Regrettable Disads

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

From the "I clearly wasn't thinking this through" file...

 

Now, I know disads are supposed to be hindrances, but every once in a while one takes over and has disastrous results far and above what you anticipated. What disads have you used or seen that really seemed to backfire in a tremendous way?

 

I'll start:

 

Vulnerability: 2x BODY vs Attacks made with successful Find Weakness roll.

 

No explanation necessary.

[input.jack]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

I was playing a shy character.

 

"Takes the Stun rolled on Presence Attacks".

 

(I rarely made it through the initial Phase 12 conscious)

 

Awhile back a Player in my group meant to write "Avoids needless killing of animals". But it was late, he was tired, and he just wrote "Needless".

 

After a session or two, the GM decided he needed to keep the Disad, because his character was basically useless. Another Player joined the game late, and had a similar character concept. The GM disallowed it because "Im afraid theyd underlap".

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

From the "I clearly wasn't thinking this through" file...

 

Now, I know disads are supposed to be hindrances, but every once in a while one takes over and has disastrous results far and above what you anticipated. What disads have you used or seen that really seemed to backfire in a tremendous way?

 

I'll start:

 

Vulnerability: 2x BODY vs Attacks made with successful Find Weakness roll.

 

No explanation necessary.

 

Wow ... about the only thing worse I've ever seen was someone who (I can't remember who, but the phrase 'the poor sap' kicks in automatically) took a double Body vulnerability to both a special effect and an attack type (I'm wanting to say Fire and RKAs ... or perhaps Magic and RKAs). One Eldritch Spear and ... oh, did I mention that he forgot Resistant Defenses?

 

SPLUTCH.

[Narratio]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

Yep, a player I remember opted for both 2x body damage from Sonic attacks AND 2x Stun from Sonic attacks (Back in the days of Champions 2)

 

Just about any loud noise stunned him. Couldn't go to concerts, sports stadiums, anywhere near airports etc, etc. The first guy I ever saw take a complete buy down on his disads.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

One of my players bought his supposed love interest as a Romantic Rival (rival in superior position). I asked him what lady they were both chasing and pointed out what it meant. Rather than have Lois and Clark both after Lana (for example), he found another disad.

 

Have had to encourage "heroes" to change their "Hunted by Police" and "Hates Cops" type disads before...

 

Player started to write "Committed to Justice" but got distracted and stopped with "Committed" (Common, Strong). Nowadays I guess that would be more of a SocLim.

 

No major vulnerability stories...tend to stay away from the extra BODY ones except for things like NPC robots and such. We generally catch things at creation time, don't recall any real severe "oh noes".

[MandraketheBard]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

Can't remember one that made it through character review off the top of my head (I'm sure I'll remember something eventually), but I do remember one incident that was just over the top. One player (I'm guessing he was a Who fan) wanted to take the following Phys Lims: Blind, Deaf, and Mute. He wasn't even trying to do something pseudo-clever, like taking Spatial Awareness or anything like that...just "deaf, dumb, and blind." Figured that would get him 60-70 disad points right there. Needless to say, the character was rejected.

[bwdemon]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

PROBLEM: In one campaign, two characters had Hunted by VIPER, 14- as a disadvantage (both had reformed villain backgrounds). The GM took the Hunted rules strictly, which made VIPER comically prominent in the game.

 

SOLUTION: After taking the fight to and cleaning out the local Nest, the GM allowed them to buy it down to 8-. They were still common, but they weren't popping out of the woodwork.

 

SUGGESTION: Be wary of more than one character have any particular Hunted unless you want them to be a major player in the game. Be extremely wary if it's anything over 8-.

[Grimble]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

We had a guy take an incompetent DNPC 14- . This DNPC was named Jocko and he was the unofficial president of the character's fan club. He was always showing up during battles, press confences and later in our base once the character told the AI that Jocko was a friend. He'd plaster everery surface of the downtown area with childishly drawn posters for the Hero's fan club. He once tried to "help" durng a tough super-fight by tieing a towel around his neck for a cape and poking holes in a paper bag to make a mask. Jocko barely made it out of the fight alive and the PC had to leave the fight to get him to the hspital.

 

Jocko stuck around until the end of the campaign. He became our team mascot after a awhile. He even made it into another character's Disads after a good bit of roleplaying between Jocko and the other PC. He still had some Mystery Disad points left undefined and the GM had Jocko start his fan club, too.

 

Jocko was always making trouble for the team, but his child-like demeaner kept us from ever pushing him away for good.

 

 

Grimble

[teh bunneh]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

One guy ran out of ideas for disads, so he told me, "I've got 25 points left of disads. Just surprise me."

 

I had an Evil-GMgasm when he said that. I made him pay for that little mistake, oh yes.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

PROBLEM: In one campaign' date=' two characters had [i']Hunted by VIPER, 14-[/i] as a disadvantage (both had reformed villain backgrounds). The GM took the Hunted rules strictly, which made VIPER comically prominent in the game.

 

SOLUTION: After taking the fight to and cleaning out the local Nest, the GM allowed them to buy it down to 8-. They were still common, but they weren't popping out of the woodwork.

 

SUGGESTION: Be wary of more than one character have any particular Hunted unless you want them to be a major player in the game. Be extremely wary if it's anything over 8-.

 

While none were at 14-, my old long-running campaign had a similar VIPER focus. A majority of the early & prominent characters had Hunted by VIPER, and it featured strongly in many origins.

 

One guy was just Hunted. I decided that some of his early activities smashing up drug-running boats interfered with VIPER operations.

 

Another was the result of a VIPER experiment (also Hunted).

 

Another was an ex-VIPER agent (also Hunted).

 

Another was an agent-type whose old partner had been killed by VIPER (also Hunted).

 

Then there was the extradimensional giant cat. He wasn't Hunted by VIPER. The Ninja wasn't either as far as I can remember.

 

So four out of the major six early members...yeah, it was a VIPER-heavy campaign. Busted several nests in their local area, a few elsewhere, ultimately foiled THE BIG PLAN , beheaded the leadership/exposed a number of fronts and caused major splintering/shrinkage of VIPER.

[assault]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

One of my players bought his supposed love interest as a Romantic Rival (rival in superior position). I asked him what lady they were both chasing and pointed out what it meant. Rather than have Lois and Clark both after Lana (for example)' date=' he found another disad.[/quote']

 

Heh. Lois would be fine as a Professional rival - competing for stories. I would also allow her as a Hunted, to set up all those stories where she tries to prove that Clark is Superman. In fact, that would be a pretty sweet arrangement for a Silver Age game. (Memo to self: build that into the character I am building at the moment!)

 

Have had to encourage "heroes" to change their "Hunted by Police" and "Hates Cops" type disads before...

 

I don't have a problem with "Hunted by Police". I wouldn't allow them to buy it at more than 8- though. It's not suitable for all campaigns in any case.

 

I would probably tone down "Hates Cops" to a weaker "Doesn't play nice with authority figures" kind of thing. That way they can cooperate with the cops, even if they aren't keen on it. Again, it would depend on the campaign, and on what the other PCs were like.

 

Player started to write "Committed to Justice" but got distracted and stopped with "Committed" (Common, Strong). Nowadays I guess that would be more of a SocLim.

 

That's just a plain old typo. I'd allow the player to change it to what he or she meant it to be.

 

---

 

Let's see: I've been hosed by a GM that interpreted Only In Hero ID more strictly than I intended. Since my character didn't have Accidental Change or non-Persistent powers, he shouldn't have reverted to his normal form when he was Stunned, but that's how the GM interpreted it. Needless to say, I rebuilt the character...

 

A more serious issue is handling multiple Hunteds, especially when more than one PC has the same Hunted. Mechanical "your Hunted turns up and tries to beat you up" interpretations can be a problem in this case. You can work around these, but I tend to be a bit cautious about letting this happen, and very cautious about allowing any Hunted at more than 8-.

 

It is, however, OK to allow this in some campaigns. "Mutant hate" games are one example, where Evil Mutants and anti-Mutant groups are pretty much expected to be the main opponents of the PCs. Golden Age games are another - gangsters, Nazis and Mad Scientists are pretty ubiquitous too. Furthermore, you could easily set up a "New Gods" kind of thing, where groups like Intergang and sundry minions of Darkseid will show up more or less every session without any particular drama. And then there is the Legion of Doom...

 

Hmm... Superman has Luthor, Brainiac, Bizarro and the Toyman. Batman has the Scarecrow and the Riddler. Wonder Woman has the Cheetah. Aquaman has Black Manta. Solomon Grundy isn't especially associated with any of these - he was more a Golden Age Green Lantern opponent. Giganta was a ring in, unless you are using Apache Chief (shudder!). Grodd and Captain Cold are opponents of the Flash, and Sinestro of the Silver Age Green Lantern. I guess it depends on which heroes you are using. You could probably set things up so each PC contributes a few Hunteds to the pool of villains, and the nefarious and totally infallible Master Plan of the week would depend on which ones show up... Silly, but potentially fun. I still wouldn't allow any individual Hunted to be taken on more than 8-, except Luthor, I suppose.

 

Another issue with Disads that could arise is that many of them could tend to be neglected in a largish PC group. Secret ID plots, for example, probably don't work so well in a large group compared to a small one. Covering for Superman's Secret ID probably isn't one of Aquaman's major hobbies, for instance. Once or twice, sure, but you probably shouldn't make it a major part of your game if you have a large group.

 

In fact... I'd be tempted to loosely tie the number of Disads characters can take to the number of characters in the group. The smaller the group, the easier it is to allocate time to the specific issues of each character. Bigger groups, on the other hand, would usually require such attention to be less frequent and/or detailed, since each character would require such attention. "Blue-booking" (which is easier in the age of the Internet) can cover some of this, of course, but it's still not the same.

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

The worst example I can think of is a minor NPC villain whose schtick was that she'd been raised from the dead (preciously rare in Via) through necromancy, and had brought some of that back with her. She took double damage from all holy attacks.

 

She directed a spell at the priest who was trying to kill her. He had a trigger set to do 2d6K, stun only, NND, to anyone targeting him with a spell. He rolled max damage, then she took double on top of that. Didn't have much STUN to begin with, so she knocked herself out for a phase.

 

And her spell didn't even have any effect.

 

MAN, am I glad that wasn't a PC.

[Plex]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

I took an incompetent DNPC but never clearly defined it. (8 or less roll.) I had meant it to be a buddy from the military that had saved his life in the accident that gave my character their powers, but left the NPC disabled, but never wrote it up. The other players in the group eventually just decided that I was taking care of a mentally disabled person. (Not that I really cared.) When I tried to tell them what the NPC was, they said no that they had already written it down and had gave the information to the GM. I don't think the NPC ever really came into play anyways. (I found out later that everyone in the group got to play around with another person's disad when they thought it was lame.)

[BcAugust]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

I took an incompetent DNPC but never clearly defined it. (8 or less roll.) I had meant it to be a buddy from the military that had saved his life in the accident that gave my character their powers' date=' but left the NPC disabled, but never wrote it up. The other players in the group eventually just decided that I was taking care of a mentally disabled person. (Not that I really cared.) When I tried to tell them what the NPC was, they said no that they had already written it down and had gave the information to the GM. I don't think the NPC ever really came into play anyways. (I found out later that everyone in the group got to play around with another person's disad when they thought it was lame.)[/quote']

 

...I take it this isn't your current group? Wow, that would upset me. As for my group... hmm, most have simply been mismatches between how the character was conceived and how they turned out in play. Accidentally started a fight with another character when two competing psych lims went into play(I had "Will not show weakness" and he had "Help where needed"... he was an empath who couldn't turn it off, I had no mental defense and was a walking mess of issues).

 

I did take a mystery disadvantage once... I'd say it wasn't worth the points, but given it's led to one of my favorite characters given a second chance at life, it was. (15 points of Mystery Disad on Nox, who's one of my usual WWYCD characters... she turned out possessed by a spirit of an evil ninja with shadow powers.)

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

Had player once take Susc. 3d6 STN to Visual Flash attacks and Vuln x2 STN to Light attacks. Which meant he was really taking 6d6 STN from Flash attacks. He got rid of the Susc. pretty quickly.

 

Had another player playing an Iceman type. He bought Vuln x2 STN to heat attacks, but also put the limitation on his ice armor "Not vs. heat attacks". Needless to say even low-level agents with a flamethrower could take him out in one shot. Thank goodness his Vuln was only vs. STN and not BDY.

 

_____________________________________________________

Oh no! Bad dive! She missed the pool. That will affect her score. - Crow

[Doc Samson]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

As above, if your GM is a stickler for Hunteds, any 14- Hunted is a pain in the backside.

[Clonus]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

14- Hunteds should be reserved for situations where the GM has decided you will always be fighting the same foe or organisation. He-Man versus Skeletor. Robin Hood versus the Sheriff. The Empire versus the Rebel Alliance.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

My namesake character, Bolo, had Vulnerable 2x STUN from Fire Attacks and Vulnerable 1.5x STUN from Explosions. And Hunted by Firewing. In the adventure my GM ran where the Malvans invaded Earth, I got taken out by one of his agent-level soldiers.

 

My very first character, GI Jones, had a Public Identity, Hunted by VIPER, and an DNPC (wife). She didn't last long, but then again, neither did GI Jones.

 

After I started GM-ing, I had a player decide he wanted to be Hunted by Dr. Destroyer. Nothing any of the other players said could dissuade him (and being an Evil GM, I was willing to let him have it). Made for one of the best sessions, though, when Dr. D kidnapped that character, and the other heroes broke into his fortress to rescue their teammate.

 

In one 4th Ed Champions campaign, three of the players not only took Hunted by Malachite, but had him involved in some way with their origins. This was not done with prior knowledge of what the other players had done. You can bet Malachite was a major part of that campaign.

[yamamura]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

The worse for a friend of mine happened in a Fantasy campaign. He decided to play a wizard that had the thieves guild as hunted. The reason or this was the fact that the wizard works with the city guards to hunt down and capture thieves. Well the GM warned him and I warned him not to take the hunted. Why did I warn him, well I was playing a member of said guild. Suffice to say after the first day of travel while the wizard slept in his bed, I did the honor of giving him a second smile. Now I know that was not very good for working with the group and all but I thought I was role-playing my characters whose friends had fallen at this guy's hands. Thinking about it now though I would of waited until the adventure was over and then arranged for the guild to capture him....

[Plex]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

Reply to BcAugust:

 

Well, they only played around with one disad from everyone's character sheet if they thought it was just there for the points. ( Which mine was and I deserved it.) Plus they thought it was funny. It was my original group that I played with for years. It really didn't bother me because I got to be in on a few when others created disads just for the points. It did teach me to be more objective with my disads. I cannot ever remember this DNPC ever coming into play.

[Cancer]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

Actually, a disad that kills the character quickly isn't too bad on the player, IMO. That means the player made a mistake, and will get the opportunity to correct that mistake and has a better chance of getting an enjoyable character to play.

 

The worst disads for the player are ones that won't go away, that ensure your character never gets to do (or never can do) things that you as a player consider cool or fun. Then your character is (as far as you're concerned ... it's possible that the other players and the GM may think otherwise!) is truly worthless. Having a character (let's call him Target Boy) with a potent signature power and a reputation and a weakness or susceptibility -- that combo more or less guarantees that character will be hit by the designated weakness in Round 1 Every Time and gets to spend the rest of the fight either recovering or crippled.

[Tom]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

This was a char I sorta picked up from another GM, and didn't take the time to fully vet through before play...

 

Note to newer GMs: NEVER allow the PC to have a berserk when 'bad stuff happens' if you like to start adventures when the PCs are in their civilian IDs. Especially when they have most of their powers through a focus that's sitting in the parking lot in the back of their SUV...

[Metaphysician]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

I don't think heroic PCs should be taking Berserk, period. . .

[Karmakaze]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

...One guy was just Hunted. I decided that some of his early activities smashing up drug-running boats interfered with VIPER operations.

 

Another was the result of a VIPER experiment (also Hunted).

 

Another was an ex-VIPER agent (also Hunted).

 

Another was an agent-type whose old partner had been killed by VIPER (also Hunted).

 

Then there was the extradimensional giant cat. He wasn't Hunted by VIPER. The Ninja wasn't either as far as I can remember...

 

This was a Vampire game, but it wound up being a weird confluence... Three of us all (independently) created characters within one inch of height, with the same hair and eye color. Two of us (also independently) took Mistaken Identity, and two of us took Hunteds (although at least not the same one). The GM decided that the mistaken identity was with one another and all three of us tended to get hit by the Hunteds, regardless of who had it originally.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

I had a character with "enraged when injured" on a 14 or less." I originally defined this as uncommon, because said character had a high DCV, and seldom took Body damage. I played him as a serious, intelligent combatant.

 

Then I moved him to a different campaign--and the villains had much higher OCV's. He got wounded in every fight, and went chasing off after the focus of his enraged, making it impossible for him to use any intelligent combat tactics, or to coordinate with the rest of his team. If he recovered from his enraged, another villain would tag him, and the process would repeat. Suddenly my tactical genius had a bad case of attention deficit disorder.

 

In short, the disad went unexpectedly went from 'uncommon' to 'very common' and nearly ruined the character concept. It pays to talk to the GM in advance about these things. Bought that one way down in a hurry!

 

XO