ChuckB

Re: Iconic Characters: the Justice Squadron

Re: Iconic Characters: the Justice Squadron If an icon-level sourcebook came out for Champs (which seems like a big if) I'd probably pick it up mostly to support the company, but also figuring it's no big deal to "power-down" the characters to the appropriate level (including a "year one" version of the icon might not be a bad idea either). Depending on how Galactic Champions does might be one of the deciding factors on this.

Re: Iconic Characters: the Justice Squadron Now c'mon guy...lets keep this civil, alrighty ?

Re: Iconic Characters: the Justice Squadron How many PCs do you have in your game and, as a ballpark estimate, how long would you say your Champs combats go ? The reason I ask is because I'm wondering how you'd get that to work from a practical standpoint ? It would seem that there might be a lot of lag time of PCs waiting for their phase while the NPCs fight each other. If you ever run something like the above scenario, you might consider letting the PCs run the A-Team heroes so that way they're more involved in the game and it'd probably be easier for you.

Re: Iconic Characters: the Justice Squadron Metaphysician: Just out of curiosity, in the example that's been give, once the top-tier heroes arrived, would you run them or would you allow the players to run them or something in between ?

Re: Iconic Characters: the Justice Squadron Introducing mega-powered NPC heroes into a standard power-level game just seems to have dubious merit and some potential risk to the campaign. 1 Opens up the game-balance "Pandora's Box" and encourages rampant power-escalation with the PCs which can be hard to curtail without being heavy-handed ("The GM Says No"), which, I suppose, is only an issue if your campaign has any kind(s) of power-restrictions. 2 Makes the PCs irrelevent, especially if they saw their characters as fulfilling the JLA-role.

Re: Hostages and Captured Foci The section under "Cover" in 5E (p.260) and Dark Champions (p.181) gives a few examples of how to get around the cover maneuver. As far as careless PC actions, I'd go Magmarock's direction except that first, I'd warn the PCs and explain that I may not even roll any damage dice; I might just say that the NPC hostage is killed instantly (this is to discourage PCs from "playing the numbers" to figure out whether an NPC will survive the initial attack).

Re: Forgotten Golden Age heroes You might check out the Starman series by James Robinson (most are in trades I think) and Sandman Mystery Theater (which has more of a pulp-feel but starts moving towards the golden age towards the end of its run). Both (especially Starman) had a few golden age guest stars.

Re: Scenario ideas inspired by other media I ran an adventure based on the Robert Deniro movie Ronin.

Re: Favorite Pulp Character Captain Satan http://www.bookpalace.com/acatalog/HighAdventure045.jpg

Re: Thinking of making Astro-Knight, but what Job skills would he have? Environmental Movement: zero-g environ (you could also make this part of the suit)

Re: Iron Age Philosophies Many iron-age books deal with social issues and how superhumans can affect them. Also, the G-8 countries have access to extremely advanced and bizarre technology and are comfortable with it. Supers tend to be jaded and don't always take prisoners.

Re: Gods and Champions

Re: Good bye Actually it's not. The best episode is the one where Kirk goes back in time to the 1920's to kill Bone's old girlfriend who is a salt-eating monster who runs a boarding house. Actually, my memory on this one might be off, but I definitely remember that Burgess Meredith was the Special Guest Villain.

Re: Gods and Champions

Re: Gods and Champions Ah. This very discussion got me kicked off the Warren Ellis Forum back in the day (not because anything I posted was offensive; he was just going through a big anti-superhero phase and didn't like the direction the thread was heading to). Anyways. Thor is a visible, verifiable and tangible god who produces results. When was the last time Jesus stopped a bank robery or took on the Absorbing Man ?

Re: Good bye Hey Nexus. The important thing to remember is that we were right and everybody else who disagreed with our posts was wrong or wrong to a degree depending on how proportionally they disagreed. Or something. And don't get on ChuckG's bad side, he'll send a 10,000 pt. hero after you !

Re: High End Cannoical Character in Champions Universe I'll give you the 100 STR(in the old Mayfair game pre-CRISIS Supes had 250; post-CRISIS was 125) but whose to say his defenses are that high ? You could just as easily go 30/30 resistant (maybe half-hardened), plus, all of his powers get (-1/4:"Only while on a planet with a yellow sun") assuming that limit gets past the GM.

Re: High End Cannoical Character in Champions Universe Honestly, if there's that much interest in a book of high-powered superheroes for Champs, then DOJ should put one out. I still think high-level characters in a standard power-level game work best as part of the background (in which case stats don't really matter), but if a GM feels they can make it work (or already have), more power to 'em. And I still maintain that the JLA members can be built on 350 pts. each (Supes too, but with questionable frameworks and power limits)- All about the skill: Power , baby !

Re: High End Cannoical Character in Champions Universe Well, see, I just don't think it should get that far. And honestly, is it really fair to make your players sit through a one-sided(although probably brief) fight between the offending player's character and the big NPC hero acting as the GM's baliff ? I mean really, who has time for that kind of nonsense ? It's not so much that they have to play the way I want them to as that they are not allowed to be disruptive to the game on a consistant basis. I'll probably let it go the first time (depending on how disruptive the player is) and chalk it up to he/she having a bad day Usually the character creation negotiation process tells me whether a potential player will work out or not. It's not an exact science but, little things will clue me in like super-munchkinized characters; super-jokey-characters, etc. If the player is new to RPGing and/or a supermodel , I'll cut her slack.

Re: High End Cannoical Character in Champions Universe A couple of thoughts: - I don't necessarily see the (cartoon version) JLA as being 750+ characters; you could just as easily make an argument about their being in the 350-400 pt. range with the same power-levels as a standard (350 pts.) Champs game. - I try to keep the power-level of the game from escalating too quickly (preferring to see more advancement of skills and side powers) and I've found that's easier to do by keeping the NPCs (heroes and villains) in roughly the same neighborhood power-wise as the PCs (the 4th ed. Mechanon was a good example of a master-villain who was clearly more powerful than a single hero, but not ridiculously so.). - If as a GM, you really need a high-level NPC hero to rein in a troublesome player and as a means of showing your displeasure with that player's actions, then you've failed as a GM (And I've actually done this). As a GM, I make it clear from the get-go what kinds of characters I'd like to not see and if a PC acts out of character or is otherwise disruptive to the game, I surgically remove the player from the game and move on. Nothing more amateurish than watching a pissing match-farce between the GM and a player acted out in game by their respective characters. Sometimes it's entertaining, but for all the wrong reasons.

Re: High End Cannoical Character in Champions Universe I don't equate a 350(or whatever) pt. character as necessarily making him a "beginning level hero" although he could be and if you're playing a superhero in a superhero rpg, you usually are a "big gun". If the GM wants to run a sidekick-level game and the players are ok with it, fine.

Re: High End Cannoical Character in Champions Universe

Re: Champions Fiction When will the pulp antholology be available ?

Re: How to kill a PC? Falls asleep while smoking in bed and burns to death ? Anticlimactic sure, but original.