Balabanto

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Today, in the Teen Champions Game Vigilance, the characters were covering up their secret identities after leaving homeroom. Selene: Mervin, you need to fix my mother's TV set. Mervin: Yeah, I'll come over and fix it later, along with a couple of other appliances. Sarah: Ohh, Childhood sweethearts! It's so cute! By lunch period, everyone in school thinks that Mervin and Selene had sex so hard they broke her mother's TV set. At lunch, a conversation with Marsha, the head of the Cheerleading Squad, Selene's effective social nemesis, turns even more sour. Next to Marsha is Tiffany, who Sarah stays with because her parents live in New York. Rick: Hey, did you hear about Mervin and Selene? Marsha: Yeah. I heard they broke a TV Set. That was pretty amazing. Mervin: Oh, god. Tiffany, I need a hug. Tiffany giggles and hugs Mervin. Tiffany's just that nice. She hugs everyone. Mervin: Listen, Marsha, if you just leave it alone, I'll come to your house and give your box every single channel. Rick: Mervin, she's rich! She doesn't need it! Marsha: Wow, you just can't keep it in your pants, can you? Don't worry. Selene saved my life. I won't cheat on her with her new boyfriend. Mervin: I didn't mean it that way. Marsha: Listen, I'm pretty sure you did. Get lost! I don't need every single one of your channels after you've been through Selene! And I don't need to break a TV set, either!

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... The heroes are fighting a team of chinese superheroes in the South American jungle: Nightingale: And who are you, Windbreaker? Cloud Queen: I am Cloud Queen, Mistress of the Four Winds Nightingale: Well, Wind Witch is taken, so I guess Cloud Queen is number two. Coatlcan: I guess it's better than Subdural Hematoma Woman

Re: T-Minus Fourteen Hours and One Minute (Or So) To Gametime I had stage fright yesterday. I had no adventure until 15 minutes INTO the session.

Re: Soon I Will Be Invincible The book is written by someone with a great deal of sympathy for Lois Lane and everyone like her, and that's where the novel's greatest strength is. However, it's also it's greatest weakness. My instincts tell me that this book would have been better if I wasn't so picky, and that maybe I was looking for more out of it than I could get. Still, it's a great read.

His policy is completely debatable... His methods are completely incomprehensible... His platform... Is made of plywood, and supported by metal rods, like many others before it, and has a nice podium with a microphone in the middle... Foxbat For President, 2008!!!!!!!!! Vote Foxbat!!!!! When you're tired of the other crazies...

Re: The "True" Origin of Mechanon The best Mechanon teamup I ever ran was in 4th edition with The Despoiler. It was a match made in heaven. The final battle was HORRIBLE. Their front was a company called Speder Oil, which, when the letters were rearranged, spelled out "Despoiler." They nearly kicked themselves in the head when they realized that the Despoiler and Mechanon were working together. As for the secret origin of Mechanon, I don't know what Dave will let me do with existing Hero System stuff, so I might have to rewrite Mechanon and/or write him out, or publish a Legacies sheet for him, which would be interesting. However, if I HAD to have a secret Origin for Mechanon, it would be that in the 1950's, the Russian government launched a satellite probe called the N1 MK, and it passed through an unusual belt of radiation on it's way back to Earth. Crashing in the jungles of Southeast Asia, American and Russian superheroes raced against time to recover the probe. A battle ensued, and a hero's power struck the probe during the battle. The probe achieved awareness, and snuck away during the battle. Viewing itself as superior to humans due to the conflict that surrounded it, it decided to name itself after it's casing, which it saw as MK NI. This did not inspire much fear, so it varied it to Mechanon, and began to plot against the world. I like this a lot, because it's cult classic, has that "What you didn't pay attention to comes back to haunt you" feeling, and doesn't feel so realistic that it makes me scream "Isn't this supposed to be a comic book?"

Re: New foxbat for president trailer! Uh, Foxbat has the Wealth perk. Plus, the media frenzy over "Oh, my god, Foxbat is running for President?" Final trailer will be posted before I leave for GenCon....

HE HAS WALKED THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DIGITAL HERO! HE HAS SURVIVED PLAGUE, FAMINE, DISEASE AND ORBITAL LASER POWERED RATS!!!! HE HAS.... No....that's someone else.... Now, Hero Games Mighty Icon Foxbat, the Greatest...well...second greatest...he SAYS he's the greatest villain of all time, will commit a crime so daring, so unimaginable, so in broad daylight, that only the worlds greatest heroes can stop him!!!! Foxbat For President 2008!!!!!! Who will you vote for?

Re: Foxbat and... Heh. We may see Foxbat For President yet. Keep your fingers crossed.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... The PC's, after several weeks of travails, have finally tracked down the Ninja who stole the soul of the team's immortal chinese half-dragon sorceress. Combat ensues. The teleporter, El Caminante, snatches the soul holding knife away from the ninja. Ninja: You will pay for this! El Caminante: I have a twenty in my pocket. Now, ordinarily, this would be pretty insulting. Unfortunately, El Caminante is from Argentina, and his nation's currency pretty much sucks. This is like telling a guy you have 20 mexican pesos in your pocket. So not only did he taunt him, he also insulted the value of his honor!!!!! Earlier, while trying to find the hidden temple, the PC's decide to have their illusionist pretend to be a gorgeous blonde and walk into a nearby village to ask directions. Unfortunately, the village is filled with white slavers. Ooops. So she finally negotiates a deal with these guys. At this point, Doctor Pranava, the mentalist, interrupts and says "As soon as I see the guy, I mental illusion him. I make sure that we all look different. He looks mediocre, the chinese sorceress looks like a flat faced asian woman of no consequence, Northwind looks like a geeky professor with glasses and a sportcoat, and I look like a towering Sikh with a turban on." Me: What????? Okay... (Secretly rolling randomly to determine if any of the illusions look like anyone this guy knows...(5 on 3d6) Goon: Mr Hobinda!!!!! (Staring at Doctor Pranava...) We did not know it was you, Boss!!!!! Please, do not kill us! Players: ????????? So now, next week's villain is Guktar Hobinda, white slaver. Ooops.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... GM: You see Joseph Ochtmann go into his house and make himself a puree of beets and well done ground beef in the blender. Then you see him drink it. Then he sits in a yogalike position for four hours and take calls. Then he gets up, walks over to his bed, crosses his arms over his chest, and goes to bed. Scarlet Archer, radioing Team: He's in a yoga-like position. He's not moving. Nightingale: That's not possible, you do move every so often in Yoga. Scarlet Archer: So it's Fauxga! It doesn't matter! Later in the game, after discovering he was transformed spawn of an evil alien creature, the PC's went to where the alien was. He had a weird metastasis transformation process, whereby he absorbed liquids and gases. He was teargassed, and then immolated. This caused a digestive reaction which made him sick. Then, he was electrocuted, stimulating his digestive reaction. He was impaled with nails, and then superheated again, which caused him to attempt to digest the nails, which he couldn't handle. So he was critically poisoned and fell over. This really is the silliest villain death I've ever seen. They just...weren't Xenobiologists, and the villain died.

Re: The Essential *Good* Siler Age

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... That actually happened in my game many years ago. Archyve, Master of Time punched a PC. The PC disappeared. A week passed. WHAM! He reappeared and hit the wall of the lounge of the hero base.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... There are some quotes that deserve special mention from Joe Linehan's Henchmen game at Origins. We are villain henchmen, out to save the city from a doomsday device that no one knows is there. Demon Sister Alicia (Me): Aiee! Get your hand off my ass, you big hairy freak! Man-Beast (Don't ask me why we have a man-beast): Get your ass off my hand! ----------------------------------------------------------- Man Beast: Man-Beast have new plan! Give me hot supervillain girls right away! ---------------------------------------------------------- Rick, the VIPER AGENT: Listen, we're evil henchmen just like you. So show us the bomb, or we'll SHOOT you. It's a win/win. You don't die, or you don't die! Old Man: Wow! You really ARE Henchmen! Come on, I'll show you. ------------------------------------------------------------ Doctor Destroyer Agent: Nighthawk, you don't have to do this! We are peaceful! (Walks forward slowly) Me (Remembering all the stories likely told to us about Nighthawk): Don't you understand! This is Nighthawk! He'll kill all of us and leave our dead bodies in alleyways! -------------------------------------------------------------- Demon Sister Alicia: "Fine! After we beat you, we'll tie you to the train tracks. We're henchmen. It's what we do."

Re: Underwater Combat Mastery Environmental Movement: No penalties underwater. +3 CSL, Only in Water (-1). Total cost 16 points, and you have enough left over for KS: Fish at 4 points.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... S.P.I.R.I.T (Super Powered International Research and Investigation Team) has it's first relaunch with new members as per UN Rules in a while. During their first fight... Colossus of Rhodes: OOC I'm going to finish my haymaker on the giant Mud Man Me: OOC Okay. Aborting to Block. (Rolls a 17) He will not block Colossus: OOC Cool! I swing my mighty bronze fist at him! Me: You cock back your fist, and aim it at the giant blackish grey mass of sand and mulch. (Colossus Rolls a 17) ...Thankfully, no one else except Volkhamar, the villain plummeting to earth, has the ability to view this massive display of combat ineptitude...

Re: The Silence of the Catgirls or too much realism in fantasy The Chains of Doom are in Digital Hero #40, you may purchase it on this very website. The rest of them are all in the magazine, too, along with a special Calendar Girl cover, all art is by a gentleman named James Dawsey.

Re: The Silence of the Catgirls or too much realism in fantasy Around 12. No group has more than 5 players and a GMPC We rotate through groups. Most groups get 16 sessions a year. It keeps things fresh, and it's about the total number of comic book stories any superteam gets in any given year. (4-6) A typical arc looks like this: This is what the San Diego Knights Arc looked like for 2007-2008 (1) Bones of Math: The heroes discover a series of clues that lead to Egypt, where the Oligarch (The world's big magic villain), and several other mystic nasties are looking for the resting place of an ancient Babylonian Wizard. The heroes travel to Iraq, and discover the resting place, only the Wizard isn't a Wizard at all, it's an an alien spaceship from another world, and it's currently staffed by a single robot, 1515. The Oligarch freaks out and tries to destroy everything. The PC's rescue 1515, who is looking for his master, the alien captain of the Gamesh. (Yeah, you guys know where this is going, I'm sure) A lot of bad rolls ocurred during the scenario, which led to a lot of problems. (People fighting with 1 body, repeatedly, etc) The PC's study 1515, who goes off to seek his master. (2) Return of the Monster Maker: The Monster Maker returns with heavy duty Wombat Men to threaten our heroes, and kidnaps the girlfriend of one of the PC's, a shapeshifter who was forced during the scenario to suck transformative venom out of his IC girlfriend's butt. The name "ass sucker" sticks for a while. (3) 12 Days of Christmas: Calendar Girl and the Chains of Doom pop in for a visit. The heroes agree to nonlethal competition. Naughty Cheesecake, tauting, and food fights ensue. (4) Time in a Bottle: Archyve is trapped in the Timestream, and he wants out. Unfortunately for the PC's, the events don't happen in order from their perspective, and the evil New Reich Nazis he gets to manipulate the plot get discovered by the PC's. At the end of the plot, time is hit with a hammer, and all official Hero System material has to be junked or seriously revised due to MMO licensing. A good plot nonetheless. I can't show you guys the completed arc for Paul Revere High Year 2 yet. My players are on the list. I would have used that one, because it's creepier.

Re: The Silence of the Catgirls or too much realism in fantasy Actually, in my game world, a lot of powers have to be very strongly defined because there are over 60 active player characters. Of these, MAGIC is the one that needs the most regulation and definition. Why? Because too many people have a tendency to say "Well, it's magic. It doesn't need any explanation, ergo... I can do ANYTHING with it." The answer to this is..."no." 1) The only choices you have as a GM are to make magic conceptions rare, which players hate, or to regulate magic to work as follows: When "Magic" creates an effect, it is the same as it's nontechnological counterpart. Magic lightning doesn't count as magic and lightning, it counts as lightning. That's it. Only raw magical energy counts as "magic' for that specific magic vulnerability. 2) If you don't do this, everyone who DOESN'T use magic feels gimped, because magic has the ability to do things that nothing else in the game can do, and can easily be used as a substitute for every technological effect, only all on the same character. So before you judge harshly, when playing a game, you have to have a lot more justification than you do when you're reading comics. Classic Example of this: I had to replace a player in my Paul Revere High game. He submitted me a character who had Leukemia, and transformed into a giant heap of rocks that was immune to hard radiation. Me: Uh...you can't do this. Player: Why not? Me: Because if you are suddenly transformed into this, and immune to hard radiation, here's what happens: "By the power of X, I transform into Y..." POOF. Thud, you're dead, because the chemo is no longer affecting you. Player: DOH!!!!!! The character was a mutant. Let's replay that same conversation again with the concept being magic: Player: But it's magic! The magic sustains him! It's...it's magic! Me: (Sigh) That's why you have to have more justification in a game than you do in the comics. Because you have to be fair to everyone, and you're not just writing a story to collect a check. And "Magic" is an easy out for anything you want to throw onto a character, and force the GM to suck it up, no matter how unfair it is to everyone else.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Paul Revere High, Junior Year begins Sarah Lawrence opens her locker to discover a poster of Superconductor and the the words "Villain Whore" sprayed across it. Rick, new student, points it out to everyone, shouting "Hey! That's Superconductor! I know that guy!!!!" Sarah turns, walks over to him, and says "Sarah Lawrence, Villain Whore! Pleased to meet you! What's your name?" "Rick! Rick Harris." "They should have changed the "R" to a "D."

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Here you go. It's from previous quotage. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1515059#post1515059 Really, though, I just had to make up some bedtime stories (or the beginnings of them) to prevent lawsuits in the event my Champions world is ever published. !@#$ you, Dennis Mallonee.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Still more Toby the Puma!!!!!!!!!!! The final confrontation with the Preservation League, in the last story of this particular story arc for my Denver Group, concluded with the revelation that Cybervulture was the most powerful supervillain of an alternate dimension, who had escaped here to rebuild his robot army, only he was too damaged, and became a hero instead. Unfortunately, the heroes chose to used hypnotic regression therapy on him, and the villain, Conquest, fried Cybervulture's brain. So, the arc ended with Cybervulture in a coma, and Golden Fencer sitting next to him, reading him the same bedtime story he had read to so many others... "A long time ago, in the mountains of the west, there lived a puma named Toby..."

Re: The Worst character in comics Brother Power, The Geek! If no one has mentioned it yet, someone should have! Peace and Love! Take it to the MAN, Brother Power!

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Mesa, a hero in the San Diego Knights, calls Fjordskaalaar, a Norwegian magician skilled in the knowledge of Norse Mythology. He turns out to be knowledgeable about many mystical things, including the dog of Mesa's wife, a large Japanese Spirit Hound. Mesa: So you've heard of Yatsu. Fjordskaalaar: Yes, I have. He is extremely popular on the tiki party circuit. Mesa: Tiki...party...circuit?????!@#$%!!!!!!!....YATSUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! Don't try to slip away, or I'll confiscate all of your Dos Equis!

Re: When Lois married Lex: more Superman Silver Age Silliness Link is protected content, I cannot access it.