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Mechanics...
Blind Character Generation: The original players of the Four Winds (Justice Carmon, Brian Wong, Roger Shelor, Rebecca Stevenson and myself) created our characters (Glassjack, Lollipop, Fury, Phoenix, and Sound respectively) without an awareness of what the others' were up to or even who the others would be for that matter. The exception to this was Roger and I who already knew each other very well and essentially made the characters together over the phone. The danger of this approach is that you can end up with both character overlap ("Hey! Your parent's were murdered by a mugger when you were 8?" "Me too!" or "Wow! Your power armor has flight, disentagration ray and stealth mode?" "What a coincidance! Mine does too!") and a group that covers extremes of the attributes spectrum where the range between things like hit points between one character and the next are simply too extreme (picture Thor on a team with the Speedball and you might start to see the problem!). The first dilemma can be troublesome for players in that one player will have to be flexible enough to alter or totally over-haul their concept. If that doesn't happen then you can all but guarantee that toes will be stepped on and thunder will be stolen at some point. The second issue is primarily problematic for GMs due to the fact that they will have to worry about balancing the threats encountered far more often than usual. How can you in good conscience pit Speedball against Ultron? Do you really want to count the multitude of ways Thor could pummel Midnight's Fire? Even tho' Fury has 8 times the Hit Points of most of us and gobs of Invlunerability it's important to note that he also has virtually no defenses to effect how often he gets hit whereas Magna-Flux has his magnetic defense, Phoenix has her flame aura, and Sound can generate Force Fields. All in all that means there's not a whole lot too wory about in regards to the latter problem even tho' I'm sure David's had to navigate the waters a bit. It was brought to my attention months into the game that we did indeed have an instance of the former early on behind the scenes. The first submission for Amanda Halle David received from Rebecca had sound powers and was called Siren. Two musicians with sound powers? Uggh. David told Rebecca that he already had gotten a character with that as his main ability and asked her to tweak the character a bit. A few dice rolls later Amanda Halle got flame powers and wings and Phoenix was born! Round Robin Posting:
In the Four Winds campaign we post our responses to the last turn every Friday to David. Some turns require a lot of inter-personal discussion and rather then slowly drag it out via the GM over several weeks the lot of us mail one another during the deadline to reach a faster conclusion. When this happens a member or David will post an initial setting to the group at large and wait for the fireworks to begin. Round robins are the time in a PbeM when the game most closely resembles a face to face table top experience. Rather than tak about the etiquette we use for posting (I'll save that for some other time) I thought I'd deconstruct a portion of a turn in which the process was used. Here's a sample from my email archive (edited to protect the players' emails and highlighted with red italicized text along the way for some insight). You can see the complete turn on David's site... -----Original Message----- From: Jeff McCoskey Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 1999 12:03 PM To: Phoenix Cc: Sound; Nightcrawler; David; Magna-Flux; sound2; Fury Subject: Re: Turn 17.5... > Carl slammed the car into park, noticing Reflector's and Sound's cars already arrayed on the massive traffic circle in front of Dame Vera Manor. "Crap, crap, crap," he muttered under his breath. A team meeting in anticipation of their road stand had lasted longer than usual, mostly because of the wrangling he'd had to do to try and get out of it. Coach was less than sympathetic to his daughters' visitation, and of course that was the only excuse he could publicly offer. Rather than dwell on his agent's predictable disapproval, Carl popped the trunk and hustled around back. > Tehsin, the helpful Hindu batman was suddenly at Carl's side. "Shall I assist you, sir?" > "You gotta go back inside anyway," agreed Carl. The two manhandled the large boxes of documents and registers that T-Gold had left with Carl, and wrestled them into the elegant southern mansion's sitting room. Amanda and Mark were standing around admiring the well-stocked, rich wood bookshelves and bay windows. Josh was sitting uncomfortably in a handsome leather wingback chair, still wearing more bandage than clothing. > "King George here this time?" asked Carl as they thudded the evidence down on the delicately stained Cherry desk. > "Indeed I am, my flexible friend," said Glassjack as he entered the other sitting room from another entrance. He bore a silver tray of mint julips and iced tea, which he set on a sideboard. "Please help yourselves." > "Jake not gonna make it?" Carl asked Josh, who was accepting an iced tea from Amanda. ...and if memory serves that's how Jeff got the ball rolling. Note how he used NPCs (Teshin and Glassjack who's player had unfortunately retired by this point) to make the setting more dynamic. >"Don't think so. I'll fill him in. What's this all about?" Josh asked pointing to the leaning stack of papers. > Carl walked over to the sideboard frowning, unsure how to start. Yeah, they'd been together for a few weeks, but none of them really knew each other all that well yet. This was not Carl's milieu. He took his best shot at a start. "Before New Year's, I was already runnin' in gang circles..." > Mark's eyebrows shot up. "Is that what you meant at the hospital..." > "No no, that's somethin' else," said Carl quickly. For some reason, he really didn't want to get into that in front of Glassjack. "What I mean is I was workin' with kids that live that stuff. Anyway, after New Year's onea the worst of 'em suddenly turns to the side of angels and dumps this stuff on me. The gang is the CC's, but this stuff points a lot deeper than punks on street corners." Carl looked around the room. They were all looking back at him, waiting for the punch line. Carl took a sip of mint julip, pulled a face and walked back to the desk with an iced tea. ...and the plot thickens! The need for the round robin becomes presented in earnest: What to do as a group with the information that 'Crawler was given by T-Gold. > "See, so for we been reactin' ta stuff as it comes up. Th' parade, that tree-guy, Element, Snowman. I'd like to take the next step. There's plenty a problems out there -- we don't need ta wait on one. The CC's been pushin' on these streets for years, ruinin' kids on both sides of the gun. Looks like these papers point to moneymen milkin' it, lettin' the kids burn up and rakin' in the profits. I'm thinkin' we got somethin' to say about that now." > "Assuming we can decode those volumes, you realize this rather changes the equilibrium," observed Glassjack quietly. "The gendarme can hardly begrudge bringing powers to bear on an uncivilized Powered. But to explicitly intrude on police perogative..." "Snowman? Did I miss a memo here?" Josh says lifting himself up with the support of one arm to get more comfortable in the chair. "Who the hell is that, Carl?" ...sure as a player I knew just as much about the Snowman as Jeff did but Josh was duking it out with Element and was laid up momentarily in the hospital when the others could have found out. Sure it seems to get off track but it's a realistic in-character reaction. Carl managed a near-clinical retelling of the encounter in the alley, after learning his lesson the other night. He concluded with, "Me'n'him got serious differences. That kinda permanent solution don't speak to me, not with who he applied it to. He's somethin' we may need ta address sooner or later, but frankly he's poppin' kids one at a time. The CC's get more'n that every day." Phoenix listens with her brow furrowed, dismayed at this evidence of multiplying complications but somewhat intrigued by the glimpse into the normally taciturn Nightcrawler's past and personality. So far, she has said nothing of what is weighing so heavily on her mind, and little of anything else, responding to greetings and comments with nods and monosyllables for the most part. Her wings, normally relaxed, keep tightening around her in an instinctive sheltering gesture. "Are you suggesting that we simply turn the evidence over to the police, Nightcrawler, or did you have something more... elaborate... in mind?" she asks quietly. ...the two paragraphs above were added by Rebecca emphasizing both character and plot developement Carl compulsively fingered his small, gold Mexican Eagle earring. "To tell the truth, didn't even occur to me to turn this stuff in. With all the money the biz moves, I ain't so sure it wouldn't just disappear or get filed away. Even if it didn't, there's a lotta Johnny Cochrans in the dough they're pullin' down. Least with us, we know each other -- or got feelin's about each other -- ta make corruption not a problem. Plus, no one knows who we are, so we can't be made." Carl took a deep breath. He was very conscious of his size and modest dress, of how out of place he was in that room. "So yeah, I guess I do got something more elaborate in mind." House Rules: Straight from the big man himself, Dave...without further ado: 1) Base HTH chance is 6 instead of 5. 2) While knockout remains a percent per point inflicted roll on d100, you also have the chance to stun the opponent on a roll of 2x damage taken on d100. Stunned characters can move or evade, but cannot attack or take any other action. Recovery is automatic at the end of the turn, or on a d100 roll vs END on the PC's action. 3) An action may only be held until the phase before the character’s next regular action. If the held action is not used at that time, it is forfeited. Ex. A PC goes on 35, 20, and 5. The phase 35 action can be held up to phase 21 and used at that time. If it isn’t used on 21, it is forfeited. 4) Detects are based on a 2d10 roll, and calculated as 7+(INT/3). A natural 20 always fails. 5) STR and AGL tables have been swapped for hit point mod calculations. 6) Additionally Dave created an incremental table of hit point mods: Hit Mod Increments Stat Strength Endurance Agility Intelligence Healing Rate 10 1 1 1 1 .25 11 1.07 1.14 1.1 1.04 .267 12 1.14 1.27 1.2 1.07 .284 13 1.2 1.4 1.3 1.1 .3 14 1.27 1.54 1.4 1.14 .334 15 1.34 1.67 1.5 1.17 .367 16 1.4 1.8 1.6 1.2 .4 17 1.47 1.94 1.7 1.24 .434 18 1.54 2.07 1.8 1.27 .467 19 1.6 2.2 1.9 1.3 .5 20 1.67 2.34 2.0 1.34 .534 ______________________________________________________________________ 21 1.74 2.47 2.1 1.37 .567 22 1.8 2.6 2.2 1.4 .6 23 1.87 2.74 2.3 1.44 .634 24 1.94 2.87 2.4 1.47 .667 25 2.0 3.0 2.5 1.5 .7 26 2.07 3.14 2.6 1.54 .734 27 2.14 3.27 2.7 1.57 .767 28 2.2 3.4 2.8 1.6 .8 29 2.27 3.54 2.9 1.64 .834 30 2.34 3.67 3.0 1.67 .867 ______________________________________________________________________ 31 2.4 3.8 3.1 1.7 .9 32 2.47 3.94 3.2 1.74 .934 33 2.54 4.07 3.3 1.77 .967 34 2.6 4.2 3.4 1.8 1.0 35 2.67 4.34 3.5 1.84 1.034 36 2.74 4.47 3.6 1.87 1.067 37 2.8 4.6 3.7 1.9 1.1 38 2.87 4.74 3.8 1.94 1.134 39 2.94 4.87 3.9 1.97 1.167 40 3.0 5.0 4.0 2.0 1.2 ______________________________________________________________________ 41 3.07 5.14 4.1 2.04 1.234 42 3.14 5.27 4.2 2.07 1.267 43 3.2 5.4 4.3 2.1 1.3 44 3.27 5.54 4.4 2.14 1.334 45 3.34 5.67 4.5 2.17 1.367 46 3.4 5.8 4.6 2.2 1.4 47 3.47 5.94 4.7 2.24 1.434 48 3.54 6.07 4.8 2.27 1.467 49 3.6 6.2 4.9 2.3 1.5 50 3.67 6.34 5.0 2.34 1.534 ______________________________________________________________________ 51 3.74 6.47 5.1 2.37 1.567 52 3.8 6.6 5.2 2.4 1.6 53 3.87 6.74 5.3 2.44 1.634 54 3.94 6.87 5.4 2.47 1.667 55 4.0 7.0 5.5 2.5 1.7 56 4.07 7.14 5.6 2.54 1.734 57 4.14 7.27 5.7 2.57 1.767 58 4.2 7.4 5.8 2.6 1.8 59 4.27 7.54 5.9 2.64 1.834 60 4.34 7.67 6.0 2.67 1.867 ______________________________________________________________________ 61 4.4 7.8 6.1 2.7 1.9 62 4.47 7.94 6.2 2.74 1.934 63 4.54 8.07 6.3 2.77 1.967 64 4.6 8.2 6.4 2.8 2.0 65 4.67 8.34 6.5 2.84 2.034 66 4.74 8.47 6.6 2.87 2.067 67 4.8 8.6 6.7 2.9 2.1 68 4.87 8.74 6.8 2.94 2.134 69 4.94 8.87 6.9 2.97 2.167 70 5.0 9.0 7.0 3.0 2.2 ______________________________________________________________________ 71 5.07 9.14 7.1 3.04 2.234 72 5.14 9.27 7.2 3.07 2.267 73 5.2 9.4 7.3 3.1 2.3 74 5.27 9.54 7.4 3.14 2.334 75 5.34 9.67 7.5 3.17 2.367 76 5.4 9.8 7.6 3.2 2.4 77 5.47 9.94 7.7 3.24 2.434 78 5.54 10.07 7.8 3.27 2.467 These tweaks seem to work for us tho it must be said that in PbeMs much of the rules system is "hidden" from the players who tend to operate on a much more abstracted/conceptual then in FtF. All that pesky dice rolling type stuff and hit point tracking gets handled by the poor GM <g>. 'Course above and beyond these rules there is a certain layer of "etiquette" we've sort of stumbled onto over the last year. Dave is very "sensitive" about the 3 Ls: Levels, Lite-Rock, and (dissing) Lacrosse. More on that later. <g> |