Tigereye

Re: Morty The Mugger Still Can't Catch A Break... Deuce would first look after the girl (natch, as doing so would fit one of his Disadvantages to a tee), then, having done so...Deuce has an International Police License, so he will arrest him on the spot. 1) Help Morty out of the sewer. "Still a little wet behind the ears. Fishing for sewer rats, or are you part of the street crew?" 2) Wait for the pepper spray to subside a bit (that stuff stings even after it gets on your skin), then zip-tie him. "Weren't you ever told that peppers give you gas?" 3) Arrest him anyway, even though the girl seems nonplussed. "What you get for trying to pick up girls in a dark alleyway." 4) Oh, too obvious, and a chance to use a line straight from the movies. Look at the girl with a smile on my face. "Fine shot." Then to Morty: "Shocking ... Positively shocking." 5) Compliment the girl on the fine use of her legs. "Beautiful." Then, to the writhing Morty. "You know, the Vienna Choir could always use a good male soprano. It'd give you a chance to make a man of yourself. Well, more of one than you are right now, anyway." 6) Drag him away from reach of the pistol. "That's not the right type of flower for introducing yourself to a young lady. And a gun is not the right kind of gift for a first date, either." Arrest him on charges on attempted assault, and on aggravated robbery. Then look after his injuries. Call the normal municipal police with his cell phone, asking the girl to stay around to give a statement. Then have a good laugh with the coppers. Check to make sure Morty wasn't part of a gang or something more sinister. He'll ask the girl if she'd like a cup of coffee afterward, if he's in his civilian guise, and caution her to be a bit more cautious next time. "Dark alleys attract muggers like pollen attracts bees." Casey would definitely be the ultimate end to the robber's bad break. If still conscious, the unmanned 2,600-pound gold car would push him into a corner. In a universe with superheroes, a sentient car would be unusual but not totally impossible. If the girl would not be freaked out by a talking car, Casey would ask her to push him into his back seat, and ask her to get into the front passenger seat. Then he would drive (or if necessary, fly) the two of them to the police as expeditiously as possible for arrest and a statement. He'd drive over the gun, or have the girl tell the police where it was. His Eidetic Memory would also be a great help. In a world without superpowered individuals, he'd wait for the girl to call the police herself. If she didn't, the anthropomorphised Chevrolet Corvair would terrify the mug until the poor guy would turn himself in for protection from "Christine". The cops would take the dope in. Drugs making him paranoid, no doubt.

Re: Mottos for use in games Non-CCA: Non-Comics Code Authority.

Re: Mottos for use in games "Peace is our profession...War is just a hobby": The unofficial motto of the Strategic Air Command. YGTBSM: "You've Got To Be S******g Me": The unofficial motto of the "Wild Weasels" (Air Force air defense suppression units). Good for those non-CCA Dark Champions games, particularly those who have nigh-impossible missions. One from my own Marine Corps: "Death Before Dishonor...But Neither Before Breakfast!"

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if... If Teddy Ruxpin can kick your butt...

Re: German for Fearless? I'll tell the speedster formerly known as Herr Vollerfahrt that...

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if... --You have a negative OCV. --You have been assigned to the Securities Exchange Commission as their super-powered enforcement branch. --You have the power Drain with the limitation "Self Only". --Your character's Swimming power has the limitation "Must Surface For More Baking Soda (One Continuing Charge, One Minute)". --You escape from Doctor Destroyer only because he goes into severe cardiac arrest laughing at you. After pounding the floor of his lair for fifteen straight minutes. --Foxbat does not want to be your sidekick. In fact, he has publicly announced it. --You purchased so little INT Grond could outscore you on a Wonderlic test. --Innocent bystanders rescue you. --You have Hunted: Snuggles, The Fabric Softener Bear. (More Powerful, NCI) --Your battle cries: "Durn This Lumbago!" "Ow, I got a paper cut!" --Mechanon does not recognize you as alive. In fact, he uses you to clean his hearing systems, as he mistakes you for a large Q-Tip. --For some reason, Takofanes has taken an unnatural shine to you... --You are not featured in Superhero Weekly. Instead, your feature is in the New England Journal of Medicine. --You have a Vulnerability to Lace Doilies.

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name Deuce would probably let the name die with him, unlike most of the training/gadgeteer types. He would consider himself incredibly lucky he's gotten that far, as there aren't many 90-year-olds in as good a shape as he would be in at that point. Especially ones who smoked, drank, been shot at, been beaten up, and chased skirts as much as he has, even if they did lose 40 years of memories in the process. Without Alzheimer's. Deuce would not want any potential successors to face the same enemies as he did, just because of the name. Each new age should face its own challenges without any more problems from the past than is already bequeathed to it. If, however, some young hero (he'd hope, with powers beyond his own seemingly merely-mortal ones) wants to take up the black gi and mask after his retirement, that's their business. Deuce would support them as best he could, if they needed it, but he also realizes that casualties among heroes are very high, and so it's best not to become too emotionally attached...

Re: German for Fearless? Fearless= furchtlos Daring= kühn (also bold, audacious) Woman = Frau or Dame, young woman = Fraulein Fraulein Furchtlos has a wonderful alliteration to it. Modern Germans are unusually multilingual, so you could use French, Italian or English terms, too.

Re: The best questions you can ask! "We're all gonna die! Where's the bomb?" (Spoken in the voice of George C. Scott.) Sorry, thought I was on the LZ-129 for a moment. Seriously, when in doubt, use the WWWWWH sequence. Who do you work for? (Or, "Who are you?", if this is patently obvious. Sometimes, though, it isn't who you think it is.) What do they want? (Very Klingon.) Where do they operate from? (If they don't know, follow up with "OK, smart-aleck, where do you operate from?" When are you expected to report back? (Gives you a timeframe to interrogate them- it is unlikely that a major operation will begin before they report back, unless they are purposely a diversion, in which case an "I dunno" probably means they are a diversion.) Why were you sent here? (Mooks are trained to resist this one.) How did you plan to report back, and how will you identify yourself? (Actually the most important question, as it may give you a channel to a Main Baddie, or at least someone closer to the Main Baddie.) If you have time, you should throw in random questions, more to throw them of the scent of where you are taking the conversation, and to make them think they wouldn't be giving away any information that would come back to hurt them. Ask if they smoke. Ask them if they prefer Coke or Pepsi. Ask them what their favorite movie is. Ask them, "Vot larvely hair you haf. Vot do you put on it? Myself I break two eggs ofer my head efery day." Heck, ask them if this cape makes your butt look big. If all else fails, turn them over to your alien mentalist, who will rip their skull and spinal column out if they continue to resist them. Or so they say. (Well, it works for me...)

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Oh, and I reserve the right to give the drop bears weapons. Specialized ones, designed just for them, so I have the right to Bear Arms.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Originally Posted by Major Tom: I would be using the bears instead to maul known liars, not rabbits (even evil ones). That way I could bear false witnesses. I would tax evil rabbits instead. In-hare-intense taxes, of course. (Everybody at this point ducks, so I will goose instead. HONK!)

Re: Wait, he's on our side? Deuce would accept, provided Mr. Scratch immediately returns to the abyss from which he came after the evil was defeated, and any mortal souls "liberated" would not automatically be his. No attempting to tempt- get on with the job. If he was truly serious about defeating his rival, Lucifer would accept. One of his team might be outraged for a while, but having met the Infernal One first-hand (she was once on his team) Retribution would probably get over it. On the other hand, she'd be very keen on keeping an eye on him for the Light Side. Deuce remembers the words of one W. Churchill: "If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."

Re: One HELL of a poker game... Deuce would not turn down a chance to kibitz, having introduced more than his share of individuals to the Nether Reaches. Discreetly, of course. He knows not to interrupt the proceedings of a poker game. Of course, he will be intensely curious as to what is discussed. And just what are the stakes? Souls? If the stakes were high enough (for example, the characters had to win some contest to leave, a la The Seventh Seal) he would even play. He'd let the accompanying characters (and any allies) watch for cheating. Yes, he'd suspect such august company to cheat. His main job is watch for tells, while keeping his tells to a minimum. "The game is Texas Hold-'Em. No limit, No wild cards. Well, perhaps our souls. 150 million souls maximum stakes? I'm penny-ante for that level... Baron Samedi, you're leaving? Thank you for your 5-million-soul buy in..."

Re: Picking a codename that, like, a million other characters haven't already used. Although US aircraft carrier names are not too good for superheroes, "Constellation" would make a decent one, and AFAIK not used for a major one before, as would "Shangri-La" (which is also a great in-joke). We've already had several iterations of "Hornet" and "Wasp", and "Enterprise" is way too well known. "Ranger" isn't too bad, but people would expect a D&D character or somebody like Ranger Gord from Red Green. I also tend to use names for international heroes and villains in their native tongue, which makes for really obscure origins. It also makes the relatively mundane sound exotic- naming a villain "Flying Fish" doesn't sound dangerous until you translate it into French- Exocet.

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon "Winowski!": I actually coined this one, from a guy who used to play league Strat-O-Matic Football (and if anybody remembers this pre-PC football simulator game, have a cookie). Mr. Winowski (and his first name is lost to the mists of time) would CONSTANTLY roll his dice off of the table. The term stuck for any time you know the dice are going to go off the table as the result of a wild throw. "Dan List": Any standardized list of equipment that all adventurers will want at the start of an adventure. Actually named for my best friend, who had wonderful standardized equipment lists for his characters which everyone wanted to copy, but we've actually turned it into an acronym now: "Duty Accessories, Nominal". "No...Zap, No...Zap!": Energy Projector (or any ranged weapon) used in a desperate manner, particularly in the hands of a villain. Taken from the Star Trek original series episode "Who Mourns For Adonis?" where Apollo is trying to keep the Enterprise from wrecking his temple, the source of his power. "Noooo!"- ZAP! "White T-Bird": A red herring, when the PCs are feeling particularly paranoid, but a complete, innocent coincidence created by a devious GM to bait the players into making a troublesome mistake. So named because the said white Ford Thunderbird seemed to follow a group of suspicious characters everywhere they went, only to pull off three houses from their safe house. (Rumor had it it was driven by one Roger O. Thornhill.) "Athenuh..." Fumbling an intelligence or perception roll, so done for a D&D character who had an Intelligence of 3 and a Wisdom of 18, trying to pronounce the Greek Goddess Athena. "De-Gaussing Dice": allowing another player to roll a set of apparently cursed dice. Taken from naval ships demagnetizing their hulls to prevent magnetic fuses on mines or torpedoes from easily detonating. Generally handed to a player considered to have worse luck than you, under the understanding that they couldn't roll any worse in their hands. (The above-mentioned Dan is often used as he is rumored to have tortured deer in an earlier life as a Roman.) Other in-house jargon: "Alt-Control-Smite!" "What if he bleeds white?" (See the shapeshifting, nihilistic Mellor from Fringeworthy, one of the best villains in any RPG, IMHO, because they have no particular survival instinct. Used in any instance where a Mellor would be a good subsitute villain in the instance.) "My defense is to bleed on him." "Swa-Ping!" (I noticed other groups also used "Ping!" to describe a completely ineffectual hit. In our case, a "Swa-Ping" is a highly dramatic version of a "Ping".) "Abort to Unconsciousness."

Re: Picking a codename that, like, a million other characters haven't already used. Dreadnought is from First Sea Lord John "Jackie" Fisher's family motto: "Fear God and Dread Nought" How about the opposite end of the battleship era: Vanguard? Or other British battleship names: Bellerophon Iron Duke Renown

Re: Worth a thousand words? And thus I have his quote for Champions: "I didn't want to be a pirate. I always wanted to be... a LUMBERJACK!"

Re: Worth a thousand words? How do we know he's not a super-villain? His name: The Dread Pirate Awwwk! His origin? What happens when a sadistic space pirate with a parrot on his shoulder both fall into a DNA combiner. The bird beak and tail is not a costume feature- they're permanently part of him. He has flight, and his dark energy gauntlets allow for a prodigious ranged attack. He is in constant contact with his flagship, the Pretty Bird. He's also carrying a chain, so he's either skilled with using it, objects of opportunity, or he's into sadism (the latter I tend to support as his costume is an assault on the senses). As for his logo- he should be ashamed of himself for what appears to be pictured there. It looks like a griffon is being molested by a green dragon.

Re: "Hull? I can't be in Hull!" Deuce was born in Scotland in 1922, and educated in various places in England, so... 1. Stay away from Mum and Dad. Much as he'd like to warn them of the accident that will kill them in 1933, he might sentence them to an even worse or earlier fate. 2. He can profit from the knowledge of the present as well as the future; even if he's never visited Hull before, he could probably manage to fake his way to at least some comforts (and could probably get a job readily) 3. Find out why (if there is a reason) he has been sent to the era of his own childhood. Is he here to change history, or change history back to the way it must be, or prevent history from changing? Who sent him? 4. And why him? He has been already a victim of involuntary time travel -from 1966 to 2005. Is this some sort of coincidence, or enemy action?

Re: Crisis of Infinite Champions: 10 brave heroes Deuce would probably not go, unless specifically asked or if there were no other recoruse. He has too much respect for fellow heroes, and although he's extremely resourceful, he has no superpowers (at least none that he's aware of) and almost no scientific knowledge which with to battle such a formidable foe. Without a lot of back-up, the Anti-Monitor would be way over his head, and he'd know it. Instead, he would spend the next day trying to subvert the Anti-Monitor's intentions, as befits his nature - could he instead find a way to trick the Anti-Monitor to believe he'd accomplished his goal? Could he find a hero - or even a villain who wanted the universe intact, even for their own purposes - into thwarting the Anti-Monitor's aims? (What's Istvatha V'han doing these days?) If nothing else works, Deuce will spend the last hour getting stinking drunk, with the most beautiful woman he can find. He will spend the last moments of his existence coming and going at the same time. If the Anti-Monitor shows up in "person", he will challenge him to a duel. No technology, no biological assistance, no lackeys. Casey would go, as he's technically not alive anyway, and the party might use some fast transportation (He can fly and swim, and carry 5 people in comfort for hours at a time). He has the ability to talk to inanimate mechanical or electronic devices, to find out what they are and what they did in the past, so he has skills that the party could find extremely useful in certain situations. If the A-M is overconfident, Casey may even be in rare cases able to talk the devices out of their intended mission. His only requirement is that someone load his trunk with as much dense organic material as possible, or carry about 100 gallons of regular gasoline.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Our new power-suiter, in a "World of Jade" (Gold Digger) Hero Game gets sent to Jade after a villain englobes him in a gigantic bubble gum bubble. He has to spend a round stuck to the floor with the power, which is also an Entangle: Casey, my character: "Sounds like a bubble gum crisis." Everyone groans, and some accuse me of doing something OOC, but then Casey proceeds to give him advice as to how to remove bubble gum from metal. (He is a 1969 Chevrolet Corvair, after all. He knows lots of tips.) ----- Different game, different week: Champions game, with Deuce, at a horse show with Heather McGowrie, better known as the villainess Cateran, who wants to put the moves on him. She gives him the dumb-girl come-on (which Deuce already knows is a complete crock as she's an expert rider, but is playing along because he wants to know why she's coming onto him): Heather McGowrie: "But all the different types! Classical, military, competitive, artistic, free-style, Spanish, combined... what do you call a horse that does more than one?" Deuce (dryly): "A cross-dressager."

Re: Your character's theme music! Deuce: There's no full-length YouTube for it yet, but here's a Deezer.com link... On Her Majesty's Secret Service, by Propellerheads Bring on the hordes of VIPER troops! The "Don't Point That At My Planet" Ray Gun! The megalomaniac supervillain in the forbidden lair! And don't forget the uber-hot girl!

Re: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for 2008 Considering I run a time-displaced James Bond in a semi-four-color (or would that be four-colour?) Champions game, I also nominate him. This vote is not just for that, however: just a Google search for "fictional British hero" brings him up more often than anyone else- and I honestly thought it would be Sherlock Holmes! Another vote for some more female membership: Modesty Blaise, the female M, et al. Perhaps Lara Croft? Also: Bulldog Drummond John Drake/Number 6 Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr. (although not British, he has a Scottish father) Simon Templar aka "The Saint"

Re: superuseless superpowers No, no. It's just that some are just drawn by Rob Liefeld. Or directed by Uwe Boll.

Re: superuseless superpowers Thanks, Grimble. Certainly one way of doing it. Now that I think about it, I'd probably just use a Favor point instead, or use a 1 pip Transform: Air Into Goodwill Games Tickets with IPE... Now, my character has the ability to score with Supervillain's Wives, but that's a whole 'nother area!