dbsousa

Re: WWYCD: 9/11/2001 Lost in a world without Supers and your team is with you.

Golden Eagle would spring into action. He would break into airline records to find the aliases of the men who are on each of the flights. He would also send Avenger to the Minnesota prison where Moussaoui is being held, to extract the hijackers addresses from his mind.

He would send Busterand The Bolt to Boston to round up the Boston hijackers. He sends Avenger and Cheshire Cat to round up the Newark hijackers before they get on the plane. He sends da Flea and Kid Ninja get the Washington hijackers. Golden Eagle flies to Afghanistan, picks up Osama Bin Laden before he suspects anything, and flies him back to the US.

Re: WWYCD: Illegal Worker

Golden Eagle will approach the hero and offer her an H1B Visa through Good Guys Incorporated

What is an H-1B?

The H-1B is a nonimmigrant classification used by an alien who will be employed temporarily in a specialty occupation or as a fashion model of distinguished merit and ability.

 

What is a specialty occupation?

 

A specialty occupation requires theoretical and practical application of a body of specialized knowledge along with at least a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. For example, architecture, engineering, mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, medicine and health, education, business specialties, accounting, law, theology, and the arts are specialty occupations.

Toreador would not rat her out, but would suggest that her special abilities would make her an ideal candidate for special immigration status.

Bouncer would marry her if she were hot.

Re: WWYCD: Snakes on the Plane!

Golden Eagle in his secret ID, is travelling first-class without his battlesuit. But he makes McGuyver look like a dyslexic caveman. He will create a snake-killing taser out of a cellphone, the complementary headphones, and a bag of peanuts. If necessary, he will make some snake-killing flamethrowers out of some tiny booze bottles and the bathroom air freshener.

Re: WWYCD - a deal with an extradimensional sadistic entity

Golden Eagle does not accept this "Sophie's Choice". He would tell the entity..."There can be no peace without justice, and the deal you are proposing is unjust."

"Furthermore, you can't create the sort of peace I want in this world. The only sort of peace worth having is the peace created by people choosing it of their own free will. Any peace you create unilaterally would be the peace of a dictator, imposing his will on the backs of the peaceful.

If you want to know suffering, I suggest you suffer. Abandon your powers, and walk among us for a decade. Experience hunger without hope of food. Be cold without hope of warmth. Be lonely without hope of companionship. And then die from all this want. Or know now that this is a knowledge that you will never have. Either way, you are already an incomplete thing, and I would pity you if it was worth the effort."

Re: The thing's I've learned playing a Brick...

Know what sort of game you are in, and whether your GM is a structural engineer, before attempting to pick up a building.

Re: The things I've learned playing a Speedster...

Change Environments and Cosmetic Transforms are excellent ways to simulate speed tricks, like alphabetizing a file cabinet in a snap, or moving every obstacle in a room out of the way...

Re: [GM Help Needed] Superhero Mystries

The problem I've had with mystery campaigns is that you can never NEVER expect the PCs to go a certain direction no matter how obvious the clues. "Our clues point to a freighter coming in from Taiwan at midnight...I'll stake out the airport!"

In our game group we call that "Staking out the Russian Embassy" after a single player decided that was where the bad stuff was going down. The rest of us felt it was a red herring, and went another way. We fought Nazis all night, while he twiddled his thumbs...

Re: I can't wrap my head around a....

Fears over misuse of normal nuclear power makes the maker of the portable fusion generator pause.

That reminds me of my friend's character in our 50's Teen Game, Mastermind. He was Bobby Oppenheimer, the nephew of the famous Oppenheimer. Having discovered the secret of "Backpack Fusion" he went to his uncle, who told him the story of his failure to tame the nuclear beast. Bobby decided to hide his secret in the safest place he could think of. On his chest, behind as much armor as he could piece together...

Re: Need help with a name.

I know you've picked a name, but putting "Abby Sciuto" in the Gothic Name Generator reveals the perfect name:

"Elvira the Freak"

...or not

Re: WWYCD if a supers-eating wave swept reality?

I'd hope that the PC's could actually face an event instead of trying to redefine reality so it no longer applies. As many players have been doing to the WWYCD threads . . .

The problem you are running up against is that the major theme of superhero fiction is "Restoring the status quo". Central City is calm. Dr. Whack-a-Mole threatens to turn everyone into Mole People and start whacking them. Atoman conks the Dr. on the head, and Central City is exactly as it was before. Your scenario goes against the grain of the genre, and must be that much better to succeed, as it does not use the genre's theme to prop it up.

Re: I can't wrap my head around a....

Most advanced tech based heroes, which tends to included Gadgeteers and Power Armor types. It's not that I don't understand them or what not, it's that I hate how people tend to ignore their impcat on the rest of the world.

 

If you are a non villian with uber advanced tech that could change the way the world lives, then I think you are a asshat to withold that tech from mass production.

 

Any game where a Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Hank Pym, Forge, Hank MCCoy or Bruce Banner type character exists needs a tech level for the common man that is way more advanced then what we have or what the Marvel Universe tends to demonstrate.

My gadgeteer's background takes this into account...

Golden Eagle: Dexter Morache was born into abject poverty. Orphaned at an early age, he went to MIT on a full scholarship, but dropped out after 2 years, having sold six patents for 3 million dollars. In three years, those patents were worth half a billion dollars, so Morache went back to school to study patent law, and became fascinated by criminal law in the process. Morache spent the next 10 years “hanging out†at universities around the world, never receiving a degree, but making his first billion by applying the knowledge he gained, patenting the applications, and selling the patents to someone else. Occasionally, he would work with venture capitalists to start a business, but as soon as it was feasible, he would sell controlling interest to a larger company, leaving him free to flit to his latest pet project. On September 11, 2001, Morache took a hard look at his life, and reflected on the trivial life he was leading. His personal fortune rivaled Bill Gates, but he had no responsibilities. Every patent he developed was owned by a large corporation, any good he might have achieved had been co-opted in the name of profit. Morache spent the next two years using his enormous wealth to build his own corporation, dedicated to defending the world from madmen, gangsters, and robber barons. DEXCorp is now the 10th largest corporation in the world, and the largest privately held corporation in history by any measure. The current Golden Eagle is believed to be a suit jockey, most people believe that Morache is too busy changing the world to play with force fields and boot jets.

Re: I can't wrap my head around a....

Brooding, antisocial loners. Why play a character who doesn't want to interact with other characters, or wants to antagonize them?

Re: [GM Help Needed] Superhero Mystries

I start by making an informal flow chart, working backwards from the climax.

For example, let's say my final scene takes place in the Villain's fortress, underneath the Statue of Liberty, where he is about to launch his Destructo-Satellite.

I come up with three or four ways to find out this info.

1. The Villian's chief muscle knows enough about the plan to lead them to the lair.
   
2. The Villain's chief scientist knows that the launch codes are being broadcast on Frequency X, and the heroes can triangulate the signal
   
3. One of the Villain's minions knows the password to the security system is "Huddled Masses"
   

I draw a line from each of these to the climax. Then for each of the previous clues, I write up three or four ways to arrive at that clue These secondary clues should not send anyone to the climax directly. They should merely point them towards one of the primary clues. I then draw lines from each secondary clue to the corresponding primary clue.

I do that one more time, attaching tertiary clues to the secondary clues and I have between 27 and 64 places to start my story.

Once I have a bunch of clues on the page, I think about ways to move laterally along the flowchart. If some of the tertiary clues lead to other tertiary clues, I will draw a line between them, and the same with secondary clues.

Then, when the players are at any point in the story, you can slow things down by pointing them laterally, or speed things up by moving closer to the climax.

Each move on the chart should involve some sort of interaction, whether social or with fisticuffs and laser beams. The chart gives you an idea about what clues can be gleaned at each juncture, and what anyonwe on the scene might know. Be easy on your players, they can't read your mind. Any reasonable line of inquiry should yield some information that moves them along. If they are flailing, move them laterally, so that they get a broader picture. If they have figured out the pertinent details, move them forward, so as not to bore them or throw them off track in a confusing manner.

Now, I just do most of this in my head, but if I have a complicated plot, I still like to chart it out...

Re: WWYCD: Registration

Malcolm took his money out of the US, and built a cabin in Canada, when the registration came. The rest of the group joined him, and we (the players) got into a long argument with the GM about how we couldn't believe the rest of the country was rolling over. We told him that if he wanted this to be the focus of the game, we would do our paranormal investigations from Canada, and encourage an underground railroad for metahumans (It was a world where we were among the first supers).

I always make sure my players are on board before I change the world in a way they can't change back. For 70 years, superhero fiction has been about restoring the status quo. I don't change that genre staple without getting buy-in from the stakeholders.

Re: WWYCD 101:A question of faith

I don't mean to be a spoilsport, but there's a lot of NGD going on in this thread, and on a topic that W2 is passionate and sensitive about. I'm afraid that tempers will flare if we are not careful, and I'd hate to see this locked...

Re: WWYCD if their reflection suddenly winked at them?

Golden Eagle would investigate. He would have a full neurological workup done to see if he had any tics he was unaware of. He would place two time-synced video recorders so that he could examine the phenomenon. He would reluctantly ask the Avenger to give his paranormal opinion, mostly as a creativity exercise.

Re: WWYCD if a supers-eating wave swept reality?

Here's a question you have to answer to make this a credible scenario...

If precogs can't see past the wave, and tech doesn't work on the other side, how does anyone know what it does?

Re: WWYCD if a supers-eating wave swept reality?

Don't get me wrong. I would be interested in reading a scenario like this. I just don't want it sprung on me in an existing game.

Re: WWYCD 101:A question of faith

And that was enough to wipe out human sacrifice. Thankfully.

Except for the human sacrifice committed by the Spaniards themselves.

"nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition..."

Re: WWYCD 101:A question of faith

Supose you had the science skills to take soil test' date=' and they showed there was no way the soil should be that fertile, or fertile at all. Or if research shows that there were villages where the sacrifices were not preformed, and no children were ever born in those villages again?[/quote']

 

If I were not Golden Eagle, I might conclude that this world is on artificial life support against its will, and that the lack of births is Gaia's way of ending it all with grace...

 

If I were Golden Eagle, I would assume that I was missing some scientific principle, and keep up the research.

Re: WWYCD 101:A question of faith

In this scenario, my character has been exposed to the premise: that people are being killed for the good of the rest. Any of my characters would see that as the challenge, and attempt to find a new paradigm within the limits of their understanding.

Clearly, though, in such a society, there would be no real way to prevent this sacrifice from happening, short of kidnapping the victims and holding them against their will.

I would have to question whether the inhabitants of this world are killing for survival or comfort. The description of this world as fertile implies that there is little hardship in raising crops or cattle. if the ritual killings were being done in a small hardscrabble oasis in a wasteland, I might be more sympathetic.

Re: WWYCD 101:A question of faith

What if it turned out that their ancestors had been like the Defilers of the Darksun world (AD&D)' date=' draining the very life from their planet to fuel their unholy magics as they waged war against one another, until they literally drained it to a dry husk? Now the descendants of those people, thinking that they are innocent but must pay for the crimes of their predecessors, use those same magics to sacrifice [i']themselves[/i] in order to temporarily restore some life to the rest of them.

No gods to beat the tar out of. Nothing to hit. Just ancient evil, and fresh new innocence. Oh, and a moral challenge.

How is this a game if the PC's only credible response is to do nothing? I don't have to write up a character to do nothing...

The moral challenge is based on a false premise: That a world would require ritual sacrifice to survive. Take out the magic, and this is Soylent Green. (SPOILER) Any of my characters would fight to fix that world as well...

Re: WWYCD 101:A question of faith

Agree, if the sacrifices can be stopped with no detremental effects to the people involved, they should be. My complaint is with those who would make changes without considering the consequences, or even that there may be any consequences.

 

See your point, but sounds like metagaming to me. What's the line between genre convention and using player knowledge?

I think it is safe to assume that the dimension hopping superheroes can deduce that where there is a sacrifice there is a dragon, and dragons must be slain.

If it is God requiring the sacrifice, then this is a metaphysical hostage situation. Most of my characters believe in protecting the hostages from harm, and waiting for a clear shot at the hostage taker.

Re: WWYCD 101:A question of faith

I've got no problem with trying to find an alternative solution whatever that might be. Its the one insisting that the race is "evil" for not wanting to risk dying out en masse.

I can't speak for anyone else here, but I don't think they are evil, just wrong. Often, moral behavior can be determined by applying logic. If the sacrifice really works, than there must be a way to determine why, and find an alternative. If the sacrifice is meaningless, then the victim's consent and the village's blessing are based on false information. A society's belief that it is doing good does not make it so.

Also, if the GM put us here, and it is a game, there is a conflict to be had. Players like to win conflicts. When the conflict is between the character's moral beliefs and the nature of reality, the player cannot win the conflict. It is like pitting 25 point PC's against Mechanon.

So when confronted with a situation like this, my characters go with their gut instincts and wait for the internal conflict to become external, as per genre rules.

Re: Name That Band Hero!

I once played a character named Johnny Angel.

If he were in this game, his teammates would be:

Funny Face

Lilly Hi Lo

and Billiy Boy