assault

Re: WWYCD: We're here for the reward money...

Interesting side track though.

 

If Blackberry was there while various camps of superheroes were starting to argue, and maybe even come to blows, she'd try to make sure innocents were safe.

It is an interesting side track, isn't it?

Assault would look annoyed, and then quietly step up beside St Barbara. At which point he would remember to check the area for innocents.

Assault has little or no respect for the UN, but has a "less than mutual admiration" relationship with the US government. (That's true of many other governments, too, of course. There are a few governments, however, that think the sun shines from him.)

Re: Frequency of young Empyreans

Kirby and Lee created the Inhumans, another "Hidden Lands" race, quite early on. Medusa, the first such character to appear, turned up in FF#36, although I don't think her original was explained until later.

Atlanteans and Amazons were, of course, used from the very beginnings of the superhero genre.

The real answer to "how frequent are young Empyreans" is, of course, "as frequent as the GM wishes".

I have no objection to being an Empyrean as being a character's origin, as, in fact, I have decided that this is Assault's origin, well over a decade after I stopped actively playing him!

Digression: Assault had never really had a decent origin story. I basically stuck him with a lame rip-off of Luke Cage's origin, and then ignored it. On the other hand, the character had such a clearly defined personality that "who he was" didn't really require "how he came to be". He just "was". And that matched his personality: someone who lived every moment in the present. End digression.

I would never dream of railroading character origins according to notions of "frequency". Superbeings just ain't that common.

---

An exercise, just for a laugh: let's look at the composition of the original JLA.

Superman - alien.

Martian Manhunter - alien.

Aquaman - "hidden lands" character.

Wonder Woman - "hidden lands" character.

Green Lantern - human agent of aliens.

Batman - exceptionally trained human.

Flash - chemical accident.

Implication: Most superhumans come from exotic backgrounds. "Radiation accidents" aren't the major source of powers.

Let's check this by going through subsequent members.

Green Arrow - exceptionally trained human.

Hawkman - alien.

Atom - interaction of White Dwarf material with an apparently unique (mutant??) physiology.

Red Tornado - android.

Black Canary - exceptionally trained human (from a parallel universe).

Various magical hangers on like the Phantom Stranger and Zatanna.

Again, only the Atom is a human who gains "real powers".

We would probably come up with a different result if we were to do an analysis of DC's villains during this same period, but even so, we would find lots of aliens and "non-powered" humans.

"Radiation accidents" and other "common" origins weren't actually all that common.

Of course, this is Silver Age DC up until about 1970 or so. Marvel during the same period had a lot more "radiation accidents" and mutants.

Re: Mystic Superheroes

Dove was linked to a Lord of Order (Small point)

Yes, OK, whatever, I go it wrong...

Ooh! Fury got her power from, err, the Furies!

The Shining Knight had a magic component to his origin too, IIRC.

And: Comet the Superhorse!!!!!

It's just too easy...

Uncle Sam? Nightshade. Vixen (Tantu Totem)? Gypsy?? Captain Triumph! Deadman!! etc.

Re: Old Villians Made New

Did I mention the giant cyborg ants?

No you didn't. And nobody ever will.

Re: Character monologues

Meh. Just keep buying Assault beers and be prepared to listen and he'll give you the longest monologue you've ever heard. Of course, it's quite likely that in the space of five minutes he will tell you that his powers are a result of a radiation accident, that he's a mutant, and that his father was an Empyrean, but that's what happens when you listen to people in pubs.

Alcohol doesn't effect him, but he's still a master of the art of BSing.

Because it's fun...

Re: Mystic Superheroes

Blue Devil

 

Ok, I admit it has been many many years since I read this comic, but I could swear this character's origin was a stuntman trapped in a suit that amped his strength and agility? Am I wrong?

He was trapped in the suit magically. Therefore it counts, kind of.

Not really DC: the Dan Garrett Blue Beetle's scarab was magical. It was later retconned to be some alien dealie.

Power Girl was the granddaughter of Arion for a while.

Hawk and Dove kinda sorta got their powers from a Lord of Chaos and a Lord of Law.

Lilith was a witch. Raven's powers were magical. As was Wonder Girl's, and, indeed, Wonder Woman's. Some of these may have been mentioned, but I wasn't paying attention. (Johnny Thunder's powers were magic too.)

And, and, and: BATMITE! So there!!!

Re: Batman VS Captain America! yeah right...

I'd like to see Spider-Man meet Mr. Miracle.

Nah. That's "Ditko meets Kirby". What you really want to see is Spider-Man meets Blue Beetle.

Or Black Bolt meets Mr Miracle...

I am, of course, deeply mortified that talentless hacks decided to kill off Ted Kord.

Re: Batman VS Captain America! yeah right...

I'd like to see Spider-Man meet Mr. Miracle.

Nah. That's "Ditko meets Kirby". What you really want to see is Spider-Man meets Blue Beetle.

Or Black Bolt meets Mr Miracle...

I am, of course, deeply mortified that talentless hacks decided to kill off Ted Kord.

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

Flame war in the making. A number of people have somewhat different opinions about a matter of no practical importance. This inevitably leads to death threats.

In the Real World there have been attempts to suggest that people who aren't "white" are less intelligent than those who are. As a result, many people who are normally well-behaved tend to get a bit twitchy around this question.

For me, in the game: you get what you pay for. If you want to routinely invent neat stuff, buy a gadget pool.

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

But the average human IQ (raw intelligence) is unchanged from 5000 B.C. to 2005 A.D.

Agreed, with the nutrition/health caveat.

Plus, of course, acknowledging the well-known difficulties in measuring IQ. (Culturally biased testing, etc.)

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

But now you're talking about skills' date=' not intelligence.[/quote']

 

But you've already suggested that an adult who has done a PhD is "smarter" than one who hasn't. That is, that some skill sets and background experiences indicate greater "smartness" than others.

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

Also' date=' a person who has a doctorate in any field is going to be smarter than someone who dropped out of junior high or high school. [/quote']

 

Define "smarter".

 

Is someone who can feed themselves in a wilderness smarter than someone who can't?

Re: Build your own "New Avengers"!

Iron Man

Thor

Hank Pym

Wasp

The Hulk

Captain America

Hawkeye

Quicksilver

Scarlet Witch

Re: Marvel Character Hero System Writeups

Good point. Make some.

Feh. You can't catch me that easily. I already know that the main danger in coming up with good ideas is that people expect you to be the one who implements them.

Besides, I refuse to accept the legitimacy of "continuity".

I only ever design homages to characters, without fussing over the stupid things that were done to them after they were first introduced. In other words, my Doctor Doom-like character would be based on his appearances in more or less the first year of the FF, and totally disregard everything after that.

In fact, it might even be based on his first appearance, when he showed the ability to fly, build some nifty toys, and, of course, build robots that could be shredded by a single haymaker.

You don't _really_ want me to design the 450 point Doctor Doom, do you? Or the 350 point Lex Luthor?

Hmm... Of course, for those people who aren't poopie-heads like me, it might be nice to suggest that they include plot seeds with the character. If a character only appeared once or twice, then only one or two plot seeds would be necessary, while a character that has been around for eons might have three or more. The most obvious sources for such plot seeds would be their actual appearances!

First plot seed for Amazo: "Professor Ivo is nuts for whatever his reason is, and decides that the way to achieve his goal is to build Amazo, who can absorb the PC's powers and whap them about the landscape."

That's a real subtle plot, isn't it? But a group of PCs would work themselves up into the biggest lather in the universe trying to deal with it. You could probably drag it out for multiple sessions, simply by handing them a Really Big Obvious Clue after they've been slapped around a few times.

In other words, you could play it. That doesn't, unfortunately, extend to all villains, who are in many cases fairly closely associated with their heroic opponents. Then again, many supervillain teams are pretty generic. As long as they have a patron who has a mad on for the PCs, they can usually just carry out random acts of mayhem in order to bring on a showdown.

And there's a plot seed: "a supervillain team has a patron who has a mad on for the PCs. The villains are ordered to carry out random acts of mayhem in order to bring on a showdown".

Or whatever. Very little comics writing is Great Literature, and the plotlines usually match.

Re: A embaresing request

It is to prove a point about the Hero System...

(Snicker)

The old "you can build anything" argument, huh?

Well, if nobody has already done it, you'll have to do it yourself.

You know the drill: analyse what he can do (define the effect), then work out an appropriate build.

I await the results with bated breath.

Re: Meet the Enemy of the Fab Four- Cataclysm

Let me know how that works out for you.

 

Just watch out for swashbuckling Australian ninjas!

And don't think boobytrapping your chandeliers will save you.

---

I finally got around to seeing the FF movie the other day. It's been on for a few weeks now, but I hadn't been able to make the time to go see it. (I haven't seen Sin City yet, for similar reasons.)

Assault, of course, started surfacing in my brain during the fight between Ben and Doom. It was good to see a decent brick fight on the screen.

Seeing Julian McMahon playing Doom was interesting. Now we've had an Australian Doom, an Australian Wolverine, an Australian Hulk and an Australian Agent Smith. Hmm...

It's giving me ideas about Evil Australian Masterminds. Let's see... A good villains should be wealthy, powerful and evil. Who has Australia produced in the Real World that could serve as a model?

Well, that's pretty obvious. Clearly an Australian Evil Mastermind would be a media baron, and would probably be named Fox...

Re: Marvel Character Hero System Writeups

Just a thought: a lot of the writeups out there are for heroes. Villains might actually be more useful.

Re: The Forumverse name game

EDIT:what the heck is anyone else doing awake?

This is a worldwide forum. So ride your bicycle.

PS: I've already posted, so I can't do anyone else.

Re: Can't have power defense, limitation or disad?

The only people likely to be able to take advantage of this are either going to do so accidentally, by buying Area Effect Power Defence, or are going to be VPP types.

Because it's a magical effect, I would hesitate to allow non-magical Gadgeteer types to be able to do this. Maybe, some might be able to work with dimensional barriers, but that's more Reed Richards than Batman.

Aside from that, the only people who can take advantage of this weakness are likely to be certain varieties of wizard.

(I'm assuming that you are writing about an NPC who will be fought by the PCs, because any PC who tries this kind of stuff should be immediately bounced.)

Is there a PC who could take advantage of this weakness if/when they find out about it? If not, is there an NPC or McGuffin available that could do so? A McGuffin would be preferable, but an NPC could be acceptable if properly run.

By properly run, I mean that they don't just show up, wave a wand and upstage the PCs. It is OK for them to have to take a lot of time preparing the spell, requiring the PCs to buy them time, or for them to have to be saved, summoned or whatever by the PCs. Then they can save the day, because the PCs have worked hard for it.

Is there a way for the PCs to find out about this weakness, other than by blind dumb luck?

If so, the weakness is worth the ink used in writing it on the character sheet. Otherwise it isn't.

In any case, point totals for NPCs aren't really that important. At most they are an approximate balancing tool. If you cheese an NPC out, this balancing factor will be compromised. And this build is cheese.

My recommendation would be to go with a disadvantage, probably an Accidental Change. Basically, in certain circumstances, he turns back into Cain Marko. I wouldn't define the circumstances in terms of game mechanics, but rather say it happens if and when the extra-dimensional energies that power him are cut off. That gives you more wriggle room for defining such circumstances. In particular, if the PCs are clever and come up with a good way of doing this, you shouldn't penalise them for not doing it the way you thought of.

EDIT: The problem with your approach appears to be that you haven't adequately thought about what you want to achieve. You need to do that before you start mucking about with the rules.

Character conception first, then the build... This is an essential rule for the Hero System. Otherwise you get hopelessly lost.

Re: Meet the Enemy of the Fab Four- Cataclysm

Warning: thread hijack ahead!

Last night, purely for my own amusement, I was fiddling about with a bit of a timeline for the FF and Doom, trying to work out how old they were and so on.

Reed and Ben presumably were in their early twenties during WWII, so they would have been in their early forties in 1961. Presumably, Doom would have been about the same age.

That raises the question: where was Doom during WWII? If he was "raised by Gypsies", as I recall was stated somewhere, presumably he didn't fight on the fascist side, at least not voluntarily. It would be easy enough to explaining him studying in the US after the war, or even before, I suppose, but there's a question as to the educational opportunities available to Roms prior to WWII, in most of Eastern Europe. Presumably there's a bit of a story about how he got around that. The "raised by" element may have been a factor.

It's possible, incidentally, that he could be younger than Reed. It's likely that Reed could have attended college both before he joined the Army (and OSS), and afterwards. Doom may have known him during either period.

The timeline gets interesting when you think about Sue and Johnny's ages. I would put Sue at around 21 or so (legal adult), and Johnny still in his teens. Johnny's fine, but Sue apparently ends up marrying someone twenty years old than her... That's not unknown, of course, but it might explain her interest in Namor. But then, he's probably older than Reed!

If Reed and Ben really are a lot older than Sue and Johnny, their initial differences in power levels become explicable in game terms. Reed and Ben have racked up a whole bunch of experience points!

All this stuff provides some neat ideas for Silver Age characters, IMHO. It adds flavour that more modern characters can't really have, unfortunately.

I'm very tempted to do a Silver Age period piece sometime. Reading all this stuff about Hermit's game is just reinforcing this.

Curse you, Hermit, I WILL have my revenge!

Re: The Forumverse name game

'Old soldiers never die; they just fade away'.

That's what Douglas MacArthur said, and for Roger Stevens, it felt like the literal truth.

After the Japanese surrendered, he thought he would be able to go home, but then there was a rash of incidents involving criminal masterminds and fascist survivors, and then the Cold War, the alien invasions, the giant monsters, and so on...

Eventually, he just turned his back on the world, and let the youngsters look after it. Retiring to a quiet farm in Tennessee, he kept to himself, and in time gained something of a reputation as a hermit.

Times change. Physically, he didn't. Apparently the serum that had given him his powers back in the 40s had retarded, if not actually stopped, the aging process for him.

And now, a trickle of young superhumans have begun to arrive at his door, looking for training from one of the oldest and most experienced superheroes alive...

Campaign use: obviously, the Hermit is a mentor to and trainer of young heroes. However, he's such a crusty old coot that the PCs should be a bit reluctant to approach him...

Re: Australia in the current CU

I would think there would have to be some official responce to their incursions.

0. Form a committee.

1. Recruit a few UNTIL veterans, who are already experienced and trained in dealing with superhumans. Mix them with SAS types and others to form a stopgap agent force. Equip them with the best stuff you can afford.

2. Test this lot for Cyberline responses.

3. Send anybody with positive responses off to the US to train with PRIMUS.

4. Pay for the most suitable candidate to be put through Silver Avenger training.

5. Meanwhile, scour Australia for other supers who can be recruited into a government backed team.

6. Supplement these with personnel exchanges with "friendly" nations. US, UK, NZ, for starters, possibly even with some oddbods like China(!). Exchanges can include both powered and non-powered staff.

7. Negotiate mutual assistance protocols with neighbouring countries. It's not in Australia's interests for Fiji to be secretly ruled by ARGENT, for example.

To summarise:

1. Initially, supplement existing supers with agents.

2. Form superteam from existing supers, a Silver Avenger and exchange supers.

The power level of this team wouldn't be massive, but it would be well supported by agents, vehicles, scientists, intelligence analysts and whatnot. And one or two of their supers might actually be powerhouses.

Re: Meet the Enemy of the Fab Four- Cataclysm

I'd figure a weapon oriented inventor would have some andriod followers. Probably nothing but speed-bumps to a real super' date=' but more than enough to hassle the local P.D. while she attends to her evil deeds.[/quote']

 

"It was only a robot, not the real Cataclysm!"

 

I'm actually considering creating a Doom homage of my own. The joke would be that the players either never actually meet the "real" villain, or else the "real villain" isn't a villain, or even superhuman(!) at all, but what the PCs have actually been fighting are basically just the robots, acting by themselves...

 

Kind of like if Dr Destroyer really turned out to merely be Mechanon.

 

Hmm... Maybe Dr D really _is_ dead, after all...

Re: Super City

Suxlikahoover Dam Incredibly tall' date=' vastly wide, and apparently thin enough for a small Dutch boy to poke a finger through judging by how many times its potential destruction has threatened to flood the city. Given that, some speculate having whole neighborhoods where the Riverbed used to be was a “bad idea”, but a scientific study by EEI’s Real Estate and Pontoon division scoffs at such ‘limited thinking’.[/quote']

 

I got one of those messages when I tried to rep you.

 

"Saving the dam" is a classic Superheroic bit. When I remodelled Assault on early Superman I was wondering exactly how to model this. Can you really do this by simply applying strength, or do you need to buy it "Area Effect"?

 

Obviously, both work, depending on the GM. Still, I want Assault to be able to do what Superman did in 1938-39.

 

"Because".

 

I see Assault as "local boy makes good". Being able to handle lots of neat stuff is handy.

 

So, how do you prevent a dam from collapsing?

 

For what it's worth, I'm keeping a careful track of this thread... I've even downloaded the map.

 

Oops: My contribution!

 

Prostituteville.

Where the people nobody else cares about live. The only superheroes that operate here are the most liberal, those who happen to be flying overheard at the time, and those very few reformed villains that live here. (read Catwoman. No, really, you should. The early stuff was particularly neat.)

 

(Real World: I used to live up the street from Brisbane's "Red Light District". The women that lived in my house were, of course, propositioned quite a lot, simply from being in the area. The women in my house weren't, of course, wimps. Then again, people used to assume I was gay, simply from living there. Convenient and cheap places to live in the Big City come with a price, apparently. On the other hand, being able to walk to work, without being a squillionaire, is nice, apart from the bit about not being a squillionaire.)

 

[EDIT]: Oops! I forgot...

 

Ethnicville

The inhabitants of this area are regarded by the rest of the population of the city as being "different". If they are really unlucky, they are viewed as being terrorists...

 

There are probably several different "Ethnicvilles" in Super City.

Re: Australia in the current CU

I don't see the problem with aussie supers...Jackie Chan lives there dosen't he? Hardly suprising...australia is crawling with Ninjas! Ninjas and martial arts masters of all kinds...I've seen many a low budget film that featured persons with odd acents....add in weird mysterys of the pacific and you've got lots of adventures...

While Jackie Chan lived in Australia for a while when he was a kid, I don't think he does now. On the other hand, he has made movies here. In First Strike, for example, he tears up a considerable chunk of Brisbane's Chinatown.

There is at least one superhero based TV show that was made locally. Cybergirl only went for a single series, and was basically a kid's show, but had all the standard superheroic bits, and was filmed around Brisbane.

So that's not a problem. Superheroes and action heroes can certainly operate here. The imagery works in an Australian setting.

The real problem is all the damn ninjas running around the outback in khaki shorts annoying crocodiles.