CandidGamera

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations 1.07 - Fantastic Foresight This episode had another tricksy pre-credits sequence, and introduced another logical-but-hitherto-unknown aspect of the campaign world. Precognitives are rare. Good ones, especially so. And as the players would learn, the registered ones tend to disappear from view. After all, how can any of the shadowy power groups resist the chance to recruit someone who can see the future? It's the superpowered equivalent of the Nuclear Arms race. This was also one of the more complicated plots I'd run.. it's rather baroque. (But if it ain't baroque, don't fix it!) We open with a misty vision of a large theatre building interior, in the upper balcony. A shot rings out and the POV shifts rapidly, as if looking for the source - shadows move in various corners of the theater - things begin to dim. There's a glimpse of Watchman's face, and then a smoking gun in Watchman's hand - and then we see a 16-year-old boy awaken from this dream, terrified. As an aside, it is very difficult to set up visions of the future that actually, subsequently come true in a roleplaying game. But once you know your players well enough, you can manage it, sometimes. Watchman's player was somewhat puzzled by this imagery, as I recall. Getting into the action - the team is called into Jack's office to meet Third Eye's best FBI contact - a 16-year-old mathematical genius (parahumanly so) named Garett Marson. He dates Jack's granddaughter, and sometimes slips Third Eye information from the FBI under the table. Marson tells the team about the 'conscription' of precognitives, and his precognitive friend, Robert Taylor. He informs them Robert has just had a vision of his own demise, and seems to have accepted his fate - Garett would like Third Eye to get him to reconsider. Robert had the vision above, and he's also seen the most likely alternative - his abduction and indoctrination by dark power groups, to further their own evil ends. He's dead-set that he should go to the "Triumph Theatre" that night, even if it means getting shot. He's both dismayed and comforted when he meets Watchman, whom he recognizes from the vision. The situation is far from cut and dry, though. I'll need to sidebar here, for GM-side information. There are five top-class assassins in the world. Anaamika, mistress of combat; Crosshair and Pinpoint, the only two active masters of a gun-based martial arts style (one of whom was Watchman's instructor in his future); Reaper, who I recently described here, and Abattoir. Crosshair and Pinpoint are relevant here. Their mastery of guns, like Watchman's, is beyond the cinematic and into the "patently ridiculous". They can deflect bullets by shooting them out of the air. This was already an established power of Watchman's. You need to know that before I explain the plot.. The Brotherhood of the Eternal Sun hired Pinpoint to shoot Bobby with a special posioned bullet - not meant to kill, but to injure. Once he's taken to an ambulance, they foresee they'll have the best chance to abduct him. England's MI7 (which handles the supernatural in my campaign) caught wind of this, and employed Crosshair to interfere with the shooting. However, they are under the impression that the Brotherhood intends to kill Bobby, having ruled out an abduction as unfeasable. Crosshair is supposed to deflect Pinpoint's bullet after it's fired - make it a flesh wound instead of a kill. An MI7 team will be waiting in the ambulance outside... So already, it's a complex situation. Pinpoint and Crosshair fire almost simultaneously - the complication being that since it was already a "shoot to wound" the deflection makes it into a potentially lethal shot. But Watchman is there, and he deflects the bullet entirely, and Bobby faints, fulfilling his vision. Watchman spots someone in the upper lighting rig trying to make a getaway, and gives chase. The rest of the team moves to get Bobby outside - where there's already an ambulance, suspiciously. They exchange some dialogue with the MI7 agents and manage to talk it out, and zip off in the ambulance, Raven's limo following close behind. Meanwhile, on the roof, Watchman confronts one of the gunmen - thinking it might be his future teacher. (Pinpoint) It turns out to be Crosshair, who fouls the safety-catch on Watchman's pistol with a shot, and dives backwards off of the roof, somersaulting into his waiting spymobile. (working for MI7 has it privileges.) Watchman gives chase on his motorcycle. He follows Crosshair, who's trying to track down Pinpoint. On arrival at Pinpoint's motel, there's a large explosion - the Brotherhood intending to off Pinpoint to cover their tracks. All three gunmen survive, and there's a bit of a Mexican standoff - until they all decide they don't much care for the Brotherhood. Then Watchman receives a call from the rest of the team on his wrist radio - seems the ambulance and limo are under attack by a large gargoyle creature - the Brotherhood's agent for abduction. Pinpoint and Crosshair hop in Crosshair's car, and Watchman takes his bike, and they speed to the scene, and help the rest of the team fight off the Gargoyle. MI7 is then able to safely spirit Bobby away to England, with Bobby's consent.

Re: Best supporting non-super character in comics? L-Ron, in his normal "robot" body. Not really super, and provides an excellent foil for Max Lord. Him, or Cheeks, the Toy Wonder.

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations Ack! Footnote on the above - his assailant. The PCs never discovered this, but since only one of them reads this forum, and the game's almost done, I can reveal. The assailant was not Slink as might be implied by the text - obviously, the formulae had been purloined earlier. Rather, it was a first assassin hired by the Brotherhood to eliminate Weiss. The Assassin failed, and Breakdown was sent in. What actually occurred after the credits-teaser : Weiss whirled on his attacker, punched him out cold, and locked him away to interrogate or use as experimental fodder later. Weiss has used some of his own superpower treatments on himself, over the years.

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations 1.06 - Miami Weiss Here's where things start to exhibit synchronicity. The area of the Yucatan in which the team just battled vampiric ants? Near the site of a UFO crash in 1938, that left behind an alien mineral.. (Elerium, for you X-Com fans out there) with exotic radiation that could be used in a number of ways. It also changed the local flora, which then contributed to research, in the 1950's, by a former German scientist, then working for the US Government, about the stimulation of parahuman abilities. The WONDER drug showed similarities to that particular floral chemical compound.. Pre-Credits : Arthur's face, illuminated by a computer screen, as he researches the above, concluding with a headshot of the lead scientist of the research project, Dr. Hans Weiss - fading from the headshot to the much older face of that same man today, puttering around his Florida lab. A shadow appears behind him, and he is struck on the head from behind. (At this point, a groan of dismay went up from the players - whether it was from the cliched opening, or the potential frustration of their investigation into WONDER, I'll never know.) The team is briefed on Dr. Weiss, and heads to Miami to meet with him. When they arrive, he's still rubbing his head ruefully, and at first, he is distrustful, but warms to them, offering them lollipops as he shows them around his lab. As a sidebar : Dr. Weiss is a "Scientist!". Meaning, he's an expert in just about every field of science - one of those rare supergeniuses. He did some nasty things while working for Germany, no doubt, but he's mellowed in his old age, and sees parahumans as the wave of the future. As a matter of fact, he's perfected a machine to endow humans with certain particular superhuman abilities - and has a local "vigilante" group that provides him with security because of his hand in their creation. I told the PCs to picture Christopher Lloyd, as Doc Brown, but with a German accent. He reveals that the government dismissed him after the failure of his early efforts - but that more recently, his notes on the chemical inducement of parahuman abilities were stolen from him. He suspects a girl to whom he gave invisibility powers. The complication to this routine investigation comes when the Brotherhood sends along a hired gun to take care of Weiss and Third Eye and wipe out the evidence. The NPCs of Third Eye have faced him before - Breakdown, one of the world's most potent telekinetics. They'd used Damper's emotion-draining powers to beat him in the past, but this time he has a little headband providing some extra mental defense. They ultimately manage to nullify the headband and put things on a more equal footing - and Breakdown flees. Then the team contacts the invisible girl - her codename is Slink, and she's ex-CIA, now a professional thief, hired by persons unknown to undergo the invisibility treatment and steal Weiss's notes. Raven seems to have an immediate affection for her, and they do have similar refined sensibilities. She is able to identify the person to whom she delivered the research notes, though : Max Epstein.

Re: Dark Champions Campaigns And this is the one I'm currently summarizing, and about to wrap up as far as playing : http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=938148

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations They don't often make a lot of money. They are, on rare occasions, hired to investigate oddities - and are listed in the yellow pages as a traditional detective agency. But their primary source of funding is a financial backer, which I will discuss, since you've asked. The pre-credits stuff always occurs in-session - though I dropped it for later episodes. If the PCs are there, then it's not just narrated, it's played out. If the PCs are getting a "viewer's perspective" - like with Swarm-Blooded - it's just narrated. No, Magicians are exempt from the Registration Act (the Gellar Act is the one that allows for secret proceedings in trials where magic is involved.) The courts were not involved in providing the exemption - the objection was raised on the Senate floor that users of spellcraft are in many cases just practicing their religion, and that the Registration Act thusly could be struck down if used against a practitioner of magic. It's a somewhat weak objection, but it influenced the final form of the act, primarily because the Brotherhood of the Eternal Sun used its influence to make sure that the Registration Act was narrowly-focused. The Congress, Supreme Court, and Executive portions of the U.S. Government are all informed, upon election or appointment, of the existence of the supernatural. Many of these political sorts are already aware of it, having forged deals with sorcerors to increase their chances of winning, or having received backing from the Brotherhood of the Eternal Sun or its opposite number, the Illuminati. Of course, there are always "leaks" about the existence of the supernatural - sort of hard to keep that sort of thing a secret, right? True practitioners don't spread the news that magic is real because magic is a fading, limited resource in the campaign - and the more people there are using it, the less there is to go around. Occasionally, someone will see something supernatural - and if it can't be readily explained as an example of non-mystical metahuman powers, and the witness is a credible one, then steps are taken to keep things quiet. More disreputable sorts, like the Brotherhood, may simply kill the witnesses. The government's official tactic is memory modification. One of the NPCs that the PCs have encountered is Allan Marchand, Director of the Magical Investigations Department at the CIA. One of the items in his charge is an ancient book of spells that deal with memory modification - this will be explained further when I get to the summary for "Mnemonic Possession". But the financial backing - the team was originally pulled together by Jack Spencer, a billionaire investor with his finger in a lot of pies. As the players would quickly learn, in "The Sound and Der Fuhrer" as I recall, Jack used to be a part of the original government parahuman team, back in the 30's and 40's. Kept young by an exotic mineral he discovered after his team investigated a UFO crash in the Yucatan back in '38, he doesn't tend to actively involve himself in the investigations unless absolutely necessary. He does pay for the equipment and salaries, though - which means he gets to encourage the team to investigate matters that might not be otherwise profitable.

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations Well, I've got some more time while waiting for something to happen at work. Additional note for 1.03 - the team had a side-trek to 'The Century Club' - for immortals and their guests. They were escorted by Randall O'Connor, a friend of the Third Eye organization - an Irishman who asked the faerie for immortality, and got what he wished for. Notable folks they met on that trip included Elias Vance, the aforementioned vampire Necromancer; Baron Marius Vykann, old European nobility from a country so tiny and obscure that it completely vanished from history - the club's owner; and a strange, crazed-seeming fellow in Victorian garb. 1.04 - Swarm-Blooded (alternate title : Chupacabre Cadabra) I really played up the "pre-Credits" sequence this time. Scene: a Mexican goatherd is tending his flock - he seems nervous. One of his goats, 'Cocha', is missing. He moves in the twilight, calling for the lost animal - he hears a stone fall behind him, turns, and screams. The team learns that something aggressive has been killing things in the Yucatan, near Campeche. They fly into Merida and head towards the latest disturbance. The problem had been around for years, but much more aggressive in recent months. The corpses have been found, drained of blood, and locals whisper of 'El Chupacabre'. The team has to deal with a vampiric panther, and the psychic's first Werewolf transformations - they're almost convinced the panther was the culprit, but no matching marks appear on the bodies. Then, a local vampire (of the non-evil persuasion) comes to help them back on the right track. She is Rosalita Alameda Cortes, daughter of the famed European explorer, and has lived in the area for many years. A shaman has been invoking dark magic at a nearby pyramid, which has stirred up the wrath of El Chupacabre - a vampiric ant colony. With their new ally, the team deals with the vampiric ant colony by staking the queen (who is fortunately of larger-than-normal size) - and then proceed to the pyramid, helping Rosalita to corner the shaman, whom she then kills. As a parting gift, Rosalita offers the psychic some special herbs that help her control the lycanthropic transformations. 1.05 - Power Trip In this episode, Third Eye discovers new varieties of the Wonder drug have hit the streets. In additional to the original Super-Strength flavor, there's Speed, Flight, Telepathy, Invulnerability, and Shapeshifting. (Disclaimer : Do not ingest more than one variety of Wonder at a time. Surgeon General's Warning : May cause Irrational Attraction to Spandex.) In addition to tracking down the new supply, the team has to do some damage control as a person who was already parahuman (a pyrokinetic) is forced to ingest one of the pills, sending his own natural powers haywire. Research and analysis of the improved pills indicate that longterm use promotes genetic mutation (resulting in an increased likelihood of spawning parahuman children) and increased libido - and these side effects appear to be deliberately engineered, as if the source wishes to cause a boom in the population of parahumans. The body-jacker spies on the team, again, as they do their work - and once they have the drug supply in hand, official government superteam Paradox arrives to take the supply and its protectors into custody.

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations Thanks. Let me know if at any point somethings needs to be clarified, or detailed. I'm basically writing "executive summaries" based on my original notes (written to plan the session) and my recollections thereof.

Re: [Campaign] Third Eye Investigations 1.03 - Bellevue to a Kill "Looney" Ben escapes from Bellevue with the help of an apparently mystic orb, in the pre-credits sequence. The team recaptures Ben, and investigates the orb. While the PCs and the bulk of the team are at Bellevue investigating the site itself, the personnel left behind in the base fall prey to the trojan horse - the orb releasing a tiny swarm of robots to disable the security systems of the base, and a potent gas to knockout those within. This was a plot by the Brotherhood of the Eternal Sun to (re)capture Arthur, but Arthur was with the PCs, so he kidnapped the other NPC team members instead, to use as bargaining chips. While at Bellevue, the Brazilian telepath/telekinetic is bitten by an autistic-seeming girl, and contracts lycanthropy. Once the abduction of the teammates is discovered, the telepath uses Mind Scan to track down the missing members - the team charging to rescue them at the pier where they're about to be loaded onto a ship. There was also a brief confrontation with the agent used to perform the abduction - Reaper. He's essentially an assassin for hire, but with a code of honor. Professor Raven gets to feel Reaper's telekinetic-force blades when he impishly tries to steal Reaper's pay envelope. This episode was the first time Professor Raven got involved in the action, as I recall, as he missed the first two sessions. It also began the Reaper/Raven "feud" - in order to discredit Reaper's standing with the Brotherhood, Raven began to loudly and obviously make "slips" implying that Reaper was working for Third Eye. No amount of my explanations that Reaper worked for whoever paid him, and thus had no loyalty to the Brotherhood anyway, would deter Raven from this course. Later on, Raven actually hired Reaper to do some legbreaking, so it finally sunk in. Reaper is a sort of interesting NPC to me - his powerset, particularly. I took the tactile-telekinesis idea from Superboy, and played around with it. He has accelerated running, enhanced leaping, clinging, and can generate a TK forcefield around himself. He can also manifest telekinetic force blades on each of his fists - they do a small amount of extra bioelectricity damage in addition to their cutting potential, and affect desolidified entities.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... No contribution of mine to a quote thread would be complete without mentioning my pal Eric. Eric.. well, Eric has a typically monotone delivery and a talent for saying precisely the wrong thing at the wrong time. (after generating a D&D type with high Will saves) Eric : I'm the guy that mind-affecting stuff doesn't affect all that much. (In regard to a past amusement) Eric : I found it funny once. Well, maybe twice. (Dismayed at his role in the party) Eric : Great, I have to be the thinker of the group. (One of his best ever) Eric : Only a fool knows no fear. I only know a little fear tonight. More to come...

Re: Best of the Bronze Age?

Re: Best of the Bronze Age? Well, assuming it started with the Crisis, and ended when it gave way to the darkness and violence of the so-called Iron Age? I don't know. DC didn't get really "Oh My God" dark until Identity Crisis. I mean, sure there were some darker themes here and there but it didn't really embrace cynical guntoting types like the Punisher and Cable the way Marvel did.

Re: Like a Defender from City of Heroes How is Raven not an Empathy/Dark Defender? Or possibly Dark/Dark.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Oh, I've got lots more, they just keep percolating back to my brain. I once played in the most high-powered RIFTs game ever - the acquisition of power was slow, but at the end, we were hunting Alien Intelligences for sport. Fun, in an over the top way. I made this comment, in regards to my character's power : "I was bitten by a radioactive God." This has become a catchphrase in the local group, for powerful characters. We also have the Ranma variant : "Fell into spring of drowned God." ------------------------------------------------------------------- I was playing the d6 DC Universe game, once upon a time, and the GM was running a 'Future Legion of Superheroes' campaign. I was in the role of Chlorophyll Kid II, but I was musing on some ideas for replacement characters, should I perish. There were a lot of legacy types, despite our being tens of thousands of years in the future, so finally, I came up with : "Magic-user, nebbishy descendant of a 20th century mystic. Neville Constantine, Heckblazer!" Never got to make the character though. I'm still hopeful that someday I might.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Let's see, I couldn't quite decide if this belonged in my Cool Moments in RPG History thread, or this one, so I'll just put it here. AD&D2.0. The world had been devastated by meteor shower. The humans and demihumans had gone underground, and the humanoid races like the Orcs had crawled out to the surface, taking the abandoned cities for their own. My character was Garion, and Elven Wizard with a foul-temperament who loved to study monsters. He'd managed to accumulate quite a few odd, low-powered magical items in his time. He and his dwarven compatriot were sent to one of the cities on a supply run, to see what they could gather. They stealthed amongst the orc patrols, visiting a few key buildings to recover items. Unfortunately, luck wasn't going to let them have a free pass, and they heard Orcs coming down the hall towards their position, and there was no way out. So I thought for a moment, and was ready as the Orcs burst through the door. I held my arms aloft and activated my 'Copper Bracelets'. For those unfamiliar, their power is that they glow a pale green. In my best booming voice, I shouted at the orcs, "FOOLS! Tremble before the might of my Bracelets of POWER!" The Orcs critically fail a morale check. They bolt, and we escape, scot-free.

Re: Like a Defender from City of Heroes Raven - yeah, I'd buy that. Scarlet Witch? Controller. Hawkeye, Green Arrow? Eh. I think lumping them in as Defenders really overstates their use of the trick arrows, and I think the Trick arrows were kind of a poor idea for a Defender set in the first place. They both should be a kind of Scrapper/Blaster Hybrid, really.

Re: Like a Defender from City of Heroes Green Lantern and Sue Richards both fit the bill. Iceman, I'd say no.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Let's see - again, not this week, but nice quotes.. D&D, 3rd Edition. I'm playing a Elven Ranger/Rogue with a serious Batman "Always-Prepared, Borderline Sociopath" vibe. We're commissioned by a country to ride along with a shipment to their northern colonies - it seems an Abyssal Dire Shark has been sinking the supply ships - and if this last batch doesn't get through before the winter freeze, all is lost. My character being who he is, he spends most of his time in the Crow's nest, on lookout. He has a massive bonus to Spot checks, so it's no surprise that he is the first to spot the shark. He slides down to the deck, to comment to his compatriots : "We're gonna need a bigger boat." I just couldn't resist! --------------------------------------------------- One of the characters I play from time to time is Victor. Victor is a Swashbuckler and Wizard (Fire Elementalism) in a friend's homebrewed system. (http://www.greylotus.org - Shameless plug!) Victor is very, very smart. Victor pretends to be a very, very dim fop. Victor also like to tie a cloth with two eyeholes over his face and buckle swashes as 'the Crimson Mask' - but that's neither here nor there. The point is, he gets some good lines now and then. Once, we were commissioned to rescue a Dragon from an evil Princess who'd imprisoned him in a dungeon. I piped in with "Oh, that's preposterous. Whoever heard of combining dungeons with dragons?" I know, I know. My favorite line I've delivered through him is probably the following : We were on a little island north of the main continent. We were after 'the Water Crest' - a mystical artifact we needed, that lay within the volcanic tubes that undermined the island. We found the artifact - and it's magic was holding the lava at bay. So we grabbed it and ran out very fast, as the lava - freed - began to move upwards. We were having a conversation with the mayor-type of the Island, and I was assuring him everything was going smoothly, nothing to worry about, et cetera. The GM informs us that the island was shaking, and began to sink (somewhat) into the ocean - apparently the pressure of the lava had been holding up the very tall island, and as the lava roiled out to meet the sea, there was a corresponding drop in height. I sort of cleared my throat nervously, and added to the mayor : "Well, some settling may occur."

Re: Love Child of the Marvel Universe With regard to Unus the Untouchable, my question isn't so much 'Why' as it is 'How?' The In-Betweener. *snrk* Now I have the image of Eternity filing a paternity suit against the In-Betweener with the Living Tribunal..

Re: Best of the Bronze Age? See, I have a problem answering this. I define the ages differently than most, because I'm biased. I see the Silver Age as running all the way up to 1985, with Crisis. Still. I suppose I can work within a "normal" definition of Bronze Age - I would first recommend the DC Universe Alan Moore collection, which sort of bridges the Bronze/Iron gap.

Re: Super-Skills Megathread

Re: What concepts have you used for a 'Superman'? For my beloved Pulp Supers game, I once sent the party sneaking over the Russian border after a mysterious meteor - and the Russians had already sent an agent after the same goal. This was how they encountered the previously-only-rumored White Russian. The White Russian was gestating in his mother's womb when the Tunguska event occurred. (In this world, a byproduct of Tesla's "beamed energy" experiments.) His genetic makeup was irretrievably altered - and in an era where most genetic abnormalities led to, at best, a Captain-America type power level, the White Russian was truly a superman. His altered DNA rendered him almost completely white - his name either an ironic joke on the part of his Soviet commanders, or a blatant jab at the peaceniks in their organization. He had the capability to fly; he was very strong, and almost invulnerable. His senses were keen, but not to the degree of Superman's. His powers used energy from a constant internal reaction that he could control only to a limited degree - if he overused his powers, or failed to use them at all, the waste heat generated from within would begin to cause him pain. Still, he was able to maintain an "overdrive" mode for a limited time, more if he found himself in a cold environment. The waste heat issue caused him to be slightly more vulnerable to heat-based damage, in the form of fatigue. If rendered unconscious, he'd soon wake up - thanks to a regenerative capacity, and the ever-increasing pain from the fires within. He no longer needed to eat, or sleep, and did not age. It was during the excesses of Stalin's regime that the Russian became dissatisfied with his country's leadership - though still a firm believer in Communism, he began to become disobedient - guided more by his love of the people and his own sense of honor than the orders of his superiors. He was branded an outlaw at last, and though hunted by the Russian military, he continued to protect the people of Russia until hunted down, in the early 1980's, by the fire-wielding armored troopers of the growing World Government. The conflagration was enormous, and after an epic battle that lasted for an hour, there was an explosion that levelled the trees for a mile around, and the White Russian was nowhere to be found. For those of you with City of Heroes, I play this fellow as White-Russian on Virtue.

Re: Super-Skills Megathread Glad you enjoy! So when are we gonna see Humor HERO?

Re: Super-Skills Megathread Back-Seat Driver : +4 to Combat Driving, Usable on Others, Incantations. "Nononono, that way!" "Turn left! LEFT!"

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... This is a cheat, because it didn't happen this week. And it wasn't in the HERO system. But it was a Pulp Superheroes game. Let me set the scene. We have Lawrence, playing snooty, alcoholic and corrupt English archaeologist, Reginald Spencer. We have Charles, playing somewhat noble flying ace Sam Sterling. We have Eric, playing a 'Shadow' type martial artist, The Zephyr. AKA 'Arthur Turlington'. The three PCs were at a black-tie soiree in the 1930's. Reginald Spencer spots his rival archaelogist, vindictive French vixen Marie Belloq (NPC). After a short exchange of quips, the following perfect moment ensued : Marie : Don't go getting yourself killed, Spencer. Your life is mine to end. Spencer : Don't worry. I'll stay alive for you, Marie.. Professional Courtesy. Marie : Since When are you professional? Arthur, Sam (in unison) : Or Courteous?