hfergus

Re: The Passage of Time

Most of my campaigns also do not last long enough for this to be a problem. Also, A year of gaming normaly results in less than a year of campaign time. Also, I tend to retro-age (youthify?) favorites when I start a new campaign with new people. Finally, my favorite does not age, so he's never a problem.

Does you character have a favorite or signature manuever? If so what is it?My heros follow.

Volt Until recently really did not have a favorite; he uses a recently discovered power of magnetism to disarm people with metal foci now, but has not done it enough to qualify as a favorite. He had a "signature" manuever of projecting a forcewall out of his forcefield to protect innocents, and it almost always knocked him out as a side effect. Uses it rarely, but it has become famous as it is very heroic.

Olorin One of two. 1) Stinking cloud - NND area effect, no contact with organic skin (Can't breath it either) or poison (organic) resistance as defense. 2) The one he loves: "Flying lessons" He touches a non-flyer and t-ports him straight up as "A flying lesson. Bounces don't count". Enjoys it entirely too much.

Black Tiger Martial artist who has and uses a takedown manuever, even though one attack he has actually does more damage (1D6 more).

Futurian is in a way, one big signature. Awesome vs tech, almost useless when there is no tech. Favorite is to cause tech to fall apart (body drain vs tech only). Dr. Destroyer is very worried about him.

Re: Top Signs You Need to Rethink Your Playing Style....

You know you have a problem when you haven't played with your group in a while and you overhear the following:

"I miss (your name) "

"Are you kidding?"

"No, really miss him. Like you miss a toothache that suddenly goes away.":ugly:

Re: Who's your favourite NPC?

Leadman - a density increase brick hero with an almost "gloom and doom" negative "It won't work!" personality. He tried anyway, and was a detective in 'real life' with a specialty in finding lost things and people. Good Catholic boy who took his coffee "Black. Hot. And lots of it. ...NOW!" He thought Starbucks was an abomination, especially since a large is really a small. He thought it was "too fru-fru" and way too expensive. Frequented a greasy spoon diner for his coffee and many of his meals. The other members of his team often said his theme song was "Gloom, despair and agony on me." featured on Hee-Haw. Real character. I may re-introduce him some day.

Re: Characters you've always liked but who never fulfilled their potential...

Warning! Warning! Warning! Bad pun to follow! Read at own risk!

Now that that's over, the character I really wanted to develop more was a female villian, with shrinking and strength linked to it (the smaller she got, the stonger she got to about 60 STR.) The shrinking also drakened her until she was jet black. Presenting .... wait for it....

The Charcoal Brickette!

Now you know why it never got any futher. I like the concept, but the name was not taken seriously. I may rename her and try again.

Re: Who is your favorite character?

Olorin, a 747 year old unaging mage from another dimension. He has to be an Npc, or PC with a GM who trusts me, as he has a VPP of over 100 points. (not cosmic, takes time and somewhat limited on spells.) If he knows what he up against and its weakness, he almost always can beat it (them). His standard mix is flexible, but not awesome (entangle (area effect), invis, lighting, t-port, NND (area effect), Fireball (area effect eb), images) He is fun to play as he is a goofball most of the time and likes to boggle minds. He has a childlike wonder about the world, but it does not boggle his mind. He adapts quickly (Highest INT in my campaign - and it does not help his VPP!) He knows how to program computers already, and loves them (he loves most tech gadgets; you never know what he has in his "bag of holding" (a plot device only; only has irrelevent things or were paid out of his VPP.)) He loves life, is almost always smiling (If he is frowning or scowling, things are serious!) and likes to go on TV shows for interviews, but is not really a publicity hound; he does not seek them, but he is quite popular as he is funny. (when I created him I said to the other players "He's my sense of humor with the power to back it up." The universal response was flavors of "Oh dear God!")

Re: Atlantis? What do you do with it?

Atlantis exists in my campaign and it is similar in back history to the standard, but 1) It's almost unknown by the surface world 2) it is almost totally isolationist.

My group does not know about it; it is a secret to most of the super world. That will change eventually. I'm thinking of involving them in a Doctor Destroyer story (Undersea base and they don't like it). This is only a vague idea right now. They will never get involved in the surface a lot as a race; some individuals might.

Re: Top Signs You Need to Rethink Your Playing Style....

You know you have a problem when:

1)Your character gets his turn skipped and noone notices (Especially bad if you don't notice either.)

2)You don't show up for a "all must be present" session and no one notices.

3)You don't show up for multiple sessions and no one notices.

Hmm... I see a theme here.

4)You don't show up and the next time someone in the group meets you they say "Man, the session was great last time. Things went so smoothly, unlike normal."

5)A new campaign is started, and you are specifically disinvited.

Re: Top Signs You Need to Rethink Your Playing Style....

When any character you play in any campaign' date=' any genre, is indistinguishable from every other character that you play in any campaign, any genre.[/quote']

Rats! I was going to use that one. I knew one person who did - even named it the same all the time - "I'll call him Black Wolf." We always knew what his power set was like and his personality was. Did help in nailing down the group mix though.

Re: Letter to yourself

Volt would send proof of who he is (a private name for himself) and if there was no string attached and write "You are about to enter a interesting time, and I do not mean that as the Chinese curse. Relax, you'll do fine. Try to avoid speaking about your personal politics much, it is one of the few things I regret."

Olorin if no strings, it would depend. If he was in a goofball mood (and he often is) he'd send this "This is you from the future. Or past. You know why I wrote (or going to write.) or not. Till I see you again, or first time or when I saw you last. Love (hate? ambivalence?) Olorin." However, time travel is something he has done more than once and he tends to be serious about it. To Chronos he'd probably say "You know I can do this myself? I've even met myself more than once; it's never totally pleasant. Trying to warn myself tend to blow up, and speaking at all risks revealing something I should not. Uh uh. Not going there."

Black Tiger "I don't remember getting my powers; why would I remember getting a note from myself? Maybe this causes my memory loss. Uh uh. NO! GO AWAY!"

Futurian " Oh yeah, that'll really help. I got my powers at birth where they are normal. If it gets to me as an adult, I forgot it or ignored it; I come from the future, joker. If you do it at the time I became a hero in this timeframe, it's also totally useless. 'You are stuck here now, get used to it.' Yeah a real help. I'll pass."

Re: The eulogy of a HERO!

Volt - getting him to speak publically would be a problem, but if pushed or he looked up to the guy "We are here to mourn Megamans passing. The world is lessened today, but he is not gone. As long as the good he did, the people he saved remains, he is not trully gone. And as long as people remember and honor him he is with us. Go with God, Megaman."

Olorin "Megaman has died. We will miss him. He was one of the best. Given that, I'll see if I can reserach a spell to bring him back." He's serious. It would start a ruckus. He would probably not be able to do it and adventure at the same time, but he'd try for a while and then announce his failure.

Black Tiger Yeah, right. Public speaking. If he was killed by a villian what he would say would be "(bad guys name), you are next!" and stomp off.

Futurian "I was asked to speak today. Why, I have no clue. Perhaps being from the future, someone had the sm*rt*ss idea I would speak about 'never knowing one's future.' or similar rot. Given that, Megaman was a great hero and we will miss him. Now let's honor his memory and kick some villian behind."

Re: The Two Funerals

Volt, Olorin and Futurian would try to calm down hotheads on both sides - and wait untill the services are over to arrest any villians with outstanding warrents. Volt would tell them so, and Olorin would be a snot and t-port in help when the bad guys aren't watching. Futurian would calmly "put the fritz" on any tech the bad guys had if he could do so without being caught.

Black Tiger, if he could be convinced to be at a funeral at all, would BE one of the hotheads. In fact, he probably would attack without warning if he saw them first.

Re: Fantasy Hero Printing Error

I have the same problem, and I do not really care. Also some pages were not cut properly; they were still attached at the top (Separated now, would never be able to find them.) This is also not a big deal; if I had a dollar for every time I had this I'd... be able to buy a tank of gas at least. Probably not much beyond that. Ok, so it's not very common, but I've seen it before.

Re: "I shoot the escape pod!!!"

My players almost always throw a monkey wrench in my plans at least a little; I'm used to it and can go with the flow (mostly I allow their plan if it makes sense. Rarely I "hand wave it" away.) This tendency also goes the bad way; can we say clueless to 12 clues with no red herrings? I plan around this too. However...

Once long ago in a D&D campaign, I had the "Destroy it and you solve the problem macguffin" in plain sight in the beginning scene. They destroyed it right away. I was stunned. I had many possible targets, and tend to put in red herrings (and roll for no reason other than to make my players wonder) so it was not obvious. I asked why, and they said "It just seemed obvious." It was the only time something was blown that badly. However, they are good role-players who keep what they know and what their character knows separate. We agreed to do it again with a different macguffin. (I did this on the fly as is normal for me.) Still, it was a shock.

Re: Kid Squid(needs a Background)

I've got two possibilities; both somewhat cliche.

1) Result of Viper (or other group/geneticist) meddling. A bit lame, but could possibly fit your campaign.

2) Latent mutent. Would have never manifested, but ate contaminated/mutated calamari (Squid). "Man, this meal doesn't agree with me. I feel funny."

"Uh, dude, you look kinda funny too."

Could have eaten a lot of squid as a dare. Given his personality, I like the dare angle of this.

Re: Story telling skills: Next scene Dr. Destroyer

Slowly lifting his helmet, the room hushes. You can hear the clock ticking on the far wall. Everyone is dreading his scarred face. Why is he doing this? His face is revealed. Everyone gasps - for it is the face of...(Continued next week)

Ok, I like cliffhangers. What is revealed? I could be a snot and show my political leanings and say "Hillary Clinton" or go the other way and say "Dick Cheney". Maybe the Luke Skywalker vs Darth Vader in the tree and say "the face of yourself"(Only works with heroes whose face is known)

But it would be: "for it is the face of Mother Teresa" (Or other famous for charity.

"Behold!" a voice from the helmet says. "Your best can be corrupted. You are all pathetic cretins compared to me. Soon, my final plan will come to fruition. And you will be fighting yourselves. Surrender now, and much destruction will be spared." Evil laughter fills the room. What is he up to? What does he mean? Is he going to turn the best into the worst? Am I next?

As the laugher stops, Mother Teresa attack using only her natural abilities. Defeating her is easy, she'd not badly hurt, but how can we fix her? Things are about to get interesting; as in the Chinese curse, "may you live in intersting times."

Yup, I love the Doctor, he's so fun to do. I do him in a Darth Vader voice dripping with arrogance. My players alway go "Oh crud" when they hear it.

Re: WWYCD: But we need you here.

Volt would stay a while to see if could help, unless he had to go back right then. He would go back eventually as he has family back home. (He would go back when thr problem was at least lessened, or it was obvious nothing would help in any case.)

Olorin There would be two possibilities: 1) Magic does not work here. 2) Magic does work here. I case 1, he'd go home immediatly since he can't help anyway except in strategy, and he is not that outstanding. In case 2 he could travel back and forth at will, and even bring help form his team and other hero teams. He would do so; leaving for good once the baddies were under control or it was obvious it was hopeless. Then he would leave pretty much for good.

Black Tiger would be torn. He wants to know what happened to him during his memory blackout, but constant fighting is right up his alley. He'd probably end up staying for good.

Futurian would stay, since where he be sent back to isn't home anyway unless there are no machines for him to act on. No machine, he's useless anyway and he'd go back. (This scenario seems low tech, he'd be pretty useless. Give him a techno alien invasion, and he'd be all over it.)

Re: Who are the top 5 most powerful characters in your Campaign.

1 Doctor destoyer, even though the destruction of Detroit has not happened yet. He's killed more people and heroes than any other villian.

2 Mechanon Large in power, has not really done much yet.

3 "The Dragon lady" Her real name is unkown, and she is very behind the scenes. Her power is in her followers and organizations more than personal power, although she has enough. Very long lived; think Ra's Al Ghul. (yes she can literally change into a dragon.)

4 Doctor Albert Masters. Think Lex Luthor before he became president and has battle suit.

5 Sheer power, Firewing. More Pain-in-the-neck than a real threat (He merely want to duel - undefeated so far.) Power in infulence, some personal - the head of Demon.

Re: Have a Holly Jolly Security Breach

Volt would not freak out if this happened at home, he'd figure his daughter did it. If done at the base, he'd try to have security upgraded. He'd get a book he had his eye on, but not gotten yet.

Olorin after hearing that Santa is "a jolly old elf" he'd figure a whimsical being from Faerie that likes to spread joy came by. In that case, security would not really worry him. He'd contact the Lord and Lady of Faerie and tell them to relay his thanks by any reasonable means, but does not need to know who did it. He'd get whatever technical gizmo he had his eye on at the time (a medieval mage that loves tech!)

Black Tiger would go into obsessive "check this out mode and fix it" for at least a day or two. He'd end up with the book "The big guide to Conspiracies" or "Distrusting Authorities: the worst of the worst."

Futurian would not freak out about the security too much. He'd end up with a puppy; they are rare where he came from and he'd always wanted one. "Thank you Santa, wherever you are! Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Re: What would your character do #56?

Volt Would look for someone to reverse it, If Olorin is nearby, thats the way out. It would not disturb him too much, but it is not his correct form.

Olorin "Again? How many times is this? Ok, who did this? Hmm.. Not a bad job; good craftmanship. Ok, now I really want to know who did this, I'd like to compliment them on their work. If spontanious, what caused this?" He'd then cast a spell and turn himself back.

Black Tiger I'm not sure he'd even care if he had the same abilities. In fact, he'd probably consider it one heck of a disguise that could help him find out what happened to him in his memory loss period. ("I'm his sister, and I demand to know what happened!)

Futurian "Oh, man, am I gonna have fun with this! I always thought about doing this as a lark, but never got around to it. I'm seeing just how long it is till I get a date and have the food paid for!" Where he is from, people can switch back with bout the equivalent of current minor cosmetic surgery, you can go back forth. He really never wanted to do this, but with it already done, he's gonna enjoy it. - until he finds out that the switch back is not easy and won't put him back exactly as he was. To a mage he would go after a while.

Re: What would Your Character Do? #57

I'm just going to do the dog types; not how they would fix this.

Volt Black Labrador Retriever. You know, loyal, anxious to please, happy.

Olorin Jack Russel Terrier. High energy, very intelligent - just like him.

Black Tiger Rhodesian Ridgeback. One person dog, very protective, can be vicious.

Futurian K-9 from Doctor Who. Ok, I'll get real. Some type of terrier, probably a Scottish Terrier.

Re: What would you do? what would you do?

Volt would use an ability he just figured out he could do. Take the gun away using magnetism. Then beat up on the guy, even though Volt is allergic to cats (or maybe because?).

Olorin One stinking cloud coming up. (NND, def not needing to breath and no exposed skin) Down goes the villain, cat hopefully does not get hurt dropping to floor and one villain captured.

Black Tiger One takedown maneuver coming up. As a martial artist, he's fast and accurate. If the cat dies, well, it's just a cat. Plenty more where they came from (Peta and him would NOT get along)

Futurian would laugh and proceed to do a body drain on the gun. Then beat up on the guy.

Re: Mythic Creatures as Eco-Terrorists?

An elf would be intersting, as they can be quite wild and unpredictable. They also look sort of human. Now think Tolkien elves or even darker, not the little ones. Remember "of the elves" is either "elvish" or "eldritch", as in "eldritch horror". How about a human taken into Faerie, given powers and really upset about nature being abused? (mage is easiest)

Re: Alternate Earth #22—World of your Dreams

Volt would dream of a world where he was not a hero, there were no supervillians and his wife was not killed by a drunk driver.

Olorin would be back in his homeworld with his third wife, the necromancer! safely destroyed and all his compatriots safe.

Black tiger would not be a super, and still be having great fun as a very deep hidden black ops person (ah, heaven) with all his memories intact.

Futurian would be back to the future, being quite normal.

Re: what would your character do #38

Olorin has done this before and won with help. He'd be better at it this time and has contingencies in effect just for this.

My other characters would do whatever it took to take 'em down, even at their own expense. Oddly enough, the team(s) they are on have plotted out what they would do. It normally means not taking out your double, but having someone else do that; possibly doubling up on the most dangerous ones. (Martial artist taking down the mentalist ( Martial artist goes first) and at least two others teaming up on the evil Olorin, him being the most versitile and most likely to come back "loaded for bear". The evil Volt would be the one not double teamed on, he is not too versitile, and hard to take down anyway; wait till you can double team him.)