Karma
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Posts posted by Karma
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Re: The best questions you can ask!
Where am I?You are in The Village.
What do you want?
Information.
You won't get it.
By hook or by crook, we will.
Who are you?
I am Number Two.
Then who is Number One?
That would be telling.
Who do you work for?
You are Number Six.
I am not a number, I am a free man!
Really? I always thought the answer to "Who is Number One?" was "You are Number Six".
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Re: Powers to make life better
O.k. just now (as opposed to usually, which is 0 STR TK (see above). Megascale Teleportation (enough to get me from Paradise to Civilisation) for the weekends.
Why not flight, you ask. I have a Succeptability to high altitudes.
Oh and a 0END 1Pt killing attack damage shield vs. insects wouldn't go astray either (Damn Mozzies)
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Re: Powers to make life better
Seriously just Telekinesis.
Enough to move stuff from where I can see it to my hand without me having to get up.
As of yet I can think of no other power I truly want.
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Re: Low End Villain or Henchmen Campaign?
Has anyone ever tried this? Got the idea from the story Henchman from the anthology book The Darker Mask' date=' where the protagonist spends time in the world of the henchman while trying to avoid getting maimed or killed by a complete lunatic a-hole version of Batman called the Night Mare. Just thought that it would be interesting idea for a game and see if anyone has already taken a stab at it.[/size']And, as an aside, I would just recommend the book mentioned above as a source of ideas for a bunch of low-end or slightly off-center Champions campaigns.
You realise that from a henchman's POV Batman is a complete lunatic A-hole? If he wasn't he couldn't get them to talk so easily just be looking threatening. Lets' face it if Batman's CoK ever became public knowledge among the low-rent crowd of Gotham City his job would get a whole lot harder.
That said yes 'Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog' for many things including what a real lunatic A-hole hero looks like.
"He THREW a CAR at my HEAD!"
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Re: Champions Universal Deathmatch: Peacemonger vs. The Warlord!
Kind of makes me wish I'd seen 3rd ED.
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Re: The Butler
Soc. Lim.: Humor so dry you should keep it away from open flames.
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Re: Campaigns bases off alternate sources.
I've played in a game based on Wildstorm with some characters from the Wild Cards books. Actually the GM was so into Wildstorm that he had the characters turning up in games where they were totally out of genre (Vampire: The Masquarade for example), but that's a personal gripe.
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Re: superuseless superpowers
Invisiblity, always on, no endurance cost. Totally and absolutely invisible vs N-Ray vision.And ONLY N-Ray vision. No joke, saw a guy put it a character sheet once.
So someone trying to see you from the other side of a wall (with N ray vision) fails to do so. If the came round the wall they would see you but looking for you with N-Ray vision fails.
I can see the logic.
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Re: Not "Secret", not "Public", just "Identity"
This is very interesting but only really works for street-level heroes a la Daredevil' date=' or "city protector"-level heroes a la Spiderman. It does not really make sense for nation/world-protector-level heroes like the Avengers or JLA. Far too much media noticeability for them, even if there are several teams and not a few solo heroes of that power level. How would you treat them ?[/quote']My problem is with 'world saver' heroes having neither Secret ID or Public ID. Such people are going to pull a great deal of media attention and if they don't protect their ID they are going to get Public ID by default. I am wracking my brain on how someone who saves the world cannot become publicly know unless they do it secretly, either as 'Masked Hero' or 'Hero with this face'. The fact is the moment they beat off 'The Eater Of Worlds' in front of even one member of the public with a mobile phone (let alone an entire city with media etc.) everyone is going to know what they look-like. At that point not being recognized by every person who can see a T.V. or Paper is going to be almost impossible, and one of them is going to know you as 'Joe my work-mate' and one as 'Joe from down the hall' and unless they are atypical of most people they are going to call up the media and the next day's headline will be 'Mega-man's Identity Revealed' and include everything anyone knows about you. Why? Because the 'Public Wants to Know' (just as a celebrity, and some of them are only famous for one movie, Mega-man saved the world). Soon your every detail is on multitudes of websites as 'The guy who saved the world' (or at least one of them) and you have a Public ID.
I'd really like someone to come up with a 'neither' idea for world saving superheroes, that doesn't strain credibility (Yes I know we are in comics land where the laws of physics don't apply, but I'd like to suspend my belief, not hang it).
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Re: Not "Secret", not "Public", just "Identity"
I've been thinking about this and I'd make a hero with neither Secret or Public ID the equivelent of the real heroes in the real world. ie. police officers & fire fighters. These are guys that put their lives on the line to save people and property and apprehend criminals, just like Superheroes do. Some are even awarded medals for it. Thing is alot of people would have a hard time telling you, off the top of their heads, who the last cop or firefighter to get a medal in their city was. Sure that people he saved/criminals she apprehended might never forget them, and for a while they'll have people offeing them free food and stuff and saying 'good on you', but then something else 'newsworthy' happens and people tend to forget. If they don't do something 'medal-worthy' again then eventually they are just like every cop or firefighter, an everyday hero, but not someone that people know the name off automatically.
The same would be true of superheroes. They'll stop 'Evil Guy' or save the city and they'll get famous because of it. The media might lionise them, the mayor might hold a press conference, people might come up to them in the streets and say 'Hey aren't you Mega-man? Thanks for stopping Evil guy, that was cool.' However the next day the Champions are called on to save the city from Dr Destroyer or some such and that becomes upermost in peoples' mind. Sure the hostages you saved might keep sending you cookies and the teenage girl who was one of them might have a picture of you on her diary with a love heart around it, and you can be sure that Evil Guy won't forget you when he inevitably breaks out of jail, but the the populous at large you will be 'just another superhero protecting the city because it's what they do' (until you do something else that gets you public attention and lets face it Superheroes are more likely to do this, just because of how 'Super' their 'Heroics' are)
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Re: Help: Hey Diddle Dillinger
These ideas rock' date=' but you're missing out on the Cat and her fiddle - that fiddle case is a perfect place to hide her own tommygun.[/quote']Sorry fiddle = violin. Should have made that clear.
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Re: superuseless superpowers
4D6 Simplified Healing, Side Effect (-0, Target Only, Always Occurred), 4d6 Energy Blast, LIM: Healing can not do more healing than the side effect did in damage. (-1?)Although I think it is the most cathartic superuseless superpower I've seen. It's like having a built-in boffer bat.
There is a Magic Item (gauntlets) in D&D (where healing magic harms Undead) which casts a healing spell on anyone your hit. Basically it's an undead detector.
WHACK!!
"Hey what'd you hit me for?"
"Just checking..."
(better than a boffer bat since you have a 'legit reason' to hit people who bug you)
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Re: Can't see through your clothes
I was talking to a friend about his potential champion character, which he plans on making like a mix between Superboy and Nightwing. So, we had talked about flight, and he mentioned wanting X-ray vision. I read the description for N-Ray Perception, which in the description says there has to be a material they cannot see through. Naturally he chose lead. But while talking about it, a friend came up with:N-ray Perception (Cannot see through Cotton)
Male character Looks at female team-mate and smiles.
Team Mate: What??!
Male: Your wearing all Man-made fibres today
Team-mate: HEY!!!
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Re: superuseless superpowers
This is a little off topic but I'm in a chatty mood.
My group has (this may come as a shock to some people) in the past accused me of being a bit of a power gamer. A few games back I said that I would try to play a "useless" character. I borrowed my concept from Stone Boy of the Legion of Susbtsitute Superheroes. I had the ability to become nigh-invulnerable (75% Damage Reduction plus high defenses), but when I did I also become totally rigid and unable to move (Side Effect: becomes totally rigid and unable to take actions). Over time, the team and I came up with a few strategies so I could help out in combats like: jumping over a foe and then transforming (Crushing Damage Damage Shield), having a teamate use me as a weapon (the GM allowed me to be used as a One Hex object) or cover (Uncontrolled Missile Deflection), and grabbing a foe tightly and then transforming (my rigidity was bought as Uncontrolled Clinging, must follow grab). It actually worked out so well, I have considered trying the character in a serious campaign.
Sounds like a character in the 'New Heroes' set of books (she turned into diamond, immobile diamond). The last tactic was her usual combat tactic (after which her team mates would pummel the poor guy). When the machine went off that robbed everyone of their powers she was in diamond form (to protect herself after she was beat up). Years later when someone tests a machine to reverse the effect she 'wakes up' and wonders how she got from a hillside to a storage room in a bunker. Just saying...
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Re: Not "Secret", not "Public", just "Identity"
As people have said the difference is that Secret ID comes with a set of problems (Villians trying to discover it, Having to 'slip off to put n your mask', sometimes being unable to stop the badguys because you can't get away to get into costume) and Public ID has others (Protesters outside your house, Villians knowing where you live, anything Celebs have to put up with plus Badguys really). If you don't have either and don't get points you should have very few of these problems.
Actually the only reason that I can think of in genre for why a character doesn't have either is that they don't go out of their way to hide it and so people don't really care much. The X-men are a little like this. Most of the time they didn't wear masks, but people who knew them usually knew they were mutants and to those who didn't they were 'just some guys'. I wouldn't have given them Secret ID or Public ID myself (Until the 'big outing', when they made themselves 'Public') (The Institute OTOH would have had Secret ID, there is a difference. The public might know who you are but have no idea where you live).
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Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon
"The Mangrove Effect"- The Gazebo Effect from an actual player in our game.
"Mango? Two Mango?"- A situation in which the NPCs don't realise the importance of what you are telling them. Comes from a situation where the PCs were attempting to explain the orc army marching on the Elf homeland to an elf who was stoned out of his gourd (The Orcs having correctly timed their attack to the day of the Mango Festival when all the Elves would be 'under the weather' on 'natural substances')
Sung "Hey I've died twice"- Any sitruation in which the players think the Cleric might need to Raise them afterward. Quoting, of course, Buffy from 'Once More with Feeling' and referencing the fact that their own character has, indeed, died twice (at least).
Of course we have the Moose/Half Moose as well, but that isn't specifically our group.
Wompus - A character built specifically for combat.
"Ping" - the sound of the blow not breaking through defences.
"Blah" (usually with hand gesture signifying a great deal of something coming from the mouth)- Character recapping information that the players heard that the either characters didn't or were not supposed to understand usually followed by me (the GM) saying "Yes and what was that Blah" because there is little more I love than characters acting on information that the players know to be wrong because one of them couldn't explain it properly. (I have only one player who goes along with me but a least I try)
"Previously on (enter name of campaign here)" - A recap for players who were not here last session or can't remember what happened when their characters would (since very little in game time has passed) usually done by another player with help from the GM who is, at this point, setting up.
"So we're in a (Forest/Dungeon/whatever)" - Lets get back to the game people and not get totally off topic. From 'The Gamers' from Dead Gentlemen Productions, used in the same context.
"Second session! Record stands! Sorry dude!" Usually said by me when I am GMing and one of the characters just bit the big one in the second session of the campaign (usually because one of the PCs failed to help him or he decided to play hero, I don't try to kill PCs I really don't).
"Flange" - Run away. No idea where it came from, someone elses group probably. Given what a Flange is, makes no actual sense.
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Re: Help: Hey Diddle Dillinger
You could give her gang powers and personalities based on the rhyme.
Cat: The 'second story' expert (Cat burgler). Has a violin that allows her to control people.
Cow: The Muscle. A Superstrong 'Minotaur' possibly with Superleap (No-one said how the Cow was able to jump over the moon, she might have just been strong enough).
Little Dog: A nut job who laughs to himself all the time, esecially at inappropriate times ("Yeah hit him a gain, ha Ha, Hit him again")
Dish and Spoon: A pair with Super Running who take the loot while the rest of the gang holds off the 'fuzz'.
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Re: Superhuman women and normal women
Most of the female Marvel characters are 5'6", 120 lbs, according to the OHOTMU. Not all, but enough that it became a sort of running joke in my game group for a while.In our games, for some reason the female supers tend to be 5'4" or less, or 5'9" or taller. Not many between 5'5" and 5'8".
Dont know why.
Obviously because if they are too close to 5'6" they find it too hard to keep secret IDs ("Janet is 5'6", just like so many superheroines, you don't think...?)
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Re: Unmaking
The only time I will allow a no-win situation to come up is when the players make it a no-win situation. I always give the players options at the outset, but if they choose not to think and paint themselves into a corner.... well then they are in a corner, and have to figure out what to do from there.
I have a GM who fully considers 'one warning' enough before placing us in no-win situations of our own making. Sometimes there are vague warnings and so his TPK rate is higher that you'd like in a GM, but "hey" (he says) "If I tell you/hint that something is suicidally stupid and you go ahead and do it don't blame me if you die."
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Re: Unmaking
This brings up another question.
When is it O.K. for a GM to kill a PC?
My reply to this is, "Never, but sometimes crap just happens."
Yes but does that mean it isn't O.k. for a player to kill his own P.C. with the aid of the GM? What about simply using a GM's set up to do so. From the sound of it you think this would cause tension in the group. I disagree. If a Player wants to sacrifice his character for the greater good he should be within his rights to do so.
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Re: The Spy Factory
Well yeah, sure, he has a thing for the ladies, but then again...he's not married!
And that's why Clinton had sooooo much trouble with the other party (Aside from generally being a sucessful president).
Fielding, I might also add, is suspicious enough to quietly send some investigators around to ensure NSA's cooperation. Say, have the team mentalist move in a block away from the NSA director's exexcutive secretary.
A move like that would be a rather bad idea on their part. At least in our game anyway.
Yes, becaquse unauthorised telepathic scanning of federal employees isn't going to get him in trouble. Man, if think Nixon had it bad, just wait till the news that POTUS has secret telepathic scanning going on gets out. Nixon just had phone conversations taped, Fielding is having mindscans done.
Actually, the knowledge that Fielding is a known associate of people who may, or may not, have used their telepathic powers to get him elected is exactly the sort of 'dirt' that the NSA (or anyone actually) would need to have him impeached. Heck how did he get elected in the first place, or are his 'sympathies for the kinds of people who deprive good citizens of their privacy and in many cases their free will' a secret. You want a bet? THe NSA deals with secrets. What's the bet that the first thing the telepath picks up is 'Hello Mr Telepath, guess what we've been working on since Telepathy became known to us (decades before the general public). We call it the Keeper of Secrets'. (Telepath begins bleeding out of his nose).
Have you seen PS238 where a telepath (read only, no mind control, just knew what people were thinking) becomes POTUS. Lets just say that without the aid of a local superteam impeachment would have been the least of his worries.
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Re: Code vs Killing, but Gods a little fuzzy about kneecaps.
(maybe because he's more scared of "the boss" than he is of you)?I have quite a few mooks with this problem. Thinks "Lets see I can hold out in which case you shoot my other knee. I can lie and tell you something that sounds plausable so you won't shoot my other knee. Or I can tell you the truth in the full knowledge that when the boss finds out I squealed he will have me skinned alive slowly in front of the other mooks as an 'example'. You know I'm taking option B."
Screams: "The bombs on the Docks" or something else he thinks you'll find plausable.
Actually quite a few of my Mooks are so scared of 'the boss' that they refuse to cave. Yes you can torture them, but you (hopefully) don't enjoy it and are, at worst, an enthusiatic amateur. 'The Boss' OTOH has spent years perfecting his technique and has been known to torture people just because he can. Also the mook 'knows' that you'll never beat his boss because no-one ever has, so squealing is just gonna lead to his boss getting angry at him when some incompotent fools arrive on his doorstep.
Then again I'm a 'BAD GM' who knows that the moment you allow 'the kneecapping approach' to work is the moment it becomes so routine as to be cliche. Funny how PCs always do the thing that works, no matter how 'unheroic', it's almost as if they can learn. (Then again my players tend to put pragmatism before heroism, at least in their portrayal of their characters).
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Re: The Spy Factory
Sure' date=' but His gear is real world tech that plays by Cinematic rules...and thus is Better than Real![/quote']There is actually some real world gear that was 'too unbelievable' for a Bond movie and so was left out of one of the Brosnon movies.
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Re: The Spy Factory
In our game, one of our PC's retired from play... because he was elected president. So it would go like this:PC on behalf of the FBI Director: "The FBI would like a copy of phone transcripts of bin Lauden that the NSA recorded, but they won't share it with them..."
President Fielding: "Say no more. Hang on just a minute." (Arranges three-way call with the NSA director) "Mr. Director, I understand you have been turning down the FBI's requests for information based on terrorist activity. Is this correct?"
NSA Director: "Yes, Mr. President, that is true. They have no need to know."
President Fielding: "I say they do. Log that in your order books right now. And Mr. Director?"
NSA Director: "Yes, Mr. President?"
President Fielding: "We will not have this conversation again. I might have it with your sucessor. Do you understand?"
NSA Director (clearly cowed): "Yes, Mr. President."
NSA Director (after putting the phone down): Looks like Fielding is going to be 'hands on'. Time to put the contigency into place. Have the white file on Osama Bin-Laden shipped to the FBI. Oh and see if we have anything on Fielding would you? Anything Impeachment worthy? Clinton was the same you know. Hadn't been for that wife of his we'd have had him out on his ear...
Ultimate Suppresser
in Champions
Posted
Re: Ultimate Suppresser
Faux Pas?!! Faux Pas?!!! You dare type in French!!! [Horrible French Accent] I mock you and your French typing[/Horrible French Accent]
O.k. All kidding aside my books are in another country so I really can't help. But welcome to the boards.