After running two sessions of the included adventure in the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game, Breakout, our newly formed team was ready to challenge the first full event (adventure) published for the game: Civil War. I'm not sure if it actually exists in hardcopy yet, but Martin has the pdf and was eager to run it, despite having not read the comics before dealing with it.
None of us had. It's all new!
That said, Martin and I believe in research. The wonderful world of digital comics allowed us to find the back issues of Civil War in the unlimited digital comic subscription I have, so both Martin and I did some reading to get a clue of what we were up against. I haven't actually read the adventure (I bought the pdf copy so I could download the character sheets; the adventure is still unopened), and I don't know how closely it hews to the actual comics. I did the same with the Breakout event, and it helped me massively when running it; I expect the same applies to Civil War.
Of course, I'm not running Civil War, but I am playing Cable, the time-travelling mutant, son of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor, and possessing of one of the most confusing backstories and histories of any Marvel character. Except, perhaps, Wolverine. Cable is, however, a lot of fun to play. He's also a natural leader, so I get to lead this team of 'New Avengers', which, for this session, consisted of Peggy playing Shadowcat, Paul playing Iron Man, and Rich playing Daredevil.
Rich actually has a very hard job of it; he's not a comic reader and Daredevil is rather low-powered compared to Iron Man and Cable. He's actually a pretty useful character once we come to needing information on crime and the like (he's also a lawyer), but he doesn't have big, flashy powers. It's far more of a role-player's and problem-solver's character than a combat-lover's character, but Daredevil is able to hold his own in combat - he just has to come at it from a different direction.
The adventure (and beware, because there are lots of SPOILERS from this point on) began with us continuing with the capturing of criminals from the major Breakout from the Raft that we'd dealt with in the first two sessions. I've got to hand it to Cam: having the introductory adventure link into the first event like this works really well. We'd received word (probably through Daredevil's contacts in the underworld, although I forget exactly how) that Mentallo, a mind-controlling villain - had been spotted in a seedy gambling place. So, we put a trace on his mobile phone (thank you, Iron Man), and made our way to the location.
At this point, we had a miscommunication between Martin (DM) and us (players), where we (and mainly me, as I was making the plans) thought that there was a main room, then corridors and small rooms at the back accessed by a back door. Instead, we were rather surprised when we went in the back door to find ourselves in the main room filled with gamblers...
We'd sent Shadowcat in first to do some scouting, and so she must have gone in a side-wall to reach where Mentallo was. She also found a bunch of AIM troopers there. Peggy reads comics, but she didn't immediately remember who AIM were - I filled her in: Spin-off of HYDRA, with silly helmets. That did the trick!
Iron Man sent in a remote spy drone to give us some information on what was inside. In terms of the rule system, he made a check against the automatically-opposing Doom Pool (which was rather small since we had only just begun). He then spent a plot point to create an ongoing asset - the spy drone - which allowed us an extra d8 on any check where it would apply.
With Shadowcat reporting back that all the AIM soldiers were coming to meet with Mentallo, we'd run out of time: we had to go in! Shadowcat phased through the electronic weapons of the soldiers, trying to disrupt them, but was only able to disable one and partially affect another. Iron Man and Daredevil made their way inside (and I stayed outside, co-ordinating and waiting for my chance).
MSH has a really fantastic dice pool system: you choose dice (normally d6s through d12s) from various aspects of your characters that apply to the situation, roll them, then choose two to form the action total and another die for how effective it was. The opponent (or generic doom pool if no opponent) does the same, with the higher action/reaction total succeeding. (Actor wins ties). Plot Points can be spent to add extra dice - rolled or total - and do various interesting things.
Some readers might remember my reaction to plot points in the original Cortex system (as seen in the Serenity RPG): I hated them. Original Cortex was one of the most broken systems I've ever played, and while it had a great, evocative character creation system, actually trying to run a game in it was painful. For the majority of the campaign, I ended up ignoring the rules because they were that bad. And the primary reason for that was that Original Cortex had no good guidelines for how many Plot Points should be given out ("fall like rain" is not particularly helpful), and then when actually employed in play they turned a lot of rolls into auto-successes. There was no moderation to their use, and they helped drag Cortex down.
The Cortex Plus system (which Marvel is the latest version of) fixes this by giving very strict rules about how you gain Plot Points and how you can spend them. Generally you can gain them by giving yourself disadvantages (turning off powers, rolling smaller dice) or by rolling ones on your dice when acting (these latter are called Opportunities, and if the GM uses them you gain plot points).
We hadn't quite gotten the rules down correctly in our first two sessions, but during this session the flow of plot points was relatively limited: no big stacks managed to form, especially as we had to spend them to make sure our actions were effective. It really added to the tension of the game: This is something I really value: when the narrative tension of the situation is matched by the tension created by the mechanics, you have a really good game, and this is what we had this session.
My team were doing well at taking down AIM troopers, but not so well at capturing Mentallo, who ducked past Shadowcat and raced away. So, I had to step in. Cable teleported - using the signals given off by Iron Man's remote drone - and appeared in front of Mentallo, then punched him, hard. Poor Mentallo didn't see it coming and went down. Hooray for the good guys!
Daredevil and Shadowcat had been hurt in the battle. Damage in Marvel is represented by a die (d4 through d12) which your opponent gets to add to their roll to attack you or resist your attacks. Actually, there are three types of damage: Physical, Emotional and Mental, but the opponent can only use one (unless they spend plot points/doom pool dice). Shadowcat's d4 physical stress disappeared during the Transition scene that followed, but Daredevil's emotional stress reduced to d6, but his talking about his issue with his psychiatrist wasn't able to remove the remainder of the stress; he'd go into the next scene still traumatised by the last.
Meanwhile, we had some downtime in New Avengers Penthouse (the top three stories of Tony Stark's tower), where we saw a TV ad for the New Warriors upcoming reality program. Then SHIELD contacted Kitty Pryde, because the Crusader had hijacked a passenger plane. No rest for the weary!
Apparently we have a jet. Or, at least, Tony Stark has a jet and he was willing to lend it to us. So, off we went to shadow the hijacked plane and work out how to get down there. I was able to teleport myself and Daredevil down, and Iron-Man and Kitty phased inside the plane - in first class. Tony Stark insisted! There we found a number of thugs and no sign of the Crusader. Perhaps he was in the cockpit?
Things got difficult when one of the thugs blew one of the plane's hatches open. Martin allowed me to react to this - using my Telekinetic power to create a shield over the hatch opening, and to make sure none of the passengers were dragged out. I had to shut down some of my powers to make certain I had the plot points to ensure success, but not losing the plane and passengers in the first round was a great start.
Apparently, the planes of the Marvel Universe are made of material to stop Shadowcat phasing inside the cockpit, because she managed to fail twice whilst the rest of us were fighting the thugs. Peggy was rolling a little under average, but Martin was rolling really, really well. The thugs were actually quite hard to take down, and Daredevil was finding it hard, especially as I couldn't help much (keeping passengers from flying out, you know!)
However, this didn't mean Daredevil was ineffective; we found him much, much more effective when defending. Because the way that combat works, if you successfully defend from an attack (and you get to construct your roll knowing what you have to beat), you can do damage back by using a Power Point. Rich found that playing Daredevil reactively was far more effective.
Eventually, the Crusader made himself known, armed with a bomb to destroy the entire plane. Oh, goody. So, I shot him - but that didn't take him down. Daredevil and Iron-Man pitched in, but Martin was depleting the Doom Pool to make sure the Crusader wasn't hurt. Daredevil tried to talk him out of his suicide pact (using Psych Expert and inflicting Emotional Stress), but only succeeded in stressing himself further... except that Martin had needed to use a die in the Doom Pool to defend, bringing it down to a single die. As our Plot points had been more limited this game, so had Martin's Doom Pool, and Martin was needing to use it to protect his villains. So, Daredevil's effort had definitely not been in vain.
Certainly not as, with my action being next, I was able to "steal" the last die from the Doom Pool (The Man with the Plan) and shoot Crusader once more, just making sure that he couldn't protect himself. He went down, and we'd saved the plane!
Except we hadn't. Kitty finally made her way into the cockpit, and there found the pilot tied up and gagged, and a hijacker sending the plane into a death-dive. Oh, boy!
Disabling the hijacker wasn't hard. Getting the plane back under control? That was harder. Kitty tried, but wasn't able to do it. I teleported myself into the cockpit, the stress taking my teleportation systems offline (I needed extra plot points for the action, so I was activating a Limit on my power to do so, and gaining control of the narrative thereby) and was finally able to successfully get the plane back under control. From there, we were able to take it down to a safe landing. Now, it was over.
That was all we had time for. Running through those two major scenes (plus a short transition scene) took us a little over three hours. The game - for us at least - takes a while to resolve. However, this was also the best experience I've ever had playing a Superhero RPG. Previously, I've played Mutants and Masterminds (2E), Marvel Superheroes (the original TSR version), Villains and Vigilantes, and Palladium's TMNT. This game felt the tightest, with us out of plot points during the final stages of the airplane scene. We came so close to failing it.
Because I'm aware of the basic dimensions of the Civil War event, I can see the basic currents of the event around me, and I'm really impressed by how they're being foreshadowed and there's the possibility of our actions being more significant than we think. At least, I think I can - it seems excellent to me so far.
Mind you, I hope we get faster at running the system. There's enough action - and I'm interested in every roll - that I'm not overly worried at its speed, but I do think that we're a fair way short of making the game run as smoothly as we can. I'm pretty good at controlling my side of the equation now, which is one of the reasons that, this session, I had the big "end encounter" actions - apart from Cable being a great character, I also am more in tune with the system and the comic world and I can leverage that more than non-comic readers like Paul and Rich. Without them, we'd fail, but for the purposes of this session, I was in the right position at the right time more often than not.
They should get their chances to shine in the upcoming sessions. I don't need to hog all the glory! However, as a start for the Civil War event, I couldn't have hoped for anything better, and I'm very much looking forward to how it will continue... in two weeks time.
(Next week: my 20th level Greyhawk 4E campaign continues!)
Cheers!
None of us had. It's all new!
That said, Martin and I believe in research. The wonderful world of digital comics allowed us to find the back issues of Civil War in the unlimited digital comic subscription I have, so both Martin and I did some reading to get a clue of what we were up against. I haven't actually read the adventure (I bought the pdf copy so I could download the character sheets; the adventure is still unopened), and I don't know how closely it hews to the actual comics. I did the same with the Breakout event, and it helped me massively when running it; I expect the same applies to Civil War.
Of course, I'm not running Civil War, but I am playing Cable, the time-travelling mutant, son of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor, and possessing of one of the most confusing backstories and histories of any Marvel character. Except, perhaps, Wolverine. Cable is, however, a lot of fun to play. He's also a natural leader, so I get to lead this team of 'New Avengers', which, for this session, consisted of Peggy playing Shadowcat, Paul playing Iron Man, and Rich playing Daredevil.
Rich actually has a very hard job of it; he's not a comic reader and Daredevil is rather low-powered compared to Iron Man and Cable. He's actually a pretty useful character once we come to needing information on crime and the like (he's also a lawyer), but he doesn't have big, flashy powers. It's far more of a role-player's and problem-solver's character than a combat-lover's character, but Daredevil is able to hold his own in combat - he just has to come at it from a different direction.
The adventure (and beware, because there are lots of SPOILERS from this point on) began with us continuing with the capturing of criminals from the major Breakout from the Raft that we'd dealt with in the first two sessions. I've got to hand it to Cam: having the introductory adventure link into the first event like this works really well. We'd received word (probably through Daredevil's contacts in the underworld, although I forget exactly how) that Mentallo, a mind-controlling villain - had been spotted in a seedy gambling place. So, we put a trace on his mobile phone (thank you, Iron Man), and made our way to the location.
At this point, we had a miscommunication between Martin (DM) and us (players), where we (and mainly me, as I was making the plans) thought that there was a main room, then corridors and small rooms at the back accessed by a back door. Instead, we were rather surprised when we went in the back door to find ourselves in the main room filled with gamblers...
We'd sent Shadowcat in first to do some scouting, and so she must have gone in a side-wall to reach where Mentallo was. She also found a bunch of AIM troopers there. Peggy reads comics, but she didn't immediately remember who AIM were - I filled her in: Spin-off of HYDRA, with silly helmets. That did the trick!
Iron Man sent in a remote spy drone to give us some information on what was inside. In terms of the rule system, he made a check against the automatically-opposing Doom Pool (which was rather small since we had only just begun). He then spent a plot point to create an ongoing asset - the spy drone - which allowed us an extra d8 on any check where it would apply.
With Shadowcat reporting back that all the AIM soldiers were coming to meet with Mentallo, we'd run out of time: we had to go in! Shadowcat phased through the electronic weapons of the soldiers, trying to disrupt them, but was only able to disable one and partially affect another. Iron Man and Daredevil made their way inside (and I stayed outside, co-ordinating and waiting for my chance).
MSH has a really fantastic dice pool system: you choose dice (normally d6s through d12s) from various aspects of your characters that apply to the situation, roll them, then choose two to form the action total and another die for how effective it was. The opponent (or generic doom pool if no opponent) does the same, with the higher action/reaction total succeeding. (Actor wins ties). Plot Points can be spent to add extra dice - rolled or total - and do various interesting things.
Some readers might remember my reaction to plot points in the original Cortex system (as seen in the Serenity RPG): I hated them. Original Cortex was one of the most broken systems I've ever played, and while it had a great, evocative character creation system, actually trying to run a game in it was painful. For the majority of the campaign, I ended up ignoring the rules because they were that bad. And the primary reason for that was that Original Cortex had no good guidelines for how many Plot Points should be given out ("fall like rain" is not particularly helpful), and then when actually employed in play they turned a lot of rolls into auto-successes. There was no moderation to their use, and they helped drag Cortex down.
The Cortex Plus system (which Marvel is the latest version of) fixes this by giving very strict rules about how you gain Plot Points and how you can spend them. Generally you can gain them by giving yourself disadvantages (turning off powers, rolling smaller dice) or by rolling ones on your dice when acting (these latter are called Opportunities, and if the GM uses them you gain plot points).
We hadn't quite gotten the rules down correctly in our first two sessions, but during this session the flow of plot points was relatively limited: no big stacks managed to form, especially as we had to spend them to make sure our actions were effective. It really added to the tension of the game: This is something I really value: when the narrative tension of the situation is matched by the tension created by the mechanics, you have a really good game, and this is what we had this session.
My team were doing well at taking down AIM troopers, but not so well at capturing Mentallo, who ducked past Shadowcat and raced away. So, I had to step in. Cable teleported - using the signals given off by Iron Man's remote drone - and appeared in front of Mentallo, then punched him, hard. Poor Mentallo didn't see it coming and went down. Hooray for the good guys!
Daredevil and Shadowcat had been hurt in the battle. Damage in Marvel is represented by a die (d4 through d12) which your opponent gets to add to their roll to attack you or resist your attacks. Actually, there are three types of damage: Physical, Emotional and Mental, but the opponent can only use one (unless they spend plot points/doom pool dice). Shadowcat's d4 physical stress disappeared during the Transition scene that followed, but Daredevil's emotional stress reduced to d6, but his talking about his issue with his psychiatrist wasn't able to remove the remainder of the stress; he'd go into the next scene still traumatised by the last.
Meanwhile, we had some downtime in New Avengers Penthouse (the top three stories of Tony Stark's tower), where we saw a TV ad for the New Warriors upcoming reality program. Then SHIELD contacted Kitty Pryde, because the Crusader had hijacked a passenger plane. No rest for the weary!
Apparently we have a jet. Or, at least, Tony Stark has a jet and he was willing to lend it to us. So, off we went to shadow the hijacked plane and work out how to get down there. I was able to teleport myself and Daredevil down, and Iron-Man and Kitty phased inside the plane - in first class. Tony Stark insisted! There we found a number of thugs and no sign of the Crusader. Perhaps he was in the cockpit?
Things got difficult when one of the thugs blew one of the plane's hatches open. Martin allowed me to react to this - using my Telekinetic power to create a shield over the hatch opening, and to make sure none of the passengers were dragged out. I had to shut down some of my powers to make certain I had the plot points to ensure success, but not losing the plane and passengers in the first round was a great start.
Apparently, the planes of the Marvel Universe are made of material to stop Shadowcat phasing inside the cockpit, because she managed to fail twice whilst the rest of us were fighting the thugs. Peggy was rolling a little under average, but Martin was rolling really, really well. The thugs were actually quite hard to take down, and Daredevil was finding it hard, especially as I couldn't help much (keeping passengers from flying out, you know!)
However, this didn't mean Daredevil was ineffective; we found him much, much more effective when defending. Because the way that combat works, if you successfully defend from an attack (and you get to construct your roll knowing what you have to beat), you can do damage back by using a Power Point. Rich found that playing Daredevil reactively was far more effective.
Eventually, the Crusader made himself known, armed with a bomb to destroy the entire plane. Oh, goody. So, I shot him - but that didn't take him down. Daredevil and Iron-Man pitched in, but Martin was depleting the Doom Pool to make sure the Crusader wasn't hurt. Daredevil tried to talk him out of his suicide pact (using Psych Expert and inflicting Emotional Stress), but only succeeded in stressing himself further... except that Martin had needed to use a die in the Doom Pool to defend, bringing it down to a single die. As our Plot points had been more limited this game, so had Martin's Doom Pool, and Martin was needing to use it to protect his villains. So, Daredevil's effort had definitely not been in vain.
Certainly not as, with my action being next, I was able to "steal" the last die from the Doom Pool (The Man with the Plan) and shoot Crusader once more, just making sure that he couldn't protect himself. He went down, and we'd saved the plane!
Except we hadn't. Kitty finally made her way into the cockpit, and there found the pilot tied up and gagged, and a hijacker sending the plane into a death-dive. Oh, boy!
Disabling the hijacker wasn't hard. Getting the plane back under control? That was harder. Kitty tried, but wasn't able to do it. I teleported myself into the cockpit, the stress taking my teleportation systems offline (I needed extra plot points for the action, so I was activating a Limit on my power to do so, and gaining control of the narrative thereby) and was finally able to successfully get the plane back under control. From there, we were able to take it down to a safe landing. Now, it was over.
That was all we had time for. Running through those two major scenes (plus a short transition scene) took us a little over three hours. The game - for us at least - takes a while to resolve. However, this was also the best experience I've ever had playing a Superhero RPG. Previously, I've played Mutants and Masterminds (2E), Marvel Superheroes (the original TSR version), Villains and Vigilantes, and Palladium's TMNT. This game felt the tightest, with us out of plot points during the final stages of the airplane scene. We came so close to failing it.
Because I'm aware of the basic dimensions of the Civil War event, I can see the basic currents of the event around me, and I'm really impressed by how they're being foreshadowed and there's the possibility of our actions being more significant than we think. At least, I think I can - it seems excellent to me so far.
Mind you, I hope we get faster at running the system. There's enough action - and I'm interested in every roll - that I'm not overly worried at its speed, but I do think that we're a fair way short of making the game run as smoothly as we can. I'm pretty good at controlling my side of the equation now, which is one of the reasons that, this session, I had the big "end encounter" actions - apart from Cable being a great character, I also am more in tune with the system and the comic world and I can leverage that more than non-comic readers like Paul and Rich. Without them, we'd fail, but for the purposes of this session, I was in the right position at the right time more often than not.
They should get their chances to shine in the upcoming sessions. I don't need to hog all the glory! However, as a start for the Civil War event, I couldn't have hoped for anything better, and I'm very much looking forward to how it will continue... in two weeks time.
(Next week: my 20th level Greyhawk 4E campaign continues!)
Cheers!
