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Haerandir

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Everything posted by Haerandir

  1. I also thought of the original Captain Marvel, as Billy Batson was a teenager. But he's a bit of an outlier, as well, given that his alter-ego was physically an adult and had the Wisdom of Solomon, making it hard to tell whether he still qualifies as a 'teen superhero'. Superboy is an interesting wrinkle I hadn't thought of. IMO, he makes a better candidate as a template for the Teen Champions genre than Spider-man. He's explicitly a less powerful, less experienced version of a 'standard' superhero. One who, at least initially, deals with smaller-scale issues in a relatively restrictive environment. I might also reference the original Wonder Girl stories, but I don't need the continuity headache that would result right now.
  2. I'm back, babies!

  3. I once played in a campaign where this was the initial session. Bonus points to VIPER in that the big event at the restaurant was the official reception for us being welcomed as the new hero team for the city. I felt that was bold. After the session, the GM told us they'd brought along a weapon specifically calibrated to target our brick's weakness, but because he kept trying and failing to break through the hatches in the flying ship, giving up and moving on to the next one, the crew spent the entire fight laboriously hauling the weapon from hatch to hatch, only to set it up and hear that he'd switched hatches again. They were quite put out. In a later session, we were raiding a VIPER base in South America, and they had lined the entire wall of the base with this same weapon, only to have him simply leap over the wall before they even realized he was there. This had the effect of making him enemy #1 for the entire organization. They were gonna tag him with a 'zero-zone projector' if it was the last thing they did, dagnabbit!
  4. I tend to agree. I know there's been a lot of comments to the effect that Spidey's initial villains were a pack of losers, but they were pretty typical for the time. They tried to get Big Wheel and Stilt-man over, too. If you want to talk about a world-class hero having trouble dealing with an otherwise-ordinary dude with a gimmicked weapon, can I interest you in the Flash v. Captain Cold? Or Captain Boomerang? And it wasn't uncommon for writers to... adjust... the power level of villains and heroes for the sake of drama. I seem to remember hearing that one of the lesser bones of contention between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby was that Stan would take Dr. Doom, a villain intended to fight Thor, the Silver Surfer or the Fantastic Four on equal terms, and have him job out to whichever new scrub he wanted to hype that week. Also, I don't think "Teen Champion" vs. "Regular Superhero" is really a lens that can be boiled down solely to power-level. I feel like I could make a much stronger case for the core five original X-Men being Teen Champions than Spider-man. They lived in a school, had romantic entanglements with one another, and hung out at the local malt shop. Even their villains tended to come from within their own social circle of fellow mutants, and having a limited social circle is a pretty teenage theme. Sure, Peter was a student, but he also had a grown-up job in a professional field. He fought gangsters and assassins. He never had trouble getting to places outside of his neighborhood, or had to worry much about a curfew. He graduated from high school and went to college fairly quickly. He hung out with the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and Captain America. Tony Stark had to fit in his crimefighting around board meetings, Peter Parker had to fit his in around his class schedule, but if you made Peter 10 years older and gave him a job at Oscorp, his stories wouldn't really change much. When I hear "Teen Champions" I think "characters whose costumed career & social life both revolve around teen issues and concerns". To me, the occasional story beats where him being a teenager came up at all always felt more like secondary elements within the larger complications of his secret identity and down-trodden everyman-ness, rather than core themes that were uniquely difficult for him because he was a teenager. I'm talking about in aggregate, mind you. I can think of a few stories where him being a teenager mattered. His origin, for one, obviously. But overall, he moved in the same circles as Daredevil, and had pretty similar stories and struggles. Edited to add: Naturally, minutes after posting the above, I thought of a better way of expressing the point I was trying to make: To me, Spider-man feels like an ordinary starting super-hero who is a teenager, rather than a character designed to be played in a campaign within the 'Teen Champions' subgenre. Now, you could make a case that Spider-man's popularity led Marvel and later DC to create many more teenaged superheroes, and that the Teen Champions campaign subgenre is based on those heroes, and thus Spider-man was Patient Zero for Teen Champions. I would agree with that. But teen superheroes weren't really a thing prior to Spider-man. There were teen sidekicks, certainly. But a hero who was still an adolescent who fought crime and had adventures independent of any other team or character? I can't say definitively that Spider-man was the first without doing more research than I have time for at 1:00 PM on a work day, but he was definitely the biggest.
  5. Now that VIPER can control snakes, they finally have a use for all of those genetically-engineered giant snakes they've got in storage. Extortion: corner the market on a rare anti-venom, then send mind-controlled snakes (of the appropriate breed) after prominent/wealthy figures and their families, sell them the anti-venom for 5000x the previous rate
  6. Eurostar and the Warlord have both been on my 'Book of...' wishlist for years. To the point where I've contemplated taking a stab at them myself. Never got past the spitballing stage, though.
  7. A Multipower is a pool of points that can be assigned on the fly to a limited selection of pre-defined powers, and usually represents either a set number of frequently-used abilities/gear or a single power that can be used in different ways (often known as "tricks" or "stunts"). Some examples: -an archer with several different types of trick arrow (Green Arrow or Hawkeye) -a gun with several different firing modes (regular bullets, grenades, flamethrower, etc.) -a wizard who knows a handful of spells which he uses repeatedly -someone who can project and control a specific type of energy for varying applications (Human Torch) Essentially, a Multipower is a discount offered to the player for accepting a restriction on how much of his various powers he can use in a single action. The Human Torch is a classic example. He has one basic power (the ability to create and control flames) that can produce a myriad of effects. If he tried to purchase all of those effects as separate Powers, he wouldn't have any points left over to spend on his unstable molecule costume, but the character "should" have them. Worse, if you did manage to squeeze them all onto his character sheet as individual Powers, then he could conceivably activate them all on a single Phase which would make him wildly overpowered compared to, say, Spider-man, and ISN'T something the published character is capable of doing. Multipower allows Johnny to have the ability to do goofy stuff with his flames, like projecting them in different shapes or at different intensities, but he can only use one 'stunt' at a time. It's a bit more useful than a straight 12d6 Fire Blast, and it costs a bit more, so it all balances out. A Variable Power Pool is broadly similar to a Multipower, in that it's a pool of points that can be assigned to different Powers. However, it's far more flexible, in part because the powers in the VPP don't have to be pre-defined. VPP usually represents a character with complete mastery over a broad category of power or ability. Some examples include: - an archmage who knows every spell in the book, and routinely writes his own (Dr. Strange, Dr. Fate) - an inventor who can whip up a device to defeat an alien invasion out of the stuff in his garage (Reed Richards, MacGuyver) - a dude who is so well-prepared that he always 'just happens' to have the right tool 'for just such an occasion' (Batman) - a character who can copy other people's powers (Rogue) - a shapeshifter who can turn into almost anything (Plastic Man) Essentially, the only limits on a VPP are: the number of points available, the imagination of the player, the special effects of the powers, the character's skill in manipulating the powers, the player's knowledge of the rules, and the GM's patience. Which means there actually are fairly sharp limits to a VPP. They tend to be more expensive than an equivalent Multipower, at least up to the point where the costs of the individual slots in the Multipower become significant (as Hyper-Man says above). VPPs are far more complex gameplay-wise than Multipowers. Even with experienced players and GMs, a VPP can slow down the game while the player tries to concoct a brand-new power on the fly in combat, and the GM has to determine (again, on the fly) whether or not it fits the character concept, is legal, and is fair/balanced/appropriate to the setting, etc. VPPs also have the potential to derail plots and overshadow other PCs. For all these reasons, they are not recommended for inexperienced players and GMs, and some GMs just disallow them entirely. Other GMs allow VPPs, but ask players to only write up new powers during down time. Multipowers are much less dangerous, though they do deserve to be reviewed occasionally to make sure they are built around a legitimate special effect and aren't just a fudge to get lots of combat powers for low, low rates. They're also simpler in most ways than VPPs. In most cases, if you're having trouble deciding whether a VPP or a Multipower is appropriate for a given character, my rule of thumb is, "If it CAN be built with Multipower instead of VPP, it probably SHOULD be built with Multipower instead of VPP."
  8. One of my friends played a heroic mummy/super-mage in a Champions campaign a while back named Sanakht. Since his primary feature as a pharaoh is that no one knows much about him and can't even agree when his reign was, or how long he lasted, I'd find it amusing (on a purely personal level) to know there was a villain out there claiming the same name and origin.
  9. I was toying with variants on 'Sorceror Supreme' to find the silliest one (Enchanter Extreme or Conjuror Consummate? I still can't decide.) Then I came up with Thaumaturge Transcendent, which I actually kinda like.
  10. I'm in. Sticking to the Luster level, though. I'll leave the $100 stuff to you big spenders.
  11. Apparently you've never played 'Florida or Germany?' The way it works is: You read crazy news headlines aloud, with all the place names redacted, and your friends have to guess whether they happened in Florida or Germany. It can be a very challenging game.
  12. Nite Owl: "I want the truth!" Ozymandias: "You can't handle the truth!" It actually works pretty well.
  13. How did you come up with your 'handle' (forum name)? It's the name of a AD&D2 character I played in high school. It's either Quenya or Sindarin (from Tolkien). The root words are 'hae' (far, distant) and 'randir' (wanderer/ranger). Seemed like a good name for a half-elf adventurer at the time. I've been using it as my primary online handle since I used it for my first MUD character in 1993. Except in LotRO, because the devs swiped my name for an NPC. What was the first tabletop RPG you played? D&D Basic set (Red box). What was the first tabletop RPG you GMed? Shadowrun 2ed. What are you currently playing/GMing? The Iron Kingdoms campaign I've been in for the last year or so is on hiatus, so we're about to start a Star Hero campaign as a fill-in.
  14. I'm reasonably certain I passed at least one college course solely due to a professor's extra credit questions involving '60s British rock bands.
  15. The Importance of Being Ernest Goes to Camp
  16. The gyro chips are not great. I could taste the individual flavors they were going for, but the balance was off. The onion flavor was a little too strong and chemical-y. The reuben chips are better, but I was so-so on them. The first few were pretty good, but the sauerkraut flavor leaves a strong-ish aftertaste that I tired of quickly. I can't imagine bothering with the truffle fries flavor. As Log points out, they're clearly not made using real truffle oil, so basically, they're 'potatoes fried in vegetable oil'-flavored. AKA regular potato chips. I did listen to a food podcast try all four flavors, and while they liked the truffle chips, they were similarly dubious about their alleged 'special-flavorness'. I actually quite liked the biscuits 'n' gravy flavor. Though they probably should have been called 'spicy sausage' flavored, as they're pretty one-note.
  17. Aww, man... Boston's only #9. At least we made the Bottom 10. I wonder if the Olympics thing counts for or against us in his mind?
  18. I went with Dita. I was running through my catalog of past characters (not currently in a Champions campaign) and I've had several reformed criminals/unfairly-accused heroes, so they'd be inclined to sympathize with her. Most of my other characters would be attracted to her history of moral decision-making. Most of the others have pretty clear specialties, Dita appears to be the most flexible, in that hacking into other systems would allow her to replicate some of the others' specialties. Rip and Jasper are amusing character ideas, but I would probably find interacting with them on a regular basis irritating (as a player). Cyber-Lambda 14 would get reprogrammed with an axe by the end of the first session. S.O.N.J.A. has serious Red Tornado potential. Any AI is going to go bad eventually. It's a rule. I mean, look at Memnox there. He just screams "alien-invasion-Trojan-Horse-All-Your-Base-Are-Belong-to-Us". Hard pass. Make mine the AI who's already so bad, she's good!
  19. You don't need to jump to supervillains right away. Even in a traditional superhero adventure with experienced players, it's not uncommon for the PCs to fight a bunch of agents, rather than several costumed villains. It has the added bonus for groups that are learning the system of making it easier to adjust combat difficulty when the GM is trying to figure out what the PCs can and can't handle. Adding or subtracting one or two mooks from a fight in midstream is a lot more seamless than having a named supervillain show up/disappear, and probably requires less prep work from the GM. Plus, there's the fun bit where the thugs the PCs fight in the lab ALSO get exposed to the mutagen, and develop powers on the same timescale as the PCs, giving you a ready source of recurring villains for later adventures.
  20. I wouldn't automatically disallow it, but I would counsel against in a lot of cases. It's not wholly unreasonable, but I've found that devoting an excessive quantity of a character's point budget to 'never being hurt' can lead to a lot of unintended consequences. A character with defenses that are wildly out-of-line with the rest of the party can make for real encounter-design headaches for a GM, including serious power-creep issues: GM: "I have to design an opponent who can threaten Character A." Player B: "I have to increase my defenses in order to survive the level of opposition we're facing!" Player A: "I have to increase my defenses in order to protect my schtick of being the toughest member of the party!" GM: "I have to design newer, more deadly opponents to challenge Character A's new defenses!" Also, as has been pointed out, while the character will be largely invulnerable to conventional attacks (including some light anti-tank weapons), there are chinks in that armor. The problem becomes that opponents then have to go after those gaps on a regular basis if they want to affect him at all, at which point the character folds like a house of cards and the player gets frustrated because he's been knocked out of the fight on Turn 1/Phase 3 *again*. And, as Enforcer points out, 150 points spent on defenses is 150 points that aren't being spent on offense, or movement, or senses, or utility powers. If you're playing standard 400-point starting characters, that's nearly 40% of your character devoted to what amounts to a single power. In a way, that's great for game balance, but may lead to a lot of scenarios where the character doesn't actually have much to DO. Being a tank is great, and all, but I for one find it deathly dull. Maybe your player will find it more satisfying. My advice would pretty much mimic Hyper-Man's (as it often does): Take enough Damage Negation to shrug off small-arms fire (8 to 10 DCs worth, tops) and a few other defenses to blunt the attacks which do get through, and try to find a way to reduce your overall investment in defensive powers, even if it's just keeping the defenses you have and putting some Limitations on them.
  21. For water in the 4-elements scheme, I'd consider a couple of possibilities. One is shapeshifting: water is fluid, so is the character's body. Similar possibilities include Stretching and Desolid (not through water-tight barriers). Another his healing: it's one of the traditional associations with water, symbologically speaking, and the human body is 80% water. You can even come up with some mumbo-jumbo about restoring/redirecting the body's humors. This is compatible with the shapeshifting/fluidity concept above. Water is also symbolically associated with emotion in a lot of schemas. So, you could justify some mental powers that way, particularly empathy and emotional mind control, possibly mental defense.
  22. Since the war, it seems like every Dwarf I meet was in the Resistance.
  23. Try re-casting important NPCs from the first run in different roles: The guy your players know as Commissioner Jordan took a bullet in the leg as a rookie cop and retired from the force, now he's a city councilman who's pushing for a crackdown on vigilantes. The newspaper reporter one of your old PCs dated made the jump to television and is the city's leading news anchor. That sort of thing.
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