Darren Watts

The Allston estate *definitely* owns the rights to all of Aaron's work. There aren't any ambiguities there. dw

Well, the Justest Men survived playtest and are going on the road, premiering at Dreamation the 20th. The final playtest went well, with Princess Diana barely saving Prince Bruce from death-by-Omega-Sanction and King Orin abruptly ending the career of Duke Luthor. Now I have to pretty up the character sheets. dw

The system is designed to use a stopwatch which has hundredths of a second as the "d10 generator." This does mean you can play it at the table with actual d10s as well, of course. dw

Second playtest went very well- the heroes were suckered into a trap by the Legion of Doom, with the aid of Felix Faust and the Demons Three who barely need any changes to fit into a Shakespeare play. With a bit of tightening up, this just might work. Next up, Darkseid! dw

First exposure of the character sheets to the playtesters went well last night, and the first actual play is scheduled for next week. This will either be incredibly cool or an utter disaster. dw

The All-Stars game for 2014 is inspired by a failed proposal Steve Englehart once sent to DC called "The Tragedy of Batman, the Prince of Denmark." We have little else beyond that to go on, but the mere existence of the title wormed itself into my brain until I had a What If? adventure positing that the iconic Justice League had all been created by William Shakespeare. Here, for example, is Prince Bruce of Gotham, whose father was mysteriously killed and then his ghost reappeared to him (as a bat in part of the vision, as a bone-white figure in a green cloak for the rest) to press him to solve his murder and avenge him. His mother, Queen Martha, remarried while Bruce was abroad, to a portly lord named Sir Oswald of Cobblepot. Bruce has begun his search by terrorizing the underworld of Gotham while dressed as a bat. [cs]Prince Bruce of Gotham, aka “The Bat” Val Char Cost Roll Notes 20 STR 10 13- Lift 400 kg; 4d6 HTH damage [2] 20 DEX 20 13- 20 CON 10 13- 20 INT 10 13- PER Roll 13- 20 EGO 10 13- 25 PRE 15 14- PRE Attack: 5d6 7 OCV 20 7 DCV 20 3 OMCV 0 3 DMCV 0 5 SPD 30 Phases: 3, 5, 8, 10, 12 8 PD 6 Total: 14 PD (6 rPD) 6 ED 4 Total: 12 ED (6 rED) 8 REC 4 40 END 4 13 BODY 3 40 STUN 10 Total Characteristics Cost: 176 Movement: Running: 12m/24m Swinging: 16m/32m Cost Powers END 10 Bat-Sword: HKA 1d6+1 (2-1/2d6 w/ STR) (OAF) 2/4 5 Bat-knives: HKA 1/2d6 (1d6+1 w/ STR), RBOStr (+1/4); OAF (-1), 10 ch. (-1/4) 0/2 8 Bat-Rope: Swinging 16m (OAF) 6 Bat Costume: Resistant Protection (3 PD/ 3 ED); OIF (-1/2) 4 Perching: Clinging (20 STR); Only To “Perch” (-1/2), Requires Climbing Roll (-1/2), No Resist (-1/4) Martial Arts: Fencing (Weapon Element Rapier is free) Maneuver OCV DCV Notes (Damage Assumes STR) 3 Cut +2 +1 2.5dK 4 Disarm -1 +1 30 STR Disarm 4 Parry +2 +2 Block, Abort 3 Trip +2 -1 5d6 Strike, Target Falls 4 Void - +5 Dodge, Abort Martial Arts: Brawling Maneuver OCV DCV Notes 4 Escape +0 +0 40 STR vs. Grabs 3 Grapple -1 -1 Grab 2 Limbs, 35 STR to hold 4 Pressure Point -1 +1 2-1/2d6 NND 4 Strike +0 +2 7d6 Strike 4 +1 DC with Brawling Perks 15 Filthy Rich 5 Contact: Gordon 11- 5 FB: Prince of Gotham 5 Base: Cave beneath Stately Wayne Castle Talents 6 A Handsome Fellow: Striking Appearance +2/+2d6 6 Combat Luck (3 PD/ 3 ED) Skills 16 +2 HTH 6 +2 with Concealment, Shadowing and Stealth 3 Acrobatics 13- 3 Acting 14- 3 Breakfall 13- 3 Charm 14- 3 Climbing 13- 3 Concealment 13- 3 Contortionist 13- 3 Deduction 13- 3 Disguise 13- 3 Eavesdropping 13- 3 Fast Draw 13- 3 High Society 14- 3 Interrogation 14- 3 AK: Gotham 13- 3 KS: The Underworld 13- 3 Lockpicking 13- 3 Paramedics 13- 3 Persuasion 14- 3 PS: Prince 13- 3 Shadowing 13- 3 Stealth 13- 3 Streetwise 14- 2 WF: Common Melee Total Powers & Skills Cost: 199 Total Cost: 375 300 Matching Complications (60) 15 DNPC: Queen Martha 10 Hunted: Watched By King Oswald 20 Psych Comp: Seeks Justice (Particularly His Father’s Killer) (Com, Tot) 15 Social Comp: Secret Identity (Freq., Major) Total Complications Points: 60 Experience Points: 75

I agree, but alas I'm not in charge of this one. dw

I agree, but alas I'm not in charge of this one. dw

Shane Harsch, actual writer of the book. He's mudpyr8 around here, IIRC. dw

I'm not sure where you got the idea it "only required conversion to 6th Ed" - it will include the entire rules set necessary for play, rewritten to match the setting and new rules included. It's a massive project. I agree and share your concern about how late it is, but Shane is going as quickly as he can, and it's by no means vaporware. dw

Ah, so much this. Yeah, Hero is "just not interested." It's got nothing to do with the fact that the entire PNP fanbase of Hero is less than 1% of the number of players you need to have a successful MMO, or that Champions Online itself cost more than 100 times the annual revenue of Hero to make as it was. Why, if Hero's owners weren't snoozing away at their desks, who knows what they could accomplish? dw

I don't think it can hurt. Everybody gets that nothing would be official or even close yet, right? RIGHT? dw

The "Champions" part of Golden Age Champions is effectively done, all the character sheets and writeups. It's the "World of the 1940s" portion that's taking me forever now, in and around the various other things I'm actually getting paid for. Someday soon, I'll be close enough for a Kickstarter. dw

At the time, the write-ups for the Silver Age characters in the Sentinels and Fab Five were as "official" as it got, since I created them. Of course, that may no longer apply, but I intend for them all to show up again in Silver Age Champions when I get to writing that (I've been playtesting a campaign of it for almost a year now.) dw

Re: Status of Narosia Hey guys! Narosia has run quite a bit slower than we'd originally hoped, between the extra work required to convert it from a supplement to a standalone product, to Shane's day job taking up a lot more of his time than expected, to Ken getting his new full-time position at Pelgrane. I had hoped to meet with Shane at Dreamation this past week to work out final details on the manuscript, but his day job forced him to cancel the trip. It continues to be worked on, and as soon as we have useful, reliable news about hitting its various milestones we'll share that with everybody. In the meantime, if you have any questions you can always check in with me, but I promise if the answers are anything other than "we'll let you know as soon as it clears the next hurdle" I'll publish that info. Our sincerest apologies for the continued delays! dw

Re: Silver Age Champions playtest begins! "Shadows Of The Past" Part II was another episode that was mostly fight scene, as our heroes engaged a pack of Atlanteans led by the mysterious Carcharius and a giant squid-monster that was attacking a US Destroyer. They discovered the ship was unable to fire back at the monster because the Atlanteans were armed with a "super-magnetizing" device that magnetized the entire ship (particularly notable when Atomic Eye landed on the ship and was immediately slammed to the deck because of his armor and helmet.) However, the heroes were able to hold off the monster while defeating the Atlanteans, turning off the magnetizer and allowing the Decatur to shell the squid until it fled. Carcharius was taken prisoner and Veil read his mind, revealing that Atlantis had been taken over by a masked man calling himself Black Tide and who was armed with an array of unusual gadgets and devices. The populace had been mind-controlled in some way to follow him, and Mara apparently escaped while suffering her amnesia. Veil used her mental powers to revise Carcharius' memories and make him think he'd escaped on his own, and then the team resolved to secretly follow him back to Atlantis. On the way, Moko called in again, reporting that several coastal cities around the world were reporting record high tides... dw

Re: Silver Age Champions playtest begins! "Shadows Of The Past, Part I." However, the Exonauts didn't rest on their laurels. As 1959 turned into 1960, the team continued to analyze the alien technology and consult on the efforts by the Directorate of Scientific Intelligence to communicate with the Vervoids. Feeling some pressure to prepare for any additional attempts at alien invasion, Rift and Widget set to work improving the Exonautilus for extended space travel, with an eye towards a moon mission in the near future. Myriad's work was interrupted by a visit from her ex-husband Albert, who managed in one conversation to complain about how DeVries had treated him since she left his employ, suggest he regretted divorcing her and would be interested in getting back together, and to threaten the team subtly by suggesting that much of their technology had been developed on DeVries' time and dime (largely untrue, but DeVries has a massive legal budget to make their lives difficult.) Myriad maintained her equilibrium during the conversation, but destroyed an impressive portion of the team's office supplies in anger after he left. Discussion of the DeVries situation was shelved, though, upon the news of a monster smashing up the small resort town of Bar Harbor, Maine. The team arrived on site about an hour after the creature had rampaged out of the sea, up the beach and through town, destroying several buildings including the town's only department store. They met the mayor, a wheelchair-bound woman in her late 30s named Amy Levesque, who seemed maybe to know more about the monster than she was willing to let on, saying only that if she was wrong she'd be "betraying a confidence," but desiring to accompany the team as they followed the monster's trail up the coast through thick forest. Eventually the team arrived at the only building for miles in that direction, the abandoned St. Anne's Orphanage on the rocky coastline. Amy revealed that she had once been an orphan at the home there, but hadn't revisited the place in many years. She seemed disappointed not to find anyone there, until the team stumbled upon a woman in a long overcoat and hat staring at the place. She seemed to have a skin condition of some sort, and a wild look in her eyes. Amy called out to the figure: "Mara, is that you?" As the woman turned, reveaing her "skin condition" to be hastily-applied pink makeup over her green skin, the monster leapt from the woods to attack her. A brawl of course erupted, as the heroes found themselves fighting both the monster (a sort of crocodile-hippo with a forked tongue and nasty claws) and a panicked Mara, who seemed to think the heroes were fellow Atlanteans sent to bring her back to marry the usurper Dargon. Once order had been restored, Veil was able to use telepathy to reveal Mara's backstory (see Hidden Lands if you don't know it), and that something had happened to her to give her amnesia and make her think she was 16 again, fleeing her father's killer as she had in 1936. As Amy helped calm her down and fill her in on what had happened (at least that Amy knew, up until Mara and Atlantis closed itself off to Landers after WWII), Moko called on the team's radio. "How's that search for the sea monster going? Because there's another one, bigger this time, fighting the USS Decatur off the coast of Brazil..." dw

Re: Silver Age Champions playtest begins! "Earth Vs. The Exonauts Part III" was basically a big fight scene, as the Exonauts battled their alien duplicates in an epic scrum across the roof of the fort while Matterhorn smashed up the elipton-generating machine. After the heroes were finally victorious, they took their alien captives and General Erstad back to Washington DC to have their names cleared, while the public revelation of the role of the Vervoids in ramping up international tensions convinced the White House an Kremlin to take their thumbs off the buttons. The aliens were taken to a secret military base in the desert for interrogation, but to date they have been uncommunicative... dw

Re: Silver Age Champions playtest begins! "Earth Vs. The Exonauts, Part II: If An Eye Offend Thee" begins with our heroes questioning the hideous eyeball-creature alien in the Exonautilus. He reveals he is a Vervoid, part of an alien invasion force from a distant planet who have decided to conquer the Earth because our recent discovery of nuclear technology marks us as potentially dangerous to them. He knows little of their plans beyond his own assignment of replacing General Erstad, because the Vervoids who can shapeshift into a single other form at a time are part of the inferior Infiltrator Caste, and since he has failed his mission he wishes only to be killed honorably, which the heroes decide not to do. They consider taking him directly to the United Nations to prove their innocence, but while they're still flying around they pick up a worldwide broadcast by their evil duplicates telling the world's governments they must step down and prepare to be conquered by the Vervoid fleet. Realizing that with the governments of the US and the USSR near panic they might not have time to argue their innocence, they instead tell the alien to lead them to their base, which he's surprisingly willing to do. He explains that he hopes his fellow Vervoids will then kill him and expunge his dishonor. Meanwhile, Matterhorn wakes up in the Vervoid base to discover he's manacled in a box with bonds too powerful even for his great strength. His Vervoid captor snarks away at him a bit, revealing that they've learned a great deal about his teammates from Mento-Scanning him. Since they soon will have no further use for him, the guard speculates that his brain will indeed be tasty, and that he should be afraid because "the enzymes of frightened prey animals are a particular delicacy." Matterhorn only snidely requests that the aliens put Veil's doppelganger in the cell with him, since he's had no luck getting the real one to date him yet. As the Exonautilus approaches the alien base on a deserted island off the coast of Morocco, Rift realizes that his body temperature is beginning to rise within the suit, and simultaneously the engines are getting a bit balky (since he knows the ship "like the back of his glove.") They peel away and decide to emergency land in the ocean, whereupon some experimenting detects an energy field emanating from the island that seems to interact negatively with radiation sources, like Rift himself, Atomic Eye's blasts and the Radium X fuel cells. Widget hits upon studying the alien's blaster to figure out how it's own fuel cells are shielded from the effect, and then builds a duplicate protective field for the heroes. Back in the alien HQ, Matterhorn hears the aliens arguing over how the heroes might have avoided what they call the "elipton field." As the Exonautilus arrives at the island, they decide it doesn't matter any more, and send the villainous doppelgangers to the surface to battle their heroic counterparts. An epic battle breaks out between the good and evil Exonauts, which rages across the island. Since the Vervoids can't duplicate, there are simply two aliens playing evil Myriad, and one of them is the first to go down. Good and evil Widget both shrink down to engage in tiny fisticuffs. Red Raven manages to sketch out enough of the battle in her mind in advance to be able to move acrobatically through the melee, distracting many of the villains enough to cause their attacks to go awry; she then reveals heretofore unsuspected martial arts training from her dad and clobbers her counterpart. Meanwhile, Matterhorn takes advantage of the distractions upstairs to escape from his cell, and rescues the real General Erstad from a similar cell before smashing his way through a number of beeping consoles and screens to join the fight outside. The sides seem evenly matched, and as the battle continues, the White House and Kremlin order their respective bomber squadrons to prepare for launch... dw

Re: Silver Age Champions playtest begins! Don't say I never did nothin' for ya. dw

Re: Silver Age Champions playtest begins! "Earth Vs. The Exonauts: The Killer Inside" begins with a quick recap of Matterhorn and Atomic Eye robbing the charity auction, followed by similar vignettes of Veil, Widget and Rift destroying an Atlas-Able rocket on the Cape Canaveral tarmac and Myriad and Red Raven stealing important defense plans out from under the noses of military poobahs at the Pentagon. We finally end up with Eisenhower himself approving General Erstad's plan to form a joint military task force under the aegis of the hush-hush Department of Scientific Intelligence to capture the Exonauts. The military arrives at Myriad's New Jersey lab, where they take her and Rift into custody (but Widget surreptitiously slips into her labcoat pocket while shrunk.) Meanwhile, Matterhorn has gone missing entirely, but the other three members are at the Bensalem cave base when RR's comical island sidekick Moko (a carryover NPC from the Golden Age game) arrives with the international newspapers and clues them in on what's happening. For a second time Chief Zuba is faced with a US Navy cruiser off his coast, but the team avoids putting him in a rough diplomatic situation when they decide to take advantage of Moko's unscrupulous past as a smuggler and slip off the island in secret. Myriad and Rift are put in special metal cells at Fort Nearby (since I didn't know the name of any military bases in New Jersey- Tim insisted it was pronounced Near-bee) and provided a court-appointed lawyer. Widget pokes around stealthily and discovers the cells themselves are wired with a nasty electrical field clearly beyond the technological capacity of the 1959 US Army. The other members come up with a plan they hope will smoke out whoever is framing them, letting Chief Zuba spread the word that they fled to Russia and were apparently arrested there. This story blows up in the press (and is denied by the Soviets), but is rapidly followed by word that Soviet missile bases have also been sabotaged (which the Soviets also deny.) Our heroes are puzzled and struggle to make the connection. Meanwhile, at Fort Nearby Myriad is nearly killed when poison gas is pumped into the cells, but Rift is fortunately immune and rescues her, busting out of the cells and fighting soldiers. Widget sneaks the Exonautilus out of the base and brings the rest of the team for a quick flyby rescue. General Erstad goes on TV and demands the Exonauts surrender, exaggerating the violence of their escape and threatening them with the entire Armed Forces. The team decides to snatch him instead, grabbing him out of his office late at night with Veil's telekinesis. He puts up much more of a fight than expected, even drawing an impressive-looking raygun to blast Myriad, but is finally knocked out, at which point his body begins to shimmer and then shift into that of a hideous alien with a giant eyeball-head and four arms...

Re: Experience with Narosia We're rewriting the portions that need to be changed since the book went from being a supplement for Hero, to being a standalone book for Silverback with all the rules you need. So we apologize if we're pretty heads-down at the moment, but we're trying to do this as quickly as possible. dw

Re: Silver Age Champions playtest begins! Indeed, certainly one of the top five GURPS books, and a key precursor to Silver Age Champs specifically. dw

Re: Silver Age Champions playtest begins! "The Creeping Terror, Part II" begins in mid-battle between our heroes and some mutated octopi. Rift discovers the creature seems to feed on energy, and his blasts are unable to harm it, but at the same time the creature can't penetrate his protective suit, so the two battle to a draw until Matterhorn and Veil arrive to pitch in and rescue him. Meanwhile, Myriad and the base's sergeant kill another such beast in the sickbay. Quickly determining there may be more such beasties out there, Atomic Eye goes "fishing" and learns the creatures also find his atomic eyeblasts tasty, and uses the beam to lure one from the sea to the beach to be killed. Rift figures out the octopi can move in very tiny spaces when he discovers a second one trying to enter the Exonautilus through the engine's exhaust ports before it can drain the Radium X fuel pellets. Veil realizes the Russian sub might also be in danger, and uses the radio to contact them (telepathically learning Russian from the comatose Lt. Green first)- when they don't answer, she, Rift and Matterhorn fly the Exonautilus out to find them, surfaced twenty miles off shore. Rift opens the sub like a sardine can with his disintegration field, and they see the interior in chaos as Russian sailors battle dozens of the octopi with axes, broomsticks and pistols. They evacuate the soldiers and bring them back to the island. Meanwhile, Myriad and Widget get into the interior of the radar array, where a shrunken Widget discovers that most of the bottom floors have been taken over as a nest by Mom Octopod, who has grown far too large to leave the building without destroying it. Atomic Eye leads the remaining American soldiers on the island into their emergency underground concrete bunker for safety, but soon discover the bunker's ventilation shafts are full of octopi and beat a hasty retreat. Once Veil, Rift, and Matterhorn return with over a hundred Russian sailors, Myriad swiftly puts them all to work building a contraption of tubes to pump poisonous carbon monoxide down into the turbines of the radar array, killing mom (though she destroys most of the building in her death throes.) When the Navy arrives late the next morning, our heroes are already celebrating on the beach with sailors from both countries drunkenly singing together as the array burns in the background behind them. In our teaser for next week, Matterhorn and Atomic Eye are guests at a swank charity auction, which they throw into chaos when they steal the expensive jewelry on display. Headlines blare, "Exonauts Rob Auction! Are They Threats or Menaces?" You dare not miss... "The Killer Inside!" Dah, dah duhhhhh.... dw

Re: Silver Age Champions playtest begins! OK, fell a week behind there, and I apologize. Last week's session finished the battle with the Monolith; while the rest of the team continued to slug it out with the giant metal monstrosity, Myriad and Veil tracked down the strange energy pattern surrounding the statue and followed it to a small car by the side of a rural road where they found several armed thugs and the unconscious body of Dr. Dieter Prochnow, a brilliant East German scientist who, it was revealed, had developed in himself the ability to astrally project his consciousness into other physical objects and animate them into action. (He preferred human-shaped objects like statues since they were easier for his reflexes to coordinate.) Upon trying his trick with the Arbeiter statue, he was overcome with a grandiose sense of power and simply began destroying everything in his path out of sheer delight and madness. Once the heroes (particularly Rift, whose destructive anti-energy the statue could not resist) had done enough damage to the statue to render it uninhabitable, Prochnow's mind returned to his body, and the heroes (who were still being pursued by the East German military) decided to leave him trussed up for the authorities, though they privately doubted the East Germans would be able to hold on to him and expected to see him again. We then began a new adventure, which I cribbed from the excellent GURPS Atomic Horror book by Chris McCubbin and Paul Elliott. Myriad and Widget are recruited by the Navy to advise them on their new, state-of-the-art nuclear-powered Early Warning Radar Array they've built on a remote Pacific island, which is suffering from periodic unexplainable breakdowns. The night they arrive, they have dinner with Captain Schwartz and the technicians while reviewing the plans, and intend to actually enter the facility first thing in the morning. However, Captain Schwartz is himself killed (in a Dr. Who-style "monster fisheye-lens POV" scene of something mysterious entering his room through the window at night while he screams in terror. The next morning the Captain's half-eaten body is found, and Myriad and Widget decide the rest of the team should be brought in to investigate. Whie Myriad and the base's sergeant examine the body in a makeshift sickbay, the others follow mysterious sounds into the jungle and find the body of Lieutenant Green, badly injured and poisoned with a nerve toxin and holding in his hand a Soviet-made radio that he apparently just made a transmission on. Widget determines he must have been been a spy calling a nearby Russian sub (since the radio is short-range) and has the soldiers call in the Navy, but the island is so remote it will take more than a day for help to arrive. Rift intends to use the much-faster Exonautilus to bring Green to a real hospital, but when he enters the ship he is attacked by a mutated octopus the size of a VW Bug, with paralyzing tentacles and a razor-sharp beak! Meanwhile back in the sickbay, Myriad is attacked by a second such creature flowing in through the windows... dw