Archangel Gabri

Re: Wallace & Gromit: Pulp Heroes? I completely agree. I had to explain to my daughter that Gromit is a SuperHero.

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts I've always been a firm believer in the GM getting involved in character conception from the ground floor. The player shouldn't get past, "I think it'd be fun to play a " without the GM having some awareness of and input on what he's thinking. That being the case, the restrictions you describe can be worked out in advance for anyone.

Re: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck was on fire? - Curse help I don't think you can put No Conscious Control and Always On on the same power. If it's always on, that implies he has no control over the power's use: it's simply always on. Unless it comes and goes at random times, in which case it's really just NCC. (Although, I guess the GM can do as he pleases there.)

Re: Name My Supervillian! How about: Lord Vlad Graznyod (nonsense name, but looks good) Sturmfuehrer (if you can overcome the German business) or my personal favorite Rattleklankgrindbonkthudplop

What DEF & BODY would you give a normal car door? Obviously, the damage required to disable a car is far greater than that required to rip off the door. I've seen some references to the whole-object values, but can't find any good guidelines for the specific part. Is this in the Vehicle Sourcebook, or the Champions book (neither of which I have purchased yet)?

Re: Goodbye Washington DC I don't. The doctrine has been in place for half a century: Nuclear attack on the US=Nuclear retaliation. Under the circumstances described neither the American people nor the military will be inclined to show much discretion or restraint. We just got nuked. F**k with us, in even the smallest way, and we will nuke you 'til you glow. We're in no mood. Why do you think so many nations tripped over themselves to be friendly after 9/11? (Sure, much of it was genuine sympathy, and all the horror at the act was genuine.) It's a bad idea to mess with the US when it's dander is up, even if you're not doing anything related to the cause for said dander.

Re: Well, I finished reading Conquerors, Killers and Crooks, and... Is anyone here familiar with the game Torg? In it there was a set of metaphysical and cosmological rules called Axioms that defined the limits of reality in any one section. They defined the maximum devolopment of Magic, Social development, Religion, and Technology. Each piece of reality (called a Cosm) had additional Laws that colored the behavior of the Axiom rules. An example of this is the Nile Empire, and it's a perfect parallel for this discussion. The Nile Empire had a Tech level roughly equal to 1933 Earth, but had a Law providing for Weird Science. Weird Science permitted short term leaps way beyond the Tech limit for the world. It was not actual technology, although it had the trappings (e.g Van de Graf generators, bunsen burners, beakers, etc.), and without that Weird Science Law, wouldn't function at all. This sounds like the Super-Tech you're talking about.

Re: Avemgers + Politics Alright, that settles it. Now I HAVE to run this game. My players' frustration will be at an all time peak today, and they'll want to jump in swinging. Does anyone have a good suggestion for what kind of story to run first?

Re: Avemgers + Politics Again, excellent points SKJAM!. I think that is a productive direction to take this. Dividing the kinds of issues and kinds of antagonists into categories is a good organizational and inspirational tool. (Gotta love deconstructionist thought. ) Issue divisions: Personal Personal issues are those that involve the conflict of values of individual people. Often they represent Institutional or Religious issues brought down to a personal level, sometimes causing problems by mere association. An example might be the homosexual hero who finds himself protecting the rights (or even the life) of a gay pedophile on general principle and winds up being associated with pedophiles in the public perception. He might be forced to engage in violence to protect this person and thereby cross his personal goals of increasing public acceptance of gays in society. Institutional These issues are conflicts of values or interests of institutions. An institution is generally a group of people who generally agree. An obvious example is UNTIL and it's neverending quest to stop VIPER. Religious Issues of this category represent conflicts between religions, or between different sets of religious values. For example the Catholic hero who is also a strong believer in the rule of law and decides he must protect abortion doctors from bombings and shootings in order to uphold his belief in the value of life. Another example might be Muslim heroes who choose to work with the occupying American army in Iraq because they believe it's the best way to protect their people and get the water and electricity running.

Re: Avemgers + Politics This is exactly the outcome I'm looking for. The purpose is the exploration of the conflicts that arise in this situation.

Re: Avemgers + Politics The main point of the game is going to be giving the players a chance to prove they can do better than the people actually in power. Plus they have superpowers. I'm not especially concerned about providing them clean outs. The idea is to get down and dirty with tough political problems and see if superpowers and smart people can resolve them. And to break things.

Re: Avengers + Politics Yes, Mechanon is far easier to deal with. That's precisely why I want to run a game involving these themes. Imagine if Mechanon decided that the way to eradicate organics is to support Israel with all of his technical knowledge, but without their consent, thereby pissing off everyone in the Arab world and forcing the heroes to choose sides in a war they can't win. Hmm. That's good. I think i'll...

Re: Avemgers + Politics That's a good example SKJAM!. I'm thinking that the PCs will be individually powerful in different ways, and collectively possess enormous power. My plan is for them to have individual agendas as well as a group agenda, and their individual plans may come into conflict. The central question here is: The world is full of problems and some of them really bother you. You have superpowers. What are you going to do? The best examples I can think of are things like taking sides in wars, trying to prevent or stop a genocide, fixing world hunger, curing disease, ending poverty, etc. In some cases the goals might only be achieved by the PCs directly involving themselves in political issues. e.g. Campaigning during the Presidential election, patrolling Israel looking for suicide bombers, taking over a country, etc. I'm looking for some ideas and examples of this kind of story.

Re: Avemgers + Politics 1) This is a very narrow, and entirely inadequate description of the reasons for the fall of Rome. The forces involved were far more complicated than the simple moral differences between Rome (which was a Christian Empire quite a while before it fell) and the innocent Christians. Also, the Empire didn't just wither away. The Byzantine empire lasted centuries after the fall of the Western Empire. 2) The fall of the "American Empire" is an interesting idea to explore in the context I originally described. I'm looking for some specific examples of political/ethical/moral dilemmas and situations that can really give my players some roleplaying meat to digest. It's supposed to be cathartic, so they need some pain to work with.

Re: Avemgers + Politics Thanks LL! That's good stuff.

Re: Avemgers + Politics I realize that putting the word "politics" in the name of this thread might lead one to think I'm trying to start a political discussion. I'm not. I'm looking for some ideas about how to implement a SuperHero campaign that has heavy political overtones, and even some political subject matter. I very much like the idea of a "villain" who's political views challenge the heroes where they are most vulnerable: their confidence. A badguy that doesn't seem so bad makes you wonder why you're fighting him. Also, some of the point of the campaign is to give my players a cathartic outlet for their political discomfort. Making them feel guilty for what Harry Truman did is NOT on the agenda. Thank you for your continued input.

I'm thinking about putting together a Champions campaign in response to the current political state of the world. (Half the fun of being a SuperHero is that you can do something about big problems, and political problems can't be directly solved with most superpowers.) I know I want the power level to be planetary, not cosmic. These heroes should be among the most powerful in the world, that's why I'm thinking something like the Avengers. I've got some players who are essentially novices at SuperHero roleplaying, and I've had a ton of experience with it. What I'm looking for is interesting source material, and good ideas for villains and scenarios. I think that Osama has to be an arch-villain, but I want more storytelling flexibility than real-world-only badguys will give me. Anybody got suggestions?

Re: Name for a fictional city How about Asylum? How big a city is it now, anyway?

Re: When I Am the Benevolent Ruler....

Re: Playing 3.5 after Fantasy Hero I'm playing a Cleric of a Nature God in a D20 game right now. it's gone on forever, and I just got to 12th level. For the last 5 levels I've been the heavy artillery piece for the group. The Cleric flexibility is ridiculously unbalanced. With prep time I could wipe out the entire party. I hate that kind of imbalance, so I play with a hamstrung sort of approach, but it's just impossible not to occasionally cast WindWalk and take the party cross-country in one day. All hail the well balanced rules of Hero!!

Re: An Alternate Superman

Re: Help With Horror-filled High Fantasy Adventures Let me ask you a thematic question. Are you looking for beings who *want* to give up their soul and can't figure out how (like the Samurai), beings who revel in their existence and will have to be exterminated to release the soul, or some mixture of both? So far it looks like you have a mix. I ask because in thinking about the Banshee I realized a basic bias on my part for the tragic "I want to die but I can't" story.

Re: Help With Horror-filled High Fantasy Adventures ... These are kind of interesting. If you think of any really good ones, I'd like to see them. feigned disinterest> No, seriously. These are GREAT ideas. I'll be using some in my game, since my player characters are super-high-point epic characters and I need to make them afraid from time to time.

Re: Alpha Male Contest There are clearly (at least) two different issues being debated here: 1) In a 'Manly Man' contest for who's the most macho, what abilities should be forbidden as 'girlie'? 2) What truly constitutes a contest for dominance in the 'Alpha Male' sense. These are easy to get crossed up, since they bump into each other anyway. My $.02: 1) The distinction that powers that are 'part' of you should be allowed, and powers that bring in outside aid should not, while admittedly arbitrary, is still accurate within context. I disagree that this should be dependent in any way on game mechanics. I believe this is an issue of special effects. If you call upon an outside power to appear and smack down your foes, that power ought not be used in this fight (unless it's your only real power and the contest is "I can beat up your pet demon.") 2) As has been said, the rules for social dominance are complex, fluid, and utterly dependent on the sociocultural context of the creatures involved. Human males most definitely do engage in social dominance behavior. All social animals do. Our rules are just way more inscrutable than those of wolves. If you need proof of humanity's charter membership in the social dominance club, just watch a group of men while they watch a sporting event (especially football or basketball).

Re: Is patriotism a disadvantage?