The Heroes of New Arcadia - RPPR Superheroes campaign - Wild Talents

[clockworkjoe]

A few things:

I will set up some kind of status/reputation system for the heroes - it will measure various factions view the characters and how far they will go to help or hurt them. Each major organization, the local and federal governments and the public will be tracked. PCs will get bonuses or penalties depending on how they treat various factions. In particular, if you piss off a group they may send goons to your neighborhood to try and find you or they may hire private detectives and the like to learn more about you. Information is vital so a PC that makes too many enemies and not enough allies may have their secret lair raided and secret identity revealed.

I will use Reign rules to track important factions - so the players can actually bring down a mob family by damaging its stats - steal their money and hurt the Treasury stat or beat up a few dozen goons to hurt its Might stat.

[+1 Hat]

*Sigh* Had this about 2/3 finished, then phone browser crashed & ate it. Ain't technology grand?

Anyways, I've been kicking around a concept for this here game, as my new work schedule may allow me to participate. Here goes.

The Philosopher-King

He's just this guy, you know? More specifically, he's that one guy in every humanities class in college who fully drinks the Kool-Aid. The one who, each semester, is all et up (as they say in my homelands) with whatever new philosopher/political theorist/etc. he's got a class about. He's convinced that if everyone just understood Budhism/Marx/Tolstoy/Hobbes/meh like he now does (i.e. barely), the world would be this incredible, harmonious, enlightened place. In particular, the P-K is totally blown away by a too-literal reading of The Republic (maybe minus the homo-eroticism. Maybe) and Also Sprach Zarathustra. For the non-classicists in the audience, he 'believes' in a dual physical/mental meritocracy, with a super/overman at the top (hm I wonder who that could be). He's in the heroing business to make himself know as the thinking man's choice for Ruler of Everything '12, and to become more powerful through the acquisition of lost schema & gnosis.

Powers:

For starters, I'd work up versions of the newmatter bolt/cord/sphere combo from Neal Stephenson's Anathem, which I'm stealing much from anyway. Then, power level permitting, I'd buy some powers of limited reality warping, either as in the Millenarian many-worlds tricks, again from Stephenson, or as minor philosophical shout-outs, al a the Dungeons & Discourses bits of Dresden Codak.

As for drawbacks: either powerlevel or safety. Powerlevel: the reality warp is very limited, and as such requires more clever than brute-force application. Safety: when you're yanking on the rigging of reality, what happens if you tug the wrong rope?


Thoughts?

[clockworkjoe]

Those items could have come from the Tunguska zone and then were sold as idle curiosities on the black market for cheap. The PK figured out how to make them work but has a very incomplete understanding of them.

As for possible side effects: hallucinations in the form of visions from the reality the objects originated from. Paranoia. People after the artifact - possibly gov or corporate agents or their original owners. Using the artifacts drains life force from the user. Using the artifacts is addicting. Artifact permanently damages the user at a genetic level. Using the artifacts attracts extradimensional hostile entities. The reality warping powers have unintended consequences. 

[Cthuluzord]

I had already picked which character I wanted to play, but now with the reputation/status system, I'm back at square one. I really like the idea of a mastermind character in that kind of setting, but we still need muscle.  Damn you Payton! Damn YOU!

[clockworkjoe]

I had already picked which character I wanted to play, but now with the reputation/status system, I'm back at square one. I really like the idea of a mastermind character in that kind of setting, but we still need muscle.  Damn you Payton! Damn YOU!

well I always had that in mind - I just want to standardize how it will work - I had similar ideas in the new world campaign - the more the players fought a particular faction, the more they hated them.

Think Fallout New Vegas as an example of what I am imagining.

[Robot Master]

A few things:

I will set up some kind of status/reputation system for the heroes - it will measure various factions view the characters and how far they will go to help or hurt them. Each major organization, the local and federal governments and the public will be tracked. PCs will get bonuses or penalties depending on how they treat various factions. In particular, if you piss off a group they may send goons to your neighborhood to try and find you or they may hire private detectives and the like to learn more about you. Information is vital so a PC that makes too many enemies and not enough allies may have their secret lair raided and secret identity revealed.

I will use Reign rules to track important factions - so the players can actually bring down a mob family by damaging its stats - steal their money and hurt the Treasury stat or beat up a few dozen goons to hurt its Might stat.

I have a book called "Crooks" for Mutants and Masterminds that has a system in the waaaaaay back. I'll be honest, the book is 80% bad guy templates but in the way back there's this pretty cool system. It's d20 based but it might be able to be converted.

Long story short, it weighs your progress versus heroes against the progress of the villains. If the heroes aren't creating too much collateral damage or are popular with the people of the city, then it's easy to get villains convicted, get support from the people, etc. HOWEVER, if the heroes dip onto the red side of the graph then they get all sorts of negatives towards other things. The villains end up getting control of the media/courts/etc and the superheroes could be deemed enemies of the state, face jail time, etc.

So even if you're going to make your own system, it might be a pain in the ass, but the aforementioned system has a chart that might be a good idea for you. You take + or - for various actions that the heroes do that will result in placement on a chart that will monitor just how good of a job that they're doing. It's easy to maintain the middle ground and slip into the red but much harder to maintain the green level, so to speak. Shit, at the highest level of that chart there's a microscope on you to always perform at that level.

[Tom Church]

I had already picked which character I wanted to play, but now with the reputation/status system, I'm back at square one. I really like the idea of a mastermind character in that kind of setting, but we still need muscle.  Damn you Payton! Damn YOU!

Don't worry.  I'll be handling the muscle.

[Setherick]

I had already picked which character I wanted to play, but now with the reputation/status system, I'm back at square one. I really like the idea of a mastermind character in that kind of setting, but we still need muscle.  Damn you Payton! Damn YOU!

Don't worry.  I'll be handling the muscle.

What kind of animal will your character be able to turn into? I'm think adapted streetshark.

[clockworkjoe]

A few things:

I will set up some kind of status/reputation system for the heroes - it will measure various factions view the characters and how far they will go to help or hurt them. Each major organization, the local and federal governments and the public will be tracked. PCs will get bonuses or penalties depending on how they treat various factions. In particular, if you piss off a group they may send goons to your neighborhood to try and find you or they may hire private detectives and the like to learn more about you. Information is vital so a PC that makes too many enemies and not enough allies may have their secret lair raided and secret identity revealed.

I will use Reign rules to track important factions - so the players can actually bring down a mob family by damaging its stats - steal their money and hurt the Treasury stat or beat up a few dozen goons to hurt its Might stat.

I have a book called "Crooks" for Mutants and Masterminds that has a system in the waaaaaay back. I'll be honest, the book is 80% bad guy templates but in the way back there's this pretty cool system. It's d20 based but it might be able to be converted.

Long story short, it weighs your progress versus heroes against the progress of the villains. If the heroes aren't creating too much collateral damage or are popular with the people of the city, then it's easy to get villains convicted, get support from the people, etc. HOWEVER, if the heroes dip onto the red side of the graph then they get all sorts of negatives towards other things. The villains end up getting control of the media/courts/etc and the superheroes could be deemed enemies of the state, face jail time, etc.

So even if you're going to make your own system, it might be a pain in the ass, but the aforementioned system has a chart that might be a good idea for you. You take + or - for various actions that the heroes do that will result in placement on a chart that will monitor just how good of a job that they're doing. It's easy to maintain the middle ground and slip into the red but much harder to maintain the green level, so to speak. Shit, at the highest level of that chart there's a microscope on you to always perform at that level.

I don't like how that sounds - getting control of the media/courts should take specific action - i.e. bribing or intimidating the judges and reporters and whatever. How does a villain having a high reputation penalize PCs? Most villains are obvious criminals. The few that pose as upstanding citizens have to go to great lengths to keep their secrets intact. I don't want to keep track of NPC reputations either.

Maybe you're misdescribing it but it sounds horrible from a game design point of view. There's no universal reputation - different factions will view the characters differently. The public may love a hero but the elite institutions hate him and vice versa.

The system I will create will also be more basic - it will generate bonuses or complications. Bonuses are bonus dice for specific actions that a faction may influence usable once per session. Complications are setbacks that happen once per session and can range from dice penalties to threats attacking characters directly or indirectly.

[Tom Church]

What kind of animal will your character be able to turn into? I'm think adapted streetshark.

Bat actually.  And no changing.  Permanent.

[Charlie72]

Here's some organisations that you can use if you want...


The Hat Tricks- Stage magicians  turned super heroes. Use slight of hand to make people think they have superpowers. Revealing the organisations existence is as much of a sin as  revealing a magician's secret.

The Chrome Hounds- Part junkyard gang, part transhumanist cult. Try to "Cyberize" themselves with what ever they can find. Know for brutal home-invasions.

Burger Town- Even superheros need money. Endorsements could help you and Burger Town out. Just don't ask what's in the Secret Sauce.

[Setherick]

What kind of animal will your character be able to turn into? I'm think adapted streetshark.

Bat actually.  And no changing.  Permanent.

You're taking the Batman theme way too far.

[Jason]

What kind of animal will your character be able to turn into? I'm think adapted streetshark.

Bat actually.  And no changing.  Permanent.

You're taking the Batman theme way too far.

All right, Langstrom (hehe) if you aren't able to turn back and forth, it's going to be a very boring game unless we get an image inducer or something.  Obviously, there would be no secret identity, but how are you going to interact with NPCs when we are not on a set mission?

[Tom Church]

All right, Langstrom (hehe) if you aren't able to turn back and forth, it's going to be a very boring game unless we get an image inducer or something.  Obviously, there would be no secret identity, but how are you going to interact with NPCs when we are not on a set mission?

With fear.

[clockworkjoe]

All right, Langstrom (hehe) if you aren't able to turn back and forth, it's going to be a very boring game unless we get an image inducer or something.  Obviously, there would be no secret identity, but how are you going to interact with NPCs when we are not on a set mission?

With fear.

You do know that according to the rules - every single normal person that sees you has to make a stability check or attack you?