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sentry0

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Posts posted by sentry0

  1. Introducing players to Champions at a mini-con

    in Champions

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

    Sentry0 also I thought about the monster rampage is that if it’s a villain say Ogre (with the Devolution Ray), he gets captured, have a scientist tell them the back story. (I’d make him a tragic villain). If the heroes capture him, then have them find out that viper stole either the Ray gun or notes or the scientist himself. Either way, that’s the ploy to get them to search for a Viper base.

     

    Cool idea, I'll see if I can work it in :)

     

  2. Introducing players to Champions at a mini-con

    in Champions

    Posted

    15 minutes ago, Spence said:

    It is hard to kill a super in Champions (cinematic supers version) unless they are really mismatched.  If you make the pre-gens and the villains, then super to super killing is not likely.  Henchmen or bystanders are in danger, but that is when you pull out the "but you're a SUPERHERO! and supers don't kill".

     

    This may be naive but I purposely seeded some of the characters with your classic "Heroic Code of Ethics" and some not.  If someone wants to kill then I *will* expect people to actually roleplay their character appropriately.  Besides, you do have to work pretty damn hard in this game to kill someone, even an agent is really hard.

     

    None of the characters have been written to be sociopaths.  Even the most militant character has no Psy Lims that would turn him into a murderer.  

     

    I guess if I get a bunch of players who rolled in straight from the Temple of Elementary School Evil I'll be in trouble.  I'll still give it my all but I will point out there's a bar on premises should I need to take the edge off ?

  3. Introducing players to Champions at a mini-con

    in Champions

    Posted

    51 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

    Sentry0, perhaps it would be helpful to you to consider some of the adventures published in Hero Games' electronic magazine, Digital Hero. Most of them were written to fit into one-session convention games for new players. They all include NPCs with illustrations, most have maps, and some include pre-generated heroes to use as handout PCs. The adventures were written for Fifth Edition Hero, but since you're familiar with that they wouldn't be hard to adapt to Sixth. And the individual DH issues are quite cheap from the Hero Games website store; especially considering all the other cool stuff they contain.

     

    I've found "Infectious Enthusiasm" by John Taber, from DH #9, to be the easiest to run, since it introduces a new team of heroes (and provides full PC write-ups) and does nearly all the prep work for you. However, if you want to include PC origin as part of the event you might prefer "Project Predator" by Ed Hastings, in DH #29. That adventure actually features a large selection of diverse low-powered PCs you can choose from. In any case all the DH adventures have elements you could crib from for your purposes.

     

    Our fellow forum member JmOz made a list of all the DH adventures, categorized by genre, which he posted to the forum. I also saved all the Tables of Contents from the DH issues in a searchable document. I'll Attach both documents below for convenience.

    DH Adventures .doc

    DH TOC.doc

     

    This us great stuff, I'm going to start reviewing it.

     

    Thank you!

  4. Introducing players to Champions at a mini-con

    in Champions

    Posted

    14 minutes ago, Brian Stanfield said:

    If the players like this, you can soft-start them with their own characters by using the Quick Character Generator I mentioned above. Have you seen the quick character generation cards that will be coming out?

     

    I would love if they liked it enough to want to do that. 

     

    Hopefully, I can give them a good first foray into the Champions universe.

  7. Introducing players to Champions at a mini-con

    in Champions

    Posted

    11 minutes ago, Brian Stanfield said:

     

    It seems like you already have a martial artist-Dark Champions type of character already built into your plot. I'd run with that.

     

    If all else fails, use the Quick Character Generator from Champions 5e, beginning on page 81. I thought there was a download of that section, but I can't find it, and since we can't search the store anymore I'm not sure I'll ever find it again.

     

    Yeah, I wanted to work in a character with a more skill based focus but it doesn't preclude them from being a psychic.  At this point though I am leaning towards martial artist pretty heavily.

     

    There could always be a set of advanced tactical weapondry in this facility so I can work in the gadget angle.

  8. Introducing players to Champions at a mini-con

    in Champions

    Posted

    6 minutes ago, BoloOfEarth said:

     

    One big warning -- some players would rather their characters die in a blaze of glory than get captured / taken hostage.  Especially the Security character -- that player is bound to think it's his job to fight back immediately.  In my experience, a game plan that involves taking the PCs hostage rarely if ever ends well.  Yes, it's a comic book trope, but it runs completely counter to RPG player mentality.

     

    I ran an adventure to start a campaign, with the PCs starting out as unpowered, planning that they would gain their powers while captured by the bad guys.  With multiple bad guys wielding Uzis and assault rifles and dozens of innocent hostages, the PCs obviously outnumbered and outgunned, one of the players nonetheless decided his character would dive through a window rather than get captured.  It quickly turned into a clusterf*** bloodbath.

     

    Either (1) make it painfully, blatantly clear to the players that they will start out getting captured as a way to get their powers, so they better go along with that up front, or (2) change it so the accident happens up right up front, allowing them to fight back immediately (albeit with powers they're just learning to use).  I think (2) is preferable.

     

    My suggestion is to have the PCs together as a group somewhere not immediately in VIPER's sights when the break in and lab accident happens - maybe they all know each other and are having lunch together in an empty conference room, or the latter three are all in Accounting dealing with a payroll issue when VIPER breaks in.  (If so, I'd suggest the Goons in Green accidentally trigger some kind of energy wave that can pass through walls and affect people in different ways -- the PCs just happen to be in the path of the directed energy wave.)  That said, I'd suggest a few VIPER agents mutated as well, but initially KOd but wake up to be the big bad the players have to beat after pounding on agents.

     

    Point well taken, I'll set it up so the players are not taken hostage but their co-workers are.  This should help keep the cluster****ing to a minimum.  

     

    I'll have accident take place almost immediately after "creature-x" is set loose to rampage the city.  I'll tie in their mutations with the same accident that creates the creature.

     

    I'm thinking of like a 50' tall mindless creature rampages the city...something fun to introduce a lot of chaos.

  11. Introducing players to Champions at a mini-con

    in Champions

    Posted

    14 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

    As much as I like JMoz starting characters, I feel building iconic archetype should be built at 300 pts. Less options less overwhelming. I like the old 4th ed format. Basically 1 main power, 1 defensive power and 1 movement power. I’d also suggest from staying away from multipower a and VPP. 

     

     Do you have any old books? Why reinvent the wheel when you can swipe classic characters and just write them up? And if you want-rename then if you feel it’s approoriate. 

     

    When do you need this done by?

     

    I don't own much past 5th edition anymore and only really owned the old 4th edition core book.

     

    This meetup group runs mini-cons every month at a local gaming themed restaurant with the next one scheduled for April 28th.  Lots of time to figure this out.

  12. Introducing players to Champions at a mini-con

    in Champions

    Posted

    I'm still trying to pin down exactly what I want to do for the sessions...here's what I'm bouncing around.

    • Players all work the same mega-corporation at a research facility 
    • Players are from the following departments - Accounting, IT, Reception (aspiring actress), and Security Specialist (ex-military)
    • VIPER breaks in to steal the research
    • Takes the players hostage
    • There's an accident with the research materials that the players are caught in
    • Players awake to find that they have powers

    The rest should be straightforward combat with the players wiping the floor with VIPER goons.  I'm not sure if I want to throw in another set of supers on VIPERs side or not or have some of the VIPER agents mutated as well from the accident.  It may be more work than it's worth.

     

    I'm open to any tweaks or suggestions here too so feel free to weigh in.

  13. Introducing players to Champions at a mini-con

    in Champions

    Posted

    I am a member of a local meetup.com gaming group in my area and am planning on running a 6e origin story/1 shot.  This would be a 4 person group using pre-generated characters that would run through a simple session where they receive powers and have to fight off some baddies (likely VIPER).  I'm super nervous about doing this but am going to push myself to do it.

     

    My goals are to hopefully be able to:

    • showcase what you can do with Champions/HERO System
    • introduce people to the game concepts gently and organically

     

    My thoughts around showcasing the system is that I want to build diverse characters that illustrate the depth of possibilities available to you.  Here's what I have so far:

    • Energy Projector - solar based with an array of attacks...is also spaceworthy and has FTL for flavor
    • Brick - Kryptonian-esq with ranged attacks based on gravity manipulation in place of heat vision etc.
    • Speedster - classic speedster able to run up walls and reach mach speeds...lots of SPEED, lots of utility ('cause we all know speedsters always get stuck on crowd control :P)
    • ???

     

    I feel like those 3 characters cover the median, high speed, and high damage/low speed ends of the spectrum nicely.  What I need help with is this last character...I'm thinking of either doing a psychic or a martial artist but can't decide and want to open it up to debate on the forums. 

     

    So what do people think?  Psychic or Martial Artist or something completely different?  Should I combine the Psychic and Martial Artist into one character...it would be so expensive...

     

  14. The Arms Race Must End

    in Champions

    Posted

    46 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

    Have you thought about hard caps? Though it sounds though that the main problem is your players like one type of game and you another. Perhaps talk to your group and tell them that you would enjoy having a skill based scenerio  now and again. It’s acknowledged that the GM should hav fun too.

     

    Both of these suggestions are on point and I 100% agree with them.  I like to lay down rules like for every 20 xp you bump the active point costs by 5 (for example).  That deals with raw power fairly easily and transparently.

     

    The fact is though that some characters rely on powers by concept and some don't.  Superman and Batman are are great examples of the opposite ends if the spectrum that everyone knows.

     

    Powers are flashy and fun too so I think it's pretty natural people gravitate towards them.  If they're building within concept then I say you're doing ok.

  15. HERO System Mobile

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    6 hours ago, C-Note said:

    After some actual in-play testing, the players love the tool.  A couple of additional feature requests:

     

    1.  Population of the damage tool by long-pressing equipment/attack will automatically set the Stun Multiplier as well, instead of having to do it manually (i.e. if a weapon/attack has a +x Stun Multiplier).

    2.  Ability to choose specific hit location for damage.

    3.  Damage option for critical hits (max damage), with and without hit location modifiers.

     

    Thank you!

     

    #1 could be rough to do, I'll add your requests to the list :)

     

  16. Tricks and Tips for managing a game

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, Surrealone said:

    Alternative rolling calculation?  How do you mean?

     

    I'm asking because OCV + 11 - 3d6 Roll = DCV Hit is the calculation given on 6e2 p35 in the section labeled The Basic Attack Roll.  i.e. There's nothing alternative about it in 6e; it's the primary calculation.

     

    It's listed as being an alternative in 5e...I still play 5e primarily ;)

     

  17. Tricks and Tips for managing a game

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

    Use the OCV+11 - 3d6 roll to resolve the DCV hit.  You can even turn it into an x- formula on character sheets: you have a 9 OCV, that means you have a 20- roll, tell me how much you made the roll by.

     

    I love this alternative rolling calculation and always use it in my games.  I think it's easier for people to start with and better overall.

  20. DC Movies- if at first you don't succeed...

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    11 minutes ago, Old Man said:

    It's unreal that BvS is the top performing film in the DCEU.  The movie that I had to explain to my kids. "No, Batman wouldn't use guns or brand people.  No, Superman wouldn't fight in the middle of a city if he could help it.  No, they're not supposed to fight each other.  No, Batman isn't the bad guy."

     

    Of that list, BvS is far and away the worst one for me too.  The only redeeming quality was Wonder Woman and there wasn't enough of her to justify the time investment in that overly long mess...

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