assault

Originally posted by mrswing

Wouldn't it be possible to come up with sourcebook/adventures focussing on one hero (or maybe two, Batman and Robin style) who is examined in depth, also presenting a ready-made set of NPCs and story hooks, and then use this hero in a short campaign (three adventures maybe?) in the same book?

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?

Originally posted by Dr. Rune

Dec. 8th, 1941: World War II begins.

 

...

 

August 6th, 1945: Icon (under government orders) drops the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

 

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

Originally posted by Koshka

I've always assumed the last thing VIPER would ever be known for is their retirement plans,

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

Originally posted by 5 Sided D6

P.S. Good Luck on Rogue - She is almost impossible to make, much less for a low power level game. You might consider her being a npc as well-unless you found some way other than the horribly expensive VPP "Mimic pool" way of making her-in which case you better be sharing .

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

Originally posted by Doug McCrae

Giant Kudzu, sent by the Servants of Cthulhu. Instant plot!

Dude! That is so Foxbat!

Hmm. A definite Discordian.

Alan

Originally posted by Nuadha

For an example of one of the more upscale Michigan private schools (or academies, if you prefer) look here: http://www.cranbrook.edu/schools/

Thank you. Of course I did a net search before I posted, but I didn't run into this one.

Finally, there is High School (as seen in Buffy, the Vampire Slayer....except not quite as many demons) which as Grades 9-12. Grade 9 is the "Freshmen", Grade 10 is the "Sophmores", Grade 11 is the "Juniors" and Grade 12 are the "Seniors."

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

Originally posted by oberon

Of course, if someone wanted to run a Hero game that I could play in, that would be another matter. I'm sure I could find SOME free time

 

 

cheers

oberon

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

Originally posted by JmOz

Cyclops:

 

Number 1 his powers would not be o end/always on

 

His powers would be fed by a End Reserve that only charges in sunlight (As he has aged he has no doubt bought 0 end)

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

Originally posted by oberon

Got a question,

 

Cold enough for you??

 

(says I as I sit typing, wrapped in a blanket, a cup of hot choc in front of me )

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:

Cyclops should have a bigger attack than Iceman's. In addition, his attack should be 0 End, and always on, with the latter disadvantage bought off through a focus. This sucks up a lot of points.

 

This is fine. This is his single initial power: exactly the kind of narrow focus a teen super needs. Unfortunately, it violates the 40 active point limit.

 

In this case, the active point limit is wrong, and should be waived for the character.

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

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

During my group's last climactic confrontation with Dr. Destroyer, his agents, and two of his main 4th Edition minions Gigaton and Stormwatch, one of our players hit upon an inspired psychological strategem.

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

Designing the Original X-Men

Thinking about this some more...

Clearly, this subgenre doesn't work unless you can design "reasonable facsimiles" of such classic characters as the original X-Men, the original Teen Titans, and the New Mutants. (Well, omitting Kid Flash from the Teen Titans...)

I had a look at the Champions genre book, and it suggests a 40 active point limit (and, implicitly, 250 point characters) for this subgenre. This doesn't quite work if it is applied mechanically.

The most obvious problem lies with the original X-Men. These are teen heroes of a fairly classic variety, and can be reasonably accommodated by the guidelines above, but there is at least one small problem. His name is Cyclops.

Iceman is a fairly average character. He is a good example of the kind of character the 40 active point guideline works for. He has a nice set of powers that just beg to be stuck into an elemental control. With the 40 point limit, he would have an 8 dice attack.

Cyclops should have a bigger attack than Iceman's. In addition, his attack should be 0 End, and always on, with the latter disadvantage bought off through a focus. This sucks up a lot of points.

This is fine. This is his single initial power: exactly the kind of narrow focus a teen super needs. Unfortunately, it violates the 40 active point limit.

In this case, the active point limit is wrong, and should be waived for the character.

Unfortunately, once you start doing this kind of thing, other players will start wanting to do the same kind of thing. This means that the GM will have to say "no" a lot. This can be a problem.

The more general problem with the teen heroes subgenre, however, is that it isn't really a genre suitable for teen players!

Let's face it: to be successful, a teen super game should be heavy on the roleplaying, and light on the "cape-waving". It's not a game for rules-abusing powergamers, combat monsters, and so on. Unfortunately, most very young players (including me, at the time!) have at least some degree of attraction to these things, and would, in most cases, be happier with more powerful characters. The people that would be happier with the subgenre, in most cases, would be people who are actually outside the age group of the characters. Once we get to veterans of the first edition of Champions, we are dealing with people _well_ outside the age group, who have only dim memories of what is like to be a teenager, and, in some cases, have teenage children!

On the other hand, playing young characters can be a nice break from the kind of cynicism age tends to bring. Playing a character my age, for example, has its amusements, but it mainly works if you have younger characters around for whom you can be a foil. (Or fool, in some cases.)

To sum up:

Playing teen supers can be a stack of fun, but it is, or, ideally, should be, a fairly challenging roleplaying exercise, where the combat scenes are only part of the story. The latter are also likely to be influenced by the characters not quite being as powerful as the "standard" 350 point characters. As such it needs to be handled skilfully, and shouldn't be played by groups who would be happier with "full-powered" characters.

Character designs can be tricky, but with a bit of care, and a firm but flexible GM, can be accommodated reasonably well. If the campaign is roleplaying heavy, different power levels in combat shouldn't be too much of a problem, anyway.

Alan

Teen Champions games could vary a lot. Some wouldn't have X-Man style schools, and instead would have the superkids dealing with normals.

Others would vary depending on the size of the school. If the PCs are pretty much the whole student body, there would be a rather different dynamic than if there were a whole lot of NPCs around.

Just think: what would the "school bully" be like in a school for supers? Would there be a "jocks" vs "nerds" dynamic? Would there be a social pecking order based on differing power levels? What if different students had different attitudes to normals? What if a "normal" student was allowed to enrol??

Hmm. Robin enrols at Mutie High... I like it.

Unfortunately, this would be a bit of a pig to run - there's just too many detailed NPCs for the GM to handle.

Still, such a book would be a useful "Allies" and "Enemies" book in its own right, even beyond its use in the superteen genre. What better way is there of gaining hunteds and contacts than to have gone to school with them?

So, yes, I think DOJ should do something in this area. It could be lots of fun.

Don't forget to include Buffy and Harry Potter in your research...

Alan

My characters have only ever fought the first/second edition versions.

The early versions of the really nasty villains weren't all that tough. Eurostar was the biggest exception, since they were a group, and were fast.

Of course, player characters designed under the early editions could either be very weak or unbalancingly powerful. The latter could simply smack down NPCs that weren't designed at a comparable power level.

Alan

Hi Oberon,

You're from Toowoomba?

Alan

Originally posted by Syberdwarf2

As for how widespread the menace goes in other countries; when the virus was spread, the idea was to release it in places allowing for maximum contact and 'momentum of the masses' to help do the delivery work for them.

I was actually thinking about how widespread the initial population of mutants were, working from Killer Shrike's ideas.

The 'second wave' of virally transmitted mutations would, of course, blow this apart. In the process, of course, it would blow apart the laboriously won stability that had been achieved in dealing with the 'first wave'. All the covert government agencies, mutant sects, and so on would be left scrambling to catch up, while new forces would be struggling to establish themselves... All good fun.

I think if I was running a game along these lines, I would start with a 'first wave' situation, and then, once the players thought they understood how the world worked, drop the 'second wave' on them as an in-game event. All of a sudden, the 'old' mutants of the first wave would be flooded by a horde of... err... 'New Mutants'.

Or you could play a game where the 'new' mutants could be trying to find a place for themselves that isn't the old, sterile world of the previous generation and its enemies.

Or if you had two separate groups, both.

Alan