[OOC] Four Horsemen [Finished]

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mrdent12
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[OOC] Four Horsemen [Finished]

Post by mrdent12 »

Recruitment is open for a player. People who have applied previously get preference provided the PC fits with the group.

Summary:

The idea is the four PC's would be trying to bring about the end of the world opposed by the forces of heaven and the devils manipulations to an extent. You can think of it sort of like the Messengers tv show except the PC's are trying to end the world and not save it. Settings wise, it would be history as is, up until the game begins. So, no super powers, super science, aliens on earth, etc.

While it would be a limited run game(I have an idea for four adventures), the PC's actions will have a major impact on the world at large. Depending on how flagrantly evil the PC's are, the push back will proportionate as will the worlds reactions. There is no getting around people seeing powered people, but if done right it could get written off as crack pot reporting or buried by the government. Opposing NPC's will also be proportionate to the players restraint. In addition, if the PC's buy the benefits, having influence in say the FBI, CIA, local cops, mob, etc will be an option.

Tone:

Tone wise, it will be dark grey or dark(within in the bounds of the forum rules and taking into account this is not a solely adult only forum). Lethal damage rules will be used if the attack is lethal in nature(gun shot, rocket launcher, etc) or if the attacker is trying to go lethal. Mass combat rules will also be in play.

PCs:

PC's are PL 12 180pp. They should be powerful enough to not have to worry about most mundane threats such as cops or small units of the military. If mundane threats marshal, that is another story such as a whole jet fighter squad going after the PC all launching missiles or naval battle group all launching shells.

While evil, the PC's should still be united as horsemen of the apocalypse. So, no attacking, undermining, making it difficult for each other. In addition, there will be a a major motivation introduced in the first adventure for the PC's to work together. On top of that, all PC's get free powers

Communicate mentally with other Horsemen
Recognize Other Horsemen

Five things to keep in mind

1) While I am fine with having different forms, all PC's should have a default human form and appearance so as to pass as normal.
2) The power source, while the PC's might think otherwise, is divine and all powers are given after they do something awful. That event could be killing a brother, mistakenly killing a bunch of people(protest bombing/hacking gone wrong), or any number of things.
3) The devil nor heavenly God of good have given the powers, but the PC's can think that way if they choose.
4) The PC's do not need to match up with the classical idea of the horsemen(death, famine, etc). They could be any type of PC you can imagine.
5) I don't like to list powers off limits explicitly, but if it seems game breaking or too powerful such as insubstantial with attacking while in that state, arm chair psychic, etc we can work something out. The hope is each PC has something that makes them stand out.

House Rules:

1) Impervious is 1:1 instead of 2:1 points:impervious.
2) Skills are 1pp:3sp for noncombat skills.
3) Lethal damage will be as defined in 3E GM manual(3 degree of failure is staggered and disabled, four degrees is incapacitated and target is dying, lethal recovery even 1 degree of lethal damage takes an hour vs a minute)

The Ring:

Image

Known Powers: Teleport Horsemen plus enough for a van if all Horsemen work together, uncontrollable precognition, visions

Gold Bars:

Innate Create 14 Limited to Earth materials like stone, dirt, etc.

PCS:

Kaito Murphy: Breaking/repairing things hacker who can turn into a cloud of entropy.
The Cognangion: A meme incarnate hater of the world.
Garald Medvedev: Nigh invulernable strongman Russian soldier.
Vincent Colt: A blaster with violent tendencies.
Last edited by mrdent12 on Sat Jan 09, 2021 5:03 am, edited 17 times in total.
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Sakuro
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Re: [OOC] Four Horsemen - Interest Check

Post by Sakuro »

I would be keen on taking part in an endeavor such as you describe here. I also have an initial idea for a character as well. Do you have a general idea of scope (city, regional, global) for the game and PL?
Last edited by Sakuro on Wed Jan 15, 2020 5:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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mrdent12
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Re: [OOC] Four Horsemen - Interest Check

Post by mrdent12 »

It will be a global game starting on a small scale and growing ever bigger until it becomes global. How much the global establishment takes notice of/responds to the PC's is up to PC's actions. If the PC's are always surgical and brilliant with deception the world at large might even notice whats going on until it's too late.

I am thinking PL 12 180pp's right now with the idea being conventional forces aren't much of a threat unless they marshal their strength for a focused effort. The side trying to stop the end times will have their own super powered people though and the "devil" will have his own advantages and motives.

House rules wise, I am still on the fence, but they come down to(so far):

1) Impervious is 1:1 instead of 2:1 points:impervious.
2) Skills are 1pp:3sp for noncombat skills.
3) Lethal damage will be as defined in 3E GM manual(3 degree of failure is staggered and disabled, four degrees is incapacitated and target is dying, lethal recovery even 1 degree of lethal damage takes an hour vs a minute)
Spectrum
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Re: [OOC] Four Horsemen - Interest Check

Post by Spectrum »

How alien of characters are you willing to accept? I'm playing with the idea of a sentient virus/meme.
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Re: [OOC] Four Horsemen - Interest Check

Post by Spectrum »

Also, define 'end of the world'...

Scope

Local Area: a small localized area undergoes a species-level or higher apocalypse. The rest of the world at large is totally unaffected, maybe not even knowing of the events happening in the affected area. Still, you wouldn't want to be there.

City: a city or the vast majority of one, or an area of equivalent size is pretty much vaped.

Regional: a part of a continent or landmass, be it a province/state, geographical region, or sub-continent (e.g. "California"/"Uganda", "Sub-Saharan Africa", "India", etc).

Continental: an entire continent or even an entire landmass ("Oceania", "North America", "Eurasia", etc).

Planetary: an entire planet, or the vast majority of one. (If the given setting does not involve space travel and/or other worlds, then the scale effectively stops here, or skips up to Multiversal if the other worlds are not elsewhere in space, but do exist.)

Stellar: a solar system, every planet orbiting a star, the star itself, or the star plus everything in its orbit.

Galactic: a galaxy, most or all of its stars, up to all mass associated with it.

Universal: the entire universe, all or most galaxies within it, or all major galaxy filaments or equivalent highest-level structures.

Multiversal: The Multiverse, or whatever that exists outside of the setting's native universe (includes whichever flavor of Another Dimension or Alternate Universe is on offer).

Omniversal: the totality of The 'Verse/Series Franchise (if said totality exists beyond a Multiverse), containing all alternate dimensions, planes of existence, parallel universes, possible universes, timelines, alternate continuities, realities, and Multiverses. This goes up to some abstract ontological limit if the setting includes explicit metaphysical stipulations.
Severity

Societal Disruption: Civilization survives intact, but is forever altered. This may be due to the sheer amount of damage caused lowering the standard of living, or it may be a result of people being forced to adapt to the new threat(s) they face.

Societal Collapse: Humanity backslides within the affected area, regressing to pre-industrial levelsnote at best and pre-agriculturalnote at worst. Civilization may recover on its own, but not for centuries at the least.

Species Extinction: A dominant or major species is either wiped out completely or reduced to such a low population level that its recovery is virtually impossible barring intervention by an outside force.

Total Extinction: Life itself ends. No living organism of any kind exists within the affected area.

Physical Annihilation: The affected area physically ceases to exist as it did before, but remnants of it can still be found. It is nuked into glass, sunk into the ocean, or blasted into asteroids.

Metaphysical Annihilation: The affected area ceases to exist totally, without remainder, or perhaps even to have ever existed. This usually involves erasing it from time. This may go up to the elimination of even the possibility of the existence of anything like the affected area, if for instance the basic system of reality is changed or wiped out. This may get highly abstract, depending on how fundamental the metaphysical destruction is.
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mrdent12
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Re: [OOC] Four Horsemen - Interest Check

Post by mrdent12 »

PC's would be normal people who up until a week in game time would be regular people. At that point, each of them committed a horrible sin such as killing a brother, hacking a hospital system such that a lot of patients die without life support, or something that takes a seemingly normal(could be a criminal already) life and does something that is inherently evil. Even after the transformation, they can pass as normal people in all regards with the exception of now having powers. Being a living virus/meme could work in the regard that something about the character spreads easily.

By end of times, I am limiting the action to Earth. As the name suggests, the PC's are the horsemen of the apocalypse just not necessarily Death, Famine, etc. The first adventure is local to a city, but each of the adventures would build up to a world wide scale of destruction. Some people may survive it, but those would be the unlucky ones. Each of the PC's can have their own motives that manifest and drive them, even dominating whats left of the world or their piece of it, but they are all united in working together to bring the apocalypse about.
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catsi563
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Re: [OOC] Four Horsemen - Interest Check

Post by catsi563 »

color me interested, ive had an idea for a reaper for a while now. An aspect of Azrael the archangel of death
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Spectrum
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Re: [OOC] Four Horsemen - Interest Check

Post by Spectrum »

I'm a sicky today but thinking in a couple of directions:

A. a grey goo scenario
B. A zombie virus
C. A dark metal band in the direction of Dethklok
D. 'Mark Zuckerberg'

Again, I said that I'm a sicky today so not all ideas are necessarily good.
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mrdent12
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Re: [OOC] Four Horsemen - Interest Check

Post by mrdent12 »

So far, there is interest from three people, which is promising. I will give it another few days to see if anyone else expresses interest. If not, I would be willing to run it with three people at least for an initial adventure to see how it works out.
color me interested, ive had an idea for a reaper for a while now. An aspect of Azrael the archangel of death
An angel of death could work. If you jump into action with the whole reaper look(black robes, big sickle, etc) it might draw a bit of attention, but would be interesting.
A. a grey goo scenario
B. A zombie virus
C. A dark metal band in the direction of Dethklok
D. 'Mark Zuckerberg'
Depending on what you do to implement any of these it might work. One thing I will say is that any PC should leave some space for the other PC's. So, having a bunch of zombies/thralls/etc will work fine as an RP vessel(so long as it is not a catch all for doing anything), in combat I would ask for it to be limited so others can do something.
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Re: [OOC] Four Horsemen - Interest Check

Post by Spectrum »

Some good points. However, a good plan to destroy the world is one that people can't react to.

I'm curious on what other people come up with!

PS: Darn that Madagascar!
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Spectrum
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Re: [OOC] Four Horsemen - Interest Check

Post by Spectrum »

Turning this about a bit, what are you looking forward to as the GM? What would make this fun for you?
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mrdent12
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Re: [OOC] Four Horsemen - Interest Check

Post by mrdent12 »

My style of GMing is more collaborative than most. I give the players a ton of leeway and don't railroad so much. To put it succinctly, the NPC's are just PC's I control complete with their own agenda and motivations. They effect the situation as much as the PC's can. For this game, the idea is for the PC's to be be the bad guys and the NPC's play the role of heroes. Most situations would start as PC's are drawn to place X for another piece of bringing about the end of the world. From there, the PC's would largely drive the action how they get that piece with NPC heroes responding.

Given the level of interest though, I am not sure it can go the five encounters I had planned. If I went with three players, it would be a two shot. One to set the stage and one for the end of the world battle skipping some of the scenes of collecting the pieces in between.
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Re: [OOC] Four Horsemen - Interest Check

Post by FuzzyBoots »

I like the idea, but I'm honestly not certain how well I could commit to it.
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Bladewind
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Re: [OOC] Four Horsemen - Interest Check

Post by Bladewind »

I like the idea too, and was even more sold when you mention "the PC's are the horsemen of the apocalypse just not necessarily Death, Famine... "

Question - are you expecting the PCs to work together? If so, how? Mutual indifference/ ties due to being Horsemen of the Apocalypse? More than that? Less?
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mrdent12
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Re: [OOC] Four Horsemen - Interest Check

Post by mrdent12 »

Yup, the PCs would be a team. The bond being they are all horsemen of the apocalypse. Bringing about the end times is a big job and one or two alone against the agents of heaven and the devil's manipulations would be near impossible. So, the bond is partly an underlying sense of comraderie and also neccessitie.

I am trying with the idea of giving each of the PC's a free power to have a bond such that they can communicate mentally. The first adventure will also give a good reason for the PCs to be united.
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