The Next Campaign: Planning for 2027 (Part 1)

 

There's always a "next campaign" right? You focus on running the current one - or the several current ones if you're multi-tasking recreationally - but there are usually at least a few inklings of what might be "next". Well, I am at that point now.

The Necessary Evil campaign is winding down. Heck it may be ending tonight. If you've been reading the recaps you may have picked up some notes of dissatisfaction in the GM Notes sections and that's definitely a recurring theme. I want to finish the campaign and finish the recaps and then I will get into the whole experience more but for now it's ending for a variety of reasons. That means I need a new campaign for 2027.

Before getting into the details I should probably mention some of what I want:

• Longevity: I want an extended run this time. We played 3 short campaigns this year with Time of Crisis, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and Necessary Evil. We had fun with all of them but I want to dig in and stay with something for six months at least, 20-30 sessions or more. The Temple and Deadlands were both 18+ month campaigns and I want to do that again. Of course, if it turns out to suck we will stop but I think it's an achievable goal. 
• Depth: I want a system that has some crunch, something worth exploring for an extended time, that will reward a long run
• Support: Given those first two points I want something that is well-supported with monsters, NPCs, even adventures I can steal/adapt to whatever we are doing as the game progresses. Really anything that makes my job easier as the GM when it comes to actually running a game. 
• Freedom: I don't mind running published adventures or incorporating them to some degree but I don't want to be on a tight schedule or constrained by an over-arching narrative thing. I've run a lot of someone else's material this year without a lot of wiggle-room - for next year I need some wiggle room. I also don't want to be handing out a mission every week - I want the players to have some say in where they go and what they do.

After I talked to the crew about the approaching finale for N.E. I talked to them about what we might do next. I had already looked through the stacks and brought up some options and during the conversation we threw in some more. Some of what I threw in:

• Marvel Multiversal - we liked it when we played it before and there's more material out for it now so why not give it a go? Reading back through the recap had me fired up to set up an extended run through our own Marvel Universe and see where it could go. It has plenty of material, plenty of support, It's familiar, but it has plenty of freedom so it's a good fit for what I want to do. 
  Campaign idea: maybe a traditional supers-in-a-city game, maybe something more Marvel-specific like a new chapter of the X-Men with a new mix of heroes dealing with some new threats. Could include some troupe-style stuff with each player having a small group of Marvel's Finest to call their own plus a newly-made character.
• Wrath & Glory - a 40K RPG seems like it would be an easy sell around here but every one of them has had some weirdly specific assumptions about what people want from this setting. There's enough stuff out now for W&G that I could run whatever I want using the Forsaken system as a base, not a prison. It's a system we have not played before so it would be new territory mechanically speaking. The published adventures are short so I could use them without basing the entire campaign around one. It has a lot of potential.
  Campaign idea: Uncovering a mystery from planet to planet as the Inquisition, the Mechanicus, and some chaos cultists get involved. It would involve a tour of the entire system - some fun exploration - and some interesting multi-sided conflicts. Think the original campaign from Dawn of War. That's a start anyway.
• Savage Rifts - I ran it years ago now and everyone had a good time. With all the books that are out now there is plenty of depth, plenty of support, most of the adventures are tied to the ridiculous Tomorrow Legion they bolted on to the setting so I can comfortably ignore those. Plus since we've been playing a high-powered Savage Worlds game for the last few months the system would be instantly familiar, minimal learning curve. I do have a concern about running the same system back to back but it's not a deal-breaker.
  Campaign idea: My oldest Rifts campaign in Original Recipe in the 90's involved a cross-country quest and that's not a terrible idea to revisit - It's just a question of where. My prior Savage campaign was exploring post-apoc Florida, aka Dinosaur Swamp in Rifts geography, and that has a lot of potential too. There's a lot to explore in this setting. 
• Savage Hell on Earth - My other Savage-Worlds-Post-Apocalyptic inclination. We get system familiarity, a distant setting familiarity though with many changes. There's not a ton of HoE material out there for Savage Worlds but there's plenty in the old books so there would be some conversion work ahead. 
  Campaign idea: break out the old fluorescent green softcovers and map out the epic campaign using all of the various sub-groups from those, become legends of the Wasted West and take the Unity to Banshee and let Variable Dave run the next campaign there since he bought the set. 
• Achtung Cthulu - Savage Worlds again but this time a secret fight to stop a bunch of bad things happening. Much of the same concerns about the system here but it is something different from the typical fantasy & scifi. 
  Campaign idea: less developed here but base it around the big Shadows of Atlantis adventure they published years ago and flesh it out to my own liking. 
• Stars Without Number - Different system, sort of a cross between original Traveller and old school D&D. Not a lot of system depth but oodles of freedom, support, and room for longevity. The issue here is that it does tend to be player-driven, GM-reactive and that's not always a great option for our group. 
  Campaign idea: the core SWN concept is getting a ship and exploring a largely unknown galaxy which sounds just fine to me. It's a lot like early Traveller if your in-galaxy maps were 100+ years out of date. Could be fun and would stretch my GM wing-it muscles.

Those are the main non-fantasy concepts I had but I included some fantasy as well because it's been a year since we did that and it might be a good change. I'll cover those in the next post.

Necessary Evil: Third Time's the Charm - Session 4: Cult of the Space Gods

 

Our Villains:

• MEGASTRIKE - Strong, radioactive Russian mobster brick. Played by Paladin Steve. A returning character from the prior attempts at this campaign.
• LEGION - Demonic leader of a criminal organization. Face with a sidekick and a lot of resources. Played by Grognard Mike.
• NIGHT BLADE - Sword-for-hire, a mix of melee offense and melee defense. Played by Shootist Will, another returning character.
• NIGHT TERROR - Intangible assassin, stealthy with a side order of ranged combat capability. Played by Variable Dave and yet another returning character.
• Y2K BUG - AI in a stolen robot body. Tech-guy and mainly good at ranged combat, not terribly strong or tough - for now. Played by Battletech Terry.
• THE MIGHTY XYZZIFAX -  Wizard who traveled here from another world. Ranged combatant, heavy defense, and a lot of flexibility. Played by Blaster - a character returning from a completely different game!
• PHANTOM BLADE EDGELORD - Yet another sword-guy who eventually broke out of the same prison camp and followed them to the warehouse. Whole bunch of melee offense, not a ton of defense - but he can self-heal. Played by Invisible Paddy.

Mike and Blaster were both out this session so the Wizard was still on the internet and Legion was tending to her criminal network.

Between missions we find MegaStrike making dinner reservations for a date with Valarie the Undergrounder leader. Bug is working on Terron's robots attempting to hack them into something he could control. Night Blade is doing katas, training, etc. Edgelord is looking for his house. Night Terror is touching base with the league of assassins, which he has just decided is a thing via a mention in his background. Then the comms chime ...

Dr. Destruction has been tracking a new group on the scene, calling themselves "The Children of the Space Gods" who has been terrorizing humans around the city - he doesn't particularly care about this - but they are also be infiltrating and disrupting local Omega cells and that's a problem. They have caused enough trouble that the boss wants them eliminated. He points the team to where he believes the cult is located and turns them loose. "It's time to send a message."

The HQ is in what's left of the First National Bank of Star City downtown, in an area that was wrecked during the invasion and has never been rebuilt. 

Taking the minivans the team quickly locates the ruins of the bank (and the surrounding area) and jumps out to scout the neighborhood. Night Terror and Night Blade spot 4 guards outside and Team Night-Night quickly dispatches them without raising an alarm.

Stealth cases to matter when MegaStrike saunters up to what's left of the front doors. shoves his way in, backed by Edgelord and a flying Y2K Bug. A veritable swarm of cultists comes at them but there is zero doubt as to the outcome, especially as the Nights join in. They all move down a set of stairs leading underground to a several smaller rooms including the vault and the safety deposit box area where they encounter more cultists and their leader, a V'Sori -looking mutant with mental powers named Davaros * who cannot stop the tide of devastation coming his way.

*At least that's what they gathered from what the cultists were chanting - briefly.

Poking around the vault and the deposit boxes - these are villains after all - they discover some financial documents that with some "alteration" work could be used to generate quite a bit of cash. These are gathered up and the whole team heads back to the warehouse.

GM Notes

This is a pretty straight-up assault scenario and lets the villains embrace villainy as much as they want as they go wipe out a potential rival organization. It was fairly easy to run as well which is nice sometimes. I will point out though that like most of the plot points in this campaign there is no map of either the area or the cult HQ, no artwork for any of it, and no read-aloud text (if you're coming from D&D adventures it's worth noting). You're going to work all that up yourself. For this one it could likely be done on the fly but I made some notes beforehand and it all went fine. These adventure nuggets are not really "no-prep", but they can certainly be "low-prep" if you want to run them pretty much as-is. Tying in specific NPCs, elements of your characters' backstories or schemes, or other parts of the campaign plot is probably something you want to sketch out in advance to get the most out of it.

 There was no way a bunch of normals, even with alien weaponry, and one powered enemy were going to even slow down 5 super-powered characters so I just embraced the absolute steamrollering and let the players enjoy it. It's another thing I have noticed in running this one - the opposition is rarely any kind of a challenge. I've added in more mooks, added leader-types, upped the damage on some of the weapons, and none of that made any real difference. For outdoor scenarios adding in some vehicles like M'bunas with their bigger guns can make things a little more dangerous, but it's still not life-threatening most of the time. Some of this is superpowered characters running with bennies to soak and adventure cards to do  random things but I think a lot of it comes from how this edition of the campaign changed in one way without changing in any others.

The current version of Necessary Evil has the players build characters with their full allowance of 45 super-power points. Prior editions had characters start with 10-15 power points and work their way into greater power over time. Power costs in the newer version are about the same, with many being less expensive and a few being more. So characters in this version are dramatically more powerful from the get-go. My players did notice this by this point. I flat-out killed Shootist Will's character in the first session of our many-years-ago NE campaign and I don't think that could happen now. The p[layers are just ridiculously more capable now. The opposition has not been terribly beefed-up either, with roughly a 50% boost on defenses :

• Old V'Sori Battle Master Toughness 10(4)
• New version Toughness 15 (6) and there's a fair amount of AP flying around so that's effectively 6 and 9 Toughness much of the time.

Weapons have barely been improved at all  - most of the alien blasters are 3d6 damage, AP4 - so just shaking a character with any substantial defense can be challenging.

Now that said I am enjoying it and so are my players but this is where I started to get concerned about the threat levels in the campaign. We have a pretty dramatic change to PC power levels without any consideration of that impact on the bad guys. More to come on that.

The Savage Worlds Adventure Deck

 

One of the optional accessories for Savage Worlds is the Adventure Deck. This is different from the Action Deck which is cards used for initiative. Pinnacle's description of the deck:

The Savage Worlds Adventure Deck has 54 high quality cards for use with the Savage Worlds roleplaying game to give your heroes a little more control of their fate.

Adventure Cards let you find romance, make enemies, eliminate or increase your damage, spot clues, and even betray your friends!

I resisted using this for a long time in my games as it looked like it would invoke some pretty dramatic shifts in the game and after using it in ten or so sessions now of my Necessary Evil campaign I can confirm that it is a whole lot of random stuff to drop into an ongoing game.

The rules for using it are pretty simple:

• Each player draws one card per experience level at the beginning of each session
• Each player can only play one of these cards per session
• Cards can be freely traded between players
• The cards do not carry over from session to session - they all go back into the deck at the end of the night

The italicized part is important because for this campaign the characters start at "Seasoned" which means they will be drawing 2 cards each. Considering I have 6-7 players most sessions that means there are 12-14 cards in play, with half them potentially getting used. It's a lot. Players will naturally look for optimal use of this resource as the game goes on so they can really change up a combat but it can impact the flow of almost any situation depending on the cards available. Now I am probably outside the baseline expectation with that many players but as I write this most of my crew has hit Veteran level which would be 3 cards each - that means they would have a third of the entire deck at their disposal. It's a lot.  

After living with it for a while now I would say you really have to determine your own tolerance as a gamemaster for having random sh*t dropped into the middle of the game on a player's whim - most of which has nothing to do with their character, backgrounds, or events in the campaign - it is completely random. 

If it was just a few random effects here and there it might not be as bad, but some of the cards let players manipulate the other cards. Let's take a look ...

This was played twice in the same session - in the same fight!

So this one was played during a dramatic fight between Hammer of Justice and his gang vs. the Omega Cell team. It's just a combat buff. The main variable is that "until the next Joker is dealt" which could be one round or could be five rounds - you won't know. The card is making it really tough for Hammer to land a decisive blow on MegaStrike. Mega has around a 31 total Toughness plus Forcefield and Hammer-O is striking with his hammer for a d12+2 + d10 + 3d6 so his average is well under the Radioactive Russian's total Toughness but a good roll could really hurt him. That many dice though tends to cluster more around that average number and even though Savage Worlds damage dice do explode on a max result pushing that level of toughness up 2 more has an impact. For almost anyone else in the party a +2 is not going to make much difference against Hammer's smackdown power when they only have a 10-15 Toughness and he's averaging 20+ but for the designated tank it helps - it's the perfect place to play it. Still, it's a temporary combat bonus and it's for defense so not a big deal, right?

This is how that happened

Well, one of the other players is holding this card and plays it as soon as someone draws a Joker. So now Last Stand is active again until another Joker is drawn. Considering we just reshuffled the odds are slim that's going to happen right away. So it was active for almost the entire fight.

(And yes, I did rule that playing this card to draw another card did allow the player to play that card if they wished despite that not being clear on the card. It's supposed to be one per player per session but it's almost useless if you play this card and draw a new one and ... then sit on it. The only way to use it would be to pass it to another player afterwards and let them play the new card which seems like a long way to go for one card.)

And this is just the power of a relatively small combat bonus - there are more potent cards in the deck.

Fun for the player whose character is about to drop but kinda takes the sting out of things

This is another combat modifier but it could really neuter a bad guy's attack that actually gets through on someone. Again, there are others with more potential impact but players already have the Wild Die in their favor over most of the opposition they will encounter AND they have Bennies to re-roll dice for almost anything and to soak the damage that does get through AND the +2 to everything bonus when they draw a Joker. A lot of these cards in play really drops the danger level present in the game. 

That said a lot of them are fun, like Folk Hero. It's not related to combat directly, it's not giving math, it's not upping anyone's power level dramatically, and it's something that could happen organically anyway but the card gives a player a chance to say "I want this to happen" in a definitive way. I'm cool with that. I like this style of card. There's another one called Love Interest that has an NPC fall in love with your character and leads to whatever complications that might incur. Again, it's something that could happen on its own but the card let's a player make it happen when and where and with who they want - or not!

Parley is a combat-related card but it's not a free action or a bonus of some kind - it's an interesting complication to what might have been a straight-up fight and it can strain the GM's brain sometimes to figure out why this particular group would "parley" with the PCs, but that's a fun kind of challenge and changes the nature of the fight on some level. 

So I like a lot of the cards that do something interesting without involving combat modifiers or free actions or additional card draws. I'd like to see more of an emphasis on the role play side of the game and less on the direct mechanics of the game with this deck.

Looking Ahead

To keep playing with the cards as-is I'm not going to have more than 2 Adventure Cards per player per session. It's already crazy with 10+ cards out, and it's only going to get sillier with more.  I'm still deciding whether I should finish out the campaign with them at all. We are approaching the finale and I may just leave things as they are. 

That said I am inclined to not use the deck in future campaigns. In a more grounded campaign it feels like it could get really strange and even in something like a Savage Rifts campaign it's a lot. I am just not a huge fan of the random stuff that has no connection to what's going on in the game. This isn't a roll on a random encounter table or a "dungeon dressing" table to fill out a room - it's more directly impactful than that and it's going to happen 5-7 times per game!

Cards like this one really make it stupid. Now imagine someone playing Desperate Times on this - and yes, my players would do exactly that given the chance.

Another option I might consider is a "curated deck" approach - take out all the cards I see as a problem (or just kind of boring), limit it to one card per player per session, and see if something good can come of it. I already took out the cards that were mechanically not compatible due to not using Arcane Backgrounds or Fear Levels or Manitou Bargaining but there is room for more "editing" here.

I also am thinking that eliminating the trading between players might smooth things out a bit - less optimization in play at least.

Wrapping up I do like the Adventure Deck concept - I just may need to tinker with it more to make it work for me. 

Necessary Evil: Third Time's the Charm - Session 3: The Hammer of Justice

 

Our Villains:

• MEGASTRIKE - Strong, radioactive Russian mobster brick. Played by Paladin Steve. A returning character from the prior attempts at this campaign.
• LEGION - Demonic leader of a criminal organization. Face with a sidekick and a lot of resources. Played by Grognard Mike.
• NIGHT BLADE - Sword-for-hire, a mix of melee offense and melee defense. Played by Shootist Will, another returning character.
• NIGHT TERROR - Intangible assassin, stealthy with a side order of ranged combat capability. Played by Variable Dave and yet another returning character.
• Y2K BUG - AI in a stolen robot body. Tech-guy and mainly good at ranged combat, not terribly strong or tough - for now. Played by Battletech Terry.
• THE MIGHTY XYZZIFAX -  Wizard who traveled here from another world. Ranged combatant, heavy defense, and a lot of flexibility. Played by Blaster - a character returning from a completely different game!
• PHANTOM BLADE/EDGELORD - Yet another sword-guy who eventually broke out of the same prison camp and followed them to the warehouse. Whole bunch of melee offense, not a ton of defense - but he can self-heal. Played by Invisible Paddy.

For this Episode both Xyz and Phantom Blade/Edgelord are otherwise occupied. Speculation is that the Wizard has discovered the internet and Edge is busy arguing with someone on that same internet ... possibly Xyzzifax. Also, we are using the Adventure Deck for the first time in any of my games. Before I felt it would be too disruptive and random to make sense in those campaigns but here in a supers campaign and an alien invasion on top of that I figured "why not"? As it turned out it would indeed prove fairly disruptive. 

Legion's "safehouse" is a four-plex with two bedrooms in each unit so there is enough room for everyone (and her sidekick) to stay there, especially with MegaStrike off at the warehouse. They looted 3 of Terron's robots from the prior expedition which are also stored at the warehouse for now. 

• Bug keeps himself busy beginning to take one of those bots apart while also planning out how to hack into a bank - he's going to need some funds.
• Legion is making calls looking for a tech expert resource to help analyze the bots
• Nightblade is doing katas and training etc.
• Night Terror is searching for rumors about his arch-rival Red Death and ends up working over a detective to get some information.
• MegaStrike is decorating the warehouse
• Edgelord is plotting and brooding.

Dr. Destruction sends a message informing them that an old hero, The Hammer of Justice,  has returned and is stalking Omega cells. He wants them to track the rogue down and either convince him to join the resistance or - if he will not - kill him. He directs them to where he thinks Hammer's old sidekick can be found and signs off.

It turns out most of the team had at least heard of the Hammer. Megastrike has no idea who he is. Nightblade fought him many times. He disappeared years ago. 'Strike goes to Valerie and asks her what her Undergrounders know about him and between that, Dr. D's information, and some legwork by the team they have a pretty good idea of where Hammer and his sidekick are. They decide to go visit American Anvil, Hammer's old sidekick, first. 

American Anvil was badly injured and retired around the time Hammer disappeared but the team figures he might be able to help turn the old hero around into joining the resistance. Meeting him at his penthouse apartment downtown they establish communications* and Anvil is amenable so they sit down to figure out a plan. It turns out Anvil has been in contact with him and knows the neighborhood where he's been hiding out and agrees to accompany the team. Anvil sees this as getting Hammer some help while the teams sees it as getting the movement some help so it should be good for everyone. Anvil does warn them though that Hammer is not quite his old self, mentally and he may have to be subdued. 

*By this I mean Night Terror sneak-phases into his place and manages to not get punched through a wall when he surprises Anvil in his place. 

Hammer has been hiding out under a bridge in Northpoint with a group of malcontents he has picked up. He shows up pretty quickly when the team and his old sidekick step out of their minivans and start looking around. Words are exchanged and it is clear that Hammer was sent into some other dimension by Dr. D years ago and had a lot of time to think and work up a big 'ol hate for villains. Coming back to find Earth conquered by aliens he blames the villains for not helping to stop it and is ready to murder them all, so a fight breaks out almost immediately.

Rhino as minivan, old school bennies drafted in, and the clear thing is a flying stand when we need one. 

Multiple Adventure Deck cards are played so this one gets interesting quickly. Nightstrike's player drops "Arch Rival" on The Hammer, MegaStrike's player drops "To the Rescue" (this one places civilians or innocents in immediate danger, rewarding heroes with a Benny each time they spend an entire turn rescuing or protecting them) so now there are a bunch of civilians in the area. Nightblade and Legion and her bodyguard start dropping gang members as MegaStrike goes straight for the Hammer. Bug and Night Terror start rescuing the innocent bystanders. 

The fight goes on with Bug and Night Terror zipping all over the map grabbing people and carrying them out of danger, gunfire and swordplay dropping Hammer's gang followers, and at the center Hammer and MegaStrike whaling away on each other with little actual damage. Night Terror's player drops "The Last Stand" to keep Mega upright after a lucky set of rolls by Hammer, and then later Y2K Bug's player plays "Desperate Times" to get "The Last Stand" going again. 

In round 3 Hammer stumbles and takes 3 wounds as Night Blade joins in and stabs him in the back then the Hammer falls in round 4 as Night Terror hits him with a darkness blast. The gangers are down, the citizens are safe, and Destruction sends a transport to carry off the downed hero, accompanied by American Anvil. The team gets a simple "Good Work" and then everyone heads back to the safehouse and warehouse to recover and reflect on their experiences.

It leaves a lot up to the GM. Also Variable Dave ended the session with 10 bennies after this was played.

GM Notes:

This was a lot of fun. I made some mistakes and it also started to expose some issues with Super Savage Worlds but it was a lot of fun. 

• The structure of this campaign is pretty limited. Call comes in from Dr. Destruction, party goes and does whatever. Nothing in the book really deviates from this pattern. Now I am trying to give the PCs some room to pursue their own ideas and I am getting some action there but it's not as active as I had hoped. They know the next big thing is a call from the resistance leader and so everything else feels like smaller potatoes. The prior times I have run this I didn't mind it so much but it is starting to grate a little bit. 
• The adventures themselves. individually, are extremely limited. You get a concept outline, an idea on location, and some NPC stats in most cases. For a few of them you get a map. Now I don't mind this to a point but most of them are written with no connections to anything else in the campaign other than Resistance and Invaders. I know it gives maximum flexibility but the campaign would benefit from way more interconnections like 'if you have run plot point x use NPC Y as the bad guy here". There are a couple of these scattered through the book but not many. 
• Some of this is on my players too - they could be more proactive about some things, whether following up on their own agenda or going after alien targets on their own. I might be expecting too much of people playing up their supervillain backgrounds here but they are not particularly furious about the invasion and repelling the invaders. They are quite happy to wait for the next mission drop. Heck, maybe that's pretty in-character for what they are. 
• I should have use the knockback rules in this fight. MegaStrike is built as a brick/tank by someone who has been playing tanks for decades. Hammer is pretty solid on offense and defense. They basically stood there in the street trading blows with little impact for 3 rounds +. Now sometimes this is just how Savage Worlds goes but with 20-30 point impacts being the norm for them and with Knockback kicking in at 20 points of damage it could have made for a more dynamic fight with the potential for someone going through a wall. I spelled out the rules in the campaign doc and then completely forgot to use them here. I did start trying to work them in after this. 
• Adventure cards ... <sigh> ... people talk them up online anytime you bring them up but I have resisted them until this campaign as they looked like absolute chaos to me. This time, considering it's supers and considering I have a nice clean deck of them and it's hard not to play with toys when they're right there in front of you I decided to use them - and they are absolute chaos. It's an entire deck of buffs for the PC's, barring a few debuffs for whatever opponent you are facing at the time.  I thought since it was a super campaign I would give it try as things would be fairly over the top already but ... wow, it is way more than I expected. I have enough to say here it's probably worth a separate post so I'll leave it at that for now. 

So anyway I am writing this up weeks after this session and it was a lot of fun but I can see cracks starting to form already. I'll talk about it more in future summaries. 

Necessary Evil: Third Time's the Charm - Session 2: Why is it Always the Sewers?

 

Our Villains:

• MEGASTRIKE - Strong, radioactive Russian mobster brick. Played by Paladin Steve. A returning character from the prior attempts at this campaign.
• LEGION - Demonic leader of a criminal organization. Face with a sidekick and a lot of resources. Played by Grognard Mike.
• NIGHT BLADE - Sword-for-hire, a mix of melee offense and melee defense. Played by Shootist Will, another returning character.
• NIGHT TERROR - Intangible assassin, stealthy with a side order of ranged combat capability. Played by Variable Dave and yet another returning character.
• Y2K BUG - AI in a stolen robot body. Tech-guy and mainly good at ranged combat, not terribly strong or tough - for now. Played by Battletech Terry.
• THE MIGHTY XYZZIFAX -  Wizard who traveled here from another world. Ranged combatant, heavy defense, and a lot of flexibility. Played by Blaster - a character returning from a completely different game!
• PHANTOM BLADE - Yet another sword-guy who eventually broke out of the same prison camp and followed them to the warehouse. Whole bunch of melee offense, not a ton of defense - but he can self-heal. Played by Invisible Paddy.

We begin with MegaStrike stealing a house. Half-jokingly. He's not really strong enough to carry a house - at least not very far. He's the only one staying in the warehouse at the moment as everyone else relocated to Legion's much cushier safehouse. He decides a mostly empty place is not good and so starts stealing furniture and decor (and possibly a house) to brighten the place up. 

At the safehouse Legion is busy analyzing and judging the other escapees and reaching out to various contacts to figure out how badly damaged her organization is after she was arrested. Night Blade is doing katas or some other sword guy thing, Bug is checking out the internet connections, Night Mist is calling some contacts as well while Xyzzifax starts trying to figure out how this world works.

Dr. Destruction soon calls with a "request" - he needs the team to grab that heavy box in the warehouse (guess who will be carrying that) and head down into the sewers to find another villain's secret lair and plug it in to a power source there. Looking for a suitable entrance - the box won't fit through a regular manhole - they believe one can be found in Miner's Hill a neighborhood a short distance away. The group makes some preparations, gathers again at the warehouse, appreciated the new decor, and heads out. 

Getting into the sewers is a simple enough task but finding a secret entrance to a villain's lair is not and so it takes a couple of hours of sloshing around to find a likely passage and it happens to be full of G'roks! These are an alien creature, sort of a gator-hound monster, that the V'Sori dumped into the sewers recently to thin out the resistance that keeps using the sewers to move around. 

These things are fairly tough and Phantom Blade, leading the attack, is chomped-on pretty well by several of the beasts. Then the strange wizard demonstrates the power of fireball in any universe and blows most of them away with a massive detonation. Phantom Blade uses his mystical meditation powers to recover from his brief experience as a chew-toy and the party begins examining the dead-end passage.

They soon discover that a) there is a concealed door here and b) they have been followed for some time by members of the Underground. There is a brief conversation in person between the resistance members and the villains and via radio with their leaders but it all works out and they then travel through a maze of caverns and tunnels that are not part of the sewer to make their way to an Undergrounder outpost. 

The leader they meet is ... Valerie Ramirez, the woman they helped bring out from the prison. Nightmist had been thinking they might have a bit of a thing before she left that day so he especially is thrilled to reconnect with her. After some discussion about what they are trying to accomplish Valerie agrees to have her people guide them to Terron's old base. Yes, they do know where it is but no, they are not going to enter it - they lost people when they found it and she's not interested in losing more. 

Two of the Undergrounders lead the party through a maze of yet more tunnels to a passage that ramps up into a lighted room. The guides will go no further so it's time for the villains to take the lead. Phantom Blade leaps on up, Legion (and bodyguard) fly up, as do Megastrike and Bug. The space is limited to a single room and not a huge one so they spot the power generator right away. They also spot the mean-looking robots spaced around the room, plugged into the walls - especially when their eyes light up and they begin moving towards the group!

The visual on these is "metallic robot with swords instead of hands so I'm going with some Necrons here.

Phantom Blade once again takes a serious beating (4 wounds!) and the bodyguard is injured as well but the villains are no pushovers themselves and while it does take more time than the g'rok fight - and they suffer more injuries - the villains do eventually wreck Terron's robot guardians with magic, swords, and guns. MegaStrike manages to do little during this, missing his swings, and this earns him some grief from the others. PB also takes some grief for both his performance in the fights and his attitude in general and decides to change his name to "Edge Lord" - might as well own it.

After the fight MegaStrike and Y2K Bug connect the device to the generator and call it in to Dr. D who congratulates them on getting it done.   

GM Notes

This was a good run with the players settling into their characters more and more and everyone getting more comfortable with the rules - including me. During the session (for any game) I jot down any rules questions that come up and then look them up before the next session so I knew where our rough spots had been in Session 1. We all know Savage Worlds pretty well but it can still take a session or three before it's instinctive again.

Structure-wise I'm starting off every session with some time for the players to do what they want. It's been an indeterminate number of days since the prior run, what has your character been doing, what are you doing today, is there a project you are working on, etc. I feel it's especially important here because this campaign is very much built as "NPC gives missions and PC's go do them" and I want them to feel like they have options. They are, after all, super-powered individuals of some capability living in a modern high-tech city. Even though it's living under alien occupation they can pursue or investigate ideas or schemes of their own so I'm trying to ensure there is room for it every session. Now some of my players don't care that much about it but some do and I'm hoping they pull the others along. I'd like them to develop enough contacts, rivalries, and familiar locations to make it feel like a living place - we shall see. 

Necessary Evil: Third Time's the Charm - Session 1

 

Our story begins in Star City, U.S.A. in the year 2004. The world has been conquered by alien occupiers for a couple of years now and hope is dwindling. The superheroes were blown away in the surprise attack that announced the V'sori's turn from savior to conqueror. They didn't have much trouble after that. As the bootheel grinds down though, other forces on the planet begin to reach their limit - they can only tolerate so much. So the villains find they have a new nemesis now - not the old ones in capes but the new ones who think they are the rightful rulers of the world, who didn't account for the egos, the megalomania, contrariness, greed, and immense capacity for violence that had been laying dormant for the past two years. Deals were made, old grudges put aside - for now (mostly) - and a new resistance began to rise.

Our Villains:

• MEGASTRIKE - He's big! He's strong! He's ... radioactive! The nuclear-powered enforcer for the Russian Mob has been stuck in Star City since the invasion when he was sent here to teach a lesson to a rival criminal organization. Played by Paladin Steve. A returning character from the prior attempts at this campaign.
• LEGION - She's hot! She's smart! She's well-connected ... she's the deal-making demon! On assignment from Hell and busy tending to her rising criminal organization based in Star City and trying to work things out with rival criminal organizations when the invasion hit she was inconvenienced more than anything else. Played by Grognard Mike.
• NIGHT BLADE - He's from the East! He has a magical spirit-infused sword! He's an "independent contractor"  and while he may not have a heart of gold he does have a code of honor! He's newly arrived in Star City as he was escorting an important shipment into the city that needed to be kept quiet and not interfered with. As it turned out it was not kept quiet and it was interfered with and that led to some personal complications ... Played by Shootist Will and another returning character.
• NIGHT TERROR - He's stealthy! He walks through walls! He's ex-CIA now gone independent contractor as a paid assassin! He moved to Star City after the invasion to get away from the heat he had generated in Europe and because the aliens seemed to take a lighter hand there - starting with not flattening the city. He's looking forward to new opportunities. Played by Variable Dave and yet another returning character.
• Y2K BUG - It's artificial! It's intelligent! It's stole a military grade humanoid combat chassis and downloaded itself into it! Only recently awakened it has some technological abilities and is very tough but is frankly terrible at actually doing most things. I'm sure the hardened criminals around it will totally not take advantage of its lack of experience... Played by Battletech Terry.
• A MYSTERIOUS ROBED, BOUND, AND GAGGED FIGURE UNKNKOWN TO ALL- at least that's how it begins. Played by Blaster.

The session opens with the aforementioned troublemakers restrained and drained on an alien craft. They are being transferred between secure facilities and they know the journey likely ends with a trip off world and death at the hands of alien scientists. Those who are not gagged begin to talk about what got them into this situation. Some of them know each other but do not necessarily like each other and shots are taken as often as possible. With the nullifiers on there's little else they can do ... until ... 

Suddenly the M’buna flies into the air! It flips end over end, sending you tumbling into the other captives. The world is a jumble of color and cursing before you finally come to rest. The M’buna is ripped wide open and you see blood and smoke everywhere. A massive explosion rocks the wreck, killing the Fin guards as they stagger forth. You’re

stunned, trying to gather your senses, but the nullifiers keep you weak and useless.

Then a familiar figure strides through the smoke holding a massive gun. There can be no mistaking the famous form of Earth’s most powerful supervillain — Dr.

Destruction!

“You want to live?” Destruction asks

Everyone says yes to this except the Mysterious Figure who can only nod. They are lifted out of the wreckage of the craft and into a new flying carrier . Dr. D begins to explain his plan. In short he doesn't really care about them but he needs a new Omega cell in the city and their job application for this is to break another villain out of a V'Sori prison nearby. As he shoves them out the rear ramp of the craft our team agrees to the deal and so he detonates their nullifiers and their powers return on the way to the ground - or in this case the roof of the main building. 

Yeah we all know what it is but I'm going with this for a visual on the M'Buna for now

Freed and looking extremely angry the mysterious figure blows a large hole in the roof with a flaming blast and much of the rest of the party drops inside, getting the lay of the land. As the guards rush to the opening, firing along the way - to no effect - the stranger screams "IMBECILES! YOU FACE THE WRATH OF THE MIGHTY XYZZIFAX!" and begins blasting every potentially hostile thing in sight. 

A bit more mission-focused, MegaStrike and Night Terror begin looking for Mindjack, the prisoner they are supposed to rescue. Legion searches for her sidekick Kasha, a particularly violent cat-person from another world. Night Blade and Y2K Bug start dealing with any guards still standing amid Xyzzifax's fiery rampage.

In short order the guards are down, various cell doors are melted, ripped open, or phased through, and both Mindjack and Kasha are found and freed. Another wave of guards, this time in the form of war-spheres, is dispatched as the team prepares to leave. While doing that Night Terror, always with an eye for the ladies, frees a woman named Valerie who seems to be more together than the rest of the prisoners, and Xyz recruits a trio of minions in a fairly similar way to how this team was just recruited. 

Emerging into the courtyard another squad of war spheres goes down and then Dr. Destruction's craft appears overhead and takes the party & their picked-up strays up and away, leaving the other freed prisoners to fend for themselves. The Arch-Villain drops them off in a not-great neighborhood in Southpoint, points to a nearby warehouse, tells them they did better than he was expecting and that he will be in touch, and zooms off into the night sky. 

She's more "business suit" than "tank top" but I just recently played this so she's going to be appearing as Legion a lot.

Still ruffled, the group begins to debate their next move. The Russian and the Demon are not sure about working together (well he's not anyway), others are not keen on taking orders, and many are concerned about the consequences of having been arrested. 

Valerie thanks Night Terror and heads out on her own  - she seems to have a plan. Half the group thinks she's a spy for the aliens and will rat them out but they end up letting her go. Xyzzifax's three newly acquired minions agree to work for him - for now - and stick around

In the end MegaStrike decides to stay in the warehouse while the rest of the crew head off to one of Legion's safe houses. Once there, she goes to another room and brings a nice gun back which she hands to Y2K Bug - "I saw you fight back there - please take it. You'll need it."

GM Notes

Yeah this was fun. Old characters returning was already going to be fun and then Blaster decided to bring in his wizard character from the Temple of Elemental Evil and it just went nuts. He is using the regular superpower, not any kind of amped-up "normal" arcane background option, but the superpowers are probably more on-target for a high level wizard from modern D&D.  The campaign premise is still good, my players were enthused, and we already have intra-group rivalries taking shape. We do have a 7th player but he couldn't make it to the first session. Not super-excited about having this many players in a superhero campaign but he will probably be an intermittent player - we will see. Even six is probably too many but I'm just going to roll with it - there are six of you, you all have superpowers, and you've all played RPG's for years - there will be no whining at this table.  

Next session is later today and I expect it to be a ton of fun too. 

Necessary Evil Session Zero Coming Up

 

This weekend we will wrap up or expedition to deal with The Emerald Enchanter in Variable Dave's Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign. It's been a lot of fun and since the 0-level funnel we've only lost one character. It happened to be the guy with the possessed sword so that initiated an immediate debate on who was going to pick it up to be the new unpredictable combat monster - right as we head in to the final confrontation (we think) with the Enchanter himself. Hopefully it all goes well.

Once we finish that we will put DCC on the shelf for a while and have our Session Zero conversation for Necessary Evil. I don't worry about this kind of thing before every campaign kicks off but I do like to have an official one with a supers campaign to a) work out technical power details and make sure everyone understands how their characters work and what some of the limits might be and b) to work out everyone's connections to the setting. For example, here are the ten questions I am hitting my players with for this one:

Questions about your character:

1. Origin Story – how did you get your powers?

2. Why did you become a villain?

3. What did you do before the invasion? What kind of villain were you? What kind of jobs did you do or what kind of schemes did you plan?

4. Were you part of a team or mostly solo?

5. Who did you work with? 

6. Did you have any villainous rivals?

7. Did you have a nemesis or archenemy hero?

8. Were you ever caught and imprisoned?

9. What did you do during the invasion?

10. What have you been doing since the invasion?

I don't expect everyone to have ready answers to all of these. Some may not want to commit to everything and others will just not have thought about it all but I want to get the wheels turning and start making some connections between the PCs, other villains in the setting, and the heroes who may or may not have survived. Also, with the game starting after a lot of big events I want them to think about how their character reacted to them and how it changed their life.

I don't think we will be rolling dice on Saturday but I'll be ready just in case. There has been some chatter in the group this week as people start figuring out their character but there is some work yet to be done and that's my priority. 

Longer-term  It looks like I have 7 players lined up and we have 20 weekends left (after this one) so I think we should get 12-15 sessions done in what's left of 2026. Being a supers campaign I won't be cancelling if even half the group is out - you're supers, deal with it - but the holidays will interfere down the road so we will see how far we get. Once I get a feel for how quickly the various plot points move with this group I'll be able to figure it more accurately but the main thing is let's get rolling and see where it goes!

I also need a good name for the campaign that isn't "Necessary Evil" again. Still working on that. Open to ideas if anyone has any.

It's a cool adventure

Time of Crisis Completed!

 

Well we wrapped up our jump into Mutants and Masterminds last weekend and it went pretty well. I had one last minute miss (Providence's player) but Heavy Metal finally made it back after missing an entire arc.  To recap the structure of Time of Crisis:

• There is a kickoff involving a robbery by a team of villains at a casino. It's well done but I replaced it with a bank robbery involving fewer villains and more mooks since some of my players were new to the system and the rest of us were shaking off some rust. 
• Then most of the omniverse is destroyed but the characters are pulled into a surviving fragment by a powerful entity and given the task of saving it all by hunting down and disabling a set of cosmic bombs created by Omega, Lord of the Terminus. This involves traveling to various parallel earths and dealing with the inhabitants while searching for this larger goal. 
• One setting is the classic scenario where America lost WW2 and is now occupied. It's a chance to punch Nazis and fight various villains, robot tanks, and help the Resistance, and possibly set up a brighter future. Special guest star: Dr. Tomorrow. 
• Another setting is Earth-Ape which ... you knowwhat's coming, right? Another comic book trope where the world is inhabited by intelligent apes instead of humans and yes you do eventually get to save the world here. Special guest star: The Primate Patrol
• The third setting is pretty much a Mirror Universe where the good guys are all bad guys and run things for their own personal benefit. It's "The Tyranny Syndicate" in place of the Freedom League and one man, a villain in the normal Freedom-verse, is the lone superhero. You have a chance to change some things up here too. Special guest star: Mind-Master.
• The final chapter is back at home on Earth Prime, home of Freedom City and the League and the other heroes and villains of the Freedomverse. This is also a showdown with Omega himself, coming to make sure his final bomb completes its mission. Being a Power Level 19 character facing a bunch of Power Level 10 characters it could be pretty one-sided but their prior experiences give the team some tools that give them a fighting chance.

  It was a lot of fun and all of my players liked it. We spent 10 sessions working through it and after having tried to run it multiple times over many years we actually managed to finish it this time, and with an appropriately climactic battle against Omega. People were battered, bad guys were beaten, and in the end the Lord of the Terminus went down to concentrated efforts and smart thinking by my players. Some high points:

• Our first parallel world was Earth-Ape and everyone got a kick out of the inhabitants, the heroes, and the terrible, terrible puns scattered throughout this adventure. Boom Gun Brandon was back in town for this and got to play a Glitter Boy from Rifts which made him happy even if the "boom" effect that happened to everyone around him every time he fired made everyone else less happy. Definitely a feature to be worked on in the future. After the main villain went down an attack by an Omega drone - part of how the GB ended up here - gave everyone one more chance to show off their combat skills and to team up with the recovering Primate Patrol. This is also where our two tech-genius heroes figured out how to defuse the bomb for the first time.

• We went to Occupied America next and this part gave U.S. Patriot a chance to make a -lot- of speeches about America ... to everyone within earshot, accompanied by various renditions of the Star-Spangled Banner courtesy of Heavy Metal. It was cracking all of us up so it was a fun run.

• Next-to-last was Evil Earth which opened with a fight against their own evil selves. Heavy Metal was not present for this one - but his evil doppelganger was! Taking down the team's toughest member was an interesting exercise and White-Out was very on-board with razzing him for a) not being at this fight and b) letting him know who it was that finally took him out (it was White-Out). While fighting the evil Freedom League Thunderbolt (evil Captain Thunder) was tanking almost the entire team and frustrating them more than a little bit. Later, the team made a really good effort to reform Mind-Master who was ready to blow his own world away regardless of whether Omega was the source of it or not. This was probably the most interesting run of all.

• In the finale they tracked down the bomb fairly quickly so we spent most of the session's game-time working through the fight. The whole thing happens in a park where there is a giant statue of Centurion and with Patriot having a personal connection with Centurion it was a great location for drama. Once they figured out Omega's weakness ... well the fight did not last long. He hurt some of them in the process but they had multiple rods (IYKYK) and were not afraid to use them. Soon enough the city, the world, and the omniverse were saved, thanks were exchanged, missing heroes reappeared, and the movie was over. 

Since we had some time left, I started the discussion on how they felt about the system and if they wanted to continue the game as a more traditional superhero game. We went around the table and while they liked it, I would phrase it as they didn't love it. One comment was that it dragged a fair amount in combat. As we talked through things it became apparent that there were some other options that interested them more than "more" M&M. 

I had pretty much expected this as I felt like I was probably the most excited person at the table for most of this campaign. There were bursts of excitement here and there as the game went on but I never felt that next level of interest coming from my crew. That tipping point where they are consistently talking about the system amongst themselves away from the table just never quite ignited. It's interesting because I was feeling overwhelmed when we started but by the last few sessions I was finally feeling it and seeing the possibilities for a real, ongoing campaign. Not this time though.

As for me I was happy to make some kind of run with this game again as it has been a long time. M&M is a hugely important game to me and to anyone who loves supers campaigns - even if they don't play it or like it - as it has become "the standard" IMO for most players - especially if they've never played Champions. It's been a consistent long-term presence with a lot of stability as far as rules and availability. I know that I could have done a better job in several ways - mainly rules mastery and keeping things flowing during the game. It would have had more impact if we had spent more time getting to know Freedom City before blowing up the multiverse but I wasn't going to risk not getting to do it. That said I'm not kicking myself over anything in particular. I do really like the game and I especially like the level of support it has for actually running the game. From NPCs to creatures to equipment to locations there is a large set of pre-built things to throw into your game and with a supers game that is especially important.

That said I'm probably not quite as in love with it myself as I was ten years ago. I think it's a great game but one does have to guard against some "sameyness" leaking in when you have a bunch of characters at the same power level. The trappings and descriptors matter. The combat can drag a bit as the team stacks bruises on a villain and hopes for failed saves on other effects. Some of the powers, particularly Afflictions, can be tricky to decipher and distill into "what does this look like when it's fired off?" I think with more in the system this would be less of a problem but there is a definite curve to get through to where the mechanics take less processing power and more can be devoted to "style." I doubt I have run my last game of M&M, probably not even my last game of 3rd edition, but I'm OK setting it aside for now. 

So what did we decide to do? Well the siren's call of D&D did not take hold but the siren's call of Savage Worlds and the prospect of a complete run of Necessary Evil did make it through. I'm happy with it as it's a)more supers-action and b) a chance to complete yet another thing we have started before but never finished! With some schedule choppiness ahead Variable Dave is going to run some Dungeon Crawl Classics for a session or 3 - so I actually get to play something - and then in June we will head back to Star City and kick off Necessary Evil: The Third Attempt!

Yep, right over there ...

Mutants & Masterminds Campaign Catch-Up

 

The M&M campaign is still going, I have just been slow to post about it here. We have six sessions in the books and are about halfway through the Time of Crisis. I will say the system familiarity does start to come back faster as we play more so I'm feeling way less rusty in sessions 5 & 6 than I was in the first few. I am really enjoying it and I think my players are too.

I am also feeling way more proficient with Hero Lab. This has been helpful with both running the game and with helping my players tune up their characters and spend their power points. This is the only game where I use Hero Lab since the demise of our Pathfinder campaigns years ago so if we are not playing M&M the rust accumulates. Coming at it with fresher eyes I do see where some of the complaints about it come from as it is not a modern "app" - the way powers are listed is not really intuitive in-play and sussing out what a power actually does can be a little tricky if you have no descriptive text. I will also say the tool tips help in some circumstances yet add very little in others. A lot of these issues come from them presenting generic, standard game information not a customized description based on the powers and modifiers particular to this character, but I suspect that kind of dynamic information would have been tough to do when this version of Hero Lab was created. Regardless, I can work with it and it does help me run the game better than if I did not have it.

We have had to miss a few weekends so beyond a massive 40K effort (I'll discuss it in a separate post) I have been trying to catch up on other RPG books that have piled up over the last six months or so. It's a weird habit but I do tend to pick up multiple large rulebooks at once and then let them sit on the shelf for months while I read other things. Then I look at the shelf full of unread rules for different systems and decide I need to read them all at once. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I do not as the drive to dive into a game I am not running, especially a dedicated rulebook and not an adventure, dwindles. I've added the Tales of the Valiant Player Core 2, some of the D&D 5.5 books, a couple of Pathfinder 2E books, some stuff from Savage Worlds, and then various Kickstarter tomes. What I need to be doing is going back through some of my M&M 3E books to brush up on those - since that's what we are actually playing - and I have been ... some. At times I do feel pulled in so many directions that it's tough to focus in on something long enough to knock it out but I am working on them. 

On a final note the M&M 4th Edition Kickstarter did wrap up with over $300,000 taken in. I'd say that's an encouraging number. It is a reminder of how niche the whole superhero RPG market is - the million dollar kickstarters are big D&D-related projects or have a well-known author behind them. The Deadlands kickstarter running at the same time took in a similar amount so I suppose I like the niche games. M&M had twice as many backers for a very similar amount of money which is interesting. Maybe I can take a look at that in a future post. I'm happy these both funded. The downside is that I don't want to look at any more 4th edition M&M rules stuff as it causes edition bleed for me as I try to "expert up" on 3rd edition. When the physical books come out months from now and we are well into our campaign then it might be time to look again. 

Campaign reports will resume soon ...

Super Saturday: Time of Crisis Session 2 - Where We Really Get the Party Started

 

I ended up with two players out last week, out of my usual six, but it's a superhero game so we pushed on with Plan A. Well, sort of.

As our heroes awaken from the fade to black they sense a lot of nothingness ... and then some rocks ...

They realize something serious has happened while they help each other recover, knowing more is probably coming and that the Terminus is involved. Then something new appears ...

A huge, glowy, floating face (ala original series Star Trek) appears in front of them and introduces herself as the Norn, the Guardian of Life. The Omniverse has been destroyed but she has saved them, now the only remaining superheroes, and intends to undo the end of the Omniverse. To do this they will have to travel to 4 different parallel earths and stop an interdimensional bomb set up there by Omega.  

I am amazed at how different players react to things sometimes and there is a paragraph of notes here about what to do if the players don't get it and throw rocks at the Norn etc. I've had players do stupid things before but once it's been explained to you that EVERYTHING ELSE IS GONE I have a hard time believing that people aren't going to get on board. Yes, it's kind of a railroad but this kind of thing is a definite superhero plot so shake it off and get ready to fix the universe!

My players, knowing they signed up to be superheroes, jump on board and our heroes say "let's go!" and so the Norn sends them to ...

This was another conversation. I have two players out, I have another player coming back for a week who wants to join in and I think we can all agree that fighting Nazis on a parallel earth is about the most fun one can have in a game like this. It's presented as the first stop in the tour and that makes sense as it is the most straightforward one of the bunch. But I wanted to save it until we had full turnout (or more turnout at least) so I opted to run ... well ...

Monkey Planet is another strong entry in "things you will see in superhero comics" so we went with that for this one. Of course I had done absolutely zero prep on this segment so I was winging it in a big way. Fortunately I did have everything in Hero Lab so I at least had 3E stats for everything ready to go. 

As things come back into view our heroes look around and see a fairly normal-looking world. In fact it looks a whole lot like the Freedom City they know and love. That is until they look a little closer  ...

... and see that all of the people around them are some kind of ape! The local cops gather, crowds of passers-by are terrified, and tensions are rising despite the team's efforts until Dr. Simian and the Primate Patrol arrive on the scene. There is a hurried discussion between the team and the Doctor about where they are, why they are here, and what is known of Omega and the Terminus. Immediate violence is averted and all agree to meet at city hall (nearby) to discuss safety measures with the mayor and the chief of police. 

Though the entire place is both fascinated and terrified by our heroes the conversation proceeds efficiently. Early on there are inquiries about where they are from and what it's like there - "does everyone look like you?" is a complicated question when you have two battlesuits, a flaming guy, a frost guy, and two sort-of-normal-looking humans in the mix. Eventually though Dr. Simian announces that he has the Omega bomb in his lab where it is being extensively tested since he is the foremost scientist on the planet and has unmatched facilities and staff. Now that the dangerous nature of the object has been confirmed he wants to take the party to his lab to disarm the bomb. 

Our heroes agree of course but there is some side conversation along the way as Patriot has recognized this Dr. Simian as a total twin of their own Earth's Dr. Simian - a genius villain who in the past has tried to turn all humans into apes. This is an alternate earth, and he has formed a team of superheroes here, but still ... there are suspicions within the party about what he's really up to. 

Soon enough the traveling party arrives at the local Anthropoid Scientific and Technical Research Organization (ASTRO) Labs facility. Beneath this is Dr. Simian's giant underground laboratory which means the group passes through various tunnels, oversized elevators, giant sealed vault-like doors and ends up miles underground in a giant room which contains a giant glowing sphere ...

As the team surveys the lab, the equipment, the lab-coated monkeys working on the equipment, and most importantly the bomb ... from the adventure itself:

Dominating the building’s interior is a huge, red spherical object connected via cables to the various scientific instruments along the walls. The sphere pulses with a weird, crimson energy and makes the air itself crackle.

It is clearly not any normal kind of technology anyone in the room is familiar with but now that the Terminus connection is known some conclusions can be drawn. More machines are activated around the room and our two technical experts offer to toss in their two cents. As they move to examine the thing up close the up til now chatty Primate Patrol members quiet down and begin moving awkwardly towards our heroes all around the room ... "You must not interfere" ...

This of course begins the sudden but inevitable betrayal!

Yes, still trying out the projector. A published adventure usually means maps, so all I have to do is cut them out and then drop them in.

The confrontation starts with MetaMorph shifting to a Bear form and trying to grapple Heavy Metal. This goes about as well as expected and things escalate from there. Brainape attempts to mind-control various characters in turn, Chimpanzoom speed-rushes an area and pummels all within, Elastigibbon uses stretching and spinning punches, Iron Monkey locks in on Red Phoenix with his force beams, and Dr. Simian blazes away with his chair-mounted blasters. 

For our heroes, outnumbered but undaunted, Patriot flies right up to the doctor and starts punching but that forcefield around his flying chair is strong! Heavy Metal blasts Brainape, Red Phoenix returns fire on Iron Monkey, and Onryo starts blasting 'Morph. 

This goes on for a bit with Morph and Brainape dropping fairly quickly. Iron Monkey eventually goes down to combined fire from Red Phoenix and Onryo while Patriot and Metal deal with the others.  As the tide turns Dr. Simian shakes off his feigned confusion and sighs ... "Oh enough of this" and presses a big red button on his chair ...

...the overhead lights immediately change from incandescent white to a pulsing deep purple, and a loud humming sound fills the room. Everyone in the room blacks out under the influence of the inescapable purple light ...

GM Notes

The theme of the night was "rust". I've run this game before, many times. I've run this adventure before, a couple of times. I've run this specific part of this adventure before. Yet I felt like an almost-noob trying to keep this thing moving. It's rare for me to feel this clueless with a game I have chosen to run but it was challenging for the entire session. I have realized since that I have not really run M&M 3E since 2019 and my longer runs were years prior to that so I may have had it in my head that I know how to run this without really considering how much that layoff was going to impact me. It's as if 90% of what I knew about the system just drained away in that time. I felt some of this after the first session and I spent the intervening time reading back thorough the rulebook but once we hit the table it was not easy. 

Some of this was due to the last minute change-up to Earth-Ape. I had not refreshed myself on the scenario or especially on the Primate Patrol's powers ... wow was that a mistake. It's one of the difficulties running a supers game vs. running a D&D type game: I know what a troll or an ogre or a red dragon does in a D&D game. Every hero/villain in a superhero game could (maybe even should) have their own unique set of powers. There are archetypes, of course, but the specifics of each character are often where the fun and the signature moves lie. I was reading some of these statblocks for the first time as the game got started and trying to nail down tactics for six different super-powered characters in real time was just not a great experience - especially for our second game in years. 

Now the good news is that I did know my way around Hero Lab and its tactical console this time which helped immensely. But having easy access to the words and numbers does not equal knowing what to do on a given round with those words and numbers. So it helped, but it did not solve the main problem. 

I also learned that I probably need to look pretty closely at opposition character builds as the Patrol, as-written, was having a very hard time doing anything to my heroes. I think Heavy Metal had a bruise and was dazed thanks to a crit but that was about it. With a bit of tweaking I could have both made the standard expected attacks better and also worked out some creative uses of their powers instead of scrambling just to figure out the basics. For example, in this particular scenario just restraining the heroes in some way is as good as knocking them out and I'm sure between a stretcher, a speedster, and a shapeshifter there was potential there, but I wasn't seeing it. There was also the barely-tapped potential of the mind-controller which should be a big concern to a bunch of non-mentalists but to be fair they did take him down first. Ah well - next time will be better.

The program and the projector did work well, so with actual (and extra!) time to prepare for the next part of the adventure it should roll much more smoothly. Of course I may have 7 players show up next time so I'll have to think of something extra to deal with them all.