Lord Mhoram

Re: Other Super Hero RPGs as Sources

Re: Galactic Champions Ow. I thought Crooks was pretty average. I would suggest you look at the Algernon Files. It is a hero and villian collection for M&M (its a superlink print product) and it was written by (among others) Dave Mattingly. It is one of the best superhero supplements I have seen. Im my opinion (and a few others online over at the M&M boards) it stands head and shoulders over Crooks. And for those interested GC got a good review over at RPG.net.

Re: Question: Differences between Dark Champs 4th and 5th? Not to suck up to current ownership, but I second that. The holy trinity of HERO authors under the old guard were Allston, Bennie and Long. I am looking forward to the new DC. I was never a fan of dark street level supers, but I love to run action adventure stuff in the Die Hard/Lethal Weapon mode- so the new book is going to be much more up my ally than the old one.

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? There is the idea that find weakness hits all the locations, you see every weakspot, and then you hit which weak spot presents itself (i.e. the leg can be hit, so you hit the weakspot on the leg). Also it is the special effect of hit location. You don't fire and "whoops I was just shooting and hit the hand"; you are shooting, and the hand is the only target that you can actually hit (special effects wise), taking an opportunity to hit what is available. That is why the hit location penalties are so high, it's not the size of the target, it is the fact you have to get through thier combat defenses to get to that shot. I've used hit locations, sectional defense, and find weakness together in my FH game (albiet not very often) and I have never had an imersion disconnect or a "huh?" reaction to the combination, and never really saw a problem.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Less than 48 hours to the John Fogerty concert here in Utah. My mother (who lives in my upstairs) in the family Creedence/Fogerty fanatic and bought us tickets, so we are making a family outing of it. Friday night... cooolnesss.

Re: What is Evil? I have a tendancy to have Evil with capital E in my games, but I do usually have it defined fairly clearly. I like the lack of moral ambiguity that comes from having an absolute right and an absolute wrong- but I don't make the absolute wrong such a big list of things that it doesn't leave room for grey characters. Evil (with the big E) usually revolves around doing things that destroy freedom of will, or that ties into the power from supernatural Evil (such as demons/devils ect). In my spell lists, I have a number of spells that by thier very natures are Evil (zombification, raising demons or undead, mind enslavement). Buying one of these spells triggers the "Evil" clause in powers that only work vs Evil - the other bits to it are the "big two" evil creatures - Undead and Demons. So actions like slavery are a big "no" as well. On the other hand, evil (with the small e) every race and most individuals do a little bit, and the struggle is to follow your code not to do those things, and different races have different views of evil (as opposed to Evil which is an absolute concept). This minimalist absolute Evil allows me to have the totally evil demon/mage/undead for the characters to be totally good against (just like Kensei27, qualty of heroes depends on quality of villians) but it also allows the "done the wrong thing, sorta on the line goodguy" kind of dark hero, without them sliding into Evil (with a capital E).

Re: Goofy hero names that you still love Had a player with a powered armor character whos was half Iron Man half Mecha. The suit looked like a giant kitten (about the size of a VW bug). His name Phydeaux.

Re: "Super Heroes" vs. "Superheroes" Interesting observations. Snipping together pieces of your two descriptions above describe my champions games. I run mid to high point and power, with clear cut victories, but the primary focus in roleplaying is in personal intense story verging on soap opera. So my games are almost half and half. I read the Legion of superheroes more than anything else. These days when trying to desdribe my campaigns I tell them I am trying to feel like Astro City. Human stories with Superheroes, but where the superheroes are still very super and larger than life.

Re: European Enemies... Well.... in a sense. For the background of my PC Terminal Velocity the GM and I reworked Shrike (TV's mom) out to be a super (possibly mutant) whose speedster powers were "awakened" by her serinity training. After a short time she stopped being a superterrorist (being a mother could do that to a person).

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept? I mostly echo Doc Democracy, Yamo and Teflon Billy. In a world where there is objective absolute right and wrong/good and evil, and powers/gods/whathaveyou that influence/control races to be one or the other, a race can be an evil race, and the situation is not racist. If that race partakes of whatever the campaign defines as objective evil, than that race is evil, and there is not racism about it. It is objective fact.

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ... Mind Hunter by John E Douglas and it's followup Journy into Darkness. The autobiography of the man that could be said to have invented Criminal Profiling for the FBI (That is criminal profiling, not racial there.... ) Fascinating The Great Dying by Kenneth Hsu. An interesting look at evolution from a non darwinian apporach. Rather than species fighting for niches and slow evolution as most darwinists expound, he point to great cataclysms and rapid speciezation following, with (generally) whoever gets to the niche first, keeps it. The Big Bang Never Happened by Eric J Lerner. A expostion of the Plasma theory of universal evolution/creation. The theory itself, I don't know about (I used it in a champs game once) but the book is also a diatribe against the modern scientists, likening them to dark ages catholic priests holding on to a belief (the big bang) rather than even look at a new theory that fits observed evidence better than the previous... he's pretty bitter, but it is a fun read, and he makes some dead on points. Nemesis: The Death Star by Richard Muller. Again dunno if that theory is correct (that the sun has a companion star that causes periodic mass extinctions), but the book is as much about the thought behind and the inspiration the became the theory. Reading it is like making the discovery yourself... I've never seen a book about science bring the joy of putting together the clues, seeing new connections, figuring things out so well. The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. An almost poetic look at the creation of a new kind of computer. Connections by James Burke. This guy takes one event in history and traces things that it changes, and what that changes and so on (like dominoes tipping) showing how computers came from looms, and such. It makes you think about how one thing may affect another. It's a companion book to a PBS series. I've enjoyed most of Asimov's non fiction.. I generally like it better than his fiction.

Next Up Elves Next Up - Elves Physical Description: Elves are tall and willowy. They average hight is about six and half feet tall. They have a almost etheral look to them. The eyes are oversized and extermely intense. Hair tends to lighter shades- as far down as brown; there has never been a black haired Elf. Limbs are very thin, and fingers are very long. To a human thier dimension are “just offâ€. They have no hair except on thier heads, and tend towards high foreheads. Their lifespan is usually a millenia and a half. Racial Overview: Elves are a race in decline. They were the first to awaken in the world, and many have postulated that they have reached a racial ennui. They contemplate, study and understand before acting, but when they do act, it is with exteme force and power. Elves do not “take part†in the physical world, they are beyond it- ie they are generally not very naturlistic or materialistic. Physical things to them (even if stone or trees) are things that pass. Personality On the positive side, Elves are very stable and create strong relationships. If you have a friend in an Elf your family has a friend for centuries. They are not secretive with most knowledge they have, and are thoughtful people, rarely acting rashly. On the negative side, elves can be arrogent, and can hold grudges. The seek knowledge, sometimes going to far and falling into decadence or curruption seeking things. They do hold some knowledge as things that other races should not know, and hide it. They also can be staid, hesitant and withdrawn, and getting them to act when in this mode is most difficult. Char Base Str........8 Dex.......10 Con.......8 Bod.......8 Int.......15 Ego......13 Pre.......15 Com......12....................MAX PD................................8 ED................................8 Speed....Dex/10 +1..........4 Rec....Str/5 + Con/5........8 End....conx2 -6..............40 Stun.Str/2 + Con/2.........45 + Body -1 5 Stat Adjustments cost 5 Gliding 10" ground gliding-1/4, only match running-1/2, still leaves faint tracks -1/4 1 Perk: Increased Magical Power or Perk: Increased Spell power (can take both) 3 LS: Aging 1600 years 1 LS: Dimished Sleep Eight hours per week. 15 Total Cost to be an Elf

Re: A Race a day (sorta) First off, the Humans: HUMANS: Physical Description Humans stand on average five foot eight. They have a wide range of hair colors from a white/blond to total black. They live about 70 years on average. Racial Overview Humans are the most populated race on the planet. They have talent for just about any endevor, be it fighting, magic or anything in between. Trinkets are thought to originally be native human magic. Personality On the positve side humans can be very focused, becoming total master of an art faster than just about any race. They also have very high ideals for behaviour and life, although these ideals are almost seen as unatainable goals, and are used for living guidlines. There are more human saints than any other race. On the negative side humans can be petty, vicious, ill tempered and downright evil. More Evil mages have sprung from humans than any other race. They have those high ideals, but many spurn them, or having fallen from them, turn thier back, and become very evil. In general humans have a wider gamut of racial personality than most.

Re: A Race a day (sorta) Icky Double post

Re: A Race a day (sorta) Oh, a mechanical note. In these racial write ups, I have the char max being raised by as much as the beginning is raised (or lowered). So if a race has a starting STR of 15, they have a 25 max- this also applies to figured Chars.. It's not completely balanced, but the way I built them out, I tried to keep things in relation to one another. So the Char lists, have a max listed for each race

Inspired by the HERO a day thread over yonder, I decided to post the races for my FH game. A bit of backround on the world- Pretty standard high fantasy through most history, but there was a cataclysm recently that destroyed civilization. There are city states, and great wide open areas of wilderness and desolation. There are cities where most of the magical learning from the pre-cataclysm still exists, but rather than universities of magic, there are just the few. I was trying for a hybrid highfantasy/Swords and Sorcery feel (yeah strange I know). Most of the world would be in a S&S mode, mostly fighter types with some minor magic, but if you get someone who gets access to the centers of powerful magic, you have a high fantasy sorceror. I also wanted the whole "wasteland" feel of deserts, jungles, and snowcovered lands common to S&S, but with the cities of a High Fanasy mode. So anyway here are the races....

Re: Combining sources Well... One part of my magic system is pretty much HERO tweaked to feel (although not play as) the Rolemaster magic system. My races are originals, some classics with twists (my elves are a little different), some stolen outright (in my last game, my giants were taken almost strait from Thomas Covenant). My continent map is original, but I always have a free city trade center that I pretty much use great chunks of Waterdeep for, including city maps and details of government and shops.

Here is a question that came up during the game session last week, and I was looking for clarification. The character in question had two attacks (an EB and an RKA), and wanted to do a multiple power attack with both, both with a haymaker. We weren't sure if the "two seperate manuevers must be distinct" overrode the "can use two different attack powers" aspect of MPA. Secondarily if the "two powers" takes precedent, do you just take the haymaker penalties, or stack them (which seems fair given the amount of extra damage applied.) Thanks in advance.

Re: Is OAF worth a -1 limitation? Comic book geek nitpick time.... Conner didn't beat her, he fought her to a standstill. If the batfamily hadn't shown up, she likely would have taken him in a long drawn out battle, and yeah either way that is impressive. By other implications Richard Dragon is actually the best DCU MA (well aside from pre-crisis Val who isn't in 20th century continuity anyway). End nitpick

Re: Anime based games, have you done one? My wife is running a solo game for me (we do that all the time) as a translational fantasy, with my character coming from a cyberpunk world. The world he landed in has a feel not unlike Saiyuki or parts of Yu Yu Hakusho (mostly for the stuff about chi and the way "demons" and humans interact). He's found a magical mecha (shades of Escaflone). After finding himself a mid/high noble he recruited himself some pages/squires and the personalities there are based on the pilots from Gundam. So she has been using the anime she has been watching to save brainwork for NPCs and structure. I haven't seen a lot of the anime, so to me it is new. But mentally when I "see" everyone I don't see anime style, even if she does. Never GMed one. Never watched an anime until my wife had me watch Yu Yu Hakusho and Weiss Kruess a couple of years ago.

Re: Now that I've seen Reality Storm I wasn't aware the third one had come out... Another book to order next week. Alice is likely my favorite villian in SAS followed by Kruezritter. I've already used both of them in my Champs game (I've been doing seat of the pants re-imaginings of SAS characters since I first got the SAS book).

Re: Killing Charachters/Villians in your games. Do you do it? In my last game, it was a fairly standard "reluctance to kill" game, but I set up one team to be an both an escalating threat to the world, and a really nasty and obscene team in terms of lethality and morals, that the best thing to do was to kill them- PSI. I then set up a situtation where they could do what they wanted to PSI and there was absolutely no way it could be blamed on the Heroes (it was in the middle of a demonic and alien invasion in Chicago where both invaders had beachheads). I did this for two reasons; one: the what will it take to get the team to break thier psych lims on killing- which led to great roleplaying and character development. two: I wanted at least once where the really nasty bad guy(s) could be defeated and never come back, so the players and characters could have a sense of closure and accomplishment stronger than usual about such things, but tinted with the "should we really have done this" mood. It worked well. Other than that villians never really got killed in my game. As for heroes- I've never killed a heroes in almost 20 years of GMing. I don't intend to start now. Now heroes have been defeated, but never killed.

Re: Action (with an exclamation point) Yeah for those of us who would not be insterested in a realistic firefight in a game, but would love to play a game in John Woo or James Bond style.

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate Seenar is a poster that Worldmaker spars with down in the Non gaming Discussion Boards. Simple answer.

Re: Super Skills One i've used for the Sherlock Holmes recronstruction of events... Retrocognative Clairsentience with the appropriate lims - time, concentration, how far back and how much info is based on a Per Roll.