BoloOfEarth

You can't Torquemada anything...

Then the villain should know how it could be done better as well. 
 
"Did I mention that monitor is on a taped delay?  (hits fast forward to show the room filling even faster and covering the hostage's head)"  Or maybe "To add a sense of emergency, in a few seconds explosives will soon seal off the only route to the damsel.  Tick, tock, hero..."  Or my fave:  "Before you think of taking me down first, be aware there's a device in the room that will trigger explosives to kill her instantly if it doesn't continue to hear my dulcet tones or contagious laughter."  (Then you can have the villain giving a running commentary as the hero saves the hostage... after first disabling the explosives.)
 
Of course, this is all pretty much moot against the typical team of heroes.  But against a solo hero, this type of situation can still be done if the villain puts some decent thought into it.  And the GM needs to stand firm and follow through on whatever threat is made, if the player still chooses to take on the villain before saving the hostage.

Then the villain should know how it could be done better as well. 
 
"Did I mention that monitor is on a taped delay?  (hits fast forward to show the room filling even faster and covering the hostage's head)"  Or maybe "To add a sense of emergency, in a few seconds explosives will soon seal off the only route to the damsel.  Tick, tock, hero..."  Or my fave:  "Before you think of taking me down first, be aware there's a device in the room that will trigger explosives to kill her instantly if it doesn't continue to hear my dulcet tones or contagious laughter."  (Then you can have the villain giving a running commentary as the hero saves the hostage... after first disabling the explosives.)
 
Of course, this is all pretty much moot against the typical team of heroes.  But against a solo hero, this type of situation can still be done if the villain puts some decent thought into it.  And the GM needs to stand firm and follow through on whatever threat is made, if the player still chooses to take on the villain before saving the hostage.

Then the villain should know how it could be done better as well. 
 
"Did I mention that monitor is on a taped delay?  (hits fast forward to show the room filling even faster and covering the hostage's head)"  Or maybe "To add a sense of emergency, in a few seconds explosives will soon seal off the only route to the damsel.  Tick, tock, hero..."  Or my fave:  "Before you think of taking me down first, be aware there's a device in the room that will trigger explosives to kill her instantly if it doesn't continue to hear my dulcet tones or contagious laughter."  (Then you can have the villain giving a running commentary as the hero saves the hostage... after first disabling the explosives.)
 
Of course, this is all pretty much moot against the typical team of heroes.  But against a solo hero, this type of situation can still be done if the villain puts some decent thought into it.  And the GM needs to stand firm and follow through on whatever threat is made, if the player still chooses to take on the villain before saving the hostage.

I tend to use homegrown villains; even when I use existing CU villains, I often rewrite them for personal preference (so my Howler may only bear a slight resemblance to the CU Howler).  And as such, they are often about the same point-level as the PC heroes, and I tend to use roughly the same number of villains as heroes in any given combat.  However, as someone else pointed out, point totals does not necessarily equal combat power level.
 
On a meta level, there are considerably more villains than heroes in my world, but that is partly by design.  My current Champions campaign started shortly after an event where a fair number of superheroes (including entire superhero teams) and numerous supervillains were pulled to another dimension by the Empress of a Billion Dimensions.  Due to the way this was done, a number of the supervillains who disappeared were "replaced" with villains from that other world, and a few heroes (or normal people) were likewise "replaced" with heroes from the other world.  However, individual heroes and hero teams are more likely to work together and to work with government agencies, while villains rarely work together except within their individual teams, and there's much more of a chance of infighting between villains / villain teams.  So (at least IMO) it doesn't matter so much if the world's villains outnumber the world's heroes 3:1, since a group of villains on any given plot isn't likely to outnumber the specific hero team 3:1.

Speaking as someone with a fair number of similar explanations, I understand completely.  Please know I wasn't trying to add undue pressure.   I just didn't want some great work to go unfinished.  And maybe remind you that any doubts about what you do have (as well as anxieties, if they relate to your writing ability) are quite possibly unfounded. 
 
The more I read, the more I'm certain that Lady Obsidian is grooming Eel to head up his own superhero team one day.  At least, she's trying to keep him using his head for more than a hat rack.

(To her credit, Pogo may have the best ideas)
 
I'll give the Hyadesians this much; they were willing to work around the rules. Of course, they were the ones establishing the rules so I guess I shouldn't be surprised they had made a practice of it. I honestly wonder if the first thing anyone learns once they set up a system is how to game it? Wouldn't it be odd If that was one of the great commonalities of all sapient species everywhere? Or maybe not so odd after all.
 
"Looks like, while it's a bit of a mess around the edges," I told Lady Obsidian, "That we've got all the pieces getting on the board, to use a chess analogy."
 
"oh really?" She said, "We have more heroes than they're ready for, have them injured while we're healthy again, and you have something Mr. Brute wants so you think his options are limited."
 
"I did think all that, but the way you're saying that makes me think we're not as on top as I think we are?" I raised a brow.
 
"We are not, for one thing, Slime and Pogo are here, Viewpoint is being tended to, but has it occurred to you that there's a wildcard we haven't been able to track down?"
 
Oh, it occurred, instantly, "Bloodwatch, you think they'll go after the psycho?"
 
"As we increasingly take options away, possibly, yes, and other targets among the police and the like too. I don't know Miser Brute, but it seems to me he doesn't like the idea of coming when whistled for. Oh you might get him, but he'll make at least one more big play. Fortunately, Tornado is on the case again and I'm working out some possibilities with Mabel."
 
"Any theories?" I said, "I mean, what will be his priorities besides a giant 'you're not the boss of me' move?"
 
"He can do the math, even if he doesn't know all of us are in good shape now. He's going to try to get back up," she says "Or, in lieu of that, enough distraction that we can't possibly be at full strength when it's time to tussle because our members will be split up"  Lady Obsidian said, "Mind you, I don't know the man, but you say this is bait he can't refuse. Doesn't mean he won't try to blow up the pier to make sure it gets in reach."
 
"Hey," I said after a moment, "That was kind of a folksy metaphor for a supergenius city slicker scientist."
 
"Yes, you're a very bad influence," She agreed with just enough humor in her voice, then more seriously, she said "you disagree with my take on his tactics?"
"No, I just don’t' know what form you being right will take," I frowned.
 
"That's what we have to figure out" she concurred "With less time, and no telepaths. Isn't superheroing fun?"
 
"Oh yeah, it's a hoot" I said, "I think I'll see what others think and then hope you, Mabel and Tornado can figure out later."
 
It turned out that superheroes are a bold and opinionated lot.
 
Arctic Fox was flat out clear in her opinion that yeah there would be trouble, "Mr. Brute may claim to be a tactical genius, but he's also herding some real nutbars in his group. We're talking folks who enjoy causing terror, and one of them a pyromaniac to boot. He's got to feed them raw meat sometime, and soon."
 
Pinprick wasn't as sure, "They stick their heads out, we might catch them early. Sure, we're playing defense, but we know the town better than them. If he lets someone 'go play' that someone is liable to get arrested and then he's down even more muscle. His son is on the line? He's going to want to stack the deck in his favor big time. You do not play with stakes that high and that personal."
 
"I still don't think he's going to sit on his thumb, and he's got to know that as we out number him, so what, he walks up to visit Eel at Dawn knowing we could jump them? I don't care how powerful they are, they can't take us all.  So, he has to change the game plan," Fox said.
 
Slime bubbled and 'spoke' in that way that he did, words forming, along with a stink that caused Arctic Fox to wrinkle her nose.
 
Can't you both be right? He will make a move because he must, but he will not divide his forces to do it. He needs muscle. I think you are both neglecting the largest source of possible followers for him in this city, one that even if they decline, will add to the chaos he needs.
 
"What source?" I raised a brow.
 
Prison. He will seek recruits in the prisons. He will form a break out. Sometimes I forgot that Slime was a prisoner too once, a victim of an evil empire with a story that I never did get all the details on.
 
"Project Tank is pretty far off," I said, not completely sold, "I mean, this city is a regular stopping point for them, but it's hardly…"
"No, wait, Slime's got a point," Pinprick said, "Sure, there's no super prison here but we have regular ones that if you broke everyone out at once, could be a real threat. And Project Tank runs things through all the time. Maybe Mr. Brute knows something we don't know about that?"
 
I groaned, "We've only got a few hours before dawn what do we do while we wait for Tornado to get the detective work and…"
 
There was a snoring sound from nearby. I turned to see Pogo , dozing hard on a sofa.

I’ve found out GMing is that what seems obvious to you may not be obvious to the players.

Except that, AIUI, presidential candidates already practically ignore large swaths of the country and concentrate most of their effort on key "battleground" states.  (And what's so damned important about Ohio and Florida anyway?)  Do they really visit low-population states as it is?  It doesn't seem that way to me.

There aren't any saints running for president, at least none that will ever get close enough to the job that you ever hear of them.
 
Back when I was applying for college my mom recommended that I claim the native american that family legend says that I possess to give me a edge in the process.  It didn't seem right to me so I firmly told mom, "No".
 
However, if Elizabeth Warren making the opposite decision that I did is the worst thing that they that they can find about her, then by politician standards she might as well be a saint.  Barack Obama was a former druggy,  George W was a draft dodger.  Bill Clinton was a serial adulterer.  George H Bush denounced the historic 1964 Civil Rights Act when running for senate in Texas not because he didn't believe in civil rights, but because he believed more in getting elected and he knew racism played well in Texas.  Ronald Reagan was another adulterer and helped Joseph McCarthy ruin peoples lives.  Okay, Jimmy Carter was and is pretty much a saint, but he was a lousy president and the only reason that he got elected was because after Nixon the country was desperate for a good man.
 
Still, as a nation we a very sanguine about the fact that the men that run for the highest office in the nation have dishonorable actions on their records.  Yet
for some reason, we seem unwilling to allow female candidates the same human moral frailty. 

I have yet to have a player say, "Hey, I paid points for [thing] but it's never come into play."  Then again, I also haven't ever had a player complain, "I got points for [Complication] but it's never come into play." 
 
As GM I do try to work in various odd bits that characters have paid for.  (For example, Circe the mentalist has KS: Fashion, so I had her interact with a supervillain - who worked as a male model before getting his powers - having a relatively long discussion about superhero / supervillain fashions in the middle of a fight, rather than actually, y'know, fighting.)
 
Sometimes, it's up to the player to find ways to use the things he paid for.  If a character has Bureaucratics and the team is investigating an office building they suspect is owned by VIPER, there's nothing stopping that hero from going down to City Hall and finding a way to get the building's blueprints, or tracking down the building's ownership, or whatever else might be useful.

Hey, what happens on New Vegas Colony, stays on New Vegas Colony. 

Just in case someone thought this was real and the spokesperson was just being metaphorical, I should point out that site has "UK Spoof News and Satire" emblazoned at the top.
 
Though honestly, if that's what it takes to keep her from announcing her candidacy, I'll contribute the chair and sock.  Heck, I'll even be nice and make it a nice clean sock. 

Hey, what happens on New Vegas Colony, stays on New Vegas Colony. 

Just in case someone thought this was real and the spokesperson was just being metaphorical, I should point out that site has "UK Spoof News and Satire" emblazoned at the top.
 
Though honestly, if that's what it takes to keep her from announcing her candidacy, I'll contribute the chair and sock.  Heck, I'll even be nice and make it a nice clean sock. 

OK. Mega Man, you have been away from your wife for nearly a fortnight,  You are now in love with Velatrix the Space Fox.  Carry on.
 
What we should probably do, in practice, is have a certain number of Complication points that directly relate to the character and how the character is played, like Susceptibility, Vulnerability, (most) Psychological and Physical Complications, Accidental Change, Unluck and Dependence - stuff they take with them where ever they go, and leave the DNPCs, Hunteds, Reputations and Rivalries for the GM to assign (perhaps at your suggestion) as they come up in the game you are actually playing.
 
You can have family in your background write-up, but it should be up to the GM whether they actually form part of the story.

Except that, AIUI, presidential candidates already practically ignore large swaths of the country and concentrate most of their effort on key "battleground" states.  (And what's so damned important about Ohio and Florida anyway?)  Do they really visit low-population states as it is?  It doesn't seem that way to me.

..or the drunk GM.
 
Of course, you can my friend.  You're my best friend.  I love you.
I NEVER SAID THAT!  I hate you.  You're attacked by rabid chickens
What?  What?  Who said that?
God, I need a kebab...

Colorado close to passing National Popular Vote bill
 
If passed they would enter the NPV Interstate Compact (which I was unaware of till today).
 
Apparently, the NPVIC is currently composed of 11 states totaling 172 electoral votes.  Once the Compact reaches 270 votes it would then declare all its electoral votes for whomever wins the popular vote in the Presidential election.

You can't Torquemada anything...

I didn't expect that

This thread reminded me of an adventure I ran once in my Champions campaign.  Through some method I don't recall, all of the PCs temporarily lost their superpowers.  At the same time, ARGENT kidnapped one of the PC's DNPCs and squirreled him off to Sealand.  (For those not familiar, it's a former WWII gun fort off the coast of England - outside the territorial limit at the time -- that got taken over and declared a sovereign nation I think back in the 1960s.   In my campaign, I decided it had been taken over by ARGENT in the 1990s and built up a bit more.)  So the PCs had to sneak in and rescue the DNPC, all without powers. 
 
I allowed them to bring any normal stuff they wanted, as long as they wrote it down beforehand and it wasn't too heavy/bulky.  I still remember when they were being chased up an enclosed circular stairway by ARGENT guards, and one of the players said, "I dump my bag of marbles down the stairs."  I laughed and said, "Yeah, sure would be nice to have a bunch of marbles right now."  And he pointed to the middle of his list.  I'll be damned if he didn't have "Bag of marbles" in the middle, right after "duct tape" and before "super glue (6 tubes)".  And yes, all of that super glue got used, too.
 
The free equipment use pretty much made that adventure awesome.

All from the same show, same character:
 
Okay, who gave Fargo a gun?
 
I know that you have a device that can...create a wormhole, or, uh, bend time, or make you invisible...or a wormholing, time-bending, invisibling device, that shields you from the mind.
 
[armed with a flamethrower] Unless you want me to roast your chestnuts, back off!
 
In a town full of super geniuses, why is it that the pizza guy is the only guy with the presence of mind to walk out the door?!
 
Taggart said the combustion was caused by meson particles coming from a solar flare. I'm no astrophysicist but I don't think there are a lot of solar flares inside a house.
 
I used to think the same thing. But, uh, they're not lunatics. They're, they're not all luna—there's a fine line between genius and crazy..

This thread reminded me of an adventure I ran once in my Champions campaign.  Through some method I don't recall, all of the PCs temporarily lost their superpowers.  At the same time, ARGENT kidnapped one of the PC's DNPCs and squirreled him off to Sealand.  (For those not familiar, it's a former WWII gun fort off the coast of England - outside the territorial limit at the time -- that got taken over and declared a sovereign nation I think back in the 1960s.   In my campaign, I decided it had been taken over by ARGENT in the 1990s and built up a bit more.)  So the PCs had to sneak in and rescue the DNPC, all without powers. 
 
I allowed them to bring any normal stuff they wanted, as long as they wrote it down beforehand and it wasn't too heavy/bulky.  I still remember when they were being chased up an enclosed circular stairway by ARGENT guards, and one of the players said, "I dump my bag of marbles down the stairs."  I laughed and said, "Yeah, sure would be nice to have a bunch of marbles right now."  And he pointed to the middle of his list.  I'll be damned if he didn't have "Bag of marbles" in the middle, right after "duct tape" and before "super glue (6 tubes)".  And yes, all of that super glue got used, too.
 
The free equipment use pretty much made that adventure awesome.

Really bad hilt ergonomics?