Law Dog

Originally posted by tiger

True..In the comics it is said that Batman knows every form of Martial Arts known to man. This is quite impossible unless you several hundred years old.

 

While it might be possible to know the basic form, Kung Fu, it would be impossible to know every subform, Dragon, Tiger Claw etc, of every form of martial arts..

 

Again, this is a case being too literal. Batman, as presented, never fights by using any specific form. He's just kicking ass and taking names. Maybe the closest thing that his combat style would be compaired to would be Jeet Kune Do.

And, of course, in the land of comic books, a person could have mastered every known form of martial arts if the author said they did because - - - It's Fiction.

Of cousrse there is also the counterpoint that waged for hundreds of posts on the old boards that Batman isn't really a normal and even if you do classify him as a normal, that he doesn't need to fit the stats for a normal.

Nice thing about Champions is that there are many roads to get to Rome on. You can create a very valid Batman and still keep his stats all under 20 if you wish. You just start loading up non-power powers like Dex Drain versus hand-to-hand opponent, only benefits Batman (to simulate how Batman is the superior martial artist) and put his utility belt on a cosmic power pool (to simulate how he was fortunate enough to put exactly what he needed in the belt that morning).

The key is to remember that you're trying to simulate Batman how he is portrayed in the comics, not how he would operate in the real world.

It's a good buy, even with the shipping costs for anybody who doesn't have one. The cover art is wonderful with a host of people represented that will have anybody familiar with the pulp era rapt with joy.

Originally posted by Herolover

Yes there was an episode of which you speak. It was in the Battlestar Galactica: 1980 series. Saying Battlestar Galactica: 1980 to a BG fan is much the same as saying Fuzion to a Hero System fan. No one considers cannon. Even Glen Larson, creator of the show, no longer considers it cannon.

Ah, C'mon, Dr. Zee was so cool.

Heh, I'll just go sit down now.

Of course, in superhero games, death is rarely perminant. Who's stayed dead all these years except for Uncle Ben, the Flash (Barry Allen) and Bucky? It's a standard genre convention that if a hero goes down with the ship, he or she will probably be back. It's a wonderful dramatic opportunity for the campaign and can give a player a break from a character that they still love, but want to try something different for a while.

Look at who's back these days. Hal Jordan/Green Lantern is now the Specter. Green Arrow is back. Hawkman is back (even if everybody is still confused about who he was). Superman was dead, but got better. Most of Marvels heroes were thought dead, shunted to a pocket universe, died multiple times and finally came home.

Death, it's not the end, it's more of a vacation.

Re: re: Organization vs Characters.

Originally posted by misterdeath

 

Make the organization the focus. In Chill, that was SAVE. The organization gathered the PCs together, and sent them out on monster hunting missions. I was a kind GM, and only had 50% casualties. The GM that introduced the game to me had a 85%.

 

And, we loved it. My character may well have gotten put into a coma, but I gained the piece of information necessary for Dave's character to kill the beastie by burning the house down. Next time, Keith's character got his head turned around backwards, but I managed to stake the vampire while she was distracted. Teamwork and the overall mission were the focuses of the campaign. Not individual PCs.

 

 

D

Not a bad idea, Mister Death, but it is so contrary to why most people are playing RPG's. Most people what to do neat things and make witty quips and then get mad/disappointed/unenthused when something happens to their character. Even in most fiction we read and watch, we are usually more interested in the character than the organization/group.

Case in point - Sliders. When the original four were there, it was a wonderful show, but every time they lost somebody, the show became worse. That last season was a damned joke. I mean, I watched it because I still liked Remmie, but I wasn't real interest in the rest of the show anymore.

If you have too high of a turnover (character, not player) in any campaign, it starts changing everything.

Oh, and here is a great collection of lame folk.

http://www.sean-walsh.com/comixlibrary/lame.htm

Of special note is the really lame southwest villains of Gila, Butte and Cactus (I think Sunstroke was with these clowns). As a resident of the Southwest, I really want to kick the ass of the clown that came up with these refugees from the Tick. Pretty trite. I can see the fool who created these thinking "Duh, oh boy, I'll make some villains that are instantly recognized as being from the southwest. Never been there, so I'll make them so stupidly stereotypical, I'll have time to get back to my pudding before I get in my PJ's for beddy bye."

Well, pal, here are some New York villains that you can use.

The Mugger. He mugs people all the time. Hundreds of people every day.

Taxi Cab Hack. He steals from people who mistakenly get in his cab.

Smells-Like-Urine Subway Dweller. His name says it all.

The Pigeon. The newest aerial threat. Drops his special pigeon bomb on your car.

Hey, look at me, I can write for Marvel.

Originally posted by Rage

AHh the old MORT of the month...

I would have to say Eye man.. with eyes on his hands.

You mean the Ten-Eyed Man from Batman and Man-Bat appearances in the 70's. Thankfully, he met his fate in the pages of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

His optic nerves literally ran through his finger tips. The police were so afraid that this ability would help him escape, they kept him in his cell with his hands locked in a lightless box. Now how the heck would this help you escape? If anything, it would impede you since his finger tips were incredibly sensitive to pressure, just like your eyes. He certainly couldn't pick the cell lock. Other than using this power to get a cheap thrill in area where the woman wear short skirts and sit (like in restaurant booths), I can't see much of a positive to it.

Originally posted by Herolover

So far there have been 3 groups that have tried to get Battlestar Galactica revival going.

 

1) Richard Hatch, Apollo, has tried for years to get something off the ground and has even paid for and shot some test footage/trailers. He can't seem to get any support though.

 

Which goes beyond bizarre because it's Glen Larson's intellectual property. I'd be like one of us producing Star Wars: Episode 7 "At Least My Movie Doesn't Suck" and expecting George Lucas to let us run with it. Let's face it, you can't just swipe somebody elses universe and start monkeying with it for profit. In some ways it a shame, because we all know we any one of us could have made a better movie than The Phantom Menace.

Originally posted by Geoff Speare

I loved this series too, and hope that they can find some way to revive it. I haven't done any conversion work, though I don't think it would be a big deal to do.

I wish this, too, but now that they tore down the set last week and the actors that played Mal and Zoe have moved on to new series, it seems sadly unlikely.

Firefly was so badly mishandled by Fox (producers of schlock like Joe Doofus, oh . . sorry, Millionaire) that it was doomed from the start.

Originally posted by Herolover

I actually like the idea of a Firefly campaign and think it would work really well as long as you realize it is basically a western re-written for sci-fi.

 

Which is pretty much what Star Trek was. Star Wars, of course, was pretty much a Samurai tale and we all know that those translate well to westerns - Seven Samurai to Magnificent Seven to Battle Beyond the Stars (sci-fi). And of course High Noon (western) translated nicely to Outland (sci-fi).

Originally posted by Syberdwarf2

Subject to Orders and Watched actually kind of belong together. A police officer is subject to orders. If the police officer isn't watched, he could turn into a rouge cop/bad cop.

Which can, does, and has happened.

Good points, but the way I tend to look at it has to do with character (psych lims, actually) of the character. I'd rule that if the character would never, under normal circumstances, do anything that would get them in trouble from being watched, then they don't get the Watched as a disadvantage.

It's kind of like only letting the characters get points for psych lims that are actually of consequence. Who of us in the real world counld come up with a long-as-your-sleeve list of personality quirks that you have in real life. Play a board game like Scruples sometimes for further enlightenment about yourself.

The point is, most of the time we wouldn't do anything real bad in the real world, at least not if there was a good chance we could get caught. Most of us speed to some extent, but the police aren't actively out radar-gunning us specifically. Some of us have been known to get creative with our taxes, but the IRS isn't usually auditing us to get their extra $20. My take on it is, unless you are doing something actively or have done something in the past or some agency believes that you have a reason to do something, you don't get the Watched.

Now, if it comes about during roleplaying that the character does something to invoke one of these reasons, then they get the Watched, just like acquiring a new hunted with no points.

It's sort of like innocent until proven guilty. Sure IAD watches cops, but it doesn't watch them specifically without reason. This is why their are some bad cops (at least in fiction) that get away with a lot. Some of them are actively watched, but still don't get caught because they are that far ahead of the ball game.

To me, Watched implies the watcher has a reason to be watching and if they are watching at just the right time, then the consequences will be dire.

Originally posted by Koshka

Of course, an Enterprise-class ship (what was the actual class name, anyway?)

The original Enterprise was Constitution class.

It may be gone, but not forgotten.

Anybody tackle any part of this wonderful universe for Star Hero yet?

One of my favorite variations on Speedsters came up a few times on the old board. It involved Duplication with some limitations on duplicates appearing only within the path it would be possible for the speedster to move along. It's very pricy, but a Flash level speedster isn't going to be cheap. It works well for a speedster needing to make multiple skill rolls in the same phase (like doing a little high speed chemistry experiment) and then tossing the mixture into the mouth of the rampaging monster.

It's a good question. My own take would be the Subject to Orders limitation would fit the bill for normal duty military and police and the Watched could be an additional limitation in a circumstance where the Watchee is doing or has the opportunity to do something that the Watchers wouldn't approve of.

So, let's say your a normal LAPD detective who isn't prone to go too far outside of the normal limits of police behavior, then the Subject to Orders is fine, but if you're like Vic Makey from the Shield, you definitely get the Watched which means when you act outside your perview, you had better make sure you cover your tracks well.

An extra inch, or is that an extra 3 meters? That could be scary.

Also, remember that at least with Bendii's syndrome, Vulcans become projecting empaths when suffering from this condition. Which lends some credence to the usable at range with limitations for Vulcans.

It's really hard to site just how much presented on Star Trek is canonical and what isn't. Does the Ferengi four lobe brain prevent telepathic intrusion or doesn't it? (Depends on the episode). Can a half-Betazoid communicate telepathically with somebody that they are close to? (Deanna does to Riker on the 1st episode of TNG, but never again, otherwise Disaster would have been a lot less suspenseful when she confirmed Riker was alive in the engineering section.) And, of course, the distance and amount of surrounding people have effected Betazoid telepathy/empathy to varying degrees in different episodes.

Of course, the real meat of this subject is why are we quibbling over such minutae in a mainly superhero rpg. The size of the gun tends to pale severly in comparison with the guy shooting the electron stripping ray out of his nostrils.

I had one of my more urban heroes packing a .68 cal magnum, not because such a gun in the real world would take down anything the roams the planet, but because it sounded really big. I mean, it sounded really cool when Eastwood said it with a .44 magnum, can you imagine it updated for this weapon?

"This is a .68 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world. It can blow your head clean off and then still drop the elephant standing behind you and your grandma . . ."

It's all fun.

Maybe the real idea here would fit well into a book with a lot of other smaller ideas. Those few pages of expansion on the disadvatages in Allston's genre book were very welcome.

Originally posted by Redmenace

 

As to the Batman-Capt. America book, yes I've read and enjoyed it very much. SPOILER BEGIN I never quite bought that the Joker would be that bothered to be working for the nazis though. He seems to be more of a "I like the cut of their jib" sort. SPOILER END

I kind of liked that twist on Joker. He's a dirty, psychotic murderer, but darn it, he's still an American. It seemed to catch the nationalism of the time. For a similar incident just a little earlier, check out M with Peter Lorre, where the bad guys organize a manhunt to find the child killer.