Haerandir

Re: WWYCD: The Nebula Affair I forget, does she have Personal Immunity on her "Send People Into Duress" power? If not, then my strategy for all of my characters is to argue with her till she gets to the bit where she enforces her local jurisdiction's laws wherever she is, and ignores all other governments, then I beat her up and chuck her into her own dimension of pain. Duh, just after I posted that, I glanced to my left and realized that CKC was less than 6 feet away from me. She doesn't have PI, and it is a gadget... Nebula problem solved! Note: This is my response to Nebula in pretty much all circumstances.

Re: Elves Really? Got a lot of empirical data about Elves in their natural habitat to back up that assertion? I'm not suggesting that you throw your disbelief out the window. I'm just saying that in order to get to Elven aging at all, you generally have to have already accepted a world where giant talking lizards fly around breathing lightning bolts and people with the right training can drop a yak at 50 paces with mind bullets. At that point, a fictional alien race that exists in a world where the laws of reality are fundamentally different than ours taking a few extra decades to reach maturity not only isn't impossible, it's not even implausible. In fact, it's fairly consistent with many other Elven tropes. For my money, expecting Elves to be "just like humans, except when they aren't" is manifestly illogical and inconsistent. Expecting them to be largely alien, just enough like humans that they can interact with us for story purposes is common sense. If they weren't different, they wouldn't be elves. They'd be pointy-eared Irishmen.

Re: Elves So, you're saying that Elves are never portrayed as being sufficiently different from humans that they could reasonably be expected to have/survive an extended maturation period?

Re: Elves Wow, if I'd known my frivolous little mousie post would kick off a veritable Catgirl Holocaust, I might have held my tongue. Sorry if this post seems a little cruel, but I've been chuckling about some of the recent posts since I read them at work, and I just can't resist... Are Elves (other than longevity), biologically, genetically, psychologically, culturally and metaphysically identical to humans? Why should they be? Psst, guess what! Elves aren't real. (Unless an awful lot of people have been joshing me for an awfully long time, anyway.) They don't exist in the real world. For them to exist, they would have to live in an alternate universe where we can safely assume that Things Are Different. We already know, from our baseline hypothesis, that Elves are different from humans in one significant way: they live a lot longer. But of course, you're right, a longer period of (physical) maturation would expose them to all sorts of risks human children avoid by growing up relatively quickly. Why, to assume that Elves survive this gamut of horrors, at least one, and probably several, of the following things would have to be true: 1. Elves would have to have a much stronger immune system and/or more efficient metabolism than humans. This would probably grant additional benefits such as enhanced resistance to diseases and poisons, reduced need for sleep and reduced nutritional requirements. 2. Or perhaps Elves are just physically superior to humans, better adapted for survival. They might be more agile, or smarter, or tougher, or have sharper senses. 3. Or, possibly Elves have an affinity for magic, which grants them a survival advantage. 4. Maybe, just maybe, because Elves live so long, they're willing to accept a low rate of population growth. 5. Or perhaps they're just a decadent, over-specialized dying race. 6. Maybe Elves aren't mortal at all... They're supernatural critters composed of moonbeams and dreamstuff. Then they could take as long as they wanted to reach maturity... 7. They might have odd dietary requirements, preferring to eat and drink special super-secret Elven foodstuffs and potables. 8. Their longevity might give them sufficient time to devote a century here or there to raising kids and taking really good care of them. 9. They might be forced to withdraw into a special, magical place, such as a sacred forest or Under the Hill, a place where they could better protect themselves from the rigors of the outside world. 10. Getting away from the fatality issue, we come to the notion that a several-decade-long maturation process would make Elves largely incomprehensible to humans. They'd probably behave in ways that were inexplicable to shorter-lived races, have odd customs, probably be really devoted to art and music and poetry (because they have lots of time to study the 'less vital' disciplines once they've mastered basic survival). They'd be really keen on children, perhaps even to the point of becoming obsessed with children of other races and stealing them away from their parents. They might seem aloof, or flighty, or intimidating, or arrogant, or impatient. They'd very likely withdraw from contact with other races, unless there was some big catastrophe going down that affected everyone. They'd probably work out all sorts of best practices, which would translate into things like better equipment, funky magic and combat techniques, spells nobody else knew, that sort of thing. Gee... Does all this stuff sound familiar to anyone else? Because, to me, it looks an awful lot like a list of traits that are often attributed to Elves in one bit of source material or another. Some of which has already been discussed in this very thread, in fact! Wow! Who'd'a thunk it? So, to sum up: Elves aren't human. Elves aren't real. Elves live in a fantasy universe. Please, think of the poor catgirls.

Re: [storytime] Birth of RAVEN Very well written, and a good use of some under-developed villains. I know people have been complaining that not enough has been done with Menton, but I always felt that was part of his charm... You shouldn't know what Menton is up to... This is a good blend of the desire to do more with one of Champions' classic villains while keeping him in the shadows where he belongs.

Re: Elves No doubt sapient mice would have trouble wrapping their heads around the notion of human babies taking 18 years to reach adulthood... "What would they be like with years of life experience when they've just started walking? How can they be survivable when they take that long to mature? It just doesn't make any sense. Clearly they would reach physical maturity in a few months, then remain exactly the same for 50 years or so, then start aging."

Gadgeteer = Tech? Au contraire! I don't equate any of of the theme archetypes to specific origins. To me Gadgeteer = Gadgets. As in "powers derived from devices of some sort". Technological origin is common but optional. I'd consider someone with a belt full of magic wands a Gadgeteer, just as much as someone with a utility belt. I don't think Foci are even a necessary element of the theme, just that the powers result from some sort of 'made object'. I'd consider the Engineer from the Authority (with her 9 pints of liquid machinery) a Gadgeteer, but I don't think she qualifies for a Focus Limitation. Similarly, I believe that the Gadgeteer, as a Theme Archetype, also implies skills, talents, perks, disadvantages and limitations to reflect the origin and application of those devices. Like I said in a previous post, I agree that you've identified a distinct build template. But nothing about the design mentality and play style you describe suggests that "Gadgeteer" is the best (or even an appropriate) name for that build/archetype. I think it deserves a name of its very own, and not a bastardized semi-relevant moniker that doesn't tell people what you're talking about unless they've been playing Champions long enough to get used to the name purely out of habit and tradition. I believe that people should either say what they mean, or mean what they say. If I say Gadgeteer, I mean someone with Gadgets. If I mean someone with a flexible and adaptable power set, I want a name for it that reflects my meaning, rather than a special effect which may or may not be relevant to my character concept. While I've settled on "Polymath" for my own purposes, I'm willing to listen to alternate suggestions. But it would take a really innovative argument to convince me to use "Gadgeteer" for that purpose.

Re: Ultimate Scrapper? Whereas I don't see the Gadgeteer as being tied to the 'adaptable power set' build at all. You can be a Gadget Brick or a Gadget Energy Projector or a Gadget Speedster or even a Gadget Mentalist, or a hybrid of power sets. Just like a Mystic. You can be a Power Armor character who adapts his powers to fit the situation. You can be a Weapon Master who has a gun that reconfigures to allow you do all sorts of tricks (I've had one of those in a campaign, myself). You can be a Mutant or an Alien whose innate powers are adaptable to any situation. The build is independent of the 'Gadget' special effects, as you have realized. So why call it a 'Gadgeteer' at all? I call it a 'Polymath', myself, because I've gotten sick of typing out "Jack-of-All-Trades', and 'JoAT' looks and sounds dirty.

Re: Ultimate Scrapper? How so? Personally, I don't see any difference between the Gadgeteer and the Mystic, except for flavor & special effects. They're both archetypes designed to justify a wide variety of Powers, distinguished more by their skills and their Limitations than anything else. In my experience, the default power set for both is Energy Projector, though either can just as easily mimic any of the other power sets, and both are very well-suited to hybridization and jack-of-all-tradiness. I'd say that Power Armor and Weapon Master are more distinct than Gadgeteer, since the one at least implies defense, and the other offense. Not arguing, mind you, just curious as to your reasoning.

Re: Ultimate Scrapper? You could say the same of the Gadgeteer, Mystic, Power Armor and Weapon Master archetypes. Beyond the fact that they all focus to a greater or lesser degree on 'flexibility', they really tell you almost nothing about how the character is (or should be) built. I've taken to calling those archetypes "Themes" (i.e., they focus on special effects and the general 'look & feel' of the character) and I refer to the other six as "Power Sets" (they actually, to a certain extent, define what sorts of powers the character has). I'm pretty sure I got the idea from Hermit's old archetype poll threads.

Re: Sure signs that your player doesn't want to be in your 350 pt champions game. Oh, you can, it's just (technically) illegal. Wholly justified, but illegal.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Can we heat you because you're baitful?

Re: Character out of balance Likewise, Spiderman has gained and lost gadgetry at a fairly astonishing rate over the last 40 years.

Re: Help with "Power Ring" type device Well, ideally, the points in the pool will be roughly equal to (or slightly less than) whatever the standard Active Point or Damage Class values for your campaign are. In a game where most characters have 15d6 attacks and 75 AP utility powers, then a 60- or 75-point VPP would be a good choice for a character's primary 'schtick'. Scale as appropriate for your campaign. More than the size of the VPP, you need to keep an eye on Limitations. If the VPP has a lot of Limitations that apply to the power slots, the savings in Real Costs allow you to run many more powers than you could with less-limited VPPs, so those Limitations had better actually limit the character.

Re: WWYCD: Hero with "Questionable" Political Views

Re: Help with "Power Ring" type device If you can narrow down the special effects to a definable category, then you can use the ol' "Slightly Limited Class of Powers" (-1/4), and just make case-by-case rulings as to what powers fall under that heading. Call it 'GL Energy Manipulation' or whatever. Or, I suppose you could slap a "No Psionics" limitation on the VPP. I'd call that a -0, though.

Re: Character out of balance Ever since OzMike committed this atrocious pun, people have been slipping references to Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" into discussion.

Re: Character out of balance I'm with CC, give him the benefit of the doubt and try to convince him that his character isn't just 'out of balance', but actively free-falling. Keep your options open and see if he can learn before you lower the boom. As for how to model someone's mind not being their own, I'd do it as "Subject to Orders", but as a Phys Lim, instead of a Social Lim. Actually, going through the song line-by-line, I think there may actually be a character in there...

Re: Elves

Re: Killers Fine. I hereby grant all player characters everywhere carte blanche to do whatever they like to Takofanes. But no ganking poor Pulsar!

Re: Killers Another thing that I've found to be effective is to find one player who 'gets it' (if possible) and make a point of rewarding them during the course of the session for doing 'in-genre' stuff. Doing little things like giving bonuses to Skill rolls, Suprise Maneuver bonuses, handing out Favors to players who make a point of rescuing bystanders, stuff like that. Just as positive reinforcement is a vital complement to negative reinforcement, immediate positive reinforcement is frequently even more effective than waiting until the end of the session.

Re: Killers I admit, it'd be funny to let them try to loot, say, Ogre... "Umm, well, sure... I guess you can go through his pockets... He's got some gum... a bit of string... $2.25 in mixed change..."

Re: Killers Step one: Tell them that this is a four-color superhero campaign and that killing people is inappropriate. Usually, that's enough for most people. If they refuse to modify their behavior, the usual next step is to let their character kill someone and then punish them for it in exactly the same way you would expect to be punished for murdering someone in the real world: arrest, trial, prison time. The point being, not so much to slap them down, but to remind them that their characters are living in an analogue of the modern world, and they're not fighting orcs and undead.

Re: Sure signs that your player doesn't want to be in your 350 pt champions game. I propose a variant: Signs your GM doesn't want you in his 350-pt. Champions game: "OK, guys, I'd like you to make an effort to develop well-rounded characters, try not to submit the kinds of combat monsters I've seen in other groups, OK?" First villain he sics on you? The Flying Headsman, a move-through specialist with a 4d6 AP HKA and Psych Lim: Obsessed with Killing (Your Character)... True story!

Re: The Five What was that, Enforcer? You'll have to speak up... Never mind, I see it now. Grr... Dark green doesn't show up well on grey...