Ghostbusters HERO

[shadow_walker]

Re: Ghostbusters HERO

 

Ghostbusters, now that brings back some memories.

[Sociotard]

Re: Ghostbusters HERO

 

Will they be movie ghostbusters or will Slimer tag along? I liked Slimer.

[EverKnight]

Re: Ghostbusters HERO

 

You know, the Proton Packs would probably come as part of the vehicle cost. They were carried in the vehicle until they were needed, the Ghostbusters didn't take them everywhere; and they meet the bulky requirement.

 

It makes them a lot cheaper in points, if that's important.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Ghostbusters HERO

 

You know, the Proton Packs would probably come as part of the vehicle cost. They were carried in the vehicle until they were needed, the Ghostbusters didn't take them everywhere; and they meet the bulky requirement.

 

It makes them a lot cheaper in points, if that's important.

 

Excellent point!

 

Though honestly, I'd think GB HERO would be Heroic, and it'd all be a money-based thing, but still--- good point!

[Silbeg]

Re: Ghostbusters HERO

 

Excellent point!

 

Though honestly, I'd think GB HERO would be Heroic, and it'd all be a money-based thing, but still--- good point!

 

Yeah, bringing in aspects of Dark Champions, Pulp Hero, and possibly "Horror Hero"?

[EverKnight]

Re: Ghostbusters HERO

 

Excellent point!

 

Why, thank you.

[Steve]

Cast Thread Necromancy 

[Lord Liaden]

To what purpose? The OP hasn't been around in nearly nine years.

[Steve]

27 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

To what purpose? The OP hasn't been around in nearly nine years.

I’ve been contemplating running a campaign, so wondered if anyone had any thoughts that hadn’t been posted previously.

[steriaca]

Remind me I still have to watch Afterlife eventually.

 

Has anyone ever considered just making the proton packs a straight Telekinesis with the destructive properties a zero level Side Effect? Nobody actually uses it against living things after all, and the side effect can simulate destroying books, desks, and such.

[Tjack]

On 10/26/2005 at 1:38 AM, Steve said:

Re: Ghostbusters HERO

 

I think the STR levels are high, even if just 13. A score of 10 would seem more likely, which would show them as being in shape. They weren't really physical sorts.

   In a number of recent interviews with the remaining actors the weight of the packs was mentioned. All three actors said they were around 40 lbs. and very difficult to wear on a long term basis or when running.

[Steve]

I always thought the destruction was because they missed. Due to their weight, they are likely giving an OCV penalty to most people. They could also have the Inaccurate limitation. Proton packs don’t seem all that easy to aim.

[Chris Goodwin]

I have some strong recommendations.  

 

Use the APG's.  Specifically, for: 

• Social Combat
• Possession
• Extradimensional Space

The Ghostbusters will likely never have a reason to engage in physical combat with other humans.  They will need to engage with them socially for finding information, getting funding, avoiding governmental audits (IRS, EPA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission...), managing their reputations.  

 

I wouldn't try to "build the spoon" with proton packs and other equipment.  Ghostbusters are Heroic level PCs, with no special abilities of their own, so proton packs can have a basic writeup of what they do.  Drain, 1d6, all ghostly Powers, one at a time, recovers per month.  They're big and bulky and need to be recharged back at base after heavy usage (say, an hour).  The "jobber" ghosts (the one-and-done mook types, the spud, Slimer, etc.), all of their Powers are built with Unified Power, so they drop hard and fast when proton beams are applied.  If they need to recover from them, they can buy Regeneration, all ghostly Powers, one at a time, however much they need.  Any Desolidification they have automatically has proton beams as the SFX that it doesn't protect against.  The mid-range, Shubs and Zuuls, demonic dog critters, have enough Power Defense that they can ignore a proton beam, and Gozer and the Traveller are boss-level entities that need a lot of research to defeat, and likely crossing the streams.  

 

Speaking of, crossing the streams will never happen by accident; technobabble here, but basically, proton packs put out a stream of positively charged particles.  Take two magnets, try to push the positively charged (north) poles together, and what happens?  They repel one another.  Crossing the streams is something the Ghostbusters have to do on purpose, and they have to fight the packs to get them to do that.  And when they do?  Each pack provides 25 Active Points worth of a Variable Power Pool that the GM gets to use for whatever they want.  If there's an extradimensional cross-rip, they'll typically create some kind of explosion to close that.  If there's not one, then the GM gets a minimum of 50 Active Points worth of whatever.  

 

[Jhamin]

I agree with Chris Goodwin.  If I were going to run a Ghostbusters game I wouldn't use any of the stuff earlier in this thread.

 

- Not only are the Ghostbusters Heroic PC, they are actually pretty low point total PCs.  Nobody had a 14 Str, 14 Dex, and a 12 Con.  They just aren't that physically impressive.  In the second movie they do a big heroic shoulder-to-shoulder "we're the Ghostbusters!" and Peter looks them up & down and tells everyone to suck in their guts.  These guys aren't the kinds of Heroes that justify a Swat Team writeup. 
--Physically I'd give them all 8s in Str/Dex/Con/Body. 
--I'd say Egon has the best Int & Int Skills with some basic mechanics, research, and inventor

--Ray has a very good Int & Int Skills while also having good mechanics and probably the best research and lore skills.

--Peter needs to be a lot more charming and a lot less skilled than the writeups showed.  Sure, he had a degree in Parapsychology but Ray & Egon had to explain everything too him, so it looked to me that he may have had the degree but not a skill roll any higher than 8- or 11-.  I'd also say Peter has the best Ego and Pre of the group (he always recovers from weird effects fastest and deals the best with the weird scary stuff)

--Winston, as presented in the movies, is not as good at anything as the other Ghostbusters but has a player that is a lot more focused on survival for his PC than the others.  Writeup-wise he should be fewer points.

- The Proton Pack writeup is really all over the place.  Once again in the 2nd movie someone asks if the Proton Packs are still good and Egon comments that their fuel source lasts for millions of years.  The Ghostbusters are NOT conserving them at any point so I don't know why the early thread writeups had fuel charges.  I would probably define how you want them to work (I'd say a RKA vs non ghosts linked to a drain vs ghosts movement or maybe even a affects-desolid body drain), call it equipment, and then not worry a lot about the real point cost.

[Chris Goodwin]

I'm not even sure I'd make it an RKA.  Side Effects:  Lots Of Property Damage, maybe.  

 

If you shoot a living person with a proton pack, my response would be "Nothing happens." (rolling some dice behind screen)  "Yet."

[Steve]

16 minutes ago, Jhamin said:

I agree with Chris Goodwin.  If I were going to run a Ghostbusters game I wouldn't use any of the stuff earlier in this thread.

 

- Not only are the Ghostbusters Heroic PC, they are actually pretty low point total PCs.  Nobody had a 14 Str, 14 Dex, and a 12 Con.  They just aren't that physically impressive.  In the second movie they do a big heroic shoulder-to-shoulder "we're the Ghostbusters!" and Peter looks them up & down and tells everyone to suck in their guts.  These guys aren't the kinds of Heroes that justify a Swat Team writeup. 
--Physically I'd give them all 8s in Str/Dex/Con/Body. 
--I'd say Egon has the best Int & Int Skills with some basic mechanics, research, and inventor

--Ray has a very good Int & Int Skills while also having good mechanics and probably the best research and lore skills.

--Peter needs to be a lot more charming and a lot less skilled than the writeups showed.  Sure, he had a degree in Parapsychology but Ray & Egon had to explain everything too him, so it looked to me that he may have had the degree but not a skill roll any higher than 8- or 11-.  I'd also say Peter has the best Ego and Pre of the group (he always recovers from weird effects fastest and deals the best with the weird scary stuff)

--Winston, as presented in the movies, is not as good at anything as the other Ghostbusters but has a player that is a lot more focused on survival for his PC than the others.  Writeup-wise he should be fewer points.

- The Proton Pack writeup is really all over the place.  Once again in the 2nd movie someone asks if the Proton Packs are still good and Egon comments that their fuel source lasts for millions of years.  The Ghostbusters are NOT conserving them at any point so I don't know why the early thread writeups had fuel charges.  I would probably define how you want them to work (I'd say a RKA vs non ghosts linked to a drain vs ghosts movement or maybe even a affects-desolid body drain), call it equipment, and then not worry a lot about the real point cost.

 

In Ghostbusters: Afterlife, it was mentioned that Egon left New York with sixteen ounces of fuel isotope, so fuel does seem to be an issue to consider. If done as a franchise operation like the old Ghostbusters RPG did it, getting fuel for the proton packs could be an issue. The original crew must have had some kind of source.

 

You could probably write up a Ghostbuster on 50 points or possibly even down to 25 points, but that seems a bit light for a PC. Maybe as high as 100 points?

[Jhamin]

10 minutes ago, Steve said:

 

In Ghostbusters: Afterlife, it was mentioned that Egon left New York with sixteen ounces of fuel isotope, so fuel does seem to be an issue to consider. If done as a franchise operation like the old Ghostbusters RPG did it, getting fuel for the proton packs could be an issue. The original crew must have had some kind of source.

 

You could probably write up a Ghostbuster on 50 points or possibly even down to 25 points, but that seems a bit light for a PC. Maybe as high as 100 points?

 

I never saw Ghostbusters: Afterlife.  I suppose I would need too if this got past just a forum thread.  In the context of that movie, Egon likely needed that to keep operating his experiments, but was their any indication that amount of fuel was only good for X long or was it more than you could only power Y things with it?  If it's the latter, it isn't that it is a fuel charge, it is that it represents a semi-inexhaustible power source but can only power so many things at a time at such a level.  Like if you had one Solar Cell that can't run your whole house but you could keep a cell phone charged forever.

I just checked & It appears the proton packs are good for 5000 years, not millions.  Either way, I'd buy them 0-end and call it a day.  We never had *any* indication that ammunition or power supplies were ever a thing the Ghostbusters were conserving.

 

I'd have to see how many points makes sense.  Their total lack of physical ability, their general inaccuracy with their gear (low OCV), and buying "Parapsychology: 15-" instead of 1 dozen different specialty skills (KS: Cults, KS: Psychics, KS: Ghosts, KS: Spirits, KS: Sumerian Gods, KS: Atlantis, etc) would let you get their point totals down pretty far.  It would be about figuring out where they are playable while still reflecting the movie source material.

[Steve]

2 minutes ago, Jhamin said:

 

I never saw Ghostbusters: Afterlife.  I suppose I would if this got past just a forum thread.  Egon likely needed that to keep operating his experiments, but was their any indication that amount of fuel was only good for X long or was it more than you could only power Y things with it?  If it's the latter, it isn't that it is a fuel charge, it is that it represents a semi-inexhaustible power source but can only power so many things at a time at such a level.

I just checked & It appears the proton packs are good for 5000 years, not millions.  Either way, I'd buy them 0-end and call it a day.

 

I'd have to see how many points makes sense.  Their total lack of physical ability, their general inaccuracy with their gear (low OCV), and buying "Parapsychology: 15-" instead of 1 dozen different specialty skills (KS: Cults, KS: Psychics, KS: Ghosts, KS: Spirits, KS: Sumerian Gods, KS: Atlantis, etc) would let you get their point totals down pretty far.  It would be about figuring out where they are playable while still reflecting the movie source material.

 

Ray might have a lot of those KS abilities, and he was also a mechanic since he worked on Ecto-1. He seemed to be the most into that level of trivia. Egon was more the science/tech expert of the team. Peter would have the social skills the others do not. Winston was the everyman and could fill in empty skill spots.

 

Being able to use a proton pack might qualify as a 1-point Weapon Familiarity.

[Lord Liaden]

The Ghostbusters cartoon from the 1980s mentioned at one point that Winston's past academic experience included biblical studies. That was probably extrapolated from the Bible quotation he made during the first movie. But that likely isn't a bad skill to have under the circumstances.

 

As for Peter Venkman's academic accomplishments, I'm pretty confident he B.S.-ed his way through those degrees like he did everything else.

 

[dmjalund]

I also think that you could look at Extreme Ghostbusters for ideas

[Derek Hiemforth]

20 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

The Ghostbusters will likely never have a reason to engage in physical combat with other humans. 

 

 

However, as long as Venkman is in the team, other humans might initiate physical combat with them at any time...