The Black Campbell

We had our first game session up in Santa Fe this weekend (also a good excuse to bust out the Triumph and ride the 65 miles) where, for once, I’m not the GM. This time would be Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, set in our “Liberty City” universe I “piloted” a few weeks back.

Our GM hadn’t run in a while, but he was able to handle the mechanics fairly deftly. This was fairly impressive, considering I thought the mechanics of the game were a bit overly complex at times — not the core mechanic, mind you, of putting together a dice pool based on the affiliation, distinction, possible power, and specialty for the NPC, or a simple “doom pool” of dice — but all the bits and bobs you can do with opportunities, etc. i think it takes a few sittings to really get the feel for the mechanics, but they do enhance play, as we’ll see.

Being a player is much easier, I found, although the other player was new to the system and was still a bit fuzzy on what he could do by the end of the session. The characters were my “Dark Mercy“, an Irish terrorist turning over a new leaf after finding the “Torc of Morrigan” (based on an old Shadowrun character.) The other was “El Gato” — a former barrio bruiser that was involved in some kind of high-science accident that turned him into a 3′ tall cat-man who is involved in the Superhuman Martial Arts League (SMA), where he is a popular minor fighter, whose style is more to confound and trip up his opponents, rather than using brute force.

We wound up in a New Orleans-esque suburb of Liberty City (why not!?!) where El Gato was staying while waiting for a fight and my character was hiding out and waiting bar at the hotel while trying to figure out what she was going to do with her life. During a blues concert, the hotel is invaded by what look to be a couple dozen zombies (the GM’s a big zombie fan…)

My character clears the bar by using her Chiappa Rhino, fired into the ceiling (and deafening the ultra-sensitive ears of El Gato.) Once the room has no innocents in the way, the pair go to work. First, my character laid hand on el Gato to heal the mental stress from the gunshot. He then decides to throw a fire extinguisher at the bad guys. I suggest we do this as a support action, as my character, seeing this, will blast the canister. After showing him how to put together the dice pool, he does a somersault over the bar and whips the extinguisher successfully, I asked if I could use that die, if I succeeded (and I did) to create an asset — an ABC powder cloud that would help protect us from being seen by the critters.

That put down about a quarter of the opposition. With no one to see what we’re about (my character is trying not to be spotted out as a super, which would draw the wrong attention from the LCPD), I once again touch EL Gato, “blessing” him with an effect die of d10…he’s got an extra d10 for the rest of the scene. this allows him to do a spectacular series of jumps and attacks. One thing I noticed is the system does tend to make you explain what you’re doing, so you can put together the right dice pool.

At this point, my character lights up her “Goddess of War” power set, uses a Sorcery Adept test and managed to get a d10 effect die — I’m created armor and a sword (one of her SFX.) El Gato’s style is to work with others, so I have him push a bunch of them to me. He does a test, using the maitre’d‘s podium, kicking it into the baddies, and providing me with a d6 temporary asset to add to my attack. A few more rounds went this way, but soon all the creatures were down.

The fight is fairly short by game standards, took about an hour to resolve. Once done, we had to investigate what had happened and found out a few zombies we had missed has stolen two artifacts from the hotel owner, a lady well connected in the neighborhood. Apparently, she had the whiskey bottle that killed Robert Jonhson, and the cane from another blues man, whose name is escaping me — both rumored to have made a deal with the devil to play the blues so well. If someone can get four of these artifacts together, they can allegedly summon up the devil. We get a name and possible location of someone who would know more…in the swamp outside town.

We were warned, however, to look out for the “Skunk Ape” (which led to a long, humorous bout of patter.)

That’s where we ended for the session. I truly enjoyed playing Marvel — maybe moreso than running it. It also showed the system is open enough to handle a wide array of style, from the police procedural wrapped in a superhero world that I ran, to the comic-horror adventure we played this weekend.

Furious pulp action at last night’s game session: The last episode of this “volume” Hannibal Drake and the Illuminati Treasure saw the heroes finding out Jack McMahon’s uncle had sent them a journal of his friend Lord Inversnaid to protect it from the Ahnenerbe, which had killed both Inversnaid and Uncle Mike in London. Mobsters from the 116th Street Crew of “Tirgger Mike” Coppola had trashed Jack’s apartment and shortly after they were contacts by private dick (that just never gets old) Tom Steele who is working with fellow Mason Deputy Inspector Nigel Moore of the Special Branch. We had left off with them recovering the book from the post office around the corner and mobsters attacking them from both directions.

The fight is immediate this session — a Ford Model C with four baddie, and a Chevy with another four block them at 86th and Central Park West. The fight included Jack doing a tackle though the open suicide doors in the back seat, knocking the mobsters for a loop. He shot up the Ford with a Chicago Typewriter taken from one mook. Tom Steele knocked a guy out with his Colt Detective, and Hannibla Drake dodged fisticuffs only to get clipped by a delivery truck on Central Park. Moore recovered the book and dashed for their escape into the subway.

On the subway platform, they see Moore get pushed into the path of an oncoming train by a female assailant who captured the book and manages to escape. Drake and McMahon get pinched by the cops, but Steele slips away, hits a street surgeon for the bullet wound he took to his leg, and locates the bird, who he heard ordering the mobsters around in an English accent, at the Waldorf-Astoria. He recovers the others after they are released on bail pending their grand jury hearing for assault with a deadly weapon, etc.

At the Waldorf, they surprise the girl and recover the book. they find out she is Ariel Smythe — friend to Uncle Mike (it’s implied a GOOD friend) whom she was assisting with his dealing in Spain (he was selling guns to Franco’s forces.) She is also a friend of the Inversnaid family and wanted to get the man who killed them — Moore — and return the book to the lord’s son. She is able to convince them enough that they don’t just plug her, but drag her along to the library at Columbia to research the book.

The notes relate that Baron Krigge of the Areopagus — the ruling committee of the Bavarina Illuminati — resolved to hide their treasure with their American Freemason cousins before the Hanovarian police shut them down. Letters between Krigge and Benjamin Franklin, then ambassador to France, show that the treasure was secured in the “House of the President”…but what president? They find out that the letter, dated 1784 from Philadelphia, suggests that it must have been the house of then-President of the Congressional Congress, Richard Lee — ancestor of Robert E Lee. Federal Hall is out; it was demolished for a customs house, then renamed Federal Hall as a museum. Could it be Stratford House in Virginia?

they are interrupted by Germans, who knock Jack out and capture Ariel. A shootout in the library after hours ensues and they escape with the girl. The heroes hide out in Hoboken at Hannibal’s mother’s house, then catch the Afternoon Congressional to Washington DC. Unbeknownst to them, the Nazis are along for the ride…

The big questions: Is Ariel everything she says she is? Was Moore the bad guy? How did the Nazis know to head to Washington (Ariel, of course, whether willingly or no…) What they don’t know — it’s a massive red herring. There were other presidents in the US at the time…including the President of Pennsylvania, about to take his position in 1785 after his tenure as ambassador of France.

But they’ll find this out next time.

I was having a conversation with J over at 1nsomnia.wordpress.com regarding how bringing new blood into a game group can liven up play and rekindle the joy of playing. One of my comments was on the size of his gaming group:

8-10 is a massive group! Most group work is best done in groups of 4-6, studies show — from corporate environment, to fire teams in the military, to terrorist cells — above six becomes unmanageable (in the case of gaming groups, you have less “screen time” for the characters and it becomes hard to manage events); below four (including GM) and any absence can put the kybosh on a session and relationships between players become sometimes too comfortable and the play becomes stilted.

I’ve commented on group size before, but I think this is a nicely succinct take on my opinion regarding group size. Were it me (and it’s not, so feel free to ignore me on this), I would try — if scheduling permitted — to break the group into two. But that’s me, and as always, I could be completely full of shit.

In fact, it’s almost a certainty.

I was going to do a post on what comic books influenced my gaming style and choices, but realized that outside of that particular genre, comic or supers games, they don’t really have any. So here’s what has informed our current campaign:

1) The Incredibles: Specifically, the notion that superheroes have the same issues normal people do: peer pressure to be “normal” and the threat of lawsuits. Our supers have to be registered (the Libertarian Party and Institute of Justice are fighting this as discriminatory; the ACLU is silent on the matter), and if they use their powers licensed at various levels (construction work if you’re super-strong, legally sworn as a peace officer to fight crime, etc.) A lot of them can’t afford the licensing fees and more importantly, the insurance to get licensed, and either hide their gifts or go rogue — become supervillains. They are policed by special units around the country/world that employ supers or highly-trained normals. It’s my understanding a lot of these issues cropped up in the latest Marvel Civil War books.

2) The Venture Brothers: This is a show the creators have siad is about “failure.” I’m borrowing the notion that a lot of supers are still lazy, incompetent, or downright stupid. They highlight the failure of the Jet Age promises: private supersonic jets, space stations, underground habitats, etc…things that I have included in smaller part. Similarly, the comic book Empowered touches on the same ideas — and that a lot of supers get their powers from venereal diseases…

3) Astro City: Funnily, I haven’t read this comic, but I’ve borrowed a lot of the tropes for our game — Liberty City as the cynosure for supers in America; it draws supers like Hollywood draws sexual deviants. I’ve even borrowed some of the characters and adjusted them for the game. Also, I’ve nabbed some of the Jet Age imagery that they use.

4) Every power suit manga: The cops have “masks and capes” squads that hire supers, but they also employ power armor, Masamune Shirow-style, to combat these threats. Ghost in the Shell, the manga and TV series, molded these ideas.

5) Bits and Bobs: I’m borrowing characters from the various comic books and old supers campaigns and tweaking them for our game.