Alverant

The thread about "single origin campaigns" gave me an idea about exploring the idea of single enemy campaigns where most (or all) of the opponents you face are different aspects of the same organization. Has anyone ever tried it? I have two ideas. Viper, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule to world. (Sorry folks, had to say it.) It started during WWII by a cabal of business men to exploit every dark facet of humanity, every tragedy, do anything for money and power. Viper: naturally the main bulk of their forces used pretty much as written in the book sans their snake god. Demon: a group of Satanists who is the mystic branch of Viper seeks magical power in the form of artifacts and basic spells to do what technology cannot. There is nothing above the level of Morbanes and the Edomites are not part of Demon ... yet. Mechanon: a AI developed by Viper who has mostly gotten out of their control. Mechanon was originally programmed to "Wipe out all resistance" but a glitch changed it to "Wipe out all existence". Viper still has enough control to keep it away from their bases and agenda most of the time. Dr.Destroyer: the immortal secret head and founder of Viper. Leaving Nazi Germany early in WWII he feels he is the apex of humanity and it is his right to rule over all. Demon, the gravest threat to this world and beyond by summoning the Edomites to this universe. Viper: much smaller than the standard Champions universe. Their purpose is to spread misery and despair while acting as a cover for Demon's real purpose. It is also a "dumping ground" for people who are evil but just aren't the type of people Demon would recruit or have no magic potential. Demon: used as written in their book. Mechanon: a summoned golem from the technosphere who has become infected by the Edomite taint and as much of a Demon enemy and threat as a rival and ally. Both seek the same goal, it's a question of who will receive the most power when it is accomplished. Dr.Destroyer: a former member of the Inner Circle (replaced by Pandemonium) who left when he decided that he should rule and be worshiped by humanity instead of Luther Black. But unlike Black, Destroyer does not want to share the power with the other Kings of Edom. He wishes to keep them imprisoned and gain power for himself. This Destroyer is more technology based but uses some magic because he will not allow himself to be beholden to higher (or lower) entities instead he goes the route of using non-sentient natural/supernatural forces.

Re: City of Heroes

Re: Best and worst jobs for Superheroes Good jobs: gambler, no usual hours and you can sometimes dig up interesting criminal facts on the job college student, this can work for a few years before the 'rents start pressuring you to be serious and quit goofing off (unaware that you've saved the world a few times) not needing a job, good for magical creature PCs who can return to their home dimension and be with their own kind inventor, you can make your own crime fighting tools and patent whatever doesn't use super technology Bad jobs: politician, more likely to be villain or considered a villain depending on party affiliation and the media spotlight is always on you lawyer, you'd make money by defending the very criminals you blasted and collecting huge fees from them; but that wouldn't make you a hero viper agent, "Jenkins, why did you run away right before Power Man showed up?" "I saw him coming and didn't want to get my skull caved in." "And why didn't you warn the rest of us? We could have laid a trap."

Re: Every Myth Is Not True

Re: Every Myth Is Not True

Re: What Age are we in now In light of recent events (and in no way to disrespect the dead), are they going to show the body in the new Batman movie or have another guy play the Joker in a sequel?

Re: What Age are we in now

Re: What Age are we in now The iron age has gone on for a few decades, longer than the other ages. Considering everything that has changed, I've tried to spread the concept of a Steel Age. The Steel Age is marked by more realistic motivations. In the Steel Age, everyone has their own agenda, your allies are only allies of convenience and you may work against them one day when your agendas conflict. There's less idealism and more ideology. For example there's the Civil War (no matter how horribly done) the heroes acted in accordance to their own motivations instead of working together.

Re: The Fatherless Five

Re: What were: the best Marvel titles of the 80's? Transformers, GI Joe, and Ninja High School!

Re: What were the best Superhero comics of the 90's? I loved Darkhawk. It was an attempt to bring classic hero motivations into the iron age. (And they printed my letter in issue #23.) I started reading New Warriors because of it. I'd rate the two of them as being some of the best superhero comic titles created in the 90s. I say "created" so I won't be accused of discounting groups like the Avengers, Justice League, Fantastic Four, Angst - I mean X-men , etc.

Re: Why should I care?

Re: Why should I care? I have to disagree slightly. My characters have a little philosophical bent. It has more to do with WHY a character is a hero not IS a character a hero. I like exploring the different reasons why a sane person would risk a horrible painful death or worse every day of their life. In the "you hear an explosion" plot hook, my first character is trying to establish a new style/school of magic. Doing heroic acts gives credibility to his vision. (Magic is very much stuck in tradition and doesn't take to new ideas very easily.) Another one of my characters would help as soon as he gets his armor on. Originally he was a thrill seeker (and still is) but learned the importance of helping innocents. My third character would help because his goody-two-shoes ancestor spirit wouldn't let it go if he didn't. He just wants this ghost to SHUT UP! Three heroes, same action, different reasons. The GM needs to find out what motivates each character and work with that. But motivating the player is a different story.

Re: Why should I care? I can't speak for the player, but I to use a simile a reformed criminal doesn't always become a cop. A reformed demon just stops doing bad things and doesn't necessarily mean he starts doing good things. In this case I'd get the GM to arrange for an angel to visit the reformed demon with a message like "If you really want to convince us you've reformed, you would help those people for no gain apart from our good favor."

Re: Has anybody played "Spirit of the Century" A friend ran a demo game one night. It was OK. It's more freestyle than Hero but lacks some detail. (good or bad, your choice) Personally I didn't like the premise of the game, but nothings preventing a GM from altering the setting. The setting is that certain people born in the year 1900 (or any other century year) will live for 100+ years (long enough to discover and train the next generation of centur-ions) and have great adventures, control the fate of the world, etc.

Earlier today I saw a thread called "Star System Generation" in the Fantasy forum. The author put it in the wrong spot, but it got me thinking about fantasy solar systems. For example Dragonlance's Krynn has 3 moons of good, evil, and neutrality. In the 80s cartoon Visionaries there were 3 suns when aligned once every 1000 years altered the laws of physics. In the PS Lunar series, the setting was a moon orbiting a devastated planet. So I'm wondering how common are non-Earth/non-standard solar systems (one sun, one moon, planets far enough away to be considered "wandering stars") in fantasy campaigns and do their differences affect the campaign world (phases of certain moons affecting magic, etc). Do people use them as plot hooks or "you're not on Earth anymore" decorations?

Re: Sell me on "Galactic Champions"? In Cosmic heroes, the main difference is scope. "Saving the world" doesn't mean saving a large chunk of human civilization, it means keeping the planet itself intact. In a way it's like Pulp hero in that you have larger than life characters traveling to exotic locations. Except now it's larger than superhero lives and the exotic locations are different planets. A cosmic character with fire based powers don't have "ordinary" fire, they have stellar fire, elemental fire, primal energy, or mystic fire from a dimension you need a second mouth with 3 tongues to say correctly. The "normal" aliens in a standard superhero game are common place and could be 5th generation native born Earthlings. Police officers in a Cosmic campaign would be considered superheroes in other campaigns. A squad of SWAT cosmic cops could give Dr.Destroyer an impressive fight and have a good chance of winning. The appeal of being in a cosmic level campaign is like being in a superhero campaign except everything is bigger from the characters to the stakes.

Re: Songs that inspire(d) you to make a Champions Character It was in either Ninja High School or Gold Digger, but I remember this villain named Spelvis. He was an Elvis impersonator who gained magical powers. If I was more familiar with Elvis songs, I wanted to make him into a villain. As it stands I can only think of a Transform attack called, "You Ain't Nothin' but a Hound Dog".

Re: Songs that inspire(d) you to make a Champions Character It was in either Ninja High School or Gold Digger, but I remember this villain named Spelvis. He was an Elvis impersonator who gained magical powers. If I was more familiar with Elvis songs, I wanted to make him into a villain. As it stands I can only think of a Transform attack called, "You Ain't Nothin' but a Hound Dog".

Re: Songs that inspire(d) you to make a Champions Character On Dr.Demento there was this song called "Let's Blow Up the Tow Truck" by Krypton. I made Krypton into an armored hero who's suit had a base powered armor unit modified with parts from an old tow truck (those free rolling wheels put under a car's front end and a launchable hook and cable system). I also gave him anti-tech missiles that did between 2d6 and 5d6 RKA depending on how technologically advanced the target was (human, even mutated human like Grond) did 2d6, basic technology (kevlar armor) 3d6, modern/near future technology (most vehicles, basic Viper armor) 4d6, advanced technology (supervillain armor, alien armor, any powered armor) 5d6. I'm also considering a "hero" based on Tom Smith's "Rocket Ride". The song is about the golden age of sci-fi movies where the villains had a sense of honor and fair play. The character is a villain from one of these pulp sci-fi worlds. He, his archenemy the hero Dan Steel, and Steel's girlfriend Penny Pureheart wind up in the Champions universe and get a dose of life there. Penny makes the comment that compared to the villains there, my character is a virtual hero! An accident happened on the way back forcing my character to stay behind to insure Dan and Penny returned, because only one person is allowed to kill Dan! Now stranded in a gritier world, he takes Penny's comment seriously and became a hero even though his behavior hasn't changed much. He still wants to rule the world and kill Dan, but he wants his subjects to respect him of their own free will and admit he is superior.

Re: Fairytale Princess Template Skills: Animal Handling (small, furry and feathered animals) Animal Handling (horses, unicorns, pegasui) Riding (horses, unicorns, pegasui) Seduction (if optional rules are used, it's to gain friendship and flirting with Prince Charming and not sexual purposes) Talents: Luck 2d6 Disadvantages Unluck 1d6 Chaste, 0pts the advantage of being "pure" is countered by being a key component of "virgin" sacrifices (plus at 0 pts, it's easy to remove)

Re: Pulparize It! I just saw this thread and I'm not going to look through 28 pages so sorry if I'm repeating anything. Starship Troopers: Take off the powered armor (like in the movie) or change it to one-man tanks. Heinlein described the Bugs as communism perfected and it's close to the right time period though printed a few decades after the Pulp era ended. The Federation itself would need some changes to make it more American, like removing the requirement to becoming a Citizen. A-Team: already Pulp, too easy. Transformers: it may do better converting it to 50s Red Scare (instead of your neighbor being a commie spy, your neighbor's new car could be a commie spy). A team of adventurers raced a matching team of Nazis to a crashed UFO. Both reached it from different sides at the same time. One of the Nazi's accidentally activated the UFO's anti-intruder defenses. Both groups were nearly killed before the UFO's electronic brain, Teletran-1, turned them off. Teletran-1 had the mission to protect life, not kill it. To save everyone's life it created sophisticated life support machines and permanently merged it with each person (not knowing who was good and who was evil). The original inhabitants of the UFO were about 30 feet tall (which is why the defenses were so lethal) so the new bodies had the same height. Each body had the ability to change into a vehicle to blend into the local population and keep the UFO and its technology secret. The Nazi's, with their new power, broke from the 3rd Reich and began accumulating the power and support necessary to usurp control and conquer the world. They called themselves Decepiticons because deception is part of their nature. The adventurers, called Autobots since they all changed into automobiles, vowed to stop them. Both sides, for the same reason but different motivations, want to keep the UFO secret. The larger than life heroes fight inhuman evil to protect our world.

Re: Have a Holly Jolly Security Breach Metromancer: "Dear gods! I didn't mean it!" and turn on the TV. It wouldn't matter what station, they would all be reporting the news of the beheading of the President and his master. He won't even touch the gift. Smokin Ace: Wonders how you'd wrap the respect of his fellow teammates. Divine Wind: Unwraps Keira Knightley, Salma Hayek, Kate Winslet, and 7 of 9 and tries to sneak them into his room.

In a threat in the Champions forum, I commented that it's better to create a "random alien race" chart than use Galactic Champions for a list of alien races. Whether or not you agree with my opinion, does anyone know if there actually IS a "random alien race generator" for hero like the Quick Superhuman Generator in the Champions genre book? If there isn't, is there a market for one?

Re: Champions aliens: best source? Personally I don't think GC is a good source for playable alien races. The only race that with a decent amount of write up and description is the mindless fungi one. The rest of the aliens in the book is like watching a Star Wars movie (in that most races are 2-dimensional and there just so not all the main characters are human and don't have to have great acting skills). Alien Wars, Star Hero, Worlds of Empire etc do a much better job actually describing the races which include things like history and culture. Creating a "build your own random alien race" chart is just as good as using GC. Maybe better.