|
Post by The Keeper on Dec 24, 2009 22:50:18 GMT -8
Oh I remember your insistence on the secrecy of this paranormal thing. My hero won't even know he has powers during Stage One. To just give you a teaser I guess, the hero is a kendo "god" in the hs division. He lives, eats, and breathes this Samurai-type fighting style to the extent of falling asleep in class from so much training. What he doesn't know is that his Jedi-like reflexes come from a low-level form of Mind Reading and his opponents lack of ability when facing him is caused by Emotion Control (Flaw: Fear, Flaw: Sight Dependent). So actually, Stage One he attributes his success to intense training when little does he know he's had some help along the way. Just imagine if Usain Bolt, the new fastest man alive from the Olympics, actually turned out to be a mutant.
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Barros on Dec 24, 2009 23:16:43 GMT -8
That works, but I still want you to phase one build a character completely human. One of a number of reasons is if you ever get zapped by a null ray or something along those lines you'll have your normal stats on hand instead of trying to scramble to figure out what your character stats are powerless mid-battle. Instead we can just say that so far he technically has all his powers, but so far the only powers he's realized are the mind reading and emotional control he's not even aware of. Part of his "awakening" during the first adventure would be a)realizing he has powers and b) realizing they aren't necessarily passive. If you want there is a very specific flaw in the paragons campaign book called "Power Surge." On occasion your power would flare up with some very interesting and difficult to control results. If that fits I can send you more info. Having let that cat out of the bag, there are no other player options in the book, so no need to scramble to download "Paragons" to see new powers and feats, etc. Plus I don't want half the party suffering from power surges anyway.
|
|
|
Post by frobones on Dec 24, 2009 23:49:40 GMT -8
One of a number of reasons is if you ever get zapped by a null ray or something along those lines you'll have your normal stats on hand instead of trying to scramble to figure out what your character stats are powerless mid-battle. Would be quite interesting if I get hit with that and my Dupes around the world instantly vanish... o.O
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Barros on Dec 24, 2009 23:53:12 GMT -8
One of a number of reasons is if you ever get zapped by a null ray or something along those lines you'll have your normal stats on hand instead of trying to scramble to figure out what your character stats are powerless mid-battle. Would be quite interesting if I get hit with that and my Dupes around the world instantly vanish... o.O Doubly so if I am in a generous mood since you have the survival feat. ;D
|
|
|
Post by The Keeper on Dec 25, 2009 0:42:56 GMT -8
That works, but I still want you to phase one build a character completely human. One of a number of reasons is if you ever get zapped by a null ray or something along those lines you'll have your normal stats on hand instead of trying to scramble to figure out what your character stats are powerless mid-battle. Instead we can just say that so far he technically has all his powers, but so far the only powers he's realized are the mind reading and emotional control he's not even aware of. Part of his "awakening" during the first adventure would be a)realizing he has powers and b) realizing they aren't necessarily passive. If you want there is a very specific flaw in the paragons campaign book called "Power Surge." On occasion your power would flare up with some very interesting and difficult to control results. If that fits I can send you more info. Having let that cat out of the bag, there are no other player options in the book, so no need to scramble to download "Paragons" to see new powers and feats, etc. Plus I don't want half the party suffering from power surges anyway. I'll make appropriate changes.
|
|
|
Post by frobones on Dec 25, 2009 2:47:44 GMT -8
Well, with our party so far, I can see us having trouble with a paranormal with flight and pewpew power. Let's say we face the human torch... what are we going to do at that point o.O (assuming an all-out superhero brawl with no regard to identities being revealed). All he would do is fly in the air and rain living hellfire on us... essentially a 3.5e dragon
|
|
|
Post by reiphil on Dec 25, 2009 10:27:49 GMT -8
Well, with our party so far, I can see us having trouble with a paranormal with flight and pewpew power. Let's say we face the human torch... what are we going to do at that point o.O (assuming an all-out superhero brawl with no regard to identities being revealed). All he would do is fly in the air and rain living hellfire on us... essentially a 3.5e dragon We force him to fight nearer to a city, and use buildings for cover. As soon as he dives closer to attack and the building shadows him, I teleport onto his back from the casted shadow, and crit his head... Then teleport back
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Barros on Dec 25, 2009 14:35:06 GMT -8
More than one of you have either stealth capabilities or long range teleportation, so while ranged and aerial characters will be your weakness, you do have to potential to sneak up and get the drop on them. Be careful while fighting such villains in the city though, especially when leading them TO the city. Collateral damage is a bitch and so is bad karma.
|
|
|
Post by reiphil on Dec 25, 2009 15:11:10 GMT -8
Can't wait for pl 7... where i get Nullify Power :X
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Barros on Dec 27, 2009 16:45:27 GMT -8
I know you guys have all these creative ideas, but lets go easy on me to start. This is a much more challenging game to GM for than DND despite the fact that the first adventure is all but completely written out for me. Let me present the setting, and then from there if you guys wanna blow the world up then be my guest. I'm not trying to railroad you guys. Generally you have to actually play the game to do that and we haven't even had day one. There are certain ground rules, albeit few, that I thought everyone was clear on concerning GM-player relations from what I've seen with Phil and JP at the helm, but apparently some review is in order. Hosting a martial arts tournament is exactly the kind of thing you should check with me first before just saying "hey GM this is happening. Deal with it." Assuming it makes sense to do so, and what with Unity being the size it is and Yulis having no attachment to the town besides his sole factory, it seems VERY odd he would just arbitrarily pick Unity over other locations that are much more in need of such help. To say nothing that in-character, a racing tournament would make a lot more sense due to prior associations like Team Penske. As GM I should be allowed the courtesy to at the very least say "yes, but..." Imagine if this was DnD and Zozma wanted to host a fighting tournament. You'd first tell JP "JP this is what I want to do," and then he would tell you what your next set of options are. Not to mention we are playing Monday. If you want to plan something as big and potentially time consuming as a fighting tournament I need time to plan it, and this is pretty last minute for that. So again, I don't intend to railroad you guys too hard, but for now create your characters and write your backstories. Leave current events to me. I've given you guys a lot of leeway so far, Stephen in particular, with writing personal histories considering the type of world I want to run. I've given everybody their reasons for being in Unity. Some of you may think their specific reasoning is pretty vague, but none of them are accidental or forced. Just trust that it is all part of the long term master plan. I don't think I'm being unfair here. Furthermore, in the interest of being fair, I'm warning you that happy endings may not be in store for most or possibly even all of you. I WILL be incorporating your backstories into ongoing events sooner or later. However, I am a big fan of torturing characters. I love shows like Angel, Supernatural, BSG, and others because the characters are constantly being forced to make hard decisions with things in the past, present, and occasionally the future NOT going the way they would like. In short, life is going to fuck with all of your characters in time. You are all welcome to fuck it right back... just give me a heads up first. I am, after all, the one who has to run it.
|
|
|
Post by frobones on Dec 27, 2009 18:50:12 GMT -8
So again, I don't intend to railroad you guys too hard, but for now create your characters and write your backstories. Leave current events to me. I've given you guys a lot of leeway so far, Stephen in particular, with writing personal histories considering the type of world I want to run. If i've put too much content into your world, I can tone it down. What if instead of Yulis being the owner of a conglomerate was instead a successful stock broker. That way he can still be wealthy and still have the necessary character background to have the same type of contacts and connections the business owner Yulis would have. I always thought the more material in a character's backstory, the better it was for the DM as it gave him more to work with; but maybe I took it too far, rooting myself so much in a world the DM is creating and in charge of. So if toning my character down would be better for the world, I'll do it.
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Barros on Dec 27, 2009 21:23:37 GMT -8
Quantity isn't the problem. Believability and ability to fit in the campaign was what I was concerned about, both of which you were really pushing the limits of. Hence the Tempus in Dragonlance comparison. Phil probably wrote more content into the world and its history than any of you by far, but with the exception of a couple minor tweaks, it wasn't a difficult fit; calling government conspiracy is easy, especially when at the moment it is relatively small-scale (compared to assassinating world leaders and the placement of puppet governments that is). Convincing me a nationally known, possibly internationally known, non-government producer of technology can hide the fact that it's being run by septuplets (one of which being a sports celebrity for goodness sake!) was more than a bit over the top in a setting that is supposed to be based in what is essentially a "What If?" scenario for the real world that begins with everybody meeting in Unity. There was absolutely no chance anyone could have pulled that off and not be outed as a paranormal without the changes we discussed. Imagine the same scenario only replace Yulis with someone like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. You know the level of media attention they get, especially from money and tech magazines and newspaper writers. You cannot convince me that if either of them had six identical lookalikes running the very companies they were famous for, no one would have caught on no matter how hard they tried to hide it. Like I said, it wasn't the "quantity" of content that was the issue. Just needed some serious re-writing to make it plausible. Re-writing. Not out reduction. It's up to you what you want to do at this point. You can do what I told you was ok in my last PM or you can tone it down. The stock broker route certainly leaves you less vulnerable because you'd have less to lose. The bigger they are the harder they fall if you catch my drift. Either way will be fun. I've already figured out how to adapt to what we talked about via PM, but again it's up to you. At this point it depends on how much ammunition you want to give me down the road.
|
|
|
Post by frobones on Dec 27, 2009 22:11:57 GMT -8
Well yea, if Bill Gates had six identical siblings running around it would have caught on real fast. What I want most is for my character to have believability. I thought I could achieve that with the dupes morphing into a different person and having legal documents supporting their person would bypass the suspicion of them being the same person. So in the eyes of the world, each dupe was his own individual.
As for the business running, may be I'm doing things farfetched as I'm a noob when it comes to these things. I don't read the newspaper or keep up with current events, etc. But what I had envisioned is that 10 years ago Yulis sent 6 dupes out into the world. Each of them starting a company. Yulis Prime with Truesgard Technologies, Dupe 1 with <enter name here> Biotech, Dupe 2 with <enter name here> Industries, etc. Then, let's say 5 years in, the individual companies start getting notoriety, get shareholders, stocks are invested in it, etc. Then over the next 5 years, each company owned by separate individuals, as seen through the public's eye, begin merging one at a time - making a multi-industry company... a conglomerate. Then towards the end of the 10 years, all 7 companies have become one major conglomerate. Each member of the board of directors is the owner of the individual companies (dupes in reality - legitimate individuals as far as the public is concerned). Then, they name Yulis Truegard as the board of directors.
I don't mind all the extra attention Yulis will get, or the dangers of doing such a balance act. Just to me, I thought this was in the realm of believability, albeit very fragile.
Oh, and the famous race car driver didn't own a business, that was a dupe Yulis threw into the world and said do whatever you want.
|
|
|
Post by reiphil on Dec 28, 2009 0:28:01 GMT -8
Just to note on what Joseph was saying:
You guys are writing BACKSTORIES. Make it fit, believable and workable. Details on shady things can be discussed in PMs before or after the backstory is posted.
But remember, this is a BACK story. BACK. As in background. Not current. Write in who you are, and then play the game to get the rest.
Anything CURRENT is within what we are playing now. So things like a mortal kombat tournament or underground nuclear sub base off the coast in which your character lives should be set up with the GM.
Oh and a note. Stephen, I love your ideas and stuff, but you have to explain them well or others won't understand the goal you're aiming for. Because it's easy to twist or mix things up if you're not clear with what you say.
|
|
|
Post by frobones on Dec 28, 2009 0:54:32 GMT -8
Oh and a note. Stephen, I love your ideas and stuff, but you have to explain them well or others won't understand the goal you're aiming for. Because it's easy to twist or mix things up if you're not clear with what you say. Yea, that has always been my bane. I know things, but I don't explain them very well some times. Makes me wonder why I still employed as a TA :p
|
|