Unknown Lifeform Tactics and Reconnaisance Agency [BESM 3e]

[AndyZ]

The year is 20X7.  A great deal of wondrous technological advances have come to light, including but not limited to genetic splicing, hoverboards, mechanical enhancements of body parts (cyberlimbs), and computational technology.  Some level of modification is as common as piercing and tattoos are today, although extreme amounts like demon-style horns or angel wings are notably memorable.

Various psionic talents have begun to emerge as the mind is sufficiently understood to unlock the latent abilities claimed to be held for years by various mystics throughout the ages.  Some such abilities aren't even fully understood yet.

As such, various government agencies have created task forces in order to study and handle such threats.  Tokyo, being on a major fault line, has had any number of sudden incursions when the earthquakes come.  Japan has the Unknown Lifeform Tactics and Reconnaisance Agency, known as ULTRA for short.

Its members rarely have any official standing in law enforcement or bureaucracy beyond that which they've received from transfers.  Some of the beings from other dimensions, trapped on this side, have been offered positions and security in exchange for their silence.  Although word has begun to leak of the true nature of the fault line, the primary concern is keeping the country from falling into panic.



This is a Big Eyes Small Mouth 3rd edition game that I'm considering running.  Characters will have 350BP and the Mythic Benchmarks listed on page 9 (other than Percentage of Points.  Allocate points however you want.)

Practically every human currently on the planet is Chipped.  A tiny datachip implanted inside the back of the neck allows for wireless access with all the functions of a supercomputer controlled by the mind, as well as virtual reality.  Not being chipped is a 3 point defect, but be careful before taking it, since you'll have a much harder time communicating with your team.

ULTRA does not by itself provide Organizational Ties, but you can take it if you either have people in a particular area or if you've gotten a fake license that checks out.

For those who look distinctly inhuman, a holographic emitter may be suggested.  It's an Item version of a one-dot Alternate Identity, roughly the size of a CD player, and costs only one point.  Remember that having Alternate Identity affects defects.

I'm not a big fan of Defects, but since I know that people take them, just be warned that I tend to use them against people.  That said, I have absolutely no issue with people taking "freebie" flaws where they show symptoms of a flaw but can overcome it when absolutely necessary.  The only Ism that's apt to come up is due to being inhuman, and I wouldn't take more than -2 for that.

Not sure how I'm going to do skills yet.  Suggestions are welcome.  (I don't really get the difference between "hard" and "soft" science fiction.)  I'm toying with the idea of saying that you either take zero ranks or three, and anyone who takes three is just THAT good, so that only combat will be bogged down by too much rolling, but dunno if that's worth doing.

I handle initiative by letting all the players go, and then the NPCs go, and then all the players go again.  Trying to hold people to a tight initiative score slows things down and isn't worthwhile to gameplay.

Not 100% I want to run this but let's see what interest is like.

[Muse]

*jumps and waves* 

Me!  Me!  Pick me!  :)

[zenpai]

I would love to try this but have no clue about the details

[Pumpkin Seeds]

:: perks up::

[AndyZ]

I would love to try this but have no clue about the details

It's a system called Big Eyes Small Mouth, Third Edition.  Basically an anime system.  Here's a link to where you can legally pick up the PDF.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/24482/Big-Eyes-Small-Mouth-3rd-Edition?term=Big+Eyes+Small+Mouth&it=1

[MasterMischief]

How frequent will you like posts?  I do not think I could post more than once a week.

[AndyZ]

I personally tend to post every day, but we can have faster and slower people in the group if desired.  Failing that, we can just keep things going very slowly, though my concern with that is that I start to forget the fine details of a game I'm running.  May just be that I need to learn to keep better notes in that instance.

[MasterMischief]

I have dropped one group game before because I felt I was holding the rest of the group back.  So I am really hesitant to jump into another one.

I will wait and see if others who are interested have thoughts on posting frequency.

[AndyZ]

I've had a game where one person only posted every maybe month or so, while others were posting every day.  The person only posting once a month was pretty fine with that, from my understanding; he just read up and did a great job of staying pertinent when the situation arose.

The only difficult issue is combat.  Someone who will be knowingly slower than the rest of the group may be well better off taking a role where they don't perform an action every round, or who has a pretty predefined set of actions which can be repeated without issue.

I, personally, have exceptionally little issue with someone who knows he's slow and specifically works that to the rest of the group.  However, others are more than welcome to speak up, either for or against.

[Mysterica]

You can absolutely count me in on this game, but I don't quite have time to make any plans for the game just yet as I am about to be heading off to class for a few hours.

[Pumpkin Seeds]

We can be slow together Llama!

[MasterMischief]

We can be slow together Llama!

Just the way we like it !

[AndyZ]

I may need to clarify that I don't need any specific sheet syntax designed for characters.  Just so long as it's at least reasonably legible.

[Mysterica]

Oh, we are already talking about sheets?  Wow...  Guess I have some work to do tomorrow morning after I sober up a bit.

[AndyZ]

Sorry for not being clear enough.

I'll be leaving for family vaca on Tuesday but I'll be taking my laptop with me.  It may or may not slow me down beyond a daily limit.

I'd like people to go easy on companions, though.  Ideally not taking them at all but I can try to deal if they're really necessary to a concept.  Can't remember if I put that in, but Companions didn't balance very well in my experience.

Also: is Bondage Exotic good or do people want it higher or lower?

[Mysterica]

Fair enough.  Are you looking for characters already involved with ULTRA necessarily, or are people with shall we say "special talents" always being newly recruited?

[AndyZ]

It'd be easier to start out already being involved with ULTRA.  If you're native to Earth and human, it can be as simple as having someone show up and offer you to join the club, or having a group appear if you're abusing your abilities but show some potential for being reformed.

If you're not native to Earth, or native to Earth but not human, ULTRA offers you a chance to have an easier time pretending to be human via an identity and currency.

I was thinking the Hellboy movies when I came up with this, but MIB and quite a few others follow similar veins.

I'm certainly not above writing someone in by having them get discovered later, either now or further into the game after most people have already started.  I'd imagine, though, that it probably wouldn't be as interesting a start as having a mission begin and saying that people vaguely know each other.

For the record, those who aren't native but can hide themselves sufficiently and don't want to join ULTRA can be assigned an identity anyway.  It just means that they're being watched to make sure that they don't break any laws.

EDIT: In case it needs said, I'd much rather characters be willing to join ULTRA if they don't want to start already joined.  Needing a little persuasion is fine, but I don't want to deal with a bunch of people each heading off to to their own thing.

[Pumpkin Seeds]

Kinda getting a "secret agenty" type character vibe for me on this one.  Maybe play a handler type of sorts?  Perhaps with some telepathic abilities if the points allow.

[AndyZ]

Not sure what you mean by handler, but 350 should be more than sufficient.

[Pumpkin Seeds]

Well you mentioned Hellboy..so think of the poor woman that has to chase after Hellboy as he smashes things and has to try and cover it up.

[AndyZ]

Ah, okay.  A cleaner, right?  I should be able to work in some stuff for that.

[Mysterica]

Sounds like something fun.  I may wind up vaguely recreating my first ever character for the system and just tailoring her to this game as I never really got to play her.  In case I do so, just so you and everyone knows she would be a pop idol, and in this case taking up missions in between gigs, be they public appearances to bolster her popularity, and shows.

[AndyZ]

Sorry, thought I responded to this.

Sounds like something fun.  I may wind up vaguely recreating my first ever character for the system and just tailoring her to this game as I never really got to play her.  In case I do so, just so you and everyone knows she would be a pop idol, and in this case taking up missions in between gigs, be they public appearances to bolster her popularity, and shows.

An idol can certainly work great except that the celebrity status might garner attention everywhere she goes.  She might want a holographic emitter as well in order to be able to hide her status (though that's not the only way to get Alternate Identity and she might not want one.  Might become more work for Pumpkin Seeds' character.  Either way.)

There's always the possibility also that she's not fully human, that she found something that gave her the performance talents, or any number of other ways she might be inherently involved.

I try to leave the basic story pretty open so people have a much easier time finding ways to make sure that their character ideas fit.

[MasterMischief]

I am playing with the idea of proposing a brute.  A foul tempered, foul-mouthed Hyde-type sans any Dr. Jeckyll.  I am thinking he was genetically engineered combining certain traits of animals.  So strength, agility, heightened senses.  And by foul-mouthed, I do not mean he just uses bad language, he has no filter and says whatever pops into his twisted mind.  And did I mention he is a horny bastard that would fuck anything if it stands still for too long?

[AndyZ]

That can work.  Any number of genetic splicing might have happened, and most likely he wasn't the intended result but they haven't figured out how to help him.

Our poor handler is going to have a lot to deal with, it seems.