Murrkon5

I am forced to respectfully disagree. I often find setting-specific designs to be rather condescending and limiting. Essentially, a well-crafted generic system is a blank canvas and a fresh paint supply. The unfettered power of my and my players' imaginations can be let loose. Setting-specific designs are one of these adult colouring books with crayons. The drawing of a spaceship might be very nice, and I do get to choose my crayons, but it is some other mind's idea of what a spaceship should be. It's all born out of the tangled weed of D&D, where some players delight in getting pre-packaged, pre-made "Fighters" where others prefer to design their own ideas. My fighter might end up looking virtually identical to the pre-made fighter, but I made it!

I have to say this instalment of "Order of the Stick" gave me the first full-power, out-loud chuckle in weeks upon weeks fading into months.

Well, at the risk of repeating myself, I still see it like this: these high-level (in game terms and political status) clerics did not stop at the local tavern en route to the meeting and call out "Any freebooter-adventurer-mercs in here want to earn a fiver by being a bodyguard for the afternoon?". These bodyguards would, yes, be elite warriors, but more significantly, they would be devout followers of the god in question. The clerics would let the warrior captain types choose their best. From that pool the holy guys would review Sunday School attendance and other criteria ("Well young GruntBurp here is as devout as they come, but I think we should go with SparkleTeeth. Have to put on a good presentation in front of the assembly) So, I see these bodyguards as fanatically devout to their god and thus unswervingly loyal to his/her/its representative on the mortal plane. The fact they each get a bodyguard at this convocation means, despite rules and regulations, there is a security risk. SparkleTeeth's job #1 to protect the cleric of TinkleBells the Good. If he charges off to help Roy, the cleric and bodyguard of TarSnot the Evil might work off a centuries-old feud on poor TinkleBells. Until SparkleTeeth is given the attack order, he'll do his job, no matter his personal feelings.

In the adventures of Corum by Michael Moorcock, there was a hulking character who called himself a "dwarf". As I recall, our hero thought this most curious until he met a typical member of the gigantic race and, yes, the original guy did qualify as a "dwarf". Hmmm...past time to dig those stories out and see how they read again...

Bystander Effect plus background. I would wager most of the bodyguards are not independent, wild-thinking mercenaries (run by Player Characters). They are without doubt present at this momentous gathering because, beyond martial capability, they have proven themselves to be good at following military and religious commands. No matter any alignment, they will look to their boss for orders.

Re: Super Metals Tapping the funny book universes, don't forget the favourite indestructible metal of the 31st century DC, inertron. Over in Marvel land, there's also the mysterious magical metal, uru.

Re: Yet ANOTHER WWYCD: Against your team Chimp: Size-changer. The smaller or bigger he grows, the more simian he appears. So, at either end is Bobo the monkey or King Kong. This general conundrum came up in our WW II campaign when the diabolical Madame Fang mind-controlled Chimp's fellow Vanguardians. The biggest threat came from Blue Streak the superspeedster. His blizzard of blows technique could wear down Chimp's defenses and he was bloody hard to hit. The dice whiffed on the blizzard and a handy Studebaker provided the necessary area attack to nail him. The others weren't easy, but a some stealth as a small monkey leading into surprise giant fist wallops saved the day. Skeeter: Her hand to hand prowess, Spiderman level speed and acrobatics and her "flinging" (teleporting others but not herself) would give the rest a good run, but she'd be smacked eventually. She ain't dumb, but she's definitely used to the rest of the team coming up with the clever ruses to take out BBCB types.

Re: Animation or Comics? I've decided comics are irrelevant. When one compares the accessibility of cartoons/movies/teevee versus finding the one or two obscure specialty shops in a city that sell comics books, who reads those things? I certainly used to, but now the Dini/Timm DCAU is canonical for me when it comes to DC. Marvel cartoons all pretty much suck, but the big screen depictions of X-Men and Spider-Man are so much more palatable than the print schlock. As initially referenced, the film adapatations have a concise, tight framework of time to present a story. No room for wandering "decompressed" flab. Dig out the best bits of the character(s) and move them thru their paces, chop-chop, no loitering. If memory serves, comics used to be that way, but not for many years now. After the DCAU collection (I was so happy to get the final DVD of "Superman"), I'd say the "The Tick" cartoon squeaks by its original comic. The old B&W comics were great, but they were also sprinkled with 80's comic book satire that is getting a bit dated. The Tick cartoons are far more timeless.

Re: Fictional Cities Not me. Real cities all the way. Well, "real" in that they are in a superhero parallel universe (this stifles minor differences and smartass nitpicking). Call it 80-90% real. Real cities are already there in all their glorious detail, way beyond the most fanatical GM creation. So many super gamers seem to think they are obligated by decree to be in a huge USA city. I've set two campaigns in two different cities where I happened to be living, smack in the middle of the Canadian prairie. The players were worried about defying the aforementioned decree and "What ever happens here?" In all modesty, I can report they were heartily convinced otherwise by the end of each campaign. Real cities, especially the one where the gamers all live, offer great opportunities for strategic and tactical thinking. They don't have to pester the GM "Is there a bio research dept at the university?", or "Is there a university?". "What's the tallest building?", "Is there a ferry? How many bridges?" These have all been key elements of player tactics and detective work and I didn't have to open my mouth. It was all common knowledge. There's also a great buzz among players between games. "We saved the Bessborough Hotel from burning to the ground!" If they're relatively low-powered heroes, then there is scads of things to do, even in a small city. If they're higher powered, then they're probably using their superdedooper transport to circle the globe anyway, and home base is nearly irrelevant. That's the way, uh-huh-uh-huh, I like it.

Re: Help with a character Perhaps the paper needs to prepped ahead of time? He has to get out his bamboo brush and carefully paint beautiful black ideograms of the secret magic on the paper first. A combination of art and precision, it is a time consuming procedure and thus he has a finite number of suitable paper. Or, could the points be juggled into a split power of some sort? If he uses just any old sheet of paper, he creates "paper tigers". Image light show animals, all sound and fury but without substance. With the prepared paper bought with Charges, the real deal animals appear.

Re: A Not-So-Random Power In a campaign that borrowed some of the mutant/X-Men riff, the equivalent of Cerebro detected a mutant whose potential was nearly off the scale. With trepidation, determination and palpitations, we confronted this mutant. Just an average little schmoe who didn't hit us with any cosmic thunderbolts and had no idea what we were referring to. Eventually we determined he was "King Dinosaur", with absolute mental dominion over the thunder lizards. Nope, didn't work over modern birds, alligators, newts or whatnot. A man in search of a time machine... As suggested at earlier in the thread, this could be altered to gryphons or dragons or some such. A lower level version where said monsters do not obey him, but are somehow inclined to be calm and even polite in his presence. A person who could engage in friendly chitchat with a dragon would catch attention.

Re: What's your team missing? Most of the time it's any talent for the Arcane Arts. Not always, but quite often that character type is conspicuous in its absence. But, there's never enough points to go around. Often the "missing link" is discovered by everyone (possibly including the GM) at a crucial moment. "Oops, we don't have any Fixit Guy to restart a spacecraft..."

Re: With your combined powers, nothing can stop me! I had a dimensionally exiled and marooned Super Skrull. The game universe had no idea who these "Fantastic Four" people might be, but this green goon was bad news. The appearance of the Super Skrull always got people excited. It took no false starts or whining or head scratching. They knew that they had to think outside the box in defeating the alien because they could not win (survive) a toe-to-toe punch out. They always did. Always a grand evening. The purely ultimate amalgam character is the legendary "Composite Superman" from the olden days. The combined power of the Silver Age Legion of Superheroes in one person. http://nightwing.superman.ws/adventures/compositesuperman.htm

Re: If You Had To Play a DC Character… AH, an intriguing "Elseworlds" concept. The premise of there being actual "heroes" in the DC Universe is a unique twist. Okay, bitter post-"Infinite Crisis" cynicism aside, my choice is Superman. The first superhero, the best hero. I've played watered-down versions to the limit of points in three distinct campaigns. In game terms, I might actually hesitate to play the Real Kryptonian because, "If anything is possible, nothing is interesting." Or, as a friend liked to put it, "The rest of the Justice League members are just there to kick the kryptonite away." Superman is focussed, unwavering, and compassionate. Real life so often seems the antithesis of these elements that when I slip into gaming-escapist mode, I want to imagine a breath of fresh air. Mostly I like to play a hero that, when s/he arrives at the scene of the crime/disaster/emergency, the cops', firefighters', soldiers', and especially civilians' immediate reaction is "WHEW, thank goodness you're here!" Obvious alternate choice: Captain Marvel. I don't know if that answers your poll, but it was fun to write out.

Re: The Toyman...a new look... I reccomend a read thru the comic "Astro City", specifically issue #10 featuring Junkman ("Show 'em All"). In it Junkman has GI Joe dolls walking on the ceiling, an "x-ray" Etch-a-Sketch revealing the mechanism of a vault door, an inflatable rubber ducky that grows and grows and grows, electro-static adhesive marbles that bounce and literally coat the speedster, and pistol-grip hair dryer that does...something. His superhero nemesis is Jack-in-the-Box, who employs his villain stunning electro (red ball) noses and sprays entangling confetti streams.