To kill signiture character

[Pax's_Pimp]

Come one come all and have your voice be heard...

What is your opinion on the killing of signiture characters?  "notsoangrydave", "Joseph", and myself all agree that with strong reasons it is alright for players to take on signiture characters. (i.e. Max Mercer, Whitley Styles, Professor Dixon and the like). What do you think? and Why?

[Aninemity]

honestly, i prefer them to be left out completely. it's nice that they're out and about doing things and such, but our group's stories are always completely seperate.

in A! our characters didn't know who mercer and his group were, so there's no real opinion on them there. those people just never come up really in any of the games.

...i guess if you're revolving your game around the key metaplot characters and are involving them extensively, then it's only fair that they be viable targets.....

[Joseph]

In our A! game, we've had some contact with the signiture characters (Max, Whit, etc.), though tend to be off on our own. Only one character has ever gunned for the Man. Mine.

To explain, my character, Ethan, has a background wherein everyone views Mercer as they guy who destroyed the world. (Ethan is from somewhen in the future.) Since others in the group knew Max, he joined up with them in an attempt to nail the guy he saw as evil and stop the horror that is his interpretation of the future. (Most of this happened in-game.)

Since then, he's met Mercer a few times and is beginning to think that he was mistaken about the entire incident and is trying to discern the truth.

So... I guess to sum it up, sometimes gunning for the top can take on great story arcs.

-Joseph

[Pax's_Pimp]

I have to agree with Joe on the story arcs point. When done properly which it was in our game (Kudos to Horseman Famine for that one.) But yeah I think that guning for them isn't bad so long as there is a point to it.

[knave]

Well it depends entirely on the gm.  If the GM puts signature characters in the line of fire - then he should allow them to be taken down when the players take the bait.  Should that happen the GM has to accept the consequences of having his continuum off canon when (if) new supplements come out.  Otherwise the GM should keep them in the background pulling the strings that they pull... the game is about the players after all - not the signature chars.

-Knave

[ProfPotts]

Good ol' Max Mercer is pretty handy for keeping your game "on track" with regards to "official"-type stuff. That Chronal Awareness is nice & poorly defined (on purpose me'thinks), so at any point you can have him already prepared for something 'cos of his memory of future events (um, yes... that wil do...).

Of course, this can be really cheesy & irritate the players if done badly. I've found putting in a few minor references to Max's future-knowledge is a handy way to foreshadow actual helpful use of it later on (e.g. when Max asked after a PCs wife, before he'd even thought of marriage, or commented on a Gadget the PC didn't yet have - stuff like that). The death (or "near death") of a signiture character is bound to be something he remembers after all. E.g. PCs gun down Whitley Styles then, after the battle, Whitley sits up to reveal Dixon's latest bullet-proof vest:

"It's a good job you made me wear this thing instead of you, after Dixon asked you to test it, Max. How on Earth did you know?"

"Well, something about investigating a warehouse just after Sarah dyed her hair for the first time just kinda' rang a bell."

That's not to mention all the other possible Chronal Awareness stunts he could pull - freezing time just before the bullet hits, popping back 30 seconds in time to save his pal, popping back in time to replace the bullets in the character's gun with blanks, etc..

Q. How powerful is Chronal Awareness?

A. As powerful as the ST needs it to be.

::downmal

[Pax's_Pimp]

you know those are some really awesome subtler uses of Chronal Awareness... I never thought of that... hmmmm maybe I may have to throw stuff like that into my next go around as ST... SO Profpotts... I like the way you think... do you have any other ideas that I can terrorrize my players with?  ::sly

-Pax

[Joseph]

You know, Professor, that brings to mind the whole subject of Miss Anabelle Lee. Wouldn't he have at least tried to stop that? If he tried, why did he fail? If he didn't try...

Bring it on, Pax. I've already got the Plot Hole Canon waxed, gassed, and ready to go.  ::sly

-Joseph

[Pax's_Pimp]

On the death of Annabelle Lee, maybe that was a neccessary thing to happen. Perhaps Annabelle's death was to save someone else. With Max jumpin time like he does he is similar to ole' Otha in that he can see a myriad of possibilities... One might ask why Otha allowed the assault of the Upeo if he knew. It is the same basis in my opinion. Max was allowing it to happen to either prevent a greater evil or to allow for a greater good...

-Pax

[Defender]

Annabelle Lee's fate, and Max's reaction to it will be dealt with in Requiem, the opening fiction for Trial by Fire. Coming soon to an EON near you. *chuckles*  ::devil

-Def, aka the author.  

[knave]

Annabelle Lee's fate, and Max's reaction to it will be dealt with in Requiem, the opening fiction for Trial by Fire. Coming soon to an EON near you. *chuckles*

can't wait gogogogogoogo!

-Knave

[ezekiel]

She was actually a monkey operated mechanicobody  ::robotmonkey

The REAL annabelle got taken by...  ::ninja

::ninja

[El Enano Gigante]

Good God, man! Have you been raiding my house and stealing my tabletop notes?

::robotmonkey + ::ninja = the kind of thing my players have to put up with on a weekly basis.........

[ProfPotts]

Hah! Pax, after about 18 years (shudder) as a GM / ST I've got a myriad of ideas to plague players with - trouble is my regular players are pretty much wise to my ways by now, so I just have to keep getting sneakier... ::sly

As for Miss Newfield's fate, IIRC, there are a couple of relevant points mentioned in the book. Firstly Max had just time-jumped to that point, & we know it's not easy for him (to begin with) - that "drain" or whatever may well have effected both the Maxes present, preventing any attempt to save Annabelle from succeeding.

Secondly, & probably more relevant, Miss Newfield dies during Aeon's epic battle with Doctor Primoris. We also know that she's totally in love with the good Doctor. Chances are either: a) she sacrifices herself to save Primoris, so any "preventative" actions by Max are no good - she allows herself to die to save the man she loves; or she's actually fighting on Doc Primoris' side, against Aeon, & has to be killed so that Aeon can stop him (maybe it's even Max himself who has to kill her) - Max might know that, if she's spared, many more Aeon members will die (she is the world's greatest shot after all), & Primoris will win. Tough choice for Max, eh?

::downmal

[Pax's_Pimp]

Agreed Definantly a tough choice for Max. I also eagerly await to see what the Trial By Fire story shall be. I also think that the whole concept of one of the Founding members giving the ultimate sacrifice is pretty awesome stuff...

-Pax

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Comments abouts Miss Lee's death;

First, by the time Max finds out about it, it may be such a part of history that he can't do anything about it.  By that I mean he goes to the future, finds out all about it, and her death is a foot note.  Max isn't all powerfull, I doubt that he wanted the war, etc.

2nd, she had to die sometime.  She might very well have had cancer, or something similar.  Her quick death in battle might have been a vast improvement over the alternative.

3rd, I'm reminded of a book where a group of time travelers go back in time and kill Hitler, and find out that the guy who replaced him was much worse (evil and sane)  So they have to go back again to stop themselves.

I don't think anyone really wants a war with Iraq, we just like the alternatives less.

[notsoangrydave]

i missed the start of this, so i'll chime in on what i originally wanted to start in on.  i've currently got a time- and setting-spanning game, and so the subject of time travel is going to come in, and it's going to hit hard.  i think that the effect is going to be that ^just^ jumping time is going to make a difference, sort of like a leviathan's jump gives off lots o' psionic backlash.

now, about sig characters.  i'm not so creative as to what actually happened/will happen to the sig chars, so i'll leave that to the rest of you fine folks.

as for including them in my game, well, my group is going to have a lot of info on the signature characters, definitely enough to put together a clear guess of their current actions.  the problem is, they won't know what info is useful, and that info will be scattered among what looks to be seven players, in two different time periods.  most of their interaction with sig chars, however, will be dealing with the results of the sig chars' already stated canon-forming actions, such as galatea and the founding of the aeon society, for very broad examples.

another example, one of my adventure! players is about to meet max and mike at a restaurant, where the two are having dinner and vigorously debating some new theory in international politics, or some other intellectual concept.  being pre-hammersmith, max is really only famous in academic circles and in chicago (where the setting is), so the char should recognize them.  

now, by the time the characters come to know that michael daemon donighal is dr. primoris is divis mal created the galatea incident that kickstarted the nova age, well, it's too late for them to do anything about it, and if they ask max to take them back (they will have dialogues with max once they figure out the past) he'll refuse, saying he's too busy working on the present, and it would require too much energy, and besides, the past is the past you should concentrate on the future.

::saki is this new?  i think i'll have to try it...

most impressive

[Pax's_Pimp]

So you are writing it so that the characters are reliant on Max for their Time Travel?

Quick question cause I am really liking your thoughts so far. How would you run it if the characters have their own method of time travel? Would you allow them to give it a shot?  

Cause one idea that I think would be cool is if they decide to try and jump to the past I would just sort of work their actions into being the cause of many major events in our history. In the end I would make it incredibly difficult for them to modify the path of history simply based on the natural flow of the subquantum universe and the inertia involved in the passage of Time...

-Pax

[notsoangrydave]

pax - yes, they will be reliant upon max for time travel, inasmuch as they'll be traveling in time.  i think it will just be that, well, here's what i'm initially intending - i have a trinity game and an adventure! game.  i think the trinity characters, post alien encounter, perhaps even post-418, will be investigating reports of a chitra bhanu sighting.  now, they'll find one, and they'll fight him/her.  something will go wrong with quantakinesis.  i think i'll pretend that she botch her roll.  then, the freakiness starts happening.  they get warped back in time, but i'm not yet sure when.  i was originally just thinking that it was going to go straight to where the adventure!! game is going to be terminating, so they could link up with my adventure! players.  

but now i'm thinking of two things.

1) perhaps they'll go father back in time, but i don't like that idea so much, since two of my trinity players, one of my a! players and i played through something very similar in a hunter game, and i don't want to be reminding anyone of that game, since it left us all with a bad taste in our mouths.

2) while the T players are warped back to the a! era, the a! players have just investigated a mad scientist, whose machinery has, you guessed it, caused a space/time rift, and they get sent forward to 2122.  so now, i have two groups that are getting along in each other's time periods.  

that give sme a third idea, something of a cross between the two.  i can start this after the result of idea 2.  both groups manage to find a way to get a time jump back to their own time.  however, when this happens, neither group gets back to their own time.  they both get jumped to the aberrant era.  so, now they can sort of get a feel for my modified version of the aberrant history.  i'm thinking of getting them started around 2015.  i really want them to see just how powerful divis mal is.  so, they'll maybe find a nova who is developing time travel, maybe someone mal has been harboring, since we know that dr. primoris wishes he had a method of time travel.  so, mal has found the one nova in existence who has developed a control over time.  i want any sort of time manipulation to be rarer than rare.  not as totally achievable as the APG would apply.  so this nova keeps trying to jump them to the future, but he can only get a few years at a time, and they keep managing to find mal when they get a few years ahead.  now, they get to the aberrant war, and they might even meet up with jake danger: aberrant hunter and join him.  they'll get jumped past most of the aberrant war up to the end.  they meet up again with mal.  "hold on, i've got something to do. follow me."  they end up being on the floor at un hq as he fries the sec-general, says your legacy is our future and leaves.  so, in 2061, max is around, they manage to find him, and he jumps them forward to 2122.  thoughts?

in case you're asking, i'm still trying to figure out why mal would help them at all, because it's a long-standing plot idea i've had, that i initially came up with because it was cool, but now i'm trying to find justification for its continued existence.

oh, and i would love the players to try to get their own method of time travel.  but it's not gonna happen.  in my game, time travel is the domain of max, and only max, with notable little blips.  only one a!er will have that ability, and it's unsure, only one nova will have that abillity, and it's unreliable, and only one psion will have that ability, but it only comes out when he botches.  badly.  so, only four people in the history of the aeonverse will have it, and only one will have it in any sort of reliable form.