Law Dog

For the record, Gilligan gained super-strength (from the spinach), Mary Ann gained telescopic vision (from the carrots), and Mrs. Howell gained super-speed from the sugar beets. Now the real stumper for you Gilliganophiles: What is Ms. Howell's maiden name (Which was presented on the show) and even harder, what was her first name (You didn't think it was Lovey, did you?). Much like Willy Gilligan, this was never presented on the show, but good ole Mr. Schwartz had one in mind.

And let us not turn a blind eye towards what is hommage, what is parody, what is iconic and what is a little too close for comfort. Frankly, I'm surprised that there wasn't a bigger stink about Squadron Surpreme, especially the extended roster. Even going as far to put out the New World Order one shot after the JLA made their big comback. It's one thing when the characters are closer to parody and are going to only have a single appearance, such as the obvious evil versions of the Avengers that acted as villains in an issue of the Authority (which of course has two iconics of the Upstanding flying brick and the ruthless, shadowy martial artist). I felt that Squadron Supreme may have crossed some of the lines. On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed Alan Moore's hommage to Superman and the JSA in the pages of Supreme and didn't feel it crossed the line because the stories that were being told involved character types that DC no longer published. The typing in the cast of SS was actively being used. I think that Punisher is a bit too close to Mack Bolan, albeit infinitely better written by Garth Ennis, except of course for Doug's book. The Fantastic Four brings to mind Danger Unlimited. It passes my test for being hommage. And of course, there is times that actual parallel development occur. What I really got a kick out of was a little movie made for HBO called Earth vs the Spider. Not the original with the giant tarantula (although it's a fun movie), this one involved a comic book geek who got spiderpowers to emulate his comic hero. This baby was in the can at least a year before Spider-Man hit the silver screen, but some of the concepts from Spider-Man were thre in EvtS. We had the organic webs (though these came from the navel), we had the sickness right arter the point of infection, we had genetic engineered spiders, ect. I did like one of the guys powers from EvtS that Peter didn't have. He was incredibly sensitive to vibration. It almost gave him a primitive N-Ray vision versus structures he was touching. Nobody is going to accuse Ted Rami of ripping off EvtS, but definitely parallels exist between the movies because they are logical extropolations of what would happen if somebody inherited spider powers.

Correct. Wonderful scenario. It also makes them keep it brief. Wonderful flavor device.

Back in the 80's I was playing a teenaged superhero named Wonder Boy. We had already had one run in with a flaming flyer named Pyron where Wonder Boy had been pretty badly injured. The GM informed up later than this wacko got his kicks off of flying over grade schools and burning up the kids. My major one-charge attack was my "Spectrum Action Figure", which was an action figure that looked like my teammate, an EP named Spectrum. It was 3d6 of explosion. Up to this point, I didn't ever have to use it, but Pyron showed back up and talked some smack. I announced to the GM "I'm going to kill Pyron. The bastard doesn't deserve to live. Three!" I let the dice go and there they were, 1 1 1. Come to find out, Pyron had no resistant defenses (bad design on the part of the GM). Boom! The look on the GM's face was priceless.

Even for the time, the villains were horribly designed and calculated. One of the villains had an OAF that teleported back to his hand whenver he was disarmed. Yeah, that's an OAF. A compitent GM probably count use the designs for inspiration and come up with some viable designs.

I thought it was pretty "slick". Alas, oils well that ends well. Somebody hit me.

An home to heroes like Derrick - The human oil well. bwahaha

DC was always bad about that. They drove Captain "Shazam" Marvel out, only to pick him up as a licensed character in the 70's. They even went (unsuccessfully) after The Greatest American Hero, although his origin and modus operandi were closer to Green Lantern, but they claimed infringement on Supes. I guess If you're a flying brick with a cape, DC thinks you're a Superman ripoff.

I've got to admit though that without the right group, horror falls flatter than a pancake. I always seem to attract at least one that wants to be a moster-whipping superman in a game a normals vs the unknown game.

However, Mesa, AZ is estimated to hit the 500,000 mark before 2010. I guess we'll get our hero thereabouts. It's a dirty job, but what the hell, I'll do it.

Some A$$hole down at Marvel decided that at least for the southwest, the villains would be "themed". Anybody remember the abominations that were Cactus, Gila, Sunstroke and Butte (the Butte of all jokes). I'd like to plant my foot in this idiots groin. If they designed New York villains according to this nonsense, we'd find Taxi-Cab Hack, the Mugger and Smells-like-Urine Subway Dweller as part of the villains that Spidey and Daredevil would be facing.

After running a 350 campaign last year, the group I play with came to the consensus that we didn't like the power level. It just seemed that the diversity spread so wide, that everybody wound up being able to do just about everything and the interdependance on other team members just wasn't there. It may have just been the way the characters were designed, but it left us feeling somewhat disatified. I think were going for a 275-300 with a 125 point base next time around. How does everybody else like the standard 350 campaign?

I see Will Riker with a tire iron. Opps, my bad. That'd be Number One. How about 7 of 9 with a tire iron? And a bikini? Now that's a pleasent image.

Heh. For a second there I was wondering why this wasn't over in the Star Hero section. I was thinking "Gee, Supreme, Earth 2 wasn't really a very good show to begin with, why would anybody want to run a campaign based on it." My bad. I played in a dimension hopping GURPS mini-series in the mid 90's. It was fun. I believe was had 6 sessions and the campaign had a definite beginning, middle and end.

How about an A.I. with the flight and navigation skills?

Re: Comliness? You hit the fish on the head here, Jim. Strange you should mention Julia Roberts. I find her very attractive, but if you look at each of her facial features individually, it's kind of odd. Using the classic standards of beauty, her mouth is a little wider and nose a little longer than the norm. I've even heard her make this analysis. And, of course, personality has a large component in comliness. About everything I've ever seen her in, she's been playing somebody nice, so immediately she gets pushed up the comliness scale. I'd personally rather date a really, really nice, kind and decent 6 over a bitchy & petty 10 any day. BTW - Stay out of Mesa. We don't want you Chandler people stinking up our fine city and welcome to the board.

Well, although I do agree that Champions is the most complete and specific supers RPG on the market, let's not turn a blind eye towards a few of the legitimate problems with the system. As a combat simulation, it is #1, but occassionally suffers from being somewhat slow and pretty rigid as well as some folks looking at it as more of an exercise in bookkeeping than some of the other systems. Also, unfortunately, some of us also feel that it hasn't really been able to create its own "Universe" successfully. In many of our cases, this isn't a problem as we either use another already created universe, one we created from whole cloth, or a combination of the two. Take Green Ronin's Mutants & Masterminds, the new kid on the block and their proposed material already seems to capture the comic book feel.

Let's all remember a forgot concept of 80's/90's roleplaying. It's okay to take extra disadvantes and such for no points. Unless a person was inherently dangerous with their lack of skill and was still bound and determined to do it or they insisted on using their lack of skill in situations that would constantly cause discomfort in others (like somebody who thinks they can bake, but can't, and they keep on cooking for you and you have to eat it), then it's not really a disadvantage. It might be better reflected with a psych lim (Insists on juggling knives even though person is likely to fumble) or a distinctive feature (always singing off key).

Reminds me of a NPC Duece I created for a Wildcards game called Lady Laxitive.

The Venusian Veinseeker was kind of fun. A phlobotomist with a knack for engineering and a paranoid delusional to boot, he created his phlobodocable backpack which was similar to the drug extracting device in I Come In Peace. He belived he was on a mission from the Venusian HemoLords to collect blood to reseed their planet. Mars may want our women, but Venus needs our blood.

OMG. Whatta dork. The couple of people I've seen with two different colored eyes, I'd call it a few extra points of comliness, maybe because it's exotic. This guy wants DF for it, then he gets like one normal eye and one hideously glowing eye or the second eye id the size of a pool ball.

And there we run smack dab into one of those little sticking points of A=B, but B not being equal to A. Yes, the Nazi's were German, but the Germans were not all Nazis. The statement actually refers to the point that nobody is going to be surprised to find out a Nazi is a villain.

I hear Shaman and Apache Chief are hanging together these days.

Yup. I'm thinking C, too. They needed a really big actor that didn't look like a dough ball and looked like he could rip Ben Affleck a new cake hole. M. C. Duncan fit the bill perfectly. On top of the fact that was brought to mind while watching the stand-up's on Comedy Central. He pointed out the African-American males look menacing with a shaved head, but generally speaking, a Caucasian guy usually looks like he's undergoing chemotherapy. Not always, but often.

Could be Lite as in Lite Armor System. Could also hint at a heavier version of this suit.