Iuz the Evil

Re: How Have You Used King Cobra/COIL Yes I have. But I can't talk about it as players from my PBEM read this board all the time

Re: The Cutting Edge SuperBase...what's in it? A Beer Tree... Grounds large enough to encompass the planet your base is on... Friendly and courteous staff

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech

Re: DC's turn toward the dark Now that's some quality BAD writing right there!

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech Passing a law won't do it. You need a Constitutional Amendment if you want to trump the Bill of Rights.

Re: DC's turn toward the dark

Re: Evil Corporations I'd go with 'all of the above' were I the 'evil CEO'. You could operate private prison facilities on behalf of the government, using this as an opportunity to examine supers under controlled conditions. You could sample genetic material through your corporately owned and operated medical facilities ('I had no idea that Mt. Sinai's shareholders were so heavily backed by Meta-Gene ! How awful!'). Illicit corporate assets also would be effective here (secret labs with plausible deniability, kidnapping or just paying experimental test subjects for research, etc.). Oh, and don't forget to have your corporation's legal team ready to roll if the heroes get too pesky and the danger of exposure draws nigh. If they're a multi-national corporation, they could ship test subjects off to nation-states where their activities are legal or at least tolerated by the local government too.

Re: Evil Corporations I used evil Corporations pretty extensively in a Dark Future-style campaign. The same ones they have in the Corporate Sourcebook from Shadowrun (mainly Ares Macrotechnology, their subsidiary Knight Errant Security, Renraku Systems, and Saeder-Krupp Heavy Industries... I like Aztechnology as well, but that is too heavily interwoven with the Shadowrun system to really handle being transplanted into another campaign setting). They worked out pretty well, had access to daunting high-end tech (also lifted pretty much verbatim from Shadowrun), and a near total disregard for the welfare of human beings in their relentless pursuit of profit. The players enjoyed beating up their hired goons, trashing their illicit/unethical research labs, and generally being pests. If I was going do use them in a more superheroic genre, I'd have made sure the President/CEO was a nice cinematic 'Lex Luthor' corporate baddie they could have repeated confrontations with. Dialogue like, "You'll never pin this on me... and even if you did, I run this city! They'll never convict me" and a convenient alibi whenever badness goes down ("He was at the Rotary Luncheon when the mutagenic hellspawn attacked you, in front of the Mayor and half the City Council"). Mmmm... I like evil corporations as foils for the heroes. They're chock full of genre goodness!

Re: The first 5 years If the campaign power level is sufficiently high, expect one or more third world nations to have control seized by one or more superhumans. If you picked the country intelligently, the major players on the world stage wouldn't bother you either. (Rwanda, I'm looking in your direction... just put a stop to human rights violation by bringing down your iron fist and lamenting the need for such 'draconian measures').

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech Gotta say, if things go this way (a la 'forced lobotomization & surgical maiming') in an Iron Age style campaign, I'm pretty much lining up with the 'bad guys' lickety split. Then again, at that point I'm pretty clear the authorities ARE the 'bad guys' from a storyline PoV. And then it's going to depend a lot on what the campaign power level is. EDIT: God help the authorities if they try this type of stuff in 'Seeds of Change'. /shudder

Re: Super Prisons without Super Tech Depends also on whether the court system gets involved, or if they're just being 'disappeared' by shady government types. If you're dealing with the United States legal system, get ready for some serious courtroom battles regarding 'cruel and unusual punishment' if you attempt to implement mutilation or surgical modification of prisoners without consent. Even capital punishment gets reviewed under that clause. If the villains are potent enough, I can see you having serious problems managing to do that to them anyway. Maybe radio triggered anesthetic ankle bracelets or (if you're not worried about the aforementioned clause) subdermal implants along those lines? You could do that with current technology.

Re: DC's turn toward the dark I really enjoyed both of those conversations... But then, I like the Lex-Superman hate-hate dynamic.

Re: Annoucing: The reopening of Seeds of Change Aw maaaaaan! Fight breaks out and I'm sitting on my duff in Antarctica. Hope Slipstream and I make it before it's over - I want to use some of these 750 point goodies in a combat situation.

Re: The Powers of humans in Seeds of Change Seems reasonable to me... just depends on how 'over the top' you go with 'normal trained human' abilities. I think it only detracts from the campaign if 'Steve Treverino: Secret Super Spy' busts out with trained abilities that cause people to go with regard to suspension of disbelief. I could see the 'teleport: only to move from one location to another unseen' type of power, or the 'mind scan: only to locate someone with a successful city Area Knowledge roll' type powers for sure. A massive NND, attack does Body martial strike style maneuver that shatters hardened steel into powder with his bare hands pushes the envelope imho... since we know that nobody'd seen anything like that before now in the entirety of human history. Overall, it probably just depends on how 'mighty' you want the Seedlings to be in relation to humanity vs. how threatening you want the humans to be to the Seedlings. Given the numbers involved, without some significant edge I don't see us (the power-enhanced humans) surviving real well given the level of hostility the 'normals' have demonstrated.

Re: Annoucing: The reopening of Seeds of Change EDIT: I should note that these observations are based on reading people's posts, not their character sheets. I could easily be wrong So far there's four PCs I've been reading about (one is mine): Psyche - powerful telepathic mentalist in New York, mind control, subtle/passive mind control, telepathy, projective telepathic invisibility demonstrated 'in game' so far. Seems benign, and compassionate. Huntress - hyper-smart bow wielding secret agent type (also in NYC). I think she's got mega-intellect/deductive powers from the posts, lots of references to her knowledge of events and conspiracies that nobody else seems to have the 4-1-1 on. Unsure how much is truth, and how much paranoia. Faye - Young Canadian (Vancouver) woman with telekinetic powers of pretty astonishing scope. TK force bubble, megascale flight via 'flying carpet' (TK + blanket), general purpose TK, and (by reference to her future plans) can create sculptures/objects which are 'impossible' by normal means (Transform?). Lots of interactions with her parents. Avatar - Young German (Berlin) man with flight, invulnerability, a superhuman strength, and impressive control over the Electromagnetic Spectrum. So far he's flown a polar trans-orbital flight to Toronto from Berlin at speeds in excess of mach 20, has used a wide array of expanded senses (IR, UV, HRRH, Radar - all E.M. based), ignores environmental conditions (like the near-vacuum of low earth orbit), etc. Impetuous and brash, he's made some pretty gross errors in judgement right from the get-go (tried to present himself as a 'hero' and was greeted with predictable iron age enthusiasm... 'GET HIM!' ). Presently on the run from the authorities.

Re: Annoucing: The reopening of Seeds of Change So far, from what's been posted on the PBEM, only one has had obvious physical alterations (and they're within the 'humanly possible' from what I recall... massive female bodybuilder physique) that we've encountered so far. Doesn't mean there aren't any out there. Just haven't seen them yet I suppose. The tendency so far is for them to be a pretty attractive cross-section of humanity as well, probably a result of the alterations the 'Seeding' made on them (us). Lots of higher than average Comeliness (lowest I've heard mentioned is 18). Actually, makes sense if you consider the Darwinistic angle.

Re: DC's turn toward the dark I'm beginning to wonder if congenital retardation and a total contempt for the genre are requirements of employment as a comic editor by either of the 'big two' lately.

Re: Alternate Earth/WWYCD: The Legacy Of The Metal Wars... Adamant - I can see the main villain ranting about Adamant, "He doesn't eat, he doesn't sleep, he doesn't feel pity... or remorse (for us, 'cuz we're machines)! And he absolutely cannot be stopped until we are - well, scrapped!" He get pretty mad about the apocalyptic destruction of all those people, and would take a 90 STR brick can of whoop-*** to the machines. And given his defenses ('was that a nuclear weapon? ouch.'), and regeneration even from death (though he has no way of knowing about this power, since he's never been killed - or badly hurt), there's not a whole lot they could do about it. Chemo - EEP! Chemo'd be doing his best, but would have a hard time against the type of opposition depicted - and his powers are pretty much useless if he's in one of the powered armor suits. Given his chemical transformation abilities, he could fry a bunch of cyborgs (or rust them maybe, if he had some experience to burn on another multipower slot), but I'd expect them to trash him if he tried to stand and fight. Trying to find a way out of this hell-hole dimension would occupy a lot of his time. The Analogist - Would quickly determine that the genre conventions of this world were not to his advantage, and that he only had (at most) two seasons to get out before the network pulled the plug. He'd then come up with a flawless plan for Captain Power to win the war, deliver it, and get back home in one episode. Avatar - Would be laughing his ***** off once he figured out what was going on. Then he'd obliterate the opposition with his EMP power - frying those that were somehow shielded with bolts of EM radiation or smashing them to bits easily with his mega-strength; in about half an hour the earth would be cyborg/robot free. "Now let's talk about how I get back home".

Re: Seeds of Change: Repercussions Yeah, I was thinking about that when I noted her Mind Control in the game. Or she could pretty much pick who she wanted to win elections (just go around for a couple years planting +30 Ego post-hypnotic suggestions on key government officials - say the elections official and state supreme court membership, oh and the federal supreme court while you're at it), set up her own 'shadow government' or what have you. Very scary. She really could effectively take over any country she wants more or less. Edit: It won't even help much when people develop 'anti-mind control' tech. I was looking at Avatar, and with his (admittedly reduced) mental defense and ego (27 vs. mind control total), an average roll will still give her a +30 ego result on that 18d6 mind control. Sheeeeeesh. Scary 750 point mentalist.

Re: Seeds of Change: Repercussions Bump (C'mon peeps, pry yourselves away from Midnighter vs. Captain Planet and the Planeteers, and weigh in on this one...)

Re: Clown??? Posting CLOWN stats is verboten, yes? Due to their being copywritten DOJ characters? Otherwise I'd be happy to put Merry Andrew, Slapstick, and the gang up for public consumption

Re: Clown??? Bah... I've still got the 4th Ed. write-ups. In my CU, Clown IS official.

Re: Astro City: the Dark Age Hmmm... I wonder if they'll give more detail about what Old Soldier is up to? Be interesting to get the whole story on that... seems likely there was a 'bigger picture' (aka. My Lai massacre or perhaps he was protecting the advancing troops from walking into an ambush/slaughter - too unclear what he was about). This seems interesting. I'll definitely pick up the TPB!

Re: Seeds of Change: Repercussions Betcha the other countries would be spying the heck out of the U.S.A.'s 'super science' assets. Anyone with a 750+ point super is a world power, anyone who doesn't have them is suddenly less potent on the world stage. The more supers you got, the more 'juice' you got - China just easily became the world's greatest super-power if it's an even distribution based on population. Nuclear Weapons are nice and all that, but I'll take high end superhumans ANY day of the week. Especially when you've got mega-intellect, mentalists, crazy telekinetic tricks, mastery of the EM spectrum, and reality manipulation showing up. I can just see the NPC super-brain yawning, "I built a selective fission-suppression field that encompasses the planet... nuclear war is so passe". So if you're a non-US world power with multiple high end superhumans, finding out what the United States' doing with the 'alien tech' would be something of a high priority. Plausible deniability would be a nice thing here, of course. Don't want the U.S. to take a poke at you with their covert assets while you're scoping them out. But I think it would be easy enough to cover up any 'official' governmental involvement given the (doubtless) widespread avarice that would be spreading across the globe like ripples on a pond. Also, there's the non-governmental factor to consider. Surely not everyone with high end superhuman might is going to ally themselves with an existing global power. I could see one or more factions springing up almost overnight, mutual protection pacts with one or more superhumans are something that I've been giving serious consideration as I watch the plot unfold from within the game, and it seems likely that this would definitely come into play for the non-aligned superhumans when the powers that be start to lean on them. Given the age range (nobody older than 19ish), I would assume a certain impulsivity overall (though obviously there would be some exceptions) and a willingness to disregard other people's welfare for your own (and some tendencies to resolve situations rather directly/abruptly, and to see the world in rather black and white terms). Teenagers with cosmic might are a scary, scary concept. Also, if there are less potent superhumans emerging as well they would be factored into the equation. A 300 point super-agent with clairvoyance or mentalist talents would be a force to be reckoned with in the intelligence community. Slap on another 100 points of skills and they'd be a friggin' terror. Invisibility, Desolidification, Special Senses like N-Ray Vision, all would be extremely useful in the covert ops department, and they'd have a much tougher time staying clear of governmental interests than the 'super high power' crowd. Likewise, given the global geo-political situation, I'd be real concerned about the 750+ superhumans turning up in 'rogue nations'. They're a lot scarier than your typical third-world angry youth. Be afraid of the high-end 'angry West-bank Palestinian kid' and his high end 'angry Gaza-Settler Israeli' counterpart. Be very afraid. Especially if you're anywhere nearby when they run into one another. I'd expect conflicts between superhumans to pop up in the coming weeks. Probably some serious collateral damage (maybe not though, depending on the nature of their powers - a dueling martial artist vs. speedster wouldn't necessarily trash the surrounding town). [As a super-human playing in the campaign, I'm thinking that allies are becoming a prime commodity for me real fast. Alliances, mutual protection pacts, and plans to keep from getting locked away in some government missile silo, shot at and pushed into slaughtering a couple hundred special forces soldiers, crippling some western country's infrastructure - or killed. Those are going to quickly become of paramount importance the way things are shaping up.] Very very interesting PBEM Nexus. Seriously. I'm enjoying it tremendously!

Re: Seeds of Change: Repercussions World governments choose as one to cede their authority to the handsome young man on the run in Germany, and peace breaks out across the globe... Oh, and he gets a really cool car. And a hot girlfriend (he's 19 years old, might as well dream big).