Chimpira

Re: The best retcons of all time

Re: The best retcons of all time Bill Willingham's Fables. This has to be the retcon to end all retcons.

Re: PCs are not the most important in the world Usually, I do not make a more competent hero team stay close to the PC team. This is for everyday adventures, things that are happening right friggin' now and the heroes only really have a small amount of time to get something done. I stress the actual size of the city and how little time is acually eaten up by combat. I avoid high level NPC's that always pop up ,except when a battle takes place. One of my players has described my game as a living world. This means that while the PC's are doing their thing the world does not stop. Other NPC's or heroes are doing their thing as well and since the world is a large place, this does not mean that they might even cross over. There is this thing though. I have been fascinated by this idea of running a game ina Crisis on Infinite Earths style. What I mean by this is that the players will be involved but will not be the head guys, that will be some other superteam but the players will be given a key role to help save the universe. I just like the idea of the PC's being crowded into an area with teams and heroes from around the world. Handled just right, it can be a really good adventure plus it sets the stage for the next universe shaking event, when the PC's call everyone together.

Re: Help With An Acrobatic Style Of MA Here is a little something to take us all back when we discovered that gymnastics and karate had a long way to go. I give you Gymkata

Re: Superhero Politics Well, there is a lot to cover. If you have not read it I think that you might find reading 'The Winter Men' written by Brett Lewis with art by John Paul Leon or 'The American Way' written by John Ridley with art by Goerges Jeanty interesting. Does this world have symbolic superheroes whose only real job is to keep the propaganda mill rolling? Is the real work handled by the supers who work for the governments shadow organizations? I think a little more detail might be helpful.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Just finished Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold. It is my yearly ritual, like how some people read The Lord of The Rings every year. Well I reread the Vorkosigan Series every year.

Re: Planetary Influences I run a pulp game that is tied into my main Champions game. One of the characters plays the father of Jimmy Dugan and in my champions game I run a npc that is the daughter of Jimmy Dugan. I model the Pulp hero game after Planetary.

Re: Planetary Influences That's pretty funny seeing as Warren Ellis was the creator of The Authority. Of course the point of the first 12 issues was for it to be over the top. He was also able to make the characters somewhat interesting. After Ellis stopped writing the title I stopped buying it.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... The Mushashi Flex by Steve Perry. This book is a prequel to the whole Matador Series. All in all a very entertaining read but be forewarned that it is targeted at those that have read the series. I am not certain how much enjoyment I would have gotten out of the novel if I had not read at least the first three Matador books.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Not going to apologize for it. Actually felt bad for a bit, I do not want to ruin anyones pleasure on these boards. I looked over my post and decided that although it was not humorous, it was a great moment for a player that started out quite lackluster in my game and I wanted to share it. Without the history of what was going on then it would have just been whatever. Heck, it could still be whatever but it made me proud to be a GM. I will not apologize for that.

Re: Power stunts. Yep. The Power skill. At first I had a hard time getting my players to buy this skill. Then they start asking the question "Could I do this?" during the game and I would reply well maybe if you had the power skill. Now they all have it.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... In my last Champions game we had the final battle between my players and The Crowns of Krim. A little bit of info first, My players (5 members, all roughly about 375 points at this point) have just fought through a wave of DEMON members, 6 Demonbound, The Black Enchantress (Talisman but upped quite a bit and with a 100 point variable power pool tacked on) and The Crowns of Krim sans Dark Seraph. They had to get through DEMON and Black Enchantress to get to the Dimensional Portal that led to The Last Citadel at the Edge of The Sea Of Chaos. That was a hard fight. Standing Guard outside of the Last Citadel was the Crowns of Krim. This was an amazingly hard fight with the heroes winning but becoming broken and bloody by the end of it. With no time to rest the three members (Nightfall, Dark Wolf and Arsenal) that still were able to stand made their way into the Citadel to face Dark Seraph and to stop him from raising Tiamat. Outside The Promise is using her empathic healng to take on Prye's wounds to keep him from dying. The three heroes face Dark Seraph and it starts off badly. Outside Prye (whom just realized that he had the mythology skill and wondered if now would be a good time to bring it up) remembers that the reddish water surrounding the Last Citadel is part of the Sea of Chaos or The Sea of Change as it is otherwise known. It has magical properties and those imbued with magical powers may pass their limits if they are exposed to it. It does not work the same way on people that have their abilities given to them by some mystic artifact. He also knows that it is deadly as all get out. Wiping the blood from his mouth He drinks deep of the water and instantly feels the change take hold of him. He knows that he will probably die in 3 turns and he takes off into the Citadel. As he arrives with flames cascading around himself, he simply points a finger at Dark Seraph and says, "Burn."

Re: Balanced Opposition I am in agreement with Hugh on this. When I first got to be a leader in a superhero game I always got butterflies in my stomach when we fought someone new. The unknown was a powerful force. After the first battle and I got to test what we were up against I would lose the butterflies on subsequent encounters. As a GM I have a mode that I go into when I run a battle. I am thinking about my villians and little else. One of the reasons I have taken to letting other members of the group run helpful npc's during these encounters. I forget about them. I have seen GM's that are masters of NPC's and villian fights but I just never got the hang of it. As a rule I usually try to stack the deck against the players. In a fair fight the players usually will pull it out. I still want my players to win I just want them to dig just a little deeper. But it is not something I recommend for a new GM. You need to develop an eye for the game first or you can ground your PC's into so much paste.

Re: Source Material Alert.... Really. I have been seeing ads for it for some time. I saw the pilot about two months ago and have been chompin' at the bit to see more.

Re: An Old Quiz, But A Nice One. You scored as Storyteller. You're more inclined toward the role playing side of the equation and less interested in numbers or experience points. You're quick to compromise if you can help move the story forward, and get bored when the game slows down for a long planning session. You want to play out a story that moves like it's orchestrated by a skilled novelist or film director. Tactician 75% Storyteller 75% Method Actor 67% Power Gamer 58% Specialist 42% Butt-Kicker 25% Casual Gamer 0% looks like it was a tie between Tactician and Storyteller but the tie breaker was between if I would rather like to feel a part of a movie or a novel or would I rather feel smart at the end of a session.

Re: Could you be a spy? As far as I know, there is no money involved in this. So the grand prize for the 'winners' is knowing if they could possibly be a real spy. No hand to hand lessons or firearms training. They concentrate on keeping cover at all times, how to become more aware of their surroundings, how to use body language to put people more at ease, how to bluff your way into a job that you have no training in with only two days to prepare for it and how to basically become superparanoids. Although for the jobs, the interviewers did know that the people were in the spy academy and were rating them on how convincing they came across instead of their actual work that they presented. For the most part everyone that they have interacted with were unaware of the situation. Of course I am only about 3 episodes in so things could take a turn.

Re: Could you be a spy? Hah! I work at the cable division at Fox. One of my duties include having to watch Reality Programs for air on The Reality Channel. I joke about how Fox called my bluff when I would say that no amount of money would get me to watch this program or that program.

Re: Could you be a spy? I like the show so far. Several episodes in and they finally give someone the boot and I was wondering what took them so long on this particular candidate. So far they have worked on being aware of your area, maintaining your cover story and how to use strangers to get what you need. These are not just one offs but a constant that are always going on. However, this is what it is. I put this thread up here because I think that it would be fairly easy to pilfer some of the things from here if anyone was going to run a spy camp in there campaign, a thought that I had wanted to try for some time. I read enough accounts from actual former spies to usually know what is what. But I must admit that watching these people being sent through their paces on this is pretty interesting viewing.

8 people try to find out if they have what it takes to become a spy in this series from BBC Three. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/spy/ I just got my hands on the series and viewed the first episode. I like it. It is interesting to see how ordinary people romanticize the spy trade.Then they get dragged out of their beds and sent through about 8 hours of interrogation. Sorry, if this has already been posted.

Re: 4th Ed. Veteran looking for advice on 5E Well I made the adjustment from 4th ed. as well. I find that with new players the biggest difference is that they spend points on ego. Seriously, though if you put your guidelines down just like in the good old days you should not experience too many problems. My gaming group run about 4 to 6 speed with the mentalist moving the slowest and the martial artist moving the fastest. I use a variable rule that allows people to balance out power speed and their chance to hit. It is not perfect but i prefer it to the old way of assigning maximums. I think I have two people that do 12d6.

Re: Question about IQ Oddhat said it better than I could. Again:)

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... From our Fantasy game last sunday. Our characters have made a journey to The Wall, an ice formation reportedly raised by the elves to keep the lands to the south safe from the creatures of the north. A gathering of humans and demihumans stand guard at this area to protect the southlands. Those that take up the duty are said to don the black. It is also a permanent post. GM while playing the npc Ingrid: "It is a sacred duty. WE are the hardiest of fighters. Once you don the black..er..um.." Myself and Jeff, both with big grins, in unison: "You never go back." My character Green speaking to The Warden on why he should allow Ingrid to journey into the northlands with us. Jeff, whom, playing my brother was also present. Warden: "I am not certain of your motivations for asking me to allow her to go with you. She is not the strongestof the ones I have here. Why her?" Me: "She is hard and truthful. I know that if I were to win her loyalty, she would bat down the very doors of hell to make certain that I and my companions were safe." Warden: "Hmm. Very well. You may ask her to accompany you but it must be her choice. You may leave." As we are walking I whisper to Jeff: "Plus have you seen how tall she is? Man, I could climb that for days."

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? Captain Emu does bring up a good point. I am certain someone must have mentioned this already but since this is the Champions Universe I would not mind seeing a little more of the Universe. I think a small section (but larger than the section that was devoted to it in the Champions Univerese I) on the other Alien worlds out there would do wonders for my game. I do wish for something a little more substantial than 'they look like reptiles with Laser guns' though.

Re: The Mushashi Flex Tell me about it. I used those same rules to make my character, Daniel Knight.

I just picked this book up yesterday and have not cracked it open yet but I am looking forward to it. For those not familiar with The Mushashi Flex, it comes from a series of novels by Steve Perry. The Matador series has some really great stuff in it and the first books are all fairly quick reads. Some of the later novels were not up to par but I still love the universe. Well, in The Mushashi Flex we get taken to a time before Emile Khadaji, Before Pen (I think that is his name) and we meet Lazlo Mourn, the man whom will create the 97 steps. (A martial art in that universe.) I was wondering how many of you have created games based around the Matador Series. I know I created a Superhero based off of it one time but it is really SciFi.