BishopofB&W

Re: Seeking Medevil Defender picture

I think you mean medieval, although a demonic-based Defender would probably look cool, too.

Re: Year One Batman Campaign Idea

Sounds very Silver Age. Those were the days when Batman worked easily with law enforcement. How does he keep a Secret ID with all these helpers around?

Re: Superhero Images

Here's one I don't have a name for. Just foolin' around.

That outfit's rather cheeky!

Re: Evil Businessmen.

Oprah Winfrey. Who would suspect?

Re: Evil Businessmen.

Ron Popeil, marketer/inventor of the Pocket Fisherman and Hair-in-a-Can. Ronco has a very pervasive influence on the public, yet remains nothing more than a blip on the public radar.

Re: Evil Businessmen.

What the heck does he mean by "your" people?

IIRC, it was a verbal slip while addressing the NAACP.

Re: Evil Businessmen.

Why not Ross Perot? Ever since he ran for president, your people have treated him like the crazy aunt you hide in the basement!

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

Give me this any day over the simplistic perfection of The Superfriends.

Hey! Don't go dissin' Marvin, Wendy, and Wonderdog! That's my job!

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

The whole American-centredness of most comic universes is the one thing that gets tiring very quickly.

 

Is it realistic that every Green Lantern from Earth has been American? I know about the marketing issues but imagine how interesting a storyline would be if a GL ring fell into the hands of an Iraqui or a Chinese person. Thankfully the Champions Universe has a Spaniard as their Starguard.

 

Why does every Alien who crashes on Earth land in the USA (not even other parts of the North American landmass such as Mexico or Canada).

Darn kids, always messing with the crop circles!. I swear this is the last time I cruise through here on autopilot!

Re: Need Help with Some Villain "Lackeys"

Can Kirbian vampires change into bats and wolves?

The werewolves could be infiltrator/shock troops. The nanobots are programmed to trigger the change at least once a month to maintain the "friendly" environment through cell modification. The full moon is just a convenient marker. If Dr. Omenus needs them sooner, he can issue a "talisman" to trigger the change as needed. As suggested above, silver reacts violently with the nanites, destroying them in large numbers and hindering their ability to heal injuries until they have replicated themselves enough.

Vampires (from an idea from Saberhagen's The Dracula Tape, could be powered by a difficult-to-detect type of solar radiation, but fall into a dormant state while metabolizing the energy. Blood is a catalyst for the process. They sleep during the day to avoid the rest of the solar radiation, which overloads their "batteries" and destroys them. The holy symbols of Earth bear a remarkable resemblance to visual cues that the aliens incorporated into their servitor-creation technology as a fail-safe. If a vampire sees or comes close to a holy symbol, the nanite programs will recognize it enough to inflict punishment in the form of weakness, pain, or even tissue destruction. Can't think of anything for holy water.

Re: Such Wonderful Toys…

I was disappointed though that I did not see the build for two gadgets I have been working on: a cell phone' date=' and a laptop computer with wireless internet. I mean, using the internet gives a character access to tons of skills, how do you build that?[/quote']

 

Steve said in the beginning of the book that those are going in Dark Champions.

 

Cell Phone: HRRH, 1 24 hr continuing charge(figuring you're not talking on it for hours at a time), must be plugged in to recharge, must be within range of cell towers (-0 limitation normally), gestures,...

 

Wireless internet would get you a VPP of 8- Knowledge Skills.

Gadgets And Gear arrived at my FLGS last night and I got a chance to skim through it on the bus home.

First off, I love the cover. Nighthawk’s bracers, chest piece, and eyes are a medium dark gold. The cowl is narrower and peaked out in the back and the beak looks shorter and a little more curved. It looks more like the head of a bird of prey. There are also two good action pictures of him inside. No Nighthawk follies here! There are relatively few art pieces to make room for more text. The art that is there is of mixed quality but leans heavily to the high end. There’s a picture of Kinetik doing a cartoonish pratfall after a clown throws marbles at his feet. Another shows a hilarious expression on Dr. Silverback’s face after Brainchild shoots him in the back with a tranq dart. It reminds me of Richard Burton’s unintentionally funny film portrayal of Trotsky getting stabbed by a Soviet agent. Then there’s the illustration of the, ahem, distracting costume. Finally, the plates at the chapter beginnings tell a story of an inventor building his first set of crime-fighting gadgets.

Steve Long has continued with the formula he used in the Vehicle Sourcebook. He has taken all the classic types of comic book weapons and gadgets and written them up with different options on each. From mutant-neutralizer guns to Questionite™ claws to shrink rays, every type seems to have some kind of representation. He also includes more homages to character-specific gear. There’s a trick umbrella (Wack! Wack!), a set of four metal tentacles (who could that be?), webbing projectors (hey man, everyone knows Spiderman shoots webbing straight out of his wrists:p), and what looks suspiciously like the Mad Hatter’s mind-controlling cards. The Muscle-Powered Ranged Weapons section has plenty of ideas for trick arrows.

I think the Powered Armor section deserves special mention. There are about twenty pages of ideas for optional extras on powered armor. Just reading through them can help make sure you don’t forget anything when designing a PA character. I would even go so far as to say that even though it’s not The Ultimate Powered Armor, it may well be a preview of things to come when TUPA finally comes out (hint, hint). Before I forget, it has some cool illustrations of powered armor components.

All in all, I think it’s a fine addition to the Champions line.

Re: Superhero Fiction?

Titans of Tomorrow is on the Hero Links page. It's got a lot of stories presented in a fairly serial fashion.

Re: Looking on resources for government superteams

1. A legitimate/legal outlet for their abilities

2. God and country

3. benefits (government stability & retirement)

4. Golden parachute (early full retirement and keep working)

5. Specialized pay-scale. GS-13 + % Dollars for super-hazard pay.

6. Government resources

Yesssss. More like that. Ways to appeal to everyone from the idealist to the mercenary. They could also pull strings in Immigration to smooth the way for relatives to imigrate from a war-torn country. Get a terminally ill child into an experimental treatment program. Really, it occurs to me that there's a lot of things that normally would be called gross influence-peddling that could be re-cast as honorable in this context.

Re: Looking on resources for government superteams

THANKS.

I remember in Stormwatch, they actively searched for people who already showed strong paranormal abilities before catalyzing them. It seemed like all Stormwatch offered them was cool uniforms, room and board, and a space station to live on. Few, if any, seemed to have any dependents or any other way to appeal to them beyond playing on whatever sense of philanthropy they had.

A private superteam could draw all kinds of hopefuls just from its reputation. I was thinking that even though a government team could do the same, a lot of people would shy away from it because they didn't want to get involved with the political angles so directly. I'm trying to think of ways, both mundane and otherwise, that a recruiter could "sweeten" the offer.

I'm looking for ideas on how a government would organize a superteam. Support staff, logistics, that kind of thing. Should they be federal marshalls like in PRIMUS or something else entirely? Also, what kind of recruitment strategies? I don't mean just "work for us or die" or "we'll make your criminal record go away". I mean, how would they go about attracting a presumably public-spirited person to apply for a slot on a team? Government pension plan, maybe? Comics, websites, movies, TV, books and anything else you can think of would be helpful. My goal is to have some kind of internal consistency in government paranormal operations.

Thanks.

Re: Please delete

As Maximus Decimus Merideus might have said: "What we post in life echoes throughout eternity."

Re: Superhumans pulling an Authority

I was wondering myself since I am setting up a "high end" game (at least for me) and I thought you raised some good points.

 

Of course, I am a little cynical as too why he lost interest at this point.

In that case, who wants to help me with my world-conquering campaign with Captain Pureblood and the Aryan Supremacy League?

(ducks under table) Just kidding!

Re: Planetary

Originally posted by TheQuestionMan

I see to remember an issue of Planetary where the crew travelled through various dimensions and met various versions of Batman . It was hilarious seeing how they dealt with the different versions ( Adam West , Dark Knight , JLA , etc ... )

 

Quote from Jocosta ( female brick and incredibly hard to hurt when one version hurt and knocked her down ) " That hurt ! ... Do it again " ( smiling ) .

I loved the part where the Adam West Batman sprays her with Female Supervillain Repellant after offering his "Bat-Apologies".

Originally posted by tkdguy

Unfortunately, this is a true story. I heard a lady who can control the weather say, "Leave him alone! I'll show you how it's done." But I'm not naming any names.

I would have walked away from that GM and not returned. With all the in-game options available for making a point about player behavior (not to mention a simple out-of-game conversation), there's no excuse for that.

I remember my first Champions game. The GM and most of the players were newbies (what a combination!). The GM said to make up superheroes. No other hints on what kind it would be. We ended up with mostly slugfests. This was fine for the characters built primarily for that, but the rest of us had very little to do but watch.

Originally posted by winterhawk

From Astro City :

 

Lion & Unicorn: The two animals on the crest of the house of Windsor (?). The panel showed them at a distance, but they looked like powered armor types.

I think Unicorn was either a mutant or a mutate. She had a swept-back white mane of hair and an energy beam shooting out of her forehead.

It really does a good job of capturing the Silver Age feel. As a matter of personal taste, I find the White Knight to be just a bit too silly. Freedom City is Silver Age set in the present and a low-level villain that's a dumber version of Pulsar in a white sheet and combat boots seems a bit out of step with the times. The Klan has so little influence these days itdoesn't even get respect from other supremacist groups. But then, I had a similar gripe with the Supreme story where the past was altered to make the South win the Civil War and Supreme had become the Klansman. I kept thinking, "Without a northern victory, the Klan doesn't have a reason to exist!". Otherwise, I like it a lot.

You could also name them something positive because that's how they would see themselves. Instead of Genocide, make them Hope for Humanity, Guardians of Order:D, or even keep their orignal name Project: Salvation

Originally posted by freakboy6117

especially entertaining if the informer is played as a low level anti-superhuman bigotnot "we have to wipe those mutant swine out wipe them out before they get us normal folk" but you know you know whats wrong with you people you never think about the little guy when your flying along in them fancy long johns."

but even low key bigotry would really rub the players the wrong way which always makes life more intreasting.

I like the idea though I wouldn't necessarily call it bigotry. To me, bigotry would be more like: "You capes think you're so much better than the rest of us. Somebody has to take you down a peg or two to show you what real life is like."

Complaining about overlooking the "little guy" could be a useful way to get your players to re-assess how they relate to non-supers and why IHA's message is so attractive.