Newbie Gamer Advice

[Atgxtg]

Yeah, in fact, a sketchy background sometimes makes for a more interesting game, and gives you more room to develop later.

For instance, in the Doctor Who TV series, UNIT has evolved over the years. When first introduced, Col. Lethbridge-Stewart was a solid ally, and a basic good guy. When he got promoted to Brigadier, and brought back at the start of the 3rd Doctor's run, the Brig was made a bit more manipulative, and a best less trustworthy. As time went by, he kinda evoled (regressed) back to the solid ally. Eventually he became less by the book, and even more of a staunch ally.

You could have all sorts of fun with the DCS, who is behind it and their agenda. There could be much more to it than is apparent at first glance.

[ORtrail]

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.

[Atgxtg]

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.

It can be done in a few ways. The first is simply give their character their own adventures and stomping grounds. I ran a Marvel campaign set in my local area rather than NYC, and the PCs were the major heroes in the area. Early on the stopped an alien invasion (I used the Stone Men of Saturn, from Thor's first appearance). When the Marvel heroes did show up, the PCs had already established themselves and had their own villains to deal with. It let the players feel like they were on more equal footing.

Another thing that helped was the MArvel SAGA rule system allowed the PCs to have abilities in the same ballpark as the Marvel characters. So the players didn't feel like they were "!st level" characters meeting "20th level" characters.

[ORtrail]

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.

Edited November 8, 2012 by ORtrail

[seneschal]

It's fun hearing how your niece is having fun. And your convoluted plot is bubbling along nicely. Her attitude seems more one of a pulp adventurer or casual do-gooder than dedicated crime-fighter. Seeing that people's precious kitties are being sacrificed to mad science, would she really walk away without even reporting it to the police or DCS? Your approach seems sensible. If she ignores Dr. Flynn's schemes, there should be consequences of some sort -- not punitive against her necessarily but bad stuff happening because she didn't act when she could have. Sort of a Peter Parker "With great power comes great responsibility" moment. Perhaps little Grace and her mother are among the citizens threatened by the "flying tiger" that escapes from the lab. Perhaps Grace turns up missing. Disappointed by Firefly's apparent non-involvement in the loss of her cat, she chose to play detective herself and stumbled into Dr. Flynn's business. Of course, she was captured and held captive as a pending test subject. Maybe Firefly, in her civilian identity, encounters Watchdog in his civilian identity (assuming he has one). Would she recognize him? What would she do? Or maybe she doesn't recognize him, and he asks her out -- only later does she discover what her new boyfriend does to earn date money.

You've successfully transitioned from the Criminal Mimes robbery attempt to Dr. Flynn's apparently unrelated animal theft racket. Keep it up, and have something in the Flynn investigation lead to Firefly's next big encounter or opponent. Will Grace and her mother be recurring NPCs? Will the Mimes escape and seek revenge? You've got the makings of a true comic book soap opera.

Just curious, what motivated your niece's desire to change her character's name and secret ID?

[ORtrail]

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.

[Atgxtg]

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.

[seneschal]

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.

[ORtrail]

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.

[ORtrail]

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.

Edited November 16, 2012 by ORtrail

[seneschal]

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 gane, 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.

Sounds like a good plan, and a logical outgrowth of your other plot threads. I agree, one group of baddies is enough, especially for a lone superhero. Hope everyone gets to feeling better soon so you can continue the game.

[ORtrail]

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.

Edited November 23, 2012 by ORtrail

[seneschal]

Good ideas all. Hope it works out and that all have fun.

More grist for the mill: If you're recycling scenarios, consider the free "Murder in the Footlights" scenario at Chaosium's site. It's a brief setup for Call of Cthulhu that has great expansion potential for any genre.

[ORtrail]

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.

Edited November 24, 2012 by ORtrail

[Link6746]

I got an idea worth stealing from a friend at a local con who was going to run a supers game in Hero System (A system I abhor for it's money grubbing and overcomplexity).

The premise of it was this: Where do superhero's kids go to school? You'd expect that having kids would have all sorts of new and exciting issues for superheroes. For instance, what would you say to a teacher when your kid gets fed up with a bully and blasts them in the face with the superpowered equivelent of a tesla coil at point blank range?

The game he was going to run was basically about how the public and private school systems dealt with this- Schools specifically for superpowered children and adolescents. Classes were a mix of standard (Math, Reading, Science) and extraordinary. (Primer on unassisted flight, Demonology 101, etc.). In the entire country of the U.S. in this game, there was supposed to be about 13 or 16 schools of each grade level spread throughout the country, along with others in other countries depending on their atmosphere.

As a note, the teachers were mostly retired superheroes.

Edited November 29, 2012 by Link6746
Original post unnecessary

[ORtrail]

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.

[seneschal]

In high school in the '70s, I reported bathroom drug sales to a teacher only to be ignored -- he didn't want to become involved. So much for moral and ethical education.

While drugs are still an issue, thugs are a more immediate concern. My kids were unable to learn at a charter school because of non-stop bullying by other students. Report problem to designated counselor? Nothing useful happens. Respond in kind when you can't take it anymore? Get suspended (although the bully who incited the incident isn't punished).

[ORtrail]

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.

[ORtrail]

Well, reading this thread again in light of the Newtown tragedy, things have gotten really, really bad for our schools/society.

Last month, in acticipation of the next Supers adventure (this coming long weekend) I had prepped a couple "public service" encounters/role-playing opportunities for the heroes. I wanted to forshadow the Dr. Drugs adventure by having a couple of the heroes (Gunslinger and Sir Baldarious) attend a school function at Warren G. Harding High School. They would be addressing the students in the auditorium for a quick "stay off drugs, stay in school" speech and then a question-and-answer session. It was going to be a chance to have fun with the heroes ("If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" "Do you know Fury from the Golden Gate Guardians? She is hot!" "What's the easiest way for me to get super powers?") and in surprise twist -no villian attacks, no trouble outside of awkward questions.

The other heroes (Stinger and Firefly) would be attending a city park grand opening across town where a couple members of the group Natural Disaster show up to praise the Mayor for "going green". The group members are either heroes or near terrorists depending on how far you think people should go to "protect the planet". Again, no battles or aggressive action. Then all the heroes get called away to help with an incident on Bay Bridge (Dr. Null and the NASA robots adventure).

The idea of course is to build some "history" between the characters and people/places they will see again in future adventures. I have seen the players really enjoy a rematch with a villian, I like how they react when they realize "It's them, AGAIN!". Most of my past super adventures tend to happen more in a vaccuum and each adventure stands alone. I want to change that trend going forward.

Back to the high school. While I had a quick mental list of questions the students might ask, the Newtown events and incidents since loom very large in my mind. We have seen a student bring a pistol to school at the encouragement of this parents (so he could protect himself), parents getting bulletproof backpacks for their kids, talk of arming teachers, armed guards at every school, etc. Crazy reactions to a crazy world.

Should I abandon this idea for now? Ignore recent events? If not, what questions would the kids be asking? Should I include some angry/concerned parents in the crowd? I have tended to follow the Marvel/DC comic model, where big real world events happen, but the actions of the heroes and villians tend not to change the world around them very much. They "cancel each other out" in effect.

Edited December 20, 2012 by ORtrail

[Link6746]

Well, reading this thread again in light of the Newtown tragedy, things have gotten really, really bad for our schools/society.

Last month, in acticipation of the next Supers adventure (this coming long weekend) I had prepped a couple "public service" encounters/role-playing opportunities for the heroes. I wanted to forshadow the Dr. Drugs adventure by having a couple of the heroes (Gunslinger and Sir Baldarious) attend a school function at Warren G. Harding High School. They would be addressing the students in the auditorium for a quick "stay off drugs, stay in school" speech and then a question-and-answer session. It was going to be a chance to have fun with the heroes ("If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" "Do you know Fury from the Golden Gate Guardians? She is hot!" "What's the easiest way for me to get super powers?") and in surprise twist -no villian attacks, no trouble outside of awkward questions.

The other heroes (Stinger and Firefly) would be attending a city park grand opening across town where a couple members of the group Natural Disaster show up to praise the Mayor for "going green". The group members are either heroes or near terrorists depending on how far you think people should go to "protect the planet". Again, no battles or aggressive action. Then all the heroes get called away to help with an incident on Bay Bridge (Dr. Null and the NASA robots adventure).

The idea of course is to build some "history" between the characters and people/places they will see again in future adventures. I have seen the players really enjoy a rematch with a villian, I like how they react when they realize "It's them, AGAIN!". Most of my past super adventures tend to happen more in a vaccuum and each adventure stands alone. I want to change that trend going forward.

Back to the high school. While I had a quick mental list of questions the students might ask, the Newtown events and incidents since loom very large in my mind. We have seen a student bring a pistol to school at the encouragement of this parents (so he could protect himself), parents getting bulletproof backpacks for their kids, talk of arming teachers, armed guards at every school, etc. Crazy reactions to a crazy world.

Should I abandon this idea for now? Ignore recent events? If not, what questions would the kids be asking? Should I include some angry/concerned parents in the crowd? I have tended to follow the Marvel/DC comic model, where big real world events happen, but the actions of the heroes and villians tend not to change the world around them very much. They "cancel each other out" in effect.

In an OOC manner, I highly encourage critical thinking. I agree that times are bad, but fact is, people don't go blasting through schools without cause (even if the causes are due to mental illness). As someone with Aspergers, I personally am insulted to hear that it was blamed in the sandy elementary school shooting, and am expecting calls by people for nazi-germany style eugenics and persecution because of it. I don't think that was the cause so much as actual mental ILLNESSES (not altered developmental processes), a lack of driving goals in life other than to make a name for oneself, and perhaps other factors such as weakened understanding of consequences and/or morality.

Moving onto the IC (In character) method of handling things in such a campaign, I think that issues such as this shouldn't be handled entirely out of game. They shouldn't be ignored, but they shouldn't take a direct role.

My suggestion is to have the school have a tighter police presence in-game during the next few sessions until this talk of school shootings IRL stops. This would emphasize the need to protect schools from copycat crimes without going overboard. This would make things occasionally harder on the protagonists, but also easier in some ways.

Edited December 21, 2012 by Link6746
political correctness

[ORtrail]

First, Link6746, I think that most people understand that Newtown was a near "perfect storm" of bad circumstances -with no easy or quick solution. I would be shocked if there was much backlash from the general public about Aspergers. The NRA solution was exactly what I would have expected. I will probably go the route of "each school assigned an armed guard" for my Superworld campaign. That said, I decided to skip over the school visit for now and focused on the city park idea.

Gunslinger and Firefly (along with Great Uncle Stinger) attended a "Sustainable Earth Garden Project" ground breaking ceremony at Laurelhurst Park in Seattle. They were there to lend support to the project to plant gardens in various neighborhoods and schmooze with the Mayor. Firefly suspected something was up when she overhead from the stage a security guy and groundskeeper debating about how "how did that oak tree go so close to the speaker platform compared to where it was last night when things were being set up?" and then halfway through the mayor's talk, a couple starter fruit trees began growing bigger and blossomed. The crowd was awed and clapped, while the mayor stared at our heroes with a "Did you do this?" look.

Suddenly, stepping out of the oak tree overhanging the stage was The Green Man, leader of the group Natural Disaster, an enviromental supers group. He praised the mayor and city for a "small step in the right direction" but warned that much more must be done and "we will be watching". He then transformed into a giant patch of dandelion seeds and blew away in the breeze. Someone in the crowd yelled, "Oh God! I've got allergies!" but no harm seemed to come to anyone. The players are now alert for Natural Disaster and have mixed feelings about how to deal with them. The Mayor finished his speech and was shaking hands when a series of sonic booms and flaming meteorites rained down from the sky to the northeast.

A metallic sphere with breaking jets screaming came down nearby, extended three metallic legs, the top of the sphere pulled back, and Dr Null began making his speech, "Attention citizens of Omaha, look around you. The world you see today will soon be transformed for the better. I am Dr Null, future ruler of-"

Gunslinger interrupted with a "This is SEATTLE, idiot!"

A pause while Dr Null checked some tracjectory numbers. "Ah, I see. Well.... Attention citizens of Seattle, look around you. The world you see today will soon be transformed for the better. I am Dr Null -oh nevermind." The tripod sphere began marching toward the Bay Bridge. Gunslinger shot it down, learned it was only a projection of Dr Null inside, and then they headed to the Bay Bridge where the NASA Explorer-Replicator robots were busy building other robots out of the cars stuck on the bridge. As a bonus, I had picked up a NASA t-shirt at JC Penny a couple weeks back and wore it for this game.

Three trashed robots later, the menace was over, with the heroes celebrating being able to knock the last robot off the bridge into the water below where it blew up on impact. They had rescued one citizen stuck in a vehicle being torn apart by the robots, but caused a lot of damage to a lot of vehicles during the battle.

Our heroes had just recieved news that there was a SECOND debris field even further to the east when we had to call it an evening. Hoping to finish this up this coming weekend, when they will get a chance to explore the Walker Towing and Salvage Yard and find much more than anticipated. Also an outside chance at adding a third player/hero (the nephew headed back to school so Sir Baldarious is probably one-and-done) but things are still pretty busy for everyone, so we'll see.

[ORtrail]

Not a big fan of weekday gaming, but schedules being what they are, you can make it work. You get 2-2.5 hours of gaming in, so stopping points are welcome. I'm adjusting from weekends and having at least twice that much time. Also, my players really like destroying robots. Maybe it was my descriptions of the smoldering circuits and metallic limbs, but they felt like they had kicked butt and taken names.

Having saved the Bay Bridge, they caught a ride on a police copter east, to the debris field just north of the Evans Creek Preserve. They quickly took note of the nearby auto salvage yard, checked out the craters for signs of NASA robots, then headed over to the now closed for business salvage yard. They had noted some dually tire tracks near the craters, deduced it was from the tow truck, and demanded to be let in to chat with one of the owners (Steven Walker) at the office building. Steven gave them evasive answers, refused to let them look around due to "liability issues" and clearly wanted them gone.

Firefly walked back out the main gate, behind the fence and shrank down, to go explore the main shop. Gunslinger looked over the tow truck then ignored any protests as he walked out into the salvage yard and look for clues among the wrecked vehicles. Firefly saw quickly the place was a chopshop, as the men inside were taking apart a couple luxury cars.

Gunslinger got ambushed by Ken Walker and his spider-like exo-skeleton. The guys in the shop let loose a couple robotic junkyard dogs, and the fight was on. Just as they finished off Ken and beat down the last of the dogs (Gunslinger much the worse for wear) a large robot rose up and the main battle was on. Hurling cars at them, Chopshop the robot finally hit Firefly with part of a thrown car. My niece protested at all the damage (first time her character really took a solid shot) the robot did, so I said, "Well, keep in mind Firefly just smashed through the front windshield... and the back one too." Pause. Laughs all around. Bugs, windshields, the jokes write themselves.

They finished off Chopshop, with Gunslinger down to his last 4 hit points, tried to bluff the now armed workers into surrender (failed Persuasion rolls, so the workers yelled, "They're hurt, we can take them!") and made very quick work of those normal humans anyway. They were convinced there were more robots around, but left after finding nothing more and Kevin came out of the office and surrendered to the newly arrived police.

I would change a few details of the adventure, if I had to do it again. While I wrote it up as just a "coincidence of comic proportions" that some NASA debris fell near the auto yard that just happned to have robots, I should have changed it to Ken Walker salvaging out some parts from the NASA debris and those parts being "just what he needed" to complete his homemade robots. I would also have Chopshop the giant robot (12' tall) being remotely controlled by Steven Walker and then I could have done a lot of trash-talking during the battle.

Next up, I have an old supers adventure I printed off from a Geocities webpage back in the day. I think the site was called "Powered" and devoted to supers gaming of some sort. I wish I could credit the original author, but the basic plot is some stretchy guy is stealing from jewelery stores, the heroes catch up to him, he gets arrested, his super villain wife protests, then in the end they find out it was another villian, a mimic, who was behind it all. "Serve the Servants" seems to be the name of the adventure. I re-wrote quite a bit of the adventure, but the plot is mostly the same. There are no stats for the villains, but I want to say it was for Champions?

Edited January 24, 2013 by ORtrail

[ORtrail]

Finished up the "Serve the Servants" adventure this past Monday. It was under odd circumstances, as the niece was actually out of town shopping having forgotten about the game that evening, we added a third player in an old gamer friend, and actually started a different adventure I have had written up called "Assault on Precinct 31".

The third gamer, Heath, rolled up a character called "Collider" who can go insubstantial and change the SIZ (weight) of people/objects. For example, he can add up to 5D6 SIZ to a gun, making it nearly impossible for a normal human to lift and use (or just pin that human to the ground with a weight increase). He can also lighten things, such as when he went to SIZ 0 to make it easy for Firefly to carry him. He is being creative with the power too, such as when he used it in a park to rain branches down onto the villian.

After texting back-and-forth a bit with the neice, asking her about finishing the adventure without her character (we left off previously with them investigating some leads) I decided to start the other adventure I had ready with just the brother-in-law and old gamer friend. "Assault on Precinct 31" is an adventure I wrote that is a blend of "The Mist" meets "Assault on Precinct 13". What do you do if you are the younger (normal) brother of a super powered sibling and you get busted for DUI? You call your brother, make threats to the police holding you, and suddenly the heroes are called in to escort a prisoner transport van from middle-of-nowhere Washington State to Seattle. Hopefully before Harvester, the older brother shows up. Harvester is of course using a captive scientist and his experimental equipment to boost his sonic powers. The police station, along with a bit of the small town, will be shifted to an alternate earth, a foggy land filled with a vast assortment of tentacled creatures drawn to the scent of human prey. The scientist will work franticly to reverse the equipment and get them back (with Harvester helping) while the heroes battle wave after wave of creatures to buy them time. Add in some other humans needing rescue in the town, the uniting with a villain for a common cause, and it should be all kinds of fun.

Gunslinger and Collider had just arrived at Precinct 31 and understood this was a prisoner escort adventure when the niece showed up (having rushed back into town not wanting to be left out of the adventure). So, back to finishing "Serve the Servants".

This adventure started with them at the Warren G. Harding High School (which amused the niece as she thought of the rapper Warren G) giving a talk to the students in the auditorium about tolerence, bullying, staying off drugs. Then a quick question-and-answer session with six randomly chosen students. The question were:

• "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?"

• "Do you know Fury from the Golden Gate Guardians? She is hot!"

• "What's the easiest way for me to get super powers?"

• “What is your view on gun control? Is more security needed in every school?”

• “What if we suspect someone might have super powers?”

• “Shouldn’t all mutants and such have to register with the Government?”

It was a great chance to role-play with goofy to very serious questions. The heroes were somewhat evasive with the heavy ones, classic coach/politician speak, "That is an issue that concerns us all, we need a united effort to deal with it." and so forth. They did cast suspicous eyes on the goth kids and seemed a bit nervous "something" might happen. Something did of course as a teacher approached Firefly afterwards and asked her to find her older brother, Lawrence "Lanky" Glenn aka Hangman. A minor villain with stretching powers. Lanky was out on parole, trying to turn his life around, involved with another minor villain named Gale Tempest (weather control) who was a bad influence and they had argued again and again and not spoken for awhile.

It seems there was on-going investigation by a couple Seattle detectives into a string of jewelery store thefts (I got to work the phrase, "Gives new meaning to 'He went to Jareds', huh?" into the adventure). A man, looking like Lanky was stealing rings with his stretchy toes while distracting the sales associate. This was caught on security footage. The detectives contacted the sister to try and locate Lanky, so she wanted the heroes to find him first and get him to work out a plea bargain by turning on Gale or something.

There was quite a bit of investigative work done by the heroes. Talking with his old employer (Lanky quit just a week before the thefts started) his parole officer (now outsourced to India so they had to call -I had fun with that), and tracking down Gale Tempest to a bar she worked at occasionally which was owned by her father. They chatted quite a bit with Kayla the bartender there, who knew Gale well and worried she was being led astray by this Lanky boyfriend. Then Gale shows up to "borrow" some money from the cash register, and Firefly (in civilian clothes as they all were) decided to pretend to know Gale (having told Kayla they were friends from long ago) and chatted with her about her life. "We partied together!" can be a plausible reason in many circumstances. They learned that Gale and Lanky were "going on vacation for a while".

Suddenly the heroes get an alert from the detectives that a man looking like Lanky is at the Diamonds In The Rough jewelery store (an employee had called after getting a warning email from the detectives to be on the lookout and would stall him). Gunslinger and Collider rushed there while Firefly followed Gale back home to her new duplex.

Now, I fully expected a battle at this point. Instead they get there, play it cool, and notice Lanky is buying an $800 engagment ring. Buying with cash, but buying. Yes, Lanky wants to propose to Gale, before they leave town to avoid the detectives who want to quiestion him about the thefts. Instead of a fight, they convice Lanky to turn himself in, after escorting him to the duplex to propose to Gale (who based on the dice roll, decided to say "No" until they got their lives "in a better place"). Firefly had snuck into the duplex by then and found no evidence against them.

Lanky goes to the police station and is questioned about the security video, claims innocence, and is arrested. The detectives are happy, the DA is satisfied ("Slam dunk case with his criminal record, security footage, no alibi but his girlfriend -no way a jury lets this guy walk."). The heroes are convinced Lanky is innocent and they are dealing with a shape-shifter. Gale is furious with them all, and organizes a protest outside the station. She gets a half dozen patrons from the bar and a super powered girlfriend named Snowbird (wings, ice powers) to help. This was fun, part of my notes:

They will be chanting, “Free Lanky Glenn!” again and again. Followed by, “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” The various sign messages include:

• “Say NO to the police state!”

• “Injustice League members: Firefly, Gunslinger, Collider”

• “Free Lanky Glenn!”

I had Snowbird flying around the police station windows (five story building) with her protest sign. The players were a bit flustered not knowing how to proceed. I had a news van from KING5 show up to do interviews with everyone. The heroes refused to talk, Gale protested the railroading of Lanky, and the police remained confident they had their man. The reporters leave, the protestors call it a day and head back to the bar.

The detectives asked the heroes to be at the bail hearing for Lanky in the morning. Flash forward, and a bruised and battered Gale shows up that morning outside the police station with Snowbird and Kid Phoenix. Gale is furious at being attacked by Firefly and Gunslinger. What? Yes, cellphone footage shot by one of the protesters as they left the bar late last night shows:

Firefly swoops down out of the dark sky and blasts Gale in the back, then picks her up and tosses her into the windshield of a nearby car. Firefly then flies into a nearby dark alley. Seconds later Gunslinger emerges from the alley and shoots Gale as she struggles to get to her feet. He fires rapidly at the other two protestors and they scatter.

Gale attacks with her wind and electrical powers, while Firefly protests her innocence. After Firefly and Collider defeat all three protesting villains, the police rush out and say that Gunslinger has justed robbed a bank across town! My brother-in-law had to leave a bit early and missed out on the big battle. I declared that Gunslinger had a personal emergency and so never showed up that morning. Excellent timing as it turned out.

Following the news reports of Gunslinger driving north on I-5 in a white Ford Bronco (our standard criminal vehicle) they flew after it, only to see it abandoned on the road and intead Snowbird is flying away with a tote bag of cash. They get closer, she lands, turns into Gunslinger and starts shooting at them. When finally defeated (after becoming Firefly and Lanky too) they see the face of.... wait for it.... Kayla the bartender! Kayla expresses her anger at working for six years to build up the bar into a cool spot and then having Gale's father about to retire and leave it all to her! Jealous and finally deciding to put her mimic power to work, Kayla framed Lanky, attacked Gale as she left the bar (to get her to attack the heroes and try to free Lanky, and then decided to rob a bank and flee town.

Wow, much longer to recap than I thought. I'll mention again this was based on an adventure someone wrote years ago on a Geocities webpage and I expanded and changed it -but the basic plot of mimic frames innocent man remained.

Edited January 24, 2013 by ORtrail

[seneschal]

Wow! Sounds like a great adventure, and a great time for your players. So, will Our Heroes be invited to the wedding, after all?

[ORtrail]

Oh yeah, that would be a great segue to another adventure I started writing two days ago. I'm calling it "Drug Lords of the Sedona Desert" and if Lanky and Gale are getting hitched in Yuma, AZ (say her parents are now retired there) the heroes will be on hand when things get out of control along the border. Two Mexican super powered gangs are indirectly fighting for control of the smuggling market in Southwest Arizona, gun happy private citizens have formed a "Border Milita", a high tech weapons company is testing a combat robot out in the desert -a volatile mix. Of course, things are "not quite as they seem" and the heroes will face a moral quandary before the adventure is over.

I'm hoping to stay a full adventure ahead of my players, so I'll try to have this one ready to play before we even get together early next week for the "Assault on Precinct 31" scenario.

Also, I just got a copy of Gamma World 4th Edition (from 1992) and would like to run a couple adventures with that. I've never played this edition of Gamma World, but love the fact you have PSH, mutant humans/animals, and plants(!) as potential characters. I even found some rules for running android characters, so all options are on the table.

Edited January 24, 2013 by ORtrail