Marvel Mondays - Civil War - Session 5 Report

Hey, readers!

Before we dig into the meat of this article/report/review/thing, I would like to say that Marvel Mondays is now relegated to every-other Monday once again. For those of you who were following the X-Men series of reports, our GM has decided to switch directions to something... Not Marvel. It looks like we are going in a Star Wars direction, so be on the look out for those reports in the coming months.

That being said, I will miss playing Rogue terribly. And I just got myself an awesome Rogue shirt on discount from WeLoveFine, too...

Anyway!

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

Everyone was in attendance this time, which is a first, I do believe. By now, you should be familiar with the characters, which is awesome, but now we have some new ones! Joining our cast are Speed, Hawkeye (Kate Bishop), Wiccan, and Wonder-Man! More will likely be adding on as the rest of our troupe, myself included, picks a third character.

So, pull on the spandex and let's jump on in.

Session Summary:

Things begin in the aftermath of the Stamford explosion. The small town is in ruins, with buildings collapsing, people trapped under rubble, and fires spreading across the area. Each of our heroes arrive in their own spectacular fashion and have to deal with the emotional distress of seeing all of the destruction. Oddly enough, the two characters with trauma (Iron Man and Wolverine) aren't as affected as the rest of the crew, which includes a group of Young Avengers, Dr. Strange, Wonder-Man, and the two above mentioned heroes. Everyone does their part, which includes handing out Stark-Emergency Response Kits (SERK!), using spells to highlight trapped individuals, tearing through houses to find people, and using super-speed to rescue others at a rate none can match.

Though the emotional toll is high, the heroes manage to bring things under control. Iron Man returns to the bottle, and Wolverine informs him that a conspiracy is likely in the works and that maybe the team wasn't well enough prepared for something slipping past their radar. He takes off, saying that he's going to kill Nitro and hunt him down. Meanwhile, Speed is shouting back at some anti-mutant protesters that have gathered outside the gate, not making things any better for the already strained community.

Meanwhile, back in New York City, Ms. Marvel leads a team to re-capture Moon Knight. Being the brilliant strategist that she is, she figured a full moon would be the ideal time to apprehend a criminal whose powers are strongest at the full moon. The team consists of Hulk, Thor, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman and Spider-Man, with Ms. Marvel leading, of course. Sounds like they should have no problem, right?

Using their covert contacts, the team manages to locate him at a penthouse, and springs the attack. Unfortunately, Moon Knight was prepared for every eventuality and rigged the place with traps to target each team member. Ms. Marvel starts the assault, trying to slam him, but gets hit by a large object in the attempt. The two of them trade blows when the unheralded arrival of a squad of Atlanteans makes things... Confusing! Even Moon Knight was expecting them to come to his aid.

The Hulk slams down, weakening the floor, but taking out a good number of the under-water goons. Spider-Man attempts to web up Moon Knight, but gets trapped in his own web! Spider-Woman tries to use her covert training to take out the traps that line the room, only to get tripped up herself... With a cord? Anyway. Luke Cage comes down and does some Sweet Christmas damage to the leader of the Atlanteans, Janus, and Thor nearly ends the conflict by slamming his hammer down, taking out the floor beneath them all! By some trick of chance, the Moon Copter arrives, and Moon Knight escapes, again, with Janus in tow while the Hulk takes out the floor, burying the team in rubble.

Our final encounter of the evening had to do with Master Pandemonium. Dr. Strange was contacted by the powers that be in order to investigate how he was able to escape their multi-dimensional magic prison. He takes an unlikely team, consisting of Iron Man, Wiccan, Wonder-Man, Tigra, Hawkeye, and... Wolverine. Yeah... I'll get to that.

Anyway, Wiccan is able to ascertain the involvement of something mystical when Loki, in a nearby cell, opens his big mouth and tries to make a deal with the team. Everyone banters back and forth a bit, Wonder-Man tries to encourage Loki with some less than savory torture-type stuff, which Iron Man disproves of, and things come to a close when Dr. Strange erects a force-field that prevents any sort of communication between the parties and Loki. No one speaks with Loki, apparently.

Tigra sniffs out some Asgardian influence on the cell, and the session wraps up there.

My Reactions:

Initially, my reactions to this session were very positive, but as the week wore on, my feelings sort of coagulated and became mixed. Hind-sight is 20-20, they say. That being said, I'm going to go over the positives first, and then discuss the things that sort of mixed and soured in my mind.

The Stamford Incident played out very well, I think. It gave everyone a chance to see the gravity of what happens when heroes fail or aren't there to prevent disaster, and it was cool to see the emotional toll along with the various creative ways to coordinate the rescue effort. I even managed to squeeze out some genuine character interaction between Wolverine and Iron Man which went off rather well, in my own humble opinion. Seeing that this group is not really accustomed to that sort of thing... I felt that if I wanted it in the game, I needed to take some initiative, so I did.

(Running out of Moon Knight pictures! >.<)

I also thought the Moon Knight fight scene played out really well. Mechanically, it was interesting to see how formidable a 'villain' can be when played by a player, especially with an optional, forum-rule that, during PVP, a player being acted against gets first dibs to opportunities. While I don't agree with that ruling, it certainly made things interesting and worked in this particular instance. The Moon Knight sub-plot is rather entertaining, all things considered, and I'm glad it showed up.

Finally, on the positive side of things, everyone continues to be great players. Good ideas, funny moments, the whole she-bang. We have a pretty awesome group.

This session wasn't perfect, however, and some things are really being brought into light in my mind that should be elaborated on.

First of all, I would like to talk about troupe-play. It was an optional way to run the game, as outlined in the beginning of the Civil War book, and for those of you not in the know, basically says that you can have multiple characters, swap 'em out, and share XP/PP between them as you go along. My guess is that the designers supposed that, with an event like Civil War, people are going to want to play it from various angles, particularly Pro-Reg/Anti-Reg with different heroes. This sounds pretty good on paper.

In execution, at least from what I'm seeing, it makes things a cluttered jumble, especially with a group size that we have and the set-up that's going on. We have so many heroes in this event right now, and the how's and why's of their presence and involvement are becoming lost to me. Initially, the justification was that this was the entirety of the Avengers, which, at about fourteen heroes is still a bit of a stretch, but it worked. Now that the GM has opened up a third slot with a wider range of options, things are breaking down in my head at the overall narrative. For example, a group of our players have taken Young Avengers characters, which is helpful that they have a reason for sticking together. Some of them showed up to help at Stamford. They apparently arrived separately, which doesn't make sense to me considering they are a team, and what about the rest of the Young Avengers...? More puzzling still, in the prison for mystical stuff, Wiccan is brought along without the rest of his group, even when Kate Bishop would probably want to see Hawkeye. Since the transition between scenes is pretty much dealt in the way of, "So-and-so contacts so-and-so about such-and-such, who's coming?", the logic and justifications start to break down in my head.

Now, granted, this is comic books. People show up in random places for no reason all the time, both of my characters included. How many series is Wolverine in now? And every single event with multiple heroes has Spider-Woman show up in the initial 'Everyone's here!' panel, and she proceeds to do nothing after that. I get that. My question becomes this: does every scene need every player involved in it? I bring this up specifically because of my situation. I haven't selected a third character yet. With Spider-Woman under a building, Wolverine was my only option for the final scene, but narrative would state that he is hunting down Nitro, on his own, right now. Why would he give a shit about how Master Pandemonium escaped? It was a question of, 'Do I want to be the one left out, or do I want to stick with what my character would narratively do?' I went with the first, and regret it, since he didn't do anything in that scene.

(See?! There she is! Pointing!)

The final issue with troupe play, especially with this many involved, is character development. With potentially twenty-one heroes in the works here, there is almost no room for it to happen to every character, and it makes it more difficult for individual characters as well. How can I complete the arc I had in mind for Spider-Woman, where she makes a good friend before the whole Civil War thing erupts and has to make a very hard decision about where she stands (as detailed in my milestones), when there is almost no inter-character interaction beyond the business at hand, and people are shifting around so much that relationships can't grow? And, when I tried to inject some of this sort of emotional stuff between Iron Man and Wolverine, it felt awkward to ask for, and was sort of ignored in the entire scheme of things.

I'm not asking for the spotlight, if that is what you're thinking. By no means should Wolverine or Spider-Woman be the stars of Civil War. All I'd like to do is create some character arcs that enrich the game, so that when the big action stuff blows up, it has weight beyond, "X amount of people died/stuff got blown up." I dunno. Maybe I'm asking for too much. Maybe I should just flow with the majority and forget about adding some depth in the way that I am. Curse my writing and acting sensibilities.

The second point has to do with some narrative order of operations and focus. In my humble opinion, Stamford should have been the last scene in the evening's line-up, and the other two scenes should have been dealt with first. I understand that the GM has some sub-plots he is trying to saddle onto Civil War, and this is perfectly reasonable, and even encouraged. However, when you are dealing with the 'inciting incident' of your entire plot, you need to focus on it, make it punch, make it matter. Steps to do this were taken, true, but having scenes afterwards/during that were in no-way related to your inciting incident weakens it. I already mentioned how Wolverine didn't give a shit about how Master Pandemonium escaped. In light of a huge tragedy that took a major emotional toll on the characters involved (according to the stress inflicted) and will start a media avalanche that leads to registration, I don't really see why the other characters would give a shit about that either.

As I said in a previous session report that got into deep discussions like this one did, I want to just put in the disclaimer here at the end that I am still enjoying myself in this game, I think the GM is doing a wonderful job juggling seven players and trying to tell a cohesive story, and I think all of my fellow players are great. Like anyone, however, little things bother me, and I wanted to bring them to light, as much for myself as others.

I hope you enjoyed this post. If not, here's a funny picture. (I actually remembered it this time!)

-Wes

Marvel Origins - Avengers - Session 1 Report

Hey, readers!

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

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

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

Our characters are as follows:

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

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

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

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

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

Without further ado, session one!

Session Summary:

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

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

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

(Pierre, the best spy ever)

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

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

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

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

My Reactions:

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

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

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

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

-Wes   

Marvel Mondays - X-Men - Session 5 Report

Hey, readers!

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

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

Whodunit?

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

Let's dive in.

Session Summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Nope. He's happy.)

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

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

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

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

My Reactions:

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

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

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

-Wes

  

Marvel Mondays - Civil War - Session 3 Report

Hey, readers!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's dive in.

Session Summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Close enough!)

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

Y'owch.

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

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

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

Nevermind.

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

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

My Reactions:

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

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

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

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

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

(Life is pandemonium)

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

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

-Wes

Teen Titans - Episode 8 "Shutdown" Report

Hey, readers!

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

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

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

Episode 8: Shutdown

Session Summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bum.. Bum.. BUM!

My Reactions:

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, and my Bane voice is awesome.

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

-Wes

Marvel Mondays - X-Men - Session 4 Report

Hey, readers!

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

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

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

Session Summary:

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

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

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

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

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

So, the terrorists were holed up in a mall.

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

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

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

My Reactions:

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

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

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

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

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

-Wes