Lord Mhoram

While not exactly in the vein you were after Steve, a good book to put into the bibliography (and that you should read just because it is good) is The Uplift War by David Brinn. There is some frontline action, but it is about a planet being blockaded and invaded. Has a lot of nifty stuff about the consequences of war, and some cool social things going on by the conquerers. As well as a lot of stuff on people in hiding.

I'd second the Ender's Game, Dorsai and Mote In God's Eye. And while they are "someone elses propery" the X wing books by Stackpole and Allston are really fun. Fighter pilot space combat, lots of combat details and ship to ship battles. I'd also recomend the Gap Series by Donaldson. Like his other works it is very adult, and sometimes too sexual, but it has some really nice space battles and tactics. I'd also recomend the comic book Sigil from Crossgen. Space opera and lots of combat. In reference to the Enders books (and not military SF in particular), if you didn't like the first sequel skip the next two, but do read Ender's Shadow. It is set during Ender's game, and is told from the pov of Bean.

Yep. The GM really is responsible for that construct. He looked at the character in the book (Lava in EI IIRC) and said "If you spread the EB, you can shoot the RKA with exta CV" and I said "Can I do that?" and he said "Sure". So I pushed it.

Most of these were mine, back in the day. One of the old Enemies had an RKA and EB linked... and I asked the GM about linking an RKA to an EB. The EB was a plasma wave and the RKA was a laser that lased within the beam. 15d6 EB, 5d6 RKA. RKA had beam. Linked attacks are the same to hit roll/CV. Ran into the major DCV based baddie, spread the EB for OCV and got +14 OCV with my RKA. Oh yeah they were two slots in the same EC. Way back when we thought martial throw acted as a block, so we would wait for the attack, abort to throw, throw the opponent and do damage. Designing a fantasy spell, as GM. I wanted something where the caster just touched a wall, and a few moments later it just started desintigrating. But I didn't want it killing people so it had Inanimate only as a lim. Built as 1d6 Body drain, recovers per geologic era, uncontrolled continous, sticky. I looked at it the next day, my eyes widened at what I had built and I said nope- this spell does not exist. Had a player that had an OAF bow and 50 STR TK only to get bow. Built a supersuit doubledipping on OIF, Ohid, with the rationale that if it was just OIF, I could use the foci independently and not be in Hero ID.... Didn't really grock special effects there. Had a GM who ruled that if you were stunned in 12, your post 12 was spent recovering from being stunned, as it was a recovery. Was once a powergamer, but I'm much better now.

It all depends on whether your "clone" is after personality of the original, style, social position or deconstructed comics role fulfillment.

In a teenage game, one of my players inspired by Batman Beyond decided to play a supersuit who's grandfather was a WWII hero, and radioed him commentary and advice. Going through GAC he decided to update Knight Owl to a modern supersuit, detective. Egg grenades. While running a bunch of vignettes to introduce the characters to each others, one of the other players, after seeing a bad guy taken down by an egg grenade entangle that hit the badguy in the upper body cracks "There's egg on your face". From that point on... Are you going to "Egg-sterminate them" This is "Egg-Citing" He's very En-Egg-matic" After missing; "Egg-scrable Aim" The player was annoyed for a bit, but then spent a lot of time muttering about it to grandpa on the radio, and turned it into a character bit.

Given Sentinel's costume is mostly white, and he is Iconic for SAS I would assume that was Sentinel.

In responce about Superman, I dont really see a strong one in the CU. And he also fills one more role in comics besides the "ultimate powerhouse" and the "Patriot". Superman is the ultimate selfless hero. He worries about who he can save, and what he could do more, at the same time, worrying if he is doing to much. KB got that aspect of him dead on in Samaritin from Astro City. Start: Old Campaign Ramblings In my last Champs game, I had supers appear (wildcardlike) when the game started in 91. The first superhero in the world (NPC) was a minibrick EP (solar powers) named Native Sun. Somewhat patriotic. Top of the heap powers wise. Spent his entire life and all his time trying to help others. His undergoal in becoming a superhero and he worked behind the scenes to push this agenda as well, was to motivate all those with large powers to be costumed crime fighters (or villians) in the four color mode- he saw this as a way for people to accept those with powers because the worked in a previously seen social niche (even if fiction). It was also the GM handwaving that a modern creation of Superheroes would end up four color. He was my "Superman" Late in the life of the campaign, the team name was Watchtower (base on the moon, years before the JLA- Arrgh). Each player had two characters (we rotated). And all of the social niches were filled by PCs. Native Sun - selfless hero, and toughest guy on the block. The Marshall - The Patriot & the Female Hero Jack Diamond - Urban Avenger Psyche - The tortured background Telepath Ballistic - The Supersuit Scientist The Shih - The Supermage / Mysterious guy Magnetite - The young girl coming into her powers. Pheonix - The Sidekick (of the Marshall). Bayoushi - The God Amoung us. Humoungous - The Bestial Brick White Dragon - The Martial Artist/stealth guy Pheaduex - (Cat supersuit) the team clown. End: Old Campaign Ramblings And the reason I bring this up, other than to give out old war stories, is in at least one case, having the "superman" yardstick as an NPC worked. All the players understood what was going on, and no one minded. The fact that as the campaign had run for years they realized they were filling the social niches of classic characters, they were rather enthusiastic about the whole thing. During the huge multiparter that kicked off the new line up of the team (resetting the comic to issue one with a new line up) the above team went toe to toe with some of the nastiest villians in my world, and no one felt bad that Native Sun was a ways out trading blows with Doctor Destroyer, while they fought Viperia, Menton, Mechanon and Archimago and others. When Native Sun went down, and Dr D left, everyone was shellshocked. So if done right (and with mature players that I am thankful that I have) that kind of thing does not cause a problem.

Yeah. We might have had all the crapola that we got in the 90's in the 70's, and it might have died with Disco and no one would do anything even remotely like it again, due to association. hmmm... I would like that world. :-) I'm one who gave up a lot of comic reading in the late eigties during the Dark Knight/Watchmen inspired garbage *, and Image (yech, bleh bleh yuck). Morrison's run on the JLA and Kurt's Astro City brought me back- proving to me that there were writers who wanted to write what I wanted to read. * Dark Knight and Watchmen were brilliant. The stuff that imitated them is what I am referring to.

If it is any consolation I listed the spellsinger books in my sidebar biblio for my transworld Fantasy article in DH #11. I am a huge ADF fan, and every SF game I run have sentient Manti. I love the Thranx.

I would assume by context that the masquerade is an unspoken (or spoken) rule not to let humans know about vampires? Never even opened a white wolf book, but curious.

Just have to throw an interesting gaming related one. I am on the d20 & ODL mailing lists. The traffic there is mostly about the legalities of using the licences and stuff, so a lot of legal discussion comes up... so IANAL (I am not a lawyer)- used before someone gives thier opinion about legalities, to say "Don't nessisarily trust this".

Viperia. Cool. I pretty much echo what has been said... Have enough info to be able to run a Viper campaign and the rest follows from that. I loved all of the viper agents diary stuff from the first one. Have a lot of that in there, for color and feel. It really helped bring the agents and agency to life. VF2 is one of the best teams around. I'd love to see them. And of course I have to drop my two cents in about the surpeme serpent I have always used the idea that it is Freddy Foswell, and his other, more well known, rather comedic persona is a dodge to keep people unbalanced, and a way to get close to the heroes to get info he would never get any other means.

Making a skill roll is not a valid NND defense, but is having the skill? I.E. a magic spell that anyone with magical training can dismiss even when asleep- NND vs having the "magic" skill.

I liked: Intriguing design, however. I dabbled in the 'Toho' approach when first learning.

Someone ought to repost the troll's stuff at M&M boards and ask the people there if that is who they want representing thier game over here. :-)

Mom, it's time to take your medicine again.

To those who hold to the 5" (or 10") to hover.... If a character buys two inches of flight, he can fly at 2", up at 1" right? 1" of flight cancels all "gravimetric" concerns and would allow a character to fly up at 1/2". So it seems to reason that one inch would allow someone to hover. For those that have a "power minimum" to use the power, ignore my comments.

Mini-D just made my wife do a spit take. Thanks guys. :-) I have a new character that ties into a villian. One out of EU - so I can no longer disdain the book as much as I could. Turns out Shrike was actually a mutant. A british super had an affair with her in the early 80s. My character was the result. Mom fled to the US and went strait. Dad was killed along with another female teammate by Eurostar who should not have known about where they were. Dad's wife (another superheroine) retired. Dad's wife's kid hunts me. The GM loved the son of a villian goes hero, son of the hero goes villian.

Just quoted in my game. The PCs had captured a lesser demon, and they were talking about what to do about it, and one mystic asks "Well any reason to keep him here" to which the martial arists responds "No. If he stays, he'll just go into politics."

I am wondering what font (or something that looks similar) is used for the titles and authors on the covers of the Champions Universe line. Why you ask? I have been slowing converting old villians to 5th, as well as adaptions (or reimaginings to use the hollywood term) of V&V, Gurps supers, M&M, BoH, and SAS characters, I print them up using the WG output from hero designer, and all I am missing is a cover, and being A-R as I am, I want to match fonts. *breath* Anyway thanks for any help.

I have to go with Alice on this one. Telepathy beats annoying Punisher clones every time. Note- annoying in the above statement applies to Punisher rather than clones.

The best moment I have ever seen came from my wife, while I was GMing. Note- this will require a bit of set up, and it contains details about Wings of the Valkerie so consider that a spoiler warning.... The World- a Wildcards plauge swept the world at the start of the campaign creating the worlds first superheroes. My wife created a "What is Henry Peter Gyrich got superpowers" character. Ultra conservative, antisuper, the whole works. The opening adventure was everyone being put in a "Study Camp" that was run by a Dr Allanis and my wife's character. Then she got supers and switched from researcher to study object. Then she found out that test subjects were being routinely killed by Dr Allanis*. So she and the rest of the opening PCs broke out. Over next couple of years, the character overcame her racism and became the "Patriotic Hero" in the mode of Cap America; The Marshall. Next - The adventure. The bad guys go back in time and kill Hitler in the Beer Hall putchsk (sp). The world changes, and the characters minds flip between the current incarnatios and thier regular selves. The longer it takes them to go back in time the more time they spend in the alternate timeline selves. Now in the module, without the example of WWII the US has gone fairly fascist, based on an anti-super attitude. I postulated the The Marshall never got superpowers (and thus never overcame her biases), and had people close to her killed by supers, and was in charge of the orginization designed to hunt down, capture or kill supers. So they go back in time. Big fight. The Marshall ends up slamming the guy who masterminded the whole time travelling fiasco into the wall, classic fist in the shirt, face to face type threat. He- "Do you realise what you did, millions will die because of this" She- "It doesn't matter, that is what happened already." He- "Why did you do this, why did you stop me?" She- is a growl "Why?! Why?!" she shakes him with one hand and points her other finger at Himmler "Because YOU turned ME into HIM" And slammed his head against the wall and knocked him out. Everyone at the table had chills from that exchange.

Re: Re: Batman It's funny- I'm a guiy who wants to avoid killing and keep the whole Silver age feel, but in the recent issues of Cap when he snapped the neck of a terrorist, it didn't bug me- and it was because the whole tone of the story was Cap in a War (with all sorts of references to WWII), so when it happened I saw it as a soldier thing, so it didn't bug me. My mental filters for this stuff are just wierd.

Re: Re: Once more into the ethnic heroes fray. You just inserted a new NPC in my game. I love that one. And shouldn't that be hip hip flava ?