Balabanto

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease I've tried that. It doesn't get through the brains of one or two of them. Some people have bigger egoes than others, Jack.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease Yes, I have, Kirby. I usually pay for my own and contract someone when I put a project in. I try very hard to produce items of quality. I like quality. Quality is good. As for "This is the only way to build a character?" Usually, I like to have a definable standard so that all of the published material is usable. That was the thing I loved about 4th edition. When they modeled the campaign world, even if you didn't use all of it, or sort of did, 90 percent of the material was still usable as long as you stuck to the guidelines. I know a bunch of you heard this argument before somewhere else. But hey, I do try to work very hard on everything I send in. Maybe my players are right and maybe I am too much of a curmudgeon. But the point is, that this may just be a case of "Do unto others as you would have do unto you." When I play a game, the GM can tell me whatever he wants. I don't challenge them, during the session. If I have a problem, I take the GM aside in private and talk with them about it after the session is OVER. But the point is, I talk with them about it in private. I don't openly challenge the GM's authority. But I was raised in an environment where you justified everything, and if you missed something, you had to cross your Ts and dot your Is later. If you weren't, your views on GMing may be different. But, this may really be a case of something I see as shvantz-waving on the part of my players, and they might not see it that way. I also have a history of despising the "Pro from Dover" mentality. I don't like that "Best in the World" shtick, because then, in a world with 50+ PCs, I have 49 complaints. Not every game is for everyone. I can't say I'm definitively wrong, but a lot of this stuff has given me things to think about.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease See, the thing is, it's not me vs. them. There's ONE person who thinks it's me vs. the players. That would imply that I am naturally adversarial and want the players to fail. I do create challenges for the players, that's the job of the gamemaster. But the problem is, one or two of these people are stuck in D+D mode. "This sucks, the villain got away." "Why do villains always get out of jail?" "Why don't we just kill him? Then he won't come back." (Really, in a superhero game? That's a case where you let them do it and then say "Give me your character sheet. You're not a hero anymore.") BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS IN COMICS!!!!! If the GM needs a villain for a story, he contrives a way to get that villain out of jail to make them available for the story. To this DAY I do not understand where the mentality came from that superheroes killing people was a valid social option. THE PUNISHER IS NOT A ROLE MODEL! HE WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE! From this, all problems do follow. Also, this creates what I call "The Slippery Slope of Character Design." When you're not a high school or college student, you'll understand this a lot better, and if you're older, you already know what I'm talking about. I have a job. I have to work a lot of hours. I don't always have time to build every villain, and my players respect that I do a lot with templating and plugging in, because they know, given three minutes, I can ALWAYS make the numbers work. Once you start sheeting people, and you have a living world, there's a point of no return on your labor when people start killing NPCs. Note: All my groups do not behave this way, but this is intrinsic to some of the complaints I hear from time to time. Some people feel their efforts are only valid if the villain goes to jail, never to return. But at that point, you fall into the slippery slope of character design anyway. This isn't fun. Good comic books make villains you WANT to see, and LOVE to hate. But some of my players want more realism than I am willing to give them. So, things like "Justify your wealth" have to be enforced to keep those players happy, and I can keep the four colorness elsewhere. Quite frankly, I've spoken to a couple GMs I've played with, and they pretty much told me the same thing I've told you. "If you built a gadgeteer without the skills to justify the fact that he's a whiz with sciences and technology, I'd probably just deny the character." Which brings us back to square one. Good GMing seems to mean VERY different things to people. That's one thing I've learned on this thread above all. The people who play in my game are mostly good people. I just seem to have trouble understanding some of their motivations from time to time. We all do. That's what makes us human beings. And somehow, I don't think I'd be travelling up and down the East Coast to run Champions for different groups of people if I wasn't at least pretty good at what I do. The thing is, you guys might be running one game for six people. But all that changes when you run one world with 50 or so PC's in it. Most of the people in the game understand that occasionally, I DO have to be fair to PC's that they've NEVER seen, and that I might deny something for that reason. Plus, if two groups actually come to blows (And this may happen soon), people have to have a reasonable expectation that their side can win. That's why I run a game with strict power caps, low active point limits (50-70), and a high "Justify stuff in your background" level. Hopefully, you'll see more when I start publishing this stuff. It can't be all bad if it's going into Digital Hero.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease Uh, yes, I do. Trust me, I work in retail. There is absolutely no supervision whatsoever, and I'm on a commission sales floor. You could tell your manager that "My pet donkey needs to be walked, and my spouse can't do it today" and if it's not stupidly busy, they'll probably let you go.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease My players don't have a problem with justifying their concepts with a strong conception, Baloo. In fact, they have a tendancy to overdo it. I really don't think I'd be able to run the same gameworld for 20 years if the conceptions weren't strong and the plots and RP weren't good. The problem just comes from the fact that it's not six of one and half a dozen of the other. It's just this. It seems like people feel there's something wrong with being middle class. Now, to me, that indicates a general swing of negativity in the mood of how people perceive themselves in this country of ours rather than something that's wrong with the game.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... During the Mind over Matter Playtest: Hyperdrive, after piledriving Frost while he beats on the team brick, Gibraltar: "Keep away from my BIG friend!" Partacel: I guess you're not as tough as you think you are, Death Commando! Chew on this, Antenna-head! Death Commando: That's the best you can do, is antenna he-NNNGH! Characters are staring at a tuning fork labeled with a frequency in 4th dimensional mathematics. Hyperdrive: Oh, this is easy, I was doing stuff like this when I was ten. Partacel: Don't get cocky, Hyperdrive. Magus: What IS that thing? Event of the Week: Gibraltar has Stinger grabbed, and I, of course, roll the dice for him to bite Gibraltar and hopefully break himself free. Me: Well, looks like Stinger just rolled an 18. Looks like Stinger bites himself. (Dead silence from the players before hysterical laughter) GM rolls damage. OW. Stinger takes 25 stun.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease Oh, and Tigereye, the problem is this. I don't have a lot of blue collar characters in the game at all. It feels like an unhealthy representation of the superhero community.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease The problem comes not from the tone of voice, but the fact that I've always seen a character that is conceptually well designed to HAVE the things that are needed on their sheet to justify their powers. Does this mean that the average mage, gadgeteer or powered armor character needs to spend 70 or so points of skills to make their character justifiable? Sure it does. But the tradeoff is that these particular concepts are some of the more powerful concepts in the game because of the focus limitations, incantations, gestures, and other things that naturally come along with that sort of baggage. Now, a guy who's just a mutant with 15 points of wealth, sure, it's a mutant with 15 points of wealth, but the problem is that there's only so many unlimited money characters that a world like this can support before the gravity of international competition sets in for resources. It's just that I see far more characters with wealth than without it, and the problem is, it creates certain "Rules of the Genre" that I don't like. 1) Supers have a tendancy to be richer than other groups as a percentage breakdown. 2) Eventually, based on that logic, some cunning villain is going to figure this out. 3) That's when you run the plot. The problem is, there's not a lot of plot out of "I'm sorry, you're poor" that involves supervillainy. Plus, in a comic book, you can write this over and over again. But in your CHAMPIONS game, you can only run this plot ONCE. I can't recall the number of times Iron Man has been bankrupted. But he has writers who are willing to bankrupt him. And every time they do, it takes three years to resolve it. (Obidiah Stane, The Armor Wars, etc.) Yes, I'm a curmudgeon. Yes, I think too many people in my game have too much money. But the thing is, some of my players, in fact most of them, agree with me on the issue that you DO need to have certain skills to shore up your concept if you have an armored suit, or read grimoires to get spells, or build microwave ovens out of toothpicks and a D battery. It's just that when it comes to Wealth, many of them are too ambitious. I can get them to scale it back a little, but I always feel dirty when I put "Unlimited Wealth" on my character sheet as a player. I feel like I'm cheating.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease Clark Kent BECAME a world spanning, award winning, pulitzer prize winning journalist. He did not START with this. He had to EARN it. This is the problem. People from the younger generations come from this "pushbutton" mentality and don't want to EARN anything anymore. They want to START with it. Even though I'm from a higher social class, I do my best when I work at whatever job I do because I expect to work hard. Some characters inherit money, yes, but FAR too many people choose this option. I just don't understand what's wrong with doing things the way that they're done in the comic books. The people who are most guilty of this are the people who want the most realism in the game, dislike the occasional silly plot, and want to have a game that is too character-centric when you live in a global gameworld. And you've all read my "Realism isn't real" posts. I really like people to earn things in game. A lot of people just don't see it that way.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease Yes, and there's a 7-10 year generation gap for most of them too. I am older.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease That's because they see this big UNLIMITED on their sheet and think they need it. Like it or not, the problem is thematics, not the wealth perk. A hero is supposed to live a life as an ordinary man, most of the time. (I hate Public ID, and more and more people in my game take it, or are forced into it by circumstance) And "ordinary" men are not normally fabulously, unbelievably wealthy. Apparently, a job as a reporter, a clerk, or any number of other professions are all uninteresting to them except for multimillionaire. I really think this is a social class problem, where I belong to one social class and see things one way, and my players belong to a different social class and see things differently in the way that money works. Every time too many people buy something up above the level that I consider reasonable, I put it on my "War of Escalation' list. Primary on this list are DEX, INT, and SPD. Wealth is still only getting there.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease Actually, no, that's not it. You guys just have a different view of what goes on Character Sheets and why it goes there. Let's look at the Champions Universe and their powered armor character, Defender. In my world, this character doesn't have the skills necessary to justify itself. Defender lacks the appropriate science skills to build his powered armor, but has the money to do so. Likewise, the technological characters who have armored suits or build gadgets need the money to do so. An economy is NOT a zero sum game. You assume (Wrongly) that an economy is about economics in a superhero game. Remember when I posted that thread about lameness and used Batman as an example? What did the GM say? He said "Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne can't both be the richest man in the world." I've run the same world with multiple groups for 20 years. You have to be fair to everyone. And the problem is not that the economy is a zero sum game. The problem is that people's EGOES are NOT a zero sum game, and that CHAMPIONS is not a zero sum game either. If you can't justify the wealth, and/or the wealth is necessary to your concept, then you should consider spending your points in some other manner. If you have 20+ characters who have unlimited money (15 points), that money had to come from somewhere. Money is one of those things that helps you JUSTIFY a concept. Not something you just put on your sheet because you'd like it to be there. PLUS, if you effectively have unlimited wealth, and all the other tech characters have unlimited wealth too, then how are all of them getting the things they need? Someone's gonna lose. And who is it that will lose? Wealth is not only something that you just pay for. It justifies the acquiring of certain types of powers and abilities through technology that you can't normally acquire. That's the problem. People are spending points on Wealth 15 when they should have other skills that they need to justify their concept and it's existence, and buying Wealth 5.

Re: Signs your Champions GM is now (fill in the blank) Signs your Champions GM is now James K. Polk. 6) He promises you he'll run a game, but that he'll never run any others once it's over. 5) He keeps every campaign promise he makes at the beginning of the campaign. 4) Unfortunately, this means that he buys up other games wholesale to prevent his gamers from joining them. 3) He goes to war to solve some of the promises, and slaughters the players of several other games, including sacrificing some of his own players. 2) He buys out a game that is huge and vast but has almost no players. Woe be to the people who played this game when they discover what people do with it a hundred years later. 1) Six weeks after his game ends, and everything he said to you about the game was great, he dies, leaving you wanting more, but knowing he never would have given you anything.

Re: Muppet Champions Some games you get tired of playing. Muppets vs. Toy Story you NEVER get tired of playing.

Re: Signs your Champions GM is now (fill in the blank) Signs your GM is now...Bill Cosby... 10) Pauses...occur...after every few words...of dialogue... 9) Every...moral lesson...is intricately described....but takes too long... 8) All acts of incompetence, if done for the right reasons...turn out...correct... 7) A hero...wins...by saying...something incredibly wise... 6) There is...no cursing...ever... 5) You do not...question...Bill Cosby's...moral judgement...ever... 4) When people do...dumb things...their friends must...talk them out of it...or...they are...doomed... 3) Education...is the solution...to every...problem... 2) No one...is mean...not even...the bad guys... 1) Despite all this, that four hundred pound jolly guy is still really cool...

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease The problem is, it's a question of justification. Most people don't have Nspace gymnasiums in their home in legacies, most characters belong to a superhero team, and they have a centralized headquarters where they train, etc. The other issue is that if all of the supers have all of the money, eventually all of the normals are going to get pissed off. The issue is that most superheroes are supposed to live lives as ORDINARY men, except where wealth is a necessary concept point. Tony Stark is rich and he's Iron Man because it's a valuble moral lesson. He learned what he COULD be doing with his money instead of making weapons for third world countries. I just have huge understanding issues with why people need to be rich so badly. You're right, enforcing mo money, mo' problems is one way of handling that, but then that's all the game is ever about.

Hi! I'm the Brawling Balabanto himself, so let's get straight to the point of this thread. Does your world suffer from "Richest Man in the World" disease? Does every single one of your PC's buy the perk "Wealth?" I am having a great deal of trouble regulating this. Powered Armor characters and major villains need this stuff for their concepts. And if you have too many powered armor characters, they shouldnt' ALL be able to afford those new powers they want their armor to have. Wealthy Dilettante is too popular as a conception. I'm starting to just say no to people, but it's getting stupid as my game moves on. How do you control this without giving people the finger? I've tried explaining this to my players and they don't buy it. They all have to be stupid ass broken wealthy billionaires. I remember when 10 points of wealth was enough. What's going on here?

Re: Mutants and Materminds Well, I'm NOT a fan of Mutants and Masterminds. There's a number of reasons why I don't like the system, but I'll say this again and again. On art and presentation, they have Hero beat, and it's KILLING us. While a lot of us aren't "Pretty Pictures" roleplayers, and we can make do with black and white art, I always, when I design an adventure for Digital Hero, try to make it have usefulness beyond itself. One of the ways I do that is by blowing scads of my own money on color artwork. The other is by making sure most adventures have at least a couple of maps, even if they're of stupid things like a middle class home, or a not so stupid Museum Lobby. I just draw the roughs (And trust me, they're UGLY) and turn them over to Dave to do. Nonetheless, there's a lot of valuble writing in those books. I just think Hero's the best system ever made for superheroes, and there's no need to change.

Re: Signs your Champions GM is now (fill in the blank) Signs Your Champions GM is now Alexander the Great 10) You charge heroically into every battle. 9) That one elephant changes everything. 8) PC's ALL want to conquer the world. 7) NPC's are clearly wrong, because they are NOT Greek or Macedonian 6) Persia has more carpets than warriors, no matter how big their army is. 5) If you have a straight relationship, it's okay. They're just someone's beard anyway. 4) If you have a gay relationship, it's twice as heroic, plus that other guy who likes women gets to keep the girl no matter what happens. 3) The game ends when one of the players poisons the GM for some mysterious reason. 2) Cities are mysteriously renamed after the GM. 1) The GM claims he's a great philosopher because he was trained by Aristotle

Re: Coriolis Effect - Color Pic of Coriolis? Yeah. You guys realize that 90 percent of that article that I'll be writing for Digital Hero about Universe Reboots I have to write is BECAUSE of Dennis Malonee, right? Between Magic is the source of all superpowers (CU) and all the Dennis Malonee stuff I used but have to eliminate, the two hardest things will be Replacing this stuff with something better (Because you have to, or your player characters didn't fight anyone) or jackboot wipeouts of whole plotlines. I'm pretty sure I'll have to rebuild villains for this project wholesale once it's done, too. (Except Bodito Boditay) Nothing like creating a villain for your universal reboot who writes himself out at the end of the story. (Thanks Warren Ellis and Grant Morrison, for showing me how to do this.)

Re: Signs your Champions GM is now (fill in the blank) Signs your Champions GM is now Doctor Brutallo (See Digital Hero #15) 10) All plotlines are completely over the top. 9) Annoying incidental music from Armageddon Mind plays every time Doctor Brutallo says the words "Rule the World!" 8) Kanga the Dominator keeps trying to backseat GM, or mind control your fellow players. 7) He leaves YOU in a deathtrap when you can't beat the adventure. 6) Radiation poisoning from Atomicus, the Radioactive Man makes everyone have bald hairstyles 5) Brutalloids exist only to smash, thus there is a new gaming table every week. 4) Seismotron testing continues during game, thus knocking over miniatures. 3) All supplements are renamed to "The Universe of Doctor Brutallo," "The Ultimate Doctor Brutallo," and "Enemies of Doctor Brutallo!" 2) Doctor Brutallo likes to switch chairs, thus leaving his hair on your clothes. 1) While the seismotron vibrates, the Titanoid expands, knocking over the gaming table, Doctor Brutallo, and your friends.

Re: Speaks loudly AND carries a big stick If you want something that speaks more softly and carries a big stick, wait for Foxbat for President. I guarantee you something is included...heh...heh...heh...

Re: Signs your Champions GM is now (fill in the blank) Signs your Champions GM is now Josef Stalin 10) There are no dice! He decides what happens! 9) If you don't like what happens to your character, you get sent to the Gulag. 8) If you're Jewish, god forbid, he kills you. 7) If you love animals, he forces you to watch while he strangles kittens. 6) NPCs exist as his glorious tools to extend the revolution. 5) Nothing is solved with a velvet glove, only the iron fisted hand works. 4) Your PCs exist to serve him. Any failure on your part gets you sent to the Gulag. 3) Those other GMs, Roosevelt and Churchill? Those are games for weaklings. 2) You're lucky to see a single supervillain. All of his enemies hurl waves of thugs at you until they're exhausted. 1) If you defect to another game, he tries to get you to come back. If you don't, he has you assassinated.

Re: VILLAINS, VANDALS, AND VERMIN -- What Would *You* Like To See? More villains with a lower power level. Right now, I use less than eight percent of published material because it's too mighty.

Re: Signs your Champions GM is now (fill in the blank) Signs your GM is Doctor Doom 10) Drink servers look suspiciously like Doombots 9) Every plan is just a little too perfect, like he were trying to iron out the holes in it. 8) Steal the Power of Galactus woven into nearby tapestries in the gaming room. 7) That annoying Reed Richards keeps calling on the phone asking what he's done with Susan this time. 6) Pizza Delivery is ALWAYS on time. 5) You've played this session before, haven't you? Is that a time platform under the gaming table? 4) No matter what, no matter how much you want to kill him, he always has an escape route. 3) Master Villain Soliloquies seem a little too close to home. 2) Power grid goes down for eight blocks when he powers up that electro-battlemap. 1) When you finally defeat the enemies of the evening, he informs you it's just another step in HIS master plan...