Ideas, discussions

Use this thread to bring ideas or begin discussions on the game in general, whether it be trying to figure out what type of character would best supplement the team, or if you're interested in seeing more political issues get involved during the course of game play.

None of the teen characters would likely have any relation to one another, as everyone comes from different walks of life; however, if your character happens to have psionic abilities and you want to influence other characters, here would be a good place to bring up a question with another player as to how much your psionic abilities affect them. The same could be said for characters who want to have pheromones, and what not.

Friendly reminder: All teens only receive 20 character generation stones, and 5 stones from challenges max to begin with. The remainder of their 20 will be given as the story progresses.

Characters and Archetypes already claimed:

Black Widow - Student (Ukchanak1)
Hawkeye - Caretaker (Cep100)
Telepath (Nexus) - Student (Aphelion)

Do you have any ideas where we can locate a pdf copy of the core book?

Core book - https://dlscrib.com/download/marvel-universe-rpg-core-rules_584157ce6454a7726ae5ca18_pdf

X-Men
Expansion
- https://www.google.com/amp/s/dokumen.tips/amp/documents/marvel-universe-rpg-guide-to-the-x-men.html

I've been poking through the books, and I think I have a character concept in mind. His code-name would be "Nexus".

I've always loved telepaths, so the idea is that he was a shy but normal and happy kid, but as he entered puberty he began to hear ambient thoughts and found it overwhelming. He became mute, and mostly non-responsive as he did his best to sort through what everyone around him was thinking all the time. After awhile, he realized he could speak back telepathically to people, and even use his mind as a sort of switch-box to connect multiple people. As he began to respond telepathically to his parents, they nominated him to be in the Academy to control his powers, a change he found deeply upsetting.

Aphelion, being mute would definitely fulfill the 1-challenge requirement for character creation at any rate! :D If you want help or suggestions with building his character sheet, let me know. :)

Does "Being a mutant" fulfill the 1-Challenge requirement? It seems to be valued at 3 stones. (I'm still trying to get my head around the character creation system.)

It does! Mostly because mutants can be non-human appearance (think Murlocks who all typically have physical mutations and live underground to avoid persecution).

So I'm thinking a character sort of inspired by Pixie, but without the spellcasting aspects. Closer to Pixie from the Ultimates universe (or Nightcrawler, for that matter). She would have:

Insect wings, giving Flight, but also Inhuman Appearance;
Teleportation;
Superhuman Agility;
Martial Arts;
Reflexive Dodge.

I think I have enough of a handle on the rules to build a 20-stone character along those lines. Something like:

Challenges
Being a mutant (-3)
Looking non-human (-2)

Abilities
Intelligence 3 (+1)
Strength 3 (+1)
Agility 7 (+6)
Speed 3 (+1)
Durability 4 (+6)

Actions
Flight 2 (+2)
Teleportation 3 (+3)
Close Combat 1 (+1/3)
Social Skills 2 (+2/3)

Modifiers
Reflexive Dodge +3 (+4)

Background
Wealth: Broke

Stone costs in brackets. Does that look about right?

I posted my character - a telekinetic/force field defensive type. I think I calculated it all correctly, but please let me know if I did anything wrong.

Fiona "Fee" Carrigan

Challenges
Being a Mutant -3
Looking Non-Human -2

INT 5 (+3)
STR 1 (+1/3)
AGI 3 (+1)
SPD 2 (+2/3)
DUR 3 (+4)

Telekinesis 7 (+12 includes +2 for using Int modifier)
Force Field 4 (+4 includes -1 for purchasing with Telekinesis)

Both of these sheets look good off the top of my head. I'll go through them tomorrow to double check, as well as make a character generation spreadsheet so that all the information is more concise and in one place rather than spread across 20 odd pages. 😁

Update

Okay, the character sheet for Pixie and Fiona check out for me! Nexus, too, if you were uncertain, Aphelion. :) I've approved Nexus and Fiona as submitted characters. Incidentally, even if you do or don't have your character sheet ready right away, please feel free to begin posting on the Chapter 1 thread so that we can see all of your lovely ideas in place. For this first post, consider the overall demeanor your character might have had through touring and orientation, etc. I will make it known in an OOC message in the Chapter itself when it will be necessary to have your character sheets completed--essentially, before we start into combat stuff / puzzle solving. If there happens to be a case where you feel you need to change your character sheet later, so long as they are small correctional things I'm cool with that, so don't worry about it being the final, final, final draft. ... yet.

If I take Metamorphosis, do I need to have the ability, action, or modifier that I'm boosting already? Or could I create the Action temporarily?

That's a valid question. I'm certain that the official game probably intended that you can only boost actions that you already have, because there's a system in place where if you don't have the ability then you simply use the modifier for the corresponding stat of that ability.

Since realistically speaking, a person would not gain knowledge of a new physical action merely by changing their body's form (since it does not affect things like the intelligence stat), for the purpose of this game it will only affect actions the character has already learned for the purpose of this game. But since you can buy many actions at level 1 for the cost of only one stone, it may be fitting in line with your character's idea if you took a wide range of actions at only level 1 combined with metamorphosis. Remember that you will get more stones later to fill in for your characters' scenario uniqueness. :)

Yeah, I realized later that using stones for abilities I don't have is essentially Sorcery, which is what you didn't want, and I think I see why now. Thanks for the tips!

Will we have enough time to do things like invent?

I'm having trouble understanding the game system and stone movement.

I have 7 red stones. the cost level for my charge objects ability is AN (Level 3?) + 4, which would total 7. I could not make heads or tails about the modifiers or if I even have any to use.

So does that mean I spent all 7 stones that round to use my power?

I apologize, but I am new to this system. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

strumdaddy
Being a mostly sociable game among teens, yes. Especially since you are in a group. While 5 people are doing something else you can safely spend multiple rounds completing one action if you needed to McGuyver something on the fly. If you wanted to create a new piece of equipment for everyone to use, then just message me and we can figure out an appropriate amount of time that needs to go by before the eureka moment.


snapperw81
No need to apologize at all, man. I'm fairly certain everyone playing this right now are new at it. And I'm a new GM so there are things that I'm forgetting to mention. It's like, a process, man. To me, this system is not intuitive and there is partial regret that I didn't go with something like Feng Shui as a system. But... que sera sera, maybe the system will turn out more fun in the long run. :)

So I'm going to just go through this in depth because it may help other people who are having difficulty understanding actions in this game. I'll start by throwing up information on the ability Charge Objects.

Pulled directly from our RP thread, here is the action that Arthur James is trying to complete:
It should be noted at this point that Arthur James has an Action Number of 3 for Charge Objects. This is an overview of the ability:Breaking this down piece by piece, let's start with the cost of buying this ability (Action number +4 Levels). Referring to the Cost Modifier table on page 39 of the MURP corebook, for an Action Number of 3, it will cost Arthur James 1 White character generation stone + 4, for a total cost of 6 white character generation stones. Because 2x Damage and Area Attack is included with the ability, Arthur James does not need to pay extra for this modifier. (Refer to page 40 for a comprehensive list of Advantages and Disadvantages that can affect the cost of purchasing an ability.)

So how does Arthur James use this ability? First, we need to look at Arthur James' Durability rating, which happens to be 3. Your resource pool of red stones is always 3x your Durability. This means that Arthur James has 9 energy to spend at any given point. Because durability also represents your health, this means that Arthur James has 3 white stones of health.

How do we calculate the cost of an attack? This is actually the simple part. There are no costs for actions. You, the player, decide how much energy you want to put into an action. If Arthur James wants to use his Charge Objects ability, he can choose to spend only 1 energy stone (leaving himself with 8), up to 3 stones of energy (action number) into his Charge Objects ability (leaving himself with 6).

So you might be wondering what the point of an Action Number is, if it is not a cost, or an indicator of damage. Simply, it refers to the power of your ability and how well it can accomplish a task comparative to the difficulty of the task. If the Holograms have a Difficulty Rating of 2, then Arthur James' Action Number of 3 means that his marbles will be effective in creating damage. However, if the Holograms had a difficulty rating of 4, they would not be harmed--Arthur James's ability is simply not strong enough. It also is the number of energy stones allowed to spend toward an ability.

How, then, is damage calculated? We have to take into account the modifier for the object being charged, and 2x Damage. For this example, let's say Arthur James spends only 1 energy into the attack. He is, after all, only trying to show the other students what he is capable of. A marble is a very, very small item so, at my discretion, Marbles have a +1 Modifier. That places us at 2 stones of energy (Arthur James still has a pool of 8 energy). With the 2x Damage, we're at 4 stones of energy. The holograms are not defending, and so all 4 stones hit. The Holograms only have 1 durability (1 white stone / 3 red stones), and so the hologram Arthur James attacked instantly dissipates.

At the end of every round, you regenerate 1 red stone of energy for every 1 white stone of health you have remaining. Because Arthur James has only spent 1 energy stone for this example, he is completely recovered by the start of the next round.

Edit: As a point of clarification, there are 3 types of units in this game that a character must manage: Character generation stones, White stones, and Red stones. Character Generation Stones are White Stones, but can be broken down into red stones (3 red / 1 white). White stones in the game proper refers to health. Red Stones refer to energy.

Edit: This also means I made a small flub when I looked over your character sheet, snapper! For an AN of 3, you only needed to spend 5 generation stones.

- - -

Phew.

If each of you would like, because I've had two other people (aphelion, and squadfather44) ask me in private messages if I can help walk them through their actions too, I will make a few other walk through of actions using their abilities, too. Not tonight though, because this took quite a while to write out. :)

I think this is actually 6 stones, no? The Action Number + 4 levels means you effectively increase the level on the Action/Ability/Modifier Costs table (pg. 39). You don't add +4 stones to the cost of a level 3 action, you just buy a level 3 action as if it were level 7.

Thank you for that information! That really helped!

And if Arthur spent 7 stones on that... he did 14 stones of damage? He destroyed the hell out of that hologram.

Yes, but you can only spend energy up to the Action Number of the action. So you can only spend 7 energy if your AN is 7 or higher.

How kadeton described cost is how I understood it, also.

Is there any limit on the number of stones you can place in defense?