BlackSword

Re: Deathstroke Meanwhile in the Batgirl comic we are about to see Batgirl beat both Slade and his daughter (Ravager). (at least that is my guess, otherwise they are getting ready to end the series;)). In the last ish, Batgirl outsmarted him. She realized he was a better fighter, so she outwitted him to trap him. This from a girl who was trained as an assasin (and beat Shiva in hth) by Cain and more recently by Batman. I think Deathstroke is like any hero/villain, at the power level appropriate for the comic. If Bats needs to beat him, he is weaker. If they need to show how tough he is and that he can take on a super team, he is that tough (see Identity Crisis). With Villains United he is definitaly ramping up to be one of the major baddies.

Re: Musings on Random Musings I got German Spam on my work account, which was very odd as the work filters are usually quite effective. Haven't seen any at home which is odd since Hotmail and Yahoo! are both more than happy to sell my address to any warm body.

Re: Missing SW-Brand Mono-Climates The Ocean mono-climate is Calamari (or something to that effect) where Quarrans and Calamarians (like Admiral Ackbar) are from. Kasshyyk is another forest mono-climate.

Re: Your "2005" Pet Gaming Projects I plan on continuing to work on my (and now my groups) campaign setting, Epic City. We started playing this winter and I started to work on some web-pages, but its been so nice recently that I don't want to be locked in my cell, er office working on web-pages. Since other other people will likely be GMing some in the world, I need to clean up some of the notes so that other group members can run it.

Re: Super humans populations in cities Hmm, hadn't thought of China and India yet in my world (fortunataly the heroes haven't asked ). I might steal some of the ideas, perhaps use that part of China is now a super-villains hold-out and he has attracted some like minded asian super-villains to him. I might add an underwater population to the lake that is being formed by Three Gorges Dam.

Re: Super humans populations in cities I wonder if OSHA will cause a decrease in the number of 'accidental' ways to gain powers in the US, while countries with more lax environmental restrictions will have an increase in radiation accidents. Just imagined the ISO 9001 paperwork required for accidental change.

Re: Millennium Force Fallen My group ran for about 6-8 months with four people total (a rotating GM and three players). A few times I had to travel so the group met with two players. We are now up to four players + GM. Two more friends may join once they can. Our ideal group size is 6-7 total, but we won't sacrifice quality of person/player for group size. If you want to put the Champs team on hiatus, I would recommend an espionage game. We player Spycraft for a while, and the small flexible team worked well for us.

Re: Anthropomorphic/Furry HERO Resources We played a Jadeclaw game and went to fairly high levels. At a certain point the game seemed to break. It was a lot of fun, though we rarely got too deeply into the furry theme. Different races were used to note people and houses. One time there was a small bit of racism as my character (a lynx) was derisively refered to as the snake of the cat family. I think Iron/Jadeclaw has a nice system and break down for animals, but I would prefer to port it into Hero and change a few things.

Re: DC Animated U Campaign?

Re: DC Animated U Campaign? Hal appeared in the Animated for about 5 seconds. During the second episode of "The Once and Future Thing." John turned into Hal, everyone looked surprised, Hal said, "Timeline problems, I'm up to speed." Hal later disappeared and John Stewart reappeared. Hal is back in the comics DCU due to a six issue miniseries that ran last year.

Re: Review: Villainy Amok I picked up Villainy Amok a few weeks ago. Have been reading it slowly but already it has given me some ideas for my campaign and inspired the end to the current story arc (that it has not yet happened). This is going to be a very handy product.

Re: Musings on Random Musings I had the same thought this morning. We have had frost the past two days in StL. I don't ever remember frost this late in the spring. My thought was, "Finally, the global cooling theory has come to pass...oh wait...its global warming now."

Re: The Essential Bad Silver Age Yeah, I picked up the history of Batman book by Les Daniels. Off the top of my head we have, Zebra Batman, Giant Batman, Alien Batman, Baby Batman. I have not doubt there were many others.

Re: The Essential Bad Silver Age Not necessarily super-powered pets, but the super-family. Batman included: Batman Robin Batwoman Batgirl Bat-mite Ace, the Bat Dog All this for a chacter who is a 'loner.' Also there was the almost painful (and often poorly edited) attmept to remove any hint of sexuality from the comics. On the Batman side, one of the early complaints was Batman and Robin living together, how homoerotic is that? So they tried to fix it so added Batwoman and Batgirl to the mix. But now we come in contact with 'anti-sexuality' clause, so Batman has to act so chaste around the females involved in his series that it forces a subconcious question of "What does go on in stately Wayne Manor?" Another example I saw was on one of the cable channels Superheroes show. The hero (forget the series, but it was a spy series) was going to get the girl. The artist was simply going to draw a shirt hanging on the back of a chair. Nope, too racey. So the comics code forced him to change the drawing so that it was a shoulder holster hanging on the back of the chair, with the gun, snugly fit into the holster. No imagery there, none at all.

Re: Super Heroes on TV (Bravo) Do you think that any show with Adam West could devolve into camp?

Not specifically Champions. Bravo is having a special based on Superheroes, Villains and Vixens from comics and film starting May 26th. Looks like over 50 guests to discuss the topics. http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?category=0&id=30860

Re: GM Question: How to torture, errrr, 'improve' PC's over a campaign. One of my players asked if he could cut-off a truck trying to get out of the city. He made his AK, and I told him where his character thought the truck was going and a possible ambush point. This is a neat way to use AK. Its not something I would use every game session, but from time to time it could come in handy. I think an 8- AK for a characters hometown is an appropriate everyman skill.

Re: Musings on Random Musings A few answers: As written, probably not. At least not as mainstream literature. I am sure there are a few white supremacists groups might publish it. I personally don't find anything in the stories nearly as offensive as Supremacist literature. On the other hand, his stories contain just enough that it would likely fall out of mainstream. On the other hand, REH's writing may have been mainly a sign of the times, raised in the modern era he might not have been racist (I am not trying to slander him by using 'might' but I also can't predict how he would turn out raised in a different era). While he may judge a tribe on skin color, he does judge individuals on merit. He was raised in an era that gave rise to eugenics so part of his outlook was likely colored by the world around him, there's nothing to say that a modern REH would include subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) undertones of the inferiority of the black tribes. In the modern fantasy writing, writers just fall back on generic evil races that are fantasy, such as orcs or dark elves. Its okay to judge elves by their skin color, just not humans.

Re: Musings on Random Musings I agree that Howard's writing style is great and easy to read. The only bad thing is that he died young so there is a limited amount of his writing around. The racism and bigotry is apparent, but its also odd. Howard will respect individuals (Soloman Kane and an African shaman become blood brothers), but as a whole seems to believe that the white race is superior. Reading your selection, I didn't see every sentence as being racist, but not going to argue over perceptions. There were a few times in Howard's stories that I was jolted out of the story to whistle under my breath at such a bold and bigoted statement. Skar, if you read the Soloman Kane book (which I highly recommend) you will see very similar statements, showing that it was likely Howard's beliefs. Definitaly not sayingh is books should be burned, or banned, but to a modern reader such candid statements come as a shock.

Re: END -- Do You Need It? Actually, I need to edit my response. When I played a speedster I counted my END. It was interesting because he was powerful, but burned END. He could do a lot of manuvuers, cause mayhem, and then would have to take a breather before he started his next round of butt kicking. Never got to play him much (the campaign started to fold when I introduced him) but he would be a challenge in a long fight. I think I could go a full round without a recovery, but by the second round of combat I would have to take at least one recovery or risk getting way too low on END.

Re: END -- Do You Need It? We don't track END in our supers game. Fights are typically short enough that it wouldn't matter anyway. If it is critical for a villain then I will probably track it for them. Ie, if the goal is that the heroes can't beat him with punches and energy blasts, but have to wear him down, then I will probably track END for the villain only. Since we haven't played with it for a long time I don't plan on adding it back in now.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... "Once again a threat to Democracy has been ground down under the steel boot of Justice." (from the Aeon game last night)

Re: A Thread for Random Musings I wonder where my taxes go. I pay state income taxes. I pay a property tax on my car. I pay gas tax every time I fill up. I have to get my car registered again. $12 for a safety inspection (humorous when I see cars held together with tape trundling along the rode). $24 for emissions inspection. This inspection consisted of doing a leak test on my gas tank (~1 minute) and plugging into my car's diagnostic computer (~30 seconds). A minute and thirty seconds later I am out $24 and have a nifty decal and a required piece of paper. (though I did get to wait in line. funny thing, at the emissions center, they require to leave your engine running while you wait in line for the car ahead of you to finish). (note 2: This is also a joke, I daily see cars with so pouring so much smoke I think they are on fire, but they apparently pass well enough to get liscenced) Property tax receipts. Admittedly my fault, but I had to go downtown to get tax receipts. registration $49.50; I get to wait in line then get told cash or check...too bad I don't carry that much cash on me and don't typically have checks on me, guess I get to come back Fortunataly this only happens every two years. Unfortunataly I have to look at this money being spent and wonder, where does my tax money go?

Re: What is being asked of new Hero Players? A constructive criticism thread. Yeah, I remember going to Toys-R-Us so my brother could pick up some D&D stuff. Way, way back in the day. Now though pretty much every bookstore has a section dedicated to RPGs (usually right next to Graphic Novels, convenient). I think just about every major publisher has books there (except DoJ), I have even seen GoO books in those shelves. I understand Hero's reluctance to stock regular bookstores due to the limitations (ie having to buy back returned merchandise). But I have seen a number of people perusing the shelves, and I have made a few purchases from that zone when my local comic and game shop didn't have the TPB or game book in stock. At most non-Bookstores that have an RPG section I can find at least one Hero book.

Re: Musings on Random Musings I wasn't saying that everyone named Richard went by Dick, most the Richard's I know go by Rich. I am just wondering why anyone would go by that name, and also that it does lead to some odd e-mails from time to time.