Balabanto

Re: 6th Edition Hero System Something else came up in a session of mine the other day. Regarding Enhanced Senses. Players are angry that they can't use their gadget pools to build devices that give everyone IR or UV vision, etc. Personally, I think the current rules are fine, but players everywhere really hate it, so from a marketing standpoint it might be wiser to change it, even if it sucks. Spatial Awareness This sense needs to be unbroken. According to the current text, this sense is automatically indirect, allowing you to locate what's on the other side of walls, etc. This sense should stop where the perception of actual space ends, not continue through every object. This sense is NOT N-Ray vision, however, the current wording of it leads people to believe that it is. Being aware of objects around you is Spatial Awareness. Seeing through objects is N-Ray Vision.

Re: WWYD: Those Who Cannot Remember The Past Well, my first goal would be to undo what was done. If that happened to virtually ANY of my characters, the response would be 'Who the heck is this, and why were they willing to psychically attack the human race?" Track them down. Hold them accountable in a court of law. It's a great idea, but the way you have to run it is everyone builds a hero, and writes their background. And then you hit them with this first thing. Everything is "You think you know me." You secretly rewrite their disadvantages, and then you hit them with it. That guy who you thought was a villain? Now he's on your side. That hero who used to be your best friend? Well, now he's working for the other side as a secret enforcer, because he believes that they're right.

Re: Phase 12, GM's what do you allow? Here's how I handle phase 12. The Brawling Balabanto says that people tend to take unfair advantage of the fact that Phase 12 allows you an instant recovery. This leads to numerous Haymakers, excessive amounts of pushing, and more plots than you can count crushed due to excessive manipulation of the combat rules. I understand that a lot of people don't find that particularly noxious, but I did, so I did something about it. Haymakers: Go ahead. But I've restricted this ability to make it a bit more 4th editiony. You can't Haymaker attacks which can't reasonably be haymakered. Plus, the target can always move. And if he moves...well...it's over. Pushing: This is where the Phase 12 system really falls on it's face, I'll be honest. Pushing should only be done at dramatically appropriate moments. As a result, Pushing in my games is restricted. There was simply too much push/instant recovery going on. The house rule reads as follows. NO PUSHING DURING THE FIRST COMBAT TURN! On the next Phase 12, the ability to push begins. This allows for a reasonable amount of time for combat, and allows for dramatically appropriate endings. Warning. The villains can push too. Holding until Phase 1: Go ahead. You just lost the ability to recover that extra END. If people really keep doing this, go back and look at a Villain called Phosgene. I still use him. All that AOE End Transfer will make your players think twice.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... From another Mind Over Matter session: The heroes have decided to send someone a thank you note for cookies. Don't ask how that bears on the plot, it's not important. A five minute debate ensues over how to do this. They finally decide on a traditional handwritten calligraphy note. Magus: I'm a doctor! I can do this! EVERYONE: NO! You can't! ----------------------------------------------------------- Captiain Unity 1: I used to believe all that superhero crap, and I still do. Magus: It's not crap, sir. Captain Unity I: I'm eighty two years old. When you have to decide every day whether or not you need a catheter, everything really is crap. Gibraltar: What's a catheter? Chameleon: Something you'll never need to know about.

Re: Where have all the Superheroes gone? Heh. Wait for Mind over Matter. It's about just this sort of thing.

Re: What should every DC supervillain have? Batman Proof Detection System. That's all you really need. If he can't find you, the others can't either.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... OOC Character Error during Mind over Matter playtest. Seeker: On my planet, he would be in the Reincarnation camps. Players: That's REHABILITATION CAMPS! For the first time in 20 years of play, a PC hero fought a PC hero. AND THEY WERE BOTH PLAYED BY THE SAME PLAYER! Funniest thing I've ever seen.

Re: Where have all the Superheroes gone? I don't know. I LOVED Icon. That was a GREAT comic. It was well written, but it didn't acquire a readership. If your contention is that only white males are reading comic books, I assure you, you're wrong. It's not just the darkness, it's that minority groups don't feel that they're adequately or positively represented in them. You're right about the good writing, though. I can't stress that 2.5 color comic books don't really do it for me. The problem is that there's no moral difficulty anymore when the heroes come to a potentially ethical crossroads. The pushbutton solutions are the problem.

Re: Where have all the Superheroes gone? That's an interesting point, Oddhat, and one that bears further examination. It's my contention that while flawed heroes are slightly more interesting, it's the simple fact that somewhere along the way, these writers disassociated the words "Cape and tights" from "Role Model." Now, my champions world is not cape heavy. You don't have a lot of heroes wearing capes, but that was a conscious choice on the part of the players. However, a lot of heroes don't have big obvious symbols on their chests, though those that do tend to be better defended. A symbol on the arm, or the shoulder is usually more common than any large target covering the center of their body. One of the heroes who DOES have a cape knows how to use it as a weapon, however. To get back on the subject thereof, morality itself has changed. 90 percent of our heroes in the classic mold are white. 90 percent are male. 90 percent are christian. But this is no longer the demographic of the american mind. If you want to have heroes in the classic mold and retain that structure, you have to delimit the genre and make heroes in the classic mold that belong to other ethnic, social and demographic groups. We shouldn't take away the old classics, of course. But we should struggle to create new ones in the classic mold. Black, Hispanic, Gay, Asian, Transgendered, and whatever strikes your fancy. However, I don't think that comic book companies are going about this the right way. DC has made a couple attempts to change the ethnic group of classic heroes, and those books were terrible. What made the Milestone books great was that they created minority heroes, but they were all minority heroes in the classic mold, with the exceptions of Blood Syndicate (A little gangy), and Xombi (A book that fulfilled the promise of what Morrison's Doom Patrol COULD have been.) Unfortunately, people didn't BUY those books. At least, not as much as they should have. While they were being published, they were one of my biggest reads each month. But if you want to attract a wider audience to superheroes, you have to have a range of superheroes who are more "like us." as we are now, not "like us" in the population demographic of the 1930's and 40's. Are Superman and Batman still awesome? Of COURSE they are. Is Spidey still cool? Of COURSE he is. Can you have a hero or heroine who is into BDSM? Sure you can, as long as it doesn't detract from the story or become the sole bone of contention. Do they fight for right when they put on the costume? If they do, they're still a hero. Can you have a hero or heroine who enjoys killing? No. It's my contention that this is STILL worse than anything that a classic hero might keep in their closet. Can you have a hero whose morals don't approximate the classic moral heroic code? Now we begin to see, what I think, is the problem. A lot of people have forgotten that there is this thing called a social contract, and they want the heroes to forget it too because the bad guys are doing really bad things. But for those of us who like our heroes classic, we know it can't work that way. People are trying to hedge their way around the argument that you can't sink to the level of the villain, and THAT, I think, is where the problem with the "loss of superheroicness" comes in. People are so obsessed with pushbutton resolutions and instant solutions nowadays that they're willing to throw what's right out the window for a sense of closure.

Re: Where have all the Superheroes gone? Fyre, you just eloquently described precisely why... This world needs superheroes more than ever.

Re: Go home, Superman! There's already a thread somewhere where I go into a lot of detail about how to have NPC's not save the day all the time, but since I'm magnanimous and like to talk a lot, I'll repeat most of them here. 1) Some other villain occupies the hero's time. That's been said by everyone else. 2) Sometimes, the hero just doesn't move as fast as the PC's. In some cases, this works fine. In others, it doesn't. 3) The hero is relieved that someone else is there. 4) In the case of Superman and Batman, their superhero team fights global and galactic threats. One of them is active. 5) Villains plan for Superman and Batman. All the time. They successfully avoid Superman and Batman, but run into your PCs instead.

Re: How do you keep your dark knights from going "squish"? In my campaign agents are competent and dangerous. Mixed Forces battles drive my players nuts. And here's why I have to make agents competent and dangerous. Agents are the counter to damage reduction. Let's look at this seriously. Character A has 30 points of defense. He takes nothing from the agent's 8d6 EB. Character B has 20 in defenses. He takes 4 from the agents 8d6 EB on average. If you use agents a lot, DR loses a lot of the potency that people ascribe to it.

Re: Sleep tight... Viper will protect you! Snicker. Yeah, I was amused by that too. Wow. George Bush=Supreme Serpent. Snake in the grass after all.

Re: How do you encourage your players to buy more skills Here's how I encourage players to buy more skills. If you're a technical character/sorcerer/detective, you need to have enough skills to justify whatever it is that your character is SUPPOSED to be able to do. If you're not a technical character/sorcerer/detective, you should have a few social skills, knowledge skills, etc. You need to have investigations that require the PC's to go to see NPC's a lot. Make them the same skills over and over. Eventually, someone does get the bright idea of paying 3 points for it. If the characters don't have life support, drop them in the arctic. "Hey, guys...wouldn't it be great if one of you had bought Survival: Arctic?" If the characters have no detective and do everything by reading minds, politely inform the PC that if he continues to mind rape people, eventually someone will notice. You might want to take KS: Human Psychology or SC: Behavioral Psychology before PSI comes to RECRUIT him. Won't his friends be surprised?

Re: Villains Vandals And Vermin (VVV) There is some stuff in this book that I can use, the problem is that some of the stuff I can use just plain doesn't work in my gameworld. So that means it's basically a sheet. I can write a new background and use the sheet, which is fine, it just means that when I write the background, it should feel good.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Superconductor: You know, Mervin, it's amazing how you can think you're sneaking up on me, and in reality, you're going to die. No matter what you do, you'll always be a loser. ------------------------------------ Superconductor: I'm going to kill your father, Sarah. Because he took my parents away from me. I'm going to make my father proud of me. Saiphe: Excuse me, but aren't you taking this whole in-laws thing a little bit too far? ------------------ Seizure: NO! Don't take me through that portal! Prestige: In case you haven't noticed, there are ten THOUSAND moss monsters here! It's regroup time! ------------------- Earlier in the game, The Night called Partacel, one of the most powerful heroes in the world, a cockbite under her breath. The Night: I can only glide, I need some altitude. Partacel: I can throw you up there. Get ready. (Hurls her 21" skyward with his current STR of 65) (Radios the Night: Not bad for a cockbite.) ---------------------------------------

Re: Character: Warrior Princess Mihrimah It's okay. How much for the mini?

Re: Exclusive: Collector Amasses Complete DC Collection I own it so I can laugh.

Re: Is Gotham City a substitute for Sin City? Actually, Metropolis is Chicago or Indianapolis. Gotham City is Newark.

Re: How do you keep your dark knights from going "squish"? You know, it's amazing how you guys all spend all this time talking about what people can do and you forgot the most basic thing of all. Are you ready? Martial Dodge! The Injuns are a comin! Someone just unloaded an attack on a guy with +5 DCV plus any levels he may possess. Ten Suerte, Senor!

Re: Question about Hawkman villains Next issue is the big Hath-Set showdown. This whole business really turns me off to Hawkman.

Re: Worldbuilding Musings - META government agency In my game I have the Paranormal Tactical Analysis Headquarters. This agency serves two functions. It replaces PRIMUS and UNTIL in timeline as far as who runs superprisons. I cannot in good conscience say that that US government would ever allow United Nations personnel to run their incarceration facilities. The agency also serves as a semi-capable super powered law enforcement arm for fighting super powered threats when the local heroes are unavailable. (Or when the local heroes ARE the super powered threat.) For everything else about this agency, you'll have to wait for Mind Over Matter. Warning: This agency also engages in black operations on foreign soil, uses supervillains as forced labor to do things heroes can't or won't, and acts in the best interests of the United States at all times, REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTS OR WHO IS IN CHARGE. As far as PTAH is concerned, it's secret branch that controls it believes that the end justifies the means, and allowing superheroes to be heroic is part of that end. Only if the heroes completely fail should the organization be brought to bear, and even then, as quietly as possible, and events glossed over to make the heroes contributions greater than they seemed.

Re: How to kill characters? Well, in the course of my 20 year Champions campaign, I've killed about seven. I am certain there will be others when I review my history again, but some of these are just nasty. I will list them for you now: 1) Mist, first wife of Partacel. A villain captured her and implanted her with dozens of cybernetic weapons. Then he put a deadman switch in her head to blow her up if the signal should be stopped. A PC put a forcefield around the character that stopped radio waves even though the other PC's said NO!. Mist died. 2) Geostar, Heroic Kenyan Brick. Geostar leaped into the way of an oncoming missile to stop it from hitting the SPIRIT transport jet. The missile hit him, doing a phenomenal amount of damage, and then he took nearly maximum damage from the fall. Killed by Santa's Elves. Officially the worst death of any superhero in the game ever. 3) La Bailandera, Argentine Psychic: Shot to death by Doctor Kukulkan's agents. 4) Sentron Dega: Gave up his life energy to stop Warstar's fortress from crashing into the earth. 5) Timerunner: Shot to death by horde of agents, fell into genetic vat of slime, was reborn as something else AND the player had the character kill herself. An awful psychological experience for me. 6) Synapse: An old PC of someone who retired the character. Killed by a pie filled with DMSO. No lie. 7) Aikido: Died to bring Black Lace back to life.

Re: Rope No, actually, it's worth about 1 point, Dave's right. Remember, it's not nearly as useful without the other one point perk. 1 point: Perk. Carries Grappling Hook.

Re: Review My XP Policy My Paul Revere High game runs like this. (And every game I run also) Use the rules straight out of the book. If you follow the numbers, they should get about 32 XP for 16 4 hour sessions. Of course, that game runs like Veronica Mars on Superhero Crack, but it's SUPPOSED to. I actually can't believe they're almost to the point where I can drop the villain's soliloquy on them for the first arc and they'll sit there and say...I should have seen it coming. That's the best part of the whole thing, always...