Balabanto

Re: Dredging Obscurity for Villain Ideas The Answer: Spider Man never really beat this villain, and then one day, he disappeared, never to be seen again. He was a deadly, obnoxious, ruthless foe who always had a backup plan. We were never even really sure what his powers were. The Disruptor: You can only run this plot once. The Disruptor attacks the campaign of Mayoral Candidate X, with his massive, seemingly unstoppable Brick ally, the Smasher. He seems totally focussed on killing Mayoral Candidate X. The catch: The Disruptor IS Mayoral Candidate X, and is trying to get elected by having an angry fake crimelord continually attacking him while he's tough on crime. At the end of this classic Spider Man story, it was revealed that the Smasher was Mayoral Candidate X's son, and he died tragically. It was a brilliant effort. We don't GET a lot of good stories like that anymore.

Re: Heroes Oh, sorry about that. But seriously, I felt so cheated by this show that if I had a character with powers who lived in this world, I'd throw myself off a cliff and die. This world is so depressing, without any hope at all. Superheroes are supposed to be role models, exemplars of how to behave, not murderous filth who slaughter each other, pump bullets into bad guys and abuse their gifts for selfish reasons. The series makes a huge show of talking about evolution. If they had called the show "Predators" it would be a lot more accurate. Because those, for the most part, are the characters they've created. They knuckle under to people who are obviously evil. They have an enemy whose main power is BRAIN CONSUMPTION. There were times I had to walk away from the screen and keep from biting my fingers off. If I wanted to read Wild Cards again, assuming I could stand to do it without ripping out my own intestines, I'd just read that. It's better written and less incoherent.

Re: Dredging Obscurity for Villain Ideas White Rabbit: This is a villain most people never even mention. The Black Racer: The Grim Reaper is an African American on Skis? Mr. Kirby, I love you dearly, but even the gods !@#$%W@! up sometimes. Boris and Ninotchka: A clear tribute themselves, these two made Power Man and Iron Fist's lives a living hell. Lightmaster: IF EVER there was a villain who got short shrift, it was Edward Lanksy. He was awesome. Brother Power and Sister Sun: These two asian cultists were REALLY CREEPY. They only had powers when they held hands, like Fenris, but with a little modfication, these two could be awesome. Jason Deere: Who? If his heart stops, the world blows up. No fooling. YES, this is still in canon.

Re: WWYCD: The Jack-In-Th-Box Senerio Most of my characters have a number of actions they would take BEFORE dealing with the JITB. One: Find out if it's someone's standard MO, thus allowing them to be prepared for what MIGHT come out of the box. Two: Get everyone OUT OF THE AREA BEFORE THE BOX OPENS. If it's a superweapon or a nuke, that allows people more time to escape. Three: Get a hero with a springy spring onscene. This prevents the standard mallet version of this trap from working.

Re: Heroes That's kind of interesting. I HATE this show. I watch it so that when I run Champions, "When you run your game, don't do this.": Do NOT: Base half of your stories around time travel so that the plot makes no sense to anyone except characters with unique special senses. Do NOT: Create a guy who paints the future, yet is so incomprehensibly dumb that he can't, once he masters his power, paint the exact sequence of events that lead to his own death by filling in blanks in between paintings, and set a trap. Do NOT: Make your villain so disgusting that even the most hardened code vs. killing heroes will ask your GM for an EGO roll. Do NOT: Spend the entire season building up to a climax that doesn't actually leave you with a cliffhanger, but instead, makes you say "What in the name of Monkeys Swinging on a Star with a Crucifix shoved up their behind just happened here, and why did I watch this just so I could feel that nothing was actually solved?" I didn't even feel that Sylar got BEATEN. Instead, he just got deferred like a bad tax return. And he was so loathesome that even I, the king of love of the Silver Age and the classics, said "Won't SOMEONE PLEASE KILL THIS MAN?" Do NOT: Make the only sympathetic character in the entire show have a power so disgusting that you want to turn away from her every time she's on screen. (Unkillable Lass) Do NOT: Make your other main villain a megacorporation with the power to erase minds, and does so with a frequency that not only can we have no idea what's going on, but eventually, the characters won't be able to explain it to viewers either. Do NOT: Give someone a power so incomprehensible that it defies explanation even to the hardened comic book fan. It's been an entire season, and we still don't REALLY know if it's MPD, Psychic Absorption, or My other Mind Lives in a Mirror. (Nikki) Do NOT: Make your main character so insecure that his insecurity leads to complete and total stupidity. (Peter Petrelli.) If I know that I'm going to explode if I stay in New York, I MOVE TO THE LOS ALAMOS NUCLEAR TESTING SITE AND BURY MYSELF IN THE SAND UP TO MY NECK! If I had to deal with these characters, I'd be saying MAKE A DEDUCTION ROLL every five seconds. Watching Heroes was depressing, unfulfilling, and Un-Heroic. I am truly dreading Season Two. I wonder what else they can do to ruin the concept of superheroes for people.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Due to a colossal error on the part of the PC's, The Oligarch, earth's mightiest mystic villain, was able to abscond with the superpowers of one of the PC's, stealing it from the Ebon Flame cultists who were controlling the PC's power. However, at the same time, the heroes had accidentally activated the psychoelectric transformation in their electrokinetic's brain, so the heroes were divided and beaten down, even with special guest stars. The only two people following the flying mystic artifact were a special guest star from another superteam and a completely NEW team member. So...the two heroes arrive on the scene, and fight three bonesword ninjas from the Cult of the Ebon Flame. The Oligarch, black cloaked, appears from nowhere and floats down towards the docks where the Ebon Flame is moving away in their motorboat. Seeing the heroes, he stares at them and says... "I can see that you are understaffed. That's it...? WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?"

Re: Questions for the Canadian HEROBoard members Well, I'm a dumb american, but even I know that Vancouver has doubled for virtually every major city in the US in films over the past 20 years.

Re: WWCYD: De-Animator Wow, did I just hear...every mage in the city? Your gameworld must be MUCH different from mine.

Re: If *you* were the Spectre... Well...Hermit...actually...that decision was made by... Geoff Johns. So your list is my list.

Re: "Slow Poke" How about..... 4d6 AOE Radius (+1) Penetrating (+1/2) Suppress, Sticky (+1/2), 0 End (+1/2), Selective (+1/4). Have one for Movement Powers, One for DEX (Down to Normal Human Max, it only suppresses their SUPER speed), and one for SPD (See Dex.). Make THESE powers no range. Put these things in an elemental control, along with a "Ride the Wave." effect of Teleportation "I move faster than you now, Flash....hahhahahhahaaaaaa..." and a Force Field "So Slow Nothing Hurts." That way, you can MAKE his DEX cruddy, and his SPD cruddy, and just make him tough. Plus, won't Super Speed lad be surprised when everyone else around him slows down, too. And if he was a big enough twink to buy power defense, it still hurts.

Your Superhero PC's have been tracking a necromancer for days, and you've been fighting his undead minions. When you're in final battle with the Necromancer, a guy calling himself De-Animator comes along and waves his hands, making undead fall over left and right. He thanks you for your help, shakes your hands, and sends the Necromancer to prison with you. Two days later, he makes a public appearance on TV and says "Give me 50 million dollars, or I'll reanimate them all. Right now. I'll just turn my power off. You'll never be able to contain the damage, and your loved ones will surely come home and ruin your lives, or feed on the living, or whatever it is these creatures do. You have one hour. If I'm attacked, I'll shut my power off. Thank you, people of the campaign city, you've been so kind."

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... That was the most digusting analogy ever. Thank you for the joys of looking in supermarkets and thinking "Yum. Sniper Rifle Goo."

Re: Prison facilities for super-human criminals in your Campaigns? I'll repost the information from the other thread since it seems to be relevant here, with a little more. Well, I have many superprisons, rather than one that are openly known. (Yes, this is a blatant reboot, but I HAD to. There were problems with the very IDEA of stronghold) What, may you ask, is my problem with Stronghold? Here it is. There is no way on this Earth that any American government would allow non-american nationals to run prisons on their soil, no matter how superior the technology. There's the Butte, the Mountain, and the Plateau. (Europe), and The Gulag (Russia/Eastern Europe). Ironically, now that Russia is much smaller and has split up into component states, Russia's superprison is VERY well funded by countries that can't afford to keep Supervillains on their own. Pay to play is nasty, but it has advantages...and disadvantages....for heroes.....a real test of their moral character. Examples: 1) The PC's now know that some supervillains may be pardoned by the governnment in exchange for black operations. Rather than imprison the villain in American Prison, they pay the Russians to imprison the villain in secret. No one's tried this yet, but I have a feeling it's only a matter of time. 2) A third world country is paying to keep an enemy of a PC locked up, and has just defaulted on their payments, or worse, changed governments completely. Now this enemy is returning home. And worse...he's a HERO OF THE PEOPLE now that the government has changed. Good luck. 3) A supervillain captures a PC, and pays the Gulag to incarcerate him while posing as a fellow hero or agent of a government. Now the PC must escape the Gulag without powers and survive the Siberian wasteland, while facing down Russian Supers, the elements, and the Russian Army, who are better at fighting in these conditions than anyone in the world with the singular exception of the Finnish. (The Finnish scare EVERYONE!) America and Canada get along well enough that America will allow Canada to store their supercriminals in their superprisons, but for the most part, most countries don't have the resources or the finances to have their own superprisons. Yes, it's rumored that the Kuwaitis or the Saudis might be building one with raw cash. But some governments SECRETLY impriison supervillains, and/or use them as government agents in exchange for their freedom. Recently, it was revealed that an organization within the US government had been doing this FOR YEARS. NO ONE KNOWS what happens to Supervillains that get captured in China. No one bothered to ask the President whether or not he APPROVED OF THE POLICY. They only knew that the person was doing it without his authorization.

Re: WWYCD: To Bee or not to Bee? Most of my characters would look up where Deathstroke is hiding out these days, find Stinger, and beat the !!@#$$@ out of him.

Re: If *you* were the Spectre... Geoff Johns. He caused all this crap to happen, including me becoming the Spectre. He NEEDS to be punished. The worst part is, this is perfectly in keeping with the genre of the Spectre, and it gets rid of a major ass-clown.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... From a Robin Hood Style D+D game where the PC's have two wizardly characters. a Ranger/Wizard and an Elemental Savant type wizard, who is a more powerful wizard. Thinking that perhaps she might be able to hit him up for spells, she reviews his spell list, only to discover that her own spellbook, pound for pound, has more spells in it, a greater depth and variety of them, and leaves her better prepared. She is Taubrynna Tammarath, Champion of the Underdog. He is Zasheir of Calimshan, worshipper of Kossuth, whose battle cry is "Not from Thay! Not From Thay!" Taubrynna: So you can cast more powerful spells than me, Zasheir of Calimshan? Zasheir: I can. Taubrynna: NOW START!

Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth? Clearly, Oddhat is smarter than me.

Re: STRONGHOLD (RESOURCES) -- What Do *You* Want To See? Well, I have many superprisons, rather than one that are openly known. (Yes, this is a blatant reboot, but I HAD to. There were problems with the very IDEA of stronghold) There's the Butte, the Mountain, and the Plateau. (Europe), and The Gulag (Russia/Eastern Europe). Ironically, now that Russia is much smaller and has split up into component states, Russia's superprison is VERY well funded by countries that can't afford to keep Supervillains on their own. Pay to play is nasty, but it has advantages...and disadvantages....for heroes.....a real test of their moral character. Examples: 1) The PC's now know that some supervillains may be pardoned by the governnment in exchange for black operations. Rather than imprison the villain in American Prison, they pay the Russians to imprison the villain in secret. No one's tried this yet, but I have a feeling it's only a matter of time. 2) A third world country is paying to keep an enemy of a PC locked up, and has just defaulted on their payments, or worse, changed governments completely. Now this enemy is returning home. And worse...he's a HERO OF THE PEOPLE now that the government has changed. Good luck. 3) A supervillain captures a PC, and pays the Gulag to incarcerate him while posing as a fellow hero or agent of a government. Now the PC must escape the Gulag without powers and survive the Siberian wasteland, while facing down Russian Supers, the elements, and the Russian Army, who are better at fighting in these conditions than anyone in the world with the singular exception of the Finnish. (The Finnish scare EVERYONE!) America and Canada get along well enough that America will allow Canada to store their supercriminals in their superprisons, but for the most part, most countries don't have the resources or the finances to have their own superprisons. Yes, it's rumored that the Kuwaitis or the Saudis might be building one with raw cash. But some governments SECRETLY impriison supervillains, and/or use them as government agents in exchange for their freedom. Recently, it was revealed that an organization within the US government had been doing this FOR YEARS. NO ONE KNOWS what happens to Supervillains that get captured in China. No one bothered to ask the President whether or not he APPROVED OF THE POLICY. They only knew that the person was doing it without his authorization.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... The PC's are interested in discovering why Psiclotron is having mysterious headaches, and another PC, Seeker, is in town with his superspeedster girlfriend, who is still pissed at him. Mesa: "Hey! This guy seeker is in town, and he's got the right set of abilities for what we need!" Gauntlet: That's a great idea. Let me call him...(Ring...Ring...) Hello, Seeker? This is Gauntlet of the San Diego Knights? Could you come over here, we'd like you to do some tests on someone. Oh, and bring your snarky girlfriend. Steel Thunder: Gauntlet, why did you ask him to bring his snarky girlfriend? Gauntlet: Well, she's fast, and then she can pull Psiclotron out before he gets seriously hurt.

Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth? The problem is that while I could DO it, it would, I fear, bother my players. They would all sit there and say "What? You can't be serious." Also, the other problem is that once Vhan does all this, if you attack, when it's over, things will be even worse than they were before. Advantage, Vhan. Plus, if you're Vhan, and you're not an idiot, you don't attack Africa. Africa's tactically indefensible and you want a strong defensive position. You have the technology of a million dimensions and don't care about ground movement. You attack Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. These people will be so grateful to Vhan for conquering them after years of despotism and incompetent governments that they will join with her in a heartbeat. Advantage, Vhan In order to land ground troops, you need to wage a naval assault or open large teleport gates. The terrorists are irrelevant because I have the telepaths of a million dimensions to locate and kill them. And no one, I mean, no one, will complain about the loss of people who blow people up in the street by committing suicide. And you know, as unheroic as this is, there aren't a lot of PC's who would be willing to stop Vhan from killing suicide bombers. Advantage, Vhan. Your only problem is that we're looking at this as a two way conflict when in reality, we're looking at a three way conflict. Inevitably, if Vhan invades, the Earth will also have to fight Tyrannon. While you'll have Vhan as an ally, the ensuing conflict could wipe out most of the planet.

Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth? This has actually hit on "Why I don't use Isthva Vhan." If I were Lady Vhan, I'd make certain that I attacked third world nations first, and made their lives significantly better. Of course, since one of my other villains already did this at one point, there would be a fight in my world, but that's neither here nor there. So, Vhan deposes a bunch of scummy dictators, kills them, and installs kind, benevolent despotism, good health care, decent housing, and a supportive governor selected from the most popular of locals. What now? That's why I can't use this villain. She's not played up to her intelligence level.

Re: Gestalt is Online I kinda liked Rappan Athuk reloaded too, but not nearly as much as this. I'm waiting for the color version on Lulu. The art was so awesome that I saw the PDF and said "No Black and White on this one for me." Yes, I could have taken a black and white copy for nothing, but that copy could be sold to someone who would then give money to Scott and Dave. Plus, I'm the biggest advocate of color superhero supplements, so I have to put my money where my mouth is.

Re: Thoughts on some superhero origins ROFL. I never really thought of myself or Oddhat as built on more points than those around them. THAT'S FUNNY!

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... The PC's are discussing what to do with a bunch of Dragon cultists once they catch up with them. PC: When I catch up with that dragon, I'm going to make boots out of him. Half Dragon PC: If you turn any of my relatives into clothing, I will beat you with a hammer until your brains come out.

Re: Thoughts on some superhero origins I live in New Jersey. With the possible exception of about 5 percent of the population, trust me. The stupid native syndrome is mostly real as far as this state is concerned. Let's take a look at my place of employment. I'm pretty sure that sixty percent of the population can't read at higher than a 2nd grade level, and that most of the people who work in the mall where I work can't either. So...stupid native syndrome? Not as unrealistic as you first thought. And yes, I work in a corporate department store where you are expected to have decent communications skills.