Kal'El Wayne

I was reading the 'What makes you like Pulp' thread. I got to thinking about how Pulp, because it lets you do anything, is a lot like a flavour to add to a thing, rather than a thing itself. So my post read:

"I love pulp because in pulp, you can do anything, or at least a low level equivalent. Literally every character is Batman, or rather, the Shadow. If magic exists, then the pulp version of Dr. Strange only had to study for one year. Admittedly, his magic spells and rituals are weaker but he faces weaker foes, so it evens out. Tony Stark is the same as he normally is, except that he wears a rocket pack, scanner helmet, blaster gloves and a forcefield belt instead of a full suit of electronic armour. Professor X is just a normal human but he studied with a Korean zen master for a year. The Hulk is just some home chemistry lab experiment gone wrong. And so on."

So now I wanna try a Pulp Marvel campaign. I probably won't run it, I'm just interested, what will you guy's come up with?

Re: what gives your pulp its pep?

I love pulp because in pulp, you can do anything, or at least a low level equivalent. Literally every character is Batman, or rather, the Shadow. If magic exists, then the pulp version of Dr. Strange only had to study for one year. Admittedly, his magic spells and rituals are weaker but he faces weaker foes, so it evens out. Tony Stark is the same as he normally is, except that he wears a rocket pack, scanner helmet, blaster gloves and a forcefield belt instead of a full suit of electronic armour. Professor X is just a normal human but he studied with a Korean zen master for a year. The Hulk is just some home chemistry lab experiment gone wrong. And so on.

Re: Help with naming a spider themed character.

marvel used this name to differentiate julia carpenter from jessica drew since both used the codname spider-woman

Dang! Scooped.

isn't the legend that she failed to get anywhere near Athena and not a goddess hersself (poor arachinae!)was being punished for hubris by Athena and turned into a yicky spider?

Yeah, my bad. This is right!

Re: Your character's theme music!

Huh. It worked.

Yeah, for some reason I always figured Livin' On A Prayer would suit a really powered up epic war against Voldemort for the Harry Potter books. Like fleets of people surfing, 50' high, on broomsticks. And beneath them are armies of centaurs with spears and stuff. And Harry's punching ol' snakeface with a giant glowing green fist from thirty feet away, cos somehow he got a green lantern ring or something.

The whole "it's my life" part is about "screw destiny", cos he's going to kill Voldy because he wants to, not because he has to. And he sings about all the people who died or whatever.

It's a pity it didn't happen quite that way in the books. Damn. Now I want to do a Harry Potter Superhero.

Re: Your character's theme music!

*boots thread*

"Get up!"

Re: Costumed Crimefighters Collective

An idea that really appeals to me. I have considered something vaguely similar quite often.

Re: What would your sidekick be named?

Man, that'd be embarrassing. Getting the wrong Transporter.

Kirk: "Engage."

*BEAM*

Jason Statham: "Who the hell are you?"

Scotty: "Sorry, Captain, wrong Transporter."

Jason Statham: "Get out of my damn car!"

Re: Help with naming a spider themed character.

Two suggestions. Both have actually been said before.

Weaver: it definitely fits the theme of the Goddess gives me powers, thing. It has a sort of tone of the God Of Spiders or something, while playing up the whole 'makes a safety net' aspect, which is good for a superhero.

Anasazi: it similarly ties you to the idea of the Goddess giving you powers. And it sounds cool, and it isn't already a common word like Weaver. Plus it has that mysterious feel that the names of all pulp heroes and super heroes should have if they have any real link to the supernatural.

OR!

Arachne: Awesome! This has the immediate tie with a Goddess, (Athena turned a Greek weaver named Arachne into the first spider for being better at weaving than she was. So not only is it a Goddess, it's a goddess of war and tactics and heroes and stuff.) And it has the immediate name recognition of Arachne=Spider/Arachnid. And that also lets you have a minor bad guy or two who are other kinds of arachnids, like The Crab, who has a tank like suit of power armour shaped like a crab. Or Lobster-Man, a centaur-like brick with four legs, two normal arms and two arms that end in huge claws. Plus he's got armour-plated skin. And it'll help conceal your secret ID. The name Arachne is from Greek myth, not Native American!

Re: One HELL of a poker game...

Sir Johnstone:

"Hey, guys. Brought Coronas. St. Michael said to start without him, he's got an errand to run."

Strange Iron:

Um, excuse me. Sorry to interrupt, but could one of you direct me to the exit?

(He believes in God, but he isn't into organised religion. So he likes to think things out for himself. The way he sees it, all these guys just do what he does on a massive scale. They all watch over a particular area and punish the bad guys there. So there's no reason to worry.)

New Leaf:

(Well, if they are the real deal, then he might know one or two personally. Being the incarnation of redemption, and everything.)

((Yeah, I don't tend to do 'simple' character concepts.))

Re: a living dead PC

First off, I agree with the 'Buy more Life Support later with XP' idea. I do this myself, with a lot of characters. Especially since I play a vampire as my basic character concept for any point buy one shot. (I say point buy rather than Hero because sometimes, my friend runs a GURPS game. I'm not gonna turn down the only point buy game going just cos I'd rather play Hero.)

Second, drop the Doesn't Sleep before anything else, because it makes more sense that you didn't realise you didn't need sleep than anything else. You might have read too much Anne Rice (IC) and think you need to sleep in a coffin during the day.

Third, drop the Doesn't Breathe after that, because even in RL (or so I heard) people can choke while wearing scuba gear, and the like.

Fourth, drop Immunity to Disease slightly because of the placebo effect. If you believe that you have caught a disease, then you may start to show symptoms.

And So On...

Re: I Just Shoot Marvin In The Face

Probably, one of them is just catching a lift with the other. Or maybe the group just have a rule about always going in pairs when on duty, so as to avoid being ambushed by more powerful bad guys.

Okay, this is one for those whose heroes have some kind of ambiguity.

So you are a member of a Super-Hero team, and you have a fully covering suit/look like you are wearing a fully covering suit. One of your comrades is a very vocal equal rights activist who uses his or her powers to promote that. S/He might be Korean, Homosexual, a woman who hates sexism, or whatever. And that's just fine by you. But as an Icon for that group of people, s/he gets an interview for a TV show. And while s/he's on the air s/he refers to you as being an icon for the same group. Which is unfortunate since you aren't! WWYCD?

Oh, obviously, if you're an android, s/he assumes that you are really a man in a power suit. If you've already claimed to be an android but not proved it, s/he assumes you were kidding. If you're an androgynous person s/he assumes you are the gender that you aren't. If you dated someone of the opposite gender, he assumes that you are bisexual. ETC.

Re: Black Superheroes

Thought this might be relevant. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18476

Re: What if spells were like weapons?

Ooh, this just gave me a great idea for a kind of spell/telepath thingy. The world is just naturally full of magic, which usually just floats around. But when sentient people think/dream, they shape the magic around them. So it's just a case of which thoughts make what happen. If you practice/meditate on it long enough, you can find the exact right spell to use, then you can make it happen as much as you want. (That is your typical Fantasy Hero buying powers with points and calling it wizardry.) But there are some people who have learnt several spells and have developed a spell that takes a thought from their mind and plants it into the brain of someone else, letting them cast the spell. They often charge large amounts for a spell, and people can generally only remember a certain number of spells at once before they start getting mixed up and flooding their house instead of lighting a campfire. (That is, some people have the Aid Another ability to give you a spell, you can only hold X number of spells based on your Intelligence, and may need to make spellcasting skill rolls.) And then there are those who can make spells and embed them in objects, like gems that glow for six hours a day, or swords that almost always hit. (Normal Fantasy Hero ability in a focus.)

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Overheard at the RPG Club. Kinda.

A Promiscuous Hobbit Wizard fighting Hobbit Chamber-Maids, doesn't want to kill them because they were being mindcontrolled. Ends up grappling one to the floor and straddling her. As he is punching her in the face he says:

"By the way, my safety word is 'Potato'."

Then, because she's unconscious, he gets up and sees another Hobbit Maid about to hit his friend with a hot teapot. So he leaps two metres and performs a flying kick to the head, knocking her out too. The friend looks at the Incredible Leaping Wizard in astonishment. The Wizard misinterprets the look and asks, sincerely:

"Sorry, was that one yours?"

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares

I just lost SAN.

 

I hope you're happy.

You had SAN left?!?

How'd you find this forum?

Re: superuseless superpowers

Actually, the old DC Heroes game has a power called UltraVision, which is superman style 'X-Ray Vision' but instead of lead, you can choose a different common substance that it wouldn't let you see through. So I always thought, well why not choose something clear anyway. Like air.

Because if I can see through everything but air with Ultravision, then I can also see through air with normal vision, unless Evil-Man spends points on some power like 'Make a wall of opaque air that cannot be moved in a breeze' which is basically what the darkness power is, and that would work on my hero anyway, whether he could see through air or not.

I also wondered about making the common thing something like glass. Because even if the DM says your Ultravision doesn't work on anything on the other side of glass, who's going to put something they don't want you to see inside a glass box?

And if I decide to not be able to see through living human skin, it makes for an interesting sort of 'anti-X-Ray-vision' which gives my character the perfect excuse for the classic pervert's use of X-ray vision. And it still works really well, because the truly hide something from me, they need to swallow it. Or at least keep it behind their back and make sure to never let me get behind them.

And if I buy it twice, then apply one 'except against living human skin' and the other 'except against clear glass' then the only way to hide something from me completely is to get someone to swallow it and then sit inside a glass box for as long as you want it hidden for.

Of course, it's even easier to get around if I have the appropriate sidekick. If I make a hero who can see through anything except for 'stuff that's coloured blue' then it seems like a massive flaw, like the Green Lanterns had, so the DM will probably allow it. But then I introduce my sidekick, Skippy. Skippy is a squirrel whose only powers are: regeneration about equal to wolverine, but he's just a squirrel so what good is that?, intelligence equal to a 13 year old, and the colour change power. So he's a really weak comic relief sidekick. But combined with my one weakness, the colour blue, it makes me able to see through anything.

Now being able to see through anything might not seem like such a good power, till you realise: It's only a good power if you don't have it. If you don't have any way to see an ambush through a wall or whatever, then the DM can keep having you attacked whenever you walk through a doorway or something. But if you can see through anything and see anyone's hidden weapon, then there's no reason for the DM to plot any ambushes, cause they won't work. You've stopped all ambushes ever. But it might feel like you wasted the points.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

I have a varied diet myself. And I mean varied. But I'm a celibate virgin by choice. Speaking of which...

I can haz moar kwotes plz? KTHXBYE!

Re: Dracula: Super-Pimp

Oh, and he pretends to be Dracula, obviously.

So I was watching 'Taste the blood of Dracula', which is one of the best horror movies ever, and happened to pause it at this point. [see Picture.] So I thought, doesn't it look like Dracula is some kind of awesome Pimp hero, like the Victorian vampire version of a Blaxploitation movie hero? So wouldn't it be awesome to make a guy who was like Dracula but a Pimp superhero?

So I thought that I'd ask you guys to help stat up a character for this background...

In the '70's a studio in America, noticing the popularity of the Hammer Horror films decides to make a rip-off series. Since Dracula is open licence and very popular, they hire an unemployed British drama student named Drake to come over to America and make movies about Dracula trying to seduce plump, buxom young women to be his sex/blood slaves at his castle, which he had shipped over to England, stone by stone. Unfortunately for the studio, the filming draws the ire of an ancient vampire sorceress who takes offence at their pretence of vampirism, and curses the cast to take on their roles for real.

So now Drake is an immortal with mind controlling powers, flight and superhuman strength who fears Daylight and Blessed Crucifixes and can only be killed, temporarily, by staking him through the heart. And his two vampirised costars are enslaved to his mind, with no desire stronger than the need to provide him with anything he craves...such as blood!

Now Drake and his loyal servants wander the night, helping the people of the night (Hookers mostly, it is an exploitation movie after all), unstoppable (except by staking them all through the heart), forever trying to make up for the crime of eternal life!

Re: Alternate defensive maneuver names free of implied sfx

H-M' date=' regardless of what others say, I like this approach, and may just have to steal it. Thanks![/quote']

Ditto.

Re: The Joker Scenario

When I use a CVK, it works as a code against:

A.) Killing something alive and sentient. I.E. an assassin.

B.) Killing something alive but not sentient. I.E. a guard dog.

C.) Dismantling something not alive but still sentient. I.E. an android.

But not against

D.) Dismantling something nonsentient which has no life. I.E. a zombie or computer gun-drone.

So if the Monster was sentient, it will be taken into the custody of the local magic-user superhero till a suitable prison dimension or whatever can be found for it to be banished to. If it is a mindless corpse-thing, dismantling the body is fine, but gross. As long as the thing cannot reform later.

The other guy is alive and sentient and therefore shall be sent to prison. Or possibly another dimension or something, if he keeps escaping and killing people.

Re: My players have become villians

Not to disagree, but playing a Superhero game and then suddenly all turning into supervillains sounds fun. So now you know exactly what the police will do in situation X etc, and you can go rob banks with relative impunity. It sounds kind of like the two flatmates that Deadpool is living with at the moment.

Re: The Mentalist Wrestler

I always liked high level Telekinesis, with a range of touch. It works like superstrength, so people can assume you're just a very strong wrestler, but, when you need to, you can do some funky stuff with it, like wall-crawling or even leviation as long as some part of your costume touches the floor. It explains why your brick PC can pick up a car/truck/train without bending it or ripping off a small part of it instead, because you use TK to hold every bit of it at once. The touch is just to make contact.

Re: Transporter Accident

I always wondered about that. Why do people in those situations always try to keep their cover? Why not just say 'Hey, *exposition*! So, Scotty, can you help me?'