David Blue
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Posts posted by David Blue
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Re: Message from the President
Not necessarily, in my opinion.It only occurred to me long after posting this that the order itself constitutes grounds to kill the person who issued it. Think about it.
In this communication, the POTUS does not indicate any willingness to die for the state. He only indicates a willingness to have others assasinated, specifically those who are willing to die for their country, perhaps unlike him.Originally Posted by POTUS [...]Further, you are directed to locate and execute any and all individuals known to you to subscribe to the opinion that their lives are or should be at the disposal of the State.
In the case of the present POTUS, you might decide that his National Guard service did indicate he was willing to die for his country, and therefore he could (and should) be killed. But if you thought that his National Guard service was essentially fake, he would have shown in practice that he did not subscribe to the opinion that his life would be at the disposal of the state, therefore he would be immune.
Of course' date=' anyone who resists or objects despite that is proven (assuming they were targetted on the basis of their own statements) to be a hypocrite, but also proven to fall outside the group marked for destruction.[/quote']Kill him if you think he's honest, hold him immune if you think he's a hypocrite - that seems to be the spirit of the order all right.
Me too.The palindromedary loves this stuff.It's part of why I like these extreme characters. I like to play them, and I like to gamemaster them.
Not only do characters like this lend themselves to situations interesting to think about, they set up great, dramatic conflicts and scenes. The more they are for real, the more this is so.
Imagine Silent Centurion has been played for about two years by a good strong roleplayer, and everyone in the team knows how utterly genuine about their misguided idealism this person is, and that they've laid their life on the line for their beliefs.
Then they go on an international murder rampage.
Oh, I should stop her to say why I thought this might be international. I am very pro-American, but I can't help noticing that from time to time, as in the case of Manuel Noriega, the Americans have shown that they think their laws simply over-ride the laws of other nations. Can you go to somebody else's country, smash any armed resistance, seize the de facto ruler, and try, convict, sentence and imprison him for drug offences under American law? Yes indeed. So I thought: if our extreme character is ordered to kill him or her self, and all the like-minded people who are likely to include their friends and family, and the order never says to exempt foreigners (who Silent Centurion quite likely doesn't even like), and foreigners have not been held exempt from U.S. law and executive decisions in the past - well you see how it can add up.
Anyway, Silent Centurion is mowing down Important People left and right, explaining nothing (as per orders), and war impends. The POTUS orders the player characters to apprehend (and/or kill) the "rogue" (that is obedient) hero and explains the deal.
For that matter' date=' it might force a change of opinion in the character herself - at the very least, it should make her think deeply about the conclusions she has come to and embraced for so long.[/quote'] Imagine the hushed silence of the other players, and then ..."You thought Silent Centurion, of all people, might not be serious? ..."
How could the gamemaster not love a moment like that?
Later: the other player characters drag in the "rogue" (that is obedient) hero, who has worked their way through half or more of their friends, DNPCs, relatives and so on; and he or she gets the order to desist personally from the POTUS. And the explanation, including: oh, I thought it might make you think more deeply about your professed beliefs...
Whatever happens then, it's gotta be interesting. It could legitimately be resolved as simply "your soldier, faithful unto death," or as the equivalent of a "radiation accident" to their psychological limitations. (Violent anarchist: very common, strong)
Like I said - as a gamemaster, I love these extreme characters. I don't promise to make life easy for them, but I do love them. I respect their devotion (which is why I give them the respect, to showcase their personal issues in scenarios), and they are fountainheads of the intense dramas I love.
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Re: Message from the President
That is sublime. The occasional idea of genius like that is the reason I read threads like this.Originally Posted by POTUSClassified: Above Top Secret
For Your Eyes Only
Destroy after Reading and Memorizing Contents
I regret to inform you that after due consideration it has been determined that an individual with your combintion of:
1. Personal power;
2. Public visibility; and
3. Commitment to the totalitarian heresy that an individual must submit to the State, even unto death;
inherently constitutes a threat to the Republic.
You are therefore directed, within thirty (30) days of the date of this communication, to terminate yourself with extreme prejudice. Further, you are directed to locate and execute any and all individuals known to you to subscribe to the opinion that their lives are or should be at the disposal of the State. You are not to reveal the contents of this communication except that you are permitted to assure those you execute that you are acting under orders and that their sacrifice is required for the good of the State.
On behalf of the American people and nation, I thank you.
I think a properly played "extreme" player character with the right psych limits (which need not be Total - I think Strong would do it) should accept that order and carry it out to the best of his or her ability, give or take natural fumbles, hesitations and momentary crises of conscience.
It would be quite a thing to discover, twenty years later, what had happened to Silent Centurion ("faithful unto death") and his soul mates.
Or it might be a remarkable messy - and fun - Iron Age scenario if Silent Centurion was aware of thousands of people, in different countries, including celebrities and important officials, who shared his views on the primacy of the state, and he was very rapidly killing them all, wherever they were, possibly Chinese leaders first.
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Re: Sure signs that your player doesn't want to be in your 350 pt champions game.
Instantly."Did anyone else just go to a scary visual place?"
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Re: WWYCD: Hero with "Questionable" Political Views
I think that's a good point.NO! Heroes are shining examples of good' date=' and good acts grow out of good thoughts, a good heart. He does not have a good heart. He is merely "Mr. DoRight," he is not a [i']hero[/i].If he has been doing right, and a reasonable person would expect he will continue to do right, most of my characters would work with him. But never, never think of him as a hero, just a useful (but never to be trusted) ally.
Busting criminals may make you useful. (Or it may make you a vigilante and criminal yourself.)
To be a hero's hero, literally, to be respected as hero by other heroes, more than useful actions are required. Judgments of motive and character come into it.
Some political views are not just nutty, they are dreadful. That may not affect who you have to work with in a crisis, but it is relevant to judgments of motive and character.
Someone who is from another world (or from any time before the 20th Century) and doesn't know that the swastika is a bad symbol is fine (by default). Someone with views that sound Nazi-like, unless you examine them carefully, when they turn out to be quite different, may be fine. Someone who is the real thing has earned a highly unfavorable judgment on their character and likely motives - even if, let's say as a spokesman for National Socialism, they go around doing things calculated to make them popular.
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Re: WWYCD: Hero with "Questionable" Political Views
Off-topic, but that's an easy one.Does anyone remember a character from the old Allies book called The Aryan? I've thought once or twice of making a new version of him as a flying brick (think Master Man with some brains) -- a decent, heroic, honorable man who is nonetheless convinced that 'Nazism could work with the right people'.(I'd have to put some thought into why he doesn't hate Jews, but that's part of the fun of inventing these weird characters.)
Hitler's views on Jews were inconsistent, except for being consistently malign. He thought the races should be slugging each out with each other to produce a perpetual genetic superbowl champion, which would of course benefit Aryans, who were the best; and he also blamed the Jews for being the ones who always got the other races fighting. (It's the Mel Gibson theory of how all wars begin.) Which, surely, is what they were supposed to be doing? And what Hitler was eagerly doing himself? But anyway: always blame the Jews! It's all their fault! Blame! Hate! Punish! Kill! Graagh!!
(Ahem...)
Just let the Aryan be a little more logical: "yes it's in the nature of the Jews to start fights, and as a born winner that's fine by me. Oh, Doctor Goldberg, what marvellous device do you have for us today?" The Aryan would assume whenever a Jewish scientist invented something amazing that we were going to wind up fighting over it - and in a comic book world, how often would he be wrong?
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Re: WWYCD: Hero with "Questionable" Political Views
Yup. Not worth it.That might make for an interesting poll. "Do you play characters with significantly different political or religious views from your own?"
Unfortunately, it would very likely turn into a massive flame war.
Anyway, in answer to the present "what would your character do?" - it would depend how the other character's out-there views bounced of my character's quite likely equally out-there views.
For example, Gladiatrix had views on the legitimacy of violence in sport and entertainment that would turn your hair white. As a purpose bred gladiator (and a credit to her creators) she could hardly have been expected to think anything else. She just never ran into anybody who objected to that.
It was a bit like Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) - whenever Martin Blank would reveal that he was a professional killer, it would go like this:
Mr. Newberry: What have you been doing with your life?
Marty: Uh... professional killer.
Mr. Newberry: Oh! Good for you, it's a... growth industry.
Thinking about it' date=' none of my characters share my religious beliefs; Comic Book cosmology is too obviously different from the real world.[/quote']It's amazing to me that the Norse, Roman and Greek gods aren't doing better in the main comic book universes than they seem to be.No hero seems to be impressed by the fact that these gods are demonstrably for real. I would be!
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Re: WWYCD: The rest of the world's Supers just changed sex.
Y'know' date=' if Last Hero first changes to a drone, then gets the choice, wouldn't that leave LH with the opportunity of making sure the Korbenite Queen has a mate handy when the time comes...? *ponders*[/quote']The most interesting and entertaining "what ifs" leave you thinking about options you would never have considered before. Something that is just straightforwardly bad and has to be solved isn't as enlightening. Or that's how it seems to me, based on the "what ifs" I've tried so far. -
Re: WWYCD: The rest of the world's Supers just changed sex.
Gladiatrix - Try to hit the right tone in mass media releases, to get credit for taking this unexpected and unexplained sex change like a trouper, while not coming across as a gay guy who was glad to be altered. Whatever is happening, the first, most important thing is to retain the love of the fan base.Awakening a sleeping thread.You wake up in the morning and you are the only hero that didn't change sex in the night. Now the thing is everyone else in the world thinks that this has always been the case. They think your C was the opposite sex and they wonder why you are the sex you are. How will your C deal with this?
Chain Lightning - Investigate. Whoever did this is probably going to do other things that won't be nearly as funny, so Chain Lightning may need to beat them up. If this looks like a harmless one-off event, though, leave it like it is. Chain Lightning has no stake in anyone else's sexual identity.
Orgone Man - Investigate. This has to change. Orgone Man is respectably married, and that is supremely important to him. Things are going to go back to normal, and that's that.
Last Hero - Investigate. This has to change. Changing a queen egg to a drone egg means racial extinction. That is the only issue, and the rest of the world can go hang.
Gladiatrix - Leave things like they are. Gladiatrix would not see a reason to alter them. Fans can love you just as much whichever sex they are.Ok, adding to this one a bit. Your C has been working on getting this fixed. They have figured out some things, but to change things back your C will have to actually change sex in a ritual that will remake the world you know. Other than the drawback that you will be that sex after, the rest of the world will not remember the ritual and also will always think your C has been the sex you are after.WWYCD then?
Chain Lightning - Leave things like they are. Chain Lightning plans on staying a boy, whatever may come.
Orgone Man - Don't change the world back at the price of changing sexes. Keep trying to get things back to normal in the Orgone household. This is not about the rest of the world. It is about a man and a woman being married forever, as man and woman.
Last Hero - Change the world back of course. The good of the queen egg is everything.
And hey, that means that Last Hero becomes a drone, and (a vain, irresponsible) First Stud-muffin. Yeah! Who looks too cute to resist? You do, hunky-boy, you do! Goodbye to "death lighter than a feather and duty heavier than a mountain," hello to The Artist Formerly Known As Last Hero! (Try not to hate me 'cause I'm so handsome. Pout!) All female characters She-Hulk/Big Barda size or better will be hit on. Oh baby you know what I like!
This thread is actually the most fun idea that's ever occurred to me in respect of Last Hero.
OK a small change here' date=' the ritual will change the world back and you will remain your birth sex, but-----your C has the choice to alter themselves into the other sex.[/quote']Gladiatrix - Everything goes back to normal, and Gladiatrix stays the sex she is,Chain Lightning - "I'm a boy, I'm a boy, I'm a boy!" The world may or may not get cured - though not till Chain Lightning has had a quiet laugh at everyone's new costumes and problems - but what really matters is that Chain Lightning stays a guy. (grin)
Orgone Man - Everything goes back to normal, and Orgone Man stays the sex he is. Mr. and Mrs. Orgone and all the little Orgones live happily ever after.
Last Hero - Everything goes back to normal, and Last Hero stays the sex he is. That is, a genetically female pseudo-male, like a warrior ant. In time the queen will hatch and the warrior will defend her, as it should be. Duty is all. There is little of free will for a Korbenite super-warrior.
However if Last Hero first changes to a drone and then gets the choice - uh oh!
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Re: Stalin's Legion of Super-Apes!
I made the same mistake - not noticing that others were already aware of this brilliant story.Knew I should've finished reading that thread first.But after all, it's so good it's worth mentioning again.
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Re: History of the Super-Soldier Serum (need suggestions!)
Are you aware of Stalin's all too real demand for the creation of an ape/human super-race' date=' indifferent to the quality of its food (a key issue for the Soviet Union) and far hardier than human-kind, to use as super-soldiers?[/quote']http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/12/20/stalinapes.shtmlStalin Planned Army of Ape-Man Super-Warriors
Created: 20.12.2005 11:20 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:20 MSK
MosNews
Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents, the Scotsman.com reports.
Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia’s top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior.
Stalin reportedly told the scientist: “I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat.”
In 1926 the Politburo in Moscow passed the request to the Academy of Science with the order to build a “living war machine”. The order came at a time when the Soviet Union was embarked on a crusade to turn the world upside down, with social engineering seen as a partner to industrialization: new cities, architecture, and a new egalitarian society were being created.
The Soviet authorities were struggling to rebuild the Red Army after bruising wars.
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Re: History of the Super-Soldier Serum (need suggestions!)
Rather than seeing this as a military weapon, I think it's better to recognise it as a pure V-weapon, a Vengeance weapon against the Jews of Jew York, who had manipulated a (mostly) white America into the unjust war against the Reich.After the war' date=' [NAME'] dropped the so-called “meta-gene” bomb on New York city. It is thought the bomb was a German “super-weapon” of last resort, intended to be used on the German Army as a last resort, in an effort to instantly create an army of super-humans capable of stopping the Allied and Russian advanced. Conversely, it might have been intended to be dropped on enemy forces, with the idea of creating hordes of unstable metahumans who would either die outright from assuming a nonviable form or destroy each other in their madness. At any rate, the bulk of superhumans in and around New York can trace their origins and ancestry to the dropping of this bombAs we know (if we are paranoid lunatic Nazis) the Jews are indifferent to the purity of their doctrines, but intensely protective of the purity of their blood. This unstable random mutation weapon would be the final blow against that perverse purity of the blood, in the most Jew-infested city in the world.
Lest we forget, while we are discussing V for Vengeance, V for Vendetta, V V V V V, there was this British project, also based on captured stocks of war materials and Nazi scientists...
Are you aware of Stalin's all too real demand for the creation of an ape/human super-race, indifferent to the quality of its food (a key issue for the Soviet Union) and far hardier than human-kind, to use as super-soldiers?The postwar saw both the United States and Soviet Union continue to experiment with various super-soldier projects. Stalin even went so far to resurrect Dr. Moreau’s methods, seeking to combine humans and great apes to create unstoppable super-soldiers. The Americans tried a derivative of Herakleophorbia IV, with Dr. Bruce Banner creating Herakleophorbia VI, in the process becoming the modern Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with his transformation into the being known simply as the Hulk.[need more examples...]
With a super-formula, something like forced Lamarkian evolution, turbo-charged by an utter indifference to humanitarian considerations, became marginally possible.
At this point I believe we have to discuss the so-called Red Ghost and his astonishing results with creatures popularly but inaccurately believed to be genetically pure apes.
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Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001
What would you recommend as the realistic plan?I see a lot of people posting here saying they would stop the planes by calling the autorities and warnignthem of the flights.How many people can recall, off the to of their head, the four flight numbers, the airports they took off from and the times they took off and times of impact?
The only flight number I can easily recall, without looking it up, is Flight 91. And remember, If you find yourself on Sept. 10th, 2001, you cannot look up what hasn't happened yet.
Not that the sentiment isn't nice, but a bit unrealistic.
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Re: Killers
Two issues implicitly brought out by Chimpira (repped by the way):They even tortured one guy to get information from them. The whole time Jeff and I was playing characters that spent all our time making sure that people were safe and I was desperately trying to rein in the other two characters.1. If you're lucky enough to have a player who gets it, reward him or her, not just the character. Talk to the player and make sure he or she is having a good time. Because a good player typically will find playing with killer bozos frustrating even if his or her character is cleaning up in rewards. If he or she is not really having a good time, break whatever crockery has to be broken to fix this.
2. If the good player characters should be beating the tar out of player character "heroes" who are villains, and arresting them, not adventuring with them, let that happen. Make sure people know this is a valid option too. Don't leave your players under the false impression that they are supposed to put up with murderous misbehaviour whether that would be in character for their heroes or not.
As a gamemaster in a four color game, you shouldn't be neutral between heroes and villains. This includes player character heroes and (soon to be former) player character villains.
The coldest words I have heard from a gamemaster, and the phrase you have to be able to say and back up, to be a real four color gamemaster, is:
Time for a moral decision. The hero wins. He's not you.
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Re: WWYCD: Lost in a world without Supers; 9/11/2001
Most of the characters I have actually played would start off in Sydney Australia or parts nearby, and lack rapid long-range movement powers. All would wish to help, most passionately. But they would probably be out of luck.Zl'f would probably have a very bad day.Assuming she would be almost certainly unable to convince the authorities of the upcoming attacks (How likely is it the US military or police will believe an apparently 14-year-old girl who speaks English with a vaguely European accent, can't even explain how she knows all this, and claims that she's some kind of superhero?), she would get onto one of the planes scheduled to hit the WTC and disable the terrorists when they tried to take control of that aircraft. Hopefully that might convince the plane's flight crew to warn the other three planes.
If not, at least she'd have saved many hundreds of lives.
Gladiatrix and the others would use their Presence (and, typically, high Comeliness), and their super-abilities to add to it. I think they would all head straight for the American embassy. It would be easy for any of them to convince the local staff they were not joking. Whether they could convince anyone in America would be in the lap of the gods.
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Re: Sure signs that your player doesn't want to be in your 350 pt champions game.
My initial build for Gladiatrix, alien super-warrior, involved:They take the disads:Hunted: Doctor Destroyer, 14-
Psych Lim: Compelled to call Doctor Destroyer "A slack-jawed sub-moronic leg humper". (Uncommon/Total)
Enraged: At the sight of Doctor Destroyer, 14-; recover: 8-
Vulnerability: X2 Body/Stun from Doctor Destroyer
They name themselves:
"All of you suck!" Man
The Mighty "I just want to kill all of you losers."
Captain "If the police were worth anything, why would you need me?"
Their powers:
Are bought independent, No Conscious Control, OAF....and it's just a massive CE to cover everything in a 4 mile radius with the color pink....at x10 END cost.
Their battlecry is:
"PRIMUS is full of losers!"
"My weakness is Strontium 90!" And it is...
Their costume:
Has helpful attachments for electrodes, and they take double BODY from electricity.
- an irrational, very common psychological limit of showboat/glory-hound
- an irrational love of fighting
- a hunted by Firewing 8-, more powerful (much, much more powerful)
Her defence against ranged attacks was "bullets and bracelets" with hefty bracers/buckler-shields that each served as a one-shot area effect (line) killing flame-thrower.
And she had:
- 2xSTUN, 2xBODY from all fire/flame attacks.
She sweated napalm, in effect, and was not immune to the effects.
Basically she was an experimental accident, a super-effective freak deviation from a line of clones created for a Gladiatorial Circus of Cruelty. As beautiful and charismatic as possible, they would dance around in hot bikinis and cheerleader outfits, stabbing each other with swords, hurling javelins at each other and parrying them with the bucklers (or not) and torching each other (or dodging), always being careful to conserve ammo, because there would always be a lot more than two opponents in the arena to start with.
The pinnacle of their careers would be to be the warmup act for Firewing - who, in his occasional visits to the cluster as Galactic Champion, would announce his arrival to the drooling crowd by making the winner explode in a sea of fire. Yaay!
Naturally I built Gladiatrix with Dodge, Block, Missile Deflect and Dive For cover at campaign limit values.
Gladiatrix ran away from the Circus of Cruelty. She wasn't a coward (even by her own severe standards) - but she wasn't content to be just a soon-to-be-forgotten opening act either. She'd had it with cynicism, and rigged fights for cynical audiences. She wanted real fights, for primitive (human), un-jaded audiences, who would believe everything and love their star/heroine/planetary defender/fighter like crazy. (Though as crazy as how much Gladiatrix loved her fans/audience is hard to come by. No player character could have been more passionate about rescuing normals who came close to applaud, photograph or just watch her in action.)
The gamemaster forced a comprehensive rebuild. I accepted that. He was the gamemaster.
But I was perfectly serious about the original build. Gladiatrix wasn't about living forever. She was about living and dying for the (global) crowd - what that might mean if you give it everything, what it might cost, what the rewards or consequences might be. I'd still love to play the original concept.
I was never one for singing
What I really feel
Except tonight, I’m bringing
Everything I know that’s real.
Stars they come and go
They come fast or slow
They go like the last light
Of the sun, all in a blaze
And all you see is glory
Hey but it gets lonely there
When there’s no one here to share.
We can shake it away
If you’ll hear a story.
People lust for fame
Like athletes in a game
We break our collarbones
And come up swinging
Some of us are downed
Some of us are crowned
Some are lost and never found ...
If you're playing that character properly, in a good team, then with what you do for your friends and team mates most of the time (everything you can), when Firewing or some other flaming killer comes round and you start getting that moth-to-a-flame look in your eyes and wondering aloud if Earth people would be excited to see a real heroine die in prime time, they keep you alive. And if not, not.
To me, that's not much stranger than saying that if (movie) Superman gets nailed good by green kryptonite, some woman is going to have to save him based on his previous good conduct, or he dies. Some characters, in some ways, are meant to have no armor against fate.
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Re: Killers
Im starting a new cmapaign' date=' which is four colour. The problem is all my players have ever played is D&D and there use to killing and looting. How do I get my players out of this mindset.[/quote']I don't know. I never managed to get players like that converted to the light side.Here are some thoughts I had based on trying though.
Right from the start, be free in giving extra dice of Presence based on Reputation, and give Reputation to people who "aren't just ordinary" because they act better than ordinary. When people ask for any sort of assistance, from any body, allow this to be a factor. There's no need to keep what you are doing a state secret either. Everybody should know what they need to do or not do if they want to be told things and lent things.
Never, ever have a character you portray as being cool, bad@$$ or better in any way, especially if it's "just" in your eyes, through being an actual or potential killer. Where I've seen other gamemasters slip up with this is in thinking that cops, soldiers, government agents and the government team liaison don't count. Yes they do. If your NPC based on an action movie character flashes his gun and is kool! because he's ready to "do what it takes to get the job done" and he's "hard-core", it will take your player characters no minutes and no seconds to think that if stacking up bodies, or being ready to do so, makes you studly, people with their powers can "get the job done" better and faster.
Start out with inoffensive bozo villains, with Paste Pot Pete being the meanest you would go. That hasn't worked for me, but I never came up with a better alternative. One thing you have to watch for if you do this is to be aware of your feelings, and guard against the mistake of letting an NPC become your favorite. I fell for this, and it's only too easy to do when Rabbit Man just wants to steal all the carrots in town and the Silver Streak just likes to pilfer junk food and bend or break public decency laws at supersonic speed in her silver running shoes - while player characters are blazing away with killing attacks trying to bring their careers to bloody ends. If the rabbit gets shot and skinned and the silver streak becomes the red smear, just keep gritting your teeth and plugging away with new NPCs until the players tire of this, or fail to, indicating that you need new players.
If a player character "gets it" (thank your lucky stars and) unleash your reined in favoritism. That character gets to be the center of every story and the idol of millions. Everybody else is just guest starring in his or her comic till they get it too. And even if they do, they never move past number one. Don't take away your favor and make the player who was first to get it right feel like he's on no further interest once somebody's followed his example. The way he's treated, well or badly, is still in the plain sight of everyone else. And besides, why not reward what you like? That's part of the fun of being the gamemaster.
If looting is a problem, handle foci Amber style. The Amber games I've seen have looting more under control than any game I've seen.
It works like this. all items are mundane or special. Mundane items can be obtained by walking to them (for an Amberite), or in a superhero game you can have a loan of them by asking persuasively, that is supported by a good Reputation.
Special items are things a character paid points for. That character always has "hooks" on that item. The possibilities of that item are like "omni-gadgets" - Batman specials that can be defined when they are used to reflect a character that always thinks of everything. If you take away the Gloved Genius' gloves, and he wants to spend a few more character points to have clairsentience so he is spying on you every time you're using the gloves, fine: no rationale is required other than that these are his items. (And it works the same for the player characters - they can do this too. Make them aware of this.) If you have Luck, then somebody using your tools regularly against your will has that much Unluck. The Ring and its Master are one. Eventually, nobody but a moron is still attracted to the idea of using other people's tools all the time. And if anybody gets the idea that the best solution is to keeps somebody's dearest special, spiritually linked item but make it "unowned" by killing the owner, I think we all know how the rest of the story might go. Unless you destroy the gloves, then somehow, in some form, there's always a possibility that the Gloved Genius can make some sort of a comeback. Only he ever really understood the full potential of the technology in those gloves - and they can still earn experience while a character uses them. Or, who but the Mysterious Mandarin ever really knew the limits of fans powered by Makluan technology? (And again, make it clear from the start that this applies to player characters too.) And if you know what Villain X was like, but you cannot bear to give up the power of the One Ring - what can I say?
Games that work like this, with the rules clear up front, don't have excessive looting problems. They just don't.
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Re: New Group and I'm Nervous.
So I warmly recommend you give the player characters a chance to counteract that right at the start.Okay, first adventure going to be my first Real GMing gig in a year and I haven't been vet before then.Basic story line is this..
Mutants haven't been around long and so people are fearful of what they don't understand so....
If they do, you've set up a good conflict between an undesirable trend in the world and the heroic player characters overcoming it, which is great. And if they don't, then later on the player characters will be able to say, let's look to our own actions or lack of them for why things are the way they are.
I'll say this again: if you're leaving things up to the player characters, fine, but make sure they face real choices and real chances to do good and be recognised for it. Don't set up a situation where there's not much they can really do about bad things happening in the game and then say, "I left it up to them..."
Make sure they have ample opportunities to react like heroes if they want to, and that if they do act like heroes people whose minds are not made up - civilians, not guards - will see and remember them.3 mutants have been captured for study. They are being kept in a stasis sleep but a major power surge due to a hurricane hits the facility and knocks out the power and stasis fails. Mutants wake up in to a research station in the Flordia keys with a skeleton crew of people and their robot guards.I was kinda wanting to leave it open because I am not sure what the players will do or how they will react.
Here's what I suggest. Assume the storm has hit other nearby islands too. Design three rescue situations with normal people - not the staff of the base that is hostile to the player characters - specifically for each of the player characters. So, if one of them has telekinesis, set up one - two - three situations where ordinary people are in danger and a telekinetic would be the perfect person to save them. Make sure the player character telekinetic meets all three of those situations. (And do the same for the other two, based on their different powers.)
By the end of that series of choices, it will be clear whether the player character mutants help ordinary people
(3) every chance they get
(2) more often than not
(1) occasionally
(0) never or practically never.
Make these easy choices, there's no need to complicate them with dilemmas like "save the lady or the child". Just: help or don't help. For example, lift the people in the path of something bad up to a safe ledge and fly on, or just fly on. Easy, either way. What do you want to do? The whole campaign can flow from that choice.
I'd say don't get too interested in the guards, the robots and evil mutants. Those are all fine, but the player characters will have plenty of time to meet them all again later, when the hunt for the escaped mutants is on. Sure, use them, but make darn sure they don't stop the player characters getting away to their three potentially heroic situations each. Don't try to make these fights close run things.Any advice or pointers? How about advice on robots and how to use them? I used a destroid from my Champians book as a model but modified/powered it down some.Maybe some plot ideas? I was thinking the hurricane would strike the island and cause lots of flooding to the facility and pose a risk to the crew. Something for rescue drama.
Also, don't define the player characters by how they react to the staff, "sympathetic" or not. That risks confusing player characters who may be generous in spirit in general, but vengeful or unhelpful to those who may be their enemies, with player characters who are just not heroic in general.
Big difference. You need to clear that up - and not just by looking at what is on the character sheet but by how the player actually plays the character.
So be sure to get each player character mutant to those situations involving people who can't be suspected of having done him or her any wrong.
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Re: Power Defense
Has anyone run into the mental hurdle? I avoid it when I gm by trying to avoid ajustment powers as much as possible and ususally asking those who get Power Defense to purchase a limitation on it' date=' even its -0.[/quote']I guess what I just said dovetails with what nexus said in the original post: yes, I find there's a mental hurdle. -
Re: Power Defense
Right' date=' but IMO, Flash and Mental Defense are a little easier to rationalize than Power Defense ("my character starts taking radioactive vitamins")[/quote']Sure.And it's not only that you want it but can't nationalise it. It's that when you build your game mechanics around simulating your character, there's generally no reason to want Power Defense.
This is not true of all other defenses.
It's easy to imagine a character wading through a hail of gunfire, and to want that. (Though Hero system works against the satisfaction of that highly appropriate desire, due to the Stun lottery.) Or again, it's easy, appropriate and exciting to imagine walking through a blazing building or a river of lava. (Though again, what you may need to defend against may not be the lava but the Stun lottery.) It's perhaps less easy but still very possible to see and get charged up over a successful mental struggle over mental coercion or the very bright lights that your character sees through.
But general Power Defense? There seems to be no equally exciting classic comic "bit" associated with that.
It's a necessary (or arguably necessary) product of the game system rather than of the source material. It's something you need because of the consequences of not having it.
It's natural that when players and characters experience the negative consequences of not having it, they begin to desire it.
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Re: WWYCD: Evil in Innocence
Chain Lightning will neither kill the child nor permit him or her to be killed. First, that's completely unacceptable. Second, as Chain Lightning understands his duty, it's his job to keep trying to defeat demonic magic, with or without hope. Third, if "bonding" is potentially breakable the problem is potentially soluble, and if it isn't it's just a matter of time till this is a routine tactic for demons. Not every demon-haunted soul is going to be killed. So giving up in this case implies giving up in what may become the general case. Chain Lightning won't give up.For the last two years your hero and the team he or she is a member, of if they are in a team, have been fighting a Demon sorcerer. In the process many people have died including several people very close to you. Finally you manage to defeat the Demon and as he lays dying he casts one last spell. Then he dies.Three months later you're attacked by his Wraiths. You know this means he's back as his Wraiths are a physical manifestation of his malvolence. You track him down and find that he is now inside the body of a three year old child. Exsorcism is impossible as he is bonded to the child's soul.
What do you do?
Orgone Man will try to build an orgone-powered magic-proof cell.
Thunder will go along with what the magic or weird stuff experts say.
Last Hero will consult the experts, weigh danger of the sorcerer to the last Korbenite egg against the legal and other risks of killing the human child, and likely make a quick, ruthless decision.
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Re: Power Defense
I'd definitely qualify the Hulk for Power Defense' date=' personally.
[/quote']So would I, for another reason.A Transformation Attack can be defined thus: transform target X into a person damaged by special effect Y.
Therefore, anyone who aspires to be tough needs universal Transformation Defense.
The Ultimate Brick book illustrates the general concept with the Muscle Tearing Grip "brick trick" on page 59. The 4d6 Strength drain, with the special effect of ripping the target up with sheer brawn, takes months to heal.
Either a comparatively puny individual can tear up the Hulk by the power of his brawn alone, or the Hulk has Transformation Defense.
It would be just as easy to define a Transformation turning the target into a gun-shot individual. And so on.
So the Hulk's Transformation Defense must be universal.
An attack so useful and so flexible that it can stand for any special effect, bypassing the normal defense, calls for a defense that can counter the bypassing of every defense the character has. Physical Defense may be ineffective in defending against a punch in the face, Energy Defense may be ineffective against heat, and Mental Defense may be ineffective against mental attacks unless they are accompanied by a strong bar on the back door game mechanic that any sort of attack can use.
Alternately: if you want, you can bar Transformation Attacks. Or as a player, you can ignore them unless or until your gamemaster proves to you that you can't ignore them. I think that's a reasonable approach.
Or as I was taught to do, use them only for specialty henchman villains who are sufficiently puny that player characters can answer these tricky and nasty attacks by beating the attacker silly. It's a crude approach, but it does patch the system. I've seen it work, so I believe in it. (I'm not trying to say that what others have seen work is bad, just that we all like what works for us.)
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Re: WWYYCD: The Rally
Thunder would gladly help the police. Where there is no team work to do, she generally gets assigned boring duties. This would be a day out.
Orgone Man would be delighted to help the police. This job is what he does. He'll work conscientiously to make the day a peaceful one. If he has to hit some KKK guys with calming rays, and they find a bath of mental health an unsettling experience - good!
Last Hero would listen to the advice of his dancing and arts crowd friends, so he would join the anti-KKK rally. But he would also arrange to have a friendly policeman in eye and ear shot, to signal him if help was needed. Last Hero's real agenda for the day would be: nobody gets hurt today.
All these heroes would much rather do this than bust criminals, super or otherwise. They like protecting people, and they're very good at doing so with little or no violence.
Chain Lightning would refuse to appear in daylight and get photographed. However he would appear in the spectators, wearing civvies though in super form, not carrying a weapon (a chain), not drawing attention to himself, and definitely not about to cut loose with demon-slaying lightning in a crowded area.
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Re: Mob Boss in Champions
Does anybody use a Kingpin type of character in their four color campaigns. If so how do you guys use the character to make him challenge a group of superheroes' date=' and what kind of plots do you involve him in[/quote']I haven't always used a kingpin, but (memo to self) I should have, because I get more value out of them than out of guys like Zodiac.Two issues:
1. What gets you charged up, what interests you?
2. What is the main issue of the player character you are thinking of, what is he out to do, what scenes does the player seem eager to do with him, or what would be good for him to achieve in the next phase of the game?
In my case, I get ticked off at how immune, how respectable and accepted organised crime can be. This is why I get good value out of crime bosses.
I'll use as my first example a guy whose name I don't even remember. He had a franchise for the campaign techo-villain network. (Which I needed to get in the game early, as the player character had them as a hunted.) He was a huge, durable guy, distinctive and hard to hide, so his job was to be the big bodyguard of some patsy "boss of all bosses" who he would stick under a mind control machine from time to time.
He tried to avoid trouble, but if he couldn't, he would fight for his boss, not too hard, give up like a gentleman, mourn decorously when the old boss was killed (before his mind control could wear off), and naturally get hired by the new boss. (Good help is so hard to find.)
I only got through two "supreme criminal masterminds" before the player character, an android ex-cop with super-speed, just said "yeah right" and focused exclusively on the real problem.
At which point Mister Big's crazed ninja kitten girlfriend (whose jobs included assassinating ex-bosses and people who wondered too much about their odd behavior) came out to play. She was meaner and faster than him, but she lost too.
For the rematch, when the killer kitten sprung her big boyfriend on the way to Stronghold, they used their teamwork. That wasn't good enough either: and so Mister Big learned his lesson: no one or two fighters like him and his bodyguard could defeat a super speed, super-strong bulletproof android.
So from prison, he hired a whole lot of crazed ninjas.
Boot to the head - boot to the head - boot to the head.
OK, that was all for him. You have to be willing to let a crime boss go.
I had accomplished what I wanted from that phase of the game: the new player and the new player character had learned to handle himself against lots of low to medium powered opposition.
The first of Mister Big's schemes needed to cut across what the player character was interested in doing, which was learning to repair himself. Also, something with a police connection would be nice. And at the time, in real life, marijuana had become dear while heroin was cheap as chips - it was obvious that organised crime was having a campaign to move druggies onto a more profitable product.
So the game was, dry up the market for chemical drugs in general, get "friendly" police promoted in the process, slap down rival mob bosses, and introduce a cheap and dirty single function mind control machine with a quick burnout time and really nasty long term effects - happy happy your hunger is satisfied! Oops the machine burned out feed me feed me!
As part of making lots of these devil's toys quickly the "boss of all bosses" bought up a whole range of electronic products, including sophisticated stuff the player character needed for his self-repair. That got his attention.
Plan two for Mister Big was so mild it would have gone unnoticed if he and the player character had not already been in indirect conflict at this time: he made himself a silent partner in a large electronics chain, and had cheapo, low powered "you feel like buying stuff now!" machines installed everywhere. The problem with this was, it also affected the staff.
At which point the player asked a bunch of intelligent questions like: setting aside that the campaign revolves around me as an android, what "real world" reason is there that everyone who gets to the top of the mobs in this town has the same modus operandi? And why is it that whenever something noisy but easy and safe has to be done, Big Bruto does it (with plenty of backup handy just in case), but when the problem is irreducibly dangerous, someone who I've never seen but who must be even more agile and stealthier than me seems to have taken care of it?
At which point the jig was up, and Mister Big just needed Robo-Flash taken to the junk-yard permanent like, so he could stop being carted off to prison. Or better yet, he needed that android sold to his high tech sponsors to pay for his startup costs, his losses, and all the Asian help he was hiring.
Next up, my Fu Manchu clone, a much more formidable opponent for a mature hero ready for heavy duty opposition, as well as being a way for me to work off some feelings I had about the triads (Asian crime gangs) and what they were getting away with, insolently, openly, unmolested by the police. In the game, I figured this would be police whose careers had gone great guns when they busted who Mister Big had told them to and ingnored what Mister Big told them to. Now they needed, and had, a new patron.
And so it goes.
"Just call it steps one, two and three."
1. Your interest.
2. The player characters area of interest.
3. Take an infuriating real world crime issue and fancy-fy if for comics.
Does that help?
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Re: WWYCD: Registration
Chain Lightning would refuse to register and would actively aid others of good character refusing to register. If you think you can register and deregister a Sorcerer Supreme and/or their Familiar / lightning wielding enforcement arm, you are not really grasping the concept. If you think a government bureaucrat can train them in their duties, you are not really grasping the concept. If you assume that such mundane duties as it may please you to impose on them are important and keeping the gates of Hell closed is not ... (etc.)
From Chain Lightning's point of view, which is mine: registration is a good idea if you really want to live with the consequences that would follow if people like Doctor Strange were forced to abandon their real duties in favor of being bossed around by the like of Henry Peter Gyrich. But if not, not.
Thunder was designed to operate in a campaign where registration in effect was a gamemaster reqirement. Personally she had a cud-chewing easy-going pleasantness, but that had nothing to do with her actions, which ultimately turned out to be whatever whoever was behind the government hero group decreed. Thunder would think it funny that she was supposed to have an "opinion". Why, so next time someone with real power asked her what to do she would know what to say? She was a utensil, and she knew it, end of story.
Last Hero can only have a Public Identity anyway, and would say whatever seemed expedient. Last Hero is designed so that he cannot forfeit his conscience or his duty, as both require him to protect the last egg. Anyone setting themselves up to override his judgment on whether and how the egg ought to be protected would be setting themselves up for a fight to the death. There is little of free will for a Korbenite super-warrior.
Orgone Man would disagree with registration but as a public hero might see little reason to make that disagreement in principle a practical one. If push comes to shove, he is cold-blooded enough to wait with arms folded till the numbers of innocents needlessly killed in consequence of a registration policy becomes so great that public opinion changes. The good doctor must pursue his aims, but need not do so hastily or obviously. Thus he is a good citizen type, much like Ozymandias in Watchmen.
[/quote']So would I, for another reason.
Victim runs?
in Champions
Posted
Re: Victim runs?
In general, I'm not interested in criminals, or in busting criminals, and neither are my characters. So: no crime patrols, and I'm not playing to any type of criminals.But, my characters often are playing to particular types of people who need help.
Gladiatrix patrolled the city gay district often, because she had a lot of fans there, who were dissatisfied with the protection they were getting from the police from gay-bashers and other menaces.
Given that she had complete support from the community, which rightly looked to her as a protector, she had complete information on where trouble had occurred and where it was expected. She didn't bother trying to play the victim, as (a) she didn't look like a gay guy, ad (
she didn't have a "victim" look in her repertoire. Rather, local fans wisely trusted their star enough to play bait.
Given the exhibition she made of people who hassled her fans, the problem soon ended. (The only problem was from motorcycle gang that she took down as fast as she could get to them, but which spread out and did a lot of damage.)
When there was no further problem, she "patrolled" anyway, because people wanted her to come around and she liked to be around people who wanted her around. Imagine if Freddie Mercury in his prime had had superpowers and been eager to be the costumed champion of gays (or anyone else who liked him). People would ask him to come around regularly just so they could see Freddy Mercury. It was like that.