Haerandir

Re: What's the most ridiculous PC you've ever been subjected to? OK, in the interests of getting back on-topic, I've remembered a few more: One was the 30th Century Fox, an anthropomorphic vulpine time-travelling freedom fighter sent back to the 20th Century to prevent the rise of the Primate Hegemony. In and of himself, not especially ridiculous, unless you have something against furries. The ridculosity comes in two forms: First, he had Extra-Dimensional Movement with No Conscious Control. Literally faded in and out of our timeline completely at random. The intent, IIRC correctly, was to provide an explanation for the player's notorious inability to show up for game sessions reliably. Second, the special effect of the XDM was that a glowing portal would open and the strains of the fanfare that accompanies 20th Century Fox logo before the credits of a movie would sound. And the player insisted on acting this out, by standing up, striking an heroic pose, and belting out the whole thing. Loudly. Every... Single... Time... ...In the game store where we used to play, regardless of what else might be going on in the store. I'm still amazed that the Magic and Warhammer players didn't band together to pummel him to death. The fact that one of the other characters in the campaign, designed completely independently of the Fox, was a time-traveling cybernetic ape freedom fighter sent back in time to prevent the rise of a tyrannical world government, continues to give us a chuckle. **** Another ridiculous character: This was before my time, so I don't have any specifics, but one of my friends is known for having played a character who was a figment of another character's imagination. A giant squirrel of some sort.

Re: I Give Up!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, at the risk of committing thread necromancy, I was going through my links today and found this... which contains, if you scroll down a bit, several of Wick's "Playing Dirty" articles. The second one specifically addresses the Jefferson Carter Phenomenon. The tone of the articles isn't much different than the original, but at least he articulates his position more clearly.

Re: What's the most ridiculous PC you've ever been subjected to? I don't think there's any inherent contradiction... It's not like Tank Boy necessarily asked to be Haunted by Nathan Bedford Forrest. Indeed, it's pretty much a tradition that hauntings are at least mildly unpleasant, and that the brash, young, hot-headed hero will clash with any mentor foisted upon him by the Powers that Be. So, I think it makes perfect sense.

Re: leftovers? Clearly, they're doing it wrong. First, you design the character you want, then you realize that you're 20-50 points over the cap and start looking for things you can cut. In the case of leftover points, either let the players save them towards later need, or encourage them to invest in something they may have overlooked. Perks are always good for this sort of thing. Heck, have them stock up on Favors or something.

Re: YOU KNOW THE d20 WELL HAS RUN DRY WHEN... You are #6. I am #2!

Re: What's the most ridiculous PC you've ever been subjected to?

Re: Character For Review: The Beast (not the Marvel one) Some good advice already, and I'm not the character-review guru that some of these guys are, so my only real contribution is a piece of general advice for SF_TG... It may seem like we're finding "a lot" of flaws in your character, but honestly, this is one of the better 'first attempts' I've seen in a while, certainly at least as good as my first character, which I wrote up in, um... 1993, I think. I don't think any one of us has ever built a character that somebody on this board couldn't suggest a few tweaks on. If only because we're all used to operating in different play environments. So, don't think we're picking on you or anything, we do this to everyone! Oh, and as to whether or not the daughters qualify as DNPC's, the only real requirement is that he might end up having to rescue them periodically, or that they are similarly important to him. The intent of the Disadvantage is that the NPC represents a recurring plot hook, not that they have a specific type of relationship with the PC. Much like Hunteds, they help the GM plan adventures by giving him some guidance on when and how often certain characters should have an impact on the plot of the campaign.

Re: Post #1 That's... Um... Well, I suppose it's a character... You know, I've seen some "silly" characters in my local group, but nothing that meets Nexus' "godawful useless" criterion. Certainly nothing that was actually written up. Guess I'm just lucky!

Re: Origins of Power RDU Neil had this to say on another thread, about another topic entirely, but I thought it was relevant:

Re: I Give Up!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, cut me some slack here. I'm doing the best I can with what I've got to work with... I think it was the first installment of his "Playing Dirty" column for Pyramid, but I can't be sure, since I'm getting an error page every time I try to go the the SJGames web site.

Re: I Give Up!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, yes. That's what I meant about "going from reprehensible to misguided". The original tone of the article was just that he had fun hurting people. In the retraction, he attempts to make a case that he was doing it "for their own good". And, yes, I do think that he was furiously trying to save his reputation. He does make his living as a game designer, after all. Having hundreds of people telling their friends that you aren't to be trusted as a GM will not help you move units... And, to be fair, I think he really did expect people to find his original article humorous, and to take it with a grain of salt. Granted, even with a whole box of salt, I still wouldn't game with him, but he's probably only about 85% as bad as he sounds in that article...

Re: A couple definition topics Oooh, Crusader's good. On a lighter note, it occurred to me after I went to bed last night that you could just sum it up as Psych Lim: "Magneto Complex".

Re: I Give Up!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, in defense of John Wick (THERE's a phrase I never thought I'd hear coming out of my mouth...), he later put up an article in which he clarified his viewpoint a bit. He managed to get it from reprehensible to simply misguided, IMHO. See, at least in the second article, his premise is that players enjoy things more when they think they've earned them, so it's part of your job description as GM to make them spend the majority of the game terrified of what will happen next. That way, when they win, they feel really good about themselves. And, if they lose, that'll just inspire them to try even harder next time. As for the response to the first article, he attributes that to people not picking up on the subtly ironic tone of his dryly humorous writing style, and his own failure to provide examples of how his actions actually improved the players' enjoyment. I guess that could be true. In an environment where the players are prepared for this kind of treatment, and everybody agrees that it's all in fun, it could work. But, as advice on general role-playing technique, I agree the article is a failure. I certainly would never play in a game run by Wick, and this article has caused me to go over some of the games he's written with an eye towards spotting his particular brand of mayhem. If I ever run 7th Sea, I will definitely be making a few changes, for instance. I've looked for a link to the second article, but I appear to have deleted it from my bookmarks and I couldn't find it on a casual search. Amusingly, I stumbled across it when I was looking for the original "Hit 'Em Where It Hurts" article last summer, which I couldn't seem to track down. Now, when I want the second article, I can only find the first. I guess it's true, after all. John Wick exists solely to try my patience...

Re: A couple definition topics Well, obviously he won't think of himself as a supremacist, unless he's cornered by someone with a dictionary and a politcal science textbook. They might be able to get him to concede that, from a certain perspective, in a very limited sense, his views could be construed as 'supremacist', but obviously that's not actually 'accurate' in his opinion. I think your best bet is Psych. Lim.: "Metahuman Rights Visionary". Of course none of those other labels would apply, from his perspective. All of those terms would naturally be inadequate to describe his superior values, even the ones with positive connotations, as they were coined by 'old-style' humans to describe 'old-style' human behavior. "We are the future, Charles, not them!" Sorry, got a little caught up in the Magneto rhetoric for a second, there. In any case, in practical terms, I agree with Nexus as to them actually being a ruling caste, whether they admit it or not (or even realize it). It's pretty clear that anyone with carte blanche to do as they please, and the power to back it up, will effectively become the ruler in any society composed of more restricted individuals. If only because all of their statements and actions would be backed by the implied (or even just perceived) threat of force. If you get right down to it, the Jedi Knights were the true rulers of the Old Republic, for instance. Sure, they said all the right things, and 99.9999% of them were honestly motivated by altruism, and they were pretty tolerant of backtalk, but none of that changes the fact that they called the shots. But, of course, your idealistic visionary seems like the sort who would be impervious to that line of reasoning.

Re: A couple definition topics Actually, taking another pass at the power level question, I do think there's a lot to be said for the Wildstorms answer: Name the highest class of supers after the first or most powerful member of the type. That's the origin of the "Majestic" class in that universe, after all.

Re: Hero Designer... I find the program to be quite helpful, and I don't use it nearly as much as some of the people here. I would definitely recommend it, and I think you'll find most people here would, as well. It doesn't appear to have a blank character sheet option, though. On the other hand, there are blank character sheets available on this very web site. Link to Character Sheets & Hex Maps

Re: Origins of Power I generally prefer unified origins, though said origins are not always readily apparent from inside the gameworld. A GM I once gamed with ran a universe in which the scientists referred to the origin of superpowers as "BOC Forces", where "BOC" meant "Beyond Our Comprehension." I always got a kick out of that. I'm pretty sure that those "BOC" forces were "Magic", since it was a pretty magic-heavy universe. I tend to borrow my explanation from Feng Shui. In that universe, the primary sources of 'power' are Chi and Magic, both of which are actually the same type of energy, just at different frequencies. I just extend that explanation to Psionics and Cosmic Energy and everything else. Super-tech is actually the spanner in the works for me... Generally I have to explain it away as "technology that uses magic/chi/psi to achieve its effects, the inventor just doesn't realize it."

Re: A couple definition topics

Re: I Give Up!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not in 5th edition. A 'greater secondary' power linked to a 'lesser primary' power is a base -1/4, and he's getting an additional -1/4 for "has to use the primary power at full value". That's why the Linked is -1/2 for the Flight & Healing, and -3/4 for the Luck. The only error is in how the Disadvantage is phrased on the character sheet, the point values are technically "correct".

Re: I Give Up!!!!!!!!!!!!! Regarding your Disadvantages... Not sure why you have this listed as a Custom Disad. I'd probably write it up as either another Psych. Lim.: "Likes to watch over his daughters" (Uncommon, Moderate) for the same cost, or a Dependent NPC: Daughters 8- (Normal; Group DNPC: x2 DNPCs) for 15 pts. Frankly, even listing them as Normal is fairly generous, I'd probably consider them Incompetent unless they're at least 15 or older. Other than that, be careful with Enraged. It's a perfectly valid Disadvantage on this type of character, but I've never liked it. The one time I built a character with Enraged and it went off, the character wound up killing someone. That was sub-optimal.

Re: A couple definition topics For the former, I might go with Deific, or maybe Paramount. Or Excessive, but I expect that's not what you're looking for... For the latter, I'd almost certainly go with Metahuman Supremacist (or whatever his chosen group is). I know the negative connotations are probably a little stronger than you'd like, but they are proposing that a minority group be granted superior rights under the law to everyone else, and supremacist is probably the only common-use term that implies that effectively. Certainly, that's how others would describe him if they didn't want to use a term that was more pejorative, which would make it an appropriate Reputation. He might consider himself a Metahuman Activist or Liberator, though. Even just a 'Metahumanist'. I definitely think it makes sense to include the name of his chosen group, in any case. He'd want to avoid being confused for a garden-variety terrorist or bigot as much as possible. After all, terrorists and racists are BAD people. I wish I could think of a good way to coin a whole new term for him to use to describe himself. He might even try to avoid labels that describe his views directly. Might just consider himself a visionary.

Re: I Give Up!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, absolutely. You'll note that the gloves didn't really come off until someone pointed out that Squirrel had had issues like this before. And, frankly, a true newb very likely wouldn't be able to come up with something this spectacular. We've been throwing it around as a possibility, mostly to cover our butts, but I don't think any of the really negative comments were made under any assumption other than that it was an experienced rules-diddler being criticized. I don't think you have to fear the Inquisition, Scifi_Toughguy.

Re: I Give Up!!!!!!!!!!!!! In his defense, I think that's an artifact of Hero Designer, not an actual cheat. You'll notice that both the Flight and the Healing have Linked at the -1/2 value, but the Luck has it at -3/4. Without pulling out my rule book or firing up Hero Designer, I have no idea if those values are accurate, but the fact that they're different implies that he's at least aware of the disparity in Active Point cost. I assume that means he just didn't think to alter the default wording on the Limitation. That's the one example I can find of the character not being completely incoherent, tho.

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen I, too, had a Luck-based character in a campaign I was running, which was one of the more original builds I've seen. He was "Lucky, the Little Black Cat". Essentially, he was the proverbial "black cat which crosses your path", inflicting bad luck. So, he was an apparently ordinary black house cat who hung out with the rest of the super team, and everywhere he went, horrible misfortune befell their foes. His primary attack power was, IIRC, an 11d6 EB with Variable Special Effects, Indirect and Invisible Power Effects, which simulated something in the environment falling on or otherwise injuring the target (pianos falling from 6th story balconies were a specialty, as were broken power lines). He had Shrinking, Always On (This was a 4th ed. game, so it'd be built differently now), a force field based on things interfering with people trying to hurt him (probably would just use Combat Luck these days), and so forth. I think he also had a Transform to give permanent Unluck to people who really irritated him. In addition to the Unluck powers, he had a few other abilities that kept him from being a total plot device. I believe he could communicate telepathically, so he was actually a member of the party. He was actually much stronger and tougher than a normal cat, so he wouldn't just fold up if someone got a lucky hit on him. And he was extremely sneaky, too, which made him a good scout. The explanation for all that was that he was actually a minor feline trickster-deity of some sort. That campaign also included two Superman homages, who actually turned out to be very different characters. Superman just has too many powers. Essentially, one of them went the iconic route, and was a pretty straightforward flying brick with a few brick tricks and some eyebeams. The other was built around using all of the 'oft-forgotten' Superman powers (super-speed, etc.)

Re: Balancing of the Green Lantern Recently I made a character with a VPP for a campaign. After I'd played him for a while, I decided to re-write him with a flexible MP, instead. Then, we switched campaigns, I started a new character, and built him with an MP. I'm currently rewriting him with a VPP. The reasons? The fiddly details of power frameworks can have as much of an effect on your character as the more glaring differences. To me, the hidden difference between MP and VPP is that one requires you to think in terms of Active Costs and one in terms of Real Costs. When I was playing Empyrean, I envisioned him as a young Green Lantern type, potentially able to do anything, but just getting started on learning what those things were. I went with the VPP, because it seemed like the best way to model the 'Green Lantern' power set. Then, once play started, I realized that there was little to distinguish me from the other VPP-users (a mage and a gadgeteer) in the group in terms of what I could actually DO, but my concept required me to restrict myself from doing many of the things they could. So, since I was running essentially the same power set as them, but with fewer mechanical limitations and more conceptual limitations, I was paying a heck of a lot of points for less power. By rewriting the character with a Multipower, I was able to get a lot more Active Points (which allowed me to seem more like a young powerhouse bursting at the seams), but with much less flexibility (which better fit the character). With Renaissance Man, I'm running into exactly the opposite problem. He was designed to be run in an 'unlimited points' campaign (he's about 800 points, IIRC), so I stuck his powers in Multipowers rather than VPP's, specifically to avoid the headaches of having to think stuff up on the fly. However, he's supposed to be super-spy character, who's been kicking around since the 14th century and has done a little of everything. Since most of his 'powers' are actually (in SFX terms) skills and gadgets, there's a ton of limitations on each of them, which are often unique to the given power. Unfortunately, since the powers are in MP's, he doesn't get any advantage for having those limitations, since the MP Pool cost of a slot is based on Active Points, rather than Real Points. Which means that he can generally only use one or two of his powers at a time, which really cramps his swashbuckling style. However, if his powers were in a VPP, those limitations would actually allow him to run more powers at once, and switch them more freely, which would make it much more reasonable for me to 'just happen' to have the perfect skill or gadget to solve an unique problem. Which is what the character is supposed to do. As it stands, I simply can't do that in a lot of situations since it would involve shutting off his defenses. Not just unwise, but it doesn't make a lot of sense in some cases. "Why should exerting himself to be particularly persuasive make it harder for him to dodge?" I dunno. The MP makes me do it. So, in addition to considering what the character 'should' be able to do, give some thought to how you want it to work. I'd say that the Hal Jordan and John Stewart Green Lanterns might well be built on Multipowers, since they rarely evidence any real creativity in using their rings. Stewart, in particular, is egregious in his failure to exploit the potential of his ring on Justice League Unlimited. Watch a few episodes of JLU in which he appears as part of a large group of heroes, and simply acts as yet another generic blaster. Count the number of 'dangerous situations' that could be resolved by a simple exercise of telekinesis or a force field. Or, he could sit in the corner zapping things while Batman and Booster Gold get their butts kicked! Kyle Rayner, on the other hand, should probably be built on a VPP. Versatility is supposed to be part of his schtick (the whole 'Power of Imagination' thing.) Not that he always uses it, either. A VPP will generally cost a lot more for the given Active Point value, but will both allow for a wider selection of powers available, and more powers at once. Assuming you put some Limitations on those powers. This means you can often get attacks, defenses and movement powers out of the same pool, without so severely weakening any of them as to make them useless. This is harder to do in a Multipower, which is why you often see people making 'attack' multipowers and buying their defense and movement powers separately. On the other hand, a Multipower, for the same point cost, will give you much more raw effectiveness than a VPP. As for the possibility of VPP flexibility overshadowing other characters, I won't lie to you. It can happen that way. A large, totally flexible VPP can effectively make that character the best possible solution to every problem, and other players can feel like they've been relegated to 'sidekick' status. Worse, it can lead to all characters in a campaign having large, flexible VPP's, which means that it's hard to differentiate one from another. Player A: "I can do anything with my Power Ring!" Player B: "Oh, really? Well, I can do anything with the power of my mind!" Player C: "Oddly enough, I too, can do everything with my alien space god magics..." Player D: "Yeah, I can do anything, too. I guess I've got a tricorder or something." There are things you can do, both as a player and a GM, to deal with this. First, as a GM, you can simply ban VPPs. Draconian, but effective. A less drastic solution is to require each player to take some limitations on their VPP that will limit their power selection or render it ineffective in some situations. You can also ask your VPP-users to submit power writeups for approval in advance, and reject any that are going to step on another player's toes. As a player, you can make a point of designing your VPP character with some limitations, and also sit down with the other players, figure out what they want their characters to be 'best at', and come up with reasons why your character can't or won't do those things. You can also make a point of keeping the Active Point cap on your VPP lower than the other players' biggest powers, which allows them to feel good about being able to do something you can't do. Also (simplest and most effective of all), during play you can make a point of allowing other players to suggest their ideas for how to solve a problem first, and only whip out the "I've got a VPP, I suppose I could do it." plan when everyone else is stumped. So, when all is said, a VPP is a potentially game-unbalancing construct, but if handled with care, it can be a very valuable tool for realizing certain character concepts. Which is, of course, exactly what I would expect from a 'Stop Sign' power.