BlackSword

Re: Exodus 2025: A campaign idea looking for input! [quote=bigdamnhero(Sidebar, I have a vague memory of some sci-fi story – can’t remember name or author – where humans were invited into a peaceful utopian galactic society because that society was facing a strong external threat and needed someone who knew how to fight. Essentially, humanity became the galaxy’s mercs. A different direction than it sounds like you want to go, but might be something to think about.) Alan Dean Foster wrote a series, The Damned, where humanity was one of the few warlike races in the galaxy, they were recruited to help one side in a galactic conflict. The first book in the series was A Call to Arms.

Re: The Role Models Depends on what you want. Hawkman/woman show what 50 years of convulted backgrounds can do to a character. If talking about comics familiarity, I would recommend adding teams: JLA/Avengers - the powerhouses of the chosen universe band together to fight world or galaxy threatening villains X-Men - As a team of unwanted and mostly disliked (in their world)heroes fight to protect others like them and those that scorn them. JSA - In its current run, a team of heroes that, for the most part, exist solely in the team book. Also a team of the original Mystery Men passing their knowledge to the next generation.

Re: GM's "Notebook" Open Office or Notepad. If I am at work and get a stroke of genius (happens all the time trust me;)) I jot down a few notes in word pad and then send the text file to my home account. At home I have an Open Office document that has all my plot seeds and campaign notes in it. I have a separate Open Office document that has more detailed adventures with NPC names and basic maps that I make in Open Office Draw. Finally a third document is used with tables that incorporate which PCs were there, which NPC were used and a brief outline of what happened that night.

Re: Knockback on the moon? Grrr, Basil beat me to it. Since the game normally doesn't use knockback (just knockdown), on the moon I would actually use the knockback rules (so there would be a difference between fighting Earth gravity vs Moon gravity). If you are going to add Mars into the mix, then Mars can use normal knockback, and on the moon either subtract a d6 or use Double Knockback. Using normal knockback rules I would go with double knockback on the moon. Handwave all the way.

Re: Role-Playing Exercise #1 Fletch Morrison, Professional Scapegoat. Power still corrupts, and when the corrupt get caught they need someone to take the fall for them. With hundreds of worlds its easy for Fletch to find work, he may have been 'ruined' on a dozen planets, but there are another dozen politicians and CEOs looking for a loyal aid. When something dirty needs to be done Fletch heads out on his own and his boss gets plausible deniability. Mr. Morrison knows how to discreetly hire anything his boss desires and an amazing ability to take the blame, now he just needs a new employer.

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal I have been tossing around the idea of evolving my current campaign world to a JSA style, where the main characters are legacy characters, and each player also makes up a few secondary characters. Missions would vary from a single Legacy (read High Point total) leading a team of recruits, to all of the Legacy characters being played for a serious threat. I think the two problems with unequal characters are two-fold, first the GM has to ensure that the main character does not overshadow the rest. Second the players have to be the right mix to accept it and play along. I play in two groups, one is friends from college, one is a weekly gaming group. Each group has a unique feel to it, and for each group different types of games would work, or not work. A style of game I would play in one group would fail in another.

Re: New Superman movie trailer with tonight's Smallville I'll disent, I enjoyed the teaser trailer. Granted it was rather quick, but it looked like they did a good job of capturing Superman in flight, will have to see how the script holds up. It is a bit odd, them tying the movie to the first two movies, and then deaging everyone. I don't think they have to stick to comic book continuity if they can make a good story by diverging. Smallville was okay the first season, meh the second season, and has gone down hill from there. There was an interview in SciFi Wire a few days ago with Singer, they are using clips and old voice recordings of Brando to bring him to life in this movie. Finally, am I the only one that finished Brando's narration like this: "They are a good people stuck in the dark, they just need someone to show them the light. That is why I sent you, my only son to Earth. Now don't **** it up."

Re: Star Wars - Balancing Jedi with everyone else and heroic vs. superheroic Whie this discussion is a bit silly as there is no way to test the hypothesis, my 2 cents: From the games and the various shows, I don't think hand-to-hand is the way to face a jedi. You want to give jedi room and hit them with overwhelming firepower. Its not canon, but in the cartoon, Mace against the droids pretty much shows the devasting effect of force enhanced strength. The light sabers are pretty much instant kill, so its best to stay away from them. Jedi are trained how to use them and how to fight close-in. The biggest problem for jedi is closing into close range (though they do have force leaps and force running to help). I do think that a team of commandos could wipe out a jedi or two out. Jedi are not all powerful.

Re: Something I just noticed and dislike about multipowers

Re: Just Picked Up Champions Worldwide

Re: Star Wars - Balancing Jedi with everyone else and heroic vs. superheroic KOTOR = Knights of the Old Republic : There were two computer games that came out in the past few years under the title. They were both well done and told during the Madalorian Wars era and the Rise of the Sith. Didn't play the first. I played the sequal and it deals with rebuilding the Republic that is on death's door and the main character is the 'last' of the jedi. EU = Expanded Univrese: This is the shelf of books at Barnes and Nobles with Star Wars in the title. (also includes all games and comics). Varying degrees of writer ability. There is some editorial policy on the whole, but I personally think its similar to Forgotten Realms, at the beginning when it was small it was good, then they flooded the market.

Re: Fu Schticks for Champions Haven't finished reading all of it, but it looks great so far. Thanks for all the information.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I finished Anansi Boys last night. It was very good and had a good mix of humor thrown in with the rest of the story. It has almost nothing to do with American Gods other than the premise of gods having mortal avatars on modern earth. Both characters grow in expected ways, but its still a nice treat.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... GM: You recognize the symbol on the priestess clothing, she worships the drow god of...(cue evil music)...vengenace and suffering. Me: I was hoping for rainbows and kittens.

Re: Fantasy Adventures Or Why are we always underground...again In the D&D game I am currently we started in a dungeon, heck grew up in a dungeon. But, that is part of the plot. An Ice Age came and the humans had to move in with the dwarves. Now we get assaulted from both sides, the other nasty critters that live in the dark, and the going onto the surface to try and find a new place to settle.

Re: Egyptian Tomb And Necropolis Maps! There is a display at the St. Louis Art Musuem (traveling display, so check local listings) abou tthe Treasures of the Royal Tombs of Ur. Ur was a city, dedicated to the Moon God, in Sumer, on the Euphrates River (modern day Southern Iraq). The city was at its peak about 2600 BCE. Most of the diggings occured in the 20s and 30s. The details and artistry were amazing, and most of the pieces were silver, electum, gold and lapis lazuli. What really sounded off the Pulp Plot alert was this; when Wooley discovered the tomb and what it held he sent a secret telegram back to London, written in Latin to help keep the secret. It was bizzare to come around a corner and see a copy of the telegram looking like it had come from the HP Lovecraft Historical Soceity prop page. Besides the typed message from Western Union, below it was the receiver's handwriting translating the words. Besides a greedy archaelogist trying to get the gold, all of the ancient Sumerian cities had a central temple and were based around the worship of a single god. Perhaps someone is trying to wake up the old gods.

Re: Liefeld's Titans [Professor]Good news everyone[/Professor] The second part of the story came out. Why is this good news? Because now Liefeld's run on the Titans is done. I was disappointed by Simone's story, I like her writing in Birds of Prey, but the Titans story seems like it was thrown together to fill two issues. It was something I might do if I had zero other ideas and had to throw a game together for an evening. Hopefully the return to the regular writers/artist has the Titans wake up from a badly drawn dream.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Caribbean Jazz Project, Here and Now - Live in Concert - Disc 1; specifically Rendevous.

Re: Your Hometown For Pulp A quick overview of the history of St. Louis, contains a specific section on the pulp era (though they call it "WARS - PROSPERITY - DEPRESSION: 1914-1945"). http://stlouis.missouri.org/heritage/History69/ Looks like St. Louis had two baseball teams during the era, the St. Louis Browns, and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Re: Sci-fi wear swords? At GenCon I played a mercenary with a gauss rifle in Traveller (T20). I tended to use multi-round bursts, but pretty much decimated one enemy a round. Pinecone, I think one reason a lot of gamers don't use suppressive fire is because the rules in some games don't support it well. I personally like it and find that supress can be great, especially for non-combat characters to help turn the tide in combat, but it seems some games either have no rules, or make the rules so pitiful that its wasting ammo and you might as well go for the golden BB.

Re: Making a Ninja Hero Campaign with Anthro Characters The nice thing about going from *Claw to Hero is that the species can be differentiated a bit more. In *Claw all cat species had the same skills and bonuses the only difference is the writen suggestions for how to play them. In Hero the cats can have the same skills, but a Lion could be at +3 STR, while a Leopard might have more DEX, and a cheetah would have more running.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? you, I won't do what you tell me... (repeat ad infiniteum)

Re: Infinite Crisis I believe its a 7 issue story arc, though I am sure that it will be intertwined through other monthlies.

Re: Infinite Crisis I agree with the ordering, I enjoyed Villains United and R-T War the most. OMAC was a chore. Day of Venegance was okay, but mostly because of the motley crew of mages that were being used, I liked the cast, but the story was weak. Identity Crisis was okay, I understand the mindwipe being presented, just not sure if it was presented correctly, it was one of those stories where the heroes discover something unexpected while investigating something unrelated. It should have focused more on Wally or another character discovering the mindwipe as opposed to those involved going, "Oh Crap."

Re: Marvel Universe Question My impression was that they were going to be more gritty and Iron Age, which is not neccesarily realistic, just trying to lift the heroes of their four color CVK limitation.