Action's Missing Element

Hey, readers!

Before we get going into the meat of this editorial of sorts, I am here to tell you that this is a sister article to an early post entitled "Why Do People Still Enjoy Action?" If you have not read through that piece yet, please go to the right and read it quickly before delving into the stuff here, since this is a sort-of spiritual follow-up.

With that being said, let's dig into the meat of my revelations.

I was flipping channels, as I typically do during afternoons when I am bored and have already watched all of my recorded stuff, and I stumbled upon the climax of Aliens.  Having loved this film and its predecessor, I decided to catch the end where Ripley and Newt scramble through the station to escape its detonation, being chased by the Alien Queen. Even though I was catching it at the end, I felt myself very engaged with what was going on, and instead of flipping to something else, I stayed until the credits.

After turning my brain back on, I realized something.

Aliens is almost as iconic as you can get as far as action movies are concerned, and even after seeing it many times, I was not bored. I was excited. I cared about these characters and what was going on, even after just jumping in, and it was the mind-numbing action that I railed against in that last article.

In fact, some of my favorite movies have heavy amounts of action, such as Star Wars, or the Matrix. Despite the fact that these are now considered classics, there has to be something there that makes the action feel fresh every time instead of the recycled, explosion-heavy bad-assery that seems to have dominated action films this past decade or so.

So, what's the missing element? And is it also missing in our roleplaying sessions?

I've figured it out, and it's rather simple.

Tension; that's the missing element.

The three movies I've mentioned above work tension into their films almost flawlessly at just the right moments, making the action engaging and generating care for the characters if you liked them enough. In Aliens, Ripley may have her awesome gun, but she knows that both she and Newt are toast if the Alien Queen catches up to them, and the audience knows it too. In Star Wars, the Rebel Alliance is about to get their base destroyed by the Death Star, and they only have one shot to do an incredibly tricky maneuver against a huge amount of opposition. I still get goosebumps during the trench run. In the Matrix, everyone (except Neo, but we don't find that out until the end) are basically powerless to stop the Agents, so whenever they show up, the main characters are in serious trouble.

(Minor summer movie spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Into Darkness and Man of Steel)

Now let's contrast these elements against a few of the big summer blockbusters that are making their run this year. Was there tension in Star Trek: Into Darkness? At points, yes, but that is cheapened quite a bit when the back of your mind is reminding you constantly, 'They can't kill off Kirk. That would end the franchise. How are they gonna bring him back?' What about Man of Steel, which is likely going to be the highest grossing action film this year next to Iron Man 3? Well, it's kind of hard to feel tension when two incredibly super-powered people are punching each other through buildings with little regard for those who get in the way. That's not to say they didn't try, what with the 'Kryptonite-esque' aspects of the big planet-terraformer machine, but if memory serves, that didn't slow Superman down all that much.

Let's bring this back to roleplaying, shall we?

To me, it seems that GM's often sit in either one of two camps. Either they are looking to make everything as challenging as possible to compete with the players in some magnitude, or they are rather lenient, hold back, and put the story first. Are there some that sit between them? Undoubtedly, there has to be, but that is the breakdown I often see.

(This also depends highly on what system you are running, but I'm going to assume the lowest common denominator here. If you are running something ala Call of Cthulhu, your tension problems are taken care of by nature of the system itself.)

More often than not, I'm sitting in the second camp, but honestly? I don't want to anymore. That's because of this book.

I really don't want to steal this guy's thunder by reiterating everything he says in this book, but let me present this to you. Do you want action that is meaningful? Do you want your players to be engaged? Do you want to put the missing element of tension inside your games again, make them feel more alive?

Follow this man's advice: play dirty. Push your player characters to the limit. Provide consequences! While it may seem like an assholish way to run games at first, the rewards are incredible, and in the end, your players will thank you if they give enough of a damn.

I know I'm not providing a lot of my own advice on how to interweave tension into your games, but that is because I cannot do it better than this man has done. My goal is for your to walk away with two things: to think about how vital tension and suspense is to meaningful action, and to consider finding a way to read this book. It's that good.

I hope you enjoyed this semi-follow-up! If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

Wolverine's Post M-Day Journal - Entry 2

((What was Wolverine doing during the last session of Civil War? Let's find out!))

Entry 2:

Had to head back to Oklahoma. Seems that guard detail was still needed around there after the Doom incident. Don't blame the egg-heads for gettin' a little jumpy, especially with that sword of death just standin' around, waitin' for some bastard worth his shit to pull it out of the ground.

Personally, I leave the thinkin' for the brainiacs unless I'm put in some kind of leadership position, and who would be so empty-headed as to allow that? Knowin' SHIELD, they rounded up the usual subjects. Stretch. Stark. Strange. Not to mention McCoy, the better of the two genius Hanks that I know. So, after all of that business was taken care of, I went back to the mansion with 'im.

Y'see, Hank and I have an understandin'. Both of us walk on the wild side, whether or not McCoy likes to admit it half the time. Even if we don't see eye to eye on almost everythin', there's that mutual respect factor goin' that transcends any science bullshit you can spout out. It's somethin' you feel deep down in your gut.

'Course, as soon as I step through the doors, Slim pulls me aside for a chat with his half-naked resident psychic followin' behind. Wonder how he'd feel if I told him that Tony Stark claimed that territory before? Cyke had better get himself checked. Anyhow, Scott expressed his opinion on my charming reaction to the press. Needless to say, he wasn't too happy about it, for the same reason I was bustin' my own chops. He wasn't wrong.

But what he needs to understand is that I don't need the lecture. Does he think I don't care about the consequences of what I do? All the people I've killed, families I've ruined... Does he not think that I haven't heard it already, from myself? I've had a lot of shit to sift through ever since M-Day, and it ain't pretty, bub. The last thing I need is some Chuck Xavier hatin', Sentinel allowin', skinny neck of a coward tellin' me I ain't doin' my part to help mutant kind. And I let him know.

My Avengers comm was goin' off, but I ignored it. We've got enough people on our roster, and plenty of adversarial types besides. World ain't gonna end while I spend a few days at the Mansion, runnin' the Danger Room 'til it ain't fun anymore or catchin' up with Half-Pint. Kept my ear to the ground and eye on the news to keep up with the whacky adventures of the World's Mightiest Heroes, and it doesn't look like I missed much. Still, the chance to knock around some Hydra heads would have been satisfyin'. Not very often I get to slice into some crazed techno-nazi cultists, despite what you may think.

Still ain't sure why the team was tryin' to stop Hammerhead from getting a bullet between the eyes. From what I've heard of 'im, he ain't too reputable a guy. Sometimes its best to let these things go and stop tryin' to play hero at the drop of a hat, especially when gangsters are involved. If it wasn't for the life-model decoy bomb shit that threatened the lives of everyone there, that sorta thing don't sound much like Avengers work. Like I said before, the Avengers have changed.

Had lunch with Half-Pint, and now I'm lookin' to make my ride back to the Tower. I don't like sittin' in one place too long. Makes me feel sluggish. Besides, if what I've been hearin' is right, the team's gonna be arguin' some sort of registration act in front of Congress.

Bein' the only mutant on the team, someone's gotta stick up for us, not that this sort of thing hasn't shown up before. We beat it then, we'll beat it now.

Radio has on George Thorogood. Gonna be a good ride.

-Logan

Marvel Mondays - X-Men - Session 4 Report

Hey, readers!

So, another week is here, and that means another wonderful edition of Marvel Mondays! The X-Men group has gathered again, and I have a session to report upon!

Just as a refresher for those of you playing along at home, the current roster for our group is the following: Beast (Feline version), Mr. Immortal (On leave from the Great Lakes Avengers), and Rogue (Recently imbued with Ms. Marvel's powers).

Since summer is in full swing, slip on that bathing suit and lets jump into the deep end!

Session Summary:

When we last left this group of assorted X-Men and friends, the Blackbird had just crashed in the middle of a still-soviet Russia and was being beset by Titanium Man and a group of his cronies. The session began with fighting right off the bat, beginning with the goons. They fired on the group, hitting both Mr. Immortal and Rogue with a d10 of physical stress, but since it was an energy weapon, my favorite mutant was able to absorb the shock to boost her strength. Beast went next! He leaped on one of the goons and knocked him to the ground, finishing with a rather feral roar to scare him into unconsciousness. Rogue went straight for the heavy hitter of the group, trying her best to tear off the armor plating so that he would be more vulnerable, but Titanium Man was able to fend her off. Always looking to die the way he lived, Mr. Immortal dove for Titanium Man, but was severely hit back, knocking his stress up to a d12.

Changing up tactics a bit, Rogue began the next round by inflicting a d10 "Focus on Me" complication on Titanium Man, offering an advantage to her teammates when they went for the armored Iron Man wanna-be. Beast continued knocking down goons to great effect. Mr. Immortal, looking to finish off the group of cronies, went for the suicide play, including his d12 of physical stress into the roll by pulling an armored goon right on top of him, knocking him out and crushing him in the process, while a misfire from the energy gauntlet struck the last mook.

For those of you playing at home, Mr. Immortal's death count is now up to one, due to an SFX that lets him die and come back in a transition scene or when an opportunity is rolled. Taking advantage of the now available corpse, Titanium Man picked up the dead hero and used him as a club, sending Rogue flying with a whopping d12 of physical stress. Beast tried to bash his head in an attempt to disrupt his cybernetic senses, but was fended off. Rogue, likewise, tried to get back in the fight by flying in and scoring a hit, but Titanium Man punched her out, sending her into unconscious land. By this time, an opportunity was rolled, and Mr. Immortal rose from the dead! Between him and Beast, they were able to take him down with good old-fashioned punching.

With the villain soundly defeated, they picked Rogue up and went to find the Breeder Bomb, which was sitting non-nonchalantly in a farm. Colossus' farm? Who knows! After Beast deactivated it, Rogue did some anger management and tore the machine to shreds, but not before informing Mr. Immortal that he would be buying her a new jacket due to some rather obvious blood stains. With the Breeder Bomb incapacitated and strewn across the Russian landscape, Beast fixed up the Blackbird and the team rose into the air. Xavier informed them that the next Breeder Bomb was located in Australia, and the team zoomed off.

Before arriving, Beast helped Rogue patch up some of the injuries she had sustained. When they landed at the cave where the device was held, they found it was missing the core nuclear component that made it work. Rogue tore up what remained, and the team tried to track down the thieves in order to contain the volatile device. Turns out, a group of terrorists had taken the nuclear core and were threatening to destroy the city of Melbourne. Weird that they didn't target the biggest city, but whatever. Terrorists are terrorists.

So, the terrorists were holed up in a mall.

Really? Okay, these are the worsts terrorists ever. Anyway, the X-Men arrive, seeing the military surrounding the plaza of teenage depravity with the ever-lovin' Magneto on the roof, carrying the nuclear device with a force-field around him. Speaking of worst villains ever, the team's minds are spinning, wondering why Magneto would be so stupid as to set up a Breeder Bomb, take out the core, and use it to threaten a city.

So, the big confrontation happens!... Kinda. So, the team lands and confronts Magneto about why he's being so stupid, only to learn that our helmet wearing foe was stopping these terrorists, not assisting them! Turns out he was trying to stop these Breeder Bombs as well, and that it wasn't his plan at all. He also had nothing to do with the robots. The team is very confused, but believe him, as it makes a whole ton of logical sense. As a sign of goodwill, Magneto tosses the nuclear device into orbit and lets everyone know where the final macguffin bomb is located... An ancient city in Chile!

Things wrap up with us flying over to the South American nation, ready for our final fight against whoever set up this convoluted and potentially disastrous plan.

My Reactions:

As usual, I had a really good time with this group. They are all really fun people, and we get a lot of good jokes in while simultaneously moving the plot along and having some good roleplay moments and action mixed in. Even though this is reiterating stuff I've said before, everyone really knows their character and plays them to the hilt. Our GM, while a bit scatterbrained and liable to go off on tangents, is continuing to provide a good experience when things get right down to it.

The two main highlights of the session were obviously the Titanium Man fight and the confrontation with Magneto. A good action scene, and a good role-playing scene that did not have to be resolved with violence. This was a pleasing mixture, even if the module is rather rail-roady. What can you expect from something made in the 80's? Anyway, it was great to finally get some casualties in a fight. I mean, I know that sounds weird. Who wants to lose a fight, or get knocked out? But this contributes to something I'm going to elaborate on in another post as a sort-of sister article to my 'Why Do People Still Like Action?'

One thing that confused me, however, was the fact that the GM never used Titanium Man's version of immunity. My guess would be that he wanted to fight to wrap up quickly at the end, which I really respect. Instead of going for the maximum punches, he diverted to a better story, which should be applauded.

Finally, roleplaying with Magneto was pretty awesome. Everyone kind of had a 'WTF' face on, and that translated to the character's reactions. I skimmed through the module, and I still have no idea who set this whole elaborate scheme up, so I'm eager to see the result of the 'Whodunit' by the end. As an aside, my female Southern accent is getting better, so I'm more comfortable portraying Rogue now than I was previously. You care about these things when a major part of your skill-set is impressions.

Anyway, not much more to say other than I'm looking forward to the next one. Hope you guys enjoyed this summary! If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes 

Teen Titans - Episode 7 "Override" Report

Hey, readers!

So, after a long hiatus due to international studies and trips and things, I finally managed to wrangle the team back together to run a good old game of Teen Titans using the Marvel Heroic system. I've been waiting to jump back into this for a while, as people who have read some of my early posts can probably tell. Hopefully, we'll be able to make this a weekly thing, which means you guys have one more game to hear me rant about!

Except, this time, you'll see it from a GM's point of view rather than a player, so it'll be a bit of a different flavor than my other session reports. Additionally, this is all part of my own version of the DC Universe that has some pretty radical changes to some stuff, so I may go on rants about how such and such a character is different from the mainstream and things like that.

Before we dive into the summary of this session in particular, I think you deserve to know briefly what has happened before, 'cause that's important.

Previously, on Teen Titans:

Banded together by chance to stand against the anti-superhuman government task-force known as VATOR, the Teen Titans have dedicated their time to defending the city of Detroit from evil in order to prove that superheroes do more good than harm. They live in the mansion of Mr. Oliver Queen, who spends his days running a multi-million dollar business from his basement and his nights as the mysterious vigilante, the Green Arrow. United, they are the Blue Beetle, (a young teenager who adores superheroes and finally has the chance to live his dream in the armor he received from his deceased father) Dullahon, (a teen with a mysterious past and even more mysterious powers involving a mass of ethereal tentacles that comprise his face), Johnny Thunder, (the teen with a 'fuck-you' attitude and mystically imbued powers over sound) and Schrodinger (a teen who is almost literally everywhere at once, trained to be an effective killer).

So far, they have saved a classmate from execution by the League of Assassins, rescued Robin from the Joker (but not before he had cut out her tongue), stopped Dr. Light from terrorizing a shopping mall during the holidays, discovered a sinister conspiracy within their own ranks, and survived on an island with Solomon Grundy thanks to the mad genius Dr. Ivo.

Session Summary:

Things begin in Oliver Queen's mansion. Johnny is rocking out to "We're Not Gonna Take It" in his room, alone as usual. James (Dullahon) is reading a copy of Frankenstein on the couch while Ray (Blue Beetle) is obsessively vacuuming. It seems that after the traumatic experience of being beaten to a pulp by Solomon Grundy and failing the team as a leader, he has been trying to cope with a variety of new hobbies, including cleaning, macaroni art, and joining the new 'Cheese Appreciation' club run by Mr. Terrific.

A comment about how Frankenstein is a zombie sends Ray into a 'Iron Man 3 Tony Stark esque' anxiety attack and he leaves for his room. James follows after to apologize, going into Ray's room to find a disturbing amount of hobby creations he has made. They chat a bit, and Ray shows him a macaroni art version of their caretaker Oliver Queen.

Meanwhile, Juan is dueling with Green Arrow in the 'Arrow Cave' when he gets a mysterious message on his communicator. It seems that Agent Chase of VATOR, who Juan has convinced to act as a double agent in return for her life, has a hot tip. Apparently, there is a fight club in Detroit that has sprung up a few weeks ago, and the big prize is the chance to get onto the coveted VATOR Override list, which would make them immune to weapons and technology used by the taskforce and clear their information from the records. Knowing the worth of that, Juan gathers the team and decides to give it a chance, despite the illegality of it.

They arrive at the fight club, which is erected out of an abandoned race track. It is supposed to be condemned, but it is obviously alive and well... And covered in question marks. Thanks to the manipulations of Agent Chase, the group is allowed to compete, but the crowd hates their guts, considering it is composed of gang members and thugs. Juan places some bets on their opponents and themselves, and someone goes over the basic rules with them. It's an elimination round tournament, and I broke it up into three stages. The first was a mob of gang members, which they easily defeated. The second was a mob of mystics, which they also soundly defeated.

Between rounds, Dullahon was strangely recognized by a few of the gang members who called him 'Straight Face.' While James didn't remember himself, he went along with it, learning that he apparently worked for the Joker at some time before. Go figure.

The final round was a cage match against the Fearsome Five! Yes, one of the main Teen Titans enemies in the mainstream comics. However, in this universe, they are a bunch of powered enforcers from various gangs and groups across the city who have only banded together to get VATOR immunity so that their services would be in super high demand. We've got Mammoth and Shimmer, a brother and sister unit. Psimon, who is a psychic who was imbued powers by Trigon. Gizmo, who is a little person Mac-Gyver style inventor. And finally, Dr. Light, who is a recurring joke villain in this campaign. Johnny has a bit of a grudge against him, since their encounter during Christmas almost permanently blinded him.

(Oops, wrong Fearsome Five...)

This fight had some rather cool moments. Ray began by pile-driving Mammoth, after which, James picked the hulking beast up and slammed him against the bars of the cage, knocking him out. A cool feature of the datafiles that I made for him and Shimmer was that I emphasized their brother-sister bond. One of their limits is that, if the other one takes trauma, they get emotional stress equal to the highest die in the Doom Pool. Therefore, Shimmer gets slapped with a d10 of emotional stress from seeing her brother collapse. Johnny blasted Dr. Light with a huge sonic boom that knocked him back against the cage, sending some of his tech suit flying. Gizmo, being a genius, was able to scramble over and collect those pieces, making an improvised gun with duct tape... at a d12. Aren't assets great? Shimmer, likewise, erected a bunker of sorts around Gizmo, turning the air into a solid state or another element, or whatever her powers do. Dr. Light tried to repeat the blinding action that nearly killed Johnny before, but thanks to a quick assist from Dullahon, he managed to dodge it. Psimon hit Dullahon with a mental blast, trying to wear down his defenses.

Things began to wrap up as Juan knocked Dr. Light out, sending him into a coma. We swiftly found out that Psimon is completely awful at physical combat, and a blast from Blue Beetle almost took him out. Dullahon got a spot of revenge by finishing off the psychic while Johnny Thunder continued blasting everyone with sonic booms. For some reason that I still can't figure out, everyone was rather attracted to Shimmer, and didn't want to beat her up too bad. Juan did manage to push her over in emotional stress by scaring the living daylights out of her, causing her to faint. All that was left was Gizmo, with his cool d12 gun. Still, he didn't do so hot, and got defeated pretty quickly.

(That's more like it)

So, a beautiful woman with a question mark tattooed on her cheek approaches the winners and tells them that they just have to ride with her to claim their reward. Feeling bad for Mammoth and Shimmer, they decided to drag their unconscious bodies along for the ride to give them VATOR immunity as well. I'm still not a hundred percent sure why they did this, but go figure. Players will be players. A chauffeur drives the crew out to the docks with a rather inconspicuous yacht is waiting for them. They go in the side, and the door locks shut!

It's a trap! Well, sort of. Kinda. Meh.

Turns out they end up in a circular sort of room with a wide pillar in the middle. On the pillar is a screen that has instructions on how to get the prize, which is also a riddle. The voice of an arrogant man who identifies himself as the Riddler announces that they have proven they are worthy of the prize with brawn, but now they must prove that they are worthy of it with their minds, which is the only thing he respects. Just to sate your curiosity, I'll post the main riddle below. Can you figure it out?

Think you have what it takes to win

Written here is what you need to do

Since you are so poor at following directions

Immunity is yours

But what unlocks the door

The keys needed cannot be held

They can be found

And brought back to the beginning

Three rooms below deck

Find the key within

Below deck, there were three rooms each with their own riddle and some sort of puzzle to figure out. I handled this by saying that the Riddler created a complication, which is the room, that they have to step-down and eliminate in order to defeat. When they defeat it, Riddler has a limit that he takes emotional stress with each riddle solved. So, the players would roll to do things such as fly across the room or deactivate something. If they failed, the room attacked with the Doom Pool plus the complication, like a scene complication would. The only caveat was that if they figured out how to do the riddle and got it right, they automatically succeeded and didn't have to roll. When they got it, they received a clue for the main riddle.

The first room's riddle was:

“What divides time, completes a thought, and is not found here?”

The answer was period, and the room was designed so that it was a tiled floor with darkened tiles representing a keyboard. They had to figure out which one was the period space and stand on it to release a force-field at the end of the room. If they stepped on the wrong tile, the room shocked them. Once at the end of the room, they had to hit the period key on a keyboard in order to solve the room. The clue received was:

 “Sometimes, punctuation makes all the difference.”

The second room's riddle was:

 “Massing. Messing. Mossing. Mussing. Myssing.”

All of these words were arranged in alphabet blocks on separate pedestals that were covered with a force-field that had a letter keypad on the side. These pedestals were all in a line, and there was an empty pedestal standing behind them. In order to open the force-field the players had to input the first vowel in each word on the keypad. If they typed in anything else, they got shocked. Once they did that, they would have to spell out the answer in blocks on the empty pedestal, which is "Missing", and hit the vowel 'I' on that keypad to win. The clue received for room two was:

 “Sometimes, something that is missing isn't what you expected. The right answer can be wrong.”

The final room's riddle was the following:

 “Fix the order. Matter

                        Meter

                        Mind

                        Motor

                        Mutter"

The room had a giant Jenga tower with these words printed on the horizontal blocks that were facing the entrance. Two staircases led up to the top of each tower. The answer was rather simple, putting mind over matter. However, you had to move the Jenga pieces like you would in the game. If the tower fell over, the entire room exploded. The clue received for the last room was:

 “Sometimes, it's best to read carefully and follow directions, no matter how absurd they may seem.”

So, the Titans completed these riddles with some struggle, which I'll cover in my reactions section. However, with a little help on my part, they were able to answer them all and not get hurt too badly. Taking all of these clues, they went back to the original riddle and tried to piece everything together.

Ready for the answer?

Basically, all you had to do was follow the command on the first line, "Think, 'You have what it takes' to win." However, that's tricky, since most people would take that as a challenge and a question rather than a command. Once the team figured that out, the pillar in the middle opened, revealing a device with an eye-scanner, fingerprint taker, and an area to place a blood sample. The Riddler accepted that the Titans had proved their mind power and allowed them, and Mammoth and Shimmer, to input their DNA and get on the coveted VATOR immunity list.

Now, here is where things get interesting.

James uses his tentacles to figure out that the Riddler is below deck somewhere, so he and the team go out of the boat and down a porthole, finding Edward Ngyma surrounded by computers. They demand an explanation. The Riddler explains that he is doing this in order to test the minds of common criminals by offering up a universal needed reward. His ultimate goal is to weed out the weak-minded and find those who would join him on his ultimate quest for knowledge without the limitations of morality, religion, or things like that. Those that pass his test and join him are marked with a question mark, because that is the universal symbol for seeking after knowledge. Allegedly being the world's greatest hacker, the Riddler has access to a ton of information, including having knowledge of almost everything about the Titans.

The team has mixed feelings, which is awesome! They all agree that the Riddler is an extremist and quite possibly insane, but there's no doubting his knowledge, skill, and intelligence. Ray thinks he's going too far and should be arrested. Juan thinks that he could be a good informant and wants to teleport him out somewhere safe. James is in the middle, but decides to hold Ray back, only because the Riddler promises him some information about his past. While Juan teleports the villain away and coordinates a back and forth trade of information for services, Ray and James fight over the question of morals and selfishness against good.

We end the session with an emotional moment of Ray putting up macaroni art of villains on punching bags and beating them up. Yeah, Ray's kinda messed up. 

My Reactions:

Let me just say the following first: these are the sessions I live for. When a relatively straight-forward adventure challenges the player character's perceptions and beliefs in ways you did not anticipate, sparking character interaction, growth, challenges, all that... It's magic. This is the magic I live for, as a player and as a Game Master.

Since this is my first reaction piece as a Game Master on this blog, I'll discuss first what I believe went well, and what could have been done better.

What Went Well:

The arena battles went perfectly. While the set-up was a bit cliched and the moral quandary of whether or not to participate in an illegal fight club in order to get a technically illegal prize didn't go over as well as I would have liked, (Hell, they're teenagers. Breaking rules is what they do best) the fights themselves were satisfying. Everyone got their moment to shine, took some licks, and had some pretty graphic and creative moments. The cage match against the Fearsome Five, in particular, was awesome.

Also, the role-playing and interactions went very well, as they often do in this group. Dullahon's player sent me a text suggesting that some of the thugs in the arena recognized James from his past, which turned out to be an entertaining and enlightening moment all at once. Seeing Blue Beetle act out his d10 of emotional trauma by acquiring a ton of hobbies and being more awkward than usual was also refreshing to see. Not to mention the interactions with the Riddler at the end, which were completely unexpected.

Speaking of the Riddler, while his riddles didn't quite go as I would have liked, (More about that below) I think I succeeded in turning a typically counted off and shtick-heavy villain into someone more unique and competent. I imagined him as a marriage of a hacker and Jigsaw with an obsession on knowledge, and that got across to a great level, I believe.

What Could Have Gone Better:

So, puzzles are a tricky part of an RPG. Some players really like them, and it is not used often enough in games, in my opinion. That's why I like to throw them in on occasion, and when you're against the Riddler, puzzles are a given. Not to toot my own horn, but I do believe the riddles I constructed were rather clever, and the players thought so as well. Watching the Riddler episodes of Batman: The Animated Series really helped me on that avenue.

Still, this part of the session was not perfect. The main reason why this didn't go off as well as it could have was the time. It was about one in the morning when this part of the session began, and the players were starting to get fatigued, Johnny's player especially. Additionally, James' player is dyslexic, so riddles based around vowels, punctuation, and grammar were not up her alley at all, so... That was a miscalculation on my part.

Additionally, the mechanics I kind of half cooked up myself and half borrowed from a datafile of the Riddler on the Margaret Weis forums didn't work smoothly. Maybe this would have gone better if I designed the rooms to be a little more obstacle heavy rather than, 'You mess up, you get shocked.' I did want the focus of these rooms to be the riddles rather than the obstacles, but a better focus on the obstacle would have helped engage the less thinking inclined heroes more.

Finally, some of the rooms were less straightforward than I thought they would be. Especially the third one, which was supposed to be very simple with putting mind over matter, but the players assumed the other words had to go into some sort of order as well. Again, that was my bad, especially with the wording of 'Fix the order' which implied all of the blocks were out of order.

Despite these hiccups, I think I learned a lot about implementing puzzles in a session of this nature, so that was valuable to me, and the players did enjoy this section regardless.

So, that's my session summary! Hopefully you will also get these weekly as this group gets back into the swing. Some exciting episodes are coming down the pipeline. I hope you enjoyed this post! If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

Marvel Mondays - Civil War - Session 2 Report

Hey, readers!

So, we're here at session two of Civil War, which you can always watch by clicking on the lovely embedded Youtube video here!

However, for those of you who would rather read a moderately sized blog post than sit through about three hours of guys making 'Bro' and 'Hulk' jokes (we'll get there), read on!

Just a reminder of the team we've got in the works here. Every player has two heroes at the moment. Hulk and Daredevil. Thor and Iron Man. Tigra and Ms. Marvel. Moon Knight and Hawkeye. Captain America and Luke Cage. Wolverine and Spider-Woman. Spider-Man and Dr. Strange.  One player was absent, so neither Thing nor Yellowjacket will be showing up.

Ready to dive in?

Session Summary:

Things began right about where they left off. The team was in Oklahoma wrapping up the business with the giant, mega-death sword that we protected from Dr. Doom. A few smart guys were called in to find some way to protect and ward it, including Tony and Dr. Strange. A Doom Spiderbot shows up with a message from Doom saying that he wasn't interested in taking it, but in fact was using his army as security. We promptly ignored that noise while Dr. Strange packed a whalloping ward using alliteration (like I just did) to protect the universe-ending weapon.

Being a wonderful time for phone calls, Banner has come to after his lab-smashing rampage in an abandoned military base in New Jersey that is being raided by Hydra forces, and phones for help. Oddly enough, I live near an abandoned military base in New Jersey, so I could have been in some serious trouble here. So, we sent in the team of heroes that everyone didn't have in Oklahoma, Tony and Spider-Man excluded. I spend the rest of this session as Spider-Woman, because Hydra, and stuff.

The action scene begins with Banner rigging up a laser from scattered equipment and shooting a giant robot with it. Yeah, that was bad-ass. Cap throws his mighty shield and messes up before Hawkeye fires in some tear-gas to get the guys in there all dazed and confused. Ms. Marvel decided to attack the giant Hydra transport that was waiting outside.

Now, for those of you not in the know with Spider-Woman, during this time she was a triple agent, working with SHIELD and Hydra and spying on both while relaying all of this information back to Nick Fury. So, that makes anything with Hydra or SHIELD more fun for me. Instead of going in there, guns blazing like everyone else, Spider-Woman nabbed an agent real fast and started to interrogate him on what they were doing there, hoping to help them achieve their objective in the long run to keep up Hydra status.

Before that could bring up any fruit, Spider-Man and Iron Man show up. Spidey webs up one of the giant robots, who was going to target Spider-Woman but didn't... 'Cause stuff! After the Hydra agents rough up some of the team a bit, or try to at least, Iron Man does a mega EMP that takes everyone out. I blame my bad internet during this session on him.

So, SHIELD shows up and cleans up while Cap and Hawkeye high-five the team and have a little banter. Banner hulks out while trying to fix up Spider-Man, which was weird, but why not? Thus began the Hulk jokes, that didn't stop anytime soon. Upon returning to base, the team is given two hooks to nibble upon. The first one is that the government is considering bringing back up the Superhuman Registration Act, which is legislation talking about registering superhumans. The second is that Hammerhead is going to be assassinated after getting off a plane or something? I'm not really sure, since my internet was cutting out during that explanation.

We go for the second option. Ms. Marvel is swapped out for Tigra, and Iron Man is swapped out for Thor. Those who can go incognito do, and we all watch as Hammerhead gets into his limo. Funnily enough, a gang of 'bros' hopped up on Mutant Growth Hormone show up to pull the trigger so to speak. I began the round by having Spider-Woman pump up the pheromones in order to distract them, which didn't work out so hot. Spidey wasn't having a good day, so he swings in and tries to hit a guy, which backfires. Hulk comes in and... Well... Smashes. Thor finishes off the bros by dramatically posing and telling the guys to cut it out.

The bros were soundly defeated!... But, now the limo is going out of control and driving through airport security. Hawkeye tries to shoot the engine out, but misses. But Hawkeye never misse- Oh, wait. That's Bullseye. Oops. Captain America tries to wave the crowd away, with limited success. Finally, Tigra saves the day and pounces the limo, tearing the driver out from the seat, only to find that Hammerhead is a robot with a bomb strapped to him.

Dayum.

Thor takes the bomb into space, and the day is saved! The press is on the outskirts, but we all know how well that played out last time. However, Hulk wants to talk to the press, but we all swiftly convince him not to with promises of a buffet back at Avengers Tower. Food is a powerful motivator. So are pheromones.

Put them together, you get this.

Back at Avengers Tower, we follow up on a few leads based on what's going on. Apparently, the bros were hired by a mysterious hooded figure, who was the same guy who hired the Serpent Society to protect that MGH lab last session. My meta-game knowledge points to 'the Hood', but that's just me. We're also rather baffled by the Hammerhead robot, which turned out to be a life model decoy, which Nick Fury is famous for using.

However, when you want info on the underworld, you can always talk to the Kingpin, so we did. It was fairly simple, since he was in the slammer at this point, so we get a group of like minded individuals... and Hulk... and go have a chat. Captain America dominated the scene with each of us throwing in a fat joke here and there. Turns out the Kingpin has no idea about the life model decoys, or why one was used for Hammerhead. In fact, I can't really remember any solid info that we got out of Marvel's underworld Stay-Puft, but that may be because it's really rather late at the time of my typing this.

We end the session with a congressional hearing looming over our heads. I'm bringing back Wolvie for that one. Someone's gotta stick up for mutant-kind on this team.

My Reactions:

I'll be perfectly honest right out of the gate, this one didn't really zing for me. Not that it was bad, because, when you get right down to it, it wasn't at all. Everyone was laughing and having a good time, and that is the number one priority here. If it isn't fun, then why bother, right? That is my central philosophy when evaluating my own sessions: fun is the number one goal, all the time, every game.

And yes, it was fun.

But something was off with me, big time. I'm not really sure what it was, to be perfectly honest. I wasn't tired. Wasn't sick. I just felt really disconnected to everything for some weird reason that I'll try to figure out below. Oh, and my internet wasn't cooperating, so that didn't help either.

It could have been the fact that I was playing Spider-Woman for this entire session. I really wanted to get some time in with her to get a feel for how she plays, and I knew that Hydra would be involved in some capacity this session, so she had to be there for that. However, I'm not totally comfortable with her yet, power-wise or personality. Having read a good number of comics with her in it, I can play the spy-game, and I can attempt the wry sense of humor, but there is a measure of awkwardness there.

Before I get into more exploration of why this session was off for me, I would like to explain what I did enjoy. I want to do this now, because I've written a lot about the things that were negative for me, and I don't want to spin this whole thing the wrong way for you guys, especially those of you involved in this game, and double especially for Jared who is running this campaign.

Despite a complaint about the action scenes that I will say below, I did really enjoy them. Beating on a group of Hydra goons is really fun, and some of the stuff these guys come up with is amazing. Especially Iron Man with his super EMP. I mean, damn! That's pretty kick-ass, and totally Tony Stark. Now, those of you who read my last post about Action would think that these parts would be boring for me, but I do find the fun in scenes like this more than that post implies. It's just not even close to my favorite stuff.

Also, some of the guys were on fire comedically which had all of us rolling. I wasn't, unfortunately, but God, man. If you watch the video above for nothing else, watch it for the zingers. They are there, and they are amazing. Between the constant bro references, Steve making fun of my state, and Hulk, there was good comedy to be had. That's where the real fun of this session came through.

Now, let's go back to trying to figure out why this one was off for me.

Unfortunately, the 'weird thing' that I have mentioned in my X-Men session reports has come back even worse than before. I hate this, I really do. For those who haven't read that post, I'll reiterate it here. In online games involving speech and video, I have a really hard time distinguishing in and out of character speech, especially when it comes to jokes. God, this irritates me, because it seems to be something only I have trouble with. Especially this session with the Hulk. When the guy who plays Hulk, which does a good job all things considered, says a 'Hulk is -' or a 'Hulk wants -' joke, I can't tell if it's in or out of character at all. Then, other people will respond, and I can't tell if they are in character or just extending the joke out of character. This confusion also makes me clam up, so I'm missing an opportunity to do my favorite part of the hobby, talking and interacting in-character, because I'm confused.

Now, take that, and multiply it across seven or eight people who have two characters each, and I'm practically crippled. Not to mention my weird shyness that prevents me from starting up conversations in-character, basically because half of these peoples are almost complete strangers.

Worst part is, it's no one's fault but my own. It can't really be fixed without making stuff regimented and stilted, which is the last thing I want. So, I suppose I'll just have to continue on and pray that, as I get to know these people, that it goes away.

I'm also still not sold on this group size. There was a good discussion about it on the comments for my first Civil War session report, and the consensus, as I remember it, was a 'wait and see' approach. Well, I'm not convinced Marvel Heroic is meant for a group of eight with power levels ranging from Daredevil to Thor and Hulk. In both action scenes this session, combat only lasted one round, and everyone got one action each. The heavy hitters stole the show, obviously. Now, here's my point. If the group was smaller, failing a roll during an action scene wouldn't be such a big deal when you're on the weaker side of the spectrum, as Spider-Woman is. However, if things get wrapped up in one round due to an awesome roll from Iron Man or Hulk, and you messed up on your turn, then that's all you get to do that scene. You don't get your spotlight moment. That sucks.

When the game is mostly focused on action, that really sucks.

The final point I'd like to make is selfish, so please disregard it, but I would like to bring it up anyway. In a group of eight players, I shouldn't really expect my character's stuff to be explored all that much. Especially since everyone has two characters, I should just completely forget about it. However, a part of me still feels that Spider-Woman's triple agent status was under-utilized during the Hydra scene. She interrogated a guy, which had no mechanical influence, but he wasn't talking until the scene was over, and by then, it was too late to act on any information she would have gotten. Not to mention, the thing Hydra was after wasn't even there, so there was no opportunity for a moment of swiping it while SHIELD was cleaning up and handing it off to a Hydra contact as a small aside thing. Spider-Man also had an ample opportunity to call her out on the suspicious stuff that was going on, which would have potentially netted me four XP and been a great point of character evolution, but that didn't happen.

I wouldn't be worried about this if it was an isolated incident, but something similar happened during our Breakout game last summer. Now, I hate to be the guy who complains about things that happened a year ago, but it's a wasted opportunity that still miffles me just a bit. See, I was playing Wolverine, and the 10XP point of his milestone was either coming off a berserker rage without killing anybody, or murdering someone in front of innocents. Well, it just so happens that Wolverine murdered a villain in cold blood... And nobody cared. Unlike some of the other members of our group who just see Milestones as a way to score XP, I see them as crucial evolution points for a character. Hitting the 10 mark should be a huge deal. However, in this game and the Breakout one before it, completing milestones was just kind of a whimper and mechanical thing. In that game, I was building Wolverine to a point where he was seeing how much of a savage, how much like Sabretooth, he was becoming, and having him deal with that baggage, but the big incident that would have brought that to life was swept under the rug as we moved on to the next plot point.

I really, really apologize for bitching. It's far too late for me to be writing this blog post anyway, but I wanted to get down my thoughts while they were super fresh in my mind. I also apologize if I sound whiny, bitchy, or selfish. I don't mean to.

I'm enjoying this game, and look forward to the next time we play in two weeks where we finally dip into the stuff that sparks the Civil War.

I hope you enjoyed this post, despite my ramblings and goings-on, which I do far too much. Why else would I have a blog? If not, enjoy this funny picture, at least.

-Wes
  

Why Do People Still Enjoy Action?

Hey, readers!

So, I just came back from seeing Star Trek: Into Darkness. No, the date isn't wrong. Yes, I am seeing it a few weeks after release. Unfortunately, I'm about a two week delay on my summer movies, seeing as my brother watches them all with his friends and my father and I like to see them together so we wait for a time that is good for both of us.

It was a good movie, all things considered. Story wasn't awful, characterization was strong, and it had some fun moments. Still, walking out of the theater and discussing things with my father, I couldn't help but ponder this question.

'Why do people still enjoy action?'

I mean, at the beginning, the appeal is obvious. Action allows you to experience things that you'd never experience in an out-of-body sort of way. You can be in the middle of a tense fire-fight, escape explosions, fly a ship around, mow down enemies with an automatic weapon, all without any of the real danger. It's exciting.

At least, it's supposed to be.

It's not for me. I'm tired of action. In this violence saturated culture where you can live out any fantasy by popping in a movie or playing a video game, I feel like I've been through it all. I've fought zombies, flown spaceships, beat the bad guy down with my bare fists. There's only so many elements or variations that you can throw on it, but in the end, it's all the same. I don't get excited from action anymore.

Why am I in a minority here?

Since this is a role-playing blog, let's bring it back to my favorite hobby. The majority of RPG's have a focus on action. In fact, you can usually tell how combat driven a particular system is by how much of the core rule-book is taken up by rules on how to handle conflict. Look at a book like D&D, it's usually a pretty solid chunk. A World of Darkness book? Not so much.

I'm just curious as to the why here. Why do people enjoy a game of D&D that's just a constant kill-fest to find better treasure? So, your character kills an orc in a cool way, then another one. He jumps off a building and slices a guy. Maybe he drives a cart into an army and scatters his opponents, sword in hand, plowing away. I can see how that can be fun or cool for a little while, but eventually it becomes a contest of 'who can be the biggest badass' that drags on and on.

Why do people need action to jump-start the game or bring excitement into a session? There's that old trick of introducing ninjas for no reason when the plot gets slow, but why is that necessary? Isn't drama and human emotion engaging enough? Hell, stage-plays are almost entirely comprised of drama, emotion, character depth and growth. That keeps an audience engaged and entertained for the span of the production. Why do things like role-playing games and movies have to bring physical action into the picture to garner interest all the time?

I wish I knew why I was wired different. Many of my friends do not seem to mind combat heavy games with little regard to rhyme or reason. Only a few people agree with my point of view that I know of, and those people are mostly women. Go figure.

Still, I would love an answer. Why do you still enjoy action? Why does it take combat to get you interested or engaged during a session?

For me, I want to move on. I want to leave the mindset of 'My character does this 'cause it's cool, fun, or funny,' and start to explore why my character does what they do, what the consequences are, how they change my character, and how that changes the story. Not to say that action or combat doesn't have a place, it does! But I want it to mean something.  The choice to kill someone should have deep personal and external repercussions, not just he was bad, now he's dead. My character should be doing something beyond the motivation of 'I want money' or 'This is my job.' If my character fails, it should mean something more than just 'Game Over.'

Even if you don't agree with me, I challenge you GMs out there (and myself!) to think outside the combat box when designing your sessions. There are other ways to engage people. Not everyone has the same tastes, and your game design should be diverse to cater to the people you are running it for. If your group is full of people who can't get enough of mindless combat, then keep providing it for them. Just keep in mind the people like me who would prefer something else.

If you have an answer to the main question or any of those above, please, please, tell me! I want to understand this position that is not my own so that I could be a better GM and expand my own point of view. Also, if you agree with me or want to explore the same things that I want to, let me know! Maybe we can gather some like-minded people and do... Something!...

Regardless, I do hope you enjoyed this rant. If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

Why 4th Edition Really Grinds My Gears

Hey, readers!

I'm not really sure why this topic came to my mind. I mean, it's not an original opinion or anything groundbreaking. Plenty of people don't like D&D 4th Edition for very astute reasons that have been carefully laid out and explored ever since it came into existence. In fact, I could likely link you to a variety of articles and videos telling you precisely why 4th Edition sucks.

But I won't.

'Cause I gotta throw my two cents in while 4th Edition is the current figurehead of the biggest role-playing game in existence.

It's no surprise really that I don't like this system. Hell, I don't even like Dungeons and Dragons. Shocker, right? While I do enjoy fantasy to an extent, it is by no means my favorite genre, and D&D has always been too technical, grindy, and bloated with things that usually don't fit into my settings or don't interest me all that much. Still, it's what the masses want, so despite my better judgement and opinions, I have to run it and play it to either keep my friends happy or give non-gamers something they've heard of to break them into the hobby.

That being said, I will admit that 4th Edition isn't a horrible way to get non-gamers into the hobby. It's simple enough, identifiable, teaches the basics of the hobby, and you can have a good time with it. Believe me, I have. In those ways, it succeeds in being a game that can be played and enjoyed, so it's not complete and utter garbage.

Unless you have an inkling of design and role-playing game sensibilities. Then it's complete and utter garbage.

Let's break down the reasons, shall we?

Reason 1: The Three Tiers

God, is this stupid. So, the game tells you straight out how your character's career is going to go based on levels. 1-10 is the Heroic stage, where you do what is typically expected in a fantasy game. 11-20 is the Paragon stage where, after the passage of one level, you are a major player deciding the fate of the world or nation, flying on hippogriffs or teleporting, fighting bigger and deadlier monsters. 21 and on is the Epic tier, going across nations in an instant, fighting in the air, deciding the fate of the multiverse.

But, hold on. So, if I want a game completely based on heroes that are usually presented in something akin to Lord of the Rings, Mistborn, or other fantasy realms I like, I'm limited to level 10? If my players go beyond that, they are suddenly breaking into stuff that may not even be in my setting? Why are my players or myself constrained to this career path? Sure, you can ignore the fluff, but the game won't. And it will take a lot of editing to scale down some of the powers and abilities you can get down the line.

Thanks for assuming I'm going to be playing by your setting expectations, D&D. Don't label yourself as a fantasy system for all flavors if you're gonna pigeonhole me to the dungeon crawl, shake the nations with power template.

Reason 2: Skill Challenges

If you've been following this blog in any capacity, you know that my favorite part of RPG is the 'RP'. I'm usually not a big fan of the game part. I prefer role-playing, creating characters, getting into character, interacting, talking, going through a character arc, emotion, all that fuzzy stuff.

Here's a middle finger to all of that.

4th Edition introduced the idea of skill challenges, something I swiftly threw out, and the players I ran the game for probably forget that they exist. Basically, it's a complicated series of skill checks meant to represent some kind of encounter that isn't combat. So, the game designers sat down and said, "Okay, combat is all statted out to the last letter. Players might get bored if they're doing something not in a dungeon that has something to do with a thing called story, like convincing a king to go to war or exposing a liar, so we'll make it like a combat encounter! They'll roll a lot of dice and stuff! Can't have anything fun happening without the rolling of dice!"

So, an important role-playing encounter is now just another series of rolls, hardly influenced by the player's wit, charm, or ability to talk through situations. While this may help a player who is socially awkward play a suave diplomat because he's trained in diplomacy on his sheet, it cheapens an important part of the tabletop RP experience into something trivial and almost unnecessary. I could see an encounter like this go with just rolling dice with no explanation, and the whole thing is blanketed over and resolved in time to get to the next combat encounter.

Again, if you like that sort of thing, that's fine! Still, though, you are potentially cutting out a part of the game that is important to weird people like me who'd prefer to spend two hours sitting around a campfire and swapping stories than slay an army of orcs.

Reason 3: Classes and the 'Powers' System

I saved the best for last.

Picture that room of genius game designers again. "Alright, so, in our last edition of the game, people who played fighters and rangers and stuff were bored because all they did was hit things while the magic users got to pick spells and think. So, here's my idea, now everybody gets to choose things like spells!"

"What about the fighters and rogues who don't use magic?" asks someone who's paying attention.

"Ah, but they won't be called spells! They'll be called powers! Fighters can do special moves that attack stuff in neat ways and rogues will be all special sneak attack, flourish, and stuff!"

"So, what's the difference between a wizard's fireball spell that does a d8 of damage versus a fighter's special attack that does a d8 of damage?" asks the same guy who's paying attention.

"Uh, nothing, when you get right down to it."

"And aren't special moves and ways to improve normal combat what feats are for?" asks another person who just woke up.

"Screw feats!"

And there you have it, folks. Now, wizards and sorcerers are like everyone else. Their powers are pretty much equivalent to the special moves of their more mundane counterparts. No more studying up spells. They just go off, like magic! Sure, maybe this class can heal, or this class has a plus two to something that no one really cares about, but all of the classes are able to do cool things, all the time!

I think Syndrome said it best.

(Sorry for the bad quality~)

This becomes painfully obvious when you look at the way they handle multi-classing in this edition. Basically, you pick up the multi-class feat, pick another class, and you get one of their special things that no one cares about and an extra power. And that's it.

And, obviously, feats get the shaft too. No more careful optimizing, you power gamers who love this system so much! Feats give you little bonuses to things you don't care about, and there's a lot less of them of you're just working off the original three core books.

This is garbage on so many levels, it's not even funny. What was supposed to make combat more interesting and fun becomes mundane incredibly fast. Hell, there's not even a point with just attacking with your weapon anymore. Just do your At-Will, over, and over, and over.

Doesn't matter what class you pick. Scramble the ability scores a little, pick a race, grab a class out of the bag and you're set to go. Oh, but aren't there RP implications of being a wizard versus a fighter? Nah, D&D doesn't care anymore. That's why they added Skill Challenges. So, go ahead, whether you're shooting magic missile or stabbing a dude in the back, roll those pretty little dice, do some damage, crawl a little further into the dungeon, advance down our preset career path carefully laid out for you. Have you tried our Neverwinter setting, perfectly optimized for that carefully laid out career path? Well, you should! 'Cause creativity is for losers.

Rant Over

God.

That felt good to get off my chest.

Anyway, whether you agree with me or not, I hope you enjoyed my slightly bothered ranting. If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

My Favorite NPC - Balthazar

Hey, readers!

So, I'm a part of an organization now called the Role-Playing Blog Alliance which is sort of a centralized hub for blogs about the hobby which gives you free advertising and stuff. It's pretty cool. One of the things I noticed on there was something called a 'Blog Carnival' where a blog puts up a topic and everyone that wants to makes a post about that topic.

In the interest of ranting about random topics, as I thoroughly enjoy doing, I decided to throw my hat into the ring!

This month's topic is 'My Favorite NPC.' Now, as someone with near Perma-GM syndrome, this is kind of tricky, because I haven't really played in games long enough to find an NPC that I really, truly enjoyed interacting with. Not to say that there haven't been some great ones, but none that I would elevate to the status of 'My Favorite'.

Of course, I could just be a derp and maybe this topic also includes NPC's you've created and ran, but I digress.

I'm going to cheat a little.

The first D&D campaign that I ran in college was a real treat to run, and at some point I'll probably elaborate more on it, but there came a time where I really wanted to play. So, a friend of mine said that she wouldn't mind running the game for a while and we changed guard. The NPC I am going to describe first showed up during the segment where I was playing, but I decided to bring him back and make him an important part of the plot when I got back in the GM chair after my character's touching death via sacrifice.

Without further ado, let me introduce you all to...

Balthazar

Origin:

Balthazar's origin came at a time where a lot of my player's wanted a nemesis of some kind. My friend Harry, who was playing a Samurai, wanted to have an Oni that killed his mother involved in the plot somewhere, so I allowed that for a bit. Then, my friend Jean, who was playing a Revenant Assassin in service to the Raven Queen, wanted a nemesis of his own. I didn't get a lot of details other than a name, and that he was a former Assassin of the Raven Queen who left the order.

My friend Ellen took the game over for a bit while her character was trapped in a pocket dimension. Fun, right? Well, anyway, she first introduced the character as someone who was working with a mysterious figure known as 'The Occultist' who worked for the bad guys. He didn't have a lot of depth, just a bad-ass Eladrin assassin leading a twisted family of monstrous freaks. We didn't see too much of him.

When I got the reins back, I decided that Jean's nemesis didn't get enough screen time, so the wheels in my head started to turn, and I planted him at a most inopportune moment as a sort of off-the-cuff, unplanned way to prevent my party from doing something nearly suicidal. They were about to go kill a dragon on top of a mountain, who had a macguffin and was also the creator of the Dragonborn in my world. Only one problem, though. If a Dragonborn is hit by this dragon's fire, they turn into ash instantly, since that was the fire that created them. We had two Dragonborn in the party, too, so this was potentially going to be a disaster.

So, there to warn them about the dragon's fire and tell them that there's a way to make the fight much easier was Balthazar. Now, I'm an impressionist, so I enjoy doing cool, strange voices for my NPCs/characters. Somehow or other, by fate or chance, the more I talked as Balthazar, the more he started to sound like a certain celebrity. Not a particularly famous celebrity, mind you, but one that is close to my heart.

John de Lancie.

(I actually met him and shook his hand!!)

And, thus, Balthazar was born.

Appearance:

So, Balthazar is an Eladrin in a world where most of the Eladrin were corrupted into Orcs for messing with the Gods and the ones that remained had some weird sort of destiny. As such, he looks like an elf pretty much, tall and lanky with the pointed ears. Except, I picture him as a little taller and lankier than most, almost skeletal in his appearance but he tries to hide that with his clothing and mannerisms. Long silvery hair cascades down his features, very fine with an almost glittering quality to it. Since Eladrin are practically immortal, or else incredibly long lived, he still has a youthful face, but his piercing blue eyes carry the weight of a thousand years.

Personality:

This is where Balthazar becomes fun. Since the voice started to sound like John de Lancie, I decided to go full-out impressionist and mimic his voice, which lends itself obviously to the 'Q'-like mannerisms. In almost an instant, this originally rather flat NPC became someone the party loved to hate. He always had a snide comment, a taunting air of superiority with a twinge of boredom because, after living so long, he has experienced almost everything. Balthazar is a man looking for his destiny that was apparently promised to him by the Gods, and his search has brought him into almost every profession and walk of life to no avail. He possesses an Ecclestiastian mentality that everything is meaningless in the view of mortality and death, and there is nothing he loves more than tearing down the hopes and beliefs of those around him, playing Devil's Advocate to every position because he knows better. In fact one of his most memorable quotes was the following:

"I love destroying religion. That's why I pick on the little one." - Balthazar, in regards to a young cleric in the party.

Oh, and he's kinda flamboyant, but that goes with the voice.

Why He's My Favorite:

In all of my years of GM'ing, I have never had an NPC that engaged the party to the level that Balthazar has. Come to think of it, in all my years of acting, this is the character that I'm most comfortable improving, and almost everything he said was gold. For this reason, the players kept him around in the party because he always had a secret, always had something to say, and kept the advantage as long as he could. We would have conversations that lasted for a half hour, debating things, talking about the past, the future, all of it a duel of wits which Balthazar almost always won. All off the cuff.

Come to find out, he's also the son of the main bad-guy, and that father and son team had enough persuasive power and were in such an opportune position that almost half the party joined their cult in order to get the last macguffin. Yeah, that's right. This NPC was so powerful by personality and presence alone that he could get half the party to join the cult that was hounding them the entire campaign.

Of course, he betrayed the party when the time was right, but that backfired. His father was killed, and he was left for dead in this huge pool at the bottom of an ancient, extra-dimensional plumbing system that was designed to feed blood to a vampiric dragon.

Yeah, you wish your campaign was that awesome.

And, even after all he had done, all of the snide comments and backstabbing and arrogance, they let him live.  For a party whose strategy was kill everything in sight, this is pretty significant.

These are the reasons why Balthazar is my favorite NPC ever. Yes, I ran him and played him, but it wasn't the cool factor or even my contributions that made him the best. It was the level that he affected the party, changed the way they viewed the story and the game. He made the game awesome, and you can't deny that kind of power that I have yet to see recreated.

That's my story! Hope you enjoyed it. If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

Marvel Heroic X-Men - Session 3 Report

Hey, readers!

So, first I've got a spot of good news that is almost too good to be a coincidence. Originally, I had a fear that my X-Men and Civil War games were going to collide, considering they were both held on Mondays in the exact same time-slot. However, by stroke of luck or God, it seems that they were both scheduled on alternating weeks allowing me to have a Marvel session every single Monday for the foreseeable summer.

Ain't that just great?

So, I may just call these session reports 'Marvel Mondays' because alliteration is awesome. (See what I did there?) Though, that really doesn't matter in light of the topic.

Let's dive right in, shall we?

Session Summary:

We started out this session almost exactly where we left the last one. Beast was tinkering with the severed robot heads. Mr. Immortal was hanging out in the infirmary. Rogue was in the library trying to clear her head.  With Mentallo somewhat conscious, the Professor was able to glean some important information. It seems that he was hired by Magneto to run a machine through telepathy (the weird device he was strapped to) to jump-start these other machines called 'Breeder Bombs' that are supposed to flood the world with radiation over time so that more mutants would be born.

(Yeah. This was the best quality of this scene on Youtube, and I'm a Brony. Deal with it.)

As luck would have it, the video feed had the four locations of the Breeder Bombs on file, and Beast was able to figure out the location of the one in North America. If you haven't gotten a 'Masks of Nyarlathotep' vibe from this yet, then you obviously haven't played enough Cthulhu. We saddle up on the Blackbird (Which I called the Quinjet. Thanks, Jared) and start heading off for the wonderful state of Colorado.

So far in my Marvel Mondays adventures, I've been getting a good taste of the US. Oklahoma has fallen Asgard stuff, and Colorado has giant super-weapons guarded by insane hillbilly miners.

(I get to use this picture again. Yay!)

Rogue (Played by me) and Mr. Immortal get out of the jet and investigate where Beast's geiger counter contraption says the device is. They run into a hillbilly with a shotgun, and Rogue totally relates and stuff. Using a little white lie, they say that they're interested in purchasing the thing he is protecting and they go inside a bunker-looking building to get a look at the machine. One particularly amusing line from this exchange was the following uttered by Mr. Immortal.

"You should touch him and knock it out. Sure, you'll think you're a strange hill-billy for a while and love guns, but what else is new?"

Instead of infecting her mind, she leads him outside to negotiate prices while Mr. Immortal and Beast try to figure out how to shut the machine down. Then, Sentinels attack. It just wouldn't be a proper X-Men game without these guys, now, would it?

This was a great fight, and while I won't exactly give the blow-by-blow, I'll point out some great moments. Mr. Immortal caused the Sentinel to smash the machine and over-charge it. Beast yanked a tree out of the ground and hit a Sentinel with it. Rogue ripped the blaster cannon off of a sentinel, got crushed by his hand, then brushed off the damage and flipped the guy over. Mr. Immortal looted the hillbilly's stash of weapons and tried to shoot the robot with a 9mm. Finally, Beast got into the X-Jet and effectively finished both of the injured Sentinels off while spouting off this gem.

"Sir, I usually think it crass to give one the bird, but in this case, I am more than willing."

The military was on its way after this whole debacle from the nearby military base, so the team got out of there as quickly as possible. Professor Xavier sent them a message via telepathy that he had the next location ready to send to them, and the group had an in-depth discussion on why Magneto would be using Sentinels. Beast hypothesized that the Magneto in the footage may be a robot also!

 Apparently, the next bomb is in Russia somewhere in a former Soviet state. Back in the USSR, anyone? No? Just me?

So, just as we get there, zap! Something shuts down our engines and we fall to the ground and crash. We're all fine, 'cause, y'know. Superheroes. Come to find out that Titanium Man and his minions are on the warpath!...

And that's where we ended, since someone had to leave.

My Reactions:

Gotta say, I enjoyed this session much more than the last two I have been in with this group. I'm kind of the new guy in this group, considering these guys play in an Annihilation game every other Wednesday that I'm not currently involved with, but I finally feel like I've acclimated myself in. The guys were in great form tonight, all in-character, doing cool and creative stuff, and our GM was a bit more focused and ready than he was the previous two times.

What was really great to find out is that, now that I'm aware of the 'Weird Thing' that I described in my last X-Men session summary, I'm much better able to deal with it. Of course, it's also a big part of knowing the people and being able to read when they're IC or OOC, but I'm getting much better at doing that. With that said, we actually got into some good role-play this session! Instead of one-lined quips in a row, we actually carried on conversations and started exploring some light character stuff dealing with the situation. This is more what I'm talkin' about, and I hope that this trend will only continue.

The Sentinel fight was the main feature of the session, and after playing with large groups the last few times out, it was really refreshing to go back to the small-group setting. The fight was really a lot of fun, especially seeing what Mr. Immortal was going to do to make a difference, considering he is the quirky one when it comes to powers. Unfortunately, it seems this campaign is mostly centered around fighting robots, so I don't get to use Rogue's 'cool' powers as much, but I gotta say, Ms. Marvel's power-set is incredibly satisfying. Between Energy Absorption and her version of Second Wind, you can get the d12 strength quite a bit and shrug off stress like it was nothing. I love it.

Besides a few hiccups on the GM's side involving things beyond his or our control, there really wasn't anything too wrong with this session. I had a great time, and despite the rail-roadiness of the module in question, I'm looking forward to the game in two weeks.

Hope you enjoyed the post! If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

(A little dark humor never hurt anyone.)