Duke Bushido
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Posts posted by Duke Bushido
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Shouldn't that last line be "deal one damage to _every_ target?
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5 hours ago, Starlord said:
Never have I more pationately wanted to shove a serving spoon into someone's nostril....
And I _like_ puns!
(Just not this one)
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Thanks, N-B.
That sounds ideal. Essentially, I am looking for something to help new players put together characters (the youth group in particular, as they are more interested in Supers than the others are.
I don't use HD because- well, as I said: I can already make a character in 15 minutes. Forty-odd years of practice will do that for you.
That, and I am computer illiterate enough that just cruising the "help" threads tells me I am nowhere near qualified to use it anyway.
I have cobbled things together in the past- a quick generator of sorts (akin to what I thought the cards would be), but I would like to see- and support!- an officially company-endorsed product in the same vein.
Thank you again, Sirs; I appreciate the help from both of you!
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Gotta say, that would actually make me have _Some_ appreciation for an otherwise fairly generic villain.
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5 hours ago, Stanley Teriaca said:
. It should also make playable character in 15 to 30 minutes of work.
Thanks, Steriaca, but I can do that now.
Either way, I still look forward to it.
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4 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:
Duke it’s not 2nd Ed. so of course you’re going to be disappointed! 😜
I thought the cards would be things like "50 point characteristic block" "75 it Multipower", "40 or defense block"--
you know: just quick and dirty blocks you could stack to make NPCs on the fly.
that sort of thing.
it _sort of is_, (the cards, I mean), but not quite what I was looking for....
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Well, inspired by this thread, I pulled the trigger on this book.
I am _hoping_ that it is what I _thought_ the Creation Cards were going to be, but I am preparing for the same level of disappointment.
😕
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Not trying to run your game for you, Sir.
Let's consider that the value of an undamaged suit is not being naked. In game mechanics terms, not being naked has zero value because there are zero mechanics for or affected by naked / not naked. (Note that this is _not_ the same,as protected / not protected, such as heavy clothing against the cold or bright clothing versus a stealth check.)
Points buy mechanics, period. A character can be defined as being covered in venomous spines. That is what he looks like; he has those spines for free- no points. However, there is no effect from them (aside from a possible boost to intimidation, because SFX have a nebulous (and increasingly tenuous) relationship with 'small potential bonuses and penalties' interactions with mechanics) until the character uses points to buy a mechanic: Killing Attack, Damage Shield, Clinging, even High Range Radio Hearing- something that makes them have a genuine, measurable effect on Characteristics or other Mechanics.
A damaged suit or an unbreakable suit has no such thing: there is no mechanic for 'This much suit damage means X' or 'Pristine suit means Y.' There are no damage statistics against which to apply either; there are no specified interactions or dice of effect to be applied against other mechanics.
They are free. The apoearance of the suit is a special effect of the super suit, and unless it violates the core rules of a campaign, for the individual player to determine and define.
A GM is free to define his world in such a way that 'clothes must take damage' and even 'unbreakable clothes cost points.' However, in keeping with the rest of the game, he should have a prepared mechanic in place to ensure that there is mechanical value- a measurable, applicable effect against a specific damageable characterisitc or other mechanic: perhaps X percentage of missing clothing applies an automatic "look at this guy!" Disadplication with a roll- say 6-, with an additional 2 added for every additional X percentage of super suit that takes damage.
That leads to problems with determining percentages of damage, what does and does not damage the clothing, and of course the problems or complaints that simpler or more revealing suits require far less damage to achieve any given percentage of damage, or that actual armor users or Iron Man types must suffer penalties against their armor (to which the Iron Man characters will complain mightily, unless you have an additional explanation within your mechanic that defines how armor being part of the costume does or does not affect the way the suits take damage).
Shorter version:
Throughout the game, points buy only mechanics (which is likely why so many people create actual mechanics for their game with regard to Luck and Unluck: to fill in what instinctively feels like outlier 'lack of mechanics' powers, and why so many people- including the current custodian of the game- build new, measurable mechanics for Change Environment).
Things that do not come with mechanics are considered SFX, and by tradition, those are free.
If you are prepared to put in the work to create the mechanics that give value to points expenditures-- and remember that even a single point can mean the difference between buying another die of some other ability or not being able to buy it; that a single point is a level of PD or some other valuable character-defining ability-- then by all means, do so.
I had a shorter-still version, but I opened with it earlier, and it didn't go over so well.
I would people to keep that in mind when they wonder why my posts are usually so damned long.
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2 hours ago, Sketchpad said:
Wow. Ask a simple build question, and get this? Thanks, folks. Man, since everyone knows what kind of campaign I'm running, I look forward to future comments before I even begin talking about them. I didn't realize using the system in different ways would invoke the Fun Police.
Yeah, Dude; if you took that as anything personal- as anything other than "why I have never statted-up unbreakable costumes, I encourage you to read it again, because that is all there is in there:
"Why I don't bother doing that."
My apologies if it hit you wrong.
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(Obviously they pay for armor, etc that is built into the suit)
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Plain and simple:
Having a costume (for supers) is free. The appearance of that costume is the single SFX of "has costume." If you don't want it to get ripped or dirty or whatever, then it doesn't have to unless it adds something to the story and us easily repaired.
If you want your costume to regularly go into the wash with your frag grenades, then it will.
Charging for an indestructible costume that has _zero value_ beyond not being naked is a jackass move.
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Is there like some sort of general billboard where local groups looking for players posts stuff?
I am not generally pessimistic, but I think you and hubby need whole new gaming environs.
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5 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:
Thank you, Christopher; now I know that.
And that has to be the dumbest thing I have ever read. 😕
every time I learn more about comic books, the more I remember why I never got into them.
except Iron Man. I read a few of those as a kid. And a few of the original Captain Marvel.
Captain Marvel was what I thought was pretty typical comic book fare. It didn't take itself seriously at all, which made it more palatable than other such books. A Joker fish story there and I wouldnt have batted an eye. But that story line in a comic that takes itself as seriously as most of them do?
nah. I'm good.
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O am remarkably okay with that.
Do I want to google what a joker fish is? 'Cause right now I am thinking I don't...
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Doc:
You realize you arr making the point that the Joker is non-descript and uninteresting as-is; do you not?
Everything you state the Joker to be is, by your own words, what you have decided him to be; what you yourself have put into him.
The Joker is a dull, boring, undetailed, unfinished character that was once unpopular and poorly regarded until that Miller jackass edgelorded up a reboot and ripped away the (awful but genuinely extant character and turned him into the completely blank but handy source of whatever violenece was needed, and boom! Popular ever after, in spite of not ever having been more than a sketch.
And why?
Because he is the choose-your-adventure version of an actual character: the writers decide "look I got nothin'. Dump whatever you want in there, Kid."
This is "an archetype of evil" the same way that a mannequin is an archetype of beauty of Kanye is an archetype of intelligence
There is something there: aomwthinf absolutely bare-bones. A mannequin is vaguely human-shaped. That's a necessary requirement to beauty, at least to most people. There is nothing else there; the observer invents the details.
Kanye constantly tells us he's a genius. That, too, shows a rudimentary basic of intelligence: if you make noise, people will notive you. Some of them will listen to the noise, and some smaller set of those will believe the noise, which may be something on which you can survive. It demonatrates the rudimentary logic of a basic animal brain. The rest of the details are invented by fans.
The Joker is in the drawer labeled "bad guys" in the folder labeled "blank character sheets." However, it is the drawer labeled Bad Guys, which is the basic element of bad personhood; all the details are invented by fans.
This is why I say I would prefer am absence of Joker Stories. There,is no Joker; just an,uninteresting, undeveloped placeholder for an actual character that never got written.
For Pete's sale: Claremont's Kitty Pride was more interesting, his Wolverine more intriguing, and his Cyclops far-better-developed.
Honestly, I think I would prefer they replaced Joker with "Mannequin Man! A malleable, undefinable source of evil!" Without a costume, maybe they would develop a character. With the Joker, they kind of went the other way. I mean, there are _no_ flaws with his sartorial selections, ever. But I can say the same thing about my brother David, who is absolutely not a villain.
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Holy crap!
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8 hours ago, Gauntlet said:
That comes across to me as more of an annoying GM and not an annoying villain.
Dig into your memories; into the past....
Remember the early days, the infancy of the game....
When the GM _was_ the enemy....
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11 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:
I dismiss this response as Duke has never been a massive comics fan anyway
The best kind of correct, Sir!
writer's
11 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:- losing a great villain would be of no value to him!!
This is where we differ. I don't think he's a great villain. "Oh look; sociopath mass murdered goes on a killing spree!
Again."
And Again
And Again
And Again and again and again and again and again and again and again and againandagainandagainandagain....
At this point, it seems,mathematically impossible for any citizen in Gotham _not_ to have lost someone to the Joker. Frankly, I have to feel (and it could be where I live: a place where people _do_ periodically take shots at criminals on the courthouse steps-- to the point that we built an entirely new courthouse specifically to create a tunnel from the jail to the inside of the courthouse. No; seriously. Google courthouse, Lyons, GA if you don't believe me) that Rich's idea of someone deciding enough is enough makes _way_ more sense to me than what routinely happens:
"I am Batman. I am better than them. I don't kill. I just let the same group of mass murderers kill over and over and over again. Eventually (and it's been what? Seventy years?) people are going to start (whether correctly or not) that the problem actually _does_ seem kind of like it might be Batman himself....
So what makes the joker an especially good or well-developed character? A deformity? A chemically-induced change to his DNA that prevents his skin from healing a to a normal skin tone and keeps his hair green? The fact that he kills people- even lots of them- for no particular reason makes him zero different from the majority of Batman villains.
The fact that he kills Robins? Well the writers are the only thing stopping anyone else from doing it: I am sure a quick perusal of Batman comics will result in a couple of dozen villains who would _jump_ at the chance to kill a Robin or two (especially that one from LEGO Batman. That Joker, too). Only the writers stop them, keeping Robin just out of their murderous reach.
So what else might be cool? The random "deep" commentary that sounds like it was written by a fourteen-year-old Edgelord? "Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight? Wanna know how I got these scars?" Dude, no. I have to pay rent to amd work for him! I sure as heck ain't gonna dance with him! And the only thing I have _ever_ wondered about those scars is why the director _gave_ them to you, seeing as how there is, as far as I know, no canonical reference to them _ever_. (That's important to the Batman guys, right? Canon?)
Actually, that fourteen-year-old edgelord thing seems to apply to a disproportionately large number of Batman villains: "you merely adopted the darkness. I was _moulded_ by it...." Ich.
Still, there is the ever-popular, ever-bland Joker. What is it? What's the appeal? Must be the purple suits; it can't be the Anakin-ized version of him from that Pheonix movie, and it certainly wasn't the nineteen-year-old gangbanger version of him from that God-awful Doom Patrol movie. Actually, I am pretty sure that was a God-awful version of everyone in that movie except possibly the Will Smith character, who at least got almost four minutes of character development.
The Joker remains, in my own useless opinion (remember that Doc _is_ correct: the tiny bit I know about comics comes from these boards, period), an unoriginal, uninspired generic mass murderer with a Schtick that has worn really, really, thin, but since the absolute inviolable "must" of comics- the part that keeps the fans comfortable- is absolute adherence to the status quo. If the status quo goes to far adrift, boom! Reboot. While they all _talk_ about how great seeing new directions and new ideas and broad expansions of serrings and characters, but what they _buy_ is the same stories, the same settings, the same characters over and over; it is what they want. It is their comfort zone.
And _this_ is the secret to the Joker's staying power: they liked him years ago; they are comfortable liking him now. Plus, he can be exactly what they want him to be: he is so blank-- so absolutely generic mass murderer _and_ generic slasher flick villain that the fans can easily drop whatever motivation, whatever head canon they hold, on top of him and there is nothing to counter it. It fits because absolutely anything will. The bumbling comical buffoon played by Ceaser Romero, an Hanibal Lector-esque manipulative psychopath, the self-amused Jack Nicholson version, the "tortured soul" character that Ledger played- even that Leto take-- they _all_ fit.
That is the second-most hateable thing about the Joker: there is _nothing_ there that is uniquely Joker except for his appearance, and if a purple suit was a personality I would have been Prom King instead of helping my date keep her face hidden all night.
The most hateable thing? His _persistence_. I don't mean that as a personal trait; I mean his constant existing, being in the background and the foreground, and being essentially unstoppable, unreasonable, always one step ahead _forever_.
I think it is important to note that it isnt just Batman, and it isn't just me.
My wife, for whatever reason, like pretty much _every_ "and here is MI gimmick" crime show- from Bones to Almost Paradise to the Mentalist-- every stinking one of them. Fortunately, I don't watch a lot of TV, so I don't have to pay any attention to it.
I have noticed a trend in all of them, though. At some point- if not by Season 3, then during Season 3, there is some uncatchable Mastermind (and a disproportionately large number of them are named "Jack," for.... reasons?). Sometimes he is invented on the spot and will stay until the show runs itself into the ground; sometimes he is retconned in ("this case is so much like that case we had from years ago" or some such thing). Either way, references- maybe even actual crimes or other misdeeds- but they never, ever quite manage to catch him or stop him or in anyway end his reign of terror......
And an interesting thing happens- it _always_ happens; it happens so much that I can't figure out why they still try it! But What happens is people stop watching. Some folks like a two-parter; some like a three-parter. _Some_ like to carry on the adventure for a whole season. You can actually see it-- or you _could_, back when people still published their ratings. You could see when the cliffhanger had enough and stopped watching. You could see when the multi-part and full-season people stopped watching.
And within a season or two, the show died.
Why? Because _no one_ likes it. What is there to like in an infinite evil that our staunch and beloved heroes are always, always powerless to stop. Of course, it could be that the unstoppable monster is always the same cookie-cutter super-intelligent monster, but absolutely without a hint of uniqueness or originality.
They are all the Joker. And people _outside_ of comic culture get bored with it and move on, because they want a story, and the status quo prevents that story from ever being resolved. If it is, then we reboot immediately.
And the constant,Batman / Joker dynamic is the absolute epitome of maintaining an endless status quo, the key to witch is a character generic enough to be the perfect villain in the mind of every reader, because they can make him who and how they want him to be, and know that they will always right.
Popularity, the comfort of the status quo-- none of these justify a 'perfect villain' who has had zero character development or norable change in what? Fifty years or so?
No, Sir. With absolute respect and genuine friendship (you know I love you, Dude.
), I submit that the Joker is one of the worst characters still in use, and only survives specifically because the fans do not want anything that upsets the all-important status quo of comics.
11 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:😄 This is a more literate argument against Joker stories.
I took that to heart; hence all that above.
11 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:I think I still disagree - am not sure the Joker is presented as mentally ill -
Again, _definitely_ not,a comic book guy, but _even I_ have seen him presented as 'certifiably insane' or given other mental illnesses as 'justification' for his actions and not- you know, locking him up for life or strapping him to the warm uncomfy chair.....
11 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:he is, like the heroes, an archetype of chaos.
I won't rule that out, but I will add a rider that the most chaotic thing about him is every writer's refusal to actually develop the character yet use him as every possible type of villain, just to make certain no other writer can create a functioning character out of all this, either.
11 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:This, to me, is a symptom of written comic books
Yeah. As an outsider looking in, I one-hundred percent agree with that. However, that doesn't really do anything to bolster the idea that the Joker should continue to be used, incorrigible; unobtainable.
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4 hours ago, Rich McGee said:
No, but adblocking services are also updating regularly.
Here's a thing I learned a couple of years ago:
A lot of ad-block software manufacturers-- in particular the free ones found in ap stores-- use their products as test beds for determining the best way to block ads, then after assessing their success, sell that information to Google and other advertisers so they can tailor their software against that type of blocking.
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On 12/4/2023 at 6:41 AM, Doc Democracy said:
. I love asking those saying that batman should kill the Joker whether they would be happy knowing there would never be another joker story?
OH MY _GOD_, YES!
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYWSYESYES
YES, YES, _YES_!
Sign me _straight_ the #\'( up, _PLEASE_!
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9 hours ago, Rich McGee said:
The only youtube I watch any more is through forum links.
Yep. The ads have gotten so bad that I grab the link and PM them to myself here and watch them later.
😕
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On 1/1/2024 at 1:31 PM, Steve said:
How would one build the ability to cut through a tree in a single blow? Is it just having enough damage dice, or would it involve an advantage like Armor Piercing?
I was watching Blue Eye Samurai, and there are scenes where Mizu slices through a thick tree trunk (and others where bisecting armored humans happens).
Is this just a matter of having a lot of damage dice, or is something else going on?
In the examples you cited- particularly with cutting through opponents- I am going to say it os a combination of damage, skill levels, and mook rules.
How would I do it? In the words of Mr. Miyagi: "Don't know. Never been attacked by tree."
So here are rhe options that would run through my head:
Is this is any way _useful_ to the character? That is, is he going to drop a tree on a Named Villain? If so, either do your damage to the tree or perhaps- _if it is appropriate to the character_ (such as "master class samurai" or "brick with a massive battle axe") then possibly make this a Power Skill thing for those of you who use that.
If It isn't especially helpful, but is appropriate to the character-- let's say Samurai Jed is leading his party through the jungle, clearing a path through the expedient use of his skills as a master swordsman-- then I am just going to let it happen: "the vines and scrub growth thwart your attempts to make haste, but still, you are making steady progress as tree after tree falls with devestating swing or your sword (then leave it to him to reconcile how that translates to drawing blood).
Similarly, _if it is appropriate to the character, but not _especially_ useful (slightly useful is okay; in the above example. I may have even reduced the movement penalty- but not done away with it entirely), I have no problem,letring it be the SFX of a Presence Attack: your battle axe cleaved in twain the single oak between you and your sworn enemy, falling to each side to reveal you, smouldering with the raw hatred for the man who framed you.....
This is just one of those things: it only,needs to be statted up if it is somehow regularly useful with consistent and cost-appropriate in-game benefits.
Trees are mooks. Don't worry about building a power specifically to kill them until trees are sworn enemies.
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There is a level of autotune that makes you wonder if they can even _speak_, let alone sing.
Heroes In A Hurry Villain Writeup 2: Blackhead
in Champions
Posted
Thanks, NB.
Soon as my copy is in hand, I'm going to give it a good going over.