"Enter - Safeguard" I start actually challenging the characters

So in this two-part session (both talked about here..most sessions I am running seem to go across a two session arc), I would finally get the chance to hit the characters with some actual power. Not just a handful of Rank 3 "terrorists" but also with a new Supergroup of Rank 4 potential foes. As a reminder, the characters are Rank 3. There is a decent difference in those numbers. But all in all, the party did not get in as big a punch-up with them as I would like. But getting the characters out to a public place to face foes with high tech weapons, and foes with strong powers, was something I was working towards. 

After the Night Clubs scenario, the PC's had a about a week to do their own thing. Which included moving out of the Justice Incorporated offices. Ultimately they had a choice between a small but luxury apartment in a Kyono owned corporate residential skyscraper.  Or a larger single building to stay at and consider a safe house. Seraph was the only one opting for a nice private studio unit.

Kind of the perfect crib for a flying girl, and better than the 
old warehouse she was crashing at before this 

Meanwhile a small shipping and receiving building in "Japan Town" (ethnic neighborhoods and tourist area), at the end of a short street between a Japanese restaurant and a tailors building, had some of its small office converted to bedrooms, and stocked with TV, fridge, and other living essentials. The Paladin player Andrew whipped up a map for it between these couple of sessions as Paladin and Igneous moved in.

I started calling him "Iggy" because
I keep calling him Ignacius rather than Igneous

At some point during the week, Seraph was flying above the city like she is want to do. I had her spot another flyer, which you don't see that often in the city (except maybe above mutie town). It was a young Japanese woman in ancient traditional dress, and she was flying on a giant white feather the size of a canoe.

The woman did not notice at first when Seraph followed, but she did at some point and used a Japanese fan to summon huge blades of wind that shot towards Seraph. She backed off as the woman disappeared among the skyscrapers. 

Kagura is from the anime Unuyasha, which I posted about last year.  She is my favorite character on that show, and I created her in Demiplane last year while I was practicing making NPC's and decided I could use her for this. She woke up in this era and fell in with Boliver York of York Industries, and his sponsored superteam "Safeguard."

I found some cosplay/AI of her and I 
may start using these for her tokens

I pushed to have this little solo encounter not take a long time (lf you have read a couple posts back then you might understand why I would be concerned about things like this taking more than 15 minutes). 

So Friday came around and Kyono asked for a meeting at the Justice Inc. offices (more often than not she showed up on a video screen conference call). She said that her data monitoring department has gotten rumor of a possible violent attack possibly occurring Friday night at the Metroplex Mall, the second largest indoor/outdoor mall (largest I guess is in Japan). 

With little other info, the group hung about in the corner of the mall where things were maybe going to go down. Yeah, I know. Easy set up. Indeterminate occurrence at so and so time. Not every set up has to be complicated in comics!

The "terrorists" who do eventually show up on the scene are using advanced tech personal weapons, either rifles of some type or melee-based weapon.

The weapons also projected a light personal force field (Sturdy 2, but dropped to 1 after first hit of more than 10 points health) and also fortified the body with Mighty 1 and some extra health. So two of each, bo staff guys, armored arms guys, and laser rifle guys. 

Also this was where we introduced a new player. He was brought in by player Will (Iggy) so unvetted by me but turned out to be a good guy. He is running a Nova corps member. Calling himself Nova, because, well he's a Nova. With all those good powers such as flight, hard skin, and some pretty heavy energy blast stuff. This battle is where he would meet the other characters. In the heat of combat. 

A little Nova in the comics background. I have no idea what goes on with Nova stuff in recent decades. As a kid I collected a comic called Nova. He could fly, was hard to hurt, and had energy blasts. 

He was basically an attempt to recreate the success of Spider Man. A teenager gets powers out of the blue and has to deal with that and his new heroic life. I remember little else. 

But this new Nova is a bit different. Same power set. Fly, energy abilities, some Sturdy. He is also kind of dances to his own beat. 

He likes to decorate his military helmet,
kind of like the marines in Aliens. 

The party dealt with the terrorists fairly well. Iggy had grown to giant size (though not full size because of the close packed stores) but managed to take a couple of heavy hits from the laser rifle guys. Paladin really mixed it up with them. 

The couple that got knocked out were teleported away somehow, along with the couple of others when "Safeguard" showed up. 

Clockwise from top left is "The Wind Sorceress," "Mastodon," "Spider-Max," "Blackwolf," and "Aegis." 

So quick history lesson. Back in the day (and in the setting currently between 12-20 years ago overall) I had two major global industrial organizations in Haven called "York Industries" and "Kyono International." 

York Industries was the company of Bolivar York. I had a great mini for him back in the day. I might still have it. It was a David Bowie Goblin king mini. Since I had Bolivar be a Hellfire Club lord much like Marvel Comics Sebastian Shaw I had painted it to look a bit like him in terms of clothing he wore behind the scenes.

Was not this, but similar

York was the evil company. Sort of a Lex Luthor thing. He used tech, and people he swayed, for all kings of mayhem. Characters in The Protectors and Justice Incorporated (and maybe the Future X-Men thing I did for a while but forget if they met him).

Patricia Kyono and her corp were the good business. She put together Justice Inc and often interacted and helped the Protectors. After some years of various campaigns (and an alien invasion that I think I am going to retcon away in this new thing) , they all managed to prove Yorks's crimes and get him a lifetime in prison. 

For this new era, I have it that York's son, Boliver jr., has taken over the company. And of course he has evil intent, especially to those who harmed his father and the corp. He is a handsome, well educated chad with charisma, and often when he says his father was framed by the Protectors, Justice Inc, Kyono, and the Science Police, some people listen. 

Business in front, party in back

 a more casual look I have yet to use

So in the 10 years or so there has not been super groups around or heroes in geneal in public, Bolivar jr. put together his own superteam that has recently been seen out and about stopping crime, and BY has had a press conference or two about them, with them in attendance. He called them "Safeguard." And of course they will be used to his evil ends. 

A yokai sorceress from feudal days
who has powers over wind.

Mastodon is part of an ancient race the remnants of live
in a city of science in the south pole. He is Mighty 3 and 
can grow up to 100 feet. I created him to go against Iggy.

I got the idea from a Red Letter Media/Noiselund video...

Spider Max is a 15-year-old with Spider Powers. And orphan. Have not
decided yet if he is a Peter parker clone, or a clone of Bolivar sr. with
Parker DNA in him. 

he is a Canadian hipster who can turn
into a large super wolf. 

Aegis. Power armor with many functions.
Secretly Boliver jr (he will be in there 
sometimes and sometimes it will be
a Life Model Replicant of him.

Tank built by Mastodon. He usually drives.

We did not a get a big fight between the group. Wind Sorceress swooped into the courtyard to attack Nova out of the blue with her Crescent Wind attack. 

Spider Max webbed up Seraph in mid air, causing her to fall from 50 feet. The kid realized she was heading for the fall, and swung in to get her to the ground gently. "Sorry lady." So maybe these are not bad guys?

Seraph has already been nabbed in a net
by her arch foe Blimpkrieg two times. So
that's three nettings in several sessions. 

I forget if any more attacks went down. I really wanted Iggy and Mastodon to grow huge and go all Kaiju fight. But Paladin was yelling at Aegis that they were not the enemy, and Aegis, who was on top of the tank, was forced (cameras and possible film crews are always around) to talk it out. 

That was it for possible violence. I did get to introduce an NPC from the old days I used for comedic value. He was a police lieutenant back then, but now he is a police captain. His name is Louie DePalma, a name you might recognize if you like old sitcoms. I had him be an asshole back in the day and hate superheroes, and now at probably 69 years old he's grumpier than ever. Characters always hated him, and I think these new ones do too. 

Back in the day I remember a player came up with a song about him. They started singing it when he showed up on the table (I think I used a hobbit mini that had a hat). It was sung to the tune of the old song "Louie Louie" and I think some it went:

Loo-ee loo-i

Oh whoa every where he goes

Soo-per-he-rows

Loo-ee loo-ay

Oh whoa every where he goes

they both-er him

Same actor in the role.

Science Police also showed up. Both groups had reason for being here. Because both Kyono and York had lawyers nearby ready to intervene when shit quieted down. 

Here's the thing. Safeguard claims to be employed officially as security for York Industries. the Kyono lawyers argue that Justice Inc, as private contractors working in security and investigative capacity for Kyono International. With some of the properties in the Metroplex Mall being owned or its product related to these companies, their security forces have a right to intervene in terrorist situations. 

So the characters finally got into a little conflict with another group. I really wanted to see more of them mixing with them. See how they do with Rank 4 foes. But Safeguard is playing at being good guys and have to watch their step. I sort of fantasize about a full fight at some point and hopefully the Rank 4 Safeguard beat the hell out of the Rank 3 Justice Inc. Then have a training montage and JI comes back Rank 4 for payback. 

Just a word on the Science Police. The concept goes back to Superhero 2044 where they primarily started as nuclear watchdogs after WW3, eventually moving in the future to overwatching strong or illegal science, and meta humans. During the heyday of my campaigns, with the Protectors, whoever was in Justice Inc, and Kyono would fight against frequent York Industries agents and schemes. Whatever it was, for those years the SP was an important agency and often involved in the meta human chaos (though usually show up after a fight). Now, with a decade or so of peace and few super powered beings causing trouble, they have less staff and agents than they used too and mostly monitor mutant issues (mutantgs have a large neighborhood of low income and HUD housing). The SP being a bit weaker these days will be a running theme in upcoming games. 

So Seraph went after Nova and invited him to the office, where he met everybody and of course got a job offer. Rather than go to the safehouse, Serapah invited him to stay at her small apartment. I would have some fun with that. But that is a story for another day! Stay tooned. Cheers.

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

Multiverses of Madness and the Comics

 

Growing up a comics kid, with a focus on Marvel, I of course loved even the C level heroes. And Dr. Strange was certainly that. But he had a certain popularity with college students, due in large part to the great Steve Ditko's psychedelic take on Salvador Dali. Doctor Strange travelled realms of crazy abstract backgrounds. 

And Strange regular cameoing in other titles got his exposure. Just like in the most recent Spider Man movie, Spidey and other heroes would sometimes seek out the wizard for advice with supernatural situations. Doc also led his own minor league hero team, The Defenders, that went on to have a long history, often without Strange appearing. But now, in the MCU, Doc Strange takes front and center. He actually seems to be the heir apparent to Tony Snark (even cracking wise at an accelerated rate). 

So as a kid the offbeat elements stood out. The crazy interdimensional backgrounds, Ditko's signature finger-bending hand gestures and body postures (made famous in early Spider Man). And Stan Lee gave Ditko credit for the character, a rare moment of generosity about character creation. 

So, the weirdo backgrounds and even the classic hand gestures made their way into the Marvel films, and the dimensional architecture as well, In spades. 

In the hands of Sam Raimi (among my top 5 favorite directors), the world of Strange just seems right. His style fits right in with the classic Ditko style. The backgrounds, the demons, the crash edits and Dutch angles. Sam brings all his best tropes into the MCU. Evil Dead and Drag Me to Hell all seem like influences here. 

Scarlet Witch is the big bad, a plotline left over from her Disney series. All she wants is her kids, but since she can't have hers, she will settle for taking over the body of a counterpart of hers from another dimension. Or something. 

I remember her pretend kids from comics in the 80's. Some of that had Al Milgrom as artist, who I absolutely hate, so I didn't read much. I don't know if Wanda using actual magic was a thing back then, or a modern invention. In my day she was a mutant who could alter probability in a random fashion that she could not fully control. She might turn a hail of bullets into butterflies with a hex, or create a shield of ice from fire hydrant water to block them. She never really knew. 

Now she is a powerful wizard in her own right, and more powerful (because of the Darkhold?) than even Doc Strange. Anyway, I don't really need to get into plot specifics. It didn't matter much to me. It was the insider elements that tickled me. 

The Darkhold stuff took me back. That book, Marvels Necronomicon, was in many titles I read as a kid. I remember it factoring into the early Werewolf by Night issues. And apparently the book was responsible for the existence of vampires. So nice to see it getting love these days. 

But its the multiverse that tickles me. As a kid it was Marvel, and to a lesser degree DC comics ("not a dream! Not an imaginary tale!"), whose mid century "Imaginary tales" eventually evolved into alternate dimensiona explanations. Earth 616 and 219 and 411 or whatnot. 

By the 70's both Marvel and DC dug deep into alternate universe stuff. I mean, I guess What If...? was the penultimate love for the concept. And its great to see it happening in the movies. in the case of DC films, it's an evolution of the company trying to salvage the poor reception of early film fare such as Batman vs. Superman and such. I mean, its giving us a chance soon to see the Michael Keaton Batman alongside the more recent Batfleck, and that tickles me to no end. 20 Years ago me being told by a visitor from the future that this would happen would have made my head explode. Even the last Spider Man film did it. Molina Doc Ock and Defoe Green Goblin? Yes please. Though I have to admit, that movie did not hold me for long. I have yet to watch enough of it to see all the Spider Man film actors together. But that has more to do with not really being a fan of the recent Spidey films. But shit, I'm glad its all happening. 

I love alternate universe stuff, and I look forward to seeing what they do with it. But especially in the case of DC. I'm unashamedly a fan of the films, even the derided ones. Batman V Supers and Suicide Squad 1 weren't quite the films I would have hoped (worst Lex Luthor ever), but I still find plenty to like in them. And I absolutley adore the Snyder Cut Justice League. I like the dark Snyder touches over the Marvel films heavy reliance on Tony Stark Snark, and essentially every character being a comedy gagster (that really should have been Spider Man and Deadpools schtick only).

So I should add you get to an alternate version of Reed Richards. I'm chomping at the bit to see what they do with an FF movie. And this is a little glimpse (I half expected Ben Grimm to come smashing in). And Fox's Doctor X played by Patrick Stewart was fanboy giggle worthy. The Illuminati. Wow. They even stuck in Black Bolt from the poorly received Inhumans show (I have yet to see it), and he was awesome. The only thing missing was Prince Namor. That would have been sweet. 

Anyway, Multiverse Madness. Can't wait to see more madness. Uh, in the Multiverse.

Oh, one final spoiler. Doc Stranges gal pal from the 70's, Clea, shows up in a credits sequence. That was a deep cut, and I almost spit out beer. And they don't explain anything, so nobody except way out in the weeds old school fanboys like me even get the significance. Awesome. 

Games - to Display or not to Display?

 My geek cred is pretty strong. It started around age 8 or 9 when my parents, avid swap meet and garage sale patrons (like a lot of immigrant types), would occasionally bring me stacks of comics. That started a collection that by adulthood had grown into several long boxes of mostly silver age stuff. 

My next intro to things geeky was probably an old copy of The Hobbit one of my older bros (non-geeks to be sure; oldest brother was a local biker-like badass, and my next oldest was all-city in several sports) left lying around. By the time I discovered D&D around age 13 I had read the LOTR trilogy a couple of times (plus a little Conan and others). So things comics, and things D&D were my main hobbies (besides playing sports myself - a local sports hero's younger brother is going to be forced to dabble). I surfed from around age 14-21, but as I grew up on the beach that was more of a lifestyle than sport or hobby. Comics and RPGS were the lifelong loves, though I pretty much stopped buying comics on the reg by age 25 or so. 

When you are young you love to display things you like. But for me coming up in a time when D&D and other games were more or less underground despite TSR's soon marketing to the general teeming masses, I treated it like a secret society. When I went to the secretive D&D club ("The Fantasy Role Playing Association" - sheesh) after football practice I snuck there with the James Gunn theme playing in the background so as not to be seen by my non-geek friends.

 It was an odd hobby, and I kind of dug the furtive nature of it then. I always stashed my gaming stuff away in drawers and closets in case my sports pals came over (or my earliest girlfriends - though by around 17 years old or so some girls I met were into D&D). Things I displayed were the usual rock posters and such. My D&D buddies were less furtive; they had minis and books and all kinds of stuff all over their rooms. 

I'm still not much of a hobby-displayer. I'm always kind of trying to minimize my life. When I left my hometown for a new city a few short years ago I pretty much tossed out about half my life. Clothes, furniture, and a lot of collectibles. Some action figures, fandom books (including things like my decades old Star Trek technical manual) and other things that were not exactly mint on card. I currently own exactly ONE small bookshelf, and its more for holding a few favored books and gifts from friends. Well, not exactly displayed. More like just tossed on there to keep them off the living room table...

My D&D stuff still stays stashed in a closet, more to get it out of the way than out of embarrassment. But with my current main hobby (outside of video gaming, playing music, and a couple other things) is boardgames. 

Above: me indulging in other things with non-gamer pals 

in Northern Cali...

As I mentioned in other posts, my board gaming passion only started around 3 years ago. My only real boardgame love for decades was Talisman. But I discovered Will Wheaton's Tabletop show and was dazzled by the incredible games being played there. I moved to a new town where I didn't know anybody. I made some friends at the local comic/game shop, but then I found some of the personalities in the local gaming community, especially that of board gaming, kind of boring, outside of my soon to be besties B and L and some of their local friends.

We teamed up to turn non-gamers
into gamers. Nice, eh?

 So with good friends eager to play I started collecting games I had seen on that show (or just saw at a store and had to have). My collection grew exponentially in the last couple years...

Have a couple of editions, but the one with
the phallic standee is a classic.

I'm probably leaving one or two out, but it doesn't take a lot of boardgames to make quite a pile. They outgrew the couple of lower shelves, and I pretty much had them stacked on the living room floor. But with my best friends being out of town for a few months in the earlier parts of the year (they travel to warmer climes to avoid the snow and such we get here near the Sierras), this is kind of my board gaming downtime. So, with pre-spring cleaning they go from the living room into some boxes in the office upstairs until such time as boardgame "season" comes back around.

My board game collection as currently displayed.

In some ways it's kind of a shame. These modern boardgame boxes are beautiful to look at.  I've seen some huge collections of boardgames displayed, and they look amazing. The hosts of my latest D&D campaign must have a hundred boardgames, and they are displayed around the house on a half dozen shelves. And there is a brew pub in town that had hundreds of games available to play. I've played a few games there with B & L, or other local friends, and it's a great atmosphere. I've even gone in there by myself on a quiet Sunday to have a couple ales and just stare at the walls...

So lonely...but fuck, look at all those games!

But honestly, in the spirit of minimalization, I have to resist the shelf thing. As I have for years, I get my artsy display ya-ya's out by hanging stuff on the walls. Mostly things with some personal importance.

More of a religious thing really, 
but counts as a display

Given to me over a decade ago
when Pearl Jam was a client 
at my office. 

Both an art and activity. I like to 
switch different comics in and out
of the frames from time to time.

Just as an aside, there can be a great display out of the box. I gave my pals a beautiful little game that they like to play (it's a two-player game so I don't have it) on their travels, but also keep it out as a nice model display...

OK, so as for my collection of board games, I am going to try and keep it down to the three boxes. But these boxes are pretty much full. There are at least a couple more games I'd like to own, so to fit I will need to eliminate a couple. The most likely choices for elimination are...

Really loving that box art.

OK, well, Munchkin can be fun, but honestly two things turn me off from playing it after the first couple tries. Basically, for what you get out of it, it takes too long. It can take over an hour. Both times we played it was closer to an hour and a half. For a game that is almost all whimsy, it should really be like other whimsical games I like such as King of Tokyo and Epic Spell Wars. A game should take a half hour or less. To me this is the big turnoff. A game that takes upwards of an hour and a half should have a bit more real meat on it. 

As for the Gloomhaven spin-off, well, I have some reasons there that I will save for a later post as the reasons I got it are quite specific. 

But long and short here and to wrap this post up, I will for the time being be keeping the games in the boxes, and my artsy side will just have to stay up on the walls. Out of the way.