The Monster

Re: Players And the Strange things they do. Mythbusters had a sound engineer build a surround-sound booth with hugongous speakers and had one of the Busters stand in it while he slid up and down the low and subsonic scales at extremely high volume. There was some "weird feeling" reported, but nothing approaching bowel (or bladder) control loss. As far as using at as a power, I as GM would point out the silliness of the power and how it would probably spoil the mood for everyone else. If the player insisted, I'm soft enough I'd probably allow it, but the hero would achieve instant notoriety. Which means that baddies would figure out a way to stop it (or wear Depends, or just fast for a day before doing a job), and I would bet that criminal types would take very unkindly to someone who fought in such an unfair way - I mean, bouncing my bullets off your chest is one thing, or even filling my face with peer spray, but making me fill my pants in public just ain't manly. Teaming up, hiring big guns, etc. would all be fair game to some who fights by embarrassing rather than defeating his enemies. Frankly, even the good guys would make this guy a laughingstock, from beat cops to other supers. I mean what's he gonna call himself, Captain Crapper? Doctor Doodoo? Number Two-Man? Seriously, nobody's going to pay attention to anything else he does once he displays this power.

Re: No Recovery in in Conbat Personally, I'd avoid reducing guns damage, either BODY or STUN. They're underpowered as it is - using Hit Locations helps, but when you look at it, you can't kill someone with a single .44-magnum shot without the location bonus. The way to recreate TV (and real) gunfights is to *dodge* and *cover* - like real people do! Seriously, one of the biggest tactical options available to Hero characters is "abort to Dodge" and "Dive for Cover." People who don't use these - even supers - are simply choosing the maneuver "Asking For It." I always feel cheated as a GM when guns aren't scary, at least in anything approaching a normals campaign. If people aren't at least nervous about guns, then all the drama of thugs with guns is drained away.

Re: Building Tech for Original Setting The question on my mind is, given that gauss weapons are fifty-fifty, why would anyone use them? A plastic bullet works just fine, thank you, and isn't easily magnetized... for that matter, how about a high-tech (repeating?) crossbow, with wood/plastic bolts? Strikes me as cheaper and harder to magshield against.

Re: Handling interpersonal skills I agree. A couple of thoughts occured to me as I browsed this thread. One is that the questions shouldn't be formulated in a binary format - either you can force people to do "x" or not. Darth Sidious almost certainly shouldn't be able to simply use PRE or a PRE skill to make Mother Teresa a murderer. But, as others have touched on, there are other ways to address the situation. Not only more subtle, long-ranged influences and manipulations on the part of Sidious (and Teresa), but more subtle results. For example, in the obviously absurd Sidious-Teresa scenario, as GM I'd accept (or even rule) that Teresa would, in fact, simply not hack the kid down - an action that probably goes against two or three "Total" psychlims. But she might be tempted to use violence to solve her problem, which would only violate one psychlim, and take a swing at Sidious (about which, even if it worked, she would feel terrible about afterwards). Alternatively, she might *threaten* the victim, or damage some item of theirs. There are several things that might happen that don't quite meet either side's expectations. (An example from one of my campaigns: a character was getting married - to another PC, actually - and the other PCs threw him a bachelor party, complete with strippers. This PC is a pretty moral guy, who wasn't really pleased with the situation. So, when the others sicced a stripper on him, I had him make an EGO roll. The roll failed. Now, I could have said he totally loses control, makes out (or more) with the stripper, etc., etc. - but, given the attitude of that character (and the player, BTW), that would be way out of line. Instead, I simply said he "dances" with her a little and that's it - enough to embarrass the PC in front of his friends (a primary goal of many bachelor parties) without doing violence to the character.) Of course, part of the problem is that Teresa has a pretty high PRE and EGO of her own... Which brings me to the other thought I wanted to mention: the use of stats and skills. My impression is that PRE is an amalgam of charisma and bravery - the ability to act as if one was in command or control. EGO is about force of will and discipline. Almost as if one was internal and one external. So, PRE helps you stand up to, as well as execute, PRE attacks. EGO helps you overcome psychlims and control your own actions. Sure there's overlap, but there's a difference. I've known a number of people who fit the low-PRE-high-EGO profile, people who aren't at all commanding or particularly brave, but who have the ability to keep themselves on task, or on the straight-and-narrow despite influences otherwise (there's too many examples of high-PRE-low-EGO people; certain politicians and most actors come to mind). These are people who I could probably literally scare pee out of if I tried, but getting them to kill an innocent or worship the devil would be almost certainly beyond anything short of full-fledged Mind Control (which I don't have IRL, dangit!). In general, I prefer to default to direct stat-vs-same-stat for most purposes. It depends on the specific circumstances, the character, and the intended result. There's also a place for a momentary lapse (e.g., my example above), where a character might lapse or commit a minor violation, but recover almost immediately - so you might PRE-attack a person, maybe even a PC, into laying down their weapon, but she might get second thoughts a few seconds later when your minion bends over to retrieve said weapon (of course, then you have to check about codes of honor and such in relation to staying surrendered). The "momentary lapse" scenario has stood me well as a GM in a couple circumstances where a PC should by game rules have a certain reaction, but the player doesn't like it. Blah, blah...dinner was ready an hour ago, and I obviously need to feed to regain mental focus:nonp:

Re: Pulsar Worlds-What would they be like? While I'm much less testy about physics than Cancer, I cannot but agree with him that a planet around a pulsar would strain even my easily-hanged disbelief; I'd have to constantly remind myself just a game...just a game..., and that would make it hard to enjoy much anything else. Now, a large (Death Star-sized) and/or well-shielded ship adrift and captured by a pulsar, where the intent is to get inside it for some reason (survivor rescue? ultra-tech left by the Ancients?), that I could get behind... I am planning a Serenity campaign... Anyway, the point I always take away from this kind of stuff isn't so much the scientific details (as kewl as they can sometimes be), but how can it be used as a prop/setting/Maguffin?

Re: How HERO helped me at work! Now, if only I could have required pre-gens the one time I tried to be a manager....

Re: Looking for a specific life-transfer SFX and need suggestions. Thinking about this, I have couple thoughts. Before they get lost in the wide empty spaces, here they are: Just how does the sword work? If the life-sucking ability is an additional effect on top of the simple hack of the blade, that's one thing. If it is the primary or sole effect of hitting someone with it, that's another. With the sword-plus-life-drain power, you essentially have a "Multi-Power Attack" which is fine in mechanics terms, but you're really attacking with two distinct powers every time you swing on someone. The GM may or may not have issues with this, and at the very least it's going to cost, well, roughly twice what any regular attack focus would cost. If it's basically a life-sucking stick with a decorative edge, that makes for different accounting. (Not that this changes mechanics, but a bit of perspective.) Another way to build this would be Succor (Aid made Constant, with instant fade when the END runs out), running off an END reserve. You can fiddle with advantages on the Succor so it boosts any or all of STR, BODY, STUN, or whatever; you can also make it mere healing ("only to starting values") or actual increases. The reserve could either have a zero REC, in which case you buy a Transfer BODY to END Reserve power for the sword, or a conditional REC - "proportional to BODY damage done to targets" or "only when BODY damage has been dealt to an enemy in the last Turn" (since reserves only recover in post-12 anyway). The amount of END (and REC) in the reserve depends on what you can afford and how long it lasts between hacks. (By the way, I think it should be BODY damage to targets, not opponents ; it leaves open the idea that you can feed the sword by letting it suck your own blood, or that of your allies/minions ) Value of the limitation varies, of course, with how likely it is and how much under your control the condition is: "only when BODY done within the last Turn" barely qualifies as a limitation; but "only when a target has been killed within the last Turn" might be as much as -1. You could probably even reduce the cost more by making an accidental activation, where the sword occasionally decides it's hungry and takes whatever's in arm's reach - or am I getting a little too Stormbringerish?

Re: [Newbie] My first character Definitely better, maybe even playable, but not, as they genteely say, "optimized" (I like optimizing characters, but I don't like munchkinizing them; it's a subtle difference). The stats are all fine - for a pulp/high-power pulp character. My one concern is that they're all bought up, which often suggests to me an unfocused character. It's not a problem, but when I end up buying lots of stats I find it often helpful to go back over and ask my self just what this character is really about - I can usually find a way to cut back on unnecessary stats and free up points for more pertinent things. It's a matter of taste and definition, though, not necessarily a flaw. As already mentioned, this is a pulp hero who happens to have a suit of armor and a glue gun. Nothing wrong with that. The glue-pellet EB is pretty weak. With a simple martial arts maneuver or even a Haymaker, he can do more damage with his bare fist than his pellets do (or for that matter, if he picks up a two-by-four). STR 16 does 3d6 as a punch; a big bruiser with STR 20 does as much - though not over an area - and even a low-power supers brick will dish out 6+ dice as a punch. So it's not a very strong attack. I'd pump it up; maybe more damage, maybe Autofire, not sure. It would really benefit from Multipower: --spray of pellets is what you have right now --one big pellet would do more damage to one target --concentrated spray would be same damage but Autofire --entangle effects could also run through the same power It would all represent different setting on the gun, just like selective fire on modern assault rifles. (new power idea: Swinging from a strand of glue - think Spider-Man's webs!) (new power idea: Area-effect Drain Running - pool of glue) Skills look okay, though Deduction and Streetwise might help, given he's got Criminology. Depends on taste again, though. Since he's got Acrobatics, Breakfall would make sense as well (and helps in those fall-off-the-roof scenes!). No code against killing? Depends on your campaign, but it's usually an easy psychlim for superheroes, and since he uses the glue gun instead of a Thompson... Hunted's another one, even if it's vague like hunted by the Mob or something, since he will be anyway as the campaign goes on. Again, it's playable for a session or two, if it's comparable with the other PCs. As currently designed, he's fit in fairly well with my non-super pulp campaign (which has *very* experienced standard heroes); in my regular Champions, he'd be a sidekick at best, mostly due to his low-power attack and SPD, but that's a standard supers, so that's a much higher power level anyway.

Re: Character Building Challange So you have a bunch of potential powers - that would be either a Multipower, if the available powers are always from a given suite, or a VPP if the available powers can change completely based on the individual event. Usable by other I think includes an option for usable by the other and you don' get to use it yourself, so that's fairly straightforward. Some limitation, not quite No Conscious Control, to reflect that the guy can't choose what he gets at any particular time; and conditional (or even Focus) since the powers won't work except through another's body. Telepathy/Mind Link with a Limitation: vulnerable to damage through mental link. Desolid depends on your definition. If the character is a ghost type and actually has an on-site presence independent of the occupied target, then, yes, you have Desolid (with clinging, like they have in the UNTIL database book, to stay with the "possessed" body). If the character is acting purely mentally through its living vehicles, then you don't need Desolid (assuming there's a physical body somewhere), just bigger mental powers.

Re: AI's and Astral Projection I wouldn't allow it as a PC. Well, maybe, maybe with massive restrictions & limitations, but I'm pretty lenient about such things. AI's don't have CON or STUN (or REC for that matter), so they can't be stunned or knocked out. In fact, the only way to hurt them would be Drains, and those would have to have Based on ECV or Affects Desolid. Essentially, you're getting Desolid and some of the Automaton advantages for free, and that's a whopping bucket of points. Far better to just build Desolid or go with an array of oddly defined powers based on the "astral projection" special effect.

Re: Help me to build this power. Multipower, almost definitely, maybe VPP - *if* it makes a difference which weapon he gets. If they're all the same in game terms, then it's just a wiredly defined HKA, whether it's a mace or a sword or a +5 garlic press. I'm not sure the full modifier for No Conscious Control would apply, since presumably the weapons don't appear unless he asks for them, but it's the right track. There's also the question (from the show) whether the weapon which appears just happens to be uniquely suited to the task at hand. This happens a lot in shows/books where the heros doesn't know or doesn't have full control of his powers: he doesn't consciously pick the best of his swiss-army knife of powers, but it just works out that way, accidentally or due to some mysterious fate. If that's the case, then its not really a Limitation, but a role-playing issue. As an aside, with a little work you could come up with a deck of cards with the various weapons (and their stats) on them. This could provide an amusing prop, and a clever GM could actually manipulate the mix of cards available for any given session.

Re: Odd Power or Sx? My question is, what is the game mechanic behind the suit? Is it just SFX, or is it a Focus of some kind? Cuz it sounds to me like this might be an always-on Desolid character, and the suit is a Focus giving his powers the "affects real world advantage." In that case, just run the suit as a breakable focus with its own BODY and DEF. If the suit is just the 'special effect' of his physical stats, then he's just the same in game-mechanic terms as anyone else, and resurrection would be played out as others already observed. If you wanted to buy the regen/resurrect power, it would probably be easiest to just make the fully repaired suit a focus or condition of the resurrection.

Re: Pulp Stargate! Nazi Goa'ulds. Now, how can I work that into my pulp campaign....

Re: How HERO helped me at work! I've never had a problem with public speaking, but I have noticed that my GM practice makes me much better at speaking and running a meeting than I would otherwise be. Something about having to handle a bunch of people clamoring for attention and maintaining fairness and event flow all at the same time.

Re: Alien Power Armour Enhanced senses of various kinds (nightvision, IR, UV, maybe even radar & sonar); OCV bonuses for a HUD targeting computer, maybe even Find Weakness. Flash Defense. 360 vision? Telescopic vision. Life Support (or did you mention that already?): hi/lo-pressure, radiation, hi/lo-temperature, etc. Heck, you could even have loudspeakers (Images sound) - for bellowing orders or just for a rockin' stereo. For disads, the sky's the limit with an AI: Berserk (especially against some alien dudes who haven't shown up yet); Code Against Killing/Harming Certain Things. Depending on where the suit comes from, it could come with its own Hunted and/or Watched (which could lead to anything from "how dare you wear the armor of the Galactic Terror Squad?" to "Fellow Space Paladin, I need your help!"). It could have a remote control override/shutdown installed by the makers. An Uncontrolled power could be interesting... This may or may not be worth points, but could at least be a plot device: every so often (years) it requires a few grams of Zapmium, the incredibly rare alien mineral it uses as fuel. Where you find it is up to the GM's fiendishness. Suddenly the charges stop refreshing every day, or only some of them come back... How's that for a start?

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign. If you're really concerned about helium-loss issues (I just ignored it in my campaign), another way to handwave it is to have a set of inner gasbags chiach are helium-filled and do not vent except in emergencies, and an outer ring of hydrogen bags for the extra lift and lift control. It might work, and if you really want to deal with hydrogen problems (fires and the like), you still have an excuse. It mostly depends on what you want to deal with in your campaign. Another note of interest around Helium was that, in the 30's, the *only* country that could produce helium in quantity was the USA. It was considered a strategic resource, to the point that Germany was not allowed to buy helium for their planned ships, especially after Hitler came to power. In fact, the "strategic helium reserve" was still a federal budget item up to the last several years of the 20th century (I don't recall the year, but IIRC it was at least into the Reagan years).

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign. About air battles: In my campaign, I've staged a couple air battles, with okay-to-good results. There's been one or two times been enemy fighters, but only a couple, and never yet against WW2-era planes (now that they're up against Nazi Germany in the late 30s, that will change!). Since their crew includes two really hot pilots, it wasn't a problem. Also, I haven't done a full-scale modern air asault on the ship - yet. In the Lost Worlds series, the ship was attacked by a bunch of tribesmen riding flying dinosaurs. I figured on heavy casualties coming in, but an interesting close-up battle once some got on board. Result? Basically what you'd expect (in hindsight) from a cavalry charge against a couple of machine guns: annihilation. Shoulda had 'em attack at night (or have them armed with guns/rockets by the rogue modern bad guy who was trapped in the LW). In the final battle against the sorceror warlord in southern China, the ship was attacked by a combined force of balloons and hang gliders: the balloons acted as MG posts, and carried a couple hang gliders each up to altitude before release. The hang gliders were for boarding. Because of better numbers and coordination, they actually landed a couple on the ship, took out a few crewmen, and sent the captain on a fun hunt among the gasbags (Stray shots could cause gas leaks! You *sure* you wanna use the Thompson?). The most successful I've been at putting the ship itself in peril was when most of the crew and officers (and all PCs) were invited to a party by a local Mongolian warlord. His German advisers and hired ninjas sneaked on board and overcame the skeleton watch, and lifted the airship right in the middle of the party! The frantic rush ended up with two PCs clutching mooring ropes as the ship flew off, with the others scrambling for planes and dealing with hostiles on the ground. Nice touch as that the one session ended with the two heroes dangling from the ropes - a perfect "cliffhanger" ending.

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign. In my campaign, the Archangel Corporation, although its inner workings are hidden, is well-known as a philanthropic and science-supporting group. Part of the official airship mission is to act as a universal ambassador of goodwill, dioing "geographic" research (in the National Geographic Magazine sense, i.e., covering both mapping/oceanography/geology and anthropology). This gives the ship an excuse to go just about anywhere and lessens the need to hide it. For missions that require stealth, you can use ideas like that above. Or you could just make the players live with it, so taht if they really need to sneak in somewhere, they have to leave the airship parked out of sight. On the other hand, I mentioned the speed of an airship cruise. It's possible that they can get the ship in and out of a location faster than most would expect - not invisibility but at least an element of surprise.

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign. This is pretty much what my Archangel campaign has been since its inception almost 20 years ago, and still going strong (OK, so that group only gets together once or twice a year; still...) The framework I used was really Star Trek: You have a big ship with lots of people on it and some big guns (relatively; historical airships only carried a couple MGs and maybe some bombs). It's impressive and kewl and powerful, but the focus needs to be on the players, not the ship. What the ship mostly does is gets the heroes where they need to go, with speed and support as they need. Basically, the heroes (top officers, just like Trek) land (beam down) in whatever location and have to deal with the local situation man-to-man. Only a couple times have I got the ship itself really involved in an adventure as anything more than transport or scenery. Thing is, an airship can cruise at highway speed (50+mph) as long as it has fuel; when you consider it can keep going day and night, like a train or ocean ship, that adds up to a lot of territory very fast. Basically, they can theoretically get almost anywhere on Earth within a handful of days; the only reason they can't is stuff the GM puts in the way, like storms or bad fuel. (Hugo Eckener, who piloted zeppelins for decades, and who never lost one of them to accident, was asked what his secret was. "You just fly around the storms.") Few zeppelins were lost due to accidental hydrogen ingition; most fell to enemy action - and balloon busting was not all that easy - and to storms. Anyway, I use a slightly enhanced USS Akron/Macon for my Archangel; it's got plenty for regular adventurers - no real labs except what a wildreness-trekking explorer would carry on a mule train; enough weapons to scare natives but not modern armies; enough crew to provide assistance but not take over a city. The Akron and Macon were pretty much the most advanced rigid airships ever to enter regular service, so you can't find a better model to work with. All that said, I've taken the Archangel crew to adventures in New Guinea (headhunters!), San Francisco (Chinatown underworld!), the North Pole (Mad scientist! With a machine-gun-toting polar bear!!), and several places in China and Mongolia (ancient sorcerous cults! Martial arts assassins! Genghis Khan's tomb!). They spent a couple sessions in a Lost World (ideas stolen hevily from the old "Lost World" Hero supplement). Now they are in Nazi Germany, overflying the 1936 olympics and discovering occult plots (Deep Ones at Helgoland!?!). The next long arc of adventures is going to be directly from Indiana Jones, trying to keep mystical artifacts out of the hands of the bad guys. I orgininally had the airship sponsored by by a secretive but philanthropic organization, the Archangel Corporation; all I knew about it was that it was absolutely legit and had essentially unlimited resources and connections with Western governments (and, as it developed, some Asian ones as well). It has turned out - and I really didn't plan this, but after reading Farmer's book, it seemed obvious in retrospect - that the mysterious "Mister A" was, in fact, Doc Savage! He finally did a cameo when sending the ship to Berlin. Smiles from all the players at this! Anyway, you're definitely on the right track with your concept. You can go anywhere with it, and the sky really is the only limit! (As a freebie, one concept I played with but never used was a "hollow earth" where the airship would actually go underground and discover a whole savage realm on the underside of the earth's crust.)

Re: Ever have one of those moments when... Oh, I meant to mention that intergroup bickering can be quite in genre, as can a reputation for being loose cannons (yes, the mayor needs your help, but dang it, he sure doesn't *want* it - better to send them out of the city against the villain's remote stronghold).

Re: Ever have one of those moments when... I had a campaign (Justice, Inc. of all things) self-destruct over a discussion over whether slavery was inherently evil(!). I figured that when the "heroes" saw the lizardmen whipping their human slaves they'd just charge in... Long story short, that campaign ended right there (when the PCs drew guns on each other, I erupted into a lecture about playing in character and in genre. Not my most shining moment perhaps, but it got the point across). My suggestion is that you discuss the problem with the players. From their initial reaction, it doesn't sound like they're with you on the four-color mentality, but you never know. If you can bend a little and they can bend a little, fine. But if the GM or the players aren't enjoying themselves, it's just not worth it. Now, it isn't clear that this campaign is irretrievable. It doesn't sound like the PCs actually killed innocents (or villains, for that matter), in fact most of the mayhem that offended you comes down to a mix of clumsiness, intergroup rivalry and tactical stupidity. My impression is that if they want to play that way, it isn't necessarily out of heroic character, just not as neat as some expect. As you pointed out, their antics made the villains' job easier. Collateral damage (at least in terms of property) is not often an issue in comics, so I woudn't worry too much about that. But if the villains keep getting away with their crimes because the heroes are being stupid and bashing each other, then you can occasionally point this out as the maniacal bad-guy laughter fades in the distance. On top of that, what the bad guys are often after is something that makes them more powerful, so it may come down to simply kicking the heroes' heinies once or twice with the exact weapon they failed to defend in the previous session. Making them villains would be a bad idea. Their "omlette" reaction implies to me that if you try slap this on them, it'll just provide an excuse to really let loose.

Re: Help with Vehicle Combat (Ships) Just to add dirt - and a bit of realistic feel, depending on how tactically minded and up on their Hornblower and Aubrey novels your group is, you might steal an idea from the old AH boardgame Wooden Ships and Iron Men. There, movement was directly related to wind direction, and since it was set up on a hex grid, it's an easy translation. For example, headed directly into the wind, your move was, well, zero, but you could turn to either hexside on your move (I'm pulling this from rusty memory, so the precision is lacking). If the wind was coming from either port bow or starboard bow, your move was maybe one or two. "Broad Reaching," where the wind was coming over the port or starboard aft, was your full move (4-6 hexes IIRC). And full stern-on wind was a bit less than your full move. So, for example, you might figure a ship with 8" "Swimming" mght get the full 8" only if broad reaching; 6" if you're running with the wind, 4" if the wind's over your forward quarters, and 0" dead ahead. Then you have an easy game mechanic for maneuverng with or against the wind - a crucial bit of strategy for sails - and you can play with occasionally shifting winds and magical wind intervention. BTW: I remember the 7th Sea sea fight I did, I used the WS&IM pieces and everybody was pleased. Then the Pirates minis came out and blew them out of the water (pun intended). Ah, progress.

Re: Two Campaign Ideas Your idea #1 actually brought Stargate to mind. You have basically heroic-normal humans against whatever the writers want to throw at them, and over time, the humans have gained access to advanced technology, even stuff they don't really understand yet. It seems this idea could be easily adapted to a variety of backgrounds, including low-level supers. The alien opposition could be supers, advanced tech, or a mix of both (like on the show). In addition, the show has a very optimistic and light feel without being self-parody (except when they intend to) or total silliness.

Re: I'll Never Play Pulp (ahem) clicked on the wrong thing - darn cat leaping about! Anyway, what I was aiming at (pun intended) is that it isn't the weaponry that has them, it's probably the culture. THey don't think they know how to act or what to expect in a 20's pulp or victorian game (or, in the case of Victorian, they probably associate it more with Jane Austen drama and farce than solid adventure). I bet they use much the same kind of action and character in FH/SH/CH that would be appropriate to pulp, they just don't know it.

Re: I'll Never Play Pulp From your description, it sounds to me like part of the problem is that your players don't want to deal with anything that isn't clearly either guns or swords. The claim that they don't understand the weapons of the era is smoke (whether they know it or not); they play Star Hero and Champions, and those all have weapons they understand? Feh! Tell me they've never read/seen Westerns, Sherlock Holmes, Zorro, Doc Savage, Scarlet Pimpernel, Three Musketeers, etc., etc. Frankly, muzzle-loading firearms are little different game-mechanic-wise than crossbows, and they probably don't have any problem with those in FH