Balabanto

Re: What was Marvel's WORST decade?

Re: What was Marvel's WORST decade? I think the answer is that after the early eighties, EVERY Decade has had the same answer to that question. And it's always "This one." The Ultimate Line, where all villains, for the most part, are just straw men to be beaten up and killed by the so-called Heroes, is but a minor example of this. While everything after One More Day has been good, the PRICE of those classic stories was not worth the cost. The lesson of "The Price is Too High" should apply to the characters, not to comic books itself. And the problem is, because history is rewritten, nobody KNOWS that. My issue with this is as follows: What would happen if YOUR GM did this to you? Imagine that your characters are seated around a table. Spidey: Mr. Mephisto, I think we should make a deal. Iron Man: WTF? And I thought >I< had been a supervillain four times over. Doctor Strange: This is NOT a place you want to go. Captain America: Hkkt. (Still Dead) Luke Cage: !@#$%@!!!!!! Iron Fist: You !@#$%%! We're screwed. Etc... GM: Okay. None of you remember that Spider Man was married. In fact, he never WAS married. Iron, you never had four physical confrontations with him, remove those experience points from your sheet. EVERYONE treat him as a single guy, and nobody knows who he is. NOW....Stop again. Imagine that the player went and did that in secret, and all you have is the message the GM gave above. I would bet you MONEY that at least four out of six players would walk away. THAT'S why this is crap. Do people want to play superhero games? Sure. But this kills that business like nothing else.

Re: The most unbelievable trope in the superhero genre... That's almost as bad as what I thought I saw in a Starbucks the other day. It actually read "Elephant Ojinha" I thought, in a moment of blurriness, that it read "Elephant Ninja!" I still have no idea what I was thinking, or why.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Steel Thunder charges the Monster Maker, knocking her back but not stunning her, and knocking her away from Khymeric's girlfriend, who she is threatening to mutate into a colossal monster. "We outsmarted you! Surprised?" Monster Maker breakfalls up, and moves over to the injector conveniently located on his girlfriend's butt, and turns the timer on it to zero. "We'll see who's outsmarted whom, HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA!" As the wicked poison does it's work, Dr. Element grabs the box off her butt and flees to his secret dimension base with it. Red Baroness: Quick! You have to suck it out! Khymeric, desperate to save his girlfriend, shapechanges into a leechlike, winged reptile humanoid and SUCKS the mutagen out of his girlfriend's behind. GM (Me): Never underestimate the power of sucking ass to save lives. At the end of the combat phase, Dr. Element returns from his secret dimensional base, and sees the leechlike thing sucking on her behind, flapping away. Dr. Element: AAAAAAAAAIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! (Screams in horror.) Girlfriend (Seeing Dr Element, who dresses like a creepy version of Ming the Merciless): AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! THEN she notices what's sucking on her butt, because she's hanging upside down from the ceiling.... AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Then Khymeric's girlfriend fainted. Red Baroness (OOC): You know, I think I might faint too if I saw that.

Re: The Amazing Darkon Sadly, the rights to The Amazing Darkon and The Pomegranate Brothers are still owned by Dennis Malonee, although, only the Pomegranate Brothers as humans are owned by Dennis Malonee. Due to the vagaries of Champions, the Campaign Design section on Hero was reprinted in 4th edition, so the versions of the Pomegranate Brothers as apes should still legally belong to Hero. HOWEVER... No one has ever bothered to actually make a pair of brain transplanted gorillas who were formerly evil scientists. In the campaign example, they worked for S.U.S.H.I. (Yeah, that's right, SUSHI, Supreme Underground Science Headquarters International) And I KNOW no one wants to bring that organization back. Seeking to avoid rights conundrums, in case I ever manage to get my hands on the ability to publish my gameworld, I inverted this trope, and made two scientists who apes transplanted into (Clearly More Worthy) ape bodies. If you want to see The Orilla Brothers (Gilberto and Joaquin), along with the rest of the Ape Island Stuff, you'll have to wait until someone gives me a contract. If you want to find out more about the sinister nature of Ape Island, go to the Quote of the Week thread. There's a few little pieces in there somewhere. And, of course, reprinted here for your shock value... Me: BLAM! The rocket fires, bursting over his skin, shattering his form, and as the smoke clears, you see a gorilla! Player 1: He's an APE? In a MAN suit? Player 2: Gilberto....Orilla. I...should have known.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Mike, if he rolled over 10 dice, and the GM is using the standard critical hit rules (Which I do not), that's max damage and 2x body equals number of dice. We don't know what maneuver the hero used, and if he says that the maneuver involves leaping forward all the time, it's AIEEE down we go. That's sure enough body to break a wall if it's 10+ dice. Any additional inches translate into raw momentum. Should the GM have allowed both of them a chance to live? It really depends on how Iron age the game is. From the sound of that encounter, it seems like it is pretty Iron Age.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Gauntlet: Hi, My name’s Gauntlet, I’ll be interviewing you today. We’ll sit you down and you can meet everyone, come with me. Dr. Element:Why thank you, milady. Do you have any questions for me before we get started Gauntlet: You don’t spawn lizardlike humanoids, do you?.... Mesa: Are you now, or have you ever been a talking goat? Gauntlet: Khymeric, are you wearing pants yet? Dr. Element: Actually, the item has no personality at all. Gauntlet: You’re sure? Dr. Element: (In a dull monotone) Yes…. Gauntlet: You were making popcorn with no pants on? Khymeric: I was in my room! And I was in my bathrobe! I wasn’t completely naked! Gauntlet: You came into the meeting room completely naked? _________________________________________________________________

Re: Double The Hero Excitement! The odd thing is that somehow I can't get to page 17 of this thread. Either something's wrong with the code, or I have to post in order to be able to see it. Weird. Yes! Something IS wrong with the counting code. It told me there was a page 17, even though it was really at the bottom of page 16. Please fix, o mighty ones, that I might be confused no longer.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Nightingale, dark heroine of Seattle, is mental illusioned by one of the minions of the Worm Master. Thinking she is in a place of writhing, squirming things crawling all over her body, she accidentally removes her wig and mask, screaming "Get them off me!" Sheepishly embarrassed, she convinces her DNPC to come to the base after the fight is over and deliver her a replacement wig and mask, because hers are all covered with slimy worms. The DNPC comes dressed as a Japanese pizza delivery girl. Kodiak: Did someone order pizza? Goliad gets the door and pays for the pizza, handing it over to Nightingale. She takes out the wig and puts it on. He shakes his head for a moment, being somewhat hungry. Coatlcan: Wow, that's a really hairy pie! Goliad: Oh, my god, I can't believe you said that in front of a woman!

While one of the other heroes is wandering through the base, he comes upon Cybervulture engaging in positive thinking exercises so he doesn't forcibly deactivate himself in a fit of trauma. Cybervulture, Standing in front of a mirror, pumping one of his arms: Go, Cybervulture! Go, Cybervulture! You're the half-man! You're the half-man! (Sigh) This isn't working...

Re: Superheroes and lethal force Well, my world has Prison that revolves at the speed of plot, so I have total control over when a villain gets out of prison or not. However, I have a simple rule. The heroes and villains obey the rules of the hero/villain game, which has remained virtually unchanged for years. If someone takes off the gloves and starts using killing attacks, then it's open season. For this reason, a lot of heroes with less than sterling morals get killing attacks used against them a lot more often.

Re: Hideous Holiday Adventure Idea That's...really evil.

Re: A Common Origin Story For An Entire Team ? Generally, I've noticed, roleplayers are too egotistical to deal with this issue well. However, if you DO decide you want to do this, here's what I recommend. Build the characters yourself beforehand, or write the backgrounds beforehand, but not both. This is why Oddhat's example is effective. DON'T let them choose. Either let them choose the way the character got the skills and abilities, OR let them design the character after reading the background. This is the biggest mistake you could POSSIBLY make. Instead, challenge their roleplaying skills and tell them how great they are as roleplayers. Feed their ego a little bit. THEN, take however many characters there are and take a colored die or stone, mark it on the sheet, and let them pick from a hat. The game I run that's run this way is VERY successful. Because it was D+D and not Champions, I chose to write the backgrounds. You can see how things are going over on the Paizo Boards on "The Terrible Revenge of Roungouze Haballanter" thread. PS: If you do read this thread, remember that A) Ogres are Stupid and I DID ask them if they were sure.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... OOC: The important thing about learning math is so that when you grow up, you can play Champions!!!!! That's the best OOC comment I've ever seen. Bar none!

Re: What Age are we in now Actually, Hugh, the fall into the vat of acid isn't the kicker. It's what he says afterwards. "A fitting end for all his kind."

Re: There's always one It seems to me that the problem you have is an unwillingness to use mixed forces. Dealing with this character is no different than dealing with any other martial artist in this power range. Agents also have various weapons, including AOE Hex attacks. Try entangling him and then blasting him a couple times with low power weapons. 2d6 Takes No Damage, Hex OAF, 8 charges costs a whopping 16 points. Not unreasonable for an agent weapon, and his DCV is 0. Two more agents shoot him with 8d6 EBs and coordinate. Now he's in trouble. If other PC's dont' come over to help him out, he'll be fried. One good encounter with an organization like VIPER, and he'll rethink that build in a heartbeat.

Re: What Age are we in now I'm going to disagree with you on Batman Begins, Oddhat. I think it's pure steel. I think Batman believes that Ra's will come back to life, and therefore, he simply doesn't feel the need to save a man who will suddenly be restored to life later. If I know my enemy is going to return to life, there is no reason to try and save him from pits of lava, exploding train wrecks, or radioactive burst chambers. My time as a superhero is better spent saving someone other than the villain whose powers include being ressurrection lad. Did we see a body? No. They didn't make the mistake that Tim Burton made with the Joker.

Re: What Age are we in now I like to think of this as the Moron Age of Comics. This is the age of comics where the writers decide to completely ruin characters and treat their readers like morons. It's like the comics are being written by talk show shockjocks who can't write. Tony Stark checking to see if his penis is still there? Come on, Bendis. Show some decorum! Yeah, it's funny, but it's still tasteless. Superboy Prime? What is the POINT of this nonsense? Rainbow Guardians of the Universe? Geoff Johns needs to go to Detox mansion and stop mainlining crack. Why can't people just write good stories? Everything has to be either A) Cosmic or Illogical or C) Both.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... From today's Knight Rangers game, in which the heroes accidentally trapped the minds of seven innocents into Download's "Live Action MMORPG" Redwave: We should do something for those kids. Stick: You mean...ha..have...kids in the house? Redwave: Look. Their mother got mind transferred into a robot. They need help. Kighthawk: I'll call my personal assistant and have her get a very good Nanny with counselling skills. Stick: That's not fair! They're going to infest our house! ----------------------------------------------- While the kids are at the house of Redwave and Stick, in their secret identities, the eldest of the three children, a smoking juvenile delinquent, gets uppity... Delinquent: Hey, Mother Teresa...(leans in and whispers) "I'm gonna !@#$ your husband, and he's going to love it." Redwave: Hey, kid. Unlike you, I grew up on the South Side of Chicago. Touch him for a second, and I swear I'll take you outside and kick your ass! Stick: Oh, and she'll do it, too. --------------------------------------------------- Later, after the mind transferred people agree to an extremely unusual untransfer... Knighthawk: We should ask if the temporary foster family would be willing to assist in paying to fly the bodies here. Stick: I don't know...maybe we should ask him.... Redwave: Honey, you HAVE to sleep sometime...

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Tonight, in the big battle with the SPIDER agents and their nefarious webmaster, Widow, the PC's opted for the "Drop the Giant Hero From Above into their base..." strategy. It was a good strategy. Many of you have wondered what's going on with the Apes in the Man suits, and so, too, do my players. However, one of them has surmised (Correctly) that there must be some form of dimensional compression technology that allows a 500 pound gorilla to appear as a human. He wanted to build that technology into his powered armor suit. So, having already destroyed one man suit previous to this, I decided to give the player another chance by having the people of Ape Island infiltrate SPIDER. So, they dropped the giant hero, Titan, through the roof of the building, and I randomly dropped the ape disguised as a SPIDER agent onto the battlemap. He was right underneath the falling hero. Desperately trying to get out of the way, our villainous infiltrator of the human race rolled an 18. SQUASH! Crushed under the foot of the gigantic Titan, his man suit was destroyed instantly, revealing the gorilla underfoot! The heroes, as the battle raged, opted to rescue the critically injured ape, and flew him back to base, where the servo-robots told them he could not be moved. Angered and Frustrated, Streamline, the hero with the armored suit wanted to keep the ape there until he told him the secret of the mansuits. Meanwhile, the GMPC, Cybervulture, was sitting next to the critically injured ape, soothingly reading him bedtime stories. "A long time ago, in the mountains of the west, there lived a Puma named Toby..." When the ape finally woke up in The Butte, three weeks later, all he could say was... "Wh...where am I...and who the !@#$%A!@ is Toby The Puma?"

Re: "Open-Source" superhero names Everyone really should strike any mythological figure from the record. No one can legally copyright King Arthur, Mordred, Morgaine Le Fey, or any other mythological character. Technically, even Marvel can't copyright Thor. DC COULD produce a character called Thor, but he can't be blond, and he can't come from Marvel's version of Asgard. DC Could produce a traditional, red headed Thor in the classic Norse mold, however, and no one could say a thing.

Re: Officially, is Teleios Canadian? The answer I'd give is "Decide based on the needs of your campaign." This guy has so many aliases that he can be from any country he wants.

Re: SuperSquad America: Replacing Challenger I like the idea of making Challenger a girl. We talked about that briefly. But quite frankly, if I were Crimson Fist, his lovely wife, or heck, if I were Mr Z, I wouldn't let Bernie within TWO HUNDRED MILES of Super Squad Headquarters. Diva? Forget it! She'd slam the door in his face. That's over half the team right there. Another option is you could run "The Challenger War" This year. I know you have a fondness for other dimensions, but for whatever reason, the cosmic forces that run these universes have created a bunch of problems that only Supersquad America can solve, and for some reason, they all focus on Challenger. Write about eight different Challenger backgrounds and then put one of them in the group, and at the end, your moral dilemma is having people pick which Challenger they'll keep, while the others have their dimensions destroyed by the aftereffects of Bernies timetwister wave from year ten. Nine universes! Only one survives!

Re: Deathstroke I believe they are ALREADY Canadian. You might want to double check, though.

Re: MancerBear's Art Den I like it.