novi

Re: Setting, really: Corporate Champions? You know, building a setting is almost a gamer Rorschach test. You talk about one thing, but you can see what their opinion on a lot of things is from their comments. Anyway, I guess my NRA idea needs defending. To be fair, I borrowed it from elsewhere, but I'll explain the idea there. The NRA was founded in 1871 as a club to promote sharpshooting. Their lobbying arm, the ILA, was not established until 1975. Coincidentally, Reagen was the first president the NRA specifically endorsed. So I think it is safe to say that for most of its existence, the NRA was largely apolitical. Secondly, for the sake of argument, lets say that supers first showed up somewhere between 1920 and 1960. I imagine they weren't that heavily regulated in the beginning, and that they generally got benefit of the doubt on property damage early on. But in the 1980s and 1990s, litigation against superheroes quickly grew as with the rest of society. I don't know if lawsuits increased that much in that time frame, but that's the impression I've gotten from pop culture and regular culture. Which is when hero insurance popped up. Thirdly, I'm assuming that there is a finite amount of social outrage to go around. In the real world, this is focused on gun control, as guns are the most common murder weapon in the world, and its much easier to try and ban guns than to change society so that fewer people have reason to kill. In a world with superheroes, guns are still the biggest killer, but you have supervillains as well. And since the only thing better than working towards a righteous goal is working towards a showy goal, many of the anti-gun people have instead focused their energies on problems with supervillains. Also, even beyond all that, the world overall is more pro-gun. In a world where there are people with laser eye-beams, or are tough enough to resist punches and baseball bats, having a weapon for protection is a far more reasonable concept. As such, public opinion is firmly pro-gun rather than split down the middle as in our world. That makes weapon bans a fringe opinion, with weapon registration about as far as people will accept. All this adds up to a place where the right to own firearms is not questioned. Without any threats to its activities, the NRA never felt the need to become a political organization. It's just continued with its original mission. Now, I'm not saying that this is the only way things could happen. But to me, I think this is a reasonable outcome. And the one I plan on using in this concept, though I don't imagine it being a big plot point. But if people still want to discuss this, I might suggest a new thread dedicated to the subject.

Re: Setting, really: Corporate Champions? Sure. I mean, it's not like I started a thread about it over in NGD or got inspired by it in anyway already.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Do you want a proper five man band? Or just any 5 people?

I've been mulling an idea over for a few days, and I thought I'd see where the minds here go with it. I'll lay out as much of the premise as I can. Then I'd appreciate feedback and thoughts on the matter, to flesh out the concept. In this particular setting, most superheroes end up in the employ of corporations. This is a result of superheroes being held monetarily responsible for at least some of the damage they cause. Which quickly lead to almost mandatory insurance for anyone wanting to actively superhero. Which quickly became too expensive for most individuals to afford. So, unless you were independently wealthy or already famous enough to be merchandisable, the only option available was to find someone willing to pay for you to be a superhero. And the cost of insurance is well within the means of corporate advertising budgets. It has never been a perfect solution, since the priorities of the company don't always line up with the nature of being superheroes, but it is how the game is played. (Well, you could join the police, but they don't bend too many rules for superhumans. Anyone working for them is a cop first, superhero second. And not everyone wants to be a police officer.) Of course, after the system got rolling, the superhumans who are just in it for the money and fame came out of the woodwork. It was unavoidable, really, but they don't yet dominate the system. I'm thinking a time frame of now-ish or so. Most superhumans are mutants (by the time people noticed them, X-Men had popularized the term and it has stuck despite repeated attempts to use a trademark free term), with most of the remainder due to classic radiation accidents. It's rounded out by super-tech and a few people claiming mystic/alien artifacts, despite no real evidence of magic or aliens in the world; investigations into their claims/items has proven inconclusive. While there is some anti-mutant sentiment, it's directed at all superhumans. And while some of it is just fearful, racist dumbasses, much of it is actually from people who would be in the anti-gun movement in the real world. As such, gun laws are looser and the NRA has almost no political activities. There are supervillains, as well. Many are just small time crooks and thugs with powers, doing dumb shit like robbing banks and forcing themselves upon attractive DNPCs. The bigger threat is from organized crime, since they have welcomed superhumans into their ranks. Most have continued their normal ways, though a few have mutated into HYDRA or AIM analogues. Also, there are several small countries around the world ruled by superhumans; while a couple are ruled well and have prospered, most have dictators doing about as well as real-world dictators do. Oh, and a few superhuman supremacist groups are out there, as one might expect. Most superhumans are not heroes or villains. Most do not have powers suited to, or powerful enough for the job, while others would rather have a normal life and job. Also, the line between normal human ability and superhuman powers is blurry, which has caused no end of problems for sports associations. While obvious powers are banned in almost all sports, it is certain that some professional athletes have minor powers and abilities. (That is to say, power levels have an exponential distribution; many low powered individuals then smoothly tapering off to very few high-powered types) While I am leery of putting hard numbers to this, for the sake of argument, in the US, let's say that about 1 in 100,000 people is obviously qualified to put on tights and fight (or commit) crime. And that the number of people with a noticeable superpower is between 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 10,000. And while that last number holds around most of the world, much of Asia and Africa has much lower percentage of powerful mutants than the US and other first world countries. And for the moment I will say that there is no mandatory mutant registration act or law in the US; which is not to say that governments can't have lists of mutants. They just have to limit themselves to people who have revealed themselves in a public area, and they can't force people to tell them their names just because they used powers. OTOH, the insurance companies are within their rights to get a reasonable accurate description of your powers. They don't have to have your real name, as long as you establish a consistent costumed persona with reasonable contact information. Those are my thoughts so far; the key concept here being that most supers work for corporations and have to spend at least part of their time as corporate spokespeople. Everything else is negotiable. Let me know if there's anything that could use clarification. Otherwise, what do people think? And what other kinds of ramification might there be like the NRA being apolitical? (And no, don't ask me about the game. I am good at settings, but bad at plots & pacing. Also, I don't find GMing to be that fun. Though, I can be talked into co-GMing.)

Re: What if the M.U. was consistent? Along those lines, my take on things is to continue their long-running top sellers as they are now, and then bundle the rest of their stories into a weekly magazine a la Shonen Jump. I don't know how the economics would work out on one big magazine vs a bunch of single shot comic books; but the point there would be that it would hopefully boost circulation overall and get people to read stories they would otherwise skip. It would probably also boost experimentation since it would be much less risky than to publish an untested title on its own; it would also allow stories that don't fit properly in a normal comic book. Also, if that works out, I'd launch a second weekly solely for non-canon stories. Stories that fit the characters, but don't really fit into the main continuity. Possibly add a framing device of he eXiles, but that's just because I'm partial to that team. This is assuming that we're trying to make the Marvel Universe more consistent; if you assume most of the continuity snarls and idiocy are due to writers who don't care about current continuity and/or want to write about their favorite characters instead of who's actually on the team, this book would give them an out. Instead of BS like She-Hulk becoming a bounty hunter instead of practicing law. But that's just me.

Re: Cooperative Timeline And, just to raise a further problem, the town in question was at the time part of Germany proper. So, with German troops attacking a building on German territory, I don't get where Sentinel has any reason or case to take Hitler to the court. Hell, depending on how gullible he is, he might grab the leader of Poland and drop him off in Amsterdam instead. Also, unless my international law is wrong, the court has no authority to hold a head of state. They dealt only with conflicts between nations, and that would go through the diplomatic corp of nations. And, even if they somehow managed to pin the false flag operation on him, it's not actually illegal - a cases belli for certain, but no real law exists for him to break. So all that can be done is to declare war on Germany. Oh, wait, Britain and France did so anyway in response to the invasion of Poland. Basically, I can see no way in which the scenario you described changes the course of history in any noticeable way, other than to make Sentinal public enemy number one in Germany.

I'm sure that this has been asked before and/or answered in the main rules, but I can't seem to find the answer to my question. For a character with desolidification and telekinesis, does he need to have "affects physical world" on his telekinesis if he wants to use both at the same time and move non-desolidified objects?

Re: Cooperative Timeline I object to the concept that it would be that easy to abduct Hitler. Unless you forgot to mention that only the allies have supers, I'm pretty sure that the Nazi supers would object to such an action.

Re: Star Wars: Technological Stagnation?

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Oh, thank you. I'm not going to say it's a great idea, just one that amuses me. The Decepticons More than meets the eye!* The Decepticons were formed after the leader realized that a supervillain team can charge more for their services than when working alone. Also, a group gets a nice break on insurance premiums versus individuals (and dental coverage). Hey, it's an important consideration when you have to pay extra because you're a metamorph. So the leader put together a team. He(she?) decided on a shtick of all metamorphs, to give the team a unique selling point and cover an untapped market niche. They've had mixed success since then, but are a slippery bunch that's almost impossible to capture and lockup. This is a relatively light-hearted team that can be found working anywhere doing almost anything. It is a B-/C+ -list team, always under-performing in the field. Oh, they know how to use their powers and get along okay; the team itself just seems to have unluck. While it can be hard to count at times, the team has a core membership of 5. They have a number of associate members to boost their numbers if necessary, and have worked with most of the metamorphic villains out there. So let's get at least one of the associates stated up, as well, and call this a group of at least 6. *Yes, they are getting there pop culture reference wrong. It has been pointed out repeatedly, and met with cries of, "Shut up! It sounds cool!" Also, Meta-gang was a close second for team name. But then we'd have to reference Jimmy Olson, and nobody wants that. That's really Intergang, isn't it? So Decepticons was just cooler than Metagang, nothing else.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Emilia Salvato is officially Diva. She considered Prima Donna, but decided that no one would get the proper, original meaning of the term. Not that she doesn't get called that anyway, at least when she's not around. It wouldn't be a stereotype if there weren't self-absorbed lead singers like her. While she does have a beautiful voice, that has very little to do with her powers. She managed to charm a rich opera patron into a lavish gift, a necklace of obscure origin with a large purple gem. She later discovered that while wearing the necklace, she has super-strength and durability. Also, not that she's noticed, it seems as though her strength goes up the more indignant she gets. (I don't know, I have no trouble with Vibrato's last name. But I'm weird like that. Also, I can never seem to get that last spot and put up the next team. Just don't check in often enough. It's a bit frustrating, especially when I've been sitting on an idea for... wow, over 6 months. Could I pretty please post the next idea, Mr. Person-after-me?)

Re: Star Wars: Technological Stagnation? There are two big reasons for games staying away from the movie era. As was already said, it keeps people away from the main story and people being able to mess with it. But the bigger reason is that (the game developers believe, at least) is that people want to play Jedis in Star Wars games, and being in the past is a much easier than explaining their way around order 66. And they also get Sith for teh evul players. As for technological stagnation, I would argue that that assumes that technology will progress in visibly obvious ways and at a rate comparable to the last 200 years on Earth. And I don't know that either is a correct assumption. And it assumes that the Star Wars universe runs on the same laws of physics as ours (actually, let's not go too deep there. I don't want to kill that many catgirls). Just because it looks the same doesn't mean that it is and that you should expect it to work like the real world. For instance, why don't they have cell phones? Or Game Boys? Also, I would argue that technological progress is S-shapes, not exponential or linear (aka, after a period of rapid development, the technology matures and only slowly advances after that, and for increasingly small gains). For instance, the US military still uses the M2 machine gun, even though it dates to the 1920s, and will likely keep doing so for the foreseeable future. Or look at steam power - the last major advance there was the steam turbine, invented in the late 19th century. There's been some progress since then, but only in terms or refining the designs and optimizing them with better materials. A nuclear power plant, outside of the boiler/reactor, is largely unchanged from something Edison would have cut the ribbon on. Also, compare a car from the 1960's with a car from today. Just visually. How much difference in apparent function is there? Gas goes in one end, an internal combustion engine with an automatic transmission turns wheels, people sit in the same spots with the same controls. And they both reliably start with a turn of the key, not too much fiddling required. An alien might accuse us that cars haven't changed since Bullitt other than aesthetically. Just some thoughts.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Well, one could argue that there shouldn't be a member for Earth, seeing as Earth is not a planet visible in the night sky, nor does it have a god from the Greco-Roman pantheon representing it. But if we go there, there's also the issue of there only being 5 planets in antiquity...

Re: Shoule NASA be nixed? Me too. It is a very elegant and simple design. I'm just not sure if the laws of physics will let it work. It's close to possible, but only more research will tell. To clarify, I'm referring to it being a power source. It is already a working fusion reactor, but it consumes more power than it produces. And I'm not certain they can get it past break-even. Hopeful, yes, but not optimistic.

Re: Shoule NASA be nixed? Okay, that's twice the board ate my posts. It must want a brief reply, so here goes. Yes, you are technically correct. And they are starting to mine undersea resources. But there is no good answer how much stuff is down there. Just like they can't mine for gold or iron or copper just anywhere on land, the same applies to the sea floor. And it's somewhat harder to explore the ocean floor. Also, not all of the elements we want are going to be on the sea floor. For those, it will be go to space or do without.

Re: Shoule NASA be nixed?

Re: Stretching Character Art? There looks to be a bunch on deviantart.com. Some of it's even good, believe it or not.

Re: Shoule NASA be nixed? Something needs to be done with NASA. It's current structure is not conducive to accomplishing most of the goals people have in mind for it. And this is one of the things Obama is doing right, no matter how much everyone is whining about it. He is getting NASA out of the space transportation business. As amazing and cool as all of their rockets are, they are still as expensive as they were 40 years ago. NASA, focused on science and exploration as it should be, looks to optimize every rocket they send up for maximum performance, rather than lowest cost. And to that end, every Space Shuttle launch costs between $100 million and $500 million, depending on how you do the accounting for it. Meanwhile, SpaceX has spent $300 million on the entire Falcon 9 program. So, why not let NASA concentrate on what it can do in space, rather than how to get there? My other beef is with everyone who keeps talking about how we have to go to the moon to get helium 3. I hate to break all your little hearts, but that's never going to pan out. Everyone likes fusion, but one question for you: how does the energy produced by the reactions get converted into electricity to power your computer? ? Buehler? I thought as much. There are two methods, conventional heat cycles and direct conversion. And He3 is not the preferred fuel for either of those methods. Deuterium and Tritium are the preferred fuel for the heat cycle, and make much more radiation than a conventional nuclear plant when running, and requires large amounts of lithium to function. And there's already not quite enough lithium to meet world demand. And for direct conversion, regular hydrogen and boron work much, much better than He3 ever could, and is much less radioactive, too. (The only reason no one talks about hydrogen/boron fusion is that it's harder to ignite than the other types. Practically impossible with magnetic confinement fusion. Laser fusion, on the other hand, could be possible within a decade, plus commercialization time...) And all this ignores the real reason we need to go into space - we're running out of industrial materials on this planet. Metals like gallium, indium, antimony, or europium may not be familiar, but are vital for modern technology, and are in short supply. As in, there won't be enough to go around in less than a decade. Copper's a bit better, but you might recall stories of metal thieves from a few years back. That will only get more frequent as demand grows faster than we can mine more of it out of the ground. Even iron, the 4th most abundant element in the earth's crust, could be depleted; known, economical reserves could be gone in under a century. Barring improbable, near-magic, and likely physical-law-violating advances in nanotechnology, that leaves extraterrestrial sources as the only viable means of supplying the demand. I don't know about you, but I rather like laptops and ipods and flat-panel TVs. And I'd rather we go into space than have to do without. And that is the real reason why we have to go into space - it's either that, or wars over every resource, not just oil and gold.

Re: Scientifically Plausible Aliens (io9 article) I would add one caveat to that, which is that any planet with bodies of water and complex multicellular life will have fish-like creatures. It is a shape that just works. As evidence, I submit that whales and dolphins are descended from hooved mammals, but now possess a streamlined shape similar to fish that never bothered with that land-dwelling fad.

Re: Pink Anime Power-Suit Girl But my google-fu is strong; you are refering to Telestina / Therestina Kihara Lifeline. She does indeed have some purple power armor. But she is very much not a magical girl, so I don't know if it helps. Then there is this: http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/1002/1282963399994.jpg I think this is closer to what teh bunneh intended, if still not perfect. This wackiness courtesy of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Another option might be to photoshop an image of Kos Mos, from Xeno-something-or-another.

Re: CHAMPIONS BEYOND -- What Do *You* Want To See? What about non-mystical alternate dimensions? Are they going to be receiving a treatment somewhere else? Or would this be the best place to squeeze them in?

Re: Cheap Supers Hmm, I think oddhat may be right, depending on how many cosmically powerful beings there are. Though, just to over-think things, terraforming lady could do even better: drag both mars and venus to earth's L4 or L5 point and set them orbiting each other, which would give them stable inclinations. Spin up venus so it has approx. 24 hour days. Now, it gets trickier as she needs to bring a bunch of hydrogen to venus to replace what it lost, as well as cool the planet off some how. Once it cools off, I think it still has just enough internal heat left to run plate tectonics and a magnetic field. Mars is both easier and trickier. Moving closer to the sun and dropping a coupe hundred comets on it is almost all you need to do. But if she wants to go all the way, she'll need to figure out how to re-liquefy the core of Mars so that it can have plate tectonics and a magnetic field. That gives you three habitable planets. Now, if I could just recall how fast a transfer orbit is between lagrange points...

Re: Jinks Now, I'm obviously thinking about this too hard, but on Chill's ability to cool something down to half ambient temperature, what temperature scale is using? Half of Fahrenheit is a much different number than half of Kelvin. And what happens if it's a negative temperature? Does the item get warmer? And one more jink - Bendy Wendy: This twenty-something is a very low-level stretcher. As in she can only double the length of her limbs, and is marginally tougher than an average human. She is also seemingly boneless; while she has no real difficulty getting around, her rubbery, boneless gait is pretty obvious. She's a musician, taking advantage of her ability for some very wide fingerings on piano and guitar. Unfortunately, to pay the bills, she works at Janus's studio. She's not entirely happy with that, but getting in front of the camera pays very well for the time she puts in.

Re: The October Eight competition Let's see if I can abuse the spirit of this contest... How about the PCs from my game over on HeroCentral (Kinnison Institute)? As high school freshmen, there all 14, but being mutants, they can look a bit older. I'm sort of thinking of one of those forced group shots that half of them think is lame, either at the school or on some trip, and in civilian clothes. I've got: Nowhere Girl: 5'6”, looks at least 16, made completely of transparent crystal, so she's invisible with a bright fringe always on, and she's angry and rebellious over being the sheltered daughter of a supervillain. And she tends to wear as little as she can get away with. Cornerstone: He's trouble – he's already 6' and looks like a juvenile delinquent (distinctive feature!), and gets even bigger when he turns into stone. Brown hair. It's not that he wants to be bad, but he's had a bad life and doesn't know anything else. Rumble: He's blond and a running back. We'll say he's wearing his props, some shiny steel bracers and a metal-plated belt with a knob on the buckle, that he says are the source of his vibration powers (shh! he's really a mutant.) This is over his generic jock style. And while he puts on a good face, his eyes are older – his girlfriend is in a coma after being beaten just for being a mutant, and he's looking to do something because of it. Vivace: She's 5' with curly, fiery red hair (and Canadian). She tends to favor loud and colorful Ren-fair inspired clothes. She wears glasses, also loud in style. She has sonic powers, and might have a lute along. Snap Dragon: A 4'11” Chinese-American girl with mid-back length black hair done up in a new style every day or so (being a shapeshifter helps with that). She wears normal fashions, or whatever would fit in. She's part dragon, or something; the explanation wasn't clear, but she has some diverse abilities appropriate to an Asian river dragon. She's mischevious, and skilled in kung fu. Omen: 5'1”, this Persian-Australian girl has found herself the avatar of an obscure creator diety. Among other things, this is why she look almost legal, and has no eyes – they burned out during first contact, so she wears a blindfold (she gets around with sonar now). She has long Mahogany hair, but all of her clothing tends to bleach itself white while wearing it. She has a slight aura around her, mostly manifesting as a faint shimmer around her profile. Kid Sasquatch: Bigfoot in pants. Really. A young Sasquatch who is pretending to be a mutant teenager to investigate the human world. Looks like the classic Patterson-Gimlin flim version. Taller than Cornerstone, but less intimidating or upright. He wears pants, and maybe a vest, and has a magical totem on a string around his neck. Force: Uses Final Fantasy X's Yuna as a base. 5'2”. Telekinesis, and can grow a pair of angel wings if she wants (metamorphic, not telekinetic). She is a newly famous rockstar who just had her breakout album before going to school. Despite a good stage presence, she's fairly shy and withdrawn in person. And she is the most attractive of the bunch, with an almost magical “I always look this good” field.

Re: Help name my Hero Group I don't know much either. Maybe they have a tie in with the Saints(football)? New Orleans is also called 'The Crescent City', which might be an inspiration.