Oops

I completely forgot about doing Top Secret this week and the Tuesday Character Creation. So to distract you fools while I hunt down an online character generatorfor no reason at all, I shall declare myself King of all countries ending in -guay. It will be a strictly ceremonial position but I think I'd better contact some of those about my yearly stipend...

Marvel Super-Heroes Rpg

Ok, so I've found some online generators and books for TSR's MSH system. We'll try to go as close to totally random as possible. Of course the last two times I went that way I got a psychic gorilla and a robot that can turn into a rhinocerous. Then again, Gorilla X, X-Treme Ape and Rocket Rhino are both pretty bad-ass...

We start by rolling up a physical form. And get Android. Which will boost one Ability score of my choice by one, drop Popularity by a rank, give a bonus power, mean a minimum of 1 contact (supposedly the group or person who created them) and I roll for Abilities on Column 4...

Next is Origin. And its Energy Exposure. Ok then. Right, so he gets the Johnny 5 special. A simple humanoid machine given full intelligence and consciousness from a lightning strike. Do Not Dissassemble!

Ability Scores. The main ones for MSH are Fighting, Agililty, Strength, Endurance, Reason, Intuition and Psyche. Or why the game is also called the FASERIP system. From the first four you figure out Health, the second three Karma (which is can be spent for improving stats, buying powers, improving dice rolls, etc). There is also Resources which determines how much buying power the character has (starts at Typical for everyone) and Popularity, exactly what it sounds like. FASERIP and Resources are also all run thru a Modifier Table according to this character generator. I only ever used it for figuring out how much a Battle-Suit would improve stats and on Resources. But maybe I've been doing it wrong...

Anyway after rolls and modifiers we've got:
F: EX (16)
A: MN (63)
S: MN (63)
E: AM (46)
R: MN (63)
I: GD (8)
P: RM (26)

Health: 188, Karma: 97, Resources: TY, Popularity: TY (6) (0 (robot)+10 for Public ID= GD (10) - 1 Column Shift for Android to TY (6)

The ranks are Feeble (FB), Poor (PR), Typical (TY), Good (GD), Excellent (EX), Remarkable (RM), Incredible (IN), Amazing (AM), Monstrous (MN), Unearthly (UN). The last is above what starting characters can start at, though this guy had two stats there after modifiers (Agility and Reason) so I dropped them back down to MN.

The next step is number of Powers, Talents and Contacts. For Powers he gets a 3/5 (3 with a maximum of 5) and +1 for being an Android, so 4/5. Talents is 2/8, but we'll drop Resources two ranks to FB and buy it up to 4/8. And for Contacts its 4/5...

I don't like forced Weaknesses. Too much like DC as opposed to Marvel in flavor. So we'll skip that...

Rolling up Powers we get Senses, Resistances, Distance Attacks and Senses again. Rolling again we get Computer Links, Resitance to Magical Attacks and Stunning Missile. And then for that second Senses power, I'm just going to grab Magic Detection. I figure that the android was some kind of laborer or lab assistant. And that he got caught in the magical cross-fire between some spell-slingers. Say he belonged to one of those multi-genius types who was an archeologist AND a robotocist. And one of said Dr. Smarty-Guy's finds was being fought over by some evil cult type and a magic-using hero. One mana-driven stray lightning bolt and boom, instant self-awareness. Plus a resistance to magic and ability to detect it. Now, he works to protect humanity from magical threats as THE WITCHFINDER...

Right. So Talents. We'll just choose these four to reflect his origin. Mystic Origin (hit by magic) which counts for two, Occult Lore and Archeology. Contacts will be the magic-based hero from the origin, the Dr. Smarty-Guy, an occult bookseller and a "friend" in one of the more extreme anti-magic groups...

Ok, he'll also take a regular name: Hawthorne. Almost forget. Ranks for the Powers. Computer Links gets an Amazing, Resistance to Magical Attacks an Incredible, Stunning Missile an Excellent (and I still need to figure out exactly what the exact method for that is) and Magic Detection a lowly Typical. So he needs to be in pretty close range to track down magical ne'er-do-wells...

Beware the Turtle!

New Comics Day 4/1/09

Between the four Marvel Adventures pocket trades I got from Amazon today and various minis and one-shots this has been a VERY Marvel heavy week. Plus I decided to pick up The Incredible Change-Bots. Leading to the room-mate, after laughing at several pages, commenting "Who's Jeffrey Brown?" And kafeixuesheng used to be the indy comics "expert" when he worked at All About. Worst Comics Clerk ever!

As for the pull list we start with the next Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil where Doom and his minions engage in a jail break and then fight Blastaar. Also Radioactive Man gets to explode briefly. Did not know he could do that...

Then I got the next Franklin Richards one-shot, Franklin Richards Son of Genius: April Fools! A variety of short strips, including one featuring Puppy, the teleporting puppy relative of Lockjaw. And then Reed and Johnny pay Franklin back for his practical jokes...

Also out today is the first of two Assistant-Sized Marvel Spectaculars. These are like the old Assitant Editor books, when Marvel would do goofy issues and claim that it was from the Assistants taking over while the regular Editors were on vacation. These mostly just seem like the A.E.s getting to run short-stories about there favorite under-used charter. So this volume has D-Man (Brian Pratchett) serving in Iraq, American Eagle (Jason Aaron) hunting down a super-villain on the Rez and Mini-Marvels Hawkeye (Chris Giarruso)) helping Dr. Strange save the Avengers and getting no respect. Aaron's definitely written better, Pratchett I'm unfamiliar with, but the story is somewhat average, and Giarruso's is cute but forgettable. Nothing terrible here, but nothing truly amazing sadly...

The War of Kings continues with the Kree, Starjammers and Inhumans counter-striking against the invading Shi'ar forces. Which is pretty bad-ass. I especially like the new version of Kree Sentry's designed by Lord Maximus and powered by his brother's Voice...

In Agents of Atlas Woo's people continue to plot away while seeming to work with Osborne, while the 50's story-line continues at the same time. And Namora takes a moment to mourn the death of her daughter from back at the beginning of Civil War...

Leaving Marvel behind for a new Knights of the Dinner Table. Most of the action focuses on the HackMaster MMORPG, though Bob does manage to convince B.A. to let him bring in a new generation of Knuckles the King of the Wall-Climbers. And the Black Hands continue to "excel" in their special way at CattlePunk...

Moving on to DC we have the finale for Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! With Captain Marvel and The Wizard coming up with a plan to deal with Black Adam and the Seven Sins...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer brings back the team of Faith & Giles as they investigate a Slayer Sanctuary. A town where Slayer's who don't WANT to be Chosen Defenders of Humanity can go and leave it all behind. Would you be shocked to learn that things aren't that simple?

Savage Dragon seems to be writing a farewell to Alex while Dragon continues to battle the Vicious Circle. Larsen is going for something deep and emotional here, but it honestly just feels flat to me...

And lastly we've got a new Jersey Gods. While the Kirby-ian Space God Civil War stuff is nice enough, I'm looking forward to when it gets to concentrating on the Barock/Zoe relationship. That was the part of the preview for the series that got me interested...