rjcurrie

Re: [Meta] What would your character be? Hmmm. I usually use my SuperSquad America characters for these threads and they're in a somewhat middle-ground campaign, so I'll do them both ways: Four-color: Challenger: Instead of being a patriotic superhero trying (and not always succeeding) to live up to his great father's legacy, he would be a patriotic hero who was successfully carrying on that legacy. Rick Davies, the Resilient Rubber-Man: He probably actually did receive his powers from falling into a vat of experimental rubber rather than being a product of super-soldier program whose later subjects had been kidnapped and brainwashed into being villians. Silver Bow: Her superhero parents wouldn't have been murdered by a 13 year old junkie looking for cash. Instead, they would have simply retired when she took over. She would also have a CVK and wouldn't be worried about cleaning up the scum of the streets, concentrating more on traditional supervillains. Forethought: Her powers would have simply triggered when she matured rather than triggering as a result of a near rape that left her confidence somewhat shattered. Whiz Kid (now Fast Track): Would not turn into a time travelling supervillain in one possible future and thus would not have to worry about that possibility. Nightingale: Probably not much different at all. Diva: Would probably have become a superhero almost immediately after gaining her powers, rather than spending several years as a super celebrity. Swift Kick: Would probably still be called Madam Morph, because no one care if the name gave away her shape-changing powers rather than keeping them secret. She would have never been kidnapped, brainwashed, and turned into a supervillain for several years. Crimson Fist: Would have been granted his powers by a benevolent scientist rather than a supervillain who killed his girlfriend. Iron Age: Challenger: Would slowly discover that his father's great superheroic career was just a cover for his real job as a government assassin. Rick Davies, The Resilient Rubber-Man: Since he was created by a project overseen by Challenger's father, he was likely created as a government weapon and programmed to be a flashy, publicity-seeking hero. However, upon a trigger word, he would become the government's willing pawn. Silver Bow: Would not use any speciality arrows, but would instead just use her deadly arrows to execute scum like the junkie who killed her parents. Forethought: Would have been gang-raped and literally turned off the brains of the lot of them when the act triggered her mental powers. She would not be worried at all about invading others because she would feel that if those men could freely violate her physically, there's no reason why she shouldn't freely violate others mentally. Whiz Kid (Fast Track): Would be doing everything possible to become the powerful time traveller that he knows he will be in the future. After all, with that kind of power, he can make over the world the way he wants it to be. He would be using his vast intelligence to manipulate things so that the future where he is Time Twister is guaranteed to come about. This might include injecting his own mother with cancer so that she would be sure to die. Nightingale: Instead of being turned over by a caring priest to a group of Tibetan mystics to raise, she would have been turned over to a cult of Tibetan assassins by a corrupt priest. While she would have some healing abilities, she would have also been trained to use those same abilities to inflict harm. The cult would have sent her as a spy to infiltrate the superhero team. Diva: Would be into superheroing only for the cash that could be made. She would have little concern for puny humans except when she is paid to protect them. Rather than a middle class African American upbringing, she would have been raised as a African American militant. Swift Kick: No one know of her shape-changing abilities. While she would still be a kidnapped subject of the project that created Rick Davies, he would not know her as such. Also, instead of being kidnapped by an organization of European mad scientists, she would have been kidnapped by a more serious-minded group of would-be European dictators and sent to American as a martial artist to infiltrate the hero group so that her bosses could learn how to stop them if need be. She would also use her shape-changing abilities to obtain other information to support her bosses' goals. Crimson Fist: His crimson energy field is recharged by the blood of his defeated foes.

Re: Looking at the Iron/Silver Age threads (not a flame)

Re: Looking at the Iron/Silver Age threads (not a flame) I kind of a middle-grounder myself. A good example is my SuperSquad America convention event. I think the characters are very close to silver age marvel or late silver age DC (Fantastic Four, classic X-men, Wolfman and Perez's New Teen Titans, Infinity Inc. just to name a few). Many of the characters have tragedies in their backgrounds that have moved them towards being a superhero but then so do many classic superheroes (Batman, Spider-man, Superman, etc.) but they are still true heroes. About the only characters I have used that some might doubt their superhero status are Friction Lass who was a spoiled rich brat who superheroed for fun (and who I moved off the team several years ago) and Silver Bow, whose superhero parents were murdered in their bed by a thirteen year old junkie looking for cash leaving her with a desire to clean up the scum of the streets and has no CVK; however, this is tempered by her being torn between the superheroic values taught to her by her parents. With all that, I have had villains who were murdering superheroes and often try to ask difficult questions for the characters to answer. A few examples: A supervillain says his machine can save the life of the world's first and greatest superhero who is dying of cancer but only by taking the life of another superbeing. Time is running out and the only superbeings nearby are SuperSquad. The group's telepath verfiies the villain believes he is telling the truth. Is anyone on the team willing to give their life to save the great hero? An organization of mad scientists has a stolen technology that they have modified to destabilize superbeings' powers. After defeating the main mad scientist and reclaiming the technology. another of the mad scientists appears on a view screen revealing he has kidnapped the team's administrative assistant (who is also the leader's girlfriend) and wants the technology back in exchange for releasing her. What should the team do? The heroes find themselves before the empty Template Throne. Whoever sits on the throne shall provide the template for the tone of life on earth. Who sits on the throne? After defeating a time travelling supervillain who is revealed to be a possible future version of one of the team, the team can use the villain's time machine to make one trip into the past and back again. Do they use it? And if so, for what? Do they stop Adolf Hitler? Do they prevent one of the tragedies in their own pasts? I tend to describe my approach as "five color" Champions: four colors plus a touch of grey.

Re: All the superhero PCs I've ever played Chronological order is very rough on these and I may have forgotten a few: Silver Bullet (V&V) Professor Plasma (V&V) The Dragon (Superworld -- Worlds of Wonder version) Phantom Lobster (V&V) Professor Plasma (Champions) Brainstorm (later The White Hand) (Champions) Rick Davies the Resilent Rubber-Man (Champions) Challenger (Champions) Whiz Kid (Champions) Swift Justice (V&V) The Bat (V&V) Gauntlet (Champions) Crimson Fist (Champions) Silver Bow (Champions) Crimson Ace (Champions) Rapport (Champions) Friction Lass (Champions) Dynamo (Champions) Forethought (Champions) Lady Lightning (Champions)

Re: Has anyone played in a game like this... I did play in a campaign where we had the option of playing ourselves or playing a fictional character. Out of the 8 players, 6 chose to play themselves and 2 chose to play fictional characters. The premise was that people in our city, for a reason we didn't find out, started to develop superpowers. We wrote up rough Hero versions of what we wanted our superpowered self to be; however, the GM created the actual write-ups of the characters himself and we never actually saw them. This allowed to play out the discovery of our new powers and to have a realistic sense of doubt about whether or not we be able to do something. The campaign was probably more similar to Wild Cards rather than comic books in that there were supers of various levels of ability and one of the main threads of the campaign was the effect that superpowered people were having on society. The campaign ran for several months until the GM had to move and went very well. There was much more non-combat roleplaying than combat and a large emphasis on what characters were doing individually. Rod

Re: New to Hero, so how would I... As an addendum to my previous post, let me echo the comments of others, that there is rarely one correct way of building a Power in hero. But then again if you look at such things in the appropriate literature (such as comic books or fantasy novels), two abilities that seem similar often have subtle differences.

Re: New to Hero, so how would I... Are you talking about mentally reading a computer database? If so, then you would use Telepathy against a machine class of minds. Generally, you would consider running programs and open files to be "surface thoughts" and other programs and files to be "deeper memories" possibly basing the exact levels on how it has been since the program or file has been accessed. You might even use the "subconscious" level to represent as being able to represent deleted files. Telepathy generally obtains one fact per phase. Personally, I would allow someone with the Speed Reading Talent to apply their Speed Reading multiple to this task, but other GMs may differ. For rapid recall of this information, you would use the Eidetic Memory talent. The Luck Power describes some optional ways of using it to represent some Drama Point-like uses. There is also the Combat Luck Talent which is designed as resistant defenses which only apply in certain circumstances. It is intended to simulate those characters who seemingly can survive running through something like a hail of bullets without being hit or just being grazed. As for Dramatic Editing, I would almost suggest just porting a system from another game. After all, Dramatic Editing is designed to allow the player to change the situation -- it is not a Power of the character and Hero concentrates on designing the character. I will admit, however, that I am not a fan of Dramatic Editing and perhaps someone who is more familiar with the concept might have other ideas. Build it as a multipower. It would probably have a limited range Energy Blast (to represent "firing" it out to hit someone), an Entangle (tangling someone up with it), and a limited range RKA (the sawblade). As for the yo-yo tricks, that wouldn't so much be the yo-yo as the yo-yo's user who would have Professional Skill: YoYoing. The Ultimate Martial Artis gives detail on creating fighting styles. Well, he'd probably have a Trading Skill Roll to reflect his ability to make the deal. You'd need to detail the exact effects of his bartering to get the precise construct for the Power but it sounds like it might be a Variable Power Pool where for each trade you would design the Power(s) needed to change the target and to change you. Depending on the effects, the changes to the target might be a long-term Drain, a Transform, or a long-term Transfer; or if helping, it might be an Aid. If you're trading things to or from yourself, for negative changes to yourself, you would probably use the Side Effect Limitation, while for positive changes, this might simply be part of the Transfer or it might be a linked Aid or other appropriate Power. It sounds like it might be an expensive construct but then again, it sounds like a very powerful Power. Clairsentience has options for looking into the past and the future.

Re: Converting V&V to Champions I've always found the best method for converting characters is to not try to mathematically convert the character or even to try and duplicate the specific mechanics but rather to build the concept in Hero as you would any other concept. Just my 2 cents. Rod

Re: Secret Identity Just remember that instant change ad done by Transform is for simply changing clothes. It is not used (as some people did pre-Fifth Edition) for changing forms. If your powered form is somewhat physically different than your non-powered form, that is now just considered a special effect of turning on a power.

Re: Secret Identity The 8- is not a roll to find out his secret identity. It's an indicator of how frequently the secret ID is a disadvantage. For example, his boss insists he works late when he's supposed to be patrolling the city.

Re: Should this be called Dark Champions? Whereas the first thing it brings to mind for me is Batman: The Animated Series.

Re: Hero Needs Reviewers!! I've got to admit that crossed my mind as well. Personally, I devalue the opinion of anyone that I view as being associated with a company -- even if they're only a regular poster on the company's web site. However, in this case, I suspect that Darren is not so much looking for the constructive criticism that a review can bring, but rather the additional publicity (and hopefully additional sales) that the review can give Hero. So, I guess the question boils down to whether the good publicity generated by an "insider's" review outweighs the bad publicity generated by it being written by an "insider". Rod

Re: Clerks... Uh... I mean HEROES! Sheer brilliance.

Re: New Justice League anime tomorrow? No. Starcrossed was the 3-part (3 half-hour episodes) finale to season 2 of "Justice League". "Justice League Unlimited" is new. Rod

Re: Need some name suggestions please Roughriders was the Ottawa CFL team that folded in 1996. A new franchise named the Renegades popped up in Ottawa in 2002. The CFL's Saskatchewan Rough Riders are, however, still around.

Re: Should all skills be everyman to some degree?

Re: Should all skills be everyman to some degree? Assuming you're not being facetious, click on the "FAQs" link at the very top of this web page and then click on "Rules Questions" link.

Re: Images or Shapeshift? Well the main difference I can think of is that the Shapeshift would be more reliable because it doesn't require PER checks to see if the viewer believes the disguise as would be required by Images.

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ... Non-fiction that I have read in the last two months: Fools Rush In -- the story of the AOL-Time-Warner merger. The Game Makers -- the story of Parker Brothers Inside the Olympics -- a look at several of the issues surrounding the Olympics in recent years by Canadian IOC member Richard Pound (a former IOC vice-president, head of IOC's investigation into the Salt Lake City bribery scandal, and current head of the World Anti-Doping Agency). Currently reading: The Joy of Writing -- by Canadian author and broadcaster Pierre Burton. Burton sets down a number of rules that writers should keep in mind and, through stories of his experiences as a writer, shows how he learned them.

Re: Spiderman Vs. Firelord Your analysis of Cap sounds about right, Hermit. I'm a Cap fan too and I would put him and Bats on about the same level. Let's face it, they both have PRE out the yahoo, they just use it in different ways.

Re: What do you call "Four Color"? I think Derek pretty much hit upon my definition of "four color". Personally, I often run what I call "Five Color" Champions -- four color with a touch of gray.

Re: creating "wild" powers I'd say it's done with the "Side Effect" Limitation. Heck, the side effect could be "Roll on the Random Fire Side Effect Tabel" -- you'd just need to create the table for that character.

Re: Real and Active Point Limit Campaigns Actually, I have heard of similar approaches but that is not surprising since I have learned that SoulCatcher is an old acquaintance of mine and I have played with the GM who used the approach mentioned. I honestly cannot recall whether or not he used this approach for any of the campaigns I played in or not, although I ceratianly remember him putting limits on the Active Points in an character as opposed to the Real Points. This approach grew out of problems that this GM had with some players who loaded up grossly powerful characters with loads of Limitations. This GM was also extremely reluctant to reject any character that didn't violate the game's rules or any house rule (including point caps) that he had put in place. Personally, I have never been terribly fond of this approach or Active Point limits of any type. This is largely due to the fact that it discriminates against Limitations that remove part of a Power as opposed to those LImitations that simply limit when it can be used. Rod

Re: Lack of Power coverage I disagree with most of these needing to be their own Powers. This is a rare enough abillity that I don't think it should be a separate power. I'd like the Multiform-Transform combo that Steve used in USPD best of any approach I've seen. Again, these are fairly rare abilities. But they are complex enough that I think they need something better. Perhaps Possession could be done as an Advantage on Mind Control. Although personally, I have no problems with this ability being very expensive. As for Mind Swapping, I have to admit I'm not sure right now. Perhaps it is simply Posession (however it is built) with a Side Effect of the other person prossessing your body. I don't see the problem with simply buying the Power multiple times. Maybe I'm missing something. When you say based on the amount absorbed, do you mean the total absorbed thus far? In any case, wouldn't this just be a matter of taking an appropriate limitation of some kind of PD/ED? I could see this. Okay. That might work. Not quite sure what you mean by a reductionist system. What's wrong with simply buying a limitation on Desolid to get just what you want from the Power? Okay. I have no problem with the current system, but I may not be seeing what you're getting at. Well, there's always SPD Drain or Transform. No comment on this one. Perhaps. Nope. I fall into the "there are no absolutes" camp on this one. Nah. The combat effects of Change Environment handle this just fine. Energy Blasts that only do Knockback. Well, I'm sure that Steve thought it was a good idea at the time. But I'd prefer them separate or a better build for Regen -- perhaps simply an Advantage on Healing to make it Regen. I have no idea what you're talking about here. I can see both sides on this. Buy a Limitation on one or more extra doublings of Duplication -- only to replace dead duplicates. Maybe. I don't see the problem with the Summon approach. I could agree with this. I'd have to reflect on this one. But it should be harder to do a coup de grace on a tough being.

Re: Lack of Power coverage Maybe I'm missing something here, but what exactly is the game effect of having less mass that you would be paying for here? Becoming jelly-like, for example, just seems like part of the special effect of turning on a power like Damage Reduction. As for the Mallebility/Squeeability power, I use a limited Desolid. The limited form of Stretching doesn't work for me because Stretching does not include that ability.