Matt Frisbee

Re: Exodus 2025: A campaign idea looking for input! I'll have to put this one on my list of books to read, and thanks for mentioning it, Carl. The Delarans, as currently envisioned, are more or less like us, though a number of physiological and psychological differences distance them from being just another Star Trek race. One of the big conceptual hurdles on the project will be not falling into the stereotypical trappings of other games and stories of alien societies. Add to the mix that all of them have been changed in some fashion by their interactions with the Commonwealth (just as Humanity has) and it's starting to sound like I still have a lot of conceptual work to think out. Thanks for posting. Matt

Re: Exodus 2025: A campaign idea looking for input! Interesting point, and a valid one. My thought was that so many of these "Future Histories" have been done in past science-fiction games that it would be an interesting take to have the big event to have already happened, and let the players play truly different humans (possibly even alien to ourselves). My other big take on this idea was that the big cosmos out there isn't perfect either -- more advanced, certainly, and more tolerant, but the Commonwealth has been preparing for humans to enter the cosmic community as much as humans have. Which would indicate to me a very old structure of government that requires these periodic infusions of new blood to keep from stagnating. Yeah, I didn't mention these things on the opening post -- but I'm feeling my way through this and certainly appreciate the input. Thanks for posting. Matt

Hello and welcome to the thread, This probably isn't new, but I'm offering up a piece of my brain for public inspection and commentary, so please be honest, but tactful in your responses. That being stated, here goes... Exodus 2025 This is to be a science-fiction campaign primarily for human characters from an alternate earth which was contacted by an alien interstellar government in the past and has been guided to the current day by representatives of this government. Humanity is not only not the dominant race, but is one of a couple dozen races in this government, and the new race in the cosmos to enter interstellar society. The "new kids on the block" will have to find their place in the bigger picture, as the PC's cope with learning how to live in a diverse multicultural cosmos. Background: Around 1800, the first scouts of the Interstellar Commonwealth of Planets (ICP or Commonwealth, which are working names for now) enter Sol system and survey it. The inhabitants are deemed worth studying, despite the fact they are still fairly warlike. By 1825, the Delarans (the race closest in appearance and biosphere compatability) began integrating the various human cultures of the planet while terraforming efforts were begun on Venus and Mars. Reports from the cultural infiltrators were very encouraging, and it was felt that Earth's inhabitants could be (with the usual education efforts) assimilated into galactic civilization. Around 1860, it is decided that Earth will be invited to join, provided its inhabitants can make the adjustments necessary. Steps are taken to prepare the population for the announcement, by the introduction of several key public figures that turn the public's attention from worldly matters, to the possibilities of space. The announcement is made in 1925 by the kidnapping of all of the earth's leaders to the equitorial island of Nauru in the Pacific (via a teleportation device, unless I can think of something better). There, they are told of the impending announcement to the world population at large and how they should respond to it in order to lead their people into space. Many of the leaders of Europe, the Middle East and Northern Asia object, but most of the leaders in North America, South America and Africa embrace the idea. Hours after the leaders are returned to their respective countries, the announcement is transmitted over radio frequencies, as well as telegraph and telephone lines the world over. "People of Earth, rejoice in the knowledge that you are not alone in the cosmos! We, the united races of the Interstellar Commonwealth of Planets, announce to you that we exist and we want you to become part of our society. To do this, your race must undertake great challenges -- social, economic and scientific -- in order to be ready to be part of an organization which has embraced the myriad ideas and philosophies of over a score of races and nearly a hundred worlds. "During the next five years we will present our case as to who we are, what we represent, what benefits we believe your society will gain and what we expect in return from you, if you wish to become part of us. We hope that you are ready to do great things and dream of a golden future with endless possibilities for yourselves and your offspring. If you are, we look forward to getting to know all of you better as we all work toward that bright and boundless tomorrow. "But if you are not ready to embrace that dream with all of your heart and desire, if you don't trust our motives or value your worldly concerns more than those of the future, then we shall leave you in peace and to whatever future you can forge on your own. Your world leaders have been contacted by us beforehand, and await the decision of you, the people of earth." Humanity pressured their governments to learn more about the aliens, and many of those governments which resisted were either overthrown or lost uncounted numbers of people as they escaped the borders to become parts of governments which were embracing the ICP proposal. In 1930, roughly 75% of the human population who could do so, expressed their acceptance of the ICP proposals to help earth begin the process toward interstellar integration. The ICP representatives, the Delarans, then revealed they have been living among us for over a hundred years, and outlined the plan for a long-term improvement in the human condition that would eventually lead to space, the planets and then the stars. Over the next 90 years, human society was directed by an influx of alien technology, the arrival and settling of alien teachers to educate the people of earth as to the knowledge of the Commonwealth, and the uneasy insertion of ICP Peacekeepers to teach the various factions of the planet to let go of their hatred and devisive ways. In 1955, significant advances in technology opened up near orbit to humanity. By 1975, Venus and Mars were ready for human habitation, and the technology for creating permanent colonies on the moon and asteroids was feasable. Soon after learning the techniques used on those two world, many of both Jupiter's and Saturn's moons were made habitable by humanity. By 2005, the first interstellar FTL drive systems were being tested, and soon after, with permission of the ICP, missions were undertaken to nearby starsystems. As more of the starship systems were mass produced, the cost of construction fell to the point where small businesses could affort the outlay for a spacecraft and the space trucking boom began. In 2020, the ICP announced that in 2025, humanity would be allowed free access to interstellar space and would be granted a voice in the Commonwealth. When the day of the announcement came on February 6, 2025, no less than 15,000 stardrive capable ships left earth, and mankind has left its mark on the cosmos. However, the road to the stars is still fraught with myriad dangers, and humanity is just starting to take its first few steps onto the celestial stage. There will be more later. Please let me know what you think. Matt Frisbee

Re: Top Ten All-Time 'Favorite' Superhero RPG Books Ever Top Ten Favorite Superhero Books for the Frisbeeverse: 10. Villains & Vigilantes -- only because it was first, not because it was any good. 9. Hudson City Blues -- primarily because it became the model for how I plotted out extended story arcs, since (to date) none of my players have ever wanted to play Dark Champions (because they'd rather play Cyberpunk 2020 when they're up for my style of gritty). 8. San Angelo: City of Heroes -- for its interesting way of dancing around the hard facts about the city and its locations so players could actually personalize the information fairly easily. 7. Champions in 3-D -- which offered up a bunch of parallel earths which were both interesting and playable, and a few others which were simply cutesy or annoying (and obviously filler material). 6. Day of the Destroyer -- which really worked to point up the sorts of chaos that would break out if someone announced that 90% of the population of earth was going to die tomorrow. 5. Alien Enemies -- which has provided many adventures of great fun for both the players and myself. 4. The Wild Cards Sourcebook for GURPS -- since I can do rough conversions from that crap system to Champions, it has provided a great number of supervillain designs for my campaigns over the years. 3. DC Heroes -- which is a great system to play for those "beer-and-pretzel" game nights where everybody wants to play, but nobody wants to get serious about getting a campaign started. (Pregenerated Teen Titans make for a quick game with a minimum of fuss and its descriptions of major North American cities from the DC Universe are concise and very helpful to the GM who's looking for flavor rather than factoids.) 2. Champions -- in all of its various incarnations has a been a staple of my gaming shelf for over 20 years and has provided countless hours of fun and diversion in this otherwise mundane life. 1. Hudson City: The Urban Abyss -- because no modern city for a campaign setting has ever been taken to this level of detail. I can use as much or as little as I want to get the adventure rolling, plus it can be used for Cyberpunk settings, modern world settings and Champions as well. In short, this is ruler against which any other city setting will be compared. And that's my two cents' worth. Matt "That's-Mister-Definitive-to-you-buddy" Frisbee

Re: WWYCD: I, The Jury Thanks for the suggestions! If I could rep you again, I would, especially for the last one! Matt "No-longer-scratchin'-his-head" Frisbee

Re: Space Opera redux: one year later

Re: Working Stiffs -- Champions Style! Pizza Delivery Person It's a fantastic job where you run all over town in or on your own vehicle with dough, sauce and cheese trying to find addresses in the most adverse weather conditions. You're usually working weekends and evenings for minimum wage plus tips (depending on the part of town your outfit is serving). 2 PS: Pizza Delivery Person [because you gotta know the job] 3 CK: Campaign City (INT-based) [because you can't read the map and drive] 3 Persuasion (PRE-based) [because you occasionally can talk your way out of a speeding ticket] 3 Mechanics 11- [because you're the only mechanic you can afford] -5 Poor [did I mention minimum wage] 5 1d6 Luck [because everyone needs a little when they're driving all over town trying to find addresses] Hopefully, this will revive the thread... Matt "It's-my-baby-and-it-isn't going-to-die-on-my-watch" Frisbee

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal Hey, here's my two cents' worth on the subject: In general, I set a point limit for the players and they always manage to come flush up against it. I give them a range of points and all the characters wind up against the point limit on the high end. I try to use random point levels and everyone moans and complains that their character got the shaft, even if the character has the most points on the team. ONCE -- just once -- I would love to have a player with a concept and a design that doesn't keep an eye on a point limit, and yet be a reasonably balanced build and not some Ubermunchkin mental masterbation build. (This guy makes Supes look like a pantywaist!) I did the whole thing about setting suggested power levels and yadda-yadda-yadda and still always get these min/maxed creations for maximum combat effectiveness. So now I make the characters and the players either like them or don't (though generally they do). Yeah, it is fun to have variable levels of supers mixed together, but most of the time, all of the players want to have the highest powered one. Currently, I have a group which is finally getting into the idea of being different and having different capabilities which compliment each other, rather than who can knock out Grond the fastest. But it's taken over 20 years to get there. *sigh* Ah, don't mind me -- we're not gaming over the Thanksgiving weekend because of the whole "free meal if we can avoid throttling the annoying relations" thing. I think I'm out of pennies now. Matt

Re: WWYCD: I, The Jury Interesting discussion of both moralities and motivations, everyone. Admittedly, that wasn't what I was looking to start by initializing the thread, but I was curious if my characters were the only ones in the world who wouldn't check out the crime scene -- and it seems that no, they aren't the only ones. Does anyone have an idea how I could "drop the hint" of checking out the crime scene without being too obvious about it? Matt "Perplexus-Maximus" Frisbee

Re: GM's "Notebook" I tend to keep all my notes, characters and maps in a three-ring binder. Hero Creator makes the characters, so I burn the characters to CD when the files are looking full. I compose my scenarios on Microsoft Word (and I still wish I still had 6.0 -- because it just rocked for making forms). My maps and sketches I compose in Paint (and I use homemade hexpaper for most of my games, since we prefer to mark up a piece of paper than lug boxes of miniatures around). Older stuff gets relagated to another binder for storage until some old storylines are ripe for regeneration. Matt "Sounding-more-organized-than-I-usually-feel" Frisbee

Re: Killing Damage and Defenses Hmmm... most of the games I run with the Hero System don't have killing attacks by anybody. Those few situations that did had guns in the hands of normals who were a) too slow to actually bring them into play against heroes and had OCV's too low to be a credible threat. (The logic was that the villains would get out of jail sooner for not employing killing attacks, so they wouldn't get lumped together with the nuts with guns...) Matt "Circumnavigating-the-issue" Frisbee

Re: Space Opera redux: one year later Okay, now I'm genuinely envious. I liked this system, but never could find anyone dedicated enough to learn the mechanics. *sigh* Good luck in your campaign. Matt "Still-pining-for-the-old-school-games" Frisbee

Re: Role-Playing Exercise #1 Lars Aimless, an interstellar homeless person who travels from planet to planet on the cheap (stowaway or steerage) using his myriad talents for petty theft, making friends on the streets and the generousity of strangers to get by while pinching his pennies for the next spaceflight.

Re: Knockback on the moon? Don't forget two other issues in the problem -- event duration and inertia of the hit object. 3.5 G applied for 1/20th second on a mass of 75 kg won't move it very much. Matt

Re: Opinions On Limitation Level For A "Cargo Only" T-Port Without rehashing all the nitpicking that has gone on with Star Trek Transporters over the years -- perhaps the particular style of teleport is simply lethal to living tissue, or it accesses a pocket dimension that steals souls from sentient beings, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Anyway, fun concept and one worthy of playing out on my group... Matt

Re: Underwater Hotel This is a fantastic site. Keep this up, and I might have to dust off the Fuzion rules and fire up my science-fiction campaign again... Matt "Too-many-irons-in-the-fire-already" Frisbee

Re: WWYCD: You the Jury This is such an incredibly evil idea, that 1) I'm surprised I didn't think of it and 2) I have got to use it in my game very soon! Consider yourself repped for this truly wicked situation! Matt

Re: How do you plot out your Champions Campaign? My campaigns tend to be four-color affairs with some reality thrown in just to keep things fresh. Villain "deaths" in this campaign tend not to be permanent, but take a particular baddie out of the plot lines for a long time. Much like the number of times Dr. Doom "died" while fighting the Fantastic Four. In my current campaign, two of one the PC's hunteds are currently out of the plotline in another dimension, but when they come back, they're going to be together and that's going to be trouble for the whole team... Matt

Re: Opinions On Limitation Level For A "Cargo Only" T-Port Also a valid point here. However, if the characters could figure out a way to determine where the loot is going, they could end-around the villains and catch them with their proverbial pants down when they try to pick up their ill-gotten gains... Matt

Re: WWYCD: I, The Jury Sorry to hear that. Maybe I'm a softie GM, but if the players are making a significant go of making the right moves, even if they don't have the necessary skills, I will let them make some (though not complete) progress. It may be enough to involve someone who does have the powers needed to unlock the clues to have a look. Matt

Re: WWYCD: I, The Jury Oops -- I should have credited Snow Leopard for checking the crime scene as well. Fortunately, McCoy already got rep for Iron Will. Daeudi may have pointed a problem with my game mastering style, so, Daeudi, I'll rep you too, just for pointing that out to me. Thanks for checking out the thread! Matt

Re: Opinions On Limitation Level For A "Cargo Only" T-Port

Re: Sorta Ninja Hero Related: Logans Run Hero MA Lordy, this brings back some memories! I saw the movie first, of course, but was glad to read the real thing later on. Digging through the memories, I would think that the martial art would be something like kung fu with a special power added on like precognition, but requiring a skill roll with KS: Martial Art, or something like that. Come to think of it, you could probably simulate some aspects of The Force with a power like that... Matt "The Babbling Muse" Frisbee

Re: Character: The Man With No Name

Re: Shattered Sun - A Star Hero campaign It depends on the world, since the Imperium allows for a lot of leeway in how individual governments run their own affairs. If you get into the Sword Worlds, you have lords that rule over their domains by being nearly superhuman fencers, backed by ancient traditions of dueling. Personally, my favorite part of the Spinward Marches is District 268 and the Tarsus system -- mainly for that wild west feel the planet just oozes. (That and the fact that nobble steak is the best slab of meat behind the claw...) Usually, though, the characters are so wrapped up in keeping their interstellar shipping businesses afloat, that life becomes a blur. Matt "Long-live-the-Emperor!" Frisbee