sinanju

Re: Neck Snap

Neck Snap: 1/2d6 HKA with the "Head" hit location modifiers. Plus generous use of the impairment rules; if you do enough damage to impair the head, the character is at the very least out of combat for the duration, and may be dead, dying or paralyzed.

Re: Semi-Uncontrolled Powers

I can't help it' date=' it just feels more like a Physical Limitation to me. The power isn't limited at all, you can use it when ever you want but when the character is subjected to certain situations his power might go off. It seems alot like Accidental Change applied to an Instant power such as Energy Blast or Telekinsis instead of shapeshifting or multiform.[/quote']

 

I agree. And I'll note that GGU master list of limitations includes "Crushing Grip" as a physical limitation for superstrong characters. It represents the tendency for them to do accidental damage when in the grip of strong emotions. It gives you a few points for the disad but doesn't actually reduce the cost of the power. I think it's probably the best representation of this sort of thing, and pretty easily used for telekinetic effects or power surges, etc. around a character as well.

Re: Technocracy HERO

Could be. In my "World of Darkness" campaigns (vampires, werewolves, extra mages and hold the angst), the Technocracy never took center stage. All the mages were "orphans" (i.e., self-taught with no connection to any sort of real magical tradition), and their only knowledge of the Technocracy came from an NPC mage who looked and sounded suspiciously like Trinity from THE MATRIX. She sounded like a paranoid lunatic, but they couldn't be sure she wasn't right.

My only real suggestion is that the Technocracy should be played straight. They're good guys, at least in their own eyes. Yes, they're ruthless. Yes, they want absolute control of the world--but it's in a good cause. For uncounted millennia the supernatural has ruled the world; humans have been pawns, slaves, food, to various creatures from vampires to werewolves to gods, and magic has been a powerful, chaotic force throughout history.

With the establishment of the Technocracy and their attempt to formalize and regularize the workings of the world, they have a chance--at last--to slam the door shut on the last of the monsters...and bolt it forever. If this means imprisoning, mind-controlling or murdering all the vampires, werewolves, mages and other reality deviants along the way, well, omelettes and eggs.

Re: Terminal Velocity

I'd build as a Physical Energy Blast (the impact of crashing into the ground) of Xd6 (not sure how much it would be), with Extra Time (to represent the time spent "falling" between gates), Uncontrolled, Continuous and maybe Indirect.

Re: Mage TA

If I were going to model Mage: the Ascension (my favorite magic system in any game, bar none), I'd allow PC mages to spend X points on discrete powers (merits, advantages and rotes) and Y points on a VPP representing all the possible things their magical paradigm could do. As they gain XP, the PCs could buy additional fixed abilities and increase the size of the VPP--but the initial description of how their paradigm works would be permanently fixed.

Re: Inspired campaign ideas.

It's the contemporary world, but with hidden magic. Vampires, magic-users, werewolves, ghosts, the sidhe, everyone and everything. Power comes from control of sites where magic leaks into the world from (wherever you like). But all the existing ley lines or hellmouths or caerns or what have you have long since been seized and fortified. The "no vacancies" sign has been lit for centuries. Newbies vamps/mages/whatever can look forward to being powerless pawns of their elders for a long, long, long time--or to a brief and painful existence if they decide to try to seize the brass ring.

Then the cataclysm happened. Nobody is sure of exactly what happened, except that somebody tried to work some legendary mojo--and failed miserably.

Now most of the ley lines, hellmouths, etc. have either dried up or moved. The new locus of power (more and more powerful magical hotspots per square mile than have been seen in millennia) suddenly appears in CAMPAIGN CITY. And all the vamps/mages/whoever who were living in that city (including the established and very powerful one) were killed or so badly maimed that they're effectively out of the game for a very long time.

End result: a supernatural gold rush. Every vampire who ever chafed under the rule of his elders, every mage who tired of being a permanent apprentice, every werewolf who dreamed of striking out to create his own pack is descending on CAMPAIGN CITY, intent on carving out an empire (or at least a little piece of one) for himself. And the PCs are among them. It can be as bloody or as diplomatic/deceitful (or both) as the GM and players want it to be.

I did this a couple of years ago. Santa Carla was the center of my campaign(s) for years; then I created a plot that ended with the focus of magic shifting north to Seattle, WA. The PCs joined in the landgrab and it was a very entertaining game.

Re: Starting a new campaign...

That's one of the things I'm trying to avoid. I want to make the characters have to come together, maybe not trust each other, etc...

 

But wow! Thanks for all of the advice. It's given me some pretty damn cool ideas!

Watch John Carpenter's THE THING, then. Put the characters all in a contained setting (an island settlement, a snowed-in village, a beseiged castle, etc.) and then create a threat that can--and will, unless it is stopped--kill EVERYBODY there. The PCs (and a few NPCs and redshirts) will be forced to cooperate to survive. If there are possibilities for betrayal (possession, shapechanging bad guys who pretend to be allies, outright cowardice or greed leading to backstabbing), there'll be plenty of reason for the PCs to distrust one another. Lots of roleplaying possibilities when they _can't_ trust one another but they _must_ trust one another....

Re: WWWYCD: Caught in the Web

Funny you should ask. Hell's Angel just discovered a website devoted to her in the PbEM game I'm playing now (Empire City). Fortunately, it's clear that the website participants have nothing like the detailed info you mention. If it did have such information, she'd certainly investigate--because there are very people who could know those details (short of a telepath reading her mind or something of the kind).

Hell's Angel's not-quite-so-scarily-accurate fansite discovery:

"What am I looking for?" Gayle [Gayle Roark, Hell's Angel's secret ID] asked, sliding into Rachel's [Gayle's best friend, who knows her secret] swivel chair. She heard Rachel start to speak as Gayle reached for the mouse. Her touch was enough to turn off the screensaver. Gayle gawked at the image on the screen.

It was the splash page for a web site. An image of Hell's Angel filled most

of the screen. Gayle recognized it as as an image lifted from a news photo

of one of her first appearances. It had been manipulated to eliminate the

cityscape and leave only the brilliant white, red and orange of the fiery

heroine against a matte black background. Letters in similar colors below

the picture spelled out the name of the website: The Hellfire Club.

"Oh my God!" she said. She looked to Rachel. "Did _you_--?"

Rachel was quick to deny it. "No, it's not my doing. I only found it today.

That's just the home page. Keep going. There's more."

Gayle turned obediently back to the screen and clicked on "Enter." She spent

the next few minutes exploring a site devoted to Hell's Angel. There were

links to the few news reports of Hell's Angel in action, to a few more

photos, and a discussion board with several topics. One was for reports (and

discussion) of verified sightings, including news reports. One was full of

rumors and innuendo about the heroine's identity, background, origin,

intentions--pretty much everything about her. Following a few links at

random assured Gayle that most of it was little different from the ramblings

of the tabloid press.

Then she spotted the "Fiction" links. There were two options. G-rated and

NC-17. Gayle felt the shock like a blow to her solar plexus. She'd read

enough fanfic to know what to expect here. Hell, she and Rachel had been

writing fanfic since they were in high school, though never about real

people.

"Have you looked at this?" Gayle asked Rachel, without taking her eyes off the

screen.

"...yeah," Rachel said after a moment.

Gayle clicked on the first link. It was just as she'd suspected. Mostly very

short, very badly written action/adventure stories. The sheer variety of

backgrounds ascribed to her was remarkable--she was variously portrayed as a

repentant demon, fallen angel, mutant, sorceress, alien, robot and

occasionally other things that weren't quite clear. It had never been as

clear to Gayle how little the public really knew about her as it was now,

after twenty minutes spent perusing this archive.

Gayle took a deep breath and then clicked the second link--and found herself

looking at a thoroughly pornographic photo of a nude Hell's Angel crouched

over an equally nude man sprawled on the hood of some kind of sportscar. The

photo left no doubt about what they were doing. Beneath the photo was a long

list of links to stories. As she stared at the image, Gayle felt a prickling

on the back of her neck and heat rising in her cheeks and ears. She realized

that Rachel was speaking to her.

"What?" Gayle asked. She stared at the image for a long moment, still

struggling to process what she was seeing, before dragging her gaze away.

She turned to look at Rachel. "What did you say?"

"I said, it's a hell of a Photoshopping job. It's almost a shame it's so

obscene."

Gayle looked back, recognizing now that Rachel was correct. It wasn't a real

photo--she knew that. It had never happened. But it was awfully damned

convincing. Gayle looked at it and realized she was angry. It had been

mildly flattering to see the rest of the website, but this--

The list of story links was no better. The one line synopses told Gayle all

she needed to know. She knew that prurient material like this was

inevitable. It was all over the internet. But she'd never been the subject

before and it felt like a slap in the face. The thought of men like Jimmy

Carlyle or the others getting their jollies by reading these stories....

Re: Crisis of Infinite Boredom

Pardon the fiction.... I guess I got bored

Anywho, I'm sure the above scenerio doesn't get played much if ever. I mean, super heroes are all about the action or at least the drama... or at least it seems so. Still, anyone ever run something where the whole plot was that NOTHING was going on just to see if anything came of it?

 

What do you think your characters (PC or NPC) DO in a lull?

Hell's Angel is a novelist in her real identity. She'll write. There's always more to do. She's also a net junkie, so when she's not writing, she's netsurfing and chatting online with friends or reading fanfic sites. Filling her free time is not a problem for her.

Re: Powers of a Roman Catholic priest?

The Priest should have plenty of PRE (vs supernatural creatures/evil), so that he can both resist PRE attacks and inflict them, based on his faith.

Possibly an entangle or some other way to hold a monster at bay with his holy symbol.

Re: Need help with modern pirate concept

A general question: in this modern world of superheroes, would a modern-day pirate still be possible with satellites, hi-tech surveillance and everything else? How could I make him a pirate and yet, still be in good or at least neutral ground with the law?

Hell, yes! Piracy is still a serious problem in various parts of the world. Unfortunately, the pirates in question aren't the gentlemen pirates of fiction, they're bloodthirsty scum who'll kill you as soon as look at you.

Most modern pirates seize other vessels, presumably rob and maybe rape the victims, then kill them. Then they use the stolen (and disposable) vessels to smuggle drugs or arms.

Re: Force fields in reality?

I remember being a kid of about 10 and thinking that when the year 2000 rolled around, I would be a) living in The FUTURE (that glorious future described in all the science fiction I read) and an old man of 41. Now I'm an old man of 46, and I AM living in the future! It's not the future I expected (there are still no practical flying cars or orbital habitats, dammit!), but it's weirder and more amazing than I imagined.

Re: WWYCD: Sleeping With The Enemy

Hell's Angel would be appalled by her teammate's bad taste. Not that she's opposed to a little recreational sex (or a lot of it), but there are people you just don't get that close to, no matter how much fun they might be. And criminals, particularly supercriminals, are among them. She'd also seriously reconsider her relationship with the hero in question, who will have proven to have very questionable judgment. Whether she'd try to apprehend the villain immediately would depend on what, exactly, the villain was known to have done.

Re: WWYCD: Wonder Drug

Hell's Angel, currently engaged in an adventure against an anti-metahuman organization, quietly snickers to herself at the thought of the anyeurism those guys will be having now. Otherwise, she does nothing. The backers seem to be exactly who and what they say they are. The wisdom of taking a drug that will cause unpredictable changes to your body (and your life) seems questionable...but she won the genetic lottery for free, so who is she to say others shouldn't have the chance if they want it badly enough?

Re: Post your Cybernetics!

Hmm' date=' wouldn't this provide rations and ammo for the enemy just as easily as it does for friends? "We took over their base, and they were nice enough to restock it for us."[/quote']

 

Yes, I suppose it would. But what can you do?

Re: Post your Cybernetics!

Nano-Tech Injection: Major Transform 1d6 (dead soldiers into rations and ammo, another application of this power (nanotech neutralizer)) (15 Active Points); Gradual Effect (6 Hours; -1 1/2), No Range (-1/2)

Soldiers are given an injection of nano-robots. As long as the soldier remains alive, they are harmless. Once he is killed, the robots go into action, scavenging his corpse for raw materials to transform into rations and ammo for his fellow soldiers.

Re: Reinforcement

Hmm. I hadn't thought to that. I was thinking about showing up on weapons scanners' date=' weird appearance, continaul aches and soreness….[/quote']

 

Yeah. "Mr. Smith, you appear to have some bleeding into the pericardium (a "lining" around the heart). It's not severe, but it needs to be stopped. Which means, I'm afraid, we're going to have to cut through the ballistic cloth mesh protecting your heart in order to correct the problem."

 

If they have to spread his (reinforced, armored) ribs for surgery, it gets to be even more fun.

 

You could add Physical Limit: Continual Pain, I suppose. Distinctive Appearance, too, though how concealable and detectable by what senses depends on the campaign.

Re: Playing Head games

The main reasons I was looking for a Power Construct is that I wanted some precisely defined. Just what you can do with skills and Pre attacks is a little open to interpretation (and someetimes endless debate). IME' date=' allot of players hate to directly controlled by NPCs use of Skills ("She made her Seduction Roll by such and such, you do this" "No I don't, its blatantly stupid!"), but except powers a bit more (if grudgingly). [/quote']

 

Yeah, that seems to be the best reason to go with a powr construct. The character is SO good at some skill that it moves out of the realm of die rolling (and the possibly, however rare, of failure) and into the certainty of success barring some extraordinary defense. Like buying Clinging as a climbing super-skill; effectively the character NEVER falls, NEVER slips. If Hannibal Lector can tie your psyche in knots with a few well placed verbal barbs, that probably qualifies too.

 

In which case, I'd give Hannibal an EGO ATTACK (verbal, takes time) as he dissects your psyche like a frog, uncovers your "hot buttons" and gleefully pushes them to rattle you, and then a TRANFORM ATTACK (probably vs EGO or BOECV) to represent the lasting effects of his psychic surgery (short-term effects can still be represented by a normal PRE attack). You leave his presence thoroughly rattled and can't stop thinking about what he said and whether it's true....

Re: Reinforcement

What about limitations?

SInce I'd only be buying a few points of armor and it's integral to the character (not even an IIF), I wouldn't bother with limitations. I might give him the Physical Limitation "Requires Specialized Medical Care" since any injuries he _does_ suffer will probably mean needing repairs to the armor or surgical intervention THRU the armor.

Re: Playing Head games

Hannibal Lector attempts to manipulate Clarice Starling. Let's say he has a PRE of 20, just to get the ball rolling.

Hannibal is brilliant and trained as a psychologist. He can peel your mind like an onion, determining your Psychological Limitations in seemingly ordinary conversation, rattling you with ease. A little more conversation and he'll have you thinking up is down and right is wrong, or at least confused about what you thought when the conversation started. Using the Presence rules we see:

+2d6 for making his (very high) Interaction roll by half or less (learn your PSYCHs)

+3d6 for working with character's Total PSYCH LIMs

+3d6 for an incredible soliloquy (he knows what to say and how to say it)

+1d6 for very logical and well thought out statements (it sounds so reasonable)

+xd6 for Reputation (Lector is a genius--he knows what he's talking about)

That's +10d6 right there. Add that to a PRE 20 (4d6), and you're going to roll an average result of 49 points. Anyone with an EGO of 19 or less is going to be zapped with the EGO+30 result.

That seems more than sufficient for toying with the minds of most people. No powers needed.

Re: Reinforcement

I'd probably buy it as a few--a very few--points of armor. The ballistic mesh, the reinforced bones, etc., will protect you from punches, kicks, bullets, and so forth. But your organs and brain will still slosh around and bruise themselves against those same bones (or protective mesh) in the sudden stop after a long fall or a high-speed crash.

A little armor will help against punches, kicks, bullets--but the big damage (and lots of STUN) from major impacts/falls will still get through. As it should.

Re: I need a certain type of catastrophe

Jack Vance wrote a story about this, where the Solar System travels into a region of space where the old laws of physics no longer apply. People become Relicts, an increasingly small population of rational people who attempt to do things the old way, ekeing out a meager existence. However, some crazy people exist whose thought processes cause them to fit in perfectly with the new "non-rational" universe. They become Beings, almost godlike in their power.

Poul Anderson wrote one too. "Brainwave," in which the earth moved into a region of space where the laws were different. In that case it turned out that most of the universe was less restrictive on electrical, electromagnetic, and electrochemical effects. End result: humans (who'd evolved under more restrictive physical laws) became Protector-level smart, and animals achieved human level intelligence. We whipped up high tech spaceships and went exploring, and found that most of the alien species in the universe were...special (short bus special) compared to us because they hadn't had to overcome our handicap.

Nexus could always do it backwards...

Re: I need a certain type of catastrophe

In A FIRE UPON THE DEEP, Vernor Vinge described a universe where the physical laws vary depending on how far out you go from the galactic core. Near the core (the "unthinking depths", things are really low-tech and sentience is impossible; humans who travel too far into that area find their intelligence decreasing (and their ship's systems failing. Lots of things we take for granted on earth simply won't work.

Earth is in the "slow zone" where tech works, but not Uber-Tech. FTL tech will NEVER work near earth, for instance. Nearer the edge of the galaxy you get Star Trek and space opera-style ultratech becoming possible. And out in the void between galaxies, magic-tech works...but you also find impossibly powerful, god-like entities too.

So maybe the galactic core exploded and the barriers shifted. Or maybe it's a natural (but long-term) cycle we've never experienced before. If it happened every 1000 years, how would we know?

Earth is suddenly subject to more stringent physical limits on what works and what doesn't. You can make it as bad as you want, and it can get worse (or better) if you decide you want to change things.

Re: Stargate Hero

They'd also add some sort of targetting device to those staff weapons. The Jaffa are about as accurate as Stormtroopers.

One of the things I like about the Stargate series is that they think about such things and made this one explicit. There's a scene of Col. O'Neill addressing a bunch of rebel Jaffa. He told them that the staff weapon is a weapon of terror, and had Teal'c fire it at a hanging log target. Zap. pause. Zap.

Then he showed them an MP-5 (or something of the kind), saying, "This is a weapon of war. It is intended to KILL them ENEMY." And then he blazed away at the target, and chewed it to hell. That is why the Tauri use them.

Re: (somehow) realistic Secret IDs

First problem...you can't actually spot and track individual people via satellite surveilance.

Satellite surveillance or aerial surveillance, I believe I said.

This isn't just a matter of magical tech. All the high tech equipment is simply a tool. The real advantage of any government agency trying to identify Spider-Man (or whoever they're studying) is manpower. Put enough minds on a project, hoovering up every scrap of possible information, and your chances of digging up the truth go up dramatically.

It's possible that you'll fail to find or identify the guy. That happens in the real world. But success happens too.