Darren Watts

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game I read somewhere of a Vampire: The Masquerade player who designed a PC with the Negative Mental Trait: Obsessively Counts Everything Around Him and went several sessions before anybody noticed the reference. dw

Hey all! First chat of the New Year, 9:00 pm EST in the chatroom, so don't miss it! dw

Re: End Of Year Blowout Sale! Hey all! Remember, the sale ends the 31st, so get your orders in ASAP, and thanks! dw

Hey all! Time to give your advice on this year's all-star game, which I'll be running at cons all year long. I've already decided to dip back to the misty origins of the All-Stars and run another Victorian adventure in 1885, since it predates DOJ and most people didn't see that one. (Those who were stumping for Los Angeles 1955, do not fret- that will probably be next year's.) So the PCs will definitely include Sherlock Holmes, the Lone Ranger and Tonto (played by two players, since Tonto himself is both pretty dang useful and a hoot to roleplay), and Alice of Wonderland fame. I haven't decided yet on the last two; some possibilities include Kwai Chang Caine, the Rifleman, Jim West, Phileas Fogg, the extant Phantom and Dr. Doolittle. Anybody else come to mind? Also, need more suggestions for general filler concepts and secondary villains. (For example, Angelus, Drusilla, Darla and Spike are currently wandering the world together committing various heinous acts- they're always fun to toss into a story.) So help me out- what needs to be in the game? dw

Re: "Sense Motive" In Hero Haven't you heard? In Sixth Edition everything will be built off of "Transform"- if you want to shoot someone, you just Transform target into target with a bullet hole in him. To move, you just Transform, yourself to yourself over there. To learn something, you transform yourself into yourself plus one fact. (I can't take credit for this- it's all Derek Hiemforth's fault.) dw

Re: Lucha Hero No "h" in Bruja in Spanish, btw. And "verde" is right masculine or feminine. dw

Plenty of organizational goodness for Champions, now on sale in the store, so don't say we never warned you! dw

Plenty of organizational goodness for Champions, now on sale in the store, so don't say we never warned you! dw

Re: Return To Doctor Han's Island (advice needed) Well, "Shaolin Temple" is 1982, so Jet Li could be in if you wanted. Indeed, many of the actors you listed played characters who plausibly could have been in such a tournament before their respective movies, if you decide you want to backdate somebody in. If Jackie's the same guy in all his movies, then you could add Sammo Hung's "Fats" from "Project A." Or Angela Mao? Or even Cheng Pei Pei as a master swordswoman? David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine (not the 19th Century one, but the grandson from the TV series?) Satoru Sayama as Tiger Mask? Or Antonio Inoki, if you want a Japanese character with an incredibly bizarre-but-true backstory? Mr. T? As himself, or as recently-retired heavyweight champ Clubber Lang, or even as B. A. Baracus? dw

Re: NYC GA Playtest finally under way SPDs all either 3 or 4, CVs in the 5-8 range, defs range from I believe 8 on the low side to 21 PD for the brick, biggest attack on the team is a 2d6K by a brick with enough strength to double it, though the martial artist can get 7d6 and has FW besides. It's 1938- I expect all the PCs will be standard 350 (but have gotten there with 100 xp) by Pearl Harbor. dw

Re: NYC GA Playtest finally under way So, the first two sessions have been devoted to the team coming together in the face of the "Martian" (Sirian) invasion of New Jersey, October 30, 1938. Nothing like an alien invasion to bring together all the local heroes into a team. I've basically used the Welles broadcast for all the background, including Dr. Richard Pierson as an NPC helping our decidedly non-scientific heroes figure out what's going on (and hauling unconscious Martians back to his lab at Princeton for some analysis.) The PCs stopped the first alien crew from even building their tripod, though they had a couple of tricky moments with the heat ray (which fried a cop.) After defeating that pair, they saw half-a-dozen more "meteors" raining down on New York City in the distance. The Hussar: "Umm, that's not good." Session #2 was pretty much outright battle with the hastily assembled tripods in the streets of New York, as well as figuring out their characters and tactics (three of four players are either brand new or largely unfamiliar with Hero.) "The Professor" very quickly figured out his small VPP of spells was much more soundly used from a tactical standpoint "buffing up" Hussar than anything he could do directly on his own. Also, trucks driven at high speeds make excellent weapons. I'm pretty satisfied with the tripod builds (and thanks to Proditor for letting me see his much more powerful builds for his own Victorian-era game for comparisons)- these are just nasty enough to give 3-4 250-point heroes a tough time, but not unbeatable. Also, introduced Mara the Sea Hawk as GMNPC/mouthpiece, as she helped the team defeat two tripods attacking the 59th Street Bridge. dw

Re: Horror Playtest We literally *just* started- we don't have much of anything written beyond notes. We're playtesting concepts, and noting genre and GM advice. dw

So I've also started the horror playtest, run on occasional Saturdays at Complete Strategist on 33rd St, with Karmakaze and Tomd1969 as two of my players (I think Roland is also on the boards here occasionally, but I'm not sure of his screen name). We have a good mix of investigative PCs so far, with almost no combat abilities (which is good for horror, but not intentional): a psychic with limited control who hates crowds, a hacker conspiracy-theorist, a Kolchakian reporter with a nose for trouble, and a resurrected Civil War-era soldier who killed the necromancer who brought him back to unlife and is now searching to become a Real Boy. We're starting off with a very Unknown Armies-style "Postmodern Magic" horror setup, and two sessions in we've already dug up our first grave, so I consider it a success so far. I'll post here occasionally to let people know how it's going... dw

Re: Star Trek’s 10 Cheesiest Classic Creatures In one of the Diane Duane books (might be "Spock's World") an anonymous poster on the Enterprise's internal message boards (!) makes a couple of snarky posts about their current situation. McCoy reads it and says, "I wish I posted that." Kirk says, "I thought it might have *been* you," and McCoy chuckles. "Nah, my spelling always gives me away." dw

That's right, gang! Hero's having a year-end blowout, so take advantage of our temporary madness by grabbing most books in the store at 25% off, along with even bigger deals on selected damaged titles and a host of new bundles! You'll kick yourself for missing this one! dw

Re: Random Lucha update Steve's right. That said, there's not *that* much difference between professional lucha and American pro wrestling, and the world of pro lucha is pretty darned important to the setting, so there's a decent amount of information there that an enterprising reader could bend and twist to suit himself. Certainly lucha as a "martial art" is well-covered, with maneuvers and shticks, and a couple of the "campaign settings" discussed focus more on the in-ring drama and get a couple paragraphs each. In order to understand the inevitable portion of each movie spent actually in the ring, there's info on life as a professional wrestler, a glossary of wrestling terms in both English and Spanish, and even a brief history of wrestling itself (though heavily weighted towards the Mexican history, not detailing what's gone on in America.) There *are* rules for pins, submissions and chair shots, as well as heat and pop, that a "Wrestling Hero" GM could use as a foundation. (In fact, Jason has developed far more detail than is probably necessary on Lucha as a martial art, and right now I'm planning to keep a lot of his extra work and make a separate, probably PDF-only book of "Lucha maneuvers and shticks" as a supplement for a couple bucks.) But mostly it's about luchadores as adventurers, whether they're fighting monsters, mobsters, mad scientists or spies. The plan is to be a Ninja Hero (with a sprinkle of UMA and Dark Champs) for the world of Lucha- NH doesn't try to be a guide to full-contact PKA competitions, but it does give useful info for running a wild-and-crazy Enter The Dragon-style tournament. Lucha movies are about wrestling like Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan movies are about real martial arts- they're not *unrelated*, but it does leave out much of the point. dw

The Lucha manuscript passed 100,000 words today, not including whatever portion of Sidekick we wind up putting in. I'm guessing about a net of 25,000 words to go, though it's actually a bit more to be added because there's still some trimming needed in a couple of chapters. dw

Re: NYC GA Playtest finally under way Dunno about anything so formal, but I think I'll just post irregularly to this thread about what's going on... dw

Finally getting the local Golden Age playtest started. My group seems to have all chosen "weird magic" in their character backgrounds, without my being involved much in that part. Not something I planned on, but I can certainly use. The PCs are: Justice: Our dark vigilante. Formerly a mob lieutenant, he underwent a near-death-experience and conversion that convinced him to turn his life around, as well as apparently somehow giving him the uncanny ability to detect when other people are in danger. Since he's rebuilding his life and identity, he's living in a Bowery shelter while protecting the streets at night in trenchcoat and fedora, kind of a cut-rate Rorschach but saner. Guardian Angel: The real deal, an actual angel sent from Heaven. Or so he believes, anyway. Armed with his mighty wings and mystical spear and shield, all he knows is that God is preparing him for a mission involving some great tribulation on Earth in the near future. Think Hawkman with Spectre's background but not near his power level. The Hussar: A former Polish secret agent with Gypsy-granted magical abilities allowing him to draw great strength from the very Earth itself, this hero has come to America to help oppose the sneaking menace of Communism. Oh, and Fascism, but we all know that's a much smaller problem, right? Dr. Something: The player's still coming up with a name, but what we know so far is that he's a German member of the Trismegistus Council whose former associates joined the RSvKg. Horrified by what they were up to, he fled to safer climes and is now researching the nature of magic and superpowers while opposing all their villainous activities (and rooting out the Circle while he's at it.) I'll keep updating as we go, but the group certainly looks like fun so far. dw

Re: Hero's List That's the most ludicrously one-sided list I've ever seen, and factually wrong at least a dozen times. Comic book portrayals of minorities in general certainly have a lot to answer for historically, but wild claims like this don't help the cause. dw

Re: What is your favourite Masks (Luhadore Masks) I'm intimately familiar with luchawiki, thanks. It's great for match history and basic biographies, less so for any sort of detail on individual luchadores or historical data before the late '90s. Like most wikis, a good place to start and figure out where else you need to go for real info. Also, it's pretty spoilerrific if you also watch the weekly matches on Galavision, since they're regularly delayed before being shown here by anywhere from weeks to months. dw

Re: Best Published Superhero Adventure?

Re: What is your favourite Masks (Luhadore Masks) Avispo Escarlata's concentric-circle bullseye mask is one of my personal faves, as is Rayo de Jalisco's jagged thunderbolt. But the best mask ever is Tinieblas's, because of how it stands out against the sea of others in context. It's like the Never Mind The Bollocks of lucha masks. http://www.ellatinoonline.com/news.php?nid=7011 dw

Is tonight in the chatroom, 6pm PST/9 EST. Come hear how Gencon's shaping up, what's next on the schedule, and how the Big Move to NYC is going. dw

Re: Lucha Libre by Humanoid's Publishing As we've discovered, the San Ramon Marriott staff gets really unhappy when we run around in masks. Though a couple of years ago we did lay a massive smackdown on Jason while he was running a Lucha game. Tina even gave him an airplane spin. What I love about that story is that even when we all busted in to beat him up (Tina and I in masks, and Dave Weinstein in dark glasses) as he was GMing, his first instinct was not to cover up or run away but to reach for his own mask in a bag under his chair. Whatta man. Maybe we'll ask permission in advance for a masked event next year. Or just do a run-in on the SCA guys hittting each other with sticks. dw