How to build: "Mental Block"

[Naanomi]

Re: How to build: "Mental Block"

 

Mind Control has only a few downsides in regular play to Telepathy... the one that has come up most for us is the utility it has on Sleeping or Unconscious people.

 

Then again, if we agreed that the Mental Shapeshift would fool yourself as was discussed before, it is an even more fitting defense! Mind Control: 'Tell me who you really are'... "I am Batman!"

[GAZZA]

Re: How to build: "Mental Block"

 

Actually I was (tongue in cheek) pointing out that you don't want to have your limitations say "only vs Telepathy". The first idea I had (Mental Defence, only to avoid revealing secret ID) works fine against Mind Control, as do most of the alternatives suggested as long as you remember that Mind Control is also something you need to protect against.

[Tasha]

Re: How to build: "Mental Block"

 

If you Must have such a narrow paranoid power, then I would just buy 10-20pts of mental defense only vs keeping personal secrets, or for the same points 10-20pts of Ego for the same purpose. Buying the ego would give extra bonuses to breakout rolls +2 to +4.

 

If this is a Superheroic Genre game, it is basically one of the genre tropes that Secret ID's stay that way. That if Villain or an NPC learns the secret then some sort of accident will happen that conveniently destroy the memory of the Superhero's ID, or the person will be knocked into a Coma that creates all sort of dramatic tension waiting for the day to wake up to learn... that the bump on the head removed the knowledge. I feel strongly that in the Super Genre that Telepathy just to fish for a Secret ID is just wrong. It makes the Secret ID trope impossible which kills one of the fun plotlines that one can run (Secret ID complications interfering with Heroic Stuff and the other way around). Remember that Supers is the genre where wearing a pair of glasses is sufficient disguise. As is wearing a small domino style mask. As to why Villains don't go ID hunting, I chock it up to one thing. A Villain wants to defeat the Hero, not the no named secret ID. Knowing the Secret ID takes away from the fun, it's like cheating. That's why you never see the Joker rip off Batman's mask/cowl while Bats is tied up. He doens't give a crud about Bruce Wayne, to him it's all about getting one over on Batman.

[GAZZA]

Re: How to build: "Mental Block"

 

I personally disagree on several counts:

1. Secret IDs being at risk is often a plot point even in four colour comic books. Extending the genre to include such series as Wild Cards, we have characters that are aware of the threat telepaths represent to their secrets and take deliberate steps to avoid those secrets becoming public (Puppetman). It's not "out of genre".
   
2. It does not necessarily follow that a villain that learns a secret ID will make that ID public. Eddie Brock knew that Peter Parker was Spiderman for years.
   
3. Saying that "it's just wrong" to use Telepathy to get a secret ID is an arbitrary limit with no obvious basis, especially since it specifically calls out in the description of Telepathy what level is needed to get at Social Complications (6e1pp298).
   
4. Not all Telepaths are villains, and not all heroes trust each other with their secrets.
   

 

The Joker might not care who Batman is, but the Kingpin certainly devoted efforts to finding out who Daredevil was. It doesn't strike me as implausible that some villains with telepaths on the payroll might want to know this sort of thing. YMMV.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: How to build: "Mental Block"

 

The question of whether such a defense should reduce the value of the Secret ID complication, making it less likely to be discovered and thus less frequent, is one that should be asked. To me, there are lots of other issues surrounding the secret ID, which seems to suggest its frequency would not be significantly altered, but other games have other standards.

[Sean Waters]

Re: How to build: "Mental Block"

 

This sounds like a plot device to ensure that some sleeper NPC is not revealed as Evillo too early in the game. Or maybe sleeper PC - Marvel's The Sentry has an origin that effectively means that his secret ID was hidden from EVERYONE including himself. Or his superform was, anyway.

 

I agree with Hugh - there are plenty of other ways a Secret ID could be revealed - if the character wants to pay points for the GM not to do it this way, that should not be held against them. It is like saying anyone with a long range teleport should not be allowed any points for Secret ID because it is so easy for them to appear and disappear.

[Tasha]

Re: How to build: "Mental Block"

 

I personally disagree on several counts:

1. Secret IDs being at risk is often a plot point even in four colour comic books. Extending the genre to include such series as Wild Cards, we have characters that are aware of the threat telepaths represent to their secrets and take deliberate steps to avoid those secrets becoming public (Puppetman). It's not "out of genre".
   
2. It does not necessarily follow that a villain that learns a secret ID will make that ID public. Eddie Brock knew that Peter Parker was Spiderman for years.
   
3. Saying that "it's just wrong" to use Telepathy to get a secret ID is an arbitrary limit with no obvious basis, especially since it specifically calls out in the description of Telepathy what level is needed to get at Social Complications (6e1pp298).
   
4. Not all Telepaths are villains, and not all heroes trust each other with their secrets.
   

 

The Joker might not care who Batman is, but the Kingpin certainly devoted efforts to finding out who Daredevil was. It doesn't strike me as implausible that some villains with telepaths on the payroll might want to know this sort of thing. YMMV.

 

on the last point, It's certainly OK for Villains to search for a Hero's ID (In Smallville Lex spent his entire run trying to figure out Clark's secret). What I am saying is that it is very rare for a villain to actually succeed in the long term. Yes there have been times where a nemesis figured out the Heroes Secret ID and then keep that knowledge for the long run. From a story telling perpective, the search for the Secret ID is interesting and creates dramatic tension. Finding said Secret ID leads to a few dead end stories, it also can hurt the tone of the campaign. If you allow your Telepathic Villains to grab Secret ID info from all of your heroes you might just destroy the trust the Players have in the GM. As a GM you have the power to do anything in the game, you can win every battle, find the heroes secrets and exploit them. Though if you do that the players reveal their secret true power of Leaving your game or worse yet the players can get into the game wrecking battle.

 

That is why it is VERY important to respect Genre Conventions. Those are the unspoken assumptions that your players bring to your game for a certain genre. If Secret ID's aren't important to your players sure, walk all over their Disadvantages. Hell, they are supposed to be Disadvantageous.. Right? Just don't be surprised when your campaign goes wrong.

[GAZZA]

Re: How to build: "Mental Block"

 

I'm not sure how you can possibly get from "I'm looking for a power for one of my player's PCs to block his secret ID from prying telepaths" to "I'm about to rip apart the genre conventions of my campaign by revealing everyone's secret ID by casual Telepathy" - especially since Hugh brings up the (reasonable!) opposite point that you could even argue that the secret ID should be worth less points.

 

I'm also not really sure why I have to defend myself, but for what it's worth, and in the interests of harmony, here is the situation:

 

- First up, it is important to note that I am GMing this campaign, not playing in it, in case that wasn't already obvious.

 

- While I hand out experience points at the end of each session as normal, occasionally I will hand out a small package of experience points that come in the form of a prebought package for plot reasons. The first PC to get this gained a fairly powerful Contact as a logical consequence of the way the game had progressed. This is the second such package - and again, it is a logical consequence of the way the game has progressed. There is a villainous organisation of telepathic robots in the game, and another villain telepath that is already aware of the target PC's secret identity, but wants to make sure that these robots don't also get it. The robots are highly advanced AIs, but they are still thoroughly logical and methodical the way robots are; it makes sense that they would attempt to locate their biggest adversaries and they've already established a preference for ambushing (as, like most villainous organisations, they are not a match for the PCs without surprise, superior numbers, or some other tactical advantage).

 

- This PC has a mystery background that even he doesn't know about yet, and there is a third PC with telepathic abilities that has already used those abilities once to help him recover a lost memory.

 

So essentially, to summarise: this is a free power (in effect) that is largely being used for colour, but it is almost certainly true that my campaign owes a lot more deference to realism than 4 colour comic books anyway - not in the sense of the physics, but in the sense of morality and NPC motivations. The argument "that wouldn't happen in the comics" is arguably untrue, but in any case this is an RPG not a comic book. Lots of the conventions of comic books don't really apply to RPGs, or apply less well; they are used for inspiration, not a list of commandments.

[Tasha]

Re: How to build: "Mental Block"

 

I'm not sure how you can possibly get from "I'm looking for a power for one of my player's PCs to block his secret ID from prying telepaths" to "I'm about to rip apart the genre conventions of my campaign by revealing everyone's secret ID by casual Telepathy" - especially since Hugh brings up the (reasonable!) opposite point that you could even argue that the secret ID should be worth less points.

 

If the player didn't perceive that the GM would have NPC Telepaths go after his Secret ID, then he wouldn't have felt a need to create a special defense to protect it.

 

It sounds like you have already set your PC's SecretIDs up for failure with what you have said. You have already apparently used a Telepath to find a character's ID and now you have another set of Robotic Telepaths setup to do the same thing. No wonder the Player wants this kind of "Spot Defense".

 

Those Telepaths could just as easily look for the Team's base, DNPC, Suceptabilities, or other weaknesses.

 

Using Telepathy to dig out a Secret ID just seems so anti-climatic. Just feels like cheating. The player gets no buildup, just a feeling of being violated by the villain (and by extention by the GM).

 

Having a Mystery background and using a Telepathic PC to help dig out lost memories is just good roleplaying. The two players are interacting together with the GM there to give out tidbits of info that keeps the mystery alive.

 

As for Hugh's point, he pointed out that the OTHER difficult aspects of keeping a Secret ID secret outweigh taking 20pts of ego or mental Def to protect this one Secret.

 

Also, I am not against villains going after Secret ID's. I just object to using a telepath to rip it out of the PC's mind without thought to the campaign, the PC's background, players trust, and the story you should be trying to tell.

 

Genre conventions are there as guidelines to help you write better stories. Also it gives the players a framework they can hang their characters off of. I hope that you are more worried about what is Fun for your players (and it IS your job as a GM to run a game that is fun for your players). Realism is a great tool as long as it takes a backseat to what is fun for the players. Yes, I agree that RPG's sometimes change the way a genre is handled (ie most Superheroes aren't bulletproof in Comics, but RPG Supers almost always have enough defenses to not take BODY from any but the most powerful guns). Just because you are playing an RPG doesn't mean that you shouldn't look at and understand the genre's conventions. When you change something you have to always ask yourself "how will this change my game".

 

Honestly, SecretID's in the era of facial recognition software is pretty darned unrealistic (unless you are wearing a full facial helm or are in a vehicle where you face cannot be seen and your voice is changed through some device). If you want to run something that realistic, it's ok as long as your players know before the campaign started that it's that realistic, and are ok with that level of realism. Of course with that level of realism noone would dare to take a secret ID or would start to take drastic measures to assure their SecretID.

 

It's your game, I don't have to play in it. YMMV. I hope that you will not take my posts as an attack on your, and possibly look at how you approach your game and see if I might not have a point or two. remember players rarely tell you when they are unhappy with your game, they just leave or don't join your games if another GM wants to run.

 

Tasha

[GAZZA]

Re: How to build: "Mental Block"

 

If the player didn't perceive that the GM would have NPC Telepaths go after his Secret ID' date=' then he wouldn't have felt a need to create a special defense to protect it.[/quote']

Nor did he.

 

It sounds like you have already set your PC's SecretIDs up for failure with what you have said. You have already apparently used a Telepath to find a character's ID and now you have another set of Robotic Telepaths setup to do the same thing. No wonder the Player wants this kind of "Spot Defense".

The Telepath that already knows didn't use Telepathy to find out, and it never even occurred to the player to want this defence.

 

Those Telepaths could just as easily look for the Team's base, DNPC, Suceptabilities, or other weaknesses.

Indeed they could, this are all completely valid uses of telepathy. Do you even allow mental powers in your campaign?

 

Using Telepathy to dig out a Secret ID just seems so anti-climatic. Just feels like cheating. The player gets no buildup, just a feeling of being violated by the villain (and by extention by the GM).

There are many people who feel that about any use of mental powers by villains. You are entitled to your opinion, of course. It should be fairly obvious I do not share it any more than I'd feel I'd violated some sacred trust by attacking a PC with any other 60 active point power. It is, of a certitude, most definitely not cheating. If you want to play a superhero with 10 EGO and no Mental Defence, you have absolutely nothing to cry about when mentalist villains take advantage of your weaknesses. Nor should you, of course - it's fun not to be absolutely impervious to everything.

 

I should point out again, since you seem to have missed it, that the player in question is not feeling violated, not feeling taken advantage of, and in fact is wondering why this villain is so apparently concerned about his welfare. You know, interested in seeing where this plot goes, kind of thing.

 

Having a Mystery background and using a Telepathic PC to help dig out lost memories is just good roleplaying. The two players are interacting together with the GM there to give out tidbits of info that keeps the mystery alive.

And the mystery background being, to some degree, something that the villain is responsible for? That the player in question will, I hope, be horrified to discover at the same time they are thrilled to see how it came about?

 

Honestly, it's part of the same package - if you don't like my GMing style, that's fine of course, but it's all part of the same campaign.

 

As for Hugh's point, he pointed out that the OTHER difficult aspects of keeping a Secret ID secret outweigh taking 20pts of ego or mental Def to protect this one Secret.

The suggestion was that allowing such a power might make Secret ID worth less (concluding that it wouldn't, but considering it nonetheless). How could such a power even be considered to affect the value of secret ID if there should never ever be a threat of having a secret ID revealed in such a fashion? I agree, by the way, that there are plenty of aspects to the disadvantage that it need not be reduced - but it was a very reasonable question.

 

Also, I am not against villains going after Secret ID's. I just object to using a telepath to rip it out of the PC's mind without thought to the campaign, the PC's background, players trust, and the story you should be trying to tell.

In what way do you imagine that is even possible? Do you think the villains I run have a mind of their own, and I just can't stop them doing this sort of thing no matter how much I try? Surely it is blatantly obvious that no villain can do this unless I allow them to do so. Surely it is obvious that I wouldn't do so without thought to the campaign, the PC's background, players' trust, and the story I am trying to tell.

 

Now, you may feel free to disagree on any of those points. You obviously feel that such a concept violates the thought of the campaign, makes a mockery of the PC's background, destroys players' trust, and annihilates the story I am trying to tell. That's absolutely fine, and I will support your right to feel that even as I disagree in the strongest possible terms. But understand that this is the nature of your disagreement - you can say you don't like what I did, that's fine, but you cannot say I did it thoughtlessly, because that is factually untrue and frankly insulting.

 

Genre conventions are there as guidelines to help you write better stories. Also it gives the players a framework they can hang their characters off of. I hope that you are more worried about what is Fun for your players (and it IS your job as a GM to run a game that is fun for your players). Realism is a great tool as long as it takes a backseat to what is fun for the players. Yes, I agree that RPG's sometimes change the way a genre is handled (ie most Superheroes aren't bulletproof in Comics, but RPG Supers almost always have enough defenses to not take BODY from any but the most powerful guns). Just because you are playing an RPG doesn't mean that you shouldn't look at and understand the genre's conventions. When you change something you have to always ask yourself "how will this change my game".

Seriously, what? How patronising are you trying to be here?

[bigbywolfe]

Re: How to build: "Mental Block"

 

Tasha, besides the fact that it is a derail from a “How To” thread, your comments are coming off as aggressive, almost accusatory. One, not everyone agrees with your interpretation of genre convention. Two, implying that his game will go to heck or fall apart is not only rude and uncalled for, but based purely on your assumption that the players and GM don’t already have an understanding of the tone and type of campaign being run. You are making the assumption that he is a bad GM (or at least that’s what your last two posts heavily imply) and/or that the players are apparently too stupid to discuss things with the GM rather than just sit there until they get fed up and leave. Do you play with a lot of people like that? Heck, in your last post you blatantly ignored the fact that the OP had already responded to several of your concerns (like the part about the player not begging for this power to protect himself from the mean GMPC psychics, but that it was basically a freebie the GM was giving the guy because it fit the plot).

 

If you don’t have something to add to the How To part of the thread you should back off, or at the very least watch your tone which has been rude bordering on insulting.

[Tasha]

Re: How to build: "Mental Block"

 

I did answer his question here http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/82984-How-to-build-quot-Mental-Block-quot?p=2103888#post2103888

 

Yes, I have run into a number of GM's that play RPGs to win any battle and make calls to make sure they win. I don't play with anyone who are like that (and haven't in decades).

 

I never said Gazza was a bad GM, nor did I mean to imply he was. If I thought he was a bad GM, I would have never posted about the Genre stuff. Figuring that it wouldn't be worth my time. As for my tone, I think you are reading something into my text that I never meant. I was honestly trying to explain my point and why I felt that way.

 

BTW I NEVER said that his players were stupid, nor did I saw that GAZZA was stupid, a bad GM or anything like that. I did point out that Players who are unhappy will not always tell a GM when they are unhappy. That is due to many players not wanting to upset their friend who also happens to be the GM. I have only been in one group where the players could tell the GM when they were unhappy. That was due to the GM taking time after the game and pretty much interrogating the players on what they did and didn't like about that sessions game.

 

I expect that other folk won't agree with my particular take on the Secret ID complication and how one should deal with it in a Superheroic Genre game. Not everyone agrees on stuff so it's to be expected.

 

My Mantra is "is it fun?" I can be very passionate about this. Too many GM's in my experience forget that they have a responsibility to create adventures that are fun for their players. So I always stress the fun point, and I guess people can take my passion as rudeness or insult. Neither is what I am after.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: How to build: "Mental Block"

 

I’m sorry, you’re right. Saying things like, “Just don't be surprised when your campaign goes wrong” doesn’t imply anything about his skill as GM or rapport with his players.

And saying: “Using Telepathy to dig out a Secret ID just seems so anti-climatic. Just feels like cheating. The player gets no buildup, just a feeling of being violated by the villain (and by extention by the GM).” Doesn’t at all imply that you think that is in fact what he is doing.

 

You make assumptions about how he is running things. Those assumptions may not be spelled out, but it is clear by what you did say in your last two posts. Even GAZZA pointed out you were being patronizing, so it’s not just me seeing this.