Icons
As you know, I do solo plays converting adventures from other systems, and that means sometimes coming up with Icons-appropriate things to do instead of the original. So here's another post about a situation and what an Icons-appropriate solution might be.
An "Icons-appropriate thing" might be a pyramid test, creating an Advantage or Disadvantage, or a succeeding at a test scaled by results rather than a series of tests. That is, instead of saying:
| DC | Result |
|---|---|
| DC 10 | The gang is recruiting |
| DC 15 | The gang has superhumans recruited |
| DC 20 | This robbery was to get money to fund the next part of the scheme |
It becomes:
| Result | Information |
|---|---|
| Failure or marginal success | No info |
| Moderate success | "The gang is recruiting" |
| Major sucess | "Our gang is recruiting and we've already got supervillains, so you better watch out" |
| Massive success | "We're recruited people, even supervillains, and this robbery will pay for the next stuff to come!" |
When converting M&M stuff, it's generally fast enough to say DC 10 = Difficulty 3, DC 15 = Diff 4, and so on, adding 1 for every 5 or so (and always adjusting based on what they're actually trying to do; this isn't a blind process).
In Sewer Kings, by Victory Games, I ran across an option to have the heroes nauseated by suddenly going into a sewer (and presumably not a storm sewer, though that can smell bad, too). I don't have my copy of M&M2E handy, so I can't look up the effects of Nauseate rank 4 or rank 8, but I'm guessing that it paralyses them with the smell unless they make a CON roll.
(This analysis is based on that concept. If that's not what Nauseate power did, well, it's wrong for this situation, but the idea might be useful for something you're running.)
In that case, the intent is to have them lose actions until they make the roll, but I looked at it and said, "So what?" They're not meeting the villains until later, and if they can't move, well, they can't meet the villains; at this point there's no time constraint. So blindly substituting Stunning doesn't mean anything.
But creating Trouble — a -2 to any action other than trying to fight the smell — that might be useful.
Plus, Icons has mechanisms for eliminating Trouble. An awful smell might be dealt with by creating a nose covering, by putting on the rebreather the character carries for underwater adventures, by activating the sealed life support systems that aren't normally on, and so on....all of which can be dealt with by a Maneuver or spending a Determination Point.
Instead, my solution was that all players get Trouble (and a Determination Point), manifested as a -2 to any action other than trying to fight the smell. They can use the normal techniques for getting rid of Trouble. (Characters who can't smell or are androids or whatever just bypass this: no Trouble, no DP.)
And, because people get used to terrible smells (even normal people) whether the character does something or not, the Trouble goes away once the character has succeeded at a Pyramid Test, strength tests against difficulty 3 by default but player suggestions encouraged.
This idea can be used for any kind of physical inconvenience that people eventually get used to, like sea sickness or terrible smells. You might adapt it to something like emotional hardening to the unearthly if you were going to run a horror sword-and-sorcery game with Icons.
Hope that's a useful idea for people. I'm sure that's in one of the published adventures, but I seem doomed to re-invent the wheel, so here it is.
