Collateral Damage Issue #2: Super Shenanigans at Camp Hammond
Welcome again gentle reader to the continuation of this amazing series chronicling the exploits of the West Coast’s newest Super Hero team: Collateral Damage” powered by the all new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying technology!
Featuring
The One Man Army (AKA TOMA): A Sino-Arab mutant that can multiply in seemingly unlimited numbers. Prone to get into a lot of trouble but he has plenty of hands to handle it.
The Great Gregory: A man that can see exactly one minute into his immediate future. Bored of scamming casinos and doing clever magic tricks, he seeks a more “interesting” lifestyle as a hero.
The Magnificent Nightcrawler: Not quite the exact same lovable swashbuclking teleporter mutant from Earth-616, but pretty damn close.
Tsunami: Adorable Idoru-like water-controlling nuclear physicist whose links to her former humanity are tenuous at best.
Previously…
The members of the soon-to-be-formed Collateral Damage met in a seedy L.A. aquatic acrobatic circus where Nightcrawler and Tsunami got attacked by a band of ninjas led by the Silver Samurai. Learning to work together surprisingly fast, our heroes evacuated the place, flooded the whole theater and turned it into a gigantic Taser, making short work of the ninjas and the poor heavily armoured samurai.
As the police took the villains into custody, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in charge supervising the new team announced that they were flying to Stanford Connecticut for their official Hero training…
Collateral Damage Issue #1: Electric Ninja Boogaloo, Part 2
Join us dear readers in a thrill ride where dangers and catastrophe are a dime a dozen. Witness the birth of a new Superhero team in the heart of the City of Angels! Collateral Damage is here to stay! Take a special behind-the-scenes tour here and don’t miss Part 1 of this exciting new series! Excelsior! Sit back and enjoy what the new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game can offer. Excelsior!
Dramatis Personae
Just so you don’t have to go back to remember who’s who:
- The One Man Army (TOMA): A wisecracking troublemaker that can duplicate himself many many times. Played by Yan.
- Tsunami: A water-controller nuclear scientist who’s slowly loosing her humanity as she shifts into a water elemental-like creature. Played by Alex.
- The Great Gregory: A two-bit stage magician and casino cheat with the uncanny ability to see up to one minute in his future. Played by PM.
- Nightcrawler: Our favorite German Mutant teleporting Swashbuckler. Played by Frankie
Part #1 Redux
In one of Los Angeles’ seedier aquatic circus shows, S.H.I.E.L.D agent Sharon S. brings TOMA and The Great Gregory to meet Nightcrawler and Tsunami. As Nightcrawler’s plays his fake Houdini act, Ninjas prepare to attack. The surprise is foiled by a very alert Tsunami and a fight starts. Tsunami, TOMA and Nightcrawler engage the ninjas and save the confused and frightened audience. As the ninjas try to threaten Tsunami into surrendering, The Great Gregory announces the arrival of a far greater threat: The Silver Samurai! [Read the rest of this article]
Collateral Damage Issue #1: Electric Ninja Boogaloo, Part 1
Welcome true believers to a series describing the antics of the newest super hero team: Collateral Damage! I hope you’ve caught our special pre-launch issue where we showed you the nitty-gritty aspects of our creation process. Now get ready form pure raw action and laughs as only the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game can offer you!
Setting the Scene
The Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game supports many playing style, from the more traditional “Game Master describes stuff, players react” to the Writer’s Room approach where the Gamemaster (called The Watcher) acts like a comic book’s editor and the players are as much the writers and artists of the whole series as the voice of their own characters. I really like this approach. Thus, while I get to set and run scenes, I encourage players to butt in and propose cooler ways for things to go down. It’s one of those “Shared Narrative” experience that jargon-laden game designers like to write about. Trust me, it’s a lot more fun than it sounds.
When we finally were ready to start playing, my heart started pounding as I had ABSOLUTELY no plot prepared for the session, having decided to trust the setting elements we’d create earlier in the session and our combined creativity. I picked the index cards unto which I copied the setting elements we created earlier (see previous post) and picked the following (with ideas I got while reviewing them):
- The Circus: Something happens at the show (Nightcrawler and Tsunami are working there. This would let Tsunami shine with her water powers)
- Sharon S: The S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison to the yet-to-be-formed team (She brings the other 2 heroes to introduce them to form the team).
- The Obsessed Scientist: Hired thugs to try to kidnap/coerce Tsunami back to Japan (Opposition!).
I had a scene. I just needed some supporting characters above and beyond Sharon. I started looking through my list (in the Breakout Mini-event that comes out with the Basic game) for an appropriate super villain. I kept going back to the Silver Samurai and that clinched it for me.
The Nipponese scientist pays Clan Harada huge sums of money to send a band of ninjas in LA to track Tsunami and apprehend her. The scientist INSISTS that the Harada himself be there to oversee operations and get involved if necessary.
I stated a large group of ninjas (the game has mechanics for mobs of identical minor characters) within seconds and I was ready to start. [Read the rest of this article]
Collateral Damage #0: The Making of a New (Marvel RPG) Series
I have a gaming group that meets monthly on Sundays. It is composed of my close friends Yan, Franky, (Ubisoft) Alex and PM.
Not too long ago, they approached me to let me know they wanted to go back to classic campaigns. We spent most of the last 2 years playing one-shots of mini-campaigns of various game systems. When I asked what game they’d like to tackle, the answer was unequivocal: Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. They wanted to play with heroes they’d make from scratch and participate in home brewed adventures.
This request brought quite an interesting challenge for em. You see, the Marvel game is principally presented to play out specific events set in the Marvel Universe using pre-established heroes. These events will be based on published plot arcs like the upcoming Civil War or Age of Apocalypse. The events will mix events that occurred in the official storyline with ”what if” elements where players make decisions that may send the story in directions not covered by the original stories.
Thus, what my players requested was not something that I felt entirely comfortable doing right off the bat. Thankfully, I wasn’t without options. The basic rules provide plenty of guidance to make/adapt characters and create your own adventures. But I wasn’t sure I could pull off what they expected: a structured campaign based on my own ideas and my (still) limited knowledge of the Marvel Universe.
(Game designer aside: With over 70 years of history and 9000 characters, I’m not ever going to be a Marvel expert. I joined the team as a Game Designer and as the token “13 y.o boy who played FASERIP“)
Then it dawned on me, I have the tools I need. All those different game systems I’ve been playing these last 2 years give me a lot of options. much like the stuff that Dave and I blogged about here. The Marvel system itself doesn’t inhibit telling my own stories.
Thus I hatched the following strategy to prepare my first RPG campaign in over year.
Character Generation
First, we’d take a whole session making characters. The game provides clear guidelines to create/adapt your own hero but they do require a certain level of rules mastery to get exactly what you want. We spent a few hours individually then together at the table picking Distinctions (personality traits and catchphrases players), Specialties (skills), Power Sets and, more importantly, Special Effects (ways to use powers that bend the rules of the game, like Captain America’s area attack). Getting special effects right was what took us the longest as we wanted to go beyond those found in the book and tweak/create effects that went perfectly well with each hero’s powerset.
We ended up with the following four characters:
Nightcrawler (Franky): Using the available rules, we were able to create a faithful rendition of our favourite swashbuckling mutant teleporter. We established that the character was not being held to canon unless Franky felt it was fun and didn’t constrain his creativity.
The One Man Army (Yan): Inspired by Multiple Man, the self-duplicating mutant seen in X-Men 3 (and X-Factor), He’s a wisecracking troublemaking ex-con who’s idea of problem solving is throwing more manpower at it until the problem vanished under a pile of clones.
The Great Gregory (PM): Inspired by Nick Cage’s character in Next, Gregory is a jaded low-end stage magician and casino cheat with the ability to see one minute into his future. I must say that making a precognitive character was quite a challenge but as you’ll see in Issue #1, the game’s engine can support it much better than I expected.
Tsunami (Alex): A water elemental-like creature that looks like a Japanese idoru. Ami Tsun used to be a physicist who got caught in the Fukushima nuclear reactor in last year’s catastrophe. She got caught in one of the flooded reactors and developped Water Controlling powers.
Player Generated Setting Elements
In order to have something upon which to build our campaign world, I suggested an overarching setting based on the Marvel Universe. Using my recent research for the upcoming Civil War event books, I proposed that the players could be one of the federally-backed supers teams assigned to a specific American state (very loosely based on Marvel’s Fifty State Initiative). They agreed and we chose California.
Borrowing from my own “party generation template” and Dave’s excellent Gammarizer, I asked each player to come up with one setting element (places, recent events and minor characters) linking their character to the setting. Here’s what we came up with.
Sharon S.: S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and former actress. She was to act as the team’s liaison to her organization.
Tow-Wing’s Garage and Halal Fried Noodles: The One Man Army’s work place. I apologize if you find the name culturally offensive, but Yan’s PC is named “Mohammed Chang” a Muslim born from a Sino-Arab union. We all assumed that the business was named by a socially incompetent person… Which kinda fits TOMA to a T.
Hiroito Takashima: A crackpot scientist conspiracy theorist (or is it terrorist?) obsessed with the origins and powers of Tsunami. He has been diverting his own research grants into tracking her to America.
Thomas Redgrave: A Paranoid Casino Security Consultant who once caught Gregory slipping from his usually disciplined casino cheating routine (win slowly and quit before being noticed). He lost many jobs in various Las Vegas casinos trying to convince people of Gregory’s threat. The man is on a vendetta.
Father O’Reilly: Kurt’s Irish confessor and local community leader. Recovered alcoholic, of course.
Le Cirque: A seedy ripoff of Le Cirque du Soleil featuring a pool and scantily clad acrobats. Tsunami works the show’s controls and mechanical sharks. Yes, you read that right.
The Circus Act: Nightcrawler makes occasional guest appearances at the circus in a cheap Houdini act featuring an iron coffin covered in chains, dunked in a pool and stabbed by sword-wielding acrobats. Of course, when that happens, Kurt is safely reading magazines in his dressing room.
Your Mutant Past Will Bite/Help You Someday: In TOMA’s recent past, he dealt with Magneto and Mystique in some undefined way. There’s a good chance they’ll be back to follow up on that.
This setting element brought another one that Franky didn’t want to assume initially but he chose to go with Canon.
Nightcrawler’s Parents: As established, Kurt was born of Mystique and Azazel.
That’s so much material to pick from to create a game.
Milestones
The last element that we needed to establish before the game started was to give character milestones (the game’s experience system based on rewarding specific actions). According to the game, players get to choose 2 from an established list of event or character specific milestones. We took the time to generate one character-specific milestone per hero, agreeing to make setting specific ones in later sessions. I won’t go into specifics as they”ll likely change with time but here’s a summary of each.
TOMA: Dealing with his criminal past. Bring criminals to justice and get his record clean.
Nightcrawler: Being a devout catholic. Putting himself at great risk or even exposing himself in order to save ordinary people. Possibly becoming a priest even.
The Great Gregory: Deal with his boredom by choosing ways of putting his allies in trouble and letting villains escape for a later confrontation. Might even go as far as putting a friend or himself in mortal danger.
Tsunami (To be further defined): Retain her link to humanity or chose to forgo humanity altogether.
Armed with all these, I was totally ready to start a campaign. And let me tell you, it started with a BANG!
Up Next, Issue #1: Electric Ninja Boogaloo!
Chatty Plays: Freemarket Part 3, Ghost’N'Breakin’
This post chronicles the second half of our Freemarket game. You can follow my post on character creation here and my recounting of the first half here. Let’s conclude our David vs Goliath story of stolen sex toys designs, covetous enlightened blanks and subtle revenge.
Quick dramatis personae reminder:
- Jack Knife (Yan): Jack of many trades and Body-Artist.
- Paul Demetrios (PM): OCD Investigator, think “Monk”.
- Coleco (Franky): Recycler and builder, “the old fashion way”.
- Flint (Mike): Decked out Enlightened Interface Fetishist. Think Cyber-Jesus
Challenge 3: I’ll Know What I Want When I See It.
Mike: I want Flint to infiltrate the Grindstone Cowboys compound, do some snooping around to find where stuff is, find the guy he doesn’t remember and get his Interface!
Chatty: Yeah, you’re familiar enough with the way the Station works that you suspect your memory was altered since yesterday. That’s a good challenge. After that you guys will do something about the stolen toy’s designs?
Franky: Exactly!
(Total Transparency: I’m taking significant artistic liberties with the actual dialogues. I tell an accurate true story but I will fictionalize the details… because I can, he he he)
A note on team challenges and the task resolution system I alluded to in the last post. In order to initiate a challenge, a character is better served by having the proper skill or one Geneline tags fit with what they wish to achieve. In our case, Flint had the Ghosting skill (Stealth + Thievery) while the others had Genelines tags that could help. For example, Paul’s “Investigative” and Jack’s “Creative”.
Pixel-bitching aside: Yes, that means that there’s going to be some sort of “tag” whoring going on at the table… at least, I expect some because it’s part of what I consider part of the “entertaining your GM’ experience.
Chatty: So are you joining this challenge or not?
Player X: I don’t know… I don’t see anything relevant…
Chatty: Oh come on, you aren’t allowed to be boring, entertain me! (/Aside)
Thus, Flint and Paul infiltrated the HQ (the game suggests to always handwave the “getting there/getting in” parts of ghosting challenges and focus on the actual jobs). The other PCs monitored things remotely, ready to jump in if things became violent.
It’s also worth mentioning that generating NPCs in this game is wonderful. You either assign stats on the fly or follow a fast series of card draws from the GM’s deck to generate Genelines, Experience, Interface and Technology (always relevant to the challenge at hand). You then assign a Flow score, name the character and you have a NPC to keep for the rest of the campaign.
Anyhoo, with a series of awesome hands (and a crappy one on my side) the players aced the challenge yet again…
Chatty: Okay you found the guy you were looking for and tailed him to a “blind” corner of the HQ, now tell me how Flint’s going to rip a piece of interface from him!
Mike: Hmmm, how ’bout it’s a brain chip with a very particular design?
Chatty: Cool, so you knock the guy senseless and rip it out of his skull! Good job, next challenge!
Challenge 5: Buggy Forbidden Pleasures
Franky: We want to hack the Cowboy’s protected systems to corrupt the design of the sex toy they stole.
Chatty: That’s going to be a great finish to end the game, let me generate the security expert of the system. He’ll represent the HQ’s overall security, the systems counter measures and the protective layers of software between you and the designs.
(i.e. mechanically that just means the NPC’s stats, the game makes no true difference between stats/tools/setting when representing opposition)
Once again, the players won by a large margin. I drew badly again (there are times like this). Just so I don’t sound more like a broken record, here’ s an example of how narration and the mini card game interacted.
While Coleco was busy hacking the system, Flint was sneaking in the compound, looking for places where he could weaken security and cause diversions.At one point he met a burly guard and Mike (Flint’s player) drew point scoring cards, which usually translated in successful mini-scenes. Looking over Mike’s character sheet I saw that his Geneline is “The One” and has a whole cult thing going, so…
Chatty (As the guard): It’s…. YOU! I can’t believe it!
Mike: Huh?
Chatty: The guard shows you he wears a pendant of the cult of the New Order.
Mike: Awesome! Can I ask his help?
Chatty: Fire away!
And thus Mike sent the guard to pull a general alarm, emptying the MRCZ’s huge compound while the rest of the party finished their job. At the end of the challenge, Frank decided to change just one tag of his original design to make it slightly less interesting than his own revised one and not overly awaken suspicion. This also gave them enough “victory points” left to spend on full Flow rebates, putting everyone well over 30 each and scoring them a piece of “data”, the game’s other currency (data can be analyzed, gifted, injected as memories, etc).
And so I give you:
The Toy: Ephemeral, Inconvenient, Pleasurable
Yeah, my players are still shy about the game’s possibility. In a world where death is a minor inconvenience at best (often only making you miss your next appointment), I would have LOVED to see “explosive” or “infected” as a tag instead of “inconvenient”.
And thus was our game completed. We managed to play 1 challenge per player which is an average session and the game lasted about 3-4 hours which factored in some book digging and general goofing around.
Are we to be Freemers?
I’ll let the players chime in if they feel like it, but based on the feedback I got, my players were willing (and some even eager) to keep playing next month. I really would like to see how the game evolves over a few session.
More specific feedback:
PM thought the game played out a LOT better than his expectations. While initially confused about the skills and actual “mission” of the game, the relative smoothness at which everything meshed together delivered a very satisfying experience for him. He got to act out mini-scenes as an hyper-focused OCD character and we all enjoyed it.
Franky was blown away at the sheer madness of the adventure hooks and the fast pace of the game. He NEVER expected that I would choose his “Sex Toy” memory to drive a session, much less have it generate hours of fun and mirth. He did have some trouble “getting” the mechanics of the game from how scoring worked to how each experience could be used. His was a good example where what a player thinks a skill should do, and what the designers decided it would, can clash.
Yan liked the mechanics of the game. He was intrigued by it and I saw his tactician’s brain engage into furious activity a few times, confirming that he grokked the game fine. He did mention that he felt the setting was far too constrained for what the game’s engine could achieve. In that he felt he could tweak the skill list and general assumptions a bit and make this into a full blown “British Sci Fi” game capable of emulating the stories of Vernor Vinge and Peter Hamilton.
(I think it would take more work as the game system is a lot more interconnected than what they experienced so far… but I consider it a good sign when Yan’s dormant designer genes wake up)
Mike didn’t offer direct feedback, but he’s become my “mine canary” to detect a game’s “frustration pocket”. I saw his steam level rise when he played bad hands over several challenges. That’s why I’m happy that the last 2 challenges that featured him on the front line turned out nice and that he got his spotlight time. He does seem to have some trouble finding ideas and ways to create a narrative with the game’s mechanics… but I think that’s a challenge of story-driven game themselves and I know he’ll warm up to it…
Hell, he did blow us away during our Fiasco game.
And me? I love the game. I’d totally play a 2-4 session mini-campaign like we did with Apocalypse World before moving on to either Burning Wheel, Leverage or possibly that new game I’m working on.
Props:
- The game is one sweet piece of play tested integrated clockwork engine with a simple yet rock solid setting
- The pace is perfect and answers my current needs as a time-pressed gamer.
- The ways you can screw with players even when they “win” is sublime and I can’t wait to turn the “evil” dial a few notches.
(Slight) Cons:
- The rule book’s landscape format and layout, took the “easier to learn, harder to reference” approach that makes for more page flipping hunting for Flow costs and the like (Index is very solid though, I need to tab the book with posts it)
- I’m still unsure about a few things about running challenges (like using bugs, and what to do when running out of options when you have no bugs) but one or two sessions more and I feel I could run the game at cons without any problems.
I hope you enjoyed this little series. Don’t hesitate to ask questions! I’ll do what I can and I’m sure the designers aren’t too far. 
Chatty Play’s: Freemarket Part 2, The Steam Stallion
We finally got to play the Freemarket characters that we made a few weeks ago. The game was supposed to be a 1 session demo as we have been doing during our Pilgrimage of new games these last few months.
Well, the session turned out a LOT better than most of us expected given how alien some aspect of the game appeared to us before playing it. Chances are this may become a short campaign instead of a one-shot.
Let’s dive in.
Dramatis Persona:
Jack Knife (Yan): Multi-Talented Body-Artist. Experienced creative printer, ephemerist and interface designer (hard/software Implants) who’s been around the station a few times.
Paul Demetrios (PM): OCD Investigator. Hacker and Thin-slicer that NEVER lets something go unsolved (unless made to forget it, an apparently common occurrence).
Coleco (Franky): An Old-World Tools Replicator. A cultivation and recycling expert, can create tech pieces of unparallel beauty with discarded scrap.
Flint (Mike): An Enlightened Interface Fetishist. Illuminated by the sayings of the Prophet of the New Order, he seeks perfection through Interface!
Welcome Home Bros!
The game strongly encourages the GM to introduce the setting by describing the PCs new digs. As a Tier 1 MRCZ (an archaic acronym from the Station’s construction era, pronounced “Mercy”), the characters get an upgrade from capsule pods and communal areas. They get to share living and working areas with another Tier one MRCZ in a wagon-sized cargo container.
The game also urges the GM to create tension right off the bat by making the other MRCZ into something completely different (and possibly at cross-purposes) from the players’ own. That why I made the neighbours into a small Krishna revivalist cult using their songs and millennial manipulation techniques to create a second coming of whatever they thought Krishnas were supposed to be about.
I didn’t have to do anything else… Jack Knife was already sick and tired of the endless droning chant and dove for the matter printer on their half of the pod.
Challenge 1: What’s that Smell?
Chatty: So what’s your goal here?
Yan: Jack wants to create a soundproof partition.
Chatty (Thinking aloud) : Hmmm, is it enough of a stake to make it into a challenge? Hells yeah! You’re all broke Flow wise (the Station’s influence-based commodity) and I want to drive you nuts with this shtick! Let’s do this.
Freemarket’s task resolution system is called a Challenge. You only do them when players (or key NPCs) want to bring about change to anything on the Station and there’s someone at the table opposed to that change.
In our case, all the players chipped in some Flow to create a bitchin’ flexible soundproof partition out of the dog-sized matter printer. This was a team challenge, with all players playing against me. I represented the flaws in the badly maintained printer and some hidden viruses left by playfully malicious ex-occupants of the cargo pod.
Challenges are performed by having players play a narrative-splashed card-scoring mini-game using the decks packed with the game (explaining, in part, its 60$ price tag). Going into the details of this mechanic would derail the whole post away from its purpose, but suffice it to say that once we grokked it, everything became a fast-paced, engrossing risks-vs-benefits scoring race against the opposing team.
In our case, I brought the printing challenge to an end by conceding a Minor success to the PCs. After describing how everyone got the printer to work semi-correctly, I explained to Yan that their margin of victory was so slim that all they could do was impose one of three tags to the freshly printed partition… I’d get to set the other two.
I also indicated that nobody’s Flow would be reimbursed, sending some players into negatives and putting them in danger of being voted off the Station.
(You read that right, Freemarket has some Reality TV elements. The actions of all MRCZ are, usually, public and subjected to going viral, becoming trends or subject of intense scrutiny.)
Chatty: So what tag are you…
Yan: SOUNDPROOF!
Chatty: So, that leaves two… lets make them…. Smelly (all players groaned) and… Inflammable!
Aside two: I made a mistake here. I forgot that all pieces of technology built in the game must have one tag corresponding to one of the 14 “skills”… I’ll fix it here. The partition stats are thus:
NullNoise MRCZ pod partition, Tags: Ghosting (that’s Stealth), Soundproof, Smelly.
Interlude 1: Family Memories Pileup!
While hilarious, that last challenge didn’t really create a lot of hooks to start the adventure, so I dug in my Memory Mashup notes (the process I described at the end of my last post) to pull a few hooks to get things started.
Chatty: Franky, Coleco’s brother Miro, who you thought was somewhere else in the Solar System just pinged your PC. He needs your help with some piece of old tech he ‘found”.
Franky: What the hell? He’s on the station? Let him come…I guess.
Turns out Miro had a piece of ancient motherboard that he wanted the players to hack and extract data in it. When the players realized how much Flow it would cost them to do that, they all balked! They all had low balances, some only barely above zero by having friended (yes, like in Facebook) most of the MRCZ’s members.
Seeing that they would likely have to postpone this task, I dug back into my pile of Mashed Memories (I had 3 more) and pulled the next one. It ended up being a boring dead end (It was too vague and had no fun leads) so I picked the next one.
Miro: Yeah so, I don’t know if it’s any help, but have you guys heard about the Grindstone Cowboys MRCZ yet? They apparently got their hands on a new “Sex Toy” design and have started mass producing them. They’re going to gift them all to a 2nd Gen dude named Korg who makes wild experiments with Blanks (i.e. Printed, artificial humans).
Mike: Hey, Korg is Flint’s creator!
Franky: WTF!?! I made that toy yesterday and it was supposed to be discretely delivered to a member of the Ambassador MRCZ. I wanna ping her!
Chatty: She says she never got it and she’s about to “frown” you for reneging on a contract.
Franky: What’s frowning?
Chatty: Oh, a frownie is a formal token of disapproval…it’s worth -3 Flow.
Franky: Crap no, I’m at 1!
See that? That was all done with the players long/short term memories. It took me about 10 minutes before the game to come up with these hooks. So awesome.
So what the players decided to do was to handcraft the Ambassador a new, better toy. In order to generate the needed flow to undertake this endeavour, Coleco gave his Retro-Phasor gun to his brother (everyone knew he was a no good, two timer… but hey). Thus Coleco gained an instant 10 Flow.
Yup, you gain Flow in Freemarket by friending people, gifting them stuff, filling contractual obligations and winning team challenges by a large margin (the central computer, in its programmed socially-driven benevolence, rewards cooperation). Flow is then used to start all challenges (or survive challenges against you) and to petition the Central Computer for a MRCZ tier upgrade.
The other players exchanged more friendship requests among themselves and braced for the challenge.
Challenge 2: Are Those Brass Keys or Are You Just Happy to See Me?
Chatty: Okay, what’s your goal?
Franky: We want to create a better, sleeker sex toy for the Ambassador. Something made of Clockworks and Brass!
Others: Yeah!
Chatty: A Steampunk Dildo huh?
After we recovered from generalized hilarity, we agreed it was a good challenge. By then, everyone had huge stupid grins. The game’s mission was accomplished, Freemarket had been adopted.
The challenge pitted everyone in the party, helping Franky hand craft his “masterpiece” by merging together (i.e. Recycling) two different pieces of tech, namely pieces of the busted matter printer and knick-knacks of dumb material strewn here and there in the pod.
My side of the challenge represented the material’s low grade, distraction caused by the partition’s smell and the challenge of achieving Franky’s vision with so few good parts. They won the challenge by a landslide, each scoring a lot of Flow.
Chatty: Well done gang, you now get to give it three tags, one of which must be one of the 14 skills. I’d saw that a sex toy is definitively “ephemera”.
(Sniggers)
And I give you:
The Steam Stallion Mk I, Tags: Ephemera, Filling, Orgasmic.
Yes, we’re a bunch of 13 year olds… sigh.
Interlude 2: Plowing and Plotting
Coleco gifted the toy to the soon to be very happy Ambassador. Bolstered by all that Flow, the group set out to plan their next move on those thieving Grindstone Cowboys.
At that point, I had noticed that Mike had had a very unlucky card streak so far and had been, more or less, the only player yet to have some spotlight time. So I nudged the group so he got involved in the next scene’s planning. Oddly enough, according to his recent memories, he had a very good reason to visit the Grindstone Cowboys… He wanted to obtain someone’s interface. Except he couldn’t quite exactly remember which one… and on whom.
Did I tell you I really like this game?
Up next, Ghosting and Breaking challenges within the Grand HQ of the Tier 6 Grindstone Cowboys MRCZ!
Tales of the Apocalypse, Part 4: Bloody Sunrise
With my prep done, I was ready to start this week’s game, not knowing how it would turn out.
Previously on Apocalypse World:
In the desert settlement of Shanty Town, Colonel Allison reigns as chief of a weapons factory, making her the de facto lord of the local economy. With the cooperation of cycle gang leader Thunder, she organizes lucrative raids on the nearby, much richer Fortress-City. Along with bodyguard Eternity and her sinister director of Security Smith, she runs Shanty Town as a relatively safe and profitable corner of apocalyptic Hell, She also keeps a close eye on masked newcomer, Raven.
After a successful raid on Fortress-City, Thunder’s gang was ambushed by a bunch an unruly squad of misfit commandos from the very town they raided. While the skirmish distracted everyone, an explosive charge blew up in the factory. As the various badass heroes of Shanty Town rose up to the challenge, they celebrated and decided to launch a retaliatory strike, once Allison made sure it was properly planned…
Dramatis Persona (reminder)
Thunder: Male Chopper (Cycle gang leader, played by Eric)
Raven: Female Faceless (Masked semi-mystical Brute played by Franky)
Smith: Male Brainer (Psychic Mindfucker played by Mike)
Eternity: Female Battlebabe (Waif-fu Kill-Bill-esque badass, played by Math)
Future Badness derailment
Before we get in the whole game report, please note that none of the scenes were pre-scripted. I had “Agendas” and “threat countdown clocks”, but pretty much everything was shaped by player choices/input.
We start the game with the PCs getting ready to leave for the counter raid, setting objectives for it and making seating arrangement on cycles. Thunder got himself a new recruit from Shanty Town’s dregs, a female hardass named Nutcrusher (complete with the crude joke this name generated).
As they started the 2-3 hour trek to Fortress-city on very bad roads, I made the “announce future badness” move and described how something to the north of the Shanty Town raider was raising a hell of a lot of dust and sand. Thunder ordered his men to rustle up their saddle bags and lo and behold, A pair of binoculars were found in Rot’s things!
After an ineffective use of the unfamiliar object by Rot, Eternity snatched it away and marched northward to get a better vantage point. She was able to inform the gang that a column of all terrain vehicles and what looked like armoured vehicles were headed towards Shanty Town!
Of course, as she relayed that info, a huge gust of wind struck them and Eternity lost her crew! (i.e. I imposed this because she got a soft success for the “spot check” and I made the “Separate them move” as my retaliatory action). She was “saved” by a friendly masked biker who rode up to her and asked her if she needed a ride back to the City. She accepted gratefully and got on the bike.
NPC: I’m Franky BTW, what’s your name?
Eternity: Uh… Gill.
Frankie: Right. You think we can become good friends?
Eternity: I’m sure we will!
And so my “Dark Agenda Countdown clocks” started ticking.
Plans crumblin’, Loyalties frayin’
At this point, the players really got into what Vincent Baker told me Apocalypse World was all about: Loyalties in the face of crises. With the column of Hummers and APCs heading for Shanty Town, Thunder ordered his whole gang around to go defend the home base. Raven, sitting behind Thunder on his Hog, didn’t see it in the same light and we were subjected to a spat about the importance of protecting the many against going to help the truly meaningful.
It ended up in an awesome stunt where Raven got up from the still moving cycle, jumped and side-kicked poor Drim (the one giving Smith a ride) off his bike, taking control of it before it fell down and turning around toward Fortress-City.
Since she got a soft success on that roll I gave her 2 choices for a worse outcome (as established by the move she used: Act under Fire) and I offered her to either arrive too late in the City to help Eternity directly (we already knew she was in trouble by then, see below, I’m reordering scenes for readability) or get there in time but cause Thunder to fall from his bike because of her jump.
Raven chose to get to the city late.
Danger in the City… I call thee Eternity.
During that time Eternity rode into Fortress-City and noticed immediately that a group of rag-tag thugs, wearing military uniforms with a Sun emblem on them, were following them, getting ready to ambush them.
Frankie (getting his helmet off, revealing a mask made of stitched flesh of many colours): So Gill, you feel like, ummm, having a coffee or somethin’?
Eternity: Sure luv, but do we invite all those other guys along?
Frankie: Huh? Hey! I told Sun that if I were to separate her from her gang, she was MINE!
Eternity: Of course I am!
As Eternity got ready to cripple 6 or 7 people, she was unable to overtake everyone and got herself captured as Frankie was sent away, cursing. Of course, Eternity saw him slunk behind them, a scalpel in hand.
Eternity finally found herself on the battleship wreck adjoining Fortress-City, finding herself tied to a dancing pole in the ruins of a shipboard bar. After a short scene, (including her player performing a mimed pole dance) she managed to free herself by cracking the skull of the last standing thug with her thighs… (you read that right)
…as the ship’s gun were loaded and fired a test salvo that shook the much damaged structure.
Go Wolverines!
Thunder reached Shanty Town before the armoured column did and staged a guerrilla ambush on it, sending Nutcracker to act as Sniper to create confusion up front while he and his gang assaulted the last Armoured Personnel Carrier at the tail. Succeeding on his “Seize by Force” move, Thunder managed to capture and hold the vehicle, losing a few of his gang members, including his new Sniper.
He thus moved the captured APC into Shanty Town as the confused column reformed and spread to block all the roadways into Allison’s compound.
That’s when they all heard the Battleship shooting its first salvo…
A Loaded Smith & Raven, a shooting (big) gun
When the unlikely duo reached Fortress city, I offered them to make a custom Move I created for the Fortress (which is another “Threat” mechanic) where they got to try to sneak in the city without being spotted. They got yet another “soft hit” and I announced that they were “spotted” while sneaking in, and that they were now being followed by a weird, patched up guy yielding a scalpel.
At that point, I noticed the Raven and Smith duo had had limited camera time so far, it’s always hard to properly spread “action time” in a game that assumed the party is split most of the time. Not knowing what to do, I voiced the question “what would be needed here to make Raven happy?”
(I must confess that I had not quite realized at that time that Smith had done even less).
Raven: I need to fight! I want to kill stuff soon!
So that’s how Frankie the Grotesque (Skin Collector) got distracted from chasing Eternity and focused on the much more mysterious Raven
Frankie (Off Screen): Ohhh, I must find what she hides behind that mask… NO! I must HAVE it!
And so when Smith and Raven chased after Frankie, who sent some of his skinned dolls after them to slow them down, I managed to disarm Raven (who went Berserk) and separate both PCs. Frankie managed to corner Raven in his skin studio (using the “Expose the content of the Grotesque’s environment” move to freak Raven out) where multiple skin suits were shown like a “Galerie Macabre”. Poor, unlucky Smith was forced to climb the building Frankie had barricaded himself in with Raven.
Player comment: Man, this game is really for those who like PCs to be in deep shit all the time!
Of course, that’s when an unarmed Raven opened a can of whoopass, went for the scalpel, got a nasty scalp wound and turned Frankie into pulp with her fists, knees, floor and walls. When the red mist parted in her mind, she heard Smith calling her urgently from the top of the building.
As she climbed, they saw the wreck’s gun turret rotate slowly and the guns fired, sending a shockwave through the city. As the smoke cleared, they noticed a man all dressed in gold standing on deck, surrounded by tough looking men and women.
Smith: That’s got to be Sun…
Chatty: The boat’s main deck is a few hundred yards from where you stand, you feel you’d be able to hop over the roofs to get there… but that’s going to be for the next session.
I decided to end the session there (at barely 9h30 PM!) so that Yan (Allison’s player) could participate in the next seesion which would focus on Shanty Town’s defence.
Post Game Analysis
What the players liked:
- The Quick and Dirty (literal and figurative) approach to gaming
- Succeeding in some key conflicts (taking the APC, Eternity freeing herself)
- We can do so much in so little time
- The evocative post-apocalyptic imagery we were able to muster.
What players liked less:
- Complete lack of control on situations where they “fail”
- The vagueness of what constitute a move and how much one can accomplish in one
- Unequal camera time (more vocal players get more attention, story as old as RPGs)
Lessons Learned
- Improvising rocks when you have the proper tools to drive it like a unified front of threats (NPCs, Places and agendas)!
- Putting PCs into trouble is really fun, cheering them to pull out on top becomes more awesome.
- Fundamental: I’m starting to feel that this game does not allow me to interact with it’s crunch. I roll no dice, I make no outward combos (except “story combos by setting up narrative moves”)
Last Words
Did I mention I don’t get to roll dice? I like doing it so much so that this will shorthen my planned AW mini-campaign. I recognize my need as a gamer and I want to be able to interact directly with certain aspects game’s engine to revel in its crunchyness.
While Apocalypse World is a crunchy game, it isn’t in the parts I seek as a gamer, not like I have it in D&D or Mouseguard for instance. That’s why I’m going to wrap up this story by concluding the “Sun Rise” front.
Also, I must say that this series is getting abyssal levels of feedback compared to when I write about 4e. I know that less people are interested in Indie games and I expected as much when I embarked on my “tour of the indies”. That however means that if I likely won’t write more posts about this game if I don’t get more active motivations from you guys to do so, except maybe a short wrap up of the story.
So yeah, I’m totally fishing for comments here… I don’t do it often, but here I am.
Cheers!
Image taken from the Romantic Apocalyptic Webcomic
Tales of the Apocalypse, Part 3: Prepping the Game
Last Friday was our second Apocalypse World game. I could see from the email chatter that the players were getting excited about it. This time, Yan was not going to join us so Colonel Allison wasn’t going to be part of the action.
Before I get into the actual game report, I wanted to share some of my prep for that session.
While Apocalypse World is a low prep RPG, it is by no means a no prep one. The game/author reminds us in no light terms to refrain from plotting out a story. Instead, the book provides a series of structured tools to build what’s called Fronts, templates of linked threats that loom around the PCs, trying to forward specific dark agendas the PCs may decide (or have no choice) to go against.
The game offers 2 sets of tools to create a front:
The First Session Worksheet
This sheet is a legal-sized of paper available as free downloads here (I got a full set of those sheets as a Gen Con bonus). You write down the name of each and every (living) NPC or places that interact with the PCs. Each named NPC or significant emplacement is placed on some kind of 2 dimensional matrix that list various threats categories they can represent toward the PCs. Examples of threats are ambition, hunger , ignorance, fear and decay, all of those can be either literal or figurative.
To that list, you add resources that each NPCs (or group/emplacement) has that the PCs might not have direct access to. This creates opportunities for some interesting conflicts and PC-NPC-PC triangles.
For example, in our game, I put Forteress-City (a place) between the “envy” and “ambition” threat as either the party or Fortress-City itself expresses those feeling toward the other entity. The Fortress has a bunch of resources like walls (defence), Living space, strategic position and (why not) books.
Finally, there’s a space on the worksheet for unanswered questions you have asked yourself during the 1st session. In my case, I had the following questions:
- Why is there a rebellion theme developing in Shanty Town
- Does the reprisal from Shanty Town’s raid a normal occurrence or is this one special?
- Can the Factory fall?
Those questions are the fuel on which the fronts can be built.
The Fronts Worksheet
A Front is where you create new NPCS and places or pick them from the 1st session sheet and bring them together in 3 to 4 organized threats from a list of Apocalyptic-themed templates.
For instance, I created a “dictator” leader for Fortress-City called Sun who’s some sort of psycho-paranoid Louis XIV warlord raving about any affront to his rule over the desert. I created an agenda for him focused on wiping out Shanty Town and broke down, as instructed, his plan in steps that I’d cross out as completed or thwarted depending on how the PCs reacted to their changing environments.
Then I I brought together 2 members of Allison’s gang and 2 more from Thunder’s and called them “The Traitors” whose goal was to bring down Thunder. I also created a new NPC called “Frankie” who was a skin collector that wore suits of patches of sewn-up human flesh who was fixated upon the female PCs of the group.
I also created the actual Fortress-City, based on the image you can see in the post’s heading (click to enlarge) and gave it a clear agenda to start shelling Shanty Town with the ship’s guns if the PCs didn’t stop it in time.
So these 4 threats came together in a Front I called “Sun’s Rise” which explained Sun’s intent to crush Shanty Town once and for all using all his resources. You’ll see how it started panning out in part 4. What I really liked about the approach was that I had no scenes prepared and I had no idea what threats the PCs would face and which they’d ignore… because they can’t deal with everything at once.
But they sure tried!
Image taken from the excellent and funny Post-Apocalyptic webcomic Romantic Apocalyptic.
Tales of the Apocalypse: Part 1, Character Creation
A few weeks ago, I reviewed Vincent Baker’s Apocalypse World role playing game and found it very well written and intriguing enough to give it a few session’s worth tryout. I brought the whole crew back together and we sat down to create characters.
(in spite of what transpired earlier this summer, we ended up talking about it out and decided to stick together and try a new approach)
Character generation in Apocalypse World is in many ways peculiar to the traditional Role Player. The Game Master (AKA Master of Ceremonies) drops a pile of playbook for about 10 different character classes and each players get to choose one, no duplicates. Then follows a series of choices for names, look, stats, gear and class-specific moves (powers) directly from the playbook.
Through this process, the MC asks all kinds of questions regarding the PCs to help create better defined characters. This process results in some very colourful characters…
Shanty Town’s crew (Dramatis Persona)
All the story/background elements were created through players answering my random questions or interacting amongst themselves. It was very cool.
Allison, female Hardholder (owner/leader of a populated compound), played by Yan.
Always dressed in combat fatigues, she’s insists on being called Colonel Allison by her 75 or so citizens although the title is meaningless since no organized armed forces have existed in the last 50 years. She rules a rickety settlement called Shanty Town made of corrugated iron panels too rusted to be recycled and thousands of yards of plastic tarp centered around an old, well-preserved car factory turned into a weapons plant. Its economy runs on recycled metal that her citizens scrounge/raid from the countryside and turn unto weapons.
While rich and very lucrative for Allison and her lieutenants, Shanty Town remains an undefended shit hole of trash and pestilence.
She also has no current partners, leading me to jokingly refer to her gigantic Magnum .44 handgun as “Allison’s Boyfriend”.
Quote:
Calm down, let’s do this right you bunch of savages.
Raven, female Faceless (masked, supernatural brute). Played by Franky, who literally wears a Raven full face mask whenever he’s in character.
Raven wears leather and spiked fetish wear weaved all over with black feathers and, of course, a black raven’s mask. She was a member of a nomadic “murder” of similar clad savages who got wiped during a disastrous raid (possibly involving the Thunder’s biker gang, see Eric’s PC below).
After the massacre, guided by the spirit of her Mask’s, she followed a caravan back into Shanty Town and currently hangs at the edge of the settlement near Ambush Hill, scrounging a living meager living under the watchful eye of Smith (Mike’s PC, see below).
The last thing that people see when Raven decides to kill them is her gigantic, gleaming machete.
Quote:
Nothing escapes the Raven.
Eternity, female Battlebabe (The name says it all). Played by Math.
Exceedingly sexy gal wearing a skintight bulletproof latex-like bodysuit complete with front zipper. When asked what she applies to her skin to keep it that splendid, she answers “sweat, and lots of it”.
Her signature weapons are a custom humongous brainsploding gun and a long, very sharp curved sword with cute spindly drawings on its handle. She “got” that blade from a very insistent client who got too friendly in her past life as a stripper.
She travels around by renting the services of a driver or from Thunder’s crew (Eric’s Chopper). She’s also currently employed full time as Allison’s bodyguard.
Quote:
Its so sad you have to die, you were this close to getting me in the sack.
Thunder, Male chopper (Biker gang leader) Played by Eric.
Thusder is large, shaggy and none too bright, but he’s one mean motherfucker. His boys call him Sarge even though he doesn’t want them to. This diseased and dirty gang is made up of 15 14 or violent motorcycle bastards. They get their fuel and food from Allison as part of the payment they get from the lucrative raids they perform on surrounding settlements.
The last guy Thunder killed was during a recent raid where he got too excited using his crowbar on a poor schmuck, doing his signature “working up” move by breaking all joints from ankles to shoulders.
Quote:
You had shit at the end of your machete, I smelled like gas. We fucked. End of story (Actual game quote).
Smith, male Brainer (Think psychic brainhacker). Played by Mike.
Wears a dirtied but valuable three-piece suit. Bony faced and sporting dead eyes, Smith is Allison’s Director of Security. He walks calmly around town, making sure everything is under control, scaring the shit out of everyone, or reprogramming anyone who isn’t.
A Lone Wolf to the hilt, Smith’s idea of calling for backup is getting his knives out when his violation glove fails to do the job.
He has a secret desire to one day meet someone’s who’s worth his time instead of the rabble he has to keep in check. It’s uncertain from Smith’s behaviour via Eternity if she’s a likely candidate or not.
Quote:
Don’t ever dream of stirring trouble up, I’ll brainwipe you so hard you’ll need diapers again.
Apocalypse History X
The last part of character creation is a somewhat convoluted roundtable where people set the value of their “History” stat (called Hx) with every other PC. That stat, represent “how well a PC knows”/”how intense recent history was” vs each other PC. It comes into play when characters interfere with one another and is one of the drivers of character improvement.
Beyond the mechanics though, some fundamental PC-to-PC relationships get created during that process. Here’s what transpired in our case.
- Raven appreciated that Smith was unafraid of her upon their first meeting.
- Smith has secretly been observing Eternity but she does not trust him.
- Eternity and Raven did something terrible once (jokingly refereed to as “very bad lesbian sex” which may stick as canon).
- Smith observed Raven sleep once without Raven knowing about it.
- Raven stole something from Allison’s settlement, and Allison knows about it.
- Raven finds Allison pretty.
- Allison and Thunder go way back, having worked together before all this.
- Allison also once stood up to Thunder and his gang and Thunder isn’t sure what to think of that.
- Although she hired him as her Director of Security, Allison quietly dislikes and distrusts Smith
I was highly satisfied with the results, Apocalypse World does not require the PCs to be friends, just start as allies. The game very much revolves around loyalty and some players were already bonding with their characters and the outbound links they created.
I was curious to see how the story would unfold but was highly nervous that I would have a hard time mastering that game. Stay tuned for the play report of that first session.
Mouse Guard Chronicles, Session 2, Players’ Turn: The Spurce Connection
You can see this session’s GM’s turn here.
Player’s Turn Summary
The successful but banged-up patrol hobbled back to Lockhaven to recuperate from their injuries under the ministrations of the Guard’s healers. On their way, they stumbled upon 2 surviving Scent thugs caught in the Flashflood and Jasper ran to their help, rescuing Garrow the Merchant and the huge Thug otherwise known as The Big Cheese.
Once in Lockhaven, Edgar delivered a report to one of his guard captain uncles and asked about his enemy’s recurring involvement with Scent smuggling. Finn tapped into many of his war buddies, now turned Inn keepers to try to find a contact involved in storage and transport of Scent and he found one in Sprucetuck.
Malcolm also tapped into his contacts to to find his old friend the Tavernkeeper, known for his many shady dealing. As luck would have it, that contact was last seen in Sprucetuck too.
And so was Edgar’s enemy…
Table Chatter and GMing highlights
Retcon for great justice!
As we set up and started to roll for condition recoveries in the player’s turn, I realized that there were restrictions about the order of conditions a PC could recover from. Thus, a mice must recover from Hunger/Thirst before Anger before Tired and so on for Injury and Sickness. So a player can’t decide to keep the less problematic Anger to focus on healing an injury.
That meant that all my players had to spend 2 checks each to attempt to recover from their more serious conditions and success was NOT guaranteed. I could see that some of them wanted to take the story in new directions and were disappointed with that state of event.
So I invoked rule 1 of RPGs (fun over rules) and retconned my earlier call, making Edgar/Finn Injured and Malcolm/Jasper Angry. I dropped the second imposed condition and the group’s mood instantly bounced back! (I even got some positive feedback for that call the next day over IM).
Yay!
Northland thawing
You might recall I mentioned that Maze froze up a few times during the GM’s turn. Well he thawed up nicely during the player’s turn where he set up a great scene and got to rescue 2 of the NPCs who bullied them to spew out the positions of other guard patrols during the GM’s turn. This, along with a discussion I had with blogger Sarah Darkmagic about agile and comfortable DMs who freeze up when they become players gave me an insight.
In the Players’ turn, the only problems to resolve are mostly created by the players, who likely have the solution worked out, much like if the player was his own GM. I’m beginning to suspect that what really breaks minds in Mouse Guard is that constant dichotomy between being a classic player (choose a skill, roll for success) and being co-GM (describe the scene, including the elements needed to make the skill you use make sense) at the same time.
I’ll be watching Maze’s journey as it unfolds over the next few session. He’ll likely post his thoughts on his blog as well.
When the GM gets Fiasco-ed.
As the turn unfolded and players told me about the scenes they were setting up, it became evident that they were pushing to send the game toward a new plot. Alex sought his friend out, an old tavern keeper with the same criminal background as his. He tried to locate him on the map of the territories and I asked for a Circles test to allow Alex to set where he was. I also explained the Enmity Clause of circle tests where a failed test allows the GM to create a new enemy instead!
Yan: Really? Oh man I wanna roll a Circles test too!
Malcolm located his friend and placed him in Sprucetuck, home of Scent manufacturing. We had a potential ex-con in the city laying the first brick of my players’ fiendish plans.
PM played out a scene in Lockhaven where Edgar informed his uncle about the Scent dealings (thus accomplishing his goal). He then totally pulled an awesome, plot-defining quote on us that blew my brains out:
Edgar: Uncle, have you had news of that weather watcher scum (Edgar’s enemy) we’ve been chasing for so long? I think he’s once more involved with Scent smuggling!
Priceless!
When PM tried to place his enemy in Spructuck, I decided to gently stop him, judging he’d held to the narrative long enough for his turn.
Of course, that’s when Yan made the finishing move. After moving the party to Sprucetuck (I allowed liberal moving over the whole territories during the player turn) he had Finn and the patrol go tavern-diving through his old war contacts to find someone important involved with the shipping and storing of the Scent chemical. His circles test provided him with one such mouse, a mid-power mouse in charge of overseeing shipping of the Scent to Lockhaven and other guard patrols .
Phil: According to the rules, you get to name him now.
Yan (Making a very French “I have no fucking idea” facial expression): I don’t know… huh, Liam I guess.
PM: No way! That’s my enemy’s name.
Chatty: You guys are shitting me!
Yan: Absolutely not, I had no idea!
Chatty: Well then it’s settled, Finn’s new contact is Edgar’s enemy, that ought to be interesting!
So that the next adventure is obviously going to be about elucidating who’s stealing the Scent powder and why. I’d be a complete jerk to do otherwise. But that doesn’t mean I have to play it as straight as they are driving things to be now, right?
All in all, that was a great Players’ turn and an awesome game. Once again, a 10 minute prep session delivered a very satisfying 4 hours adventure.
We should pick the game up again after Gen Con. Chances are this Summer campaign will become the monthly geekout day game once fall rolls back and I settle on a new RPG/campaign with the new gaming group.
Thanks for reading.
