HeapThaumaturgist
First Post
Finally got a chance to dust off my Nocturnals book and strong-arm my players into trying the Mutants and Masterminds system again.
Some of you may remember the LAST time I tried running a M&M one-shot. Blew up in my face and most of the players left feeling unsatisfied with the system.
But it was Halloween, and my wife asked nicely. And made cookies.
The players had never read the comics before, so I gave them a few minutes to thumb through Black Planet while I set up and my wife finished carving some Jack-O-Lanterns for the porch.
I'd put together a group of pre-built (hand made, this time) PCs, all of whom had a reason to be together:
Sam Hell, owner/operator of "Sam's Rare and Occult Books" which he runs out of his (exceedingly haunted) house. A demon, but otherwise a pretty nice guy.
Moonpie, a friend's daughter who is spending Halloween Break with Sam away from the Nightshade School (for Creepy Children) while her folks are out of town. She sees dead people. They do favors for her. She also has a pet, "DeadPuppy", who is ... a dead puppy. Well, a zombie puppy, anyway.
Guido, a Synth ex-Gangster. An old Soldier model that NarnK "retired"; he just decided not to go to work that day and has been on the lam since then. Narn K would like to know how he "decided" to do much of anything, and his old bosses want him "dealt with" on principle, if nothing else. Sam's hired muscle and Moonpie's sitter.
Howard ... The Thing Under The Stairs. Howard was, best we can tell, a Formless Spawn of Tsagguatha, with neither intellect or concience. Then, one day, he had both. Probably something he ate. Think a formless mass of black ooze. He lives under the stairs at Sam's and helps out around the house.
And Sullivan, the cashier. Sullivan is a "normal", a daylighter who goes to school part time at the Pacific City Community College and works part time at Sam's Rare and Occult Books. Sullivan isn't scary, is totally normal, and has no special powers ... other than an odd ability to roll with the flow and not get eaten.
On the whole, everybody had a total blast, which surprised me. I'd made up a nice evening one-shot revolving around a "Mysterious Canopic Jar" found on a dying man who stumbled into the store ... and some zombies ... and a bunch of Skerrl stealing souls and making zombies to power their little life-preservation pods. All of the characters were effective, including Sullivan (who I gave 6 ranks of Luck to, along with 6 Hero Points) and it turned into a dark little comedy almost immediately.
At the end of the night, the group asked me to keep running Nocturnals games, trading off on Sundays after story arcs with our current Pulp Supers. East Coast / West Coast style.
--fje
Some of you may remember the LAST time I tried running a M&M one-shot. Blew up in my face and most of the players left feeling unsatisfied with the system.
But it was Halloween, and my wife asked nicely. And made cookies.
The players had never read the comics before, so I gave them a few minutes to thumb through Black Planet while I set up and my wife finished carving some Jack-O-Lanterns for the porch.
I'd put together a group of pre-built (hand made, this time) PCs, all of whom had a reason to be together:
Sam Hell, owner/operator of "Sam's Rare and Occult Books" which he runs out of his (exceedingly haunted) house. A demon, but otherwise a pretty nice guy.
Moonpie, a friend's daughter who is spending Halloween Break with Sam away from the Nightshade School (for Creepy Children) while her folks are out of town. She sees dead people. They do favors for her. She also has a pet, "DeadPuppy", who is ... a dead puppy. Well, a zombie puppy, anyway.
Guido, a Synth ex-Gangster. An old Soldier model that NarnK "retired"; he just decided not to go to work that day and has been on the lam since then. Narn K would like to know how he "decided" to do much of anything, and his old bosses want him "dealt with" on principle, if nothing else. Sam's hired muscle and Moonpie's sitter.
Howard ... The Thing Under The Stairs. Howard was, best we can tell, a Formless Spawn of Tsagguatha, with neither intellect or concience. Then, one day, he had both. Probably something he ate. Think a formless mass of black ooze. He lives under the stairs at Sam's and helps out around the house.
And Sullivan, the cashier. Sullivan is a "normal", a daylighter who goes to school part time at the Pacific City Community College and works part time at Sam's Rare and Occult Books. Sullivan isn't scary, is totally normal, and has no special powers ... other than an odd ability to roll with the flow and not get eaten.
On the whole, everybody had a total blast, which surprised me. I'd made up a nice evening one-shot revolving around a "Mysterious Canopic Jar" found on a dying man who stumbled into the store ... and some zombies ... and a bunch of Skerrl stealing souls and making zombies to power their little life-preservation pods. All of the characters were effective, including Sullivan (who I gave 6 ranks of Luck to, along with 6 Hero Points) and it turned into a dark little comedy almost immediately.
At the end of the night, the group asked me to keep running Nocturnals games, trading off on Sundays after story arcs with our current Pulp Supers. East Coast / West Coast style.
--fje
