MitchellS

Re: How to encourage role playing I agree that not everything is the GM's fault but if the GM wants players to role-play more then he needs to give them situations that don't require combat, and then don't give the players combat the minute the role-playing seems to slow down. Whether you have good or bad players the GM is still the voice of the campaign and directs 90% of the action and encounters, whether they're role-playing or combat. If the GM takes the time to make interesting role-playing encounters then poor role-players will improve. If the GM immediately runs to the safe harbor of combat when the role-playing seems to decrease or stop the players have no reason to expand their role-playing abilities, IMO.

Re: The Destroyers I love Foes of Freedom. It's a great villain book. One of the best things published this year; and it's in color too. I just wish Green Ronin would put more of their colored art up on their website. My scanner sucks. I did get a good scan of White Knight though but using him as an avatar would give the wrong impression. In our Legacy Universe game I wanted to play the child of Gorilla Grodd but the GM said it had to be a superhero not a villain. Maybe next time! I'm thinking about having Storn do a commission for me of my character Midknight. Then I can really be happy and have a proper avatar.

Re: UNTIL SuperPowers Database Usefulness If I had to pick just 3 Champions products they'd be: DEMON: Servants of Darkness (extremely well-written and a great example of a meta-plot), Conquerors, Killers & Crooks (prefab villains are a real time saver), and the UNTIL Superpowers Database (more power ideas than I ever imagined after 22 years of Champions gaming). The USPD is just jammed-packed with ideas and makes building a multitude of characters extremely easy. As I only play Champions I found little use for The Ultimate Vehicle and the Vehicle Sourcebook (vehicles are not really a major plot device in most Champions games); and even the Bestiary was not that helpful (most of the animals or too weak compared to superhumans to be combat adversaries).

Re: How to encourage role playing I have to agree pretty-much with everyone else. If your players are not role-playing it's not because of the system. It's because the GM has not really made it an important part of the campaign. Our characters have not done anything but role-play for the last 3 sessions, and it has been a blast. But that does come after a heavy 2 session adventure and combat against the Justice Avengers.

Re: DEMON: Opinions (some spoilers)

Re: The Destroyers I don't think the concept was stupid but the name didn't really fit. They should have called him Pisano or something else Italian. Arrowhead was too American Indian ethnic for a mobster, in my opinion.

Re: The Destroyers Arrowhead is not really a stupid concept if you do like we did and change the character's origin, making him an American Indian.

Re: DEMON: Opinions (some spoilers) I was a little surprised to find that Millennium City was not a DEMON hotspot. With 60,000 deaths from one catastrophe I would think there would be a great deal of resonant spiritual pain and suffering in the city that would draw DEMON to it.It's almost a perfect place for a "Hanged Man," from Astro City, or Crow to develope.

Re: Cosmic Level Gaming (e.g. Authority) There's quite a bit of information on how to run such a high-powered game in Galactic Champions. I'm not an Authority fan myself (a little too bloody for me) but I love Astro City (just finished reading Astro City: A Visitor's Guide - Loved it!). I think a great many times the scope of the game is as much in the narrative as it is in the rolling of dice. Saying you're making a "thousand" computations in a few seconds really just means you're making a Tactics roll with a number of negatives. At those power levels there's really no reason to even roll dice against normals. The players just describe what they want to do and the GM should just tell them how successful they were against the army (I guess you could also use the mass combat rules from Fantasy Hero for this too).

Re: Official Champs Uni = Marvel Uni? I agree the Champions Universe has more in common with Marvel than DC but that probably has to do with the fact that in the early 1980s when the original champions' characters were being designed and played Marvel was blowing DC out of the water. When I run through a list in my head of cool villain concepts Marvel villains always pop up first. Dr. Doom, Magneto, Loki, Ultron, Juggernaut, Mephisto, Masters of Evil, Green Goblin, ect. The only DC villains that really pop into my head are Ras AL Ghul, Sinestro, and Darkseid. I do believe the Champions Universe did have a Superman as well in Vanguard. But he was killed in the Battle of Detroit, if I remember correctly.

Re: What If . . . Superman In our Legacy Universe game Clark retires from journalism and moves back to Smallville with Lois to have a family and takes up farming. With his speed he can still reach anyway quickly for major disasters and problems. They both author books on the side.

Re: Official Champs Uni = Marvel Uni? A few more off the top of my head: The High Apostic Church - The Church of Blood Kingdom of the Apes - Gorilla City Atlantis legends - Atlantis from DC MARS - SCU Nightwind - Nightwing Deuce - Negative Woman Foxbat- Batman inspired Thorn - Poison Ivy

Re: Speedster question

Re: Speedster question

Re: Speedster question Yes, it certainly does. One of the characters in our Legacy Universe is the son of the Flash (Barry & Iris Allen) who is a speedster but the entire character's concept involves him doing sonic booms and other speedster tricks rather than just running and smacking something. Special effects are extremely important. I agree with Derek to a point but I think the whole purpose behind the Power Skill is to allow players to attempt the unthought of or impossible. Imposing a -10 penalty give the player basically a 3- chance when you include the penalties for the active points. There's no reason to have the skill if everything they want to attempt is near-impossible, in my opinion, and only my opinion.

Re: Character Build Question - How Would You Do It? I'd go with Duplification and then give the duplicates Regeneration from death at a rate of 1 body per day to show that it takes time to repair them. That deals with the loss issues. As far as the cost totals, I'd build the robot body first and then base all the others off of him, with one of the duplicates being the normal person. That's basically how I built NoMan from the old T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.

Re: Not sure I get it... I would say the difference is that one (DC) is standard human vigilanties running around beat the crap out of, and shooting/killing, badguy. The other (DC:TAS) is a low-powered superhero game where characters are confined by normal characterist maximums and have a slightly darker tone than the standard four-color comic book.

Re: Speedster question I don't believe Champions is a point-based game. I believe it's a game that uses points. Far too many gamers get too caught up in the points aspect of the game and forget about special effects and versatility. The Human Torch had "Flame Control" in the Marvel Game and players were just able to come up with which ever suitable powers to fit within that effect scheme as they willed. There are just too many thing a character can do which do not require point-usage. That's the beauty of the Power Skill. It allows for free-thinking ideas without the need to justify everything. Free-thinking is the one major advantage M&M has over Hero. Creative use of Power Skills reverses that advantage. Is being able to vibrate a bank vault door open in a minute that big of a deal? Does it really change the course of the game if a player can do that without spending 1 point in a Multipower? The character pays more to offset the negative modifiers for the roll than he would in a Multipower. I believe players should be commended for thinking outside of the box and coming up with interesting aspects to their character. Our group loves the Power Skill and stunts it allows. It's added a lot of versatility to characters.

Re: Speedster question I would allow it. As Levi point out above it is only a 15 active point power. That's well within the guidelines of a Power Skill roll - assuming the character has a Speedster Tricks skill roll. If the character wants to take the 20 phases to do it then let him. It's part of being heroic, in my opinion.

Re: Ultimate Update! At least they didn't name him Mr. Tall.

Re: Passing Strike (martial maneuver) Unbalanced?

Re: Ultimate Update! I would progress the Champions at about 25 experience per year. So by the time a 2006 book came out they would be in the 450 point range; Nighthawk being slightly higher as it seems he does more non-group adventuring. I would also see Kinetik officially joining the team as well as one of the younger heroes like Sai or Hydro. Of course I wouldn't want to waste books space in a Champions Universe update just reprinting the Champions. Something like that might make a good ebook for those who are interested and is not too difficult to write and doesn't take much editing. Mechanon would have had an update by then. He has probably had 2-3 bodies destroyed in the last 4 years and has made improvements which make him as powerful as many of the other master villains. I think it would also be interesting to see two different Mechanons. One of them became unstable and instead of self-destructing turns to a slightly different path. The Mechanon Wars could make for an interesting adventure as well. I really don't see Bulldozer learning brick tricks. He strikes me as someone who does not spend too much time practicing. He would be a good candidate for some Street Brawling martial arts though. I think everyone in the War Machine needs an update with a couple of more members joining: Wargame - a cyberkinetik, and Warhorse - brick. I also think Warlord needs a larger role in the Champions Universe because as of right now I really don't know how he fits in between VIPER and ARGENT in the weapons business. Eurostar needs to pick up a new member. Someone unusual like a new Beowulf who is a twisted version of the original heroic version. If not Beowulf then someone Scandinavian. Just someone a little different than the current membership. It's possible that Pantera could also show up. A Spanish version perhaps. The Ultimates could use a female member to shake things up. Either a new villain or possibly Howler, Shrinker, or Riptide joining up with them. It could even be someone more powerful than the rest of the group who becomes a queen bee and sets up some group rivalries. In the campaign I am writing right now I have a villain called El Lobo Negro who captured Cuba from Castro shortly after he took power in 1959. In the Champions Universe I think it would be interesting to see Holocaust take over Cuba and set it up as a type of "sanctuary" for super-powered villains. From that Holocaust feels like he's ruling something and starts to build his power-base for a villain army. Something like this could move Holocaust to new Master Villain status without requiring any power-total changes. I think Gargantua and Shrinker would make an interesting couple. That's all I can think of right now.

Re: Another "would you allow this in your campaign" question... I would allow the attack, especially considering that you can Push Ego, and so the attack listed above would not hold most victims, even normals, for more than 1 phase.

Re: Arcane Adversaries: my review (Spoiler Alert!) I would assume there are some "evil" entities in the Netherworld,Elysium,the Land Of Legends and Babylon who can give a "gift" to a deserving evil individual. The Mystic World does talk about several villains who could possibly become the Archmage so Talisman becoming it is not out of the questions.

Re: What is it about Champions? We discovered that if you start telling new players that a Turn is the same as a Round in d20 and that each Phase is the number of times you can attack per round that it makes more sense to them.