Superheroes

[SirNitram]

When someone can mask a hallway from a guy who senses the presense of mass... It's not relying on silly disinformation, B4. But it hardly matters at this point.

[B4UTRUST]

*shrugs* If you believe that to be the only answer there is to the situation at hand...

[SirNitram]

*shrugs* If you believe that to be the only answer there is to the situation at hand...

When I'm hearing complaints against me third hand again? Yea, dropping out is about the only answer, because clearly no one's stepping up and speaking to me.

[frigidmagi]

You know, fuck it. B4 I am completely unhappy as to your behavior. I am annoyed as to your bare ass excuses for said behavior and I openly question why the fuck I should put with it.

[Cynical Cat]

*shrugs* If you believe that to be the only answer there is to the situation at hand...

When I'm hearing complaints against me third hand again? Yea, dropping out is about the only answer, because clearly no one's stepping up and speaking to me.

Don't. I've been upfront with my belief that you've been overpowered. It's not a secret and you've been steadily adding powers since then, including your latest "removal of bonds" bit. To be frank, the complaints aren't directed at you. Controlling power creep is a GM job and B4 hasn't been doing it. B4 has done nothing to prevent Gravitas from steadily becoming more and more powerful, and for whatever reason, has done nothing to stop it.

This isn't about you. It's about B4's GMing.

[Hotfoot]

What's irritating me about this is pretty simple. B4 complained about Gravitas' power level. Most GMs, when they feel a player is stepping out of bounds step in and say "No, you can't do that." and that's the end of it. What appears to be happening is a game of oneupmanship in a passive aggressive fashion, along with the expectation that players should be keeping each other in check. Last I checked, this wasn't a Soviet intelligence cell.

I've been vocal about new characters by using existing characters to draw reference from, this is true. Of course, I assume that existing characters have met with GM approval. In my time playing, Gravitas has not done anything egregiously out of line with how I see his power level in relation to the rest of the team, and if the GM thinks otherwise, the GM should say so, end of story. There can be some discussion, sure, but at the end of the day, the GM's word is final. However, by not acting directly, this situation has arisen when it didn't need to get to this point.

I certainly don't like the idea that if I've gone too far the GM responds with upping the ante until the game approaches TGOD levels. That makes the game frustrating and pointless after a while. I also don't like the idea of the GM using such escalations as a way to force other players to do his dirty work.

Ultimately, I'm in roughly the same boat as Nitram. I'm rather upset about this and it is the primary reason as to why I have not been posting in the Heroes thread lately. I'd rather continue with the game and continue having fun, but I don't see the point about playing under the current situation to be honest.

[B4UTRUST]

You know, fuck it. B4 I am completely unhappy as to your behavior. I am annoyed as to your bare ass excuses for said behavior and I openly question why the fuck I should put with it.

...I wasn't making excuses? I was pointing out the fact they he doesn't know exactly what's going to happen/whats going on.

As for Gravitas' growing power being unchecked, yeah I've fucked up. I admit it. If I had a way to deal with it outside of killing off the charater or some other similar action that would in essence neuter the character I'd take it. I've considered some ingame options but have yet to figure out exactly how it should be handled. I'm, as always, open to suggestions.

As for why you should put up with it...*shrugs* You don't have to. Nobody has demanded that anyone stay in this game any more then anyone has demanded that the game continue absolutely. If it's felt that the game simply cant continue at its current position then I will end it if thats the concensus.

Do I want to end the game? No. Do I want to keep it going? Of course. Would I like the players to give me some sort of feedback to go off of(This is much harder then say, in a table top game where the players are right next to me and I can see the looks of dissatisfaction on their faces)? Yeah, feedback is a good thing.

There, I've said my piece. I'll leave the decision to you all. Suggestions, comments, gripes, moans, groans, bitches, complaints, etc. will be taken under advisement.

[Cynical Cat]

Depowering Gravitas is easy. Every PC is one power syphoning villian away from being a mundane.

[SirNitram]

I'll be happy to find excuses to cripple Gravitas' power, through various means. Trust me, I'm a master bullshitter with enough creativity to do that, and even make it fit. I would like some help defining a new low point, and for the remainder of the raid, I'll keep him as he is, most likely(Though given we appear to be facing things which are ridiculously hard to kill, that might not be a bad idea.).

[Charon]

A simple way to do it would be a power burn-out. Overactivity of the Node after being pretty much dormant for so long would practically destroy it, thus making it much harder to access your powers... leading to crippled Gravitas.

I'd say a power level of about where he started was good.

[B4UTRUST]

A simple way to do it would be a power burn-out. Overactivity of the Node after being pretty much dormant for so long would practically destroy it, thus making it much harder to access your powers... leading to crippled Gravitas.

I'd say a power level of about where he started was good.

Wouldn't that in effect drive Gravitas insane? Or at least decrease his already tenious grasp on reality? Forgive me, I'm not familer with aberrant enough to know all of its ins and outs.

[B4UTRUST]

Depowering Gravitas is easy. Every PC is one power syphoning villian away from being a mundane.

Yes, but doing this without it resulting in the Falling Cow from Outer Space is another matter. I would generally prefer a more IC story-contextual method other then say "villian A is in your brains, absorbin your nodes" I get what you're going with and I've thought down that route as well. Again, it's just a matter of trying to make the Deus Ex Machina not appear to be the blatent and total Deus Ex Machina. I think that's a big issue with my GMing overall. I hate causing conflict with players over characters, even when that lack of said conflict results in said conflict. It doesn't make sense, yes, I know, but my mind works in mysterious and far-reaching ways that scare the shit out of me most of the time. I mean hell, I was the guy who sat there and got the mental image of Blast dry-humping a power generator during the Freak Legion raid while 'Feel like Makin' Love' was playing in the background...

[Charon]

A simple way to do it would be a power burn-out. Overactivity of the Node after being pretty much dormant for so long would practically destroy it, thus making it much harder to access your powers... leading to crippled Gravitas.

I'd say a power level of about where he started was good.

Wouldn't that in effect drive Gravitas insane? Or at least decrease his already tenious grasp on reality? Forgive me, I'm not familer with aberrant enough to know all of its ins and outs.

...

Well I didn't mean actually burning, I meant kinda sputtering under too much pressure and weakening. Which would, I don't think, hurt his poor brain too much.

[SirNitram]

A simple way to do it would be a power burn-out. Overactivity of the Node after being pretty much dormant for so long would practically destroy it, thus making it much harder to access your powers... leading to crippled Gravitas.

I'd say a power level of about where he started was good.

Wouldn't that in effect drive Gravitas insane? Or at least decrease his already tenious grasp on reality? Forgive me, I'm not familer with aberrant enough to know all of its ins and outs.

Burning out the node to any degree will have the opposite effect. The madness that isn't caused by seeing his people practically stamped out is caused by the node being right between the two lobes, and expanding outward. If it burns out, it'll retract as it weakens. It'll zap his Aberrations out of existance.. And also cut his powers.

Quite honestly, I don't like the 'burn out' excuse. Gravitas could actually permenantly power-down himself, another Nova could do it, hell, the angel walking around could simply revoke, via proxy, the node's permission to work. Then you just get a very clever guy with a bootknife; I'm not adverse to that, but I'd like some warning if we go -that- extreme.

[B4UTRUST]

... I can honestly say I've never thought down the route of emergency brain surgery administered via psychopath wielding a boot knife... That's a new one.

I thought the node kind of wormed its way further into the mind. I mean I understand it's a node or a tumor of some sort in the brain itself, but I thought it developed little tendrils or something that burrowed it deeper into the brain as its powers grew...

[SirNitram]

... I can honestly say I've never thought down the route of emergency brain surgery administered via psychopath wielding a boot knife... That's a new one.

I thought the node kind of wormed its way further into the mind. I mean I understand it's a node or a tumor of some sort in the brain itself, but I thought it developed little tendrils or something that burrowed it deeper into the brain as its powers grew...

Nope. The titanic energies that flow through it alter the flesh, but Gravitas is at a stage where he can probably recover fully. It takes truly horrific specialized eugenics to produce permenant, full body mutations that can't be restored.

[Cynical Cat]

I thought the node kind of wormed its way further into the mind. I mean I understand it's a node or a tumor of some sort in the brain itself, but I thought it developed little tendrils or something that burrowed it deeper into the brain as its powers grew...

No, its all based on R-M node. Some novas don't have a node (not having one is more common with latter generation ones) and instead have a network of small nodes throughout their brain. They tend to be saner.

[SirNitram]

I thought the node kind of wormed its way further into the mind. I mean I understand it's a node or a tumor of some sort in the brain itself, but I thought it developed little tendrils or something that burrowed it deeper into the brain as its powers grew...

No, its all based on R-M node. Some novas don't have a node (not having one is more common with latter generation ones) and instead have a network of small nodes throughout their brain. They tend to be saner.

That's specific to the Project Utopia/Planet Eden Novas. Teragen ones don't care; they control their mutations with astounded ability. The ones that are warped horrifically are the Aberrants/brood of The Colony.

Anyways, so what if Gravitas loses his node? He's not a fighter anymore, but it doesn't remove his money, his connections, his 'favours' which he was always smart enough to have unspecified, his knowledge..

It'd be a huge step down, but not into a character unsuitable for four-colours.

[Cynical Cat]

I thought the node kind of wormed its way further into the mind. I mean I understand it's a node or a tumor of some sort in the brain itself, but I thought it developed little tendrils or something that burrowed it deeper into the brain as its powers grew...

No, its all based on R-M node. Some novas don't have a node (not having one is more common with latter generation ones) and instead have a network of small nodes throughout their brain. They tend to be saner.

That's specific to the Project Utopia/Planet Eden Novas. Teragen ones don't care; they control their mutations with astounded ability. The ones that are warped horrifically are the Aberrants/brood of The Colony.

Teragen novas may not care as much because Crysalis gives them much better control of their Taint and their aberrations, but they still exhibit the same pattern and second generation ones have a higher incidence of distributed nodes. The Colony's spawn are pretty much first generation novas, but horribly warped because the Colony's method of erupting protonovas is to give the poor bastard a bath in Taint energies. It kills or mutates those that don't erupt and the ones that do erupt are usually deeply mentally and physically fucked up. Perfect terror troops.

The Colony is such a dick.

[SirNitram]

Well yes. It's supposed to be a gigantic dick. These are troops warped directly into the Sol system to destroy everything and everyone in some twisted sort of vengeance.

[Cynical Cat]

Actually, most of the attacks are on extra solar colonies. The plan is pare away humanity's worlds until only the Solar System and then Earth is left. That will restrict humanities willingness to WMD the only piece of real estate they have left and then the Colony will have Earth. It's a vile battle of attrition with the goal of capturing Earth intact.

[B4UTRUST]

Anyways, so what if Gravitas loses his node? He's not a fighter anymore, but it doesn't remove his money, his connections, his 'favours' which he was always smart enough to have unspecified, his knowledge..

It'd be a huge step down, but not into a character unsuitable for four-colours.

Kind of just kills the character then doesn't it? Not in the literal sense that the character would die, but the concept of the character was as a nova. Without the node, he's just... average joe kegerator...

Although there's always the possibility for some sort of meta that could spark off meta-traits in others. Make dormants and latents into actives, etc. You figure there had to be something special in Gravitas for him to develop the node to begin with, right? Or is my knowledge of Aberant again wrong?

[Cynical Cat]

Although there's always the possibility for some sort of meta that could spark off meta-traits in others. Make dormants and latents into actives, etc. You figure there had to be something special in Gravitas for him to develop the node to begin with, right? Or is my knowledge of Aberant again wrong?

In the Trinity universe, psionic and nova potential is related to the same codes of genes, just depending on how they are triggered. Since they are opposed forces, one either triggers one way or the other, if ones triggers at all. Ambient energy usage (i.e. lots of novas or psions running around) increase the chances of triggering from almost none to significantly higher and the eruptee will erupt to use the same energies as the triggering force. In other words, if there are lots of novas around then more people will end up being novas. The Colony's triggering method is basically to charged up version of this with no regard for the subjects physical or mental well being.

Secondly, in Aberrant there are a number of ways to cripple or boost a nova's abilities. Divis Mal can shut off other novas' abilities and it is possible for a powerful enough nova to permenently remove a nova's powers.

[SirNitram]

Divas Mal's power can turn it on or off.. And he won't be the only one to wield it, if others have been hopping timelines. There's other ways to do it. And of course, there's what happens if both Psion and Nova trigger together.. Though no, we're not giving Gravitas 'Traffic Hazard'.

[Cynical Cat]

Divas Mal's power can turn it on or off.. And he won't be the only one to wield it, if others have been hopping timelines.

Don't even need to do that. There are a number of novas early on in the Aberrant timeline with similar abilities. They just don't have Divis's power or skill at that point in time. The Colony's Taint bath is just a crude and monstrous version of Divis's "increase quantum background rads in a broad area." There will be other high powered novas with similar powers, its inevitable.

One should note that its generally easier to kill someone in Aberrant than depower them. Its not a tactic you use on your equals, but someone you're more powerful than or have already beaten.