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Message no. 1
From: Sommers <sommers@*****.UMICH.EDU>
Subject: Character vs. Character
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 14:06:52 -0400
I know that its come up a few times here about player character vs. player
character, when one is scheming against another, that kind of thing. How
many people have had it come up accidentally?

Funny story to follow:

<Shadows of the Underworld adventure spoilers>

















<almost>





I was running the Excelsior adventure from Shadows of the Underworld
yesterday. That's the one similar to Die-Hard, where the runners are
trapped in the top floor of a building by terrorists who are going to blow
it up, have to beat the bad guys. Because of some previous runs together,
the group is paranoid about all meeting together with the Johnson at the
resturant, so only two of them are trapped on th 52 floor. One was talking
to the other on the phone when the terrorists hit, alerting the rest of the
runners to the problem.

So the players outside manage to break in and take out the guards on the
bottom floor nad take out the security room too. The B&E dwarf has a
Security Systems skill, and starts flipping around the cameras. Then he
finds the camera that looks in the resturant and sees his guy, doing First
Aid on a skinny shorter guy. Doesn't see the other guy who is supposed to
be there. Other members assume that the wouneded person is their other guy
and go charging up the service elevator up.

Meanwhile, that other character has managed to slip away down the stairs,
kill a terrorist, rescue a secretary, and is leading her down. But he can't
find a way to cut her bonds off, so he's leading her down the stairs. Then
the B&E guy sees a guy with the terrorists gun leading a woman who has her
hands tied in front of her down the stairs on another video camera.
Unfortunately, they never met so he thinks he's a terrorist.

Character goes to get into security room and is ambushed by the dwarf, and
promptly dives back out. The other characters, coming back down for
reinforcements, promptly get him into a crossfire and start shooting at him
also. All of them fail Int checks to see if they recognize each other (one
with his head down, the other in a mask) and so keep on going. Finally the
ork shaman comes around the corner and recognizes him so that they stop
shooting.

The only reason the character survived was that one his team members missed
horribly with some of the worst rolls I've ever seen.

Laughed my ass off.



Sommers
Homepage comming soon!
Message no. 2
From: Brian Wong <rook@*****.INFINEX.COM>
Subject: Re: Character vs. Character
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 11:19:53 -0700
> I know that its come up a few times here about player character vs. player
> character, when one is scheming against another, that kind of thing. How
> many people have had it come up accidentally?

I tend to frown on this sort of stuff myself. I try to stop it at
the character design stage. In the case of a group all starting at the
same time you want personalities that will have tensions, but not clash
violently. The X-Men are a good example. Countless subplots about bickerring.
But Wolverine won't slice up Cyclops with his claws unless he really loses it
or is under control.

When a new member joins; it's also a good idea to make sure ahead of
time that he will fit some sort of psychological role in the team.

Looking at good fiction; we notice there's always a set of personalities
that are present in good team dynamics:

The leader
The brainy one
The foil/femme fatale
The Kid/sidekick/squire
The Rebel/Anti Hero
The comic relief/class clown

The classic 'adventuring team' that works well IMHO is from Scooby Doo.
Fred, Wilma, Dafny, Shaggy, Scooby. Each offsets the other and clashes in ways
that move the story along.

The X-Men from to time have also been a good example
Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Angel
or
Storm, NightCrawler, Wolverine, Collosus, Kitty Pride

The modern X-Men aren't as rich here.

> Unfortunately, they never met so he thinks he's a terrorist.
>
> Character goes to get into security room and is ambushed by the dwarf, and
> promptly dives back out. The other characters, coming back down for
> reinforcements, promptly get him into a crossfire and start shooting at him
> also. All of them fail Int checks to see if they recognize each other (one
> with his head down, the other in a mask) and so keep on going. Finally the
> ork shaman comes around the corner and recognizes him so that they stop
> shooting.

Good thing nobody had a grenade. :)

--
Rook ¿Õ ¿ë ±â WebRPG Town Hall Magistrate
townhall.webrpg.com <0){{{{><
__ Super WebRing http://orion.supersoldiers.com/heroes/webring.html
/.)\ http://www.infinex.com/~rook/SH/SHlinks.html Super Hero Links
\(@/ http://www.infinex.com/~rook/SH/ Super Hero RPG Site
Message no. 3
From: Sommers <sommers@*****.UMICH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Character vs. Character
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 14:36:45 -0400
At 02:19 PM 10/19/98 , you wrote:
>> Character goes to get into security room and is ambushed by the dwarf, and
>> promptly dives back out. The other characters, coming back down for
>> reinforcements, promptly get him into a crossfire and start shooting at him
>> also. All of them fail Int checks to see if they recognize each other (one
>> with his head down, the other in a mask) and so keep on going. Finally the
>> ork shaman comes around the corner and recognizes him so that they stop
>> shooting.
>
> Good thing nobody had a grenade. :)

But they did keep looking around for one!

That whole exchange was the funniest part of the day, but a close second
was a picture of the dwarf trying to casually run down the street with a
duffel bag of 35 kilos of C-13 and detonators. I just kept thinking "hi ho,
hi ho, its off to work we go..."

Sommers
Homepage comming soon!
Message no. 4
From: Shaun Gilroy <shaung@**********.NET>
Subject: Re: Character vs. Character
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 14:50:42 -0400
At 11:19 AM 10/19/98 -0700, you wrote:
> I tend to frown on this sort of stuff myself. I try to stop it at
>the character design stage. In the case of a group all starting at the
>same time you want personalities that will have tensions, but not clash
>violently. The X-Men are a good example. Countless subplots about bickerring.
>But Wolverine won't slice up Cyclops with his claws unless he really loses it
>or is under control.

It wasn't a case of plotting against one another, it was a case of mistaken
identity in the middle of a fire-fight.

"Friendly Fire" anyone? >:)


Shaun Gilroy [shaung@**********.net]
Online Technologies Corporation
Message no. 5
From: Fixer <fixer@*******.TLH.FL.US>
Subject: Re: Character vs. Character
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 15:57:16 -0400
On Mon, 19 Oct 1998, Shaun Gilroy wrote:

->At 11:19 AM 10/19/98 -0700, you wrote:
->> I tend to frown on this sort of stuff myself. I try to stop it at
->>the character design stage. In the case of a group all starting at the
->>same time you want personalities that will have tensions, but not clash
->>violently. The X-Men are a good example. Countless subplots about bickerring.
->>But Wolverine won't slice up Cyclops with his claws unless he really loses it
->>or is under control.
->
->It wasn't a case of plotting against one another, it was a case of mistaken
->identity in the middle of a fire-fight.
->
->"Friendly Fire" anyone? >:)

I somehow doubt the fire was very friendly. }:-) Who thought up
the term 'Friendly Fire' anyway? Talk about an oxymoron. }:-)

Fixer --------------} The easy I do before breakfast,
the difficult I do all day long,
the impossible only during the week,
and miracles performed on an as-needed basis....

Now tell me, what was your problem?

Further Reading

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Thwap!