Spidey88

Re: ONE power: what do you do with it? Sign me up for Super-Speed! Again, a power with a lot of potential ramifications/uses, and it's one that resonates a lot with me personally...

Re: [Warning Anime] How would you create this character? RSR = "requires skill roll" . In this case, a Dex roll. So, in other words, the sand thingy would need to make a DEX roll for the armour to work.

Re: Marvel Apocalypse Thanks for the info, Lord Liaden - informative as always. I'd Rep you if I could (I have to spread some more around).

Re: Marvel Apocalypse I guess a lot of this depends on when the apocalypse happens relative to current continuity. If it happens "now", then it's simpler - but there's less surprises for the PCs. If it happens, say, 30 years from current continuity, then anything is possible. Not just world events, either - Maybe Cap or Iron Man or, god forbid, Norman Osborn became president. Maybe Peter Parker became a respected scientist. Maybe the Avengers migrated to Milwaukee. All sorts of things might have happened to shake things up! Let's see... Obvious choices for survivors, based on powers/physiology: Vision (Synthezoids likely don't age) Ultron (evil robots don't either - possibly a good surrogate Skynet) Cap (It's been postulated the super-soldier serum retards or halts the aging process) Wolverine (120 years hasn't fazed him - maybe 1000 wouldn't?) Sabretooth (same deal) (Geez - if you let Wolvie And Sabretooth survive, that might mean Deadpool's still out there too...) Hulk (He's been in more than one P.A. story anyway.) Abomination (if Hulk's around...) Thor (How old do Asgardian Gods get? Beats me.) Loki (same deal) Nick Fury (how well does the Infinity Formula work? Plus, he'd be a cool John Connor substitute.) Maybe Dr. Strange? (What limit does his magic have? Plus, The Ancient One stuck around long after he died...) Ghost Rider (maybe not his human host, though) Sweet merciful crap - H.E.R.B.I.E. could be roaming the ruins! NOOOOOOO! Personally, I think it would be hilarious if part of J.J.J.'s consciousness got downloaded into a Spider-Slayer, and now the irascible old goat roams the wasteland in a titanic robot body; jabbering half-coherently to himself while looking for stashes of 1000-year-old cigars he can't smoke anymore... Hoarding paper and other supplies, hoping to print the Bugle again... Yelling at the centuries-old corpse of Ben Urich "Get back to work, Urich! You've been working on that Kingpin story forever - finish it already! What do I pay you for?" The same sort of thing could happen to Tony Stark - linked remotely to an Iron Man suit when the planet went KAPOW! Now he's stuck in a metal shell (even more than before), struggling to keep a hold on his fading humanity after centuries. Legacies left behind? Again, it depends on the time of the apocalypse relative to now. We can expect SHIELD, HYDRA, The Avengers, Dr. Doom, and possibly the FF to have left behind some artifacts. Cap's shield and Thor's hammer would HAVE to show up somewhere (either in the hands of their owners, or as a relic of epic majesty/importance) - and any game I ran had better have at least a set of webshooters hidden in the ruins somewhere... These artifacts might not be recognized for what they are at first, but they would have to be used in some fashion for something important later. A likely start for the campaign would be for a group of modern heroes to get thrown forward in time, and try to get back - but as long as they're stuck in the future for a while, they've got to a) survive, help the people struggling to fight off evil robots/mutants/cyborgs/agents of a malevolent tyrant, and c) figure out why things went kablooie and figure out how to stop it when they get back home. The heroes involved would greatly affect the legacies left behind (eg. if Iron Man goes to the future, there's no record of him past 2007)- and if there's info uncovered suggesting they later made it back to their own time (eg. legacies from the PC heroes' future beyond 2007), that would suggest the apocalypse happens anyway, despite their efforts - so the future is immutable! Possible causes for apocalypse: -alien invasion -a supervillain finally does manage to take over the world, and screws things up (I'd put good money on Doom.), or destroys it deliberately (eg. Ultron). -Might it perhaps be cool to get some usage out of this whole Civil War mess, and assume Reed's Psychohistory predictions were absolutely right (or horribly, horribly wrong, as the Mad Thinker postulates)? Good reason for a Reed that survived the apocalypse to shut himself away and give up on the world (I just couldn't save them...) see linky for the skinny on this one: http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/2883379.html

Re: Marvel Apocalypse Hmmm... A potential campaign, perhaps? Sounds like it could be pretty cool. Shades of our Gamma World game. Anyhoo, this very topic was touched on very briefly in at least one issue of the Guardians of the Galaxy. I recall an issue where the main characters were delving through a museum dedicated to the fallen heroes of the original Heroic Age - aparrently, Earth was invaded by Martians (possibly the same martians of Killraven's series), the heroes fell against them, and a new dark age for humanity emerged as the world lay in ruins. If memory serves, Wolverine's descendant was fighting (I'm fuzzy on this, and it may have been a different issue) Dr. Doom's consciousness - who had somehow taken control of the orignal Wolverine's adamantium skeleton. Ooog. Maybe someone can fill me in on the details... I do remember quite clearly that Spider-Man was the last hero to fall to the martians, though - fighting on long after all hope was lost - and noone knows just what happened to him. So Huzzah! It made me think of writing a fanfic, where Spider-Man rallies a desparate humanity against their Martian overlords, in sort of a John Connor vs. Skynet kind of situation. Anyway, back on topic... Well, if the moon landed on Earth, there'd be a LOT of things thrown completely out of whack environmentally, but hey - it's a P.A. setting, so that might not be a big deal! Anyhoo, that could potentially get more of the Inhumans' legacy involved too (since they live on the moon). As to why the moon went kablooie? Maybe Something nasty happened to Medusa, and when Black Bolt found out, he screamed like he's never screamed before... If Dr. Doom survived, it's almost a given to me that Reed Richards survives too - who else would you have build a time machine, or escape to an alternate dimension where time flows differently? Perhaps he lives on in solitude in the ruins of the Baxter Building, paralysed with apathy after the death of Sue and the kids (and perhaps the rest of the FF, too) - and the PC's have to motivate him to become a hero again when all hope against techno-enemy X/dimensional rift is lost. Hulk could become the Maestro, like in "Future Imperfect", and hold a vast portion of North America in his mighty fist - his minions could be the PC's main resistance (assuming you want them in N.A., anyway.) I think it's been done, but it would be totally appropriate for the PC's to find a man in cryogenic suspension in some long-forgotten lab. He's still alive, in suspended animation, and his name is apparently Steve something (his memory is a little fuzzy...) More to come - I'm just going to start another post.

Re: WWYCS: "Why Shouldn't I Kill Him?" Punisher-type-guy: "Why shouldn't I kill him?" Phidippus: "Because I'll beat you into next week if you do, chucklehead." "NO ONE dies on my watch. NO ONE."

Re: Corven's Heroes & Villains Hey, Corven_Ren - you've already heard from me on your version of Spidey (nice job), but I just noticed one teensy thing that seems missing - Stealth! Anyhoo, back to your regularly scheduled thread...

Re: Cap is dead!!!! Umm... Okay. I guess you're doing what you can to tune this whole thing out, Von D-Man? Can't say that I blame you.

Re: Need help setting up my HERO campaign! That's a pretty good set of questions - the only thing that comes to mind might be to define the incident with the "dead friend/capturing the real culprit" business a little more concretely. Probably hard to do without having a better idea what your PCs are capable of; but it seems like such a significant, galvanizing event should be a little better defined before play starts. I expect how the PCs deal with this event would affect their whole worldview, at least to start - and consequently, their responses to the questions you've posted about it. My two cents - but it sounds like you've got some good ideas!

Re: Cap is dead!!!! Ugh. I think all they'll need to screw the next Cap up (before the original is hopefully resurrected due to massive fan outrage) is let the Punisher keep his mask. New Cap = gun-toting vigilante is a direction I could see them going, and should (on principle) go over like New Coke or The Clone Saga. Marketing plan, or hero-haters calling the shots? Probably both, I'm afraid. While I doubt they plan to kill Cap off permanently, it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth - and I'm Canadian! (Not that I think us Canucks can't love Cap - just that we don't have the same patriotic pride concerning him.)

Re: Original Artwork: Grindstone That's pretty dang cool, Ghostblade - I say keep 'em comin'!

Re: CHAMPIONS REVISED -- If We Do It, What Would You Like To See? I concur resolutely. Maps, maps, maps! Things like the aforementioned Homestead (and perhaps the other sample bases too), and useful things like city streets, a skyscraper or two, or some common buildings (eg. a bar, a parking garage, a university etc.) would all be mighty cool.

Re: Four-armed Restrainable stingers Four-armed bug-man + Murdock? That sounds almost too awesome to be true! He must have been a blast to play. Seriously, though - I don't see anything wrong with making sure that Boll Weevil gets a lot of utility out of having four arms. After all, Phidippus - my PC/main NPC in my current Champions campaign - has six arms! I'd be a hypocrite to say "don't do it!" when I've taken steps to ensure Phidippus' buttkicking capabilities... If BW's defense is his ginormous DEX (and correspondingly high DCV), many of the options for giving him extra arm attacks (eg. 2-weapon fighting + OCV bonuses to sweep, or autofire on his STR) will reduce his DCV to half. That may, in and of itself, be enough of a balance factor, depending on who he's up against. Besides - it's not like another character couldn't achieve a similarly nasty offense by doing the same things with an energy blast, right? With two-weapon fighting, pretty much anybody could make four HTH attacks in a round at a -4 penalty - buying OCV bonuses to counteract that doesn't seem too crazy, as long as a) the individual attacks are reasonably modest, or BW uses the "alpha strike" infrequently, perhaps only in dire situations. At any rate, as long as BW doesn't overshadow the other players, I say go nuts. BTW - though this has little to do with the topic at hand, for a small amount of points, you could give BW something like: + 3 to all skills, only for skills based on manual manipulation (not sure offhand what the limitation would be, maybe -1/2 to -1), only to counteract time modifier (-1, if memory serves from TUS). This could represent the fact that when it comes to tasks requiring manual dexterity, eg. assembling a Lego spaceship, BW can use all his hands in unison to get things done really fast - always one step down the time scale. My two cents. Cheers! Oh - one last thing, Boll Weevil - considering your little avatar guy, you might have noticed what my mood is...

Re: Four-armed Restrainable stingers I'd be inclined to think restrainable would apply full-force. The lessened effect of it, due to Boll Weevil's polybrachial physiology, would be covered by him having to pay for extra limbs - that is, extra limbs sort of assume grabs and such will be harder anyway; but if reasonable measures are taken, he'll have no easier a time escaping those uber-manacles than his improperly-constructed two-armed robot double. I'd say "no" to restrainable on the venom. Kind of feels like double-dipping to me, but hey - it's more a gut feeling as opposed to a dead-set opinion. Feel free to disagree! As for MPAs with the extra limbs - ouch. That could be almost game-breakingly nasty, especially if Boll Weevil posesses the proportionate strength of a circulionid! Again, gut feeling here, but wouldn't the "paying extra for more claws" be wasted points if one was to go for the "Two-weapon fighting + sweep levels" route as opposed to the "MPA" route for the four fists of fury? Not arguing with anything presented - just thought it'd be something important to keep in mind, and again, feel free to correct me!

Re: matchmaker for masks? Araña. Seriously - what are the chances? On an aparrently pretty random test, the Spidey-worshipper who studies spiders for a living gets the spider-based superheroine for a match. I couldn't help but groan, then giggle a bit... (Man, I hope she's not jailbait.)

Re: Hero miniatures I've found Heroclix Hydra agents make excellent stand-ins for VIPER agents - VIPER is sort of an homage to organizations of that type, anyway. You should be able to get them for dirt cheap anywhere people trade the figures(they're not very powerful in Heroclix terms), and their uniforms are even the same color. The downside (or upside, depending on your point of view) is that they're already painted. If you are dead set on painting them yourself, there are ways to safely strip the paint (I've heard a half-and-half vinegar or Pine-sol solution for no more than an hour does the trick). There's enough variety in the figures that you should be able to find a few cheap figures that you can repaint in the same fashion. Guys like Doc Samson, Vance Astro, and many others are pretty unrecognizable as anyone in particular with no paint!

Re: Bmv Aw, shucks... Sean Waters - will you be my valentine?

Re: Sonof Secret Origins! When did you start reading superhero comics? I was hooked on Spider-Man from at least the age of two, possibly younger, via the 60's cartoon that played every afternoon in my hometown for years - out of all the cartoons I watched as a little kid, it was by far my favorite - so it was only natural that I started reading comics about him. When I was about five, my big sister (six years my senior) gave me a few comics she wasn't interested in (they weren't really her bag, and she realized I'd get more use out of them) - Some JLA anthology, an Archie or two, and a copy of Marvel Tales #79 - a reprint of Amazing Spider-Man #98. I read all of them, but the Spider-Man comic was easily my favorite. It just seemed so gripping to me - Harry Osborn was sick (drug overdose), Peter Parker finds the guys who gave him the stuff that made him sick and pounds them (drug dealers), then has to face the Green Goblin - who Spidey beats, even without his webs and clinging ability, by using his head and showing Goblin what a jerk he's been! Good grief - Spidey was really in a pickle, but he pulled through - and he got the girl at the end too! Soon afterwards, I was out with my aunt (who babysat me at least every weekday) at the local Safeway, and asked her if I could get a comic book. She agreed, and I got another issue of Marvel tales - a reprint of the first time Spidey fought Electro. Very soon after that, I got Spectacular Spider-Man #78 (Spidey prepares for the fight of his life against Doc Ock, who's sworn to finish off an injured Black Cat who's in bad shape in the hospital), and there was no way I was missing the next one, where Spidey fights Ock for all the marbles! MAN, what a great couple of comics. Still one of my top 3 favorite storylines to this day - those are some essential Spidey reads, let me tell you! Definitely a good bunch to form first impressions off of. Come to think of it, I had a couple of Iron Fist's first appearances - I thought those were pretty cool too. After that, I tried to get Spidey comics whenever I could, but it was a very erratic thing for many years. The grocery store didn't always carry them - it was sort of a random selection each month - and I didn't always think of it, either. I enjoyed the comics, but I wasn't neccessarily dead-set on having each and every one. I ended up going down to the local convenience store quite frequently to check out the selection (starting when I was 9 or 10), and managed to get Spidey pretty frequently. I sometimes bought other comics just for the heck of it when there weren't any Spider-Man titles available, but no particular others with any regularity. When I was about 12, a couple of friends introduced me to the local comic stores - Warp One, in particular - and soon after, my gracious older sister was giving me rides to Warp at least once a month. From that point on (1990-ish), I've got every single regular Spider-Man book that's been printed. They're not the only books I collect these days (I get DD, Star Wars stuff, and TMNT regularly too), but they're still the bulk of my collection. I read my buddy's issues of Fables, Y: the Last Man, and Invincible too. Warp One is now a fantastically irritating store to go to. They've still got a decent selection, but they've also got the highest prices in town; a smaller, more cramped store than the good old days; and sales staff that won't leave you alone - within a minute of entering the store, you'll have every staff member breathing down your neck asking you if you need help, if there's anything they can help you find, anything particular you're looking for, etc. - Drives me nuts having to politely tell each one to let me go about my business in rapid succession! (for cripes' sake - pay attention! Once is fine, but everyone in the store pestering me, one right after the other, is too much to take). The owner, who shall remain nameless, is something of a greedy, cutthroat jerk from what I understand - there's an amusing story involving him and Nathan Fillion (from Firefly). Do a search for "Nathan Fillion Warp One" and you should get a few hits - it'll give you an idea of how this guy does business. Definitely my option of last resort! Unfortunately, Warp One is easily the best-known comic store in the whole city, so they get a lot of business despite it all. The other stores in the chain (Warp Two and Three) are okay, though. Warp Two is probably the best place in town for RPG stuff - it's where I've got the majority of my HERO stuff, though now I can order through my FLGS (Wizards Comics - everything you could hope for from a comic store, really) for the new books coming out. (Sorry - I'm long-winded!)

Re: Bmv Hey - if I was really bitter (if? yeah right:p ), I could have said "limited class of target (me, -2)" - but I don't want to be too grumpy... Cheers!

Re: Bmv I'd tend to look at Valentine's day something like this: Drain (self esteem or temper) 10d6, 0 END, Trigger (being inundated with people in love), Slow return rate (1 day), limited class of target (single people, -1/2) You can tell my mood at the moment...

Re: The Ultimate WWYCD: Ninja or Pirate! Phidippus: Martial arts? Check. Sneaky? Check. Agile and acrobatic? Big check. The obvious choice would seem to be ninja, but his personality is just so much more ostentatious and swashbuckle-y (at least when his teammate, Ashley isn't being a jerk and putting his foot in his mouth, forcing Phidippus to play daddy - which hasn't happened very often so far)... Hmmm. Pirate cunningly disguised as a ninja? "Ha-ha! You thought wrong, daimyo! The man you thought would commit seppuku in dishonor will instead swing on your fancy curtains, whilst hollering insulting limericks at your no-fun guards and wooing your comely daughter!" SLAP! "Okay, okay - swing on fancy curtains and holler limericks."

Re: Storn Art From Idea to Full Picture Year 4 Three words: The Iron Yuppie! Sort of "Colossus meets Forbes 500" kind of look, complete with armoured briefcase and action cellphone! "Daaaaddy... Can I be like the Iron Yuppie when I grow up?" "Well, son - only if you create new paradigms to maximize profits."

Re: [Warming Rant] GM feeling uninspired Have you talked to your players about the unneccessary tangents? It sounds like serious frustration, considering the work you seem to put in GM-ing. Hopefully you can send them the message, politely but firmly, and they get the idea to SHADDAP! I know when I'm the GM, it makes a world of difference getting the effort and enthusiasm I put into the game fed back to me - it's really disheartening when you bust your butt and they don't give a hoot. Take a bit of stand if you have to - you don't have to hurt their feelings, but you should let them know they're stepping on yours a bit! If you can't wake them up to your frustration, then maybe it's a case of your players having different expectations and wants when it comes to the game. It's happened to me before, on both sides of the player/gm equation - and it sneaks up you sometimes. You start out with a great group where everyone in on the same page, but after a while, people drift in different directions. Sometimes a break helps, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes starting a new campaign with a different feel helps. Ultimately, it may take finding a new group to revitalize things. I've had to do all of the above in the past, and I'm still gaming - hopefully you find some way to keep things fun, and try to think positive! And, if you just need to put the dice away indefinitely, that's fine too. Don't feel like roelplaying is something you have to keep doing - hobbies are supposed to be fun!

Re: Altered Reality (making yourself) A buddy of mine ran a GURPS game a few years back where we played ourselves as characters. He said: "write yourselves up as 100-point characters - but don't sweat it too much, you won't be staying that way very long." As a result of that lack of pressure, we set about making statting up ourselves with very little squabbling. The only case of one-upmanship was when my buddy gave himself an "attractive" appearance. I figured "heck, I'm at least at good-looking as Steve!" and gave myself "attractive" as well. The campaign didn't last very long, unfortunately - so a couple years later, I basically tried the same premise with a (mostly) different group using HERO. I admit, I have issues with using HERO at low point levels (the, IMHO, lack of granularity between the effects of attributes in the "normal" range), but it never came up - nor did we have to worry about statting ourselves accurately - since we just roleplayed the first session (which led up to us getting superpowers) freeform, without even having character sheets. After we got our powers, everything (even INT and skills) had the potential to change, so it didn't matter much who had what (though I did notice at least 75% of us had an INT score of 23). It actually worked out pretty well - of course, there was no combat to speak of that first session... I think, though, that the issue of writing up a group of real people as characters boils down to this: it's all relative. It may be difficult to figure out, say, what my exact DEX score is; but (ahem) if I do say so myself, all my gaming buddies would agree that I've easily got the highest score amongst us - so I'd be the high benchmark. Steve has the best aerobic fitness, so he should likely get the best CON, etc. If Steve gives himself a DEX of 13, I should have at least a 14 - If I have a CON of 13, Steve should have a CON of at least 14, etc. If noone goes overboard with their estimates, have at 'er - as long as the relation between the group feels right. Really, this is the only basis for measuring I've used (coupled with common sense). Of course, this only works if you've got a group that knows each other pretty well. And, for the sake of politeness, you can't be too emphatic about who sets the low benchmarks (eg. Alright, George, everyone here knows you're the ugliest). I say: unless they volunteer themselves otherwise, let everyone be at least "average" in their attributes (10, since we all know gamers are a cut above your average person on the street;) ). I suspect COM and INT will be particularly tender spots - equal tact may be required with some disads! In all cases, I'd say: let everyone see each other's characters and judge for themselves if they're kosher. Disads are probably best handled by the player himself, at least for the first draft. As for points? Don't give a budget at first - just make sure everyone knows to be fairly conservative. After the first draft is done, take a look at the highest-point character/player, tell him to scale it back a bit (or not, if he/she really is just plain exceptional) and give everybody else the same budget. Accurate? Likely no. Polite and argument-defusing? Likely yes. I imagine people will respond better to "you get to be a bit better than that, actually" than "no, actually, you suck a little more than what you've got here."

Re: What makes a great campaign great? I would attribute the success of the best campaign I ever ran to the following factors: 1) Great players who all got along fabulously. Their characters weren't necessarily as close all the time, but they worked well together. They put in a lot of effort to talk in character, instead of "Mackie does this" when confronted with an NPC. 2) Great characters. Not only were the players involved good roleplayers, but their characters had very well-defined personalities. The characters developed signature tactics and moves (I even gave the PC's little freebies, like weapon proficiency: wrench for the mechanic character who relied on his monkeywrench for offense more often than not - just to reward him for keeping things entertaining). 3) I put in a lot of effort to make memorable NPCs with well-defined personalities, and tried to give each NPC a good description - regardless of how much screentime they got. 4) I tried very hard to keep their "random encounters" fresh and unpredictable (a PA game, so it wasn't too hard). 5) I made it very clear from the beginning what style of game I was going for (fast-paced, cinematic action), and the players followed along. I think this was important - basically, the players knew what they were in for, and went along with it. Nobody threw huge wrenches in the works (not that it was a complex campaign). 6) I didn't just describe things - I made a lot of interactive stuff too. I drew a lot of maps, represented vehicle combat with micro machines, wrote up wanted posters, etc. 7) I tried to challenge the players without crushing them - and generally erred on the side of fun. Sure, that move might be basically impossible - but wouldn't it be really, really cool? So therefore, it's not impossible in the game - just really hard. Everybody got a chance to prove how badass they were in their areas of expertise. 8) One thing I think was pretty useful was getting input from the players after every session: what did they like? What didn't they like? What did they think they were going to try next? What sort of things were they going to try and work towards? It really helped me improve things as we went along. Things I hope to have in any campaign I play in include much of the same. Biggest game-killers in my book: GMs who don't put in the effort to make you feel like you're in a fleshed-out world, and players who sleepwalk through the game without trying to get into it - the best games happen when everyone can feed off each others enthusiasm.