Sean Waters

Re: No Frameworks? ...and characters that can only dio a few things can only do a limited number of them at a time, too.

Re: No Frameworks?

Re: No Frameworks?

Re: No Frameworks? Let us work an example: 40 point MP, using multi slots vs a 40 point cosmic (+2) VPP. More than 7 powers in the MP, and it costs more than the VPP. That is not a huge number. Moreover the real advantage of a cosmic VPP is this: you build the slots as you go. You can't meaningfully put senses in a MP (or at least it is relatively expensive to do so), but you can in a VPP (how? Guess, go on...) It allows you to tailor transforms and drains, dispels and supresses without all those pesky and costly advantages you would otherwise need: you can, in effect exceed campaign active point cost maxima - a transform anything to anything in a 60 point per power campaign means 2d6 major transform. With a VPP, you don't need that +1 advantage that ramps up the cost and you can have 4d6 transform anything to anything. Point is it is cheaper and more useful than a multipower, so if VPP ain't broke, MP is...

Re: No Frameworks? Depends which comics you read. Comes back to the different perspectives point: one man's legitimate EC is another man's rules abuse.

Re: No Frameworks?

Re: Critique of how I made these grenades. Beautiful, quite beautiful.

Re: No Frameworks? ...and HKA: Make me sharp! Now we really are comparing apples and killing attacks... Gods, but I love this game...

Re: No Frameworks? You are a saint, but one who walks into my subtle trap...if you are defining your VPP slots ahead of time, it is just a cheaper version of a MP, or you wouldn't be buying it. How can that be right?

Re: No Frameworks? Here's one for you. Fire powers, force field 12/12, a staple of any number of ECs. The physical bit is defined as melting whatever is thrown at him. I shoot you. I don't think 4 grains of melted lead is going to do much less damage than 4 grains of solid lead. Might convert kill damage to normal damage... I punch you, my fist doesn't melt. This is 'justified' in any number of comic books and official Hero products, but unless you have a desolid 'body of fire', being on fire is not going to protect you from physical attacks, but we just let that one slide because Fire Powers make a proper EC. I come up with apple powers, and everyone is on my case...Long Live Granny Smith!! OK I'm sure you'll never allow this level of abuse in your game, but it is happening...

Re: No Frameworks? Apple powers is just as much a SFX as fire powers. You just think it is silly. I agree with you.

Re: No Frameworks? Who said they were focii? They are physical manifestations of my inner Rightousness. My smoke powers are in the MP.

Re: No Frameworks? The point is that you're just penalising the dimmer player: and they already have enough problems to cope with. The power gamer will come up with the concept after coming up with the powers, the true role player willdo it the other way around BUT looking at the characters afterwards, you won't see the join. I'm not against ECs - like I said I've used them, but I do think that they are overused: this from Edsel earlier in this thread: I'll echo the general sentiment so far that power frameworks are generally a good thing. I don't think that I've ever built a superhero character that lacked one. You could, perhaps, disallow Variable Power Pools since they are the most prone to abuse. But a game that lacked Elemental Controls and Multipowers is almost unthinkable to me. ...and I think that there is little justification for making the grant of an EC conditional on a player coming up with a common theme you are happy with, so long as ther is a common theme or SFX. If they think they can mind control someone with gravity, maybe we'll discover one day that you can, in the meantime, stock up on villains like Auntie Grav, with her astonishing array of dispels and supresses that work against that particular effect...

Re: No Frameworks? The biggest pain is the VPP. Nothing slows a game down like The Cosmic Wonder trying to come up with something on the fly to combat the Flying Apples of Granny Smith.

Re: No Frameworks? Elemental control: apple powers 1. Transform air to apples (3d6 major transform) 2. Hypervelocity apples (3d6 RKA) Your point being....?

Re: No Frameworks? But wasn't that DrFurious' point? It all comes down to a rather arbitrary judgement call? You wouldn't stick mind control in the gravity powers ec, you'd re-define it as, oooh I don't know, elictricity control. I have a static field which lets me repel matter and energy - including the ground, and I can create and control electricity at a gross level to send lightning bolts at my oponents or at a fine level to manipulate their nervous systems and make them my puppets... If you'd intrioduced Martians with a particular set of unconnected powers, taking 'Martian Powers' would be a perfectly logical and valid ec. Let me redifine the armour as the sword's automatic parry power, and the effects are linked at least as closely as most 'valid' ec's.

Re: Possession

Re: No Frameworks? I was given the Arms and Armour of Rightousness by the Wizard McNair, to battle for good and truth. They were forged in the deep past by demi-gods to protect the innocent. The sword can not only strike at the flesh of the ungodly, but even at their minds, turning their lies and hatred into pain, the better to cast them down...the armour girds me against their mightiest blows so that I can continue the battle... Point is, you can justify about any combination of powers. You're just handing out points to slick talkers.

Re: No Frameworks? Unbalanced characters are more difficult to run and play very often, but far more rewarding when you do than their more avarage brethren. I am not advocating that you regularly kill characters, I am advocating that characters shouldn't feel that the first hit doesn't matter much, they can always dodge until they get a post segment 12... I can't remember the last time a hero died in one of my games, but I like to think that the players all go home in need of a change of underwear...

Re: No Frameworks?

Re: No Frameworks? ...well, if you define the star characters as Ripley, Newt and the Alien Queen, I agree. Everyone else got taken apart in one hit (Bishop survived, but was instantly disabled), and all the marines were reasonably major characters given the limited (human) cast. The point is that if they survive it is as an editorial/storywriting decision. The environment is genuinely dangerous, but the lead characters are lucky enough to avoid extinction because the scriptwriter says so, not because they have defences that adequately balance the offensive potential of their opponents...even Ripley died in Alien 3...but again that was a script decision. We don't quite have that luxury in gaming. If you don't genuinely feel that your character could be finished if the do something stupid, you are losing a lot of drama. Zenith may be an exception, but contained more plot and character development than many titles that run to 100 issues or more, so it is a shame it is the exception. Nothing makes you feel more alive than knowing you can die in the next ten minutes...

FRED suggests using a mental transformation to do 'Mind Transference' (p.154). How would you build this? Couple of specific problems: 1. You almost certainly have different mental stats from the target - how do you make sure you are in there? 2. How do you transfer memories back from the target that you acquired while possessing it? 3. What would you define the healing method as? Any help gratefully received.

Re: Plot Device: Techlandia Bit obvious it is a death trap: if levers don't work, good luck moving...your skeleto-muscular system uses that very principle to get you about. I'd run with, "Dr Destroyer, you are under arrest!" Ka-ka-boom!

Re: Character for Comment : Coldilocks Cool. Pun intended.

Re: No Frameworks?