Acroyear

...unless you're martian. Then being white means you're evil

Some ramblings... Greeks aren't necessarily considered "white" to many people (ala Wonder Woman). She is colored as such, though... more mass appeal. $ always wins. Martian Manhunter usually takes the roles of a white guy... One must also consider the era in which these characters were created. Old money in the US in the 1930's? Not going to be asian or black. Kind of hard to be "old money" now and not be of caucasian persuasion (it's often said Batman must be catholic, too... no one else could carry such guilt around). Aquaman should be more pale, imo, needing less pigment in his skin to protect him from the sun... but, at least in more modern tales, he was once outcast for his looks as a cursed infant. Superman, too, comes from a race (again, more modern stories) that covers itself more from the elements (for a long, long time) and, again, is probably going to be a more "pale" species (and who knows what they really look like under our kind of lighting... their sun is RED). His flesh likely adjusted to its current hue in response to exposure to our light since an infant. As for cultural characters... most other countries have much deeper and ancient cultures than the US which, in comparison, is pretty young, and has less a sense of ancient legends and such. It does compare to China. Also, other countries, on average, can fairly be said to be a little less diverse... Of the US angle, most of them seem all the more silly... Paul Bunyan & Johnny Appleseed? I once had a tall tale based character... the strength of Paul Bunyan, the whirlwind riding of Pecos Bill, etc... he had a big blue Harley he called "Babe" Even UK supers very often tend to have a basis in their legends and lore... druids, knights, wizards, dragons... Why the US bent to most characters? Well, that's where they are made. Who buys em? Same folks. It's proven time and time again that many non-white characters don't sell very well. I tend to chalk that up to the unusual need for the long story arcs in which, say, a black character must delve deep into what it means to BE black. You don't see white folks doing that (in fact, I know a black guy who stopped buying Cage as soon as that started up... he thought it was ridiculous). That alienates readers... it might have a message, but it's not what you buy superhero comics for. Interesting now and then "what about the black skins, Green Lantern, man?!" but lengthy story arcs hurt... But they do it. Cage did. John Stewart did in Mosaic. Etc. In Japan, most of their heroes are japense (or aliens posing as japanese). Etc. Can't fault them for that. It would be like faulting China for producing most of their music in their own language.

Well, we've had the same game world since, like, '82 so we just all kind of start swaying, really, as we need it. Humor, dead serious, downright bloodthirsty, four color... depends on the team make-up at the time and the mood everyone is in. It's never really been a concern that I know of. We have characters fall, die, deal with long running gags (usually because of something odd that happens and the media won't drop it)... I mean, we once had a big fat guy in tights with beer powers... had one guy that literally attempted to eat (and sometimes succeeded) enemies he had defeated. We're atypical in that our games run for a long time. Many gamers today seem to rarely even reach a single year with a campaign. So rather than just changing games/campaigns... we sway as needed. I mean, it's the same Martian Manhunter who craved Oreos & fought intergalactic planet fashion consultants as stands off against world threats today.

Since my group is composed of great ethnic and theological variety... we're positively evil when it comes to goofing on racial stereotypes. Sometimes it's good to let off some steam in game. In one golden age campaign we had a kung fu master chef (with an Uncle Sam style striped chef hat) named "Chop Chop." Yes, he was asian and used cleavers, too. Played by... a chinese guy. Hey, Chop Chop! "I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying!" We had a rampaging Moses (yes, that Moses) played by a jewish fellow. Anyone even remotely egyptian seeming or german saw his wrath...and everyone not jewish second (remember, Moses was the guy who made his tribe cast out their wives and children if they weren't 100% jewish at one time). We had an electricity controlling mutant hassidic (sp? way off, I'm sure) jewish rabbi once... In fact, I only recall the electricty part because his name was Killawatt (sic). We had a human torch style guy named "the Flamer" who was quite a bit femme. "I'll never tell" he would sometimes say. I once played a Blaxploitation version of Superman named "Star Brother." (one of his disads was Hassled: 14- by The Man). He had a Beppo, too... an energy monkey/Gleek named Star Simian. He was a funk junky and talked like the old Luke Cage. The hispanic fellow in our group played a gnome named Francisco Espana... and wore a sombrero (complete with dingle-balls). He was a short thief and rather similar to Cheech Marin. Mostly when religion comes up, there is either atheist, catholic, or buddhist types. And that only comes up when you face demons or whatnot. It's mostly parody, though. Making fun of stereotypes we've either lived with or been accused of having. They never really last long, just when the campaign takes a humorous turn for a while. Typically, it only works when you don't have a Captain Whitebread around and, of course, group comfort levels. We're kind of beyond taboos...

He ditches the "gun" focus and incorporates the glue gun(s) into his armor so his hands are kept free and he's not as easy to disarm. I imagine that if he gets access to the tech, he'd do a lot of expansion in enhanced senses for his armor, too... which would help him in his thieving ways, with battlefield tactics, etc. Remember, he's a brainy mastermind guy... he hates surprises. More input means better decisions (also, he builds gizmos for the team... not radios, but cameras, etc, etc... so he can keep track of where everyone is, what they see, etc). Also, expand on his skills... and keep doing so. He's soaking up scientific knowledge like crazy. The more he knows, the more power he has. The inclusion of Cyclone was a mistake, imo. Now Binder has a whole additional tech to analyze, etc. There's no reason for him not to duplicate any system he sees a use for and incorporate it into his own battlesuit.

It'd be silly, then... like Ninja Busting Teen or Powered Museum Patron

Re: Urban Sasquatch! He was originally calling himself the "Ebon Yehti" but the media used the Urban Sasquatch name and that stuck.

Oh, if you don't care about color... I believe that the second printing (and subsequent ones) of SAS are the non-deluxe B&W versions for a few bucks cheaper.

A couple of the news stories have photo manips (one of my favorites is the fuzzy camcorder stuff like in the "Woman sprouts wings!" one) and I'm told the quotes section (might also be under the news tab, don't recall) was pretty entertaining. If I ever get around to doing my own game, I'll have an even more extensive site than that one... since it'll be mine. Mine. MINE!

If not entirely accurate in some of the remarks (one such example listed the McSpider Man as the first Spidey title in X years, completely ignoring the Web of Spider-Man series). Just don't take it as stone tablets from on high.

I was for our low power game. It's probably still up: http://www.thefumbler.com/champions We put that game on hiatus after 9/11 because we were set in the "real world" and felt the most sensible direction would then be all terrorist hunting, etc...

I love this... hahahahahaha That's classic.

I own both, but I think SAS will give you more bang for your buck (and they have a roster book out, too... short, but cheap). Storn has had good things to say about M&M, though. Hunt up the other threads on this comparison for more info.

Re: Villain Help Wildside is the seductress. She's the one with all the bugging skills, too, by knowing just how to hide bugs and cameras with her superior aesthetic skills. This makes her the perfect choice for the blackmailer, too... and she takes delight in forcing people to do things for her that way that leads to her criminal advantage (all sorts of things there to getting security codes, shipment schedules & routes, etc).

I'd treat it kind of like a -2 OCV martial flash type thing. While it's cool and all that and certainly fun you want to make it possible, but not as easy as just smacking someone. Also, it depends on the player. If it's the kind of player who will do it once, everyone says "yeah, cool!" and then that's that... I'm much more likely to just say "ok, you do it!" If it's the kind of player who will then turn around and use that sort of thing in every fight, I might disallow it entirely. One thing we've always promoted was that if funky stuff is allowed to happen in the player's advantage... it can work for the bad guys, too, at some point. Kind of a karmic trade-off.

That's even posted on the pegboard at my local gaming shop.

This actually occurred in Enemies of San Angelo, as well.

It's really not that hard. I use mostly the line tool instead of actually drawing. A basic rule of thumb is that gloves will curve down (like a rainbow) and boots will curve up (like a bowl). A slight up curve to the belt helps a lot, too, in creating a sense of depth even in this cartoony style.

Well, I have no recollection of ever seeing them do it. Which is why I say that it either wasn't the case or something rather rare for them to actually do (perhaps due to the rarity of having multiple attack powers that could be fired at once as characters seemed to be designed then). We took more than a few queues from how they played when they were around. I mean, who would know better than them?

Sounds like you plan your stuff, details, possible angles, etc... Know what? You spent too much time working out the background and all that. Seriously. You burned out the creative energy on setting rather than adventure/execution. Try to be more on the fly. When you have an idea... don't develop it! Just bring the idea to the table and let it develop in play. This is why many authors do not discuss what they are currently writing, only what they have already written. Why? That energy should go into the execution of the story... not wasted by chit-chat about it. The same kind of thing applies to being a GM for a game.

It's kinda small on my screen... but the hair looks cool from what I can make out.

Try again

Why can't it be something set up in advance? I didn't think it was clear. For example: I've fallen 10" - flight kicks in... it doesn't matter if I've stopped falling or continue falling, I've already fallen 10" and have met the requirement for the power and can fly all I want now. So you're looking at power that just stops you from falling after 10" and you just hover there until you do something else? But you want it to keep working even if KOd or if you were KOed and tossed off a bridge or whatever. It's still just a trigger on persistant flight. Once you are "hovering" and locked into that mode... you can't ever fall again until you turn the power off (at which time, or any time after it's fired, the trigger can be reset). What do you do if you fall out of a plane? You fall 10" and bing... you are stuck hovering there a few couple thousand feet off the ground If you make it totally outside of the characters control... you are there forever. If your concept is fall 10" stop, fall 10" stop and on down, it sounds much more like "gliding, down only" with some other mechanics on there to simulate your effect.

Give us the other angle... forget mechanics. What EFFECT are you trying to achieve?

Not for the first 3 editions they didn't... or at least such usage was so rare I never saw it happen