Random psi-powers?

[Ricochet]

I'm reading Akira and some ideas are starting to float around in my head. If I was to GM a campaign in a world not unlike the one from the Akira manga, how would I handle players gaining psychic powers. This is what I've got so far:

- Random powers. You don't get to choose what you get.
- Exchange powers for challenges. No freebies.
- Not everyone get's powers. No more than one PC should have a power.

Any help with this?

[Jet]

I dont know where you're getting from, so cant say.

For the record- I dont like Akira, so yeah.

[jayholden]

Jan 17, 2011 14:53:33 GMT -5 Ricochet said:

- Not everyone get's powers. No more than one PC should have a power.

Any help with this?

That one part is lame. Most PCs want to be exceptional. Singling one out like that, randomly or not, will probably not be entertaining to the rest of the PCs.

You could run several 1-player games that go on across the globe at the same time and have occasional tie-ins every so often if you want to keep the powers to a minimum civilian:super ratio.

There's my two cents. Seems pretty interesting.

[Jet]

What he said. You make a game about Psi Powers? Cool. Only one player can have them while others are limited to being regular (if badass) humans? Nope, sorry, dont like it. If anything, it should be the other way- everyone has it, but one player at most has the option to pass them and get some more normal skill as a compensation and be a Batman of this group.

[Ricochet]

Is it that big a deal? Maybe I should add some ideas for the setting.

- Psychic powers are mainly a plot hook.
- Not everybody and his grandmother has powers.
- Players won't know about the psi-powers beforehand.

[malice]

I gotta agree with Messiah and Playah. I was actually in this thread creating a system by which players could randomly gain powers/challenges, when I re-read the first post and saw "not every PC has powers". At that point I said "f*** it".

It IS that big of a deal, because you're asking how to do something within the system that you have no intention of actually using the system to do.

If it's just a plot device, why are you even asking how to do it? You need it only to appear random to the players, since it's obviously *not* the way you're talking about it.

Either it's random or it's not, and either it's available to all players or it's not. It shouldn't be something exclusive that some players enjoy while others don't get a chance, and it should either be worth having in-game or irrelevant to gameplay.

So:

Random, available to all players, and worth having.

Or, not random (Because only one player getting it is not random), not available to all players, and not worth having in-game (Aka plot-hook). No one cares if during cut scenes your character glows with a special inner light that unlocks important doors, they care if you can make subsume their party role.

[Ricochet]

I still don't understand what the big deal is. It seems to me that you guys freak out if a DM hands out low-magic power in a low-magic campaign. Or, in other words, you think everybody should play Dr. Manhattan.

Some of the villains of this campaign would have powers. Most of them won't. That doesn't mean the players should have, or even need powers.
Now I wouldn't want the players to have access to incredible powers like Tetsuo (or Dr. Manhattan), but I might want to add powers that further enhance roleplay. I'd prefer stuff like precognitive flashes over psychokinesis. I guess I should step away from the randomness though. Powers should match the personality and skills of the character, and random stuff usually doesn't match.

[malice]

Jan 19, 2011 13:24:05 GMT -5 Ricochet said:

I still don't understand what the big deal is. It seems to me that you guys freak out if a DM hands out low-magic power in a low-magic campaign. Or, in other words, you think everybody should play Dr. Manhattan.

No I think we meant that no one should be Dr. Manhattan, ESPECIALLY if everyone can't be.

And while I don't want to put words in their mouths, I get the impression Playah and Messiah were definitely not thinking "Dr. Manhattan" levels of power, and I know I wasn't.

I'd prefer stuff like precognitive flashes over psychokinesis. I guess I should step away from the randomness though. Powers should match the personality and skills of the character, and random stuff usually doesn't match.

Precognitive flashes are already just a plot device, and they're so cheap they're hardly a power.

Hell, I have two friends who see their futures in their dreams every now and then.

If you just want harmless crap like that I once again wonder at why you asked for help in the first place. I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but what I've said in this post and the last is "you don't need help". You appear to have the thing handled. The only reason I posted this time was to clarify the Dr. Manhattan thing, but really you should be fine if you're just looking for plot-hook powers.

Precognitive flashes, cosmic awareness, destiny force... all are controlled by the GM and represent poor stone investment. If this is the kind of stuff you want to give to your players (they're all plot devices, I'd only ever pay for precognitive flashes because it's cheap enough to be worth it) then you're doing them a favor by controlling it, because no player should ever do that to themselves on purpose.

[Gemini]

ricochet said:

If I was to GM a campaign in a world not unlike the one from the Akira manga, how would I handle players gaining psychic powers...?

- Random powers. You don't get to choose what you get.
- Exchange powers for challenges. No freebies.
- Not everyone get's powers. No more than one PC should have a power.

First: If only one PC gets psionic powers, better work this out OOC with the players first.

Second: Assuming the players agree to point one, you'll need a fair way to determine who gets to be psionic. There are two ways: either the players work it out amongst themselves or agree to a high-card draw for the prize.

Third: To keep non-psionic characters interested, they'll have to have their own unique sets of abilities.

Fourth: For random psionic powers, you'll either have a Modifier, or some kind of Mastery with the disadvantage "GM chooses application" or something like that.

Fifth: The biggest problem is that the campaign seems centered around the psionic PC. He's the star. Even if other PCs have uber Actions like high-level Close Combat and high-level Invention, it sounds as though their role in the game world is simply to support and assist the psionic character. To make a campaign work, it has to be about all the PCs. It's an ensemble.

Suggestions:

#1: Run your variant Akira-world game, but allow each player the option of psionic powers.

#2: Alternately, every player may be required to buy the same "Mastery of Psionics" with the disadvantage "GM determines application." If all characters are based upon forty points, every character may be required to buy this ten-point Mastery, but then get to choose the other thirty points freely. Thing is, if you give one PC world-beating Telekinesis and another PC Psychometry, the latter is probably gonna get pissed.

Suggestion #1 is probably the most practical way to translate Akira into an RPG campaign. If players devise their own character, the responsibility creating a character they're happy with falls to them.