wrestlinggeek

Re: The Composite Superman Mxyzptlk. One thing I've never understood about CS: If his powers come from the Legion, why does he have that costume? I mean, Superboy was only one member of the Legion, and Batman was not associated with it in any way. Just something that always bugged me.

Re: Superhuman women and normal women I think the "bracelet thing" he is referring to is the old plot point of "She looses her powers if her bracelets are chained together by a man." This has been retconned out of existence since the original Crisis, but was used often in the Golden and early Silver ages.

Re: I eat my Cheerios stealthfully! I was once running a Star Wars (West End Games, D6 system) game, and one of my players had more luck with dice than should be humanly possible. Well, the group was in a modified tramp freighter, and they were ambushed by an Imperial Star Destroyer. Lucky-Dice-Girl decides to man the Ion cannon. 4D6 starfighter-scale ion cannon vs. 6D6 capitol-scale shields. For those of you unfamiliar with this system, that meant that the Star Destroyer got an extra 4D6 on its resisitance roll. One die on every role was a "luck die." If the luck die came up 1, something bad happened. If it came up 6, the player could re-roll and add the new number into the total. If the luck die came up 6 again, you roll it again. Keep rolling until the luck die came up something other than 6. She completely shut down the Star Destroyer. It was floating dead in space. The PCs got the heck out of Dodge.

Re: Evil Counterparts I've done it, for all the reasons listed above (it's fun, it's a genre staple, it doesn't require new villains, etc.). Some versions I've used include evil duplicates from another universe, clones created by the master villain, the team turns evil in the future, and new villains given the same powers and abilities. Another fun and easy genre staple to use is the one villain who duplicates all the team's powers.

Re: Cap is dead!!!! Captain America is dead, but he's not alone. Marvel Comics is dead, as is DC. Both companies need to just start over. I'm not talking about some Crisis-type reboot. No story involved; just stop publishing, fire everybody involved right now, hire new writers abnd editors who actually like superheroes, and then restart. Don't even acknowledge the stories that have been printed the last few years (specificly Civil War and Identity Crisis, and everything that came from them), just start over. Restore these characters to what they should be. In my mind, Marvel and DC have not been published for years. These characters appear in animation and movies, and that's it. It would be really cool if somebody did comic books that used these characters, but nobody is doing it. Right now, I feel like superhero comics begin and end with Astro City. And that doesn't come out nearly often enough to be the only game in town. I would love to turn DC and Marvel over to Busiek and company, and see what they would do with it. Actually, we have seen them handle large parts of these companies before,and they do it right. I think I'm just ranting now, so I'll stop. This just p*sses me off.

Re: ONE power: what do you do with it? Hmm... with 80 AP in Comliness, that would give me a Com of 160. I could pretty much get anything I wanted with that. Think I'm wrong? Think about today's society.

Re: mr. Monk (Character conversion for DC) Awesome. Great writeup of a great character. I only see one problem with it. You left out a quote: "OK, here's the thing..." Otherwise: Repped.

Re: Top 20 Comic Weapons I also have to disagree with many of the choices here. The Bowel Disruptor, Poop Cannons, and the Wrecker's crowbar made it, but Batman's arsenal didn't? What aboput Robin's (Tim Drake's) staff? Wonder Woman's lasso and bracers? Green Arrow's and Hawkeye's bows and arrows? Spidey's web-shooters? Too many left off and too many that shouldn't have made it that did. This is not an objective list by any means. It's just a list of some of the author's favorites, and the inclusion of bowel disruptors and poop cannons shows us where his tastes lie.

Re: Q & A: DC Geography Lessons Well, I'm not all that familiar with New York geography (I'm a Southern Boy), but I swear I saw it written in several X-Men comics as "Westchester, Upstate New York." But I could be mistaken. But if it is right outside of NYC, then you're right. It just makes my point that much more valid.

Re: Q & A: DC Geography Lessons

Re: Signs your Champions GM is now (fill in the blank) Susano, you're free to use my stuff, if you think it's worth it.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease I guess I've just been blessed (for the most part) with fairly mature players who have a decent understanding of the genre. As for myself as a player, if I was (for example), playing the world's fastest speedster, then a villain came along who was just as fast, or even faster; that means it's my character's story. My time to step up as a player and take the spotlight for a little while. "Ok, I've always been faster than everybody else, but this guy is as fast as I am, maybe faster. I have to find some other way to beat him." Either that or find some way to become even faster than I was before(a justification for spending the points). As a player, I would love to play this out. As a GM, I would reveal (at the end of the adventure), that the villain's speed boost was only temporary, and that the PC is now, once again, the Fastest Man Alive. Or, I could leave the villain at his original speed, if the PC had found a way to make himself even faster (which I would have made sure was available, whether the PC found it or not). As for PCs having such arguments among themselves, that's called "stepping on the other guy's shtick." As long as the original character is still in play. If the first speedster is retired to NPC status, and another player wants to make a new character who is as fast, or faster, I see several ways to handle it. First thing, no matter what, sit down with both players and figure out how to handle it. Maybe the original FMA is even faster than ever, now that he is not bound by point restrictions. Maybe he retired completly, and has lost his superspeed altogether. Maybe he just dissappeared one day... Or maybe we just need to have a race, the winner claiming the title of FMA, and the other graciously accepting the number 2 spot. Of course, my instincts as the player of the first, retired, FMA would be to let the new guy have it (if the stats supported the claim), since he's the one who is now, actively playing. Afterall, I'm on to my shiney, new character, the World's Strongest Man:D . My point is that if you have good players and a good GM, such titles are not a problem. They are a role-playing opportunity.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease Umm... why not? Having someone be the best in the worlsd at something is completely in genre. Afterall, the Hulk is the strongest one there is, the Flash is the fastest man alive, Batman is the world's greatest detective, Dr. Strange is the sorceror supreme... why can one of your PCs be the absolute best in the world at something? Afterall, this is not real life (where, yes, there is always somebody better; if not now, eventually), it is superhero comic book-style RPGs.

Re: Signs your Champions GM is now (fill in the blank) Signs your GM is Prof. Farnsworth (from Futurama) 1) "Good news, everyone! You're being sent to some random place to perform an inane mission that seems totally mundane, but may well lead to the destruction of our entire space-time continuum." 2) Falls asleep in the middle of an adventure. Sometimes in the middle of a sentence. 3) Has you encounter duplicates of yourselves from a parallel universe. Even though these duplicates not only look like your party, but act exactly the same as your party, he insists that they must be evil, because everyone knows that all parallel universes are filled with nothing but evil duplicates. 4) The most scientificly advanced species in the galaxy are the Globetrotters, from planet Globetrotter. 5) All Master Villains have an army of Atomic Zombie Super-Men.

Re: Power up a TV or movie character. What does she do when she's set up to fail? She gets recruited by some mysterious guy named Charlie, but then later goes rogue.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease So, you're running a Villains campaign?

Re: Older Gamers, Older Characters? Repped, quoted, and stolen! If I ever get the chance to run a game again, this guy is so becoming an NPC.

Re: ARMOR: he beat me to it. Anyway... back to the main topic. This is awesome. If this suit works like it's supposed to, the military should buy it now. All they have to do is refine the helmet with built-in night-vision and gas filtration and start shipping them off to the Middle East. I hope every single politician in Washington gets a look at this thing. Hmm... wonder how I can send this link to my Congressman? And if I had the money, I would buy one for myself right now. I cannot see any future millionaire/adventurer character of ine not having some version of this suit. Anyone up for figuring out the Point Cost on this thing?

Re: Older Gamers, Older Characters? My characters have ranged in age from 16 to "I was watching when God grabbed a handful of dust and made Adam." With my age at the time having no bearing on the age of the character. It just depends on what is needed for the character and/or what I feel like playing. I started playing when I was 13, am 35 now, and 90% of my characters throughout have been mid-20s to early-30s.

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age Personally, I had no problem with Venom. Venom was a great concept. As a villian! It's when they gave Venom his own mini-series and tried to make him a hero that I got fed up with it. Note to Marvel: You do not have to take all your most popular villians and suddenly decide they're actually heroes. Sometimes, we just like the way a villian works. Or, if you're going to do it, take a lesson from Busiek (the first series of Thunderbolts), and do it Right. And while we're on the subject, you also should not take some of your greatest heroes and turn them into villians (see: Civil War), or experienced, effective heroes and turn them into incompetent newbs (see: New Warriors at the biginning of Civil War).

Re: A Dark Future for Dark Champions I really wish you lived around here, because I want to play in this game. Repped.

Re: QuestionL Would you consider this unfair or rail roading? This is not railroading, it's a standard comic book situation. Such choices are, IMO, expected in a superhero RPG. If I was playing in this game, I would not feel railroaded at all. If I was running this, I know my players would come up with a solution that I had not even thought of. In fact, I actually presented my players with a couple of dillemmas that I personally saw no solution to, knowing they would come up with one, and they didn't dissapoint me. If I was playing this, I would save my loved ones, knowing that we could beat the BBEG later, despite his increased power. And if he actually took over the world, then we would just have to start a resistance movement to overthrow him. This is a superhero game. It may be difficult, but there is a way to win, eventually.

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age Excellent! Repped and quoted. This is exactly how I feel about the whole thing. If you want to write splatterpunk horror comics, that's fine. There is a time and a place for that. But don't try to pass it off as Spider-Man. Is it still Strazenski (sp?) writing this title? If so, he has let me down big time. Whoever is writing this stuff needs to see the Spider-Man movies. That is Peter Parker. I don't know who the cannibal is.

Re: The new face of Iron Man Awesome image, great for a "What If...?" Also reminds me of a character I played in game set in the Marvel Universe, where the Avengers and the FF never returned from "Heroes Reborn." As for the text? Total BS.

Re: If Marvel and DC really *do* collapse I've been feeling for a while that both Marvel and DC need to "reboot." Pretty much since the start of the whole "Identity Crises" and "Civil War" storylines. I think both companies need to bring back artists, writers, and especially editors who actually like superheroes and superheroics. Then both companies need to take a couple months off, issue some type of apology for the last few years ("We're sorry. We're gonna come back and do it right. We promise never to mess up that bad again."), and relaunch everything. And the new Action Comics #1 should be first on the shelves, telling the difinitive origin of Superman, the world's first superhero. Bring back heroism, morality (and no, I don't mean every superhero should be a humorless, sexless, cookie-cutter personality. They can have realistic personalities, flaws, and even bad habits. They can be straight, gay, Christian, atheist, or anything in between. They can have pre-marital sex [but nothing graphic, at least not in mainstream DC or Marvel], arguments with their family, and personality conflicts. But they should be good people. Superman's greatest power has always been his intrinsic knowledge of what is Right and what is Wrong, and modern writers have tried to take that away from him), and a clear line between the Good Guys and the Bad Guys, and you will save comics. Until then, give me the Spider-Man movies and JLU.