mrinku

Fair enough. But it doesn't change my point that this was a new approach from DC.

Assault has previously mentioned the Doom Patrol being a response to the Fantastic Four (and the Marvel style of squabbling heroes), and I agree. There's a case for the X-Men copying the DP, but to be honest it's really just the leader in a wheelchair thing and both teams being distrusted... otherwise they really don't match up well. And even superheroes that were distrusted by the public was already a Marvel thing (Spiderman), so Stan and Jack can't really be accused of swiping that.
 
Also, it was kind of a big deal for Marvel to launch a new, untested book in 1963, since they were still under their distribution deal's 8 titles per month restriction (in practice they were doing 16 bi-monthly titles) and that meant retiring something else. I just don't buy that Lee and Kirby at the height of their powers HAD to swipe anything from anyone. I accept The Chief and Professor X being in wheelchairs as just  a mild co-incidence, used for the same reason (to keep them out of the field).
 
Heck, Dr. Strangelove (1964) was in production at the time both comics debuted... is anyone suggesting that Kubrick swiped his character from Marvel or DC?
 
Edit: Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954) might well have planted the seed of a character in a wheelchair for both sets of creators, of course.

Alright, I guess I'll have to concede my thesis about the JLA vs Avengers was weak. The latter does have a much more revolving door roster, though, and almost from the start included many characters that never even had backup features. The JLA has no equivalent during the Silver Age of everyone but Cap quitting and being replaced by three former villains. 
 
The original Comics Code is still what I'd use to define the Silver Age. It both helped surpress crime and horror titles and encouraged colourful action stories with a simple morality, which all worked to revive superheroes. Almost as soon as it was revised in 1971 the writers started taking advantage of being able to use previously forbidden elements like corruption.

Baby Driver. It was kinda fun and the music was good, certainly worth the $4 I paid to see it, but I'm not sure what all the fuss was about.

I wouldn't be too keen on distinguishing between Silver Age DC and Marvel. The two influenced each other massively, and they weren't the only two companies out there either.
 
OK, whoever Jack Kirby was working for had the benefit of his style, but that was both of them at different times.
 
This is why Challengers of the Unknown (1957, DC) was pretty much the first draft of the Fantastic Four (1961, Marvel).
 
And then, the FF were a response to the JLA.
 
And the Doom Patrol were a response to the FF.
 
And....
 
The interaction was continuous, and they swapped staff all the time. Yes, even back then.

You'll be able to see from where you've placed the viewing point. But it's going to be as awkward as using VR and having the feed coming in from a camera placed a distance away from you.
 
Darkness defines an area impenetrable to a sense, but Claisentience isn't trying to look through that area. If you turn the "camera" back you'd see a blob of darkness.
 
Potentially you could have Darkness vs Clairsentience to prevent you using the power to place viewpoints, though this is probably only valid if the GM is running Clairsentience as an actual sense group (or part of Mental). Normally this is not the case. In all cases you could have a drain or suppression field to prevent you using the power. 
 
And special effects are important. Clearly if you have a mystic Eye that flies around and telepathically relays what it sees to you, you're probably not going to be hampered by intervening smoke, but a psychic damper field is going to be an issue. And if your clairsentience is a camera drone relaying feed by wifi, Darkness to Radio would block it. The key point here is not what sense or senses the clairsentience itself uses, but what sense your character uses to gather the information. If your clairsentience is the ability to bend light so that you can see around corners... yeah, a smoke grenade is going to screw you up. 
 
If your clairsentience relays to your iPad screen or a crystal ball, darkness to sight will affect it - you can't see the focus. If it relays to the HUD in your power suit helmet or your All Seeing Third Eye, you'll probably be fine.
 
I'd also point out that you can normally place a viewpoint regardless of walls and other sight blocking obstructions; most Darkness fields would count much the same as a wall for the senses they block.

It's probably worth recalling that Ozymandias himself is a twisted version of a previous character (Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt). And while that Charlton Comics character is from 1966, he'd really fit quite well into a Golden Age setting.
 
The original GA Mister Terrific (1942) is probably the GA archetype of this kind of character, which I'm sure Darren was fully aware of
 
And we can all tip a hat to Clark Savage Jr, though once you move beyond the origin and abilities things aren't too similar between the Man of Bronze and the Golden Age self-improvement Paragons.

But the symbology is a little backward, The hammer represents the industrial proletariat and the sickle represents the agricultural workers. They're not weapons. Plus modern Russia eschews overt Soviet symbology. Save that stuff for cold war settings, really.
 
The Federal Security Service do continue to use the old KGB sword & shield badge, but with the soviet emblem replaced with the Russian Federation one. Same job, same symbolism.
 
The Russian Federation patriotic colours are red, white and blue. The national emblem is this:
 

 
I could see a flag suit called Russian Eagle (Русский орел - Russkiy orel); white bodysuit with the shield on the chest and blue and red trim. The rider is St George killing a dragon with a spear, so there's another image you could run with. Make him from Georgia for a double dip of patron saint.

But the symbology is a little backward, The hammer represents the industrial proletariat and the sickle represents the agricultural workers. They're not weapons. Plus modern Russia eschews overt Soviet symbology. Save that stuff for cold war settings, really.
 
The Federal Security Service do continue to use the old KGB sword & shield badge, but with the soviet emblem replaced with the Russian Federation one. Same job, same symbolism.
 
The Russian Federation patriotic colours are red, white and blue. The national emblem is this:
 

 
I could see a flag suit called Russian Eagle (Русский орел - Russkiy orel); white bodysuit with the shield on the chest and blue and red trim. The rider is St George killing a dragon with a spear, so there's another image you could run with. Make him from Georgia for a double dip of patron saint.

There's a range of more or less nasty options, depending on how you want your Putin to be.
 
I'd tend to have him tread very carefully in regards to Mother Russia's family. Genuine protective custody would be my default. He will want to be working with this person and not against her. Making it so she can't find them? I'd not buy that. Giving them new lives and guarding them carefully, as with MCU Hawkeye's family, which earns her gratitude and establishes a level of dependence? That's more Putin's style, IMHO.

Hi! Been a Champions nut for a very long time (1985, 3rd ed) but been quite inactive over the last decade and a half. Ran a lot of 3rd and 4th ed but skipped over Fuzion (ugh) and 5th ed. Champions Complete has recently fallen into my lap and the old juices are starting to flow again.

How did you come up with your 'handle' (forum name)?
  I picked up a nickname as "The Missing Link" at my first proper job. Link is "Rinku" in Japanese which I was always a fan of. Nothing to do with Zelda - but because of Link from Zelda I got into the habit of sticking the "m" for missing in front to make a handle. 

What was the first tabletop RPG you played?
  1st Edition Traveller, circa 1980.

What was the first tabletop RPG you GMed?
  Ditto.

What are you currently playing/GMing?
  Playing 2nd Ed Space:1889 (Ubiquity version) with the old gang via Skype. Prepping to run Champions 6th after we finish that campaign.

 

Edit: Just added a profile picture. Never played Captain Third in a tabletop game, but he's appeared in City of Heroes, DCUO, Pirates of the Burning Sea and has a miniature (pictured). Probably I should have a picture of Robo-bushi or Dwarfstar who go back to my actual Champions playing days, but Cap started as a wargaming tournament in-joke and the first drawing of him was as a forum profile portrait, so hey.

Medium by default here. I grew up on the likes of Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Anderson and Niven, though there's a fondness for space opera too. And I'm a Traveller kid.

The sad thing is that Putin almost certainly hasn't had to invent anything in relation to control of the press and fixing elections. Those were all well established during the Soviet and Yeltsin eras, and he just inherited them. Of course as ex-KGB he was very familiar with them as well.
 
Things were really bad when Putin took over and he genuinely did a lot of good in stabilising the country. No one would have benefitted from Russia falling further into chaos in 2000, except maybe China. Even Gorbechev admits that Russia really wasn't ready for democracy and things were going to have to be rolled back. He ultimately may be taking notes from China and be building a compromise economy and polity.
 
Meh! Enough real world stuff! Play Vladimir Vladimirovich however you choose - evil bastard, paternalistic patriot, mind controlled 4th Reich puppet or Alien Android! It's sufficient to have had the discussion to explore the options.
 
Actually, here's an idea... in a superhero world maybe the relentlessly macho V.V.Putin is himself an enhanced being. I'd be thinking super-soldier/bionics, though Mind Control or super-persuasion powers could fit right in.
 
Or bitten by a radioactive bear! Yowza!

There's a range of more or less nasty options, depending on how you want your Putin to be.
 
I'd tend to have him tread very carefully in regards to Mother Russia's family. Genuine protective custody would be my default. He will want to be working with this person and not against her. Making it so she can't find them? I'd not buy that. Giving them new lives and guarding them carefully, as with MCU Hawkeye's family, which earns her gratitude and establishes a level of dependence? That's more Putin's style, IMHO.

Putin's an interesting case study. I read Gorbechev's last memoir recently, and his take on V.V. Putin comes across as more of a competent control freak who doesn't trust anyone else to run the show, rather than someone that's inherently corrupt. 
 
It's worth recalling that he stepped in and fixed a total mess, which WAS horribly corrupt, left by Yeltsin, and that his initial election appears to have been legitimate. Or at least, actually reflected the wishes of the majority of the voters.
 
He's yet to technically exceed his constitutional limits... the Russian constitution limited Presidents to two consecutive terms, but omitted an absolute lifetime two term limit (this was something Putin has exploited, but didn't invent). He served his first two terms 2000-2008, switched to Prime Minister 2008-2012 and was re-elected as President 2012. During Medvedev's term as President the term length was increased from four to six years, so Putin is still in his third term (and first consecutive one). Assuming he's reelected next year, it'll be 2024 before he needs to look at dropping back to Prime Minister again, retiring or changing the rules. He'd be 72, so it's not impossible that he may be planning retirement (though my guess would be not).
 
My take on the kind of super team he'd assemble as a personal one would be "reliable operatives". Not dupes, not corrupt. Ruthless and personally loyal. I really doubt he'd consider blackmail a reliable means of control - too risky. Super special ops would be my take. These are the guys sent out on covert black ops strikes and who have a role in dealing with other teams that get out of hand. Probably have an official role as Presidential Bodyguard (which would by MY suggestion as their official title).
 
There should be other teams of less reliable, but powerful operatives that would be used for non-sensitive work like disaster relief and crime fighting, and have a big positive publicity role... with a reliable team leader.
 
There would also be Army teams for supers that could be relied on to follow military discipline but deemed not suitable for the Presidential Bodyguard. And penal teams aka Suicide Squad would fit in as well. 

There's a range of more or less nasty options, depending on how you want your Putin to be.
 
I'd tend to have him tread very carefully in regards to Mother Russia's family. Genuine protective custody would be my default. He will want to be working with this person and not against her. Making it so she can't find them? I'd not buy that. Giving them new lives and guarding them carefully, as with MCU Hawkeye's family, which earns her gratitude and establishes a level of dependence? That's more Putin's style, IMHO.

There's a range of more or less nasty options, depending on how you want your Putin to be.
 
I'd tend to have him tread very carefully in regards to Mother Russia's family. Genuine protective custody would be my default. He will want to be working with this person and not against her. Making it so she can't find them? I'd not buy that. Giving them new lives and guarding them carefully, as with MCU Hawkeye's family, which earns her gratitude and establishes a level of dependence? That's more Putin's style, IMHO.

Not necessarily corrupt (though there will be some corruption in certain members), but definitely the "ruthless and personally loyal" for the most part.  The Personality writeup for Major Vasilov (yes, I know it's spelled slightly differently than the 4E Colonel Vasalov / Tokamak, but Vasilov is a more common spelling) reads in part:
 
 
 
 
And yes, these are folks sent on covert black-ops missions.  Including an assassination of a defecting Russian spy, which also resulted in the death of an American super who was guarding the defector.  Nothing provable linking the deaths to Red Alert, but everybody in the intelligence community pretty much figures they were responsible. 
 
I'm including Mother Russia in the mix because I see her as a genuine heroine seeking to protect and help her countrymen, but forced into Red Alert as a means of keeping a close eye on her (and because she is a major powerhouse.)  I want the players to wonder, what is a person like her doing working with those guys?

Putin's an interesting case study. I read Gorbechev's last memoir recently, and his take on V.V. Putin comes across as more of a competent control freak who doesn't trust anyone else to run the show, rather than someone that's inherently corrupt. 
 
It's worth recalling that he stepped in and fixed a total mess, which WAS horribly corrupt, left by Yeltsin, and that his initial election appears to have been legitimate. Or at least, actually reflected the wishes of the majority of the voters.
 
He's yet to technically exceed his constitutional limits... the Russian constitution limited Presidents to two consecutive terms, but omitted an absolute lifetime two term limit (this was something Putin has exploited, but didn't invent). He served his first two terms 2000-2008, switched to Prime Minister 2008-2012 and was re-elected as President 2012. During Medvedev's term as President the term length was increased from four to six years, so Putin is still in his third term (and first consecutive one). Assuming he's reelected next year, it'll be 2024 before he needs to look at dropping back to Prime Minister again, retiring or changing the rules. He'd be 72, so it's not impossible that he may be planning retirement (though my guess would be not).
 
My take on the kind of super team he'd assemble as a personal one would be "reliable operatives". Not dupes, not corrupt. Ruthless and personally loyal. I really doubt he'd consider blackmail a reliable means of control - too risky. Super special ops would be my take. These are the guys sent out on covert black ops strikes and who have a role in dealing with other teams that get out of hand. Probably have an official role as Presidential Bodyguard (which would by MY suggestion as their official title).
 
There should be other teams of less reliable, but powerful operatives that would be used for non-sensitive work like disaster relief and crime fighting, and have a big positive publicity role... with a reliable team leader.
 
There would also be Army teams for supers that could be relied on to follow military discipline but deemed not suitable for the Presidential Bodyguard. And penal teams aka Suicide Squad would fit in as well. 

I'm not a DC person at all, so I had no idea about the Bombshells Supergirl.  Many thanks for pointing that out.  I'm not at all surprised that the idea of Kal-El landing in Soviet Russia has already been explored in comics - it seems a fairly obvious idea - but I didn't know it had already been done with Supergirl as well.  (Hey, I never said it was a terribly original idea on my part.)  I just don't want her origin to be obvious to the players at first.  Flying bricks are a dime a dozen, after all, so I figure it may take them an encounter or two (with her using heat vision and super breath) before they connect the dots.
 
The cosmonaut origin for Wight actually basically came from Maker's player, who made a mention in her origin backstory (involving an explosion aboard the UNTIL Gateway station) that another astronaut / cosmonaut could have also gotten powers in the same explosion.  I'm adding him to Red Alert mainly to give the PCs a personal animosity with the team.

Putin's an interesting case study. I read Gorbechev's last memoir recently, and his take on V.V. Putin comes across as more of a competent control freak who doesn't trust anyone else to run the show, rather than someone that's inherently corrupt. 
 
It's worth recalling that he stepped in and fixed a total mess, which WAS horribly corrupt, left by Yeltsin, and that his initial election appears to have been legitimate. Or at least, actually reflected the wishes of the majority of the voters.
 
He's yet to technically exceed his constitutional limits... the Russian constitution limited Presidents to two consecutive terms, but omitted an absolute lifetime two term limit (this was something Putin has exploited, but didn't invent). He served his first two terms 2000-2008, switched to Prime Minister 2008-2012 and was re-elected as President 2012. During Medvedev's term as President the term length was increased from four to six years, so Putin is still in his third term (and first consecutive one). Assuming he's reelected next year, it'll be 2024 before he needs to look at dropping back to Prime Minister again, retiring or changing the rules. He'd be 72, so it's not impossible that he may be planning retirement (though my guess would be not).
 
My take on the kind of super team he'd assemble as a personal one would be "reliable operatives". Not dupes, not corrupt. Ruthless and personally loyal. I really doubt he'd consider blackmail a reliable means of control - too risky. Super special ops would be my take. These are the guys sent out on covert black ops strikes and who have a role in dealing with other teams that get out of hand. Probably have an official role as Presidential Bodyguard (which would by MY suggestion as their official title).
 
There should be other teams of less reliable, but powerful operatives that would be used for non-sensitive work like disaster relief and crime fighting, and have a big positive publicity role... with a reliable team leader.
 
There would also be Army teams for supers that could be relied on to follow military discipline but deemed not suitable for the Presidential Bodyguard. And penal teams aka Suicide Squad would fit in as well. 

Putin's an interesting case study. I read Gorbechev's last memoir recently, and his take on V.V. Putin comes across as more of a competent control freak who doesn't trust anyone else to run the show, rather than someone that's inherently corrupt. 
 
It's worth recalling that he stepped in and fixed a total mess, which WAS horribly corrupt, left by Yeltsin, and that his initial election appears to have been legitimate. Or at least, actually reflected the wishes of the majority of the voters.
 
He's yet to technically exceed his constitutional limits... the Russian constitution limited Presidents to two consecutive terms, but omitted an absolute lifetime two term limit (this was something Putin has exploited, but didn't invent). He served his first two terms 2000-2008, switched to Prime Minister 2008-2012 and was re-elected as President 2012. During Medvedev's term as President the term length was increased from four to six years, so Putin is still in his third term (and first consecutive one). Assuming he's reelected next year, it'll be 2024 before he needs to look at dropping back to Prime Minister again, retiring or changing the rules. He'd be 72, so it's not impossible that he may be planning retirement (though my guess would be not).
 
My take on the kind of super team he'd assemble as a personal one would be "reliable operatives". Not dupes, not corrupt. Ruthless and personally loyal. I really doubt he'd consider blackmail a reliable means of control - too risky. Super special ops would be my take. These are the guys sent out on covert black ops strikes and who have a role in dealing with other teams that get out of hand. Probably have an official role as Presidential Bodyguard (which would by MY suggestion as their official title).
 
There should be other teams of less reliable, but powerful operatives that would be used for non-sensitive work like disaster relief and crime fighting, and have a big positive publicity role... with a reliable team leader.
 
There would also be Army teams for supers that could be relied on to follow military discipline but deemed not suitable for the Presidential Bodyguard. And penal teams aka Suicide Squad would fit in as well. 

Playing our Space:1889 game last night.
 
We're in an underground complex filled with jungle and find a bollard-like thing with a grille on it. Unable to work out what it is we move on.
 
Then we find another one, identical to the last.
 
Me: We've got grilles - they're multiplying.
GM (catching on): And you're losing control

The Sims 3 Laser Rythm-a-Con looks like this:
 

 
It has a lot in common with the theremin, though I'd guess digital over analog. 

Indeed it did not
 
I shoulda known better, though. I'm not soccer ignorant.