BoloOfEarth

I rather like the intro music. Not overpowering, and it doesn't seem to conflict with your voice when you start talking. Nice suspicious conspiracy tone, right off the bat and then occasionally throughout. Got a chuckle from the "boys in blue... and blue tights..." bit. Also the "beasts crawling out of our toilets, like last time." Comments like that latter one make me curious what the story was behind it. If there were past broadcasts, I'd probably go through them to try and find that story. I didn't hear anything the least bit jarring in your voice tone and volume. Granted, it changes occasionally throughout, but it really should. As to editing mistakes out of the audio, I'd suggest only doing that if it's an egregious error. We all have pauses and occasional mis-speaking when we talk. Unless you're making mistakes every other sentence, I don't think it would be terribly disruptive. Overall, I liked it.

They make absolutely smashing-looking orange boots!

Is Grodd the gorilla your dreams? (Sorry, couldn't resist.) I'm rather liking Ms. Spivot as well. As to Barry and the secret ID thing, they've shown repeatedly that he's really bad at that. It's practically a running gag. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvrDeHpqHS0

Queen's Knight is Clifton DeGray, an electronics expert who also happens to be a medieval history buff. He fashioned some "plate mail" of high-tech composites, along with his Electro-Lance and (over the years) a succession of various electronic mounts ranging from his Electro-Steed (what can we say, it was the early 1960s) up to his current antigrav Flying Steed. Not surprisingly, he is very good at jousting, which is his signature attack. Though he has an electrical engineering degree, Cliff has repeatedly pointed out the value of "real-world applications" over "classroom instruction," so he and Crusher get along fairly well. Edit: The above is based on a 1970s team, as stated in the Pawns post. A more modern version of the Chessmen could have Cliff's son Norman DeGray, who shares many of Cliff's talents and interests.

Cross-posted from Campaign City News: The Webcaster "... so what say you? Is it Mechanon? Demonic possession? Maybe the precursor to an alien abduction? Or the genesis of the first Talkie Toaster? Only time will tell, folks -- and hopefully before Old Lady McGraw is toast. Well, folks, this has been your Friendly Gnu with some wild Wednesday weirdness. Tune in tomorrow, for Thursday's tall tales on Gnu's Gnews. Until then, keep your eyes open and stay safe." Wally Tucker is the man behind Gnu's Gnews, a nightly live webcast featuring strange goings-on in Campaign City. (It was originally The Smoking Gnu until he got a cease-and-desist order from Terry Pratchett's estate.) Thanks to a growing and diverse fanbase (plus his share of internet trolls) emailing him information, "The Gnu" (Wally's online alter ego) is able to bring some interesting tidbits to light. Like all things on the internet, a good number of these tidbits are either overblown or outright false, but Wally has a talent for finding a few real gems each night to bring to peoples' attention. While he does find nuggets of gold among the piles of pyrite, Wally is a bit of a conspiracy nut. Thus, he likes to garnish the facts with links to his conspiracy-of-the-week. But if a listener can ignore that, he or she may just find something useful to the current investigation, or perhaps future goings-on in Campaign City.

I believe the "g" is silent, at least in the animal "gnu," so it should be pronounced like "new." However, in my mind I hear Wally pronouncing the "g," albeit as lightly as possible. Wish I could help on software and podcasting, but I'm clueless in that regard. Thank you, by the way, for the link to WTNV. From listening to the pilot, it sounds quite interesting and entertaining. I'm hoping I can use bits from varoius podcasts to inspire some news items in my game.

With a nod and thanks to SOAR as I borrow some of his post... The Webcaster "... so what say you? Is it Mechanon? Demonic possession? Maybe the precursor to an alien abduction? Or the genesis of the first Talkie Toaster? Only time will tell, folks -- and hopefully before Old Lady McGraw is toast. Well, folks, this has been your Friendly Gnu with some wild Wednesday weirdness. Tune in tomorrow, for Thursday's tall tales on Gnu's Gnews. Until then, keep your eyes open and stay safe." Wally Tucker is the man behind Gnu's Gnews, a nightly live webcast featuring strange goings-on in Campaign City. (It was originally The Smoking Gnu until he got a cease-and-desist order from Terry Pratchett's estate.) Thanks to a growing and diverse fanbase (plus his share of internet trolls) emailing him information, "The Gnu" (Wally's online alter ego) is able to bring some interesting tidbits to light. Like all things on the internet, a good number of these tidbits are either overblown or outright false, but Wally has a talent for finding a few real gems each night to bring to peoples' attention. While he does find nuggets of gold among the piles of pyrite, Wally is a bit of a conspiracy nut. Thus, he likes to garnish the facts with links to his conspiracy-of-the-week. But if a listener can ignore that, he or she may just find something useful to the current investigation, or perhaps future goings-on in Campaign City.

Not as broadcast news, but I put out a news sheet most game sessions. It's usually one article to recap the prior adventure and at least one article related to that week's adventure, with another article or two of either filler or foreshadowing coming events. It works well for presenting some basic information that the PCs may decide to pursue, or will look back on later and have an "A-Ha!" moment. I've also found that occasionally, the players will latch onto an article that I put in purely as filler, which has led the game in a new direction. I've attached a few examples. There exists in my campaign world an online resource known as Hero.Net -- providing information on supervillains, go-between for heroes looking for specific help, etc. They put out a weekly news sheet (the Hero.Net Herald) with news that may be of interest to an individual subscriber. (Most hero teams will get the same news, though occasionally one member of a team might get a news item on his sheet that is different from everybody else's.) Following your idea, though, I could definitely see Hero.Net doing a podcast. It would need an appropriately unique individual to give it a "voice." I'll have to work on that. Heronet Herald 20150705.pdf Heronet Herald 20150817.pdf Heronet Herald 20150907.pdf

Hey, it could work...

I'd venture to say that a vast majority of the superhuman stuff in a typical comic book universe won't hold up to any sort of rigorous intellectual scrutiny. I'm reminded of an argument between the GM and a player in a Champions game. The player had tripped a foe running super-fast, and was using physics to argue that the foe should have slammed face first into the ground at effectively terminal velocity. Eventually the GM pointed out, "Your character creates wind blasts out of a wooden staff. Please, use physics to explain to me how that works."

Hypersonic flying sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads!

Maker has rewired the radio controls to work on a different frequency, and changed encryption on the bots' inputs/outputs. But it wouldn't be unreasonable for the Professor to scan frequencies the next time Maker shows up someplace with "her" flyer bot and then hack in to re-establish his own control. (Computer Programming isn't her main skill, whereas it is one of the Professor's.) The real-world logical thing to do would be for the Professor to do exactly that, and then use the bot to learn and burn Maker's secret ID. THAT, however, seems like overkill and a real dick move on my part. Yeah, I know it's over-complicated. That's kinda my thing. Seriously, though, thanks for the suggestions. In my mind the transform should fit within the Control cost of the bots' VPP, so it pretty much has to be a small transform over time. And since Pops spends almost zero time near the bots (he might be near them maybe 1-2 Phases in any given gaming session) but Maker practically lives with them, Maker seems the one to affect with the Transform attack. There are a couple other options I'm considering, such as redirecting only Maker's teleportation, perhaps sending her someplace VIPER has secured to serve as bait for an ambush of the rest of the team. I'm leaning away from that, since it basically removes her from the bulk of the adventure. Or having her transformed in some other way (perhaps adding Side Effects to her own energy powers, rather than mucking with Pops' teleportation). But something about the idea of redirecting a long-range teleport and scattering the team all over town seems like it would cause a major WTF moment that would be more intriguing for the whole team to figure out. I'll have to revisit this in the morning, when my brain is less fried. Thank you both for the feedback.

It's worse than that. They're a bunch of NPCs.

And a follow-up question, not related to the build itself: As a GM, is messing with Pops' power like this a dickish move? Pops did pay for his teleportation (ableit in a fixed Multipower slot, so not a lot of points, though he paid 33 points for the Clairsentience separately). I'm justifying it as a consequence of Maker basically trying to get some robotic followers without paying points for them. When she took the first one, I allowed it as "spoils of war." She now has 3, and I'm sure she'll run off with any others she thinks she can get away with. Also, the rest of the team has used the captured flyer bots to do reconnaissance, so the whole team has been in on it, so I figure the whole team should face the consequences of that. But is this all just a convenient excuse on my part?

A situation in my Champions campaign, in two parts: 1) One of the heroes (Maker, an energy projector with gadgeteering) has been taking captured VIPER flyer bots to use as her own. These have plug-and-play modules for offensive, defensive, sensory, and other purposes. (Basically, each bot has a VPP, with a predefined set of slots.) The Professor (second in command of Boston VIPER) knows she is doing this and wants to use it to his advantage, or at least the heroes' disadvantage. 2) Another hero, Pops, has teleportation powers and frequently uses a Megascale mass teleport to transport the entire hero team to locations anywhere in the country. Specifically, he has to be touching the people teleporting with him (actually, them touching him). So they normally arrive with Pops in the center and the rest of the team surrounding him. And he does have Clairsentience only for targeting his teleport at long distances. The idea is, The Professor is going to send some more flyer bots to be captured, each with plug-and-play modules that appear innocuous, but in reality can generate an energy field that will, over time, alter Maker's own energy to interfere with Pops' teleport. (I figure the modules will be something like a 1d6 Major Transform, Penetrating, Invisible Power Effects, AoE 8m radius.) The idea being to add an Always On power to Maker (that she can eventually figure out a way to get rid of) that will cause Pops' mass-teleport to go awry on occasion, ideally scattering the heroes all over town.** ** Not in pieces; that would be messy. I mean that Pops ends up in one location, Maker in another, Circe in a third, etc. So, how to draw up the teleport redirect? I'm thinking it would be Teleportation, say 4m, with Safe Blind Teleport (+1/4), Megascale (1m = 1 km; +1), Trigger (Maker is teleported; zero phase, resets automatically, immediately after activation; +3/4), Usable as Attack (+1 1/4), 0 END (+1/2 or +1; see below), Persistent (+1/4); Always On (-1/2), Activation 11- (-1/2), Teleports target in random direction / distance (-0) But would I make it AoE (4m radius; +1/4) to encompass the rest of her team? Or AoE (4m Radius Accurate; +1/2) with Autofire (10 shots; +2)? The former writeup seems like it should send everybody to the same location. But the latter seems like it would require some sort of conscious targeting on her part, and I want this to be something that would happen even if she was unwilling or unconscious.

"Hey, you were the one who said it should be 'Common' because, and I quote, 'Hey, I'm from Krypton, so it should be, like, common for me.' Maybe next time you'll think twice before you munchkin your character. You're almost as bad as Joey and his 'powers don't work against the color yellow.' I mean, honestly, guys?"

Maybe the killing of their Earth-1 counterparts is because the Earth-2 villains have all seen Highlander. "There can be only one!" Having re-watched the latest episode, I'm kinda liking Wells 2.0 - good writing and acting for him, IMO. The up-front dickishness works well in this case. And the whole thing makes me wonder -- if Thawne hadn't killed Wells and taken his place, the particle accelerator accident would have likely still happened, but maybe Wells wouldn't have been a mentor at all to Barry. Maybe he'd have just been a self-centered know-it-all prick.

Maybe Lex Luthor went back in time and traveled to the destruction of Krypton just to set up some sort of deep-space mass driver to collect chunks of the shattered planet and chuck them in Earth's direction. It would explain a lot. ("Hmmmm... can't just kill Supes as a baby because of causality. But I can make sure there's a continuous supply of kryptonite to make his life miserable...") Given that it's TV, I don't expect movie-level SFX from Supergirl. But if they dip into the level of, say, Greatest American Hero, I'll start complaining. Overall, I'm happy that they're showing plenty of powers use, instead of making it a mind-numbing melodrama with minimal power use. The SFX, flight poses, and wire work didn't bother me at all.

Looking back, I realized that I never posted about the A-Team at the PRIMUS base. All of this takes place before the heroes ran into the Grief Tyrant and McGinty. The heroes arrived at the PRIMUS base to find the members of A-Team waiting either outside the building or just inside the open vehicle bay. The heroes had brought Major Justice (NPC flying brick stick-in-the-mud who applied to join Just Cause) along just in case. While the front-line fighters on both teams engage each other, A-Bomb (actor with radiation powers) zooms over to Circe and gestures at her costume. A-Bomb: Wait... is that a Versace influence I see? Circe: Yeah, you like it? I designed it. A-Bomb: Tres chic. Very nice. I had to fly to Florence and kidnap Riccardo Tisci to do mine. (Looks at the other heroes) You had a hand in some of the other outfits too, didn't you? Circe: You have a good eye. A-Bomb: I tried to talk some of my teammates into getting designer costumes, but they didn't want to be bothered. I mean, look at Ankylosaur. He thinks matte black makes him all badass. Granted, it's better than that horrendous green-and-rust color scheme he used to have, but that all-black look is so 1990s. Circe: Um... are you planning to attack me? A-Bomb: Only if you attack me first. Ankylosaur said to keep you tied up. I told him, she seems much more the handcuff type. But he so did not want to listen. Circe: But aren't you a villain? A-Bomb: (stage whispers) Not really. I just play one on TV. One of the players reluctantly agrees to also run Major Justice. Player: But I don't know what he does. Shadowboxer: He's a FISS. Flight, Invulnerability, Strength, Speed. Your basic flying brick. Honey Badger: But he takes a lot of knockback. I mean, a LOT. If he takes a hit, he won't get hurt, but you'll take a while getting back to the fight. Player: How about personality-wise? Honey Badger: Self-righteous uber-hero. Think Superman or Captain America with a major stick up his rectum. Major Justice flies up to Auger. Major Justice: (loudly) Halt, foul miscreant! (strikes a heroic pose in midair) Honey Badger: (OOC) Nailed it! (work is interrupting. Hope to post more tonight)

I kinda want Trevor Nelson to swing by Shoo's espresso stand and act his normal self... FYI, Hermit, I'm working other stuff from your NPCs into my campaign world, both directly and as background. For instance, one PC has the complication "DNPC girlfriend of the week" and I created a young lady who works at EcoOp (tried without success to date the CEO). Sniffing Strangers is going to play at the Paradise Rock Club (of which one PC is co-owner). Hank Houston is going to have a chat with Nexus (who can see and speak to the dead). And Col. Hardin is going to become the new commander at Boston PRIMUS after the former commander is tossed under the bus for the A-Team being able to get free from their holding cells and trash the base.

Adding to the NPCs as Nothere and Cancer have done: The Loudmouthed Jerk Trevor Nelson is the guy you find in practically every workplace; in line at the QuikShop; sitting a table over in the restaurant; or in the seat next to you on a four-hour flight. He lives by the maxim, "The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease," and figures that the squeakier you are, the more grease you get. As the only son of a successful and semi-famous trial lawyer, Trevor grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, and thus he feels entitled to whatever he wants. In his mind, others exist mainly to serve him and he's not afraid to let them know this. Heaven forbid that you make a mistake while serving him. He will insist on speaking to your boss and demanding (in a loud and condescending voice) that you be fired and he gets whatever he wants for free. Unfortunately, between his dad's connections and his own (Trevor is a high-ranking VP at a local bank), he has enough pull to make others' lives miserable if he really wants. And since he doesn't see the point of making empty threats, Trevor really will call a company's CEO trying to get a low-level employee fired. (Well, he'll have his secretary make the call since that's what they're there for; he'll just get on the line long enough to make sure the deed gets done.) QUOTE: "In this world there's movers, and there's losers. I'm a mover. You're a loser. It's as simple as that. Now bring me my order. Chop chop."

Are you thinking along a coast, or inland? If coastal, how about somewhere along the Gulf coast of Texas? Like around where Port Lavaca / Victoria is. I'm thinking Port Victory sounds like a great name for a Champions campaign setting. And it would be relatively near Houston, San Antonio, and Austin. If inland, I can't imagine why but I was looking at the area of Hermitage, Missouri. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) Seriously, though, if inland I'd maybe go further west and put it somewhere in Colorado. It seems like a state where you could have nature and tech, a variety of weather, tourism, military (Cheyenne Mountain and the Air Force Academy) pretty much whatever you'd want.

Here is the completed PDF, with bookmarks. Great work, Hermit. People of Campaign City.pdf

I unfortunately didn't do well at writing down and then posting quotes of late, but I'll try and reconstruct here. The week before they had fought a Grief Tyrant (I took a picture from a card from IIRC Magic the Gathering and created a creature that can grow over 8m tall and use a Mental Entangle to paralyze a target with grief). Once they got it down to about 10 STUN it teleported away, and it became apparent that the thing was going to keep doing that repeatedly until it's insanity aura had turned the heroes into twitching phobics and paranoids. After that first encounter, Shadowboxer found a concealed door in the basement of the house he had inherited from McGinty, opening to a dirt tunnel showing bootprints / cane prints coming and going. He followed the tracks alone... and then abruptly dropped from Circe's Mind Link with the team. (He had passed a point in the tunnel where he traveled back in time.) The rest of the team went to the house and entered the tunnel as well to locate him. After a while, they found a rather large spider, which looked like somebody had hit it with a shriveling spell and then pounded on it repeatedly with both boot and cane. GM: The dead spider is about this big. (holds hands to a bit bigger than a soccer ball) Honey Badger: Those are some long legs! GM: No. That's just its body. HB: Okay, THAT'S not natural. The other heroes eventually find Shadowboxer. After finding they have no cellphone reception, even though the tunnel doesn't seem to be all that deep underground... Maker: I can be my own hotspot. HB: I can vouch for that! (leers) Maker: (glares) I meant wifi hotspot. After changing her gadget pool to do so, she learns that she's not getting any wifi signal at all. Nor any satellite signal for GPS. No FM radio stations, though she's picking up AM signals. GM: You hear some old-time music. Jazz, maybe, or big band. Circe: #!&%!@! We went back in time! Malarky discovers traces of a magical alarm spell, where Shadowboxer had reached before turning back upon hearing his teammates. Malarky: Not much sense in being stealthy. I'm pretty sure somebody already knows we're coming. They open the concealed door at the other end to find themselves in another building's basement. Coffin with a sign ("Reserved for previous occupant", I believe it reads). Large cabinet with plenty of weapons and ammo, including several shotguns and a Tommy gun. A few wooden crates containing dynamite. The door at the top of the stairs opens, and they hear the voice of an elderly, crotchety man. McGinty: When you're done fookin' around down there, mebbe you lot could find your way upstairs? I'm not getting any damned younger, y'know. GM realizes there's some info he wanted first, and asks everybody their favorite drink... except Malarky, who doesn't notice the oversight and volunteers that he likes a good whiskey, even though he's technically under the drinking age. They come upstairs and into McGinty's den. McGinty: Good to see you lot again. (shakes Shadowboxer's and Honey Badger's hands, makes a few suggestive comments at Nexus and Circe, then turns toward Malarky) And you brought the damned Catholic too. (shakes his head sadly, then turns to Pops with a wicked twinkle in his eye) Don't recognized you, though. Ah, damn me, that's right, we're meetin' in reverse order. You lot are just starting out, so you (to Pops) must not last long. Don't worry, though. If it's any consolation, the lad they replace you with is a right prat. He has a tray with various glasses on them, which he proceeds to hand out to the heroes. McGinty: Sugar Beaver, here's your beer. Shadowboxer, hope you like this bourbon. (hands out the rest of the drinks, then gets to Malarky) And last but least, some grape juice for the kiddie table. Nexus is looking at McGinty's library, which contains both normal reference books as well as some tomes that are better left unread. GM: You see a copy of the Necronomicon. McGinty has about thirty different pages marked with slips of paper, ribbons, and other makeshift bookmarks. One of the slips of paper has written on it, "Ooo! Try this!" Nexus sees the book that she had made a magical pact with Charles Aching a few weeks prior, swearing to acquire that book for him, in exchange for Aching bringing her long-lost brother back to her world. But the pact precludes her revealing her interest in the book or her even meeting Aching, so she has to walk a very fine line. Nexus: Do you mind if I take a look through these books? Maybe take some pictures? McGinty: Feel free to look all you wish, lass, but I don't have a camera handy. Nexus: No worries. I have one. (Holds up her smartphone) McGinty: Riiiiiight. (holds up a cigar case) And this here's me radio. Shadowboxer: Speaking of which, your will and letter mentioned your books, but they weren't in the house. McGinty: Damned shyster lawyers. Must have made off wi' 'em. Shadowboxer: Actually, we have reason to believe you hid them, but we can't find them. Can you tell us where? McGinty: (Gestures at his library) Well, I ain't hid 'em yet, now, have I? (pause) And you can't have 'em yet, cause I'm not yet done with 'em! Using Malarky's eidetic memory, they rewrite McGinty's letter to Shadowboxer and give it to McGinty to see if it gives him a clue. The letter is sprinkled with such phrases as, "Well, lad..." and "well-read books" and the like. McGinty: (stifles a grin) Welllll, lad, I can't rightly say. Ye'll just have to sort it out when you get back. Circe realizes that McGinty knows where he hid the books and decides to use Telepathy to get the info. GM: Remember when you touched the mind of one of those mythos horrors, and got to share some of its insane thoughts? Circe: Oh, no! GM: (rolls dice) Yeah, you find yourself down a few more points of EGO and PRE. Though you do catch McGinty thinking, "Well, now, aren't I just fookin' brilliant!" McGinty shares other info with them. McGinty: Now, I heard tell ye'll be needing some information on grief tyrants. Bloody scary buggers, can turn themselves even bigger than ol' Deborah Einstein, if you can believe that. Damned powerful too. Not a lot of info out there on 'em, so it took me a few weeks to gather what I could. (gives some info that the heroes have already figures out for themselves before getting to the juicy bits) And they can slip far away if they wish, but if it's not short range they can only go to a place they've been where there's concentrated grief. Like a temperance lecture. Shadowboxer: How can we get rid of it for good? McGinty: I've always found judicious use of explosives and fire to do the trick. And if that doesn't work, try running away. You don't have to run fast, just faster than him (nods at Malarky).

FYI, Linus Yeutter made an appearance in my campaign last night. The heroes held a press conference, and when Linus got up asking questions while filming the heroes with his smartphone, they became super suspicious. He can't be a real reporter, right? What kind of reporter uses a smartphone to record a press conference? Heh. One of Linus' questions they really didn't want to answer, so after Nexus stumbled a bit, Malarky asked who Linus was and then took a poke at his name to try and redirect from his question. But Linus wasn't deterred and asked point-blank, "Nexus, do you talk to the dead? It's a simple question. Yes or no." She said no (technically, she Mind Links to them, so there's no actual talking involved), but that's not going to look good when Linus posts an interview of the father of a murder victim, whom Nexus told that she was talking to his dead son. Afterward, the heroes researched New Edge Media and found out it was for real. (I added that NEM has an open offer on various social media to potentially purchase breaking news videos, which seemed a reasonable supposition of how Linus might get a line on new stories.) But the heroes' behavior at the press conference didn't really leave Linus feeling all that charitable toward them, so I'm sure there will be future clashes. Great character concept, Hermit.