Nucleon

Re: All Of Them Damn Martial Bricks

Dude' date=' you need to get over yourself. I don't know your rationale for using "godspeak" and speaking of yourself in the third person - I suspect it's intended humorously - but it makes you sound like a pompous, self-important, buffoon. Even when what you say is the height of wit, it makes it sound like the proclamations of a pompous, self-important, buffoon. And nobody takes buffoons seriously. [/quote']

 

Nucleon thinks that doing that, you take yourself far more seriously than Nucleon Himself, mortal.

 

This is a Champion board, for crying out loud. F-A-N-T-A-S-Y. In these settings, your teamplayers are a palid Aqualian, an android and a beefy guy in red thights. Buffoons? Humbug!

 

If you want to see Nucleon more straight, hook up with Him on some political board, in His secret guise.

 

Re: All Of Them Damn Martial Bricks

Two things appear to Nucleon out of the haze of your harrassing comments, Caris.

1) Any GM who puts on the table an opposition which beats on the PCs instead of making it smoother a ride is a cruel jester with no love for his martyrized players, and

2) The High fallutin' style of Nucleon's speech leaves you intimidated. Most mortals feel that way. Please don't; Nucleon is a friendly (powerful) cosmic entity. Please don't use up new age pop psychology on Him.

When Nucleon is playing (not GMing) in a group with few player interaction, He likes, by the way of His character, to "shake things up"; Killing a really craven villain, adopting this month's televangelistic villain's faith, or being rebelous to the authority.

All of them unkind things that surely would make thee cry. However, they stir up opinions, debates, and ultimatedly, fun sessions.

Now, if Nucleon's character's actions does not provoke any feedback from the GM, like some righteous, powerful NPC coming to take my character in after a gratuitous killing, Nucleon would be somewhat disapointed, and encouraged to cease such activities. The reverse is also true; The payers expect rewards for their good deeds, or else they are becoming blasé.

As for "schticks", not only having our own helps make a varied campaign, but it also makes a more polyvalent group, on which you can, as a GM, throw in more varied opposition. variations are fun.

Exemple:

Nucleon's Ripping Friends go to Europe. There, they face Eurostar (Nucleon owns old Champion books He hasn't renewed). Now, to make "Eurostar" suitable for His marbrick players, he should remove Bora, White Flame, Le Sone (stupid name) and Mentalla, to keep only Pantera, The Whip, Durak and Fiacho? To ensure the players' s victory? Because anything else would be unkind and a GM power trip?

By the suns of Shkagrat, Nucleon says thee nay, mortal. If as players, you decide to play similar characters, you are going to find it hard -and when the players fail, the campaign fails somehow, too.

Re: All Of Them Damn Martial Bricks

What is relevant to me is that you are now making an effort within the game to prove this point to me. It is now “proving” a point that is more important to you than all of the participants having fun.

"Proving the point" is in no way proportional or inversely proportional to having fun. By the stars, what is the matter with thee, mortal?

What is coming across, and because I know that part of it is do to the style of speech you are using so I’m assuming this impression is wrong, is that you are gaming with a group of people that you do not respect.

That would be a most craven accusation.

That you think they are in some way lacking, because they want to play a group of very similar characters,

Now that, however, is much true.

and because you do not respect them you feel that it is your right/privilege/obligation to show them the error of their ways.

That would be entirely legitimate, unless the GM is there to cater to the players' whims. He is not. The GM sets the course, and decide the whole orientation of the campaign, at which point the players have to follow or quit. It is not because the GM is superior, it is because it is His job. And he does it with complacency, he is a bad GM.

If I were to take you literally, it would seem that you feel it is ok to make your players experience something that you characterize as “humiliation,” deliberately.

As a player, you should have added. Some other players aren't bothered in the least, apparently.

Would I choose to play a character that I did not want to play to fulfill some sort of arbitrate group “need”? Nope. I’ve often been inspired as to the character that I wanted to play by seeing some niche that was open in the group, but I consider that a significantly different situation than the one you are positing.

Well, doth you see, if Nucleon was your GM, he wouldn't do much about it, apart from the standard examination of your character on a more technical level. However, as a fellow player, Nucleon could actually argue with thee whether our characters have the same schticks. It is the player's job. Most of the time Nucleon had been a player, he ended up making the last character of the group (presumably because He's got more experience), and each and everytime it was a blast.

Now to turn the question back to you: Would you as a GM alter your game setting/world/city/etc. to make it actually play to an “inefficient team’s” strengths, instead of being “neutral” to those strengths and weaknesses?

Each and every single time. Every body does it to some point.

However, comes around the time where a group, no matter how good it is, will encounter an ennemy who will capitalize on the group's weaknesses. Most of the time, these encounters are to showcase the opposition to the characters, so, they can get ready for the second (and often more decisive) encounter. That's a canon of the genre, after all.

Well, one of Nucleon's playing groups had so few ressources that they usually lost the second one too, in spite of some nice efforts. That's about how far Nucleon, as player, would go before making another character, or, as a GM, give the campaign another turn (as he explained in a previous post in this very thread).

(The tone of your question is that the player who isn’t willing to “forfeit” the character they really want to play is not being as “noble” as one who would, and you seem to feel that the GM’s job is not to create a campaign that is geared to his players. Personally, I don’t think either decision in either scenario, player or GM, is more right or wrong than the other. )

Simply put, bad teamplay gets punished. Characters who are all alike. Characters who gets in the way of one another, trying to steal thunder from each others. No communication. No planning. Inhability to create and keep contacts. No aim, no charter. No morale. No teamwork. It all get punished, or must be, unless you campaign aims to condescendancy.

It may be punished by losing battle, by seeing a DNPC attacked, or by being belittled by one's entourage. It's still fun, mind thee, the occasional reversal of fortune. Tragedy's still a major thing in a super's life. Nucleon wouldn't like a campaing where the GM bows down to our ineptitude. Nucleon would feel humiliated even more.

One thing from those experience I did pick up, is that I do not want to play with a GM that resents being the GM, or feels that they are a martyr for being willing to suffer through the burden so the rest of us can have fun.

Precisely.

My job as a player is no different, really, than the GM’s. It is to work with the other people in the game for all of us to have fun. My role and duties to accomplish that job are different, but the ultimate goal here is for everyone to have a good time. If that isn't happening than there is a problem to be addressed, but it shouldn't be addressed in a way to lessen other people's fun.

All this is real nice to write, but Nucleon disagrees. The GM is the campaign's architect, and as such he puts a lot more time (if he is worth his salt) putting together each session than the most earnest of players. He is the arbitrer, He is the Word. He is the locomotive, while the players are wagons. A player must bow down to the GM, or quit, or utimatedly, GM his own.

You do not enjoy the fact that the characters in the game are so similar, and feel like you can not play the character you want to play.

The second point is a minor setback. The former one, however, spells troubles.

All of that are issues between the real live people in the room. Deal directly with them. Tell them what is bothering you. If this problem is truly going to ruin your ability to enjoy the game, and they are not willing to change the situation than just don’t play.

Nucleon can play with the cards that he is dealt with. He believes this situation is hardest on the players themselves. Nucleon will not cancel a campaign on these grounds. Once again, it is to the players to adapt, just like Nucleon will adapt to his GM's whims. Or he will leave.

Re: All Of Them Damn Martial Bricks

Art thou certain thou are not complaining of too many martial bricks becausest thou hast defined "martial brick" as one with SPD above 3 and DEX over NCM?

Nucleon doth not defines Bricks; He is only comparing more "brickish' bricks with lightest ones in a fight. In both Nucleon's opinion and campaign world, there is place for both.

Re: All Of Them Damn Martial Bricks

I would say that part of the GM's job is to provide a game that the players are enjoying participating in. I'm not sure how much I would enjoy a game if the GM were out to "prove" to me and the other players how "in-effective" our decisions about our characters are. Particularly' date=' if it comes with the impression that the GM was getting pleasure from proving his "superiority".[/quote']

 

"Proof" itself does not consist in sending the PCs opposition especially made to take them out; That is silly and munchkinesque. It is usually acheived by opposing them with existing threaths they did fought -and won- in the past. Clearly the result of individuality interfering with team efficiency.

 

Would thou forfeit the character you really want to play in order to play the one that is more needed?

 

For the record, Nucleon prefers playing a lot more than GMing, and if, as a player, He did exprerience such a humiliation, He would make great steps to change it. He has already begun to, anyway.

 

That's normal, it is Nucleon's job as a player.

 

Re: All Of Them Damn Martial Bricks

This is a pretty big issue for me. I'm all about the sacred schtick' date=' so seeing characters stepping all over each other to make martial brick builds says something either about the restrictions elsewhere or the benefits to being a martial brick in the game. Talking straight point efficiency, ignoring the ability to project damage and the decisions the GM makes regarding opponents, the Martial Brick is a fantastic point-efficient build. [/quote']

 

It is un-deniable.

 

As a GM Nucleon would never prevent His players to play whatever they feel like; As a player, however, He doth have more more power toward it.

 

And, well, the marbrick often has the most chance of surviving most encounters, he is the archetype that most often gets written by players who are designing their hero in a consensus vaccuum. Each and every one of them is quite able on their own; It is when grouped that they prove their limits.

 

They chose minimal martial arts, just to get the cheap benefits They chose STR, because it has long been regarded as overly efficient. This doesn't mean they have the best character for all occasions, just that they've spent their points very efficiently from a one-sided perspective. That's the heart of powergaming.

 

HERO can be such a fun powergaming tool...

 

If the GM ran for a group of characters with low ECVs and no Mental Defense, then proceeded to send waves of bathroom mentalists at them, is the impending loss the players' fault or the GM's?

 

A bit of both; On the GM's side, at priori, it just isn't fair to send waves of them, but if the players continually run into mentalists and do nothing about it over the course of a campaign, shame on them.

 

Most of the time anyway, the mentalist stuns a character and mind-controls another one at which point she is taken out like the threath she represented.

 

Encounters with a force that can exploit the team's weaknesses is one thing, a thing that must be used sparingly. However, when the team is constructed in a way that any encounter that doesn't get solved their way is an un-beateable challenge...

 

The players knowingly went with limited, but point-efficient designs, choosing homogenous designs over gap-filling. The GM knows the characters, so he knew this would go against their weaknesses. (...) What matters is that the players are facing threats they weren't designed to handle. Is it the players' fault or the GM's or is it just one of those things they're going to have to learn to deal with?

 

The players', IHO.

 

My solution to the whole mess is to say flat-out to the players, "You will face a wide variety of challenges - as wide as I can create given the tools offered by the HERO system - prepare your team accordingly." Then, I'd allow the players to discuss their character ideas amongst each other, before allowing everyone to rebuild/replace their current design.

 

Well, Nucleon prefers the added pleasure of proving it rather than enforcing it. The players must discipline themselves to effectiveness; It is not the GM's job.

 

Re: All Of Them Damn Martial Bricks

We have no martial bricks in our campaign. Our sole brick is unabashedly slow (SPD 4) and not particularly dexterous (DEX 23). We do have a demi-brick, but he's really more of a brick/EB.

 

I was unaware this archetype was so popular.

"Brick-slow" in Nucleon's settings is SPD 3, and DEX 9. These bricks usually stop the smaller ones.

The first thing I note is the rather high power level. Would a different archetype (say an energy projector) end up with the same combat effectiveness' date=' or would they be marginalized while the MarBricks get all the glory? Would a more standard Brick be allowed a 90 STR to be competetive in damage, and a straight 40 PD, plus enough levels to be in the same CV range? Or, alternatively, be allowed to take even higher damage and defenses as a tradeoff for a lower CV?[/quote']

 

Pretty standard superheroic campaign; Nucleon does not like to give His players Active Costs limits, thus favoring a wider palette. Some un-speakable house rules gives enormous powers to Power Frameworks users (like most energy projs have).

 

If the MarBrick is allowed to be "the most effective", then getting someone to play something else becomes old 1st Ed D&D "Who gets to play the Cleric and heal everyone while the rest of us take all the glory".

 

Given your descriptions, it sounds like this is not the issue, since the opposition is clearly effective using other archetypes, but sometimes the rules for PC's and NPC's are different.

 

Indeed; NPCs can afford to be one-trick ponies. Doth you know what Nucleon believes? He believes that playing such a machisimo character as a marbrick still has its singular appeal. Even if the results are the same, it somehow feels manlier to inflict damage with one's fists rather than some wussy-wuss light beam. Thou know, being the man.

 

Perhaps the answer is to play an archetype as far away from MarBrick as possible and show how effective this is. Don't forget to brag as your character gets all the glory - since every challenge he's best suited for facing will be his alone and the challenges the MarBricks excel at are shared with everyone else.

 

Thou can bet on it, my friend.

Re: KB Resistance vs Target Falls...

UMA p153 explains which "Target Falls" maneuvers Knockback Resistance works on and under which circumstances.

Really? How nice.

Does "UMA" comes sealed in plastic or do you think Nucleon can get a peek at it at the store?

Re: All Of Them Damn Martial Bricks

By "Martial Brick" (or marbricks), Nucleon means anything wich has;

-Over 45 STR, and about 90 active points of hth damage in any given strike.

-Between 10 and 15 CV with CSLs. DEXes around 20-29.

-About 40 active points in PD defenses, usually some combination of Damage reduction and mundane stuff.

-No or few ranged attacks, marginalized by insane amounts of limitations.

-Some M-arts moves, the barest bones; Dodge. Punch. Throw.

-And an Attitude. Hopefully.

From there, there are the usual variations, but in game terms, they're all treated with the same medication; What topples one usually topple them all. They get in the way of one another rushing the ennemy, that they either blast easily or all fall victims of.

(When thy only tool is a hammer, did thou noticed how much all problems appear as nails?)

Ironically, most PCs are kinda "brickish", due the the largesses du systeme, yet few players are true "heavyweight" bricks; When these appear, with their speeds and CVs of 5, and their absorption, and their huges defenses, and their AEs, down goes the erzatz bricks.

[/rant]

Nucleon guesses He is kinda peeved right now. He'll tell you why:

He intended to play one Himself.

Bah, Just a minor setback.

Nucleon apologize, mortals, for the steam he is about to let out.

You see, He is in the elaboration of a campaign that He will start as a player -a rarity- before taking the helm later. And all the players are playing some kind of martial brick.

It is even more frustrating that the last campaign had been a strategic failure because all of the players in it (almost all the same ones) were... martial bricks.

Bricks with CSLs, Strong martial artists, beings of fire that stretches and hit hard, Animalistic bricks, pure brick with martial trainings... Thou name them. It felt like the DC universe. Nucleon (as a GM) used to regularly mop the floor with them, even with mediocre opposition, as soon as said opposition could fly and hurl some juice, the whole bunch'o' marbricks were out.

We had to re-boot the past campaign as a super hero academy (where players played one veteran martial brick and one younger other) to finally get a decent palette of powers.

Are martial bricks as common in every other super-campaigns? Why?

How to deal with PCs that end up all the same?

And how come Nucleon put some sense into His playing circle? After all, it looks like it is what they want to play, in spite of all the past ineptitude.

Re: Hulk vs Superman

I was saying that Hank didn't belong on that list at all. He is either the Marvel Universe's most agile Brick or strongest Martial Artist, as well as having six PhD's and a Nobel Prize.

 

In his application with the Avengers, who was the one who took out the Hover Mines that flatted Thor, Iron Man, and Wasp?

Ah? Nucleon would have guessed "Swordsman", since he was the only one not based on an animal.

And, Nucleon should add, the Black Panther's no slouch neither; He is a superpowered, African Batman. And the head of his country.

Re: Munchkin powers on legal active point costs

Except that the knockback is applied before the effects of the dispel are applied' date=' as is always the case for adjustment powers that affect defenses. So anything with KB resistance still gets full benefit.[/quote']

 

Mmhh. Nucleon might be mistaken (it is known to happen once or twice in aeons), but he think that what thou are refering to are linked powers that are affecting defenses. Or that Adjustement powers only work at half efficiency versus defenses, my friend.

 

Re: Munchkin powers on legal active point costs

Away!

Dispel Knockback resistance, Does knockback, Double knockback.

There is no such thing as an un-moveable object anymore

or

Mind Scan + Ego Blast + Tunelling.

Re: Dumbest thing...

Civil War?

Civil War was fine; It was like the whole mutant idiocy that marvel has been living off for 20 years, but with, you know, common sense.

Re: Dumbest thing...

Marvel's "Heroes Reborn".

Re: Hulk vs Superman

Heck Batman beat the Hulk with a Bat-Gas Grenade and a well placed kick to the solar plexus.

...And Dazzler already beat Galactus. The guy above was right about those writing the comic.

Re: Hulk vs Superman

Nucleon writes the comic.

The Last Son of Krypton should win, exept if he persists to take on the Green Behemot in a brawl. If he does that he is (stupid and) toast, as Greengenes is the brick to end all bricks. In Nucleon's book, the Green Goliath starts at the Man of Steel's level, and then goes up with absorption.

In defense, Purple Pants may be a bit below Boy Scout, but what he lags there is compensated by stupendous healing.

And, Nucleon likes him better, anyway.

Re: To Create a Sin

Greed is the Mastermind. She is the gal in the Italian suit. She has her tentacles everywhere, however far removed. But once you deal with her, you lose everything. She can never get enough.

Greed is the one with the contacts, the base, the money. She is more skill and perks than powers, but the powers she have are akin to Clairsentience, Enhanced Senses and Find Weaknesses. She is the Avid Eye.

Greed is the one sin that has successfully corrupted your world, mortals. She is damn efficient.

Re: KB Resistance vs Target Falls...

Ah, thanks, mortals, but Nucleon is a little disapointed somehow... He expected some kind of miraculous formulae, He guesses...

... Ah well. Maybe the answer lies among the stars...

Nucleon wants to submit thee, O game overlord, this inquiry about Aid's maximum effect.

Let us presume a character can apply Aid 2d6 (Strenght); The maximum effect is thus 14 pts; This character wants to apply this power to two of his team mates, in the very same turn.

Can he apply (a maximum of) 14 pts to each of them, or is he forced to divide 14 pts of effect between his two team mates (about 7 each)?

Thanks in advance, and please forgive Nucleon if this subject have already been explored.

Nucleon wonders... (probably because he didn't buy all the newer stuff)

How do thee, respected rules-munchers, deal with a situation involving a Martial artist doing a "Target Falls" Manoeuver to a target having various levels of Knockback Rsistance?

Can Shang-Shi fell Galactus?

Re: What should every DC supervillain have?

How about' date=' "Be a hot chick in a revealing outfit". That way, you'll never be seriously hurt and will always get brought back. Caveat: Only works for villains. If you're a hot heroine in a revealing outfit, expect to get locked in refrigerators a lot.[/quote']

 

How Cynical. And true. And repped.

 

A full Green Martian should be able to toast pretty much any hero in DC; Invisible Desolidified Telepathic Brick FTW. Of course, they usually get hit with a writer's nerf.

 

Yes, it is good (and convenient) to have all the powers on the simple basis that you come from another planet -Mars, of course, the one with all the monsters, according to Homer Jay.

 

Being green also helps a lot. Green is damn important in DC.

 

Re: Who are your favourite Superhero Artists?

A R T I S T S .

There must have been a disturbance in the Cosmic Translator unit, mortal. But it is now overcome. Nucleon hopes it didn't put you life at stakes.

Re: What should every DC supervillain have?

Telepathy (To know about weaknesses), an attack power with variable effect advantage (to take advantage of said weaknesses), and some Desolidification (so you can get past about 2/3 of DC's supers, all of them flying brick types).

Then you try to find the link between these powers, as most players do. Here; some magician. Why not.

Re: Go home, Superman!

Nucleon is going to assume that these icons are way up in character points than the players. Everybody would want it that way.

Well, As Above, So Below.

What Nucleon means, is treat it the way it is treated in group titles, who often teams super powerhouses with street-savy beginners; make the action go on two plans.

Superman and Batman may well be on the invader's admiral ship far away in the macrocosm while your players take care of the single cruiser that got here. Or they may have Superman taking of a ridiculously vast army of automatons (with which actual battle would be more tedious than difficult) while the players take the ball towards the ennemy zone. Or have Batman work out the intricacies of a local event that happen to have international ramifications.

In other words, keep the real action to the players, while the big NPCs work on the meta action. That doen't mean you should have the big two have all the credits, mainly to exacerbate the PCs... That's the prize of growing in the shadow.