I, too, can recall shouting the letters along with the band at the end of the week.
Shitsumon would definitely 'attach' himself to a government entity or political ideal, so a government sponsored group would be fine.

Oh, and could we please have a wind-controlling supervillain called "The Fan" so my samurai character could hit him?

That's GOLD, Jerry! Gold!

S A, T U R, D A Y...NIGHT!

Gentlemen, KNOWING this clearly marks our age as...advanced. I feel I am in good company.

The concept(originally), was of a criminal courier who entered into a Pact with a Deevil when the Artifact he was illegally transporting "awoke" and freed the Deevil within. The Corrupted Good Empowerment has him now hunting down those who would summon Deevils and Demons and "stopping" them. Hunting the Supernatural. His powers would have him transform into  Deevil form with Shadow Based Powers.

Now, established group? Good with that. Government Sponsored? OK with it, might work a backstory where his involvement was "mandatory"...was captured, sort of and is what effectively is work release? Thoughts on that?

I am still working on the new expanded build...this could take me a little bit. The expanded opportunities have me pondering.

I have a strange feeling the Altruist and Shadowbourne are going to get along just fine. Our patrons probably hate each other, though.

Doc would be honored to have captured Shadowbourne. He's certainly the kind of guy that would have "noticed the potential for good" in someone.

I think this is where we talk about our characters, which in my case, is apparently Magic (Mystically Endowed Abilities/Two Major Powers) and Physical Training (Strength/Aggro). Hence my self-assessment as "Paladin."

In my case, I am THE CLUNK.

Invulnerability, Immortality, Strength, Durability, a solid list of adventure friendly skills, and with a recent upgrade, Wingless Flight; I'm not tanky unless I grab someone and begin doing a Zangief impersonation or unless I can dodge into attacks, but I am one hell of a battering ram and will inspire enemies to run from me. I cannot get them to run from the rest of you or unwisely focus on me, unless I get creative with MA rolls.

In reply to Bookmark (msg # 16):

Heya Bookmark, Any chance I could negotiate you out of taking the Physical Training Hero as part of your build? That is core to Doc Roller' niche.

Also going for aggro/strength, eh? Hmm. I could take speed/defensive, instead. It would change the character, but HAHA NOPE. I didn't expect to have any control over what I got anyways.

Robotic/Magic? This is going to become very strange, and hilarious. It will take me some time to rebuild this, but I can do it.

EDIT: If I must. I randomly got Physical.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:06, Tue 09 Mar 2021.

I completely get the desire to have a narrative niche supported by a mechanical one (I have a real problem playing Gestalt D&D for this reason), but I don't think we'll be able to do that.

As I said in the other thread let chargen happen, we'll see what it all looks like, and we can address it then if need be.

Altruist is, mechanically speaking, a furious ambush fighter when depowered, but generally favors recon, stealth, and hacking over dealing with someone upfront and would rather leave no evidence of his arrival, passage, or exit unless he has to because something went wrong. When powered up, subtlety is not in the cards anymore.

Most of what he is, though, is because he was seeking something specific. His is shaping into a search for enlightenment.

Shitsumon is a nigh unstoppable killing machine, with hardly any other skills, trying to be a good and honorable person and build a few dojos.

Let's consider what we have -

Doc Roller = Pulpy pulp goodness
Pitstop = Definite shoe-in for the Transformed guy wondering if he has a place
Shadowbourne = Blade meets John Constantine? Also we must kill all the demons.
Shitsumon = Samurai
Myself = Because Luke Cage needed the power of SHAZAM!

It's a nice group of five, so maybe we can figure out who which character type? Unless Pitstop has something in mind, I sound like the resident Big Guy, whose job it is to get Worfed engage the enemy's physical strength.

So, thinking more about the narrative frame for the group. My initial plan was to have a well-funded, organized, pretty on-the-ball government agency of supers that would be a source of running conflict against what I had assumed would be a motley band of uncontrolled freelancers.

HOWEVER.

If you guys are thinking YOU'RE the government superhero group, I can swing with that, and I'll morph the Supes-Police I had in my head to a privately funded corp-funded thing. The first anyone's ever manager to put together.

And so then, you guys become the government bankrolled defenders of the city, which gives us good story benefits. Not having to stress overmuch about where you live and where your spending money comes from. Your real-life job is now super-heroing. And I can parade an endless array of politically-minded pencil-necks before you telling you to reign it in and mind the optics.

Downside is you're The Man.

Another option could be that Doc Roller works for the government AND has this fractious freelancer group on the side. Or maybe you're all being bankrolled by an old rich dude for old rich dude reasons.

I'm open to a few different ways to go.

I can work with everything after the "However". Both ideas sound good to me.

I lean slightly more to the idea that we are all on the Government Team but only slightly.




I like this idea.

Shitsumon is all about discipline and honor, if the team is working for 'the man' he'll be the loudest proponent of going 'by the book', if the team isn't working for 'the man' it's justified because 'the man' is undisciplined and has NO honor.

This right here is why L5R has always been one of my all-time favourite games.

I could roll with any of the four, although the Altruist changes with each one. Altruist is a solid Scrupulous alignment - Chaotic Good, or Dishonorably Humane if you are the Lawful Good type looking at him. Shitsumon and him are likely to agree on ends, but they will dispute the means.

I don't have solid readings on the other three yet, except "hey, Pitbull is Gecko now, awesome."

1) Dealing with 90's antiheroes (read: Villain Protagonists) and well-intentioned tyrants? I can work with that. We will always question our government handlers, though, because that's convention.

2) Similar to the above, although corporations are usually motivated by profit and fear liability. Still, it can be much as the above, just with an extra layer of separation.

3) Interesting, with Doc having a split allegiance. Most of us might see him as a government handler, although we might be glad for his patronage.

4) Much like the corp above, fear of liability would be real for rich old dude, although their personal reasons are likely to be all over the place.

The trustworthiness of a sponsor is going to depend on how idealistic this game is. And right now, there is a very untrustworthy branch among the powers that be based on the Game Info. Whether specifically our sponsors are bad guys is likely something we are going to be looking into, whatever their nature.

Shadowbourne is a Sneak and Spy. His powers work well for scouting and ambush. Still roughing out exactly what his second category will be...

As for what group...

All of them are workable. In all honesty, it seems like Doc has taken on the ad hoc leader persona so far. What does Doc wanna play?

Hello all.  The name is Gecko.  Hard to find, blindingly fast, always seems to be snacking on something.
I could go with the government funded group, but I see Gecko as more of the type to be living on the streets and protecting the homeless and the impoverished, the ones who slip between the cracks.  He sees himself as a kind of an outside consultant, but he seems surprisingly suited for working with a team.  Trusting the team when he sees them trying to do good is one thing.  Trusting their handlers is quite another.  I'm not trying to make him seem like the anti-social lonewolf.  He isn't.  He just has trust issues.
He can qork with any of the team ideas, but I think the best for him is as a band misfits brought together.

The one where Doc is a government guy who has recruited the others for a sort of A-Team/Suicide Squad is also appealing.


No matter which way we go Doc is a straight arrow good guy and anyone waiting around for him to try and stop them from helping homeless people will be waiting a long time.

Based on this discussion I'm strongly considering one of Doc's categories being Super Agent.

A super-powered version of The Expendables!

Since we are still in the build phase, I wanted to share what Shadowbourne is shaping up as...

My main is a Variant of the Mystically Bestowed called Deevil Bestowed w/Corrupted Good. Basically put, he sold his soul and a Deevil let him live and gave him some powers in the bargain. Buyer Beware. His Powers gained from this are Alter Physical Structure: Shadow, Shadow Meld, Shadow Stepping, and Shadow Trap.

For my secondary, I am NOT sure what I am going to take. Right now, I would say that I have mostly ruled out Demon Hunter. It IS too limited to be of use.

Quick question Doc, I assume that if you chose Super Agent, you will use it to replace Hardware?

So I rolled my stats to see what I would start with.

11, 10, 10, 30, 17, 8, 23, 24

30!

23!

24!

And this is before anything is added because of skills and category bonuses. The 8 is low....but could most likely be put in a place where it could get some assists.

Now Imagine Spending 1000 XP for 10 Attribute Points...spread evenly for the lowest stats it would be:

13, 12, 12, 30, 17, 10, 23, 24

For 1000XP and the Blessing of the RNG Gods...

Just Sharing.

That was the plan. Your question though has given me some thoughts.

Version 1 Doc: Phys Training(End & Str)/Hardware(Analytical Genius and/or Weapons Expert)

Version 2 Doc: Phys Training(End & Str)/Special Training(Super Agent)

And completely new...

Version 3 Doc: Special Training(Super Agent)/Hardware(Analytical Genius/Weapons Expert)

Obviously the focus of this last version would be almost 100% on organizing and running the team with the far more powerful team members doing the heavy lifting. Not my usual character type but I can see that being fun if everyone is on board with it.