BaseRaiders

[FlexyCarlos]

I was going to suggest the Minions trapping for that but after a quick look in the book there is a section about creating duplicates at the end of the Minions trapping p126.  Not sure about the memory part of the strange skill though.

[Jace911]

I've gotten the Base Raiders bite again lately and I've been trying to cook up another introductory scenario in the spirit of "Transit" and my previous "Black Friday" game, and I was curious what sort of intro Base Raider games people have come up with?

[Ezechiel357]

One issue I have when starting with mundane characters who gets their power during their first scenario, is that it is hard to shoehorn the power that the players want. So I propose you this intro:

PC are part of a secret paramilitary program, trying to create a group of super-agents. This group have access to various artefacts, drugs, alien technology. PCs are volunteers (for various reason: money, medical treatment for a dear one, etc.). Thus they have a certain control on what power they will get (just a little bit).
The training starts, with all kind of initial side effects due to lack of control and what not.
Then the secret base/camp is raided by an enemy, wiping most of the scientists, experts, boss on site, with the PCs managing to escape - at this stage, their powers are not fully Under control, thus cannot be very effective in a fight to repel the attackers.

Suddendly, the PCs are kind of free, but who attacked the base ? Maybe the company want to retrieve them - maybe they want to kill them to erase all proofs of the program.

This paramilitary program can be governmental, can be financed by the mafia or a corporation, by whichever secret society you need for your story. Very likely the PCs don't know the extent or the real motives behind this program.

[Jace911]

One issue I have when starting with mundane characters who gets their power during their first scenario, is that it is hard to shoehorn the power that the players want. So I propose you this intro:

PC are part of a secret paramilitary program, trying to create a group of super-agents. This group have access to various artefacts, drugs, alien technology. PCs are volunteers (for various reason: money, medical treatment for a dear one, etc.). Thus they have a certain control on what power they will get (just a little bit).
The training starts, with all kind of initial side effects due to lack of control and what not.
Then the secret base/camp is raided by an enemy, wiping most of the scientists, experts, boss on site, with the PCs managing to escape - at this stage, their powers are not fully Under control, thus cannot be very effective in a fight to repel the attackers.

Suddendly, the PCs are kind of free, but who attacked the base ? Maybe the company want to retrieve them - maybe they want to kill them to erase all proofs of the program.

This paramilitary program can be governmental, can be financed by the mafia or a corporation, by whichever secret society you need for your story. Very likely the PCs don't know the extent or the real motives behind this program.

If I ever run an ongoing game I would absolutely start with the players getting to choose their own powers, but part of the fun of one-shot intros is having the players "eenie meenie minie moe" through various vials of supersoldier drugs and magical artifacts, then dealing with the fallout of whatever they picked. I give them just enough information so they know generally what they're getting, but not so much that they know all the side effects.

That's more in line with the spirit of Base Raiders, IMO. :V

[clockworkjoe]

Thematically, if you start as a normal unpowered civilian, then the game is more about adapting to a terrible situation. Beggars can't be choosy, after all. Random powers are more consistent with that theme. It's about overcoming limitations to succeed, despite many obstacles. Also, if the player wants a particular power, then it can become a personal quest to figure out how to get that power.

Alternatively, if you have players select their powers, then the game is more about gonzo superheroic dungeon crawling, which most of the one shots are already about.

Each playstyle is equally valid, but I think random powers are more fun for low powered games.

[Claive]

Alias: Bio-Lazer
Low powered hero
Name: Samantha Victory

You used to have to work diligently to keep your girlish figure, you starved yourself with diets, you spent thousands of wasted hours at the gym and you always still felt fat. 
One day while conducting research for your doctoral dissertation you found a reference to Super Lipids, a method Pangloss and other “super geneticists” used to store incredibly large amounts energy in biological mechanoids.  You became obsessed with onlocking the secrets of these Super Lipids, if you could unlock their secrets you could make it so that you wouldn’t need so many fat cells to keep your body going, you could eat all you wanted and not gain any weight!  It would be the perfect diet!  You could sell it and make millions!

You bought a disembodied bio mechanoid arm from the black market to use as a research sample and began experimenting.  You found that the super lipids just had to be injected into a regular cluster of fat cells and kept super saturated with nutrients and that they slowly replaced the fat cells and never gained additional mass.  After a month or two of testing you injected yourself with the Super Lipids.  Everything was going great for about a month (other than your increased appetite… but hey you weren’t going to gain any weight!) you had stopped paying attention to the tissue cultures and gone back to working on your dissertation when you noticed the smoke coming from your closet.  A short adventure with a fire extinguisher later you learned that the tissue samples had spontaneously combusted.  You quickly set aside your homework and started a life or death quest to figure out what was going on with your cells.  It turned out that the “Super Lipids” had to be “milked” for energy, if too much built up they burst into flames… the bio-mechanoids had bio lasers to burn off the excess so it was never a problem.  You couldn’t possibly burn off enough energy to survive.

Luckily the bio mechanoid arm still had a bio laser attached and it had been kept on ice.  You were able to blackmail a medical student to implant it.  Things are going pretty well…


Aspects
Super Soldier: Super Lipid Battery
Normal Human: Genetics PHD Student
Conviction: Science is Girl Power!
Aspect:  What could go wrong? (tempts fate?)
Aspect: Chronic over achiever.
Aspect: Could be a part time model… (but should really keep her day job).
Complication [Minor]: “THE HUNGER” only really goes away while I am eating.
Complication [Minor]: I can fire the laser or you know… spontaneously combust

Skills:
Great (+4): Science
Good (+3): Resolve
Fair (+2): Caloric Laser (S)
Average (+1): Academics, Athletics, Presence, Technology

Base Refresh  = 4

Unique and Strange Skills:
Caloric Laser
Power Tier: Superhuman (-2 Refresh)
Shoot + Range X2 + Spray + Unusual: Laser Cutting Beam
Treatment [Physical] + Unusual: Automatic Regeneration
Snag [minor]: Treatment [Physical] is self only
Complication [Minor]: “THE HUNGER” only really goes away while I am eating.
Complication [Minor]: I can fire the laser or you know… spontaneously combust
Cost: 7 skill points (4 trappings, 0 connections, 5 extras, -2 drawback)
Description: You have a laser surgically implanted in your palm that is fueled with your body fat.  Luckily you have Super Lipids that allow you to store billions of calories without gaining any weight!  Sadly the lipids need to be “milked” for energy every once in a while or you will spontaneously combust, and they require a constant stream of nutrients, so you feel like you are starving…. All the time! 
   You have also picked up a healing factor.

[clockworkjoe]

I like it! Good character and very much in the spirit of what I was intending with Base Raiders.

[Claive]

I am glad that you like it. :-D

After listening to your talk on the 8 kinds of fun, I am half tempted to try and make a character that specifically appeals to each of the different kind of fun... but you know... time....

[Claive]

Alias: The Monster
Name: Unknown
Medium powered villain

Your father was a powerful magician who didn’t want you growing up to become competition.   He couldn’t bring himself to kill you so he burned the magical energies out of you.  It was a vital part of you and this drove you irrevocably insane.  With Ragnarok your father vanished and you were left to rot in an asylum. 

A new orderly touched you and they weren’t right, being around them made you feel like you were being burned alive from the inside out.  Your latent magical genius fueled by your pain and the soul burn allowed you to find a way to make the pain stop.  The orderly burst into flames. 

You escaped in the chaos of the resulting fire.

Aspects
Super Soldier: The fire that burns magic clean.
Background: One of the crazies
Conviction: Why won't the pain stop?!
Conviction: Magic must be stamped out!
Aspect: Remember to stop and smell the roses even when they are burning.
Aspect: Brilliantly defies convention
Aspect: If I didn’t love you, you wouldn’t be a suitable sacrifice
Complication [Minor]: The underground has put a bounty on my head.

Skills:
Great (+4): Magic Resistance (S)
Good (+3): Empathy
Fair (+2): Burn Magic (A)
Average (+1): Bureaucracy, Science

Base Refresh (   Minus Power tier (6)Minus Gifts: = Adjusted Refresh
= 2

Unique and Strange Skills:
Burn Magic
Power Tier: Ascendant (-4 Refresh)
Strike + Unusual (incendiary) + Zone (1-0-3)
Snag [Minor]: Only works on magical energies or magic users
Complication [Minor]: The underground has put a bounty on my head.
Cost: 2 skill point (1 trappings, 0 connections, 3 extras, -2 drawback)
Description: You can transmute any magical energy around you into a self-destructive force.  Anything magical around you bursts into flames.  The stronger the magic the hotter it burns.  The underground has taken steps to stop you.

Magic Resistance
Power Tier: Superhuman (-2 Refresh)
Resist Damage, Notice + Unusual: (Sense Magical Auras) (3-4-1)
Esteem, Willpower, Menace (3-5-0)
Snag [Minor]: Only works to resist the effects of magical energies or to intimidate magical entities
Snag {Minor]: You don’t get to pick and choose what spells or kinds of magic you resist.
Conviction: Magic must be stamped out!
Cost: 12 skill points (6 trappings, 9 connections, 1 extras, -4 drawback)
Description: You are anathema to magic and magical energies.  You MUST attempt resist any kind of magic that would effect you with this power.  Magic around you causes you pain.  You can feel where it is and the constant pain that it causes you has made you hate it with every fiber of your being.

Gifts

[Teapot]

I've gotten the Base Raiders bite again lately and I've been trying to cook up another introductory scenario in the spirit of "Transit" and my previous "Black Friday" game, and I was curious what sort of intro Base Raider games people have come up with?

I hate to criticize but, I've never liked Transit, because it's about people blundering into powers and not about people seeking them out. I know there's a lot of ways to play Base Raiders but to me it's always about people who chose to get powers.

That aside, here's the blurb for the opening game I ran at DunDraCon:

Origin Story:
It's been a year since the super heroes and super villains disappeared. But they left behind a lot of cool loot, and it's worth all the money - If you're desperate, driven, crazy or cocky enough. Which is how one hot morning five strangers get into a van down by the river as normal humans and leave as base raiders - super powered mercenaries. But powers aren’t free, to pay off their upgrade they'll need to do the hard part of clearing and looting the base of  the super villain Destructina.

I used pre-gens, and the set-up was some dude was offering powers (the ones he got really cheap) to chumps, the chumps clear the base and he takes the loot. The base is pretty simple with the option to betray the dude hiring them.

I used pre-gen powers as well, but those could be re-written to be more inline with what a player wants. PM me and I can email you the write up if you want a look.

[clockworkjoe]

For the campaign I'm running, I had the initial framing device set up like this:

All the PCs were normal humans with one common link between all of them. They were then presented with a crisis that would personally affect them all. A NPC told them where they could go to get one specific superpower that would resolve the crisis. However that location had other super power sources. The PCs decided to take them all.

[D6xD6 - Chris]

I'm thinking of using Transit to demo the game, but using only gear items and boost patches.  This way, the players can play a little bit with powers using the patches and gear to get a sense of what is possible in the game.  I also think this would work to begin a campaign, as the temporary powers wear off, but the players know there are better, permanent powers to be had (or sold!).  Thoughts?

[jfan999]

I'm trying to build some powers for my base raiders game and am having trouble finding the right trappings for a couple of them.

The first one is a power that covers the users body with electricity so if they are attacked the attacker gets shocked.

The second one is a flash-bang that blinds people, maybe represented by giving them the aspect blinded.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Claive]

The electrical power could be

Brawl + Unusual: Reactive + Unusual: Electrifying

The flash bang could be

Stealth + Range + Zone +Unusual: Blinding

I once made a smoke bomb power that was

Stealth + Unusual: Opaque Smoke + Zone

[clockworkjoe]

Electricity power

Strike + Unusual (electric stun) + Unusual (no action to use if struck by melee attack)

Snag [minor]: Cannot initiate attacks

or

Snag [minor]: No damage - success on attack rolls inflict aspect maneuver (stunned) but no stress

Flashbang

Shoot + Zone or Spray + Unusual (blinds enemies)

Snag [minor]: No damage - success on attack rolls inflict aspect maneuver (blinded) but no stress