Doug McCrae

Re: "Super Heroes" vs. "Superheroes"

It seems to me the main differentiating factors in the games I've played are the GMs weird obsessions.

Pix (posted as Big Willy on these boards) - Time travel, Cthulhu Mythos, the party gets split, PC deaths. These are pretty consistent across all of Pix's games whether he's running Champions, DnD or Call of Cthulhu. Pix has no Claremont-esque soap opera stuff. Games focus on superhero activity. The dice fall where the may in combat. Pix has always been pretty dodgy when it comes to challlenge level. These two factors contribute to the high PC death rate.

Al - Vampires, general dark stuff like Hell, seeming bad guys are revealed to be good after all, a long-term threat to blow up the Earth or universe, old people are better than young people. These are pretty consistent across all of Al's games whether he's running Golden Heroes, Amber or Vampire: the Masquerade. When he was running superhero, Al's primary source was actually Claremont era X-Men so there was some soap opera. And mutants. And people from alternate futures. Though not all that much, surprisingly. Al runs in a much more dramatic/controlling style than Pix does.

So no, I don't really recognise your types, Megaplayboy.

Re: Goofy hero names that you still love

Hey, Az-tech was good enough for Grant Morrison. I think his was spelt Aztek though he was definitely a big technology wielding character. 'k' instead of 'c' - hypermodern!

Re: Learning from mistakes

With the shift from Troll to Nexus' date=' and with the recent track record of Nexus, the villains will start to focus more on Hamlet, Sammy, and Spectrum, though not necessarily in that order...[/quote']What sort of a superhero name is Sammy?

 

Troll and Hamlet are good though, especially the latter.

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

when you begin suggesting what people/organizations should and should not say or take responsibility for' date=' that is a form of censorship IMHO[/quote']No it isn't. Censorship must include the power to remove material from the document under examination.

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

The main point revolves around whether morality is absolute or relative. In our reality it is relative. An evil action from one perspective may not be evil from another.

Re: Subplots

Thanks a lot for the suggestions everyone.

Re: The White Rabbit

Cool idea. Like the AiW terminology. I'd dispense with the term 'Wizard' though seeing as how there's no wizard in either of the books.

Re: Character Transformations

When my PC (The Masked Archer) died in a Golden Age game there was some talk about putting his brain in the body of a robot we'd encountered. I think I'd have called him The Iron Archer if I'd gone for it but I decided to create a new character instead.

I've been trying to think of subplots for my campaign. What I would like are sample subplots, preferably similar (or even identical to) those in superhero comics that would be appropriate for a roleplaying game.

Re: Title for the next HERO villains book

Bushwhackers, Burglars & Bandits

Tyrants, Terrorists & Torturers: Read world villainy

Re: That Mechanon fella jest ain't right: a roleplay question

I'd prefer it if the robot wasn't called Mechanon as the whole purpose of that seems to be to invoke player knowledge.

Howabout if the robot was a player character? Then he'd basically be Vision instead of Ultron. *And* you could have him go evil several sessions down the line cause you've pre-arranged it with the player.

For a British-based game I like the idea of playing a Fury ripoff who's been re-programmed for good, much like Brainiac 5 did with Computo. It'd be creepy because like the real Fury the ripoff would've killed a bunch of superheroes in the early 80s back before it got a new brain.

Re: Money And Super-Mercenaries

In our world' date=' when my character Zl'f said in an interview she liked horseback riding, 12 million teenaged girls in Europe and America immediately signed up for horseback riding lessons; starting the biggest teen fad for horses since the heyday of Secretariat in the 70's.[/quote']With great power comes great responsibility.

Re: Money And Super-Mercenaries

#1> The product "Elite", for Aberrant, comes recommended. Some of it does fall into the Astro City trap of making excuses for genre conventions, or it would come highly recommended.

Re: Money And Super-Mercenaries

Salary would be pretty variable IMO, depending on the usefulness of powers. If Matter-Eater Lad decided to become a merc he'd make the same rate a normal would. OTOH if he wanted to go into the nuclear waste disposal business he could earn a tidy sum. Someone with Cyclops power wouldn't be much more effective than a man with a rifle. However his tactical genius would be a lot more useful.

At the other end of the spectrum Silver Age Superman could name his price. Though anyone possessing that level of power and merely using it to make money could certainly be accused of lack of vision.

Re: Money And Super-Mercenaries

Just how much money could a paranormal mercenary expect to get from a job on average?

Re: Campaign Idea

IMO the government would initially do whatever was necessary to maintain order and preserve life. That could mean bringing in the National Guard or even declaring martial law *if* the situation was bad enough.

The mutation might be regarded as a disease and treated like an outbreak of the Ebola virus*.

Once order had been restored, different parts of the government would act in different ways. The police would request new weapons to deal with crazies and criminals with superpowers. The 'men in black' would do everything they could to bring mutants under their power, study and recreate the mutation. IRL the CIA has tried things just as weird, such as remote viewing.

*Really it's the Wildcard virus of course.

Re: Help with team name

Kismet

Re: The Last Hurrah (adventure for your use)

I feel Crackerjack needs a little slack cut here.

Re: Superhumans pulling an Authority

If they're not using continual applications of Mind Control to the +30 EGO level' date=' or Mental Transforms (free-willed human into fanatically loyal follower), then they're not using *any* imagination. I mean, why *shouldn't* they whip out global mind control?[/quote']Because it would make for a boring game.

 

Global mind control would, as you say, make taking over the world trivially easy and that isn't the point of this exercise.

Re: The green alien's burden

Great idea. I had a somewhat similar notion - an alien empire that calls itself the Benevolent Empire and does indeed act in about the most benevolent manner possible while still being an empire. I pictured the BE setting up a number of enclaves of willing converts on Earth, people keen to make use of the definite benefits offered by alien trade and technology.

Re: Superhero drawing tools

Well' date=' not sure I can do edgy[/quote']Edgy just means 'incorrectly spelled' so Paper Cutz is good.

Re: Superhero drawing tools

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I only excluded Hero Machine cause I already know about it.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

Has anyone seen Audition? It's a good film but so horrible I can't really recommend it.

So far there's Conquerors, Killers & Crooks and Villains, Vandals & Vermin. Lets help HERO games by coming up with a title for their next book of bad guys.

My suggestion:

Monsters, Mercenaries & Miscreants

Can anyone recommend superhero drawing software apart from Hero Machine?