Querysphinx

Re: Is the Hero the Ultimate System?

The thing I love about Champions is that while building an obnoxious disintegration spell may be difficult and take up half a page. Actually using it is usually pretty easy. And all the information you need to play the character is right there on the sheet.

(Okay. I admit I had one player who resorted to a rolodex to keep track of all his spells, but he was, shall we say, enthusiastic about creating them.)

In D&D (The last time I played it was called AD&D) all you have on your character sheet is the word "Disintegrate" the actual rules for the thing were locked up in the player's handbook.

Re: Desolidification and Teleport Damage

It's a GM call. I agree with the assessment that if is protects you from running into a wall it should protect you from teleporting into one.

Likewise the falling into the center of the Earth thing. If you were going to fall to the center of the Earth after falling out of a plane then you are also going to fall to the center of the Earth after stepping off a curb.

The system is designed to facilitate game play, not substitute for story logic.

Re: Top Signs You Need to Rethink Your Playing Style....

When you have your character's past present and future "character development" worked out before you find out what genre (or even game system) you're going to play.

Re: Pulp-Era Futuristic Space City

Just imagin the damage it would do if you fell on it...

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread.

If Enforcer is on 189' date=' who's on first?[/quote']

 

I dunno... Third base.

Re: New Pulp Hero Game on Hero Central

So' date=' a 'Mars needs Women' kind of scenario, nice. Though you might want to double-check the Area 51 angle. Don't think it existed as such in the 20s and 30s. [/quote']

 

That's what THEY want you to think. It's all part of the conspiracy.

Re: Query's Art & Stuff Thread

This was a Christmas present I did for my wife way back in 96. It's her character Jer'an doing a little pest control for his lady friend Shar.

Acrylic on Bristol

PEST CONTROL

Re: New Pulp Hero Game on Hero Central

Olivia Lefevre:

Olivia is the only child of Charles Lefevre, one of the richest men in all of France, his ancestors had ridden the rising tide on industrialism, becoming wealthy in the shipbuilding and rail roads and speculation in oil. Then Charles married Greta Bismark, a paternal niece of Chancelor Bismark. The match was both financially gainful and romantically satisfying. The couple were very much in love, and perhaps this blinded them to the approaching storm of nationalism. Charles invested heavily in emerging German industries. Olivia was born.

And then all hell broke loose. The black hand assassinated Archduke Ferdinand. Alliances were activated. War was declared. The Lefevre properties in Germany were confiscated by the Kaiser’s government and much suspicion was cast upon the Lefevre name. Ashamed and humiliated, Charles joined up with the French army to redeem his family’s good name. When the French marched off to battle with their horribly under-equipped army, depending on élan to overcome machine guns, Charles went with them as the officer in charge of an artillery company.

Gretta fretted, but not too much. Nobody anywhere thought the war would last more than eight weeks. After all no European war in the last hundred years had lasted three months…

Weeks turned to months, and then to years. Olivia grew up within earshot of the guns and within sight of the long trails of wounded being shuttled away from the front. The shadows of zeppelins and biplanes frequently darkened the fields where she played.

By the time she was three, Olivia showed the traits of the prodigy she would someday become. She began speaking in complete sentences and experimenting with numbers. By the time she was five she was reading the paper and filling in the bits that the government had censored out. She also showed a very unladylike interest in mechanical things, taking apart a broken clock and putting it back together so that it worked.

Her mother, no intellectual giant, could not keep up with the rate at which Olivia was learning, so she concentrated instead on teaching her daughter to be curious and kind. She was delighted when Olivia took an interest in horses, and amazed when she sculpted a perfect likeness of one from potters clay. She hired tutors and teachers in every subject from algebra to zoology. Olivia devoured every subject as if she was starved for information.

And then came the terrible news. Charles had been killed, blown up in artillery duel. The letter said he died bravely, fighting against superior guns that outnumbered his many times over. The letter did not mention that a vindictive and spiteful superior General Montegue had left him unsupported on a flank.

Gretta and Olivia were crushed. Although she had only known her father from his infrequent trips home from the front, she deeply respected both his intelligence and his character.

Then the other shoe dropped.

A second cousin, Laramie Chevalier, showed up at the reading of the will and laid claim to all of Lefevre’s land and money on the pretext that the will designated the his heir to be “His firstborn son or otherwise his closest living relative.”

Gretta protested that she was Charles’s wife and therefore his closest living relative, but anti-German sentiment was running hot and the court found in Laramie’s favor. Gretta and Olivia were ejected from the estate. To add further insult to injury Gretta was stripped of her French citizenship and forced to seek asylum elsewhere. She could not go back to Germany so she fled to the one place she thought would surely take her, the U.S.A..

Unfortunately, the U.S.A. had little pity for disposed German heiresses. Gretta ended up working in a sweatshop eighteen hours a day trying to make ends meet. Unused to such toil, she was soon reduced to a shadow of her former self.

Olivia, meanwhile, found herself working as a sweeper in a cotton mill, the most tedious, exhausting dangerous work, but her fantastic mind would not be stilled. She quickly figured out the mechanisms of the machine, but when she offered up suggestions on how it might be improved, she received a slap across the face for her efforts. Little Girls were supposed to work, not talk.

When a fire burned down the sweat shop in which her mother worked killing a dozen workers who were chained inside, Olivia’s life seemed destined for a final plunge into Oblivion, but when her tears had cleared, and the burly thugs who called themselves repossessers had finished stripping her meager apartment of everything of even minor value, she found her sticking point. She was not going to starve, and she was not going to suffer and she was not going to be grist in the wheels of industry.

She walked away from her job at the mill and set about building herself a life. She found an out of luck thespian named Joseph and convinced him to be her front man. With Joseph’s help she sold plans for an improved mill to the mill owner for enough money to set herself and Joseph up with an apartment and a company name.

For ten years they worked, amassing a sizable fortune and a hundred patents all in “Dr. Joseph’s” name. Olivia wanted to complete her education, but no university of any scientific merit would accept a young woman as a candidate. Infuriated, she changed her name to Oliver and dressed as a young man. When she did, the Deans were so impressed with her intellect that they granted her a scholarship. She completed the coursework in record time, but she could not outrun the curiosity of her fellow students. One of them, Fredrick Lohman, discovered her cross-dressing and tried to blackmail her into helping him with his exams. When she refused, he became enraged and literally shoved her in front of a bus. With a crunch and squish, she lost her right arm.

While she was recuperating, she was ejected from the school for bringing it into disrepute.

Infuriated and disgusted, Olivia took some of her carefully horded wealth and set up her own laboratory and began inventing with a furious passion. It was during this period that she developed her two most significant inventions: Electroline, a super efficient battery gel, and analogic engines, analog learning machines with both clockwork and chemical components. Using these technologies (the secrets of which she carefully hordes) she constructed for herself a fully functional prosthetic arm.

It was about this time that she met Macon Dean, a wealthy businessman of a philanthropic disposition. He was trying to renovate some slums to make them more livable, but a business rival wanted the property for himself and sent an assassin named the Vulture to eliminate Macon. Olivia, attending one of Macon’s party in her capacity as Dr. Joseph’s lab assistant, prevented the assassination.

She has since made it her mission to hunt down the Vulture and his boss. To this end she has built herself a variety of useful gadgets, the most sophisticated of which she calls autonomous mannequins.

Also, the local police have taken to call in the brilliant Dr. Joseph as a consulting detective on some of their more baffling cases.

+++

Inspirations: Remington Steel. Sherlock Holmes. WWI

+++

For what it’s worth I still prefer Sihn’ba.

Re: New Pulp Hero Game on Hero Central

One more day guys. So any of you guys that mentioned that you might apply or have ideas please post or PM me and let me know before the end of tomorrow night.

 

After I get all of the concepts in I'll work out what group will make the best team/give me the best story ideas and then we will move on to the character creation process.

So, do you mind if I post a second idea in case my first does not make the team?

Re: Catgirls (and Catboys) for Fantasy

Caethar Din cat people.

Re: Query's Art & Stuff Thread

Another older picture done in acrylics. Working in scale was was fun.

QUASIT

Because everyone needs a spell checker...

Re: Catgirls (and Catboys) for Fantasy

This is a cat race I developed for my fantasy hero game. It was an Arabian-Nights type setting

Caethar-Din:

Appearance:

Caethar-Din are bipedal, feline humanoids. Their metatarsals are fused into a long running bone, and they have hock instead of a heal. This legs structure gives the impression that they are standing on their toes, but makes them extremely powerful sprinters. They come equipped with feline jaws, claws and a tail which is used both for balance and communication. Average height for a cat person is 4'6" and the average weight is only a little over 100 lb. They are very dense and wiry, strong in proportion to their size. They tend to have tawny or ginger coats, often with darker 'points'. Leopard spots, tabby stripes, and tigerish brindling are not uncommon, and occasional individuals will have the 'black panther' melanin coloration.

Biology:

Caethar-Din are pursuit predators. They have excellent vision and reflective corneas which allows them to see very well with very little light. As a side effect of their visual acuity, however, they are colorblind.

Caethar-Din have powerful muscular legs which enable them to make incredibly quick sprints, and long leaps.

As true carnivores they are somewhat subject to intestinal parasites and have difficulties surviving on 'prepared' foods for any length of time.

Possessed of exceptional balance and poise, all Caethar-Din are ambidexterous. Due to the structure of their legs, however, they cannot ride horses.

Caethar-Din Females come into esterus monthly, year round. Gestation takes six months. Litters of two cubs are the norm, though about thirty percent of births are single and twenty percent produce three or even four cubs. Young are blind and helpless at birth. Their eyes open at about one week. They begin to walk by three months, and are fully mobile by the end of four. Speaking generally begins by the end of the second year. Adolescence is reached at eight years, sexual maturity at twelve. A Caethar-Din's natural life span is about forty years.

Their is little sexual dimporhism in Caethar-Din. Males tend to be slightly bulkier, have larger stronger jaws and a distinct ruff of fur on to of their heads and around their necks. Females have obvious secondary sexual characteristics.

Psychology:

Caethar Din have the dubious distinction of being the only common species of Azkren who associate more easily with other species than they do with their own kind. When dealing with members of their own kind Caethar form into small groups which are hostile and territorial to other Caethar.

Male Caethar-Din may be completely solitary (and loving it) or they may form coalitions of two to four members. A coalition is a semi-permanent affair which general exists to fulfill a single purpose or set of purposes, such as hunting, finding mates, doing business, supplying families etc.

Female Caethar-Din may be solitary, but usually form into permanent prides of two to six members. Prides serve more or less the same function as coalitions.

As a general Rule Prides are most hostile to other Prides and Coalitions are most hostile to other Coalitions. A Coalition may associate with several Prides or vice versa.

When unfamiliar Caethar-Din cross paths it usually leads to confrontation. Depending on the situation this confrontation may be nothing more than the proverbial hissing contest, or it may erupt into blows. Only in the rarest circumstances, however, is a chance confrontation debilitating or fatal.

Being generally self-sufficient, and instinctive hunters of large game, Caethar-Din disdain the use of beasts for riding.

Pts Modifiers (-1 Limit for package deal advatages)

6 1D6 HKA: Reduced Penetration, Short Weapon (15)[6]

4 +6" Running 2x END (12)

1 11 DEX (21 max) (3)

-1 18 INT max

2 +5 PRE (25 Max) 5

3 +2 PER (6)

2 Ambidexterous (5)

2 Nightvision (5)

-5 Colorblind

-5 True Carnivore: see new disads (-5)

9 Total Cost

Base Max

10 STR 20

11 DEX 21

10 CON 20

10 BDY 20

10 INT 18

10 EGO 20

15 PRE 25

10 COM 20

Base Max

2 PD 8

2 ED 8

2.1 SPD 4

4 REC 10

20 END 50

20 STN 50

6+6" Run 10+10"

Fangs & Claws 1/2D6 HKA

Nightvision

+2 Perception

True Carnivore

Ambidexterous

Common Disads:

Pts Disad

10 Agressive

10 Won't ride animals.

Re: New Pulp Hero Game on Hero Central

Hey guys,

 

I can say that all regular gear (guns, et al.) will be "free" as in bought with money/resource points. Any special equipment (stuff that is "part of the character") should be bought with CP's (like a "Jet-Rocket backpack"; "Super fast car"; "Plutonian Atomic Death-Ray Gun" ; "BATerangs"; etc...)

 

The rest of the guidelines will come later, but I will say that I am a BIG fan of the Heroic talents found in the main Pulp Book and in Dark Champions.

I don't have either of those books (Heck, I don't even have a 5th ed. Book. Cash flow and all that.) but I've always been a fan of the players saying. "Okay this is what I want to do." and the GM saying. "Okay, In my game, this is how you do it."

Re: Humans are "Special"

I'd be willing to read the entire story.

It's actually book two of a series of novels that I'm trying to get published. The first one is called The Scions of Spartacus. I'd be more than happy to email you the .pdf if you'd be willing to tell me what you think.

Re: New Pulp Hero Game on Hero Central

So far we have a lot of ex-Germans/ German speakers. I wonder if the Nazis will try to recruit us.

Re: New Pulp Hero Game on Hero Central

Would you prefer Eccentric or Downright Crazy?

Can't we be both?

Re: Need a resource idea

If it's a subarctic place, the major resource could be based in the sea. Whales or some species of fish that the conquerors see the need to harvest

Also consider the Spanish invasion of the new world. Cortez got lucky and conquered the Aztecs who had a lot of gold. (He took the gold back to Spain where all that influx of cash eventually devalued gold and crashed the economy.) He was followed up by hundreds of other conquistadors, all of whom were following the LEGEND of gold. The new world was overrun by adventure capitalists who kept trying to rob the same bank Cortez had already looted. The really valuable products of the new world--corn, potatoes, tomatoes, vanilla, etc. etc.-- weren't "discovered" as trade goods until much later.

Re: New Pulp Hero Game on Hero Central

Eclectic Trouble-Makers

This sounds like a Ronco product doesn't it? Of course almost anything in a huge type face sounds like a Ronco product if you say it with breathless enthusiasm.

We run on Eclectricity, that strange force which is generated by the strange farce interference of rapidly rotating bi-polar personalities.

Re: Humans are "Special"

Heh. I wrote a story once based on the premise that Earth had been conquered by highly advanced aliens who were intent on using humans as stupid troopers against other advanced aliens because we were so war like. Humanity eventually rebelled, and took back control of Earth, but we had no way to get off Earth, so we needed allies. The confederation of aliens who were fighting against the original alien conquerers came to Earth, and essentially wanted to find out what special trait humans had that would justify including them in the coalition. They sent a philosopher/priest to be the judge.

The quickly discovered humans were the only species they had ever encountered who had developed gambling. "The players know they're going to lose valuable resources but they gamble anyway thinking they can beat the odds." Humans don't just accept risk; a small but significant subgroup actually embrace it.

When the original BG aliens showed up with a force 10 times bigger than anything available to humanity, the coalition aliens ordered the humans to get on the space-arks and abandon Earth. They would blow it up and leave nothing for the BGs to take.

The humans were having none of it. They gambled, they attacked, they kept raising the stakes in ways no "sane" alien would. Certain individuals stood on the long end of some cosmic lever and shifted a weight hundreds of times their own.

At the end of the story the philosopher/priest wrote one word in his book...

HEROES

Re: New Pulp Hero Game on Hero Central

Oh' date=' I don't disagree, except for maybe the Green Hornet. Though I guess his power would be Kato. [/quote']

 

Phase 12: I whip out my pocket-Kato and whallop Dr. Sinister with him!

Re: New Pulp Hero Game on Hero Central

I decided to forgo Powers as I'm still indecisive about powers' date='( as seen with Riff).

 

I've only played one pulp game before myself, and that was for only one session. But I do remember that maybe one in every bunch of pulp characters had any kind of powers. The Shadow is the only one that comes to mind and he had only one power. The rest were like Indiana Jones and Jake Cutter (From Tales of the Golden Monkey). So, enter Hank.

It's true that most of them didn't have powers but then look at people like the human rocket, with his rocket pack (I believe he had a radio serial-IIRC) there was also one called "the spider", and don't forget the green hornet, and some of the old style JSA'ers-- Hourman, Sandman, Hawkman, Dr. Midnight, Adam Strange-- started out as essentially pulp characters. So powers can be in genre.

More important is the gritty feel of the heroes when you gnash them between your teeth.

Re: Query's Art & Stuff Thread

Sihn'ba is a character I hope to play in Mallet's pulp hero, Hero Central campaign.

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1500116#post1500116

Re: Most common super hero jobs

Professional Hero: The Whole Legion of Super Heroes, Wolverine

Independently wealthy: add the Wasp to that list

Inventor: Hank Pym

Entertainer: Dazzler

Resistance Fighter: Anybody from the future or another dimension seems to have started out their career as a resistance fighter.

Sihn'ba

Sihn'ba's mother was Greta Hapsburg, a devoutly Catholic missionary who traveled to the middle east before the great war, seeking to convert the pagans, heathens, and heretics, She learned the local language and some of the local customs. She amused some of the people she tried to convert and she annoyed others, but she made no real enemies until she literally stumbled into a slave market, those things being common at the time. Full of more righteous indignation than good sense she confronted the slaver and his buyers and began chastising him loudly and publicly for treating human beings as chattle. Infuriated by this weird foreign woman with her blasphemous religion and aggressive manner, the slaver had her seized and threatened to brand her with a slave brand and sell her as a prostitute unless someone could speak for her.

Fortunately for Greta, a traveling sheik, Hashabdul Alit’tavari by name, was impressed by Gretchen’s beauty and spirit. He approached Greta and gave her a choice, she could become one of his wives, or the slaver could have his way with her.

Greta was terrified and outraged, but the sheik’s way offered a future and a chance for later revenge, the slave master offered only pain, humiliation, and a lingering death.

Greta accepted Hashabdul ‘s offer, and became something of an anomaly in the Bedouin culture, a Christian wife of a Muslim sheik. After reconciling herself to the reality of her situation she decided that God had put her here for a reason and that was to convert the heathen from within. She approached the politics of polygamy with great strategic aplomb and worked her way into the position of first-wife, a status cemented by her auspicious delivery of paternal twins, Sihn'ba and her brother Al'ahim.

Sihn'ba grew up during the decline and collapse of the Ottoman empire, and the subsequent partition of the middle east by the French and the British. She learned to worship the Allah, but her mother told her and her brother of Christ, and she came to believe that both religions were essentially the same. Her bother Al'ahim, had a harder time excepting the differences between the literal texts and rejected his mother's religion.

Even as Sihn-ba learned meek domesticity, her mother taught her deep ambition and intellectual freedom. She grew up speaking Arabic, German, Greek, and Latin. She learned to cook and to clean, but she also learned to read and write. Most of all she loved to dance, and she had a natural talent for it that was almost unearthly.

After the collapse of the the Ottoman empire, the territories in Messopotamia and the Arabian Subcontinent became fractous. Feuds that had been supressed by the Turks woke up and boiled over and the region quickly divided itself into several dozen belligerent principalities.

Eventually Sihn-ba's beauty--cinnamon skin, jet black hair, and violet eyes--and superlative grace attracted the attention of one of the local sultan's advisors, the Vizier Ahkmet. who recommended she be presented as one of the sultan’s concubines. She was taken from her mother and introduced to the Sultan Amu ben Sur, who took an immediate liking to her. She was to spend one year in the harem, and if she pleased him she would be given one night with him in the hopes to conceive a child. If she was successful and Allah willed it, she would become his wife, otherwise she would be given to one of his viziers to be his concubine.

It was the best shot at influence Sihn’ba would ever have, and she pounced on it eagerly. She made such a good impression on her first night of dancing that she became the subject of a wager.

The art of mechanized warfare having been perfected, the use of the swords and horses was falling out of favor, and the sultan’s old master of the horse Hakhim Asmet was fighting a loosing battle against a foereign interloper Joshua Khain, who promised to bring Abu ben Sur to regional prominence through the import of tanks, artillary and guns..

“Swords are relics of the past,” said Joshua Kahin contemptuously. “And so are you.”

Hakhim replied, “Guns are noisy toys used by imbeciles without any skills. A skilled man needs no gun.”

“If a man has a gun it makes no difference how much skill his target has. And why waste years of a man’s life training him in a useless art anyway when in ten minutes you can train the same man to use a gun and then let him get about his business until you need him.”

“Because a man who learns the way of the sword learns other things as well, honor, integrity, respect.”

“None of which win battles. With a gun even a woman could beat a trained swordsman. Would you care to wager one of your swordsmen against a girl with a rifle. Even sweet young Sihn’ba here would overmatch your best.”

Hakhim was outraged, “I could train that girl to beat your best rifleman with a sword.”

The sultan, overhearing this and getting weary of the debate, said, “So let it be. You have one year to train Sihn’ba to face off against a rifleman…”

The year was pure agony for Sihn’ba, she was an apt pupil, but she was she was being asked to master a decades worth of training in a single year. Hakhim was ferocious with her, knowing his political future was on the line, but in time even he learned to respect her determination and burgeoning skill. She combined dancing with sword play so flawlessly that she became a blossom of steel. By the ninth month he was teaching her secret and mystical techniques passed down from past ages. She absorbed them all like a sponge.

... and then it all fell apart.

The night before her trial by fire, a courtier from a neighboring emirate was found dead of poison. Sihn'ba was the last person to see him alive, she had been serving him dinner between her training sessions. She didn't poison him; she'd tasted his food herself, but no one believed her. Before she really knew what was going on, her own father was promising the sultan's that she'd be executed. She was chained to a stake to await execution by stoning at sunrise.

In the dead of the night, her mother came to her and listened to her version of events. Her mother set her free and told her to run...

Sihn'ba has been running ever since. Her skills as a cook and a dancer have allowed her to get by, but her brother is pursing her, intent on taking her life to avenge the dishonor she represents to her family.

Sihn’ba

Val Char Cost

13 STR 03

23 DEX 39

18 CON 16

12 BDY 04

13 INT 03

11 EGO 02

15 PRE 05

20 COM 05

5 PD 02

5 ED 01

5 SPD 17

7 REC 00

36 END 00

30 STN 02

99

Cost Talent

3 Ambidextrous

3 Combat Sense

(6) <105>

Cost Skill

3 Linguist

0 Arabic

3 German

3 Greek

3 Latin

3 English

3 Turkish

2 PS: Cooking 11-

8 PS: Dancing (DEX) 19-

3 Survival 11-

3 AK: Desert (INT) 12-

3 Stealth (DEX) 14-

5 Acrobatics (DEX) 15-

3 High Society (PRE) 12-

3 Seduction (PRE) 12-

3 KS: Occult (INT) 12-

(51) <156>

3 Legsweep

4 Flying Dodge

3 Disarm

3 Martial Parry (Martial Block)

1 Weapon Class: Swords

(14) <176>

22 Multipower: <45> OAF Swords.

1 Dance of Shadows: Desolid <40> Only makes immune to HTH attacks, cannot pass through walls etc. (–1). Character must have room to move (-¼)

2 Whirling Dervish: 1.5d6 HKA <22>AOE rds. Reduced Area, Selective (+1)

2 Blade Barrier: Missile Deflection-Bullets. +7 to OCV <29> Deflect Adjacent +½

2 Soul Strike: 2D6 HKA <30> effects desolids +½

1 Carving my initials in your shirt: 2d6 PRE transfer to PRE <30>

(30)<200>

200 Total Cost

Points Disads

05 Distinctive features, stunning and exotic (you don’t forget her face)

20 Hunted: Her Own Brother: As Powerful, better resources. Wants to kill. 14-

15 Hunted: Whoever framed her in the first place.

15 Honorable: Won’t break her word: Common Strong.

05 Opinionated: Uncommon.

10 Destitute: Moving from job to transient job on the run.

75 Disads

Re: New Pulp Hero Game on Hero Central

I'm interested. Just need a day or two to work up a good concept. Hmmm... Eyes glitter like amethysts behind a gossamer veil, a lithe form twirls through torchlight trailing streamers of jasmine incense. Two curved blades make silver slashes in the night... The idea is coming.