[M&M] Buffyverse game? (OOC) [Recruiting CLOSED]

[Rhun]

Originally Posted by drothgery

Eh. I liked Xander as a TV show character, but as an RPG character, he's more than a bit underpowered.

Yeah, but look at how often he got to use that Profession (Carpenter) skill in the later years!

[Shayuri]

I meant it as a joke.

[drothgery]

Originally Posted by Velmont

I could be interested. I'm not quite a fan nor very knowledgeable about Buffy. Last episode I've seen was years ago, but I like that kind of world. Lately, I've been reading the Dresden Files, and it have put me in a mood for such a world. I would be interested, and I might play someone who just discover the world of vampires and demons to represent my lack of knowledge about the Buffyverse. Except of new born slayer, what else could fit that?

Fred (Winifred Burkle from Angel) was banished to another dimension by an evil professor, and hooked up with Angel after being rescued.

Xander overheard Buffy and Giles talking Slayer stuff in the first episode of Buffy. I'm not quite sure how Willow or Cordellia flipped over into the 'clued-in' side, but they weren't they high-powered individuals they'd become later.

Kate Locksley (Kate the cop from Angel) kept running into Angel on 'weird' cases and eventually put two and two together.

Nina and Oz were bitten by werewolves, but did't know anything prior (well, Oz may have known a little by virtue of being in Sunnydale).

Originally Posted by Jemal

Very big buffy/angel fan here.
I presume you'll be ignoring anything that's happened in the whedon comics that took place after the series? They do flesh out a lot more stuff that's happened since the shows, and anybody who hasn't read them would be at a loss for what's currently happening.
Probably be the best idea to just start clean-slate timeline at the end of the angel series.

Yeah. I haven't read them, so it'd be too easy to break continuity with them. Heck, I'm almost certainly going to.

Originally Posted by Jemal

I agree that extra souled-vamps is a bad Idea, but I think having vampire/demon/whatever PC's would make the game more interesting. Maybe some of the PC's come from a background that's more commonly thought of as 'evil' but are working with the 'good guys' for their own reasons? ('The enemy of my enemy', 'lesser of two evils', etc).

Maybe, but I think I want vamps to be pretty much 'if it's not Angel or Spike, it's okay to stake them on sight, and probably a good idea'. Every game needs its stock disposable villians, and vampires are it in the Buffyverse.

Originally Posted by Jemal

As far as system goes, I don't have access to the buffy/angel RPG's, but either D20 Modern or M&M would work fairly well, and be accessible to most people. If you're wanting 'special' characters (Psychics, demons, super-humans), then M&M would probably be more appropriate. If you're going for more of a "Normal people VS the supernatural" approach, then I'd suggest d20 modern.

I was thinking M&M more because it seemed like it might be possible to have 'normal' characters that are roughly balanced with supernatural types.

Originally Posted by Jemal

In anycase, I'd very much enjoy being a part of such a game, maybe as the resident mage/mystical expert.

Cool.

[Shayuri]

If I do the half-demon thing, I'd probably be a headbasher. A "slayer" in all but name.

[jkason]

Any inkling about what kind of group we might be? I know you mentioned Angel as a template, would this be an investigative group? A less official club of supernatural fans and / or victims? Something else entirely?

[Rhun]

What about the whole super soldier thing? I kinda like the idea of playing one of those guys. Of course, if you do M&M I will have to pick up the rules, and that may change my opinion on that.

[drothgery]

Originally Posted by jkason

Any inkling about what kind of group we might be? I know you mentioned Angel as a template, would this be an investigative group? A less official club of supernatural fans and / or victims? Something else entirely?

I'm not sure whether it'd be best to try and come up with an idea, and then let people pick charcter concepts to go in that kind of group, or to see what kind of characters people want to run, and then build a group they all fit in to. Though I guess the big factor is whether the characters have 'normal' lives, or whether they've pulled off some whay to fight evil full-time (it might well be a mix, too; a PC might be employed by the Watcher's Council or the military but have to maintain a cover).

The big things about Angel vs. Buffy as a template, in my book, were
- On Angel, Angel wasn't always in charge, and Wes, Cordellia, and Gunn were quite willing to question his authority; the major characters were a lot more equal than on Buffy, where Giles quickly ceded final authority to Buffy, and she held on to it almost the entire series, even when Willow became a power in her own right
- generally speaking, the series was a lot more episodic; it tended to smaller, largely independent episodes with some small tying arcs rather than an overarching 'big bad' (other than season 4)

[drothgery]

Originally Posted by Rhun

What about the whole super soldier thing? I kinda like the idea of playing one of those guys.

Doable, though the big question with playing one of them is why he's on his own. If he's no longer in the military (and it certainly was pretty strongly implied that Riley's group was offically Army -- though there might be something similar in other branches of the service, and maybe even a group in the FBI and/or some intelligence service), why not?

I suppose one idea for the game might be a sort of X-files on steroids.

[Jemal]

I prefered the general tone and feel of Angel; darker, more adult. The Buffy series was stuck in high school until the very end (Hell, they even went back to their roots and had the 'final battle' in the school).
Angel also has, as you pointed out, the benefit of being more even as to how the characters(PC's) interacted and who was in charge, which leads better to a campaign IMO.

[Rhun]

Originally Posted by drothgery

Doable, though the big question with playing one of them is why he's on his own. If he's no longer in the military (and it certainly was pretty strongly implied that Riley's group was offically Army -- though there might be something similar in other branches of the service, and maybe even a group in the FBI and/or some intelligence service), why not?

I suppose one idea for the game might be a sort of X-files on steroids.

Agree that they were probably Army, though the Initiative soldiers were certainly "Black Ops." So perhaps the PC could be undercover, as you had earlier stated. Or maybe even assigned to keep watch on a certain "hot spot." As the episode with Riley and his wife showed, apparently they soldiers are sometimes sent on missions of their own. I'm sure we could come up with something to make it work.

[Vertexx69]

No surprise that Im a big fan of the Buffyverse as well

I'm familiar with D20 modern and played M&M once a couple years ago, but not with the actual Buffy or Angel RPG rules.

I'd like to try the shapeshifer with a measure of control idea, like Oz. Those herbs, charms and incantations he found in Nepal weren't designed just for him, so other werewolves must have sought them out over the years too.

The super soldier could actually be assigned to an investigative team by the government as both support and a set of eyes inside an organization thats dealing with the shadier side of the world.

[Walking Dad]

I'm interested, too. With a Xander meets Gladstone Gander character. Lot of ranks in the luck feat and an unconscious probability control. Not doing the right things, but will work out in the end. Watched Buffy until Willow's girlfriend got killed.

[jkason]

Originally Posted by drothgery

I'm not sure whether it'd be best to try and come up with an idea, and then let people pick charcter concepts to go in that kind of group, or to see what kind of characters people want to run, and then build a group they all fit in to.

That was partly why I was asking. I noticed folks have started fiddling with concepts, but I've been kind of holding off not wanting to invest in something that would run contrary to the group concept.

Personally, I kind of like the loose association idea, rather than anything official. You could still have, say, the local Initiative agent or pro supernateral PI there who's getting paid for this, but then have others who have either glommed on because they're obsessed with this stuff (the local wiccan, maybe?) or just wandered into it and stuck around for mutual survival (half-blood demon character looking to keep himself safe from his demon kin).

Folks have already spoken up for a couple of ideas I'd been milling, so I guess I should forward something, group dynamic or no:

Maybe a robot / cyborg-y character. Maybe someone got ahold of Ted and / or Warren's robot specs and improved them? I only say improved because it'd be no fun to play a robot without any kind of free will.

It also occurs to me that there's no real 'healers' in the Buffyverse, but that my D&D experience tends to rely on the concept. Not sure if it's as necessary from what I'm gleaning of M&M, but some sort of twisted demonish healer character ('pain-eater'?) might be fun, too.

[Shayuri]

As for what we are, or what we represent...I have some ideas about that.

The Watcher's Council has been basically destroyed by the events of Season 7. Giles and maybe a few other members who were out and about are the only survivors. Adding to this, there's suddenly hundreds (I recall the number 1800 being thrown around somewhere) of girls of varying ages who suddenly have acquired the abilities of slayers, most of whom have no idea what the heck's going on.

I propose that in the face of the daunting task of training all these...and equally important, those still to come...slayers, the original 'Scoobs' will start a new organization. It could take several forms, but here's my thoughts on it...

It consists of several parts.

The 'hub' of it would be sort of a "slayer academy," intended to give as many slayers basic training as is feasible at a time. Basic training just means 'here's what happened to you, here's why, here's how to live semi-normal lives without breaking all your stuff by accident, and here's how not to die when things attack you...thanks for coming.' Those that want to stick around for advanced monster-hunting classes are free to do so. I figure Giles and Buffy feature here, with Giles covering the knowledge part, and Buffy the physical portion. She's already had experience training potential slayers after all.

Then we'd have a "recruiting" arm, headed up by Willow and Xander. Willow uses mojo to find slayers, and Xander goes out to lure them in with his one-eyed pirate charms.

And finally, monsters didn't just stop coming, so we'd need a militant arm that still goes out and monster hunts. I expect they all contribute to this, which basically consists of organizing small squads of mostly-independent monster hunters and sending them to trouble spots where they set up shop and...try to stop the troubles.

Here's where the PC's come in.

[Rhun]

I've always wanted to run a Future Slayer style game...you know, way in the future, with demons having overrun most of the earth, and humankind trying to fight back from a few last bastions of strength. Hmmm...maybe one day.

[Vertexx69]

And there are still completely independent hunting parties out there at the same time, like Riley and his wife's team of army guys in South America. There are bound to be squads like that all over the world. Who was putting down the demon biker gangs on the east coast while the scoobies and the buffybot were tangling with one in Sunny-D, during Buffy's cloud nap? food for thought

@ Rhun - that could be awesome to play with a shadowrun style.

[jkason]

Originally Posted by Shayuri

And finally, monsters didn't just stop coming, so we'd need a militant arm that still goes out and monster hunts. I expect they all contribute to this, which basically consists of organizing small squads of mostly-independent monster hunters and sending them to trouble spots where they set up shop and...try to stop the troubles.

Here's where the PC's come in.

I like this idea for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it attaches the PC's in some way to the actual characters from the series, though that connection is fairly vague and tenuous, so "The Stars" need never make an appearance but this is clearly 'Buffyverse' stuff and not just a random world with monsters and monster hunters.

Also, if the groups are more or less contracted, it lets us define our own group in any way that best suits us. I imagine there are some very structured, business-like agencies as well as more rag-tag, slapped-together groups. My preference RP-wise is the latter, in that it maps to early seasons of both shows and allows for a lot more directions of growth as the PC's come into their own and become more than a bunch of random supernatural folk flailing blindly against the bump-in-the-nights. I mean, it seems like both shows had a kind of undercurrent of "underdogs make good" to them, which would be nice to carry through to a game.

[drothgery]

Okay, so I think I'm going to tweak Shayuri's idea and run with it.

Mechanics question for those more M&M-savvy than I am (I haven't played it a lot) - I'm thinking about PL8 seems right for a minimally trained Slayer or a highly trained/experienced normal. PL10 is M&M default, but it seems to me that a PL10 normal is pretty nearly Batman, and even Riley's not Batman.

[Shayuri]

Yeah, PL10 is 'standard' M&M, but that's for superhero games.

PL 5 would be right for "normal folks" with relatively ordinary abilities...strengths and weaknesses, but nothing out of the norm.

PL 6 and 7 is good for well trained and equipped soldiers and martial artists and such. Some lower level Buffy characters could be here, including the rank and file vampires and lesser enemies.

PL 8 is low level supers territory. Most 'main' characters in Buffy would fit comfortably here. 'Name' enemies would usually be here.

Higher than PL8 would be truly powerful beings...usually Big Bads. Sometimes good guys might buff up this high (such as against Adam, or Dark Willow), but not generally for very long.

[Velmont]

Sharuyi analysis seems good to me too.

So, the starting lvl will depend on how much powerful you want us to be, and how quick you want us to evolve.