Flames

Re: Firefly It looks doctored to me. That capped biro in his mouth has to have been photoshopped in. Unless Fillion has unnaturally sticky lips, a ballpoint pen would not just magically adhere to the them. And why is balancing a clear acrylic box full of green dice on his thumb? I wonder at what point the cast of Firefly is going to start finding the fanaticism about their show just a tad scary. I'm sure Nathan Fillion has to have some stalkers. Why won't he return my phone calls to talk about them? Nate... if you're reading this, please call me! I know the secret reason Fox cancelled your show! Call me!

Re: Square Kilometers to hexs conversion Why am I imagining the solution in the post above being read aloud in the voice of Professor Frink from The Simpsons?

Re: Campaign Ideas: Why are they on this ship? Maybe the PCs end up on a well-equipped alien ship that has its own AI with its own agenda. The ship is moving inexorably toward its unknown destination via a series of hyperspace jumps, but has numerous attached limited-range (albeit speedy) shuttles that the PCs can run off in to stock up on supplies and get into planetary adventures, always trying to get back to their enormous mother ship before it gets out of range or makes its next jump. Kind of a cross between Battlestar Galactica and Sliders, if I'm not mistaken. There'd have to be a hook, of course, that keeps them going back to the ship; maybe the ship is the only really safe place for them to be, or there's a critically ill loved one who's in suspended animation on the main ship, or the PCs just really, really want to see where the giant ship ends up.

Re: What Other Pulp Hero Books Would You Like To See? "I wanted the ideal animal to hunt," explained the general. "So I said, 'What are the attributes of an ideal quarry?' And the answer was, of course, 'It must have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to reason."' "But no animal can reason," objected Rainsford. "My dear fellow," said the general, "there is one that can." "But you can't mean--" gasped Rainsford. "And why not?" "I can't believe you are serious, General Zaroff. This is a grisly joke." "Why should I not be serious? I am speaking of hunting." "Hunting? Great Guns, General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder." There are a lot of adventure and detective tales from the mid-1920s and earlier that are public domain (not to mention a few from the 1930s whose copyrights were never renewed) and could be written up and mapped out in Pulp Hero format. An example that comes to mind is the deadly island of General Zaroff in Richard Connell's short story The Most Dangerous Game, a classic many of us read in English class, excerpted above. The story could be presented in its entirety, followed by a hex map of the island, a layout of Zaroff's castle, and writeups of Zaroff himself, his sinister henchman Ivan (and one or more other henchmen if need be), and his hunting dogs and weapons. This idea might be better suited to a series in Digital Hero, of course.

Re: Power levels of PCs and NPCs I'd say build him on as many points as need be to make him a real challenge for the players, and then stack a few disads and power limitations on him just to make more fair. I'd try to keep him at around 300 points. If the players complain, just say, "Eh, he's got a lot of experience points."

Re: Power levels of PCs and NPCs I'm curious to know what genre you're running, and what kind of villain this is that your heroes are up against. Villains often have henchmen who make convenient fodder for the heroes to beat up on while he makes his escape. Against three 150-point heroes a 250-point villain might make a good stand, depending how well his defenses match up to their attacks. Figure out the average damage a player will do and give the villain defenses to almost match it, perhaps throwing in an in-obvious vulnerability that the heroes could make use of when all seems lost. I've found that when heroes defeat a villain by using their wits instead of brawn they've got something interesting to talk about.

Re: Mass Starship Combat I haven't used this system but it sounds promising: http://thanesgames.com/battleshift/bsmain.htm

Re: Parylitic Touch I would call it a -1/2 limitation, since it would easily be followed by a knockout punch. I don't remember if a 0 END power can be made continuous.

Re: Parylitic Touch

Re: Parylitic Touch I would explore defining the paralytic touch as a no-range EGO attack that's dependent on landing a physical blow. You could do STUN damage that only affects the target for purposes of determining if the target is Stunned, since that's what you really want to do in game mechanics terms, right? A Stunned character is not going to do anything, and if you define it as continuous and uncontrolled, the character could just stay Stunned every round until it wears off or until Chinese Medicine is applied. I figure a 6d6 EGO attack would be powerful enough to keep a character with a CON of 20 or less pretty much unable to act, although a bad die roll would let the character mysteriously free to act for a round. I tried this combination of effects, but I'm sure there's something nonsensical in there (and more limitations could probably be heaped upon it): Paralytic Touch: Ego Attack 6d6 (Human class of minds), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Continuous (+1) (150 Active Points); No Range (-1/2), Restrainable (Requires the use of hands; -1/2), Inaccurate 1/2 OCV (difficulty striking pressure points; -1/4) It's ridiculously expensive, though, at 67 points. Might fit into a Multipower okay, but the Active Points might be well over what the GM is allowing. Also, I haven't played or run a Hero System game in over ten years, so I'm a little rusty at defining powers, to say the least.

When I get my hands on a copy of Pulp Hero I'll write up the villain (and his henchman) from Richard Connell's short story The Most Dangerous Game. Unless someone wants to do it for me... here's a link to the story (very old story, circa 1923, so it's probably public domain): http://mbhs.bergtraum.k12.ny.us/cybereng/shorts/danger.html

Re: How to - The Creeper? I kind of skimmed this thread and someone might already have mentioned doing this, but I'll proceed. What I used to think was an acceptable practice when used in a limited way was the idea that a character could "buy back" a disad in his powers list and apply a limitation to it. So if there are disads associated with The Creeper being who he is, perhaps he buys them back but with focus and other limitations. Side note: if you know any teenagers who are really good at Champions and like creating characters and crunching all the numbers, please direct them to a college major in accounting. Get them to parlay that penchant for massive books of rules and numbers into a career that really pays and leaves plenty of time for gaming (except at tax time).

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... True story, years and years ago... George's generic "brick" Champions character is being shot at by a S.W.A.T. team after killing a teenager who he thought was a supervillain. George had insisted on creating his own character without my help. The results were instructive. GM: Okay, George, exactly fourteen bullets hit you this round, and they did, let's see, 81 points of BODY damage to you, and you're now at -61 BODY, and you're dead. George: No, wait! What are you talking about? I have a 50 PD! GM: Yeah, but you don't have any resistant defense. These are bullets, not beanbags, George. They rip right through you. George: But... but... I have a 50 PD! GM: Let's see what's on TV.