zakueins

Re: Evil, Evil Campaign Concept...

Because you're keeping it from all coming apart. You're the blokes that clean up everything before Mulder&Scully make it to the site.

Well' date=' since THEY have it under control...why do they need ME? [/quote']

Since I can't get my wish of having Warren Ellis whapped in the back of the head with a guitar, I decided to play with this concept for fun.

Imagine there is a Wide Conspiracy. That THEY are always making things happen.

Now, imagine THEY are doing it...for the right reasons.

Yes, THEY killed Kennedy in Dallas, but if they didn't, the eventual coup'de'etat by Hoover to get rid of the Mob/Russian-controlled Kennedys would have torn the nation apart.

Yes, THEY suppressed the carburator that ran on water. Because the contamination it generated made MTBE look like Evian.

Yes, THEY hid the Roswell landings and dealt with anyone that got close to the truth...because if they hadn't, we wouldn't be getting new technology from the Greys. To fight the oncoming menacing monsters that are going to exterminate us if they think we're being helped from the outside.

Yes, THEY are dumping anti-psionic drugs in the food supply. If too many psions awaken without training, the results would be...messy.

Players would be working for THEM...and realize soon enough that things are happening for the right reasons.

Re: Batman Begins

Batman Begins was a tight film. It worked, it kept the genre perfect, it made sure that Batman was a Very Talented Man and used his skills of fear to the utmost.

Everybody was perfectly cast. Chrstian Bale is Batman. Morgan Freedman might be a tad too old to be Lucius Fox, but pretty good.

Now, the only question is...who will they get to play the Joker? I'm holding out Brenden Frasure.

Re: Your "2005" Pet Gaming Projects

Well....if you're willing to take about the same concept, check out David Drakes "The Reaches", which covers about the same thing-mankind coming back to the stars after the crash of human civilization. No mutants, but interesting stuff.

A 'B movie' type Star Hero campaign in which all the 'stargates' collapsed releasing an 'unknown' energy which caused most technological items to malfunction, mutants to be created etc. The campaign starts with the gates reopening and the characters exploring the post-apocalyptic worlds.

 

Need to create a lot of worlds and alien species for this.

Re: Your "2005" Pet Gaming Projects

Actually....

I'm trying to decide between two projects-a superhero universe and one where magic reappeared in 1938, and just kept growing more and more powerful (not superheroic, just magic as if it were a science/force of nature and what comes from it...)

So, who's going, when are there going to be games, and how much money for new Hero stuff?

Re: Could your Champions character beat...

I don't think any PC I've made so far could take him on, unless it was with teamwork.

Tho, Ghost Sniper would keep punching Quantum Bullets through (no magical defenses on the Cap) until he went down. Keannu Reeves would go full martial arts-using the "Hmm, Upgrades" skill to get his DEX higher as to strike first, set up combo attacks, and keep pounding. Either that, or get to range, deflect the shield, and rely upon lots and lots and lots of guns.

The Hammer isn't anywhere near there yet-give him some more experience, possibly. Esp. if the Captian tries to use his shield as a defense, he's working on an NND that makes such tactics...poorly chosen (NND, defense is not having hard or metal armor).

Taking on Captain America should either be a defining experience or a desperate affair, and these stats prove it.

Re: The One (Loong Story)

I'm making the presumption that he knows the "moves"-i.e. the Manuvers, and he's got some of the basics of what's behind the Art in the first place.

To be honest, I dont think ANY KS: Martial Arts should go on Keanu at all...

 

If you look at the Matrix he was downloaded with several martial arts STYLES, which is being represented by the MA maneuvers he's being given...

 

Now a knowledge skill is the inherent interworkings of a specific thing. To me, this includes background knowledge of when it was made, religious overtones, which cultures practiced it, the spiritual practices (if any) around which the martial arts focuses on, the mindset of what the art represents, and what its place was in historical context. I don't beleive ANY of these apply to Keanu...at all. He didnt "know" anything about the martial art, he just knew HOW to do it...like body reflex.

 

At the same time, many could argue that its also bretahing techniques, how and when to use the MA, and what its weaknesses are, in which case it WOULD apply, however this could just as easily be represented by the skads of manuevers he has as well....It seems that most of the "downloads" in the matrix could be directly related to body memory and reflex (even piloting).

 

With that said, this is your little version of him, so have fun, but KnowledgeSkills really don't apply in this case....

Re: The One (Loong Story)

Revised to include his most recent film Constantine, and some other weird stuff. This is built for the Advent universe (gotta get the notes together and publish it...), for players in Champions!, I'd add quite a few Hunteds. DEMON, the Demonologist, VIPER, and Takophanes the Undyling Lord come to mind....

Re: The One (Loong Story)

Keannu Reeves

Player:

Total Character Cost: 1485

Disadvantage Points: 175

Base Points: 200

Experience Required: 1110

Total Experience Available: 1110

Experience Unspent: 0

Re: PREDATORS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

There has to be a Kaiser Souze-type Mastermind.

The one that the Harbringer fears. Someone that will destroy you if he knows you're on his ass-and you'll never see him.

Re: Kill Bill

Also....

The actress that played Go-Go also played one of the psychotic survivors in the orginal Battle Royale movie. So, she has some experience in playing whack-jobs....

Personally I also liked Go-Go...cute AND deadly. Total package. Yes' date=' O-ren was the main target, but Go-Go was actually more of a threat to The Bride than her boss turned out to be. O-Ren spent too much time sniping and not enough time gutting... [/quote']

Re: West Coast Sourcebook

Miss San Francisco

Player:

Total Character Cost: 829

Disadvantage Points: 150

Base Points: 200

Experience Required: 479

Total Experience Available: 479

Experience Unspent: 0

Re: Champs Worldwide: Whaddya want?

There MUST be a sailor-suit team in Japan. If only for the reasons of tradition, humor, and fun.

Re: Orson Scott Card To Write Ultimate Iron Man...

He's been a playboy in the Ultimates...and, I wanted to tie in a "military" aspect that the original Iron Man background story had (he was a soldier/mercenary in Vietnam or such). And, it gives a good tie-in background for Jim Rhodes, Nick Fury, etc, etc...

Pretty good' date=' but Tony shouldn't be a soldier or a "hell raiser." He's an aristocrat, if he is part of the military, it should be intelligence or research, but I'd stay away from it entirely.[/quote']

Re: Orson Scott Card To Write Ultimate Iron Man...

Iron Man was a part of the Ultimates. Now, he's getting his own book.

Here's my idea for a better Iron Man back story....

Tony Stark had a very kind and loving mother, and a emotionally distant father (the father did love the mother very, very much). However, Mother suffered from some nasty, lingering disease when Tony was younger-and the worse it got, the more distant the boarding school Tony got shuffled off to every year. And, Tony's mind didn't help any-he was THE smartest kid there, and he got into college when he was 15.

Tony's mom died when he was about 16, she did know how much her son loved her (he found out about the disease and came to her bedside before she died-his father had forbidden it) The day he graduated from college (MIT doctorate by the time he turned 21), he enlisted in the Marines-Dad wanted him to go right into company work. Tony became an officer (this is how he met Jim Rhodes-Jim was Tony's Gunny) and he became as much of a fighting soldier and hell-raiser as was possible during the Clinton Administration-even paying for supplimental equipment, ammo, and support for his troops out of his own pocket (his mother's will gave him a huge trust fund that was untouchable).

Just as Tony was about to get onto the list for Commander, he resigned his commision-his father had died and somebody had to run Stark Enterprises. And, that only person was Tony-59% of the stock was in Tony's name and direct (no proxies) control. A year after he had gotten started working there-he had gotten ahold of his father's diary...and realized just how much his Dad had loved him and his mom.

Tony was...driven. He could party all night, wake up the next morning and be rock-solid handling massive precision machinery. One of the things that facinated him was one of the Super Solider projects that happened early on-Stark Enterprises had been working on a suit of powered armor. The technology was there...and he worked on it. Mono-moniacally. Especially when he discovered that he had a brain tumor-identical to what his mother had-that would kill him one day without warning (have to consult with a doctor about a brain tumor that would leave someone functional-and kill without warning one day).

The Mark I Iron Man was...tricky. And had a technician count slightly less than the Apollo missions every time the suit launched. Eventually, he got a pratical suit (Mark IV) and that's where we meet him in the Ultimates. Ultimate Iron Man is when we get to the Mark V suit and the whacky begins.

I agree that Card is a good writer. What I'm not happy about is the apparent backstory they're going to do--how Tony Stark's parents were working on some kind of armor tech (and his mother is killed in the process). Geez. Must _every_ superhero have a tragic background?

 

And, anyway, I thought they'd already created an "Ultimate" version of Iron Man. He's part of the Ultimates, after all.

http://www.marvel.com/publishing/stories/showstory.htm?id=12

Great....issue after issue of Freudian Mormon angst.

Yay.

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

1)It's for Ulitmate Iron Man, and the Iron Man suit has handled the Kree, but it's huge and bulky. Which is what the series of panels is to imply.

2)The stone axe is Dr. Smith's "visual aid" to clueless people that ask "why can't you just build something identical to what the (insert alien of the week here) made?"

Sometimes, he takes swings at the clueless people.

2 things:

 

First, Iron Man has traditionally been able to kick the crap out of Shi'ar and Kree tech. He's punched holes in their starships with his fist. So I don't think he'd have to much of a problem with their tech (though I'm not familiar with the Ultimates world too much). So maybe it'd be better if it was the Ultimate SHIELD.

 

Second, why in the hell is there a table with a stone axe in the middle of a research lab?

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

I'm trying to sell it to Marvel. E-mail them that you want to read Ultimate Iron Man now.

Is this an actual miniseries??

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

From the script to "Ultimate Iron Man" #2 (Petition Marvel Now!)-when Jim Rhodes ask Dr. Smith why they're having so many problems with building new Iron Man suits:

(Table with a stone axe, the jawbone of the an antelope, and two big pieces of flint).

DR SMITH:

You want to know why we're behind? Using these, and only these, go build a laptop. Hell, I'll even throw in a CD-ROM with college-level chemistry and mechanical engineering texts in Croatian. We aren't just pushing the state of the art, we're bloody breaking it.

(Slams his hand down on a Kree shield generator).

DR SMITH:

See this? We've been able to make it run for about eighteen hours before the batteries run out.

(Hand on another device, a Stark-made shield generator-should be similar to the Kree one, but much bigger and bulkier).

DR SMITH:

This? Made this one myself-and it burns out in three hours of constant use, or if you ever turn the power off. We're like the Germans in World War II with their jet engines. Maybe, maybe we can get it to work, but the technology is so bleeding edge we're lucky we aren't losing fingers.

Re: I Have In My Hand A List...

Except there's one little ittie, bittie problem with this....

McCarthy had the tendency of being right. The American government at the time HAD a huge problem with Communists, or at least people whom were way too snuggly with despots. Check out the Verona Files (google it, at least)-NSA and the Army had been breaking KGB codes for years, even when they were ordered to stop reading USSR radio signals (by Truman, whom said he "trusted Uncle Joe" (Joseph Stalin) and only became an anti-Communist when the Republicans used the issue to run very successfully on).

For some better insights into the era, check out "The Redhunter" by William F. Buckley, or read the section in "Treason" by Ann Coulter talking about Verona, the HUAC, and McCarthy.

(Here's a very modern parallel-imagine if we discovered that quite a bit of the State Department today, including senior-level policy makers, were on the payroll of al-Queda and Saddam Hussain, were still in covert contact with senior members of the organization, and were un-repentant in their innocence even after being caught. That's the scale we're talking about here.)

Alright, you alternate historians, riddle me this:

 

It's become something of a cliche in superheroic universes that with the rise of McCarthyism, all but a few heroes retire and/or drop out of the public eye in some way. So what happens if McCarthy gets discredited right off the bat, whether from some Senator or patriotic super actually having the balls to say "You're a liar, and this isn't how we do things in this country", or pictures of Tailgunner Joe's (and his staff's) private peccadilloes turning up in the scandal rags, or from him being drunk and slamming his car into a tree or something?

 

What would be the effect on the world, both Normal and Super, if the Second Red Scare had never happened?

 

(I realize that McCarthy was only one the movers behind the Scare, and that Stalin and the Soviet Union was a real and evil force at the time, but let's not get too far into that discussion, and instead concern ourselves with the Superheroic aspects of things...)

Re: The Kingpin, the Maggia and Intergang

"Ever heard of Mr. Smith?

"Scary thing...few days ago, I was doing some work for a guy. Told me to get stuff off a truck, load it on another truck, drive it to this warehouse and I'd get paid fifty large. No problem, I said, and was off.

"Some costume freak had to have been tipped off, 'cause next thing I know, one of them's pounding on me, and I'm out like a light. Wake up in the hopsital, chained to the bed. Few days later, lawyer comes by to the rest of the guys but the new guy we put on for that job. 'I came by here at Mr. Smith's request,' he said, and the room could have had a pin dropped in it. 'He applauds your efforts to protect his property, and promises you that he will get you out soon, if you keep your mouths shut and say nothing to the police. All except for your friend, whom isn't here-and ran when the vigalante came by. He will be dealt with, be assured.'

"Couple of days later? Witnesses recanted their statements, video tape of the whole thing vanished, and what's the costumes gonna do? Come by court and testify they put me in the hospital? Walked out with the judge making the DA apologize to us, piece of cake. Few days after that...phone call from the laywer saying I should read page twelve in the paper.

"Got a paper...they found the guy that flaked. At least most of him..."

Re: The Kingpin, the Maggia and Intergang

There could be no evil boss....

Or is there?

Pyramid ran an article on "The Man" (check out the archives if you've got a subscription) in which The Man is merely a spirtual manefestation, via his unconsious worshippers whom think they are his "lieutenants".

But, if you're going the Keyser Soze route...

He has to soil Batman's undies. He KNOWS everything-or enough to scare your heros. You're close to busting one his lieutenants, you discover your DNPC works in his office as a very close source...one that'll get caught in the backwash if the lieutenant goes down. You can get the small-fry, but you discover that "The Man" lets them get busted because they screwed up so badly. You hear stories of what The Man did when somebody screwed him over badly-and you realize it might be anatomically possible to have your own head screwed up your ass-if your head is cut off in the first place...

VIPER pays him a cut-because they don't dare go behind his back. The last time they did...wasn't pretty.

Taking the Man down should be the highlight of a campaign, not just "we busted him last week, we have to bust him again."

Re: West Coast Sourcebook

Ooooh, reactor accident....fun. I see a hero/villan origin!

Unless it is very, very small, and very accessable, all they have is the Linear Accelerator. ( Related, but not the same )

 

I did a few searches on "research reactors" and lots of pages mention SLAC, but not a reactor on campus.

Re: West Coast Sourcebook

There used to be a whole Nike/Ajax site on Angel Island....VERY unoffically it's the storage location of Guardian-S1, the starship of the Bay Guardians....

Well' date=' there's all the forts, tunnels, missile silos on the coast that make excellent death traps, I mean bases for heroes & villians.[/quote']