transmetahuman

Re: Everyman - What Do *You* Want To See? I pretty much agree. Exceptional attributes & talents in an abbreviated "only-if-exceptional" format; skills; more emphasis on personality, background ("origin"?? heh), and a variety of ways to use them (omitting the obvious DNPC/contact unless there are interesting twists). I'd really rather not see the word count taken up with pretty much boilerplate combat stats for mostly non-combat characters.

Re: Comic books Yep. If Marvel/DC/etc. predated the emergence of metas, I'd expect them to just keep making fictional stories, while holding on to their intellectual property rights. Maybe some limited appearances by real life metas (disclaimered as their "alternate universe selves", like some Presidential and celebrity appearances have occurred in real life comics). I just meant that I don't think it would go down like I've seen in some stories, where the comics supposedly document the heroes' real lives.

Re: Telepaths Must Die! I know that he knows that I know that he knows that I know that he knows that I know that he knows that I know that he knows that I know that he knows that I know that he knows that I know that he knows that I know that he knows that I know that he knows that I know that he knows that I know that he knows that I know that he knows that......

Re: Telepaths Must Die! True, but I'm a little guy, it doesn't take a metahuman to intimidate me. And I didn't see Thunderbolts, but that is a great line... I was more talking about a friendly (or at least nonviolent) argument, and a power that can be used undetectably. The results are undetectable, too, if they're subtle. In ordinary social interaction - including most arguments - you can usually rely on the social contract and reprisal for attacks to deter the use of most offensive powers. What stops someone from using a nearly undetectable power that the victim can't even recognize as an attack? I'll note here that I'm not so much talking about Champions Mind Control, which has at least some built-in limits on use (like the need to concentrate, and mechanisms for detection), as Marvel or DC MC as portrayed in the comics- where Charlie could probably change you from Republican to Democrat while carrying on a conversation about the latest Stallone movie, and unless you hang out other telepaths, you'd never know it. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I just can't see people socializing so easily with people who they know can undetectably change who they are. Sure, they trust them not to... but can they trust why they trust? Dang, I'm cutting myself off from ever meeting any mentalists on this board, aren't I? And I'd love to see proof that psi is real- from a distance...

Re: Comic books I thought about starting a thread like this before; thanks for beating me to it. Some random bits to throw in the mix, especially for worlds where metahumans are a recent phenomenon: Did DC and Marvel exist in your world? What did they do once metahumans started appearing? What would happen if some meta started calling himself Superman, or The Flash? What if he was a villain? Do characters whose powers resemble well-known comics characters get compared to them? Do you generally assume that comics like in our world existed, but with different characters, so PCs aren't stuck with the fourth-rate names that haven't been claimed by one of the thousands of characters already published and trademarked in the real world? To answer Phil's questions, I think realistically metas would be celebrities much like professional athletes or WWF-style wrestlers, but I don't like the tone of heroes with Nike contracts, publicists and handlers so it just doesn't happen. In either case, I don't see the comics medium as being involved, more TV, magazines and tabloids. Comics work better with fiction than documentary - you don't see many Magic Johnson comics out there, do you? And there definitely wouldn't be a monthly series. Adventures don't hold to schedules and deadlines. I could see comics going to non-meta series, or making up their own fictional superheroes even though real ones are around. If the world is more iron age, maybe the comics in that world would be more silver/bronze? Or an iron age world where metas license series that are loosely based on themselves but basically fictional.

Re: Telepaths Must Die! Now, now... "Live and let live kinda guy" isn't a total commitment Code vs Killing. I'm juxtaposing the two statements to emphasize how extraordinary my reaction would be. Are you saying you disagree? Imagine knowing that one of your friends, maybe a drinking or gaming buddy, could do what Prof. X can do. Imagine what would go through your mind the next time you had an argument - or realized that you never seemed to have arguments. I'm just sayin...

Re: Stronghold

From another thread, long dead, but relevant to concord's Registration Act thread:

Re: Homebrew Organizations So far, all the organizations seem to fall into one of three or four categories (plus one private security firm with criminal ties): 1) Criminal 2) Law-Enforcement 3) Military/Paramilitary/Espionage 4) Shadowy technology-suppression cabals (presumeably criminal) Has anyone made any cool support-type organizations or corporations? Any good twists on S.T.A.R. Labs, M.E.T.E., Dr. McQuark, or Edna Mode's company?

Re: Big Question: How did superpowers come about in your campaign? Neat! And, repped. I might steal bits of this someday.

Re: Help: Time Villains (Doffs hat, bows) Nasty... In a similar vein, for all of you with "can't coexist in the same time frame" rules, I got to thinking... Can't everyone remember some morning where you woke up at your usual time but just didn't seem to get any use out of your sleep? Or woke up long after you thought you would? What if time travel uses some kind of projector, and a character (desperately needing to visit some point in his own past without causing paradoxes) zaps his earlier self, sleeping soundly, alone, several hours into its future - thereby opening a limited gap of time in which he can travel back and get things done... Maybe the inventor had a history of "oversleeping", to the point where it adversely affected his career/reputation, and only now realizes what was really happening all those years...

Re: Three or more Eyes I don't buy it, but it's a cute idea. Maybe justification for a mystic type to have arachnophobia... "They spy on us for their extradimensional overlords!" My two cents - I'd say the lineup thing is more likely to come up than someone poking you in the eye with a stick, regardless of genre. I've never been in a game where someone lost an eye, myself. Well, unintentionally (yes, Eye of Vecna). If he can take the implant out, it's Easily Concealable, so I'd give it a net cost of zero. If he can't take it out, maybe a 5 point DF unless lots of people get that same kind of implant. If it gives him bonuses or Flash Defense, add that in. Of course, if it doesn't really give him abilities, why did he get it in the first place? Are there a lot of pointy stick wielding gangs in the city, or is he on a quest for Vecna's 80,000 year old tomb?

Re: Selling your Hero Systems V4? I sent you an instant message. Champions 4th, $5 plus postage to wherever you are.

Re: Belief in magic by normals. Mind you, if I lived in a world where FOX broadcasts When Extradimensional Conquerors Attack! complete with video footage, and court cases resulted in verdicts of "Not guilty, by reason of demonic possession", I'd be lining up to buy the latest Sorcery For Dummies myself. I think the only reason superverses (nice term, whoever I snagged that from) have people who still don't believe in magic, after decades of evidence, is the old Keep The World As Familiar As Possible imperative. It's hard to guess how religions, laws, and nearly everything else would change if everyone had evidence of the supernatural - and we GMs (and comics writers) are lazy, so we avoid that. Or play in a Technomancer or Shadowrun world that's sometimes unrecognizeable, not Our World Plus Superpowers. Edit: Okay, that was just restating the obvious. As to how to deal with it, I'd say it's important to establish that only certain people have the ability to learn magic - you're either born with it or you're not. Otherwise everyone would be trying to learn it, it would be a science studied and taught in universities, etc. If magic exists but your neighbor spent 6 years working his arse off to learn it, without results, it's a lot easier to put it in the same category as psi, mutants, and radiation accident "victims" - a rare minority are just born lucky, what can ya do?

Re: Flashing Paralyzing attack A Stun-Only EB still has to overcome the character's physical or energy defense; sounds like you'd want it to bypass ED. Maybe a DEX Drain, possibly Simultaneously against other stats, but that gets hugely expensive. And the active points don't go down even if you speed up the recovery, though if it's an NPC you might not care. Or a STUN Drain, that might do what you want it to and it'd be cheaper. And once you add in ranged and area effect, you're going to need the point savings.

Re: Selling your Hero Systems V4? I've got a Champions 4th, the big blue softcover with Seeker fighting on the cover. Contains HERO system rulesbook section, then the Campions sourcebook contents, then a "campaign book" section with Champs characters & scenarios. It's in good shape, the binding held up well. $5 plus postage if you're interested.

Re: Help: Time Villains Yeah, first rule of character design is "no causality violations" - you can slow/speed/freeze/whatever time, or jump forward (basically pausing your existence til the target date comes around), but no travel to the past and no precognition. Just too much headache. I think time travel works in fiction a lot better than it does when players get their hands on it, and I'd rather have an overall ban than allow it for NPCs while banning it for PCs. If I ever get an irresistable urge, I'll probably go with the "You didn't time travel, you went to a parallel universe whose time "rate" is skewed compared to your homeline's" kinda thing. Sorry that's not much help. GURPS Time Travel deals with the issues you'll be worried about, but imo doesn't make time travelling PCs any more playable.

Re: Belief in magic by normals. In the FAQ at the site posted by Kristopher, they talk about why. It's a combination of a rule against any test that might endanger the applicant (for ethical and litigious reasons), and a matter of resources - the observers at the test are unpaid volunteers, one of whom would have to be with the applicant 24 hours a day to insure against cheating. Apparently the organization has had many experiences with people who think they can bamboozle their way into being a millionaire. Gee, who'd a thunk? That particular claim wouldn't be too open-ended - the applicant would state exactly how long he can go without food, the org. would decide if it constituted "paranormal" ability - but it would take too long to test and be too dangerous to a self-deluded person who really thought he could do it, but couldn't. That said, there are off-hand comments on the site (which I only read last night after seeing kristopher's link) that make me wonder... Some claimed abilities like clairsentience/remote viewing seem to be considered too "silly" or unlikely to be worth the organization's time, which suprises me. I haven't seen evidence that they systematically refuse to test for defineable abilities that are scientifically testable in a safe way, though. The comments I refer to might simply be the result of weariness in dealing with scam artists & delusional people that take up their time and then don't follow through.

I was poking around an old thread on homages (which I'll get to in a different thread, when I've figured out what I want to ask), and found these:

Re: Energy Blaster Block/Over-power Blast One of my pet peeves is when characters with really inappropriate EB sfx (like lasers or heat vision) do this with each other... but there should be some way of gaming it to simulate the genre, you're right. One problem is that usually the EBs are instant effects, and the "power block" really should play out over multiple phases or at least segments - plus, you're likely to have characters with different SPDs which complicates things more. I like your idea of the center moving back and forth based on EB strength (and pushing). Off the top of my head, I'd make the defender make a power skill roll to block. If he does (and his block OCV roll, as a normal melee block, is also successful), the attacker makes a power skill roll to make his attack "continuous", if it's not already. If both are made, then go to a segment-by-segment run down without skill or attack rolls, just basing it on EB strength. Even segment-by-segment, though, it'd probably get interrupted by other characters' interference, which almost never happens in the source material.

Re: Write-up by a player - our campaign in the sit-com dimension... Awesome.

Re: Mute Characters Yeah, I have three hearing-impaired friends here in Philly (each of whom loves live punk music, and, no, the impairments were not caused by this). I sometimes think that a fully deaf person might almost have fewer social problems than the friend who is almost completely deaf - because he can hear somewhat, and lip read, people expect him to pick up on subtleties of inflection that they would express in a different way if he were completely unable to hear.

Re: Daxamites Too bad for Superboy that Kryptonite was an ingredient. But that yellow sun thing adds evidence that Kryptonians and Daxamites are relatives... except for that annoying lead vs. Kryptonite thing.

Re: Superhero Football I like this. Any special rules on flying?

Re: Mute Characters Re-thinking, I guess that (nuance) wouldn't come up often enough to be a problem - 90% of the time when nuance is important, there'd be an opportunity for the character to express it in writing.