ThothAmon

Re: Name That Band Hero!

Working out of San Francisco proper, The Bay Guardians are:

Black Crow - Mystical warrior

Ocean Gypsy - Water Sorceress

Morning Star - Metallic Brick

This mob are Blackmores Night. Very obscure

Re: 60mm Mortars

A few words for y'all wanting definitive hardware writeups

(A) Danger International

( Edge Of The Sword by Kevin Dockery

Re: The Emerald Tablets

This Thoth is an imposter. My serpent minions will destroy his cult of fools! His servants shall know the meaning of exquisite pain!

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

I've always had a fondness for the monofilament wire weapon described in the ubiquitous short story in William Gibsons 'Burning Chrome' - garotte, whip, nunchuk, urumi - just don't mess up your timing when using it

I'd also have to put in a vote for the BFG-9000 for when you just have to kill everyone in the room...

Lastly, the knife missile from Ian Banks' 'Culture' novels. Small, incredibly fast, good for single targets or annihilating entire armies.

no black-hole weapons or particle-beam spine-mounts, if you please. (Well, unless there's an author who makes them man-portable. I'd want to hear about that, anyway.

Ah well you should read Banks novel 'Look To Windward'. Therein is a very intriguing use of a man-portable wormhole weapon

Re: Pulparize It!

Miami Vice: Prohibition-era police in sunny Miami' date=' the city of palm trees, beautiful women, speedboats, fast cars, smugglers, hustlers, Mafia hoods, dollars and death. James 'Sonny' Crockett: a seasoned hardcore veteran of the rough-and-tumble Vice Squad. Ricardo 'Rico' Tubbs: a hip, black, brassy New York street cop, who rolls into Miami packing only his wits, a suitcase full of counterfeit cash, and a sawed-off shotgun. Crockett and Tubbs are on a collision course, and someone's going to get burned. We find out about his family, his cover, his alligator Elvis, and his beloved car.[/quote']

 

Y'know this one has a lot of merit. I don't really see a black detective being likely in the era but it would be a lot of fun to cast PCs from diametrically opposed ethnic backgrounds - WASP, Irish, Jewish, Italian, Polish...

Re: Evil Organizaitons

I've kinda thought about a fun "opposition" organization (I can't really call them villians, tho I'd definitely consider them Bad Guys), probably named Majestic, bsed on the whole Majestic 12 idea,

 

Classic men in black.

MJ-12 as detailed in the roleplaying supplements 'Delta Green' and 'DG: Countdown' could easily deal with entire squads of superheroes. Most suited to a deep game that uses conspiracies IMO. Good call nevertheless

Re: Champions Universe Movie Casting Call

Seeker - Sean Bean

Defender - George Clooney

Dr Destroyer - first choice would have been Jerry Orbach

Grond - Lou Ferrigno

Foxbat - Michael Myers

Re: Supernatural Special Forces

The excellently dark 'Ultraviolet' TV series portrayed some very specialist anti-vampire munitions. Handguns used ammo with chemically hardened wooden loads rather than lead or silver.

Weapons were also fitted with an underbarrel micro camera that fed a live picture to a miniature LCD TV screen mounted on the side of the handgun near the rear iron sight. As vampires didn't show up on camera, mirror or AV recording this provided a reliable target identification system.

Frag grenades were altered to use wooden fragmentation casing. Tear gas grens were similarly adapted to use garlic.

Garlic / holy water pepper spray would be useful. Substitute wolfsbane for shapeshifters.

Glaser slugs built using silver nitrate would be very nasty to supernaturals bothered by silver. Flechette shotgun shells using silver coated darts would likewise be very reliable but hard on the weapon barrel.

Traditionally the pure forms of iron affected many otherwise invulnerable critters. Substitute iron for lead in shotgun pellets and you are onto a winner.

Don't neglect phosphor grenades (Willie Pete) and even the famous 'Dragons Breath' phosphor round for shotgun shells. Likewise the modern German-made hand flamer, or even a generic flamethrower.

Suppression fire using small portable mortars would also be a useful device for a military strike, load shells with suitable ammo variant and use as a softening measure prior to small-unit strike.

Re: "A matter of Gravity" world design questions

For some weird reason this thread made me think of an anime SF cartoon where a max security prison is built on a high gravity planetoid. No idea what the animation was. I'm pretty sure I was late-night bottlefeeding Mark 1 at the time it was airing on cable.

Any suggestions?

It has also triggered reminisecences of 'Big Planet' by Jack Vance. Something of an old SF classic. IIRC that planet is Earth-like but much much bigger, with little or no heavier elements (e.g. metals) as an explanation for the Earth-standard gravity. I think it was one of the bases for the world of Tekumel. Hazy memory - a feature of old age apparently

Re: Wunderwaffen!!! - Secret German Warmachines of WW 2

This thread makes me grin like a chimp - more funky weapons please

Re: A question of genetics part 2

When in doubt regards human reaction to new choices, err on the side of bad choices

Making this kind of gene manipulation illegal will not kill it off. Futuristic equivalents of the Caribbean Islands (offshore data / money havens) will provide the treatment outwith the bounds of normal planetary laws. Think of small habitats out on a moon somewhere, free from standard laws.

'Perfect' cloned assassins and soldiers would be an obvious choice for any wealthy dictator type - even better if you can tailor a genetic predisposition for blind loyalty to a hierarchical command structure. Governments might well use the manipulations to create genius scientists, happily exchanging massive IQ and the benfits derived from it for the cost of dealing with physiological and psychological problems in those genius people.

In a more prosaic approach, gene tailoring for resistance to radiation / cancer would benefit anyone attempting to settle (for example) the Asteroid Belt.

And, as always, gene tailoring for longevity would be the Holy Grail of any such endeavour. Wealthy people would throw a lot of money at scientists researching this angle, even if the research were illegal. Money talks

Given your stated premise I'd like to recommend some reading material for you - "The Web Between The Worlds" by Charles Sheffield (for genetic research and general SF genius) and "The Ophiuchi Hotline" by John Varley (for the consequences of illegal gene manipulation in a future world).

Re: Wunderwaffen!!! - Secret German Warmachines of WW 2

However' date=' at the start of the war Germany had an incredible advantage in technology over pretty much the whole rest of the world. So I wonder, if German R&D hadn't been so badly mismanaged, might they have held out longer or even fought to a stalemate?[/quote']

 

The Nazi party stifled a lot of the technological advancement by playing politics. The scientists had to compete for funding in an arena that was far worse than a standard academic gestalt.

 

Having said that, the Germans had their fair share of ****-ups. The German atom-bomb / nuclear reactor project was a reality but sadly (or perhaps not) their chief researcher had grossly overestimated the amount of fissile material required. If they had cottoned on to the idea of imploding the weapon they might have managed a stalemate. Can you put on a Tim Curry accent and say "Beryllium sphere"?

Re: Wunderwaffen!!! - Secret German Warmachines of WW 2

There was a French sub' date=' the Surcouf, IIRC, which mounted a pair of 8in. deck guns![/quote']

IIRC the infamous 'cruiser-sub' Surcouf was lost mysteriously during WWII after transfer from the occupied French Navy to the Free French. One of the worst submarine losses of all time.

 

Yep. Google Fu is go:

 

http://groups.msn.com/Surcouf/_homepage.msnw?pgmarket=en-us

 

http://groups.msn.com/Surcouf/jane39ssubpage.msnw

 

Just imagine the stress on the structure from firing those 8 inch guns

Re: Re-Imaged X-men

Not keen on his Juggernaut image, the head/body proportions are way out. The rest are quite nice, particularly Beast, Jean Grey and Nightcrawler. I like them all for a villain team rather than heroes.

Re: Hindu-themed hero

One that springs to mind immediately would be an Indian speedster-brick called Juggernaut (or Jagganath) who mirrors some of the saviour / protector aspects of Vishnu.

Similarly you could propose another happy-go-lucky smart brick called Ganesha. Appears with 4 arms and perhaps a large nose?

Re: Pulp Apocalypse - Suggestions Wanted

As told by Cay Van Ash in 'Fires Of Fu Manchu':

In 1917 the British government successfully develop a single crude atomic bomb at huge cost in lives (extracting and refining the raw material) and resources. They plan on exploding it in the NE African desert in front of an invited group of high-ranking German officials. Their intention is to force Germany to back down from the murderous war in Europe.

However a certain Eastern criminal mastermind is determined that weapons based on the secrets of the atom shall never be available to the warmongering West, lest those same weapons be turned upon China. The bomb is purloined mere minutes before the planned detonation.

Now add your Mystery Men.

I recommend the novel - it's well worth some reading time

Re: Hindu-themed hero

There's a Hindu hero in 'Watchers Of The Dragon' y'know. Her name is Maya, she's a four-armed martial arts expert

Re: Genres HERO GAMES may want to avoid (intended to be humorous)

D20 HERO

Gynaecologist HERO

Re: 4th Edition supplements??

1. How is 4th ed. Horror HERO? What was it like generally? What did you like/dislike about it?

Horror HERO is an excellent book. It provides three background settings: Wild West Horror (very good indeed), 1930's Pulp Horror (pretty good) and Modern Conspiracy Horror (average). The Wild West background is very tasty and avoids the OTT nature of titles such as Deadlands - think of tales by Manly Wade Wellman and Robert E Howard. The 1930's stuff is hardcore pulp that flirts with Cthulhu-style nastiness. The Modern stuff makes a good stab at a low-powered Constantine / Ghost Rider / Vampire$ feel.

The book has soild rules for adding various levels of stress and insanity into the game and plenty of discursive material on the nature of horror, magic systems, genre tropes.

Highly recommended

Re: Wunderwaffen!!! - Secret German Warmachines of WW 2

http://www.aopt91.dsl.pipex.com/railgun/Content/Railwayguns/German/Dora%20index.htm

This gun is one of the default main objectives in the multiplayer WWII first person shooter game Enemy Territory (AKA ET). It features in the map RAILGUN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein:_Enemy_Territory

ET is a free multiplayer version of Return To Castle Wolfenstein. Pulp lives even in the age of computers

Re: Best published adventure

My favourite would have to be Wings Of The Valkyrie as it offers significant roleplaying potential that other scenarios don't.

After that it would have to be the one from Champions Presents that involves the AI computer and robots - can't recall the title but it has plenty of meat for the harrassed GM.

If you don't mind the cheese factor The Great Supervillain Contest is a primo slice of classic superhero fun.

Zodiac Conspiracy lacked a certain something for me. Great artwork and about 50% of the villains are great conceptually but the other 50% missed the mark.

All IMO...

Re: predatory martial art

Shaolin Dragon Style Kung Fu. Plenty of grappling, throwing and striking moves (e.g. Dragon Claw), the fluid nature of the transitions and the hissing exhalations of breath as chi is channeled around the body.

Re: Time Wars by Simon Hawke

Jan Claude Van Damme - Time Cop

Re: Post-Apocolyptic Hero Setting

Game Ideas:

Autoduel Champions anyone?

Literary Ideas:

Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. Killer plants are bred on an industrial scale to provide an easy gasoline substitute. Then an atmospheric event blinds 98% of the population with unusual radiation. The plants escape to roam the countryside. Society breaks down very rapidly

Market Forces by Richard K Morgan. Socio-economic apocalypse. Economies implode and the only people making money are venture capital firms involved in 'conflict investment' i.e. financially backing revolutionaries to violently overthrow governments in return for a percentage of the GNP when the revolutionaries come to power. Only corporate players can afford cars. Corporate legal and contractual battles are decided on the roads in sanctioned autoduels between competing companies or between fellow employees competing for a seat on the board. Kill a corporate on the way to work and you earn his job. "Come to work with blood on your wheels or don't come in at all".

Re: High Plains Hero

Anyone else playing a western hero campaign?

Played.

If so, is it more cinematic, or realistic?

Cinematic.

Do you allow gun-fu?

No ranged martial arts but plenty of trickshots etc.

Are characters heroic, or higher in starting points?

75 + 75. Special 'talents' allowed on a per-character basis.

Do you think it is 'in genre' to make called headshots in the Western genre?

Yes, if the character is a hardened killer MWNN type. Everybody may want to be the badass gunslinger but there can only be a very few.

Where do you limit combat skill or penalty skill levels, or do you?

Let the points do the limiting. Psychopathic characters with 8 skill levels in Pistols are the province of the GM. Player characters are much more rounded. If you can't fight, you are in trouble; if you have no skills, you are dead.