BobGreenwade

More on VOICE I had a similar organizational scheme within the main part of VOICE, except that the Lips was the branch that was "out front" -- the legitimate businesses, legal division, media "spin doctors," political action committees, and the like. Spying and information gathering was done by the associated tong and Triad. The choral motif for the Tongue organization is a cool one, and worthy of being co-opted for my own version -- except that, as a musician, there are seven notes in the diatonic scale (the first and eighth are technically the same note, just in different octaves). Same for the Silencers and Whisper.

Actually, any of the five methods given here (the four original ones, plus Mental Illusions) are legitimate, depending on the dynamic of the power being modeled. As a side note, for Entangle I prefer a straight +2 Mental Paralysis Advantage; the math is smoother, and it can also include (in addition to those given in the "official" version) full conversion into a Mental Power, with all of the properties thereof.

*sigh* It's such a pity that the distance between Oregon and Michigan is so vast.... I'd love to play in a game like that!

Of the suggestions thus far, I like this approach best for this specific application. (Others might work better for different instances of something like this.)

I've only gotten to glance at TE thus far, but once I own both it and the Spacer's Toolkit I'm giving some serious thought to running something where the PCs are the Imperial equivalent of the US Diplomatic Secret Service (bodyguards for US diplomats abroad), operating on Mon'da. I don't know exactly when in the TE timeline this would take place, but (depending on what I can work out) it would give an opportunity to have action, investigation, constantly exotic locales, and many other elements. If I do it right, it should feel like a cross between Babylon 5, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, James Bond movies, M*A*S*H, and the A-Team.

Here are some of mine p5: "Brush with Super Brite for a smile so white it glows in the dark!" p7: "Thanks for the repair work, George. At least the streets of Pasadena will once again be safe from that crazy old woman." p16: The Creep drove forward, his psycho-gas making the police completely oblivious to the fact that he was sticking his unprotected body out into the open. p23: "Okay, so the light at the end of the tunnel wasn't an approaching train...." p24: The solution to pizza delivery in post-holocaust America. p34: "Dang! This rig can stand up to supervillains, but throw the tiniest nail in its path..." p37: "Whoa! I gotta tell Margo about this!" p40: "I hope I can hold out until I can get back to base -- then I've got to have Evan fix this onboard toilet!" p44: "Pardon me -- do you have any Grey Poupon?" p60: "Hey, you idiots! You're supposed to clean it, not fire it! Just look what you did to my car!" p140: "Hey, watch it, buddy! Where'd you get your license -- Woolworth's?" p144: "Ensign, pull something out of my personal library if you have to, but tonight's movie is not going to be The Hunt for Red October!" p160: "What do you mean, you're out of Oreos?" (Don't ask.) p166: "I tell ya, Boss, I have a bad feeling about this...." p173: "See, Margo? He's trying to kill me!" p176: "...and that, Lieutenant, is why the front of the ship looks like a laughing face." p184: "Aw, Margo, you should've listened...." p198: "My name is Margo, and I'm out for revenge!" p213: "Hey, man! If you wanted to hitch a ride or something, you should've just waved your hand or something!" p221: "So, do you need me to get your engine running, or would you rather I work on your car?" p222: "They'll never find this manuscript for Grimtooth's Traps Tree in here!" p226: "Nice wheels, Macho Man, but... where are the wheels?"

Okay, so if Steve decides to reinstate the publication of Hero System Almanacs, we'll do our best to restrain ourself from calling them the Books of Altered Rules Needed Every Year.

I'm working on a character (NPC villain) who has multiple personalities -- not in the classic sense, but more like The Ventriloquist (from Batman's rogues' gallery). The "main" personality functions constantly, and so does the "alternate" personality through a proxy (in this case, a hand puppet). The twist is that the alternate personality has strong mental powers. He can use those powers independently of what the main pesonality is doing (they'll have independent DEX and SPD), but if the main personality needs to use his left hand for anything the alternate vanishes, as do any effects of his mental powers. Right now I'm inclined to use Duplication (with appropriate Modifiers) to do this, but I'd like to see if any other creative minds can come up with a better plan.

Re: Re: About VOICE.... I agree, but I still consider these differences from VIPER more subtle than those with COIL. The only strong commonality between VIPER and COIL is the snake motif; VIPER (talking 4th Ed version for the moment) was basically a criminal organization with world-conquering overtones, while King Cobra plotted to conquer the world through genetic manipulation. On the other hand, there are many surface similarities between VIPER and VOICE: a mixture of agents and supervillains, financial support through conventional crime, world-spanning operations, and so forth. Despite that, my take on VOICE was taking it even further away from VIPER's mold than it already was. While VIPER was essentially an agent organization with supervillain support, VOICE was going to function as a large supervillain group with agent support. For Dark Champions games, I was fleshing out a tong and a triad (yes, one of each) that, led by Lung Hung in one of her many disguises, unwittingly aided the main part of VOICE in its operations. I was also going to present some moral conflicts, with Jaws villains working to rescue people after a big earthquake in Taiwan, and even helping 9/11 rescue operations. But that's all water under the bridge now; even with as many fans as it apparently had, VOICE is gone from the CU, and there's no sense in beating a dead horse.

About VOICE.... I actually had been in the middle of preparing a manuscript for a VOICE update when the whole shifting-around of intellectual properties started (from the severing of ties with ICE to the purchase of HERO by DOJ). When Steve asked freelancers to contact him about manuscripts that had already been approved by the old guard, I mentioned both TUV (and you know how that turned out) and VOICE. To the latter he said simply, "Sorry, not interested." I've been assuming that it was an intellectual-property issue, though it may be neither that nor an "I just don't like them" thing: I think Steve's trying to cut out redundant organizations, and the differences between VOICE and VIPER are just too subtle -- even more so, to my mind at least, than the differences between COIL and VIPER.

As a somewhat different wrinkle, King Cobra could also be a former disciple of Moreau's....

I already know that VOICE is gone from the new Champions Universe, and I'm given to understand that the same is true of the Gweenies... but what about COIL? Was there some intellectual licensing problem with this mainstay of the old CU? Or was the decision to omit them (gasp) artistic? Or have King Cobra and his organization simply not been mentioned yet out of some devious scheme to reintroduce them later?

Yet another.... Here's something I just thought of. I may just go ahead and pull together some people to play it once I get my copies of Terran Empire and The Spacer's Toolkit. The PCs will be members of the Imperial Diplomatic Security Service, stationed on Mon'da to protect the ambassador or Imperial governor (depending on whether Mon'da is a part of the Empire at the time of the game) and/or any visiting Imperial officials. Though most of the work will remain in and around the planetary capital, they'll travel the globe on various assignments in exotic locations (as if just being on Mon'da in the first place wasn't exotic enough).

Elder Wyrms Specifically, Elder Wyrms (or Elder Worms) are associated with The Slug, whom I see illustrated on page 116 of the Champions genre book, and mentioned on pages 17 and 24 of Champions Universe (first appearing in 1979).

Re: About Ultimate Vehicle Thank you very much! I'm very glad you're enjoying it. (As for the nits, I'll leave Steve to remark on them if he wants to.)

I don't think all of the pre-Cataclysm races would originate from outer space; there's still the extra-dimensional Fairy Realm (I forget what it's officially called) for elves, fairies, and such to come from. I just think that a few ET races from TE could spice up a FH campaign a bit. And it just occurred to me that they wouldn't necessarily have to die out in the Cataclysm; continuing with the Mon'dabi example, they could survive until the modern day, or at least until the Pulp era, in a sort of "Lost World" setting. Mostly I'm just wondering what the official stance on this will be (even if it's just a "wait for the books to come out" type of statement).

Two offbeat ideas.... Here are two campaign ideas I've been toying with lately, that I'd love to try under Hero: 1. Chaos Theory: Members of the Haymaker! APAzine know what this is like. The PCs work for the Global Organization for Order and Decency (GOOD) and must fight against an array of shadow conspiracies bent on world domination. The conspiracies are actually powerful enough to keep each other in check; GOOD is around to make sure no innocent people get hurt in the process. Think of this as a Super Agents campaign, where the PCs dress as clowns to fight overzealous D&Ders, half-witted vampires and werewolves, slacker aliens, incompetent technocrats, and various others. The mood is somewhere between the Marx Brothers, the Zucker Brothers, the Three Stooges, and Get Smart. 2. LA Major Cases: This is something at the low end of the power spectrum. The PCs, all Competent Normals, work for the LAPD to solve cases involving celebrities, violent serial offenders, or other high-profile elements. They would include two detectives, two CSIs, an ME, a criminal psychologist (with some background in criminal profiling -- or perhaps one with and one without), and an assistant DA. The approach would be a combination of the Law & Order and CSI franchises, with Crossing Jordan and The Profiler thrown in for good measure.

This may or may not be a silly question, and I haven't picked up TE yet, but... What, really, are the chances of one or more of the alien species in TE (or any other sci-fi setting) appearing as non-human species in the Fantasy Hero setting books? It seems like a reasonable possibility (like maybe a Mon'dabi deep-space scout ship crashes and the crew is forced to live among the inhabitants and start a new sub-society of Lizardmen that perishes in the Cataclysm). I'm just curious. It's a wrinkle that I think would make an interesting twist (and a potential source of adventures in both settings).

0-60 time is done with Increased Acceleration (TUV page 23). As for the hp/torque conversion to STR, I would have included that in my manuscript but I lost my copy of Greg Porter's VDS (a book I highly recommend as a companion to TUV).

Whatchoo talkin' 'bout? (Sorry; I just couldn't resist!)

Player Civilizations This is somewhat like a sci-fi setting I wrote for Haymaker! a while back (I don't recall offhand whether it made its way into EZ Hero or not) called Fleet of a Thousand Points. I'd originally targeted it for inclusion in TUV back when it was to be a Hero Plus project under 4th Ed, and when that book was switched to a print product it was the first thing I cut. In F1KP (as I like to call it for short), PC is "Player Civilization." The setting was designed so each player designed an entire culture on its own planet, and they proceeded to play from there, exploring space until they encountered each other and then dealing with each other however they saw fit. The principle could pretty easily be extended to a fantasy setting with each player controlling a kingdom, island, or other civilized land. I'd imagine that someone could rework the principles to many other types of setting as well. As Steve said, though, it's probably fodder for The Ultimate Base.

I think Worlds Of Empire is supposed to fit that niche. I don't think Steve's planning on sourcebooks detailing individual alien civilizations, though I think that would be extra cool (I've already mentioned my sudden fascination with the Mon'dabi, in another thread).

I know Flying Buffalo has had some success doing something rather similar for their Tunnels & Trolls Solitaire Dungeons -- though not the "direct charge to the checking account" part (the customer prepays for a certain number of books, which are sent as they're completed).

Re: Minor Ultimate Vehicle Quibble I'm reasonably certain you can expect to find at least a Saturn rocket and Space Shuttle in the HSVS. Even if it didn't stand to reason on its own, I know that Steve initially intended to have them in TUV (he specifically asked me to add them for the final draft; I'm not sure why he didn't end up using them, unless my write-ups were inadequate), so I'd assume they will be in HSVS -- and very well done, with Steve at the keyboard (even if he just edits what Geoff and/or I have cooked up).

I don't disagree with your assumption; I wrote my manuscript with that same thought. Steve cut all my text on Vehicle Life Support (as opposed to Life Support for the occupants), leaving those for the article in DH#7. What I said in my previous post is my assumption of his reasoning behind it. You may have seen one of my earlier manuscripts for review, and be thinking of that text. As it stands in the final product (unless I'm misreading or misunderstanding something), any Life Support bought by a Vehicle apply only to the occupants.