Universal Comics Movieverse 15

15: Characters in Champions

I had promised myself that I would work out all four of the main main movie heroes in HERO terms for today’s post but it just didn’t happen. I should, heaven knows, but I’m too close to deadline and just don’t have the energy. This is why if I were to run a HERO game it would be in something like this where I only had to build one villain every two months.

More specifically I get to the skills system and come to a screeching halt. I prefer my skill systems to cap out at 20 or so skills, seeing anything past that as skills being too specific or trying to cover too many genres. HERO has a lot more than that, plus things like their skill based martial arts by maneuver, defensive actions and so on. The costs are weighted so much to combat as to be, at least to me, comic. It’s cheaper to be an un-paralleled surgeon than a modestly good martial artist, and being a really good martial artist has to cost as much as being a potent superhuman, in the name of balance. There are reasons why I don’t use the system.  Think I need someone to run a good yearlong HERO game for me to see why it’s so beloved. I get the rules, I can model powers, arrange point balances, etc. but I just don’t understand why.

In any event, here are two of the four heroes. And with all the grousing I’ve done lately about Star Trek no points for guessing what I’m up to next month.

Musings: Last Hero Movie request

Growing up I was a big fan of Iron Man and was therefore thrilled when Marvel got the Iron Man movie right. I liked the X-Men and have been satisfied with the first, second and first class films, even if they stray farther from the comics than I'd like in places (and don't give Cyclops enough to do). I was also a Batman fan but his movies have been very much a mixed bag, and I didn't even bother to go see the last one.

My crown jewel growing up was Fantastic Four. It's a shame that the movie version was so bad. It's a delicate concept in the family dynamics and exploration and I fear I will never see it done right for the same reasons I was grousing about Trek recently - exploration is not a flashy summer blockbuster.

Still, my real question is who you'd like to see a movie for AT ALL. No commenting on how you'd like to see X done right. It has to be a super hero who's never hit the movie screen.

Chewing on this myself I think I'll go with... Blue Devil. Call me crazy but his original series, the first year of it at least, was a lot of fun. Plus it's set in Holywood and about actors and stunt people and Holywood loves being narcissitc. It could be a fun action/comedy horror movie. the feel good folm of the summer!

C'mon - who's with me!

As a side note, I want to plug this awesome blog
http://braveandboldlost.blogspot.com/
covers to super hero team ups that never happened. Check it out!

Universal Comics Movieverse 14

14: Game Mechanics Changes in HERO

I am not a natural fan of the HERO system and Champions. I admire how long it’s been in publication and how closely it hewed to its original rules but I find character creation to be too math intensive and granular and the characters are too balanced for combat, which makes the fights last too long. This campaign, however, is somewhere that I think it would work well.

First of all, the granularity is a boon when you’re trying to differentiate between the supporting characters – especially in situations with multiple band members or doctors who would have identical backgrounds in V&V. And the time it takes to build a character in HERO is less of a factor when as a GM I only have to make up one villain per movie, along with some mook stats. That takes the burden off.

100

This marks post 101. Heh. I guess I'm really doing this. 

I did get a nice affirmation from the readers at Monkey House Games that there were some V&V players who tuned it for last month. Glad to have the company. 

Universal Comics Movieverse 13

13: Characters in V&V

Here are the sample heroes in V&V, to give you an idea of what I was talking about with rules mods. Broad Backgrounds are ALL CAPS, focused backgrounds are Standard Caps. The character Origin is in (parenthesis) as normal.