Author Topic: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns  (Read 90011 times)

Offline Funge

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #495 on: February 09, 2011, 10:01:03 AM »
There was a part where Captain America is fighting some guy, and getting beat the shit out of. The bad guy says "Just surrender and I'll let you live"
to which Cap says

It says "Surrender, what do you think this A stands for FRANCE?!" he then cuts the dude in half with his shield. Bad ass.

And then there was this other time...

Offline BumblingBear

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #496 on: February 09, 2011, 10:12:02 AM »
To help dress in character, I think I may get Ashley this t-shirt now...

Myself: If I were in her(Murphy's) position, I would have studied my ass off on the supernatural and rigged up special weapons to deal with them.  Murphy on the other hand just plans to overpower bad guys with the angst of her short woman's syndrome and blame all resulting failures on Harry.

Offline Ren

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #497 on: February 09, 2011, 01:18:56 PM »
I already emailed Fanta about the aspect thing and skills, I agreeing that keeping scholarship makes sense, but swap empathy for Athletics. While I can see Brian whipping out his Brain and laying a legal smackdown on some unsuspecting fool I don't see him being to emotional about it...8)

And Bear, what...you think I don't already have a temptation of power scenario planned? You don't know me so well...8)

I'd say Melon was definitely more in need of some Weapon training than Martial Arts or possibly Gun Training. Unarmed combat wouldn't have done a lot of good against those things and in fact may have gotten her hurt. Plus as a character who typically prefers to hide in the background Ranged combat maybe her friend. She might want to consider taking up archery and some craftsmanship to make arrows that impart different aspects (It Burns! Danger will Robinson! Let there be Light!). Stuff to consider. Character development should indeed be inspired by in-game activities and trauma but Melon was never physically harmed and none of the monsters went after her directly so the trauma wouldn't be quite as bad. If she wants to play it up as something more, or maybe add in some stuff from earlier childhood where she was attacked by something and the nightmares came back that's fine as well.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2011, 05:02:19 PM by Ren »
"Brain Makes My Math Hurt" - me

"Eeyore is my Totem Animal" - me

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Offline fantazero

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #498 on: February 09, 2011, 02:04:12 PM »
While I can see Brian whipping out his Brian and laying a legal smackdown on some unsuspecting fool I don't see him being to emotional about it...8)
woooooooooooooooooooooo! :-*

Offline Ren

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #499 on: February 09, 2011, 05:02:48 PM »
BRAIN! BRAIN! sigh...damn dyslexia
"Brain Makes My Math Hurt" - me

"Eeyore is my Totem Animal" - me

"Pants are overrated!" - me

Offline BumblingBear

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #500 on: February 09, 2011, 05:44:44 PM »
I already emailed Fanta about the aspect thing and skills, I agreeing that keeping scholarship makes sense, but swap empathy for Athletics. While I can see Brian whipping out his Brain and laying a legal smackdown on some unsuspecting fool I don't see him being to emotional about it...8)

And Bear, what...you think I don't already have a temptation of power scenario planned? You don't know me so well...8)

I'd say Melon was definitely more in need of some Weapon training than Martial Arts or possibly Gun Training. Unarmed combat wouldn't have done a lot of good against those things and in fact may have gotten her hurt. Plus as a character who typically prefers to hide in the background Ranged combat maybe her friend. She might want to consider taking up archery and some craftsmanship to make arrows that impart different aspects (It Burns! Danger will Robinson! Let there be Light!). Stuff to consider. Character development should indeed be inspired by in-game activities and trauma but Melon was never physically harmed and none of the monsters went after her directly so the trauma wouldn't be quite as bad. If she wants to play it up as something more, or maybe add in some stuff from earlier childhood where she was attacked by something and the nightmares came back that's fine as well.

Well, she won't be a mundane ninja.

She wants to learn the sword-  drop guns and take up weapons.  She also is going to learn how to create throwing stars out of ectoplasm.  This will be using the breath weapons power but thematically they will be ectoplasm shurikens that evaporate in a few minutes after being thrown. :) 
Myself: If I were in her(Murphy's) position, I would have studied my ass off on the supernatural and rigged up special weapons to deal with them.  Murphy on the other hand just plans to overpower bad guys with the angst of her short woman's syndrome and blame all resulting failures on Harry.

Offline fantazero

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #501 on: February 09, 2011, 07:22:08 PM »
sounds like that Ice Knife I've been working on.  The perfect crime

Offline Ren

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #502 on: February 09, 2011, 08:50:20 PM »
Not sure how conjuring throw stars is relevant to her background. She is basically a mortal with a fancy camera and some stunts, where is She suddenly developing the ability to create throwing stars from thin air? I'm not saying she can't eventually learn it but there needs to be something to prompt that kind of growth even if it's from some kind of special training.
I know the RAW says that characters can add powers with Refresh levels but once you have them you really can't swapping the actual powers around so much. Especially not spontaneously developing a Supernatural power where one did not previously exist.
Personally I believe that character growth be thematic to the character concept and also to be partially based on things the character experiences in the game. So if she can come up with a good story-line reason why she is making such a dramatic shift from mousy photographer to supernatural-ninja then no problem. I'm sure we can work together to come up with a mentor or group she can join that will give her the training she needs to learn these new abilities. That and it's a lot more fun to develop this kind of thing in-game.
"Brain Makes My Math Hurt" - me

"Eeyore is my Totem Animal" - me

"Pants are overrated!" - me

Offline BumblingBear

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #503 on: February 09, 2011, 09:00:51 PM »
Not sure how conjuring throw stars is relevant to her background. She is basically a mortal with a fancy camera and some stunts, where is She suddenly developing the ability to create throwing stars from thin air? I'm not saying she can't eventually learn it but there needs to be something to prompt that kind of growth even if it's from some kind of special training.
I know the RAW says that characters can add powers with Refresh levels but once you have them you really can't swapping the actual powers around so much. Especially not spontaneously developing a Supernatural power where one did not previously exist.
Personally I believe that character growth be thematic to the character concept and also to be partially based on things the character experiences in the game. So if she can come up with a good story-line reason why she is making such a dramatic shift from mousy photographer to supernatural-ninja then no problem. I'm sure we can work together to come up with a mentor or group she can join that will give her the training she needs to learn these new abilities. That and it's a lot more fun to develop this kind of thing in-game.


A ghost could have taught her.  Her aspects right now are that she does not like the supernatural and she hates her job. This won't change.

However, after feeling so useless in a fight, she could use the camera as a means to an end to get teaching from dead martial arts masters as well as the living.

That's the basic story I have so far I guess.

I don't think she's in a huge hurry either way, but Ashley wants her character to be more useful.  I understand what she means.  I feel like my character pretty much just stands around 60% of the time. :(
Myself: If I were in her(Murphy's) position, I would have studied my ass off on the supernatural and rigged up special weapons to deal with them.  Murphy on the other hand just plans to overpower bad guys with the angst of her short woman's syndrome and blame all resulting failures on Harry.

Offline Ren

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #504 on: February 09, 2011, 09:51:16 PM »
I am aware of that, I'm trying to make sure that everyone has something to do. Unfortunately the downside to being heavily specialized is that there are times where you may get bored because there is nothing for you to do. Ethan is built to be almost purely combative and you do exceptionally well when combat breaks out but you have almost no social skills and no hobby skills or description of interest in things that aren't related to the military or to Pele. Now I understand that the characters Concept is based on his ties to Pele who is a creature of violent action. Sure it's easy to use all of that power...in fact what reason do you have to NOT use it? Other than exposing your abilities to Normals?
You may want to look at your skills and see if there are any that can be changed out for more useful skills or how they can be used in different ways than might normally be expected. Also, you may want to look at your 3x3x3 again, a third of your contacts are ex-military buddies and the first two really have no other description other than what they were. What do they do now?
All food for thought!

Now I'm off to go back to pounding my head against these Rote spells for a Character I'm working on.
"Brain Makes My Math Hurt" - me

"Eeyore is my Totem Animal" - me

"Pants are overrated!" - me

Offline zegion

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #505 on: February 09, 2011, 09:54:05 PM »
Thats the thing about all our characters. We each have our own strengths.  Gavin, and You and even the redneck (with his massive gun skill) can potentially put down a crap ton of damage. But only really Bear and Gavin can protect them selves agisnt any of the big beasties out there, the rest of us will get a good beating out of anything stronger then your average thug....and we can attest to this as Lobzillas almost handed 2 characters their asses.  

Pirate and Gloria (and she knows a lot of influential people) are the "wheel men <----non gender specific.

Steve (knowing a lot of people), gavin (hey hes a full blown wizard he get billing in more then one role), my self (investigation and charm) and mel (skills most of us dont have) are the jack of all trades, we take care of alot of the non-combat things. Which right now we are involved in.

In literary terms were in the "rising action." Right now all our characters know is there is a problem and we need to find out more about it. Like every dresden novel ever, Dresden spends the first half of the book a) discovering the problem, b) finding out how deal with it, c) geting beating up, then  in the second part cowboying up and taking it out.  We are, and correct me if im wrong, in part A about to slide into part B.

Not to mention, per our characters it makes sense, Bear you play the heavy artillery and designed him as such.  Heck Tess has a problem playing gloria, cuz gloria is not nearly as intelligent as Tess is. I have to remind my self that agent fabian is a heck of alot nicer person then I am. Though i didn't really stretch my self that much, i like detective work hence the FBI agent.

 I think you did a good job with peles flame thrower. With out you the red neck, marty and I would have been in a world of doo-doo.
-They fought for their lives But most of them died

-The angels were crying, As they carried his brothers away. With the fire raining down And the Hell all around
There were few men left standing that day.


Big & Rich 8th of November.

Offline fantazero

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #506 on: February 09, 2011, 11:01:26 PM »
Steve (?) mentioned running side quests for certain things while the main action is going down, I think that could be neat. Like Steve or Z act as the "DM" for a 10-15 minute quest or action.

I think what got me a little "Butt Hurt" at first was that I couldnt roll the dice and Rambo it up in one turn.

Offline zegion

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #507 on: February 10, 2011, 12:49:36 AM »
yeah dice are the problem. Thats why for skills i see my character using most, Investigation and Guns, i gave him stunts that basically give him a bonus to these actions. That way i can always count on a decent outcome when i use those skills. the lowest i can get on investigations is a 1 (4 skill -4 for dice +1 for stunt plus i get the info a little quicker), and guns a 0 (4 skill -4 dice) or a +2 vs the weird (4 skill -4 dice +2 stunt). The rest of my skill fall into the +1 category with just enough to keep the skill pyramid intact. 

I also have no skills at a 5. I chose not to super specialize in anything.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2011, 12:51:39 AM by zegion »
-They fought for their lives But most of them died

-The angels were crying, As they carried his brothers away. With the fire raining down And the Hell all around
There were few men left standing that day.


Big & Rich 8th of November.

Offline BumblingBear

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #508 on: February 10, 2011, 03:23:31 AM »
I just wish I had more to do more often.  My character is not so much the interview-people type.  He is a weapon... and he knows it.

Ian Fabian or instance does it all.  Granted, he may not be able to potentially handle getting hit a few times by a lobstrosity without taking a ton of damage, but he could still bounce back from it.  Whether it's social interactions or shooting, other characters have more versatility in the current story.

So far the five most unused characters are Brian, Mike, Ethan, Melon, and Gloria.  Then again, with Gloria it's more an RP thing than anything else.  She's supposed to keep her mouth shut.

Melon has a shy /player/ who may take a little bit to be confident enough to really start jumping in.  But if she were not afraid of being gang raped by the first group of monsters she came across (hence wanting to take up the sword and mystical martial arts abilities) she'd probably be a bit more confident too.

Mike will probably be overshadowed for a while since he is at a lower refresh than everyone else.  Still, his character concept is funny.  I wish I could see the ghost more.

The problem for Brian and I is that we don't really do /anything/ unless there is fighting going on.  During a fight, /everyone/ else can help out or take action... or take consequences.  Sure, the talky people may not be great in a fight, but they can still fight.  That is the difference.  They are still helping by creating aspects and such.  There's a big difference between not being great at something but still being involved (like the squishy characters are during a fight), and being forced to stand on the sideline for 2/3 or more of the story like Brian and I are.

The reason for this is simple - fighting is crunchy.  We're using aspects and rolling dice.

The game has mechanics for conversations to be that way too.  For instance, if someone were holding out on Marty in an investigation and we had a social conflict, I could do something scary to try placing an aspect of "scary dude behind Marty" that he could then tag.

I actually built Ethan to be decent in social situations ... if we were doing social combat.  He has pretty decent social defenses but can be lied to fairly easily.  I was kind of figuring that he could not be easily intimidated, but he could be lead astray.

For investigations he's absolutely terrible, though... and pretty much has nothing better to do than follow Marty around.

That said, Ren has said that next session we're getting into little solo adventures and that gives me hope that Ethan will be doing something other than standing around and listening to people.

As for my crappier alertness skills and such, that would not be as big of a problem if I were getting compelled more often and had more fate points to work with.  I get Pele compels fairly often... which are awesome and I enjoy a lot. :)  I just want to be regular-compelled more often in general.

I've actually been thinking about just relying more heavily on my link to Pele since it's easier to fit those type of compels into the story.

That will suck for everyone else though since I'll be burning their evidence to the ground and eating falling foes.... lol.
Myself: If I were in her(Murphy's) position, I would have studied my ass off on the supernatural and rigged up special weapons to deal with them.  Murphy on the other hand just plans to overpower bad guys with the angst of her short woman's syndrome and blame all resulting failures on Harry.

Offline fantazero

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Re: Miami; the Makeshift Mermaid and other Yarns
« Reply #509 on: February 10, 2011, 03:59:06 AM »
Me and you COULD do some talking but, it wouldnt get us anywhere.
We could though, pick up some midget were-rats and shake the crap out them  ;D