including lethality. And if you're part of her administration, particularly a member of her Imperial Battalion, you may be called upon to do the crushing.

Yes, I was being sarcastic, and it apparently hurt the feelings of the downvoter on that comment. The ugly truth is that V’Han does not tolerate dissent from her rule and her vision for how her empire is run, so the choices for a “reformer” are pretty stark.

Either you support her, or you are against her.

If you support her reforms for conquered worlds, part of your job is going to be crushing any dissent. If you are a true believer in her mission, then that crushing will be carried out with the consent of your conscience, that you believe supporting her is for the greater good. Freedom of choice will just need to be eradicated to bring that about. So long as people have a job, a full belly and medical care, what matters the loss of their freedom?

But if your desired reforms go against her plans, the full might of her empire will fall upon you.

That’s the stark choice: support a tyrant or be crushed. So, which sort of reformer do you want to be?

A notion I had after reading this thread might be to build a character with 0 END and buy it instead with an END Reserve, with all abilities powered by the reserve. In such a case, could you take a Limitation on your REC that it only affects STUN and BODY? That would mitigate a bit the cost of buying two REC abilities.

8 hours ago, AlgaeNymph said:

Oh, now I know what I want to bring up.

Say you have a science hero(ine) who wants to reform and uplift society...except that's kind of the Empire's job.  Are they relegated to face-punching?  Or, as is my guess, are they subsumed into the government and they get to do what they wanted to anyway?  But then where would they do it?  Newly annexed worlds?  But then where's the challenge when there's government backing?

Where’s the challenge?

Well, there are all those rebels out there who unimaginably dislike V’han’s New World Order being imposed on their society. Welcome to V’han’s version of the SS, only your conscience won’t bother you very much because you are bettering society. Really.

But what if your enlightened reforms run up against V’han’s rules? Congratulations! You’re now a traitorous rebel, and one of V’han’s jackbooted minions will be along to teach you the error of your ways any minute now. Perhaps some telepathic reconditioning of your errant neurons will bring you back into the fold, comrade.

1 hour ago, steriaca said:Anyone want to contribute to the Heroburger menu? It should reflect what people eat in a fast food environment in Philadelphia, and the best people to do that are people from the area.

Philadelphia?

1 hour ago, steriaca said:

Well...

 

Anyone want to contribute to the Heroburger menu? It should reflect what people eat in a fast food environment in Philadelphia, and the best people to do that are people from the area.

 

But of course there are stuff all restaurants have on the menu.

Heroburger your standard hamburger. 

Heroburger with cheese 

Frykicks standard french fries, named because what's a hamburger without fries? A superhero without a sidekick. 

 

You can order your burger "maskless" (without the top bun), or even "in cilvilan clothing" (no bun at all), but those are "hidden menu items".

Philadelphia?

1 hour ago, Mark Rand said:

We can put it on West Carson Street in the borough of McKees Rocks, disguised as a house.  There are sections of it where there are only a house or two.

Superhero to young sidekick as they eye the place from a distance: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.”

Supervillains don’t have sidekicks as far as I’ve ever seen. Henchmen seem to fill that role for Team Evil.

Using Extra Limbs for this doesn’t really cut it for me because there is also the size issue to consider, so I’m going to respectfully disagree with Mr. Shomshak and others. Several hundred pounds of stuff is bulky. Stuffing a man-sized statue into a bag that is much bigger on the inside effectively compresses the bulk and greatly lessens carrying issues due to item size. I can carry said statue much more easily up a flight of stairs or through a doorway if it’s in a bag of holding than if it’s strapped to my back.
 

Extra-Dimensional Space just works better for this. Otherwise you get into a weird combination of Extra Limbs and Shrinking to get the same effect.

Thanks to streaming it on Warner, I could split up watching “The Batman” over two nights. I thought it was decent, but some of the plot elements padding it’s time should have been removed. Catwoman was not really needed.

I’ve been noticing that Batman movies have been steadily ramping down the campiness of the character since Adam West played him. A lot lingered in the 80s movies and a bit still remained in Nolan’s films. There’s even less in the current offering. The current version of the Riddler is about where Nolan’s Joker was at.

It would be cool for Pittsburgh to have a bar catering to alien supervillains, like having the cantina of Mos Eisley right here on Earth.

2 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Didn't the Harbinger of Justice do this to store his gun collection? Look at his write up?

Yeah, the 4th Edition one had a VPP.

1 hour ago, steriaca said:

Ok. Since my character Lady Heart is maybe going to be in this, I better list some of hir enimies.

 

Queen Nightmara: More something mentioned than actually stated out in the book, Queen Nightmara is a mystical tyrant from another dimension who lives to "feed on dark emotions". She lives for increasing the darkness and works through a group of magical girls she empowers. She likes to use teenage girls as her catpawns.

 

She can't set foot on our dimension until the dark emotions level reaches a certain level.

 

The Court of Hate: A four teenage girl squad of magical girls who serve Queen Nightmara, they are Lady Sorrow, Lady Pain, Lady Anger, and Lady Fear. They rairly work together, and use creaturs known as Nightmarians to do what their Queen wills. There crimes all are about spreading dark emotions in the area.

How extensive is the Mystical World of Pittsburgh? It’s sounding like it might be the dominant category of superhumans. This could be explored.

It might also help to have a section for discussing how things are organized in the city by Worlds: Martial World, Mystical World, etc. That would help players interface their characters into one or more of the superhuman subcultures.

Maybe Stine could belong to a loose association of science-oriented villains that occasionally partner up for mutual benefit. It happens in the comics, even if it is just to have someone to go out drinking with and swap war stories.

Is there a “bar with no name” where villains congregate?

You can find it for sale on Drivethrurpg.com here. They also have the Third Edition version.

22 minutes ago, steriaca said:

Robots can't be twins exactly. Cause Borris is a robot.

 

But Igora could also be a robot also.

Ah, I was thinking human helpers when I wrote that. Sorry.

A cute and snarky female assistant could play well off tall, grim and metallic Igor. She could be a gadget girl type.

53 minutes ago, steriaca said:

Would Igora be a better name for the female assistant?

Hmmm. Igor and Igora could be twins, which might be interesting.

25 minutes ago, steriaca said:

Boris. Unless someone else has a better name. 

I vote for Igor, the traditional name for a mad scientist’s assistant.

A perky female assistant dressed like a colonial Minuteman (or perhaps Betsy Ross) would complete the trifecta.

2 hours ago, GM Joe said:

I don't know the details of how Patreon works, so I'm curious why with 29 members, there's only $121/month instead of $145. Do people who support lots of different Patreons get a volume discount or something?

 

 

It’s possible some people might be just throwing a buck or two at it in a custom pledge. You can support a Patreon campaign without selecting a tier.

5 hours ago, GM Joe said:

Did I miss the launch of the Patreon?

Maybe it’ll be up by this Friday?

In a salute to Kang, you could do something like the Timemaster Council made up of multiple versions of Timemaster.