Tech

Re: When GMs Rewrite the rules Veteran GM or not, it sounds like the GM has his idea of how he would use the rules and didn't inform the players of the changes. A real bad mistake. This GM needs to drop the superiority complex of 'Me vs the players' and realize that the players are as important to the game as he is, somewhat similar to an umpire in a baseball game. I'm a veteran GM and the idea of making a change in the rules that the players aren't aware of is ludricrous. If I do decide to try a new ruling, I ask the players ahead of time what they think and if we could try the new rule on the new episode.

Re: Heroic Characteristic Maxima? We have Normal Characteristic Maxima in our campaign; we use the disadvantage from the 4th edition of Champions.

Re: Shared Damage I like.

Re: How do you encourage your players to buy more skills Whether I'm player or GM in my group, I always keep an eye out for skills (or powers) that a particular character could use. When I see a need for a skill or when a particular situation comes up where I say 'Y'know, I think so-and-so would have this skill', I mention it to my friends. I don't force players to take skills because I don't have to. We have players whose characters have lots of skills. I mean, one of my friend's characters has 1/4 of his page with skills and one of my brother's characters has 1/3 of his sheet with skills - double columned! A correction: I just looked at my brother's character and I did a . Half of the sheet is skills - double columned! His character is extremely versatile and probably one of the best played characters I've ever seen.

Re: Phase 12, GM's what do you allow? I don't always use Phase 12 as it depends on the situation. If a group of heroes and villains are aware of each other and have talked about what's going on, then decide to fight - start a completely new turn on phase 1 (not that we have anyone with a 12 SPD). The times Phase 12 is used is during a sneak attack, unexpected action or something that is not expected by hero or villain. Since these attacks or actions can potentially change combat around (x2 Stun for Surprise), the immediate Post-12 Recovery helps, whether hero or villain. What's Phase 12 used for by the group I'm with? Lots of things: from dodging to making a CHA roll, rolling with the blow, etc. Too many to count.

Re: Staring into the sun I simply attribute it to additional DCV levels. You could even make the DCV levels cost END so that if the character is knocked out, the DCV levels turn off along with the power. Give it a limitation that it doesn't work vs opponents with Flash Defense. Cheaper and easier to build.

Re: Exclusive: Collector Amasses Complete DC Collection

Re: Sand Staff You also forgot the limitations 'Requires 1 ton of sand' and 'Bulky'. Just kidding.

Re: What Age? Thanks Clonus. I'd have to say the campaign I'm in is primarily Silver with a little of Gold and a touch of Bronze.

Re: What Age? It's hard to answer since I'm not keeping track of what's Gold, Silver, etc. If someone wants to update me on what's what, I can post again.

Re: WHY is combat so slow and what have you done about it? I didn't mention the tactical appeal but I totally agree. Tactics can be so much fun, equal to roleplaying. There's more than one character in the Champions campaign I'm in that has the Tactics skill.

Re: Teleport as a defensive move As to the 'I line up two villains so when 1 shoots, I teleport, so that the first guy might blast the lined up villain', we've been allowing the following: A dex roll is made by the teleporter. If it isn't made, assuming the attack would have hit your DCV, the teleporter is hit by the attack. If the teleporter did make his Dex roll, the teleporter successfully gets out of the way of the attack. What if the attacker is treated as OCV 0 and the unfortunate slob who's been lined up is at 1/2 DCV? Does this sound like a good idea?

Re: WHY is combat so slow and what have you done about it? A follow-up to my post: The movie "The Sound of Music" (a musical) was going to be played in Japan. There was a time limit the movie had to be played within for some reason, so one guy came up with a great way to fit "The Sound of Music" within the timeslot... he cut out all of the scenes with music. Applying it to us playing the Hero System: We cannot cut out that which is most important in our campaigns, otherwise we cut out the heart of that which is most fun.

Re: WHY is combat so slow and what have you done about it? Let me think.. what slows down combat in the campaign I'm in. Hmmm.. Well, it'd have to be all the roleplaying! Seriously, if we cut out all the chatter between the heroes & the villains, the threats of the bad guys, the quick jabs of the good guys, etc etc., the combat would go very quickly. Then again, isn't roleplaying what the game is about, not having a number vs number battle?

Re: Bricks Get Hosed, Or Not

Re: Bricks Get Hosed, Or Not My group also doesn't pay too much attention to X framework. If you can give a decent explanation for it and your concept is good, we change the rules as we see fit. Even our base points are variable for the concept you come up with, ranging from a 100-200 base. I've seen some characters with Damage Resistance bought normally and a few with DR in an EC. I don't think bricks get shortchanged. When you run around with a 60 or 70 Str, with PD and ED of 30-35, and only say 'ow' when hit by a 10d6 or 12d6 EB, nah, you're doing ok.

Re: What is your most humous story My most humorous story this past week occured with two beginning characters (though the players aren't beginners.) One has a light user, the other uses darkness. The player using his darkness character sees the end of a battle with his light-using friend vs a supervillain, and runs down the block to help him. Alas, he arrives too late and the villain gets away. The two of them talk in confusion as to why the sudden attack occured on the light-user. Since the darkness-user ran up to his friend and is speaking to him, he is unaware of another supervillain running up behind him to ram him (ala move-through). The light-user, however, sees the impending attack and decides to warm him.. "DUCK!" Okay, the darkness hero ducks, not dodges. The darkness hero is rammed in the butt and knocked away in an arc 18", holding his rump. As the villain's unluck kicks in, he lands in a couch having been set down by furniture movers. On the next turn, he has to run back 3 of his phases to get back. As GM, I add: Ok, you run back holding your rump saying 'Ow! Ow! Ow!'

Re: quick help question A correction to what was mentioned about the difference between the 1st edition and 2nd edition of Champions, since I have both versions in front of me: The 1st edition of Champions was full-colored, on the front as well as the back with 5 supers in battle and is 56 pages total. The 2nd edition of Champions retains the full-color front but the back is black and white, with the Speed Chart and attack modifier chart (ex. Bracing for a phase, Setting, Spreading Energy Blast, etc). This is 80 pages long. A boxed set came out thereafter, with the 2nd edition of Champions, which had the same cover but in black and white. I do not have this version of the book (my friends do) but I believe changes occurred at this point in regards to Shrinking and Growth, which affected Range Modifier instead of DCV. Instead of +2 DCV for each lvl of Shrinking, Range Modifier was x1/2 and Hand to Hand was normal DCV. This meant the farther away you were in ranged combat, the higher the minus to hit; hey, it was rather odd at the time. Two lvls of Shrinking gave you x1/4 Range Modifier, etc. I consider this to be the 2.5 edition of Champions unofficially. Fortunately, Shrinking resorted back to +2 DCV per level of Shrinking in the next version.

As GM, I run into occasional situations where the player who's player character has Teleport, decides that when an attack is going to obviously be made against them, to use their Teleportation to teleport out of the way of an attack before it hits. They also, once in a long while, line up enemy opponents so that when one enemy attacks them, say with an energy blast, they teleport out of the way and the energy blast will hit their other opponent. For now, I've been using a house rule for it but I'm not totally satisfied with it. Question time: How would you handle these situations as GM? Any suggestions?

Re: What was your best plot twist My best plot twist was in a ROBOTECH rpg game. A new member was added to the squadron and was equally competent to the other characters. At one point while the aliens are attacking the players in their fighters with missiles, they had to dodge additional missile attacks. One one planet where occasional strange things happened to them and their fighters (sudden power losses, weapon systems locking up, etc), the newest member suddenly has a complete loss of weapon systems and ends up firing all his missiles at the entire squadron. The guy even helps them out and wins over not only the player characters trust but the players as well. One real year later and near the end of this particular series for the players, they players are shocked to find out their newest member, who had joined and been on their squadron for so long, has actually been a mole and spy for a real jerk and enemy of their squadron. Using that confusion, he is able to defeat two (or was it three?) of the squadron fighters in combat before the rest of the squadron is forced to destroy his fighter. I still savor this well thought-out, carefully unveiled plot as GM.

Re: GM-ing advice I'll try to answer these without having looked at anyone else's answers. See the below answers. Just because you're the GM doesn't mean you can do whatever you want to player characters and the story. People are playing these characters. Sometimes people have created, what is to them, a piece of art. No one likes having their art stepped on and tossed around. Treat players as people, as a host would treat guests. Some examples for a good GM would be: one that takes into account the desires and personalities of his players and creates episodes and stories for them, not for himself. A good GM encourages roleplaying a character, not roleplaying a bunch of statistics. A bad GM does a 'I am the GM, you must obey my decisions or else' - get real. People are people and if you as GM act like a jerk, it's because you as a person are acting like a jerk. A newer GM might feel that he has to go a fabulous job the first time through. It puts pressure on you unnecessarily. Let the players know you're a new GM and that you'll be learning so you can create better episodes each time. Some of my first episodes were the hero stopping a bank robbery, which meant the episode lasted less than 15 minutes. Not knowing the rules will confuse GMs and players alike. Learn them well. Having players upset at you could confuse new and experienced GMs - the key is to find out why a player is upset and to work things out. 1. Know the Hero System, even the little rules if you can 2. Know your players, their likes and dislikes. It helps.. it really helps. 3. Know your campaign. What's it going to be like? If you don't know, how are your players supposed to know. 4. Know your time limit. Not everyone can stay for 4 hours of gaming. 5. Know how to keep things interesting for all the players, not just some. 1. Do not act like king or queen. Know when to be flexible and change a ruling. 2. Do not cater to a particular player character, i.e. don't favor one player over another. 3. Do not keep doing the same type of episode over and over. It gets boring. 4. Do not use rules that the players can't stand. Try it and I guarantee arguments. 5. Do not hold things that players do to your villains personally. If they royally stomp your villains through team-work and breeze through your episode, it means you have good players and you have to work harder. Don't be upset that they 'ruined' your great storyline - if they enjoyed it, great! Some of the very best remembered episodes my group's had was when they breezed through an episode. That you are.

Does anyone have a very good image of the 1st edition of the Champions book? I've seen some mini-images on the board but I'm looking for something a bit bigger. I'm not going to use the pic for anything; it's merely because I like the cover alot. Thanks in advance to anyone who might have it.

Re: Shamrock In my campaign, I had Shamrock not have any ties with IRA. He's basically a fun-loving brick who likes to fight.

In the 4th edition Champions Universe sourcebook, there was a humanoid cat species of aliens. In the 5th edition of CU, are the Taslans still around, changed around, gone, replace by a new race (and if so, what is there name)? My thanks ahead of time for your help.

Re: Characters Losing Their Souls - How To Handle It? If they lose their soul, I say they turn into one of the worst horrors possible: a can of SPAM.