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Old 06-18-2018, 12:54 PM   #21
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Rip/Criticize my character: Angela Copperfield.

454 points of skills and techniques is excessive unless she spent 60 years in training. In addition, she lacks the skills required for her level of Wealth. She only has Performance-15, which should only be enough to support a Comfortable income (David Copperfield probably has Perfomance-20 and I doubt that he is above Filthy Rich).

I would suggest stripping her down to 80 points in skills and techniques and focus on optimizing her further. By freeing up 350 points, you can get rid of 170 points in negative traits and increase her attributes by 180 points. With ST 14, DX 18, IQ 18, and HT 14, you would have a much more effective character, and you could buy another 20 points in advantages. I would also get rid of Doesn't Sleep because she would end up in a government research facility with that trait, being dissected to determine her secret.
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Old 06-18-2018, 12:58 PM   #22
Alonsua
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Join Date: May 2017
Default Re: Rip/Criticize my character: Angela Copperfield.

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Originally Posted by evileeyore View Post
Actually the Secrets should just be dropped. Both Kleptomania and Trickster come prepackaged with the implicit assumption that your activities are dangerous to yourself.
You´re right, but I tried to represent her past deeds too. So maybe she pickpocketed that banker and nobody noticed today, but then some technician ran into an old recording that shows her up in the local casino, acting strangely with her sleeves... Anything like that?
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Old 06-18-2018, 01:08 PM   #23
Alonsua
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Default Re: Rip/Criticize my character: Angela Copperfield.

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
454 points of skills and techniques is excessive unless she spent 60 years in training. In addition, she lacks the skills required for her level of Wealth. She only has Performance-15, which should only be enough to support a Comfortable income (David Copperfield probably has Perfomance-20 and I doubt that he is above Filthy Rich).

I would suggest stripping her down to 80 points in skills and techniques and focus on optimizing her further. By freeing up 350 points, you can get rid of 170 points in negative traits and increase her attributes by 180 points. With ST 14, DX 18, IQ 18, and HT 14, you would have a much more effective character, and you could buy another 20 points in advantages. I would also get rid of Doesn't Sleep because she would end up in a government research facility with that trait, being dissected to determine her secret.
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I would also get rid of Doesn't Sleep because she would end up in a government research facility with that trait, being dissected to determine her secret.
Cheers! This kind of comments give me pretty nice material to work in her background. I considered Professional Skill (Magician) to work as Performance when actually engaging in magic shows, so she would be 20. Also, the setting is a bit "special", with 15 being the human maximum in any score (15 Strength means someone weighs 420 lbs or more, while 15 IQ means that someone´s intelligence quotient ranges 180-220 Stanford-Binet, which welcomes to Stephen Hawking being IQ 13 and Leonardo Da Vinci being IQ 14). For comparison and if I was to feel generous I would rate David Copperfield as IQ [40]-12 Talent 2 [10] and Skill [16]-18. Houdini might be 20 in his specialties, with appropriate techniques.

By the way, her talents do not improve Dexterity or Intelligence any further (those are stuck at 15), they just provide some minor special benefits like "+1/level to the first influence roll made against audience members after a succesful performance" or "+1/level to reaction rolls made by customers and critics". The learning curve work at an average of 2.5 CP/year, but it can be improved by details such as elite school education or advantages such as Accelerated Learning, Doesn´t Sleep or Single-Minded. Her specific learning capacity is 13.5 CP/year at this point (and the setting is based on current date, so today it´s 18/06/2018 and she is well over twenty five years old).

Last edited by Alonsua; 06-18-2018 at 01:24 PM.
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Old 06-18-2018, 01:32 PM   #24
johndallman
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: Rip/Criticize my character: Angela Copperfield.

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Originally Posted by Alonsua View Post
The Doesn´t Sleep advantage depends on her taking Stimulants every night as if they were jellybeans, otherwise she looses it :)
Then it needs the Trigger limitation (B.115). Also, human brains won't stand up to lengthy periods without sleep. The description of Fatal Insomnia gives the symptoms.
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Old 06-18-2018, 01:37 PM   #25
Alonsua
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Default Re: Rip/Criticize my character: Angela Copperfield.

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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
Then it needs the Trigger limitation (B.115). Also, human brains won't stand up to lengthy periods without sleep. The description of Fatal Insomnia gives the symptoms.
Cool! I did it, with the extras that those are addictive and illegal drugs.
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Old 06-18-2018, 02:19 PM   #26
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Rip/Criticize my character: Angela Copperfield.

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Now, I allow players to take Lecherousness modified by Accessibility to represent their specific preferences. I strongly encourage Adults Only (-20%) and, when I explain things to the players, they almost universally take the limitation.
I don't think the Adults Only limitation is valid. Why not? Well, because most adults are attracted only to adults, or to adolescents who have matured enough to look like young adults. Humbert Humbert's fascination with prepubescent girls was a minority taste.

And there are all sorts of minority tastes. Do you also give players a limitation for "same sex only" or "opposite sex only"? Or for "same species only"? After all, there are people whose attractions are less narrow than that, either exclusively outside the limitation or simply disregarding it. You could easily end up with a chararacter who was attracted only to members of their own species, the opposite sex, aged 18 to 40, and not Fat or heavier—and claimed limitations for all of those—and yet who was potentially attracted to every person that an adventurer with their basic characteristics would be likely to be attracted to.

I think this has to be treated more like Attractiveness, where the normal point value is for "attractive to your own species" and/or "attractive to the dominant species." That is, the typical version of the trait is already narrowed down. You can take Very Beautiful and not have to be concerned about being the focus of the attention of amorous tapirs or ravens or squid, or for that matter of heterosexuals of your own sex and species. That kind of narrowing down fits with most players' "common sense" narratives and avoids cluttering up character sheets with a lot of fussy details that most players will assume in any case.
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Old 06-18-2018, 02:22 PM   #27
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Rip/Criticize my character: Angela Copperfield.

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Originally Posted by Alonsua View Post
Well... I tried to look up to the skill as per the book, and then look from the orders down... and wikipedia came up with "Columbidae" and "Leporidae" directly, without any suborders... It goes from Lagomorpha to Leporidae just like that. As per the justification of the skill she is using those animals in her magic shows, and I thought magic tricks with butterflies would look seriously cool. Are there any suborders to fix the Columbidae and Leporidae part?
I don't think so, but the classification of mammals and birds is in serious flux right now. But what I actually had in mind was narrowing down from Feloidea to Felidae, unless you really want her to use mongoose or hyenas in her acts. That way you'd have families across the board.

Except for those butterflies, of course. But I'm not even sure that invertebrates (other than cephalopods) could be trained in any meaningful sense.
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Old 06-18-2018, 02:32 PM   #28
tanksoldier
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Default Re: Rip/Criticize my character: Angela Copperfield.

I wouldn’t allow the character in any game I’ve ever run.

What are the other players supposed to do in a story about her?

She might be a villain, but not a player character and certainly not a hero.
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Old 06-18-2018, 02:41 PM   #29
Alonsua
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Join Date: May 2017
Default Re: Rip/Criticize my character: Angela Copperfield.

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
I don't think so, but the classification of mammals and birds is in serious flux right now. But what I actually had in mind was narrowing down from Feloidea to Felidae, unless you really want her to use mongoose or hyenas in her acts. That way you'd have families across the board.

Except for those butterflies, of course. But I'm not even sure that invertebrates (other than cephalopods) could be trained in any meaningful sense.
Mmmm maybe they shouldn´t be "trained" as per the regular meaning of that word, but they could probably be "inducted" or "taught" to act in specific ways with pheromones and such. However:
Trained butterfly
Training a butterfly

Last edited by Alonsua; 06-18-2018 at 02:46 PM.
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Old 06-18-2018, 03:15 PM   #30
Alonsua
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Join Date: May 2017
Default Re: Rip/Criticize my character: Angela Copperfield.

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Originally Posted by tanksoldier View Post
I wouldn’t allow the character in any game I’ve ever run.

What are the other players supposed to do in a story about her?

She might be a villain, but not a player character and certainly not a hero.
According to her specific storyline she is planning to create her own personal cult using her company network of more than fifty auditoriums to spread the wicca religion, before introducing to the believers as the incarnation of the triple goddess herself.

Some of the other player characters are also equally interesting, having a glutton master of martial arts based upon an otherwise realistic Goku, a very angry and violent teen actress, a young expert in cybersecurity that in turn is a dangerous hacker, an elite marksman ex-member of the rescue and special operations service who is obsessed with ancient civilizations based upon Lara Croft, a virtual reality game designer and developer of artificial intelligence based upon James Halliday from the recently released Ready Player One, a spoiled, megalomaniac and fanatic of the ants aristocrat bioengineer obsessed with purifying the planet through an orchestrated apocalypse that allows her to create a new world with an improved human species serving her as their goddess, etc.
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