Houston GM

Rule One The PCs are an official UN team. Cast of characthers... John Henry: density brick Kooun Kaze: gravity energy projector Saulk: mystic with healing powers The team has learned that they'll be facing zombies, so they lay down some ground rules. Kooun Kaze: "Rule One -- we stay together." The heroes overturned their jeep when John Henry accidentally crashed it into a large group of zombies. Kooun Kaze bailed out before the crash. John Henry got out of the jeep just after the crash. Saulk remained buckled in the jeep and started attacking the zombies. John Henry: (to Saulk) "Are you going to get out of the jeep?" Saulk ignored John Henry and continued attacking the zombies. John Henry (ooc): I pick up the jeep and move towards Kooun Kaze. Saulk (ooc): That I notice. John Henry (ooc): Are you doing something that requires that much concentration? Saulk (ooc): No. I just figured that zombies were more interesting than whatever you were doing. John Henry (ooc): I'm remember Rule One.

Re: A Gift? Multi-Man is the only one with a major arch-nemesis (his ex-wife, a heroine turned villainess). His ex might bend the definition of "untoward", but she's probably not bending it by much. Multi-Man would probably send an expendable duplicate to open the package and examine its contents, just in case his ex included knock-out gas or a tracking device in the package. Since Multi-Man's ex is trying to subvert him into joining her, the package most likely contains some sort of temptation.

If birds could talk ... After having spent over 36 hours straight at work. Me: "I love my job ... but only for the first 50 hours per week." My girlfriend owns a couple parrots. One is rather tempermental. My girlfriend: (opening the door to the birds' room) "Good morning." Parrot: "NO!!" My girlfriend: "I'm going to get you your breakfast now." Parrot: "Liar." Two mornings ago, the other parrot showed us that it had learned a new "word". The Other Parrot: "Aaaah aaaah. Ah ah ah ah. Aaaaaah! Aaaaaah!" My girlfriend: "Oh my god! He's imitating me!"

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... The PCs are an official UN team. Cast of characthers... Hoss (NPC): UN liaison for the Johannesburg station; practically the caricature of the stereotypical Texan Kooun Kaze: gravity energy projector Saulk: mystic with healing powers The team is investigating a businessman whose "stolen" land rover was used as the getaway vehicle in a heist. It is no longer functional, since Ogre threw it at some pursuing security guards. Kooun Kaze: "He may have even arranged to have his car stolen." Hoss: "I bet he didn't expect it to be returned in that condition." Before meeting the businessman to interview him: Kooun Kaze: "I'm assuming we're not wearing armor to this meeting." Saulk: "I'm certainly not ... but I'm dumb that way."

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... The PCs are an official UN team. They are preparing to interrogate the supervillains they captured. Cast of characthers... Hoss (NPC): UN liaison for the Johannesburg station; practically the caricature of the stereotypical Texan John Henry: density/gravity brick Kooun Kaze: gravity energy projector Saulk: mystic with healing powers Saulk: "I think we should wake Ogre up and interrogate him first." Hoss: "The locals ain't gonna go fer that unless y'all do it outside of town." Kooun Kaze: "They don't need to worry. We can keep Ogre from hurting us." Hoss: "It's the town they're worried about." John Henry: "Do we know what Ogre's mental age is?" Hoss: "Accordin' to his file, he's lahk an eight-year-old that's prone t' throwin' tantrums." John Henry: "Maybe we should interrogate someone else first." The team decides Icicle is the best one to interrogate first. Kooun Kaze: (Trying to convince Icicle not to attempt to escape.) "Let me point out that 20 miles in every direction is a desert. It's like the country is a secure cell designed to hold you."

Re: Waking up with super powers What kind of powers would you like to have? I'd like to be an evil genius. If I was a mad scientist, my inventions would always be going awry. Evil geniuses don't have that problem. For 350 pts I could: be the foremost scientific genius on the planet have a squad of loyal super-robot followers to go fight in my place have a VPP (gadget pool) to exploit my opponents' weaknesses have a small starter base What would you really do if you woke up with super powers? 1) Quietly earn enough money to finance my plans and influence the globabl economy. 2) Build a robot to serve as my public heroic identity, so my enemies will expend their efforts trying to destroy the robot instead of trying to find me. 3) Build my squad of super-robot followers to fight crime and do other heroic deeds to earn me a reputation as a good guy. 4) Invent technologies that will help solve some of the world's problems, like fusion power plants. 5) Become a scientific / technological advisor to other superheroes ... since one of the easiest ways to influence someone's behavior is to control their access to information. 6) Create a secret villainous ID to start manipulating world leaders to do what I want. What kind of powers would you NOT like to have? Almost any power I couldn't control or had limited control over I'm also not a big fan of blatant offensive powers, unless they're paired with potent defensive powers; I don't want to be a glass cannon Would it matter if only 1 in a billion people had powers vs 1 in 100 million, or even 1 in a million? Since other superhumans would potentially be my opponents or rivals, that would matter a lot. Would you tell others? That would eliminate most of the utility of a secret ID. How do you think your life would change? It would almost certainly exacerbate my tendency to view the majority of humans as idiots.

UNMAR Chronicles: "The Perfect Heist" The PCs are an official UN team. They are trying to locate four villains who robbed a diamond mine: Devastator, Icicle, Ogre and Pulsar. Cast of characthers... Hoss (NPC): UN liaison for the Johannesburg station; practically the caricature of the stereotypical Texan John Henry: density/gravity brick Kooun Kaze: gravity energy projector John Henry is unable to swim. Furthermore, he has the PhysLim: sinks like a rock. Kooun Kaze (ooc): If we get him going fast enough and spin him fast enough he might skip a few times before he sinks. The team lands in Kanye, Botswana, where the villaims are believed to be hiding. As the team disembarks the plane.... Kooun Kaze: "Hoss, do you want to come along with us?" Hoss: "Ah'd love to , but Ah'd be more useful stayin' here." (pause) "That's not true. Ah expect y'all to screw up, and Ah'd rather not be in the middle of it." Kooun Kaze: (in an offended tone) "How long has it been since I screwed up?" Hoss: "D'ya want that in hours or minutes?" Needing no explanation... John Henry (ooc): I'm glad I have more than 3 points in English, just so I can understand Hoss. The team is aware that Ogre is one of the perps. Kooun Kaze: "I have no problem getting into a punching match with Ogre ... from a safe distance." Kooun Kaze hit Ogre with a double-knockback attack sending him flying into a wall. The following phase, John Henry hit Ogre with a double-knockback attack, sending him flying through the wall. Kooun Kaze: (to John Henry) "You win the Ogre tossing competition."

Supers, why do so many of them wear long johns?

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power? It didn't come as a complete surprise (I'd told the player that I'd let him have it on a trial basis), but I found out that a PRE over 60 is extremely potent. You can frequently cause most of the opposing team (particularly the minions) to lose their action and be at 0 DCV for a phase, since it's not too difficult to get a presence attack which is EGO or PRE +30. And then you can repeat the presense attack on the next phase with just 1d6 less. Fortunately I realized how abusive this could be before the player did, so I made him tone it back to a more reasonable level before the next session.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... The PCs are an official UN team. They are trying to rescue some normal people trapped inside a nearly unbreakable crystal structure. Cast of characthers... John Henry: density/gravity brick Kooun Kaze: gravity energy projector Saulk: mystic with healing powers The team started out at one of the UN bases. Some of the base's support staff is supplied by the UN, but the rest of the support staff is supplied by the government where the base is located. GM: (providing background to the players) For the last several days you've been stationed at the Caracas base. It's a modern, comfortable and well equipped facility. And it's staffed by the friendliest spies you've ever met. After determining that they can't just tunnel under the walls of the structure to get inside. Saulk: "Okay. Brute force it is." The PCs had opted to wear lightly armored uniforms instead of heavy armor, since they were told they were just rescuing some people trapped inside a building. Consequently, they kept taking damage from flying pieces of crystal as they smashed their way through the structure's walls. Kooun Kaze: "I suggest a new policy for the future. We carry the heavy armor along with us." As the main wall-breaker, John Henry took most of the damage. John Henry: "I just stepped on something sharp. I don't think my density increase helped me much."

Left hand side I agree with secretID. The left column is a decent read. The right column is a space-wasting rant. I'd say most veterans use disadvantages the same way he does, so we don't see the system as broken. If I understand the character, the disads write themselves. I had one NPC (The Count) that had 270 points of disads, and 90 of them were PsychLims. He wasn't broken. He was complicated. As a new player I saw disads as something that could be used against me. Then I encountered a PC that had an interesting disad ... PsychLim: cute chicks, common, strong. The player had a blast with that one. That's been my inspiration ever since.

Re: GM help with The Guild of Swords

Re: Depression-era and WW-II settings from a Not-American perspective For WWII, don't ignore the Eastern Front (Germany vs. Russia). It was far larger and more important than anything that occurred on the Western Front (involving Great Britain and the US). To give an idea of the difference in scale... D-Day (Allies' invasion of France) 156,000 Allies vs. 380,000 Germans Operation Barbarossa (German invasion of Soviet Union) approx. 3 million Germans vs. 3.2 million Soviets The Eastern Front is where the war was won/lost. Wikipedia can get you started on the necessary information.

Re: Mottos for use in games

Re: New Broom Terrorists They were the Franciscans. You might also look at the Peasants' War and the Twelve Articles of the Black Forest. It's not exactly what you're looking for, but it's somewhat close.

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

Recurring NPC's A few from my campaigns: Ms. Wickerman Ms. Wickerman was an AI who could create a projection of herself (like a holodeck projection). While she maintained a professional demeanor, she was curious about everything and would try almost anything once. She was initially the DNPC of her creator, a cyberkineticist. When he disappeared, she took over her creator's business and became a recurring contact for the team. Following the alien invasion and occupation of earth, she became one of the main leaders of the metahuman resistance. Jerry, the mechanic Jerry built and maintained the VTOL (the team's vehicle). He was a typical blue-collar guy with two daughters (7 and 10). He took it as a personal affront if someone damaged "his" VTOL, and he had been known to throw a wrench (or hammer) at the hero responsible for the damage ... provided he was certain that the wrench wouldn't be damaged. Jerry was a huge fan of Larry the Cable Guy, and saw himself as a "Git 'r' done" kind of man. Levi's biggest fan Levi had a public identity and was often followed (stalked) by his biggest fan. Levi was a powerful telekinetic, and his fanboy was telekinetic of minor power (STR 10, fine manipulation, Sfx: a translucent hand). The fanboy would use his powers to grab hold of Levi, wave his hand in front of Levi's face, and numerous other attempts to attract Levi's attention. This also tended to draw the attention of IHA-types and other metahuman-haters. “Hoss” Hoss is the UN liaison for the Johannesburg, South Africa base. Except in appearance, he is all the worst stereotypes of a Texan. Boots, spurs, jeans, 10 gallon hat, chewing tobacco and a drawl. The sign on his office door says “Come in peace or leave in pieces.” Hoss is a 6’7”, broad shouldered, barrel-chested black man. He looks like he regularly takes steroids, human growth hormone, and any number of other substances that pump him up. A little investigation would reveal that Hoss grew up in London’s Lower East End. He may have visited Texas at some point, but he’s never lived there.

Clones and the Fine Art of Murder Juries don't like to let murderers walk. They're much more inclinded to ignore reasonable doubt. Let's say I create a clone of myself to murder Balabanto. While the clone is committing the murder, I hang out in a public place to provide myself an alibi. When we're caught and brought to trial, the district attorney charges one of us as the murderer, charges the other as an accessory (for providing the alibi), and charges both of us for conspiracy to commit murder. If the jury is convinced that we both participated in murdering Balabanto, they're not going to let us walk. (They'll happily ignore their doubt over which class A felony we're guilty of. They'll sleep well knowing we were guilty of at least one class A felony apiece.) The only way we would survive on reasonable doubt would be if we convinced the jury that one of us was completely guilty and the other was completely innocent ... and they still weren't sure which was which.

Character creation We began creating characters for the new campaign. No exceptionally funny quotes, but it did remind me of a previous character creation situation with the group's munchkin. The GM reviewed the munchkin's first draft... GM: "You have Clinging, Energy Blast, Entangle, Force Field, Force Wall, Running, Stretching and Summoning in your Elemental Control. What is the common special effect that they all share?" munchkin: "They're mucous powers." (Long pause....) GM: "I am not letting you run Snot-Boy as a superhero."

Re: Mind Control EGO+10 and EGO+20 Examples +0 or +10: "I've set bombs throughout this building. Evacuate the hostages before I set them off." "Check your fallen teammate to see whether she needs immediate medical attention." "This is just a diversion. My friends are abducting the president as we speak. Go ahead, try to stop them!" +10 or +20: "I bet your mother is worried about you. Call her right now and let her know you're okay." +20: "My god man, get this kid a happy meal!"

Re: Balancing Mental Powers Make antagonists that aren't people. Use "Villainy Amok" as an example. One scenario involves rescuing people from a burning building. Mechanon has lots of minions. They're all robots. If your mentalist is that effective, it's not unreasonable to have 1/4 of the adventures revolve around problems that can't be solved by messing with human minds. Rule #1: Don't give minions sensitive information. Rule #2: Or deliberately give minions sensitive information so the mentalist can obtain it via Telepathy. Now set up your trap. Bombs are nice because they don't have brains. Rule #3: As soon as the Mentalist is detected, everyone shoots him first. (Unless someone qualifies as bigger threat.) Rule #4: Send the pawns in first. Mentalists can't target 20 minions at once. Rule #5: Just because a villain sees an illusion doesn't mean he believes the illusion. I won't apply this rule unless the Mental Illusion is blatant (like an ally suddenly looking like an enemy). Rule #6: As others have mentioned, eliminate the Mentailist's ability to target enemies. I'd give a major villain 10 points of Mental Defense and 18 EGO (minimum). That makes them almost difficult to take down with mental powers as with any other other means of attack. High-powered villains get much more of both.

Re: I Just Shoot Marvin In The Face Ooh. I need to buy Cortex an RKA, indirect, variable special effect, Sfx: he momentarily dominates someone and makes them shoot a target of his choosing. So when a teammate shoots Marvin in the face, it's what Cortex just did....

Re: Brother From Another Mother Multi-Man would consider keeping his mouth shut. He's hunted by his supervillain ex-wife, and any extra confusion would make his life easier. However, he's fairly well known among older heroes, so he would assume that any deception would backfire in the long run. Therefore, he would probably keep his mouth shut until someone asked him about it. Then he would say, "My teammate was mistaken about that, but I'm glad he thinks so highly of me." Cortex would appreciate this kind of misdirection. In keeping with his public persona, he would keep his mouth shut and answer any questions with, "I am a private person, so I choose not to discuss any details of my personal life." In his secret ID he would spread the rumor as if he believed it was true.

Bad day to be a bad guy. Russian Mafia Thug #1 took a shotgun blast to the vitals. He was wearing enough body armor to avoid taking Body damage, but he wasn't nearly as agile after that. Apparently it was hard for him to dodge bullets while clutching his crotch. I suppose I could have included that segment in my narrative, but the only quote was "OW !!" On an unrelated topic, I need to spread rep around before I can give more to... Shadow Hawk input.jack Balbanto Ian Mackinder NestorDRod ghost-angel Drhoz Either we need more funny people on this forum, or I need to start reading other threads on a regular basis.

We're here to serve a warrant... The team is a group of cybernetically-enhanced US Marshalls. They are pursuing Mikhail (also known as Ivan, also known as Ilya, also known as...), a freelance corporate espionage agent. Ivan/Mikhail has stolen nanotechnology which he believes will cure his terminal lung cancer. The creator of the nanotechnology believes there is a "small" chance (less than 5%) that the untested nanites could kill millions of people if released. The team has located Mikhail's lab and is raiding it with the help of local police and SWAT. The team will secure the stolen nanotech while SWAT and the uniformed police evacuate and protect noncombatants. Cast of characters: Darnell: team shooter with wired reflexes Eyes: team spotter and sniper with enhanced cyberoptics Ham: ex-soldier, communications specialist D-Tox: DNPC, one of Ham's army buddies, now works in hazmat (hazardous materials) disposal Mr. Wexler: NPC, creator of the nanotechnology How to unlock a door. Ham: "I'll take a look at the lock." GM: It's a standard maglock with a solenoid switch. You could override it in an hour or less. Darnell: "Screw that!" (He pulls out his gun and fires a dozen shots into the maglock. Bullets ricochet around the room; sparks fly and the LED on the lock goes out.) Ham: (over the SWAT tactical frequency) "The shots fired were just us taking out a lock." SWAT sargeant: "Well, we're no longer having any trouble convincing the noncombatants to exit the building. They're now running for the exit." How to unlock a door ... Part Two Darnell: "No problem. I'll just shoot it out again." Ham: "Let's try to be a little less conspicuous this time." Eyes: "Fewer ricochets would be nice too." Ham: "D-Tox, boost me up through the false ceiling. I want to look for the power cord to the maglock." (Ham finds a power cord.) Ham: "I'm cutting the power now." (Ham cuts the power cable. The lights in the room go out. The monitors go out. The LED on the lock goes out, and there's a click from the solenoid switch.) Ham: (now completely in the dark) "The door's unlocked." Darnell: "Riiiight. That was much less conspicuous." We realize that Ivan/Mikhail has started up the machine that creates the nanites. Ham: (over the SWAT tactical frequency) "They've started creating the nanites. Could you move the perimeter back?" SWAT sargeant: "How far should I move it back to keep people safe." Ham: (to Mr. Wexler) "What would be a safe distance for the perimeter?" Mr. Wexler: "Which way is the wind blowing?" The group reaches the stairs to the basement. Eyes: "I'm going to sneak down the stairs. Could you and Darnell stay at the top of the stairs and pretend to have a conversation about military tactics for going down the stairs?" Ham: "Pretend? I'll get D-Tox in here and have that conversation for real." (As Eyes sneaks down the stairs, a voice yells up from below...) Russian Mafia Thug #2: "Who the hell are you people?" Ham: "We're federal agents serving a warrant." Eyes: (still sneaking downstairs) .oO(This is a lot better distraction than I'd planned.) Russian Mafia Thug #2: "What the hell do you want with us?" Ham: "We have an arrest warrant for an international fugitive. He goes by Ivan or Mikhail or a few other aliases." (Pause) "He's the only one listed in the warrant. If you turn him over to us, the rest of you can leave and have a nice day." Russian Mafia Thug #2: (pauses to think) "The one you call Mikhail is working on a project. Give him two hours to finish it and he'll turn himself in voluntarily." Ham: "In two hours he could end up releasing a bunch of nanites that could kill everybody in this city. That's really not an acceptable alternative." Russian Mafia Thug #2: "You believe he is doing that? You are more paranoid than Russians." The team needs to get down a hallway. At the end of the hallway the Mafia Thug is hiding behind an overturned metal table. He's covering the hallway with a high-power rifle. While SWAT brings the team some flash-bangs and a riot shield, Ham searches the BioLab for some empty plastic containers that look similar to the flash-bangs. Ham: (explaining his plan) "I'll throw a flash-bang and a couple empty containers down the hall. As soon as the flash-bang goes off, Eyes will scoot out into the hallway behind the riot shield." Darnell: "What are the empty containers for?" Ham: "So the Russian will keep his head down while waiting for them to go off too." (Ham throws, the flash-bang goes off, and Eyes scoots out into the hall. The Mafia Thug tries to put a couple rounds through the riot shield, then holds his fire while waiting for Eyes to expose himself.) Eyes: "Ham, do you have a grenade?" Ham: (grabbing another empty container) "One grenade coming right up." (As Ham throws the empty container down the hall, the Mafia Thug ducks for cover behind his table. Eyes and Darnell use the diversion to cover the far end of the hallway.) Russian Mafia Thug #2: "Very funny. You say you are police, but American police do not carry grenades." Ham: "We're American police, not Russian police. We're allowed to have a sense of humor." Russian Mafia Thug #2: "Da. And Russian police are allowed to have grenades."