Ranxerox

Re: A Real life "Plain Jane"?

Uhh, Photoshop?

Re: Potential Espionage Material Source - "Salt"

Just got back from seeing this movie. It's a lot of fun. I will try to write up Ms. Salt at some point in the future and post her here.

Re: Welcome to McGuffins. May I take your order?

The Polyversal Remote is a handheld device that enables the user to:

1. view distant places, times and dimensions

2. travel to and from those locations

3. summon beings and objects from those locations

4. alter their local surroundings

5. alter their local physical constants, including probability

6. alter local inhabitants

7. freeze, slow or speed up the flow of time locally

8. analyze anything it views, including living beings

9. translate languages

10. provide basic environmental and physical protection to the wielder of the remote

 

(VPP, OAF, Requires a Skill Roll(Use Polyversal Remote)(-1/20 active points), occasional side effects)--points as suitable to campaign setting

The hallmark of McGuffin is being coveted not being useful. So if your Polyversal Remote is something that people struggle for but don't get to hold onto long it is a McGuffin. If it is something that the players are allowed to get there hands on a keep a while, even if they have problems using it reliably, it is a plot device.

Re: Gravity well power - how to write it?

I like your original proposed build more than any of the ones that other people have put forward. It seems to get the job done with a minimum of fuss. I would probably give the "only to pull down" limitation a -1 value, since it cuts into the usefulness of the TK a good bit.

Re: We seem to be losing time... literally!

The Thief of Time (by Terry Pratchett)

Wow, I wasn't actually expecting an answer. I will put on my to read list.

Re: We seem to be losing time... literally!

If time is going missing, clearly someone must be stealing it. Who is this person, where are they storing all their stolen time and what is their agenda?

Re: Short Film Find: The Rise and Fall of the Nazi Dinosaurs

Great little film. Oddly, slightly similar to the opening of the new Toy Story movie.

Re: Welcome to McGuffins. May I take your order?

I didn't invent this one. It comes from writer Gail Simone and the comic Secret Six. One of her story arcs revolved around a get out hell free card that the devil created to create strife on earth as sinners fought over it. Personally I thought that this was a brilliant McGuffin.

Re: Scion Hero of sorts

Well, maybe they do rule the world and are just quiet about it. They have discovered that if they rule behind the scenes that they face less less opposition and what opposition they do face has less of a handle on how to deal with them.

If you don't like the magical Illuminati campaign idea, you could arrange it so the internal rivalries in the magical community prevent any one person or faction from taking over. The werewolves/ goblins/water spirits just refuse to let the vampires/elves/air spirits from taking over because they are afraid of persecution from their mystical brethren.

As for the crossroads/nexus point question, I would treat these as strategic points that are carefully controlled by various factions and random crossing over is something that the factions don't permit.

Re: Avatars: The -other- Patriots

Just so you'll know' date=' Avant Guard received a full 5E write-up in [i']Villains, Vandals, And Vermin[/i]. I would expect him to be updated to 6E in Champions Villains.

 

In short, Avant Guard is a duplicating, shapeshifting, teleporting, gadget-using lunatic of unknown origin and completely unpredictable behavior, often absurd or comical, sometimes deadly serious and violent.

Thanks, I own that one. I had forgotten that I made a request for write-up for the character here, but his inclusion did play a role in my buying the book.

Re: Special Report: The End of Superheroes!

Most classic superheroes (as opposed to pulp "mystery men" do NOT "take the law into their own hands"; none of the classic DC superheroes were vigilantees. Even Batman did not try to "punish" the criminals, he immobilized them and left them for the police. If Joe Q. Redneck (or anyone else) sees a serious crime in progress they can act to stop it. (At least in the US.)

I truly do not see where you get that heroes action indicate that they believe might makes right. (Anti-heroes are another thing entirely.) Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and the Flash never acted that way that I recall. Please give some examples.

It is illegal to physically assault some or to bind them and take them somewhere against their will. Prevention of crime is what is known as an affirmative defense against these charges. That means that if the accused (the superhero) can prove that he was preventing a serious crime he would be found not guilty of battery and kidnapping, but the burden of proof that a serious crime was being committed lies with him. If the district attorney believes that the superhero will be able to meet that burden of proof, the DA can choose not to prosecute the case against the superhero. Then again the DA would also be in his rights to pursue the case and force the superhero prove his defense. If it seems unlikely that the superhero will be able to prove his defense then the DA is ethically bound prosecute the superhero.

So, say a Doctor Wonderful forcefully stops a mugging in an alley, and leaves the muggers tied up in front of the police station. If the Doctor Wonderful, the muggers and the victim are the only witnesses and victim refused to testify then the muggers could claim whatever they liked. They could say that they were just playing dice in the alley when Doctor Wonder, showed up spewing racial epitaphs and attacked them. In this situation the district attorney would be pretty much obligated to pursue assault and battery and kidnapping charges against Doctor Wonderful, even though all that he did was the sort of thing that both Marvel and DC heroes do all the time.

Re: If I had 500 slaves...

In gaming terms let's take a bunch of "dangerous" slaves like PCs. You chain 'em together, so that they can only move at the speed of the slowest person. If they have shackles, they can only move at half speed. You attach the chains with rivets hammered into place, so it can't be picked (there's no lock). The chains act as a grab, so they chained-up people are at half OCV and half DCV. They might have tools as weapons, but these will likely be improvised - like say a mining pick - not at all the same implement as a war pick and therefore giving another -3 OCV. In a straight fight, even if the PCs are clearly superior to the guards (normally) the disadvantages will be substantial. If the overseer is smart, there will be a good archer on overwatch who can easily plug any troublesome slave long before they can shuffle up to him. Etc.

 

cheers, Mark

I think you are being a little harsh here. Shackles are not the same as a grab. When you grab someone you are trying to prevent them from moving all together, whereas when you shackle a slave you still them to be able to move and work. By deliberately giving them more freedom so that they can do your bidding, IMO you are sacrificing some of the OCV and DCV penalty of a full grab. Also, I would probably allow the players to move faster than half speed if they made a DEX roll with how much the made the roll by determining their speed.

Of course if the PCs remained slaves long enough, they would become eligible to buy skills such a Environmental Movement:Shackles and WF:Mining Axe.

Re: Pcs and the presidency

I need ideas:

How many different ways can an election be rigged in the average supers universe?

my thoughts so far:

Candidate could be “Manchurian”.

Voting machines can be hacked.

Electors could be mindless drones; Voters could be mindless drones.

News Networks can be hacked, controlled, or bamboozled.

Candidate could be an illusion, construct, proxy, robot, or alien shapeshifter.

White House completely replaced by _____ type of construct.

Constitution can be amended to make any of the above easier or unnecessary.

more?

 

 

Please: Save your "witty" political banter or party jokes for non-gaming discussion area...

Necromancy and Thread-Jacking: super-crime at its very best....

Thanks.

Re: Professor Null, the Man of Steam

Nice character.

I really like the origin that you came up with for him.

Re: First Wave, the First Review! Discuss, or risk Angering the Golden Tree!

"Real Blackhawks" = the ones who aren't rat bastards

I've been reading comics books long enough to know that no matter how much things appear to be one way it isn't necessarily so. That is why I'm not giving in spoilers, because they may not turn out to be accurate. Still, at this moment... it doesn't look good.

Re: First Wave #2

Well, I didn't see that coming.

If Brian Azzarello doesn't produce the real Black Hawks by the end of issue 3, I don't think I will be picking up issue 4. IMO, they are lucky that I don't assume that everything is as it appears to be and am willing to pick up issue 3 just in case.

Re: Aircraft Designed to Fly Like Maple Seeds

Surveillance pickup delivery leaps immediately to mind.

Surveillance? I can see that. The images taken from the on in the clip were little more than a blur, but with a fast enough camera and by timing your images to offset the rotation you could probably get usable images. What a maple seed surveillance drone lacked in image quality it would make up in longer flight duration and 360 degree panorama view.

Pickup delivery? What sort of payload? Bear in mind that since they would by necessity be pilotless drones, and people are reluctant to make drones very big. When putting tons of metal into the air and sending it across country, it is comforting to know that someone is behind the wheel. So I would think that anything that was going to be transported in a maple seed plane would, in addition to being tolerant of stress of high speed spinning, have to be not very big.

Re: Aircraft Designed to Fly Like Maple Seeds

That's really cool! Sadly, the only things that I can think to do with it is sell it as a toy or use it to deliver explosives to where you want to detonate them. I'm sure that there are other viable uses for this technology, but I am drawing a blank as to what those uses might be.

Re: BioFix - We're here to help!

(For the love of Pete.) If Champions is not all about ignoring the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology in the name of telling a good story, I don't know what it is.

 

But if you simply cannot participate without technobabble, here you go:

These modified Thiobacillus ferrooxidans and/or Thiobacillus thiooxidans bacteria obtain the carbon they need to sustain their survival and growth from carbon dioxide. They obtain energy by oxidizing iron in the blood.

or, if you prefer:

These modified Thiothrix bacteria oxydize hydrogen sulfide in the blood.

 

Those are real bacteria that live quite well without any photosynthesis at all -- apparently ignoring the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. Google away.

If the bacteria is oxidizing something to power its chemical reaction, you are losing the very oxygen atoms that you were trying to liberate (oxidize = add oxygen to another molecule). Of course, you are right, you don't have to explain how the process works; it is a game based on superhero comic books after all. It's just that there are a fair number of science types roaming the board and we like to pick nits. Ignore us.

Re: First Wave, the First Review! Discuss, or risk Angering the Golden Tree!

If you don't know of The Avenger you are missing a LOT.

 

~Rex

Looking The Avenger up on wikipedia, the characters appears to have had the misfortune of being introduced right at the the end of the pulp era. His magazine only ran three years before going under like most of the pulps of that time. Consequently, he is not as famous say The Shadow, The Spider and Doc Savage who were introduced earlier and enjoyed longer runs before pulp serials went out of fashion. Of course this isn't the character's fault and I am looking forward to becoming acquainted with Mr. Benson.

Sometimes its really fascinating the perplexing where peoples suspension of belief stops. works for me. if fact Rex has almost convinced me I have to get in on this despite the fact I simply cannot comprehend Brian Azzarello' date=' who wrote the awful Superman arc "For Tomorrow", ( which I pretty much will NEVER forgive him for.) could possibly have any clue how to properly write Doc and any of the other pulp greats.[/quote']

 

Brian Azzarello's signature series, 100 Bullets, has a strong pulp/noir feel to it. So he seems like a good fit to the material for me. Superman is difficult for many writers to script. Even an epic fail writing Superman doesn't necessary indicate a lack of talent on the part of the writer. It just means that the writer is one of the legion of writers who don't know what to do with the Big Blue Boyscout.

Re: First Wave, the First Review! Discuss, or risk Angering the Golden Tree!

Did I miss the second issue of First Wave? It has been over a month since issue number one came out and I haven't seen issue number two.

I did pick up issue number one Doc Savage, and it is a good read. However, I found back up feature, Justice Inc., to be the more intriguing of the two stories. I have no previous experience with the character Richard Benson, but I suspect that I have been missing out here.

Re: Running a Dark Golden Age?

I agree that the 1917 to 1927 era is great to play in' date=' but that's the focus of the previous generation. The key to this game would be Golden Age characters as the 'new kids' learning from the pros that fought during that previous era. Now I can see a character as someone who was in their prime during that era as the 'mentor' character or the old vet coming back to duke it out. In a way this is a flipping the Golden Agers are the pros to the Silver Agers plots in comics. I'm going back a generation.[/quote']

 

Well, when you put it that way, it sounds very cool. Good luck with it.

Re: Running a Dark Golden Age?

I can see a Golden Age dark champions campaign working pretty well. I lot of the Golden Age books were actually pretty dark and violent; The Batman originally carried a gun, many Golden Age killed mercilessly, etc. So Golden Age and dark champions are a surprisingly good fit.

The whole post WW I angle confuses me a bit. Usually when someone says post WW I, I think of 1917 to 1927. The Nazis, however, didn't come to power until 1933. True this is technically still post WW I (as is today). It is just not what think of as the post World War I period. Mainly, I mention it because 1917 to 1927 seems like a fertile time for a campaign. You have Prohibition, gangsters, the roaring twenties, the lost generation, the Harlem Renaissance, and the rise of communism to play with. Unfortunately, you don't have many Nazis.

Re: Your "2010" Pet Gaming Projects

I highly recommend the soundtracks to Black Hawk Down and District 9 as mood music.

It never occurred to me that Black Hawk Down had a soundtrack that I could buy. This sounds like a really good idea. Unfortunately, since it would be a Herocentral game the other players would not be able to hear it. Still, I think it would be excellent for getting me in the right frame of mind to make my post.

Re: A Robert E. Howard moment.....

the above link to ("What If Conan the Barbarian Walked the Earth Today?") is a prelude to this ("What If Conan the Barbarian were Stranded in the 20th Century?"):

http://www.htmlcomics.com/Book/html.asp?Series_Name=What%20If%20(V1)&Book_No=043&Page_Number=1&Alpha=|&Lookup=what%20if

I'm sorry. I meant to link to the issue that you linked to, not issue 13.

Have some rep for providing the correct link.