MelbourneMewMew

Okay, I'm quite interested in the concept behind Teshkeel Comics' The 99 (It should be fun to see superheros based on Islamic culture). The comics haven't started up in the west yet (apparently they will be launched later this year), but there is character info on Teshkeel's website... http://www.teshkeelcomics.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index&catid=&topic=9&allstories=1 Going by the info there, anyone want to suggest how they'd be done in Champions?

Re: Signs your Champions GM is now (fill in the blank) Sings your GM is now Gail Simone 1. She gets you to roleplay out "girl talk"... and you end up ENJOYING it. 2. Out-of-game, she always makes aggravating teases about upcoming sessions. 3. She goes ballistic when you say the word "refrigerator". Signs your GM is now William Moulton Marston 1. PCs seem to end up tied up a lot... 1a. ...ESPECIALLY the female ones. Signs your GM is now Yoshiyuki Tomino (Creator of Mobile Suit Gundam, among other things) 3. Much waxing philosophical about human destiny 2. Two words... teenage angst. 1. Three letters... T... P... K.

(OOC: I'm not sure if discussion of other companies' settings is allowed here. If not, apologies in advance) Congratulations, citizen! You have been chosen to volunteer for the task of describing what your characters would be like if they were a loyal citizen of the Alpha Complex from the Paranoia RPG. You will enjoy this fun task. Anybody who does not enjoy this fun task is a Commie Mutant Traitor and is ordered to report to the nearest termination booth. NEWSFLASH: For your pleasure, all termination booths now feature a NEW MINTY AROMA!

(Non-powered characters can sit this one out) A glowing, angelic figure appears in front of your character, accompanied by a girl approximately 12-13 years of age. The figure looks at you and speaks... "I am sorry if I disturbed you. I am here to make a request. The girl who accompanies me has died of a terminal disease, and it is my duty to escort her to the next life. Unfortunately, there was an... administrative error, and she was not scheduled to die for another month. Therefore, I am attempting to provide her with compensation. "She deeply wished that she could be a superhero - this I can do for her, but only by giving her the powers of another, living one. If you accept, for a period of one month, her lifeforce will be sustained and your powers will be given to her. At the end of that time, she shall pass on, and your powers shall be returned. Do you accept?" (BTW, would your character's reaction be any different if the length of time was a day? A week? A year?)

Re: Four Color, Silver Age, etc. Defined somewhere? Okay, there's another humorous essay I have here that fits well into this, and, while admittedly not very serious, still makes some good points about the style and evolution of the various ages. From Marvel Year in Review 1993 BRING ON THE BAD GUYS Why today's villains are more popular than heroes Why must everything that's good for us taste so bad? - Chef Boyardee It seems incredible to contemplate, but some of today's top Marvel superstars - Sabertooth, Venom and Deadpool, for instance - are villains! Oh, they shield themselves in tattered cloaks of respectability, but it's not too hard to see the truth. After all, does a car thief really deserve to be disemboweled? No, the more pressing question is this: Why do these one-time blights on society now stir the interests of today's comic book readers, enough so that they can float their own highly successful limited series? When Knights Were Bold Things were a lot simpler in the early days of the Marvel Universe. Back then, Doctor Octopus would show up with some cockamamie plan to kill Spider-Man, both parties would meet in a conveniently abandoned part of the city, a few buildings would get knocked down, women would faint, and that would be the end of it. Your average bad guy wanted nothing more than to hold up a few discount fur outlets, make the good guy look like a sap, and then take off. You think the Melter actually wanted to hurt anyone? Back then, there wasn't much risk in being a supervillain, because you knew every hero in creation had taken the Boy Scout oath: "I promise to do what's right, to hold myself to the highest standards of the Comics Code Authority, to help old ladies across the street, to eat all my vegetables, even the Brussels sprouts, to take my hat off in the presence of our flag, to treat others decently, as I would like to be treated, and to never take human life under any circumstance, not even when they really deserve it". The worst that could hapen to a villain was that he'd plummet dozens of stories into a river - to "certain doom" - and return three months later, ready to take up the fight again. Things change. Black is White It all started in the Seventies with the appearance of "heroes" like the Punisher and Wolverine. Instead of being hurled through a swirling dimensional vortex to seeming oblivion, a supervillain was now more likely to take a bullet to the brain, or a claw through the heart! Committing crimes and fighting superheroes became dangerous! No wonder the bad guys started behaving a little rowdier - can you blame 'em? Suddenly, villains like Doctor Doom - who'd up till now pranced about with an air of menace but never actually did anything to anybody - started bumping off people left and right... some of 'em just for snoring too loudly! And it's getting harder and harder to remember a time when heroes-gone-hardcore such as Phoenix and Yellowjacket had to be brought to heel for their less-than-heroic actions. Today they'd be headlining two books apiece, with guest appearances galore. Think about it: cosmic genocide and spouse abuse pale in comparison to the ever-present threat of street hoods with guns. "It's a different world out there." confirms Cyclops, leader of the Uncanny X-Men. "I remember when I started going to Xavier's school back in the 60s. It was like a family then. Sure, we'd short-sheet each other's beds, but nothing more than that. These days, with the likes of Sabertooth on the team, things are so bad around here that I'm forced to strap my own costume to my body to keep my teammates from funning off with it! It's obscene!" The Heroes You Hate to Love So what is it that lends "superheroes" such as Sabertooth, Venom and Deadpool their incredible popularity? It can't be their looks - cheap knockoffs of Wolverine, Spider-Man and Spider-Man, respectively. It could, however, be their approach to life; testosterone is always in demand in the popular media, and a temprament prone to violent behaviour is an appealing trait in friends and family. But maybe the true secret behind the new villain-heroes' popularity is their unaccountability - no matter how many laws they break, or how many body bags they leave in their wake, we all know they'll be coming back for more... and they'll never truly be punished for their misdeeds! In many ways, they're more reliable than the goody-goody superheroes they fight! Of course, does anyone stop to question the fact that Venom running free in his own limited series - and being allowed to run free by Spider-Man himself - is akin to Charles Manson being released to hunt down the really bad cultists? No, Chef Boyardee, you haven't quite hit the nail on the head. It's this: Why must everything that's bad for us taste so good? Lock Those Deadbolts So where does it all end? Sabretooth lunchboxes? Venom underdoos? ("Coated with realistic symbiote slime!") Deadpool as a spokesman for Ginsu? ("It can cut through a steel can and still deliver a nice, clean slice to the ol' jugular!") Carnage-o's frosted cereal? ("Turns your milk the color of freshly spilled entrails!") Plus, once all of the good villains become heroes, who are they gonna fight? I suppose they could all take each other on, but as "Maximum Carnage" proved beyond a doubt, that gets stale real fast. Perhaps this heroic migration portends a new golden age for humanity. At least one noted sociologist has theorized that by the year 2099, the superhero as we know him may well have disappeared, becoming an ill-remembered relic. But for now, the bottom line remains: If you're a superhero and you don't have a gun or an attitude, get 'em. And keep an eye on the guy standing next to you.

Re: Foriegn Captain America's I see that someone else had the same idea as me for a French trio of superheroes (I was going to collectively call them "Tricolore") I made an SAS character called Oceania, an aquatic heroine and defender of several small Pacific island nations. One idea that's stuck in my mind recently is a team of power-armor villains called the New Kelly Gang, all named after famous Australian bushrangers (real or fictional). Members I've thought of are: - Ned Kelly (leader) - Mad Dan - Moonlite - Thunderbolt - the Wild Colonial Boy (Come to think of it, with our 19th-century boshrangers calling themselves things like "Captain Moonlite" and "Captain Thunderbolt", maybe they did have superheroic delusions...) Another factor to consider is what are the heroic ideals of the country the hero represents? Some countries could even be considered somewat "herophobic", as Christopher Vogler, in "The Writer's Journey" says about Australia and Germany: "The Austalians distrust appeals to heroic virtue because such concepts have been used to lure generations of young Australian males into fighting Britain's battles. Australians have their heroes, of course, but they tend to be unassuming and self-effacing, and will remain reluctant for much longer than heroes in other cultures - they may never be entirely comfortable with the hero mantle. In Australian culture it's unseemly to seek out leadership or the limelight, and anyone who does so is a "tall poppy", quickly cut down. The most admirable hero is one who denies his heroic role as long as possible and who, like Mad Max, avoids accepting responsibility for anyone but himself. "German culture seems ambivalent about the therm 'hero'. The hero has a long tradition of veneration in Germany, but two world wars and the legacy of Hitler and the Nazis have tainted the concept. Nazism and German militarism manipulated and distorted the powerful symbols of the hero myth, invoking its passions to enslave, dehumanise and destroy. Like any archetypal system, like any philosophy or creed, the heroic form can be warped and used with great effect or ill intention. "In the post-Hitler period, the idea of the hero has been given a rest as the culture re-evaluates itself. Dispassionate, cold-blooded anti-heroes are more in keeping with the current German spirit. Germans can enjoy imaginative hero tales from other cultures but don't seem comfortable with home-grown romantic heroes for the time being."

Re: Some more humorous "advice" Thanks. Admittedly, I haven't actually gotten around to picking up Hero 5th yet (my cousin gave me his no-longer-used copy of Champions 4th Edition), and even if I did, I don't know of anybody in my area who plays it, so I'll generally stick to topics that are not system-dependent, but I will be hanging around.

Some more humorous "advice" From a DC Heroes module called "Don't Ask!" ROLE-PLAYING THE BAD GUY One thing one has to remember when role-playing a villain is exactly what type of villain is being played. Basically, there are two types of villain: those who say "Bah!" and those who don't say "Bah!" Those who don't are simple enough to role-play: they speak like regular guys, just like you do! Unless, of course, you're one of the twenty or so persons on Earth who actually say "Bah!". If you are, then you probably already know how to be a villain and should skip this section and turn yourself in to the authorities. Those who say "Bah!" Nihilists Semi-Nihilists Power Lusting Villains Psychopaths Sheep Those who don't say "Bah!" Mercenaries Thrill Seekers THOSE WHO SAY "BAH!" The villains who say "Bah!" can make for a tough role-play. Listed below are descriptions of each villain type to facilitate the roleplaying of the character. The Nihilist This is the single most dangerous type of villain. A Nihilist will blow up the entire world just because he feels that existence is meaningless. Because of this, the Nihilist doesn't really care if he is blown up, too; he wants to destroy everything that exists. The Nihilist's hatred of existence spills over into other aspects of his life as well, most notably his conversational skills. As existence is meaningless, so too are words. A true Nihilist would probably say something like this: " ... bah!" before blowing up the world. This tends to limit the Nihilist's dramatic appeal which is one reason the Semi-Nihilist is more often used by authors in their stories. The Semi-Nihilist The Semi-Nihilist is a villain who feels that existence is meaningless but who realises that other people may actually cherish their lives (this wouldn't matter to a true nihilist, who wouldn't give a dingo's kidney for the meaningless opinions of all those meaningless people who cherish their meaningless lives). The Semi-Nihilist has a sadistic streak - he likes to see people sweat over the fates of their existences and will normally say things like: "Bah! There's nothing you can do! With my [insert weaponry here], I will destroy you, then this building, then this block, then this city, then this county, then the state, then the country, then the continent, then the hemisphere, then the planet, then the solar system, then..." etc. Sometimes, this is too much of a bother to say. so the Semi-Nihilist will simply opt for "bah!" (which is why many people often confuse the Semi-Nihilist with the Nihilist) and then blow up the world but not before leaving enough clues for the heroes to be able to stop him. The Power Lusting Villain This is the sort of criminal who wants to control the world. This usually stems from a humanitarian view of how things may be run better if only he was in charge. "Bah!" this villain says. "The governments of mankind are run by fools! I shall take over this world and create a Utopia!" Sometimes the Power Lusting Villain realises that there are billions of people who don't want to live in this version of Utopia (read: Police State) and the villain tries to take over through means of charismatic persuasion. "Join me!" The villain will say, "and we will walk hand in hand into a paradise where people are free to say 'Bah!' if they want to!" The Psychopath Generally okay, clear-thinking person who has warped ideas about such things as morality and reality. This is the sort of villain who will hold a gun to your head and ask you to tell him how many fingers he has up. "Bah! You haven't the capacity, the vision, to think as clearly as I do!" This is a common psychopathic statement said when you count the number of fingers that are there instead of the number of fingers he thinks should be there. "Let me ventilate your bran to help you out", the psychopath will say before pulling the trigger. Sheep n., pl., 1. A hoofed, thick-fleeced, ruminant mammal widely domesticated and bred for wool and meat. THOSE WHO DON'T SAY "BAH!" The villains who don't say "bah!" are a lot easier to role-play because they are normal guys with a few minor differences. The Mercenary While a good deal of us would do just about anything for money (work at fast-food places, write game modules, etc.) the Mercenary is more blatant about it. The Mercenary will do anything for money, no matter who it hurts or how it will affect himself. If the price is right, he'll do it. The Mercenary would say something like this: "You want to what? Buy my mother? Who are you kidding... I sold her last week." The Thrill-Seeker The Thrill-Seeker is the true idiot of the villain world. You give some guy a skintight suit and a single power or gimmick and he thinks he can do anything. The Thrill-Seeker usually gets into trouble and then lives to regret it. But does that stop him from throwing off his street clothes in public at the next sign of something that looks like fun? Nope. The Thrill-Seeker would say something like this: "Hey Batman! Your mother dresses you funny!" Most Thrill-Seekers don't last very long in the villain business.