Numb3rs

[Maelstrom]

Ever wonder why Moriarty was a professor of mathematics? I've been watching the archives of this show -- and using the way that Professor Epps solves crimes could easily be used as a mastermind-level villain's thought process.

 

I don't want to give too many examples due to spoilage. But in nearly every case, I watch the episode with a notepad to check the more interesting theories. In one, another mathematician, working on Rieman's prime factoring, had his daughter snatched.

 

Check it out, and take notes. It really is fun to watch people being brilliant, and how you can twist that brilliance to your own . . . um, your player's benefit.

 

 

 

 

 

(power! limitless power!!)

[Alverant]

Re: Numb3rs

 

Check it out' date=' and take notes. It really is fun to watch people being brilliant, and how you can twist that brilliance to your own . . . um, your player's benefit.[/quote']

 

While I'm a fan of the show, I'm not so sure that Numb3rs (or any TV show for that matter) can give anything more than a plot idea for a GM. Dramas count on that twist near the end. Translating Numb3rs into a game session would ultimately hinge on the PCs making a SS Mathematics roll or something like that. I'm not so sure if I want finding the solution to be so dependent on a single roll. The players should have options of figuring stuff out and the GM should be able to throw them a bone instead of spoon feeding them the solution.

 

Example:

GM: OK roll against your Topography skill to find out where the terrorists will try to poison the water supply.

Player: Ummm rolled a 17 {bleep}

GM: Within an hour there are hundreds of reports of people dropping dead taking showers or drinking water. The city is in chaos and the President is openly talking about using nukes on {Mideastern city in a country unrelated to this terrorist group}.

 

I don't think that will go over very well. If you want to grab plots from the show, that's one thing. But i wouldn't go much further. I think the news is a much better source for DC games. In the first game of my DC campaign the players had to "recover" the $112,000 a Catholic church reverend stole and gambled away. That came from an actual event that happened a few weeks ago.

[Maelstrom]

Re: Numb3rs

 

Ok, NVM then.

[Vulcan]

Re: Numb3rs

 

It could still work. The GM just has to give some more traditional clues to work with. The numbers thing just means they get to cut through all the running around and go straight to the climax of the plot.

[Alverant]

Re: Numb3rs

 

It could still work. The GM just has to give some more traditional clues to work with. The numbers thing just means they get to cut through all the running around and go straight to the climax of the plot.

 

Do you think the players will like having their butts saved by an NPC when they get stuck?

[Vulcan]

Re: Numb3rs

 

Do you think the players will like having their butts saved by an NPC when they get stuck?

 

Where did you get that out of my post? Which was:

 

It could still work. The GM just has to give some more traditional clues to work with. The numbers thing just means they get to cut through all the running around and go straight to the climax of the plot.

 

The numbers clues can be used as a shortcut. If the PC's don't pick up on it, or fail the math roll, then there should be other, more traditional clues they can follow (fingerprints, material samples, witness descriptions, etc) to get them going in the right direction. If you're running an investigation game, then this sorta thing should be automatic anyway.

 

NPC's saving their butts doesn't enter into it.

[Guest Admiral C]

Re: Numb3rs

 

Do you think the players will like having their butts saved by an NPC when they get stuck?

 

Nobody likes that.

 

But an idea..... If dramas depend on a twist at the end hinging on a certain piece of intel, a working subplot in the story could be the PCs looking for the person or item that can generate that answer. Thereby isolating the answer until the PCs can get to it.

 

PCs don't like be saved by NPCs typically but are a lot more relaxed when that NPC's life was just saved by them AND then in turn the NPC saves them by giving them the info they need.

 

To me the thing about using NPCs to the rescue is to let them appear more "helper" than "usurper." That's easy enough in a combat focused game when the NPC can't do it himself because he's a pitiful combatant and that makes the PCs essential the NPCs plan, or rather, the PCs are the NPCs only hope of success.

 

Honestly though I've never seen Numb3rs.

[Alverant]

Re: Numb3rs

 

Where did you get that out of my post?

 

In the TV show when the agents get stuck or want help, in comes Charlie. Since Charlie never does any combat, I'm assuming he's an NPC. Since the PCs will play the FBI agents, they have to do the investigation, find the clues, then break the case. So when they get stuck, Charlie comes in as the deus ex machina to give them a push in the right direction. Now in a TV show it works because it's a drama and the outcome is fixed and predetermined. An RPG is different you have 6 or so people aiming towards a goal (maybe different goals) and no one really knows what will happen. So when the PCs get stuck, their investigations turn up empty, no remaining suspects, whatever someone has to help.

 

And that's where I got that.

[Vulcan]

Re: Numb3rs

 

In the TV show when the agents get stuck or want help, in comes Charlie. Since Charlie never does any combat, I'm assuming he's an NPC. Since the PCs will play the FBI agents, they have to do the investigation, find the clues, then break the case. So when they get stuck, Charlie comes in as the deus ex machina to give them a push in the right direction. Now in a TV show it works because it's a drama and the outcome is fixed and predetermined. An RPG is different you have 6 or so people aiming towards a goal (maybe different goals) and no one really knows what will happen. So when the PCs get stuck, their investigations turn up empty, no remaining suspects, whatever someone has to help.

 

And that's where I got that.

 

Ah. I was going off what little I've seen from previews of the show. I didn't know Mr. Math God was an "NPC".

 

I was simply pointing out that if a GM wanted to do something reminiscent of the show, there was a way to do it without relying on a single skill roll to do so.

[Alverant]

Re: Numb3rs

 

Ah. I was going off what little I've seen from previews of the show. I didn't know Mr. Math God was an "NPC".

 

I was simply pointing out that if a GM wanted to do something reminiscent of the show, there was a way to do it without relying on a single skill roll to do so.

 

As a loyal viewer of the show, I can say I don't think Charlie has ever been in combat. I can think of only one time he ever fired a gun. It was a sniper rifle on a gun range. He did it to get inside a sniper's head so it was more like research than combat. I wouldn't even give him any WF. So if a GM wants to do something like what the show does Charlie either has to be an NPC or be played by someone who knows that when the lead starts to fly it's time for him to leave the table for a while and read a book.

[Maelstrom]

Re: Numb3rs

 

Charlie's never FOUGHT anybody, but he was in the middle of a firefight in the FBI office that he had flashbacks of. He had a hard time going back into the building. I remember him shielding his laptop with his body, and was inappropriately amused.

 

Ok, maybe Charlie is Dan's follower.