Author Topic: City of Heroes/Villains (Mutant's & Masterminds 2nd Ed) (Read 6739 times)

ZK · « **on:** April 17, 2008, 09:14:08 PM »

Heya people! I want to do a game in the City of Heroes/Villains universe with the 2nd Ed M&M. This game will also have more adult feel and the "in jokes" used in the game will be used, in other words, it'll still have the three main flavors with an iron age over-sight. Seeing as it seems to still bet the prominent feel.

Meaning, yes, your heroes will be faulty with human problems (or alien ones) to mix with the chaos of Paragon City and Rogue Ilse. Meaning cursing, strife, alcoholism and so on will happen... and yes, I know you're wondering, but yes, there will be sex and plenty of it if your character is seeking it.

For the background and info about the CoX universe, read below.

http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

It'll be basic 10th level PL, book restrictions only apply, meaning make what you want. CoX has virtually all aspects allowable.

If you need help with M&M 2nd Ed, I'll be glad to help with character creation.

Spider · « **Reply #1 on:** April 18, 2008, 11:13:45 AM »

I have interest in playing

Kathadon · « **Reply #2 on:** April 18, 2008, 11:28:07 AM »

I have been looking for a good super-hero game for some time, so I am definetly interested. I used to play CoH so I am familar with the setting.

Only problem is I am not familiar with the Mutant and Mastermind rules. :(

HairyHeretic · « **Reply #3 on:** April 18, 2008, 01:51:22 PM »

Ditto. I've no knowledge of those rules either. Would you want to tryto match up CoH archtypes and powersets?

ZK · « **Reply #4 on:** April 18, 2008, 01:55:54 PM »

Aside from the Kheldian types, the sky is the limit for what -type- you want to play as, so if you need help in creating a character, PM me, if you need knowledge about M&M 2nd Ed, PM me.

HairyHeretic · « **Reply #5 on:** April 20, 2008, 03:45:14 PM »

I'm going to try to recreate my dark/dark defender. You should have an idea of the type of powers I'll be going for.

Stattick · « **Reply #6 on:** April 20, 2008, 08:44:59 PM »

:(

I would really like to play, but I just don't think I have time. It doesn't help that I don't know City of Heroes or M&M either. Still, dispite my general dislike of d20, I've heard a lot of good about M&M, and if I had time, I wouldn't mind learning the system. It might be a bit heavy and crunchy for my general tastes, but it would almost have to be better the Heroes Unlimited (Palladium's), which is the only Super Hero pen & paper RPG that I'm know.

ZK · « **Reply #7 on:** April 21, 2008, 01:05:08 AM »

M&M is rather crunch light in comparison to a lot of d20 games. It uses the "basic" of d20 and turns it more into a d10 type game, just using a d20 instead. Seeing as you tend to roll d20 for everything like True20 is.

Dingo · « **Reply #8 on:** April 21, 2008, 01:20:00 AM »

I am fairly familiar with M&M2 and interested enough to get going, but I am not at all familiar (beyond the name) with CoH.

But if there is still room I wouldn't mind joining.

Jefepato · « **Reply #9 on:** April 21, 2008, 01:24:28 AM »

I wouldn't mind playing a shapeshifty sort...

ZK · « **Reply #10 on:** April 21, 2008, 01:39:27 AM »

Read the wiki on CoX that I posted above to get a feel for the cities.

WyzardWhately · « **Reply #11 on:** April 21, 2008, 05:18:45 PM »

I played CoH for a while back in the day, but not recently. I'm pretty familiar with M&M2. I'd really like to play in your game, if you're not full up yet. Would I be correct in assuming that you want all the PCs to be on the Hero side of things?

ZK · « **Reply #12 on:** April 21, 2008, 05:30:32 PM »

Yes, hero side of things.

WyzardWhately · « **Reply #13 on:** April 21, 2008, 05:46:19 PM »

Well, there goes my plan of holding captive amazonian princesses hostage on the deck of my Mega-Zeppelin.

How do you want to handle the translation from MMORPG to, uhh, more regular RPG? As in, are there actually going to be outright scores of guys in costume walking down every street, with aliens and nazis seriously covering whole districts, and a never-ending parade of human sacrifices in the park? Or does the dial get turned down a little, so that the super-population is only maybe triple-digits? I'm asking this question seriously, btw, because I'm not certain how close you want to stick to what the world looks like if you're actually playing CoH.

I've got a couple superhero character concepts on the back burner, but I'd want a little more info before I pick one and start tailoring it. Or, if you prefer, I can throw three or four in the ring and see what you think would work best.

ZK · « **Reply #14 on:** April 21, 2008, 06:00:20 PM »

The storyline has a huge plethora of both good and bad guys roaming the streets. Remember, there was before until the Rikti Showed up.

But it'll be a mix of both MMO and non. So you'll be able to find something going on everywhere all the time.

Especially more so now that the Rikti are on their second invasion wave.

JadeCore · « **Reply #15 on:** April 21, 2008, 09:15:48 PM »

Hm... I would be interested. It's been a while since I've done anything CoX-related but I'm pretty sure I remember most of the stuff. Likewise for M&M.

WyzardWhately · « **Reply #16 on:** April 21, 2008, 10:18:46 PM »

Okay, ZK, I have a few different concepts I'm willing to throw in the ring. Let me know your thoughts on these, and I'll pick one to stat up.

#1
The Ghost
A more iron-age-ish coming of age type hero. He's on the tail end of high school, and gets powers through some accident of Science!* He has a mild schism in his personality; his super-hero persona is actually a voice in his head, and was active for months (while his normal ID was supposed to be asleep) before he became aware he was going out at night. This is probably the outright darkest character concept I'm likely to toss out, as The Ghost is a much more vigilante, vengeful type of hero. He's most likely to go after gangsters, thugs, and madmen, more of a street level Batman/Punisher/Daredevil vibe. He's a scary-ass boogeyman out to get some payback for the normal people who get pushed around.
Powers: Enhanced speed and agility, Insubstantiality, Regeneration. Also carries some normal weapons and low-level devices, such as guns, night-vision goggles, and maybe the occasional portable power tool or chainsaw.

#2
Hellhound
A minor brick. This character is a lapsed Catholic who started to develop paranormal powers while growing up in a nun-run orphanage. How in his mid-to-late twenties, he lives as a practical recluse running a junkyard on the city outskirts. He has the unfortunate ability to see all the guilt and sins on a persons soul in their aura, and it's turned him into something of a misanthrope. He's a good guy, genuinely charitable, kind, and tries to be forgiving. But he can't be around much of anyone without being assaulted by all their petty wrongs, let alone if they have any real skeletons in their closet. He can also transform into a big, powerful, mostly-invulnerable form with a demonic/gargoyleish appearance, sometimes by accident if he gets too angry. He's sort of a brick light - he lacks the superstrength of the standard brick, but has some tracking ability to make up for it. The major drawback is that he could potentially ruin a lot of mysteries - he knows what someone is guilty of when he sees them, at least in a hazy and abstract fashion. If this isn't a mystery-oriented game, then that's fine.
Powers: Strength, Invulnerability, Tracking, Sin-Sight, probably a small amount of flight.

#3
Instrumentality
Imagine if Inspector Gadget wasn't a total joke. This character was part of an experimental superteam developed to clean up Detroit when it started to fall apart. They were all manufactured, custom-made. Even the mystic was empowered with an artifact that had been stored and studied in a lab somewhere. The theory was that they'd be more professional and directable if they all had their powers originally granted by the city authorities, and if they all initially trained together after getting them, so they didn't bring any bad habits to the team. The theory was that this would make a more stable and effective super-team.
Well, look at Detroit and see how well it worked out.
This character had pretty much every part of his body replaced with cybernetic augmentation. He looks human, but he's got more gadgets in him than the new female model in Terminator 3. After the team disbanded in a wave of scandal (infidelity, alcoholism, and corruption high on the list), he took on a newly constructed ID and a few night courses in business management, and tried to settle down as a normal person with a mortgage, a car, and a dog. They didn't have the budget to take any of the stuff out of him, so he just figured he'd stop using it, and that'd be fine. Well, his job transferred him to Paragon City, and...it's hard to just stand by when people get hurt. Real hard. He hates the fact that he's going to go back into the life, but he's probably not going to be able to pretend he's not what he is much longer.
Powers: A lot. I'll probably take some fairly standard attack/defense/mobility powers and make up the difference with a mechanical-themed Shapeshift, to represent the incredible amount of technology packed under his skin.

*Science! is not anything like real science. Real science involves labs and beakers and peer-reviewed articles. Science! has all that, plus tesla coils, killer robots, and gamma ray mutations.

ZK · « **Reply #17 on:** April 22, 2008, 12:52:42 PM »

While I write down some viable enemies and such, here's the premise for the players.

While the rest of the heroes in Paragon keep the city safe, the players are detachments of Longbow, H.E.R.O. Corps and Vanguard, meaning they're tasked with doing more dangerous zones. All three agencies have given a lethal force may be used if necessary bit, meaning you may or may not kill your opponent. The heroes will be tasked and given missions in a "dead or alive" bounty bit to gain fame and money amongst the detachments they work for.

These missions of course are not all that rules the heroes, they're free to do work like the other heroes too if they like, but when the time comes for serious danger, they call these people.

WyzardWhately · « **Reply #18 on:** April 22, 2008, 05:02:07 PM »

Hmm. I can see how that'd inform what kind of characters we should play. How are these organizations structured? Is it possible to maintain a secret ID while working for them, and to what degree? That is, do they have to know internally, or can they actually handle a costumed hero employee blind?

ZK · « **Reply #19 on:** April 22, 2008, 06:56:58 PM »

Longbow is a part of NATO, H.E.R.O. Corps are basically private military/SWAT for Paragon City and people who monitor supers (of all kinds) and Vanguard is part of a world wide network of anti-dimensional task force, they handle with great inter-dimensional beings and the horrible inter-dimensional aliens, Rikti.

All working for the organizations and such is a semi-public (amongst heroes at least) as H.E.R.O. Corp handles it. For missions with no credibility, they're not disclosed to other people and kept locked away. So some exploits might hit the media while other exploits might not.

They're only deniable assets when the time comes, but not all the time. Hence the dual-membership and H.E.R.O. Corp H class identification card. (Only Hero alias, not actual identification like a normal ID.)

Schwarzepard · « **Reply #20 on:** April 22, 2008, 08:56:23 PM »

ZK,

Has the US constitution been suspended in your setting?

ZK · « **Reply #21 on:** April 22, 2008, 09:58:36 PM »

Not that I know of, if it is in CoX canon, then yes.

WyzardWhately · « **Reply #22 on:** April 23, 2008, 04:09:54 PM »

That seems...kinda important. HeretiKat, is there any chance of you elucidating what raised the question in your mind? I didn't notice anything in that effect in my read-through of the setting history, but I did skim a fair amount of it. I guess a definitive answer would be nice.

Schwarzepard · « **Reply #23 on:** April 23, 2008, 11:17:04 PM »

It's just my habit to think about a setting and extrapolate from it.

In the official backstory it says that the Rikti destroyed 1/3rd of the world's military power in a matter of hours and in 6 months had wrecked most of the biggest cities on Earth. All superhero organizations had been crushed except Vanguard and the war still goes on. I was wondering if the US government had suspended the constitution or imposed martial law in the face of this extreme emergency. It doesn't mention it in the official backstory but I thought it was relevant enough to ask ZK.

If normal law enforcement is operating, heroes will act differently than if Paragon City and the rest of the US is a lawless warzone or under martial law.

ZK · « **Reply #24 on:** April 24, 2008, 12:44:15 AM »

From my understanding, the world hasn't went completely down the tube and the constitution is still about, it isn't martial law seeing with the new surge of heroes going about.

The war ended with the initial defeat of the Rikti and the surviving eight.

Longbow was designed, H.E.R.O. Corps came into being and Vanguard stayed on the watch for Rikti.

The storylines will take primarily in Paragon City and Rogue Islands until I decide the state of affairs of other places.

Think Paragon City and Rogue Islands as Megacities from the Judge Dredd series.