Seekers of Enlightenment Affiliation Guide
Red Serum
Type: Intravenous, Cost: Seekers Only, Addictive: No
Once injected, the AMP's powers are bolstered. For (Fortitude) days they receive a +2 bonus to power activations and checks against Disease or Infection. A character can only get one injection per month. More than that has no effect. Note, that the character is sterile for about 3 months after each injection and become permanently so after (Fortitude +4) treatments.

Quote from: AMP:Year OnePage 35
Changing Mission Statements
January 8
While returning home to visit her family, Stacie Winters went missing. She was a free spirit and didn't always end up where she was expected to be at the right time, but after a few days, the worry set in. Dr. Segal sent out his most trusted Seekers in hopes of finding her, but with no result. With so many threats out there, including Typhoon, the government they had swindled out of millions, the elusive Changelings and the militant UHF, the Seekers of Enlightenment found themselves with too many leads to follow and not enough manpower to do it all.

Jacob fell into a dreadful depression without Critter by his side. Drinking and fits of rage became the rule of the day and it was evident he cared less about the future without the love of his life in it with him. Then one day he woke up, put away his alcohol, and called for an emergency meeting of the Seekers where he said the following:

"No longer will we be victims. No longer will we be the nice guys. No longer will we have what we love taken from us. If our enemies want a fight, a fight they will get. We will not rest until we find out what happened to Critter and avenge her."

With that short speech, the Seekers changed from peaceful diplomats to avengers with a mission to bring their worst to whoever stood in their way. Even those who didn't necessarily agree with the decision stuck by Doctor Luminous.  He was their leader and had only made wise decisions to date. They also cared about finding Critter and were sure the temperament of the organization would return to their original mission statement when they found her... if they found her.

Quote from: Sommerjon;942717Seekers of Enlightenment Affiliation Guide
Red Serum
Type: Intravenous, Cost: Seekers Only, Addictive: No
Once injected, the AMP’s powers are bolstered. For (Fortitude) days they receive a +2 bonus to power activations and checks against Disease or Infection. A character can only get one injection per month. More than that has no effect. Note, that the character is sterile for about 3 months after each injection and become permanently so after (Fortitude +4) treatments.

Huh, they really should have included that bit of info in the Core. Also im not sure about the relevance of the section you quoted afterwards.

Quote from: One Horse Town;942683Interest waning. No, scrub that. Interest dead.

What turned it for you? (Might help in suggesting other games.)

For me it was this:

Quote from: TavelGorge;942675The powers are highly ad hoc for balance and power. My PC was able to take "Turning water to wine" and make us an infinite amount of pure LSD, Nitroglycerine, and Sulphuric Acid for whenever the situation demanded it. a later errata from the developer changed "Water to Wine" to "You can change the colour, taste, and odour" so if we ever played again that character goes from a broken level of utility to kinda useless.

There isnt a lot of framework for guessing what new powers should look like due to the above mentioned swing-eness of how the powers are written.

Quote from: Skywalker;942694I am a fan of exception based powers. I don't like free-form play or effects based powers (I have a damage power which I reskin as a fire attack or heat vision etc) as seen in M&M. I like my powers to have a defined effect.

I know Skywalker likes exception based powers. But that just isn't my cup of Dr Pepper. I'll agree about not liking free-form play either though.

ETA: Skywalker, you'd hate the game I wrote and am playtesting, since it is all effects-based powers (literally, assigning an element to the "Damage" power to turn it into a fire attack).

Quote from: Tod13;942722ETA: Skywalker, you'd hate the game I wrote and am playtesting, since it is all effects-based powers (literally, assigning an element to the "Damage" power to turn it into a fire attack).

I probably would M&M really burned me out on this sort of thing. I was like: "I have mastery over fire! So, that's Affliction 3 (Lasting Damage add-on), Body Shape 3 (Power Link), Insubstantial 3, Aura 2 (Unable to Turn Off)... Gah!"

On saying that, effects based systems do seem to be the norm for supers games, so its probably a safe design for your RPG. One thing that appealed to me about AMP Year One is that I could be a fire master and it would have some very cool and definite powers to chose from. That does decrease the flexibility, but I find the increase in usability makes it well worth it.  I particularly enjoyed that AMP Y1 applies this approach to a wide range of normally difficult concepts in super RPGs like having a Ghostrider style motorcycle, time manipulation, etc.

Quote from: TavelGorge;942720Huh, they really should have included that bit of info in the Core. Also im not sure about the relevance of the section you quoted afterwards.

You keep calling them the Good Guy Faction, when by the end of the timeline section(there is only 1 more entry) they were must certainly not a "good guy faction".

It feels like your group did a skim read of the timeline and jumped to assumptions.

Ah, but if they are presented at the heroic everyman good guy faction, then its perfectly fair to call them that even if their actions prove otehrwise...which seems to be the damned point, right?  That they are not actually all that good, writer presentation be damned.

Quote from: Sommerjon;942757You keep calling them the Good Guy Faction, when by the end of the timeline section(there is only 1 more entry) they were must certainly not a "good guy faction".

It feels like your group did a skim read of the timeline and jumped to assumptions.

Oh i see what you were trying to go for there. Feelings aside the Fact of it is that the Seekers are the Good Guy Faction for the entire metaplot Year One covers, only having a radical shift (which results in them giving off an grim and gritty reboot vibe) as the plot ends as a sort of cliff hanger shake up. Its an interesting idea you present but seems to be a bit facetious. Its almost like taking umbridge with calling Darth Vader "The Bad Guy" by saying "But at the end of Jedi he kills the Emperor and saves his son, sounds like you didnt really watch the movies."

Seekers from AMP
"An organisation connected to previous secret projects relating to the birth of the superheroes in the setting (Project Black, Dr. Luminous and Dr. Thornton) that altruistically helps newfound supers and offers them friendship and up front help no strings attached except for when they secretly drug any mutant that they can get away with for the purpose of sterilising them. Eventually their shiny heroic image begins to falter as various members go through transformations and other leadership is revealed to be more than they seem." (Luminous force sterilising people for their own good, Critter becoming a Freeeeeak)

Project Utopia from Aberrant
"An organisation connected to previous secret projects related to the birth of Novas (The Aeon society and Maxwell Mercer) that altruistically helps newfound Novas and offers them friendship and up front help no strings attached except for when they secretly drug any Nova that they can get away with for the purpose of sterilising them. Eventually their shiny heroic image begins to falter as various members go through transformations and other leadership is revealed to be more than they seem." (Team Tomorrow, and the Aberrants faction, Jennfier Lander's murder, Project Proteus)

Well, the first (and possibly last) thing you must understand about AMP:Y1-2-3 is that it's not a superheroes game.

It's a people with superpowers game. The world changes when supers appear, and those changes are what people call "metaplot".
You should not think about it as "a metaplot", IMO. It's "the timeline shows how the setting would turn out unless PCs interfere".

Of course, that also means that about 10% of book 3 (half of the events are still salvageable, like new antagonists appearing) are likely to only matter for groups who didn't do much to change the world, but in practice, not all groups aim to do that, I've found;).

Quote from: Skywalker;942727I probably would M&M really burned me out on this sort of thing. I was like: "I have mastery over fire! So, that's Affliction 3 (Lasting Damage add-on), Body Shape 3 (Power Link), Insubstantial 3, Aura 2 (Unable to Turn Off)... Gah!"

Ah. I dislike that about M&M too. I also dislike attempts to "balance" powers with minuses. You might not dislike mine as much as that then.

I was literal. There is a "Damage" power. When you get powers (called something else) you pick their source (magic, divine magic, summoning demons to do your will, super science, etc). Then when you pick a specific power, you pick an appropriate "element" associated with it. So you pick the Damage Power (which starts as a touch power and gains ranged effects as you go up in level) and add an element to it, like Fire or Pure Magic or Divine Light or Electric Shock Gloves depending on your power's source.

Anything else, you just add on as a description if you want. My players are awesome, they'll come up with power limitations because it fits their character concept. (My wife made her Damage Power select an element randomly, since she is a follower of the Chaos Goddess Catastrophe.)

Quote from: Skywalker;942727On saying that, effects based systems do seem to be the norm for supers games, so its probably a safe design for your RPG. One thing that appealed to me about AMP Year One is that I could be a fire master and it would have some very cool and definite powers to chose from. That does decrease the flexibility, but I find the increase in usability makes it well worth it.  I particularly enjoyed that AMP Y1 applies this approach to a wide range of normally difficult concepts in super RPGs like having a Ghostrider style motorcycle, time manipulation, etc.

Sounds neat. Mine isn't aimed at a supers game. I'd say it would work for street-level and maybe a little higher stuff. But I intentionally left stuff like invulnerability out.

One major thing was I wanted to get away from books of nothing but character classes and/or powers. I wanted "here are templates, make what you want" without overwhelming lists of choices.

Quote from: TavelGorge;942763Oh i see what you were trying to go for there. Feelings aside the Fact of it is that the Seekers are the Good Guy Faction for the entire metaplot Year One covers, only having a radical shift (which results in them giving off an grim and gritty reboot vibe) as the plot ends as a sort of cliff hanger shake up. Its an interesting idea you present but seems to be a bit facetious. Its almost like taking umbridge with calling Darth Vader "The Bad Guy" by saying "But at the end of Jedi he kills the Emperor and saves his son, sounds like you didnt really watch the movies."

Seekers from AMP
"An organisation connected to previous secret projects relating to the birth of the superheroes in the setting (Project Black, Dr. Luminous and Dr. Thornton) that altruistically helps newfound supers and offers them friendship and up front help no strings attached except for when they secretly drug any mutant that they can get away with for the purpose of sterilising them. Eventually their shiny heroic image begins to falter as various members go through transformations and other leadership is revealed to be more than they seem." (Luminous force sterilising people for their own good, Critter becoming a Freeeeeak)

Project Utopia from Aberrant
"An organisation connected to previous secret projects related to the birth of Novas (The Aeon society and Maxwell Mercer) that altruistically helps newfound Novas and offers them friendship and up front help no strings attached except for when they secretly drug any Nova that they can get away with for the purpose of sterilising them. Eventually their shiny heroic image begins to falter as various members go through transformations and other leadership is revealed to be more than they seem." (Team Tomorrow, and the Aberrants faction, Jennfier Lander's murder, Project Proteus)

This is you making up shit to prove your own point.

Quote from: Sommerjon;942810This is you making up shit to prove your own point.

Whatever makes you feel good man.

Quote from: TavelGorge;942812Whatever makes you feel good man.

When wrong you still cling to your misguided belief.  I'll give you props for going down with the ship.

But what should we expect from a group when finding an error in the game, instead of using common sense and fixing the issue, they exploit the error then bitch about the errata.  You know cuz some jackass based their whole character around an exploit.  However that's more on the ballsless GM for not smacking down the stupid.

Quote from: Sommerjon;942825When wrong you still cling to your misguided belief.  I'll give you props for going down with the ship.

But what should we expect from a group when finding an error in the game, instead of using common sense and fixing the issue, they exploit the error then bitch about the errata.  You know cuz some jackass based their whole character around an exploit.  However that's more on the ballsless GM for not smacking down the stupid.

This is you making up shit to prove your own point.

Quote from: TavelGorge;942839This is you making up shit to prove your own point.

Hmmm.  Lemme see what you said again.

Quote from: TavelGorge;942675The powers are highly ad hoc for balance and power. My PC was able to take "Turning water to wine" and make us an infinite amount of pure LSD, Nitroglycerine, and Sulphuric Acid for whenever the situation demanded it. a later errata from the developer changed "Water to Wine" to "You can change the colour, taste, and odour" so if we ever played again that character goes from a broken level of utility to kinda useless.

Nope, I didn't make anything up.

You are making connections where there are none.  Sure there is a connection between Aberrant and AMP they are both dark supers games.  After that they are nothing alike.  Shit, in that 90 odd minutes of podcast drivel I would swear to god you say Aberrant more times than AMP and it's supposed to be about AMP.  You spend some 12-15 minutes coming up with stupid theories about Mutations, shitting on all of your own made up theories, and weren't even close to how it actually works.