Altheus

My group had a habit of turning major henchmen in to installation art embedded in walls with variously broken bones, this habit developed after we found that holding back got our arses kicked a couple of times. The only individual we actively went after with a view to doing whatever was necessary to stop them ws Black Paladin who slaughtered random people in the street to power up some kind of ritual. We decided that he was going down as hard as possible and if he didn't get up, so much the better. (Got around the code vs killing because he is or appears to be undead)

That situation is so standard its a cliche, get captured, get the villain monologuing about their plan, get put in to a slow and easily escapable detah trap, escape, capture the villain then blow up the base on the way out before going home for tea and medals.

Plus, getting captured and pretending to change sides is a good way to infiltrate a villainous organisation. (My group almost joined viper because they gave away free beer).

Hi psyber624, I see what you're saying but I disagree with it. Yes, players shouldn't routinely use their powers sfx to get them to do things they haven't paid for, however, I think a fire attack should generate heat and set combustables on fire, a lightning attack should behave like electricity (example in one of the x-men films Storm refuses to call a lightning bolt down to the (copper) statue of liberty when she and several others were standing inside it) a cold attack should chill / freeze water.

I suppose the points I'm trying to get across are:

1. I'm a player - not a dice rolling engine, I think, I plot, I connive and contrive and sometimes I come up with creative applications for powers and I would like these to at least be considered rather than told "It doesn't work like that."

2. I think that physics in games should at least loosely reflect reality - loosely enough to knock someone through a building rather than turning them in to chunky salsa for instance.

Hi psyber624, I see what you're saying but I disagree with it. Yes, players shouldn't routinely use their powers sfx to get them to do things they haven't paid for, however, I think a fire attack should generate heat and set combustables on fire, a lightning attack should behave like electricity (example in one of the x-men films Storm refuses to call a lightning bolt down to the (copper) statue of liberty when she and several others were standing inside it) a cold attack should chill / freeze water.

I suppose the points I'm trying to get across are:

1. I'm a player - not a dice rolling engine, I think, I plot, I connive and contrive and sometimes I come up with creative applications for powers and I would like these to at least be considered rather than told "It doesn't work like that."

2. I think that physics in games should at least loosely reflect reality - loosely enough to knock someone through a building rather than turning them in to chunky salsa for instance.

How about abigger, an electricity based hero fighting a lot of goons in a tunnel with a sprinkler system. The hero triggers the sprinkler system to get the floor nice and conductive, then aims a 12D6 blast at the floor. Should that blast extend to everyone standing in the water in a small-ish sized space as an area effect?

My mob encountered a similar situation when trying to stop Black Paladin from slaughtering random civilians to power some kind of ghost ritual. The conclusion was that he goes down hard - all the big nasty killing attacks that we reserve for special occasions, the "And stay down!" practice of attacking him on the ground and making damn sure he wasn't getting up again. If he had died in the process I think we would have found that "unfortunate".

GMs beware, if bystanders, civilians or people we like are killed the gloves come off and whatever did it is going down. Hard.

As one of the players involved we came up with a number of options.

1. Track down cybermind. Drive him to the woods in the middle of the night, give him a spade and tell him to start digging.

2. Track down cybermind, use my vast TK strength to tear his balls off. Sell them on ebay. Get our doctor to regrow them so we can do it again until we get bored.

3. Track down cybermind, find which underworld characters want him and deliver him.

4. Track down cybermind and locate a nearby motorway drop him in to some newly poured concrete.

We are proper superheroes but this little scrote really pissed us off. What we actually did was quite different. I'l let the gm explain.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Buying off a Complication?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary has a Y-chromosome and a Y-not?-chromosome

No, just spent a couple of points on it to make it fit the what the character has done. I don't ever intend to use the skill and Black Jack will be back to his old ways in no time.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

I've taken over running my champions game while the guy who usually runs it is playing a character who looks a lot like an angel called Guardian Angel.

My usual character takes on the responsibility of meeting the smut quota each week but he was away on a gender and diversity awareness course (I've even spent some character points on this) and the others had to step in to maintain the requisite level of smut:

Whiplash (the lesbian speedster): Can you have sex while you're flying?

Malinda (Who transforms in to a dragon): Looks like a couple of spicy wings to me! Do you moult?

Whiplash: He must be an angel, he's turning me straight!

GM: I'm sure they just want a look at your firey sword.

Guardian Angel is now beset by women and seriously considering some smiting.

Hi, I'm going to be running champions for the first time soon and I need some advice on the best ways to go about it.

I have experience of running other games, but I was wondering if there are any specific things I need to know (other than inwardly digesting vast chunks of the rules).

My personal style with rules is to use them as guidelines for the way things are supposed to work and bend them like a bendy thing to keep the plot and story going. I'm not sure how well this will mesh with a very detailed rules system like Champions.

Also, is there a pre calculated dcv vs ocv chart out there or should I produce my own to cut down on maths time during combat - I will freely admit that if the sums seem to be taking too long I pick a number that is roughly in the right place and make it up to the character when experience is being handed out.

Also, is it a good idea to use mooks like they do in Feng Shui (Goons who fall at the first semi-serious hit) or is that unsuited to champions?

Thanks in advance.

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

Interestingly, Mega City One doesn't have the death penalty - Life is the penalty for first degree murder "You're taking the big ride!"

Of course it does sort of have the death penalty for Gross Stupidity in a Built Up Area i.e. thinking that taking pot-shots at Dredd is a good idea.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

A quote from our champions game last night.

Whiplash the speedster: "So, the plan is we usethe SUV to break the doors down, rescue the hostage then burn the place to the ground?"

Blackjack the telekintec: "Yes, I'll have a quick look around for a gas main to legitimze the gas explosion excuse."

Melinda the dragon "Forward planning, I like that!"

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

One from me this week.

"I don't beleive in magic but he's clearly undead.....I know, I know, the logic breaks down in there somewhere".

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

Going off the last version of BP. Black Paladin is a Spirit that inhabits a Host Human. Usually somewhat willing' date=' but there is the possibility that he can inhabit a body against their will. So if you use deadly force vs Black Paladin you are actually harming/Killing his possibly innocent host. If you somehow exorcise the spirit of Black Paladin and somehow destroy/ imprison that. Then you are probably outside of CvK's jurisdiction. Of course that can vary depending on how the person with CvK feels about non-corporeal beings.[/quote']

 

Oh bugger, I didn't actually know all that about Black Paladin. And we had such a good plan for permanant disposal too. Burn the body to ash, have our speedster spread it around the world (some in to a volcano, some in to a building site etc.etc.) While the armour and weapons would get ground in to powder and spead about too.

 

Recorporate that!

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

What do you think the authorities in the UK would think of a superhuman that killed other superhumans. I don't think that even The Sun would give him good headlines....

 

 

Doc

The reaction of the authorities would be public outrage and private relief, they would probably have to go through the motions of an investigation but not with any great enthusiasm.

My character wouldn't be doing it for the headlines, of for the fame but because he'd think it needs to be done to protect future victims. If that involves being locked up in a not very secure prison and then breaking out to continue his own war on superpowered criminals then so be it. A necessary sacrifice in a good cause.

The game would probably come to resemble the A team with the group doing good deeds and occasionally taking out the nightmare level bad guys while avoiding the law.

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

I think it's a matter of different strokes for different folks. Take Binder for instance, has a glue gun, has issues (He has a giant gun that spits out globs of sticky white stuff, do I have to draw a picture?) and steals things - there is no reason to kill him, even if he does regularly break out of prison to commit more crimes.

On the other hand there is Black Paladin a thoroughly evil individual who regularly kills people and consistently breaks out of prison to do it some more, why should heroes not take him down hard? The heroes have the power to end his reign of terror permanently (Unless he is some sort of undead, but there's a plan for that) do they not have the responsibility to do so? Or should it be left to the system to innefectually lock him up for a while so that he can break out and do it all over again?

Doing the necessary bad thing for a good reason, even if the hero has trouble living with themselves afterwards, sounds infinitely better than letting your conscience have sway and allowing more people to die in the future.

"With great power comes great responsibility." And that could include the responsibility do do the necessary things that the law can't. (UK Based, no death penalty).

That's what I think.

Martin

Re: Destruction of public property, and dealing with the aftermath

1 Gas Explosion (Useful when there's a fire breathing dragon in the group)

2 Subsidence (Terrible how half of that house has dropped a couple of feet, almost as though something heavy had sat on it)

3 Earthquake (Not really valid in England, the ones we get aren't strong enough to knock a cup off of the shelf)

4 Not me guv, we weren't even near the place (More difficult after we lost the teleporter)

5 Piss off, we're UNTIL (Sometimes works if delivered with enough presence)

That's how we do it in England

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Quote from Last nights champions game: "Code VS Killing doesn't apply to traffic wardens!"

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Welcome to the board.

 

Yes their GM is better than yours but also the players are also a lot easier on their GM .

Not better, (Killing 60% of the party for plot purposes is just plain mean). just more generous with kit:).

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

I have a Teleporter in my group (the source of about 95% of inquiries on these forums) so I had to have the one scenario that you always have.

 

The teleportation accident.

 

Background was the group was investigating a source of unusual weather activity for UNTIL. The source was actually a magical summoning (keeping it limited just in case any of them are reading this). The magic interacted with their teleport and the teleport of a similar group in a similar dimension (but slightly different) who were teleporting to the area for a similar mission.

 

I had been planning it for weeks then a player could not make it so I had to quickly rewrite it so I could have maximum confusion.

 

They got the description of a roller coaster ride in 3 dimensions and multi coloured lights and then pain and then blackness.

 

I split the group up and spread them over three caverns under a volcano.

 

I had the first group in the first cavern and sent out all players not in the cavern.

 

The the fun started .

 

First character came to and I got the to roll a hit location and then rolled varying dice for body damage without any defences so straight of the body and indicated broken bones in that hit location. Described it realy hurt and costumes ripped to shreds and pitch black. So a really bad accident.

 

The first player (my wife) found the second moaning person who turned out to be a hero that infact did not teleport with them. This Hero was a player that has a secret identity to the other players. She was the lawyer that currently represents the group. All the players knew she is a hero and went to their last mission but has not declaired herself to the group yet so the characters did not know her (Character is Whiplash a lesbian lawyer / speedster who wears very little but is bondage like and uses a whip, who is played by the wife of one of the other players) . So the first player knows who she is but is thinking she should not be here so why is she here?????? I gave the player of Whiplash her back story of having memories of being in the group for months as she was from the other dimension and it was true. The first player has mind control powers so opens up a telepathy and confirms she is telling the truth but does not dig further. So confusion reigns .

 

Whiplash had a broken leg so she gets strapped up with her own whip . Also I enforce a costume malfunction on her and her bikini top strap has broken (but repaired n comic book fashion). My joke on her as she supplied the Hero machine picture of wearing just a bikini and pants, whip and long leather boots which I did say was not very family friendly and could she change it but she refused .

 

Then they found the first dead "player". The teleporter had a rock in his chest and looked like he had bled out! I had not asked the player in so he would not argue over his very unfair death. I did the same with other "dead" characters.

 

So lots of conversations and things are starting to click so I send them out and got the next group in.

 

The second group similar thing. Everyone knows they have had a teleporter accident and stumble around with broken bones. This group has the group healer so starts healling. He finds a character who looks to be dead but obviously the player is not here so you can not kill a character without the player being there can you?? . "Sorry your healing powers have no effect, she is dead, you can not bring her back, your power has no effect on the dead". Again total shock goes through the group .

 

The healer then turns over the next groaning body to see himself and I explain "OK you turn the groaning body over and you look down on yourself but also you wake up with a splitting head and look up and see yourself standing over yourself!!!!"

 

The penny starts to drop so I get everyone in and have just one player who has been on his own and has no clue what is going on and I ask everyone to go along with it (some of them are totally confused).

 

So the last person wakes up. He finds a dead body. The player who plays this character has just played him a few minutes a go so knows he is not dead but nods and goes along with it .

 

His wife, Whiplash even says "your dead!!!, he killed you!" and the player plays along and nods .

 

The group finally get together and finally works out that the three dead characters are from the alternate dimension so none of the players characters have died.

 

They now have four members of a group that are based on their own characters. They have slightly different builds and I have given them slightly different character traits and they seem to be a lot more like comic books heroes. My group are loose cannons and I am always trying to convince them to be more "heroic". Another joke from me which they have already guessed as they are already saying "are these the heroes which you want us to be" .

 

The final joke was when they telported out to regroup (as usualy not following my obvious tunnel to the summoning area) and actualy returned to the UN food camp they should have landed at and they run into their now new team member Whiplash the lawyer who has just run a few thousand miles (getting slightly lost) as she wanted to maintain her secret identity but wanted to get to the group with her own powers. She was not covered in rock dust and her very limited costume is not ripped to shreds.

 

So we leave two lesbians who are identical and think exactly the same eyeing each other up and thinking "hmmmm the possibilities".

 

 

The scenario could have gone totally wrong but it actually worked! It was fun for me with the shock and confusion and them slowly putting it together. Splitting them all into the groups worked so well and I wished I could have taped it for the player that missed it as eventually everyone was enjoying the confusion.

You also said that they had much better kit than us (I play the dead guy in the description above). Our teleporter said "Can we have their GM?"