You have got to be kidding!!!!

[Easterner9504]

Off the wall character requests.


Hey!

I was wondering about running some sort of shapeshifting psionic spy.. She'd say she was good at reading body language, but she'd have an ability to read surface thoughts.. and through concentration/relaxation- be able to get inside someone's head.

She could be some sort of genetic hybrid.. or even an artificial intelligence. She'd be a specialist at first contacts.

I'll look into the psionics and which powers would be appropriate



That is a request I received once. My head nearly exploded at the thought! I initially nixed it, but later recanted after recalling GURPS: ULTRA TECH. Reviewed options, realized Solomani likely could pull it off and Zho's could use such. Lots of recent Soli immigrants at Halka. So was born Eve, Zho spy, infiltrator, telepath and teleporter: genetically modified to alter body and face to in-numerable female forms all via implants. Oh, SORAG health insurance didn't cover the procedure. SOLSEC collection bureax unhappy!

I can post GURPS stats if any interested in them.

QUESTION: What other outlandish requests have GM's received?

 

[Spinward Scout]

I was wondering about running some sort of shapeshifting psionic spy.. She'd say she was good at reading body language, but she'd have an ability to read surface thoughts.. and through concentration/relaxation- be able to get inside someone's head.

Sounds like a Bene Tleilaxu Face Dancer from Dune (scroll down to the Face Dancer entry - plus the extended links at the bottom). Without the psionics, tho. Eventually, the Face Dancers learned how to get the memories of the people they were impersonating.

I'd like to see stats from that. Someone on the Internet might have some Face Dancer stats they came up with, too.

I had a person in a T20 game I never ran roll up a character that we finally figured out was at level 65 and about 3,000 years old. It was like the second coming of GrandFather - except he wasn't Droyne. Pure munchkin.

o:

 

[Easterner9504]

Eve of Destruction

Loaded with white collar crime/espionage ability. She'll match Spinwards motto on women!.

Name: Eve
Race: Human

Name: Eve
Race: Human
Age: 28 Height: 5'7" Weight: 120

Attributes [110]
ST 9 [-10]
DX 12 [40]
IQ 14 [80]
HT 10
HP 9
Will 12
Per 12
FP 10

Basic Lift 16
Damage 1d-2/1d-1

Basic Speed 6
Basic Move 6

Ground Move 6
Water Move 1

Social Background
TL: 11 [0]
Cultural Familiarities:
Languages: Galanglic (Native/Native) [6]; Zhodani (None/Native) [0].

Advantages [210]
Alternate Form (Human: Bionic Implant Based) [15]
Alternate Identity (Illegal) [15]
Mimicry [10]
Mind Reading [30]
Mind Shield (1) [4]
Telepathy Talent (3) [15]
Teleportation Talent (3) [15]
Warp [100]

Perks [1]
No Hangover [1]

Disadvantages [-129]
Clueless [-10]
Duty (Serve the State and Society of Zhodane) (6 or less (quite rarely)) [-2]
Enemy (SOLSEC) (A large group (21-1,000 people)) (9 or less) [-30]
Guilt Complex (Family) [-5]
Hidebound [-5]
Lecherousness (12 or less) [-15]
Loner (12 or less) [-5]
Low Empathy [-20]
Secret (Zho telepathic SORAG Agent) (Possible Death) [-30]
Sense of Duty (Zhodane) (Individual) [-2]
Vulnerability (Illnesses) (Rare) (Fatigue Only) [-5]

Quirks [-2]
Honest [-1]
Truthful [-1]

Skills [33]
Armoury/TL11 (Battlesuits) IQ/A - IQ-1 11 [1]
Armoury/TL11 (Small Arms) IQ/A - IQ-1 11 [1]
Battlesuit/TL11 DX/A - DX-1 13 [1]
Computer Hacking/TL11 IQ/VH - IQ-3 9 [1]
Computer Operation/TL11 IQ/E - IQ+0 12 [1]
Computer Programming/TL11 IQ/H - IQ-2 10 [1]
Counterfeiting/TL11 IQ/H - IQ-2 10 [1]
Criminology/TL11 IQ/A - IQ-4 8 [1]
includes: -3 from 'Low Empathy'
Dancing DX/A - DX-1 13 [1]
Diplomacy IQ/H - IQ-5 7 [1]
includes: -3 from 'Low Empathy'
Engineer/TL11 (Combat) IQ/H - IQ-2 10 [1]
Escape DX/H - DX-2 12 [1]
Explosives/TL11 (Demolition) IQ/A - IQ-1 11 [1]
Explosives/TL11 (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) IQ/A - IQ-1 11 [1]
Explosives/TL11 (Nuclear Ordnance Disposal) IQ/A - IQ-1 11 [1]
Fast-Draw (Pistol) DX/E - DX+0 14 [1]
Fast-Talk IQ/A - IQ-4 8 [1]
includes: -3 from 'Low Empathy'
Filch DX/A - DX-1 13 [1]
Forgery/TL11 IQ/H - IQ-2 10 [1]
Fortune-Telling (Palmistry) IQ/A - IQ-1 11 [1]
Garrote DX/E - DX+0 14 [1]
Gunner/TL11 (Beams) DX/E - DX+0 14 [1]
Guns/TL11 (Pistol) DX/E - DX+0 14 [1]
Guns/TL11 (Submachine Gun) DX/E - DX+0 14 [1]
Heraldry IQ/A - IQ-1 11 [1]
History (Imperium/Zhodani Relations) IQ/H - IQ-2 10 [1]
Hypnotism (Human) IQ/H - IQ-2 10 [1]
Mathematics/TL11 (Applied) IQ/H - IQ-2 10 [1]
Metallurgy/TL11 IQ/H - IQ+0 12 [4]
Mimicry (Speech) IQ/H - IQ-2 10 [1]

Stats [110] Ads [210] Disads [-129] Quirks [-2] Skills [33] = Total [223]

 

[epicenter00]

It's within the realm of the possible, I think. But it would be open to a lot of abuse and be pretty overpowered, especially if your other players didn't have similar "superpowers." Someone with a minimum of thermal sensors or very clear zoom vision and lots of training could probably do something uncannily similar if they were highly trained for it, even without psionics.

For instance, someone who was very well trained at reading people's faces and body language might be able to rapidly discern if someone was lying. Further training might be able give limited insight into why someone is lying, like if they're holding back, terrified of some sort of threat, nervous of being caught doing something they weren't supposed to be, and so on.

With sufficient experience and skill, they could essentially read surface thoughts without psionics.

---

As for nutty/off-the-wall/really powerful concepts over the years of playing Traveller I've had:

* Someone wanted to play a remote control robot that was actually being controlled by Grandfather.

* A collection of nanotechs in a sort of hive intelligence impersonating a human (who of course would get a bunch of special powers being nanotechs like being able to shoot lightning and so on).

* I remember vaguely something about someone asking me to play some weird hybrid Vargr with photosynthetic fur. Sadly that was so long ago I can't really give any of you details - I apologize, I'm sure that's probably the biggest WTF of my paltry list.

 

[Ran Targas]

I indulge player's whims on occassion, but most often not to their advantage and never with the results they envisioned. I have no qualms about allowing unconventional characters but "special cases" are more often than not overt attempts to manipulate the rules in one player's favor. So the potential for negative (and almost always uncontrollable) effects and the other players' impatience have pleasantly resulted in only a few of these type discussions but here are some of the more memorable ones:

1. A Zhodani/Vargr hybrid = psychic werewolf. How and why would this happen? It would definitely require a lab and a reason; that or a lot of pints on somebody's part. Oh, I forgot; it was supposed to be a cyborg super soldier too. That PC died in the lab on a bad roll confirmed by every other player at the table; so sad.

2. A super enhanced humanoid robot body with an tiny alien inside; just like that guy in "Men in Black", how quaint. Basically an attempt to manipulate an old house rule about stats and create two characters, one with brawn and one with brains. I eventually caved in but the robot body take a static discharge from an open power conduit during combat, rendering it very quirky and nearly useless; seems no one onboard had sufficient mechanical or electrical skills to fix it, bummer. Then the teacup alien had to be carried around by another player in a backpack. Now this could have been interesting to play out but the player demanded he be allowed to roll up a more conventional PC.

3. A fungoid alien life form that could regrow parts and bud clones of itself. I made the cloning part entirely random (roll a 10+) and completely under my control; he agreed. After a few days in route to another planet in the system, the fungus spread throughout their Sulieman, interfering with life support and contaminating a large portion of their food. This forced the other players to confine the fungoid to a vacc suit and expose the entire ship to hard vacuum; it didn't work. Some of the wild fungus created cysts, went dormant, and begin growing again when the atmosphere and heat were returned. At this point, the players called for a do-over and mandated the fungoid PC be replaced by something less troublesome.

4. An alternate realty, energy being investigating corporeal life forms in this universe. This started a long argument over whether energy beings, once in a computer system, would be contained by the standard devices used to protect consumers from high voltage discharge. The group voted that the resulting high energy discharge would probably cause catastrophic damage to the computer system. The player spent one whole game session trapped in the ship's computer before conceding defeat and generating a Vilani merchant with computer-3 who spent another game session trying to free the first character.

Have you ever noticed that it's only one player that keeps making these requests?

 

[aramis]

I've one player who keeps wanting to play aliens so he can ham them up into cartoonish siliness. Me, I don't think so. He's also under this delusion that lots of things he THINKS are traveller really are, when truth is, he's confounding Space Opera, Star Frontiers and Spacemaster into Traveller.

That being said, I do like the Star Frontiers aliens...

 

[Easterner9504]

The pest

Have you ever noticed that it's only one player that keeps making these requests?


Yup. Also falls in categories.

One wants bio geneering.

Another wants Munchkinisms.

Over & over.

 

[boomslang]

Over & over.

One strategy I use is instead of having them describe their character per se, I get such players to tell me their character's backstory while I "develop" it with them so it is well "integrated" into the game world.

Rather than flatly refusing ridiculous requests, I can then "tailor" them to my setting; I would never let a player sketch a character without proper supervision... and again, if you emphasize the narrative aspects rather than the game mechanical ones, you can (hopefully) train your problem player(s) to think in terms of story and adventure rather than mere wish-fulfillment.

Get them thinking in terms of flaws, weaknesses, and disadvantages: what are the limits on their precious character, and how did the character acquire them? That can then be used to build the character's motivation for adventuring.

You can extend the same thing to entire parties; I have had a few memorable campaigns where the first playing session consisted entirely of the group constructing its characters and backstory (via little vignettes played out between pairs of players with the other players as audience) so all the characters ended up interconnected in interesting (and problematic for them) ways... compare any good space opera like Babylon 5 or Firefly/Serenity; the interpersonal dynamics of the principle characters can drive the story every bit as much as external persons and events do.

For example, greenlight the shapeshifting psionic spy/infiltator only if the player can build a convincing rationale as to why his shipmates would not space him/her/it at the first opportunity. That should give your problem player food for thought, especially if you make him roleplay it out with the various group members -- if he fails, they space him and it's back to square one, but your hands remain blood-free..



:devil:

 

[Altoman5]

I usually don't allow characters that powerful whenever I'm playing not unless you have some flaws and a really good backstory to the character. Because like epicenter00 said, there is potential for abuse and I could see a character like that passing even the very difficult rolls without the negative consequences. Even if it was a NPC, my crew would probably get slaughtered by her/(it?).

But I remember one of my friends suggested playing a robot just like Bender from Futurama and would be totally useless and would hit on guys. I was like WTF? It would have been good for comedic effect, but as a main or NPC character it would have been pointless.

 

[PathfinderAP]

Have you ever noticed that it's only one player that keeps making these requests?


Yup. Also falls in categories.

One wants bio geneering.

Another wants Munchkinisms.

Over & over.

Game breakingly powerful PC's ONLY happen when given to Munchkins
It's got nothing to do with systems or points, its the player,
Give the same character to a good player and see what happens

So no Munchkinisms, no balance worries,

Give the players what they want as long as it fits the setting (even if it looks useless, theres alway more than one way to skin a cat, after all)

Just Don't play with Munchkins

 

[Gadrin]

Off the wall character requests.


Hey!

I was wondering about running some sort of shapeshifting psionic spy.. She'd say she was good at reading body language, but she'd have an ability to read surface thoughts.. and through concentration/relaxation- be able to get inside someone's head.

She could be some sort of genetic hybrid.. or even an artificial intelligence. She'd be a specialist at first contacts.

I'll look into the psionics and which powers would be appropriate



That is a request I received once. My head nearly exploded at the thought! I initially nixed it, but later recanted after recalling GURPS: ULTRA TECH. Reviewed options, realized Solomani likely could pull it off and Zho's could use such. Lots of recent Soli immigrants at Halka. So was born Eve, Zho spy, infiltrator, telepath and teleporter: genetically modified to alter body and face to in-numerable female forms all via implants. Oh, SORAG health insurance didn't cover the procedure. SOLSEC collection bureax unhappy!

I can post GURPS stats if any interested in them.

QUESTION: What other outlandish requests have GM's received?

That's actually a pretty fair description of a NPC from another space
game that offers all that sci-fi stuff I have.

Pleasurer (changeling) Bounty Hunter.

I made a GURPS Traveller version of her, just minus the shape-changing.
I gave her the Verifier from GURPS Ultra Tech for some lie detecting
and a few other gizmos.

I think GURPS Ultra Tech (the older 3e versions) offer a body implant
that allows body camo; and possibly a body morphing or face morphing.

I had also thought of using GURPS Robots to make a duplicate of her
(basically the Synthia NPC they give you) for some work in the
Reaver's Deep Sector.

>

 

[kafka47]

I had a request for a Merc who wanted BattleDress with a synskin equal to mesh on top for double armour bonuses. Unfortunately, that phase of the campaign was a cerebal adventure & Trading+Profit which the Merc heavy in combat skills was useless.

Another, player presented with an impressive character who managed to score luckily on all Mustering Out rolls & Pension rolls. So, I began the adventure like this...

You eyes open caked in the salt from your own tear ducts. The familar taste of bile from awaking from Cold Sleep. Drugs used to kickstart your heart is causing a painful headache. As your eyes come to focus...you are in a cargo hold, not the cargo hold of your ship but another. A rather pompous, Imperial Doctor with the SPA logo on his sleeve - "Well, you are lucky to be alive. My fee for resusitation is 900 credits to be paid in a fortnight. However, with your ship stolen by your crew and leaving station maintainance fees, I might we willing to consider an extension presuming that we can agree to a small weekly interest payment of $15%. Here is my card."

With that the Doctor leaves and you find yourself in a standard jumpsuit and an empty wallet, you remember something about needing to go into the Low Berth because of some sort of system failure. You now realize that was merely a ruse and you are now 10,900 Credits in debt with that amount ever increasing. It was time to find employment fast, a job - any job.

 

[Icosahedron]

Game breakingly powerful PC's ONLY happen when given to Munchkins
It's got nothing to do with systems or points, its the player,
Give the same character to a good player and see what happens

So no Munchkinisms, no balance worries,

Give the players what they want as long as it fits the setting (even if it looks useless, theres alway more than one way to skin a cat, after all)

Just Don't play with Munchkins

Another, player presented with an impressive character who managed to score luckily on all Mustering Out rolls & Pension rolls. So, I began the adventure like this...

You eyes open caked in the salt from your own tear ducts. <snip> It was time to find employment fast, a job - any job.

Hmm. I think I'm with Pathfinder on this one - and I'd extend the ban to munchkin referees, too.

If I'd been lucky enough to roll a really good character with great mustering benefits, I'd expect to play him. The Referee's job in a situation like that is to make the character's wealth an interesting part of the story, not to steal the character's money by fiat, that just leads to ill-will within the gaming group.

As Referee, I'd find out what the player wants to do with his money. Maybe he invests it in a business venture that will work into the plot later, maybe he puts it into a dirtside bank and finds himself perennially waiting for a cheque from his banker, maybe he carries it with him where it can be a legitimate target. But if it was fairly rolled, it should be used to enrich the plot. Players shouldn't be punished for getting good rolls IMHO.

 

[Gadrin]

But if it was fairly rolled, it should be used to enrich the plot. Players shouldn't be punished for getting good rolls IMHO.

Yeah, I agree. If the GM allows those tables in the first place, then he
should put up with them.

Not: "I never rolled those! You can't have them either!"

Now if the player "rolled those up on his own" then maybe a little negotiation needs to take place.

>

 

[kafka47]

Sorry, even if those rolls are legit...the adventure called for ordinary joes, so I merely tied up his assets elsewhere. Forcing him to get an "honest" job that would/could weave into a campaign thread dealing with the character trying to recover those assets that were lost. So, never, think that I am a cruel and heartless Referee (save when there is absolute stupidity involved).

 

[Icosahedron]

Sorry, even if those rolls are legit...the adventure called for ordinary joes, so I merely tied up his assets elsewhere. Forcing him to get an "honest" job that would/could weave into a campaign thread dealing with the character trying to recover those assets that were lost.

Well, maybe, if the player knew that was the plan, but still...
Different Ref styles I suppose.

So, never, think that I am a cruel and heartless Referee (save when there is absolute stupidity involved).

Hmm. I've been in one of your games...

 

[Easterner9504]

Spy

For the record she ended up a Zho spy who travelled to an off-Rim Solomani world to take advantage of Sol bio-genering. She got her implants (GURPS ULTRA-TECH) but SORAG and SOLSEC had a disagreement so she was forced to flee the world. Later dropped off back on that world she got close to a high Soli leader but a monitor cell-phoned-pic'd her visage at a dead letter drop causing a police raid on her hotel.

Now underground in hiding.

 

[saundby]

I had a player that wanted to play a Nexus-6, ala Roy Batty. They agreed to the life limit. There was a bit of grandstanding, but overall the character played well. Their fourth birthday came at a bad time, of course. Right after the pin had been pulled on a military coup but before the issue could be decided.

The character served to bring home transit times to the players pretty well. The coup was hatched in part because they decided they'd rather run the place they were than spend time in space going elsewhere.

With players who've been with me for some time I don't usually have a problem with doing something that'd be overpowered "by the book". Younger players get to have fun, usually by learning that equipment won't save you once your opponents know about it, that it's a bad idea to try to hotrod the ship, and don't submit to new medical procedures no matter how cool the promised results sound.

 

[Easterner9504]

Meds

.....and don't submit to new medical procedures no matter how cool the promised results sound.


Some folks would be wise to heed that.....however some folks you just can't reach.

 

[rancke]

You eyes open caked in the salt from your own tear ducts. The familar taste of bile from awaking from Cold Sleep. Drugs used to kickstart your heart is causing a painful headache. As your eyes come to focus...you are in a cargo hold, not the cargo hold of your ship but another. A rather pompous, Imperial Doctor with the SPA logo on his sleeve - "Well, you are lucky to be alive. My fee for resusitation is 900 credits to be paid in a fortnight. However, with your ship stolen by your crew and leaving station maintainance fees, I might we willing to consider an extension presuming that we can agree to a small weekly interest payment of $15%. Here is my card."

With that the Doctor leaves and you find yourself in a standard jumpsuit and an empty wallet, you remember something about needing to go into the Low Berth because of some sort of system failure. You now realize that was merely a ruse and you are now 10,900 Credits in debt with that amount ever increasing. It was time to find employment fast, a job - any job.

I'd pack up my stuff and go home.

EDIT: Well, maybe I'd try reasoning with the ref first, explaining how that was utterly unacceptable.



Hans