Category Archives: What’s he playing?

***Spoiler Warning***

My group and I are playing through the Civil War event book for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, from Margaret Weis Productions. While the course of play may not follow the event book – or the comic books – precisely, there’s going to be a certain amount of stuff that does conform to the adventures and comic series.

In short, if you don’t want to know what happens in Civil War, don’t read these posts. Or the comic books.

***You Have Been Warned***

Friday night was the latest session of my Civil War campaign. This being the Christmas season, I was only able to get  two of the four players together, but there was enough stuff to do ((Well, almost enough stuff. We stopped early because I hadn’t prepped quite far enough ahead, and the heroes threw me a bit of a curve. You’ll see.)) for us to get in a decent evening of play. Besides, one of the heroes who made it to the game was Jumpstart, who had missed the previous session, so I wanted to do some stuff with him to let him catch up.

So, we started with Jumpstart on the helicarrier, trying to track down Captain America and Black Widow ((And it was at this point that Jumpstart’s player shared the bit of backstory that Jumpstart had a crush on Black Widow, which I hadn’t known previous. We’ll have to see what I can do with that.)). He wanted to see what Cap’s take on the whole SHRA was. While he was there, he decided to use his Tech Expert to hack into the S.H.I.E.L.D. system and leave himself a back door.

Now, I should mention here that I’ve pretty much decided to ignore the distinction between Action Scenes and Transition Scenes as described in the rules. Well, not ignore, exactly. Rather, I let scenes flow back and forth between these two ((Pretty arbitrary.)) scene types. This means that I can let character actions determine which way things go.

One of the things this means is that I let the players roll to create assets in any scene they’re in, though they also have the option of just using their specialties to declare resources, as outlined in the rules. Frankly, I prefer having them roll for their assets, for a few reasons. First, if they’re rolling dice, I’ve got the possibility of increasing the doom pool. Second, it gives the players the chance to create some very cool assets, with high die values. Third, and most importantly, it gives the players more freedom to tell the story of how they create the asset, using the dice pool mechanic. This reveals a lot about the characters, and allows the players to shape the way their heroes approach things.

This allowed Jumpstart to build an asset for himself: Backdoor to S.H.I.E.L.D. Systems d10. Cap came in while he was doing this ((But Jumpstart was able to finish creating the asset.)) and invited Jumpstart to come to a conference room for a discussion. There, Cap encouraged Jumpstart to register, and to do it now.

Yeah, in my Civil War game, Captain America is pro-registration.

I did this for a specific reason. At least two of the players are pretty familiar with the Civil War storyline. Indeed, a couple of times, references have been made to future events. Now, I hasten to say that there’s nothing wrong with that – I’m not trying to blame anyone for cheating ((Whatever that means in roleplaying games. Nothing, really, in my opinion.)) or anything like that. But I don’t like the idea of everyone just walking through a scripted set of events, knowing where things are going and how they’re going to get there. It drains the fun from the idea of an RPG, in my opinion,

I told people going in that I was going to be changing some things up from the canon stories, aside from just substituting the players’ heroes for the ones from the comics. They all nodded and said, “Yeah, sure, cool,” but this was the first big change that they’ve actually run into. And the look on the player’s face as Cap started to apply the pressure to register was wonderful ((Okay, this was probably a factor in making my decision.)). I think he was hoping to be able to fight side-by-side with Captain America against the government oppression.

This is one of the things I like about how the Civil War event book is built. It gives you all the pieces to play the canon events as written, but it also provides a lot of hints and ideas and suggestions for changing things up and making the event your own. It’s a pretty fine line to walk, and the book does it beautifully. And it really only takes a few minutes of thought to build the chain of reasoning that can put a given hero on the opposite side of the question.

For Cap, it was simple. It’s the law of the land. It’s the orders of his commanding officer. And a true hero will work with the system to make sure that the new law is administered fairly, and try and curb any excesses. He will work within the law to protect people. He’s a patriot who won’t turn his back on his government and his fellow Americans, and so will work to change things from the inside ((Which brings up the question, “What about Iron Man? Is Tony Stark now anti-registration?” Well, I’m not telling yet. I can make a convincing case for either side, so I’m holding off making a decision until I need to, and then I’m going to base it on character actions and player expectations.)).

Cap made his pitch, and Jumpstart hedged. Cap called him on it, and Jumpstart asked for twenty-four hours to make his decision. Cap said that was reasonable, and confined Jumpstart to the helicarrier for the next twenty-four hours until he gave Cap his decision. Cap walked out, and Jumpstart mumbled that that Cap was a prick.

At that point, I cut away from Jumpstart to check in with Volcanic. He was starting to get worried about Jumpstart, who hadn’t checked in for about twelve hours. He spent some time using the sensors of the Guardians’ hideout to lock on to the location of the helicarrier, and then building the Guardjet ((Clint: “How long will it take me to build a personal flying device?” Me: “It will take you one montage.” Clint: “Done!”)), then went to finalize his sabbatical from NYU ((Bringing Candy along to his newly-expanded and remodelled underground pad.)) and say good-bye to the Fantastic Four ((And get invited to the gathering leading up to the midnight registration deadline.)), all just in case he needed to go on the run after rescuing Jumpstart.

And then he went to rescue Jumpstart.

I expected this to turn out to be the fight of the session, mirroring in some ways the comic book scene where Captain America is confronted by Maria Hill and her Capekillers, and fights his way free to escape the helicarrier. I was ready for that, with all the stats for Maria Hill, the Capekillers, and even Cap to make things more challenging if I needed to.

But Volcanic used intimidation, diplomacy, and bargaining to get in to see Jumpstart. There was a moment when I really thought things were going to go south – Maria Hill was standing up to the boys, telling them that, regardless of registration status or anything else, taking violent action against S.H.I.E.L.D. would make them fugitives and criminals. Normally, that sort of challenge tends to get players’ dander up, and leads quickly to conflict ((The “Them’s Fightin’ Words” effect.)). But Volcanic and Jumpstart decided that they didn’t want to cross that line – at least, not yet, seeing as they were deep in the belly of the helicarrier. So, Volcanic offered Hill the data he had on Nitro’s chemical signature in return for letting he ((Volcanic, not Nitro. Just to be clear.)) and Jumpstart leave without pursuit until the official deadline passed.

She agreed, but advised that she would be unable to prevent Captain America from coming after Jumpstart, seeing as Jumpstart was violating his promise to Cap. Jumpstart said he understood, and told her that none of this was personal. She disagreed, saying, “You’ve undermined my authority in front of my people, and may have jeopardized S.H.I.E.L.D.’s working relationship with Captain America. That’s pretty damned personal to me.”

Thus Volcanic and Jumpstart left the helicarrier in the Guardjet, resigned to going underground and on the run once the SHRA deadline arrived. I was pleased that it was a difficult choice for them, and that I was able to give them a nice, dramatic incident to force their decision. It felt fitting to me, and seemed to be effective for them.

But since there had been no combat in this session, we ended far earlier than I had intended. I could have thrown a basically irrelevant fight at them – the only relevant fight I’d prepped involved Maria Hill, Capekillers, and Cap – but it would have been just a fight for fight’s sake. The other non-fighty, dramatic bits were things I really wanted the other players there for. And thus, because I hadn’t prepped enough, we called it a night early ((Well, we stopped gaming early. We sat around talking for a while, and then it turned out that Tom had never seen a Jimmy Carr act, so we watched one of his stand-up specials that I had on my AppleTV.)).

So. We’ve got three out of four heroes opting to resist registration. I hope to wrap up the first act of the event next session, but I really want the whole group there for that. Here’s hoping.

***Spoiler Warning***

My group and I are playing through the Civil War event book for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, from Margaret Weis Productions. While the course of play may not follow the event book – or the comic books – precisely, there’s going to be a certain amount of stuff that does conform to the adventures and comic series.

In short, if you don’t want to know what happens in Civil War, don’t read these posts. Or the comic books.

***You Have Been Warned***

Last night, we got 75% of the gang ((Jumpstart’s player was out of town, but there was enough stuff to do that didn’t require everyone in attendance. So, Jumpstart was off seeing what he could find out from his S.H.I.E.L.D. contacts.)) together for the next Civil War session. We had ended the previous session with the clean-up after the Stamford tragedy, and we picked it up there as well.

The mood in Stamford was turning, especially after the passage of the SHRA, and most of the heroes had done what they could and got out by the third day. The people in Stamford, originally grateful for the help, were starting to look on the heroes with anger and suspicion and fear. By the end of the third day, the Guardians decided that it was best to head back to New York, but not before Volcanic gathered some samples from the blast site allowing him to create a chemical profile that he thinks will help him track down Nitro.

The Doctor also got a copy of the SHRA and read through it. He decided that the rather draconian provisions of the act ((Things like suspension of due process for heroes, conscription into S.H.I.E.L.D., indefinite detention, and treating anyone who aids an unregistered hero as a criminal.)) made him uncomfortable. He shared the information with the rest of the Guardians, and began making plans to go underground.

Volcanic and Mega Joule followed suit, starting to cut their ties with their civilian lives. Mega Joule said good-bye to Coach Nelson and left his job at the community centre to move into Guardians HQ – he had already made up his mind that he wasn’t going to register. Volcanic cleaned out his office at NYU, and had a conversation with the head of his department, who offered some support and suggested that Volcanic ((The only one with a public identity, mainly because it’s hard to disguise an eight-foot-tall humanoid magma being.)) may want to take a sabbatical, and the department head would expedite the paperwork to get it done before the registration deadline.

Volcanic also called Candy, his lab assistant ((And unknowing love interest.)) to say goodbye, and was somewhat astounded when she told him that not only would she support whatever decision he made, she would go with him if he decided to go underground ((Clint: “Just so you know, having Candy respond like that has really messed up Volcanic’s head, so good job!”)).

The Doctor went to see his parents and let them know he was cutting all financial ties with them to make sure that, if he decided not to register, there would be no reason for the authorities to come after them. I decided that I’d given enough ammo to the anti-registration argument at that point, and had the parents encourage the Doctor to register, providing mainly emotional arguments, but with a few logical bits thrown in ((So, it was a mix of “Why wouldn’t you register? You don’t do anything wrong! You’re a hero!” along with “If you’re involved, you can curb the worst excesses.” and the fearful implied argument “Untrained, unsupervised teenagers with superpowers just killed over six hundred people. Doesn’t that sound like training and supervision is a good idea? And that means you need superheroes to train and supervise – and police – other superheroes. Normal folks can’t do it.”)).

The upshot was that Volcanic and the Doctor were both on the fence about registration. A good part of the evening was spent discussing and debating the pros and cons of registration, and what would happen to the team if some opted for registration and others didn’t.

I loved it. They were taking the idea of the SHRA seriously, and were genuinely concerned about the consequences of their choices. That’s some meaty roleplaying fodder.

In the end, I made it clear that they didn’t have to make a decision during that session – I want to save the decision until the whole group is there, and Jumpstart needs to confront the possibilities before the decision becomes meaningful for him. So, maybe next session. In the meantime, everyone got ready to be able to drop off the radar if that’s what they decided to do.

With that discussion tabled for now, the Guardians decided to go after the Sloveniy Bratva, the Russian gang that had hired the Titanium Man to kill Mega Joule. They tracked them to their clubhouse during an important meeting ((Mega Joule rolled an extraordinary success when intimidating information out of gang members, so I gave him the place and decided that there would be an important meeting going on that evening.)), and burst up through the floor in the middle of things ((After carefully clearing the area of civilians and blocking the doors with Stone Walls d8)).

I had decided that the Sloveniy Bratva was being used by the Maggia to make inroads in Manhattan, allowing Nefaria to try and grab a piece of the island without directly challenging the Kingpin, so Nefaria was there to provide a case of A.I.M.-created blasters. Also present was his current bodyguard, Electro.

The fight was interesting. The players are really getting the hang of the system, and are using it to create some memorable moments. Examples? Sure!

• The Doctor took out Nefaria, trapping him in a repeating time-loop with his Sorcery ((One-shotted him, in fact, in the first action of the combat.)).
• Mega Joule managed a very cool counter-attack, bouncing the blaster bolts off his body with his Kinetic Control to take out some of the goons.
• Volcanic single-handedly took down Electro with emotional stress, just humiliating him into submission. First, he let Electro blast him and shrugged it off effortlessly ((With a counterattack against his emotional stress.)), then used a pillar of lava to slam him into the waterpipes in the ceiling, soaking him and grounding him out ((Volcanic spent several plot points on this, winding up with a double-extraordinary success and two effect dice, both of which he stepped up.)).

When they turned the crooks over to the police, things were a little tense. There were a number of the cops who wanted to bring in the heroes, as well, for being unregistered heroes and vigilantes, and all that sorta thing. Mega Joule asked if he could spend a plot point to have a DEA agent who was favourably disposed toward him that he could call, and I said sure ((I made a decision at that point that I would allow the players to spend plot points for persistent contacts, with a couple of caveats. First, they had to name the contact. Second, while the contact belonged to the character, he or she would be played by me, and the relationship would be subject to change depending on how the character treated the contact. Third, it would cost a plot point so that the characters would only create NPCs they were interested in enough to spend the point, and not just create ten new ones each session that I would then have to keep track of. Clint asked, “Can we do the same thing to create enemies?” and I thought that was awesome, so I said, “Absolutely!”)). The DEA got them out of there in good order.

Now Mega Joule, who happens to have the Hunted by M.O.D.O.K. milestone, has information that the Maggia is buying weapons from A.I.M ((That’s quite a coincidence, hmmm?)). He also was able to give his DEA agent contact information on at least a couple of the Maggia’s stash houses, thanks to the drugs they recovered from the meet and the Doctor’s sorcery.

We wrapped things up for the evening then, but had a short post mortem on the game – something I tend to frequently in the early days of a campaign, then every now and then as a campaign progresses – to see how people were liking things.

Consensus is that the system is becoming easier for people. It’s required a bit of a shift of perspective from traditional games, both for the players and for the GM, but as we gain familiarity with it, it’s allowing us some significant freedom in the game. The players are getting better at using the system creatively and effectively, and I’m getting better at judging when I need to invoke the system and when things should just develop through straight narrative. And we’re all getting better at blending the narrative and the mechanics to entertaining effect.

So, here we are, three sessions in, and we’re all having a lot of fun with the system and with the campaign. I’m really looking forward to the next session.