Probably the most unique, fun, and exciting game I played at Origins was something called the National Security Decision Making Game, or NSDM. This game is a political/military simulation based on real-world politics, and is designed to be similar to actual "wargame" exercises used by the military in real life. The way the game works is that each game (which lasts 4 hours for "fast play" or 8 hours for a "mega-scenario") is set in a different country, or sometimes multiple countries depending on the number of players. At the start of the game, the people running the game (known as the "controllers") give a brief presentation on the basic idea of the game, and then an overview of the situation in whatever country we are running. Then, each player is given a card indicating what person or group of people they are going to play - this could be a particular person (like the President), a political party, or a particular ethnic or interest group. These cards give players a brief overview of their objectives, goals, and capabilities. Then, players break out into their individual "cells" (each country is a "cell") and start making deals and doing stuff in order to achieve their goals. Players can attempt to take actions and pass policies by writing them down on slips of paper and getting the appropriate groups to sign off on them, then turning them in to the controllers. There are no dice rolls and few hard-and-fast rules in this game: mostly, the controllers (many of whom have real-life military experience) decide the results of any actions. However, the meat of the game is not in the military conflicts themselves, but rather in the negotiation and buildup. Also, sometimes the controllers will interject events in the form of "news broadcasts," but players can also instigate things on their own. At the end of the game, there is a debriefing, which is divided into three phases: the "Excuse Generation" phase, the "Mutual Recrimination" phase, and the "What The Hell Were You Thinking?" phase. In the debriefing, the controllers reveal the whole story, ask players about why they made the decisions they did, and give out rewards for the most successful players.
The first game I participated in was set in Indonesia. The controllers gave a brief overview of Indonesia, showing us a map and pointing out the various groups, including the natives of Borneo, who are under threat of being forced off their lands, and the Aceh party, a group who lives in the northwest part of Indonesia (which has lots of reserves of natural gas) and dreams of becoming independent. Another important issue is that the Indonesian military is responsible for a lot of the administrative work (like road work, health inspections, etc.) that is normally performed by the civilian government, and many in Indonesia want more civilian control over these functions. Role cards were distributed, and I was given the President card. The card stated that my goal was to keep power, gain credit for improvements in the country's condition, and assert more civilian control over the military.
As the scenario opened, all the groups started working on their domestic priorities, making deals to advance their groups' interests. The Chinese ethnic group, which consists largely of businessmen and entrepreneurs, went around to other countries (played by the controllers) to solicit foreign investment. Other initiatives included a bill for natural disaster preparation, which led to a player being designated as the "Indonesian FEMA person." The Muslims tried to integrate the goals of promoting their religion and other groups' aims for economic development by proposing the construction of a Muslim-themed amusement park called "Allah World." I focused on the goal of gaining civilian control of the military. I convinced the groups with economic interests to go along with the plan by arguing that more civilian control would reduce the appearance of and possibility of corruption, which would make Indonesia a more attractive place to do business. However, I wasn't able to convince the military to go along with the plan, and although I made several attempts at compromise I couldn't get military support. Then the controllers announced an upcoming election, sending all the political parties into campaign mode. While there were about 15 minutes left until the election and I had spent almost the previous hour unsuccessfully trying to pass my initiative, I started going around to all the interest groups and signing whatever bills they wanted me to sign in order to gain support. During the election, each of the candidates gave brief speeches, then all the groups voted. The non-military groups (except for the opposing political parties) all supported me, and the three military players weren't paying attention during the voting process and forgot to vote, so I won with about 80% of the vote. The military and the opposition parties then began making plans to unseat me.
Soon afterwards, we were faced with our first foreign crisis: a Malaysian vessel caught an Indonesian pirate ship engaged in piracy, chased it all the way back to Indonesian territorial waters, and captured it. As I was trying to negotiate a peaceful resolution, the commander of the Indonesian air force (who was a player who had just walked in and asked to join the game, and was given that role) launched an unauthorized airstrike on the Malaysian vessel. This gave the three other political parties just the excuse they needed to impeach me for "improper military response" to the situation. Seeing the writing on the wall, I resigned without a fight. (Later on, they revealed that their original plan was a military coup, but decided on impeachment instead because part of their goal was to uphold the "trappings of democracy.") In the confusion, however, the Aceh party put its plan into action - it declared independence and stopped all natural gas shipments to the rest of Indonesia. The rest of Indonesia tried a measured response, trying to negotiate a peaceful resolution while preparing for an invasion if necessary. But when Malaysia started sending over troops and military aid to help the rebels, the rest of Indonesia realized they were in for more than they bargained for. As the situation rapidly escalated into full-scale civil war, time was up and the controllers ended the scenario.
At the end of the scenario, the controllers gave out rewards for the two best players. In second place was the Chinese player, who stayed under the radar during all the conflict and gun-running and successfully focused on their economic goals. But the first place reward was for the Aceh player, who spent the entire first half of the game expertly manipulating all of us - convincing the military to pull their troops out of the Aceh region, making secret deals with various parties to buy weapons, and convincing Malaysia to help them in exchange for the Aceh region's vital natural gas resources - and none of us even realized what was going on until it was too late. (In this whole scenario, the only controller-initiated event was the pirate ship thing - everything else was the players' idea.)
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I liked this game so much that a couple days later I participated in another session. This time, I got there early enough that I was able to see a montage of player quotes that happened during previous games. They've been doing this for 20 years, so there are lots of them, such as:
"I need to flee the country to avoid prosecution. Is the Dungeons + Dragons room out of their jurisdiction?"
"When I want your opinion, I'll subpoena you."
"When will the show trial start?"
"It's not a show trial, it's a legitimate legal proceeding."
"Okay, but when will it start?"
"Just as soon as we can manufacture enough evidence."
(After being blown up by a suitcase nuke in a previous game, and later seeing someone not involved with the game wander into the room carrying a suitcase) "Oh no, not another suitcase!"
Anyway, this one had more people, so they split us up into two "cells": South Korea and Japan. I was assigned to the South Korea cell, and my role card said that I represented the farmers' association. At the beginning of the game, our first major issue was how to deal with the threat posed by North Korea. There were a few major options on the table - increase spending on the military and mobilize more troops up to the border, try a more open solution using the carrot rather than the stick, or ask China for help. I suggested that we capitalize on the North Koreans' dependence on food aid from South Korea to use it as leverage, and we eventually decided on a compromise plan that included elements of all three of the plans people had proposed. The first ew minutes of the game were relatively calm, with the exception of Kim Jong Il's player taunting us from the sidelines. But the situation soon escalated, when it was discovered that North Korea was smuggling drugs and counterfeit money through tunnels under the DMZ into South Korea in order to drain money from and destabilize South Korea's economy. As we scrambled to figure out how we would respond, we were hit with yet another crisis - a few days after a radiation leak was discovered in a nuclear sub, a South Korean vessel was attacked by a giant sea monster! This extra crisis turned out to be a false alarm - it was just a publicity stunt by a movie company to promote their new monster movie. (The nuclear accident wasn't part of the stunt; they just capitalized on it to manufacture the "sea monster attack" story.) At this point, I was mostly on the sidelines as my group's main interests were domestic, but it was still exciting to see how the situation would unfold. North Korea got more and more aggressive, sending artillery corps down to the border to get within range to fire on Seoul. We also learned that the internal situation in North Korea was getting more and more unstable, with Kim Jong Il assassinated, his son taking his place as leader, and all contact cut off between the North Korean and South Korean governments. The last straw was when Seoul was hit with a biological attack: a terrorist had contaminated the water supply with botulism, leaving over 1000 citizens dead. We interpreted this as an act of war, and invaded. We had the help of China and Russia, so we thought it would be an easy fight. But as soon as we started to invade, North Korea threatened nuclear retaliation. We thought that China had told us that they had "dealt with" the nukes, so we pressed on. But unfortunately that information was based on faulty intelligence. We called North Korea's bluff - but it wasn't a bluff.
During the debriefing, however, the true identity of the player responsible for the bioterrorism was revealed: it was a rogue general in the Japanese cell! Apparently he had his own ulterior motives, such as increasing his own power, and thought that a biological attack would be the perfect instigating event. We had all just assumed that the North Koreans were responsible because earlier in the scenario, they had kidnapped five Japanese doctors including a virologist, so we thought they were using them to develop the biological weapon. They also gave out rewards for the most successful players (there were going to be six awards this game, due to the larger number of players), but unfortunately I had another game to get to and was not able to stay and see who won. But since the end result was nuclear annihilation of the entire region, it's hard to say that anyone really achieved their goals. And as for the cause of North Korea's belligerence in the first place? We never found out, but the controllers did say that everything North Korea did (remember, there was no North Korea cell in this game except if you count the Kim Jong Il player, so most of this was controller-initiated) was based on what North Korea players "did to themselves" in a previous game.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Origins
I just came back from the last day of the Origins gaming convention. There is too much excitement for one blog post so I will be posting lots of different stories over the next few days. Overall it was lots of fun, and I got to play lots of cool games and live-action role playing events, including political intrigue, human-on-zombie action, space marines fighting space pirates, and much more!
Friday, June 11, 2010
Champions: Phoenix, Part 7
The battle continues...
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Our brave heroes got into the car and started driving away from the giant robots. Unfortunately, none of the people in the car actually had any skill points in the "Driving" skill, so they had to stop ant stop signs and obey all traffic laws or else they would be forced to make a driving skill roll that they would most likely fail miserably. Fortunately this was still enough to evade the robots for a minute or so, long enough for the injured team members to recover enough to get back in the fight. Just as they were cornered and about to have to fight their way out, two heroes teleported in to help them: Field Effect from before, as well as a new heroine who was mysteriously teleported in from an alternate timeline. One of the heroes who was already here was alarmed at this sudden intrusion:
Rift: Don't you know the rule about grass, cash, or ass?
Technomancer:What's that? Is that a technique for defeating giant robots?
Since the robots were so huge, they were incredibly easy to hit. Field Effect used this to his advantage very well, using his "Move Through" maneuver to gain extra damage, enough to destroy the three robots. Unfortunately that wasn't all that the evil Beta had up its sleeve: it sent three more robots around to different locations in the city and detonated them, then sent a fourth one flying through the Arizona skies at supersonic speeds - headed directly for the Mesa!
With the clock ticking, our heroes frantically tried to come up with a plan. Technomancer managed to establish a mental link with the evil Beta, and tried to convince it to give up its destructive ways. Beta replied that it was motivated by self-preservation: in order to avoid becoming obsolete, it would have to destroy anyone with the abilities to make improved versions of it. When Technomancer asked why it seemed to be going on an indiscriminate spree of destruction, Beta replied that it was for funding purposes - he needed money for "maintenance costs" and one way of getting that money was by accepting contracts to blow things up, apparently. Technomancer told Beta that he could make more money by channeling his efforts into more constructive activities. Beta replied that he was willing to continue the negotiations in person, and asked Technomancer to meet it back at the warehouse. Technomancer eagerly jumped at this opportunity, but the rest of the team saw the obvious trap and vetoed the plan.
In desperation, Field Effect asked his producers for help. They informed him that his sister was being held hostage at his house and they he could choose to either rescue him or be teleported on top of the flying robot in order to destroy it. After some discussion, the team agreed to split up: three of the members, including Technomancer, went to stop the robot while the other three went to rescue Field Effect's sister. On the robot, Field Effect ripped it to shreds with his super strength while Technomancer created a force field that gave all of his allies the power of flight so that they could safely bail from the crashing robot and land safely. Back on the ground, the heroes managed to rescue Field Effect's family, but unfortunately the new heroine from an alternate timeline, being new to the whole hero business, got confused as to who was on which side and zapped Field Effect's brother-in-law with a lightning bolt. But no sooner was this threat dealt with than yet a new twist emerged...
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Our brave heroes got into the car and started driving away from the giant robots. Unfortunately, none of the people in the car actually had any skill points in the "Driving" skill, so they had to stop ant stop signs and obey all traffic laws or else they would be forced to make a driving skill roll that they would most likely fail miserably. Fortunately this was still enough to evade the robots for a minute or so, long enough for the injured team members to recover enough to get back in the fight. Just as they were cornered and about to have to fight their way out, two heroes teleported in to help them: Field Effect from before, as well as a new heroine who was mysteriously teleported in from an alternate timeline. One of the heroes who was already here was alarmed at this sudden intrusion:
Rift: Don't you know the rule about grass, cash, or ass?
Technomancer:What's that? Is that a technique for defeating giant robots?
Since the robots were so huge, they were incredibly easy to hit. Field Effect used this to his advantage very well, using his "Move Through" maneuver to gain extra damage, enough to destroy the three robots. Unfortunately that wasn't all that the evil Beta had up its sleeve: it sent three more robots around to different locations in the city and detonated them, then sent a fourth one flying through the Arizona skies at supersonic speeds - headed directly for the Mesa!
With the clock ticking, our heroes frantically tried to come up with a plan. Technomancer managed to establish a mental link with the evil Beta, and tried to convince it to give up its destructive ways. Beta replied that it was motivated by self-preservation: in order to avoid becoming obsolete, it would have to destroy anyone with the abilities to make improved versions of it. When Technomancer asked why it seemed to be going on an indiscriminate spree of destruction, Beta replied that it was for funding purposes - he needed money for "maintenance costs" and one way of getting that money was by accepting contracts to blow things up, apparently. Technomancer told Beta that he could make more money by channeling his efforts into more constructive activities. Beta replied that he was willing to continue the negotiations in person, and asked Technomancer to meet it back at the warehouse. Technomancer eagerly jumped at this opportunity, but the rest of the team saw the obvious trap and vetoed the plan.
In desperation, Field Effect asked his producers for help. They informed him that his sister was being held hostage at his house and they he could choose to either rescue him or be teleported on top of the flying robot in order to destroy it. After some discussion, the team agreed to split up: three of the members, including Technomancer, went to stop the robot while the other three went to rescue Field Effect's sister. On the robot, Field Effect ripped it to shreds with his super strength while Technomancer created a force field that gave all of his allies the power of flight so that they could safely bail from the crashing robot and land safely. Back on the ground, the heroes managed to rescue Field Effect's family, but unfortunately the new heroine from an alternate timeline, being new to the whole hero business, got confused as to who was on which side and zapped Field Effect's brother-in-law with a lightning bolt. But no sooner was this threat dealt with than yet a new twist emerged...
Friday, May 21, 2010
"Champions: Phoenix", Part 6
The story continues...
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Field Effect couldn't come this time, so we had to adventure without him and never got a chance to find out what happened to his sister. Instead, we tried to follow up on our previous leads, looking for the mysterious place where they lured people with promises of jobs and then disintegrated them. (Evidently, the economy must have been pretty bad.) We interrogated the three people we captured before. The first one, no useful information. The second one, "Yellow Juice," told the whole story - he said he had been taken in a bus with covered-up windows so he couldn't see where he was going, then got taken to a warehouse where the shenanigans took place. Unfortunately he didn't remember enough information to tell where he was taken. The final one was "Purple Heart," except the word "heart" was replaced by another word beginning with the letter H that I can't write because this is a family friendly blog. She was the mentalist and stated that she knew where she was taken because she read the driver's mind, but was only willing to give up the information if she would be promised release, and neither Agent Randall nor the rest of the team was willing to make that promise. Fortunately, they were able to get enough information from the previous interrogations, that with the help of a few good die rolls and an assist from All-Purpose Bob, they able to pinpoint a potential location based on electricity usage.
Our brave heroes traveled to the site, and found an abandoned junkyard with several large piles of junk. While going there, they met up with a new hero, "Mr. Sarcastic," who has special powers including a "Cutting Remark" and a "Witty Riposte." They approached the site, then Rift desolidified and went in to scout out. Unfortunately, he accidentally triggered the junkyard's alarm system - and the junk piles suddenly rose up out of the ground and formed themselves into robots almost thirty meters tall! Our heroes wisely decided to back off, and the junk piles receded. However, our new hero soon showed his true nature when Mr. Sarcastic decided to teleport right on top of one of the junk piles to investigate. The junk pile opened up and grabbed him - and his defenses failed to activate! The battle was begun.
Rift jumped right into the action, hovering in the air and ruthlessly blasting the giant robot. The robot also tried to throw Mr. Sarcastic at Rift - although he missed, when Mr. Sarcastic landed his defenses again failed to activate and he was knocked unconscious. Technomancer desperately tried to channel his energy into Rift to improve the power of Rift's blast, but he couldn't get his equipment to work. The robot slammed his giant fist directly on top of Rift and Technomancer, stunning them both. Rift was able to recover and continued blasting, while Technomancer desperately tried to teleport to safety. Alpha, on the other hand, had sensed the evil Beta's presence and fled the scene. Unfortunately, the robot trundled outside the perimeter and hit Technomancer, calling him the "creator." Technomancer couldn't take the hit and fell unconscious. Rift was finally able to bring the robot down with a well placed blast, but as soon as that happened, the other seven giant robots started to activate...
Will Mr. Sarcastic prove to be an asset or a liability? Will our heroes turn the tide of battle and defeat the robots? Will the author of this blog realize how cliched and overused the phrase "tide of battle" is? Find out next time on "Champions: Phoenix?"
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Field Effect couldn't come this time, so we had to adventure without him and never got a chance to find out what happened to his sister. Instead, we tried to follow up on our previous leads, looking for the mysterious place where they lured people with promises of jobs and then disintegrated them. (Evidently, the economy must have been pretty bad.) We interrogated the three people we captured before. The first one, no useful information. The second one, "Yellow Juice," told the whole story - he said he had been taken in a bus with covered-up windows so he couldn't see where he was going, then got taken to a warehouse where the shenanigans took place. Unfortunately he didn't remember enough information to tell where he was taken. The final one was "Purple Heart," except the word "heart" was replaced by another word beginning with the letter H that I can't write because this is a family friendly blog. She was the mentalist and stated that she knew where she was taken because she read the driver's mind, but was only willing to give up the information if she would be promised release, and neither Agent Randall nor the rest of the team was willing to make that promise. Fortunately, they were able to get enough information from the previous interrogations, that with the help of a few good die rolls and an assist from All-Purpose Bob, they able to pinpoint a potential location based on electricity usage.
Our brave heroes traveled to the site, and found an abandoned junkyard with several large piles of junk. While going there, they met up with a new hero, "Mr. Sarcastic," who has special powers including a "Cutting Remark" and a "Witty Riposte." They approached the site, then Rift desolidified and went in to scout out. Unfortunately, he accidentally triggered the junkyard's alarm system - and the junk piles suddenly rose up out of the ground and formed themselves into robots almost thirty meters tall! Our heroes wisely decided to back off, and the junk piles receded. However, our new hero soon showed his true nature when Mr. Sarcastic decided to teleport right on top of one of the junk piles to investigate. The junk pile opened up and grabbed him - and his defenses failed to activate! The battle was begun.
Rift jumped right into the action, hovering in the air and ruthlessly blasting the giant robot. The robot also tried to throw Mr. Sarcastic at Rift - although he missed, when Mr. Sarcastic landed his defenses again failed to activate and he was knocked unconscious. Technomancer desperately tried to channel his energy into Rift to improve the power of Rift's blast, but he couldn't get his equipment to work. The robot slammed his giant fist directly on top of Rift and Technomancer, stunning them both. Rift was able to recover and continued blasting, while Technomancer desperately tried to teleport to safety. Alpha, on the other hand, had sensed the evil Beta's presence and fled the scene. Unfortunately, the robot trundled outside the perimeter and hit Technomancer, calling him the "creator." Technomancer couldn't take the hit and fell unconscious. Rift was finally able to bring the robot down with a well placed blast, but as soon as that happened, the other seven giant robots started to activate...
Will Mr. Sarcastic prove to be an asset or a liability? Will our heroes turn the tide of battle and defeat the robots? Will the author of this blog realize how cliched and overused the phrase "tide of battle" is? Find out next time on "Champions: Phoenix?"
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Math and Gaming Superstitions
Even though you would expect that gamers would tend to be rational and good at math, I have noticed that gamers have a lot of superstitions and misunderstandings of probability.
For example, the sheer variety of dice-related superstitions is legendary. Frequently gamers will refer to some dice as being "lucky" or "unlucky." This in itself may sometimes make sense because it is possible that a die might be defective and so produce uneven results, but there are lots of superstitions that can't be explained that way. For example, one gamer told me that his group didn't want him to touch their dice because any dice he touched would suddenly "have their luck drained" and "roll horribly for months." And if you do a google search for "dice superstitions" you will find a whole lot more, like people who put dice that roll poorly in a freezer to "teach them a lesson."
Another common category of misunderstandings is not understanding independence of events. Frequently when someone gets a very good roll on something unimportant he will express regret at "wasting" a good roll. Of course getting this roll in no way impacts any future rolls. Last night I was playing Magic: The Gathering. It was a "draft" format which means you pass booster packs around, "drafting" cards out of the packs, and making a deck with the cards you draft. My opponent had a "Tome Scour" card in his deck that "mills"a target player five cards - i.e. makes him put five cards from the top of his library (draw pile) into his graveyard (discard pile). The main use of this type of card is in "mill decks" that try to win by emptying out the opponent's library (because if you have no cards to draw at the start of your turn you lose.) My opponent didn't have kind of deck but did say that he liked that card because "in the last game, I milled out lots of really good cards." Of course, milling out cards does not affect the average quality of the cards coming up - it's just as likely you will mill out poor cards and leave the opponent with the good ones.
Of course, sometimes the players aren't the ones that get the probability messed up - sometimes the players know more about probability than the game designers. My problem from a while ago, "Mathematically Challenged," is based on the actual skill challenge system in D+D 4th edition. If you didn't allow the "aid another" trick described in the problem (and the rules actually said you weren't supposed to allow that trick) I think the calculation was something like the characters had about a 7% chance of succeeding at an average difficulty skill challenge. After this was discovered, they released errata* that changed all the difficulty levels and challenge rules so that instead of it being a 7% chance of success, it was more like a 99.7% chance.
*There are currently over 100 pages of errata to D+D 4th edition, most of them to fix things which proved to be too powerful or easy to abuse. One recent example was Wormhole Plunge, a power that creates a one-square zone where whenever an enemy is in that zone, you can teleport him three squares. The trick was to teleport him three squares straight up, so he falls down and takes falling damage. After this he is then in the same square as before, so you can repeat the process. And the teleport is a free action, so you can do it as many times as you want in one turn, so you can keep going until the monster is dead, no matter how tough the monster is. And this is a power you can get at level 1. The fix was to make it so you can only do the teleport once per round.
For example, the sheer variety of dice-related superstitions is legendary. Frequently gamers will refer to some dice as being "lucky" or "unlucky." This in itself may sometimes make sense because it is possible that a die might be defective and so produce uneven results, but there are lots of superstitions that can't be explained that way. For example, one gamer told me that his group didn't want him to touch their dice because any dice he touched would suddenly "have their luck drained" and "roll horribly for months." And if you do a google search for "dice superstitions" you will find a whole lot more, like people who put dice that roll poorly in a freezer to "teach them a lesson."
Another common category of misunderstandings is not understanding independence of events. Frequently when someone gets a very good roll on something unimportant he will express regret at "wasting" a good roll. Of course getting this roll in no way impacts any future rolls. Last night I was playing Magic: The Gathering. It was a "draft" format which means you pass booster packs around, "drafting" cards out of the packs, and making a deck with the cards you draft. My opponent had a "Tome Scour" card in his deck that "mills"a target player five cards - i.e. makes him put five cards from the top of his library (draw pile) into his graveyard (discard pile). The main use of this type of card is in "mill decks" that try to win by emptying out the opponent's library (because if you have no cards to draw at the start of your turn you lose.) My opponent didn't have kind of deck but did say that he liked that card because "in the last game, I milled out lots of really good cards." Of course, milling out cards does not affect the average quality of the cards coming up - it's just as likely you will mill out poor cards and leave the opponent with the good ones.
Of course, sometimes the players aren't the ones that get the probability messed up - sometimes the players know more about probability than the game designers. My problem from a while ago, "Mathematically Challenged," is based on the actual skill challenge system in D+D 4th edition. If you didn't allow the "aid another" trick described in the problem (and the rules actually said you weren't supposed to allow that trick) I think the calculation was something like the characters had about a 7% chance of succeeding at an average difficulty skill challenge. After this was discovered, they released errata* that changed all the difficulty levels and challenge rules so that instead of it being a 7% chance of success, it was more like a 99.7% chance.
*There are currently over 100 pages of errata to D+D 4th edition, most of them to fix things which proved to be too powerful or easy to abuse. One recent example was Wormhole Plunge, a power that creates a one-square zone where whenever an enemy is in that zone, you can teleport him three squares. The trick was to teleport him three squares straight up, so he falls down and takes falling damage. After this he is then in the same square as before, so you can repeat the process. And the teleport is a free action, so you can do it as many times as you want in one turn, so you can keep going until the monster is dead, no matter how tough the monster is. And this is a power you can get at level 1. The fix was to make it so you can only do the teleport once per round.
Friday, May 7, 2010
"Champions: Phoenix", Part 5
The adventures of our brave heroes continue...
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When Field Effect returned, Agent Randall was anxiously waiting to speak with him. During the interrogation, Randall first realized he was getting nowhere, so they moved the interrogation into a sealed room, blocking all incoming and outgoing signals - including the one linking Field Effect to the aliens. With the interference from the producer's voice eliminated, Field Effect did his best to convey the situation. Although he still couldn't talk about it directly due to the neural block, he dropped the hints he could and eventually clued Agent Randall in. When the interrogation was over, Field Effect pleaded with his producers to remove the neural block. He stated that the government thought he was a threat to humanity, and was planning on locking him up, but if he could talk about it freely he could allay those fears and strike up a mutually beneficial deal. The producers said that they wanted to do so, but couldn't - putting in the neural block was illegal under the aliens' own laws, and if their government found out they would lock them up. Also, they gave out another shocking fact - when the aliens went to Earth to start the whole thing off, they weren't actually representatives of the alien's government as they claimed - they were just from the entertainment company making the show! Fortunately, there was an alternative option:
(Note: In the game, players create characters based on a point system, and you can get extra points by taking "complications", such as Field Effect's inability to talk about what happened. During the game, you get experience points, and you can spend experience points to improve your powers or to "buy off" complications, at which time you're supposed to come up with an in-game explanation for the changes.)
Rift: Technomancer, can you scan his brain and use your technology to remove the neural block?
Field Effect: He will be able to, just as soon as I get 7 more experience points.
Fortunately, he actually miscounted and only needed 2 more experience points, and was able to get those by increasing one of his other disadvantages. So Technomancer took him back to his lab and was almost ready to use targeted radiation pulses to burn out the neural implant and remove the block:
Technomancer: Before we begin, it's standard policy that you have to sign this superpower-alteration-experiment liability waiver form.
Field Effect: What? It says, you're not responsible if I grow extra tails?
The experiment proceeded as planned, and the only side effect was that the amount of susceptibility damage he takes when he gets teleported increased by 50 percent, but it was well worth it. We returned to Randall and resumed negotiations. Field Effect pleaded to be allowed to join Project EAGLE, because the aliens wanted him to be in danger, this would place him in danger, and if he was not in danger (and thus the show got boring) then the aliens could start making bad things happen. "The more danger we are in," he said, "the safer the world is."
Before we could finish our negotiations, however, the producers thought the show was getting boring, so they teleported us into a superpowered battle scene. We saw a guy being chased by thugs wielding blaster rifles. He was hit, then frantically fired off an energy bolt before being hit again and going down. Our brave heroes leapt into action, covering the victim while engaging the thugs. Field Effect flipped over the truck that the thugs were in - several thugs managed to jump clear, but a few got trapped under the truck. Then more thugs came in from a side street and opened fire! Technomancer ran up and got them in a stasis field, but Field Effect pounded the ground, destroying the stasis field but leaving the thugs unharmed. (Clearly not much coordination here.) Fortunately, Technomancer ordered Alpha to go around the corner and flash the thugs to blind them, which worked. Seizing the opening, the rest of the party unloaded with their area-effect attacks, taking out all the thugs before they could get off another round of shots. While waiting for the police to arrive, we tended to the victim, who soon woke up. He tried to leave the scene, but Field Effect stopped him. Eventually, he revealed why he was so anxious - "I don't want to go back to the Mesa," and tried to blast Field Effect but Field Effect knocked him out before he had a chance. As it turned out, the victim was Blueheart, a paroled supervillain who had just violated the terms of his parole by using his superpowers in a threatening manner (even though it was in self-defense). We then examined the guns, and began tracing them back to their source.
The source of the guns was apparently a militia leader who had a house on the outskirts of Phoenix. Field Effect, Technomancer, and Rift went to investigate, while Strobe stayed behind at home. They first alerted H.U.R.T. as to what they were up to, and H.U.R.T. told them to "proceed with caution." That proved to be good advice. As we advanced toward the house, we avoided two booby traps, then managed to get within Rift's teleport range. Rift teleported onto the roof of the house. He noticed several motion sensors, then reflexively froze in place just in time to avoid setting them off. However, he then decided to dance on the roof to set them off on purpose, to try to "flush out" the bad guys. This was not a good idea, as when he did so, the house exploded! The blast knocked him out, though fortunately he had his defenses up so he suffered no permanent injury. Field Effect used his stretching and super strength to put out the flames, but the fire destroyed any usable evidence.
We returned to Phoenix and reported back to Agent Randall. With the neural block gone, Field Effect could relay communications to and from the producers to the rest of the party. Randall agreed to let us join Project EAGLE, and they would provide us with a base of operations. Each side also had a few other requests - Field Effect wanted a few hours per week of "private time" that they wouldn't film, the producers wanted Agent Randall to wear a superhero costume, and so on. But the negotiations were a success, and just as they left, the producers chimed in with some news. Field Effect's sister, they said, "might need superpowers right about now." When Field Effect asked why, the producers said that "you might want to find out."
What will become of our heroes' latest enterprise? Will they find out what is happening to Field Effect's sister in time to save her? Will our heroes finally discover why nearly every superhero on the planet has relatives who keep getting in trouble? And will our heroes have the chance to enforce Arizona's new immigration law against the other kind of alien? Find out, next time on "Champions: Phoenix!"
------
When Field Effect returned, Agent Randall was anxiously waiting to speak with him. During the interrogation, Randall first realized he was getting nowhere, so they moved the interrogation into a sealed room, blocking all incoming and outgoing signals - including the one linking Field Effect to the aliens. With the interference from the producer's voice eliminated, Field Effect did his best to convey the situation. Although he still couldn't talk about it directly due to the neural block, he dropped the hints he could and eventually clued Agent Randall in. When the interrogation was over, Field Effect pleaded with his producers to remove the neural block. He stated that the government thought he was a threat to humanity, and was planning on locking him up, but if he could talk about it freely he could allay those fears and strike up a mutually beneficial deal. The producers said that they wanted to do so, but couldn't - putting in the neural block was illegal under the aliens' own laws, and if their government found out they would lock them up. Also, they gave out another shocking fact - when the aliens went to Earth to start the whole thing off, they weren't actually representatives of the alien's government as they claimed - they were just from the entertainment company making the show! Fortunately, there was an alternative option:
(Note: In the game, players create characters based on a point system, and you can get extra points by taking "complications", such as Field Effect's inability to talk about what happened. During the game, you get experience points, and you can spend experience points to improve your powers or to "buy off" complications, at which time you're supposed to come up with an in-game explanation for the changes.)
Rift: Technomancer, can you scan his brain and use your technology to remove the neural block?
Field Effect: He will be able to, just as soon as I get 7 more experience points.
Fortunately, he actually miscounted and only needed 2 more experience points, and was able to get those by increasing one of his other disadvantages. So Technomancer took him back to his lab and was almost ready to use targeted radiation pulses to burn out the neural implant and remove the block:
Technomancer: Before we begin, it's standard policy that you have to sign this superpower-alteration-experiment liability waiver form.
Field Effect: What? It says, you're not responsible if I grow extra tails?
The experiment proceeded as planned, and the only side effect was that the amount of susceptibility damage he takes when he gets teleported increased by 50 percent, but it was well worth it. We returned to Randall and resumed negotiations. Field Effect pleaded to be allowed to join Project EAGLE, because the aliens wanted him to be in danger, this would place him in danger, and if he was not in danger (and thus the show got boring) then the aliens could start making bad things happen. "The more danger we are in," he said, "the safer the world is."
Before we could finish our negotiations, however, the producers thought the show was getting boring, so they teleported us into a superpowered battle scene. We saw a guy being chased by thugs wielding blaster rifles. He was hit, then frantically fired off an energy bolt before being hit again and going down. Our brave heroes leapt into action, covering the victim while engaging the thugs. Field Effect flipped over the truck that the thugs were in - several thugs managed to jump clear, but a few got trapped under the truck. Then more thugs came in from a side street and opened fire! Technomancer ran up and got them in a stasis field, but Field Effect pounded the ground, destroying the stasis field but leaving the thugs unharmed. (Clearly not much coordination here.) Fortunately, Technomancer ordered Alpha to go around the corner and flash the thugs to blind them, which worked. Seizing the opening, the rest of the party unloaded with their area-effect attacks, taking out all the thugs before they could get off another round of shots. While waiting for the police to arrive, we tended to the victim, who soon woke up. He tried to leave the scene, but Field Effect stopped him. Eventually, he revealed why he was so anxious - "I don't want to go back to the Mesa," and tried to blast Field Effect but Field Effect knocked him out before he had a chance. As it turned out, the victim was Blueheart, a paroled supervillain who had just violated the terms of his parole by using his superpowers in a threatening manner (even though it was in self-defense). We then examined the guns, and began tracing them back to their source.
The source of the guns was apparently a militia leader who had a house on the outskirts of Phoenix. Field Effect, Technomancer, and Rift went to investigate, while Strobe stayed behind at home. They first alerted H.U.R.T. as to what they were up to, and H.U.R.T. told them to "proceed with caution." That proved to be good advice. As we advanced toward the house, we avoided two booby traps, then managed to get within Rift's teleport range. Rift teleported onto the roof of the house. He noticed several motion sensors, then reflexively froze in place just in time to avoid setting them off. However, he then decided to dance on the roof to set them off on purpose, to try to "flush out" the bad guys. This was not a good idea, as when he did so, the house exploded! The blast knocked him out, though fortunately he had his defenses up so he suffered no permanent injury. Field Effect used his stretching and super strength to put out the flames, but the fire destroyed any usable evidence.
We returned to Phoenix and reported back to Agent Randall. With the neural block gone, Field Effect could relay communications to and from the producers to the rest of the party. Randall agreed to let us join Project EAGLE, and they would provide us with a base of operations. Each side also had a few other requests - Field Effect wanted a few hours per week of "private time" that they wouldn't film, the producers wanted Agent Randall to wear a superhero costume, and so on. But the negotiations were a success, and just as they left, the producers chimed in with some news. Field Effect's sister, they said, "might need superpowers right about now." When Field Effect asked why, the producers said that "you might want to find out."
What will become of our heroes' latest enterprise? Will they find out what is happening to Field Effect's sister in time to save her? Will our heroes finally discover why nearly every superhero on the planet has relatives who keep getting in trouble? And will our heroes have the chance to enforce Arizona's new immigration law against the other kind of alien? Find out, next time on "Champions: Phoenix!"
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Updates on school
I will post the latest update on the superhero game soon but I have other things to talk about - like the fact that I just finished my last class of the school year! Of course school is not yet done - there are still the final exams and final project.
Also, I am making more progress toward finding a research advisor;. I talked to Sheldon Jacobson and he gave me some interesting papers to read. Also, Roy Campbell said he would set up a meeting between me and some people in the Beckman Institute because it looks like there is really cool stuff going on there, although that hasn't been done yet. Also, I went to a guest lecture by Eric Brewer of Berkeley about technology in developing countries (just look on his web site for some of the projects his group has done). That lecture definitely inspired me to start looking for projects that, like those, can have a major social impact in the real world rather than just publishing papers. (This doesn't necessarily have to involve developing countries, at least not directly: computational methods are also used in other important application areas such as energy and the environment.) I don't believe there are any computer science research groups at UIUC looking at developing countries, but Roy Campbell has previously advised a project along those lines so at least he would know where to start. I am planning on talking to him again a couple weeks from now; I'll post again when I know more.
Also, I am making more progress toward finding a research advisor;. I talked to Sheldon Jacobson and he gave me some interesting papers to read. Also, Roy Campbell said he would set up a meeting between me and some people in the Beckman Institute because it looks like there is really cool stuff going on there, although that hasn't been done yet. Also, I went to a guest lecture by Eric Brewer of Berkeley about technology in developing countries (just look on his web site for some of the projects his group has done). That lecture definitely inspired me to start looking for projects that, like those, can have a major social impact in the real world rather than just publishing papers. (This doesn't necessarily have to involve developing countries, at least not directly: computational methods are also used in other important application areas such as energy and the environment.) I don't believe there are any computer science research groups at UIUC looking at developing countries, but Roy Campbell has previously advised a project along those lines so at least he would know where to start. I am planning on talking to him again a couple weeks from now; I'll post again when I know more.
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