transmetahuman

Re: Evil Corporation: Magewerks

The Founders are young and excited' date=' they seek to learn and discover, but they're not really "Good" people. They aren't trying to save the world, make it a better place, or anything like that, they just sit around and say "Wouldn't it be cool...?" And then try to do that. [/quote']I'm picturing the three geeks from the sixth(?) season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

 

You might pick up some cool technomagical ideas from the 3rd Edition GURPS worldbook: Technomancer.

Re: Evil Corporation: Magewerks

Nice! I like the imagination-and-whimsy face of the corporation, and the idea of a not-so-evil Evil Corporation. The first thing that came to mind is the name, and how PCs would jump on it. I'm guessing that the world at large is one of those "doesn't believe in magic, rationalizes all magical supers as having a different power source, and the magical types prefer it that way" places? What about the people in R&D?

I guess what I'm saying is, how easy will it be to keep the secret that there's magic involved in the tech with all the clues that a typical supers world (and the name) provide?

Re: Wold Newton Scenario: Fonzie and Batman

Did Arthur Fonzarelli' date=' minor psionic and occasional adventurer, and Bruce Wayne Jr., the fourth man to take up the mantle of the Bat...[/quote']...and right here is where you lost me. Socialite waitress call girls in morgues? Am I not reading enough, not seeing enough movies, or not watching enough television? Or should I be happy that I haven't recognized any of the rest of this?

 

Love the idea of the Fonz as a Wold-Newton psionic, though.

Re: Wild Card's Hero

Again' date=' it's a shame. We did a pretty good campaign set in the Wild Cards world when only books 1&2 were out, and the early series played a big part in my world design until just the last five or six years.[/quote']I've been thinking about doing a Wild Cards campaign where only the first book is canon - stealing later characters if I feel like it, but not holding to most of the events at all.

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

I'm pretty sure that's a rewrite of his original quote' date=' "beer" being the noun in place of "sex."[/quote']

Homer's a middle-aged married guy. Of course "beer" was the original noun.

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that my mental 'voice' for this character had a striking similiarity to a well known comic 'guru' from a certain animated show' date=' now in it's umpteenth year[/quote']You weren't alone.

Re: The Brat Pack

Have to agree with this one. The One and Brat Pack were amazing but Maximortal just went completely off the deep end. It was bad. I collected the series but never finished reading it Oh, look I'm repeating what I said earlier in this thread.

 

Here's an overview from amazon http://www.amazon.com/Maximortal-Rick-Veitch/dp/0962486477

...this superhero deconstruction is... a perfect starting point for those new to the medium.

Re: Not the Dark Age -- the Dork Age!

...Not only does he know how to use his own powers to best effect' date=' but he'd know how to use [i']other[/i] supers' powers to best effect.

 

Which might make a character like that annoying, if he were to go around all the time saying to other heroes, "You know what would be a really great way to use your powers, is if you. . ."

 

Or something like that.

Re: Plainclothes Champions

(Disclaimer: Haven't read the book in question)

That covers virtually every contemporary-setting game that is likely to use HERO except the traditional supers game. Almost every game premise I've come up with would qualify - the hidden extended family with single powers, the Buffyesque supernatural game, the died-and-came-back-as-archetypes/godlings game, the Wild Cards variant game...

Probably the first thing to decide is whether the public at large know about the people with powers, whether you want to game the social upheaval when they do find out, or, if not, what incentives you can give your players (and NPCs) to keep their power use discreet.

The other big one is coming up with a reason for the PCs to stick together, since there isn't the built-in tradition of superpowered crimefighting teams. What goal do they all share, and what kinds of conflicts will that bring? It could be as simple as "escape from the men in black that want to find out how we tick".

Oh, also - usually these kinds of settings have one basic reason behind all the powers. The Wild Card virus, the family bloodline, mutation, the magic returns, alteration by benevolent kidnappers from the future, brain tumors let you manipulate "quantum"... Come up with one that gives a lot of wiggle room, but gives some structure (goldfish might/can't get powers, powers do/don't manifest in the womb, powers are/aren't contagious, etc.) - or come up with some reason that all these different sources of power just happen to become evident now, and haven't already changed society. I guess the underlying assumption I'm making is that a "Plainclothes Champions" game is intended to be more plausible than standard comic book universes.

Re: [Review] The Ultimate Energy Projector

I'm very sorry to say this, but I was very disappointed with this book. It's probably the most regretted games-related purchase I've ever made. Sooooo much space is taken up by repetitive boilerplate like this stuff:

"(SFX type 1)

(SFX type 2) has no special interaction with (SFX type 1); it neither gains nor loses against this special effect.

(SFX type 3)

(SFX type 3) has no special interaction with (SFX type 1); it neither gains nor loses against this special effect."

On and on for pages. It would have been simple to just list the pairs that do have interesting interactions - and avoid the appearance that the author was just padding a very thin book. At least separate out the elements/energies that, since they only exist in fiction, don't really have special interactions with much of anything.

The suffocation rules were pretty disappointing, too; overly complex, clunky, and clearly too expensive. Yes, you can build a spoon out of HERO Powers; that doesn't mean it's worth 35 points. Like the Time Stop power I remember Steve once wrote up, it reads more like an argument for "why the GM shouldn't let anyone take it" than an attempt to make a useful rule.

I understand why so many of the items in the book refer the reader to other HERO books for explanations, and that aspect didn't really bother me much - but it does add to the sense of getting ripped off when put in the context of the rest of the book.

I'm starting to think Steve's writing style is too dry and mechanical for my tastes, too. Precise, but not always easy to grasp - much like a legal document. Actually, yeah, this reminded me a little of the 401 (K) documentation that I was reading this morning.

There are some good nuggets in there, but I think this is gonna be the first game book I ever put up on ebay. Sorry to be so harsh.

Re: Am I the only one who ever noticed...

I'm more flabbergasted that there are TVs in Atlantis and Paradise Island... manufactured to resemble sea-fronds and stone columns, respectively. But, yeah, the dialogue there is pretty jarring. Not because it's slang, or even old alang, but because thse two characters never talk that way otherwise.

Re: What were the best Marvel titles of the 70's?

Thanks everybody for all the comics you've posted about thus far.

 

One question I've got concerning 70's comics at Marvel -- wasn't this also the heyday of writers having runs on an individual comic that lasted for literally years? I seem to recall that the writers on both Conan and Tomb of Dracula stayed with the title for a very long time indeed (something like what, 3-5 years?), as compared to the more modern 12-24 month runs.

 

Am I alone in thinking that can make a big difference in how good a story/product you get in the end, provided that the author is at least halfway competent?

*Sorry. Just finished reading the FF TPB for Civil War, from my local library. Can't seem to get that taste out of my mouth.

Re: Hero's List

Well' date=' in the Astro City collection [i']The Tarnished Angel[/i], we find out that one of the 'black hats' (minor hireling supervillains) who's already been killed*, the Chain, was gay and apparently had a loving relationship with his partner.

 

Myself, I don't know why showing a villain who happens to be gay as being nasty with his/her lovers would be odd: if they're violent and narcissistic enough to become supervillains, I can't help but to thin that they'd be bad news for anyone to get involved with.

Well, yes and no. The way super-villains are usually depicted, this is exactly what I meant. But I loved Tarnished Angel (didn't remember the minor gay character though) and Steeljack; it's probably my all-time favorite Astro City story. I'm not surprised it had exactly the kind of sympathetic depiction of a gay super-villain I was talking about.

Re: Jumper

I didn't realize 'til I poked around yesterday that Jumper (the novel) has two sequels: Reflex and Jumper: Griffin's Story. Looks like the latter explains the second jumper character in the movie.

Re: Jumper

Looks like he's got a lot of points in Teleport... I mean, look at the mass multiple he's got, teleporting semis around.

 

I'm almost always up for a superhero movie, although more than half of them suck.

Agreed about most superhero movies sucking - and about the fact that I'm usually willing to give them a try anyway. Despite what I said above, this will probably be more of a sci-fi movie than a superhero movie, though. In the book, he's sympathetic and at times heroic, but he doesn't exactly put on spandex to fight crime.

Re: Jumper

Oh, WOW! I haven't seen a trailer that made me this excited in ages! Clearly strongly based on the novel of the same name (the added second jumper character is the only significant change I can see), which is good because I loved the novel. Hermit: if it's as much like the book as I think, the protagonist does get in some super-heroing, though costumeless. And super-villainy, come to think of it.

Definite must-see for me. Thanks for the heads up!

Edit: here's a link to the book on Amazon: Jumper by Steven Gould

Re: Mad, Beautiful Ideas

My husband created a sort of superteam based on a news article about a stray cat who gave birth to her kittens inside the San Onofre nuclear power reactor.

 

The 4 kittens (named by the staff Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Neutron) developed intelligence and powers far beyond those of mortal cats (and reflecting the nature of the subatomic particles they were named after). He even designed a recurring enemy in the form of their mother (who had escaped capture by the plant staff), who was also powerful and intelligent, and resented the humans who had stolen her children away (the young cats have befriended them).

Re: Hero's List

Speaking as a gay guy myself, I have to agree with most of the posters here - though reading that list all the way through was starting to get to me in aggregate.

Gays didn't really start appearing in comics until we were pretty much into the Iron Age, when truly horrific things started happening to everyone, and depictions of corrupt "heroes" were popular. I missed most of the storylines he lists (not entirely unrelated to the last sentence), so I don't know the context a lot of this stuff happened in. Didn't even know a lot of these characters were gay! But bad stuff happens to all supers.

I agree with OddHat's take on the Watchmen, and I thought the guys in Young Avengers were done well. Northstar was always pretty much a jerk; I'd tend to believe his character was unpopular because of that more than because of his mostly closeted (as far as I read) sexuality. The astrally projecting gay guy killed by Wolvesbane was totally an accident, IIRC, and had nothing to do with him being gay.

There's contention online that Zach on NBC's Heroes was nixed because the actor (or possibly his agent) didn't want to play a gay character - possibly because of another role the actor was hoping to get. It might or might not have had anything to do with the show's creators or higher-ups, and it might just have been that the actor couldn't do both roles at once, and took the more lucrative one. There's a thread about it over on NGD somewhere.

I wouldn't expect to see many positive portrayals of homosexuality in villains because, well, they're the villains (though it could be done, and might be neat to see).

I'd never even heard of Freedom Ring, but with a name like that, I suspect the character wasn't popular because no one really likes characters who blatantly only exist to promote an agenda, however palatable the agenda. Wouldn't you be leery about a hero named Black Pride? Or the heroic, self-sacrificing exploits of Diversity Man? No one likes being preached to.

Okay, point is, I think the author of the list is reaching too hard. He's definitely describing some of that stuff from a skewed perspective based on what I've read, which makes me suspicious of the stuff that I haven't read.

On the other hand, some of the list is disturbing - the Bruce Banner in the YMCA thing, for instance, and the sheer number of weak or comedic examples. I don't doubt that some creators are grinding some pretty ugly axes, and some are apparently just laughably misinformed (Electro needed to find a shapeshifting prostitute? Has he been to NYC?). If someone were to argue that character deaths are proportionate with character popularity, and that openly gay characters tend not to be as popular, I wouldn't really disagree. But I don't see any conspiracy in it at this point. I've got pretty much the same attitude about the Women in Refrigerators list, actually. Disturbing in aggregate, but I'd like to see someone do a similar list for straight white males some day.

As another poster said, things are changing. I've lived long enough to appreciate just how much has changed for the better, faster than I ever would have believed. Support it. If you're not a comics writer, support it with your dollar, and maybe write some letters when you see something you dislike, and remember to write supportive letters when you see something you do like.

Edit: I'd normally be interested in his book Hero - I'm always up for novels about superheroes, and the gay protagonist would just be icing on the cake. But that list doesn't inspire confidence in the writer.

Re: STRONGHOLD -- What Do You Want To See?

I've solved the Lady Blue problem: She gets on the cover

 

I'd like to see "The Future of Stronghold." What does it look like in 2020? 2050? ...2525 (If man is still alive)?

 

Maybe an overall timeline. Nothing too complex, just a paragraph summary from every ten years or so, from inception through a hundred (or so) years in the future.

It's a CU-specific book, so a few years from now when everyone loses their powers so they can become cyberpunks, I doubt Stronghold will be maintained.

I'm resigned to the near-certainty that the stuff I'd most want to see will be excluded for much the same reason - it's a CU book, and the CU does have technology that can deal with powers. But I'd really love some exploration (maybe from the earliest days of Stronghold?) of what happens to the criminal justice system when the state of the art can't guarantee imprisonment.

It's just always bugged me that the same force field enhancement will work against the vibrating speedster, the girl who can turn herself into a stream of neutrinos, and the mystic who transforms into ectoplasm. I like SFX-driven countermeasures better than game mechanical ones - and most of my campaign world ideas don't include super-tech anyway.

But like I said, I don't expect to see anything about this in a book set in the CU. Even I don't think it would be appropriate (except maybe in a historical sidebar, wish wish). So, back to more constructive suggestions! Sorry for the tangent.

How about some overview of the process by which the techs determine which powers they need to plan for? Is it all just based on a bio-scan plus collecting anecdotal lists of what the villain has been observed to do in the past? What kinds of things will a full examination tell them, and what ace-in-the-hole powers might slip by?

What do they do with criminals whose powers they haven't figured out how to neutralize, and who have the right life support that hot sleep isn't an option?

Also, what about super-powered arrestees who haven't yet been convicted? Do they go to Stronghold to await trial? Are they put in with the regular population?

Re: Some help with a foe for a wind manipulator please

I thought nature abhors a vacuum. As does my dog.

Re: Your Character/Game Equation

Dolphin Ghandi + Superman

Re: writers block

Squish two things together that were never squished together before. Add more to taste. Aspects of other characters, bits from stories/movies/etc... even just random words from the dictionary. Then try to imagine what, say, "lentils", "plagiarism", "Orion", and the last scene from Revenge of the Jedi have to do with this character.

Speaking of which, does anyone know where to find a really big list of words that can all be used to describe people? Not a dictionary or thesaurus; a list that's already filtered. I must have planned to make one a dozen times, and wished for one a hundred times, but the project is a little daunting (meaning "sounds like it'd be a lot of not-very-interesting dogwork").

Re: Your Character/Game Equation

The Wizard of Oz Incorporated: Booster Gold + Urkel

Steve Urkel? Plus Booster Gold? Sweet Jesus. And your fellow players haven't killed you* yet?

*You, not the PC...

Re: Universal Translator and Cyphers

It would depend on the SFX... and there aren't a lot of SFX for a truly universal translator ability, that works on written stuff, that make sense. Akashic access or picking up psychic vibes left by the writer might let you decipher or even decode. "Super pattern recognition" probably should; after all that's how they break ciphers in real life. A limited UT "Only for languages in this vast database" obviously wouldn't. A spell of translation might go either way. I'm having a hard time reaching for other SFX; it's always been a tough one.

Re: Heroes

The build-the-nuke-effect posts reminded me that I'm wondering how the U.S. military people who are monitoring radar for missiles (or just air traffic control people) are going to react to Peter and Nathan's not-particularly-inconspicuous kaboom.

I'm sorta hoping the writers don't address the issue, actually (unusual though it is for me to root for plot-driven implausibilities and inconsistencies). I'd like to put off as long as possible the point where the whole deal about people with powers goes public. I can't see it going any way other than paranoia and/or celebrity status, almost certainly more the former, and I'm really, really tired of that stuff. Don't need another 4400, please.

Re: I have created a Regulation Act

[1] Definition of ‘Superhuman or Paranormal Ability’: A superhuman or paranormal ability is hereby defined as any power which produces more energy than can be explained by the caloric content of consumed food.

2. Artificial supers (that is equipment based supers) are more likely to be regulated by ATF' date=' FDA, etc. that is to say that the equipment itself will be regulated rather than the possessor/inventor thereof.[/quote']Agreed.

 

3. As far as defining superhuman' date=' I would prefer something along the lines of "1(a)Superhuman or Paranormal for the purposes of this Act shall be defined as any person or entity that demonstrates any behavior, action, or expression that is incompatible with accepted community standards for normal human capability."[/quote']I was thinking along I'll-know-it-when-I-see-it lines myself, but reading "incompatible with accepted community standards for normal human capability" in print just tripped some big red flags - I've got friends who'd qualify in many conservative communities just for the volume they can pack up where the sun don't shine, among other things. I can so see this being abused to harrass lots of non-superhuman "deviants"...