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Okay in our grizly world of Beyond the Supernatural, there is one PCC that I beleve to have the most comic potential I have ever seen. I am speaking of our beloved supernatural nay sayers the Nega-Psychic.

Now I know that humor is most likley not the focus of many BtS games but anyone with funny, creative or just plain odd explanations for the Supernatural things that you or a Nega-Psychic you know have used please share them here.

Unfortunentaly I have yet to have had a Nega in my group so I don't have any real ones but...

Nega: Bah, it was just swampgas...

Other Player:... I bit off your foot!

Nega: Well then it was MEAN swampgas!

Well that was kinda pathetic but I'm sure you more experianced players will have better tales to tell.......

I played a Nega who was a journalist for one of those cruddy rags that they sell at the checkout counter racks (think a step below The Weekly World News).

He assumed that since all the stuff the paper printed was obviously crap and thus was sent to look for the "weird" stuff that was happening (and because he was actually chronicaling the "truth" made for some pretty weird tales).

The best way to go into it is to take a super-cynical view of EVERYTHING - that guy who says that he has psychic powers? Obviously a con-man. The feller who is doing "magic"? Sleight of hand and some really good special effects. The drooling monster? Either good makeup or perhaps just a genetic defective (which is a good way of explaining away a LOT of nasties).

In Kevin S's BtS2 game at Gen Con Indy last year, we had an outstanding nega-player. The nega was an old fellow, a professor, and a pacifist to boot. As the rest of us were chasing after a hellhound, he whipped out his cell phone and called animal control to report stray dogs. As some of us were confronting a Bogeyman who'd stolen some children, he was having the guy that summoned the Bogeyman arrested for kidnapping. The player's real-life wife was playing his professor character's research assistant, who was a believer, and the conversations/arguments that they'd get into over what was happening were hysterical.

I don't have any funny nega-psychic stories...except for one in a Nightbane game (using the Rifts version), who blamed Dark Day on the Reagan Administration. Or was that the mind bleeder that did that? I can't remember. Anyway, on the topic (sorta):

The Skeptic's Dictionary.

A great site dealing with the truth behind "paranormal" events. Yes, unlike in the real world, the paranormal is real in BtS, but a nega-psychic would view things more rationally than others, so the reasoning and explanations are useable.

Funnily enough, I have a guy playing a medical examiner in a d20 Modern horror game I'm planning to run, and he's set up his character as a "truth and logic" sort. I wonder what he's going to do when I throw them up against a magically-enhanced Ebola virus, zombies, and an insane priest of a Mesoamerican death god...

Zylo wrote:He was a decent skeptic, but I think the player was a bit too excited about screwing up other peoples powers. He wanted to be around, just so the others would have to pay more ISP or lessen the chances for success.

This is why Nega don't exist in my BtS games except as the exceptionally rare NPC. The whole concept works better for me as a localized affect brought on by ancient rituals gone horribly wrong or overwhelming psychic residue.

Alright, time for a rant, feel free to ignore; I've always HATED the Nega-Psychic. It just made little to no sense. The Problem I've always had is, sure you can have a being who uses it's psychic energy, focused through disbelief, to 'dampen' others powers. But what happens when he encounters a power greater than his own, a power he can't dampen. Basically it requires the character to be 100% delusion and insane. It's similar to the concept of Mundane in IOU, a great concept for a comedy game, not so much for one of horror.
To put it another way, it's like Scully in the X-Files. At a certain point her skepticism becomes just unbelievable. When you've been ubducted by aliens yourself, and seen hundreds of supernatural occurances and wierd things, your continued skepticism just looked like insanity, willful self-delusion. Might be fun for a single NPC, but not as a character class. So obviously, in the very loose BTS game I may run, no Nega-Phycics.

Wise_Owl wrote:When you've been ubducted by aliens yourself, and seen hundreds of supernatural occurances and wierd things, your continued skepticism just looked like insanity, willful self-delusion.

YES! Thank you. That's exactly the problem with the BtS Nega. At least the Rifts Nega has a playable mindset.

Sir Neil wrote:

Wise_Owl wrote:When you've been ubducted by aliens yourself, and seen hundreds of supernatural occurances and wierd things, your continued skepticism just looked like insanity, willful self-delusion.

YES! Thank you. That's exactly the problem with the BtS Nega. At least the Rifts Nega has a playable mindset.

By that logic, so does the Black Knight.

"I'm INVINCIBLE!"