"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.

Justice Inc - the Campaign Continues (and an autistic player freaks out during an encounter)

 (note: halfway through this session I would have an interesting, and kind of troubling situation with one of the players. Most of the first half of the session was a meeting where a new players character was introduced. A mutant college girl with electrical abilities. The group doing the usual role play razzle dazzle. It was great. But the last hour or so of the night was not. Stay tuned.)  

So leaving off from last week, the characters had taken part in "auditions" for an unknown potential employer and met all kinds of weirdos (or at least maybe weirder than them). They passed the audition, informed by "Wilmington" of such, and piled into a couple of self-driving luxury limo vans to head to a meeting point. 

Meanwhile, some of the runners up of the auditions event had met in the parking lot and suggested to group together for their mutual benefit (they would eventually call themselves "The Redeemers"). I would be using them soon enough, but not in this session. But the sooner I start doing up challenges for the characters the better.

So they go to the venerable old Winston Bldg downtown. As I mentioned I used this building for the old Justice Incorporated games. In it were the JI offices (on a floor number and suite I never write down so probably different every time I mention it over the years).

There they meet Japanese Irish corporate CEO industrialist (and one of the richest people on the planet) Patricia Elizabeth Kyono in person. 

So they are informed of the history of her side thing Justice Incorporated. Once a street level organization, helping the downtrodden and higher-level people alike who find themselves victims of some unjust situation. With the organization in limbo for almost 10 years (in the setting), she wants to bring it back, this time with a group that has more power to it, similar to a typical superhero team situation. With an offer to maintain secret identity's if necessary, a place to stay if needed, and a few grand a month, she gets them to agree and gives them a special debit card, that can be used to withdraw cash, use as a bank card (Kyono owned bank of course), and even as a communication device and keycard to use the buildings private elevator and roof access. 

With the characters agreeing for now, they get introduced to Rachel, the offices receptionist and assistant. 

While permanent, off site accommodations are being looked into for the characters who need it, most of them crash at the offices which has three small bed chambers (not made for permanent stays) and a reception couch. Even with them staying there, and Rachel always being available, nobody has realized yet that she is a Life Model Replicant assistant model, produced by Kyono International. 

I am not exactly sure where Paladin came from 
(the Middle East maybe, the player said he came 
to have on a plane to attend the auditions, so he 
had no place to stay).

Seraph is a being from another dimension who had
been living in an abandoned warehouse, so she 
crashed at the office as well.

Igneous is a descendant of Titans who just wanders
the Earth. So he crashed there. 

Living in a professional workspace can be...
problematic to a certain degree

So not everybody had to live there. But the space is all appointed, with a main office, conference room, kitchenette and gym with small sauna. 

So yeah, most of the characters did go ahead and just start living there. And with the characters having got to know each other a bit, they went about their week. Seraph, the winged girl, actually trained a bit; some combat basics with paladin in the office, and with Igneous. He took her to an abandoned part of the railyard in town and had her fly around dodging big rocks he would throw. 

OK, so during that week of in game downtime I wanted to try something out. In my old campaigns, I would sometimes like to throw a quick encounter at a character solo. Like something designed to be quick, like 20 minutes max. Stop some muggers or something. 

I will call the player I did this with "C." He is a young dude in his late 20's I think, and I was fairly jazzed to get him on board originally because he has streamed probably at least 100 hours of running the Marvel Multiverse RPG online. Sessions with 4 or 5 players that went over four hours in some cases. I will admit I had only watched a few minutes of it here and there. Most of the videos have less than 5 views. I do not want to point him or his streams out, because as it turns out he clearly has some form of emotional issues and out of at least some compassion for it I do not want to identify him. 

But you don't have to look too deeply to find multiple instances of him identifying as neurodivergent in his videos. Like, totally embracing it. To me, using that term, is kind of broad. Forrest Gump and his chocolate box level of variety is what I think is under that umbrella. OK, cool. I always like to say "we are rpg players...we are all autistic." 

He seemed like a cool guy and I like him. It seemed a big surprise to him that I was calling for unique characters to be created. Like most others it seems who play this system, he prefers existing Marvel characters. Everybody is playing an X -Man character.  I was like, no, we get to be creative in my space. He came up with a character who was a Daredevil legacy character. His mentor was Matt Murdock in his 70's. The character was blind as well, but had Daredevil-like senses, but even more advanced. To the point he sort of had powers that gave him visions of possible future outcomes, and he could "see" down to the molecular level. Interesting. 

He was the one character in the group invested in crime fighting. That and C's experience running the game seemed a no brainer to try this.

OK, so back in the day I had this vigilante NPC I used for some Justice Incorporated stuff. Her name was "Sister Mary Alice," or "Malice." She was a revenant, a young nun who decades ago had been assaulted and killed and returned for vengeance. She would appear every few years for a time, having possessed the body of a young woman to use for her activities. 

Sister Mary could imbue her vessel with enhanced strength and resistance, and she could levitate, phase through matter, and teleport. She could also produce most any archaic weapon she wanted; swords, axes, spears, etc. Back in my old Justice Inc. campaigns she would commit murders that the characters would try to stop. I have her as Rank 4 in this system, which for sure made her a strong foe for any Rank 3 character. It's the strongest I ever had her in the history of my games. 

So, I would introduce her with this quick solo encounter. 

Also for this I created another female vigilante, "Devota," a young Latina woman in Day of the Dead makeup who was on a similar quest for vengeance as Mary's, but since she was mortal was using the pistols of her late Green Beret grandfather to take out men of violence. 

I actually had a T shirt long ago with a day of the dead lady on it, and back then I thought she might make a nice gritty vigilante character who was wronged by men and was taking her vengeance on them. I thought she would make an interesting indie comic book character. A wronged Catholic girl who brought justice to the hood. 

I was always fascinated by these. Growing up 
in Los Angeles I saw plenty of this over the decades.

You see the Dead Girl imagery a lot
on slot machines 

For this I would have Mary Alice raising from the grave once more and possessing some random young woman, in order to assist and protect this new, unpowered killer who was on a similar quest as hers. Local news reports spoke of dead gang members being found with both bullet and sword wounds. 

I had even had characters who moved around the city notice graphitti of Devota in rough parts of town, where she was already becoming an urban legend much like Malice was. 

So I had C's character on patrol in the bad part of town encounter her on the hunt. Actually, it was her disguised in trench coat and blond wig, luring several gang members to an alleyway then up on to a rooftop, before she revealed herself and started blasting. 

For the gang I used Baseball Furies from The Warriors

C's character showed up on the roof to confront it all. He seemed OK, until Devota started blasting on the gang members. This is where he started to have his apparent doubts. Sister Mary Alice rose up out of the rooftop as an apparition, created a sword, and ran it through one of the gangsters, at the same time telling Ghost not to interfere. At this point C was getting flustered, muttering "I don't know what to do!" and then "my neurodivergence!"

C was kind of paralyzed it seemed. Continuing to state things like "what should I do?"  I was all like "what do you want to do? What would this character do?"  I mean, this was a character based on Daredevil. And we know what he would do. Start punching faces maybe. 

It turned into a surreal situation. This guy ran over a hundred hours of this system online for a handful of people. I thought if anybody could help me make this a quick 15 minute encounter, it would be him. But I was I guess putting him on the spot. But it surprised me. I did stuff like this in all the genres I ever ran, something happen to a character while alone. Champions. Call of Cthulhu. Even Runequest. I think just a few minutes of that really gives a character some personal agency. Not all the time, but especially for a comic book thing. All the Avengers etc do some things alone. I have probably had people hesitate now and again. My past players were often friends of mine I had outside DnD. But this sort of gob smacked me. And I have the other players just hanging out while 10 minutes turned into 45. 

I finally coerced him to attack Mary Alice, and he did, but found his attack only did minimal damage. I told him she had great "Sturdy" and was a Rank 4 foe and he freaked out more. Again with the "but my neurodivergence!"  C had clearly decided at some point in his life that he would declare his neurodivergence at any opportunity. I had never encountered this before. If this was somebody new to rpg's you could expect some not knowing what to do. But I thought he would be perfect for this. Was meant to be the short showcase of the session but to me was a disaster. A failed experiment. 

I had the gang members scatter, and Devota took off down a fire escape, and Malice vanished as well.  I had the other players sitting there all that time just watching this play out. Not good. The teenager playing Ra-Ta the alien had checked out for the night. But I carried on for a bit to try and finish up the session.

C's character had called in the other characters Ghost to help search the area, but all the foes were long gone. 

I followed up with Kyono calling a meeting the next day to talk about a friend of hers, a goddaughter, who was running a night club and was having some trouble with the other nightclub across the street. We would get into the in the next session. But the waste of the better part of an hour and the seeming failure or doing little solo missions, left a bad taste in my mouth. 

We did not hear from C for several sessions, though he was still a member of the Discord. I think he was not there for the last 20 minutes or so of that session with the quiet freak out. At some point later, he messaged the group, just the other week "sorry guys, have been having some health issues." He did not mention neurodivergence there, but I am guessing yeah, he is dealing with issues. 

 It has been several sessions since that night, and I maybe should have tried to reach out. But I just gave him space. I hope it had nothing to do with a fairly gritty encounter. Guns and vengeance girls out of a Tarentiono movie. But shit, Quenten is one of my inspiration muses for style in my games (yes, even DnD) along with Sam Raimi and James Cameron. And Haven is, as I constantly stress, a kitchen sink. A pastiche world. Inspired by standard comics, cyberpunk, superhero deconstruction, gritty supernatural, future noir, anime, and 80's action movies. And I'm running for adults here.  Its going to be PG and sometimes its going to be rated R.

What're you gonna do. I could have handled it differently. I guess? I mean I was calm and kind during the encounter he was having a bad time with. Nobody else had much to say, maybe some being miffed by the wasted time.  Safe to say I am unlikely to try the "solo 20 minutes" things again. But maybe will have some split the party moments in the future that would be kind of like that. Anyway, as of today we are several sessions past that night, and I worked hard to present some fun stuff to make up for it, and it seems to be paying offing. Campaign is at the moment going well. 

Next I post on this, I will cover the following session that I based on two old movies, Roadhouse and Urban Cowboy. I called it "A night at Club Future." Cheers.