megaplayboy

Re: Galactic Champions Well, hopefully Games of Berkeley or Endgame Oakland were on the ball, and I'll have my hands on a copy shortly after work today.

Re: "Super Heroes" vs. "Superheroes" I think in my experience it's not so much a dichotomy between "4 color" and "shades of gray" as between the roleplaying styles and game emphases of the different approaches. One part is how much time is spent "out of costume"--the "super heroes" tend to spend more time out of costume, dealing with their personal lives and day to day kind of personal problems and interactions. The "superheroes" tend to spend more time in costume, dealing with problems and interactions which are less ordinary and more consequential.

It occurred to me today that there seem to be two different philosophical approaches to Champions amongs the players and GMs I've played with personally. The first approach is what I call the "Super Hero" approach: basically playing and running for heroes who happen to have superpowers. This approach tends to orient towards campaigns involving fledgling, often adolescent or young adult PCs who are just learning how to use their powers, fight crime, etc. It is very role-playing intensive, often verging on soap-operaesque melodrama. The point levels tend to be lower(under 350 points), the experience awards sometimes a little lower, and clear cut victories are slightly less common. In many ways it seems simply like an extension of the heroic genre--there is a heavy emphasis on the humanity, quirks and foibles of the PCs. There's not a one-to-one correspondence to this, but a lot of these folks read X-Men, Teen Titans, New Mutants, etc growing up. The second approach is the "Superhero" approach: playing characters who are superhuman, as distinct from super humans. This approach is more oriented towards following the main storyline, problem-solving, and focusing on the superhero side of things a bit more. The roleplaying is more storyline oriented and less focused on personal and interpersonal minidramas. The point levels tend to be mid-range or higher, and there is a greater tolerance for point creep. Clear cut victories are more common, and combat is a more central staple of a session. It's clearly distinguishable from the heroic genre--the PCs are larger than life, and deal with big problems. These folks are more likely to have read Justice League, Avengers, Fantastic Four and other straight-up team books growing up. I tend to lean toward the second approach, personally, though I can comfortably game in "Super Hero" campaigns. Has anyone else had this kind of experience gaming? My only frustration is that often the folks in one mindset have a very hard time adjusting to playing in a campaign that conforms more to the other mindset.

Re: Name for a Future Tech Explosive Quantex, short for Quantum Explosive, which can either indicate that a quantum energy reaction is involved, or simply indicate that it's the magic "intermediate explosive" holy grail that everyone was looking for.

Re: Actung! Panzer! Here's one suitable for the Master Villain's master plan: http://www.achtungpanzer.com/p1000.htm

Re: Superhumans pulling an Authority I think it would be more interesting if a "sub-cosmic" team of heroes(699 points or fewer) were involved. They're more powerful than any individual opposition, but not powerful enough to overcome a unified "rebellion" against their "rule". So they'd actually have to be really clever, and also have to compromise to achieve some of their more major goals. They could be powerful enough to overthrow a few corrupt megacorps, and even a major government or two, as an object lesson, but not powerful enough to beat everybody. It would force the team to be more disciplined, diplomatic, reasonable, and tactical in the way they did things, which I think would make for a more interesting "change the world" type of campaign. Otherwise, if they can wipe out Dr. D, Takofanes, Eurostar, and the Crowns of Krim in the same combat(and survive a pre-emptive nuke strike), there's really not much challenge in a game like that, methinks.

Re: Suggestions? Telepathic PCs just captured VIPER agent Depends on whether there's a law or not in the campaign universe. If I have N-Ray vision and hearing that is innate, then there's really no real-world law that prevents me from using it. Whether or not it is legally admissible, and whether the court could throw anything found with my supersenses as evidence is another matter. Probable cause is likely controlling here. My basic thing is that a telepath has invested 20 percent or more of their total points on an information gathering ability. If all telepathy is useful for is communication, you could save points and just buy mind link and universal translator. So I think the GM should find a middle ground that allows the telepath to get some use of the power without short-circuiting every mystery scenario.

Re: Suggestions? Telepathic PCs just captured VIPER agent what about stealth telepaths? If the agent doesn't even know they were mentally probed(perhaps the heroes let a few agents "escape", and used TP to track them back to the big base) then it becomes more problematic to stuff it legally. "We intentionally let a few escape, and tracked them back to their base." "How did you track them?" Unless unauthorized use of mind scan is also illegal, VIPER is toast in Campaign City. I think the first time it happens, the GM should roll with it. Then you need to decide if and how you want to limit or counter the mentalist's use of his powers to obtain information. But for the same or fewer points, Vigilante Dude could have a 35 PRE and a few relevant interrogation and information-gathering skill at very high levels. Forensic Criminology Dude could have various hacking, satellite tracking, face and voice recognition tech stuff that would enable him to narrow down the possibilities. It's not just menatlists that have the ability to short-circuit a mystery(and I haven't even mentioned Clairsentience!) Stonewalling PCs' efforts to gain information is very risky. It shouldn't arrest their progress completely--at the most it merely slows it down a little, or stops them short of the Big Fish(whom you don't want them going after just yet).

Re: Haiku Hero I roll the dice now One and one and one appear A critical hit

Re: Superhumans pulling an Authority I think any mega-powerful group with a strident political agenda and a lot of unproven theories would have both trouble implementing them and heavy resistance to same. whether they were radical social progressives, libertarians, evangelical theocrats, or blatant anarchists, the common characteristic of such an aggressive approach is the basic militancy, and a lack of tolerance for empowered dissent. Maybe, if they were all fine upstanding law abiding legendary heroes with super-science, super-diplomat, etc background skills, they could pull off the transition to "pro-active" supers without immediately turning all of the powers-that-be(and the people they are trying to "save") against them.

Re: Non-combatant campaigns? Go rent the movie Ridicule sometime...

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Favorite "green" superhero? Used to be the Vision, but now I'd have to say...Piccolo, of the "Earth Special Forces" in DBZ. Favorite over-the-top moment: Gohan, alone on his own, sees the moon in the sky, turns into giant were-monkey. Piccolo figures out the cause--the moon. His solution? A quick blast destroys the moon . About 15-20 episodes later, Vegeta uses an "artificial moon generator" in his ship to create the image of a moon in the sky so he can monkey out. Piccolo looks up, sees the moon, says "How did that get there?"

Re: Marvel's Rogue I remember specifically asking Steve L if Multiform could be put in a framework. The answer was yes. Therefore Rogue could be written up using a VPP with 3 powers: 1. massive no range NND 2. Transform target to unpowered 3. Multiform to character with additional powers The VPP has a number of limitations, including a SE of personality change.

Re: Evil Businessmen. Adnan Khashoggi or Ahmed Chalabi would be good. Any one of those Russian oligarchs, like Mikhail Khodorkovsky(?). Pretty much any CEO for Big Tobacco. At least one DuPont.

Re: Authority, we just need a few good men. Marvel: Sub-Mariner--no great reverence for political niceties Polaris--post-Genosha, pretty receptive to the whole "change the world" thing Thor X-Man--young, idealistic, impressionable, incredibly powerful Genis-Vell--okay, he's semi-insane, and misguided, while extremely powerful--a perfect candidate for an Authority-type team Daimon Hellstorm--fairly iconoclastic, adds some magical muscle to the mix Elektra--the ultimate assassin, killing off bad guys with aplomb DC Guy Gardner--does things the hard way Captain Atom--on-again, off-again government ties could swing him this way Wonder Woman--giving in to her warrior side ala Kingdom Come Aquaman Major Disaster Spectre(the Jim Corrigan one)--well, this one is obvious Eradicator I'm a little iffier on the DC lineup...

Re: Megascale Combat I strongly recommend utilizing the "optional" Velocity Factor Rules in FRED for handling move-bys and move-throughs in megascale. It's more accurate, physics-wise. A Ship travelling at half the speed of life has a VF of 52, and therefore would do an extra 52d6 of damage in a collision. The modifier to hit would be -26, IIRC. Slamming into another giant starship would not necessarily be that difficult. All this talk about thousands of DCs of damage(either from velocity damage, or for being at the center of the sun) are, IMHO, just silly and impractical, not to mention a major divergence from the basic exponential/logarithmic nature of damage in the Hero System.

Re: Help with a construct: several characters -> one mega power. xd6 EB, usable by one other, must be in contact--dice are additive, so the xd6 becomes 5x d6 EB. apply appropriate limitations and season to taste.

Re: The Authority:What the heck? Is it clear they're cancelling it? I think the reason there's no crossover with JLA is because either the Authority would kill the JLA, or the JLA would beat the unholy crap out of them for being so bloody-minded. It does seem like a story premise that will exhaust its possibilities after a few years at most. If the title were wholly "realistic", they'd lose members every other story arc, either due to assassination, casualties of war, or team frictions.

Re: Hattori Hanzo Steel well, in Champs, that's easy, buy the focus as "unbreakable". But in a more realistic setting, I dunno, maybe a +1/4 advantage, "extra tough" or something, giving the weapon x2 defense or body? Or just +1 DEF per +1 point, or +1 Body per +1 point for a personal focus like a weapon or armor? HH blade: +2 OCV, +1 DC KA, possibly that weapon ability in FH that guarantees at least 2 pips per die minimum damage. The Bride's weapon: +3 OCV, +2 DC KA--supposed to be the finest sword he ever made.

Re: Starship battles I am curious whether anyone has play-tested battles involving small fleets of TE-era ships? the way the big ships are written up, it seems like it would take a long time to drop the shields and ablative armor using the beam weaponry. But maybe volleys of anti-matter missiles would whittle down the ablative stuff pretty quick, assuming they could overwhelm the deflectors.

Re: Take the 5e Solo villains, and make a team out of them Hmmm... Holocaust, Gravitar, Viperia: Weapons of Mass Destruction(WMD) One of the plot seeds is that Holocaust & Gravitar have a fling, and another is that Gravitar and Viperia hit it off as friends.

Re: Dealing with Invisible Heroes Detect Invisible being, sense, range, targeting: this construct fits nicely into a magical character's VPP. Q: could transmit be used to convey the PCs location to other characters?

Re: Cyberpunk Champions Well, in the "superpunk" sub-sub-genre, there's basically two games: Mayfair's Underground, which is very tongue in cheek, but provides an interesting mechanic for PCs actually making a difference in the campaign world. There's also "Cyber-Generation", from R.Talsorian, basically anime teens with superpowers in a cyberpunk setting. Neither one of those is really post-holocaust, though. But you could probably read a few hundred back issues of various comics and graphic novels to get a thematic feel, though.

Re: Mastermind, Jean Grey, Dark Phoenix, and Fred. cumulative mind control, telepathic, with benchmarks getting changed each time, might work. BOECV Transform, invisible to all but mental, works vs. EGO not BODY, partial transform(total +2.5 in advantages), would handle this perfectly, but as you said, you'd rather not do it this way. If you want it to be effective on a mentalist, add the penetrating advantage on either of the above. For the mind control approach, add +20 to the required effect level to have the target feel their thoughts and actions under mind control are/were their own thoughts and actions. By the way, one advantage of cumulative mental powers is that any points which get past mental defenses effectively ignore mental defenses when determining final cumulative effect. IOW, if you have 5d6 cumulative x4 MC, and the target has 10 points of mental defense, then it may take longer to get the maximum effect, but once you do, the mental defense is not subtracted from the cumulative total when comparing the total to the target's EGO. The first proposition, if the target has never met the mentalist, is probably an EGO+0 effect level(plus the aforementioned +20), while having the target fall in love is likely a +10 or +20. The final effect level, doing whatever it takes to stop her teammates, is still probably a +30(since they'd still be violently opposed to hurting or killing their comrades). You'd probably also have to buy 0 END, persistent on the power, so the target didn't get time bonuses to their breakout roll.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?