Cool buzz from the Hero boards

I've got several blog entries planned and haven't gotten to them yet, so I'll try just knocking one out whenever I get a chance, even if it's slightly outdated (gee, isn't that how blogging is supposed to work)?

I've been a big Hero Games fan for years and my love of the Champions game in particular is one of the roots of Devil's Cape.

A couple of nice items came up on the Hero discussion boards about Devil's Cape and I thought I'd share them here. The first is the cool animated-style image of Bedlam that my old buddy Noah created. I've posted it to the left (or above, depending on how your browser window is set up).

The second is that some nice reviews have been posted there. I wanted to share one in particular, from forum member Log-Man. If you're a board member, you can read the post here. In case you're not (and if you're a gamer, it's a great community!), then I'll include the review in its entirety after the jump.


And here it is:

I finally finished the book last night. I know. I started reading it as soon as it came out, but I've had myriad distractions. Long story short: I was finally able to devote time to reading Devil's Cape. Before I move on to the review let me just say this: I generally hate reading stories written by people I know, even online acquaintances, because if they're awful I don't know what to say. Generally, if the writing is awful, I just don't say anything. That is not a problem here. Please believe me when I say this book is good. Damn good. In fact, I was blown away.

There are generally two types of supers prose out there: fan-fiction and mockery. I am pleased to see that a third category, genuine storytelling, is emerging at last. Devil's Cape is a real novel that supers fans can sink their teeth into. (This is a very good sign for supers prose readers when combined With Soon I Will Be Invincible in my mind.) The book logs in at over 400 pages, which is very long for this genre. The overall story being told is very complex, though, and requires a lot of space to explain the relationships, sub plots, and character development. I loved the framework for the novel with the clippings and the timeline at the beginning of each chapter.

The characters are intriguing and genuine. There are a lot of characters here, with many receiving long stories individually. There are heroes; legends of the past, a modern super team from another city and a trio of new supers. The three new heroes embody a number of myths and legends, from ancient Greece to Camelot to Voodoo. Each one is given plenty of time to develop into a character that we can sympathize with and root for.

Of course there are villains, too; a mysterious mastermind, squabbling mob bosses, the freakish circus of mercenaries, a sexy vampiric psychopath, street gangs, and even the city of Devil's Cape itself. While some of them are quite developed, there are others I really wanted to know more about. The Cirque du Obsurite is a wonderful collection of villainy. They are bloodthirsty killers with incredible power, yet they have spent their lives on the run, fearful of what may happen when anybody catches up with them. (The Behemoth is a great character, a ten foot monstrosity of muscles upon muscles that distort his tattoos. He eats raw meat and quotes Faulkner. Awesome.) We don't get time with the entire Cirque, though, and that would be my main quibble with the book. These characters have a lot of potential (Gork? What the hell is that??) but we really only see inside the heads of a few.

The setting is amazing, both the world in general and the city of Devil's Cape specifically. Most fictional cities give you a place for the action to occur. Devil's Cape is a fully realized character in the novel. The details and descriptions are just delicious. You can feel the humidity as you read. The best part, though, is that the images aren't forced down your throat in overly wordy passages. It's more like a puzzle being revealed piece by piece through to the very end. The final picture of Devil's Cape is one of true, complex realism.

My imagination was piqued by the fantasy level in play. There is no invulnerability, for example. Take Argonaut. Argonaut is Greek for "punching bag." He takes some massive damage without dying, but as he learns the hard way, gunshots can hurt like hell. Poor guy. And he's the hardest to hurt, apparently. Then there's Doctor Camelot. If I didn't know better I would swear that this book was written after the Iron Man movie came out. The level of detail with her battle armor is incredible. However, I find Cain Ducett's story the most fascinating, personally. His hyper senses make Daredevil look blind…umm, you know what I mean…and the descriptions of his awareness really help to get inside his head. His is a redemption story that fascinates long before he becomes Bedlam.

Ok, this review is going on too long. A final note from a gamer's perspective. The instinct is to wonder when we'll see this information in game form. The city is just rife with possibilities. I'm not sure I want to see the characters converted, however. Sometimes attempting to quantify something like this can lessen the wonder. I say leave the characters in the novel…even though I would love to see the Cirque du Obscurite take on Eurostar Just my opinion, of course, but we know the author is a gamer and it's being published by WotC (whom I imagine retain gaming material rights as well) so it's quite possible we'll see Devil's Cape: The Setting at some point in the future.

Rob, this is an incredible book. When the worst thing I can find to say about it is that I don't like the cover art, you know you have something special. Congratulations!

Due to the anonymity of the Internet, I'm not sure who Log-Man is, exactly, but I appreciated the kind review (and Noah's Bedlam picture as well).

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Devil's Cape Chapter One

Quick update. My buddy Jeff Hebert of HeroMachine fame was kind enough to offer to host the PDF on one of his sites (actually, the awesome Uberworld site that Jeff set up for the Uberworld campaign universe where I'm a somewhat lax participant--if you have a hankering for great superhero play-by-e-mail gaming, or just want to read an assortment of really cool Champions characters, check it out).

Anyway, if you'd like to read the first chapter of Devil's Cape. click the image above or this link and all will be revealed.

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Breaking news: Champions Online

I just noticed this on the Hero Games site, the announcement that there will be a Champions Online game from Cryptic Studios (who created City of Heroes).

Here's the info:

We’ve interrupted our regularly-scheduled programming for this special Monday news announcement! Hero Games and Cryptic Studios are proud to announce that they recently concluded a deal for Cryptic to create the Champions Online Massively Multiplayer Roleplaying Game!

The basics of the deal are this. Cryptic has bought the Champions and Dark Champions intellectual property from us — the characters, places, events, and so on — and licensed back to us the right to produce Champions RPG books. Cryptic has not bought the HERO System rules, and the Champions Online MMO will not use the HERO System rules for character creation or anything else (though it may use a lot of HERO System terminology). You can read more official information, including the press release, on the “Champions Online MMO” forum of our Discussion Boards. The first post on that board includes a link to the new webpage for the MMO. We hope all you HERO/Champions fans out there are as excited as we are about this, and we look forward to seeing you in the world of Champions Online!

Check out more detail at the Hero Games site or the new Champions Online site. I've stayed away from MMORPGs up until this point, but this might draw me in.

On the positive side, it seems like a cool game. On the negative side, it seems like the Champions Universe as we know it is likely to be completely dominated by this.

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HeroMachine custom portrait contest

I've got a link for HeroMachine in the links section of this blog, but I haven't written about it yet. This is an ultra-cool resource that lets you create custom portraits of characters from a variety of genres. It's the brainchild/masterpiece of Jeff Hebert, all-around cool guy* and great artist. It's like if you took my old favorite toy, Mighty Men & Monster Maker, and ramped up the awesomeness exponentially.

I probably don't need to give a lot of background--just hop over to the site and play around there. But I will let you know about a neat contest that Jeff is running. He's giving participants who post images they've created through HeroMachine the opportunity to qualify for a drawing to get, well, a drawing--an original custom portrait that he'll create. You can read the details here.

I've been fortunate enough to be the recipient of some of Jeff's original artwork before (I commented on some of that here and here), so I'm not fishing for more. But I thought it would be a fun opportunity to participate and show some of the cool (to me, anyway) images I've created over the years with the program. You can click on any of these for a larger version.

This first one is Ari, a villain I created a while back for my face-to-face Champions game. He was one of a slew of human/insect hybrid characters I created for a storyline where a bunch of people in the campaign city were getting insect powers. Ari was a kind of crazy guy who venerated samurais, at least their outward trappings. His mutation (into an ant form) made him incredibly strong and durable and he gave the heroes trouble whenever he showed up. I like the flexibility that HeroMachine gives you in details, items, colors, etc. In this case, I took an ant head and put it on a skeleton body for what I thought was a pretty cool effect. The samurai trappings added to his oddness. He was fun.


Next up is Fist of the Pharaoh, from another storyline in the same game. The characters had become involved in the magic of an ancient mummy. When they returned from another adventure (in a different adventure), they found that their city had been converted into a kind of hybrid of their old city and ancient Egypt, with Egyptian architecture and design, different themes and appearances for the inhabitants, etc. Oh, and of course everyone in the city was under the magical thrall of the mummy. Fist of the Pharaoh was the Egypt-ized version of Stalwart, a Champions character from the Champions Universe book.



This one is Miss Chance. She actually plays a small, but important role in Devil's Cape, and HeroMachine was a handy way for me to get my thoughts for character design into a visual format. This particular design is a little over the top for the general tone of my book, so don't be put off. I don't want to give a lot away, but she's basically a four-color/Silver Age character who makes the mistake of coming to the city of Devil's Cape to try to right an old wrong.






Here's Cascade, a PC I play a lot in the campaign I run (he's added muscle for the team in a battle, a character players can pick up and run when their own characters are knocked out or off screen, and a character I can play when someone else takes a turn at GMing). Cascade is a mild-mannered high school math teacher and wrestling/swimming coach who can also turn into a huge mass of water. This is the only one of the images I had to PhotoShop a little bit, using layers to enable me to employ two different character forms for the dripping water effect.




Just for giggles, here's me, from Jeff's "real life" version. Perhaps slightly more ripped than in real life...










I'll wrap it up with this one, The Pirate Smasher, from my son Alex. He's had lots of fun playing with HeroMachine and "creating superheroes for your book, Dad."









Anyway, HeroMachine is great fun and now it's even absolutely free since Jeff found a sponsor. Check it out, play around, have fun, and enter Jeff's contest.

*Oh, but if Jeff disses West Coast Avengers, just try to ignore it. He clearly doesn't know any better.

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The advantages of limiting character options

There was an interesting thread on the Treasure Tables web site about limiting character options when you start out a role-playing campaign. Most of Treasure Tables seems to deal with D&D, but a lot of the concepts carry over. I used to keep things more or less wide open when starting a new campaign, particularly for Champions (the usual kind of "let the players come up with PCs, then find a reason for them to unite as a team" kind of thing). But I'm coming around to the story advantages of limiting character options at the outset, giving more focus to a campaign. Below is the comment I contributed to the thread:

I’m coming around more and more to the idea of limiting character options based on the campaign concept. It can actually be a big boost to interest and creativity if done right.

I play Champions, which is, of course, something of a different animal than D&D. Due to the nature of the game, you will typically have a few general guidelines as things start–a point total, a campaign city, and general guidelines as far as level of lethality.

My face-to-face campaign started along these lines. The primary PCs started with 250 points, including disadvantages (this was during 4th edition–it would probably be 350 points now), and all were tied to San Angelo. I ended up with a mage, a firefighter-turned energy projector, and an armored guy. They crossed paths during the first adventure and eventually teamed up, and the campaign has lasted on and off for several years. The upsides include flexibility for the players and a wide variety of play options.

But other games have taught me the value of more specific guidelines and how they can add value. In one of my favorite face-to-face campaigns, all the PCs had to be beholden to PRIMUS (a U.S.-based SHIELD-like organization) in some way, and they ended up under orders as a sort of second-tier superhero team. The initial structure of the campaign was much more limited (they went where their boss told them to go), but the campaign relied much less on coincidence to bring the heroes together and gave them real room to grow (for example, when they began to suspect that their boss wasn’t such a good guy). I run a PBEM campaign where all the heroes work for Disney and have Disney-themed powers (not really tongue in cheek, just corporate heroes and spokespeople, like Doctor Tomorrow who has gadgets and equipment reminiscent of Tomorrowland). It wouldn’t appeal to everyone, but the strong theme and limitations on character backgrounds really helped boost the players’ creativity in some areas and have helped to make for some cool storylines.

Sometimes adding restrictions can really help to get the creative juices flowing.

To carry this back to D&D, I could see a campaign based around the concept “you are all members of the duke’s elite guard” or “you are all performers for a traveling carnival” or “you are all dwarven soldiers separated from your regiment by a purple worm attack” as being more interesting than “you are all adventurers who met in a tavern.”

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Hero City characters

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out this cool post (and cool art) from Jeff Hebert especially since he mentions me. I've let the Hero City campaign die off a bit, but intend to bring it back in a month or so. I really have fun with it. Check it out.

Since Jeff uses three images on his site, I'll use one he left off, also by him, for CrashTest. Check the link above for the other three.

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Toxico = awesome

Obviously, I haven't posted any gaming characters recently. The most recent "character of the week" was La Cucaracha back in September 2005.

But gentleman, scholar, and artist extraordinaire Jeff Hebert was kind enough to illustrate a character for me, a Chemo homage I came up with a number of months back called Toxico. And if that image (if you haven't clicked it yet to see it in all its glory, then what the heck is wrong with you?) isn't cool enough to warrant a post, I don't know what is. In fact, Jeff has posted about it as well, so make sure you visit his site for that.

The background he's based on is below. Or you can to see the full Hero System character sheet in all its glory. I was kind of proud of my build for him.

Background: No one's quite sure, or at least, no one admits to knowing, how Toxico came to be. It might have been an experiment of Baron Doom or CLAW, or perhaps it was created by a mad scientist who paid the ultimate price for his folly. But Toxico is clearly not of natural origin. The rampaging monster appeared for the first time in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1961 and was narrowly defeated by two superheroes. Over the years, it has returned again and again to menace humanity.

Personality: Toxico seems to exist only to wreak havoc. A rampaging monster with subhuman intelligence, it derives its greatest satisfaction from breaking things--like buildings, army tanks, and superheroes. Toxico does not reason quite as a human being would--it acts more like an angry animal. It is fairly easy for a villain to manipulate Toxico into action. It possesses some degree of reasoning; it can understand English, although it can't actually speak, and it has an uncanny sense for homing in on the spot that the heroes would most like it to avoid. Toxico is less a personality, though, than it is a dangerous weapon that can level entire city blocks.

Quote: "RRRRAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!" (Toxico can bellow, but cannot speak.)

Powers: Toxico is a humanoid creature with thick, transparent skin that resembles plastic. Inside this hollow shell is a mass of dangerous chemicals. When Toxico is exposed to large quantities of chemicals, its body can absorb them into itself, making its human-sized body swell to tremendous proportions--as much as 17 meters tall. In this form, it is incredibly strong and tough, and can project chemicals from within its body to burn or engulf opponents. The special effects of these attacks vary depending on the chemicals Toxico absorbed--they can be poisonous, acidic, fiery, cold, or even radioactive. Toxico can heal most quickly when it is able to expose itself to additional dangerous chemicals.

Appearance: Toxico appears as a roughly humanoid creature with thick, transparent, plastic-like skin. It has no bones or organs; instead, it is much more like a balloon filled with deadly chemicals. Those chemicals inside its body boil and churn inside for all to see. Toxico's head is bald, and its eyes are glowing green pools of light.

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Character of the Week: La Cucaracha

Here's another PC of mine from the Global Guardians campaign world, La Cucaracha.

Here's an excerpt from her background: "She was working on the fourth story of the hotel when the earthquake hit Acapulco. Many buildings withstood the damage, but the poorly constructed hotel collapsed. Inez fell nearly twenty feet as the floor beneath her crumbled, then found herself pinned against a reinforced support beam while rubble and debris fell around her. With several ribs crushed and a lung punctured, she stared around at the ruin. She saw a bed on its side; a fat man with a bathroom mirror protruding from his pale, white back; and a large suitcase burst open, colorful vacation clothing pluming out like a bouquet. She noticed the wall beside her trembling and dozens of cockroaches scuttling out through the wallpaper. Inez had never read about irony, but she understood it, and, certain that she was going to die, she found a certain wry amusement in the fact that the cockroaches she so often squashed as part of her cleaning were going to escape the building while she did not."

You can read her whole background here.

By the way, the cool art was by a fellow player in the campaign named Zen Fairborn.

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Character of the Week: Stuntman

Stuntman was the first character I created for the Global Guardians Universe. He has survived a campaign reboot and is a lot of fun to play. Let me know what you think.

Here's an excerpt:

Just as his gag (falling, in flames, from a tall building, yet managing to twist and bounce off a plum tree in order to land on a fireworks display, setting them off and pointing them toward the movie's villain with his dying breath) was beginning, he saw Deng wandering into the pyrotechnics display. Already on fire, already falling, Peter had to change the pattern of his fall from the safe, planned route that would launch the pyrotechnics and burn or kill his brother to a dangerous, unguarded fall that would likely kill him. As usual, he did it with panache, thinking to himself, "I hope they can still use this footage." Still, adrenaline coursed through his veins as never before. As he fell, the world seemed to slow around him. Every movement became ultra precise. Every twist of his muscles was calculated with three priorities in mind: Protect Deng. Try to stay alive. Make it look good for the cameras.

You can read the whole character here.

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Character of the Week: Small Wonder

Here's a fun character I created for the Hero City campaign I run in the Global Guardians PBeM game. He's already given the PCs some headaches and likely will return at some point to bedevil them. I enjoy him because he's cute and innocent-looking, cherubic, even. And he's always got a painted smile on his face. But he's as foul-mouthed, vicious, spiteful, and just plain evil-hearted as all get-out.

Here's an excerpt from his background:

On the beautiful July morning when the Hero City theme park was opening its gates to visitors for the first time, the technomancer Daemon of the squad of hackers and thieves called the Comets had one important job: to create distractions in all of the entertainment company's theme parks in the area. The distractions would help his team fulfill its real mission.

Daemon found himself on an air-conditioned boat ride through a world of small dolls, all moving to the sound of singing children. He rather liked the music, though he hated to admit it, and used his magically enhanced PDA to cast spells on literally dozens of the dolls via IR beams. He was confident that when the time came, they would do what he needed them to do.

Most of them would. One, however, reacted somewhat differently than expected. Not even it knows why. Perhaps the magical effect was enhanced somehow. Or perhaps a temperamental demon or poltergeist got caught up in the spell.

Whatever the reason, although dozens of the dolls became animated, one in particular was stronger, more intelligent, more aggressive, and more perverse than the rest. One of them became a free-willed powerhouse with a knack for destruction. One of them became Small Wonder.

You can read the rest here.

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Character of the Week: Nordkapp Man

I've only got a few minutes to post, so I'll direct you to one of my favorite PCs, already housed on the Global Guardians site. I'll post his image here, though, too. A great amateur artist going by the handle Mangog on the Hero Games web site created his image for me. He drew both images and colored the one in the blue shirt; I colored the one in the orange shirt.

Here's an excerpt:

On March 15, 1964, a team of Norwegian geologists investigating a glacial fragment that had recently settled against a fjord on the North Cape of Norway, near the town of Nordkapp. They made a startling discovery, one of the most amazing archaeological finds of the twentieth century. Frozen in the fragment, perfectly preserved, they discovered a Neanderthal hunter. His pale skin was intact, his arms outstretched as if trying to catch himself. Wanting to preserve the specimen, they proceeded carefully, leaving the ice around his body. They’d all heard stories about wooly mammoths broken free from the ice, their bodies beginning to rot almost as soon as the air and the heat touched them. They wished to risk no such destruction of their Neanderthal, who they dubbed "the Nordkapp Man." Quickly, they contacted a team of archaeologists to help them preserve the body and study it properly. Late that evening, though, something rather amazing shook them up even more than their initial discover. Beneath the ice, the Nordkapp Man’s eyes opened.

To read the rest, click here.

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Character of the Week: Mung

One of my favorite hobbies is playing role-playing games, especially when using the Hero System. I don't get much opportunity to play face-to-face games anymore, but I do get to play games by e-mail now and then. It's usually not too hard to find a few minutes here and there to post a turn or describe your character's actions. The games move at a much slower pace than face-to-face games (an adventure that might take four hours to resolve sitting around a table with a few other players, some dice, and a pizza might take months to resolve via e-mail), but players also can take the time to use more characterization, to play off each other a bit more, and to think through puzzles or tactical situations. It helps to indulge my writing bug.

At any rate, I end up creating a number of characters--both player characters, or PCs (characters that I plan to run as a player) and non-player characters (background, supporting, or antagonistic characters run by the gamemaster, a role I also fill fairly often). Some of them get shared with others, but a number of them end up languishing on my disk drive for one reason or another.

I thought that it might be fun to share some of these characters on this site from time to time, to see what people think of them, or to give people the opportunity to use them in their own campaigns. Let me know what you think.

I'll start with an old favorite of mine, Mung. You can read about him here.

Here's an excerpt from his background to whet your appetites...

"Gray-skinned Tarmyk Firebristle was reputed to be the most taciturn and stoic of Khazak minstrels, if not the most skilled, yet even he was known to lift a calloused hand to his leathery cheek and brush away an unashamed tear when he related the tale of the fall of the Harralind Mines. The story sat heavy on Dwarven hearts, and was generally reserved for the gravest of occasions—funerals, visits of states, times of war, and nights when the listeners were all already very, very drunk."

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