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!

The Evolution of a Superhero setting

 

So in my earliest days of hanging out and playing as a kid at "OSR Famous" Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica, I had access to a lot of older post DND game systems. Bunnies and Burrows, Empire of the Petal Throne, Bushido, etc. But since I was a comic book collecting kid, Superhero 2044 had an instant fascination for me. I mean, the over itself was very Marvel looking, despite none of the characters being Marvel. 

Well, that may be Doctor Strange.

When I got my hands on the game, I used its setting for a brief period as described in the book. And why not? The artwork in the book was very evocative. Especially for a 70's rpg.

This image just makes you want
to do a superhero fight right now!

Anyway, I would very soon create New Haven, and it was very based on Superhero 2044's high tech futuristic Pacific Island nation Inguria. It was also called Shanter Island, and we had a hard time as kids not calling it "Shatner Island."

It was explored in the 1800's by an English sea captain, was the site of combat in WW2, and fell under American control eventually. Nuclear war ravaged the US eventually, and Inguria became its own nation, and eventually joined the European Commonwealth. The nation eventually took in Formian refugees from space, who now lived among the human population. They are described as carnivores who at times might prey on humans, but not much more is written on that. I would evolve away from a lot of the stuff, especially the Formians. I always had the setting be only 20 years in the future, as opposed to Superhero 2044's close to 70.

So in my version, the island was considered very taboo by Pacific Island and Asian people of the Pan Pacific. So though about the size of Hawaii, it was never inhabited permanently for hundreds of years. I decided this was mostly because it was a "weirdness magnet" that attracted strangeness. Gateways to other dimensions and galaxies. And lots of supernatural magic being around. This fed into my desire for a pastiche kitchen sink setting. Where comic book stuff, cyberpunk, future noir, and future supernatural stuff could go on. 

After the US took control after WW2, it became an out of the way place to build some industry, and of course secret science labs. The worker population eventually demanded a city grow out of the jungle, and New America City was born. 

So for decades I had a paper map, but for this recent stuff I did up a revised map of Haven. 

New America still contains all the neighborhoods I devised during those years of steady campaigns. Beverly and Sunrise Park, based on Beverly Hills and West Hollywood/Brentwood. City Center, based on Manhattan and Century City in Los Angeles. Chavez, a working-class part of town. Old Town and Chavez where the first inhabited areas of the city by laborers back in the day. And the Bottoms was the oldest part of town, abutting the marsh and lake areas, and very diverse from the refugee crisis after the great war decades ago. So Pacific Island, Caribbean, and various world supernatural elements might mingle. 

So since I have used Haven in the 80's, 90's, and a little mid 2000s, have retconned a bit over the years. Why not? Most comic companies more or less reboot about every 10 years. Iron Man's origin was in the Korean War I think. Later Vietnam and even later in the Middle East. So I do something similar. I still want to use some NPC's going back to my teens, and I don't want them to all be elderly. Though I have had time go by. Important long time NPC, the Japanese Irish CEO (one of the only non evil ones) who was in her late 20's in old games, will be in her 50's now. But still lovely. 

Wears a ring, but just to keep wolves at bay. 
She is married to her company.

So here is some history from the game Discord "Info Dump" text channel. It by now is only a bit inspired by the setting of Superhero 2044, but very much its own thing that has evolved or 40 years of games. 

"Konoah" was in older times a mostly uninhabited Pacific Island. a bit bigger than size of Hawaii, pacific peoples never permanently inhabited it because as far back a oral history goes, it was considered a cursed and taboo place. Where gods and demons freely visit. Legend has it that it is a place that touches on the edges of other worlds and realities. That it is a realm not always considered as part of the normal world. Such was its reputation. Even fierce nations such as Japan historically avoided it, as it was feared as a place where monsters dwell and relalities collide.. In the early 1800's it was put on many modern charts. Its first real occupation occurred during the 1930's, when The United States established a military base there

During WW2 America kept dominion over the island, though Japanese forces attacked the military fields multiple times. After the war, it was widely reported that the US atomic bomb was developed stateside, when in reality it was secretly mostly created on Konoah. At this time it was renamed by the US as Shanter Island after Samuel Shanter, the chief scientist of the secret government labs started during the war. Into the 1950's Shanter was utilized heavily for scientific and industrial work. As laboratories, office buildings, and a few high tech factories grew, a local populace that worked on these areas, as well as in the military defense fields boomed and a town slowly grew into a city. "New America Town" became "New America City" by the early 1960's. in 1965 the island was rebranded as "Haven."

The island became famous as it was a place where science and industry lived alongside tropical beauty. It became not just a place of a booming permanent populace, but also a tourism trade grew. In 1980, in this reality, Haven was designated as the 51st State of America. As the mainland's Silicone Valley became the high tech capital of the free world, Haven had its own technological breakthroughs and heavy global corporate presence. But at the same time the island local remained steeped in mystic superstition. As the new millennium approached, and the city grew with a newer image in the north districts, while the southern "Old Town" area of the city still presented the old esthetic of retro technological concerns along with the spiritual reputation of the island state. Old neighborhoods such as "Mutie Town," "Electric Avenue" in old town (in the 60's and 70's the high tech sector but now the lower end of the economic scale) and "The Bottoms" with palm tree lined old avenues, and the "Down City" area with its well lit office buildings and shopping areas surrounded by once well maintained mini lakes and canals and adorned with a landscaped portion of the shadowy southern jungle outback that always seems to be creeping into the more lighted areas.

Into the 90's New America City grew, and its northern sectors reflected its focus on science and industry that many of the more privileged people got to enjoy. Long before Hong Kong adopted a city scape of light, the Uptown of New America City lit up the Pacific with neon and laser light.

In 2001 the attack on the World Trade Towers in America began a domino affect that started World War 3. During this period besides escalating world conflicts and refugee crisis', and with anti-mutant sentiment grew across many parts of the world the use of mutant hunting Sentinel machines also grew and the combination of AI aggression in general and activities of military powers of the world in lead in January of 2005 to nuclear strikes across the world but most significantly in parts of the United States, Russia, China, India, and other pockets in the middle east. It was not full scale global nuclear war, but the civilizations were heavily impacted and the great nations of the world faced great crisis. Years of strife and governmental turmoil and and break down were suffered. The global market collapsed.

Some places, such as Japan, Hong Kong, and the newly organized Western European Commonwealth continued to survive and became the new world powers to varying degrees. Haven came out of it fairly unscathed. The newly implemented Weather Control satellites, which Haven had shared the tech with the previously mentioned countries, helped shield these places from some of the affects of short term nuclear winter and Fallout. Haven announced its status as a sovereign nation the day before new years eve 2005, a democracy still close to its American roots. Over the following decades while the once great powers of the world continued to try to recover from apocalypse, Haven leads the new world powers into an age of progress with a theme of the world arising from ashes through science and industry.

Haven announced its status as a sovereign nation the day before new years eve 2005, a democracy still close to its American roots. Over the following decades while the once great powers of the world continued to try to recover from apocalypse, Haven leads the new world powers into an age of progress with a theme of the world arising from ashes through science and industry.

Haven is a democracy, and always has 2-4 viable parties during elections periods, and sadly the Republican and Democratic parties still exist, perhaps evolved/devolved, but in the last two or three decades alternatives often win.

Science Police: originating uniquely in Haven after 2005 as an anti-nuclear/terrorist force, by the late 90's in Haven the Science Police changed into policing dangerous technology in general, and meta humans in general. Now Sci Pol exists across nations as a global force similar to United Nations, but with the aforementioned focus.

Superhero Gaming finally going Full Steam Ahead

 

Almost a full year ago, I posted about my long and fruitless efforts to find a way to run my old supers setting Haven on Roll20. You can see links there about old posts about my Supers campaigns of yore, or just search the blog for "Haven" or "Superheroes" or whatever. But in a nutshell, I ran this setting, based on the Ancient Superhero 2044 Island nation of Inguria, since I was a teen, through a variety of systems. Superhero 2044 briefly, (you can read about my somewhat unhappy experience with early Supers rpg Supergame here ) then Villains and Vigilantes, then into Champions. 

In that post last year, I mentioned that after 3 years or so of looking for a game that would be doable on Roll20, I had found out about the Marvel Mutliverse RPG. 

Though I of course overthought the rules as usual, it turned out to be not at all as complicated as I first thought. But it was supported and linked though Demiplane into your Roll20, so it seemed my best chance at getting my Haven setting going again. So first step would be to study it so I could run it effectively. Then learn to use the Demiplane connectivity (which included paying for a Demiplane subscription). Maybe be a player in some sessions. Then get my own group going for it. 

All easier said than done. Like I said I overthought the rules. But eventually I figured out that the basic task resolution was fairly simple, if not a little wonky. But the various powers and abilities weren't something I needed to memorize at all. I just needed to know the basics of how they tied into play. So much like spells in DnD, I leave it up to the players to know how it works and then tell me. Done and Done. 

I then played in some games. I played in a couple of sessions by a guy called Morganwolf, who has tons of live plays on Youtube. He runs it at conventions and such, and overall promotes the system, which I think is not exactly popular yet as far as I can tell. Morgan uses published adventures, and you have to play existing Marvel characters. He is good at it, but I am not a fan of using pregens. And I was late in signing up, so got stuck with Black Widow. But I had some fun with it. These sessions don't exactly give a lot of leeway for role-play, but the little I got to do was having Black Widow at Avengers Mansion drinking Vodka and smoking Russian cigarettes.  

Then sometime later, I found a little group through the Marvel RPG Discord. They were gaming very infrequently, and it was set in the Marvel Universe circa 1980. But we got to create our own characters, so the opportunity was there to better learn the system through character generation. My character was a version of my old gaming days Champions character Manx McCallister. He was a human cat hybrid, who got stuck in a teleporter pod his Quantum Scientist parents were working on and got spliced with his pet cat, much like Jeff Goldblum and his not pet fly. 

OK, I at first was going to use Fritz the Cat for his image, but settled on a more human version.

Manx is a Physics student in college, so has science stuff
in addition to feline agility and some knowledge of "Cat Fu"

These handful of sessions were fun, though our characters seemed to be secondary to the goings on of various existing Marvel heroes. But here I met the guys who would make up half of my group. More on that in a bit. 

So I knew the system a lot better, was now versed in character creation through Demiplane, and just needed players. So I started reaching out in the Marvel RPG discord, with less than satisfactory results. Since most advertises sessions there where for one shots with existing Marvel characters, somebody looking to do actual campaign play with original characters got a lot of attention. But honestly, a lot of the dudes (and yes, the members of the Discord were almost all dudes) raised red flags for me. 

For example, one guy seemed OK with some good ideas, but eventually told me he would have to use his phone to play, because he lived in a tent. Another guy wanted to run a Star Wars Stormtrooper who was dancing all the time. Ugh. 

My setting is sort of a kitchen sink pastiche
but this was going a bit too off the rails

 

Month in and month out, I was having trouble finding good fits for me. The guys from some of the games I played Manx in were up for it, based mostly on how much fun I think the role play of Manx was in those sessions. But I would need more. And ones who did not seem like lunatics were few and far between. But slowly it came together. Here and there I found somebody who might work. A guy who had streamed tons of his Marvel games on Youtube. And eventually a girl, who was super rare on the forums (and she has been in my Saturday DnD games for a few weeks as well and injected some new energy into that). 

So holy mother of fuck, it was off to the races. As of last week (had to be off this last Sunday), we are three sessions in. 

OK, so here is what I decided to run. In my old Champions campaigns, I would have two different groups. One was The Protectors, a government sponsored superteam that for years of play was the main situation. Supers fighting super stuff in the streets of New America City. But also as an occasional side thing I did Justice Incorporated, which was a kind of heroes for hire that was more street level. So like a cowboy, and field hacker cyberpunk, a ninja, a depowered genie called Blue Jinn. Things like that. I figured Justice Inc would be a good start. 

And I had used my Inkarnate account, which had been sitting idle (and getting paid for annually) for around four years, to recreate and update my old Haven setting map. 

Inkarnate doesn't have great futuristic
city and town tools, so I just used images

Justice Incorporated of old was a sort of side hobby of rich Japanese/Irish industrialist Patricia Elizabeth Kyono, who in my old games served as the "good" corporate CEO to counterpoint the evil ones. She was a good bit older, but still hot as hell. 

I actually may still have my mini for her 
somewhere. A female in corporate garb. 
But this one I made with AI captures her. 

So since it has been over a decade since I did anything with the Haven setting, I have had it be that there has been almost nothing in the way of supergroups or supertypes in general, things have been quiet and the world plugging away in the decades following WW3. I still have the Science Police (inspired by such from Superhero 2044) who try to handle meta human and science gone awry situations these days. 

So after a couple weeks of letting the players do up their characters, we were about set. Again, this was a long time in the coming, so I was pretty jazzed. And a little nervous about a few things. The oddball way I would start the campaign, that these would be more powerful than basic street level dudes Justice Incorporated had in the old days, etc. But I wanted them to be Rank 3, which in this system was sort of mid-level supers (Rank 4 would be heading into Thor and Iron Man territory), and just in general trying to manage expectations. 

Well, my expectations were by far exceeded. I can only say that these three sessions so far have brought me great joy, and the players are enthusiastic as I could ever hope. I have a DnD campaign going on, and its OK, but this is just bringing back old feels from the Old Haven campaigns. 

I want to talk about the actual sessions, but this would be a gigantic post, so I will save that for the next one. But for now, here are the great characters:

Igneous. He is a descendant of Titans, 
and has walked the earth for centuries. 
He has great strength and some rock powers.

Ghost is blind since birth, but has Daredevil
type sensed and almost supernatural ability to 
sense things down to almost the molecular level. 
His mentor is actually a now in this 70's Matt Murdoch.

Paladin is a descendant of an ancient order
of fighters against the supernatural going 
back to biblical days. 

Crash is a wealthy, partially cybernetic
cyberpunk who has almost mental powers
to use to tap into technology and the web

What can I say about Ra-Ta? He is a small grey alien who flies around
in a small UFO while studying earth. His players often works late, so only
shows up for the last half of some sessions. But it is pretty funny. An absurd
character that actually works with what I am doing. He comes and goes. It works 
for this character. His player is hilarious and the character cannot speak English
so he does a sort of high pitch gibberish (that Igneous can understand for some reason)

Seraph. She is a member of an ancient
winged race. She is just a loner who 
lives kind of homeless on old warehouse
rooftops. Loves fresh fish. 

Finally found my Supers RPG to run online?

 

I have posted in the past about my deep background with Supers RPG's (also here), going all the way back to childhood starting with the very first superhero game Superhero 2044. Then Supergame, then Villains and Vigilantes, and finally Champions/Hero System. That was my favorite, and using my futuristic hero setting Haven (based in part on Superhero 2044's Inguria Island) I turned many of my DnD groups on to it as an alternative. There would be resistance (most were not comic book fans) but they would eventually be requesting it. They loved it, despite the crunch of Champs. It was probably my favorite genre, in large part having grown up a comic book kid.

Now several years since the last time I ran a supers session, and also now that I essentially run all games online, I have been hankering to give it a go on Roll20. But the crunch of Champs would make it very hard. I considered Mutants and Masterminds which was fairly popular online, but it has its own high crunch it seems. I don't want to have to learn nor run another crunchy ruleset. 

Interesting note: when I first looked into this about
a year ago, the deluxe book (the most recommended 
as far as character creation choices) was out of print
and going for around 300 bucks where you could find 
it. But it is now apparently around 50 bucks and easily found. 

Last year for a couple session I played online in Kickstarted supers system I can't even remember what it was called. It was based on 5th ed DnD. It was kind of fun, but the guy kind of lost it mid-session and decided the system was no good for what he was doing. He declared he was probably going to try another system, but I passed. Put my search for a system on hold. 

But now in recent weeks I discovered Marvel Multiverse RPG, a fairly new system. I always rejected a licensed supers game, especially based on Marvel or DC, but the attractions of this was it was fairly rules light, and had excellent Roll20 support it seems. I immediately ordered the book off Amazon, and started watching Youtube videos about it. 

It has an odd, what I think is kind of clunky dice rolling system, but it is indeed simple. I can work with it I think. And it based around Marvel is OK. My Haven setting is more or less an alternate future version of the Mavel Universe (I always had it 20 years in the future of whenever I ran it) as a base, though having grown up on comics I was very familiar with Multiverses. I had Haven be a kitchen sink of genres, and other comic universe stuff could enter into it. Sci Fi in general really. I even had a Jedi show up in some old session. 

MM RPG has a rank system to determine your supers level, from street level like Daredevil all the way up to Galactus, and how that all works with the powers is something I need to research more of. Also it is all a little bit of an investment. The physical book was almost 40 bucks, and for Roll20 I will need to buy the in-platform version. For full functionality (sharing rules with players, a character sheet builder, etc) I think I need a subscription to something called Demiplane. But money is not really an object if I could get this off the ground with some decent players. 

I have plenty going on with my DnD right now. But I am around 30 sessions into the campaign and already past the point where I get a wander lust for other genres and systems. So as always it is sort of life raft building time. My research shall continue, but I am hopeful for supers action!

Cheers