Eclipsearama - Paul J. Cook

PAUL J. COOK

Backstory: Pre-Fall, Paul lived in the New York Archology, firmly entrenched in the middle class. He had dreams of being a daring space explorer, but lacked the aptitudes for it. Working as a courier, he delivered a package to a Skinthetic facility working on a next generation Hibernoid morph. Due to a mixup, the Skinthetics assumed he was a volunteer for the beta testing. He was backed up, transplanted into the hibernoid, where the morph was placed in stasis, and sent to a satellite where he'd be revived in a decade. During that time, the Fall happened. A few months ago, a salvage vessel heard the "come get me" automated signal and investigated. They picked him up and attempted to sell him into indenture. He escaped and eventually found his way to Mars, where his last living relative, Professor Falkenstein, lives.

Falkenstein originally figured to give Cook a harmless desk job at Pandora Express, but on reviewing the bioscans and hearing Cook's story of how he got to Mars, realized there was more to Cook than he appeared. Something happened to Cook while in hibernation. He shows signs of being exposed to the Watts-Macleod Exsurgent virus. However, the only possible time it could have happened was while he was in hibernation, which is a mystery that the Professor wants to solve. Cook does not know of this, and simply thinks that he's lucky.

Role on the Team: Paul is something of a generalist, assisted by his uncanny luck.

Personality: Paul's a pretty easygoing, happy-go-lucky kind of guy. He's surprisingly adaptable, considering he went from a pre-Fall existence to a dangerous post-Fall career exploring strange new worlds. Of course, that's what he wanted to do all along.

Eclipsearama

So, I've recently become a fan of the Eclipse Phase RPG. The premise of the campaign setting is that humanity was on the edge of the Singularity. Nanotech replicators were becoming commonplace. You could upload your mind into computers, and then download into new better-than-human biological bodies. Octopi and other animals had been uplifted to human intelligence. There were still some bumps in the road, but the sort of techno-utopia some folks dream about was on the way.

And then these self-improving AIs went absolutely insane. And we're not talking "hey baby, wanna kill all humans" crazy.  We're talking the full on Call of Cthulhu, Great Old One, soul destroying reality warping crazy. And then they left through these possibly alien portals to parts unknown and haven't been seen since.

So Earth's a smoking ruin and the refugees are scattered across the solar system on colonies we'd made everywhere from Mercury to beyond Pluto.

The default assumption is that PCs are members of a secret society called "Firewall" that makes sure that "transhumanity" doesn't get wiped out.

So after listening to the Role Playing Public Radio Actual Play Campaign "Know Evil" I was totally hooked on the setting. The rules seem pretty straightforward, and there's a FATE conversion in development that's going into playtest this summer.

But I wanted to play with the actual character creation rules and I was going to make the cast of Firefly but someone already did it.

So then I thought, what about Futurama?

My initial idea was that the team was a Firewall Cell, the Professor was their Proxy and the "Pandora Express" was just a cover for them. Then I thought it wasn't really a good fit and instead threw away the Firewall connections. Don't get me wrong, they are Gatecrashers, and that is not a job for the faint of heart. These guys have a lot more on the ball than their counterparts onscreen. But Firewall is a meat grinder, and what I was writing was moving the characters so far away from their original conceptions that it was only connected in a "see what I did there" way.

So here's the core idea. In the theoretical game, the Professor in an NPC who owns and runs "Pandora Express," a scrappy little Gatecrashing supply company. They're not the guys who go through the gates first and get eaten by exo-threats. Pandora Express takes these guys supplies. Their primary vehicle is a GEV, "The Pandora Express", but it is modified with what is essentially a tow hitch for when they have to haul larger amounts of cargo through gates. Of course, due to nanofabricators and such, they rarely need to haul large cargo. More often, they carry plans or data back and forth through the gates.  Additionally, they often ferry unique artifacts back and forth.

Professor Herbert Falkenstein (PhD, Mars University) is a Professor of SCIENCE at Mars University. He spent a long time in the public sector at Omnicorp, but a bad experience led him to abandon his career and return to academia. He was one of the initial consultants when the first Pandora gate was discovered, and is considered to be an expert in many fields. However, his cantankerous personality (including his refusal to resleeve into a new body until this one finally breaks down) have diminished his reputation somewhat. He formed Pandora Express as a way to supplement his income and further his experiments.

Notes: The Professor has a rival on the faculty of the University of Mars (Professor Vernon Wormwood), and was once in a relationship with Dr. Margaret O'Malley, his former boss at Omnicorp and eventual chairman of the board of the Pathfinder corporation. He is sleeved in a basic synthmorph with only a few basic modifications.

Role: The Professor isn't a PC. He's the quest giver NPC. As such, I haven't bothered to give him stats.

{Side Note: Certainly Gunter the uplifted monkey and his clone/child are viable side characters. Cubert was slow-grown so probably doesn't have the problems the Lost do. He's a jerk, but he's not psychotic.}

Where Has He Been?

So I guess that the dual punches of MWP losing the Marvel license JUST DAYS before we'd have gotten the second Annihilation sourcebook, which would have given us official stats on the Guardians of the Galaxy AND that Cartoon Network decided that Young Justice wasn't moving enough toys kind of threw me off my game.

And then I got some freelance projects that took up my spare time.

And then I sort of just let things lie fallow because I didn't know what to say.

But I'm back now and I'm going to try to update this blog semi regularly.

First up, some Eclipse Phase stuff because that's my new crack at the moment.

Artemis [MHR]

Artemis

Solo d6 Buddy d10 Team d8

Raised by Sportsmaster
Something to Prove
Short Tempered

Powersets 
Bow And Trick Arrows
Weapon d8 Gadgets d6

SFX: Focused Shot. If a pool includes a Bow and Trick Arrows power, you may replace two dice of equal size with one die +1 step larger.

SFX: Multishot. Step up or double a Bow and Trick Arrows die against a single target. Remove the highest rolling die and add 3 dice for your total.

SFX: Explosive Arrow. Against multiple opponents, for every additional target add a d6 and keep an additional effect die.

SFX: Smoke or Net Arrow. Add a d6 and step up your effect die by +1 when inflicting “Blinded By Smoke” or “Trapped in a Net” complications on a target.

Limit: Gear. Shutdown Bow and Trick Arrows to gain 1 PP. Take an action vs. doom pool to recover.

Specialties:
Acrobatics Expert
Covert Expert
Crime Expert
Combat Expert

Milestones: 

Fitting in with The Team
1 XP when: you give support to another hero on your team.
3 XP when: you confront a team member about your place on the team.
10 XP when: when you either sacrifice something you hold dear for the benefit of your team or walk away from your team to avoid that sacrifice.

Escaping The Family Business
1 xp when: You lie to someone about your family.
3 xp when: You let your feelings for Cheshire and/or Sportsmaster get in the way of the mission.
10 xp when: You either own up to the team as to who your family is or join Sportsmaster and Cheshire as super-villains.

Black Canary [MHR]

Black Canary

Solo d8 Buddy d10 Team d6

Legacy Crimefighter
Pretty Bird
Empathic

Powersets:

Lifelong Training
Enhanced Reflexes d8
Enhanced Stamina d8

SFX: Judo Throw. Add a d6 and step up your effect die by +1 when inflicting a Pinned, Tripped or Thrown complication on a target.

SFX: Rally. Spend a die from the doom pool to recover physical stress of an equal die size.

Limit: Exhaustion. If stressed out, asleep, or unconscious, shutdown Lifelong Training. Recover Lifelong Training when stress is recovered or you awake. If Physical Trauma is taken, shutdown Lifelong Training until trauma is recovered.


Canary Cry
Blast d10

SFX: Area. Against multiple targets, for each additional target add a d6 and keep an additional effect die.

SFX: Unleashed. Step up or double any Canary Cry power for one action. If the action fails, step back that power. Spend a doom die to recover that power.

SFX: Dangerous. Add a d6 to your dice pool for an attack action and step back highest die in pool by –1. Step up Physical Stress inflicted by +1.

Limit: Exhaustion If stressed out, asleep, or unconscious, shutdown Canary Cry. Recover Canary Cry when stress is recovered or you awake. If Physical Trauma is taken, shutdown Canary Cry until trauma is recovered.

Specialties

Crime Master
Combat Master
Psych Master

Amazo [MHR]

Amazo

            Solo d8 Buddy d6 Team d4

           

            Accessing...

            Creation of Professor Ivo

            Power Mimic

Amazing Android 
            Enhanced Durability d8
            Enhanced Senses d8
            Mimic d12
            Limit: Robot. Increase the doom pool by 1 die when affected by robot specific Milestones and tech.  
            Limit: Mimicked weaknesses. When creating Mimic assets, add any limitations associated with the copied power.

One Android Justice League

            Air Control d10

            Blast d10

            Flight d10

            Godlike Strength d12

            Godlike Durability d12

            Godlike Speed d12

            Intangibility d10
            Invisibility d10
            Shapeshifting d10

            Stretching d6

            
            SFX: Counterattack. On a reaction against a physical attack action, inflict physical stress with the effect die. Spend a doom die to step it up.

            SFX: Accessing... The Damage Type of the Blast can be any effect that he has previously copied. (So far: Heat Vision, Sonic Scream, Atomic Blast)
            SFX: Area Attack. Against multiple targets, for each additional target add a d6 and keep an additional effect die. 
            SFX: Invulnerable. Spend a doom die to ignore physical stress or trauma unless caused by psychic or magic attacks.

            Limit: Kryptonite. Shut down copied Kryptonian Power Set when exposed to Kryptonite. Additionally, Kryptonite-based Complications or Assets inflict Physical Stress equal to their rating. Activate an Opportunity or remove the Kryptonite.
            Limit: Red Sun. When exposed to a Red Sun Radiation Complication, Shut Down copied Kryptonian powers. Activate an opportunity to remove the Complication.
            Limit: Vulnerable to Fire. Shutdown any copied Martian power and gain 1 PP when affected by a heat-based complication. Recover by removing the complication. 

                       

Specialties

            Combat Master 

Design Notes: Amazo's a bear to fight, but the trick is that he doesn't have any mental or emotional defenses. I felt like the Team used "I'm threatening Ivo, so this attack is causing Mental Stress" attacks, and Stressed him out with the description of "Superboy takes advantage of the confusion to stick his fist inside Amazo's guts."

S01-E05 - Schooled

Analysis from a RPG Perspective: One thing that often happens in comics, but not so often in gaming, is that the heroes face opponents well out of their weight class. Spider-Man regularly goes through the cycle of "get whupped, figure out a weakness, whup the bad guy" when fighting foes. (And then there's the extreme examples of the Fantastic Four vs Galactus, where the heroes are so below the villain that the villain's minions are still much more powerful than the heroes.) Player characters, on the other hand, really don't like to lose. Plot/Hero/Drama points often take the sting off, especially if they're used so that a villain can escape (in this case, the MONQIs with Amazo's parts), but it still hurts.

And for the record, in the hypothetical fight between Robin, Kid Flash, Superboy and Amazo, the kids started inflicting Mental (or possibly Emotional) stress on Amazo by threatening Professor Ivo, and since Amazo has no defenses against that sort of thing, they easily stressed him out, with Superboy's player describing how it worked. "Amazo is so rattled by the threat to the doctor that I'm able to stick my hand through his intangible body and then he falls apart when he re-solidifies."

Watcher Datafiles:
     Amazo
     Black Canary
     Professor Ivo & MONQIs