Dead guy on tab

Re: Created Post by Post Hey, you skipped Leaping . . . +3" Leaping (3)

Re: Cleaning the Tarnish: Iron Age to Silver Age As far as "turning back" I am referring to the way the paranormals behave en mass. Newer heroes would not use the marginal criminal tactics that their predecessors employed. Some old heroes might return trying to redeem themselves. The public itself would be suspicious of the heroes since the previous heroes weren't much better than criminals. As far as "the brink", I think heroes who were of the sort that the ends justify the means would be close to crossing the line. I'm not saying that I'd want to go back to the goofiness of early Silver Age, but rather the more complex late Silver Age (Bronze Age?) ala Astro City. Imagine if your campaign started in the Watchmen 10 years after the end of the book. Ozymandias is getting old, his utopia didn't work out as planned and the new heroes discover how scummy the previous generation were and vow to make things better by embracing "the old rules".

Re: Cleaning the Tarnish: Iron Age to Silver Age I agree with you that Crisis was supposed to fix this, but where DC fell down in my opinion was that they didn't maintain strict editorial control following the Crisis; so they just went through the massive effort to clean up old continuity problems (and undo Roy Thomas' continuity uberwork in All Star Squadron) and they allowed the new writers to introduce new continuity problems. So what was DC's solution another Crisis every couple of years. My point was if you are going to go through the pain to clean the slate, you need to maintain your discipline not to mess it up again. In addition, you can't exactly ignore all the previous material because that pisses off the long time collector/disengages them from the universe you are trying to get them addicted to.

After reading the postings on the "Why I hate Marvel Editors" http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65091&page=3 I began to think what would I do if I was made EIC of Marvel right now. My answer relates to the thread title. What I would do is gather as many writers who respect continuity and silver age/bronze age comics (e.g. Kurt Busiek, Steven Robinson, Roy Thomas, etc.) and hammer out what the group thinks a Marvel Universe should be a how to get there with a one time transition, i.e. how do you reconstruct characters after years of deconstruction? I would then put each of the writers in charge of their own section of the universe and hold a "fantasy draft" of characters. Whoever drafted the character would control how he/she is used. I would then continue with character "bibles" and continuity oversight so that multiple crisis do not become necessary. Now relating this to Champions campaigns, has anyone run a campaign where there was a iron age/dark age as a back story and the characters were trying to return the luster to the hero world. Sort of the opposite of the watchmen or at least watchmen revisited 20 years later. Paranormals reached the brink and turned back.

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement That's not what I heard about Super Squadron.

Re: Shtick! The Ultimate Skill discusses similar ideas under Skill Enhancers. In a nutshell, characters can spend a certain amount of points to be experts in a defined area of skills or receive cost reduction for skills meeting the defined area. One of which was Universal Skill ala Universal Translator. In my campaign, I use a couple of house rules to allow for these types of characters without going wholesale into a Universal Skill setup. Characters who have bought a Skill Enhancer are assumed to have familiarities on all relevant skills for free (i.e. If you bought Scientist, you have Sc: Any Science 8-). In addition, I allow characters to spend saved xp during a session to purchase any relevant skill pending GM approval. This makes it easy to have the Reed Richards type for 3 pts. and a few unallocated XP to spend. This allows the player to allocate his abilities on a need basis as opposed to what I might need. Lastly, I also give extra XP for in session skill use.

If you are running a Champions campaign in a Champions universe, which villains (from any edition) "must" you use to give your players the feel of the Champions universe. For example, I think the players should encounter: Dr. Destroyer Mechanon Foxbat i.e. which villains are "core" to the Champions Universe

Re: What was Marvel's best decade? I'd say the '70's even with the cheese - they were still forming their universe so you create something new without being totally bogged down with continuity. The '80's were sort of the time of change especially during Jim Shooter's later run - it seemed to me characters stopped behaving a logically consistent manner and switched to a personalty needed for storyline A.

Hello, I was starting to do some bluebooking via e-mail with the players in my campaign and I had a thought to assist the start of a session: teaser scenes. What I am thinking of doing is sneding each player a short introduction to a scene a while before the next session so they can think about how they want to respond to it. When the session roles around, I start with the intro to these scenes and finish them. I think this might help the usual where are we again, plus the players can have what the setup for the first scene will be to get into character. Has anyone tried this? How did it work?

Re: Idea: Super Hero "Morality scale" That is one viewpoint. However, history and literature are replete with examples to the contrary. I have offered several examples from comic books where this theme is explored. Examples from literature include the ring of gyges, the invisible man, faust, the picture of dorian gray, and the lord of the rings. Does gaining superpowers automatically confer supermoral sense upon the character? I don't think so. I think a character's heroism is present even before he had his radiation accident. That also means his flaws continue to be present. As a GM I place the characters into morally complex situations at times. Shouldn't the character's actions in those difficult situations affect them in the future? When Captain America killed the gun man in spite of his CvK, should he just have gone home and chalked it up to one of those things? If these difficult situations are to be meaningful, there should be aftershocks otherwise it's just the moral conundrum of the day (woo hoo! we saved Hitler (Wings of the Valkyrie)! How many people are going to die this time when Dr. D shows up?) and it can devolve into "How is the GM going to screw the characters this week?". As a GM, I would like to strive for meaningful conflicts without reducing the fun or becoming maudlin (no White Wolf for me thank you very much!). Just my 0.02.

Re: Idea: Super Hero "Morality scale"

Re: Idea: Super Hero "Morality scale" Well, I think the usefulness of this approach depends on what you want out of the game. Why are you running a Champions campaign? If you are looking for some role-playing/defeat the bad guys/social statements it may not be needed. I have been interested in the changes people go through when they obtain powers, what makes a hero a hero? His fancy powersuit, strength, etc. How does Average Joe react to becoming/being superduperman? Does power corrupt or is it a tool depending on how you use it? I think these sorts of questions - one's where you are looking at how the power's impact the character bring up the concept of a humanity rating? I think in a genre like Cyber Punk it is almost core to the genre (i.e. how much technology to do you absorb into your body before you're more machine than man?). The execution of course is where the difficulty lies. Just my 0.02.

Re: Idea: Super Hero "Morality scale" The way I was going to do this was to have a Humanity rating similar to the Sanity Rating except everyone would start at 99. The characters could lose humanity by ignoring individuals for the group as a whole, embracing more and more power, buying off disadvantages, or anything else which seemed to link the character to the rest of humanity. Conversely, characters could gain humanity by making efforts to stay in contact with the common man, which is why Superman would have a higher humanity than Batman. As the character's humanity decreased, I figured he would start to have minuses to perceive the average person's plight, penalties to conversation and persuasion rolls, but he would receive bonuses to deduction rolls for mastermind's plots (if I were Dr. Destroyer, here is what I would do), bonuses to oratory, fear/impressive based presence attacks, etc. Basically as a character became less human, he'd have difficulty noticing and relating to average joe (ala Dr. Manhattan), but he would become more impressive and fearsome as well as be able to better piece together grandiose plans (e.g. Would Superman even consider emergency protocols to defeat the rest of the Justice League?). I haven't fully developed it and it would be a GM aid to roleplaying not an alignment straightjacket. Just my 0.02.

Re: Idea: Super Hero "Morality scale" I've contemplated something similar - I called it a Humanity Rating (not really familiar with the White Wolf system). I haven't really fleshed it out, but I envisioned it was a measure of how much the character concerned himself with individual people as compared to looking at the "big picture". I find the Watchmen, the Authority, and Miracleman as being models of low "Humanity" characters, i.e. they are so interested in making things better en mass that they will eliminate any individual who interferes with their plan. They may have the powers of God, but they don't seem to have the wisdom of God. Superman and Spiderman are going examples of high "Humanity" characters - they are involved with saving the world on a regular basis, but they feel concern themselves with the lives of individual people and continually struggle with the dichotmy. Batman and Iron Man would be examples who are in between. So in my mind the rating was a measure of how much godlike powers resulted in an aloofness and separation from humanity ala "For what shall it profits a man if he gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul".

I want to be sure I understand this. So for a character to be able to receive an adjustment to his Running, he would need to buy 2 points of Running. For example, Average Hero with 6" running can't have his running increased, but Average+1 Hero with 7" Running (6"+1" power) can have his running increased.

Re: Heroic battles

1) Can you abort to a passive defense/power such as Life Support (assuming it's nonpersistent)? 2) Can you abort to abilities which mitigate the damage about to be taken (e.g. Aids to CON, STUN, or REC)? Thanks

Re: Champions Universe: The Unresolved Questions/Plots Because it will be sometime in October when you come to.

Re: What were the best Superhero comics of the 90's? Don't remember Regulators, but the Liberty Project was excellent (although before the '90's). A couple of others: Firearm by James Robinson Golden Age by James Robinson Sandman Mystery Theatre by Matt Wagner Spectre by John Ostrander Bone by Jeff Smith Rising Stars by JMS (started in the '90's) JSA by Len Strazewski Outsiders by Mike Barr A couple that were inconsistent but interesting Justice League Task Force The Ray

Re: "Your girlfriend works for VIPER!" Huh? If you want to get really nasty, you could do the storyline from elementals with Morningstar, i.e. the girlfriend is really a shape-shifting archnemesis (although in the comic book the characters had an adversial past and morningstar was particularly vindicative.)

Re: "Your girlfriend works for VIPER!" Huh? I would agree with the caution to be clear with the player on what is core to his character concept. We all have read comic books where the writer takes massive liberties with a character. I find that I tend to drop comic books when the writers destroy a character's core. I would expect it to be even more so with a character. What I would do is keep this idea in my back pocket, introduce the DNPC and let the interaction with the PC and the DNPC grow naturally and see if the DNPC and situation develop to the point that her being a VIPER agent would make sense or be plausible. The other option, which I recently used, is to introduce the character not as an established DNPC, but a potential DNPC and make her less than savory background part of one of the early storylines. When I did this, I introduced the DNPC as I was working up as I was laying the groundwork for the adventure. The player then discovered that the potential DNPC was part of the group he was trying to stop. The player then had the option of bringing her to justice or trying to convince her to betray her team. The aftermath could also be interesting: does the player turn her in, why is she involved with VIPER, does she leave, what if VIPER is one of those groups where no one leaves so the hero/DNPC has to constantly deal with the threat of her leaving VIPER. In some ways this could make the DNPC a better source of storylines/improve the PC's interaction and the player made the choice to go down this pathway.

Re: Susano's Song-Based DC NPCs Here's a good pipied piper of Hamlin homage: Rainmaker by Michael Nesmith First day in August Last rain was in May When the rainmaker came to Kansas In the middle of a dusty day The rainmaker said to the people "Tell me what you are prepared to pay" The rainmaker said to the people "Well, I'll conjure up a rain today" Ninety degrees 'neath the trees where it's shady Hundred and ten in the hot sun Heat from the street burned the feet of the ladies See how they run Called down the lightning By a mystical name Then the rainmaker called on the thunder And suddenly it began to rain Then the rainmaker passed his hat to the people But the people all turned away Then the rainmaker's eyes And the Kansas skies Both became a darker grey First day in August Last rain was in May When the rainmaker came to Kansas In the middle of a dusty day The rainmaker smiled as he hitched up his wagon And without a word he rode way Then the people of the town heard the sound of his laughter And they knew the rain had come to stay Rain rain go away Come again another day Rain rain go away Come again another day Rain Rain Rain

Re: Campaign Planning Sheet The Hero System Resource Kit had the campaign background sheets updated for 5th edition. I will check later if I have a homemade copy of something similar.

Re: Best HERO system product It's interesting that people mention the Hero System Rulebook - 4th Edition. I owned both the Hero System Rulebook and the Big Blue Book (Champions 4th Edition), and I seem to prefer the BBB. Once I finish reading them I think I will add The Ultimate Skill and Pulp Hero. I do like Hero Designer and agree it is a big improvement over Hero Maker. I really liked Golden Age of Champions (both versions - although the 4th ed was superior) even if I have yet to run a World War II campaign. What products do people think would be necessary to have a complete Hero collection (besides "all of them") for people like me considering picking up old source material?

Do you have one large organization or several smaller organizations? How do you keep track of all of their activities or do you just have each plot being a separate thread? How do you keep track of competing organizations? I'm just looking for ideas because I want to use several organizations and I seem to be having trouble formulating the organizations as background menaces that slowly move plots forward versus being the normals the heroes get to beat up for the plotline-o-the-day.