Utech

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Layne Maddox is known to worlds at large as Finder but members of the Explorers know that she prefers to be called The Cartographer. Layne is good with maps. Really good. Set her in a taxi dodging in and out of traffic from the center of some city she's never been to out to the airport and she'll have a sketch of all the roads she traveled and landmarks along the way -- all produced in a few minutes on a cocktail napkin at the airport bar. Give her more time, though, and she does a better job. A much better job. Layne rarely notices really important things -- consciously anyway -- when she studies an area for later map-making. It's later that the details come out. When she's got pen to paper or her hands deep in modeling clay or a good CAD program loaded up on the PC . . . that's when she starts putting in the things she didn't notice before. The things nobody noticed before. Secret entrances and hiding places and concealed cameras and alarm systems and, well, pretty much everything. If she's had time to study, and time to make the map. But Layne is not restricted to making maps of locations. She has made maps of computer systems, alien biology, mystic ceremonies... You name it, she can map it. Given time. And materials. Once the map is made, it can be studied by Layne and by anyone else in the group. Vulnerabilities can be found. Hidden dangers. Opportunities. Layne is just a young woman. She's no great martial artist or gun bunny. But she believes in herself and her map making abilities. That's why she's willing to go toe to toe with a villain -- after she's mapped him/her/it, of course. Given enough time to prepare, Layne will probably win that fight. She'll win it by having foreseen all the dangers there are to see and preparing herself to act upon vulnerabilities. She'll make sure that she's got the protection the fight will require. The tools she'll need to take down her opponent. Once she's fully prepared, Layne has no trouble jumping into the fray. Of course, if Layne is surprised by some new danger, she's hosed. She'll scream like a little girl. She'll cry. She'll try to run. She might very well soil herself. So The Cartographer really counts on her teammates to keep her safe in first contact situations. Then the Explorers count on Layne to tell them what they're really up against and help them overcome it. Note: You might very well want to rule that Layne's maps degrade or are useless after a time. Things change. What was a hidden entrance once is a trap now. What was a villain's Achilles heel last week might be well protected this. Layne might make a good NPC (or DNPC) for PC heroes to consult on things odd or when they're really desperate for a clue.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Her real name is Melody Lear, but she's much better known for her presence online: Rumor Mel. Seventeen years old, a junior in high school, pretty (in a severe sort of way), smart enough, and possessed of the sharpest ears and tongue you can imagine. Melody cuts a fine figure at school but only feels really good about herself when she's tearing someone else down. She'll happily do that to their face, but her favorite thing to do is to take the fight onto the Internet. On the Internet Rumor Mel is a master of social media. Her victims are torn down and humiliated before millions of loyal visitors to Melody's site. Videos are uploaded. Discussion boards are monitored to ensure only the most vicious sort of personal flaying goes on. She's pushed more than one person to suicide. And now there's all that pressure from her parents to fill in applications and go to a good university so she can get a great job in the future and yadda yadda yadda. No thank you. Melody knows what she wants to do. She wants to take Rumor Mel to the next level. Yeah. It's time to take on the capes. Melody loves to tear people down. The higher they fly, the more satisfying the thunk when they come crashing into the gutter. Aside from publishing lots of baseless personal rumors and taunts; unflattering pictures with caption contests; mocking cartoons; doctored video clips; and all that good stuff . . . aside from all that, Melody's willing to devote tremendous amounts of time, energy, and resources into learning a superheroes secrets. And then she'll publish them for all the world to see. Won't that be fun?

Re: The Snatcher Advantage from GURPS I suppose another way to handle this would be to buy some perks and a Multipower with the Power mechanics you figure you'll need for things you snatch. The actual appearance of the item is sfx. Coming up with your list might be a lot of fun. A VPP would cover any eventuality, but the Multipower would be more fun (IMHO) to set up. Check out the Batman gear threads for ideas about point values.

Re: The Snatcher Advantage from GURPS Honestly, this just doesn't seem heroic to me. You're stealing from someone, aren't you? Maybe somebody really needed that pencil you snatched. Maybe someone died because you snatched it. I'd feel a lot better about the whole thing if snatched items were coming from some silly cartoon space where all the big hammers and pianos and so on are kept.

Re: Stigmata or other manifestations of divinity Buy a bunch of Interaction Skills at high levels. Build the Stigmata as +X to Interaction Skills, Costs END, Side Effects (does Stun). You're done! I definitely wouldn't buy Mind Control or Transform unless you want the NPC to turn a PC. Players get all twitchy when you say that their character has been convinced of something due to an Interaction Skill. They don't mind at all if they've been Mind Controlled or Transformed. I couldn't tell you why, but it's true.

Re: Team size A group of about six players is good with me. Fewer can work just fine. More is difficult. I generally find that players want to play just one character at a time. Some players, however, like to change characters often. I let that happen and simply rule that characters they've played previously are also members of the team but are currently unavailable. Some players are interested in playing more than one character at a time. I find this works very well if you've got a bunch of investigating to do. It often works best for one character to be the players primary and another character to be the secondary. The secondary can be written up with the same number of points as the primary or can be written up with fewer -- or none! Every once in a while I come across a player who wants to play a group of lesser powered people. You might have five standard supers and one player who controls the team's agents. In this case it works pretty well to give that player the same number of points the other players have and build the agents with Follower or Duplication rules. The agents have very little power compared to the standard supers, but there are a bunch of them and people will react to them differently.

Re: The Snatcher Advantage from GURPS Questions: Can you "snatch" another character's internal organs? Portions thereof? Bones? The optic nerve? Eyes? Just the firing pin out of that gun over there? The explosives in a grenade? The salt out of a glass of salt water? Every other carbon atom in the Hope Diamond? All the ATP currently in that runner's legs? A particular (and important) wire in an overhead satellite? All of the blue pigment in the Mona Lisa? This ability sounds like sfx for an entire character build.

Re: The Millennium Bugs This may be obvious from what you've written, but you might want to plainly state that the Millennium Bugs are most useful when a GM is looking for something that does not lead quickly and unavoidably to a big battle. Players will get the most enjoyment out of detecting, tracking down, and foiling the MBs rather than hitting them. Finally, you might note that some players have a tendency to have their characters use their most destructive attacks at full force against all opponents. Doing so against some Bugs members will result in a villain's death. Having to rush to the hospital the guy you just blasted might well be an exciting change for the players; and might suggest that they try using their powers with more care and consideration.

Re: Things that trigger Complications / Limitations

Re: Things that trigger Complications / Limitations

Re: Things that trigger Complications / Limitations You might want to give John Steakley's Vampir$ a read. It's a fun book about vampire hunters. In response to the holy water question, I think it's just a matter of common sense. If your monster hunters work for the Vatican, they'll have little trouble getting hold of lots and lots of holy water. (This may change the "rare" portion of the Susceptibility you mentioned, of course.) If your monster hunters start out with few church connections, they'll need to find a supply of holy water. That could be an adventure until itself. They might end up with a contact who can supply them with a limited amount of the stuff each day/week/month characters can feel free to use or store up. If your monster hunters are at odds with the church, they'll have a harder time getting a supply of holy water. They might be able to buy some anonymously on the Internet (which may or may not actually be holy water...) or they might have to steal it.

Re: How would I do this? First, I'd like to congratulate you on doing an interesting bit of tinkering. Sounds like a very interesting experiment. As your example suggests, multipliers can produce wildly different results. That lends itself well to certain kinds of campaigns and less well to others. Certainly they can make a game more deadly. I think you should run a couple of trial combats with your players and ask them what they think. If people like what you've set up, you're golden. If not... Consider your option 2 and remember that you don't need to add just one point for each degree of success. You might add two points. Three. Ten. 1d6. 3d6. Etc. Use the Hit Location Chart and allow players to change the results of their location roll by 1 for every X degree of success. (Making X = 1 will result in lots of head shots.) Rather than just doing extra damage, consider other things that degrees of success might result in. They might lower opponent's CV or DEX ignore points of defenses knock an opponent backward (or down) damage opponent's armor or weapon etc.

Re: Battlefield control a viable concept in Champions? I really encourage this sort of character. It's all too easy to have fights feel like consecutive games of solitaire with each hero operating entirely independently of the others. IMHO it's a lot more fun and interesting to have the characters interacting and working together during combat.

Re: The Millennium Bugs By all means feel free to give ideas on Gnat. Minor changes. Full-fledged re-writes. I put this together quickly while riding the train to work. It's not nearly as well thought out as it should be.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Let's refer to it as Tome. Why not? It is, after all, a big book. Not "nothing but a big book", mind you. More "something and a big book" if you catch my meaning. Is the book the product of magic or technology? Yes. Is the book sentient? Well . . . sort of. Sentient like you and me? No. It's more like a robot. Or a weapon. With a sense of humor. Dark humor. How does it work? Simple. Open the book. It's a picture book. Lots of pictures. The book opens and opens and then it is the picture. And after a while it closes and closes and it is the book again. Can the book open itself? Never has before... Can you pick which picture you open to? You can try. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the pictures have changed. Or moved to different pages. And once you've got the book open . . . well, it's not a book anymore, is it? What sort of pictures are in the Tome? All sorts. Big beasts. Landscapes. Buildings. Guns. Things that cannot be named. You know, the usual. Tome is lots and lots of Multiform. Some forms are built on the standard template, some are automatons, some are bases, some are vehicles...

Re: The Millennium Bugs Definitely. For that matter, his mother's true identity.

Re: The Millennium Bugs This probably isn't everything that's needed. I hope it's a good stab in the right direction. Gnat Information Background/History: Nat Crowley has always been forgettable. Maybe it's genetic. His mother always said that she forgot who his father was. Whether that was an intentional lapse in memory or no, Nat never learned. The midwife who delivered Nat in his mother's home forgot to create a birth certificate. His mother kept forgetting to get one made up. He came home from day care unfed and diaper full. Schools enrolled Nat and then failed to put him in a classroom. Teachers skipped his name when calling the roll. Nat wasn't the last kid picked for dodgeball -- he wasn't picked at all. There were advantages. Nat went where he pleased when he pleased. He could shoplift at will. When adolescence struck, he wandered into the girls' locker room and showers without anyone batting an eye. Sometimes. After being kicked out of high school by a rather confused principal, Nat decided not to go home. So he didn't. Never saw his mother again. Nat was interested in computers. So he went to college. Didn't enroll, mind you. Just went. Sat in on classes. Learned stuff. Tried to be a hacker for a while but he couldn't hack it. Got hooked on the thrill of talking his way into places he really shouldn't be. With some preparation time, Nat found that he could be noticed as pretty much whoever he wanted to be noticed as. A delivery guy, janitor, mail room drone, manager, or CEO. Or he could just sort of fade away and nobody saw him at all -- even though he was right there. Nat was hanging out in a certain captain of industry's office when a sound at the door caught his attention. La Cucaracha was squeezing himself under the door. Nat watched with great interest. Watched La Cucaracha go through some files. Watched La Cucaracha pick out the one he needed. Watched La Cucaracha head for the door with a resigned look on his face. That's when Nat opened the door. La Cucaracha was rather unpleasantly surprised, but after a tense few minutes Nat was invited to follow La Cucaracha and to meet some friends... Personality/Motivation: Nat both fears and dreams of being noticed. He suspects that he might be as unworthy of attention as others seem to deem him. He sublimates these feelings through passive-aggressive actions such as walking unnoticed into a secure building, leaving a bomb, and walking out. Boom! That got their attention. Nat is very happy to be a member of the Millennium Bugs and tries his best to please the others. He's not always sure why they do what they do. Frankly, he doesn't much care. Quote: "Could you get the door for me? Thanks." Powers/Tactics: Gnat is a phenomenal actor (Shape Change). His ability to take on the characteristics of other people is so all-inclusive that he simply cannot be spotted for who he is through any of the five senses or mental powers. He uses this ability to talk his way into places he shouldn't be -- forging necessary documents ahead of time. When using this ability, people are certainly able to remember meeting Gnat and can give a full description. Which does not in any way match Nat's actual appearance. Sometimes Gnat prefers to just walk into a place without being noticed at all. Sometimes he fails to talk his way into a secure area and needs to disappear. That's when he concentrates on returning to his utterly uninteresting reality (Invisibility). In this "real" state, Gnat isn't noticed by people even if they're looking for him. He can't be found by any of the five senses or mental powers. His actions are noticed, so Gnat can't go around hitting people or opening doors without folks working out that some invisible presence is present. Gnat has no interest in combat whatsoever. He'll try to avoid it. If forced into combat, he'll fade away or act like a bystander. Nat is well aware that he cannot stand up to a superhero in a fair fight. Heck, he can't stand up to a thug in a fair fight. So Nat never, ever engages in a fair fight. Appearance: Nat's actual appearance is an utterly forgettable average height, average weight, brownish hair, brownish eyes, slightly swarthy skin, and anonymous voice. He can, however, appear to be pretty much any average person imaginable. ----- Disadvantages: (Complications) Accidental Change when embarrassed. Always changes to Invisible state. (This might be worth 20 points, but I figure it's worth fewer -- maybe even 0.) Physical Limitation incapable of making Presence Attacks. (This might be worth 20 points, but I figure it's worth fewer, though probably not 0.) Psychological Limitation passive-aggressive. Strongly inclined toward the following: speaking ambiguously and/or cryptically, chronically late, forgetful, fears competition, fears dependency, fears intimacy, unable to trust, makes chaotic situations, makes excuses for failure, obstructs, procrastinates, sulks, acts the victim. (This could be more than one Psych Lim. It's worth at least 15 points and probably more.) Reputation as beneath notice. Even when Nat wants people to notice him, most immediately "recognize" him as pretty much worthless. (Probably worth 15 points.) Social Limitation as unable to register the way others do. He cannot make reservations. Nobody thinks to put him on a database or mailing list. Although Nat can put himself on lists, he has to be proactive about doing that. (Probably worth 5 points or so.) Unluck 3d6. (15 points.) Vulnerable 2x Stun from surprise attacks. (10 points.)

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Vins Larsen had all the brains required to enter a top university. He was fit enough to try out for most any sport he put his mind to. But Vins lacked the ambition to follow through. He earned average grades and made every effort not to distinguish himself athletically. He didn't much like school. Or his fellow students. He didn't much like to study or work hard. He was a great VIPER recruit. Vins got along well with his fellow misfits. The work wasn't really all that hard. They got cool gear. They busted stuff up. They blew it all on fun. Beat the heck out of school. Or working for a living. And then Vins got picked as a member of a backup team working an assault. He was really glad to be out of the line of fire. And in the air-conditioned van. Until everything went bumpy-bits up. Explosions. Capes. Engine wouldn't start. Firefight. Vins' team leader led them through an escape route that looked fine on the map. It looked an awful lot like an orphanage in reality. Because it was. There was an awful lot of shooting. Some hostage-taking. Dead kids. Dead nuns. Vins and three others made it back to the nest. Nest leader was pissed that the operation failed but didn't give two squirts about the collateral damage. Vins went home that day. Never went back. His experience with VIPER certainly wasn't wasted, though. He learned a lot of important weapon skills. Learned how the bad guys think. More than anything, though, he gained ambition. A driven defender of the defenseless, Vins goes by Fangs these days. The fangs in question being the business end of whatever weapon he's using at the moment. He does all right with standard arms and body armor, but really functions best -- and most aggressively -- with the arms and armor of a VIPER agent.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! She's a mousy little thing, so it's no surprise that she goes by Squeak. Being small and of very average appearance, Squeak is overlooked by most people. She's awkward and uncomfortable in any situation where she has to speak up or show any lady-like behavior. Ah, but get her into a garage and she's in her element. Squeak can fix just about any vehicle ever made. Give her a new one and she'll have it stripped, pondered over, and reversed engineered before you can say . . . well, I guess you could say an awful lot. It takes her at least a week to reverse engineer really wild (new or alien) technology. But, heck, it's impressive anyway, right? Squeak's main contribution to Shinsengumi is to create new wild vehicles and mecha. Give her an idea -- "Hey, Squeak, have you ever thought about making a manta ray mecha?" -- and she's off and inventing. Squeak sometimes pilots her creations, sometimes makes them for others to pilot, and occasionally creates simple-minded automatons.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! I was writing while BoE was so I'm rather surprised to be picking the next team. Let's try something a little different... Team Name: The Margin Theme: What do you do when you're a little bit different? Not different enough to strike fear or inspire awe in most folks. Just different enough to make you feel like a freak. If you're one of these people, you band together to form The Margin. You feel marginalized. You're on the margin between human and truly superhuman. And now you figure it's time to cash in a little by committing crimes on the margin. Do a little damage, make a little money, and never make the front page. All members of The Margin are normal human villains with a single (that's one, folks) metahuman Characteristic, Skill, Perk, Talent, or Power that is most clearly and definitely not normal. The "edge" each member possesses makes them quite dangerous to normal human police officers, but isn't enough to let them go toe-to-toe with a superhero. Number: 6

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Ask Scalar about space-time translations or Tesla's scalar weapons. Go ahead. First she'll adjust her glasses. Next she'll explain that scalar is a term used in mathematics as well as physics. Finally she'll reach out her long, thin fingers and take hold of the vectors that make up your body. And move them. Scalar insists that she's never turned anything into anything different from what it already was. She just engages in a little "harmless homeomorphism". Though she's certainly capable of turning someone inside out, she rarely does. It's time consuming and difficult. And people rarely sit still for it. It's really much simpler to change objects than people. One of her favorite tricks is to take a pair of Möbius strips and turn them into a single Klein bottle -- a bottle with no inside or outside. Note: Scalar can be built in many ways. It is not necessary for her to have the Transform Power. Changing the way things look might just be part of the sfx of some other Power.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! He is Shinji Ogo. He is Wa. A proud graduate of Japan's Ground Self-Defense Forces' Special Forces Group, Shinji has received extensive training in counter-terrorism -- particularly in close quarters combat. Though an exceptional martial artist, Shinji's passion is for mission success rather than perfect kicks and punches. Mission success, Shinji believes, is achieved through planning, training, and unit cohesion. It is in this last factor that Shinji really shines. So long as Shinji is able to communicate with his team members they all receive bonuses to any actions that require coordination. More than once Shinsengumi has taken on a foe or obstacle that could only be overcome by combining their powers, skills and knowledge -- by working together in harmony. Wa.

Re: Special Effects Interactions: Burden on the defender or the attacker? I'd much rather play in a game where special effects are special than one in which special effects are just window dressing. I think it's impossible to write up all the possible Advantages, Limitations, Side Effects and what-not that many special effects would logically "gain" in different environments and/or interactions with other Powers. So it's important to make rulings that are logical, dramatic, and fun on the fly. Example: Fire Guy has lots of fire powers. These include Flight. A particular encounter occurs during a torrential rainstorm. Though the rainstorm has not been specifically written up as a Drain Fire Powers dohickey, everyone agrees that Fire Guy ought to fly slower and a bit more awkwardly through the downpour. Fire Guy's Player is thrilled that people are really thinking about his character and how he interacts with the world -- even though it means he loses a little bit of raw power in this instance.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! The trick, of course, is disarming him. He's a big former roustabout on offshore oil platforms all over the world. And you know what there is to do on an oil rig when you're not on duty? Not much. You can watch videos. You can eat. You can sleep. If you're Kit Bash, you spend a whole lot of free time playing darts. After mastering that, you throw knives at the dart board. Then you make yourself a dummy and toss knives at it. Then you stab it. Then you start throwing this at it. That at it. Everything at it. And you whack at it with this and that and the other. Then you're off duty for a couple of months and you find yourself in a bar brawl and you find yourself clearing the place all by your lonesome. Just you and some chairs and bottles and glasses and (you forget how you got these) the bartenders eye-glasses. And this earns you some attention. And somebody makes you an offer. You turn it down. You go back to the rig. You come back to shore. Another brawl -- this one set up to see if you can do it again. And you can. And more offers. And some of those offers are hard to turn down for all kinds of reasons. Heck, why not? You go for it. Earn more in one job than you earned in six months of unskilled labor on a floating oil can in the middle of the friggin' ocean... So he become Rig. Anything Kit picks up, he can rig into a weapon. He's sent people to the hospital armed with nothing more than a box of tissues. Rig truly is a great example of brute force. He's never learned to make what he does look pretty. But now he's getting some new offers. Offers from people who want to turn Rig into a work of art. He's turned them all down for the moment to concentrate on getting paid with Brute Force. Sooner or later, though, he'll get an offer he can't refuse. Then Rig will either be broken or worked into something new. Maybe even more deadly.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! I just wanted to thank everyone who contributed a Hired Gun. I love the funny villains, but I think there's some real genius out there for the serious villains. Thanks!