bigdamnhero

Re: Sexual Orientation=Psych Lim? I would agree. I tend to be fairly strict about players trying to get points just for having a personality. It has to limit them in some way. Now if he/she is lecherous to the point where he/she frequently hits on inappropriate people leading to fights and misunderstandings, or he's easily duped by a pretty face or something, then that's a disad. To be fair, I have broken my own rule on occassion. I used to have one player who tended towards very 2-dimensional characters: power-sets with legs. So letting him take points for personality traits was the only way of assuring that his character would have any personality at all. Fortunately the other players were all busy taking "real" disads, so it didn't become an equity issue. bigdamnhero "Zathras is used to being beast of burden to other people's needs. Very sad life. Probably have very sad death, but at least there is symmetry."

Re: Sexual Orientation=Psych Lim? Well put. I have to say I'm not sure I'd give points for being openly gay in most "modern" US campaigns. That's not to say that gays don't still suffer from discrimination. But how many points a disad is worth also depends on how you plan to use it in-game. If I gave a PC points for it, then I as GM would be forced to regularly put that character in situations where he is discriminated against because of his orientation. Personally, I'd rather not go there. Ditto for racial discrimination. As for a character being closeted, I'd give it a couple points for Harmful Secret, but again the value would depend on how much damage the PC would suffer if the secret got out. So if one of his teammates or family members is a raging homophobe he risks alienating them, but he probably won't lose his job or be jailed or lynched. (Again, not that those things don't still happen, but I'd prefer to keep them out of my games.) Or, to twist OddHat's example: if Jack Hero is gay, but he's in a committed relationship with Lady Justice... now that's gotta be worth a few points. bigdamnhero "Rasputin, bring in the bucket of soapy frogs and remove his trousers."

Re: Sci-fi wear swords? Just to clarify: only about half the States have concealed carry laws. bigdamnhero "See how I’m not punching him? I think I’ve grown."

Re: Women in Pulp adventures? Here's an article on Amy Thorpe, America's answer to Mata Hari, and her WWII exploits: http://womenshistory.about.com/library/prm/blamythorpe1.htm My favorite quotes are: "Our meetings were very fruitful, and I let him make love to me as often as he wanted, since this guaranteed the smooth flow of political information I needed." And the classic: "Wars are not won by respectable methods." Emma Peal eat your heart out! bigdamnhero "As the days go by, we face the increasing inevitability that we are alone in a godless, uninhabited, hostile and meaningless universe. Still, you've got to laugh, haven't you?"

Re: Sci-fi wear swords? I can think of any number of countries today that this applies to. Even visited a few of them “back in the dayâ€. Never saw (or heard of) one where swordsmanship made a big comeback. Sure saw a lot of AKs, tho. No desire to start an NGD debate on the merits of gun control… I’m just sayin’. Don’t mistake ceremonial swords for actual weapons. Even if you were to sharpen the blade, most ceremonial swords would last maybe one blow before snapping. I've seen deadlier letter-openers. Of course, your future may vary. [single solitary exception: the US Army cavalry saber designed in I think 1913 by General (and Olympic fencer) George Patton. The Army replaced it after a handful of years because it was too heavy for ceremonial use.] Anyway, some practical ideas: In one short-lived campaign I ran, based partly on Alien Wars, the Xenovors all had an Enraged limitation that meant they prefered to charge into hand-to-hand combat if given the opportunity. Knowing this, several of the PCs took melee weapon skills. They still hardly ever got used, because it was usually easier to shoot the bugs before they got into melee range than to wait for them to close and trade blows with them. (Kinda like real life...) I played in another game which was set on a huge station. The powers-that-be had sufficient technology to enforce an absolute ban on guns of any kind. (Sophisticated sensor systems tied to teleporters that could beam you straight to prison before the recoil was over.) But swords and other muscle-powered weapons were much harder to detect and therefore harder to enforce. You could do lots of variations on this theme, particularly if your campaign is set in a limited area. I've also seen games where "dueling" with swords was legal, but fighting with guns was not. No real rational reason for it, but hey - since when are humans all rational all the time? From a mechanics standpoint, another option might be to pump up the damage of melee weapons to make them more attractive. You can call this high-tec alloys, or just GM fiat as you like. bigdamnhero “I'll die.†“Well, as a courtesy, you might start getting busy on that, cause all this chatter ain't doin' me any kindness.â€

Re: EOCV vs DCV Also a fair point. bigdamnhero

Re: EOCV vs DCV Yes, that's what I meant. I just wrote it wrong. bigdamnhero "Mercy is the mark of a great man. [stab] Guess I'm just a good man. [stab] Well, I'm okay."

Re: EOCV vs DCV Well, buying it as straight BOECV does include LOS by default, right? That's one reason it's so expensive. (HD lists a -1/4 "Range Modifiers Apply" adder for BOECV.) If switching from OCV to ECV is the only thing you're switching, I'd probably lean towards +1/4. Significantly cheaper than buying up your DEX, but that's your reward for thinking outside the box. If you wanted to also add LOS... well, buying LOS by itself is a +1/2 adv, so that puts you back up to +3/4. Really, the only things you've left out of the package are: It targets DCV instead of DECV (not much of an advantage in most campaigns), and It affects standard defenses (which is a free option for BOECV). It's still visible to normal vision unless you buy that off. Not trying to rain on your parade g-s. It's still a cool idea. I just think it's an advantage and should be paid for accordingly. bigdamnhero "Hell I dunno, if I wanted schoolin' I'd have gone to school."

Re: EOCV vs DCV OK, try this one on for size: The question isn't whether EGO is cheaper than DEX; the question is whether it's cheaper to buy up one of them or both of them. (That part is meant to be rhetorical.) In this case, it sounds like the character has primarily EGO-based attacks; I assume he/she has a high EGO, and probably a lower DEX. Because of the limitations of standard mental powers (can't blast doors, robots, etc), you want to add another power that does physical/energy damage. Perfectly reasonable: no problem so far. But using a standard energy blast effectively would require that you either buy up your DEX to match your EGO, or buy some CSLs to compensate. Instead you want to use your ECV to target the attack; you want to have it both ways. Mind you: I'm not saying that's a bad thing! It's a creative idea and I agree that creativity should not be punished. But IMO it outta cost something to compensate for the extra DEX +/or CSLs that you avoided having to buy. Turn it around: a brick wants to buy an EGO Attack so he can have something with LOS and all the other advantages of mental powers. But because his ECV is so low, he wants to be able to use his OCV to target it. Fine (assuming it fits the character, etc), but it's an advantage to the character and therefore should cost points, if only in the interest of maintaining balance. As far as how much it should cost, I could argue it anywhere from +1/4 to +3/4 depending on the campaign. bigdamnhero "You can get more with a kind word and a two-by-four than you can with just a kind word."

Two questions, one practical and one more theoretical: 1. How would you work the points if more than one PC share the same DNPC? It seems like that should lower the point value of the DNPC somewhat, since there are more heroes to protect him/her, but how much lower? Or would you even allow this? 2. What are your thoughts on DNPCs who have superpowers of their own? I'm thinking mostly of low-level (<20 AP) powers, and ones that are not terribly useful in combat: precognition maybe, or "transform loaves into fishes" or whatever. How much power can/should a DNPC have without stretching the -5 points for "useful skills" too far? bigdamnhero "I'll be in my bunk."

Re: "Tag Along" movement power Sorry to go MIA from my own party folks; been doing that a lot lately. Thanks for all the ideas, both serious and humorous. And I'm not going to specify which I think was which. The reasoning behind the idea was that the character's shtick is primarily about enhancing other characters' powers, so the player couldn't think up a logical reason the character would have a movement power on his own. I was trying to come up with a way he could “help†someone else to help him move. I wanted to have a couple different possibilities to suggest to the player, so again thanks for all the ideas. My initial post made it sound like he was going to be physically in contact with the "prime mover" but I'm also thinking he might want to be able to do it at (short) range, so he can fly/run/whatever right behind the prime? He may not be able to afford that initially, but it could be an upgrade for later. Nothing inherently wrong with N-Ads; I just tend to be very leery about them because I’ve seen them abused so much. (Which I agree is the GM’s fault – I’m trying for it NOT to be my fault.) Personally, I think I lean towards EverKnight’s suggestion of just buying flight with a couple “useable as other movement†ads and a “only to mimic…†lim. Reasons: 1) it seems the simplest conceptually, mimicry just becomes the spfx of his movement power, 2) the mechanics are simple, and this is a fairly new player, 3) he can start with only one or two movement types initially and add others later, 4) it can fit in his existing EC, and 5) the cost seems about in line with what I think it should cost. Although that begs the question of how much this “should†cost. The benefit he gets is having more than one type of movement, but the restriction is that he has to stay close to one of his teammates to use it. How much does the one outweigh the others? Given that both his teammates have movement powers (hyper-running and leaping), how much should the limitation be worth? I’m thinking: [limited power, only to mimic the movement powers of another willing character within x†(x†being one half-move): -1]. Too much? Not enough? …and BTW, if I haven’t said it lately – it is SO freakin’ cool to have a place to geek out over this type of stuff with like-minded folks. God I love this board! bigdamnhero "See this? This is my BOOM stick."

One of the PCs in my new Champions group wants to be able to piggyback on other people's movement abilities. In other words, he doesn't have flight himself, but if another character has flight (or hyper-running or leaping or whatever) he can hitch a ride with them, even if the 2d PC doesn't have "usable on others" for his flight. I think it's a clever idea, and it fits the character, but I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how to model it. Transfer isn't right, because he doesn't want to lower the 2d PC's movement. I considered just having him buy Flight with a "only to hitchhike on other flyers" limitation, but then he can't use it with leaping/swinging/tunneling/etc. Essentially, I just want him to be able to grant "useable on others" to other people's movement abilities, but then I'd have to buy UOO as a naked modifier, and I'd need to buy it with UOO as an advantage to the naked modifier... ...which is when smoke started coming out of my ears and I decided to call for backup. Any ideas? bigdamnhero "Okay, we made a mistake. I'm sorry. Here, open my wrist." "Centauri don't have major arteries in their wrist." "Of course we don't. What do you think, I'm stupid?"

Re: Advice on GMing superhero campaigns? Only one or two areas?! Woo Hoo!! Thanks for all the sage advice, folks. I had time to read them, but not reply, before last night's session. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything obvious (like the importance of lighting & mood in a horror game, which it took me depressingly-long to figure out). As always, you gave me a number of helpful reminders. The game went very well, `tho the pace did bog down a little at one point. I had already discussed tone and such with the players, so that wasn't a worry. As it turns out, the biggest thing I forgot was dry-erase pens for the battlemat; for the final battle we wound up scribbling X's, O's and arrows on a piece of paper like a bunch of Monday-morning QBs. bigdamnhero "VVP Deus Ex pool?" -- Gotta get me one of those!

Re: Critical Hits & Fumbles

So my new Champions campaign is almost ready to go. It's a mostly Bronze Age, mostly 4-color comic book game, not set in the CU but borrowing heavily from it. I think I've got everything about ready to go, and am really looking forward to it starting. But here's the thing. `Tho I've been GMing for something like 25 years now, I've mostly run sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. While I have played superheroes before, it dawned on me the other day that this will be the first superheroes campaign I've actually run. (I have run one-off supers games at cons and the like, but never a full campaign.) So... any advice for a not-exactly-new GM? I'm not looking for rules issues (knockback yes, hit location no) or story ideas (I'm full of those). Just more philosophical questions about how running a superhero game is different from running other genres. Thanks in advance, bigdamnhero "You will all go directly to your respective Valhalla's. Go directly, do not pass Go, do not collect two-hundred dollahs."

Following is my take on how superheroes might fit into the American legal system -- or rather, how the legal system might be modified to accomodate the superheroes once people see the obvious benefits of having them around. What I tried to do is think of as few changes as possible that would allow comic book heroes to do their genre-jobs, without totally scraping the core values of our judicial system. I welcome any comments, particularly from the lawyers & cops on the list: Superheroes and the American Legal System A couple quickie definitions first, for those who might need them: - Probable Cause (“PCâ€) means a reasonable person would conclude it is "more likely than not" that specific items will be in a specific place at a specific time. - Reasonable suspicion means a reasonable person would conclude that the items might be there -- it is more than just a guess or a hunch, but less than PC. - Hearsay: Second-hand information: “Joe told me…†- Fruit of the Poisonous Tree: A legal concept that any actions stemming from an illegal action are inadmissible, even if on their own they might have been admissible. The classic example is the police search a house pursuant to a warrant, find drugs, and the suspect subsequently confesses; if the court later rules that the warrant did not have sufficient PC, then neither the drugs nor the confession can be admitted as evidence. (This may seem like a trivial concern, but the majority of criminal cases that get dismissed are over this exact point.) Over the years since superheroes first appeared, Congress and the courts have made a number of modifications to the US legal system in order to recognize and accommodate their unique role in the Justice system, while still respecting suspects’ rights to due process and a fair trial. Superheroes who are officially affiliated with the government, or have been granted police powers, must follow the same procedures as conventional law enforcement officers (warrants, probable cause, etc). Supers who are not government-affiliated (referred to in legalese as "non-governmental agents" or "NGAs") do not have to follow as strict standards as police do. However, courts have ruled that too cozy a relationship with the police can make heroes de-facto agents of the court. Above all else, all parties must avoid the appearance that the police are using heroes to get around formal procedures. As long as information flows from NGAs to police, this isn’t much of a concern. When police provide information to NGAs things get trickier; such cases are generally resolved on a case-by-case basis considering the “totality of the circumstances.†Most Federal & state vigilante laws have been repealed or drastically limited. Therefore, the fact that evidence was obtained by NGAs does not, in and of itself, mean that it was illegally obtained. In theory, NGAs can be prosecuted criminally or sued civilly for trespassing, breaking & entering, etc. In practice, however, it is nearly impossible to get a jury to convict a superhero for trespassing in the conduct of an investigation, so few people bother to try. NGAs can testify while concealing their identities, but only if their identities have been disclosed to the government. (Only a handful of superheroes choose this route.) To accommodate NGAs who do not wish to reveal their identities, the rules for hearsay evidence have been revised: witnesses may testify to information they have received second-hand from an NGA who is not available to testify, so long as the information has been independently verified. In other words: "Shadowhawk told us she heard the defendant conspire to blow up the city; our subsequent search of the premesis and questioning of the defendant's accomplices confirmed this plan." Search & seizure: In general, NGAs must meet the "reasonableness" standard, rather than the more stringent "probable cause" standard police must meet. (see below) The concept of “reasonableness†includes not only the reason for the search, but also the manner in which it was conducted. In practice, the courts have given superheroes a fair amount of latitude as to what constitutes a reasonable search in the course of investigating a specific crime. Some things that have rendered searches unreasonable (and therefore rendered that evidence inadmissible) include: - Inability to articulate a decent reason why the search/seizure was needed (ie - no "fishing expeditions") - Excessive use of force or property damage - The search is conducted in a manner felt to be "unreasonable", such as turning someone's home invisible. Police still need probable cause to use any evidence gathered by NGAs, but can use the evidence itself to establish PC. So, say, if an NGA has some reason to believe that there may be drugs in a certain place he can search it; if he finds drugs and turns them over to police, the police can use the drugs themselves as part of their PC. [Note: I recognize this is probably the single biggest change to our “real†legal system, and would cause conniption fits among today’s judiciary.] Testimony obtained by force (such as confessions obtained under duress) is still inadmissible. Evidence gained via telepathy or other mental powers are generally inadmissible, but may on occasion be admitted as hearsay evidence. In general, NGAs are expected to use the "minimum force necessary" to subdue a suspect. This is another area where judges and juries have historically given superheroes a great deal of latitude, particularly against highly-powerful villains. However, use of killing attacks over subdual attacks, wanton property damage, injuring of innocent bystanders, and use of wildly indiscriminate means (such as leveling an entire city block to stop one individual) have all been cited as reasons for ruling NGA arrests to be "unreasonable." bigdamnhero "As the days go by, we face the increasing inevitability that we are alone in a godless, uninhabited, hostile and meaningless universe. Still, you've got to laugh, haven't you?"

Re: PRIMUS and Homeland Security Don't mean to quibble, but they're not really seperate agencies: they're both under Dept of Justice. (ATF was actually under Treasury until The Big Post-9/11 Shuffle.) Good idea or bad idea, the reason the FBI was left out of Homeland Security was political, not organizational. Which means as a GM you can justify it going whichever way you prefer. I always saw PRIMUS as basically a super-powered version of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, which in RL has remained under FBI (and therefore DOJ) control. OTOH if PRIMUS had existed in our world, I could see a post-9/11 push to turn them into more of a counter-terrorism strike force along the lines of Delta Force. In which case there would've probably been more of a push to move them under Homeland Security. So I guess it all depends on how you want to use them: is their primary mission to arrest super-criminals, or to stop super-terrorists? (And if you figure out where to draw that line, let me know!) ...cuz we certainly don't have any such rivalries now. bigdamnhero "If I wanted schoolin' I'd have gone to school."

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot Good point. Let's face it, the idea of a future where mankind has made no new scientific discoveries and everything works exactly as 20th-century science predicted is probably the least-likely future of them all. Not to mention a boring world to game in. To me, "hard sci-fi" fiction tends to mean a focus on the scientific aspects of the story, as opposed to being more plot or character focused. (That's not to say the two are mutually-exclusive - it's a relative thing.) RPGs by definition tend to be more plot and character driven, so a "hard sci-fi game" to me means one where an attempt is made to keep the science consistent and believable. Where rubber science exists (like FTL, etc), it is set up with rules that explain how (if not why) it works -- it's not just Magic-Tech. bigdamnhero "I've never shot anyone before." "I was there, son. I'm fairly sure you haven't shot anyone yet."

The DNPC rules define Incompetant as "-20 points or lower" but also say that what matters is "how competant the DNPC is in relation to the character." (Emphasis added.) Does this mean: a. DNPC has -20 base points, but total cost may be higher with disads, b. DPNC has -20 total points including points from disads, or c. DNPC has -20 points relative to the PC (ie, a 350-point superhero could theoretically have a 330-point "incompetant" DNPC). Choice c seems silly, but OTOH a & b are not relative to the PC's level. What constitues "incompetant" in a superheroic campaign might not be the same as in a heroic game. Thanks, bigdamnhero

Re: Ship travel times: speed-of-light vs. speed-of-plot Well put. The players in my last group liked their science on the hard side, even if the plot itself sometimes tended towards space opera. I'm the same way, so it worked out well. I tried to have reasonable explantions for such things, and they were good about accepting the "that's not how it works in the game" handwaves as long as I didn't do it too often or too glaringly. They were particularly forgiving when it was obvious that their actions had taken us away off the prepared adventure and I was winging it -- which happened frequently, of course. Actually, the hardest part was when the player-engineer wanted to do something that was beyond the character-engineer's abilities. Player: "But *I* could do that!" GM: "Sorry, your character isn't as good an engineer as you are." (In fairnes, we had another player who was a better martial artist than his character.) Now with my current Champions group, I don't have to worry about such things. "Speed of plot" is fine for this group in this genre. The engineer in the group is the first one to say "Hey, it's a comic book!" bigdamnhero “I have a cunning plan, which cannot fail...â€

Re: Your Opinion Please - Four-Color Appropriate? Sounds like great a role-playing opportunity to me - you think people didn't run from the Thing when he first started out? Just means the player might have to work a little harder to be "accepted." I understand your concern: his figure looks like something out of Warhamster Ultimate Smackdown so you're concerned he's going to play it that way. (Sorry to put words in your mouth if that's NOT your concern.) But I've gotta go with the group: 4-color is how you play, not (just) how you look. Here's a question for the group: So what character appearances would you consider inappropriate for a 4-color game? bigdamnhero "Fortieth birthday? Woo Hoo! Five more Disad points!"

Re: Real world vs. Game world Repped! (Not to mention stolen!) In my games I mostly use the "they're insured" handwave. But excessive or wanton destruction can have negative repurcussions for the heroes, ranging from bad publicity to - in the extreme - ballot initiatives to change the law to hold supers accountable for their damages. (Never had to pull the last one...yet.) bigdamnhero "Life is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it."

Re: Marvel Horror Heroes Can't remember if I discovered Spiderman first or Tomb of Dracula, but they were both about the same time give or take a couple months. What amazes me on re-reading them now is how much "adult content" they contained, even if a lot of it was only referred to off-camera. Would I let my kids read them today? (Being kid-less, that is fortunately just a rhetorical question.) bigdamnhero "I can't keep track of her when she's *not* incorporealy possessing a spaceship."

This started as a discussion about Firefly, but has I think digressed enough to justify it's own thread. Very well-stated, and I can’t disagree with any of it. But on the other hand, if the story is the only thing that matters, why do we have mechanics at all? [Player: “I shoot him.†GM: “Sorry, the plot requires you to miss.â€] Obviously I’m exaggerating to make a point here. My question for the group is at what point do you cross the line between “serving the needs of the story†and “excessive hand-wavingâ€? Of course there’s no one “right†answer, but I’m curious to hear other people’s thoughts on the matter. To me, it’s a question of letting the players feel like they’re in control of their own actions, even if I really am railroading them into a plot point. (Heck, especially if I’m railroading them into a plot point!) If I know that it’ll take the players “x†hours to get from A to B, and I want them to get there just in the nick of time, then it’s fairly simple to write the scenario so they have just-about-exactly “x†hours to get there. If the players are on the ball and hustle, they’ll make it – if they take too much time, they might be too late. I can always fudge the edges a little if need be, but it feels more urgent to them (and me) if the travel time is “x†hours rather than “as much time as I want it to take.†Complications like the ones you listed can still be used, but to me they are more effective as adders to a set time, rather than hand-waves: “Stop worrying. Things don’t start for six hours and we’ll be there in four.†“Uh-oh, looks like we’re going to have to detour around some Alliance traffic. That’ll add at least two hours to our flight-time, even if we burn hot.†“Okay, you can start worrying again.†• Doing the work to establish travel times between worlds: $2.50 • Writing the scenario around those travel times: $0.25 • Seeing the look on your players faces when they check the star chart and realize they have EXACTLY TEN MINUTES to get back to the ship and lift off if they’re going to make it to McGuffin’s Moon in time to stop Ming’s evil plot: Priceless. bigdamnhero “Wow!†He can say it backwards: “Wow!â€