BoloOfEarth

If you want it to work every segment, you can write it up as Damage Over Time (DoT), but it will be much more expensive.

I changed him to The Wanderer. Thought it fit the walkabout / seeker aspect, but is a bit more serious sounding than Sneaker.

Well, usually you kick your legs and paddle your arms to... Oh, sorry. Not what you were looking for. On a serious note, as to the "holding breath for 2 minutes" being potentially too long, you should factor in that this assumes that 1 END / phase is the *only* END you're spending. Keep in mind that a swimmer is typically also spending 1 END per Phase on his Swimming, in addition to the 1 END per Phase for holding his breath. So even if you go with a 2 SPD, 20 END "normal", that person burns through his entire END in 5 Turns, or 1 Minute, swimming underwater. On the flip side of that, the person can spend STUN as END once he has used up all his END, taking 1d6 per Phase (burning 2 END that he doesn't have). Assuming that "normal" has 20 STUN, on average he'd be unconscious in 7 Phases, or a bit over another half a minute. In your example with the heroes trying to cart out treasure underwater, I'd expect each would be spending 3-4 END per Phase (1 for holding his breath, 1 for Swimming, and 1-2 for STR spent carrying stuff), assuming they haven't bought Swimming or STR down to 0 END.

I've never actually seen Blade Runner, but I wasn't looking for a "watching paint dry" movie. I'd prefer something along the lines of "watching grass grow".

Nolgroth's story about adversarial players reminded me of a D&D game I was involved in for a fairly short time (maybe a few months). Even though it was D&D, the DM allowed each player to have *one* unique ability or powerful item, and such abilities or items didn't have to be fantasy related. One character, for example, had the ability to create a Bic lighter-size flame anywhere (including inside somebody else). Another guy had an assault rifle with attached grenade launcher (and an unlimited supply of bullets and grenades). My character could "summon" any relatively mundane item from the modern world - flashlight, tent, pistol, etc. though not things like military-grade weapons. This was a large group - I think there were 15-20 players total (though not everybody made it to every game session, so in practice it was like 12-15 at a time). And of course, there were cliques and factions within the group. It didn't take me long to realized that two of the players (we'll call them Phil and George) would go out of their way to argue and generally make each other's life difficult. Things often escalated to the characters attacking each other, with most of the other players taking sides. It got to the point that the DM was getting obviously irritated with the ongoing a**hattery. Phil was the guy with the Bic flame power; I don't remember what George had initially. Anyway, in one session George's character got killed (along with several other PCs), so the DM told them to write up new characters with new special abilities / items, and he would introduce them to the group when they were done. Skip forward about an hour, and they all have new characters ready. The DM quickly looks them over and approves them, and then lays out the "introduce the new PCs" scenario. Very simple - we see this trio of what look to be fellow adventurers approaching us on the road, one of whom (George's PC) appears to have a large metallic backpack with a hose leading to something held in his hand. We're all thinking, "ah, a flamethrower" and that's when d***-head Phil gets the bright idea to ignite his flame inside the "backpack" while the trio of newcomers are still like 50 yards away. The DM asked him to reconsider, pointing out that there had been absolutely no provocation or reason to prompt such hostile action, but Phil was not to be deterred. Finally, the DM said, "Okay, fine. The flame appears inside a key component of George's FGMP (fusion gun, man portable), causing it to overload. This results in a nuclear explosion large enough to kill everybody in a half-mile radius. George dies. Phil dies. Everybody dies. The end." Given the group dynamics, I'm not sure how the DM could have better resolved the ongoing animosity between the players, apart from kicking both of them out of the game, as well as a few others who were fairly fanatically loyal to either Phil or George. The DM did restart the game a few weeks later, but I had gotten so sick of Phil's and George's infighting that I declined to rejoin the game.

The ninja hero known as Sneaker The Wanderer is a well-trained martial artist with the mutant power of regeneration -- no matter how badly he's beaten down (and it seems he gets beaten down a lot), he gets back up to fight another day. He uses swords, sais, and throwing stars in addition to his hands and feet to defeat many foes. Despite his many years in America, he still retains his original Aussie accent.

Hymie "The Foreskin" Cohen NT: Other members of the Jewish Mafia

You can always alter the background of an existing CU supervillain to add in the toxic element. Take someone like Blackguard, and say that he actually got his powers from exposure to some toxic waste dumped in his neighborhood. He just didn't know it, so he assumed he's a mutant. Easy peasy. (Heck, the guy's from New Jersey - need I say more? ) Alternately, you can easily create a villain (or villains) who gained powers from a toxic / chemical dump. In my campaign, I had the new Aquans - a group of oceanographers and ship crew who happened upon a toxic dump site at sea and were attacked by the group doing the dumping and shot / dumped into the water at the toxic dump site, thus gaining their powers (as well as an intense hatred for the multinational corporation responsible).

I've used PRIMUS as both aid and hindrance to the heroes (often both within the same campaign). Unless the heroes are officially sanctioned, then PRIMUS and UNTIL don't exist to assist the heroes (except maybe in the meta-game sense). Rather, they're the official government way of dealing with supervillains and super-criminal organizations like VIPER, DEMON, and ARGENT. (This is assuming the heroes aren't officially sanctioned.) Whether PRIMUS or UNTIL assist the heroes depends a lot on how the heroes act. If they're not willing to cooperate with PRIMUS, then is there really reason for PRIMUS to cooperate with the heroes? That doesn't mean they have to try and arrest them or hinder them at every turn, but they certainly don't have to go out of their way to help them either. I should add that I've instituted something very similar to Bob Greenwade's Oregon Hero Sanction in most of my Champions campaigns. The heroes are encouraged to join the local Paranormal Activities Board (PAB), which among other things grants them limited police powers and access to various low-security government records. The sticking point with the players is that the heroes do have to register their identities with the PAB and have their powers tested; my players are paranoid about such info getting stolen by supervillains. In my last campaign, only 2 of the 7 heroes registered with the New England PAB - one was a public ID brick and wasn't all that worried about his info being out there, and the other was a mentalist who first got some professional help creating a good enough false identity that she could give to the PAB So in practice, PRIMUS could only officially work with those two (though most everybody knew they would share all official info gained with their teammates). And as to bad apples in an organization usually being discarded... really? You must live in a rosier world than I, or maybe never watch the news. (Catholic priests, literally dozens of police brutality incidents, extremists or criminals within otherwise decent organizations -- take your pick.) More often than not, it seems like it takes a joint act of God and Congress to get rid of such bad apples. That doesn't mean that the whole organization is bad by default. But having some persistent bad apples is certainly within the realm of possibility - and can add to good in-game tension and fun roleplaying. You just need some good apples to provide balance and a good contrast.

Grond's origin involves him falling into a polluted river then being struck by lightning. Shadowboxer (Detroit hero; CU:84 and MC:16-17) gained his powers in the early 1980s after being shot and his body dumped in a construction site that was also an illegal toxic waste dump. He was killed in the Battle of Detroit in 1992.

Me (holding a rake, dumping leaves into a bag) My wife (pulls into driveway and rolls down car window): Are you raking leaves? Me: No. I'm building a pool. (My only regret is that I didn't think until afterward that I should have said, "Here's your sign.")

I think a real test would be if deceased famous politician's face was used to promote members of the opposite party. For instance, if Ronald Reagan's children (at least two of whom are fairly liberal) allowed his image to be used to promote a Democratic presidential candidate. Then I'd bet a new law barring such use of digitally-reproduced images of the dead would get pushed through toot-sweet.

"Alara - could you open this jar of pickles for me?"

Watched Stardust last night. Fun movie, but how to describe it? A young man (Tristan) crosses a wall into a magical realm to bring a fallen star (which happens to be a woman) back to a woman he thinks he loves, but discovers his actual true love along the way. Also seeking the fallen star are witches and princes (who are rivals for the thrown after their father dies). Along the way Tristan encounters sky pirates harvesting lightning, plus the aforementioned witches and princes. Great performance by Robert DiNiro as Captain Shakespear (arr!), though in my daughter's opinion the best character is the captain's first mate, who does more with his facial expressions and a cleared throat than most actors do with spoken lines.

A character in my just-completed Champions campaign has Retrocognition and can talk to spirits of dead people. The players used both of these a *lot* to get the straight poop on what was going on. When I noticed they were basically 100% trusting (and utterly relying upon) the visions or what the ghosts said, I occasionally threw a monkey wrench in there. My favorite was when a DEMON Morbane figured out she could see what happened in the past, so he taunted her before casting a spell (Darkness to Retrocog Clairsentience) that ended her vision before she could see what he actually did. He also created a spell that made her see what was going on in an alternate dimension, so one of her visions contained incorrect info. Man, did she hate him! In a recent adventure involving Shadow Destroyer, one of his underlings was transformed to look like someone else (whom he was holding captive), and then ordered the underling to commit suicide. The PC heroine was baffled when she couldn't summon that person's spirit (since the person wasn't actually dead yet). (Note: I didn't do this sort of thing often, just mainly when that Morbane was involved, or that one case with Shadow Destroyer.)