Category Archives: What’s he playing?

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Yggdrasill

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My friend Clint picked up a copy of Yggdrasill at GenCon this past summer. He held off as long as he could, but last week he broke down and ran the first session of the introductory adventure in the rulebook. I got to play, and I had a lot of fun.

Now, I’ve only skimmed the rulebook – work has been pretty crazy this past fall – but the first session has given me some initial impressions that I want to talk about. I’m going to try and avoid spoiling the scenario, so this should not ruin things if you plan on playing the adventure.

Yggdrasill is a fantasy RPG set in a mythical Norse-flavoured world, where the tales of the sagas and the legends of the Aesir and Vanir are true. Players take the role of warriors ((Okay, let’s be clear. When you’re playing a pre-viking Norse character, you play a warrior. Everyone has some ability to fight.)) doing their best to protect their clans, deal with the surprisingly complex politics of the period, and create their own sagas that will live on after them.

In other words, they go on adventures.

As I said, we ran through the first part of the introductory adventure. Here are my observations and thought.

  • As mentioned above, all the characters are warriors of one type or another. Everyone has some pretty good combat skills, though of course those who specialize in such things are better than those who don’t focus exclusively on fighting.
  • There are three different flavours of magic, based on the Norse legends: Seidr (sorcery), Galdr (invocations), and Runes. The differences between the different kinds of magic are simple, yet interesting, and there are cultural connotations to the different kinds of magic. For example, Seidr is considered to be women’s magic, and thus few men practice it.
  • We saw two of the different magic systems in play – Galdr and Seidr. Both were quite powerful and reliable, right up until the swords were out and blood was flowing ((That is, while the caster was not under any sort of stress or time pressure.)), at which time the system made magic far less effective than a good sword.
  • Those who don’t have magic, but have instead focused on combat, have a number of interesting options available to them, especially the savage warriors ((Like berserkers.)). And a specialized warrior is truly terrifying on the battlefield.
  • The system is an interesting cross between World of Darkness dice pools based on stats and skills and Cortex Plus dice choice to come up with a total – that is, you roll a mittful of dice based on your stat and your skill, and pick the two highest to add together for the outcome total.
  • I was worried about the combat system – specifically, about the initiative system, which has a rather convoluted procedure that cycles through the initiative sequence multiple times each round, imposing a penalty for each action ((Or reaction. You spend your actions dodging or parrying, as well.)) after the first. I think I see where they’re going with this, but have some reservations as to whether the coolness pays off the complexity. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the fighting portion of the evening, it was pretty late, and we were tired, and therefor the we didn’t give the system a really fair trial. We’ll have to see how it works next session.
  • Speaking of fighting, combat proved pretty deadly, at least the little bit we did of it. It also isn’t as big a part of the game as one might expect when one plays Norse heroes. A lot more of the game revolved around interaction, politicking, and travel. Now, some of that may be the influence of Clint, the GM, but as I understand it, he’s sticking mostly ((Because that’s as close as he can to running anything right out of the box. Unlike, say, me. 😉 )) to the scenario as written. This is a good thing, in my opinion. The balance of combat vs. non-combat, that is. Not necessarily sticking to the scenario. Just to be clear.
  • We are spoiled to have Clint running this game for us. He says, and I agree, that this was the game he was born to run. He’s got an encyclopedic knowledge of history in general, but this time-period, and this subject matter, is his special love. That means that he makes the game world come alive with a wealth of little details about the setting and the culture, and that’s awesome.

My overall assessment of the game after a single session using pregenerated characters is that it is fun, flavourful, and engaging. The rules are translated from French, I believe, so the writing is a little awkward and unclear from time to time, but not enough to be more than a nuisance.

So, if playing in the world of Norse sagas and legends sounds appealing, I suggest you check the game out. It’s fun.

Civil War: The Road to Stamford

By | | Civil War, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, What's he playing?
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***Spoiler Warning***

My group and I are playing through the Civil War event book for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, from Margaret Weis Productions. While the course of play may not follow the event book – or the comic books – precisely, there’s going to be a certain amount of stuff that does conform to the adventures and comic series.

In short, if you don’t want to know what happens in Civil War, don’t read these posts. Or the comic books.

***You Have Been Warned***

After some scheduling delays, we managed to get the Guardians together for the second session of our Marvel RPG Civil War event. I really wanted the whole crew for this session, because I planned to end it with the Stamford explosion and the clean-up scene. After this, we get more flexible with attendance, but this is pretty much the seminal event of the… uh, event, and I felt that the impact would be diminished if only some of the heroes were present for it ((We also had dinner: homemade beef stew, homemade soda bread, homemade butter, and homemade trifle for dessert.)).

Because of some real-world stuff, we got a bit of a late start. I had planned to run through two scenes this session – Titanium Man Attacks Washington, and Clean Up Stamford. That, I figured, should be enough to fill the evening and would end the session on a good, dramatic note.

We’d left our heroes at the end of last session exiting their congressional hearing into a crowd of reporters. Titanium Man appeared, smashed a decorative fountain, pointed at Mega Joule, and shouted, “You!” That’s where we picked things up, and I gave the first action to Mega Joule ((Just because it seemed dramatically appropriate, really. I mean, Jumpstart had his superspeed, so maybe he should have gone first, or The Doctor, with some warning from his mystic senses, but really, sometimes you just gotta go with your sense of the dramatic.)). He amped up his kinetic ability, spending a Plot Point to bring in both his leaping and kinetic control, to slam into Titanium Man and launch them both out of the crowd and into the reflecting pool.

A good roll on Mega Joule’s part and a bad one on Titanium Man’s part and Titanium Man winds up sputtering in malfunctioning armour in the reflecting pool with Mega Joule standing over top of him ((Yup. First action of the session was Mega Joule one-shotting the villain.)). The scene I had planned to take about half the session lasted less than five minutes.

So, I changed what the scene was about. The Guardians interrogated the Titanium Man ((Now encased in concrete, thanks to Volcanic.)) before S.H.I.E.L.D. agents arrived on the scene, trying to figure out why he had come to Washington to attack Mega Joule. I had to change how I was using Titanium Man to fit this new circumstance; instead of being a realistic and intimidating threat ((Like the original Boris Bullski.)), he became a young  punk ((Because he’d just been taken down like a punk, after all.)) who had newly acquired the Titanium Man armour, and got in over his head.

This, of course, meant I had to come up with answers to the characters’ questions ((I hadn’t made the answers up, yet, because real life got in the way of my prep.)). The story I came up with: Titanium Man had been hired by the Sloveniy Bratva ((A Russian mafia group that I made up on the spot. Name inspired by the Solntsevskaya Bratva.)) to stop Mega Joule from messing with a street gang in Mega Joule’s neighbourhood, said street gang paying up to the Sloveniy Bratva.

This story introduces a new thread to the event, one not intrinsically tied to the Civil War, but that’s something I really wanted to do. See, a lot of the impact of the Civil War is in how it changes the lives of those involved – how it makes doing the normal things that much harder. With original characters like the Guardians, there isn’t the built-in baseline assumption of what “normal” is for the characters the way there is for, say, Spider-Man or Daredevil, so it becomes vital to build in some of these types of concerns into the game. Otherwise, the story has no emotional depth for or connection to the players.

Anyway.

I didn’t have anything prepped for going after the Sloveniy Bratva just yet, and it was too early in the evening to jump right to the Stamford explosion, so I said, “Who wants a mission from S.H.I.E.L.D.?” and everyone put their hands up. I pulled out Crusader Hijacks an Airplane, starting itin media res as suggested – The Doctor, Mega Joule, and Jumpstart disguised as Treasury agents, and Volcanic disguised as cargo – just as Crusader and his minions unveiled themselves.

This battle took a little ((Well, a lot.)) longer, and was more exciting. Volcanic used his massive size to send the plane into a dive ((Putting the complication Gravity is a Harsh Mistress d10 on the villains.)), Mega Joule and Jumpstart went on minion duty, and The Doctor tried to bind the Crusader with magic ((That didn’t work out too well, and The Doctor spent the next little while dodging his physical attacks.)). The doom pool was up to 5d10 by the time they got Crusader disarmed and was sitting at 4d12 and 1d8 by the time the minions were under control. I thought about ending the scene, but that felt a little cheap at this point – the heroes were working for their victory, and the only reasonable way to end the scene seemed to be for the plane to crash.

So, I spent the doom pool d12s to help Crusader in his solo battle ((There’s probably a whole blog post in the idea about spending your doom pool in different ways as a method of shaping the dramatic flow of the game. As I play more, I hope to gather enough insight to actually write it.)). The upshot of this was that the heroes still got the XP from me spending the d12s, it felt like a serious fight, and the heroes got to feel like they earned their victory ((Because they had.)). They got the bad guys wrapped up and the plane on the ground safely ((If just barely.)), and turned the villains over to S.H.I.E.L.D. agents waiting for them.

That’s when they heard the news about Stamford. Well, kind of. Some of the younger soldiers and agents who met them on the ground were kind of freaked out about the whole thing, staring wide-eyed at the heroes and such, acting very nervous. When one tried to tell them what was going on, his sergeant shut him down, and all he could do was tell them to check out the news. They did, and headed out to Stamford to help the cleanup.

I used the scene to set up personal stakes and interests for each of the characters. Volcanic helped with the rescue efforts, developing a real hate for Nitro; Jumpstart witnessed a heated discussion between Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, and Captain America, and later had a rather ambiguous conversation with Captain America; The Doctor had a similar discussion with Iron Man, who seemed to be sounding him out about where he stood on the SHRA; and Mega Joule had a heartfelt talk about what it means to be a hero with Luke Cage.

We wound things down, then, with each character having an idea for what they wanted to pursue next. This is what I want: at this point, I want things to become much more character-driven. I still intend to throw in a few GM fiat scenes to help advance the overall storyline, but mainly I want the characters to determine which direction things go in the event. So, what are their loose ends to track down?

  • Follow up on the Sloveniy Bratva and their attempts to strong-arm Mega Joule.
  • Track down Captain America to see what he was trying to say to Jumpstart.
  • Track down Iron Man to see what he was trying to say to The Doctor.
  • Find Nitro and bring him to justice.

That’s enough to be going on with, I think. I look forward to the next session.

 

Dateline – Storm Point

By | | Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, Storm Point, What's he playing?
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***SPOILER ALERT***

I’m running Tomb of Horrors for this leg of the Storm Point campaign. You may not want to read on if you’re playing the game yourself.

***SPOILER ALERT***

We had a full house at the last Storm Point game ((The previous session, I had run out of prep time, so we ran a session of D&D Next playtest, using the Caves of Chaos adventure again. The big thing from that playtest: we really liked the new fighter mechanic.)) , which was nice, as we were heading into the next phase of the campaign. I had let the characters advance up to 14th level, with the idea that we were going to start on the next adventure int he Tomb of Horrors book.

The reason for going this way is that the majority of us are getting tired of D&D. We’ve been playing it for a long time, and are starting to be ready for a different system. On the other hand, we’re liking this campaign and these characters, and don’t want to just end it without some sort of resolution. So, what we’re planning is that we will run through the Tomb of Horrors book ((Well, I may collapse some of the adventures in the interests of shortening the amount of time it takes us to get through things. You may have noticed that we don’t get a whole lot done in a session.)) , which will take the characters up into the Epic tier, and provide a nice, memorable conclusion to the campaign.

What then? Well, we’ve been talking over some of the options. If we want to stay with the fantasy style game, maybe Dungeon World. Apocalypse World and Night’s Black Agents also got some interest, and I forgot to even bring up Ashen Stars, which I think this group would really dig. But that’s a good year or so away, so I’m not sweating it right now. We’ll make the decision when the time comes.

Anyway.

I started the session asking how the characters had kept busy during the downtime, and let each player tell a short story about something cool they had done in the time between the last session and the current one. Then, I told them that they were getting bored, with nothing big and exciting going on, and asked them what they planned to do about it.

They decided to go ask Bitaryut the Blind – the seer that they’ve had some dealings with previously ((And, because he had tried to use them to further his own plots, they had something to hold over his head.)) – if he knew of anything that they might be interested in. He had a parchment covered in runes and sigils that looked very much like the markings that our heroes had seen in theGarden of Graves, designed to funnel the energy of death to a collection point. That intrigued them enough to go looking for the stone portal in the desert where a merchant had copied down the markings.

After some investigation of the portal, they discovered that it opened with a small sacrifice of blood rubbed on the stone, leading to the Shadowfell – specifically, to the dark, ruined city of Moil. They dithered and bickered for long enough that Thrun, the dwarf fighter, just jumped through the portal.

On the far side of it, Thrun was immediately attacked by some very powerful zombies and wights. The rest of the gang followed him as they were able ((In initiative order, of course.)) and joined the fray, but the fact that they had started the combat separated meant that it was a tougher fight than it had initially appeared. The terrain didn’t help them much, as I had overlooked the bit of the description that talked about how the floor of the tower on which they were fighting was tilted, so I had the floor shift and tilt during the combat, showing how the building was unstable and teetering on the edge of collapse.

They did triumph, however, after a tough fight, and took stock of their surroundings. I described the dilapidated towers and crumbling bridges, the dark and the cold, and let them get the idea of what a bad place they were in. But it was late by that time, so we called it for the evening.

Next session, they need to figure out where the runes are in this place, and what they’re meant to do.

C4 Gaming

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This weekend is Central Canada Comic Con, better known as C4 ((I don’t really know if it’s better known by that name, but it is the common abbreviation. Shut up.)). As I have for the past several years, I will be at the convention demoing a wide range of board, card, and roleplaying games for the good folks from Imagine Games and Hobbies. What do I mean by a wide range? I’m glad you asked, because I’ve been doing some test packing over the past couple of evenings to see how many games I can cram into a couple bags that I can carry in one trip. Here’s what I figure I can bring with me ((I can probably bring a few more, but at that point I’m running out of games that I can comfortably demo. I mean, I can bring along Cards Against Humanity, but that’s not really appropriate for an all-ages con, and setting up and running Battlestar Galactica just eats more time than people are generally looking to spend.)):

Board Games

  1. Conquest of Nerath
  2. Carcassonne
  3. Legend of Drizzt
  4. Fury of Dracula
  5. Tsuro
  6. Tsuro of the Seas
  7. Pandemic

Card Games

  1. Deluxe Illuminati
  2. Skippy’s Revenge
  3. Dixit
  4. Ghost Pirates
  5. Chrononauts

Dice Games

  1. Elder Sign
  2. Zombie Dice
  3. Cthulhu Dice

Roleplaying Games

  1. Marvel Heroic Roleplaying ((The good folks at Margaret Weis Productions have even supplied a couple of very cool – and exclusive – convention scenarios. Thanks, Cam!))
  2. Apocalypse World
  3. Fiasco
  4. Leverage RPG

So, for those keeping track, we’re looking at nineteen games to choose from.

Gaming this year is free to the public – the gaming room is on the second floor of the Convention Centre, and you don’t need a Con badge to come and play. I’m going to be there part of Friday evening ((After I get off work, of course.)), all day Saturday, and most of Sunday ((I’ll stay as long as my energy holds out and there are people interested in playing games. When one of those things drops, I pack my bags and leave.)). If you’re at the Con, or even if you just want to try some fun games this weekend, come find me and I’ll hook you up.

Hillfolk

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So, you probably know about Kickstarter. And you probably know about the Hillfolk Kickstarter by Robin Laws. Well, as a backer, I received a .pdf copy of the current (post-playtest, pre-final) draft of the rules, and I took a little time to read the game this weekend. I liked what I read, and so want to tell you about it. You can think of it as me shilling for the Kickstarter if you like; I certainly want the game to reach all its stretch goals.

In Hillfolk ((And yes, I hear the theme from Lothar of the Hill People every time I read the title.)), you play members of a tribe of iron-age raiders. The game uses a new engine, called DramaSystem, that emphasizes character-driven play – the game is more about the interactions and relationships between the characters than about the characters facing external threats. It’s meant to emulate the TV-style serial drama, in the vein of The Sopranos, Mad Men, Copper, such. In a way, you could call it a soap opera engine, I guess, but only if you call shows like Rome or Deadwood soap operas ((Really, soap operas – daytime dramas – differ very little from the evening dramas in their basics. It’s in the execution and production values that the real differences show. Fair enough; after all, soap operas produce at least five episodes for every episode of an evening drama.)).

Play happens through a series of scenes, each framed by a player in turn (including the GM). Scenes are divided into two types: Dramatic and Procedural.

Procedural scenes are scenes wherein the characters are trying to gain a practical result – raid an enemy herd, cross a dangerous desert, find a new grazing land, dig iron ore out of a mine, whatever. These are scenes familiar to most gamers, and often you’ll have several characters co-operating against the GM to accomplish your goal. Mechanics for Procedural scenes revolve around spending different coloured tokens to gain draws from a deck of playing cards, trying to match a card drawn by the GM. It’s pretty straightforward in practice, though a little convoluted to explain, and there’s an appendix that adds an advanced mechanic to the process for those who want a more detailed, fine-grained system.

Dramatic scenes are scenes where one character is trying to gain some emotional reward from another character. This is where things depart most from other RPGs – there aren’t really any rules to determine whether or not you get what you want in the scene. You go in with your goal and, at the end, the GM will ask you if you got what you want ((Some similarities here to Fiasco and other story games.)). There’s a token system in play here that incentivizes not getting what you want – if the person that you want to respect you dismisses you as beneath him, you get a token; if someone comes to you looking for approval, and you grudgingly grant it, you get a token. Tokens can be used to manipulate the narrative a bit, including forcing a concession from someone or jumping in on a scene when the person setting the scene doesn’t include you.

The emphasis of play is on Dramatic scenes, with a goal of deepening, enriching, and entangling the emotional needs of the characters. Characters are built to feed into this, with each character defined more by what he or she wants than what he or she can do. Relationships are important, and during character creation, each character is given a relationship with a couple other characters, including something that the character wants and why the other character won’t grant it. These motivations are all emotional needs – approval, love, respect, fear, acceptance, praise, deference, etc. Each player also chooses two dramatic poles for their character to be pulled between: leader or tyrant, warrior or peacemaker, faithful or traitor, anger or wisdom, etc. And, almost as an afterthought, you get to pick some skills that your character is good at, and some that they aren’t.

The goal of the game, as I’ve said before, is to create the kind of rich, dramatic story of people and relationships that you see in today’s serial TV dramas. Sessions are played as episodes, with each episode having a theme, and the story deepens and richens as the characters interact, each reaching for their emotional need, and either achieving it or not, building a history for the relationships and the tribe as a whole. Needs may change over the campaign as the characters grow and change, and the story grows and changes with them. After a number of episodes, it’s suggested that you call an end to a season, and start a new season after some in-game time has passed ((Or hasn’t passed, if you end the season on a cliffhanger.)), letting the series take another step forward in development.

Now, the game is called Hillfolk, and that’s the default setting, but the book is also going to include a number of Series Pitches – alternate settings for DramaSystem games. There are currently 10 other settings unlocked as stretch goals, and they’ll all be included. Each setting, including Hillfolk, includes a brief rundown of the basic assumptions of the setting, along with a number of questions that the players can answer ((Usually in and through play.)) about things that will customize the setting for the game. You can see a list of the unlocked Series Pitches on the Hillfolk Kickstarter site, as well as any new stretch goals that have been added.

Now, I’m excited about this game, but I fully recognize that it’s not going to be the right game for some ((Perhaps many, but I hope otherwise.)) people. The emphasis on dramatic scenes, the lack of a “real” combat system, the sharing of authorial responsibility and, perhaps most tellingly, having your character “lose” in confrontations with other characters – these are all things that can scare off gamers, moving them out of their comfort zones. For some gamers, the game just won’t work ((And the same can be said of any game.)), because it’s not giving them what they want out of gaming. Specifically, I think that gamers who enjoy more simulationist combat and those who are more interested in their character than in their character’s story ((This is an important distinction. In stories, bad things happen to the characters. Some players just want to sculpt their character to be able to triumph over all the hardship without the setbacks that you find in stories. Nothing wrong with that; it’s just a matter of taste and play style.)) will find this game lacking or frustrating. And those players who demand hard and fast rules to determine who wins in any confrontation may find the Dramatic scenes particularly frustrating.

But for those who are interested in the kinds of story that involve lots of interpersonal drama, who want to model the kinds of TV shows that are getting a lot of press – and a lot of viewers – today, who are interested in the kind of gaming that de-emphasizes combat for interaction, this is a Kickstarter you should get in on. Now.

Go wolves!

 

 

Civil War: Doom & Democracy

By | | Civil War, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, What's he playing?
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***Spoiler Warning***

My group and I are playing through the Civil War event book for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, from Margaret Weis Productions. While the course of play may not follow the event book – or the comic books – precisely, there’s going to be a certain amount of stuff that does conform to the adventures and comic series.

In short, if you don’t want to know what happens in Civil War, don’t read these posts. Or the comic books.

***You Have Been Warned***

Friday before last, we gathered the players and got in our first session of our Civil War game. Well, kind of the second session, if you count the dry run I did previously. Or the third, if you count character creation. But really, it was the first full session where everyone got to try out their characters.

I wanted to ease into things in this session, letting the players fit themselves into the world a little bit before throwing some action at them ((There are good things about starting out with a bang, but sometimes it’s a good idea to ease the players into things. Especially with a new system.)), so I started by saying, “It’s a Wednesday night. Where are you?” This led to the group – who call themselves The Guardians, by the way – spending some time coming up with a secret base for themselves.

It’s the concealed sub-basement of an apartment block in Brooklyn, owned by The Doctor’s parents, with tunnels reaching all over NYC, courtesy of Volcanic. The base has accommodations for all the team members, a gym, science lab, tech lab, ritual room, and med bay.

So, we spent some time fleshing it out, getting into character, and doing a little roleplaying to set the scene. Then I had Reed Richards call Jumpstart to ask for a favour.

I think three out of the four characters have some sort of relationship with the FF, but I picked Jumpstart because he also had ties to S.H.I.E.L.D. and tended to have more of a military outlook. Those qualities made it pretty likely that he would agree to do the favour for Reed ((Possibly committing the whole team without consulting them. Well, a Watcher can hope, right? ‘Cause that would have been some fun drama.)), which is what I wanted, because that was the on-ramp to the story.

To be clear, the game would not have been derailed if they hadn’t taken the bait. I had some contingency plans, layered in stages, right up to the Guardians sitting around playing video games until S.H.I.E.L.D. capekillers came knocking on their doors. This is something I’ve tried to emphasize with the players – they are free to make whatever choices and decisions they want, without worrying about “ruining the adventure.” The structure of the event book ((Which I talk about back here.)) makes it easy to improvise on the themes of the Civil War, build scenes on the fly, and track what changes if the players do something really unexpected. Along with that, I’ve picked up enough experience running more improvised adventures in recent years ((Thanks especially to GUMSHOE and FATE games for the recent practice.)) that I think I can cope with what they throw at me, and make the game about their heroes, rather than about the big names in the Marvel Universe.

I’ve also warned them that I may make some changes from the comic books, especially about who joins what side, so they shouldn’t count on Cap fighting against registration, or Tony Stark spearheading the registration forces. Am I going to change those two, specifically? I’m not sure yet. I’m not making any decisions about this until after the SHRA passes, and I’ll see how things stand then. The heroes have already done some things that will affect the course of events ((No, I’m not telling you what just yet. You’ll have to wait and see)), and I’ve taken notes and done some thinking about consequences.

Anyway.

Reed Richards called and asked Jumpstart to look into a potential problem in Broxton, Oklahoma – reports had reached him of numerous incoming aircraft, currently passing over the Atlantic, ETA two hours. Volcanic was able to build a quick detector to trace the origins of the aircraft, and discovered that they were coming from Latveria. Richards would not confirm or deny that, nor would he tell them what was in Broxton that the Latverians ((Doom, by all reports being dead, or at least trapped in Hell.)) might want – the characters didn’t have clearance for that information from the government.

Why was Richards calling them? Well, he and the rest of the FF were in Washington, giving testimony to the committee discussing the SHRA. I didn’t spell that out to the characters, but Reed Richards in a suit, unable to leave where he was, and the discussions about the SHRA made it pretty clear, I think.

Richards loaned the Guardians ((All of whom agreed to go. I had something up my sleeve for anyone who chose not to go along, but I didn’t need to use it. That’s fine; I can save it for another time.)) the Fantasticar to get them to Oklahoma in time. At the site, they found a military installation – quonset huts, security fence, patrols, etc. The colonel in charge was grateful for their help, but still wouldn’t tell them why the military was on site.

The heroes took some time to create resources before the arrival of the aircraft, and then settled in to wait for the arrival of the invaders. The Doctor, when the armoured personnel fliers started arriving, woke the spirits of the air to knock them out of the sky ((No-Fly Zone d12+ grounded everything. Everything. Including commercial aircraft, who now had to detour around a large section of Oklahoma.)), and Volcanic caused the ground to open and swallow several of the carriers that had landed ((“Did I get them all?” “All you could see.” “How many more are there?” “Enough to make this scene an exciting battle.” “Gotcha. There are PLOT carriers.”)). Then the silhouette of Dr. Doom appeared on a hilltop and everyone stopped and stared.

And another silhouette appeared. And another. And three more, and then a dozen, and then a score. They figured pretty quickly they were dealing with Doombots, but it still made them plenty cautious. Volcanic was swarmed by Doombots ((Applying the complication Covered in Dooooooms! d12.)), and Jumpstart rushed to his defence, trying to pull as many Doombots off him as possible. Mega Joule had set up an ambush, and popped out to delay a another mob of Doombots marching on the encampment, while The Doctor held the main gate.

This scene had a bit of a strange rhythm, to tell the truth. The players weren’t rolling many opportunities, and this my doom pool wasn’t growing, and they weren’t getting Plot Points ((Except, of course, when they used their Distinctions for a d4.)). This meant that they weren’t able to bust out some of the cooler things they could do, but it also meant that I was limited in the tricks the bad guys could pull in.

Still, things turned around eventually, and I was able to turn the real Doom into a Doombot with 2d8 when The Doctor was about to take him down ((Using the You Are Not Worthy of Doom! SFX.)), and bring the real Doom in from the rear, through the fence and the torn-up quonset huts, down to the crater in the middle. He got his hands on what he was after – Mjolnir, sitting in the crater where it landed – and got blasted by Asgardian lightning for not being worthy.

This was the moment when the characters found out what was being guarded in Broxton. Doom made his escape at that point, and the Guardians were left to help with the clean-up, and discuss whether any of them were going to try to lift the hammer themselves. Eventually, they decided against it, and headed back to NYC.

Overall, the battle outcome was a bit ambiguous – the Guardians defeated all the Doombots, but Doom himself got to the hammer, but the hammer blasted Doom, but Doom got away… You know how it goes. They chalked it up in the Win column provisionally.

Reed got in touch with them the next day to thank them for their help, and to warn them that, due to their involvement with Doom and the military ((And the fact that air traffic had to be diverted around Oklahoma for an hour or so with no warning.)), they might be called to testify before Congress. At least, Volcanic would, because his identity is public knowledge. The other Guardians discussed this, and decided that, if Volcanic was subpoenaed, they would all stand with him.

Sure enough, a few days later, Dr. Nicholas Burns, AKA Volcanic, was called to testify before a Congressional committee, so everyone got on the train and headed down to DC, along with a Lawyer d8, thanks to The Doctor’s business connections.

In retrospect, I should have re-read this scene more carefully before the session. Testifying before Congress is run as an action scene using debating skills rather than superpowers ((Well, powers could be used, if they were appropriate. Mind control, for example, or growth for intimidation, things like that.)), knocking out dice from the Committee to win the debate.

My big mistake, I think, was using rolls to determine the effectiveness of arguments made by either side. That produced some strange results, and incidentally devalued the arguments being made. A better approach might have been to conduct the arguments and interview purely through roleplaying ((Or maybe to abstract the arguments and questioning a bit: “The Committee chair launches into a long-winded recitation of rulings by the Supreme Court, many of which seem to relate only remotely to the matter at hand. He’s obviously trying to confuse you and set you off your game.”)), and call for rolls only when one side or the other tried to directly manipulate the other through Psyche or Menace or some power. As it was, the whole thing felt like a mis-handeled skill challenge from D&D 4E.

The main point of contention, as it played out, was the issue of secret identities. The Committee insisted that the Guardians give their legal names in order to be heard, but the gang successfully argued that they should be allowed to testify under their noms de guerre. Well, kind of successfully. They got their remarks on the record, but they were entered as anonymous testimony, and thus carried less weight.

The upshot was that the Congressional committee thanked the Guardians for attending and dismissed them without getting any of their real questions answered. Still, the majority of the committee was favourably disposed towards the Guardians, so that counts as a win. Still, there was the implication that the committee might invite the Guardians back when they had more power to compel answers.

And to wrap things up for the evening, as the Guardians navigated the crowd of reporters out front, the Titanium Man landed in the midst of the crowd and roared out a challenge.

Check out the next issue for - The Terror of the Titanium Man!

Civil War: Dry Run

By | | Civil War, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, What's he playing?
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So, I’ve got a group of players that I’m going to be running through the Civil War event for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, with original characters for all the players. We’ve had a character creation session, and two of the players have produced finished characters. The other two are dragging their feet a little bit, but I’m hoping that they’ll have their finished stuff to me soon ((Yes, that is a hint.)).

Anyway, to make sure we kept the interest up, and to give the two players with finished characters a chance to try their characters out, and to give me a little more experience running the game, we decided to do a one-shot with the two finished characters.

Actually, that’s not quite the way it happened.

I was trying to prod the two players with unfinished characters into finishing off their characters, so I offered to run the first session on Friday night if everyone had their characters finished. The two without finished characters were unavailable for completely unrelated reasons, so I figured I’d go with a one-shot for the completed characters who could make it.

Now, while I wanted to get playing, and I wanted to encourage the unfinished characters to get finished, I didn’t want this to be seen as a punishment for those who weren’t done. So, I decided that, while I would award XP as usual in play ((More on that later.)), no XP would carry over to the campaign. It’s just the only way it seemed fair.

The set-up for the session was pretty simple. I was going to have either A.I.M. or Hydra steal a MacGuffin from NYU, where Volcanic ((One of the PCs)) teaches and lives. A tweet from Cam Banks gave me a better idea. He said:

I hope they feel overwhelmed right off the bat and turn it around in the 11th hour!

That gave me A PLAN! I decided that Hydra, with the aid of Mentallo, would steal the MacGuffin (a cylinder of dark matter that had been bombarded by cosmic rays ((That’s pure comic book science!)) ), but be ambushed by A.I.M. troopers before they could leave the building. A quick look at Google Maps showed me that the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics at NYU is about two and a half blocks straight down a street from Washington Square Park, so I thought it would be fun to have things move down there for the climax, where Madame Hydra was waiting to pick the Hydra troopers up in a Hydra sky car.

I started by telling the characters that they were at NYU, and asking them why. Jumpstart ((The other PC.)) said that his character’s secret identity – a medical doctor and a scientist – was giving a talk there about the effects of cosmic radiation on brain structures, and Volcanic – who doesn’t have a secret identity, being made of lava and all – was listening to see if he could decipher any clues about how to change back into a human form.

The lecture was interrupted by the sounds of weapon fire outside in the main entry. Volcanic stuck his head out to see what was going on, providing a bit of a distraction for Jumpstart to switch into his costume. Outside the auditorium, our heroes were up on the mezzanine, looking down on the entry hall, which was dominated by a giant sculpture of an atom ((Why? Because comic book action!)). A gang of A.I.M. troops had pinned down Mentallo and his Hydra henchmen, but Mentallo had mind-controlled a team of security guards, who were outflanking the A.I.M. folks. Add to that the panicking students, and things looked grim ((I had spent a turn or two while the heroes were bogged down in getting into costume and out of the auditorium to effectively let the villains grandstand, building the doom pool, and deciding what distinctions to put on the scene. Doom pool, which had started at 2d6, was up to 4d6, and there were the distinctions Giant Atom Sculpture, Panicky Students, and Mind-Controlled Security Guards.)).

The good guys were a little intimidated by the big mess, I think, and didn’t know where to start. That didn’t stop them from wading in, though. Hydra took that opportunity to make a break for it, smashing through the plate glass windows despite Volcanic coating them with magma. A.I.M., still pinned down by the security guards, took hostages to try and escape.

There was some discussion at this point about pursuing Hydra before they got away, but the pair decided that keeping the hostages safe was the priority ((I am pleased about that. I like my heroes heroic.)). They concentrated on the A.I.M. troopers and mopped them up before heading out to chase Mentallo and the canister down the street to Washington Square Park.

The battle at the park went pretty quickly, and very much in the heroes’ favour. They were getting the hang of using their elemental control powers ((Three out of four of the characters have some flavour of elemental control, and the fourth has Sorcery. These are very cool powers, but they’re probably the trickiest to use in cool ways during the game, as they are very indirect.)), had established strategies for getting and using PPs, and each had a couple of assets to call on in an emergency. The bad guys got wrapped up in short order, and even Madame Hydra was snagged when her getaway vehicle got electrified.

I had planned for Madame Hydra to snag the canister and escape, with or without Mentallo and the troopers, but the heroes just beat me on that one. See, the second part would have been a Transition scene with the heroes tracking down where the canister was and assaulting a Hydra base – or A.I.M., if they had managed to snag it – and retrieving it before it could get used as a weapon. So, we ended early, and the bad guys all got hauled off to the Raft. I did make the point that this was pre-Breakout at that time, so I won’t have any questions if I use the villains again in the event.

Overall, the one-shot served its purpose – the players got the hang of their characters, I got more practice with the system, and everyone had fun. But no one was hitting their Milestone triggers in the game. I decided not to bring it up during play, but we talked about how important it is after the session wound down. It’s a change of perspective, making the characters decide when they earn XP, but with Milestones, there’s really no way for the Watcher to track the triggers for the characters. At least, not effectively.

I think the players are going to tweak their characters slightly based on how they played, but overall they were pretty happy with what they had built, and I thought they worked well, myself. For me, I got some insight into how to make a scene change location, some more familiarity with managing the doom pool, and some practice making the scene distinctions work for me. So, I call it a win.

We’re trying to set the first full session for September 28. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Dateline – Storm Point

By | | Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, Storm Point, What's he playing?
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*** Potential Spoilers ***

The adventure described below is loosely based on the great sword-and-sorcery novel Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed. I think what happens in the game is probably different enough from what happens in the novel that nothing’s gonna get ruined, but things change in play, and I might end up using some plot point from the book that reveals a little too much. I’ll try not to let that happen, but you have been warned.

Oh, and you should also go read Throne of the Crescent Moon, because it’s a fantastic book.

Last Sunday, after a lenghty hiatus ((Caused by the fact that it’s hard to schedule people for a casual game during the summer months, especially when the majority of the players have kids. Also, it’s been a pretty busy summer for me.)), we managed to get the gang together to wrap up the Throne of the Crescent Moon inspired adventure I’ve been running. It looked – right up to the last minute – like we might have a full house, but then someone had to cancel ((We missed you, Br. Linton!)), so we had four out of five players.

Because of the long stretch between the last game and this one, everyone was kind of fuzzy on what was going on and why the characters were doing stuff, so we opened with a pretty in-depth recap. I had been completely unsure about what the group would plan to do with the information they had uncovered last time, so I was pretty much flying by the seat of my pants on this session. I had a stack of stats, and some half-formed ideas about various options, but nothing really solid, because I didn’t know which way the group would jump.

After some discussion ((Which, of course, ran pretty far afield from the game for a bit.)), he gang decided that the main goal was killing Mouw Awa, because he had pissed them off the most. Oh, and they also figured that they should probably stop Dhamsawaat from staging a ghul-backed coup of Belys. Investigation of the sewers, where they had last encountered Dhamsawaat, located the entry to the crypt where they had faced him previously. Unfortunately, that entry was a rectangle of runes carved in the bricks, similar to a teleport circle.

This entry seemed to open an actual physical passage to a remote location, rather than teleporting people there. And it was closed with some sort of key or passphrase that the group didn’t know. So, they set up a blind in the sewers, and decided to camp there until the next night without moonlight ((I rolled a d8 to get the number of nights they’d have to weight, and got a 7. After two nights, they said, “Screw this,” and went and paid a seer to tell them when the next moonless night would be.)). When the gate opened, they went charging down into the crypt, which was once again full of ghuls.

Mouw Awa was there, of course, and he did his level best to mess the crew up. The ghuls were are minions, so were an annoyance but not much more. And in behind them all, Dhamsawaat was working some strange ritual that the players didn’t even notice until about three rounds in.

Because of their history with him, our heroes concentrated everything on Mouw Awa, dropping him to about 8 hp in the first round. Then he possessed the team’s tank and went to town on the others. Things got kinda messy after that, but the group finally realized that, under cover of Mouw Awa and the ghuls, Dhamsawaat had been steadily channeling power into a huge mound of skulls, and that couldn’t possibly be good.

The way I had set up the ritual was that Dhamsawaat could use a move action each turn to power it. After he had powered it seven times (and he was able to power it twice in one round, because he couldn’t see the characters to attack them), a huge bone ghul was going to rise from the skulls and hand the heroes their heads before going on to rampage through Belys. The power was at four or five when someone finally attacked Dhamsawaat and pulled him out of the magic circle.

This broke the ritual ((Initially, I mistyped broke as borke, which also fits, because the ritual was well and truly borked.)) and released a blast of energy ((2d6 per point of power in the ritual, so 8d6 or 10d6; I forget which.)) that finished of Mouw Awa, dropped the characters’ main tank ((Though with his triggered actions, he wound up with more hit points than he had before the blast went off. Stupid dwarf fighters.)), and fried all the ghuls. It also caused the crypt to start to collapse, in best action movie style.

Dhamsawaat ((Who, at this point, was barely scratched.)) fell into the cracks forming in the earth, and our heroes made a panicky escape ((The warlord almost fell to his death a couple of times, saved once by a lightning lure and once by someone grabbing his arm. And one of the others who went to save the warlord almost fell to his doom, as well. It was lovely.)).

By that time, we were about two and a half hours overtime, so we called it a night. Before the next game, I think I’m going to have the characters take some downtime and level up to about level 14. Gotta look at the numbers before I commit to that, but that’s my plan.

In closing, I just want to say thank you to Saladin Ahmed, author of Throne of the Crescent Moon for writing the book that served as inspiration for this adventure, and for being cool and encouraging about me running it and writing about it. Thank you, sir. You are a scholar and a gentleman.

I’m looking forward to book two.

Civil War: Recruitment

By | | Civil War, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, What's he playing?
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It’s been a while, huh? Well, without running a regular game, I’ve had less to say than usual.

That’s changing now; this past Sunday, I got four of my friends together to create characters. We’re starting the Civil War event for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.

I gave the players the option, individually, to decide how they wanted to create their characters: pick a pregen, model another existing hero, use the Random Datafile Generator from Margaret Weis Productions, or model a hero of their own devising. Given the folks who opted to join the game, I was expecting about half to take a pregen, and the other half to model their own heroes. Turns out, all four wanted to create their own heroes from scratch.

MHR  has a character creation system ((Though it doesn’t explicitly call it out as such.)), but I found it a bit lacking for what I wanted to accomplish. See, one of the most important themes in Civil War is the rift it creates in the heroes of the Marvel universe. The whole brother-fighting-brother vibe. Using homebrewed characters can be problematic, simply because these characters don’t have the deep histories with the other characters of the Marvel universe. Or even with the other players’ characters.

I needed to fix that in order to get the most bang out of the event.

Smallville RPG, also from MWP, has an interesting character creation system ((Called Pathways.)) that establishes all the types of relationships I need. And, as luck would have it, someone had already produced a version of the system for MHR. It’s very good, but it’s a little more structured in the assignment of powers and dice than I wanted to be, and more arbitrary in the relationships than I wanted ((I know, I know. I’m such a whiner. Seriously, the Marvel Pathways thing is awesome. It just didn’t quite fit what I wanted.)), so I looked to another great game for ideas.

Dresden Files RPG ((For which I have much love.)) builds relationships between characters in a wonderfully organic way, using the novels and the guest star roles. It creates history between the characters, and very rich relationships, but unless you throw in the entire city creation section, it doesn’t really tie the characters to other characters in the Marvel universe. And it felt counterintuitive to go through the city building if we wanted to play in the established continuity ((There are ways we could have done it, but they seemed more complicated than the cool they would provide, so I decided against that.)).

And so I wound up doing what I always seem to wind up doing ((It’s a sickness, I tells ya.)); I kit-built a system using parts from both DFRPG and Smallville. I snagged the idea of the relationship map from Smallville, and the phased approach, including the novels, from DFRPG. The end result was a set of guidelines for building characters that would produce finished characters, with relationships both within the group and with iconic Marvel characters, and develop the characters in a more organic kind of way. You can see the results here.

That’s what I sent out to folks before the game, recommending that they read it over, as well as the MHR basic rulebook ((Of course, some did, some didn’t, some read one and not the other, and so on. Which I expected.)). When we got to the character creation session, I quickly realized that I had made the system too elaborate and structured for the time we had.

We ran through the concept, origin, and first appearance phases pretty much as written, though we didn’t use the relationship map quite as I had spelled out. The players were eager to add contacts with iconic Marvel characters, so they jumped all over it, leading to a pretty full map pretty early on. Seeing that I had enough information on there for purposes of this game, I backed off it.

With the last 45 minutes of our session, we walked quickly through the novel stages, and then called it a night. I sent the players home with some homework: put the finishing touches on their characters, send me their novels, and decide on a name for their group. I’m starting to get replies, and things look good.

And who are these new heroes?

  •  Volcanic, an NYU professor who took on the mantle of a volcano god to save Manhattan from annihilation.
  • Jumpstart, an electric-powered speedster with a family connection to HYDRA, currently working for SHIELD.
  • Mega Joule, an inner-city high school athlete gifted with powerful kinetic abilities and a drive to help other kids on the streets.
  • The Doctor ((Based heavily on the character of the same name from The Authority.)), chosen by the soul of the world to be the new shaman for the age.

And that’s where things stand. As soon as everyone gets their homework back to me, we’ll set up the first session of actual play. I’m looking forward to it.

GenCon 2012: Day Three

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I’m back in the room early tonight, thanks to a nasty headache. Just need some time in the quiet, which is hard to find on the dealer room floor. So, no Games On Demand for me tonight.

Today was a pretty good day, all around. I got to read some Shadows of Esteren this morning, found some dice and dice bags I liked, and discovered that Conspiracy X had been reprinted. I’ve done about all the shopping I was planning to do ((Plus a little bit more.)) , though I’m still toying with the idea of grabbing a copy of RuneQuest 6th Edition.

And some very deserving folks won some Ennies, do that’s good, too. Margaret Weis Productions took home a couple at least for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, Pelgrane Press got a couple for Ashen Stars and Liber Fumo ((And I just met Paula Dempsey on Thursday and told her how much I loved that book!)), Jeremy Keller won a judges’ award for TechNoir, and Evil Hat won Fan Favourite Publisher. Congrats to all the winners.

I mentioned that I got to read a little more of Shadows of Esteren. I’ve got to say, I’m really liking the way things are going with the game. Gonna try reading some more tonight. And there’s definitely a review of the game in the offing.

But now, I think, a hot shower and some ibuprofen. And a couple of pictures for you.

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