Earth 10: Introduction

I started doing some longer form work on what a DC cinematic universe would look like but realized I couldn't work up the energy to care (alternately, the DC Animated Universe and the DC Televised Arrowverse are doing a damn good job while the movies suck.). One idea that did jump to mind was this: that the DC continuity/ multiverse operates on a 23.5 year cycle (as discussed in Detective Comics #500) and the iconic super being appear in the worlds in more or less sequence every 23.5 years.

Earth 2 Heroes appeared in June, 1938 (corresponding with Action Comics #1)

The Earth 1 heroes in November, 1961 (not entirely accurate with the start of the Silver Age, but very close to the Flash of Two Worlds), 

In June of 1985 the Earth 9 heroes (first empty number in the sequence*) arrived with a Crisis event that produced a world with both 1938 and 1961 costumed heroes. This has been the DC universe we've been reading about for the last 27 years.

In November 2008, Earth 10 kicked off. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman appeared looking more or less like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Someone with a power ring making green energy shapes named Green Lantern appears, as does a super speedster named Flash, an underwater hero named Aquaman, an archer named Green Arrow and a couple with wings named Hawkman and Hawkwoman (or -Girl, your call) but their origins, power sources and costumes are all up for grabs. Plus other new heroes can turn up, either mirroring one of the other Earths or entirely new to this one. 

This month is going to explore this more, looking at how you could run this campaign using a modified set of the 1980’s DC Heroes rules. (MEGS) Some of these are updates on rules ideas I played with in the Legion game concept. 

Does System matter, part IX: Godlike

This is likely the last example in the series of posts translating a single character into a variety of systems, though I expect to do at least one more discussing what I've learned. The character in question – Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man - started in Villains and Vigilantes, and now exists in Silver Age Sentinels, HERO, Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes, FUDGE and Truth & Justice. There was an aborted attempt in GURPS and finally, I’m trying to tackle This lat entry covers GODLIKE, Greg Stolze's and Dennis Detwiller's game of supers in WWII. 

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A quick recap: Dr. Z is the Reed Richards analogue in a Fantastic Four style game. His natural abilities include a massive intellect and scientific skill, a powerful presence & sense-of-self, and an ability to analyze his opponents’ fighting style and the scientific basis for their powers. His superhuman ability is an invisible, highly versatile force field. He is renowned as the smartest man on Mars and is a millionaire with access to advanced technology and the Liberty Lair, his team’s base.

Body 3 Coordination 3 Sense 2
Brawl 2 Health 1 Dodge 1
Hyperstats
Miracles
Now, I indicated yesterday that I expected to run into problems in the system, and I did. Two of them to be precise, though one was an error in my favor.
First, the favorable error: the mechanics for character creation in Godlike are totally FUBAR due to one simple, highly exploitable loophole. Your character starts with will points - somewhere from 15 for a really weak talent to 150 for a really strong one (I set Dr. Z's at 85, the same point total as Cien in the rulebook), and you spend those points to buy your hyperstats, hyperskills and miracles. Any points you don't spend are added to your Base Will. Now, once play begins you can opt to spend Base Will to raise any of your Hyperstats, Hyperskills or Miracles AT THE SAME COST AS BUYING THEM ORIGINALLY. Of course, your Base Will regenerates in play. Therefore, there is no practical reason to not buy a minimum functional level in your Talent Abilities in character creation, bank the rest of the points into Base Will and then immediately spend that Base Will to raise your Talent Abilities. You'll start play with the same number of Will Points to spend as you would have the other way, but you'll have a pile more Base Will. The stats above indicate how Dr. Z looks at the start of his first adventure. 15 minutes later he looks like this:
Hyperstats
Miracles
Base Will 32 [currently at 18]
And he'll just get better every session as his Base Will keeps regenerating. It's all rather silly, and I wonder why the rules are written like this.
That out of the way, its on to the reasons why the character doesn't work: he's in an entirely alien environment. In its efforts to keep history more or less on track GODLIKE put in some harsh restrictions in Hyperbrains: Hyperbrains also have hyper-compassion and hyper-empathy, and therefore almost never engage in inventing things that could be used as weapons; they also have huge problems interacting with non-Hyperbrainy people. None of these are true of the standard comics super-genius, nor are they at all indicative of how I see Zach. So while I can toss them aside and make him hyper-brainy, I'm bucking the system to do it.
In addition, the system also blocks hyper-invention. GODLIKE uses the psi-powers crutch excuse for how high tech invention - called Goldberg Science in this setting - operates. The devices are nonsensical and don't represent real science at all, which is totally at odds with how Zach operates. He really is peeling back the frontiers of Science, not just mucking about with ill-defined psychokinesis. It's so out of character that I didn't bother to give him any.
Finally, his force field workable. The game doesn't have a default miracle for this sort of thing, but this looks more or less like the V&V version - it greatly reduces the chance of an attack hitting him rather than trying to count defense against damage. This lets him, in theory, bounce a tank shell or any sort of bullet, but some might get through if they roll really well. The damage mechanic in the game is seriously unforgiving, however, so if his force field slips up he's a red smear. His TK is unreliable at this stage, but will get better; I suspect he'll never have more than 4D in it because I want to keep the weight low, but eventually it will be 4 Wiggle Dice. 
x

Brains 5 Command 4 Cool 3
Base Will 32

Drive 2 Pilot 2 Sight 3
Hearing 2 Education 3 Electronics 2
Mechanics 2 Leadership 2 Inspire 3
Mental Stab. 4

Body +3d No leverage (+2) [4/8/16]
Brains +1WD [2/5/10]

Force Field 1d+2HD Defends, Robust, UOC, Reflexive, Expensive [6/12/24]
This power acts as Goble Dice on any attacks fired through it.
Telekinesis 2d Attacks, Defends, Robust, Useful, Clumsy [4/8/16]



Body +4d No leverage (+2) [4/8/16]
Brains +1WD [2/5/10]

Force Field 1d+ 3HD Defends, Robust, UOC, Reflexive, Expensive [6/12/24]
Telekinesis 3d Attacks, Defends, Robust, Useful, Clumsy [4/8/16]

So how's the fidelity here: Bad, as several key elements just run against the setting rules. This bugs me much less than the problems I have in GURPS or HERO, because GODLIKE is designed for a very specific environment: you're playing Supers in WWII, and not just any WWII, but this specific version with these specific power rules. It's not designed to be customizable to other settings, and I suspect that if you took it out of this one it would fail. Wild Talents, the generic version of this rules set, took years of playtesting (it just came out last year, when GODLIKE appeared in 2001). whswhs tried using these rules for his Ghazi game (the PCs were bearers of one of the 100 names of Allah, fighting off the Crusaders) and he had serious problems not just with the dice curve but with the lack of heavy firepower needed to counteract some of the abilities. The problem here is not that GODLIKE can't handle Dr. Z, but that Dr. Z has no place in GODLIKE. A can't be a standard bearer for systems designed for specific settings and then complain that the specific settings can't handle my ported in character: unlike the others, GODLIKE never claimed it could. 

Expect a wrap up essay in the next day or so. I might still noodle around with getting GURPS to work, but that will be inside the GURPS post and not on the main page. So far it's been an interesting experiment. 

Does System matter part VIII: GURPS

Previously I started a Thought Experiment in supers games, looking at what changes a character goes through when converted from one system to another. This is meant to test the validity of most supers games claims that you can use the system to build “any” character or run “any” kind of game. The character in question – Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man - started in Villains and Vigilantes, and now exists in Silver Age Sentinels, HERO, Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes, FUDGE and Truth & Justice. Finally, I’m trying to tackle

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GURPS

A quick recap: Dr. Z is the Reed Richards analogue in a Fantastic Four style game. His natural abilities include a massive intellect and scientific skill, a powerful presence & sense-of-self, and an ability to analyze his opponents’ fighting style and the scientific basis for their powers. His superhuman ability is an invisible, highly versatile force field. He is renowned as the smartest man on Mars and is a millionaire with access to advanced technology and the Liberty Lair, his team’s base.

When I say trying to tackle, I mean it – the system beat me. I just cannot figure out how to do it. I’m not a GURPS player (3 sessions of GURPS Wild Cards game in college), and I don’t own a copy of GURPS Powers. I did act as a playtester on whswhs’s GURPS Supers, but that was for genre issues, not mechanics. And for the life of me I can’t see a way to make a force wall type force field. If I could I’d buy that as a Wildcard Power and have done with the whole problem of powers, since Wildcard Powers are high versatile. Of course, in play I’d have to internalize TONS of GURPS rules to take advantage of it, and I just can’t. I suppose it would be easier if I’d read GURPS at the same age I read HERO, when my younger brain had the time and space for that sort of massive rules crunching, but GURPS is also inherently less logical than HERO when looking at supers. This makes sense, since HERO started out as a super hero emulator while GURPS started out as a reality emulator: you can’t get much more different than that.

That’s not the only problem, of course. First GURPS shares the same issue as HERO in that the real world weapons are so specific and measured against powers. If I want Dr. Z’s force field to be able to reliably stop a sniper rifle bullet (which it should) it needs to have some 50 points of DR, or roughly the same amount at the giant freakin’ robot statted up in the back of the book, and costing an arm and a leg. Actually, it’s 250 points +20% for being a force field = 300 pts. Just for his personal force field. I doubt that this is the way to go, but I don’t see any other option.

Second, I don’t have a frame of reference. It’s not Mr. Stoddard’s fault, but there are no sample characters in the GURPS Supers book. There are templates, but no completed characters for me to measure against. As with HERO there are a whole lot of levers but no good baseline rating for things. We had discussions in the playtest about the need for some sample characters, but it wasn’t part of the outline and therefore wasn’t going in the book. But without them I just can’t get traction. What’s good enough? Is an 18 IQ smart enough to be the smartest man on Mars, or do I need a 20? Or a 22 with the Super Attribute advantage? 20 is human max (in theory), but there are notes from GURPS Gurus that 18 should really be as high as you go. But the Techno template in the book has an IQ 20. If I go with that, there’s another 200 points down, and he now has a set of defaults that make him great in just about any mental skill.

Except for some – Finance doesn’t default to IQ, just to Accounting or Economics, and you can’t double default. So by the book even with no points in it he has a 14- (roughly 90%) in Economic theory and an equally high mastery in Accounting and can audit himself, but can’t actually balance his holding company’s finances unless I spend points in Finance. And if I do, the minimum skill he can have is an 18- on 3d6.

This sort of bizarre hyper specificity runs throughout the text: I obviously need to pick up Innate Attack to cover using his force field as a weapon, but the skill listing insists that I specialize in Beam, Gaze, Breath or Projectile, with precise rules for each on how he has to be facing, how he has to have hands free and so on. However, Dr. Z’s power just doesn’t work that way. Neither do a lot of other characters (where would Adam Warlock’s Soul Gem’s attacks fall? It’s not a gaze, but he doesn’t need his hands free. Do green Lanterns energy blasts not work if his hands are restrained? Not according to the comics, but in GURPS they might well.) I don’t know how to overcome that. Do I just blow off the rules? That sort of defeats the purpose of the experiment.

I find it ironic that the game systems that promise you the most versatility – GURPS and HERO – are the ones that produce the largest fidelity problems. The more the rules are nailed down, the less forgiving they are if you try to deviate from them. I figure I likely could get something to work for Force Field, but it’s not a standard GURPS power and therefore any version would be a wild kludging of mechanics to more or less approximate the effect. 

I have one last entry in the series, at least using the systems I currently own (alas, I no longer have a copy of Enforcers, one of the worst little systems I’ve ever come across). This is GODLIKE, and I expect it to not go well, but for very different reasons. 

Does System matter part VII: Truth & Justice

Last week I started a Thought Experiment in supers games, looking at what changes a character goes through when converted from one system to another. This is meant to test the validity of most supers games claims that you can use the system to build “any” character or run “any” kind of game. The character in question – Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man - started in Villains and Vigilantes, and now exists in Silver Age Sentinels, HERO, Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes, FUDGE, and, from the hands of the man with powers, Chad Underkoffler…

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Truth & Justice! (and the crowd goes wild!)

A quick recap: Dr. Z is the Reed Richards analogue in a Fantastic Four style game. His natural abilities include a massive intellect and scientific skill, a powerful presence & sense-of-self, and an ability to analyze his opponents’ fighting style and the scientific basis for their powers. His superhuman ability is an invisible, highly versatile force field. He is renowned as the smartest man on Mars and is a millionaire with access to advanced technology and the Liberty Lair, his team’s base.

chadu’s notes appear afterwards, but I have made some edits to his original (which appears on his LJ)

Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man

Background: Zachary is known as the smartest man on Mars. He's knowledgeable in most fields of science, and an expert in the high energy physics connected with the Philadelphia Experiment and Project Rainbow.

Motivation: Discover, analyze, create -- for and with SCIENCE!

Qualities: Expert [+4] Analysis, Expert [+4] Wealth, Good [+2] Charisma, Good [+2] In Love with teammate Deirdre and Poor [-2] Reputation: Smartest Man on Mars.

Origin: Irradiated by IF energies when an attempt to replicate the teleportational effects of the Philadelphia Experiment, Dr. Zevon, the smartest man on mars, gained his power of indestructible force fields.

Powers: Good [+2] Force Fields, Good [+2] Super-Intelligence, Average [0] Super-Gadgeteering,

Stunts: "Super-Strength" (Average [+2] Force Field Signature, shifting heavy weights, 1 HP), "Super-Punch" (Average [0] Force Field spin off, for blasting with invisible force, 1 HP), “Shield Area” (Poor [-2] to Good [+2] Force Field Signature, 0-2 HP), “Super-Breath” (Average [0] Force Field Spin Off, pushing things away 1 HP). For Zevon's Gadgets see Miscellany below.

Hero Point Pool/Max: 5/10

Uniform: Red slacks & shirt, silver gloves, boots & belt, League emblem (silver liberty bell with red dot in its center and two silver "moons" in "orbit" outside of the bell) on breast; made out of Energy Fabric.

Miscellany: Zevon's Analysis Quality shows his expertise at analyzing scientific theories, technologies, super-powers, and even opponents he has a chance to observe; this allows him to determine their strengths and weaknesses. His love for Deirdre is his secret passion, and can apply to any plan that involves her, action he takes alongside her or to protect her if she’s in trouble. His Reputation is an excellent one, but it means that he has a very public ID and is constantly besieged by those want to claim the title, pestered by those who want his help etc. His Power of Force Fields is effectively another type of Invulnerability (see T&J, p. 43) which he has learned to extend to others or project as physical force. Super-Intelligence means he's knowledgeable in most fields of science, an expert in the high energy physics connected with the Philadelphia Experiment and Project Rainbow; systemically, grants him 2 Upshifts per Scene for mental tasks or conflicts, and 2 "contingency plan" per session. While he can design super-technologies with his Super-Intelligence, it's his Super-Gadgeteering that allows him to actually construct them; furthermore, he gets four Gadgets at character generation.

Zevon's Gadgets include:
* Energy Fabric: A material with an indeterminate IF charge, making it highly resistant to damage, able to adapt to the IF powers of its wearer, and a effective form of insulation. Zevon's uniform is made out of it.

* Nanite Reconstruction Surgical Equipment (NuRSE): When a character is placed inside a NuRSE chamber, he gets +2 to all subsequent healing rolls as per Continuing Danger (see T&J, p. 62).

* League Communicators: Using cutting edge IF technology, League Communicators send messages through parallel dimensions to other communicators. They are not normally affected by distance or obstacles and can’t be traced or intercepted, but they do still suffer from lightspeed limits.

* Personal Environment Generators: A limited gravitic field is used to hold in atmosphere (and the warmth of that atmosphere), providing an unprotected body about 5 minutes life support in hard vacuum. (No combat effects.)

(Gadgets not used from the original V&V write-up: the Artificial Intelligence Emulator design, StrattonTech Scanner, pocket toolkit, and Roberto. The first one I consider as a user of Super-Intelligence to explain Zevon's Expert [+4] Wealth; this is aided by the fact that it seems to have no mechanical effect. The other three are essentially "off the shelf" purchases, which easily fall under Wealth. Roberto could be statted up as a Sidekick, if desired.)

(Since the Liberty Lair is his team's base, it would be handled under the Headquarters rules on T&J, p. 69).

Brian Notes: This looks good. I’d have to trust the GM to let me get away with the various TK stunts, but the design of T&J’s invulnerability (that he can ignore normal scale damage) makes the force field plenty tough. I imagine that an anti-tank weapon would still knock him down with accumulated Failure ranks, but it wouldn’t penetrate the field to cause damage. Chad had designed this power set, more or less, originally, but then recommended pushing for more Force Field and less super-intelligence. I disagree: as a player the force field was neat, but it’s strong enough as written, and he is both the Indestructible Man and the Smartest Man on Mars, and Good Super Intelligence is needed for that.

Most importantly I shifted around his qualities, making his Reputation a Poor [-2] to take advantage of how the T&J rules work: Zach has an excellent, wonderful reputation that causes him no end of complications: his enemies know how to draw him out, his ID is public, and everyone always looks to him and his team to save the world from whatever danger it’s gotten in to this time. This let me move his love for Dierdre into a positive quality. This was important as perhaps my favorite aspect of PDQ is how the first quality reduced by Damage Ranks is the one that generates a story hook – Zach will always take his first damage rank to his love for Deirdre, insuring an endless stream of awkward situations, prying relatives, angst filled moments and other romantic interest aspects in play.

Finally, I gave him some boosts because he isn’t a starting character: an extra quality rank for more Wealth and statted out two more stunts, just to make sure his core force field tricks were accounted for. 

Not surprising, but this is a very clear map over into another highly narrative system. I’m getting the feeling that my largest problems with mapping things over come in games where the damage of firearms is most clearly nailed down against reality and the powers in play, hence the higher costs of being invulnerable. My next step is GURPS unless someone wants to save me. This will likely take a few days, so don’t be surprised by a delay. 

Does System Matter, part VI – FUDGE

Last week I started a Thought Experiment in supers games, looking at what changes a character goes through when converted from one system to another. This is meant to test the validity of most supers games claims that you can use the system to build “any” character or run “any” kind of game. The character in question – Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man - started in Villains and Vigilantes, and now exists in Silver Age Sentinels, HERO, Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes and now, thanks to whswhs,

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FUDGE.

A quick recap: Dr. Z is the Reed Richards analogue in a Fantastic Four style game. His natural abilities include a massive intellect and scientific skill, a powerful presence & sense-of-self, and an ability to analyze his opponents’ fighting style and the scientific basis for their powers. His superhuman ability is an invisible, highly versatile force field. He is renowned as the smartest man on Mars and is a millionaire with access to advanced technology and the Liberty Lair, his team’s base.

From Bill Stoddard: “Brian asked people familiar with rules systems to design versions of these characters. I don't have time just now to do a GURPS Supers version. But I also wrote the current FUDGE supers rules. So here's a sketch of Zevon in FUDGE.

Zachary Zevon, The Indestructible Man

Attributes [nine levels: two free levels: six levels from gifts: nine levels from scale: eight levels spent on skills]:

Body: Good
Mind: Legendary 2
Soul: Superb

Skills [thirty-four levels: ten free levels: twenty-four levels from attributes]:

Brawling: Good [base is Body]
Cybernetics: Superb
Experimental Physics: Legendary 2
Force Field Engineering: Superb
Materials Science: Great
Nanotechnology: Great
Theoretical Physics: Great
Weakness Identification: Superb

Gifts [eight gifts: two free gifts: nine gifts from scale: three gifts spent on attributes]:

Force Field (supernormal gift): equivalent to wearing full body armor: +4 to damage capacity: battery option, 25 charges, one charge consumed per attack stopped, can expend multiple charges to stop stronger attacks, up to +8 added damage capacity for all 25 charges: 2 gifts
Force Field Expansion: can extend force field to 1-yard bubble at -4 to damage capacity (stops melee attacks, but a missile attack can shoot through it to hit him): 1 gift
Force Field Manipulation: can use force field for power stunts giving +4 to strength scale: with expenditure of a FUDGE point, can come up with other applications: 1 gift
Invention: can invent advanced state-of-the-art devices: 1 gift
Instant Invention (supernormal gift): can invent new devices during the course of an adventure, with portable tools: invented devices have duration one adventure: 2 gifts
Wealth: millionaire: 1 gift

Scale [total scale 24: 9 scale steps converted to nine gifts and nine attribute levels]:

Scale 15 for force field: additional +15 to damage capacity

Notes: The twenty-four scale steps are my standard quota for "heavy hitter" superheroes, as opposed to streetlevel, who would be built on twelve. A twelve-point version of Zevon would do just fine in a street fight but not on a battlefield. Think of the difference between the Avengers first team (Thor, Iron Man, Ant Man, the Wasp, the Hulk) and second team (Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch).

I handwaved the various "adventuring gear" items, such as the nanotech healing system and robot butler at team HQ, and the energy cloth costumes and personal communicators. None of those would actually count as "superpowers," in that they're not trademark items for individual heroes. A fussier accounting could try to figure out how to define each of them as a gift—for example, the nanotech healing system would be one supernormal gift for allowing 24 hours healing (one wound level, in a cinematic setting) in one hour; the energy cloth is effectively damage capacity 2 armor with negligible weight and bulk.

The Indestructible Man has +19 to damage capacity with his force field set skintight, for 25 shots; this drops to +15 for 1 yard radius, +13 for 1.5 yards, +11 for 2.25 yards, +9 for 3.3 yards, +7 for 5 yards, and so on. If he takes a really big hit, he can stand one attack at up to +27 damage capacity. We don't really have detailed stats for weapons, but I figure that gets him up to surviving attacks from antitank weapons. Small arms fire hasn't got a chance of hurting him. 

Notes from Brian: This looks like a very solid translation of the character, with minimal loss of fidelity. All the key aspects are clearly listed, with the opening for FUDGE point expenditures to get things like his super-breath tricks. 

With a Legendary 2 Mind and Experimental Physics his lowest possible roll is a Good, which is equivalent to normal people doing pretty well. That feels about right. I’m not familiar enough with FUDGE Supers to comment on the damage mechanics, but I’ll trust Mr. Stoddard when he says that the force field will bounce small arms fire and conceivably withstand an anti-tank weapon– that’s good enough to capture the feel of things (assuming we don’t have a circumstance like DC Heroes where people whose fists are as potent as anti-tank weapons grow on trees). The 25 charges tie nearly with the Power scores and Energy points in the other two games, so Zach can still get tired out or overwhelmed – important things to keep the character from being immune to threats. It’s interesting that HERO and DC Heroes don’t have that, where the threat is not time but people having standard access to amounts of force that would break the wall. The more systems we see him in, the more that distinction becomes clear and changes how he would appear in play. 

As with V&V, all of the gear is just handwaved away – he’s a genius, he invented it, and it’s secondary to the character concept. I still feel that’s the best way to handle it, with second best being SAS’s “spend some points on having general gear”. Thinking it through, this would be much less viable if one of the other PCs had the power of super-senses, in which case Zach’s scanner would have to be considerably less useful than his teammate’s power. HERO tries to make this less of an issue by charging points for the scanner, but I’d still feel bad if my character’s secondary gear stomped all over someone else’s primary power. 

Thanks for the help, Mr. Stoddard. Tomorrow we look at chadu’s Truth & Justice write up.