Legal Issues

Preparing for my game at SuperHero Sunday at Modern Myths, thought I'd share one of the available Player Characters.

the game will be a Marvel-DC crossover, and originally I was working on a very Big plot with lots of ties to obscure canon, and may indeed still do that, but maybe for a con-game.
Instead, many of the kernals of that original idea have morphed into something new, and it will be fun, with some silliness, but will have that same undercurrent of serious that great comicbooks can have.

So, the available player characters will be:

Luke Cage
Power Girl
Captain (Ms.) Marvel
Shazam
Troia
Wonder Man

And, so, to whet your appetite, here is...

CAPTAIN MARVEL
Carol Danvers

ENERGY ABSORPTION AND CONVERSION- 15  ◊◊◊ (1/2/3)

          +2 if Pushing

          +2 after 3 Usages

          +2 Linked with ENERGY BLASTS

          +2 Linked with PHYSIOLOGY

          +2 if a full round spent charging up

          Link (+5)

ENERGY BLASTS- 13  ◊◊◊ (3/2/1)

          +2 Linked w ENERGY ABSORPTION

          Link (+5)

HUMAN-KREE PHYSIOLOGY-   9 ◊◊◊ (1/1/1)

(Strong, Tough, Flight)

          +2 Linked w ENERGY ABSORPTION

         Link (+5)

AIR-FORCE HOT-SHOT- 7  ◊◊ (1/1)

         Link (+3)

SEVENTH-SENSE- 5  ◊ (1)

         Auto-Defend

          Link (+3)

COMPLICATIONS:

Alcoholic

Chip on Her Shoulder

EDITORIAL CONTROL: 2

THRESHOLD: 10

She has a very limited number of Traits, and I played around with the math (and yes, I know my numbers are off slightly, as in she is just over 200 I think), and I really like this build. She may run out of Traits quickly, but actually gets even more badass when she does.

Like, she gets attacked, has already used her ABSORPTION 3x, but only has one Setback Token:

"I push, using my ENERGY ABSORPTION to take the blow, falling to my knees as the energy courses through me."

I will spend a full round charging up after the attack.

So, for defense, player is rolling say, two dice, keeping the worst, but adding 19. For an attack after charing up, rolling three dice, keeping the worst, but adding 19 before Linking anything, and without pushing.

The Vulture

The Vulture has always fascinated me, as he was so old and frail seeming, but stood up to Spidey. Doc Ock also held some fascination, for his barrel chest and haircut.

Based on the Spidey 200 Point writeups from an earlier post, I would offer up that Vulture and Doc are 150 point villains, but, CC&VF is designed to make them worthy foes, through the use of EC and the like.
So, just because I like him a bit more, here is a 150 Point Vulture (actually 149 point).

VULTURE
Adrian Toomes

AERIAL COMBAT 9 (3/2/1)
Auto-Defend
Link +5

CUNNING 7 (1/2/3)
+2 Linked with Highly Intelligent
Link +3

WINGS- 6 (1/1/1)
Link +3

HIGHLY INTELLIGENT 5 (1/1)
Link +3

ELECTRICAL ENGINEER 5 (1/1)
Link +3

FLIGHT HARNESS 5 (1/1/1)
Link +3

EC: 3
Threshold: 12

Complications:
Vengeful
Trying to love his family
Petty

SOME EXPLANATION:
FLIGHT HARNESS gives Vulture some resistance to injury and heightened strength, it isn't Versatile, because that is basically all it does.
WINGS implies flight, but he can also use them as a shield against attacks, and cut with them, as they are razor sharp.

Spidey vs the Vulture.

Spidey is made with more points, Vulture has a significant sized pool of EC from which to draw, which, sets up very well, the three-act structure your story might have. Vulture will beat up Spidey once or twice, until Spidey shows up for the final fight, and takes care of the Vulture.

NOW, what happens if Spidey takes on the Sinister Six (assume each of them is 150 points).
They have their whole pool of EC to draw upon.
Give each of them fewer Setback Tokens, especially for the early Action Scenes. For the final Action Scene, maybe one of the Six was behind the whole thing, or was the spotlight villain, give him 4 Setback Tokens, and give the others 2, or maybe even give one of them only 1 Setback Token.
Spidey will also likely activate some Complications, gearing up for the final fight, so, it will be a memorable story, as no doubt Aunt May will be in jeopardy.

But, Spidey will find a worthy challenge in both circumstances, and this will make for a memorable Issue, and that is all CC&VF wants you to do!

And, then, imagine if Vulture got a super-awesome cool new Black suit he used for a while that made him even tougher? Beef him up to 200 points. And then, like in comics so frequently, he might go back to his green suit, complete with neck warmer!

INTRODUCING....!!!

So, I wrote up a Random Character Generation system for CC&VF.

It is totally free!


It also comes with 12 new Plug and Play Templates.

To illustrate it in action, I will make three characters here, one from each Design Point total (100, 150, 200).

To make things easy, I will choose the first template for each point total.

100 POINTS

So, I roll and get:

BATTLE FURY 9 (3/2/1)
Link +5
Fickle

MYSTICALLY EMPOWERED 7 (1/1/1)
Link +3

PREHENSILE TAIL 5 (1/2/3)
Link +3

ALTERNATE MOVEMENT- I decide to finish rolling before I decide how to define this. 4 (1/1/1)

POPULAR 3 (1/2/3)
Link +1

So, looking at the Traits I rolled up, the first thing that strikes me is he a little but like Reptil, but not exactly. I have to allocate Auto-Defend toa  Trait, so I pick MYSTICALLY EMPOWERED. And I get one Situational Boost. So, maybe the idea of a smiley, younger Hero who has some power granted him from a somewhat dark Mystical source, maybe a pentagram necklace. the tail is a demonic barbed tail, and for his alternate movement I settle on BLINKING, which I define as very short range Teleportation, only to locations that are visible to the character. The Situational Boost, I decide will be using his BATTLE FURY. And I name him:

KID INFERNAL

BATTLE FURY 9 (3/2/1)

Link +5

Fickle

+2 if used after the Fickle roll failed.

MYSTICALLY EMPOWERED 7 (1/1/1)

Link +3

Auto-Defend

PREHENSILE TAIL 5 (1/2/3)

Link +3

BLINKING 4 (1/1/1)

POPULAR 3 (1/2/3)

Link +1

NEXT

150 POINT CHARACTER

THE CHOSEN ONE 15 (1)

Only When the Chips Are Down

DOCTOR 9 (1/2/3)

Link +5

ENDURANCE 7 (3/2/1)

Link +3

SECRET LAIR/ HQ 5 (1/2/3)

Link +3

INVISIBILITY 5 (1/1/1)

Link +3

I have to allocate Auto-Defend and Allocate 2 Versatile slots.

Interesting, with the Chosen One and Doctor immediately coming to mind is some sort of character who found a hidden mystical nation, and studied there, learning secrets known to few, capturing some of the Doctor Strange/ Iron Fist vibe.

Doctor is ranked very high, so he is one of the world's finest Doctors.

I decide that his Secret Lair is actually a pocket dimension that he can access from anywhere, and traveling to the mystical nation grants him cool powers, sort of matrix style, but maybe that he kind of steps out of time for a moment and powers up.

Therefore I present to you:

DOCTOR DRAGON

THE CHOSEN ONE 15 (1)

Only When the Chips Are Down

DOCTOR 9 (1/2/3)

Link +5

ENDURANCE OF THE DRAGON 7 (3/2/1)

Link +3

Auto-Defend

MYSTICAL LAIR 5 (1/2/3)

Link +3

Versatile (Teleport, Martial Arts, ___, ___)

INVISIBILITY 5 (1/1/1)

Link +3

Lastly, 200 POINTS:

POPULAR 12 (1/2/3)

Link +5

ADAPTATION 12 (1/1/1)

TRANSPORTATION 9 (1/1/1)

Link +5

RECKLESS 9 (2/1)

Link +5

RESISTANCE 7 (1/1/1)

Link +3

MYSTICALLY EMPOWERED 5 (1/1/1)

Link +3

Hmmm..... Transportation needs to be defined a bit more, per the writeup (skateboard, motorcycle, jetpack, etc), but immediately I think of an extreme sports athlete. Not to tread too much on the toes of the good Dr (above) I decide that this Hero has a public ID, and was a very beloved Extreme Sports star, though not necessarily gold-medal winning, but a true media darling. He decided to talk his spiritual journey and as an avalanche trapped him, he focused his inner energies and persevered and as he dug his way out of the snow, found a temple atop the mountain, where before there was nothing. He spent many months learning the ways of these mystical monks, and returned to the east, no better at sports he competed in, but given a greater gift. He publicly told his story, which was met with some derision, as he was beloved, he had a reputation as a bit of a goofball, and he announced he would now be using his powers for good. Thus, was born:

(note I allocated his Auto-Defend)

THE RIGHTEOUS ONE

Brodie St. John

POPULAR 12 (1/2/3)

Link +5

ADAPTATION 12 (1/1/1)

Auto Defend

XTREME TRANSPORT (skateboard, snowboard, BMX bike, etc) 9 (1/1/1)

Link +5

RECKLESS 9 (2/1)

Link +5

RESISTANCE 7 (1/1/1)

Link +3

MYSTICALLY EMPOWERED 5 (1/1/1)

Link +3

(I loosely define his XTREME TRANSPORT as any XTreme sports style means of transport, that magically appears as needed).

Does Whatever a Spider Can

One of the playtesters for the game had this comment:

Spider-Man never uses a gun.

This was actually not a comment on Spider-Punisher, but more to the point of talking about how in some games, it seems perfectly logical to have Spidey use some sort of Agility based weapon, because of his super agility.

Obviously, CC&VF doesn't have that problem, I mean, you can draw a picture of your Hero with a gun and describe them using their gun, but maybe their only Trait is :STONE-COLD ASSASSIN and that covers having a gun or knife or whatever. CC&VF is not concerned with such things.

Onto the subject of Spidey. I statted up a workable Spidey here with 200 Design Points (because, c'mon, Spidey is a big hitter as much as he wants to paint himself out to be just an average Joe).

Cap said it best: "every time I have fought alongside you... I have been amazed."

(that moment makes me choke up a bit)

But, what I will also write-up here is the Iron Spider Spider-Man, to show a character can be redesigned.

SPIDER-MAN
200 points

SPIDEY SENSES 9 (3/2/1)
Auto-Defend
Link +5

PROPORTIONAL AGILITY OF A SPIDER 9 (1/2/3)
Link +5

WEB-SHOOTERS 9 (1/1/1)
Incapacitate
Link +5

PROPORTIONAL STRENGTH OF A SPIDER 7 (1/1/1)
Link +3

SCIENCE NERD 6 (1/1)
Link +3

NEVER GIVES UP 5 (1/2/3)
Only When the Chips Are Down
Link +3

WISECRACKING 5 (1/1)
Not-A-Finisher
Link +3

EC: 3
THRESHOLD: 12

FACTOIDS:
Wall-Crawler
Spidey Webs

COMPLICATIONS:
Aunt May
MJ
JJ Jameson
With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility

Ed. NOTE:So, I gave him 3 EC, which ups his Threshold, and gives him a bit more moxy to do cool things.What about wall-crawling?  Well, spidey does it, that is a fact. Is it that useful in combat, can Spidey cling to wall to keep from doing something? Maybe, sometimes. I had to make a choice here.Locomotion in my games tends to be hand-waved. Flying characters fly, Spidey spins his webs (has anyone noticed how he how up he gets from some of his panels, even with no buildings around?) dude on a motorcycle gets there, superheroes are able to get from panel to panel. Unless doing such is some sort of challenge. You may disagree nd want to adjust the points to give him wall-crawling, I would just assume Spidey is bouncing off walls and crawling up them. 

IRON SPIDER ARMOR SPIDER-MAN

the writeup is the same as above with the following changes:
no more WEB-SHOOTERS
EC drops to 2
THRESHOLD drops to 10

Not-A-Finisher is removed from WISECRACKING

+2 Linked with IRON SPIDER ARMOR is added to Strength

and he gets a new Trait:
IRON SPIDER ARMOR 9 (1/1/1)
Versatile (webshooters, waldoes, protection, ___, ___, ___)

http://marvel.wikia.com/Iron_Spider_Armor

Next up-
I want to do a Sinister Six post that shows how the Villainous pool of EC can make running villains, even 150 point foes like the Vulture, fun, and how when 6 of these nefarious villains band together, Spider is not doomed to failure.

And, also coming up-
I will be running a game of CC&VF at my local comic and game shop, Modern Myths, in Northampton, MA on Sun, Sep 23, as they celebrate Superhero Sunday, on their 10th birthday weekend.

I think there will be Two Big other superhero game systems going on, so, I'm going to do something more in keeping with my superhero philospophy, and my game will likely be a Marvel-DC crossover.
Characters will be pregens, and visual aids will be in full-effect.
And when I stat up the Heroes, maybe I will post some of them here!