Hadmar von Wieser

Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions (1982) was a rather embarassing try on depicting non-us national super heroes by using us-american stereotypes.
China's hero was - what else in that logic? - COLLECTIVE MAN, who could do nothing else but splitting up in an endless mass of bodies. Skilled Normal Duplication, but +150 to get half a billion chinaman doubles? (China had about that in 1980. You'd need +5 today.)

The Specials (2000 Movie)

 

I missed that one. No wonder: Budget $1,000,000, Box office $13,276. What a bomb!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Specials_(film)

By the way, I consider Hunted: Avengers Foes 8- As Pow, NCI 15 to low. Being an Avenger means your are constantly fighting a string of terran and cosmic threats. That should be a 14-. And they are not As Pow, because most of them are built to take on the whole team; so they are clearly more powerful than any single Avenger.

Thats 15 more pts. of Disads. Nice way to bring down the packages cost's.
 

About PaladinAgs cost question: I just started a Justice League Campaign and had to decide myself.

• The way I see it a team membership should not really cost players points if every player's character is on the team and the game master wants them to be because that is the story he wants to tell.
• On the other hand of course the characters have to be balanced against non-member NPCs. So their membership's Ads and Disads have to be built so the GM can compare. (Being an Avenger is a big plus, being a X-Men has a lot of cons and a little more pros, being one of MOLEMAN's Subterraneans probably is much more a problem than helpful.)

How to solve that dilemma? My way is to give the players that package deal for free, but building it and having on the sheet, so players are aware of their special situation and so I can calculate balanced NPCs.
Attacking THOR as an Avenger is more dangerous than attacking THOR in his own comic. So his opponents need more perks, powers, preparations, resources, or whatever. More Points anyhow.

And of course I put those complications into game. You will feel the benefits, but you will feel the drawbacks, too.
 

... and even more for X-Factor, a team of mutants posing as human mutant-hunters, and led by Magneto. This adds several distinct Advantages (trusted by mutant haters) and Disadvantages (Hunted by Magneto's Enemy Gallery).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Factor_(comics)
 

the trusty .45 which rarely gets fired but acts as a presence bonus.

That's a nice idea, especially if you want that hardboiled detective into a four color superhero universe. Less bloodshed, more style and coolness.

You only hit harder if your attack's vector points downwards.

I go with Steve: Just add 1d6.

 

Funny no one mentioned Streetwise. I always start with that for sleuths, even before Deduction.

A few gadgets to spend points on:
 

Tracking Device: ENHANCED SENSES Detect A Class Of Things 13- (Unusual Group), Increased Arc of Perception, Range, Tracking, Variable Advantage (+¼ Advantages; +½) (30 Active Points); Restrainable (-½), OIF (-½) Real Cost: 15

Metal detector: another Detect A Class Of Things

 

"teleport her into the sun" sounds like every team should feel about their arch villain. :-)

Sounds like Accidental Change to me, too.

And if the good side is a normal and the evil side is a super, then this could be a case of the classic old "Only in Super Villain ID (-1/4)" on most chars and powers.

Second:
But IF we go for Mental Powers then it definitely is Mind Control.

Telepathy is the power for the super profiler who dives into the criminals mind, understands his plan, and then tells this team mates. That's a totally different scene usually set in the team's base before they move on to the villains base.

And for the effect:
Surface Thoughts Only (-1/4) does not fit for me. This is about a guy who had been hiding his evil master plan for years, even in front of his minions, who only know as much as they have to. We want that guy to spill his inner motivation, all that hurt and hate that made him do it, and all the secret thoughts why a Orbital Laser and a biologic weapon would not do it and it has to be that Cyber bomb.

I admit I do kindof like the granularity from using something like Telepathy: EGO+0 you get the villain's immediate plans; EGO+10 you get more details, EGO+20 you get his longrange plans; EGO+30 you get his computer password. But I think you could build something similar into a Skill contest.

EGO+30 gives you that special part of the speech "... and so no one can stop me because no one knows that THAT red button is the only weak spot about my unfallible master plan, but who would have the genius to find out that THAT red button is the only weak spot about my unfallible master plan, so you all will die miserably because no one of you will find out that THAT red button is the only weak spot about my unfallible master plan." :-)

 

First: Why do Super Villains monologise?
Dramaturgically: Because the audience has to understand the plot before the story ends.
Psychologically: Because a Super Villain is a lone soul looking for acknowledgement. Being a genius means you never meet someone who can understand what you think, not to mention appreciate it. And then that one guy turns up, so much interested in your master plan that he is obsessed with it, tracking you for weeks and months, fighting through your minions and death traps. Who cares he wants to stop you? Finally an expert, finally a worthy partner for a dialogue - which (you being a sociopath) still turns out one-sided.

I am building all my megalomaniacs with

Psych. Complication: Wants to triumph and monologuise
And the campaign's Final Boss with

Vulnerability: 2 x STUN by Attacks while triumphing (so the heros dangling bound over the Pit of Unnecessary Complicated Death can get that one lucky shot to free them for the showdown)

But this thread even justifies a
Vulnerability: 2 x Effect by PRE-Skills and PRE-Attacks only to spill his master plan

I definitely go with "If there already is an established mechanism, don't overcomplicate it with a power build."
So: Conversation Roll vs. EGO Roll. Because conversation is defined as doing exactly that. And it is a Everyman skill.

(Interrogation needs the villain to be at the interrogator's mercy. Persuasion has an aspect of "Look, it is reasonable to tell us" that usually will not be applicable.)

PRE Attack as a fallback. Because that means you get his acceptance. Usually he is the one PRE bullying everyone around him. But the moment your PRE beats his EGO you managed to break through his isolation and he wants to talk

 

I just started a Justice League Campaign. Lex Luthor is running for president, wearing a ridiculous blonde wig although everyone knows he is bald.

Nice idea.

One thought though:
It is a bit strange that A.C.E. buys his personal staff as DNPC. That's a disadvantage - followers have to be paid for. Your way half of the time he wont be that much of a help to the heros because he has to save his driver, his secretary, or his masseuse. And even if he does not have to care for his employees, he wont have much gain out of their abilities, because he did not pay for them.

Is that what you want to depict? That he is a helper torn between helping duties?

  I see the ultimate super hero team for the 2010s forming:
THE KICKSTARTER
MERCHANDIZING MAN
LADY LICENSE
SERGEANT SHAREWARE
PRODUCT PLACER
CASTING GIRL
CROWDSOURCE KID
MAJOR FLASHMOB
ENDORSING MAN
LOBBY LAD
and the Amazing AMAZON
 

It is not difficult to find characters without tragedy as long as there is one author or player who designed that character.

It all is about identification. Of course everyone can identify with his personal favourite fantasy.
The problem starts when you try to sell your character's story. And it gets worse when different artists start telling that character's stories.

Then it turns out that the flawless hero fantasy you like so much sounds "lame" to most other people. "Oh, so you are faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a locomotive, and can jump buildings. Oh, and you are beating up bankrobbers and thiefs. Of course. Why not? Why shouldn't you? What could possibly go wrong? *yawn*"

"One day Mr. Perfect looked out of his perfect appartment's window on the perfect city of Perfectopolis. It was a perfect day. For crime fighting. Or whatever."

People can't relate to that. They are struggling, failing, trying, erring, and trying again all the time. They do not want to hear about somebody's perfect live. They can't identify.
Of course, it is nice for a change to hear that Brad Pitt (who is terribly nice and attractive) and Angelina Jolie (who is terribly nice and attractive) are terribly in love and treat one another terribly nice. And have seven kids adopted (who all are terribly nice and attractive). Sounds interesting for 1 minute. Then you switch channels for the guy that fell in a coma and worked his way back to being a human. Or the girl that ran through the mine field.

That is why perfect Doc Savage never got beyond pulp status, while Batman was an instant hit.

Most characters are flat and one-dimensional. And they explode when someone else takes the character and starts telling why it is NOT cool to be Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne, Wolverine, Odysseus, or Rambo.
Everyone wants to have those powers. And everyone feels inadequate, weak, overchallenged. So we only identify with heroes who are struggling.
That makes the difference between envying heroes (which lasts a few minutes) and loving them (which lasts a lifetime).

 

Another type is one that I don't know quite how to classify yet. Its those who can access magic via methods not belonging to the other five. Like my groups clockwork gadgeteer who can open gates (summoning) with his gadgets. He can manipulate magical forces with his clockwork toys by tinkering with time and mathematics and even sometimes chemistry. The followers of the other four disciplines don't always get along (especially the divine/infernal types) but they all have one thing in common: they all view this guy as an interloper at best and an affront to their craft who needs put in his place at worse.

You might call this Alchemy: the concept of scientifically transmuting matter and summoning the information that created the universe. Alchemy is the precursor of chemistry and atomic physics. But has a lot of esoteric concepts that did not prove true or at least by now can not be verified. Alchemists in most science fantasy backgrounds are seen as some kind of hybrid of magician and scientist. Normals treat them as mages, mages treat them as non-inducted into the esoteric and occult secrets.

I always have problems with all those stories detecting all superheroes, healing all mutants, or killing all metas. It just ignores the fact that most universes have myriads of different ways of becoming a super.

In X-Men they had that "mutant cure". Okay, this might work if there is ONE and only one x-gene. Like they tell it in the X-Men movie trilogy (but not in the comics). Still: then we have to believe that one gene makes Wolverine regenerating, Magneto control magnetic forces, and Iceman turn into ice. If that is the set-up you could build a mutant detector. It would have to work biochemically, so it probably wouldn't have range and you would have to take a DNA sample.

Marvel once had one or two plots with the HIGH EVOLUTIONARY trying to kill or evolve every superbeing on earth. But how does the evolutionary bomb know whom to influence? DR. STRANGE is an ordinary human practicing magic. WOLVERINE is a mutant. THOR isn't a human. SILVER SURFER is an alien and practically created out of Power Cosmic. And NICK FURY and BLACK WIDOW are human. Period. There is nothing they have in common you could detect, heal, or change.

DC started theoreticizing about a meta gene in the last 20 years. FLASH is a meta. GREEN ARROW might be a meta, because of his inhumanly accurate aiming skills. But this obviously does not explain the BATMAN. GREEN LANTERN is a simple human with an alien artefact. The homo magi like ZATANNA are a different species of humans. And even if Amazon and Atlanteans are humans with a meta gene: What about the kryptonians and the martians? Do the kryptonians even have DNA? Shouldn't it be crystalline instead of water-and-carbon-based like ours? The martians per definition have a totally different biochemistry. RAVEN isn't even from this dimension; she is a half demon; probably not even a product of matter.
So once again: WHAT should a detector detect?
 

Three ideas:

Every pod has to have two PAIRS of legs so it can move independently and still be stable.

Pod #8: How about temporal movement? Bought as DUPLICATION so for several rounds you have twice as many pods?

And I agree with TheQuestionMan: You have to quote the old Centipede Arcade Game (Atari 1980): Whenever the chain is hit one pod breaks of and goes BERSERK!
(I love Disadvantages on a car so I can buy more stuff.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7XEmf02zEM

I agree with Tanis Frey. I would give her a advantageous Striking Appearance AND disadvantageous Distinctive Features. And then I'd start developing a fairy tale plot with an evil sorceress whose most powerful spell needs a Pure soul as expendable Focus. And at least one arch demon who this Focus already is promised too.

Headmistress Madame Clott actually is a Medusa in disguise.
She set up her Finishing School for Young Ladies so a lot of fair maidens and princesses get sent to her.
Her hoard consists of 17 marble or alabaster statues of said maidens and princesses plus 1 jade statue of that eastern princess. And of their baggage, wardrobes, and jewelry Madame Clott uses to change eight time a day while talking to her stony Young Ladies.


Next: Th'rom Throsh'ok Minor God of Thunder, Mountains, and unnecessary Flatulence
 

Okay, just to pepper this discussion up with a provocatively different approach. How about:
 

(3)     Environmental Movement: Urban (no penalties)

Although I personally - like Massey - always built DAREDEVIL, SPIDERMAN, BATMAN, MOON KNIGHT, CATWOMAN, CAPTAIN AMERICA, and all those roof-moving urban heros with

Urban Movement Multipower:

1) RUNNING

2) Acrobatics

3) Breakfall

4) Climbing

5) SWINGING

6) JUMPING
sometimes: 7) CLINGING, Costs Endurance (-½)

3d6 Major Transform, Cumulative, into Zombie with Dependence, Darkness to most Senses, and Psych. Compl. by the score



And on 8- you even go bankrupt paying your online bills and get Poor (-5 RP).

 Question to all:  How do you simulate moving at the speed of light for characters like Flash or Marvel's Captain Marvel II/Pulsar/Photon/Spectrum?

I built FLASH with a 60 pt. Variable Power Pool using ALL of these options and some more:

All 60 pts. in Combat Running

Almost all pts. in Non Combat Running Multiples

Megascale Running

Teleportation 20m; Must Pass Through Intervening Space (-¼)

Non Combat Teleportation

EXTRA-DIMENSIONAL MOVEMENT, Costs Endurance (-½): Move to a dimension where everything but the character is frozen and cannot be affected in any way.

And most important and surprisingly simple:

12 SPD practically lets you move between other your usual interaction with other characters. Even if they can influence some of this segments by aborting or AOE or other effects, they can not influence ALL 12 segments.

Other players hate him when it's his turn for the third time in a row. But as he is using his Variable Power Pool to get those +6 SPD (adding to his usual 6 SPD) he is just a mere mortal without most powers. So he can box and shove a bit, rearrange things, do skill rolls for free, and the like, but usually not that much that makes a super-powered partner or opponent look small.

That is rather close to the way most FLASH's actions are depicted in comics and films.

Let's face it: Most of the time he isn't moving fast.

In the TV series you see red streaks. That means he is moving at 3000 km/h. That is incredibly slow compared to light.

In the comics he usually covers a few hundred meters on one to three panels (before some other character moves). Once again: That is fast, but about 1/1000 of light speed.

Even if he searches the whole base of the villain while BATMAN gives orders to the other heros this is not much faster.

And even searching through Central City in one picture is not light speed.

Remember those races between SUPERMAN and FLASH around the whole world? They needed a full comic book for that. Light circles the planet in one second. Seven times!

And the FX tell us the same: There usually is no super-sonic boom, only a few papers flying around. There is nothing close to the shockwave a 100kg meteorite entering earth's atmosphere would create. Imagine a car passing you by standing at a highway. You actually feel that. FLASH passing by at 3000 km/h would hit you faster than a tornado. FLASH passing by at 90% Light Speed would heat the atmosphere to 10.000°, vaporize Central City, end all life on this planet, and then throw earth from it's orbit.

So FLASH doesn't move at Light Speed - except for very special dramatic situations.

A smart phone in a contemporary setting is an everyman power. You do not have to pay for it. The same way you did not have to pay for a wrist watch since the 60s. ULTIMATE VEHICLE even has Everycar Powers and Everyrobot Skills.

But of course a GM should know how to build it – at least so you can buy it back for characters that do not have a smart phone.

I am 53 and in my opinion smart phones haven't changed people's knowledge as much as we expected in the 80s.

Users are better at finding adresses. But not much, because most people cannot read maps anymore and loose even more of there natural orientation ability. I rate this as Navigation +1 and Area Knowledge: Here +1.

In my experience most users have a Skill Level +1 with 3 related skills. Depending on their interests and apps:
Some people use it to be better at Seduction (Dating Apps like Tinder). But they never think about Online Trading (Trading +1).
Some users spend hours in forums for tuning cars (Mechanics +1), outdoor & survivalism (Survival +1), or training dogs (Animal Handler +1). But they never think about reading Wikipedia or CNN to question their conspiracy theories (Deduction +1 or KS: Politics).

Some users know how to get that Bureaucratics +1, but are unable to order a Pizza online.

A friend of mine has several impressive apps to improve his SC: Astronomy +1, but he not once used his internet connection to translate a text.
Another friend even gets paid to translate italian texts with his device; although he does not understand italian, he gets +1 pt. Fluent in a related language. But he refuses to use his Smart phone to learn why it stops working sometimes (Electronics +1).

You need half a year in specialized forums like this one until you know what to ask, how, and whom to get that +1 on Tactics, Riding, KS: Childcare, or Security Systems.

There might even be a Lip Reading App giving +1 or one for Ventriloquism +1. Or even for Bribery +1. But you will need months to learn to use it.

Even longer until that Acrobatics +1, Breakfall +1, or Martial Arts +1 start to manifest.

So what about:
+1 / Familiarity with 3 Skills of choice, usually Navigation +1, Area Knowledge +1 etc.

+1 INT because sometimes you just get a faster solution.

Radio Transmit and Receive.
OAF, fragile (1¼).

And Activation or a similar Limitation because a third of the time your net is down, your batteries are empty, your download volume is exceeded, or you have a new smart phone and have to install all those apps and gather those adresses again.