Aberrant RPG - M-R and Gravity

[MrDaniel]

Two questions:

1) Is there any reference on how many M-R facilities there are? I know about the one in New York and Bahrain but there must be more than those.

2) One of my campaign PCs is a Brick who is annoyingly tough and pounds on most of my NPCs. However, he lacks any flight or ranged attack. So I am arranging an upset for him where he encounters a gravity manipulator who raises him 6ft off the ground rendering him utterly helpless. However, I can't work out how - in the rules - to represent this. It says that Gravitokenisis acts like TK but TK has a Might score and can be resisted with Mega-Strength. This doesn't seem appropriate.

[Kirby1024]

1) There are Rashoud Facilities in most large cities, with the notable exception of London. Most cities with a population over 1 million either have a facility, or are working on getting one. Effectively, there are Rashoud Facilities wherever you need one...

2) Simple - Use Gravity Control, and have the GravManip bring gravity around the Brick to -.5G. That'll lift him off the ground as high as you need. Then, have him set the gravity around the Brick to 0G. That'll effectively hold him in place as long as you need...

[Brucifer]

kirby old bean - i may be wrong but i believe that in the utopia sourcebook it says in one of those grey panel things that London does have an M-R facility...

Mr Daniel - I have a gravmeister in my group. He is very powerful because he can think of ingenious ways to use his power, but he came a cropper. His fave trick is to dramatically increase the weight of our resident brick, who also has density increase (ouch)and then drop him on the enemy...

imagine the grav dudes surprise when another grav dude turned up (EPOCH)and started messing with his grav fields......

[Kirby1024]

Quote:

Originally posted by Brucifer:
kirby old bean - i may be wrong but i believe that in the utopia sourcebook it says in one of those grey panel things that London does have an M-R facility...

If they do, Worldwide Phase II indicates it's not a very large one as of 2012. Britain does not like Utopia one little bit, and constantly hounds it's employees inside Britain. London has a government run equivalent to the Rashoud facility, but it's not particularly advanced compared to a Utopian facility. As of 2012, there are no Utopians working full-time within it's borders, unless they're working underground, due purely to the British Government's interference in Utopian duties.

[Agnelli Celeste]

I would say they would have one in every city withover one million. that would mean there would be roughly 8 in califonia I live within around 200 miles of 17 million people. And I am less than haf a mile form the sea...

[MrDaniel]

Actually, I took a toothcomb to Project Utopia sourcebook and found a list of the Major M-R facilities (there are 28 scattered over the 5 continents - Chapter 2, small box in the Recruitment section). Apparently, there are many more smaller M-R facilities to complement these.

Kirby - Thanks a lot.

[Marshal 'Heavy Metal' King]

Yes, TK can be resisted with a might roll, however sometimes, you just need to invoke reality. I don't care how strong you are. If you weigh 200 lbs and a nova lifts you straight up with TK, you're going to get lifted unless you have something to hold onto.

So as not to appear heavy-handed, you may allow the poor sod a Dex roll to grab onto something before he gets lifted into the air. Once in the air, you may allow him to make a roll to "tear free" of the grasp... or you may not.

If you really want to be mean have him get lifted into the air and then tagged by someone with hypermovement. "You haven't taken any damage, but you're now spinning at close to the speed of sound..."

[Kirby1024]

Quote:

Originally posted by MrDaniel:
Kirby - Thanks a lot.

You're welcome - I thought of the Gravity technique on the spot. The other possibility is to push the gravity up to massive levels, but frankly, that takes more successes than the other route. If you really wanna have some fun toruturing the poor character, localise the field around him, crank the gravity up to -10G, then have the GravManip time to see how quickly the guy hits the stratosphere. For effect, have him accurately guess his weight down to +/- 3%. When he comes flying down when the field collapses, hold him in place with a 0G field, have the GravManip look at him squarely in the eyes, and state "You need to lose weight".

It's the little things that can destroy a nova's ego...

[Brucifer]

lol - haha

you people - i hadnt thought of that. Novas have gargantuan egos (i know my orrible lot do) and we really dont get enough witty banter in our game.

lol - thats so kewl.

on a side note - what does everyone think of the witty banter rules from A!?

[Jager]

Never got to play it (yet). How well does it work?

[Brucifer]

WELL FO REVERY DOT IN WITS YOU HAVE OVER 3, YOU GET TO HAND THE st A CARD WITH A WITTY QUOTE THAT THEY MUST WRITE INTO THE SESSION - WITH MEGA WITS THEY COULD ALL COUNT.

ONLY USED IT A COUPLA TIMES BUT WHEN IT WORKS IT HILARIOUS.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

Originally posted by Marshal 'Heavy Metal' King:
Yes, TK can be resisted with a might roll, however sometimes, you just need to invoke reality. I don't care how strong you are. If you weigh 200 lbs and a nova lifts you straight up with TK, you're going to get lifted unless you have something to hold onto.

This was recently discussed on WW (may still be up). The general problem is that Juggernaut and the Hulk just don't get defeated by TK. In the comics, it is all but impossible to deal with them physically (for example: The X-Men have a number of strong TK'ers and it doesn't help a lot against Jugs.)

Don't deal with the Brick physically. That is using your weaknesses against his strengths. Deal with him socially, or use mind control, or do things at range.

There are lots of good options, but TK isn't one of them. The rules are written to specifically prevent that, and all nova bricks have TK anyway.

(The thread's name was "Mental Characters in combat)

[Charlie]

Something funny, is that not long after you posted this, Marvel came out with their new game system (diceless, and not bad) and the example pic of TK was Jean Grey with Juggernaut wrapped up by a TK field.

I think the idea of resisted is IF the brick could grab hold of something nailed down they would still have an anchor to the ground. Like Arnold in Total Recall. He grabbed a bar and was not sucked out of the broken air dome.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

Charlie:
Something funny, is that not long after you posted this, Marvel came out with their new game system (diceless, and not bad) and the example pic of TK was Jean Grey with Juggernaut wrapped up by a TK field.

Again, that sort of thing never happened while I was reading comics. If it has (i.e. if the next frame doesn't show Juggs ripping apart the bubble), then it has been fairly recent.

One would think that if the Hulk, Juggs, and most other bricks without flight could be nurfed with the wave of a hand, then it would be more common.

[Hugin]

One of the major difficulties in trying to justify something in a supergame by showing examples from comics is that different writers interpret powers different ways. They don't have a rulebook they are following.

For example: Peter David was quite unhappy with the author of a Spiderman comicbook who had Doctor Octopus beat the shit out of a visting Hulk. The SpiderAuthor believed that since Doc Ock could lift Hulk into a position where he couldn't effectively use his strenght (he'd have no leverage) then Doc Ock would be able to simply pummel him. So, in return, Peter David has Doc Ock show up in Vegas where the Hulk is, simply to show how the Hulk "should have" wholloped the Doctster.

Two writers, two interpretations. If you try to prove a point in comics there are usually six examples to tell you you're wrong, regardless of the position you take.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Peter was right.

You hold Hulk up at a distance with your arms (which presumably don't hit like Thor's hammer), the Hulk grabs the arms and pulls you close enough to get at you.

Not to mention that Doc is weak enough to be hurt by "thunderclap", and that his arms probably aren't strong enough to hurt the Hulk, and you have a very one sided match up.

[Charlie]

In the past Jean Grey would simply pull Juggernaut's helmet off (since that is what protects him from Mental Blasts) and then zing him with a Mental Blast. She did that one time and gave him temporary amnesia.

I still like the cartoon when she was Phoenix and hit him with a TK "Wing" and knocked him from Muir Island to the US. Then when Gladiator showed up...she knocked him out past Pluto.

True about the writer interpretations. Doc Ock could only keep his ass from getting kicked, he did not have the strength to pummel the Hulk. It would have been a Mexican Standoff. Hulk can't smash, Ock can't win either.

I just think it is funny that different writers take (I can't belive I'm going to say it) Artistic License with other writers creations.

[Jager]

Personally, I think the Hulk should go looking for that Hulk-imposter who keeps getting his ass kicked, thus giving the real Hulk a bad rep.

I would also like to see the major comic book producers have a continuity guru on staff, to give the writers a clue on occasion.

Lastly: I've heard Spiderman II is going to be really good. I really like Spiderman I. So, what happened to the Hulk Movie?

"Hulk Skip"? What's up with that?

[NeoVid]

Ock beating the Hulk happened because Erik Larsen wanted to remind people exactly how dangerous Ock was really capable of being.

And because Larsen and David despise each other and are constantly looking for ways to wreck each other's plots, but we'll leave that aside.

Anyway, both outcomes were logical: the Hulk only weighs about a half ton, and doesn't have a way to keep from moving like, say, Blob. Any strong guy could lift him... but if the Hulk has anything he can touch, he's likely to be able to break loose in no time.

I think that this could depend on the method of lifting. If the brick doesn't have anything he can physically interact with (like with gravity changing) then he's helpless. If there's something he can actively break out of (like a solid TK field) then it won't work.

[Elrick]

Well, I think the basic idea is that a terribly strong brick can flex even if nothing is around to grab. A Sumo trying to avoid being tossed out does not rely solely on bulk but also on the effect of his own muscles pushing his body down to avoid being lifted out. If a big guy is falling already and a TK grabs em out of the sky I can see he has 0 leverage, but if you are trying to pull a big guy off the ground he could always dash to the side or back or down and use his str to negate your TK, least thats how I look at it.

As a side note I don't believe Doc Oc could beat Hulk as Doc Oc uses tenticles and not TK so the tenticles could be grabbed...

[Alex Craft]

Technically, I believe that in the Aberrant system there is at least a strong implication that Mega-Strength involves a degree of limited telekinesis. (Isn't there an example somewhere of a nova lifting a large ship without the ship collapsing under its own weight? The Lifter enhancement, perhaps?)

Thus, a brick with no leverage could still fight TK or similar because he/she isn't totally reliant on normal physics.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Exactly.

Another thing about the Aberrant system is that all novas actually have the same power, i.e. Quantum manipulation.

Thus using your Q field (with M-Str) to fight someone else trying to affect it (with TK) becomes a matter of the rules.

Some manipulations of the Q-field trump each other (aka "paper covers rock"), others fight each other evenly (M-Str vs. M-Str), still others have no effect (TK vs. Q-Bolt).

[Williams]

I think the TK quesion is a result of the TK rules being unclear. I read the Might resistance to TK as representing somebody resisting an attempt to completely immobilise them with TK; in essence an attempt to imprison somebody in a telekinetic straitjacket. Hence, Might can be used to overcome it, as it is an attempt to restrict the movement of arms and legs. Lifting somebody 6' off the ground should not suffer this effect, because the mobility of the character's extremeties is not being effected. So as long as a TK is strong enough to lift the dead weight of the oponent, that nova can flail around as much as he wishes unless he has a power like flight.

,,

Quote:

Thus using your Q field (with M-Str) to fight someone else trying to affect it (with TK) becomes a matter of the rules.

But baselines can resist as well, since it is a Might test. They do not have an MR node, yet they can still resist.

[Understudy]

If the rules say might can fight TK then it might worth while trying to figure reasons why the rules say such a thing.

For example, perhaps garbing a moving object isn't a simple task, ie Tk has to be applied to approximate center of mass, in which case the shifting about and generally not helping would make that difficult. The more mass you have move the easy that shifting becomes. More Mega Str normally means more mass, and more might.

Well thats my penny anyway