Fantastic! Roles

[Username17]

So I've been doing most of my design work of late on aWoD. And that's still going to be my primary focus until it is finished. But that should be "soonish" because I'm at the 72k word count already. In the meantime, some discussion on the Fantastic! project is I think in order. Superheroic characters do not need very much character advancement, and as such they respond very well to a class-based character creation system. And that means Role Protection (there's that word again). And in order to make rules that do that adequately, it is necessary to define what characters that the rules generate actually have that needs protecting.

So here's the challenge: Fantastic! has 30 Iconic characters for its built-in campaign world. If a short description of how they operate can be written fr each, as well as a description of what is "role protected" and what is not, then a rule system can be line-fit to that list.

Blasters:

• Breushfire
• Positron
• Thunderhead

Brick:

• Holocaust
• Magman
• Wolframite

Cape:

• Captain Victory
• Praetor
• Queen Maive

Controller:

• Ice Princess
• The Lorax
• Mistletoe

Gadgeteer:

• Artemis
• Dr. Octagon
• Toybox

Mentalist:

• The Bishop
• Penumbra
• Wet Noise

Monster:

• Marquis d'Mar
• The Red Menace
• Tiger Khan

Sorcerer:

• Dr. Impossible
• Metaman
• Tesseract

Speedster:

• The Blur
• Punctual Lad
• Snap

Suit:

• Bruce Avec Pitié
• Circuit Breaker
• Nemesis

-Username17

[Archmage]

If a short description of how they operate can be written fr each, as well as a description of what is "role protected" and what is not, then a rule system can be line-fit to that list.

Are you suggesting that people here should attempt to write these?

[Surgo]

He certainly is. While the others are mostly self-explanatory, I'm not quite sure what "Cape" is supposed to refer to.

[Caedrus]

He certainly is. While the others are mostly self-explanatory, I'm not quite sure what "Cape" is supposed to refer to.

IIRC, The Cape was defined as the guy who flies around, has laser eyes, strength, all that stuff. I guess they're supposed to be The Mario of Superheroes.

[Gelare]

Sample capes were Superman and Bubbles (from The Powerpuff Girls).

[Ice9]

I'll take a whack at it.

Tesseract - Thinking with Portals.
Offense:
Attacking through portals at unexpected angles.
Making foes fall through portals (potentially includes falling loop).
Accelerating heavy things to terminal velocity and chucking them at people.
Making someone fall halfway through a portal then snapping it shut.
Defense:
Making a portal to intercept incoming attacks (and maybe redirect them).
Using a portal to cancel falling/knockback.
Utility:
Teleporting around.
Letting teammates move/attack through portals.

I would say the bold powers are the most in need of protection. For other powers, the specific mechanisms might be protected (defense via portal redirect), but the general effect probably wouldn't be (strong but momentary defense).

[DeadlyReed]

I figure I'll give it a shot. Abilities marked with asterisks are what I would expect this character's shticks are.

Brushfire
Offense
Shoots a bolt of flame that deals moderate explosion damage.
Shoots napalm at a single-target that does damage over time.
*Napalms an area, creating a zone that does continuous explosion damage to those that are either within its radius or near it
*Alternatively, renders his explosion-based attacks contagious

Defense - Force Field
*Gives off noxious fumes that deal minor gas damage to nearby opponents when he attacks
Can reflexively reduce the power of ice attacks within a certain radius by heating up the nearby atmosphere
Can create a wall of heat that prevents ice attacks from moving through it
Can sheath himself in heat to reflexively nullify ice attacks
Can absorb lightning attacks to recharge his limited-use explosion abilities

Movement
Moves at double the normal base land speed
*Movement leaves behind a trail of fire, dealing minor explosion damage to nearby opponents

Utility
Brushfire can sense fire, heat, explosions, and other instances of explosion-related mayhem
As an experienced outsdoorman, Brushfire knows everything about wilderness survival
As an expert in herbal medicine, he can scrounge up natural ingredients and turn them into cures if given time

[Josh_Kablack]

Wolframite

Um, I'm guessing that's supposed to be a different schtick than what I think of when I read that:

Offense:
Alpha Strike: being naught but a cheap knock off, this does many many orders of magnitude less than a google damage.

Defense:
Mathematica Defense: shielded by some of the most impenetrable software ever created, his defenses are theoretically universal, but the needless complexity prevents them from being activated reliably.

Movement:
A new kind of movement: He can only move one cell at a time.

[Username17]

A roleplaying game exists ultimately to act as a resolution system to the magical teaparty aspect of the cooperative storytelling. And for many games that you might write you've got yourself a clear mandate from the specificity of what kinds of stories you are trying to tell. If you're making a game about the Old West or Ranma style adventures, you can just go check the source material for what it is supposed to generate and then fit your game math to that.

But quite often you have a subject that has more... ambiguous source material. If you're doing something like "Fantasy" or "Superheroes" you have a relatively broad and flatly contradictory set of possible source material. So you have to narrow down the narrative a lot before you can make a game that can be judged to succeed or fail.

It's like I was suggesting for SR5's Matrix system: The first thing that needs to be done is to have people seriously just describe what they are doing in games without a character sheet or rules and roll dice and shit. Then when you have a good grasp on what your players are willing to put up with and what they think they should be doing with the Matrix, you can write some rules to fit that. Just writing rules at random got us in the situation we are in today where the players are being asked to roll dice dozens of times and the end result doesn't even hold together.

So yeah, the serious plan here is to have people write up little descriptions of how they would like a character to play and what they would like to be unique about that character. For reference, I see power levels in the vicinity of characters you only see in super groups like The Wasp and Blue Beetle.

---

It took me a moment to even figure out what you were on about Josh. Wolframite is the German name of Tungsten.

-Username17

[violence in the media]

Well, since we're all tacking whacks at this....

Mistletoe
Everybody's gonna love today, love today, love today.

I see Mistletoe working on a subtle level of emotional control and manipulation. Nothing as overt as dominated mind zombies, but her victims experience intensified feelings of love, lust, pity, fear, etc. Mistletoe would probably play out a lot like Derren Brown with use of confusion, misdirection, and hypnotism. She could be played as a low-class grifter or a world famous performer.

Offense:
She can throw emotional debuffs on enemies, taking away their will to fight.
She can buff allies, by inspiring them with righteous fury.
She probably has some sort of "mundane" combat ability, like martial arts, firearms, or stolen science.

Defense:
She can deflect or deny people's ability to target or act against her, literally by changing the way they feel about her.

Utility:
She can pull random passers-by to her aid.
She can uncover secrets, and gain special access to places.
She'll probably have a great deal of knowledge about psychology and social engineering, even if not formally schooled.

Misletoe's weaknesses are going to be against impassive things, like security cameras, robots, and electronic security. Her powers may or may not work through an electronic device (I don't know if her power effects will carry through a broadcast or retain them in a recording). Anything with an emotional capacity is going to have a very hard time pinning her down. She survives losing battles by convincing the victors that she was on their side all along.

[RandomCasualty2]

Metaman
"I'm going to borrow your heat vision for a second. Don't worry, I'll give it back. Probably."
Concept: Metaman is a spellcaster who studies the magic of the universal form, which is all about shedding ones current form and taking the on the identity of someone else for a short period of time. Some tribes in history believed that you could become a bear by wearing bear hides. Most of them sucked at it. Metaman however, takes this to a new level.

General Traits: Metaman can have three power types active at any given time.

The first is a body power. This basically determines what Shape metaman is in. He can for instance, take the body of a bear, or the body of superman. This doesn't however get supernatural or mutant powers, but does get basic traits, like strength and size from muscles. But it won't make you a son of Krypton.

Metaman can also have a reaction power that only hangs around until he uses it and oddly only works against the person he stole it from. Reaction powers are something you take for the duration of a single attack and then are gone.

His third type of power is the drained power. These powers remain for 10 minutes, and actually temporarily steal the power from someone else, so they can't use it.

Offense
MetaPower Blast (Reaction Power): Metaman can draw the special attack of anyone within the line of sight that he touches, and use it against them (and only them). Highly useful against someone like superman, who you can punch with Super strength. Less useful against the human torch who is immune to his own fire. Metaman cannot draw gadget, suit or spell powers, but may draw mutant, innate magic or monster powers this way.

Power Drain (Drained Power): By touching someone, Metaman can steal one of their powers. Like Metapower blast, he can only steal "natural" powers and not ones that come from external sources or personal knowledge. Someone who has had their power drained loses access to it. This drain automatically reverses in 10 minutes. There may also be a balance cap on certain powers he can't impersonate.

Offensive shapeshift (Body Power): By touching a body part of a dead animal, Metaman can turn into a variety of basic animal shapes. For the most part we don't give a fuck what they are and let him describe what it is, because they all have similar stats and do basic damage. The important thing is that when he's got the form of a bear, he can't also grow wings.

Defense
Defense Adaption (Reaction Power): If someone attacks metaman, he can temporarily use the attacker's resistances to resist the attack. Any remaining damage is of course taken by metaman.

Defense Drain (Drained Power): Metaman can drain certain natural defenses by touch, similar to Power drain. Note that each draining touch only steals one thing, and Metaman can only have one active drained power at a time.

Utility
Impersonation (Body Power): Metaman can assume the shape of anyone he touches. Actively impersonating people. Metaman can only do this for 24 hours before he must touch them again to maintain the shape or revert to his normal form.

Flight (Body Power): Metaman can turn into basic animal shapes, like an eagle. Eagles can fly.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Obviously metaman is pretty awesome if you're fighting certain types of superheroes, because he can steal their powers and use them against them. Against someone like Superman, he's great to have in a fight, because he not only fights with the power and defense of superman, but he can also weaken superman.

While it seems that metaman is nearly invulnerable by adapting other's defenses against their own attacks, doing so takes him an action, So metaman can be out numbered to the point that he can't adequately defend.

Metaman also suffers heavily against foes that he can't steal from. Against batman or a sentinel, he's down to either borrowing a power from his allies (in which case they don't have it), or just shapeshifting into a bear and hoping for the best. People who have multiple powers may find it in their best interest to hand one off to him for the fight. Perhaps superman can hand him heat vision while he goes and beats people up.

Metaman is obviously in his true element in a solo fight against a big villain, where he can pretty much borrow defenses and attacks to negate anything the villain might do.

[Gelare]

Ice Princess

Offense
Can stab fools with a totally sweet icicle-sword.
Can throw ice darts at people, also for stabbing.
Can freeze the air around someone, encasing them in ice and temporarily disabling their ability to move and take non-mental actions. Fire-based characters can melt the ice, strength-based chracters can go "Grragh!" and burst through it, etc.
Defense
Can put out fires and counter fire-based powers.
Can arm herself with a shield made out of ice. Useless against laser attacks.
Utility
Ice Slide: Can make ice paths on which she can slide quickly, can make ice ramps to go up or down surfaces.
Can make it snow.

[Gelare]

The Lorax

Offense
Can punch people with a bit of reach using his vines.
Can animate trees and other vegetation to whack people, either nearby or at a distance.
Entangle, Druid 1: Can animate vines and other vegetation to entangle a group of people, giving them penalties to most actions and reducing their movement speed and dodging ability. Fire-based characters can burn through the vines, strength-based chracters can go "Grragh!" and burst through it, etc.
Defense
Can encourage nearby vegetation to leap into the way of attacks, blocking them.
Vulnerable to fire.
Utility
Can make ropes and ladders out of vines and the like.

P.S. The Lorax doesn't usually have to worry about running out of vegetation because he looks like this:

[DeadlyReed]

Magman

A rugged cop with a huge frickin' gun who interacts with reality as if he were in an active movie.

Offense
A high-accuracy left jab that deals light power damage, but can be followed with either an uppercut or a right hook.
A moderate-accuracy right hook that deals moderate power damage and possibly stun.
A low-accuracy uppercut that deals high power damage and possibly knockback.
A high-accuracy left cross that deals light power damage and possibly knockdown and/or knockback cannot be followed.
Fires his gun dealing minor power damage at range.
Fires his gun at something inanimate in the vicinity, causing it to explode dealing moderate explosion damage and knockback to nearby targets.
*A limited-use free action no-range AoE presence attack that can follow either a successful fisticuffs combination, one of his limited use BFG attacks, or downs a quota of minions; it deals moderate mind crush damage and a fear-based debuff.

Defense - Toughness
Counter attacks with a fisticuff attack when struck in melee
Designates a cover zone, dealing light power damage to those who enter it
Harasses an opponent with cover fire, debuffing said opponent's attack
Reflexively reduces the damage of power and explosion attacks (it's only a flesh wound).
Reflexive debuff (spits in his opponent's face, insults them) when targeted by a mind crush attack
*Gets a bonus to defense based on the number of minions he downs each scene.
*Turns downed opponents into cover.

Movement
Climbs walls, runs up stairwells, jumps between rooftops, slides down ropes, power cables, and clothing lines with no problem
*Immediate interrupt dive for cover with additional range and mobility
*Near-invisibility when sneaking from cover to cover

Utility
Beats up a foe and makes him spill information (like telepathy with gestures, incantations, and occassionally foci)
Makes a leap of logic and surprisingly comes up with the right conclusion (like clarisentience)
Cuts through bureaucratic red tape (like mind control for paperwork)

[CatharzGodfoot]

vs.

Hmm...

[traverse]

I'm drawn to Bruce's name. No idea if he's a hero or villain. Feel free to ignore the fluff. (Also, yeah, yeah, a 'suit' is typically tech-based, but the sphere is awesome.) Unsure of what exactly should be protected.

In case anyone's looking for the first discussion of Fantastic!, it's here

Bruce Avec Pitié
"We're meant for better things."

Andrew Bruce, the youngest mayor ever to be elected in Acropyrgos, was burying his wife on that fateful day when the Silent Historian, arguably the most powerful sorcerer of the Silver Age, leveled a majority of the docks district. Caught in a crossfire, and confronted by the Historian herself, Bruce was caught under the might of a terrible spell which permanently enclosed him in an unbreakable, spherical forcefield. That was over three decades ago. Over time, he's learnt to control and make use of his curse to affect the world around him.

Offense
Is able to roll over, or smash through, nearly anything. (I suppose this would be 'all points in Power'.)
Can change the weight of the sphere between extremes, adding to either his power or dodging capability.

Defense
The sphere is textbook for when you get your Toughness (Main Buy) in my Forcefield (Secondary Buy). Uniquely, nothing solid can pass through it.
Due to constant fluctuations in the field, even if a hold style ability manages to successfully target him, it won't last long.
No amount of physical compression on the sphere can hurt him.

Movement
Can hover and fly at around 25 mph, when the sphere is at its lightest.
Can achieve speeds, with sufficient space and severely reduced maneuverability, comparable to a car (with nearly the same weight) when rolling on the ground.

Utility
Can effectively stop anything solid when on the ground, given sufficient space, if he can place the sphere between it and whatever it's colliding towards.
A modicum of immortality. He hasn't eaten, drank, or expelled any waste since the curse's inception. The suit he wore to the funeral isn't looking so hot, though.
Manages to make anyone around him increasingly depressed.

(And just so I can get past him being a hamster, he's positioned in the center of the sphere, moving around the sphere by will. And not, you know, running the thing around with his legs.)

Edit: Bruce and Tesseract need to be allied, so they can fastball special everyone.

[TavishArtair]

These heroes need (short) origin stories before you can really call them a hero. Like Bruce.

[traverse]

(Okay, last one I'll do. Unmentioned, but haets Bruce.)

Queen Maive
"A good leader makes effective use of all her resources."

Easily pushed to jealousy, and incredibly protective of what she has, Queen Maive considers Acropyrgos to be her city, and she its true, sole protecter. After her rise to popularity, she took the Shining Spire as her own, the long standing tower of white stone amongst the skyscrapers, after which the city that grew up around it owes its name. She and her small army of thugs and lesser Talents keep the peace for the city leaders who appease her.

Offense
Uses supernatural sonic blasts that rip through foes, doing Soulburn damage.
Uses sonic waves to temporarily Daze foes.
Does Speed damage at close range, striking at foes as she flies past.

Defense
Keeps to the air, attempting to dodge whatever comes her way.
Places mooks between her and foes, if caught on the ground.

Movement
Flight, at a brisk speed, but not faster than bullets.

Utility
Unlimited Mook Powah

Capes and Controllers need mooks, Capes because they get put in charge of leagues and alliances, and Controllers are more obvious. My opinion.

Also, a couple of things. Some things are deadset in the Archetypes, likes 'capes have lasers'. Must capes, then, always have lasers, or can you bleed into other damage types? Obviously I meant to say lasers instead of soulburn if this is so. Same with the movement powers and Bruce. His main mode could obviously be Speed, keeping to the ground, but could he bleed a bit for limited flight, or even non-combat utility flight? I know that it's a bad thing to bleed for insignificant gains, but I'll still ask.

[shau]

This is mostly fluff, but I was in a weird mood.

Captain Victory
Everyone in Megapolis knows that the V sign is for victory.

Nobody really knows where Captain Victory comes from, but we know he is one of the oldest and most enduring superheroes. He first appeared in one of America’s darkest hours, when it was a fighting a war against an evil German tyrant. Although many lives were lost, the war was ended after Captain Victory singlehandedly defeated the dastardly Kaiser Wilhelm.

After the war, Captain Victory settled in the fair city of Megapolis. He is the city’s most famous citizen and every resident has seen him at least once, leaping fearlessly and with great speed into combat with the city’s strangely persistent never do wells.

Captain Victory may seem similar to certain other, famous heroes. We can’t tell you the exact inspiration for Captain Victory for legal reasons but let me assure that he is a super guy.

Offense:

Mostly you are looking at flying powers and super strength. Combat actions could be stuff like:
Flying up to people and punching them in the face or tackling them to the ground.
The ability to lift enemies and throw them great distances
Lifting enemies and dangling them in the air.
Picking up cars, telephone poles, and other parts of the city and using them like weapons.

Defense:

Mostly some sort of psuedo-invulnerability, either through DR or having a lot of HP.
The ability to fly out of the way of attacks he can’t soak.
That ability to cover other weaker members of the team by interposing himself between the attacker and their target.

Out of Combat Utility
Hero of Megapolis
As Megapolis’ favorite son, as well as quite possibly its oldest resident, Captain Victory can request a number of favors from the city. Obvious uses of this advantage include borrowing the city’s super science research lab or getting as special low interest loan from First Megapolis Bank. However, it is usually the city’s more humble residents that come to the hero’s aid. Many times it’s the faceless citizens of Megapolis that give Captain Victory the clues he needs to continue his adventure. Also, a surprising number of Captain Victory’s adventures have been a success only due to the timely intercession of his charming but foolish best friend Johnny Nelson or his fiery and quick witted though seemingly blind love interest Ruas Rain.

Protected Shtick:
Hard to say because capes are so generic. You are kinda like the cross between a brick and speedster. Flying is brought to mind from the name but a lot of other classes such as suits, gadgeteers, and mentalists probably want that as well. Maybe make them the best flyers, or the only flyers that can also have invulnerability.

[Judging__Eagle]

Captain Victory needs a moral or boy scout power. That is the classic "super guy", white hat, white knight power.

They are actually virtuous, and get their power from their virtue.

The fact that they won't actually try to kill people intentionally is part and parcel with most capes.

[Username17]

As for Capes and Eye Lasers, it is entirely possible for a player to simply not grab any of the power options that give you laser beams. While the classic Capes are almost universally blessed with laser beams (Superman, all the way down to the Powerpuff Girls), there are always the outliers like Will Stronghold from Sky High who has no apparent lasers (at least, during the part of the movie that actually matters).

-Username17

[The Lunatic Fringe]

As for Capes and Eye Lasers, it is entirely possible for a player to simply not grab any of the power options that give you laser beams. While the classic Capes are almost universally blessed with laser beams (Superman, all the way down to the Powerpuff Girls), there are always the outliers like Will Stronghold from Sky High who has no apparent lasers (at least, during the part of the movie that actually matters).

-Username17

Part of Sky High matters?

Huh, you learn something every day.

[DeadlyReed]

Wet Noise

The demi-god son of Dionysus, he was sent into the world to champion against Prohibition. Unfortunately forgotten by his divine relations, Wet Noise has learned to bide his time by fighting for other causes.

Offense
Lashes out drunkenly with a low-accuracy melee strike, dealing moderate power damage
Derisively laughs away an opponent, dealing mind crush damage and an enraged effect
Inebriates an opponent, making them more and more confused; the inebriation effect stacks
Turns an fully inebriated opponent into a loyal maenad temporarily
Pulls his opponents towards him with a winning smile
*Causes his opponents to wretch and suffer mind crush damage when they use a straining (limited-use) power because of induced toxicity

Defense
Delays the damage inflicted to himself or another until the start of his or their next turn
Turns electricity attacks back on their user
Turns ice attacks into a gaseous cloud that inebriates adjacent opponents
Frightens his foes away with a frightening visage
*When Wet Noise struck, he reflexively grants an applicable ally the opportunity to strike back at the attacker and do extra damage

Movement
Simple short-ranged teleportation, but not safe blind teleport
Long-ranged teleportation, but must pass through intervening space
Extreme-ranged teleportation based on divine portfolio (alcohol, drama, social gatherings, illegalities, activism) which takes time to prepare

Utility
Can appear androgynous at will
Encyclopedic knowledge of drink and drama
Can magically turn water into wine
Can broadcast the existence of a social gathering over a large distance and area
Conjures appropriate music for feasting and drinking
Can sense and distorts transmissions that don't have celebrations prioritized

[TavishArtair]

I dunno. That seems like a sorcerer. Wet Noise is supposed to be a psyker and psykers are supposed to be non-magical-seeming (i.e. Jean Grey, not Sorcerer Supreme). So a god who can punch ice into beer clouds doesn't seem quite right.

Yes, I'll actually post something in a bit.

[Username17]

"Wet Noise" is the act of hurting or killing random people in order to obfuscate data trails. So I was expecting it would be something more Scanners and less Bacchus.

Anyway, people have put up ideas for Mistletoe, Ice Princess, and The Lorax, which is coincidentally all thee of the Controllers. Ideally, something could be line-fit to that to mark off some role protection for the Controller type.

The current Mistletoe writeup doesn't specify any particular reserved schtick, but she has a lot of stuff written up that seems to go in the direction of psychic action control and group stunlocks.
Ice Princess specifies that she has what appears to be a Champions-style Entangle as a reserved schtick.
The Lorax has as a reserved power something that is actually called Entangle, though it is implied to be multi-target and less total than Ice Princess' air-freeze. In Champions terms, that could be thought of in terms of buying an area effect in exchange for some of the entangle weaknesses.

So I think the question comes up now: what is it about Mistletoe's powers that make it something that The Bishop or Penumbra couldn't do? What is it about The Lorax or Ice Princess' powers that make them something that Artemis couldn't do with a net arrow or Toybox couldn't do with a glue gun?

-Username17