Balabanto

Re: The Crimson Claw and The Great Supervillain Contest While it's a classic, I will not touch anything Dennis Mallonee wrote ever again. His feud with the designers is legend, and the damage he wrought on Champions as a result caused all kinds of problems. He's another reason I don't run in the CU anymore.

Re: Mark Arsenault His GRG email no longer exists.

I've run into a minor snag. Does anyone have Mark Arsenault's non Gold-Rush Games email address? It's slightly important.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... In my annual Christmas Eve game, Lorenzo Vitale-Seveigny (The villain of King of the Mountain) has kidnapped Santa and Mrs. Claus to bring about Fimbulwinter with the help of his Frost Giant ally. Kat'Kirra: So you're a mythological creature? Fyrhamar: Yes. Kat'Kirra: Are you any different from him? (Pointing to Mesa) Fyrhamar: We are not the same. What, do you think all of us belong to the same union or something? Vexx: Actually, yes. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Calendar Girl: So, here's how we're going to do this. Mesa, you're going to beat the drum, since you're the only guy. Three of us will have to dress up as wise men, and someone will have to be the Virgin Mary. Is anyone here a virgin? Anyone? Vexx: Uhm... Calendar Girl: I guess you're going to be wearing white, then. Someone get me some Frankincense and Myrrh. And we need some gold. (Wiggles her fingers and changes people's costumes.) Mesa (To Fyrhamar): Can you get the Goldshlager out from under the bar? Fyrhamar: I'll bring an extra bottle! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Super powered Nation-The Lightning strikes You seem to have forgotten that the World's Greatest Hero would probably abort to save the biochemist from being gunned down. This is, IMHO, a total writer's fiat situation, because if this guy is better than your heroes, why is he just standing there when real superheroes would try to save the guy before he's gunned down by soldiers with high tech weaponry? This falls under the PC tee-shirt situation rule. The problem with this situation is, as a GM, you're misusing it. Something like this can happen "In the Past" of a gameworld. But it can't happen while there are PC's playing.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Doc Halliday's Christmas Jubilee

Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" My most embarrassing game mastering moment? Wow. I forgot once in the Forgotten Realms that Alustriel was a HUMAN. No. Really. I had to backpedal. It half-rewrote a background. Humiliating. We all do dumb things. But my favorite that wasn't mine was when Mephron (Who sometimes posts here) was running a cyberpunk game. There was a basset hound that was really a rocket launcher. (No kidding. Welcome to Cyberpunk.) The problem was that I deliberately declared picking up the rocket launcher and carrying onto the boat that we were travelling. So eventually, the rocket launcher gets used. And I'm cracking up, but I'm like...Uh...dude...how did I not know or get a test for this? Mephron: Ooops. I have no explanation for this. We were all laughing so hard it didn't matter, but dang, I wanted a perception test of some sort.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Wanted by the oppressive government for escaping his mind prison, the most incredible poet alive struggles to win the love of the ballerina who spurns him for his giant nose! Kurt Vonnegut meets the classics in "Harrison D'Bergerac!"

Re: Foxbat For President The best way to control that is not to change the totals of your 5th edition 350-450 point characters. The best way to control that is to adjust the amount of opposition relative to the number of characters playing. Most groups assume six players, so that's what I scale everything for. Use less opposition. This will be more helpful to you. In general, I recommend 3-5 agents per supervillain. One supervillain equals one PC. I hope that de-complicates your game.

Re: Foxbat For President Other Campaign Promises you might wish Foxbat to make: 1) Move Vancouver to New Zealand, so that all of the movies in the world can be made in one place. 2) Paint his face on the Hoover Dam, and rename it "The Foxbat Dam" 3) Put his face on all the baked goods in America. 4) All Sheep Must Be Shaved. 5) Tom Lehrer Must Be Raised From the Dead, so that the New Math which is now the Old Math can be the New Math again! (This is made even more incongruous by the fact that Mr. Lehrer is still alive!) 6) The Donkelephant will become the new national animal, representative of both political parties. Genetic experimentation will begin at once to produce this creature! 7) Squeezy Sponges are banned. When asked, he does not give an explanation of any sort. 8) All bicycle tracks will be replaced with rows of treadmills. 9) Ice Cream is the new Superfood! (Foxbat plans to get the votes of millions of kids. Too bad kids can't vote) 10) There is no number ten! Foxbat left campaign promise number ten in his spare costume!

Re: Foods for those that just don't care anymore All I have to say is this: Foie Gras Jelly Doughnut. No. Really. http://thefastertimes.com/meat/2009/07/10/when-the-chef-is-trying-to-kill-you/

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Re: Foxbat For President This is a 5th edition sourcebook. Since I'm the author, I'll be happy to give you some advice on this. Read 400-500 instead of 350-450. And that is per player. All point totals in published adventures are assumed to be per player. I apologize for not being more clear. Look carefully at some of the discrepancies between editions and correct for differences. I don't know when I'll have the time to release a 6th edition version of this book, but it will likely be next year, when I'm doing a REALLY big one and I may not have time to do more than one. If there's any questions you have about running it, just ask me. I offer full product support for everything I write, provided I am aware of your existence and you don't think I'm a chowder head.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Today, Freedom Strike had a recruiting drive. Eiko is in semi-retirement and the team needs some new blood. Eiko is not present, but has left Gummy Eiko on the desk to make programmed sarcastic comments. Captain Unity: Let's discuss our weaknesses. We all know what we can do. Let's talk about our weaknesses. Inertia: If it's got a gravity generator, I can do anything with it. Gummy Eiko: Don't talk about my boobs that way. ------------------------------------------------------- Captain Unity: So we need mentalism and speed. Inertia: Give us a drugged out mentalist and we're good! -------------------------------------------------------- During the recruitment drive, each team member is asked for a comment. Ember doesn't have a comment, she's the reporter. Inertia chose not to comment. Captain Unity: We're just asking for new members to replace the ones we lost, and we're hoping to find a good fit. Romula (Wolf turned human girl): Arf Later: Romula: Ember, you misquoted me! ----------------------------------------------------------- Finally, close to the end of the evening, the villain Bodito Boditay has created a villain named Replikar who has all their powers. Replikar: Where is Eiko Takashima? I long to possess her intelligence. Inertia: I'm sorry. You're going to have to be as dumb as the rest of us.

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186 Well, the thing is, Kazei Five fills a genre niche and is easy to re-skin for other systems, since no one else actually bothered to do something like it that was intelligent. Plus, this is the Champions thread. Gestalt is completely self-contained and contains numerous templates for use, plus it can be re-skinned for two other systems for the intimidated. Plus, as this is the Champions thread and not the Other Genres thread, Kazei Five didn't enter into my model. I'm sorry if that confuses you, but I like to stay on target. Keep in mind, I try really hard to make sure my stuff "best serves" the Hero community. That doesn't mean I succeed.

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186 Mike, I really don't want to challenge you on this, but this brings up a fundamental flaw in the design, and it's this. There has to be an unwritten assumption that the characters can be used as written, or there is no point in giving them stats at all. It isn't something I want to debate, but I've always believed that if you're given a set of stats, that they're meant to be used exactly as written because the writers have playtested the material and it functions properly under all those circumstances. That is worrisome to me, in the same way that "never been playtested" is worrisome to me. That argument leads to "Just write some backgrounds, and gerrymander some stats, because you know they're going to be edited anyway." I'm not comfortable with that as a gamer. I want to know that the material has been playtested and that it works pretty much as written. When things aren't playtested, there are problems. Sometimes big ones.

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186 Then weaken the tank, don't strengthen the attack. A lot of people just don't understand that a tank is just as ineffective if you turn it upside down as if you smash it completely. It may take 100 STR to smash one. It only takes a 55 to flip it over and leave it there. The worst part is, once you do this, the people inside the tank are hosed, AND it's entertaining. Champions was built on the late 60's to early 80's Marvel Model, when their comics were awesome and DC was writing stories like "The Eraser that Tried to Rub Out Batman". The game works best when played sort of in that era of power. Years of experience have taught me this. Some people can't accept bad die rolls. In your example, the player was a jackass. That's the difference between a superhero RPG and a comic book. In the comic book, the characters have writer's fiat. In a game, the characters can't have writers fiat because otherwise, you're not playing a game in a room with other people. Champions is a shared experience. Reading a comic book isn't. And I don't think it was rules correct, but wrong. I think it was perfectly fine. It's okay to have an "oops" moment. In fact, it's better to have "oops" moments because it shows that characters are FALLIBLE. It HUMANIZES them and makes them more three-dimensional. In a good roleplaying group, the player takes that failed result and turns it into good roleplaying. In a bad roleplaying group, the player whines and has the reaction you just described. Gameplay is just that: Play. It's more like sports than it is like storytelling. And that's okay. If it's fourth and long with 33 yards to go, and you decide to go for it, you take the risk that you could get the first down or you could get bad field position. There's no difference. And that, to me, is the essence of gaming. Good sportsmanship. Your example shows a player who is a bad sport. The GM shouldn't be blamed for that. That "get the ref" mentality persists in our society, and it's bad. Because you know, most of the time, the referee knows the rules the best out of anyone there, AND is usually right. (See The GM is GOD Tee Shirts everywhere you go at conventions for the reason why this is so.) As a GM, I think the key to a good game is mixing it up a little and making sure everyone gets their ten to fifteen minutes a night. But I also think that people have become too much of prima donnas when they get a bad die roll or screw things up. It's okay to make mistakes, you just can't make the results lethal all the time. Characters in Champions are hard to kill. My advice is not to worry so much about whether or not you can kill PC's, but to just build the villains within the same reasonable limits as the player characters (for the most part, a few notable exceptions notwithstanding) and let the chips fall where they may. My game runs very naturally because of this. Every so often, some bad die rolls mess up things, but that's what makes the game FUN and CHALLENGING. Right now, one of my groups is fighting cheesy dinosaur men. They're having a blast. The dinosaur men are supervillains, but they're not the mightiest bunch of supervillains in the world. It's okay. They have an invisible vehicle that's hard for this particular group of characters to find. It's okay. They're building a dinosaur man army. Yippee. It's a classic, but it works. Sometimes, I've learned that people overcomplicate the numbers in order to get what they perceive as the exact nitpicky thing. In general, this is my biggest issue. It's better to have a simple, playable character where you don't have to overthink what you do than have a confusing ball of numerical hoo-hah that makes things complicated. Keep it simple. Roleplaying will thrive, your players will be happier, and you will be, too. Plots can be as complicated as you like, but building things realistically in a comic book game? Here's a hint. I say this about once every two years here. Realism isn't real. It's just realism. Play hard. Play fair. Play smart.

Re: Nebula from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks p.184-186 The problem is that Nebula's views are not the issue. The character as it's designed is. For what reason would Nebula ever, when confronted by a team of superheroes who outnumber her, not simply send one character to Duress every action phase? This is simple survival. It's not any great test of intelligence to see that Nebula is not going to take hostages. That's not how she operates. If the PC's do capture Nebula, there's no way she would ever negotiate with the PCs. Imagine that you're the cop who captured Jeffrey Dahmer, and some people have captured you and told him to release him. The cop's response would be "I refuse." or "No way. Are you crazy?" Multiply that response by five, and you have Nebula's reaction. The thing here is that if my PC got sent to Duress, I KNOW that no matter what, every solution my PC comes up with to get out SHOULD fail. Any success is a bone thrown at me by the GM, who I now owe a huge favor to for allowing me to keep a character I like. Plus, if the other PC's negotiate my release, I would walk on the group if I'm a real superhero. "Thanks guys. You let her go? No damn way." I would then make it my business to hunt down Nebula and bring her to justice, as a hero should. Negotiating with people who kidnap others and send them to an extradimensional prison is insane. It's no different from offering terrorists land in Washington DC. This is a NO-WIN situation. No matter what, the character is undermined and ultimately fails. Because I now am either hosed by the agreement of my fellow PCs, or I betray my principles of superheroism and let it go. This is not a situation where the PC's should negotiate with Nebula. Period. Remember, too, that with published materials, the WRITER assumes that the material CAN be used as written. This is why I playtest everything I publish. To make sure that it's balanced and doesn't make people's lives miserable. Yes, the combats and situations I design can be tough to deal with, or extremely nasty, but the material can be used as written without a significant problem. As game designers, we aren't just writers who throw numbers down. We are ROLE MODELS who show people how the game should be played and how the numbers work. This requires a lot of walking on eggshells. You guys are my audience. But at the same time, I have to make sure that people don't send me letters like "What the BLEEP? Why did you do this?" And if I do get a letter or a question like that, I had better have a good answer. My players don't turn things into wars of escalation. I do always have backup plans. But I don't like to play fast and loose with the rules, because it leads to things like Extra Dimensional Movement, only to stop Extradimensional Movement. The problem with the character isn't just the broken power, though. It's Nebula's personality COMBINED with the broken power. I hope I've made that clear. My point isn't that players buy a defense for every attack like that. My point is that the attack shouldn't exist in the first place. There shouldn't be a need for people to think, in a published product "If only I had this simple seven point ability, this won't happen to me again." As for the source material, results like that? Well, you know, there's this comic. It's my favorite. It's called Amazing Spider Man. The problem with your theory is this: There's no way to predict who is going to roll well and who is going to roll poorly. No GM can ever predict all the consequences of a combat or what a villain, in character will do until the dice are rolled and the result is on the table. And this is the real reason why Nebula is a lousy villain. Because most PC's need to succeed three times in order to Kayo Nebula. Nebula only needs to succeed ONCE. Now let's look at Lapsed's Doctor Destroyer argument. There was a time when Doctor Destroyer was meant to be fought. That's right, meant to be fought. He threw 16 dice, he was seriously dangerous, and six heroes of decent power level would have a very tough time defeating him if he was run properly. Those days are gone. I can't understand why. It's like people don't care about learning the rules anymore. And when I ran that character back in the day (Before I had to hit time with a hammer and change his very nature because of the CU's disastrous reworking), people were BLEEPING SCARED of him. He could throw 12d6 Area Effect, and all by itself, that would put the hurt on people. I didn't need a 150 Active Multipower, and two backup multipowers and a gadget pool. It wasn't necessary in any way to challenge my players. I just don't like the massive reams of dice escalation and power creep that I've seen since 5th edition came out. There's absolutely no need for it. Nebula is a representation of that as surely as 6th edition Doctor Destroyer is. And it's led to massive problems with the numbers, and my players actually saying to me "I thought you were wrong at first, but there are some serious numbers problems with the 5th and 6th editions of the game." Game designers should be role models, because new players use or imitate what is already there to use. Otherwise, no one will learn anything, and the game will die because there's no standard by which to play it. That's my position, and I'm sticking to it, Hugh. You can crucify me if you like.

Re: The cranky thread Your cat may have had a stroke, or have a slowly developing brain tumor. Take your cat to the vet. Now. Before it gets worse.

Re: CHAMPIONS BEYOND -- What Do *You* Want To See? The problem is that the character is written in such a way that ICly, this is impossible. Nebula is a space cop with alien morals and no compassion. Let me explain how this translates in an environment where everything is kept IC and the gamemaster doesn't pull punches. If I were running this character, I would have to play the ball where it lies, because, comic book game or no, the character is going to take out the greatest threats first. Usually, when dealing with unknowns, that means "The person who deals the most damage." Let's look at your adventure setup for Duress. What the HECK are the other players doing while your character runs around Duress? Anything that the GM does to let the character out of Duress is going to look contrived and a freebie thrown at the player unless he paid for powers and abilities to get him out prior to doing so. Spending XP to get out of duress during the adventure IS cheating. Period. You shouldn't be allowed to spend XP on the spot during an adventure to fix a problem that you didn't forsee. While you are doing that, the other players are sidekicks, period. Let me tell you how this runs with 99 percent of PC groups. Player A: Oh, my god! What happened? She shot him! He's GONE. Completely GONE. Player B: She killed him? Nebula: I merely sent him to an extradimensional prison in another galaxy for his crimes. You are next, doer of evilness. Unless the players all decide that they want to be shot by Nebula, the PC's are going to beat the living daylights of Nebula, or Nebula is going to find herself hard pressed and run away. And Nebula is VERY good at running away. No group of superheroes worthy of the name is going to stop and negotiate with someone who just sent their ally to another dimension! They'll trash her or bring her to justice for kidnapping, assault, reckless endangerment, and a host of other criminal offenses. Plus, remember, Nebula is "One Shot, One Kill." Every hit sends a character to Duress. Remember that most games are run by this principle. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If you, as GM, use tons of one shot, one kill villains, then the players will put stuff like this on their sheets too, and then your game is pretty much ruined, because you will have no recourse but to build better one-shot, one kill characters, and that's how they will react; with wars of escalation. I've seen this before in other games hundreds of times. Plus, as GM, you don't have a defense here. Using a crappy deus-ex-machina hole in the rules tactic to send characters to an extradimensional prison is a jerky move. I've seen stuff like this destroy games and create angry players too many times to ever use this. The time differential only works in a game where you don't keep careful track of time. In the game I run, SIDs are just as important as hero IDs. "You aged me four weeks in the span of two hours?" is just as bad as "Only one minute passed, but six weeks passed in the real world?"..."Oh, my god, I got fired!" "Oh, my god, I failed algebra." "Oh, my god, my girlfriend is going to bed with some other guy. I got dumped in absentia." It only takes one or two adventures like this to turn people into power gamers with no regard for anything the GM does. Trust me. I've lived through it enough times to know. You have to respect the rules as GM. But you have to respect your players more. This is a low-down, dirty tactic that does nothing but abuse the fact that no one would ever buy Extra-Dimensional Movement, only to protect against Extra Dimensional Movement power. Power Defense is not an absolute shield here. It depends on the SFX of the Power Defense. The stupid thing is, the best defense against this is Density Increase or Growth. If Nebula doesn't have the mass multiples, she can't transport you. While it makes a ton of sense, it also leads to STR inflation. This kills concept-driven games, too. The Maguffin that can release you idea in a situation like this is CHEATING, unless it comes with a consequence. The most logical thing would be a dimensional movement machine. However, if the PC can't force someone to operate it for him, he's pretty much doomed. Do you have any idea what the penalties for Systems Operation are for figuring out an unfamiliar alien machine with a tech level above yours? Rules as written, this is like -12. It's like 7 tech levels and -5 for unfamiliar. Most PC's can't even ROLL this number. When was the last time you saw a PC spend 15 points on his Systems Operation skill? The average skill roll is around 13 to 14-. If you give the hero an ally that he has to work with who's distasteful, like a galactic criminal or something like that, then there's a consequence, because he can't get out without releasing another bad guy. The problem is that if you do this, Nebula comes after him, and it all begins again. This is dirty pool, too. The American words for GM are Tough, but Fair. This is unfair, period. You automatically create a situation where one PC is the "Star" for weeks on end, or some people might as well not show up to the session, start another game, or spend three hours outside smoking. I know I would really hate to be chewing my cud for four hours while a GM dealt with this. And I CERTAINLY wouldn't appreciate the extra four hours of time that player got if it got dealt with offscreen. The three worst things about the CU are 1) Power Escalation 2) Everything comes from magic and 3) Nebula. You play games with your friends. Don't treat them like acquaintances.

Re: CHAMPIONS BEYOND -- What Do *You* Want To See? Doesn't matter. Nebula will still be totally broken because the character forces people to pay points for spot defenses like Extra Dimensional Movement, only to prevent from being extradimensionally moved, instead of working on their concepts. The only purpose of this character, as near as I can figure, is to annoy players by removing their character from the game as a cheap shot. I would rather eat glass than use Nebula if I used the CU. This is ridiculously unfair, especially if some martial artist or character that can't breathe in space or operate dimensional equipment gets a good roll and tags Nebula hard. Bam. Nebula sends them to Duress. GM: So, Bob, who are you playing this week? Bob: I'm playing Dimension Man Alpha, since Nebula sent my last eight characters to Duress. Now you can't move me there. Nyah! Nyah! (BLEEP) You! GM: Feeling a little angry about those die rolls, Bob? Bob: Not at all. There's very little I would refuse to play in a game with. But I would refuse to play in a game where the GM used Nebula.

Re: King of the Mountain Update Another update. I am one and one half character sheets away from finishing that section of the adventure. There's a LOT of sheets in this one, 17 total, and I needed to be sure I got all the ideas right. I decided to include all the encounters in it, even the ones my playtest group completely avoided. Ideally, after the holidays, I should be able to finish it up. But so far, looking good.

Re: What is the advantage of buying Combat Skill Levels vs OCV? Even at twelve points, Overall Skill levels are NOT overpriced. You get plus one to your skill rolls out of combat, too. Nothing is more unbalancing to a game than "I am good at EVERYTHING man" Plus, look carefully at Overall Levels. You can add them to any roll you want. EGO rolls. DMCV. Dive For Cover! Every overall level you buy totally pays for itself. Of all the things I've ever limited in my home game, this was one of the big winners.

Well, I was working on my novel's copyedit, and now that this one is finally finished and I can have a conversation with the editor, I can work on King of the Mountain full bore. This is a good thing, because during the Christmas season, I need a project that's a little easier to work with than writing a book. I'm still having trouble finding an agent, but that's life, I guess. I hear it took Steven King a long time, too. This novel's concept is pretty simple. A hundred and fifty years ago, there was a story about a little girl who fell down a rabbit hole. That was then... This is now...