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.
(Hey, all! Since Kitty is taking a pretty active role in the recent events in the Civil War game I'm currently in, I've decided to switch over to her point of view for the time being. If next session plays out as planned, Wolverine will have plenty to cuss about in the weeks to come, but for now, let's take a peek into the life of one of my favorite mutants during this time. -Wes)
Dear Diary,
Weirdest thing! I was cleaning out my closet (which is a total wreck!) and I found you snuggled between a manual for the Danger Room and that one goofy picture of Piotr and I making macho poses by the pool. Come to find out there's a whole bunch of old pictures of us, and him, tucked into that little secret pocket in the front cover. Between those covers were the adventures of a girl that was in way, way over her head, but somehow lived to tell the tale.
Okay, when things phase through you, survival isn't a huge issue, but still!
I was about to throw you back in the box and go show Piotr (who came back from the dead!) the goofy picture when it came to me! Is there any reason I couldn't keep the log going? I mean, sure, I could just type it up nowadays in seconds, but that isn't personal or visceral. When you have a pen in your hand, you gotta think about the words as you create them, and commit yourself to them! If I was just typing this down in an ultra secret location so deeply encrypted onto my laptop that Tony would have to spend a week just to crack the first sentence, I could delete a word without even thinking about it, and it would be gone! Forever! Bam! See?
So, hope you're ready for a mouthful, because things have been really, really crazy around here.
I guess I'll start with the biggest thing. I'm part of an endangered species now. Wanda kind of lost it, altered reality to create a universe where Magneto ruled the world, and then turned everything back to normal, except for the fact that now almost every mutant lost their powers. I still have mine, but some really important guys like the Professor lost theirs! Am I lucky? I guess so. I mean, the ability to phase through stuff is as much a part of me as being Jewish or being a brunette (and staying that way!).
Since we're endangered, the government thought it'd be an awesome idea to make everyone that's left stay at the mansion guarded by Sentinels. Smart, right? I mean, yeah, the Sentinels have pilots in them now, but it's really a genius idea. Wouldn't create a powder keg situation at all! We wouldn't be pulling our hair out 'cause we can't see the latest M. Night Schamlan (or however you spell his last name...) flop at the theater, or slum around the mall with emo haircuts, blasting our punk music. Scott and his witch of a girlfriend are doing their best to keep things under control, but that didn't last long. I'll get to that.
Anyway, I had a genius idea! Well, being a genius, these things happen, but it's not like I'm bragging or anything. Charles isn't really around to guide us, but you know what I think? Isolating ourselves from humanity is the worst thing we could do to promote the unification of our races. We need to be out there, in public, doing good things like a normal person would! Instead of just saying the world when Magneto decides to turn tyrant, we could be helping everyday, spearheading medical research, or fixing broken bridges, or discovering alternative fuel sources. Our great abilities give us more than a weapon to fight evil with, but it's also a tool that can be used to build goodwill. We should be more like tools!
Okay, that came out really, really bad. No wonder everyone thinks we're terrorists, jeez. (Did I mention that the Avengers think that our slogan should be "We're Not Terrorists!"?)
That leads me to my awesome idea which is to bring this philosophy to light in a time where it's really needed! Sometimes, it's hard to look past our own issues and see what's going on outside the walls of our mansion, but things are really heating up out there. The town of Stamford got blown up because a bunch of superheroes were being careless, and the public is out for reform and control. Granted, this is how they've felt with mutants this whole time, but now their expanding their minds a little bit! In the wrong direction, but... Yeah! If there's one guy with the resources and brains to turn this whole thing one way or the other, it's Tony Stark. So, being proactive and bold, I held out the olive branch of mutant peace and decided that some collaboration was in order!
Tony and I talked a long time, and we found that our goals aren't all too dissimilar! That, and we're both really smart, so it's cool to find someone else that understands computers like you do! He agreed to hire me on as a personal assistant (which is so cool!) and together we're creating a non-profit organization to saddle onto the Superhuman Registration Act in order to make the things that suck about it suck a little less and support heroes through the transition. Our plans in the future are to eventually use this as a base-ground for helping mutants reintegrate into society, but for now, these are still pretty good goals!
Oh, and I might be running a school to help young super-humans in the very near future. Talk about pressure! What do you think sounds better? Professor Kitty, or Professor Pryde? I mean, the second one has the whole alliteration factor, but the first is casual, and I can totally see a little chibbi cat dressed in a graduate cap, glasses, and one of those pointing sticks that they used to use!
Piotr is going to draw me that one of these days, right after the awkwardness goes away.
So, let's talk about the Superhuman Registration Act for a minute. (Believe me, I can talk about this thing for ages. Tony and I created a series of instructional videos for beings from different planets, realities, and such, to get them acquainted with the law in ways they would understand, and I got to play narrator.) Basically, super-humans have to be trained and registered with the government, which is okay? They do get paid, and benefits, and I think that's awesome. The really bad thing is that all the mutants are automatically registered, which is something we've been fighting against for years. Now, any bigot senator can get our names and go harass our families! Whatever. All heroes are also supposed to help in times of emergency, but I guess they'd want to do that anyway, right? It's a real mixed bag, and there are parts of it I can get all excited about, then other parts make me want to pout and program for hours on end.
Maria Hill is a jerk!
Just wanted to get that out of the way. It's an inside joke around the mansion, you know. Speaking of her, the first thing she wanted us to do is convince all of these vigilantes and heroes that we duped into arriving at a warehouse to register. I'm not really an Avenger, or an agent of SHIELD, so sometimes I feel kind of awkward around everyone else, but Tony always makes me feel better. Well, when he's not stressed, and he's stressed a lot. Needless to say, we managed to get that off without a hitch, and even got started advertising the law assistance aspect of our organization with these neat little cards Tony invented. (I had to narrate for those too...)
This next part really tears me up, but I have to write about it, because it's really important. We got a communication that said the Xavier Mansion was having a riot, and that the Sentinels were freaking out and being a little over-zealous. My first instinct upon arrival was to make sure the kids were alright! Phasing them out of harm's way was, admittedly, not the best thing to do, but it was a tense moment! Everyone else went after the Sentinels, but they should have mixed their focus!
Because we were so sloppy, disorganized, and against such high-tech opposition, twelve kids died. Twelve of my classmates, students, whatever! Hell, I'm a consular at the Institute when I'm not working on a PhD or hanging around with Tony. I knew a lot of them, even knew some very personal stuff, and now... Now they're gone. Deleted from existence, just like that. I can't... I can't even begin to say how deeply this grieves me, especially since I could have done more to prevent it!
Scott asked me to speak at the funeral, but I couldn't. He knew I couldn't. Scott sucks. It's all Emma's fault that Scott sucks, 'cause she sucks, and she transmits all her suck into him with her mind powers or something. Shit... There I go making jokes again, to cover up how much this hurts. That's what I do, you know. I stay witty, and quippy, especially when I've got something under the surface that just stings so deeply. I can't look vulnerable in front of all these Avengers. Especially not now. We have to be strong.
This... This is why I'm starting to really believe in this project Tony and I are coming up with. See, maybe if we were trained together as a unit, briefed about the situation, and tackled this efficiently while working together, maybe those twelve guys wouldn't have died. Maybe Little Boy Blue would have finally realized that yes, girls love the color blue. Maybe Channel Surfer would finally get to test out the video game I was programming for him in my spare time where his power was the controller, since he was so frustrated with having to change the channel back to the Xbox every time he gamed. That's a lot of maybe's, but I believe in every one of them. For the future.
Something else happened that night. Spider-Man almost killed someone. It was an accident, sure, but Maria (Who is still a jerk!) presented him with an ultimatum. He could either submit to the SHIELD tribunal, who would tear him apart, or go for a public trial, which would have his real named revealed! We were all there for him, that night before he had Tony set up one of the biggest press conferences ever assembled. I even told him about my crush, but you already know all about that. Should have known he was married...
Anyway, General Lazer (the moron who decided that we should be cooped up at the X Mansion) showed up at the press conference where Spider-Man revealed to everyone that he was the devilishly handsome Peter Parker. He bombarded the poor guy with questions about the accident, but Tony was right there to defend him, not to mention a little crowd support from yours truly. Then, well, Deadpool showed up and drove Lazer nuts, so it was a mixed bag.
To be honest, I'm... Not really sure where things are going. Wonder-Man has decided to advocate our cause, and with his help and the turn-over of Lazer, maybe Tony and I can move our ideas for mutant integration up sooner than we anticipated. This registration act could be the gateway for a whole new world where mutants are seen as super-heroes instead of genetic aberrations with their own agendas in mind. However it goes, I'm going to be there at the forefront, because I still believe in Xavier's dream.
Gotta go! Just looked at the time, and I need to squeeze some lab time in before the sun comes up. Working on a few new stuff in Tony's labs, should be pretty cool!
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's no secret, if you've been following this blog, that I'm a superhero fan. In fact, the vast majority of the posts on here have been about superheroes in relations to RPGs, particularly Marvel Heroic. I suppose it's just the sort of season of mind that I'm in right now. I mean, I've played Sci-Fi and Fantasy roleplaying games for years, and now I'm getting to explore one of my favorite genres when before, the groups I was in wasn't really into the whole superhero-shtick.
Here's another confession.
While I love to play in them, superhero games are one of the hardest things for me to GM.
In fact, if you look at my track record, (Well, you can't really look at it since it isn't completely written out), you would see that most of the games that I've started and failed were superhero games. While my first group wasn't terribly fond of the genre, I did try a few campaigns using Mutants and Masterminds to limited success. I just had trouble wrapping my head around the reactionary story-telling without making it seem railroady.
The only superhero campaign that I've run well is my Teen Titans game that I've elaborated on quite a bit during the life of this blog (Which well hopefully be starting up again before the month is out). This was a combination between a system that worked for the genre (Marvel Heroic) and a new sort of ideology on running games which I've also explained. I mentally had to break away from certain tropes of the genre in order to make that work while also zeroing in on the tropes that make the genre what it is.
I know, confusing.
What may be more confusing is what any of this has to do with the topic.
Back in "What I'm Running," I mentioned an idea I had about a campaign I'd like to start to sort of give back to the Marvel Heroic community that has been so kind to me and has allowed me to play more in the past year than I ever have in my entire gaming career. I mean, life is a give and take, right? It's only right that I can put my five-plus years of GM expertise to use by providing some gaming for others.
What I had in mind was a re-envisioning of the Marvel Universe, much like the Ultimate series did. However, this re-envisioning would be collaborative between myself as the 'Watcher' and the players. The campaign would be 80% game, 20% universe building. Through this process, our group will create a version of the Marvel Universe that is unique to us, a combination of all of our ideas, and can be used by ourselves in other games or others that are interested. One of the great things about this idea is that we will create our own continuity that, if it extends beyond our game, will be canon and effect other games that come out of this creation.
This is somewhat based off of a concept elaborated in the book "Play Dirty" by John Wick. This is a fantastic book, and if any of you GMs out there have not read it yet, please do so. I have gleaned so much of my personal GM philosophy from this man and his methods. Anyway, there is a chapter entitled "The Living City" where he describes how he and his players created a setting that felt real together for a Vampire game. He let them build parts of the world and even allowed them to play NPCs. It's a fantastic idea, but one I was always hesitant to implement, but I think now might be a good time.
I call this experiment/game Marvel Origin. What I would need are four or five willing players that have two important qualities that would work best for this idea and for my own personal GM style.
-A creative mind and desire to create a new spin on the Marvel Universe and get to be one of the first to play in it.
-A desire for a game that is story-focused where character interactions are an important part of the game.
When I've assembled some players, we would decide on a schedule for gaming and pick what corner of the Marvel Universe they'd want to tackle. If they are willing, we could design the entire universe, but for the sake of time, I think it would be interesting to pick one group and start branching things off from there. An example would be "Fantastic Four Origins" or "X-Men Origins" or "Avengers Origins".
This is all very 'in-my-head' right now, but I think this would be an interesting and fun gaming experiment that could produce a game and campaign world that we are attached to deeply, care about, and that we'll be proud to tell others of.
If you are interested in participating in this, drop me a line, comment, or Google+ message, and we'll see about getting this jumpstarted! Since my main reading base are those I've played with on Google+, I'm giving you guys first dibs, mostly as a thank-you for being so completely awesome.
I hope you enjoyed this post about my weird experiment idea! If you didn't, hear's a funny picture.
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.
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.
