Rich McGee

Doctorin' the TARDIS!
 

Greetings everyone. I wanted to announce the official start of my work on Strike Force Organizations, a sequel to 2016's Aaron Allston’s Strike Force.
  The book will focus on three groups, the Blood, the Circle, and METE (all previous presented in Champions Organization products for early editions of Champions. My intent is to combine the content written for the PDFs with content Aaron wrote for his proposed (but never complete) Strike Force Universe series of books.
  I intend to update the content to HERO 6e, update the text to correct any errors and issues, and update any references to current game mechanics. I will not fill in any gaps -- I am not so arrogant as to assume what Aaron would have wanted, but I will acknowledge areas where content is lacking (if such a need arrives). I hope to find updated character sheets for many of the early NPCs, but will work with what I have.
  I also intend to present bases, vehicles, scenarios, and villains, just as they all appeared in the early releases.
  I will change names (for example, METE will be called Alien Research Laboratories) in accordance to Aaron's wishes and per his list of corrections for setting names.
  This product will be released as a collaborative work between Surbrook Press and High Rock Press.
Finally, the book will contain stats for Prowlers & Paragons UE and I hope to have a P&PUE add-on detailing all of the characters from Aaron Allston’s Strike Force.

PS: that last item has already been discussed with Jason. I am seeking to support two systems that I greatly enjoy and I hope to draw both fan-bases together to support this product.

PSS: I will endeavor to provide frequent updates. Please bug me via this thread if I forget.

I found a way to get around it, at least for now. I didn't remove Adblock when I downloaded Ublock. My mistake was disallowing ads on both programs. I disabled Adblock on YouTube but kept Ublock active. It works for now. Of course, Youtube is working on updating itself, so it's probably not a permanent solution.
 
Technically, that applies to any sort of fiction.

My sister and someone on Discord recommended UBlock Origins. It works well on YouTube, and you just refresh your cache when YouTube begins cracking down on you.
 
Apparently, YouTube has been able to disable UBlock as well. 👎

Yep.  The ads have gotten so bad that I grab the link and PM them to myself here and watch them later.
 
 
😕
 
 

Usually the person who did the last entry in the last team or group is the one who starts the new team, unless he doesn't have any ideas. So I have first crack on the team theam.
 
So...the new team is Hyde's Havocs.
Six drug addicts who had a chance to have a chance to try a new drug invented by Professor Hyde. Since one of these people are the brick Blackhead, I only actually need five more people. The drugs interacted with the bodies in unpredictable ways which Hyde would probably be unable to reproduce. Not everyone is actually greatful to Hyde for the powers granted.

OH MY _GOD_, YES!
 
 YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYWSYESYES
 
YES, YES, _YES_!
 
Sign me _straight_ the #\'( up, _PLEASE_!
 
 

S Serious Sam Killjoy
 
S Serious Sam Killjoy is a very serious man. In fact, he hates fun and doesn't actually want anyone having fun at all. Originally he was a simple Killjoy, content with preventing fun in his area. But after encountering KO Clown so many times his motivation is changed to kill KO Clown.
 
This makes it 5 characters I believe.

This.  As a (primarily) Fantasy Hero player, it is glaringly obvious that STR and Flight (for instance) are more valuable in-game and should be costed accordingly.  In 1st ed. FH, Flight was called "Levitation" and was automatically 1/2 DCV, so I assume Peterson at least partially agreed.
 
 
It might be easier to tweak costs in 6th ed now that figureds aren't figured...

The only youtube I watch any more is through forum links.  I refuse to turn off adblockers and have them shove deeply offensive idiocy into my viewing (especially in 2024, which will quickly become a Hell Year for that as the election nears), nor will I pay for the "privilege" of not doing so.  Thankfully most of my old favorite channels are mirrored elsewhere already, and some of the other ones have announced they're doing the same soon.  They can have my money directly through Patreon and the like.   

@Rich McGee, I see on the Internet that (at some point) that Battletech added the idea of what can be customized on a Mech and where. So certain modifications can be made in the field and the more extensive ones has to have a factory. So a nice compromise is that a group might play Merc and in the Periphery so your options are limited compared to just using the Construction Rules. I think that’s a great! 

That's one example of why point systems are never perfect (or even close), especially in engines that are designed to give you real freedom of genre, optional rules and campaign norms. There's just too many variables for any single list of costs to be universal, and the GM always needs to think about how their personal campaign modifies the utility (and therefore cost) of individual elements of the game.
 
It's a game design quandry that I just don't think can be solved beyond cautioning GMs to watch out for unexpected interactions with setting options.  The parallels to mixing meds prescribed by different doctors who aren't talking to one another is notable... 

There's an old issue of Power Man & Iron Fist that canonically established that Luke (who also has trouble keeping his shirt intact) buys his yellow silk shirts a dozen at a time from the same NYC tailor that Bruce Banner gets his pants from.  Presumably the fabric has a whole lot lot of give. 
 
There's also dialog in one of those Ultimates books where a newscaster is describing a very naked Hulk going on a rampage and pausing to kill some 500-pound bystander and steal his pants before continuing.  My head canon insists that gamma radiation acts just like steroid abuse and shrivels one's tools like salted slugs, making the Green Goliath a bit shy about public exposure.

@Rich McGee, I’m sure that any point system isn’t 100% accurate. Even Hero System it point costs get argued over their values. Back in the day we played giant robots smash each other too and it ‘s fun. But looking at mech builds, even though I probably won’t play combined arms type game, I now appreciate certain builds that fill in a certain role. I’m glad now that MG are a threat to infantry and PPC not as much. I would like to play a game with design quirks sometime. At a more Meta level though this reminds me of a problem that any game can have. In Hero if one character is built to include skills and another doesn’t and the GM runs a game that don’t make taking the skills worth it. Who’s the better character? 
 
Btw, I have Mechwarrior 1st Ed. Let’s roll up lances based on those tables. An Urbanmech comes up way too often for my tastes! 😂

That's one of the other issues with "balancing" the game.  There are two similar but different ways to calculate BPVs at this point, both of which were added to a system that was never meant to have them, so they produce some strange results at times and there's definitely no universal consensus on which is better, or even if either is worth using.  There's folks who insist using the lists C-Bill costs is the right way to go, which makes most advanced tech prohibitively expensive to use in volume and lets low-tech junkers outnumber anyone using Clantech or significant amounts of IS advanced tech by quite a lot.  The C-Bill system was even less intended to be a balance mechanism for one-off games, having been invented for strategic campaigns and the RPG.  And with the huge differences in tech levels the original (albeit crude) "just take the same tonnage of mechs"  doesn't work any more unless everyone is on a level field tech-wise.
 
I'm unconvinced the game's ever been or will be balanced in an objective sense.  The best BT games I've had in the last twenty years saw four-six of us each bring four mech designs of our choice, then hand them to the player on your left so they can pick one and pass the rest on, repeating until all the mechs are handed out and everyone had a full lance.  Pretty much a Magic CCG draft with mechs.  Results in a chaotic mess of unexpected mechs for everyone, but they were fun and a decent test of how well you used the random stuff you'd wound up with.
 
Sometimes just chucking the pretense of largely illusory game balance is the best answer. 
Yeah, that's the truth.  If it had gotten some more supplemental material (adventures, or setting books) it would have helped a lot.  Mekton was just as versatile and just as generic originally, but they course corrected and stuck an optional default setting in the core book, then went on to bang out quite a few more setting expansions.  That really helped give it a feel of its own without leaving all the work to you.

Only in Robot Warriors, I'm afraid. 
 
I _wanted_ Battletech, but as the only person I knew who was interested, I couldnt really justify the expenditure back then; Robot Warriors I could justify, having accidentally bought Robot Gladiators first.  At that point,I obviously _had_ to have the game, or the supplement was wasted money, right?
 
I liked Robot Warriors well enough, but the overall genericness of it (game-build and mech-wise) was always just a bit disappointing. 
 
it's like you really wanted to see the Jovian Chronicles anime but your parents bought you Robot Jox instead:  you liked it, but it didn't quite scratch that itch.....
 
 
 
 

What Hero campaign starts with the universal expectation that costumes are vulnerable to destruction, no matter the source?  And if that is the expected norm, why isn't everyone at similar risk of sudden exposure from enemy attacks, environmental stuff, etc.?  Further, if you want a bunch of naked supers at the end of many fights why would you then include "unstable molecules" that make people who buy it immune to the whole problem, and how much it need to cost to let a player skip something that you've gone out of your way to work into your game?  This feels like  strange thing to lampshade in the first place, and even stranger if people without magic costumes aren't also susceptible to involuntary nakedness when the exhibitionist flamethrower guy hits them with a fire blast.
 
In most comic-trope-using settings this is an SFX, and most likely a near-universal one.  You could still have people who explicitly don't have invulnerable costumes or censor boxing when they wind up naked, but that seems like something you'd do because solely for the roleplaying possibilities.  Or maybe because you bought a bunch of "The More Skin The Better" skill levels or PD/ED that gradually activate when enemy attacks damage your costume...kind of a Mirror Universe version of Adam Warren's Empowered, whose whole schtick is a comedically fragile supersuit and powers that (supposedly) get weaker as it gets more and more shredded.  But she's the only one in the setting with that problem, with everyone else's outfits winding up with nothing worse than artistic tears and tattering.
 
I get that this is probably about a Johnny Storm type, but the whole unstable molecules thing came about to lampshade the fact that 75% of the Fantastic Four don't work well unless they're naked (which the CCA would object to) or their costumes are made of Comic Science.  That's just an SFX unless the stuff gives you other bennies that reproduce a power or skill levels or whatever.

@Rich McGee and @Duke Bushido and anyone else, did you guys design you own Battlemechs? Or at least customize them? I find that building your own that fits into 3025 era (starting) has a certain feel and is similar to building a good character.

OSR grogs frequently boast of how much "smarter" and more "tactical" they have to be when playing because of OD&D's deadliness, particularly compared to WotC editions.  IME they're trash players compared to the old-school Traveller mob.  No magical healing in Traveller (barring a GM who lets psionics in) so that crutch is absent, your "hit points" never increase to let you shrug off damage, and the baddies are carrying the same weapons and armor your are - ie, the best ones they can afford and get away with carrying at the local law level.  

Hopalong Rabbit
 
Questionable whether he's a villain, but Hopalong Rabbit is certainly a problem for OK Clown. He's actually Princess Bareback's pet rabbit, and isn't he just the cutest thing!
Problem is, Hopalong has a habit of getting out of his cage, and into trouble. Like bouncing his way into a construction site full of dangerous machinery, or a factory loaded with the same. Of course, OK Clown will then have to save the little rabbit  - isn't he cute! - and naturally, Hopalong is always just ahead of the pile driver's fall or the cutting saw's sweep - leaving the hapless clown chasing after him to take the hit...
It should be noted that in all of the shorts Hopalong was in, at the end the bruised and battered OK Clown returned Hopalong safely to his cage - whereupon the camera zoomed in on Hopalong - who sniggered.

a whipper-snipper is a grass cutting device (specialized in grass edges, as opposed to a lawn mower)

Oh so it’s D&D then! 😁 I’ll dodge now!

Around here that would be traffic cones, and the space between the curb and sidewalk proper, which is frequently covered in grass.  The cones would be a warning not park in street in front of them.
Whipper-snapper (usually with "young" in front of it) is an insulting term for anyone younger than you who's being a snot-nosed little brat in the US.  Used to be more explicitly reserved for actual kids, but it's become more of a general response to anyone who pulls out "Boomer" as an insult.   No idea if that's the intent here, though.  Maybe it does mean cop somewhere.
 
Hmmm - digging further, it appears to date back to UK in the 17th century, where it started as "snipper-snapper" which meant a young street thief/scammer, then morphed into whipper-snapper (based on urban loafers who sat around snapping whips for amusement), which also might have originally meant "highwayman" (for obvious reasons) then became conflated with snipper-snapper in the sense of any young layabout or petty criminal.  The modern for is somewhat less derogatory, if anything.
 
There's also a variant that's basically just "a young boy" from the same period, but that's boring.
 
Learns something new every day - or old, in this case. 

There's an old issue of Power Man & Iron Fist that canonically established that Luke (who also has trouble keeping his shirt intact) buys his yellow silk shirts a dozen at a time from the same NYC tailor that Bruce Banner gets his pants from.  Presumably the fabric has a whole lot lot of give. 
 
There's also dialog in one of those Ultimates books where a newscaster is describing a very naked Hulk going on a rampage and pausing to kill some 500-pound bystander and steal his pants before continuing.  My head canon insists that gamma radiation acts just like steroid abuse and shrivels one's tools like salted slugs, making the Green Goliath a bit shy about public exposure.

Agreed, although the other side effect was to plan to have every advantage possible when violence was the most (or only) viable option.  Really taught people how to plan ambushes and distractions and use dirty tricks and sabotage...and plot out your withdrawal if things still go wrong.  Never fight unprepared, and don't fight at all if you can talk your way out of having to.