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GetBackers: DC fodder?


Michael Hopcroft

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Thsi weekend I goit to watch a whole bunch of new anime at a friend's hosue, and one of the new series I saw was GetBackers -- which seemed to me like it might be prime DC fodder. On the other hand, many of the important characters have superpowers, so I'm wondering how it would work.

 

The heroes of the series, Genji and Ban, are 'retrival specialists" who use their natural ability and minor-league superpowers to retrive lost and stolen items. The powers do not seem intuitively the sort of powers that would be most useful for this kind of work: Genji is a human 'electric eel" who generates electricity from his body and can perform a variety of effects with it, while Ban has the severely limited but frighteningly effective power to cause people with whom he makes eye contact to see a 'dream" (usually more like a nightmare usually) for one minute real time and thus be incapable of interacting with the real world suring that time, as well as a "200 kg grip" (if I got my sums right that's about 460 pounds of pressure when he has someone in his clutches -- doesn't translate into punching strength, so this would be STR with a severe Limitation).

 

Among their recurring enemies are Lady Poison, a chemistry genius who uses various perfumes for a variety of dangerous effects (she and Ban have a history), and Dr. Jackal, a vicious killer who has a seemingly unlimtied number of scalpel-like weapons stored inside his body that he can summon at will. On the other hand, the "transporter" No-Brake was one of the more intriguing characters, who seemed to have no power at all except that he is an exceptionally nervy driver who is nearly impossible to intimidate on the road.

 

the GetBacksers would also have the disadvantage of being very bad with money and thus perpetually broke. Although their services are usually expensive, they have the habit of doing things that reduce their income, from taking on free work when the client has a particularly compelling story to making foolish assumptions about the job that cost them a lot of money. (They once blew a 2 million yen fee because they thought a traget was a shipment of platinum and it turned out to be an especially prixzed melon....)

 

Would you run this game as DC or low-powered Champions? And does it really matter?

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Re: GetBackers: DC fodder?

 

Is anyone getting killed? If so, DC, if not, Champions.

 

I don't see that it would make much difference either way, though. With scaling in Hero being so important, these PCs sound like they could be 100 pt to 300 pt characters. Just depends on how you want to do it.

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Re: GetBackers: DC fodder?

 

Is anyone getting killed? If so, DC, if not, Champions.

 

I don't see that it would make much difference either way, though. With scaling in Hero being so important, these PCs sound like they could be 100 pt to 300 pt characters. Just depends on how you want to do it.

Dr. Jackal kills almost a score of lesser "retrievers" in one epsidoe in a particularly brutal way -- but then again the Joker is also a vicious killer. The GetBackers themselves tend not to kill without great provocation, and even spared Dr. Jackal afetr defeating him even though if any aniume charatcer ever blatantly deserved to die it's him.

 

Good question. I think the possibility of death is very real, and the heroes continually find themselves literally staruing death in the face. In addition,t hey are very far from being bulletproof or having reduced vulenraility -- they're tough, but not superhumanly so despite their powers.

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