Barbarians of Mycenae

I was reading through my copy of Gurps Greece the other day when it struck me. Heroic/Homeric/Bronze Age/Mycenaean Greece would be a great setting for Barbarians of Lemuria. Think about it. The heroes of the time were larger than life, kick butt types. Think of Hercules or Achilles. Or they could be extremely wily as Odysseus was. Most of them did not use magic directly though some used magic-type items. The items the gods lent Perseus fall into this category.

Also you could scale the level of fantastic to suit your tastes. You could play it almost strictly "historical" by having inter-kingdom conflict, trade and social interplay be the main focus of the game. You could include realistic depictions of the sources of the myths. The origin of the centaur myth comes to mind. Or you could take it up a notch to include some of the real creatures faced by various heroes. I'm thinking of the Nemean lion, the various boars and bulls, the terrible birds, etc. Real creatures made particularly fierce or nasty. Or you could take it up another level by including the non-realistic creatures such as the Minotaur or the hydra. And finally you could have a full blown fantasy world including meddling gods, an array of monsters, and weird demi-humans. Or you could mix-and-match to taste.

Has anybody thought of this in connection with Barbarians of Lemuria? Has anybody created stats for Greek heroes? How would you stat up Hercules, for example? Any thoughts, comments or suggestions?

I also posted this on Rpg.net here.

Supers! Sourcebook and Session Report

I like the Supers! Sourcebook. It contains a few optional rules, four new powers and a boatload of NPCs. My son grabbed it, read it and immediately wanted to make a new character that incorporated one of the new powers. And thus we started our Supers! campaign afresh.

He named his character Ken. Ken is an 18 year old who does not remember his past. He wakes up in a dumpster in an alley. A woman is being robbed by a band of thugs. Ken rushes to her aid and gets into a fight with the five guys. During the fight Ken discovers he has superpowers. He has super-strength and can mimic/become any substance he touches. (My son is a big fan of Ben Ten.) He turns to concrete and puts the thump to the bad guys, knocking three out and driving the other two off. He is making sure the woman is OK when the two that ran away come back with a big dude. Another fight ensues and Ken is victorious. In the meantime the woman called the police and they arrive just as Ken defeats the big guy. The police take the woman's story and take Ken and the bad guys to the station. The large, muscular but kindly Detective Kenyon talks to Ken in a room with a softly glowing green light. After being unable to determine Ken's identity the detective refers Ken to the home of a Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith takes in boys who are having problems, housing and feeding them until they get back on their feet. End of session one.

Ken

Resistances
Composure 2

Fortitude 2

Reaction 2

Will 2

Aptitudes

Fighting 2

Streetwise 2

Shooting 2

All the Rest 1

Powers

Mimic Substance 6

Super-Strength 6

Ads

Tolerance

Disads

Poor

Supers! Sourcebook

The Supers! Sourcebook has been released. I can't wait to get it.

Frostbite

Thomas Ebersol was a young graduate student studying cryogenics at the University of Superville when he was assigned to an internship at the Burnbright Nuclear Power Plant. Dr. Herbert Hammond (aka Ubermind) did not like this as he did not want outsiders in his lair. Ebersol's criticism of the plant's cooling system only exacerbated the situation. Although he made great strides in modernizing the cooling system, Dr. Hammond arranged for an "accident". Dr. Hammond secretly disabled the safety mechanism on the vat of supercooled liquid that Ebersol was working on. Late one night a nozzle burst knocking Ebersol into the liquid. His body was never found. Hammond assumed his body froze solid instantly and shattered at the molecular level. He created a cover story about Ebersol quiting to avert suspicion. In actuality Thomas survived through sheer luck though he was changed. His skin, hair and eyes were transformed to a sickly shade of pale blue-white. He became able to create and manipulate ice. He could throw ice balls and shoot powerful streams of ice as well as create thick shields of ice to protect himself. He could also paralyse others by simply touching them. But he could no longer stand heat. Any temperature above freezing became uncomfortable for him. He became...

Frostbite

Resistances

Composure 4D

Fortitude 2D

Reaction 2D

Will 2D

Aptitudes

Academia 2D

Technology 3D

All the Rest 1D

Powers

Elemental Control - Ice 5D

Armor 3D

Paralysis (Touch Attack) 4D

Ad

Dumb Luck

Disad

Vulnerability - Heat

Thomas is ashamed of his condition and wants to find a way to change himself back. He is poor, however, and funds his researches through theft. He lives and works in a large, abandoned ice-cream factory freezer. He is not inherently evil but his obsession with becoming "normal" and his superhuman composure caused his transformation makes him dangerous.

Gaming with Kids - A Cautionary Tale

I enjoy playing RPGs with my children. They are my gaming group.

But...

My oldest is a sensitive child. When we first started with RPGs we talked about winning and losing and the fun of just playing. He gets that. But the other day we played a practice scenario of Supers! in order to familiarize him and his younger brother with the combat system. He played his shape-shifting character, Phoenix, and his younger brother played Phoenix's companion, a dog that can shape-shift into a teenager. The scenario was a simple case of a group of six mooks robbing a bank. The boys went in (my youngest used his character's super stength to literally burst through the wall) and cleaned the mooks up in a round and a half of combat. I then sent in the Centurion character that I posted in my mini-review. Centurion was being mind controlled by an unknown villain and attacked the pair. So we all rolled our reaction and the sequence became my oldest son, me as GM, then my youngest. Centurion has 6D in armor. This is strong armor. So my oldest would attack, Centurion would defend with his armor and fend off the attack. Then Centurion would do his thing and then my youngest would attack. Centurion would defend with his armor again but at a reduced 5D. My youngest scored a hit or two as a result.

Before we could finish the combat it was time for bed. Well, my oldest became upset because he wanted to finish and was very frustrated that he could not hit Centurion. I tried to explain to him that he and his brother were working as a team and that his attacks distracted and weakened Centurion allowing his brother to hit. This did not mollify him. He became more worked up and began talking about not winning the game. Once again I reiterated that the fun was in the playing, not winning or losing. No dice. He swore off RPGs forever.

Sigh...

Of course a half hour later he apologized and asked if we could play the following night with the caveat that I use a different character to fight with.

Well, what lessons can I draw from this? Emphasize the fun of playing not the winning or losing more often. Perhaps adjust the power level of the opponents (though this was the first combat we ran so I wasn't completely aware of how it would play out.) Children, like adults, can invest to much emotion into games and thus lose some of the enjoyment.

I know I'll think of more but that is all for now.


Oh, and Centurion is a Badass.

Old Man's War

I do not get to read as much as I would like. I don't get to read at work (ironically) and when I get home I have parental and spousal duties which leave me with little free time. And then I'm usually to tired for serious reading. So the reading I do get around to is often articles, blogs or forum threads. All reading that I enjoy but I don't read the novels or non-fiction books I want to read.

So I am very happy that I ran across Old Man's War by John Scalzi. The tag line is:

"John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army."

I haven't finished the novel (to top everything off, I am a slow reader) but I am very much enjoying it. If you like military science-fiction along the lines of the novels Starship Troopers or The Forever War I think you would enjoy this book. It borrows a bit from each but is definitely its own book.

Magnet Boy

Carlos Thomas was a typical nine year old boy. He enjoyed playing video games, messing with his computer and riding his dirt bike. One day his 4th grade class took a field trip to the Superville hydroelectric plant located in the nearby Superville dam (the nuclear power plant being notoriously unreliable, the city needs an alternative source of power.) It was that day that the notorious villain Shocker invaded the dam in order to high-jack the power plant and absorb all of the electrical energy. Mega Man arrived to foil the plan but Shocker escaped by overloading the electromagnets. Though Mega Man managed to avert a major disaster, there was a massive electromagnetic flux which changed Carlos' life forever. Carlos had lingered behind and when the flux hit Carlos absorbed the majority of the energy.

Thus, Magnet Boy was born!

Once Carlos recovered and adjusted to his new powers he decided to fight crime and make sure that no other child would ever be harmed by a super-villain again. But his main goal is to bring Shocker to justice.

Magnet Boy

Resistances

Composure 1D

Fortitude 2D

Reaction 3D

Will 1D

Aptitudes

Technology 2D

Vehicles 2D

All the Rest 1D

Powers

Energy Form - Magnetism 4D

Energy Control - Magnetism 5D

Flight 4D

Competency Pool

3D

The cool thing to me is that Magnet Boy came from the mind of my 5 year old. He was watching a video on magnetism and, after hearing my older son and me talking about Supers!, decided that he wanted a character with the power of magnets. So we worked together and created Magnet Boy.