Global Guardians PBEM Campaign Openings

[zornwil]

No argument.

EC Comics rocked!

[BlackSword]

Ok, probably just one of those deals where I always saw things differently. Part of GM'ing in a vacuum.

Like I never allowed someone to make up an element for an elemental control. If it wasn't "fire powers", vampire powers, Klingon powers, dinosaur powers, etc then I wouldn't allow it.

I was also not a big fan of complementary disadvantages. When I look at that disadvantage list I can basically drop any one of them, and see nothing essentially different about the character, which is why I say they overlap. They are each different, but they also each seem to describe a different facet of the larger "Vain, chauvinistic asshole" disadvantage.

Anyway, you went above and beyond the call of duty with explanations there. Thanks!

As for the listed disads, I agree with you Paige (must be a MO thing ). Its 75 points to describe an arrogant womanizer. To me, it seems that its using the minutae of a personality to get more disad points. The disads don't completely overlap, but combined they describe a fairly simple and straightforward concept. That's the way I approach my disads when writing my characters, but other people have different approaches and requirements for character creation.

[Worldmaker]

As for the listed disads, I agree with you Paige (must be a MO thing ). Its 75 points to describe an arrogant womanizer. To me, it seems that its using the minutae of a personality to get more disad points. The disads don't completely overlap, but combined they describe a fairly simple and straightforward concept. That's the way I approach my disads when writing my characters, but other people have different approaches and requirements for character creation.

I think it depends on what you're trying to do with the disads. If you're looking for character hinderances, I can see your point. If you're looking for a further mechanism to define the character... I can see that point to. I use the latter purpose.

[zornwil]

I think it depends on what you're trying to do with the disads. If you're looking for character hinderances, I can see your point. If you're looking for a further mechanism to define the character... I can see that point to. I use the latter purpose.

You should link your excellent post on disads, if you don't, I'll find it. I really continue to think HERO should adopt your stance specifically and canonically - or let me say, I think it's virtually necessary, as you have synthesized logically and correctly the common and best practices, reconciling them with HERO without the fudgy way HERO has traditionally presented it.

[Worldmaker]

You should link your excellent post on disads, if you don't, I'll find it.

I couldn't find the post, but here's the original article:



Everyone who plays champions is familiar with the basic premise behind disadvantages: they balance out your character. The more powerful he is starting out, the more negative baggage he also starts out with. In addition, they give him flavor and color, making him truly different from all the other four-color do-gooders out there. While secret identities, vulnerabilities, DNPCs, Hunteds, and Berserks are all interesting and important components of that, I feel that the single most important aspect of any given character are his psychological limitations. Psychological Limitations (or "Psych Limits", for short) can best get at the heart of a character.

Why does he do what he does? What makes him different from the villains he fights? What human foibles does he have, and what makes him rise above them to become a hero?

Obviously, questions like these are best answered in a well-thought-out background and origin. But I believe that to build a well-rounded, believable, and interesting character -- in other words, one who would actually make a good comic book character -- you need to be able to pick out those bits of the character's background and personality that are most essential to the character, and list them in simple, bullet-point style statements. Those statements should then be written down on the character sheet as Psych Limits.

This last part is important. Very important. As cynical as it may sound, we all know that many players will put stuff in their character's origin and background saying one thing, but when it comes down to beating the bad guys at any cost, if it ain't on the character sheet, they ain't gonna play it.

As mentioned above, I believe that Psych Limits should add to the character and be entertaining, even if they are occasionally annoying to the player or detrimental to the character. They should also add something to the overall campaign.

Guidelines For Using Psychological Limitations

Do not take a Psych Limit that you know you cannot or will not play, or one with which you will quickly get bored: This involves a basic bit of self-honesty. If you know you can't help but crack jokes and poke fun at the other characters, don't take "grim and humorless" unless you are really prepared to play it and feel that you won't eventually get bored having to restrain your natural wit.

Psych Limits can be a great tool for keeping yourself in line when you are trying to play something really different from what you normally play, and if that's your motivation for taking a given Psych Limit, great! But never take a Psych Limit just to get the points if you know that, when push comes to shove, you are going to try to rationalize your way around it.

This, of course, doesn't really apply to Psych Limits that are forced upon you by gm fiat. I know a lot of GMs who, when running a traditional superhero genre game, force their players to take a 0-point "Reluctant to Kill" Psych Limit (unless the character has a really good reason for not having it). If this happens to you, all you can do is shrug and play it as best you can.

To GMs, I say don't give your villains Psych Limits you are not going to roleplay or use. Or rather, if a villain has a given Psych Limit, figure out ahead of time how you are going to play it; then figure out if and how it will affect the adventure. If the villain has "Megalomania", then he should be an insufferable, grandstanding marshmallow! If he has "Fear Of Crowds", make sure that the players have a chance to notice that, as their battle with the villain spills out into the street, the villain gets more and more uncomfortable the more that people show up to watch the fight.

Do not take meaningless or silly Psychological Limitations: This is just a reiteration of the proviso given in the hero system rulebook. "Hatred Of The Color Pink" is not a legitimate Psych Limit, unless you have a really good rationale for it! "Talks Like Porky Pig All The Time" isn't a legitimate Psych Limit either, despite the fact that it would be a legitimate disadvantage in the real world. Why? Because mainly its annoying and stupid. And that's the kind of thing a good GM will put his foot down and forbid.

This brings up the issue of Quirks. Most Champions players have either played GURPS at some point or have at least looked at the occasional GURPS book, and thus are familiar with Quirks. For those of you who aren't, quirks are little, one-point disadvantages (the player may take up to five of them) that are intended to add a touch of color to a character. They are basically Psych Limits that aren't worth points because they have almost no long-term affect on the character.

For example, "Always Wears A New York Yankees Baseball Cap When In His Civilian Identity" or "Always Says 'Great Googaly Moogaly' When Surprised Or Troubled" would be good Quirks. The best thing about Quirks is that they don't have to be enforced that much. (If the character ditches his Yankees ballcap because he's going to a formal party in a tuxedo, that's fine.)

For GM's familiar with GURPS and Quirks, I highly recommend allowing them into Champions, too. They're fun, as long as you don't let them get too goofy, and they are a great way to pick up one or two disadvantage points that you might need to balance your character.

Don't get too worked up about Psychological Limitations being "soft": It is interesting to note that a lot of things that would be considered Quirks under GURPS are full-blown Psychological Limitations in Champions. Does this mean that the Champions system is somehow broken? I don't think so. In fact, it can fairly be said that there are times that GURPS is downright anal retentive when it comes to points for disadvantages. They only want to give points for disadvantages that actually hinder the character. (Of course, some GM's are like that as well.)

I am less of that mind and more of the "points for anything that hinders the character or determines how the character is going to be played for its duration". For example, "Grim And Humorless" is only a Quirk in GURPS, but I consider it to be a true and legitimate Psych Limit in Champions (albeit, one worth only 10 points) because it defines a major chunk of the character's personality. And as a GM, I am less concerned about players getting "free points" for "light" disadvantages than I am about getting players to play well-thought-out characters with clearly defined personalities.

Still, I would warn you about allowing stupid, annoying, unplayable, or inappropriate Psych Limits first and foremost. You're going to have to use your own judgment on what is and is not appropriate for your own campaign, but you were going to do that anyway.

Make Psychological Limitations be worth their points: This piece of advice is for GM's. Basically, make sure that the Psych Limits really do limit or at least guide the character in how they are played. To be specific, let's look for a moment at "strong" and "total" commitments.

According to the rules, a character can, by force of will, ignore or violate a "strong commitment" to a Psych Limit by making an ego roll. If I, as GM, feel that the character doesn't have sufficient motivation to ignore that Psych Limit, I will assess a penalty to the roll. I don't do this to be a hard-ass, but sometimes (and every experienced Champions GM out there knows what I am talking about) the player gets more concerned with beating the bad guy or accomplishing the goal than with correctly roleplaying their characters. At this point, what you get is someone playing a super boyscout saying something like "Well, I know that this plan will endanger some innocent normals, but they probably won't get hurt. I'll make an ego roll to violate my 'Protective Of Innocent Normals' Psych Limit, since I think this is a really good plan." Not without a penalty, you won't. Of course, if a transgression seems particularly unbelievable to you, the GM, don't even allow the ego roll. Just say "Sorry, but you can't make yourself do that."

With "total commitment" Psych Limits, no violations are normally allowed unless the GM decides that the circumstances are so extreme that the character would consider violating his Psych Limit. This is what "total commitment" means, after all. In a couple of occasions, I have allowed ego rolls with an -8 or -10 penalty to see if the character could violate his Psych Limit. For example, a character with total commitments to both "Protective Of His Family" and "Code vs. Killing" could conceivably violate the latter to follow the former. In cases of "make the roll or the entire planet dies", I wouldn't assess any penalty at all -- and I’d have a backup plan in case the character blew the roll.

If a player is constantly attempting to violate his Psych Limit, your best bet is to talk to him about it. Try to convince him to either a) play the character the way it’s written or b) play a different character. If neither of these options works for you, you can always run a major adventure (or series of adventures), culminating in all of the players getting their experience points at the end in the form of some cosmic/magical "gift". This "gift" can be a new power (appropriate to the character, of course) or having a disadvantage bought off. In the case of the recalcitrant player, decide for yourself that it will be the latter.

Of course, there are going to be instances where you don't want a disadvantage ignored or bought off. Cases where you want a specific character to have a "Code vs. Killing" because without it, you know he's going to be vaporizing mooks left and right. In those cases, my advice is stick to your guns. Try to convince the player or players that if they will concede this one small matter to you, you will be able to provide them with a much more enjoyable campaign all around. Ultimately, you have to wonder about why a player who cannot enjoy a superhero campaign without killing or maiming his foes is playing Champions in the first place. But then again, that's starting to get into the old "How to manage your playing group's dynamic" argument, which is totally beyond the scope of this article.

Make sure everyone is in agreement on what a given Psychological Limitation means: If you're a GM, its always good advice to sit down before you begin play go through the character's disadvantages with the player and tell them how you intend to use them in the campaign. This is doubly true of Psych Limits. You'll probably get a few players who say, "I didn't know you were going to use the disadvantage like that. I don't want it after all", and that's fine. It is much better to find out these things before play really begins than in the middle of the action later on.

Role-play your characters Psychological Limitations: As a player, only take a Psych Limit if you really want to play it. Don't take a limitation, especially one with a "moderate commitment" (which requires no ego roll to violate), with the intentions of either violating it or trying to violate it all the time. If your character has a "moderate" case of Pyrophobia (the fear of fire), he should hesitate before running into a burning building and then only because he really has to. And afterward, he should really be freaked out over it. It may be frustrating to let the bad guy go because your hero has a fear of heights and can't chase him out onto the roof of a building, or because he lives by a code which says never put normals at risk, but trust me -- if you do play your hero in character, it will make for a more enjoyable game, and make finally getting the bad guy that much more satisfying.

[Agent X]

I think it depends on what you're trying to do with the disads. If you're looking for character hinderances, I can see your point. If you're looking for a further mechanism to define the character... I can see that point to. I use the latter purpose.

I think being anal about Disads "hurting" the character ignores the real value of Disadvantages which is to help flesh out the character.

[Corven_Ren]

Worldmaker, I saw under the character generation rules everyone is required to take the 5 point Guardians package...what is this package. Is therre a place on the web site that shows this??

[Worldmaker]

Worldmaker, I saw under the character generation rules everyone is required to take the 5 point Guardians package...what is this package. Is therre a place on the web site that shows this??

If you follow the House Rules link on the left, then click on the Packages link once you get to the House Rules page, you'll find the 5 point Global Guardians Package.

[Corven_Ren]

Thanks

[Corven_Ren]

Well finally got my character submitted to John Scaleras game...hope I make it in

[Worldmaker]

Well finally got my character submitted to John Scaleras game...hope I make it in

You're going to want to subscribe to our Admin List, just to keep tabs. The address is adminlist-subscribe@globalguardians.com

If you do not make it in, you can unsub later. If you do, you're required to be subbed to that list anyway.

[lemming]

No argument.

EC Comics rocked!

Damn straight!

[nexus]

I have a character but I just can't come up with a decont background. Everyone comes out to be like a paragraph long so far.

[OddHat]

Sent in one character for consideration to Campaign 2 (The Monkey King) and two mystics for consideration to campaign 3 (Ohayo Siruba and Doctor Shanghai). Please let me know if they need any changes.

[nexus]

Can you submit to more than one Campaign?