Utech

Re: My Failed Project To me the important consideration is this: if you are putting points into a Characteristic or Power simply to reach the campaign's minimum standards, you're playing in the wrong game or the campaign's standards need to be reexamined. If a player says, "My guy is no more agile than a normal human so I guess his DEX will be about 8. His super powers are all about the fire blasts, you know." The GM should not have to say, "You'll never hit anybody and you'll always be hit. Let's raise that 8 to 18." If a player says, "My guy has skin like a normal human. I try not to get hit and I'm really quick. I guess his PD should be about 4." The GM should not have to say, "You'll be splattered immediately. Let's give him bullet-proof spandex."

Re: Inventor skill clarification... Most practical Skills allow for repair of existing items and, modification within the pool of general knowledge, and light innovation. Invention combines with most practical Skills to allow for drastic modification, quantum leaps in innovation, and the creation of things and/or techniques never before in existence. On a particularly amazing roll (and with a particularly creative group of gamers), it might even create a thing or technique never thought of before...

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! He believes himself to be Ashoka the Great. The Indian Emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who first conquered nearly all of the Asian Subcontinent through ruthless military might and -- after witnessing firsthand the Kalinga War's terrible slaughter -- embraced Buddhism and nonviolence. A man of the sword who became a man of peace and tolerance. Who brought justice to a massive nation. Just which Ashoka he believes himself to be depends on a little chip embedded in his positronic brain. Most of the time he is filled with an overwhelming sense of compassion and a desire to spread peace throughout the world. But when the chips are down, he "regresses" to an earlier Ashoka; a ruthlessly brilliant tactician who believes in overwhelming force used first, fast, and without warning.

Re: Complications as Perk

I was very happy when the 5th Edition rules added Reputation as both a Disadvantage and a Perk. The rules made a lot of sense and added a lot to the system. I'm curious as to what other Complications/Disadvantages might be taken as Perks and what that might do to the game. Any thoughts from Herodom would be much appreciated. Example: Could Age be to your advantage? Perhaps there's a new age category called "Prime of Life" or some-such. How much would it cost? What might it grant you?

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! They call him Sir George Mendel, British industrialist and efficiency visionary. Or they call him the Spider because of the metaphoric webs he spins. Or they call him begging for an investment. Or they call him to ask for a favor. The Spider's network of contacts, informants, spies keep him looking spotless and faultless despite his considerable ties to black markets, gray markets, out-and-out theft, and an eyebrow-raising number of "accidents". He is obsessed with developing the world's most powerful and far-reaching international corporation. While his competition tries to get ahead with a little child labor and bribery, the Spider has crafted shell businesses within shell businesses with the articles of incorporation held quite safely in the vaults of Swiss banks. What can a shell of a shell do that the Spider's above-board businesses can not? Whatever the market will bear, of course! And in Nazi Germany that looks to be a great deal of skilled slave labor. How could the Spider not tie himself to such an opportunity? The Spider is entirely human and will never fight. He will, however, gladly sic thugs, assassins, or tabloid reporters on anyone who pokes their nose where it doesn't belong. What makes the Spider smile? Every time a "hero" spends his honest gains on product after product wholly owned by the Spider. Bless the heroes! They make him stronger every day.

Re: Distinctive features

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated "The recollections of one Michael Chambers, with appropriate flashbacks and soliloquy. Or more simply stated, the evolution of man, the cycle of going from dust to dessert, the metamorphosis from being the ruler of a planet to an ingredient in someone's soup. It's tonight's "bill of fare," from the Twilight Zone." - "To Serve Man" Also, of course: "It's a cookbook!"

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Musashi doesn't want to be a hero. He wants to do normal teenager stuff. You know, cram for exams, play video games, hang out at MOS Burger... All the cool stuff. And he would. If he weren't the direct descendant of that Musashi. The "Book of Five Rings" Musashi. The two-swords Musashi. The "killed a guy with an oar 'cause a sword wasn't handy" Musashi. But he is. And everybody knows it. Wherever Musashi goes he gets challenged to duels. Ninja spring out of the woodwork trying to assassinate him at the worst possible moments (first kiss, during an exam, etc.). Worst of all? All the idiots who keep throwing themselves on their knees and begging Musashi to teach them how to be a great swordsman. He just had to get out of Japan. He leaped at the opportunity to study abroad. And he hopes that he'll have no more need for the soul swords, the tattered yukata, and (worst of all) that awful hairstyle that all seem to emerge whenever he's threatened. Maybe -- just maybe -- he can finish a game of Dance Dance Revolution without having to kill somebody.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! "When are you going to get up off that sofa and do something?" "I am doing something. I'm watching TV." "You're turning into a disgusting fat blob." "Turned. Turned." "So do something about it! Get out of the house. Start jogging. Quit eating." "I like eating." "A little too much. A lot too much. Look, you can't make a living eating." "How about those eating competitions? I could do that." "Those are freak shows." "They're athletes." "You're kidding." "I'm not. I'm going to do it. I'm going to join an eating competition." "Look- No. Forget it. Fine. Go ahead. Whatever gets you out of the house." "Thank you so much for your support, Mom." So it was that Larry "Lips" Murphy left his sedentary life and joined the world of competitive eating. And Lips was unstoppable. For a very good reason. Lips can eat anything. Anything. If it goes in his mouth, it's eaten. All that energy goes on as fat. So he waddles around during robberies and what-not. Which would make him totally laughable. Except that the fat doesn't just give him his distinctive globular shape. When needed, that fat burns off into whatever energy his body needs. As long as he's got plenty of pounds on him, Lips can recover from any blow, endure any onslaught, persevere through the worst conditions. So Lips makes sure to have pounds to spare. GMs might have fun writing up some very unusual Powers for Lips. He might, for example, have Missile Deflection with the sfx that he catches the incoming missile in his mouth...

Re: Supers vs. Military

Re: Supers vs. Military Superheroes don't seem to have much trouble handling invasions from other worlds and other dimensions without the aid of aircraft carriers, tanks, destroyers, nukes, etc. These invasions feature advanced alien technologies that put our conventional forces to shame and/or supernatural abilities far beyond the ken of our best military science. Why would superheroes have trouble handling an invasion from a conventional military?

Re: Supers vs. Military

Re: Supers vs. Military OK. But the money spent on an aircraft carrier could sure do a whole lot more good somewhere else. If it's just a matter of watching things, you don't need aircraft carriers. Or tanks. Or lots of other military black holes.

Re: Supers vs. Military Forgive me if this was addressed earlier in the thread, but I'm wondering why governments would bother with tanks and airplanes and all that at all. It seems much simpler to have a military composed of superhuman special forces who handle invasions and hot spots to be followed (if so desired) by lots and lots of normals trained to handle peacekeeping and reconstruction. Why invest all that time and money into building aircraft carriers if Superman (or similar) can sink it at will?

Re: Distinctive features Taking Distinctive Features just means that you want your character's appearance to be a hindrance from time to time. The hindrance is that your character really sticks out both in a crowd and in a witness' memory. You can decide by how many points you "invest" in DF whether: your character is noted everyone turns to look at your character everyone gawks at your character the image of your character is burned into the memory of all who were in the area and so forth and so on. Having DF might make it very difficult to use any sort of interaction Skills successfully -- or the Skills might have quite different results from those you might expect. Having DF might make it very difficult to be unobtrusive, to sneak, to maintain a low profile, to give the spotlight to someone else, etc. The really important thing here is that these hindrances only happen if you take DF. If you want to play a green-skinned, four-armed monster but don't want everyone to turn and stare, you don't take DF. (Your GM may not be able to wrap his mind around this and disallow it in his games, but that's a personal taste issue.)

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! More than one hero has worn the famous (environmentalists say infamous) Rig suit. Sure, it burns an awful lot of fossil fuel, but it also has all the protection and power projection of an Abrams tank in bipedal form. The Rig armor is somewhere in that mid-point between personal power armor and mech -- more than 12 feet tall and really heavy. The energy lobby acknowledges that the Rig armor isn't the greenest armor on the planet, but as industry lobbyist Major Spillins once said, "It's not like those heroes with the cold fusion power cores are sharing that technology with us. We've asked. Trust me when I tell you that we're doing all we can to transition responsibly to greener technology such as fuel cells, solar, and so-on. But viable technological solutions are at least a decade down the road. In the meantime, we need to use the oil and coal we've got so that we can maintain the lifestyle we all enjoy. The future might be fusion, but the present belongs to petro!" The current wearer of the Rig armor is Don Yurgus Masc, a photogenic decathlete wash-out with a great smile, good intentions, grand ambitions, and pliable sense of moral outrage.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Nat (or Gnat) likes to call himself the "Face" without a face. Ordinary and forgettable to the point of near-invisibility, Nat has been able to social engineer his way into some of the most secure companies and facilities on the planet. It's not just that no one seems to take him as a threat, it's that no one seems to take him as worth looking at too closely. Captured many times by CCTV cameras, the photos distributed to security forces everywhere seem to end up in the circular file with nobody really able to call up a mental image of the man they were told to look out for. It's not that Nat always succeeds, mind you. He's failed many a time. It's just that he can fail and fail and fail and fail at getting into the same location and no one seems the wiser. Quite capable of defeating most locks (mechanical and electronic), Nat never shies away from a little B and E when just the E is beyond him. Though Nat sometimes takes things out of buildings, he much prefers to put things in. Computer programs, bugs, monitoring devices, bombs...

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! She's tall. She's buxom. She's quick and proud and (almost) ready for action! She's Wonderful Woman! She likes to tell people that she's a demi-goddess or some-such from a lost tribe of Amazons living in . . . er . . . somewhere mysterious. And wonderful. Anyhoo, that's not exactly the truth. Really she grew up in Kansas City (the Kansas one) and gosh darn it if she didn't clean that place up. Or at least sort of keep the violence down. Mostly. Gosh and golly she tried hard! After all that hard solo work, Wonderful Woman figured she's ready to join the Champions. So she started showing up at their base, at their press conferences, and at their battles. She just wants to help! Those sillies just don't seem to get it, though. They say she's not ready. Not ready? Well... Haven't they ever heard of on-the-job training? Guess not. Wonderful Woman has set her mind on joining the Champions. She just needs to prove herself. And she will! Wonderful Woman is pretty strong. She's pretty tough. She's pretty. She has cool bracelets that let her deflect bullets and other attacks -- but she doesn't always get them between the bullet and her body. Good thing she's pretty tough. And she's got this lasso that makes people not precisely tell the truth but, you know, it's sort of like having a couple beers in you -- you get sorta relaxed and loose with the tongue...

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Despite her name Sympathy has none for the human race. Her alliance is firmly and forever with Gaia. Not that Gaia speaks to Sympathy or anything like that. Well. Not directly. But from the time she was a little girl, Sympathy has felt the pain humanity inflicts upon the planet. Low-level anxiety when passing a gas-guzzling SUV. Bone-splitting agony near a coal-fired power plant. Far too much for her to bear mentally as well as physically. And then she learned to turn it out. To take the pain and give it to others. And that's what she does. Sympathy "helps" humanity by sharing with them any pain humanity is inflicting on Gaia. Stick her in the high mountains of Papua New Guinea and she's very happy and nearly powerless. Drop her in the middle of a major city and she's very upset and quite dangerous indeed. Get her too close to a superfund site and she'll be snapping bones, turning blood to poison, and inflicting enough pain to drop Dr. Destroyer to his knees.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! The Tolling appears to be a boy of about 12. That's how old he was when he died some twenty years ago. His undeath has been kinder to him than his life of which he has said little but, "I was rode hard and put away wet. When I was worn through, I was tossed away." Distrustful of the living, the Tolling feels most comfortable among the dead. And they provide what he needs. The Tolling can summon just about anyone or anything he needs, so long as he is in a graveyard and can spell out what he needs with letters on the gravestones therein. Some things are simpler to summon than others, and the dead do not always provide precisely what the Tolling had in mind. Specificity is an important limiting factor on the Tolling's Summon Power. Generic words like "car", "gun", or "knife" will get him something recognizable as that object, but not necessarily exactly what he had in mind. The car might not run, the gun may be a toy, and the knife may be useful primarily for spreading butter. It takes time and effort to spell out just what the Tolling might want to Summon.

Re: Advice needed for balancing my first 6E campaign Post it. Someone will.

Re: Alternate terms for "superhumans"? Nails. (The nail that sticks up is hammered down.) Players. (Him? Oh yeah. He's in the game. A minor leaguer right now, but...) Ladder Jumpers / Lads. (Standard issue double-helix not good enough for you, eh?) Exceptions / Cepts. (I always dreamed of being exceptional. With my grandfather's ring of power . . . I am.)

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! (Continuing the "monstrous" theme -- Can a theme be made out of two data points? I will endeavor to do so.) Born just outside the Black Forest in West Germany in 1901, Wolfram Gerwig contracted lycanthropy as a strapping young lad of 16. The attack unnerved Wolfram and his family. He was sent via Höllentalbahn (the "Hell Valley Railway" constructed by his uncle Robert) to a clinic in Berlin. Wolfram was far beyond their help, of course. One glorious moonlit night, he slaughtered every living soul in the clinic and set out to live on his own. The Grunewald became his home. Berlin became his hunting grounds. Wars came and went. The hunting was always good -- on one side of the wall or the other. And then the wall came down. The heroes sprung up. The hunter became the hunted. Wolfram shortened his name to Wolf and joined the Warsaw Pact looking for safety in numbers. In his mind, the group is more like the Warsaw Pack. Oh, but Wolf isn't sponging off the others. No. They appreciate his experience, his enhanced senses, and there's something just murderously lovely about watching him tear into a throat. Yes, indeed. Wolf loves his work.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Posterity is a lot closer to his family than most people are. He is constantly in low-level telepathic contact with every male of his line -- past and future. Equipped only with government-issue red, white, and blue bulletproof spandex, a standard firearm, and incomparable confidence, Posterity is at his best when he's working the family. Tossed in a supervillain's holding cell with no hope for escape? No worries. Posterity focuses his attention on the men of his family who have gone before him and lets them know about the problem. Sometime in the past, one of Posterity's ancestors does something to help. Perhaps he gets on the construction detail for the cell and intentionally screws up something. Perhaps he buries a cache of weapons and tools. Perhaps he arranges for a message to be held by a law firm until just the right date -- at which point it's passed along to PRIMUS. It's not all apple pie for Posterity, though. He's often called upon by one of his descendants in the future to perform some bizarre deed or other. To make a stock purchase or make sure some kid passes his geometry exam or arrange for the sequencing of the oyster genome...