Epiphanis

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

DeadlyUematsu is starting his own campaign using Maptool that is similar to what I want to do. Rather than divide my time, I've decided to join his campaign as a player rather than run my own for the time being. After that has resolved I'll start working on The Fellowship again.

Here is a preview of the background for the new online Maptool/Skype Champions campaign I'm starting up. A website will be forthcoming soon (not quite ready yet), but I promised some material by the start of the new year.

“Fellowship Fortress” is the informal name of the compound serving as the headquarters of both the Fellowship Foundation and the superteam known as “The Fellowship.” Located in Auburn Hills, Michigan, a suburb of the Metropolitan Millennium City Area, the compound houses offices, laboratories, and material warehouses used by the foundation, as well as more esoteric facilities including a small geodesic biosphere, holographic training facilities, and a hangar for antigravity based aircraft.

Despite its popular name, the Fortress is not armed, nor was it specifically designed to repulse a military attack. Its location, however, does provide it a clear and obvious advantage in terms of defensibility. Although the Foundation owns a much larger plot of real estate in which it is situated, all of the structures in the compound proper were built within a large crater left by a meteorite strike, and the compound is ringed by a perfectly circular, twenty-foot high ridge of packed earth and stone left from the impact. This ring forms a kind of de facto palisade around the compound, and gives it an imposing, vaguely militant appearance.

The meteorite crater was part of the collateral damage inflicted by the Battle of Detroit that would indirectly bring about the creation of Millennium City. The opening move in Doctor Destroyer’s plan that resulted in the Battle in 1992 involved the activation of a doomsday weapon, the Asteroid Attractor, in Detroit and use its magnetic-tractor beam to pull an asteroid down and destroy the city. The main bulk of the meteor was destroyed by the superhero Vanguard, who sacrificed his own life to shatter the mass just before it entered the stratosphere. The majority of the pulverized fragments burned up harmlessly (if spectacularly) in the atmosphere.

One fragment, however, remained large enough to make a significant impact on the surface. Touching down several miles off-target in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, the resulting meteorite created a crater more than five hundred yards wide, destroying a portion of an automobile manufacturing industrial park but, having landed at nighttime, causing no loss of human life.

In the aftermath of the Battle of Detroit, the crater and much of the nearby land was evacuated and remained abandoned until 1996, four years later, when the devalued land was purchased by the Fellowship Foundation. The ground initially remained unredeveloped and used exclusively for scientific research, examining the substance of the meteorite fragments that had survived the impact. Early samples had been found to be composed of a relatively mundane, atomically stable nickel-iron substance, lacking any exotic components (such as kelvarite) that certain other meteorites had been found to have. Nevertheless, for most of the next ten years the impact zone was scientifically monitored for any long-term effects that the impact may have had.

By 2005, however, the situation had changed. Partly because the scientific monitoring of the blast zone had failed to produce any particularly valuable insights, and partly because the economic boom in the nearby and newly-created Millennium City nearby had caused the value of the once-worthless real estate to skyrocket, the Fellowship Foundation altered its plans regarding the property. The organization announced its decision to relocate its central headquarters to the property, hiring top architects to design an administrative and research complex to house the new facility. Construction of the complex went smoothly and portions of the facility became active by late 2007.

In June of 2010 Alicia Merritt, chief Regent of the Fellowship Foundation, CEO and principal shareholder of Merritt-Wilkes Enterprises, announced new plans. The granddaughter of the founders of both entities, the World War II-era superheroes Michael “the Purple Mountain” Merritt and Alicia “the Amber Wave” Wilkes, had decided to sponsor a re-formed incarnation of the Fellowship of Freedom, the team of superheroes her grandparents had participated from 1934 through 1956. This new group, dubbed more simply “The Fellowship,” would be operating out of facilities specifically prepared for it within the headquarters facility at Auburn Hills. The media, noting the compound’s resemblance to a military stockade, quickly dubbed the property as the “Fellowship Fortress,” a designation that has become entrenched in the public’s awareness.

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

I would regard mandatory major Psychological Complications (not just CvK) as a dealbreaker for participating in a campaign.

Hey, I didn't even include that in this revised post! Okay, the requirement is still in existence, I just didn't want to get into another debate about it; I'm far more interested in the mechanical aspects of my limitations system than in engaging in pointless argument about my stance regarding Code versus Killing. To paraphrase what I've already said: I already know it will be a dealbreaker for a lot of potential players, and that's completely golden to me. If after some recruitment too few people seem willing to abide by my campaign parameters, I can and will GM something else entirely.

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

So any more details on the game itself? I know it is not quite January 2011 yet but I thought I might ask anyways.

 

Thank you,

 

LA Singletary

I'm working on a website which will post soon. In a nutshell: 400 point standard superheroic campaign, based in Millenium City/Champions Universe. Intentionally a very 'vanilla' superhero team premise with no particular apparent hook; diverse origins and powers encouraged.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]37711[/ATTACH]On the one hand, viewed from one perspective Gravitar is the quintessential bully and the CU's most half-assed wannabe conqueror. On the other hand... there is something kind of fresh and appealing about that. When you think about it, an overwhelming desire to rule the world in the fashion that Dr. Destroyer does is just kind of sad and needy. The kind of ego that requires external validation on a global scale is actually kind of pathetic.

Gravitar doesn't fit that mold. She may well be the CU's most confident character, hero or villain. She's better and stronger than everybody else, she knows this with an unshakable certainty, and she doesn't really need other people to kowtow in order to feel validated. In my interpretation at least, she's about as interested in spending her life telling six billions humans what to do as she would be sitting in a field shepherding a flock of sheep. She's just got better things to do.

So, really, why would someone like that make any attempt to "conquer the world"? I suspect its kind of like my relationship with mosquitoes. I feel vastly superior to them, I'm not even remotely afraid of them, I don't desire their obedience, and for the most part I'm not interested in telling them what to do. Yet it is possible, even commonplace, for mosquitoes to annoy me. If I could figure out a way to communicate to mosquitoes as a whole that they should leave me the hell alone and that doing otherwise equals swift and certain death... well, I think that might be worth some effort. To my mind, Gravitar doesn't want to rule so much as she simply doesn't want to have to be bothered constantly "explaining" that crossing her is a fatal mistake. Better to have everybody clear on that right up front.

Any other insights on this character?

Re: CU team study: Eurostar

I agree it's kind of hard to work up a scenario where Eurostar shows up outside of Europe. But what if a group of geographically-bound villains ally for a pooled attempt at global domination? Say, Eurostar, Yin Wu, Black Tiger, Invictus, Borealis, Otanga, Stingray, and Taipan join forces and agree to divvy the world among themselves according to their own parochial interests. A joint push for world domination would make it easier to justify any of them stepping outside their usual sphere of influence.

Re: Where do gangsters get pool babes?

Attractive hangers-on are extremely easy to attract, provided you have the means to do so. In NYC, where I live, they are practically a subculture unto themselves. Go to trendy dance clubs, flash the cash, buy lots of overpriced drinks for the ones that catch your eye, and pretty much anybody can summon a bevy of hot babes to anything. It has its downside, but the hanger-on party lifestyle has some amazing advantages.

Years ago when I was going to law school, one of my classmates was a former showgirl from the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. She and her fellow dancers were regularly invited to Trump corporate parties where they served as window dressing (and probably less officially encouraged to provide other services as well, but it was impolitic to ask). She later decided on a career change, bought a house and went to law school, paying for both in their entirety up front and in cash.

Being a hanger-on can be extremely lucrative--while it lasts, which is generally about a ten-year window from 20 to 30. As "party" lifestyles with an excess of disposable income and free time, alcoholism and drug abuse become real pitfalls, but many can and have done extremely well living this life. It is a great way to "network" for certain more "legitimate" careers and often segues into successful careers in entertainment, public relations, and journalism, all of which depend on social skills and a broad base of contacts and tend to travel in the same circles. Women are often drawn from these pools for jobs as executive assistants and receptionists for very upscale corporate culture; if they have brains or skills beyond their looks they often parlay this foot-in-the-door into successful careers in corporate America (they may suffer from the "glass ceiling" at the upper levels, but they have a distinct advantage at entry level).

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

I've revised my rules. Here is the second draft, up for commentary:

1. The PC must be built with 400 standard character points with 75 matching Complications.

2. All expenditures are subject to a “standard cap”. Except for a single exception, no individual characteristic, power, skill, perk or talent may be purchased above this maxima point.

a. All Attack Powers (6E1 144) except the STR characteristic have a standard cap of 60 Active Points (APs).

b. All other individual powers, skills, talents, perks, and characteristics have a standard cap of 30 APs.

3. Each PC may select one (and ONLY one) characteristic or power (but not skill, perk or talent) and make it the exception to the standard cap. For this exception:

a. The characteristic or power may be bought up to the “hard cap” of 75 APs invested. This hard cap applies to both Attack Powers and the general category of all other powers and characteristics.

b. Although the power or characteristic may be purchased above its standard cap point, the Real Point cost of the power for each AP above that point is doubled. Thus, using this exception to purchase an unmodified characteristic would cost 30 Real Points for the first 30 APs and 90 Real Points for the next 45 APs. For example, it would be possible to buy the maximum possible unmodified SPD of 9 for an investment of 110 character points.

4. For purposes of calculating APs spent:

a. The APs purchased for all “compound” powers (6E1 119) are totaled; the total may not exceed the lowest of the limitations applicable to any component power.

b. The APs for all Linked powers (6E1 383) have the APs of their respective greater powers added to them. If the APs of the greater power already reach the limit for the Linked power, the Linked power may not be purchased.

c. STR is treated as a characteristic, not an attack power, and so its standard limit is at a 30 AP investment (a value of 40 STR if unadvantaged). This calculation is unaffected by the purchase of HTH or HKA Powers.

d. However, both HTH and HKA Attack Powers add the APs invested in STR, plus 10 (for the free starting value of STR). Thus a character with unadvantaged 40 STR could normally purchase only 20 APs of either a HTH or an HKA power. A character having used an exception to purchase more than 50 APs of STR (e.g., an unadvantaged STR of 60 or more) cannot purchase any HTH or HKA powers.

e. For purposes of determining the AP limits, APs purchased for the characteristic Endurance and the power Endurance Reserve are added together and subject to the limits of the characteristic. Thus, a character could retain the 20 “free points” of END and purchase a 30 AP Endurance Reserve; or could buy 30 AP of END (a total of 170 END with the free points) and no Endurance Reserve; or invest a total of 30 APs in a combination of END and Endurance Reserve.

f. For purposes of determining AP limits, the APs of all defensive powers (or portions of defensive powers) applicable to a particular category of damage (physical, energy and mental) are totaled together, including the PD and ED characteristics for physical and mental damage respectively. Thus, the APs purchased for PD are added to those purchased for Resistant Damage, Damage Negation and Damage Reduction to the extent each applies to physical damage; likewise the APs purchased for ED would be added to the APs of those three powers as applied to energy damage. A PC adhering to the standard cap could buy 30 APs of Resistant Protection for each of physical and energy damage, but could not use all 60 APs for one or the other. Likewise, a PC who purchases a full 30 APs of PD could not purchase any Resistant Protection, Damage Negation or Damage Reduction that is applicable to physical damage. A PC may use his one exception to apply a hard cap of 75 APs which may be distributed between the different defensive powers applied to a single category of damage, but only the first 30 APs purchased are at their normal cost; the next 45 cost double Real Points.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]37701[/ATTACH]

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

You are very likely going end up with players more worried about building to the caps than building to their character concept.

They will do that regardless, because that is what gamers do. It is exactly what you did in building your 400 pt JLers. I don't even remotely consider it a failing that a new PC wouldn't be able to do everything that Superman can do.

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

I am very curious to see what you work out.

So am I. Its the last thing to do before recruiting and I can't quite work out the house rules to my satisfaction. There is a lot of fuzzy logic and judgment calls in the Hero System.

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

No, you only count DC-increasing advantages when determining DCs (hence the name ) See 6e2 p97, but read the section "Damage Classes of Advantaged Powers."

 

Incidentally, I note the one thing you have no restrictions on is CVs.

You are right, and I'm embarassed I got that wrong even after looking up the rule.

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

[ATTACH=CONFIG]37606[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]37609[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]37607[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]37610[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]37608[/ATTACH]

 

So this group would not fit under your cap then eh?

(Note DEX, SPD, END, STUN and base Defenses as well as Defenses that can be increased and their END cost)

No way.

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

How would your system deal with characters that don't have static power levels (some attacks and defense or bonus to either in a Multipower or VPP)?

The main issue being that they can hit the attack and defense caps but not at the same time.

The caps chosen at the start remain in place; you can't take a power in a framework that would push you over the limit. I may raise the limit incrementally with experience.

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

So am I to understand that meaning of the following is that a character can have attacks far in excess of 60 AP if I limit my SPD to 5 and total defenses to 30 character points?

Yes, although judging from feedback I will be adjusting the figures, particularly SPD. The idea would be to create a "glass cannon" with great offense but pathetic defense. A simple exploit in the Hero point system without definitional points would be to build a single overwhelmingly powerful attack and dump all the rest of your character points into defense. Do you think this solution is too unbalanced?

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

Alternatively, it could be that it isn't really a complication at all. Since it's a campaign ground rule, and applies to everybody, it's arguably not worth any points at all!

That... is an interesting point. But not all NPCs have it.

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

If you don't want the players to ever be faced with those situations with any free will at all then keep the 20 point requirement.

Honestly, and sincerely not being snarky, that is almost exactly what I do desire. I've given this a lot of thought and I am well aware that there are other, and from some perspectives better, ways of handling lethal force in superheroic gaming. I have my reasons for wanting to do things this way, the virtues of which I'm not really interested in debating. I know that some potential players might have issues with this, and I'm not saying those issues are unjustified. I'm not even saying that I promise to deliver a gaming experience that, in all its awesomeness, will overcome such issues to the point that a player won't mind. I am saying that that is (more or less) the way I intend to do it and if a potential player can't enjoy playing in a campaign run that way, he's wasting both of our times trying to do so.

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

Also, I find the way you express your powerlevels to be kind of confusing (though that may be due to my being under the weather)

 

I find as a player and as a GM to show Max and average (ie DC 12, avg DC10; DEF avg 20; max 30 rDef 10avg max 15 etc) this allows a little slop for folk who want 10d6 Blast 1/2 end (62pts). It also lets everyone see what the average attacks, def etc. are going to be.as a Number thingie. Make sure that you set your average Def to 2x avg DC and your max Def to 2.5 Max DC that give a wide range of defenses where PC's won't be insta KOed, and sets a reasonable max Def that you can Damage with average attacks.

I based the way I expressed my limitations largely on the "a la carte" character construction templates from Champions 6E. These varied quite a bit but a typical non-brick was allocated 40 character points to Defensive powers beyond basic attribute scores (though some included options to boost said scores as defensive options, and some allocated more or less points). I want to follow those basic principals without establishing a specific baseline of average scores to work off of. I may have to rethink this. I will give it more thought.

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

Instead of AP caps, use DC caps (12/8 limited). Capping AP rather than DC always leads to weirdness, and horribly shafts people who take any non-DC-increasing advantage.

I'm working on the assumption that 60 AP is mathematically the exact same thing as 12 DC, as the 6th Ed rules define a DC as equal to AP/5 (6th Ed, Vol. 2, p. 97), counting APs from all advantages, not just damage-increasing ones. I think you are advocating dice of damage based cap (i.e., 12d6 for standard damage, 4d6 for killing) but I'm not sure this is what you mean. Could you clarify?

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

I'm not really interested in debating the moral issues of requiring a Code versus Killing (although if locking down 20 of the 75 complication points raises mechanical problem I'm unaware of I'd appreciate a heads up). As a GM, I could require that all the PCs be mutants, or teenage high school students, or normal costumed vigilantes with no actual superpowers, and nobody would bat an eye about it. Yet somehow a mandate that the PCs not be killers requires justification? It's a parameter of the campaign. If you can't have fun playing a character who doesn't kill, this just isn't a game for you.

Re: CU: Ameriforce One

I figured as much. Fortunately, I don't feel compelled to share with the class.

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

Excellent feedback so far. Thanks.

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

Is this limitation on each particular power, or on all of them?

 

Do the PD and ED characteristics count?

Its for character points spent on all Defense Powers totalled together, but it slipped my mind to specify about PD and ED. It does NOT include standard PD and ED, but DOES include purchasing advantages for them, including Resistant.

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

If the Code versus Killing is a serious issue, you probably don't want to play in my campaign anyway.

Re: CU: Ameriforce One

If I stat them for my campaign, would it be gauche to post them here as unofficial versions?

Re: Definitional Points for a Champions campaign

Would maximum SPD of 7 [Limited: 4] be more appropriate without being too constraining?