rjcurrie

Re: Jack of All Trades

Re: The origins of "munchkin" Well, of course, the term "munchkin" originates with the Wizard of Oz. I believe it was first applied to the sort of players you describe on the usenet role-playing groups. I suspect that whoever first used the phrase chose it because like the munchkins of Oz, such players are annoying little people.

Re: The Champions Do they suck? Fuzion itself is not a bad game system. However, the implementation of superpowers in the C:NM game was not very good and most long term Hero players did not like the loss of detail and versatility that resulted from that implementation. Rod

Re: The Champions Do they suck? The other thing to consider about the Champions is that they were also designed to serve as characters that could be used for convention events and demos. As a result, they were not given terribly complicated backgrounds or personalties, because time is often limited in such situations. Actually, having run a convention game using the Champions, they turned out to be a lot more fun in play than I expected.

Re: Jack of All Trades

Re: Jack of All Trades I suspect he might be able to do the standard Acrobat tricks and could put on a good show but it would probably wouldn't be terribly effective outside the performance arena. In short, a professional skill lets you do the activity in a standard setting for that skill whereas the "real" skill lets you apply it in an adventuring venue. And vice versa, Acting 14- is great for pretending to be a Viper agent but it doesn't convey any knowledge or skill in the actual business of acting -- for example, how to properly behave at an audtion or how to hit your light, etc. Just my opinion, Rod

Re: Why the heck not?

Re: Early "What do you want to see?" for Teen Champions I love this idea.

Re: Early "What do you want to see?" for Teen Champions Hmmm. So it's okay to stereotype every other type of student except exhange students?

Re: Early "What do you want to see?" for Teen Champions Other archetypes that you may or may not have already thought of: popular girl, shy/bookish girl, nerd, schemer (a la Zack Morris from "Saved By The Bell"), rich kid, fashion plate, rebel, etc. Sounds cool. I can definitely see Rivalry being big in a TC campaign. A good discussion of Psych Lims for teens would be good too. I think I'd go with recommended limits as opposed to hard ones. And an appropriate list of Everyman skills is a definite must. There should be a definite emphasis on new and improved powers being discovered as part of a "story". Smallville is the best example I can think of for this. Oh, yeah, I definitely want to see the soap opera stuff. It's one of my favorite parts of the superhero genre and it's even more important in a teen campaign: the angst of dating, etc. Yeah! To me, that should be the meat of a product like this. As a GM who tends to run his own worlds, the sub-genre info is much more useful than the setting-specific info. I would definitely like to see the Public school mapped out too (or at least discussed in some detail) as the concept of supers in a normal school (a la Buffy or Smallville) has great possibilities. Perhaps there should be a brief discussion of the idea of non-school related campaigns (for example, the New Teen Titans of the Wolfman/Perez era) where the members of a team may all go to different schools. In such a campaign, school-based stories would probably be sub-plots similar to stories in normal Champions campaigns that might involve a hero's workplace. Somewhere in the book, maybe in this section, there should be a discussion of being a kid sidekick. I don't think this will be a problem. A lot of people seem to be looking for more heroes. Cool.

Re: Ultimate Mystic Review So people can say they don't like a book but not say why?

Re: Ultimate Mystic Review I hope you are planning on being equally vehement against anyone who is critical of a Hero product because it doesn't meet their idea of what the product should contain. I really don't see Agent X's arguments about the fictionalizing of christianity to be all that different from people who are constantly arguing to see higher point characters in Champions products. That's a tad extreme. Agent X described it as an "ick" factor not as something that threatened his belief system. I suspect it's not much different than the "ick" factor that some people get from extreme violence or sexuality in a work of fiction. Just something that doesn't sit right. Well, I'm not sure that I'd call avoiding the issue a ridiculous step. But I will agree that they did likely gain respect from some customers (including myself) for dealing with it. I should note that, in general, I am speaking of the inclusion of christianity and other religiions in the treatment of the mystical part of the Champions Universe and, not specifically, the Ultimate Mystic.

Re: Ultimate Mystic Review Agent X said himself, he would consider buying the book if it didn't have Pseudo-Yawheh.

Re: Ultimate Mystic Review Good grief. Doesn't anyone on this board have a decent reading comprehension level? All Agent X said was that he didn't like his religion being treated as fiction and for that reason, he wasn't going to be buying the book. He wasn't preahing that the author was a sinner and would burn in Hell for the treatment or callling for others to boycot the product. He just said that the treatment of Christianity would cause him (and possibly others) not to buy the book. This is no different than someone deciding they aren't going to buy UNTIL: Defenders of Freedom because the don't agree with the fictional treatment of the UN. Heck, he didn't go the over-the-top cliched route of declaring that he would never buy another Hero product again -- just the mystic-themed line as long as it included "Pseudo-Yahweh". And just where did he spout any religious doctrine? Unless publicly admitting what religion you are is spouting religious doctrine. Does that mean I should be in trouble for publicly stating I'm an atheist? I've seen a lot of people on these boards post a lot of stupid things that were more or less asking to be jumped all over, but a post by a Hero customer explaining why he wasn't buying a product (at a time when Hero is talking about soliciting information about customer's buying habits) is hardly one of those. Rod

Re: An EB by any other name...

Re: Ultimate Mystic Review Are you perhaps referring to Arcane Adversaries, which has been out for several months now?

Re: An EB by any other name... Can't say I care for the multiple name idea. I think that might be even more confusing. However, it did spark another idea. What about a one line summary that would describe the power's function. <COMPUTER GEEK MODE> For those of you familiar with UNIX or Linux man pages, think of the one line description that appears at the top of each command's man page. </COMPUTER GEEK MODE> For example: ENTANGLE Immobilize characters or create barriers.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: I've always wondered. What do you lawyers do if they don't put a chair behind your table in court? A: The quick, the dead, and the ugly.

Re: An EB by any other name... Giving the responses on this thread, I am willing to concede that "Stunned" does seem to be a troublesome term. "Dazed" is the best suggestion that I have seen. I use the term myself when I want to avoid "game-speak". For example, "Dr. Destroyer appears to have beeen dazed by that shot."

Re: An EB by any other name...

Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions?? The best move may be for the Champions to run away if they find themselves overpowered and return later with a plan to give them the advantage -- for example, keeping the ranged combatants spread out so Viperia can't effectively use her area effect attacks, or perhaps with the help of one or more NPC heroes or a squad of UNTIL or PRIMUS agents. This is often what happens in the comics; the heroes get their asses handed to them in the first encounter only to defeat the villain later when they are more prepared.

Re: Convention Character Write Ups In some ways, I see this approach as being condescending to convention players. I think convention games should offer something special -- something that players wouldn't get back in their games at home. As a player, if I was given an obvious clone character in a convention game, it would immediately lower my opinion of the GM and I would begin to wonder if I could enjoy the game. And what if the player is not familiar with the character you are using as the template for the personality. For instance, you example would tell me nothing about Pshark because I nave never read any Blade comics or seen any of the movies. I definitely agree with letting them run with the personality. However, I think that you can definitely let people play your old characters -- I do it all the time. I think the key is separating the two versions in your mind, but then again I am always interesting in differing interpretations of the same character by different writers or actors.

Re: If your character played an RPG... Rick Davies the Resilient Rubber-Man has always been envisioned (from the time he was one of my PCs to his current role in the SuperSquad America convention game) as a geek. He has played role-playing games both before and after becoming a superhero. He tends towards games in which he can be a true hero -- superhero games, high fantasy, that kind of game. I've always envisioned him playing one of those annoying squeaky-clean paladins in a D&D game. In a Traveller game many years ago, our characters often played D&D, that is, Dollars and Degrees, a role-playing game of being university students on 20th century Earth.

Re: Your Hero's Hero! In the SuperSquad America convention team, there are the following examples of idols/heroes/mentiors. Rick Davies, the Resilient Rubber-Man: While he idolizes all true superheroes, real and fictional, he particular admires the original Challenger (father of his teammate, Challenger) who trained him. Challenger: While his lack of actual superpowers led his father to reject the idea of training him to be a sidekick, he is still hugely influenced by his father and tries very hard to fill his shoes. Silver Bow: As the daughter of superheroes (the Silver Archer and Finesse), she is greatly influenced by the superheroic values (fair play, compassion, etc.) they taught her. However, due to finding her parents murdered in their bed by a 13 year old junkie looking for cash, these values are often in conflict with her desire to rid the streets of such scum. Nightingale: Raised in a mystical Tibetan temple that was also home to original SuperSquad member, Brainstorm, she found herself enchanted by his tales of the Squad's adventures. And when she left the temple for America after his death, she took the last name of his secret ID as her own last name (she was left as a baby on a cathedral's doorstep and has no idea what her real last name is).

Re: Convention Character Write Ups Oh, yeah, I haven't really seen any problems with telling players "no, your character's powers don't really work that way". I've done it and I've been in games where other GMs have done it.