Pogo

Re: Genres HERO GAMES may want to avoid (intended to be humorous)

That's the cultural rift coming in. You would never be introduced to a Japanese person with their first name. You may not even learn their first name until a second meeting. That goes doubly for the gaijin.

"Never" is too strong a word. When I went to Japan on business, most (all?) of my Japanese co-workers were introduced to me by their first names, although I still don't know the customer's first name.

Re: Supernatural Special Forces

[in response to Basil's query about symbols other than crosses working] Against demons, yes. Vampires no. For reasons so far undiscovered, Christianity and vampires have been deadly enemies from the first Christians on to the present day.

The military might do well to recruit some animists to battle demons. "Why yes, I do view the very ground we walk upon as holy. Yup, sky too."

Re: Genres HERO GAMES may want to avoid (intended to be humorous)

Forensic proctology HERO

Great, now I need bleach for my retina, optic nerves, and if I act quickly enough, short term memory (if not, long term gets a cleansing too). The worst part is I'm giggling too much for precision application.

[15 minutes later]

mUCH bETTER nOW. i dON'T tHINK tHERE wERE aNY sIDE eFFECTS.

Re: Genres HERO GAMES may want to avoid (intended to be humorous)

South Park Hero, especially the Chicken Lover subgenre.

Wooster and Jeeves Hero

Sock Puppet Hero

Tenure Track Hero

Re: Your character may be too average if...

Your character sheet contains the words ibid, loc cit, or ditto.

To save space, the stats are written STRDEXBODYCONINTEGOPRECOM 10.

Re: Your PC's might be underpowered if...

You have the amazing power to Speak with Plants' date=' Fish, and Inanimate Objects! Unfortunately, you have no special control over them . . . .[/quote']

 

and they won't give you the time of day because you're just not worth it.

Re: So ... uhm ... Pulp ... yeah.

fredrik_nilsson posted three useful links in this thread:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41732

I'm rather partial to Wierd Tales -- you may be able to find an anthology or two at the library, but a used bookstore is a better bet. You could do worse than The Rocketeer for movies.

Re: Your PC's might be underpowered if...

(Thanks to KA)

If you can't punch out your own Nazi . . . .

Re: Your PC's might be underpowered if...

If under disadvantages you have:

Hunted: Imaginary Friend (more powerful, NCI)

Vulnerability: Yes

Susceptibility: Yes

you might be underpowered

Re: Your PCs might be overpowered if...

If you're reading these posts hoping an excessive example will come up . . . .

Re: Space Adventure: The Five Essentials

I'm afraid I'm going to break the rules with #2: Refunds cheerfully delivered

1) A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge

2) S is for Space, by Ray Bradbury (short story collection)

3) Nor Crystal Tears, by Alan Dean Foster

4) Star Blazers (pretty much any 2 or 3 episodes from series 1)

5) Have Space Suit -- Will Travel, by Robert Heinlein

Authors listed for completeness, though it's probably not needed. This is a really terrible list for someone who has just a few days, as #1 is a long novel, but my best friend reads fast;)

Re: Super cities

If these teams are privately funded, there might be one in Omaha (home of Warren Buffet), Seattle (Paul Allen), or Redmond (Sauron). Of course, if there is one in Redmond, then Larry Ellison will have to get one too.

What would the US government's reaction to privately funded superteams be? I can see the feds not caring too much if these are 150 point heroes, but while the US allows private security forces, private armies are frowned upon.

Re: The Punisher vs Bugs Bunny

[. . .] the turtle becuase bugs was the hare in the classic story: lazy and arrogant. He muust've learned his lesson in that one though.

Bugs loses to the turtle three times, so the last sentence is only 33% correct at best The toitle always wins.

Re: Lucky Duck

Actually' date=' what _about_ an organization contact that includes the entire population of Sol III?[/quote']

 

Committee.

Meetings.

Never.

Ending.

Committee.

Meetings.

Re: Lucky Duck

Okay... the character is one of those overly lucky guys for whom everything goes right just when he needs it to. The power I'm trying to build is one where he just happens to run into a bystander who can help him out just when he needs it, and the person in question is all too happy to help out.

 

How would I build that?

Contact: Earth

A more serious build could be summon 25 pt human, Friendly (+1/4), Must Inhabit Locale (-1/2), maybe with no conscious control.

This doesn't guarantee useful skills, so you might want to make up an advantage for that, maybe +1?

Re: College Professor Skill Level

well' date=' as a general practice, I don't think anyone's gotten a Nobel twice in the same field. [/quote']

 

John Bardeen is the only person to win the physics Nobel prize twice: in 1956 for the transistor (with Walter Brattain and William Shockley) and in 1972 for type I superconductivity (with Leon Cooper and John Schrieffer).

Re: College Professor Skill Level

People with 17- are more likely to be working in the private sector where they can make money proportionate with their talents.

I think this really depends on the field. In physics, I expect more 17-'s in academia than industry, based on observation. In the basic sciences it's usually easier to do research at a university (Bell labs and PARC notwithstanding). If you enjoy a field enough to get that high a skill, then getting paid to play counts for something.

I also think 13- is reasonable at a good research school, but that's easily debatable.

Re: Magnetism: Abuse And Super Metals

[ lots of stuff I agree with, but would have said much more poorly deleted]

 

Is the magnetic field inducing a disruptive current across the target's nervous system? Is it true that magnetic fields affect the flow of blood in the body, as claimed by all those infommercial guys selling bracelets and insoles? If I blast someone with my magnetic force blast, and he is not wearing any metal, why is he knocked back? I never really got that, but it is in genre.

In order: maybe, no friggin' way, and diamagnetism/paramagnetism.

Nerve impules are mostly chemical, so a magnetic field strong enough to scramble them would be very, very strong. One might even say it would be at the comic book physics level

The magnetic bracelets and insoles are useless in the real world. At 37 C the effective magnetic moment of hemoglobin is close to zero, and red blood cell motion will be determined by fluid mechanics.

It is possible to suspend a frog above a magnet because frogs are diamagnetic, like most things. Diamagnetic materials act to repel incoming magnetic fields by setting up their own. It's a very weak effect, but we're doing the comic book physics thing again.

Re: Gravitar vs Graviton?

A friend of mine used to joke about "Strong Nuclear Force Man" showing up and kicking Magneto and Graviton's butts with one hand tied behind his back.

 

Physics joke.

Yeah, but they have ranged attacks. Curse you Yukawa Man, curse you!

Re: By request: Gravitar vs. Ultimates

This line

Please' date=' why should I bother have crushes on RPG characters so long as anime exists? [/quote']

in conjunction with this tagline

Hastur! Hastur! Hastur! Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn!

induces this reaction

 

I'm gonna taunt Gravytarred now. That should make the pain go away.

Re: Your greatest Chmapions moment

In a campaign I ran several years ago, one character (call him Eagle, 'casue I don't remember his name) played a beserker type, with many powers dependent on "must taste blood." They get into a fight with some mentalist types.

Eagle: I bite my tongue.

Me: You feel wetness, but you don't taste anything.

Eagle: WTF?

Me: Flash versus taste.

Eagle: Quick, get me a bowtie!

Eagle performed very heroically despite being ~100 points lower than anyone else. He never did get the bowtie though.

Re: Mystic Team Vehicle?

 

It's PornoHero!

 

 

Repped!

Why thank you. I now have images of porn flicks staring Angela Lansbury running through my head

Re: What goes in your heroing kit?

I open my eyes and stare at the light source' date=' but I've been told I'm a few beans short of a burrito.[/quote']

 

Don't get a job in a laser lab On a more serious note, while you may open your eyes, your pupils are still probably contracting as quickly as possible.

Re: "Mostly Harmless" powers

+4 speed, only to change tires. It's Pit Man! You could make a good living with this one if you don't mind left turns.

1d6 Entangle, no defense -- useful for babysitters

Life support, self contained breathing, usable by others (8 targets), ranged, increased range, persistent, requires concentration (0 DCV), must concentrate throughout. Firefighters and some rescue teams would take someone with this power.

flash vs. taste -- get kids to take their medicine. May also cause an outbreak of bowties.

-8 str TK, fine manipulation -- Nearly everyone working with medium to high vacuum systems (1e-7 torr or lower) wants this. In grad school I would have maimed for this power.

Re: [Creative] Need help!

Hey Herophiles,

 

I'm running a slightly-in-the-future, down-to-earth, semi-gritty 300pt superhero campaign, and I need some help on a storyline. The players are the third generation [emphasis mine] of superhumans that were created by a secret government org. So far all the storylines have been pretty "X-Files"-ish, but I've got a snag on a storyline, and need to come up with some reasoning.

 

In one adventure, one of the players finds out that his father [again emphasis mine] is one of the scientists behind the results produced by the secret gov org

Was the father a child prodigy or exceptionally long-lived? Is the father involved with a different set of results from the creation of superhumans, or has the government been refining the creation process? But let us set this querulous nit aside

But, when the players arrive at the cemetary where the brother is buried, they encounter a Buffy/Scooby group that seems to be investigating something. They stop and chat for a moment, and then proceed into the cemetary. Before they arrive at the grave site, they encounter a small pack of werewolves searching the graveyard. When they stand-off, and questions are asked, they werewolves tell the players that they aren't looking for a fight, they're already at war (later in the adventure, they find out from the Scooby gang that the werewolves are at war with the vampires, and that they werewolves were searching the graveyard for a particularly influential/powerful vampire, and assassinate him). Needless to say, this set the players on edge.

 

And I draw a blank...

 

Why are the Werewolves and Vampires at war? Any ideas would be great.

 

Jak:help:

My guess is the Buffy/Scooby (Bubby? scuffy? boo-no-that-will-not-pass-filters?) group is lying. They convinced a group of werewolves of a non-existent vampire plot, and sent them on this pre-emptive strike in the graveyard. The scuffies want to eliminate all monsters, and figure it is more efficient to stir one group against another. Whether 300 pt supers fall into the monster category remains to be seen . . . .

One major flaw with my suggestion (I'm sure there are many) is that the vampires and werewolves can figure out they're being played. If that happens, they may gang up on the scuffies. The scuffies should have a contingency plan, but I are drawing blank here.