Prometheus

Re: Having Star Hero Parallel this world in the 18th-19th Centuries

The issue I've always had with 3D in a space RPG system is that it typically involves alot of prep that doesn't really pay off in the long run. Having playtested games like Squadron Strike, 3D can add considerably to the combat aspects of a game where resource management and positioning are "Critical Decision Points". But your game doesn't really strike me as that.

If you're not particulary inclined toward vectors (or geometry, or trig, etc.), then you're just giving yourself a task that may not bring anything to your game. After all, if you're not inclined to build it that way, are you really going to get much out of it in your game?

In large scale mapping, I think you'd be better off working out resource expenditures from system to system, and plotting out the trade routes you want to emphasize the story you want to tell. That wouldn't invalidate any 3D hijinks your players might want (say, in combat for example), but it also doesn't give you a task that might not be your cup of tea.

Re: Having Star Hero Parallel this world in the 18th-19th Centuries

If space travel in your game relies on some key element, then you can establish trade routes as a side effect. For example, if a ship's power cells need regular recharging, or if gas giants are needed to replenish reaction mass, then travel may be limited by those factors. System B may be just out of range for straight line travel from System A: a ship may need to "circle around" to System C and D to be able to make the trip. Suddenly, Systems C and D become trade route stops between System A and B, and gain immediate strategic significance.

As soon as your Race-Nations start competing for control over them you'll have some of the colonial/imperialistic feel of the period. After that, you just need to add complications. What happens when an ancient warp gate is discovered in the Su-Ez system? How do the alien colonist feel about the Terrans moving fleets and garrisons into their system? And what about the Spinward In'Dyah Company?

Re: Matter Mimicry

If the GM is willing to be lenient, you can put it together on the cheap.

With a player who's new to the system I'd recommend simplicity over utility. Assuming you could narrow down the properties a character can mimic from a material to just a few powers, you drop them into a Multipower. The idea here is to keep the builds simple and general. Armor, Desolidification, Energy Blast, Stretching- those should cover most things with the simple addition of Variable Special Effect. You can spice that up a bit with a few more powers (Darkness, Density Increase, Flight, just to name a few), or Variable Advantage on an attack.

The Power skill is also handy if the player knows what he wants, is willing to be a little creative, and the GM can accept that the player is learning the system. Power: Matter Mimicry, even at a high roll, is cheaper and easier to understand than a shopping list of powers. The player just needs to have a firm grasp of the limitations of the Power skill.

Re: Mook rules?

To be fair, sending one starting Pulp Hero character against 10 mooks in a staight up fight and expecting him to come out untouched might be a little much. Even Doc Savage and the Shadow would maneuver and take out mooks piecemeal.

Re: Mook rules?

At the heroic level for Pulp Hero I'm a big fan of Combat Luck and Normals with 8s. With SPDs of 2 and CVs of 3 or 4, the heroes should be able to put a few down before numbers catch up with them and someone gets a lucky roll.

Mooks should mostly be padding for the Master Villain (and his lieutenants), something to complicate the fight for the heroes while the bad guys maneuver or make their escape, right?

Re: Question about Pulp Hero

Off the top of my head I can't say that there's anything really geared to that campaign setting in Pulp Hero, but you'll find an excellent setting in Solar Smith and the Sky-Pirates of Arcturus.

Ships, ray guns, evil emperors- it's all there. I highly recommend it.

Re: Brainstorming a mystical superhero mansion

Take a page from Neil Gaiman's Sandman:

A portrait gallery, good for summoning (or at the very least contacting) the subject. Useful for keeping in touch with allies.

The library to end all libraries.

A variety of mystic guardians. You probably can't have them outside, but a dragon in the foyer will discourage intruders.

Peculiar staff and houseguests. Sometimes it's the people just hanging around that make the place interesting.

Also, have a look at the first post on this Call of Cthulhu thread over at the Lead Adventure forums:

http://forum.backofbeyond.de/viewtopic.php?t=252

Really, every backyard needs one of those.

Re: Villain Campaign: need help

DC's JSA Classified 5-7 had an interesting take on a villain group (the Injustice Society) that generally wants to work together and actually does a decent job of it. No world conquering required- these people have simpler motivations (like helping out a friend). There's backstabbing and ulterior motives and the happy ending is... I'd be spoiling it. But at least the backstabbing isn't always from the inside, and the character are invested in one another.

This particular setup would work well in HERO because these guys are basically hero characters with the serial numbers filed off, and given selfish motivations. Well, except maybe Ragman.

The part that stuck with me (and that I think applies here) is Icicle's musings at the beginning of issue 6:

Some cats like working alone... idiots and lunatics, you ask me. I know from the outside it looks like we're all a bunch of lunatics and psychos, but from the inside... let's just say some of us are more professional than others.

Take this one guy, Doctor Double X. In and out of the Slab like it's the John. Ever wonder why? I'll tell you why, and it's not because Batman is such a freakin' genius either. Dude cheaps himself on manpower and material every time. That kind of thing doesn't just blow the gig, it sucks the joy right out of it, too.

But working with real pros, man, that's heaven. You get a team, everyone knows their jobs... everyone's got the others' backs... with a crew like that, you feel unstoppable.

All while rigging a building with explosives. Go out and get it, it's a nice primer on a villain team campaign.

Re: Question about Hawkman villains

Thanks.

 

BTW, while I'm asking here -- what are Hawkman's powers aside from "He's got wings" and "He's got a big honking mace"?

 

I just remember both Supes and Batso describing him as a 'tank', and that seems fairly lame for a front-line bruiser.

The latest incarnation seems to be of the weapon master and pocket brick variety, with equipment enhancing his abilities into the 'tank' range.

And there's that whole reincarnation thing as well.

Re: How to do a Hall of Mirrors?

Especially in a Pulp Hero setting, I like the simplicity of Darkness. At range, you're just as likely to hit a reflection as you are the real target, and stand a good chance of being blindsided (0 OCV, 1/2 DCV), and even up close you might be fooled (1/2 OCV). Characters using a nontargeting sense to lessen the penalties has a nice pulpy appeal, at least to me ("Don't trust your eyes, they'll only fool you!").

If you purchase the whole thing as a focus you can make it Fragile as well, though you may have to buy each hex individually to keep one attack from destroying it all at once. On top of that you can add a few other effects, like a -1 Hearing Group PER Roll Change Environment (the hard surfaces exaggerate echoes), 2d6 Suppress Running with Standard Effect (people will tend to blunder around and get lost), etc.

Re: Circuses in Fantasy Hero

Actually played in a game where the party was a circus. All the characters were running from one thing or another, and we had an unusual spread of skills. We had a barker, a trickshooter, a dancer/acrobat, a mystic, an animal handler, a strongman follower, and some jester followers. One of the characters stayed behind the scenes (he was horribly disfigured), but was the true craftsman of the group, putting together everything from our trick cabinets to our menagerie.

An odd group, and fights were real dicey, but it was definitely an interesting game.

Re: Help Me Set up a Pulp Campaign

A mystic "utility belt" might be suitably pulpy. If you can work it out with the player, allowing them to use Variable Special Effect would give them some nice adapability. Expanding on csyphrett's suggestions, how about a HKA, Variable Special Effect (silver, wood, holly, etc.), or a Force Wall, Variable Special Effect (salt, holy symbol, etc.)? Most supernatural creatures already have Vulnerabilities or Susceptibilities that will cripple them in the face of certain effects, so the character doesn't need to invest too large a portion of her points.

Other abilities that may work, depending on your campaign world:

Detect A Class Of Things (Magic/Supernatural)

Dispel Summon

Ego Attack

Beyond the Multipower, have a look at the Power skill as well, good for a few things the character may have to improvise, and Combat Luck (or even Damage Reduction) since monster hunters often take a beating.

Re: Getting the “Pulp Feel” with Hero

To me' date=' the combat aspect of pulp is not as important as it is in a superhero game. What is important is ACTION (as opposed to combat) and a dose of the bizarre, even the horrific. It's important that the characters (in general) have to fear bullets and knives and falling from heights and ravening, rabid dogs.([/quote']

 

This touches on one of those balancing acts the GM and player need to be aware of. If the characters are too easily defeated by the mundane, the players may be to reluctant to expose their character to danger. That's understandable, they're invested. If on the other hand the characters are immune to most of the challenges they face, they're going to run rampant. I've always felt that pulp characters need to straddle the two- not to powerful, but not too fragile or ineffectual either.

 

An excellent primer on pulp gaming can be found here.

Re: HCPD - The 13th District (Campaign Idea)

Have you looked at Alan Moore's Top Ten? It would make for some good source material, though some of the situations in it are occasionally campy.

Re: Populating your Lost World

I'd add Dinotopia by James Gurney. The island is a ready-made Lost World you could drop right into a game.

Re: How to handle Western Hero Duels/Showdowns

How about expanding the Hurry and Hipshot maneuvers? Hipshot should probably limited to one level, but would Hurry still be a balanced option if the GM allowed a player to Really Hurry (+2d6/-4), and Really, Really Hurry (+3d6/-6)?

Re: Tales Of The Gold Monkey

I just thought he was creepy for taking all those "confessions" from beautiful native girls.

Nazi spy? Why did they ever believe the guy was a minister?

C'mon, that was probably the most effective part of his cover.

Re: Friends, 1934

I love it so far... Great subplots, SS!

 

A couple of adventure ideas:

 

They Came From Below!

 

*snip*

 

Myself / My Son

 

*snip*

 

More later,

Jak

Shouldn't those be The One Where They Came From Below and The One About Myself / My Son? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

I'd also throw in something about Central Perk, the coffee shop the group frequents. Pulp it up a bit and it can be a "un-HQ", and makes a nice launching pad for adventures.

Re: So ... uhm ... Pulp ... yeah.

For the detective type in a pulp RPG' date=' that means you get to make deductions when it's convenient for the story (and [u']only[/u] when it's convenient for the story), whether you like it or not. To me that's not mystery-solving; that's having your PC be an occasional NPC plot device.

Well there's the rub. That sounds like a GM-With-A-Plan, come hell or high water. It's like having an NPC Superhero rescue your Champions character all the time- it doesn't work in the RPG version.

Crosshair Collie- if you're worried about how your character fits in to the game, particularly as part of a group, talk to the GM. It could be as simple as, "Hey, I'm thinking of building the Electric Detective, here's how I envision him... Is that going to fit into your game?".

Re: Post-Apocolyptic Hero Setting

How about Thundarr the Barbarian (sword-and-sorcery as post-apocolypse) and Mark Schultz's Xenozoic Tales (pulp as post-apocolypse)?

Re: Help with duplication power please

I was thinking of a charge limit or once per day but I'm not sure if that really works since you could duplicate first thing in the morning and be set... not much of a limit.

You could use a Fuel Charge. If he has only one charge of one minute, he can't use it all the time, but it's still useful for a couple of turns of combat.

Re: Review: Batman Tarzan Claws of the Catwoman

I liked it, though it did seem like it needed a little more space to develop. The initial meeting between Wayne and Greystoke was particularly cinematic-very well done, in my opinion.

If you haven't already, you might also try tracking down Batman: The doom that came to Gotham, for Mike Mignola's take on a Lovecraftian Batman. It's listed as being out of print, but with a little work you can still find all three issues.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

A couple of things:

1) Prometheus is getting worked in the second fight. Bats cuts him, tags him with his own club (the anvil smasher), and apparently breaks his jaw. Batman is holding him up by the collar when Prometheus fires a rocket into his chestplate. Honestly, Bruce was taking that match.

2) We don't know how the first Batman/Prometheus fight went down. Maybe Bats put up a good fight that came down to the wire, maybe Prometheus mopped the floor with him. We see the beginning and the end, but the rest happens off panel. And Prometheus is the one still standing.

3) Prometheus gets the one-punch-drop on Huntress cleanly just before the second fight, no hypnosis required. It's a surprise attack, no doubt, but Huntress is on alot of top 10 lists...

I'd say he's really good without the gadgets, just not top ten. With the gadgets, he's downright terrifying.

(On a related digression, anyone else notice the similarity between Prometheus and another billycub and wrist rockets armed hero hunter?)

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

Or the whip struck with such force that the cup' date=' if he did wear one, was inneffective. However that's just me nitpicking. [/quote']

 

If I were fighting any JLA team that included the Huntress, not only would I wear one, I'd make sure it was heat and shatter resistant, and as batarang proof as I could make it.

 

And I'd paint it yellow, just to be on the safe side.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

Prometheus I would say is disqualified

 

Hawksmoor

For a second there I though you were picking a fight.

That... other guy definitely has some training- it's in his origin story. I'd say relying on the helmet does disqualify him though, since it's a gadget. And seeing how he had to download the skills of top 30 martial artist to beat Bats, it does kind of imply that likely he himself isn't one of them.

'Sides, the guy doesn't have enough sense to wear a cup?