Magneto vs Divis Mal

[Pendaran]

Y'know, I love Vampire: The Masquerade, but sometimes I get the feeling that that gameline is kind of like Batman in the DCCU. In both cases it is their most successful property, so they try to make every...single...product they make according to that mold. When I'm playing a superhero I don't want to sit in the gloom angsting about my gradual and inevitable deterioration into a monster.

That said, I do like the basic idea of taint and aberrations. In first edition, it is good at duplicating the operatic character flaws of your Tony Starks and Hank Pyms, the curiously unfixable hidiousness of Doctor Doom and Red Skull, the mad science mutations of your Beast types, and the cosmic threat of your Phoenix types. Also Deadpool. But the key to that working, though, is not making the mechanic so punishing that the player isn't having fun. Indeed, it is best to keep it mostly in the players control. Myself, I already have a map in my head for what Aberrations I'll get when I've got some expensive powers to buy. Really, the whole half-price thing is a wonderful mechanic, since it allows you to take the iconic flaws various superheroes have without feeling like you are gimping yourself.

1st ed handled the whole idea of that just fine, sure. It's why like I said, it tended to be an exception to the sort of stuff you're talking about vis a vis VtM.

I mean, 1st edition Aberrant has its problems, don't get me wrong (the rules aren't really balanced well, that kind of thing, there are some questionable setting choices), but it doesn't really take a lot to make it work. And most importantly, you never really feel like as a game it hates you and wants to actively hinder you for playing it.

I'd have loved to have seen that feel brought into a modernized, mechanically more stable, adapted to since then shifts in culture and etc etc 2.0 take on the game.

Alas, no.

[Powerboy]

Eh, the whole point of the Aberrant player's guide is to give games the mechanics to build people on his par (there's a lot of hilariously wacky stuff in that book). Book explicitly notes that eventually as the timeline progresses, other novas will reach his level of power. It was a rare example for white wolf of "and so can you!" instead of "npc is untouchable and you will never be as good"

He's untouchable in Into the Arms of the Angel of Wrath, but that's pre player's guide stuff.

What kind of Nova points would you have to start with to ever achieve that sort of level?

I know that, starting with the standard 30, you would need multiple lifetimes to get there.

I found a website once that kept records of their ongoing game- not clear whether it was online or tabletop- but apparently they took everything in the first Aberrant book as canon but it was open season after that, no predestined events. Apparently, in their game, Castus Pax really was the hero he pretended to be and, after initially losing to Mal, came back and beat him.

One of the big turnoffs of Aberrant for me is that I tried to be a good role-player and read all the background of the world first and then started to make up the character only to realize you can't get anything on 30 points.

Edit: Oh yeah. Forgot about the clever "We introduce this thing called taint that will eventually make you an NPC unless you never advance your powers as far as NPCs do so they will always be more powerful as if they weren't way more powerful anyway". And it's hard to just say "Well, we'll ignore taint and energy costs so you can actually feel like you can use your powers without being powerless for a prolonged period because the energy costs were built as an integral limit because of how powerful the abilities were.

But at least I understand why there was never a live action Aberrant as far as I know. One punch is thrown. "Okay, we have to get into out cars and drive ten miles north because that's where you landed".

[Pendaran]

I ran a game with a slight bump in starting points, campaign went for several years RL time, they got there fine. Moons were indeed transmuated to laser cannons by my quantum 6+ players. It's a bit.. honestly super insulting I guess to imply thus that such things never happened? Do you feel I'm just making things up when talking about games I have run? Nor am I some freakish GM exception.

It was also popular for a while in such online Aberrant community as there was to make characters on 300 nova points and that kind of thing, start characters off as Caestus Pax level basically, they got xp from there. I've played in a few of those.

The book itself noted "nothing wrong with doing campaigns on higher nova point totals".

One of the big turnoffs of Aberrant for me is that I tried to be a good role-player and read all the background of the world first and then started to make up the character only to realize you can't get anything on 30 points.

That would be the fault of a GM not tailoring things to a starting character then really. A starting character is just that, starting.

I found a website once that kept records of their ongoing game- not clear whether it was online or tabletop- but apparently they took everything in the first Aberrant book as canon but it was open season after that, no predestined events. Apparently, in their game, Castus Pax really was the hero he pretended to be and, after initially losing to Mal, came back and beat him.

It's always important for a game to be able to let the person running it express grudges against fictional characters, sure.

I've run a bunch of Aberrant games, both set in the modern day, in a custom "novas were mythical heroes and gods" ancient past setting, in a cosmic, Moorcockian space time bending combination of both, and while Mal has been relevant to some of them, it's only been in a "circumstances of the plot happen to intersect with some parts of Mal's narrative for a moment there." Novas like Mal only show up if you want them to.

[Pendaran]

Really this is the sort of thinking that gets you stuff like Vampire the Requiem's inevitable, inescapable torpor and considerable memory wiping for vampires and all the crowing of what a great improvement it is over the antediluvians as a looming doomy thing in a vampire game and how it "got rid of powerful npcs".

Sure, (even if you manage to get ahead with whatever you are doing in game), conceptually your character will one day go to sleep, their brains will get scrambled, their personal capacity will significantly decrease, and everything they ever did will be completely undone, but that's totally better than oh no, some npcs are powerful! I found the Fog of Eternity to make trying to do anything in Vampire feel more pointless than the existence of the antediluvians ever did. Sure, they exist, but unless it's Gehenna, they are also more or less irrelevant unless your GM wants to run something where they are relevant.

And you can say "sure, but the Fog of Eternity is itself irrelevant for your character in the comparative short term!". Yes, so are the antediluvians. But while unless one actually notices me or it's actual Armageddon and everything is ending anyway, I can pretty much feel like my character is not going to have to deal with an antediluvian, there is no escape from the Fog of Eternity. It is coming for you, it will get you, and there's nothing you can do about it. It puts a real sting into bothering to do anything while role playing some supposedly immortal night creature thinger as far as feeling like the concept of playing one is enjoyable. Maybe it won't get you in game (though it certainly will if you're playing one of those "then time skips ahead by a few hundred years, describe what you did in them" vampire games), but it will get you, and well outside of any kind of prophesied end of the world that may or may not ever happen.

tl:dr I find people's problems with Mal's existence to feel really overblown at times, and the concept behind why has lead to stuff in gaming that I've really disliked as a supposed "correction" of it.

If it hits a point of "they published a book that straight up notes other novas will eventually become as powerful as him and provides the mechanical tools for doing so" getting all of a reply that boils down to "well that doesn't count because clearly no one ever used them", well, yeesh.

[Pendaran]

Edit: Oh yeah. Forgot about the clever "We introduce this thing called taint that will eventually make you an NPC unless you never advance your powers as far as NPCs do so they will always be more powerful as if they weren't way more powerful anyway". And it's hard to just say "Well, we'll ignore taint and energy costs so you can actually feel like you can use your powers without being powerless for a prolonged period because the energy costs were built as an integral limit because of how powerful the abilities were.

Taint is pretty manageable in 1e in terms of the actual system. You have to really screw up to get past a point of no return with it as far as things like constantly botching to max powers, or constantly failing when attempting a rapid quantum recovery, or buying a metric ton of powers tainted for cost breaks, or etc. And even then that mostly gets you bits of temporary taint as far as those first two things (outside of the power buying, which gets you permanent, sure), which you can recover from. Your character can become powerful on their own just fine without buying tainted powers. I have played powerful characters in campaigns that I built from starting and then became powerful with earned xp over time, with the only taint I ever had being the default ones from having a high node (and the taint mastery enhancement got rid of those) and eventual quantum 5 default taint point. This is not an uncommon experience. The Teragen at that have the Chrysalis in 1e that lets them get rid of permanent taint, and again, is a thing player characters can do.

I'm sorry your Aberrant playing experience sucked? But you seem to believe that it defines the entire game and, particularly for how taint actually worked in 1e for instance, no, not really.

[MichaelC]

I've actually found that getting yourself to four or five levels of taint is actually desirable as most superheroes/villains. Operatic psychological issues are common amongst comicbook characters, and those that don't have psychological issues usually have at least one glaring physical problem, like a weird weakness, a visible mutation, or, in the case of guys like Doom, a hideousness that even super-science curiously can't fix. It's really only at six and above that you get characters that stop feeling comicbooky and start to feel like Cronenbergian messes.

[Sharpandpointies]

Hoo boy where to start. *snip*

Well, that sounds lovely.

Really this is the sort of thinking that gets you stuff like Vampire the Requiem's inevitable, inescapable torpor and considerable memory wiping for vampires and all the crowing of what a great improvement it is over the antediluvians as a looming doomy thing in a vampire game and how it "got rid of powerful npcs".

Sure, (even if you manage to get ahead with whatever you are doing in game), conceptually your character will one day go to sleep, their brains will get scrambled, their personal capacity will significantly decrease, and everything they ever did will be completely undone, but that's totally better than oh no, some npcs are powerful! I found the Fog of Eternity to make trying to do anything in Vampire feel more pointless than the existence of the antediluvians ever did. Sure, they exist, but unless it's Gehenna, they are also more or less irrelevant unless your GM wants to run something where they are relevant.

And you can say "sure, but the Fog of Eternity is itself irrelevant for your character in the comparative short term!". Yes, so are the antediluvians. But while unless one actually notices me or it's actual Armageddon and everything is ending anyway, I can pretty much feel like my character is not going to have to deal with an antediluvian, there is no escape from the Fog of Eternity. It is coming for you, it will get you, and there's nothing you can do about it. It puts a real sting into bothering to do anything while role playing some supposedly immortal night creature thinger as far as feeling like the concept of playing one is enjoyable. Maybe it won't get you in game (though it certainly will if you're playing one of those "then time skips ahead by a few hundred years, describe what you did in them" vampire games), but it will get you, and well outside of any kind of prophesied end of the world that may or may not ever happen.

This sort of thing in games spoils the whole thing for me. It's right up there with SLA Industry's big reveal that the entire world is nothing more than the mad dreams of a lunatic in the moment of his death (potentially a self-insert of the game designer EDGY META!) and that your character, ultimately, is nothing but a figment and nothing they ever do will ever amount to anything in this dream world in which the game operates that will, functionally, disappear at some point due to it being a death-dream.

It sucks the fun out of something when the realization kicks in that this character, whom I have come to feel is real within their own world, is never really going to accomplish anything of value no matter what. or meaningfully change, because of regression or being a figment or the world being static and unchanging or whatever.

It's right up there with GM's that force that idea on their campaigns -- that even if you succeed at things, nothing will really change.

[Pendaran]

Yeah, people gripe about powerful npcs ruining their game for them, but, you can very often just ignore a powerful npc. There have been far worse things than all of powerful npcs.

[Sharpandpointies]

Yeah, people gripe about powerful npcs ruining their game for them, but, you can very often just ignore a powerful npc. There have been far worse things than all of powerful npcs.

Absolutely. There are always bigger fish. Even bigger fish that people are not meant to take on directly, especially in games that really aren't about 'taking on stuff directly' a lot of the time. That kind of bigger fish is really part of the setting.

Granted, there are GM's who throw these things at players while giggling, but that's far less a problem with the game/setting and far more a problem with that GM, there.

[MichaelC]

Besides, you kind of need overpowered characters in certain positions that I think of as pillar-positions. Pillar-positions are institutions that, if they collapse, the setting itself becomes largely unplayable. You can't have laws and corrupt police if the institution of government as a whole collapses, for example. So you need defenses in certain positions that are unassailable to the players even after a year of accumulating xp. The key is just to make such places quiet. Thus kludging the effect that games like World of Warcraft achieve simply by making buildings indestructible.

[Powerboy]

I ran a game with a slight bump in starting points, campaign went for several years RL time, they got there fine. Moons were indeed transmuated to laser cannons by my quantum 6+ players. It's a bit.. honestly super insulting I guess to imply thus that such things never happened? Do you feel I'm just making things up when talking about games I have run? Nor am I some freakish GM exception.

Not sure if that's directed at me or where it's coming from. I remember totaling up some of the NPCs, not even the Mal level ones, and, based on the assumption they started on 30 points and the average experience per adventure, that it would take basically forever to reach that level. But I'm also talking about the basic book, not any of the ones that came later because we never got past the basic book. There's no intention of implying events didn't happen in other games that don't reflect my experience. My assumption was that you must have been running on a higher points level. I apologize for phrasing something in a way that was insulting.

It was also popular for a while in such online Aberrant community as there was to make characters on 300 nova points and that kind of thing, start characters off as Caestus Pax level basically, they got xp from there. I've played in a few of those.

The book itself noted "nothing wrong with doing campaigns on higher nova point totals".

That would be the fault of a GM not tailoring things to a starting character then really. A starting character is just that, starting.

I think the background doesn't really deal with starting characters very much and more gives a feeling of what this game is going to be then you get to character creation and realize that, no, it's not going to be any of that.

It's always important for a game to be able to let the person running it express grudges against fictional characters, sure.

The White Wolf stuff sort of gives the feeling that it's a wonderful story to read with minimal consideration that this actually needs to be able to work as a game. When I read the first Vampire book, I almost never wanted to play it as a game because I had a feeling about what the typical group of players would turn it into.

I read an article that dealt with the subject of Divas Mal though it was really more about White Wolf as an expression of the author's political views and certain characters who are a reflection of those views being invincible. Granted, as far as being invincible, you could say the same thing about Dr. Doom or many comic book villains.

I've run a bunch of Aberrant games, both set in the modern day, in a custom "novas were mythical heroes and gods" ancient past setting, in a cosmic, Moorcockian space time bending combination of both, and while Mal has been relevant to some of them, it's only been in a "circumstances of the plot happen to intersect with some parts of Mal's narrative for a moment there." Novas like Mal only show up if you want them to.

To be sure, that was a big part of the problem. Mal showing up or being teased to show up in power level settings where he doesn't belong, certainly not in games involving starting characters. I know there is a running joke. Game balance. White Wolf. Never say them in the same sentence. But a good gamesmaster can compensate for that. He can take the setting and ignore parts, even rewrite parts as not existing. No good GM would involve Divas Mal in a starting level campaign.

[Powerboy]

Besides, you kind of need overpowered characters in certain positions that I think of as pillar-positions. Pillar-positions are institutions that, if they collapse, the setting itself becomes largely unplayable. You can't have laws and corrupt police if the institution of government as a whole collapses, for example. So you need defenses in certain positions that are unassailable to the players even after a year of accumulating xp. The key is just to make such places quiet. Thus kludging the effect that games like World of Warcraft achieve simply by making buildings indestructible.

Not sure if I can express this properly but there is a sense that sometimes an overpowered NPC is just an overpowered NPC and then sometimes there's a sense that he's not really a character at all but an omnipotent plot device. So it comes down to how he's presented and that's both the game as written and the GM. If he's presented in the wrong manner, a manner that gets too confrontational, there's a point where players won't accept that this is an unstoppable plot device. Ultimately, he's a person just like them and they'll slap the GM in the face with it even if they have to suicide to emphasize how unbeatable he is or they'll be more mature and discuss it with the GM and just walk away from the game if he's inflexible.

In my opinion, someone like Divas Mal, depending upon the power level of the players, either should never be mentioned, should be a rumor in the background, work through minions and, if he does show up, should never give the impression that he's threatening the PC's unless they are on a level that they have the potential to beat him. There's a reason that Dr. Doom's main opponent was traditionally the one guy smarter than him.

In the particular case I experienced, I think there were several factors. White Wolf. Not noted for game balance to begin with. Combined with a GM who tended to get carried away with little thought for how this is going to play out in a game.

[Pendaran]

Not sure if that's directed at me or where it's coming from. I remember totaling up some of the NPCs, not even the Mal level ones, and, based on the assumption they started on 30 points and the average experience per adventure, that it would take basically forever to reach that level. But I'm also talking about the basic book, not any of the ones that came later because we never got past the basic book. There's no intention of implying events didn't happen in other games that don't reflect my experience. My assumption was that you must have been running on a higher points level.

It's coming from you, in a thread where I guess you're also selectively reading my posts, posting to say this:

What kind of Nova points would you have to start with to ever achieve that sort of level?

I know that, starting with the standard 30, you would need multiple lifetimes to get there.

Despite a few posts back my saying this:

I mean I've run a few Quantum 6+ games here and there (one of them having the players reach that place from starting no less, it was a years long game). A player once transmuted the moon into basically a laser cannon. Stuff gets insane.

As the fifth post in the thread no less. I'm not sure how else you want snark of "how many multiple lifetimes would that take" to be read.

My assumption was that you must have been running on a higher points level.

Yeap I did! I started them with a whopping 15 more, just so they could feel a little more established and rounded. It wouldn't have mattered in the face of a game that went 3 or so years as far as earned and spent xp.

I think the background doesn't really deal with starting characters very much and more gives a feeling of what this game is going to be then you get to character creation and realize that, no, it's not going to be any of that.

The background deals with everything from local city defenders to popular nova music singers to a guy whose only power of note is energy absorption to the top end superhero teams and factions. You chose to focus on what you chose to focus on. It's certainly on whoever your GM was as well for not noting that otherwise.

The White Wolf stuff sort of gives the feeling that it's a wonderful story to read with minimal consideration that this actually needs to be able to work as a game. When I read the first Vampire book, I almost never wanted to play it as a game because I had a feeling about what the typical group of players would turn it into.

I read an article that dealt with the subject of Divas Mal though it was really more about White Wolf as an expression of the author's political views and certain characters who are a reflection of those views being invincible. Granted, as far as being invincible, you could say the same thing about Dr. Doom or many comic book villains.

Then that is 100% on you.

And Y'know I was trying to be restrained I guess? Not wanting to have the typical godawful internet conversation that happens 99% of the time when someone says "Aberrant's political views" as far not asking what you could possibly mean here but this is the second time you tried to advance it as one of Aberrant's crucial, why it is a terrible game flaws.

What political views of the author do you think Divis Mal reflects? Because there's only one thing about the author that he shares as a thing about himself with Divis Mal, and several other characters in various factions of the game, both high powered and low, so I guess I'm curious what it is you feel you mean there.

To be sure, that was a big part of the problem. Mal showing up or being teased to show up in power level settings where he doesn't belong, certainly not in games involving starting characters. I know there is a running joke. Game balance. White Wolf. Never say them in the same sentence. But a good gamesmaster can compensate for that. He can take the setting and ignore parts, even rewrite parts as not existing. No good GM would involve Divas Mal in a starting level campaign.

Perhaps you're misreading me, because I'm suggesting that your problems with Aberrant, and Mal within Aberrant are not ones the game has, it's one you, and apparently people who ran it for you that implemented doing so poorly have.

Edit: Aberrant certainly has a ton of flaws (for instance: its use of armor piercing and aggravated damage need to be just straight up not used when running anything, as far as mechanical ones. And setting wise, the secret evil things Project Utopia does are often just... poorly thought out to an nth degree, both in implementation and unspoken implications) but the stuff we're talking about are not especially part of them.

[Sharpandpointies]

Not sure if I can express this properly but there is a sense that sometimes an overpowered NPC is just an overpowered NPC and then sometimes there's a sense that he's not really a character at all but an omnipotent plot device. So it comes down to how he's presented and that's both the game as written and the GM. If he's presented in the wrong manner, a manner that gets too confrontational, there's a point where players won't accept that this is an unstoppable plot device. Ultimately, he's a person just like them and they'll slap the GM in the face with it even if they have to suicide to emphasize how unbeatable he is or they'll be more mature and discuss it with the GM and just walk away from the game if he's inflexible.

In my opinion, someone like Divas Mal, depending upon the power level of the players, either should never be mentioned, should be a rumor in the background, work through minions and, if he does show up, should never give the impression that he's threatening the PC's unless they are on a level that they have the potential to beat him. There's a reason that Dr. Doom's main opponent was traditionally the one guy smarter than him.

In the particular case I experienced, I think there were several factors. White Wolf. Not noted for game balance to begin with. Combined with a GM who tended to get carried away with little thought for how this is going to play out in a game.

That, to me, is a GM issue.

Or, alternately, a player issue, where when players hear about this supposedly unbeatable thing from whatever resource informs them, they immediately get the idea that they want to beat it. And try.

...that's just dumb, and not the Gm OR the setting's fault. That's players having the all-too-common-but-not-universal flaw of being unable to cope with the idea that something in the setting might be more potent than they can possibly become.

At which point, really, they deserve anything they get. Keeping the story going is a great thing, but there's a limit to how much a GM should protect players from their own ego-stupidity.

And if the god-being actually shows up? Because it's logical in the story or because of player actions?

Maybe it's time for the players to actually grab a clue and NOT try to fight the nasty god-being (I'm using god-being as an example, but it could easily be anything else, even a grossly overpowered organization that's part of the setting).

As long as this is done sparingly (ie, something like this doesn't show up every second game session to ruin everyone's day, unstoppably), I don't really have a problem with it. ^_^

Mileage, it may vary.

[The Arbiter]

Edit: nevermind