transmetahuman

Re: Campaign Launch: What Would You Think? If more than one or two news programs were showing it, and rescued victims were being interviewed, I don't think that I'd think it was a hoax. As much as I'd love to see some comic book "magic" in the real world, I'd probably be in shock for a while - maybe even a bit psychologically disturbed during the time it takes me to reassess some of the fundamental beliefs I had about the world. Then again, I can't remember the last time I had to do something like that. Maybe it'd be psychologically more realistic to reject the evidence and believe the pretty implausible idea that several major news organizations were throwing away their reputations in order to conspire to perpetrate a ridiculous hoax for no discernable benefit. I'd like to think I'm better than that, of course. Once I'd adjusted, my happiness that there's "magic" in the world after all would quickly be muted by the realization that there are a whole lot of super powers whose mere existence would destroy civilization out in the real world, without genre conventions to reign them in.

Re: Attracting villians 5. Some citizen of said city has uncontrolled probability alteration powers - a "weirdness magnet". 6. Local laws are more forgiving for metahumans. As an aside, yeah, it always bugged me that these super-powered criminals all pick NYC/Metropolis to strut their stuff in, when every other city in the world is less well defended by heroes...

Re: Wow....that is a useless power for sure.... And to think, he was this close to taking Cazzo Films up on their offer to be their spokesmodel... No, you really don't want to know.

Re: Real World Stuff That Only Sounds Like A Comic Book Now Magneto just has to explain how his force field can stop lasers...

Re: Wow....that is a useless power for sure.... they're giving it away free at http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=1104, so i doubt you'd get much for it. haven't played it yet but it looks like it's worth the price.

Re: Input on a bunch of bad guys? One of those chairs-on-poles (whatever they're called) carried by four strong, fast male followers leaps to mind... Okay, maybe not elegant or graceful. EDit: Haha Badger... great minds think alike!

Re: Fictional Cities I think next time I'll take a middle-ground stance, and use real-world names and general locations while letting the players know that this is an alternate world, and that quite a lot can vary. That way the players get ease of recognition, and some sense of the city's role in the world, its cultural quirks and famous 'bits'... but can't chide me for inaccuracies. Noting a few differences as they come up seems like it'd be a lot easier than making the players learn a whole new city from the get-go. There's a danger in the possibility that players can have expectations based on the real city that you didn't intend to carry over, but I doubt there'd need to be too many differences in the broad strokes and players would understand not to expect close details like street maps to carry over. I think it should be possible to establish a sense of the level of correspondence so that players learn when to not rely on assumptions, and ask.

Re: what power do i use to stop scrying/bugs The latter version: Forge from the X-Men; maybe Gizmo from that Teen Titans enemy group. For the former version: Madison Jeffries (sp?) from Alpha Flight; there's some kid (Edit: Wiz Kid) in one of the X-Books I think; arguably Upgrade from Ben 10 on Cartoon Network.

Re: Superhero webcomic Nope. Thanks! M'gonna go read some now...

Re: Choke holds & silence attacks (build help) I'd be sorely tempted to use Flash anyway... maybe with an advantage on it to balance it. If you think of it as the Transmit on the hearing group, it makes sense - after all, if you have a "radio bomb" that scrambles radio, it'd affect both the reception and transmission of radio users, right? Without looking up the thread, I've got to assume there's an explicit rule or FAQ against it though, and that you want to stay within the rules as written. If you're going to use Darkness as above, I'd add 0 END, a link to the attack if it's a superheroic game, and just come up with some plausible rule for determining when the uncontrolled darkness ends. If it's a heroic level game where the spec ops guys don't buy their weapon attacks, I guess you'd make it a Martial Maneuver, but I'm not familiar with how to create those.

Re: INT/EGO of a Machine Focus How would the villain normally use her Mental Illusions vs. Machines? How would it work versus, say, building security cameras being monitored on a screen in a security guard room? What if it's being monitored by more than one person? I probably wouldn't use MI for this power; more like Images with a limitation "Only when viewed through machines".

Re: Shazam! Do you know what personality traits are associated with each of those (if any)?

Re: Shazam! Very cool. Are these referring to intelligent, anthopomorphic totems/gods in the culture (like Coyote in some more southerly Native American cultures)? Or does the character just have animal-based powers?

Re: How a team fits in its world (team types) The Illuminated Team: Much like the Urban Legend Team, few people know What's Really Going On, and most of those are the bad guys. As new people gradually learn the truth, the good guys band together in their common knowledge. Often being in the know makes you a special target. Usually a Hidden Magic world like White Wolf's or the Whedonverse of Buffy/Angel, the key here is being in the know, and some reason that you can't just tell everyone.

Re: How a team fits in its world (team types) Also, Villains Turned Hero Team: Suicide Squad etc. - Criminals turned hero, reluctant hero, or coerced gov't operative because they're forced by the government, they're putting one over on the public (with new identities), or they genuinely want to change and atone for their past misdeeds.

Re: How a team fits in its world (team types) Common Origin Team: Held together by their common experiences and problems, though the archetypal Fantastic Four are considered more of a family dynamic by now. The X-Men sort of fall into this, too, but the type is better characterized by a single shared origin event than a common power type. Grab-Bag Team: I was trying to figure out how to characterize the Defenders in your terms. My take on them from the short time I read the book was that they were a nearly random group brought together by Doc Strange for specific threats. So, to generalize, maybe "team of unrelated people brought together by one leader/boss for the boss's purposes"? Of course friendships develop from that.

Re: If You Had To Play a Marvel Character… In a con game, probably She-Hulk. Straightforward and fun, in terms of both personality and powers. An intelligent brick, whose personal corner of the MU (the law firm) I find particularly interesting and full of potential. Also, I've just finished the first two graphic novel collections of her last title, and it doesn't seem like there's too much convoluted backstory baggage to worry about. In a campaign... hmm. In no particular order: Storm - versatile, kick-*** powers; strong, principled personality; never read a book that had her do something I hated, which is rare for Marvel. Tons of potential for role-playing and tons of creative options in combat. Ultimate Jean Grey - my favorite Ultimate character by far (though I haven't read past graphic novel collection #12 yet). Her humor and attitude, mostly, though her insane power level doesn't work against my decision. She casually does ridiculously powerful stuff in Hero terms (more with her telepathy than her teke). And just to get a (sort of) male in there, I've always thought Vision was iconic in a way that few other Marvel characters are. I haven't followed all they've done with him, though. Or maybe Shulkie again; I really loved her book.

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me! Great minds think alike: [thread=33851]Superskradaptomimic[/thread]

Re: What bizarre rules issues have you encountered? I don't get it. Why would fetus-eaters like virgins? They're guaranteed not to provide munchies (barring divine intervention). And since when do unicorns traditionally like pregnant women?

Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It I think it would be a lot more interesting to see what happens when a party of PCs who all or mostly have moderate-to-strong (but not total) CvK's get hold of the book - either from Light's dead fingers, or bypassing his existence completely. And Bad People know what it is, and that they have it.

Re: Legal or No: Multiple SFX on power, sans Linked I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around an attack that does both heat and cold damage to the same point on the victim's body simultaneously. If the different 'rainbow colors' hit even a little apart (so it can fry one bit of flesh while freeezing another bit), I'd make each part reduced by armor (ie, linked seperate attacks). But then, I've always hated the way D&D 3.0/3.5 does elemental stuff, and I'd never try porting that spell over.

Re: Advice for a team of unfortunate supers And Hopscotch's Vendor the Ice Cream Man sounds pretty devastating. Change anything to ice cream? Far from useless.

Re: The Things I've learned playing a Metamorph In those Iron Age campaigns, you might be the only character who can justifiably get away with a long-term secret ID. Even if you're not worried about that, an extra legal ID or three can be well worth cultivating.

Re: Namedropping Awesome thread! But I'm afraid I can't think of anyone except the kinds of guys who are already in most supers histories, like Rasputin and Tesla.

Re: One-Trick Pony Campaigns Thanks, folks (especially Supreme Serpent, for specific practical advice). The idea I was exploring was that of a Blood-like but much larger family line, each scion of which developed a unique, pretty much magical, Xanth-type Talent. The world wouldn't be a typical supers universe; they wouldn't be up against foes any more well-rounded than themselves. It would probably have deemphasized combat a lot, since combat would often fall into a "whoever goes first wins, unless they happen to be able to counter your power with theirs" deal. The PCs wouldn't be crime-fighters, more just extended family pulled into the plot because of relationships or direct threat from the main group of antagonists (a pair whose in-family political power was based on being the only people whose Talents enabled them to promise extended/eternal youth - a healer and a bodyjacker - and their thralls). Skills would be encouraged; each would have only one supernatural power but that wasn't intended to make everyone useless if their power wasn't applicable. It might be better to think of it as a Heroic level game, except that the powers could be quite high-level in their specific ways. I'm thinking now that the low incidence and all-or-nothing predisposition of combat would probably make this not very fun for most gamers. It might work for a short-term campaign, though. I'm still interested in hearing about those LSH campaigns - did anyone have characters like the old school Legion, where you had "I can make things lighter and that's it" Girl, or "I can split into three bodies and that's it" Woman? Though I'd expect PCs to have stuff more on the level of versatility of Element Lad or Xanthian magicians like Iris or Dolph. Which leads to the second big problem I foresee: powers like this are supposed to be nearly impossible to resist. If you're within 6 feet and Trent can see you, he can transform you. No saving throw, no power defense. I don't think Element Lad's shtick was resistable either; only his CvK prevented him from ending every fight by turning the villain into lead. If all you can do is one thing, it must be massively frustrating to do that thing and have it not work. But that exacerbates the whole problem with combats being "all or nothing". Ah, well, the whole thing's moot until I find local gamers that can fit into my inconvenient work schedule anyway. I'll probably just go for a more typical supers campaign. I love working with powers that are limited in interesting ways, but this probably isn't the way to do it in a game.