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View Full Version : Green Lantern! [Brainstorming]



Krimm_Blackleaf
2010-07-29, 03:56 AM
So lately I've been pondering and obsessing over comics to a degree that some might consider 'crazy' or 'totally inhuman'. So then I disregarded their inane accusations and pondered the possibility of a Green Lantern focused game of some sort. Soon after I claimed I'd show them all and cackled at the sky for a few hours.

But anyway, I have only a little figured out for what I might do, though I don't feel like divulging what I've come up with yet for the dual purposes of wanting to farm the community for better ideas and because I'm utterly convinced I'm off my game(I mean did you see my last PrC? Seriously).

Also I'd like to note I wanted to make a Green Lantern system exclusively both because it's my current mad obsession and because I think focusing on a single facet of the universe could probably allow more complexity.

So playgrounders, what might you do for a Green Lantern game?

Morph Bark
2010-07-29, 04:27 AM
So playgrounders, what might you do for a Green Lantern game?

Kiss a lot of ass until someone else makes it.

Is the idea to base it off a different system, but how to create the Lanterns in it (through a custom class or PrC), or to create a new system entirely that focuses on the Lanterns and their enemies? (Who mostly are also Lanterns, just differently colour-coded.)

mrcarter11
2010-07-29, 04:36 AM
Well, my first question. Does the game take place before, during, or after blackest night. And something like this would be very hard to pull off. Half of the greatness that is a Green Lantern is the ability to make anything. That is hard to pull of in a tabletop. Then once you consider how different each lantern can do things... It is a lot of customizable options. I mean, view the two most well known Lanterns. Hal Jordan, would just make a giant fist to punch/smack things. Kyle Rainer liked to make the entire giant mecha to punch/smack things. Jordan shot beams from his ring. I remember Kyle making blaster rifles to shoot the beams.. It is limitless options.. You can't pull that off in tabletop. And if you remove the options.. You remove some of the greatness that is a Green Lantern.

Arbitrarious
2010-07-29, 04:44 AM
Hmm maybe some bastardized hybrid between summoner/psion(shaper) and incarnate where you create constructs with various traits and invest points to improve those constructs. Also I believe there was a class that crafted spirts you bound to objects posted a while ago. The point system for how many things could be made and what those things can do might be helpful. Finally d20 WoD magic system might be good. It has points like the ring, you can do almost anything with it, but when you tap it out your done.

Sleep now, more ideas later.

cooperflood
2010-07-29, 09:28 AM
I'm going to go ahead and post the obvious. Play Mutants and Masterminds.

Mulletmanalive
2010-07-29, 10:45 AM
I'm going to go ahead and post the obvious. Play Mutants and Masterminds.

+++ Eventually stops laughing +++

Ever tried to build a green lantern character in M&M? It's actually hillariously bad. You end up either being Synestro, powerful but flimsy to the point where it's not funny or you suck, mostly down to the stupid number of power points you end up spending on alternate powers.

The other option is dynamic powers and ending up with very un-green lanterny powers.

Admittedly, you can manage the boring stuff that the corps were doing in the Synestro Corps war [anyone else miss Kyle Rayner making himself a mech and then running the target over with a stampede of horses? This whole "pyew, pyew" blasting thing has gotten seriously old...].

cooperflood
2010-07-29, 12:12 PM
+++ Eventually stops laughing +++

Ever tried to build a green lantern character in M&M? It's actually hillariously bad. You end up either being Synestro, powerful but flimsy to the point where it's not funny or you suck, mostly down to the stupid number of power points you end up spending on alternate powers.

The system relies on the use of Hero Points. You aren't intended to stat out every possible thing a character could ever do. If I were creating a Green Lantern in MM he would have a few powers like Immunity (Life Support), Flight, Force Field, Create Object, Blast and Snare actually on his character sheet. Then I would stat out 10-15 alternative powers which I intend to use sometime during the campaign through use of Hero Points. If you find that your character isn't generating enough hero points through complications just add a few ranks in Luck.

Finally if your doing an all Green Lantern campaign it's easy to simply increase the number of PP per level or grant some of the basic Green Lantern abilities for free.

Hyooz
2010-07-29, 08:18 PM
You could always boil it down to something deceptively simple.

When you get down to it, as much stuff as the Lanterns can do, from an RPG system standpoint, making a giant glowing fist to punch someone is basically the same thing as making a laser gun to shoot them or a mecha to blast them.

I'd say keep the system as super-simple as possible. Say...

Melee
Ranged
Manipulation (moving stuff around, bending it, etc.)
Grappling
Defense
Locomotion
Willpower

Just random ideas from the top of my head. It would probably need to be a little more robust (say, sub-categories for each, save Willpower, which might apply a static bonus to all other categories. Ranged sub-categories might be targeted attacks and area attacks, for instance.)

Whatever you end up going with, I'd say keep abilities as generic as possible. Because really, anything one Lantern can do with their ring, another of equal experience and willpower can also do.

CarpeGuitarrem
2010-07-30, 12:14 AM
Well, I've a pair of recommendations.

Risus: The Anything RPG (http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm), which you may have heard of. It was written for comedic campaigns, but can also be adapted to more serious material.

Wushu Open (http://wiki.saberpunk.net/Wushu/WushuOpenRules) is all about characters kicking butt, and it's heavily narrative-based. The key rule is the Principle of Narrative Truth: unless vetoed for utter ridiculousness and inappropriateness, any action described by a player happens in exactly that manner. You roll dice just to determine exactly how far along that action advances things. You get bonus dice for adding details into the scene.

I would highly recommend checking out Wushu Open for this. It seems like an immensely good fit.

Set
2010-07-30, 09:21 AM
The Atomic Think Tank forums have a half-dozen or more different Green Lantern / Power Ring builds for 2nd edition Mutants & Masterminds, including one by the designer of the game himself. (Designs for the other rings also exist if you want red, orange, fuschia and periwinkle rings.)

Using 3.5, the Warlock makes a decent base. Dig into the Dragonfire Adept or whatever for some stuff like the Entangling Exhalation to add to your Eldritch Blast, and come up with some defensive / life support invocations, and you can probably afford most of the basics by 6th to 8th level. It's not a real Green Lantern, but it at least can play on on TV.

Chambers
2010-07-30, 02:27 PM
Regardless of whether it's a whole game or a prestige class or whatever, the Green Lanterns main ability isn't his/her power ring or what they can do with it. Their main power is what makes them able to wield the power ring in the first place.

It's their willpower.

The effects of the power ring, the boxing gloves, the mech suits, flying through space - these are all secondary characteristics. To use a D&D analogy, they are the specific spells that a spellcaster could cast - while their ability to cast spells is their primary ability.

For green lanterns this means their primary ability is their intense willpower, sufficient to wield and manipulate the energy of the power ring. That is what a green lantern system or class should start with, developing willpower mechanics. It might be something simliar to Amber Diceless, or any other mechanic that tests one characters ability in a stat vs another stat.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2010-07-30, 09:06 PM
My idea was to use some kind of heavily modified WoD system not unlike Exalted and not unlike M:tA. Instead of virtues there's the seven 'emotions', which would obviously determine the strength of the ring you're wielding. The Mage portion would be along the lines of what constructs you have, as something like the rote system. You can create anything you so choose, but there are a few things you create with unparalleled skill. Sure there'd be some synergy between emotions, mostly centered on Willpower, and it's ability to make sturdier/stronger constructs and Rage would probably enhance it's raw damage output.
I also contemplated a few wouldn't get constructs right off, or they'd get their own form of constructs. Reds would probably have to buy an ability to form them at all, but get the death-breath and aura-burning powers right off, and oranges would only get the identity-stealing portions right off.

Anyway, those are my probably lackluster thoughts thus far.

Aran Banks
2010-07-31, 08:49 PM
well, if you use the sphere mechanic (http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Tome_of_Fiends_(3.5e_Sourcebook)/Spheres_and_Feats#Fiendish_Spheres), this is a class for all types of lanterns (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50818). It's almost finished--the Will sphere (for the green lanterns) is almost done.