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

Action's Missing Element

Hey, readers!

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

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

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

After turning my brain back on, I realized something.

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

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

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

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

Tension; that's the missing element.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Wes

Teen Titans - Episode 7 "Override" Report

Hey, readers!

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

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

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

Previously, on Teen Titans:

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

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

Session Summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Oops, wrong Fearsome Five...)

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

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

(That's more like it)

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

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

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

Think you have what it takes to win

Written here is what you need to do

Since you are so poor at following directions

Immunity is yours

But what unlocks the door

The keys needed cannot be held

They can be found

And brought back to the beginning

Three rooms below deck

Find the key within

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

The first room's riddle was:

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

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

 “Sometimes, punctuation makes all the difference.”

The second room's riddle was:

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

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

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

The final room's riddle was the following:

 “Fix the order. Matter

                        Meter

                        Mind

                        Motor

                        Mutter"

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

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

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

Ready for the answer?

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

Now, here is where things get interesting.

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

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

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

My Reactions:

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

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

What Went Well:

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

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

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

What Could Have Gone Better:

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Wes

Marvel Mondays - Civil War - Session 2 Report

Hey, readers!

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

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

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

Ready to dive in?

Session Summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dayum.

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

Put them together, you get this.

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

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

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

My Reactions:

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

And yes, it was fun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Wes
  

Marvel Heroic Civil War - Session 1 Report

Hey, readers!

Well, the Civil War has begun, so to speak. The campaign, anyway, not any sort of national divide or something of that ilk. Our first session ran for almost four hours yesterday evening, and if you'd like to view it in its entirety, you can do so here.

(Hulk Smash!)

For those of you not in the know, I'll go over the cast list as is before delving into the summary and my reactions afterwards.

Oh, and... I may be doing in-character journal stuff too. 'Cause I like to write and I'm a nerd and stuff.

Iron Man and Thor played by Dylan. Daredevil and Hulk played by Christopher. The Thing and Yellowjacket played by Charles. Tigra played by Kathryn. Moon Knight played by Ryan. Spider-Man and Dr. Strange played by Bill. Captain America and Luke Cage played by Steve (Who was not at this session due to tech problems). Wolverine and Spider-Woman played by yours truly.

Session Summary:

It all began on a fateful day like no other!... Because, y'know, all the Avengers were just kind of sitting around the tower doing God-knows-what when Iron Man, who has taken up monitor duty, gets a call about Bill Foster, better known as the size-growing hero Goliath, walking down the street in a stupor and destroying things. Immediately, the Avengers spring into action!

What followed was an interesting collaboration of trying to get Goliath to settle down or beat the sense back into him. There was an amusing bit with Moon Knight literally standing on the shoulder of a giant and whispering to him about if he doesn't settle down, all of the cabbies in New York are going to be pissed at him. Then Goliath threw him at Spider-Man. Tigra slashed at his knees. Wolverine yelled and threatened stuff. Y'know, good stuff. Finally, Bill was knocked back into his senses when Tony faked out some sympathy and hit him with a fully armed uni-beam.

You know what's even worse than a drugged up Goliath?

The press and the media.

And, oh God, this is where the session got good.

Rather than relay what happened directly, let me pull some direct quotes from some post-game postings.

"Tonight from the Channel 4 News desk, are your underpants poisoning you? Then, exotic dancers caught in a dog-fighting sting! Later, we'll find out what Tigra's making for dinner and who the vigilante Moon Knight is dating."

Rumors abound that Moon Knight was spotted outside a Justin Bieber concert.

"Wall Crawling menace drives former hero into tragic rampage."

"Spider-Man steals antique book in Oklahoma."

"Wall Crawler admits to Bieber Fever."

And my own personal touch:

So, after doing funny things to the press and telling them repeatedly to 'Fuck Off', we all move back to the Avengers Tower with Bill in tow to inspect him. Tigra goes on monitor duty and the brainy types, including Banner who just slid in, try to figure out what was up with Bill. They revive him and figure out that he was working with a company who was involved with Mutant Growth Hormone or something to that effect, and he blacked out. We get the location on a lab, just about the time we get a call that something landed in Broxton, Oklahoma and they need extra guard detail.

We tackle the lab and do a little changing of the guard. I swap out Wolvie for Spider-Woman under the logic that she was a private detective for a long time and would be good for an investigation (Yet she doesn't have the Crime speciality?). Daredevil is swapped out for Banner, and Thing is swapped out for Yellowjacket.

Spider-Woman starts this one off by sneaking in and getting a preliminary look at the place. What she finds is the illustrious members of the Serpent Society guarding the place, at which point she calls in the rest of the Avengers who crash through the skylight and begin slashing, truncheon-ing, moon-gadgeting, and finally, blasting what hadn't fallen by then with lasers. Unfortunately, Spidey and Yellowjacket didn't get their punches in before the Hulk smashed the lab to pieces and left for parts unknown.

Then began another highlight of the night as Moon Knight began a very brutal interrogation by slashing Diamondback's windpipe and threatening to do the same to Cobra. Iron Man took issue with this, and the two of them had a shouting match that caused Tony to leave the scene due to being mentally stressed out by the Avatar of Vengeance.

So, already we have some hero against hero plus bad news coverage. This is Civil War, alright.

Our final scene of the evening was playing guard duty over in Broxton, Oklahoma, which seems to be a dumping ground for anything Asgardian. Property there must be really cheap. Everyone went back to their characters from the beginning of the session, except for the fact that Thor stepped in instead of Iron Man for obvious reasons. There was some good banter on the jet and some back and forth with Maria Hill as we made our way over. Upon arriving, we were immediately shown what landed, which was a giant sword. The Twilight Sword, if my Marvel lore is as good as I remember it being, which is a herald of Ragnarok.

Isn't mystic mumbo jumbo fun?

Thor obviously wants to claim the sword and protect it from those who would use it for evil. Speaking of those people, Dr. Doom and his army of robotic minions arrives right on schedule! You'd think someone as smart as Doom would wait until the heroes had left, or attacked before they arrived? And wasn't the whole plot of the video game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for Doom to get the Twilight Sword and steal Odin's power with it? Man, this would save him so much time and effort.

Anyhow, Thing goes straight for Doom, like he should. Thor, Tigra, and Wolverine have some fun smashing up the army of Doom Bots, which was as satisfying as it ought to be, really. Spider-Man stole the spellbook that Doom was using and taunted him to great effect. Moon Knight shouted at Doom a little. Oh, and Doom screwed up Daredevil's senses, but he managed to club the good Doctor over the head anyway. It was a pretty dramatic battle, lots of fun stuff going on, which finally ended with Wolverine gutting Doom... Only to find out her was a Doombot.

How many times can you use the word Doom in one paragraph?

We ended by Thor and Moon Knight trying to claim the Twilight Sword as their own by taming it, but neither succeeded.

My Reactions:

Overall, it was a good session. No question about that fact whatsoever. We had a lot of fun and memorable moments, and everyone seemed to be having a good time, laughing the night away at bad jokes and other such things.

For me, the highlights were two scenes in particular that really felt authentic and played beautifully. That would be the scene dealing with the press after Goliath was put down, and the battle with Dr. Doom. All of our characters really showed through when dealing with something almost everyone hates: the press and the media. Additionally, the Doom battle was satisfying even when there were about eight people involved.

The players are also a great bunch. Some are more soft-spoken then others, but I believe we really gel well and all contribute to the story in interesting ways. Our GM is clever and solid as I expected him to be, and he really seems to have fun running the game. Makes me long to GM again, really.

Still, the session wasn't perfect. Nothing's perfect, obviously. The start was a bit awkward, with no one really saying what their character was doing, myself included. I suppose it's part of being the first time we were all together (Except Steve) and the normal sort of hesitation and shyness that goes along with that. Even after that, there were a lot of moments of pause and a pretty jarring disconnect between some of the scenes, at least for me. The flow was off, but sometimes you can't help that.

Also, part of me thinks that Marvel Heroic isn't really designed for groups of this size. Just a personal gut feeling, considering the ease we went through some of our encounters. I mean, stress was pretty minimal across the board on our side, everything considered. I've even had trouble presenting a decent challenge to a group of four, much less a group twice that size. And, when you have eight heroes wailing on the bad guy, it's rather easy to see how the conflict could be taken care of before some people got a turn. In a game like this where action seems to take precedent overall, this can pose to be a real issue. It wasn't an issue for me, but the dice were on my side, and I got to go every round.

Those things aside, really looking forward to the next session!

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

-Wes

First Sessions

Hey, readers!

With a first session of a campaign coming up this week, and a few that I'll be running within the month, my mind has been meditating on beginnings. Beginnings of campaigns in particular, but also beginnings in general.

Everything has a starting point, not only works of fiction, but life, stages of life, relationships, projects. The list goes on. Sometimes the starting point is buried in the dust, forgotten, or seemingly insignificant, but it is always the most important piece. Without it, nothing would be.

I don't mean to get weirdly philosophical on an RP blog, but it's something to knock around the noggin a little bit.

So, let's take a look at the beginnings of campaigns. How do first sessions usually go? Where do they start? What sorts of opening scenes work best? Is there criteria for judging whether or not it should be continued for another session?

Stuff like that.

From my personal experience, where a campaign starts really depends on the group's preparation before hand. Is everyone coming in with characters they created on their own or with the GM? Has this group met before hand to discuss anything? Have they even met before? Did the GM set any sort of guidelines? These are the variables that determine really where you can jump in.

Most groups, I've noticed, are cobbled together from whatever characters the individuals wanted to play with little connection to one another that are thrown together as a consequence of circumstance or because of one common link. Therefore, a beginning session's first job in this sort of scenario is to find a way to force these potentially dissonant characters together to do something, usually follow the plot-train that the GM has set tracks for. Either that, or the group is thrown under a common banner, 'Adventure Party', 'Mercenary Band', what have you, and you work under the assumption that you all just work together. To adventure. Or make money. Or something.

The beginnings to this kind of campaigns are usually rather classic and quaint. An old man in the tavern gives your adventure party a quest or mission to find the macguffin, save the macguffin, or defeat Lord MacGuffin the Scotsman. You are all in prison, and there's a prison riot or break and you can only escape by working together. The transport you all are riding is under attack and you are the only able-bodied, combat-ready people in the area. There's a bank robbery and you are the only superheroes in the area because the main ones are in space.

(We've all met this guy)

You get the idea.

And, if this sounds like every campaign you've ever been in, that's fine!

But, there is another way. In my opinion, it's a better way, but that wholly depends on preference, your group, and the game you are running, of course.

My favorite RP podcast is called 'Fear the Boot', and they have come up with something called the 'Group Template.' This is a basic document that outlines clearly what the group is, who they are, how they are connected, and what their goals are. They fill this document out before every campaign, and they create their characters together. If I remember right, they don't come to the table with solid concepts in mind. The GM sets some guidelines, and the group creates and envisions their characters together while creating connections along the way and setting up a reason for being together and goals.

I will tell you from experience, this radically changes the quality of every first session I have ever ran.

Like, literally, day and night.

Now a GM is not confined to slapping together characters that don't work following a plot train that may not even be suited for the group. You can have any beginning you can think of without having to rely on cliches in order to bring the party together. Sure, there are plenty of cliches that can still be used, such as the group summon by an important figure, but you can think outside the box a little. Say the group template is a bunch of professional thieves, each having their own specialty. You can start the campaign in the middle of a heist! Set up some parameters, and the characters will do their own thing because they have goals and the skills to meet them. Maybe something goes wrong, an inciting incident of sorts, and the characters will be motivated to follow up on it because it had to do with something they were striving for on their own initiative, not because some important NPC said that they should care.

Just something to think about.

So, whether the group is cobbled together or nitpickingly planned to the last detail, the first session is here. How to begin? What is Act 1: Scene: 1?

Again, there seems to be a split in tactics, one I prefer and one I like a little less. It usually boils down to whether it starts with action or starts with drama.

Since I like the X-Men so much, let's use them as an example.

Does the campaign start with a Danger Room session, or a scene where they are debating mutant rights before congress? Is someone attacking the mansion after the Danger Room, or assaulting the congressional meeting? Does someone's powers freak out at the wrong time and cause something terrible to happen?
These are all ways an X-Men campaign could start, potentially.

Is it better to start out with action or drama? Both?

I can see great justifications for both, which I elaborate on here.

Start out with an action scene if the group is not completely familiar or comfortable with the rules. Since most of the rules cover how to handle moments of action, this is a great place to clear up any misconceptions and make sure everyone knows how to play. It could also engage players who are more combat inclined and get them interested from the get-go as opposed to having them set through dialogue, which they'd rather not do. Inciting incidents are also great in the middle of action scenes, and it's a wonderful way to give everyone a little glimmer of spotlight before the plot train begins moving.

However, start out with drama if you want your players to be comfortable in their own character's skins and create inter-group relationships early on. It doesn't even have to be anything terribly dramatic. Hell, I love starting campaigns at a point where it's a party. How does your character interact in a surprise party for another character? Or a fancy dinner? This gives the players a chance to get a feel for how their character acts, interacts, talks, feels, etc. It can also be a great place to set up themes, tones, motifs, and other things that will make sense or be significant later on. However, don't linger too long if you have player's who are action minded, or else they will probably be terribly bored.

You can probably tell that I favor the second option, but that's just because of how I run games and how I like to play.

And there's no reason you can't mix the two, a little drama before the action, a little action after the drama. In fact, that is usually the best way to please everybody involved.

So, first scene is over, we're in the thick of the inciting incident, and the session is going to wrap up soon. What sorts of things are you as the GM going to be looking for? What are you as a player expecting by the time the dice are collected and everyone shuffles into the driveway or goes to play video games?

As a GM, I would look for the following things to see if the first session was a success:

-Did everyone get a moment to shine?
-Does everyone understand the setting?
-Does everyone understand their character?
-Was there enough to leave them wanting to come back for more?

And most importantly...

-Did we have fun?

As a player, I would consider the following things to see whether I'd play again:

-Did I like the other players? (Because, if you didn't, you probably shouldn't game with 'em)
-Did the GM try his best? (Because no one's perfect, but sometimes you've just got a bad apple)
-Am I engaged/interested at all in what's going on in the plot, or in the characters? (Because, if not, that should be fixed)

And most importantly...

-Did I have fun?

You can debate all you'd like on that criteria, but that is what I usually mentally go through after a first session, and that's important, because first sessions can sometimes make or break a campaign. Sure, you should give it another few sessions or so (time allowing) before making any sort of serious judgement, but sometimes an unresolved issue from session one can bite you in the ass down the road and tank a campaign.

Just sayin'.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on first sessions. It is an interesting beast, to be sure, but like I said in the beginning, they are necessary for gaming to exist. Why not think about 'em a little bit? Maybe try something different?

I hope you liked my thoughts! If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

 

Marvel Heroic Stress Test: Report

Hey, readers!

Earlier in my "What I'm Playing Now" post, I mentioned the Marvel Civil War game that I'm going to be involved with starting next week. I have a few updates to what I said there.

-My second character is Spider-Woman now. I like her quite a bit as a character, even if she's technically the Skrull Queen in the mainstream universe during this point in time. Now, I don't know what our GM's opinion is on that, but I'd prefer it if she was, y'know, Jessica Drew. Like, legit Jess. I mean, if she was the Skrull Queen, I'd have to play it at a whole 'nother angle, and stuff.

-My misgivings about having such a large group have been put slightly at ease due to the practice session that I will report on here. The internet connection didn't go out in the two or so hours that we played, and the game seemed to run smoothly enough, at least on my end.

That being said, our group had a 'Stress Test' to make sure the point above would be stable. You can actually watch the whole session if you're so inclined, but I will summarize what happened here if you'd rather not sit through two hilarious hours of a bunch of guys playin' superheroes.

(I'm in the Screenshot!)

Session Summary:

So, our session was based on an Avengers Assemble comic from last summer involving a collection of cosmic weaponry and those who are looking to get it.

Our team consisted of Thor, Bruce Banner (Hulk), the Thing, Moon Knight, Wonder Man, and myself as Wolverine. Apparently, our team had been travelling around the world collecting cosmic artifacts like the Cosmic Cube, the Ultimate Nullifier, and other such paraphernalia you likely have sitting around your basement. We have been hounded by Zodiac, which is a team of twelve recently cosmically imbued former henchmen that are all modeled after the twelve signs of the Zodiac.

So, our assembled Avengers team is hanging out on the SHIELD helicarrier. Thor has a keg of ale that he's drinking from, which Logan is sharing. Then, out of nowhere, a huge hole is blown in the side of the Helicarrier and we are attacked by the entire group of the Zodiac. Wonder Man tried to negotiate using his star power, which didn't go so hot. Banner tried too, but the return insults made him so mad he Hulked out. The rest of us more martial powers went to town, gutting, slicing, and punching whoever got in our way. Moon Knight was kinda doing he solo thing, hanging out in the shadows and hitting stuff with moon-based weaponry.

Needless to say, with such a large group, a blow-by-blow account would be difficult to map out, however, I can show off the highlights. The Hulk resisted an attack by roaring and slamming the ground to scare those assaulting him. Thor threw a guy who had burned out and took out most of the opposing team while saying something about Asgardian kittens. And, y'know, Wolverine gutted and sliced people, which is always cool, since I was playing him. And stuff.

Once the Zodiac was defeated, Thor and Wolverine went back to drinking, until Thanos crashed into the Helicarrier, demanding the Cosmic stuff. When we said no, he did a cosmic attack that knocked out everyone, except Thor, who was invulnerable, the Thing, who left for a date before Thanos arrived, and Moon Knight, who escaped via the Moon Copter. Thor and Thanos had a pretty epic duel, involving a lot of grappling and throwing around cosmic might before Maria Hill activated the self destruction sequence on her ship and blew it all sky-high.

My Reaction:

First of all, I have to say, it was great seeing and playing with these guys again. They're a great bunch, and the new guys that I haven't met before were also cool. Everyone did a great job staying to character and there was a lot of creativity going on.

The Doom Pool got pretty huge this session, which makes sense, considering there were six players and a mob consisting of twelve d10, which is pretty insane in of itself. However, it made a lot more sense than stating out each individual villain, and made things run much more smoothly. Well, smooth enough. Thanos was likewise very powerful, and backed by the mighty Doom Pool, he was virtually unstoppable, which makes sense, since in this comic, the Guardians of the Galaxy popped in to help at this particular point.

Other than that, I wasn't expecting much since this was a stress test, and had a good time! Looking forward to next Monday when Civil War proper will begin.

Hope you enjoyed my post about this stress test! If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

Marvel Heroic X-Men: Session 2 Report

Hey, readers!

One of my new groups that I'm playing with just had a session of X-Men the other night, and for my benefit and yours, I'm going to summarize and rant and stuff. I was thinking of possibly doing these as in-character journal entries, but we'll see.

Anyway, the team is currently Beast, Mr. Immortal (a probationary X-Men member on leave from his team 'The Great Lake Avengers'), and myself as Rogue with Ms. Marvel's powers. This was the first session where we actually had the entire team assembled, so that was cool to see the dynamics and how everything functioned.

We're playing through an old Marvel TSR module (FASERIP as I like to call it, 'cause, y'know, ripping off faces is creepy and cool) which is called 'Breeder Bombs.' I somewhat wish that he didn't mention it was a module because I have a terrible habit of looking stuff up and spoiling things for myself, which I kinda did. I only skimmed, but still!...

Session Summary:

Anyway, the session began where the last one left off, which was Rogue and Mr. Immortal in the Danger Room going through an exercise when things start to go haywire and someone is attacking the mansion. Come to find out it was Mr. Fixer who crashed into the kitchen to confront Beast, yelling about how he killed his partner and was here for REVENGE!

So, combat begins, of course. Mr. Immortal tried to slam into him, but was easily repelled and flung out the giant hole in the wall. Then Beast tried to distract the villain by juggling rubble, which was.. Interesting! Nicely enough, it slapped a d12 complication on the guy, which allowed me to piledrive Mr. Fixer and knock him out in one shot. Usually, I'm not too fond of Rogue when she has Ms. Marvel's powers, as I feel it cheapens the super-awesome power stealing stuff, but I must admit, it makes her a heavy hitter and a great asset to the team. The way I'm playing her is that the whole Ms. Marvel incident was fairly recent, so she's still getting used to the fact that she can punch guys fifty-feet away in one hit.

With that done, we picked the villain up and brought him over to the infirmary so that we could question him. The Professor probed his mind and found a video in his equipment that showed a rooftop battle where Beast was fighting Mentallo and apparently killed him. Beast had no memory of this, and spent a day scanning the video for errors or idiosyncrasies. He discovers that it was in a warehouse in New York, so he decides that we need to go take care of it. Unfortunately, Scott and his A-Team have the Blackbird, so we have to settle for Mr. Immortal's 'Quinnjetta' car. Rogue rode shotgun, changed the station to country and broke the knob.

Yeehaw!

The team made it to the warehouse and spent a good amount of time examining the crime scene. Not finding much evidence, we decided to enter the warehouse and see if anything was going on inside. Come to find out, there's Mentallo in a vegetative state hooked up to a weird machine! We trip a laser-wire and two laser guns pop out of the floor. Beast tries his best to wrestle one to death, not doing so well. Rogue threw a crate at one, and when it tried to shoot her, she dodged, causing the laser to hit a metal crate and somehow reflect back and destroy it.

Isn't comic-logic great?

As the team tried to work on the second turret, two figures break through the wall! It's Beast and Mentallo, somehow! Beast, enraged by the prospect of this doppleganger who tried to implicate him for murder, assaults his double, but manages to get slammed into a pile of crates and knocked out. Mentallo shot his laser pistol at Mr. Immortal, wounding him slightly. However, using his hurt pride to propel his attack, Mr. Immortal did a crazed flying crotch kick of some kind that I couldn't even visualize, sending Mentallo into d12 stress and revealing that he was a robot! Rogue then picked up Mentallo and slammed him against this force-field that appeared around the strange machine, smashing him to pieces.

The remaining laser battery shot at the two remaining heroes, but Rogue was able to absorb the energy and use it to amplify her strength. In a final move, Rogue used her enhanced strength to rip the laser cannon from the ground, spin around, and send it flying into the Beast robot, destroying both in one move.

So, yeah. Rogue is awesome. But we knew that.

The force-field went down, and we peeled the real Mentallo from the strange machine. In an attempt to bring a little deeper story, and play with the Rogue-angst that I love so much, I decided that Rogue would try to touch the villain and get his memories to see how this all happened, despite Beast's protest. Unfortunately, I failed the roll, but I do plan to factor in the scattered pieces of Mentallo's psyche into Rogue's in the future.

We wrapped up by heading back to the mansion, each of us trying to work on a different piece of the puzzle. Rogue and the Professor worked on the vegetative Mentallo. Mr. Immortal healed up in the infirmary and was bragging to the others about their experiences. Beast was working on the severed heads of the two robots, trying to get more information. What he found was a map to several locations across the world and a video feed revealing the supposed culprit: Magneto!

My Reactions:

So far, I'm having a good time with this group. I'm the 'senior Marvel Heroic player' it seems, which is funny, considering I'm the youngest. The other players are so far doing a great job portraying their characters. Our Beast has the character down to a 'T', dialogue and all. Mr. Immortal's player has actually made a seemingly useless hero useful in a team, which is a great accomplishment on its own, not to mention his good jokes and ideas. Our GM is pretty good too, though sometimes he's a little scatterbrained or jokes a bit too much, but it's all in good fun, and he's doing very well with both moving the story along and making sure things run smoothly.

The only major issue I'm having, which I've had in a lot of other online groups in the past, is this... Weird... Thing. I'm not exactly sure how to explain it, other than it has to do with what's in character and what's out of character sometimes. See, like, most people use their normal voice to portray the character they are playing, since not many roleplayers are actors. I like to throw some theater into it since that's my background, using a more feminine voice if I'm playing a woman or tossing in an accent or way of speaking to differentiate my character speech from my regular speech. However, sometimes someone will say something in-character that sounds out-of-character, or make a joke out-of-character that's kinda in character. Or, even worse, someone will say something in-character, and someone will make a joke, interrupting the flow of conversation. This prevents me from getting into character a lot, which means I'm usually quiet or preface my in-character dialogue with, 'My character says, "-" '

And this is a real shame, since most of my enjoyment in roleplaying games is being in-character and interacting with NPCs and the other players. Hell, the best sessions I've ever had usually had very little combat and a lot of talking, emotions, and character growth due to stuff that's going on. I can get this in my Teen Titans game, but that's different, since I'm running it as opposed to playing. With a lot of these online groups, this sort of thing is harder to get since there's a degree of unfamiliarity with each other at first, and the best way to get comfortable is to make jokes and seem likable, and sometimes that doesn't stop.

Maybe one day I'll get this kind of thing in a 'pick-up group', and I've come close with a few groups, but that's a personal thing. I do get some fun out of beating the snot out of villains and making quips, but like a Disney Princess, I can't help but want...

More.

Other than that rant, there was a rule clarification that I was happy to get. It had to deal with exceptional successes in regard to counter-attacks, which I wasn't totally clear on. Apparently, if you do the option to counter attack and you exceed the attacker's total by five or more, it is treated as an exceptional success. This is good to know, as it can make villains just a hair more dangerous, especially if they are supported by a huge doom pool. The unfortunate recipient of this action, Beast, was a bit put-off by the potential power that it gives the GM, but I think it's completely fair, given what the players are able to do, such as one-shotting Mr. Fixer.

Overall, I'm enjoying myself, and I do hope that this doesn't come into conflict with my Civil War game that is coming up next week. We'll see how that goes. Either way, hope you enjoyed my rant! (I would love some comments on my IC/OOC rant to see how other people feel.) If you didn't, here's a funny picture.

-Wes