BoloOfEarth

On a related note, I have a few players who simply don't spend XP except once in a blue moon. The heroes get 2-3 XP every game session but some players don't think to spend them until they've accumulated 20-30 points. It's not that they're saving them up for a big bump up in power / skill. They just don't get around to doing anything with the XP, generally until it becomes apparent in game play that the bad guys are overpowering them. (Note that I give villains XP at roughly the same rate as the heroes, unless the villain in question has been locked away for a while, so in theory fights should be fairly balanced.) In general, I hand-wave retcon such XP expenditures as the characters actually learned skills / created powers over time, but they don't actually have the opportunity to use them (or don't choose to use them) until later. Heck, a few of the players forget to use powers or skills their characters have had from the start that would be perfect for a given situation ("Gee, if only one of you was skilled in Forgery, you could figure out if this woman's identity is legit..." "Oh, wait, that's right, I have Forgery skill, don't I?"). So it's not a stretch for one of them to not use a skill or power they recently acquired. A great example of "sudden XP use" happened last month. The heroes of Just Cause were handed their first real defeat at the hands of villains who fancied themselves reincarnated Greek gods. With most of the team unconscious, Zeus had the remaining two heroes surrender (with the understanding that the villains would then all leave without the heroes attacking or pursuing them). The next week, the news headline read "Just Cause Balks, New Gods Walk." And three players suddenly wanted to spend chunks of XP. In retrospect, I should have played the theme to Rocky and told the players to visualize a training montage. It would have been appropriate.

Although I have seen it happen at singular occasions during a campaign. In my first Champions campaign (where I created and played Bolo), I did exactly that. My GM called it a "nuclear accident". I had saved up 50 XP (and that GM wasn't overly generous with XP, so that took a while) and then told him I wanted to do a major rewrite of the character. He was running a major campaign arc involving two warring alien factions using Earth as a battleground, and he incorporated my character's "nuclear accident" into the overall plot. Bolo was kidnapped by Firewing and experimented upon by a Malvan scientist, so Bolo's electricity powers were enhanced and altered beyond recognition. Even drew up a new costume to go with the new powers.

It was not my intention to denigrate his manner of GMing XP, and if it came across that way I apologize for any misunderstanding. I was just giving my experience (pun intended) in the matter. To be honest, there have been a few occasions where a player in my games wanted to spend XP on something that didn't make much sense in how his PC would acquire the skill or ability. (e.g. a PC wanted to become an overnight expert in subspace navigation to pilot a spaceship they had just stolen the week before from invading aliens). At times like that, I simply gave the "evil GM smile" (patent pending) and said, "So you're going to learn this by trial and error, right? Push some random buttons and see what happens?" (rub hands together gleefully) "Okay, let's get started!" For some strange reason they usually changed their minds.

I generally allow my players to spend XP as they see fit (though adding an entirely new power that is a "!" or "stop sign" would still require GM approval). Has this resulted in players buying up Mental Defense after a rough time fighting a mentalist (to use TheDarkness' example)? Yes, it has. Very recently, Honey Badger (who started the game with no Mental Defense and a 10 EGO and PRE despite his catch phrase of "Honey Badger Don't Care" implying a strong will) got curb-stomped by a mentalist's Mind Blasts, and subsequently bought 12 Mental Defense. Before that, the team mage bought off the "Incantations" limitation on all of his spells after a villain completely shut him down with a simple Silence field. He told me afterward that he had been saving up XP for exactly that possibility, but no mention was made to me beforehand. I had no problem in either case. I figure, that's the beauty of a point-based system. Players make their choices. If they're spending XP in a reactionary form, they aren't spending it in a proactive form. (IOW, if they want to spend points to protect from past successful attacks, they aren't spending them to buy a cool completely new power.) And since we alternate games in my group, there's often an off-week or two between my adventures, thus allowing for relatively significant changes to characters. Heck, I've done the same thing with the villains. Maker used her EMP to shut down WarNun's battlesuit, but WarNun escaped. So instead of spending points on CSLs (which would have been my plan), WarNun spent XP on an Impenetrable rED force field to protect herself from Maker's EMP.

A devout man prays to God one day. "Please, God, let me win the lottery. I promise to use the money to help others." He doesn't win that week, so he prays again. "God, I'm imploring you to let me win the lottery. Think of all the good I could do to help Your children!" After he again fails to win, he kneels and prays, "I'm imploring you, Lord, please let me win..." At this point, a booming voice from above interrupts him. "AT LEAST MEET ME HALF WAY AND BUY A TICKET!"

A man is talking to God and asks, "Is it true that, to you a million years is just a minute?" "Yes," replies God. "That is true." "So to you, would a million dollars just be a penny?" the man asks with a slight smile. "Again true." With a crafty look, the man asks God, "So could you give me a penny?" God replies, "Sure. In a minute."

You mean Florida's not hogging it all?

Jasper Smithson is the oh-so-proper major domo for the Rock Band. He runs the daily business of Club Pillar, but considers his work for Rock Band to take precedence. Given his frequent absences from the club / restaurant on Band business, some of the staff jokes that he is actually a superhero. Since Jasper has very little sense of humor, he mostly sniffs disapprovingly at these jokes.

O.P.A.L. (Online Personal Assistant, Limited) is the semi-artificial intelligence that handles the Rock Band's computer needs. OPAL is hardwired to be very protective of Band members and fancies "herself" their mother figure (nagging them to make sure they wear sweaters in cold weather, etc.).

Seventh Son is a mage with a talent for prophecy (which helps the team get a leg up on the villains). His father was a mage, as was his father's father, and so on. As the seventh generation mage, Seventh Son is the most powerful of his family and can be a bit arrogant. But like those before him, he uses his powers for good. - - - - - The next team isn't a team per se. It's the base(s), vehicle(s), agents / sidekicks, government liaison, etc. of a previously posted hero team, the Rock Band. (These are 6 heroes based on rocks / minerals / semi-precious stones: Emerald Toro, Alabaster, Diamondelle, Topaz, Citrine, and Fordite.) I'd say 4-6 should be adequate, and should follow the geology theme.

RE: Murder-hobos, it can occasionally creep into Champions games. For instance, I've mentioned elsewhere about a PC in my game capturing VIPER robots and rewiring them for her own use - without paying points for them. I've allowed it, because I then feel fully justified in using the robots to mess with the PC (and her teammates, who allow and occasionally encourage such actions). See the thread on Teleport Redirect for details. Trophies are one thing. One PC in my game likes to collect hats, helmets, and other headgear from defeated villains. But he doesn't go around wearing them regularly and trying to get free use of their powers, so I don't penalize him for that. It's simply a running gag. But if a player thinks he/she can carry around and use Ninjato's mystic katana after throwing the villain into Stronghold -- guess what, your character has just acquired Hunted by DEMON as long as they know your PC has the katana. Maybe even Hunted by PRIMUS for taking evidence from a crime scene. And/or Ninjato's teammate the Seer can now easily scry the PC's location, even when he's not in costume, since the katana is nearby.

Regarding PC backstory, I've found a formula that works pretty well for me. I had the players draw up 400 point characters, and said they could have +5 free points if they provided a backstory (didn't have to be extensive; 1-2 paragraphs would be fine). I also gave them +5 points if they provided 5 NPCs (note: not DNPCs - I promised not to use them as targets but rather just to flesh out that character's world), and +5 points spendable only on a single non-organization Contact. (Since I control points on NPCs, I can make the villains at 415 points as easily as I can 400 points.) The backstories I got were: 1x 2 paragraphs; 2x 1 page; 1x 2 pages; 1x 3 pages; 1x 5 pages; 1x 8 pages. The more extensive ones even provided addresses for home and work, what kind of car they own, etc. The NPCs work great for moving along a plot. ("Your sister Sarah calls you all freaked out because her boyfriend was at the mall when it was attacked by the Sinful Seven..." "Your model friend Clarissa tells you that a local fashion designer had a stroke of some sort, but the way she describes it is just like Dr. Morten after that unknown mentalist took his memories..."). And since the GM controls the NPCs, I can interweave them if I wish ("By the way, Pops, your bartender friend is a huge fan of Nexus' band") to help link PCs. I try not to do that too much, but it can help if a player is slow to join in.

How about Leaping 60m (30m vertical), Usable as Attack, Ranged (+1 3/4), AoE (4m radius; +1/4), Trigger (set: Enters area from above, trigger takes no time, resets automatically; +1); Only to reduce falling damage (-1 1/2), OAF (-1), 4 Continuing Charges of 1 Turn Duration (-1/2). 120 AP, 30 RP I went with Usable as Attack and Trigger instead of UBO, because that way it would work on an unconscious or bound person. Vertical Leap Only is a -1, so I figure Only to Reduce Falling Damage is at least -1 1/2. This would completely protect someone falling from a 20 story building, and reduce the damage from someone falling 30 stories down to 5d6 (nasty to a normal person but not instantly fatal). All of that said, I agree with Comic about the Power Stunt. That's a lot of points (Active Points are well outside most Multipowers or VPPs) for something that is very rarely useful.

Lucky Seven is well known as an incredibly powerful probability manipulator. Remember when a dead communications satellite fell from orbit and KO'd Grond? Or that time Oculon's eye blast one-shotted Ogre? That was Lucky Seven's work. Less well known is the fact that Lucky Seven can only perform his high-end probability manipulation powers seven times a day. (His lower-level powers, like his regular defenses or his ability to assist a teammate's attack, don't seem to have a limiting number.) Thus far, he's only run up against that limit a few times, so he's choosy about when he pulls off the truly spectacular stuff.

I didn't write up Mainframe. I co-wrote (with help from the original posters) the Millennium Bugs, who had computer-heavy members but were a later theme team. That said, Mainframe and Mainframe 2.0 would be interesting to write up. However, right now I'm tied up with another project.

Um... probably "He's Strange."

For some, it's a genre thing. They just aren't that into the supers thing. It's fun enough to play in, but not as engaging (for them) to run. I can understand that, because I'm the same way about Fantasy. I have zero desire to run a D&D / Pathfinder / etc. game. Some people just aren't GM material. I'm not saying that in a snooty, superior way (or at least, I'm not trying to be snobbish). Look at it from a football perspective -- the greatest players might make the lousiest coaches. And even those that might be great coaches (or GMs) may not have the desire to do so. I think these two things pare down the available supers GM pool considerably. The above said, a superhero game brings its own complications to the table. The characters pretty much start out mega-powerful (at least as compared to most of the world), which means you have to allow for that as a GM, every game. (It's like starting out a D&D game with all of the PC heroes already 16th level.) To challenge them, the opposition has to either be similarly powerful or sufficiently underhanded or the adventure plot be complicated. Putting that together, especially on a regular basis, can be challenging. Now throw Champions / Hero Games itself into the mix. Some find it much more complicated than other systems. Or they just think it would be and don't even look into it or give it a shot. Starblaze, all of that aside, I used to be the sole GM in our group (running Champions campaigns exclusively) for well over 15 years. I was feeling overworked, and more than a bit of "I wanna play too!" So one player started running a D&D game (that morphed into a Pathfinder game), and then another player started running a D&D4 game. (Neither was interested in running Champions.) Eventually I learned that I didn't really want to play all that much. I was missing the world-building, and the plot-building, and the challenges of balancing different sets of villains against the heroes. So in your particular case, starblaze, it's possible you might take care of your superhero-playing fix by going to a game convention or two. (And you might find yourself picking up a few cool ideas to incorporate into your own game at home. I know I did.)

Friday evening, two days before our normal Sunday night game session, the other GM (for D&D4) texted me asking if I could run again. Despite the last minute notice and the fact that the heroes have put away most of my new villain teams, I managed to throw together a decent Christmas-themed adventure. The recap article in the weekly Heronet Herald news sheet, about the PC heroes losing to the New Gods, has the headline "Heroes Balk, New Gods Walk." Circe: You know, this reporter was doing so good up until now. Another article is about the National Guard closing off a section of the Everglades because of the appearance of humanoid amphibians. Honey Badger: Anybody want to make a trip to Florida? Those things look tasty! Nexus is contemplating the injuries she sustained the week before. Nexus: How long am I going to have to stay in the hospital? Malarky: It depends. How much BODY damage did you take? Nexus: I'm down 5 BODY. Malarky: Yeaaaah. You're gonna be in there a while. Malarky offers to cast a healing spell or two to remove the damage. Honey Badger: (to Nexus) But you have to be naked for the spell to work. Nexus: I don't think so. Honey Badger: No, really. You do. (to Malarky) Doesn't she? C'mon, help a guy out here. Before Malarky can get back to do the healing, Nexus is visited at the hospital by her brother Mateus . When he hugs her before leaving to pick up their sister Sofia to do some Christmas shopping, Nexus has a vision of Mateus and Sofia getting caught in a riot at a shopping mall. She can't tell which mall, but sees that they were in a Pandora jewelry store and Mateus had a shopping bag for Felicity Sweets. Nexus: Were you by any way planning to do any shopping at Pandora? Mateus: Well, if you're just going to spoil the surprise there's not much point to me wrapping things, is there? Since there was a news article about shoppers rioting at several malls across the country, the heroes decide to dig deeper. All four malls with previous riots had only one store in common: Hirschfields, a high-end boutique store. Looking at the list of possible malls in the Boston area that have a Pandora and Felicty Sweets as well as a Hirschfields, they narrow the list to two malls: Copley Place and the Colonial Galleria. Nexus: Two malls? GM: What, you thought I was going to make it easy for you? Nexus uses her stolen VIPER flyer bots to stake out both malls while they continue to research. They learn that a group called the Corporate Raiders had attacked a Hirschfields distribution warehouse in San Diego early in the month. Maker: Do the Corporate Raiders have a mentalist? GM: Here's what PRIMUS has on the Raiders. (hands over printout) Maker: (reading aloud) ... The leader of the Raiders is Union, a projecting empath with the ability to affect large groups of people. I'd call that a 'yes.' Nexus says she and Pops are checking out the Galleria in disguise. Laying out a pre-printed mall map, I replace a corner kiosk with a "Santa's Workshop" where kids are lined up to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what they want for Christmas. i also put out eight large (full-hex) squares marked with ribbons and a bow, scattered around the mall. Pops: What are those? GM: They're large fake presents, basically huge Christmas decorations for the mall. (pause) Actually, would you believe I gift-wrapped the villains for you? Walking around, Nexus notes a number of people having magic on them. All are male, and the only member of the Raiders who uses magic is Rainwalker, a Native-American female. Whom PRIMUS notes is hunted by DEMON. Malarky: (looking at the PRIMUS report on the Raiders) Wait, Factory Recall is hunted by VIPER... so is Mark Futures. Daytrader is hunted by ARGENT. Fat Cat is wanted by the Russian mafia. Guys, we could be looking at a free-for-all here. Pops steps outside the mall preparing to teleport out, collect the rest of the team, and then teleport all of them to the mall. He discovers that a freak blizzard has popped up. Maker: That's gotta be Rainwalker's work. Can I gadgeteer some sort of weather detector to find out where it's centered, so I can find her? GM: Sure. It's a MegaArea effect, so you can pin her down to a 1-km radius. Centered on the mall. Pops calls PRIMUS and gives them a heads-up. Pops: You need to get a team out to the Colonial Galleria. We have reason to believe the Corporate Raiders are there and plan to start another mall riot. PRIMUS agent: We'll do what we can, but with this blizzard the JumpJet is grounded. We'll have to get there by van. Or 4x4s. Pops: Good luck with that. I'll bet the roads suck. After he collects the rest of the team (ending at Maker), Pops' mass teleport doesn't go as planned. For some reason, only half the team arrives at the mall. Maker ends up at the airport, and Honey Badger finds himself in the South End, and Pops notes that there was some sort of energy surge from Maker at the time of the teleport. Luckily, the team wasn't trying to teleport straight in to ambush the villains, so he has time to collect his wayward teammates. Pops: (to Maker) Keep this up, and you may lose your travel privileges. While Pops is collecting Maker and Honey Badger, Shadowboxer does some recon. Shadowboxer: The mall Santa -- does he happen to look like Fat Cat? GM: Hard to tell with the beard and Santa hat, but you hear him ask the kid on his lap, (bad French accent) "Zho, have you been ze good child zis year?" Shadowboxer also determines that the "elf" helping Santa could possibly be Union. Circe: Mind controlling a bunch of kids at Christmas... how evil is that? Everybody's going to go into a greedy frenzy, aren't they? Maker: So basically, just another Christmas shopping day at the mall. Nexus: It probably doesn't even take much effort on Union's part. The kid hops down off Santa's lap... and promptly kicks the "elf" in the leg before running off to his waiting mom. Circe: I'm keeping an eye on that kid. Mark Futures (the Raiders' precog) warns his teammates that the heroes are about to enter the mall. Circe: If he could know we were coming, why did they even show up here in the first place? GM: I thought about him and Nexus having dueling precog visions, but every scenario I thought about quickly got too complicated. So eventually I just said, "F*** it." Nexus had gone outside to get some magical buffs (mass stone skin and luck) from Malarky, and when she heads back in she sees a group of five DEMON agents. They pull out wands. DEMON agent: Well, we were actually looking for Rainwalker, but you'll do... The heroes make quick work of the DEMON agents, and Honey Badger crashes through the inner doors to find Factory Recall (big robot) standing where one of the big decorative presents was, with bits of cardboard and wrapping paper hanging off it. Honey Badger: Where did that come from? GM: It was inside the present. I told you I gift-wrapped the villains for you. Malarky one-shots Union with a magical shillelagh while Shadowboxer takes on Fat Cat / Santa. Shadowboxer: Why are you doing this? Starting riots at malls... you're destroying the spirit of Christmas! Fat Cat: Ze companies, zey have already destroyed Christmas! All zis greed! How can you defend that? Shadowboxer: But what about the kids? Fat Cat: Zey are just rich little brats. Zat one... (nods toward the kid that kicked Union in the shin, and is currently heading toward another DEMON agent to kick him as well) ... he keecked me before Union even used his powers! He does not deserve ze Christmas! Shadowboxer: Okay, fair enough. Honey Badger squares off against Factory Recall. Factory Recall: (robotic voice) Subject identified: Honey Badger. Threat assessment: near-Omega level. Honey Badger: You actually have to say that out loud? FR: (robotic voice) Programming dictates... affirmative. Maker (with her stealth field on) uses her EMP. While it doesn't affect the well-shielded FR, it does cause Daytrader to curse and toss his now-useless radar goggles aside. FR: (robotic voice) Shielding operational. Subject identified: Maker. Threat assessment: moderate. Tactical assessment: What the hell. (punches her, knocking her back and stunning her) HB responds. HB: This one's coming all the way from Cleveland! (does a haymaker punch on FR, causing a massive dent and sending it smashing into the fountain) FR: (robotic voice) What the F***! I mean, damage sustained to multiple subsytems. Updating assessment of subject Honey Badger. Threat is full Omega level. Self does not like Cleveland. Circe uses TK to grab the kid before he can get to the DEMON agents and moves him to his mother. The kid breaks free from her grip and runs over to the unconscious Union and grabs the hardhat Union had put on when Mark Futures gave his warning. Kid: Mine! Circe: I hope Honey Badger didn't see that brat stealing his schtick. Downsizer tags Circe with her main power. GM: How much Power Defense do you have? Circe: 10 points GM: (rolls a 1 on 1d6, while Circe's player smiles) Okay, I need you to keep track of this, and let me know when it accumulates more than 10 points. Circe: Wait... what?! By phase 12, there are 12 total points of effect. GM: Eh, that's probably just a couple of inches. Circe: What do you mean, a couple of inches? GM: Circe notices she's shrinking, slowly but steadily. Circe: Guys, someone needs to find Downsizer, right the f*** now! Luckily, the team is able to take down most of the Raiders (though Rainwalker, Factory Recall, and Downsizer escape). By the time PRIMUS arrives, Circe is 1" tall. Circe: Okay, this is a different perspective. If this keeps up, I may have to go back to the bag lady disguise. GM: Actually, being shrunk like that could work well for a mentalist. Circe: True... if I could turn it on and off. Stuck like this, though, not so great.

I don't have any ideas for #350, but for 360 the theme should be circular / spherical.

(I thought this might have been posted here previously, but a quick search didn't find it. So if it was already posted, my apologies.) A woman gave birth to fraternal twins (one boy, one girl) but the birth process was too much for her and she passed out. When she came to and saw her kids, she mentioned to the nurse that she wasn't sure what to name them. "Your brother gave us the names while you were unconscious," said the nurse. "We thought they were what you wanted." Oh, no, thought the woman. I can't imagine what kind of names my moron brother would pick. "What names did he tell you?" she asked hesitantly. The nurse said, "Well, he named the little girl Denise..." The new mother thought, Well, that's not too bad. I like that one. The nurse continued, "And he named the little boy Denephew."

Actually, if Pops ended up where he targets but nobody else does... then the next time they try to sneak-attack a villain team, he might be the only one to show up where the villains are. And he doesn't have very good defenses... (evil GM chuckle)

Watched a DVD of the old Lois and Clark: Adventures of Superman TV show last night. The episode involved cryo-frozen Nazis, supported by sleeper agents in the US, trying to revive the Reich and take over the US. At the end, Perry White is upset because a long-time friend / US senator was revealed to be a Nazi. Clark, Lois, and Jimmy are expressing concerns that there may be even more out there that weren't found out. Clark: If Senator Black was a Nazi... who else might be? Me (mumbling): Well, there's Donald Trump... My daughter and her boyfriend about fell off the couch laughing.

Ooo! I ran Unearthed Mechana in 2003 immediately after the power blackout of the northeastern US. To stop the big-bad, the heroes wanted to do something that required drawing massive amounts of electricity from the power grid. I allowed them to do so -- and afterward informed them that they had caused the blackout. Heh. Unintentionally perfect timing. Excellent suggestion, LL, on Digital Hero adventures.

Just an update, and a thanks for all the feedback and suggestions. Since Maker is the primary instigator of the bot-taking and bot-using, I decided to not directly affect Pops, but rather to center the redirect effects upon Maker. So I've kept the (admittedly over-complicated) Transform and Teleport Redirect power on her to periodically affect her teammates, with the addition of a Physical Complication on Maker alone as Foreign Orchid / SOAR suggested. I also added Partial Transform to the broadcast power Transform. And I've decided that Pops, being a powerful teleporter, would be immune from the Redirect effect unless he decided to keep some bots for himself. I first ran an adventure that included Maker taking possession of two more Flyer bots, making a point that they had broadcast power modules. I later ran an adventure where she raided a VIPER lab and made off with several Tony Stark-style lab bots that are powered purely by broadcast power (thus ensuring she keeps the broadcast power running in her lab). I asked Pops if he wanted any lab bots as well, but he said no. (Smart guy.) The Teleport Redirect itself has only come into play once thus far (several weeks ago). They were taking several flyer bots along at the time, so even though Pops made a good PER roll and noticed an odd flash of energy come from Maker at the time of the teleport, they nonetheless blamed the flyer bots for causing most of them to appear scattered across the battlefield, rather than all together as was supposed to happen. (FYI, since this was shortly after Maker had taken possession of the flyer bots, I considered her having only been partially transformed, so I didn't have the Redirect effect as Megascale.) When they did their mass teleport this past week, I asked about the flyer bots (there were two that had been left earlier to watch over their objective), and then made a 3d6 roll in front of the players, but the redirect failed to activate. So I've given them clues that something is up, but they were so busy being paranoid about something else that they've let them pass. The next time the Redirect activates, it should scatter most of the team across the city, not just around the battlefield. I figure they'll respond afterward by forbidding Maker to bring flyer bots along, and (mistakenly) consider the problem solved. And when it happens again without the presence of flyer bots, they might actually try to solve the problem (namely, getting rid of all the stolen bots).

Chad Hopkins may be the most relaxed person you've ever met. The youngest son of well-to-do parents, he's never really had to work for much. At age 23, he spends most summers surfing and most winters snowboarding. He didn't even get stressed when his mutant temperature control powers manifested. Even though he can melt steel or freeze somebody solid, he just used his powers to keep his beer cold and reheat leftover pizza. He only got into the whole hero gig because he became smitten with Ice Princess. She doesn't share the same attraction, and she's made that clear to Chad, but he still wants to be around her and hopes one day she'll fall for him. Until then, he'll use his powers as Chillax,