SSgt Baloo

Re: Plot Seeds from Unreal Life Ah, yes! A reliable source of inspiration, if nothing else.

Re: The Death Note and How To Stop It "He killed Fritz! Dammit, Fritz, I told ya not to wear your nametag!"

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares A Riverdance Runs Through It On the Muscle Beach Party Battlestar Galacticus Deadly Catch-22 Monster M*A*S*H This Old Haunted House Little House on the Prairie Home Companion

Re: The most unbelievable trope in the superhero genre...

Re: The most unbelievable trope in the superhero genre... I'd rep you Von D-Man, but it seems I must spread some around before I may. Could someone get this guy? It is a common trope, especially in popular media that religious belief equals a lack of critical reasoning and a vulnerability to any authority figure who claims divine inspiration. Bull. It is also widely understood within most Christian sects that angels do not, in fact, have wings. They are, by most biblical accounts, indistinguishable from ordinary humans unless they are manifesting some supernatural ability. In the story of Sodom and Gomorra, for example, the angels who visited Lot to warn him of impending doom had the appearasnce of comely/handsome men. Nobody mistook them for heavenly agents until they struck blind the crowd of men who wanted to "know" them. I doubt there would be a significant upturn in church attendance just because some guy with wings claims to be an avenging angel. Rather, I suspect that any sort of claim to divinity or divine origin would be met with more than a little skepticism. "Angel of light, huh? Let's see some credentials."

Re: Plot Seeds from Unreal Life

Sometimes I have dreams that just have to be used as plot seeds. I figure that if anyone else has similar stuff they should post it here. My dreams: I was a werewolf in love with another werewolf. Unfortunately, she was unable to control her murderous impulses and I had to try to keep her from killing anyone. Aiding me were two wolves who could "flame on" like the Human Torch. I guess they were lupine torches? Anyhow, the she-werewolf killed the two flaming wolves while killing them. I went into some sort of exile because of this. This segued into the second dream where... The Earth had been invaded by aliens (more about which later). The protagonist was a little girl and her animal friends; a bird, a squid, and a wolf (me, apparently still in wolf form from the previous dream). The aliens were using a mind-altering implant to control not only humans but any creature with a brain. There may have been exceptions, as I remember stumbling across JarJar Binks wearing a mind-controlling device (he was catatonic). The aliens were using sharks, f'rinstance, to devour uncontrolled sealife. At one point, the little girl wandered into a crashed spaceship. An alien inside the ship used the opportunity to implant the little girl with a mind-controlling device. I had to find help and quickly, so I recruited a rag-tag band of rebels to start the revolt against the alien masters. There were several people whom the aliens could not control even with their devices, plus a robot who was being used as a switch engine at a rail yard. We freed the little girl from the spaceship and the squid began performing brain surgery on her to remove the mind-controlling device. Meanwhile, we carried the battle to the aliens, who could not understand why we weren't enthusiastic about being part of their grand scheme. That's pretty much it for now. The only other dream I can remember from last night involved building a Model T from a kit so I would have a car (I still haven't got that claim check from the insurance folks).

Chile is missing a lake! Feel free to contribute anything of interest.

Re: Dr. Cross (Else Earth's Obligatory NaziMastermind) I spent two years at Ramstein Flugplatz and the only real problem I had was when I got into a cab and discovered I had forgotten the words for "Left" and "Right". Hilarity ensued, but I did make it home anyway. I miss Jägerschnitzel mit pomm frites.

Re: Soviet Superheroes How about a Russian "Bear" (metamorph)?

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares The Venture Brothers Karamazov Yellow Submarine Sandwich* What About Spongebob? A Hard Day's Night at the Roxbury Shakespeare in Love with an American Werewolf Runaway Bride of Young Frankenstein Charlie and the Chocolate Ex-Lax The 5,000 fingers of Mr. T It Came From 20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea Planet of the Apes of Wrath *Sorry. I didn't come up with this one myself but thought it worthy of inclusion.

Re: Dr. Cross (Else Earth's Obligatory NaziMastermind) Oops! I suppose I deserve that, since I relied on Babelfish instead of digging out my German/English Dictionary.

Re: Anti-Jonah? Actually, my concept is really vague (might be the pain meds fogging my brain). I was wondering how one might make a character that was like a good luck charm for anyone who was favorably disposed to him. His allies would get favorable breaks and his enemies would get unfavorable breaks. I suppose I am inspired by the TV series Strange Luck. I really liked the basic premise. Wierd stuff just happens around the guy. If anyone remembers this show please give instances of the luck this guy had. The one thing that sticks in my mind is that in one episode he was eating in a diner. He only had a dollar so he bought a lottery ticket and subsequently won exactly enough to pay for the meal and leave a decent tip. It wasn't just "big" luck that he had, but little, colorful things would happen as well.

Re: Dr. Cross (Else Earth's Obligatory NaziMastermind)

Re: The most unbelievable trope in the superhero genre... The spread of technology can be sporadic and uneven. My mother was born in Arkansas in 1923. No-one in her family owned a car until her grandparents bought her (crippled by polio) uncle Herman a Ford Model T in the mid-20s. My mom's folks took their kids to church in a mule-drawn buggy up until her dad died in 1934* (after that, they sold the mule). Their house didn't have an outhouse until 1946, when one of my Mom's brothers came home from the War and built one. Grandma didn't have electricity until the mid-1950s when the Tennessee Valley Authority finally got around to doing that part of the country. Even if technology had developed faster, there may not be the incentive for faster or more widespread implementation unless there are huge, obvious advantages to scrapping the old tech in favor of the new. Even in that case, not everyone will adopt the new tech at once, and there may be some resistance to it in some quarters. Those uncertain or poorly informed about the new technology and those heavily invested in the old technology will be especially resistant to the new tech. It may not necessarily be clear that a new technology is clearly better than one currently in use. Witness the resistance to nuclear powerplants. Even if they are completely safe, few are eager to have one in their own back yard. Photovoltaic roofing tiles make it possible for most homes to be retrofitted to be independant of the power industry. Even so, the initial expense of such an installation and the unknown expense of maintaining a roof made of solar cells ensure most new homes use more conventional solutions for roofing and power. There's loads of reasons why the technology level of society at large may appear to be unaffected by the presence of supertechnology. I'd like to propose another possibility: perhaps the changes are there, but the citizenry takes it for granted. How many of you really noticed the evolution of outdoor lighting over the last few deckades. The technology is different and arguably better, but most folks don't notice unless the lights are out for some reason. Likewise, there may be many superior technologies in place in a superheroic world, but the people there don't see anything unusual about it and therefore do not comment on it. * Grandpa would've had to take time off work to go get the shot that his wife & kids did. Rather than miss work, he decided to run the risk of not getting innoculated against typhus (or whatever it was that got him). As a result his youngest son was born 8 months after he died. Pity.

I was just wondering: how would you create a character who was "good luck" to his buddies without him having to know who was on his side?

Re: The most unbelievable trope in the superhero genre... In one of my favorite campaigns, Tex Jones, "The Great White Hunter" (not his character's name -- I forgot what it really was) and American Steel pooled their resources and bought American Bantam (AB). American Steel was an engineer from a late 20th century parallel world and helped design a couple of "futuristic" cars for AB to build (one full-sized and one compact). Both were rear-engined (we had recently watched Tucker: The Man and His Dream*) air-cooled and were chock full of active and passive safety innovations. During one game session, we even decided that one print ad would depict a chauffer-driven limousine being passed by an AB Sedan. Both the chauffer and his passenger looked wistfully at the passing car. Eventually, a version of the compact car won the competition to become the U.S. Army's "Jeep". The PCs ought to be allowed to make a difference in ways they find satisfying. That helps them have more fun in the campaign and ensures they'll keep showing up. Besides, it's more fun that way. *Tucker Torpedo

Re: Zamjza, Alien Mentalist Interesting. Is there any reason you alternate between male and female pronouns in your description?

Re: Golden Age thoughts Wikipedia: Air Wave In my Golden Age campaigns,I encouraged the players to be just a little bit tongue-in-cheek with their character concepts. One of my favorite characters was an Italian-American scientist whose labratory accident turned him into Elastico, the rubber hero. Elastico was a "bouncy brick". The SFX of his superleap was that he'd turn into a big ball and bounce wherever he was going. One of his bigger attacks had the special effect of him swelling his hand to the size of a basketball before striking (for extra dice). Elastico helped set the tone for the campaign, preventing it from turning excessively "grim and gritty". Tex Jones was another character who helped set the tone in this campaign. He was an aviator/inventor who had a fast plane (~400 MPH) and a beanbag gun. His player was a fun guy and so, as a consequence, was the character. TJ was mainly the other characters' fast ride to distant adventure, but he was also instrumental in breaking the gangs in/around Chicago. He so impressed some gangsters that they reformed just so they could work for Tex in whatever capacity.

Re: Good Luck, Superchuck The Cat Without a Name (TCWaN): Since he's fully aware that the secret lab he escaped from is desperately trying to hunt him down and recapture him, TCWaN has been "tomcatting" around just as much as possible, to ensure that at least he will have offspring with his abilities (normal-sized cat with 10 STR, ability to psionically stimulate sleep [EGO attack, fully invisible], human intelligence and understands English.) If his efforts to sow his seed far and wide also result in his female partners developing powers, so much the better, so long as it doesn't result in widespread anti-cat activity. Bob Tiger: Married and monogamous. His wife is a sidhe princess, and thus has powers already. If this changed her power set, it might cause more friction with his (also sidhe) brother-in-law. Since BIL has already sicced the Wild Hunt on BT (BT fought them off), this increased friction might get lost in the noise of the already-present hostility with BIL. Argus: Didn't have much of a social life -- he was too focussed on being a hero. Thunder Rabbit: Didn't get played long enough to find out how many women would be attracted to a 7' tall hypermuscular rabbit. Thunder Rabbit was based on Thunder Bunny, but had super-leaping instead of flight.

Re: Captain Awesome Open Office worked! Cool Character!

Re: Help with a fight at 2000 feet Some more relevant information: Aviation Oxygen Most light aircraft are unpressurized, and many of those have open cockpits. You won't have "explosive decompression" in an aircraft at 2,000 feet any more than you'd have it driving in your car in the mountains and rolling down a window. Any buffetting and adverse control effects will be governed by airspeed and where the hole is relative to aerodynamic surfaces. Whether you're sucked out is largely dependent upon whether you're secured to something, where you are relative to the hole in the plane, and whether you were leaning against the surface that suddenly gives way. Many skydiving planes do not have a door on the right side of the plane at all, and routinely transport parachutists to altitudes of up to 15,000 feet. Note the link I posted earlier. Aloha Airlines Flight 243 remained controllable and was able to land safely despite a huge hole in the fuselage. Even though the explosive decompression took place at ~24,000 feet, passengers who were belted in remained in place despite the buffetting. Of the stewardesses, only one of the three were swept out of the plane when the fuselage gave way. The others were knocked down and were able to assist the passengers despite not being belted in. A fight in an airplane at 2,000 feet is hazardous not so much because you might be sucked out of the plane, but because a plane is a relatively fragile vehicle and it's quite possible that combatting supers could destroy the @#$% thing before one side subdues the other.

Re: Captain Awesome I tried Google docs and couldn't open the document. I'm downloading Open Office now. The reason I'm so wound up about Captain Awesome is that I've always liked the super-charismatic characters who can talk a villain down as easily as others knock them down. I'll let you guys know if Open Office works for me. Thanks for the help!

Re: Captain Awesome

Re: Captain Awesome What format is that file saved in? I can't seem to open it (at least, not without an incredible amount of format coding cluttering it up).