transmetahuman

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

Re: Signs your Champions GM is now (fill in the blank) And any love affairs will lead to tragedy. Falling in love is an automatic 20 point Disad...

Re: Heroes for HERO? If Sylar can use multiple acquired powers simultaneously at full strength (which we have no evidence for or against, yet), then neither a multipower nor (reasonable) VPP are gonna be adequate - he has a GM fiat power to add gobs of xp whenever he does whatever he does with those brains. If he can only use one at a time, you're still going to run into trouble when he acquires an ability that's worth more points than whatever he'd gotten before, unless you start him off with as big a VPP pool as the most powerful other meta (if the GM even knows what that will be). But I'm betting he ends up being able to use all his stuff simultaneously - it makes him more badass, and we all know that's what the kids go for these days. And, who knows, maybe every time he acquires a new ability, he's gaining some mental disads (I still think it has something to do with his "how things work" power, imposing "brain wave patterns" or some such comic book silliness on his own brain - though how he can "see" them without hospital-level diagnostic tools in person, but not through skulls, is another question). If so, it's even possible that these disads might pay for new slots on a multipower, in which case it might be cool to use an MP rather than a VPP. Probably the only ways to stat him up this far into the show, are: 1) Assume he can only use one at a time, and use a huge cosmic VPP with an "only for prepared powers" limitation. This means knowing the point cost of everyone's powers, or at least knowing that no one else will ever get a power bigger than x points. Or assuming that he doesn't necessarily get full use of stolen powers that are bigger than his VPP. 2) Assume he can use them simultaneously, and give him a VPP big enough to fit every power on earth at once... ...which is kind of weird and wasteful (besides staggeringly expensive), since he wouldn't be changing the pool out at all except when acquiring a new ability. Most of the pool would never be used. 3) Just GM fiat the xp whenever he gets a new one.

Re: Height & weight ratios The whole point of finding someone with the build you want and scaling it up, is that the proportions in all three dimensions will be the same when you scale the height up. The 12' tall guy's feet, fingers, nose, bones, etc. will be twice as long, wide and thick as his 6' tall model's feet, etc. Whether or not that build is realistic at that height is irrelevant to a superhero game, because you're starting off with the decision that that is his build. If you want a realistic 12' tall guy's weight , base it on a really skinny normal guy.

Re: Heroes for HERO? I hope so. Adding an actual magical sword in would open a whole new can of worms on an already crowded plate. But I think you're right, and of course you're right about us not knowing how Sylar does what he does. I was sure he ate those brains (I made a character for a story just like that, except it involved a magical ritual), up until they had the episode which focused on him. Now... I'm not even confident the writers know.

Re: Heroes for HERO? Seems to be the best way to do it. He seemed to have some kind of physical defenses - "you know that (gun) wouldn't hurt me" (to paraphrase). Since we don't know whether he can only use one "special ability" at a time, or just hasn't had a need to yet, I'd at least put the passive defenses outside the MP. Even his basic inborn ability, the way he "knows how things work", I can't really figure out. A super-duper Detect with Analyze, I guess, but we don't know what kind of information he gets from it, or what its limits are (except he apparently can't do it through an intact skull).

Re: Heroes for HERO? I would hold off on Peter's (and Nikki/Jessica's) abilities for a bit; we still don't know how much about how they work. That goes double for the "precognitive dreams" - we don't know if it's a second power, indication that he can hold onto Isaac's longer than he thinks, some other outside influence (maybe Indian dream kid, or whoever/whatever is bringing them all together, or his future self mimicking an as-yet-unknown power set), or just the result of eating nachos before bedtime.

Re: The New Mutants and The Hellions From what I remember, it was a combination of things: The aggressively spawning mutant spin-off books and the crossover storylines that asked you to buy a dozen books you normally wouldn't, mainly. Plots that made less sense or changed the feel of a book (or main characters) drastically (Siege Perilous, Australia, etc)... I think the worship of Badassitude that is my main complaint with the Iron Age started around here, too. Damn Wolverine to hell - not because I dislike him, but because he spawned so many bad imitators. I might be mixing different periods together, though; I didn't stop buying cold turkey. Point is, it's not the Iron Age storytelling (there are other threads to complain about that), it was mainly the marketing strategies and drop in writing quality for me.

Re: Heroes for HERO? That's the way I'd do it; I was just saying there is a disadvantage to it being always on in this case.

Re: Heroes for HERO? Shaft: Good catch with the now ex-rival. Susano: Considering how much difficulty that's given her in her attempt to keep it a secret (her brother for example), her inability to turn it off is certainly mildly disadvantageous. I don't know if it's worth even -1/4, though. BoloOfEarth: I like how Shaft did it with a "Secret" Psych limit.

Re: Heroes for HERO? I don't think she gets the reputation you give her -

Re: The New Mutants and The Hellions Seems like there are an awful lot of us that stopped reading the mutant comics at around the same time. Interesting. I just started reading them again when I found the local library had a ton of the TPB collections.

Re: Heroes for HERO? Yeah, but it wasn't listed as a "Watched"; her father's was. A full point Hunted should be for an enemy trying to do you harm. Even her father is doing her harm, while at the same time trying to protect her. All the "Save the cheerleader" folks are just trying to find her, not uncover her secrets, and they get full points? There are an implausible number of coincidences bringing the heroes/mutants* together - (minor spoilers ahoy!) Hiro's friend Ando just happens to be a fan of Nikki/Jessica, out of all the strippers on the internet. Peter just happens to be caregiver for the father of Isaac's girlfriend/dealer, who falls in love with them both. Hiro just happens to go into two different restaurants on the same trip - the diner where he sees Nathan fly, and another that just happens to employ another of the mutants (the eidetic memory waitress). Not to mention all the Linderman connections. Nathan (or was it Peter? Or both? Details are getting fuzzy) gets into a cab driven by Mohinder. Peter just happens to be where he can see invisible guy. Heck, NYC itself seems to have the same place in the metahuman scheme of things that it has in the Marvel Universe (with Las Vegas coming in second place). So, it's not just Hiro, though he does seem to run into more of them accidentally. I wouldn't be surprised if some force is bringing them together. Though I wouldn't be surprised if it's just Plot Necessity, either. *The heroes' powers are explicitly the result of a mutation, yet the show firmly avoids using that word. I'm reminded of the not-zombies in the movie 28 Days Later...

Re: Some Thoughts On Rules

Re: Expanded Unoffical Bibliography for the Ultimate Mentalist. I don't know what's in Ultimate Mentalist, but: Books Pstalemate by Lester Del Ray Ubik by Philip K. Dick The Uplift series by David Brin The 2,300+ Perry Rhodan stories by "various" Almost everything by Spider Robinson has some telepathy in it: The Callahan's series The Stardance series Telempath Mindkiller, Time Pressure, and Lifehouse

Re: The New Mutants and The Hellions Wikipedia links: New Mutants Prodigy (not "Prodigal") Surge Wind Dancer Wallflower Icarus Elixir Hellions Hellion Rockslide Mercury Tag Dust Wither Edit: Oops, didn't see Question Man's links there. Dammit. Plus, thanks to his link, I found the missing ones; might as well put them in.

Re: Heroes for HERO? Good catch, I missed that. I agree. If anything it's a good reputation, plus a minor "rival" type Hunted from the "other" cheerleader, when, uhm, when it applied. And you can't get Hunted points for people who are hunting you to help save you, that's just silly. You could increase the frequency of appearance of her dad's Watched, though. D.L., Nathan, and Matt should have pretty straightforward power builds, too; anyone want to take a shot?

Re: Signs your Champions GM is now (fill in the blank) Sounds like somebody's in LOOOOOOOOOVE... But, yeah, I sure do wish those game sessions came more often... sigh.

Re: Height & weight ratios That double the height, triple the weight thing is definitely wrong. Mass goes up with volume, and volume goes up with the cube of any linear measurement. Put a brick on the ground, then stack identical bricks to give it twice its height, width, and depth. You're using eight bricks. For 3x, you'll be using 27 bricks. Granted, humans don't scale as neatly as that (anyone have any 3' tall kids with adult proportions they could weigh for us?), but it'll still be a lot closer than 2x = 3x.

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

Re: Heroes for HERO?

Re: Signs your Champions GM is now (fill in the blank) Signs your Champions GM is now Spider Robinson: 1. You find that you can tell with 100% certainty whether an NPC is a good guy or a villain with a simple test. If they're Beatles fans, punsters, or know obscure blues lyrics, you can trust them absolutely - and in fact are expected to. 2. Your team mentalist starts losing xp anytime he acts in a less than saintly manner, because "telepaths just wouldn't be like that, man". 3. NPCs make plans or deductions based on blithe assumptions, because so-and-so "must be true", ignoring other perfectly reasonable explanations that also fit available evidence... and of course are proved correct.

Re: WWYCD: Egg-olution!

Re: Need an 8th PC character concept and some other help To do that power set without simplifying it to the broadest strokes, the build might end up pretty complicated for a beginning player. And if you do simplify it, he might wonder why he can't do all those neat tricks with chemistry that Firestorm/Element Lad/Metamorpho do. That's a fun one for the advanced class, though.

Re: Some Thoughts On Rules Though I'm with everyone else in that I've never felt the urgent need for more than Personal or Universal on a Focus, I have speculated about stuff in between, like "can only be used by people who know the secret handshake/Parachronic Gravitometrics skill/chi technique that takes years of practice". I'm curious about those levels of granularity M&M chose. Can you go into them, without the game-specific mechanics?