80s training montages and asian mentors Options

[Domino]

Ninjas PFFT.

We had Neo-Anarchist urban poets PWNAGE!!!!!!!!!

[Adam]

Admin post: Domino, Frag-o, don't totally derail threads, even if you have no interest in them.

[Frag-o Delux]

[Domino]

[Frag-o Delux]

[Domino]

I dont think the RAW says anything about a montage being used in that way but the karma gained through RPing it could be used in a future Montage or to pick up a sidekick.

[Frag-o Delux]

So you are saying I would have to RP the court trial, and make a side kick out of the baliff that takes me back to my cell everyday. Then during sentencing he helps me escape and in the following melee hes killed by the Judgenator. Thus making me want to train hard to get revenage on the Judge?

[Birdy]

Do I get a cost reduction if:

+ The monatage takes about 15 minutes
+ I get belittled by my rather frail looking mentor all the way
+ I was Kidnapped by my government and foreced to train as an Assasin
+ My Mentor is from a remote part of Korea
+ And has orders to kill me if I fail
+ Can dodge bullets and walk over water

Oh and how much Karma is it worth if I am forced to kiss Kathe Mulgrew (Janeway) during a mission?

[Domino]

[Domino]

[Jrayjoker]

[Grinder]

He didn't convert to the DBC, it seems.

[Jrayjoker]

Oh, they all will.

And on topic...I have no problem with the "montage" skill developer, but I don't think it will ever see the light of day in our campaigns. The fact that you need to have a contact specifically for the montage seems like a pretty big resource pull for a new character.

[Wounded Ronin]

[Jrayjoker]

Well OK, then. That is what I get for skimming the topic. Thanks for the clarifications.

[Frag-o Delux]

So if I as a new player pick up the Friends Abroad (3 build points) and possibly the Friends in High Places (2 build points), that would be enough of a balance to off set 260 karma later? I would pick friends in high places so he would be a high level shaolin monk or something cool. I mean 5 whole build points is a real investment. A Bad Karma flaw or Hunted flaw would fit well and add more backstory and not bother a new character all that much. I already act like an ass and make my group laugh, so itll be easy to do the montage stuff. And I rarely take a skill over 6, so I think I can handle the higher level skills one point at a time with all the karma Ill save doing a montage at the beginning.

EDIT: A montage in a movie is not the character becoming a superhero over night. Its a way for the director of the movie to show you what that guy is doing then advacing the story ahead in time. In short its a way to keep you from walking out of the theater instead of watching Rocky beat on a side of beef in real time.

As a GM you accomplish the same thing in several ways.

Either the player plays a different character while the rest of the party continues to play, the entire party takes a break while they all train (the whole party plays new characters) or the GM says POOF! its 3 months later, your fixer calls.

[Dog]

In a similar theme, I give extra karma when players have prewritten flashback scenes that they pull out and read at appropriate moments in game. (ie. they have to "flash-back" in character and get karma to represent the insight of a certain memory.) It encourages interesting backgrounds.

For example:

GM: "The villain's thugs toss you roughly into a tiny cell lit only by a single candle. 'Stay here 'til you rot.' they chuckle"

Player: (fishing out his character notes.) "I stare at the candle until it becomes the candle from my eighth birthday party, the day I learned my mother went to the hospital. I can see her in her uniform, on the way to work.... blah blah blah."

[hyzmarca]

Here is an idea.

A Montage may be used to reduce the time required for any test over an hour long to 1 combat turn per hour. This use of the Montage requires that the PC burn 1 point of karma pool.

The reason I say burn instead of spend is so that high-karma deckers cannot abuse this to make absurdly powerful programs . Alternatly, use spend and limit it to one use per catagory of test during the character's lifetime.

A character with the Asian (or Italian for Boxers) Mentor Contact may burn karma pool to incerase skills or attributes at a 1:1 rate. This can be used on any Skill or Attribute because martial arts training makes you good at everything. The mentor is not required to be alive if the character has trained under him before (see Rocky V). If the mentor is dead this is a Flashback Montage.

Since WR often complains about high karma pools this seems like a good solution. It benefits the skilled more than the unskilled, as well. Burning a karma pool point may be economical if raising the skill costs more than 10 or 20 karma but it is wasteful otherwise.

[emo samurai]

What if my character IS sort of an asian mentor?

[Domino]

Then you can not use a montage but can assist in one.

[Wounded Ronin]

I've been doing futher reading on the subject of asian mentors. I have encountered a series of books called "The Destroyer" by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy, published circa 1977 by Pinnacle Books. This series is really mandatory reading on the subject of asian mentors!

Anyway, it made me realize that I should make rules for how you can use an Asian Mentor Flashback to save your bacon in a seemingly intractable situation. It's like the orientalist Deus Ex Machina. For example, let's say that your character falls off a building and faces certain splattering death. In mid fall you have an asian mentor flashback (cued in and out by flute music) and as a result you mentally really get into some passage from the tao te ching, totally relax yourself, and manage to not die upon impact.

Of course, I'd have to think of rules which wouldn't just make the game explode in a mushroom cloud, so I'll post more when I've thought of something.

[Nikoli]

Actually, The Destroyer series was the basis for Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.

Chun for the win!

[ShadowDragon8685]

[Wounded Ronin]

[Daddy's Litt...]

The mentor does not have to be asian. Think of the Rocky movies. They include the most famous training montage of all time. The climax of him running up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum is an iconic momment in film history.