It'd be worth it for the dialogue.

Indeed... and especially in the light of the events leading up to now. The general gist of the canon history is that eventual fallout from the Slider incident took some of the luster away from Project Utopia's star before the turn of the decade, and following events (from key "good guys" leaving to the breaking of Pax by Mal to the revelations of the horrors of Bahrain to the disasterous mess in Ibiza) pretty severely undermined the Project. By this time - spring of 2017 - the Project is faced by waning support in the public eye, falling recruitment amongst newly-erupted novas and very critical looks from the U.N. Security Council, all of which add up to an organization that is less effective.

Not that it's time for all the Terats to start snickering under your collective sleeves. The Teragen is (or at least should be) on the cusp of the nastiest purge to come along since the first Night of the Long Knives. (For those interested in such, that was the Nacht der langen Messer, when some 82 leaders and an unknown number of followers in the Sturmabteilung were killed on the night of 30 Jun 1934 in a largely successful attempt to lock the ideology of the Nazi party into a nationalist, rather than socialist, direction). When it finally happens on N!Prime, it stands every chance of being particularly ugly... because just like that historical purge, the canon outcome of this one results in a more lockstep organization focused around the violently radical elements of the Teragen; folks following the "we can find a way to get along together" outlook of Procyon and Long and Timeslip and a pretty huge percentage of the N!Prime Terat community are very, very likely to wind up thoroughly on the outs (or in the morgue).

I have, for a long time, stood by the assertion that the NoLK (thanks for the nod to the original, by the way; I love me some Reich history) is going to be bloody, violent, and end with a lot of nova carcasses. I don't know if the opposing view comes from an ignorance of history or a different reading of the canon material, but to me, the naming of the event was always a pretty blaring clue that the event was going to be neither subtle nor gentle. And that is the precise reason that when the idea to start it came up months ago, I voted way the hell against it, because as far as I can tell, there's no way to pull it off without killing half the goddamn forum.

Look, if we're all playing here when I'm celebrating my as-of-yet non-existent child's tenth birthday, maybe then anybody who's left can start thinking about the IC KoLN. Until then, what, you want to snuff the majority of Terats? Unfun, man.

Addendum; the Directive is close.

Sweetie, honey, buttercup? You know I love you from nose to knees so understand I mean nothing harsh by this. You have to play a character for more than twenty six posts to even think about applying for a Q6, so of course you haven't.

The Teragen book says that groups such as the Harvesters will be in charge after NoLK. I guess this means that WR will be one of the lucky ones.

I don't know if WR qualifies as a madman to some of you, but I would love to play him opposite Utopia or other 'goodguys' more often. He has neither a costume, nor is he a plot device. He is an actually a deranged killer of baselines, who revels in his work (like Hannibal the Cannibal).

I have done several fics where he had conflicts with other characters. The one he had with Morrigan, comes to mind. In that fic, we decided on our parameters, and actually played the combat out (with die rolls and all). It turned out well. Neither one of us was sure what the other was going to do in combat, or what the details were going to be.

The problem with planning a terrorist attack against an urban center, is that the city defenders don't want to look like they failed their city. In reality they would not, and the story could have the protagonist saving the city from further harm, and showing the city, why they are needed. In the end, they come out smelling like roses.

When a terrorist attacks a location, he does not alert the authorities that it is coming. With a collaborative fic, involving an attack like that, the other side wants to know the plan. The problem is that when they are made aware of the plan, they set up contigencies to prevent said attack. (either consciously or unconsciously). As I said earlier, in many cases, they simply say that they won't let it happen unless it is on their terms. Their terms will usually involve dictating the scope and damage of the attack. If the attack is supposed to be a surprise, how can they dictate how the attack goes down.

That said, as someone who runs a terrorist madman and sociopathic killer, I understand the limitations. Some of those are counterintelligence and surveillance whenever the antagonist enters the Defender's sphere of influence. This is mainly due to the fact, that the authorities would already be alert to suspicious activity and be on the lookout for persons matching the terrorists description. This could have some influence as to how an attack sould go down. Unfortunately, the protagonists usually want more than cursory information that an attack is happening or where one of them might occur. Also, I understand that getting away scott free is also unrealistic, and that such an undertaking would involve some risk.

Three things:

The WCK was founded by a Chicago native named April Rice. She was a 'hometown sweetheart' kind of character and started the WCK as a Nova Reality Show. It was so long ago and the team has gone through so many evolutions that I imagine most people don't know were it came from.

The creators of Aberrant don't play by their own rules. We see it time and time again. When they want a power to do something, it can do anything, and when they don't want a pet idea to be foiled, nothing works against it.
Worse, the deck is stacked against non-terats. Seriously, there is nothing that can defeat the Teragen in game except the Teragen.
The same goes for almost every other criminal concern. Once you allow telepathic probes into evidence, every terrorist and criminal conspiracy should splinter into tiny, independent cells, or be uncovered. The books lay this out clearly in the downfall of the New York and European mobs, but suddenly, these techniques stop working once the backstory is written.
Don't get me started on the Sterility Conspiracy.

In general, the forums tend to follow along with the most prolific writers. The hey-day of Chicago was with Carver, Sandcaster, Velvet and Rev carrying most of the load. Such is life. I don't think splitting things up into sub-forums would do any good.

White Rat, I've considered what you were saying, and I feel I have to disagree.
a) A terrorist tends to attack the softer targets. Why attack a city with half-dozen nova defenders when there are plenty of other cities with no protection nearby?
b) If you are going to play a nutball - play a nutball. Mental aberrations are supposed to be just that; weaknesses, flaws, damage to your characters normal operating psyche. That means you make mistakes, and the bigger the aberration, the bigger the mistakes. Accept that these mistakes will most likely cost your character his life, or at least his freedom.
c) You are very likely to get away with one act of terrorism in the US, and pretty likely to get away with number two. After that, the clock is running out on your terrorist. Congratulations, you have garnered the attention of the second largest law enforcement network on the earth (Feds+Interpol) as well as the Directive. They are going to kill you.
You are a tainted monster who moves through warps. Massive, overwhelming attacks from surprise, or as much surprise as they can manage.

On the plus side, you will have pushed aside Geryon and Leviathen on the majority of "Most Wanted" lists before you go.

In White Rat's defense, Geryon and Leviathan have been pulling the same terrorist stunts for almost 15 years and still haven't been caught simply because canon says so.

While I agree that WR would draw attention to himself, I'm also on the side that WR could do alot of damage and never have to show his face. It's hard to catch a 'villian' when you don't know who that 'villian' is.

Look here

So, let's look into reaosn say why YT would attack Chicago.

Well one, if you show that no matter what you have, you can't stop her,or someone like her. So the hard target become a symbol. Chicago with all the helpful god swatching over it would send a large and clear message. You are not safe. No matter where you are, you are not safe.

Can we not? This isn't about "Hey, look what I can do!" It's about discussing a happy medium we can all agree on to make 2017 more like an exercise in common sense and respect than a Marvel/DC parody.



<sigh> Okay.

1. You've killed english. Again.

2. If your trying to say "The hard target becomes a symbol", and by 'symbol' you mean "challenge", then it makes sense. If Y.T. wants to attack Chicago 'just because it'd be fun' then Y.T. certainly could try. I don't recall anyone saying she couldn't, but if she were caught then she'd be toast. Now, before you waste your time, don't post something like "She wouldn't be caught, she's too good." That's just ignorant and goes back on the 'realisim' thing.

3. Actually, with the WCK in Chicago the people there would feel safe. It's the government that uses most the lil do-dads that you posted (which I'm still unlcear as to why you felt we needed to know that stuff). It's when douche bags like White Rat, Revenant, Y.T. and Wakinyan start going around the city a fuckin' things up that the people go on edge. Which brngs out the WCK... see the vicious circle starting here?

I concede the point that a nova can attack just about anywhere they want with there being little hope of them being stopped. Its a lot like that in real life today.
We know who Osama Bin Laden is and he is still at large.
Murders go unsolved every day.
The Zodiac killer was never caught.

On the other hand, the greater someone, or some organization, is to a society (by perception if not actual) the greater resources are dedicated against it too. Just as a nova has a far greater ability to avoid conventional law enforcement, so do novas working for law enforcement have far greater resources to track the small number of super-powered criminals down. In the end, it is a large number of novas working together (somewhat) against one, or rarely, a small number of novas.

Another point that should be brought up is that it is often someone within their own organization who is their worst enemy. The Teragen often work at cross-purposes. As time goes in, this irritation leads to outright hostility. The Teragen book tells us as much.
Other groups, like GreenWar, have the problem that they have a large baseline base which is both legally suspicious and easy to penetrate.
The Lone Wolf, like the Nova Serial Killer would be the hardest to find, but also only has to mess up once, having no allies, effective contacts, and/or safe houses to help them recover from their error.

Lastly, for whatever silly, stupid reason, the creators had Team Tomorrow intercept Geryon, Leviathen, and company on the steps of the UN. We are told Geryon was going there to address the UN, but if that's the case, why didn't he access one of the various Terat Warpers to simply arrive on the UN floor? The question is rhetorical, because the scene played out for Meta-gaming reasons. What it does show us is that stupid shit happens for story-line reasons. To me, that is the lesson.

Look at this way. There are three posters who still post on the board who have done so longer than me. They all see the world in different ways, and no they aren't in a line.

Ask Ashnod, what novas should be like.

Ask Craig.

Ask jager.

now here is the question you have to ask, what does the power of of a god mean to you?Is that the power of spider-man or super-man?

No, that is not the question to ask. The question to ask is how do we intergrate a workable shared world of walking gods without instituting an Overruler?


In fairness, we knew how we wanted to end the fiction, and there was a lot of negotiation about how to get there. Yes, we rolled out the combat, but the ending of the fiction was settled before we started. Also, I really enjoyed doing that fiction.

I think that YT and WR should attack Chicago, but only if we work out what kind of damage they're going to do. And I don't mean that WR should tell the WCK IC what his plans are. But the player should work with the other players to determine what is going to happen. It is a courtesy to both sides.

We can't until we first answer. What is a god?

Any supernatural being worshipped as controlling some part of the world or some aspect of life or who is the personification of a force of nature.

Can we move on to the important shit now?

No, because that is the focus of the game, not this site. "What is a god?" is for each character to answer for themselves, not for everyone to agree on. In large part, because there is no one right answer. Carver's answer is different from Hugin's, who's is different than Jager's, who's is different than Y.T.'s...

You get the idea.

But if we have Kali, and spirits of the shoe....You either have Kali run over spirit of the shoe or them not interacting...

Oh for fucks sake.

Let me spell out what Catalyst is trying to say because he apparently is a complete retard. If all you're going to do is throw up analogies and be vague, don't waste the post, seriously. We're trying to fix things and have some good come from it. If this is difficult for you, kick back while the adults talk.

He's apparently talking about power levels. Where do we draw the line on how much is too much for a character to have or too little to start with?

Jager is 'god-like'. Long is "Offensive Mal in a Tiger suit", Cade is "Defensive Mal in a Tiger suit". What should the limits be on introducing a character that is just sick in stats?

So far the reply when you tell someone "Dude, that's a bit much for a starter." the reply is usually "But look at <insert so and so here>. He/she did it."

And they're right. As long as people continue to get away with lame ass stunts we can't really bitch when the next person does it, because frankly fair is fair.

So, how do we fix it?

At this point, there isn't much that can be done. I thought that is one of the reasons the 2009 boards were created. To even out the playing field.

Fair point.

I agree. The players introduced into 2017 at this point can not/should not be dismantled. There are far to many terrific characters.

But no doubt we can do things to prevent players from making god awful decisions.

With out being a jerk let me cite a few.

1. Making 50 temples in the desert by yourself in a few months time. Mining all the materials yourself on land that the mexican government apparently gave to you because you do free work.

2. Wakinyan's power progression. People tell him it's to much too fast, but he does it anyway and there is nothing we can do to stop him. (I think I still have a chat log of one such conversation)

3. Revenant disintigrating 2 miles of land. Granted this act never really had too many people pissed off at me considering the place was abandoned, but I never really stopped and asked players "Hey, can I level 2 square miles of land?" For all I knew a player had a cousin living there in that old steel mill.

4. Ultimax's starting eruption nova points. Seriously, I'm beating a dead horse with this, but when Ulti came out of the gate with power like that it sends the message "That sort of thing is okay."

5. Sean mastering the Healing power in a little under 10 weeks.

6. Creating nova who have been around since N-Day just so you have a justification for creating them sickly powerful, or calling them an elite and that reason enough for them to be so powerful. Or Ex-elite.

We are our own worst enemies guys. We have a lack of communication and we have a habit of not listening to one another or every one when they speak out and say "Bad idea." or "Could you explain how, please?"

Players get defensive, they piss and moan ( I know, cuz I've done it, and made a few do it as well) and call out someone else who did the same thing, or something similair.

We all have various interpretations of the rules, we need to decide what we like and what we don't. Example Quickness states in the book that every time you purchase the enhancement you add +5 to your init score. It also say you pay one Q point to activate Quickness. So, it you have Quickness 5 is it A) 1QP for +25 init or B)5QP for +25 init.

Personally I've always kept it at 1QP regardless of how many times tou puchase the enhancement. Some of you might read it differently. All facets of game play work this way. We need to find out how and what we can do to make things a smoother medium for all of us to understand.

If we communicate instead of bitching, pissing, and moaning we'll get more done.

Okay, I'm retiring Ultimax. Sorry.

Why? It's not like you abuse him. Heck, we don't even see much of him these days.

Different take on it over here. I thought he was trying to ask what are we willing to tolerate.

The most impressive character from canon, only in my opinion, is Splash. Looked at as written she's the embodiment of the Utopian ideal of responsibility that surpasses Utopia's reality. Change the personality and you have a cultist out to destroy the works of man, willing to accept the world as collateral damage and has a fair chance of doing it just from a game mechanic point of view. Rework her personality again and you have the elite that offed Totentanz six month ago and now has twice his kill record. Short version; I thought Catalyst was talking about use of the character not power levels and if that's right I agree with him.

Liberal use of words like "retard" wouldn't seem to foster greater communication. I might be wrong about that. It wouldn't be the first time. But it really seems like it wouldn't help communication.It's whatever you want it to be. The lowest level nova on the planet created with only 5 nova points still has the power of a god. Just (probably) not a very impressive one.

Maybe it's time we as players started asking for a little more accountability and more explanations. Sort of a system of logistic self-policing for the forums, so what when somebody does something that seems to make zero sense, nobody has to feel like they showed up to ruin somebody's birthday party when we ask "Okay, could you explain how this is possible?" This happens periodically, but I don't think it happens enough. This whole discussion seems to have broke ground in the way of solving a lot of lingering issues; we need more of this. I'm thinking maybe we could do with an OOC Explanatory subforum just so we have a place to group these questions of verisimilitude and have an opportunity to get them answered before they get buried by unrelated threads.

That said, let's not forget that this is a game and by nature a little fantastical. If a PCs actions aren't infringing upon the world at large or other players (or by extension, related NPCs/locations/organizations/etc.), I genuinely think most things should be given a pass. We all of different ideas of how to play; we don't all have to agree with one view, but we do all need to have some cohesion amongst us.

:P

I know I have a short attention span, but I do have a few oldies and goodies - Samhra and Butterfly being the primary ones.

Not so fast there, Tex. Retire Ultimax only if you want to, not because Reven is bitching (sorry, Reven - luv ya!). That character falls into "far too terrific" to just discard.

I think that the "uber-god" complex is only one part of a larger problem: lack of respect. Before everyone jumps me, let me explain. Everyone here, and I am guilty of this one too, puts their characters and stories out there, without consideration of our shared world. I don't like the 100 NP eruptees, but I can abide them if their story is good and they don't use their superior numbers as a club against the other characters.

However, I don't see this conversation solving a problem. Contrary to what Reven said above, I've never heard that someone was creating a super-powerful character and not said, "Why are you doing that?" Ask Long just how many arguments we've had about it, off-line. Poly can probably remember me talking to him about this when he made Polymath. Procyon probably remembers me chiming in on the argument against his character, though Sing was the loudest voice in that one.

And when I've had critism, I've at least listened and considered, even if I didn't change anything. For example (since he's been brought up), I did what I did with Sean as part of his overall story of redemption. And I'd hardly call him a master of healing when he can't control its use (despite rocketing to five dots in it). Also, it wasn't ten weeks, more like ten seconds; the first character sheet I posted for him had it on there. But I made my decision, and I'd make the same decision were I to do it all over again. In contrast, I've changed the way Carver's premonition power works because someone told me it wasn't really limited the way I was running it. And I listened and agreed that their suggestion was better.

In short: You can't make people change a damn thing about their characters, because you can't make them do anything. All you can do is ask. So I'm asking; let's listen to one another. We talk enough; we're saying all the right things to one another. But some of us aren't listening.

Okay, the fact is I don't feel guilty about Ultimax.

Yes, I made him for the wrong reasons (to fuck with Kris) but I got over that really quick and decided I could have some fun telling some stories with him that I thought were worthwhile. I did (I didn't say a lot of stories) and I kind of dropped him.

When folks were bitching and moaning about the power-houses that folks played I asked some of the most critical folks if they hated Ultimax. I was told no by each of them. The reason he got a pass was because I played him well and didn't push his power onto people. For example, when he and Rev had their mini-confrontation at the PowWow if you went solely by the numbers Ultimax could have snapped Rev in two without breaking a sweat. But I didn't look at it that way. Ultimax didn't know the dots that he had or Rev had. What he saw was the Angel of Death tearing the life from someone using nothing more than the hate and rage in his heart. It scared the shit out of Ultimax and his bowels turned to water. It was all he could do to try to make Rev stop and then he developed a massive hatred for Rev simply because Rev made him so fucking scared.

So, I don't feel guilty about Ultimax.

But I'm still retiring him.

Why?

Because people who are really looking to play the most powerful motherfucker on the block can easily use him as an example of what is acceptable in 2017. They can say "Craig did it, why can't I?" There is a reason they shouldn't, they're untrustworthy dickheads and I'm not. But how do you enforce that? You can't. So Ultimax is taking a powder. He's bye-bye. I don't want him around as someone elses excuse anymore.

Dude, Craig, wake up. The powerhouse wankers are already here, and they don't need Ultimax as an excuse. The fact that there's more than one means they get to use each other as an excuse, and there's no reason to retire a cool character just to snub people who aren't going to change their minds, anyway.