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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4753542" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 111: July 1986part 4/4Dark phoenix gets on the cover of the ARES section. She then gets a good going over in their first article. How do you portray and play characters as ridiculously powerful as that in your game? You'll have to take things away from direct fights, and concentrate more on the emotional aspects and fallout of the drama. Or just make sure you have some characters with invulnerability or huge amounts of plot immunity. Remember, in comics, resurrection is always an option. Just don't do it too often and cheapen death completely. An interesting topic to cover. Maxima: Villains and Vigilantes shows off it's own maxed out capabilities. Which are actually considerably less than FASERIP's, but there you go. Maxima is a geneticaly engineered superwoman from the future, with all stats at an obscene level (and a weight of 663lbs <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> Is that a specific artifact of the system's tables? ) superspeed, regeneration, but no real powers that aren't just human potential+. We also get a little more advice on using a character like this in your games, particularly if the other PC's aren't as powerful as this. Pairing off groups so each character has a suitable opposite may seem cheesy, but it's an established genre trope, so you shouldn't feel guilty about using it. Everyone has weaknesses, and you shouldn't be afraid to use them either. Even with different power levels, everyone can get a chance to shine if you design adventures right. Supergirl: Well, this is nice. Our theme continues with a DC heroes article. I'm betting stats for Superman already appear in the corebook, but if you want to showcase obscene power of a kind PC's would expect to have, then supergirl is your next good bet. Despite her power, she's certainly got beaten around, mind<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />ed, romantically screwed over, and eventually killed with great glee. And as Jim Ward showed, way back in the monty haul days, it's entirely possible for a sadistic GM to follow that example, no matter how powerful you are. We get more advice on how to run high powered characters in general. When collateral damage is a constant threat, and you're the good guys, you really can't cut loose with your powers the way you'd like too. If they can travel miles in seconds, make them split their attention. If they can move planets, then they'd better get to use that power. Tailor the villains to the heroes, and put them through the wringer. Just like the real comic books. Remember, the more powerful and versatile the characters are, the less you have to play nice, because if they're using their brain, they can solve even problems that don't have a designated solution. (unless you're playing something like Armageddon or Aberrant, where damage scales faster than ability to absorb it, so characters paradoxically become more fragile against equal opponents at higher level. ) Another interesting article that once again puts a different spin on the same topic. The marvel-phile: With a ton of supers stuff already and his own profile this month, Jeff's contribution gets heavily edited to fit on one page. Longshot, an alien stuntman with powers appropriate to his name. The switch to Advanced hasn't altered the formula of these entries significantly. As this is another character I've never heard of before, isn't that interesting, and will likely never see again, I can't muster much enthusiasm for this one. Hopefully having his writing butchered won't dull his enthusiasm though, because it would be a shame to see him lose it. Quantum: Our final article tackles the same subject they've been tackling all through the section, only for a different system. Finally, it's Champions' turn to get some advice on how to handle characters of different power levels. This concentrates on scaling your characters, and scaling the opposition to them. It includes the eponymous character Quantum, who's power level fluctuates randomly due to some rather clever build tricks. She can challenge gods one day, and then get her ass kicked by a gang of thugs the next. Which is quite pleasing, both that the game can handle weirdness like this, and that there are plenty of people who have no problem with really high level games here. Plus the writeup and illustrations are pretty cool. This is quite a nice way to finish off the section, even if it is a bit galling that it's been comprised entirely of superhero articles. Still, at least they're trying with the themes, and the april fools jokes and stuff when the rest of the magazine isn't. That stuff sometimes gets excluded because of this is the price you pay. If it's good stuff it'll just show up a few issues later anyway. The Snarfquest gang has to get away with the treasure they just found. Dragonmirth shows us a real monty haul dungeon. Wormy features more variscaled adventures. Overall, a pretty good issue, if another one that was a real effort to get through. Still, in this case it was definitely worth it, with new developments in game design, lots of info on dungeon's start-up, and a good send-off for adventures; and a very interesting and well-focused Ares section. They're still probably not getting quite enough good material to justify their bigger size, but since so much of that is a matter of taste anyway, I'm not going to complain too much about that. And it looks like the spate of development and reorganization is going to continue into next issue, which seems promising. But that's a tale for another day. I'm not Schazerade, and I don't think always starting a new story before the night is over and finishing in the middle would suit the source material. Cliffhangers get tiresome after a while, so lets just leave it at this.</blockquote>

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