Kevin Schultz

Re: WWYCD: One Wish Jake the Troll - "One Wish? Cool! Um...lemme be right back." He'd probably try to find true love; when you're functionally immortal, this one is a biggie. Icon - "I wish my mom wasn't such a jerk." Although if this was retroactive, Emma's power may not end up manifesting, leading to an alternate universe episode where she tries to get her powers back. Shinji Miromoto - Would transfer the wish to someone in the Dark Congress, for research purposes. He's probably got a couple of debts to repay in that area. Widower - "Oh hell no." Jason ruined his entire life the last time he got a wish. He's not repeating it.

Re: What OOC role do you play in groups? Rules instructor; especially with new systems, everyone assumes that I've gone through, taught myself the system, where the point breaks are, etc. Therefore everyone asks for my help to get the characters to do what they want them to do. Host - we almost always game at my place of work: the conference rooms are really nice, and the kitchens come fully stocked with ~20 different kind of drinks. Secondary Organizer - usually there's one other player who is, due to personality, the main "leader" - I tend to be the second leader/motivator. I'm also the one who formally organizes missions and stuff via whiteboard and plan out the contingency plans.

Re: Heroes Needed - Apply within You can also check out Uberworld, which is a shared-universe PbeM gameworld. It's currently got hundreds of writeups of various heroes and villians. Tribe (one of the main contributors to the uberworld) is also currently doing a "one uberhuman per country" thread, which you can read about here.

Re: Cool characters you'd never use Jake the Troll - one of the characters I do WWYCD threads with, but unlikely to ever atually be played. He's a norse changeling who got imprinted on a zygote in a fertility clinic: as a consequence, there wasn't enough human mana in the area to successfully bond to. He came out as an actual troll, as opposed to a human lookalike. But he was born from a human womb, making him fully human yet fully supernatural. I don't ever stat him up, because he's designed to be played in a campaign where power levels aren't an issue; more of an "eerie indiana" style, where it's relatively gentle wierdness, as opposed to 4-color combat. When issues do come up, it's assumed that he has as much power as he needs, as long as it can be covered by his SFX: Troll God.

Re: WWYCD: Welcome Divinity? Jake the Troll - "Prithee, mortal, dost thou...ah, screw it. Az, how's it going!" Jake is already a god. He'd probably be on the other side of this, trying hard not to laugh. EDIT - if they actually did approach him, he'd decline, but ask if any of them knew the way to Valhalla. Why? 'Cuz he hasn't been able to find it yet, and Valkyries are hot. Duh. Icon - would be seriously tempted, but wouldn't commit without knowing the rules. Shinji Miromoto - would likely decline: he's Buddhist, and becoming a god just has too many kharmic strings attached. Widower - "Oh, hell no. Did Haziz put you up to this?" The Djinn can be considered (little) gods by some, and he really doesn't like the Djinn.

Re: WWYCD: Once bitten . . . Jake the Troll - "Dude, I'm sentient dirt." Probably wouldn't apply, for a couple of SFX reasons; his blood is highly toxic and eats through stuff, plus the whole 'trolls can come back from the dead' thing. Icon - is currently undergoing a slow (decades-long) transformation into a sentient blob of cosmic energy; as a consequence, she regenerates from all Drains, Suppresses, and Transforms. She probably wouldn't even notice. Shinji Miromoto - "Oh, great. Way to be stereotypical, people." Shinji is a dark daoist sorcerer with some martial arts. Now he's a VAMPIRE dark daoist sorcerer with martial arts. He'd contact the Dark Congress and inform them of the change to his metaphysical nature, and read up on the literature they have on it. He'd also inform his team of his change in nature, and ask if the health insurance the City of Denver provides their group covers stuff like this. In all, he'd be relatively relaxed about the whole thing, except for the minor irritation of having to play towards an Asian literary cliche. Widower - "Well, at least I'm not a zombie." Would be irritated, but not agnst-ridden, as he knows there is a cure: he's got the life of a superhero, and as such knows that he won't stay a vampire for more than a couple of "issues".

Re: Knockback Only, No Direct Damage There's a power like that in City of Heroes; the way they balance it there is that attackers can still get their melee strike off before they're pushed back. It's mainly used as a way to reduce incoming damage by forcing people to run up and hit you, rather than just stand there and hit you.

Re: WWYCD: The Coverup Jake the Troll - "Dude, go see a priest". Of course, that's his usual answer to any moral dilemma. However, Jake wouldn't really question why he was the one being told: he's from a "confession is good for the soul" family, and would assume that some form of guilt had been weighing on the sidekick for a year, until they finally just HAD to tell someone. He'd talk to his parents about in, but wouldn't use any specifics. They'd probably encourage him to get the guy to report it to the relavent authorities, as something of that magnitude needs to be out in the open. Icon - probably would know the sidekick from working with them in a junior league sort of way. This would likely have come out in a group councelling session, as she attends those sorts of things. With that in mind, it would probably have been told to her in confidence. Therefore, she'd encourage said individual to go talk to the police or the feds, as they REALLY need to know this sort of thing. However, she wouldn't act on it herself. Shinji Miromoto - this would be something that would fall under his contract with the Denver Defenders as "something the rest of the team should know." Widower - assuming the sidekick is fairly young, he'd listen and councel as much as he could: he's actually pretty good at that sort of thing. However, he'd say NOTHING to anyone, as he'd consider the political backlash to be so large that the poor kid would be swept up in it.

Re: Powers of Undeath You Can't Escape From Death II - Insubstantial, only to get to someone who is trying to get away from you. You Can't Escape from Death III - Mind Scan, only works on those trying to hide from me. You Can't Escape from Death IV - Surpress (any power that lets you get away from me - usually Luck or Movement powers) Roll the Bones - +10 Gambling (Dice only, -2) - death, fortune, and fate tend to be mixed up: with dice (which used to be carved from knucklebones), that link is even closer. Don't take ANYTHING from him! - Mind Control, requires target accept a gift (traditionally a pomegranite)

Re: Powers of Undeath Various "death-related" powers: Death Gaze - clayrivoyance - Know the moment when an individual is destined to die and how they will die by looking into their eyes. Watch where you swing that! - CSL: Sythe Very Wealthy - Death&Taxes, Hades as lord of the Underworld and of wealth. Unfortuantely, all his wealth is in the form of silver pennies, taken from the eyes of the dead. Shush - hold with the SFX of sleep - sleep as metaphor for death. precognotion and prophecy immunity- (Invisibility - Clayrivoyance/Danger Sense) as he is the END of the story, rather than part of it. Serial Killer Transportation - (teleport) - you can't stop death. Power over pathways - death as the Final Journey. Variation of doorways as metaphor for transformation/moving to another reality. Universal Death skill - variation of the "Universal X" construct, dealing with skills and professions directly dealing with death (taxidermist, mortician, soldier, embalmer, farming).

Re: WWYCD "super" registration Jake the Troll - is Canadian; but if he wanted to travel in the US, he'd probably have to (he's too obviously not human to hide.) However, that just means his parents wouldn't let him go south of the boarder. Icon - wants to be a fed when she grows up, so she's resigned to being in some sort of federal database anyway. But she also knows the law, and would also understand that this is prima facia unconstitutional. Thus, she'd register, but encourage others not to. Shinji Miromoto - is a mystic, which means you're forcing him to register his religion, which is 2x unconstitutional. Widower - unlikely to either. Now, if it was a "register or we won't support you in your vigilante activities", then that's another story. But as others have stated, this is an extremely bad law just on the face of it.

Re: What are you playing now? Icon - teenaged energy brick in the Uberworld Argus High game; Shinji Miromoto - dark Daoist Wizard and martial artist, in the Uberworld Denver Defenders campaign. Widower - Self-aware Spiderman homage (not clone) in the Solo Uber game. I've also got a d20 Star Wars mercenary force-pike wielder. He's a lot of fun, if only to play up the "Don't look at me: you guys hired ME" aspect of things.

Re: 'Divine' Characters As a GM, what I want to do is portray angels as almost completely alien entities, and demons as essentially human. Why? Because Angels are in constant communion with the Divine, and as such they are nearly unknowable. In contrast, the Fallen are acting on their own will and desires. 99.99% of the time, a human being is going to relate more to the latter than to the former.

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game Sounds fine. I'm guessing this was done in no small part so there wouldn't be any conflict of interest when Cryptic starts up on Marvel Online. (Still not enough to get me back into playing CoX, though - fun game, but I'm still gonna wait for something more than just new missions and powersets.)

Re: 'Divine' Characters I'm reminded of the Jherg novels by Steven Brust. In them, the main character keeps trying to figure out what another character's job is. She shrugs, and says something along the lines of "I greet guests and make sure the house is suitable for visitors." But this doesn't quite fit what he sees her doing. After a while, she realized the issue, and says "Oh. in your language, I'm a priestess." Because in her culture's eyes, the gods were (just) powerful individuals that came and visited occasionally. Thus, those who dealt with the gods were considered specialized butlers. I agree with the comment that you'll have to play with the definition of 'athiest' if objective evidence of the supernatural is available. One such way of doing it is claiming that any sufficient evidence for the existence of the supernatural would indicate that the supernatural doesn't actually exist: that if you can present evidence for magic, then it's not really magic - it's psychic powers, or elemental forces of the universe, or whatever. It's the whole issue of "if you can give evidence for it, then it's not SUPER-natural. It's just a part of natural that we didn't understand beforehand." On the issue of believing in the gods - for most, it seems to come down to interpersonal relationships. Does the character believe in his friends and allies? ie, does he count on them, respect them, trust them, etc? If so, I would find it difficult for someone already empowered by that god's existence NOT to believe in them. However, it may depend on the god in question: as others have said, it may strictly be a business transaction. But most examples of supernatural empowerment comes from folks who already had a personal relationship, and the power was merely a manifestation of that. But this also begs the question of "what is worship?" One could argue that it's simply giving the respect and consideration due to the individual in question. And when you're dealing with a millennial-old Intelligence that exists in multiple realities simultaneously, that's going to be quite a lot, even if there are OTHER such entities out there, more powerful than the one you're currently talking to. Sure, gods as displayed in mythology tend to be kinda dumb; but there's something different between reading about how Thor was tricked, and dealing with his +100 PRE existence when he's in the room. So, in conclusion? Technically a character doesn't NEED to have such a relationship. However, it's playing against the archtype. Doing it once is interesting - but if everyone suddenly starts doing it (a certian scimitar-wielding Drow Elf comes to mind), then it starts looking kinda odd.

Re: WWYCD: Harem Comedy from Hell

Re: WWYCD: Dead before your time... Jake the Troll - steps into the spirit world/afterlife enough that it ain't THAT big a deal; he'd probably suspect that he wasn't really dead, but just asleep. Someone didn't get the memo. Icon - sounds her full regeneration power (Regeneration/1, regenerates everything +2) has finally manifested the Ressurrection adder. She has suspected that she's immortal for a couple of years: she stopped aging, stopped eating, stopped breathing. Although this is a mite shocking, she's kind of been preparing for it for a while now. Shinji Miromoto - members of the Dark Congress gain a full briefing on how to come back from the dead; it's part of the supervillian eqivalent of basic training. After internally gibbering for a while (his instructors recommended 2-3 hours, minimum), he'd try to pull himself together and get his life back in order. Widower - would attribute this to the fact that he's living the life of a comic book character, and thus can't actually die unless he becomes unpopular.

Re: Need to get the Creativity Flowing... The Puppeteer - interdimensional serial killer clarivoyant whose sole ability is to hear the real-life cross-talk at the gaming table. He kills individuals with interesting and exciting lives (ie: PC's) in order to free them all from the mind-controlling voices that only he can hear.

Re: Schtick Skill: That Thing You Do You can also use a limited form of the "Universal X" construct this way; Universal FBI Agent 15-, Universal Ditch-Digger 12-, etc.

Re: Does your character keep a journal? Mine do when there's XP involved.

Re: WWYCD: Halloween From Hell 2007 Jake the Troll - is a bit too old for trick-or-treating, but will probably accompany his younger siblings around town for the heck of it. He'd go as a pirate or a ninja, most likley. He deals with living with one foot in the spirit world on a daily basis; this is just the time when everyone ELSE gets some of the love as well. Icon - dresses up every year as Supergirl. Would probably have gone to a high school event of some sort earlier in the day, and would at that point be on patrol. Why? Because things ALWAYS happen on holloween; Argus City is large enough that the police can use all the help they can get. Shinji Miromoto - probably would have attended a party put on by the Dark Congress; you've never seen a Holoween event until you've seen one put on by mercenary dark science-mystic types. But they're mostly asian, so they don't quite 'get it', at least in a traditional Western sense. But it's fun anyway. Then he and the rest of the Dark Congress would probably spend the rest of the night trying to put down the psychic horrors that Jin from accounting managed to whip up after his fifth Black Margarita. Widower - would probably be dragged along to a party by his 'friends'. He'd consider it chaperoning, so he'd put up with it until whatever beastie from beyond the grave crashed the party, at which point he'd gleefully make an excuse and leave to deal with it.

Re: Need to get the Creativity Flowing... Tarot (team concept) - team held together by a metahuman by the same name, who has the ability to empower individuals who closely match up with the Major and Minor Arcana. Thus, he has sought out metahumans and/or talented individuals who embody the concepts of the Knight, the Wizard, the Queen of Cups, and so on. This gives a reason to have a themed team, as the closer the individual's powers, abilities, and appearance match up with the theme, the more powerful they become. This concept also works with Zodiac - people who embody their astrological signs, or (more obscure) Kaballah - individuals who embody their True Name. Secret Agent Man - (martial artist/gadgeteer) someone whose power is that of James Bond-type cinematic superspy, including genre elements (can't truly die unless he's unpopular, powers occasionally change when the 'actor' playing him changes, etc.) Incredibly smooth and sophisticated, and has access to Q-style vehicles and equipment; the more elaborate, the more effective in his hands.

Re: Need to get the Creativity Flowing... The Red Queen - variation of the King in Yellow: a psychic with the ability to infect the very idea of her with madness and death. The name comes from the way in which her victims ultimately die: blood vessels burst under the skin. The Minotaur - Minos, king of Crete, built the Labyrinth for his stepson (sired to his wife by Zeus, I believe). After he died became one of the Greek Judges of the Dead. This character is a direct decendent of Minos, and is thus empowered by Pluto to hunt down those who have escaped the judgement that god, in kind of a greek Ghost Rider sort of way. Takes the name of the Minotuar both as a backhanded compliment to his ancestor, as well as a play on the whole idea of "spawned by a greek god" thing. Dominion - pulling from Ars Magica - spiritual uber who pulls strength from the sancity of a region. Most powerful in places like Vatican City or Ayer's Rock. Note that this power isn't actually magical; it's simply a mental limitaiton on the part of the individual. Wisp - Alien energy being that bears a superficial resembalnce to a will-o-wisp; kind of like Kheldians in City of Heroes. Crimson Cloud Sentient nano-cloud; is capable of performing a variation of the "grey goop" ability (ie, transforming anything it touches into itself, thus building up its own mass.) Havok - mentalist whose powers center around creating or surpressing rage. Works as a grief councilor in his off-time.

Re: Designing a show stopping villain The one (and currently only) supervillian I've had that was memorable was The Nhilist. He was pretty much a standard energy projector. His schtick was "negative cosmic energy" that tended to negate anything out of existence. However, he was memorable because of the following: 1. Funny accent - I did him with a german eurotrash accent. 2. Simple motivation - he was obsessed with Nhilism. 3. Easy to make fun of - despite his power, he was kind of dumb and superficial, and had a reputation as a putz.

Re: Gun multipower Cheap way to do this: 16 Ranged martial Arts (+4 DC's) 20 point cosmic VPP (Pistol Tricks Only, -1) - any power in the pool has only 1 or 2 levels in it, but has all of the advantages. Just be sure that the end result (level+MA)*(advantages) is under the effective active point power.