Just Joe

Re: Mind Control Comments & Questions

EGO + 10 (target will do things that will have negative effects to himself or allies falling short of physical harm)

 

The target WILL...

 

Attack a designated target at range

Attack a target that is unlikely to harm him

Attack an inanimate object

Be inefficient in combat (always using the same manoeuvre, for example)

Apply his levels as directed

(Commit a criminal offence like theft)

 

This about what you were after?

This is the kind of thing I was after, though I am curious as to whether you regard your answer as an interpretation of the rules or a modification of them. Your treatment of the EGO + 10 level in particular is very different from my understanding of the standard rules.

Re: Mind Control Comments & Questions

automatically bumping up by one level requests and commands made by a known mentalist (what you seem to be suggesting) effectively gives everyone in the campaign 10 free points of Mental Defense' date=' so long as they know that they are facing a mind controller.[/quote']

 

OddHat, I think you've misunderstood me in two or three different ways (I was afraid I was not being sufficiently clear . . .). First of all, I do not mean to be suggesting something I like as much as trying to get around a problem. I like your way of doing so -- I'm just trying to get make your (and others') solution explicit. Second, bumping up one level would not be the automatic result of knowing that someone is telling you to do something; the result would depend on circumstances but would often be to make the target much less willing to comply. Third, what I was talking about does not require the target to know that he's the target of mind control; it just requires him to know someone is telling him to do something.

 

 

Under the rules as written' date=' you do not know that you are being mind controlled until after you have broken free.[/quote']

 

Yes, but under the rules as written, it would seem that (unless the power is bought with the telepathic advantage) you do know that someone is telling you to do a certain thing. What your previous post seemed to assume (and this is an idea I like) is that for the purpose of determing the required effect level, the target should be treated as if he doesn't even know this.

Re: Mind Control Comments & Questions

OK, I'd still like to here other people's takes on the matter, but the responses so far are worth discussing further. I will continue to set aside the issue of "Target believes . . ." kinds of effects ("These are not the droids you're looking for" being a clear example of this, though other responses included an element of that kind).

One noteworthy feature of the responses is that they appear to assume that the command itself cannot itself be counted as a factor making it less likely that the target obeys. For example, in OddHat's example, "Use your All Powerful Bonds of Justice!", the target is not allowed to think (before the effect roll is made) that "if the mentalist wants me to use my Bonds of Justice, it must be a bad idea." (Please, please, please, no one digress onto the subject of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of reverse psychology.) If this is the correct way to understand how the power functions, then the lower levels of effect of MC can be more effective than a (powerless) polite request because the power allows "requests" to be made which would otherwise be rejected on the grounds of their suspisciousness.

I like Sinanju's idea that lower levels of control affect, among other things, the timing of an action the target is likely to do anyway (e.g., a smoke break, or staying away from the possible issue of psych lims, a bathroom break). Whether or not this works depends in part on the appropriate level of description of actions. If the target is inclined to take a break in 20 minutes or after completing a minor task, will > EGO be enough to get him to take the break now? If you rule that the target counts as being inclined to take a break then > EGO is enough. But otherwise EGO + 10 or even EGO + 20 might be required (even if the target doesn't much mind taking a break before completing the task at hand, even minding a little seems to push the required threshold to EGO + 20.)

Finally (for now), I wonder what you think about competing inclinations. Suppose the armored car driver would like to flirt with the babe, but is too conscientious to allow himself to be distracted. You might be tempted to say that he is inclined to flirt with her (> EGO) but all things considered he might be against doing it (EGO + 20). I think the latter is the more accurate description (again, if he's conscientious), but I could see compromising to the EGO + 10 level (kind of like with psych lims, but with milder and less idiosyncratic urges and motivations).

Must . . . stop . . . rambling . . .

Re: Mind Control Comments & Questions

It may be a poor tactical move for Mighty Man to just stand there. However' date=' he's not averse to doing this because he is extremely Overconfident. The best way to get low requirements that have a meaningful impact is to attack psychological limitations. What's +20 or +30 for a "Physical coward" may be +10 or +0 for an Overconfident brick.[/quote']

 

I agree that attacking psych lims is a good way to get more mileage out of a small number of dice. But are you suggesting that the > EGO and EGO + 10 levels of effect are essentially useless unless they exploit psych lims? If not, then can you give examples of their effective use?

Re: If you could add one more...

5. Limitation - None. And reduce the values of additional limitations beyond the first.

The point-value of additional limitations is already reduced.

On a 60 active point power, for example, the first -1 limitation saves 30 points, the second -1 saves just 10 more, the third 5 more, etc.

Why would you want to further reduce the value of additional limitations?

I have been reading up on mental powers more carefully recently and mind control has particularly caught my attention. I have a lot I want to say about this subject, but in the interests of getting the conversation started, I'll restrain myself (otherwise, few would read through the end of my initial post).

What I want to know is what are some examples you would use to illustrate each level of effect?

A few notes:

1. For now, please restrict your replies to the "Target will perform actions he . . ." portion of the effects and ignore the "Target will believe . . ." part.

2. I am especially (but not exclusively) interested in effective uses of the > EGO and EGO + 10 levels of effect, because they appear to be generally achievable by polite request without the use of any power.

3. The example on p. 131 of FrED seems to me to be either a bad example or evidence that the EGO + 10 level of effect is poorly described in the rules. If any kind of fight or action were occurring that Mighty Man cared about, then he would mind standing still, but if no such action were occurring, then it's not clear why Mentalla would bother commanding him to freeze.

OK, I'm biting my virtual tongue and awaiting your responses before rambling more.

I recently looked at the "classes of minds" rules (regarding mental powers, on p. 79) and concluded that they're goofy.

The goofiness has to do with the "alien" class. When I first read it, I thought that the rule implied that humans were special among all living beings -- so that they (we) count as one class whereas all aliens count as another. The FAQ makes it sound better than this: "human" appears to be short-hand for something like "the character's own species". This is less goofy, but is still goofy nonetheless. Suppose a planet consists overwhelmingly of earthlings but contains very small minorities of aliens from various planets (e.g., like Earth in many typical comic book worlds and some SF worlds). An alien mentalist there could choose the "alien" class of minds and thereby affect humans and all aliens except his own species while human mentalists picking "alien" could not affect other humans. This strikes me as (a) unbalanced and ( arbitrary. If one can affect ALL aliens, then why not one's own kind? (In philosophy of science terms, "alien" is not a natural kind.)

I propose an alternative. There should be just three basic classes of mind: "animals" (roughly sentients that are not sapients), "computers" (sapients which are not sentient?) and "humans" (sapients of one's own species or kind). Regardless of which kind is chosen, the powers cannot affect an entity that is too alien (as GM defines/judges) without a 10 point adder. This is distinct from the 10 point adder (which can be bought twice, if desired) that would allow the power to affect more than one basic class of mind.

Since mind scan requires an attack roll, even though it is not an attack power, it's use ends the user's phase, right? So if a mentalist successfully goes for the EGO + 10 "Mentalist can use all Mental Powers on target", then he has to wait until his next phase before using mind control (e.g.) on the target, right?

Can he use mind scan (trying for the above-mentioned +10) and mind control as a multiple-power attack on a target not in LOS?

Re: Egypt, 1938

If you want to do some further reading, Nagib Mahfouz is a very famous egyptian author (Nobel Prize in Literature) who wrote several novels that are praised for there description of life in Cairo from the 30's to the 50's

 

TB

That sounds interesting. Can you (or anyone else) make a more specific recommendation? Checking amazon.com was insufficiently informative.

Re: Egypt, 1938

I got your original intent' date=' but then I worked too much with Coroners to ever have a normal sense of humor.[/quote']

 

I got the original intent too, but was amused by the incongruous word choice and couldn't resist commenting.

Re: Egypt, 1933?

Thanks to all for your suggestions so far. I would be very happy to hear more, though I don't expect to be working on this adventure much for at least a few weeks. I'll probably be running it in February. I mentioned it when I had a few days to think about it, but other things are interfering with my ability to put much time into it now.

BTW, it turns out I got confused on my dates. I have to go back and dig up my notes, but I think the first adventure took place in 1932 (in the Sudetenland -- I had originally planned it for just weeks before the Germans rolled in, but later settled on a much earlier date). The second adventure was in Norway in '32 or '33. The third will probably take place in '33. Any revisions to your comments in light of the revised dates would be welcome, though not expected.

I'm pretty sure I'll stick with Egypt for this adventure, but (a) I'm not ruling out the possibility of action on both sides of the border, and ( Ethiopia/Abyssinia could make a great place for a later adventure. So Barton, by all means please post those links and name those books!

Toadmaster, thank you for those links. They were a mixed blessing, since they inspired me to spend an hour or two searching for the "perfect" links, which I never found. But yours and others I found were useful, and I even stumbled upon a Call of Cthulhu in Turin site that may well tempt me to run a subsequent adventure in that city. (My game is not CoC, but there are Lovecraftian influences, and even just the fact that the site gives information about a European city in the 30's is useful).

Lastly . . .

Funnily enough' date=' a couple of weeks ago I was at Debre Libanos in Ethiopia, a monastery where the Italians massacred over 500 priests and deacons as a reprisal for an attempted assassination of the Italian governor.[/quote']

 

Mark, I'm not sure it's appropriate to use the word "funnily" in the same sentence as the phrase "massacred over 500 priests and deacons" . . . (What is the emoticon that indicates that, whereas I am not joking, neither do I do take the matter as seriously as one might expect from my words alone, and that I am sympathetically disposed toward the individual I am addressing? Because it would be absurd to write all of that out).

Re: Egypt, 1938

Wow, Mark. That by far exceeded my expectations. Thanks.

I'm thinking about setting my next adventure in Egypt in early 1938. Research is not my forte, and my goal is only to be historically accurate in broad outline, so I thought I'd just pick your brains and see if anybody knows and is willing to share anything useful.

I imagine there are a modest number of British troops supplemented by local, mainly arab, troops with British officers. I want the game to take place in a region where an ancient Egyptian tomb could plausibly be found, but preferably not too close to a major population center. I'm thinking maybe there's a town on the Nile with a modest British presence (a platoon of British-officered local troops, a gunboat, and a few colonial police and bureacrats?). A long day's travel away from there is a small oasis village with no British presence. And less than a day's travel from there is a hidden tomb.

Does any of this strike any of you as implausible. Do you have any suggested changes or additions to what I've described?

Re: Hero System is Just Alright With Me

Sorry about that. No insult intended. KA got it right.

It's a matter of "system experience."

But I still disagree with this. There seem to me to be at least three issues: system, genre, and quality of roleplaying. I'm not going to try to analyze all of these factors individually, but I will say this. On the particular issue of being able to use equipment acquired from enemies, the "D&D" approach just makes more sense. There are of course other factors, such as whether the character knows how to use the equipment, whether it fits, and whether it is legal or ethical to pick up the equipment. But in real life and in most good fiction, if there's a gun lying on the ground and you can use it to defend yourself, you're going to do it. Fortunately, Hero system has rules for running games in which you can do that. I'm not saying that you should do that, but I am saying that I do it, and I'm an experienced Hero gamer who does not think highly of the "grab the loot" mentality that tends to be associated with D&D.

Re: Hero System is Just Alright With Me

I find I need to explain this concept to new hero gamers who do things like "Oh... the agent dropped his gun when he went down? Where is it? I get it!" It is a very D&D mentality. . .

I don't think you intended this to be insulting, but I'm having trouble not feeling insulted anyway. I've been playing Hero System for a long time and gave up D&D long ago, but my perspective is still closer to that of your new gamers than to your own.

The rest of your post does not bother me. I disagree with a considerable fraction of it, but it seems to represent one reasonable way of handling things.

Re: Hero System is Just Alright With Me

I understand now. Yeah, I'm pretty much with you on this. Actually, I rarely pay much attention to point costs on anything that a PC doesn't pay points for, and I don't make PC's pay points for relatively mundane equipment (and I'd put quite a lot in that category).

Re: Hero System is Just Alright With Me

. . . in most games I'm a little more free with the "paying points for stuff" than seems to be taken by most posters.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Could you elaborate and/or give an example?

Re: HUDSON CITY: What Do *You* Want To See?

Response times (in the enforcement section) How long will it take to get an ambulace to any given point in the city? A squad car? National guard?

 

Include a riot scenario and a city-burning scenario

Excellent ideas.

Re: Hero System is Just Alright With Me

I don't do house rules.

 

I've always looked at it like the person at a boardgame who suddenly blurts out "well I say if you land on that square you get to draw two cards," or "well I wanna roll again."

I won't play in a game if I'm handed a sheet of house rules.

As far as the rest of what you write, it seems reasonable enough, but you must have found a lot better systems out there than I have. Admittedly, I haven't been looking much in the last decade or so, but from what I've seen, few systems are anywhere nearly as good as Hero. So switching systems has no appeal to me. But the idea that I can improve the system in terms of meeting the needs of a game I want to run seems perfectly reasonable. I would not try to persuade you to do the same if you have no interest in doing so, but I don't buy your arguments against tweaking the system.

Re: DC Compliments and Criticisms

As far as Speed goes remember most "normals" are Speed 2' date=' highly competent normals (Spec ops soldiers, race car drivers etc) are speed 3 and world class martial artists (Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan) might be speed 4. So if you look at it this way most movie heros are most likely 1.5 - 2x faster than a normal thug.[/quote']I'm not so sure spec ops shouldn't be 4 and Bruce Lee 5. But regardless of that, I disagree with your conclusion that you can reason from these "real world" speeds to action movie hero speeds. To settle this, we'd have to sit down and watch some action movie scenes, try to distinguish what should be represented by multiple attacks per phase and lost NPC actions due to presence attacks as opposed to genuine differences in speeds. I'm not going to do this, and I doubt you will either, but it's my guess that if we did, we'd find many movies in which it's plausible to assign the hero a 6 speed, especially in movies where the hero faces numerous highly-trained opponents who could plausibly be assigned 3 speeds themselves.

 

 

We have always played with Speeds of 3-4 for PC's with the very rare exception of a speed 5 . . . even in Champions Speeds greater than 7 were rare. Sounds like your games use higher speeds . . .

Actually, I think our practices are similar, but I often think that higher speeds would be preferable. If I ran a cinematic DC game, I would definitely go with higher speeds. In any event, with the exception of speedsters and some VERY powerful supers, I'm not convinced Champions speeds (as opposed to STR, CON, PD, and especially points in powers) should be significantly higher than those in cinematic DC.

 

 

I've found setting Speed lower is a key to keeping the games point value lower (Speed and Dex "arms races" will jack up the point values very quickly)

I'm not sure I see your point. Why can't you set a fixed point level, declare that the NCM for speed is 6, and encourage speeds of 4-6. Obviously, the extra 10-20 points has to come from somewhere, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Re: HUDSON CITY: What Do *You* Want To See?

The problem with this is one of scale. It would take an entire 8.5 x 11 piece of paper to show one corner of a modern office bldg...

Re: HUDSON CITY: What Do *You* Want To See?

Lots and lots of maps -- more than any city book we've done to date.

Please, please, please. Could at least some of these be Hero-scale hex maps (as opposed to just large-scale maps sans hexes)? Even if a subsequent publication provides these as well, the more, the better.

I like a lot of the other suggestions as well, especially the urban legends sidebar.

Presumably grabbing a two-edged sword is harder than grabbing a hand axe, which is harder to grab than a club. Grabbing a rifle is generally going to be easier than grabbing a pistol, which is easier than grabbing a Star Trek phaser (the little, old-fashioned ones). Do any of you know of any published rules or suggestions for handling this? Do you have any of your own?

Re: Hero System is Just Alright With Me

Please keep in mind when you start all of these threads' date=' and the flamebait they will seem to be giving to everyone, that the game system was not designed to represent realistic life. Your example of the running velocity due to speed being an example of this.[/quote']

I'm not looking for flames, but am not particularly troubled by the possibility of unintentionally provoking them. I think most of us agree that the system is not supposed to represent realistic life, but we differ considerably in what degree of approximation of realism we desire in comics, movies, and roleplaying. In any event, realism is not the main point of my example (though it probably is tied in in some way, and that was a natural interpretation). The player and GM can decide whether the total movement per turn of the character is acceptable. I just think it's unfortunate that increasing speed substantially affects rate of movement, something which it is not meant to represent. One of the reasons I think it matters is because chases are potentially interesting dramatic events, but it is common for characters to travel at radically different rates as a side-effect of their speeds rather than as a result of character conception. This can make chases between these characters hard to pull off in an interesting and uncontrived manner.

As far as movement velocity, you can always just purchase the extra speed with a Cannot Move: -1/2 Limitation on it. That will give you a character who can attack 6 phases a turn but only run on 2 of them. You can also simulate this by having low-speed characters just do more sweeps and rapidfire attacks when their phases come up. Let them make 3 attacks per phase with thier 2 speeds but give them levels to offset the sweep/rapidfire penalties.

These are good suggestions for characters who just want to attack more often, but I'd like to find a way (and I'm not sure there is one that's not more trouble than it's worth) for speed to represent what it's meant to -- which is not just attacking -- without the side effect of more rapid running (swimming, etc.).

Re: DC Compliments and Criticisms

Oh' date=' Batman or Cap would have a SPD of about 7. However, they are bad examples to use for Dark Champions characters, as they are both more Champions-ish.[/quote']

 

I think Batman has had a number of DC-ish incarnations and Cap has had at least street-level supers incarnations. But I'll agree that they're bad examples because they also have straight Supers incarnations and their speeds (as well as a lot of other things about them) vary considerably one incarnation to the next.

 

Frankly, I was trying not to limit myself to examples from the movies, but I'm just not that familiar with Punisher or other paradigmatically DC comics.