resource Ideas for High PL Play, Status Quo Changes, Etc

[KnightDisciple]

So, this thread is probably going to seem a bit scatter brained at first. If it ends up that way, I'll try to go back through as time goes on and clean things up. 

 

I'm going to break this up into a couple different posts. 

 

I welcome input from other people, but I'm trying to get the idea balls rolling here. 

 

Anyways, the main purpose of this thread is to propose, explore, and brainstorm on ideas of things we can do, large and small, to provide some good options for those players whose characters are either high PL (14 or 15), or cosmic in nature/scale. 

 

Why? Because to be honest we don't have a lot of stuff going on that's intentionally focused on that sector of play. Some of this is because we don't have a LOT of PL15 characters, but then again, we don't have a lot of straight-up PL15 characters because there aren't a lot of options at that level. Kind of a vicious cycle, really. 

 

I think, in general, there are a couple of areas we can look at to improve this.

 

-Better stable of foes to face at high levels.

 

-Updating parts of the setting (and maybe site organization?) to provide reasonable ways for PCs to encounter these foes and generally operate at the "appropriate" level. 

[KnightDisciple]

On Appropriate Foes for High PL Play

 

So, you're a PL15, full stop. PL 15 Combat Caps all around, 250 PP, everything. 

 

Who you gonna call fight?

 

Well, that's the question, now isn't it?

 

-Obviously, the list should be larger than just "Omega and the Annihilists" (though that's a valid group to occasionally draw from).

 

-Another source is the likes of the Gorgon, the Curator, Willow's siblings (assuming Sorus would be chill with that), and any other such Preserver-made beings. I've heard there's a new one, Tellax, who's basically the High Evolutionary on steroids. Basically, the Preservers seems like a good group to blame for rogue beings/machines that go around trying to destroy, conquer, corrupt, or disrupt entire planets and star systems. 

 

-The Star Khan and his family and empire are a good source of potential conflict. Plus, space-faring PCs could totally go around fighting entire fleets! That would be pretty awesome. 

 

-The Crime League, especially when the full roster is present, is a threat to, at minimum, the entire planet. Especially with some of the new NPCs we potentially have on tap to join them. 

 

-Talos and the Foundry can be threats right up to the level of PL 15, and with ever-changing technology they can prove to be foes that are constantly changing, adapting, and evolving. 

 

-Extra-dimensional enemies may well be a good source of some conflicts. In particular, Mastermind's Earth has already interacted with Prime once, Erde has semi-regular contact, Anti-Earth has the same, and Earth-I-War-4 (the one Cobalt Templar went to, with decades of on-and-off war) is the sort of place to breed powerful supers. Heroes going to one of these places to help turn the tide at a critical juncture would give a good shakeup of scenery, situation, politics, personality, and even powers.

 

 

More generally, PL 15 would, ultimately, require foes who are either more numerous albeit at a slightly lower PL (minimum 12), roughly equal numbers and PL, or a higher PL (but lower numbers). We don't have a lot of PL 20s floating around, but I think we could continuously rustle up a good stretch of PL 12s and some good PL 15s. 

 

But I do think that it wouldn't hurt to try and organize a list of the highest-level, still-viable foes. We don't want to make it a "hit list", despite our aversion of Cardboard Prisons. 

[KnightDisciple]

Helping Facilitate Higher PL Play

 

This is partially about trying to better account for what scale and scope higher PLs operate on, and partially about admitting we're already not RL Earth and not MU or DCU, and just moving further from the status quo.

 

In chat the other day, it was remarked that PL 7-10 is generally "street level" crime. I'd agree; at that level, fighting regular gangs isn't too hard but doesn't feel like overkill, and the appearance of 1-2 members of the Crime League, Foundry, or Psion Dynasty (for 3 examples) is a Pretty Big Deal (or should be!). 

11-13 is a fuzzy area. If you're, say, PL12 with 200pp, you're going to be comfortable dealing with continental scale stuff, or small global, cosmic, or dimensional affairs. A PL 12 with 250pp is going to be very well-prepared, but won't necessarily juggle mountains or the like. 

And 14-15...well, this is the point where you're looking at "saving the world" being a baseline, nearly.

 

But our site's adventures generally happen in Freedom City, and the structure is focused on Freedom City. Which isn't entirely bad or entirely true (we've got some folks doing more and more over in Britain, for instance). 

 

But what if we took some steps over the next few years to intentionally extend the reach of Humanity, and thus our heroes?

 

What about negotiations for a couple of moon bases, set up so it doesn't disturb Farsider society?

 

What about small initial Martian colonies?

 

Asteroid mining and research stations?

 

Official diplomatic ties with the Lor Republic (without just being subsumed by them)?

 

Basically, take all our super-science PCs and NPCs and have some real fruits start showing up. We don't need to solve every problem overnight, but let's crack some energy problems, get some spaceships cruising, things like that! 

 

This way, our high-PL characters have MUCH easier justification for going off-world, having contact with space-based characters and threats, things like that.

 

None of this is a demand, mind you, but it is some ideas. 

[TonyWillsIt]

You have some good ideas here, so I thought I'd throw in my two cents for some ideas. I can't stand the thought of a world bound by Status-Quo, especially in superhero stories where it turns into Reed Richards is Useless. Now, I haven't been around here long, so I'll leave alone the ramifications of what the mods do and do not allow and just give some ideas for higher-level adventures.

 

Shonen manga in Japan handles this with a linear progression path, normally. Just scale everything up. They're still fighting a gang, but this gang uses reality-warping weaponry and threatens a solar-system.

 

Then there is pitting the man vs. nature bit. When's the last time the Capes were facing down the effects of, say, an earthquake? Especially in a coastal area, where a tsunami is a given. A city-wide fire? I'm sure there are some pyro-tastic villains out there. A volcanic eruption. A super using the worst hurricane in the last century as a catalyst to raise Atlantis, and it's insane slave-keeping populace, from another dimension, so it becomes a race against time to not only save civilians and mitigate the damage, but also to stop an insane ritual.

 

How about a villain dousing a prison's water supplies with chemicals to give every inmate powers for 24 hours to hide something terrible he's doing in the background, like selling earth to Space Nazis. A plot hook? A very few of the inmates KEEP their powers after the time limit.

 

A group of influential city businesspeople get together and sue some Capes for damage done to their livelihoods by the hero's do-gooder activities. How do the Capes respond to an enemy they can't punch, especially if that enemy has legitimate grievances?

 

You could play with a politician who starts a grassroots movement for a superhero registration act. Not because he thinks supers are evil and must be stopped, but because he thinks that untrained men and women acting as unofficial police with lives in the balance is something that needs to be better monitored. He's not a bad man, and he makes some legitimate points. Can the Capes deal with the thought of a world where they'd have to get government training and fill out paperwork to do what they do now?

 

How about a technological super uses his abilities to push human technology, in a feverish desire to watch humanity expand beyond Earth. What if the supers are tasked to aid in the construction of a station on another planet? Can they deal with gravity changes? Loss of atmosphere? Sabotage? Will their abilities even WORK outside of Earth's gravity well?

 

Just because the heroes can punch does not mean all problems are solved by it. And don't give me any of that nonsense of "The genre expects it." Some of the best stories ever told of Superman are him dealing with a situation he cannot stop with brute force. Make your heroes think. Make them make choices, take risks. Let other people's lives hang in the balance.

 

 

But, yes, these are just some ideas I have. Feel free to take all, none, or say I'm an idiot.

Edited February 5, 2014 by TonyWillsIt

[Ari]

The purpose of the status quo is to provide a clear baseline for everyone involved to be on board with. So we don't also have a huge pile of additional canon for people to sort through so they can understand why everything's happening. Of course, things will have to change sometime, or else we'll start in with even more snide comments about stuff we haven't bothered to move forward. I hear that the Moderation team is setting up some kind of system to better detail how we've diverged since the sourcebook left off in 2005, so let's leave them to it!

 

As for ways to make a broader playing field for higher-PL PCs.

 

One of the simplest ways that would also allow for long-form stories would be "Return to X"-style stories. Where PCs who went to, say, Erde while PL10, go back as PL15 and use their greater power to leave their mark on the place. Stuff like uncovering some terrible secret of the Tyranny Syndicate to weaken their world's obeisance(whatever that word is, something like that), doing something about the mysterious anomalies floating over several North American cities, stuff that might well be impossible to do without that greater ability and support.

 

As for the greater villain supply, that's a great point Knight. Space stories(not using mine as examples, because they were...not good) have a history of either being really anticlimactic or else dying early on for exactly the reason that it's not obvious who the heroes are supposed to be fighting. I'd suggest we come up with general stats for the major powers' ships so we have some kind of "THIS is what these guys can do, mostly" marker. And I need to finish those Khanlets, feel free to let me know how they could be done better, as I'm sure they can.

 

One thing that I disagree with you though Knight is the use of the Preservers as suppliers of post-vanishing foes. I say we keep them almost wholly off the table, even for PL13 or higher, because otherwise we'll end up with a cavalcade of all these relic colliding on Earth at one point or another, which defeats the point of them being mysterious and not leaving many intact traces that they even existed.

 

 

 

Official diplomatic ties with the Lor Republic (without just being subsumed by them)?

 

I thought the Freedom League handled that? Since Earth is still a developing world(especially socially) it's not like they have much to offer the Lor at present anyway, and a S.W.O.R.D-style gang would be up against how very infrequently Earth is as a target of alien conquest compared to most frontier worlds in the Republic, since those are harder to defend and aren't largely concealed.

 

Asteroid mining and Moon bases are very grand, as the Justice League can attest, but I question how much our PCs could really do with them. If they're owned by Lab PCs, then they could easily be a ready source of drama, but not really much more than similar mining facilities here, unless you really go into the hazards of space travel, say with Blackstar attacking a small station that needs to be evacuated before the super-battle.

 

And at the heart of it all, I'm uneasy with the idea of that being the focus of progress. How about some of that Tony suggested? More political or social change being open than at mid-level, where most PCs are starting out. Where higher-powered PCs are increasingly called upon to act as representatives of the super community, or asked to be part of larger endeavors than even most teams deal with. For example, in theory, Gabriel could talk just about anyone willing to listen out of or into almost anything. That seems like something people would want to bring to bear in rather sensitive situations, like maybe ensuring peace talks go well between some warring nations, dissuading dictators from horrible atrocities, and other times where being very persuasive would be just about the best power ever. 

 

It seems a little jumping the gun for our heroes to have spaceships roaring around blasting those backwards aliens before they get involved in politics at home, is what I'm saying. I'll write up something to explain why I think that is later. But yeah, Star Khan. That guy and his tactical acumen and legions of warships could use some love, totally. 

[RobRX]

Maybe you guys need a tyranid/zerg/generic hive-mind hungry aliens. They would make a good 'to go' alien villain. With entire planets hanging on the balance. Of course, down the line, they could attack earth.

 

There's definately a lack of non-Terminus cosmic threats, however.

Edited February 6, 2014 by RobRX

[Ari]

That's a fact. The Dark Lords are a pretty good short-form "From beyond, Evil!" resource. But the Master Mage is supposed to be dealing with them, not more garden-variety sorts, and unless one just snuck past through some weirdness we're not likely to see one unless we go looking. Though it'd be kind of funny to have the site mages take on that job for a day, as a one-shot.

 

And the Grue are pretty much what you describe actually. More rapacious conquerors than mindless killer monsters though. And most of the time they're busy being the not!Commie Menace in the interstellar Cold War between them and the Lor Republic. That is, of course, because individually they aren't much of a threat, and-I just had a great idea for a possible story, putting this in Story Talking!.

[KnightDisciple]

The purpose of the status quo is to provide a clear baseline for everyone involved to be on board with. So we don't also have a huge pile of additional canon for people to sort through so they can understand why everything's happening. Of course, things will have to change sometime, or else we'll start in with even more snide comments about stuff we haven't bothered to move forward. I hear that the Moderation team is setting up some kind of system to better detail how we've diverged since the sourcebook left off in 2005, so let's leave them to it!

Well, I'm trying to provide ideas for that; I realize they are compiling a list of things but I didn't see why I couldn't throw a couple of ideas against the wall to make it stick.

None of this thread is meant to be snide or anything.

My point point about reworking status quo is...actually, I'll touch on that later.

 

As for ways to make a broader playing field for higher-PL PCs.

 

One of the simplest ways that would also allow for long-form stories would be "Return to X"-style stories. Where PCs who went to, say, Erde while PL10, go back as PL15 and use their greater power to leave their mark on the place. Stuff like uncovering some terrible secret of the Tyranny Syndicate to weaken their world's obeisance(whatever that word is, something like that), doing something about the mysterious anomalies floating over several North American cities, stuff that might well be impossible to do without that greater ability and support.

Yeah. And all of those, especially things like "go back to Erde", are along the lines I was thinking.

I think part of the "message" here is that, at least for our higher-PL characters, we need to maybe do planning out on occasion.

 

As for the greater villain supply, that's a great point Knight. Space stories(not using mine as examples, because they were...not good) have a history of either being really anticlimactic or else dying early on for exactly the reason that it's not obvious who the heroes are supposed to be fighting. I'd suggest we come up with general stats for the major powers' ships so we have some kind of "THIS is what these guys can do, mostly" marker. And I need to finish those Khanlets, feel free to let me know how they could be done better, as I'm sure they can.

Oh, the idea about having a pool of ship stats that we can tweak is an excellent one. For a while we had that "ridiculous HQs" thread with several spaceships in it. Unfortunately, that, ah, had some troubles.

But the idea of having some generic resources along those lines is great. It could well turn into a project similar to the Oddballs, as well.

 

One thing that I disagree with you though Knight is the use of the Preservers as suppliers of post-vanishing foes. I say we keep them almost wholly off the table, even for PL13 or higher, because otherwise we'll end up with a cavalcade of all these relic colliding on Earth at one point or another, which defeats the point of them being mysterious and not leaving many intact traces that they even existed.

Well, I'm not saying we need to churn out a couple dozen Preserver artifacts, but maybe try to use a couple more of them?

Like I said, Tellax sounds like one with a lot of recurring potential.

One or two more that operate differently from the Gorgon or Curator would give us a good stable of villain-making villains. I mean, Tellax's whole thing is "evolution", yeah? Sounds like a villain-maker to me.

About the only other good source of that is the Labyrinth's DNAscent process. To a lesser degree, SHADOW (with various clone types) and Foundry (with lots of tech) might fight.

 

 

I thought the Freedom League handled that? Since Earth is still a developing world(especially socially) it's not like they have much to offer the Lor at present anyway, and a S.W.O.R.D-style gang would be up against how very infrequently Earth is as a target of alien conquest compared to most frontier worlds in the Republic, since those are harder to defend and aren't largely concealed.

Right, and we have several PCs in the Freedom League.

That's part of my point.

And you're right, there's not a LOT of conquest attempts.

But I'm also suggesting, why couldn't the Lor occasionally ask for help with "unusual situations"?

Maybe there's some freaky-deaky goings-on their magical corps can't figure out.

Or a planet with a surge of empowered individuals with a greater power range than the Lor typically see (which as I recall is basically "telepathy and telekinesis, with minor variations thereof", but I could be wrong).

 

Asteroid mining and Moon bases are very grand, as the Justice League can attest, but I question how much our PCs could really do with them. If they're owned by Lab PCs, then they could easily be a ready source of drama, but not really much more than similar mining facilities here, unless you really go into the hazards of space travel, say with Blackstar attacking a small station that needs to be evacuated before the super-battle.

1.) As much as anything those ideas are meant to be backdrops and background flavor, kind of like how being in a city provides both. They are, as much as anything, to be a way for tech-related PCs and PC/NPC companies to be able to say "hey all those years we spend doing research-y things isn't this nifty proof it's not 100% wasted time?". The same would hold true for things like "better power generation", "better medical technology", and so on.

2.) As well, a changing world could provoke discussions, concern, excitement, and so on among heroes and civilians like.

3.) Rescuing a mining crew from Blackstar actually sounds pretty boss

 

And at the heart of it all, I'm uneasy with the idea of that being the focus of progress. How about some of that Tony suggested? More political or social change being open than at mid-level, where most PCs are starting out. Where higher-powered PCs are increasingly called upon to act as representatives of the super community, or asked to be part of larger endeavors than even most teams deal with. For example, in theory, Gabriel could talk just about anyone willing to listen out of or into almost anything. That seems like something people would want to bring to bear in rather sensitive situations, like maybe ensuring peace talks go well between some warring nations, dissuading dictators from horrible atrocities, and other times where being very persuasive would be just about the best power ever.

Definitely possible, though I personally would hope we don't get too details or political. Peace talks between warring nations is good, talk shows trying to say "Political stance X is totes the best guys" is bad. Not that you suggested it, but I'm heading that one off at the pass.

And I would be up for negotiation adventures for Gabriel, though there would have to be some "twists" involved. An attack, someone immune to sonic descriptor or social skills, someone coming in with an ulterior motive...

 

It seems a little jumping the gun for our heroes to have spaceships roaring around blasting those backwards aliens before they get involved in politics at home, is what I'm saying. I'll write up something to explain why I think that is later. But yeah, Star Khan. That guy and his tactical acumen and legions of warships could use some love, totally.

1.) Only a couple heroes could justify constantly being out in space. The rest would simply have the option. That's really the core of what my space-based suggestions are about, is options.

2.) We do need to thing on ways for our more cosmic-y heroes to get out there and do stuff, and maybe have some help occasionally.

3.) Honestly, again, I'm hesitant to tie heroes too closely to "politics" as opposed to "rescuing people". I mean, Gabriel probably has different political views than, say, Equinox, or Fast-Forward, or maybe even Velocity. That's not bad, but it is something we have to keep in mind. PCs and players both share differing viewpoints, and the danger of putting too much politics in a thread is of disagreement that goes nowhere bubbling up.

 

 

That's a fact. The Dark Lords are a pretty good short-form "From beyond, Evil!" resource. But the Master Mage is supposed to be dealing with them, not more garden-variety sorts, and unless one just snuck past through some weirdness we're not likely to see one unless we go looking. Though it'd be kind of funny to have the site mages take on that job for a day, as a one-shot.

 

And the Grue are pretty much what you describe actually. More rapacious conquerors than mindless killer monsters though. And most of the time they're busy being the not!Commie Menace in the interstellar Cold War between them and the Lor Republic. That is, of course, because individually they aren't much of a threat, and-I just had a great idea for a possible story, putting this in Story Talking!.

I think there's room to have the Grue pop up occasionally.

I think the idea is, "alien menaces" should not always be big grandiose invasions, but rather more subtle spycraft, fifth column forces, things like that. Information gathering, rabble-rousing, disinformation spreading, that sort of thing.

Such plots would also give room for the high-PL characters who aren't just big flashy powers to shine.