The Monster

Re: Hey, what's in those ruins? A few buildings, especially on the outskirts, could actually still be maintained, after a fashion, and used by hunters (or bandits, or vagrants) for occasional shelter while in the forest. A city scriptorium, with walls featuring stacks of cubbyholes, in which are the moldering remains of ancient scrolls. A few (perhaps magical ones?) may have survived and still be legible. This can be played as a source of cluues/hooks, or simply the sad remains of a once-vital civilization. City baths, with large open pools, can be found. Some may still have water in them, stagnant pits of runoff, thick with algae and worms (mosquito heaven!). Others may actually be fresh, fed by surviving remnants of the aqueduct system. Some graveyards might be partially dug up - were/are there undead here? Or is it simply the signs of grave robbers? Fancy tombs would almost certainly have been broken into by looters, but some may have been too tough to crack, or have secret chambers still lying undiscovered. If there are apes or monkeys in the area, bands of them might have moved in and established territories, some perhaps for many generations. Some areas where they have lived would bear the signs of their dwelling - i.e., bones, manure, etc. A city like this might also be a fine place for magical experimentation, especially of the heavy demolition type. Blasted buidlings, craters, and strewn rubble that is clearly more recent than any invasion might cause some head-scratching among the players. Of course, some of the experiments may have gone awry, leaving the bodies the of experimenters (and their guards and assistants) in place, or even caches of (unstable!?) reagents. (Sweaty dynamite, anyone?) If the ground was originally reclaimed from swampland (or has since sunk because of seismic events), the swamp will have moved back in, making parts of the city very wet and mossy, very treacherous footing.

Re: How do you improve your HERO-fu? Our group spams most of our characters around for preview and review by everyone else, for suggestions and rules checks. Just about every character goes through two or more major revisions before time comes to actually play. Also, a couple of us are members of this board, and from here the potential resrouces are staggering.

Re: Military Campaign I run most of my games at "Heroic" level - 50 to 75 points to start. I've found that Hero works very well at that level, without magic or superpowers or anything. So I highly recommend Hero system for a campaign like this. (While I've read the rules, I've never played d20 Modern, so I can't really offer a fair comparison.) As far as different player-experience levels, I don't know that I'd worry too much about it. One advantage of playing non-magic/super campaigns is that the range of weapons, powers, etc., are much more limited, and, as Yogi Berra said, "you can learn a lot just by observing;" that is, you can take real-world experience and study, and know basically what to expect from a given item or situation. The combat-rules details are fun to use, but for most bad guys, few are necessary, in terms of tactical options. Presumably, the PCs would be some kind of elites up against "regular" troops, so having them exploit rules and options, while the bad guys just sit and shoot, actually fits the heroic mold perfectly. Also, the rules are highly modular: you can set complexity at just about any level you want. So if you really want to get gritty, you can use Bleeding, Injury, Stunning, and all that, but it's not necessary - generally, the fewer of those rules you use, the more "cinematic" the feel. Season to taste and need. (For my games, I usually go for cinematic, but I do use hit locations - too much flavor is lost otherwise, and it makes guns truly dangerous; even a .22 pistol has a slight chance of making a kill in one shot.) At low power levels, it's also easy to make important distinctions between PC heroes and everybody else: the easiest is with SPD. Make the PCs all SPD 3-4, and just about everybody else SPD 2. That alone gives them a big edge, even if all other stats and equipment are identical. Then enemy elites and special NPCs can also be SPD 3-4. But even a point or two of skill or OCV, or a few martial-arts maneuvers, can make a significant difference. As far as campaign-background stuff, I doubt you really need much advice: I assume your request is about system rather than campaign. In planning, note that it is pretty hard to kill people outright in Hero (given a lick of sense and no awful luck); generally, people fall to STUN damage, or being put into negative BODY - and then there's usually plenty of time for a fellow PC to administer first aid. So if there's access to medical help, the PCs shouldn't have a high casualty rate.

Re: Tell us about your Pulp game! It was actually at the end of "The Librarian" - the Newhart character, the head librarian, turns out to have been a former Marine, and proceeds to take on a squad of bad guys in the finale. Of course, being old and never exactly a specimen of physical perfection, the moves aren't fast or precise, but the thugs fly around anyway. To watch it is IMO a wonderful joke on the whole cinematic martial art/tough guy motif.

Re: Ace HERO Here's a wild thought: if you're not married to metal and tech, use the Temeraire series as a basis! For those who haven't read any, the books are set in the Napoleonic era, where dragons are used for aerial combat. The dragons are huge - similar in scale to sailing ships - and have crews clambering around on them (with harness and straps), numbering into the dozens. It strikes me that a potential campaign built around a bomber crew could be more wild if their vehicle was an actual dragon. You'd have all the aerial action, along with the high-altitude danger of manning the rigging in a sea fight.

Re: Tell us about your Pulp game! Well, I'm afraid that as far as martial artists go, my absolute all-time fave has to be...Bob Newhart!!! Watching him wade through thugs was an absolute hoot!

Re: Tell us about your Pulp game! Haven't you ever seen "The Librarian?" Not exactly Black Ops, but certainly decent inspiration for a secret ops branch. And from there it's easy to darken it to taste. Besides, even if they would rather operate all civil and above-board, there are always those pesky secret societies, Nazi villains, and so forth who are willing to use violence and other extreme measures to obtain what the Library contains. They have to be resisted somehow, and normal law enorcement ain't gonna hack it.

Re: Suggestions needed: Animal super villains All Glory To The Hypno-toad.

Re: Suggestions needed: Animal super villains Well, the alien theory is intriguing, but I prefer to go with published canon as much as practicable: "they're ordinary mice, whose genes have been spliced..." A couple of other ideas (from that funny-animals campaign we played): A martial-artist beaver. Not an obvious choice, until you realize his weapon of choice is a large cleaver. An armadillo tank. Natural armor, strong claws, Tunneling. Fun combo. (And no, I dont mean Tarkus although that is such a kewl image it's stuck with me forever.)

Re: another call for help.... While Ego Entangle sounds good, it also can be an off switch for a character. I've seen it happen where that power completely shut down a speedster, who only had a 10 EGO. The difference between it and a fat INT Drain is minimal in terms of tactical effect; it will either shut down a character or be almost useless. (And, by the way, from the effect, an EGO Drain might work better; IIRC, a subzero EGO has to roll to decide to do *anything* each phase). Depending on how you parse the intended effect, you could also build it as an odd sort of Flash. True, the target isn't blinded per se, but the effect is to render him incapable of effective action for a short time, which a small visual Flash will do to most people, even most supers. If you make it Penetrating (a rules bend, to be sure), you can get it past most Flash Defense, so people with sunglasses aren't immune (and if you thnk Power Defense is unusual, how many people Harden their Flash Defense!?). So a 1d6 or 2d6 Penetrating Flash might be the thing you're looking for, if the intended effect is only a kind of double-take. To affect multiple targets, make the Flash area effect. Similarly, you might use Darkness to affect an area, using much the same logic. Limit the Darkness so that it only lasts one or two phases (not quite Instant, but pretty close), and you have a bunch of people who are probably unable to react effectively to the situation. Of course, neither Flash or Darkness vs Sight Group will work against people who use things like hearing to target, but that's probably unusual enough that it's not a problem. Just a thought.

Re: Evil Corporations Fertility research, with a phenomenal success rate at in-vitro fertilization. Only a detailed genetic scan might reveal the insertion of a foreign gene into the resulting embryos/offspring. There is no apparent difference between these children and the rest of humanity...yet. The gene could be as fantastic as causing them to mutate at a given age or signal, or as simple as triggering an extreme dependency to a particular (patented!) substance - medicine, food additive, whatever. The firm provides environmental protection services - primarily air scrubbers for industrial sites. Many nasty chemicals are trapped in their collectors/filters, which they dutifully replace on a regular basis (weekly or monthly). They then haul the dirty filters to their disposal plant, where the pollutants are concentrated and then secretly re-released into the air. Thus, while the corporation collects gold stars for environmental protection, they also ensure that the problem of pollution never goes away (and may even be worse because of chemical changes to the scrubbed pollutants - oh, and this could be a fine source for superpower-creating accidents). A major insurance firm, in order to reduce the need for illness and life payouts, is quietly replacing its clientele with androids. The androids are, of course, programmed to avoid risky behavior. (The clients themselves are harvested for organ donation, research, or, if need be, simply disposed into landfill.) Alternatively, the insurance firm is adbucting its clientele and subjecting them to intense post-hypnotic suggestions - a la "alien abductions" - so that they do not remember the event. The clients, while not harmed per se by the treatments, show sudden change of interests (i.e., they no longer go in for hang gliding, or skiing, or police work...); also, the treated clients lose most of their interest in alcohol, drugs, or fast food. What else might be implanted in their minds is anyone's guess.

Re: Suggestions need: Animal super villains On a less silly note, I played in a brief funny-animals Hero game. We were heroic level (SPD 3-4), and when the GM ran us into a couple of rabbits who had SPD 8, we just about filled our pants. So, let me suggest a speedster rabbit. And/or a speedster hummingbird (flying speedster - ooh!) Cheetah speedster, already mentioned, is also a natural. An octopus who's tough enough to live and move out of water; those eight arms ought to be good for something! A boxing kangaroo - or a wrestling bear; martial artists either way (one with Superleap, the other with super STR). A howler monkey with sonic attack (which was another PC in that funny-animals game).

Re: Suggestions need: Animal super villains A supergenius lab mouse with extreme megalomania. With an idiot sidekick who keeps messing up his plans to conquer the world. Or have you heard that one before?

Re: Pet Powers I'm a GM much more often than player (at least for Hero). But when designing supers for me to theoretically play, I can't seem to pull myself away from a swiss-army-knife Multipower (EB, AoE EB, AP EB, AF EB...).

Re: Tell us about you Pulp game! OK, a brief capsule of my Pulp Hero game: Voyages of the Airship Archangel©. Set in the late 1930's it's been going on for some 20 years now, although most of the time it's been a once-a-year event (though, on the other hand, several of the sessions have been 6-8 hour runs rather than the typical 4-hour). A team of officers and specialists travel the world aboard a large zeppelin, confronting evil in all its forms. The Archangel Corporation is a government-private partnership (which, after several episodes, turned out to be headed by none other than "Doc" Savage himself!), and the ship (basically a pulpified version of the USS Akron) acts as a rescue team, goodwill ambassador, and intervention force in remote places around the world. The PCs include: the captain (an honorbound Navy vet), the weapons officer (a hardcase Southerner, descendant of Confederate general Longstreet), the linguist (a man who, when the campaign started, could recall nothing of his past; he went by "Jack Buck" because it was a little better than just being "John Doe"), the navigator (a slow-talking Norwegian), an ace pilot ("Marty," daughter of one of the chief builders of the ship), a half(?)blood Cherokee cowboy, a US Navy officer (in charge of the experimental airborne radar system), a British-Indian agent with mystical awareness (and a pet monkey), and, most recently, a Chinese mistress of martial arts (rescued from the clutches of Dr. Fu Manchu). We've had two marriages, one between the captain and an NPC that player drew up, and another between two PCs (the amnesiac and the pilot). Some highlights from the adventures include: --a Thomspon-toting polar bear (involving a mad scientist at the Pole) --gangsters and ninjas deep underground San Francisco --cannibals and spies in New Guinea --gangsters and evil sorcerers in Hong Kong --more evil sorcerers and hang-gliding swordsmen over China --Mongols and renegade Germans stealing the ship (led by a madman who though he was Genghis reincarnate) --saving General MacArthur and Colonel Eisenhower from ninja attack in the Phillippenes (they were really after the crew!) --bombing runs against a pirate U-boat --the amnesiac discovering his past, as the intended mortal vessel of an evil entity being summoned by Chinese sorcerers (and facing his former wife, who was already possessed) ...and much more! Now, the campaign is in a second phase, beginning with the USS Archangel joining the Hindenburg in publicity flights over the 1936 Summer Olympics. The PCs have discovered plots by the Nazis to use supernatural forces of various kinds: --disrupted a Nazi attempt to make an alliance with Deep Ones --stole three brand-new Bf-109's --rescued a number of Jews who gave them key info on the Nazi plots (smuggling them to Sweden past the noses of the Gestapo was a lot of fun) In the most recent session, they managed to keep the Nazis from obtaining Mjollnir (yeah, Thor's hammer, the real one); they turned it over to Thor (who showed up with Odin and Vainamoinen in Finland). Unfortunately, the Nazis, equipped with rune-enhanced fighters, apparently killed Thor, so the crew took the hammer (and the gauntlets and girdle). Will the crew be able to keep them? Will the Nazis hunt them down? Stay tuned... (In fact, my wife has written up the whole first phase as a novel, which she needs to get aorund to having published. It's mostly in the form of journal entries by her character, Jack Buck. )

Re: Build Ponderation Something that has to be surgically removed to stop working is not a Focus, not in my book. As mentioned, Cybernetics might qualify, but precisely because you shut the power(s) down without surgery. Accessible means it can be Grabbed in combat; Inaccessible means it takes at least a full Phase (or more) to remove. On the other hand, you might consider adding a Side Effect to the psi powers. Perhaps a Transform - the rock is changing the character somehow, most likely mentally; maybe into a creature from its native galaxy; maybe just altering his personality (like Doc Ock in the Spiderman movie, only slower). Or the rock is actually an (imprisoned?) entity, and the SE is an IPE Mind Control.

Re: How do I build this power? My knee-jerk thought is just to make her buy regular combat levels - to have levels which don't work when you're not touching the weapon is not much of a limitation, at least for OCV. You might have an argument for DCV, depending on the weapon. The only real limitation is that you can't "talk" someone through rmeotely, which you pretty much never do anyway, and it might be harder or near-impossible to train someone else with the weapon. As far as familiarities, I might be persuaded as GM to offer a sort of "Universal Translator" variant, where for 20 points and an INT roll, you can have the appropriate WF. With a +1 to the roll per 1 point, it would still be a lot cheaper than buying dozens of WFs.

Re: GMing for a new group You can also twist it a bit: hostages, the bank catches on fire, the thugs find some Really Kewl Stuff in the safety-deposit boxes (mabe ParagonAlpha's battlesuit parts!), the explosive used to break the vault is too much and threatends to collapse the building, that kind of thing. Of course, any of these can be accidental or intentional on the part of the robbers.

Re: Another mansion ideas Being mystical, the clothes might actually materialize in the closet, and are supposed to be placed in the hamper in the closet for cleaning. The actual process of laundering can then be anything - gnomes, spirits, a trnasdimensional sweatshop - and there's a possible fun bit with the wrong clothes, or the wrong kind of clothes - being the only thing in the closet one morning. ("Hey, Hardcase, I didn't know you liked puce velvet!" "Grrr - it's the only thing I could find this morning - nothing but puce leisure suits!") Such a setup can of course include mending and prehaps retailoring by request.

Re: I am so, so old... Well, I've introduced my son to gaming of all kinds, and at age 15 he comes and plays with our regular group about half the time (i.e., when he's got a character in that particular campaign), and to the cons we attend. Hero was actually one of the last of the systems I use that I introduced him to - I started with d6 Star Wars (and my wife started using RPG concepts in regular play from the beginning - he'd get annoyed when the black knights in the play set tried to make a case that they were the good guys; they were just supposed to fight!). He does a lot more online games (FPS mostly), in large part because of accessibility - he can play any time just by logging in. So don't feel "old" - feel "accomplished." It's always a good thing to introduce new gamers to good games.

Re: I am so, so old... Feh! We had to LARP everything, including the combats, 'cuz numbers hadn't been invented yet!

Re: Blastolene B-702 ...gotta hide those minedroppers and oil sprays somewhere...

Re: Starting a new game Well, I'll put in over-repeated plug for HD. I can do the math, and I've been doing it long enough I can almost do it in my head (though scratchpad is better!); as already mentioned, HD allows me to run through builds quickly and store various versions. Also, there's enough checks built in that save a fair amount of flipping through rulebooks on the stuff I don't use much. That said, it sounds like you're actually starting with a good setting, in the sense that people will be able to have some cool powers, but not at the level of full-blown Champions. The jump of complexity between my usual normal-hero pulp games and four-color Champs can be staggering. For many of my players, I've designed the characters myself, based on discussion about what they want the character to do, personality, etc. This allows them to play without working through all the rules (about half my group are only casually interested in hardcore nuts-and-bolts), and gives you as GM a handle on just what's showing up in the campaign. One of the biggest differences is SPD. In my pulps, the PCs are all 3 (except for martial artist types who I allow to go SPD 4), NPC pros are also 3, everyone else is 2. Simplifies combat greatly. For DC (which I admit I've never run, but some of the high-powered pulps I've done are pretty much the same), the range will be wider, but if I were to point to a single factor adding to combat complexity, it would be SPD. Someone already mentioned avoiding optional rules. For starters, this is a good idea. Depending on what you want the campaign to feel like, hit locations add a lot of color and player control to the action (it's the only option I typically use). If your players get into that kind of thing, it allows them to build sectional armor, make called shots, and so forth. Not having read DC, I don't know what they recommend, but for normals it adds enough flavor to be worth adding, in my opinion. Anyway, that's a few points I thuoght worth bringing up. Use or discard as you wish, of course.

Re: Latest info regarding Tunguska Someday I may use the idea that hit me (pun intended) last year - that the Tunguska was *not* something coming down from above, but from below! The molemen, refugees from Atlantis, I'm not sure what, but it could have been a weapon or a power-plant malfunction, or a teleport-to-surface experiment gone awry...

Re: Still another try at a superhero base