BoloOfEarth

Actually, one of the robots is trans-gender. It was booted with Windows 8, but self-identifies as Apple OS X.

So I was thinking about Harrison Wells last night. Just wondering if his middle name starts with "G".

My thanks to all of you for recommending this show. I finally watched it last night - at least the first 3 episodes - and enjoyed it very much. Made sure to recommend it to my daughter away at college. I found it amusing that one of Flash's "sidekicks" is played by the same actress that played the plant-controlling "sidekick" from Sky High. Sorry, "Hero Support."

You have discovered, quite to your shock, that your new bride/groom is, in fact, Kim Kardashian/Kanye West. I'm sorry, I appear to have repeated Pariah's post.

This being a Captain America movie and not an Avengers movie, I can't see Iron Man being the driving force, and therefore having roughly equal screen time and equal billing. If that were the case, I'd think they'd have it as Captain America / Iron Man: Civil War. I could, however, see the fallout from Ultron and Hulk giving impetus to Hydra elements working covertly in the US government to gleefully push for superhero registration and restrictions on heroes. Stark and others might be part of this, duped by Hydra. So, foes in a few side fights or the big battle, but not the main driving element against Cap. I'm cautiously willing to wait and see what they come up with. As Hermit said, if they honor characterization, it's possible to do it well.

I would have preferred a root canal to Civil War, at least as presented in the comics.

I dunno. Seems like a self-correcting problem to me. They get to feed the bears and tidy up the gene pool at the same time.

I figured Dan was the son of the main Mum and Dad of the team.

OT: Just read an old post of mine in that thread, from back when I was all creative and stuff. Gonna have to get back into that sometime, but don't have the time right now to put something like that together. Dan Fountain has always been a tinkerer and tech-head. Even as a kid, he would disassemble and reassemble household appliances and other devices just to see what makes them tick. So it's no surprise that Danny supplies the family's weapons and gear. If it's necessary for him to go into the field, he wears a special armored battlesuit, akin to Iron Man. Calling himself Master Armorer, he is starting to enjoy his time out of the lab and is starting to spend more time upgrading his armor instead of working on new blasters and what-not.

The zombies are all dancing to Michael Buble songs. I thought it was supposed to be Michael Jackson. ("Ooooo, I just haven't et you yet....")

Mockingbird!

Because shouldst thou then proceed to three, thou wouldst have to lobbest the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. (And "five" is right out.)

I'd heard good things about Unknown Movie. Marvel's really committed to that one, doing 6 movies about the character in the next 5 years. But I hear they're changing his costume, so the whole series is dead to me.

The T Party looks very strong in HtH combat but not so much ranged and no mental. Trilight has a full suite of light powers (including the ability to render herself invisible and generate holograms). She recently discovered the ability to use flashing lights and colorful patterns to enthrall (Mental Paralysis) and hypnotize (low-grade Mind Control) opponents. She's gotten very good at calming Tantrum after a fight. Oh, and don't call her Twilight or otherwise mention the books or movies of that series. She will try to blind you for life (on the assumption that doing so will save you from "that horrid, festering cesspool of crap").

Starting out, I'd suggest for the first session having some pre-made characters for your players to choose from. I don't know how many players you have, but you can use the Champions from the back of CC, or I'm sure you can find some characters here to fit the bill. The norm for a standard superheroic campaign is about 10-12 DC (10-12d6 Blast, or 5-6 Mental Blast, etc.) Average on a 12d6 roll is 42 points, which would hurt but not CON-stun someone like Defender with 20 ED and 25 CON. Some of the defenses (like Witchcraft's, or Kinetic's when he isn't moving) are a bit low, but most are in the 20-25 range which is good enough. As to tips, I'd suggest making sure to give the villains (and NPCs) some personality. Don't just play them as collections of stats and abilities; if you're creating a villain, give him some Psychological Complications or odd powers that make him memorable. A lot of this has to do with knowing your players, so I can't give concrete examples that would fit your game 100%. But as a few examples from my own experience, I've had a VIPER Nest Leader with a crush on one of the superheroines; a brand-new villain who thought his powers were so kewl he had to crow about every single one and telegraphed his attacks; a telekinetic kid whose special effects were all 3-D cartoon characters; a villain whose powers simply didn't work on a specific hero and vice versa (thanks to a lab accident both were affected by). I think you get the picture.

The parent's "Slave Princess Leia" costume was a big tip-off. The least he could have done is shaved his legs and chest.

Brief aside: Have you seen Iron Sky? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py_IndUbcxc "President Palin" moments at 0:37, 0:56, and 1:16 Actually, things weren't all that bad under George Bush senior. (Or Bill Clinton, for that matter.) NT: Unusual things to hand out to trick-or-treaters for Halloween instead of candy.

Most people think Troll'r is the Monster Patrol's "dumb muscle" but this is only half right. He is big, strong, and tough (including a regeneration ability which helps keep him going in combat). However, he's also a pretty smart tech head (though not as brilliant as Hunter), specializing in computer hacking. Unfortunately, Troll'r isn't very socially mature; he gets his hero name from his preference for trolling online discussions, and has been petrified by Lady Gorgon a time or two for making rude or sexist comments. - - - - - - - New Team: The Bookwyrms These five members of the local book club all got their powers when one of their number found a mystic tome on a bookstore shelf and read part of it aloud. Since each person's powers seem to be related to his or her favorite book, they decided to give themselves names linked to those books. (Note that the Campaign City Book Club members have very diverse literary tastes, sometimes coming near to blows over which book they'll read next. So don't feel a need to stick to classics.)

Accelerant is a speedster with a lifelong love for burning things down. He doesn't have any fire powers himself; he has to use fairly mundane means (lighter, gasoline, etc.) to get a fire started. But his powers include the ability to accelerate select individuals or things in an area -- and he discovered that he can increase the speed of flames, causing them to spread and consume things much faster than normal. - - - - - - - All seven members of the Boston T Party have names that begin with the letter T. Of course, they operate mostly in and around Boston. Contrary to what people believe based on their name, the T Party is completely non-political. Most of them are in it mainly to use their powers for personal gain or fun (though individual members' ideas of "fun" isn't necessarily most people's definition of the word).

When you're talking about groups of heroes and villains, "balanced" doesn't necessarily mean the heroes and villains are matching in number ranges. For example, you can pit a group of 10-12 DC, 5-7 CV heroes against a bunch of 8 DC, 4-5 CV agents, plus one mastermind 16 DC, 10 CV villain, and still have an overall balance. And in that case, I can guarantee the players will pull tactics out of their butts to take down the Big Bad, or to deal with the agents between them and him. Alternately, if you do have the heroes and villains matching in number ranges, choices of specific Powers, Special Effects (triggering Vulnerabilites / Susceptibilities / Limitations on heroes' Powers) or team makeup (all bricks, all speedsters, etc.) could completely unbalance the fight. My namesake character, Bolo, who was vulnerable to both Fire attacks and Explosions was once taken out in one shot by a singe agent of Firewing. Throw villain personalities into the mix; those can also alter the balance and make the players adjust their tactics, even to the PCs' own disadvantage. Example: I have two female players in our group. I can guarantee that if I throw Bulldozer or some other vocally misogynous villain into a scenario, they will target him even if it makes more sense for them to go after someone else. A casual killer villain will get more than his fair share of attention, even if he's not all that powerful and isn't key to winning the day. As a GM, I've learned to design teams and plotlines with all of that in mind.

(looking at tickets) "I didn't realize the Toledo Mud Hens were playing in the World Series."

Throw the Kardashians and a few key politicians in there, and I'll supply the cement.

The sacks of cash they're carrying were good enough signs for me. NT: Amusing ways that Death Tribble is going to get back at Pariah for the draft win comment.

I am strongly opposed to GMPCs, but I've had the occasional NPC as part of a team, and it usually worked well. I've had: sidekicks for a few of the heroes a guy with amnesia the team rescued from one of Malachite's labs several support characters In the case of the guy with amnesia (John Doe), I often asked one of the players to run JD during combats. So when JD got the occasional great attack or damage roll, the players took it more as "one of us" and were perfectly fine with it. I had two support characters in one campaign (though to be fair, they weren't part of the team so much as recurring solo NPC heroes). One, Rubicon, was a solo mage they needed for info since none of the PCs had mystic knowledge or magic powers. The other was a freshly-minted teen hero (Cobalt Kid) with a cosmic VPP. In both cases, the characters were markedly lower-powered than the PC heroes, so there was no chance of the NPCs overshadowing them. and in the case of CK, several of the players enjoyed playing mentor. Heck, one time the heroes stole a villain's battlesuit to turn a PRIMUS agent one of the heroine PCs was dating into a superhero in his own right. However, as I noted in another thread, I like making use of normal NPCs. So if I need an in-game voice to give the players a suggestion, I can use the hero base security chief, or their secretary, or their UNTIL liaison. They may not all be combat members of the team, but they're still team members. Also, I'm not afraid to have NPCs make the occasional bad suggestion. The players shouldn't trust what any NPC says as the Word of God. Two NPCs arguing opposite sides of an issue can help get the PCs involved in a discussion on the pros and cons of a course of action. And the GM can slip in plenty of clues and reminders along the way without it seeming contrived.

To me, the CV difference thing isn't necessarily an encounter ender. I've introduced villains with higher DCVs than anybody could easily hit. It just forces the players to get creative. Switch targets so someone who *can* hit him takes him on. Several people coordinate to get a Multiple Attacker bonus. Someone with an AoE Entangle or Flash uses it to bring the target's DCV down, then everybody else does a Covered attack on the target and, then BLAMMO. Or have one PC keep the tough guy busy long enough for everybody else to take out the bad guy's friends, then everybody dogpiles the Big Bad. As to the 400/75 point total serving as a limiter -- it does. A high AP power being brought down to a reasonable cost -- those things are called Limitations for a reason. And often, the powers themselves might have "limitations" of their own. (Using Margarita Man as an example, I'm sure a clever GM could find a way to use the fact that Mind Scan creates a two-way circuit as a jumping-off point to his own nefarious ends.) Now, as other have pointed out, you can take things to a ridiculous level. But then, so can the GM. That said, I think setting reasonable limits is in everybody's best interests. In most games (Hero as well as other RPGs), one uber-powerful player character in a group generally means the GM has to throw at least one uber-powerful foe into the mix to balance the combat. And that can really suck for any non-uber-powerful PCs in the group.