Victim

Re: The Mind Controlling Hero I think the case is hardly clear cut. There are many forms of "mind control" that might not necessarily use the HERO power Mind Control. And there are many possible sfx for the power itself too (including hyper persuasion type effects). How much the mind control touches on attitudes, values, and beliefs of the targets depends largely on the particulars - it's hard to judge on a broad level except to say that it is a potential problem. The invisibility of mind control doesn't seem like a real ethical problem for the mentalist. It's seems like a complicating factor, but often independent of whether or not a given use of the power is moral. It might lead to temptation though, since the mentalist can get away with things. What the invisibility of mental powers does do is present problems for everyone else. Where does reasonable self defense begin and end if you can be attacked nearly impercebtibly? How much do you have to take on trust? Sure, these are ethical problems relating to mind attacks, but the issues are how other people behave in response, not the mind controllers.

Re: A name looking for an archtype It's like the reverse of Doctor Doom. Instead of tech genius type branching out into magic, you have an ancient lich who, upon emerging into the modern era, applies his divinations and spell enhanced mind to master technology as well. His undead and demonic minions now sport cybernetic upgrades and advanced weapons to complement their unnatural abilities.

Re: The Mind Controlling Hero Some people would rather die than betray their beliefs. Mind control sidesteps their convictions.

Re: WWYCD: Felononius Feline Likely because you didn't mention the cat burglar as having any extraordinarly fast movement modes, which might make it a bit difficult to get away from characters that do.

Re: SPD and DEX for superheroic martial artists? Like that post isn't lengthy already? Actually, I'm not really sure that speedster type characters demand high SPD scores. Admittedly, my knowledge of comics is not so great. However, it seems like speedsters don't really seem to take extra actions. They'll perform crazy speedster stunts on their "turns" like punching/disarming everyone (or swinging everwhere to hit the invisible guy), move vast distances, build things, etc. But they won't generally do several of those things before the focus shifts to another character. So a speedster might have only a campaign average speed, but the points savings might go towards more movement and tricks (bigger MP/VPP?).

Re: SPD and DEX for superheroic martial artists? It's easy enough to alter many concepts to allow for more efficient builds though. In M&M, stats don't affect the CV equivalents - there are far less derived effects in general, really. That being said, there still issues with some things being more efficient than others, which is always a problem in a points based game.

Re: WWYD: Those Who Cannot Remember The Past Probably. But if it doesn't work, then failure will be obvious, probably inside of a week. It doesn't really matter what I decide in the context of the initial information; I'll be able to reevaluate in light of the robot army, giant monster, etc. In the it would take for me to practice safely using (and not using!) my powers - which seems like it'd be advisable regardless of one's choice, something would happen that would make the scenario moot.

Re: WWYD: Those Who Cannot Remember The Past I figured that in this case, the phenomenon that erased people's minds and set up the current news stories, took down webpages, etc would also apply to super villains. Extra dimensional threats might have their memories of this dimension clouded, so they'd fight each other in some other realm. Otherwise, the superhuman coverup is doomed to failure rather quickly. Whatever else I did, I'd become much more interested in the news, particularly from unorthodox sources. If other people are cheating, then there's no need for me to hold back. If there's tons of weird accidents now, then unconscious/uncontroled powers are probably causing lots of havoc. Personally, I don't think I'd be a good super hero though. Having powers is only part of the deal. Without the power training, combat experience, situation awareness (mine is awful), ability to make good decisions in sudden crisis, legal knowledge or a vigilante friendly legal system (unlikely without the precedent of supers saving the world), information gathering ability, and other stuff I'm forgetting, my superheroing ability would take a massive hit. And getting that training and ability back now that superhero infrastructure doesn't exist seems rather difficult. So I'd expect that myself and most of gamers would pretty much be part of the problem as supers even without backlash from normal people.

Re: Superhero power levels I think you could get a pretty wide disparity in play just from different players (different preferred tactics, rules knowledge, and overall playstyle) or from changing the GM (enemy types/builds, importance of FX vs exact writeups, interpretations, etc) without touching a thing on the character sheet.

Re: Where have all the Superheroes gone? On the other hand, classic heroes from mythology have a lot more than personal problems. They unleash some pretty serious bloodbaths too. In fact, iron age groups generally seem to come out ahead morally. Why does modern mythology require saintly heroes when no other form has?

Re: Where have all the Superheroes gone? Heroic in the classic sense, or the 4 color super hero sense? You could argue that modern flawed heroes are made from the classic mold.

Re: How do you encourage your players to buy more skills On the other hand, I'm not sure an infinite proliferation of tiny sub-skills is a good way to promote skill purchases. The more you separate functions of science or knowledge skills, the less each one actually does. Thus those sorts of skills as a whole are less valuable, and the purchase of skills is discouraged (and skill heavy concepts). I think that the perceived value of many skills is why players often avoid buying them. It's easy to get people to buy stuff like Stealth, Breakfall, and Acrobatics since those seem good. Do the 3 points for Pharmacology really match 3 points in Breakfall for value in most games? To use an example from another game: in first edition Mutants and Masterminds, I had players trying to justify having as few skills as possible (zero in some cases). Then we switched to the second edition, which both consolidated the skill list, and vastly increased the bonus per point used to buy skills. Suddenly there was no problem getting people to buy lots of skills. They became worthwhile purchases in their own right, rather than a tax imposed by the GM or by concept.

Re: Go home, Superman! Give the uberhero a larger scale of responsibility. If superguy has to protect the whole world, he has plenty of reasons not to be around when disaster strikes at home. Ordinary crime, natural disasters, accidents, and super villains can strike in any country, and the really big name heroes might be as interested in helping over there. Multiple threats can also require different groups of heroes. If there are several villains unleashing doomsday devices, superguy and the PCs might be handy to have around.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... (Our group's wizard is dominated, and is able to lie about the result since the other casters fail to identify the spell). Marius: Trying to dominate an archmage? Not a smart move. He should have tried Cadberry; she's easy. Cadberry: WHAT?! Then Cadberry shrugs off a dominate and Destructions the enemy enchanter.

Re: Bricks Get Hosed, Or Not Strength is already pretty much an EC by itself. One of the main points of ECs is to often a counterbalance to the enormous point bonuses granted the major characteristics. Plus bricks can still run any secondary effects they want in frameworks.

Re: Heroes for pay Helping people who can't afford to pay or dealing with a rampaging monster/super might easily fall under public relations, and thus would have some value even if there's no direct revenue. Assuming decent existing cash flow, a super business might write off free assistance as advertising, PR, some kind of charitable tax deduction, etc. What kind of stuff mercenary supers have to do and what people think might also depends on what other kind of supers there are. If pretty much all supers will have some kind of for pay arrangement - probably generally with some level of government, there's not much of problem. In fact, then amatuer supers will probably be looked down instead, since they're not going to have the same official backing, training, liability, etc. On the other hand, if most super heroes aren't getting paid, then much of the more legitimate work will be done by those types, leaving those looking to make some money with less upboard work or indirect means (patents, making diamonds, etc).

Re: OIF: Items of Opportunity Ordinarily, exploiting an environmental feature (let's say tossing a car) might involve finding a suitable object (placed at GM whim), moving over to it, picking it up, and then finally using it. And then it might do less than damage based on DEF+BODY. The guy with the OIF has learned to grab most any handy object, scoop it up, and launch it in the same motion. The trick can save lots of time in a heated combat. It's convient, and if character is putting the tricks in an MP it doesn't cost that must extra per trick.

Re: Points Equality In my experience, different characters with the same resources still produce different levels of capability. Different builds, player choices, situational effects and luck mean that the in game results of character actions will often produce apparent power differences similar to those in source material.

Re: Superheroes as firemen rather than cops? And if you take take a look at more practically applied superpowers, then maybe super science advances in medicine have removed much of need for Healing powers in hospitals. Or the character is worried about negatively impacting medicine if people become overly dependent on powers. There's also the matter of stakes. If you're talking about doomsday weapons and other serious threats to large numbers of people, then staying at the hospital won't do more good than being out fighting - especially if the healer has other good powers. An ounce of prevention and all that. On the other hand, if PCs mostly deal with street crime, then there's less of a reason not to be at the ER.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease Purposely creating boring sessions sounds like a great idea, assuming that you aren't attached to having players at all.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease I like the version of Axis and Allies where you start out as an infantry guy and have to earn the right to command troops.

Re: Richest Man in the World Disease Yes, and superheroes are generally thus before joining a super team and having a headquarters with its fancy stuff. Ergo, they probably had their gadgets and elite physical skills (for some characters) before joining a team and need some other reason to have them. Plus some people might expect highly competent, in demand persons to be highly paid in one way or another. In some settings, most supers are going to fall into that category. Why? More powered armor characters means more design refinements and better economies of scale. Plus mechanically, there's no need for money for them to upgrade their powers anyway. If you are requiring them to have money, then perhaps that's why wealth is increasingly common. Similarly, being independently wealthy means that conflicts between work and superheroing are less of an issue. If people are buying wealth, they might be doing so to not have to deal with those problems.

Re: Genocide Why would they need some clearcut answer? Isn't it better for the group if they don't have clearly defined boundaries so they can reclassify folks as expedient?

Re: Normal-proofing your Bricks? The problem is that Joe Dojo is not just that good, he's a strong guy with a minimum of martial arts and a bat. Sure, the stats we've seen could just be the tip of the iceberg and Joe could be awesome badass. But he could also be like a 50 point bruiser. Mechanically, an Absorption that feeds back into Stun can keep a Brick going longer, especially if it boosts itself to increase the cap.

Re: Secret IDs: In or Out? I'm not really convinced that having DNPCs drop like flies without a secret ID is realistic.