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Author Topic: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.  (Read 4725 times)

Cthulhu

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #15 on: March 19, 2017, 06:30:41 pm »

There's an interesting one.   Not to say you should change it, it works fine, but technically due to the conflux you could actually be the real Julius Caesar, pulled in from another timeline.  There are quite a few historical and future figures floating around.  A clone is fine too.

Now for some worldbuilding, and a few more questions you can add to your starting concepts:



Metahumans and the Law

American government is still recovering from the Conflux.  Most of the original Capitol was destroyed and a large number of important personnel killed.  The former President, Richard McDonald, gained tremendous power in the Conflux; once things had settled down he resigned, claiming superhuman rulers would lead to tyranny, and became Paragon, the leader of the Guardians.

The current government is based in Nexus, the new capital of the united states, and in the few years of relative peace a number of laws have been passed to try to control and categorize the metahuman situation.
  • Metahuman: (1) Any autonomous entity with capabilities beyond those of normal humans, as determined by the Metahuman Relations Council, and/or (2) any autonomous entity of extraterrestrial or extradimensional origins, as determined by the Metahuman Relations Council.
  • Babyface: A metahuman who can pass as mundane, used pejoratively by those who can't pass.
  • Freak: A metahuman who can't pass, obviously extraterrestrial or too heavily mutated to look human.  Originally a slur, now co-opted by freaks as a badge of honor.
All metahumans are required to register with the MHRC.  Unregistered metahumans are subject to fines and court-ordered registration but it's easy for a "babyface" to just not show his power level in public and avoid having to register.  A grassroots movement called the Freak Coalition is pushing for more aggressive pursuit of unregistered metahumans, claiming the current situation discriminates against obvious metahumans.  Aggravated metahumanity, using powers to commit crimes, is a felony on top of the basic charges, and carries serious penalties if you're unregistered.
 
It's not all surveillance and dystopia though.  Registered metahumans can apply to join the Guardians and are legally permitted to engage in independent vigilantism, with limited liability for damage caused while fighting crime (this could change in a heartbeat if a metahuman fucks something up very badly).  The Guardians also have posse comitatus rights and can temporarily recruit metahumans in emergency situations.  While you're legally obligated to comply there's currently no penalty for saying no, thanks to complaints by mundane aliens worried they'll be forced to fight superhumans with no powers.  Unregistered metahumans have a grace period to register without penalty if they're outed like this.

Registration is a matter of filing an appointment with the MHRC and demonstrating your capabilities to judges, who will decide if they constitute metahumanity.  Registration means getting an ID card and number and having your identity and powers listed on a government computer. 

Metahumanity is still flimsy and ill-defined.  Anyone can try to register and it's 100% the judge's call on whether or not you're metahuman.  Paragon can fly faster than sound and punch through ten inches of steel.  Ironsides, another founding member, is an engineering grad student who woke up on December 22 with the plans for an armored battlesuit engraved in his mind, then built said battlesuit and used it to fight.  He has no powers on his own but he could attack a mugger with a baseball bat in his boxers and it would be considered legal metahuman vigilantism under the current laws.

There's an app for that!  Last year the Guardians released Justice, an app for metahuman crimefighting.  The Guardians' supercomputer crawls social media, 911 calls, and police radio, and populates a map of the city with current threats.  Registered metahumans can log into the app and track crimes across the city to better facilitate crimefighting.



At the moment this all works fine, with a few kinks, but the system hasn't really been put to the test.  The chaos of the Conflux is over and the bad guys haven't really gotten it together yet.  There are no metahuman criminal organizations on record, no giant public disasters by vigilantes, no global threats to contend with.  It's hard to say how things will hold up under pressure.

Given all that shit, I have a few more questions you can add to your profile to better flesh out your character and give me an idea of their place in the world:

1.  Are you registered?  Why/Why not?
2.  Are you in the Guardians, or have you applied? Why?

This third question is more to get an idea of your character as a "superhero."  We're getting more unconventional picks than I expected, which is fine, but I'd like to get a better idea of what you want to do with your character.

3.  Robot attack!  A secret coalition of mad engineers have built micro-fabricators around the city which are currently pumping out killbots to terrorize the citizens of Nexus.  How does your character help?  Try to be as specific as you can, tell me how your character uses their unique powers to contribute.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2017, 06:34:02 pm by Cthulhu »
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~Neri

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #16 on: March 19, 2017, 07:01:24 pm »

1: Unlikely unless someone went out of their way to get them registered. A cat isn't gonna go out of its way to file paperwork.
2: Probably not barring someone going out of their way to recruit him. Give a cat food and it'll follow you around and demand more.
3: Ki would likely observe. It would defend itself as needed however it wouldn't have any particular motivation to retaliate unless the bots accosted one of his food and attention sources. If he did theoretically retaliate, one could expect a corrosive blob of material with the mind of a cat burrowing into the offending killbot. He probably would have difficulty parsing the fact that the bots are coming from somewhere and would not likely seek out the fabricator.
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somemildmanneredidiot

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #17 on: March 19, 2017, 08:33:07 pm »

Will edit it into my app but below are my answers. I'm aware of devices though I think I'll start with some moderate tech based debuff devices and the like. What edition are we running anyway? And is "Limited to Technology Based Devices for Power Sources" a valid mechanical flaw?

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"As to why you'd want to [throw your sword in combat] at all? The answer is pretty simple: There's someone you want to stab, but they're all the way over there, and walking is for peasants." - Starke of How To Fight Write

Cthulhu

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #18 on: March 19, 2017, 08:51:28 pm »

3e.  I'll think about that one.
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RazielReaver

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #19 on: March 19, 2017, 08:53:12 pm »

1. Caesar has registered himself for the purpose of going public, but only listing precognition as his ability, reading minds would be useful in spotting betrayers and looking into the motives of others. Furthermore, he would be distrusted if revealing his other power.
2. With the goal of becoming a public figure, he has joined the Guardians, with the scope of  using the organization's leverage to make things right, as he believes.
3. Caesar would go into the streets, and crush the robots, hoping that he'd be able to salvage some bits that would point toward the likely suspects. He would also look into who would have the necessary resources to accomplish such a feat as raising an army of killbots. He would then proceed by contacting the military and requesting a bombing strike on their lair, if possible. Otherwise he will proceed with his team inside and attempt to crush the threat with their own abilities.
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Cthulhu

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #20 on: March 20, 2017, 01:49:35 am »

Will edit it into my app but below are my answers. I'm aware of devices though I think I'll start with some moderate tech based debuff devices and the like. What edition are we running anyway? And is "Limited to Technology Based Devices for Power Sources" a valid mechanical flaw?


Alright, you've convinced me.  I wasn't entirely on-board with a person only pretending to have powers but that sounds good and the character lines up pretty perfectly with what I had planned early on.

So this limitation, are you running that as a character complication or will you be implementing it as some kind of points-lowering modifier?

Complication is fine, I can see it working pretty well.  If she's literally a magic null than she might have some limited potential to disrupt nearby magical effects.  That would work fine as a complication.

Which reminds me, actually.  Being a game based on the D20 open license, all the info you need to create a character is available online.  If you'd like to take a crack at making your guy feel free, it would help us out a lot in the first session if you've got something at least partly put together and you have a good idea of how the powers and such work.  IT looks like at least one of you already knows the rules which is nice.
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The Ensorceler

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #21 on: March 20, 2017, 04:46:32 am »

I'm interested, If you're still taking people. It took me a while to come up with an idea I liked, but I do have one now. I'll have the 3x3 done tomorrow.
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Cthulhu

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #22 on: March 20, 2017, 04:57:33 am »

I'll probably take five people. I  have one friend from outside B12 that wants to play, and possibly 2, so I'll take three or four people from bay12.
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somemildmanneredidiot

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #23 on: March 20, 2017, 08:16:51 am »

Quote
Alright, you've convinced me.  I wasn't entirely on-board with a person only pretending to have powers but that sounds good and the character lines up pretty perfectly with what I had planned early on.

Fair, it's definitely not the most conventional of heros. If you have any other concerns feel free to let me know and I'll do my best to address them.

Quote
So this limitation, are you running that as a character complication or will you be implementing it as some kind of points-lowering modifier?

Little column A, little column B, depends on how you want to run the latter. I considered grabbing "Immunity to Magic/Arcane" as a sort of 'I can't do it, it can't hurt me', but that'll depends on how the points shake out.

Quote
she

As an aside, I haven't determined what gender Barb is and have settled on a stance of "The Supernatural Forces of the World care not for your Mortal Gender Binary." Thankfully singular they operates well here.

I'll have a mockup sheet linked/pasted soon.
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"As to why you'd want to [throw your sword in combat] at all? The answer is pretty simple: There's someone you want to stab, but they're all the way over there, and walking is for peasants." - Starke of How To Fight Write

TheBiggerFish

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #24 on: March 20, 2017, 03:40:45 pm »

Apparently nevermind because apparently the Vehicle rules are somehow 'too complicated'.
« Last Edit: March 24, 2017, 11:27:51 pm by TheBiggerFish »
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The Ensorceler

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #25 on: March 20, 2017, 05:14:10 pm »

Spoiler: Gabriel Caine (click to show/hide)

Extra questions:
1. Yes, Gabriel is registered. He's too flashy to stay out of the public eye, and can't risk making enemies out of the government.
2. No, but he is considering it. If they ever approach him he'll probably agree to join. He uses the app, though.
3. He's not part of a team, so he'd probably take to the streets and try to destroy killbots. I don't think he's got much logistics/intel punch on his own to track anything down.

I'm going for a heavily device focused character, with the devices being powered by demons bound into them through alchemical processes. How many points do we get to build characters with, since that isn't really determined by power level?
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TheBiggerFish

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #26 on: March 20, 2017, 05:17:52 pm »

It is, we get 180 to start with.
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Cthulhu

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #27 on: March 20, 2017, 05:54:27 pm »

Oh, that reminds me, I fucked up.  power level is 10, not 12.

150 points.
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TheBiggerFish

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #28 on: March 20, 2017, 05:56:07 pm »

....argh?

Ah well.
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Cthulhu

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Re: Mutants and Masterminds via IRC/TTS - Interest Check, discussion, etc.
« Reply #29 on: March 20, 2017, 05:57:19 pm »

I have an idea of what I want my character to be, but I'm not sure how to accomplish that mechanically or necessarily even fluffwise.  Actually, I take that back, I have an idea of how to accomplish it fluffwise.

I'm working on it, in other words.

I just have no idea of the scale, statswise, of stuff we're going to be working with, is the problem.

Well, I can at least try and mock up a sheet...

Spoiler: Statblock. (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Fluff (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Bonus Questions (click to show/hide)

*resumes flailing at sourcebooks*

Standing questions:
Hammerspace, how do?

You don't have the fluff listed so I dunno?

If you're pulling stuff out of nowhere Create and Summon would make the most sense, depending on what all yyou're pulling out.  If you're doing more complex devices then Variable would probably make the most sense, though I'm new at DMing M&M so I may put a moratorium on variable and those kinds of open-ended powers.
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