Tech

During a Champions game, a player's sword-user is attacked by a nasty energy blast. The player decides he doesn't want to get hit (who would?). He says, "He tries to squinkle out of the way!"  There is a long pause by everyone, including GM. GM laughs, "Squinkle?"  Player laughs embarrassed, "Okay, I meant to say he tries to squeak and....something else out of the way. I don't know what the other word is, but he tries." BTW, he was missed by the energy beam. Now listed on his maneuvers on the character sheet is "Squinkle" for his Dodge.

During a Champions game, a player's sword-user is attacked by a nasty energy blast. The player decides he doesn't want to get hit (who would?). He says, "He tries to squinkle out of the way!"  There is a long pause by everyone, including GM. GM laughs, "Squinkle?"  Player laughs embarrassed, "Okay, I meant to say he tries to squeak and....something else out of the way. I don't know what the other word is, but he tries." BTW, he was missed by the energy beam. Now listed on his maneuvers on the character sheet is "Squinkle" for his Dodge.

Re: Aging Campaigns
 
Super Squirrel, I'm going to give you some of the ways my campaign's survived for so long and still is interesting. Hopefully, some of it might help you.
 
1) Don't give out too much experience and allow the freedom to spend it. Yes, heroes may do lots of wonderful things but giving out 3 - 4 xp each episode will hurt the heroes rather than help them if you're looking for a long campaign with those heroes. They'll reach a saturation point and then you have to prevent powergaming. (i.e. Hey, I've got no where else to spent my XP. Can I go beyond the 75 pt limit?) Experience pts can be spent on alot of things players may not think of. Does a particular hero like to play Chess in her spare time? Buy a KS: Chess. Does a hero like to spend his time putting monster cars together? Buy a PS: Monster Car builder with KS: Cars, Monster Cars with Mechanic skill. Does your light-based-hero understand his powers? Make him buy KS: Light. These may seem like skills just to throw points at but a good GM will use them. Have your heroes bought a base yet? That is a wonderful place to spend points by making the heroes buy it. Need a supersonic jet to travel to other countries? You better start spending those points heros.
 
Example:
I have one hero who spent a pt and bought PS: Plumbing 8 or less. Why? He has a part-time job of plumbing and is terrible at it, but that's the fun part - because he's so bad we spent 20 minutes of the episode just discussing his plumbing accident when he tried to fix a fellow heroes plumbing. He also has KS: Robotics on 11 or less. Yeah, he can create robots but the results are less than perfect.
 
2) Develop NPC's that the player characters may consult on a semi or regular basis. Let's face it: despite all the narrowing adventures and interesting skills, no one know everything and when heroes are stuck what to do, a normal person will certain skills can help. Don't underestimate how much influence a good NPC can help your campaign. Eventually, friendships occur between NPC and heroes. For a long time, NPC's were treated as 1-shot occurances until we finally realized just how much fun they add.
 
Examples in ours:
* Dr. Abigail Sinian (sound familiar anyone?) - a curator of the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum. She never dreamed she'd be helping out our local heroes on so many weird cases but manages to help out the heroes alot. If she doesn't know the answer, she can always consult her colleague(s). She is now, THE person the heroes seek out when something unusual happens.
 
* Deputy-Mayor of the city - the Deputy-Mayor has set up a secret communicator between herself and the heroes. She believes in the heroes whereas the local police don't quite. She is starting to have feelings for the leader of the herogroup but doesn't know who he is, complicating matters even though he's saved her life a few times.
 
* Cindy Bradley - wife of hero. Helped design the heroes suit and occasionally comes up with new designs or prototypes to throw at the hero. Some work, most don't. Knows who all the heroes are in Secret Id's and meets them in their civilian id's.
 
3) Allow more than one hero group in the same campaign. The heroes currently in your campaign don't have to be the only ones nor do they have to retire. Instead, pick a different city and have a new group of heroes pop-up. The campaign I'm in now has five different hero groups in it, all in different areas and all are active. Ok, Mechassassin walked over Team 1, let's see him go up against Team 2 a week later. (The players will enjoy getting back at the villain.) Some of the most fun episodes we've had involved pitting our own heroes against another group of our own heroes. You don't have the GM running an entire group against the collective minds of the players; you have each thinking player against another thinking player - each trying to win.
 
Another team means the campaign has continuity; what one hero group did to help a Senator is noticed by the unknown hero group. Hero Group 2 reads in the paper that Group 1 busted some crime deal and wonders if it's related to an ongoing crime problem in their city.
 
Better yet, the star reporter of Chicago (job of hero from Group 1) travels to report on a theft at the lnternational Science Show where a scientist (job of hero from Group 2) is to speak to said reporter. There is so much you can do!
 
4) Allow relationships to happen. Heroes are people. They meet people, talk to people and yes, even fall in love. It requires good players to handle it without them acting ridiculous, though. I've had two of my heroes get married in years past. Both are still active heroes but they now have to be considerate of their family as well. It helped that they married superheroines, of course. Bora of Eurostar is still alive in my campaign; for a long time, a hero was interested in her and she in him but the hero/villain thing made for many stressful meetings. Years later, Bora still wonders if she should leave Eurostar for him. NPC's can meet the heros in their civies and go to parties, dances, the local gala event or whatever and get to know each other.
 
5) Let the heroes see a villain or two turn from their ways. Don't be stuck on keeping all your villains around forever. Some of the villains are confused and have made bad choices; with some talking to, they might turn away from crime or even become part of the hero team or a least, a friend. Is a particular villain or three becoming stale to you? Create an adventure where you kill off the villain and the heroes see it happen. This shows that the campaign is indeed changing and not static. Heroes begin, villains begin, heroes retire/die, so do villains.
 
6) Allow changes to the characters. Is a player stuck on buying anything new for a character? Allow the 'radiation accident' that lets a hero add a new power or even completely redo his powers. The player keeps his skills and levels but allow the player to write up a new sheet of powers for you to approve.
 
A couple examples:
* My older brother's character had telekinetic abilites (not mental) but ran out of ideas. After an accident, his powers changed to light powers and he had to relearn how much power he could use without hurting people.
* I had one character who essentially changed completely three times but the powers were more or less the same. He was a cyborg but was almost killed when his cyborg parts were destroyed. He was healed and essentially became a normal person though skilled. He created a powered suit to mimic his abilites but eventually, that got destroyed. Finally, he contacted someone to give him abilities that couldn't be destroyed ala superbionics (ala The Bionic Six cartoon.)
 
7) Allow input from the players. Doing a campaign no one likes, finds dull or otherwise don't care for will kill a campaign in no time flat. Ask players for input on your GM'ing or what they'd like to see happen in the campaign. Ask them for ideas they'd like to see happen with their heroes. Let them write down all their ideas and give it to you. You basically then have an almost limitless supply of new adventures you can do that the players want to do because they suggested it.
 
I don't have time to mention all the possibilites. You, as the GM, can invigorate your campaign to new levels and still keep it alive. You can make it have a history where the players where say 'Remember the time we did..' and someone else will say, 'Yeah, but don't forget..'

Re: Superhero Images
 
Years in the coming since I've had this image over ten years, but here's one of our groups, called Counterforce. All the characters in the pic are still together in the group. This was originally done on my Amiga computer.

I just needed to vent a little, or rant, or ... talk.
 
This coming Sunday, our 4-man group which has essentially been campaigning together for 15 years, faces a physical/combat challenge that almost certainly is going to result in some, many, or all PC deaths. It's all for a good cause - saving the world, naturally - and everyone, including all PCs and their players, know the risks. We have known for a couple of years that this day may come. We knew the ultimate evil would have to be faced, and that the costs might be dear. But now it's starting to sink in; we may not win. Then again, maybe we will. Only the dice and how well we fight will determine the outcome. There cannot be any GM intervention, no miraculous saves. We either fight and defeat the bad guys, or we fight and die.
 
It's an interesting feeling. We've faced death before, but really, for as brutal a campaign as we run, there have only been a few deaths, and even many those have been legitimately (in-game) reversed. That won't happen this time around.
 
It's empowering in its fearfulness. We have always valued character and story over rules and powers. Our best sessions have been those where not a punch was thrown. I am amazed that, over the course of all these years, we've come to know these PCs so well that we know they are doing exactly what they would do - meaning, they are fully prepared to die to save this pale blue dot. And the kicker: if we win, there won't be crowds of happy normals there to thank us. Quite the opposite; they'll go on hating us mutants no matter what happens next weekend. Yet our PCs will fight to the bitter end believing that their cause is just, that any sacrifices made will not be in vain. That, as one PC put it years ago, "Maybe what counts is that two men faced insurmountable odds to fight for a world that had turned its back on them; maybe in that, we will finally find our place."
 
Yeah, it's just a game ultimately. And if we lose, naturally we'll build a new campaign and keep on keepin' on. I just marvel sometimes what this game has taught us all about ourselves as we've played it. How it's shown where our hearts really are sometimes, how we define right and wrong. How it makes us ask, "What would I do?"
 
I honestly don't know if I, a player, could do what my PCs are about to do. And hopefully I never will. This is a post about a game, nothing else, otherwise I'd post it in the non-gaming forum. I just wanted to say that it's been fun, no matter what happens; that win or lose, this will be a climactic ending to an epic that literally spans half our lives. That whatever the result, somehow, it will be what had to happen. That this cooperative story will, for us, be one of the best ever spun because we lived it, not just read it. So thanks to all the players, writers, and designers who made it all possible. And thanks to the various players, GMs, and PCs who've come and gone over the years, enriching our campaign and giving us something to do with our Sunday afternoons. And finally, if I ever did have to face anything even remotely similar to what our PCs face, there aren't any other people I'd rather face it with than those who will be there Sunday.
 
It'll be great. Thanks for listening. Comments or stories from anyone whose been there always appreciated.
 
"Phase 12..."

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread.
 
Happy St. George's Day from Death Tribble.
 
To that end, Death Tribble commissioned this oh-so-very Anglo pic! I luv our brothers and sisters across the Pond.
 
thanks D.T., this one was fun and nerve wracking at the same time.