[Interest Check] Marvel Heroic Roleplay: The Authority

Started by The Great Triangle, July 07, 2012, 09:06:26 PM

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The Great Triangle

So I'm interested in seeing if anyone is interested in playing a Marvel Heroic Roleplay game based around the higher end of the system, playing really powerful characters.  The plot of the game will be based on the comic book The Authority, where you play as a group of powerful Superheroes who have decided to effectively take over the world by becoming a justice unto your own.

The game could feature either marvel heroes, characters from the original comic book, DC characters (perhaps members of the Elite), or original characters, though the only limit on power should be that your character should have a very clearly defined weakness (one more interesting and limiting than "glowing green rocks") and that the team can really only support 2-3 classically omnipotent characters.  For those that don't know the comic, the Authority typically includes a heroin addict magician who can literally do anything, and the spirit of the current century, who has at the very least the ability to kill (alien) God in a single blow.  It should be noted, however, that massive, absurd levels of power are not the primary requirement to join the Authority, and a flexible but optimistic moral attitude is generally what qualifies a member of the team. 

As far as erotic content goes, I'm fully prepared to rate the game extreme, depending on character concepts and how dark people want to play it.  The concept can get extremely dark extremely quickly, so it'll mostly be a matter of mutual agreement how to play the game.  In the comic, the authority are very frequently having sex with each other, and also with whatever A-list supermodels and celeberties they invite to their spaceship, since part of the theme of the Authority is one of excess.

To make things clear, the game will be about an alternate version of the Authority, in an alternate world we'll agree on the details of later, but superheroes will be fairly rare in the setting, to make the actions of the group more plausable.  I'd prefer a group of players who can commit to posting once every 48 hours, but as long as people are willing to be a bit flexible about action order, I think we can keep the game going.
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BruceTheCat

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AndyZ

I'm familiar with the system in question, but not about the Authority.  I'm also not big on playing canon characters and would rather try to come up with my own original character.  Would this fit or are you hoping for something more canon?
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Cold Heritage

I'd be interested if the wanton sexuality and ship-wide orgies were toned down.
Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.

Drenlai

I am interested though not 100% familiar with the system, I enjoy super heroes.

The Great Triangle

Quote from: AndyZ on July 07, 2012, 09:26:19 PM
I'm familiar with the system in question, but not about the Authority.  I'm also not big on playing canon characters and would rather try to come up with my own original character.  Would this fit or are you hoping for something more canon?

Original characters would be perfectly fine, as long as you're willing to work on developing a character; the main challenge is coming up with a way to make your character interesting when your concept is something like "King of the Cities" or "Nine pints of liquid technology"   Going by the comic, it's good to focus more on who your character is as a person and what they do (specialties in particular) rather than getting bogged down in the mutinae of various superpowers.


(Considering that the comic once had a character with 1,641 superpowers running around, just to parody the concept!)
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AKunoichi

So it's going to use the marvel system but not take place in Marvel universe, and is going to be inspired by the authority but not be part of it's universe (which is now part of DCU)?

I might be interested by the topic confused me a bit.

The Great Triangle

Yes, inspired by the authority, using the marvel system.  The universe we can decide later, but most likely it will be set in its own universe, with characters randomly slotted in as needed.
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Drenlai

Alright, I am completely in. Will this be extreme or light or how shall it be placed?

AKunoichi

Well I'm interested, but I don't know much about the system.

I think If I could make anything, I'd re-use my idea for starfire from a Teen titans game that never went anywhere. My idea was pretty much Cartoon Starfire except older and a nudist. I liked the idea of a superhero who refuses to accommodate for the taboos of the people she protects. They might complain, but they can't do anything about it because nobody can stop her, and she's doing good things otherwise.

AribethAmkiir

I'm interested this sounds like it could be a lot of fun.  The Marvel system is it the same as the Marvel RPG system or is it something else?

Cold Heritage

The one Triangle is talking about is a relatively new iteration of the Cortex engine put out by Margaret Weisman's company (it's similar to the system used for the Serenity, Supernatural, and Smallville games the company put out). It's different from that old Marvel RPG.
Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.

The Great Triangle

Quote from: Drenlai on July 07, 2012, 10:59:29 PM
Alright, I am completely in. Will this be extreme or light or how shall it be placed?

That will be subject to agreement between the players, depending on what they want from the game; I'll likely but it between bondage and extreme. 


Quote from: AK47 on July 07, 2012, 11:24:46 PM

I think If I could make anything, I'd re-use my idea for starfire from a Teen titans game that never went anywhere. My idea was pretty much Cartoon Starfire except older and a nudist. I liked the idea of a superhero who refuses to accommodate for the taboos of the people she protects. They might complain, but they can't do anything about it because nobody can stop her, and she's doing good things otherwise.

That concept is potentially workable, but I'd prefer that your character's powers be tied somehow to being naked; perhaps by absorbing and converting solar energy.  The most well known nudist superhero is Dr. Manhattan, who simply didn't comprehend this human concept of modesty, but I think it would make more sense if your character had a practical reason to be naked. 

(The Enggineer from the Authority, for example, uses liquid technology secreted from her orifices for her powers, so it could easily be stated that she's more able to use her power efficiently when naked, thanks to better skin contact and not having to work around her clothes.  Of course, she coats herself in a liquid metal suit in the first place, so it's not like she's any sort of exhibitionist.)

Quote from: AribethAmkiir on July 07, 2012, 11:33:28 PM
I'm interested this sounds like it could be a lot of fun.  The Marvel system is it the same as the Marvel RPG system or is it something else?

Yes, the Marvel Heroic Roleplay system from Margret Weis productions that came out recently.  Character creation will have to be eyeballed, but my plan is to try and get 5-6 strong concepts to form the group.  For practicality, the group will likely be split into different teams during gameplay.
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Cold Heritage

Dr. Manhattan understood; he just didn't care anymore.
Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.

AKunoichi

Quote from: The Great Triangle on July 07, 2012, 11:38:01 PM
That concept is potentially workable, but I'd prefer that your character's powers be tied somehow to being naked; perhaps by absorbing and converting solar energy.  The most well known nudist superhero is Dr. Manhattan, who simply didn't comprehend this human concept of modesty, but I think it would make more sense if your character had a practical reason to be naked. 

(The Enggineer from the Authority, for example, uses liquid technology secreted from her orifices for her powers, so it could easily be stated that she's more able to use her power efficiently when naked, thanks to better skin contact and not having to work around her clothes.  Of course, she coats herself in a liquid metal suit in the first place, so it's not like she's any sort of exhibitionist.)

Yes, I was thinking something along the line of absorbing solar energy through her skin. As for how the powers manafest, I might just go with Flight+Strength+Invulnerability+Energy projection and call it a day, but I also had an idea of possibly converting her body into photons to travel at the speed of light temporarily. Probably closer to teliportation than super speed (she can't interact with the world while photogenic)
In either case her powers depend on sunlight to recharge. So her weakness is probably cloudy weather or being underground.

... Am I making a lesbian version of Apollo? ... does that mean somebody should make a girl midnighter?

Cold Heritage

Not really. If one wished to make comparisons, look no further than New 52 Starfire.
Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.

AKunoichi

I read Red Hood and the outlaws when I first made this character, upon the suggestion of somebody who had a similar reaction. And I didn't enjoy it. 52 starfire is really shallow and boring, also not a nudist.

Although I did like the idea of having a crashed alien starship on a tropical island as a super base.

The Great Triangle

The team will use the Carrier as their Super-base, a 50 mile long interdimensional spaceship with a built in transporter system that can go anywhere on Earth.  The mobility and untouchability the vehicle provides them is one of the main reasons the Authority can get away with what they get away with.




As a consequence of having the Carrier, each character also automatically has the following powerset:


Carrier Contact

Teleportation d10   Radiotelepathy d8

limit: Convenient Plot Device; Gain 1PP to shutdown Carrier Contact; take action against the doom pool or spend 1PP to recover.


Heroes who can access additional powers of the Carrier will have more advanced versions of that powerset, usually as a second powerset.  (On many characters, Carrier Contact will be a third power set)
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Cold Heritage

Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.

AKunoichi

Quote from: Cold Heritage on July 08, 2012, 12:14:58 AM
Nu52 Starfire is more nudist than Apollo.

True, but I only drew the compairson because this is an authority game, and Apollo is the resident sun powered hero.

AribethAmkiir

So knowledge of the system is pretty important for the game, correct?  Is it easy to learn and is there free sight to read up on it or do you need to purchase the source material, etc?

AKunoichi

Quote from: AribethAmkiir on July 08, 2012, 12:20:15 AM
So knowledge of the system is pretty important for the game, correct?  Is it easy to learn and is there free sight to read up on it or do you need to purchase the source material, etc?

Yeah, I'm with her. I liked the Authority, and I like my character concept, but I don't know anything about the system.

Cold Heritage

It's not free to distribute like, say, the Dungeons and Dragons 3.whatever SRD is. I've done some googling and couldn't find a "quick play" or sample version you could get legitimately, but there could be something like it out there that I haven't found. If you wanted to go through legal channels, you would need to buy the game.

The game's not especially complicated; something like Exalted is more demanding. I have a hard time with the Cortex rules because, in my opinion, they throw out a lot of unnecessary jargon at you for things that probably don't need it and so I have a difficult time keeping what is what straight in my head. It's basically a roll-over dice-pool system. It doesn't really seem set up for the typical rpg character progression, either - you don't level up and you don't really acquire new abilities in the usual manner.
Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.

The Great Triangle

#23
The main place you can read up on the system is at the discussion forum here;  I'd say playing without having intimate knowledge of the rules is fairly possible, as long as you're willing to follow the game's philosophy of "Say what you want to do, then let the GM figure it out."  (since the game's rules generally translate narritive into mechanics, rather than the other way around)


At its core, the game is a dice pool system, where your dice pool is built from basic components:

Your affiliation die (a die which you always add, based on whether your character is better solo, or in a team)
1-2 distinction dice (dice added based on your character's personality, and the environment at hand, such as if you're fighting atop a skyscraper)
A power die from each power set (dice that represent your superpowers)
A specialty die (dice the represent your character's skills)

You can also get a few more dice from things like your opponent being hurt, setting up assets to help you, and bringing things like a gun to a knife fight, or a computer virus to hack into a security system, but the basics are that everything in the system is rated from d4 to d12, representing the size of dice you roll. 

That should be an introduction, and obviously not enough information to get going on, but I have experience running the system, and the basics are that it is self-balancing, and allows Hawkeye to operate right next to Thor without much trouble.  (which is why there's no character creation restrictions, aside from the judgement of the GM whether certain themes or characters are appropriate.)  In play, the system offers a lot of freedom, as long as the players follow a strong narritive.

Here's the example of play, to see how everything fits together:  http://www.margaretweis.com/images/stories/bonus_content/mhr_exampleofplay.pdf

Captian America's Character Sheet:  http://www.margaretweis.com/images/stories/bonus_content/data_file_captain_america_promo_2.pdf

Random datafile generator, containing advice on creating a character:  http://www.margaretweis.com/images/stories/bonus_content/mhr_randomdatafiles.pdf   (Note: Do not rely on the random generator to create your character, since the character will be too weak for this series.)

Standard list of superpowers:  http://boldpueblo.com/downloads/mhr/MHR-Standard-Power-Traits.pdf

Standard list of special effects and limits: http://boldpueblo.com/downloads/mhr/MHR-Common-SFX-and-Limits.pdf

List of fan-made character sheets: Datafile Index

Game reference cheat-sheet: http://nerdnyc.com/tmp/marvel/Hero-Cheat-Sheet.pdf

Collectively, that should be enough to create a character from, though in Marvel Heroic Roleplay, it's much better to start from a concept and work towards stats, than the other way around.
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AribethAmkiir

Thanks for all the info, Triangle.  I'll start digging through it to see what I can learn.