CaptainCoulson

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Please ignore this thread. I'm leaving it here to archive my character builds for later reference, in other threads.
 
Intended Characters Builds:
 
All of the MCU heroes and villains, beginning with...
 
The Ancient One (Doctor Strange 2016)
Wong (Doctor Strange 2016)
Doctor Stephen Strange (Doctor Strange 2016)
Mordo (Doctor Strange 2016)
Kaecilius (Doctor Stranger 2016)
 
I also intend to adapt a lot of Keanu Reeves characters...
Theodore Logan (Bill & Ted's Excellent Duology 1989-1991)
Johnny Utah (Point Break 1991)
Jonathan Harker (Bram Stoker's Dracula 1992)
Jack Traven (Speed 1994)
Johnny Mnemonic (Johnny Mnemonic 1995)
Neo (The Matrix 1999)
John Constantine (Constantine 2005)
Kai (47 Ronin 2013)
John Wick (The John Wick Duology 2014-2017)
 
Sociopaths in Suits...
Charly (Long Kiss Goodnight 1996) (Also Known As Samantha Caine)
Martin Blank (Grosse Point Blank 1997) (Also, Brand Hauser from War Inc. 2008 who may be the same guy)
Sam Niro (Ronin 1998)
Vincent Cruise (Collateral 2004)
 
 
Babylon 5...
Jeffrey Sinclair
John Sheridan
Michael Garibaldi
Susan Ivanova
Talia Winters
Lyta Alexander
G'Kar
Londo Mollari
Vir Cotto
 
James Bond...
Ian Fleming's Bond (The Literary Bond)
Toby Stephen's Bond (BBC Radio 4 Audio Plays)
Sean Connery's Bond (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever,)
George Lazenby's Bond (On Her Majesty's Secret Service,)
Roger Moore's Bond (Live & Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View To A Kill,)
Timothy Dalton's Bond (The Living Daylights, License To Kill,)
Pierce Brosnan's Bond (Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day,)
Daniel Craig's Bond (Casino Royale, Quantum Of Solace, Skyfall, Spectre,)

If you don't want to make specific types of mages, but still want different kinds of magic, maybe try magical professions? That is, individuals who have magic simply infuse their normal efforts with magic.
 
For example:
Mercenaries who learn to make their fists hit like iron and their bodies heal faster.
 
Medical personnel who can heal injury and cure illness.
 
Animal trainers who can use the senses of their animals.

Could always pick one specific IRL lake and use the name of it as the surname.

If nothing else, they sometimes serve as a way to make things about your PC come up in game.
 
Like, I *could* simply mention the fact that I've got this tattoo from whatever mystical mentor trained me, or that his old archnemesis is now looking for me, the best of his old enemy's students, to prove his superior magic, or even that I look very strange to people who view souls ever since mine started that change that my magic causes to a caster's spirit. But then everyone can feel free to ignore it totally to go right back to some other thing that they wanted the game to be about.
 
But by having disadvantages and complications become an option for a PC, you suddenly have that way of letting everyone know, the things I want to add to the game as a whole include...

Magic, specifically being used to adjust density or affect those with an adjusted density.
 
Technology (or a science-based effect, like a mutated person who shoots energy of the right sort to do such a thing) that is specific to adjusted densities.
 
Powers that increase or decrease other people's density as is their special effects, with or without a target already being adjusted in their density (a power might have a damage effect fluffed as being decreasing the density of some parts of a person, but not others, so that things begin to go wrong within their body, like blood just falling out of suddenly intangible veins).

None of the above, to be honest, just "horror", as in the genre of fiction known as horror. Not really scary, but themed around the idea of being scary. Giant insects, lots of sudden natural disasters, animal attacks, plants that attack you *like* animals, a man with a huge gun and the face of your father commanding you to face death like a man, and even the unexplained disappearance of a young child from his parents' house while they were away for the night.

I've not finished yet, (not even started technically,) but I've got plans for a complete rewatch of The Librarian, including the three films and the four season long sequel series The Librarians. Kind of like, Indiana Jones if he was James Bond. An omnidisciplinary genius gets the job of "the Librarian", the sole field agent of a secret society running an interdimension safe storage and study of magic, in the form of artefacts too dangerous for the world to know about. 
 
In the first, The Librarian And The Quest For The Spear, he is recruited and must go looking for the spear of Longinus before a cult of snake themed ninjas can find it.
 
In the second, The Librarian And The Return To King Solomon's Mines, he meets quite possibly the only person in the world who might have more education than him, and they team up, along with his estranged Uncle, to find the Key Of Solomon, an ancient mystical text.
 
In the third, The Librarian And The Curse Of The Judas Chalice, he goes on vacation to New Orleans, after dreaming of a woman there, only to realise that she summoned him through his dreams, as she is the guardian of the Judas Chalice, which is the Holy Grail for vampires. Someone has stolen Count Dracula's coffin with his corpse still inside it, and they may be searching for the Judas Chalice to bring him back to unlife!
 
Very fun, family friendly, pulp action adventure. The main character is like Indiana Jones but less action oriented and way more knowledge and intellect based, getting through his adventures with information and quick thinking. Great inspiration for a Pulp Hero game.

Honestly, these look like the ideal extras to the party. We could use more adventurers. After all, the road ahead looks quite woof.

There are already some Lightsabre martial arts tournaments, and I'm a lot more likely to allow them to be using "plasma swords" in a nearby future than the copyright withheld "lightsabre", but someone invents a real working lightsabre and has the foresight to also develop hard light hologram versions for fun as a toy training tool, then it is totally plausible for other space opera to have a lightsabre fighting tourney.

To be fair, my belief in the death of the author, and my disappointment at finding out awful things about a lot of authors whose books had been fun up until I heard about the author's behaviour, means that whenever I do get into a discussion with somebody about an aspect of a book (or film, or whatever), and I find out that they wrote it (or directed it, or whatever), I still won't feel any more inclined to agree with their opinion about the "canon" is supposed to be.
 
Just because George Lucas thinks that Greedo shot at Han, doesn't mean I have to agree, even if there is a special edition.

The difference between Gestures and Complex Gestures is just that a part of the Special Effects of the power becomes more complex, and therefore potentially more likely to fail or be stopped, and less likely to be replicable. For you to cast a spell that takes Complex Gestures, for instance, might mean that you have to be able to move your fingers in certain positions which you couldn't achieve if, for example, you were in a car accident that damaged the nerves in your hands. On the other hand, simple Gestures might allow you to do the same spell without even having that hand, because you just need to point your wrist in the right direction, since you have the special effects saying that your will to make magic happen is focussed enough that missing a hand is not an impediment. In this instance, "Gestures" is something like pointing roughly in the direction you want the spell to go, while "Complex Gestures" is a precise way of holding your fingers, while pointing exactly at the target.
 
Basically, if you want more of a limitation from the Gestures limitation, you take it as a Complex Limitation to let the GM know that this is your power's weakpoint, more so than ever.

The Presence attack is flavoured with whatever style you want to give it (scary mobster, impressive robot, seductive snake-person). That means that the Striking Appearance rarely affects it (only when the style of flavour includes "being attractive" and the target can percieve the style of flavour that your Striking Appearance takes) but when it does affect the roll, then your Striking Appearance adds +X/XD6 to the roll. +X to the difficulty you must roll under to affect the target, and XD6 added to the 'Damage' effect dice if the attack 'hits home'. The number for X is the number of levels of the Striking Appearance that you have that are applicable.

I don't think Secret ID and Public ID are complications. I think that they are things that *can* be complications. If I'm playing a hero with a secret ID and I don't take any social complications or anything to make my secret ID into a complication, then my identity stays absolutely secure. Even if I go about joking around as "Joey", claiming to be the famous, well-known superhero "Captain Power", even if neither of those wears glasses, or a mask, or has any kind of disguise, my friends and coworkers all just kind of laugh it off and lightly mock me for pretending to be a superhero. Villains just assume that I'm a full-time superhero and never try to uncover my secret, even if I let slip that I actually have a day job at a specific local business. It just all happens to work out. Or, if I have a public ID but not as a complication, the same thing happens but everyone already knows that Captain Power is Joey from downtown. 
 
In which case, I would probably still go with a job as a freelancer, preferably one that has some way of utilising your powers or skills as a super-hero on your day-job. 
 
Having said that, obviously a secret ID or a Public ID, or even some halfway point between the two, could be a good and interesting complication. Lots of reasons for those to come up, with villain looking into your personal life or tracking you, and plenty of role-playing opportunities.
 
In which case, maybe take a job that does make your personal life harder or more tied to the super-hero persona, like a position with the Justice League's museum, so you have to let people see you stood right next to photographs of your super-hero ID a lot.

Actually, based on the size and strength of them, maybe more of a branch of the extended family of Herman Munster. In fact, the Clampett family do seem like they'd go along with the Munster running gag of considering Herman to be extremely handsome and Marylin to be so unattractive that she'd scare off anyone who she tried to date.

I wouldn't even give orangutan the Secret ID complication. The whole point, from what you've said, seems to be that nobody will ever see through his disguise, even though it is paper thin. So there shouldn't be any complication. The fact that he actually is secretly an orangutan is simply an interesting special effect.

A susceptibility to magic, at least to the same degree as a normal human. For example, her super-strength wouldn't work for breaking out of enchanted bindings, and her mental defense is lower against mystics than against telepaths.