David Johnston

Re: Genocide They know that Storm is a mutant because she's a member of the X-Men, a specifically mutant organisation. If she'd shown up and announced that she was Thor's lovechild and Black Panther's niece, the public would have taken that at face value instead, at least until Thor and Black Panther objected publicly, or a giant robot came along talking to itself very loudly about how it detected a mutant.

Re: Around the World With A New Character Each Week Does Bounty only take trophies from super _heroes_?

Re: Char: Ergo I find Backworld to be a bit problematic as a concept. For example, why would a benevolent organisation kidnap someone who was relatively harmless (sure she wasn't particularly nice, but she was no worse than average, just another member of the crowds cheering at the public executions) and put them through a process that will forcibly change their minds? It would explain to some extent why altruists are feared in that world but... What if, instead she was a volunteer? After all, that is the reverse of what happened to Ogre. Altruists can still of course be feared because the normal inhabitants of Backworld are afraid their minds will be forcibly corrupted.

Re: Secret IDs: In or Out? Does he really? In a "realistic" context he knows nothing of the kind. He doesn't know he's a comic book character and his opponent has a comics code influenced writer restraining the super-hero from reacting like a human being. And, in a "realistic" context, you don't see the same characters slipping the bonds of justice regularly and rapidly and then invariably ending up fighting the exact same hero again as if he owns them. And yes, Batman's villains are almost all crazy enough to make him look like a paragon of sanity in comparison and comic books have become "edgier". So edgy in fact that I think they've once again lost contact with emotional believability for me. It's like television. These days, the only crimes on television outside of Veronica Mars seem to be murder and child molestation, because nothing short of that is spicy enough for the jaded palate of an innured audience. If they even want to have their characters investigate some lesser crime, they have to arbitrarily stick a murder in, vide the episode of L&O: CI, where the only thing that makes emptying a bank vault worthy of note is that the criminals happened to leave one of their members behind as a corpse.

Re: Secret IDs: In or Out? Costumes and Secret I.D. are separate issues. The Fantastic Four have costumes but no secret I.D. Buffy Sommers, has no costume, no distinctive set of working gear, but did have a secret I.D.

Re: Secret IDs: In or Out? Yup. And that's two of my solid options for secret identities as standard parts of the universe, people having them because it is second nature for the government to keep secrets or to dodge some kind of governmental draft.

Re: Secret IDs: In or Out? Frankly? Superheroes don't inconvenience "drug lords" enough for it to be worth provoking one that way. Superheros get involved when the supervillains fighting over the drug trade get too obvious in their fights, endangering bystanders and that's about it. Actually killing Mrs. Splendidman naturally leads to Splendidman popping Mr. Boss's head like a zit. Threatening to kill Mrs. Splendidman without intending to follow through just attracts his attention to you and your people and reduces his interest in playing by rules of law. Don't tug on Splendidman's cape.

Re: Secret IDs: In or Out?

Re: Secret IDs: In or Out? The law isn't quite that restrictive. If you see someone committing a felony you can attempt to make a citizen's arrest. If they attack you, you can respond with force as long as you don't get excessive. If they are attacking someone else with intent to do serious bodily harm you can intervene.

Re: Secret IDs: In or Out? If you look at the list, only one of those options involve not defying the law.

Re: Secret IDs: In or Out? Well he may have a reason. But given the legal issues involved in things like leaving the scene of a crime without identifying himself, I don't think his reasons are really good.

Re: Secret IDs: In or Out? I see five basic circumstances under which it makes sense for a character to maintain a secret identity. 1. Organised crime is so pervasive and powerful that anyone seeking to make significant headway against it, must conceal their identity. The reason why cops and judges don't have to conceal their identities from the mob is because they aren't going to be doing anything against the mob. 2. The government has...uses for people with special abilities. The ones who work for the government conceal their identities to make them more useful as secret weapons. 3. Not only does the government have uses for the PC, but they don't take "no" for an answer. If the PCs want to remain indepentantly active and have anything like a normal life, a secret ID is necessary. 4. The government won't necessarily draft you, but there is some kind of legal setup which basically makes it illegal for anyone except a cop to stop a crime or save a life. 5. The characters intend to commit crimes in pursuit of their ends, plain and simple. They plan to break and enter all the time, commit multiple murders (of the "bad" people of course), whatever.

Re: WDYCD: Secret ID The Wizard of Oz Incorporated had a public identity...except for pretending that Tin Man was a separate character when he was really robot which could be operated by someone in an internal compartment or by telecontrol. Joe Boggs had a public identity. Riptide also had a public identity. T.N. Lung also had a public identity. Phreak had a public identity... You know what...I tend to think that secret identities are silly. I did have one hero who had a secret identity, but that was because she had instant change to make it more or less practical.

Re: Culture Shock 1B Y'know, fights really don't last all that long, and New York and Washington DC aren't really that far apart.

Re: WWYCD? Culture Shock 2 Hellfire is going to be extremely angry at her counterpart and will probably brawl with her. If she somehow stumbles on the plot to assassinate the god, she'll both stop it and reveal all the details to the media. She doesn't approve of people who set themselves up as false gods. Riptide on the other hand would just be amused by the whole business and would approach his counterpart to announce that he was "your long lost secret twin brother". The two of them would probably agree to keep it secret, with both of them pretending to be the same guy in different places. Then of course the murder plot would ruin his fun. He'd tell the boss, and after the resulting gigantic brawl, he'd let the real members of the cult decide how to handle it. T.N. Lung would spend his time placidly discussing with his brother whether worshiping more powerful entities is an hindrance or a help to the pursuit of enlightenment. He would not allow anyone to die if he could help it. Since the Wizard of Oz Incorporated has no superpowers his counterpart wouldn't be part of such a thing.

Re: Quiz/Brainstorm: What's your Special Ability? I have the ability to recall my own birth. You may think that's useless but those telepaths better not mess with my brain.

Re: Namedropping Barend Hendrik Strydom aka The Wit Wolf (White Wolf). Sure he doesn't have any superpowers, but that's what gadgets are for. And any guy who puts on jungle camo to go on a killing spree in the streets of a city, is obviously ripe to wear a supervillain costume if he just had some role models. Motivation: To save South Africa from black rule. Or at least be famous. http://www.africacrime-mystery.co.za/books/fsac/chp25.htm

Re: Around the World With A New Character Each Week But remember, it's pronounced "Zed".

Re: PCs are not the most important in the world It's not that hard. The A-Listers simply have no idea what's going on. I mean if your player characters are regularly facing obvious threats to the entire city, giant robots or attacks by madmen who levitate the entire city to threaten it, then they ARE the A-Listers and you've got no excuse for not making them the famous ones on a par with the biggest heroes in the world. But when I ran a team of B-Listers, sure Troubleshooter and Company or the Street Warriours may have saved the city from a major catastrophe once or twice but the threat was simply one that the A-Listers had no idea existed. They had no way of knowing that Lady Death was trying to poison the city reservoir or that the Unseelie had established an invasion beachhead in Central Park. In fact I fondly remember one scene I ran where where the characters were doing their thing and up above their head I mentioned that two flying supers were duking it out. They had no idea who those guys were or why they were fighting, but of course the fliers had no idea what the bad guys the ground level heroes were going after were doing either.

Re: WWYCD: Culture Shock

Re: How Many U S Heros ?

Re: Re-Imaged Hero(ines) Max Brezhinsky was an athlete of extraordinary natural gifts, and they gave him a full ride into college where of course he made the most of the educational opportunity by partying so wildly that it was unbelievable that he could still be a football star. People could only wonder how well he'd play without the hangovers. A real party animal. It didn't matter though. He still got tapped for the pros as a running back. He was just that good. Then one of his parties turned sour. One of the groupies was raped, and there were some big gaps in Max's memory that put him in an awkward position. He listened to her statement, sobbing as she called him an animal. No more party. On the advice of his lawyer, he pled out, guilt-stricken and cold sober. He spent two years inside, and when he got out, got a job as a club bouncer, staying sober and working out obsessively. And it was at the club that he heard the word. His team-mate and good friend, the QB, was now under the thumb of an organised crime figure. Had been, ever since that night. And suddenly he started to wonder. So, he put together a outfit that would serve to cover his identity, not very flashy by vigilante standards, but a serviceable body armour and face mask combination and he started to follow the threads, intimidating people into talking, breaking into offices, busting heads, disrupting operations. He got his name from the question he'd always ask: "Who's the real Animal, man?"

Re: How Many U S Heros ? Just because the characters exist doesn't mean you have to design them. The only characters you need to design are the ones the PCs will be fighting, and the only characters you even need to name are the ones the PCs meet or who become particularly famous. As for the U.S. becoming more powerful, their military is already so dominant, it hardly matters.

Re: Super Teams Compete! Only if the teams in question were willing to induct any random idiot who wants to join and fits the dress code ala Justice League of Animation. But generally I think the teams who had the kind of rep that would attract many applicants, would be the exact same teams that only troll for new members when they decide they're short-handed. Teams, even well financed teams, are going to be limited in terms of how many bedrooms they have in their HQ and how many VTOL vehicles they can put in the air. What would tend to happen, though, is that people tend to congregate around the A-List teams in the hopes of being asked to join, not just for the fame and respect, but also because the A-List teams have the best facilities and training resources. Then when they don't make the cut, they can end up forming farm teams for mutual protection and to prove that they really have the stuff, or of course swearing revenge and trying to pound the A-Listers on a regular basis.

Re: How Many U S Heros ? Oh heck no. If you include the light-weights I think it would be safe to have several hundred costumed crime-fighters.