Iuz the Evil

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? ... my in-laws snoring. No, really. They're sleeping seven feet from me.

Re: Sky High The Movie I'm really looking forward to seeing this movie with my daughter. She expresses extreme enthusiasm every time a commercial comes on (during JLU for example, or Boomerang's Superman: the Animated Series - both of which we watch together routinely). The casting is excellent, the plot seems entertaining... and I love the clips I've seen so far. I just have one question... 'When did Snake Pliskin become a superhero? Isn't he more of a punisher type than a flag suit?'

Re: Eurostar : where will I find more details ? The 4th Edition variant of them is in 'Classic Enemies' as well, which you can probably find if you look around. Arguably even scarier than their newest incarnation... /shudder

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles I completely agree... they're cost prohibitive. I wanted a spiffy transport for my PBEM submission, and realized that I'd have to cut way back on powers or skills in order to afford it ("let's see, you can be super strong or get a really cool motorcycle?!"). I'll just have to get by without the wheels...

Re: Solara's flight speed Can't she just buy it as 'scaleable'? Give her greater control over velocity that way, I would think.

Re: New Global Guardians PBEM Campaign Looking For Players This PBEM site is just about the sickest thing I've ever seen (and I mean that in a good way)! There's like 25+ simultaneous campaigns occuring in the 'GGU', with on average something like 4-6 characters in each. There's a very detailed timeline, encyclopedia & FAQ, house rules, and tons of really well written source material. There's posted PCs, NPCs, and a master list of limitations. Why didn't I look this up sooner? Sheesh. The Global Guardians teams (there are going to be 5 active GG teams with this one) are the high end superheroes of the GGU. There's a bunch more 350 teams, and a one or more lower powered ones (like the Venture Institute, bunch of metahuman kids). Jack and his wife (and the associated GMs) have completely outdone themselves here... definitely worth a visit if you haven't looked at it before.

Re: Writer Fiat as SFX for Supervillains? In the FtF campaigns I've run the phrase "No One Could Have Survived That!" became a good natured chant uttered by the players whenever an uber-baddie perished in a fiery explosion/burst of hyper-dimensional radiation/fell into the heart of a star/whatever. It's so ingrained into the genre that we just accepted it at face value... if the author (GM) wants a villainous character back for a plot, the villain returneth. Not once did the players complain about this, and everyone had a grand old time. Closest time I ever came to a player complaint about this was the issue they had with Scorpia murdering Foresight (from Allies), who the PCs had taken a liking to as a benign (and relatively harmless) NPC... they made darn sure that Scorpia got her sentence of lethal injection carried out, even going so far as to track her down in San Muerte and drag her back to Stronghold when Terror Inc. broke her out. But nobody uttered even a groan of protest when Professor Muerte showed up with a cloned Scorpia months later (the guy leading the crusade to bring her in set the tone with 'well, Scorpia died in Stronghold... this is Scorpia v2.0'). I think 'Writer's Fiat' is a perfectly reasonable way to hand wave this sort of 'sfx'. The GM is telling a story, after all... should come with a few author's privs.

Re: New Global Guardians PBEM Campaign Looking For Players Deadline is now Tuesday at midnight, just FYI.

Re: Does Seeker still suck? Ever since I saw all the 'Darkwing Duck' reference to Nighthawk all I can think of is a desperate need to change his Quote to: 'Let's...get...dangerous!". I miss Seeker, he was cheesy, but you sort of knew that he KNEW his cheesiness and hence embraced it. Nighthawk is just as cheesy, but takes himself seriously.

Re: Daxamites My understanding is that they possess all the same powers as Kryptonians, save that their allergy is to lead rather than Kryptonite. I could be wrong however...

Re: GM Assistance I actually didn't even look at the active point cost (211). Heck that actually makes me feel better about the build, since it's obviously designed for ultra-high end campaigns. After all, if another PC has a 200+ AP power I'm gonna have one too (or want to know the reason why). Behold my 30d6 HTH Attack AE:Radius w/ Personal Immunity! Fear my mighty wrath. Or maybe my AVLD RKA vs. hardened mental defense. Hmmm... the possibilities are endless.

Re: GM Assistance Note to self... next 'superman' clone should have fully invisible force field to prevent light sabre from cutting off his limbs.

Re: "Super Heroes" That your character doesn't/wouldn't like Hmmm... well, none of my PCs would ever get along with Wolverine as he's presently depicted in comics. The ones who are based on enough points to handle him might expose him to some serious 'beat down' for his homicidal and irresponsible behavior. ("Oh so you think you're a samurai or some such tripe? *SMACK!* That's for Northstar! *SMACK!* And that's for setting the comic-industry back a dozen years!!") Hmmm... who else? Well, Batman would get a serious case of the 'stink eye' after his behavior in recent years. Generally most of my characters are pretty affable, friendly types... so the 'moody loners' would be viewed with suspicion, but tolerated well enough if they aren't homicidal maniacs (see above).

Re: Champs Worldwide: Whaddya want? I miss Seeker. Hey, bring him back why don'cha?

Re: Batman Begins "Hmmm... we gotta do something about that costume. Wings on his head? I mean really. And what's with the silly 'A' on his face? I'm thinking a black and silver bodysuit with a trenchcoat. Oh, and let's have him beat up some islamic terrorists, that ought to be good for the NASCAR crowd." Yeah, I can see that. /shudder

Re: Super_Talk.com 6/29/05 Very cool stuff. Thanks for the post!

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ... Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy by Lieblum & Rosen An extremely well written series of chapters by experts in the field, addressing major areas of treatment and concern for the practitioner. It's pretty technical stuff in many respects, with plenty of statistical analysis. One major plus is the relative transparency of the research methodologies used, since the articles cited are from the APA and AMA for the most part (the APA articles being the better ones in the main). One of my major beefs with most theory and practice texts in the field is that they are rarely concrete in their descriptors of interventions. This one is, and it's a nice change of pace. I'd recommend this to any serious practitioner who may be confronted with significant sexual dysfunction in their work, as well as to anyone planning to work specifically in this area. Oh, and this was even better than the Lieblum & Pervin version (2nd Edition) which I already had read. That was getting pretty dated after 10 years.

Re: from little plot seeds, mighty games do grow: Share you ideas! I used the following plots for CLOWN (prior to their 'mysterious disappearance' following the advent of 5th Ed. - who knows the diabolical pranks they've planned in that time!). 1. A massive quantity of the gold reserve from Fort Knox vanishes. Later in the day, the members of CLOWN are sighted moving along the Golden Gate Bridge with the ill-gotten gains, placing gold bricks along the walkways and nestling them among the cables and supports. As the heros approach/investigate, they sight major roadwork on the S.F. side of the bridge as Merry Andrew and his band patch into the city power grid with a large gadget (complete with many blinking lights... can't forget the many blinking lights) in an effort to 'electroplate' the Golden Gate and give it a more 'sophisticated and modern' look. 2. The poultry population of the Foster Farms chicken ranches in the southern Central Valley (something like a million chickens) is herded back and forth across Interstate-5 repeatedly until heros investigate by the members of CLOWN. (I repeated variations on this one, including a 'free range' version almost as many times as 'selling the Brooklyn Bridge'). 3. Offended by the lack of 'truth in advertising', CLOWN heads to London and using banners, balloons, and pop-up circus tents retrofits the Picadilly Circus into an actual circus... releasing (non-lethal) animals from the London Zoo to make the transformation complete.

Re: Batman Begins Even the 'wannabe sophisticated movie critic' from work loved this movie... last time I heard him say anything nice about a movie I enjoyed it was 'Napoleon Dynamite'. Excellent job creating a Batman: Year One style movie, I think it's the best Batman movie I've ever seen. I loved the little they lifted right from the pages of comics too, like the SWAT Team / Bats incident. Hope this helps the folks down in Hollywood remember the mantra... Be faithful to the source material and you will be rewarded! (C'mon guys, chant it with me now... now just the ladies! All together!)

Re: Can any comic fans fill me in on current Marvel continuity? Sadly, this is an accurate statement.

Re: Advice on NPCs Foes Desperately Needed You could give one of the Morlocks the ability to augment the PCs powers, with a 2d6 Aid to all powers at once (+2)? That'd push them up closer to their parents' level and level the playing field a bit. Or have one of the parents turn on the others, it's their kid after all...

Re: Eurostar is friggin' fast! Yeah, I still use the 4E version... didn't like a number of the CU changes when 5th Ed. came out, so I just stuck with what worked for me - didn't want to retcon my own Champions Universe anyhoo. Heck, I still use Terror Inc. and have no plans to have Professor Muerte 'go into that great beyond'. Basically I took what I liked (many of the rule modifications, couple of major incidents) and left the rest - game system universe 'Pot Luck'. I definitely agree that the 4th Edition Eurostar is a terrifying example of badassitude. Fiacho, Durak, Bora, Mentalla, White Flame, the Whip, and Le Sone. Capable of efficiently slaughtering any but the most well designed hero teams. I love these guys. (Who's the 'eighth member'? I'm blanking for some reason... those are the only ones I can recall for the life of me.) I've had them beat down heros in like 4 or 5 campaigns now, they almost always show up eventually. The heros have beaten them up several times as well, but I don't think the whole team has ever been captured in a campaign I've run. At least 2 or 3 of them flee the scene and work to free their captured comrades later on. Usually Bora and one or two others. Most of the PCs I've worked with tend to focus on Mentalla/Pantera/Durak. Mentalla is the only one of those three who's ever escaped a scenario where the heros one. Mmmmm.... Eurostar. Thanks for the memories, that warms my little GM's heart.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread.

Re: PRIMUS and Teenage Boys Exactly... only the players can save the public! Trust not in government agencies - thence surely lies madness.

Re: PRIMUS and Teenage Boys Hmmm... I gotta go with the 'less kind, less friendly PRIMUS'. Just another facet of the War on Terror, PRIMUS holding the line against all those that threaten the peace of this great nation... pre-emptively. Better watch myself, or I'll launch into another verse of the Team America: World Police theme song.