Fazhoul

Re: Inspiration: The Five Fists of Science Wow, I came here to post this very same link. This looks to be a very cool book.

Re: Your Hometown For Pulp I was in a supers game a few years back that was set in Cincinnati and our base was in the abandoned subway tunnels under downtown.

Re: Comprehensive Pulp Resources List That's a sweet list! Of the RPG's listed there are only about six that I don't already own. I knew I had a lot but GEEZ!

Re: Your Hometown For Pulp I don't know why I haven't posted about these books before because they are GREAT sources of info and photos of the period. Arcadia Publishing has several series of history books but the one I'm going to focus on is called "Images of America". They highlight different areas of the nation in text and photo during significant historical periods. The focus of most of the books I've purchased seems to be the 20's through the 40's. Here are a few that focus on Cincinnati. Cincinnati Revealed- A Photographic Heritage of the Queen City, features nearly 200 rarely seen photographs and vintage postcards. Through these striking images, together with the insightful text, authors Kevin Grace and Tom White take the reader on a unique visual tour of this historic river city. Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine - Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine captures a fascinating urban neighborhood in vintage photographs. For over 150 years, the culture, politics, and architecture of Over-the-Rhine have influenced Cincinnatiís development. Early German immigrants gave the neighborhood its moniker, after the bordering Miami-Erie canal, and also contributed to its beautiful architecture. Appalachian and African American citizens later contributed to the cultural diversity. The Cincinnati Subway- Cincinnati emerged from a tumultuous 19th century as a growing metropolis committed to city planning. The most ambitious plan of the early twentieth century, the Cincinnati Subway, was doomed to failure. Construction began in 1920 and ended in 1927 when the money had run out. Today, two miles of empty subway tunnels still lie beneath Cincinnati, waiting to be used. The Cincinnati Subway tells the whole story, from the turbulent times in the 1880s to the ultimate failure of "Cincinnati's White Elephant." Along the way, the reader will learn about what was happening in Cincinnati during the growth of the subway-from the Courthouse Riots in 1884 to life in the Queen City during World War II. Stepping Out In Cincinnati- Long before folks had a television set and radio in every room, they sought entertainment by stepping out for a night on the town. The choices around Cincinnati were nearly limitless: live theater at the Cox; spectacular musicals at the Shubert; hotels featuring fine dining and dance orchestras; talking pictures at everyone’s favorite movie palace—the Albee; burlesque and vaudeville shows at the Empress Theater on Vine Street; and gambling casinos were just a short drive across the river in Newport. All of the major entertainment venues in the Queen City during the first half of the 20th century are explored in Stepping out in Cincinnati. From saloons to ornate movie palaces and from the Cotton Club to the Capitol, you join those pleasure seekers, getting a real sense of what they saw: wonderful events and their countless images—the things of which fond memories were made. Today, those memories have faded and virtually all of the once-glittering showplaces have been bulldozed into history. But within these pages, we get to experience first hand what it was like to be there. Unique among the many photographs featuring unforgettable movie houses and nightclub orchestras are never-before-published images of actual live vaudeville performances onstage at the Shubert, plus rare, clandestine pictures snapped inside the casinos in Newport. Also revealed are the locations of the better-known speakeasies during Prohibition; where the best halls to dance to live orchestras were; what the earliest movie houses were like; and what black Cincinnatians did for entertainment. Check out Arcadia's website. There's a chance they have a book about your hometown or at least the local area.

Re: Doc Savage I was going to recommend this same site. Dr. Hermes has a great site that every Pulp Hero player should check out.

Re: The World of Kong The worms are what disgusted all of us the most. I can't wait to see them.

Re: The World of Kong After my group got together and saw the movie all of my players jokingly said that as soon as they heard the words "Skull Island" in one of my adventures their characters were going to commit suicide. If for no other reason than to avoid the spider pit.

Re: DC veterans, help me pick current DC titles! You should add Manhunter to your list. It's not exactly a core title but it is one of DC's best titles and it's recently been revealed that she has familial ties to a member of the JSA. And Justice by Ross, Kruger & Braithwaite is an amazing series.

Re: [Review] Masterminds & Madmen I picked up my copy of it just yesterday (2/16) and have only just started to delve into it. When I pick up a roleplaying supplement I usually skim though it and get an idea of what's in the book and then go back and start reading through the book. With M&M I opened it up and was immediately sucked into the histories of first Dr. Fang Shen and then Skymaster. Between trying to read this AND watch Snowboard Cross on the Olympics I ended up staying up WAAAAY too late. I can't wait to use Skymaster in my campaign. There's a certain hotshot pilot in the group who's in need of an archnemesis and Skymaster fits the bill perfectly. And the plans for the Skyfortress Cumulus are outstanding. Excellent work. So far I would give this book an A. The only thing keeping it from an A+ is no full color art in the interiors. Yeah, I know, none of Hero's books have color interior art but I'm picky that way.

Re: The Raven and Captain Battle My gaming group would kill or die to play in this game based on the title alone. Our motto is "There's no game that can't be improved by adding Nazis or zombies to it."

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls? The active cap was 90 points. And Brainwave did OK in combat. I never overwhelmed but I managed to avoid getting my a$s kicked too. The last campaign didn't last but a couple of months so he didn't get a long test of his effectiveness.

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls? If I tried to build the mentalist whose powers I posted on page 2 of this thread without frameworks then I would have to cut his powers back to half their current strength. Either that or just start loading on limitations that really don't fit the character concept and in MY mind that is even more munchkiny. I could just as easily say that Brainwave gets his mental powers from an Independent (-2) IIF (-1/2) rather than his powers being inate but that's not the character concept I had. It's not like I'm wanting to play Superman or the Spectre and I'm cheesing their powers into the 350 limit by using frameworks. While Brainwave might not have exactly been a "starting level" character (in superhero terms, not game terms) he was far from an overpowering character.

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls? Here are the powers that my character in his last game had. I based him on Brainwave Jr. from Infinity Inc. And by based on I mean ripped off wholesale. We were hurriedly making up characters and I was stuck for an idea. I found a write-up for Brainwave on the Great Netbook of Heroes and modified it a little. All powers are within the active point limits that he set for the campaign which was a four-color campaign based in a version of the Champs universe. He had right of refusal on all characters and powers on characters and he never said boo! about anything ahead of time. He didn't even express any reservations or trepidations about some of our powers. 60 Mental Powers: Multipower, 90-point reserve, (90 Active Points); all slots Activation Roll 14- (-1/2) 6u 1) Ego Attack 7d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (87 Active Points); 3 6u 2) EB 9d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4), Double Knockback (+3/4) (90 Active Points); 4 6u 3) EB 14d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (87 Active Points); 3 6u 4) Telekinesis (50 STR), Fine Manipulation (85 Active Points); 8 6u 5) Mind Control 12d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4), Telepathic (+1/4) (90 Active Points); 3 5u 6) Telepathy 13d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (81 Active Points); 3 24 Elemental Control, 60-point powers, (30 Active Points); all slots Activation Roll 15- (-1/4) 24 1) FF (20 PD/20 ED/10 Mental Defense/10 Power Defense) (60 Active Points); 6 24 2) Flight 28" (56 Active Points); 6 17 3) Mind Link , Any Willing Target, Any distance, No LOS Needed, Number of Minds (x8) (45 Active Points); Costs Endurance (-1/2)

Re: weather control in space? Actually, it was issues 99-100 where Storm, Banshee & Wolverine were trying to escape from Stephen Lang's space station and his Sentinels. I can't remember what I had for breakfast but I can remember this.

A friend of mine who runs Champions for our group has never hidden his dislike of multipowers and elemental controls (and VPPs too). At first he said that he never really fully grapsed how they worked (specifically MP's) but after we spent an hour explaining them to him his reasoning now is that he thinks that they are just "ways of munchkining points out of your character". He recently told us that he is considering starting up a new Champs game but not allowing any Power Frameworks of any kind to be used in the building of our characters. Several of us in the group aren't too thrilled about this idea and have told him so but he doesn't seem to care. We haven't abused the power frameworks. He just doesn't like them. I think that he doesn't like for our PCs to have power frameworks because he doesn't use them when he creates his villains because of his dislike for them. This friend of mine also argues that Elemental Controls are supposed to be based on ELEMENTS, i.e. earth, air, fire, water or derivations thereof. In the recent past he has relented to allow things like cosmic energy or atomic energy. What's anyone else think?

Re: Your Opinion Please - Four-Color Appropriate? I guess it's just me that has a problem with a character looking like that. I just keep seeing him trying to rescue some poor NPCs and having them run in terror from him. Of course, since I'm not the GM, it's not my say. The armor is supposed to be some sort of Spanish/Aztec era relic which makes me wonder about the appearance even more. He started out as being an Iron Man type but the player changed his mind. I guess I'm just stuck in my preconceived notions of Iron Man as an armored character and the Black Knight and the Shining Knight as fantasy armored characters.

My gaming group is going to be starting up a new Champions campaign in a couple of weeks and we've all been working on our characters. One of our group has not read a lot of comics and almost all of his super-hero exposure comes through movies and TV shows. We've been trying to get him to truly understand the meaning of "four-color". He understands the idea of no killing and things like that and we thought that he was making progress. Until he introduced the figure that he wants to use for his power-armored character. He's a fan of the Mage Knight figures and picked the one I'm attaching. What's your opinion of this "character" for a four-color game? I'm hoping to show the player the reapones from this board so that he might see that it's not just our group that has a problem with this. If it turns out I'm wrong about this I'll just shut up and play. Oh, BTW, the GM is out of town for a couple of weeks so he hasn't seen this yet.

Re: pulp hero over opinions? Now THIS would have made an awesome cover. The covers are still too bright for a pulp cover though.

Re: What Other Pulp Hero Books Would You Like To See? You had me at "Art Deco Spaceships". If the legal and financial hurdles weren't such a problem I would love to see a Doc Savage Sourcebook, a Shadow Sourcebook, an Avenger Sourcebook, a... well, I think you get the idea. From what I've read and heard though, the owners of the copyrights on these characters are difficult to deal with and want an exhorbitant amount of money to do anything with the characters.

Re: Doc Savage Write-up? I've done a couple of different write-ups of Doc in the past. On at least one of them I used some house rules that Albert Deschene had posted on his website. In addition to Universal Translator his group had Universal Scientist, Universal Scholar, etc. For 20 pts. the universal skills would give the character an 11- roll in any science skill, knowledge skill, etc. A +1 to the roll could be purchased for an extra 5 pts. I just bought Doc every "universal" skill and saved myself some time and trouble. I'll see if I have any of the write-ups and try to post the best one.

Re: Pulp Reading The Doc Savage books by Philip Jose Farmer were: A Feast Unknown - Not for the squeamish but a great, great book. Two of Farmer's all time favorite characters, Tarzan and Doc Savage (called Caliban here), do their best to kill each other. There is one problem though, they are being manipulated by a secret group called The Nine and every act of violence results in an erection and to kill results in an orgasm. Farmer does have an explanation for this and has a lot of fun with history in the process. This book has everything that Farmer does well, a must read. Doc Savage: His Apocolyptic Life - Everything you ever wanted to know about Doc Savage and some stuff that Farmer figured out on his own. Farmer links this work to Tarzan Alive by the extended family tree that is in the front of both books. There are lots of other famous people, both real and imagined, in this amazing family. The descriptions above were taken from the Official PJF Web Site.

Re: Pulp pictures. Here's a link to a page with a lot of the artwork from the original Doc Savage pulp magazines. Doc Savage Magazine Interior Art Gallery The site is part of The 86th Floor, one of the best Doc fansites around. There's also DocSavage.org. They have scans of most (if not all) of the Doc Savage pulp covers and of the Bantam novel covers. Yet another Doc Savage site with a lot of links to Doc Savage covers, an index of his adventures and links to sites about aircraft, mysteries and other assorted goodies from the pulp era. The Shadow website has scans of a few pulp covers. Check out the Norm Saunders Artwork Archive for a gellery of work by one of the great pulp artists. (See below.) And at Fusion Tees you can order tshirts with pulp covers, vintage paperback covers, men's adventure magazine covers and movie posters.

Re: Pulp Reading I'm glad to see someone checked out my reading list. I was afraid that it had gotten lost in the shuffle. I personally don't know how good Flying Blind is since I haven't read that far in the series yet but my mom and my mother-in-law both loved it.

Pulp & Pulp Era References OK, I've worked up a list of books and materials that I have for my pulp games. I've not listed the Doc Savage, Shadow, Avenger, Spider, Operator 5 and Fu Manchu novels since they have all been mentioned previously. I also decided not to list the dozens of books on mythology that I have. Also, the best book on the list, The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life from the Prohibition through WWII is OOP and costs anywhere from $75 - $132 in the used bookstores online. I don't know why Writer's Digest Books hasn't kept the book in print. The list is a Word document created in Office XP (2003). Let me know if you need it in a different format.

Re: Pulp Reading