assault

Re: The world is a fragile, fragile, place... I just read this thread again, and realised how different Assault's approach to the world is. He tends to view the world as a bunch of movable objects, and himself as an irresistable force. In other words, he's always tended towards being highly self-confident, or even overconfident, simply because nothing in the world can hurt him. The result is that he is outgoing, rather loud, and has a very limited sense of self-preservation. He also has rather more self-control than Kevin's character, since he's about 25 years older, and has a lot of experience in not accidentally hurting people. He also has quite a bit of experience in intentionally hurting people.

Re: Comics you loved...but apparently no one else did

Re: Dinosaurs killed during the American Civil War? Yes there was. You can Google it yourself.

Re: Working on New Constantinople

Re: Comics you loved...but apparently no one else did

Re: When Bad Translators Attack!

Re: What if the M.U. was consistent? I've played around a bit with the separate realities that were eventually merged into the DC universe. This works particularly well in the early Silver Age, prior to the establishment of the JLA. Superman and Batman crossed over occasionally in the 50s, but generally speaking they might as well have existed in different universes. Similarly for all the other characters. The absence of team books in this period is a bit of a problem, though. You are kind of restricted to small informal teams of the "Batman, Robin, Batwoman and Bat-Girl" type. (Bat-Girl was actually post-JLA, but was firmly Batman-continuity only). The only major exception is the Legion of Superheroes, who are part of the Superboy/Superman continuity. They are, of course, a fine basis for a campaign in their own right. Of course, calling the Superman or Batman continuities "consistent" is a problem in its own right! But you could minimise this by being firm as to what periods you are treating as canon. There were definite breakpoints at which the canon was revised. For example, Batwoman and Bat-Girl stopped appearing in Batman's continuity after 1964. Doing this in the Marvel Universe would, if anything, be somewhat easier. First of all, there are more team books, and the FF and the X-Men are relatively tightly themed. You would just need to carefully excise the crossovers, which would of course be easier if you limit yourself to an early point in their continuity. The FF "universe", for example, looked a whole lot different in 1962 than it did in 2006. Of course, even then there were elements which pointed to a bigger universe. The early presence of Namor suggested that Captain America, and at least some other Golden Age characters, had once existed. But it would have been at least notionally possible that Cap might have become associated with the FF in the absence of the Avengers...

Re: Anyone combine Champs with Call of Cuthulu?

Re: The World of Kong Surely you mean giant Nazi Cyborg Gorillas. After all, ordinary Nazi Cyborg Gorillas were as common as muck. Or was that just a dream?

Re: Creating the Silver Age Team

Re: Thoughts on The Avengers. Well, file off the serial numbers and make it your own universe. If you can't be bothered renaming everyone, cut it off at some point in time that you are happy with. It would be quite possible to run a wonderful Avengers/Marvel campaign that was rather strictly based on the Lee/Kirby/Ditko period, for example. I'm not a huge fan of bringing outside elements like the Stargate in to non-homage settings, but you could easily make Reed Richard's portal to the Negative Zone into something similar. Or, I suppose, you could just stick it in directly, since there were occasions where licenced properties were bolted on to the MU. Rom the Spaceknight was one of these, IIRC. Just don't get carried away with this and stick half a dozen incompatible settings together and call it the Marvel Universe. You can twink with history and cosmology all you like. Nobody is stopping you. One thought with the "Avengers-ness" of it all: who are the PCs going to be? That is, are the players going to be playing the Avengers, or characters of their own? If the latter, how much are they going to be interacting with NPCs from the MU? Could the latter be replaced by other (your own) characters? In other words, why not develop your own Avengers-like setting?

Re: Campaign cliches we love Another superhero team shows up, leading to a case of mistaken identity, or a conflict of agendas, followed by a Senses-Shattering Slugfest.

Re: Working on New Constantinople This combination seems a little odd. One or the other, not both. Otherwise you are saying the equivalent of: The owner of The International is Black and has ties to the KKK.

Re: Darkseid? The GNBORH version has the teleport/EDM functions too, so it looks like a good starting point all round.

Re: Pulparize It!

Re: Darkseid?

Re: What Comic Book Titles are you Buying (Not Reading, Buying) Indifference to Western comics in general. I wasn't hugely enthusiastic about getting the Metamorpho volume either, though it actually turned out OK. OK enough that I keep sketching outlines for characters influenced by him. (He's a bit too complicated to directly build). I've got the Superman Family and Teen Titans volumes on order. I have high hopes, especially for the latter.

Re: 1930s Superboy and the 21st Century LSH Now that you've suggested it, I could include some Scooby Doo influences... I've fused them with the Super Friends in the past. More broadly, silly names are part of the source material. They were one of the techniques used to fictionalise the real people who appeared in various stories. Rex is a little unfortunate, perhaps, but I rather like my name for Public Enemy No 1 - Joe Derringer. From John Dillinger, of course. Alternatives to Rex: Dex(ter), Tex, umm... that's about it. I suppose I could use some other random alliterative name. Whatever. I actually like the "Rex" part, although I'm less fond of "Reuther".

Re: What Comic Book Titles are you Buying (Not Reading, Buying) Catwoman JLA Most of the stuff I read these days are reprint collections. For example, I've bought all of the Showcase Presents titles to date, except Jonah Hex. I guess I just like old school Silver, Golden and early Bronze age stuff.

Re: DC versus Marvel: different styles

Re: Concepts you wish your players would play

Re: Astro City: How to get the feel of the series in Champions? While I like the "three leg" idea, I think the "Normal leg" part might be a bit difficult to sustain as a regular part of the game. It could be done occasionally, of course. As a supplementary technique, it might be worthwhile adding extra "plainclothes" time to what the Heroes are doing. That way they get to interact with normal NPCs a lot more, and can be exposed to their view of things. Doing this through Bluebooking is one possibility, and frankly Bluebooking should be used in any case, but I would suggest that if the number of PCs is kept fairly low, it should be possible to spend the time on the plainclothes stuff necessary to get this ground-level view. This could be handled as a "Lois and Clark", a "Jimmy and Clark", or a "Bruce and Commissioner Gordon" teamup, which would allow characters to alternate between their Heroic and Normal characters in a flexible way that would naturally dovetail into Oddhat's situation where the Normals end up as sideline participants in the Big Fights. As I suggested, this would work best with two or three players. But then, I'm beginning to think this is the best number for most Champions campaigns. ("Big Team" games are the exception, of course).

Re: "Look, up in the sky! It's Super Saint!" Christian-themed heroes Frankly, I would avoid the whole issue. If there are players in the group who are likely to care about such things, I would make sure that the game stayed strictly "scientific". Of course the only way I would be in a FtF game with such folks would be at a Con or some other context where you end up gaming with strangers. My general social milieu isn't all that religious.

Re: Astro City: How to get the feel of the series in Champions?

Re: 1930s Superboy and the 21st Century LSH