Ordinary Blokes

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 4:54 am

Maybe that undefined suite of powers is extra horriffic somehow? Like knowing with absolute certainty which babies will grow up to be Hitler?

Or maybe you can ground it in a moral objection, based on not trampling on everyone else's fundamental rights (lke a less stupid prime directive).

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 5:28 am

Maybe the god-power is to mind control others into doing whatever you want, and the more you do it to the same person, the more their own will is eroded until they're dependent upon your direction to do anything at all.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 5:52 am

Wow, that could be fun. Or at least interesting.
Or just generally to reshape the world, at least in your immediate area, but you're not so much "reshaping" the world as ripping your own part of it away from causality.
So you could totally turn off gravity or inertia to save a falling kid, but it doesn't just turn on again; instead you have to actively make things fall from then on. So you teally don't want to do that. Or you could make his clothes inflate like a personal crash pad, but that does something else bad, but less bad. Breaks continuity maybe?
The cool part there would be the game mechanics. Essentially, your character would be playing magical tea party, but with penalties for breaking consensus (I'm not saying go for consensual reality, I just couldn't think of a better word)

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:54 am

I too support the idea of being a Human Ares taking on Cthulhu with a Flaming 9-Iron...

But yeah, not entirely sure how you'd handle the rules itself, obviously the system in place shouldn't throw you into NPC territory immediately for using your Giga-God powers. The cosmic idea of things does remind me of In Nomine RPG (which I'd be interested in seeing a review of that on here, don't think anyone has), where I think there was a limit on the kind of stuff you could do before getting cracked down by the cosmic government or whatever.

For some reason, I can see a Sitcom like tone could be taken with a game like this. Sounds like it'd rather work well, help explain why the main god cast don't just do serious things to help humanity, keep Mother Hydra at bay or whatever.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 11:42 am

The alternative is to play the has-been.

Gran Torino, Unforgiven, Harry Brown.

You had badass power but are only able to access it in limited amount now. It's still a stupid mechanic. it basically makes for a character history that say "oh, yeah, I was badass. Now, I have serious emphysema but if need be, I'll eat you fucking alive, ya whippersnapper. "

Again that sort of thing is awesome in fiction. Cooperative storytelling shows it as being only fappery. And while playing this character occasionally or as a one-shot seems okay to me, long term use just doesn't make a cool character. I mean, who the fuck wants to keep on playing the guy who was the "Fuckin A back in the day" but now is someone who can't do a lot of fuckin but he can be a partial A once in a while.

--

Nicklance · Post by **Nicklance** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:24 pm

What if the game premise is simply a bunch of all-powerful people deciding to be dicks, immature pricks and bleeding douchebags and say "Fuck It" and quit?

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 4:32 pm

Again that sort of thing is awesome in fiction. Cooperative storytelling shows it as being only fappery. And while playing this character occasionally or as a one-shot seems okay to me, long term use just doesn't make a cool character. I mean, who the fuck wants to keep on playing the guy who was the "Fuckin A back in the day" but now is someone who can't do a lot of fuckin but he can be a partial A once in a while.

This concept has as much lasting appeal, to me, as most others. Just saying.

Hey Ancient, did you want to develop an actual system for this yourself, or what?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 4:37 pm

Fuck no, man. I got bored with the idea shortly after I posted. Anybody wants to play with it, go nuts.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 4:39 pm

Nicklance wrote:What if the game premise is simply a bunch of all-powerful people deciding to be dicks, immature pricks and bleeding douchebags and say "Fuck It" and quit?

Then you're playing Apathy: the Justified Cynicism.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 5:41 pm

Chamomile wrote:
Nicklance wrote:What if the game premise is simply a bunch of all-powerful people deciding to be dicks, immature pricks and bleeding douchebags and say "Fuck It" and quit?
Then you're playing Apathy: the Justified Cynicism.

I would normally object using my trademark namesake as part of a game without some sort of Royalty thrown my way but I shall release it under a Creative Commons license.

Be free to do this.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 5:46 pm

Apathy is a pretty good RPG. It goes like this:
1) get some friends together around a table.
2) wander off and play Smash Brothers.
It's one of the best implementations of "rules-lite" out there.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 6:04 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I'm just riffing here, but I immediately thought of Sonoda's Exaxxion. When the main character is using his powered armor, his action is personal scale, very precise, very satisfying, and he can even heal people by laying hands on them; but he has great difficulty affecting the grand scope of the conflict. When he's piloting the giant robot he's isolated, frustrated, and even walking around causes property damage and kills people, let alone actually fighting; the muzzle flare of the main gun wreaks havoc for miles around. So being a major player in the global conflict comes with an unavoidable body count, and for a long time it's very unclear if he saves more people than he kills.

So if powering up was similar to climbing into the giant robot and the utilitarian ratio of using that power tended to remain unresolved, that could mitigate the moral issue.

Alternately, you could ditch the "cosmic magic" flavor just do it as an ex-mechajock PTSD space-opera setting and it could work:

You and your buddies were one of the greatest mecha units in the war against the aliens. But that ended a few years back. Now you've shipped back planetside to settle down to a civilian life where you never have to worry about your shields failing or your anti-matter going critical. The newly United Earth Government has new crop of recruits with new alien-tech-derived mecha and now it's their job to keep the peace of Earth and make sure the aliens uphold their end of the peace treaty. You went back home, proposed to your sweetheart, got used to skipping the three-mile run in favor of sleeping in and you enjoy the rounds on the house at the tavern each Armistice day.

Except for two things:

Firstly, your whole unit is considered war heroes, so now you're poster boys for the UEG recruitment, and well, without the threat of species extinction seeming imminent, there's a growing movement to re-assert nationalism (or corporatism if you prefer). Some of the leaders of this movement would be very happy to see you guys discredited and publicly humiliated as a way to discredit the UEG. This is made more complicated as the UEG was preferable to extermination, but since the war have made blatant powergrabs and trampled traditions you believed in for the sake of unity, so the fringe extremists out to destroy you may actually be right.

Secondly, this was an interstellar war. The treaty was signed years ago...but for the next couple decades there are still going to be shapeshifting covert alien sleeper agents assigned to assassinate you outside of your mecha approaching in cloaked coldsleep vessels from Arctarus.

So, you're still ex-military badasses but you don't have your mecha or military hardware, and yet you're still confronted with spies and alien assassins as you try to go about your daily life the best you can.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 6:12 pm

It would be easy (and kind of fun) to slip into self-parody with this kind of thing, giving the players "missions" as simple as "go to the corner store and fetch a gallon of milk" and see a) what hell you can put them through for daring to leave their houses, and b) what the players will do when they get into the ultraparanoid bad ass mindset.

If it works right, you might end up playing a session of mall ninjas.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 6:14 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote:-snip-

I'm not sure how well this conveys the original mood, but it seems like a very cool concept in and of itself. More like a specific campaign idea than a setting idea, though.

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:49 pm

Ancient History wrote:Fuck no, man. I got bored with the idea shortly after I posted. Anybody wants to play with it, go nuts.

Hmm. Maybe if I ever clear anything out of the backlog of half a dozen unfinished tabletop games I personally have in development, I will give this a shot.

Den style, which is to say, crowdsourcing.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 11:18 pm

fectin wrote:Okay. K points out why this is bad on it's face. Therefor, either you play a douche, or the fluff situation is more complex, or the mechanical situation introduces complexity.

That seems like a solvable problem.

Separately, K, you're at least partly right. Do we each have a duty to contribute to the utmost of our ability though, or is that just nice? And how does intent play into it? Is it sufficient to recklessly act with good intentions, or is it more correct to cautiously avoid causing harm?

Beside anything else, it seems really weird to cut off an entire heroic trope just because some lenses show that trope as dickish (Kenobi, Jack O'Neil, most Mifune characters, Every Kung Fu character ever, most Discworld characters, Mal, Switzerland, etc.)

But the pitch doesn't cover any of those characters, they cover being The Dude or that guy from Dazed and Confused if he used to have godlike power. Mifune-types and Mal rail against injustice for petty reasons, Kung Fu powerhouses basically do things for the lulz, and Kenobi passes on his wisdom to uplift those with great power.

This game is basically "Fuck it, let's go bowling": Demigod Edition. This is appealing for a story, but if you want to play a game about being an apathetic cock, just be an apathetic cock in real life; you don't need rules for that.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 3:45 am

When you hear someone say an old man like me "The War" you think of Vietnam or Korea or World War II. In your small mind those were horrific bloody conflicts. But I can't really blame you for your limited context. I wanted the world this way. It's much more pleasant than what came before.

When I think of The War, I think of the only one that mattered. When we fought billions of universes died screaming every hour. In all of our battles we extinguished more souls than there are quarks in this universe. We were the gods to gods, unmatched in power except by each other. We could do anything, but it was all for naught because we hated each other with an idiotic passion that no mortal could hope to match. And in the end, everyone suffered for it.

Eventually, after trillions of subjective years, we became so tired that not even out petty rivalries could sustain us. We stepped away from our war machines for the first time and saw the destruction that we had wrought and we agreed to just fuck it all and make peace. None of us were happy with the treaty. It was a compromise between diametrically opposed super-gods. It offended our very natures, but it was our only option.
We agreed to seal away our powers and enter into separate universes, forever segregated from each other lest we be tempted to renew hostilities. And it worked. Thanks to that compromise you have MTV and slushies instead of screaming death and soul-rending agony. You should be grateful for that, really.

But there was one slight problem. Our minions didn't know what to do without us. We couldn't just destroy them. Some of us were extremely attached to our creations and the treaty was too important to let minor things like the depredations of many-tentacled soul-leaches stand in the way. And I can't just assume my full power and stop them, that would void the treaty and bring thundering hell down on you all. So that's why I need to borrow your shotgun, you see. It is of vital importance.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 4:22 am

Hyzmarca wrote:stuff

No, stop reaching for the phone. No, don't dial 911. Damnit, why is it so hard to believe that I am the progenitor of countless cosmic horrors who has lost his powers and needs your shotgun to stop my creations from filling the void I left behind, thereby destroying the cosmos I worked so hard to stabilize?! Oh, nevermind. Sort of answered my own question.

All honesty, though, that sounds pretty hilarious. Then you lay out the rules of the treaty, and it allows for limited breaches to get you the 'flaming nine-iron of awesome' effect. It turns into a masquerade-slash-paradox system, where you don't want to draw attention from the other powers OR unravel the universe with too much super-juice.

Or maybe most (but not all) of your super-juice really is sealed away, as in you absolutely 100% can no longer reach it. It is not a gentlemen's agreement, but an impossibility. Then you can cram all these cosmic powers in the same universe for plotlines. Hell, perhaps it was the only universe left in the end, which sparked the whole treaty. "Um, guys, we're out of things to fight over." "Wait, really?" "Yeah. This is, uhh... It. The last one." "Well, fuck. I was about to hit you over the head with it. That would have been bad. We've got to do something."

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Wed Oct 17, 2012 1:34 am

DSMatticus wrote:
Hyzmarca wrote:stuff
No, stop reaching for the phone. No, don't dial 911. Damnit, why is it so hard to believe that I am the progenitor of countless cosmic horrors who has lost his powers and needs your shotgun to stop my creations from filling the void I left behind, thereby destroying the cosmos I worked so hard to stabilize?! Oh, nevermind. Sort of answered my own question.

All honesty, though, that sounds pretty hilarious. Then you lay out the rules of the treaty, and it allows for limited breaches to get you the 'flaming nine-iron of awesome' effect. It turns into a masquerade-slash-paradox system, where you don't want to draw attention from the other powers OR unravel the universe with too much super-juice.

Or maybe most (but not all) of your super-juice really is sealed away, as in you absolutely 100% can no longer reach it. It is not a gentlemen's agreement, but an impossibility. Then you can cram all these cosmic powers in the same universe for plotlines. Hell, perhaps it was the only universe left in the end, which sparked the whole treaty. "Um, guys, we're out of things to fight over." "Wait, really?" "Yeah. This is, uhh... It. The last one." "Well, fuck. I was about to hit you over the head with it. That would have been bad. We've got to do something."

So I've been thinking about this again lately. I've come up with a bare bones and probably shitty system.

D6 Stat + Skill dicepools vs TN 4

There are four human stats that range from 1-8

Strength
Agility
Smarts
Other (Yes, really)

And four Super-God Stats

Metal (Does the Impossible, allows you to attempt any feat with a Success Threshold of 2)
Blues (Rerolls any failure)
Jazz (Inflict failure on a target)
Rock (Triples your dice pool)

Super-God Stats start at 0 and increase by 1 every time you use them. Instead, whenever you use a God stat you roll 1D6 vs [that stat]. If you beat the TN then nothing happens. If you don't then you take [Stat] damage as backlash.

Your Damage meter starts at 15 and ends at 15.

There are also 4 Magic Stats, which PCs do not possess. Those stats are used by the eldritch horrors that you've left behind.
Awe (The Magic social Stat)
Destruction (The Magic Attack Stat)
Defense ( The Magic Defense Stat)
Creation (The Magic Creation Stat)

Also there's your standard skill array that I haven't written yet.