MutantsAndMasterminds Run With Us

GrazztTheDark · #1 Jun 29th, 2012, 06:35 PM

UPDATE: We're recruiting new players! Go here for more details!

Game NameRun With Us

Game SystemOther Roleplaying Games

ThemeBy Lisa Lougheed!

FlavourHeroes from different universes, each in the vein of an Eighties cartoon, are gathered together to save the multiverse.

SystemMutants and Masterminds 2e

Background"I am Princess Diamanda, the leader of the mystical order of the Gem Knights. Since the order's founding, the Gem Knights have protected the land of Crystallia from the evil Queen Quicksilver and her metallic minions. Time and again, we have managed to thwart her evil schemes and retain peace in the kingdom."

"But a new darkness settled over the land. Known only as the Shadow Incursion, they overthrew Queen Quicksilver and press-ganged her hordes into their service. Seeking only to enslave all that they saw, the Shadow Incursion slowly beat back the Gem Knights. All seemed lost."

"But a ray of hope appeared. Sapphire, wisest of the Gem Knights, discovered the existence of alternate worlds while searching for the source of the Shadow Incursion. Worlds of powerful sorcery, worlds of magic most bright, worlds where mighty warriors battled the most vile of evils. The Shadow Incursion has been at work on many of these worlds, some of which are already entirely conquered. Working fast, Sapphire constructed modifications that allowed us to transport our headquarters, the Pearl Palace, between worlds. At the last moment, we fled the conquering Shadow Incursion. But it was only a temporary retreat."

"We found an Incursion prison camp on a conquered world, that contained the Incursion's greatest foes, gathered together to be studied, so that the Incursion might duplicate their mighty powers. And we struck."

You can run with us
We've got everything you need
Run with us
We are free

C-c-c-c-come with us
I see passion in your eyes
Run with us

"Our first strike back has been successful. Now, the ranks of the Gem Knights has been bolstered by the champions of many worlds. Together, we will beat back the shadow, and restore our worlds to their former glory."

Character CreationCharacters will be made at power level 10, with 150 Power Points. Application should include the following:

Name: Don't worry about particularly obvious names. They come with the territory.

Age:

Gender:

Physical Description: Go nuts here. Nothing can be colourful or over the top enough. Remember, you're trying to sell toys.

Incorporating eighties' fashion trends is good, but not necessary.

Powers & Abilities: Give me a good idea of what your character can do. A full sheet is not necessary, but does give me the best idea of what your character will be capable of and allows me to correct any problems before they have a chance to become fixed in place. Myth-Weavers is a good place to host Mutants and Masterminds sheets.

In terms of what's acceptable, I will be cautious in all the areas the book warns you to be cautious (for example, Boost at five points or Precognition). However, I will be happy to accept nearly anything with the right flaws or in the right build. Two things in particular, though, I am unwilling to bend on. First, you get one sidekick, or one minion, or one summon, or one duplicate, and that's it. It's unfair to everyone who only has one action. Second, the Metamorph power feat of Morph is outright banned. It's too cheap for too much power. If you want to have an alternate form, use Shapeshift or Alternate Form. If your alternate form isn't covered by Alternate Form, inform me and I will cobble together something (or you can suggest something and I will see if it's acceptable).

Background: Each character comes from a different Realm, each of which in turn resembles the settings of various classic cartoons. A player's background should quickly sketch out their character's Realm, and their character's position within their Realm. Doing it (at least partially) in the form of an opening monologue or theme song lyrics (or combination thereof) may earn you extra points if I like it enough.

Realms can resemble specific cartoons, but I will not be accepting characters from actual cartoons. This is for two reasons: first, to prevent competition for popular characters (I don't want to have to turn down someone just because they're the second best Optimus Prime), and second, because it's more entertaining if you include your own personal stamp on a popular character. Both parody and homage are okay, just try not to take it too dark. While it's okay to take inspiration from later cartoons, your character and his Realm should also adhere to the tropes of eighties' and early nineties' cartoons.

It will be assumed that your Realm has already been conquered by the Shadow Incursion, and your character captured and then freed by Princess Diamanda's freedom fighters.

RP Sample: RP sample is your choice of a) A past adventure of your hero; or b) Your capture by the Shadow Incursion.

The application deadline is March 1st at midnight, Eastern.

New RulesCatchphrase [Feat; General]: A character gains a +1 bonus to any rolls involving an action made using extra effort or while spending a hero point. The hero, however, must speak their catchphrase while performing this action to receive this bonus. Characters unable to speak or make themselves heard (ie. in hard vacuum or a zone of magical silence) cannot take advantage of this feat.

Toyetic [Drawback]: This Drawback applies to Devices and Equipment only. Toyetic Devices and Equipment are garish and oversized. A character in possession of such Devices and Equipment can be easily spotted, and anyone making a visual Notice check on the character gains a +4 bonus, unless said Device or Equipment is concealed. Toyetic Devices and Equipment can be concealed as usual (through the Subtle Power Feat or Concealed feature for bases, for instance), but the DC to find or identify the Device or Equipment is reduced by 5. Toyetic cannot be applied to a piece of Equipment with a cost of less than 5 Equipment Points. Toyetic is worth one power point (if on a Device), or one Equipment Point (if on a piece of Equipment).

Rainbow Magic [Power; 2pp/rank]: You control the powers of happiness, harmony, and love, which manifest in mystical rainbows. You may use Emotion Control (choose one of Calm, Hope, and Love) in a cone with a length of 10 feet per power rank. You may take the other emotions as alternate powers.
Alternate Powers: Suitable Alternate Powers for Rainbow Magic include Blast (Extra: Sleep), Dazzle (visual), Environmental Control (Light or Distraction), Healing, Illusion (visual), Obscure (visual), or Snare.

New Archetypes: Most of the standard hero archetypes are acceptable for this campaign. However, this setting has its own set of archetypes which can also be used. Feel free to check these out, to give you ideas or if you aren't comfortable with the character creation rules:

SpatulaOdoom · #2 Jun 29th, 2012, 06:58 PM

Hahaha this looks awesome. Too bad I'm already looking at a bunch of other games or I'd be in right away. Does the Soldier Elite have a special ability that says they never actually kill anybody or anything despite firing thousands of rounds of ammo and blowing up entire buildings?

Hmm I would probably make a Johnny Quest type character, boy adventurer. Hmm wait Herculoids? Nah. Ohh superfriends, I could make up or forget new powers on a daily basis. Inspector gadget, then again without Penny he'd be useless. No wait wasn't there a monster truck cartoon about Bigfoot?
"What are your powers?"
"I've got a monster truck"
"Radical man! Anything else?"
"Nnnnope."

Man the possibilities are endless.

GrazztTheDark · #3 Jun 29th, 2012, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SpatulaOdoom

Hahaha this looks awesome. Too bad I'm already looking at a bunch of other games or I'd be in right away. Does the Soldier Elite have a special ability that says they never actually kill anybody or anything despite firing thousands of rounds of ammo and blowing up entire buildings?

Nope, that just comes naturally with the Mutants and Masterminds system. Everything can be non-lethal damage, even gun fire!

SpatulaOdoom · #4 Jun 29th, 2012, 07:33 PM

If anyone needs any inspiration Look Here. I particularly like the idea of Charlie Brown or The Fonz (from Happy Days). You could also be a wrestler power-bombing fuzzy animals (Hulk Hogan had a cartoon). Sadly Darkwing Duck is a 90's cartoon not an 80's one. Tons of anime from the 80's including good ole Macross if you want to get your giant robot on.

Lots of ideas to draw on, most of them pretty cheesy.

DamErm · #5 Jun 29th, 2012, 07:43 PM

Im RUSTY with my MnM 2e rules but I think I might have to play in this game. So many crazy cartoons in the 80's

Are cartoon hybrids allowed like say a gazillionaire talking duck humanoid that summons the totemic power of animals for powers?

God I can think of SO many cartoon character types I would LOVE to play in this kind of game

GrazztTheDark · #6 Jun 29th, 2012, 07:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SpatulaOdoom

Sadly Darkwing Duck is a 90's cartoon not an 80's one. Tons of anime from the 80's including good ole Macross if you want to get your giant robot on.

Lots of ideas to draw on, most of them pretty cheesy.

You can take some inspiration from any era of cartoon you want, really, so long as you include some eighties tropes: the cheese you mentioned, all guns being lasers, the music and fashion, over the top villains, etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DamErm

Im RUSTY with my MnM 2e rules but I think I might have to play in this game. So many crazy cartoons in the 80's

Are cartoon hybrids allowed like say a gazillionaire talking duck humanoid that summons the totemic power of animals for powers?

God I can think of SO many cartoon character types I would LOVE to play in this kind of game

Yep, that sounds acceptable. Just make sure you don't spread yourself too thin when you make your character.

GleefulNihilism · #7 Jun 30th, 2012, 03:23 AM

Isabella Sanfrancisco
Name: Isabella Sanfrancisco

Age: Mid-to-Late 20's

Gender: Female

Physical Description: Isabella appears to be an at least moderately attractive woman in her mid-to-late 20's of vaguely Hispanic ancestry. She keeps herself physically fit, mostly concentrating on speed and agility in her training. With dark brown hair and brown eyes, her overall carriage depends on the situation- usually switching from playful to all business. Doesn't often give the impression that she's the smartest person in the room, but always gives the impression that she's got something up her sleeve.

Her trademark outfit is a black trench coat and wide rimmed fedora hat, though she's been known to use disguises. Once even passed as one of the detectives looking for her with such skill that it fooled the detective's own younger brother. Since the Shadow Incursion and the fall of her world she's been known to show up in a black t-shirt, dark carpenter pants, sneakers, and if she needs the pockets a dark leather jacket. Often has a device on her right forearm that looks like an overly large watch.

Powers & Abilities: None. Isabella Sanfrancisco has absolutely no powers whatsoever. Physically she does have significantly higher agility and notably higher stamina then a normal woman of her age. Her truly noteworthy attribute however is that she's a genius for whom estimates of her IQ start at 200 and only go upward. She's also known as a genius-level electrical engineer and criminal mastermind.

What she's known for however is that she's quite simply the greatest thief her world has ever produced. Her ability to pick locks and get past security systems seems to border on the supernatural, and her ability to escape binds, sneak, and make disguises are all highly notorious as well.

A noteworthy invention of hers is her wrist watch, which worn on her right arm looks like a larger then normal but otherwise plain wrist watch. However Isabella has improved on it extensively to incorporate a laser cutter, a non-lethal defence system that blinds opponents, and since the Shadow Incursion a short-range teleporter.

Background: Isabella Sanfransico was raised as an orphan in the Golden Gate School for Girls in San Francisco. The matching last names are not a coincidence for exactly that reason. She was told that her birth parents were Hispanic immigrants, later told that they'd been killed by gangsters. That was enough at the time. It was there that her sheer intelligence began to take form along with her tendency for games. The school's chess champion from kindergarten to her senior high school year, when she graduated from the School she was admitted to Berkeley with Scholarships in Chess, Gymnastics, Geography, and Engineering.

With the makings of a brilliant electrical engineer, the starts of her criminal career began when she discovered that the story she'd been told about her birth parents - Hispanic immigrants killed by gangsters - was a lie as her DNA proves that one of her parents was Caucasian. Now having no idea where she came from and not taking it well, she'd drop out of school supporting herself with theft and computer hacking until recruited by SLEUTH. Setting her intelligence to finding and arresting criminals, she eventually came to believe that being one of those criminals would be a greater intellectual challenge and began the path that would lead to her becoming her world's greatest thief.

She would become known for three things - her tendency to intellectually taunt and bait anyone who tries to catch her, her insistence that her underlings not use violence, and the sheer audacity and scope of her thefts. She would steal for the intellectual challenge, and would even try to educate her would-be captors a little hoping one day that someone could keep up with her without her having to actually leave clues behind for people trying to catch her.

That day would come, after a fashion. It was tragic really, but when the Shadow Incursion had taken their world she had just found and reunited with a man who may of been her biological father - Genius billionaire industrialist Maxwell Avalon. He and his maid Maria Cortez who were secretly passionate lovers despite the scandal it would cause the business world at the time if anyone found out. He had been told both mother and child had died in childbirth, why someone would lie and put Isabella in an orphanage neither of them would ever find out. They had even had a DNA test done and were about to get the results when the Shadow Incursion struck. Their world had no magic, no real special technology that could be used on a large enough scale to matter, and in the end had nothing but a normal military. It would fight bravely but in the end it would fall.

The Shadow Incursion made a mistake with Isabella. Her world has nobody with powers, just some technology and clever people. Just a worthless fodder world for basic slave labor. A few people were taken to other camps but for the most part it was basic slavery for the whole world. Among those taken were Maxwell Avalon, and on the list is Isabella. She's the world's greatest thief, she doesn't accept slavery on anyone's terms.

It was almost funny, the authorities always wanted to know where she was before the incursion and now the minions of the Shadow Incursion keep asking where she is now. Isabella is nobody's hero, but the Shadow Incursion has stolen so much- Maxwell, those ACME detectives, her world, its Freedom, it's people - and Isabella is determined to steal it all back. It's almost funny, really. She always had a nack for incredible thefts and the one that's going to top them all. . .

Moridain · #8 Jun 30th, 2012, 06:09 AM

Definate interest. I am going to trawl through lists of eighties cartoons for inspiration.

Thinking of a Robotic Changer, one who is actually a really emotional and empathetic sort under the several inch titanium armor.

Or maybe someone called Major Nature, based on throwing around the power of nature.

Chesty · #9 Jun 30th, 2012, 08:35 AM

Still got room? if so i have a Voodoo Doll if youll accept. i can generate up to a full character sheet about it if needed

GrazztTheDark · #10 Jun 30th, 2012, 10:43 AM

Nice looking character, Gleeful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moridain

Definate interest. I am going to trawl through lists of eighties cartoons for inspiration.

Thinking of a Robotic Changer, one who is actually a really emotional and empathetic sort under the several inch titanium armor.

Or maybe someone called Major Nature, based on throwing around the power of nature.

Robots are always good, just don't go too giant on us. It would be unfortunate if you couldn't fit into the same room as the rest of the team. Large is probably best, or a very small Huge. Or you could make his transformation be simply a much bigger form of himself, for those times when you have enough room to stretch your legs.

Major Nature sounds like an excellent source of hero points, as you'll not only have to worry about civilians in danger but also the environment. "No! Not that copse of juniper! I have to save it!"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chesty

Still got room? if so i have a Voodoo Doll if youll accept. i can generate up to a full character sheet about it if needed

As I said, a character sheet is always good. but I'm far more interested in your character's general background. It will give me a good feel for your sources of inspiration, and where your character would fit on a team.

GleefulNihilism · #11 Jun 30th, 2012, 10:46 AM

Thank ye kindly! I aim to please.

Moridain · #12 Jun 30th, 2012, 11:59 AM

Major Nature would be fun, but I would have a great deal of trouble immersing myself in captain planet style conservation since I know about real world concervation.

I am thinking of some kind of G.I.Joe style character, better than a normal human and with the often confusing ability to pull weapons from off screen, or a super secret gadget from a pocket.

For example he might reach into a nearby carriage and pull out the Rocket Launcher he stored there earlier (even though that is completely illogical), then handglide off the roof before it hits so he can fly away on the heatwave.

GrazztTheDark · #13 Jun 30th, 2012, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moridain

Major Nature would be fun, but I would have a great deal of trouble immersing myself in captain planet style conservation since I know about real world concervation.

I am thinking of some kind of G.I.Joe style character, better than a normal human and with the often confusing ability to pull weapons from off screen, or a super secret gadget from a pocket.

For example he might reach into a nearby carriage and pull out the Rocket Launcher he stored there earlier (even though that is completely illogical), then handglide off the roof before it hits so he can fly away on the heatwave.

That sounds like an interesting power, but I'm not sure how you'd convert it into game rules. Still, I like to see how people take the basic rules and use them to cover something oddball.

Also, feel free to use the Soldier Elite as a starting point. Even if you decide to scrap large chunks of it, it will probably make creating a GI Joe type character the tiniest bit easier.

Dark Necrofear · #14 Jun 30th, 2012, 04:11 PM

Nice, I'll be sure to tell BG about this.

I'm thinking Athromophic Warrior, a lizard, and more of a sensi type

GrazztTheDark · #15 Jun 30th, 2012, 04:51 PM

Sounds good. The Anthropomorphic Warrior was built to be a younger, hipper character, but you should have no problem adjusting him to fit your needs.

Are you confused and wondering what is going on here? Check out this YouTube video to get the scoop.

Hey Unregistered, want to be part of the crew, destined to save Humanity? Come check out Outplay 2023 to find out how!