The subject of getting a Creative Process podcast episode around the unnamed characters in the SCRPG core book art came up on the Greater Than Games forums. The angry-face gal having a conversation with a local detective on page 170 got nominated as a candidate by another poster, so I've done some potential stats for her in the roleplaying game. Entirely unofficial of course and may not match what Christopher and Adam have in mind for her, but here's two experimental takes on her based on the art and context of what she's saying in it, one based on a suggestion one the forum:
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Emo G
Origin: I'll leave that to the podcast, at least for now.
Description: See the artwork on page 170 of the core book. She's the one without a tiny umbrella.
Gender: Female Age: Twenty-Something Height: 5'5" Eyes: Unknown
Hair: Black, Streaked Violet Skin: Caucasian Build: Slender
Background: Blank Slate Power Source: Training Archetype: Divided (Form-Changer)
Personality: Analytical/Inquisitive (Civilian/Heroic) Health (G/Y/R): 30/22/11
Forms
Civilian Form
(Powers) Intuition d10, Shapeshifting d10
(Qualities) Criminal Underworld Info d8, Investigation d8, Social Chameleon d8
Personality: Analytical Status G/Y/R:: d10/d8/d6
Heroic Base Form
(Powers) Intuition d10, Shapeshifting d10, Everything Is A Weapon d8, Inventions d8, Vitality d8
(Qualities) Close Combat d10, Criminal Underworld Info d8, Investigation d8, Social Chameleon d8, Technology d8
Personality: Inquisitive Status G/Y/R: d6/d8/d10
(Green) Gearhead Form
(Powers) Intuition d10, Inventions d10, Swinging d8, Shapeshifting d8, Wall-Crawling d8
(Qualities) Close Combat d10, Criminal Underworld Info d8, Investigation d8, Social Chameleon d8, Technology d8
(Green) Untouchable Form
(Powers) Agility d10, Speed 10, Intuition d8, Leaping d8, Shapeshifting d8
(Qualities) Close Combat d10, Criminal Underworld Info d8, Investigation d8, Social Chameleon d8, Technology d8
(Yellow) Unstoppable Form
(Powers) Strength d12, Vitality d10, Everything Is A Weapon d10, Intuition d8, Shapeshifting d8
(Qualities) Close Combat d10, Criminal Underworld Info d8, Investigation d8, Social Chameleon d8, Technology d8
Status:
(Civilian) G/Y/R:: d10/d8/d6
(Any Heroic Form) G/Y/R: d6/d8/d10
Abilities:
Green
Divided Personas (I) Your access to Powers and Qualities is restricted by your current form, civilian or heroic. See above for the specifics. You may not use abilities tied to a Power or Quality you do not currently have access to.
(Gearhead Form Only) Fix-It (A) Boost or Overcome using Inventions. Use your Max die. Powers: Intuition d10, Inventions d10, Swinging d8, Shapeshifting d8, Wall-Crawling d8
Fluid Mentality (A) Take a basic action using Shapeshifting, then adopt any available heroic form.
Principle of the Detective (A) Overcome to learn hidden information. Use your Max die. You and your allies each gain a Hero Point. Minor twist: What important clue did you miss? Major twist: What major secret was just revealed that you would rather have stayed hidden? RP: You can always tell when an important piece of information is being left out or obscured, though you might not know what it is.
Principle of the Split (A) Overcome in a situation that benefits from a completely new perspective. Use your Max die. You and your allies each gain a Hero Point. Minor twist: What perspective ended up being the wrong one for this situation? Major twist: What inner conflict has thrown you completely off? RP: You have multiple entirely separate facets to your personality. As a result you can look at a situation from many different angles.
Sudden Savagery (A) Attack using Shapeshifting. Use your Max die. Then change to any available form.
Stress Response (A/I) The first time you take damage or change zones in a scene, you must change from your civilian form to your heroic base form. You can also change by taking an action and taking damage equal to a roll of your current status die. After an action scene, you change back to your civilian form.
(Untouchable Form Only) Escape Artist (A) Defend using Agility. Use your Max die. Remove all penalties on you. Powers: Agility d10, Speed 10, Intuition d8, Leaping d8, Shapeshifting d8
Yellow (All Forms)
Chorus of Minds (A) Boost yourself using Intuition. That bonus is persistent and exclusive. Attack using your Min die. You may use the bonus you just created on that Attack.
(Unstoppable Form Only) Juggernaut (A) Attack using Strength. Defend yourself against all Attacks until your next turn using your Min die. Powers: Strength d12, Everything Is A Weapon d12, Intuition d8, Momentum d8, Shapeshifting d8
Payback (A) When Attacked by a nearby enemy, the Attacker takes an equal amount of damage as that dealt to you.
Red
(Heroic Base and Unstoppable Forms Only) Game Over (A) Attack using Everything Is A Weapon and at least one bonus. Use your Max + Mid + Min dice. Destroy all your bonuses, adding each of them to this Attack first even if they are exclusive.
Schism (R) When attacked change to any available form before resolving the Attack. Take a minor twist.
Unified Psyche (A) Hinder yourself using Shapeshifting. Use your Min die. Recover Health equal to your Max + Mid die.
Yeah, No (I) Once per issue, if you would go to zero Health, roll Shapeshifting + Close Combat + Red status die. Your health becomes that number.
Out
Do It Right (A) Choose an ally. Until your next turn, that ally may reroll any one of their dice by using a Reaction.
Tactics
Emo G starts every action scene in their civilian form, although they might not be in the Green zone depending on whether they have damage carried over from a previous crisis. They still have access to their Principles, are limited by Divided Personas, and can use Stress Response to adopt their base heroic form, although it's usually easier and less painful to just take some damage and change for free. They can also take basic actions (including risky ones) but they're quite limited in their effectiveness. The civilian form has a strong Green status die that makes them pretty competent at Overcomes, though.
Once in their base heroic form, they use Fluid Mentality to take any basic action and then adopt a different form, although Unstoppable form only becomes available in the Yellow zone. Sudden Savagery is a more efficient way to transform though, giving a Max die Attack and then a potential change. Each Green form offers different mixes of powers and abilities. Gearhead form's Fix-It giving a strong Boost or Overcome and versatile mobility options. Untouchable form's Escape Artist is a strong Defend and sheds all your penalties at once, as well as providing unmatched speed and agility.
In Yellow, Chorus of Minds gives you a strong lasting bonus coupled with a smaller Attack, which can be repeated to stack exclusive bonuses to make your big Red offensive ability better. The bonus will also greatly improve Unstoppable form's Juggernaut ability, which gives an adequate Attack and a lasting Defend that can be very strong with even a small bonus. Payback offers a reactive damage dealing ability that's wholly independent of your own stats and can deal a lot of damage over time.
Red zone's Schism reaction isn't likely to be used often but it can be helpful when you can't spare the action to take use Sudden Savagery or Fluid Mentality. Game Over is a big finishing Attack that lets you burn any spare exclusive bonuses you've accumulated through Chorus of Minds. Yeah, No is a once per session last chance way to avoid a KO, buying time to heal with Unified Psyche, which in turn will buy more time to punish Attackers with Payback.
The Do It Right Out ability is a real oddball but potentially very strong, letting an ally reroll one die of their choice with a reaction, the only reroll mechanic of its kind in the game.
Design Notes
Why a Blank Slate background? Emo G has a multitude of cooperating personalities dwelling in her head, all working together to let her push herself far beyond human limits in her crime-busting endeavors. Her "Shapeshifting" is mostly mental, with different specialized gestalts coming to the forefront in each form as well as combining with her Social Chameleon roleplay Quality to let her adopt different personas and disguise her true identity. Given her Blank Slate background she may not have a true identity, at least not in the sense of being just one of her many personalities. Was she born this way? Did she grow into it? Is it a reaction to trauma? Something for the podcast to answer, or someone playing her as a PC.
Why Training as a Power Source? Her divided mentalities each concentrated on specific fields, consuming information rapaciously and sharing time in molding their shared body into the peak of human perfection - and beyond, through the power of minds over matter.
Why Divided (Form-Changer) as an Archetype? She's many people in one body, a mental legion who've mastered many skills and talents. Form-Changer is ideal for having fluid Power dice spreads, and her combined mental efforts let her push herself to superhuman physical levels with sufficient effort.
Why Analytical and Inquisitive as Personalities? Partly because it's one of Divided heroes' few benefits - taking a 10/8/6 and 6/8/10 combo keeps your status dice solid at least most of the time. The "civilian" persona she displays is more thoughtful and cautious than the ones her heroic gestalts display in action, but they're still driven by a desire to pry into things others might want to keep concealed.
What about her Powers and Qualities? As said, her "Shapeshifting" is mostly mental, although her inhuman control over her body language, musculature and voice let her adopt a wide variety of nearly impenetrable disguises. While she can't turn herself into inanimate objects or animals, she can impersonate many humans with a bit of help from her own Inventions and a bit of prep time. Her unique mental architecture is hard on telepaths and other psychics to get a good "read" on as well. Her Intuition is also derived from the analysis and insight of hundreds, possibly thousands of compartmentalized intelligences piggybacking on her sensorium at all times.
Those Powers are always present, while her baseline heroic form adds superior endurance and durability through Vitality, a variety of customized inventions useful for disguise, information gathering, physical intrusion and nonlethal takedowns. She also displays a tremendous knack for using improvised weapons in a fight with her Everything Is A Weapon version of Signature Weaponry. She mostly uses them for melee rather than ranged combat - think Jackie Chan, not Bullseye.
When her Gearhead form is active, she's at her best with her Inventions and gains both Wall-Crawling and Swinging as separate Powers, which is still her using various technological tools to navigate the environment. Her Untouchable form concentrates her mental effort on maximizing her Speed and Agility to inhuman levels, as well as improving mobility through Leaping. When hard-pressed, Unstoppable form works the same wonders with her Strength and durability, letting her trade shots with physical powerhouses that could ordinarily crush her like a bug.
Her Qualities are more static, with Investigation and Criminal Underworld Info reflecting her crimefighting obsession, Close Combat her intensive self-training and eclectic mix of fighting styles, and Technology her skill at using her own custom tools and countering security measures. The Social Chameleon roleplaying Quality reflects her talent at adopting other personas and infiltrating different groups in disguise, and could partially fill in for any of the social traits she couldn't get access to through her build. There's a personality in her head for most situations, the trick is dredging up teh most suitable one for the moment. She's also very good at languages and accents, although her vocabulary isn't as deep as a real native speaker and struggles with specialized subjects and some shibboleths.
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Well, that was insanely complex for a Sentinels character. Here's a much simpler alternate version of the same artwork:
Name: Vigilante Z
Origin: I'll leave that to the podcast, at least for now.
Description: See the artwork on page 170 of the core book. She's the one without a tiny umbrella.
Gender: Female Age: Twenty-Something Height: 5'5" Eyes: Unknown
Hair: Black, Streaked Violet Skin: Caucasian Build: Slender
Background: Academic Power Source: Genius Archetype: Shadow
Personality: Sarcastic Health (G/Y/R): 30/22/11
Powers: Intuition d10, Inventions d8, Agility d6
Qualities: Criminal Underworld Info d12, Acrobatics d10, Investigation d10, Gen-Z Vigilante Grrl d8, Technology d8, Stealth d6
Status: Always d8
Abilities:
Green
Do What's Needed (A) Attack using Agility. Remove one physical mod, Hinder a target using your Min die, or maneuver to a new location in your environment.
Principle of Stealth (A) Overcome to infiltrate somewhere or avoid detection. Use your Max die. You and your allies each gain a Hero Point. Minor twist: What evidence of your presence did you just leave behind? Major twist: What just happened that identified you as an obvious threat? RP: You always know the most efficient way to enter or leave a location.
Principle of the Tactician (A) Overcome when you can flashback to how you prepared for this exact situation. Use your Max die. You and your allies gain each gain a Hero Point. Minor twist: What one variable did your plan not account for? Major twist: What major threat is revealed that invalidates all your plans? RP: You are constantly assessing the situation, making plans and backup plans, and then reassessing the situation.
Slick Moves (A) Attack using Acrobatics. Defend using your Min die against all Attacks against you until the the start of your next turn.
Yellow
Practiced Follow-Through (A) Attack using Inventions. Then, if the target of the Attack survived, also Attack that target using your Max die. Otherwise, Recover Health equal to your Min die.
Nope (A) When you would take damage, Defend against that damage by rolling your single Intuition die.
Ready For Trouble (R) When Attacked, roll your single Intuition die. Defend yourself using that roll, then Boost yourself using that roll.
Red
Desperate Times, Desperate Measures (A) Boost another hero using Intuition. If that hero has already acted during this round, use your Max die and that hero loses Health equal to your Min die. That hero acts next in the turn order.
Exploit Secrets (A) Remove a bonus on a target. Hinder that target using Criminal Underground Info. Use your Max die. That penalty is persistent and exclusive.
Not That Easy (I) You can use any number of reactions during a round, but still no more than one per turn. Each time you use a reaction after the first one in each round, take one irreducible damage or take a minor twist.
Out
You'd Better Worry (A) Hinder an opponent by rolling your single Criminal Underground Info die.
Tactics
In Green, Vigilante Z relies on Slick Moves to stay relatively safe, concentrating on dealing with minions or butting a bit of damage on fragile-looking villains. If one of the riders on Do What's Needed looks useful she'll switch to that, most likely stripping a big bonus or penalty that's causing problems or moving someplace helpful. She'll keep an eye on chances to do Overcomes with her Principles to earn hero points for the team and clear challenges if she can.
In Yellow her go-to ability is Practiced Follow-Through, which she'll use to pile damage on key targets fast or tackle weak foes to try to get some healing out of her turn. She has two very similar defensive reactions, and will always use Ready For Trouble against Attacks to get the sizeable bonus it creates. Against non-Attack damage she falls back on Nope instead. If she's not needed for damage she may still resort to using her Green abilities, which remain useful throughout a scene, especially with some bonus support.
Red gives her access to Not That Easy, at which point she can use her reactions multiple times per round, potentially blocking a lot of damage from multiple Attacks while piling up bonuses - each of which could be used on the next reaction to make her even harder to finish off. She can also use Exploit Secrets to strip a bonus from an enemy and then hit them with a big persistent and exclusive penalty, which can swing a close fight pretty easily. Foes that rely on bonuses can really find themselves stymied against her from Green onward. She also gains Desperate Times, Desperate Measures, which effectively lets her give an ally an extra turn in the round with a solid Boost and a bit of damage. This usually works best with a hero who can deal more damage than she can (which isn't hard to do) or who's better equipped to deal with a key challenge.
When Out You'd Better Worry turns her into a d12 Hinder machine, which can be very mean if used on a victim of Exploit Secrets who's still stuck with the persistent penalty.
Design Notes
Why an Academic Background? I wanted to try to build a dedicated crime-buster, and having a d12 in Criminal Underworld Info seemed like a good way to start. The character looks young enough to be a college student, most likely in grad school.
Why Genius as a Power Source? She's a very, very good college student. The source has a fairly awful selection of Power choices and less than stellar dice to carry forward to the Archetype stage, but its abilities are pretty phenomenal and it does give you a big bonus die in place of a Green ability, which is where Investigation came from - another key to being a detective type.
Why Shadow as an Archetype? This was partially the imp of the perverse, I wanted to try a "Stealth" character who's not actually very sneaky with that wretched d6. Shadow has another set of mostly-terrific abilities, although the restrictions on what dice to assign to them are very tight and mesh poorly with my Power Source. The high quality Green abilities do help out with not getting one from Genius and give her something interesting to do all through the scene, at least.
Why Sarcastic as a personality? Look at that costume she made for herself. And that dialog with Detective Tiny-Umbrella.
What about her Powers and Qualities? Conceptually, she's pretty close to being an unpowered hero. She's got pretty fast reaction time, hence the Agility. Her intelligence is high enough that her subconscious instincts border on supernatural, giving her a good Intuition. Inventions comes from her being a tinkerer who's got a modest array of self-made tools to help with infiltration, surveillance, hacking computer systems - and she's amped up her favorite bat so it hits like a cattle prod, backed up with some homemade irritant and knockout sprays that make Mace seem like scented candles.
She's obsessed with crime-solving and crime fighting, with a high self-taught Investigation score and basically unequalled Criminal Underworld Info, most of it acquired anonymously online or through bugging gang hangouts and mob boss' mansions. Her Technology was good enough to let her breeze through school and her patents pay for her lifestyle and superhero career and parts for tools, as well as bribes to her web of informants. Acrobatics ties in to her agile fighting style, again mostly self-taught, and helps with infiltration. Her actual Stealth is pretty bad by superhero standards, although her Principle of Stealth and good Intuition helps a lot with than . Finally, Gen-Z Vigilante Grrl is pretty self-descriptive, and mostly gets used as a stand-in for the social qualities her build simply does not have access to, at least when interacting with criminals, law enforcement, and other heroes. Might also double for Alertness when it comes to noticing crimes, subtle or not.
Both good builds for that art. Thank you
ReplyDeleteThe first one still gives me a headache. It's not really hard to use in play, but by SCRPG standards the build process is convoluted.
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