Originally posted by Draco Dei
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Okay, I'm not thinking I should play in this game. Basically, every time I try to look at the rules I get filled with disgust.
However this could just be my own mood and some bad memories cropping up. So, here is what it would take: Someone would need to convince me that despite the thrust of the system this can and will be a highly tactical campaign. Something where being "a band of hotblooded heroes" will lead to a Total Party Kill or at least massive civilian casualties. This is NOT saying that there can't be hot-blooded characters, nor indeed that they can't ALL be hotblooded... just as long as they are able to restrain themselves long enough for (at least some of us) to think through the situation before going in with not only a plan, but, quite frequently, at least one contingency plan.
It is more of a huge twist on "How did we get here anyway?".
Basically, one of the basic questions you have to ask in this genre if you are going to have depth to it is "So what do 6 guys in bullet-proof spandex have over 1,000 guys with assault rifles, grenades*, sniper rifles, helicopter-mounted rockets and chain guys, laser guided artillery, night-vision goggles ."
*Smoke, flashbang, fragmentation, perhaps white phosphorous.
**Yes, I know we are in an urban environment... it is called cutting the power to 6+ blocks, because you totally have the authority to call up the power company and make that happen.
Now, there are several ways to handle this. I hear that the actual Power-Rangers show used "bullets don't do much to monsters", but there also could be "teleportation is faster than choppers you rappel down from and you don't have the contacts or skills to learn how to use smoke grenades and such", "The monsters have the power to cloud people's minds such that no matter how many people they might end up killing they would still remain a myth in the eyes of the police and military"...
But what if lead bullets DID kill monsters? What if, in fact, all of us, on our very first outing, used our powers to raid a military base for assault rifles?
In fact, maybe we took them off the dead guards on a fly-speck of an island who got mind-whammyed into standing their until the moment their throats were ripped out. Our mentor might have directed us to do so since this was a nuclear missile base and the BBEG (not monster of the week, BBEG, in person, first mission) was going to magically/super-technologically hack the launch console and reduce the USA to 49 states plus some glow-in-the-dark real-estate in the middle of the Pacific. With the stakes so high, our mentor decided to have us break the rules without ever having told us what the rules were in the first place.
Alternatively, maybe we just looked at our chrome-and-plastic appearing weapons and said "Are you kidding me? This looks like a little kids toy! I'mma get me a REAL weapon.".
Anyway, BBEG lies dead at our feet. Game Over You Win!
Except... that wasn't the actual case. And the last thing our mentor wanted to do was to risk breaking the firey spirits that fuel our powers, because they will be needed again. The one thing you don't ask such heroes to do is sit around on their butts for 2 to 10 years for the chance to fix a problem that, from an emotional perspective, is kinda their own fault.
Did I mention that the oldest of us was probably 16 at the time?
Fast forward several years of goofing off with our powers, rescuing cats from trees, old ladies from burning buildings, and surprisingly little crimefighting...
Well it turns out that "only The Weapons of the Heart may truly slay these evils", BBEG is back, and not only bigger, stronger, and tougher, but SMARTER. Not in terms of gadgeteering ability to build death-rays, or IQ points (although maybe those too!), but, much more telling, in as much as he seems to have spent his little cosmic time-out reading at least "The Evil Overlord's List" if not "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu.
So, we are mature but firey, recklessness has given way to the 'acting in spite of your fears' of true bravery, our closest friends and family probably know of our powers.
Some of us may even have young children...
So... use as much or as little of that as you like, regardless of if I personally end up playing.
However this could just be my own mood and some bad memories cropping up. So, here is what it would take: Someone would need to convince me that despite the thrust of the system this can and will be a highly tactical campaign. Something where being "a band of hotblooded heroes" will lead to a Total Party Kill or at least massive civilian casualties. This is NOT saying that there can't be hot-blooded characters, nor indeed that they can't ALL be hotblooded... just as long as they are able to restrain themselves long enough for (at least some of us) to think through the situation before going in with not only a plan, but, quite frequently, at least one contingency plan.
It is more of a huge twist on "How did we get here anyway?".
Basically, one of the basic questions you have to ask in this genre if you are going to have depth to it is "So what do 6 guys in bullet-proof spandex have over 1,000 guys with assault rifles, grenades*, sniper rifles, helicopter-mounted rockets and chain guys, laser guided artillery, night-vision goggles ."
*Smoke, flashbang, fragmentation, perhaps white phosphorous.
**Yes, I know we are in an urban environment... it is called cutting the power to 6+ blocks, because you totally have the authority to call up the power company and make that happen.
Now, there are several ways to handle this. I hear that the actual Power-Rangers show used "bullets don't do much to monsters", but there also could be "teleportation is faster than choppers you rappel down from and you don't have the contacts or skills to learn how to use smoke grenades and such", "The monsters have the power to cloud people's minds such that no matter how many people they might end up killing they would still remain a myth in the eyes of the police and military"...
But what if lead bullets DID kill monsters? What if, in fact, all of us, on our very first outing, used our powers to raid a military base for assault rifles?
In fact, maybe we took them off the dead guards on a fly-speck of an island who got mind-whammyed into standing their until the moment their throats were ripped out. Our mentor might have directed us to do so since this was a nuclear missile base and the BBEG (not monster of the week, BBEG, in person, first mission) was going to magically/super-technologically hack the launch console and reduce the USA to 49 states plus some glow-in-the-dark real-estate in the middle of the Pacific. With the stakes so high, our mentor decided to have us break the rules without ever having told us what the rules were in the first place.
Alternatively, maybe we just looked at our chrome-and-plastic appearing weapons and said "Are you kidding me? This looks like a little kids toy! I'mma get me a REAL weapon.".
Anyway, BBEG lies dead at our feet. Game Over You Win!
Except... that wasn't the actual case. And the last thing our mentor wanted to do was to risk breaking the firey spirits that fuel our powers, because they will be needed again. The one thing you don't ask such heroes to do is sit around on their butts for 2 to 10 years for the chance to fix a problem that, from an emotional perspective, is kinda their own fault.
Did I mention that the oldest of us was probably 16 at the time?
Fast forward several years of goofing off with our powers, rescuing cats from trees, old ladies from burning buildings, and surprisingly little crimefighting...
Well it turns out that "only The Weapons of the Heart may truly slay these evils", BBEG is back, and not only bigger, stronger, and tougher, but SMARTER. Not in terms of gadgeteering ability to build death-rays, or IQ points (although maybe those too!), but, much more telling, in as much as he seems to have spent his little cosmic time-out reading at least "The Evil Overlord's List" if not "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu.
So, we are mature but firey, recklessness has given way to the 'acting in spite of your fears' of true bravery, our closest friends and family probably know of our powers.
Some of us may even have young children...
So... use as much or as little of that as you like, regardless of if I personally end up playing.
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