Hulk Smash! --How Do You Save Civilians?

[Supplanter]

I think the provision to spend dice from the doom pool to introduce new characters or events can cover this. Also, sometimes you just want to start a scene with civilians in danger. The danger itself can be treated as a specialty character. As for how it works, hey, the danger and the civilian are each watcher characters. They don't roll dice against each other. So the danger's just gonna apply its effect die and that civilian is going to be stressed out, traumatized or dead as the case may be. If it gets to act.

Since it's treated as a character, it gets a turn. So some PC needs to make sure it doesn't get a turn, by taking successful action against it. (Unless a PC has reactive defense, in which case she's dying to use that anyhow, because it's one of the reasons her hero is cool.) Tactically, this means heroes burning their actions to preempt the dangers, which suits the actual villain down to the ground - she's more likely to end up with the sweet spot in the turn order.

I don't much favor the notion of treating actual harm to a civilian as emotional stress to a hero, for a couple of different reasons. I think you make the civilian specific, vivid and make clear what the stakes are, and let the fact that everyone chose to play a superhero game take care of the rest.


Jim

[Mailer33]

I very recently got the book and haven't played it yet, but I think I would be inclined to go with scene distinctions as well.

Maybe: Endangered Civilians, and Buildings

Dinstinctions could be used as described by other posters for dice, pp points and doom dice, etc.

But also, you could have Hulk directly smash the buildings or civilians for emotional damage. Hulk would use area attack so as to effect all the heroes, build the dice pool with building distinctions or endangered civilians. To resist the emotional stress, players resistance dice pools would be build by trying to save civilians or hold hulk back.

Narrate outcome accordingly--Wolverine tries to ward the hulk off with his claws, but hulk slaps him aside and smashes his fist into a McDonalds, destroying it. Wolverine take emotional damage as he fears what happened to the people inside.

or

Hulk brings his fist down on the baby stroller, but at the last minute, Colossus catches the hulks wrist and holds the green fist at bay long enough for the mother to escape with her baby--no emotional strees taken for Colossus.

If a character becomes emotionally stressed out, it might go like this: Cut to Cyclops staggering from the battle scene, tears streaming down his face with an injured child in his arms.

or

Captain America falls to his knees and screams, "WHY!!!" to the heavens, powerless to stop the Hulks rampage.

EDIT:

Here is maybe a clearer example:

Doc Oc is rampaging through the city streets destroying property and attacking civilians. Spider Man swings in to save the day.

Scene Distinctions: Endangered Civilians, Shops and Restaurants

Spiderman goes first. Spidey could try to save the civilians right here by removing the scene distinctions, but lets say he doesnt yet. Instead, he swings in and gives Doc Oc a kick in the face. Doc takes a little physical stress or not, it doesn't matter for this example.

Doc Ocs Turns. Doc Oc attempts to grab a civilian with his tentacle and hurl the civilian into a wall. Docs dice pool would include the distinction Endagered Civilians, tentacles, etc. His intended effect is to inflict emotional damage.

Spiderman Resists: to avoid the emotional damage, spidey must prevent the civilian from being injured. The player must decide HOW he wants to save this civilian, narrate it, and build a dice pool. In this case, Spidey decides to swing in and sweep the civilian to safety before Doc Oc can even get his tentacle around the poor victim. Spidey's dice pool would include his Swing Line, reflexes, and maybe a d4 for Endangered civilian.

RESULT: If Doc OC wins, spidey swings in too late, the civilian is hurled into a wall and turned to pulp, and spidey takes emotional damage according to Doc's effect dice. If Spidey wins, he swings in, snatches the civilian, and deposites him safely on a roof top. Emotional damage avoided, now its spidey's turn.

Stressed Out: If spidey gets stressed out on the emotional track, he decides his efforts at fighting Doc Oc are putting more civilians in harms way, so he flees the scene, hoping Doc Oc will pursue him to a less populated local.

How about saving the civilians with you turn instead of attacking doc oc? Spend turn trying to remove distinction with narration of saving civilians. This might be easier than fighting Doc Oc directly if the doom pool is low, BUT, even if Spidey saves the civilians, there are still SHOPS and Restaurants distinction for Doc Oc to smash.

[Mailer33]

Regarding the idea about endangered civilians being a specialty character:

This could work as well, and adds an additional tactical mechanic to the battle. But I do have a question about it.

During the Hulks turn, how would he Smash civilians? Players may take their tunrs saving civilians by reducing the Endangered Civilian "character" but on the Hulk's turn, how would he "smash" the Civilian character. I suppose on the civilian characters turn, you could roll their dice pool and narrate it as Hulk smashing them, but it doesn't give you that terrifying Hulk Dice pool and kind of takes an oomph out the Hulk Smash Civilians! while adding more oomph to the saveing.

I think I would be more inclined to use a specialized character for something like a burning building.

For me, I think scene distinction and emotional damage might work better, because the result is several panels where the villain is attacking civilians and heroes are busting their butts saving them, all the while trying to get a few punches in.

[Supplanter]

1. Hulk doesn't smash civilians, of course, but a villain who did smash civilians would just apply his effect die to wiping out that civilian there, unless someone is in position to stop him (e.g. Via reactive defense.)

2. Civilians don't necessarily get a turn.

3. The moral wrongness of treating civilian injury and death as purely instrumental - so-called emotional stress on so-called heroes - repulses me right now. Which is, admittedly, before my morning dose of caffeine.


Jim

[Cam]

You're right on target with treating innocent bystanders as a trait for inflicting emotional stress on heroes, yes. Even if it does turn Supplanter's stomach, that's a great way to handle it, especially if they're unnamed innocent bystanders. It's a particularly villainous move.

Cheers,
Cam

[Dunlaing]

My problems with what seems to be the emerging consensus are threefold:
[list=][*]I'm wanting this to be Collateral damage, not intentional damage. I don't want the Hulk spending an action to try to hurt civilians, I just want civilians to be in danger by virtue of being nearby while he does his Hulking out.
[*]No offense to the developers or Cam specifically, but Scene Distinctions, while they sound really cool, turn out in practice to be weak sauce. Using the RAW, they do very little (I can just use Hulk Smash! any time I'd use Civilians in Danger). Using the suggested Internet rules helps, but then we're back to the first point above.
[*]Supplanter's feelings actually do matter to me. (he's a friend and in the group)[/list]

Also, my BBCode skills are sorely lacking.

[MidnightBlue]

I can just use Hulk Smash! any time I'd use Civilians in Danger).

But remember the narrative.

"Hulk Smash!" invokes a feeling about what Hulk is doing, but "Civilians in Danger" invokes another image/understanding of the scene.

In my eyes, Scene Distinctions aren't there to give you something more or better than personal Distinctions, just something different to help shape the narrative in other ways.

A Scene Distinction gives the players a sense of the immediacy present in their environment and it can be a goal to actively work to elminate.

Maybe you even have "Civilians in Danger" x3 and the players need to work to remove all of them.

Again, it is just one of many tools in your arsenal to present what you want to present.

I hope you find the option that works well for your game!

[Grimmshade]

My problems with what seems to be the emerging consensus are threefold:
[list=][*]I'm wanting this to be Collateral damage, not intentional damage. I don't want the Hulk spending an action to try to hurt civilians, I just want civilians to be in danger by virtue of being nearby while he does his Hulking out.
[*]No offense to the developers or Cam specifically, but Scene Distinctions, while they sound really cool, turn out in practice to be weak sauce. Using the RAW, they do very little (I can just use Hulk Smash! any time I'd use Civilians in Danger). Using the suggested Internet rules helps, but then we're back to the first point above.
[*]Supplanter's feelings actually do matter to me. (he's a friend and in the group)[/list]

Also, my BBCode skills are sorely lacking.

Collateral damage is pretty well represented by the Doom Pool.

Scene Distinctions add more options. Remember there is a lot of narrative to the gameplay. Hulk Smash would be used for wildly different reasons than say "Trapped Children."

[babel2uk]

My problems with what seems to be the emerging consensus are threefold:
[list=][*]I'm wanting this to be Collateral damage, not intentional damage. I don't want the Hulk spending an action to try to hurt civilians, I just want civilians to be in danger by virtue of being nearby while he does his Hulking out.
[*]No offense to the developers or Cam specifically, but Scene Distinctions, while they sound really cool, turn out in practice to be weak sauce. Using the RAW, they do very little (I can just use Hulk Smash! any time I'd use Civilians in Danger). Using the suggested Internet rules helps, but then we're back to the first point above.

As Grimmshade said that's essentially just Hulk Grandstanding and adding his effect die into the Doom Pool (which is supposed to represent collateral damage etc anyway). The grandstanding makes it harder for the PCs to get the civilians out of danger because to do so requires a roll vs the Doom Pool (which has just gotten larger - potentially by a D12) plus the D8 for the 'Civilians in Danger' Distinction.

[Dunlaing]

As Grimmshade said that's essentially just Hulk Grandstanding and adding his effect die into the Doom Pool (which is supposed to represent collateral damage etc anyway). The grandstanding makes it harder for the PCs to get the civilians out of danger because to do so requires a roll vs the Doom Pool (which has just gotten larger - potentially by a D12) plus the D8 for the 'Civilians in Danger' Distinction.

The Doom Pool growing doesn't make it harder to get the civilians out of danger, it just makes it really, really unlikely that the players will choose to roll against the Doom Pool to get them out of danger. And I plan to give the Hulk "Berserk" so he'll already be adding to the Doom Pool every action (and I've said a couple of times now that I don't want him deliberately adding to the Doom Pool).

I think what will work best for me is a character based on the threat. Something like:
Master Gas Main Breach d10
Solo d8 Buddy d6 Team d4
Impending Explosion d8 Explosion d12 Fire d10
SFX: Area Attack
Limit: Cannot use Explosion in an action until Impending Explosion has already been used in a previous action. Can only use Explosion once. Cannot use Fire until after Explosion has been used in a previous action.
Limit: if both sides of the pipe are repaired, shut down Explosion and stop acting.

So then, I would spend a die out of the Doom Pool (d6 if no one with Reflexes or Senses is left in the action order) to bring in Master Gas Main Breach, and have it roll to increase the Doom Pool every action order, with the narrative description for the first being "An almond truck must have crashed!...no, wait, a gas main has burst!" and then things like "The gas main is going to explode, killing some nearby civilians,...unless someone wants to react?"

If no one reacts, then I get to put a d10 in the Doom Pool each round (d12 on the explosion action order). If someone reacts, then they have a chance to stop it, but I can put effect dice into physical stress. Speaking of which, at what point do people say whether they're reacting? Presumably before I roll, right? So I would know at that point who's reacting and I could have my effect dice planned out?

I could write up a bunch of these things and bring a new one in whenever the heroes deal with the last one.

I'm actually a little concerned that the Doom Pool will grow too quickly.