Laundry Knight

Re: DC/Marvel Characters in Your Campaign Having been upstaged by GMPCs too frequently in the past, I also am trying to structure my stories so that the PCs take center stage. Having Superman, Thor, or their equivalent hold off the invading hordes while the PCs go inside to dismantle the death ray adds to dramatic attention, allows the PCs to take center stage with the main story, and earn the gratitude of powerful potential allies.

Re: "Elevator Pitch" your campaign I've yet to make into a game, but I have been working on a super hero campaign based around a collection of short stories I have written but not published that are parodic homages to comic books, old sci-fi movies and books, and some of the action movies I grew up on.

Re: I'm not really dead Isn't there some kind of option that allows GMs to grant "Save Your Bacon" points that can be used to save your bacon like restoring the character to life massive bonuses to skills at dramatically appropriate times.

Re: DC/Marvel Characters in Your Campaign I use them for flavor background. Since I am not planning to publish my campaign, I use licensed characters to fill gaps. Though they are may be considerably weaker than the comic book counter-parts. I also choose the versions I like best or re-write things to the way I would prefer them without worrying about DC's or Marvel's continuity. I also like to use known characters when I am trying out new Hero System builds. Sometimes, I think it is easy to use characters with known power sets when trying new things with Hero; so, if I want to know how to build a character like Superman, Captain America, or whoever, I start by building Superman, Captain America, or whoever before applying what I know to the character I am really trying to build, and since I have those characters made anyway, may as well use them as NPCs.

Re: Wish List: Other Licensed Content DC, Marvel, Star Trek, and Star Wars have had successful RPGs. Some of them still have avid followers though now defunct. I have even ran or played in many of them. Regarding suspension of belief in super hero RPGs. It requires just as much suspension of of disbelief to read comic books from those worlds. Why does the JLA never help Superman save the planet when it is being threatened in Superman's own book instead the Justice League of America's book? They just don't. Where are the X-Men and the Avengers when Galactus is trying to eat Earth in Fantastic Four's book? Same issue. I have ran Star Wars WEG, and I still have most of my books. It really isn't that hard to introduce characters. It's a big galaxy, and you can travel rather far without running into Luke Skywalker and friends. The hardest part is choosing the tone you want and enforcing it with the players, such as no Jedi in fringe campaign, no assassins in a Jedi campaign, and so forth. It isn't much different than Hero in the part. The campaign I was trying to put together before I discovered Hero was Star Trek using LUG's system. Actually, having the characters on a large ship has advantages. Like it is easy working in a new character. If you get tired of playing your security officer, you can create a scientist and just say he has never shown up in any scenes until now. For the licensing issues, my understanding of this exercise is that it is just for fun. Kind of like imagining what you would do if you were to win the lottery. You can put down anything you like regardless of how unlikely it would happen.

Re: OIHID or Why Doesn't Billy Batson not Change Back?

Re: Wish List: Other Licensed Content Since we are daydreaming instead of planning, for science fiction, both Star Trek and Star Wars would be obvious. I'm not sure how well it would translate, but I loved the Dune novels also the Well World books by Jack L. Chalker would make interesting worlds to play in. Riverworld by Farmer is also interesting. Larry Niven's universe would work well also. Old serials, like Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and Rocky Jones would also entertaining. For super hero, Champions versions of DC and Marvel are obvious. Justice Machine was interesting. And, there are other gaming companies that had interest worlds that might work well with the Hero treatment. GURPS Supers and Villains & Vigilantes both had interesting worlds to play in. There were also a number of Saturday morning cartoon super heroes that might fit well into an amalgamated super world. For fantasy, I'm not as keen, but I loved the Xanth, Belgarian, and Myth novels when I was younger, and I liked the old stop animation movies like Jason and the Argonauts and the original Clash of the Titans. I would classify heroes like John Carter of Mars and Tarzan in the fantasy vein though John Carter is probably more sci-fi than fantasy. Also, how about King Kong and Godzilla license to draw in all of the classic giant monster movies.

Re: In The Cards Captain Spectacular (Superman-type) is a big boy scout and would not strike first at someone who wasn't an obvious threat but would take action after the first card was played. About the same for Tawodi Osdi (a cross between the Angel and Hawkman), and Brother Oculus (Iron Man wannabe). Anaximander (has a Batman vibe gooing one), Crimson Aura (Green Lantern raised by Darkseid), and Mister Invisible (blaxploitation hero with real powers) would never let the guy have a chance. I'm not sure about Lightning Man (Native American lightning casting speedster) or Zynar the Mystic(stage show magician with alien artifact). For the most part, if he wanted to get all five cards out, he had better do it while his mooks were still providing cover.

Re: What Makes An Iconic Superhero Costume? I am definitely a four color traditionalist. Simple colors, cape, boots, belt, gloves (optional), briefs on the outside of the longjohns. A simple mask or cowl is good. I chest symbol of some sort very useful.

Re: Villain Group: Flash Mob I would go a completely different route. The secret organizer bring anarchists in to create a problem, but his real intention is to create the diversion you mention. Perhaps, the real crook actually works for the bank, and police and characters are fooled into chasing after the anarchists who no nothing about the robbery.

Re: New Everyman skill The concept is good, but common knowledge can be subjective. What counts as common knowledge to African bushmen probably isn't what would count as common knowledge among ivy league professors. I would just use an intelligence roll modified by the character's background or simply declare the character just knows it.

Re: Flight while sleeping? You might also want a limited danger sense set to wake the character up should an emergency arise or give the flight power limited intelligence as some sort of automatic pilot.

Re: Public vs. Secret Identity I vaguely recall an old Charlton Captain Atom comic I read where the villain revealed Captain Atom's real face on public TV only no one had a clue who he was; so, the exercise proved pointless.

Re: And Now for Something Slightly Different: Mis-Spelled and Reimagined Supers Red Toronado-Android with the ability to turn himself into an Oldsmobile. The Flask-Fastest drinker on earth Stuperman-The Flask after one too many Black Canard-A common woman falsely assumed to be a super-hero who just likes wearing fishnet stocks.

Re: Evil I go with the Augustinian argument and call it the absence of good.

Re: List Your CO Heroes! I just started playing and have only one character out of the training mission. Oklahoma Kid, LVL 11 Archer. I created him as a throw away while learning the game but started liking him as a played and improved him. A subscription is out of means right now ; so, I am still stuck with the beginning generic archetypes.

Re: Is Speed underpriced? I'm of the same mindset and had created several NPC heroes and villains, but even though I have established my own world, I would like to use some of the published heroes and villains to make adventure creation simpler for me (my game is intended as a back up for a friend's DnD game), and most of the published characters are faster than the characters I created.

Re: And Now for Something Slightly Different: Mis-Spelled and Reimagined Supers Cap'n America~The patriotic mascot of cereal lovers everywhere.

Re: Playing around with the rules... I suppose you could have a degree of success and failure chart. Perhaps, you could have four degrees of success and failure. If you succeed by 3, you have the full advantage of the success. If you succeed by less than 3, you get partial benefit of the success. If you fail by less than three, you get enough benefit to garner a bonus on the next roll. If you fail by 3 or more, it is a complete failure and there are no benefits. Of course this would not be applicable to all skills but I think it would be handy for a large number of skills.

Re: Silver Age Superman It would probably best to give SA Superman a VPP for many of his more farflung powers.

Re: Bells and Whistles and Experience Points The trick is that there would have to be a good roleplaying explanation for it. I wouldn't allow a character with a hillbilly background all of sudden be able to understand astrophysics, and I wouldn't allow the city slicker to all of sudden have Survival: Desert unless they had sufficient exposure in prior adventures to justify it.

Re: Silver Age Superman super-breath super-ventriloquism

Re: Bells and Whistles and Experience Points Maybe, it's because I am write short stories as a hobby and like being surprised when a character unfolds in ways I had not originally imagined, but I like the idea of being able to create as I go. It makes it feel more like storytelling and less like refereeing.

Re: Football Fu For futbol, it seems that starting with tae kwan do from the martial arts book, take away that which does not belong and add a headbutt maneuver would get you into the ball park.

Re: Ratios of Superpower Archetypes I tend toward martial artists, detectives, gadgeteers, and power armors for NPC heroes and allow the PCs to set their own average.