BoloOfEarth

Re: Jokes I can't remember who did this originally (it sounds better aloud than in print) but... There is a disease terrible that strikes 10 out of 1 Americans, 15 every minute. Vocal Dyslexia it's called -- an ailment I've been life-ing all my fight. It can warn without striking, and has no regard for case, reed, or crolor. The symptoms: speechled garb; backs coming out wordward; and an inability to sent a complete putance together. It is wilding like spreadfire, and there is no cureful simp. But there is hope. The Center for Vocal Dyslexia recommends these things three: Third, as soon as possible, physich a consultant. Second, stay in bed and drink fluty of plentids. And first, read as can as you much. For more information, write to 999 Teenfifth Street, Grand Michids, Rapigan. Thank you muchy ver.

Re: Jokes With apologies to Kip Addotta, and any women reading this... A woman goes to her doctor and says, "Doctor, every time I go to the bathroom, nickels are falling out!" The doctor says, "Relax! Put your feet up. Come back and see me in a week." So a week later, the woman returns to the doctor's office and complains, "Doctor, now every time I go to the bathroom, dimes are falling out!" Once again, the doctor says, "Relax! Put your feet up. Come back and see me in a week." Another week passes, and the woman returns to complain, "Doctor, now when I go to the bathroom, quarters are falling out!" The doctor says "Relax..." but the woman interrupts. "Don't tell me to relax! I want to know what's happening to me!" The doctor calmly says, "You're just going through your Change..."

Re: Jokes Can't remember if I posted this before; if so, I apologize in advance: An 85 year-old man goes to the doctor for a checkup. The doctor examines him and says, "I've got to say, you're in incredible shape! If you don't mind my asking, how old was your dad when he died?" The man says, "Who said he died?! He's turns 105 next month and he runs in a marathon every year!" The doctor says, "Wow! Well, how old was your grandfather when he died?" "Who said he died?! He's almost 125 years old and he's getting married this weekend." The doctor says, "Amazing! But why would a 125 year-old man want to get married?" "Who said he WANTED to get married?!"

Re: "Neat" Pictures Nah, just step out your front door and tell everbody, "GET THE HECK OUT OF MY DRIVEWAY!!!"

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Don't count this as an entry, but I just had to post it: The X-Bot

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "Honest, honey, Friday is Sexy Lingerie Day..." NT: What politicians say, and what they REALLY mean... (no specific politicians, please)

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Obi-wan Karaoke. "Okay, now, everybody together... FEELINGS... Nothing more than Feelings..." NT: Ingredients you don't want to see listed on your food wrapper

Re: WWYCD: Dare to be Foxbat Actually, I ran something similar to this three years ago. I called it: Foxbat On Ice The Foxbat Five (Foxbat, Exoskeleton Man, Harmonious Fist, Dot, and Static Man) wanted to “steal†the Millennium City Red Wings’ ice skating, hockey, and fighting skills and hold them for ransom (for [DR EVIL]one million dollars[/DR EVIL]). Foxbat contacted the Thuggery and hired a dozen thugs to keep the fans in line, plus a technician (Morrie Nedermeyer) to help modify a zamboni with equipment to transfer the skills from five players to the Foxbat Five. Unfortunately, Morrie is a bit ambitious. He convinced Foxbat to rig up neural defense caps for all of them (in case a mentalist hero shows up), then modified the caps and the zamboni device to switch the minds of him and four of the thugs into the Foxbat Five. However, things went terribly wrong, and the machine began switching minds of thugs, the Foxbat Five, and the nearest PC heroes. Great fun, handing a player one of the FF's sheets and saying, "OK, here's your powers until I say otherwise." It was a real mess to sort out in the end.

Re: 102 VIPER Plot Seeds Ooo... I like this one. I may have to inflict this on my players. (55) Bad Boys, Bad Boys, What Ya Gonna Do? The local VIPER nest blatantly steals a bunch of police uniforms just before a major event (foreign dignitary coming to visit the campaign city, etc.) where there are bound to be lots of police officers. Knowing the heroes are going to suspect fake officers, however, the actual VIPER team shows up as wait staff, so they can pull off the plot (kidnapping the dignitary, for instance) while the heroes are busy trying to find fake cops. (56) Sorry, Wrong Number: A teen mentalist, who only just discovered his powers, accidentally "eavesdrops" on some VIPER agents planning a big museum theft. Not wanting to get directly involved but not wanting the bad guys to succeed, the teen begins dropping mental hints for the heroes to lead them to the staging area for the theft. However, VIPER became aware of the intrusion (through whatever means) and is tracking down the teen.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... During my Champions game a few weeks back, the heroes were questioning an agent and getting a bit rough and threatening massive bodily harm. The agent said, "You can't! That's police brutality." One of the players said calmly, "Sorry, we're not the police. It's just plain old brutality."

Re: 102 VIPER Plot Seeds This thread has been comatose long enough. We at least need to get it to 51 so we're halfway there. (45) Your Grandpa's VIPER: Squads of VIPER agents are attacking homes of retired Golden Age superheroes and costumed crimefighters, either breaking in and ransacking the places, or kidnapping family members. It seems the local Nest Leader learned the retired heroes (all part of the same team, or solo heroes working together on a case) stole a massively powerful weapon or magical device decades ago, but nobody admits knowing what happened to the weapon since. Who has it, and how do the heroes keep it out of VIPER's clutches? [Option] Have a past Nest Leader and a bunch of soon-to-be-retired, highly experienced VIPER agents running the whole operation as a way of going out with a bang. (46) Not Just Crocodiles in the Sewers: VIPER has begun using the city's sewer lines for quick getaways from various oddball crimes (stealing a grandfather clock, destroying a statue in a park, etc.). Each time the heroes follow them, the agents make it around a corner in the sewer and just disappear! How are they doing it? And what is the pattern to the crimes? (47) Abusement Park: VIPER agents take over a nearby amusement park, setting traps on various rides to keep the heroes and PRIMUS/UNTIL busy while they pull a more covert operation nearby. (The heroes might note that all of the agents at the park are obvious rookies, some even have trouble changing clips in the blaster rifles.) (48) VIPER 911: VIPER takes over the local 911 call center, and begins sending police and firemen (and heroes, if they are sanctioned) all over the city EXCEPT for a five-block radius around a rival company's office building. Meanwhile, they plant explosives to demolish the building after eventually luring the heroes inside. (49) Framed: VIPER frames a successful police officer, who happens to have helped the heroes on occasion, making it look like he's been on their payroll for over a year. They then slowly, carefully leak clues to the heroes and a local reporter to the cop's "duplicity." (50) What's Love Got To Do With It?: A VIPER agent falls for one of the heroes, big time, and claims to want to go straight. She or he will turn over the local Nest's current big plan in exchange for an amorous encounter with the hero(ine). Is this a trap? A plan to get a sample of the hero's DNA? Or just a love-sick loony? (51) Call of the Wild: Using carefully analyzed and enhanced recordings of Caterwaul's howls (see DH #24), VIPER begins driving every animal in the city into fits of berserker rage. Obviously this is cover for some other plot, but what?

Re: Foxbat: A place in your campaign? Foxbat and his Foxbat Five are regulars in my campaign, and have been for over a decade. Similar to what somebody else said, I had him steal a Batmobile used in the original TV series, also props and costumes from the show, and then tried to kidnap Adam West and Burt Ward, who were conned into appearing together at a mall opening. When they heard about the mall opening, the heroes got costumes to appear as Penguin, Riddler, Joker, Catwoman, and Mr. Freeze, and showed up to stop Foxbat. I already had in my notes that the Foxbat Five would appear *in those same costumes*, along with the Costumatron (Patent Pending; Instant Change, usable against others) to put Adam West and Burt Ward into their outfits. With utility belts that really worked. Foxbat also brought along a Photonic Optical Waveform (POW) generator to make holograms ("POW! BAM! KA-BLAM!") during the battle. The heroes and villains paired off (Penguin vs. Penguin, Joker vs. Joker, etc.) and really hammed it up. The heroes "saved" Adam West and Burt Ward, taking them to a bar where they met up with Freddie and crew for drinks and some fan chat. His other plots include accidentally freezing time for everybody but the heroes and the Foxbat Five; taking over the offices of the Hero.net Herald (the superhero newspaper in my game); kidnapping the writer and artist of a comic book to make himself the mystery villain in one of their story arcs; committing a series of crimes whose locations, when connected, would draw the Foxbat emblem across the city; running for Mayor of New York City (on an off year, so he'd have less competition); and of course chasing after the female heroes. I know there's a dozen others I'm forgetting.

Re: Who is... COUNT INFINITY? Maybe it's just 'cause it's 5:30 a.m., but I can't stop giggling over "fetid pretender." I'd rep you if I hadn't already done so recently.

Re: Romantic Villians I ran a game where a female PC (played by a female) with Irish heritage ended up going off with Shamrock in the middle of a battle to have a little fun. The running gag was that, of course she'd go off with Shamrock -- he's a natural at getting lucky!

Re: Things that work in comics but don't work in Champions One point on the "individual characters off doing different things" idea: I was in a game a GenCon where the GM did a knock-it-out-of-the-park excellent job of that, with a twist. The game was basically a series of flashbacks as a group of superheroes were being interviewed individually for a documentary about their group ("now" gone their separate ways). Throughout, the GM would pick one (or in one case, two) PCs and initiate an out-of-nowhere combat -- just one or two phases -- before going back to the interviews and roleplaying. By the time we got to the end, we found out that it all led up to one fight, spread over a large area. Each of the mini-combats, that seemed solo, were actually intros to the main combat, and since they were spread far enough apart, they stayed mainly solo against individual supervillains. Frickin' brilliantly done. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - As to mass combat, I wrote up some rules for running mass combat with groups of individuals run as "mass-individuals" and that worked pretty good. (The VIPER book mentioned a similar idea, but only very briefly.) A grouped set's base OCV, Damage Classes, and STUN went up, the exact amount depending upon how many made up a group. I went with doublings, so 4 individuals grouped had +2 OCV, +20 STUN, etc., a group of 8 had +3 OCV and +30 STUN, and so on. If you had more than a doubling level (for instance, 10 instead of 8 in a team), you got to do a bonus attack (usually with a weapon different from the main group's attack). For instance, ten VIPER agents, all armed with 10d6 EB blaster rifles and different specialty weapons, turn into one "character" with +3 OCV and 13d6 EB and +30 STUN (among other effects). During combat, one of the extra agents could do something individual (like throw a flash grenade, or threaten a hostage, or scream and run). Damage done to the group is reduced if it's a focused (single-target) attack, or normal if AOE or Explosion. And as the group takes damage, they lose effectiveness until they're down to one or two individuals. The tricky part was the odd attacks (Flashes, Drains, Entangles), and almost winging handling of the group using AOE and Explosion attacks. While it sounds like a lot of extra bookkeeping, most of that could be done up-front, making the actual combat faster.

Re: Last minute ideas for Sunday's game I guess I should think before hitting Submit... Following the idea of the mystical being transformed into a book, it could be a witch (good, naturally -- gotta love those Charmed babes...) who turned herself into a book (indestructible) to protect herself from DEMON, and linking herself to an "owner". As further protection, she can only be un-transformed by somebody *without* magical prowess (the hook to make the PCs a key part of the plot). Once they've figured it out and returned her to normal, she can be a useful NPC to consult on matters mystical. Of course, you may have your own ideas, or twist some aspect of mine. Hope all this helped. Let me know how it all turns out.

Re: Last minute ideas for Sunday's game Given the power level and number of PCs you mentioned, I'd either keep it just DEMON, or only have one Crown of Krim show up. That's if you wanted to follow the way I ran it. As an alternate idea, you could have the book go to one of the heroes (if the bookstore owner handed it to one of them to look at) if DEMON kills the owner. Make it only readable by that person -- the other PCs see gibberish. To creep them out, it could fortell events in a roundabout way, not details to help them too much, but enough clues to tip them off (perhaps leading to the battle across town). The big thing you need to decide is what the book really is. It could contain key information, or a major spell, or perhaps it's actually a mystical being transformed into a book. I kinda like that last idea.

Re: Last minute ideas for Sunday's game The book thing was my idea. Not sure if it will help you with this, but in my game the "owner" of the book has horrendous nightmares, robbing him of sleep and making him miserable, sick, and eventually suicidal. He got it from an estate sale, where the previous owner killed himself. Luckily, the storekeeper gave the book to one of the PCs who (IIRC) didn't require sleep. The book was the Book of Krim (among other things, it mentioned how the various crowns could be destroyed) and of course the Crowns of Krim came for it -- putting the heroes between DEMON and the Crowns. It culminated in a battle in a church (you know DEMON and the Crowns were hating that) while a priest cast an exorcism on the book to destroy it. Heroes taking shots aimed at the priest, and a mentalist (who tapped into the priest's mind to learn how) finishing the exorcism when the priest took a hit and couldn't finish. Very fun to run.

Re: The President wants to talk to you

Re: Need some "Smart" powers Mind Control with low dice but Cumulative; he talks people into doing what he wants done. Entangle, vs. INT: He talks circles round you logically! Invisibility, only vs. cameras and sensors -- he times the cycles. Dark Champions had a cool power that I liked: I'll Be There in Five Minutes (Teleportation, Mega Scale, Extra Time, OIF vehicle of opportunity); he's so smart he knows how to avoid traffic and cross the city in 5 minutes.

Re: Lemme know how you'd handle this power build... I definately agree with the VPP thought, and the pregen powers list as well. Maybe include a -1/4 Limitation to represent the likely variance in Size different forms present. (Since HERO does this as a Disadvantage but it's not a constant thing, it might be allowable as a Limitation on the VPP.) Since it requires animal DNA in the SFX, as a GM I'd suggest presenting the possibility of the player getting DNA from some mythical or fantastic animals. Nothing too fancy, but a pegasus or unicorn might make an interesting twist along the way.

Re: Pulp Hero I just finished playtesting a Pulp module I'm selling to Digital Hero, and my sample PC characters were 75/75, DEX 12-18, SPD 3-4. All had Combat Luck and some had super-skills or unique talents drawn up with Powers (no more than 20 Active Points). Normal equipment (including dynamite) cost no points, but a specialized Vehicle did. One character had homemade grenades that didn't cost points, but since there was a very limited number and they were underpowered compared to normal grenades, I didn't see that as a problem. I also included a Power-based talent I created, Amazing Saves, representing the pulp hero's ability to escape seemingly certain death. The playtest went well, though I have to patch a few minor bugs before I send it in to Dave. My players rock -- they went with the genre perfectly, even though they weren't exactly overjoyed to be running in it. And they gave me some great suggestions. For an ongoing campaign, I'd say 100/50 or 100/75 would be good point levels, too. Maybe even 125/75 depending on how they spend the points.

Re: Speedster Name Needed BTW, I'm drawing up a speedster brick in case Dave Mattingly runs his BYOB game at GenCon again. He mainly does move-bys and move-throughs; I'm naming him Pinball Whiz-Kid.

Re: Speedster Name Needed

Re: Utility Belt MP Actually, I don't really like using a Multipower for most Utility Belts, merely because most of the things can be used in unison, and some slots will take up most (or all) of the MP. So, using the DC belt, you can't use your Nightsight Monocular (14 Active Points), Miniature Climbing Rig (10 Active Points), and Laser Torch (10 Active Points) together to rappel down the side of a building and cut your way into the Big Baddie's office. Or the Nightsight and any of the Pellets (20-30 Active points each) to take out the guards inside. Generally, I go with a VPP with the restriction that powers must be drawn up in advance. Or buy powers individually.