THE CHALLENGE

A thread of 3 messages, 14 November 1989 to 15 November 1989, in the order they were sent.

#700 THE CHALLENGE

[unnamed sender] · 14 November 1989

     Mark has posed the question, 'How does one deal with the
Challenge posed by powerful characters?'  At first glance, this
appears to be a worthy question.  After all, powerful characters
have a depressing tendancy to anhilate any obstacle which is
placed in their path.  They make mincemeat of the most powerful
NPCs.  In short, they take a GMs carefully designed and well
balanced scenario and break it into little teeny pieces, a sorry
fate.
      After days, hours, possibly even seconds of mind-numbing
cogitation, I believe that I have discovered a small problem with
one of the assumptions which underlies the question.  Rather
than attempt to describe this problem in detail, I offer this
short story with a moral:


                      THE CHALLENGE

     Morris Minor peered around the corner of the alley.  There
was no one in sight.  He blended back into the night and checked
his gear.
     He wore a skin-tight suit of Xyram, fine overlapping scales
which would resist explosions, energy, projectiles, or blades.  A
combat helmet and filters provided protection against sonic
attack or noxious gasses.  Servos in the armour gave him the
strength of many men.  The armour was covered with a correlation
envelope which rendered it invisible to vision, radar, and
infra-red.
     His weapon was a Kodak HK-47 Instamatic, a powerful pulsed
laser weapon whose coherent beam could burn through the heaviest
of armour, the mightiest of shields, or both, with equal facility.
The effect the beam had on the unprotected flesh within was
alarming.  The weapon was not controlled or directed by anything
so crude as a trigger.  It was connected directly to his nervous
system, which nervous system had augmented to increase its speed
and was interfaced to sensors in his helmet.  Morris could
encompass the destruction of anything that came within range of
those sensors.  In an instant.  With but a single thought.
     The same augmentations which increased his speed also
rendered Morris invisible and immune to psionic powers.
     He was the perfect assasin.
     Morris crossed the street.  Were there anyone to observe,
they might have heard a faint whisper of wind.  They might have
seen the slightest flicker at the edge of their vision.  But no
one listened.  No one saw.  Morris was one with the night.
     He reached his destination, a small machine set into the
wall of a corner building.  He activated a device which supressed
all sounds.  He removed a small card from an envelope at his
waist and inserted it into the machine.  A panel slid up to reveal
a small keyboard.  Morris entered the code he had been taught.
     The machine gave no immediate response.
     Morris repeated the code.
     A message flashed on the screen.
     "Dear Customer, we regret that this ATM is out of order.
Thank you for banking with IPBank."
     Morris stared at the machine in rage.  Was it possible that
he could be thwarted so easily?  This was scarcely likely.  He
was Morris Minor, the Perfect Assasin!  He waited for the machine
to return his ATM card.  He would re-insert the card and try a
second time!
     Nothing happened.
     Realization came quickly.  The machine had swallowed his ATM
card!  How could such a thing occur?  Surely such a thing was not
possible!  Was he not Morris Minor, the Perfect Assasin?  He
staggered backwards in astonishment and was run over by a truck.

AND THE LESSON WE LEARN FROM THIS STORY IS:

     Combat skills are not always particularly useful to a member
of an advanced technological civilization.


Hail Chaos!

Paul R. Gazis
[email removed]          or
[email removed]                    or
something like that


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#704 Re: THE CHALLENGE

James T. Perkins · 14 November 1989 · reply to #700

Ah, here's my $0.02.

Or, if you are prone to having trigger-happy players, you could always
set them up for a horrible case of mistaken identity, where they blow
the head off some small, helpless innocent, like a small child.  Or
subject them to an enemy that can't be plowed over (say they enslave
children, for example, and the children are forced to confront the
all-invincible PC).  In theory this could force your players into a
moral quandary where they would actually have to begin to think...

Perhaps I'm just too manipulative as a Referee...

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#707 Re: THE CHALLENGE

Adrian Hurt · 15 November 1989 · reply to #704

>From Richard Johnson:

Re: The Frontier

> Law:
> The confederates figured out if they went the way of imperial caste/
> democracy, the Zhodani would have to interfere.  Likewise, if they
> became socialist, the imperium would send ships.  Thus they formally
> declared themselves an "anarchy", proclaiming the rights of each
> individual the highest morality.

As I see it, within both the Imperium and Zhodani Consulate there exist all
sorts of world governments.  There are caste democracies within the Zhodani
Consulate (in fact, I thought the Consulate was one).  There are probably
socialist governments in the Imperium - they'd count as either democracies or
self-perpetuating oligarchies, depending on the referee's view of socialism
and whether it was Western or Eastern type socialism.

>From James Perkins

Re: The Challenge

> Or, if you are prone to having trigger-happy players, you could always
> set them up for a horrible case of mistaken identity, where they blow
> the head off some small, helpless innocent, like a small child.  Or
> subject them to an enemy that can't be plowed over (say they enslave
> children, for example, and the children are forced to confront the
> all-invincible PC).

Just in case the PC's aren't susceptible to such moral dilemmas, because they
don't have morals (likely, given our earlier descriptions), it does no harm
to have something really powerful in reserve.  Something which can remind them
they're not Masters of the Universe.  Something which can eliminate them with
much the same ease as they'd eliminate a small, not-too-bright rodent. A few
possibilities:

Imperial Marines.  I used the "Striker" combat rules, and just about never let
PC's get hold of the high-tech battledress, which was impervious to anything
except FGMP's.  Marines get the stuff as standard.  But, if the PC's do get
hold of FGMP's and/or such battledress:

Imperial Marine Grav APC.  As seen in Striker, book 3.  Armoured to resist
anything short of a tac nuke, and armed with a heavy rapid-pulse fusion gun,
a range of nuclear missiles, and a laser carbine.  In addition, the Marines
inside can stick their FGMP's through ports in the side and fire out.  But
if the PC's do have tac nukes, or if they just sit in their starship and try
to zap the APC from orbit:

Tigress class dreadnought.  As seen in Supplement 8, Fighting Ships.  Maximum
armour, maximum firepower, enough screens and computers so that the PC's nukes
won't get near it.  It also carries 300 fighters in case you want to give the
PC's one last warning.  If the PC's have something capable of taking out one of
these, use a full squadron.  If they can beat that, there's something wrong
with the universe.

Summary: Peace through superior firepower!  If they think being trigger happy
solves everything, show them just how right they are.

 "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   [email removed]

All opinions and material above is the responsibility of the originator.
Submissions: [email removed], or [email removed]
Administrator: [email removed] (James Perkins)
The TML is made possible by facilities provided by Tektronix, Inc.