gmurie

Many years ago, when I was but a lad of fifteen or so, I was involved in a reply by post newsletter with him. The old-timey snail-mail version of a blog I guess you'd call it. He was a great guy, always willing to give good advice. One of the people who prompted me to want to be a writer, though I never followed up on that dream in any serious way.

That is utterly brilliant. I assume that Candy Striper was one of your own creations? Can you post it here?

Personally, I think that if you're going to do a character like this you have to tilt more towards campy than creepy in the interest of your players having a good time rather than being made uncomfortable. Unless being discomfited is their idea of a good time. For me, the fun thing about Adonis is that it's so easy to make up adventure ideas for him. He's such a compelling character idea, at least to me he is. He's totally a criminal, and a rather unhinged one at that, but he's an understandable criminal. Those are the best adversaries, the ones where you can sort of understand and somewhat sympathize with where they're coming from. That and I find it incredibly fun and easy to come up with henchwomen for him. I've even made my own version of Adonis' game stats to more closely conform with what I'm comfortable with while mostly sticking with Hermit's backstory and description. I rearranged his abilities so his alpha male just boosts his abilities against other men, and he's actually LESS capable against women.

It was a fun thread. I put so much work into hijacking it, when I came back to the forum I had to see if it was still there. Took a bit of digging to find it actually.

RIIISE

Perk: Access to SHIELD Resources 5 pts.

I'm just going to channel my inner thirteen year old here: Bonus to PRE, only effective vs. Men, OIHID (costume) Bonus to STR vs. Grabs because she looks like she's been oiled down. Has to have really low base PD and ED. Better give that girl a Force Field! Can't give her Armor... Where is it? Honestly? You could give her anything your heart desires. Power Girl's costume is even less practical, and she's the archetype for the female FISS; Flight, Indestructibility, Strength, and Speed. Give her Summon Mummies, or a big pile of Egypt themed magical powers, or make her a dimension travelling warlord with ultra powerful microtechnology concealed in her thong (one just assumes it's a thong) This is comics, so it's easier to answer what she can't be. Uhm... Probably not a Mormon Missionary.

I'd certainly use it as an excuse to get some disads. Distinctive Appearance, and Phys Limit: Can't Buy Off the Rack. In seriousness, extra HtH levels and some martial arts moves should cover a lot of the advantage that extra limbs give. As Cassandra says, keep it simple, it should be more about the character than the rules, right? If you wanted to get extra fancy, a MPP with different "Four Arms" moves just like a brick might have a MPP of "Brick Tricks" might also do the trick. HA damage, Grab STR bonus, autofire on STR, etc...

My situation is the same as Enforcer84's. Apart from some online games that all aborted just as they were getting interesting, I've had no chance to play the game at all. It's all intellectual exercises, because I'd been playing since 1st ed, and the rules, apart from 6th, are stuck permanently in my brain.

Hermit: I seem to recall totally hijacking that thread on you.

I don't mean to imply that Hero isn't a great system for playing superhero RPG characters. I love the flexibility of the system that allows me to create anything that I want. However, most comics characters, to match with what they often do in comics need a power like this: RetCon: 100 point Power Pool, Cosmic (+1), 0 Phase to Change (+1), Only to pull a power out of your butt to advance the plot or end the final climactic battle (+0) 250 points ****** The DC Heroes game from the nineties had the same problem with the 'cosmic' heroes going up against 'street' heroes like batman. I think Batman had stats that were mostly like 5s and 6s with a 10 or 12 for mental stats showing he was a touch beyond human there. Superman's stats were something crazy like ten or twenty times Batman's stats, and he had a huge laundry list of powers. Any group of players using that game to play the JLA (we tried) ended up with Batman playing like a five year old next to Superman's MMA champ. ****** As I said in this or some other post. If I've got a system that gives me complete freedom to create whatever I want, it seems like a waste to try to copy other people's creations. I like the template idea. There was some old, Old, OLD expansion to first or second ed Champions that had a random hero generator that worked that way. You rolled the archetype, and then applied a stat template from the archetype. After that you applied some templates of powers that had fixed costs. It was pretty whacky, but created some interesting oddballs like a mentalist-speedster.

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities Interesting thread. I have to say, that as a father of girls (a pair of eight year olds now) I am a bit ambivalent about taking them to cons, getting them all passionate and interested in gaming or comics or whatever, and then have them suffer harassment like that when they're older. I mean, it's not like they have a choice. The nerdiness is genetic and bone deep in both of them. One of them made herself a Wonder Woman headband, and I've only a very limited amount of DC media around the place. I have no idea where she got the idea in her head from. When I told them I was going to go to a science fiction convention where people dress up in costumes, they both insisted that they wanted to come with and dress up as weeping angels. I was so proud.... But I left them with my parents because it was one of those boozy party type cons. Not many kids there at all. I've been witness to some shocking stuff at cons. I just don't want to be put in the position of beating down some neckbeard for harassing one of my girls. EDIT TO ADD: WisCON in Madison, which bills itself as a Feminist Con, and is home of the Tiptree Awards, is a notably good con to be a woman at for obvious reasons.

Re: Outside the Box powers I had a postmodern mystic hero who had a keychain that had a bunch of teleport powers tied to doors. So he could do increased mass teleports over long distances, or XDM, or whatever. Just so long as there was a door at both ends of the teleport.

Re: Adonis and his ladies (New Mastermind and henchwomen) I like Blonde Bombshell better.