Balabanto

Re: The Secret History of BlackWyrm Revealed Then you'll love King of the Mountain. I'm a little behind on my novel, but when that gets done, I'm going full bore on the Champions thing. Then I'm going to write a Weird Western while I work on Imaginary Friends.

Re: The Secret History of BlackWyrm Revealed I was going to put this adventure in Digital Hero back in the day. It's just languished on my laptop half-formed for ages.

Re: Superhumans changing the course of history I didn't have that option. The assumption in my game is that larger nations and nation states have disproportionately high levels of technology, and a nation run by the world's greatest supervillain? Well, he has the best technology, and the best weapons, and the most supers. Plus, a lot of these nations bought into a quick tech advancement fix that this particular supervillian neutralized, destroying their armies by rotting them from within.

Re: Superhumans changing the course of history Wait for Mind over Matter. I promise you it will be worth it.

Re: Unkindness on Atomic Array You're welcome, Rod. We tried to make the cover art look as much like one of your SSA mockups as possible.

Re: Superhumans changing the course of history Well, I've run into that problem multiple times. In my case, 9/11 never happened, because a Supervillain conquered 70 percent or so of the world in the year 2000, and since he wasn't GOOD, his super minions just went out and killed most of the terrorists in cold blood after a little mind scanning. Add that to the chances of flying two planes over the base of the world's most powerful superteam, and you have a situation that's completely unjustifiable in game.

Re: Questions for my unidentifiable number of fans It's okay. Everyone knows I love the system but have a low opinion of the CU. You're allowed to make fun of me.

Re: Questions for my unidentifiable number of fans I will never publish an adventure in the CU again. The consequences of doing so make publishing my own gameworld ten times harder. I run a very rules solid game, because that's how you run playtests, and unfortunately, I have major issues with the CU, which boil down to these. 1) Magic and technology are not the same, they will never be the same. 2) My villains are meant to be fought. There's no point in even having a character sheet for the way Doctor Destroyer is built now. Rules as written, he could just walk across the world and kill every single hero and villain in it, leaving the world at his mercy. This is not fun for your PC's. And based on his personality, there's literally no reason for him not to do so. There's a reason my gameworld looks like this, in terms of dice of normal blast: Hero-10-12 Experienced Hero- 11-13 Elite Hero 12-14 Villain 10-12 Experienced Villain 11-13 Low Grade Master Villain/Supervillain Team Leader/Elite Villain 13-15 Master Villain: 16-18 3) Different origin of superpowers. Different origin of humanity. Completely different history. These things make it impossible to ever publish in the CU again. Heck, I may have sabotaged myself with making the Undead Skull the villain in Foxbat for President. I don't know if I'll be able to keep him. I've explained the reasons why I don't like the CU on my website at michaelsatran.wordpress.com, though that's more of a general rule for comic book worlds in general than it is specifically targeted at the CU. I promise to show how to use an iconic but daunting character at some point, when I get around to writing "Biafra: Super Nation."

Re: Suggestions: Giant Elvis Fight I'm writing King of the Mountain. I can't comment.

Re: Questions for my unidentifiable number of fans I craft NPC's like that all over the place. Everything is built to be campaign setting pieces. King of the Mountain will have an experimental map overlay that replaces part of a map from Pretty Hate Machines. Pick up a few of them. You won't be disappointed.

Re: Questions for my unidentifiable number of fans Plot stuff, always. The reason why I don't do the little novel blurbs is that I'm very picky about how things are presented.

Well, you guys have seen four adventures so far, and I'm working on two more. What can I do to make my adventures more enjoyable and fun for readers and players? I always take suggestions and try to improve. Only bad writers live in a vacuum.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... I started a new superhero game to accommodate new players to the system. The characters are: Eternion: Possessor of the Sunheart, bestowed upon him by the Justicators of the Continuum, he was found by the US Government and asked to join a special strike force to fight a secret invasion by alien insects. After a long battle to their homeworld, and defeating the aliens (The only survivor), he burned out much of his power trying to return home. Disconcerted and out of place, he retired, trying to find a use for his eight track tapes and bell bottoms. Kat'Kirra: An alien whose homeworld was declared to have nonsentient inhabitants by the N'thari consortium, a group of alien merchants, she seeks asylum on Earth after being sent there by her parents. Krystal: A human scientist bonded with experimental crystals whose younger sister is constantly getting into trouble. Crisis: A mutant human juvenile delinquent with the power of luck control. So the characters defeat the villains who have come to steal Kat'Kirra's spaceship, and the fun with the people who come to pick the villains up begins. Ptah Red Commander Andrew Smith: Well, it looks like we've got a colossal mess here. You, Eternion. You're not even supposed to be on the radar. What happened here? Eternion: Was I supposed to just sit there and let them blow up downtown? Smith (To Crisis): What happened here? Crisis: Nothing Smith: You're kidding, right? Can I see some ID? (Keep in mind the smoking crater and massive amount of explosions that just went off.) So they get a PTAH White Commander come to telepathically contact the Alien, and the alien decides that she likes having Crisis around. Smith: Well, sorry, kid. You're going to get ID. And a job. You'll be under surveillance the whole time, of course, but you're now an alien liason. Eternion: Isn't that a violation of his civil rights? White Commander Simon Cheng: Technically no, as he doesn't currently have ID. Cheng: And you're some kind of superhero? Do you have a superhero name? Kristal: Kristal. (OOC: They're ignoring me, right? I try to slink away.) Cheng: Don't think you're going anywhere. You could be useful, too. I understand you have useful science skills that might be helpful in determining things about your new alien friend. Kristal: Get out of my head. How did you know that? Cheng: (Evil Smirk) (OOC: Ironically, he did nothing of the sort. He simply noted the number of witnesses who saw Kristal have a conversation with another off-camera PC who was a brilliant scientist and understood the implications of understanding her. He never read her mind at all.)

Re: Unkindness on Atomic Array http://www.atomicarray.com It's not Friday yet, though. If you didn't get a chance to see me talk about War of Worldcraft or Foxbat for President, those are AA 31 and 25, respectively.

On Friday, Atomic Array interviews me about Unkindness, Blackwyrm Games Hero System adventure that provides a different sort of challenge for superheroes. I hope you'll all tune in.

Re: And now, for your daily dose of cute... A link so cute it cannot be replicated here by cut and paste. http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/109-cats-in-sweaters

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Purple Reign of Fire Doctor Who and the Inflatable Dolls When Harry Met Aliens

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Let the Right Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe In Robin Hood, Prince of the City Even Cowgirls get the Horse Whisperer Zack and Miri Make Fried Green Tomatoes

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Pizzalander! "You better watch out! We're just a bunch of guys from Queens! Nobody but us delivers in less than fifteen minutes! Come on in, and taste mama's meatballs!"

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares The Shawshank Redemption of the Spotless Mind The Breakfast Club at 21 Jump Street Oz Glee (There are so many different ways this could be a nightmare that I'm not going to list them all.) Star Wars: Boardwalk Empire No Ordinary Gossip Girl Fringe Friends Hung Gossip Girl Mall Rats in the Mist

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares This is actually much grimmer than it seems, when you consider that Dolph Sweet, the Chief, died during the last season. It might actually be a decent show.

Re: Looking for playability criticisms Ah, but see here's the problem. If you allow people to be invisible to the mental group, and just add INvisibility to sight, no one will ever play a mentalist again.

Re: Looking for playability criticisms Death has Mind Scan, AVAD, NND. Defense is not being alive in any way.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares The Eternity Jungle Book. Starring Nicholas Cage as Jason Blood and Antonio Banderas as Mowgli

Re: Looking for playability criticisms Yeah. See, this is the point. Death himself SHOULD be able to kill you, and you SHOULD be able to stay dead when he does. Because Death's shtick is "He can kill anything. Period." Why should Death have to pay for a huge uncontrolled, constant area effect suppress of regenerate from death? That's kind of outlandish and overpointed.