Beetle

Sounds like a missing song from Man of LaMancha

Q: What does this thread have in common with a Viper base? A: The self-destruct button doesn't work! (start laughing now)

[grumpy old man] "In my day, we didn't have handy supplements to help us with magic in FH! In my day, we had to create a magic system from scratch, and write all the spells out in chicken blood! And we didn't have any 'computers' or 'calculators' either. We did all the math in base 8 using roman numerals! And that's the way it was, and we liked it!" [/grumpy old man] Seriously, this sounds great. I'll be picking this up very soon.

This might be the best thread EVER!

It sounds like some of your players aren't on the same page with you for some reason. Have the played Champions before? I think it might be useful for you to call "time" during the next session, and go over what the campaign is about and cover some of the genre conventions. Highlight some of the blunders made last session and find out why they did that. You might need to hold the their hands in the early days ("You do realize that will kill your secret id, don't you?"). If nothing major happened last session, it might be best to call it "spring training" and declare that it doesn't really count. Did you have advanced warning of the no-shows? Maybe the schedule needs to be made clearer? Of course, if these folks are experienced players who should know better, than proceed directly with Chuckg's Black Paladin beat down.

The whole purpose of gaming is to have a good time (something that is too frequently forgotten). If, at the current time, you can have more fun with Tri-Stat than with HERO, than go for it. No need to feel guilty at all.

Hmmm, well my characters are single but I'll pretend their married for the sake of this exercise: Black Arrow (female martial artist)- Why is this my fault? I gave the punk several chances to change. I "counseled" him like you wanted. Tried to get him to reform. And he spat on it. Now somebody's dead, and those kids will never get their parent back. So as far as I'm concerned, your brother can spend the next 20 years in jail! Bolt (male speedster) - No, honey. He's not getting off this time, he killed somebody. Where is he? Ummm, well ... he's at Mass. General Hospital. Well, I sort of lost my cool and took him out pretty hard. The way he was always bragging about his powered armor, I thought he'd take the 200mph slam into the wall better than that...

Some more things to consider as you set this up: Is the DA up for election? That could have a huge impact regarding how strongly he goes after this (but not as much as the earlier point on his feelings towards "capes") Also, where were the hero's teammates while he was doing this? In a different room? Just standing off to the side? Did anybody try and talk him out of this? This trial should have major consequences on them. They'd have to testify, and the trial would probably be carried on Court TV. So the way regular folks view the team as a whole will be greatly impacted. Some heroes may come off well in a trial ("I tried to talk him out of it"), others may come off poorly ("the kid was an acceptable casualty"). There may be some inter-team tension about people's testimony if they didn't see things the same way. Does the team have any sort of official sanction? Then they're looking at state or federal investigations into how they conduct their jobs. Also, local "community groups" may start acting up (think what happens when a cop kills a kid) I wouldn't automaticallly assume that the hero would be found guilty, especially if he is popular and has the resources to hire a great defense lawyer. Juries are always crapshoots. For example, if the supermage were to testify that the kid really "died" the moment the demon first possessed him (and people buy it), then the guilty hero might end up walking. Or a star-struck jury might ignore the evidence and acquit him based on past deeds ("Do we really want to send him to jail? He's saved the planet five times!") Hey, if O.J. could get off, this guy can even with the videotape.

Is there a plot-driven reason she needs to have a job? If not, just give her wealth from her worker's compensation money, the massive settlement of her liability lawsuit against the university and her big-money discrimination suit filed (under the Americans with Disabilities Act) when the university fired her for being ugly. Then she doesn't have to work for a living.

Shouldn't "The Legion of Super-Hornets" also have a Hornet-Lass? She'd could be Buzzy's teen crush.

Both Dove I and Dove II are toast (though I refuse to believe that whole "Monolith" storyline ever happened - I want Hawk and Dove back!). Also Mockingbird of the Avengers. The original Baron Zemo has been pushing up daisies since the 1960s. Technically the four members of the Elementals died before being sent back with powers. The Haunting (aka Ghost Girl) was also dead. [oops. Sorry, not DC or Marvel Universe]

Somehow, I never noticed them before FREd, but I guess I wouldn't be surprised if they were widely used. Nobody in the groups I was in did stuff like that, though. I understand why people use them. Because they see it as the easiest/simplest/best way to achieve the effects that they want. Fine (though I question whether the Flash should have turn modes on his running). I realize that this stems from me being literally minded on some things. I get stuck in "A can not equal non-A" land when I see flight defined as not flying. So I thought I'd rant about it for all to enjoy.

It sounds great, and I've always been a fan of Black Paladin (well, maybe "fan" isn't the right word). But my day-to-day internet access comes from work. So if buy a download, I have to wait until I have a friend willing to let me hijack his computer. Second is that since I don't GM that much, I'm not sure how much use it would be. Also, I need to pay for the new Angel and Xena DVDs first.

I had a thought while browsing the generally excellent UNTIL book for speedster ideas. While I'm very grateful to Steve and the gang at DOJ for rescuing HERO and restoring it to its rightful place as the top system on the market, I sometimes have a problem with the philosophy of constructing powers. Namely, I hate oxymoronic power constructs! What's an OPC? Any ability defined in such a way as to go against the meaning of the power used to build it. Examples? Try these popular ones for speedsters: Teleport (must pass through intervening space). Excuse me? If you're passing through the intervening space, you're not teleporting!! That's what the word means! Flight (must remain in contact with surface). Again, if you're touching the ground, you're not really flying! (dictionary: Fly - to travel by air. Not by running!) I think most us could come up with many more examples of this sort of thing. If somebody handed me characters with these prior to FREd, I would've tossed them out as pure cheese and told the player to find a different way to get the effects he wanted (and would've helped him get it). Okay, so I'm a horrible literalist, but words actually mean something, don't they? Anybody else feel this way? Okay, I'm done. I just had to get that off my chest.

Well the only thing that really jumped out at me was the DNPC. Jessica Sweetheart??? Is she related to Sweet Polly Purebred? Might want to think about changing the name.

If that's what you want, then give the musketeers some muskets. That's what made the armor obselete. Seriously, D-Man is right on this. Complaining that swashbuckling weapons won't damage a warrior in plate mail is like complaining that a guy with a flintlock musket won't hurt a sherman tank. That's because it's not what it was designed for. I'm sorry if your players don't want "history lessons" in their game, but putting 17th century weapons or characters in a high fantasy game (where plate mail is common) makes almost as little sense as using heat seeking missiles.

Steve, out of curiosity, how much of that "suggested reading" (from the thread on the old board) did you plow through before starting on FH. We all know how much free time you have...

I always thought HoJ was hilarious. Dark Champions starts with about 40 pages describing how to do a gritty, "street-level", low powered game. Then the first sample character is an 800 point monstrosity who teleports guns into his hands. That was "laugh out loud" funny!

Let the fact that some of us who live here were confused about whether Mass. has the death penalty be a clue as to how often it gets used (ie - Never). Now that somebody found the law, I vaguely recall it getting passed in 1985 or 1986 (I was in high school). But the state doesn't have anybody of death row, and will never have use the death penalty unless there's a major change in the people in the legal system.

Did somebody say "organized crime?" Well, a former big shot in Irish organized crime just happened to be the brother of the president of the state senate (the most powerful political person in the state, usually with more clout than the governor). Also gangster Whitey Bulger began a cozy relationship with the FBI to avoid prosecution while sending his rivals to jail. Whitey Bulger (the murdering gangster/FBI informant) is now on the run and brother Billy (former state senate president/current president of the University of Massachusetts) was just given immunity to testify before Congress. Yeah, we have gangsters. Check out the book Black Mass if you're interested in more details. Or go to http://www.boston.com/globe/ they should have more stuff on the brothers Bulger as Billy goes to testify. Oh, and Massachusetts does not have the death penalty.

Maybe "Hulking up" would be extra Strength, Con, Stun & End with the limitation of "Must have rabidly cheering crowd"? And gestures (wagging index finger in opponents face).

I may be dating myself here, but that was hilarious! I just about fell on the floor! Now back to our regularly scheduled topic...

Hate to sound like a broken record, but a good leader is indispensible. The problem in my circle is that one GM's campaigns were so bloody that nobody wanted to be leader (high guilt when your decisions lead to the death of another player's character). In the monthly Champs game that I'm in, we don't have an official team leader. The other players are looking to me to do that, since I've got the most experience with the system. The problem is that I'm playing a character with all the fun speedster disads (mega impulsive, highly overconfident). Last session, we were called to a hostage situation. The team wanted to get all the details from the police. Bolt said "Bleep that! We can take these clowns!" One totally destroyed building and three dead hostages later (Who knew the hostage takers had bombs? Not us, we didn't ask.) and they still want Bolt to be leader.

I don't have Mind Games handy, but I believe PSI stands for "Parapsychology Studies Institute."

Although it sounds like a really neat concept, I'd have to ask myself how much I trusted the player involved. There are some people I'd let play that character without a second thought. With other people I'd rather light myself on fire than let them have something so potentially abusive.