matthewcelis

Re: Superhero Team Members

The Avengers were originally more "Earth's Heroes", rather than "Earth's Mightiest Heroes".

 

Or rather, they were the heroes who weren't members of more specialised teams (FF, X-Men), or loners like Spidey.

 

The "mightiest" part is a result of later grandstanding, and was never really true anyway.

 

The same applies to the JLA and JSA.

You need to actually read the comics you're talking about before you comment, then you would know that it's right there on the cover of Avengers #1: "EARTH'S MIGHTIEST SUPER-HEROES"--not "later grandstanding."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Avengers-1.jpg

Re: Super Friends

Batman could be bought for 250 points if you use Multiform.

 

Bruce Wayne would have a 60 point Multiform 4x 250 (Batman, Batmobile, Batboat, Batplane)

 

Robin is a 20 Point Follow with 100+ Disadvantages

 

Most of the villains traps would be entangles.

I'm trying to keep things simple, and as I said at the beginning the points spent doesn't matter. All that matters is that the characters can do what kids saw them do on TV.

Multiform would just confuse them.

Re: 80's Champions

Newbie is as Newbie does.

Why do you care? Nothing better to do with your time? That's just sad.

Re: Megascale Movement, Lightspeed, and Escape Velocity

You apperantly got:

50m Leaping, Megascaled (1m= 100 km), Inacurate, Only to Jump to Conclusions(-2).

 

Megascale is a nice advantage, designed to "build flavorfull but not game breaking abilities".

Most common is megascaled movement, wich has all the drawbacks of Non-Combat Movement and then some.

Also common is Megascale for Spaceships (sensor, movement).

Or to define some fringe powers, like the "instant, citywide icestorm".

Mind Scan has some Levels build into it (I think the equivalent of +1 1/2 Megascale or so).

So you're a power munchkin. Nothing wrong with that if that's what you're into. I find it a bore.

Re: Greatest American Hero type character????

I suppose having one really perfect, really boring character with no foibles solve everything would be one option. Sound, well, really boring.

So you're saying Superman SHOULDN'T use his powers intelligently because that would be boring. Or maybe you just need a better writer than you're used to who can make a good story and still have a character live up to his abilities. You have low expectations, it seems.

Also, you seem to confuse intelligent use of powers with "having no foibles." Not so. Totally different subject. Don't try to conflate them into a package deal just so you can pretend you thought it over when really you're just giving a kneejerk response and picking out 1 part of what I actually wrote. Think. It helps! Or would that go against your apparent belief that powers shouldn't be used intelligently?

Re: Greatest American Hero type character????

Once Flash breaks the speed of light and starts time traveling he has very little control over how far he goes and sometimes can't even control which direction unless he uses that stupid "temporal treadmill" thing or whatever it was called.

 

I suppose having one really perfect, really boring character with no foibles solve everything would be one option. Sound, well, really boring.

I guess you've never read Flash comics then because he can easily control where he goes and what direction he travels. Maybe you only read new comics. They suck.

Re: 80's Champions

 

I regarded yuppies as scum, Reagan as the greatest and most evil threat to humanity ever, and Madonna, Duran Duran, Kylie Minogue and so on as his musical equivalents.

 

Right, because Reagan built a wall to keep citizens under his thumb and shot them if they dared try to escape. Oh wait, that's the evil empire Reagan brought down with no help from kneejerk liberals who would sooner surrender their freedom than fight for what's right.

Re: 80's Champions

When I discussed this campaign with my player's at IHOP we talked for quite a while about AIDS' date=' and how in the 80s i was this giant massive scare, but how today no one even talks about it much any more. The same thing with the idea of nuclear destruction. That seemed a whole lot more possible back when the USSR was kicking and was considered a major threat.[/quote']

 

If you're starting in 1980, AIDS was not anything yet. It wasn't a big deal until the second Reagan Administration. I was there. I remember.

Re: What to buy now ???

Interesting concept; except that :

 

1- I love the 6th edition books, they look great and nifty.

2- My players dont read english well enough for them to actually create their own characters and equipment so I have so single-handly translate their whim into stats. So ANYTHING that will lighten my work will be appreciated.

3- This system is far too overwhelming to grasp on my own as I need some kind of railroad-ing to help me get started. There is simply too much to create and too many way to achieve the same effect.

4- I like boundaries, Champions Book will get me limits on players/NPC stats and powers and a framework to build on.

I see where you're coming from. I often wind up writing up the characters players want to create just because the character creation system is so time-consuming and mind-exploding. I have a rule that if you have to spend too long figuring out how to make a power work, it's not a very good power in the 1st place. I think superheroes should have concepts and powers that you can explain to anyone in one sentence.

I'm going back to Champions 2nd edition, Champions II, and Champions III. Everything after that I haven't really cared for, it just seems to be catering to power munchkins now.

Re: Megascale Movement, Lightspeed, and Escape Velocity

Yes' date=' it's a Power Advantage introduced in 5e and modified in 6e. It primarily has to do with non-combat movement but can also be applied to the scale of Range and/or AOE effects as well.[/quote']

 

I see, it's for the power munchkins.

Re: Greatest American Hero type character????

Either I was that GM or I've just managed to run an identical campaign at some point.

 

I've never liked the idea of a character having unpredictable or unskilled use of his primary abilities in a standard game. It's not heroic to be a bumbling idiot with your powers. Funny, sure, and it's great for a funny goof-off type of game. But not for anything more serious. Can you imagine if the JLA weren't skilled using their powers? It's be funny, but get quickly boring if Superman and the Flash always ran into walls, GL kept flicking his ring to make sure it was working and every other batarang Batman threw out fell apart.

The JLA aren't skilled in using their powers. That's why they need a whole team to solve problems that Superman should be able to solve on his own if he used his powers with any intelligence. Flash stands around talking when he could just go back in time and eliminate the threat before it even arrived. And so on.

Re: The Greatest American Hero

Flight' date=' Clairsentience, high STR, the suit would probably act like an armor of some kind, because he always covered his head when they would shoot at him. Invisibility.[/quote']

 

Since he never got shot in the face there's no way of knowing whether the suit's material had to cover his skin or if he just instinctively covered himself. After all, he lost the manual, why risk it?

Re: The Greatest American Hero

If asked in game' date=' the character will explain that he has to call himself "Shazam" on all promotional materials to avoid copyright issues. [/quote']

 

You mean trademark issues, not copyright issues.

Re: The Greatest American Hero

Other team members would include Puma Man' date=' Wonder Woman, the Six Million Dollar Man, Manimal, The Invisible Man, the Man from Atlantis, Shazam, and Isis. Maybe throw in Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, the Green Hornet and Kato, and the Adam West & Burt Ward Batman and Robin.[/quote']

 

I've got a similar campaign using just TV superheroes from the '60s and '70s: Batman & Robin, Wonder Woman, Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, Shazam!, Isis, and Captain America. So awesome to just use the abilities the TV versions had, so Wonder Woman can just lift a car, Batman & Robin have a hard time handling 6 thugs in a fistfight, and Captain America's shield is made from "Jet Age Plastics" and he has enhanced hearing and what not like in the TV movie. I find these version a lot more fun than the overpowered modern versions in comics and movies.

Re: Megascale Movement, Lightspeed, and Escape Velocity

Where are the rules on "megascale"? I only have up to edition 4 and haven't seen it. Is that a 5th edition or 6th edition thing?

Re: How big should a Golden Age superteam be?

I'd be into it too but not on Hero Central.

Re: What to buy now ???

I say buy nothing, but that's because I think the setting books are pretty lame and so are all the company-generated characters they use.

I say invent your own setting and characters. I think it's much more fun.

Re: Lucha Lubre Hero, anyone?

I'd like to play in person, but online may have to do. No write-ups to share. The ideas I'm saving for the game. It'd be 1960s-1970s Mexico City. PCs are all tecnicos. Villains would/could be spacemen, spacewomen, Dracula, Wolfman, mad scientists, Commie spies, mummies of Guanajuato, ancient evil Aztec deities, mobsters, motorcycle gangs, Cthulhu, maybe even all in 1 big adventure.

Re: Dehydrated Water?

Okay, I have to get pedantic here. A molecule of water consists of two atoms of Hydrogen and one of Oxygen. This cannot be changed, altered or reduced. Even if you're carrying the Hydrogen and Oxygen separately, their combined mass does not change relative to the amount of water you can make out of them. If the trip requires one hundred thousand kilograms of water, then you have to carry that total amount of mass in Hydrogen and Oxygen.

 

The way to reduce the mass associated with water is to recycle it. This is the focus that NASA and other agencies worldwide have been working on, to improve the filtering and recycling of water in the systems on board a ship to reduce the overall mass that needs to be carried. Steel can be replaced with aluminum or carbon compounds to reduce mass. There is nothing you can do to reduce the mass of a molecule of water without invoking a general ability to reduce the mass of an atom or molecule (which we can't do, yet).

Rave on, John Donne. Tell it like it is.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction?

I would imagine most people will carry over their superstitions. Why would being in space or the future or wherever change that?

The U.S. has grown more religiously conservative in the past 40 years despite the advances of science and the march of time. Japan just the opposite. So whatever works for you works for your game.

I would just caution against inserting religion if your players aren't into it. You never know who will turn out to have weird hangups or beliefs.

Re: How big should a Golden Age superteam be?

I just have the players have multiple characters they run, but seldom simultaneously. For instance:

Player 1: Hawkman, Flash

Player 2: Batman, Green Lantern

Player 3: Sandman, Wonder Woman

Player 4: Captain America, Human Torch

Then when I split the team to go off on missions, each player chooses which of his heroes goes on which mission. Thus:

Mission A: Hawkman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and Captain America go off to Florida to investigate the disappearance of the Keys!

Mission B: Flash, Batman, Sandman, and Human Torch look into a series of bizarre morgue robberies!

That way everyone is active in every mission, you get a good-sized team, and you get a mix of high- and low-power heroes without anyone getting screwed.

And you can always tell the players which hero is suitable for a mission if for some reason Green Lantern would ruin Mission A.

And if you need the whole team together for a climactic battle, it's not a huge deal if a player has 2 heroes, especially if the player is a good roleplayer.

This worked great for me when I ran a FASA Star Trek game with 4 players filling the 8 major jobs on the 1960s show.

Re: How big should a Golden Age superteam be?

Even the ones that notionally stayed the same often tended to expand their range of abilities. Superman is the best known example. Green Lantern is another.

Not really. They hadn't been fully formed characters until after the 1st year of publication. The writers hadn't decided what they could or couldn't do and a lot of the early stories are inconsistent with each other. After that, nothing really changed if you actually read the comics. That doesn't work in game mechanics with experience points because you don't progress for a year and then stop forever after that.

Re: How big should a Golden Age superteam be?

he was the schmoe despite being the third or fourth most powerful guy depending on how you look at it.

CES

Heck, he could be THE most powerful member if he actually used his magic Thunderbolt to its full potential. But he was supposed to be the comic relief.

Re: Super Friends

This site might inspire you.

 

There was an article by Derek Hiemforth about this kind of game in Digital Hero #11. A great read, but you'll survive if you can't track it down.

Thanks, that looks pretty neat and simple.

Re: Super Friends

Barry Allen died in Crisis On Infinite Earths and has only recently returned to the mantle of Flash in the comics.

At the time I made these builds he was still dead.

Well that certainly stinks. The Flash was one of the only comics I read fairly regularly when I could find them at the convenience store!

In my own private universe Barry Allen is still the Flash, Wally West is still Kid Flash, Bruce Wayne is Batman, Dick Grayson is Robin, and so on!