What does tg think about

Alright so there are two things you should keep in mind when making powers for Wild Talents. First is to do exactly what you've done: describe the full breadth of the power's effect. Second is that you work backwards: figure out the moving parts that add up to the whole. These moving parts are called "Qualities".

In this case, your power stems from the base ability of "Create Water Crystal." This is a Useful quality, since it does something that's not explicitly an attack or a defense. As a Useful Quality, it has the Mass, Range or Speed capacities as its default. However, since the power affects a mass of water at range, it has both Mass and Range. Each of these Capacities is 2 points.

So here's where we start:

Create Water Crystal (4 pts)
>Useful Mass, Range

Now its effect works at a radius of 20 feet, which means we want to add the Radius Extra for 2 pts. Radius actually works in increments of 15 feet, but precise distances aren't super important in Wild Talents so we'll stretch it and allow it to work at 20 feet. This power is also conditional on there being sufficient water around, so we can add an if/then flaw for -1. Finally, a crystal lasts for 1 hour before turning into salt, so we add Duration+2.

Create Water Crystal (7 pts)
>Useful Mass, Range-- Radius+2, Duration+2, if/then-1(Requires sufficient water supply)

You can choose to specify how much water is needed when you describe its effects, but that won't affect the point cost.

Now there's also another factor in creating Water Crystals, because doing so can also damage living things by draining them of their water. So we add another quality, this time an Attack with the Range capacity (since the fact that it affects an amount of mass in its target is negligable). This allows it to inflict Width in Shock and Killing to its target, a pretty nasty power.

Create Water Crystal (9 pts)
>Useful Mass, Range-- Radius+2, Duration+2, if/then-1(Requires sufficient water supply)
>Attacks Range

Continued
Now, what Extras you add to the Attacks Quality depends on how exactly the power works. The way you described it though, I feel that you could add the Engulf Extra (since it would suck water from its target's entire body, not just a specific limb) and the Non-Physical Extra, since it's not like how much armor you have would really affect the power. I'd also add an if/then flaw specifying that it only affects organic targets, so it wouldn't work on a robot that has no water in it.

It also has the same Radius extra as the Useful function, since it covers the same space. It also has the flaws Attached-2 and Automatic-1. Attached means for the power to work you need to roll another thing, in this case the power's Useful Quality, and Automatic means it goes off immediately. So whenever you roll Create Water Crystal, you roll for both its Useful properties and its Attack property.

Here's what it looks like with those Extras and Flaws:

Create Water Crystal (13 pts)
>Useful Mass, Range-- Radius+2, Duration+2, if/then-1(Requires sufficient water supply)
>Attacks Range-- Radius+2, Engulf+2, Non-Physical+2, if/then-1(only works on organic targets), Attached-2(attack goes off when you roll to create a Water Crystal), Automatic-1 (attack ALWAYS goes off).

For the sake of ease of readibility, let's split "Create Water Crystal" and "Desiccate Living Things" into two "sub-powers"

Create Water Crystal (7 pts)
>Useful Mass, Range-- Radius+2, Duration+2, if/then-1(Requires sufficient water supply)
Desiccate Living Things (4 pts)
>Attacks Range-- Radius+2, Engulf+2, Non-Physical+2, if/then-1(only works on organic targets), Attached-2(attack goes off when you roll to create a Water Crystal), Automatic-1 (attack ALWAYS goes off).

Constructed this way, you can choose either to have those abilities as a single power with two qualities, or as 2 separate powers. The cost will be the same, it's all about whether you want to have a single dice pool or one for each.

is base shock and killing good? like i see thats hand gun level, but like how would this power need the engulf or the area extra? Or are those way overkill here?

also, is non physical attack just straight up better than penetration?

oh sorry i should've clicked update first, didnt see the continuation

Ha, you anticipated some of the extras I suggested!

Base Shock and Killing is good for a power that are clear and present threats on serious enemies. If I were running this character I'd probably tone down the damage to be less lethal, since he can inflict it over a wide area.

Area is a nice alternative to Engulf. The power I'm outlining here is pretty much the most lethal version you can imagine.

Non-Physical is almost always better than Penetration, so the rules suggest giving your players some alternative way to resist that kind of damage. For instance, a telepathic attack might be resisted with Stability.

so what would an alternate resist for the water crystal be? just already be covered in salt?

or would the ability to create large amounts of water overwhelm it? I see theres this capacity chart? does that mean theres a hard limit to how much water the crystal could absorb before it's saturated?

also thank you for being so helpful, i really appreciate it

could you maybe give me a practice power that I could try making? just to see if I've got this down?

No worries!

So with the power as it is now, you roll your dice to suck up all the water in a 15 foot radius, and if there are any juicy targets within that space, you can roll to attack them too.

Now for the second part: the detonation. That's pretty clearly an Attack with the Range capacity, and possibly the Mass Capacity too if you want it to throw people back.

Detonate Leech Crystal (2 pts)
>Attack Range

Right off the bat you can give it Radius+2 and some Area dice, let's say Area+3, since that's how Grenades usually work. Let's also give it Depleted-1 since it consumes your supply of Leech Crystals; no crystals, no explosions.

Detonate Leech Crystal (6 pts)
>Attack Range: Radius+2, Area+3, Depleted-1

Now, here's the real tricky part: there are no real clear rules in Wild Talents for powers that inflict varying amounts of damage. Sometimes this is modeled by giving a power multiple Attack qualities with different damage outputs. This is kind of clumsy, however. What I usually do instead is use the Variable Effect extra, which is sort of a catch-all Extra for powers without rigidly defined effects. Variable Effect is expensive, costing +4 points, but we will lower that by hemming in its effects with if/thens. First, we specify that the Variable Effect ONLY affects the amount of damage the attack inflicts, not anything else. Secondly, we specify the effect is based on how much water is absorbed.

Detonate Leech Crystal (8 pts)
>Attack Range: Radius+2, Area+3, Depleted-1, Variable Effect+4, if/then-1(Only for damage levels), if/then-1(damage is based on amount of water absorbed

With this set-up, the maximum damage you can do is Width in Shock and Killing, and the minimum would be Width in Shock.

So here's the finished product:

POWER: LEECH CRYSTAL
Create Leech Crystal (7 pts)
>Useful Mass, Range-- Radius+2, Duration+2, if/then-1(Requires sufficient water supply)
Desiccate Living Things (4 pts)
>Attacks Range-- Radius+2, Engulf+2, Non-Physical+2, if/then-1(only works on organic targets), Attached-2(attack goes off when you roll to create a Water Crystal), Automatic-1 (attack ALWAYS goes off).
Detonate Leech Crystal (8 pts)
>Attack Range: Radius+2, Area+3, Depleted-1, Variable Effect+4, if/then-1(Only for damage levels), if/then-1(damage is based on amount of water absorbed

Like I said, you could clump these into a single mega-power costing 19 pts, or you can make them as individual powers. As individual powers you can have separate dice pools, so you might roll 5d to create a leech crystal but detonate them for 8d. If they were a 19 pt mega power, they'd share a single dice pool. Both options work.

Very cool, thank you man. You have no idea how helpful you've been.

Hey, just out of curiosity, do you want to talk about your game? You seem like the kind of person who'd be an awesome gm, and god knows I could use all the inspiration i could get

Having some kind of salt armor would work, though that's a pretty fringe case unless your characters are expected to be pretty resourceful when dealing with this particular threat. You could also allow someone to roll Endurance just to grit their teeth through the physical strain of it. That's how the telepath who can cause pain through traumatic memories works: you can roll to defend against her attacks, and unlike a normal defense your speed doesn't really matter since it's an instant effect, so if you roll a 2x8 to defend against a 3x7, you can actually totally nullify the attack, which would otherwise fail against a conventional weapon.

oh, I didn't realize that worked that way.

ok i feel like i'm gonna try out wild talents for my game.

Thank you again dude.

Any advice or things I should really know/look at before I run anything in this system?

>Try using Expert Dice instead of Hard Dice
Hard dice (see page 19) are really good for "passive" powers, but are actually kind of unfun when used in Skills or Stats. Expert Dice (see page 20) work a lot better and are more fun.

>Wiggle Dice are ridiculously powerful
Wiggle Dice (also on page 19) are the most powerful things in the game. The book doesn't make this clear but a character with a Wiggle Die in their pool is a force to be reckoned with. For that reason, I'd suggest that you NOT allow characters to have Wiggle Dice in their stats, only their skills and miracles.

>The dice sweet spot
The dice curve on page 18 doesn't tell the full story. A dice pool of 4d technically has 50-50 odds of a Set, but the sweet spot for the One Roll Engine in generally is usually between 5d and 7d. In that range you're more likely than not to get a Set and have an okay chance of being able to pull of multiple actions.

It helps to realize that the dice you have in a Stat or Skill works out like this:

0d- You're physically incapable of doing a thing
1d- You're unusually feeble or bad at it
2d- You're normal and unremarkable
3d- You've actually practiced and are pretty good at a thing
4d- You're genuinely elite
5d- You're the best a human can possibly be at this thing

Above 5d you're entering superheroic areas.

So a character with 2d in a Stat and 2d in a Skill is rolling 4d, so they have a 50-50 shot at getting a Set because they're utterly ordinary. Someone with 3d in the Stat and Skill is rolling 6d, giving them an 85% chance of a Set.

If this seems high, it brings me to the most important tip:

>Encourage risk taking
The real advantage of having a large dice pool isn't that you have a 90%+ chance of a set. It's that you can stomach penalties and reliably pull off Multiple Actions. A character with 8d-9d for a dice pool should be trying to do really awesome things with that pool, because they'll be able to pull of mundane stuff without breaking a sweat.

Clarification: above 5d is superhuman,not superheroic. Everyone is supposed to be superheroic!

As for my own game, I don't want to get too much into it, but it's set in an alternate history where there are three superhero archetypes. Elites are humans without any kinds of superhuman abilities but through training and willpower have pushed their talents to peak ability. They arose during WWII in a very Watchmen like fashion.

Mutants appeared in the 70s as a result of government experimentation during the cold war. Mutants all have the Inhuman metaquality, so whatever powers they have are always coupled with some kind of deformity. A lot of them have animal features. One mutant is a kind of vampire telepath whose body is covered in lesions that heal when she hurts others.

The most recent archetype are individuals who were infected with a retrovirus that rewrote their DNA and, to some extent, their molecular structure. Retros have physics defying powers usually coupled with very hard limits on how they operate.

The campaign itself is set in Ransom City, the capital of Arcadia, a fictional island state off the coast of North Carolina. It's been going on for three years now so it covers a lot of ground, but in essence it focuses on two conspiracies: one is of powerful corporations colluding with alien intelligences in exchange for technology, and the other involves a cult-like organization run by an immortal nazi scientist who may or may not have been the person who created the retrovirus. This is sprinkled amidst plots involving the various criminal organizations in the city and the personal vendettas and drives of the characters. Fairly standard stuff in that regard but the devil's in the details.

bump for interest

hey I'm here if anyone wants to talk, I've kept a wild talents game running for a while

Ran this for about six months, the players only had 50 points of powers a piece but still managed to have some very strong abilities. The biggest issue was getting them to not be afraid of their own capabilities: "this seems unbalanced, does it really work that way?"

The biggest issue with the game is how opaque the power generation system is. I made all the powers for my group by asking "so what do you want to be able to do? ...okay, what else?". If Stolze ever writes a 3rd edition that's the main issue that'll need to be addressed (it doesn't help that a bunch of the write-ups for NPCs in the settings seem to conflict with how the game is supposed to work).

Yeah I really wish there was a 3rd Ed too. Stolze doesn't seem particularly interested though, since Wild Talents was basically a design by committee project and he's more interested in his passion projects like Reign and Better Angels.

I do like that once you have some experience with the system you can whip up even fairly complex powers on the fly. When my group does crime patrols I'll just come up with some crazy Jojo-esque power and not even bother statting it up because I know what kind of power it's going to spit out.

What are the examples of powers conflicting? also an explanation as to whats wrong would really help.
also turning this thread into a "make this power" thread might be fun/educational

I mean, that might be a good call on Stolze's part. Have you guys read the expanded setting/module stuff? A lot of it is pretty bad.

That, and I'd argue wild talents is a bit worse at it's job than godlike.

The other settings: Progenitor and The Kerberos Club are some of the best rpg material I've bought. I do concede that it's more waffly than godlike by trying to be universal though.

My gripe is about how extras like: duration, endless and permanent end up being applied inconsistently in some of the published material. For me it reinforced the need to have a central consensus on how certain things worked, because I had players building things backwards either missing out on bits they needed or overspending for what they were getting (not that WT is huge on balance).

Exactly this. I ran groups against stat blocks and powers i cooked up in my head and it worked out great. Don't worry about the crunch so much, focus on getting your players into the scene and making them think about how to use their powers creatively to beat the powers you throw at them.

It also helps to realize that the point value for characters and powers are practically meaningless. You can have a 400 point character get chumped by a well optimized 250 pointer because one is built to do one thing very well instead of a bunch of things. Which isn't so terrible as to make the game unplayable at all, it just requires a good understanding of the system to avoid it becoming a stumbling block.

Also quite surprised this thread lasted till morning!

WT's power creation system is better than Godlike if only because it's both more streamlined and more adaptable, but Godlike as a stand-alone game instead of a semi-universal supers system is immensely better. It knows exactly what it wants to be and goes for it.

And this here is really where Wild Talents and the One Roll Engine in general really excels. It's just crunchy enough to give you enough moving parts where you can create interesting, challenging encounters, but it's flexible and interpretive enough that you rarely feel weighed down by them.

Just the other night I ran a pretty awesome one shot "patrol" for one of my players (my wife). Basically we cooked up a system where we can roll up some random street crimes and have the character or characters cruise from one to another and deal with the culprits. It ended up involving running a van full of Russian mobsters off the road as one of them threw molotov cocktails out the back door; a brawl with a dude who killed someone sleeping with his girlfriend which started in a house boat, sprawled under a pier at low tide and ended in the surf in the moonlight; and culminated by taking out a human auction run by some white supremacists by flooding the building with chlorine gas and rescuing the victims from a redneck swordmaster and a lady gunslinger named Caliber Kate. It ruled and none of it was pre-scripted, but the combination of homebrew rules and the robustness of the system itself made it easy.

So what oddball and interesting characters have you guys made for Wild Talents?

Let's see:

Protagonists
>Russian infiltration expert who can shape-shift her appearance at will, but her real power is that she's just stupidly good with knives. Also her player does an amazing Russian accent.
>Indian IT specialist who moonlights as a vigilante using what is basically a Caster Gun from Outlaw Star and leaves business cards for his superheroic alter-ego at crime scenes he visits
>A physics prodigy who can manipulate probabilities and is real good at throwing objects, especially balls in the manner of Gyro Zepelli from Steel Ball Run. Also has a crippling addiction to strippers that he should really get some therapy for.
>An Irish mutant with wallaby legs and a tail who sparked some great jokes when she was introduced that mutations don't always conveniently line-up with your ethnic background. She routinely has to hold back from kicking people's heads off.
>Another Russian, this time an artist and auto-mechanic who can control carbon to turn his skin into armor and cause explosions by recombining atmospheric gasses, and pretty much fights like Zangief.
>A gentleman thief character who is both a master of disguise and wields a pair of stolen laser pistols and a threaded cane, whose passion is "Showboating."
>A bow and arrow wielding telapath who can cause criminals to experience the emotions of their victims as a way of encouraging reform. She also has 1d in Charm and has a disaster of a personal life.

We have a rotating cast of characters that we draw from each session depending on what story we're focusing on. It started small but just snowballed into a full ensemble cast.

bump!

So, there was this one group of bikers that gave my players some trouble

Piston: converts kinetic energy into explosions, stronger the closer it is to her, and very short range, and the conversion isn't 100%. Plus side is she's immune to those explosions and it's automatic against attacks, So, for example, you were to hit her with a car, it would be the equivalent of hitting the car with an artillery shell, and she would barely be staggered. can also trigger it with punching/running for proactive use.

muffler: ok so this dude's missing a hand, and his power "replaces" it with sound, or really just high amplitude vibration. Just getting close to him causes damage with daze from the sound alone, and the hand can cleave through steel with very little effort, kind of a glass cannon if you can hit him though.

chassis: manipulates metal into personal shells. Normally winds up looking like a walking car crash about a story tall. Is stronger, but also less mobile than you'd think. can also pull limited T-1000 shit, like summoning blades, shifting the metal through small spaces, etc. Withing reason though, theres still a human core there.

exhaust: if it's a gas, and it hurts you to breathe, he can control it. can become intangible in the gas he controls, but he also still needs to breathe in that state. Tends to form a several story tall man made of gas as a diversion, and can get a pretty good gust if he gets enough gas. Like tossing cars, wiping out floors of buildings, ect. Can fly, and seep into a lot of places you otherwise wouldn't expect to find him.

Windshield: Crafts force fields. Basically sets anchor points, and changes the connection points between them. So if he connects four in a square, he makes a square force field. he can move either individual points, or the entire construct, and can basically hotkey the configurations he uses the most. he can fly by just standing on a force field and then moving it.
Also makes shields for his allies (1/2)

by basically coating them in anchor points. His power was the one that had the most practical applications I found.

Carburetor: His power is actually tied to a zippo lighter. when he flips open the top, he can convert the nitrogen in the air into a hyper flammable gas that also interferes with a person's ability to absorb oxygen. This power is very subtle, people usually don't even notice it until they start to lose consciousness. He can convert about an entire block's with of nitrogen in about half a minute, and it explodes with about the force of natural gas. Flicking the lighter triggers a second ability, it creates a spark at whatever he's looking at, at that moment. The thing is, he's not immune to his own power, and while he's incredibly tough, he needs to be very careful when using his power. also has a basic flamethrower attack by using both powers at once, but it's kinda not that good.

tire: super speed, but must be intangible to use it. (well, she doesn't 'need' to be, but it would really damage her to do it while solid). Has a lot of utility, and normally fights by carrying some nano wire, turning that intangible with her (she has a mass capacity of 1 lbs), running though people while trailing the wire, turning it solid again, and then handing the wire to one of her teammates with super strength. Or at least, that's her favorite tactic.

Finally, Jack knife: his power is basically Jack Slash from worm +1. can invisibly extend the edge of knives (though really, i got absurdly loose with what counts as the game went on, and the players kept getting his power wrong) to an almost infinite distance, and the swing is always perfect. Also has a danger sense that applies to other talents, sort of hyper charm (really good at figuring out a persons weak points, or their needs), and has an instinctual knowledge of how powers work (in setting, this is a huge deal). Thing is, almost everyone is a talent.

how the group worked was, everyone in the group had their own motivations and little side stories, and were generally not the type of people to be... well a biker gang really.

I mean piston was the equivalent to a police officer, muffler was a disgraced musician, they were the last people anyone expected to be involved.

But what the party found out was that Jack was capable of bringing out the worst in people no matter who they were. Though they didn't realize how bad it was until they found themselves killing NPC's who'd been helping them out of sheer paranoia.

I have about 200 more of these guys if you want more

This threads interesting, but the problem seems to be a lack of continuing conversation. Like, we've had two posts now try to find a topic.

That being said, this thread has been pretty polite. It's kinda nice

I've been in a game for a while, but I'm the least creative guy in our group when it comes to this stuff.

probably the most "odd ball" guy I made was this chemist dude. I gave him the standard human frailty immunity from progenitor, and immunity to chemical based attacks (so things like acid, fire, double down on toxins), and the ability to summon a few pounds of any element, and force reactions to create very simple compounds on the fly. Though eventually I just defaulted to summoning 12.8 tons of some fluid and running away usually.

The only reason it worked is because I'm a chem major.

bump because these are good powers

are you . . .me? I've been looking at this system for a very similar kind of campaign.

OP here, I'm just combining two things I love, and I saw an user on another thread talk about something like this (was that you?)

I'd love to hear your ideas, they're probably a hell of a lot better than mine

It is what happens with any ORE thread. Everyone agrees that they like it, help out any one with questions, then it dies from lack of controversy.

Fuck, that's actually super comfy. I wonder why though? I mean surely there's something we disagree on right?

Probably because if you're not shitposting, there's not really a whole lot to disagree on. Maybe what game is the best iteration of ORE.

probably godlike i'd argue, I kinda actually hate progenitor, though I've never touched the kerebos club. I've never heard any of the other discussed really

Fuck, Never thought shitposting would be something tg struggled with

Personally I'd say it's a tie between Reign or A Dirty World. Godlike is pretty cool as well, though I like the modern setting for Wild Talents a bit more.

Shout-out to Monsters and Other Childish Things, Nemesis, and Better Angels, though.

That's definitely one thing that ORE seems to have going for it - most d20 stuff still feels like D&D with a coat of paint, but ORE's stuff even feels different even if it's mechanically mostly the same.

You have NO idea.

damn i haven't even heard of half of those. Reign I've seen in this thread. I'm gonna look it up, but can you tell me if you've done anything in it?

I don't have a group, unfortunately, so most of my experience is in theorycrafting and homebrewing.

Reign is the "standard" fantasy iteration of the game. The default setting is bizarre to say the least, with the landmasses basically being two lovers lying facing each other and the sun actually being a lamp that goes out - certain parts of the world don't ever get any sunlight.

It's got some fantastic Company rules for abstracting running a group of some kind, from a small-town cult consisting of just a few people to a bustling business in a decent-size city, to a continent-spanning empire.

I actually was working on a Mount & Blade set for Reign but I got too busy with life and set it aside.

There's a "totally not Harry Potter" style setting that's a bit more grim that's pretty fun. You should check out the "Years of Our Reign" guidebooks, I believe Stolze should have them on his website still.

>A Dirty World
is basically Film Noir. Stats and challenges work a bit differently than baseline ORE.

>Monsters and Other Childish Things
is basically kids with their made-up friends... who aren't entirely made up. Kind of dark, but can be pretty light-hearted too.

>Nemesis
is a semi-lovecraftian horror game for ORE, uses some of the same components for trauma and violence that Unknown Armies uses.

>Better Angels
is "people have superpowers, but they're given by demons. Appease the demons but don't totally give in to them." Players have their characters, and also play the demon for another player.

archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/32761008

32771290 has fucking all of the PDFS

So Reign might actually be fucking perfect for my setting, since Its primary antagonists are just a bunch of super powered groups who've carved up a city, and the players are going to become one of those factions

Possibly. The Company rules are pretty easy to export to other systems even if you decide that Reign isn't the system you want.

Alright how about this for a discussion point: I've pretty much made hacking the ORE my hobby. I'm currently working on a sci-fi space adventure hack of Reign, and the Wild Talents game I run has half a dozen bits and pieces modified from the core.

Attached here is a piece of the project, a still unfinished attempt to create a system for building alien lifeforms using a variation on Reign's Esoteric Disciplines system. I'm also working on rules for spaceship design and combat and a ruleset for advanced technology based on a fusion of WT style Miracles and Reign's sorcery.

The other hack that I've envisioned is Bloodborne. I'm convinced that the ORE is the perfect system to run a Bloodborne game in.

This. Reign's Company rules are close to the best faction-running system in any game, chiefly because they're easy to use, scale nicely to different settings, are highly flexible and are based around the notion that the players are going to be affecting change in these organizations, instead of them lumbering on heedless of whatever the PCs are doing.

Interesting. Will it have it's own setting or just a generation method? Also, what major changes have you made?

So the main issue I have with this is it's not very in depth when it comes to creating your own perks/flaws.

Like, I can't think of anything you haven't covered there right now (really tired, and honestly it is pretty comprehensive on a skim), but how would I cost something that isn't covered?

I'm guessing common sense works just as well, but I'm curious

I gotta head to bed but if this thread is alive tomorrow I'll reply to these.

let's be honest, it's a miracle this thread survived it's first hour

>miracle
ayy

maybe if we talk about why we prefer ORE to other super settings?

like, why go ORE over M&M?

been looking at Wild Talents for awhile but I learn best by doing and could never get a game of it together.

any podcasts or videos with demonstration of play?

I've wanted to run a char in this system for a while but I've been more of less perma-GM'd by my group so I don't really get to make my own chars. It also hurts that none of the other people in my group want to run a superhero setting.

I wanted to run a dude with powers similar to Grey Boy in Worm, but have him struggle with using them due to having an actual conscience.

For those that havent read Worm, Grey Boy is essentially an young boy who got gain the power to create time loops. He himself is perma-contained in a loop which resets any damage (including death) every 5 seconds. The problem with his time loops is that they last thousands of years and during that time the victim is fully aware of what is happening (AKA their mind is not looped, just their body). Because Grey Boy is the only one who can interact with those in his loops he tends to cut/burn/shoot his victims so that they remain trapped in agony for thousands of years.

I really wanted to run a guy who has those same powers but it super afraid to use them because he knows that anyone trapped would be unable to escape. That way, despite being a super overpowered power, the villains would still be able to beat him simply by using his conscience against him.

worm.wikia.com/wiki/Gray_Boy

Link to Grey Boy's Worm wiki entry for those interested. Can anyone help me come up with this char?

Roleplay Public Radio has a huge actual play series called Heros of New Arcadia using Wild Talents. It's quite good and is what got me into the game.

i mean, i could share a few stories from my game? but it's kinda too niche to have podcasts for it
coming back from death is actually done in the progenitor book, but that one uses a psychic virus. Shouldn't be hard to adapt though. Do need to remember to include a teleport to avoid the whole perma death loop though. The big problem is that the time loop would be a suped up version of the containment power, admittedly it's not too far off

He'll probably wind up closer to alabaster from worm than gray boy, depending on the point budget, and most of his points would go to powers. Upside is at least you could level up. I'll try stating the powers as soon as I can find my progenitor pdf

oh shit really? summary?

Yeah, it's been a few years since I have played the system but I imagine you can have like 3 hard dice in trapping people would be pretty hard to beat for most people.

thing is if its gray boy level, it's basically an "I win" button. plus it forms a barrier.

also it seems resurrection costs willpower, which doesn't fit with gray boy. still stating

Stick a ton of hard or wiggle dice on the Bind power from the miracle cafeteria with the appropriate modifications. Depending on what ancillary effects are important to you either add additional qualities or attach a couple of other powers that go off automatically.

Then set one of the character's willpower motivations as 'don't use that power'.

>coming back from death is actually done in the progenitor book
I've got a return from the dead power I wrote up for one of these a while back still sitting on my harddrive, it doesn't quite match but should be easily adaptable:

Resurrection 2HD (1pt per die, 4pts)
Useful (Resurrection) +2, Always On -1, If/Then (triggers [set interval] after death) -1, Permanent +4, Self Only -3, Capacity: Self.

Restore the Flesh 9HD (2pts per die, 36pts)
Useful (Self Heal) +2, Attached (Resurrection) -2, Always On -1, Engulf +2, Permanent +4, Self Only -3, Capacity: Self.

Empty Tomb 2HD (9pts per die, 36pts)
Useful (Teleport) +2, Attached (Resurrection) -2, Always On -1, Booster +6, Permanent +4, Capacity: Range. (Range: ~11363 miles).

Total Cost: 78pts

Setting off a set period of time after death this power automatically restores the user to life, transports them to a particular set location (at a distance of up to ~11363 miles, should cover you for anywhere on Earth) and heals 9SK to all hit locations.

If you want to cheapen it up you could add Base Will Cost (-4) to one of the more expensive powers or talk to the GM about a flaw version of the Traumatic (+1) extra, which only effects the user (I'd cost it at -1). There's also a bunch of other ways it could be tweaked depending on your taste and point budget.

Stuff costing will is down to GM prerogative.

ok so I'm more than a little rusty at this, and there's no way any sane gm would allow this at the table but here it goes

Resurrection (2 pts):
Useful mass(+2), Permanent (+4), self only(-3), automatic(only triggers on death) (-1)

this is based off of jean davis' resurrection power

This will almost have a willpower cost attached inherently, like nullify in the book. Probably base will, as this is one of those powers that kinda breaks things. Also normally powers like this have several conditions that need to be met. I'll post a screen grab in my next post to explain it better.

also, you will probably want 10 hard dice. You want this to be as reliable as possible

Teleport out of infinite death loop (8 pt)
Useful range(+2) range booster(+3), Permanent(+4) , go first(+2) , attached to resurrect (-2), automatic(-1)

this is the one that teleports you out of bottomless pits or whatever. Given range boosters and go first to be safe (basically if an attack is fast enough, there's still a chance it'll kill you before you can teleport, or if there's a permanent attack with a radius larger than your range it'll still kill you. with 10 hard dice this risk is mitigated)

Restore to Pristine Condition (5 pts)
Useful mass (+2), Permanent (+4), Self Only (-3), engulf (+2)

re fluffed heal to help simulate the self time loop

Purge status debuffs (5 pts)
Useful mass(+2) Variable effect(+4), if/then (only for variable effect)(-1), if/then (only for removing effects)(-1), Permanent (+4), Self Only (-3)

this power helps simulate the self timeloop's ability to remove effects (E.g. being turned to stone, being set on fire, etc)

Time Loop (17 pts)
Useful mass (+2) Useful range(+2) radius (+2) Permanent (+4) High Capacity mass +1
Defends quality (+2) Range capacity (+2) Radius (+2)

This is the time loop power. The useful is the actual time loop as we know it, the defends is there for the barrier effect we see in the book (like when he lime looped air, and no one could

attack through it) For the genuine gray boy feel, 10 hard dice.

so actually stating the kid,

Resurrection 2 HD (hard dice means they're always 10 in case i forgot) 8 pts

Teleport out of death loop 4 HD (64 pts as written, except I messed up. should have thrown an if/then along the lines of "only triggers when can't resurrect in place of death"(-1), bringing our actual cost to 56 pts)

Restore to pristine condition 10 HD (100 pts)
(you could definitely get away with less, this is overkill, but gray boy would probably get 10)

Purge Status Debuffs 10 HD 100 pts
(same note as above)

Time loop 10 HD 340 pts
(really, about 4 hard dice would do you just fine, though throwing on interference (a +3 extra) on the useful might be a good idea, but might be overkill. I left it out because the books containment power didn't have it)

Bringing our total cost to 612 points I think (very tired, might be wrong)

I went really over board here, for an actual character, you could cut the restoration powers, cut the death loop escape's boosters and go first, and some other minor things, but I wanted to give gray boy an honest go. first (2/3)

here's the power i used for the resurrect reference, also

is 100% right about costs being up to the GM. I was just trying to be super cautious.

Also, his powers are slightly better built than mine, throwing on the always on flaw is a very good idea here

but yeah if you have questions, or notice i fucked up, let me know please

also sorry if thats hard to read, Im pretty tired rn

Wow, I really am speechless. Thank you for giving such a hard look at this. I kind of wanna try this now with the char that I mentioned earlier (like you said no sane GM would allow this but maybe if I promise to roleplay the char effectively enough it could be interesting)

keep in mind the recommended budget is 250 points, and getting 1 in every stat costs 30 points (though a lot of gm's I play with just start everyone at 2 )

I think if I was to start him I would consider dumping significantly less dice in the time loop power to start. I would probably keep it to 3-4 hard dice. That way, the dm can have some time to think of ways to work around it before it ramps up into infinity.

Yeah, sorry I though I included that in my post. Must've forgot.

Also that character was more meant to represent the character from the story he mentioned, so it's very much the end result.

But yeah 4 hard dice is fine for a power like that, especially in lower power games

Hey, guy from way earlier here, I was just wondering how combat works in this game? Also, how do you plan around pcs that could theoretically do anything?

Combat goes: Declare (everyone announces what they're doing in ascending order of Sense), Roll (everyone rolls their relevant dicepools), Resolve (actions occur in order of descending width, height is used as a tie-breaker). This means that you might declare for an action and have someone else beat you to the punch or work around what you're doing if they've got a clearer view of the fight, it makes combat frenetic and unreliable which keeps things feeling dangerous.

Don't worry about planning around your PCs until you know how they'll operate. Throw a couple of paper tigers at them to let them strut their stuff and get a handle on the way they play, then hit them with something bizarre and difficult to respond to - keep them on the back foot so they're responding to you and force them to adapt to you so when they overcome whatever is in store it's all the more rewarding.

Then think about what happened and consider how to plan around them.

If I remember correctly they also ran an interesting Better Angels campaign that is pretty much the alpha play through of what ended up the No Soul Left Behind splat/advenutures about fresh new demonicly possesed villian students and teachers at a school.

One last question, are hard dice as overpowered as they seem?

It's a fairly huge series, something like 30 episodes in length, so I can't summarize the whole thing, but basically it takes place in very comic-booky world after an event called Ragnarok that wiped away all the old superheroes (who formed a group called the Ideal), so it follows a group of new heroes who step up to take their place. It's a very broad, marvel-esque setting with supersoldier drugs, alien technology and magic. The GM, Ross, also knows his players really well and knows that most of them are crazy power-gamers so the threats he throws at them are quite extreme sometimes.

I'm pretty sure the first die in each stat is free, since it's impossible for a normal human character to have less than 1d in a Stat. Then again that may just be a really obvious house rule that my table has been using for years.

That really depends on a couple factors.

Hard dice in an offensive power are obviously extremely powerful since it means you're aiming for the head (or vitals in general) every time. That is, having 2 or more HD has the effect. I've found that having a single HD in an attack power or skill is more frustrating that anything; on a purely anecdotal level, having another normal die in your pool seems to give better outcomes. This is mitigated when you treat Hard Dice like Expert Dice, meaning you set their value before-hand to whatever you want, making them very good at doing called shots.

The "intended" function of hard dice is to allow for passive powers like armor or regeneration. Hard dice are also incredibly useful for defensive abilities. There's a sample power called "The Dodge Podge" which is basically a permanent Hyperdodge with 2hd. This gives a nice alternative to Heavy Armor, which can be quite punishing since you need to roll a Width of at least +2 over the armor's value to get anything done. Dodge Podge means that your character automatically dodges any attack with a Width of 2, but a Width of 3 will still hit. I used it for a solo boss encounter (a crime boss called The Reverend whose power, The Chronic, let him turn his body into a cloud of smoke) and it really ratcheted up the threat level since only the player's best sets could hit him before he'd poof out of their way.

On the whole, Wiggle Dice are a lot more powerful than Hard Dice, more-so I think than the game makes clear. The game gives examples of characters with +2wd in a power which seems like lunacy to me.

How would wiggle dice be more powerful than hard dice? Aren't hard dice the best possible roll?

The reasons that keep hard dice from being king shit of turd hill are:
1) They are inflexible, it's either on or off. If you choose to discard a hard dice from your pool you lose all of them.
2) More importantly, when you take dice penalties on an action hard dice are lost first (then normal, then wiggle). Having only a pair or trio of hard dice in a power leaves it susceptible to interference.

Eyeballing the character writeups in the corebook it looks like you're supposed to pay for them. That said it's not a terrible houserule (the only exception to the 1d minimum I can think of come from the Custom Stats intrinsic: for when you're building distributed AIs and magic swords that possess people).

First, hard dice get knocked off first when you take any kind of penalty, whereas Wiggle Dice get knocked off last.

Secondly, Wiggle Dice basically have the same effect as HD, but better. Here's an example:

Let's say you roll 6d and get the following results:

2,2,4,8,8,10

If you had a Hard Dice with that pool, you'd match it up with the 10 to have a 2x10. If you had a Wiggle Die in that pool, you could match it to the 10, OR any of the other dice you rolled. This means you could choose to have a 2x10 OR a 3x2 OR a 2x4 OR a 3x8. In combat where Width counts for speed, this is extremely important.

Wait, distributed ai net? You could build that? That sounds awesome!

Ok that makes sense. how do you fluff them on an attack by the way? Just say it's like aimbot?

Yup, take Custom Stats: No Body. This leaves you completely disembodied.

Then buy whatever powers seem appropriate to give your AI access to the world.

Yup, aimbot, an unrelenting torrent of hellfire, kills by an incredibly deadly side-effect that can't be avoided - whatever makes it on/off rather than a finesse tool.

You could, but you can also have them represent preternatural talent in an area. WD represent absolute mastery of the field, such that you can do something with anything you roll (infact in some other ORE products they're called Master Dice).

One nice thing that WD can do is pair with small dice pools. Some of the sample characters have pools for stuff like Flight or Sensors with like 3d+1wd. This means you'll always get a Set, so the power never outright fails, but it won't always be an amazing set.

...how do you hurt something with no body? Is it entirely dependent on how you flavor it? Like the ai could get hit with power outages or viruses, but what if they're just like a ghost?

Precisely. There are plenty of psychic powers that could inflict damage on a disembodied intelligence. What's nice is that since everything in WT runs on the same mechanics, you don't really need to work out new damage rules for unconventional combat. You're causing some manner of harm based on your Width, so it doesn't REALLY matter that much whether it's a knife, a gunshot or a malicious electronic worm sent against a sprawling digital mind.

From a GM perspective there's two ways to handle it, neither mutually exclusive:
1) Assign it hit boxes anyway (nothing says no body gets rid of these even if it seems counterintuitive), let appropriate measures deal damage commensurate with their impact. In addition some powers might not carewhether the target has a body or not (ie. certain attacks with the Non-Physical extra).
2) Come up with special rules for the situation. Exorcisms, viruses, whatever fits.

The other thing to keep in mind is that something with no body requires powers for the specific purpose of interacting with the world at all. If you deny it access to those it might as well be dead or at the very least is on the back foot while you find a more permanent way to deal with it.