Silversmith

Re: Julian May True enough, Mark. However, I think to show the genetic predisposition i'll make them buy a talent to show the limits or lack thereof (Grandmaster Class) of their potential powers. I agree the torc is nothing but a focus. However it would allow them to free up all of their abilities at once. And like I said it would be a temporary thing. If you had a Torc and didn't buy the talent at a high level you would only free up the minor latent abilities you have. If you bought high enough talent then a Torc would allow temporarily dump huge amounts of power into your pool. Again since it would be based during the eraliest years of research a Torc would only come up in an archaeological dig. And it would be millions of years old. That's why I figure I can play with the concept without having a Pleistocene Era campaign or storyline bringing the PCs to that era. Also why it would be quite temporary. Degradation might cause it to fizzle quickly. Might also cause side effects to give people interesting disadvantages from game play. Regardless, it's something I'd have to think about carefully before putting it in my campaign. And make certain it serves a purpose.

Re: Julian May I must agree with Mark here. In Super campaigns Mutants/super powered body armor/ radiation accidents are usually rare but most of the time a party is full of them and they keep running into others. So they can be powerful metapsychics who are learning to use their powers and train their minds to their full potential. As the setting is early into the formal research on metapsychics there were no true grandmaster class metas among humanity. At least not active. XP can be spent to represent training and growing discipline. I may have them buy a talent to become a Grandmaster in any area (coercion, creativity, etc...) Buying the talent would allow them to add past a certain limit in AP cost of certain powers. This would represent the latent metafaculties. In fact I may have different levels of talent to represent metafaculties and they would have to buy the talents at the level they want them at the beginning of the game. This would limit the Players to make them decide what abilities they wanted to give their characters. A Grandmaster Class coercer could be just a so-so creator. they would have to decide on the character concept early. But I would allow for changes later by things like radiation accidents, etc... Even allowing a character to locate a Golden Torc to free up all the latency in the metafaculties would be a possibility. It would however be plot driven and temporary. It would be interesting to see how characters would react to a sudden boost of 500 xp or so. Even though it is temporary. Now all I have to do is come up with a good story line to use in this campaign. I mean, the setting would be great but with no story line it would just be standing around pretending to be someone else doing nothing.

Re: Julian May How exactly would you work that? They have to buy the talent up to the level they want the power? 5 pts talent = 25 AP cost in power pool? Or in the control cost? Then there's the subject of latent metas.

Re: Julian May I was considering treating it as a variable power pool with strict restrictions on how that pool is used. Thanks for the help on the name of the series. And I was considering starting in the early years. During Denis' first research into metapsychic phenomena. Paramount Grandmaster Meta would probably not be a problem. However trying to handle the idea of metaconcert is sort of problematic. Still haven't figured that out yet.

Has anyone ever done a campaign with Julian may's novels about metahumans? I can't remember the name of the series right now. One of the books is Metaconcert. Another part of the series contains The Many Colered Land, The Golden Torc, The Non-Born King and another that I can't remember. All the powers are mental some with physical manifestations. Just wondering if anyone had done or seen hero conversions for these characters or any of the alien races introduced in these books. Thanks.

Re: Penalty of Death Don't worry. I asked for critiques and you are coming through. I don't feel like you are picking at all True I believe that the whole organ harvesting for tax evasion goes a little far. It was, however, not an original idea (see Larry Niven). The idea is that it is popularly driven. It probably plays off the idea of a slippery slope being walked by a society from the beginning trying to use convicts for organ transplant. And the whole effect would not be seen for decades after the first organ harvest from death row. Law abiding people can live longer and longer using the organs of those who don't behave. As more and more people are helped, the "good" people demand harsher punishments for those who break the laws (thereby increasing their supply of raw materials to stay alive). The reason sick people wouldn't be put in robot bodies is that they would lose too much of the human experience. The sense of touch, smell, taste. No eating. No sex. The senses may exist but without a real human body they would only be shadows of what they once were. How much better to replace the parts that are diseased and live fully human? Besides, the campaign would start at a point in the timeline where only violent criminals were being harvested for the organ banks. Thanks

Re: Penalty of Death I can understand that, eloch. The complete control would be relaxed little by little in campaign time. The people involved would eventually become prized agents of the government and technology would improve along the way so that eventually they may have some semblance of humanity restored. Or maybe they earn the right to have their brains put back into human bodies after serving their penance. The idea will be that they like being useful to society and therefore refuse to go back to being merely human. Thanks for the input.

Re: Penalty of Death A good question. I was thinking criminals mostly because I once read a Raymond E. Fiest (sp?) series with that as part of the plot. It was fantasy ot SF but the idea was intriguing. I was thinking that maybe this could be in a future where the govenment donates the organs of criminals who suffer the death penalty. As the idea gains popularity, society demands more and quicker death penalties. In response the government lowers the requiremnts for a death penalty case. To start with it just makes it mandatory for Murder 1. Then it adds rape and treason (unless treason is a capital offense still). Then it snowballs to include the three time loser law, then add all violent crime. After that it continues till finally it even includes tax evasion (Larry Niven plot device from known space, not the tax evasion but the organ donation). I was thinking of going into this idea a short way maybe to the violent crimes being worthy of death penalty. Anyway, to make a long story intolerable, the criminals are sentenced to death and as far as anyone knows they are killed. Their organs go into the organ banks and that's that. But we know better. The only way to get people desperate enough to give up their bodies to save America is to go to people who have nothing to lose really and give them something to lose. The criminals would, then, not be the worst society could produce but people who may be in prison because they defended themselves against the wrong person or killed their husband or boyfriend who beat them; pretty much anything but not knowing what a dirty golf ball is (don't ask you don't want to know). But I was going to leave the specific crime to the players. The terrorist idea was just the first one off the top of my head. I would welcome any other ideas.

Re: Penalty of Death Interesting Idea Vanguard00. I kinda like the idea of the robot bodies, though. It will be a part of the premis set forth so anyone who wants to play knows what they are getting into. If I run this campaign it will be on HC so people will only join if they want to. I may use some of these other ideas though. Thanks for the input.

Re: Penalty of Death What, if any, powers should I disallow based on the premis? I've kinda decided to go with the human brains in the robot bodies. Should I make them take a certain limitation or have a specific disadvantage other than distinguishing characteristic: robot?

Re: Penalty of Death Interesting ideas here. I was thinking that possibly the only part of them that would still be human would be the brain. The destruct mechanism was the failsafe that would carry out the death sentence. My idea was that someone has stolen a prototype powersuit from Lockheed or Northrupp. It is thought that Terrorists are the thieves and they have already failed to set off a nuclear bomb in Atlanta just by sheer dumb bad luck. I had also thought about the possibility of the PC's overriding the control chip and figured if they could figure out a creative way to do it I may allow it (with significant penalties to the attempt) and then add the Hunted if they succeed. If they don't, the PC dies and they get to make up a new character. I had thought of the problem with the badguys getting the signal but as I am the GM I would only allow that with serious thought.

I have a Champions Campaign premis I need help fleshing out. The PC's are supers who start as normal prisoners under a sentence of death. They are given the opportunity to have their sentence postponed, not set aside, by volunteering for a government program (Dirty Dozen?). Still under penalty of death they are give superpowers (Thinking robot bodies here). A micro chip is placed in their brains that will cause a synaptic overload and kill them instantly if they attempt to rebel or escape. So far that's what I have. Thinking fairly near future. USA based. Possibly an anti-terrorist squad battling super terrorists who gained their abilities in some un-thought-out way as of yet. Not necessarily Islamists. Neo nazis, commmunists, IRA (the Irish terrorists not your retirement) are also some possibilities. I would like to hear thoughts on the premis and possible villains as well. Thanks.

Re: Okay, Dream Park from scratch. Help please (longish) True and this might be a good way to get that across in game. However I am thinking about the ability of people to change characters between games. The character needs to be separate from the gamer, I think. But I think I may limit the character's basic stats to be the same as the gamer except for rolls when trying something in-game. Like a STR roll to move a rock or hit someone or a dex roll to be able to walk a tightrope or something.

Re: 25-7-11 24-7-14-14-3 5-3-26-8 20-11-23-14-11-1-8 No java-script for me. The only Java I deal with is the juice. I didn't realize there was a decoder ring until I started looking around the site a little. I thought Super Squirrell was playing games with code and made it kinda easy to figure out. After looking at a few more things on the pulp hero thread I realized what it was and then edited my posts to PROTECT THE SECRET OF THE DECODER RING. So I had some fun deciphering the code. Hopefully no harm done and Steve and Ben haven't sent hitmen to Georgia to take me out for the possibility I caused them to go broke. Hmm. Did I say Georgia? I meant the former Soviet republic not the one between Tennessee and Florida. Yeah. And I don't speak English either. It's ... a clever translation program. Yeah that's it! *Contacts the FBI witness protection people for new social security cards and ID's*

Re: Okay, Dream Park from scratch. Help please (longish) This was my thought as well. I would almost HAVE to have a GM for a game within Dream Park's gaming areas but I thought that "real" world cicumstances (theft, relationships, sabotage, rivalries, etc.) could cross into the games and affect gamers themselves not just the characters they are playing. The cross-genre part is also interesting to me. How would a barbarian prince react in a modern pulp action game? The backgrounds of the characters would have to change for each game but the characteristics (skills, perks, disads, etc.) would be locked in place. They would just be altered to fit the time period if necessary. He could carry the huge sword or cast the spell. The hunted may just be local police or space troopers instead of evil druids.