Alternate character creation rules

[Sam On Maui]

I was considering that, actually. So, in theory, those with lower attributes have more skills to work with, more perks, whatever, balancing things out.

 

It should be a fun game!

[mhd]

Maybe you roll for stats, but they come out of a character total pool, and thus higher stat rolls = less points for skills.

"Yeah, I got INT 7, DEX 8 and EGO 9, so I'll totally rock at PS:Plumber!"

 

Hmm, wait, that would actually work for a Paranoia game. Then again, so would FATAL.

[L. Marcus]

Ooo, Mario!

[Sam On Maui]

Well, Paranoia could use Rifts rules, just give everyone MD weapons and SDC armor

[Mister E]

Zero point characters are surprisingly good for starting games.

 

It helps to focus on the breaking points w/in the 6 basic attributes.

 

--

 

I would only make players roll dice for characteristics if I really wanted the game to be darkly chaotic at heart (e.g., like WFRP, Call of Chthulu, Deadlands, etc.).

 

--

 

Derived stats are hard to forget.

[Sam On Maui]

Ran the game, had a great time.

 

4d6, drop the lowest. Total stats and subtract from 100 for skill points. One poor guy got 106 (great rolls or cheated ), so no skills for him! Ah well, its not like competence is necessary for Troubleshooters...

 

I used a point system for equipment - everyone got 40 points to buy stuff from a list, and all the items used the real-point values found in the book. Their first assignment as troubleshooters was to keep the peace at McKelp's, as it was the first day the McRib-like Sandwich was being served (man, everyone loves the McRib-like Sandwich! With Slurm and imitation french fries? Dee-lish!). Things turned into a frenzy, with the trouble shooters calming people down with laser fire and "persuasion sticks" (nightclubs). One player fired a smoke grenade into the kitchen, trying to get everyone to think the place was on fire... that only caused them to stampede into the restaurant to try and rescue the McRib-like Sandwiches...

 

Fire doors and windows shut, halon starting to pour into the restaurant to put out the fire.

 

Then the family of giant mutant cockroaches came up from the drain grate, wanting to buy dinner. They even had coupons!

 

Long story short, everything went downhill from there. Needless to say, it was a team wipe and everyone is on clone #2. But all six players had a great time, we all laughed, made jokes, and just generally enjoyed the absurdity of the game. They also got used to figuring OCV/DCV target numbers, counting BODY/STUN with normal attacks, check STUN versus CON, skill rolls, Killing versus Normal damage, etc.

 

Next game will be the Secret Society Membership Drive/Job Fair, and their mutant powers will come online (late bloomers the lot of them...). We'll be introducing END and some more stuff at that time.

 

Thank you everyone

[L. Marcus]

 

Remember to post in the Quotes thread in the Champions subforum. It certainly fits.

[Sam On Maui]

Oh, I wish I had taken notes. There were one liners, jokes, horrible realizations, and so much more...

 

The thing that got me is that none of the players thought to shoot through the metal door/window shutters. I would've had that work (along with vandalism charges against them), but the only player who thought of it? He figured because they were in Green section, it as all Green-level stuff, so their Red-level weapons wouldn't do anything! Well, sorry you treasonous pig, but your commie-mutant traitor illegal knowledge of game rules WORKED AGAINST YOU! HAH!

 

One player was by the deep friers when a concussion grenade went off, rupturing them, and got deep fried (the damage was hideous).

 

Two players went down the drain grate to the sewe... er... maintenance shaft. Which closed off because of the fire alarm. And was filling up with halon, so they died of asphyxiation.

 

The player who triggered the fire alarm by reporting it also reported the giant mutant cockroaches. Which, of course, set off a decontamination protocol with flame-throwers dropping out of the ceiling. I gave the entire party three whole rounds to figure a way out (the aforementioned vandalizing Alpha Complex property), but they didn't. They kept attacking the roaches. Which were pretty much immune to their weapons. I mean, the guy who got deep fried shot one of the baby roaches (the size of an adult human) in the back, and it just started crying. Daddy roach took 4 shots from a 5AF 3d6 RKA laser rifle and just got mad.

 

...I'm really surprised none of them took the hint...

 

Anyhow, those three players got incinerated along with all the infrareds who were looting the restaurant for fast food...

[Nolgroth]

Awesome that your game is taking off. Too late now for this game, but if I were to do a random characteristic generation, I would have all primary characteristics start at 8 and add +2d6.  That gives each stat a range of 10-20. Perhaps that's just me over thinking it though. Congrats on what sounded like a fun game.

[mhd]

Anyone played Evoland? It might be neat to have a HERO game that continually and organically adds RPG features.

 

"You've discovered 'armor subtracts from damage'!"

[Sean Waters]

Sounds like an excellent game.  I know this is going to sound like the pot going through the thesaurus looking for the word 'black' and every single one of its synonyms to use on the kettle, but we worry too much about the rules sometimes.  I mean, here, on the discussion boards, minutia is where you find Mephistopheles, but in actual games the rule you use is less important than the result you obtain, and the result is most often determined by the way that outcomes are role played.

 

I have to just mention that we played a game once where a couple of the characters were exploring the sewers; due to a bit of a blockage there was a build up of methane that they managed to ignite which shot them out of the sewer pipe and across a four lane highway, straight through a truck transporting high pressure Bovril (that is how they transport it, honest) and then another truck in the next lane carrying chickens, then straight into a Republican convention in a hotel on the other side of the road, followed by a stream of still burning effluent.

 

That was a game of Dark Champions: lord alone knows what would happen if we tried to lighten the tone a bit.

[Sam On Maui]

Second game was wonderful. I had them roll a d4, a d10, and another d10. Why? Because that would be the page in the Champions Powers book I'd start browsing for their mutant powers. So one guy could change his clothes instantly, another could not stumble/hit his toe in the dark, another can hear really well, another can shut down his senses, and one can... I forget.

 

So, they all woke up from the same dream of accidentally outing themselves as mutants. And were like, "wow, glad that was just a dream! Hey, wait, why am I handcuffed with a bag over my head?"

 

That's when the Secret Society Job Fair started

 

A bunch of the secret societies did little presentations, including the HP Lovecraft Historical Society (which I absolutely made up), and they were all told the only way they were leaving alive was to join a secret society. No pressure! One player didn't choose, so I made the Benevolent Society of Ponies Brotherhood, whose sole goal is to foster friendship among all Alpha Complex citizens. THAT'S what you get for not deciding, punk!

 

Now, everyone was in their underwear, out of their mandatory jumpsuits, which is of course, treason. So, when the security systems reactivated, Friend Computer noted all of them were guilty of indecent exposure and failing to display rank, "please wait for security to come and arrest you." Naturally, everyone ran, and instead of a combat it was them trying to escape.

Well, there was one fight... one of the troubleshooters tried to get a bucket of red paint from a scrub-bot, but oh dear, the scrub-bot was a member of Corpe Metal, and that wasn't a bucket of red paint... For the record, brooms do 3d6 Normal, but illegal and treasonous weaponized dustpans do 1d6 Killing. Good thing he started running - he only lost half of his BODY, and was down to 1 STUN.

 

Another player was stealthing and failed his Perception roll... he had the super-hearing, and heard himself going "AAAAAAAH!" as he fell into an open man-hole, right into the sewers. When he came out, he went to the nearest hygiene station, explained his normal jumpsuit was too filthy/contaminated to wear, and the sympathetic bot gave him a cleaning like no other. Like, a 6d6 Normal damage cleaning.

 

A player who joined the Illuminati had another bag thrown over his head, and they attempted to sedate him to "rescue" him from the incoming security forces. Sadly, he kept making his CON rolls, so by the third time they told him they were going to use something more powerful to knock him out. Like a steel chair. But, hey, 30+ STUN worked!

 

Hell, the only casualty was one of the players mouthing off and breaking the 4th wall in game. Oh dear, he's gone insane! Well, thankfully, clone #3 was much more mentally coherent...

 

It was a silly, ridiculous game, and they all laughed throughout most of it. Good times, good times. Certainly, a nice break from our D&D 5e campaign which is fairly serious right now (Hoard of the Dragon Queen). I'm not sure what next week will be, but I still absolutely want to spoof 40K for the 4th and final game of this set... Because Friend Emperor is waaaaay better than Friend Computer, of course. And flaming hot plasma for the Mutant Heretics that say otherwise!

[Mister E]

Hell, the only casualty was one of the players mouthing off and breaking the 4th wall in game. Oh dear, he's gone insane! Well, thankfully, clone #3 was much more mentally coherent...

It is an honor to die in character.

[Sam On Maui]

He's already challenged the other players, " first to six? First to six wins?"

[Anaximander]

I would start would start with simple characters, avoid multipowers and VPPs, and avoid any power concepts the require more than three bonuses or limitations to build.  Make the first adventure a throw away adventure to teach the basics.  After it is over, give them the option of either keeping the characters they already have or to make new characters based on what they learned in play.

[Ninja-Bear]

Awesome that your game is taking off. Too late now for this game, but if I were to do a random characteristic generation, I would have all primary characteristics start at 8 and add +2d6. That gives each stat a range of 10-20. Perhaps that's just me over thinking it though. Congrats on what sounded like a fun game.

I like that idea!

[Sam On Maui]

3rd game was probably the least subtle game to date. I gave them 100 points to gear up. Must be an important mission, right? Wow! 100 points! So, energy rifles, grenades, armor, shields, energy swords... pretty much everyone was armed to the teeth! 

 

Their job was to escort the Alpha Complex's oldest clone (a whole 3 years old!) around his old workplace. He retired 6 months earlier, and Friend Computer thought he might want to see how the place had changed. Well, he's old (by troubleshooter standards he's practically immortal), curmudgeony, and was quite fun to  yell at them with. I'll be honest, one of the players must have decided his troubleshooter snapped or something, so things went downhill quickly. It was an honest to goodness mess, promise.

 

Its late, I'm tired, and I can't really remember everything at this point. Needless to say there were TWO complete team wipes, the old man was thrown into an energy conduit, aaaaand... well...

 

At the beginning of the tour they saw a giant cannon aimed at a nuclear reactor powering a shield generator. If the section should ever be compromised and taken over by commie mutant scum, the cannon was supposed to shoot at the reactor, setting it off, and destroy everything that part of the complex, lest the commie mutants use it as a shielded base of operations.  Further down, they saw a shield generator protecting the cannon, so commie mutant scum couldn't destroy the cannon meant to destroy the nuclear reactor powering the other shield generator. Gotta think one step ahead, right? Next stop down was a missile launcher aimed at the shield generator, so if commie mutants took over the cannon, they couldn't do so with impunity, protected by the shield generator. Next stop after that was a holo-display talking about how great the Alpha Complex was, and how they killed more commie mutant scum in a week than died during WWIII (they must be breeding like rabbits or clones in Alpha Complex!). Additionally there was a giant sign about Alpha Complex's WMDs pointed back the way they came, and another sign for cake and ice cream pointing towards the end of the tour.

 

Despite the old clone dying at the hands of a PC in the first stop, the computer insisted the tour must finish. Those were mission parameters.

 

The Commie's mission was to destroy the weapons of the capitalist running dogs. The first Enterprise was supposed to get all the PCs to spend all their money at the gift shop. The second Enterprise was supposed to recruit the first one, MLM/pyramid-scheme-style. The Brony was supposed to make friends with the party. The Illuminati guy was supposed to keep his eye on the Brony (I had meant this literally, but... anyhow...). The HP Lovecraft dude was supposed to show that defenses were an illusion.

 

Long story short, yeeeeeaaaah... one of the players triggered off the obvious sequence of events. I ended the mission with the Brony making an INT check when he saw the cannon going off. Instead of running, he just sat down with his snacks as the world went white in nuclear fire. The epilogue was their clones (they're all between 3 and 5 right now) being ordered to go and finish the tour, radiation suits being passed out. Ice cream would be served in lead containers at the end.

 

Next week will be the end of this run, and they'll be fighting the 40k spoof... Friend Emperor approves. 

[Steve]

I'm trying to picture 40k mashed up with Paranoia and it makes me smile. Alpha Complex inquisitors instead of troubleshooters?