Doug McCrae

I'd like to see bricks with DEXs of 10 instead of 18, but they just wouldn't be effective in combat. In fact, even 18 is a bit low.

 

The rules fail to support the genre.

 

Example: Cyclops written up in Champions would no doubt have a decent DEX. 20-26, lets say. But in the group fight scenes that's not how Cyclops avoids getting shot. The Beast dodges - that's his schtick. Colossus and Wolverine soak up the damage - that's their schtick. Kitty turns intangible. But Cyclops just doesn't get shot at! It doesn't make any sort of real world sense, but that's how it works in the comics.

Some villains from my most recent campaign, set in the UK:

 

Sidhe Hulk - Monstrous, muscular fae

Haemogoblin, the Blood Boggart

The Beast of Brent - an oil monster

Mother Goose and her Rhymes of Crime

Elephant & Castle - Small-time, thuggish duo from London.

Vermiflame - A dragon. No pun, I just like the sound of it.

 

Some other characters I haven't used yet, but like the names a lot:

 

Shadow Boxer (I thought of it first!) - Golden Age Wildcat/Atom-type superhero

The Phantasmic Four

Whistlin' Dixie, and her partner Southern Bell - One has a magic whistle, the other a magic bell. Their comic is called Bells & Whistles.

The Underlings - minions of a Moleman-type.

Originally posted by Blue

Uncle Slam - My Super Patriot character

Nice one.

In the past I've quite often started with the name but I'm planning to do that less, in favour of concept first ie 'cheerleader sorceress' or 'dark speedster'.

Robert Mayer's Super-Folks, published in 1977. I've never read it, but apparently it was very influential.

 

I've just realised this was the book Al_Beddow was referring too, the one with the 'Cronkite'.

Boy Interrupted

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

This would actually make an interesting post-apocalyptic time travel scenario: the world stripped of all life has become divided between a barren desert populated by animated corpses, and a gleaming steel wasteland filled with sterile machines.

Reign of Steel vs. Reign of Skull

A lot of good posts in this thread. Castaigne's munchkin advice was particularly fine, I thought, except for his idea about buying every defence being more cost effective than DEX. I'd have said the reverse was the case.

 

A few minor additions:

1) REC is still overcosted at 2 for 1. So buy it down. Only gets you big points if you're a brick though.

2) I like OIHID with Instant Change. All your powers become 20% cheaper with no drawback whatsoever (unless you're Billy Batson...)

3) For non-bricks, EC and/or Multipower are a must. I'd put both attacks AND movement powers, though not defences, in the MP. You can half-move, switch the points in the MP, and still attack.

Originally posted by FTJoshua

Combat skill levels are cheaper than DEX

Only 2 pointers.

 

9 points spent on DEX gets you +1 OCV, +1 DCV and saves you 3 points on your SPD, so effectively you're getting +1 CV for 3 pts. You also get +3 DEX 'for free' allowing you to go sooner in combat and giving higher skill and DEX rolls.

 

DEX is way better than skill levels unless you just want a huge OCV with one attack. I'd advocate going for a high DEX, almost always. It's just too good.

Is Black Mask X like the Weapon X revelation - it really means Weapon 10?

Re: Team Leaders?

 

Originally posted by CrosshairCollie

Now that I'm running more than playing, it's even more annoying because they're not learning from getting thumped. It remains 'everybody pick a target' instead of coordinating, choosing the RIGHT target, and using powers in tandem to take people out faster ('Entangle-Haymaker GOOD!').

Champions combat is a wargame and people who are good at it are those who are good at wargames - counting hexes, calculating multipliers, etc. Some people just aren't good at that kind of thing.

Re: Global Supers Demographics

 

Originally posted by Bartman

43 Iran

6 Iraq

No wonder the Iraqis lost the war.

Originally posted by Monolith

I generally don't want to come down on players too hard though. Many players enjoy playing the Wolverine types; and Wolverine did plenty of killing in the early days of the X-Men when no one was looking.

How many Wolverines can be on a team? If it's the majority then you're not really playing a mainstream superhero game any more.

Re: The unified origin conundrum...

 

Originally posted by UrielFallen

It also eliminates much of the fun to be had with giant monsters, magical beings, mythology, aliens and so forth.

Less fun, more plausibility. You pays your money, you takes your choice.

The DC/Marvel universes have gotten so filled with weird stuff because of the sheer volume of comics published, the need to find new opponents and situations. Unless your game runs as long as those universes, you'll probably be OK with a unified origin.

Originally posted by Balok

I think things would become dystopic rather quickly; we're probably better off such people exist *only* in the pages of comics, and in our imaginations.

Naah. It would be business as usual in the real world every time some new phenomenon pops up - some good would come of it, some bad would come of it, but *always* the world becomes more complex.

Paranormals as WMDs! That's a really cool idea and I don't think it has been done before. Sure we've had superheroes as persecuted minority but we haven't had superheroes as WMDs.

 

Produced by governments, possibly 'loaned' to terrorist groups. The most potent, the equivalent of nuclear weapons, were only unleashed once, against Japan in WW2. Since then they have been idle, the destruction (or creation) of mountains/forests/rivers in remote areas of the globe signifying tests of these mighty beings. The USA has the most of course (they always do). The major powers of the world act in concert to thwart superhuman production by 'rogue nations'. Evidence is argued over, a nation could even be invaded over it.

 

Imagine - Hans Blix and a team of inspectors discover a girder bent into a knot; a discarded suit, hat and pair of spectacles; some partially dissolved webbing. Eye witnesses report a man shouting a word that sounded like 'Shaboom', 'Shazman' or something similar, followed by a clap of thunder. The US thinks this is clear evidence of a breach of UN resolutions. France stall, they say it isn't conclusive and want to give the inspectors more time.

 

That's why the Israelis bombed that Iraqi nuclear plant in 1980(date?). Every child knows radiation creates superhumans and has done since the 40s. The Iraqis were deliberately exposing soldiers to radioactive material.

Earth in the present day is my favourite setting for any roleplaying game, including superhero. Your players will be familiar with it (I hope) and you don't have to do a lot of research.

Re: Too General/Nebulous or Specific Part 6

 

Originally posted by death tribble

Dave,

 

Here we go again

I think some of those (a minority mind you) are good names!

 

Redoubtable I'd change to Redoubt, becoming a slow-moving tough guy with a name akin to Fortress, Bastion or the like.

 

Round Robin is my favourite! Calls to mind a Bouncing Boy-type character.

 

Sap (which I think may have been one of mine originally) is used in the sense of drain or a thug's weapon, not the stuff that flows thru plants.

 

Scholar is perfectly serviceable. Reminds me of Savant in Alan Moore's WildCATS.

 

I like Shangri La even though it's a place name. You're right the character's gotta be a hippy.

 

The rest aren't much cop. I still like Science Assassin (another one of my babies) but it may be too weird for some tastes.

For the past four or five years, my wider gaming circle has lacked any recognised leader (I'm talking about players here, not characters) and I think the games have suffered for it. Everyone goes their own way or splits up into ones and twos.

 

My gaming group are, for the most part, anti-authoritarian, left-wing and value personal freedom very highly. (Their own, not other people's). They are not team players, they have no concept of team. I don't know if these people should even be playing role-playing games.

Originally posted by JmOz

The field type needs a good head for tactics

What if the character is a good tactician, but the player isn't?

Originally posted by Syberdwarf2

The Mony Guy usually ends up as the leader. After all, how did he get all that money if he can't at least reasonably lead people?

Inherited wealth.

Originally posted by altamaros

There's already that in Dark champions. Check "Divine" in Underworld Ennemies. (think) is there a nazi gay villain in GURPS I.S.T. ?

Reminds me of the wonderfully named 'Aryan Thrust' - gay nazis from Frank Miller's Give Me Liberty

Originally posted by Kevin Scrivner

That said, I think the inability to have villains of color itself is racist. People of all races and cultures have their saints and sinners, their geniuses and dummies. If we're really interested in diversity, why not have a nasty henchman who happens to be black as well as the shining Icon-variety black Superman? What would a pulp campaign be without Fu Manchu? After all, he's an equal opportunity employer and the fiend who created supervillainy. You wouldn't consider a GM anti-Romanian because he used Dracula as a villain. Why is a Chinese mastermind wrong?

In the comic books, I think asians tend to be bad guys - Yellow Claw, Mandarin - while blacks are good guys. Some of it goes back to the Yellow Peril concept. The WW2 Golden Age comics were completely racist towards the Japanese. Japs got worse treatment than Germans, I think, presumably because of Pearl Harbour.

Originally posted by Law Dog

What is pretty amusing is the original core group was pretty diverse. They had two white, New Jersey males (Batman & Robin), A Kryptonian raised in Kansas (Supes may have looked Caucasian, but he is an alien), A half-Atlantian from Atlantis (Fishman) and Wonder Woman was a clay statue imbued with life and raise in a quasi-Greek fashion on Paradise Island. We're not just talking racially diverse, we're talking species and culturally diverse.

The Justice League of America: It's OK to be an alien, provided you're a white alien.