X-Men: New Mutant Academy (Recruiting)
Dec 17, 2016 12:12:33 GMT -5
Dhark, GPMC, and 2 more like this
Post by dorkknight23 on Dec 17, 2016 12:12:33 GMT -5
Mutants, born with special powers that make them different from ordinary baseline of their species. Mutants have often been the target of persecution by baseline humans, who often view them with suspicion if not downright prejudice. The news is full of the conflicts between the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants which often cloud the public’s perception of both sides, while many fear mutant conspiracies or the hidden terror of a mutant lurking in their own homes. Public support continues to mount for a Mutant Registration Act.
The safest place for a mutant to be is at the Charles Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters, which also happens to be the eye of the proverbial storm, home to the X-Men themselves. The team serves as Instructors at the school, alongside the aging Headmaster Logan. The Old Man once known as the Wolverine might seem an unlikely custodian for Charles Xavier’s dream, but he and the X-Men are training on the next generation of teen mutant heroes to keep fighting for a world where mutants and humans can live in peace together. Amongst the larger crowd of students at the Institute, five special students are selected. They are going to be the next X-Men, if they survive the experience of being a superhero and being a high school student, two things that some people struggle to survive individually. Along the way there’ll be just as much teen angst as optic blasts, school dances ruined by Sentinels or party-crashing Brotherhood members, time traveling children interfering with your first dates, test prep overlapping with a team-up with the Avengers, and other high-concept sci-fi rigamarole hand-in-hand with teen high school melodrama. Nobody ever said being a mutant teenage superhero was easy, not like you ever asked to be one...
Building Your Character
I’ve decided to make character generationa little considerably more complicated, but ultimately a bit more streamlined for what I’m going for in terms of power/skill levels while avoiding forcing you to remember too many rules.
To build your characters, alongside the set stone counts, I’m instituting “background packages,” essentially -1 discounts to certain abilities, actions, modifiers, etc., and free actions. This way too, I hope to encourage a variety of concepts, both “next generation” type characters, alongside OC mutants, and other assorted oddballs. Remember you can’t discount an action any more than half its cost at full AN. (For example, an AN 10 action could not be reduced by discounts and disadvantages to below AN-5.)
Step 1. Choose a Legacy
Each character begins by choosing a Legacy, which includes the Mutant challenge in addition to certain. Any required Specialties are listed parenthetically. Actions and modifiers may be improved later with character generation stones.
* X-Men Legacy
[Has challenges Code of Honor 2 and Deadly Enemy (Brotherhood) 1]
Stackable -1 Discount to a single Ability, Action, or Modifier
Close Combat 2 (X-Men Multistyle)
Social Skills 1 (Mutant Culture)
Vehicle Operations 1 (Blackbird)
Mental Defense (+2)
Translation, Normal
* Brotherhood Legacy
[Has challenge Conflicting Interests at AN 2 and Deadly Enemy (Brotherhood) 1]
Stackable -1 Discount to a single Ability, Action, or Modifier
Close Combat 2 (Brotherhood Training)
Social Skills 2 (Mutant culture)
Either Black Ops 1 or Thieving 2 (Brotherhood training)
Mental Defense (+2)
* Hellfire Club Legacy
[Minimum wealth 5]
Stackable -1 discount to a single ability/action/modifier
Business Skills 2
Social Skills 4 (Hellfire Club)
Mental Defense (+1)
* Morlock Legacy
[Non-Human Appearance 3]
Stackable -1 discount to a single ability/action/modifier
Either Thieving or Hunting/Tracking 3 (any specialties)
Social Skills 3 (Morlock Culture)
* Civilian/Other
[GM assigns you a relevant 2 stone challenge; open to suggestions]
Stackable -1 discount to a single ability/action/modifier
Gains a single custom action at AN 4 (some ex.’s: Gardening, Journalism, Photography, Guitar, etc., etc.) OR Close Combat and/or Ranged Combat at AN 3 OR a bonus -1 discount to the Ninja action
Step 2: X-Gene Power
Not all mutants are created equal, and some of the fledgling New Mutants class can themselves be Omega-level mutants. Omega mutants have access to the powerful Omega-Level Mutant Powers action (described below). You may use any stones left over from other purchases to further improve your powers.
Players have three choices in this regard:
Option 1: Beta level mutants; 10 stones to spend; no limit on purchases
Option 2: Alpha level mutant; 15 stones to spend; must purchase 1 power at AN 7 or greater (or a modifier costing 6 stones or more), no other limits
Option 3: Omega level mutant; 20 stones to spend, must purchase Omega-Level Mutant Powers (described below) at AN 1 and 1 power at AN 7 or greater (or a modifier costing 6 stones or more)
SIDEBAR: Custom Action: Omega-Level Mutant Powers
Step 3: Your Teen
Each one like an angsty little snowflake...
Choose one of the following:
Popular: +1 Social Skills, Leadership 2
Athlete: +1 Close or Ranged Combat OR Athletics 3
Geek: +2 to General Knowledge/Technology/Computers (or buy at AN 2)
Outcast: +1 to Thieving, Black Ops, or Hunting/Tracking, +1 to Close or Ranged Combat
Step 4: Finishing Touches
10 stones to fill in remaining abilities, actions, and modifiers (or improve the ones you picked up along the way), plus select from 1 up to 5 stones in additional challenges. You need to make sure you have all abilities (Int, Str, Agi, Spd, and either Durability or Health/Energy/Regen if you purchased them separately,) at AN 1 minimum, and if you somehow made it out of this process without ranks in Social Skills or Close Combat I’d recommend at least AN 1 in both of those if you plan on interacting with NPCs or fighting (both of which probably will happen).
I’m also looking for players who would be able to post once a week with at least some regularity. Missing a week is fine, but I will push ahead with your character in a minimized capacity. Looking for people interested in character development and roleplaying over pure action, but there will be plenty of action too.
I’d like people to PM me to talk concepts and where they are at various stages of the CAD making process (if only to assist and to help proofing concepts later). Characters way more important than the numbers (although I like the numbers too, for various ranking purposes).
(I made this explicit in my thread about the closing games, but for transparency’s sake, players from my previous closing X-Men games will get preferential treatment if they want to reapply, but I also strongly encourage new players to sign up too.)
No deadline for applications at the moment. Holidays tend to be a bit of a dead time for games anyway. I’ll see how many applications I get, and after I meet a threshold I’ll set a deadline for final submissions. I also want this game to be a bit more intimate and character focused, so I‘m looking to fill just five spots. This likely will take more than a week, I assume. Feel free to PM me with questions, comments, builds-in-progress, etc.
The safest place for a mutant to be is at the Charles Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters, which also happens to be the eye of the proverbial storm, home to the X-Men themselves. The team serves as Instructors at the school, alongside the aging Headmaster Logan. The Old Man once known as the Wolverine might seem an unlikely custodian for Charles Xavier’s dream, but he and the X-Men are training on the next generation of teen mutant heroes to keep fighting for a world where mutants and humans can live in peace together. Amongst the larger crowd of students at the Institute, five special students are selected. They are going to be the next X-Men, if they survive the experience of being a superhero and being a high school student, two things that some people struggle to survive individually. Along the way there’ll be just as much teen angst as optic blasts, school dances ruined by Sentinels or party-crashing Brotherhood members, time traveling children interfering with your first dates, test prep overlapping with a team-up with the Avengers, and other high-concept sci-fi rigamarole hand-in-hand with teen high school melodrama. Nobody ever said being a mutant teenage superhero was easy, not like you ever asked to be one...
Building Your Character
I’ve decided to make character generation
To build your characters, alongside the set stone counts, I’m instituting “background packages,” essentially -1 discounts to certain abilities, actions, modifiers, etc., and free actions. This way too, I hope to encourage a variety of concepts, both “next generation” type characters, alongside OC mutants, and other assorted oddballs. Remember you can’t discount an action any more than half its cost at full AN. (For example, an AN 10 action could not be reduced by discounts and disadvantages to below AN-5.)
Step 1. Choose a Legacy
Each character begins by choosing a Legacy, which includes the Mutant challenge in addition to certain. Any required Specialties are listed parenthetically. Actions and modifiers may be improved later with character generation stones.
* X-Men Legacy
[Has challenges Code of Honor 2 and Deadly Enemy (Brotherhood) 1]
Stackable -1 Discount to a single Ability, Action, or Modifier
Close Combat 2 (X-Men Multistyle)
Social Skills 1 (Mutant Culture)
Vehicle Operations 1 (Blackbird)
Mental Defense (+2)
Translation, Normal
* Brotherhood Legacy
[Has challenge Conflicting Interests at AN 2 and Deadly Enemy (Brotherhood) 1]
Stackable -1 Discount to a single Ability, Action, or Modifier
Close Combat 2 (Brotherhood Training)
Social Skills 2 (Mutant culture)
Either Black Ops 1 or Thieving 2 (Brotherhood training)
Mental Defense (+2)
* Hellfire Club Legacy
[Minimum wealth 5]
Stackable -1 discount to a single ability/action/modifier
Business Skills 2
Social Skills 4 (Hellfire Club)
Mental Defense (+1)
* Morlock Legacy
[Non-Human Appearance 3]
Stackable -1 discount to a single ability/action/modifier
Either Thieving or Hunting/Tracking 3 (any specialties)
Social Skills 3 (Morlock Culture)
* Civilian/Other
[GM assigns you a relevant 2 stone challenge; open to suggestions]
Stackable -1 discount to a single ability/action/modifier
Gains a single custom action at AN 4 (some ex.’s: Gardening, Journalism, Photography, Guitar, etc., etc.) OR Close Combat and/or Ranged Combat at AN 3 OR a bonus -1 discount to the Ninja action
Step 2: X-Gene Power
Not all mutants are created equal, and some of the fledgling New Mutants class can themselves be Omega-level mutants. Omega mutants have access to the powerful Omega-Level Mutant Powers action (described below). You may use any stones left over from other purchases to further improve your powers.
Players have three choices in this regard:
Option 1: Beta level mutants; 10 stones to spend; no limit on purchases
Option 2: Alpha level mutant; 15 stones to spend; must purchase 1 power at AN 7 or greater (or a modifier costing 6 stones or more), no other limits
Option 3: Omega level mutant; 20 stones to spend, must purchase Omega-Level Mutant Powers (described below) at AN 1 and 1 power at AN 7 or greater (or a modifier costing 6 stones or more)
SIDEBAR: Custom Action: Omega-Level Mutant Powers
Cost Level: Action Number +6
Omega-Level Powers is an action that can be explicitly always combined with any mutant powers (restricted by the action limits per round as normal), allowing them to have additional stones for effect, towards defeating defenses, as part of a larger accumulation of energy, or towards style. Takes up one of the nine action boxes. Can only be combined with actions that have an equal or higher AN.
Overlaps with Phoenix Force and Power Cosmic but does not necessarily take the place. Could also be a good stand in for reality warper/”god-like” powers.
Additional Options:
Manipulate Time/Space/Matter/Energy at AN: +1 to cost level
Teleport/Fly/Move action at AN: +1 to cost level
Any powered action at AN: +1 to cost level
-1 discount for Mutant Healing
Omega-Level Powers is an action that can be explicitly always combined with any mutant powers (restricted by the action limits per round as normal), allowing them to have additional stones for effect, towards defeating defenses, as part of a larger accumulation of energy, or towards style. Takes up one of the nine action boxes. Can only be combined with actions that have an equal or higher AN.
Overlaps with Phoenix Force and Power Cosmic but does not necessarily take the place. Could also be a good stand in for reality warper/”god-like” powers.
Additional Options:
Manipulate Time/Space/Matter/Energy at AN: +1 to cost level
Teleport/Fly/Move action at AN: +1 to cost level
Any powered action at AN: +1 to cost level
-1 discount for Mutant Healing
Step 3: Your Teen
Each one like an angsty little snowflake...
Choose one of the following:
Popular: +1 Social Skills, Leadership 2
Athlete: +1 Close or Ranged Combat OR Athletics 3
Geek: +2 to General Knowledge/Technology/Computers (or buy at AN 2)
Outcast: +1 to Thieving, Black Ops, or Hunting/Tracking, +1 to Close or Ranged Combat
Step 4: Finishing Touches
10 stones to fill in remaining abilities, actions, and modifiers (or improve the ones you picked up along the way), plus select from 1 up to 5 stones in additional challenges. You need to make sure you have all abilities (Int, Str, Agi, Spd, and either Durability or Health/Energy/Regen if you purchased them separately,) at AN 1 minimum, and if you somehow made it out of this process without ranks in Social Skills or Close Combat I’d recommend at least AN 1 in both of those if you plan on interacting with NPCs or fighting (both of which probably will happen).
I’m also looking for players who would be able to post once a week with at least some regularity. Missing a week is fine, but I will push ahead with your character in a minimized capacity. Looking for people interested in character development and roleplaying over pure action, but there will be plenty of action too.
I’d like people to PM me to talk concepts and where they are at various stages of the CAD making process (if only to assist and to help proofing concepts later). Characters way more important than the numbers (although I like the numbers too, for various ranking purposes).
(I made this explicit in my thread about the closing games, but for transparency’s sake, players from my previous closing X-Men games will get preferential treatment if they want to reapply, but I also strongly encourage new players to sign up too.)
No deadline for applications at the moment. Holidays tend to be a bit of a dead time for games anyway. I’ll see how many applications I get, and after I meet a threshold I’ll set a deadline for final submissions. I also want this game to be a bit more intimate and character focused, so I‘m looking to fill just five spots. This likely will take more than a week, I assume. Feel free to PM me with questions, comments, builds-in-progress, etc.
