Balabanto

Re: New Champions vs. The Big Blue Book Well, the Big Blue Book has four things that are worth keeping. 1) The Character Creation Checklist. 2) The Campaign Parameters and Themes 3) The Rules for Holding Actions. (In 5th edition, you can't cross over a held action into a new phase, you have to perform a cover maneuver. The only thing this rewards is DEX escalation, or buying an additional +2 OCV, only to counter the penalties from the cover maneuver) 4) The base power levels. Everything in 4th Edition was done on a 2 die staging system, which was fabulous. Joe PC had 10-11d6. Villains had 10-12 d6. Tough Heroes threw 12d6, and the mightiest heroes and villains threw about 14d6. A master villain or giant monster threw 16-18d6, and god forbid anything should roll 20. My players, for the most part, think everything in 5th edition is massively overpowered.

All right. This one should be very juicy. Automaton powers say that if you pay for the 60 point version, you are effectively immune to mental powers. HOWEVER, if you pay for the machine class of minds, all of these abilities are now useless. Normally, I am all for an ability that makes people immune to mental abilities, as they are huge character screwovers. But truth be told, I can't figure out a way around this. There can't be absolute security on robotic devices once you create a machine class of minds. I've considered adding a special advantage to Mind Control that reads as +1 (The Same Value as NND) that effectively creates an NND Mind Control that only works vs. Ego 0 creatures with Automaton Powers that make them immune to normal mental powers, because otherwise, Machine Class of Minds is a virtually useless ability except for AI's, Robotic creatures with no mental defense (Rare) and The Brawling Balabanto's laptop. (It's sentient! I swear) Thoughts?

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... During a playtest for King of the Mountain, hopefully to be appearing in Digital Hero sometime next year. Yo-Yo, to Ultra Gadget Queen G (That's right! Yo-Yo, master of Yo-Yo's and Robot Elvises, makes an appearance in this adventure): You DARE to mock me by controlling one of my robots and then shooting me with a marshmellow cannon? You will PAY for this! Gideon (From Across the Battlefield): That's okay! We mock her too!

Re: Going out with a bang Killed by Santa's Demonically Possessed Elves.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... In addition to running a 20 year Champions Campaign, I also run a very long D+D campaign. When I did this, one of the first characters I ever created as a GMPC was a Ranger who eventually wound up acquiring 900 volumes of a boring series of books entitled "History of the Northern Orc Tribes." Not being one to optimize, I figured I would blow some points on "Knowledge: History of the Northern Orc Tribes" I figure, this is pretty useless, yet cool. In general, it should be noted that the character was fairly ill tempered and cranky, and could be called a bitch by some, and ruthlessly expedient for a lawful good character by others. So, I'm running a session last night, and one of the PC's runs off and makes themselves pretty much unfindable. The other PC's talk to some NPCs, and they remember that the PC had been forcibly betrothed to an Orc Prince by her father. Powerful Wizardess contacted by party: Well, you could talk to your friend, Raisha. Isn't she supposed to be knowledgable about those sorts of things? Me, in My Head: God, I just screwed myself, didn't I? This was NEVER supposed to be THIS useful. Party of Adventurers: Hey, wait. Yeah. This was a GREAT idea! Party Bard: Wait...you know the Princess Raisha Djenispol in Exile? And you didn't tell me? Party Wizard: It didn't seem important at the time. Party Barbarian/Sorcerer/Ranger: Yeah. She's nice. It was at this point that I burst out laughing and had to give the player playing the Barbarian/Sorcerer/Ranger a small D+D XP award for 5 XP. In TWENTY YEARS OF GAMING, that was the LAST thing I ever expected anyone to say about that character.

Re: Why should I buy Champions? You should buy Champions for superhero roleplaying games because it is, quite simply, the best system out there. Combat in my game moves fairly quickly, and I've been running the same game world (Tentatively called Legacies) in Hero for 20 years now. The thing about Hero is that you can do anything with it. And you've already heard that from these other guys, but as someone who also plays d20 games, I don't like what M+M took out of d20 to DO Mutants and Masterminds. One of the things you can do with Hero is set RANGES for your PCs and the bad guys. This is the BEST thing about the system. You know EXACTLY how powerful the PC's COULD be when they reach the top of their ranges. Is the campaign over? Heck no. Reaching the top of your power level is not what a roleplaying game is all about. There's always contacts, powers, and new skills to buy. Oddly, one of your best resources for this is not a 5th edition sourcebook. It's the fourth edition sheet that sets up a series of theme parameters for your gameworld. Does my game have 20 pages of house rules after 20 years? It sure does! But then, my game has about eight different groups of heroes who are played between New Jersey and Rhode Island, and I travel a long way to run these games for my old friends. Your game needs a strong presence from the gamemaster, or it will fall apart from powergaming. Be tough, but don't kill them. They're superheroes. Picking themselves back up and going on is what it's all about. ALL of your problems with Hero will come from character generation. After that (And I am living proof of this. Just ask Dave Mattingly, who publishes my stuff in Digital Hero), your game will run itself. In fact, sometime either this year or next year, in Digital Hero will appear an article entitled "Secret Origins II" (I hope) that shows you how to take your own players sheets and alter them to create a variety of allies and adversaries. You can run an entire game with a very small number of character sheets, and some adjustments.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... From a Forgotten Realms Wizard's Reach Game Taubrynna Tammarath: I don't understand why you have to proselytize so much, Garvin. There's really no need to worship Lathander that loudly. Garvin: It is my faith. Sitheria: Some faith that is. (Grumble, grumble) Hilda (Dwarf): Plus, she keeps hitting you over the head. Sitheria: I haven't hit him over the head in SIX DAYS!

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Captain Unity II: Eiko, can you come to my office please? We might have a serious problem. Eiko arrives in the office. She's wearing a full set of catchers gear, clearly, she thought she was going to be in trouble. Eiko: What is it? Captain Unity: We have a problem. Mechassassin has been hired to assassinate Ember's father. Millennium Guard just called us because we live in this city and they don't. We're not sure if he's going to do it, but we should probably put a watch on it. Can you make some surveillance devices so that Ember can plant them in her parents home? Eiko: Sure. Captain Unity: We can have Romula infiltrate the area as a dog. It should work for onsite surveillance. Eiko: Sure! Captain Unity: Team meeting in 15 minutes. Ember misses the team meeting. Unbeknownst to Ember, Romula has decided to infiltrate the very house itself. Romula's player: I mind control the cat and get it to come outside and make friends with me. Then I follow them into the house. So, later that week, Ember calls her family to arrange for Sunday dinner as usual. "Oh, honey! We adopted a dog!" Ember: "Really?" Ember arrives for dinner, sees Romula, doubletakes. While Ember is giving Romula a dog bath upstairs... Romula: I see now why domestic dogs are so stupid! THERE'S NOTHING TO DO HERE! We won't talk about Gideon's plan to extract Romula from Ember's family home. Suffice to say, Fletch lived...

Re: A question for the old timers... I think a couple of the others are actually mentioned in some of the old issues.

Re: A question for the old timers... I can see that there is some debate. Oh, well. Might as well build them if I have the space. That WILL be hilarious, if nothing else.

Re: A question for the old timers... Because...I was thinking... You know, if any tournament characters should find their way into the Foxbat For President Adventure...it should be Dragon Man, Warrior, Starflare, and the Rest of the Freedom League.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Millennium Guard Decides to Protect a Lawrence Industries Facility from Protestors. After Gibraltar, the 20,000 Year Old Elemental has spent a few hours tormenting the Reverend Steven Power and his associates with statues of Non-Yahwihst deities, the angry religious protestors and Advanced Science League protestors are still peaceful, if agitated. Onto the scene comes CASH, a third protest group. (Citizens Against Super Heroes) Hyperdrive, the newest member of Millennium Guard, approaches their leader, who unbeknownst to him, is someone else's DNPC. Hyperdrive: Sir, is there anything I can do for you after you move your protestors over there? CASH Protest Leader: Retire!

Re: Build Me A Villain Team I may have thought this through differently from the rest of you. Call them the Hazard: Has a grudge against Nighthawk, which actually allows for something called plot. Eclipse: Hangs out with Hazard because as long as he's around, she's not as unlucky Holocaust (Leader): With this group at his back, he really CAN conquer the world, and why SHOULDN'T he? Gargantua (Brick): This seems to be everyone's favorite choice, but I'm going to choose it too. Don't forget, Eclipse can copy Gargantua's powers, and together the two of them can completely rule a battlefield. The Monster: Since no one knows what it really is, in this version, it is a robot or genetic experiment found by Hazard and Eclipse. Hazard just wants to use it, but Eclipse pities it. Vector: He really is the fastest man alive. He can actually burn actions to move the entire team in and out of combat instantly. Yes, an excellent choice. My two reserve characters are... Cybermind: Sure, this leaves them without a real mentalist, but all of modern security requires a guy like this to bypass it. For a knockdown dragout assault, you bring him, but on a infiltration mission, Eclipse copies his powers, and voila, instant B+E. If Zorran the Artificer had the right skills and abilities on his sheet, he would be my choice for secret leader. But...here's mine... The Internet...a chatroom Holocaust: What do you want, Hazard? Hazard: I wanted to know if you have any work. Holocaust: I always do. Mr. Automatic wants to join your chatline Hazard: Hey, Holocaust, do you know anyone named Mr. Automatic? Holocaust: No. This line is secure. Mr. Automatic has joined your chatline Hazard: What the hell is this? Holocaust: Get off my line. This is secure. How the hell did you get in...? Mr. Automatic: Would you like to rule the world? Half a world away, in a secret base, the cold metallic fingers remained locked, eyes on a screen he did not even have to touch. Hazard: Rule the world? This must be my lucky day. Holocaust: Yes. And Mechanon's mouth glowed in the closest thing the machine could come to a smile...

Does anyone know if Dragon Man, Warrior, Starflare, and the Rest of the Freedom League were actually people's characters that were played, or whether they were joke characters created for the Adventurer's Club Letters page?

Re: WWYCD: The Nebula Affair Captain Unity II: (This is my favorite.) Excuse me, Miss? But I'm afraid you can't do that. You see, by doing that, you're interfering with their right to civil justice and my right to perform it, so I'm launching a civil suit against you. Two days later: Congratulations, jackass. You just got served. Due to the nature of your powers and abilities, the court has issued a restraining order against you which indicates that you cannot come within 25,500 miles of me. I believe that's...the Earth? LEAVE!

Re: Best Superhero game system thread poll My problem with M+M is that the system mechanics break the way d20 is designed. Without attacks of opportunity and five foot adjustments, the system does not function. The system was designed to work with miniatures on a battlemap, and M+M removes the ability of GMs to do this effectively. THAT's why Hero is better. We didn't compromise our battlemap position in any of the five editions we published.

Re: Best Superhero game system thread poll Voted. I can't see how ANYONE could like Mutants and Masterminds. There's a reason I publish for this company and not for them. Plus, We have FOXBAT. And they don't. So there!

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Ultra's Sheet (Along with the rest of Freedom Strike) should be available in Digital Hero sometime next year.

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? I also prefer color artwork. Color Artwork is a marketing tool. That's all it is. I firmly believe that if you're going to have a comic book roleplaying game, that it shouldn't be a black and white game. Stan Lee and John Romita didn't publish Fantastic Four in B+W. If they did, the world as we know it would be much different today. Also, dozens of people who don't play the game will just buy the book because it has cool art. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. It's all marketing.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... This thursday, The San Diego Knights had a phone conversation with one of the members of Freedom Strike, who they needed to get information from. Gauntlet (Team Leader): This is Gauntlet, may I speak to Gideon please, we need some information from him. Ultra Gadget Queen G (Answering Phone): Are you emailing him the text? He moves his lips when he reads. Gauntlet: What does that have to do with anything? Ultra Gadget Queen G: The last time he read a mythic text over the internet he got my donuts possessed by an elder horror. Gauntlet: We're pretty sure there's no magic involved here. Can we please just speak to Gideon? Ultra Gadget Queen G: Sure, I'll transfer you. Psiclotron's Player: Mike, I cyberkinetically touch the phone line and use my cyberpathic abilities to make the phone transmit the subliminal message "You Want Brownies." Me: Okay. Gideon's Player: Damn you, he has retrocognition and eidetic memory. He will NEVER get over this.... Gideon: This is Gideon. What can I help you with? Gauntlet: We're looking for some information. We think that Stonefire is going after the city of gold. What can you tell us about the Lleras family of Spain and their relationship to it? Gideon: Give me a few minutes. (Goes out to get a brownie sundae) Gauntlet: Sure (Munch, munch, munch...eating brownies on the table) Gideon: (Gives Information, makes munching noises) Gauntlet: Thanks Gideon, we'll get back to you when you know more. These are really pretty good brownies, guys. Psiclotron...secretly smirking in the background....

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... A D+D Eberrron Story My Valenar Elf is friends with an awakened badger. The awakened badger drinks beer. A lot of beer. So he told his friend, the shifter to go buy a keg of beer and leave it near the compound fence outside of Sharn, where the Valenar Embassy was. I told him not to wait around. So, curious, he waits around, apparently foolish enough to risk the wrath of a hundred angry elven cavalrymen over a case of beer. So our GM says "Make a spot check." (No) "Make a listen check." (No) "You notice that the keg is gone. And your boots smell of badger piss."

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Tonight, the Mighty San Diego Knights battled a group of Neo-Nazi supervillains and their plan to breed an army of Aryans with the help of the Monster Maker. The battle was going swimmingly for our heroes. Everything was under control. At this point, the team brick, Mesa, recovers from being stunned. After identifying over the radio the location of two of the fleeing villains, he holds his action... The Martial Artist, flying outside after having punched through the window of the fifteen story building, is waiting for him outside. He charges, pushes his running, and is redirected towards the fleeing, flying villains in midair. He completes his 20" of movement, 50 percent of which is doubled for going downward. He does a move through on his opponent, named Messerschmidt, an aptly named armored character with built in machine gun wristbands.... It was at this point that the PC realized that he had made a mistake. He connected with Messerschmidt, who sailed downward into a parked car, with his hot, rapidly firing machine guns. The car exploded. Dealing more damage to Messerschmidt, after he took a ton of knockback and was rendered unconscious. And now, we come to the thing that made me almost spit up. Then, at the top of the next phase, Mesa hit the ground, after his velocity was already 40". So that means he falls 30 more ", which he could only travel 10. So, he takes all 30d6. Unfortunately, the ground of most paved cities can't take this damage. He dealt out 31 Body to the 10 Def, 7 Body street. He crashed into the sewer and made a big crater. Then I explained to the players the result. "There is a thunderous BOOM as the pavement caves in and cracks as far as the eye can see. Cars flip, and windows shatter for about eight blocks. Messerschmidt is now buried under another car." (According to the rules, the size of the hole doubles for every body dealt above the base needed to overcome it. That's 16665 hexes total. Gauntlet: (Team leader, still in skyscraper base of villains.) What the !@#$! was that? Red Baroness: Uhm... Martial Artist (Steel Thunder): Mesa Fell... Mesa was unconscious for a week.

Re: "Look, up in the sky! It's Super Saint!" Christian-themed heroes Well, you can find the origin of supers in my game in Digital Hero #27, so the cat's out of the bag on that one. The existence of god, therefore, works the other way around in my game, as grim and terrible as that sounds. Man created God in his own image. Yes, I realize that this sounds horrible, but it was what I felt the best way was to explore what it meant to really BE a superhero. If you have that ultimate power, and heroes have the ability to get their powers from a single unified almighty, the problem was player fairness, differing religions, etc. I am Jewish, some of my friends are christians, pagans, muslims, and agnostics. There is no way on man's green earth that I could afford to ascribe an ultimate power to a single unknowable overgod in a superhero setting. My players, and fairness to all of them, had to come first. What does faith mean? This is an excellent question. How does that stuff work in my gameworld? Well, when Mind over Matter comes, you will get an answer. You may not LIKE the answer that you get, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. When people found out that everyone on Earth was once super, and that mankind was created to wage war against a spacefaring race very much like themselves by evil alien Sperm Whale Humanoids, the heroes decided to conceal this fact rather than cause massive religious warfare. It was a good call. Do I have faith based heroes and villains? Absolutely. The Knights Templar are a major villainous organization in my game, and they believe that the last days are actually here, and that since the signs have come, but the promised land has not, that it is time for THEM to bring it about. Is this the belief of every christian in my gameworld? Of course not. But, they make really cool mystical bad guys, especially since sometimes, they will be your PC's allies against villainous threats. Over the years, there have been two angels, two demons, multiple priests of various and sundry bizarre faiths, and the Devil is a real supervillain built on about 950-1150 points. It's a complicated world. But then, I've run it since 1987. I have NO idea what I'm doing for its 20th anniversary. But I'm sure I'll think of something...

Re: Handling the historical presence of Super beings Check out Tsunami in Digital Hero #27 and the cheesy Abraxas character sheet therein for a brief overview of my world's justification for the existence of supers. When my players found out, they decided to keep it a secret to prevent riots and religious wars...

Re: Queer heroes Religion can also matter, of course. In Secret Origins II, when you see that, Captain Unity AND Captain Unity II are jewish. So there are always different ways that you can change things, shake them up for your players, etc.