Alverant

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies? Jesus called himself the "King of Kings" and as Monty Python pointed out, you don't vote for kings. Sounds pretty political to me.

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

Re: You are unappreciated when . . . - When your team's corporate sponsor only agrees to keep funding you if you agree to wear his competitor's logo. - You do the "I am Iron Man" reveal at a press conference and the only reporter who's willing to tell the world is the homeless guy who rants about how alien mind control rays have taken over the city's pigeon population.

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies? So you're saying the golden rule, something many other previous religions had, was copied into the 10 commandants along side of times when it's OK to break them? Like how it's OK to kill children if a king won't do something. As for going beyond that, I'm not seeing it. Jesus said you have to love him more than your own family. That doesn't sound very "golden rule"-ish to me.

Re: Need help coming up with motive for Zeus in modern times. It's been a while since I read Greek mythology, but I don't remember Zeus being that evil. OK he was a jerk who tended to punish people for things beyond their control. Yeah he was spiteful and petty but so were many gods of many cultures in that time period. As a twist, make this new Zeus not that powerful when compared to modern superheroes and science. He would be powerful enough to inspire legends in an earlier, less developed time, but his power didn't grow with the mythology. Sure, a lightning bolt and causing a flood in a (by today's standards) a small city is impressive but it's nothing we haven't dealt with before. More importantly humanity is starting to take control over its own destiny and defying the gods. If Zeus says, "I shall flood New Orleans." you can bet even ordinary people are going to try and keep that from happening. And you know, I bet they'll succeed and comment how Katrina was far worse. And won't he be surprised when a squad of Army Rangers climbs up Mt.Olympus to give a demonstration on how being immune to arrows and spears doesn't protect you as much as you think from sniper rifles and LAW rockets. Besides, with how lustful Zeus is suppose to be all you'd have to do is give him an internet connection and a credit card and he won't bug anyone for some time.

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies? Except behavioral studies in animals shows that morality is completely natural and largely inherent. An experiment where a rat was shown that pushing a bar for a food pellet caused actual harm to another rat, nearly starved itself rather than cause pain to another. Watching monkeys and apes in the wild has shown that they understand concepts of fairness, trade, and the difference between sharing and stealing. The reason why revenge feels good is that once it was a method of self-regulation before humans were populous enough form tribes and codify rules. It was a way to enforce what was and was not acceptable behavior. You don't need faith to know what's wrong and right. But it's faith that often trumps what we know what's wrong and right.

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies? A good and true quote. If you think about it, the christian god is pretty communistic. Both don't tolerate anyone worshiping anyone but them. Both claim absolute power and ownership over everything, including your life. Both have a secret police spying on their citizens. Both claim to do horrendous acts "for your own good". Both send anyone who disagrees with official dogma off to a horrible place never to be seen again. Both claim to treat all their people equality when both have shown favoritism to those loyal. And so on and on

Re: Lists of items or artifacts Wait, so Excalibur is mythological but the Spear of Destiny is not?? Most artifacts do have mythologies built around them. But when you're looking, I recommend looking beyond European history. The Japanese has a sword called Kusanagi. In China there was a man who built a chair with rockets (done on Mythbusters) in addition to being the first civilizations to use gunpowder and paper money, Incas and Aztecs were pretty sophisticated civilizations and have some interesting items (like the crystal skulls). In Vietnam history there's a sword called Thuận Thiên used by a king to liberate his country from China. I'm not quite sure what you're looking for though.

Re: The Third Wave Do they completely loose their powers at the end of the wave and do they gain their powers back if they're still alive when the next one starts? Knowing you'll only have your powers for 10 years would keep the PCs from buying powers like LS:Immunity to Aging (unless they get to keep it after everyone else looses theirs). I can see having a Wolverine-like character who has regeneration abilities making him unaging. Between waves he ages and heals slowly but during a wave he doesn't age and heals quickly. A teen super during the second wave would be about 50 when the third wave hits so having him/her appear to become a mentor would be feasible. Also is there a point difference between the supers of each wave? (Like how in Golden Age Champions you have fewer points than modern day.) Is the effect localized to Earth? For example if you put a super in a space capsule (like the Apollo moon missions) would they become normal if they're far enough away from Earth?

Re: The Third Wave It would change the motivations of characters and they're players. By the third wave it would be predictable enough to plan for. Plots would have to be completed in the 10 year period. Heroes would know their time is limited and prepare for "retirement" early. I can see corrupt heroes who keep some of the loot the bad guys stole for a rainy day. A villain would kidnap scientists or mages and force them to open a portal to another dimension where they can keep their abilities. And maybe the heroes are in on it since they don't want to loose their powers too. Also the law would have a chance to catch up and America would be preparing for the 4th wave in 2043.

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies? If cost is a factor, then maybe they can hold a fund raiser. Depending on how disliked the group was, people outside the group would be willing to pay to get rid of them.

Re: Alternate Timeline Campaign I'm curious as to how this would affect the different societies. Did the world wars happen and if not did things like the Red Scare, sexual revolution, civil rights marches, etc still happen? What would be the effects on religious beliefs with not only the existence of aliens proven, but they were defeated by something many people considered demonic possession? Would other nations have risen to power? Would alien science have disproven notions like eugenics?

Re: KAs vs CvK One thing I would consider is how the public in your game world deals with killing. Does it matter more if Mr.Strong kills a Viper agent or someone like the Monster? In the real world when a police officer kills a gangbanger it does make the news (sometimes) and but unless innocent people were hurt or there was doubt about the guilt of the gangbanger or something similar, it's quickly forgotten about and things return to normal. Some would even praise the officer for his/her actions. Except for the (pardon the phrase) die-hard anti-death penalty crowd the truth is not many people are upset if the person who died is bad. I would imagine that in a super-powered world, a hero killing a villain in combat (especially a murderous villain) would not be too frowned upon unless innocent people were hurt or it looked like a flat out execution. Killing an villain's agent (being a normal person with a uniform and blaster) would be treated more severely because that would emphasize the fear normals have of the superpowered. I interpreted the CaK to be a measure of how bad things have to get before the character does something that could kill or permanently hurt the target. Keep in mind the superpowered can kill more easily than a normal person so they should have a different scale. It would be easy for a hero to kill a squad of agents and claim he/she was defending others. But that won't stop the public backlash because the public knows the deaths could have been avoid. The hero would be seen as a bully. But is there a difference between a hero who won't kill out of fear of a public outcry and a hero who won't kill because they believe in not killing?

Re: Is Defender the new Seeker?

Re: Is Defender the new Seeker?

Re: Commando Hero It wasn't the lethality I minded. It was the characters. They were an untrustworthy bunch who only knew each other by their vigilante IDs. That made it difficult to make story arcs for each character since they would be handling each one solo even though the others characters could help IF they knew each other. It was like the Heroes TV show in the first part of the first season. All these story lines running around with little connecting each one. Even if they did bump into each other it was mostly through GM fiat and felt like the proverbial "two ships passing in the night". Two characters were at the same location at the same time but neither knew the other was a teammate. The other big problem was that I like my protagonists to actually be decent people deep down. If they saw a house on fire, they would be the type to check to see if everyone got out, or at least call 911. Some of the characters here would start roasting hot dogs (that's assuming they didn't have something to do with starting the fire in the first place). Some of the players like the "game" part in RPG and use their characters to cause mischief because after all, "it's only a game". There's nothing wrong that. I've done it a few times myself, but it didn't sit right with me. It felt like I was being a jerk just for the sake of being a jerk. I prefer the "roleplaying" part of RPG where the character acts more like a real person and makes decisions based on what they would do instead of what the player wants them to do. But the campaign has to be fun for them too. So I have to figure out how to make everyone happy. (I do have the Until sourcebook. But some players don't like the UN. I could adapt it to Primus but they're a joke in other campaigns as a bunch of lazy thugs who show up after the fight is over and they've finished their donuts.)

Re: Commando Hero Hindsight is 20-20. But that's what was used in the Viper sourcebook. It's a feeble excuse, but that's what happened.

Re: Commando Hero No, not stupid. I remember the comics. (The cartoon was fun but that's to DC:A what DC:A is to regular DC. I mean, no one ever got hurt. Bad guys surrendered when you pointed a stun laser gun at them.) I loved how they concluded the continuity with their WWIII story line. But I'm still trying to get a grip in what I want for a DC campaign (if I want to run a DC campaign at all) then I have to adjust it so it's something all the players want to play too. That's proving to be pretty hard given their personalities and RPG styles. I know I prefer the "role playing" part in an RPG and some of the players prefer the "game" part. I'm looking for someone who ran an actual "Commando Hero" campaign to let me know how it turned out.

Has anyone ever tried running a Commando Hero campaign? I tried running Dark Champions before but some of the characters were TOO dark (read anti-social and some were worse than the goons they killed). DC:A didn't feel right either. I'm trying to find a balance between the two. Commando Hero sounded like it might fit, but all I found was a segment in the 5th ed Viper book. So any experiences and suggestions would be helpful.

Re: Anime series as a campaign If you do a Cross-Worlds campaign (as mentioned in Fantasy Hero), you have to include El-Hazard. It's a bit date and only the first OVA and Wanderers are about the only parts of it worth watching. But it does the genre well. You have a wider variety of characters (at least when compared to other anime of that type) and they fit into different roles. One even becomes the villain with the happiest evil laugh you ever heard. The setting itself is more than your typical Tolkin and is rather unique. (Personally I hate the generic fantasy. Sure it's easy to set up but it doesn't make me care about what happens.)

Re: What are some things , in terms of storytelling/plot, that are "off limits" in yo I was in a fantasy hero campaign with a female character. Preceeding a barroom brawl, an orc/ogre/troll/whatever thing threatened to rape my character. That pretty much killed my interest (which already suffering from a serious case of bland-itis) in that campaign. There are some things that are off limits. Rape, abuse, vicious sadism, things along those lines. Clean up the language and have it happen off camera to generic NPCs. Don't even think of doing it to the PCs or NPCs close to them (for example don't have a character's mother be the victim of a serial rapist/murder who likes to torture his victims and you certainly don't have the character discover the body). These games are suppose to be fun and when you step over the player's boundaries it stops being fun. The "line" should be the tamest line in the group. If one player loves the Saw movie series and another player gets queasy watching CSI, stick to the second player's limits.

Re: What Do I Throw At Them? I would try to think of a problem that can't be solved by turning the antagonist into a pile of goo. For instance you can have two brothers preparing to go to war over who inherits their father's kingdom. Neither brother is evil and each will have attributes that different party members find appealing (in other words, the PCs will be on different sides). Use GM's fait to keep the players from flipping a coin and blasting one brother (divine protection is always a good mc guffin). You could also create a world with different physical laws reducing some powers to more reasonable levels. My first thought was a world controlled by Ego (that stat is used for everything from determining CV to how much you can lift) but your not-jedi would run rampant. Alternatively you can find their psych lims and push their buttons. Is there a gambling addict? Make a world where every purchase requires a "double or nothing" bet before you play (if you want a $10 item, you have to flip a coin to see if you get it for free or have to pay $20). And remember, there's always someone bigger than you. When everything else fails there's always the "Dr.Destroyer cloned himself a thousand times" world. If that doesn't soil some tights, just add a few more zeroes to the number.

Re: The Golden Apple Snark-E is a Disney maintenance robot from the future accidentally sent back in time to 2001 where he became the working model for a certain CGI maintenance robot. Technically he is Disney property and being a free-willed individual resents his status. Seeing himself as a slave, he engages in passive-aggressive resistance and is eager for a chance to hurt people. (He's considered a hero because he's only allowed to hurt Bad Guys.) As such he would make all the information because he thinks it would cause the most damage to the most people. He would also be very very rude to Evangeline since the Church is (in his time) one of the most vocal opponents of robot rights claiming that since they are made by Man they cannot have a soul and therefore unworthy of being treated as anything more than objects. OTOH if someone were to offer him a way to travel back in time again but to 1917 Chicagoland, Snark-E would be VERY interested.

Re: Make a Green Lantern Oath