Space Cadet

The Narn Knights of the Round Table... now there's a scary

thought...

Space Cadet

Originally posted by lemming

One of the best death trap sessions was after I had accidently caught all the heroes. (I really had thought, they'd beat the villians...)

 

Anyway, since I was fresh out of ideas, I had the players think up the death traps for each other.

Aw, man, that's just plain evil... Bad lemming! Evil, twisted

lemming!

I'll have to remember to do that myself sometime ().

Space Cadet

You know what the creepy thing about your "The Gathering is

a lie" premise is, tkdguy?

The fact that, right now on the FanFiction.net website, there

is a Highlander story in which that very premise is a part

of the story (only it was a mortal with a twisted sense of humor

who started the whole "There can be only one" shebang).

Another plot element involved the bit about Immortals not

being able to have children. The author of this particular tale

put his (or her; I forget which) own spin on the issue, to the

point that, yes, it was indeed possible for Immortals to have

children.

What was really incredible was how the author incorporated

elements of the original Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1,

and the Ryan Administration (from the most recent Tom Clancy

novels) into the story in a way that actually made a strange

sort of sense. AAMOF, the first thing that crossed my mind

was the thought "I can just see someone doing this as an RPG

campaign".

Space Cadet

Another possibile choice for the Bushido/Noble Warrior category

is the reptilian race of Dragoncrests (from the Living Steel RPG).

Space Cadet

Originally posted by CarlSagan

I feel your pain. All I can say is that we all know the good help applications (and the helpful manuals) and we remember how we felt about those. Likewise, we all remember the bad help files and how those made us feel.

 

I know I will get a lot of flame for saying this, but probably the best overall product documentation is done by Microsoft. Hey, maybe Microsoft is run by aliens!

 

Getting back to the topic at hand, I like that idea that the aliens wanted Ralph to lose the manual to keep him humble. Who were some of the other supporting characters? Ralph had a girlfriend, too, didn't he? I was a teenager when the show was on, and all I can remember is that she was pretty hot.

Ralph did indeed have a girlfriend in the show (played by Connie

Selleca), who IIRC was a lawyer of some sort, and eventually became

Mrs. Greatest American Hero towards the end of the series.

As to the students, I believe that Michael Pare was the "bad boy"

of the class, and that one of the female students was originally

on "Welcome Back Kotter" (I think her nickname on WBK was

"Hotsie Totsie").

Space Cadet

Originally posted by Bengal:

And of course, Sheep Man: The Man who can turn you into a sheep.

Well, if nothing else, we've gotten at least one villainous NPC for a

Western HERO campaign...

Space Cadet

You forgot the Dark Power Behind The Scenes category: the

really grim, eldritch horror-type of ETs -- the Shadows and

their servant race, the Drakh (from B5) and the Eddorians from

the Lensman series of novels.

Bushido category: the Kaldarans (from the Invasion Terra

campaign setting for the Mekton Zeta RPG).

Endless Swarm category: the Aggendi (an insectoid/reptilian

hybrid race; also from Mekton and Mekton Zeta).

Ancient Steward category: the Arisians (from the Lensman

series).

BTW, the reptilians from B5 that were mentioned in the Wanna-

Be category are the Drazi.

I'm not sure which category these guys would fit into, but how

about the Ethicals from the Riverworld novels?

Space Cadet

Originally posted by Battlestaff

Thanks for the memory jog Space Cadet!! It was Giant, not Goliath (I just remember the big G on his costume). And Flare and Icicle I believe were members.

 

As for Sparkplug, I have absolutely no recall of him/her/it. Any help as to what Sparkplug was?

 

Lady Arcane I don't think was an actual member in the comic, but was more of an ally. She wasn't a member when looking at the game supplements.

Sparkplug was Flare's sister, and was an electrical energy-projector

with flight powers. IIRC, she was a result of the same experiment

that gave Flare and their brother(?) their abilities. I think that the

character called Poinsettia was also part of the same experiment,

but I'm not absolutely certain of this.

Space Cadet

Originally posted by Battlestaff

Marksman, Rose, Gargoyle, Goliath (I believe), and Icestar (I believe).

Unless I'm mistaken, Battlestaff, the character you referred to

as Goliath was actually named Giant. IIRC, there were some

other members of that group as well (at least in the comic books

featuring those characters): Flare, Sparkplug, Lady Arcane and

Icicle (Icestar's sister, if memory serves me).

Space Cadet

As far as Godzilla's height is concerned, it depends on which

version of Big G you're talking about. If you're talking about

the pre-timeline change version, then 30 stories (300 feet) is

just about right. If, on the other hand, you're talking about

the post-timeline change version then Big G's height would be

closer to 60 stories (600 feet) (as a result of Godzilla being

created years later than he was originally, and with a modern

nuclear weapon to boot).

Now as far as "Stupid Godzilla Tricks" are concerned, I can only

think of one really weird stunt that Big G pulled in one of the

pre-timeline change movies: somehow magnetizing himself and

using that power to pull MechaGodzilla towards him just prior

to popping open a 24-pack of Kaiju Whoopass on it.

Space Cadet

The only thing that I can think of to add to Big G's writeup would

be some form of Absorbption power, to reflect his ability to feed

on the radiation from nuclear power plants (or nuclear explosions),

with the absorbed points going into an END battery.

Space Cadet

My first Champions character back in the mid-80s was a brick/

energy projector called Starguard (this was before the Allies

supplement came out). He had super-strength, flight (FTL and

normal in-atmosphere movement both), and had the power to

generate/project the full spectrum of phenomena associated

with stars -- light, heat, gravity, radiation, etc. As originally

written, the character was slightly above the (then) limit of

250 points, but the GM liked the character concept so much

(a Green Lantern/Superman type of character) that he let me

run Starguard as was, provided I didn't have him use powers

that were outside of his stated abilities. In the 4 to 5 years

that the campaign ran, I don't think he ever regretted having

let me do that. He told me some time later that my character

being in the campaign had given him plot ideas he might not

have had otherwise.

I'm currently in the process of rewriting the character to fit

the current rules, and I've already given him a new name,

since there's already someone in the current version of the CU

called Starguard (even if it is a slightly different version of the

name).

Space Cadet

Originally posted by Chuckg

In 4e, yes.

 

In 5e, he seems to be more filling the role of "The God that Satan prays to." -- i.e., classic Kirby Pre-Crisis Darkseid.

Yeah, and he's probably got the T-shirt that says "I'm So Evil,

The Devil Worships ME!" just to rub it in.

Space Cadet

I'm not sure if this the right part of the boards for this topic,

but here goes anyway...

In looking over the various Perks in the Hero System, I suddenly

remembered an old Reader's Digest story that I'd come across

some years ago. It was about a woman who had undergone surgery

to have a nuclear battery-powered pacemaker hooked up to her

heart. Because she did a lot of cross-border travel between the

U.S. and Canada (job-related, I think), she had to get a special

permit to transport nuclear material across international bord-

ers.

So, what I'm asking you fellow Herophiles is this: what do you guys

think that a Perk like that would be worth in terms of character

points?

Space Cadet

Originally posted by Beetle

How can you forget his incredible stint as the host of Solid Gold?

Rex Smith did a stint on Solid Gold? When the frell did that

happen?

Space Cadet

Say, Nightmask, I noticed a few pages back that you had listed

"Streethawk" as the name of the main character in Street Hawk.

To be somewhat nit-picky, however, that was the code name

for the super-cycle itself; the name of the main character was

Jesse Mach (as far as I know, Rex Smith's only other TV role

aside from his soap-opera work).

Space Cadet

I hadn't thought of writing up the Methuselah Crystal as an EC,

but considering it was almost 4 A.M. here when I posted my

reply, my mind was partly asleep, so it didn't occur to me.

That said, I can't find anything wrong with what you've posted

here, especially with regard to the FREd Highlander Hero

rules. In fact, I plan on getting a printout of these 5thEd rules

once I've got access to a decent printer (I already have two

different versions of "fan-brewed" Highlander rules, both

written for use with the GURPS system).

Space Cadet

Originally posted by tkdguy

Update: I'm almost finished with the revision. I'm just trying to figure out how to write up Dark Quickening and the Methuselah crystal. Does anyone have suggestions?

From what I remember about the Methuselah Crystal from the

series, an Immortal in possession of the crystal would (accord-

ing to legend) be impervious to any form of killing attack

whatsoever, including decapitation -- but only while he

or she had actual physical possession of the crystal, and only

while the crystal remained in one piece.

With that in mind, I'd suggest writing it up as Power Defense

vs. Killing Attacks with the Focus limitation (just for the rec-

ord, that's the Breakable Focus limitation; the crystal wasn't

indestructible in spite of its power).

Now, as far as the Dark Quickening is concerned, that's going

to be a somewhat tougher nut to crack, but I'll give it a shot.

One way to handle it would be something similar to what was

suggested in the Horror World section of Champions in

3D: use a Transformation Attack to achieve the specific

effect that you're looking for (for Ci3D, it was to transform a normal, sane human into a raving mind-blasted

lunatic). In the context of a Highlander campaign, a Dark

Quickening could be done as follows: Transformation Attack

(only to turn a good Immortal into an evil Immortal).

Space Cadet

I don't know if it's appeared somewhere else on this thread, but

here's my submission to the Villains Name List:

Technomancer (a supergenius with access to extremely ad-

vanced technology).

BTW, Avatar, wasn't Windshear the name of a character in the

Alpha Flight comic?

Space Cadet

Never heard of Path of the Fury, but I do seem to recall

something similar being done in G.I. Joe (COBRA's

T.A.R.G.A.T. soldiers; Trans-Atmospheric Ground Attack Troop-

ers, IIRC).

Space Cadet

Something similar has been described in the BattleTech novels,

where the 360-degree sensor feed is compressed into a smaller

viewing arc (160 degrees, IIRC) in the pilot's HUD.

Space Cadet

Originally posted by Dr. Anomaly

Thanks, S.C.! I was only 12, so not in high school yet. As I recall, it was a TV-movie first, which got spun out into a TV series that sank pretty quickly. Yes/no?

That was pretty much the case, Doc. I have the impression,

though, that The Return of Captain Nemo was intended

to be a limited-run series (given that Captain Nemo's stated

goal in the series was to find Atlantis, which was accomplished

in the final episode, anything else coming after that would've

been excess baggage).

Space Cadet

Originally posted by Dr. Anomaly

Okay, I don't think these have been mentioned yet, but it's a long thread, so please forgive me if I duplicate:

 

Manimal

 

The Infiltrator (that's the name of the man-fused-with-spaceprobe, man in question played by Scott Bakula)

 

Hard Time on Planet Earth

 

The Magician (with Bill Bixby)

 

There was a short-lived series about Captain Nemo being revived from suspended animation in the modern day...can't remember the name, darn it!

Doc, that short-lived series was The Return of Captain Nemo,

from 1978 (jeez, I was in my third year of high school when that

bit of soggy TV silliness was on).

Space Cadet

From what I've heard or seen whenever I've watched the show,

Rosanjin was more or less the Grand High Poobah of cuisine in

Japan at some point in the past. I'd have to watch the show a

great deal more to find out.

Oh yeah, let's not forget about the former Parlimentarian who

sits on the Tasting & Judging Panel from time to time, or the

photographer who was also one of the semi-regulars.

Space Cadet

Let's see, what other TV characters can I think of here...

For starters, there's the father-and-son team from Blacke's Magic

(Hal Linden and Harry Morgan; a magician and retired con-artist,

respectively); Christopher George's character from The Immortal

(IIRC, the character's name was Ben Richards); David Rappaport's

character from The Wizard and, finally, the android police-

man HAVEN from Future Cop.

Space Cadet