ORtrail

Personally I'm all for losing +/-'s from damage rolls. I'm old enough that when faced with a weapon doing 2D6+2, a 1D4 damage bonus and +2 damage from a spell that I start to lose the will to live when asked to roll damage.

In most cases, I'd prefer to simplify the damage roll down to 1 or 2 dice. For the example you gave above, I'd figure the max damage (20 pts) and then either go with a 1D20 roll or 2D10. Minus the spell bonus you roll 1D10 + 1D8. I prefer the much wider range of potential damage versus the minimum of 7 pts to max of 20 pts you get rolling and adding those bonuses.

I've pondered, every so often, a damage system that allowed you to use whatever weapon you wanted, and based the damage pretty much only on the effectiveness of your attack roll. Dagger versus battle axe? A .22 pistol versus a .50 machine gun? Any of those weapons could take out a human with one attack, but just as in realty, it all comes down to location, location, location!

If you guys have a chance, check out the hit location charts for Stalking the Night Fantastic or Fringeworthy. If you want "realism" then you might want to go with these charts. I prefer a smoother, quicker, less quasi-reality damage system myself. I play RPGs in part to enjoy a more heroic world, I don't need the reality of what even a .22 bullet between the eyes (fired by a scrawny junkie with sores on his face) would do to my STR 18 DEX 17 Judo Master.

Any RPG damage system is a balance between realism, ease of gameplay, and genre concept. There is no ONE answer to make everyone happy, we just need to find the particular balance that works for us and our gaming group.

I actually missed reading your last post after the edit, or it just didn't register until today seneschal. Oz on earth? No, I like the idea of it being a dimension over from our world.

I was pondering what government agency would handle, or be created to handle, interdimensional relations? Assign an Interdimensional Ambassdor to accompany the heroes into Oz? Way too much fun to have a person along who can cause all kinds of issues for the characters -whether through stupidity or arrogance. With an ambassador eager to establish a peaceful resolution with concessions left and right, the heroes could end up having to decide whether to go along or do some "nation building" of their own.

Then a sentence popped into my head: "Oil fields of Oz." What if a pipeline could be established from Oz to our earth? Oz sits on top of a massive oil reserve, which would free the United States from (other) foreign oil dependence, and drop the cost of gas in half within six months.

An invasion force to "liberate" Oz spearheaded by the heroes? A treaty established with Queen Dorothy and any human, er, munchkin rights violations are overlooked? Of course most of my super adventures are fairly self-contained, with few lingering, world altering effects. This would in effect create a BOO (Before Oz Oil) world and a AOO (After Oz Oil) world. Then again, I have been fighting the flu all this week, so I might look back on this in a few days and wonder what combination of meds brought it about.

Okay, but I think adding an Envoy or Ambassador to help resolve the Oz-Earth "issues" needs to be part of this adventure.

Truthfully, I blame the typical parents for most of these situations. Their child is a precious snowflake that can do no wrong, or if they do get caught the child is actually "the victim" due to not getting "help" for anger management issues, etc. Many teachers are just trying to get by until they can move up the ladder, or retire and getting too involved with helping problem kids is a losing proposition. The educational system has some serious issues. Of course I don't have kids, so I have all the answers!

Okay, I don't want to derail this thread, so I'll keep this post relevant by mentioning how the recently passed marijuana laws in Colorado and Washington could be worked into an updated Dr Drugs adventure. I'll have to research if kids are allowed to have "medical marijuana" for example. I would play the parents as enablers, protecting their children at all costs, deflecting blame, etc. Normally kids would not be allowed to smoke while underage even if it was completely legal. Then there is the State law versus Federal law conflict. I need to work in some "faces of meth" too.

A change of pace with the crossbow, instead of a longbow. Your coming up with a "Swinging" power just reinforces my thought that 95% of the time you can make the old WoW Superworld game work to create most any character.

Reminds me that I have some notes on a slinger hero/villian, that I was going to call either The Sidonian Slinger, or maybe Slingstone. The usual array of special "stones" of course, with explosive, gas, and entangle for starters.

Though a more deadly weapon than given credit for in most gaming systems (though a good weapon in BRP) it is just not as "sexy" as a crossbow or longbow. I suppose reading the story of Xenophon on his march to the sea has helped shape my impression of the slinger.

That makes me want to dig out our DVD of Sky High and watch it again. I remember going in with low expectations and then actually enjoying this movie. A synopsis from IMDB.com:

Set in a world where superheroes are commonly known and accepted, young Will Stronghold, the son of the Commander and Jetstream, tries to find a balance between being a normal teenager and an extraordinary being.

I also found a print copy of Bad Medicine for Dr. Drugs over the weekend. One of the few adventures for Superworld (with Champion stats too). I was toying with taking the premise of high-school-heroes-against-the-drug-pusher and turning it more into a rival gang war. The "hero kids" are in fact more interested in maintaining control over their school then actually being super heroes. With all the bad things that have taken place in schools in the years since the early 80's, worrying about drugs seems... almost quaint.

I can see, especially from the GM point of view, how having a group of teenage heroes would be fun. Tough when you have to answer to parents, teachers, get homework done, and try to have a social life along with saving the world. Actually, the recent TV show No Ordinary Family was fairly well done, it's a shame it didn't make it past the first season.

As I've done more reading, I can see how my scenario requires either a mere passing knowledge of Oz, or the assumption that what we "know" about the history of Oz is the result of an interdemsional propaganda campaign by the Oz equivalent of "Baghdad Bob" (I'm looking at YOU Mr. Baum). Or both.

Consider it an "alternate Oz" world, but it would be a nice twist to have the Nome King, Wicked Witch of the West, and other baddies as the rebel fighters for a free Oz. Part of the fun being these rebels having to convince "real world" supers that they are not the persons potrayed in those books....

I knew the classic movie was loosely based on the book(s) but the changes are significant. Dorothy is much older, the lion is anthropormorphic, etc. I think my probable player group is only familiar with the movie version of Oz, so I need to play off of that.

I do have a nice map showing the wider world of Oz (past the deserts) with Ev, Boboland, Kingdom of Ix, Noland, etc. I can safely ignore those and assume an isolationist Oz under Queen Dorothy. I doubt the player will think to ask about the borders of Oz, as they'll only see a different map with Oz and the deserts.

This Oz adventure is a work-in-progress. Ideally, I'd love to work in the Superworld Oz adventure progressively, say starting with Oscar Zoroaster Diggs showing up outside Seattle in his balloon, seeking help for Oz. He crashed his balloon on the borderlands of Oz and was taken prisoner for several years as a spy -instead of heading back to earth as is presumed in the movie. Seeing the tyranny of Queen Dorothy, he joins the rebels (seperate rebel groups? uneasy alliance?) and seeks help back on earth. He is tracked to super earth by one or more of the Champions of Oz (making the trip back and forth in the Gale farm house of course) and his return is demanded, so he can stand trial for his crimes committed as "Oz the Great and Terrible". I'm guessing the heroes reluctantly allow Oscar to stay on earth, and the Champions depart peacefully. On to the Dr. Null adventure.

A month later, the Gale family stable appears near Portland, containing the Wicked Witch of the West (having survived her apparent death and dehydrated) some remaining loyal flying monkeys and a crazy story for our heroes. The Champions quickly follow again, the Witch demands political asylum, they depart again.

On to a different Superworld adventure.

Two weeks later, the Gale farm house appears in San Fran, the current San Fran super group, the Golden Gate Guardians, investigate the house, and it shifts back to Oz with them in it (they are swarmed by the forces of Oz and captured). The player characters join Uncle Stinger and his retired friends to help protect San Fran while the GGG are missing. The farmhouse appears two days later, near a San Fran school yard and most of a class of second graders are grabbed by the Champions and flying monkeys and taken back to Oz. Dorothy knows children are the easiest to indoctrinate and she misses human company, but won't give up her power and status to return to earth. It is a strange world to her now anyway.

By now the player heroes will be forced to cut a deal with the combination of Oscar and the Wicked Witch, who have a deal between themselves about dividing up Oz once Dorothy is overthrown. Together they can get either the balloon or the Gale family stable back to Oz, along with the heroes who need to rescue the GGG and the children. Or maybe Dorothy has a growing "shopping list" of things she wants from this world, the comforts of home if you will, and sends a Champion or two back yet again to gather these items at a mall. They will always retreat to the farm house and our heroes must follow them in to get to Oz.

Do they work closely with the rebels of Oz? Which group? Or do they concentrate on getting the children and other heroes back and flee Oz, letting things sort out as they may? I see the children being held at a recreated Kansas farm outside the Emerald City, and the GGG held in an underground prison run by fungi creatures who keep the inmates docile with tainted food.

Much of this may change as I read more of the Adventures in Oz RPG and incorporate other characters, etc.

There is a section here on the upcoming Magic World for BRP. I have not been following it, but that might be what you are looking for. I do have the Basic Creatures PDF and it is handy versus sorting through my collection of BRP PDFs and printed RPGs.

I just picked up the PDF and Epub versions of Adventures in Oz from DrivethruRPG, on sale for $6.99. While I reserve the right to run an Oz campaign at some point in the future (it would be a nice change of pace), I have collected together some maps and notes for a Superworld Oz adventure:

What if Dorothy never got back home to Kansas? What if the house landed a couple feet (pun intended) to the left? Or was it right? In any event the ruby slippers are toast. The Wicked Witch of the West (clearly the target of a smear campaign by the Emrald City powers that be) still ends up dead (actually only mostly dead) and Dorothy, unable to get home, takes over as ruler in Oz (as was her right after defeating the Wicked Witch). Dorothy had four rings made, all of which included fragments from the ruby slippers. Her three companions become the Champions of Oz, the enforcers that maintain order and collect tribute from the four countries of Oz. Power corrupts, and though only 15 years have passed in Oz it has been more than 5 times that here on earth. Remember, we are dealing with a girl who was living with Auntie Em and Uncle Henry after the (mysterious?) deaths of her parents! The warning signs were there....

A rebel movement is growing in Oz, and though Dorothy had her house moved safely into the Emerald City (for certainly coming from another world it retains some kind of power for having made the journey between worlds?) it never occurs to her or anyone else in Oz to look for the Gale family stable.... Recently, a desperate rebel stumbled upon a strange building in the wilderness of Oz while fleeing from the Lion. Having stolen the ruby fragment encrusted collar of the dead beast known as "Toto" the rebels hoped to find a way to turn its power against Queen Dorothy. A desire to get away, the Gale stable, the ruby dog collar, and a sudden windstorm.... do I have to spell it out?

Who better to right things in Oz than a group of super heroes? Golden Gate Park, where the fight for a free Oz begins....

"Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets, then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again." -Wizard of Oz synopsis written by Rick Polito.

Class-less and Level-less System:

This blew my mind when I first considered it in a tabletop RPG. The best comparison I can give to video games is Skyrim or Runequest. Your character can do everything the second you sit down at the table. There's no waiting until level 14 when your Wizard gets that niche-defining spell that you actually get to play like you want, or level 8 until your rogue gets that ability you really need. So how do you improve? You get better at doing what you do. If you shoot a bow, you get better at shooting a bow. If you sneak, backstab, and deceive, you get better at each of those in turn. If you're a sharpshooter, you get better with your weapon of choice. Your stats rise very rarely so you don't have a power gap from being a weakling to having god-like powers at level 20. When you make your Orc Warrior, dumb as a rock but huge and strong, covered in armor and armed from head to toe, you have access to all the tools you need. Procurement of magical artifacts, completion of story elements, and wealth is what drives your character instead of XP and other abstract confines.

Yeah, I remember that feeling when I grasped the idea of "No levels!" It is nice to start with a competent character and even do some things better than other characters that have been adventuring for quite some time. A minor drawback to that is that most BRP characters will never become demi-god powerful. They can certainly improve, but rarely a contrast like you find between a 1st level character compared to an 8th level one. In most supers games you can easily build a character and jump right into the action. The exceptions to that, that I can remember, would be the Palladium Heroes Unlimited and the recent Pathfinder Heroes Wear Masks RPGs. In both games your supers will start at first level and work up. Both games have some ideas and stuff worth stealing for other super games, but the idea of levels is REALLY out of place with super heroes (IMHO).

These are all strengths but I really feel the downsides of BRP (generality and sometimes obscurity due to said generality) can be completely negated by supplements or just some good old fashioned work by the DM. Thoughts?

A good system, combined with a great setting is a powerful thing. Look at how Call of Cthulhu has remained relevant. To use a videogame console analogy, players often refer to a console as having (or lacking) a "killer app" (which is a game that most want to play and so are willing to buy the console to do so). BRP lacks a "killer app".

You can often find a copy of CoC on the bookshelf if a store has an RPG section. You probably won't see BRP. Having just taught a version of BRP to two RPG newbies, I know how easy the system can be picked up. It's just that most will never know BRP exists (outside of maybe CoC), and even if they do, any gamers around them are 90% of the time playing some version of D&D.

For the most part, it went fairly well. There was the usual delay in getting everyone in one place, then the nephew struggled to create a character. I showed him the list of potential characters, talked about character concepts, threw out numerous examples of comic book heroes often emulated in super RPGs, and finally he decided he wanted to play a paladin. Okay, no problem, but it was a good 1/2 hour to complete his character.

Sir Baldarious, a modern version of a knight, with a super alloy sword (3D6 damage total), Healing power for himself and others (1D6 per battle), a crossbow that actually shoots energy bolts (2D6 damage) and a warhorse named "Whisper" that has limited flight (in effect it can run over water, but not actually "fly" and can reach about 100 mph). We assumed he was working with Gunslinger and they were hired by a Mr. Goldstein to track the activity of a couple neo-nazis.

After losing most of an hour, I decided to stretch out the "Calico Cloning" scenario and not even worry about getting to the Dr. Null stuff. That meant Bunker and Reich-Wolf were back in the plot as they lead the other two heroes to Western Warehouse #5 and the secret lab of Dr. Flynn. Firefly was content to just stay up on the rafters and watch as events unfolded. I had her ambushed by a winged cat Dr. Flynn had created and she had to blast it with a minor electro-sting to knock it out quietly. She then watched the neo-nazi thugs come in and negotiate the sale of the latest batch of mutagenic serum. Watchdog was agitated and declared he and his men were pulling out and Dr. Flynn was on her own. Meanwhile Gunslinger and Sir Baldarious snuck past the outside guard and quietly broke through a back door into the warehouse.

Watchdog and the doctor had a tense exchange after moving out of sight of the neo-nazis, during which Watchdog pulled off his helmet and revealed that he was African-American and declared that this was the first time he was quitting on a client, but he wanted no part of helping a neo-nazi group gain super powers. Dr. Flynn just wanted money to continue her research. Naturally, Bunker moved over to spy on the conversation and enraged he removed his trenchcoat to reveal his cyborg legs and arm. Reich-Wolf changed into his humanoid wolf form and they prepared to attack Watchdog. Dr. Flynn headed over to start packing up her lab samples.

Gunslinger and Sir Baldarious came out to this scene and decided to attack the neo-nazis. Firefly was happy to just watch events unfold. Even when I asked my niece if she was doing anything she was like, "No, I don't know whose side I should be on." The rest of us exhanged glances around the table, and I said, "Well you can side with the neo-nazis... or the other side.... or do nothing." She decided to go after Dr. Flynn and stop her.

One super battle later Flynn, Bunker, and Reich-Wolf were down and the serum was headed into the hands of the authorities. Watchdog and his men gathered up their security equipment, he explained about the cat cloning that paid for the lab, and oh-by-the-way she sold her first batch to a biker gang across town, called Cutters Crew. Even gave them the address of the house. They decided the stuff was too dangerous to allow biker gangs to use it, and they headed over to get it back. It was assumed the heroes knew each other.

To be more discreet, Gunslinger was towing around a horse trailer with his pickup. Whisper was in the trailer and Sir Badarious the passenger seat. That mental image made me laugh more than once during this adventure.

While the niece has issues with knowing when to take action, she is quickly perfecting the recon ability of Firefly. She went right down the chimney, checked out the house, and left through the front door, leaving it unlocked. They snuck in, knowing the bikers were downstairs watching one of the guys who had taken the serum. I had a copy of the random super power list from the 4C Super Hero RPG, so I ended up having each of them roll (1D100) for the three bikers who had taken a dose. They were debating how to attack when Firefly went down to the basement where the bikers were (she had searched the rest of the house already). She saw one guy (Physical Metamorphosis) who looked like a giant bug (with the roll I thought "Kafka" and went with it). Another guy teleported (yeah Teleportation) upstairs to grab some beers and startled Gunslinger and Sir Baldarious. The battle was on! Cutter rushed upstairs with his machete while Firefly attacked the last guy who still looked normal (Nine Lives power). I didn't have the definition of what that power was exactly (looked it up later and it effects the dice rolls mostly - being lucky) so I went with normal human who instantly heals after "death". This dude was the last guy standing, with one final shot in his pistol, having been blasted down five times at that point by a frustrated Firefly. Gunslinger told him to, "Just give it up man! You're the last one standing." The guy shot himself, and popped right back up again with a "I feel fine!".

As the police took over, I had Great Uncle Stinger show up and talk about how all of them should apply to be part of the Seattle Sentinels supers group. The niece found that a cool idea for her character. There was also a great comment toward the end of the Cutter Crew battle about Sir Baldarious by my nephew, "I... I'm the Aquaman of this group!" A Big Bang Theory reference, FYI. Gunslinger also found that when he goes in blasting away with triple shots (and missing), he runs out of battery power VERY quickly. He had to grab Cutter's machete and use it at one point during the battle. Good times.

The nephew came away with a mostly positive view of his RPG experience though, so he might do some gaming when he gets back to school. The brother-in-law would like to see a monthly game, the niece wants to play through Skype or something (Xbox Live?) and save the driving for everyone. I have two other old friends, one who gamed a lot back in the day, and one who might like it (loves the computer RPG stuff) if they can manage to find the time. The niece has been between jobs and that free time has driven this desire to learn about RPGs. She has a job interview next week though. It's just such a pain to juggle all the schedules, but with the holiday season we can get another adventure in and then we'll see. You guys know how that is.

I've been pondering what retired supers might do if they don't want to just fade away. Public appearances? Promoting cooperation between the authorities and supers? Taking shifts to watch for criminal activity at the local super hero base/citadel? Acting as patrons/advisors for young supers? Imagine having an old hero show up and proclaim that he is here to "show you the ropes". Then getting followed around and your actions evaluated? Oh yeah, I like it.

If all goes as planned, we are gaming this evening. I'll have the niece, brother-in-law, and a nephew on break from college. We have a five hour window, so I'm hoping to wrap up the "Calico Cloning" adventure and get into another. I looked over my gaming books and PDF collection for super hero stuff and found a free PDF called "Dr. Null: Battle on the Bay Bridge". Mad scientist, replicating Bugbots, battle on a bridge. Okay, really simple scenario, so I revised things a bit. NASA launched the first of their "Replicator Explorer" robots toward Mars earlier in the day from Cape Canaveral. These robots were designed to use raw materials, old landers, and even materials sent on later missions to build more explorer robots. Dr. Null has sabotaged the project and the robots were to land in the heartland and begin replicating. The idea is to recycle our wasteful civilization into a "better world", run by Dr. Null. Things don't go quite as planned and the robots come down in the Seattle area. On the fictional Bay Bridge, of course.

Once they wrap up the battle with the Bugbots on the bridge, helpful police will inform the heroes that there is a SECOND debris field further to the East. An impact crater, looks like the robot mostly burned up, but there will be tire tracks to and from the nearby "Walker Towing and Salvage" junkyard. The Walker family has been quietly running an automotive chopshop for years, a tow truck driver got curious when the "meteor" landed and drove over to have a look. The heroes should be wary about any replicating bugbots having gotten away, so they'll probably investigate the junkyard... Ken Walker has his powered exoskeleton of course, plus a big and nasty robot they built themsleves to move the junk cars around.

On the personal level, I plan to have Great Uncle Stinger trying to get Firefly to "interview" with the Seattle Sentinels, while waxing about his earler days as part of a super hero group. The Sentinels will of course be out of town while this Dr. Null incident goes down.

Thanks Mankcam. I'm sure at least some of this will be useful.

Very cool, although reading this I feel I'm late to the party on this Oz thing:

Also, the heroes of the Oz books are arguably the earliest example of a modern

superhero team, predating the Justice Society of America by more than forty

years. While they may not be as "super" as later protagonists, they

demonstrably have abilities beyond those of mortal men.

At this point I'm not going to worry that I need to adhere to the books all that much, but this confirmed my thought of treating most of them as supers. I'm more inclined to treat Oz as a virtual reality gone amok or having gained a life of its own, as it were. Still mulling ideas and such. I did put down notes on a "super villian" team to oppose the "Champions of Oz". I'll see your Tin Woodman and raise you an Iron Horse, etc. Ideally, I'd like a 3-4 adventure campaign with a definite conclusion.

Another thought: Often I start with some image in my head that I then build into an adventure, filling in the details about what is going on, etc. A villian team based on the Oz characters would be hilarious to me in a "normal" supers campaign.

Life, including work and illness, kept us from getting together yesterday to finish up the adventure. Since there was mostly just a big fight left, I decided to expand the story with them needing to track down a batch (or maybe two) of the mutagenic serum that Dr. Flynn sold to a meth-dealing biker gang. Willing to risk death to gain powers, a handful of the gang are gathering to take the serum in a meth-house across town. The gang, Cutter's Crew, is fighting for control of the meth market in the Pacific North West, and adding some super powers is just the edge they need. I was thinking about having some Neo-Nazi group show up to the lab, but things should be busy enough with Randall King and then a biker gang to deal with.

Rather than create a new thread, let's do a bit of threadjacking on this one: Has anyone done stats for the Oz characters?

A combination of circumstances has me interested in doing a one-shot type adventure in Oz. Maybe. It might have started with downloading some of the Oz books from Project Gutenberg (Nook for the win), adding a winged monkey to the recent Superworld adventure, seeing an Oz RPG (Adventures in Oz?) while buying dice recently, finding more Oz stuff at RPGNow, and digging out a one-shot Oz comic from 2005.

The comic, Oz F5: Gale Force was an interesting take on the familiar Oz characters. The Tin Woodman was bigger and stronger, the Scarecrow was Asian-themed with staff skills, Lion was a kilt wearing Highlander-type, Dorothy was a red head in a skin tight catsuit armed with a super-soaker, and Toto was a large bulldog. The story was similar, if nonsensical at times (Dorothy came out of the house all ready to roll like she already knew Oz and that water was a deadly weapon). The monkeys had jet packs, the Wick Witch was kinda hot, etc. It was... interesting.

I did not realize there were so many books written about Oz by L. Frank Baum, but I'm not sure I want to invest the time to read them all in the near future and write gaming notes. I could grab one of the Oz RPGs and save time researching, but having to learn a new RPG system is almost an automatic deal-breaker for me. I'd rather just do my own take anyway, considering the Oz we all know as "history/events told by young kids" and that the actual Oz is more grown-up. Actually, now that I think about it, watching Once Upon a Time (the TV show) on Netflix with the wife has had an influence too.

So, has anyone done stats for Oz characters in BRP? I'll write up some myself eventually, probably using Superworld as they will be at least minor super beings, but another person's take on them would be helpful.

You could go with rollerblades, and complete the image of Jet Set Radio (classic Dreamcast videogame) in my mind.

Back in the day when I ran a Prime Directive: The Star Fleet Universe Role-playing Game, I just created a quick Starship Tracker sheet and starship combat system. I gave each ship a Hit Point rating, armor in the form of energy shields rated from 3-6 pts, weapons that ranged from 1D4 on up to 1D10 for a photon torpedo. There was a hit location chart roll for each point of damage that got through (which covered each major part of the ship ('Structural damage' as the most common and 'Bridge' as the most dangerous). Characters made 'Pilot' rolls to try and evade attacks, 'Weapon System' to hit, and engineering rolls to fix damaged systems. Most battles ended with the enemy ship's warp engines damaged and hence no power to their shields and weapons. Or on a bridge hit have them roll a Luck save to avoid the panel blowing up in your face. That never gets old.

As long as players are rolling dice and feeling in control of a starship the details of the ship combat system matter much less. YMMV (Your Mileage May Very) of course.

Just some brainstorming...

You could also change the villain from being fire based to electrical based and call the character "Lightning Bug".

Or maybe have Firefly be secretly cloned and the clone becomes the villain Firefly.

Now, how did I NOT think of this? Great name, great idea. I'm going to use BOTH though, maybe make them siblings or twins but one with fire and one with electrical powers. I used a bug themed villian group years ago I called PEST, but never figured out how to make it a good acronym. Looking at it now, Powered Exoskeleton Strike Team sounds good. I need to find all my old notes, but I had one called Army Ant who could create duplicates of himself, Flea who with his super jumps, Rhino Beetle who was the tank-type, and another one called... Dragonfly? Adding Lightning Bug/Fire Bug to the mix would be excellent. The group got their powers from armor and devices, but why not add in mutants/altered humans?

Her mentor, Stinger, could be a source of plot hooks, too. He's retired, but suppose one of his old enemies (or the son/daughter or grandchildren of an old foe) shows up intent on revenge? Or, perhaps someone he cares about -- a close friend, an old flame -- is suddenly threatened and Stinger comes out of retirement. You haven't made clear whether his (and Firefly's) powers are natural/biological or whether they depend on some sort of gear or gadgetry. Who knows what the old costume will do once it is taken out of mothballs? Also, sure Stinger is old and possibly out of practice, but he also has decades of experience as a superhero.

Firefly is a mutant, with similar powers to what her great uncle had. All family, friends, and such in a supers game exist to become plot hooks and complications. I have used the "evil clone" bit to great success in the past. A super campaign will let you say or do just about anything afterall.

I made of list of super group names I want to include as background material if nothing else a few days ago. One group will call themselves "Old Guard" and I was thinking they could be older, near retired and retired heroes (or a fun villain group). Older, slower, but still with enough of their powers/devices to be dangerous. Perhaps former heroes who are tired of the medical/insurance system and are out to take down a series of hospital/medical research facilities owned by a ruthless corporation that has gotten people killed with bad drugs and medical care? Ran illegal tests at the heroes retirement home? Old Guard is tired of half-measures and is going to level the corporate buildings one-by-one. Actually, as a "one-shot" type campaign it would be fun to have the players be the angry old heroes gone rogue. In one of my gaming systems there is a fun chart for aging effects (need to dig around) and you could have stress rolls to avoid heart attacks/stroke, etc. I digress...

Oh, and thanks again guys. These scenario ideas tend to almost write themselves once you get going.

Well, I've seldom met a plot complication I didn't like. With the stop-and-start nature of all this, I've ended up with plenty of time inbetween to think and rethink the adventure(s). It was already rather fluid just because I wasn't sure how many characters I might be dealing with, or even the nature of those characters. As or the niece and her character changes? She really thought "Firefly" was a cool name, and it is. I think she just liked the alliteration of "Fiona Ford, Firefly". I had actually worked on a super villian under the same name, with fire powers, that I thought would be an interesting opponent for her. I can tweak it to "Fire-ant" and run with it. I also worked on a villian called "Red Spider" who would obviously make a "natural" enemy for her. I was surprised when my niece mentioned during the game last night that it would be cool to fight a "spider-type" enemy. I laughed and told her I had had the same thought.

As for how things might proceed at the secret lab of Dr. Flynn? I'm debating about having Randall King show up, to warn them about Firefly and demand a few thousand in cash for doing so, so he can start his life over. Watchdog can begin hunting for her (he has Infravision and Heightened Smell devices built into his armored suit), while Dr. Flynn injects Randall with her latest serum all the while telling him she is giving him the power to take control of his life. Randall is transformed into a humaniod winged cat, and in classic comic style vows vegeance on Firefly and the world for "ruining my life!" He can fly off to get his van back and free his buddies from jail. That should push her to take action before thing get even worse, I would hope.

Gunslinger, if he is part of this, is supposed to do "security work" according to his character sheet, so he could show up after following up on "the word on the street" some DCS agent heard about a secret lab. The DCS promptly asked Gunslinger to check into it, in exchange for the apartment and motorcycle they set him up with. I was going to play Watchdog as mercenary, but not willing to blatantly cross the line into murder and mayhem. He can then stay and fight, or throw up his hands and walk away, depending on whether Firefly is going at this solo or not.

Before I update, let me throw out a quick plug for the Heromachine website. I hadn't look at it for quite some time -but the latest version of the hero art creator (3.0 alpha) is MUCH improved over the original version. I put together a number of quick hero/villian creations, including for the player characters (they liked them, but are free to redo them if they want of course). If you are like me and have not looked at this site recently, you should.

The Wednesday dinner/gaming night? The spagetti sauce was excellent, I baked an apple, a pumpkin and a cheesecake pie which were well recieved. Oh, the gaming? It started with yet another session of character creation and re-imagining. The brother-in-law decided to wanted an Old West gunslinger (think Cowboys & Aliens meets The Dark Tower series by Stephen King). Abducted by aliens back in 1877, put on ice till his escape in 2011 (taking along an alien energy pistol and some combat armor). The Gunslinger is really fast (DEX 30) and has Rapidfire with his alien pistol. Sadly, his wife decided to leave early so he only had time to roll up his new character -though we got the character sheet filled out.

The niece revisted the idea of Magna Lupus, pondered a vampire, then decided to just tweak Queen Bee into Firefly ("From that TV show you told me to watch."). Changed her secret ID name to "Fiona Ford' too. We debated doing any actual gaming, but the first session was mostly combat, so I told we could move the "story" along and get some more role-playing in. She investigated the van in detail, finding the work shirts and evan a paystub so she knew she needed to chat with this "Randall King" who seemed to be living out of his van and worked at "Critters R Us" (which must explain all the cat carriers in the van). She was interrupted briefly by a 9 yr old girl named Grace who handed her a flyer (I printed up one as a prop) and asked her to find her missing cat.

"I'll see what I can do." Firefly told the girl, then out of character she told me, "I don't have time to worry about some cat. I need to find out more about this bank robbery." As the mother came to whisk away Grace she (the mom) said "Grace, I don't think this Firefly person has time to worry about missing cats." Wait, missing cats? Plural? She chatted with the mom who (now that you ask me) thought she had seen this van driving around the neighborhood on a couple different occasions the past two weeks or so. Yes, another cat, also a calico, had gone missing just down the block.

Firefly (in normal guise) headed on down to Critters R Us, the local pet store, and there was Randall behind the counter, nervously leaving voice messages ("Dude call me back when you get this!"). She asked for a calico cat, found out there were none to be had here or the rest of the pet stores in town. Or the pet shelters for that matter. Finally she confronted Randall about the van, he claimed it was stolen the night before ("I had to work so I figured I report it later.") but after some persuasion/intimidation rolls he admitted he had loaned the van out to a friend and had also been collecting calico cats at $100 a pop to sell to some kinda lab across town. I had him offer to driver her there if she could get his van back, and then I introduced the DCS to her and how she had been approached in the past by Rachel Greenberg, Assistant Director of the DCS West office.

It was pretty cool watching the wheels turn as she thought things over. She pointed out she could sneak in with the van and Randall driving, but she didn't want to owe the DCS any favors by having them get the van for her. Besides, she reasoned she could EASILY sneak into this old warehouse/lab and look around in her miniature form. So true. Now, if the Gunslinger had been around, the van becomes the best idea, but alone? Nope. She left Randall on his own to sort out his problems while she went to check on this particular warehouse owned by "Western Warehouses: Inventory Without Question" (a company that leases warehouse space all over town).

She spent some time on a nearby rooftop, saw there were two guards, followed one through the front doors as they switched duties and one headed inside. She has excellent stealth skills and flew around quietly checking things out. I described the lab equipment, the cages full of calico cats, handed out the sketched of Watchdog ("Crap, he looks tough!") and Dr. Flynn and she listened to a brief conversation between them about how the latest DNA sequence test was going. We left off there.

She is a natural gamer and has picked up on the best way to use her Firefly character very quickly. She does lack the usual "super hero role" idealism, which is tricky for me at times, as she approaches things more with a sense of expediency. I was going to adjust the adventure since she is solo (although if we manage to play again next Monday or Wednesday with the brother-in-law included that changes things) but I would not be shocked if she was satisfied with just finding out what was going on with the cats/warehouse/lab and decided not to interfer. I'm pondering ways to "up the ante" in that regard. Have a terrorist rep show up to ask about getting genetic modifications so they can launch super powered attacks on innocents? Have the latest experimental cat become a cougar-sized winged monstrosity with scales that escapes out of the warehouse and Dr. Flynn just shrugs and says "Not our problem, on to the next test subject." (which will be Grace's cat of course)? Without a "clear and present danger" she may not act.

Her parting comment for the evening, "I'm excited! This was fun." is a good sign she is on her way to being an RPGer.

Thanks

Actually, the appropriate response would have been, "You Rock!" Please get it right next time.

I lifted the DCS from an obscure supers RPG called Challengers, though it hardly matches the blend of FBI, NSA, and Secret Service that it was described as. I'm only too happy to pick-and-choose from the various supers games I have collected over the years to create a campaign. I've always felt it necessary to have a government presence in a supers game, and the DCS is my way of giving the characters semi-official status, but also warnings if they let the destruction of life and property get out of hand.

It was also easy to get them involved in adventures, especially an international incident or two as the DCS called in a favor. I have the DCS using highly skilled agents, spies, and assault teams. The DCS also asked the heroes to go on a couple undercover missions deemed too dangerous for normal agents, such as acting as sellers of mutagenon (your classic take-this-and-develop-super-powers-if-it-doesn't-kill-you serum) to a group of Neo-Nazis intent on creating a super powered army (they also needed to find out who was funding this group). Or another time where they went undercover to participate in a secret auction for a weapon of mass destruction and took a suitcase full of cash along. Things were not as they appeared of course. Good times.

They developed a good working relationship with Abe Greenberg the Director of the DCS over the course of numerous adventures, so of course I had Abe kidnapped by villians and replaced by another Director with his own agenda and favored team of "reformed" villians. They were very happy when they eventually get Greenberg back from his captors.

All this speaks to why I have, except for some Marvel Super Heroes gaming, stayed out of the established universes of Marvel and DC. How could your characters not be overshadowed by Superman? Batman? The Avengers? Or stand out even more as clones of some of these characters? Though if your players enjoy doing so, then wrong bad fun it is.

Chatted with the brother-in-law, he was moderately interested in playing again. He stopped by yesterday after working in town and he has settled on a character with an energy sword and super STR. Black Sword reminds me of Thundarr the Barbarian, dressed in black.

I'm a bit worried about time come Wednesday. With dinner and social graces I expect to have two hours to actually game (7-9 PM). I need to introduce a bit more of the game world, including the government agency that deals with super powered individuals -the DCS (Department of Civil Security), a detective or two to act as contacts/resources. Then they will need to track down the van owner (cell phone on thug or polo shirts in van with pet store name on them) and uncover the catnappings which leads to the secret lab/warehouse and a battle with Watchdog (and his four henchmen guards working 12 on and 12 off so just two on site most of the time) and Professor Samantha Flynn (and I think I'll change her hybrid dog into a winged monkey).

I'm trying to give them lots of options besides just crashing the gate and knocking down the doors. They can nab one of the off-duty guards and get details on the building (none know about the extra DNA that Professor Flynn has though and only that she has some pet creature that stays locked up in a covered cage when they are around). They can use the van to pretend to make a delivery of cats, etc. Again, this is to show the niece especially that with pen-and-paper you have the freedom to try things the videogames don't allow.

I decided the Criminal Mimes were part of the Circus of Crime group that recently disbanded, and they recruited a couple thugs to help them rob a bank (hardly criminal masterminds). One of the thugs was supposed to steal a van for the getaway, but just borrowed it from a friend who works at a pet store, lives out of his van, has substance abuse issues, and has been delivering cats to the secret lab. I'm going to give the Prof four tentacles that burst out of her sides and stretch out to 10 meters or so. The winged monkey should give Queen Bee an aerial foe to contend with.

As always, any ideas, suggestions, are welcome.

If you get a chance to buy some PDFs on the cheap (Basic Creatures for example is just $5) then a quick copy-and-paste can make life pretty easy. You can create a binder with sets of basic foes and tweak for special cases as needed. I feel old when I recall my days of riding my bike down to the local "want ads" paper to use the photocopy machine for my RPG needs -but having everything I need at home to scan,copy,print and tweak in electronic format is SO much easier. Not to mention Google Image searches and all the gaming resources online.

"You kids today have it SO EASY. Now get off my lawn!"

Make no mistake, it was a softball over the plate. The Criminal Mimes were throwing around 2D6 attacks, the thugs had just pistols. No where near Avengers level characters, well, certainly not Thor, Hulk, or Iron Man. Captain America, Hawkeye, and Black Widow would have been right at home. I think the World of Warcraft experience gave her a sense of tactics though, she was reluctant to just attack right away (which was good and I wanted to split up the mimes anyway to give her the most advantage). We talked a bit afterwards comparing the experience to her sitting around with friends on laptops playing WoW. Far less structure with pen-and-paper, but the freedom to act and improvise was exciting.

Note to self: Must have cops lead out the Criminal Mimes in handcuffs, while a detective says, "Don't do the mime, if you can't do the time."