Psychonauts with FAE?!

Hello readers,

It's no secret that Psychonauts is awesome. What is Psychonauts? Oh, just a little video-game by Double Fine that is artistic, hilarious, and awesome. You play as Raz, a psychic circus runaway who infiltrates Whispering Rock Summer Camp, a place where they train young psychics to eventually join the international, psychic, spy organization called the Psychonauts! While there, he uncovers a conspiracy about a crazy dentist stealing kid's brains to make psychic death tanks.

It's awesome.

Why am I telling you about this? Well, mainly because I think this game can be modeled very well in the FAE system. I don't discuss this system on my blog very often, but it is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to take a generic or established setting and play it in a tabletop RPG. Not to mention, you can get it for basically free, so there's no excuse not to go check it out.

So, after doing some figuring and playing through the game in question again, I've developed a mini-hack for those of you who want to bring a little Psychonauts to your game table using the Fate Accelerated Edition. There's more that needs to go into it, such as stating out censors and actually testing it, but I think this is a good start.

Enjoy the psychic explorations below!

Psychonauts: With FAE!

Psychic Powers:

Access to Psychic Powers is activated by a relevant Aspect, usually the 'High Concept.' Experienced psychics, such as a member of the Psychonauts, have access to all of the following applications of their psychic power. Less experienced psychics, such as campers at Whispering Rock, may select three to start and can unlock the others through play.

PSI Powers – Clairvoyance, Confusion, Levitation, Invisibility, Pyrokinesis, Marksmanship, Shield, Palm Bomb, Telepathy, Telekinesis, Psi-Punch

Stunts can be used to further refine specialty in one or more of these disciplines.

Example: Because I can Talk to Fish, I get a +2 when trying to cleverly create an advantage by talking to aquatic creatures with my telepathy.

Because I'm a Recovering Pyromaniac, once per session I may give an 'On Fire' aspect to someone or something with pyrokinesis.

Entering the Mental World:

In order to enter someone's mindscape, they must have a Psycho-Portal, which is a small object shaped like a door that can attach itself to someone's head. Then, determine if the subject in question is willing to have you enter his mind.

If they are unwilling, you must succeed on an overcome action rolled against them. If they are willing, you may enter freely.

Then, do a Create an Advantage with an Easy difficulty (+0) for a willing participant, and a Moderate difficultly (+2) for an unwilling one. Every step above the required difficulty level determines your number of Astral Projection Layers. If you fail, you are not allowed to enter the mind for a number of hours equal to the steps below the target you scored.

Astral Projection Layers: When in the mental world, it is possible to be stressed out with no real-world consequence, so long as you have an astral projection layer left. When you fill in your last stress box while in the mental world, remove an Astral Projection Layer, then remove all of your stress. If you fill in the last stress box and have no layers left, you are kicked out of the mental world and take a moderate consequence in the real world.

Activity in the Mental World:

Activity in the mental world follows FAE rules, with the following additional possibilities:

-Astral Projection Layers (See above)

-Going from zone to zone in the mental world is usually blocked by a complicated series of platforms and obstacles, requiring an overcome action to get past. The conditions for success and failure are modified in the following ways for these particular overcome actions.

Fail: Succeeding at a serious cost should result in checking off a stress box. This represents a series of attempts that resulted in some falls into bottomless pits that were quickly resolved, succeeding only after many, many attempts.

Tie: As written.

Succeed: As written, with the following addition. Collect figments equal to steps achieved times five. Collect 100 figments in the Mental World, and you may unlock an additional psychic application, or earn a new stunt if all the applications are collected and if you don't exceed your refresh by taking the stunt.

Succeed with Style: The player may select a boost of their choice, or one of the following options:

Collect Figments along the way, equal to steps achieved times ten.

Find an Emotional Baggage Tag, or the Emotional Baggage for a tag you've already found. You cannot do both on the same Overcome action. When a tag and bag are reunited, you may earn an additional psychic application, or earn a new stunt if all applications are collected and if you don't exceed your refresh by taking the stunt.

Find and Open a Mental Vault: This reveals one of the Aspects for the person whose mind you are in. You get one free invocation.

-Some equipment that would be useful in the Mental World that a camper or Psychonaut can own or purchase from the camp store can be represented by stunts. Examples:

Because I own Smelling Salts, once per session, I may exit the mental world with no consequences.

Because I own a Cobweb Duster, once per session, I can collect mental cobwebs in an inter-zone obstacle, lowering the difficulty of crossing it by two.

Because I own Dream Fluff, once per session, I may clear all of my stress boxes while in the Mental World.

That's all I have so far! I hope you enjoyed this post! If you didn't, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

Fisticuffs: Why Is There So Much Violent Conflict Resolution?

Hey, readers!

The following is going to be another editorial related to the amount of violence in role-playing games and why it seems to be the go-to option for most conflict resolution. This is sort of related to my previous thoughts on why there has to be so much action in an RPG, but I think it is a little more mature look. Obviously, every story involves conflict, and conflict needs to be resolved. You could call any attempt to resolve conflict as 'action', so the previously proposed question is almost moot from a certain point of view.

So, let's imagine a rather common scenario in a role-playing game. Your party of adventurers, heroes, or what have you is looking for information of some kind. This could be the location of whatever noun you'd like, or some bit of further information in order to move plot points around and clarify things that have happened in the past. You find a person or group that has said information, ask for it, and they are unwilling to give it to you.

What do you do?

If you're in most of the groups I've participated in, the group will either push the guy with the best diplomacy or intimidation out front to force it out through good rolling, or the weapons come out and the rumble occurs until they are more apt to share what they know.

Now, while these are the two seemingly most obvious ways to resolve this situation, they are only two in a sea of possibilities that are often ignored. Why do we, as players, go for the guns and swords so often as a way of resolving conflict?

I ask this primarily because it seems to fly right in the face of what people experience on a daily basis. I can honestly say that throughout my lifetime, every conflict that has been brought up was settled without violence. This obviously isn't true for everyone. Still, human nature would dictate that most people would want to avoid distress and pain as much as possible, therefore solutions beyond violence would be preferable since they have a lesser chance of causing physical harm to oneself.

Still, one could argue that most roleplaying games are heightened to a place of adventure, where the world is dangerous, but you are more than equipped to deal with all of the dangers and show off how tough you are. This may be true, but since when did adventure equate to consistent violent solutions? Do we need to beat up everyone who stands in our way? Does every conflict between two factions have to be resolved through combat, or the threat of annihilation?

The answer to this question is relatively simple, and usually related to the system one is running and the characters that are in play. If one starts at the first, Dungeons and Dragons is, at it's core, centered around combat. Most of the things that differentiate between classes have to do with combat, or how one performs in violent situations, and usually this is how your character is measured. In fact, a big percentage of the rules are dedicated to this. When you are playing a fighter, and things don't come down to blows, then you feel like all of the mechanical goodies on your sheet are wasted.

Also, some people just enjoy a good scrap. The tactical and visceral nature of games of this breed appeal to a lot of people. In fact, role-playing games are reportedly the offspring of war-games which are made to solely simulate combat on multiple scales, so the progression seems natural. Combat is central to many systems, and it is the body, while flavor text and roleplaying encounters would make up the heart and soul.

Personally, I find it to be a little distasteful. I'm not coming at this from a moral high-ground, or the position of 'games shouldn't be violent' and such, but rather from the perspective of someone who understands the basics of good storytelling and likes to get into the heads of their characters. Honestly? I think games become much more fun when the alternatives are found. A search for information could become an adventure unto itself rather than a goal where bad guys on the other side stand in the way. More skills can come into play, and the personalities and varied skills of the characters start to matter more than how many hit-points they have, or whether they can do a 'Power Attack.'  The game starts to come alive and feel less like a mindless video game and more like a narrative with actual, thinking people.

From a character perspective, I think a lot of people don't realize the weight of taking another life, and how that can affect your character. Think about, say, a bubbly Gnome bard whose life is rather gleeful. After a dungeon where scores of semi-sentient or sentient beings were mowed down, do you think said character would remain so bubbly and gleeful? Causing injury and death to another being, regardless of what your differences are, is always a significant emotional event, unless you are either insane or hardened to the point where it doesn't matter. Granted, a lot of characters fit into those two categories, but I digress.

The bottom line here is this: play however you want, but remember that fisticuffs doesn't have to solve every encounter. Sometimes thinking outside the box can lead to a better story.

What are your thoughts about the amount of violent conflict resolution in games? Leave me a comment, start a discussion!

Hope you enjoyed my editorial! If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

NPC Overload: Why I Hate Council Meetings

Hello, readers!

This will likely be the last post for this year, and hopefully the new year will be much more active with my musings! Thank you all for reading, commenting over on Google+, and all such things.

Today I'd like to talk about an issue that I have come across once or twice in my earlier career as a Game-Master and have been trying my best to avoid ever-since. Sometimes it's an isolated incident that can be plowed through and hopefully forgotten. Other times, it's a situation that lingers and seems to get worse and worse as time goes on. I'll try to explain the issue below and see if I can brainstorm some ideas to avoid or lessen this problem.

I speak, of course, of NPC overload.

The first four years of gaming that I experienced through High School was dominated by Star Wars games. Our group started with the Revised Core Rulebook, and eventually migrated to Saga after realizing how much better it handled the universe. Edition isn't important, however, especially in regards to this topic. I bring up Star Wars because there was one major element that groups that contained one Jedi or more had to encounter at some point.

Jedi Council meetings.

I mean, you can't just have some semi-important Jedi running around without having to report to a Council eventually, and how many times can you say that most of the delegates are gone? Therefore, the players have to approach the Council and discuss their mission or ask for something, and you as the GM have to play all of them. Needless to say, it can be daunting, even if you have a cheat sheet with the names of various council members and maybe one or two adjectives to describe their personality.

No matter how good your Yoda voice is, you start to sound like you have really severe schizophrenia, and it can be boggling for both you and your players. Let's not even get into what happens when parts of the council start to disagree and you wind up having an argument with yourself while your players stare at you funny.

Unfortunately, this isn't limited to just meetings of a body of delegates. This can happen any time there is more than one important NPC in a scene that requires interaction. Try running the Masters of Evil and suddenly you have to speak for a bunch of villains at once. Or maybe there's an NPC in the party, and they have an important connection to a villain, and you find yourself talking to yourself again while the players sit back and watch.

I call this NPC overload, which can either mean one of two things.

1: You have the party interacting with a large group of different NPCs, or NPCs are interacting with each other for an extended period of time.

2: The actions of NPCs in interactions are so detailed and complicated that it leaves the players out of important events.

Obviously, a good GM should avoid #2 at all costs and try to involved the player's as much as possible, even when two NPCs are spatting or having an argument. Players should always be the focus of events, and if the other characters are getting in the way of that, things need to be rearranged. If you're just going to have a bunch of your characters doing important things, why not write a book instead of running a game?

However, #1 can be an issue for even seasoned GM's at one point or another. What can we do to mitigate this problem, or make it more accessible/enjoyable for all involved?

Here are some suggestions:

1: In a meeting/summit/council type situation where all of the members are pretty much in agreement, simply divide up answers between council members/voices. Maybe the first one on the list answers the first question, or two and three make a point together in response to something a player said. It takes getting used to at first, but this generally helps these difficult events flow, at the very least.

2: If two NPCs are arguing, involve the players between every back and forth. Give them a chance to interject what they think, end the argument, or support one side or another. If you feel like you've been talking to yourself for too long, you probably have been.

3: Limit your active NPCs per scene. Any more than two can get complicated, and three's a crowd. Make sure your players are the center of every scene, even when dealing with very important characters like the main villain or the ruler of the land.

3.5: Don't send a group when one can do the job. (For non-combat, anyway.)

For myself, this issue has mostly been resolved, either by avoidance or using some of the strategies above to make it tolerable. However, since I haven't talked at length with too many game-masters about this side of the hobby, I'm not sure if this is just me, or a further epidemic! Let me know if this comes up in your games, and how you handle it!

Hope you enjoyed this little article on NPC overload. If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

Metaplot: Flavorful Setting Dressing or Harbinger of Doom?

Hello, readers!

As you may or may not know, over the last couple of years White Wolf has been working on making 20th anniversary editions of some of their classic lines. Referred to as the old World of Darkness (or Classic), these lines gathered enough of a following in the 90's to sit themselves as probably the second most popular line of roleplaying games after Dungeons and Dragons. Vampire the Masquerade started the charge, and the setting expanded to include werewolves, mages, ghosts, mummies, demons, the Fae...

Yeah, it was a veritable monster mash drenched in grunge, leather, tattoos, and conspiracy.

I was quite a fan of Masquerade, even though I got into the hobby when these books were out of print and the new World of Darkness was just starting. The video game, VtM: Bloodlines, is what really drew me in and I dug up some old books to quench my growing curiosity about this interpretation of the creatures of the night. Thankfully, this pulled me into the Vampire fandom before Twilight came and bred disgust and anger. While I didn't run or play a lot of it, Masquerade always held a special place in my heart, even after Requiem came out.

Why were they changing everything, I wondered? What was wrong with the Camarilla, Anarchs, and Sabbat? Was the Cain legend too definitive for the modern day where we can't be really sure of anything anymore? It seems I was blissfully unaware of one major thing that the World of Darkness lines had that eventually spelled their doom.

Metaplot.

For those of you who don't know, this basically means that, in the established setting, things changed between books as things moved in the fiction. Major NPCs did things, powers came in and out of fashion, Clans joined and left organizations, and every edition or book seemed to scramble things a little and all lead to some sort of end-of-the-world scenario for each line. Of course, this end-of-the-world needed to be spelled out at some point, and in 2004, the meta-plot ended with three novels and books that presented the Storyteller with some ideas on how to map out Gehenna, or the Apocalypse, or whatever flavor of Armageddon your horror monster was facing.

According to those older than I was, this metaplot became incredibly confusing, and if you didn't buy almost every book that came out from White Wolf for your line of choice, it was easy to get lost. Things became more and more ridiculous, and things fell apart until most people were convinced that the metaplot needed to either be ignored or thrown out.

While what happened to White Wolf was likely a result of poor planning and too many chefs in the kitchen, that left me in an interesting place, because the idea of a metaplot was intriguing to me. You mean, a setting can change organically from the powers that be? It was a new and exciting idea to me, that settings can evolve. A familiar sandbox could grow, or have new toys, or at least different toys, maybe even based on input from the community?

That leads me to this question: is metaplot in a setting a bad thing? I don't think that is necessarily so. It is tricky, and has a lot of negative points, but maybe a well-handled meta-plot could even enhance a game line, or give it direction that it was lacking.

Let's bring this to Vampire, since it is the setting I'm most familiar with in the White Wolf scheme of things. Requiem brought with it a setting that erased the definitive nature of the metaplot. No more scheming Elders, no more Cain, no more over-arching Camarilla, no more Gehenna. No one knows how Vampires came to be, but all these organizations have different ideas and methods on how to run things, and they all coexist and battle out for supremacy, city by city. This made the game completely customizable, which is great.

But, something was missing. Comparing the two side-by-side, I feel like I have more of an idea about what sort of game I could run in Masquerade rather than Requiem. Sometimes, there is a thing as too much freedom, and I got that feeling while reading a lot of the other new World of Darkness lines. Take out the Wyrm, and what do Werewolves do? I guess they're just... Spirit police? Don't even get me started on Changeling. I was more Lost than they were when trying to puzzle out what kind of stories you can tell from the base book alone. It was an overwhelming feeling of, "That's great...Then what?"

The White Wolf examples aside, there are a lot of problems inherit with metaplot. While it can add great flavor, it also potentially detracts from changes to the setting that happens organically in game. Oh, your players killed the Prince, who in this new book, leads some sort of revolution? Whoops. Your players took down the Camarilla in Paris? Guess this new thing doesn't make sense now. The setting can never truly take account of your characters because the publishers likely don't know about them, so whether they are major power players or not, things will happen without them to a pre-determined end. That takes a lot of wind out of the players sails, even if the Storyteller edits the new developments to fit your version of the setting. It almost feels like it doesn't matter what you do since the setting moves on and ends without you, potentially.

That argument could be countered by the 'Use what you want' rule that most of these books implied, but the feeling could still remain.

Metaplot is also hard to keep track of. Settings are often broad, and if handled in the White Wolf fashion which slapped something new into almost every book (and there were a lot of them), it is incredibly easy to lose people under the weight of new developments. It does have the benefit of creatively using justifications in the setting to explain new rules in an edition update, but that could be outweighed by the amount of stuff you miss if you just buy a couple supplements and not all of them. Roleplaying books are expensive, even in the advent of Drive-Thru RPG and the like. Does a company really want to force a player to buy everything to see how things progress?

Heh, kinda sounds like comic book series. Not that those settings ever evolve...

Anyway.

Detractors aside, I think a setting could really benefit from some smart ideas regarding this concept. Maybe books that advance the metaplot could be written in a way that emphasizes the players rather than established NPCs? Maybe the creators could regularly poll its community to see what developments they want to see? Maybe some of these books could come with clearly defined options for what happens next, almost like how White Wolf handled the 'End-of-the-world' books?

I don't know, but I think there's untapped potential in an experiment that may have horribly backfired and ruined a line in the past. This is the age of the internet! Companies interact with their communities now more than ever, especially when it comes to role-playing with the advent of small press. Push the boundaries of setting, developers! Don't just define, refine, change!

Okay, that's enough ranting. I hope you enjoyed this article. If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

Gaming Update - December 2013

Hey there, readers!

It has been quite some time since I last posted on here, but I'm not dead yet! My blogging senses are tingling, and I'd like to get back into this after my hiatus. So, I thought that before digging into the meat of the things that are spinning around my head concerning the RP hobby, I should let you all know where I stand in the life of a gamer.

Because dividing things up is fun, I'll be breaking this up into little sections! I don't want this post to go on and on, so I'll  be brief.

Games That Have Ended/Have Been Postponed:

Marvel Civil War - Due to a few players having to bow out for various reasons or having spotty schedules, this game has been postponed. We were going to move on to Annihilation instead, but that was soon nixed due to several factors. So, with mixed feelings, this game has ended, and may be picked back up sometime around next Summer, by my estimation, if at all.

Marvel Origins: Avengers - I ended my game after a few sessions for a couple of reasons. The most prominent reason was that my Wednesday nights kept getting busy, so it was hard to maintain a steady rhythm. Secondly, while I think the game was going just fine, I started to get a little burnt out with some of the elements that just weren't working in my mind. One of those big ones was the Hulk, who's player never showed up, but remained a potential 'Instant Win' button that could be pressed, and the players treated him more like a weapon than a character. Another was the abilities of the characters, which was my own fault, really. I felt that the power level was just a touch high from what I had originally envisioned, which made presenting challenging encounters difficult. So, I may pick this up again someday. We'll see.

Games That I Left:

Dresden Files: Detroit - The group that I was playing X-Men with moved onto a game of Dresden Files, based on the FATE system. Things were going rather alright, and I had a character I rather liked. Unfortunately, my Mondays started to get difficult to schedule around, and my enthusiasm for the game faded as a result. Couple that with the fact that I wasn't really feeling the setting, and I decided to leave.

Games That Continue Intermittently:

Teen Titans - Our group managed to finish the first Act after about a year of inconstant schedules and trying to get everyone corralled. All of the players really want the game to continue, and I do too to an extent, but it is a combination of being in the right mood and getting this new act set-up, which I haven't done completely yet. However, I am far from canning this game due to the potential, so it continues on, when I get to it and the players are free!

New Games I'm Playing:

Marvel Tales 1964 - On the newly reformed Margaret Weis forums, a call went out to do a similar mission statement that I had originally discussed on here in the past. Creating a new Marvel universe from starting at the beginning of these character's stories and seeing where they go. However, our GM took a more classic approach, re-adapting existing comics and running them as sessions with the three main groups: Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men, running a different group every week. I'm playing Wasp, Mr. Fantastic, and Jean Grey, respectively. While I may get into more detail later, let's just say that this is probably the most fun I've had in an online RP since my first run of Breakout last year.

X-Force - There is a group on Facebook called 'The Doom Pool', which is for fans of MHRP. The person who runs it was getting rather tired of the lack of games seeking players and decided to start a bit of Breakout with characters from X-Force. Hoping to help him out, I joined as Wolfsbane. The game has been interesting so far, and I find myself reunited with a player from my Marvel Origins game, which is a treat.

Unknown Title of a Pathfinder Game - One of my friends, who plays in a few of my games, is running his own game back at the college I used to attend, and I am able to join them through the magic of the internet and the times I come to visit. This Pathfinder game takes place in a world between worlds, so to speak, where all magic channels through in every universe, and most of it takes place in the sky. I play a feline rogue who is married to her vices, and the other characters are great to interact with. The plot is just getting going, but I am excited to see how things unravel.

New Games I'm Running:

The Barrier Gem Prophecy: Arms Race - Lovingly called 'The Sequel' by my players, this is a sequel to a campaign I ran for a group of fresh-faced college Freshman who had either never played a table-top RPG before or had done so only once or twice. With some wonderful changes like switching from D&D 4 to Pathfinder, we begin the next chapter in the tale of my custom made fantasy world as it deals with the aftermath of the first campaign. We've only done the first session thus-far, but it went incredibly well, and it was great to see old characters brought back and new characters thrown into the mix.

The Near and Present Future:

My GM itch is getting to me, and my mind has been running with ideas. I feel like I'm almost ready to try my hand at running something online again, hopefully with more success than I had previously. What will it be? Who knows! Part of me has really gotten back into Vampire the Masquerade, so that's an option, and I'm always up for Marvel Heroic. *Shrugs!*

So, that's my gaming update! Hope you enjoyed it. If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

Why I Play Female Characters

Hey, readers!

While I have a huge backlog of session reports that I need to update on here, I thought it would be nice to take a little aside from that and do something more of an article/editorial kind of thing. Hope you enjoy it!

This is a topic that usually isn't brought up all that much. The reason for that is, I think, a level of awkwardness inherit in the subject matter. Most of the time, the assumption when making characters for a role-playing game is that one will follow their own gender, yet there often are those who bend and do the opposite. It's hardly ever brought up afterward when this happens, and things usually proceed, twinged just a little bit in awkwardness. The other players would never ask, of course, but the question remains: why?

I'm going to do my best to explain using my own personal experience.

I am one of those male role-players who often opts to make a female character. I've been doing it that way ever since I started this hobby many years ago, and to this day I continue the tradition. This is not to say I don't play male characters too, but I do it less frequently and, in my view, with less success. Those who have gamed with me before are used to it by this point, but every time I join a new group and character creation is brought to the table, I find myself back to that question: why?

For myself, I've broken it down into a few key points.

The Sausage-Fest Preventative:

Let's face it: tabletop role-playing is a hobby that is more often played by men than women. I'm no expert on the numbers, but I would give it a 70-30 split percentage-wise. Now, if you expand the definition of role-playing to non-tabletop, those numbers would change based on the vast community of teenage girls on the internet role-playing as their favorite anime characters in forums, but I digress.

In a group of all-male players where everyone follows the standard character creation paradigm of 'play someone you'd want to be/is awesome', things quickly develop into a sausage fest. It's no wonder Lord of the Rings is used as the bottom-line basis for almost all tabletop role-playing! A bunch of guys run around going on adventures.

Tolkien's work not-withstanding, most groups of protagonists in fiction have female representation. You can argue in feminism all you want about their roles and exposure, but the fact is, they are there, and it adds another dimension to the group dynamic. Now, granted, you could have a group of three men be just as interesting and dynamic as a group of two men and a woman, or two women and a man, but each set-up brings something new to the table. At least in my mind, it makes things more interesting.

So, one reason I play female characters is to break up the sausage fest, as it were. Variety is the spice of life, and even in a cast filled with a dizzying number of people of various classes and professions, more diversity is never an issue in my book.

However, this reason alone doesn't hold up if there is a female character already in the mix, so let's continue.

Female Characters are More Dynamic and Engaging:

This is a matter of personal opinion, but it is one I share with another friend of mine who thinks similarly as I do, and I will be paraphrasing him through some of this explanation.

A lot of this goes back to cultural expectations and current social conventions, but let me explain what I mean by the fact that female characters are more dynamic and engaging. In our current culture, which has dissolved down into our fiction, women have a wider range of socially acceptable means of expression. A woman can be violent and tough, or demure and sweet. She can be sensitive, emotional, cold, angry, sweet, or evil, and the character will still be acceptable in our current views because all of these emotions and states fit into the view of what it means to be a woman. They are tough enough to endure the pain of childbirth, but also sensitive enough to deal with people on an emotional level.

Now, as a contrast, let's look at what our current cultural definition of being a man is like. Men are expected to be physically fit and intelligent, to deal with situations with few emotions, and to be ever-capable. Weakness and failure in any area is looked down upon severely. A male character that is frail, dim-witted, sensitive, or emotional is usually played for comedy in our society because they are viewed as failures of the paradigm, and thusly, funny. It is the same with male characters in role-playing games. Think of your last campaign and try to find me a male character with some of these 'flaws' that was taken completely seriously. It's harder than you think.

Basically put, female characters have more acceptable and expected range, and I personally find that much more fun to explore than trying to fit the mold of the ideal male hero like everyone else.

The Other Side of the Fence:

Role-playing is all about fantasy and imagination. Through this genre of game, you can explore new worlds, have strange encounters, and experience the life of any character you can think up. There is a lot of freedom in that, and through this journey, one could learn a lot about both themselves and others. Countless questions with theological, moral, and philosophical implications can be raised in this collaborative exercise of the mind, and part of the mostly unnoticed joy is to explore them in a safe and friendly environment.

This implies that you can experience something akin to what it's like to be an Elf in Middle Earth, or what kind of stress Iron Man goes through. You can also explore the question of 'what is it like to be the other gender?' By changing your perspective in such a personal way, you are forced to subconsciously answer a multitude of questions during various situations that defines a lot about yourself and your perception of the other gender. This widens your mind, and adds a layer of complexity and depth to your personal role-playing experience.

Sex and gender are two incredibly interesting topics to me, and to many people out there. Exploring themes like gender, sexuality, gender roles and the like can be just as interesting as exploring themes like corruption, the cost of power, and the like. I like to play women because I can explore some of these themes for myself and others, and I get to examine situations from a perspective I'll never experience in the real world.

Conclusion:

Those are my big three reasons for gender-bending in my role-playing games. I could probably come up with more, but they would likely fall into the latter-two categories to some degree and I would be rambling on and on. My hope is that this explanation could open your eyes some to how I feel and how perhaps other people you know who do this feel.

Now, granted, you could probably ask the follow-up question: why does your character's gender matter so much to you? Bottom line is, well, it doesn't. My philosophy is that a character shouldn't be defined by their gender to the point where that becomes the focal point. This is where I feel many authors and feminists fall apart to some degree. They care so much about creating or displaying the 'realistic, believable, likable' female character that they lose sight of everything else that makes the character feel realistic, believable and likable.

Why explain all of this then? Mostly, my goal is to dispel some of the awkwardness. My secondary goal would be to have in a written format things I've always believed since I started this hobby but never really thought about or put to paper.

Either way, I hope you enjoyed this little walk into my psyche! If you didn't, here's a funny picture.

-Wes  
   

Marvel Origins - Avengers - Session 2 Report

Hey, readers!

It's been quite a while since I've thrown up my session reports, and I have quite a backlog of interesting content to inform you of! I'll be going in order of appearance here, so we will start with the second session of my experimental, universe building project, Marvel Origins: Avengers edition!

Just in case you've forgotten, our cast consists of the following:

The Sentry: A Japanese immigrant who was taken into a camp by the Americans, Bob had latent super powers, and in return for his family's protection, the government turned him into a super soldier of unspeakable power to fight on the front lines.

Doctor Strange: While serving the military during World War I, combat medic Stephen Strange discovered some occult paraphernalia in a German bunker. This began his journey to accrue as much mystical knowledge as possible, joining with two other mystics to form the Triad.

The Sub-Mariner: Prince Namor, upon hearing of the advent of the Axis powers and the danger they posed to his kingdom, decided to aid the surface dwellers in repelling the threat. This fell upon deaf ears with his fellow Atlanteans, and he now ventures alone to protect his planet and secure his supremacy. Imperius Rex!

The Vision: Formerly known as 'The Human Torch', a robot with the power to shoot flames was captured and experimented upon by one Baron Zemo who was attempting to use him as a gateway to another dimension. Upon recovery, the robot's new powers of intangibility and hyper density were readily apparent. Fearing Nazi reprogramming, he was wiped and given the personality of one Bucky Barnes and renamed Vision.

When we last left our heroes, they were preparing for D-Day! Let's jump on in.

Session Report:

Things begin with a briefing with everyone's favorite three-star general, Ross, as he gets the team up to speed on the latest intel and their specific assignment during the invasion. They have been assigned to Utah beach, where they are assigned to take out the modified mounted machine guns along with an advance unit about an hour before the rest of the invasion hits. They are also to release the Hulk on the unsuspecting Nazi troops as well to sow chaos among their ranks and thin them out so that the invasion forces have a better chance to meet up with the rest of the army.

Of course, the team is uneasy about herding around the Hulk, but Ross assures them that this is the best strategy for breaking up their ranks. In order to get the Hulk, however, the team has to go prepare Steve Rodgers, who is in the lower levels of the base in a protected, sealed off area. Everyone except Namor elects to go below and inform him of the impending mission.

When they get down there, they are greeted by the scientist in charge of monitoring Rodgers and his buxom, blonde assistant.

Sensing no danger in the air, they calmly discussed things over with Rodgers. The Sentry appealed to their similar conditions, of having a darkness inside and being used by the government for war. With his assurance that things will be alright, Steve leaves his protected room, only to be shot with a dart laced with adrenal-enhancing poison by the buxom assistant!

Steve transforms into the Hulk, surprising everyone in the room! Using his super-speed, the Sentry takes charge of the situation and immediately grapples the beast with his super strength and takes him as far away from the base as he could manage. Isolated, Bob is able to talk Steve down, and he transforms back without incident.

Meanwhile, back at the base, both Vision and Dr. Strange try their best to capture the escaping spy! Dr. Strange tries his best to strangle her with chains, but she quickly wiggles out of them, blasting them apart with some sort of untold power! Vision tries his best to grapple with her, preventing her from escaping, but she is too tough for the robot. Hearing the commotion, Namor decides to help out the incompetent surface dwellers, only to find the beautiful woman trying to leave. In an act unmatched, Namor delicately grabbed her hand and pulled her into a kiss. She melted into his arms and was no longer a threat.

Feminists would likely say a lot of stuff about how this is terrible, and how the fact that our team has no women is also terrible, but that's how the dice rolls. Can't argue with the dice.

Anyhow, the general demands an interrogation, and Namor happily volunteers to ask the questions. However, to keep the horny Atlantean in-line, Vision is also requested to be present in the room. She is hesitant at first, simply declaring that the invasion will fail by the power of the Skrull. Namor asks for five minutes alone to change her mind about revealing information, and Vision complies. When Vision returns, the Skrull spy, revealed to be named Lyja, is much more willing to talk! She explains that a Skrull ship bearing prisoners from a galactic war crashed on Earth after some mechanical failure. Their leader, a Skrull who is known to human beings as Schmidt, was taken to the leader of the area, Hitler. Seeing an opportunity for greater glory, he and his forces allied themselves with the Nazis and have been supplying them technology.

(Not bad for a Skrull)

While this news is distressing, the invasion has to proceed as planned. Lyja is kept captive at the base while the rest of the crew prepares to move out. When the assault begins the next morning, it seems that things are stacked against the Allied forces. The machine guns are devastating, and there is a ready and able regiment standing between them and victory. However, our team of Invaders make quick work of both the machine guns and the Nazi soldiers. Namor launches himself from the sea and smashes things! Vision takes out a Nazi officer, only to transform into him and order the troops to retreat. Dr. Strange rides in on a dragon he summoned and proceeds to tear apart the landscape. The Sentry works with the Hulk to tear Nazi soldiers limb from limb with his laser-katana...

However, ill-tidings come to bear as the fight winds down. Out from the sky, a giant robot of obviously alien origin lands in the midst of the battle and prepares its weapons! At the same time, Bob loses control and shifts into the Void!

Cliffhanger!

My Reactions:

Not too much I have to say on the GM side of things this session. Giving myself props, I think this particular session was very well paced. In fact, the action was about the length of a typical comic book, with a cliff hanger to boot. On that end, I was very pleased. I am also pleasantly surprised by my players almost at every junction. I wasn't expecting Lyja to be captured with a kiss of all things, but that's one of the awesome things about this system. In a system like D&D, in order to end a fight with charm, you'd have to roll incredibly high. Here, you just need a good dice pool and a suitable complication and you're gold!

The only thing I wish could have gone better was the Hulk incident. One of the most fearsome characters in MHR was taken out in one roll by Sentry, and that seems a little... Meh. I mean, yes, I could have spent Doom Dice to increase his reaction, but the Hulk isn't very good at resisting being talked down. I suppose it did work in a narrative sense, but the image of Rodgers smashing the base up was a little too good to resist.

Coming from a long view perspective on things so far, the Hulk is a bit of a quandry. He's a super-powerful being, and an important plot point that was worked into the whole backstory of things, but since his player left the project, he's just sitting there more as a tool rather than a fundamental part of the story. Of course, this is partially my fault, but what else can you do with Hulk other than send him to smash or try to get him to stop smashing? I may try to find a way to write him out temporarily, if the players don't mind. We'll see!

Otherwise, things have been going swimmingly! Next session report, you'll get to hear about the fabled 'Fight of the Sentry!' Hope you enjoyed this post. If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

Wolverine's Post M-Day Journal - Entry #4

Entry 4:

Shit finally hit the fan, and we got covered in it.

I knew this was gonna happen. All of these targeted attacks, heading for well-populated areas, we weren't gonna catch each and every last one of 'em. No one has that kind of power, not even a God. We're just one team. A big fuckin' team, but we can't be everywhere. Sooner or later we were gonna miss one.

Just our luck, it was Stamford.

Six hundred people dead. Almost a hundred of 'em were kids. That ain't counting the injured, or the property damage. I saw the mess with my own eyes. I smelled the ashes, the death that hung in the air. We tried to do our part to fix things up, to somehow apologize for this fuckin' mess. They don't need an apology. That's not gonna tuck 'em into bed at night when they think about their kid incinerating or being buried in the remains of the family home that has stood longer than they have.

I told Stark that he shoulda seen this comin'. He did, but he didn't take the steps to prevent it. Typical. That's the attitude of the day, ain't it? We know that a society run on celebrity mishaps, diet soda, and mindless entertainment ain't gonna last. What do we do when we see the city burning around us?

We grab a fiddle and head for the hills, unable to cope any other way.

But that ain't me.

I cope by sinkin' my claws into the mother-fuckers responsible. Lucky for me, the asshole that blew up Stamford is common knowledge. Nitro. I told Stark while he was drinkin' his troubles away that I was going to kill the son-of-a-bitch, and I wasn't kiddin'. He knows I don't joke around, and didn't try to stop me. Deep down, he wants Nitro dead too. I could smell it, past the alcohol. He just doesn't want to dirty those rich little hands.

So, now I'm on the road, trackin' down clues. Couldn't follow the bastard's scent. Too many other ones, stronger. I heard from a somewhat reputable source of mine that Nitro hauled ass into the back of a truck and tried to make himself scarce. I ain't a detective, but I know plenty of 'em. My nights have been spent in seedy bars and alley-ways, but that ain't nothin' different.

Funny thing happened one afternoon. Was drinking a beer, tryin' to beat out my healin' factor, watchin' the boob tube over a sweaty guy's head down the bar-line. A lady who lost her kid in the incident was drummin' up a rally so prestigious that they even got Cap himself to speak. 'Cept that wasn't who I was watchin'.

I was watchin' my clone, and somehow, she was lookin' right back at me with the stare I know too well.

For once in a long while since the mess began, I cracked a grin. Looks like hatin' Scott Summers and bein' locked up in the Xavier Mansion was hard-written into my DNA. What was she doin' there, exactly? Lookin' for me?

She of all people should know by now, I don't do public appearances.

One of my contacts finally turned up the truck company that carted my target away from the scene of the crime. I broke into their New York headquarters and started doin' some pokin' of my own. Threatened a few guys to death, barked and waved the claws, but eventually got enough to start tracking 'im across the country.

Before I left, I made sure Summers knew where I was goin', and what I was plannin' to do. Half-Pint met me at the door, goin' on about this great plan she had to partner up with Stark. Personally, I think the girl had another partnership in mind. Either way, the meetin' didn't go well. Slim made his case about not wantin' to get involved with this bill and stayin' on the fence, and I ignored him. Emma threatened to wipe my mind, but even she ain't brave enough to start workin' through my head.

On my motorcycle, I had the weirdest feelin' in my gut. Things are movin' in ways that they shouldn't, and somethin' messy is just peakin' over the horizon. 'Cept I'm gonna be the one to find out who's behind all of this, and sink my claws in. Deep.

Marvel Origins - Avengers - Session 1 Report

Hey, readers!

So, we have a brand new campaign to report upon here at 'Perceive Things', run by yours truly. Once again, it's another supers game with Marvel Heroic, so those of you looking for a little change of pace may be disappointed, but I'm sure that more games will open up down the pipeline in different systems/settings.

This particular game is a concept of mine put into action. It's an experiment that I'm running to create a version of the Marvel universe molded by a community and grown through gameplay. Thankfully, I have a handful of people ready to go on this merry journey with me to define the origins of the Avengers.

Now, I'm going to note here that I had no input on the campaign at the start. I gave my players three basic options: Avengers, X-Men, or Fantastic Four. Avengers won out in the majority, and the players choices and wants molded it to be set during World War II. From there, I thought it would be a cool idea to have the Kree/Skrull War bring the Avengers together, and thus our campaign was born!

Our characters are as follows:

The Sentry: A Japanese immigrant who was taken into a camp by the Americans, Bob had latent super powers, and in return for his family's protection, the government turned him into a super soldier of unspeakable power to fight on the front lines.

Doctor Strange: While serving the military during World War I, combat medic Stephen Strange discovered some occult paraphernalia in a German bunker. This began his journey to accrue as much mystical knowledge as possible, joining with two other mystics to form the Triad.

The Sub-Mariner: Prince Namor, upon hearing of the advent of the Axis powers and the danger they posed to his kingdom, decided to aid the surface dwellers in repelling the threat. This fell upon deaf ears with his fellow Atlanteans, and he now ventures alone to protect his planet and secure his supremacy. Imperius Rex!

The Vision: Formerly known as 'The Human Torch', a robot with the power to shoot flames was captured and experimented upon by one Baron Zemo who was attempting to use him as a gateway to another dimension. Upon recovery, the robot's new powers of intangibility and hyper density were readily apparent. Fearing Nazi reprogramming, he was wiped and given the personality of one Bucky Barnes and renamed Vision.

We were also supposed to have a fifth player whose concept was to have the super soldier serum go horribly wrong with Steve Rodgers and create the Hulk, but he had to bow out due to other commitments. However, his concept of the Hulk is still canon.

Without further ado, session one!

Session Summary:

Things begin with a gathering of the Allied Secret Special Forces, a branch of the special forces relegated to beings or powers beyond that of mortal man to take care of highly sensitive or important missions. After a quick briefing with the unit's commander, one General Ross, the team is cobbled together and informed that they must go behind enemy lines near the coast of France to collect recon on the beaches of Omaha and Utah in preparation. They are to meet up with a resistance cell in a small town and collect any missing information.

After a little spatting between Namor and the Sentry, they parachute down into the French countryside. Able to dodge the German patrols going up and down the streets, they manage to slip into the town and see their contact, a man named Pierre who is wearing a red beret and has a terrible French accent. He leads them into the basement of a tavern with the rest of the resistance cell, where they receive a packet full of recon and pictures, however some of it is incomplete. Namor and Dr. Strange head up to their rooms in the tavern, and the good doctor consults with the spirits in the area, sensing a disturbance. The Sentry and Vision hang around the bar for a bit, chatting some while trying not to arouse suspicion from the German soldiers before heading to bed themselves.

In the dead of night, the senses of the Sentry pick up the sound of his door creeping upon, only to find Pierre with a gun! The Sentry lasers the gun out of his hand, and the noise rouses Dr. Strange, and summons a spell of chains to bind the fiend before he can get away. The entire crew is roused, and a quick mental inspection by Stephen Strange reveals that Pierre and a majority of the resistance cell are actually made up of German spies who are assigned to assassinate the Allied Special Forces sent to pick up the recon. He manages to rewrite his memories, telling Pierre to return to the group, telling them that the mission was completed.

(Pierre, the best spy ever)

Hoping to make-up the intel that they were supposed to receive, the team splits up. Dr. Strange digs a shallow grave and dumps his body there while his astral form travels across the beaches to get an eye on the defenses set-up. Namor takes to the seas, searching the beach for armaments and mines below. The Vision shapeshifts into a German officer, steals a jeep, and keeps Bob as a prisoner while the two of them scout along the beaches and try to gather their own intel. What becomes overwhelmingly apparent is that the Germans are ready for an assault. The machine guns mounted are outfitted with an unusual brand of technology that no one recognizes. Additionally, the Vision catches sight of a most unusual craft resting beside a command post.

With pictures taken and intel gathered, the team makes sure to cover their tracks by informing a German officer that the Allied agents were killed, showing them an illusion that Strange created of the shallow graves. With their tracks covered, the team flies off across the English channel back to base, only to find a squad of bombers going to make their run across London. The Sentry manages to laser one in such a way to send it spinning into another. Namor propels himself from the water and manages to eviscerate another. The Vision, with Dr. Strange riding in his grasp, tries his best to get above one, go hyper-dense, and smash it, but while he is successful, this sends the pair plummeting to the depths below. Dr. Strange is much to distracted by his impending doom to do anything to slow them down, even failing to lasso onto one of the planes above with an incantation. Finally, Namor saves the day by swooping down and carrying the pair to shore.

Namor makes a series of snide comments towards the Sentry regarding his uselessness. Compounding with all of the insults he had received earlier from this Prince Under-the-Sea, the Sentry decides to come to blows! The pair take to the air for a battle royale, the Sentry opening with an incredible laser beam directed towards the Submariner. Much to Bob's distress, Namor stands still, arms folded and shrugs off the blast, which demoralizes the Sentry to the point of passing out. Swooping down to save him as well, the team makes it back to base to be de-briefed.

Ross is not happy that the resistance cell was composed of German spies, nor is he happy about the strange technology the crew recovers. After answering questions and being overall stern, Ross informs the team that they are to remain on base until Operation Overlord, where their task will be disarming those weapons and making sure that their secret weapon, the Hulk, doesn't get out of hand. The session ends with the team preparing for the event at hand.

My Reactions:

Overall, I believe our first session went very well. I know two of the players from college, and two of the players were new to me, but they are good guys and welcome additions to our team. I think everyone had a solid time, I know I did. What is especially encouraging is that our campaign thus-far, even without trying, is following many of the same beats as the Avengers film, with inter-team conflicts and a looming threat bigger than all of them kind of forming at all the right moments. While I'm not seeking to emulate the summer blockbuster, it doesn't hurt to borrow a beat or two.

I did wish, however, that the recon mission was a little more... Exciting? Stealth is not an aspect many RPGs convey well, Marvel Heroic included, and while I think it is a cool thing to bring into a mission or session, it always ends up feeling hollow to me somehow. Not that there was much stealth going on in the mechanics, persay, but regardless. It also wasn't terribly action-packed, which is just fine with me, but I am well aware that players have different likes and expectations than I do, hence the inclusion of the mid-air bomber fight which was a completely off-the-cuff, setting dressing turned conflict, encounter.

What I really like about these players is their ability to think outside the box and do things that I wouldn't expect. Vision using his shapeshifting to do cool things is one example, while Dr. Strange and his 'weird hobbies' lending credence to his spells is another. Namor's player hits all of the right notes with everyone's favorite Atlantean, and the very presence of the arrogant Prince is enough to put the right amount of spin to the inter-party conflicts, especially where the Sentry is involved. The highlight was, undoubtedly, the Namor/Sentry fight which was over in one blow.

We have already had our second session, which I will report on soon, but I have high hopes for the future of this game, and I just hope that my GM'ing chops are up to it. I hope you enjoyed this session report! If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes   

Marvel Mondays - Civil War - Session 4 Report

Hey, readers!

Terribly sorry for the lack of activity here on 'Perceive Things.' We all get busy at times, and I have been involved in other things, like, lots of role-playing. So, I have a huge backlog of summaries to do, including a Civil War session that happened almost two weeks ago!

As always with this campaign, if you'd rather experience the magic yourself, the Youtube link has been provided.

We were missing quite a few people this session, but those involved were the following: Daredevil and Hulk, Iron Man and Thor, Ms. Marvel and Tigra, Hawkeye and Moon Knight, and myself as Wolverine and Spider-Woman.

Here we go!

Session Summary:

Where we left off last session, the team had just defeated a sinister villain in Washington DC and were just in time to be there for the Congressional hearing regarding the Superhuman Registration Act that was starting to tumble its way through the Senate. Being the world's premier super-team, Tony thought it was a good idea to present a unified opinion with the team and present their case for an internal affairs reworking rather than outright registration.

Of course, this sort of thing is always made more interesting by a surprise witness. Enter Doctor Doom, who wants to discredit our heroes with a neat little powerpoint/video depicting the lot of us slaying Latverian forces by the score during the Secret War. Why the government thought it was a good idea to let a known international terrorist who had just come back from Hell and was only recently trying to get a sword of the Apocalypse is beyond me, but I wouldn't put it past 'em.

So, our team begins to retort, showing some impressive shows of logic and reason that seem to baffle Doom and the congressional board. Tony Stark's hacking of Doom's presentation and a printer to pass out some crucial evidence along with a masterful explanation of law by one Daredevil (who has no association to Matt Murdock) had both us players and the characters in the game baffled beyond belief. If you watch nothing else of that video, go to 25:48 and watch the magic happen.

With all of that good and done with, we manage to score a friend in Congress that can help us out in the future, and we managed to out filibuster all kinds of government officials in the name of democracy! I would call that a pretty solid win for the side of justice. And stuff. Not really, but...

Anyway!

Apparently, after the whole Moon Knight fiasco last session, Luke Cage got slapped with assisting or murdering a guy somewhere. I mean, one could say racial profiling, especially when you had someone like Wolverine on the scene who was slicing and dicing like usual, but... We're going to go with the fact that Cage has a criminal record. So, like good friends/Avengers, we're called to testify for his character and give our account of the scene at the hearing before he gets slapped with anything official.

Now testify!...

Another surprise witness joins the scene as Moon Knight is brought in to give his account on the events. His player rolled a die to decide which personality was dominant in Mark Spector's head, and Konshu was the result. Awkward. Wolverine was stopped for quite a while at the metal detector. Funny since that was brought up in the movie that just came out, but... Yeah. More awkward!

Ready for the most awkward?

After getting a torrent of bad mouthing from the prosecution, Moon Knight is elected to speak first, since he's the surprise witness and all. He gets out of his chains, without anyone reacting or anything, and begins a piece on how Luke Cage could not have murdered anyone because he and the rest of the Avengers are a completely incompetent bunch who cannot serve the larger goals of justice. Once his piece was done, the Moon Copter shot a line through the window and he escaped from imprisonment.

Genius.

Before we had a chance to pick up our jaws from the floor, the press stormed in to tear us a new one. Hulk took some emotional stress and managed to Hulk out, showing an incredibly docile and photogenic Hulk who wanted to talk to the press. Everyone else tried their best to get away. Tony bought out a bunch of news companies and went around firing people. Ms. Marvel made a handy excuse and hit the road. Wolverine got pissy, destroyed some equipment, and went to sulk with a lovely d6 of emotional trauma.

Hulk walked home alone.

Before things were wrapped up, we got a nice little bit of narration as the classic "Stamford Incident" occurred. For those of you not in the know, basically a bunch of pretty amateur superheroes, the latest iteration of the 'New Warriors' were filming an episode for a reality show, pissed off some villains, and a particularly explosive crook named Nitro blew up and killed a whole bunch of people, including a group of children.

This is where things take a distinct turn for the worse, for the those of you playing at home.

My Reaction:

This was, by far, the best session yet. Everything worked out really well, we each had a nice moment to shine, and things progressed at a logical pace. There were some really good jokes, shows of character, and all that sort of stuff. It really made us eager to jump into the next session, which is coming up rather soon.

Unfortunately, this sort of showcases a point that I have brought up time and time again that smaller groups work better with this game. While each and every member of our group is awesome, less does turn out to be more in terms of flow and proper spotlighting. That being said, I am really looking forward to the other two members of our group returning this coming session to bring their own unique flavor and ingenuity to our game.

I don't have too much more to say besides that point, and there really wasn't anything negative on my end whatsoever. Next game, our character troupe's are opening up to another slot, so we'll start seeing some new characters thrown into the mix as we clean up after Stamford and try to track down Moon Knight.

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

-Wes

(Wolverine journal coming up super-soon!)

Marvel Mondays - Civil War - Session 3 Report

Hey, readers!

So, it has been about a week since this week's session has occurred, and due to me being busy and distracted, I have a few session reports backlogged a bit.

However, I will try to relay this one as best as I can remember!

As always with Civil War, you can watch the session yourself here:

(I found My Little Pony versions of both my characters and put them as my pictures. Whoo Bronies!)

Just a quick logistical update before we get into the meat of things: one of our players has respectfully bowed out due to being uncomfortable with the amount of players, which is a totally understandable position. Therefore, Yellowjacket and the Thing will be absent from here on in.

For the record, our current Avengers line-up is the following: Hulk and Daredevil, Iron Man and Thor, Tigra and Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye and Moon Knight, Captain America and Luke Cage, Wolverine and Spider-Woman, Dr. Strange and Spider-Man.

Let's dive in.

Session Summary:

Things begin in the illustrious Avengers Tower where Iron Man has summoned all of the available Avengers to discuss a bill that deals with super-humans that is going before Congress the following day. Iron Man wants the team to be on a unified front with his position so that they can make a good showing. Rather than explain everyone's position in my own words, I'm going to borrow from our GM's summary which can be found on his blog here: http://knighterrantjr.blogspot.com/

"Doctor Strange is neutral on passage of the bill, as long as discussion is measured and intelligent, Spider-Man is all for training new heroes, but doubts official status will make them any more popular, Tigra and Ms. Marvel both agree with Tony's proposed modifications to the bill, Thor seems completely indifferent and doesn't not believe he has a stake in the argument, Moon Knight  (possessed early on in the meeting with his Khonshu personality) does not believe mortal authority should meddle with the affairs of heroes, while Hawkeye thinks that bill isn't needed and is just asking for someone in the government to release private information on heroes to the public.  Wolverine doesn't trust the government to regulate super humans, but wants to make sure mutants don't get the short end of the stick, and Spider-Woman also appears to agree with Tony.  Daredevil seems to be reluctant to speak on legal issues, and Banner is generally in agreement with Tony."

With that shameless plug and borrowing out of the way, let us continue on!

The meeting ends with almost everyone in agreement with Tony's position, which is that superheroes shouldn't have registration necessarily, but should be held accountable, have their own internal affairs branch, and be more akin to a government sanctioned branch of defense than a free-for-all, do-whatever, thing. As an extension of putting these ideas into work, Tony creates an internal affairs branch of the Avengers, putting Ms. Marvel in charge of that to deal with things such as Moon Knight slicing throats.

We'll get to more about Moon Knight in a second.

So, the next day rolls around, the day of the hearing, when a distressing news report comes on the television. Turns out that the Crusader has set up a bomb at the restored Avengers Mansion with a gang of Anti-Mutant purifiers who are looking to make an example. Simultaneously, there's a situation in Washington DC where Master Pandemonium is beating people up... For no, real apparent reason, I guess? So, half the Avengers team go to the Avengers Mansion while the other half goes to Washington to deal with the impending threat.

(Close enough!)

We'll start with the Avengers Mansion debacle. One by one, the players fly into action, Moon Knight taking the helm and starting to lay the smack-down on Crusader with his adamantium sword. Ms. Marvel joins in on that initiative, along with Wolverine, who is rather pissed to see this low-classed Thor villain teaming up with the Purifiers. Iron Man and Bruce Banner work together to disable the bomb while Luke Cage does his best to mop up the cronies. Everything proceeds swimmingly, until Moon Knight ends the conflict rather explosively by severing Crusader's spine.

Y'owch.

Needless to say, Moon Knight is swiftly arrested and Ms. Marvel has her first internal affairs operation to deal with. Daredevil knows a good lawyer...

God, imagine She-Hulk and Daredevil on the same team? Lawyer squad? Throw in Foggy Nelson and the sitcom writes itself!

(Yeah, that was the best picture I could find. This needs to be done, now.)

Nevermind.

So, meanwhile in Washington DC, the second squad arrives just in time to watch Master Pandemonium... Turn his limbs into demons? This guy is a blast from the West-Coast Avengers past, so Tigra and Hawkeye know what to do, pretty much. Everyone swings into action dealing with the variety of demons that are attacking while Cap tries to shoo the crowd away. Each of the demon attacks are either swiftly avoided or taken down via counterattacks until Daredevil's sneak attack takes the crazy guy down.

With that wrapped up, a few of the heroes from the New York situation arrive in order to be on time for the Congressional hearing, which will be resolved next session!

My Reactions:

Let me begin by saying that this session was an improvement over the last one for me. Maybe that was a one time fluke of mood or something, or things just not being right, but this session made it back to the levels of fun I'm used to experiencing with this group. Good job on that account.

Now, the opening scene with the Avengers meeting together was interesting. My 'weird thing' had me unaware that our characters were actually discussing in-character until someone addressed Iron Man's player as Tony, which turned the light bulb on for me. Therefore, I didn't have too much to contribute, which is a bit of a shame, but my own fault, really. The roleplaying there was quite good, and I enjoyed listening.

I'm aware that our GM's strength does not necessarily lie in these sorts of scenes, and after his recent blog post about this session, (which was linked above) he confessed that he did not like starting with transition scenes because they stumble a bit and take a while to get going. My response to that is that I think that starting with transition scenes is -almost- a given for any session, since most action needs a lead-in of some kind. What would help, perhaps, is some staging. For example, I would have greatly benefited if our GM began by saying, 'The meeting is starting, Tony's staging it in one of the many conference rooms in the tower. What are your characters doing before the meeting starts?' or something to that effect.

Also, I wasn't terribly comfortable with playing two characters at the same time in a scene. As an actor (Not professional, but as a hobby), it is taxing enough for me to wrap my head around one character at a time and play them well, much less two. This is why, as a GM, I hate having more than one important NPC in a scene, especially when dealing with things like councils, business meetings, etc. This hindrance caused me to clam up a bit as well, though, in retrospect, it would have made perfect sense to have Logan drinking beer with Thor, watching TV rather than sitting in on a meeting.

Moving on, the action scenes were a great highlight. What was really nice about the scene with the Crusader was that there was enough elements to make the scene interesting and give everyone something substantial to do, which elongated a scene that could have been wrapped up fairly quickly. There was a bomb, the Crusader, and a mob, so the variance was there to make each element challenging enough in its own right since everyone wasn't ganging up on one thing.

(Life is pandemonium)

Granted, the scene in DC was everyone against one guy, but he had minions for limbs or something which varied it up again nicely. Still, however, I wasn't entirely clear on why Master Pandemonium was wreaking havoc in DC. It's a trope in superhero fiction, games in particular, to have the rampaging monster who is attacking for little reason other than he wants to cause destruction and chaos and having the heroes come in and stop that, but it is a bit of a weak trope, all things considered. Even great shows like Teen Titans fell prey to that more times than was necessary, but at least it was usually considered a B-Plot to a more character focused A-plot. Once the main stuff of Civil War begins, however, I'm betting that things will be just a tad more unified and clear in meaning rather than, 'here's action, go to it.' This is just the 'Road to Civil War' after-all.

All-in-all, still having a great time with this group, and I'm extremely glad that I had a better time this go 'round than last time. I hope you enjoyed this report! If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

Teen Titans - Episode 8 "Shutdown" Report

Hey, readers!

So, another episode of Teen Titans has aired, and you're just in time to catch the rerun!

By this point, we're starting to wrap up 'Act 1' of the first season, as far as Marvel Heroic terms are concerned. This episode is going to be a lead-in to a big two-parter episode to close off the first act. Yeah, I'm throwing a lot of television and Marvel Heroic terms together, but that kinda makes it more badass, in a way.

Without further ado, grab your popcorn and your remote, and let's watch!

Episode 8: Shutdown

Session Summary:

Things begin with a dream sequence, which is a wonderful way to set the atmosphere for a session. We are in the head of young Ray Kord, the Blue Beetle, as he is heroically beating bad guys by the score, only to be interrupted by a giant Solomon Grundy who lifts him from the ground and roars into his face before swallowing him up. In the darkness of the inside of the zombie giant, Ray finds his father, the past Blue Beetle before watching his head explode. Turning around, Ray finds Deathstroke holding a sniper rifle, having just killed his father before his eyes before taking aim for the son!...

Such a nightmare is interrupted by an urgent message on Ray's sub-dermal communicator from Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow. The rest of the team is called as well down into the basement where the 'Arrow Cave' is located. Dressed for action with Black Canary at his side, the emerald archer informs the team that they are needed. Three separate vehicle factories around Detroit have been broken into at the same time, and the body count is mounting up with the police hardly able to contain the threat. They decide to split into three groups to take each site.

James, the Dullahon, and Johnny Thunder, driving his high tech car, arrive at their site first to find a police barricade erect around the factory. Driving through the barricade with little regard for the police, the pair find a rather strange set-up. In the middle of the main factory floor, a group of men dressed as 18th century revolutionaries armed with muskets were assembling some sort of missile silo. Using the turret on his car, Johnny began to mow down the strange thugs while James did his best to gather some intel with his tentacles.  Those that remain try to focus on finishing the missile silo, but that becomes increasingly difficult as the attack continues. Johnny liquidates a few with a rumbling sonic boom, and James finishes off the last two by wrapping them up in his mind tentacles, pushing them through the skylight, and bringing them back down again, absorbing some interesting intel.

It seems that these are members of a Neo-Luddite gang led by the mysterious Bane. They are targeting Detroit as a place to make a significant demonstration, since it is one of the most industrial cities in the United States.

Before James can relay this important news to the other teams, Ray and Juan arrive at the second factory. They find a similar set-up, except for the fact that all of the police in the barricade are dead and the assembly lines are churning away. Additionally, they meet an odd figure, gangly in appearance and tall, dressed in the 18th century apparel with one significant addition, a horrible gas mask. He announced himself as Bane, and as a show of his power, he tossed a car off the line into the empty police cars outside, causing an explosion. Juan got to work teleporting inside the missile silo, trying to dismantle it from within, while Ray tried to return fire by tossing a car to Bane, who punches right through it without effort. Trying to keep the men from working on the machine, Juan lets out a series of shuriken that each hits their target, taking down their numbers significantly. However, the situation changes immediately when Bane lumbers up to Ray, spouting off how he is an abomination for relying on technology to make him strong before lifting him into the air and breaking the boy over his knee.

Juan scrambles to rescue Ray, and succeeds in teleporting the both of them away, but not before a truck crashes through one of the entrances and Bane presses down on a plunger, releasing a wave of energy that wreaks havoc on Ray's system. Before more damage is done, Juan takes Ray to a local hospital. James and Johnny try to arrive on the scene to help, but they are compounded by police traffic and make it only to see an intimidating look from Bane which makes them both drive off.

At the hospital, they learn that Ray's back isn't broken as they had feared. In fact, he seems perfectly fine, despite the gory details. However, Ray informs the team that he can no longer feel a connection to the Blue Beetle suit embedded in his spine, and a scan from James confirms that the 'scarab' that contained the suit seems to have flat-lined. They return to the cave to inform Green Arrow and Black Canary, who were in the middle of some... post-heroic... calisthenics. They quickly end such exercises in order to better asses the situation. Ollie, having some medical and technical knowledge, recommends some slight invasive surgery to check on the scarab. Though afraid, Ray accepts, and the rest of the evening is spent going through the operation.

However, Ray seems to have miraculously healed from the invasive surgery bit. Unfortunately, Oliver is not entirely familiar with the tech, and is unable to give Ray more information beyond the fact that it seems to have been deactivated. Oddly enough, Juan has found that his sub-dermal communicator was also damaged after their encounter. This seems to make sense with Bane's modus operendi, as the pair of older heroes informs the team about Bane's neo-luddite group and their past acts of terrorism against major centers of technology and progress. Ollie mentions that it looks like LexCorp technology, and the only person who would know for sure would likely be Lex Luthor himself, who is currently on death row.

After a few days of recovery, Ray is well enough to go back to school. His humiliation compounds during gym, where the coach, who is extremely biased against meta-humans, arranges a game of dodge-ball with regular humans against metas. Johnny is not involved, as he is outside of the gym, making out with his college aged girlfriend and fellow vigilante Firebird. James lets off some frustration with the assholes in his gym class, and Ray gets pummeled. Juan savors the final blow, knocking the last kid out with vigor.

We have a rather... awkward scene following in the showers, the main conversation piece being the size of Beast Boy's... equipment, comparing it to that of a horse. Yes, in this group we have the range of maturity of deep character actions and roleplaying... to jokes about the kind of equipment Beast Boy can have as a shapeshifter. Quite the group, huh?

Well, that conversation shifts into one about metahuman rights and how it should be illegal for them to be persecuted in such a way. See what I mean about this group?

Anyway, out in the hallway, Ray has a scene with his heart-throb, Tori Anders (Starfire), who actually shows a bit of sympathy for his condition. Offering her support, she gives him her actual phone-number, which brings a little light into Ray's life.

When Ray returns home, after attending German Culture Club, getting dressed in lederhosen and eating sausage, he goes to the Arrow Cave to find Ollie, who is incredibly concerned. They have a heart-to-heart, with Ollie admitting that a part of him sees himself as a father figure, and that Ray needs to snap out of this funk and get his life back in order. He arranged for Ray to have twenty minutes with Lex Luthor to try to figure out the suit issue. James goes alongside him, as he is the only one who can drive the jet they had stolen from the League of Assassins several episodes earlier.

They arrive at the secret facility in the middle of nowhere in which Lex Luthor is being held captive until his execution. Ray is escorted deep into the bowels of the facility into a small interrogation room where the powerful bald man is seated. Lex Luthor begins politely but cannot keep his rage in check for long, showing his anger that Ray's father had stolen his special suit that was designed to fight Superman. However, he offers to help Blue Beetle fix the issue with his armor if he vows to stop his superheroics forever. Holding his ground, Ray refuses. Impressed with his loyalty, Lex lets a word of advice slip, saying that if he truly wanted to be the Blue Beetle again, he could.

With a show of willpower, Ray summons the Blue Beetle suit back to his body. He learns that the suit has bonded to him as a defense mechanism and is now permanently linked to him, using his body to supply the energy. Lex Luthor vows to get the suit back, even if Ray has to die, but he quickly writes that off and tries to return home with James.

The session ends with Johnny and Juan playing video games when a televised message overrides the signal, as often happens. It is Bane, announcing that he will cleanse the city of technology with a specialized EMP, forcing the people to either die or adapt. Before anyone has a chance to react, in true Ozymandias style, he announces that the EMP had already been launched before the TV shuts down.

Bum.. Bum.. BUM!

My Reactions:

This session showed the good and bad aspects of having the TV show format with an episode centering around one character. In that sense, it was a great way to test these things. Of course, experimenting in this fashion does have its negative effects, which I will elaborate on below.

On the plus side, the action scene at the beginning was really cool and worked for everyone. Trying to mix things up a bit, I had the team split in two, but all being in the same action scene, trying out that sort of system. Also, I was doing my best to build the Doom Pool to 2d12 in order to end with the catalyst that will set up the main problem for the episode, hence Ray losing his powers. This involved a lot of grandstanding, which I haven't done before, and that was pretty fun. Especially playing with the narrative, such as working on the missile silos or throwing a car to create some chaos.

One thing that perplexed me was that, when Bane attacked Blue Beetle, he refused a reaction due to the fact that Ray was still pretty traumatized by being beaten up by big guys with super strength, even if this universe's Bane is a bit more scrawny with the Venom effect being less obvious physically. I wasn't exactly sure how you would handle a non-reaction, so I simply let it be that the effect die was applied immediately.

Now, one major failure of this session was that I was expecting Ray and the team to go on a search for the one who created the Blue Beetle suit. However, Ray's player wanted some scenes at school to emphasize his powerless-ness, so I incorporated that, and things never really went on the tangent that I expected. Unfortunately, that meant that I had less for the rest of the team to do while Ray tried to deal with his lack of powers. There was some RP here and there, but the second act kind of deflated for everyone but Ray. Again, my fault, but the others did have fun, as evidenced by my post-game wrap-up that usually lasts until the wee hours of the morning with this group. Still, this emphasizes the need for B-plots in episodes like this.

Not much more to say besides that, except that I really need to figure out this two-parter. Should be good!

Oh, and my Bane voice is awesome.

Hope you enjoyed this session summary! If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes