Messages

16

RPGs / Re: Superhero RPG

« on: August 24, 2010, 03:30:21 PM »

Wild Talents is very abusable*, but it's honest enough to tell you that.  It is also a simple enough system that you will have a much easier time spotting any abuses before they are used in play.



*--Try running the math on extra defends levels.  If I remember the time I ran the numbers correctly, you can get 10 permanent interference with a height of 10 for just over 70 points if you do it right.

17

RPGs / Re: Anecdote Megathread

« on: February 19, 2010, 05:33:10 PM »

One of the better games I've run was an oWoD game billed as a knock-off of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, where the PCs would be a bunch of teenagers latching on to a vampire hunting classmate.  Said vampire hunter was actually a super-hyped-up generations-bred super-ghoul used to fight rival vampires--developed by a Toreador master of the art of breeding.  The story, which eventually involved the vampirism of nearly every PC, centered around three of the PCs forming a band, which won a local battle of the bands against their rival band (one of the PCs had a flaw to that effect).  Said band then went on a tour, allowing us to explore exotic locales outside their small town.  The final destination of the tour was near their sound tech's hometown, out of which, according to the character's background, his family had been driven by the Technocracy after they were found out as Sorcerers.

So, of course, the character decides to visit his family's home, which is occupied by a team of Hyper-Intelligence Technology androids of various kinds.  I dropped lots of very-much-not-subtle hints that he probably didn't want to be here (what with his backstory indicating that everyone here wanted him dead and all), but eventually he and the band's vocalist found themselves in one of the towers (yes, his family's house had towers) where the HITMarks had put in a minigun for defense of what had become a regional headquarters of sorts.  He prodded the guard (you know, the one manning the minigun) about the fate of his beloved sister.  When he didn't like the response, he proceeded to attack the guard (you know, the one manning the minigun).  I gave him an obligatory roll and informed him he was reduced to a puddle of so much goo.  The guy who had accompanied him up asked for a retcon, offering to shove him out of the way.  He rolled exceptionally, so I allowed it.  Of course, the enraged PC proceeded to squander his opportunity to exit the premesis alive, again attacking the guard (you know, the one manning the minigun, who had just, pre-retcon, reduced him to so much goo), and again being liquified.

At the next concert, the band had their best performance ever with their new song "Uriel's Dirge," Uriel being the surname of their very dead sound tech.

18

RPGs / Re: Post here if you want to roll up a TMNT & Other Strange PC

« on: February 01, 2010, 08:40:02 AM »

Stats:
IQ: 13
ME: 12
MA: 25!
PS: 11
PP: 9
PE: 13
PB: 13
SPD: 9

He doesn't know whether it was the Sudanese civil war or the Congolese civil war, but in one of them, one of the sides was planning to use a biological weapon derived from stolen American bioweapon research waste.  The other side raided the convoy, destroying the weaponry, but some of the waste leaked out, where Sokwe Mtu came upon the appealing-fruit-colored, mutagenic substance.  As he anthropomorphized, he quickly became alienated from his fellow chimpanzees, and wandered around the Congo-Sudan border where he had lived.  It was there that he was found by a group of American Episcopal missionaries, who were utterly convinced that they had found the "missing link."  They taught him English, which he learned quickly, and planned to send him off to America for study.  He, however, had other plans.
He moved about the rainforest regions of Central Africa for two years, interacting with whatever humans he could, until he found himself in the middle of another Congolese civil war.  Amidst his efforts to find a safe place to wait out the conflict, he met an eccentric American Vietnam veteran who had fled the despite towards his ilk stateside by moving to Africa.  Vance Markham taught Sokwe about the life of a soldier, teaching him firearms use, military martial arts, and combat tactics.  When the army approached Markham's "compound," he and Sokwe held them off, a feat witnessed by a British photojournalist.  The story, featured in the Independent of London, made Sokwe an international figure.  He couldn't avoid press publicity, and reluctantly immigrated to America, where he could at least harness it for personal gain.
While Sokwe hates the spotlight, he is a natural communicator, and manipulator.  His Foundation for Sokwe Mtu--he claims that his name is simply the Swahili word for "chimpanzee"--has raised millions of dollars, which he uses to provide solely for himself.  His semi-natural gift for public speaking, his positioning as a philanthropist and philtroglodyphist, as well as his renown as a "war hero" and his war chest, built up from his own paychecks as administrator of his foundation, allowed him to stage a successful run for the office of governor of Arkansas in 2002.  He immediately pushed through legislation to create the Arkansas State Defense Force, an official state militia, answerable only to himself, and he has turned it into a sort of private police force, allowing him to act as a kind of vigilante with official sanction and lots of expendable underlings.

19

RPGs / Re: Post here if you want to roll up a TMNT & Other Strange PC

« on: February 01, 2010, 07:40:54 AM »

MA Bonus:
Rolling 1d6:

(5): Total = 5

20

RPGs / Re: Post here if you want to roll up a TMNT & Other Strange PC

« on: January 30, 2010, 07:04:47 AM »

Rolling 3d6:

(2+3+2): Total = 7

Rolling 3d6:

(5+4+1): Total = 10

Rolling 3d6:

(5+6+5): Total = 16

Rolling 3d6:

(5+1+1): Total = 7

Rolling 3d6:

(2+5+2): Total = 9

Rolling 3d6:

(5+4+1): Total = 10

Rolling 3d6:

(6+3+4): Total = 13

Rolling 3d6:

(1+5+3): Total = 9

Rolling 1d100:

(87): Total = 87

Rolling 1d100:

(64): Total = 64

Rolling 1d100:

(32): Total = 32

Rolling 1d100:

(85): Total = 85

Rolling 1d100:

(74): Total = 74

21

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Cody Fan Club

« on: January 14, 2010, 05:00:57 PM »

So, I'm not really sure about the Cathartic Lobster, is there somewhere I could look to expand my knowledge?

I really expected the cult's response to be more like, "You will find all the knowledge you could hope to bear--right at the bottom of this pit!"

22

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Star Wars AP?

« on: January 10, 2010, 07:33:14 AM »

He's saying that it's just as likely that Ross is a fallout boy fan as it is that Tom's cock is massive.

23

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Modern League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

« on: January 08, 2010, 07:08:45 PM »

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?

24

RPGs / Re: Famous Last Words

« on: December 31, 2009, 06:34:49 AM »

As an invisible wizard sneaks into the barracks of a kobold compound, he notices that they just saw the door open, with no one standing there:

"How'd the door open?" he says, trying to pretend to be one of the kobolds in the room and forgetting that he's standing in the door.

In a mixed oWoD game, the sluagh who gains Glamour by destroying love whispers something about "He doesn't really love you," to the girlfriend of another PC, who has recently found some magic axe that's sharper than an ogre's axe (and when it was introduced, the "k" sound from that was omitted).

Player #1: "What? I destroy love!"
Player #2: "I decapitate."

25

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Mall Ninja/Night Shift

« on: December 18, 2009, 04:31:01 PM »

I can't imagine a much better resource for a game like this than Mall Cops: Mall of America.  After all, where better to be a mall ninja than in a grotesquely oversized mall?  Plus, it would make it seem a lot more normal for a bunch of special-forces/covert-ops types to infiltrate mall security in what appears to be the world's elite mall security force.

26

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Modern League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

« on: November 23, 2009, 06:30:26 PM »

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.

27

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Modern League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

« on: November 23, 2009, 04:49:44 PM »

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.

28

RPGs / Re: Anecdote Megathread

« on: September 16, 2009, 06:46:41 AM »

I was running a farcical superhero game in the Aberrant system.  The players decided to place their base of operations in a warehouse at the end of a pier, right past a porn studio, because, to their minds, no villain would pass up a porn studio to try to reach their base.  After one finally did, they decided additional security was necessary and installed a trap door outside their front door, below which was a cage holding a randy dolphin.  Well, two of the characters did that between sessions, and "forgot" to tell the third member of their party, the Uranium Cockroach.  When the Uranium Cockroach showed up and triggered the trap, the other players laughed as he was sodomized by the randy dolphin.  Of course, most of the laughter was because those players remembered something the Cockroach's player did not: The Uranium Cockroach had the Animal Mastery power, and could have compelled the dolphin to stop at any time.