Common Items

[CaptD]

I know in a superhero game you usually have to pay points for everything, but lets say the fight is over and the heros don't want the bad guys to take off. Would you allow them to carry wire ties? They cost a buck at home depot. If not they would have to buy them as entangles.

 

Also, how about a car?

 

House?

 

Cell Phone?

 

This kind of stuff comes up all the time.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Common Items

 

In superhero games you can carry pretty much any common stuff you like, but if I (as GM) think you are taking the piss then you'll find the stuff you are carrying got destroyed when you were hit by that energy blast, or proves ineffective in restraining Senor Slippery.

 

As I get older I'm less and less worried by the points and more concerned with just having a good time gaming. Freaky, huh?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Common Items

 

...as an example someone once asked if they could have a 'mastoid commo', which is apparently a communications device that sits in your mouth allowing people to pick up your sub-vocalisations at a distance. This rapidly became the ability of anyone to communicate with anyone else if they pretended to be a wooly mammoth, complete with 'trunk mime'.

 

OK, a bit self-referential and indulgent, but it doesn't seem to impair enjoyment. It might if you had a really serious player in your group, but we tend to throw popcorn at them anyway. And make them pick it up with their trunk.

[CaptD]

Re: Common Items

 

I let them carry cell phones, but I treat them as a communicator with unluck...(lost signal ect...)

[Trebuchet]

Re: Common Items

 

In our campaign we tend to assume our superheroes have the same mundane things that ordinary people do: Cars, phones, apartments, etc. Since our team also has a flying sub and a starship, we don't think it's unreasonable for them to have things like restraints for supervillains. After all, it's not very heroic to kill captured villains to prevent them from escaping.

 

We do make characters pay points for our high-tech communications devices. Originally this was subvocal miniaturized radios; these days it's hyperspace communicators of alien design (built as Mind Link) the size of a smallish watch battery that transmit sound via bone induction.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Common Items

 

for anything you can get easily it should just be within the character's budget.

 

We have one character that does actually carry zip ties in their bag. They only come out at the end of the fight when the GM has moved to "Non-Combat Mop-Up" time.

[Mike W]

Re: Common Items

 

Generally, in our games, you can have a "one time" access to any item, if you can convince me you would have stopped off to pick it up(and that you carry some cash in your costume). HOWEVER, continued use of the one time pass will mean that you'll lose it and have to pay points for basically everything.

 

There is one exception, however. Everyone can have a "Tracfone" type cell phone as a freebie. They're very cheap, very common, and can really help the plot along. But anything else you better pay points for it if you want to have it regularly.