altamaros

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

ADD last sunday :

The PCs are are about to tell that a NPC just died (killed by Orcs) to one of his relatives

relative NPC : - Yes, my father is famed and well-known.

PC (Paladin) - err... now, i would rather say "he's legendary" .

Re: Ultimate Six (Con Game II)

That's how you build Instant Change now. He barely changes at all and his entire personality is still intact so I went with the Only in Hero ID and Instant Change as opposed to a complete multiform.

Re: Ultimate Six (Con Game II)

Kraven the Hunter

 

Beast Form: Transform 2d6: Normal Self to Hairy Self (Cosmetic) (10 Active Points); Limited Target Self (-1/2)*

Are you sure it should not be a "shapeshift" single form ??

AFAIK you cannot use a transform on yourself.

D.

Re: Looking for Spidery names ... sort of.

Wolfspider : four-armed werewolf

Argyroneta (water spider) : water-gliding speedster.

Orb Weaver : magic user

Tegenaria (house spider) : shrinking (?), or evil mastermind with a huge base ("i'm waiting at the center of the web")

Egg Sac : gadgeteer

Re: Feedback wanted on this background idea

Not Russia. Russia is on its way to 3rd world status.

Remember that old soviet reflexes are still there, even under Putin (especially under Putin, this guy led KGB after all)

Maybe not China. (1)China would go into a severe recession if the USA stopped buying Chinese manufactures. (2)And the Chinese banks are holding huge portfolios of US Treasury bills which would become worthless if the US collapsed. The Chinese economy would be in a mess and the Chinese government would lose a huge amount of face. (3)Rebellion' date=' revolution, and civil war would be on the cards.[/quote']

i agree on the arguments but i disagree on the conclusions:

For point 1), it could be, yes, but you forget that USA are hardly the sole customer for China goods. The loss of USA would be a problem but not that hard.

For point 2), it's actually true; but if you took an interest on economic press releases recently; you may have read that several of the major holes of US treasury bills (among them, China and South Korea IIRC) are talking about diversify their holdings precisely to avoid such a scenario.

For point 3), considering the weight of the state authority on the average chinese, i don't think the chinese would revolt just for a bad economy. We're talking about the country of "great leap forward" (remember Mao and the worst failure of the socialist system in its history: i don't know how many dead in famines and nobody moved)

 

Like China' date=' maybe not. India is sitting on another huge pile of US IOUs. And has old grudges and outstanding border disputes with its nuclear-armed neighbours China and Pakistan.[/quote']

 

Well, about China; its conflict with India is mainly due to India' support over an independent Tibet. it seems (check in the international press, i've read articles about this last week) that even the exiled government of Tibet and the Dalai Lama himself would be ready to give up their claims of independence over a agreement of autonomy and sovereignity so i guess these conflicts are not important enough to really justify a war.

 

About Pakistan. I doubt; India is clearly superior to Pakistan in so many ways (economy, army, population, influence) that the Pakistani are sure to be fried if they attempt to go to a nuclear war. At best, they would destroy 2-3% of the indian territory (and i exagerate) and would probably not be able to seize control after all due to their backfire. On the other hand, India has enough power to destroy a good 10% of pakistani territory AND seize control after. besides on the international ground, India has more influence, a better economy (just to remind that to other countries when it comes to "who do you prefer?") a bigger population.

Besides the sunni gulf monarchies, Pakistan can only count on itself.

 

for the US IOU: like for China, don't overestimate it. India has survived to countless difficulties not to depend on foreign help anymore.

Why do you think India has refused the international help during the Tsunami ?

pride ? not exactly, they had the material, they had the cash. they can go by themselves.

Secondly, even with a crash of the US; it would probably causes a crash in the indian "upper" industries (tourism, engeenering...) but the traditional industries (agriculture, textile ), still important, would not be that affected.

India would not probably get itself out of this like a rose but it would not be apocalypse.

 

However' date=' I don't think that any of the Arab oil-producing countries is going to last. Without massive oil revenues their regimes will all collapse: if the Muslim theocrats don't get them, the democratic reformers will. Syria will almost certainly attack Israel and get thumped.[/quote']

hmmm.

(that brings the question, how long before the world oil reserves be depleted ? interesting idea for a global collapse)

USA are the prime consumer of oil in the world : ok

=> if the US collapsed, the oil producers can't sell so much anymore

==> the prize of the barrel decreases.

===>other massive consumers (china is the second biggest consumer) save money.

====>Their economy is better than ever.

 

They could only get more ruthless dictators if there were more countries to dictate. And the main effect of disappearing aid would be on the dictator's Swiss bank accounts. AIDS is still a very big problem' date=' supported by war and bad government.[/quote']Shame of me, i forgot AIDS!!. Yep, it could turn pretty bad there as well.

On the plus side, wildlife will be better without humanity.

Re: Romantic Villians

Interesting. Lodestone and Gargantua are sadly out(my team has already encountered them' date=' and I think they're carrying major grudges, plus I think Lodestone is married). Chesire Cat is out, simply for in game continuty(we're playing in the past of another campaign, which is fun, actually) The rest sound like good ideas to run by my GM, though I don't know how viable they are.[/quote']

Outside of CKC maybe

Green Dragon : despite his bad temper, he has also good sides like not attacking women (first) or not to be sneaky or fight dirty. maybe a female martial artist could find him cute.

 

Tachyon : he's a scientific; his criminal career is motivated by thrillseeking as much as greed. He doesn't seem to be such a sociopath.

Re: Need help designing...

#2) Create the sentient suit and then use a Multiform to create the human (out of the suit) form. The idea would be then that the human would wear the suit.. any damage that penetrated the suit would deal 1/2 damage to the suit's Hits and Stun and the other 1/2 to the human....

If the armor can act indepently of the wearer (or even be remote controlled) Duplication should do the trick as well but i don't have my books there; i can only detail crudely my idea right now :

Duplication

+ altered duplicate (100%)

+ cannot recombine (+0)

...

Re: Need ideas for a revised CU timeline

Do you want any ideas for how superpowered individuals changed life and legislation that followed accordingly ?

No, not really, for the modern part, it will be a CU copycat so i don't need to get a lot of things for post WWII.

Re: Need ideas for a revised CU timeline

I come back to my timeline :

i'm looking for ideas (still in the CU) to explain/improve those things

- Meteor Crater (2 millions of year ago, Arizona)

- The Krakatoa eruption (1902 IIRC)

- The crop circles.

I'm also looking for some infos on this point

- When did the elders worms came to earth ?

- How does it appear in the FH games (i don't follow the FH line) ?

- how were they repelled/vanquished/destroyed ?

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

7th Sea game; yesterday.

The PCs are fighting the villains. One of them, a tall, shouting, half-berzerk highlander swinging a big claymore (obviously a member of the Mac Donald school of fighting) attacks a PC.

Charlotte de Persix (PC, first session of 7th Sea): what is he trying to do with his claymore and shouting ?

Gunther Hommel : He's a swordsman from the Mac Donald School. He tries to serve Don Alejandro a menu "Mac Leod".

Charlotte (and others) - What ?

Gunther - It's like a menu Big Mac but without the upper slice of bread ...

Re: Feedback wanted on this background idea

I'm with RDU on this. Invariably' date=' in such a scenario, the US would sell out to another country in order to keep what little it has going. It would probably be a good idea to decide which nation comes to the fore, and like RDU said, China is a good place to start. [/quote']

 

My thoughts : the world top three would certainly be

China and Russia as the major political powers

India for tech

and maybe Brazil.

 

The EU, Canada and Australia would probably follow the US in their fall since the interconnexion of their economies although the fall could perhaps be avoided by an alliance of the arab oil-providing countries and the other oil-consuming nations (but i doubt)

 

I 've got no idea about Mexico (i don't know this country enough)

 

i think nothing would probably change much in Subsaharian Africa except that without the american and european financial helps and influence; the number of ruthless dictators and civil wars would probably skyrocket.

 

Maghreb would probably take care of itself.

 

just some thoughts

Re: Use the news

Someone else started a thread on timelines, and a mention was made of using real-world events. To some extent the "canon" CU timeline does this, but in what other ways have you taken real world events and made them into campaign-specific events?

 

See the idea I'm goin' for? Any other ideas?

I'm the one who started the thread on timelines.

Actually i spoke about incorporating historical events in the timelines not actually using real world recent events.

i'm not american, i did not live 9/11 as you could have but i'm strongly against using it in a game; it's something i think too serious to incorporate this in a game (i have the same problem with Shoah even 60 years after).

Any event with a political issue must be dealt with a lot of care. and especially man-made events which imply a lot of dead and/or massive destruction.

I also don't like using real political personalities in the game since anyone can have different opinions about them. When i refer to a president or a prime minister, i tend to change the name slightly so the players are actually "cooler".

(as an example, in my current the US president is named "Banner"; i wonder if i gonna use a Lex Luthor as his VP)

The Tsunami or last year earth year in Iran (40 000 dead; remember ?) are different matters; they're natural disasters and thus unavoidable and non-polemic.

I would have no problem leading my PCs in Indonesia as a rescue team since after all, it's perfectly in the Hero mentality.

For the timeline; i will go bakc to it next week. By now, i have to GM a 7th Sea on sunday so i'm in my scenario right now.

Re: Feedback on a mutant plant power

what about the advantage "cumulative" ?

Normally, the more you stay close to the plant, the more you breath its perfume and you can reduce the number of dice.

Re: Hero System women are all insanely attractive

We actually discussed that too' date=' how female gamers ALWAYS select attractive female characters, but not TOO attractive.[/quote']You should meet my female co-gamers. On the three, i regularly play with :

- one is addicted to half-orc barbarians (D20 => CHA 6)

- one ALWAYS play metahumans in SR, and always the troll/orc metatype.

- one tried once a female elf ranger and then switch without any warning to "funnier stuff" i.e. chaotic evil fighters ...

Re: Need ideas for a revised CU timeline

HG Wells: The Time Machine(1895)' date=' The Island Of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898).[/quote']

Already in the official CU but i changed it a bit.

 

my updates :

War of the worlds

i kept the idea of a all-mighty alien race (the Progenitors) manipulating evolution on earth but i gave them a race of servants : the Odragans (AFAIK they're just mentioned in the CU timeline as Star Guardian's bosses).

When a sentient race begin to develop a civilization on some planet; the Progenitors send the Odragans to watch the planet and protect it from extra-planetary threats (space invaders, planet-eaters and planet-to-planet insurance salesmen) til it reaches the age of space travel (which humanity reached in 1969 with the landing of Neil Armstrong on the moon).

 

The Odragans established a base on the moon and became the Selenites.

around 1870, a float of refugees from the Sirian star system came to the solar system. The Odragans refused them the right to land on earth but helped them to set a colony on Mars.

 

Unsatisfied of life on the red planet, the sirians spent some years to build a army and tried to seize earth in 1898. they failed when the Selenites infected earth's atmosphere with a genetically enhanced sirian virus.

The Selenites then destroyed the martian colony and sent the sirian survivors back into space. they eventually returned in 1938; the Selenites destoryed 95% of their brand new army; the other 5% were stopped by terran superheroes.

 

The Time Machine

Aside Captain chronos being H.G. Wells' time traveller, nothing more.

 

 

Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes' date=' The Lost World.[/quote']

Holmes is already in the official CU; i don' know the novels so i keep him as he is.

 

The Lost World : merged with Verne's "journey to the center of the earth" : the lost world is a classic "Dinosaur Land" alternative earth.

 

Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon. (The ultimate McGuffin!)

never read it

 

Philip Wylie's novel Gladiator

never heard of him before. i found some references. interesting stuff.

Re: Need ideas for a revised CU timeline

D.T. : thanks for the idea of Lovecraft. i didn't read anything from him since i stopped playing CoC in 98 however. Between the Mystic Wold and the DEMON sourcebook my occult timeline is already starting well.

An example is when I had Theodore Roosevelt and Nikola Tesla build a giant cannon and shoot down a flying saucer in 1908. It crashed in Siberia' date=' with predictable results.[/quote']

 

For the "tungunska boom" thing, CU has already something on this.

 

You may consider looking at various lists of natural/manmade disasters' date=' and figure out how you can use them.[/quote']

 

maybe and remember the law of comics : "it is rare, it is unlikely but sometimes, natural disasters are natural"

Hi Hero People.

i'm wroking currently on my own campaign world a modified version of the CU. For the sake of detail, i divided my timelines in themes (as in the Shadowrun rulesbook for those who know)

So far, the themes are

- Aliens & space events (almost done : anything related to ETs or events in this universe aside of earth)

- Other dimensions (in process : anything related to extra-dimensional of time travel)

- Occult (to do : anything related to magic or occult)

- Science, technology and progress (nuff said)

- Politics and lost civilizations (anything related to geopolitics including lost and unknown civilizations)

- supers (anything related to events caused by superheroes (not paranormals, only superheroes or villains)

I'm looking forward to get ideas of fictional or historical events to include in my timeline or (eventually) things to modify in the CU.

examples :

(from the "Et" timeline)

1640

France : Thanks to alchemy, cyrano de Bergerac reached the moon and meets the Selenites (in my campaign, odragan servants to the Progenitors, left ther to watch for the earth 'til humanity attains the age of space travel)

1780

Switzerland : Using the old notes of Cyrano de Bergerac ; the Baron of Munchausen reached the moon. he's driven mad by the travel and later develop a severe form of mythomania.

(from the "other dimensions" timeline)

1905

Africa : due to a failed scientific experiment, a rift opens between "Gorilla world" (a world where civilization evolved from gorillas) and CU-Earth; causing a gorillan city to "swing" between the two dimensions. the dimensional ripples cause a passing plane to crash down, killing two of its passengers; a english lord, J. Greystoke and his wife.

Among the gorillan rescue team, a scientist named Kala find the child of the couple and decides to adopt him. But as the rift is slowly closing and due to the opposition of her superiors; she's forced to leave him behind... which she does after secretly altering his DNA to increase his chances to survive.

Over the years, Gorilla City will return for random periods of time in the CU-earth -in my campaign, Dr Silverback is born in this city-

your ideas ? your thoughts ?

D.

PS : i already included things from Burroughs (Tarzan, John Carter), Poe (Arthur Gordon Pym) or Verne. If you have other authors in mind ...

Re: Shadows of the City (by Scott Sigler)

I did run a part of it. I remove reverend M and his team and make the King the Deus ex Machina of anything.

For a 4th Ed adventure it proved to be deadly. On my 5 PCs, 2 survived the first scenario.

the other players had to make new characters and steadily refused any kind of "code vs killing" for their PCs

Re: Need some "Smart" powers

"Inhumanly smart"

Mental Def

- not vs EGO attacks or Mind Scan: -1/2

- only vs people with a lower INT : -0 to -1/4

Being so smart means that a telepath with a average IQ will have some problems to read your toughts or control your mind.

" i can't stand his mind !!"

EGO Attack

+ Continuous +1

+ 0 END +1/2

+ Persistent +1/2

+ Inherent +1/4

+ Damage shield +1/2

- not vs EGO attacks or Mind Scan: -1/2

- only vs people with a lower INT : -0 to -1/4

You're so smart than reaching your mind psychically shocks a mental intruder.

(also a variant with a flash vs mental sense group)

Re: Spectreman-like character in th CU.

虎猫ロケット

Toranekoroketo!

Re: Spectreman-like character in th CU.

Pity i was sure some character like this existed in the CU.

I gonna create my own.

Anyone has a good idea of japanese name foir this hero ?

Re: Spectreman-like character in th CU.

This was a terrible show! Why did you remind me?

it was also one of my favorites when i was a kid

Actually, i'm working on an extended (and slightly modified for my campaign) timeline for the Champions Universe and i'm doing it like in the Shadowrun rulesbook : theme by theme.

I've almost done the "other dimensions" timeline and i'm on the "aliens" timeline for which i need the ref on Spectreman.

Hi HeroDom.

Even after a few search in my books i cannot find him : i'm pretty sure there's a spectreman-like character in the CU.

He's shown in the VIPER sourcebook fighting a giant snake and i remember reading somewhere that he fought some giant monsters during the Qu'larr invasion.

someone has an idea of who is this character ?

Re: Inspirational Reading

I would suggest Maurice G. Dantec.

I don't know if some of his books are available in english but his trilogy is worth it : The Red Siren, Roots of Evil and Babylon Babies

the first two are regular thrillers and the third is sci-fi thriller.

Re: Roman Martial Art, comments please

Aside the Defensive turn, it also seems to be okay for me (after all, they use a large shield and a short sword without a so none of these weapons really qualify)

Roman Gladiators (at least from the imperial era) on the other hand' date=' probably could qualify for martial arts.[/quote']

 

peraphs one for each type of gladiator; i don't know if a gladiator was trained from the start as a "specialist" (secutor, myrmydon and so on) or received a general training.