FTJoshua

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon Expulsion - The brand name of any large SUV. Letterbox - A GM storytelling mechanic, adopted from games like Metal Gear, where the PCs are unable to take action until the end of a narrative by the GM. Not entirely fair, of course, but generally put to good use for moving a plot along. GM: Dr. Weirdo lands in front of you and -- PC: Energy blast, all levels to OCV! GM: Wait, wait. Letterbox. PC: Uh-oh. Bags and Tape: Simply ridiculous idea to solve a life or death situation, borne of desperation and an inability to think clearly. First used when a plane was going down due to a window being blown out. (Not that we knew this would not actually crash a plane at that time.)

Hi everyone - long time, no post. I imagine many of you have been through this as a GM and/or player: A campaign reboot. Specifically, I'm interested in hearing about campaigns in which the PCs were returned to their first-generation selves (i.e. 3rd or 4th Edition incarnations, or whatever was being used when the PCs first began playing). In this case, I'm looking at dropping the extant PCs (some 20 years old in play-time now) back into the past before any had earned even one XP. We'd use the current rules to build them from the ground up, keeping their basic same attributes/powers/skills etc. (no complete rewrites, they'd have to be built with basically the same power set they had when first created, within reason). They'd retain their memories (including how powerful they USED to be in 2008...). One motivation I have for this is our PCs are pretty much the biggest kids on the block now, but our roleplaying has been so tightly refined over two decades that the stories we tell are just awesome. I think it would be fun to revisit the Old School and see how our young, unpowerful PCs handle the world and each other now that their relative strength is low but their wisdom high. How might they spend brand new experience now? What happens if he goes looking for the girl who he doesn't meet for ten more years? And what about all those NPCs and bad guys we haven't had to deal with for so long? Has anyone tried something like this, or similar? To what degree of success? Was it just too irritating to the players to have to "start over"? In this case, I wouldn't spring it on the PCs; we'd all talk it over before doing it. Which sort of ruins the surprise, but like all things Champions, nothing can't be undone. Thanks!

Re: Hero's List I;m with Keyes and Houston.

Re: Your Character/Game Equation Felix = Vincent*+ Mr. Miyagi Tracy = Bruce Lee + me Joshua = Angel** + Eric Draven * = Beauty & The Beast TV show. ** = as in, Buffy.

Re: Iconic Heroes Well...in my experience, and probably everyone else's, there is a part of us in the PCs we play, sometimes overt, sometimes subtle. As both a GM and player, it's been great to experience a session wherein my personal worldviews or quirks or traits were addressed, or used, or praised. It's almost like you need The Wise Old Man character, the Sage, the Ben Kenobi guy, who the PCs can all trust, who will always tell them the truth, and always back them up, even if he doesn't get into the fight itself. This NPC can, in theory, suck the PCs in the same way any friend does: by paying attention to them, complimenting them, and above all, being honest with them. I dunno...just a thought. This NPC guy can help the characters figure out what they want out of the game more easily than the GM can find out from the players...if that makes sense. I'll have to come back to this one. I think I know what you mean, but expressing it is a bitch!

Re: Iconic Heroes I'd venture that icons are such because they reflect the best we normals could be. We can't fly or shoot lasers out of our eyes, yet we play a game that suggests the opposite. For me, the best games just so happen to be the ones where our powers and strength are utilized very little - it's the character work that makes the game so exciting. In the same way, icons are icons *because of* their humanity, not *in spite* of it. Further, they all have a goal, whether lofty or subtle. They all reach for something. At least the icons do. Their stories engage us, over and over, because we identify with their goals. And often, particularly after Spider-Man and the other Marvel guys came out, many of their goals were internal, and we can empathize with that as well. Where Batman tells us, "Hey, I could do that. It's not likely, but possible," Spider-Man tells us, "Hey man...I hear ya. Frickin' redheads, huh? Tell me about it." They are icons because they understood *us* first. ...And they're, you know, f'ing bad ass and kick the crap outta that jock in P.E. if they wanted to.

Re: WWYCD: Out of cash Man, honestly....we'd probably just go take it. We'd take it from, like, the mob or something...but we'd just take it. Okay, we'd ASK around first -- some pretty big people owe us favors. But if we couldn't cover it....yeah, we'd take it.

Re: My First Game of Champions! "The players were also the sort you end up with when you have open recruiting at a game store: a wide range of maturity levels and interest in the genre. We had a sixteen kid who just wanted to blow stuff up, but who got a pass because another one of the owners was dating his mom, a couple of comic book addicts, and the Guy-Who'd-Actually-Sold-A-Story-To-Marvel-Even-Though-They-Never -Published-It who decided that conventional superheroics were passe and wanted to be the cop with low-key superpowers." = priceless. I wish I could shake my head and say, "Huh? What's he talking about?" Alas...

Re: My First Game of Champions! I seem to recall looking for Magic Missle... Ah, inches. Yes. It's amazing any of us survived this long, isn't it.

Re: My First Game of Champions! HA! Yes. Priceless. Old habits died hard. But now I reckon I'd search in vain for the OCV of a first level fighter ... whatever that means anymore.

circa 1989 Sitting in Matt's room, the smoke so thick you couldn't see the guy next to you (we never opened a window for some reason). After school one day. I'd just finished writing up my character, Felix, loosely based on Vincent from "Beauty and the Beast." This is my first scenario ever: chasing down bank robbers. (Prior to creating the character, I'd asked, "So, this is basically just like D&D?" This was met with icy stares and a firm, friendly, "No.") Me: What do I do?! GM: What do you want to do? Me: ...Punch him! GM: So punch him! Me: How do I do that?! GM: Just say, "I punch him." Me: I punch him! Other veteran players: Yeah! Me: Now what!? GM: Roll to see if you hit. Me: Huh?! GM: Roll three dice. You want to roll 13 or less. Me: (rolls) Eleven. GM: Okay... Me: What does that mean?! GM: It means you hit him! Other veteran players: Yeah! Me: So now what?! GM: Dude, calm down. Roll your damage. Me: (surveying all the dice nearby; pointing) These? GM: (rubbing forehead) Yes. Me: (rolls about ten dice) Now what?! GM: Count them. Me: Okay. One, two three...four...five, six, seven, eight...nine, ten...eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen... GM: Um, dude. Me: Shh! Fifteen, sixteen...seventeen... GM: Dude. Count by tens. Me: Huh? GM: Group your dice in sets of ten. Like sixes and fours, or fives and fives. Me: Oh. OH! HOLY CRAP! THAT'S BRILLIANT! Other veteran players: (sigh) Me: Okay, so, thirty points. What happens? GM: You rocked him, but he's still up. Me: ...that sucks. Then the bad guy hit me, and I got mad and kicked the crap out of him...from then on, I was hooked. Felix is now about 18 game-years old. He's since given up the chain-mail vest and metal numchucks -- please don't ask, and don't mention "Commando" -- and become a soft spoken monster of some 7 or 800 points. So what was your first day like?

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Player: Okay, here's what I want to do. Since the spear is right there, I want to do a Martial Disarm on it by breaking it in half with my palm like Bruce Lee. GM: Well... Player: But I also want the camera to linger on me in slow motion afterward. GM: Okay, that we can do.

So, my PC was fighting this guy and did a Find Weakness on him twice, dropping his defenses to 1/4. The guy went out, and another fight started right up with two guards. The fight ended with the two guards just as the first guy woke back up and attacked again. For clarity's sake, the GM had each round of combat begin on 12 (so there was a 12 with the first guy; a new 12 with the two guards; and a third new 12 when the first guy woke up again). The question became: Does my PC still get the Find Weakness on that first guy? Technically, we exited combat. But the PC didn't go anywhere, and it was only a matter of seconds (phases) between fights. What we agreed upon was I would keep the FW but not take any post-12 recoveries, since the idea was the fights happend one after the other. This won't necessarily become a house rule, it's just how we solved it on the fly...GM discretion and all that. What Would You Do?

Re: online character generator Thanks for the link. I haven't found a generator on there yet, but the workday -- um, the day is only so long. I'll keep a-tryin'.