OK, there was that first session of this Supers/cyberpunk Haven campaign

 I rarely post about actual game sessions and what happened in them. But I think since I have this Marvel Multiverse rpg campaign going on, and that it was literally years in the making, on top of that having a great group of players I worked hard to put together, I think it is worth it for me to make a more detailed record of the campaign, however long it may last. For myself. My blogging motto, especially in this time of record low popularity of such, is "do it for yourself. 

Also, the MMRPG seems to be a low-profile game that not a lot of people are playing. And most of them who are usually just do one shots with existing Marvel characters. I was warned early on in the process that the system was more geared to supporting Marvel style characters, especially Spiderverse ones. You have to get a fairly expensive particular expansion book to access certain powers and abilities such as climbing walls or using snares of some kind (all the books, electronic or physical, are highly overpriced so maybe another reason for a lack of popularity). 

But after spending a good chunk of last year coming up with unique characters in Demiplane (linked to Roll20), I determined that despite some arguable deficiencies with the system in general, character creation was easy. A couple of the players with little experience with it were able to do up a great character with little effort. Demiplane guides you through the process very well (the same cannot be said for the Roll20 character sheet). So, the grand experiment began. 

(note that this first session was weeks ago. As of last night we are up to 6 sessions I think. Also, this post will represent the first session and a half or thereabouts. The first three bled into each other fairly well. )

So the Justice Incorporated campaign began. You can check out the second half of this post to read about the basic info of Irish Japanese CEO Patricia Elizabeth Kyono, the set up, and the characters. 

But in a nutshell, Kyono is one of the world's top industrialists who in the old days (app. 10-20 years ago in the settings timeline) had a little hobby of starting "Justice Incorporated: Security, Investigations, and Restorations." She would dig up interesting street level exceptionals to go on jobs. Everything from protecting a neighborhood from a street gang, to going up against evil corporation shenanigans. With lesser powered, but still interesting, characters those old JI sessions felt like episodes of the A-Team, or 80's action movies. 

BTW back inj the day Just Inc. was the backup campaign for when the big boy supers' team "The Protectors" did not have enough players for the night. Two or three were perfect for a JI session. But my cup runneth over this this campaign; I have a pool of 7 players (on average around 5 will be playing in a particular sessions). But since this was a beefed up Justice Incorporated, I decided they would be more "Super" than mere street level. In this system those old JI characters would be rank 2 under this system. This campaign starts at Rank 3. That is sort of Jr. Avengers level. Think Hawkeye, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and such as that.

Often in the old days, the set up was simple. Kyono was younger, so would be coming out of a high-end night club or fancy restaurant, and either be mugged or witness some crime, and the characters would be near to take care of it. And then she offered them a job. Eeezy Peezy. 

Honestly, though I never confirmed it for myself, I always thought of Kyono maybe setting up the whole thing in hopes of meeting vigilante types. I mean, the city was crawling with them then. But for this new thing, she advertised for an "audition." In newspapers, magazines (it's the future, but print has made a comeback), and in some cases sending a drone to more high-profile characters with an offer to attend. Here is a snippet:

Wanted, exceptional individuals who might fit with a new, small team of especially effective field operatives, diverse in ability, to assist with operations related to security, investigations, and restorations. We are a private organization, and this is in regard to a private LLC. Are you highly skilled in practical combat, athletics, tactics, mental acuity, misc field science ability, and/or people skills in potentially high stress situations? Or perhaps you are a fledgling superhero who is less mercenary and looking to prove your commitment to justice but need the experience to lived out your dream of filling the shoes of Protectors long gone?

Again, check this post for more info on the characters, but for one reason or another of their own they all showed up. Seraph, a flying girl from some side dimension, was on her way into the auditions held in a Gordita Beach high school gym, and she had the first encounter of the campaign. Blimpkrieg, an inventor and balloon enthusiast, thought she might be part of the auditions testing and caught her in his net cannon. But Ra-Ta the little alien in his mini saucer showed up and blasted Blimpy with a ray. He was knocked out and would have fallen to his death, but Seraph swooped in and saved her attacker. 

With the intro of Blimpkrieg, I was setting up the first few sessions of being kind of silly and surreal. But I was slowly building up to more serious stuff. And really, I did up most of the NPCs I had available months before in Demiplane for fun, so they tended towards the "made up on the spot" feel. 

So around the same time some other characters were showing up and walking through the parking lot of the no longer functional high school gym. Near his bitching sports car was "Savio Totalpackage, an arrogant Cuban fitness streamer and his followers "The Savio Squad" doing jumping jacks and calling passerby's out for not being as awesome as him. A quick and mildly violent moment or two took placed, with Savio and his pals standing down in the face of some intimidating characters. 

Savio and his "Totalpackage." He was one of the few NPC's
that were only Rank 2 (the player characters started at 3). Not much
of a threat, though to normal people is fairly badass,
normal people being pretty much rank 0. But he was there to
be sort of a joke. Though I have kind of a fondness for him. I grew
up on the beach in SoCal knowing guys like this.

Savio's babe. "Shotty Too Hotty"

Btw, Savio did not even get in teh school gym. Due to his parking lot bullying and trying to bring his whole gang in with him, he was denied entry to the event. He would hang around outside though, where he and some of the other failure would meet to scheme to start their own group. More on that later. 

You are going to find that they aren't the only kind of goofy characters. In fact, most of the three dozen or so attendees were of silly variety. they all gathered in his defunct gymnasium, with a research team, a couple scientists, lot of security, and plenty of equipment for testing folk. Even a couple stuntmen to spar with more hands-on types. 

Many of the attendees were just athletes looking for an exciting gig. Like the masked former player turned street hero calling himself "Basketball Jones."

You could hardly tell he had a bad knee
while he was dunking those baskets

The athletes were out pretty fast. The more promising people were set at another bleachers while the finals were happening. 

There was not a ton of action. I did not want much in the way of fighting. This was about getting to use the rolls from the character sheets for various testing. It would turn out that this was a pretty high role play group. So it worked out well. Lots of character development. 

There was a near fight tahat I wished could have happened. A strong woman named "Sally Strong" was tired of showing how much weight she could lift (she had Might 2, which is sort of pick up a bus level), and when player character Igneous, a man with rocklike skin and related to Titans of old, stepped up to be tested by staff, Sally jumped in and wanted a punch up with him. 

Sally is not evil, she just has a chip
on her shoulder

I was hoping for a little combat practice, but Iggy grew to 24 feet tall and that was enough for her to back off. 

Iggy has Sturdy 2, Might 2, and 
has some kind of lava power not 
yet tapped into. Oh, and he can
grow up to 100'. He is peaceful, 
almost Buddhist in nature

I was hoping for a bit of knocking around, but Iggy has size change so grew to 24 feet and that was enough to back her off (for now. Their punch up would happen in a later session). 

When the man in black character "Paladin" (he is part of a modern-day continuation of the Knights Templar or some such) finished a sparring test, and was heading to the potential winners bleachers, them from Magnificent Seven on a boombox was heard, and clomping into the gym on horseback was a young woman. She is kind of my favorite creation for this, which is why I featured her in a hectic encounter moment. Her name is Juniper West, or "Cowgal."

I have a pretty deep background for her. She was raised on a wealthy horse ranch and formerly was a fitness model streamer who got popular when she toon on the Cowgal persona. Even speaking in an exaggerated old west accent. Characters would not find out until a later game, but she was mentored by a former Justice Inc member "The Marshal" (who was a player character back in the day) and trainer her in fighting and shooting skills. But she is more of a troublemaker, doing stunts with a drone filming her for Youtube clicks. She was not attending the audition in hopes of getting a job. She was just there to cause a scene and get digital content for her channel. 

I was also thinking ahead to a later session where I was going to have June West be a community leader of sorts for the popular "Urban Cowboy" scene and a nightclub catering to them. 

So in the gym she shot rubber bullets at nearby archery target pads, swung her lasso around, and got of the horse to try to catch Paladin who was walking by. he deftly grabbed the rope, and found she was being playful about it. She flirter with him but he was not having it, and she was escorted out of the gym by security. 

The character Paladin is still a mystery to me. Belongs to an 
ancient order of early Christian soldiers. Sort of like
from Indian Jones Last Crusade. Trained in some
 other part of the world. Comes off fairly blunt and direct 
(i.e. his is kind of a prick). Because of his directness he would
soon become defacto leader and mouthpiece of the group. 

(so this was about when we had to knock off session one for the evening. I have to say everybody seemed pleased. Most of them probably were expecting a little character into then some big superhero fight in the streets or something. And I will admit, in the old days we often started a campaign that way. But I really wanted it to feel unique, a little serious and a little silly, and to go against expectations for a genre like this. And as always in my games, going back to childhood, a little bit of superhero deconstruction. Whatever it was, it is a great group, and it their role play and character development as we went really go me jazzed. This was working out! )

OK, then session two the following week:

The characters really did not have to do a lot to be the winners of this. I mean, predetermined by me, but secretly Kyono, who was watching via camera, had pretty much decided on all of them before the auditions even started. A lot of work to put on these auditions, but a good way to make the folk who would work for her feel special and also let her see what other talent was out there. 

So they were told they were chosen byh "Wilmington," Kyono's exec assistant, and would be driving via roomy luxury vans to meet their new benefactor and boss. 

Though I used Kyono a ton in the old campaigns, it was too long
ago to remember any other named assistants or employees, So I did Wilmington up and just said he has been around forever. I imagined him pretty capable, like Alfred from Batman. 

So I had it in my mind to have Cowgal and the runner's up from the audition have met in the parking lot. There had been this diminutive, bald scientist guy (to be played by Bryan Cranston) at the event, and he would be the leader of this little group who would end up calling themsleves "Redeemers," and when they eventually foud out about Justice Inc they would become their own little team for hire. They would be showing up in a couple sessions, to be used to go against the player characters in what I hoped would be a nice dust up. Give them their first foes. 

from left going clockwise: Hiesenbrain, Schnozz, Count Carl, Savio Totalpackage, Sally Strong, and Ragdoll.

So tghe player group were driven to Center City business district, to the offices of Justice Incorporated in the venerable Winston Building. This older era skyscraper was the setting for Just Inc. in the old sessions as well. 

This campaign will for sure be filled with " 'member berrys." I am already tapping into the old stuff for my own nostalgia feels if nothing else. Even having the Winston Building in a campaign again gives me the vapors. 

With the first half of session two havikng been finishing up at the auditions, the entire second half would be the groups first meeting with Kyono and would take up the rest of the session. At least a half hour of which was the group just having refreshments in the offices and waitng for Kyono to show up. The players really engage with each other, and finding people of that style is what I vet for in any campaign I do. And as usual it was paying off. They did not care that this was not high action. At least not yet. 

The meeting would bleed well into session three. Just awesome. 

So next time, the meet and greet with Patricia Elizabeth Kyono, the official meeting and job pitch, and a tour of the Justice Incorporated offices (expectations to be managed😏)

Until then, cheers and hope the summer is being enjoyed!