Dome City

[Hugh Neilson]

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

a lot of "set your campaign here" type info, I feel, flies in the face of the original idea of this entire thing.

 

I thought part of the objective was an "adventure path" for Champions.  Those do set a location where the PCs need a reason to be located.  It's going to be pretty challenging setting reasons why the Dubai-based millionaire playboy powered armor character, the otherplanar quasi-deity (let's make him Greek, so centered in Europe), the Super-Soldier  (based in Washington DC) and the Super-Spy who lives in the Caymans would all be in Hepzibah on the right weekend.  The players have to come with characters who fit the game.

 

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

As for "what would a new player ask," that's hard to say.  I've got an entire group of new players...  To date, they know almost nothing about Campaign City, not even where it might actually be located in the US.   More than that, from our very first group, that question didn't come up for _years_-- real ones; not game ones-

 

But I digress.  They want to know their immediate surroundings-- and that's about it.

 

How often was either group trapped in Campaign City, reliant solely on its resources, and charged with saving the entire city from an inside threat? 

 

The Dome City concept makes the city itself a "character" in the game, not just a backdrop for a bank robbery.  It does not matter where in the US (or even whether in the US) it is located.  That has minimal to no impact on the PCs.  But the resources it offers, and constraints it imposes, are very relevant once the Dome goes up.

 

Does it have an airfield? helicopters? (if they suddenly think they would like to use a helicopter to do aerial reconnaissance, this matters). 

 

Does it have local media (they may want to shout out a challenge to the Skull - no local TV makes that impractical to shoot for the 6 PM news), or is it reliant on broadcasts from out of town?

 

How are they getting their information?  Again, is there local media?   Are they working with local police (are they pro- or anti-vigilante)?  How well-equipped are the police?  How numerous?

 

Pretty sure the town has no military presence.  But does it have a quasi-military supply store for the local gun nuts?  Do the townsfolk have weaponry available to arm and defend themselves, or are they generally limited to thrown rocks and baseball bats?

 

With the intent of a published adventure, the questions your group or my group may ask are not as relevant - supporting a few dozen (dare we say hundred?) GMs means every one of their group's likely questions need answers.  We can't devote 25 pages to a detailed series of Hebzibah street maps.  But we also can't say "It's a town with a population between 50 people and 750,000 people, and it has whatever you think such a town should have - just wing it" any more than we just say "Prince A. Pals is like a Chucky Cheese on steroids, with a medieval ren faire look - have at it".

[steriaca]

13 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

I thought part of the objective was an "adventure path" for Champions.  Those do set a location where the PCs need a reason to be located.  It's going to be pretty challenging setting reasons why the Dubai-based millionaire playboy powered armor character, the otherplanar quasi-deity (let's make him Greek, so centered in Europe), the Super-Soldier  (based in Washington DC) and the Super-Spy who lives in the Caymans would all be in Hepzibah on the right weekend.  The players have to come with characters who fit the game.

Yes. We have to loosely give GM advice about how and why everyone is here. We can't assume everyone is going to play a native.

13 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

How often was either group trapped in Campaign City, reliant solely on its resources, and charged with saving the entire city from an inside threat? 

 

The Dome City concept makes the city itself a "character" in the game, not just a backdrop for a bank robbery.  It does not matter where in the US (or even whether in the US) it is located.  That has minimal to no impact on the PCs.  But the resources it offers, and constraints it imposes, are very relevant once the Dome goes up.

 

Does it have an airfield? helicopters? (if they suddenly think they would like to use a helicopter to do aerial reconnaissance, this matters). 

 

Does it have local media (they may want to shout out a challenge to the Skull - no local TV makes that impractical to shoot for the 6 PM news), or is it reliant on broadcasts from out of town?

 

How are they getting their information?  Again, is there local media?   Are they working with local police (are they pro- or anti-vigilante)?  How well-equipped are the police?  How numerous?

 

Pretty sure the town has no military presence.  But does it have a quasi-military supply store for the local gun nuts?  Do the townsfolk have weaponry available to arm and defend themselves, or are they generally limited to thrown rocks and baseball bats?

 

With the intent of a published adventure, the questions your group or my group may ask are not as relevant - supporting a few dozen (dare we say hundred?) GMs means every one of their group's likely questions need answers.  We can't devote 25 pages to a detailed series of Hebzibah street maps.  But we also can't say "It's a town with a population between 50 people and 750,000 people, and it has whatever you think such a town should have - just wing it" any more than we just say "Prince A. Pals is like a Chucky Cheese on steroids, with a medieval ren faire look - have at it".

So true. This makes this project harded then, say, "you come across a bank robbery in progress". Sure, that is how we begin this story, but it has a purpose in various ways. In game, it serves as "my first combat sceen" to both players and game master. Story wise, it serves as a distraction to the local police as The Skull activates the dome (he wasn't planning on superheroes being here visiting).

 

We can just "handwave" why the various heroes are there with "they got some vauge rumor that something big is happening in this exact location". With the vast number of henchmen needed and hired for this job, there is no logic supporting that there would not be any loose lips out there. Forcently The Skull is smart enough to not tell his henchmen more than what they need. But that is just enough to get the get the heroes there.

[steriaca]

Prehaps the problem is that we are setting it in Hepzibah instead of a more generic "campaign city". Since this city has a name, we have to provide details which the game master could normally answer by scanning the internet for the real city and say, yes, Tom Barret is the mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

 

If we set it in "campaign city", then The Skull would have to plan for superhero interference. Not necessary for a specific super, just them being inside the dome, not counting Chaos and CyberJack.

 

Speaking of CyberJack, what is he hiered to do when the dome goes up? Was Prince A. Pal always in his plans, or did he always planned for the citizens hosting a feel good party, and it just so happens to take place where he could best serve his servant? My take is, he was hired to close out comunication and singles which would go out of the dome while making it not noticeable to the public till the dome goes up.

[Hugh Neilson]

22 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

One of the things I am noticing is there is still a lot of comic-book thinking, rather than Superhero movie thinking, especially in terms of The Skull.

 

I would say comic book and comic book RPG (including historical Champions) thinking.  As an example,  the MCU does not have a Super on every street corner, nor is the public blase about superpowers.  An MCU movie might feature the Skull as a superpowered master villain, but  likely his Skull Mask and the attendant flashy combat abilities would only show in at the end of the movie.  He would not be using them constantly, but probably develops the helmet as a response to seeing these super-powered opponents.

 

There would be no "super villains for hire" billboard to locate a cyberneticist capable of animating the animatronics into a deadly fighting force.  MCU might feature a similar scene, but it would be human techies, perhaps using a Skull invention, or even his direct intervention, to modify the animatronic characters.  The Skull might even be on site (as you note, not dressed in a manner calling tons of attention to himself), see the Supers in action and muse on what it would take to stop a group with natural superpowers.

 

There would also not be enough understanding of Supers genetics, etc. to predict that seven specific gangers, coincidentally all working together already, would develop super powers from exposure to the Dome.  Chaos might be specially equipped shock troops for the Skull, but they also would not likely be super powered. 

 

POSSIBLE EXCEPTION: something in Hebzibah reacts with a small portion of the population to create super powered individuals.  This is why we have the PCs in this area (which requires restricting some player choices about their PCs - they should have been here a while, say two or three years) and why the Skull has cracked the secret (being as hyper-brilliant as he is) and is able to arrange for a few gangers with the right markers to be regularly exposed to this Super-Stimulus.  More of the Flash TV series model than the MCU.

 

22 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

This is is why he needs a hole in the dome, so his goons can rob a National Guard armory for heavy weapons and escape back under the dome before they are caught. His own weapons were Fine against groups of normals, nut he may need rocket launchers to deal with bricks and fliers. The flaw In that plan is the gang bangers lack of training with said weapons. Poorly aimed shots and neglecting to arm the seeker heads give the heroes a good chance.

 

This is where we get into media versus the game.  Most military HW is likely killing attacks.  It does not enhance OCV, nor provide defenses for the users.  Either the KAs are so powerful they hospitalize a Super in one hit, or they are largely ineffectual.  Most MCU characters don't seem to be 3 - 5 DCV higher than thugs.  Trained soldiers don't miss the Hulk - if anything, they have a better CV than he does.

 

This is a choice that has needed to be made since we started this - is this an MCU style "there are virtually no Supers - they are  just dawning" setting?  Or is it a DC/Marvel comics/Champions Universe setting where Supers have been around for decades,  are well-known and numerous, various agencies have tactics and tech designed specifically to deal with them, etc.?  That choice has to drive a lot of later choices.

 

8 hours ago, steriaca said:

Yes. We have to loosely give GM advice about how and why everyone is here. We can't assume everyone is going to play a native.

 

There will be restrictions on powers and abilities.  There can be other restrictions on the PCs.  One could certainly be "your character has been living in Hepzibah or immediate vicinity for at least a couple of years - figure out why".  We have options.  Hepzibah is a tech town, which is a big job market.  It's tourism-heavy, which is a different set of employment possibilities.  It's got some farm country, and many typical Super backgrounds would fit just fine here.

 

Sure, not all.  Teleporting (Nightcrawler), desolidification (Vision, Photon, Martian Manhunter), telepathy (Martian Manhunter, Phoenix) won't fit.  Now, just watch some character build a hyper-intellligent "most brilliant scientist in the world" character - how will that play in with the Skull plotline?  There will be some characters who just won't fit.

 

8 hours ago, steriaca said:

We can just "handwave" why the various heroes are there with "they got some vauge rumor that something big is happening in this exact location". With the vast number of henchmen needed and hired for this job, there is no logic supporting that there would not be any loose lips out there. Forcently The Skull is smart enough to not tell his henchmen more than what they need. But that is just enough to get the get the heroes there.

 

So they are loose-lipped enough for my high school student character with no connection with the underworld, law enforcement or superspy agencies to hear rumours about, maybe on the football field, the science labs or the drinking fountain, but actual law enforcement or superspy agencies are caught completely by surprise?  Better, I think, that I know in character design that my character lives in or around Hepzibah, so that is where he is attending high school.

 

7 hours ago, steriaca said:

Speaking of CyberJack, what is he hiered to do when the dome goes up? Was Prince A. Pal always in his plans, or did he always planned for the citizens hosting a feel good party, and it just so happens to take place where he could best serve his servant? My take is, he was hired to close out comunication and singles which would go out of the dome while making it not noticeable to the public till the dome goes up.

 

As indicated above, depending on which approach we take, maybe he is not a Super-Villain Techie Gun For Hire, and is replaced with a bunch of techies, or maybe he is the Skull's #1 assistant (also disillusioned with his experience in Hepzibah's Tech Sector, but gradually realizing he may have allied himself with something far worse).  Questions like this are part of why I questioned just how common and well-known we want Supers to be in this overall game setting.

 

As a player, I'd be pretty interested in knowing whether we're likely Hebzibah's only hope (we have never heard of other Supers) or whether we should be leaving records for the Avengers, Justice League, Fantastic Four, Titans, X-Men, Doom Patrol, Defenders, Suicide Squad and dozens of other active super-teams likely addressing the dome from outside.

 

One original element of this plotline is that our Supers are inside the dome - most similar comic book plots would have them investigating a dome that has formed over a small city near the mountains, not being inside it.

 

The size of Hepzibah should consider how significant that makes it to Colorado - the chart at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Colorado_locations_by_per_capita_income can be sorted by population.  Population 500,000 would be the fifth largest in the state, pretty significant, but not overwhelmingly so.

Edited August 3, 2019 by Hugh Neilson
Where did that come from?

[Scott Ruggels]

This is supposed to be a supplement for a hypothetiical  Champions Complete set. A such there should be enough material  for the GM to not have to improvise myuch, but it should not be exhaustive, There should be two nearly identical maps of this type:

One though is the GMs copy and has locations keyed.

 

Each  "encounter Map" should be styled like the encounter maps in the old Adventurer's Club or early Champions adventures (i.e. easy to draw, or duplicate and blow up).. but the rest should be information and any Important location should probably have a "street"  view" illustration, . The fewer "assumptions" the GM has to make, the more confident the the GM will be.  This is supposed to be an introductory adventure, for both the GM and the players. This won't be an encyclopedia, but it should have locations mapped out.  For me, maps like the above are easy to do, and should be in full color. 

We should probably have the book divided into "acts" or sections like acts, with each "act" having it's one or two fights, plus activities, like an adventure path. I see this as being around 60  pages or so. 

 

 

[Scott Ruggels]

40 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

I would say comic book and comic book RPG (including historical Champions) thinking.  As an example,  the MCU does not have a Super on every street corner, nor is the public blase about superpowers.  An MCU movie might feature the Skull as a superpowered master villain, but  likely his Skull Mask and the attendant flashy combat abilities would only show in at the end of the movie.  He would not be using them constantly, but probably develops the helmet as a response to seeing these super-powered opponents.

 

If this is an introductory  adventure, for new players, starting with just the heroes and villains in and around Hepzibah, to start with, with no "Avengers Initiative" yet (At least publically).  Yeah the fonky tech and blast rays don't come out until the final act.

.

40 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

There would be no "super villains for hire" billboard to locate a cyberneticist capable of animating the animatronics into a deadly fighting force.  MCU might feature a similar scene, but it would be human techies, perhaps using a Skull invention, or even his direct intervention, to modify the animatronic characters.  The Skull might even be on site (as you note, not dressed in a manner calling tons of attention to himself), see the Supers in action and muse on what it would take to stop a group with natural superpowers.

 

There would also not be enough understanding of Supers genetics, etc. to predict that seven specific gangers, coincidentally all working together already, would develop super powers from exposure to the Dome.  Chaos might be specially equipped shock troops for the Skull, but they also would not likely be super powered. 

 

all correct, so far, I am in agreement.

 

40 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

POSSIBLE EXCEPTION: something in Hebzibah reacts with a small portion of the population to create super powered individuals.  This is why we have the PCs in this area (which requires restricting some player choices about their PCs - they should have been here a while, say two or three years) and why the Skull has cracked the secret (being as hyper-brilliant as he is) and is able to arrange for a few gangers with the right markers to be regularly exposed to this Super-Stimulus.  More of the Flash TV series model than the MCU.

 

Good Idea. all characters have to have a common origin source, with the activation of the Dome. 

 

40 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

 

This is where we get into media versus the game.  Most military HW is likely killing attacks.  It does not enhance OCV, nor provide defenses for the users.  Either the KAs are so powerful they hospitalize a Super in one hit, or they are largely ineffectual.  Most MCU characters don't seem to be 3 - 5 DCV higher than thugs.  Trained soldiers don't miss the Hulk - if anything, they have a better CV than he does.

 

This is a choice that has needed to be made since we started this - is this an MCU style "there are virtually no Supers - they are  just dawning" setting?  Or is it a DC/Marvel comics/Champions Universe setting where Supers have been around for decades,  are well-known and numerous, various agencies have tactics and tech designed specifically to deal with them, etc.?  That choice has to drive a lot of later choices.

 

I would stick to MCU< as it is the introductory Adventure for a new set of adventure Paths for Champions complete. Less Supers we have to document and generate, but more on this later.)

 

40 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

 

There will be restrictions on powers and abilities.  There can be other restrictions on the PCs.  One could certainly be "your character has been living in Hepzibah or immediate vicinity for at least a couple of years - figure out why".  We have options.  Hepzibah is a tech town, which is a big job market.  It's tourism-heavy, which is a different set of employment possibilities.  It's got some farm country, and many typical Super backgrounds would fit just fine here.

 

Sure, not all.  Teleporting (Nightcrawler), desolidification (Vision, Photon, Martian Manhunter), telepathy (Martian Manhunter, Phoenix) won't fit.  Now, just watch some character build a hyper-intellligent "most brilliant scientist in the world" character - how will that play in with the Skull plotline?  There will be some characters who just won't fit.

 

Write it down in the adventure,.

 

40 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

 

So they are loose-lipped enough for my high school student character with no connection with the underworld, law enforcement or superspy agencies to hear rumours about, maybe on the football field, the science labs or the drinking fountain, but actual law enforcement or superspy agencies are caught completely by surprise?  Better, I think, that I know in character design that my character lives in or around Hepzibah, so that is where he is attending high school.

 

Yeeeaaaaah that just smacks iof implausibility. 

 

40 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

 

As indicated above, depending on which approach we take, maybe he is not a Super-Villain Techie Gun For Hire, and is replaced with a bunch of techies, or maybe he is the Skull's #1 assistant (also disillusioned with his experience in Hepzibah's Tech Sector, but gradually realizing he may have allied himself with something far worse).  Questions like this are part of why I questioned just how common and well-known we want Supers to be in this overall game setting.

 

CJ gets screwed over by the same folks as The Skull, but fior different reasons, and leave the company with The Skull, Talks about "Getting even"  over 5 Guys and Fries with The Skull. Shake hands on iw, with CJ not quite getting how far The Skull wants to take things, especially towards the end.  He part times working at Prince E. Pal's when not working with The Skull. The Skull is the Scientist/ Inventor, and CJ is the Engineer.

 

40 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

As a player, I'd be pretty interested in knowing whether we're likely Hebzibah's only hope (we have never heard of other Supers) or whether we should be leaving records for the Avengers, Justice League, Fantastic Four, Titans, X-Men, Doom Patrol, Defenders, Suicide Squad and dozens of other active super-teams likely addressing the dome from outside.

 

The Heroes are Hepzibah's only hope. That's Hollywood.  No other super Powered  beings (yet) outside The Dome. No tales of a "Distant" Avengers off in Manhattan. It's just these brave folks doing their best to take the Skull down before he crushes Hepzibah like a grape.

 

40 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

One original element of this plotline is that our Supers are inside the dome - most similar comic book plots would have them investigating a dome that has formed over a small city near the mountains, not being inside it.

 

Exactly. 

 

40 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

The size of Hepzibah should consider how significant that makes it to Colorado - the chart at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Colorado_locations_by_per_capita_income can be sorted by population.  Population 500,000 would be the fifth largest in the state, pretty significant, but not overwhelmingly so.

 

 I think the Model was Grand Junction, which i have been to, so it would ve fairly easy to prep simple maps for it.

[Scott Ruggels]

On 8/2/2019 at 2:21 PM, steriaca said:

Yes. We should mention the stuff.

 

What do you think of my list of NPCs?

 

Step back a little and breathe.   The roles and the  personalities work. Some of the names are a little wierd, though. Again a bit to much comic book thinking with a lot of alliteration.  The Radio DJ might be a source of inspiration, Morale Boost when we have the inevitable Semi-Nostalgic, Power Music track to puntt  the heroes for that big night near the end.

 

 

[Scott Ruggels]

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

I thought part of the objective was an "adventure path" for Champions.  Those do set a location where the PCs need a reason to be located.  It's going to be pretty challenging setting reasons why the Dubai-based millionaire playboy powered armor character, the otherplanar quasi-deity (let's make him Greek, so centered in Europe), the Super-Soldier  (based in Washington DC) and the Super-Spy who lives in the Caymans would all be in Hepzibah on the right weekend.  The players have to come with characters who fit the game.

 

I would agree here. all the Heroes start with a common, Dome based, origin.

 

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

 

How often was either group trapped in Campaign City, reliant solely on its resources, and charged with saving the entire city from an inside threat? 

 

The Dome City concept makes the city itself a "character" in the game, not just a backdrop for a bank robbery.  It does not matter where in the US (or even whether in the US) it is located.  That has minimal to no impact on the PCs.  But the resources it offers, and constraints it imposes, are very relevant once the Dome goes up.

 

Exactly.  The town  and the environment around it inside the dome must be dealt with.

 

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Does it have an airfield? helicopters? (if they suddenly think they would like to use a helicopter to do aerial reconnaissance, this matters). 

 

A town of 50,000 will definitely have an airport big enough for regional flights, and a lot of General Aviation.  There is probaly also a small alternate field for JUST General aviation and crop dusters. On the flip side I do not think that any news operation would have a helicopter here. most of those would be with the Sheriff's Department, and the  Department of Forestry.

 

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Does it have local media (they may want to shout out a challenge to the Skull - no local TV makes that impractical to shoot for the 6 PM news), or is it reliant on broadcasts from out of town?

 

Tnhey would have Local news, and news vans.  They probably do not have all the networks represented, However, since the June 200X switch over to Digital TV in the  U.S. it's lilekly most redidents have cable, which will go dead when the dome drops.  This is why Radio will become important to the town, as a source for local news.

 

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

How are they getting their information?  Again, is there local media?   Are they working with local police (are they pro- or anti-vigilante)?  How well-equipped are the police?  How numerous?

 

I would hope that the Heroes can and will coordinate with the local cops and Fire, and that the heads of those Local Cops and Fire will not be dickheads about it. Having  small police scanner recievers (now-a-days, a simple phone app), would allow them to get information and coordinate with the local authorities.

 

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Pretty sure the town has no military presence.  But does it have a quasi-military supply store for the local gun nuts?  Do the townsfolk have weaponry available to arm and defend themselves, or are they generally limited to thrown rocks and baseball bats?

 

I've been to Grand Junction, for a Funeral of my WW2 paratrooper Uncle, and there was a local National Guard armory in town, that was right near the Cemetary  Small guard and reserve centers are part of most towns above a certain population.

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

With the intent of a published adventure, the questions your group or my group may ask are not as relevant - supporting a few dozen (dare we say hundred?) GMs means every one of their group's likely questions need answers.  We can't devote 25 pages to a detailed series of Hebzibah street maps.  But we also can't say "It's a town with a population between 50 people and 750,000 people, and it has whatever you think such a town should have - just wing it" any more than we just say "Prince A. Pals is like a Chucky Cheese on steroids, with a medieval ren faire look - have at it".

 

I think Duke's model of Plopping our fictional town into the Valley near grand junction, or replacing Grand Junction is a good one.  As it is having Grand junction as a "mental Model" of the size and shape of Hepzibah would be helpful in fleshing this out.

[Scott Ruggels]

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

I would say comic book and comic book RPG (including historical Champions) thinking.  As an example,  the MCU does not have a Super on every street corner, nor is the public blase about superpowers.  An MCU movie might feature the Skull as a superpowered master villain, but  likely his Skull Mask and the attendant flashy combat abilities would only show in at the end of the movie.  He would not be using them constantly, but probably develops the helmet as a response to seeing these super-powered opponents.

 

Exactly. especially when the Heroes potentially shrug off  Military Grade weapons, possibly.

 

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

There would be no "super villains for hire" billboard to locate a cyberneticist capable of animating the animatronics into a deadly fighting force.  MCU might feature a similar scene, but it would be human techies, perhaps using a Skull invention, or even his direct intervention, to modify the animatronic characters.  The Skull might even be on site (as you note, not dressed in a manner calling tons of attention to himself), see the Supers in action and muse on what it would take to stop a group with natural superpowers.

 

any Super villains would still be gang bangers, mentally, even if they are drunk with their newfound power. They will still have small goals, and poor impulse control.  so don't refer to them as Super villains, they are just "enhanced".

 

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

There would also not be enough understanding of Supers genetics, etc. to predict that seven specific gangers, coincidentally all working together already, would develop super powers from exposure to the Dome.  Chaos might be specially equipped shock troops for the Skull, but they also would not likely be super powered. 

 

POSSIBLE EXCEPTION: something in Hebzibah reacts with a small portion of the population to create super powered individuals.  This is why we have the PCs in this area (which requires restricting some player choices about their PCs - they should have been here a while, say two or three years) and why the Skull has cracked the secret (being as hyper-brilliant as he is) and is able to arrange for a few gangers with the right markers to be regularly exposed to this Super-Stimulus.  More of the Flash TV series model than the MCU.

 

How things proceed to the Next Adventure Seed?

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

 

This is where we get into media versus the game.  Most military HW is likely killing attacks.  It does not enhance OCV, nor provide defenses for the users.  Either the KAs are so powerful they hospitalize a Super in one hit, or they are largely ineffectual.  Most MCU characters don't seem to be 3 - 5 DCV higher than thugs.  Trained soldiers don't miss the Hulk - if anything, they have a better CV than he does.

 

Quite possible. I am all for the Military hardware, as long as the Mooks have low OCV's with them. Lots of collateral damage, and looks good on film, but the actual threat may be minimal when the thugs miss, and that would be one of those "adrenaline" moments when the whole table goes "Oh Shit" when thugs previously armed with  Electrostun grenades and shock Pistols, roll out with M2 BMGs, and M-72-A1 LAW rockets. no levels or bonuses permitted when using these unless a character has PS "Soldier".

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

This is a choice that has needed to be made since we started this - is this an MCU style "there are virtually no Supers - they are  just dawning" setting?  Or is it a DC/Marvel comics/Champions Universe setting where Supers have been around for decades,  are well-known and numerous, various agencies have tactics and tech designed specifically to deal with them, etc.?  That choice has to drive a lot of later choices.

 

Dawning Setting.  These are the first supers, at least around here. It's up to the players to defeat the Villain and save everyone inside the dome. This is the birth, and origin of a Super Team. (and a new Hero background, one thqat is not tied to any past, and one that is contemporary to the current entertainment starring super powered beings.

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

 

There will be restrictions on powers and abilities.  There can be other restrictions on the PCs.  One could certainly be "your character has been living in Hepzibah or immediate vicinity for at least a couple of years - figure out why".  We have options.  Hepzibah is a tech town, which is a big job market.  It's tourism-heavy, which is a different set of employment possibilities.  It's got some farm country, and many typical Super backgrounds would fit just fine here.

 

Agreed.  Everyone has to be a resident or long term guiest in Hepzibah.

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Sure, not all.  Teleporting (Nightcrawler), desolidification (Vision, Photon, Martian Manhunter), telepathy (Martian Manhunter, Phoenix) won't fit.  Now, just watch some character build a hyper-intellligent "most brilliant scientist in the world" character - how will that play in with the Skull plotline?  There will be some characters who just won't fit.

 

This will have to be stated explicitly in the introduction in the book.

 

 

[steriaca]

37 minutes ago, Scott Ruggels said:

 

Step back a little and breathe.   The roles and the  personalities work. Some of the names are a little wierd, though. Again a bit to much comic book thinking with a lot of alliteration.  The Radio DJ might be a source of inspiration, Morale Boost when we have the inevitable Semi-Nostalgic, Power Music track to puntt  the heroes for that big night near the end.

 

 

Feal free to change names. The list was a rough list anyways.

[Duke Bushido]

Sorry, guys.

 

Services are over; I'm back home (mostly).  Spent some time with their kids and grands, but I didn't want to involve myself in their personal grief; didn't feel right.

 

I'll give what I've missed a good going over, but I have skimmed the new stuff, and I offer this, which I think should work in any model:

 

CyberJack was hired because of his reputation with electronics, computers, and robotics.  CyberJack has "always" had superpowers, but has always used them in a way beneficial to himself: that is to say, he uses them "career-wise" rather than going all spandex commando.  Currently he works with a company working on neural interfaces with computers, and he-- for whatever reasons figure into his past: little brother lost a leg?  Who knows?-- has pushed for and, given his reputation in robotics, succeeded in becoming the head of a new branch of research into lightweight neurally-connected prosthetics.  The Skull is looking for someone particularly knowledgeable in neural interface, etc-- as he's hit something of a roadblock designing his helmet: the whole thing works, but he doesn't want the potential weaknesses of having to throw switches on a gauntlet or turn dials on a belt buckle.  

 

Around this time, CJ's funding is pulled as the company realizes that neural interface doesn't have immediate mass-market profit potential (costs are astronomical; interfaces require customization, etc-- whatever works).  The Skull recruits CJ, offering to fully-fund his research as soon as his "pet project" is complete.  Incorporating a low-level cumulative EGO drain makes a single-command mind control "Trust me" much more effective on CJ, once the helmet is complete, giving us _one_ reason he might stay around.  He might also be swayed, once the dome goes up, by the "the spoils of the city will be yours" approach that woos the street gangs.  After all, he'd have unfettered access to whatever hardware and research he wanted, and the wealth of the city to continue work.

 

As CJ assists with various assemblies leading to the perfection of the interface, the Skull realizes that there is too much that CJ can actually make work yet not be able to fully explain; he realizes CJ has cyberkinetic powers, giving him a second hook to dig in with: "you haven't even begun to consider your potential beyond personal wealth!  You haven't begun to consider what gifts you could offer mankind, or what tribute you could claim.  I have understood you since before you knew me.  I have sought you ought, so that you, and those like you, can, under my tutelage, reach their truest potential, and become the masters of their destinies!  Anyone can carve a life for themselves simply be resolving to spend the rest of their lives waking and going to work for others more driven then they themselves are.  I can teach you how to use every tool available to you, and become the great beacon you were meant to be."

 

Or words to that effect.  I'm not at my best right now; forgive that, please.

 

it's not until the command comes in during the chaos at Prince A. Pals to "kill them if you can!" that he begins to question just who and what The Skull is, and begins to realize that there is more to this Dome thing that just demonstrating superiority and looting the town.

 

 

I'm not even sure I made my point clearly.  I'll review all this better later.

 

Oh!  Scott:  I missed the Post Office today-- I was scrambling to get south for the services and all, and totally forgot.  I'll try to stretch a lunch break during the week and drop it into the PO there.  I apologize; I was distracted.

 

 

 

Duke

 

[Hugh Neilson]

1 hour ago, Scott Ruggels said:

 

Step back a little and breathe.   The roles and the  personalities work. Some of the names are a little wierd, though. Again a bit to much comic book thinking with a lot of alliteration.  The Radio DJ might be a source of inspiration, Morale Boost when we have the inevitable Semi-Nostalgic, Power Music track to puntt  the heroes for that big night near the end.

 

Some of the names sounded too silly for comics, not just MCU.

 

My bias is to start with "roles to be filled".  We only need a bunch of mobsters if this scenario will have a lot of mob interaction. 

 

We do need civic leadership - maybe that involves naming the mayor, city council, police chief, fire chief, someone for medical issues, head of the National Guard.  Raven is older and wealthy...maybe he is also on the Council or otherwise connected.  Names are as deep as I would go if we do not expect interaction with the PCs.  If we do (e.g. someone will be important in carrying the ball to oppose the Skull, wants to capitulate, dislikes or idolizes vigilante "super-heroes", etc.), they could be a bit more fleshed out, but I think more will come out in the scenes where they appear, so they don't need more than a paragraph for publicly available information.  Perhaps a liason with the various city services and leadership could be (hastily) appointed - that person is worth scoping out.

 

Media is definitely an area to address, so one or more personalities there would be useful (radio, local paper, etc.).

 

Assuming the heroes will investigate the tech companies, appropriate representatives will be needed for them.  These could vary pretty widely - helpful; pretty shady themselves (so not overly cooperative, but not to benefit the Skull); secretive for trade secrets; dismissive of the investigation; etc.

 

1 hour ago, Scott Ruggels said:

I've been to Grand Junction, for a Funeral of my WW2 paratrooper Uncle, and there was a local National Guard armory in town, that was right near the Cemetary  Small guard and reserve centers are part of most towns above a certain population.

 

Actually, just grabbing an existing city map, maybe turning it 90 degrees and/or swapping in our key land,marks (Princ A Palls; tech companies) for theirs, and renaming the streets (maybe it is mainly a modern grid model with numbered streets that go north-south and numbered avenues that go east-west, saving any issues on street names) gives us a reasonable layout.

 

And a great laugh when someone inevitably complains about its "unrealistic" setup.

 

1 hour ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Quite possible. I am all for the Military hardware, as long as the Mooks have low OCV's with them. Lots of collateral damage, and looks good on film, but the actual threat may be minimal when the thugs miss, and that would be one of those "adrenaline" moments when the whole table goes "Oh Shit" when thugs previously armed with  Electrostun grenades and shock Pistols, roll out with M2 BMGs, and M-72-A1 LAW rockets. no levels or bonuses permitted when using these unless a character has PS "Soldier".

 

Do they even get base OCV?  Are they proficient with these weapons?  Firearms should not be an issue, but more complex/less street level weaponry, not so much.

 

1 hour ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Dawning Setting.  These are the first supers, at least around here. It's up to the players to defeat the Villain and save everyone inside the dome. This is the birth, and origin of a Super Team. (and a new Hero background, one thqat is not tied to any past, and one that is contemporary to the current entertainment starring super powered beings.

 

Makes sense to me.  I'd probably leave the PCs' link to this backstory in the backdrop, something for the GM to note.  Nothing stops a PC being a high-tech designer of his own powers, an alien among us, a ghost, etc., but the GM should note that this is all new to the populace, and he should look for opportunities to tie at least some PC backstories to the town backstory.  This is easy for the character who just developed powers (no, he's not "a mutant" or "an inhuman", he;s someone who developed powers and does not know why), or anyone with a "radiation accident" type backstory.

[steriaca]

Ok folks. If we are thinking movies, how much budget is our special effects budget? How much is eaten up by the dome? How much is eaten up by The Skull's helmet? How much by the end act Skull Agent blasters? How much is Chaos eating into this budget? How much budget is left for the powers of the PCs?

 

I ask only because that is how movie studios think. So I think we should "lowball" most of the villains, special effects wise, untill the ending, because logically the budget will be taken up by the dome, the PCs, and The Skull personally.

 

CyberJack, being a cyberkinesis, is not really going to eat up our budget...at least not compared to the Prince A. Pal robots.

 

Chaos members, they need only physical powers of some kind. The brick can get away with "no selling" some punches and then lift something which is rigged to only look heavy. Claw guy has his claws and special make-up effects with the cuts the claws make. Speedster can appear to teleport (really just turning the camera off, actor comes in, turn camera on again).

 

We should keep this in mind, othoe we should note that the GM and players have an unlimited budget for special effects, but are limited anyways because of the nature of the world.

[steriaca]

Exactly what are we looking for in PC characters? How many points? How many Complications/Disavantages? We are focusing on gadget users, martial artist, physical detective guy, and what else? Should we create the characters for them? If so, how many?

 

If we do, we should leave somethings blank, like names. Beyond that...

[Scott Ruggels]

4 hours ago, steriaca said:

Ok folks. If we are thinking movies, how much budget is our special effects budget? How much is eaten up by the dome? How much is eaten up by The Skull's helmet? How much by the end act Skull Agent blasters? How much is Chaos eating into this budget? How much budget is left for the powers of the PCs?

 

I ask only because that is how movie studios think. So I think we should "lowball" most of the villains, special effects wise, untill the ending, because logically the budget will be taken up by the dome, the PCs, and The Skull personally.

It's not quite how it works. I worked briefly in Hollywood, and I still have friends in the movies, so  the first you do is script it, then you "board it" (storyboards), then you rewite, and revise the board,Then you "pre-visualize all the effects and send out bids to various effects houses, and then you take the best results for the lowest bids,   Finally what is actually used it dependent upon the director and the editor, as they always shoot more than they use.  What we are doing now, in slow motion is closer to how Televbision scripts are hashed out in the writer's rooms, which is not a gad way to go. 

Following your model,   The kicking off of the dome, and it's destructive effects  would be the "Centerpiece (and something that would end up in Meme videos for ages.  should be spectacular, and unce it's in place be a subtle but unearthly presence in ever shot.  Any destruction look "expensive", to really sell the threat.  The creeping power level should be expressed with simple opticals for the granaddes and the zap guns. The First display of each heroe's power, (and chaoses, later), should be very noteworthy (and expensive).  Then finally the fights at the end of the second to last, and wslast set pieces.

I had a talk with this with a highschool bouddy, who was not a gamer, but ended up as a film director, he seemeed interested in helping me tune this a little, So if I could, can I please get a 

1.) summary of  Characters with speaking roles , i.e. important NPCs.

A simple outline of the plot, and a rough time line

and the suggested set pieces.  
A line or two for each, aso I can describe it to him, and he can re-arrainge things to make it all seem more cinematic ins tructure.  He understands that AA this is a game, and B, the heroes will be created by the players.

He was curious as to if there would be any example heroes, or pre-generateds (my words), to tune the story closer? Most superhero films, he said follow a fairly straight mythic structure. and wondered if that was important in the game?

[Duke Bushido]

Write-ups for the Raven, for MuckMan, for CyberJack, The Skull, and Chaos.

 

Raven and MuckMan should not outshine the supers, as discussed above.  Raven's schtick is skills-- First and foremost, he was an investigative reporter, and was primarily on the crime beat, so think skills like Detective / Deduction, which leads to a couple of questionable skills like Security Systems and Interrogation, city knowledge, Streetwise (is that still a skill in 6e? If not, go with a knowledge of the underworld in and around Hepzibah), stealth, and a couple of combat skill levels-- he's not a martial artist, exactly, but he's been in enough scraps over the years to hold his own.  Add Stealth and Concealment.  Remember, we're going for _broad_ skills, so if you want to add some other skill, first consider if it falls under the larger heading of one of these skills.

 

Gear includes an armored long coat, his respirator / air filter, goggles with IR and telescopic (and digital camera), one .45 automatic, a pair of "non-lethal" gun-type weapons, and maybe a fist weight or short truncheon to add a die or two to his STR damage.  Considering an electric motorcycle as his mode of transport: fast, quiet, and light enough to just barely be man-portable for STR 10.  

 

I had no intention of giving him powers, but _possibly_ something to suggest the extensive nerve and tissue damage-- perhaps some "Stun Defense" ( Built as CON, only to protect against being Stunned) to indicate enough generalized nerve damage that he doesn't feel pain as acutely as he should (I'd rather not give him a power that actually reduces the damage he takes, beyond his Armor and his regular PD / ED scores: remember he's for the most part a normal guy, and of course we don't want him to outshine the PCs ).

 

Remember that we're looking for clean, relatively simple, easy-to-follow write-ups.  If something has so many modifiers as to make determining exactly what the hell the power actually does an exercise in parsing and diagraming sentences, lose that build and start over.

 

I'm not entirely certain about MuckMan, but the name suggests a highly-malleable form (Stretching and some sort of limited Desolid, perhaps, to represent the ability to squeeze through small openings?  Him I see as a damage sponge or sorts, with perhaps some heightened movement (some sort of "running" based on his Stretching distance, maybe?  Give a neat "oozing around" tone to the movement?).

 

CyberJack-- well we'll leave that one to Steriaca, as it's his contribution.  Hopefully Ninja-Bear has found a way to upload his take on MuckMan as well.

 

If it's feasible, I'd really like to see write ups at two distinct power levels:  a level for "we've never played before, and are starting with the recommended level of points"  and a level for "We're pretty experienced, and are running maybe a sixty points hotter than recommended for new guys."

[Hugh Neilson]

11 hours ago, steriaca said:

Ok folks. If we are thinking movies, how much budget is our special effects budget? How much is eaten up by the dome? How much is eaten up by The Skull's helmet? How much by the end act Skull Agent blasters? How much is Chaos eating into this budget? How much budget is left for the powers of the PCs?

 

I ask only because that is how movie studios think. So I think we should "lowball" most of the villains, special effects wise, untill the ending, because logically the budget will be taken up by the dome, the PCs, and The Skull personally.

 

CyberJack, being a cyberkinesis, is not really going to eat up our budget...at least not compared to the Prince A. Pal robots.

 

Chaos members, they need only physical powers of some kind. The brick can get away with "no selling" some punches and then lift something which is rigged to only look heavy. Claw guy has his claws and special make-up effects with the cuts the claws make. Speedster can appear to teleport (really just turning the camera off, actor comes in, turn camera on again).

 

We should keep this in mind, othoe we should note that the GM and players have an unlimited budget for special effects, but are limited anyways because of the nature of the world.

 

This is where the media start to depart since, as you note, we have no actual budget to contend with.

 

If you think through the whole MCU, there are very few "super-powered" characters.  We have tech power (commencing with Iron Man), Otherworldly power (Thor, Loki), Gamma power (Hulk), the Super Soldier Serum (Cap) and trained normals (Hawleye and Black Widow).  Villains in that first six films were tech users in both Iron Man films, Loki and Destroyer in Thor, Abomination (and hints of Leader) in Hulk and Red Skull (same super-soldier formula) in Cap.

 

Not a lot added in the next tranche, really.  IM still dealt with tech villains, Thor with Myth/Aliens, Cap with Winter Soldier.  We did get G0TG, so now "alien" is a powerset.  AoU introduced actual SuperHumans - Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch (not mutants, really; maybe inhumans but never stated on screen), plus the ultimate in Tech powers, the Vision.  After that, we added Ant-Man (new tech), Black Panther (tech + heart-shaped herb; variant super soldier serum); Dr. Strange (magic) and Spider-Man (so one more actual SuperPowered human).  Captain Marvel owes her origin to tech as well.  We did get the Ghost, though.

 

So why is the Marvel Universe full of superhumans, and the MCU has just a handful?  Well, MCU puts out three or so movies a year, and Marvel Comics, even in the early years, published dozens of books every year.  Guess which one had to add more villains per year to keep up?

 

Similarly, TV Flash and AoS have had quite a few Supers over their runs, because something needs to happen every week..  Which one is the RPG model?

 

I doubt an MCU movie would have the seven-member Chaos team become super-powered at all.  The closest thing we have seen to a "villain team" in MCU has been Thanos' lieutenants, the Black Watch, and they each appeared independently over the course of the movie.  An array of throwaway superpowered opponents isn't consistent with the MCU, but is quite consistent with gamers, and with the comics.  The TV shows straddle the line.

[steriaca]

14 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

This is where the media start to depart since, as you note, we have no actual budget to contend with.

 

If you think through the whole MCU, there are very few "super-powered" characters.  We have tech power (commencing with Iron Man), Otherworldly power (Thor, Loki), Gamma power (Hulk), the Super Soldier Serum (Cap) and trained normals (Hawleye and Black Widow).  Villains in that first six films were tech users in both Iron Man films, Loki and Destroyer in Thor, Abomination (and hints of Leader) in Hulk and Red Skull (same super-soldier formula) in Cap.

 

Not a lot added in the next tranche, really.  IM still dealt with tech villains, Thor with Myth/Aliens, Cap with Winter Soldier.  We did get G0TG, so now "alien" is a powerset.  AoU introduced actual SuperHumans - Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch (not mutants, really; maybe inhumans but never stated on screen), plus the ultimate in Tech powers, the Vision.  After that, we added Ant-Man (new tech), Black Panther (tech + heart-shaped herb; variant super soldier serum); Dr. Strange (magic) and Spider-Man (so one more actual SuperPowered human).  Captain Marvel owes her origin to tech as well.  We did get the Ghost, though.

 

So why is the Marvel Universe full of superhumans, and the MCU has just a handful?  Well, MCU puts out three or so movies a year, and Marvel Comics, even in the early years, published dozens of books every year.  Guess which one had to add more villains per year to keep up?

 

Similarly, TV Flash and AoS have had quite a few Supers over their runs, because something needs to happen every week..  Which one is the RPG model?

 

I doubt an MCU movie would have the seven-member Chaos team become super-powered at all.  The closest thing we have seen to a "villain team" in MCU has been Thanos' lieutenants, the Black Watch, and they each appeared independently over the course of the movie.  An array of throwaway superpowered opponents isn't consistent with the MCU, but is quite consistent with gamers, and with the comics.  The TV shows straddle the line.

So, how do we salvage Chaos? Do we even do so?

 

I admit, Chaos needs not to be bonified supers. Prehaps they are a group of bangers which The Skull blessed with testing some tech weapons. Being tech based (Focus, Physical Manifications, etc), they could be easier to deal with than "oh...powers".

 

As for seven, that is just a number. I always envisioned them as having one more member than the PC group (so they could outnumber the PCs, so the players can outshine them with teamwork).

[Duke Bushido]

On July 22, 2019 at 9:31 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

I don't think we need sample characters so much as we need campaign standards.

 

Evening folks.  Been pulling some notes out of here and so as to re-work my work sheet, but I'm about to call it a night.  Got this far (page 3, I think it was), and found a couple of things I wanted to clarify / be clarified on:

 

 

Quote

 

 

 

  Is a "typical Super" firing around 8-10 DCs, with 15-20 defenses (10-12 resistant), CVs of 6-8 and SPD of 4-5?  Or is the typical Super tossing around 15+ DCs, with defenses in the 30-35 range (15-20 resistant) with CVs of 10-12 and SPD 5-7?  The baseline is needed for anyone to contribute characters that will fit within the setting.

 

Don't take this the wrong way, Hugh, but I _insist_ on sample characters.  There are too many complaints all over this forum from _all_ of us-- you included-- that for all the examples, etc, in the rules, there simply aren't enough genuine built characters to serve as examples of expected or predicted power levels.  And frankly, while I personally believe role playing as a whole has been eaten alive by video game *ahem*   RPGs, there is still the chance that we might get someone completely new to gaming.  Granted, that's not likely to happen unless he stumbles in, never having heard of the HERO System before, and therefore never hearing all the negativity related to its over-complexity and math-heavy nature.

 

Throwing around terms like "Damage Classes"  (which I still don't use anywhere else but these boards, as I've never been keen on the implication of "same thing" it establishes between "normal" and "killing" damage.  Start blurring those, and players stop seeing one as "specifically deadly."  Heroes get a lot more blasé about what's okay, etc, etc.)

 

I feel examples will serve new players just as well as they served us, way back with 1e: "well, let's look at these guys and see kind of where they're running,"  particularly such abstract ideas as numerical scores for will power and agility, compounded by "twice as good every 5 points---,"  then moving into things like Active Points / Defense Categories / campaign camps, etc....     Relying solely on the abstract is _not_ going to make this adventure any sort of proof that this system is not as hard as they've heard it was.  If I've got to re-read CC, we can expect to wait a couple of months for characters, because time isn't really "spare" for me lately.   Those are the things we can introduce via sample characters-- something complete and explained that can be studied as needed, easily, and the concepts and names can be introduced bit by bit.  Additionally, I _insist_ that the sample characters have both AP and RP listed, simply because it makes a nice teaching tool.

 

 

 

Quote

 

Does the Dome need stats, or can it simply be "impenetrable"?  It's clearly not airtight, and I am assuming it can still rain on Hebzibah. 

 

I'm going to try another tack here:

 

You tell me.  You, Sir, tell me if the dome needs stats or if it's simply a mcguffin / action control device to limit the sandbox for new players.  Initially, I had no intention of statting it up, and was content to go with Steriaca's "it does lots of damage, and will kill you if you don't stop trying to get through it."  It was simple for new players to get their minds around, and served as yet another example that every single thing in the HERO System does _not_ have to be statted up simply because it can be.

 

 

Okay, let me explain why I'm still up (I prefer to have been in bed ninety minutes ago, given my work schedule):

 

I had, earlier this evening, begun preliminary work on the "Welcome to Hepzibah" portion -- the intro, as it were.  Doing _nothing_--- and I mean _nothing_-- no flavor, no color, no editing, no warmth-- just putting the words to paper (in a manner of speaking   ) but answering the questions you have deemed essential for players and GMs to know simply to operate in this city, I arrived at forty-nine pages.   Dude!  Forty nine?!   Looked at another way, 5/6 of the targeted _maximum_ size for this project.   I do not know the minds of men, but I _guarantee_ they just don't need that sort of information overload to have a good time.

 

So for kicks, I looked at some of the "competition."  I bought a couple of PDFs of ICONS supplements and a couple of others.

 

Average size?  About twelve pages.  TWELVE!   That even includes the write-ups, and one (had this seriously janky "color-coded threat-level-advances-with-time-passed; add/remove polyhedral dice because of what time it is" weirdness going on as well, and fit it right in there.

 

I looked at some of the old standards:  Super Villain contest (meh), Target HERO, even Wings of the Valkyrie.  _None_ of them-- most of which were much loved in the day (well, I didn't like Supervillain Contest), and none of them-- _none_ of them, even Wings of the Valkyrie, the module so "mature and sophisticated and edgy" as to have been a subject of discussion for several years-- came _close_ to sixty pages.  Valkyrie was a "whopping" 32 pages.  Thirty two!

 

You have to get into 4e to find something much bigger than.  Pyramid in the sky ran like 121 pages.  Granted, the first five were an "about this book" type thing, and the adventure part was _done_ before the sixty page mark.  The rest of the pages were were maps and _tons_ or characters and organizations and histories and some really sweet-looking Traveller-inspired ships drawn by our dear friend Mr. Ruggels.   (Nice work, Scott!).

 

Granted, the Champions Presents and Heroic Adventures books managed to prove you can fit _three_ adventures into 120 pages---

 

most of which suggests that a considerable amount of our "necessary details" just aren't real necessary.

 

 

Why do we remember these adventures?  Well we didn't have someone telling us it was a Marvel World or a DC world or a Gold Key world or a Marvel Movie world or any of the stuff:

 

It was exactly what we _wanted_ it to be, because all those "necessary details" were left out--- err, left up to us.  The Adventures told us what sections of the map were what (when there was a map, that is) and gave us the location of key set pieces, and the rest was "some jungle" or "some city" or "some deep cold ocean" to be filled in as we needed, and invariably, we filled it in with something that we thought was cool as hell.

 

At any rate, I scrapped it.   The whole thing except for the first couple of pages I linked to a few days back, and am starting over.

 

To that end, I am asking _you_, Sir:  does the dome need to be statted, or is it just a thing?   If there's anything these last ten pages have taught us, it doesn't matter which way anyone goes, you're going to have a problem with it that will lead to more and more paragraphs of ultimately unnecessary fluff for the adventure, so in the interest of avoiding that and getting some actual progress made, I ask, with all courtesy due any civil participant:

 

Does the dome need to be statted, or is it just an impenetrable damage device?

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

Quote

 

Imagine if we could have a dome like this that destroys all that comes in contact with it.  No more landfills.  No more plastics that take centuries to biodegrade.

 

Yes; it would be uber-sweet.  Right up until we find out that the energies it emits cause cancer of the cancer to anyone within seventeen thousand miles of it or something like that.  

 

 

 

 

Quote

how many agents will have the loyalty to keep running back and forth, hoping the Dome does not spring back up and turn him into ashes.

 

For what it's worth, I'm ditching that.  We've already shortened the length of the siege to avoid having to deal with a black market and the rise of a new social order, etc.  The Skull doesn't plan to be here long enough to exhaust whatever supplies he's already laid in.

 

 

Quote

Then we get the question how the ground touching it survives, especially as it must go below ground level or people could just tunnel out.

 

 

No; not really.  We can accept "that it just is" when it comes to the idea of not having to fully stat it out; why should we have a problem with "it just doesn't" with regard as to why the earth above it doesn't fall into it like grain through a funnel.  And after wasting several hours filling something the _size_ of an adventure book with nothing but what amounts to a thin sourcebook for yet another setting, I can tell you that any HERO-mechanics builds to explain this phenomenon are going to be reduced to "The Skull built it so that it wouldn't."

 

 

 

Good night, All.

 

If I'm still a bit black, forgive me.  I thought some writing would lift my spirits, but that ended up just adding frustration to the mix.

 

 

 

[steriaca]

Duke, Huge, here is something. Less is more. We don't need to overload the player with mega details in the first "act". Nor the second "act". Heck, we still should not swamp them in "act" 3. If we want to flesh things out, and the books are selling well (or downloading well...whatever), we can do a freeking sourcebook for Hepzibah. We should only limit ourselves to details the GM MUST know. Everything else can be pulled out of whoever is running's ass.

 

The dome does what it does because we say it does. No stats needed. No "real world" or "comic book world" or "movie world" logic needed. To pharaphrase what has beed said about the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure villian Diavolo and his stand King Crimson's power to erase time "It Just Works". We don't need to explain it.

 

And, this IS an RPG. Not a comic book, or a Comic Book Movie or a Comic Book TV Series. This is an RPG based on Superheroes. Let's get back to that thinking. And letting the GM pull something out of his hat if he needs something. (Better than pulling something out of one's ass...more sanitary also.)

[Hugh Neilson]

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Don't take this the wrong way, Hugh, but I _insist_ on sample characters.  There are too many complaints all over this forum from _all_ of us-- you included-- that for all the examples, etc, in the rules, there simply aren't enough genuine built characters to serve as examples of expected or predicted power levels.  And frankly, while I personally believe role playing as a whole has been eaten alive by video game *ahem*   RPGs, there is still the chance that we might get someone completely new to gaming.  Granted, that's not likely to happen unless he stumbles in, never having heard of the HERO System before, and therefore never hearing all the negativity related to its over-complexity and math-heavy nature.

 

I'm not opposed to "sample characters" per se, but I do not believe the scenario should be written specifically for them, rather than expecting players to want to make their own characters.  A better alternative, if it is practical, would be to use character guidelines, and sample characters, from the rulebook - Champions Complete.  I have not dug through that book, so I am not sure how practical that is, or whether it would suit the feel we are looking for.  As a starting adventure, my view is that the combination of Under the Dome and the CC rulebook should provide everything they need to create characters and start playing.  The goal was a "play out of the box" game, I believe.

 

OK, so let's assume we will have 6 sample characters (as big as I would envision a team to be).  Add on Raven, Muckman, the Skull, CJ and seven super-powered members of Chaos.  That's 17 fully statted characters.  Add in two to five different versions of Skull agents, the animatronics (one sheet, I am assuming, not one for each character), and we are easily at 20 pages (I'm assuming we can present modifications or options on two basic versions of Skull agents). 

 

That's before we consider having two versions of every character to portray variant power levels(!) although we might be able to show only a few lines changed rather than a second version of the character sheet.

 

I commented earlier that we have no SFX budget to worry about, but perhaps our budget constraint is page count.  Can we afford the space for 17 fully statted out characters?  Should this be one big AP, or several smaller modules in a series?  I favour the former.

 

Now, if Chaos characters are left as super-powered, they could be presented as sample characters, constructed on the same rules and guidelines as the PCs (perhaps with occasional notes like "a SuperHero PC limited to a Killing Attack would not be wise, but it can work for a killer SuperVILLAIN".  Discussing how Raven and Muckman would need to be adjusted to make them suitable PCs could also be considered.

 

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Throwing around terms like "Damage Classes"  (which I still don't use anywhere else but these boards, as I've never been keen on the implication of "same thing" it establishes between "normal" and "killing" damage.  Start blurring those, and players stop seeing one as "specifically deadly."  Heroes get a lot more blasé about what's okay, etc, etc.)

 

I think our terminology needs to be consistent with the current game rules.  DCs have become crucial in that regard, from 4e if not earlier.  The intent, to my mind, was to establish a baseline to compare different attacks so we would not have confusion like "how can my 6d6 KA (3d6 HKA + 45 STR) be overpowered?  HE has a 75 STR - that's more than twice as many dice!

 

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I feel examples will serve new players just as well as they served us, way back with 1e: "well, let's look at these guys and see kind of where they're running,"  particularly such abstract ideas as numerical scores for will power and agility, compounded by "twice as good every 5 points---,"  then moving into things like Active Points / Defense Categories / campaign camps, etc....     Relying solely on the abstract is _not_ going to make this adventure any sort of proof that this system is not as hard as they've heard it was.  If I've got to re-read CC, we can expect to wait a couple of months for characters, because time isn't really "spare" for me lately.   Those are the things we can introduce via sample characters-- something complete and explained that can be studied as needed, easily, and the concepts and names can be introduced bit by bit.  Additionally, I _insist_ that the sample characters have both AP and RP listed, simply because it makes a nice teaching tool.

 

I'm not sure we have ever had great "look at these guys to guide your PC build" examples.  How many people built to the standard of Crusader and Starburst, rather than Green Dragon and Dragonfly?  Definitely agree that all of the character build details need to be included (which, of course, exacerbates the "page count per character" issue, but we need that detail).

 

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I'm going to try another tack here:

 

You tell me.  You, Sir, tell me if the dome needs stats or if it's simply a mcguffin / action control device to limit the sandbox for new players.  Initially, I had no intention of statting it up, and was content to go with Steriaca's "it does lots of damage, and will kill you if you don't stop trying to get through it."  It was simple for new players to get their minds around, and served as yet another example that every single thing in the HERO System does _not_ have to be statted up simply because it can be.

 

My bias is to avoid statting it up, but I also lean more to "impenetrable dome" than "fatal to touch".  Once we decide it does damage, the obvious questions become "how much?" and "how fast?".  We don't want it to do too much damage, or too rapidly,  or it becomes a death sentence to investigating characters and curious bystanders alike, and/or a weapon in combat (great way to get rid of those animatronics as they are not being killed).  Players being players, someone is going to try to work out how much damage he will take at his maximum flight speed, with his defensive powers cranked to the maximum, to get through whatever thickness we establish the Dome to be.  I find it a lot easier, and a lot more player-friendly, to respond "you bounce off of the dome - it is impenetrable" than "OK, if you insist on adding RocketMan's jet pack to Jestream's natural flight, all at maximum NCM's, with Knight's Unobtainium armor blostering RocketMan's own defenses and Blasting Defensive Field, his fingertips reach the opposite end of the Dome just as the rest of his flesh is seared from his charred, skeletal remains - you won't be able to replace those foci until after the adventure, by the way".

 

"Not statted up" practically requires an absolute like Impenetrable, not a "damage over time" theory.

 

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

I had, earlier this evening, begun preliminary work on the "Welcome to Hepzibah" portion -- the intro, as it were.  Doing _nothing_--- and I mean _nothing_-- no flavor, no color, no editing, no warmth-- just putting the words to paper (in a manner of speaking   ) but answering the questions you have deemed essential for players and GMs to know simply to operate in this city, I arrived at forty-nine pages.   Dude!  Forty nine?!   Looked at another way, 5/6 of the targeted _maximum_ size for this project.   I do not know the minds of men, but I _guarantee_ they just don't need that sort of information overload to have a good time.

 

First, I think this puts the cart before the horse.  As we go through the adventure itself, we should identify questions the players are reasonably likely to ask about the setting, and be ready to answer them. 

 

We are placing them in a situation where they will reasonably interact a lot with Hepzibah, and its inhabitants (or do you envision the Heroes just ignoring the poor locals, and not questioning whether the town can offer some resources to facilitate getting that dome down, or that every resident will go hide in his basement until/unless the PCs come to call, like those old dungeon crawls?)  If the GM is faced with a dozen player questions, and no answers, how is that likely to go over?

 

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

So for kicks, I looked at some of the "competition."  I bought a couple of PDFs of ICONS supplements and a couple of others.

 

Average size?  About twelve pages.  TWELVE!   That even includes the write-ups, and one (had this seriously janky "color-coded threat-level-advances-with-time-passed; add/remove polyhedral dice because of what time it is" weirdness going on as well, and fit it right in there.

 

I looked at some of the old standards:  Super Villain contest (meh), Target HERO, even Wings of the Valkyrie.  _None_ of them-- most of which were much loved in the day (well, I didn't like Supervillain Contest), and none of them-- _none_ of them, even Wings of the Valkyrie, the module so "mature and sophisticated and edgy" as to have been a subject of discussion for several years-- came _close_ to sixty pages.  Valkyrie was a "whopping" 32 pages.  Thirty two!

 

You have to get into 4e to find something much bigger than.  Pyramid in the sky ran like 121 pages.  Granted, the first five were an "about this book" type thing, and the adventure part was _done_ before the sixty page mark.  The rest of the pages were were maps and _tons_ or characters and organizations and histories and some really sweet-looking Traveller-inspired ships drawn by our dear friend Mr. Ruggels.   (Nice work, Scott!).

 

Granted, the Champions Presents and Heroic Adventures books managed to prove you can fit _three_ adventures into 120 pages---

 

most of which suggests that a considerable amount of our "necessary details" just aren't real necessary.

 

Why do we remember these adventures?  Well we didn't have someone telling us it was a Marvel World or a DC world or a Gold Key world or a Marvel Movie world or any of the stuff:

 

It was exactly what we _wanted_ it to be, because all those "necessary details" were left out--- err, left up to us.  The Adventures told us what sections of the map were what (when there was a map, that is) and gave us the location of key set pieces, and the rest was "some jungle" or "some city" or "some deep cold ocean" to be filled in as we needed, and invariably, we filled it in with something that we thought was cool as hell.

 

I left the whole discussion for context, but I want to focus in on that last part.  Those old Hero adventures, and I will bet the others you hold up, did not have sample characters, or characters at multiple power levels.  The issue that has been raised, with greater and greater frequency, is that today's gamers have neither the time, nor the inclination, to fill in the rest as needed.  They want something they can pop out of the box and play.

 

If our adventure involved, say, breaking in to a secure lab to steal back some stolen tech, we would not really need to fill in details of the surrounding city, or the other competitors to the owners of this lab (1).  These details would not be relevant.  If this were a city being invaded by aliens, and will either be saved by Our Heroes or a pile of smoldering rubble occupied by the aliens an hour from now, the political infrastructure would be meaningless. (2)  If the scenario centered around a disgruntled member of a secret mystic order seeking to steal their artifacts and summon a world-ending daemonic creature, we would need next to no information about the world outside the relevant secret sanctums of that Order, but we would need a lot of members of that Order. (3) 

 

(1)  Ant-Man

(2)  Avengers

(3)  Doctor Strange

 

But if I want a game where political machinations are used to take over the rulership of a nation, I need to know a lot about that nation's politics and key players. (4)  If it's a very insular nation, I may not need to know much, if anything, about the rest of the world.

 

(4)  Black Panther

 

We have set a scenario where the threat will be known to the entire city of Hepzibah, and the heroes will be trapped inside for a significant period, and expected to investigate to determine what is going on.  They have to interact with the town, and many of its residents.  Its resources - what the PCs can leverage and what is not there for them to leverage - are relevant to them, as they could facilitate stopping the Skull, protecting the residents, etc. and they have time to explore those opportunities.

 

If I were writing this scenario for my own group, I can likely narrow down what they will ask about, and no big deal if I make it up on the fly for them.  But if I am handing it to a rookie GM to play with a random gaming group?  Not so much - the scenario needs to be much more complete.

 

One way to reduce the relevance of Hepzibah's resources and residents would be to do what the MCU typically does (what a lot of comic books would do as well).  The Dome rising isn't at, or near, the start of the adventure.  It's the start of the finale, and it's an immediate, urgent threat.  There's no time to do much more with the residents of Hepzibah than immediate rescue efforts, their politics won't matter as there will be no time for political action and we have to find and deal with the Skull right now, not over the course of several days of investigations and interactions sprawling over the entire town.

 

But that's not the adventure we designed.  We designed an adventure where the Dome is up, and its impact on the town is relevant, pretty early on.  We created a scenario where the town's residents and resources are very much relevant to the game.  Perhaps that scope is more than we can reasonably incorporate in a published scenario that needs to consider various likely PC actions, and we should reassess the timeline, and the core of the scenario.

 

Maybe Chaos is not created by the Dome, but by experiments on the energy supply planned to feed the dome (perhaps their powering up occurs when the heroes interfere with those experiments).  Maybe Prince A Pal is an attack designed to draw the heroes, and city resources, away from the theft of those last crucial elements needed to raise the Dome - the world outside is carrying on business as usual, and the Skull targets the grand opening, not linked to his plans, much less the Dome, in any way beyond providing a convenient target.  When the Dome goes up shortly thereafter, the Skull makes his demands, and the city has an hour to comply.  If not, perhaps the loss of voter homes and lives in the outer neighbourhoods will make you more reasonable...

 

No time to debate with city council or research tech companies now (that should all have happened before), but perhaps we can get that one last clue we needed from agents just captured to finally piece together the location of the Skull's secret base, so we can get there before he carries out his threat and the population of Hebzibah is markedly reduced.

 

8 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Yes; it would be uber-sweet.  Right up until we find out that the energies it emits cause cancer of the cancer to anyone within seventeen thousand miles of it or something like that.  

 

I guess it will be a short campaign for our poor tumour-infested PCs, huh?  They failed to protect Hepzibah before the scenario even got started.

 

But the Supers don't think that way - the Skull is long past being motivated by wealth.  This is all about vengeance. 

8 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

No; not really.  We can accept "that it just is" when it comes to the idea of not having to fully stat it out; why should we have a problem with "it just doesn't" with regard as to why the earth above it doesn't fall into it like grain through a funnel.  And after wasting several hours filling something the _size_ of an adventure book with nothing but what amounts to a thin sourcebook for yet another setting, I can tell you that any HERO-mechanics builds to explain this phenomenon are going to be reduced to "The Skull built it so that it wouldn't."

 

Since it doesn't destroy earth and stone, Clodoppus, the Brick of Organic Granite should be able to just walk through, shouldn't he?  "No, it's impenetrable" solves that one too.  [Mind you, it doesn't help when Hydro Lass tries to seep through just like rainfall does...]  A lot of this can also be avoided if the Dome is not around for very long, as I consider it.  It doesn't matter as much whether rain, or air, seep through, especially if it would take a few hours for it to do so.

[steriaca]

Do we change it to "the dome is up, find a way out" to "prevent the dome from going up"? As Huge stated, it would be a lot less paper waisted when we don't have to work the city politics into the senerio. I admit that I originally envisioned it as an entire setting. A setting locked away, with no way out, but no immediate danger happening.

[Duke Bushido]

I'm at work so I can't reply as I'd like,  UT if you look at the first page or two, we floated the idea of having two encounters (unspecified) prior to the dome going up.  More later, save that I agree with Hugh that simply "impenetrable" as opposed to "does damage" solves a lot of issues. 

[steriaca]

1 minute ago, Duke Bushido said:

I'm at work so I can't reply as I'd like,  UT if you look at the first page or two, we floated the idea of having two encounters (unspecified) prior to the dome going up.  More later, save that I agree with Hugh that simply "impenetrable" as opposed to "does damage" solves a lot of issues. 

We can go with "impenetrable". The "does damage" stuff was ment to say "stop trying to break down or through the dame thing".

 

This is also a good time to remind players about falling pieces of dome if they ever do bring the thing down. Yes, I know and you know and the GM knows it is "solidified energy", but hey, you never know.

[steriaca]

Expanding the beginning encounters.

 

Before the dome.

 

1) CyberJack has to steal some data from an onsite computer with no internet access. The Skull sends agents to make sure he is safe.

 

2) A group of Gang Bangers, with permission by the Skul, rumble with another group of bangers who will not join up (but have no idea why they were asked to join in first place).