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Karmakaze

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Posts posted by Karmakaze

  5. Female Master Villains

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Female Master Villains

     

    I've always held the opinion that feminist supervillains wear the costumes they do to elicit stereotypical behavior from males they meet. It's a power-trip thing "See this fabulous body? You can't touch it. Now I'll punish you for wanting to."

     

    More likely, "See this fabulous body? If you're fool enough to let it distract you from my villainous plans, then you deserve what you get, and I'll happily take advantage of your foolishness."

  7. Female Master Villains

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Female Master Villains

     

    Has anyone else used the Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell* (W.I.T.C.H.) as a militant terrorist group?

     

    *Cool! I just looked it up and it's really real!!! I thought it was something made up for the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers!

     

    The Ladies Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society is also (sort of) real. For all the rumors that feminists have no sense of humor, first wavers at least had a fairly strong sense of sarcasm.

  8. Suggestions for caste system for post-apocalypse arcology

    in Other Genres

    Posted

    Re: Suggestions for caste system for post-apocalypse arcology

     

    Religion is something I have to think about. It would make for an interesting caste' date=' but it would probably be a pretty fractious one. Although I could also make religion more of a personal thing, and not create a caste around it. Or maybe it is a secret society sort of thing. Hmmm.[/quote']

     

    You could always go with Mystic as a catchall. Either that or wrap religion under Archivist.

  10. What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

     

    I see a lot of hatred for Thomas Covenant' date=' and I have to admit that I did not like the series that much either. I remember liking the Mordant's Need books (A Man Rides Through and so on) more. Did anyone else have that reaction?[/quote']

     

    "A Mirror of Her Dreams" filled me with the constant and frustrating urge to violently smack the main character and scream "Grow an EXPLETIVE backbone!!!!" I found her even more annoying than Thomas Covenant, whose incessant whining was at least generally not about stuff he could easily fix on his own. Teresa's issues all seemed to be in the form of "Oh, no, I saw a problem coming and didn't lift a finger to prevent it and now I have this terrible problem. Oh, woe is me, why do all these terrible things keep happening to me?" I did not make it to the second novel.

     

    I've liked several of Donaldson's short stories, but he has a gift for writing novel protagonists who aren't just unsympathetic, but actively annoying to share mental space with.

  12. Designing superhumans based on the five Japanese Elements

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Designing superhumans based on the five Japanese Elements

     

    Thank you all for the suggestions. I didn't originally consider Metamorphs as an archetype because I was trying to keep away from size changing and stretching powers. I suppose I could stretch the archetype a bit to make Water-aspects into healer types (mending flesh by weaving it back together) and shapeshifters that still retain a human shape.

     

    You've also got Desolidification as an option.

  13. Free Character Defining Skills

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Free Character Defining Skills

     

    This is exactly what I was getting at and what this thread was intended to address. I don't know how this could possibly confuse people about the skill system, though.

     

    At any rate, thanks to those who have actually listed some skills that are to the point. The Tank Girl list is fun. I wonder if there might be more examples of HERO-appropriate skills that follow the CoC pattern.

     

    I've been known to use "Detect Bad Idea". It's never been completely clear, though, whether a success means that I have successfully had a bad idea (and will then act on it) or successfully identified what I am thinking as a bad idea (and will then choose not to act on it).

  14. Jokes

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Jokes

     

    Maurice was driving down a country road when his car got stuck in a large, muddy hole. He was unable to free the car himself so he called to a farmer who was standing idly by a team of oxen in a nearby field. When the farmer offered to pull the car out of the mud for $100, Maurice readily accepted. Using the oxen, the farmer pulled the car out very quickly.

     

    He said to Maurice, “You know, that was the tenth car I’ve helped out of the mud today.”

     

    Maurice paid him the money and said, “If you’re always pulling cars out of the mud during the day, do you have to plow your fields at night?”

     

    “No,” the farmer replied.

    “Night is when I put water in that hole.”

     

  16. My Players looted the room

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: My Players looted the room

     

    I have never had good luck with a "playing the origin" game' date=' whether the one time I tried to GM such, or the nigh-uncountable times one GM I used to PBeM game with tried to run such. Even when the players knew that the "origin event" was coming, it's never been a fun experience.[/quote']

     

    The variant of this that I've run started with the characters having their powers, but not knowing it yet. (The mutation even happened offscreen shortly before gamestart). The players start with their "normal" character sheets and then switch to the full sheet once they've discovered most of their powers in character. It works fine, but its also a case where everyone is onboard ahead of time with what's going on.

  17. Strangest Perk you've seen?

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Strangest Perk you've seen?

     

    I played a princess at one point whose family invited all the local faeries and thus avoided the "sleeping beauty" curse issue. As such, she had *too many* baptism gifts. In addition to the expected fair features, sweet voice, etc, she had always perfect hair and nails that were never chipped or brittle.

  21. So how did you guys learn the system?

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

     

    When I'm running teaching games, I start with pregenerated characters, often with a plot centered around the character discovering their newfound superpowers. (Also because I tend to run those at conventions, where player-submitted characters can sometimes be problematic.)

     

    I start telling players what to roll, and then just say what happens. "Ok, you hit with a nine, now roll ten dice. Yeah, that staggers him."

     

    Then I'll tell them what the rolls are. "You're rolling against an 11 to hit. Your offensive value is two better than his defense, so the +2 that gives you means you need to roll under a 13. Yeah, that 12 will tag. Roll your 10 dice. Total that and you have 35, which is your STUN, and the BODY comes out to 9, counting like this..."

     

    Later still, I tell them what power they're using. "You Blast him. That's your 10d6 Energy Blast, on the sheet here."

     

    If they're interested, at the end of the session, I'll go over the powers and and advantages or limitations that did not come up in play.

     

    I find that interspersing system and character build information through actual gameplay avoids overwhelming a new player. It also mimics the reasoning from effect concept, since they see the effect and then the build.

  22. So how did you guys learn the system?

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    Re: So how did you guys learn the system?

     

    I came in with 4E as well. The GM sat down with me and we took a little less than an hour to run up a character. It was a simple build, no frameworks. And then we played. Several months down the road, I realized I could run a game better than this guy and started my own campaign. By then I was writing up characters myself, even on behalf of some of my players.

  23. Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

     

    I'm in a Pulp game right now. The group was talking about the direction the campaign might be taking after the X-mas break and this is a comment I made:

     

    "We're probably heading for the deepest parts of Africa, that means we're going to need porters. You know what porters are? What they're really for? They are there to die. You know: to be killed by wild animals, die from poisonous bites from snakes and spider, fall of a cliff-face trail, or killed by the angry natives.

     

    Porters: they're the «Red Shirts» of Africa."

     

    To be fair, they're also there to refuse to go into dangerous places and to slip away in the middle of the night...

  24. Will Stronghold

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Will Stronghold

     

    No mention of the Villain from the movie? Is she so easy to build that it is beneath mention?

     

    Okay, she is a pretty standard gadgeteer, although she is described as a technopath (and she did assemble a freeze ray pistol by waving her hand over it), so perhaps it should be based on mental characteristics somehow. Unlike many gadgeteers, however, she has pretty impressive social abilities.

     

    I'd call the handwave a Transform (only vs. technology). Either that or it's a power stunt via her Power: Gadgeteer skill that doubles as the control skill for her VPP.

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