mojo_bones

Re: Who's Who on the Champions Online forums?

Mojo_bones still Mojo_bones there. Glad to see so many from here over there already.

Re: Strange Hero Concepts: Discuss Your Own!

The Heckler- while not a very odd concept (just a silly kind of Batman type really) had a very fun (for me) disadvantage, hero worship. He picked one of the other PCs at the beginning of the campaign and decided he was the best superhero ever! He would go around telling hero and villain alike how the hero could defeat them any time he liked. He was very well off and even took out newspaper ads talking about how great the hero was. I think the worshiped hero really should have gotten a rep out of all of the publicity.

Re: How many plots do you have going?

I usually start with just 1 or 2 plots now. I used to do a lot more, but some would get lost in the shuffle. Also, sometimes (frequently, actually) the players decide to investigate something that was not intended to be a plot, at which point it becomes one. So I usually end up with 4 or 5 running at any one time.

Re: Firing Into Melee, a rules quandary

Well, for starters you have moved the bar a bit on the shooter. You did say "the greatest gunman in the world" before, but let's skip that.

The point I made about laughing is quite simple. I have seen rules in both Hero and other systems that when taken to the extreme (like the example given) can be abused, or make the rule appear broken. (see "rules lawyer" and "munchkin") Common sense has got to come into play at some point.

But to the actual complete novice shooter, let's add all of this up, plus a bit more. First you have nerves (the gun is now shaking) then you have the gun moving slightly to the right for squeeze rather than pull, you also did not mention dominant eye aiming or kick of the gun so let's add those in. Without ever picking up the gun are you familiar with it's weight? Do you know how to properly hold it without ever using a gun? Having seen and been someone who had never used a gun and then used one, I can tell you it is quite easy to miss by quite a bit. And no, I am not talking about miles, I am talking about feet as opposed to inches. If I miss you and the person you are HtH fighting with by 3 feet, I miss everything. If I miss you by a few inches, I could very well hit the other person. While I am not going to do the math of how being off in aim by just an inch or two translates out at 9 yards from the firing point, it is safe to say that just a few inches is all it would take to miss by feet. Angles work that way.

By all means, do what you are comfortable with, but it is pretty logical to think someone who knows how to hit a target is more likely to come close than someone who doesn't.

Re: Sit down, gamist!

Somewhat off topic' date=' but, I find this very un-cinematic and disagree on preference.[/quote']

 

I think it would also depend on genre. I have in some campaigns rewarded foolish actions that were done for a good reason.

I have also seen people shoot blind into combat for no reason other than they felt like it. Now *that* was pretty uncinimatic and I feel deservedly punished. In other words, genre and situation would play a big part in how I handled a "foolish" action.

Re: Firing Into Melee, a rules quandary

Laugh all you want, it's still "Rules Legal".

 

 

If the greatest gunman in the world misses, as everyone misses sometimes, he is more likely to cause collateral damage than someone who's never even seen a gun in their life...And that makes sense to you? You don't think a highly trained marksman would have learned how to shoot at the proper angle to avoid collateral damage, or even hitting someone else when the bullet goes through their target?

 

Personally I like the OCV being the amount you missed by.

First, I would laugh and laugh and laugh at anyone trying this. I have seen many "rules legal" builds and situations that I would not allow, and I am sure I could get a million stories here from others who have seen them as well. It is why we have terms like "rules lawyer" and "munchkin" rather than just calling all of this sort of thing cheating.

Second, yes it actually makes sense to me. See, if I have never used a gun and shoot at 2 people in close proximity, I am more likely to miss my target so badly that I don't come close to either target. Now,OTOH if I do know how to use a gun and shoot at 2 people in close proximity, if I miss my intended target, my shot is more likely to be close to my intended target and thus have a greater chance to hit the other person. I think that is pretty logical. Now, if you go to extreme of an expert marksmen setting up to make sure he will not hit anyone if he misses his target, then I would say make a skill for that sort of thing. But you have gone from just someone good vs someone not good to talking about very specific training when shooting into combat. Big difference there.

Re: "Back when I started playing Champions...."

Dice were hard to come by, too. Each one was hand-carved out of a 1-ton block of marble. They cost 50¢. Each. That doesn't sound like much, but that works out to just about $47.20 in today's dollars. When we couldn't get dice, we'd have to pay a soothsayer to sit in on the game and tell us what our dice rolls would've been. If you slipped him a beer every so often, you'd get better rolls. Not too many though, or you'd start getting weird results like a roll of pi on a 5d6 damage roll.

For dice, we raided other board games. This would cause my older sibling fits when they went to play Yatzee or Risk. Buy a bunch of 6 sideds...where??

And beer? Beer was not an option. We had juice boxes that would be thrown at each other once they were empty. All of our character sheets ended up with red juice dots all over them.

Re: "Back when I started playing Champions...."

Back in my day, we didn't need the extra 100 pts to play a superhero!

True story. The first time I played Champs we did not realize we got the 100pt base. All of our "superheros" had 4-5d6 attacks and no real movement powers. A few runs in, we realized our mistake and reworked all of our characters. WOW, What a difference! And yes, this would be before Champions II and III came out.

And yes, I have a bunch of those 20 page supplements with each villain taking up half a page. Ah, how times have changed.

I have been playing/running hero for about 15 years now, but for the first time I am running one player playing only one character. The setting is a kind of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV version) meets X-files sort of thing. The Character has been "chosen to fight evil" but does not know yet where his powers came from nor what exactly his mission is.

I give a little background so you know the type of game, but what I am looking for are helpful hints in running a true solo campaign. Anyone done this with success? What worked and what did not? What should I absolutely avoid?

Thanks for any tips here.

Re: Your "2007" Pet Gaming Projects

I have one "project" and one "help a friend with" project.

I have started a campaign that is set in New England and has a sort of Buffy/X-Files feel (or at least I hope it will). The main character (and only current player in the game) has just been blessed/cursed with Buffy like abilities, but has no watcher type to tell him why he has these abilities or how he should use them. While I have already started running it, I need to do research on legends/urban myths of the area as well as strange places and such. I also need a name for the project. I never was good at coming up with campaign names.

The second is help a friend who has decided to create a wiki site for one of my old campaigns and expand on it. So far, we have this:

http://soylent.supapimp.com/wiki/index.php/PWNSHG:Main_Page

I actually ran the campaign 3 separate times for 3 very different gaming groups. I tried to make each group part of a continuous time line, but I ended up revamping the time line each time. This project is my kind of project, as I can put stuff up whenever and don't feel any pressure to post stuff every week.

Re: Susano's Song-Based DC NPCs

How about Demolition Man by The Police?

Tied to the tracks and the train's just coming

Strapped to the wing with the engine running

You say that this wasn't in your plan

And don't mess around with the demolition man

Tied to a chair, (and) the bomb is ticking

This situation was not of your picking

You say that this wasn't in your plan

And don't mess around with the demolition man

I'm a walking nightmare, an arsenal of doom

I kill conversation as I walk into the room

I'm a three line whip

I'm the sort of thing they ban

I'm a walking disaster

I'm a demolition man

You come to me like a moth to the flame

It's love you need but I don't play that game

'Cos you could be my greatest fan

But I'm nobody's friend

I'm a demolition man

I'm a walking nightmare, an arsenal of doom

I kill conversation as I walk into the room

I'm a three line whip

I'm the sort of thing they ban

I'm a walking disaster

I'm a demolition man

Re: Firing Into Melee, a rules quandary

Sorry, I don't see the problem at all. If a PC in a game I was running tried to pull the "I shoot at my teammate and do everything to lower my CV" crap, I would laugh in their face. Secondly, this is the danger of shooting into combat. If you have a high CV, then you better hit (and your chances to hit the right target are greatly increased). If you miss and are shooting into an area with teammates, then the likelihood you hit one of them should be very high. Foolish actions deserve foolish results.

And as you pointed out, the higher CV character has a higher chance to hit the right target, so their chance to get to the hit a random other target phase is lessened. I see this as a pretty big advantage when shooting into combat.

Re: Help with a character name

Yeah, I would vote for Blindside as well. Good one TC.

Re: Power Build Suggestions: "Spectral Gun" MP

maybe an auto fire "Guns A' Blazin" attack.

Re: I need your brain

No' date=' it's not as interesting a post as you might like, but I do need to know, has there been a major character in the superhero genre named Hallow? I made the mistake a while back of calling my guy Nighthawk, and I'd rather not be embarassed thus again.[/quote']

I use major names all the time, sometimes intentionally, but usually not ( I am not a big comic guy).

It can be fun to use the name but make the character completely different from the original. Some people will keep expecting you to act like the original, but I think that is also part of the fun

Re: Help with a character name

Shift

Radar

Insight

Re: nbc heroes tv series Hiro Nakamura

I think the geek in all of us are drawn to Hiro. And his powers rock, to boot!

Re: Least Abused Powers

This reminds me of the story bandied about our gaming group about the player who somehow got XDT, UAO past his GM (it may have been through a VPP, at that) and used it to totally derail the GM's climactic battle scene with the main villain.

 

Other than that, I got nothin'.

I was in a game where this exact thing happened. It may be the same story (Jeff, perhaps?). The GM really did not know the system so that was a big part of the problem, but after that I limited VPP in my games severely. Better safe than sorry.

Re: Seeking for a character sheet

There are several spreadsheets in the "Free Stuff" section of the website for calculating different elements of HERO gaming: http://www.herogames.com/FreeStuff/csheets.htm

Thanks a ton! I have never checked out that section of the site before. Lot's of helpful stuff there.

Re: Drama Dice

If you are looking for a general you get a plus to anything, be it attack roll, skill roll, attack damage, etc. you may have to give out some sort of "chit" they can turn in to use. Then set what the chit would do for each type of roll, such as +2 to any skill roll, +2d6 (or 10 pts) worth of attack damage, etc. You may also want to set a limit on how many they can use at once. I know this isn't the exact feel of 7th Sea, but it is still a pretty nice perk.

Re: [interest in a HeroCentral game]

So, where should we send char write ups or concepts?

Re: Super Teams Compete!

I would think that supers that were more inclined to join a "mega team" might be more inclined to join a government sanctioned group, or organization. The more classic "bureaucracy moves too slow-we need action!" types would maybe solo or have a small group. I also tend to see more of the rock star attitude for many heroes and having mid to large size teams forming and breaking up as egos get in the way. I can't imagine having awesome powers that put most people in total awe of you would not eventually go to one's head.

Re: [interest in a HeroCentral game]

HeroCentral is pretty easy to use, actually. As a disclaimer, IE can mess up the looks/layout of it and there are a few things that IE isn't compatible with, but nothing that would really affect posting/reading. (Rumor has it that IE 7 *should* be compatible.) Mozilla Firefox works great.

Thanks for the info.

Re: [interest in a HeroCentral game]

I am interested as well, but have never used HeroCentral. How difficult is it to use?

Re: How Many U S Heros ?

What' date=' no hero teams in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh? Pennsylvania is still a large state with a population to match. Not Texas or California size, but we're no lightweight. Or would PA have a few 'local heroes' who might team up with supers from, say, Jersey, Delaware, and West Virginia when they need to?[/quote']

Hey, I said Philly! But I do agree that Pennsylvania tends to get overlooked for the east coast. I can't think of any campaign I have been in that had any big heroes in Philly or Pittsburgh