assault

Re: Supernatural beings in the Champs Universe Vampires and werewolves are quite useful opponents. They're extremely dangerous to non-powered supers, and have the magic thing going against Superman types. They have another valuable quality from my perspective too: they aren't conventional superhumans. Where possible, I prefer to avoid using supervillains in my scenarios. "Monsters" are a handy substitute. Demons are useful too, since you can use them as an excuse for giving normal humans temporary superpowers. Obviously the same applies to zombies, dinosaurs, transformed animals and so on. One mystic mastermind can create a lot of different threats.

Re: Your superhero games, comic-based or comic-opposed?

Re: Code VS Killing Poll

Re: Code VS Killing Poll

Re: Who are the greatest (?) super villains? In no particular order... Obviously silliness is not an impediment to greatness in my view. It's striking how many are Golden Age. Mr Mxyzptlk. Gorilla Grodd. The Wizard (DC). Solomon Grundy. Catwoman. Brainiac. The Ultra-Humanite. Lex Luthor. The Joker. Darkseid. Vandal Savage. Phantom Zone Villains. The Time Trapper. Oh, yeah - non-DC villains... Dr Doom, Magneto, Green Goblin, Namor(!), the Hulk(!).

Re: I just can't get into Cosmic Level play There are usually more monkeys in Cosmic level games, too.

Re: Code VS Killing Poll

Re: I just can't get into Cosmic Level play Jimmy is considerably more than just a DNPC. He's been a sidekick (Flamebird), has had multiple sets of superpowers, and was made an honorary member of the Legion of Superheroes as Elastic Lad. He's flown Whiz Wagons, jets, spaceships, and pretty much anything else that moves. He's a master of disguise, a reasonably formidable combatant, and .... He even managed to be the star in his own title for nearly twenty years. He's a superhero in his own right. Of course, that's the pre-Crisis Jimmy of Earth-1, but, let's face it, that's the real Jimmy. Now Lois is another story...

Re: GGU NPCs For Review It worked for me way back in the 80s. In our case, Battery was named first, and then I had to come up with a name for my brick. Battery's player was not amused. Both our characters were pretty badly designed, but Battery was wildly underpowered compared to Assault, and retired. These days I'm using Assault as one of my test subjects for Cosmic power levels. He's recently discovered that he isn't a mutant like he always thought, and instead is something along the lines of a New God. But that's my Assault. I'll have to have a closer look at Worldmaker's Assault. Just because. --- Done. Yeah, he's pretty cool. Not enormously powerful, but potentially extremely dangerous. Battery too. Well done.

Re: I love The Ultimates While I haven't read the Ultimates, I am actually reading Ultimate FF. That's an unusual lapse into Iron Age-ness for me. Well, OK, I also read Catwoman, but that's because it's good.

Re: Code VS Killing Poll To be honest, he sounds like a pretty standard bust. Just make sure that there's enough evidence against him to lock him up forever. Of course, someone will try to get him to work for them, so Descant will see him again. If all else fails, arrange a situation where someone else kills him, or he has an accident. In my games, prisons generally aren't built with revolving doors. Oh, and if you want a villain to die and stay dead, make sure you point this out to the GM.

Re: I just can't get into Cosmic Level play Here's a thought: how many points is Jimmy Olsen built on? The answer, of course, is: lots. A lot of it is probably in a Pool, which is why he only uses anything once or twice. If Jimmy can justify being built on Cosmic point totals, anybody can.

Re: Timelines I find them useful as a world design tool. They're also interesting to read, and write. eg: ~2000 BC: glowing green meteorites fall on Atlantis.... ~1650 BC: Atlantis destroyed. There are three groups of survivors.... I also often extend them into the future, too, for convenience in designing time travel scenarios.

Re: Code VS Killing Poll The most obvious factor is that killing is illegal. A killer hero is a criminal, not a crime fighter. I generally go with CvKs for my PCs. Perhaps with some scope for "in case of war, break glass". Comments on other people's comments: Vampires aren't generally regarded as being covered by CvKs. Batman and Robin's CvKs preceded the Comics Code by well over a decade.

Re: Liberty or Freedom League?

I was reading Galactic Champions, and it occurred to me that having your characters' special effects be "cosmic power" wasn't the best idea in the world. Why, because everyone and their dog will have defences "only against cosmic power" and maybe some other effect. For example, Lightning Lady will have a force field "only against cosmic power, electricity and lightning". Why? Because, of course, her "lightning" powers are a specific manifestation of "cosmic power". The LSH works quite well, incidentally. I've been building their early members. In 1953, there was a story called "Superman's Big Brother". It was reprinted in "Superman in the 50s" in 2002. The character that showed up there was a precursor of "Superboy's big brother" - Mon-El. He had all the stuff that Superman had, except that he had to pay endurance for it, and wore out really quickly. In other words, he's a really easy design. And his costume was exactly the same as the one Mon-El wore when he turned up later in the same decade. The original three members of the LSH were pretty easy designs. Two were energy projectors, and the other was a mentalist. And then there was Ultra Boy. He was basically just an energy projector with a bunch of enhanced senses on his first appearance. In other words, before you get into them in detail, the LSH consisted of three energy projectors (Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy and Ultra Boy), a mentalist (Saturn Girl) and a Superboy lookalike (Mon-El). Modify Mon-El to be his precursor that I described above, and you can build them all on whatever points you like. And, of course, they all can suck up "cosmic power" until the cows come home. After all, what do you think is powering their powers. So cheap. So easy.

Re: Cosmic character for review The following thread had a bunch of 750 point characters, including a rather crudely designed high-powered version of Assault. He needs some serious reworking, although he had some good aspects. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12524&page=1&pp=15

Re: Cosmic character for review

Re: Cosmic character for review Well, I got Galactic Champions today, and, of course, I redesigned Assault on 700 points. Then I compared him to your character. Don't get caught in any enclosed spaces. I mean that. I've played energy projectors before. If a close combat specialist can close with you, and you can't run/fly away, they will pummel you into a small pile of paste. Buy martial arts. I mean that. Changing the subject, Assault is a fine old close combat specialist, who wouldl suck hugely against energy projectors who have the opportunity to stand off at a distance. But that's OK, he was never intended to be a cosmic level character. But, he actually works quite well against the sample characters in GC...

Re: Name My Character Eww... relying on the media for names will usually give you a dumb name. Like "Doc Ock", for example. Dragon Man sounds likely, unfortunately. For better names, go with latinised versions: Draco, Draconis, Draconius, Draconian etc; or with mythological dragon names - but unfortunately most dragons in "western" cultures are villainous. You could also go with names derived from celestial objects - comets, stars, etc. To repeat myself: PCs shouldn't rely on the media for names, unless they want dumb names!

Re: Campaign Premise - Elite: Year One The main problem is that most elites wouldn't use their powers for anything in this situation, but would simply stay underground. You need to ensure that the PCs can't/won't do that. Ways of doing this include having their powers erupt in public, ensuring that they can't go back to their previous lives; having distinctive features (wings, tails, fur, horns, being big and green, etc); having accidental change, physical limitations or dependencies; or having really strange backgrounds and/or psych limitations. I suspect that the most likely "adventuring" elites would be serving or former military, law enforcement or espionage personnel. Other high-profile elites would either be on the run, or would be involved in rampages/monster hunts. Reading early issues of the Hulk would probably be useful.

Re: Teams that Want to Change the World I'm working on a quick mini-writeup of an outfit I have sitting in my files called "The Pledge", which I've never really taken beyond a rough concept/outline before. The short version is: during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a bunch of supers signed on to trying to prevent, or stop, the then apparently imminent nuclear war. Later on, they opposed the involvement of supers in the Vietnam war, adopted a pro-mutant position on an "equality with normals" basis and so on. Fast forward a few decades, and you have a left-wing anti-interventionist group who are willing to defend even the grubbiest right-wing dictatorships against liberal do-gooders and conservative super-patriots alike. And then provide covert assistance to the opposition to these dictatorships... They prefer not to go head to head with major governments, because they know they will lose, but they will face off against other supers. Their main deal is fairly standard mutant rights stuff, though. They have a few, mainly mutant, heavy hitters, some very serious scientists/gadgeteers, allies in strange places, lots of relatively low powered non-adventuring supers, non-super contacts, and a few non-powered but capable operatives. And a few hippy mystics, even though most of the core of the organisation don't really believe in magic. I'm still struggling with getting the core membership of the group to feel right. Part of the problem is that the group isn't necessarily built around its toughest members... I also want a feel that isn't quite as X-Men as the usual mutant rights outfit. Hopefully I'll have more tomorrow.

I was visiting my parents today, and my dad mentioned he had found an old box full of comics... My old comics from when I was a kid! There aren't a whole lot of superhero ones. What there are are DC reprints, more or less like I remembered. It looks like I was more into Jimmy Olsen than I remembered. There's more Jimmy than anything else. But I don't mind, because they're... gooood. A brief quote: "Daily Planet reporter Jimmy Olsen is famed not only for being the pal of mighty Superman, but also because of the weird transformations which in the past have changed him temporarily into a Wolfman, a Human Porcupine, a giant Turtle Man and other unusual forms! But one day Jimmy finds himself transported to another planet where his grotesque identities exist! And Jimmy faces a horrible menace on -- The World of Doomed Olsens!" There's just so much other good stuff too. I'm in raptures.

Re: What do you like about the various ages of comics? Golden Age: they were making it up as they go along. Characters like Superman and Batman were new, and still being invented. The pulpish bits are particularly interesting - mysteries are fun. Silver Age (DC): the stuff I read as a kid. Classic sense of wonder coolness. And some good silly fun. Silver Age (Marvel): a new beginning, heroes with problems, etc. Bronze Age (DC): an interesting combination of Silver Age (Marvel) and Silver Age (DC). Some of the attempts to deal with "real issues" are hilarious in their cluelessness. And others worked very well. By the end of the period, "Marvel-style" titles like the New Teen Titans. Bronze Age (Marvel): continuation of Silver Age (Marvel), mainly. "When the X-Men were good"! Bronze Age (minor publishers): sometimes excellent. Sometimes hopeless. Often pushed the envelope beyond where the majors could go. Iron Age: Difficult to define. Really a continuation of the (late) Bronze Age. The prevalence of graphic novels and reprints probably makes it easier than before to appreciate the full range of all previous periods. Unfortunately, "Iron Age" tends to be associated with a small number of mean-spirited and generally inane titles. I would tend to dismiss them as an aberration, except that their "creative teams" seem to be the stars of the industry at the moment, and will be emulated. Still, a broad spectrum of titles are being produced, so the nasties are only a small part of it. In other words, the Authority sucks, unlike four-colour titles like Catwoman.

Re: Well of Worlds and the Dreamtime A lot of indigenous people aren't incredibly thrilled by outsiders making use of their cultural material/intellectual property. Doubly so if bits of different cultures get stuck together into a hybrid structure. Some years ago a friend of mine wrote a book that uses such material reasonably authentically, and in a way that just begs to be lifted wholesale for a Champions game. Unfortunately it would be almost impossible to track down for anyone without access to major Australian libraries! For what it's worth though, here are the details, and a bit of a summary: http://www.penguin.com.au/PUFFIN/features/aboriginal/title-details.cfm?SBN=0140111727 "In his twentieth year, mixed-blood Aborigine Tommy Gubba is initiated in the eternal flames into an ancient clan of sorcerers - the Kadaitcha. Accompanied by lesser spirits, he is sent into the mortal world to take revenge on the fair-skinned race, the invaders of the South Land who have plundered its wealth and laid waste to the chosen people. His fate has been ordained, and Tommy must race against time to confront a savage, evil foe." It's pretty grim reading. NOT for kids.