Eden City: Superhero/Villain Game

[Bishrook aka Fate sisters]

Oh yeah. I am willing to play on eiiter side or both. Genders aimed at acheived game balance. I would prefer obviously not to fight myself.
We might try the 'troup'methoud of players sharing the running of minor characters instead of the poor GM having ru  everything for bartenders to cab drivers.

[Darwishi]

Guardian:  All he'd have to be powered down to is the 15 to 1 ratio. (That being 15 humans able to take down 1 super).

Bishrook: Aliens are allowed, but only to a certain extent.  I'd rather not see a thing with four hundred tentacles slithering around.  For some reason that just strikes me as non-creative in a sexual game. ^^  Anyway, I don't see anything wrong with vampires since they fall into the 15 to 1 ratio.  To me the simple dice system works, not sure what Anubis thinks on that...  Anyway, that will work so long as people actually take damage and all.  That'll also keep the free form aspect high.  The only comment I have is to give them a 1d100 die.  Maybe the further the two numbers are apart the more damage one takes?  I dunno that might not work in some situations...  Anyway suggestions are welcome.

Also, just as a reminder everyone should be willing to have their character both win and lose a fight.  Then you can discuss OOCly what the terms of the defeat will mean. 

[Amberghylles]

Freeform and combat just don't work together.  Period.

Ideally, any fight in a freefrm game should basically be worked out in advance by the writers based on the characters involved and what it does for the plot for one of them to win.  But that doesn't happen every time, and if anything can cause trouble and hard feelings in a freeform game, it's a fight scene.

Now, a fairly simple system would be ok, just as long as there's some impartial force to say who wins and who doesn't.  Even something as simple as strength ratings (maybe given as a number of dice if you want a nice random factor) could work. 

[Darwishi]

You've obviously never done a fight scene with me before...oh wait...yeah you have. =OP  Anyway, I do want a system of some sort so that one person can't get too attached to their character and say hey I don't want that to happen...so it doesn't! Ha! 

Ahem, anyway, I also want to avoid autohits, and god moding and all that jazz so systems pretty much take that out of it.  I don't agree with planning out a fight before hand and seeing who wins, mostly because there are no surprises in that, nothing can happen in the middle of the fight to turn the tables...  You get the point, I just don't like planning out a scene too much before it happens.  Now if someone said, okay my character is on this rooftop if someone wants to happen to have their character nearby...that's about as far as I'm willing to go on the whole planning thing.

Anyway, ultimately it's up to Lord Anubis, since he knows how systems work way more than me.  I know all of one system...and that's only half knowing it. ^^  And it was made up by someone on Shards, so most people on other sites don't know of it.

[LordAnubis]

Well, as far as the system goes, I never like a single dice roll. and taking just the results because then it is just as easy for a pencil necked geek to bash superman into submission as it is for superman to bash him.  Too much revolving around luck.  I agree with combat not working with freeform, someone has to plan to lose otherwise it goes on for ever.

I think it'd be best to make a cropped down sheet like I mentioned.  Just cover the combat abilities and the ability to resist attacks or mental attacks.  That way even a strong willed character could fail in resisting a mental attack.   scale from 1-10 in stats, roll a d20 and add the stat that is your results, you can post the results with your attempted action.  They can make a roll, see if you succeed post their roll and what happens.  It isn't ideal since it'd slow things down some, but I think everyone can handle 1d20+ number by your states.  It doesn't cover what degree of sucess, but we're hoping for an easy system.

[Natalie C. Barney]

May I suggest a d20 then and use the amount lost by to determine how badly, if its close they could get away if really bad like one rolls 20 and the other a 1 it was a major loss and likely capture. To keep this interesting we could use powers and if they are attacking if a specialty add a bonus to the roll, same for defenses. I have a suggestion assign skill points for a bonus of +1 to +4 distributing a pool of points. [Example 30 to Start] for powers and skills keeping skills broader like THIEF, MARTIAL ARTS, DRIVE GROUND VEHICLE. Powers would be used under them for attack rolls etc. Without a HIT SYSTEM this would be just one roll and the winner gets to pace the thing accordingly (GM should ok the results). POWERS should be more focused and have a weakeness like the HUMAN TORCH would need to by FIRE GENERATION, FIRE CONTROL, FIRE ARMOR and FLIGHT in this system and likely have as a weakness COLD and WATER taking away his bonuses. The BATMAN would have skills and powers would be Gadgets and Devices if special like the BATMOBILE. [Batarang most likely a took under martial arts or some combat skill- big things should need a power.] Flexible yet simple with a way to use xp.

XP would simple be skill points and could use them to add new things to the character or raise existing things, perhaps the current bonus in XP to go up one. So a +4 skill to go to +5 would cost 4 XP. Then the base d20 would represent the general aptitude of the hero I would take it above a normal human somewhat. I would set a maximum bonus of +8 to be fair and taht would take a-lot of time to get that good in even one area.

OPTIONAL: If you want some sort of hit system could make it 2d4+4 and add 1d4 HITS per 2 XP Point spent as they advance as characters. Each time they lose a fight challenge drop it 1 HIT and if a loss is greater than a 5 difference on the roll add 1 HIT per 5 difference. Like a 20 vs. 1 thats a 15 difference so 4 HITS lost. But this would add a layer of complexity and take more time to use just an idea the free-form system should work as is.

[LordAnubis]

Something I put together in a minute.

Any input?  I figured this would allow you to still make up all your own powers and rate them. and can just say what they roll to resist the power.  Doesn't cover how well you succeed or fail, but for that we'll need a much more complex sheet.

all dice will be a 1d20
Easy combat sheet
(heroes get between 50-70 points, no more then two stats at 10)
3 is “human” level
10 is “I don’t want to be on the receiving end” level

Strength (lift something heavy, try to break free from someone’s grasp, crush something)
Defense (your parrying or evading attaks)

Fortitude (ability to remain conscious or resist posions)
Reflex (Getting the hell out of the way, or landing on your feet/getting back to them fast)
Will (ability to resist psychological attacks)

Combat (list style)

Power (list with effects)


And this system is meant for no xp.  if we're going to have xp and being able to grow in power, you shoudl start with less points and go with her idea.

[Natalie C. Barney]

Something I put together in a minute.

Any input?  I figured this would allow you to still make up all your own powers and rate them. and can just say what they roll to resist the power.  Doesn't cover how well you succeed or fail, but for that we'll need a much more complex sheet.

all dice will be a 1d20
Easy combat sheet
(heroes get between 50-70 points, no more then two stats at 10)
3 is “human” level
10 is “I don’t want to be on the receiving end” level

Strength (lift something heavy, try to break free from someone’s grasp, crush something)
Defense (your parrying or evading attaks)

Fortitude (ability to remain conscious or resist posions)
Reflex (Getting the hell out of the way, or landing on your feet/getting back to them fast)
Will (ability to resist psychological attacks)

Combat (list style)

Power (list with effects)


And this system is meant for no xp.  if we're going to have xp and being able to grow in power, you shoudl start with less points and go with her idea.

Fine ideas we are getting somewhere this could work but I would say add some sort of Hit Point system might offer this: Fortitude. Each successful attack roll a simple 1d6 for damage when it hits 0 they get KO'd maybe worst but death should be rarer.

[LordAnubis]

I like the idea.  Roll a d6 that number is the amount of "damage" you've taken.  When it finally exceeds your fortidue score, you have to make rolls to remain concious each time you're hit.  damage stays until you can go home and rest, get magically healed or if you have regeneration we'll work something out.

[LordAnubis]

And if two people agree ahead of time that someone just has to lose the fight. they can do that.    This will just let titan's colide and no one has to eat crow and surrender their character and lose.  Figure it's always your option to just take the hit instead of rolling your defense.

[Brandon]

I was going to suggest adapting the d20 modern rules since you can get that SRD free but that works too. Although you might want to add a weakness to each hero/villian to make them particularily suseptable to a certain form of attack. Just a thought though.

[Natalie C. Barney]

Well that should depend on the hero a pure martial artist sort like the Batman really doesn't have any. Most powers should have some limits and if you add a weakness perhaps allow extra character points for them. Might I suggest for each non-power related weakness like Superman being hurt by Kryptonite add 10 extra points allowing one or two. Remember GM's love using weaknesses so it should be optional. Just my take.

[Brandon]

Personally I dont think a hero isnt really a hero without some type of weakness. Like in BMs case sure hes a power house versus physical manifestations and challenges but hes just as suseptable to psychic manipulation or other dangers to the mind as any normal human.

[Natalie C. Barney]

Personally I dont think a hero isnt really a hero without some type of weakness. Like in BMs case sure hes a power house versus physical manifestations and challenges but hes just as suseptable to psychic manipulation or other dangers to the mind as any normal human.

Hardly he has a very strong will and is not exactly a power house but he is well trained with gadgets, I don't see any major weakmess except he's not super powered.

[Brandon]

bleh, that should have read "I dont think a hero is really a hero without a weakness"

It depends on which batman your talking about. Yeah if you got Bruce wayne away froma ll those gadgets he can still handle himself pretty well but hes still not as powerful. If it were the new batman (Terry something) then he wouldnt stand a chance. The difference is Bruce is a mix of Natural abilities and technology while Terry is totally technology because he really cant do anything without that suit.

Weaknesses dont mean they make the hero totally suseptable to attack (like superman and Kryptonite) it just means theyre severly diminished in their capabilities.

[LordAnubis]

I agree, but before we start handing out bonuses for weaknesses, Do we want an xp system so they can grow, or do we want to make simplified characters and have fixed points.

should probably include gadgets in the "powers" section.  Since aside from martial arts, that's what batman uses.

[LordAnubis]

And I should also say, this cropped down character sheet is meant solely fore combat and when you're trying to put your skills against someone else.  I know Darwishi, there will be a whole other character sheet for the freeform purposes.

[Brandon]

I think any progression should be purely roleplaying based and handled by Darwishi because again we dont want this game to be just about grabbing more xp and essentially power. This way if our characters improve in some way its shown through roleplaying and not a situation where the fighter gains a level and suddenly knows how to trip opponents without training of any kind

That kind of progression in power has always bugged me.

[Darwishi]

Yeah, I think you guys are doing great.  But also, this game is supposed to be about story and development of characters through the roleplay not through systems.  I think experiance points are a little too far on the system game side than on the story telling.  You add those in and some might try to play just for experiance. 

I like the idea of having power points, weakness points, and defense points.  Where you roll a d20 die and add points to your roll depending on the stat in use.  Weakness points would either add to the opponents attack, or weaken the defense of your character.  Actually I guess defense points could go into power points...but whatever.  Like I said I'm not real good on the whole systems side of things.  But just remember K.I.S.S. ^^

Keep It Simple, Stupid.  (It's actually a graphic design thing, but it works for this system part as well.)  The game is based around story not the system, so the system should be as simple as possible while also providing a clear understanding of how one's powers are affecting another character. ^^

[LordAnubis]

A quick shot at the weakness idea.  what do you guys think?

Low weakness - 5 pts- Character's powers don't function properly when this occurs.  Character should be a little disoriented at first or should be slow to use his/her powers around it.  system -3 to all rolls.

Mid weakness -8 pts - Character has a hard time functioning when this occurs. Character should be disoriented for a time well after he is away from it, or his powers shouldn't work afterwards system -9 to all rolls, each use of your powers cause you to take 1 damage.

Major weakness - 15- This is nearly lethal to the character.  Superman any kyrpronite.  System: powers don't work period, all combat actions take a -4 to the rolls and every two posts from the time the weakness comes into play until you can get away from it you take two damage.

[Bishrook aka Fate sisters]

Eyes begin to glass over....head to slump...

[Brandon]

I think its a little confusing at first but certainly workable.

[LordAnubis]

It was just a rough out idea. if I dedicated some time to it I'd come up with something a bit easier to understand.  But it's just meant to say if your weakness is just an adgitation you get something and you get more if the weakness is lethal to you.

[Darwishi]

~watches bishrook glaze over and walks over to give her...a back rub, yeaaaaah...~

[Natalie C. Barney]

Well if you want simple how about the fameous RISIS: ANYTHING RPG RULES they are free, core rules without the extras are 7 pages and they have lots of rule ideas for super heros put out by talented Risus plaers and GM's.

[url][www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm/url]

Are simple and the cliche's system leaves a-lot of flexibility just have fun. Like a character like the Batman would have as a Cliche's set (my interpretation):
Cowled Crimefighter of the Night in the Guise of a Bat [Intimidating in Costume, Utility Belt, Creep Around at Night], Self-Taught Detective Supreme [Investigate Crime Scenes, Deductive Reasoning, Acute Senses] and Expert Martial Artist Crimefighter with Favorite Gadgets and Toys [Martial Arts, Athletic, Use Gadgets & Toys].

And its easy if you use these in a fight both players roll on the most relevant dice pool, roll and if you lose a dice goes from your dice-pool each time. When you have no more dice pools to use you lose the fight. For non-combat the GM sets a difficulty number and you roll on that. Ok its not realistic and makes cliche's pretty broad but each one is roughly a D&D Character Class so if you think of FIGHTER or MAGE you get the idea. A BATMOBILE is just a gadget or toy but he has one.

And I suggest a HOOK and BACKGROUND option for an extra one or two dice plus fleshes the character out better. And the XP system is easy to use and not requiring of much paperwork.