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Aberrant: In Pax We Trust - IPWeT - Mechanics thread


ezekiel

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For the record on the tear gas

I know, having been gassed myself (not pleasant, especially when police gas the neighborhood so much that you can't get out of the cloud for at least a couple of minutes), that it takes at least 10 seconds to make a sizable cloud...Hell, we used to throw them back... ::cool

K, they threw it back and I ran away screaming like a headless chicken... ::lookaround

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{OOC: To keep a family rating we'd better skip over this part.  }

Post in the 'ficton' section, then you can slap any rating you want on it. Go on, I dare ya'... ::wink

On second thoughts, better not... (I don't want to be left open for calls to post some of the stuff that happened off-camera in QZ... ::crazy ::blush ).

Re: tear gas - fair enough. Good to establish the level of real-world / game realism at an early point. Of course, it's Joshua's first attempt to tackle a group of armed men... things probably seem to be going a lot slower to him that they really are... (yeah... that'll do... ::lookaround ). Any other weapon specifics we might need to know about? How about smoke or stun / flash or other grenades - any without a delay (apart from lethal ones, naturally)?

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Joe's headache is still keeping him awake so, yielding to the inevitable, he gets up, pops some asprin, puts on some street clothes and goes for a walk. It's cold but his brown leather jacket (a gift from Alice!) will deal with that. He thinks,

*Perhaps the cold air will clear my head.*

I hate to break this to you Alex but even if Joe jumps off a building, he's not erupting on this night. You can't force fate... ::rolleyes

and I'm off to bed now...

but since I'm breaking bad news to players...

I hate to break this to you but Josh ain't no Bruce Lee... ::tongue

You're gonna hafta aim for the jubees soon... ::unsure

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I hate to break this to you but Josh ain't no Bruce Lee...

Don't you think I know that? ::confused Why do you think he's going 'WTF - I aimed for the guy's wrist?!' - he, & I, are fully aware of the guy's limitations - it's hardly our fault if he's forced to attempt difficult actions that I never posted in the first place... I was just trying to post the simplest actions that would have a chance of fending off two attackers at once - nothing fancy - just block one, & smash the other one. No flying kicks or f'ckin' acrobatics or anything. What should he do? Ignore one of them to get a hit in on the other? That'd just leave him open to attack - & he ain't no Nova either. Maybe he should just set off a grenade in his hand?

I don't mind criticism if I post stupid actions for my characters, but I do mind if I'm criticised for character actions directed by the ST.

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I hate to break this to you Alex but even if Joe jumps off a building, he's not erupting on this night. You can't force fate... ::rolleyes

Usually you have to suffer through days of headaches before *it* happens.

But if we are weeks or months away then I'll write off this headache to a long day.

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it's hardly our fault if he's forced to attempt difficult actions that I never posted in the first place.

Your character missed on a plain strike due to a low dice pool, the rest is simply added for flavor. If you want I could start simply posting...

You miss

The pistol-wielding guy tries to strike...succeeds...you take 2 levels of damage. You parry the other, barely.

Your turn.

Personnally I think that's boring but then at least I wouldn't get accused of forcing your actions.

That's what I was afraid of! 

What a way to turn nova---sounds like the 'Wild Card' books. 

Come on.. Zeke wouldn't.. I mean.. Uhm.. 

lol! ::biggrin ::laugh

That's even better than what I imagined...Just think of the eruption!

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Your character missed on a plain strike due to a low dice pool, the rest is simply added for flavor. If you want I could start simply posting...

You miss

The pistol-wielding guy tries to strike...succeeds...you take 2 levels of damage. You parry the other, barely.

Your turn.

Personnally I think that's boring but then at least I wouldn't get accused of forcing your actions.

Hey, I don't mind colour - but changing the actions of a PC is a bit more than that. After all, a strike & a disarm are two different things. Also, there's a point where 'flavour' actually alters the character - especially at the start of a game: like the taser shot. I made an effort to point out that Josh wouldn't use lethal force in his background - then a simple taser shot turns into a rather brutal attempt to kill / maim a guy - all due to added 'flavour'. I mean - a few thousand volts directly to a guy's spinal cord is not nice. Josh really isn't meant to be that brutal - & I haven't posted him doing anything that brutal yet.

Plus, I still don't understand the whole 'Bruce Lee' dig. At what point did I give the impression that I thought my character was a martial arts expert? All he's done is attempt to use his largest available dice pool to fend off two attackers. Apart from that all he really could have done is not bother to turn up in the first place - & if the whole character concept was that pointless, a heads-up before play began would have been nice. ::confused

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Hey, I don't mind colour - but changing the actions of a PC is a bit more than that. After all, a strike & a disarm are two different things. Also, there's a point where 'flavour' actually alters the character - especially at the start of a game: like the taser shot. I made an effort to point out that Josh wouldn't use lethal force in his background - then a simple taser shot turns into a rather brutal attempt to kill / maim a guy - all due to added 'flavour'. I mean - a few thousand volts directly to a guy's spinal cord is not nice. Josh really isn't meant to be that brutal - & I haven't posted him doing anything that brutal yet.

Read this

There's no added danger because of a spinal cord shot, they even encourage you to aim for the back. The guy is stunned on the ground (took bashing damage) not dead nor maimed. He fell to the ground and a concerned friend looked at him crumple to the ground. Should the friend just say "Wuss! Tiz but a taser, you are stunned but will come out of it."? The only reason I posted a neck shot was for your character to spot the tattoo...Linking it to the Tooho thread. Had I known your reaction I would've placed it on his bare behind or something..

As for the disarm, I thought that your character missing a small target instead of a big one would be less damaging to his image, my bad. From now on I'll be extra careful with what I post, until these ST training wheels come off... ::rolleyes

Plus, I still don't understand the whole 'Bruce Lee' dig. At what point did I give the impression that I thought my character was a martial arts expert? All he's done is attempt to use his largest available dice pool to fend off two attackers. Apart from that all he really could have done is not bother to turn up in the first place - & if the whole character concept was that pointless, a heads-up before play began would have been nice. 

It was a light hearted comment made about the fact that you didn't exactly invest heavily in combat skills. Personnally I think that's great, if your character started as a bad arse then his eruption wouldn't seem so cool. If he gets ruffled a bit now, you'll just remember this later and laugh it off when beat the crap out of big players. Plus that kinda makes him braver...Right now the tear gas is working (-3 dicepool for 10 minutes after exposure...) and on top of that they've been blinded by a flashbang. Translation: They're fecked.

Don't worry, be happy.

Woooohoohoohoohoooo

K, I'll stop now...

Hopefully my newfound insecurity isn't showing.. ::lookaround Suddenly I understand Heritage and his panicky fits.. ::tongue

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Read this

Yes, as written by the manufacturers. Check out some of the Amnesty reports on tasers for a less subjective point of view. ::sly

There's no added danger because of a spinal cord shot, they even encourage you to aim for the back.

They encourage you to aim for the back because the fish-hook style darts a taser uses can (& have) puncture an eyeball, inflicting permanent blindness. ::blink

If you keep reading the article you directed me to, it also mentions that, to be effective, the two darts should be at least 4 inches apart on the target - the neck is a poor place to aim.

Medical reports on taser injuries include puncture wounds from the darts, lacerations from dart removal, electrical burning around the dart impact area, & even blistering to that same area - not to mention the whole punctured eyeball thing.

Oh, & there's the cases where a taser has triggered a fire by hitting a flamable substance; such as the alcohol-based propellant used in aerosol tear gas delivery systems. Since Josh seems to have grabbed an aerosol delivered tear gas canister instead of the explosively delivered grenade he thought he had, I guess the next time he fires we all get to go up in smoke, right? ::wink

The only reason I posted a neck shot was for your character to spot the tattoo...Linking it to the Tooho thread. Had I known your reaction I would've placed it on his bare behind or something..

Why did he have to shoot the tattoo to notice it? ::confused

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They encourage you to aim for the back because the fish-hook style darts a taser uses can (& have) puncture an eyeball, inflicting permanent blindness. 

If you keep reading the article you directed me to, it also mentions that, to be effective, the two darts should be at least 4 inches apart on the target - the neck is a poor place to aim.

Medical reports on taser injuries include puncture wounds from the darts, lacerations from dart removal, electrical burning around the dart impact area, & even blistering to that same area - not to mention the whole punctured eyeball thing.

Oh, & there's the cases where a taser has triggered a fire by hitting a flamable substance; such as the alcohol-based propellant used in aerosol tear gas delivery systems. Since Josh seems to have grabbed an aerosol delivered tear gas canister instead of the explosively delivered grenade he thought he had, I guess the next time he fires we all get to go up in smoke, right? 

Either way the victim isn't dead, hasn't lost an eye, caught fire, lost a testicle, turned bald or suffered extreme pain...I think you're the only one who read that as being horrendous..

As for tear gas, even if it was explosively delivered (I didn't think of it either way, even army smoke grenade don't fill up an area in 3 seconds. Your character can have the explosively delivered tear gas canisters, I didn't imagine him throwing a huge clunky can anyway) it wouldn't have changed anything.

Why did he have to shoot the tattoo to notice it? 

'Cause I'm a crap storyteller, that's why ::sarcasm

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You're in Atlanta

The conference is at MIT/Cambridge MA...or close to Boston.

Nowhere near where you are Madcat.

I did not mean that conference... I just thought that I would chat a little with her about novas to get a feel about how normal people feel about them and it felt more logical to ask about someting a bit more normal than the latest battle over Atlanta considering how I have constructed the abberant world in my head and how the books portrays it as well as how you have portrayed it to this point ::biggrin

And since Atlanta is the major center of regional commerce, and boasts an especially strong convention and trade show business it seemed logical that a nova would be present.

Sorry for not thinking there, should have seen this coming...

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Zeke, any idea how you're going to handle experience. I'd like to recommend something like the Amber Roleplaying Game (based on Zelazny's Amber series). The basic idea is player's make their characters, then never see them again.

When exp is awarded, they provide a list of things, in priority order, of what they'd like to buy, and the gamemaster buys as much as he can with those points, but doesn't tell the player, letting them discover in-game.

An advantage of this is also that the ST could even buy stuff for the character that might be realistic, but the player wouldn't think about. For example, over the last few months, the character could have been scanned regularly by a telepath with the surreptitous advantage. Obviously the player doesn't know, but his subconcious, node, whatever may 'realize' and develop a defense mechanism, ie. psychic shield, to defend against it.

Just an idea.

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Zeke, any idea how you're going to handle experience.  I'd like to recommend something like the Amber Roleplaying Game (based on Zelazny's Amber series).  The basic idea is player's make their characters, then never see them again.

When exp is awarded, they provide a list of things, in priority order, of what they'd like to buy, and the gamemaster buys as much as he can with those points, but doesn't tell the player, letting them discover in-game.

I've played Amber, that works pretty well.

You'd have to specify whether or not you are willing to buy things tainted...

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since when does a nova have a say in how tainted he becomes?

Guess you'd better not push your powers too much Alex...

For non-Terats the problem is less that they don't have control than they don't know what the controls do. Avoiding Taint, especially after eruption, isn't all that hard.

At one extreme:

1) Nova A never pushes his powers, buys anything tainted, or tries to quickly get juice back. He also doesn't have the taint generating powers. He will never get any aberrations.

At the other extreme.

2) Nova B has Q2 (giving a 11% chance of a botch on a powermax), works for the teraforming project in Africa, and Powermaxes once per day (recoving willpower once per day). If he gets one temp taint per botch, he "earns" +4 taint over the next year.

If his nature let's him get willpower back for working on the project (so he can average 2 per day) OR if he averages two temp taint per botch, he "earns" +8 taint in one year.

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At one extreme:

1) Nova A never pushes his powers, buys anything tainted, or tries to quickly get juice back. He also doesn't have the taint generating powers. He will never get any aberrations.

At the other extreme.

2) Nova B has Q2 (giving a 11% chance of a botch on a powermax), works for the teraforming project in Africa, and Powermaxes once per day (recoving willpower once per day). If he gets one temp taint per botch, he "earns" +4 taint over the next year.

If his nature let's him get willpower back for working on the project (so he can average 2 per day) OR if he averages two temp taint per botch, he "earns" +8 taint in one year.

Blablabla...mechanics all! This is roleplaying, think game. A nova won't "buy tainted powers" it just happens. If you're calculating mechanics you're definitely missing the whole point of this game...

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