assault

Playing in a dimly lit farmhouse in the middle of nowhere helps. Add a touch of LARPing if you are keen.

The game I am remembering was Call of Cthulhu. The scenario was loosely based on Robert E Howard's "Dig Me No Grave".

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

 

I dunno, I get pretty far on sheer orneriness.

As long as it's not horniness, it's good.

8 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

And Defender was an OG hero.  It is his character sheet that is analyzed during the "how to build a character" section in the first two editions.  Possibly the third as well, but I don't remember for certain.

You might be getting him confused with Crusader.

These days I focus a lot on "whose fantasy is it anyway?".

A lot of historical fantasy writing had a particular target audience, and if you weren't in that, tough luck.

It's still possible to write/design for that audience, but there is a noisy fringe of them that objects to anything being written for anyone else. Those people deserve nothing.

In a couple of hours time, the Matildas will be playing Sweden for third place (in the World Cup, where have you been?).

I am not generally a Sports Patriot, but I haven't forgiven those Viking Bastards.

6 hours ago, Cygnia said:

Is he too extreme for One Nation -- or not extreme enough?

In this case, too extreme. The falling out between Latham and Hanson involved a graphically homophobic tweet Latham sent out.

That said, One Nation has a history of splits like this. It's a cartload of lunatics, and they tend to fall out. It's particularly the case since Hanson is the Great Leader, and falling out with her means getting kicked out.

Since this story is from Australia, it needs explanation.

Mark Latham is a former federal leader of the Australian Labor Party, and former Leader of the Opposition. He could seriously have been Prime Minister at one point.

One Nation is a far right party. Pauline Hanson was its founder.

Mark Latham dumped from One Nation's NSW leadership by Pauline Hanson

For the Australian version, watch Mad Max. The first one.

Trivia: the woman in the first car later married Yahoo Serious. Thankfully she eventually divorced him.

12 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

America would be well on its way to fascism.

A small dogmatic part of my brain wants to say "Bonapartism", not fascism, but that would require me to muck about with definitions. There's not much difference anyway.

It's pretty unlikely that the Matildas will beat England. But it would be hilarious.

Even people who don't generally follow sports will be watching. The people who generally are anti-patriots tend to make an exception for England too.

And such a victory would be good for Australian football (soccer) too. Historically it's been underfunded compared to Australian Rules and Rugby League, despite its large following.

It's pretty unlikely I will watch the game, but my allegiances are clear, if for no reason than to watch the reactions of my female friends.

The cost of Strength was set in comparison to that of Energy Blast and Martial Arts.

When you muck about with Strength, you have to consider its impact on the others to make sure you aren't breaking the game.

That doesn't mean it was set right in the first place, but if it was a real problem someone might have noticed.

15 hours ago, assault said:

I did a bit of stuff with the Golden Age about 15-20 years ago.

 

Golden Age superheroes were very cookie cutter. After noticing this, I created a template that included the common features of most Golden Age heroes, allowing me to really churn out the write-ups.

If I get around to it, I will post it here. It's on my old computer, so I can't just grab it. In any case, it was based on 250 point 5e characters, and would take a bit of modification for 6e and another point total.

Briefly though, I went with 20 Str, 20 Dex, 20 Con and 5 Spd as the baseline. About 100 points of characteristics, 125 of powers and 25 points of skills. Modify from there. Fairly low powered, but everyone was more or less the same. Naturally, these were starting versions of the characters.

"I know I had it somewhere!"

I'll look again later.

8 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

You could drop SPD to 4 if most opponents are thugs and gangsters anyway (and if "Super" opponents are comparable). 

They're already dangerously vulnerable to thugs and gangsters. 5 Spd comes closer to giving them the capabilities they actually showed, IMHO.

I did a bit of stuff with the Golden Age about 15-20 years ago.

Golden Age superheroes were very cookie cutter. After noticing this, I created a template that included the common features of most Golden Age heroes, allowing me to really churn out the write-ups.

If I get around to it, I will post it here. It's on my old computer, so I can't just grab it. In any case, it was based on 250 point 5e characters, and would take a bit of modification for 6e and another point total.

Briefly though, I went with 20 Str, 20 Dex, 20 Con and 5 Spd as the baseline. About 100 points of characteristics, 125 of powers and 25 points of skills. Modify from there. Fairly low powered, but everyone was more or less the same. Naturally, these were starting versions of the characters.

10 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

In Heroic games its usually more reasonable, but there are a lot of larger-than-life heroic characters like Conan, Doc Savage, Tarzan, etc.

True. Such characters aren't really any different from Batman and his ilk, and can be used like them in superheroic games.

I wonder if there is any point to using different rules for them in Heroic games. Lower point totals might make enough of a difference. The temptation to build them in an unbalanced way might be a problem.

No powers except for magic, and maybe some Talents...

Could work.

Australia can do racist nonsense too...

Voice conspiracy theory rubbished as Coalition continues to question length of Uluru Statement from the Heart

5 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

I would put Batman at about 25 STR, 23 DEX and 5 SPD.  In the group I game with we try and keep the DEX and SPD down unless the character is supposed to be superhuman.   In our games most superhero are a 4 SPD and a speedster is 6 SPD with a really fast character having a 7.  

I tend to go with 20-23 Dex and 5 Spd as typical, with Batman at 26 and 6, and speedsters and the like at 7. Pretty much the suggested levels.

These are for starting characters. I discourage subsequent inflation beyond these levels.

53 minutes ago, dmjalund said:

If Batman is stronger than you, then you DON’T have super strength. (A lot of supers don’t) 

for instance Aquaman is stronger than Batman.

Exactly.

Likewise for his Dex,Spd and Con.

7 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Most interpretations for Batman that I've seen suggest normal characteristic maxes, a full suite of martial maneuvers, 2-3 overall skill levels, and more CSLs on top of that. 

I find these builds annoying.

Batman is stronger, faster and tougher than most other supers, not weaker, slower and less tough. Those that are better than him in those areas are generally the ones that are super-strong, super fast and super tough.

That's the source material, generally speaking. There are exceptions, obviously.

This is why it is a good thing that the Normal Characteristic Maxima Disadvantage was dropped. It encourages dumb builds, or ones that circumvent it, meaning it's not actually a Disadvantage.

2e and 3e Champions had the "Reasonable Characters" section, which concisely laid out characteristic ranges that work for many (not all) superhero games. If players followed them, their characters were a lot less likely to suck in play. Something like that would be useful for 6e, or a notional 7e.

Pants are for barbarians!

(Thinks: God of Pants next year?)

12 minutes ago, slikmar said:

*I also felt the movies (and comics) missed a major boat. Instead of Zeus's daughter, they could have made her the daughter of Athena (you know, THE warrior woman of the Greek Pantheon and the goddess associated with wisdom, craft, and warfare) shapeshifted (how many times has Zeus pulled that) to impregnate Hippolyta.

Athena was a virgin goddess. It's in the name "Parthenon".

DC also had the Doom Patrol, which was a "hold my beer" response to the FF. It didn't produce any Doom grade villains though.

6 hours ago, wcw43921 said:

Why Your Christian Friends And Family Members Are So Easily Fooled By Conspiracy Theories

Probably depends on what flavour of Christian.

I think that eliminating figureds increases the number of moving parts in a system that already has too many moving parts.

I'm not at all bothered by superheroes having enough Dex, Spd and Con to be able to function as superheroes, nor, in say, Fantasy Hero, having "heavy fighters" that have the reflexes of Conan.

17 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

I would generally say:  for much of their history, comics reflect the culture they're in. 

There's no need to qualify this sentence. Comics reflect the culture they're in.