Re: [BNW] Then something went wrong the ripper part 2 spoilers

[Tim Craft <deadtim@thefaxcompany.com>]

Ah yes.  The best laid plans of mice and men...

I can totally sympathize with your plight.  I too have had players that
have gone off on a tangent, much to the detriment of the game.  In our
game, we have a simple rule:

***********************************************************
Play your character - do as your quirks dictate - but you have a *duty* to
override what you think your character would do in a given situation if it
would harm the game.
***********************************************************

Let me give you an example:

Let's say you have a character that despises Delta Primers (more so than
the average unregistered Delta!).  In fact, he will not let a Delta Primer
live, no matter what.  Now put the team in a situation where they've
captured a Delta Primer.  They've pumped him for information, and let's say
he gave  up everything he knew.  Now after the team has the info,
maniac-guy wants to off him.  The other players do not (maybe they realize
this particular DP'er is really a nice but naive guy; maybe they realize
that killing a DP'er will bring down all types of heck).  Maniac-Guy wants
to kill him.  And rightfully so! He has a quirk for 5 points that states
Must Kill All Delta Primers (or whatever).  The problem? If he kills him,
Bad Things Will Happen.  The repercussions of this one act could end a game
and/or an entire campaign.

So what do you do? Just as I stated: Take control of your character, and
modify what he/she would do to insure the survival of the game.  I'm not
saying maniac-guy should play nice with the DP'er.  He should play it up so
that it seems almost as IF he will kill the DP'er.  He should mock, insult,
etc the DP'er.  But stop short of actually killing him.

Which brings me to what happened in your game. To be honest, it seems like
your players wanted to KILL-KILL-KILL.  And they did! They created a nice
little pile of bodies in their wake.  They have earned the abuse President
Kennedy hurls upon unregistered Delta's.  Their (possible) defense? "He
angered me so much, I had no choice but to kill him!" or "He hurt Character
X, I had no choice but to kill him!"  Wrong.  You *do* have a choice.  Many
times in the superhero genre when the players go on a killing spree, the
game will have a tendency to end.  For two possible reasons: One, other
players in the group (who have appropriate Code vs. Killing quirks) get
disgusted and leave; or Two, they have killed so many people that as a GM
you must bring the full force of Delta Prime against them, and no matter
how powerful a team is eventually they will fall.

Hopefully, the next team your players make will think about making less
murderous characters.  Good luck!

DeadTim

</rant>


At 10:44 PM 10/5/99 EDT, you wrote:
>Well, I just finished running the second part of the ripper adventure and
boy 
>did things go wrong.  Here is the spoiler space
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>All right when we left out intrepid heroes(?) they were heading to meet up 
>with the other team who had investigated the blood angels.  This went well 
>they found out from them about Belmont and about the ripper flashing a delta 
>academy id when he first joined.  The team decided that they would fallow up 
>on the delta academy angel while the NPCs checked out Belmont  this is the 
>point in the adventure were I tossed the book over my shoulder and gave
up.   
>At the academy the shrinker used his reg identify as a physiologist to get
in 
>and see the staff counselor.  I had this be Luther Kane and they had a bit
of 
>a talk.  Nothing relay relevant to the adventure was learned and The team 
>left to continue trolling for the ripper.  This being only a half hour in to 
>the section I did not want things to end to soon I threw in a second 
>encounter with the blood angels.  This was a big mistake.
>This time the Angels brought along one of their own deltas to try and level 
>the playing field.  He was a blaster pulled from the templet.  He and the 
>other blaster squared off against each other and things got messy.  In the 
>first exchange of fire both managed to damage their opponents right arm
for 3 
>wounds.  The PC bought this off to 2 wounds with a delta point.  In the 
>second exchange the Blood Angels blaster did two wounds to the players
chest. 
> The player on the other hand wound up doing 7 wounds worth of damage to his 
>opponents head.  That ended that.  Unfortunately the character had a code of 
>honor and was heroic so he suffered a momentary break down.
>The tough who has been somewhat feral all through the game finally snaps and 
>try's stomping on one of the blood angels spines while they are on the 
>ground.  The heroic character who is suffering from guilt try to stop him.
>While all this was going down the shrinker was checking out the angels that 
>were hiding in the ally.  Not wanting to leave them behind when the tough 
>flipped out he garbed both of the angels by the color and shrunk.  He 
>proceeded to get two very discussing damage totals effectively killing his 
>opponents.  Not that this would stop them.
>It is about this time that the Armageddon suits that Agent Dell has on 
>standby show up to see if this is a ripper related assault.  
>The tough was a known delta that was deemed dangours and they opened fire on 
>him.  Unfortunately the blaster was hanging from his back trying to stop him 
>from stomping on the Angels spine again.  The blaster caught his own 7
wounds 
>in the back.  That was it for him.
>The two angels in the ally awoke as delta's from their near death experience 
>and went after the tough who they blamed for beating them in last weeks 
>encounter.  One was a Goliath the other was a speedster.  Their revenge was 
>not to be. The tough was KO'd by a blast from the Armageddon suit and
plopped 
>down in the same cell with Nathan Brandon.
>During the confession the shrinker snuck off and decided to take a vacation 
>in Wisconsin
>I will pick up next week with a whole new Team.  The guy who was playing the 
>shrinker will take over the roll of Shrike one of the NPCs and a mole for 
>Delta Prime.  The other players are working on characters as we speak.  I 
>will keep you posted.
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>The madprophet 
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>
DeadTim
"The only good Tim, is a DeadTim."