I’m not going to point out how far behind I am on blogging, anymore. It’s pretty much a given. I’ve got four more game reports to get up after this one, and a new Pandemonium game this Friday, so I want to get the report of the last session up before that.
Anyway.
We added a new character last session: Maker, a young man who developed nanotech, loaded himself with nanocolonies, and then had his tech stolen by Chimaera Systems. I figured that a good way to introduce the new character would be to have him approach the others ((Famous as the Heroes of Gotham after they saved all the citizens on the bridge a couple of sessions ago.)) and ask for their help in getting the ((Very dangerous.)) nanotech back from Chimaera.
Maker was able to tell them that his lab was at the Bleak Island Research Facility ((Colloquially known as Monster Island.)), so the group started plotting a way to get in and find the tech. They built up a number of assets to use in play, and managed to make a moderately stealthy entry to the site.
After dealing with some minor complications on the upper levels, they made their way down to the lab where Maker’s research was being examined and exploited. The project had been labeled ICARUS, and they found ICARUS PRIME, the first Chimaera test subject, ready and waiting for them.
I had reskinned an Iron Man datafile to act as ICARUS PRIME, with a few minor tweaks. This made for pretty tough character, and I gave him some assets and resources based on him being on his home turf. In addition, I had a pretty full doom pool – eight or nine d8s and d10s.
And here’s where I learned the secret ((Well, A secret, anyway.)) of the doom pool. Big dice make the players feel time pressure – if I’ve got a d12 and a d10 in the pool, the players pull out all the stops to make things happen now, before I manage to get the 2d12 I can use to end the scene ((I don’t always just end the scene when I get the 2d12 – it can be too easy to rack up the dice and that makes it just feel cheap.)). But, with a large number of smaller dice, you can make the villains you’re running just nasty! Lots of d8s and d10s mean that I effectively have a whole heap of plot points to roll more dice, get higher totals, make counterattacks, and generally mess with the heroes.
Now, I’m sure that this isn’t revelatory for everyone. I mean, I speculated about using the doom pool for pacing in a post way back here. But this was one of the first times I really started getting it. The shape of the doom pool – number and size of dice in it – creates different kinds of concerns and pacing for the heroes, and suggests and allows different kinds of tricks and benefits for the Watcher.
The upshot of this is that I’m going to be looking for different ways to use the doom pool to create interesting pacing and challenges in the game. I’m curious to see how it works out.
So, this Friday, it looks like it’s going to be a small group – three out of five heroes – and they’re going to resume their hunt for Whisper, the Phage Worms, and the Chant.
What could possibly go wrong with that?