Marvel RPG - "What Price Three Souls to Save?"

 

So, this couple of session arc would be of the supernatural variety. When I give people a quick description of my setting and what I like to do with it, I call it "Supers/Cyberpunk/Future Noir/Future Supernatural." The Pacific island nation of Haven was not just historically a "weirdness magnet" but the post WW3 refugee crisis brought folk from all over the globe here, along with whatever folklore and myth they brought with them. So especially in the older, lower income parts of the city, I like to imagine there are lots of supernatural goings on. Western Euro, Pacific Islander, Caribbean, etc.

And in my old Champions games, specifically for the then street level Justice Incorporated characters, I created Sister Mary Alice, or "Malice." Sister Mary Alice was a nun at the big catholic church downtown, "Our Lady of Constant Sorrow," made in part of brick and stained glass imported from an old European cathedral in the 1950's. In stands still smack dab in the Eastern District of City Center, with much of the city built around it.

Some decades before, Sister Mary was assaulted and killed by violent gang members and entombed at the church. But Sister Mary's spirit was taken over by a spirit of vengeance, turning the soul of Mary Alice into a Revenant. Every some odd years the possessed spirit of Sister Mary would invade the body of a fit, mostly random, young woman to take on the vigilante mantle and go out seeking violent men to kill. 

Mary Alice could bestow upon her vessel the ability to levitate, pass through objects and produce ancient weaponry (favoring swords, axes, and maces). The possessed woman's body would be imbued with extra strength and stamina (of the max human potential variety). She was perfect for those running battles on rainy nighttime rooftops and alleyways. 

For this recent Rank 3 Justice Inc games, I needed to upgrade her a bit, mostly adding the ability to teleport and also a level of Mighty and Sturdy for the mortal form. Made her Rank 4 as well, which makes her more than a match for any of the characters individually. 

I also brought in a bit of a protege for Sister Mary, a young Latina girl in Day of the Dead makeup who was using her grandfather's heirloom military pistols to go out and blast violent gang members at night in the form of "Devota." The urban legend of Malice and the new, mortal vigilante were out at night taking care of business. Sister Mary Alice mostly being near to help her if she got in trouble and let her do most of the killing. Still, dead criminals were being found with both sword and gunshot wounds. 

Several sessions ago I had decided to start having a 15- or 20-minute encounter a character could face solo every session or two, just so they can have their own moments. The character "Ghost" was on patrol and ran into Devota taking on a gang on a rooftop, with Malice on hand to make sure it went well. You can read the sad tale about how all that went down for me here. I will probably not be mentioning it again in the foreseeable future. 

But this encounter would finish up this little dangling plotline. I won't go into deep detail, but the two-session arc would take place essentially on two maps, the ground floor of an enclosed parking lot, and a section of the roof of Our Lady of Sorrow.

I would bring in one of the members of the group "The Redeemers" who have been around since the very first session of the campaign (the runners up for a job with Justice Incorporated) and also appeared in the "Bar Wars" arc. 

Pretty much like most of the Redeemers characters I came up with Count Carl on the spot when I was practicing creating characters in Demiplane for my hoped for eventual Marvel Multiverse campaign. I really didn't have him all that fleshed out. He was going to be a non-evil vampire who hunts evil vampires. In his first appearance I meant for him to be German or Romanian, but I somehow just started doing a Cockney accent for him when he appeared in game. By his second appearance I decided, based in large part of the image, that he became a vampire in 1960's swinging London and I would basically just do an Austin Powers impression. That stuck. Vampire hunter, monster hunter, and most of all a detective of all things supernatural. He was a chain smoker and before he appears the smell of smoke would proceed him. 

He appeared in the morning in the Safehouse Paladin is living in. Pally woke up smelling ciggy smoke and hearing the news on. Going into the living space there was Count Carl floating in front of the big wall TV, smoking and waiting for him. 

Their previous encounter having been a brief hand to hand (Paladin handled him then no problem, though Carl's heart was not really into that encounter), the blunt and no-nonsense Paladin told him to go back outside and ring the doorbell. When he reentered, Carl asked that Paladins team members be summoned. When they arrived, he told them of the Revenant influencing the spirit of Mary Alice, possessing and innocent girls' body, and at least to some degree encouraging Yanet "Devota" Inez to be a criminal killer. He said that his friend, the blind elderly Dominican priest of Our Lady of Constant Sorrow, can create an area at the church that he can trap Malice in, and that as an experienced Exorcist (in the real world the Dominican Republic seems to have big history with that) can expunge the Revenant and bring peace to the soul of Mary Alice and free the unknown girl being possessed. 

Carl says that he predicts Mary Alice and Devota will appear the next evening to attack youths who will be doing a violent teen takeover of a parking lot near a theater multiplex. He wants the characters to be there to try and stop any violence they can, but to let Devota escape. The young girl apparently goes to the church after each appearance as the vigilante to pray (and that Carl knows most of this from being in contact with her only close living relative, her grandmother who has been going to the church for decades). The father will have an area of the roof blessed and prepared with candles and incense and will eventually lead young Yanet up to the roof, where Sister Mary Alice will no doubt appear to help her. At that point they can stop Mary Alice and the father will perform the exorcism. 

Part of my philosophy when running games, whatever the genre like DnD or whatever, is to provide different locations to do action in. I think that is especially important for a genre like this, as streets and office building rooftops can get a bit repetitive. So, an indoor parking structure and a cathedral roof section seems to fit the bill of keeping things fresh. 

So once the characters staked the place out, the youths soon arrived to cause a fuss among people going to their cars after a movie or dinner. They were prepared with bats and knives, and as soon as they started fanning out to mug and menace folks, the characters dug in. Paladin and Seraph beating on some of them, Nova trapping some in an energy cage, and Igneous generally menacing them with his giant size pretty much had them in check. But then Sister Mary Alice and Devota appeared. Yanet was hesitant to kill teens, though when a couple of the gang members accidentally knocked down an old couple while fleeing from Paladin she did shoot one of the youths in the leg. But she then took off, as did Mary Alice, but not before producing a mace to smash in the head of one of the teens.

Then off to the church roof, where they met Father Dom who eventually brought up Yanet who had removed her makeup to pray. They disarmed her, and Mary Alice appeared to fight them. I don't have to go into detail, but at rank 4 she could put up a decent fight and dish out some damage with whatever weapon she produced. I even had given her the power to animate a couple of the roof gargoyles to make it more of an interesting fight. But they were finally able to put Malice down, and father Dom freed the possessed body, and Sister Mary's soul from the influence of the revenant spirit. 

Sister Mary Alice's soul was seen rising into a shaft of light, and it seemed like she was finally free. 

The unconscious Yanet was flown by Seraph to the apartment where she lives with her grandmother. With granny being a devout Catholic, she of course thought Seraph was an angel at first. 

Some thoughts: At some point during this 2-session arc, Seraph declared to the others (while on the church roof I think) that this may be the most important thing they ever do. Not sure if they agree, but strong stoic type Paladin seems to be a religious warrior (a session after this he would give an NPC a bible), but he does not advertise it. Also, Igneous' player missed the second part where the roof fight was. Iggy's player misses a session now and again. Since he can grow up to 100 feet tall, he is always conspicuous by his absence.

Anyway, that nicely wrapped up the supernatural vigilante angle. A nice detour from the more science related stuff of previous sessions. But there will be more supernatural based foes in the future. Gotta keep mixing things up. 

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

Superman, Fantastic Four, Etc. movie thoughts.

 

Having grown up a comic book wonk I always have thoughts on what is going on with comic book movies, especially these upcoming ones. When I was a lot younger comic book movies seemed designed to break a fans heart. The 1970's Superman was a stand out, and of course the Tim Burtons first Batman gave us a serious take. Though not perfect. Batman not being able to move his head but still win in a fight was the least of its issues. To me Batman Returns was a quick downturn. It was OK to me at the time, But I for sure did not like a Penguin that staggers around the sewer in long underwear that has a 3 foot shit stain up the back. There was nothing about the character that would suggest a strength or charisma that would get well dressed poodle trainers and circus clowns to be happy living in a sewer. OK, it's a comic book. But looking back on it now in modern day it seems like some kind of gritty emo transgender Cirque Du Soliel. 

Batman Forever had its good points. But I could feel things heading in a spiral. I liked Kilmers Bats, and Jim Carrey was the usual tour de farce playing the Riddler, one that seemed very much like my favorite Riddler Frank Gorshin. But the neon Tokyo themed Gotham kind of confused me. Was this set in Hong Kong or the future? A Robin who was pushing 30 years old? Ugh. A Two Face whose aging actor seemed to be trying to emulate The Joker, and probably a dose of desperately trying to compete with the zany Carrey. But what the hell it was fun and cool to look at. 

Later Batman and Robin brought back the full heartbreak. If only they had based things, Mr. Freeze, Bane, and Poison Ivy on the 90's animated series, along with a bit more serious tone, and it could really have been great. But geez, the suck.

Snipes Blade and Raimi's Spider Man got us back on track with good stuff. Though their part 3's were dog shit. 

Then with the Robert Downey Iron Man we got a new age. A character not well known to normies, we comic fans loved the character and loved the movie. So the Marvel Cinematic Universe went into full swing. It was great, but after about a decade it had its issues IMO. Iron Man 3, with its fake out Mandarin, was mostly forgettable. And the final stages of Avengers was problematic. The "snap" of Thanos, taking out half of humanity, just made things very awkward. A world where half the planet was wiped out but came back after 5 years? In following films this should have been front and center. What happens when half the world comes back and their lives are mostly gone? Who lives in their houses? Just the squatter issues would be front page news for a decade. But it hardly gets brought up. 

Then the Woke Disneyfication. Man oh man. Trying to make a plank of wood actress, Brie Larsen, the new face of the franchises was complete dog shit. It began the age of the Marvel girl boss. Whereas classic characters who had to go through hell on their journey, the new ones barely had to strive. A great real life analogy is how for the godawful Thor Love and Thunder, Chris Hemsworth had to be in the gym everyday for 6 hours to prepare, while new female Thor Natalie Portman god muscles through special effects. The new Miss Marvel, the Indian stretchy girl, literally got her powers in the mail. 

The TV shows were mostly awful, especially compared to the Netflix series from a few years back like Daredevil. She Hulk, a character I collected back in the day, and shows like Echo, were just identity politics bullshit. Just like Disney Star Wars, the Marvel shit started bombing. And man, all the hyuka hyuka constant snarky joking around, as if left behind as a curse by Downey's Tony Snark. They lost their legacy fans in pursuit of a Rainbow Coalition audience that didn't really exist for it outside of online forums.

When the shit failed, they cried "racism" and "misogynist" and blamed white males, even though they themselves did not go out and plunk down the cash to see the stuff. 

I'm not going to count the new Captain America movie as part of the upcoming items this year. It's out now and not doing so good. This movie is a couple years late, and its budget doubled from endless reshoots. It may do better than its original versions, where I understand it was going to be yet another Donald Trump analogy that so much product, such as Amazons The Boys, where indulging in. But after seeing that half the country at least supports the new prez, they switched that analogy out a bit I understand. Was Red Hulk going to originally be Orange Hulk? 

OK, this Cap is probably going to be a popcorn fart, but what about the upcoming stuff? This is for both Marvel and DC; both of them having fallen from grace to a large degree. I actually like Batman v. Superman, and loved the Snyder cut, but by the awful Wonder Woman 1984 things went off a cliff for DC. So what about...Superman...?

Superman Legacy - I love Guardians of the Galaxy, and Peacemaker and the second Suicide Squad were pretty good. But James Gunn for Superman? I dunno. I like what I see in the trailers. Krypto the Supergod is a big gamble, a dog with a cape and all. But I love it. It seems like it is going to be a big nod to Golden Age supes. And it being an ensemble, with Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, Metamorpho, etc may also be a gamble. But with the other heroes being kind of corporate and working for Maxwell Lord, such as in the old Justice League international comics, I think this is going to have some kind of juxtaposition between the selfless Superman and other heroes who are in it for the money. I am very hopeful for this.

Fantastic Four - also hopeful. I dunno about the casting. I am getting sick of Pedro Pascal, and don't know that he is a good Reed Richards. Especially with the mustache. The fucking stache better not stretch. Johnny Storm looks nothing special, and Ben Grimm...I dunno. but its the ages that bother me. The Actress playing Susan Storm is pushing 40, and Pedro is like 50. Reed should be at leat 10 years older than trophy wife Sue, but she should be no older than 25. The actress is lovely and all, and looks a lot younger, so maybe it will be ok. What I do like is the retro 60's setting. It for sure reflects early FF, where it's the 60's but interstellar travel, time machines, flying cars etc exist. My guess is this is happening because the FF have not appeared in previous films, and maybe Galactus will destroy that setting and they will come to the modern MCU. That might be awkward though.. Also, I guess this is where Doctor Doom will appear. 

Doomsday and beyond - so Robert Downey jr. is Doc Doom. Speculation has it that this will be an evil version of Tony Stark, perhaps adopted by the Von Dooms. Whatevs. I just hope he is not a snarky jokey Doom. Chris Evans is set to return as well, maybe as an evil Cap America. 

Everything will be leading up I think to an entirely new Marvel Universe after Secret Wars. A reset with new actors for all the top gun characters. But it is all kind of down the road though. I'm not super excited for Superhero shit anymore. Much like I hardly ever pick up a comic these days. Great, good, or bad, I won't be waiting with bated breath anymore. Like a lot of people, I go back to older stuff rather than buy new product and consume more new product. Old shows, old movies. 

Much like my mild wrestling fandom, I like the real life behind the scenes stuff more than the filmed product. Personality clashes, and big stars acting like divas. I guess you could say I do have a mild interest, but I really don't think I will every actually be eager to see whatever the finished product is. What they are doing with it, and its potential failures and losses, are kind of more interesting to me to eventually see. YMMV.

Cheers