Steve

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.

To be honest, this sounds like +0 modifier territory to me. Neither an Advantage nor a Limitation.

48 minutes ago, Mark Rand said:

Tabitha Jean Clark, a Conservative Jew, is going to get turned into a magical girl.  I'm not sure what her heroic identity will be, yet.

 

As it happens, I'm a Conservative Jew, too.  I attended Tree of Life * Or L’Simcha Congregation for a number of years.

Perhaps she is a summoner sort rather than a magic blaster or martial artist. She can summon one or more golems who can then fight for her.

Another option could be a magic caster with a Kabbalist theme and one or more relics on her person, I suppose. A tarot deck might be fun as a means of accessing her magical powers.

10 hours ago, Mark Rand said:

• Rodef Shalom Congregation is a Reform synagogue located at 4905 Fifth Avenue.

   

• Congregation Beth Shalom is a Conservative synagogue located at 5915 Beacon Street.  This is the highest point in Squirrel Hill.

   

• Shaare Torah Congregation is an Orthodox synagogue located at 2319 Murray Avenue.  The city’s beit din (rabbinical court) meets here.

   

• Bet Tikvah is located within Rodef Shalom.

   

• Congregation Poale Zedeck is an Orthodox synagogue located at 6318 Phillips Avenue.

   

• Young Peoples Synagogue is an Orthodox synagogue located at 6404 Forbes Avenue.

   

• Young Israel of Pittsburgh is an Orthodox synagogue located at 5831 Bartlett Street.

   

• Tree of Life * Or L’Simcha Congregation is a Conservative synagogue located within Rodef Shalom, at 4905 Fifth Avenue, until the building at 5898 Wilkins Ave is rebuilt.

   

• New Light Congregation is a Conservative synagogue located in at 5915 Beacon Street, in Congregation Beth Shalom, until the Tree of Life * Or L’Simcha Congregation building it rents space in can be rebuilt.

   

• Baal Shem Tov Shul is an Orthodox synagogue located at 6328 Forbes Avenue.

   

• Beth Hamedrash Hagodol is an Orthodox synagogue located at 810 Fifth Avenue, in Duquesne University.

   

• Congregation Kether Torah is located at 5685 Beacon Street.

   

• Temple Sinai is a Reform synagogue located at 5505 Forbes Avenue.

   

• Chabad Lubavitch of Western Pennsylvania is an Orthodox synagogue located at 2100 Wightman Street.

   

• Bnai Emunoh Chabad is an Orthodox synagogue located at 4315 Murray Avenue.

   

• Beth El Congregation-South Hills is a Conservative synagogue located at 1900 Cochran Road.

   

• Itkin Joseph is a synagogue located at 2116 Wightman Street.

   

• Temple Emanuel of South Hills is a Reform synagogue located at 1250 Bower Hill Road.

   

• Parkway Jewish Center is a synagogue located at 300 Princeton Drive.

   

• Temple Ohav Shalom is a synagogue located in Allison Park, PA.

   

• In New American Synagogue is located at 2116 Wightman Street.

   

• Adat Shalom is a synagogue located in Cheswick, PA.

   

• Congregation Dor Hadash is Pittsburgh’s Reconstructionist community.  It is located within Rodef Shalom, at 4905 Fifth Avenue, until the Tree of Life * Or L’Simcha Congregation building it rents space in can be rebuilt.

   

 

 

There are also a number of mikvaot, ritual baths, in  Pittsburgh.  The Jewish Women’s League of Pittsburgh Mikvah is located at 1722 Denniston St, Pittsburgh, PA 15217.   The Keilim Mikvah is located at Congregation Poale Zedeck 6318 Phillips Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15217.  The Men’s Mikvah Pittsburgh at the Lubavitch Center is located at 2100 Wightman Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15217.  The Mikvah Lubavitch is located at 1 Yeshivah Way Pittsburgh, PA 15217.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It sounds like there should be one major superhero of the Jewish faith, which would certainly add to the city’s distinctive character.

Since Pittsburgh is known as Steel City, I think one of its major heroes should be a powered armor sort or have Steel in their name somehow.

I think a Western Hero/Champions/Dark Champions crossover book of characters is a wonderful idea.

Publish it and take my money, please.

I suspect this would have to be a labor of love rather than a quest for profits.

Friends In Space

They would be best for a Bronze Age setting. Way too out of date for the modern era.

That said, perhaps the presence of Soviet superhumans prolonged the life of the USSR in an alternate Champions universe, and that’s where the campaign is set. It might feel a bit like Watchmen.

Another possible way to use them would be as a part of a plot by Empress V’Han or maybe a time travel mission into the future for them from before the fall of the Soviet Union. After all, if you can bring Captain America forward from World War II into the modern world, you could do it with Soviet superhumans and might be pretty fun to have something so retro running around causing havoc.

I’ve seen a number of Gilligan crossovers in this thread, but I didn’t see this one…

Gilligan’s Land of the Lost

2 minutes ago, Utensil said:

but it does spread

You could make the effects Sticky.

Start the Patreon and take my money, please.

Is this a focused effect (single target), or will it affect all who can see her (AoE) at once?

A mental Transform will give you the long-term effect of being in love. Mind Control has breakout rolls that can snap someone out of it pretty quickly.

Has anyone bought any of these? There’s not much information in the descriptions.

If you bought them, what do you think of them?

23 hours ago, assault said:

Aside from a bit of trolling on my part, I was thinking about Abraham and Isaac.

Also Iphigenia.

Abraham and Isaac did not involve actual sacrifice, but only to see if they would be faithful enough to go through with it if told to do so by God. There’s some pretty deep symbolism in their story.

It was really quite a test of faith for Abraham, since his own father would have sacrificed him to an idol if he hadn’t been saved by divine intervention.

For WITCH, you could probably take quite a bit of stuff from DEMON and file off the serial numbers. Instead of Cthulhu-esque gods behind them, they are a full-on pagan organization. Any superhuman woman could be a member and the most powerful among them on the High Council (or whatever they call it).

What could be fun is to have them be a secret conspiracy with agents seeded among supervillain teams (and maybe some hero teams too). Mentalla of Eurostar could be a member or maybe the Duchess Von Drotte on VIPER’s leadership council.

3 minutes ago, Jujitsuguy said:

Cygnia:

I have known and played in this individual's campaigns for over 5 years now...he is a friend, and outside of the game, not a bad person at all; however, any game conversations that he feels are not in his favor go south immediately...he has even shut down games because he disagreed with a player....I don't mean major fallout, but just because something he didn't like...

 

Whenever I try to discuss these things, he throws a fit and threatens to leave the game.  So, this is the final where I say, "Last change on your character and these are the things that are acceptable on the character."

 

If he leaves, he leaves, simple as that...the campaign can get no more harm to it whether he stays with this character or leaves.

Hmmm. I get the impression of a control freak, my way or the highway, personality in this description. Throwing fits during conversations is not a sign of maturity, and I’m actually now thinking he is trying to take control of your campaign with his actions. You let him change characters once already, which caused you to retool some aspects of the campaign and now you’ll need to do it again.

Frankly, he does not sound like someone happy being a player, since your description is of him makes it sound like he was only GM-ing in prior play sessions. Give him one more chance if you want, but be prepared to let him walk away.

I’m now kind of curious as to what sort of campaign this is. Superhero? Sci-Fi? Fantasy? Espionage? Palace intrigue?

I think you need to settle with the player what “more fun” means. Are they not getting enough screen time? Are they not as effective as others in combat? Is the player borderline ADHD?

I throw the last one in because I’ve dealt with players that just keep wanting a change apparently for change’s sake and just never seem happy with their characters, like it’s boring for them to play the same thing more than once or twice.

Is there a militia under the control of the local lord keeping order? Or is it a sheriff and a few deputies?

In addition to the blacksmith, perhaps a tinsmith, silversmith and maybe a goldsmith? A jeweler? A clockmaker/watchmaker in town might make for a fun anachronism.

A toymaker could be in the larger town.

It sounds like there was once a king or emperor ruling over things, but that kingdom must have shattered somehow in the past. Civil war? Orc invasion? Assassination of the entire royal family?

Here’s some less savory ideas, but add adventuring potential.
 

Perhaps the larger town has a Thieves Guild for the local ne’er-do-wells? Are thieves branded as such if caught?

Does slavery exist in the region? Perhaps some non-humans (beast people like cat folk, for example) get this treatment instead of other humans.

Well, hengeyokai are probably closest to the Fair Folk in how you can look at them. They can be good, neutral or evil. Kitsune, Bakeneko and other Japanese spirit races pretty much run across the moral spectrum.

if you don’t have it, I would suggest picking up the two Asian Bestiaries in the Hero store for many, many write-ups of such beasties. They could be easily converted to racial templates.

For power levels, I tend to follow Scott Bennie’s setup in Gestalt: The Hero Within which breaks down power levels into broad categories (novice, experienced, respected, etc) and then assigns maximums for everything within those categories from Damage Classes and Active Points all the way to defenses, DEX and CV using a character’s SPD as the control factor.

I highly recommend it.