assault

Re: I Have In My Hand A List... The key point is that the witchhunt began under Truman in the 40s and continued into the 60s. McCarthy was only of the figures involved, and was really only important for a relatively brief period. You could take him out of the picture and everything would go on more or less unchanged. The Red Scare was part of the process of mobilising US society to fight the Cold War. It was necessary, not optional, if capitalism was to survive. Eliminating McCarthy would make no difference.

Re: Do you use the Published characters as a baseline for you campaign? I use Grond in the Hulk/Solomon Grundy role. That means a single character _might_ be able to contain him until he gets bored and wanders off. Then again, I'm not at all averse to giving him temporary power boosts that allow him to slap the whole group around. Either way, I'm more likely to change his power level to suit the PCs rather than to change to PCs to suit him.

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics CoC is vulnerable to heavy handed GMing. With a lighter touch, it's fine. It also makes a fine semi-LARP. Lightray's description indicates that. My favourite CoC game was played in a rundown old farmhouse in the hills, on a foggy night. That was where we _played_ it. The setting in the _game_ was a rundown old mansion in the hills, on a foggy night... None of us died or went insane. The plot was broadly lifted from Robert E Howard's "Dig Me No Grave".

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics Which "he"?

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics The scarab came back in the series BB had back in the 80s. It turned out to "really" be a nasty alien critter, which had turned Dan Garrett into a zombie after his "death". An unfortunate retcon, but an OK story. I reread the series over the weekend, for the first time since it came out. It actually wasn't too bad. The only real problems with it were the obligatory crossovers with Legends and Millenium, which caused awkward jumps in the plotline, but that was a problem for all DCs titles from that period. In fact, this series was good enough that I was initially resistent to the inept version of the character that showed up in Justice League. And I'm appalled by what seems to have happened to the character since.... As for Power Girl: she was, of course, originally a very strong "take no BS" character. Yet another character who has lost her way in the hands of hacks...

Re: If Champions didn't exist... There's actually a new version/edition of Golden Heroes in playtest at the moment. The name has been changed to Squadron UK. The playtest is going on through the Golden Heroes Yahoo Group. What's really interesting about it, though, is that the group's file section contains a whole bunch of old articles and scenarios from White Dwarf magazine. At least some of these scenarios are dual-statted for Champions as well as GH. You have to join the group to get access to them, though. GH has some interesting mechanisms, which could be borrowed for house rules. Otherwise it's pretty average. The fact that it was a British game is interesting, but there was never a really adequately developed setting for it. Oh yeah. That reminds me: there was an Australian produced SH RPG called Super Squadron. It was rather similar to V&V in many ways, since they both were influenced by D&D. It wasn't able to break into the US market. That's no great loss, since it didn't really do anything that other games didn't do better, but does indicate the problems faced by wouldbe Australian game designers. I've lifted a few ideas from it for my Champions games. These are mostly related to a statistical breakdown of origin types. Of course, I ignore such matters whenever I design a game that is actually intended to be run.

Re: If Champions didn't exist... I would have to go with Superworld. I bought a copy of the Worlds of Wonder version when it came out, so it was available. Its system was nice, clean and simple, so I might have actually been willing to play it. Of course, Superworld itself owes a bit of a debt to Champions, but it's still quite likely that Chaosium would have published a superhero RPG even without the success of Champions. Hmm... roads less travelled...

Re: Comics from the Good Ol' Days Once you track down a comic store, starting looking at the DC Archive editions (expensive), the Marvel Essentials books and various trade paperback reprints. A lot of pretty cool stuff has been reprinted. You can read a fair bit of stuff online at these websites: http://superman.ws/tales/1930s.php http://www.allaboutcomix.com/joindex2.html The stories on the second site might drive you insane, though. Be warned!

Re: First Supers in the World campaigns Effectively, most of my games have been "first Supers in the world" ones, if only because few if any other heroes have been around. I would have the first supers being villains. In particular, various masterminds would have begun their operations well before heroes start appearing. If I was playing a Silver Age game, I might have a few monsters and aliens wandering about. In the Golden Age, there might be pulp heroes and villains, and probably a low key mystic world, which might suddenly become unbalanced. What I _wouldn't_ do, is have lots and lots of supers emerging. I notice some people have suggested up to 1500 supers being around. Personally, I would go with something more like 15. Oh, sure, if you go to the Lost City of the Mole-People, there might be thousands of "superbeings", but in the general world there would be next to none. I would discuss the question of genre conventions with the players, so costumes and all of that would be handled in an agreed manner. Basically, I would create the world as I needed it. If I wanted more supers in a particular scenario, I would create them.

Re: The Kingpin, the Maggia and Intergang I think you've missed the point. Intergang was Darkseid's agency on Earth. Many more conventional organised crime outfits have shown up in various Bat-titles. And, incidentally, Intergang first appeared in the early 70s, and is probably strictly "Bronze Age" rather than "Silver Age"!

Re: IST San Angelo

Re: Good "Four of a Kind"'s... If you're not too attached to the Theme idea, you could assign the four characters personalities, and give them powers to match. For example, "the impetuous one" might have fire or speedster type powers, and so on.

Re: Spider-Man Death Toll : The Bronze Age started with a Vengeance DC killed off Black Canary's husband in 1969. This was their excuse for her crossing from Earth-2 to Earth-1, and allowed her to get together with Green Arrow. Larry Lance wasn't exactly a major character, of course. DC also killed off Alfred in the early-mid 60s, but brought him back. The kill off was part of a general revamp of Bat-mythology which they did then. I gather the TV series had something to do with the revival.

Re: "Use the Source, Fluke..." or Does you campaign have a central rationale? Count me in the "anything goes" camp. I don't generally have a lot of supers in my games, so each one is highly improbable to begin with. Yesterday I wrote down a list of villains from the official CU I would be using in my next campaign: Thorn, Dr Macabre, Zorran, an unspecified Energy Projector, and "some bunch of aliens". I might also use Black Harlequin and Franklin Stone, and I will almost certainly add a mad scientist or two. Atlantis, the Lemurians and the Empyreans definitely exist in my universe. That's a pretty good summary of the range of origins I use: Hidden Lands, Aliens, Mad Scientists, Theme villains, Wizards and maybe a radiation accident or two. The latter is by far the rarest category.

Re: DEX Averages My general standards are: Mentalists, Energy Projectors: 20-26 Martial Artists: 20-30 Speedsters: 23-33 Bricks: 20-33 Yes, you read that right. Superman is a viable character conception in my campaigns. I am considering a lower powered game, where nearly everybody except the Speedsters and some Bricks will have 20 Dex (or less). Likewise, nearly everybody will have 4 Spd (or less), apart from the same exceptions.

Re: What graphic novels should I get? And after we suggested so much Bat stuff, we are reminded that one person's cr*p is another person's treasure...

Re: Schmucks? Of course the real way to stop the megavillains is to trick them into attacking Hudson City. Then they'd have to deal with you-know-who. Or failing that, the power-nerfing effect that operates there would allow someone to rip the rubber mask off Takofanes' head. "I'd have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids!"

Re: What graphic novels should I get? Watchmen (Alan Moore) Batman: The Killing Joke (Alan Moore) Batman: Year One (Frank Miller) Elektra: Assassin (Frank Miller) Are you seeing a pattern here?

Re: Schmucks?

Re: Schmucks?

Re: Are there ever too many points?

Re: Are there ever too many points? No. But Thor wasn't of "mythic proportions" when he started. He is now, arguably. The entire Marvel Universe has undergone power escalation over the years. None of the characters introduced in the early '60s had more than a fraction of their present day capabilities. Also, there is no particular resemblance between Thor the mythological entity and Thor the character in the MU. The latter is one of the finest examples of McMythology ever sneezed. You can build him any way you like.

Re: Are there ever too many points?

Re: What Do You Want To See?: DC: The Animated Series The bit of Fell's Point stuff I saw reminded me of the darker Batman graphic novels. DC:TAS characters can do that stuff too, but it isn't all they do. I think that DC:TAS needs to be set in a pretty big city, in order to get the proper Gotham/NYC feel. While the Question and Green Arrow have both been based in smaller towns, most of the source material is firmly big city. And that suggests that the DC:TAS material would have to be in Hudson City itself, because "big cities" don't just grow on trees. Besides, it seems wasteful not to take advantage of all the neat stuff Steve is working on for us. All Hudson City really needs is a few warehouses full of giant props and it's perfect.

Re: Schmucks? I'd be happy with one or two teams who can deal with the megavillains. How powerful should they be? Well, they don't have to be as powerful as the megavillains. You don't defeat megavillains by flying up to them and punching them in the face. At least, not until you've messed with them a bit. They do, however, need to be able to cope with the megavillains' flunkies. 250-350 point characters would be stretched to do this. Ultimately, megavillains can only be defeated through roleplaying. That's pretty much part of the definition. NPC heroes don't roleplay, but at least can be assumed to be doing it offstage if necessary. I should point out that while I am one of the advocates of the possibility of building JLA/Avengers type characters on 350 points, I am actually saying _starting versions_ of these characters, not experienced versions. For example, the version of the Flash I would build would be the version that appeared in Showcase #4. He would be able to do what that character did, and thus be a faithful portrayal of the Flash, but he wouldn't be able to do many of the things that the Flash was later protrayed as doing. Similarly, it is possible to create an accurate rendition of the Batman from Detective Comics #27 on 200 points. He can't do all the stuff the present day version of the character can do, but he is a faithful rendition of the Batman at a certain point in his career. As for Thor and Daredevil, well, I doubt that my version of Daredevil would be able to deal with my version of Thor in combat. Then again, Thor doesn't have a whole lot of skills... If you are doing faithful renditions of the characters on low point costs, their relative power levels should actually be maintained. If Daredevil can't hit harder than a tough human, that's all he should be able to do. If Thor can, well, he can. Of course, there are enough bugs in my designs that Thor would probably need to use an area-effect attack to hit DD, but once he did... Back to the main point: what we need might not be NPC hero teams so much as NPC "space gods". That is, we have various powerful but inactive beings hanging around, who, if they are tracked down, cajoled, bribed and flattered by the PCs, might actually condescend to provide assistance in neutralising the Bad Guys. Wanambi Man might be a good canonical example. He probably just sits around in his interdimensional limbo, but if you find him, and ask very nicely, he might provide you with some useful assistance or information against Takofanes. Similarly, going and hassling the Empyreans might be of some use in dealing with other threats. Or the Atlanteans, or the Perseids, or whoever... The Big Bads don't try to conquer the world every month. When they do, it should be important. Fobbing the job of stopping them off on a bunch of faceless NPCs seems wrong. You stop the Big Bads by roleplaying, not by combat. Trying to do it the other way around gets you a bunch of bruises, and doesn't work. And that's true whether you are built on 250 points or 2500... But yes, we do need a team or two of megaheroes. Just Because.