Modern League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

[Salrantol]

I am looking to do a knock-off of the GURPS Modern League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that Ross ran some time ago.  I did, however, want to ask a few questions before I began the game:

What problems did you have with system or players that I should look out for?
Do you think the power level (200 points, I believe) was the right one for the game concept?
Were the players familiar with the system before playing?
Approximately how long did character creation take (if you can remember back that far)?
Would you resolve the issue of multiple iterations of a character (i.e. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) differently?

I can't praise highly enough the farcical ridiculousness of the second session of your MLoEG game.  Fantastic job all around.

[clockworkjoe]

What problems did you have with system or players that I should look out for?

I wasn't as familiar with GURPS as I should have been. It wasn't too much of a problem except when it came to psychic powers and the like - Firestarter was too powerful in the first game.

Do you think the power level (200 points, I believe) was the right one for the game concept?

Honestly, no. They should have been at least 250 and probably 300-500 points. Depends on how cinematic you want to get though.

Were the players familiar with the system before playing?

Not really.

Approximately how long did character creation take (if you can remember back that far)?

At least an hour, probably close to two.

Would you resolve the issue of multiple iterations of a character (i.e. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) differently?

What are you referring to? I don't remember that detail.

[Salrantol]

Would you resolve the issue of multiple iterations of a character (i.e. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) differently?

What are you referring to? I don't remember that detail.

When the players, in the second session, wanted to summon the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to help them, there was a question of *which* Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would come: the comic book turtles, the TV cartoon turtles, etc.  Despite Tom's character claiming to know them (not farfetched since they operated in the same turf), you decided that not only the comic book turtles, whom the Lizard knew, and the other varieties existed and randomly determined which would come, resulting in the Saturday morning cartoon version's appearance, and lots of groans later in the session.

[Tadanori Oyama]

That's depend on your game, wouldn't it?

Episode 2 got downright silly compared the Episode 1 right about halfway through.

[clockworkjoe]

Yeah, pretty much. I did the alternate versions of the TMNT to piss the players off. If you want a more serious take, pick one version of a given character.

[Salrantol]

My play group is scattered geographically, so I had to schedule the weekend to do this as a mammoth one-shot a ways out.  It turned out to be good, since it gives me (and the players) lots of time to figure out a reason for them to all be together.  The scenario they were given pre-chargen was that they were going to be recruited by a super-secret government organization, so they couldn't make something like anarchist anti-government types that wouldn't join such a group.  Anyway, here is what I have for character concepts to work with:

Mistaya Holiday
Jules and Verne Brown
An oWoD Malkavian, who has been sternly warned that he has to make dementations that are not overly disruptive to the group.
A character from the Dresden Files setting

The last two have not yet been further developed, and a sixth player has not yet decided on a character.

Jules and Verne have been fully integrated into the "every fiction is true" idea of the setting, as their characters were the means by which SkyNet obtained time-travel technology, for which they are trying to atone.  In trying to determine what the duo would and would not change in history, the players decided that 9-11 was a plot perpetrated by Verne which would (somehow, they haven't told me how yet) prevent SkyNet from obtaining nuclear weapons in the future.

Here's the basic background I'm looking at operating in:
DMPC Ben Tannen spent several years in an asylum growing up, swearing he could remember things happening differently than they did (confluence of Photographic Memory and Temporal Inertia advantages).  He was beginning to make progress in understanding that he was remembering timelines that had changed when Judgment Day hit.  Fortunately, his asylum was not a high-priority target for SkyNet and he was able to escape and join the resistance.  After time travel devices were uncovered, he was found to be an invaluable resource in planning trips to the past.  He himself was sent back from the future to stop a Terminator sent to stop the Brown boys from pulling off 9-11.  After concluding that mission successfully, he then proceeded to try and set up a super-secret organization.  A prescient Malkavian saw the power that could be harnessed through him and sent the PC Malkavian as a liaison between him and the new Covert Operations Internal Affairs, a group tasked with investigating the other super-secret government organizations.  Ben intends to use this to ensure that SkyNet does not get developed.  The Camarilla have their own plans for it (tbd).  Mistaya can be relatively easily tracked as her father would clearly have been involved with the incident of a dragon appearing over Seattle some years back and his name and money were used to get her into her boarding school.  The other characters will need to be developed more before I can really work them in.

I don't think any of my players visit this forum, so it should be safe to spoil the plot of the first session:  With its access to nuclear weapons cut off, SkyNet needed a different superweapon to wipe out humanity.  Fortunately, it found just such a thing in Project Skyfire, a project of super-secret government organization Sector 7.  It's basically the premise for the live-action Transformers movie, but with the original Transformer-trapped-in-arctic-ice, Skyfire.  The group will have to free Skyfire to prevent him being hacked by SkyNet when it gets up and running, but awakening him will make his presence known to Starscream, who happens to be in the neighborhood and comes to rescue his friend.  Hilarity (and possible TPK) ensues.

Comments, suggestions, wicked schemes to throw at them?

[Flawless P]

So I have reached far back in time using the search function to grab this thread and use it for my own purposes.

I am going to be running a Risus(although I want to do GURPS I just don't have time to learn the system front to back) version of MLoEG and I let the players pick basically whatever they wanted.
So my line up is:
Wolverine - Marvel Comics (Decided because Wolverine is in every team everywhere including your local Christian High Schools Girl Vollyball team.)

The Doctor(starting as the 10th) - Doctor Who

Atomic Robo - Red 5 Comics (Brian Clevinger of 8-bit Theatre fame.)

Spectre - Twisted Metal #1

Undecided - My room mate is too fickle to stick with one idea long enough to stat it out.

So I think I am in for some insanity.

[Seejo Crux]

Wolverine - Marvel Comics (Decided because Wolverine is in every team everywhere including your local Christian High Schools Girl Vollyball team.)

I'd love to know who was the very first person to decide this was going to be the case, so that I can murder them.

[Flawless P]

Brian Michael Bendis now go and do horrid things to him....

Well to be fair they were doing this before Bendis stuck him on The Avengers in 05' but it's been rampant since then so we can do what the Spidey fans do when anything goes wrong. Blame Bendis.

[BeyondSandrock]

The Doctor(starting as the 10th) - Doctor Who

Concerning The Doctor, I would be extremely careful in how you handle that PC in gameplay.  Even separated from the TARDIS he still has the potential to be an early game-ender.  That's why when I was running my Mutants & Masterminds games for Tom and David usually kept him in an advisory position. 

[Flawless P]

The Doctor(starting as the 10th) - Doctor Who

Concerning The Doctor, I would be extremely careful in how you handle that PC in gameplay.  Even separated from the TARDIS he still has the potential to be an early game-ender.  That's why when I was running my Mutants & Masterminds games for Tom and David usually kept him in an advisory position.  

I have seperated him from his TARDIS, I am a pretty avid watcher of Doctor Who but I'm not entirely sure what you mean, I know he is capable of a great many things, perhaps you could give me a for instance.... just so I am prepared.

I know there is an oppertunity for abuse in the Sonic Screwdriver, that is one thing I do worry about. Since it is basically Deus Ex Machina for tech based problems.

[clockworkjoe]

well mechanically speaking - Risus basically makes powergaming impossible. The biggest advantage in being Doctor Who is that you can justify using any ability on any potential conflict - which isn't a big advantage. I mean, obviously wolverine isn't going to disarm a nuclear bomb with his SNIKT SNIKT ability but Doctor Who could use his sonic screwdriver or super knowledge or whatever to do it.

Risus is pretty munchkin proof.

Whats the plot

[Flawless P]

well mechanically speaking - Risus basically makes powergaming impossible. The biggest advantage in being Doctor Who is that you can justify using any ability on any potential conflict - which isn't a big advantage. I mean, obviously wolverine isn't going to disarm a nuclear bomb with his SNIKT SNIKT ability but Doctor Who could use his sonic screwdriver or super knowledge or whatever to do it.

Risus is pretty munchkin proof.

Whats the plot

Basically ripping you off completely for the first session and then I will wing it from there, I couldn't resist the Ghostbusters angle since Spectre from Twisted Metal is a Ghost. Also, it's funny you mention Snikt as the name of the cliche since that is actually the name he picked for it.

[BeyondSandrock]

I have seperated him from his TARDIS, I am a pretty avid watcher of Doctor Who but I'm not entirely sure what you mean, I know he is capable of a great many things, perhaps you could give me a for instance.... just so I am prepared.

A couple come to mind (granted this is again using M&M).  First and foremost, the Sonic Screwdriver.  Normally I only used it as a door opener and scanning device, though in the 9th and 10th Doctor eras it became somewhat Deus Ex Machina-y in the area of problem solving (here's a full list of it's functions through the years).  Because of that I kept its use limited as to not override the players abilities (including limiting it when I played The Doctor in Tom's version of the game). Also, The Doctors telepathy.  Granted I've only seen it used a handful of times but it can sometimes advance the plot further than you want to if the player abuses it just right.  A way though you could limit or rein it in is to possibly throw in unexpected difficulties (e.g. Pain from the psychic "headbutts" presented in "The Lodger" episode). There are possibly a couple of other issues, but I can not think of them at the moment. When playing him, I usually presented him as a walking Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy.

Edit: Another thought that could be fun that I've yet to explore is a possible regeneration in-game.  That could create an interesting scenario in which your PC has to come up with a completely different personality while essentially inhabiting the same character.   

[Flawless P]

I have seperated him from his TARDIS, I am a pretty avid watcher of Doctor Who but I'm not entirely sure what you mean, I know he is capable of a great many things, perhaps you could give me a for instance.... just so I am prepared.

A couple come to mind (granted this is again using M&M).  First and foremost, the Sonic Screwdriver.  Normally I only used it as a door opener and scanning device, though in the 9th and 10th Doctor eras it became somewhat Deus Ex Machina-y in the area of problem solving (here's a full list of it's functions through the years).  Because of that I kept its use limited as to not override the players abilities (including limiting it when I played The Doctor in Tom's version of the game). Also, The Doctors telepathy.  Granted I've only seen it used a handful of times but it can sometimes advance the plot further than you want to if the player abuses it just right.  A way though you could limit or rein it in is to possibly throw in unexpected difficulties (e.g. Pain from the psychic "headbutts" presented in "The Lodger" episode). There are possibly a couple of other issues, but I can not think of them at the moment. When playing him, I usually presented him as a walking Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy.

Edit: Another thought that could be fun that I've yet to explore is a possible regeneration in-game.  That could create an interesting scenario in which your PC has to come up with a completely different personality while essentially inhabiting the same character.   

I would love to see that happen, especially since The 11th Doctor is quite a bit different from The 10th.

What's your take on the 13 generation limit? Is that even still in effect? I mean The Master has regenerated some 15 odd times. I figured with him being on his 11th incarnation he would at least mention it.