assault

Re: Re: Re: Concerns about Champs Supplements Of course. He gets to fight Foxbat. Alan.

Starting with Dragonfly: Yes. Make him a curable rampager, and you're cooking with gas. Something like the Lizard from Spiderman. Starburst: Again, yes. His personality is definitely reminiscent of Firestorm (early Firestorm, anyway), as well as Booster Gold and Blue Beetle. He has a definite showboat and "in it for the fun and ego boost" aspect. Still, he could always mature, at least a bit. As for being a potential "Superman" - well, I suppose it depends what you mean by it. He's not a brick, obviously, but he could still potentially be the iconic hero of heroes. (He would need to mature a lot first, of course!) He doesn't really need to have Superman's powers, or even the full extent of Superman's power level, to fill this role. To tweak him to make him suitable for this role, you would have to expand his multipower a bit - he does need a bit more power - and build up his characteristics a bit (more PRE, INT, EGO, BOD...) You would also need to pad out his hand to hand combat capabilities a bit by, say, giving him some rather basic Martial Arts, as well as increasing his Strength to, say, 20. That would give him the capacity to bash thugs, without making him a brick. Finally, add lots and lots of skills and perks. This would probably take him up to about 450 points, without doing too much damage to his original character conception. At that point, my 250 or 350 point characters might be willing to call him "sir". My 450 point characters would be honoured to call him "friend". What more do you want? Alan

Exactly. The original version is not only gone, it's been made explicitly clear that he won't be back. Crusader is no longer part of the CU. Some other guy has replaced him. Crusader is not merely pining for the fjords: he is a dead parrot. If any of my characters ever run into the punk that stole his name, they'll give him a serious kicking. Alan

Hmm, Starburst as Superman? I have to confess that while the idea has crossed my mind, I've always immediately dismissed it without taking the time to think it through. I may take that time, now. I miss Starburst and Crusader too. In fact, my thoughts on a campaign design book were derived from what I have been doing with them lately. I pulled out my old copy of 2nd Ed Champions recently (my copy of 1st Ed seems to be buried deeper in the "files"), had an attack of nostalgia, and started building a CU based on the characters in the book, refraining from any heresies like Dr Destroyer, Stronghold, the Enemies books, and so on.. (I conceded a place for Holocaust, though, since he appeared on the front cover.) To my surprise, it actually worked! There is quite a neat little universe tucked in there, which I missed when I was young. The trick is to fiddle with the time line, so Shrinker, for example, starts off as a heroine and an associate of Starburst and Crusader, and only goes bad during the course of the campaign. Mechanon, similarly, shouldn't exist at the start, but should be built as a security robot for the hero team. That would probably take a bit of manipulation in a real game, but could be managed. Ogre would be created by Mechanon during the game. Dragonfly could be a rampaging lab accident, who it might be possible to "cure". Of course, the "cure" might not be permanent. Icicle (Christine Saunders) might be a relative (niece, cousin, sister?) of Crusader (Sam Saunders). Pulsar might begin as VIPER's main super muscle in the area, before getting his own ideas. (and so on...) This stuff actually sounds like a comic series, doesn't it? Soap all over the place. And we haven't even looked at DNPCs, agencies, corporations (Bio-Investigations? Well, I suppose we could look at the 4th Ed write up for them...), or written up any actual player characters to replace Crusader and Starburst as the stars of the campaign. Enough. I'm rambling. Cheers, Alan

I've thought about this some more. Something that might be useful would be a how-to guide to campaign design. Essentially, what it would do would be to show how to start with a couple of PCs, and build up a world around them. This would entail taking their Hunteds, DNPCs, Contacts, Favours, as well as their origin stories, and developing them into well-rounded characters, organisations and locations that the PCs can interact with, and which can serve as plot seeds, people to fight or protect, and places that can be fought in or protected. Places like the PCs homes, workplaces, bases and favourite hangouts could be developed, as well as the places where the various NPCs can be found. For example, a "street" contact might be found in a certain bar, so, of course, you want some details about the bar. (Obligatory Daredevil fight scene...) The book would thus show how to do this, while, of course, providing some examples to act as a library that can be borrowed from by less experienced/motivated/energetic GMs. There could also be a discussion of the implications of certain disadvantages. One thing that has been bugging me of late is the handling of Hunteds. As you get more PCs in a game, you start getting more and more Hunteds, as well as duplication of them. Each of them has to be developed, and each of them has to show up at some point, and each of them, ultimately, has to be a key element of a scenario. With enough Hunteds around, the basic course of the entire campaign becomes set. That's fine, but it means that the GM has to think about what is going on while the players are generating their characters. This kind of stuff isn't necessarily going to occur to relatively inexperienced GMs. And then, of course, you do need some sample scenarios, hooking the various bits and pieces together, and providing examples of how to bring the PCs together into a team, and all that kind of thing. Preferably, as well, the scenarios should be both easy to run and interesting. (I have to say that I didn't consider the sample scenarios in 4th Ed Champions particularly interesting.) So I guess what I am suggesting is a "how-to" book that would also act as a bit of a sourcebook on some NPC heroes and their world, and a library of other NPCs and locations. Of course, while all of this should be self-contained, it should be able to be expanded by other books like Millennium City, VIPER, CKC, and probably some equivalent of Normals Unbound. (Ah, that's another hint there, isn't it?) Alan

A kind of mini-campaign with pregenerated characters? Interesting. I don't know how it would sell, but it would certainly be interesting reading. It reminds me a little of the old DC Heroes RPG sourcebooks on Superman and Batman. The Batman one, in particular, had a couple of reasonably developed, if uninspired, scenarios. More generally, I suppose the pregen(s) could be replaced by other characters of the same general archetype(s). This would be easiest in non-powered Dark Champions games, I suppose. Of course, even there there can be a range of characters. Not every character would be a clone of the Punisher or the Batman, and their responses to situations could vary accordingly. (Green Arrow? The Question?) But anyway, you are correct in that small groups (1 or 2 PCs) are a viable way of playing Champions. Of course, small group games aren't _entirely_ different from larger groups, but they probably are more dependent on background details and NPCs. The problem is, of course, that background details aren't necessarily applicable to all campaigns. Then again, the characters presented in combat oriented scenarios are usually firmly attached to a particular background (or at least country), and need at least a little bit of tweaking by individual GMs. Anyway, you've raised some interesting questions here, which intersect with some things that have been going through my mind. Thanks... Alan

Re: Time Lines? OK, well, the Dec. 8th, 1941 beginning of World War II cracked me up. I'm still chuckling. Thank you. In general, your timeline looks interesting. I can't really say much more than that. Years and years ago I played a character that had dropped the Hiroshima bomb. He was from a parallel universe where WWII was fought against a coalition of Evil witches and warlocks. Unfortunately, after the war, my character had become a bit of a liability. He had been developed as the ultimate weapon in the war: a genetically enhanced superman. Unfortunately, his "genetic enhancement" had involved magic. In a world of victorious witchhunters, this was a little embarrassing - proof that "good guys" had been dabbling in the Black Arts. Fortunately, one of the Warlocks had escaped, by fleeing to an alternate dimension. "Obviously", "somebody" had to be sent to hunt him down. Hence my character's appearance in the campaign universe... I had a lot of fun with the Hiroshima idea. It was actually peripheral to the original character conception - I made it up on the fly just as a bit of bragging. My character was actually quite tough, and had a violently fanatical edge, so he creeped the other characters out a bit. The GM played along quite well. In particular, he let me get away with specifying that my character had "bomb racks": big frames that he could strap on to allow him to conveniently carry large objects when he was flying. Sadly, he wouldn't allow me to get a nuke to carry in them. Alan

So, if NZ is one of the countries involved, which would be the other one? Surely not NZ's archrival in Rugby and Cricket? It sounds like an interesting setting... Alan

Ahh, well. Earlier versions of VIPER's history mention that a "labor organizer" was amongst the founding leaders of VIPER. Clearly, VIPER is unionised! OK, it's not the _best_ union, but, hey. Another view of the matter appeared in an episode of the Simpsons, when Homer was hired by a Bond-style mastermind named Hank Scorpio. Scorpio's organisation seemed to operate on rather New Age corporate principles... Then there's the Austin Powers films, and so on. OK, so all of this is silly. The actual situation, in other than humourous games, would probably vary. A scientist working for a front corporation might have a "normal" career, in many ways, even if they spent a certain amount of time working on a Death Ray in an underground base. Of course, if they "knew too much", it could be a little unfortunate. A grunt serving as an Agent in Africa is likely to have a career path resembling that of a Somali or Liberian militiaman. An agent in the US might spend a bit of time with VIPER, receive a payout, and be allowed to go without too much prejudice, if it can be safely assumed that they didn't know anything beyond what they needed to know. Or they might have to skip town with whatever cash they had got together. Whether or not they are pursued would depend on whether VIPER felt it was necessary. Clearly, anyone with a big mouth would be pursued. Over all, I would have most of the important bits of VIPER underground and working through front organisations. Most of VIPER wouldn't need to be aware they are members of VIPER. The bits that did would either be expendable grunts, who would need to be kept in the dark as much as possible, or committed conspirators who know what the price of treachery is. Or hapless dupes, who can be "retired" with a bullet. But then, when the Secret Master Plan comes to fruition, only the Secret Masters will be spared... Maybe working for VIPER isn't such a good idea after all. On the other hand, if you can't stop the Secret Master Plan, why shouldn't you take their money? Alan

Try a search engine... Google gave some interesting responses, though none that were too terribly useful. I'm intrigued by "Thea". A goddess named "Goddess". In the absence of more useful information, I would stick some of the attributes of Hera, Demeter or someone on to her. Hmm. Probably Demeter. Alan

On the Viper army: It wouldn't make a lot of sense trying to set up such a thing in New York or Millennium City. It might make a great deal of sense to set one up in certain parts of Africa, Asia, or Latin America. How could it be raised? Well, the good old "jungle camp" is traditional. Alternatively, a puppet government might do you some favours. In certain cases, the puppet's own army might change uniforms... Since Viper is a conspiracy, it's quite likely that any armies they control aren't called "The Viper Army". We've been a bit spoiled by the image of the agents in green and yellow. Most of Viper wouldn't be so obvious, IMHO. Alan

I've been thinking about Rogue lately. I think the way to go would be to make a lot of her stuff incremental, rather than taking effect immediately. This would tend to reflect the movies, rather than the comics. She also wouldn't start with the Carol Danvers stuff. I'm still not quite sure how to handle her, though. She would have to be built on more points than most other characters she hangs around with, even if you lame her down a lot. Of course, I don't attempt to build exact equivalents of characters for my game. I always tweak them and rename them before I use them. Getting a decent Rogue equivalent is still something I am working on, but the fact that most mutants in my game are fairly low powered helps. Alan

Dude! That is so Foxbat! Hmm. A definite Discordian. Alan

Thank you. Of course I did a net search before I posted, but I didn't run into this one. Really. And there I was thinking that all US high schools were overrun with demons... I appreciated the following quote from the Cranbrook website: "Boys and girls, during their early teenage years, often mix like oil and water. The girls grow a head taller and start on the path to adulthood, while the boys still waver between childhood and the road to maturity. The girls are ecstatic, and totally glum, the boys full of false bravado and uncertain moves. And they fret about their bodies and each other." Anyway, thanks. Your post was exactly what I was hoping for. Hmm. If I was going to play in a teen supers game, my character would probably be a "bad boy" version of a certain Kansas farmboy... Or, if I thought I could play a girl adequately, Faith, from Buffy. That's what happens if you were a nerd in real life - "bad" has a certain appeal. But, of course, having Hunteds would keep you on (near, anyway) the straight and narrow, and hopefully prevent you from being expelled. Alan

An Aquaman rip-off's favourite catch phrase: (in "dumb" voice) "I can talk to fish." Used about once a session, usually when something technical/scientific has to be done. Memorable quote from same character, facing a "Dr Evil" type mastermind: "In my experience, sharks don't LIKE having frickin' lasers on their heads." Alan

I'm currently mucking about with Ravenswod Academy, but my knowledge of the Michigan (and more generally US) education system is rather scanty. What grades/years do people think would be offered at Ravenswood? How old would (most) of the students be? Come to think of it, how many students, normal and super, would there be? Presumably the intake of supers wouldn't be quite as regular as that of ordinary students. While most sixteen year olds, for example, might be in the same grade(s) academically, they might vary quite a bit in terms of how long they have been in the "special" program. One might have been there for years, while another might have just arrived. In addition, all of the super students would require a lot of individual attention, so they might not cluster into neat class groups, although such groups probably would exist to some extent. A stray thought about some interesting cliques of students: how many students from Hudson City would there be? If Ravenswood is prestigous enough, there might be a few kids from Hudson City and ex-Hudson City families. These would mainly be rather upper class normals, although one of two of them might be potential vigilantes! ("Robin goes to Ravenswood.") Some of these might have been sent intentionally for special training, while others might just be normal students, with an aptitude for martial arts. This last group would probably start outside the supers program, and possibly unaware of its existence... The other group of "Huddies", however, would be the "real" supers. It's quite likely that their social composition would be quite different from that of their non-powered peers, with fewer being from Hudson City's elite. They would be very likely to have attitudes rather closer to Huddie gang members. It's quite conceivable that this group could be an interesting bad influence on some of the other students. Certainly any "rebellious teenager" types might well gravitate to the more streetwise elements. But of course, most of the student body would be good old normal "rich kids" with some of them having attitudes to match. All good fun. Alan

The easiest way for people to meet is to have the local supers (especially teenage supers) hang out at a prominent local landmark. For example, in Brisbane, they might hang out on top of the Story Bridge (very obvious, right near town, and difficult to get to the top unless you can fly). In Sydney, the Sydney Harbour Bridge would work. In San Francisco/the Bay Area, the Golden Gate. In New York, whatever. You get the idea. Some landmarks are just natural places where people who can fly, cling, or whatever will hang out. Once a few such people do that, others will... Of course, that tends to subvert some of the more "serious" origins, but I certainly know where I would have hung out if I had been a super in Brisbane. There are plenty of rooftops for "dating" on, but the "hanging out and meeting people" place is horribly obvious. If you have a problem, think of this: "gosh, I'm a super in New York. Where am I going to go to meet other supers? Maybe I might hang out on top of the Empire State building!" Would it work? Is there some equivalent in Millenium City? What would you do if you couldn't fly/cling/whatever? Alan

Well, because it's a player versus player thing, you should, of course, try to sort it out between you, preferably in front of the GM. Failing that: 1: Find out his secret ID. 2: Expose it. Alternatively: 1: Find out his secret ID. 2: Shoot him in the head when he isn't in costume. Presumably, this means he isn't wearing armour... Incidentally, if you are choosing the second option, ensure that you leave evidence proving that the "hero" you are at war with is, in fact, the person that you just shot. That way, if he survives, his trouble is only just beginning. Of course, if your GM is nasty, you may have just shot some innocent... Well, that's your problem. Alan

Hmm. Definitely Hmm. I may have to think about this. Alan

Hmm. Well, I did the living with my parents thing for a while in my late thirties! (Long story.) It certainly was an experience. As for the Titans: when I built my vague equivalents, I used two broad templates. Robin, Speedy and Kid Flash were based on one: "someone fast with gadgets and skills". Kid Flash, of course, traded off the gadgets and skills for powers and more characteristics. Wonder Girl and Aqualad were variants on "brick with secondary (ego) powers". Each character was heavily tweaked, of course, but they started out as variants on these themes. I find this technique quite useful for building teams. The Legion of Superheroes is another handy superteam to consider. If you ignore the Superboy equivalents, most of the characters are basically normals with a narrow set of powers, standard equipment, and often fairly similar sets of skills. This particularly is true of the early members: Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl and so on. Even better, they began as teens! Hmm. I haven't thought about building the Young All-Stars yet. Alan

Probably. It's been a Real Long Time since I was reading the X-Men. In any case though, it doesn't matter. My main concern was to test the suggestions in the Champions genre book for teen supers campaigns. The main feature of that was the good old 40 active points limit. It kind of works, but it's a bit draconian in some ways, IMHO. In particular, of course, some groups might simply not be all that interested in playing low powered characters, but might still be into the "teen supers" roleplaying side. As long as the characters are designed with that in mind, there is no good reason that I can think of that a teen supers game necessarily needs to have PCs that are built on fewer points, or with more formal limits, than any other game. I would still go for relatively limited characters, but their powers could still be _very_ formidable, even if they don't quite know how to use them, or if their powers are still developing... A lot of this subgenre is a case of setting and roleplaying attitude, rather than strictly of character design, IMHO. So, Steve L: the previous is my suggestion for the subgenre book that you (or someone else) absolutely _must_ write. So there. (Thinks: Robin, Speedy, Kid Flash (martial artists/gadgeteers/speedsters/yawn), Wonder Girl, Aqualad (bricks with limited ego powers/yawn). Gosh the Teen Titans are generic lame-oes... You could build them all as variants on two generalised templates. Well, I did, anyway.) Alan

Umm, Oberon, you need to remember that there are Canadians, and other citizens of the "places that are really cold" here. With that in mind, I will admit that, yes, it has been a bit nippy of late. I particularly appreciated today's combination of rain and wind, which first slowly and methodically soaked you, and then dropped the temperature a bit. It wasn't snow, and nobody was likely to freeze to death because of it, but it was very.., umm.., very.. bracing (that's the word!) indeed. I'm still generally surviving with a light jumper, a long sleeved shirt, and a tee-shirt underneath the long sleeved one at night. During the day, I've been losing the jumper. At work I've been rolling up the long sleeves... Of course, it's not winter yet - this is still Autumn. Anyway, we should keep an eye open for each other's posts: if neither of us convinces the other that we are complete twinkies we might have to actually stumble across each other in person at some point... (I don't have a group in Toowoomba at the moment. I've been a bit of an occasional member of some Brissie groups for a while, but that doesn't really work.) Oh, and I've been playing Champions since early '82, and I've got the rulebooks to prove it... Alan

Re: Designing the Original X-Men I wrote: Well, not for the first time, I was wrong. It is perfectly simple to build Cyclops without violating the 40 active point guideline. Well, without technically violating it anyway... What you do is build _two_ Energy Blasts. One is a small Always On one - about 4 dice. Buy off the Always On along the lines of the example on page 18 of the Champions genre book. The other would be the main attack - about 8 dice - focussed (literally!) through his visor/glasses. Without his visor, then, all he can use is his less powerful Always On attack. It's not quite "right", but I'm only trying to build "reasonable facsimiles" here, as examples of the kind of junk characters you might come up with. I said that this wasn't a technical breach of the guidelines. In fact, if you combine the two attacks (see p.234) you can actually sometimes do a bit more damage than just a normal 8D6 attack. This makes Cyclops' attack just a bit tougher than Iceman's, which is good. It's also technically a circumvention of the 40 active point guideline, but not a hideous one. A nastier option would be to replace the Always On EB with an Always On RKA. Anyway, it's possible to build a lot of characters with a 40 active point limit. On Robins: of course I meant Jason Todd. Seriously, though, because I was thinking about the early Teen Titans as an example of a teen team, I was actually thinking of Dick Grayson. In fact, of course, any non-powered "Sidekick Boy" would face similar issues, and many wouldn't have had quite as good training. It would be fun to play though, wouldn't it? School Bully Boy would probably have a bit of an attitude about normals, and here is one "pretending" to be a super... Alan

Very nice work. I'm deeply impressed. Personally, I've never played in a game that used Dr. Destroyer. I only got to look at Island of Dr. D and Day of the D earlier this year, and I never bought Classic Enemies. I can't see any obvious reason why I would use the CKC version. Holocaust or Fiacho (or Professor Muerte!) would be adequate if I wanted someone to fill the mastermind space. Dr. D simply didn't exist in most of the game universes I have played in. Most of them didn't really have any particular ubervillain at all. In fact, I can only recall one that did - it had an irritating know-it-all call "Horrorscope", who was, of course a precog. Unfortunately, this character was a good example of why you should be careful not to annoy your players more than their characters... Actually, just thinking about it, we should probably have done something to blind his precognition. That would have _really_ ticked him off. Alan

I hadn't done this before you suggested it. Since then, however... I looked at Pulsar in the Champions genre book, and discovered that he looked a whole lot like a character conception that was kicking around in my head. With a bit of tweaking... Of course, he's not exactly the world's most powerful character, but that's not the point: my munchkin days are long over. Alan