Supreme

Re: Background Cliches

10. Some bizarro uber-powerful race of humans that were tweaked by aliens and now either reside in secrecy on Earth or one of the nearby planets.

Hurm... That one's actually rather new to me. It might be interesting to see the cultures that spring up from the people who comprise these colonies, particularly from the time periods they came from: 1950s world, 1800s world, etc.

Re: Background Cliches

6. The government is running a top-secret super-soldier program. Which produces one (or more) PC heroes and one (or more) NPC villains.

 

This one is in-progress in my own campaign.

Actually, what I've observed is that the "heroes" turned out by this program are always villains beneath the veneer and engage in viciously brutal and politically incorrect human rights violations. The only "heroes" from these programs are the maverick "anti-heroes" who defect.

You've read them. You've probably even written them. Now, let's hear 'em. Tell us the most over-used elements from a super-hero campaign background that you have personally witnessed. I'll start.

1. The first super-hero is from the pre-war period and is a patriotic flying brick modelled after Superman (who was not very patriotic back then, btw).

2. Super-heroes are given the bum's rush during the mid-50s McCarthy era.

3. Mutant registration acts.

Re: Good "Four of a Kind"'s...

Has anyone covered John, Paul, George, and Ringo yet?

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics

For me it's a tie between the Martian Manhunter and Jimmy Olsen.

Re: Defensive Power Suggestions

Knockback in space can be a real stone-cold *ahem*. Once you fall off the rock you left your spare air tanks on and have spun around a few dozen times' date=' they all start to look the same. I'd recommend an internal gyroscope and omnidirectional stabilizing jets, aka Knockback Resistance.[/quote']

Hmm. That's not bad. I was also thinking of some kind of clinging.

Re: Defensive Power Suggestions

Flash Defence would seem a must. Accidentally looking directly into the sun without it in space is bad, I think.

 

Since your head is entirely enclosed, you'd probably gain a little hearing flash defence and lose a little bit on your hearing perception roll. When you're out in the vaccum of space mining asteroids, you arent going to be talking to anyone except through the suit intercom, so it is doubtful that there is an external sound pickup included.

 

If the suit is not self sealing, you could put a limitation on the life support (vacuum) that it automatically fails if any BODY damage penetrates the suit's PD/ED, and on the life support (breathing) also. Or perhaps, instead of an instant failure on the breathing, it would become extremely limited duration if the suit was holed, depending on its special effect (ie, does the suit hold very little air and have a recylcer, or does it have a long lasting reservoir? If the former, then losing even a little air volume would leave the recycler with nothing to work with, and if the latter, then a hole in the suit would result in several hours worth of air being used up in minutes or seconds, as the suit opens the valves all the way to try to keep internal pressure up.)

You're right about the Flash defense. Astronauts have to wear specially-tinted visors for that. Don't know if I want to give up any hearing, though. Radio L/T sounds quite appropos.

Re: Defensive Power Suggestions

For the micrometeorites' date=' I'd go for a Force Wall that has PD but is transparent to Energy (a repulsor/deflector field), especially if you have energy-attacks of your own (like your rock-melting mining laser?). Your LS: Radiation should cover the cosmic/solar radiation, I'd think (not to mention the Damage Redux). If the suit's designed for real long-term use (or long-term survival), some of the extended times on bodily necessities (eating, sleeping) might be in order.[/quote']

Not sure if I like the FW, because it's not mobile. I thought of attaching powers related to mining, like tunneling or EB, but then I thought it would be better to keep things simple and say that the suit just allows the miner to work in space with a variety of external equipment. The LS should keep me safe from cosmic rads and the normal solar radiation, but solar flares is another story. Those things can cook you like a steak if you're outside of the magnetosphere. I also thought of extending the LS to cover eating (reducing the need for sleep would require drugs), but then thought it wasn't really necessary for a Champs character and decided he would leave the water and Tang packs at home.

Re: Achilles' Heels

I do Achilles Heels all the time. I think it's the weaknesses that make super-heroes more interesting than their powers. The last significant AH (we call them "shut-off conditions") was for the Golden Age version of my character Champion (there's a Silver Age version too). The GA Champion got his powers from Athena, who's never gotten along well with her uncle Poseidon. Thus, if Champion is ever surrounded by seawater he loses all of his powers. The SA Champion gets his powers from Cosmic radiation so if he's ever surrounded by lead, same deal. For me it's fun, but the GMs have a heck of a time maneuvering my Champions into their shut-off conditions (I only ever take a -1/4 for the limitation).

Re: Defensive Power Suggestions

Forcefield--it could act as that magnetic field surrounding you. Make it ablative--it can hold up to one really powerful solar flare long enough for the astronaut (or hero) to get to safety, and it helps to deflect those pesky micrometeorites (or space junk, if you're in Earth orbit).

 

Power defense--radiation has often been played as some sort of power attack in some of the games I've been in. Make it conditional to the magnetic field (forcefield) being up.

Hurm... not bad... Keep 'em coming.

Re: Most Embarassing Champions Moment

Most embarrassing Champions moment? Well, that'd be the time I got the entire team killed...

See we were fighting these aliens bent on invading Earth. We took over one of their space-craft and were using it to chase after another one. Well, we were having such difficulty piloting this strange, alien craft that I thought it would be simpler to ram the two crafts together. Both were powered by nuclear fission reactors. Kaboom. I thought the team mentalist could teleport us all to safety (this was in the days before megascale). Nope.

I'm making a powered-armor character whose suit is adapted from a super-space-suit intended primarily for asteroid mining. So far I have the following:

20 PD & ED, hardened and resistant

25% Damage Reduction, physical and energy, resistant

25% Damage Reduction, physical and energy, resistant, 14-

25% Damage Reduction, physical and energy, resistant, 11-

Life Support: self-contained breathing, vacuum, intense cold, high radiation

Any other suggestions? I'm thinking that the two main things to guard against are solar flar radiation and micro-meteorites. Perhaps some kind of intense magnetic field surrounding the character which deflects the particles as well as ferric projectiles? I want to make this character sort of a defense-specialty brick, so any ideas that you have which extrapolate from necessities of surviving deep space are also welcome.

Re: Unused Bird/Flying Creature Motifs

The tanager is also called the american firebird. Winterhawk's arch enemy is named this.

 

I can't remember if he's mentioned in the Wild Card books, but GURPS Aces Abroad has a character named Kookaburra, who can induce debilitating laughter in people.

I think Kookaburra was mentioned briefly in Wild Cards IV as one of the numerous, if undeveloped, international aces.

Re: Character Creation WHOOPS!

In all of our games we have a strict one-free-re-write rule which basically says that at any time (preferrably in the beginning of the game) you can significantly re-write a character. The purpose of this is to avoid problems like this. We also allow fairly significant re-writes of powers if people are pumping EPs into it. Everyone understands that the purpose isn't to maximize a character's efficiency against specific obstacles in the campaign (i.e., villains), but to allow for more fair treatments of the underlying concepts of the characters.

Re: Unused Bird/Flying Creature Motifs

Lots of good suggestions, though I should say most of them would be unheard of to anyone but a bird watcher or ornithologist.

"Nah, I ain't gonna join you guys on the bank job."

"Why not?"

"'cause a the Grossbeak!"

Just doesn't ring right. Still some of the names are pretty cool. Maybe for a sidekick.

Every time I try to think of a cool bird or motif for a character I get stuck because it seems like they've all been done. Bats, hawks, falcons, ravens, doves, and on and on. (I'm speaking only of comics here, not published HERO characters.) Anyone know of any unused flying creatures? Menacing ones preferred.

Re: Need help with speedster

I would first ask them what it is they want from playing a speedster, and give them that (within usual limitations for points and/or effectiveness) and only that. I don't know how experienced the player is, but it sounds like they don't know the system very well. Players like that can bog down a game simply because they don't know what they can do and are overloaded with options. Keep it simple.

Re: Good "Four of a Kind"'s...

Also, how about four of the greatest (i.e. largest and most powerful) empires:

Rome

Mongolia

England

America (yeah, yeah, we're a democracy, but you get the idea...)

Re: Good "Four of a Kind"'s...

Here's an odd foursome: GURPS stats.

Strength

Dexterity

IQ

Health

I that should be pretty easy to translate into Champs characters.

Re: What If . . . Superman

Farmer.

 

I mean, would Clark really want to throw away all that Johnathon and his family (ancestors) has spent generations working at? And working the earth... That's a good and honorable profession...

For most farming Clark would be terrible. A lot of farming is very time sensitive, can't be rushed no matter what abilities or technology you have, and can't wait until you get back from fighting Lex Luthor.

What I see Clark doing is being any kind of independant contractor: web design, research, business analysis, etc.

Re: Spiffiest Power Name?

"Athena's Sight: N-Ray Vision, not through sea-water"

Athena is the goddess of wisdom. Wisdom is being able to "see" (in a "sense") what is hidden to most. Thus, N-Ray was called for. The obscurring phenomenon is sea-water because Athena and Poseidon have a long standing feud, and because the ocean is a classic symbol of the personal subconscious - the classic barrier to wisdom.

Re: Ultimate Wonder Twins

Stealing an idea from Alan Moore...

Zan and Jana are here to study Earth and it's dominant species, Homo sapiens. Their technology hinges on creating sub-dimensional pockets where bodies can be stored and switched with their bodies in normal space. Rather than giving them destructo-killer bodies to switch with, they are given bodies that allow them to observe without being noticed. Jana can thus become an organic replicant of any animal from Earth (with changes to the brain so it can house her mind). Zan switches with only one body, a bluish colony of nanites which resembles water (even closely imitates it in terms of phase changes etc. in case Zan is ever killed, the humans will never notice the nanites) and can change phase states as well as shape any time.

Things go wrong when they arrive and wind up getting the attention of the news-media. Suddenly the whole world is crying "invasion." The aliens send help in the form of an advisor to help them with their image: Gleek. See, whe this species grows old, they start to look like little blue monkeys. Gleek is too old to switch bodies (dangerous for the heart when they switch back). However he is cute to human eyes and quite wise. Gleek helps the twins spin their presense from mysterious aliens up to who-knows-what to benelovent super-heroes who just want to stop us from destroying ourselves, yada-yada-yada.

The whole "Wonder Twin powers - ACTIVATE!" bit is just something Gleek came up with for the cameras.

Re: Name for a fictional city

Well' date=' there is a real town named "Bat Cave" in North Carolina...[/quote']

And there are a couple of Smallvilles and Metropolises too.

Re: Name for a fictional city

Before you get completely settled on Cape Haven (which is a great name, btw) you might want to consider if there were any members of the team who died. Surviving members might want their fallen comrade, whose death prompted their retirement, to be honored in the naming. Obviously, no one wants a town named "Bat-Town," but they might go for "Wayne."

As for location... Large areas of New Mexico are well isolated, scenic, but still affordable because no one wants to live in a desert -- until supers move in and fix it up. I also, naturally, recommend Coastal Northern California. Beautiful weather, low pollution, and the price is cheap if you go far enough outside of the major cities. There's also Oregon for the same reasons, though the property taxes are very high.

Re: Visitor's Guide to Astro City

It's the next major story arc.

Over the next year, there is going to be a 12 issue mini called "Astro City: Dark age" IIRC. There will be 4 seperate 3 issue mini story arcs, and the whole thing will be about whatever it was that happened in the seventies that has been menioned a number of times.

Silver Agent won't be the focus character, but his story, and what happens to him, will be a major part of the story arc.

 

As I understand it, there are also oneshots set in the modern day to run between each 3 issue mini-arc so that we still get other AC stories while the big one goes on.

I had the remendous pleasure of meeting Brent Anderson at the ComicCon. At that time he had just received the first script for AC: Dark Age.