assault

I like! It even makes perfect sense. On alternate New Yorks: obviously both Metropolis and Gotham City are New York in drag. In fact, prior to 1941, there were explicit references locating Batman's activities in New York. I'm not sure exactly when Superman's home town was named Metropolis, but it wasn't in Action Comics #1. The city there is unnamed, but it seems to be intended to be New York. (or perhaps Chicago? Did Chicago have high rise buildings in the late 1930s?) As for Australian cities: there was an interesting little TV series made a couple of years back called 'Cybergirl'. (It's being repeated at the moment on Saturday mornings.) It's a kids' show, involving an alien 'cyber-replicant' that runs away to Earth, pursued by two other more primitive models. The title character then becomes a superheroine of sorts, though she doesn't actually use her powers much, since they tend to draw attention from her hunters. This is explicitly superhero genre material. It was filmed in Brisbane, Queensland, which was renamed 'River City' in the series. This allowed the producers of the series to Americanise aspects of the city (but nobody would be fooled), while, of course, allowing various city officials to be protrayed in a negative light... Anyway, I've been toying with the idea of using 'River City' in my universe for a while. Whether or not I do, in the context of the present discussion, I would like to stake a claim on the name: River City is in Queensland, Australia. So there. Alan, posting from Drayton Swamp, 130 km from River City.

Some more things that have been done before: Golden Age (or Silver Age, or whatever) versions of the same characters: perhaps the local equivalents are retired, or very young. Perhaps they have vigilante mentalities, and lots and lots of Iron Age whininess. The alternates could be being mind-controlled. The scenario is then to free them. The alternates could be villains with similar powers, but aren't the same people. The alternates could have been created specially by an ubervillain. The alternates are really robots, mental projections, clones, blobs of protoplasm or whatever, created by Professor Preserver to defend Earth from the insidious alien invaders. *** Ah, here we go: the alternates may be villains, but they are also the alternate Earth's ultimate defence against invaders! *** It _has_ been done before: the Earth-3 Supervillains died trying to defend their universe in the Crisis on Infinite Earths, but still... Alan

And all this is really sad, because the 'Hawkworld' series was really, really cool. A very fine Science Fiction series. Perhaps it might have been best left outside continuity entirely. Maybe the Hypertime idea, where continuity is "flexible" isn't so bad an idea after all. One of these days I might build a Hawkworld series Thanagarian... Alan

Re: Re: Re: Re: Champions Universe: Through the 'Ages' Sure, you don't need the full cliche, but it still makes sense for supers to work together, to cover each others' backs, allow them to deal with problems greater than they can deal with individually, and to allow them to get some sleep, knowing that someone else will deal with any problems that come up. That is, an emergency response team/roster is a good idea. In their down time, they can hang out and have a few beers. All of this is perfectly reasonable, and realistic. They don't even have to work for a government to do this. In fact, they might be composed of people who refuse to do this, and have formed their own group in parallel/rivalry with a government backed group. If it doesn't fit a certain view of the "Iron Age" genre, that's at least partly because the "Iron Age" is a fantasy genre in its own right. I posted a link to a site about the silly 70's "Supersons" stories DC put out. These stories are actually quite interesting. Despite their Silver Age campiness, they were an attempt to make DC's heroes "relevant", that is, "realistic". They deal with issues that supposedly actually existed at the time. Of course, this was hopelessly botched, since it was based on a very shallow understanding of what was going on, but the intent was there. In a sense, these stories were as "realistic" as "Iron Age" stories. By this I mean that they are one-sided portrayals of certain elements of the Real World. It's tempting to try to make stories (campaigns) "realistic" by making "heroes" be dysfunctional jerks. Unfortunately, that's precisely what they are, and not all supers "realistically" would be. "Real" supers would include people that are basically normal people, who are capable of forming relationships with other people, including other supers. These relationships would allow them to form teams, to cover each others' backs, and to support them against the hostile bits of the world. Yes, an isolated super could find themselves on the run in a hostile world. One with a support network, on the other hand, would be better situated to say "no" to forces that wanted to use or abuse them. Of course, forming that network could be difficult - but _that_ could be part of a "realistic" game that could be really fun. And incidentally, if you file off some of the stupidities, the "Supersons" thing could be a really cool game. Alan

Re: Re: Champions Universe: Through the 'Ages' The most obvious reason I can think of for why supers hang out together is that: They're supers! A quote from the cover of Adventure Comics #47, the first appearance of the Legion of Super-Heroes: "I'm sorry, Superboy, but we cannot admit you into our Super-Hero Club!" OK, so that cover was from 1958, but the idea of a "Super-Hero Club" seems perfectly reasonable. People form cliques, based on what they have in common. In the case of supers, "what they have in common" are superpowers, and the social advantages and disadvantages that stem from them. Of course, this connection would be stronger among groups with related origins and so on, but it would still tend to be true amongst any group of super-weirdoes. This could be reinforced by generational issues: the supers are all more or less the same age, or, for a more extreme example, they could even be second generation heroes - sidekicks or children of established heroes. See the Teen Titans, Infinity Inc. or Young Justice for further details. For an even weirder version, check out this site: http://superman.ws/super-sons/ OK, I'm sorry about the last site. Anyway, my point is that supers are quite likely to socialise together. That's not quite the same as "fighting crime" together, but then, the crimefighting thing is a problem in its own right. We can reasonably suggest, however, that once friendships are formed between supers, they are more likely to give each other a hand when problems arise, especially if those problems are mutual. Supergroups are logical enough. Alan

True, although there are also a disproportionate amount of female characters with "passive" defensive powers, e.g. Phantom Girl, Shadow Lass, Shrinking Vi, Triplicate Girl, Dream Girl... Of course, many of these are written as rather strong characters. Even Dream Girl is a serious super-scientist and nasty hand-to-hand combatant. And Shrinking Violet rocks! I'm not going to think too hard about the period when Lightning Lad was dead and Lightning Lass was impersonating him... Anyway, more generally on this thread. I suspect one of the reasons we haven't made a whole lot of sense is that we are mixing two different ideas. First, there is the "zooming around the universe" campaign. Secondly, there is the high powered campaign. There is no necessary connection between the two. One does not imply the other. A high-powered game can be based on Earth, while a star spanning game can involve characters not much more formidable than normals. On the other hand, there are plenty of precedents for the two to be connected. In addition, higher powered characters are probably a bit more likely to get involved in interstellar conflicts than their lower powered siblings. Anyone can do it, but usually it's the Superman types that do it fairly regularly. Or the Fantastic Four types... but the FF are fairly tough in their own right. Of course, that doesn't help them when Galactus comes to town. Hmm, has anybody done up stats for Darkseid? Alan

This is true, and I actually have no problem with a book dealing with high powered games. Quite the opposite, in fact. I've just been being a pain on the question of how to build the LSH. On the other hand, I wonder how many games actually last for 5 or 10 years? That's a long time to keep a group together. It can happen, of course, even though I suspect it's rather rare. Actually, I would really like to play in a really high-powered game. A bit of cosmic bottom-kicking would be kind of cool. There is a certain appeal in being the biggest and baddest thing around - apart from the idjits the GM throws at you. Alan

No doubt. On the other hand, the "writer's decisions" largely fall into the hands of the players in an RPG. I said "largely", because of the role of the GM, of course. A bad GM will let the Mon-Els steal the scene. A good one will give the others some space. On a related topic, the Superman site I posted includes the first appearance of Ultra Boy (Superboy #98). Funnily enough, every Champions player's favourite munchkin didn't have his full set of powers then! He only had his "Penetra-vision" which, and I quote, "can generate heat, see great distances, and look through everything, INCLUDING lead. Superboy's X-Ray vision CAN'T see through lead!" (Emphasis in original). This is a character that can be generated. He's a normal with enhanced senses and a honkin' big attack. And he's Ultra Boy! One of the heavy hitters of the LSH started as a standard Champions character! All he needs is a few more slots on his multipower, or, for that matter, all he needs is for his biggest power to be turned into an MP, depending on how you initially build him. I've suggested that most of the LSH could be generated on 350 points plus 100 of hi-tech gear. This is true, but I didn't fully explore the significance of this. If we assume that this gear includes at least some armour, we have a lot of the necessary stuff of a viable Champions character tucked away in the standard gear. This leaves 350 points to buy a "normal" (a very good, superhero grade one) with a fairly limited set of powers. This can result in a very seriously powerful character. Don't mess with Lightning Lad! He probably has something like a 16 dice attack! And the skill levels to allow him to hit... Of course, he doesn't want to get hit, but he probably has enough defences to survive. I think in the case of a big team like the LSH, it would probably be best for each player to take on two or three characters. That way, each player can play a heavy hitter occasionally, and alternate it with some of the more modest characters, and possibly even one of the weaker ones, with the defensive powers that require them to use their brains to deal with the scenario. All this would require the GM to put a bit of thought in their scenarios, to ensure that brute force isn't enough to deal with the problem. That way, Mon-El can happily bash the Khund invasion fleet, while Phantom Girl gets to the heart of the problem. Meanwhile, Matter-Eater Lad can eat the Plot Device Machine... In this situation, I would take: Cosmic Boy, Ultra Boy, and Invisible Kid (Lyle or Jacques, depending on the period, I don't care...). And yes, this would, indeed be lots of fun with a skillful GM. Of course, an unsubtle one would make it a bash, crash and smash, but there's nothing much that could be done about that. Alan ps: yes, I am working on my Superboy #98 version of Ultra Boy as I type...

It depends if they are fans of the titles in question, IMHO. A lot of the high powered characters are as dull as rocks. Give me Cosmic Boy, any day. Alan

Oh, and some more space based series: L.E.G.I.O.N. '89 Omega Men Plus, for LSH fans, their very first appearance can be found here: http://superman.ws/tales2/lsh/ The same site has various other science fiction-y Superman stories, include the first appearances of Brainiac and Mon-El, plus the first of the very cool "Nightwing and Flamebird" stories, where Superman and Jimmy Olsen get to play Batman and Robin in Kandor. Alan

People seem to be forgetting that a significant part of the Legion are people like Phantom Girl, Shadow Lass, Shrinking Violet, Invisible Kid, Dream Girl and so on. Not an attack power between them, but they are serious characters. Then you get people like Lightning Lad, Lightning Lass, Sun Boy, Star Boy, Polar Boy, Cosmic Boy and Magnetic Kid, who are all essentially normals with crunchy attack powers. There are even midranking bricks like Ferro Lad and Colossal Bore. None of this lot are particularly powerful. Sure, you could burn a lot of points building them, but they would largely be wasted. 350 would do nicely, with another 100 points worth of standard equipment (flight rings, etc.) Hmm. So, yes, they would be 450 point characters - tough, but not overwhelming. Oh, and some of the "silly" characters could be surprisingly nasty too, so just watch out. Alan

My favourites: http://www.reading-room.net/ (Mostly very early Silver Age, but some Golden Age). Includes Detective #27!!! http://superman.ws/superman-comics/ A mix of Golden and Silver Age. Some real beauties... Enjoy. Alan

Another : The Silver Scarab, from DC's Infinity Inc. They just keep getting churned out, don't they? Alan

He was a bit of a wise-cracking swashbuckler before he became comic relief, though. The change wasn't that dramatic. He just became a little less competent. Hmm. I haven't reread the '80s BB series for over a decade. It must be time... As I recall, the series was a little flat. It had more potential than was developed. Same old, same old... By the way, the next character I create for Champions is going to have a name of the form: So far I am considering "Blue Banshee" and "Scarlet Spectre", although the latter is a bit too "Commie"-sounding. I might go with "Crimson Spectre" - the loss of the alliteration is worth it to tone down the excess connotations. has a long tradition, doesn't it? The Green Hornet, the Red Bee(!), Blue Beetle, Scarlet Scorpion... No doubt there are others.

Ah yes, the "Jean-Paul Sartre Brigade", aka "Descarte's Demons", aka "The Black Berets". It's been done, but not in Champions, that I know of. Alan

It was something of an alliance. The Nazis were a mass movement based on bits of the middle class threatened and terrified by the post-WWI chaos, plus lots of thugs and criminals and general riff-raff. The industrialists (and bankers, generals and whatnot) had resources, but little mass support. The two groups got together to smash the labour movement (Social Democrats, Communists, and so on), who were to one degree or another threatening their interests. This "smashing" involved systematic terror, and the establishment of a dictatorship. Once the dictatorship was established, a lot of the "mass movement" element of the Nazis was eliminated. Not coincidentally, a lot of the "radical" rhetoric of the early Nazi movement was ditched at this time, when it might have been possible for them to have attempted to put it into practice. In this situation, the Jews, Gypsies and so on were just the usual scapegoats targeted by German reactionaries. If it had been the US, different groups would have been the primary targets... In practice, the Nazis were more or less simply a more than usually violent example of a "typical" capitalist dictatorship. The only things that could be called "socialist" about them were their early populist rhetoric - ignored in practice, plus their authoritarian statism - which was the traditional practice and ideology of most early 20th Century European states, and which could only be called socialism by people shaped by the political culture of the USA. In this thread, I've included a couple of nasty comments directed at the US. I apologise to anyone I've offended. The most important point of them, however, is to suggest that fascism picks up characteristics from the society in which it emerges. It makes very little sense to pick up on the "national socialist" tag, and call the Nazis "socialist". In many respects, they had more in common with very individualist, "freedom loving", anti-statist, and Christian groups in the USA - like the KKK. OK, that's it. I'm not posting again on this thread. Alan

Just messing with you... Just for a laugh, consider the following: Many costumed adventurers from the US were fighting fascism BEFORE December 7, 1941. Many were even doing it before September 1939. Have you ever wondered why end of the Golden Age coincided with McCarthyism? Could it be because a significant proportion of the Golden Age "heroes" were: "Premature Anti-fascists"? Just messing with you. Oh, why not? Consider the following, too: Most anti-mutant propaganda comes from the far right. What is the far left's response? How many "Commie Mutant Traitors" are there, out there? Alan

Oh boy. Let's see: Fascism (more than just the Nazis, BTW) was supremely opportunistic. Its ideology was essentially just spin. (This is true for Stalinism, too, of course, but that's another question entirely.) Every essential element of Nazism was present in the pre-WWI German state: statist nationalism, "Church, Kitchen and Children" for women, militarism, anti-semitism, repression of workers' organisations, and so on. In short: Bismarckism. The difference was that the Bismarckian system had collapsed at the end of WWI, was replaced by a weak and chaotic system, and "needed" to be forcibly restored. This was achieved, in the end, by a repressive force that emerged outside the confines of the state apparatus - the Nazi stormtroopers. The "radical" elements of Nazi ideology were essentially suckerbait for these clowns, and was mostly ditched after the Night of the Long Knives. In fact, the latter was precisely a purge of those elements that took this stuff seriously. The "old school Junkers, industrialists and nobility" despised the Nazi upstarts, and this was, to some extent, reciprocated. On the other hand, the Nazis were perfectly willing to suck up to them at every opportunity, like the petty little social wannabes that they were. The Nazi system was perfectly profitable while they were winning - a few bombs didn't change that. It only became a problem when they took on people that could fight back. As for Nazi control of the economy: most of this control was of the labour force. It's true, various Nazi officials wedged themselves into the economic system, trying to make fortunes for themselves. That was because they wanted to become part of the system that they were defending. They were opportunists and parasites. The industrialists were willing to tolerate this as long as they delivered results: new resources, captive markets, the elimination of competitors, and a pacified workforce. Centralised control of industrial production really only emerged late in the war, in response to the prospect of defeat. Prior to that, the German economy was still to a considerable degree operating on a peace-time basis. This wasn't a good thing while fighting a total war! Companies like General Motors, Ford and Krupp make immense fortunes from the Nazi regime. Some of this was lost with the Nazi defeat. If the Nazis had been prevented from taking power, ALL of it would have been lost. Incidentally, check out Spain for what fascist governments become over the long run. Remember: there has been no purge of fascist elements there. The current Prime Minister was a member of Franco's political organisation, or at least its youth wing. His party is one of the successors of Franco's organisation. Radical, my foot. Fascism, generically, is a brand of terrorist dictatorship, that uses massive violence to repress threats to social order. Its ideology typically involves conservative nationalist values. Its governing form is typically dictatorial, although there are not-dissimilar "democratic" forms, where violence is "only" directed against the poorest sections of society and dissidents. Examples of this include: the southern states of the US after the failure of Reconstruction! Yes, the bedsheet brigade were the true American equivalent of fascism, and yes, they did run parts of the USA. And yes, they did so "democratically". And lynchings were excuses for family outings... One of my favourite alternate dimensions in Champions 3-D was Confederate World. I'm going to post this, though I probably shouldn't. These boards are usually pretty good at staying on topic, so I'm even more reluctant than usual to post flamebait. Anyway, I can see that I am going to have to consider running a Golden Age campaign. That's a little difficult in my usual Australian setting, which was (a) too small at that time, and ( too deeply involved in the war from 1939 onwards. Of course, a US based campaign run by me would be a bit odd, since I haven't been to the US for 25 years, and then only for a few weeks. Still, very few of us have ever been to the US in the 1930s and 1940s, so I guess I mightn't be at too much of a disadvantage. Lucky nobody from the US would be able to hear the accents I would be using. I've been looking at various golden age Superman and Batman comics that are available on the net recently (Google is your friend), and it's true that the early versions of these characters can be built on very few points. Unfortunately, they both rapidly gained huge power levels, and many of the characters that followed them tended to match their extended, rather than initial levels. On the other hand, there were plenty of low powered characters too, so I can't complain. Anyway, I've digressed wildly from the original topic of the thread, so I will stop here. Alan

At this point I have to say that I thought Danger International did this perfectly well, and I preferred Dark Champions as the "street-level" Champions subgenre... But, that's just my opinion. Feel free to ignore it. Alan

Well, in my world, "clean(ing) up the drug cartels and marxist insurgents" wouldn't be quite so simple... The cartels would try to find themselves new corrupt relationships to carry on as before, or move somewhere else. The Marxists would probably regroup and return, possibly with sympathetic supers on their side, or, more likely, in a more covert manner. Of course, in my world, there is an unspoken agreement that minimises the amount of metahuman involvement in international conflicts. This agreement goes out the window when supervillains start taking over countries. Respectable superheroes start changing into the other costumes they keep at the back of their closets... Alan

No, there is a fundamental difference. Fascism is a means of preserving the pre-existing patterns of property ownership, while communism seeks to radically change it. That means, for example, that Nazi Germany was run on behalf of companies like Krupp and Ford, while a hypothetical communist Germany would have nationalised them. That's _why_ Krupp and Ford supported the Nazis - to crush the communists! This is a hot-button topic, so I won't comment further. As for likely candidates for takeover: the main problem is, of course, that the target is most likely already going to be in somebody else's "sphere of influence". This would mean that the existing power would have to be initially willing to support the new regime, or at least unable to do much about it. It can't be too significant, economically, or it wouldn't be handed over to loose cannons, unless the loose cannons were operating behind more respectable proxies. Of course, it could (should) become more economically significant, once the presence of "super-stuff" is detected, or at least openly admitted. I can't see a new country being established from "unoccupied" land, since there's no such thing, and the residents of "unoccupied" lands tend to get a bit irritated when they get invaded. So, that scraps the "Aryan homeland" idea, IMHO. I would go with a fictional country. Of course, that usually does mean cutting some bit out of a real world country, but that's easier than trying to do it in-game. Alternatively, draw some islands onto the map. The idea of artificially creating some in your gameworld is OK, too, even though its been done before. (Malachite!) In fact, this might be the best, since even fictional countries or islands logically should be "of interest" to someone. In any case, of course, any government that gets set up would have to be recognised by other governments. Without that, the diplomatic immunity thing wouldn't apply. I don't know. It's tricky. The best option might be to have the Nazis being a power behind the scenes, perhaps with one being "democratically" elected, and others being appointed as diplomats by a legitimate government. Of course, diplomats can, and regularly are, expelled from their host countries, and if they systematically engage in illegal activities, diplomatic relations could be cut off. Of course, that could jeopardise access to "super-stuff", but there still would be a point where relations would be broken off, and efforts put into place to remove the "unacceptable" government. In fact, any PCs who interact with such governments would probably be best off feeding evidence against them to outfits like the CIA. That way, they become deniable sources, and can possibly weasel out of any issues with their secret identities. I dunno. I'd really like to play in a game like this. Smash the Nazis! Yeah. Assault would get into that. Of course, he probably wouldn't like the government that replaced them, either... Alan

I have a theoretical answer and a real one. The theoretical one is "about one in a million". There are skewing factors to reduce the influence of countries like India and China. My games are based in Australia, so there has to be enough supers to support them. I roughly go with about 20 or so active supers in Australia. More supers may be active at any time, but a lot of those are rampaging monsters, visitors and flunkeys with gear. The real answer, however, is: exactly as many as my campaign needs! This typically includes a few "off in the distance". So my actual answer is the twenty+ in Australia, and maybe another dozen or so, plus any extras I feel the need for. Alan

Oh yeah. This is the version of Hawkgirl with the "likes to hit people with a mace" limitation, isn't it? Alan

Oh dear. I've been playing Champions since February 1982. I've just organised my 40th Birthday party... Anyway, back in the world... Two DC masterminds: Vandal Savage Ultra-Humanite Both work for me. By the way, if anyone is interested in Doctor Doom, see: http://www.reading-room.net/ Dr Doom rolled up in Fantastic Four #5. It was a seriously good story. No, really. Juicy time travel plus... You can actually build the not-so-good doctor on 350 points! I feel better already. Alan

Definitely Golden Age. Bondage covers were one of the pretexts for the Comics Code. Then again, I suppose I could live quite happily without any bondage covers at all. Alan