Chat about the game...

Just to be clear.  Rather than look at them as an organized cohesive organization like the police force, look at them more as an association like a medical association who supervises licenses and makes sure code of ethics are followed and proper training is received.  So they are open-ended in many ways to help fit any other magical characters that come along.

What I didn't put into or made clear in Professor Wynde's origin was that he was met and scouted in London and went to some place in Scotland for training.  That's where the current training facility is for the UK.  

So Wonder Man would be taken to Scotland,  after everything is over, to be re-educated [don't you just love that word] by OOP - given a more complete history of the world, time to acclimatize to the modern world and its conveniences, understanding of the magical and super-powered threats of the world today, given a new identity, etc.  They do this for a fellow good practitioner of magic and will help him find work after his training and hopefully he will then join OOP, and pay those oh so needed membership dues.  

New I.D. - same name as before, just different birth year and history.

I've already come up with an acronym for OOP's nemesis... Ahem.

Legion of Evil Mighty Magicians Intending Nefarious Global Supremacy (LEMMINGS)

That is so 1960s Man from U.N.C.L.E.! Love it. And I just happening to be downloading the issues of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents at the moment too, which was a blend of superheroes and super-spies.

Found an interesting villain called the Queen of Evil. Very early in the golden age, a number of villains had their own series in various comic books. When I get time, I will put up her first couple of adventures. She might be a good returning villain for many of our heroes.

I'm more than happy to use left field/long forgotten characters in any way we can. Saves me a job thinking stuff up! With regards Prof Wynde I hope you don't mind the 'golden age feel' I'm trying to put on his adventures. I feel that's the sort of character he is even though this grim modern age is gritty with pouches and blood and belts/straps over most characters (can you tell I'm not a fan of grim/modern?).

Is there a definitive list of super/vigilante reprinted in the Digital Comics museum anywhere? Some of the ones you've suggested are completely new to me and I had no idea they existed.

Look at Comic Book Plus https://comicbookplus.com/
They also have compilations of heroes and villains, collecting all their stories into one CBR or CBZ from all their comic book appearances. That's where I got the Queen of Evil compilation.
Check between Digital Comic Museum and Comic Book Plus to have the best chance of downloading most every Public Domain comic out there. Each one has some issues the other doesn't have.

Nice one will look at that when I get a decent chance.

As for updating it might be a bit spotty today and tomorrow as I have my youngest son with me and he's a minecraft fanatic so guess what we're playing for two whole days solid Not seen him for a month because of lockdown (we think he had corona virus before the lockdown so he was in quarantine for three weeks before because of the symptoms) so it's a bit of a catch up.

in the meantime having been woken at 6am (groan) I'm playing the 'it's too early to play video games' card so I'm gonna post up what I can.

Cheers, Paul

Super team of magic types.  Using under 1000 HP I would suggest:

1. Amazing Man and his sidekick, though his sidekick might send him over the 1000 HP.  I like him turning into green gas to fly and get out of tight situations.  That's a pretty interesting visual on the power.  His sidekick could join the teen magic heroes I mentioned in a previous post and that may be why Aman decided to put himself in a trance for decades, grief over losing his sidekick, not knowing he is a statue with the other magic kids and might be found and revived in modern times.
2. Wonder Man, ought to be fun to see him meet Amazing Man, another very early hero.
3. Margo the Magician and her mass hypnosis or would it be better to call it illusions?  Haven't read up on the description for those powers lately.  She would also have stage magic as a skill as well as some kind of performer or that might roll into stage magic.  She would also know Cantonese and Mandarin since she operated in China.  Probably Japanese too.  Her physical stats would be normal for a young athletic woman.
4.  Would like a 4th but trying to think of one who is different from the others and doesn't have sorcery, which would be about 90% of all the golden age heroes of one level or another, is a bit hard.  Dr. Occult could work but he is a DC character and we would not want to deal with that.  Have to think on it for a bit.

We could call ourselves the Magic Five!  Or Golden Heroes!  or Prof. Wynde and his Magic Friends [no, I'm not rifting off Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends - Honest!]!

Some of the characters might appear on WRITE UPS but the more obscure golden age stuff is unlikely. Certainly the Archie/Red Circle characters appear in some shape or form. They have a mixed history it seems with characters being bought up by DC and some (like the Fly) lapsing back to the creator after the terms of copyright retention aren't followed.

I'll have a dig through a list of golden age heroes and see if there is anyone quirky enough to stand out from the crowd of square jawed punchy/mysterious do anything and everything magic types. Wildfire seemed interesting.

Keep thinking on those names!

Yeah, Wildfire. Just thought of her after resting for a bit. Basically a flame version of Prof. Wynde. Instead of Magic Blast, she would have flame immunity. Her last couple of adventures she basically join either the Red Cross or the WACs [women's auxiliary Corps] so she has some first aid skills and being a socialite, she has those advantages. She also showed in the last couple of adventures that she knows something of martial arts, primarily throwing and punching, so maybe a 3 in Martial Arts, not highly trained but enough to handle a purse snatcher or someone. Her physical stats would be of a normal athletic woman.

In the process of downloading a comic called Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics. Hydroman was the cover star of the series until they started telling true war stories. At least one character, Music Master, has a magical origin. Got to check and see what the others have as origins - Hydroman, Rainbow Kid and Man o' Metal.

But there is the Flyin' Jenny newspaper comic strip turned into a comic book story in the war issues as well, so that's a plus.

How about... not accurately statting up the characters but taking a subject or a theme, adding some golden age flavour and trying to squeeze what we can out of 450HP, max of 750 with weaknesses etc. Prof Wynde will be the big hitter of the group and have the task of bringing them up to speed in the 21st Century against the menace of ADVENT. Just one Alien operative will be a challenge for the group, and they could number 8-10 or even more like a Legion of Super Heroes except with Golden Age characters forgotten by most people. A rotating membership for missions and while it's be more challenging might be more fun than springing fully formed and experienced as some of these characters seem to be, despite having their origin on one page and beating the snot out of bad guys for the next 6 pages.

I always figured the golden age characters who found themselves in the 21st cent would have one or two disads like, Confused about technology and/or Confused about changing society mores.

A push button phone isn't too different than a rotary phone. But a smart phone and all its apps would be except for the scientist types, who would adapt much quicker. Credit cards are also that they didn't have back then. Credit accounts with stores, yes, but not plastic. Computer? Maybe they could figure out how to get email but that would be about it. Cost of living would be a big shock too. You could get a good meal for a quarter back then.

Homosexuality, long hair for men, women showing their belly buttons, bikinis way skimpier than they were first used in the late 40s, stuff like that.

So, slowing getting those heroes turned into statues and brought back to life, using OOP to help them get new secret IDs, and yeah, having them go out with Prof. Wynde to find out the new ways that they have to fight crime. Biggie being instead of America they are now in England with totally different rules as to what is acceptable.

Could be fun.

Updates tomorrow (Sunday). Had a most enjoyable couple of days off work in the sun with beers and the girlfriend plus tunes from the 80s and 90s. Back to work Monday morning at 0120 in the morning, mind

Hope y'all are well chaps!

Cheers,

Paul

My posting will be patchy today and over the weekend as I'm reunited with the Girlfriend (who I've been isolating with for most of the last 6 weeks aside from this week where I've been on call at 0100...) and a sizeable mountain of beer (which I'm looking forward to seeing as much!) and on Sunday my kids for a couple of days so I'll be spending a lot of time on Minecraft I expect...

We've been told (as Train Drivers) that the trains will start ramping up to a full service on the 18th May which suggests the government have that in mind as the start of coming out of lockdown. As far as I know the pubs won't start to open till July (as told by a publican) so the trains will be pretty empty for a couple of months yet.

Wherever you are, hope you're safe!

Cheers, Paul

WE have a 3 phase plan for getting back to normal.  Each phase will be a minimum of 2 weeks and no moving to the next phase if it seems the numbers are going back up.  Our state is still in lockdown until May 8th, when we might get to start into phase 1.  Not holding my breath on going to Phase One on the 9th as our governor is a Democrat, hates Trump and, like all Democrats in power, wants to use this virus and the resulting economic downturn as a political tool, to try to get Trump voted out of power in the Fall's upcoming election.  Strangely  it is only states with Republican governors who are starting to open their states back up to going to normal right now.  

I don't lean in any political direction as such and vote whichever way my head decides (my heart would vote another way I suspect, but the awful mess some politicians leave lasts long in the memory). However Trump is great for comedic value over here. I'm frequently bombarded by memes and altered videos lambasting him.

Whether that is a good thing for the most powerful man in the world to inspire people to do or not is another thing...

Personally I feel he's a buffoon who's appealed to a certain demo-graph of dissatisfied voters and there's no viable alternative as the Presidential Race is mostly run by rich people with little interest in the common person on the street. If they fail to get to the White House they'll go back to their day job of being a millionaire... or Billionaire in Trumps case. However I feel about Trump it's clear that anyone with the right backing, piles of cash and the right message can get to be Leader of the free world. Not bad for a 'Buffoon'.

Injecting disinfectant... *sigh*

We will have to disagree on that one since I'm in that demographic.

He has revitalized the American economy, rebuilt the military, got rid of bad treaties that hurt the American economy, eliminated thousands upon thousands of bureaucratic red tape and rules and regulations, fought to remove corruption from the government ie The Swamp, and is constantly being attacked by the media and the Swamp, using every unconstitutional and illegal means that they can come up with to remove him from power and put themselves back in power.

And he plays the media like a violin!

Got kids till tomorrow so chances are I'll not be able to update until I get home from dropping them off tomorrow afternoon about teatime... (1700 GMT ish)

NP, have fun

Admin wrote:Got kids till tomorrow so chances are I'll not be able to update until I get home from dropping them off tomorrow afternoon about teatime... (1700 GMT ish)

Nice, hope all goes well, is going well - I wondered why things had gone so quiet. I suddenly thought had I missed a post, it turns out I did all these you guys have been bouncing back and forth about lockdown and trump and what not. Oh well, at least I now know why things have been quiet.

Sj

and all the posts with the various golden age comic book characters too.

DavidMcMahon wrote:and all the posts with the various golden age comic book characters too.    

Wow, see what has been happening when I'm away. I didn't even know about that thread. To be honest, I've been so busy, I've had to limit what I can do here anyway so I can keep up without being overloaded.

It's not going anywhere so I will take a look when things return to normal in maybe 5 years time ;-)

Sj

He said as glanced at the screen, “We have got to get that kid a new name. Flea, it sounds like he is going to bug out, any moment. Besides what you call something tends to determine how you think of it or them. If the boy is going to be part of the team, a good name lends itself to the right approach; this is now game after all.


Let's see, how about:
The Mighty Flea
The Biting Flea
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever Flea
Bubonic Plague Carrier
Typhus Carrier
Cat Flea
Dog Flea
[the two most common fleas out of the estimated 2500 types of fleas world-wide]

And I liked the list of heroes you had there, some of them seem to be members of the LSH from the descriptions. Cool Beans.

I wondered if anyone would spot the link to the LSH...

Back in the day (we're talking around 85-86) I concocted a team called the Chicago Champions which the PCs were inducted into and modelled them on the Legion with 'Kon El', 'Cosmos' 'Zapper' 'Grey Wolf' 'Solar Fury' and others, all built with 250HP (I think that was the starting amount back then before 2nd Edition and Factor Costs changed everything). There were around 20 NPCs and the PCs would go on missions with a random selection of the team. Others (not based on the LSH) included 'Ultimate Man' and were based on the JLA, again all with 250HP, loads of vulnerabilities and trying to squeeze most bang per buck out of the starting amount rather than 'cheat' with 500+ points.

The Mighty Flea! is based on a Champions/Hero system character for a Play By Post I ran called (funnily enough) 'The Mighty Flea' who was a 16 year old with super strength, agility and the ability to leap/cling as well as siphon blood to replenish him. Spent ages concocting up special moves, costume, background info and always cracked a joke with every post. I think the other players generally liked the way the character was played even though he was the annoying kid of the bunch. Then I logged in one day to find he'd been killed off by the GM and 'to make another character'. Anyway, that was that. If a character dies through bad rolls or whatever that's fine but when the GM decides at random to kill someone off I wonder what the heck I spent all the time/effort on so I left the game. The GM would quite often make us 'jump through hoops' with 'homework' like fan fiction and stories based on whatever the challenge was. Get it in on time? You get an XP bonus. Don't bother? You get practically nothing for the adventure and wasted months of RPing when the people who turned in homework saw their characters improve pretty much weekly.

At the time I was working 12+ hours a day every day and ran out of time more often than not so it was a bit of a blessing really. I don't hold grudges or bear hard feelings but I am mindful of putting characters in no win scenarios. If the player is stumped the character might come up with something.

An example was with Lionheart in the last couple of posts. Dave mentioned he was backed into a corner in the 'Prison of Death' and I rolled Lionhearts' Int 9 (which puts him pretty much at genius level) and hey presto, a clue presents itself. For Miss Victory she's been on the rack since she pretty much started but someone has turned up at every low point to help out in some way. Even now she's starting the basis for a new 'Femforce' to help her get through the prison to the bottom and the fight with the big bad guys. She might not know that yet mind...

Had a few players ask me to come back in the game with another character to replace Flea but by then I'd determined to run my own games and frequented a number of message boards. Eventually got round to starting this one and the rest, as they say, is history.

Dave/Frostbite will learn a little bit more as to why Flea calls himself Flea in the next few posts I expect...