Go-Go Robo, Hippie Fembot Super-Speedster

New hero PC for a one-shot last weekend.  Nice to get some play time in again.

Go-Go Robo

Go-Go Robo is a gynoid duplicate of the Silver Age speedster Go-Go Girl, who died heroically in 1974 while while rescuing an entire town from a disastrous dam collapse.  That would have been the end of her story, but her psyche had been secretly recorded shortly before her death by her on-and-off nemesis (more like frenemy, really) the Groovy Gadget-Man.  The tech-villain spent over forty years in prison for his last crime spree, apparently having lost the motivation to stage a breakout following Go-Go Girl's death while he was incarcerated.  After finally being released, the aging ex-villain recovered the hidden recording and spent his remaining few years and all of his carefully concealed funds building a state-of-the-art gynoid body to house the psyche-duplicate.  When he was finished the terminally-ill Gadget-Man staged one last bank heist and let his new creation start (or perhaps re-start) her heroic career by capturing him one last time, passing away peacefully before he even came to trial.

The limitations of early 1970s super-tech mean that Go-Go Robo isn't a perfect mental copy of her organic original, with some rough patches "filled in" by an ultra-modern AI system that also makes her more up-to-date about the present day than a hero who's been dead for fifty years ought to be.  The resulting combination is very much a unique individual despite having most of Go-Go Girl's memories, and the Gadget-Man considered her more of a daughter than a replacement for his old heroic sparring partner.  The man had some issues, and never got over Go-Go Girl's death.

Go-Go Robo's artificial frame can emulate her predecessor's amazing speed, reaction time, and unstoppable momentum and even improves on her signature fighting style based on acrobatics and funky dance moves.  She does less flat-out sprinting than most speedsters and more cartwheels, somersaults and tumbling mixed with hip checks and whirlwind kicks.  She also has built-in hard-light hologram projectors that she uses mostly for wardrobe changes but also come in handy for disguising herself.  Her height and build do limit her imitation options quite a bit, though.

She doesn't really have a civilian life despite her memories and declines to use her original's real name out of respect for her secret identity, which was never revealed even following her death.  When not employing her supranym she generally goes by "Sunny Day" because she likes the vibe.

Description: A slender, athletic young woman who looks more than a bit like Anne Francis.  She changes "costumes" (they're actually hard-light projections) frequently using her powers, favoring a snug silver body suit with knee-high boots for active hero work and various retro-hippie fashions otherwise.  Her natural form (usually only seen when disabled) is a sleek, almost featureless dull silver mannikin.  She has a mezzo-soprano voice and can carry a tune almost as well as she dances.   

Gender: Gynoid            Age: 21           Height: 5'3"            Eyes: Deep Blue

Hair: Honey Blonde                  Skin: Tanned Caucasian             Build: Svelte

Background: Created     Power Source: Artificial Being     Archetype: Speedster

Personality: Cheerful                   Health (G/Y/R):  32/24/11

Powers: Agility d10, Momentum d10, Speed d10, Shapeshifting d6

Qualities: Acrobatics d12, Alertness d8, Creativity d8, Hippie Superhero Fembot d8, Finesse d6

Status: Green (28-22) - d10 / Yellow (21-11) - d8 / Red (10-1) - d6

Abilities:

Green

Good Karma (I) Whenever you roll a one on one or more dice, you may reroll those dice.  You must accept the results of the reroll.

Groovy Moves (A) Attack multiple targets using Acrobatics. Use your Min die.  Hinder each target using your Mid die.

Principle of Mastery (A) Overcome in a situation that uses your powers in a new way.  Use your Max die.  You and your allies gain each gain a Hero Point.  Minor twist: How did your powers fail you in the moment?  Major twist: What side effects are you suffering from your powers?  RP: You understand the metaphysics of your powers.

Principle of Speed (I) When you successfully Overcome, you may end up anywhere in the current environment.  You and your allies each gain a Hero Point.  Minor twist: What physical drawbacks do you suffer from going too fast?  Major twist: What critical detail did you speed past earlier that is now coming back to haunt you?  RP: You're fast and don't like to waste time.  You like to keep moving.

Put On A Show (A) Boost or Hinder using Agility.  Use your Max die.  If you roll doubles, Attack using your Mid die.

Yellow

Practiced Routine (R) After rolling during your turn, you may take one irreducible damage to reroll your entire pool.

Ram-O-Rama (A) Attack multiple targets using Momentum.  Use your Max die against one target and your Mid die against each other target.  If you roll doubles, take irreducible damage equal to your Mid die.

Shocking Reversal (I) When you would take damage from Electricity, you may Recover that amount of Health instead.

Red

Brush Off (A) Hinder any number of close targets using Acrobatics.  Use your Max die.  End your turn elsewhere in the scene.

Step Up The Pace (I) You have no limit to the number of Reactions you can take.  For each Reaction after the first you use in a round, take one irreducible damage or a minor twist.

Timely Heroics (R) When an opponent Attacks, you may become the target of that Attack and Defend yourself by rolling your single Acrobatics die.

Out

Watch Out! (A) Boost an ally by rolling your single Agility die.

Tactics

Go-Go Robo is a fairly basic speedster with the usual high mobility, some strong multi-target abilities and solid dice-fixing tricks.  In Green she has access to a strong and versatile mod generator with Put On A Show, an offensive multi-target ability in Groovy Moves and die rerolls from Good Karma.  Principle of Speed makes her very mobile when taking Overcome actions as well as potentially earning two hero points at a time if she can also use her very flexible Principle of Mastery.

Yellow sees her add another dice fixing trick with her Practiced Routine Reaction and potential Health Recovery using Shocking Recovery to invert electrical damage, something she's not shy about exploiting if the environment allows it.  Her Ram-O-Rama ability is her primary offensive move for dealing raw damage, and her dice manipulation reduces the risk of rolling doubles to harm herself.

In Red Go-Go Robo she gains a very strong group defensive Reaction with Timely Heroics, which is made even better with Step Up The Pace.  Brush Off lets her get in and out of tight situations while hampering foes, and she'll use its bonus movement to get to safety - or a downed power line for healing - if she can.

When Out, her appropriately-named Watch Out! ability lets her provide a continuing source of bonuses to her team.

Design Notes

Go-Go Robo was made for a one-shot meant to be played by a bunch of modern legacy heroes based on Silver Age antecedents, which I think her origin does a fair job with.  She (and her original) are about the right level of awkward "we don't understand youth culture" writing that you saw in comics in the 60s and I had a fun time using dated 60s and 70s slang for her dialog, particularly when riffing off the Big Bad (who had time-jumped from 1969 to 2024 himself) and one of the other PCs who was also originally from the 60s (and conveniently immortal).

Mechanically she turned out to be okay, albeit a little limited in her Overcome game.  Her dice fixing tricks let me go the whole night without ever having a Min die of one, and I only rolled doubles on Ram-O-Rama once so that was nice.  It helped a lot that one of the other heroes had a multi-target Electricity Attack so I could sponge some healing off of being caught in her zaps.  Brush Off let me pull a cute trick where I could close in on a clump of foes, Hinder them badly, then move off while running along the subway's third rail for some extra healing from Shocking Reversal, letting me pogo between Red and Yellow twice in one scene.

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Mega-Wreckage Site, A Versatile Environment

This environment is intended to provide fairly generic twists for an action scene taking place on and around a colossal mass of wreckage, the aftermath of a disaster or super-fight that hasn't been fully secured by whoever takes care of such things.  It might represent a crashed starship, a mostly-destroyed villainous base or giant war machine, or even something like a slain kaiju or disabled ocean-going vessel that's been run aground to avoid sinking.

You'll want to tweak elements of this to fit your own campaign but the writeup should serve as a solid foundation at least.  The first time I used this environment it represented a crashed Ro-Man invasion saucer with the environment minions re-skinned as repair drones as suggested below.

The Overall Layout

An action scene taking place in this environment will occur on and around the wreckage, which is usually separated from the rest of the world by the ruins and debris thrown up when the mega-wreck was created.  There are still ongoing fires, arcing energies, secondary explosions and collapses as the debris settles, as well as shaken survivors attempting escape or repairs, and that's on top of whatever the actual villains are up to.  The game master should lay out the locations in the scene and explain any special rules for moving or taking actions between them, although I'd keep it simple in that regard myself.  Heroes and villains and scene challenges should be placed appropriately (with newcomers on the perimeter).   

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Locations

The scene should be divided into about H+1 separate locations, one of which is an abstract "perimeter zone" representing the area just outside of the wreckage itself - often the rim of a crater or a zone of rubble and debris from collapsed buildings.  Targets in the perimeter zone are only counted as nearby or close to one another if they've deliberately moved to be so (ie when chasing a fleeing opponent), and they can move into any wreckage location from there.  

The other H locations represent accessible parts of the wreck itself and should be described to suit its nature.  For example, a fallen giant robot might have the torso, limbs and head as separate locations you can move between, while a crashed starship might be divided into locations represanting engines, power core, hanger and one or more main gun turrets .  The interior of the wreckage is usually mostly collapsed so the action with take place mostly on and around exterior features.  Moving from one location to another generally follows normal rules, although you might make it more difficult (requiring an actual action) for characters lacking mobility powers that let them bypass masses of twisted debris, flames, radiation or similar issues.  Some locations may also be disconnected from one another (eg a torn-off mega-robot limb) and be harder to move between quickly without powers.  Actions (like Attacks) can generally reach adjacent wreckage locations unless something (like an huge chunk of debris that used to be a giant sword spiked into the ground) is obstructing things, and targets within one wreckage location generally count as nearby one another.

Leaving the scene altogether (often a goal for villains or survivor minions) requires you to start in the perimeter zone unless you have powers like powerful flight, leaping, teleportation, etc.  If actively pursued you'll need to succeed at an Overcome to get away clean.

Of course, if you play pure theater of the mind you can skip all this, but I find it helpful to be a little more explicit about positioning, in part because it makes mobility powers more meaningful during play.  

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Mega-Wreckage Site environment

Power Surges d12, Damaged Technology d10, Smoking Debris d8 

Green Zone

(Minor Twists)

Live Power Conduit: Start a challenge.  Deactivate Damaged Systems 0  Outcome: If the scene tracker runs out while one or more Live Power Conduit challenges are incomplete, the wreckage self-destructs with effects on par with a doomsday device going off.

Survivors: Roll the environment dice.  Add a number of Survivor environment minions to the scene equal to the Min die (while the scene tracker is in the Green zone), Mid die (while in Yellow) or Max die (while in Red).

(Major Twist)

Dangerous Energy Accumulation: Increase the number of successes required by one challenge in the scene by three.  

Yellow Zone

(Minor Twists)

Massive Power Surge: Roll the environment dice.  Attack all hero targets using the Mid die.  If there are any Live Power Conduit challenges in the scene, use the Max die instead.  Pick an Element/Energy type for all damage dealt this way.

Shifting Wreckage: Roll the environment dice.  Attack and Hinder two targets using the Mid die.  Move both targets to new locations in the scene.

Useful Debris: Roll the environment dice.  Boost one hero using the Mid die.  That bonus is persistent and exclusive.

(Major Twist)

Impending Doom: Advance the scene tracker by one space.

(Minor Twist)

Maximum Effort:  Roll the environment dice.  Boost all heroes and villains using the Max die.

Weapon System Back Online: Roll the environment dice.  Attack all hero targets in one location using the Mid die.  Then, start a timed challenge.  Final Overload 00  Timer 0  Expires:  Attack all targets in the scene using the Max die from the current round's environment die roll.  

(Major Twist)

Sudden Ambush: Roll the environment dice.  Add a number of Survivor environment minions to the scene equal to the Mid die, then Boost those minions using the Max die as well.  Those minion take an immediate Attack action during this environment turn.  

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Survivor d8 environment minion

Description: These are surviving crewmembers of the wreck, somewhat worse for wear but still capable of putting up a fight.  Their morale's pretty shaky though, and a hero might be able to talk them into giving up without further violence.

Demoralized: Any hero may attempt to convince all nearby Survivor minions to surrender or flee with a successful Overcome action.  Apply a penalty to this action equal to the number of minions affected divided by two, rounding fractions down.

Wrecks that wouldn't have crew members as such (such as fully-automated automated war machines and many giant robots) should re-skin these as Repair or Security Drones, and their Demoralized trait becomes Vulnerable Programming, with the Overcome representing them being hacked or jammed into shutting down.  More organic "wrecks" like fallen kaiju still have Survivors, but these will likely be some kind of parasite or very young spawn, and they'll flee or be captured as specimens rather than surrender if a hero successfully exploits their Demoralized ability.

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Building An Action Scene With All This

There's two obvious basic stories to be told around a mega-wreckage site.  On the one hand, one or more of the villains who were operating the thing before it was destroyed my be trying to escape the site, while the heroes are trying to prevent that.  On the other, the heroes may be responsible for guarding the wreck against intruders bent on tampering with it.  You can dress either up by including suitable challenges to Overcome, perhaps representing the need to recover vital equipment, safely disarm dangerous ordinance, free prisoners, or even repair and make off with the wreck for future use.  You can also flip the script and have the heroes trying to get past perimeter guards or escaping the wreck in the face of incoming opposition.  Lots of potential variations here, and I've tried to write things so the environment is as versatile as it can be and can potentially be re-used (with suitable tweaks so it isn't too recognizable) multiple times.  

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