Alverant

I'm not sure if this is allowed, but I recently picked up a copy of Transformers Spotlight: Megatron (IDW) and I wanted to recommend it to GMs for a look inside the mind of a master villain. The good news is if you don't need to have a knowledge of the IDW Transformers continuity to know what is going on. (I had to stop collecting comics in Nov 09 due to being laid off and haven't started again.) In fact if you have a basic knowledge of the Megatron/Starscream relationship from the first two seasons of the 80s cartoon, you're good. Everything else is explained with minimal references to other issues making this issue very self-contained.

Summary: Three years earlier Megatron fell in battle and Starscream took over. He did such a bad job Shockwave and Soundwave had Megatron reformatted. Megatron talked with Starscream and tried to push his buttons but Starscream is silent in his own personal pity party. "I wonder if while running the legacy of the Decepticons into the DIRT, Starscream also succeeded in destroying HIMSELF." After a series of jibes Megatron finally provoked Starscream into attacking. After he realized what he did, he flees. Megatron thinks, "Maybe I SHOULD feel ashamed... but I really don't. Even without knowing what had occurred during my absence I awoke in a new body, bedecked with new and TERRIBLE modifications... and the FIRST thing I thought of as my transformation cog found its bite was: 'I cannot wait to beat the living spark out of Starscream.'"

Megaton now transforms into a stealth bomber and gave chase continuing to attack Starscream both verbally and literally. Starscream lashes out when reminded at how bad of a Decepticon leader he was until he confesses that he is angry at Megatron because Megatron "never had something he dreamt of crumble before his eyes". But Megatron has, it happened when he saw what happens when Starscream is in charge. He beats Starscream until he begs for death. Megatron refuses telling him that he spared him through all those betrayals to remind him to watch his back. But no more. Now it's because the Decepticons needed every bot they can get, even Starscream. He told him to use his self-hatred to fuel him to fight the Autobots.

The other Decipticons watched the fight and are inspired by Megatron's speech. "A million years to create them. A thousand days to destroy them. A hundred words to rebuild them. Everything is as it should be."

Quotes: Too many good quotes to list. They show Megatron to be the leader of an evil army he should be and not the cliche kind that builds mind control machines or weather controllers or armies of drones. This issue lays out an archtype for any warlord with an army of supervillains that can be good in any setting.

Re: Soundwave vs. Blaster

I follow the G1 continuity through the end of The Return of Optimus Prime and cut off before Rebirth. Rebirth is creepy.

Rebirth was supposed to have been 5 episodes but at the last minute had to be reedited down to 3. Plus it had bad animation (wrong colors, wrong characters, etc). The deux ex machina of Spike reversing the polarity of a rocket was the worst thing save for the creepy relationship between Daniel and Arcee. I think if it could have been kept at the intended length, some of the plot problems would not have happened. But ultimately they should have ended with Return of Optimus Prime or gone with a complete 4th season.

Re: Soundwave vs. Blaster

It wasnt the plot (not that it was good' date=' per se). It was the alien speech patterns, it was the equivalent of scratching a chalkboard for me.[/quote']

It used auto-tune before auto-tune was invented.

Re: Most PCs...

One thing I like about the Hero system is that it does depend on the maturity of the players and GM to know the limits and stick within them. Sure power frameworks can be abused but a good player won't do it and a good GM won't allow it.

I had a character with a VPP as his main power. The effect was that he had a bunch of components he could quickly assemble like Lego parts and the components themselves were modular. For example Plasma Generator + Flow controller = plasma gun. The flow controller could focus the beam (AP attack) and expand it to simulate an AE attack. The generator can make different kinds of plasma for Blast and RKA powers and could have a taser effect. Switch the Plasma Generator for a Gravatron Generator and you had pretty much the same thing but with a different special effect. The key was 1) knowing the rules 2) not being too greedy 3) being good enough at math to do the calculations in my head 4) having a cheat sheet listing how many DC a power can be with X advantages. I also agreed that if I couldn't allocate my powers in 5 seconds real time then I missed my turn. It kept things moving in combat.

Re: Soundwave vs. Blaster

Depends on which version of the comic. In the original Blaster had to make some tough choices when the Autobots had a change in leadership (Grimlock took over as a king complete with a crown). In the current comic, he's portrayed as a moral officer who's happy on the outside to raise spirits. Inside he knows how bad things really are. (Full disclosure, I stopped reading comics three years ago due to economics and the way Marvel was acting.)

IMHO in the movie the fact Blaster was able to get out part of his message was a bigger success than getting the whole thing out. On Moon Base One did Optimus hear, "The Decepticons are blitzing Autobot city! We're really taking a---" and think "He must have meant '--an easy time of things. Don't bother showing up unless you want to help clean up Decepti-parts."?

Re: Upstarts looking to go big time

Why would they want to make the league look bad? Are they corrupt? Pompous? Arrogant? I picture the charter team as either a training team for the league or someone to handle more mundane problems like bank robberies so the league can stop alien invasions. I would change things so the league supports the charter for a while until the charter builds up its hero cred. But if you want to give a reason to give them public funds, have them save the mayor or something dear to the mayor's heart because the league was either too busy (ideally with something trivial like a diplomatic function) or it was considered beneath them.

As for the man-whore, have him wake up one morning/afternoon with an dead underage girl in bed with him and see what happens.

Re: Question: What makes a team leader?

My group has two different superhero campaigns. Both started out with the same player being leader. In the first it was because she had the connections to the superhero community. In the second she had the connections to the city and she had the most public face (and richest so when the rest of us had a money issue she was there). As both campaigns continued someone else took over leadership in the first group who started as field leader due to combat skills and police contacts (and as players changed characters, the deputy leader was the only charter member who had the ability to lead).

So I'd put it up to the players mostly. Anyone can HAVE the skills a leader requires, but being a leader requires role playing. You either have it or you don't and a player needs to realize that.

Re: What elements should a great superhero setting contain?

A group of military-style trained vigilantes who consider themselves a deterrent against superheroes they think will try and take over the world "for its own good". They should have high (but not superadvanced) technology and be skilled and prepared enough to take on a team of heroes and have a good chance of winning. Nothing quite deflates a superhuman ego by being defeated by a bunch of weekend warriors.

Re: Public vs. Secret Identity

There is something else about this thread people have left out. The public/secret ID doesn't just apply to putting on the mask. It's about having a secret that will cause complications if the public knows about it. That's why it's now a Social Complication. I remember an Islamic NPC in one of the books who had "Secret ID: terrorist". In a Fantasy Hero campaign where magic is forbidden someone could have "Secret ID: mage". If you look at it that way someone can have multiple secret and public identities. For example everyone may know Tom Smith is Mighty Man - hero to millions - but no one knows that Tom Smith is also a member of a secret society or that he was once a Viper agent before he got his powers. In this case the secret society would be worth maybe 5 points depending on the nature and public acceptance of the society and the ex-Viper agent would be worth 20 since if that came public it would shatter his heroic career and may even get him thrown in jail.

Re: Public vs. Secret Identity

I've always thought that superheroes had to take either a Code of the Hero' date=' or Protective of Innocents. Code vs. Killing would generally go with the Code of the Hero (as with Superman) but not necessarily (Captain America).[/quote']I have to disagree. Someone may become a superhero for a wide variety of reasons. In the campaigns I've played I explored the idea of what it means to be a hero by coming up with different reasons why someone would take the role of superhero. Actually that's a whole different thread. But what it comes to is motivation. A guy with powers may not be heroic but isn't evil either and figures that being a hero is just more practical. That way he won't be hated by the public (at least not as much as if he was a villain) and he's more likely to get help if he's in trouble. I had a mage who was trapped in this dimension become a heroine only because it was the best way to convince Earth's other mages to help her get home. Another example is that if a hero whose powers are slowly killing him will have public sympathy and people lining up to help. A villain in that same situation only gets people lining up offering to play organ music.

Re: Evil

The soldier in the field is not enacting his own plans for his own enrichment' date=' but those of his nation, as given to him through his chain of command.[/quote']

Who's to say a soldier can't do both? You do your duty well and you get promoted with all the benefits that come with a higher rank. That's tangible enrichment. There's also emotional enrichment of defending your home.

Would you argue that war is not evil? It's just that sometimes it presents a lesser evil than the alternative (and sometimes it just seems to).

I would argue that you're asking the wrong kind of question. War isn't a person who makes a choice. War isn't even a thing, it's an action. You might as well as, "Is war happy?" because it makes as much sense.

Re: Evil

I would have thought the actual existence of angels would render any discussions about who had the One True Faith pretty much moot' date=' to be honest.[/quote']

Not necessarily. Have the angels seen their "boss" or were they created by a different One True Faith and fed a false story of their origins. I know of two characters in the Champions universe that believe they are mutants when they were actually manufactured by Telios for example. And how do you know they are really angels and not a shape shifting demon stirring up trouble?

 

Nope, proving which one is the One True Faith is going to take a lot more than that.

Re: Evil

Yes, the problem of defining evil gets a bit cloudy when you're threatened if you're definition differs from someone who has the bad habit of killing people for not worshiping him. (Is it me or does "flaming swords" sound like a euphemism for for a VD?)

Re: Possible City of Heroes campaign

I think you can take the setting and NPCs and convert THAT into a Hero system setting, but trying to simulate the computer game itself is a doomed project. A computer game and a PnP game are just too different. The computer game has faster combat and no real skills for the characters and the PnP game has a greater emphasis on actual role playing.

But you know, that's OK. Once you accept you can't translate one to the other there's more you can do with it. You can go at your own pace, customize the content for your players, etc. So I would do that, write up the setting and decide what needs to stay and what should go. For example the zones are there mostly because the servers need them, since you don't you can do away with the war walls. In the beginning I wouldn't even write up the major heroes/villains since they're not necessary save for a deux ex machina. Instead I'd make Hero versions of the Skulls, Hellions, Clockwork, etc and adapt an existing story arc just to get your feet wet and see how it works out. You don't want to overbuild in case the campaign doesn't work out.

As for players who want to use their CoH characters and archtypes, well that's going to be tough. Best to avoid trying IMHO. At most I'd say to take the character concept then adapt it for the Hero system. Some things just don't work in PnP games. I'm going to use TP Foe as an example but making Hero versions of some powers has been discussed in other threads. The problem is that a power anyone can get early on can be hundreds of active points and would be a one-trick pony for the character.

I would be interested in such a campaign if you run it though.

Re: Evil

I think the question of evil depends on the situation and the society (both of the people involved and the people observing). In the real world, nobody really thinks of themselves as evil. Everyone has a justification for what they do even if it doesn't make sense or isn't accepted by other people. We (as humans) are also more willing to not label something as evil if it's one of "us" doing it. For example if you ask someone if sending wild animals to maul some people who teased your bald friend is evil I think most people would say that it was. The point out that it was the Christian deity doing that act (2 Kings 2:24) and many people would change their minds and suddenly mauling of people becomes good and moral. You don't even need to involve religion, everyone has an excuse for their actions.

I think trying to set absolutes for what is good and evil is a futile pursuit since there could be some set of circumstances where an "evil" action would wind up being "good" and vise versa.

Re: Evil

Dean Shomshak in The Ultimate Mystic made an interesting observation about Abrahamic angels as described in older text sources. While some' date=' such as "angels of mercy," may be pacifistic and nurturing, angels of battle, punishment, or death are anything but. While undeniably "good" in that they are unswerving in their devotion to duty, justice, and morality, they can also be aggressive, violent, and ruthless in the performance of their duties. There's no grey in their conception of right and wrong, and they have little sympathy or tolerance for human frailties and shortcomings. It would be easy to get on the bad side of one, and the result if you did could be as unpleasant as running afoul of a demon.[/quote']

I take issue with the "undeniably good" description because it assumes their version of right and wrong is a valid definition. For example if you were a member of a non-Abrahamic religion one of these "good" angels would attack you for not worshiping their false god. That would make the angels evil because they are suppressing the One True Faith.

Re: Evil

Evil is recognizing the harm dome to others in an effort to obtain one's desires' date=' and being okay with (or entertained by) that. "So long as it's not me it's happening to it isn't important".[/quote']

So a soldier who shoots the enemy is evil?! He/She recognizes the pain being inflicted on others to obtain the desire of protecting their country and that's OK with them.

 

Sorry, I'm not buying it.

Re: Evil

One of the most interesting RPG experiences I have heard of (I wasn't in the game) was one where the PCs as a group decided the least evil option remaining to them was the destruction of the world (and this was the annihilation of the planet and all that was on it, not "just" the downfall of civilization). It was a fantasy world wherein, apparently, the supernatural evil powers were on the verge of winning, but it was not (at least initially) a crapsack world. The PCs were, in their own minds, following the right course of action by the standards set out for them by supernatural good powers they followed. The GM (from whom I heard the story) considers this the highlight of his RPG career. I don't know the full story of how and why the PCs made this decision; I would interested to know their opinions of the game and how it ended.

 

In the absence of supernatural evil-by-definition entities, of course, the act of annihilating the world is unmistakably an evil act.

Maybe. Maybe not. I remember "Manifold Space" by Stephan Baxter in which the protagonist deliberately triggers the end of this universe. However as this sphere of annihilation spreads and reduces everything to the ground quantum state it creates countless trillions of NEW universes in its wake. We also find out the alternative was that humanity would continue the unwinnable fight against entropy until existence becomes static without the ability to change .... ever (it goes to far into the future that to express it in years you need exponents of exponents). So you have the choice, sacrifice this universe to create more or face an eternity of reruns. Which would you choose?

I'm building a mentalist and I'd like to give him the ability to know what a target's EGO score is like how martial artists can tell the skill level of a challenger. Would this fall under a detect power or Analyze skill? I'd like to use Detect with Discriminatory if that's allowed by the rules. Or would this be abusive as such a detect would reveal if someone is exceptionally strong willed (ie a noteworthy NPC)?

Re: Superman Averts World War II?

There is a problem with this' date=' though. The Pulp/Golden Age model is socially very blind in many respects. Racism is just the most obvious example. A "cool" setting can be a nightmare to live in. Personally, I don't really want to get into the details of how race/gender/whatever intersect with society in my fantasy worlds (superheroes being fantasy, of course), nor am I particularly comfortable with creating a world that is actually worse than our current reality. So I guess I will just have to pretend that's not what's happening.[/quote']Well WWII did influence social norms. More women became employed. Antisemitism fell out of fashion. The GI bill helped many racial minorities get a college education. It paved the way for equal rights in the 60s.

 

Taking WWII out of history would have left the modern world radically different and in many ways worse.

Re: Superman Averts World War II?

6. WW2 postponed for 5 years in Europe...

While I do think WWII was inevitable with Germany demanding vengeance for their defeat and all that, would Hitler still have been in charge or would he have been replaced by someone else. Say someone who knew their treaty with the USSR was useful for the time being and delay breaking it until their victory in Europe was set instead of just starting a two front war. United Staters have a tendency to forget the Soviets inflected more damage to the Nazis than we did and the war would have probably been lost (or at least extended) without them.

Re: Superman Averts World War II?

It could certainly put a stop into germans plans.

The question is, is the stop enough to lead to a different Cold War?

One in wich Russia/Germany/Japan are one front?

One in wich the rest of Europe joins with America and China as counter-front?

Re: Angels on Earth - plot ideas needed

What sort of angels are we talking about? They can be found in multiple religions. For instance there are Valkyries, angels who escort warriors to the afterlife; reapers angels of death, gods that serve as messangers, etc. Angels are supernatural agents of a deity so they're not just limited to western religions. An avatar of a Hindu god could be considered an angel too. Since they are agents, they have to follow orders and (presumably) have another angel above them.

Re: Take a Teammate to a Movie

I will admit' date=' it's a bit creepy the number of posters who are adding "and my character would try to score with her!"[/quote']Yes it is, but it would be in character in the character I'm talking about. A 500 year old mage is one thing, but a teenager in his prime would be fitting (though not appropriate).

Re: Take a Teammate to a Movie

I doubt she is a gal for the first date. Esepcailly not her first date ever.