As for the specifics regarding why I 'rolled over' Imagine's legal ramblings, I'll refrain from explaining unless you actually want to know, as I don't want to come across patronizing. Suffice to say, the law doesn't work that way, and unless we as Special Agents had authority to remove evidence from the scene of a crime (probably to address an urgent threat), we would have to abide by the same rules as regular police officers. Taking Steel would be kidnapping, and taking her armour would be grand theft.
Shale is the type that feels he bears responsibility for everything the JLA does, so having a teammate commit felonies right in front of him was not acceptable. That is why he was frustrated by the situation; because he thought Imagine was making stuff up just so she could get her way, just like she dodged the accusations on the Watchtower and played dumb then. This really felt like an extension of that, so I as the player assumed you were intentially playing up that aspect of her personality. Sorry for the misunderstanding, and the inadvertent insult.
The felonies were the big issue for Shale, which is why before the whole misunderstanding came to light, I sent a message to Tumbler describing how Shale removed the Armour from the helicopter by stealth; after it had left the scene, but before it reached his destination. His intent was to preserve law, save the JLA from a scandal that would have hurt it a great deal, particularly in its present form, and also to save them from a situation where the team would logically have no choice bit to kick Imagine off the team for her actions. He respects Imagine, and actually would not want to lose her, though I think he is at a loss as to how to containe some of her more outrageous behaviour.
This is all just my perspective, intended to let you know what I was actually going on, as opposed to the more imaginative behinds the scenes explanation you described. Hope it helps.
Hey, does anyone with more experience with M&M have any comments about how I've put together Whippoorwill? Any advice?
Thanks in advance!
I love doing tune ups on builds. I'll try to take a look when I get a chance.
Also willing to take any advice.
Whipporwill, are the powers listed under your Quills alternate sub-powers of the device?
I've been holding back here, honestly a little anxious about continuing in a climate that seems overly hostile. My preference would be to continue with everyone on board, but if we can't all come to a peace, then I am willing to move on to other pastures, whether they are greener or not. My recent ventures into PbP have revealed to me that I have pretty unusual expectations regarding player agency in games, and with regard to the willingness of players to work together. I am slowing getting that that is not everyone's cup of tea.
I have the luxury of playing IRL at tables with people I've been with for more than a decade, and I've grown spoiled by the dynamic at those games.
As for builds, I'm not sure if I have adequately expressed it, so I'll say here that in MNM games, I always allow rebuilds after each of the first few encounters, and really almost any time outside of the middle of a story. That is part and parcel of the game for me. If you find that something isn't working, it won't be a problem to fix it.
I don't think there was any genuine hostility here. What we had was a misunderstanding, which I think has now been laid to rest; Imagine can speak to her part. I don't blaim her for taking offense; she thought I was making things personal, though that was far from my intent. I think it was a simple misunderstanding, and now that we have had the opportunity to talk it out, all is good.
I know you've expressed some reservations with GMing a PbP game as you are relatively new to the medium, but I think you've been doing a great job. However, if it is no longer fun for you, I can respect that. Let us know how to make it fun for you again. If that is not possible, then I'm not going to begrudge someone for moving on. However, I'll point out that with the recent injection of fresh blood, the dynamic of the team and the game has the potential to change, and it would be a shame not to give it a chance.
As for player agency, perhaps you can give us some guidelines towards what you like to see. I like to play logically, where characters act as though they were real life people, and make decisions based on what makes sense in their circumstances. However, if you would prefer something more four-colour, where the suspension of disbelief is far more pronounced, and we just go with it, then let us know, as we can try to make the necessary mental adjustment. If you prefer something in between, or off in another direction, give us a bit of a picture of what you have on mind.
I think we have a good group here, and the misunderstanding notwithstanding, this game has been a lot of fun for me.
Folks, I've already discussed this with GM SuperTumbler, and I have offered to step out of the game. We've agreed this is a good idea. I know I helped kick up some drama -- and although I re-assert to all the importance of protecting player agency, I still got off on the wrong foot and I don't think there's an easy way for me to recover. Moreover, I think this particular setup isn't a good fit for me and my style of play. I've already got a few PBPs going so while it's sad to pull out, I'm certainly not without other opportunities to play.
Since I've only just barely gotten started here and hardly met the team, Proxy can easily run off to help civilians and disappear off panel without affecting the narrative at all. Consider her appearance a brief "crossover easter egg." I'll post her exit in a moment.
I know I've seen a number of you around the PBPs; some I've had the pleasure of playing alongside before. And I hope to play with many if you in other games as the opportunity arises. I certainly hope other issues will resolve, and SuperTumbler will find himself able to continue running what looks like a fascinating storyline.
Best of luck to all of you. Happy funtime games!
Wait, What? How were you involved? Do you mean that little blurb you gave Imagine on asking her not to make assumptions about your actions or roleplay for you? I thought that was completely valid. If you don't want other people playing your character, it seems perfectly reasonable to me to set out that boundary. Better at the beginning as opposed to later. I for one don't think you've done anything necessitating exiting the game so I would ask you to stay, unless you really want to go for your own reasons.
Shale - yes, I wasn't involved in your issue (though I did weigh in an opinion) -- apologies if the above post made it sound like I was, you ninjaed me while I was typing it. :)
My situation was indeed as you describe. And yes, for my own reasons, I think it's best to step out before getting embroiled in the plot. But I very much appreciate what you've said.
Hopefully we'll get to play in another game down the road.
PS: Even though I am leaving, happy to take build advice still--always handy for next time.
Well, sorry to see you go so soon, DQ. Hopefully we'll be in a game together sometime that lasts a bit longer!
As far as the rest, I'm certainly hopeful that I'm not contributing to any atmosphere of hostility. I try to make my characters' reactions as realistic and honest as possible, and I'm definitely not going to avoid a little friction between characters as long as it's all good-natured. I've gotten the sense that Shale and Imagine have worked out their differences, and I'm pretty sure anything between me and Imagine is all good. We've been in a game before together, and I think our two characters may trade a few barbs to test each other. But I expect any sort of friction will be of a good-natured rivalry, nothing more.
I'm just here to write stories, all else is secondary to me.
Would Shale know enough about Barry Allen to know who Cobolt Blue is?
This is a somewhat different version of Cobalt Blue, but I was thinking that this is the first appearance of the character.
Roger. Never heard of 'im.
Ok, here is a question, is imagines mind over matter so much a suggestion you have to follow or a complete take over and you have to follow how she wants? It is going to matter in a sec and effects my actions in a major way.
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Hey Clayten, you're starting to make me feel bad! =)
Remember, your actions are controlled, but your thoughts are still yours, so feel free to lay in to some tete-a-tete if you like. Tumbler's favorite is "Get out of my head, Luthor!" Or just "Who are you and what the f*#@ do you want?" would work just as well. =)
Subjects consciousness is suppressed.
I've been frustrated by the fact that every time I want to recruit for 2nd Edition, one of the biggest arguments for 3rd edition is that there is an SRD. I get that. I use the heck out of the SRD for other games. I'd love to have a similar resource for this game. So I finally decided to do something about it. It is in very infant stages, but I've started working on an SRD website for 2nd edition. If you are interested in helping me out, just let me know.
If I had pdfs for the game, I probably would, but I just have the book and Hero Lab.
That incident where Wally West's Flash moves an entire city's population of 1 million is often cited in a lot of meme's about how bad comic books are at physics. Someone worked it out, and to make a million trips in the time given (.00001 microseconds), he would have had to be traveling some trillion times the speed of light.
And to add physics insult to physics injury, he is overcome by all the accumulated increase in mass caused by moving so fast, after he stops moving.
I'm an insomniac, and sometimes repetitive stuff can help me get to sleep. I'd be happy to help where able, but I know nothing about webpage programming. It looks like most of the framework is set up though and this would be mostly copy, paste, and formatting? If so, if you can tell what to do, I'd be happy to help out.
It beats selling your marriage to the devil.
:)
I still feel bad for J. Michael Straczynski, the guy that had to write "One more Day." He gets a lot of flack for how bad that plot shift was when he boss basically told him he had to get rid of the marriage in order to keep Peter Parker young and hip. He was told Peter was not allowed to be married, nor was he allowed to have them get divorced. He basically got handed a set of instructions that said, "Come up with a way to hand-wave all this history." He was being commanded to come up with something hackneyed from the start, and given a set of limitations on storytelling that made any reasonable set of events off limits. Basically, One more Day was Joe Quesada's fault, and Straczynski did the best he could with a set of dumb instructions and limitations.
I just set it up as a wiki site on Google sites. That is the same way that d20pfsrd.com started. For now, it is just copy/paste/ and clean up. I'm trying to change all references to power points to character points and hero points to victory points, since those terms aren't part of the OGL material.
I'll eventually go back and make the tables pretty. I'm pretty sure that I can automate some of the hyperlinking. Getting the text in and cleaned up is the big task at the moment.
PM me your email and I'll send you a link to edit.
Sinter, on the same note, I have some clean pdf's that I can send you if you want.
Formatted the Feats page, and started on the Ability scores.
I'm working on the Power Creation page of Powers page. Not sure if I'm going to work my way through the whole page to make it legible first or go ahead and start making pages for each power effect.
I plan eventually to make a separate page for each power, effect, feat, etc, with just the main rules on each top page. Probably will just work on making the whole thing legible for now. Or not. I'm pretty fickle, just wandering around doing whatever.
Also, remember that Power Points, Hero Points, and character names are not OGL, so if you run into any of those, change them up.
Good to hear. I am currently working my way through Power Effects in Power Creation. That and Powers are probably the two biggest challenges. I haven't used it yet.
question, do we have access to the JLA teleporter system?
Yes. There are JLA teleporters that could relocate you.
For the new folks, I would just like to reiterate that I am open to tweaking your builds if you feel the need. I don't have any problems, but if something is bugging you, or you feel like you need to change something to fit into the group, just speak up.
Also, Whippoorwill, I had mentioned at one point that I could imagine you previously working with/having a team up book with a hero called Knightingale. She is the daughter of Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance. She was a teen hero with lots of sonic control powers inherited from her mom, but then suffered a terrible maiming and lost everything but a sort of canary cry. At that point, she trained with Batman and became one of the Bat family as a more skill based character. At the beginning of the campaign, she was basically filling the Batman role in the JL, but the attack that formed our team basically wiped out that old team.
If that is interesting to you, I'll use that friendship to have her nominate you for JL membership.
Yeah, that's a good idea that I haven't gotten around to exploring. Let's go with that.
Maybe there was a new Birds of Prey team for a while with Whip, Knightingale, and another bird-themed woman.
Wow, Sinter, you keep ninja-ing my posts! I thought Shale was the speedster! :)
2nd Edition SRD is updated. I've worked my way through Hero Creation, Abilities, Skills (Still need to create tables in Google Sheets and copy into skill descriptions for DC's, which is time consuming), Feats, Powers (which includes power effects and powers from Ultimate Power, not the core book), and Combat. Working my way through Formatting Equipment. Lots of tables there, so it will probably take me a while. Once I finish that, I'll clean up skills and then probably move on to adding expansions. Those seem more valuable for everyday use than Gamemastering, World Building, and friends and foes. Eventually I'll try to compile a sort of bestiary and a big collection of the archetypes.
In any case, the most frequently used items in play should mostly exist on the site now, with the exception of Equipment, which maybe I need more than most players.
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how would you feel if I put myself in you without your permission?
In case you're unaware, rape is sort of the only thing on the boards that is 100% forbidden. Even Way of the Wicked APs usually start out agreeing that rape is not a thing.
Since you are a reasonable person, with the weekend to reflect on this, would you like to take an opportunity to perhaps walk this statement back?
If I could offer an observers take on that, I believe what he was saying that invading his mind was an uninvited violation. In most sci-fi settings, doing so is often considered tantamount to your unmentionable crime. His query also did not necessarily have any sexual connotation, so I think it is not fair to assume it was intended in that manner.
Second, I actually find the idea of banning mention of a crime against another to be far more likely to have the opposite of the intended effect. Victims receive the message that what was done to them was so unspeakable that it cannot even be spoken of. The result can only be to amplify the stigma already inflicted. (My day job is as a therapist, so this category of individual is something I work with frequently - though I am not specifically a sexual abuse counsellor).
However, I'm aware that this is a Paizo policy and not yours, and thus while in their playground, we play by their rules. I also can't remember if the policy bans mention of the crime (its existence), or more its use within storylines. I think it was the second, but I could be wrong.
To summarize, I believe Imagine violated authority over self by not asking consent to be in his mind. Clayface was only pointing out this violation and asking her to respect his boundaries. His comparison could be taken with a sexual connotation, if you remove the context that he is a genderless, non-sexual, amorphous blob, and so the lesson to him might be to be mindful of how such things might be misinterpreted.
Clayface is a semi liquid, he can literally place himself inside a person. No sexuality involved in this.
The policy does not ban the use of the term rape, or any use of phrasing that may be construed in the vaguest of terms as a reference to the crime. It does ban the use of sexual rape as part of a post or the use of it as a threat against a person or their character. The difference may not mean much to you, but they are worlds apart. Otherwise you would not be allowed to use control spells and effects in a game as they are in fact forcing a person to do something against their will.
Now we have two ways to do this, as you are not going to get the retraction and apology from me you seem to want. You can accept that though I used harsh language, by your interpretation as that is all we can go on, I did not do so as a threat against you or in a way that would take away your ability to play your character. Or, you can flag my comment and let the moderators decide if I have broken the policy and I will have to abide by their decision as I am in their playground.
Atlas (Kara), I don't think Clayten is out of line here.
1. I'm not sure he was insinuating rape. I think he is playing his character as too naive to even make that inference.
2. At the core of his statement, he is talking about consent and self integrity, and Imagine definitely took over his body and shoved his mind aside.
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2) He took the hero point to play a villain, and I can hardly be expected to ask each villain if they don't mind if I take them over. We don't ask permission to fill them full of swords, so that hardly seems like a fair attack. He was the one to attack us first, so it's specious to say, "Hey, I know that I was trying to kill you guys before, but you should really ask before you defend yourself."
1) To accept that argument is to accept that someone can threaten to shove themselves up your rectum in a naive way. That's just so odd.... Y'know, actually, that -is- a very interesting RP aspect. Kinda Heinlein "Stranger in a Strange Land"-esque.
That _would_ be a very interesting line, but the player has built no RP foundation for that. Indeed, he now is taking that position that stating that he will "put myself in you without your permission" but is, oximoronicaly, saying that is not a "threat against you or in a way that would take away your ability to play your character." If I take him at face value, that he does, sincerely, desire to "put myself in you without your permission" how does that.... How am I supposed to play that off??
I'm not being hyperbolic here. I'm sincerely asking how one is supposed to take that in an innocent and non-threatening manner? How would Sinter react in the same position?
P.S. I've offered the player the chance to soften the tone, but he's steadfastedly refused, stating that the only position that we'll playthrough is that he "used harsh language". Not so much as a "Nah, dawg, that's not how I meant it. Much love" which was all I asking for.
I'm perfectly willing to accept that position...I just wish there was a more friendly way to go that didn't mean that I had to accept his sincere statement of threatening to "put myself in you without your permission" as something normal and is really _my_ problem for thinking that's really kinda weird.
Thoughts?
Everything the character has said and done has been shrinking from conflict and child-like. I didn't read any threatening tone into the "how would you" statement, but that the character was making a comparison that seemed reasonable to him, your mental intrusion for his physical intrusion, which he was saying wasn't ok, not something he was threatening.
What Tumbler said; that's how I read it too. It was not a threat, but merely reframing the intrusion into himself that he was feeling in comparable terms. He cannot invade someone's mind, but he could pour himself physically into the voids within the human body, such as ears, nose, mouth, and lungs. Nothing sexual implied (not sure where you got rectum from), just a comparison of one violation of autonomy or personal space vs. another. When he said it, I immediately thought of drowning in him.
What, you mean these completely empty air spaces in your chest cavity are for your personal use only?
He has the wherewithal to know that would be innapropriate, and given how that would be innapropriate, what were you doing in his head without permission to be there? Better put it in perspective with an example.
I will for my part apologize a bit, this seems to be a bit of cultural misunderstanding. I said, I will accept that from your view this is harsh language. As this would be, I believe as it could be interpreted from a certain standpoint, harsh, I accepted this interpretation as valid.
Clay does not remember being violated by having his mind taken over, otherwise the language would go beyond harsh. Subtle does not allow him to remember this. What he does have is a voice that is intruding in to the only part of him that has ever been private in his short and brutal life as a test subject in a lab.
As for the not backing down, we do not retract statements as they are said. This would be going against what is required of us and our witness by Hashem. The wording was chosen deliberately as put from the point of view of Clay, he has the ability to invade your body, you have the ability to invade his mind. Simple and succinct. Softening the tone for your pleasure would change that which has been created when the original creation is as it should be. No less then tearing up a child's crayon drawing because you don't like how they drew a pony or destroying priceless historical artifacts because they are haram. So I stand on my statement as I will stand on any words I choose.
Edit: As to the statement of not a threat. I did not threaten you the player, nor did I use such a threat against your character in such a way as to force such an ugly thing upon them and take away your agency as a player. Both of which are within the banned offense. It could be stated that the statement can be in interpreted as a threat in character.
I'll be travelling for the next two days. Won't be able to post at all on Friday, and not until late on Saturday. Talk amongst yourselves, I hope.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/s
Thought this might be relevant to us.
The natural disaster scenario is neat!
Let me know if this is the sort of post you were looking for, or if I went too far in setting the scene. I'll happily scale it back.
Some ideas for complications: obviously falling people needing rescue, looters, busted water mains (for Clayten), gas line breaks (for Sinter?), LexCo experiments getting out of containment (for Imagine), and liquefaction of the earth (for Shale).
Hmm. Others?
Excellent work, Whippoorwill. Have a Hero Point!
He guys, I'm having some writers block with both of my Justice League games. Not sure what the problem is. I'll try to get things going Thursday.