[Monster Rules]: Mind Control Rules

[mratomek]

The saga continues...

This time around, we tried exploring a bunch of new powers, including Hate, Laughter, Blindness, Paralysis and Stun. And I found that the characters I had created were grossly unprepared to deal with non-damaging effecgs.

In the opening rounds, Gishnu, Jake's practioner of mystical arts, had two of my character rolling on the ground, and a third enraged to a point that she started chasing after one of her own teammates.

The chaos created by the loss of control over my characters was painful and effected. We debated over whether a controlled character should be freed from his opponent if the opponent attacks him--or if the character should remain controlled, even when the controlling opponent is sticken' it to him. We went with the later--and it was brutal.

Any comments out there? For example, if a character uses domination to control an opponent, should he be able to repeatedly attack the opponent--as long as he maintains his domination over him; or as soon as the controlling character attacks the opponent, the opponent snaps out of his trance. Just wondering what you all think.

Back to the action...

Eventually, I was able to free my characters for a breif moment which I took advantage of. Master Blaster used his Sonic attack to completely blow away Captain amazine. With his first hit he Malfunctioned Amazing's armor, which drastically reduced his defensive capabilities--the following two rolls did massive damage, including a forced Fatality Roll which sent the good Captain to an early grave.

I got lucky again when Toxic sprayed acid on the Mad Bomber, temporarily blinding him and setting him up for some massive punishment from Titan, who used a Combo boost with his Brawl attack to do 7 total wounds in one attack--that's is a massive amount. Between him and Ms. Archer, they managed to take out the Mad Bomber.

However, the objective of the game was not to take out the heroes, it was to locate some evidence hidden within a safe deposit box. I suddenly turned my attention back to the objective and then realized--only 1 character, Ms. Archer, that I had created had the abilities neccessary to find the evidence.

And I was the one who created the adventure. Slight oversight.

During the next Round, Jake coincedenatlly targeted Ms. Archer and blasted off the game board, bring our game to an end.

Total game time was about 2.5 hours, wich comprised 2 different games which told the story.

A few other exploits were uncovered, including the ability to teleport the equivalent of 8 feet away and use Sharpshooter to negate any negative range modifiers. That was fixed only after he blew me to bits.

The other was the need for more self-control-type powers that would allow a character to defeat an opponent's control over himself.

All in all, the rules are coming together nicely. I hope to have a .PDF beta avaialable for general consumption some time in may.

[Ken]

Hey,

Obviously, I don't know much about your game (other than it sounds very tactical and map heavy) so its really kind of difficult to say that x should work this way, or y should work that way. Given that I'm a big fan of super-rpgs and have been putting one together for a few years now, I would like to respond to your Mind Control question. I'm going to approach this from a conceptual standpoint since I don't know your rules:

Its reasonable to think that the farther away a mental command is from what the target wants to do (or would normally react) the harder the chance of a successful mind control. That being said, if the initial command was something simple, like "stand still" (while there doesn't appear to be anything dangerous about this course of action), then the chance of success  would probably be pretty easy. Now, if you pull out a big fat Desert Eagle and rest the business end on the target's nose and begin to squeeze the trigger...well, thats different, and something rules-oriented should happen (like the target has an absurdly easy chance to break out, or you have to re-establish control with more difficulty or loose your hold completely).

Now on the other hand, if your mental command is "stand still (or whatever) while I lob fireballs at you", and you successfully establish control...well then light'em up.

Fundamentally, there does not seem (to me at least) that there is a difference between the Mind Controller attacking someone in his thrall than any other character attacking someone who is dominated. Controlled is controlled and as long as the effect of the power is maintained the victim pretty much has to grin and bare it. Now if maintaining control of someone is all they can do, then no, they shouldn't be able to attack, but if other actions are allowed while maintaining Mind Control in your game, then I don't see a problem with it.

I hope that helps. Looking forward to seeing more of your game.

Ken

[mratomek]

Ultimately, we settled on you later comment--once in control, a character is a victim until he can overcome the control. So if an opponent is powerful enough to dominate a character and force him to remian still as he hacks him down--so be it.

There are plenty of powers and special abilities a player could have purchased to make his character have more control over himself. So if he doesn't too bad.

Thanks for you insight.

I hope to make a PDF of the whole thing available before the end of the month.

Sincerely,

Matthew Yarro
Monster Rules

Not a game about Monsters--just a Monster of a game.