Chimpira

Re: Good bye

Please, do you *really* think it wasn't obvious to whom nexus was referring in the original post here?? It was a blatant sympathy grab.

 

Apparently, it is "riding one's ass" or "unwillingness to tolerate any disagreement" to point out the flaws in the arguments that someone else is making.

Truth be told, I had no idea and now I care even less.

Re: Ellis' Planetary HERO?

I actually used Planetary as a model for an Exalted campaign.

 

Went to s***. Players were more interested in gathering gold and weapons than in unlocking the secret mysteries of the universe.

LOL

Re: Favorite Published Villains

Eh, I like Nebula. She has lots of "culture clash" potential, IMHO.

 

Then again, I'm a sucker for grey villains.

 

Along those lines: how can you forget Cateran??

I love grey villians as well but my girlfriends character was an alien wanted for the murder of her father the King of a planet. If that was not a one way ticket to Duress, I do not know what is. As a character that pops up I can see a lot of use for her but as a hunted it was going to cause the group quite a bit of pain. My girlfriend has since decided to quit as she liked online games like Dark Age of Camelot more than tabletop roleplaying games. In truth she just like hitting things without too much guesswork.

Re: Isle of Dr. Destroyer(?)

I never did get a chance to look at that one. I had gotten my grubby paws on Day of The Destroyer though. Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

Re: Ellis' Planetary HERO?

Yeah. I think I found it when I was during research on Tesla for a story I was writing about a year ago. Farmer is great.

Re: Okay, Who's yer favorite Icon?

I am going to have to say that my favorite Iconic figure is Doc Savage. For comics I am going to go with Green Lantern (Alan Scott)

Re: Ellis' Planetary HERO?

Oh yeah. I found that site some time ago. It is pretty cool.

Re: Favorite Published Villains

It's cool to hear someone found a good story use for her - though even here, it sounds like her use was more as a McGuffin/plot element than as a character, per se.

 

I've personally never found her particularly interesting, but as with most things, individual mileage may vary. I'm guessing even the Monster has some die-hard fans out there, if only because he/it has appeared in every consecutive edition of the game since he/it was first published.

My girlfriend had picked her as a hunted and I almost moaned aloud in pain. I was plotting ideas for her introduction in the game that did not revolve around escape from Duress and frankly most of them resulted in my having to totally change the character as written (which is ok).

I am a fan of Black Paladin and the mod is top notch.

The Dragon was put to immediate use in my game as I was already playing around with a storyline about the Tablet of Destiny and Tiamat before I heard about their inclusion in Mystic World.

Re: Ellis' Planetary HERO?

 

I also recommend TOP STRONG.

You mean Tom Strong? Alan Moore on ABC is pretty good. Top Ten is great, almost like a mix of Hill Street Blues and Justice League

Re: Ellis' Planetary HERO?

Come on Chimpira' date=' you've really got to enlarge upon this one! [/quote']

Not much to enlarge. Micah Ian Wright was the author and I had the opportunity to share some drinks with him. He talked about his military service and what not. The problem being that he was never in the military. The closest he got was ROTC. He had a book of old propaganda pictures published and he changed the wording on them all to reflect how he felt about the current adminstration. The thing was they (the publishers) would hype the fact that he was an Ex-Ranger and he sold quite a few books. He would write forewords to other peoples work and speak proudly of what he had done in the Rangers. I grew up surrounded by the military and although I never enlisted, it had a major influence on my life. I liked his StormWatch series but I just could not let what happen slide. (The funny thing was that I have problems with the current administration but lying about your background to push books was something I could not condone.)

Re: Ellis' Planetary HERO?

I'm a fan of Planetary and The Authority. I would also recommend Stormwatch: Team Achilles. This takes an interesting look at the activities of supers (the Authority in particular) from the viewpoint of normal agents. The early Stormwatch and The Authority TPB's are also well worth getting hold of if you like the current stuff. The characters and the background underwent a lot of development in those stories' date=' and there is stuff in the current series that is more comprehensible if you've read the early stuff. [/quote']

I used to read those as well. I thought they were pretty good but having met the author and having him lie full in my face I could not bring myself to continue the series. But putting personal issues aside, I would say that it is a decent read. Since the cancellation of Wildcats (Joe Casey was doing great things in that series but it just didn't catch on.) I mainly read Sleeper.

Re: Ellis' Planetary HERO?

Would you happen to know what else is in the "Wildstorm" continuity?

 

Thanks for any info.

StormWatch (Ellis took over by issue 37), The Authority, The Establishment, Gen-13, Wildcats, Sleeper, to name a few. I liked Joe Casey's Wildcats a lot but it has been canceled. I, currently read Sleeper and Planetary. The rest have either been canceled or I have gotten a strong distaste for it.

Re: Ellis' Planetary HERO?

Warren Ellis. The series has been taking quite a while to finish but if you buy it in trade you can get a whole lot of Planetary goodness for your buck.

Re: Great moments in RPG history

I'm not sure whether this would go better as a 'great moment' or just a 'great quote', but speaking as somebody who was at the table last night -- it /was/ a great moment.

 

Princess Cyrande of Malva, our newest (proto-)member, has just finished an emotionless recital of a recently historical Malvan atrocity, and our team hothead, Warp, went completely off on her as a 'space Nazi'. Rather than engage in a hostile confrontation Her Highness left the room in a dignified manner, while Horus-Re and Warp continued to argue about it.

 

And right after Watcher, playing Warp, had his character argue that we should get rid of her because she brought potential dire peril to Earth...

 

... Mark came up with this speech for Horus-Re completely off the cuff.

 

 

 

(with minor editing for grammar, spelling, and punctuation -- but not content)

 

People, we gave him the internet chat equivalent of a standing ovation for this one.

Definitely a great moment if you ask me.

Re: So, out of the New York Hero teams, Which would you kill/Maim/Destroy?

I find that sometimes it more important that no one from the group has actually visited the city than for the GM to have. I ran a game for years based in Los Angeles. I, then, moved out here and was amazed about how wrong I was about, oh, everything. Another thing is that you can just move Hero groups or have them form during your campaign. As GM, you can play with the timeline however you want.

Re: So, out of the New York Hero teams, Which would you kill/Maim/Destroy?

This is starting to remind me of an old disagreement I had with a very good friend of mine. He was playing in my champions game and they had a group of about 8 players. I threw Deathstroke (I think that was the villian team name) at them. They got their asses handed to them. Now my friend was a player from back in the day, had beaten down Deathstroke countless times before under another GM and was quite perturbed that they had been taken out by 'scrubs'. I pointed out that one of the team members was an actual tactician and that they had used teamwork to carry the day. He accepted that but got upset again when I said, "I could make those clowns from Road Kill beat your butt if they had the right conditions." Ah, memories.

Re: Your house rules you do NOT want to see as system rules

I play a lot without a map and sometimes something will pop up like a character is falling from a building or what not. The character will ask me if their is flagpole handy or anything similiar. I will say "it would be odd if it was." That is the cue for my player to roll a d6, if it comes up on an odd number then the pole is there giving the character a chance for the grab. I determine if the random factor should be used for the situation or not. It comes in handy but I would not really care for it to be established in the hero system.

Re: How do you deal with difficult powers

To this day, I've never had a player play a competent mentalist. Most mental powers require a certain amount of articulation and finesse and that has yet to happen. Vague questions, poorly worded commands and just about every one forgot they had Mental Illusions because mind control always seemed to have more punch.

I have had two players that were amazing at playing mentalists but they were also cautious about the overuse of their powers. They know that if they overuse something I take it upon myself to start doing the same. And they usually do not want me to do that.

Re: How do you deal with difficult powers

Why don't you just say "No mentalists"?

Because it might be a pain for some type of scenerios but I have no real good reason to disallow it beyond that it just means a little extra work for me.

Re: How do you deal with difficult powers

For me every campaign starts this way. In my head, as the players tell me their concepts, this mantra is repeated over and over again "Please don't make a mentalist. Please don't make a mentalist. PLEASE DON'T MAKE A MENTALIST." I never tell my players not to but that is seriously the only thing that I usually ever worry about. If they have a power that can short cut a scenerio I will usually have a back up planned or will concentrate on a lot of roleplaying before they get to the scenerio. Sometimes I find it is a good thing to let the players have an easy scenerio every once in a while. Then you drop the hammer.

Re: Praise for Arcane Cover

I am known to be somewhat critical of Hero' date=' but let me say that this cover is drop dead beutiful...[/quote']

I second that emotion.

Re: What is a Superhero to you?

When someone says "Superhero" to you' date=' what images enter your mind? Whats you defination of a Superhero and what character (current or past) best illustrate what you feel a Superhero is.[/quote']

I do not think of a character really. I grew up reading and really loving the superheroes without powers, they just worked their butts off to get to where they are. For some reason I have an image, in my mind, of someone battered and bruised. Someone that should of fallen down long ago but whom knows that he is all that stands between the enemy and us. He does not seek praise or gets disappointed that no one has ever bothered to say thank you. He does what is right because it needs doing. I know it sounds cornball, but I am the type of guy that gets misty eyed when, as the group runs on, the secondary character stops and turns to face the enemy to stall them so that his friends can live.

Re: Tactical Challenge: Eurostar

This comes down to "If you don't want an iron age campaign, don't put the players in iron age situations". I think most players (and most characters) wouldn't play Fiacho's game very long.

 

If you want your players to respect the lives of the villains, and even the normals, don't present them with "no win" situations.

 

My current character is pretty free and easy, and cheerful But it wouldn.'t take to many scenarios like the above before he would conclude that it's Foacho's life or countless future innocent peeople's lives. Weighed in the balance, it's pretty obvious which has to take priority. [Hopefully, no one from my group is reading this - his dark side hasn't really surfaced at this point, and it may never happen.]

I get your point but I try to drop similiar type of problems into my campaign from time to time (although I generally tailor such a scenerio for my game so that it is possible for my players, although they might have to stretch their resources to the breaking point). I find that it is easy being a hero if they do not have difficult situations to face and my greatest roleplay opportunities with my players came from some very difficult situations. That being said, if it is a campaign with nothing but these scenerios then there could be a major problem if you did not sign up to play an Iron Age game.

Re: Great moments in RPG history

The fight goes on for a few more rounds and we are holding our own when the GM says, “It’s about time for Quartz to hit the ground. Roll your luck.â€

 

He did and rolled 2 six’s.

 

The GM says. “Good, roll you acrobatics.â€

 

He did and got 3 one’s.

 

We just about fell out of our seats.

 

The GM says. “Well after you slid down the glass of the building, slowing your momentum, you flip in the air and land on your feet at the door of the building. Taking no damage, what do you do.â€

 

Quartz runs into the building and yells. “Hold that Elevator!â€

 

 

At the end of the fight as The Destroyers were getting away on their teleport pad, and the rest of us were stunned or knocked out. Quartz comes running in grabs the Nuke and tosses it on the pad with the villains.

 

 

That was a great moment in gaming.

I have seen the equivalent happen before and it does cause a lot of people to smile and cheer.

Re: Death with Dignity : An examination of the Golden Age

Well' date=' that, and certain publishers saw the chance to cripple their competition. For example, the code outlawed certain words in titles specifically because titles containing those words were huge sellers for EC. (Similarly, the banning of vampires and werewolves was aimed straight at them.)[/quote']

Yeah, we can all thank the book 'Seduction of the Innocent' by Dr. Frederic Wertham for that. His book pretty much caused the stampede that ran EC and other titles out of business. I like Super heroes like the next guy but I am from the school of thought that says a comic is just another medium to tell a story and should not be seen as something just for kids. Heck, the average age of the comic reader in America is 35.