Marvel Mondays - X-Men - Session 5 Report

Hey, readers!

So, with this session, we finally finish off the Breeder Bombs module which is, admittedly, pretty lousy when it comes to the actual plot. We had fun with it, however!

For those of you just tuning in, the basic plot here is that Magneto has been setting up these nuclear devices called Breeder Bombs that flood the atmosphere with radiation in order to create more mutants, and our team of X-Men are travelling to shut them down due to the danger they present to mankind. However, it turns out Magneto isn't really behind it, since he's working to stop these bombs as well.

Whodunit?

Well, the answer is... Probably not what you expected.

Let's dive in.

Session Summary:

Our intrepid team of X-Men consisting of Beast (Feline version), Mr. Immortal (On leave from the Great Lakes Avengers), and Rogue (With Ms. Marvel's powers, played by me), ride the Blackbird to Chile, to the Andes where the last Breeder Bomb is located. Apparently, it's holed up in some sort of ancient temple made by some great civilization of the past. It seems quiet... Too quiet!

Our team enters the hallway, which is sloping downwards and slowly expanding outwards the further along we go. Out of the shadows emerges a trio of flesh robot things! One is modeled after a circus performer of some sort and is incredibly strong. Another has an optical blast very similar to Cyclops'. The last one is super fast!

Beast targets the super-fast one and does his best to wrangle him down, with little success at first. Mr. Immortal, being the suicidal one of the bunch, decides to take on the strong man with a dizzying array of feats that are surprisingly effective, including wall-running in order to poke him in the eye and a good old fashioned sucker-punch. Rogue pairs off against the optic blast guy, hoping to use her energy absorbing powers from Ms. Marvel to give herself an edge, but she isn't doing so hot. Beast finally manages to catch the super-fast robot off guard and smashes his head apart. Using a trick used against her in a previous battle, Rogue decides to pick up the dead super-fast robot and smash her opponent with it, ending the fight.

Feeling a little cocky, Rogue and Beast throw the remains of their opponents into the entrance of the main chamber. Turns out that was a terrible idea, because, in the room with the Breeder Bomb is none other than... Magneto!... And... Magneto...? Apparently, we have finally met robo Magneto who has somehow captured regular Magneto and has him bound to the wall.

Beast asks the astute question, "How did a bunch of robots capture the Master of Magnetism?"

And, somewhere, the author of this module cries in shame from his obvious plot-hole.

(Nope. He's happy.)

Turns out robo-Magneto is not alone, for he is joined by a half-finished collection of his Brotherhood of Mutants, consisting of Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and the Blob. Proclaiming that they are doing the will of the Sentinal God, they attack the bewildered X-Men. Beast immediately begins to scramble to the real Magneto in an attempt to rouse him, but robo-Magno manages to stop him in his tracks. Quicksilver does his best to deliver a punch to everyone, and manages to do so! Rogue is also trying to make her way to Magneto for completely irresponsible reasons, but robo-magno is intent on not letting his captive free.

Blows are traded across the board, and dice are rolled poorly on both sides! Mr. Immortal met his untimely demise when he attempted to bull-rush Scarlet Witch into the Breeder Bomb, but ended up tripping and impaling himself on a spike. Beast tries to wrangle robo-Magneto, giving Rogue a window of opportunity to reach the real deal, which she does! He then tosses robo-Magneto into a computer panel, which temporarily dazes all of the robots. Odd...

Robo-Magneto and his cronies gather around the Breeder Bomb as the pretend Master of Magnetism tries to boost up its power. By this point, Rogue has announced to Beast that, should this plan of hers go horribly wrong, that he has every right to take her down. Summoning her courage, Rogue absorbs Magneto's powers and memories and proclaims to the pretender that he will pay for impersonating the Master of Magnetism!

In a moment of awesomeness, Rogue uses her new powers to lift robo-Magneto from the ground, and impales him with a variety of sharp objects from around the room, which ultimately resulted in shutting down all of the other robots. Magneto's personality passes from her, and she and Beast work together to shut down the final Breeder Bomb, ending the crisis. With many questions, the pair pick up the remains of Mr. Immortal and head off to the Blackbird, having saved the world from... Radiation, and stuff.

My Reactions:

This was my favorite session of our X-Men game yet, for one very important reason. I finally got to do what Rogue does best, which is absorb powers with all of the consequences! Mechanically, I got to try out her power-set with awesome results, and it was just a cool conclusion.

My own personal bias aside, this group continues to do a good job. My fellow players are great, and our GM has one quality that I really admire. He knows how to straddle the line between challenge and good story-telling when it comes to coordinating his action scenes. Sure, his knowledge of the system isn't great, and there were a lot of things mechanically that he could have adjusted to make the ending scene run better (Such as creating a timer when robo-Magneto surged up the Breeder Bomb), but he knows when to go hard and when to ease off for the sake of spotlight and awesomeness. This is a trait I'm hoping to incorporate into my own GM style in the future.

Not too much to say besides that, really. I'm looking forward to how this group will proceed, especially now that we are off the rails of a pretty old and poorly constructed module. That said, I hope you enjoyed this session summary! If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

  

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