Hulk Smash Xmas!

“Oh, you better watch out . . . The Incredible Hulk is rampaging through midtown Manhattan near Rockefeller Center. Why? Maybe he’s being mind-controlled by The Leader. Maybe he’s just mad. Whatever the situation, the heroes need to subdue the Hulk. Good luck.”

What is it? A holiday-themed rampaging battle royale … starring the Hulk! Assuming I have enough players, I plan on running this Mini-Event on Thursday, December 26 on Google+, starting at 8:00 p.m. EST. Players may choose any hero datafile from the Basic Game or Civil War and its supplements. If you are interested in joining us to play, contact me via Google+, Twitter or by email.

‘Nuff Said!

– – – – –

No one signed up. So the Event is CANCELLED. Pity.

House Rule: No-Prize

One thing I admire about the rule-set for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is both its simplicity and its completeness. It is not a game for which I feel a great need to create house rules or to revise it. The one addition I might make is less a rule, than a Watcher option or tool: what I call the No-Prize.

According to the unofficial Marvel Wiki, the No-Prize was a “reward given out to fans who get a letter printed in a Marvel comic, which points out a mistake within a series and comes up with a clever excuse for it being printed . . . which was nothing” (emphasis added). Later, as other writers were let into the joke and could award their own faithful readers: “they soon made their own rules up on how people would receive a No Prize.”

In this spirit, I propose an optional XP award:

• Handed out by the Watcher to players when they choose to act in ways that preserve continuity. Typically, it would be a 1 XP award. The Watcher would announce it publicly at the start of the scene: if players take actions that lead to X outcome, they will receive the award.

• Awarded by players at the end of a play session to a single player for any reason whatsoever, based on their vote.

In Secret War, the first Past scene is an action scene where Nick Fury recruits heroes for his secret mission. Since it is already established who went on the secret mission in the first place (active player heroes), narrative logic demands that they somehow accept the mission: whether it is by their ready agreement or by Nick Fury’s emotional blackmail.

This is how I might frame the No-Prize: Players who agree to go on Nick Fury’s secret mission, earn one bonus XP. (Actually, I might also give them a 3 XP option: if Nick Fury convinces you to go on the secret mission by emotionally stressing you out, you receive a bonus 3 XP.)

Food for thought.

Toybots [Watcher Datafile]

Tinker Toybots [not revealed]

Affiliations: Team 5D6
Distinctions: Glow-y Eyes; Toys R Us

TINKER TECH: Energy Blast D6, Enhanced Durability D8, Enhanced Strength D8

• SFX–Mob ‘Em: In dice pools that include Energy Blast or Enhanced Strength, you may target multiple opponents. For each additional target, add D6 and keep +1 effect die.
• SFX–Immunity: Spend D6 from Doom Pool to ignore stress, trauma or complications caused by disease, poison, vacuum, hunger, thirst, fatigue or psychic powers.
• Limit–Mob Cohesion: Defeat Team dice (with D8 stress) to reduce it. Each Team die may be treated as separate target for Area Attack SFX.

Specialties: Combat Rookie D6, Menace Rookie D6

_ _ _ _ _

My idea was it would only be natural that the Tinkerer in his Latverian workshop would create a tiny horde of Toybots to serve and protect him. My thought is that he would base them at least in part on the Doombots. (My inspiration for them and their look comes from the Unknown Thief in the video game Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando.)

Tinkerer [Watcher Datafile]

Tinkerer: Phineas T. Mason [public]

Affiliations: Solo D4, Buddy D6, Team D8

Distinctions: Family Issues; Just Business; Tech Savant

TINKER TECH: Mimic D8

• SFX—Built to Spec: When you activate opportunity to create Science Expert or Tech Master resource, step up that resource die. Spend DD to give resource to another Watcher character to use.
• SFX—Technological Intuition: When using Mimic to create technology- based complications or assets, add D6 and step up effect die.
• Limit—Prototype: When you create asset or complication with Mimic, shut down power until asset or complication is eliminated, removed or recovered.

Specialties: Covert Expert D8, Crime Expert D8, Science Expert D8, Tech Master D10

_ _ _ _ _

By nature, the Tinkerer is a B-list, minor villain. He is least effective by himself and is most effective among his toys. I gave him three distinctions instead of two, because the three really fleshed out his character and motivations. His power set is based on elements from Forge’s datafile found in Civil War: X-Men XM80. (I wanted to keep the We Can Rebuild Him SFX, but couldn’t figure out how it could work for a Watcher datafile. And I could not find an example of any Watcher characters with a healing SFX to base it on. Doesn’t matter for the Event, though.)

His Tinker Toybots are entirely my invention and will be featured in a future post. Stay tuned.

Secret War Roster

So, I did some nosing around on the Internet today, looking into Marvel chronology and studying character bios with continuity in mind. Clearly, the core roster for Secret War are the characters from the comic:

Black Widow, Captain America, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Nick Fury, Quake (Daisy Johnson), Spider-Man, Wolverine

Since I’m trying to run an ongoing campaign with its own continuity, what I’m trying is to establish a campaign continuity timeline. Wherever possible, I’m trying to follow established Marvel continuity, but with minimal departures necessary to enable gameplay. What I’ve decided is to follow up on the concept of a sliding timeline (as explained here on Plot Points).

As I’d indicated before some characters are in my mind problematic:

• Armor, Nico Minoru: Neither is introduced as a character within our established time frame; including either character would also undermine Daisy Johnson’s perceived role as junior hero.
• Colossus: Currently dead; won’t be resurrected until after this Event.
• Hawkeye: One choice I made for gameplay reasons was to move the Avengers Disassembled event one month before Secret War, rather than one month after. What this means is that, if we assume the same storyline, he sacrifices himself to save the day.

The remaining heroes included in the Event look to be OK: Emma Frost, Gambit, Iron Fist, She-Hulk. And given time constraints, I may just leave it at that for right now . . . .

But if I had time to work on some replacement alternative characters and their milestones, they just might be:

•  Black Panther: He’d be a covert asset; his potential motivation could be building national conflict between Wakanda and Latveria.
• Ms Marvel, Spider-Woman: As agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Mystique: Fury considers it in his journal: she could be a really, really interesting femme fatale / black ops agent.

Secret War Checklist

In reading through the Secret War Event and thinking about how I would run it, apparently there are some aspects I need to modify or to create for it. (This probably true for any pre-made adventure a GM would use for any game.) While I really like the Secret War Event as posted, there are some design issues that stem both from its flashback structure (how to make sure that present actions and past actions don’t create narrative paradoxes) and from the serial nature of its creation and presentation (missing elements or loose ends).

Here is my checklist of design elements that need some attention:

• Injured Hero: Not so much a design issue as something the Watcher needs to be aware of from the start. In the Present, a hero is injured and hospitalized — presumably, not to be used any further in the Present. (In the comic, it’s Luke Cage who is in critical care.) Whoever it is in actual play that is injured, that hero needs also to be included in the Past as a Watcher character.

• Hero Roster: In a one-shot Event, continuity is less important. But in an ongoing campaign where each Event is meant to exist in a context and lead from one to the next, continuity becomes much more important. The actual characters in the comic included Black Widow, Captain America, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Nick Fury, Quake (Daisy Johnson), Spider-Man and Wolverine. So presumably, they’re givens.

Replacing any heroes shouldn’t be too difficult (if desired). One solution available straight from the comic is in the extra material included in the alternative choices presented from Nick Fury’s own personal files. For example, Shadowcat is one hero he considered, but rejected. She could be a very interesting alternative for this Event. (Note: Including alternative heroes to the ones provided in the Event means creating for them mission-specific milestones.)

• Missing Characters: One important character missing from this Event is the Tinkerer. He is mentioned in the comic, but only appears in passing. But an Event milestone deals with his apprehension. Presenting players with the side option of capturing him while in Latveria could be fun. (Note: I plan on posting a datafile for him and his toy robots later this week.)

• Motivating Actions: Finally there are actions players must take in the Past to ensure the existence of narrative conditions in the Present. For example, the heroes must choose to undertake the mission in the Past. And Nick Fury needs to activate his Failsafe so that the heroes have lost their memory of it in the Present.

So how do you motivate players to make narratively necessary choices?

One option is to simply remove narratively destructive options. For instance, the  Nick Fury’s I Know What I’m Doing 10 XP milestone reads: When you activate the Failsafe device wiping the memories of the others OR choose not to, allowing the others retain their memories. Remove the second option and have the player cash out the milestone by instead taking the necessary, but also more climactic action.

Another option is to offer players a bonus 1 XP if they take a narratively necessary action. The Watcher needs to announce to the players when and why this will happen. (By the way, I call this option/house rule the No-Prize. More on that later.)

Mea Culpa

Oops! In my previous December 4 Fandom Fave post, I mistakenly stated that the Doom Pool blog had gone defunct. It had been a site that I had actively followed for quite some time, but then had been unable to find. But this Google+ post shows that it is actually alive and well.

(I don’t know whether it was some confusion on my part, bad links, or had actually disappeared and has since then been resurrected. Again, my apologies.)

Marvel Yuletide

As it starts to get cold outside and the winter holidays rapidly approach, one begins to dream about Marvel holiday one-shots. Just yesterday, Plot Points posted a new Event How Doctor Doom Stole Christmas!  It’s a very short Event created by RT Goodman and based on the Scott Lobdell and John Byrne 1991 short comic I’ll Be Doom For Christmas.

In this same vein, I performed my own quick search and discovered this gem: Christmas With the Hulk (which I have already mentally re-named Hulk Smash X-Mas!) created by Thomas Denagh. It looks to be a really fun, lively rampage through downtown holiday Manhattan. And this looks like the Event that I may end up running this December 23 or 26. Stay tuned for that.

Another thought is the outline of an Event posted on the MWP Forums. I must confess I haven’t read the thread closely yet, so I can’t really speak to it myself. But it’s probably something worth looking into. And there are yet two more resources for you to check out: David Thomas’ X-Mas Milestones & Unlockables and Duck Call Lass’ write-up of Father Christmas Himself.

Joyeux Noel et bonne année!

Fandom Fave: Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Wiki

Over the past two years, I have discovered a handful of truly useful MHRP fan sites. In the future, I hope to devote individual posts to them describing each in some detail. Sadly when the license was pulled, one of my favorites (The Doom Pool) simply vanished. But it seems another came into life shortly thereafter to take its place: the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Wiki.

It came into existence thanks mainly to the efforts of Shoe from the Shoebox Games Blog. I believe he was among the community that had sprung up into existence on the original Margaret Weis forums for this game. (Most of that content was made currently unavailable when the original forums were discontinued – though there is hope for them to see the light of day now with the introduction of the brand new forums at MWP.)

The wiki is very much a community resource, created by MHRP gamers. It is an active community, full of creative content from which to draw upon. Much of its content to begin with was fan content that was rescued from the now-disappeared original forums.) But there is much new content that has been created since then.

This morning, as I was surfing the web looking for graphics for my game, I came across an entry for Iron Fist (Orson Randall) that very much resembled one I had previously posted — but one that is augmented and improves on it, I must say. And complete with solid Milestones, too (nice!). But I also found both a power set for Vampirism and a datafile for Mephisto that I had been looking to use — that is, if I ever get around to running a Marvel Mystic campaign.

Needless to say, a resource well worth anyone looking into. Hope you enjoy it!

Make Mine Marvel.

Coming Soon To A Theater Near You …

Yesterday, I announced my intention to run a weekly Marvel Heroic Roleplaying  campaign starting in January 2014. “From Secret to Civil War” takes advantage of the relative wealth of fanmade material. One of the many advantages of MHRP in my opinion is the ease with which players can enter / exit the game. (Which is great for this point in life when you have active adults who’d like to make the greater commitment to play, but who have to manage competing claims on their attention – like jobs, significant others and children, etc.)

Personally, Monday or Thursday nights would be ideal — but will not be a deal-breaker on my end. (My wife is a singer, and those are her rehearsal nights.) What I’m looking for is a small pool of players who can commit to playing a couple weeks at a time – but certainly not every week into perpetuity. (Unless they so wish.) Troupe play will be the order of the day.

I hope to start the campaign with Secret War sometime the first week in January. My guess is that Event will run about three weeks. If you are interested, tweet me @laughingmad.