WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

Just a reiteration of the original post' date=' a part that most people seem to have missed since they apparently think that [u']their characters[/u] can do better than every other hero in the world with applicable powers . . .

 

Well, in the case of two of my characters, they are the best in the world with the applicable powers, so I went from there.

[Robyn]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

That way the girl gets to satisfy her martyr complex' date=' and we don't get busted for conspiracy to commit murder. Geez, what must the medical malpractice premiums have been in this place?[/quote']

 

Maybe the doctors aren't thinking clearly with the crisis and their own imminent deaths and everything. Lucky for everyone there that they can realize when their thinking is impaired and hand off the responsibility to someone who is capable of rational thought in such a situation, instead of charging ahead anyway.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

Want to? Sure. Actually have a chance of pulling it off? No.

Well, the basic dilema is a bit contrived...

If you manage to come up with some rubber science excuse why Regeneration/Aid/Healing won't work on the girl, and why LS: Disease doesn't affect the plauge, then you're looking at a real threat. However that'd probably smell even more contrived.

 

It reminds me of an old D&D game I was in a bazillion years ago where the Princess of the Realm getting murdered was the big plot hook, and we eliminated 80% of the plot 5 minutes later when our Cleric ressurected her. The GM simply hadn't taken the abilities of the characters into consideration when designing the plot, and ended up throwing a wee hissy fit and cutting the game off short when we did the obvious thing.

 

To really make this plot work, you'll need to complicate it by broadening the focus of the threat... if you try and keep narrowing it down "You can't do something different, dammit! Its a super disease! or, uh, something!", it ends up less plausible rather than more.

 

The big hole I see is the timeline. 3 days to cure an unknown, extremely contagious, 99.999% fatal disease comes across as a bit silly. Especially if it has a 2 day cycle from incubation to host death... something of the sort would actually be pretty easy to quarrantine, as diseases that fatal, in theory at least, tend to burn themselves out in a firestorm... they kill the hosts too quick to allow a good pandemic to spread. So the Girl is the only survivor. Once she's managed to survive the infection, there isn't any really good reason I can think of why it would prevent her from being stabilized and strengthed by Superscience/Magic/whatever... something a LOT of supers have access to. If your basic premise is that extracting antigens from her system is the only way that the contagion can be stopped before the majority of the infected hit the critical stage (point of no return) of the disease, then its almost going to HAVE to take some sort of miracle/superpower. The logistics of getting her blood, working up a cure, culturing enough serum for a whole city population and then distributing it in a quarrantine zone in less than 2 days is virtually impossible, barring the intervention of some form of Deus Ex Machina, such as appropriate superpowers.

[incrdbil]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

Just a reiteration of the original post' date=' a part that most people seem to have missed since they apparently think that [u']their characters[/u] can do better than every other hero in the world with applicable powers . . .

 

 

Well, considering the tremendous silly idea those other minds have come up with "cut her open and we'll see how that disease works" idea..why should they not do their own investigations. Whoever these experts are, they are first and foremost a bunch of blame ducking competent weasels, and any hero with the skills is goign to heck it out himself Surgery is the only option...right.

 

As to the collection of the best minds..my super-scientist would simply note "Was I there? If not, its just a collection of the second best."

 

You ask heroic characters what to do, you get the ful scale of heroic type answers.

 

I wish people not wanting the types of alternatives you get from player characters would learn to label their WWYCD threads from the start (only options A and B are allowed).

[CBikle]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

I wish people not wanting the types of alternatives you get from player characters would learn to label their WWYCD threads from the start (only options A and B are allowed).

 

Right. Really,as a moral barometer to figure out the character, you could just break this down to:

 

"Either a 100,000 people die or a little girl dies. After fruitless investigation/research/praying you come to the conclusion that those are your only options, what would your character eventually choose ?"

 

See, as a scenario, I think it actually has promise, but it's definitely a fixer-upper.

[Robyn]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

Right. Really,as a moral barometer to figure out the character, you could just break this down to:

 

"Either a 100,000 people die or a little girl dies. After fruitless investigation/research/praying you come to the conclusion that those are your only options, what would your character eventually choose ?"

 

I've considered making a "WWYCD - your dice hate you today" scenario, actually, where the entrants are required to fill in the details themselves, explaining why and how they got to this situation.

 

I think I've figured out the secret to these, though, after a few poor tries to experiment with the idea. A good WWYCD is one that receives different answers, not "there's no question here", from respondants. A good moral dilemma WWYCD is one that has various people appalled (on behalf of their characters) at the answers other people have selected.

 

I've been working on a new one, and I think I've got just the thing this time

[CBikle]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

 

The logistics of getting her blood, working up a cure, culturing enough serum for a whole city population and then distributing it in a quarrantine zone in less than 2 days is virtually impossible, barring the intervention of some form of Deus Ex Machina, such as appropriate superpowers.

 

Exactly. Although, I think the distribution aspect of this actually could work within the time-constraints of the scenario and be an additional challenge for the PCs to have to address.

[SKJAM!]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

In the case of the Mask of Justice, my reasoning goes as follows: I trust my GM to not screw me over. Therefore this cannot be a "no good answers" scenario. Also, "no good answers" scenarios aren't in genre for Golden Age characters. However, it is in genre for a villain to try to make it appear that there are no good answers, creating a false dilemma. Therefore, there is a villain about.

[input.jack]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

In the case of the Mask of Justice' date=' my reasoning goes as follows: I trust my GM to not screw me over. Therefore this cannot be a "no good answers" scenario. Also, "no good answers" scenarios aren't in genre for Golden Age characters. However, it is in genre for a villain to try to make it appear that there are no good answers, creating a false dilemma. Therefore, there is a villain about.[/quote']

 

Exactly. Same goes for the Bronze Age games I play in

[Robyn]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

However' date=' it is in genre for a villain to try to make it appear that there are no good answers, creating a false dilemma. Therefore, there is a villain about.[/quote']

 

Finally, a player that tries to think about why the established limitations hold true, instead of disregard them.

 

Repped

[Lethosos]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

I think I've figured out the secret to these' date=' though, after a few poor tries to experiment with the idea. A good WWYCD is one that receives different answers, not "there's no question here", from respondants. A good [i']moral dilemma[/i] WWYCD is one that has various people appalled (on behalf of their characters) at the answers other people have selected.

Which is one of the reasons why I want to create an offical "archive" of WWYCD plots, and let people contribute to each plot "thread" as a more-or-less offical statement about their characters.

 

These things make you consider the character's internal philosophy/behavior, and further tightens your game-play by alluding to possible scenarios that make you think.

[Robyn]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

Which is one of the reasons why I want to create an offical "archive" of WWYCD plots' date='[/quote']

 

When you do, will you put a link to it in your sigline as well as an announcement on the forums? I might miss the announcement if there's enough activity between times I check here for the thread to move past page one.

[Lethosos]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

Will do, it's just a matter of getting to it and/or the system I'm cooking up for the Uberworld PBEM game I'm in, to track the story there.

[McCoy]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

*Doesn't seem any more contrived than a number of Silver Age stories.*

 

OK, bypassing the question of where the heck are her parents and assuming what they need is a bone marrow sample; also making the assumption that the equiptment for the non-invasive procedure is not man-portable, even by a superhero.

 

This is a tough one for Millennium, as you knew it would be. He has a healing touch, could restore the girl to full health in under a minute. And possibly wipe out what they need in the process. Telepathy on the doctors, telepathy on the girl. IF there is at least a 51% chance of her surviving the procedure, and she truely understands how much it will hurt, will say go ahead. Will be in the OR, will try for a power stunt roll. Other telepaths are able to block the pain center in someone's brain, he's never done that before but will give it the old college try. If she flatlines, they had better have their samples because he's throwing on the healing.

 

Cheeta will pull the doctor into another room. "What if we say you're going to do the procedure, and just knock her out for a couple of days? She can use the rest, and it looks like you could to."

 

Iron Will uses his gadget pool to build the equiptment for the non-invasive testing. It's good to be a techno-mage.

 

Snow Leopard and Dolphin both will allow the little girl to be a hero. Snow Leopard would phrase it "So frail a body to house the heart of a warrior!"

 

Dolphin more "Respect the dude-et man, she's got chops!" He would also suggest accupuncture or other non-chemical anesthesia.

[Lethosos]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

Given that the Queen of Spades will more than likely be wearing her envirmental hardsuit attachment (LS: Immunity to Disease, No Need to Breathe for starters,) she'll consider the quacks a bunch of nuts. There are low-evasive biopsy methods; in fact, why didn't they just draw her blood, send that out, and stick her inside a sealed bubble to transport her out to a better facility? She'd even be happy to do it herself!

 

In fact, she'd just go right ahead and do it; she'll have to take a few back roads to the nearest said facility and ignore the suits trying to stop her.

[GoldenAge]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

The bodily sacrifice or death of an innocent little girl is never the only option… NEVER!

 

Especially for Bastion whose quantum Chromo-Dial will allow him to reduce his size to the molecular level where he can utilize his incredible scientific mind to decipher this puzzle hands-on.

 

My odds are on Dr. Castle (Bastion)!

[Robyn]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

Telepathy on the doctors' date=' telepathy on the girl. IF there is at least a 51% chance of her surviving the procedure, and she truely understands how much it will hurt, will say go ahead.[/quote']

 

Didn't intend for there to be a chance of survival, but the doctors could be wrong. She's a little girl; she either understands in general terms that it'll hurt more than anything else ever has in her entire life, or she thinks she does and you can tell that she's been relatively unharmed during her life.

 

I did say relatively. This being a child, and if Millenium like most other adults has blocked out most conscious memories of that time, he'll probably wonder how she's even survived to this age

 

Cheeta will pull the doctor into another room. "What if we say you're going to do the procedure' date=' and just knock her out for a couple of days? She can use the rest, and it looks like you could to."[/quote']

 

I like this answer

 

Snow Leopard and Dolphin both will allow the little girl to be a hero. Snow Leopard would phrase it "So frail a body to house the heart of a warrior!"

 

Dolphin more "Respect the dude-et man, she's got chops!" He would also suggest accupuncture or other non-chemical anesthesia.

 

Kaja might want to be on-hand during the operation, more to take a sample himself than because he actually thinks the doctors would let him bring to the event any mystical significance.

[massey]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

Just a reiteration of the original post' date=' a part that most people seem to have missed since they apparently think that [u']their characters[/u] can do better than every other hero in the world with applicable powers . . .

 

Because my character CAN.

 

Your premise sucks. My characters are the most powerful in the game world. There is no one who could stand outside the city and ensure that I didn't leave. If they discover that I am in the city, they will be happy, because I will FIX it. Any hero attempting to interfere will quickly be curb-stomped.

 

Sentinal would use his gadget VPP to build a variable-frequency radiation emitter that he will broadcast over the entire city. This radiation will affect the plague only (because I'll buy it that way in the power pool). This is a problem I'll solve in an afternoon. You can do that when you're as smart as Dr Destroyer.

[Robyn]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

Because my character CAN.

 

Your premise sucks. My characters are the most powerful in the game world.

 

I consider characters like that to be the exception to the rule; if noone can stand against you, then what's the point in playing?

 

The premise is valid for a broad majority of the heroes out there. Just because yours doesn't happen to be one of them, doesn't mean the premise itself is flawed.

[SKJAM!]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

I think you're trying a little too hard for the "no-win scenario" feel. I don't know about in your neck of the woods, but most of the players I know play super-hero games because they want to be heroic, and even if the odds are against them, have a chance to prevail. Thus, the vast majority of responses to such challenges will be, as they have been in the past, "I don't accept that it's a no-win scenario." Especially if their character's powers and skills specifically make it not a no-win. (Or in some cases, the player's knowledge tells them that the science is bogus.)

 

And unless I trusted my GM, I'd be mighty sore at this scenario too. (And if it turned out that it really was supposed to be a no-win, then I wouldn't trust my GM any more.)

[massey]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

I consider characters like that to be the exception to the rule; if noone can stand against you, then what's the point in playing?

 

The premise is valid for a broad majority of the heroes out there. Just because yours doesn't happen to be one of them, doesn't mean the premise itself is flawed.

 

The purpose of super-heroes is to save the day, not to beat up other super-heroes.

 

Your premise is not valid for a broad majority. This is evidenced by most everyone in this thread saying "my character would solve this problem quickly".

 

Doctor: "See, Mr Super-Hero, to save everyone else in the city, this girl must die."

Girl: "I'm ready to do what I have to do to save everyone."

The Punisher: "Alrighty then." BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! "It's times like this, makes it all worthwhile."

 

Most superheroes have abilities which will let them leave a city any time they want. Many superheroes have super-healing powers that will allow them to save the day. Many are immune to disease. Many are super-smart, and can cure the disease on their own.

 

Then there are the characters (like Frank Castle) for whom it's totally inappropriate to seek them out for such advice.

 

"Puny doctors no hurt little girl! Hulk SMASH!!!"

 

Plus, you've got a very sketchy understanding of medical technology. Most writers say "stick to what you know". If you try to write a legal thriller, and you know nothing about the law, it's going to suck. If this thread is any indication, you've got a poor grasp of medical practices and procedures. Stick to other things.

[dbsousa]

Re: WWYCD trapped in a quarantined, plague-infested city?

 

Golden Eagle has the wealth of a Fortune 50 company at his disposal, and the technical skill to redesign his supersuit on the fly to do anything that can be done with a supersuit. He will be the eyes, ears, MRI, and any other senses required for an offsite reseach team composed of the finest doctors in the world. If necessary, he will allow those researchers to tele-operate his suit, so they can conduct whatever tests they need.