Doug McCrae

Re: That name is too cool for you: Gimmie! Yeah, Stalwart is a cool name. You can have two supertypes with the same name though - Powerman and Powerman for example.

Re: Ultimate vs The Authority

Re: Ultimate vs The Authority

Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! All of these were actually played for at least one session: Big Ed, Lord of Chance: A radioactive fruit machine fell on him, granting him extraordinary luck (I think he had 30 or 40d6 of it). The Habit: Insane transvestite hitman nun. He believed, possibly correctly, that he was on a mission for the Vatican. Adam Apples: An android. He wielded ear-shaped throwing weapons named 'Ear-o-rangs', had a pouch in which lived a family of ninja kangaroos and he had the ability to turn into bits when he said 'Split!' Adam had no feet but could hover a short distance above the ground. In his secret ID he was 'Spider-man', the goalkeeper for Berwick Rangers football club.

Re: A contriversial "Would your character...?" The sex-focused nature of the villain's demand strikes me as being more in the style of internet porn than mainstream superhero comics from any era. It might happen in something like Marshal Law I guess. OTOH the DC character Maxima wanted to bear Superman's child I think. Her methods were a lot less extreme though.

Re: Does Champions encourgage conformity? Your friend is very wrong to think that characters of the same point total are equal in power. Compare some guy that's spent his points all over the place - an 8d6 EB for 40 pts, some COM (what an idiot!), lots of END, a DEX of 16, lots of skills and talents (what an idiot!) - with a min/maxed munchkin with an Elemental Control or Multipower (or both) and lots of limitations that don't really limit the character. Same point total = same power level? Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!

Re: All the superhero PCs I've ever played Radiation is so Silver Age. Even genetic engineering is a bit old fashioned - it's genetic modification now, grandad! Likewise with quantum theory. These days its all about superstrings, M-theory and dark energy. Nanotechnology, AIs, human cloning and global warming are also big.

Re: All the superhero PCs I've ever played

Re: Barrett announces 25mm man-portable assault cannon in testing Just what you need for killing superheroes.

Re: World Not Known Cover Mock Up Available for Preview The title's intriguing. What's it about?

Re: Ultimate vs The Authority To be fair, I have mentioned the one good thing about Millar's writing - the wild ideas - a few times. The bad far outweighs the good though. I described his work as something like 'mostly shit' IIRC. I still think that's fair. Mostly shit, but not entirely.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

Re: Code VS Killing Poll Scorpia should really have said she did it cause she was abused as a child or some such.

I was making a list of all the PCs I've ever played. These are the names of all the superheroes in chronological order, along with the system. Nimbus (Champions) Cyborg (Villains & Vigilantes) Knave (Villains & Vigilantes) Moonman (Villains & Vigilantes) The Scarlet Skater (Superworld) Dragon (Golden Heroes) The Human Pinball (Golden Heroes) Captain Explosion (Champions) Captain Fayd, the Four-Dimensional Man (Champions) Dogman (Champions) Captain Christian (Champions) Dog Girl (Champions) Pattern Princess (Amber) Mr. Mayhem (Marvel SAGA) Midnight (Champions) M-Power (Golden Heroes) Zap! (Golden Heroes) Flameman (systemless) Simoon (Golden Heroes) The Masked Archer (Golden Heroes) Miss Cybermiaow (Champions) The Giant (Golden Heroes)

Re: What are these Ages exactly? Everyone agrees that the Golden Age started in 1938 with Action Comics #1 (Superman's first appearance). Almost everyone agrees that the Silver Age began in 1956 with Showcase #4 (the Barry Allen Flash's first appearance). Beyond that it gets a lot hazier and more open to disagreement. These are the dates I use: Golden Age 1938-19?? Silver Age 1956-1970 Bronze Age 1970-1985/6 Iron Age 1985/6-present Some folk, Rene being one, use the Ages to refer to a style of comic rather than a time period. So by this definition, Iron Age might include any comic which is grim n' gritty, features really gratuitous T&A, is influenced by modern action movies and makes no sense. A lot of late 80s, early 90s and Image comics are Iron Age under this definition.

Re: Code VS Killing Poll Some people refrain from hurting others because it's immoral. Others because they fear punishment. The behaviour of the former won't change when he gets superpowers. The behaviour of the latter will. But it's not that his moral compass has changed. The second type of person was never moral to begin with!

Re: Things that work in comics but don't work in Champions 11. Breaking the fourth wall. Example: John Byrne's She-Hulk knowing she's in a comic book. The roleplaying equivalent would be characters that know they're in a roleplaying game.

Re: Things that work in comics but don't work in Champions 10. Whenever two superheroes meet for the first time, they fight. Tends to create bad feeling if they're PCs, in my experience.

Re: The Authority:What the heck? I would recommend getting the first couple of TPBs, which collect issues 1-8 and 9-16. You'll get all of Ellis's work, which is really good and the first arc of Millar's run, which like all his stuff has some great ideas but is, in most respects, shit. Then you can decide if you want to plunge deeper into the turgid swamp that was Mark Millar's Authority.

Re: The Authority:What the heck? A superhero comic we love to argue about. Under the first writer, Warren Ellis, the Authority were a cooler, modern version of the JLA who killed their foes. Those foes being traditional comic book bad guys. Under Mark Millar they became a bunch of assholes who killed their foes, those foes now being politicians and government agents. And there was now an ass-raping every second issue.

Re: The fall of the Soviet Union sucked. Al-Qaeda occupies the same position in the American national psyche as the communists did during the Cold War. China isn't currently a threat IMO. If you really like the threat of an enemy nation you could set your game during WW2 or one of the periods when the Cold War was at its hottest. Personally I don't think superheroes really need a whole country to fight. Supervillains, of any stripe, will do.

Re: The fall of the Soviet Union sucked.

Re: Code VS Killing Poll

Re: "Super" Cities- How many is too many? Just one, I think. That way PCs know where to go when they want to be 'where the action is'. Why would you want more than one?

Re: Things that work in comics but don't work in Champions