Some additional thoughts on this new Marvel RPG (and 24: The RPG)

No, I haven't played it yet - Blaster's birthday stuff didn't really leave us with time or energy to try it out and he had a much-delayed project for school that had to be finished too. BUT - I've read through it again and listened to some actual play podcasts (thank you BAMF & Vigilance Press) and thought I would share some more pre-game thoughts.

First, I think that once the players and the "Watcher" have gotten familiar with the mechanics it pretty much accomplishes the goal of simulating superhero comic books. It's not a simulation, it's very narrative-driven, but realizing and accepting that from the outset makes it OK. If you want to have an arm-wrestling contest between Thing and Colossus, you're still going to want to use Champions or M&M or MSH or ICONS or pretty much any other supers system out there. If you can refocus your view on how a superhero game should run though, where it's less about raw numbers and more about the dramatic situation, then this could be a lot of fun too. Just as an example, Affiliations:

Mechanically the play of the game revolves around building dice pools from your Affiliations, Distinctions (Kind of like Qualities in ICONS), Powers, and Specialties (Skills).  Typically, you can take one die from each of those categories if you can relate it to the current situation/challenge/attack. Everyone has these three affiliations shown above, and you can always use one of those dice: Solo if you're the only character involved, Buddy if it's only you and one other hero, and Team if it's you and two or more heroes. Every character has a d6, d8, and d10 allocated between the three choices. Right away we have a mechanic that effectively communicates and demonstrates which heroes are better with a team and which are better on their own. I can't think of an easy way to do this in another system. Maybe some kind of limited skill level in Champions, but even that would be a little clunky. This is nicely integrated into the normal mechanical system, it's flavorful, and it's an at-a-glance way to show a major character trait.

Distinctions are similar to Qualities in ICONS in that they represent something that stands out about the character. Characters tend to be very different here - and it's not like there's a lack of material to draw from - but the mechanics are the same regardless: You can present it as an advantage of some kind and add a d8 to your pool, or you can present it as a disadvantage, add a lowly d4 to your pool, and take a Plot Point. Again, we have a simple, flavorful mechanic that gets a player thinking creatively and both makes sense and has a definite mechanical impact in play. It's very well done.

Plot points are the player control mechanic and can be used for a variety of things. It's good to have several of them available, and the ability to take a d4 Distinction in return for gaining one gives players a decent way to get more of them when needed instead of being completely dependent on the DM, er, Watcher.

Adding in Superpowers and Specialties a player will be able to throw 4 or 5 dice most of the time, from d4's to d12's. Plot points let players add and manipulate the dice in various ways, and dice can be given to another player as well. It's a pretty slick system all the way around, and I'm even starting to like the damage system after hearing it in play.

If you're on the wrong end of a massive attack, "Godlike Durability" is a good thing to have!

Damage, sorry, "Stress" can be Physical, Mental, or Emotional, and some powers lend themselves more to one than the other. A successful attack inflicts some kind of stress which is measured in dice, as in d4 Stress or a d10 Stress. A character can take up to a d12 in each kind of stress. If pushed beyond the d12 limit then it's lights out and may result in longer-term damage called Trauma. The truly interesting thing about Stress is that it doesn't impair your abilities - instead your opponent adds the relevant die type to his die pool when he does something that affects you. It seems counter-intuitive (for example, in Shadowrun as you take damage you take increasingly larger penalties to your own die rolls) but it does work. being punched in the face by Iron man and taking, say, a d10 Physical Stress means that the next guy to punch gets to add a d10 to his die pool, making it more likely that he will connect and do some damage. It's a little abstract, in a similar way to M&M's damage rolls, but it does seem to work.

Now not all is perfect. I wonder if there might not be a degree of sameness problem after multiple sessions, even playing different characters, because they all work the same way. Since every Power and Specialty are rated in d8's, d10's, or d12's there's not much of a range, just "Enhanced', "Superhuman", or "Godlike". I suspect a year from now we will know if this is a real problem when playing a long campaign - like Civil War - or if the subtler differences between powers and characters will come out and shine in longer campaign play. Right now I can't tell but it's something to watch for.

Also, it's mapless and miniature-less (kind of going against the grain there, I know) so there's really no obvious separation of roles in the group - range doesn't really matter, so the common HTH/Ranged distinction between characters is much fainter. The Brick can't really move in and soak up the attention of the bad guys the way they can in say Champions or M&M. There's no "cover".  There's no movement rate in yards or hexes or miles per hour. All of the tactical stuff we're used to from other games goes out the window for the most part and a lot of us really like that part of these games.

Another small concern - not much on vehicles. I know it's not a big deal, but it could be for some characters. I'd like to know how to resolve what happens if someone shoots a missile at a quinjet. It can be simple, I'd just like to see some specific mechanics for it.

Finally, despite the inside-out approach to mechanics and the narrative thing I can't help but like it. It's not going to replace D&D as the main game, and I don't think it will replace ICONS & M&M and the rest but I think it has a place. It is going to depend a lot on published adventures and the plan is to base those on big Marvel Crossover events like Civil War and Annihilation and I think that's a really cool approach. It also gives me a reason to go back and read some of the original comics.  I'm really looking forward to the "Events" and I'm pretty sure we will be playing through them. I also have a strong urge to take a stab at converting some of the old MSH adventures - if I do I will publish them here - as I think those might be a lot of fun to experience via different mechanics and a different approach.

Finally finally: If any system was ever made to play "24: The Role Playing Game subtitle: The Adventures of Jack Bauer and the Counter-Terrorist Unit" this is it. The affiliations (Jack is Solo d10, Buddy d8, Team d6), Distinctions, and Specialties all work well to define characters on the show. The mechanics for assets that you can give to another character would perfectly support the whole "I'm sending the schematics to your smartphone" thing we see every other episode, and Opportunities and Plot Points work to explain some of the amazing (or ridiculous) plot changes and complications that we see over the course of a season. I think you could easily make a campaign outline based on each season. It would be a lot of work, and probably best done by someone with a license (hint hint) but it could be a lot of fun. Even using some kind of random plot twist generator could be a lot of fun. This system could handle it quite well with only minimal tweaks - and a fair amount of research for the actual adventure.

I've skipped over a ton of mechanics here but I want to wait until after I have played to cover more on the mechanics. Plus, these are the high points that have struck me so far. I'm sure more will come.

Mutants and Masterminds Power Profiles

Green Ronin has a cool thing going on now: "Power Profiles" - they look like this:

They're 5 page PDF's and they're 99 cents each. The one above covers fire powers, and they've done Power Armor, Mental Powers, Summoning, Weather Powers, and Tech Powers so far.

I think it's a genius idea.

The expert player may not need them, but they are very handy for the DM who may want to pull something coherent together on the fly. They also look very handy for new players who have a concept but don't have the mechanics down just yet. These little docs give them a roadmap to work from. The  armor one was of particular interest to me and I thought it was solid, more than I expected it to be in 5 pages. They are focused in on the topic of choice providing a short talk about the major powers that fit the theme, descriptors that fit it, some examples of pre-built powers that fit the theme (offensive, defensive, movement, utility), and some thematic complications that a character might want to take.

I like small inexpensive PDF's that add something useful to my game - I don't need another campaign world and I don't need more supervillains - short adventures are good, and small crunchy guides like these are just right. Comparing this to something like class books for D&D I find it to be a similar idea with a better execution in many ways. It's a more net-friendly version of the "UNTIL Superpowers Database" for 5th edition Champions, which was a big thick book full of pre-built superpowers. Some people want 'em, but not many people want to pay $30 for them, which is why I think a wide range of smaller more focused and more affordable mini-books like this is a good way to go.

The price is right and the content is useful - sounds good to me. I wasn't sure how much attention they were getting out there and just wanted to share.

Motivational Monday

Theme for the month:

A good way to end the week!

In honor of "GM's Day" - which I appreciate but don't recall seeing before maybe last year - the guys at Adamant Entertainment are having a 50% off sale. That means you could pick up the ICONS rulebook for $7.48! That's a helluva deal right there!

Disclaimer: I have no connection to Adamant or anyone that works there. I just like ICONS. It works especially well when playing with kids and we have played it that way a lot.

The adventures are $2.50 - two and a half dollars! I even like some of them! A full game and an adventure for $10! That's a great deal!

Go here now! Get it! Play it! Start a blog to recap it! Join the email list!

Another Milestone

So Apprentice Blaster has a fairly big birthday tomorrow. He was with us tonight and we were out in the garage looking at my wall of game shelves and talking about birthday plans and generally shooting the breeze. He mentioned that he likes playing 4th Edition, but he really likes running Basic - it's simpler and faster - and we talked a little about his ongoing efforts to talk his friends into playing and how that's been tricky with schedules and all. Kid afternoons just don't seem to be as free now as the ones I remember. I told him I could give him the gear but he was going to have to get the players on his own. He hasn't given up yet, He also told me the pre-gens in the back of that Haunted Keep adventure are way too powerful as some of them have an 18 in something and no negative stats at all, so take that Dragonsfoot! Powergamers! So sayeth my new teenager!

The new Marvel game came up and we may give it a whirl this weekend, probably after his friends are gone. I've noticed that when we play something Marvel-flavored he prefers either Captain America or Wolverine. I'm sure that symbolizes something about the teenage mind and being torn between doing the right thing and doing what you want. Considering they both like to kick the stuffing out of people up close I think it mainly means he likes characters that kick ace up close and personal. He's getting a copy of DC Adventures for his birthday so maybe Batman will be added to that list as well.

I'm sure this is how he sees his characters...

We also discussed what different editions of D&D are good at and what's this Traveller game that takes up a whole shelf by itself and are we going to try Shadowrun anytime soon and how I blew him up too fast the last time we tried Battletech and we need to try that one again  - just general game talk for a while.

Then a gerbil ran over my foot and we spent about 20 minutes recapturing it, but that's a story for another time.

Anyway it's good to know that the kids are interested in this thing, but not obsessed with it. He and the other apprentices have a pretty good attitude about it.

We have birthdays less than a month apart, putting almost exactly 30 years between us and I notice little generational differences sometimes. Some things to keep in mind about the teens and tweens coming up now:

• Lord of the Rings to them means movies more than books.

• They probably didn't start with the Hobbit or LOTR or Conan - they started with Harry Potter.

• If our top 3 fantasy influences back in the 70's & 80's were Tolkien & King Arthur & (for me) Narnia/Prydain - note these are books and cartoons at the time - then theirs are Harry Potter, Warcraft/Skyrim, and the LOTR/Narnia movies. Twilight is a player in there too, do not underestimate its power with the female set. I'm just happy John Carter is getting a big action movie and the Hobbit ain't far behind. That Hunger Games thing is a pretty big deal too apparently.

• Playing the role of a Knight or a Wizard or a Superhero is nothing revolutionary to them - they've been doing it in videogames for much of their lives so that alone isn't anything special. What makes tabletop RPG's special is doing it cooperatively with friends and family and having cool stories to tell about it afterwards. That last item in particular is something I still think is underrated and something I try to champion whenever possible. Online sessions via skype or other tools gives you some of that I think, but watching your buddy roll a 1 at a critical time, or taking down that dragon and being able to high five your brother when you do is a huge deal, and something you can't quite duplicate with an MMO or over a chat window. That's where a lot of the "special" lies.

Pretty sure this how I still think of him a lot of the time

Anyway, it's a good time here*. More to come.

*Other than Apprentice Red getting his learner's permit today. Oh lordy lordy lordy ...

ToEE 4E Session 6 - The Walking Dead

As we pick up the action our heroes discover a bundle in one corner of the dead ogre's room begins to move. After a cautious investigation they discover it's an elf - an adventuring elf named Draco who was captured by the ogre the day before and fortunately not eaten yet. He begins looking for his gear as the party unlocks a door in the south wall and discovers more prisoners - a couple of humans and a gnome. The two humans are merchants from Hillsfar and promise to send a reward if they are freed. The gnome is a bit more mysterious about his background but mentions that he too was captured by the ogre a few days ago and gives Horus a pin, telling him that it will mark him as a friend to other members of his brotherhood.

After leading the freed prisoners up to the surface, the wizard offers to escort them back to Hommlet. Draco, however, wants to stay and explore the ruin with his rescuers as he is a ranger and wants to make sure the danger is ended.

Moving back to the under-moathouse the party heads for the southern end of a long hall they did not explore previously, discovering a row of doors in one wall. Opening one, it appears to be a cell, and it contains two zombies who shuffle forward, moaning, as soon as the door is opened! This appears to be a signal as the other 4 doors are shoved open and more zombies emerge. From the darkness behind the party more shuffling sounds are heard as even more zombies stagger forth! It's not looking good and the party undergoes a serious morale check around the table at this point.

Swarmed! (Yes there are some PC mini's in there somewhere)

Draco, somewhat farther back than the rest of the group unleashes death in the form of twin arrows to the face of the nearest zombie as Horus and Po cut down another! Encouraged by the double kill, and realizing that they might be able to fight their way through this, the party now makes a stand, slashing and smashing their way into the horde. Torinn finds himself cut off from his companions and unloads his acid breath and his burning spray spell all at once, sending blazing, smoldering zombies staggering back. The bladesinger, druid, and swordmage (and Po) form a line, supported at range by a quick-firing ranger and link back up with the sorcerer, finishing off the shambling horrors soon enough.

A brief rest is called after the fight and then of course the searching begins. Checking the area, the cells, and the remains they find a few trinkets but nothing major. The room adjoining the hall is a torture chamber, one used more recently than it should have been for an old abandoned ruin. They also find a secret door in one of the columns in the area - the column turned out to be hollow and had runs set in the interior wall, leading downward into darkness. After a brief debate the heroes climb down, one by one, into a dank, earthen tunnel, complete with bad smell.

Moving single-file down the tunnel they soon come to a larger, open area and at the far end they see a group of humanoid creatures clustered around something on the ground - the ranger thinks it's a body, and the bladesinger agrees. They decide to be the attackers this time and charge forward, gaining the advantage of surprise. Concentrating on the nearest thing, which they identify as a ghoul as soon as it turns toward them, they score hits from blasts and blades but these ghouls are made of tougher stuff than the zombies and it does not fall. In fact, one of them leaps at Po and slays the spirit-bear in a rending slash of claws and teeth! Enraged, Horace lays about with cudgel and spell, as do the others, and soon the remaining ghouls are slain, the last falling to a flourish from the swordmage, showing off again but in an effective way. The heroes pause to rest and to resummon their spirit companion before exploring these catacombs.

DM Notes: Our new player from last session couldn't make it but Apprentice Who decided to make his first foray into 4th edition and made up (with some assistance) a bow ranger which turned out to be a very effective choice, especially for a new player. With a melee defender, melee striker, melee (somewhat) controller, an a melee animal companion blocking for him he was pretty safe, and he was still able to contribute a lot to the group. He was very happy with his choice. Starting off with the ogre's prisoners made this swapping in and out of characters quite easy to do within the adventure.


Both combats lasted 5 rounds, not too bad for 4E, and did not drag out ridiculously in real time either. Undead are actually fun again in 4E as you don't have the massive swing factor of 3E where either the cleric  blows them away with a Turn Undead or he fails/sucks/is dead and the no-crit/no sneak-attack rule means that the fight goes on longer than most - 4E doesn't see a ton of turning and doesn't do the no-crit thing.


The prisoner rewards give me openings to complicate their lives down the road. Some are immediate - I'm sure some of you recognize the pin - and some are longer term, like the grateful merchants who might have a job or a request in the future - more fun for me.


Anyway, next time: more fun in the catacombs. 

Motivational Monday

New Marvel RPG - First Look

Short Take: It's very different.

Slightly longer take: The terminology is a little confusing on my first read-through but I'm getting it. It's not a dead-simple mechanical design like Icons but it's not as complex as M&M or Champions.

Personal scale of Supers games from least to most complex:

Icons -> Marvel Super Heroes -> V&V -> Silver Age Sentinels -> M&M -> Champions

The character sheet looks about as complicated as any traditional Supers game but what's there is not the same as other games.  I would describe most other super RPG's as driven by plot then settled by mechanics. This game is almost plot as mechanics. There's a lot of player control mechanics and giving and taking of dice based on weaknesses or complications or seeking an advantage or just rolling a "1" sometimes.

There are no standard attributes like Strength Dex or Con - only the stuff that is unusual is rated. That's taking a little time for me to get used to, but I think I can live with it. It is absolutely not a Simulationist game, in gamer techie terms. It is very much a storytellers game. You're not likely to see CharOp boards springing up around this game. Things are rated by die type, kind of like Savage Worlds, and you then assemble these different capabilities into a dice pool that you use to resolve your action. I've never played another game using these mechanics so it's a pretty big shift for me. I usually associate dice pools with fairly simple game mechanics like d6 Star Wars and Shadowrun but these are a level more complicated than that and at the moment less intuitive.

Final Oddity for now: There really aren't detailed rules for character creation. That's a little weird since character options are usually the heart of a Supers system. There's a short section that walks you through the structure of a character and basically says "decide what each of these things should be" but if you're looking for a long list of powers and point costs or random charts you're not going to find them here. They do give you 20+ Marvel heroes (which can be mined for power ideas) and a starting "Event" which is this game's name for a campaign, and I think it works, but I need to read through some of it again and try running it.

Easy Star Wars Names

Running Dawn of Defiance has been fun but some of the names in the thing are just not right. Star Wars names have a certain quality to them and I don't think it's that hard to come up with them but you do have to think about it a little bit.

Example: One of the early allies for the players is named "Sirona Okeefe". I don't mind Sirona really, but Okeefe? Is she Irish? Easily recognized ethnic names are kind of out if you're trying stick to that long time ago & far away thing. Part of it is how the name sounds, and part of it is how it looks on the page. For example, I would change this one to "Okifi" just to mix it up. The sound is mostly a change on the emphasis, but it looks different enough that most people aren't going to think about shamrocks and such when they hear it.

Another one is a stranded hiding-out leftover mercenary named Vazus "Mandrake" - seriously? Does he wear a top hat? Does he do magic tricks? I tried to emphasize the Vazus part and vowed to do a serious cleanup on these ridiculous names.

Now for Sirona I modified it and for Mandrake (grind) I tried to ignore the bad half. Besides these options you can use other words that just sound like they belong in Star Wars:

• Jedi Knight Jeet Kun Do is a formidible fighter even without his lightsaber. More fun here.

• Gran trader Gnip Gnop is a wealthy merchant who could be a patron or an enemy

• Chewchilla the wookie berserker, is called a monster by some.

• Trunkk Ajarr, Trandoshan Bodyguard (that's A-jar, emphasis on the "A")

There was an old (and bad) Avalon Hill game called "Freedom in the Galaxy" that was based on Star Wars and had some good names including a lizard man named Ly Mantok, a galactic knight named Vans Ka-Tie-A, and others:

A lot of those are pretty useful although Adam Starlight is clearly a DC Heroes name, not a Star Wars name. Boccanegra was a space pirate and I thought that sounded very much like a pirate name. I think it's Italian for Blackbeard or something anyway, so it fits.

 These are the bad guys and while not quite as colorful I think Thysa Kimbo (wink wink) is a darn fine name and I'd use that picture too. Smuggler, Emperor's Hand, whatever - I can find a place for her in the game. Here's her writeup in the game:

Illegitimate daughter of Coreguya, the princess has spent most of her adult life waiting for Coreguya to die so that she may ascend to the throne, oblivious to the fact that Redjac may have other plans for the throne that do not involve succession. She grew up pampered in the Imperial court, and became the bitter enemy of Zina Adora when she learned that Rayner Derban was more attracted to Zina than to herself.

For a complete rundown of names and a brief snippet and some pics go here and scroll down to "Player Aids". The characters are in the "Rebel cards" and "Imperial cards" files.

Poking around on the internet it appears that someone is using Freedom in the Galaxr to run a Star Wars campaign - now that's an interesting approach. Having a big board to jump around on could be a lot of fun.

Anyway there are some of my easy ways to fix or find names for Star Wars. Even looking outside of Wookieepedia, there are plenty of good candidates out there.

An Urgent Announcement to the Populace!

The ongoing campaign against the invader Hannibal has suffered a terrible setback!

Despite winning the first 3 battles of the war - Akragas, Crimissos River, and Bagradas, Roman leadership faltered at the Ticinus River*, recovered at Trebbia**, then suffered another defeat at Lake Trasimenus!

Fear not though, citizens! Another battle is set to take place at Cannae and Lord Blaster is confident that he will prevail over Lord Blacksteel, despite these recent thrashings.***

This news provided by the Capitoline Brotherhood of Millers. The Brotherhood uses only the finest flour: True Roman bread for true Romans!



*suffering a total shut-out

** thanks to an ambush that never occurred - Hey! Hannibal's brother! Off with your head!

***Perhaps too confident, based on this weekend's results.