assault

Re: The best retcons of all time The Earth-1/Earth-2 thing would have to count as the greatest in my book. The revived JSA was (a) great in its own right and ( probably better than the original version. Actually, Earth-2 was cooler than Earth-1 in pretty nearly all respects. I guess that makes Crisis on Infinite Earths one of the bad retcons...

Re: Secret IDs: In or Out?

Re: Secret IDs: In or Out?

Re: WWYCD? Culture Shock 2 Assault: exposes the plot to assassinate the leader. Uses the opportunity to point out what a bad idea the whole meta-worship thing is.

Re: [interest in a HeroCentral game] That would change him too radically. He wouldn't be the same character any more.

Re: Secret IDs: In or Out? The other reason for superheroes maintaining a secret ID is that being a superhero is illegal. Being a cop or a judge isn't. If, of course, you are being "realistic" enough for your hero to eventually be busted, your campaign is going to be rather short and frustrating. Unless you are playing government supers. That can be quite enjoyable, and there is nothing wrong with it. On the other hand, once you are willing to accept someone can fly and breathe fire, any realism you choose to add is a little arbitrary.

Re: Which Champions setting should I develop?

Re: Which Champions setting should I develop? As the wise Lord L suggested, whichever your players would rather play, if you have players. Otherwise, knock yourself out. One slight "What The?": I'm sorry, but that sounds like "stupid fiat" to me. You still have to decide which countries "have more dreamers", and such a choice is still a matter of fiat.

Re: [interest in a HeroCentral game] Count me as interested. I would most likely go with some kind of brick, although Seeker would have amusement value, after a little bit of redesigning to get him to 350 points. (Combat Luck would be an obvious addition...) Alternatively, I could always pull out a version of Assault, since the game I was playing him in has changed/restarted. There are a couple of other Brick options I would consider instead.

Re: CHAR: Sparky! Good idea. I know quite a few apes have been posted in the past. I suspect a lot of folks have an animal hero/sidekick (or villain) sitting either in their files or in their minds. So, what are you waiting for? Start the thread!

Re: CHAR: Sparky! Neat. I should get around to writing up Crime Dog, the crimefighting dog. And his faithful assistant Gary, the extremely funky Gibbon. I'll rep you when I get the chance.

Re: How Many U S Heros ?

Re: How Many U S Heros ? The problem is that American supers just aren't willing to take on the dirty supervillain jobs.

Re: Super Teams Compete!

Re: How Many U S Heros ?

Re: Superhero Politics

Today's Bad Idea is: The Clowns of Krim.

Re: Whould you buy...CHAMPIONS SOUTH OF THE BORDER and CHAMPIONS OF THE RISING SUN. They're too small to destroy Tokyo at that size, and they don't need to be that big to turn somebody into the Amazing Wombat-Man. So I'm not sure. The other options include Drop Bears, and those nasty kangaroos with the Surface to Air missiles. Not to mention mutant feral pigs, rabbits and cats. The latter two, presumably, would immediately declare war on each other, as the Mutant Bunnies strive to drive the Evil Pussy Cats from their warrens. I'm not sure exactly what mutant pigs would be like, apart from a nasty fear that they might resemble this. Sadly though, I kind of feel obliged to keep the silliness level down to a dull roar. (Speaking of silliness, Seeker just popped up on the left side of my screen. How appropriate.) So mutant marsupials are out, and are in... Provisionally, at least.

Re: Superhero Politics

Re: Whould you buy...CHAMPIONS SOUTH OF THE BORDER and CHAMPIONS OF THE RISING SUN. Yes. I must admit I didn't really think through the scary implications. On the other hand, I've just spent my lunch break looking at what my idea entailed in terms of work. Designing a whole town for the sake of an article is a bit much... Even sticking together enough setting material for people to feel that they aren't in Kansas would tend to suck up a lot of words. Still, an incremental approach might be feasible. I can always save the Radioactive Wombats for later. (Actually I'm not sure if there are Real World wombats in the area I would be using, but that would fall under Artistic Licence.) But then, it wouldn't be Australia without an encounter in a pub, would it? That would require a rough sketch map of the town, but nothing more to begin with. Hmm...

Re: Whould you buy...CHAMPIONS SOUTH OF THE BORDER and CHAMPIONS OF THE RISING SUN. I mentioned that I'm thinking about writing an adventure for Digital Hero, didn't I? Unfortunately, of course, it's necessary to get around the "it's already been done by Smallville" factor, but that's not too big a drama. There are other sources to mix into the homage that would make things different enough for anyone's tastes. As it happens, I have just the right small town sitting around in my head. You see, decades ago my grandfather worked for Queensland Rail and one of the things he did was to name a couple of official "localities" - places on the map. The thing is that these are, in the real world, just platforms by the side of the railway line and a sign. There are no actual towns. That's in the real world. The CU could be something else... And what is really neat about it is that one of these places was named "Coothalla", which is obviously just a mispelling of Kuthala, Xuthalla or some other obvious ancient city of the Turakian Age... One thing I am struggling with is how many Seeker references to include... Crikey, it's tempting to really go overboard with them. EDIT: I just Googled Coothalla. Apparently the name means "Eagle Hawk", which is kind of neat. Anyway, here is a link: http://qroti.com/placeinfo/qld/rail/coothalla/map/ It's definitely in the middle of nowhere. Just right.

Re: Whould you buy...CHAMPIONS SOUTH OF THE BORDER and CHAMPIONS OF THE RISING SUN.

Re: Whould you buy...CHAMPIONS SOUTH OF THE BORDER and CHAMPIONS OF THE RISING SUN. Unfortunately, my rate of buying books of any kind has slowed down to a trickle... Having said that, I would definitely buy these books "eventually", and preferably "immediately". I can't say that I would probably get all that much use out of them, but that's true of a whole bunch of other books I've bought. Now, Champions Down Under would be something else... Preferably if I helped write it...

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

Re: Skills? How many points are normal? I think Kirby is being a bit harsh on Niles, although some of his points are valid. This again is a deflection (or avoidance) or the original question. To respond to it; however, why should a first issue character be skill-less? (This seems to be what you're implying.) I was the one who raised the "first issue" concept. This is where you model a character based on what they do during their first appearance, or at least their first few appearances. It produces simpler characters, who, not coincidentally are often cheaper to model in the Hero System. The Barry Allen Flash is a good example. He isn't absurdly powerful during his first appearance, but the essential elements of the character are present. Obivously "first issue" characters will exhibit fewer skills than they will later in their career. Furthermore, their backstories are often not fully developed until later in their careers as well. As such it's not obvious that it is reasonable for them to have skills related to those. I personally prefer to merge the initial powers and the subsequent backstories when I am modelling characters. I also rarely follow retcons, but will if I think they make a better story. It's also pretty unheard of for me to actually use a direct copy of a published character. I always file off the serial numbers, even if I don't do so in a subtle manner. A blatantly vague question which you can easily modify once again to suit your needs. Ronnie Raymond is a specific character, so the question isn't at all vague. Of course you could equally ask: "How many skills does Professor Stein have really?". And then you could ask: "so how many skills does Firestorm have?".