Steve the Ogre

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 10:20 pm

Ok, so for AWoD it was decided that "Steves" were bad, except maybe as monsters of the week.

What about a game where you want Steves, as both monsters of the week and player characters?

For a while, I've thought off and on about doing an SCP Foundation game, and kind of want to allow players to play SCPs that have been allowed to work for the foundation, like 076-2 or SCP-105.

I could use a reflavoured Storyteller system, opening up all the books for characters, but Storyteller has problems...

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 10:25 pm

...or I could use a reflavoured super system, like mutants and masterminds, couldn't I?

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 10:37 pm

The SCP Foundation made for much better reading before they started peppering their files with god damned self-insert Mary Sue characters. There's a lot of good material on that site, but it feels like it's been overrun by the kind of people you'd meet at the cosplay contest at your local anime convention.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 10:47 pm

like what characters?

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 11:04 pm

The basic concept of Storyteller seems to be "take shadowrun, make it modern only, and dumb it way down to make it easy to learn because fuck game balance".

The fundamental concept of "combine lots of needless skill separation and make it set in the modern age with modern equipment" can be worked with. However, the seemingly minor adjustments to combat like having a single roll for hit and damage, and allowing "lucky" attacks to get bonus dice more often... it just make things crazy in a bad way.

So, you know, if you take out the bullshit then you might end up with something playable. Takes lots of work though. Any reason to not use AWoD and just change a few of the population distribution assumptions?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 11:46 pm

Well, using an actual WoD setting... could work, I suppose. It just seems odd to me to have the Foundation, and the Masquerade(ie, the supernatural societies as a whole) in the same setting.

Though I suppose having the Foundation aware of and keeping eye on the supernaturals would work fine...

IGTN · Post by **IGTN** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 11:57 pm

Wouldn't the SCP foundation be a branch of the Marduk Society, then?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 12:04 am

IGTN wrote:Wouldn't the SCP foundation be a branch of the Marduk Society, then?

except the SCP foundation allows SCPs to work for it in various ways, but it doesn't force them. I don't think the Marduk Society is that... egalitarian, I guess...

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 2:22 am

Prak_Anima wrote:
IGTN wrote:Wouldn't the SCP foundation be a branch of the Marduk Society, then?
except the SCP foundation allows SCPs to work for it in various ways, but it doesn't force them. I don't think the Marduk Society is that... egalitarian, I guess...

Hmm, I thought that it was a bit more like an internment camp: 'Be our prisoner and fight for us, or just be our prisoner. It's your choice.'

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 3:12 am

Eh, it's more like "We're holding onto you because we don't want you destroying civilization (/disturbing the normals)." Some SCPs just happen to be quite helpful, 76-2 offered to basically be their attack dog because the only agent to have ever repeatedly take him down died (that whole epic warrior seeking his equal thing) so he needed a new challenge. 73 is completely benign, indestructible, and quite intelligent and eager to please, so they let him help with observation.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 3:41 am

Prak_Anima wrote:Well, using an actual WoD setting... could work, I suppose. It just seems odd to me to have the Foundation, and the Masquerade(ie, the supernatural societies as a whole) in the same setting.

Though I suppose having the Foundation aware of and keeping eye on the supernaturals would work fine...

The Illuminatus! books start off with the quote, "The history of the world is the history of the warfare between secret societies", and that works pretty well here. The Foundation is the "human" side of things, and the Masquerade is the "everything else" side of things. I mean ultimately The Masquerade is a social setting part of AWoD that you don't need to keep if you don't want to, but it seems like stories are usually a little better when the foes are organized and have an element of thought assisting them. If the PCs are playing The Foundation forces, then they will probably eventually need someone to face off against.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 4:51 pm

Mystery is an incredibly shitty genre to try to run with a bunch of Steves. The players can't make any inferences about what anything is or how anything works, because you're living in a Humian Hellscape where the past does not resemble the future and there is no way to reason from knowledge or experience how anything might have occurred or who is responsible for any past events and how they might have done it.

Supers is a pretty decent genre for battle of the Steves. Dungeon Crawling can work OK for that shit too. You run into the hallway of the Third National Bank and there's Ephemera and Rampant. Ephemera starts singing and then your shadow starts strangling you, and then Rampant unleashes a beam of lions into your chest. And then you have your shadows holding you down and a bunch of lions stomping on you, and Ephemera and Rampant get away. Because there was no fucking way you could have expected that shit, because seriously what the hell? From there you come up with a plan to deal with Ephemera's singing shadow control and Rampant's lion rays and you face them again and bring them to justice.

But mysteries are just frustration engines if you don't have a solid set of assumptions or personal authorial fiat. You walk into the crime scene, and the guy is dead, the door was locked from the inside, and there is blue goo dripping from the victim's ears. And that doesn't mean shit to you because the perpetrator is a god damned Steve and the blue goo thing doesn't tie in with fucking anything.

-Username17

The Vigilante · Post by **The Vigilante** » Tue Feb 23, 2010 1:51 am

Hum... what's a "Steve" ?

A Man In Black · Post by **A Man In Black** » Tue Feb 23, 2010 2:30 am

The Vigilante wrote:Hum... what's a "Steve" ?

A gelatinous cactus creature.

No wait, a fur-bearing eel.

No wait, a giant electric frogman.

It's a monster that doesn't have any pre-made place in the world, one which the players can't possibly be expected to be prepared for.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Feb 23, 2010 2:57 am

I thought it basically just got used to mean unique, one off monsters.

but yeah, that's pretty much it.

The Vigilante · Post by **The Vigilante** » Tue Feb 23, 2010 3:05 am

Oh ok, thanks for the explanation... I kinda figured that was it but I wanted to make sure.

By the way, that SCP site is effin awesome, it killed my productivity then and there.