Having had a little more time to think about it, I've got a few more serious suggestions for team name.

Flex wants something short and snappy, as well as a bit more defensive in nature.  AEGIS is the best I can come up with, but I'm not sure if anyone else in the setting has already grabbed that name.  She's not sure we count as rangers, and objects to crusaders.

Then again, if we're banding together to fight VIPER, Team Mongoose would be cool.

re: Baron Teuton
Also, depending on how nuanced you want to be, it's entirely possible that Baron Teuton was never really a Nazi, even if he worked for them in WWII.  Nazism was largely a grassroots, populist movement.  The German nobility, even if they didn't like democracy, often didn't care for the Nazis.  And the whole Aryan superiority/ Ubermensch stuff was polluting the discourse well before Hitler got into politics.  Not to mention antisemitism was practically mainstream in most countries until the Holocaust was exposed.

So if Teuton really is a Baron, he may well consider any Nazi collaboration on his part as a mistake of youth and convenience.  And not care for things like racial purity and genocide; being more 'advance yourself' and 'make your own strength'.

Or, Baron Teuton could be the grandson of William Franklin (Ben's illegitimate Loyalist offspring) and be German only in name.

@Flex
You are correct, sir!
...
However, running him as a Nazi holdover is simpler and already what I'm planning. While you may be correct that the aristocracy mostly didn't care for Nazism when it was starting up, some of them must have, so there it is.

In reply to Conducter (msg # 160):

Eh, Sharpshooter had mentioned that his initial version of Baron Teuton was also something of a gentleman adventurer, and then you mentioned it would be weird having a Nazi with a moral code.  I was just trying to suggest something to reconcile those views. ;)

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But more seriously, anyone else have thoughts on a team name?

So, a Western-themed name isn't doing it for you?
How about...

The Champions
The Medianville Marvels
The Justice Brigade
L.E.F.T. (Law Enforcement Fighting Team)
to name a few....

Possible team names
• The Mighty Heroes
• The League of Freedom
• The Civic Minded Five (it's not that The Shrike doesn't count, it's more as if he's The Kestrel's plus one)
• The Medianville Justice League of Super Acquaintances

It's also possible the team calls itself "The Sentinels" and receive support from the media conglomerate the publishes the local newspaper (that would be The Sentinel).

Corporate sponsorship? Say it ain't so.....

I doubt that corporate sponsorship would work out well for the team.  Probably better not to be beholden to outside interests.

I thought about suggesting "the Angel Squad" or "the Angel Alliance," since the team operates in the City of Angels, but there is no chance in the universe that Wildfire would agree to that name.  You can probably guess why.

(I just prodded a random group name generator a few times, and got "the Angel Crusaders."  I don't think we want to reference the Crusades.)

What about "the Vindicators?"  It's got a decent ring to it, and it's just offbeat enough that there aren't likely to be many other teams using that name.

I still like the idea of the Hollywood Heroes. Someone said before it makes it sound like the team is fighting for fortune and glory, but I don't think it does, necessarily. Hollywood is just a culturally important part of Los Angeles. In any case, the team might be branded with a team name by the media before they even attempt to choose one. You could imagine, on your first big, public fight, that the media coverage gives you guys the name "The Hollywood Heroes" just to refer to you and the action more easily.

I used to play with a guy who had a Variable Power pool character named The Conductor who would fit right in with Hillywood Heroes. His foci were all movie or TV props that he spontaneously produced, and he acted like he was the director of a Hollywood movie. One memorable day he gave a super-villain a pink slip and told him he was fired from the set. Turns out it was the focus for an Extra-dimensional Teleport, usable vs Others.

I made a couple posts about recent history and the understanding of Superhumanity and the Supernatural.

Game starting for real soon-ish.

The Kestrel owns The Sentinel, so it's not really outside interests. The Kestrel can sometimes get the big head and start pulling this Bruce Wayne shtick...

In reply to Conducter (msg # 168):

A few thoughts on the history posted.

1)  So, sounds like the first reliable reports of people with superpowers is during WWII?  Anything before that has passed into the realm of myth and legend?  Hmm, while obviously are there tales of lost martial arts styles and techniques that grant superhuman abilities, to what extent does it appear that it is legit lost knowledge and not just tall tales?

2)  Why no mention of South America in the 1983 invasion?  Did they avoid it, or does the sparsely populated nature of southern South America make the destruction less obvious than the populated south coasts of Africa and Australia?

3)  The north pole is in the middle of an ocean without any glaciers.  Is it really on Greenland?  Or do you mean what you said, and there is something really freaky and unnatural up there?

Still, it should be fun to get playing.

In reply to Sharpshooter (msg # 167):

I forget the name, but one of the other players in a long ago game also had a media based VPP.  His shtick was powers based on song lyrics.  His most memorable moment was, to my recollection, in his backstory, when he discovered his powers the day he was singing "Video Killed the Radio Star" in a radio station.  I think it was less than literal, and the DJ was merely rushed to the ER after a monitor fell on him and exploded.

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Anyway, on team names, I suppose that it might well depend on whether we name ourselves or not.  Seeing as three of us are based somewhat near Tinseltown, the media might well seize on Hollywood Heroes to describe the group.

On the one hand, The Sentinels is a short and snappy name.  And Kestrel did work with them for a bit, so he's got some standing to form a new team with that name.

On the other hand, there are some valid concerns having the same name as a large newspaper/media empire.  Such as people conflating the two, and getting stuck with a DNPC that most of us aren't getting points for.

Maybe we could go with the New Sentinels to put some distance between us and the corporation.

But we'd have to bother going public early on to get a name of our choice.  Which is something we probably should discuss in character.  Though we can probably get a sense of how we lean so that the GM has a clue what to prepare for.  Flex could go either way, especially as she doesn't have the resources to support a public team.

1)
Think of this more like a recap of the critical events from the last century, like when you were in history class and they talked about a war, but they didn't tell you about every battle of the war, just the ones that are deemed "really important". As such, these are only the most culturally relevant events. I would say the earliest reliable report of a super would probably be mid-1800s. As mentioned in the post, though there aren't 100% certain sources, it's believed that supers have been around basically forever.

2)
There's no clear reason why that humanity knows of, but the alien invasion didn't go for South America initially, and they started getting pushed back before they had a chance. There are probably theories like that, that South America's southern coasts are less populated and were thus less enticing targets, but who can say for sure?

3)
Hey, I'm leaving it vague. You guys don't know about this; the only one who has a chance of knowing about that event at the start of the campaign is probably Kestrel, due to his media background and ties to whistle blowers. Even then, he probably doesn't know or has very limited knowledge of it.

As far as a name goes, I think I would prefer not going by "The Sentinels" since there is an organization that already goes by that name. Even if it's supposed to be dead, you can never account for time shenanigans, right? Then it'd get real confusing that you both share a name.

Eh, amongst all the other kinds of nerd/geek-ery I have, I have an interest in history and geography.  So anomalies in those pop out for me.  And I enjoy lore in a setting.  Which gives me a tendency to chase down tangents of that lore that maybe don't affect the game in question.

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Would "The New Sentinels" or "Nova Sentinels" be too close for your tastes?

"using "Nova" is to old timey for me"
and when I say old timey I mean 1500's and Drake labeling the bay area Nova Albion"

The New Sentinels doesn't sound bad, it could even inspire a publisher to change an aging masthead. Hollywood Heroes isn't too bad, and as has been pointed out will probably be applied to us by someone, anyway. You know, like when Shrike and I foiled that convenience store robbery and the nitwit reporter tried to dub us "Birds of Prey".

So I'm just about ready to post in character threads. Just asking, do we want to start with some roleplay between characters or jump straight into the action for this adventure?

either works for me

I have no preference.

I could go either way as well.  I had sort of thought we were planning on jumping into the action, so if nobody else has a strong preference I suppose I'd vote for that, but roleplaying is cool too.

...Also, I fixed my character sheet for the reduced point costs.  I put the costs that had been reduced in italics just as a reminder.  (I ended up marking PS: Gamer as -1 point, because I wasn't sure how to indicate on the sheet that I had sold off the additional Everyman PS for 1 point and keep the point costs adding up properly.  If there's a better way to do that, let me know and I will adjust.)

I do like me some roleplay.  I can also appreciate getting to some action.  Without knowing exactly where you want to start things off, it is hard to choose.

We are trying to tell a story here.  Perhaps think about how they would present the scenario in your favorite movie/show/comic, and use that as a guideline for where to start things off for us?

Just to set the mood, about when (month/year) is our game kicking off?

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edit:  Also, the weapons that the agents are carrying.  Hunting rifles, assault rifles, or blaster carbines?
This message was last edited by the player at 21:59, Tue 18 Feb 2020.