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.

Re: Superhero Characteristics Templates Agreed. I was very happy with 5th, though I haven't gotten to play the game in years. My attitude about trying to copy comics characters into Champions stats is that it's just too frustrating to try to get the correct look and feel, and the characters are constantly contradicting their powers and backgrounds. It's like using an octopus to nail jello to a moving target. Besides which, if I can make anything I want, I'd rather make up my own stuff. Why try to copy a Marvel or DC character when I can create my own unique characters? I'd rather play my creation FUZE, who's energy powers give him energy projection and brick powers, but cause him to lose control and grow more and more erratic, than try to make my own take on the Hulk. I like the idea of the base templates. Those could be used as a guideline for players, so they know not to make the SPD 3 guy with the 2d6 NND tazer, or the 16d6 energy blast for that matter.

Re: Superhero Characteristics Templates Batman would have to be built on 1000 points. Why? He's Batman! My experience is that it's nearly impossible to create comics characters in Hero. The Marvel Heroes system from the 80s (I don't know about the new version) was more narrative and loose, but even then there was no way Spiderman could defeat a Herald of Galactus; which he did shortly after the game was published.

Re: Around the World With A New Character Each Week I'm interested in doing Seychelles as the home of a retired French sorcerer/Inquisitor with a decidedly Roman Catholic angle to his magic. He'd had a leg eaten off some thirty years ago, and now in his sixties is more a patron and source of knowledge. Fitting to the game world?

I've always been a fan of the Unknown Armies and Over the Edge games. More for the background and weird noir feel of both games. I've monkeyed about trying to translate an aproximation of the magic system from those games into Hero. Those games are very free form, so they resist conversion, but the themes can be borrowed. Dipsomancy (booze magic) and Plutomancy (Money Mages) were my two favorites. http://game1.fennecfoxen.org/projects/magick.html Recently, I put together a character who used a sort of post-modern take on magic with guns. Creating special loads for his bullets. I thought I'd start the challenge rolling with the two items I made for him. Let's see what the rest of you can come up with. Here's that one: 20 Enchanted Handgun: Multipower, 60-point reserve, (60 Active Points); all slots OAF (-1), Limited Power Takes a half phase and gestures to change slots (-1/2), Beam (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4) 2u 1) Merciful Mother's Light: (Total: 60 Active Cost, 16 Real Cost) NND 4d6, (Being "pure of heart" or mystic ED FF; +1) (40 Active Points); OAF (-1), 8 Charges (-1/2), Limited Power Takes a half phase and gestures to change slots (-1/2), Beam (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4) (Real Cost: 11) plus Sight Group Flash 4d6 (20 Active Points); OAF (-1), 8 Charges (-1/2), Linked (Solar Blast; -1/2), Limited Power Takes a half phase and gestures to change slots (-1/2), Beam (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4) (Real Cost: 5) Made from leading of church stained glass windows, rosaries, and bathed in holy water. 2u 2) Rubber, Latex, and Leather: Entangle 5d6, 5 DEF (Stops A Given Sense Group Sight Group) (60 Active Points); OAF (-1), 8 Charges (-1/2), Limited Power Takes a half phase and gestures to change slots (-1/2), Beam (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4) Made from costumes used by a dominatrix and her slaves. 2u 3) Cripplers: Drain 3d6, STR and REC simultaneously (+1/2), Ranged (+1/2) (60 Active Points); OAF (-1), 8 Charges (-1/2), Limited Power Takes a half phase and gestures to change slots (-1/2), Beam (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4) Made from a barbell from a "real man" gym that's absorbed the fatigue poisons and injury pains. 2u 4) Storm God Ammo: EB 9 1/2d6, Indirect (Lightning, can arc twist or bounce; +1/4) (60 Active Points); OAF (-1), 8 Charges (-1/2), Limited Power Takes a half phase and gestures to change slots (-1/2), Beam (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4) Made from the nails of a building destroyed by lightning strike. 2u 5) Dum-Dum/Hollow Point: Drain 3d6, Ranged (+1/2), INT and PRE simultaneously (+1/2) (60 Active Points); OAF (-1), 8 Charges (-1/2), Limited Power Takes a half phase and gestures to change slots (-1/2), Beam (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4) Made from life tape recordings of politician's speaches and metal from an insanitorium bed. 2u 6) Rock Salt: (Total: 60 Active Cost, 17 Real Cost) Energy Blast 9d6 (45 Active Points); OAF (-1), 8 Charges (-1/2), Limited Power Takes a half phase and gestures to change slots (-1/2), Beam (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4) (Real Cost: 13) plus Hearing Group Flash 5d6 (15 Active Points); OAF (-1), Linked (Energy Blast; -1/2), 8 Charges (-1/2), Limited Power Takes a half phase and gestures to change slots (-1/2), Beam (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4) (Real Cost: 4) Made from a speaker stack that blew out during a heavy metal concert 2u 7) Silver Ghost Ammo: RKA 2d6, Affects Desol Any form of Desolidification (+1/2), Indirect (Passes through non-living material; +1/2) (60 Active Points); OAF (-1), 8 Charges (-1/2), Limited Power Takes a half phase and gestures to change slots (-1/2), Beam (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4) Forged in a haunted house from silver passed through at least two generations. 2u 8) Heart Seeker: RKA 2d6, NRM (+1/2), Armor Piercing (+1/2) (60 Active Points); OAF (-1), 8 Charges (-1/2), Limited Power Takes a half phase and gestures to change slots (-1/2), Beam (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4) Made from bullets and shrapnel that have injured or killed. And here's another powerset based on a keyring salvaged from a lethal car wreck. On it is a set of keys that fit no known locks, and are bathed in oils rendered from a locked wooden door with no known keys. 21 Keymaster: Multipower, 70-point reserve, (70 Active Points); all slots Limited Power Only works on or through doors (-1), 6 Charges (-3/4), IIF - Keychain (-1/4), Gestures - Put Key in Lock and Open Door (-1/4) 3u 1) XDM (Mystic Dimensions, Any Location), Safe Blind Travel (+1/4), Usable Simultaneously (up to 4 people at once; +3/4) (70 Active Points); Limited Power Only works on or through doors (-1), IIF - Keychain (-1/4), Gestures - Put Key in Lock and Open Door (-1/4) 3u 2) Teleportation 10", x16 Noncombat, Safe Blind Teleport (+1/4), Usable Simultaneously (up to 4 people at once; +3/4) (70 Active Points); Limited Power Only works on or through doors (-1), IIF - Keychain (-1/4), Gestures - Put Key in Lock and Open Door (-1/4) 3u 3) Teleportation 10", Safe Blind Teleport (+1/4), Usable Simultaneously (up to 4 people at once; +3/4), MegaScale (1" = 1,000 km; +1), Can Be Scaled Down 1" = 1km (+1/4) (65 Active Points); Limited Power Only works on or through doors (-1), IIF - Keychain (-1/4), Gestures - Put Key in Lock and Open Door (-1/4) 2u 4) Minor Transform 6d6 (A locked door into an unlocked door.) (60 Active Points); Limited Power Only works on or through doors (-1), IIF - Keychain (-1/4), Gestures - Put Key in Lock and Open Door (-1/4)

Re: Colaborative Build: Miss Fortune (5th Ed) Fully Indirect and Invisible EB's and RKAs in a MPP along with that first power. Variable SFX's. At 75 active you don't get much damage. It's just incidental stuff that happens. A crate falls on you. You sprain a muscle. An electrical wire snaps loose and falls on you, etc...

Re: Supervillains and Philosophy I think one of the best examples of comic villain philosophy is the Order of the Stick's Xykon. Particularly at the close of prequel comic Start of Darkness, though some of the recent online comics about what makes a person powerful were also excellent.

Re: Around the World With A New Character Each Week I might take a stab at another one now. Has anyone ever used Shaper? (Norway) I'm curious to know.

I was going to run this as a convention event, but I have neither the time nor the money. Here's the general outline of the adventure. A good GM should be able to fill in the blanks and alter things a bit to make it into a game. It's intended also as a starter adventure for player groups willing to work cooperatively with a GM during character creation. ------ DEADTIME All of the events in this adventure revolve around three mutants. Paragon, Vigilant, and Crazy Alice. Who is Paragon? Paragon is a mutant telekinetic, but he was never anything close to an “A-List” superhero. That was how he saw it. The only motivation he had for being a hero was making money and getting famous. His career began some years before the invasion of Earth by Isthva Vahn, and throughout it he was rebuffed by more popular heroes. He was an unpleasant creep who'd always ask other super heroes who their agents were, and how much they were grossing from sales of their image. He settled in Milwaukee because he got tired of the cold shoulder, and needed a place where he could be a big fish in a small pond. He eventually encountered Vigilant, who was also active in Milwaukee, and the two made an accord to make Wisconsin, and the western shore of Lake Michigan, their domain. They were instrumental in keeping that area safe from V'han's invasion force, but in Paragon's case there is a dark secret. As her invasion unraveled she looked for moles and spies that she could co-opt for a second invasion. Her spy-masters settled on Paragon as a good target. Their offer was one that the envious Paragon could hardly refuse. Power and fame, and the wealth that comes with it. They implanted him with devices that greatly boosted his telekinetic powers, but required that he stay close to a larger “mother” device that drew power from the city's power grid. They arranged for a likely “radiation accident” involving him taking down one of V'han's battleships (a fake) over Lake Michigan. Now Paragon is everything that he feels he should be. His identity is public, (Dave Wallace) and among most people he's famous and well liked due to V'han's people doing some psycho conditioning on him to make him a more tractable asset. He has a well appointed older building in downtown Milwaukee all to himself as his headquarters. He also does his part for V'han by helping Genocide, VIPER, ARGENT, and other organizations behind the scenes. Genocide doesn't like working with the Judas mutant, but they'll bide their time until they get the power they need to take him down. Since Paragon is dead during the events of Deadtime before the PCs ever meet him his abilities are not needed. If you need to use him in your game for other purposes use Gravitar (Killers, Conquerors, and Crooks) as the base but redefine all his powers as Telekinetic, halve their effectiveness when he's not in or around Milwaukee county and halve them again when he's more than five hundred km from Milwaukee. Who is Vigilant? Vigilant is much like Paragon, but his motivations are even more vile. He likes fighting and beating people up, and he's a bit (a lot) of a racist. His image is that of the uncompromising avenger of the night. The reality is that he's a thug born to wealth and privilege who uses his political and money connections to make the city as crime ridden as possible, so he can have people to beat the crap out of. There's a lot of conflict among Milwaukee's residents about Vigilant, whether he's a noble crusader fighting the good fight, or a brutal thug taking the law into his own hands. In his secret ID he's a child of privilege counting out the days until he inherits his father's positions in corporate America. In the meantime he amuses himself by redirecting charity money into corrupt organizations, and funding right wing religious groups that spread intolerance and misery. Despite being a mutant himself he's given significant funds to the IHA just to “keep life interesting.” By pretending to be a hero he can keep himself much more amused than as a villain with half the risk. Vigilant has never (to anyone's knowledge) killed, but the reason is that someone he kills today can't give him a good fight tomorrow. Not that anyone CAN give him a good fight, since his mutant power allows him to manipulate entropic events. That is, he can make himself insanely lucky while cursing everyone around him. Vigilant is dead before events in Deadtime unfold, but if you need to use him in a game use the abilities of Foxbat (Killers, Conquerors, and Crooks) and replace the Ping Pong Ball Gun with an EC of Fortune/Entropy powers like a transform that gives people three levels of unluck and a set of triggered indirect attacks caused by environmental hazards maiming people. Who is Crazy Alice? Crazy Alice is an elderly black woman who looks for all the world like a crazy homeless person. She's also the most powerful precog on the planet. Though she has little personal power she's able to move events around her by doing so little as putting a few words into the right ear at the right time. ALL of the PCs in Deadtime have had their lives altered or bent by Alice so that they become heroes as just the right time. Alice has even been responsible for allowing Vigilant and Paragon to operate for all these years in her city. She knows about their connections to the IHA and V'han, but by allowing them to operate freely for so long, and manipulating events behind the scenes, she's saved the city and the world a dozen times. At the personal level, for every two people she's saved one other has died. Alice Washington has been judge, jury, and executioner to thousands even though they never knew it. For example, in order to save thousands of people from a building collapse she had to arrange for a handful of good people to die in it's collapse during construction. These are the compromises she makes every day. Alice is more plot device than character, since she cannot be harmed in any way. She has massive amounts of Precognition, Retrocognition, Danger Sense, and the ability to skip from one reality thread to another to evade hazards. It is literally impossible to hurt her, because anyone who even thinks of doing so could never catch up with her. However, at the start of this adventure old age is about to catch up with her. Here is how she's manipulated the lives of each of the pregenerated characters, and how their lives would have turned out without her. Each character is followed by a description of type, and whether the character requires basic or advanced knowledge of the rules. There are extra characters so a six player convention group gets an array of choices: Powershot would have found by the Minuteman Prime and been one of it's first victims after it captures Null and Vigilant. See below for a description of how events unfold without Alice. (Basic Power Armor) The Living Crane would never gotten powers if Alice hadn't slipped an experimental mutagen into his lunch on the day of the accident that he thinks gave him his powers. If not for her he'd just be dead. (Advanced Brick) Chuckie Dee would have been a petty criminal knocking over fast food joints and cash stores if Alice hadn't put Vigilant on him every single time he attempted something. (Basic Brick) Plasma got her powers because Alice altered the experiment that gave her powers. If not for Crazy Alice's meddling, Plasma would have gone on to be a middling, frustrated, but somewhat successful and happy research scientist and loving parent. Thanks to Alice, Plasma will never have children because the radiation in Plasma's body has destroyed her reproductive abilities, and will never be a good physicist because of the Susceptibility to intense magnetic fields. (Basic Energy Projector) Hypershock's life would have been the same without Crazy Alice, though she'd have never gotten involved in the events of Deadtime, instead staying in Chicago.(Advanced Speedster) DJ Dischord would have been a full on supervillian if Alice hadn't steered his life towards caring for his son by staying on the right side of the law.(Advanced Energy Projector) Alice put the bug into Adventurer's fiance's father's ear to have a genetics test done of his daughter's groom to be. Without her interference it would have been decadess before the truth came out. When Adventurer's eldest son became a murderous super villain with nearly irresistible mind control powers. (Basic Martial Artist) How the events of Deadtime would unfold without Alice's interference: The IHA (Genocide) get sick of their compromises and back alley deals with Vigilant and Paragon. These two are just the sort of thing that the IHA fears about superhumans, so they requisition a lot of resources and personnel in order to send a message to Paragon about just who's boss. Most significant of these resources is the Minuteman Prime, a robot built with technology scavenged from a downed Blueboy ship. It can replicate the powers and abilities of anyone placed in it's capture pods. What they don't appreciate is that the robot will also replicate their personalities. Genocide sets a trap for Vigilant by paying a street gang to stage a robbery. They know that one of the gang's junior members is a newly emerged mutant, and they hope to capture both Vigilant and this new mutant in the process. The capture works beyond their wildest dreams. The mutant, Null, has the power to strip super-humans of their powers. He robs Vigilant of his probability manipulation abilities, and the Minuteman Prime is powered up with both the ability to manipulate the forces of chaos and neutralize mutant powers. It also becomes vicious brute that enjoys beating people up and showing off its abilities. Slipping its bonds the Minuteman Prime snaps up a few low powered mutants around the city including Powershot (who without Alices prompting has not created the Powershot armor) and become super-intelligent. The robot works out how Paragon's powers work before Paragon can get to grips with it, and raids Paragon's headquarters, steal's V'han's power booster and welds it to itself. From here things go from bad to worse, the robot quickly dispatches Paragon and then “cherry picks” all the best and most powerful superhumans on the planet. A number of futures emerge from this point, all dark and horrible and costing millions of lives, because the Prime Minuteman becomes ever more violent, bloodthirsty, and murderous. Alice's Last Stand, and how she manipulates events one last time to save the world: Alice allows the IHA ambush of Vigilant to go ahead, but she tips off both Thunderbird (CKC) and the PCs to events. She also reveals a great deal of information to Thunderbird about Vigilant (which he is able to confirm) that drives Thunderbird into a white hot fury at the “hero” of Milwaukee. Thunderbird kills Vigilant while he's depowered, and is either driven off by the PCs (Alice needs Null to survive, that's why the PCs are there) or is captured. Null flees in fear, and sees the message that Alice has spray painted on the wall for him as he flees: “You killed Vigilant, now Paragon's gonna get you.” The IHA catches up with Null shortly afterwards, and he begs them to take down Paragon. They strike a bargain with the scared young mutant. He hasn't enough power to make the Minuteman Prime start up properly, so they take him along to Paragon's headquarters to set an ambush. Prompted in great part by Alice's behind the scene's manipulations. Alice is dying, and this is her last great effort to save the city by giving it defenders that can succeed her. She breaks Thunderbird loose if he was captured, or calls him and tells him about the power boosting device in the basement of Paragon's building. She also calls in a favor owed to her by GRAB's mysterious benefactor. She reveals to him that a large shipment of gold, cash, and untraceable bonds is being held at the federal building downtown. She tells him that she needs a cut of the proceeds for reasons of her own, which is untrue, what she really needs is GRAB. Thunderbird is distrustful, but she leads him to where the generator is. She then reveals to Thunderbird all the things she's done up to this point to manipulate the future. Not just that, but she reveals how she arranged for his best friend to be killed by Ripper so that he'd become Thunderbird in the first place. In a rage he kills her, incidentally destroying the generator that she was standing in front of. Paragon's power boost conks out at just the same moment that Null nails him with his suppression power and instead of being captured by Genocide makes an interesting stain on the pavement. As the PCs arrive on scene (prompted by Alice if needed, but can be called in by others) GRAB makes their move, and there's a fight that the PC's will win because Null is on hand to suppress Cheshire Cat's teleport powers. Assuming the PCs win (with Thunderbird sniping to help out if needed) GRAB is captured, and then kidnapped by Genocide. Oddly, Thunderbird uses strictly non-lethal attacks. This is Alice's final gift to the world. A more thoughtful and remorseful Thunderbird. She may or may not have been telling the truth, and his rage allowed him to be goaded into shooting an old woman in cold blood. Now Genocide has the people they need to boot up their doomsday device! Unfortunately for them, not accounting for the psychic feedback, they end up with a giant robot that's Greedy and has a Code vs. Killing. It immediately tries to seize the shipment that GRAB originally tried to rob. This is the final battle, and again the PCs are prompted to be on hand by Alice reaching from beyond the grave.

Re: Any interest in a Zodiac villain group? Is OK, though I envisioned Aries as being much more bestial, and Taurus as being black with the helmet covering his head like a minotaur head.

Re: Any interest in a Zodiac villain group? Wow. Zombie thread.