Hopscotch

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members

Those guys look great.

It just makes me mad because I am such a lousy painter.

I love your team threads, Proditor.

Hopscotch

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

Espionage agencies will often recruit millitary personel from various services. These people can, and often are, placed into operating groups with other agents of similar background.

In World War II, the OSS used people from all branches, but they were most often transferred to the Army. This is also an option.

You could also play with the idea of a combined service. It is possible that the millitary of the future could be run without branches. Perhaps If you mess about with military names for services, you could alter pre-soncieved notions of what those soldiers should be doing.

Remember that you have the power to alter the world any way that works for you and keeps your players happy.

Hopscotch

Re: A couple questions for GMs

I have never required backgrounds to be written out. I like to sit with the player and help them flesh out a background that fits into the campaign world.

Some players know exactly what their background is, while some need to be coaxed.

The background almost always suggests most of the character's disads.

I am always careful when I create enemies that might exploit a character's weakness. I make sure that I am not picking on the same character twice in a row.

I do find that these dangerous opponents make players play better, and they appreciate a victory over them even more. It can be a beautiful thing to see.

I also make sure to have villians that have weaknesses that the players can exploit, as long as it does not make it too easy. My players love to figure out the weak spots. Sadly, they are getting a little too good at it...

Hopscotch

Re: What's your team missing?

The team I GM for has no real speedster, but we don't miss on all that much.

With the exception of our brick, we have a very mobile team.

The team is finally gettign to the point where they know how to work as a team. They are now to the point where they have a couple of standard deployments, and have learned to improvise. They elected the brick as their leader, making them much more combat effective.

It is nice to see a team grow. Over the last two years, this team has grown from an uncoodinated bunch of rookies to a fairly well-oiled machine.

Hopscotch

Re: Wonder if VIPER ever thought of this...

You made my day.

Re: I need a function!

The Rain Schtick is actually an ancient Native American rain summoning ritual that was adapted for use in late 19th century Yiddish Theatre.

The music and dance movements were carried out during a vaudeville style routine at the end of an evening's shows.

This magic was not invoked on an appreciative audience and was used to ensure that hecklers would be in for a wet trip home.

Next: The Manzoni Manual Coupler

Re: Newspaper snippet generator

I am the editor at a small town newspaper. I put out a paper every day and think that this generator is pretty cool. You should put this on the Champions board if you have not. It will fit in very well there too.

Hopscotch

Re: Krav Maga Martial Arts writeup.

I like it. I am glad that you resisted the desire to throw dodge in. This set reflects the "up close and personal" nature of the art fairly well, I think.

Hopscotch

Re: Character Depository

My rep is worth nothing at all...yet.

Hopscotch

Re: Advice for a team of unfortunate supers

I would point them in the direction of the Useless Unit. The UU is where supers of there Ilk get together and do what they can.

This is an established group in our campaign world. They sport shuch members as:

• Captain Freshness- Able to tell the exact expiration date of any foodstuff.

• Wattage Dude- Able, with supreme mental effort, to change the wattage of lightbulbs.

• Modular Butt Man- Has several high tech attachments on his prosthetic rear

• Vendor the Ice Cream Man- can change anything to ice cream, but can't control the flavor.

• Nostro- sold off all of his stats and put all of his points on smell.

• Kinky the flexible lizard- The less said, the better.

Some people like having goups like this around in their campaign world while others feel that it ruins the tone. Just a friendly note.

Hopscotch

Re: Need help with interdimensional adventures

Thanks to everyone who replied. Our game this past weekend got pushed back to Mother's Day weekeknd. The session with the old guys will happen the following weekend.

I think I know what to do now, but I won't post just yet.

I will let you know what happened after we have played it out.

Thanks again.

Re: Need help with interdimensional adventures

Maybe the Temporal guy 'senses' the dimensional energies somehow?

that is an idea...perhaps Tempo's future self could tip him off....

Thanks

Re: Need help with interdimensional adventures

Ok, I think I need a little more background...

The interdimensional technology was first developed by a company very friendly to the PC's. After a couple of time travel adventures, however, we could not find a future where the technology did not fall into the hands of our major "take over the world" organization, CHESS.

Upon finding out that the company had already been infiltrated by CHESS, we took and vote.

In an unusual move in what has otherwise been a very silver age campaign, we agreed to stage a raid on the friendly facility doing the interdimensional research and destroy both the device and any notes on the device. For good measure, our mentalist erased the device from the memories of the involved scientists.

This action had longstanding ramifications for the group, leading to a major division in the group that was later worked out.

Since that time several groups have tried to recreate the device. The most successful has been CHESS, since they had already stolen rudamentary notes on the project.

In fact, the brick on the new team, was created in an accident that happend while he was doing university research sponsored secretly by CHESS.

What I mean by "Stabalizing any new breaches" is that I am working on the premise that breaching the dimensional barriers is fairly easy. Certain supers powers do it all the time. The problem comes from the fact that the dimensions are self sealing, and keeping one open is the real trick. The fact that they have this device, will let them help any rescuers a great deal, provided they know what is going on.

I hope this helps.

Hopscotch

First off, if you are a member of Avatar or Southern Star stop reading now.

I have a current gaming group that is part of a campaign that was started in 1990.

There are no origional members left, save myself, and I only GM.

My current party has just become lost in annother dimension due to technology that is a left over big bad from years ago, but also closely tied to the origins of our brick.

We ended last session with them trapped in a world where the Cofederacy won the civil war. I borrowed liberally from Harry Turtledove's alternate history on this subject.

Now that I have them there, I have good ideas of what to do with them.

The problem is this: some of the old members of the campaign are getting together in a couple of weekends and we are plannign to play a session of Champions.

My thought is to have the old group rescue the new group and provide them with a way home. I don't want this to turn into a "The old guys had to bail us out" situation, and I think I have that angle covered.

I am just having trouble with the mechanics of the thing.

The lost team jumped because of a malfunctioning dimensional research machine at the local university. The team has salvaged a part of the machine, but has not figured out that the part they have will help them stabalize any new breaches that are created.

The old team will consist of a flying blaster, a mentalist, a hero with temporal powers and an inertia controller.

I know that I am steeling from "Sliders" a bit and have no problem with that. Help me find a good way for the old team to find the lost team.

Thanks

Re: Help me name my team; Part Two: Germany.

You could use Berchta for your mystic lady. Berchta was a fairy or witch depending on the stories you hear, from southern German Folklore.

The name you have is good, I was just offering ideas.

Re: Martial Arts in the Pulp era

There are many non Asian organized fighting methods.

Spanish and Itallian knife fighting schools, several still survive today.

While boxing has existed as an organized form since the middle ages, It was the Irish who revolutionized the art by adding the footwork and "bob and weave" elements that we recognize today. Even well into the 20th century, Ireland claimed many of the world's finest boxers.

There would have been many more Chinese in London at the turn of the 20th century, and though that society tended to be very insular, it is possible you could have some Chinese arts.

Capoeira, the Brazillian fighting/dancing form did spread through the Carribean, so it is possible that someone, from the british islands in that part of the world might know that art.

Eastern Europeans were especially fond of wrestling arts. (Not just Russians. Greeks, Hungarians, and others had formalized forms.)

Though I am going back too far in history, recent research into the fighting style of the Knights Templar show that it had many more similarities with Aikido than many of the later European sword techniques. It employed the step off, off balance, counter strike method that will be familiar to practicioners of many "soft" martial arts.

I know very little about African forms, but I know that they existed. Those could have also found their way to London.

Just some thoughts.

Re: Comics you loved...but apparently no one else did

Does anybody remember "The Wolfpack" ? It was a limited series from back in the 80's or maybe early 90's from Marvel.

It was really cheesy, but I really liked it at the time.

I also remember "Rust." I think that it was from First comics, but I don't quite remember.

I was also a big fan of the afore mentioned "Cat and Mouse" as well as the spin off "The Demon."

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members

I know that I am stepping in late in the game, but I just found the thread.

I like the name Hellfighter, but that was also the official nickname of an all black American regiment in WW I. They also had a Jazz Band and first spread that music to Europe.

Skyfire could serve as his name as well. Sort of a sidelong Aurora refference. (And yes, I know he was a Transformer.)

It would be hard to paint, but I also like the idea of common maple leaf patches, but different costumes.

I also love the name Big Nickel.

Just my five cents worth.

Re: Name That Band Hero!

Nasty Habit - Ex-Nun assassin/martial artist

Gray Matter - Classic Levitating Brain mentalist

Skin - His regeneration is out of control, giving him mad stretching skills

Weird Science- Team leader and mad genius

Oingo Boingo?

Here's one:

The Great Povider- Healer with lots of aids.

Box Set- a boxer with duplication.

The Flag- Canadian patriaotic hero.

Aluminum- lightweight robot brick.

Re: Are Jacks of all Trade Effective PCs?

I once had a player who came up with a great character concept of a hero with multiple personality disorder. When different personalities took over, the character phisically changed and got a different power set. Because Skitzo had four different personalities, that meant four different power sets. Point constrictionsmeant that the brick, the martial artist, the gadgeteer and the telekenetic each were built on a smaller point base than the other characters in the party.

To this day, I love this character concept and construction. Fairly quckly, however, the player got tired of playing second fiddle to everyone else and talked me into having annother, dominant personality emerge. He ceased being a shapeshifter, and settled into the role of primary shooter in the party.

My point is, make sure that the player wants to be a JoAT. Even then, they may get tired of never being the cool kid.

Sadly, at the end of the day, I ended up loving Skitzo more than his player did.

Re: Which Edition of Champions/Hero System Worked Best for Your Champions Campaign?

No question, 5th.

Yeah, it's not perfect, but it does lots of things well. I have a lot of players that like to have characters that do strange things. I think 5th is the most consistant and flexible to date.

Don't get me wrong, it took me a while to warm up to the new rules. Familiarity with the old sometimes makes us old timers resistant to change. When I figured out better ways to do things because of 5th, however, it became clear top me just how much I like the new system.

Hopscoth

Re: Page one of the V&V Conversions is up!

Man, that takes me back to Junior High. Now you have inspired me to remake my old V&V character as an NPC for my Champions Campaign.

In fact my campaign keeps the old V&V concept of playing yourself. It makes playing supers much more fun, IMHO.

Thanks for the walk down memory lane. BTW can I stea...I mean borrow some of your writeups?

Re: Alternative terms for archtypes?

The Millitary alphabet soups everything. I actually like how you started.

Martial Artist = Skilled Hand Combatant or SHaC

Brick = Heavy Close Combatant or HeCC

Energy Projector = Energy Projector or EPRO

Speedster = Accelerated Combatant or ACC COM

Mentalist = Psionc or PSI

Stealth Type = Concealed Operative or CON OP

Miscellaneous = Unclassified or UNCLe

These are just ideas. Remember that any group of millitary classifications will avoid terms that rhyme or sound alike to avoid confusion in the field.

The millitary should always have some alphabet soup name for everything, because the real army does.

Re: Name help requested for an idealistic archer

What about "Brave" ?

It works for the Native American and the old school patriotic (Home of the...)

Hopscotch

Re: Champions Halloween costumes

In '93 my whole party did it. Nobody knew who we were, but we had fun.