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"The Braintrust" - An idea for a team


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Greetings. First swing at something like this.

I was thinking of figuring out some way to get a group of like-minded super geniuses that handle the containment of threats posed by mad scientists and accidents created by experiments that went horribly wrong. A special team. A team of Detectives, Inventors, and the greatest minds of Freedom City. What starts this off though? An idealistic Claremont schoolgirl who might have a bright future, but sees this is a need. A way to network between one another for a quick and decisive response!

Endeavor calls this: The Braintrust.

While this isn't a official pitch and organization thread, I thought this idea could use some refinement. Something for our brainy characters to start putting together. That, and I sorta need a good amount of help to get this rolling.

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I am going to roll out the boilerplate for every team thread: It is not a good idea to pull characters together out of the blue for the purposes of forming a team. A team should aggregate naturally around a set of like-minded and complementary individuals.

In addition, building a team around a given archetype like this sounds like a recipe for overspecialization. How are you going to give three identical battlesuits all a chance to shine?

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The Osprey, if you're taking suggestions, I have ones. Conundrum is a perfect general nemesis for the kind of group you want to put together, seeing as he isn't the kind of criminal who operates openly and could easily set up some wacky game with multiple copy-cats pretending to be the real him running around. That could be a good set-up for the 'proper' team-creation, the Raven bringing in various people to help her deal with various false fronts as she winnows through them to the real plan (with the assistance of the various PCs), bringing the ones who worked best together in for the 'real' plan-foiling. The realization that more things like that can happen, along with the dangers of stuff like Overthrow cells and unpredictable free agents like Actaeon, the ever-present threat of MAD SCIENCE, cements the team's formation and purpose.

What do you think? Anything useful in there?

 

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I am going to roll out the boilerplate for every team thread: It is not a good idea to pull characters together out of the blue for the purposes of forming a team. A team should aggregate naturally around a set of like-minded and complementary individuals.

In addition, building a team around a given archetype like this sounds like a recipe for overspecialization. How are you going to give three identical battlesuits all a chance to shine?

​It's not like I don't see your point, but that's not always how team books work. Sometimes you just throw people together and see if they work. What I'd suggest is not to have every volunteer committing to the full team, but to a thread. Thread works out, they can stick around on a more but not entirely permanent basis. Because life happens to players as well as PCs.

 

In other news, Terrifica already knows about Endeavour's plans and would provide whatever assistance she could.

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​It's not like I don't see your point, but that's not always how team books work. Sometimes you just throw people together and see if they work. What I'd suggest is not to have every volunteer committing to the full team, but to a thread. Thread works out, they can stick around on a more but not entirely permanent basis. Because life happens to players as well as PCs.

 

In other news, Terrifica already knows about Endeavour's plans and would provide whatever assistance she could.

Your idea of 'try-out threads' is a good one and I support it.

I would point out an inherent difference with FC PbP and comic books, though, is that this is a collaborative effort. If Alan Moore wants to throw Spider-Man, Iron Man, Ice Man, and She-Hulk on a team and have it be about Objectivism than he can write it like that. A team here that includes, say, Jack of All Blades, Miss Americana, Temperance, and Maxima, has four people that would have to agree that a story is going to be about Objectivism. So a single author can bend a character until they fit that author's views, but that doesn't happen around here.​

Edited by Raveled
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Your idea of 'try-out threads' is a good one and I support it.

I would point out an inherent difference with FC PbP and comic books, though, is that this is a collaborative effort. If Alan Moore wants to throw Spider-Man, Iron Man, Ice Man, and She-Hulk on a team and have it be about Objectivism than he can write it like that. A team here that includes, say, Jack of All Blades, Miss Americana, Temperance, and Maxima, has four people that would have to agree that a story is going to be about Objectivism. So a single author can bend a character until they fit that author's views, but that doesn't happen around here.​

Again, I'm not disagreeing with you on that, but...isn't that what threads like this are for? To gather like-minded individuals who will agree on what a given thread will be about? Sure, by all means, make sure that the team proposer has the team's theme, purpose, etc. nailed down, but don't be afraid to let them fail miserably either. It's the only way some people can learn. And also...bringing up potential problems can get discouraging, in my experience. Though that's probably a personal issue.

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