Kevin Scrivner

But the SAS fans are good about posting a thread in the discussion area describing their contestant and his or her origin. I voted for Harlequin. He has more style than Janus as presented in both stories. It might be in character for Janus to snipe from the shadows but it doesn't make for a good tale. Each scenaro seemed to center on BH and his thoughts and actions. I wonder how a Joker/Dark Harlequin/Quackerjack/Crazy Eight smackdown would turn out. They all have a similar schtick in their respective universes (DC/DOJ/Disney/Marvel2).

Favorite scene from the first movie: The Graboid bursts through the survivalist's cellar wall just as he runs out of bullets. He's toast! Then the camera pans back to reveal nearly every projectile weapon known to man hanging on the far wall. Wifie hands him an assault rifle and he blows the critter away!

I just thought it was interesting. In the original movie with Karloff in the role, I'd give the Monster a STR 25, INT 10-15, DEX 12, PD 10. Dangerous to the 50-point normals he was up against but not overwhelmingly invincible. Toward the end of the saga with Glen Strange in the role, the Monster has 35-40 STR, INT 8, DEX 15, Damage Reduction, and some degree of Life Support. So he got stronger, tougher, slightly less awkward, and much dumber. I guess that last part is from all the brain transplants they tried on him.

I just finished watching the 1931 version of "Frankenstein" with Boris Karloff. The Monster isn't the powerhouse of popular perception. He's stronger than the scientists and villiagers he encounters; they usually lose a one-on-one confrontation. But he's not so strong that Frankenstein and two companions (an elderly medical instructor and a hunchbacked assistant) aren't able to overpower him and tie him up, more than once. Now, I realize that by the second movie, "Bride of Frankenstein," the Monster is tearing out of chains and knocking down heavy wooden doors. But even then a group of irate villagers is able to overpower him and drag him off to jail (that's how he got in chains in the first place). Same with the Wolf Man. He's dangerous but not so powerful that he can't be threatened with hunting dogs or beaten to death with a cane by his own father. It's only later that he becomes indestructible. Maybe it's escalation, like in the James Bond movies. In "Dr. No," Bond is a skilled but normal human being capable of making mistakes and being tricked. He's even threatened by a tarantula let loose in his room. Several decades later, Bond in "Goldeneye" is leaping off cliffs and tearing through downtown Moscow buildings in a stolen tank. Thoughts?

In the Superman issue I saw, the Joker came to Metropolis on a lark to bedevil "the big blue Boy Scout." He robbed a jewelry store using a Superman robot armed with Smilex gas (which took out guards) and a nuclear bomb (which enabled the Joker to escape while Supes was dealing with it). The Joker kidnapped Superman's friends and gave him a time limit to find them or else. Superman located the hideout easily, he explained to the villain, because the Joker had lined it with lead to foil his X-ray vision. Instead of concealing the victims, it made their prison stand out like a beacon, the one spot in the city the hero's gaze couldn't penetrate. Because the Joker regarded Superman as a musclebound oaf, he had underestimated him.

Good suggestions, all. But doesn't it still depend on your players being willing to play along rather than simply pounding the bad guys the moment they appear?

Mention of BLACK HARLEQUIN in another thread got me to thinking. Several times I've tried to introduce old-fashioned DC-style theme villains into my campaigns but they seem seriously underpowered compared to my players. I mean, the Joker is a martial artist with two or three poisonous gadgets. He's basically a normal and has no resistent defenses. The Penguin has his trick umbrellas, a small gadget pool in HERO System terms. Catwoman has slinky moves and a whip. The Riddler doesn't even have slinky moves; he's just a crime boss in a leotard who leaves clues behind. In the comics and on video they're the terror of Gotham City; the writers can contrive to make them a threat. The Joker has managed to challenge Superman and Wonder Woman as well as Batman. In a Champions game, however, my Penguin-clone or Joker wannabe is up against the player-characters -- the equivalent of the Junior Justice League or Avengers Lite. The poison gas bombs that easily turn Gotham's Finest into grinning corpses are useless against the robotic brick with Life Support. The fancy martial arts moves that give the Boy Wonder a migraine can't lay a glove on the super speedster or uber-pugilist. The pseudo Terrors of Gotham don't last more than a couple Turns against the average Champions gaming group. If your players are like mine, the villains wouldn't even get to gloat about their master plan before being pummelled. I've also had it happen in reverse. Created a basically normal hero with a trick cape and special weapon or a masked detective with some Boxing or Wrestling training. And the GM throws a SubMariner clone at me able to laugh off my best shots, snatch my gadgets from my hand and squish them into bobby pins. Even if the point totals are similar, the power levels aren't. How do you deal with this in your campaigns? Or has it ever been an issue?

What REALLY happened to the Professor "Si, si. I had completed my Atomic-Powered Cyclotrode and was about to take my rightful place as Master of the World. And I would have done it, too, were it not for those meddling kids and their foolish dog!"

"Slaves of the Volcano God" Here's another idea for a low-powered action-adventure campaign, sort of like "TORG" or "Sliders" with a humorous pop cultural twist. It's based on a series of fantasy novels that began with the book "Slaves of the Volcano God." The gist is that the reason old movies were so good is that the filmmakers unknowingly tapped into dozens of alternate realities surrounding our own. The Cineverse consists of dimensions whose cultures and physical laws correspond to those of various movie genres: Westerns, musicals, '50s atomic horror, '60s beach romance, animated cartoons, gladiator, biblical epics, and so on. The hero of the book series accidentally got shunted into an alternate motion picture-type world by playing around with a vintage Captain Hero Secret Decoder Ring, a 40-year-old cereal box prize that happened to have genuine magic powers. In the Western world, the only way to cross the prairie is to sing a Roy Rogers-variety cowboy song. Villains dare not attempt to shoot a disarmed hero with their last bullet, knowing they'll be killed by the cavalry charging over the nearest hill. In the Broadway musical world, characters can physically move only if they sing and dance; weddings and state fairs abound; and the player characters risk getting entangled in romantic affairs whether they want to or not. In the South Pacific world, visitors to be thrown in the volcano will blissfully party with the natives all the way to the crater's rim unless they can make an EGO roll to break the spell of the native drums. In the war world, sergeants from Brooklyn are doomed if they attempt to take that hill. In the '50s horror world, men with pencil-thin mustaches are not to be trusted and bystanders will refuse to assist PCs they suspect of tampering with Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. There's a villain from a '30s sci fi universe attempting to conquer the entire Cineverse, preferably by stealing the player-characters' decoder ring. Also, each character has one genre that suits him or her only too well. If the PC lands in that dimension, he'll have to struggle to keep from conforming to it completely. The team's beautiful but brilliant physicist could suddenly become a giggling beach bunny at the worst possible moment if she fails her saving roll. The group's clever, handsome confidence artist could suddenly be consumed with a mad desire to create an artificial man if he stumbles into the horror world. Of course, this applies to the villains, too. Vicious gangsters about to wipe out our heroes could discover that they make perfect targets for abusive rabbits in the animated world.

Looks like a good character. I'd like to hear the background story, though.

I like him. An effective, humorous villain with powers worthy of The Tick or Mystery Men. I always wanted to run a low-powered supers game!

I, too, voted. If a d20 port of Call of Cthulhu sans background info counts as a "new" game, so does 5th Edition. It was a close call for best supplement -- Champions vs. Silver Age Sentinels vs. Mutants and Masterminds. They're all good. Too bad we couldn't arrange a Hero/GOO/Green Ronin hero and villain smackdown. I'd like to see how the Atomic Brain fared against Doc Destroyer. Didn't recognize most of the nominees for other categories. Boy, am I out of the loop.

Some of my favorite Golden Age creations: The Crimson Cavalier -- A swashbuckling has-been movie star who has gotten a little too involved in his former roles. He's an excellent swordsman and acrobat, however; his trick cape enables him to glide, and his doublet is armored. Imagine Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., battling spies and saboteurs in 17th Century garb. Macabbeus -- A Jewish brick, literally a modern Sampson, who could lose his tremendous strength if he breaks his ultra-Orthodox vows. Naturally, he's not too fond of the Nazis. The Masked Mewler -- A private detective who successfully hunted down an eerie urban legend slayer, then took on his persona to scare the bejabbers out of criminals. When he was killed, his partner took his place. The police aren't sure whether the Mewler exists or not, and the crooks haven't figured out that they've been stalked by more than one man. Hope these help. I'll let you assign nationalities as you desire.

Eek! I'm now old enough to be some of the characters I role-played in high school! I've missed some of my saving rolls to avoid losing stats, and I'm not sure I've gained new skills for each term of service!

Yep. I have the campaign book they did for Top Secret/SSI. It had a lot of good player and genre information as well as the setting and major character write-ups for their Agent 13 universe. The sampe adventure at the back of the book was a waste of space but the rest of it was useful. TSR also published at least two Agent 13 novels. I enjoyed the first one.

I usually go the cardboard heroes route and photocopy appropriate illustrations at greatly reduced size. I've got some old figures from a SpaceGamer issue to use as templates.

SCUBA Hero is knowledgeable about this. I wonder if you can get his e-mail address from his profile.

I drew up an angelic wings-and-sword type character for a friend a couple years ago. He was sort of a flying brick with a Hand Attack sword. He had high defenses and full Life Support, including Longevity. The New Testament talks about people "entertaining angels unawares." Although biblical angels acting as messengers sometimes shone like searchlights and terrified humans by their mere presence, their appearances were often much more subtle. The trio of angels who warned Abraham about the destruction of Sodom looked like ordinary dusty travelers. It wasn't until they started talking about his yet-to-be-born son and the city's fate that Abraham began to catch on to who he was dealing with. When the angels entered the city to warn Abraham's nephew Lot, members of the gay community foolishly tried to pick them up (they were apparently handsome specimens). Gideon, a Hebrew farmer hiding from enemy troops, wondered who the nut case was that showed up at his hideout and pronounced him a mighty military leader. When he offered the fellow lunch, the angel ignited the food as an offering to the Lord. Gideon decided maybe there was something to his words, after all. With this in mind, you might give your angel ShapeShifting into any human form for passing as mortal, or Invisibility for moving through crowds unseen.

Maybe We Wasn't Robbed After reading Steve's explanation of the awards, I have to risk roaring flames and suggest that maybe we wasn't robbed. Hero 5th is an excellent game, and the recent revisions are helpful, but the rewrite isn't so extensive as to qualify it as a "new" game. Which in a way is a good thing; it's familiar yet with improvements. Now, if Hero's new and totally rewritten products -- such as Star Hero or Champions -- aren't nominated for something, I'd be concerned.

Like the character overall. Based on your illustration, she should probably add Seduction to her other skills. Growwwwl! Nitpick: Since she has a Code vs. Killing, why not get rid of her HKA claws and use the points for some sneaky but non-lethal attack?

Rather than focusing on the depressing Red Menace aspects of the 1950s, why not instead do a fun schlocky science fiction take on superheroics? Flying bubble cars, personal mini-robots, arrow-shaped rockets traveling all over the galaxy, fishbowl spacesuit helmets, and let's not forget that wrist radio or television! The sky was no limit, science could bring us endless conveniences, and giant bugs were a routine annoyance.

I recently discovered Buzzboy, the World's Most Upbeat Superhero at http://www.buzzboy.net/ Very much in the Tick mold. Anybody else run across some fun Champions inspiration online?

Advantages and Limitations you might consider: -1 OAF Pipes +1 No Normal Defense (the defense is earplugs, being deaf, hard ear coverings) +1 Area of Effect, since he can affect an entire audience Megascale, for drawing all the children in the village -1/4 Reduced by Range, the further away you are from his playing the weaker the effect Possible powers: Mind Control Entangle, defined as people forced to dance whether they want to or not Mind Scanning, since the Piper seems to be able to single out particular groups of victims Mental Illusions Neat concept but very expense to create. Since he's an NPC, I'd be tempted to just let him do what he does and only worry about game mechanics when it directly affects the PCs. Also, you'll want to give him backup abilities in case his entrancing tunes aren't entrancing enough. Maybe some of his musical instruments also serve as weapons. Maybe he knows some martial arts, defined as dance moves. Maybe he has a bunch of groupies that conveniently seem to mob him (or the heroes) whenever the good guys get too close (Invisibility if losing himself in the crowd; Area of Effect Physical EB if an attack on the PCs).

What about a supernatural/pulp twist? The Shroud The Mewler Ghast The Satyr The Lurker The Gimlet Gargoyle

Rage said: Sampson only showed superstrength once: pulling down the pillars. all the rest of the time he appeared to be just a super MA. --- Not so, oh furious one. In addition to literally bringing down the house, Sampson carried off the gates of the city Gath to prevent himself from being trapped inside. He killed a lion with his bare hands. He escaped from various attempts to bind him merely by flexing his muscles; the bindings parted like singed thread.