ZootSoot

Originally posted by NuSoardGraphite

I use the GURPS Tech levels. They're a pretty good guideline. They go Tech 1(stone age) to Tech 14(Science is magic). We would currently be considered to be at the beginning of Tech Level 8(early cyberpunk) Typical Space Opera tech level is between 10 and 13. (Babylon-5 tech-10, Star Trek tech-11, Star Wars tech-12, Lensman tech-13[solid state tech notwithstanding])

Star Wars is considerably less technologically advanced than Star Trek.

Re: Soul Search 2018

Originally posted by Marchwarden

Curious how you all would interpret this:

 

After the gruesome defeat I posted about a while back, the Champions 2018 players were wondering if the GM missed a trick. After all, at least two of the 2018 Crowns of Krim can sense living souls, so they should have been able to tell that Eternia wasn't really dead, despite being dismembered. We were wrong. In the Great Godawful Smackdown Rematch Fight, the villains threw out a few taunts ("Toy of Teleios", "Soulless spawn of science", that sort of thing), which seemed to confirm some of Eternia's worst fears. Her doubts about her own "humanity" are reflected in her Psych Lims, and she started to suffer a sort of collapse. That was the first time in any Champions combat that I ever had to make a PRE Attack against my own team's brick in order to provide emotional support. Well, she snapped out of it in time to save me from Temblor, and the Champions eventually prevailed. Nonetheless, Eternia's pretty devastated. On the upside, Heartseeker pointed out that all the Crowns once had souls and lost them, so why should it be impossible for someone born without a soul to earn one?

 

So, that's our new subplot: the quest to get our teammate a soul. I have two questions: first, how do you think this will work mechanically? Transform specifically says that it can't turn unliving into living things - but Eternia isn't inanimate like an armchair, or even like Mechanon. I'm thinking either a Spiritual Transform, or else a Summon (summoning a nascent soul into her body, that is), or else GM-dictated plot device (when conditions X, Y and Z are satified, it will just happen).

 

Secondly, where in the CU ought we to look for help? Witchcraft is Archmage in 2018, and not always easy to contact: I suspect she'll tell us something helpful but necessarily cryptic. There are also the religious institutions that exist in the real world as well. Finally, we confiscated some tomes and paraphernalia from the Crowns, which seems to involve soul-related ritual magic. I'm more than a little uncomfortable about seeking help from that quarter, though...

Well, drawing n my own experience as Talisman exzterminator in the present (story in greatest champions moments thread around here) you need to find a soul without a body which is willing to bond with her. I would say look into the victims of the Crowns and try to make contact on the astral plane. Pure plot device.

Originally posted by Mutant for Hire

Medicine to biotech/bionics is another area.

 

Weapon technology is another area.

 

Computer technology also falls into the list.

I thought about those,and decided they all really fell into manufacturing or energy.

My idea was an attempt to define a society not by a single tech level but by specific numbers related to the technology level of five basic areas. these are:

Communications:

0. Pre-linguistic; no true language exists to allow communication between individuals.

1. Face to face communications; "spoken" language has been developed

2. Recorded language ; "writing"

3. Some form of signalling over a distance had been developed

4. Codified laws, political society has been developed

5. Mechanical distance communication (telegraphy) developed

6. Modern communication equivalents

7. Distance communicationm technology inherent (HRRP through implants)

8. Virtual environmments fully developed

9. Universal translator technology available

10. technologically driven telepathy deeloped

Food Production:

0. Scavenging is sole means of sustenance

1. Hunting (or equivalent) is developed

2. Horticulture

3. Settled agriculture

4. Specialized agriculture

5.{ blank}

6. Modern food production equivalent

7. Efficient hydroponics/ synthetic growth environments

8. Rapidly modified food sources (convenience based genetic engineering)

9. Energy conversion technology (photo synthetic implants etc.)

10. "replicator" technology

Transportation:

0. Shank's mare

1. Dometicated riding beasts

2. "Wheeled" technology

4. Sail/rowing water transport

5. Primitive flight

6. Modern transportation

7. Efficient sls space travel

8. Hyperspace technology

9. FTL flight

10. Teleportation

Energy Production:

0. Personal physical strength

1. Domestic animal power

2. Wind/Water power

3. Primitive heat differential tech

4. Steam engines

5. Modern power

6. Fusion power

7. Broadcast power

8.Anti-matter conversion

9. {blank}

10. Zero point power

Manufacturing Technology:

0. Nothing is made

1. Personal simple tools

2. Textiles/ceramics

3. Basic metallurgy

4. Iron age production

5. Pre-industrial

6. Modern

7.Cheap custom manufacturing

8. Personal factories

9. Nano-tech

10 Replicator

Does this look like a useful/workable idea? Any ideas on what could fill in the blanks?

Mechanon wants to destroy all organic life, but has no desire to rule, right? The dead aren't alive, right? So howsabout Mechanon and Takofanes coming to an agreement to kill everything and Takofanes raise them as undead to rule over?

Um, is it just me? I always read old HoJ not as a mentor/npc hero but as a villain in DC; I thought he was mean to be the guy who had taken the vigilante thing too far and stepped over the line separating good from evil.

During a game session I missed most of the members of my team particpated in the cold-blooded murder of an evil sorceres they had captured (the least any of them did was participate in her capture and either avoided or been distracted from the scene where she was killed). Two sessions later she began tormenting the whole team from the astral plane. (Me and the other person who wre not there were indirectly attacked in our efforts to help our teammates).

Consultation with two NPCs sorcerors revealed that she could possess people temporarily (and would be vulnerable then) but to stop her would involve killing herhost. We also learned that existing solely on the astral plane, her power was greatly increased there; we could go there but have only our normal power level).

My characters powers are based on having absorbed a portion of the soul of her predecessor (who had done the same and so on for over 1800 years). I did not have a chosen successor. I realized that if I died I would not only have an increase in my base power, but bring the souls of all sixty-plus of my predecessors with me (and that I had no karmic burden towards the sorceress). I killed myself when the rest of the team was transported to the astral plane magically. The sorceress kicked everyone else's ass by the time I showed up and I defeated her one on one with my death power up.

Re: Ecological look at metahumans.

Originally posted by Mutant for Hire

Now a lot of supervillains may adopt a nomadic strategy rather than a stationary strategy. That is, find a town where there are no superheroes (or at least known ones) and hit it for all its worth and then move on. This is a strategy favored by low power types that can't even make minion grade for a more established supervillain team. I'm not exactly sure how the superhero community will evolve to deal with this phenomena but someone will come up with something to deal with transient supervillains.

Why nothing less than the latest in Police technology, the extremely adaptable, modular Turtle powered armor!

Anyone else remember that?

Miami just seems a great city for supers. You got sun, sea and sleaze all together there. Its got urban gloss, redneck charm, racial unrest, decadence and cocaine. It's a great package.

Re: Paranormals as Weapons of Mass Destruction?

Originally posted by EvilGM

With everything that's been going on lately, it got me thinking about the effect that paranormals would have on the world they exist in, and about the often found storyline of attempts to control/regulate them.

 

In a world where it is felt paranormals need to be controlled because they are dangerous, has anyone ever taken it to the extreme where they have been declared a world-wide danger, on par with conventional weapons of mass destruction? If so, how did you handle it?

Very few superhumans would qualify as weapons of mass destruction because most are extremely good at directinmg their abilities. It is very unlikely that most supers would have destructive effects beyond their specific targets.

Originally posted by Balok

Total life support is described on FRED 128, just above the Luck Table. It's everything *except* longevity.

 

Poor Doc D. Guess he'll need to spend a character point on some research. I mean, how hard could it be for a guy with a 35 INT? That's (counts on fingers) 32 times as smart as Joe Average!

No, it's not! Generalizing from the lifting table for stat effects other than lifting doesn't even begin to make sense . . .

Originally posted by Dr. Rune

That someone was Sally Field....and, yes, it was before my time too.

 

Doc

'Twas in the movies first (without ms. Fields), sixties surfing stuff. Supposedly based on the writer's teen daughter getting that nickname when she was learning to surf, a contraction of girl and midget (she was short); Big Kahuna on meeting her "Look, a girl midget, a Gidget!" (Oh, God, am I ollld!).

In one game I played a character who cost 185 points in a 250 point supers game. She was a gadgeteer whose main gimmick was a gliding suit with an owl theme. We were in combat with Marvel's Wrecking Crew. I swooped down behind Pile Driver and snatched the back of his mask and yabked it up and twisted it so it covered his eyes. The GM simply ruled this successful. Does anyone have a more objective way to adjudicate maneuvers of this sort.

Originally posted by Trebuchet

Not to seem overly critical, but isn't a superpowered homewrecker just a little bit unheroic? Not a lot of "uphold the right" there. Doesn't your character ever have doubts about the morality of that relationship?

 

Hmmm, perhaps a thread about superhero ethics might be interesting...

Absolutely she is troubled by her relationship, but she is in love (hopelessly, Luis is never going to leave his wife). It's a quandary that provides a lot of material for role-playing.

Well I have a nineteen year old superheroine who has one DNPC who is her boss and her lover (he is in his late fifties) and three other DNPCs who are her lover's wife and twin children (who are her classmates at college)!!!

I had a golden age superheroine whose DNPC was a career Marine officer and her husband, he was stationed in China before the American withdrawal and after fighting Mao's forces had taken to describing himself and his men as "gung ho!" He was reckless, terrifyingly over-confident and extremely protective of the "little woman" (without knowing she was "Fury, America's most fearsome femme!").

Re: Just 400 Points to be a God

Originally posted by Supreme

Just for fun, I thought I'd calculate what STR Hercules would have to be. The one time that I know of in which Hercules' strength was pushed to its limits was when he took over holding up the Earth from Atlas. It wasn't easy for him, but he was able to support the weight of the Earth long enough for Atlas to walk around, talk to a few people and come back.

 

So, the Earth weighs about 6 x 10^18 kilotons. To be able to hold that up would require a 390 STR. This would make your base PD 78. Your minimum base REC is 80 (assuming a CON of at least 10) which I believe translates to 8 Body recovered a day which is one Body every three hours. Your leap would also be 78". Toss a -1/4 lim on that (OIHID or something like that) and this is actually an affordable character. Can't hit anyone with an OCV of 3? Hit 'em with the friggin' planet!

Actually, Atlas and Heracles held up the vault of the heavens over the earth. It is probably much mre difficult to figure out what the mass of such an object is.

Originally posted by Enforcer84

But its such a part of the superhero genre for Superheroes to have the "union suits". That's the thing, the debate that has been going on in the list (far too polite to be "raging") the idea held by those members of the list from England and France is that their heroes wouldn't wear masks, wouldn't dress in bright costumes, and so on. The idea being that only Americans are so inclined(implying that the traditional superheroic costumes are some how beneath them). Then there are Americans who disagree. I was wondering where the Herophiles fell.

 

I mean, the first French character I rember seeing was Batroc the Leaper and I am sure France hasn't forgiven us for him.

If you are doing it because it is "genre" then obviously foreign supers should do it to.

Re: More "Man" than Most...

Originally posted by Delthrien

A question for any budding geneticists (or fully fledged ones for that matter..).

 

If I remember my rudimentary genetics info from High School biology (and that is much farther back in my history than I care to remember...) Females are XX and Males are XY. Does anyone know of the existence of a YY chromosome out there? I believe there may be a couple of genetic disorders in which the patient may have an extra chromosome (as in XYY) or some such, but I've no idea what that entails for the "fortunate" individual.

 

The reason for the curiosity is that there is a character concept in which the character is dubbed "The First Man" who genetically is YY. I just wondered if this is firmly in the realm of comic book "pseudo-science" or if there might be a spark of reality in the mix...

 

Inquiring minds and all that...

 

Charlie

Many birth defects are much more common in men becaue the Y chromosone does not carry as much information as the X so a single defective gene is often all that is necessary to give heamophilia or red-green color blindness to a male while a female would need two copies of it. An individual without an X chromosone would not be viable. However, there are men who have XYY (and women with XXY) chromosones. These individuals tend to have exagerrated musculature, be "ugly" and very hirsute; they have high level of natural testosterone (and are the official reason why hormone tests for athletes are so lenient); there may be a mild form of mental retardation associated with the male condition and there is a disproportionate number of XXY males in the prison population (apparently they look more driminal and are thus easier to convict).

As Storn has pointed out in another context, the skin-tight spandex dress is a convention artists adopted in comics to simplify the task of drawing. Real supers (ie game supers whose origins have nothing to do with comic book art conventions) just would not wear this stuff (or very rarely wear it) as it just isn't practical, and that includes Americans.

Originally posted by archermoo

My bowstring isn't tied in knots. It annoys me when people look down on others for simply responding to their statements. To refresh memories, you said "You answer a simple question about how you run your Champions games and it starts another (grumble, grumble) metaphysical debate outside the "Non-gaming Discussions" secion. MOM! They're doing it AGAIN!". That was in response to people replying to your initial statement of "I don't allow magic or magical characters in my campaigns since the PCs are supposed to be the good guys and magic is by definition evil and demonic. You can't use the powers of darkness to produce good results." The important bit that several people objected to was the "magic is by definition evil and demonic" portion. Had that part been something to the effect of "magic in my campaign is universally evil and demonic" I wouldn't have had a problem with it. However, you didn't. What you effectively said is that what the word magic means is evil, demonic power, and when people objected to your redefining the word you got huffy.

 

Personally IRL, I don't believe in magic any more than I believe in any deity. I feel that belief in both through history has stunted the intellectual growth of mankind for thousands of years an affliction that we are still struggling to get past. Sidetracking the quest for knowledge by influencing people to look to the supernatural for answers rather than the wonder that is the natural world around them. However in a world that both magic and gods exist, such as most Fantasy settings, I've got no problem with either of them.

 

And Kevin, you never answered my question. Would you consider all super powers that do not directly derive their power in a religious fashion to be evil? Or is "magic" the only thing that qualifies as such?

I am never sure what people mean when they say they don't believe in magic. Clearly much of our behavior is the result of magical thinking, and, for a given value of "works" magic tends to work. Now there is a lot of specifically fictional magic, but otherwise magic is just something we do.

Originally posted by zen_hydra

I am dismayed at the obnoxiously Euro-centric views of magic being displayed. Magic as an institution for good has been, and in many places, is still practiced around the world. Magic has always been more about trying to better control / influence ones environment and very rarely about consorting with evil spirits just for the hell-of-it. Would someone please explain to me the overt evil nature of Taoist magic, or Tribal African magic, Shintoist magic, Native American magic, Australian Aboriginal magic, and these are but a very few examples of the worlds magical traditions? How can anyone be arrogant enough to make a sweeping comment about how magic is intrinsically based in evil?

The only Person I have seen do that is Kevin Scrivener and, presumably, he does so because it is a part of his deeply held religious beliefs.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Evil Magic

Originally posted by Blue Angel

I never stated any "definitive goal". What I said was that the statement magic=evil is characteristic of the kind of stigmatization used by organized religion to depopularize other belief systems. Persecutions of those with different beliefs have happened and religion has been used as the justification: even if not every day throughout history.

 

Religious beliefs have been used as the justification for persecutions by the few exceptions you have accurately referred to. It is the mode of thinking characterized by such statements as magic=evil that I am questioning. It is the stigmatizing of something, which is not necessarily an evil concept.

 

Though it is the definitive goal of any major belief system to become established as the most widely held belief. On occasion some get a little too overzealous. Unfortunately when a few crazies get their hands on religion the consequences can be extreme. This has been no different in the past than it is in the present.

 

Aside - Did I mention I don't believe in magic?

 

Just like some Germans protected some Jews during the Second World War there were some who would strive to protect the innocent throughout history. Again you are correct.

 

I can site an example.

 

The Cathars were an offshoot of Christianity that existed in Europe around the 11th and 12th centuries. After tolerating them for a while it was decided that they had to go. In the ensuing crusade there were some who sympathized with the Cathars who were their friends and associates. On July 21, 1209 there was a resulting siege of Beziers, France: one of many sieges of that cursade.

 

'The inhabitants of Beziers bravely refused the offer of the crusaders to deliver up the Cathars. A long Siege seemed to be ahead but the next day a group of those besieged tried a possibly unwise escape. They were pursued by a band of soldiers who succeeded in entering the town. The crusaders set fire to and massacred nearly all the population, almost twenty thousand people, even the seven thousand of them who had taken refuge in the Church of the Magdelene.

 

Faced with the hesitation of some crusaders to commit such horrific acts, Arnaud-Amaury, abbot of Citeaux, and spiritual leader of the crusade is truly said to have cried: "Kill them all! God will recognize his own!" In any case, this little phrase was reported ten years later by Cesair de Heisterbach, a Cistercian monk from Calogne. And the terrible warnings of Guillaume de Tudele, the author of the song of the crusades against Albigensians rang out: "Any castle which resists, any stubborn town shall be taken by force and reduced to a Charnel-house.. That no living being should be left, even newborn babies. Thus shall be sown healthy fear and no longer shall anyone care to defy the cross of God".' - Michele Aue - translated by Julliette Freyche.

 

Compared to some of these guys and many others including your modern example, Jack-the-Ripper is a puppy.

 

Anyway my point was and still is magic does not allways equal evil. That is 16th century's pop culture view.

 

And I just had to get started on this... Damn psycolocical limitation.

 

Allright that's it. Can't take it any more. I am turning off the smite shield.

 

So, go ahead, smite me.

 

P.S. What does this have to do with the original topic anyway?

The conflict with the Cathars was a response to a specific religious disagreement, it had nothing to do with the morality or practice of magic.

Re: Evil Magic

Originally posted by Blue Angel

Actually the original European pagan concept of magic was as a force for good. It was used for healing, blessing crops and was pretty much in tune with nature. Using magic (witchcraft) for evil was supposed to result in suffering three times as much as you inflicted: the three-fold law. It was a certain religion that convinced the masses that all magic was evil. Which was a good excuse for raping and murdering innocent people that just happened to have different beliefs.

 

Beside, who else better to combat black magic than practitioners of white magic? Anyone trying to deny the good guys the powers of light is by definition evil and demonic.

 

...Activates smiting deflection shield.

This is not documentable but seems to be a construction of neo-pagan religious belief. This is not to say that magic was seen as exclusively evil, but we do not know. What we can see is that magic was somehing seen as a danger of the wilderness that people attempted to harness to protect themselves from the same threat. Over time more sophisticated ideas of the advantages of magical power developed. Still there are many traditions that any use of magic to directly benefit the user is innately evil (black magic). Magic is seen as extremely powerful in folklore tales (including fairy, folk, legend and myth) but as a relatively subtle power in day to day life. This fuels ideas of magic fading from the world over time, but not all folklore tales date from the past . . .

Re: Magic in a Champions game?

Originally posted by EvilGM

A couple of questions for you:

 

1) How often does magic appear in your Champions game?

 

2) Is there a structure to it, or is it just like any other sfx?

There are three basic approaches to magic in any Hero system game:

1. It's a special effect than can explain any power set. In Champions this is the easiest route (it is pretty easy in other games, but it does give characters with magic a tremendous advantage over those who don't.

2. A single specific system of magic, encompassing specific skills and powers that interacxt in a specific way. This works pretty well in Fantasy Hero games, it provides a way to measure relative power of mages and limits their power so it can be matched by non-magic users. This is a little inflexible for Champions however, particularly because these limits now exist for mages and for no one else.

3. My favorite method for Champions is to develop a few different forms of 2 above for NPC mages and insist that PC mages either utilize one of those systems or design their own. The limitations of 2 exist, but there is variety and encouragement for characters to develop abilities that are not magic based.

Armando would insert himself into the train and pose as a passenger. Use his enhanced senses to memorize the guy's biorhythms, snatch the monitor and start doing his beat box impersonation of the guy's vital signs and beat him silly until he tells him where the bomb is. Then get someone else to actually disarm because Armando and technology do not get along . . .