The "Whoops" Thread

[Blue]

Does your super team suffer from a decided lack of something? Perhaps... knowledge of magic, an able egoist, a team vehicle to get from place to place?

List here the things that upon assmebling your team and playing a game or two, were noticable holes.

[Blue]

I'll start off.

The Sentinels, upon having two consecutive fights in high places, discovered a lack of characters with FLIGHT! (Even the guy with the vehicle bought a ground vehicle.)

[Arkham]

The West Coast Supers, in one of their first adventures,
suddenly noticed that they had not a single member with
any real amount of detective abilities.

[Hermit]

Years ago:
"The building is collapsing, we've got to get these people out..."

"Right... If we support this beam we'll...."

Pause... "Is anyone playing a super strong character?"

Group looks about at 1 martial artist, 2 energy projectors (None with forcewalls or entangles usable as support), one weapon expert, and a mentalist (Without TK)

"Oh crud."

It was after this time the group informed me that I was welcome to play an NPC hero with them since I was always stuck with being the GM....
preferably a brick. Generous guys aren't they? ;)

[Silbeg]

Interestingly, until recently the team in my current campaign didn't really have any specialists (save a GM-PC that was a brick). There was the mystic-martial artist, the very powerful (but only SPD 3) blaster/brick/movement specialist, generalist super-mage (who was planned to be a move-through specialist!), "I'm not a martial artist, I am a shield specialist" guy with the 29 DEX, and the super-agent. An additional character, was perhaps over-specialized, in that he powers are all teleportation (no direct attacks!) They have suffered for the lack of fliers, and especially for their deficiencies in ranged attacks.

Now, the mage has been focusing on the mentalist role, and the shield guy has learned an agent-busting AE thrown attack, and the super-agent has been replaced by a tough brick (which, of course, reduced their ranged abilities!).

And as a whole, they are sorely lacking in non-combat skills. See them at the North Force Home Page (http://www.fpca.us/NorthForce.html).

[Moody Loner]

The West Coast Supers, in one of their first adventures,
suddenly noticed that they had not a single member with
any real amount of detective abilities.
:whistle:

[sinanju]

Does your super team suffer from a decided lack of something? Perhaps... knowledge of magic, an able egoist, a team vehicle to get from place to place?

List here the things that upon assmebling your team and playing a game or two, were noticable holes.

Not a SUPERteam, but...

I was running The Expendables (Stargate-like exploration of alternate dimensions through a circular metal gateway). The PCs could only take what they could physically carry with them thru the gateway.*

They got clever and carried a UAV with them. I was annoyed because I didn't want them to have it, but had no legitimate (in-game) reason to prevent it. They set up their camp, got the UAV prepped and launched it to do an aerial survey.

I asked, "So, who's remotely piloting the UAV?"

Turns out...nobody knew how to do it. I had them make a default roll anyhow. They rolled an 18. Critical failure! The UAV crashed and burned! Yahoo!

*No vehicles, no pack animals. Only what they could carry. So they got together, figured out how much 12 strong men (6 PCs, 6 NPCs) could just barely lift and shuffle through the gateway with. Then they assembled an (inflated) liferaft piled high with everything but the kitchen sink. I got a five-page, typed, single-spaced listing of everything they had (complete with weights). Clothing, tools, and equipment for every sort of environment, rations, water, medical gear, surveillance equipment, weapons, ammo, repair kits, mountain bikes, etc etc ad nauseum. They would D-ring themselves to the raft, pick it up, shuffle thru the gateway, drop it, secure the area, and then take what they needed for the current environment, leaving the rest with the NPCs at the base camp while the PCs went off to explor and have the adventure du jour.

I looked at this list, and realized that in the battle of powergaming munchkin GM vs powergaming munchkin players, I had just gotten my ass kicked. I had to admire that.

[Chuckg]

I looked at this list, and realized that in the battle of powergaming munchkin GM vs powergaming munchkin players, I had just gotten my ass kicked. I had to admire that.

Dammit, I've already got a .sig, or else I'd take this.

[BNakagawa]

Our hero team was confronted by a superpatriot vigilante team that was convinced that we were doing something that was contrary to the best interests of the United States of America...

...I looked around the table and noted that not ONE of the PCs present was an American citizen...and less than half could be considered even vaguely 'human' or 'human based'...

oy...

[phydaux]

I played in a campaign where not a single character had Stealth above 11-.

This in a game where the players were all Silver Age four-color heroes and the GM kept pushing Iron Age Dark Champions.

[Patriot]

A doctor with out License to practice(this was over looked for 6 or more months by both the player and the GM)

Had A ninja with out stealth, or any powers to make up for it

[Rapier]

Most of my games don't revolve around a set cast. It's more of an Avengers/Justice League kind of schtick. That way if you get a little bored with a character or decide you had a nifty concept you wanted to try you could drop in a new character with no fuss, no muss.


Because of that we frequently run into these kinds of situations (which just ROCKS, let me tell you). I don't change my campaign plans or game prep based on the heroes much (within a story arc, of course).

There was once, the entire team (we were in Miami at the time) didn't include a single mentalist. I had a huge run in the PSI planned for that game. The entire team of 400 pts (or so, iirc) got PWNED by a few teams of low level PSI agents.

We've had a game where no character really had any serious movement powers or the ability to get the group from Point A to Point B. I took pity on them and made sure they were standing at the bus stop. Of course, they hijacked the bus. And I had been SO looking forward to the "of course I don't have any change, do you SEE any pockets in this skintight super suit?"

On the build defects, we don't run into many but every once in a while one sneaks past me. The MD sans Paramedics Skill, the SuperScientist who transformed himself by genetic mutation without a SS: Genetics, an Italian supermodel who had purchased idiomatic English but not Italian (she would have gotten it for free anyway, but it wasnt on the sheet), a sidhe that had no knowledge of fairies, leprechauns or the sidhe in general...oh...and ONCE, ONCE (and like they will ever let me live it down) I was battling a serious case of bronchitis and decided to run the game anyway. The character was Desolid Inherent and hadn't purchased Affects the Physical World. I was sure the lims were something else. Shrug.

[CrosshairCollie]

In my wife's Champs game (which appears to be hiatused indefinitely), we also had no fliers, or any real special-movement powers at ALL ... just extra running.

[Boll Weevil]

Our old group, The Abnormals, also had no fliers. We were also very brick-heavy. Our official brick was short on Resistant Defense (this changed a bit over the last 20 years). This all seemed OK since the team started out as the second string, one of those games that starts with the demise of the premier super team.

After a while it we just knew at some point in the game, Wombat (100 STR) would throw one of us at an escaping villain. Oh, the humiliation! XP eventually rounded out the characters but we still played like they were the underdogs of the CU.

[lemming]

There was one point in the Protectors (Sam Bells early 80s) where we had five bricks and three martial artists.

[Netzilla]

The initial make-up of the St. Louis-based Guardians was a density-based Brick, a flying Brick, a regenerating alien Brick, a Martial-Artist and a flying Energy Projector. A bit of a lack of ranged abilities.

The current mix is the flying Brick and flying Energy Projector from before, a new Mystic Martial Artist, a Supermage and another Supermage.

Fortunately we're now set up so that the players each have a couple characters so we can mix and match as we want in an Avengers/JLA sort of way.

[Silbeg]

Fortunately we're now set up so that the players each have a couple characters so we can mix and match as we want in an Avengers/JLA sort of way.
If you have the players that can and will pull that off, that is a cool way to go. We had put together an SG-1 campaign, with the premise of interchangeable characters. Of course, pretty much no one excercises that option.

[Koshka]

I've got one player whose character is a reporter in Secret ID.

He spent a grand total of 14 points on skills and perks. He did not buy PS: Reporter ("that's my everyman skill!"), Conversation, any Contacts, or anything else that would help Cat actually work as a reporter. At least he remembered to buy a Press Pass .... :stupid:

[Agent 13]

I've got one player whose character is a reporter in Secret ID.

He spent a grand total of 14 points on skills and perks. He did not buy PS: Reporter ("that's my everyman skill!"), Conversation, any Contacts, or anything else that would help Cat actually work as a reporter. At least he remembered to buy a Press Pass .... :stupid: Ah! So he's bucking for a career in television, then?

[Kirby]

List here the things that upon assmebling your team and playing a game or two, were noticable holes.
I'd say "familiarity with the game," but everyone's had that at sometime. It's just that all three of my players aren't familiar (enough) with it. :snicker: Or tactics.

Last Sunday we created two characters and ran a mock combat with them. The character that I thought had the coolest concept (and may actually make for my own some day) was a time-themed one, who could slow down or speed up people and I allowed him the ability to stop time (but it did cost END). He had a good NND, and even a scary 1d6 RKA. Unfortunately, when I ran the 350 pt characters up against two 250 pt characters, we realized the time guy had no OCV. His OCV was 5. He didn't have a generic attack either, just his two special ones. He was put in a 5d6 entangle and couldn't get out. :rofl:

He decided to change to a mage, but e-mailed me and said he wanted to create a brick. I haven't seen his brick, and don't know if he's keeping that or going for something else. It was fun while it lasted.

[Koshka]

Ah! So he's bucking for a career in television, then?

:lol: Repped.

(And not in 1938 he's not ;) )

EDIT: Actually, I may have worked out his reasoning, such as it is. To try and break the D&D "loot the bodies" mentality some of my players have, I decided not to use the Money perk -- everyone has the income appropriate to their character background. He decided his character was the daughter of a newspaper owner, and works for Daddy as a reporter. Too bad he didn't take any Mystery Disad points, "incompetent dame who only has a job because of family" sounds like a perfectly good negative Reputation to me ;) .

[Kirby]

My players don't have any special movement powers. They don't have any vehicles, either, so they'll be using generic motorcycles I suppose.

I think it would be funny to see a comic where the heroes are actually walking the streets or non-superspeed running (and panting) to get to their destination.

[bblackmoor]

I think it would be funny to see a comic where the heroes are actually walking the streets or non-superspeed running (and panting) to get to their destination.

In one of the earliest Champions games I ever played, the supergroup used a city bus for transportation. It was also their base. They were subsidized by the city, but you know how strapped for cash most cities are...

[Misery Lad]

In our group, the first attempt to start up the current campaign will have to be called Mark I, due to the fact that everyone was in the midst of putting their characters together when it was suddenly realized that every character lacked a ranged attack. Not that every character was a martial artist or something workable like that. It was simply that each player honestly thought that some other player was going to choose a character that could shoot/emit/eject something and, as a result, no one could.

Second try and the group's well into the campaign before it's realized that not a single one of them can operate a computer. Literally. Outside of any everyman approach, you have a character who's basically Indiana Jones and simply has no truck with high technology. Another character comes from a kind of Tibetan, Shangri-La setting and hasn't even worked out what a computer's for and literally hates all forms of technology. Another character is a child who doesn't go to school and hasn't had the opportunity to work with such a machine and another character who's spent significant time in prison. Though, that last was simply more of an oversight than a conceptual thing.

Things have since changed for the better but it was a real hoot the first time one of the adults actually needed information from the Internet.

[Blue Jogger]

I think it would be funny to see a comic where the heroes are actually walking the streets or non-superspeed running (and panting) to get to their destination.

The Teen Titans cartoon show handwaved the fact that the would get around all of New York with the guys running and the women flying. Later, they introduced the T-car and Cyborg actually said, "Now, we don't have the run around town to get places." (or something like that)

[Kirby]

In one of the earliest Champions games I ever played, the supergroup used a city bus for transportation. It was also their base. They were subsidized by the city, but you know how strapped for cash most cities are...
:rofl: With my group's humor, I'd have to offer up the little bus first. :D

[Chuckg]

In my campaign's last game session, we discovered the hard way -- when the heroes were trying to motivate a panicked mob to get out of the danger zone in an orderly fashion -- that no one had bought /any/ Influence skills. They eventually had to resort to Presence Attacking the entire mob to panic, just panic in a different direction. It... mostly worked.

[BoloOfEarth]

My current campaign's player characters have no vehicle and, for the longest time, had no base. After a while, the vehicle thing became a non-issue since one character developed the ability to create teleport gates across the planet. The base became a running joke; the Champions saying "We'll run one over to your base... oh, that's right, you don't have one" and so on. They now have a volcano base in the Pacific, with a standing teleport gate to Millennium City.

They also have no mentalist to speak of (Mosquito can "whisper in peoples' ears" to get some info) and had little or no Mental Defense for a while.

[AlHazred]

In one of the earliest Champions games I ever played, the supergroup used a city bus for transportation. It was also their base. They were subsidized by the city, but you know how strapped for cash most cities are...
One of my favorite NPCs from Normals Unbound (a 4th edition supplement) was the cab driver who was trying to pitch his opera about the life of Elvis. My players hated him. Too bad for them only one of them had significant movement powers... and a 5 STR.

[Lightray]

The initial make-up of the St. Louis-based Guardians was a density-based Brick, a flying Brick, a regenerating alien Brick, a Martial-Artist and a flying Energy Projector. A bit of a lack of ranged abilities.
Heh. Your team should have joined forces with our original St. Louis team, "Omega". Our original rouster was 3 flying energy projectors, one hi-COM & hi-PRE skill character (no attacks, just Presence Attacks), and a four-armed alien with a baseball bat.

The latter two got pwned by Mechanon while all the flyers were dodging and sniping. So they were replaced by another flying energy projector, and a metamorph.

Alas, the metamorph was largely ineffectual, and after the unfortunate Giant Tapeworm Incident, was no longer around. He was eventually replaced by a mentalist (finally!).

Who flew and had telekinetic blasts. oy.

[KA.]

Our hero team was confronted by a superpatriot vigilante team that was convinced that we were doing something that was contrary to the best interests of the United States of America...

...I looked around the table and noted that not ONE of the PCs present was an American citizen...and less than half could be considered even vaguely 'human' or 'human based'...

oy...

Thanks to Ain't It Cool News for the exact quote (I remembered it, but not exactly)

Spiderman wishing he had the respect afforded Captain America:
"Sheesh! People are falling all over themselves to help Cap.
Why couldn't I have been bitten by a radioactive apple pie?"

Every time players want to assemble the usual squad of freaks, this comes to mind. :)

KA.

[BcAugust]

In my campaign's last game session, we discovered the hard way -- when the heroes were trying to motivate a panicked mob to get out of the danger zone in an orderly fashion -- that no one had bought /any/ Influence skills. They eventually had to resort to Presence Attacking the entire mob to panic, just panic in a different direction. It... mostly worked.


Not True. Nox has insanely high intimadation, she just didn't want to panic them worse. ... of course, given that her alternate on this world is in "Top three scariest people", she has a point. (Character concept is shadow manipulator. Scary and creepy, to an insanely high point.)

[Tech]

Our very first superhero team, still relatively new, like 75 xp or less I think, is running out of a villain team base. Why? It's blowing up due to self-destruct if memory serves me - it's been a long time.

Everyone is saying while running through the base things like:
"Let's find a way out of here."
"Let's find a jet or something."
"Yeah, he's gotta have something to move all this equipment in here."
"I'll take anything so long as we don't get blown up."

It's obvious what their intent is and everyone knows it. They finally find a large helicopter, get in and... someone FINALLY decides to ask:
"Um, does anyone know how to pilot this thing?"

Well, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. They made it but crashed upon landing. Still one of the funniest things the players (myself included) ever did.

[Silbeg]

Our very first superhero team, still relatively new, like 75 xp or less I think, is running out of a villain team base. Why? It's blowing up due to self-destruct if memory serves me - it's been a long time.

Everyone is saying while running through the base things like:
"Let's find a way out of here."
"Let's find a jet or something."
"Yeah, he's gotta have something to move all this equipment in here."
"I'll take anything so long as we don't get blown up."

It's obvious what their intent is and everyone knows it. They finally find a large helicopter, get in and... someone FINALLY decides to ask:
"Um, does anyone know how to pilot this thing?"

Well, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. They made it but crashed upon landing. Still one of the funniest things the players (myself included) ever did. Very funny! :rofl:

Reminds me of the current team in my campaign. They have been supplied by a super-tech Trans-sonic VTOL Jump Jet, which requires a specific TF. Of course, they knew this prior to creating their characters, but no one bought the TF. So, they are getting ready to respond to their first call to duty, and the question gets asked, "So, who can fly this thing?" (silence fills the room) :think:

[st barbara]

Hmm "Team Zenith3", despite being in an "alternate" U S A that was very patriotic/nationalistic didn't have trouble with nationalistic U S heros. We thought that we were going to once, but we ended up having to rescue the U S heros, who turned out to be all right guys (one of whom went on to run against the sitting U S president (Joe McCarthy !) in an election. I believe that we had one U S member of the team but the others were from such far flung places as Britain, New Zealand, Italy and Denmark. The team was originally set up to cover most of the "bases" of a super team. (Flying energy projector, brick, magician, gadgeteer, telekinetic, martial artist) and even with changed characters and players we still had most of the bases covered when the game ground to a halt.

[Kirby]

"Um, does anyone know how to pilot this thing?"
:snicker:
This reminds me of a time when our Tri-City (aka New York City) team invaded Dr. Destroyer's island. We had beaten up a patrol and the strongest brick picks up an energy rifle to use against another patrol coming our way (we weren't exactly a subtle team). She misfires (rolled a 17 or 18) and the GM decided she switched the weapon to fully auto and let loose with every charge left in the weapon, destroying nearby objects.

My character, the weapons expert, asked her (after getting up from the ground where he dove for cover) basically "What the hell did you do that for?" Her response was pretty much "I didn't mean to; it's not like I know how to use one of these things."

My character banned her from using any firearms until he'd trained her.