SSgt Baloo

Re: The cranky thread I hope and pray everyone involved gets all the help they need.

Re: Focus others can activate Is someone can take it away from the character, it's a focus. If it's always there and nobody can remove it without causing body damage (to its owner) then it's something else. Other than that, I'm kinda stumped. If I were the GM and switching on his instant change power was the only thing someone could do, I'd just have him hand me a list of people who already know how to do this, and anyone he notifies thenceforth should be added to the list.

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

Re: The One, True Son of Krypton They also referred to him as "The Man of Tomorrow", which has also been used to describe Superman.

Re: The One, True Son of Krypton It doesn't matter. In a game where Superman is portrayed as he was in the 1950s, (or as he first appeared in the comics, etc.) his build, in game terms, varies with each interpretation of the role, within the limits of the technology used to portray the character. In those cases, one is restrained because of various restrictions. Movie SFX cost money, some are completely unconvincing. (Ever watch the Superman movie serials? ) In any case, each medium exacts a toll on verisimilitude. You have different "versions" of Superman that are completely different, apart from a few unifying themes and as much of his powerset as can be effectively portrayed given these limitations. Likewise, when building Superman to fit within the confines of a campaign, the GM doesn't give a player carte blanche. Instead he says "Here are the campaign limits and here are [starting] points. Buy as much Superman as you can afford and I'll see what we can do". Or he doesn't. In that campaign, you can build Superman for however many points you think aren't nearly enough. He's a blurry portrait, but he is Superman in that setting for the same reason I have had characters with names like Bob Tiger or Argus or Thunder Rabbit or whatever. They were them in those universes. The independent existence of Superman outside that setting is a moot point. Within the limitations of the game, he is Superman, even if he isn't anywhere else in the multiverse? And if you're the GM in this situation, you can just tell the player no. This is Hero System. "You're doing it wrong" isn't part of the mindset. Instead it's "Here's how I do it". It's a paraphrase of someone else's tagline, but it fits.

Re: A Thread for Random Videos I know someone who tried this -- but without wrapping the fish in aluminum. It got cooked, but it also got shredded, requiring a more-than-usually thorough clean up of the dishwasher, and the recovery of a few salmony shreds that no-one was willing to eat.

Re: The One, True Son of Krypton In the context of an RPG, doesn't Superman, if he exists in that campaign world, inhabiting an alternate universe anyway? I'm really surprised no-one has yet suggested that it is somehow "wrong" to call a character Superman when he should rightfully be constructed with X points, Y powers, skills, talents, etc., and Z disadvantages/complications; where any deviation from this is a counterfeit unworthy of the name and should be publicly denounced as such. Is there no-one who will argue that Superman should not be exactly what you want him to be in your campaign? You guys are being way too reasonable about this.

Re: Gods with Off Switches vs. Loaded Guns. DC vs. Marvel in Character Design. Also, Bud Collyer needed time off from work once in a while, so it was easy to have Superman kayoed by kryptonite the day the actor goes on vacation, and somebody else would do all the moaning for him (all Superman's lines). During these absences, the show would focus on the other characters. When Collyer got back, Superman (or someone) would cleverly dispose of the kryptonite and Superman would then (I suppose) kick the badguy's butt.

Re: Gods with Off Switches vs. Loaded Guns. DC vs. Marvel in Character Design. I've started a thread, The One True Son of Krypton, for continuing the "what is superman" discussion.

In a different thread about something else, the subject of how to properly render Superman using the hero system seems to have become a matter of almost religious fervor. In an effort to divert that discussion to its own thread and with the possibly-insane hope that we can discuss this subject in a rational manner, I am starting a thread on this very subject. There are some who might suggest that making a character and calling him Superman is somehow lying. That the character isn't "really" Superman. Why is it badwrongfun to, for an extreme example, build a 200-point Superman for a low-powered Super's campaign? I once did so for a 4E campaign that started as a pulp adventurer campaign with the explicit plan of transitioning to Golden-Age supers in game year 1938. It was a spare in case someone wanted to play but didn't have a character. I owned reprints of the earliest Superman stories (included in a book about Superman and his history which I no longer possess) that had collections of his first appearances, so I gave him 50 STR (superman diwas not heaving battleships around in the first few stories), enough Superleap to ensure he could cover at least an eighth of a mile (440 yards) in a bound, which ensured he could clear buildings one half that distance tall. He wasn't faster than a speeding bullet back then, but he was faster than an express train. Ordinary firearms could not penetrate his skin (18 rPD/15 rED), etc. He couldn't survive in space or at extraordinary depths (deeper than human free divers can go), but the adventures never took place in these locales. They were chasing fifth columnists around the country, thwarting mad scientists, and generally having a good time. Nobody complained that Superman was built on 200 points because in that setting that version of Superman was a good fit. There was no other character in that campaign with that name. Why is this not Superman?

Re: Gods with Off Switches vs. Loaded Guns. DC vs. Marvel in Character Design. A 250-point superman sucks only when a 250-point character would suck anyway. When all the characters are 250 points or less, the only complaint I've been hearing is "But that isn't Superman". My argument is as follows: "So?" To elaborate, if Superman exists in the campaign as a 250-point character where all the NPCs are 1000 points and a few of the PCs have many more points than Superman then yes, a 250-point superman is inappropriate and underpowered. In a campaign where villains are rarely more than 300 points and the players are all about 250 points, I don't see why a 250-point Superman should be less satisfying to play than another 250-point generic brick with Identical powers called "Bob". The objection is not the power set at all but the fact that a character built on 250 points is being called Superman. If it were sacrilege to call anything built on fewer than X points Superman, I would agree, but since your objections seem not to hinge upon "Is this character suitable to the game he is intended to be played in?" but "Is the game too low-powered to call an appropriately-constructed Superman?" I do not. If Superman exists in a campaign, it has nothing to do with how Hero system works and everything to do with your mental construct of Superman. The Superman in your head is different from the superman anyone else in the world has in their head. They've read different comics, perhaps consulted authoritative writings on the subject, discussed the subject with others, etc., and therefore the information they use to construct a mental image of Superman will differ, often in key respects from that which you used to construct your own mental image of him. Saying "But it's still not superman" is akin to telling an artist that the landscape he just painted is not the landscape he was using as a reference. It is both technically true (a picture of a thing is not a thing) and patently false. He created that picture as a representation of a thing. If you are not convinced, you do not have to agree, but why should the artist's intent be completely discounted on the word of a single critic?

Re: "Neat" Pictures Credit to Steve Long for sharing the image on Facebook.

Re: Time Frame for Appearance of Superhumans I've been reading that series sporadically. I did not, however, understand your explanation. Would you please elaborate?

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance Basically, if you feel the need to add it back in or use COM instead of Striking appearance, you can do that too. After all, HERO is a tool-kit system, so you can do what works best for your group.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares The Fifth Elephant Man Logan's Bladerunner Sluggy Freelance: the All-American Boy! Captain Queeg Cereal Abbott and Costello Meet Kafka Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in: The Road to Innsmouth

Re: You Don't Have to be Crazy to be a Superhero, but it Helps! Good point. It still takes an uncommon mindset to decide to do what superheroes are portrayed as doing: performing police, fire, and rescue duties without being specifically trained and certified to perform them by a recognized authority (depending upon the character; some have police powers or similar authority to act in an official capacity). Of course, superhero settings are slightly crazy anyway, in that everyone has pretty-much come to accept this state of affairs.

Re: You Don't Have to be Crazy to be a Superhero, but it Helps! You know when I say "crazy" I am not suggesting necessarily bat-exhaust crazy, right? Just chock full of quirks and foibles, some of which can be classified as PSLs or other limitations. It's a YMMV kinda thing. Putting on Spandex or circus tights is not necessarily a prerequisite for crimefighting. Police wear uniforms. So do the Guardian Angels. Both wear arguably colorful costumes that look nothing like comic-book superhero-wear. Some supers are more crazy than others. There are loads of healthy behaviors the super might otherwise participate in; why doesn't a superhuman just enlist in the military, become a firefighter or cop, or just go into business? If there are "sane" supers running around, they probably did just that. The villains, at least, would tend to go into legitimate businesses, at least as a cover for their illegal operations and to establish an alibi for themselves.

Re: Gods with Off Switches vs. Loaded Guns. DC vs. Marvel in Character Design. Blau, if you're so fixated on how Superman should properly be constructed with the Hero System, perhaps you'd like to start a new thread to inform us us exactly how it should be done. That way we can still have our discussion about the relative merits of the DC and Marvel universes without having do discuss how someone's sketch of Superman isn't the real superman. Would someone help put this discussion back on topic? I'm lost.

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill Poor health habits aided and abetted by stupidity.

Re: Gods with Off Switches vs. Loaded Guns. DC vs. Marvel in Character Design. It doesn't matter if that's the power level of your campaign world anyway. I would never (unless I was setting aside points to be spent later) create "Superman" on fewer points than the campaign allowed, but I would consult with the GM to see how many points that is. If the campaign allows 500-point characters then I'll build a 500-point "Superman". Likewise if the campain allows 1,000-point characters, that's the limit I'd build him to. I am not suggesting that I would submit a 250-point "superman" in either campaign. In those worlds, he'd just be a wanna-be. In a world with a 250-point limit, a 250-point "Superman" is completely reasonable.

Re: Creepy Pics. At least now it makes sense. He's obviously planted a bomb and is running out of the tunnel before igniting the detcord!

Re: Time Frame for Appearance of Superhumans I think people began to suspect that might be going on. In any case, it stopped. I wonder what the convincers were?

Re: You Don't Have to be Crazy to be a Superhero, but it Helps! That was always my base assumption for Superheroics with the Hero system. Everybody felt that they needed Psych. Lims. to have enough points. It also seemed to jive with the comics, because what guy in his right mind would put his shorts outside his longjohns, don a mask (or some other means, of hiding one's identity) and go fight crime? Having powers made you crazy, but in ways that promoted behaviors like putting on a disguise (the main purpose of a hero/villain costume), patrolling for trouble, rescuing people in danger, etc. Supers rarely do what they do just on a lark. Many of them need to do what they do to feel like they are "doing what's they ought". Good guys would be running around doing "good deeds" because they'd feel badly if they did not. That's why I would allow PSLs like "Code of the Superhero" and the like, in campaigns where it was generally understood by all what did and did not count as heroic behavior. Real mass-murderers were never (in these settings) super-powered. They were invariably normal humans, just to remember that real monsters look like us, that normals can be crazy and do super damage, too. Besides, finding one person out of billions is more difficult than finding one out of dozens or hundreds (of known and suspected supers). Likewise, villains may not necessarily murderous, but their madness drives them to come up with plots that often don't make sense or are easily thwartable. Others might feel a distinct need to earn far more money than they need, and will work for villains with a plan if they just can't come up with a plan that works by themselves. Even brilliant evil geniuses will habitually discount the heroes' ability to avoid or escape his "inescapeable trap" and get caught flat-dooted when they realize the heroes have arrived anyway "...But you were dead!" Sure they're crazy. They probably have named the syndrome by now unless supers have just arrived on the scene. Masked Avenger syndrome or something like that, I'd imagine, named after which hero/villain it was diagnosed in first, ot after the doctor who discovered it (and published) first. Yeah, in most settings, I'd say so. Crazy helps, in the right measure.

Re: Time Frame for Appearance of Superhumans IIRC, that was the justification of many "approved methods" of detecting whether someone was actually a witch. Of course, everybody died when tested this way in real life, so it was posited that the ordeal gave a which a chance to repent before dying, allowing her one last chance at Salvation. Eventually, most realized that this was no way to treat someone who could be found innocent (and might just be crazy and not actually demon-possessed) and the practice died out.

Re: The cranky thread