Oppressors: the newscast

Posting this here, to avoid cluttering up site etc. It's the next morning now, in game, and I'm going to assume your PCs find out about/hear/watch this via someone or some way. Nice and simple.

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The local news network is on the TV, the familiar backdrop behind the desk currently riddled with bullet holes. They've been left as a massage, either by the Haud or by the humans that remain. The news anchor is, currently, an ex-camera man. He's presentable, looks okay in a suit, and has a decent smile. Which is, really, all that's needed.

"This is the news of the hour, on the hour, being repeated every hour. The Haud have graciously allowed the local news network, Choam, to continue running as a Haud news network. Many local networks across the world have been connected together in this manner. Unlike previous news sources, we will not pretend to be fair, nor unbiased. The Haud have -- dealt with those who would refuse; the rest of us wish to live and keep our jobs.

"Here is what the Haud wish to have reported today, the 11th day after their invasion and the destruction of Pluto.." The smiling man taps some papers on the table, then begins:

"Following regrettable losses of lives and breakdown of basic needs due to the suppression of various governments and resistance, the Haud wish it to be known that regular services of food and supplies will begin today into cities. All grocery stores and drug stores are now under Haud control and will be supplied with regular food. Farms and the like producing food are exempt from all taxation and are to contact any local Haud representatives if they require additional aid or manpower. Quotas are no longer to be enforced, and people will get the basics they need, as they need them. Taxes will be thirty percent across the board, payable and usable at the local level to fix the cities and towns damaged in the war for the foreseeable future.

"In practise, the food system should amount to one bag of food per person each day. Attempts to play the system will be met with removal from the system by, ah, death. Attempts to halt the system will result in no food being delivered to the town or city for at least two days. Destroying any outlet - i.e. grocery store and the like - will result in Examples being made."

The smiling face takes a deep breath. "The Haud wish is to be known that they have made, and will continue to make, examples of those who defy. For those who are, ah, slow: if you defy the Haud, the area around you will be slaughtered. There will be no mercy given, no second chances. Attempts to use this to kill your own enemies will lead to your immediate death, along with all family, possibly friends and even co-workers. I -- well, I guess we all know where the Haud stand.

"Ah. Food is being given out until the normal distribution centres resume proper operation via former secret government warehouses the Haud are opening. Err. Apparently the best before dates system was largely a fraud for certain products, which our government would take when they 'expired' and store them. To what end, we may never know. Expect to get a lot of non-perishable items, I imagine?

"Technology is being quarantined by the Haud after various 'incidents' and the Haud will ration out anything on an as-needed basis. A bureaucracy for this purpose is being developed; those who lost jobs due to the Haud invasion may be given preference towards positions in the news system as compensation. Gas and oil reserves are now closed, and electricity generated by power plants will be the only source of power in cities. If it is not enough, cities must find ways to cut down on power usage or appeal to the Haud. Giving up various resources, such as computers and such the Haud can make use of, will result in net benefits for communities.

"The internet will remain down for the foreseeable future, as will normal TV and radio stations as well as the press. Pirate stations and the like will be permitted to a limited degree. All natural resources in the world are going to be used by the Haud for their needs and distributed for ours on an as-needed basis. Attempts to resist this are, plainly, not encouraged. If humanity proves useful, select members of our species will be allowed to join the Haud as soldiers.

"We are to consider this a great honour. That is all.

"This is Leon Chomsky for Choam News, signing off. We will continue to repeat this broadcast until the Haud give further updates."

I'm not quite dead... In fact, I think I'm getting better.

Yeah! So, hi again. It's me. I know I sort of disappeared again for no apparent reason... I wish I could say it was because my life is so busy, but it's really not. I mean, a lot of stuff has happened, like job changes and remodeling a section of my house as a place to gather with my friends and doing that whenever possible... but there really have been plenty of opportunities for me to come at least hang out in #game1 and I simply didn't. I'm sorry about that. But hey! I think I might be back now. So... yeah. What's up, guys? :)

Oppressors: Where it stands

Currently we're 3 sessions in (technically 5). The PCs have one base - the warehouses - while making plans for other eventualities, the Haud had murdered a few hundred people, some allies have come forth, some enemies bit the dust, one superhero driven insane and an actual use found for Ma'Ti.

Some of the weaknesses and the strengths of the Haud have been figured out but, since the PCs have yet to truly act against them,the aliens seem to pretty much be ignoring them. The police, otoh, are not - but they're merely human. And, unrelated to the PCs, the fanatical religious element of the city is linking the Haud to serpents and Satan and preparing actions of their own ...

Fun things so far:
- The potential in making a superhero's daughter into a supervillain is just fun.
- A use being found for Ma'Ti. He wasn't meant to have a real use. He was a walk-on joke.
- The disparate ways in which the PCs gather allies and build their own power bases.

Surprises:
- So far, no one has really done anything out and out Evil.

Oppressrs: Not feeling oppressive enough?

I think everyone is aware of this policy, but just a note via head office anyway:

You can alter your PC as you wish during the first three sessions, baring in mind that they remain generally the same character. I.e. if you realize your PC can't pull their weight in a brawl, you can juggle more points into ACV/DCV and so on. Management is willing to be flexible on this, though removing a power your PC has used will require in-game shenanigans to explain it away.

Oppressors: Some statistics

So, this is the stats with all the current PCs and NPCs (including one major npc who skews the damage maximum royally but was somewhat balanced out by another who basically became "lowest stat, lowest stat, lowest stat" for most everything).

So, without further ado:

Body
Average: 6
Min: 3
Max: 11

Mind
Average: 6
Min: 3
Max: 13

Soul
Average: 5
Min: 3
Max: 11

ACV
Average: 9
Min: 4
Max: 15

DCV
Average: 9
Min: 4
Max: 15

Melee Attack
Average: 12
Min: 4
Max: 20

Melee Defense
Average: 11
Min: 4
Max: 18

Ranged Attack
Average: 12
Min: 6
Max: 20

Ranged Defense
Average: 10
Min: 4
Max: 18

Health
Average: 71
Min: 35
Max: 115

Min. damage
Average: 58
Min: 4
Max: 198

Max. damage
Average: 144 (or 131, if ignoring 2 NPCs with targeted attacks as their max damage)
Min: 5
Max: 465 - which only affects buildings etc. (The one after is 276, for the curious)

On the plus side, this gives me some nice base stats for "generic villain/hero person" :)

Min. damage was generally done as level 5 weapon, no SS involved for those without multiple weapons (or if they had unarmed as an attack already). For those who had such attacks, I used their weakest and highest, since I was lazy. Which means the damage etc. stuff is rather iffy -- I almost didn't bother including it at all. The max. damage includes things like targeted, so is heavily skewed. Ignoring those, the max would be 276.

Comparing the PCs alone to the above averages, the PCs were high on stats (crazily so; average among PCs is 2-5 points over the general average). PCs were just below ACV/DCV, about even with Melee average, just below Ranged, higher than average health and lower than average in damage, though ignoring two NPCs with targeted attacks the PCs come in at just over the average.

Oppressors Rules Clarification

This game counts as Superhuman/Superpowered. The guidelines on page 9 (Max attribute etc.) are just guidelines. You can ignore the maximums, or use them as a 'middle of the road' limit. PCs should be in the minimum level of Superhuman, cf: Min. Combat value of 6, Min. Health 60, Damage multiplier of 5+.

You can ignore skills entirely in this game. If you do use it, Skill Flux can be the best bet. if you do buy specific skills - say, your PC is a biology professor working on making people into zombies - then it makes sense. But otherwise, unless you wish to emphasize something about the character, you're not obligated to use them and we'll just go by background for them if needed.

This is simply because skills never got used in Defenders for the most part. Having them does mean your PC is better at that skill than someone who has it via background, but it's probably not going to crop up all that often.

The only rules being enforced are the ability caps on page 15 (I think it is). The exception, of course, is PCs who are really skilled at X. Only one person will be allowed to scale X (which has to be an actual power; Dynamics need not apply) past the max level by 1-2 levels.

Oppressors: Invasion!

Some information on the invasion proper...


The Invasion!

There was almost no warning when the Haud arrived. One moment every cell phone in the world rang and a man's voice said "Drink more Ovaltine" to all who answered, and then Pluto exploded and the Haud fleet was simply around the world, not bothering to hide at all. They even had a battle cruiser that was too large to hide, since its size distorted the gravity of nearby planets. How long the Haud were watching is unknown, as if whatever they were waiting for, but they struck swiftly and without a shred of human mercy or kindness.

Which is not to say we didn't fight back; nations mobilized armies, nuclear warheads were armed and deployed, and secret weapons confiscated from aliens, mad scientists and jaunts to other dimensions and times saw unclassified use for the first time. None of it mattered. Nuclear warheads were obliterated, nearly ever satellite in orbit destroyed and in Dune City the Defenders gathered superhuman allies and went up into space to meet the threat head on.

The Haud battle cruiser was destroyed. By some estimates, almost half the Haud fleet was decimated as well. The cost was all the superheroes in the world who'd banded together in that one brief shining moment to stand against the darkness. With their loss the resistance on earth flattered and failed in a swath of Haud soldiers. They weren't terribly better than our best, but they had numbers and motivation and city after city was broken and fell.

Some don't even thing it can be called a war, since it was only three days in the places that held out the longest. Most just call it Invasion Day. Or The End.

Aftermath

In the seven days since the last surrender the Haud have declared martial law over the planet and filled it with their lizard-like troops and other alien allies. Even now, few details are known about them: they've done what they can to shatter the communication backbone of the information age, but some commonalties have emerged.

To whit:
The Haud prefer to capture locations rather than destroy them; the people they could care less about. The planet seems to be their beachhead for something, though no one is quite sure what yet.
Every alien who was on earth and could have fled did. (And yes, this included Dick Clark for the curious.) Many others who couldn't subsequently killed themselves, stating that death was preferable to the Haud.
Haud technology ranges from far-future to using weapons from human soldiers to organic technology and alien pack animals and messengers (the latter look disturbingly like angels); they seem to be pack rats of the alien world and have many captive species working for them in one way or another.
Superhumans and humans who decide to work with the Haud are often enhanced as a reward. Those who resist them almost always die.


In Dune City the Haud have established a space port north of the city. It's the only one not located by a major urban centre, the reason generally given is either the existence either the fact that the Defenders were rallied from this locations or Wiley Corp (or what used to be it) is here, though they have yet to be able to get into the grounds owned by that company as yet.

A Haud captain, known as Rathclaw, seems to be in charge of Dune City and the local invasion. He even did a radio interview during which he stated that this world is now the Haud's and those who want to survive should just deal with it.
An ordinary man in a business suit, Mr. Johnson is a Haud representative who tries to smooth problems over without killing people, mostly to avoid wasting resources.
The Collaboration -- consisting of Fighting Fury, Replicant, Slip and Tough Guy -- are four formerly very minor supervillains who have been augmented by the Haud and are sent to deal with any uppity villains and such problems. they specialize in dealing out massive amounts of damage to people and locations.
Alan Rimshaw, formerly deputy mayor of Dune City, has joined the Haud -- though why and to what end remain unknown. The mayor, for her part, is actively collaborating with the Haud to try and lessen the amount of people killed and property damage caused by the invasion.

Oppressors: Ruminations on powers

Supervillains are more than the sum of powers, but powers certainly help. This is just some notes so far on specific powers and the uses thereof.

Nullify
Nullify is an interesting and tricky one. It's best used in conjunction with allies, since it only works against a specific kind of power (say, tech or magic or superpowers). Plus, you need to melee touch attack, beat a defense, *and*they get a soul check + resistance against it. While it is undoubtedly useful, it's probably best as a secondary power.

Mind Control & Telepathy
Very, very common choices. You can use them, but if everyone does things get rather boring. Or at least predictable. (Mind you, 4+ people with mind control trying to take over the same group at once would be quite amusing.)

Power Flux & Variation
Go to town with these :) With 700 points, they become more worthwhile and practical as well as allowing some pretty nifty tricks to be accomplished.

Dynamic Powers
This is for abilities other powers don't work well for. In game terms, it's pretty much even with power flux though the scope is far broader. Power flux - fire could be flight, environmental manipulation, weapon, armour. Dynamic powers - fire, on the other hand, would probably include light, things involving volcanoes, skywriting a name and so forth. (It costs more, so the player gets a bit more bang for the buck.)


Finally, keep in mind your PCs motivation and goal(s). This is pretty much crucial to why they do whatever they do, and what they hope to gain out of it. Your PC is an active player, probably hoping to become Big and Famous: go with it.


And keep in mind that the Haud have conquered quite a few worlds. Mind shield, resistance and probably block power will crop up among them, depending on rank and so forth.

Oppressors: How far will you go?

Some notes, plus information on game time and format.

Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.
-Josephine Hart

Some things to keep in mind as we approach session #1 (Either the 20th or 27th, depending on how many people are done and so forth).

There are very few absolute heroes. Ditto for villains. So why your PC does whatever they do is important. You need motivations, goals, plans. And then the aliens come along and screw it all up on you. What do you do if the Haud are making money worthless? If the police have become as ruthless as the villains? If your Arch Enemy has been killed/destroyed/vanquished by some lizard-things and left you bereft of meaning and purpose?

Figuring this out is important. Also, well, not everyone has what it takes to be a hero. Some try it and fail, some can't stay the course. A few fall off the wagon and enter 12 step programs for recovering sidekicks or something. Plus, sometimes people just get the short end of the powers stick. If you can only blow things up, then being a hero becomes bloody difficult and so on.


Thing #2:
Your PCs aren't the Big Villains. Or, if so, they were locked away for a good time by Captain Flux and/or Victory and just got out etc. So you need to figure out why: they could be new, not ambitious enough, been burned by being beaten too often and so on. Not everyone has the cojones to be a big-time supervillain as well. Most people just can't be quite that ruthless/insane/demented. And so on.

Game Time & Set up

Official sessions will run Thursdays, at ~10pm EST. We can start a bit later if need be. Other sessions will run whenever players are about and we feel like the game. As far as sessions go, there are several things to keep in mind:

1. You are supervillains. Alliances between such are often temporary (see the prisoners dilemma for reason(s) why:). This doesn't have to be the case -- some of you could be allies going way back, or even friends. Despite the stereotype, there are villains who are friends just as their are heroes who are. Work this out with other players as needed.

2. Despite 1, I am going to assume the PCs begin the game operating on their own (or with a small gang of minions/their ward). While PCs will not be forced to act together, they will encounter many Haud and police and such, and often threats that they simply can't deal with alone. To what extent they suck in pride and ask for aid (or whatever) is entirely up to you. The heroes are gone, after all. It's a brave new world out there, and some villains are definitely forming 'teams', if only to mock what the heroes were.

The fact that the heroes lost, despite teams and powers, mostly seems a karmic "it's about time!" thing than anything else to most of the supervillain community. And, well, heroes are good and just and seldom have the guts to do what really has to be done. Villains aren't as hampered by this problem.

3. The Haud seem to want to subjugate humanity and strip-mine the world of resources. For all that villains are evil, this is your world as well. And, be it ever so selfish, you don't want it destroyed by anyone but yourselves.

Finally, people need people. Villain or not, your character has to get along with others to some extent, even if only through fear and intimidation and being utterly bonkers (see: The Joker). The supervillain community might be evil, but there are things it doesn't accept or condone and if you cross those lines, well, someone is going to say hello. The results are seldom pretty.

Oppressors: First Blows

All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him.
- H L Mencken

The idea: This is essentially Game1 doing Necessary Evil. By which: the Haud invade, sometime after Defenders ends (in game time) and take over. The heroes go to battle them and get killed/defeated - the stories differ; the villains believe they ran away I'd think :) - and the Haud have landed, and are taking over the world as a beachhead in their attempts to conquer the galactic hub.

The army has no hope, the global infastructure has begun to collapse, and the only thing between the Haud and taking over the world are ... supervillains.

Aka the PCs.

How it'll play out: This is up to the players, really. Some characters may be willing to ally with (aka use) others, some may see strategic alliances being vital. I imagine everyone will run into the prisoner's dilemma in some way :)A lot of what is done will depend on the PC, on what made them a villain, their own goals and desires -- some are likely to never consider themselves villains at all.


Character creation:

BESM, 3e. 700 points build. Max levels (see page 9, Superpowered listing) are enforced (though you can ignore the % in each guidelines), along with max level for attributes. The latter can be juggled about on a case by case basis -- if you want to be The Best Teleporter Evar(tm) then you'd want a level or two above the max. But for the most part we'll use the limits in the book to prevent gross overkill.

NOTE: unlike in Defenders, I will be allowing Dynamic Powers in this game. And Nullify, and Mind Control etc..

gm requirement: PCs need to be able to take damage and keep on going. Regen and/or armour and the like are almost a must.

Morality: It will be up to characters how far they go. To be on the safe side, each player may want to make more than 1 character, in case their original one is killed/controlled/put out of commission etc. You are, after all, playing the bad guys. And the player is not the character. I trust people can be adults about this. (And it's comics; even though it's not remotely 4 colour, resurrections can happen.)

The sitrep: The Haud are terribly powerful. They wiped out the heroes (somehow) after all, so the villains are left with the grim reality that, in order for their to BE a world they can rule/take over/get wealth from they have to defeat the Haud, or convince the Haud the planet is too dangerous to take. How they go about this is up to you all.

Toss other ideas/thoughts/etcs. in game1.

Final note: as with Defenders, you do NOT get points for most flaws and defects. You have 700 points; that's enough for anyone.

Caveat to the above:

Defenders had Hero Points. Oppressors will have Villain Points. Meaning: if you do something particularly nasty, you get 1 point. Flaws will translate into 10 of them = 1 villain point, to get something out of them.

Villain point expenditure
1 = divine intervention effect.
2 = +6 bonus to next roll.
5 = Critical Strike effect. (Can be declared once you hit.)
10 = comes back from the dead (somehow, some way)

Others can be added/modified at need.

With the exception of 10, using the same amount of points as someone else does can negate their in game use of villain points. In other words, their use must be declared in channel and other players can elect to use some of the PCs points to stop you. (Others could, conversely, counter the stoppage.) use of points in this manner is unaffected by character location.

Proposed Unknown Armies Game

Some caveats:

1) This will begin when Defenders ends* (should be 1-3 sessions, really)
2) Regular or 'when people are about' time needs to be determined. If the latter, what night(s) work best and so on.
3) UA is urban horror; except the weird, the surreal, the screwed up. The world is a reflection of the Pcs, the PCs are a reflection of the world.
* Defenders could continue; but defeating Wiley is basically the end of the plot. In what form it continues - if it does - will be up to players/gm after that.


First off, this game is going to need players. Contact Alcar if you are willing to play. Secondly, the players need to get together and decide what kind of game they want to play in and kinds of characters they want to make.

Some GM ideas:
- A game where the PCs ARE clued in. They know about magick, weirdness, the general occult underground. They may not be a cabal, but they at least have their toes in the water of weirdness and probably a good campfire on the beach.
- The PCs know each other before the game begins.
- PCs that reflect the sheer weird/odd/strange aspect of UA. Go big here. Go wild. Go crazy and nuts and have wild fun with it. Make characters you'd love to play, as long as they can interact and work with others.

The latter is pretty much essential. PCs may be screwed up, but they're somewhat functional. Exactly what this entails is up to everyone but at heart it means you interact with other pcs willingly. This is group role playing, after all. Consider it a challenge :P

Aside from that, nothing major springs to mind. I think most of the players are familiar with basic UA cosmology (if not, let me know). We can tweak it here and there, but generally we'll bend it more than break it. (This can be considered a challenge for the gm :p)

And that's it. Thoughts? Ideas? Throw them here, in channel, or wherever.

Some notes for Empires

This is some rough notes on how magic and magical things work.

All magic is sourced from somewhere. Since no one really knows where, and it seems to vary from school to school and magician to magician, general theory holds that magic is what holds the world together. Manipulate it, and you can change the world. Change the wold, change yourself.

This, of course, costs energy. Different kinds of magic cost more EP.

Healers: Healers don't pay EP for healing. It works up to its stated limited. Given that this is a subset of being an Oracle, it's widely believed the power comes from the gods, with the person merely a channel for it. The price for this (since magic gives nothing that is not paid for) is the varied mental and physical defects they have.

Magicians: A magician is the most common worker of magic. Generally, the ability to see and manipulate the universe lies in seeing under it, and manipulating forces barely understood. While tomes, rods etc. have been used, they're mostly focus tools and do little to lessen the EP cost of magic, which is basically the will and desire of the magician bending reality to their will.
Potential magicians are born with the ability to see magic (i.e. Sixth Sense); if they don't train early, it won't manifest at all for the most part since whatever window of opportunity there is to become a magician tends to be quite narrow. A magician normally follows the path of their teacher (the Dreamers of Flaath-innis can make dreams real etc.) This doesn't mean that everyone who can sense magic could become a magician, just that it is a requirement.
Since magicians are basically Power Flux (magic) they have to work their magic out, which takes time to decide on effect/cost etc. The chief limits to magicians are time and EP. EP cost = level of effect.

Dynamic Powers: Sourced entirely from the user, they use up craploads of EP (Basically, cost/level = EP used. So Minor (15) would be 15 for a level 1 effect, 30 for a 2 and so on.) Dynamic powers are basically a specific bailiwick interpreted broadly, often moreso than the user realizes. It also comes with no kind of instruction manual.

Chosen of Ve: Basically, elemental powers. Ep cost is low, effect range is limited to 100 yards at best for the most part. Generally, getting anything powerful out of it (say, storms, earthquakes etc.) depends on group effort. It's cheap in EP, but also fairly limited in effects.

Wizards: Wizards are magicians who have lived a long, long time. Centuries, in many cases. They've honed EP useage to a fine art and can create magical creatures and weapons, though the latter tend to be very rare as the energy put into them is a permanent loss.
If your pc has a weapon that is not normal, you need to work out how they got it, from whom etc.

A Tale Of Two Empires

Being a new game starting Mondays for the new year. System is BESM, setting is hyborean age (roughly) and the PCs are people who end up getting drafted into the war, all the while fighting simply to survive.

And we're baaaack!

Aka, it's no longer November, games are moving ahead.

Defenders will likely wrap up soonish (16-20 sessions, I think) as far as the Main Plot Stuff goes. If the PCs wish to continue the game beyond that, we'll work stuff out.

Conviction will run at some point. Need to find out how many people are interested and what they'd like to play.

As for games after that, no idea at all :)

Games

Games run by Alcar are, basically, on hold until December. I may run a session or two during the month as a break from nanowrimo, but offer no guarantees.

December shall see the existence of Conviction, the wrapping up of Defenders and -- who knows what for the new year :)