ParagonAlpha

Re: The Worst character in comics Captain Britain was create by Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe and really was just a "British" Captain America. But Alan Moore redeemed the character and made him decidedly English. And an incredible character. So he can't count.

Re: Amalgam Universe Campaign I'd suggest his name be Loblade

Re: You know the GM has it in for you when... ... when the villain is named the Protarren* and his underlings are named Dave**, Ball Bearing Guy*** and Firey Guy****. * ** *** ****

Re: This is Stupid... Five O'Clock Shadow Dude: Real name: David Beard. Armed with a slew of stolen SHIELD weaponry, all easliy hidden inside his black trenchcoat, FO'CS Dude is an intimating sight. Villians fear his scowly scowl and his gruff but angry demeanor. His Powers: No blade can cut his facial hair, nor does it grow. Tremble in fear, True Believers!

Re: Game of Thrones I just finished "A Feast of Crows". There is nothing more desperate than me waiting for the next book. Robert Jordan did it to me... Now George RR Martin is doing it to me... Granted he did it to me back in the 80's with Wild Cards. I should have been prepared.

Re: What was Marvel's best decade? I only call someone a fanboy if they like Rob Liefield and Todd McFarlane. Because NOTHING was a COOL as those two piles of stinky feces.

Re: What was Marvel's WORST decade? I'd say the 90's as well. Spiderclone Gambit's "secret" Stupid X-men stories Bad Avengers stories Crappy art work Too much Wolverine (yeah I said it, got a problem with that?) Gun-totting, needing to shave, leather clad, "bad asses" BUT... House of M and Civil War did make it a tough choice. By the way Hermit if you keep saying good things about Fabian and the New Warriors I just might develop a man-crush.

Re: What was Marvel's best decade? I have to agree with Hermit. Life is easier after he posts. Less typing for me.

Re: Soviet Superheroes How about a mystic whose powers are tied to Mother Russia. Most of his abilities would be based on controlling the environment, after all no army has successfully invaded Russia. He could be why. He could be a student of the Mad monk, Rasputin who did not see his path following that of his teacher. or A scientist who developed powers after assisting Dr. Tesla with some of his experiments.

Re: Whatever happened to ... I remember letting playing in one session before this incident and none after, but he always had people to GM Champs for. I think most of the players that showed up were old tactical gamers, back in the 70's and saw it as a challenge. I've always been guilty of being a role-player and this seems to never set well with tactical gamers. I played an Ork army in Warhammer 40k and would get other people upset because I knew the names of all my Orks. I was a huge Battletech fan, but because of the story not the game and during one of the few Battletech games that actually happened other players got mad because my pilots all had personalities and codenames and histories. So I left the tactical gamers to themselves. Even they need a place to calculate the 33 possibilities of their actions and run sub-routines on their calculators to figure out which outcome will result in the most favorable circumstances. Me I like girls. Peace

Re: Non-superheroic 'Superhero' stories Let's not forget Mage and the wonderful stories of Kevin Matchsticks.

Re: Whatever happened to ... Turtle Armor made it's debut in Champion II (IIRC) and I would say I had the misfortune of seeing the concept abused by a GM who thought it was his job to beat the PC every week. When the old Gadgets book came out there was a misprint that gave a gadget a DCV of 74. We couldn't destroy it for all we were worth. The GM giggled and gloated about how he was better than us. I love the concept of Turtle Armor and have used it in several of my campaigns. I tied it into the origin of one of the players who used power armor and turned int into a competitive sub-plot. Turtle Armor also became the standard uniform for my Stronghold guards.

Re: Finding Players... Kind of neat... In my campaign Paragon (GMPC) was the worlds "superman". His team was disabled or killed by a powerful sorcerer. Paragon was unable to stop the destruction but was unharmed in the attack. His spirit was broken and he left and went into hiding. No one knew until much later that his power was based on peoples trust and belief in his heroic ideals. As the world grew darker (shifted from the Silver Age to the Bronze Age) he was getting weaker. But everyone had expectations that he would then fail to meet, leading to more people not having any faith in him and less power. (In the campaign world he passed away during the Bronze to Iron Age shift.) Paragon had a twin brother that he was unaware of who gained power as the world got darker. His name was Paradox. He was evil and started pretending to be Paragon and doing dark things (think Superman III). Also Paragon had a problem with mentalists and got Mind Controlled by one of the major villains to trust her completely. He was forever nicknamed "Squishy Head".

Re: Finding Players... I live in Muskegon now.... Holly.. funny.... I worked the Ren Faire from 98 to 2004. The last three years as part of Security. I left a group that plays once a week in Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti... really good group. They also did ren faire stuff too. Add in some LARPing in Milan and you pretty much have their habits (aside form working and all that stuff). If you give me an email address I can forward it to them and let them contact you.

Re: Finding Players... where in Michigan are you? I myself am DYING for a Champs game. Okay I just looked and it says you're in the eastern part of the state (where I left behind some of the best Champs players the world has known).

Re: Mutants and Masterminds: Iron Age And Nexus you rock for so many reasons.... You used the term Splatterpunk. Your handle is also the name of one of my favorite comics from the late 80's (Yay Steve Rude!!) You are the SMRT. And well because I said so.

Re: Mutants and Masterminds: Iron Age I've always seen the Iron Age as the time when writers got lazy. They wanted to get away from the angst-filled Bronze Age and could figure out a way for heroes to be heroic and still appeal to a mature reader. Also "The Bad Man" and "The Arrogant Man" started their own comic company and their lack of solid writing skills lead to cheap, pandering products. Some days I wish Peter David had been made pope. I just realized I'm old.

Re: where do the villains get the MONEY? Yeah but Iron Man went all "George Bush" and Spidey just made a deal with a devil to forget his past.

Re: where do the villains get the MONEY? Year ago, when I was young and Hero Games had just published Champions II, I played in a villain game. We funded our operations with bank heists and armored car robberies. We then started a corporation (villains have Secret ID's too) all legal like. It was priceless when our GM decided to make the teams leader sweat it out when another corporation tried a hostile takeover. Megalomaniacs have a hard time with that. Needless to say the other corporation had a hard time staying around when a group of villains decide that their employees, holdings and assets are fair game.

Re: What to do with an extra copy of Wings of the Valkyrie? You could auction it off and donate the money to a charity. (Be a real hero.)

Re: Champions games you've run Hmmm well I ran a Dr. Destroyer Trilogy as 3 separate one-shots (the group had moved away to different states so we could only get together once a year.) After a climatic battle with Dr. Destroyer, one of the PC's, name the Altruist, died while taking the Dr. out for good. (Dr. D's orbital space station had gone critical and they both were blown to sub-atomic particles). The PC's sacrifice allowed the rest of the party to stop Dr. D's threat to destroy the world by turning everyone into Metahumans. There was much heroics and some amazing moments, like convincing the New York police officer that he really was hero and was the only one who could save the heroes from dying in re-entry. But the best moment was during the epilogue. There was a memorial service for the Altruist, dozens of heroes were gathered to pay their respects, few words were spoken. Mecha-X, a mutant with some fairly powerful but very subtle, reality altering powers, used his powers to create a holographic American Flag permanently etched into the headstone of the Altruist. (There were tears flowing all around the table.) I'd say the one shot was my greatest moment as a GM.

Re: VPPs for Dummies? (IE. Me!) The joy and reason I love Hero is that you can build a utility belt either way. And both are right, it really depends on what you want the Utility belt to do.

Re: Okay here is my soup, needs some more spices? If I might make a suggestion or two. I would give the players a bunch of news "facts" that they could oversee on the television before the "interruption". Sports highlights, weather, a story about traffic being rerouted through downtown Millennium City due to transportation of some form of top secret substance, a look into the financial success of a the MakePeace Corporation. One thing that would be kind of neat would be if Viper was bluffing about the bombs. Instead of planting dozens of bombs they only planted one and used it to show their intent. The rest of the bombs are just dummies designed to keep everyone busy for a few hours. If they get the ransom money, bonus, but their main goal is to get the shipment. If the PC's get caught up in the distraction then there are several ways they could find out about the shipment. They could be asked to look into by SAT or Primus. They could track the off shore account and find that it is owned by a dummy corporation that owns a shell corporation that is part of a conglomerate that owns a subsidiary that is a major stockholder in the MakePeace Corporation. And it just so happens that MakePeace happens to own the shipping company used to transport the shipment. If you're going to "use" you players, make sure you leave them a way to redeem themselves. The best way to get players to hate the bad guy is make the bad guy humiliate them once.

Re: Champions games you've run Claremont: the master of foreshadowing. There is an issue of Spider-Woman, right after Rogue steals Carol Danvers powers, and all the X-men and Spider Woman are in the hospital waiting to find out if Carol will live. Cyclops is standing there and a group of little kids in hospital gowns all walk by. One little red-haired girl walks up to Cyclops and says "Hi my name is Maddie Pryor and I'm 8 years old." Then walks away. Yeah I know.... And don't forget about a box that shows up addressed to Lucas Cage in an issue of Powerman and Iron Fist that nobody opens and just leaves sitting on the desk. Jump ahead to the time that Iron Fist is being brought back from death and he and Luke see each other after 10 years of seperation and Luke notices the package sitting on a shelf in Danny's apartment. Claremont went insane because of his sub-plots and foreshadowing. I'm of the belief he was going to reveal that Gambit's secret was being a vampire/mutant that had been created by Dracula. But he left the X-Books before he could so instead we discover that Gambit picked the lock on the Molock Tunnels. (I HATE LIEFIELD!!)

Re: The Amazing Darkon Okay. A long time ago in a campaign far away..... So the intrepid heroes get word of a fairly typical super villain robbery in progress. The team responds with their typical "rush in, hit things, and try and sort it out afterwards" mentality. The team consists of: Crimebuster - a martial artist/detective with more leadership issues than Alec Summers and Clint Barton combined. (The player wanted this character to be Batmna/Moon Knight/Daredevil/Punisher all rolled into one.) Adaman - a brick/martial artist/scientist whose failing marriage and rapidly mutating son are causing him all kinds of distractions. (He was a scientist who accidentally altered his DNA to become 8 feet tall and his body tissue regenerated instantly. Then had kids. The player loved creating characters with 12 pages histories that detailed everything from what color his house was to the name of his first pet.) Ice - a energy projector/martial artist with cold powers and a lack of experience that proved nearly fatal on more than one occasion. (One of those players who thinks he's so smart that he doesn't need to read any of the rules, builds a character without any defenses, then runs around trying to be "the hero".) Shadowblade - a martial artist ninja with a sword of energy who is dealing with the fact that a rival clan of ninjas has kidnapped his girlfriend and poisoned him so that he is slowly getting weaker. (He later found out that his gf was the daughter of the rival ninja clans lord. The player was pissed for about an hour then realized I had set the whole thing up for nearly 3 real years before the pay-off. I think he wanted to have my baby, but I refused.) Anyways they arrive on the scene where Sparkler and Thunder and Lighting are stealing something. As you've noticed none of the PC's could fly leading to alot of ranged attacks. Thunder and Lighting worked at finishing the robbery while Sparkler "distracted the team. Well the PC's had a "manuever" they developed that let them stick close and allowed Adaman to "fastball" special teammates. One well timed (lucky) Flash attack from Sparkler on Adaman, caused him to "Fastball" Ice into a brick wall. (That was about the time Ice's player discovered that Force Wall wasn't that versatile of a Defense Power). Instead of going into "cautious" mode, Adaman's player decided that he could get Crimebuster far enough with a throw to reach a flying Lighting. Well blind is blind and Crimebuster was launched into the air and missed. Breakfall only helps so much and Crimebuster broke legs, ribs, hips and pretty much took a lot of damage. (Crimebuster had enough PD to take a punch from a thug, but any real damage tended to hurt. NOTE: A high DCV does not stop damage from falls or impact.) Shadowblade got cocky and went after Sparkler, but in his weakened condition he was easily dropped by her. (The player learned that sometimes it's okay to have more than 8 ED.) Adaman was left alone, blind and pretty much useless. Granted Sparkler couldn't do enough damage to him and even when T&L joined in it still wasn't enough to do anything major. (30 PD/20 ED 75% Physical DR, 50% Energy DR tends to make a tough fight. Thank god for egoists.) Sparkler pretty much beat the team in less than a turn. After that players invested in some flash resistant goggles. (I just realized that there were alot of Martial Artists in this game. Probably because Ninja Hero had just come out and I remember everyone wanting to be a martial artist.