Team Base... Who pays?

[Plex]

Re: Team Base... Who pays?

 

When I was a player we all chipped in XP to pay for the base. What we couldn't cover was done so through disads, government influence, and other interesting side effects that the GM would come with. (Like an AI with a wicked sense of humor/practical jokes.)

 

For the campaign I will be starting up shortly, I'll be giving the base to the PCs. Since only 1 of my 8 players has actually played the Hero System before, I thought it would be interesting to give them a base to use. This base doesn't come without some interesting side effects, though. The base was built originally by a Tony Stark type of person. He and his group disappeared about 10 years ago in an alternate dimension. The AI running the base did not know where they went, and has spent the time since then keeping up the base and appearances at the office. (They're stuck in a magical dimension and the AI cannot see magic.) The AI will recruit the players in the guise of the Tony Stark character- albeit "damaged" from some experiment gone awry. (Actually a construct that the AI works through.) He's recruiting them for the purpose of finding out what happened to the team and of course to protect him- as in the AI- from Mechannon, who in my universe was accidentally created by the AI. There is also a magic lab in the base that the AI doesn't know is there and it is locked. The players will need to get in there to find out what happened to the team that is stuck in the alternate dimension. Eventually they will get the team back to this world- I hope. Then the real fun will begin since the original owners will want their base back....

 

Ooops, I think I got a little off topic there.

 

Well, that's what I plan on doing in a nut shell. There's more to it than that.

[clsage]

Re: Team Base... Who pays?

 

This may be covered in Champions and if it is, please tell me so. I have long wondered how to handle this.

 

Team bases are fun, but not if you are the character paying for the whole thing. That is the case in the case of my character in a campaign. I'm dishing out 20 points from my character to cover the team base. Should I be expected to pay for improvements or should the team cough it up?

 

What do you guys do for team bases?

 

A lot of others have already mentioned most of what I'd be saying,

so I won't repeat them....I will mention tho' that (and I believe it

was back in the BBB, not sure if it's in 5th) that bases are eligable

to get disads. So if your base was bought and paid for by the Feds,

then the base gets a Monitored disad, depending on how much the

Feds want back from the heroes (do they assign a "minder" on staff,

do the heroes have to take any and all assignments from the

government, etc). And of course, if the base is under some stately

manor somewhere in the suburbs there is the Distance disad....and

so on.

 

Just my $.02US. If I'm already telling you stuff you know please pardon....

 

-Carl-

[jkwleisemann]

Re: Team Base... Who pays?

 

My general take on it? It depends on the campaign.

 

Generally, as a GM, I make it clear that the players will (if the campaign setup warrants it) have a base of their own. They'll even have communicators. Heck, I'll even give them free contacts to all manner of organizations if it makes sense.

 

But if they haven't paid for it or earned it, they can't *rely* on any of it.

 

Communicator batteries can be down at any time. The villains want to jam communications? No problem. Sure, they don't have a jammer that they paid for, but unless somebody paid *points* for HRRP or something, it's not like the heroes have comms that *they* paid for, is it?

 

Bases can be blown sky-high. They can be taken over by the baddies. You can miss a rent payment and get evicted.

 

Vehicles? Same thing.

 

Contacts? They can get offed whenever I want, be busy, be hostile - the NPC "leader" of the team can get himself killed, and all of his precious governmental contacts suddenly clam up because, frankly, They're Only Clear to Talk to Him.

 

If they *do* decide to pay for them though, it's theirs. They can pay for it however they want. Does the team Medic want to pay for a large lab to work in, and nobody else wants to shell out the points? No problem. The lab is the *only* thing that'll survive if the rest of the base gets shredded.

 

From a *player* perspective... I honestly don't mind paying for the base very much... at least not as long as the other players are willing to do one thing.

 

Recognize that it's *my* base.

 

They can't rely on it any more than they can rely on me loaning them my Blaster Pistol. Maybe a bit more - after all, it doesn't cost me anything to loan it out. Y'wanna room there? Fine. You want to use the Healing Pods before I put in the injured Bad Guy I have to interrogate? Hmm.... well, really, it *is* my base. You don't like it? Well, we could use some defenses here, I'd be *more* than willing to let you guys chip in, and then we can talk about you having dibs on the other powers the Base has.

 

Maybe it's petty, but see the comparison to loaning out a Focus. If my Power Armor character doesn't let the team's martial artist borrow his armor while he's on patrol and I'm not, is that being petty? Heck, the GM would probably *scream* if I *tried* to do that!

 

Maybe a Base is different - meant to be used by more than one person - but if *I* put the points into it... well, to me, I don't see that big a difference in the end. Especially if *I'm* expected to pick up the defenses you guys are all benefitting from, rather than just the powerful Healing that I built into it mostly for convenience's sake.

[Kirby]

Re: Team Base... Who pays?

 

In the current campaign I run, a group of NPCs has paid for the base and its upgrades, the PCs just happen to be in (relative) control of the base.

 

In a game I'm a player in, the base was donated by the city/GM, so anything goes (and it's an eyesore to a master villain in the game/city, so there'll be conflict).

 

The other game has just started, but when the GM ran it before, our "base" was an abandoned hotel we decided to live in.

[incrdbil]

Re: Team Base... Who pays?

 

Seeing as a base is usually a plot hook quite often, and just somethign expected..and terribly expensive just to get genre staples, as GM I often match, or greatly exceed player contributiosn with freebies. Unless the players want to build the wonder-widget of doom, then they can pay for all of it. But I'll usually find a way to make the basic walls, size living essenetials, and power inexpensive or free. There's far more interesting things for PC's to be using XP on than a base.

 

As a rule of thumb, I've been kicking in 25 points of base stuff per player--just to represent the resources any superhero can contribute to building a base through skills, effort, or brute strength. And for really big scale games, I'll translate 1 xp to 10 or 15 active points, no problem.

 

It's not likes bases save the world.

 

 

If mobility is a problem, and I need them to be mobile a basic non-armed vehicle might be donated. The players can add fancy widgets.

 

I remember playing in early champions, with the usual snails pace of XP per session, paying for bases just sucked, and a lot of us wanted to avoid having a base, because it just seemed to keep us from developing our PC's. For the techno-based characters who loved tinkering in labs, that sucked. I dont want my PC's to feel that way.

 

However, when campaigns get long in the tooth, and copius experience points can't find a home, a base can be a fine place to absorb that excess.

[Tech]

Re: Team Base... Who pays?

 

We have a rather random way of handling it: a base is created how we, the players, want it. The players are then asked to pay for it. Points are needed of course, but usually the players have a large amount of points already set aside for the creation of the base. Various players pay various points but I've yet to hear anyone complain. We're a fun group.

[Kenn]

Re: Team Base... Who pays?

 

Effectively, I hand wave it. I make every team member pay a portion of the cost for the team vehicles and bases... and then increase the Base Points the characters are built at to take care of the points I made them spend.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Team Base... Who pays?

 

As a GM, I would prefer the players paid for the base. I'd also prefer that they write up the stats and draw up the map. Heck, one campaign I even offered 5 free XP each for anyone who did any of the following (if they did more than one, they got 5 for each they did):

(1) Character picture

(2) Semi-detailed character background

(3) Write up stats for base or vehicle

(4) Draw map of base

 

An industrious person could come out 20-25 XP ahead (and incidentally get really into the character and game). I got two backgrounds (we have five players) and, about a year or two into the game, a map of the base.

 

My current campaign, the city is donating a base and local companies and wealthy individuals are donating equipment / money for it. Since the players aren't putting any points into it, like others have said here, it's fair game. The location is a former VIPER base (with a factory above), so you can guess who is going to come calling eventually. Their prime benefactor, a local millionaire, has already been kidnapped once and used as bait to draw in the heroes. (I'm making him a DNPC for the base, so IMO it's fully justified.) Since the bulk of the excavation and structure was built already, a sizable portion of the base is actually paid for by an unwilling donation from VIPER. Throw in that Hunted, and they've got a decent number of points to start with. I have various plans for how the donated equipment / money will affect things.

 

So, even though the players aren't paying for it, I'm good. Most GMs love free plot hooks, the more the better.

[Kirby]

Re: Team Base... Who pays?

 

Heh, nice, Bolo.