Midas

Re: ONE power: what do you do with it?

I'd go with mind control, fully invis effects. I'm aware that I would probably use it the same way earlier posters have used summon (slavishly loyal cat girls etc). I like to think I have enough of a conscience not to abuse the power *too* much.

It would be mostly used for "don't bother me!" And "I'm invisible!" And yes, I would prolly do the usual sophomoric things that invisible people do, at least at first.

The problem would be if 80 points would give me enough MC to use for the most desired ability: Ordering bureaucrats to get off their coffee break and serve the client. After all, we're talking about "strongly opposed" backed up by a couple of Total psych crocks (Do no more work than anybody else here, and Don't get the supervisor's attention).

Midas

Re: Best superhero titles of the 70's

Am I the only one who remembers a Lee-Kirby title that was totally revamped in 1975? I believe the name was X-Men.

They killed off Jean Grey in the early '70s and I stopped reading Marvel. Has anything happened since then?

(I don't think I was into collecting anything in the 70's. I vaguely remember scrounging up old Vampirellas...)

Midas

Re: Herbalism

Here's what is in my file library, any of these look familiar? If not, I can post the ones you lack.

GUIDE TO HERBS FOR RPG's

 

3rd Edition

By Shaun Hately

--==(AMBULANT IN FABULAM)==--

 

(also matching ones for poisons and drugs)

THE GUIDE TO HERBS FOR RPGs

5th Edition

By Shaun Hately

--==(AMBULANT IN FABULAM)==--

also have this:

Rolemaster HERBLIST.TXT

Which seems to be a text copy of a RM database

herbs RM.doc

A Doc file that seems to have all the RM herbs listed, in tabular form.

That said, I've been skulling on a very low magic kind of herbalism school, based somewhat on the Rolemaster system.

Basically, the would be wizard/alchemist/herbalist buys a straight PS herbalism, and a complimentary KS. This allows him to prepare an herbal remedy, and to recognize an unusual herb some adventurer is trying to sell.

The most important limit to the potion is focus: If he has the proper herb, and made his RSR in preparing it, it works.

Most would be very weak, like: "Aloe Vera: Applied fresh directly to the wound, adds 1 to REC for healing burns."

OTOH: "Athelas: Brewed as tea, served to target, will suppress Transformation normal -> slave wraith."

Anyboudy else done something similar?

Midas

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

I've always loved the theme song for Thunder Road, with Robert Michum. Finally watched it the other night. Interesting relic from the late '50's. I recommend seeing it, and checking out the comments on IMDb.

According to the IMDb, it is a fairly accurate look at 'shine running in the -then contemporary- '50's.

What struck me most was how *unstylelized* it was. You can either say it had no plot (it did) or that it took many story telling cliches and upended them. For example there are a couple of "this will be important later" plot points: Except they aren't, they are just color.

The characters were not "from central casting" either, like the "almost as good" character. He is almost as good a driver as the protagonist, in love with the girl who can't see him exist, lost as she is for the lead character, etc. In a standard script, he would be the one who either became the antagonist, or became a mole for them. Nope: He has an important function, but that isn't it.

I'll avoid more spoilers, on the off chance this movie is on anyone's to watch list. I'll give an alert for people who like to watch for glitches, though.

In the first action scene, right at the beginning of the movie, The Whipporwill tries to do a bootlegger reverse. The camera was still rolling when the car lost control and flipped, but the next camera view has an unscathed car come out of the dustcloud and shoot past the Feds.

It didn't harm my suspension of disbelief, but YMMV.

Midas

Re: The Lucky Charm Gang?!

Fun idea! Here are my first impressions:

 

pink hearts - Sexy assassin w/ poisoned heart shaped shuriken

yellow moons - Well, it has to be a flash attack now...

orange stars - Hollywood pretty boy style brick

green clovers - plant based entangler

blue diamonds - android, crystalline skin

Purple horseshoes - brutish martial brick with massive iron boots

red balloons - Bouncing Boy homage

rainbows - desolid force wall projector, phantasm form shimmers like a rainbow

 

These are very quick ideas, but i think something could be made of them...

Pink Heart: A Cupid clone, shoots arrows with heart shaped points, Mind Control powers.

Yellow Moon: > Sailor Moon clone

Orange Star: (Something to do with type K stars would be too obscure...) I kinda like the pretty boy brick idea.

Green Clover: The group's luck. Besides having 4d6 luck, AID (CSL usable on others, essentially the combat luck talent) & the combat luck talent for himself, to keep him from just standing around during a fight; a plant based EC (force wall & entangle).

Blue Diamond: I'd make this one the team brick, with a light MP on the side. Has a "cussedness" talent (immune to interrogation).

Purple Horseshoe: Group Speedster, OIF.

Red Balloon: Dismissed Soviet Hero. Slow flight, lots of glide, shrinking, stealth expert.

Rainbow: Desol, combat teleport (have you ever tried to catch a rainbow?), images.

Pot O'Gold: Filthy rich and well connected, scads of contacts, virtually endless supply of followers (1 million 50 pointers; incl attorneys, police, mercenaries, scientists -mad or otherwise- administrators, you name it, he owns a few). a gadget pool.

Note: This group is intended to be a light hearted encounter. The entire group has not only a CvK, but a code vs Violence. ie, if the mind control, images, flash, entangle, etc doesn't work, then they will fight only as necessary to escape.

Midas

Re: Bewitched

 

I did get a chance to talk to Bill Asher about the series...we did touch on the series as a Gay allagory. Samantha as an Absolutely Fabulous creature, with abilities, taste and sensitivities far beyound the norm, choosing to live in the closet and pretending to be normal, while her secret side constantly temps her. He said that was not a conscious decision at the time, but perhapse he and some of the actors had put more of themselves into the show than they realize at the time.

 

Damn Hoss, how do you remember all that detail? One time I vaguely remembered a kids show I watched as a toddler, about a mermaid and a diver, finally remembered it was called "Diver Dan" and you posted a short synopsys!

NEway, to your point, I never realized that Bewitched could have been a gay allagory. I did catch on, as soon as puberty hit, that I Dream of Jeannie was a D&S piece.

Would anyone write up Jeannie's powers as different from Samantha's? (In my case no, both shows had very similar -plot driven- magic).

And why are you spending so much time discussing an obscure actress, Pandora Spocks?

Midas

Re: Genres HERO GAMES may want to avoid (intended to be humorous)

Godwin's law HERO (where the PCs are the survivors of a thread that has apocalyptically degenerated into flame wars and accusations of Nazi-ism)

Lovecraft hero (as opposed to Cthulhu Hero)

Where the characters must finely parse the difference between racism and racialism.

Re: Horror Hero: What would you have liked to have seen?

And an evil liberal arts professor. In Koontz' world everybody in academia is evil. Especially the ones in the liberal arts.

Aha! Koontz writes non fiction then?

Midas

(I know, I know. Bashing the professoriat belongs in NGD)

Re: Lost World critter

If anyone is thinking about a "Lost World" style adventure, with the heroes stumbling into some place where dinosaurs still exist, here's a creature you might want to add to the mix:

 

Biplane Dinosaur

 

Have fun.

Ah yes, interesting critter.

It would make an intersting divergence from the trope giant pteranodon riders.

Midas

Re: Horror Hero: What would you have liked to have seen?

Here's the outline I've been noodling on:

 

3a. Archetypes

- Spooky Alphabet Agent (Mulder/Scully)

- Cop on the Beat

- Scientist / Inventor

- Private Investigator

- Occult Investigator

- Monster looking for Redemption (Angel)

 

I'd add three more closely related archetypes.

- The Lovecraftian Hero: An armchair intellectual, with no interest in adventuring, being dragooned into saving the world.

- The Koontzian Hero: A general failure at life, but has the strange collection of skills that make him perfect for defeating a Weird Menace.

- And the over arching Clueless Nobody: For no reason anyone can understand, this unremarkable character has been noticed by a Weird Menace, and is now in mortal danger.

Midas

Re: Top 10 List of the Lamest Superheroes of All Times

According to one story, his very saliva is acidic.

 

The Legion was questioning an armored opponent. The guy being questioned was bragging that they couldn't hurt him in his armor, so do your worst.

 

They brought MEL in. He licked a hole in the guy's faceplate and grinned.

 

The guy talked.

Umm....First base?

I haven't heard of MEL since about 1970, when he was all angsty because he was a "poor" superhero living in a slum with an abusive father. It is a given that something has changed since then.

But really, this would put a *serious* crimp in his social life.

Midas

Re: Fantasy Hero Problems and advantages

That's always an issue, but it's much less work to make those changes than to come up with a detailed scenario from scratch.

 

The other thing I was thinking about is that published adventures give the added value of shared experience. Look at the D&D adventure nostalgia thread in the General Roleplaying forum--all us Hero gamers trading stories about how we got through Tomb of Horrors or the G1-3 Giants series. And we trade stories, too, about Island of Dr. Destroyer. Why can't Fantasy Hero have this?

Re your first point, yahbut it reaches a point of deminishing returns, where you have to scrap/refit such a portion of the scenario that it is better to just take the floor plan and forget trying to fit the plot into your world.

I have an old module, The Clockwork Mage, at hand. I like the module (told ya I had a quirky sense of humor) but converting it to Hero would be a nightmare.

First, regardless of how well it fit into your campaign, it is of the old "deathmarch" style, where every fifty feet, a bit of attrition takes place. Not that much of a problem in DnD, where a 1d6 random attack can be shrugged off, but the entire manor house would have to be explored in combat time in Hero.

Now, after you've updated the module, you have to decide if you are going to allow any or all of the following into your campaign:

A villian/patron with a dragon for a follower.

The concept of assembly lines and mass production.

Robots from "Room Brooms" up to Data/Rommie level capabilities.

Successful characters getting their own personal Andromeda for solving the module.

Constantly open gates to all over the continent.

Just off the top of my head.

Yes, you could just not use the module, but we're going on the assumption that you were going to try it in the first place.

Or you could throw out everything except the floor plan and say "cool manor house," or go slightly better and say "OK, The Clockwork Mage's manor is repelling all visitors, who wants to go see if anything has happened to him?"

Or you could do a line by line edit...

Re nostalgia: The "Viper mini-campaign" springs to mind. That construction site sure got blown up, a lot.

Midas

Re: Fantasy Hero Problems and advantages

If you're playing in a campaign where the goal is to kill monsters and steal their magical shinies, you're correct -- Chaos Blades is inappropriate for the campaign. The GM has a responsibility to tell the player that that character concept is inappropriate for this game.

 

But not all fantasy games are standard dungeon crawls (and nor should they be).

My error, oh Lepus Profundus. There should have been a segue line between the paragraph and the one you are quoting.

FH: player: "I want to run a magician."

GM: "OK, um...what kind? What spells do you think you should have? Do you want them with a no armor limitation?" etc.

 

 

The current edition is some better. The book lists twelve potential backgrounds for magic campaigns, but they are half way sketches. The problem is that the ref doesn't know quite what to do with things. Take for example the Highlander inspired "Chaos Blades" setting. "You're born with magic. You may take a bunch of rivalries and hunteds, and the psy limit "hunting." Your powers are intrinsic, no foci. Have fun."

 

 

The problem is, the more you develop a campaign, the harder it is to fit into someone else's pre existing world. Chaos Blades in a good example. Suppose the adventure is a standard dungeon crawl. The designer stocks it with plenty of goodies in the loot pile: A magic sword and armor, a ring, a chemeleon cloak, and a few scrolls. All well and good, right? But remember in Chaos Blades, there are no magic foci. The best you can get is an outstanding example of smithcraft: like a master worked sword. The rest of the goodies have to be replaced by something useful, but not magical. The ring might be a signet ring, the scrolls important letters or contracts, the cloak...um...a ninja suit?

 

Midas

The point I was making in the last paragraph is that sometimes an otherwise very good scenario can't be used in a specific campaign because it doesn't fit within the design. For a different example, say you were running Chaos Blades, and got ahold of The Hobbit, written up as a quest adventure. Orcrist, Glamdring, Sting, and the Mithril shirt could be statted as none magical examples of mythic level smithcraft. The Arkenstone (which had specific powers anyway) could be just a really cool shiny bauble. But that ring of invisibility? Well there we have a problem.

But getting back to the point of character creation, yes, the ref has a responsibility to give the player an outline of what a magician is in the campaign, but herosystem requires a mutual "sculpting" session between the player and the ref: "OK, I've explained to you the basis of magic, now you explain to me how you concieve your character within that framework."

It's quite a bit more involved than "OK, I rolled a three for my hitpoints, and I want magic missile for my first spell."

Midas

Re: Fantasy Hero Problems and advantages

Problems

 

2. Magic system that never quite fits precisely into the rules, if you want a standard D20 conversion, and no good way to classify/categorize spells. First levels spells from d20 costs all over the map in their HERO system iteration.

 

To me there are two ways of looking at this point, which is the one that has caused most of the discussion of this thread.

either you are saying

1) The magic system isn't DnD.

or

2) As compared to DnD, Hero magicians are much harder to write up.

DnD player: "I want to run a magician."

GM: "Fine, four sided hit dice, no armor, one spell per day."

FH: player: "I want to run a magician."

GM: "OK, um...what kind? What spells do you think you should have? Do you want them with a no armor limitation?" etc.

I take the meaning to be the later, and I agree.

1st edition FH was Champions lite: "A fireball? OK, 6d6eb, 6 END." It most reminded me of Pendragon or Chivalry and Sorcery, a generic mideval setting, without the "knightly virtues" of Pendragon, or "No one gave you permission to think" tone of C&S. But that's it: You wanted a spell or magic item, the player or ref designed it, viola!.

As I recall the first scenario: "OK, you've been hired by Baron A to foil a plot by Baron B. BTW, did I mention that Baron B is an evil sorceror?"

2nd Ed went with the Western Shores campaign, something like Warhammer Fantasy without the griminess. Magic was divided into "colleges" where spells were grouped by a commen element (College of Mentalism, College of Animal Control...) sort of an obverse to the straightjacket of DnD magery: DnD, you got unrelated spells assigned by level. 2E FH you get spells assigned by element.

GM: OK, your arch enemy uses his knowledge of Air magic to fly away.

PC: Hey, I'm college of Animal Magic! I have to turn into a bird first! How does he do that?

GM: It's an Air magic thing.

The current edition is some better. The book lists twelve potential backgrounds for magic campaigns, but they are half way sketches. The problem is that the ref doesn't know quite what to do with things. Take for example the Highlander inspired "Chaos Blades" setting. "You're born with magic. You may take a bunch of rivalries and hunteds, and the psy limit "hunting." Your powers are intrinsic, no foci. Have fun."

The problem is, the more you develop a campaign, the harder it is to fit into someone else's pre existing world. Chaos Blades in a good example. Suppose the adventure is a standard dungeon crawl. The designer stocks it with plenty of goodies in the loot pile: A magic sword and armor, a ring, a chemeleon cloak, and a few scrolls. All well and good, right? But remember in Chaos Blades, there are no magic foci. The best you can get is an outstanding example of smithcraft: like a master worked sword. The rest of the goodies have to be replaced by something useful, but not magical. The ring might be a signet ring, the scrolls important letters or contracts, the cloak...um...a ninja suit?

I don't know the answer either, just asking the question.

Midas

Re: Gargoyles HERO

Small Tangent

 

As part of my centurians there is a character named Gargoyle, inspired by Goliath, all because of the cape look, seriously, that was so cool I HAD to make a character

 

He has three forms

 

Human

 

Gargoyle (A brick with wings basicaly, OIHID)

 

Stone Statue (+15/+15 Hardened Armor, Visible, 0 DCV Concentration through 0ut, Not aware, OIHID + 1d6 Healing basicaly same lims linked to Armor)

Interesting character.

0 DCV concentration is a good way to simulate the stone sleep.

To drift the thread in another direction: Way back in 1st edition Champs, along with Marksman, Flare, et al, was a character called "Gargoyle." The writer kept the character when the comics line spun off, so we know next to nothing about the character. Anybody know anything about that original champions character?

Midas

Re: Gargoyles HERO

At the risk of going even more off topic' date=' I'm a fan of the Vulture, but that's because I mostly know him as a cheap flyer in HeroClix. I've never read a story with him in it in the comics. I vaguely recall him appearing in one of the old 60s Filmation(?) cartoons, I think, but that could be a vague memory of a traumatic flashback from a past life. [/quote']

 

Wanna start a lamest villian thread in the champions section?

 

NEway, he was an early sparing partner of Spidey, when Spiderman was only slightly stronger and faster than human norm. Vulure was a bank robber who had OIF (foulable) wings, the Glide power, a few levels with movement (Spidey didn't want to face him in the open because the vulture had the advantage), and a gun. by coincidence, old spidermans have been a freeby with the local sunday paper.

 

That's it. He soared around and stuck up targets of opportunity.

 

Midas

Re: Cthulhu-esque suggestions?

First thing to decide (though I think you already have): Is this a horror or an action campaign?

While I love Lovecraft, I really don't care for Chaosium's interpretation, so I'll prolly slip into rant mode here.

Here is a sig from a Delta Green campaign: "Come here and die fool, while you can still do it quickly!" IOW, should the characters carry a mercy bullet for themselves, on the assumption that they are dead men walking, just waiting for the right time?

NEway, that said, in the original Call of Cthulhu, there was a Cthuloid yuckoid in the LA swamps, that a cult had to summon before Great Cthulhu could be roused. AFAIK, no one has done anything with that critter.

Midas

For those of you wishing you had thought of it first, how about a campaign based on the Indian Ocean quake of two years ago?

Re: Gargoyles HERO

For the record' date=' I never thought for a second that you were dissing "Handwavium", Midas. I like the name (though I like unobtanium even better).[/quote']

 

Thanks.

 

Blacksword does have a point, I was harping on the question. His response was a fair one, "what's your point Midas?" So I gave a fair answer.

 

It just occured to me, If The Vulture was a problem, what did I think of Submariner's method of flight?

 

Classic Golden Age: Handwavium by the shovel full. And there is nothing wrong with that, if you accept it as part of the story. Almost any story or scenario you care to name takes a certain amount of it for the meta story: "Just go with it. Otherwise the story won't work." For example, in City of Stone, NYC had thousands of security cameras at the time. Did no one think to check what had gone on during that night?

 

I think Handwavium and Unobtanium are mentioned on Wiki. Handwavium refers either to a dismissive flick of the wrist or an Obi-wan hypnotic pass "This is a perfectly normal event, nothing unusual at all." Unobtanium refers to something that would be prefectly possible if some impossible item were on hand. For ex: FTL would be perfectly possible, if you had some kind of energy that has no mass. "But..."

 

AFAIK, Obscurantium (an unusual application of some obscure scientific principle) is my own, but I prolly saw the word somewhere.

 

Midas

Re: Gargoyles HERO

I loved Gargoyles, it had some of the best characters ever done on TV, be it animated or live-action.

 

Especially David Xanatos, who would make an amazing villain (or even a hero! -- hey, why not?) in a Champs campaign. Rich, brilliant, well-connected, a skilled fighter and of course there's the battlearmor, and he has a great motivation: he wants to be immortal. That and he had some moral standards and lines he just wouldn't cross. A truly great villain by any standards.

I liked his obvious joy in life. DZ always seemed to be having fun, even in the grimmest situations. As far as the hero/villian question goes: He flips a coin each week: "Who am I taking for a role model this week? Bruce or Lex?"

Demona was my preferred villian. There was a list of, mostly humorous, character's worst nightmares (Like Elisa's mother -voice by Nichele Nichols- being only able to say "Hailing Frequencies Open"). But Demona's was "None -her life is a nightmare." Of all the stuff that happened to her, think about just this one subplot: She waited a thousand years to see Goliath again, and he up and left her for Elisa. She moved in with Thailog, who had Delilah on the side. And that was just two years out of 1000!

Midas

Re: Gargoyles HERO

Why is handwavium a roadblock? And why continually dismiss everything as handwavium, the argument is confusing at best since we are discussing modern fantasy. Do you ask mages in your games how they cast fireballs or magic missile? None of your superheroes fly?

 

Tisn't. Personally, I try to use Handwavium and Unobtanium as little as possible, but that is a personal preference.

There are three levels of handwavium use.

If the setup is: "It just works that way." What you call modern fantasy.

Or you can use handwavium/unobtainium alloys for a pulp feel: "They stay aloft using the eighth ray, which has anti-gravitational properties."

Or you can go with a handwavium/obscurantium alloy: "Donno. The laws of physics say what you see is impossible. Who are you gonna believe, your science text book or your own eyes? BTW, make a physics roll to see if you can come up with a hypothesis."

What I'm getting at is that it depends a lot on the campaign background. Like the campaign setup rules in the core rules that give a list of 1 to 5 scales on realism/theaticality etc, I'm suggesting a that the ref needs to set out before hand, perhaps on a 1 to5 scale, how much real world science matters. Not at all through if you can't justify it in some scientific theory, it won't happen. Obviously, it would be very difficult to run a champions or Dark Champions with a "five" setting: But OTOH, I find a "one" campaign to be disorientating. If physical laws are only suggestions, how can one make a rational deduction?

Put it this way: Suppose you are a martial artist chasing a garg villian. You first find your "burglar," some guy in a weird reptile costume, with an eight foot wingspan. You chase him to the roof, where he jumps off and disappears. Flight? Teleport? Invisibility? Tunneling? Going with the wings, presume flight and a good stealth roll. Next time you catch up to him, he is too close to run away and disappear, and you close for melee. Wouldn't it be a good assumption that your opponent weighs almost nothing? Or else the wings wouldn't support him. Boy are you in for a surprise when you try a martial throw!

See, the default setting is "He has wings, therefore he can fly (GLIDE!), and he looks massive, so therefore he is." But some times this causes doubletakes.

The reason I am "picking" on Gargoyles is that I am familiar with the setting. I haven't read Marvel since they killed off Jean Gray (the first time), and could never get into the DC universe. (I gave up on AC when they went to $5 an issue )

I guess I could be going on about Marvel's Vulture for the same arguement. (It that green turkey still in Marvelverse? We were discussing the other day the lamest villian in comicdom, and Vulture won)

Midas

Re: Here Comes Santa Claus?

In the Powerpuff universe' date=' Santa can bestow superpowers. (He can also [i']take them away[/i], which is probably fortunate under the circumstances.) The downside is that he has a fairly poor security system, although that will presumably be remedied in future.

Do tell? could you summarize the plot?

Midas

Re: Here Comes Santa Claus?

I would not be surprised to learn that Quantum Santa's location and velocity cannot be known simultaneously. The act of observing one of these characteristics will unpredictably change the other.

I hadn't thought of the observation effect, good point!

I was considering the concept that, under quantum mechanics, events don't have to be done sequentially: like the theorhetical quantum computer that answer all yes/no switches at the same time.

This makes it even better!

Midas

PS: Thanks for the rep Robyn.

Re: Fantasy Rant

Interesting problem.

Are you talking "high fantasy" as in magic and/or high power magic are common (Like Jack Vance or Steven Brust), or "epic" like Tolkien or Jordan, where the Fate-of-the-World-Hangs-in-the-Balance?

I think the problem is that High Fantasy is a metagenre, really. You've been running mysteries and court intrigues, with fantasy trappings.

Say you want to run a HF campaign, with common utilitarian magic. So "OK all you PCs have the magic perk, and so do most NPCs." Now what? You don't want to run mysteries or court intrigues, how about a border war campaign? Having much less skullduggery than the norm. Make the players "rangers" on a contested border, too busy playing "Tag, you're a corpse!" with enemy rangers to worry about whre M'Lady's MacGuffin is. You'll prolly want to introduce espionage and treachery, but keep it minor.

Or a merchant campaign, a variant of original traveller. Magic requires some valuable substance (like oil in our world), and your characters can make their fortunes getting power christals from the Power Coast to Runeburg. Again there is a chance for trade secret espionage, and sabotage, but keep it to a minor plot point.

OTOH, if you would like to do an Epic campaign, DON'T look at Wheel of Time. Good series, but way too much court intrigue and diplomatic maneuvering. I'd try playing a fantasy boardgame. Then as you watch armies maneuver around the map, desperate quests for artifacts to turn the tide, and of course diplomatic overtures to powerful neutrals, you should wonder, "Now, how would I do that as an RPG campaign?"

Just a couple of ideas,

Midas

Re: Genres HERO GAMES may want to avoid (intended to be humorous)

Has-been HERO

Been-Done Hero

Never-Was Hero

Re: The Lost Room Hero

Ummm... well that would lead to four alternate versions of canon' date=' one which would have the objects being from another planet. Of course that will be the version that everybody hates, and be ignored in future sequels. [/quote']

 

As well as two TV series, a director's retcon of the Most-Hated-Movie-that-Does-Not-Exist, and an animated series. Each with a different canon.

 

Hopefully they won't be *that* slavish.

Midas