Crisis With Too Many Settings

I'm having a bit of a crisis now with the Big Friday Game. I had an adventure in mind which a) I love b ) feel is appropriately epic for a special get-together and c) has a lot of ties to the Freedom City setting. All set, right?

Well I was - then I started looking through my campaign binders. I have one for Freedom City (M&M 2E). I have one for Atomic City (M&M 3E), Then I have the Emerald City book (also 3E). I have a lot of good stuff sketched out. Almost all for 3E.

I want to run the big adventure, but it's written for 2E. I have a big bunch of stuff for 2E, much of it tied to Freedom City. I don't really want to convert it all. But I really like 3E. I don't want to move it to Emerald City either.

I also really like my home-grown setting. I could use it instead but I don't want to tie it to the Freedom-verse.  I want it to be completely free. It will have a fair number of Champions nods, and maybe some M&M bits too, but I don't want it to be one more city in the Freedom City setting.

If I am looking at this as a kickoff for a new campaign, and I want that campaign to be in my own city, do I want to weigh it down with 2E? If I don't want it tied to Freedom City it's probably better to not even run this adventure and use one of my own ideas instead.

So yes I'm spinning through this little dilemma right now.

If I run this with FC now it's not really a "kickoff" and it doesn't really help me run AC later. If I run FC as the ongoing campaign, I'm limiting my chances of running AC in the near future. If I run it in 2E it's less work (no translation) and it's easier for new players coming over from Pathfinder to get. I just like 3E better for a lot of things.

Of course Freedom City 3rd Edition is in the works. I expect we will see it in the next few months but that doesn't help me run a week from now. If I'm going to run it in the future as a say once a month open-table type game then a well-known setting would make it easier for players to connect their characters to the setting. But a setting of my own design would be easier for me to run.

In a week I will have it figured out and ready to go. This is typical for me early-stage campaign overthinking while climbing up the "how do I want to do this" hill. Once I get over the top it will come together easily. I just have to get to that point.

The Atomic City Campaign: 2013 Update

Background and Approach
I started writing up Atomic City in late 2010 as a new setting for my supers games. It's come in bursts of creativity followed by gaps of several months but I have a fairly good writeup of the city, an overview map, some neighborhoods, organizations, and a few heroes and villains associated with it.

I don't like to spend a lot of time writing up massive bunches of words that will never be used so I tend to write up a general outline, then fill in more background/history/names as our games move into areas where I need to work out a little history or figure out which gang lives in a certain area or come up with the name of an oil company. Then I write that up and it becomes a part of the lore. This minimizes the potential for wasted effort, keeps it tied to the actual game, and avoids the situation where I'm trying to force in some bit of lore that I fell in love with that is completely wrong for the current game. Inspiration from real game sessions tends to fit better than random musings do.

I've kept the legacy heroes to a minimum as I really only have two:

• The Cat-Man, a Batman homage with all of the bat-stuff replaced by cat-stuff. He appears in the 60's when it's all new and cool, gets a little grim in the 70's, then has a final confrontation and disappears/retires in the 80's. In the current day he would be mainly a mentor figure or a source of information on some older villains and some secret stuff about the city and its past. He was a very public figure and is still remembered well by those who were around back then.
• The Guardian,  a mystic/psionic hero who came to the city in the 50's after the war and stands watch over it to the current day. He is very much a Kenobi-figure, young and adventurous then, in semi-retirement now but still aware of almost everything. He waged a secret war for the most part and is largely unknown to the public and is known but not familiar even to the "magic underground" community. I came up with an adventure idea that would introduce him, some history, the mystical parts of Atomic City, and then involve him getting killed - all very much Star Wars Kenobi, yes - and then have him possibly hanging around as a force ghost type spiritual advisor for the future.

I limited the number of "name" heroes from the city's past to give the players plenty of room to make their own mark on things. They aren't the first heroes here, but they are the first in a long time to be be this active and involved. These guys are painted in pretty broad strokes right now but if they actually start showing up then the game sessions will bring them into focus. In my head right now the Cat might be played by Clint Eastwood and The Guardian would be played by (of course) Alec Guinness.

Yep, they fought one.

Actual Play
Now the "main" time spent in AC has been with Mutants and Masterminds. We've had several sessions over the last few years but struggled to get real momentum but it has picked up this year. The Apprentices have taken up the roles of several new heroes in town. Their main thread is that they keep encountering robots - man sized, huge-sized, and all built with old 50s-60's technology. Clearly something is going on but they are not sure what or why just yet.

Also, in the past week Baron Zero has finally been released from his icy prison! He was released by criminals from the Sorvino crime family - to their doom - but was then subdued by Jaden Marek, Star-Ranger (basically powers of a Jedi Knight with a background more like the Green Lantern Corps) and Gadget Boy, young genius inventor. The basement of the Atomic City Museum of History is a little worse off  and the Sorvinos lost about a dozen men but the greater threat was stopped.

The other main game for AC has been ICONS. We've played all or parts of Skeletron Key, Aquazombies (the Guardian actually made an appearance here), Museum Mayhem, and Gangbusters, plus some homebrew stuff with several different sets of characters over the past year plus. I set all of them in the City to allow for easy character drop-ins and outs but I feel like I should keep the ICONS and the M&M games separate, making the M&M game a little more serious and the ICONS game more cartoony.

It is somewhat tempting though to roll them all into one "continuity" and just seeing where it goes. It's not like comics were all that consistent anyway, from events to characters relative power level, so why sweat it in a comic-style RPG setting? The games thus far haven't created any conflicts yet so I can still retcon it either way. For now there is "Stories" and "The Animated Series" and for now they are separate. I suspect this may become our game when Red and Who are available so hopefully we will have some new adventures with it soon.

Atomic City: The Animated Series - Museum Mayhem Part 1

Well the way the schedules worked out this weekend we didn't have time for D&D but we did have time for Apprentice Blaster and Apprentice Who to return to the modern era of Atomic City and take on the menace of Doctor Karnak!*

We were pressed for time and I was just rediscovering the greatness of the Folio so despite being interested in point buy hero creation the boys rolled them up the old fashioned way. They did use my modified power category chart from this post and it did seem to fit their style of play better. I'm giving them the option of creating new characters anytime we start an adventure because a) it'[s fun and they seem to enjoy coming up with new concepts b) it helps populate the universe and c) it builds up a pool of characters they can bring into any adventure -which as it turned out will prove useful.

We ended up with "The Musketeer", an alien swordmaster  (Strike, Fast Attack, Invulnerability, oh and Prowess 8 + a specialty in bladed weapons!) from an Asgardian** type society who has come to earth to prove his worth as a hero (played by Apprentice Blaster) and "Nightmare" a semi-battlesuited man from the future with light invulnerability, blast, and time control powers (duplication, time travel) played by Apprentice Who.

The ACPD puts out a call for superhero help as the supervillain Doctor Karnak has taken control of the Atomic City Museum of World History with a gang of thugs and has already repulsed several SWAT team assaults.

I am running Museum Mayhem from Vigilance Press as it seemed pretty well suited for a single-session ICONS game. There is a lot of exposition here delivered by the police captain on site. I skipped almost all of it - heroes rarely stand around for complete intel on a situation beyond "the cops can't handle it they need your help". I would share the information from the impressions of the police mystics if I had a magic-sensitive here but I didn't and they heroes didn't care.

Springing into action the heroic duo decide that the roof is the best place to enter. They climb a nearby tall building and leap/glide down to the roof, entering the museum without much difficulty.

I don't make them roll for this stuff once they come up with a plan. In D&D this is an Athletics check to climb, a Thievery check to pick the lock, etc. but this is a Supers game - we don't roll for boring mundane stuff anyone could do.

Climbing down into the gift shop, the Musketeer sees hostages in the room next door and charges in, ignoring Nightmare's attempt at coming up with a plan, or suggestion that they sneak or use disguises of some kind. The room is an exhibit on Roman charioteering. The museum guards are tied up here, guarded by some thugs and a masked Egyptian-looking mystic of some kind. He calls out some words, his amulet glows, and as the thugs fall to M's sword the charioteers come to life! Nightmare considers calling some duplicate help but the Musketeer (having been raised right) slashes the glowing amulet free of the mystic and then smashes it when it lands on the ground. As Nightmare blasts the cultist into unconsciousness, the charioteers stiffen and fall over as their magic drains away.

I was still in D&D mode here and almost had the chariot guys stay animated to get in a good fight. I came to my senses though and realized that the amulet grab-and-smash is exactly the kind of action I should be rewarding even if it's not explicitly described in the text. It's a smart play, especially from my combat-minded Apprentice, and should pay off. I also gave them each a point of determination for rescuing the guards - not a by-the-book award but I consider them all to have the unstated quality "hero" and like to reward them for doing heroic things. Plus, we are really bad at tagging and even remembering to spend Determination until the stuff hits the fan so I work it in when I am thinking about it.

After freeing the guards the heroes told them to wait until the coast was clear before getting out. A nearby room had some hubbub in it and turned out to have 4 thugs guarding some wealthy museum patrons taken hostage. After a short fight the thugs were down and the hostages were free, in spite of a desperate gun-to-the-head move by one of the criminals, which was dealt with swiftly by Nightmare.

I knew this would be an easy fight even with double the number of recommended guards. Coordination 3, Prowess 3, Stamina 5 or 6 means that in many cases a single hit takes them down even without using the minion rules. It's supposed to be that way but I was still fighting some D&D mindset and feeling like somebody should be taking at least a little damage while walking over these guys.They got another Determination point for freeing these hostages. 

Then they went into the next room, the huge exhibit on Set, and got their clocks cleaned. Doctor Karnak was here in the middle of a ritual, and he summoned Wraith Mummies to delay the heroes while he completed his magic. It worked really well: as the heroes charged into the thugs guards, the mummies blasted them with beams of dark magic, doing little to the impressively resilient Musketeer but dropping Nightmare into 10 pages of unconsciousness. Stunned at this turn of events, the alien swordsman backed off and decided to seek some super-help as the helpless Nightmare became a the newest hostage.

I just love this picture - Definitely belongs in "The Animated Series" -  it could be right out of Scooby Doo! More of Dan Houser's fine work

Will Nightmare survive? What if it's one of those rituals? Can Musketeer find sufficient help to rescue his new partner? Where is the Handicapped Hero? All will be revealed next week!


This is the danger of ICONS and really any Superhero game - combat against normals tends to seem very easy then BAM! Something takes out half the team in one shot! I probably overdid the mummies as I used a half-dozen of the "Elite" level types and while M was up for that fight poor Nightmare was not and went down quickly. I reminded him that in the future if you're going to take Duplication as a main power it's probably a good idea to use it before you charge in. I still felt a little bad though. The good thing is that it makes this adventure a lot more exciting and it gives Apprentice Red a chance to join in and help rescue another hero. It also lets Who bring in one of his old characters too. So really, it's all going just fine.




*Some names of villains have been changed to better fit my game. I'm very picky about my villain names. And my city names. And quite a few other things when I'm building a setting through actual play. 


**They decided he might be from "Buttgard" pretty early on. This is one of those situations as a parent where it's hard to decide whether to stifle the laughter (more because of how clever they think they are and how pleased with themselves they are at their cleverness than the remark itself), tell them to knock it off (so the entire game doesn't dissolve into teen/preteen silliness), or just try to ignore it and let them think they've gotten away with something. I managed that last choice until about the fifth time it came up amongst a sea of partially-suppressed giggles and snickers and we all had a good laugh and moved on. Because years ago I probably made the same comment to my friends and thought I was just as clever...

Atomic City Knights - Session Zero

I had an itch to play M&M again and this time I decided to do something about it. So under the guise of  "testing out the system" I rounded up the Apprentices and had them pick a generic sample character from the book and told them they were patrolling Atomic City at night when they picked up a report of an alarm at the Atomic City Robotics Institute. As they cruise towards the ACRI we focus in on:

• Rocketman (Battlesuit) played by Apprentice Who, plays the Elton John song through his suit speakers whenever he feels the need
• Angel (Psion) played by Apprentice Red, has actual wings for flight instead of TK flight
• Commander USA (Warrior) played by Apprentice Blaster, a shield-chucking homage to Cap who can also fly

We worked out some basic relationships and ideas for each character and dove straight into the action. All three of them can fly so they swoop over the Robotics Institute and see a gate broken open and soon after find a group of five silver metallic figures breaking into a warehouse. Rocketman wastes no time or words and opens up with his blast bolts, getting their attention. Angel attempts to grab one with his telekinetic power and slam it into a neighbor, causing our first rules crisis as we searched through the powers and the combat rules and the grab maneuver. We decided that Round 1 would be a simple TK punch and we would figure the grab etc. out for next round. USA chucked his shield, bashing one of the bots. Two of the bots are still cutting into the warehouse while the other three turn to deal with the attackers.

Crisis #2 erupts as the DM realizes that with Rocketman's Protection 11 (Impervious) the robots' Damage 5 electroblasts have zero chance of hurting him. As a result the DM starts searching for the vaguely-remembered "Team Attack" maneuver which turns out to be surprisingly simple and perfect for this situation. The fight continues.

Crisis #3 erupts when USA wants to leap onto one of the robots and pound on him with momentum, almost like a move-through in Champions - not that they have played Champs yet. Half-remembering a move called a "Slam Attack" we look that up and figure things up and find a surprisingly effective move for the Commander. Later he gets double-teamed by two of the bots and takes a pretty good shot to the face, but he fights on. 

Having figured out how grabs work, Angel force-grabs a robot - I mean TK-grabs - and starts squeezing. He is pleased with the results.

The fight goes on a bit and then is called due to time, just as another band of robots and a cybernetic gorilla appear on the roof of the building. Who are they? What's going? All shall be revealed in time.

Some rules notes: The game was already flowing faster near the end as we got more comfortable with the mechanics but there is a bit of a learning curve. Not with the basics - attacker rolls to hit, defender rolls to resist - but with all of the options available: There are actions, and then there are maneuvers, and then there are advantages that may let you do some unusual things, and then there are the powers, of course. That's a lot of choice when you're new to the game and I was going with a very loose interpretation of the rules to keep things moving. We'll tighten up next time.

• Movement rates are very fast. I ran this with a hexgrid to try and keep some tactical flavor and even the slowest super could fly 60 mph which is 900' per round. Even with 10' hexes or 10 yard hexes, that's a lot of distance. I'm fine with this and I remember it from old Champions games in the past, it's just been awhile.

• Combat takes a few rounds before anything happens. The robots were just the basic PL5 ones in the main book and after 5 rounds some of them were at a -3 and had been dazed once or twice with one finally collapsing after 3 rounds of serious blasting by Rocketman. I'm hoping that as we learn the rules and moves better that this improves. I will say that a +5 Power attack was a very popular move by the end of the fight and it did make a difference.

• I was worried about the Impervious Defense as it's fairly common and it makes low-level mooks a non-factor, but the team-up attack mitigates this to a degree and it is genre-appropriate, and well, there are always hostages. 

• One of the big changes with 3E M&M is adding a standard set of conditions, somewhat like D&D 4E. They work and work well. "Grab" inflicts conditions A-B-C. A web grenade inflicts X-Y-Z. As the players learn what each condition means they don't have to look up unique details for every individual power and maneuver - it's very smooth in play.

• I really like the Extra Effort rules, available to anyone at any time with a cost assessed AFTER the action, not before - this feels much more superheroic than having to have points available in advance to try something stupid.Then of course we have Hero Points which covers the more standard bending-of-the-game effects. I really like this dual approach.

Two DM-related concerns:

• I am very rusty at dressing up the environment which is crucial to a Supers game. More specifically I am rusty at doing it in a modern environment on the fly. Sure, I can describe things just fine, but then you have to have stats for them in case the brick decides to hit someone with a dumpster, or a light pole, or a bulldozer, etc. I ran this fight in an empty parking lot in the middle of the night, about as boring as it gets. I will claim "learning the rules" for now but it could have been much better. Drawing up a rough map automatically limits my thinking and I need to work around that next time.

• Having gathered a fair amount of M&M 2E material (even though I never ran it for any length of time) I was spoiled at the huge pile of NPC characters, vehicles, gear, animals, monsters, robots, etc. available with just a few books. This is one area where 3E falls down in comparison and I'm feeling it because I get a lot of mileage out of reskinning stock characters. There's stuff available online but I'd like to see more as it's a lot easier for me to stay flexible when I have a lot of widely varied resources to fall back on. Maybe once they finish up the DC stuff they can focus in on the more universal type of material.

Atomic City: The Animated Series - Gangbusters!

As our heroes await the results of various agencies and their attempts to track down the stolen SPARTAN suit, a call comes over the police band: "We have a bank robbery in progress and the robbers have superpowers. We have officers down and hostages inside the bank. ACPD requests any supers in the area please assist!." The three new heroes Wheels, Mento, and Soldier-X all arrive on the scene and are briefed on the situation, including the two officers who are trapped under their car near the entrance. The criminals are blasting anyone who comes near with flame, electrical, and ice blasts, stopping any rescue attempts.

Throwing caution to the wind, Mento decides he is tough enough to take the assailants on head-on, and Wheels agrees to back him up as does Soldier-X. They charge the main entrance to the bank and are met with the expected trio of energy blasts. Mento and Wheels shrug it off, but X is temporarily frozen by the ice blast, slowing him down. The Mighty Mental Hero tears through the three criminal defenders and the Handicapped Hero finishes them off as they tear off into the central lobby, followed shortly by X. They note in passing that all three of the perpetrators are members of the sluggers gang but instead of their characteristic baseball bats they are using large metal gauntlets that are the source of the various blasts - this old-school gang has suddenly gone hi-tech!

Roughly a dozen more gangers wait inside the bank, guarding hostages and piling up sacks of money, and roughly half of them have the new "power gauntlets". The team swings into action as the criminals open fire and bodies go flying everywhere - Soldier X uses his TK ability to throw opponents around, Wheels unloads with electrical blasts of his own, and Mento punches and kicks his way through the room. The gangers do manage to overload some of Wheels' systems with their electrical blasts, but he stays in the fight. Despite the Sluggers amped-up powers, the fight is one-sided and over in minutes.

As they assist with the cleanup, the police lieutenant on site tells the heroes that an undercover operation is underway across town and may reveal the source of the technology used in today's incident. He asks them to assist in case more powered types show up during that meet. They agree and are soon waiting near a police command post outside of a warehouse in another part of town.   

Listening in to a wireless mic worn by the undercover cop, they soon learn that the Scaglietti crime family, specifically Joe Scaglietti, is trying to broker a peaceful settlement and alliance between the Sluggers and the Hellions and offering the power gauntlets as the incentive. As the discussion unfolds there is a crashing sound and the new hero "Atomic Roach" orders everyone to drop their weapons and surrender. The sound of gunfire, bats, and energy blasts is heard as is the officer's request for intervention.

Once again our heroes make a frontal assault, charging the nearest warehouse door and smashing aside the thugs who guard it, regardless of their blasts. Bursting in, they see the Atomic Roach blasted into a storage rack that then collapses on top of him, burying the unfortunate hero.  Wheels blasts one group of Sluggers while Soldier-X begins force-tossing them into each other. Mento spots a man in a nice suit giving orders and wearing gauntlets and heads straight for him, only to discover the expensive suit is covering an armored exoskeleton, and that Joe Scaglietti can hit back! Mento duels with the mob scion while X and Wheels take down the other gangers. For a brief moment X manages to mind control Joe, causing him to blast one of his own minions, but Joe shakes it off and goes back to trading punches with Mento. Eventually the other gangers are down and Joe is backing towards an exit when Wheels hits him with an electric blast that staggers him back, leaving him open to a super-punch from Mento that takes him down for the count. As the police and SWAT team members take control of the building, the heroes attempt to find out the true source of the new weapons...


DM Notes: Our ICONS experience was stunted a bit by the holes in the Skeletron Key adventure I used as a starting point. Recently Adamant Entertainment released a new adventure, "Gangbusters", which looked a lot more like something we would like. I bought it, downloaded it from RPGNow, and ran it. It is a much better adventure, mechanically, and it also fits better with my players' experience as fighting various superpowered gangs is a common early mission type in City of Heroes, which colors some of their super-expectations. I like that it opens with stopping a crime in progress then throws some plot into the mix. These first two chapters went very well and I am quite happy with things so far.

ICONS Friday Special - Adamantium Man!

It's been pretty a supers-intensive week on the blog here so I thought I would close things out right - with a new character for ICONS:

ADAMANTIUM MAN!

Theme Music, to the tune of the Fox NFL Sunday Theme 

Ad-a-man-ti-um Maaaaaaan!
Ad-a-man-ti-um Maaaaaaan!
Ad a man ti um Maaaa-aaaaan!

Ad-a-man ad-a-man ad-a-mantium
Ad-a-man ad-a-man ad-a-mantium

Ad a man ti um Maaaa-aaaaan !

(I always thought it was odd that the "strongest metal in the universe" was used for weapons and skeletal enhancement but never for a straight-up brick. So I decided to fix that oversight.)

The hero now known as Adamantium Man began life in a small Nebraska farming town. Matthew Thorsen was the middle son out of the three boys and the daughter born to the Thorsens in the late 20th century. Raised on the family farm he had a normal country upbringing and grew into a strapping young man. As a teenager he did the expected things in high school like playing football and working on the family farm. It was a good life and the next big thing on the horizon for Matt was a decision on college.

There weren't many superheroes in Nebraska - most of that stuff was confined to the east and west coasts* - so he never really thought about good and evil and worldwide dangers. When he was 16 though, things changed - at a post-game party on a Friday night in the fall there was some drinking and when Matt and his girlfriend staggered over to his beat-up red F-150 he was feeling it but thought he would be OK. He was not entirely correct.

Headed home down a road he had driven many, many times, Matt came around a curve towards the old bridge and swerved when he saw a cow in the road - the Higgins family was bad about keeping that stupid gate closed - he slid off the road, down an  embankment and into the creek as his girlfriend Lacey screamed in terror.

As the truck headed for a rough water landing Matt felt a change come over him - suddenly he was stone cold sober, and time seemed to slow as he felt a surge push through him and the steering wheel crumpled in his hands. He threw his left arm straight out against the dashboard and his right shot out in front of Lacey, bracing her against the crash. As the truck slammed into the opposite bank the hood crumpled and the airbag burst around his arm, but Matt remained rock solid, holding the dash back and keeping Lacey protected. Feeling as though he was watching someone else, Matt pushed open the door, splashed out into the creek, and pulled the truck up onto the road. As he came around to the passenger side, he realized his girlfriend was staring at him wide-eyed. He assumed it was shock from the crash, but she managed to get out "you look different" before locking up again.

Looking down Matt realized that he had changed - his skin was now a dull gray color and hard - hard like metal. he had been pretty strong for a while now but moving the truck was like picking up a chair, it took barely any effort at all. Something had changed and he wasn't sure it was good. That's when Lacey came around the battered truck and kissed him and suddenly things went back to normal. He collapsed to his knees, shaking, but flooded with relief as his skin went back to its normal look and feel.

Pa didn't ask him too many questions, and they decided not to bring it up with the Sheriff as no one had been injured. He spent the fall fixing the truck back up and riding to school with Lacey. He also practiced changing into his "metal man" form and gradually learned to control it, enabling him to continue his football career without revealing his secret. Lacey was the only other one who knew his secret and it brought them even closer together. Not wanting to disrupt his life, he never used his ability again - he just practiced, "just in case."

Eventually high school was finished and it was time to head for college. Lacey was staying close to home but Matt won a scholarship to Atomic City University.**  Promising each other it would only be for a few years and that they would see each other on holidays the two split up and moved to the next stage of their lives. Matt moved west, went to class, got a job at the farmer's market, and moved into an apartment on campus, all while playing football for ACU.   

The city was different than his home, and there were some things to get used to, but one thing that bothered him was that there were several heroes with powerful abilities running around town fighting crime and helping people. They kept their identities secret, but they still found ways to help out. Matt was very concerned about endangering his family, but if he could figure out a way to protect them and still contribute, then maybe it was time he used his ability to do something. Between classes one day Matt heard some theater students carrying on in some outrageous accents and realized that might be the key - his build, his haircut, and his Nebraska manner of speaking might all give him away but if he dressed in an outlandish costume (as many of these heroes seemed to do), stayed in his metal form when in public, and used a different accent, then it should be enough to conceal his identity!

The next day, a new hero went into action. Donning a red costume he made himself and using a vaguely Russian/Eastern European accent that he had been practicing night and day (though not around his friends) he walked into a street where Ogre was raising a ruckus, caught the bus that was thrown his way, and then proceeded to beat the incredibly strong villain into the ground. Ogre's henchmen opened up on him with various firearms, of course, and as the bullets and super-strong punches bounced off one local reporter commented "wow it's like he's made of adamantium" and the hero was truly born - Adamantium Man! 

Following his debut Matt continues to go to class, play football, and fight the good fight in between. He is not part of any organized team or group, though he has teamed up with a few other local heroes on occasion and he always welcomes the chance to work with a more experienced partner. His theme music came about when he saved a local radio personality and in gratitude a YouTube video was born that was very popular. After his original costume was trashed Doctor Science was kind enough to provide him with a new one made of the same super-material many of the city's heroes use. He is very careful to use his accent when "on the job" and he keeps a gym bag stashed somewhere so that he can change into his normal self before heading home, hoping to throw off any pursuit. When interviewed he is vague about his origins, just stating that "he came here to make the best use of his abilities" and keeping it short. He's not sure what he's going to do when he finishes school, but that's a ways in the future - for now Atomic City is his home and he's going to do what he can to help out.

* As his Pa once said - "not sure why that is but it's alright because they sure seem to need the help."

** Or to the local university wherever your campaign is played 

Adamantium Man for ICONS: 

• Prowess: 4 (Good) He is not a trained fighter, just a kid who's been in some scraps and plays football
• Coordination: 4 (Good) He is a college athlete but he does not have super-human reflexes
• Strength: 8 (Amazing) This is one of his two signature powers - he is immensely strong, possibly the strongest being in the city...for now
• Intellect: 4 (Good) He's a sharp kid and a good student
• Awareness: 4 (Good) He's young and an athlete and somewhat nervous about becoming a local hero. He stays on his toes.
• Willpower: 5 (Excellent) He's been through a few things and does not give in easily, staying true to his roots.

Stamina: 13
Determination: 2

Origin: Birthright (1 extra power)

Specialties: Athletics, Farming

Powers:

• Invulnerability - 8 - He turns into the strongest metal in the universe 
• Leaping - 5 - His super strength lets him jump quite a long ways 
• Life Support - 5 - In metal form he is protected from some effects: Cold, Heat, Pressure, Radiation, Vaccuum and yes, he still has to breathe.

Qualities:
"Farmboy in the City": Matt is Not From Here and doesn't know the city like the back of his hand. He also doesn't always get what people mean either due to language, accents, or just not growing up in the city.

Code Against Killing: he's fine with administering a beatdown to someone who is asking for it, but he is not going to kill someone - that's for the law to decide.

Challenges:
Connections: Family Back Home, Girlfriend Back Home, Coach & Team Mates Here

Secret: Identity as Matt Thorsen, college student and football player, covered by a costume and a fake accent


Brand New Hero: Adamantium Man is very new at this and has no mentor to teach him. He doesn't know who the major villains are or what kind of powers they have and he doesn't know much about his fellow heroes either. He might get into a mix-up and end up fighting a fellow hero or he might insult a villain just be being ignorant of his grandiose plans and history. He doesn't know much about courts, laws, police procedures, or following clues either. Imagine someone picking up an Avengers or Justice League comic for the first time and trying to figure out who is what, powers, continuity, locations, etc. He's living that.

In human form his strength drops to Excellent (5) and he loses his powers. I could have worked this out as an alter-ego but it's really not a different person, juts a shift into super-form, kind of like changing costumes or suiting up for a battlesuit hero. It could also have been handled as Density Increase, but that kills his Agility and I didn't want that.

He works out to 49 points, which is close to the recommended value. He is not a complicated character at all in play, but he is easily dropped in for a new player to use or for someone who forgot their sheet, or as an NPC ally. His background gives him a few quirks and the accent thing could be fun as could the New Hero aspect. That much background (up above) does violate my usual policy of "give me a paragraph at most" but super characters tend to need more of that kind of thing and I always like to know the origin story of an NPC - it might come in handy to tie them closer to a PC or something in the world.


Yes, he started out as an homage character (I have more than a few) but then he took on a life of his own as I began working on background ... "sure, he has a Russian accent - but what if he's not Russian?" Letting your brain wander off down these rabbit trails can turn up a lot of bad ideas but sometimes they end up making sense. "Nebraska Farm Boy" is not the most exciting background but I think it's pretty solid and whether as a PC or an NPC his attitude might range from "Gosh what's that" to "I don't care if it's from another planet or dimension or whatever, when I hit it, it's going down". Let your PC's have the exotic backgrounds and let him represent the more grounded hero.

ICONS: The First Run

So I sat down a few nights ago with Apprentices Red, Blaster, and Who for our first run with ICONS. They were all three pretty excited, especially when I just had them sit around the living room - no table, no battlemat, no mini's (clearly this is the game I should have given them instead), just a character sheet, a pencil, a red die, and a green die. Ironically I was working off The Precious because I don't have a print copy of the game, only my PDF. I  never use a laptop when running my games, and we always play around a table, so this was a new experience for us all. Add in that whole thing with ICONS where the DM never rolls dice and it was a very different feel than my typical D&D sessions.

The Characters - roll-up recap is here but we still had to define Qualities and Challenges and talk about Determination so there was some character building this session too.

Stephen Charles, aka "Wheels", aka "The Handiucapped Hero" was Apprentice Red's character. He is a wheelchair-bound scientist with Feeble physical attributes and strong mental attributes who can transform (alter-ego) into an armored (impervious) hoverchair form with a cyberlinked computer (higher Int, lower Will, Mind Shield) that allows hiim to project and control electrical energy. Think of a cross between Stephen Hawking, Professor X, and a Transformer and you have a pretty good grasp of it. That's also where the name came from.

Right from the start Red had the most solid concept - terrible physical stats and great mental stats and a little prodding from me led him to a really well-defined hero. Alter-Ego is the kind of thing I hate during character creation - I'm having 5 peopel roll up characters and now one of them is supposed to roll up another one?! - but it worked out very well here. He doesn't have a really flashy hero name yet, but he went with Epither - "The Handicapped Hero" so he's off to a good start. We'll call him "The Professor".

"Menton" is Apprentice Blaster's character and has ridiculous stats, with at least a 5 in everything. His awesome rolls almost had Red tossing his character and starting over but fortunately we worked past that. His main powers are Transmutation, Illusion, Mind Control, and Invulnerability. He has enhanced hearing too at a +1. He's just an all-around badace with decent Prowess and Strength up close, Impervious for defense, and if he doesn't like how the fight's going he will turn your armor to goo! The openness of Transmutation could get to be a problem since he's not limited to a particular material or type of object - his only limitation is that it only lasts 10 rounds. Oh, and it's ranged, not  touch-only. It could also be a problem because it requires serious real-time arbitration of physics and chemistry problems like you wouldn't believe:

"OK I turn his gun to rubber - what happens?"

DM more awesome than me: (Something really cool)


DM Physics/Chemistry Dual Major: "Wel you transmuted the gun but not the bullets or powder so they might still go off but if the hammer is rubber that's very unlikely still there could be some kind of spontaeous reaction...roll d1000 and tell me if you roll a 1. I have a chart.

DM Blacksteel during the first run: "Uh, it stops working"

DM Blacksteel during the second run, deciding that these lazy players can start contributing some of this !$#$$#% themselves: "You tell me"

Anyway that name is not set in stone. He choose some decent Q's & C's and I expect a trip to the COH costume designer will have a look nailed down in short order. He's a mutant (Birthright origin) too, so I may get to play with my long-stored-never-used mutant hunter stuff. He grew up on the streets and lives undergound and is a little bit known as a fighter for mutant rights. We'll call him "Mutant Man" for now.

"?" is Apprentice Who's character and he's a normal human (Trained Origin) who has serious skills and decent abilities (Prowess 7 to start with) but only two powers: Telekinesis and Mind Control which because of his origin have to come from devices. Of course I told him about The Shadow to give him a hook or a starting point. He eventually decided that he would like to wear a helmet and that's where his powers come from. We haven't spent a lot of time on costume design but it probably has a lot of antennas and stuff coming out of it and I suspect there's another COH costume design session waiting for this one too. He is in the military (underwater fighting specialty = Navy Seal) but we're not sure just yet where the helmet came from. His TK is pretty good at 6 and his Mind Contorl is not as strong but could still be useful for getting in and out of places. Also, in the end since Who didn't take it Blaster decided that he wanted his guy to look like the Shadow, so as I said - things are fluid at the start. We'll call this one "Mystery Soldier" for now.

The adventure I chose to run was published ICONS adventure "The Skeletron Key" which I picked up right after getting the game itself and which I really liked upon reading.  Part of is that I like the style and look of the thing, part of it is that it seemed pretty complete, and part of it is that the opening is an homage to the first few episodes of theSuperman animated series which I really liked. Alas, Reading and Playing are two very different things, whether you are referring to D&D 4E, women, or this adventure.

The setup is simple enough - a new military project is to be demonstrated and the characters are invited, somehow. We decided that the Professor worked for Avatar Industries and had helped in some peropheal way on the project. Mystery Soldier being in the military might have helped test it. Mutant Man heard about it, was afaraid it was some anti-mutant Sentinels type thing and psychic-papered his way in using his Illusion and Mind Control. Easy!

I described the scene as the amazing new battlesuit was put through its paces and then suddenly goes berserk and then it gets a little complicated. The heroes reacted properly, running out of the observation bunker, looking for places to change/transform, and then engaging the thing head-on, but ...

The suit is still just a suit, using the pilot's stats for a lot of things and really just adding some toughness, strength, and some weapons. The way it's presented (suit stats then pilot stats)  is confusing to a new DM and the giant picture of it on the opposite page where it looks like a giant robot doesn't help. The pilot is an average guy with a lot of 3"'s so I had to keep looking between two different statblocks to figure out the numbers. This leads to some "Uh's" as the DM tries to see that the machineguns (listed on the suit) would hit with the pilot's Coordination (listed on the pilot) but do damage based on the gun (listed on the suit). Same with getting hit -pilot's Coordination to dodge, suit's Impervious to absorb, then pilot's Stamina for damage. Or should the suit raise his Stamina? Not sure. Pretty sure a player would see that a certain way if he was wearing a similar suit and had a better Strength from it.  I didn't try to figure it out there, I just went with the pilot's normal Stamina. Because the really conusing part is that the pilot isn't controlling the suit anyway, it's been taken over and he's trying to shut it down, so would knocking out the pilot even matter? If not, how do I know when the suit itself has taken damage sufficient to stop it?

Mechanical questions aside, the Professor has moved out, transformed, and electrical blasted it, Mystery Soldier is trying to force push it, and Mutant Man has turned one of its guns to rubber and charged it.

After a round (page) or two of this everyone hears the sound of aircraft coming in. Two of them move to scatter the crowd while the third moves toward the suit. The Professor hesitates at first because he thinks they might be friendlies coming to help take down the suit. Mystery Soldier reaches out with his TK and rips the engine off of one, causing it to spiral down but he also decided to "hero up" and use his TK to catch it before it crashes - he's not strong enough to lift it but he can cushion the crash landing.  Mutant Man continues to beat on the suit, attempting to weaken its structure with various transformations so that he can punch through into its internal systems.  One of the craft fires inferno missiles and sets the bunker on fire, endangering the crowd, so the Professor lets his target go to help save people and earns Determination for doing so. As the suit moves off, pursued by Mutant Man, the third craft drops a cable and lifts the suit off of the ground - Mutant Man promptly tries to melt it but can't focus enough to break it, though he does weaken it. In the end, the crowd is safe, one plane flies off with the suit, but two others are on the ground with pilots waiting to be interrogated.

This fight revealed a few more holes:

1) The aircraft have something called "Structure" - I can't find it in the book. Is it the vehicular version of Stamina? Or is it more like Impervious? Because "5" is very low for Stamina, especially with no other defense. What is a vehicle's defense - is it the pilot's coordination? Does the plane add anything to that? There just really aren't any vehicle rules in ICONS so it's a lttle confusing.

2) How long should this last? There's some guidance in the adventure but not much. Those aircraft seem pretty fragile and ranged attack powers are not uncommmon. I gave my PC's a round of long range, a round of shorter range, then a round of "they're right there", then a a round of running away with the prize. I lost two of the craft by round 3! Imagine if I had had more PC's! It seems incredibly unfair to cut it down to one or two rounds but maybe that's the intent.

3) The suit has to get away to set up the next scene. I never like railroady one-way-to-solve-it type scenarios. There are no notes about how to work around it if your players actually stop the theft. This is just questionable design. I know it's an homage but if we're supposed to play it and not just read it then some things have to give.

So how would I fix it? I'm glad you asked!

1) The simplest change is to put the mercenary leader NPC in the suit to start with - he infiltrated and knocked out the test pilot and then replaced him. He plays along with the demonstration until he gets a coded signal from the aircraft to help him get away. This fixes up some of the statblock issues and removes some of the weirder issues noted above.

2) Add more aircraft, maybe as many as 2 per PC or more. Even if the plan is to airlift the suit out, if there are enough of them to keep the heroes busy by threateneing spectators and blowing stuff up then the suit can get away by itself.

3) Drop the aircraft altogether and make it 3 suits. All of the test pilots get knocked out and replaced and the stealing of the suits begins right away. With less time and more targets for the PC"s to stop, at least one of them should be able to get away, neccessitating the search  and discovery described in the next chapter.

Despite my issues this isn't a bad adventure idea, it's just too railroady here at the start. As we dig deeper in we will see if it sorts out. Regardless we all had a lot of fun and that is the point of this thing we do.

Y is for- scratch that - Z is for: Baron Zero

It's a weird thing - I don't have a "Y" character. I do have an extra "Z" though so I will be doing a Z today to make up for it and a Z tomorrow in the usual place

Baron Zero is an original villain for my upcoming Atomic City superhero campaign. In the campaign he will be encountered during the investigation of an alarm at the Atomic City History Museum. As the team investigates they will discover signs of a break in, a shattered block of ice, and the frozen bodies of two would-be thieves. Searching further they will encounter the baron in the medieval history section, slowly discovering just how long he has been in slumber. He has no desire to attack the PC's but he is a medieval lord and accustomed to being obeyed, so any strong words or (god forbid) attacks by the heroes will result in a fight. If he is defeated the PC's will be able to convince him to talk and tell his story. If he wins he will leave them alive and move off into the city to figure out his next course of action.

The next time they encounter him he will be trying to melt the polar ice caps to take revenge on his age-old enemy but that's another story...

Baron Zero was the eldest son of a Saxon baron in England around 1000 AD. Plagued by an invasion of ice creatures during a particularly nasty winter, his father led an expedition to the Arctic (including Zero's next-oldest brother) and left Zero in charge. They never returned so Zero consulted with seers and sages, had magical insulating armor forged for himself, and led another expedition to the north. There he encountered an elemental being known as Lord Winter who was responsible for the attacks. Zero and his army fought well against the creatures (already thinned by his father's effort) but the final attack against Lord Winter was the end. The entity froze the entire army, though this did seal him off from the world for centuries. Zero, clad in his magical armor, was frozen in a state of hibernation and dreamed for centuries as well.

One thousand years later an expedition from Atomic City University found him perfectly preserved in the Arctic ice. They cut out a block containing him, loaded it on a ship, and brought him home. In the museum, a pair of low criminals robbing the museum spied the rich gear inside the ice and attempted to melt him out. This effort awakened him and he discovered that he had new powers of cold and frost in addition to his usual handiness with a sword. Dispatching the thieves, he realized he was in a very strange place and he somehow knew that a great deal of time had passed. Wandering about he found that he was in the perfect place to learn more about what he had missed, and this is when our heroes will meet him for the first time.

This is the last thing those thieves will ever see...

I knew I wanted a somewhat unusual opponent for an early part of the campaign and Baron Zero is the result. I'm fine with a clear demarcation of black and white in my super campaigns but I like to work in a character or two who can cross that line without being contradictory. In this situation Zero is confused but not stupid and is more interested in figuring out where and when he is. What the players do upon meeting him will determine a lot of how he acts and how he is perceived - will he be the "tragic figure out of time that we tried to help" or will he be "that tough frost guy who beat us pretty badly"? We will just have to see.

I also had an idea for a scenario from an early issue of Captain America about trying to melt the icecaps which I thought was pretty cool and ties in nicely with some issues today. I needed a bad guy with the right motivation to believably try to do that and that drove some of his background too. As soon as Zero's mind stabilizes he's going to start looking for revenge on Lord Winter and he's going to find it in a very high tech way, probably by being assisted/misled by a criminal organization who offers to "help" him achieve his goal.

A final consideration was that I always liked the tragic misguided element of Mr. Freeze in the Animated Batman series and I wanted to draw a touch of that into the game as well. Plus that awesome voice by Michael Ansara - that's how I want him to sound, as close as I can get to it anyway.

Once I found the pictures in this entry  it was a done deal - this is exactly how I envisioned him. Take a look at the picture above and imagine him lifting one of the hapless thieves up off of the ground by the throat and saying in that voice "You have no comprehension of the pain I have suffered" as the crook slowly frosts over from the icy grip and aura of the Baron. Imagine waking up after 1000 years in an icy tomb to find some base thug trying to pry the sword from your hand and imagine the cold rage surging through icy veins as instinct and reflexes take over.

I wrote him up for Mutants and Masterminds (3rd edition) so here is his sheet:

His abilities are pretty close to human, enhanced by his long entombment and magical effects. I have not tried to include every possible ice or cold power I could think of, just a few attacks that seemed to fit and some useful skills and advantages and defenses. The way I see it he just discovered that he has these powers (kind of like me as his creator being new to the game) and as tie goes on he will refine them and discover new abilities (as I get better with running him and get more experienced with the rules). Right now he can strike with his sword, freeze someone in place with his touch, and fire off a blast of cold, all while being resistant to cold, painfully cold to touch, and tough to harm in general. I don't see him as an Iceman clone, but I could see him gaining some control over Ice and Snow and over the frozen winds of the north, giving him some move object, element control, and some area attacks down the road. I would also like most of his powers to include a continuing damage and a movement-reducing trapping element but right now that's a little more than I am prepared to try and construct. The above set works just fine for a just-out-of-the-ice Baron Zero.

He probably won't show up in the first session of the campaign but the museum alarm will sound in one of the first few sessions and then he will be off and running, striding through Atomic City as the winds howl around him and his burning need for revenge leads him into a new age.

Atomic City - The 1950's

Atomic City was incorporated in 1949, bringing together the docks, the living areas for the workers, and the area around the main roads linking them to the government facility. With the war over, the postwar drop had slowed the economy, but by '49 things were starting to move again and the incorporation set the stage for massive growth and expansion.

The major features of Atomic City at the start of the decade are the port and the reactor and some would say the air force base nearby. There are no monuments, no amusement parks, no shopping malls, no museums. Between the two major centers of activity all that a visitor would see are homes and small businesses serving those homes. The population is about 50,000 people, about a third of whom arrived during the war.

In 1951 Atomic City University is founded. This is the first local institution of higher learning and though it starts small it grows very quickly as it is linked to the facility that gives the city its name.

Giovanni "Johnny" Sorvino came to the city from back east in the 1940's. Originally born and raised in Italy he came to America and fell in with the New York families.  Following a disagreement with his boss he came west, started working on the docks and then started his own family business. By the early 50's he had complete control of the city's criminal underworld, small though it was at the time. Because of this he is a regular target of the city's early heroes, though he manages to outlive most of them. loosely connected to the Sorvinos are the local gangs including the Pharoahs and the Jets.

The local newspaper, The Beacon, began in the late 19th century when the local area was a rural backwater. Run as a family business, it was comfortable and familiar but many of the new arrivals saw it as decidedly small-town.  As the docks ramped up and more and more workers arrived and The Eagle was founded in  1946 by a returning veteran with a more activist and cosmopolitan outlook and competition soon took off with most of the older families favoring the more conservative Beacon while newer citizens and the students of the university favored the Eagle. Throughout the decade the papers dueled for exclusives and scoops in a stiff if cordial rivalry.

Television also came to the city in the 50's with Channel's 2, 5, and 7. Late in the decade a local public broadcasting channel also came about, largely run by and based at the University.

Radio was already well-represented in the area but really took off in the 50's with no fewer than 8 different stations in operation. Competition was fierce and some of them were allied with a TV station or a newspaper as the decade came to a close.

The Joyland amusement park opened in 1954. It quickly became a major local tourist attraction and an occasional battleground between heroes and villains as well. recreational options besides this included swimming pools, skating rinks, and drive-in movie theaters.

This is also the decade when the core of downtown was built - City Hall, Police Headquarters, the Central Fire Station, and many of the storefronts on Atomic Way date from this time. Much of the central city's infrastructure was built at this time too - roadways, sewers, power lines, rail lines, and water towers. Most of the major parks were laid out at this time too. Burns Field is also constructed, the city's first commercial airport.

Along with this development an electric trolley system is built that runs from downtown to the university and the facility, including many middle class neighborhoods. Plans are made to extend the line to the dock area but this line is never completed, leading to some resentment and bad feelings from that neighborhood. This does not appear to be serious at this time but it does plant some seeds that will come up down the road.

Major businesses that set up shop during the 50's include General Products, Axis Chemicals, and National Calculating Machines. Great Western Aircraft built an engine plant in the city to produce jet engines and was the largest single employer by 1957.

By the end of the decade Atomic City is a "working" city known mainly for advanced thinking and research and some advanced industries. The population is now 100,000, about 1/3 pre-war local families and 2/3 recent imports, making the 50's a time of major cultural change. It is often tagged nationally as "The CIty of Tomorrow" which is eventually adopted as the city's motto and painted on the sides of police cars and the downtown trolley cars. It is not a tourist destination nor is it a very large city, but it is well known and regarded as a blueprint for the future.

Atomic City: The Animated Series

I'm reading through Icons, a new rules-light supers game that came out last year and I really like it. I briefly considered using it for my initial run with Atomic City instead of M&M. I've decided against that for now but it is very cool.

Tone-wise it really isn't much different than the silver age concept I had already, and the art is great. setting the mood perfectly. That's not really the problem.

Mechanics-wise it's not terribly complicated though it does have some interesting wrinkles.I'm just not sure it has enough crunch to keep me interested long term for a planned campaign - I like some crunch in my ongoing games. The designer makes a point of using it for pick-up games and I think that's where it's going to come in.

One of the interesting approaches in the game is that the DM never makes a roll - only the players roll dice. Hitting the bad guy? Player rolls to attack. Bad Guy attacking the player character? Player rolls to dodge. Not having played it I can't say for sure but I'm betting this has an interesting effect in play. It sort of changes the point of view to a more character-centric one rather than a neutral overview. Rather than "Batman swings at the Joker then the Joker swings at Batman, now Batman swings again" it's "Batman swings at the Joker, then dodges the return blow, then pummels him again!". I think it's a subtle difference but it could change the flavor during play and in telling the story afterwards. I'm not anxious for D&D to do this but in this kind of game, especially if you run it solo, it could be very genre-appropriate. Others could benefit from it too - I wonder if a Star Trek game run this way would feel just a tad bit cooler?

I'm probably going to let the Apprentices play with it a little bit and see what they think. It might turn into some kind of side campaign as "The Animated Series" but I'm not sure when I would have time to fit it in with any regularity - I'll have enough trouble doing that now with the campaigns I'm already running. Even if I don't though, it's near the front of the bag of tricks. Going back to pick-up games and one-offs, I think it could be a fun way to flesh out some other Atomic City stories without derailing the main campaign. I like the idea of a big city with multiple supers in it and multiple storylines happening simultaneously and now I see a way to do it.

For those interested there is a good review here

The main site is here though there isn't a ton about the game there. Read about the App pricing model - it's a great concept and I look forward to seeing how it does for them. It works great for me, but that may not be so great for the company.

Atomic City Stories - a 12-Issue Limited Series

Work continues on the campaign and I thought I would share a few ideas.

Structure - I'm thinking about writing up this first round as a "12 Issue Limited Series", deciding what the main plotline or big events will be for each one and planning to keep each issue to one session. I haven't seriously tried this before but since our sessions tend to be on an irregular schedule I think it's worth considering.

Villains: I want to keep it to a small number of regular bad guys for this first round along with a small number of opposing organizations. So far I have:


Supervillains:

• Baron Zero - a medieval lord who was frozen in the Arctic for 1000 years after a disastrous expedition. He will thaw out in Atomic City with powers of ice and cold and become a recurring threat. He has a more complicated back story than this and he is one of those villains with a specific agenda that happens to break some laws or threaten innocents as a side effect rather than just being generally evil. A new villain, the PC's will be called in for his first appearance so he will grow along with them. He will have some magical overtones.
  
  
• Doctor Jurassic - a genetic researcher attempting to study the DNA of creatures from millions ago. A disastrous accident will lead to a swarm of Velociraptors running amok and seeing his accidental creations harmed will drive him over the edge leading him to become a recurring villain who always seems to have some dinosaur-themed scheme in play. He will also be making his first appearance during the campaign so the players will have some influence over his development. He will represent the "science gone amok" type villain.
  
  
• Mechanon - a killer robot originally created by superheroes as a guardian and butler for their base. Something happened and he went insane and began trying to wipe out human life instead of serving drinks to capes. His origin will happen before the campaign and he will be a somewhat famous menace already so that when he shows up the police commissioner can say things like "It could be  the work of the villainous robot Mechanon!". Unlike the first two Mechanon is an old published Champions villain who has evolved quite a bit over the years. I'm going to start with his old look from the 80's version so that when he is eventually destroyed he can come back in the more spectacular 90's version and so on. He will represent the "technology gone wrong/man's creation turned against him" type of villain. Plus he's a good source for Giant Killer Robots.

Organizations:

• The Black Hand Ninjas - these will be a recently-arrived threat that is determined to carve out a place for themselves. Ninjas are pretty much required in a supers game sooner or later (especially when your players have seen all of the Ninja Turtle movies and cartoons) so I'm getting them in early.  They will mostly be concerned with attacking the other organizations but if the superheroes get in their way they will take them on.
  
• The Sorvino Crime Family - this is the other staple of superhero stories, the traditional mafia-style organization. The Sorvinos have been running things in Atomic City since the 50's (when the city sprung up) and they are not interested in sharing. They will have their ups and downs over the decades but their big challenge as the game begins is the new import from Japan mentioned above.
  
• Viper - yes the traditional bad guy organization of Champions will be lurking in Atomic City too. Considering I have over 500 pages of material on them I just can't ignore the boys in green. Plus it's pretty easy to bolt-on any wild idea that pops into my head, moreso than the Ninjas or the Mafia groups. They can cover the AIM/Hydra/Cobra role in the campaign world.

 On the friendly side the main allies will be the Atomic City Police Department. There will be no local superteams (creating an obvious void) only some local lone-wolf types. I'm thinking of making the main one The Catman. I know there's one in the DC Universe but he's a fairly minor player and this would be my Batman ripoff/homage who's the longtime hero of the city who has seen everything and fought everyone. Plus personality wise I see him as a lot more like the 60's Batman than the brooding avenger of the last 25 years. It gives the PC's a potential rival, source of information, limited ally, and makes the city seem a little more alive if there's another hero out there working too.

My thinking is something like this:

Issue 1 - Doctor Jurassic! The heroes gather to stop a disturbance in a local park and are attacked by Velociraptors! Through some detective work or police contacts or the power of Science! they track the creatures back to a corporation and to one scientist in particular. He claims no knowledge but by watching him/mindreading they track him to a secret warehouse laboratory where he is breeding dinosaurs from recreated DNA. A big fight ensues and in the end the dinos go to a special zoo, the scientist has a mental breakdown, and the lab burns to the ground.

Issue 2 - Baron Zero! A disturbance at the Atomic City Museum of History leads the heroes to a melting block of ice and some frozen researchers. Looking around they are attacked by a cold-blasting armored figure who rants at them with archaic language until he is subdued and they learn his backstory. They can then decide whether to turn him over to police or let him go or exactly how they want to handle him. It's possible another villain (or villain group that likes to wear green) shows up and recruits him by promising to aid in his revenge.

Issue 3 - Ninja Attack! The heroes intervene in a simple mugging and fall into an ambush as one of the leaders of the newly-arrived Black Hands decides that the heroes are too much of a threat and attempt to eliminate them directly. Running fights and ambushes fall throughout this issue until the true leader of the clan arrives and puts a stop to it.

Issue 4 - Sky Pirates! The well known villain group attacks the Atomic City Airshow where a new type of engine is being demonstrated. They swoop in from the air and make off with the device, returning to their cloaked heli-carrier mothership unless the heroes stop them. Lots of air battles, a "dashing rogues" type enemy group, and a potential raid on a massive flying fortress.  

Issue 5 - Rampage! Dr. Jurassic escapes and injects himself with genetic material that turns him into a T-Rex - but he keeps growing. Soon he is rampaging through the city and must be stopped. Once restrained he will be subjected to an experimental treatment to try and control his growth.

Issue 6 - Strike Force! The Family, battered by ninja attacks on their business hire a group of low-rent supervillains to come in and take out  the Black Hands. As reports come in, sooner or later they cross paths with the heroes and violence ensues. The Sorvinos put the heroes on their "enemies list". This is a chance to use a lot of low-level villains from Champions and M&M lore - Black Claw, Blowtorch, Lazer, Utility, etc. It also could set up some rivalries or enmities for future sessions.

Issue 7 - The Return of Baron Zero! The new solar power satellite has been commandeered by Baron Zero! He has taken control from a secret command bunker and plans to redirect the satellite to the arctic, using it to melt the ice cap and take his revenge on Lord Winter, the being who froze him in  ice for 1000 years. The players must locate the bunker, break in, and stop the Baron before his fiendish plan can succeed. Note: this is a direct rip-off of an old Captain America storyline from Tales of Suspense back when he shared a book with Iron Man. It's an old one (it's older than I am) but I like it and think it's pretty cool and relevant today.

Issue 8 -Show me the Money!  Every bank in the city is robbed simultaneously by small heavily armed groups of men. When the heroes respond they discover that the robbers are actually robots and that there are many more of them than first realized. Even the Sorvinos and the Black Hands begin attacking the robots but there is much confusion as they look human, until the heroes create a "robot detector" to help them identify the imposters. it turns out it's a plot by Mechanon - this is a first run, and he plans to rob every bank in the country next, causing an economic collapse and turning the humans against one another, doing his work for him.

Issue 9 - Maximum Security! In response to the mass robberies, the Mayor announces that the city's police duties will be turned over to a private security organization. Suspicious, the PC's determine that the mayor is mind-controlled and once that control is broken the new security firm (and the power behind the mind control) is revealed to be Viper! A fight breaks out and Viper retreats.

Issue 10 -  Body Double! A famous media star disappears while in Atomic City, baffling handlers. The heroes are brought in to help and eventually discover that the Brain in a Jar (still working on a good name for him) is behind the kidnapping because it wants a new body - the star's! Negotiations may be lengthy or short but some kind of conflict will likely break out and a nice little fight in a warehouse or office building takes place. In the end the Brain swears revenge in a Dalek-like voice that it "just wanted to be pretty".

Issue 11 - Family Business! The head of the Sorvino family disappears and  one of his children asks the heroes for help, both to find her father and to avoid a civil war within the family. Obvious suspects include the ninjas and Viper but they are not behind the disappearance - instead, a new villain may be on the rise.

Issue 12 - Destructor! A giant robot attacks the city! The heroes, the police, other heroes, maybe even the ninjas join in to try and help stop the thing before it gets to the Atomic City Nuclear Plant which appears to be its main target. It's a big running fight with a chance for some rapid research, rescues, and unexpected team-ups. This is a good opportunity to let other people join in for a one-shot appearance. In the end, a message from Mechanon lets everyone one know who was behind it, but there is something different about him - he doesn;t look like the one the heroes just fought. So the season ends with a massive fight that leaves a bit of a mystery hanging for next volume.

That's the outline anyway. The main goal was to mix up a lot of superhero standards and try to work them all in  rather than having one long-running plot-line for a bunch of sessions. I think it's a pretty god mix and it should be fun to play and run.

Also, If anyone has a good name for a "brain in a jar" type supervillain I am open to suggestions.



 

Designing a Supers Campaign

So when I really started thinking about doing another supers campaign I decided I wanted to follow 3 basic rules:

1) Silver Age Characterization - Good guys are good, bad guys are bad, and there isn't a lot of crossover between the two. There may be a few honorable villains whose word can be trusted and they might even work with the heroes to defeat a common foe, but by and large there are white hats and there are black hats and not much gray in between. As a result, there will be no lethal attacks for heroes in this campaign - "lethal" = "bad guy" in this kind of world and is a deliberate choice. Heroes only kill under extreme circumstances, at a dramatically appropriate moment, and usually to save an innocent life. Then they go all angsty about it and may resign from the team for awhile or go off and consult with an oracle or a sage or a priest of some kind. I can work with that.

Some of you may look at that and think that it's too simplistic. To a point, you're right - it's a very simple approach almost akin to Basic D&D. But I want it that way for several reasons. First, this is our first supers game in a long time and I don't want a lot of complicated tortured backgrounds of reformed villains. Second, this one is mainly going to be played by teens and tweens and I don't want them going around slaughtering bad guys (we have D&D for that). Third, it will make for a nice contrast when we do play a more modern-age type campaign. Fourth, most of their super experience consists of the Batman/Superman/Justice League animated series and the Batman/Spiderman/X-Men/Iron Man live action movies. Those are pretty clear-cut on heroes vs. villains so that's their expectation. If I was running my 4th or 5th supers campaign this decade and playing with a bunch of 30+ fans then it would be a little different. This will make a nice base to expand from, however, and that's why I chose it.

2) Silver Age Science - Science is the superhero version of magic in this age. If you can come up with a scientific-sounding name for something then it's clearly something that's possible. In Fantasy games, "It's magic" can be used to explain almost anything. For Silver Age Supers darn near anything can be a ray or a field or a special kind of energy or some strange alloy and it's perfectly acceptable. As a corollary to this radiation causes damage and mutation (similar to Gamma World), not sickness and death. It's how half of the Marvel universe gets their powers and that's good enough for me.

This also lets me play around with the technology level of the setting without resorting to design sequence games like GURPS Vehicles or Fire Fusion and Steel from Traveller. If I need flying cars for an agency then they have flying cars. If I need all the cars in the city to run on electrical power (due to the cheap power available from the reactor) then I can. I can have the police carry blasters instead of guns and make traditional lethal attacks out of style.


3) Original Setting - I have at least 5 city settings for supers games - Millenium City, Vibora Bay, Hudson City, Freedom City, San Angelo, Bay City, Metropolis, Gotham City, and Marvel New York. (OK that's more than 5) and I have not run a lengthy campaign in any of them, but I find it's easier to remember details if I wrote them myself, rather than read them out of a book that someone else wrote. It may be counter-intuitive, but by making some broad notes in advance and some large-scale maps, I don't have to worry about contradicting what's in the book and I can make things work the way I want them. Plus, not having a rigid outline in place means that the details develop to fit the campaign, and not the other way around. This is especially important in a supers game where all kinds of crazy stuff can happen.

Thus was born "Atomic City" - I wanted something that sounded almost old-fashioned yet fit a supers campaign, particularly a Silver Age game. Atomic City is a city founded in northern California as part of a government research project during WW2 that incorporated in 1950 and slowly expanded to integrate the surrounding smaller communities in the region. As you might guess one reason for the name is that the first nuclear power plant was constructed here (unlike the real world) and the local nickname for the area became the official name when it incorporated, and the classic atom logo is still used by the city today.

There are other ways to do it - I have pretty good notes on my old "Miami 2000" Champions campaign from the 90's where I adapted a real city to fit my needs. That's a fun approach because you can use real-world maps then alter them as you see fit to make things interesting. I worked in everything from marine life parks to historical sites to the Everglades to Crockett and Tubbs in that game and it was a lot of fun.

I also have notes on my planned-but-never-run Gothic City campaign set in a city much like the Tim Burton Batman Gotham City - set in an unspecified time period with 50's looking cars alongside cell phones - I've always liked the mixed decade design look (Batman, Flash TV series, Dark Conspiracy RPG) and I may carry a little of that over to Atomic City  but I don't want it to be a "dark" setting. I just want a dash of retro-future here and there.

I do have a use for all of those other city settings though - there's really no reason some of them can't exist in the same world as Atomic City. Since AC is on the west coast, Freedom City fits just fine over on the east coast. If I put Millennium City on the great lakes and I put Vibora Bay on the Gulf Coast then I have a decent super-city on each coast. The one I plan to use the most right now will be the one that I detail, but if the heroes take a trip to one of the others, hey, I have a book that's crammed full of details right there waiting. If a second campaign starts up and I don't want it sharing the same airspace as AC then I have ready-made places ready to go too.

So that's the first take on the supers campaign. I'll put up at least one more post on the city as I see it and some plot outlines from the first 12 "issues" over the next week in between D&D updates.