BoneDaddy

Buck - the dog from Call of the Wild.

Little Wooden Boy

assault - I like it. Covers Sky Captain, the Mummy, Conan, and everything else we use it for.

Are you limiting yourself to a period, or a geography, or either? I think just about any point in the westward expansion has interesting stuff in it. Daniel Boone never made it to Carson City, but either period would make a good setting.

The US dealings with Mexico, the CAS, and every tribe of indians from the Delaware to the Apache all seem to fit the genre. Also, it seems to go from just slightly pre-steam engine to just slightly pre-internal combustion engine. That's a long range, tech-wise.

For example, I have an ancestor (Lewis Wetzel, a bad bad man) who fought the Delaware on the Ohio river, left the Alamo (sorry folks, I only shoot Indians. I've got no problems with Mexicans...), did time in Louisiana, and eventually died there. He was a sweeping range hero, but he died long before the '49 gold rush.

Could be a huge project. Of course, I would rather be in any Leone Western than Jeremiah Johnson.

Looking at what I've written, I'm no help at all. sorry.

Alan,

by your definition, I concede your point.

But, If pulp is just defined by the period of its writing, then how can we call anything new "pulp?" How can we call anything "in the style of pulp" since it could encompass anything from that chronological period?

Alan - Horror is Pulp, Howard is Pulp, maybe some Lovecraft is Pulp, but not all.

Dagon - sure, that's pulp.

Dreamquest of Unknown of Kaddath - I don't think that's Pulp.

The Dunwhich Horror, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, I just don't think rank with Tarzan and Conan. They are different genres, which I think is the important part of this "Pulp" thing. As genre goes, I think Frank Miller's Sin City was in the pulp genre.

It becomes a question of Ontology. What do you mean when you say Pulp? I must admit I'm not entirely sure of what I mean. I don't mean to put you in the Thrasymachus seat, by the way - I'm really interested in answering these and other pressing questions.

Desdinova - Fine nom de plume you've chosen. It boggles my mind that Imaginos isn't available on CD. I've spent way too much time trying to make sense of Del Rio's Song

At the risk of sounding a little prudish, I always thought fighting in lingere was a little odd. Something more than sorta Freudian about a villainess who commits evil while inciting lust. Sex isn't really that dirty, although it is a little combative/cooperative.

Additionally, I think only the early Greeks and the Picts made any real headway fighting naked. Does she have oodles of regeneration? Does the want the road rash that comes from fighting in a leotard? I love Alex Ross's artwork, specifically in Batman:War on Crime. Beautiful stuff. The most gripping frame is a shot of Wayne working out, without his shirt on. Fantastic muscles, criscrossed with scars, burns and bruises. After a few tumbles, she won't be showing so much leg...

Give the poor girl some pants, and maybe some armor. I'm not saying she shouldn't be hotness, or even skanky hotness. But my first qestion should not be "how much?"

Just my $.02. If it works for you, keep it. Nice art work.

in the BBB, duplication was prohibitively expensive. A small squad of incompetents was the best that could be hoped for. With FREd, the pendulum has swung a little too far in the opposite direction. I recommend a tailored nemesis.

Can the Skycaptain pull this off without Yoshimi? Does anyone want my obscure references?

But seriously, folks... Wouldn't he be better off with a Lightning? What if he was stuck with something a bit more awkward, like a PBY?

I love the pulpy goodness. I disagree that anything printed on pulp paper is by default "pulp." Lovecraft is not pulp, and neither is Nabokov (he had a very hard time finding a puplisher for Lolita, and it wound up bing puplished by a small pulp press that mostly did less erudite adult reading.

If that flight isn't always on (or something similar) you have a VERY smart bomb that will wait around for the target to show up. Reminds me of Tom Selleck and Gene Simmmons in Runaway, or...

[knock-knock]

"who is it?"

"flowers for Mrs. Ferfmeher."

"You're that awful smart bomb."

"Just a dud, ma'am."

"Well, if that's all..."

[bOOM!]

ICE's crit tables were fun, but not serious stuff.

The "fumble" rule (drop a weapon on a 3, or a 1 in a d20 game) always irritated me. I once had a Cavalier so skilled he could drop and pick up his sword in the same round. Butterfingers, they called him. I had a Ranger who carried around 20 extra bowstrings. Dice and I don't always obey the laws (suggestions, really) of probability. More dispiriting than enjoyable.

Nick MontPierre, Private Eye. Nick was a vampire, not by choice. Sort of a Marlow/ Van Helsing cross. Some of my worst roleplaying, and one hell of an incompetent super-hero.

Find Weakness applies to attack powers. Entangle is an attack power. I have a player working on a character with a glue gun. The character is a good shot. It seems plausable that there are better and worse places to shoot someone with a big ball o' glue. My trouble is I can't figure out how to reduce an appropriate defense by half. Would it be best to take it on a case by case basis?

Example - Marshall shoots a brick with the glue gun - reduce brick's strength by half for purposes of breaking out. This represents good shot placement.

Example 2 - Marshall shoots a blaster with the glue gun - reduce blaster's WHAT? The appropriate defense appears to be strength ONLY for a glue gun. If it was a Human Torch type character, I don't think any kind of shot placement could miss the flame. If the damage shield's special effect invloved a swordsman's remarkable skill, then good shot placement could reduce that damage sheild's effectiveness.

Am I thinking about this right?

Whaddya think?

Have I missed some obvious chapter in my book? (Just got it for X-mas. Finally replaced my crumbling BBB. I like the improvements.)

I've been working on a robot for a while. Names are hard, so I plagiarize until the drafting is done, and the personality is fleshed out. I want to explore the great questions of AI - what do they want, left to their own devices? Do they have a heirarchy of needs? Are their actions morally relevant? (no intntion to threadjack, just rambling...)

Andy (messenger robot - many other functions) does not sleep or dream. A message from himself would be a critical error which he would disregard.

Marshall Becker would discuss and possibly disregard (if the greater good is served, the risk must be taken.)

Every last Multi-man would go right in.

Plato (mentalist rat) would not.

Ho-Tai would go in, if his subjects were in peril.

Given the last two Reeves who have filled the blue tights, I think Keeanu would do best to just say "whoa."

Has supergirl ever been anything other than eyecandy, used back in the days of the CC to prove that Jimmy Olsen was in fact NOT Clark's catamite? Not that there's anything wrong with eye candy, but I never gave her much respect to begin with. Abs of steel, buns of steel, etc. Yum?

Thanks for the kickstart, all! The swamp is bound to have someother sort of mushroom person/veggepygmy - great idea! I'm not sure if the Bokor IS the local kingpin, or hired by the local kingpin, but the night of the living dead episode should be a scream.

I think I will be using the Lucky Mansion as the template for the haunted house/home base (everybody should check out Kill Dr. Lucky at cheapassgames.com)

Probably going to be MOSTLY humorous, drifting towards grittiness.

Super Krewe - BRILLIANT. High tech for one, voodoo for another. Maybe a turf war and a Yojimbo opportunity. Super float, entangle beads, mind control, too much fun. I think these two aliens can pretty much go anywhere they want to on Mardi Gras.

We've included a DNPC reporter for the Weekly World News, poor girl has the scoop of a lifetime, her paper prints it, still no pulitzer.

I think the alien master criminal may be a shapechanging mentalist. That should keep him in the background for as long as necessary.

Swampbat will DEFINITELY have to rear up his ugly head.

Thanks again, everybody, and I welcome your continued brainstorming.

All right! New campaign, new FREd (that's right, I just upgraded from the BBB, my Scottish grandfather would be so proud), new player (my wife).

Backstory - Two Galactic Federation Marshalls are in hot pursuit of a dangerous and demented master criminal. They suffer an ambush, and crash land here on little ol' pre-warp Earth. No communication off planet is possible. Escape is not possible. They suspect the fugitive crashed also.

Marshalls Becker and McGuyver are doing there best to follow protocol given the circumstances. They have attempted to adopt names and identities that citizens will find familiar and comforting. They hide out in the ruins of a haunted antebellum plantation upriver from the Big Easy by a few miles. They drive a black 1960 impala stashed nearby years earlier by a global recon team. They have a lot of broken gear. They are mid level supers, and Earth has the standard super population spread for a slightly off-beat four-color supers story.

Marshall Becker is not comforting to most people. It is a human sized oily indigo spheroid with six tentacles. Two stalked, red eyes are on each tentacle. It needs a regular immersion in petrochemicals for sustenance. It has no mouth or ears, but communicates by vibrating the surface of its body like a speaker. Hearing is achieved in the reverse manner - sound waves vibrate, its nervous system hears.

Marshal Macguyver is, thankfully, a warm-blooded omnivorous mammal, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. She presents as what might happen on the Island of Dr. Moreau with spare elephant and cat parts. About 9 feet tall, big ears, trunk, long cat tail, retractable claws, red fur. She understands bipedal mammal culture better than Becker, who's closest relative on this planet is a mushroom.

Its a shame about the broken disguise generators.

SO, here is what I need from you good people of Champions City: ideas! I need villains (super and otherwise) for NO. I need side adventures. I need allies. I need federal agents. I need to flesh this silliness out. I need an artist to draw what this humanoid ele-cat might look like.

Thank you all, and happy new year!

Vaderbilt_Grad - callow youth, you are clearly ignorant of the ways of sinanju... If'n you haven't read the Destroyer series, or seen the Remo Williams movie, this is the source of my silliness. I recommend the books highly - VERY light, amusing reading.

By the "1/4 " part above, I was figuring 1/2 for the AP, 1/2 again for the FW. Am I wrong? I may be.

BishopofB&W:

Your ideas look fine. This is a theme I was thinking of exploring/exploiting in a campaign, and you've given me food for thought.

As for your ghosts, they seem to pass the Turing test (if everyone else thinks they are independant intelligences, they are,) and I really can't find much difference between there plight and our own - a consciousness created from fabricated memory, defined by its interactions with others in the same predicament.

Zombies are usually created on purpose, unless you are going for something Romero-esque (talk about a grim evening!). The big villain is usually the culprit here. The mechanics are where the fun comes in. Is the zombism contagious? Can one become infected? Can Ash get his Bad Hand?

This is a good question, and the guidance has been worthy of the question. Let me muddy the waters.

Does Find Weakness go to the AP limit? It doesn't strictly effect the DCs, but it allows more damage to get through...

Does a martial arts bonus count towards a DC limit? For example, Chiun, old master of sinanju, attacks with his iron staff, a 1d6 HKA. His 4DCs with sinanju and his offensive strike and his 15 Strength (he's spry for his age) he's rocketed up to 4d6 HKA. Lets say the Iron Staff is Armor Piercing - its tungsten. Lets say the Offensive Strike is Auto-Fire - the deadly efficacy of sinanju is legendary. Lets say Chiun also has find weakness with the iron staff offensive strike, what with him being the old master and all.

Sweet galloping jeebus, its an armor piercing auto fire 4d6 HKA. With a good find weakness roll defenses are down to 1/4 their original (if they stack. I've always wondered). Active Points are somewhere between 23 and about 72.

Is it any wonder they call his student "the Destroyer."

Whaddya think, folks? I don't think its too terribly twinkie and it allows Chiun to open up a can-o-woopass on just about anybody who has less than 24 points of hardened resistant defenses. Do you vote APs, or DCs? Either way, how do you measure?