transmetahuman

Re: "Does everyone have silver bullets?"

To my mind, the player and GM defined how often he would encounter silver bullets when they set the level of his Vulnerability, and the points it therefore generated. If he says it's very common, and the GM agreed, silver should commonly be used against the character. If he said it's rare, and, again, the GM agreed, it should come up infrequently. If the player said "rare" and the GM thinks "very common", this should have been resolved by either boosting the point value of the disadvantage or the GM adjusting his decision as to how often silver attacks would be encountered.

 

This fits with my theory that a character sheet is a contract between the player and the GM that the points assigned will be reflective of the value of abilities and drawbacks over the course of the campaign.

Re: Looking for Veteran Henchthug Ideas

Awww. Henchman #21, all grown up.

Re: The Qualaties of Doom

The insufferable arrogance and superiority complex might be a major put off' date=' but I'm not sure I would nix them.[/quote']They might be even harder to take by the PCs (or was this going to be a PC?). I know I'd hate an arrogant, pompous hero with Doom's overblown monolog... err, speaking style more than I hate that stuff from him as a villain. Doom as a villain, I want to defeat. Doom as a hero... might just break my CvK into tiny ineffectual shreds. This may be what you want, of course.

 

Of course, I may just hybrid him up with the Silver Surfer and perhaps that turtle Crush from Finding Nemo...

 

"Like, fear the majesty that is the Power Cosmic, mortals. Bow down before Duuuude!"

 

- Dr. Dude, King of Leguna, Righteous Geek, Cosmic Shredder...

 

:: runs before anyone throws rotten produce ::

Run fast.

Re: Looking for write-ups of The Hybrid

They were a take-off of the X-Men; not necessarily an exact version. They weren't even all mutants. They had similar looks or abilities, but not necessarily the same ones. This is who each character was supposed to represent:

 

 

Gorgon = Cyclops

Harpi = Jean Grey

Behemoth = Beast ?? (not sure)

Pteradon = Angel

Scirocco = Storm

Prometheus = Colosus

Touch-N-Go = Rogue

"All employees are encouraged to take advantage of our free flu shot and Promethium infusion program this winter..."

Re: Looking for write-ups of The Hybrid

I liked this group a lot. They were Marv Wolfman's take-off on the X-Men at that time; they were an interesting looking group; and most of them were "the reluctant villains". They really didn't want to be fighting the Titans. It made for an interesting story.

Re: Incarcerating Gadget/Focus Villains

This says that anybody who ever built armour' date=' weaponry or whatever, needs to be in a max security facility like Stonghold or the Vault. Even though they don't have a power pool, they can and will rebuild thier devices (or some part of it), even as one-shots, using no more than a transistor radio, laundry detergent and a mirror[/quote']I'm imagining draconian rules about access to duct tape in Stronghold... "Yeah, I can get hold of a kilo of coke for you; there's a dude in cell block 6 - but the duct tape... man, you couldn't pay me enough to risk it"

Re: Metagaming Question On Universe Building

In my experience, it takes a special kind of player to deal well with open-ended "okay, what do you want to do?" campaign styles. The guys I've played with tend to do better with games where they basically react to stuff or there's an obvious goal ("maintain the status quo" crimefighters; "Men In Black are hunting you and you're on the run"; "it's a zombiepocalypse!"). Once they've got a framework, they'll improvise from that - I don't mean to promote railroading here. But a framework gives a reason for the PCs to be together, gives the players an idea how they relate to each other and the world, and gives immediate goals to the players that don't "get into character" as much as others do.

Re: Am I explaining genetics correctly?

This is a good idea' date=' and would allow both male and female characters to have some degree of sensory powers. I wasn't going to require enhanced senses to use TK, though.[/quote']I didn't mean for the tekes to be required to have any enhanced senses in the game power sense. If you want the Y-linked teke trait to be useless without the X-linked "parasenses" trait, though, you can just say that even regular Telekinesis involves a parasensory "connection" (which doesn't give any extra Powers in game terms) with whatever they're manipulating. A person with a single X-linked gene, not reinforced by another one or by a Y-linked gene, might technically have some potential for very weak parasenses, or you could just say that the manifestation is so weak without Y-linked teke to "reach out" with it that the people who have it don't even realize it. A man with just the Y-linked gene has no "feedback", so never learns how to use his teke (or even that he has it) - but might be justification for poltergeist phenomena, if you like.

 

This has the side effect of making stuff like pyro- and cryokinesis easier to justify (you don't have to see the individual molecules you're slowing or speeding up), and lets certain specialized tekes justify things like Force Fields (you don't need to see the air molecules you're making the barrier with, or the attacks from behind that you're deflecting), Transform (was Jean Grey making insane Chemistry rolls when she transmuted her spandex costume into cotton/silk/whatever dresses? no, of course not - she just "knew" how to do it), or "squeeze his heart" NND attacks.

Re: Am I explaining genetics correctly?

As for the 'what other powers' -- don't worry about it' date=' or else very much worry about it; virtually all the powers in the book can be built with either a TK or TP 'special effect'.[/quote']Thinking about this aspect specifically... If you do want to be able to simulate a very wide variety of powers, it would help a lot if the male tekes could potentially access limited forms of extra-sensory perception. Lots of effects just can't be easily justified if the teke has to manipulate everything with only his own mundane senses.

 

Maybe the X-linked gene expresses itself with parasenses - it enables males to latch on to stuff with the Y-linked teke, but when reinforced in the XX females it makes for much more powerful parasensory abilities, including sensing thoughts and emotions? That kind of has a whole yin-yang active/passive thing going for it, too. Though of course full telepathy has active elements to it, too, so that's maybe not a good comparison.

Re: Best and worst jobs for Superheroes

True dat.

 

Some other really good jobs for superheroes:

...housewife/househusband to reasonably wealthy spouse

It's beautiful.

Re: Best and worst jobs for Superheroes

One of those work-from-home phone sex hotline jobs, where you call in from home to punch in or out, then the computer/switchboard routes the 900 number callers to your home phone (or, hey, your cell - imagine that sysadmin scene for someone with this job). Maybe you can get specialist clientele because your voice just happens to sound just like Power Girl's.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

The heroes learn that a criminal organization known as the Thuggery is recruiting some muscle to work with the Ultimates.

 

Squeeze: "The Thuggery"?!?! Why not just call it "Thugs R Us"?

"Oh, and it's an exploding lamp."

Re: A continuous damage attack.

I'm trying to create a power that hurts whenever the target moves. What I came up with was the following....

 

1d6+1 EB - BOECV and Mental Defense, Continuous, Trigger(whenever target moves) trigger resets automatically and action takes no time.

 

My question is, does the target only take damage during the attacker's phases or whenever he moves? Does the Trigger advantage accomplish what I want?

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Now I'm curious as to what was going on aboard that ship...

Also, "Elvis has left the planet".

Re: Superheroes in Real Life

It tends to refute the idea that should there be a sudden outbreak of people actually having superpowers' date=' that you wouldn't see costumes along with it. Some times realism isn't realistic.[/quote']

That's exactly what I was thinking. Of course, that doesn't mean we'd get pro-masked-vigilante laws, easily kept secret IDs, or any of the other genre conventions that let the masked superheroes do their thang.

 

Still, it's an interesting thing to see.

Re: Super tech effects on the world at large.

From a GM's perspective, I can see the appeal of having super-tech be "unconscious super powers"... but from a player's perspective, I can totally understand why that might be unappealing. Your concept is of a guy who is smart, a trailblazing scientist/engineer. Then you find out you've just been completely deluding yourself; your whole premise was based on not knowing some really obvious scientific facts that everyone else knows makes your theory impossible. "I have a 300 IQ... but when I started my latest project, I totally spaced on that whole square-cube law thingie. Yeah. Good thing it worked anyway."

It's okay for the occasional mad scientist, but come on... Would you look at Reed Richards at all the same way if it turned out his stuff was all based on self-delusion?

Re: Cops, Crews, And Cabals

Thanks, ghost-angel. That was very helpful (as always). Rep to thee, if I can.

Re: Sell me on "Galactic Champions"?

I'd never even given a Galactic Champions campaign much thought until I read this thread, but you guys have sparked some ideas.

Part of the (new-found) appeal for me would be my sheer love of science fiction, and the way a GalChamps campaign would open up aspects of that that an Earthbound game doesn't lend itself to. World-building, culture-building, alien-building... 21st century Earth can seem kinda small sometimes. No matter how many Hidden Lands and Lost Races you stuff in, they've all gotta be small and have some reason for staying hidden. Even as a player (assuming a non-control-freak GM) you can try your hand at some of that.

It gives a feel that we haven't had since the Americas were mapped - takes humanity back, in a way, to the most romantic age of exploration. No matter how big your Empire or Known Space or whatever is, there can be BIG stuff waiting to be found. The characters can go through shifts of perspective where everything they thought was important (except their ideals) becomes a drop in an ocean.

You can also explore possibly influencing developing cultures (colonies or the ways in which First Contact affects a newly discovered established culture), without the baggage of an Authority-style military takeover. Your characters can have historical importance, not just be about returning things to the status quo, without having the game focus on contemporary politics.

I guess I'm picturing a more exploration-based game than the typical "crimefighters in space" thing, and that might not be to everyone's taste (though you can certainly have both - look at the FF).

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Re: Best SuperHero Fights ever

Uncanny X-Men #183, super powered bar brawl between Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin and Cain Marko, both in civvies.

 

The irony is that neither of them realize that Pete's drunken clumsyness, which started the fight, also probably saved Cain's life. The woman Cain was trying to pick up, who left during the fight with someone with a remarkable resemblance to Chris Claremont, was Selene.

Oh, cool, thanks for sharing that! That fight/scene has always stuck in my head, too, but if I recognized Selene at the time I didn't remember it. And I wouldn't have gotten the Claremont bit.

Re: Pet Powers

I often find myself coming up with a concept that can justify Teleport in some form or another. It's just such a cool thing to be able to do! And so dang useful.

Re: Wild Card's Hero

Re: Wraith; Is Affects Physical World on her strength enough to let her reach her arm through a safe door, grab a book, then turn the book intangible and withdraw it through the safe door? Or does she need a UBO Desolid?

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Aint got time for em

I just figured they were all used up by the folks who think all plurals are formed with 'em.

Re: Villains named after Santa's reindeer?

prance /præns, prɑns/

–verb (used without object)

1. to spring from the hind legs; to move by springing, as a horse.

2. to ride on a horse doing this.

3. to ride gaily, proudly, or insolently.

4. to move or go in an elated manner; cavort.

5. to dance or move in a lively or spirited manner; caper.

Superleap does seem to be the way to go, if you want to avoid offensive stereotypes.

Re: Suggestions needed: Animal super villains

Oooh, how about a Dalmatian with powers just like Marvel's The Spot?

Re: Heroes

Would anybody be willing to give me the rundown on last week's episode (or show me where I can get a thorough synopsis)? I was out of the country.

 

(I did see this week's episode, though.)