I heart Century Station

[sHaka]

Got this in my grab bag and just finished it.

Wow! I loved it!

Gramercy Island was fair to good (few too many Uber NPCs for my tastes) but I just couldn't put CS down - I almost feel like I've been there!

Anyone use it much in play?

[Iczer]

Nope. Borderline hate the product. Nicely written and all, but the power creep is a real turnoff and sorta wrecked the rest of the product.

Batts

[Al Blotto]

We're actually playing a game in Century Station on Explorers Unlimited with three openings if anyone is interested. It's been amazingly fun so far.

[krate]

Century station rocks. I've never been a fan of setting books for HU. i like to make my own worlds inspired by the comics themselves. but bill coffin did a great job with the book. it was a great read, great setting, great NPC's and villains of various power levels for various levels of play. the whole book felt like an actual comic book city and it was a joy. I even bought gramercy island because of CS.

(i have bought just about every bill coffin book that PB publishes. the guy could write a sourcebook with actual material that was a joy to read and got the old noodle/adventures going!)

[The Artist Formerly]

Century Station is Awesome. Some gamers complain the book has too much power creep, but what Bill did was give several differant levels of play for differant gamers, and really, differant campaigns.

You could play a game as street level heroes, who's big concern is protecting a few square blocks in in the Grinder. Everyone is far too human to shrug off bullets, and so thugs with guns are a real threat. Low powers/no powers at all kind of game. Think the gritty batman type stories or Punisher, or any of the anti-hero kinds of stories you've read. Great for using the stage magician, hunter and the other low powered character classes.

Then you could play another campaign where you've got your super powers, definately more then human, but you're still not up to slugging it out with gods and aliens from Krypton. The city is dark and probably doesn't like you, but you're a becon a hope, trying to do the right thing. A spiderman style story. Or in a group, a X-men style game. Yes, you are powerful, but no, you aren't immortal or invincible. If pricked, you bleed.

After that you could have a campaign where you've got the power to level entire buildings. You are power incarnate, able to shake the pillars of heaven and make the gods take notice of you. Now you play in the big leagues, and nations watch your every move, just in case you try and pull a Danelik and take over. Not only do you fight other powerful super humans, you take on natural disasters, using your increadible superpowers to deny the very forces of nature. The Justice League characters as well as the Avengers (the powerful ones) generally fall into this level and their stories would be a great place to look for ideas and scaling for your games.

And at the top of the scale you have the super powerful characters and a campaign around them. Century Station is where you stay when you're on earth. Gods don't just notice you, they are afraid of you and nations keep nuclear weapons with your name on them, just in case. Stories from the pages of the Green Lantern Corp and the Sliver spooner would be ideal for inspiration.

Now what's really cool is that you can mix all of that in Century Station to gain that kind of feeling. A villian from the story type above what you're players are playing at allows you to take a medicore villian from his own level, and turn him into a monster threat for your PCs. A distinct super human is going to be a tough challange for a group of jerks with guns PC.

That's how one gets the most out of Century Station, using Bill's built in game scaling, so that the place becomes familiar, but not easy. A player, no matter how many times he's played there before, never quite has his feet under him.

[krate]

Amen!
you got it right on taf!

[gaaahhhh]

Century Station is definitely awesome. I've even seen people who use it for other super-hero games (Mutants and Masterminds and HERO) for the setting material. Extra NPCs are something I can always use as I don't have as much time to prepare for games as I used to.

[Steeler49er]

Well said "Thermalpantcer" ...
I kid i kid... What you said was dead on in regards to /gm's and their 'Knee jerk' reaction to players getting to much power, or too smart with what they've got

I've found this is a common problem with a lot of GMs who specifically try and keep their PCs humble as opposed to really heroic (in whatever setting) and then project it onto the games themselves.

I just got in a heated discussion on a post a lil while ago when I mentioned what you could do with Colormanipulation and a little physics knowledge. I got multiple peeps chewing on me fer sayn that the power wouldn't allow for the trix that I pulled off, but in the end I showed (for the most part) them that the power had some chance of pulling off those trix...

When all was said and done someone on another thread (i think) revealed that their Real reasons for dissagree'n wit me was that they didn't 'feel good' about how powerful this made the power and that, "unless a power specificaly says you can do something, you can't" (especially when in regards to powers generally considered to be "Non-violant" in nature).

Earlier in some post I'd broughten up how the power "Transmutation" let you turn ANY non-living material into any other (basic) materials, including acid. This was an example of a power that never listed an attack vector yet it was blatantly obvious that it had one (many actually). That same individual would later state the he Felt that this was wrong and that the creator of the power would Never have ment for you to create acid, But since it was in there he felt that should any player ask him, he'd say that it would count as another power...
Seems allot of peeps here are scared of players being creative (what they call Lawyers, Min-Maxers, Munchkins and cheaters), or palladium making a game world that has more powerful adversaries/heroes (or power creeping as others put it).

I see what Bill did as Fixing a glarring issue with the games knee jerk fears of having "Really Super-supers" in the game...
Hey, I may not play em, but I still like to have my options open to me, and HUL was getting a little too claustrophobic with all those "No you Can'ts".


BUT, all that said, I also agree with Izcer that the paticular amount of power creeping was a little annoying (a little too much of it). Still, good book, Super fun read, creative and I'd Love to have more like it, albeit with lower power levels. I'd Love to have some of those other citys & super described get their own books.

[KillWatch]

I will use it as a setting, but screw with it.
1) The agencies will be working in the shadows
2) Too many supers for my taste

[Senator Cybus]

It's a point of pride for me that whenever I run a game, I always create the characters and setting from scratch. ALWAYS.

And yet...I would happily use at least 50% of the characters and 95% of the setting for Century Station straight out of the book without a moment's hesitation - it's just that good.

I bought it on a whim (newbie who'd just been paid ) and I loved it. Yeah, there's some power creep, and some of that's down to Bill Coffin's slightly wobbly grasp of certain rules - for example, the character Speed Metal has Supernatural P.S. instead of Superhuman, 'cause Bill forgot which one APS: Metal gives you - but you can just mentally edit that as you go. Don't like that Mega-Villain? Strip him of Mega status. Easy.

Power creep isn't, IMO, enough of a reason to dismiss a book that good.


Is it just me, or would 'Power Creep' be a good name for a villain?

[gaaahhhh]

Is it just me, or would 'Power Creep' be a good name for a villain?

That would be Major Power Creep. You forgot to say his rank.

[Senator Cybus]

Is it just me, or would 'Power Creep' be a good name for a villain?

That would be Major Power Creep. You forgot to say his rank.