What do you think...

[tinman]

...the overall effect of a loaded supertanker falling from 2km onto a large city would be?

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this one.

Clearly the impact alone would be tremendous, but what about the oil? There would certainly be enough heat generated to ignite the oil, but would it be dissipated enough by the impact to actually explode or would it simply spread and burn?

Secondary fire sources (burst gas mains, flammable buildings, asphalt, etc.) would likely spread the fire well beyond the initial zone of effect, but would a firestorm be likely to develop?

What about the downwind effects from that much smoke and particulate?

What would be the best way to model this kind of event in HERO terms?

[Cancer]

It's not supersonic at impact; the velocity is only about 200 m/s.

Drawing numbers from here (http://www.wcsscience.com/supertanker/page.html), posit 200,000 tons of oil on a ship with an empty mass of 200,000 tons. The ship is 350m long by 55 m wide by 35 m deep. That's the "footprint" of the falling object. Very crudely, that makes for 20 tons per square meter fallling, with that 200 m/s velocity, in the impact footprint. You can probably turn that into Hero-style KA damage.

You'll also have tsunami-like damage done by all that liquid (with its density of about 0.9 tons per cubic meter) being bounced away from the impact as the tanker structure is crushed.

The impression I have (from reading discussions of the firestorms resulting from WW2 strategic bombing) is that firestorms don't really come from a single big fire. To get one going, you need lots of lesser fires over a large fuel-rich area. I don't think this will make a firestorm. It'll be a very large nasty fire, but not a firestorm.

If you were to spread the oil out in a layer 1 m deep, then that makes a circle about 250 m in radius. If you make that 10 cm deep, then it's about an 800 m radius. So that's probably about the size of the area directly covered with the burning oil.

The big tankers carry crude, which isn't going to explode, and isn't as flammable as its refined products (gasoline). It also doesn't burn as cleanly, so you'll have yucky black smoke from the oil fire. I would look to descriptions of being downwind of the oilfield fires in Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion in 1990 (or '91, I forget) for that. The wind matters, both for smoke, and for the progress of the "collateral damage" fires that break out after impact.

Offhand, I'd say total destruction for a 1-kilometer radius around the center of the impact, and severe damage for another kilometer.

[Black Lotus]

It'd crush whatever structures/ vehicles/ creatures it fell on, create a respectable indentation in the concrete, cause a small localized earthqquake, send debris shooting around when it lands, and cause a mighty large dust cloud. I'm guessing it'd also be crushed and break up, sending pieces of itself spinning about.

It's be moving at 250 ft/s or so after a 2 km fall, somewhere terminal velocity for sure.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Oooh, Good scenario!

I'd treat it as a really big explosion, then beyond the effects of the explosion, a continuous RKA thats spreading.

I would use the secondary fire effects (gas mains exploding etc) as distractions to add tension to an already tense situation....they happen at dramatically important moments of course (the fire seems to be under control, then BOOM)

What dastardly villian is planning an attack of this magnitude on our heroes city???

Thats pretty ruthless!

[NuSoardGraphite]

am I mistaken in thinking that 400 thousand tons at 200 meters per second can generate somewhere on the order of 16 Trillion Joules of impact energy?

If so, thats about a 35 DC attack (using an exponential scale of X2, starting with 100 Joules = 1 DC) or 11 1/2D6K. Large enough to be considered on an Atomic scale. (a 1 Kiloton nuke comes out to about 13D6K or thereabouts)

The base damage should be localized in the Area of Effect the size of the Tanker itself. Beyond those hexes, it should be treated as an Explosion (maybe -1DC per 2 hexes instead of -1/1")

[tinman]

What dastardly villian is planning an attack of this magnitude on our heroes city???

Thats pretty ruthless!

Actually, it already occurred, but I had to wing it and I'm not sure I got the scale or effects of the devastation right.

Essentially the scenario was that a group of metahuman supremacists were staging a protest which included holding the tanker above Manhattan as a means of instilling fear and awe in the "lesser beings". They never intended to actually drop it, merely use it to make a point.

When the PC's rushed to intervene a struggle ensued and the telekinetic who was actually holding the tanker got taken out. The PC's had figured that between them they could easily carry it to safety, but they were about two orders of magnitude off in their calculations.

It honestly never occurred to me that the PC's would take that route, I figured they would defuse such a hair-trigger situation through diplomacy. As a result I hadn't really put much thought into the outcome if the tanker actually fell.

[Cancer]

If you're going to do this, you might do some thinking about what superhero PCs might be able to do about it before impact.

If you just materialize the tanker 2 km up, then the answer is "not much". There'll be 20 seconds of free-fall time before impact.

Trying to lift the thing back up, or deflect it, isn't going to work, if you do the Superman-style fly up to it and catch it in your hands. The tanker doesn't have the strength to support its own weight. The STR you compute for moving that 400,000 tons has to be applied approximately uniformly over the whole tanker surface, or you'll just break the tanker apart; the pieces other than the one in Superman's hands will keep falling, and now they fall slightly away from each other, widening the zone of destruction. If that happens high enough up, then the oil will disperse over a much larger area. If you have a way of igniting it after that (it won't ignite on impact by itself), that could give your the widely dispersed fires you need to start a firestorm.

[Hawksmoor]

Shows you what most heroes think about situations they get in.

Punch first, rescue bystanders second.

This I believe comes from the fact that HERO evolved very strongly from table top wargaming (disagree? look at the movement and combat systems...HERO can be played as a WH2K game) and thus there are few systems for interaction resolution and XPs are not expressly awarded to motivate more peaceful methods.

I would have the characters really, really examine the impact of their actions as they certainly doubled or tripled the impact of a 9/11 type event on a major city.

Hawksmoor

[Cancer]

Woof, you've done it already. Ooooh. Man, the authorities are gonna be after the PCs now. The cure was much worse than the disease.

I like it. :sneaky: "Neutral evil gamemasters have the most fun."

[tinman]

am I mistaken in thinking that 400 thousand tons at 200 meters per second can generate somewhere on the order of 16 Trillion Joules of impact energy?

If so, thats about a 35 DC attack (using an exponential scale of X2, starting with 100 Joules = 1 DC) or 11 1/2D6K. Large enough to be considered on an Atomic scale. (a 1 Kiloton nuke comes out to about 13D6K or thereabouts)

The base damage should be localized in the Area of Effect the size of the Tanker itself. Beyond those hexes, it should be treated as an Explosion (maybe -1DC per 2 hexes instead of -1/1")

Unless I'm off by a decimal place, that seems about equal to a magnitude 5 earthquake...

[Hawksmoor]

If you're going to do this, you might do some thinking about what superhero PCs might be able to do about it before impact.

If you just materialize the tanker 2 km up, then the answer is "not much". There'll be 20 seconds of free-fall time before impact.

Trying to lift the thing back up, or deflect it, isn't going to work, if you do the Superman-style fly up to it and catch it in your hands. The tanker doesn't have the strength to support its own weight. The STR you compute for moving that 400,000 tons has to be applied approximately uniformly over the whole tanker surface, or you'll just break the tanker apart; the pieces other than the one in Superman's hands will keep falling, and now they fall slightly away from each other, widening the zone of destruction. If that happens high enough up, then the oil will disperse over a much larger area. If you have a way of igniting it after that (it won't ignite on impact by itself), that could give your the widely dispersed fires you need to start a firestorm.

Ah...real world physics.

But these are the comics of super action heroes (and the RPG that portrays them) thus the tanker slows down, its fall is arrested and moving slowly under the vast bulk the hero flies the laden tanker to the harbor setting it down past the Coast Guard cordon where clean up crews are already being dispatched.

That is comic book physics.

Of course Comic Book Physics also have the tanker detonating and taking out half of downtown and covering the rest in burning crude sludge.

Hawksmoor

[tinman]

Shows you what most heroes think about situations they get in.

Punch first, rescue bystanders second.

This I believe comes from the fact that HERO evolved very strongly from table top wargaming (disagree? look at the movement and combat systems...HERO can be played as a WH2K game) and thus there are few systems for interaction resolution and XPs are not expressly awarded to motivate more peaceful methods.

I would have the characters really, really examine the impact of their actions as they certainly doubled or tripled the impact of a 9/11 type event on a major city.

Hawksmoor

Considering the political fallout from 9/11 it would probably be safe to say that this event will be at the heart of government policy concerning metahumans for at least the next few decades, and not just in the US.

[Hawksmoor]

And suddenly the PCs are either told to retire (a la the Incredibles) or are forced to by an adminstration that has to been seen as cracking down on dangerous Metahumans.

Hawksmoor

[tinman]

Between them the PC's had the combined might of 60 STR, 40 STR, 70 STR and 35 STR TK. The PC with 60 STR was able to use it to affect an entire object (indirect).

The NPC holding the tanker had 120 STR TK and was visibly straining. In the past she had hit them with up to 20d6 worth of Turtle-style smack-down.

I can't believe they thought they could hold it up.

[Cancer]

Considering the political fallout from 9/11 it would probably be safe to say that this event will be at the heart of government policy concerning metahumans for at least the next few decades, and not just in the US.

Absolutely! I imagine most places will just go for the "Final Solution" to the "metahuman question" after that incident. And the PCs did it purely to themselves! Absolutely glorious! :hail: GM Brilliance of the first magnitude. Time to lean on the rep button.

[tinman]

And suddenly the PCs are either told to retire (a la the Incredibles) or are forced to by an adminstration that has to been seen as cracking down on dangerous Metahumans.

Hawksmoor

Forced retirement seems a little light...

[tinman]

Absolutely! I imagine most places will just go for the "Final Solution" to the "metahuman question" after that incident. And the PCs did it purely to themselves! Absolutely glorious! :hail: GM Brilliance of the first magnitude. Time to lean on the rep button.

Although I love to bask in praise, it is entirely undeserved. I was taken totally off guard by how it went. I actually had to just end the session so that I could take some time to consider the consequences (immediate and otherwise).

It's all grist for the mill though... :)

[Hawksmoor]

Forced retirement seems a little light...

I meant *all* superheroes.

Everywhere.

-The team in question are another matter entirely. Serious psychological issues for them I suspect. Only the casual killer can get off scott free emotionally. Then there is the world wide suspicion that they caused the accident. The authorities are going to get involved and the result could be serious jail time and if the character's are backed by a philanthropic organization civil lawsuits.

Hawksmoor

[Cancer]

Although I love to bask in praise, it is entirely undeserved. I was taken totally off guard by how it went. I actually had to just end the session so that I could take some time to consider the consequences (immediate and otherwise).

It's all grist for the mill though... :)

I am a firm believer in the principle that "Luck is the residue of design."

Creating a situation where that kind of (unintended, even unimagined) result is possible is a sign of greatness. You have made a world where no one knows all the consequences of their actions, even though they may be truly horrific: the ultimate in role-playing realism.

[sbarron]

Between them the PC's had the combined might of 60 STR, 40 STR, 70 STR and 35 STR TK. The PC with 60 STR was able to use it to affect an entire object (indirect).

The NPC holding the tanker had 120 STR TK and was visibly straining. In the past she had hit them with up to 20d6 worth of Turtle-style smack-down.

I can't believe they thought they could hold it up.Yeah, they weren't even close.

[tinman]

I am a firm believer in the principle that "Luck is the residue of design."

Creating a situation where that kind of (unintended, even unimagined) result is possible is a sign of greatness. You have made a world where no one knows all the consequences of their actions, even though they may be truly horrific: the ultimate in role-playing realism.

shucks...

[Hawksmoor]

Between them the PC's had the combined might of 60 STR, 40 STR, 70 STR and 35 STR TK. The PC with 60 STR was able to use it to affect an entire object (indirect).

The NPC holding the tanker had 120 STR TK and was visibly straining. In the past she had hit them with up to 20d6 worth of Turtle-style smack-down.

I can't believe they thought they could hold it up.

Actually they might be close depending on the flight powers of the team. You can add inches of flight to str under the right circumstances.

Now the event has already happened but a 2km fall as Cancer said would take about 20 seconds at least. That is bizarely plenty of time to come up with a solution. If the team could stop it they might have been able to divert it to a lower population area or at least slow the plummet so the impact was less. Of couse the tanker would rupture the three layer membrane and double hull upon any impact but true heroes could have found some way around it.

Now to lay out a small thought:

Rewind time.

Let the PCs do it all over again. Say a precog from the city sees herself die in the incident. She then goes to the Heroes and says "I saw myself die today. You can't do what you are planning on doing. If you do lots of people will die."

You don't actually have to break the game on the boneheaded decisions of the players.

Hawksmoor

[Hugh Neilson]

Actually they might be close depending on the flight powers of the team. You can add inches of flight to str under the right circumstances.

Now the event has already happened but a 2km fall as Cancer said would take about 20 seconds at least. That is bizarely plenty of time to come up with a solution. If the team could stop it they might have been able to divert it to a lower population area or at least slow the plummet so the impact was less. Of couse the tanker would rupture the three layer membrane and double hull upon any impact but true heroes could have found some way around it.

Now to lay out a small thought:

Rewind time.

Let the PCs do it all over again. Say a precog from the city sees herself die in the incident. She then goes to the Heroes and says "I saw myself die today. You can't do what you are planning on doing. If you do lots of people will die."

You don't actually have to break the game on the boneheaded decisions of the players.

I second the "rewind" theory. Depending on the nature and backgrounds of the characters, it may be possible to build something like this from their own SFX and backstories. Timetravelling or precognitive NPC's who are already established would be the appropriate next choice. If all else fails, there's the classic Star Trek coincidence that when we make our worst decisions just happens to be when there's a tear in the fabric of space/time.

Maybe the do-over comes at a price. The characters could have to sacrifice something to get an opportunity to fix their mistake. You could even set up a scenario where it looks like they can reverse the disaster at the cost of their own lives, and create something in-scene which allows them to survive (or not - "you made the mistake, and now you'll have to clean it up" at least allows the characters to go out heroically).

Now, one really mean option would be "As you sink into the pit of despair watching the tanker approach the ground, your minds conjure up images of the devestation which will result to the city due to your overestimation of your own abilities. Suddenly..."

deus ex machina. Lots of scenarios are possible.

(a) The tanker vanishes without exlanation
(b) A bolt of (insert SFX here) strikes the tanker from [above/below], vaporizing it
(c) The tanker stops in mid-fall, slowly moves outside the city (or to the harbour), and settles gently to earth.

The heroes can't find out how it was stopped. You can come up with the desired scenario later, but they have to live with knowing someone else pulled their fat out of the fire. Sooner or later, someone will come to collect on that debt.

Maybe the press even credits the heroes, making it that much worse when the true rescuer is revealed.

Or you could be really kind and say "Clearly you guys didn't think it al through. We can rewind to the start of the situation and you can try again", likely with xp penalties all round.

Or you leave matters where they lie and let the PC's deal with the political fallout. Hope their secret ID's are well protected, since that's their best hiding place.

[BlackSword]

Yeah, at the very least the next session can start with...so there is the tanker, just beginnig its fall, youhave 20 seconds to do something. Being time sensitive say 1 minute = 1 second, so they would have 20 minutes to work on a solution. Hugh has some good ideas as well.

If the tanker hits the ground its pretty much the end of the campaign as is. The destruction will be brutal, metahumans will be blamed. Nastiness will ensue.

[Cancer]

Another idea into the bucket ... in the replay, give one or more of the PCs the ability to "play the Martyr card", to borrow a situation from TORG: save the day at the price of his own life. Like, perhaps, let that PC with the indirect strength buy more STR at the cost of BODY damage ... at a rate guaranteed to irretrieveably destroy the character, 1 STR per 1 BODY or something. Then the character chucks the tanker out into the North Atlantic, his head explodes, and suddenly that PC is a sainted martyr instead of a mass murderer. From such stuff are great comics made.

[tinman]

The tanker has already hit the ground, I'm just trying to poll ideas for the degree and nature of the devastation.

Also, there is the redemption issue. From the point of view of both the government and the general public, how does one make up for something like this?

How many times will they need to save the world before the slate is wiped clean, so to speak?

What will they need to do to get people to trust them again?

[tinman]

A replay opportunity may come about. The PC's have already travelled back in time to fix a problem (and they are living out the new timeline), but they killed the time traveller who helped them (lest the good they did be undone by another - to be fair it was to preempt a successful alien invasion).

Since then I have been dropping clues that their current timeline may not be entirely stable. The odd acronym has changed for no reason, certain NPC's have had their reactions to the PC's change suddenly, events that they remember have seemed to have dropped from the public consciousness.

I've been working up to potentially having a continuity crisis for them to try to fix, and that might be a chance for them to undo this disaster. If it happens I'll have to make sure it requires a suitable sacrifice on their parts.

[Hawksmoor]

The tanker has already hit the ground, I'm just trying to poll ideas for the degree and nature of the devastation.

Also, there is the redemption issue. From the point of view of both the government and the general public, how does one make up for something like this?

How many times will they need to save the world before the slate is wiped clean, so to speak?

What will they need to do to get people to trust them again?

They can't.

They will always be the people that dropped the tanker on City X.

Working like mad in the hours and days after the incident will help, but if anyone knows they by their own actions caused the tanker to fall then well it looks bad for them.

Outlaw Hero perhaps? Avoiding the media and the cops as they stop the bad guys. Avoiding UNTIL and PRIMUS agents as well as VIPER? Getting offers to come and work for Eurostar since they obviously know how to thrown down.

Hawksmoor
-I'd rewind time though.

[Alric]

What did the tanker land on? I could have landed in a park with a lake. Not too many people around (assuming most citizens started bugging out as soon as the tanker appeared overhead) or buildings to be destroyed.

Tell the players they got lucky and the oil doesn't ignite on impact. Now there is some property damage and a big mess to clean up.

Tell the players that while their efforts couldn't stop the tanker from falling they slowed it and prevented the tanker from completely bursting on impact. Now they just have to contend with tons of oil gushing from the hull. Better work fast before something ignites it.

And then blowtorch walks around the corner... :)

[Cancer]

The tanker has already hit the ground, I'm just trying to poll ideas for the degree and nature of the devastation.

Also, there is the redemption issue. From the point of view of both the government and the general public, how does one make up for something like this?

How many times will they need to save the world before the slate is wiped clean, so to speak?

What will they need to do to get people to trust them again?

Get your map of Manhattan and choose ground zero, and figure out how many people were toasted using a 2-kilometer radius. And how many digits of property damage were done.

I don't know if redemption is possible in our world for an error that large. Even by averting literal destruction of Earth's biosphere, multiple times. The negative is too large for people to wrap their minds around; any possible counterbalancing positive suffers from the same situation. How do you prove you saved the world? By withholding your protection once, that'll show 'em it's for real? Errmm....

There's also the cyncism thing. Even if they were to, say, divert the 200-km asteroid into hitting the Moon instead of Earth (which has the advantage that people could see the impact), you can bet Fox News would assert they'd set it all up to fix their rep in the first place. Political and journalistic careers would have "Revenge for Manhattan!" as their core defining basis, and the support of millions of grieving relatives. It has happened before, obviously.

I think generations will have to pass; living memory of the event will have to expire before any hope of "redemption" is possible.

[tinman]

The more I think about it the more I like the idea of a skewed timeline "fixing" things for them, but leaving them to deal with the guilt internally.

Plus, considering how little everyone liked them up to then, they could use a fresh start in the reputation department.

[tinman]

...you can bet Fox News would assert they'd set it all up to fix their rep in the first place.

:)
Fox News has been the bane of their existence...

[Zed-F]

I agree with the skewed timeline approach.

Give them a session or two (or three or...) to realize the consequences of their mistake. Don't hold any punches.

Meanwhile, reality starts to unravel all around them, accelerating much more rapidly now that the calamity has taken place. Think of all the lives that are now different from what they should be as a result of this event, and consider that each discrepancy adds up to more and more instability. The PCs have just added a whole bunch more instability to the timeline.

The players should realize pretty quickly that something major is up. The characters, on the other hand, may not have a clue as to what it is.

[Vanguard00]

The more I think about it the more I like the idea of a skewed timeline "fixing" things for them, but leaving them to deal with the guilt internally.

Plus, considering how little everyone liked them up to then, they could use a fresh start in the reputation department.
Captain Chronos, in an uncharacteristically somber and solumn moment, speaks to the heroes about what they've done, what possibilities they've ruined, what futures they crushed by their accident. He'll take them back in time, not for their sakes, but for the sake of the future. They will, of course, remember.

Especially when, months down the road, they are faced with a new villain/NPC/annoyance who knows what they did. He remembers.

"I don't know how you fixed it, whether God himself decided you had screwed up so bad that he had to take a personal interest, but I know what you did. I was there. I saw it. I remember. And I won't let you do it again."

[tinman]

"I don't know how you fixed it, whether God himself decided you had screwed up so bad that he had to take a personal interest, but I know what you did. I was there. I saw it. I remember. And I won't let you do it again."

I love the idea of a vengeful super bent on punishing them that they have to fight, all the while knowing that he's right. To the rest of the world he would be just another villain.

What would be going through their heads as they stand on the podium wearing plastic smiles, shaking the Mayor of New York's hand and accepting his congratulations on stopping another menace to the great city?

[Cancer]

Time-chain confusion and/or disintegration is a cool idea and can be a handy mechanism, but use it sparingly. Either that, or work toward making it unclear which time stream the PCs really belong to. Small but persistent anomalies can crop up, and those can be very funny. In one temporal disintegration adventure I co-ran, one of those anomalies was that all the money said "In Baal We Trust" on it, and another was that one of the PCs found (from the posters plastered outside the group's HQ) that he was porn star. By that time, the world was well on its way to complete chronoentropic dissolution. :eek:

[tinman]

chronoentropic dissolution

Stolen and repped, that's a great term.

[Cancer]

Stolen and repped, that's a great term.

I'm pretty sure I stole that term from somewhere myself. If I had to guess, it's from a Keith Laumer story that appeared in Analog circa 1970 as "The Timesweepers" and in paperback as "Dinosaur Beach".

[tinman]

Nevertheless.

[Hugh Neilson]

A replay opportunity may come about. The PC's have already travelled back in time to fix a problem (and they are living out the new timeline), but they killed the time traveller who helped them (lest the good they did be undone by another - to be fair it was to preempt a successful alien invasion).

Sounds to me like this group has already adopted a very "ends justify the means" aproach to Super'ing. That's fine if that's the approach you like (it's not the approach I like, so I'd be drawing them away from it).

What if part of the anomalies are caused by the time traveler himself, who is alive after all (perhaps a version from the old timeline ravelling to the new timeline and seeing his "new timeline" self killed)? Let him approach the PC's with the opportunity to fix things, and correct the timeline "once again". He then uses this opportunity to make some changes in the PC's as well (some measure of oersonal control over them? Perhaps he is immune to their powers now?).

With this the second time they use time travel to fix a problem, it probably also merits putting some roadblock to its use in the future, so the players don't get the idea they can always screw up and there will be a handy time-traveller to help fix things. As an example, maybe the time traveller tells them they, personally, are being destabilized by frequent time travel into their own pasts. "I can take you back, but there may be serious consequences". If they're real heroes, they'll do it anyway. If not, they get to face the wrath of the planet (especially since our time traveller can always go back and video them causing the tanker to fall).

What's the impact on the characters? Hit them where they live - they lose a "piece" of their powers. Perhaps the chronal destabilization impacts the characters' personal timelines, costing them (say) all the xp they earned since the last time travel fix. A hefty price, but better than the characters being pariahs to the entire world, no?

[tinman]

You're right about the whole "ends justify the means" part. The team has been inching closer and closer to The Authority way of doing things over the course of the campaign.

The tanker tragedy notwithstanding, they have been asking to be taken down a notch for a while now.

Time to put my evil plotting cap on...

[McCoy]

Call it 11d6 killing vs PD, megascale area, does not affect flying characters/ vehicles.

Followed by 30d6 normal damage vs ED, megascale area again, from the fires.

In Manhattan I would abstract it by rolling 1d30 + 50 for percentage of buildings destroyed, and 3d3 for the millions of peopel killed. Subways, sewers, everything underground totaled.

How are the PC's surviving this?

Like the idea of turning back time, especally since you have already planted clues seting that up, but let them live with the consequences for a couple sessions first.

[Captain Obvious]

I like the time-travel reset idea, and I especially like twisting it around on them. Let them fix this problem that way, and now make the timeline anomolies worse. Force them to do it again a few sessions down the line, and again make the anomolies worse. Keep turning up the heat on them until they want to go back in time just to undo what they did last time they went back in time.

Eventually work it out so that the only way to keep the timeline stable is to undo everything they've fixed by time-traveling, and make them fight the aliens.

Watch the director's cut of "The Butterfly Effect" for a nice downward spiral.

[Kristopher]

Do you have a powerful villain who is noble in his own way already in the game? If so, I really have to second the idea of the villain who remembers what happened and makes it his personal duty to oppose the group of "dangerous renegade cowboy hypocrits" or whatever he'd call the PCs.

[Hugh Neilson]

One question yet to be asked in this thread is whether the devestation had a physical impact on the heroes. They were pretty close to Ground Zero - did they just float in the air and observe the effects vfrom afar, or did they try to do something about it, and therefore were closer to the point of impact?

Have they been stunned/KO'd/Wounded/killed from the effects of the devestation?

If they just hung there and did nothing, maybe some satelite photography caught that. Maybe it also caught their own culpability in the disaster. This would seem logical - the villain was making a substantial terrorist threat, so wouldn't the government(s) be gathering intel ASAP?

And what happened to the terrorist himself? Perhaps he has been badlky injured, or even killed and he/his survivors hiure a lawyer to sue the heroes for their negligent actions. Perhaps, adding insult to injury, Campaign City is also named, as their tacit acceptance of vigilante action in the city was also negligent. Fire the people up!

[tinman]

After realizing that they couldn't hold up the tanker they tried to force it's path over to one side so that it would fall clear of the island. Unfortunately they just didn't have the juice to move it very far, and they backed off right before impact.

Afterwards they tried to help with rescue and evacuation, and only when it seemed that no more people were in immediate danger did they leave (and then they fled the country).

The villainess who was holding the tanker up was killed in the fight, and her companions scattered once the PC's were distracted.

Since the "demonstration" had been going on for about 20 minutes before the PC's arrived, there were plenty of news cameras and camcorders filming the events (though the ones closest to the action were probably not recovered).

I'm really liking the suggestions so far guys, thanks for the great stuff!

[Hugh Neilson]

One further note...before hammering the characters in-game, it may not be a bad idea to talk to the players out of game. You note they've been drifting to the "ends justify the means" style for some time. Perhaps their expectations from the campaign aren't the same as yours and there's a need for closing this gap from a metagame perspective.

Maybe start with asking them what kind of consequences they perceive as likely flowing from these events.

[Hugh Neilson]

After realizing that they couldn't hold up the tanker they tried to force it's path over to one side so that it would fall clear of the island. Unfortunately they just didn't have the juice to move it very far, and they backed off right before impact.

Afterwards they tried to help with rescue and evacuation, and only when it seemed that no more people were in immediate danger did they leave (and then they fled the country).

Fled the country...the media won't classify that as an admission of guilt, will they? The question now to be asked is realy what country would harbour them - after all, it COULD happen here!


The villainess who was holding the tanker up was killed in the fight, and her companions scattered once the PC's were distracted.

Wrongful death suit from villainess's DNPC (and/or families of those killed in the disaster)

Manslaughter charges (for villainess and/or the dead in the disaster)

Hunted by her friends (many of whom will testify the heroes caused the tanker to fall and they always intended it only as a bluff)


Since the "demonstration" had been going on for about 20 minutes before the PC's arrived, there were plenty of news cameras and camcorders filming the events (though the ones closest to the action were probably not recovered).

20 minutes? Probably had some live feeds going out. Oh, yes, there's lots of very precise evidence of the "heros" actions.

Say, why do they have to be Hunted by VILLAINS who remember what happened? Why not Heroes who remember (ie not people the press/the public will just dismiss as bad guys with an axe to grind)?

[tinman]

The theme of the game is the exporation of the effects and consequences of the use of power, so I tend to let the players go in the direction that feels right for their characters.

The problem with using another hero for the "I remember what you did" thing is that a hero might be listened to by the general public. If I use a villain, his or her only recourse would be to confront the PC's because no one would listen. Also I really like the idea of them being treated as heroes for beating up the one guy that knows the truth about them. If they walk away from that without a twinge of conscience then I can feel free to throw anything at them :sneaky:

[McCoy]

and they backed off right before impact.














Not very heroic.

[Hugh Neilson]

The theme of the game is the exploration of the effects and consequences of the use of power, so I tend to let the players go in the direction that feels right for their characters.

With that in mind, the "rewind/fix" seems hugely inappropriate. After all, you can't explore the consequences of the use of their power if they are permitted to retroactively undo the consequences of their actions. Assuming you want to stay true to this theme, this pretty much forces playing out the world's reaction to the characters having caused this large-scale disaster, especially if the last time travel use was also to fix player character mistakes (I'm not sure whether it was).

That pretty much mitigates the idesa of one person remembering - no one should forget. I would be inclined to throw a couple of reminders their way that the "friendly time traveller" probably could have helped them out here, but you guys killed him, didn't you? Another action which has some unpleasant consequences.

If you want to be especially cruel (and I mean REALLY twisting the knife here), you could run a scenario where the time traveller provides some explanation (several are set out above) for still beinga live, the heros return to the time prior to dropping the supertanker, solve the problem through another means, are cheered by the adoring masses, have homours heaped upon them.

And then awaken from this collective dream to find they are still on the run, hiding in a foreign country, and viewed by the entire world population as the greatest mass murderers of all time. Ideally, there is a psychic character with a reason to dislike OUr Heroes already who fed their collective dreams this scenario. Every so often, you could run another "opportunity to fix our mistake" scenario, only to have it be another dream feed, as the psychic continues to torment the heroes. Perhaps the psychic will tell them the only way these dreams will stop is if they turn themselves in and face whatever justice the world chooses to deliver. ie "You accept the punishment doled out by the proper authorities, or I'll keep delivering this private penalty, inadequate though it may be".

You can even run a scenario where they get a chance to eithe rmake peace with or (more likely) destroy this tormentor, only to have it be yet another dream scenario forced upon them by the psychic him/her/itself.

[Hugh Neilson]

Not very heroic.

Sounds like that's a pattern, doesn't it?

[tinman]

Sounds like that's a pattern, doesn't it?

Yep. I put a brief note about their motives here (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34442)

[BoneDaddy]

Blame Cancer for the thread necromancy.

What happened?

[Sean Waters]

For all their many and varied faults (there is not enough bandwidth to enumerate them all :)) my lot would have been under the tanker trying to minimise the impact even if they know they couldn't stop it and it was going to kill them.

Self righteous gits.

[Cancer]

Blame Cancer for the thread necromancy.

What happened?

Blame accepted. :D

[Constantine]

Wow. Great thread.

Given the theme is exploring the consequences of using their powers, I would still do the time travel fix, but only after a couple of nasty sessions where the world basically turns on their characters. Have heroes come after them like THEY are the villians. Have contacts and even some friends want nothing to do with them anymore. And definitely, definitely, have the time travel fix cost them something. Something serious. Maybe the loss of some of their loved ones. Maybe everybody, EVERYBODY, forgets who they are. No contacts, no friends, no identity, nothing (except, as someone stated, that one supervillian who remembers, and is gonna make them pay/make sure it never happens again, love it!!!), and of course, they remember, so maybe turn some of those hunteds/watched/dnpc's into pysch lims. Don't know, but this sounds like a great campaign. Makes me wanna run some Champions!

[tinman]

Blame Cancer for the thread necromancy.

What happened?

Well, the PC's went underground and the world became decidedly nasty in how extralegal metahumans were dealt with (usually abruptly and permanently). Metahumans who weren't government agents walked very softly indeed. There were no superheroes anymore, as being labeled a public menace was usually lethal.

An investigation found that the PC's, though acting without malicious intent, did act with a monumental level of negligence and disregard for public safety, though the general concensus was that the results likely wouldn't have been any different if the PC's hadn't intervened. The PC's also became the targets of several massive class-action lawsuits, and world opinion of them was decidedly poisonous.

Manhattan was rebuilt and repopulated, with an emphasis on turning it into a showcase for modern high-tech urbanity. I tried to reflect some of the spirit of post-9/11 New York in the game, with the character of the city becoming stronger and deeper through the shared tragedy.

The campaign was fast-forwarded about five years during all of this, just to ease the immediacy of the event and give the PC's some time for reflection. Their re-emergence onto the world stage was met with open hostility and outright violence pretty much everywhere they went, until one of them sacrificed his life to stop the destruction of St. Petersburg by a group of nuke-wielding terrorists (it was a classic grab-and-fly, and he got it out to an altitude of about 80km before it went off in his hands).

After St. Petersburg they achieved the beginning of a grudging second chance, and the PC's have been working like dogs since then to regain the public trust through acts of selfless heroism, but with every three steps forward they stil take two steps back (hey, PC's are PC's). They are still wanted by the authorities on more charges than they can count, but public opinion is very slowly improving.

As the PC frustration over their slow progress mounted I considered rebooting the campaign in order to lose the dark mood and start fresh, but right on the verge of doing it I changed my mind. It is a grim game right now, but if the PC's can actually redeem themselves the hard way then in the long run I think it will be a tremendously satisfying campaign.

[prestidigitator]

As the PC frustration over their slow progress mounted I considered rebooting the campaign in order to lose the dark mood and start fresh, but right on the verge of doing it I changed my mind. It is a grim game right now, but if the PC's can actually redeem themselves the hard way then in the long run I think it will be a tremendously satisfying campaign.
Sounds pretty awesome to me. I'd play in it, even if I had to come in and deal with the consequences of the existing PCs' actions. :)

[tinman]

Sounds pretty awesome to me. I'd play in it, even if I had to come in and deal with the consequences of the existing PCs' actions. :)

Thanks!

[Vanguard00]

Kudos to ya, tinman, for running with the campaign. It can't be easy, all things considered.

That being said, maybe a bit of "Thunderbolts"-style redemption is in order. Maybe have the PCs save some government-approved heroes from some threat, earn their grudging respect (even if the actual government doesn't like 'em) and rebuild from there. Or, if possible, maybe have the government come to them for a "plausible deniability" scenario where, if they fail, so what? A bunch of renegade heroes died doing something they shouldn't have been doing. If they pull it off, however, it's a nice boost to their reputation and earns them a favor.

Just some ideas to help keep ya going. Lookin' forward to seeing how things work out later on down the road.

[tinman]

Kudos to ya, tinman, for running with the campaign. It can't be easy, all things considered.

That being said, maybe a bit of "Thunderbolts"-style redemption is in order. Maybe have the PCs save some government-approved heroes from some threat, earn their grudging respect (even if the actual government doesn't like 'em) and rebuild from there. Or, if possible, maybe have the government come to them for a "plausible deniability" scenario where, if they fail, so what? A bunch of renegade heroes died doing something they shouldn't have been doing. If they pull it off, however, it's a nice boost to their reputation and earns them a favor.

Just some ideas to help keep ya going. Lookin' forward to seeing how things work out later on down the road.

Good stuff, I've been trying to come up with ways for them to get in good with various governments again. Of course, if public opinion rises high enough government attitudes will likely follow.

Though I feel a little ghoulish doing it, I've been mining the latest run of disasters in the Southern US and in South Asia for opportunities for the PC's to shine. This is something I usually avoid in games, as it feels disrespectful to turn real suffering into entertainment, but I'm pushing the comfort envelope a little in this game already, so...

I'm trying to strike a balance between giving them chances to succeed and do well and opportunities to screw it up if they aren't careful. I want the players to feel like their characters really earned redemption when (if) it comes.

[Vanguard00]

How 'bout the earthquake in Pakistan uncovering secret hi-tech/nuclear/WMD bases? The government says to the PCs, "Hey, we can't go in there, but you can. Clear it out and we'll see about getting you back into good graces (which they may or may not do depending on the evilness of your campaign government). Screw it up and we don't know you."

Use some shady government black-ops-type connections to get 'em to India or something, then send the PCs on a good ol' fashioned superhero dungeon--er, secret base crawl, complete with agents, maybe a superpowered villain or two, etc.

Heck, if you read "Ultimate Nightmare" by Marvel Comics, the base could be a screwed-up lab of genetic research. Maybe the PCs get there to find crazy and deformed metahuman monsters getting ready to break out into the world once they've finished eating the soldiers the scientists who created them/kept them prisoner/tortured/tested them...

[tinman]

How 'bout the earthquake in Pakistan uncovering secret hi-tech/nuclear/WMD bases? The government says to the PCs, "Hey, we can't go in there, but you can. Clear it out and we'll see about getting you back into good graces (which they may or may not do depending on the evilness of your campaign government). Screw it up and we don't know you."

Use some shady government black-ops-type connections to get 'em to India or something, then send the PCs on a good ol' fashioned superhero dungeon--er, secret base crawl, complete with agents, maybe a superpowered villain or two, etc.

Heck, if you read "Ultimate Nightmare" by Marvel Comics, the base could be a screwed-up lab of genetic research. Maybe the PCs get there to find crazy and deformed metahuman monsters getting ready to break out into the world once they've finished eating the soldiers the scientists who created them/kept them prisoner/tortured/tested them...

No government agency in my campaign world would trust the PCs with something so sensitive, though the PCs themselves might stumble across it and try to deal with it on their own. The second option works best for that, as a while ago I had a corporation trick them into handing over DNA samples, and they've been paranoid about what they were used for ever since.

As an aside, one of the concepts that the PCs seem to have the most difficulty with when they deal with governments is that when assessing a potential threat a government cannot rely on intentions, only capabilities. This has coloured their relationships with government agencies right from day one (much prior to the tanker incident) because the PCs seem to think they should always be given the benefit of the doubt and they are angered and offended when they aren't.

I really need to show my players more JLU episodes...

[tinman]

If anyone is interested I have a web site up for the campaign. It's pretty light on content at the moment, but I have the best intentions to fill it up with stuff in the future. Due to the jump forward the date in-game is November of 2010.

http://142.165.131.108/

[Dr. Anomaly]

It doesn't look that light on content to me, tinman. :thumbup:

[prestidigitator]

If anyone is interested I have a web site up for the campaign. It's pretty light on content at the moment, but I have the best intentions to fill it up with stuff in the future. Due to the jump forward the date in-game is November of 2010.

http://142.165.131.108/
I rather like the character sheets, especially the simplified one. What application(s) did you use to create them?

[tinman]

I rather like the character sheets, especially the simplified one. What application(s) did you use to create them?

Openoffice. I try to keep my campaign open source ;)

[prestidigitator]

Openoffice. I try to keep my campaign open source ;)
Cool. That's some nice OOffice-Fu! :)

[tinman]

Cool. That's some nice OOffice-Fu! :)

Thanks :)

Edit: The character drawing template came from somewhere, but I don't remember where. I'm pretty sure it was someone's game site but for the life of me I can't recall. If anyone knows who I should credit for it please let me know, I've made extensive good use of it.