Great moments in Gaming - Activation rolls

[LordGhee]

Great Gaming Moments

One:

The Glory of the Activation roll.

 

Or opps I didn’t do it again.

 

One thing that I love about Champions is that because of greed, concept or necessity players in order to get a power or effect need to take a little thing like activation rolls. This thread is about those stories, about great moments in gaming which activations affected the play good or bad.

 

The Game: El Paso Sentinels game around 1984 (game started 1982 and has in one form or anther been run ever sinceJ)

The Gamemaster-LordGhee.

The Players: Winter-Aura, JW-Sun and Moon, Tal- Lionsmane

 

Scene: Our heroes having traveled back in time, are trying to stop the Nazis Leader Captain Deutschland,who heads the Nazis secret weapons program from using the future technology a villain from the future has giving him. We pick up the story as the Heroes have invaded his evil base and smash their way to the corridor outside the control center.

 

Aura (flying energy projector): steps into the corridor, zaps one of the storm troops at the end of it. The surviving strom troops opens up sharing the joy of continuous automatic area weapons fire and small unit tactics. Aura terribly wounded stumbles back into the arms of Moon (Marital Artist) around the corner as Lionsmane (demi brick) closes up.

 

Lionsmane: “what we gotâ€

Braaaaaaaattttttttt,

Moon: “storm troops at end of corridor using machine pistols to hold us off.

Lionsmane: I will distract them.

Lionsmane charges around corner much to the others surprise.

Braaaaattttt , Booom

Moon carries Aura around corner where lion is on the way down (being a demi brick he was right that he would not take body but the stun was anther matter )

Aura spreads her energy blast, pushes and fries the Guards.

Moon makes 3 mental notes: Aura is an eggshell armed with a hammer. 2 When she is mad Aura fries people (this is proven again and again over the years of the game) and three, most important to Moon’s immediate survival is that the Germans have Grenades.

 

Moon and Aura after checking the fallen Loinsmane make their way to the corridor’s end and survey the heavy armored door.

 

Scene: Captain Deutschland in the middle of the control center.

 

Hmm, the Uber weapons must be protected. The allied heroes must not succeed.

 

Crescendo of gunfire and grenade.

 

The Captain draws his Urber Luger, selects Autofire, declares levels in ocv and holds his action.

 

Aura: I can blow it but I will be out of it for a while.

 

Moon readies herself.

 

Moon: Blow it

 

Aura extends both hands and a bright beam strikes the door shattering it in a loud boom.

 

Moons leaps dodging into the room and notes 3 things. One if you leap and dodge you have used all of your phase. Two there is a super villain type in the center and he is holding a very Big Gun. Three you must declare your skill levels are switch to defense before you leap.

 

The Captain points the Uber Luger at moon, right at her chest, a frightful looking gun with a long accuracy enhancing big bore (epically when you are looking down it ) barrel.

 

Moon knew she had it, after the group battles all this way with character after character going down. The Nazis will get their wonder weapons the future is doomed

 

The game master rolls the dice, and a 17, is rolled.

 

Game master: Click.

 

Moon (player with eyes closed) slowly realizes that she is not dead: Click, that was a click no boom.

 

Gamemaster: no boom, click as in jammed.

 

Moon’s fellow players cheer.

 

Earth still has a chance.

 

 

To be continued in s future great gaming moments thread.

 

(Later the player stated that he knew moon was dead.)

 

So what interesting things have happen in your games do to Activation rolls.

 

 

:D

[JohnTaber]

Oops...

 

I've got one...

 

A group of PC are on a deserted island that they know is the home of a hidden paramilitary base. The PC spot a waterfall and decide to investigate. The TK PC carefully lifts up the martial art PC and places him behind the waterfall. The 15 guys with assault rifles who are waiting blast the poor guy. It would not be so bad except the armor for this PC is on an activation roll, he is being held by the TK, and the agents are using autofire RKA rifles. The combination was a bloodbath. When the TK artist removed the PC all that was left was a bloody mess...

 

Let's just say that is the last time the PC used that trick...

[Blue]

No names are used, to protect the guilty:

 

A duo investigate a warehouse and one of them drops through the skylight in true batman fashion and lands on top of a crate which has been set there for that express purpose; The top is false and the hero falls right into an entanglement and is stuck! So that leaves only the other hero, who drops straight to the floor. Of course the villain is there. He has the poor sidekick totally unaware, aims, fires and hears only the click of the weapon as the activation fails! The young hero kicks in his targeting sense and notices the villain in the far corner. He throws a gas cannister that fails to activate, instead rolling helplessly to the villain's feet. The villain then decides to do something clever (and dramatic) by kicking the cannister back to the hero and then aiming his gun at it and firing. The gun fails to activate again! The enraged villain (who has a higher speed) moves into hand-to-hand range. The villain strikes and hits! (no activation required.) The hero however fails both his armor's activation rolls! (Two overlapping body suits. Guess the hit got through the gap under the chin). The hero collapses. The entangled hero uses the power he dreads most--a one use explosive power that burns everything around him. He takes out the entangle, injures himself slightly, but manages to severely injure the villain and put the other hero in critical condition.

 

All of those botched activation rolls were in the space of one turn! One of the players never used an activation roll again!

[JohnTaber]

Nice story Blue...and anyone who quotes Sisters of Mercy is WAY cool! UDM (U Da Man)!

[Blue]

Originally posted by JohnTaber

Nice story Blue...and anyone who quotes Sisters of Mercy is WAY cool! UDM (U Da Man)!

 

Gracias there, Babyface John Taber. Is that icon your Hero or Secret ID? And yup, the sisters do rock. Wish they'd do something new.

 

The only other activation roll story I can remember involved a hero with a "Cannonball" style move-through power. The player stopped playing, calling the game (champions) stupid after he botched his activation roll on two of his collisions, rendering himself unconscious. Most people would have just bought off the limitation with experience or made another character. In the end, we were better off; Some players you can just get along without.

[JohnTaber]

Re: My Avatar

 

Hi Blue: That is a picture of MY new DNPC...

 

My now 12 week old son Joshua...

[Tamashii2000]

Originally posted by Blue

Gracias there, Babyface John Taber. Is that icon your Hero or Secret ID? And yup, the sisters do rock. Wish they'd do something new.

 

The only other activation roll story I can remember involved a hero with a "Cannonball" style move-through power. The player stopped playing, calling the game (champions) stupid after he botched his activation roll on two of his collisions, rendering himself unconscious. Most people would have just bought off the limitation with experience or made another character. In the end, we were better off; Some players you can just get along without.

 

I had a simular problem player, created a guy in 'powered armor' (OIF) and with a 14- less activation roll on EVERYTHING (he was trying to cram in those points) I am game master just let it go.. then had all the viper agents pretty much target him.. so he had to make activation after activation after activation.. coarse he missed two.. got hit by 8d6 attacks.... with his normal 2 pd.. (did I mention they had find weaknes...and made it)

[Tom McCarthy]

Kyoto Shi will not die today

 

In university, we played 3 month mini campaigns. One character was Kyoto Shi, the spirit of a ronin possessing the wieder of an ancient sword (and somehow granting ninja powers). Kyoto Shi was sworn to slay the demon, since he had failed to do so centuries ago in Japan, leading to his own death. Kyoto Shi would heal wounds to the possessed body using regeneration with the SFX of a ghostly voice saying, "Kyoto Shi will not die today".

 

Everything came together at the end of the campaign. Most of the heroes were mystical or demonic in origin. DEMON was the villain. The heroes found the DEMON lair on the final night before the end of classes, and attacked. The demon was there, and he and Kyoto Shi fought one on one while the other heroes battled the other DEMON lords and goons.

 

Kyoto Shi and the demon exchanged nasty, nasty blows; big HKAs which somehow only came up with STUN multipliers of 1 or 2 all night, until both characters were at negative BODY, positive STUN, cursing and taunting each other. One more pip of BODY would kill the ninja, 3 would kill the demon. Kyoto Shi landed the telling blow, and the demon was destroyed. The player then announced he was activating his regeneration power.

 

And blew the 14- activation roll.

[Alien Knight]

Activation wierdness

 

Perhaps the best we ever had was regarding a variable point power pool with a skill roll to change powers.

 

Our players:

Mirage - A teleporting martial artist

The Holy Avenger - An avenging priest of Mars despite a templaresque costume and a big iron mace. We called him the Holy Roller largely because it annoyed the player.

 

The villains are getting away in their escape plane. Mirage, being a versatile teleporter grabs the Holy Avenger and teleports to the hatch where they proceed to cling to the ship's hull while the Holy Roller attempts to make a new entrance with his mace. After a few rounds of accelleration, the bad guys electrify the hull and gravity begins to take its toll on our heroes.

 

It's too far for Mirage to teleport and he can't drop the velocity anyway so he turns to the Holy Roller and says, "Ok, you can fly us down now."

 

The Holy Roller replies, "Fly? I can't fly. I thought you could fly."

 

Mirage's eyes get big as the ground starts to loom closer, "Wait a minute, I KNOW you can fly. I've seen you fly!"

 

"Well, I can't fly NOW."

 

Much groaning around the table and the Holy Roller attempts to configure his power pool. Failure.

 

Mirage gets this brilliant idea to teleport UP so that the Roller gets another chance to remember how to fly. Poof! Up goes the dynamic duo and the Holy Roller makes another attempt. Failure.

 

Mirage starts to do some math regarding his speed, his ability to group teleport and how fast they're falling. Gravity is going to win this little race. Soon. He teleports again and looks at the Holy Roller's player pleadingly. He rolls to configure his pool. Failure.

 

Mirage's player howls in frustration and the GM announces that this is the last call. If the roller blows this roll, both characters are going to hit at critical velocity. In this particular campaign, 30d6 means they're both likely to take some body. Mirage is probably going to be at death's door with his 20 defenses, so his player is a little worried. He makes the final teleport and looks at the Holy Roller's player who rolls and...succeeds. By one. There was much rejoicing.

[Christougher]

Re: Great moments in Gaming - Activation rolls

 

One that I heard about from LordGhee's group before I joined. The PCs are on the moon, attempting to stop someone from nuking hte planet. The nukes are activated, and on PC rounds up the 50 of them, takes them to the far side of the moon and tries to go FTL at the last moment to get away. *sputter* Fails the activation roll. The other PCs show up later to find the indestructable battlesuit with some powder in the boots...

[ghost-angel]

Re: Great moments in Gaming - Activation rolls

 

I don't use Activation Rolls if I can possibly avoid it ...

 

but this is similar in vein..

 

all our characters have primary/secondary talents. .. my secondary talent happens to be acrobatic martial artist, I've got a base Acrobatics @ 17- ...

 

every single time - without exception - the GM will figure out some penalties, add in my skill levels, other circumstances (like complimentary rolls if warranted) and go "Ok, just don't roll at 17"

 

at which point I will roll that 17.

 

every single damn time I tell you.

 

If he'd only keep his mouth shut I'd roll something like a 10.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Great moments in Gaming - Activation rolls

 

Bump!

 

We've had some great activation roll moments.

 

The Owl, 30's Batman-style character with glider wings and rocket boots with an activation. Some of the best moments in that campaign were from botched activation rolls. "Well, I'll just leap off the roof away from the thugs, activate my boot jets, circle back and...(click)...aah! Glider wings! Glider wings!"

 

Spellbinder, evil sorceress with massive EB magic ring on an activation roll. Would NEVER work if she tried shooting one particular character (Captain Freedom).

 

Gadgeteer character blasts some Viper agents, with old-school activation-roll force-fields, which fail the roll. Agents killed. 16 years later, the conversation in the group still goes: "You killed them." "No, their force-fields killed them."

[phydaux]

Re: Great moments in Gaming - Activation rolls

 

I was playing "Kaptan Hero," a character based on 'The Greatest American Hero' from TV.

 

One of his powers was a 70 STR with an 11- Activation roll (otherwise he had a 10 STR).

 

A fellow hero was knocked out of the sky and hit the ground. The impact stunned him. While he was stunned a villian threw a shipping contianer filled with scrap iron (GM said it was ~50K tons) on top of the fallen hero.

 

On my action, I fly over to the shipping container and try to lift it. I make my activation roll and lift the shipping container over my head. As I wait for the fallen hero to recover and crawl out, it becomes my NEXT action phase. I go to make my STR activation roll - AND FAIL!

 

Now we're BOTH under 50k tons of scrap iron!

 

The guys NEVER let me play that character again. it's too bad, because with work he could have been really fun...

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Great moments in Gaming - Activation rolls

 

In one of my first Champions games (and, for the record, looking back at it, I am *seriously* not proud of it ... but anyway), we had an 'Adjuster' character ... a Multipower full of Aid, Drain, Transfer, etc. Colossal pain in the butt, really. But all his powers were built with a 15- activation roll ... which gives him about a 90 percent chance to use the powers.

 

One game, I decided to do an 'Acts of Vengeance' routine ... all the PCs main nemesises (nemeses?) got together and decided to take out the heroes by 'mixing and matching' opponents, after each villain told the others everything they knew about the hero they hated.

 

Anyway, the trap is laid, and the fight starts. Mr. Aid, by the by, had a 'DBZ Powerup Slot' (not that the show was on then, but that's what I'd call it now), so he was hiking around at or near campaign maximum on EVERYTHING after two phases of powering up. So, his first action, predictably, is to power up.

 

Rolls a 17.

 

With his powers failing to work, the villains basically ignore him and start wailing away on his teammates. He tries again, since his stats really suck without being boosted.

 

Rolls a 16.

 

At this point, the team is in very dire straits ... he's not sure it's going to help, but he goes for a powerup again ...

 

Rolls an 18.

 

Fight over, deathtrap ensues.