The Greatness of the Marvel Heroic RPG

Stuff like this makes me appreciate the different approach that the Marvel game takes towards things:

Yep, called to testify in Congress you face a committee - and we have a statblock for it!
(From the Civil War event book)

40K Friday: Red Fury

So ... another 40K novel ... what's remarkable about this one? Well...

Quick Note: this is the third Blood Angels novel (review of book 1 here and book 2 here). Now I try to find something worthwhile about the things I discuss on the blog and I really did not like the first Blood Angels novel, but reading the second one redeemed it in a big way - they should have just been one longer book. So with 1 & 2 averaging out to a reasonably decent story what do we get with #3?

Red Fury is a new arc, so while reading the first two will give you more understanding of what has happened, it's no more necessary then reading all previous issues of a comic book to understand the start of a new arc - helpful, but not required. It's also a much stronger story, with a nicely done beginning, middle and end, ensuring that THIS one is complete in one volume. It continues with many of the same characters from the previous arc and sets up the next book nicely but is a complete story on its own.

The book begins soon after the events of the previous novels and largely concerns itself with the aftermath of those events. The chapter is in a tough spot and is trying to work out a solution. One development is that a conclave of all of the BA Successor Chapters is called on the BA homeworld, giving us a look at a variety of other chapters as well. In particular the Flesh Tearers are major players in the novel so if you have an attachment to them then this is a book worth reading. There is less unity between chapters than you might expect and with the Tearers representing the more barbaric aspects of the primarch and the Angels representing the more refined and cultured aspects, there are some strong differences between those two in particular.

The beginning of the book deals with these issues and then new complications arise which stir things up and then even more complications arise which lead to some nasty combat in and around the chapter's home base. Another fairly major character in the 40K universe shows up as well (I'm trying not to spoil things here) as a part of this and the whole thing is just a ripping good story about space marines doing their things with a solid mix of rivalry, violence, and reverence for the emperor.

By the end, the current crisis has been handled, but the need for both revenge and the prevention of a further crisis will drive the story in the next book.

The bad: The main character, Rafen,  is still remarkably generic.I get that it can be tricky to make "battle brother Johnny" a unique individual in the game but when you've spent 3 books inside the guys head he should come across  as more of a memorable personality than he does. It's not as much of a downer here because there is so much going on. He is the vehicle by which the reader experiences a series of interesting people and events (and they are interesting) and no more. One comparison: the Space Wolf Novels focus on Ragnar, who will someday become Ragnar Balckmane, a unique character in the Space Wold army. No one is going to be clamoring for a "Rafen" entry in the Blood Angels codex anytime soon. Now that can be good, giving a more "average Joe" point of view, and we get a little of that here, but there's really nothing else to the character beyond that.

Who must read this: If you're a Blood Angel player or fan, even if you hate gaming fiction in general, or the the first and second books in particular, this is the one you ought to read. Lots of time with Dante, Mephiston , and the other movers and shakers of the chapter, some exposure to the successor chapters and their chapter masters, and the whole thing takes place on Baal - it's 280-odd pages of immersion in the whole Blood Angel thing and it is definitely worth your time.

Busy Weeks, Busy Kids, and Gaming Triage

With the kids constantly coming and going and with work time creeping up gaming time has been scarce. Heck blogging time has been scarce and that only requires me to make it happen, no one else. The grown-up campaign is back on track, and the 4th Edition Apprentice game is back on track, but we had been hoping to accomplish a little more. In trying to continue down this path I decided it was time to flat-out state what we were going to do and how we were going to spend our time. So, I sat Blaster and Red down and asked them what they wanted to focus on for the rest of the year and it was pretty much this:

• D&D
• 40K
• ICONS
• M&M

All good choices, and all possible, but now we run into a time crunch - there are only two days in the weekend, maybe 3 if you count Friday night, and they keep having stuff to do on the weeknights. So I have at best 3 days/nights a week to play and 4 games to try and work in. Additionally some of the kids are only around on certain weekends, further complicating the schedule. 

D&D 4 works best when played regularly as it keeps everyone familiar with the system and the players learn to do more interesting things with their characters. The boys also really like it, so it's probably top of the list.

40K is fun but has a fair amount of setup time and takes at least as much time as a good D&D run, so it's hard to work both of them in on the same day. Plus we do other things besides play games and those tend to prevent weekly gaming marathons. Aside from that it's a fun game, there's a new edition, we have a ton of stuff for it, and they have friends that play it too. So it's high on the list as well.

ICONS is the perfect candidate for shorter sessions but that means it tends to get squeezed out when things come up as we try to preserve time for the "bigger" games. We haven't played much ICONS lately and I'm not liking that at all.

M&M takes a little setup but not much more than D&D 4 with a character building program and I think it too rewards steady play with better options thru mechanical familiarity. We haven't done much with this one either lately but we're getting there.

Pathfinder and Marvel Heroic were also mentioned but those may have to wait for awhile as one-offs at most. Star Wars, Deadlands, Pirates, Gamma World, Champions, and the others mentioned at various times on this year's posts are all set aside for now.For a guy with too many RPG's this is a hard thing, but it had to be done. I'm especially not caring much for the lack of Savage Worlds as I've been in on that system since it started and I don't have much time in it for 2011 or 2012. That might have to be 2013's resolution.

Tentatively I'm thinking D&D on Sunday afternoons - the most reliably regular day - though I do like football

so we have to work around that. Saturday may alternate between 40K and M&M for a while, and ICONS will continue to be the when-we-can-work-it-in-game.

With the holidays coming up we should have the opportunity to work in some one-shots or extra long sessions and those will likely be ICONS or Marvel, and I might even  get the grown ups to play in those too.

ToEE 4E Session 9 - The one with the Giant Crayfish

Once again - but for the final time - beneath the Moathouse, our heroes arise from an extended rest:

• Torgor Bearkin, Dwarf Sentinel Druid with his bear companion "Po" (Apprentice Red)

• Isaac, Human Swordmage (also Red)

• Torinn, Dragonborn Sorcerer (Apprentice Blaster)

• Apollo Magewood, Elf Bladesinger (Also Blaster)

No longer able to resist the temptation (after finally making 3rd level)  our heroes decide that the orcs time has come - no longer will they be allowed to cower in their corner of the dungeon! Despite having talked their way through the orcs twice now, the party was spoiling for a fight. Pausing only to trash-talk the poor humanoids combat ensued as soon as boots hit the floor in the room (28 for those of you following at home).  Overconfidence nearly claimed a victim/taught a lesson in the 1st round as Isaac found himself surrounded by orcs and was quickly bloodied. Round 2 saw Po dispatched to the spirit world (again) and the Bladesinger had to use his shield spell to stop a nasty orc charge that would have bloodied him as well. The battle wasn't totally one-sided but in round 5 the Swordmage was shot by an archer and dropped for the rest of the fight. Eventually the orcs were slain to the last ... man ... and the party took a short rest to recover. 

Examining the map the party soon realized that there were not many loose ends left - in fact there was only one passage unexplored, so they headed straight for it and the glorious finish of their first full dungeon.

Creeping down the stairs ... nothing unusual except some dripping , watery sounds ... around a corner ... a quiet pool ... a light spell cast into the pool and OMG ITS THE BIGGEST LOBSTER IN THE WORLD!

No not that one

An epic 8-round fight begins that sees exploration of the interaction of grabs, escapes, teleportation, forced movement, difficult terrain, and drowning. Lessons learned by the party: a) don't fight aquatic creatures in the water and b) swordmages are very good at fighting grabber type creatures.

Round 1: Swordmage gets grabbed. 

Round 2: Swordmage tries to break out, fails, so he teleports away

Round 3: Sorcerer goes 'zilla again - scorched, blasted crayfish grabs the Druid 

of course you knew I was going to use this

Round 4: Bladesinger gets grabbed, non-teleporting Druid gets squeezed hard

Round 5: Bladesinger manages to break out, Crayfish slides back into deeper water with new Druid friend

Round 6: Fight moves to the water with varying degrees of success for the party

Round 7: Swordmage grabbed again, Druid finally escapes, Crayfish says "enough" and dives to bottom of pool

Round 8: The biggest Crayfish in the world is slain by a magic missile from the Bladesinger

In true D&D fashion the party high fives at surviving and finishing the dungeon, takes a short rest, then heads back to town, in this case the village of Hommlet, but not before stripping off a bunch of Crayfish shell to use as decoration and armor.

Yeah, that one

Back at the village they restock, tell some tales in the tavern, and debate their next move. Most likely they are going to seek out the temple itself - at last!

DM Notes: Those poor orcs were doomed. Talking to the Apprentices when you're a monster makes you look weak in their eyes and spurs a lot of "we can beat them" talk at the table. Ah well - hopefully I gave them a good enough fight to cure them of some of that attitude for now. 

They got very excited when they realized they only had one passage left to explore. We started this adventure a year ago, and they've never cleared an entire dungeon level before, and this is the first time they've made it to 3rd level in 4th Edition, so there were several milestones being passed here. 

The fight with the crayfish was a lot of fun and I hope my tone here captures the spirit of the fight with a lot of comments being made in between die rolls, and much laughing too. Once again, much like their old Basic adventure, Blaster wants to make armor out of a crustacean. I'm not sure that a shell should really count as leather or hide, but I'm going to find a way to give it to them as no one wears plate and no one uses a shield which would be the obvious calls here.

Anyway this forced me to go in and detail out the ruins of the temple and I will be posting them here soon.

Ahhh ..the crayfish was only playing dead - he's now lurking and nursing his wounds, waiting to take his revenge...

D&D Happenings

A few weeks ago I really liked this article on levels, advancement, and rewards in general in RPGs. I went back and read it again tonight and I still find it thought provoking so I thought I would share:

A new article on monsters in Next (and a survey on presentation) which had me thinking a bit about information and design for efficient use in play. EN World discussion here.

Wait, What? There's a new version of ... PCGen? That's a  bit of a surprise. Notes here, downloads here. Back when I was looking for a 3E character generator for the boys to use I thought this one was just about dead. Maybe not!

Motivational Monday

DM's Dilemna - Mutants, Masterminds, and Editions

Home Front Supers news:

• The Apprentices are still interested in ICONS and M&M. They probably aren't going to get more into Champions without a solid character builder and at the moment I don't have one. Plus the simplicity of ICONS and the d20 touchpoint of M&M make them an easier transition from our other games.

• The main group may be open to a one-off supers session to try some things out. Right now I'm leaning towards Marvel Heroic as it lends itself pretty easily to a hand-out-the-character-sheets-and-go approach and that's what this needs to be for now. Plus most of the player know a fair number of Marvel characters, from the movies at the very least. ICONS might work down the road for some more one-offs but for right now I think Civil War will be our starting point and we will see where it goes. 

 That's most of the plan for the short term. In the medium term, I've paused my Champions obsession for a moment to contemplate actually running a sustained M&M game. Setting? Opposition? System?

Yes, system. In reviewing my M&M stuff I realized that as much as I like the 3rd Edition I have a ton of material for 2nd edition, as I was building up my 2E book collection right before 3E was announced. The obvious answer is "CONVERT" but that does take some extra work. While I think 3E improved a lot of the game in numerous ways I didn't think 2E was bad. I have multiple rulebooks, adventures, and a whole lot of Freedom City that I could use as-is, without having to do any extra prep other than the normal things I would do to run a game anyway.

For 3E I have multiple rulebooks, the Threat Reports and Power Profiles for support, and the Emerald City adventures among others. So there's plenty to work with there. I just like some of the older stuff and not having to convert it makes it very attractive to this somewhat time-crunched  DM.

I've become very attached to the idea of running Time of Crisis and Time of Vengeance for a group which would tie them in to the whole Freedom City setting and open up some options there for some of the other supporting material that I have. All of that is written for 2E.

I also like the Emerald City arc once it gets going and that's written for 3E.

So, could I run two arcs at the same time, say one in 2E with the grown-ups in Freedom City and one with the Apprentices in 3E with Emerald City? Assuming we had the time to do both, I would still be worried about confusing myself with slightly different system mechanics, so I'm not sure that's even a good idea. Our Pathfinder experimentation showed me that can pop up when running two similar systems back to back but I wouldn't let that stop me from trying.

Just to complicate things there's some talk about revisiting Freedom City in 3E next year - probably late next year going by Green Ronin's recent scheduling - which would set up a transition from 2E to 3e very nicely if I could work everything in over the next year and the Freedom City campaign players wanted to update the mechanics.

All of this also ignores my potential homebrew settings and adventures - I can probably use either edition for those. It's really just a question of published material.

So I suppose it's not a terrible problem to have but it's the one that's been on my mind this week. Considering that both of my 4E D&D campaigns are being converted from older material I think I can say that I like doing that for my games, I'm just not sure I want to take it on for another game.

Comments are welcome as always, especially if you've tried running multiple similar games simultaneously, or if you've spent extensive time with both editions.

Supernews!

There's a lot going on. Recent Items of Note in the Superhero RPG field:

Champions is moving in an interesting direction with Champions Complete. A note on the product says it best:

"This product (Champions Complete/HERO2000) is a stand-alone, moderately priced book for playing Champions: arguably the most popular and longest-running superhero game in roleplaying history. It contains all of the rules necessary to play Champions: The Super Roleplaying Game, with no other book required."

I'm still not sure how I missed this one, but the chatter on the forums has it as a sort of 6th edition version of the 4th Edition BBB in design philosophy. I wholeheartedly endorse that approach! I get the whole "it's a system" thing but I think it's a lot easier to sell people on a single game book than it is to sell them on a basic book + advanced book + campaign book just to get started. This should be a positive move after a rough year or two for Hero.

The only negative is that it's a $40 softcover with a black and white interior. Where are they printing these? That's the same cover price as the DC Adventures hardcover that's full color and presumably has some licensing costs built in. I won't compare to WOTC or Paizo hardbacks these days as I know the volume is quite different, but that seems high to me for what it is. The Marvel Heroic basic book (full-cover softcover) is half the length (128pgs) and half the price at $19.95. M&M's basic rulebook (full cover softcover) is slightly longer and only $32.95. If you like the game it's probably not a huge thing but it seems like we are past the point where black and white interiors are standard, so I was hoping for full-color or a lower price to draw in some new attention.

For ICONS there's a nice new brochure and map of Stark City here. Other free previews:

• Silver District
• Platinum Coast
• The Catacombs
• Maniacal Inc.

I'm looking forward to this one quite a bit. Since I already have my own roughly-outlined city, I'm either going to steal parts of it or I may turn it over to one of the Apprentices to take a shot at running a Supers game themselves.

Also: Still no Team-Up!

For Mutants and Masterminds the anniversary kickstarter continues and is about to hit a stretch goal that would add in writeups of characters from old editions for 3E. 

Power Profiles is winding down and is supposed to wrap up by the end of the year. Since we just got #36 "Death Powers" I'm guessing it will end at around 40 of them. They are a neat little package.

There is also something in the works titled Cosmic Power. I'm assuming that it's a sourcebook on that kind of campaign but I'm sure more details will follow.

Marvel: Amazon has the Annihilation books releasing in July. Could be fun. Maybe I will have run some Civil War by then...

Ye Olde Fumble Table

In the interest of contributing something at least semi-useful to other people I present Ye Olde Fumble Table.

This is something I put together back around 2001-2002 when I was running a 3rd Edition campaign every two weeks with 6-8 players and we thought the game just cried out for something to balance out the spectrum with the Critical Hit rule. I'm not as big on things like this now as it can slow down the game but we did have quite a bit of fun with it. If I end up running Pathfinder or a 3.5 game again at some point I might break it back out and expose a new generation to the joys of damaging oneself. I believe v1.2 was the final version after we discovered some results needed more clarity or to be simplified.  If anyone is interested I can probably turn this into a PDF and put it up on Dropbox or Google Docs in a more printable format than this.

Looking over it again for the first time in a while, this really would not e difficult to translate into 4th Edition - all those wonderful conditions could fill out a fumble table quite nicely. Hmmmm.

D&D 4: Heroes of the Feywild Review

I'm not going to cover this one in exhausting detail as I assume most of the people interested in this sort of book probably already have it. There is nothing in this book that is absolutely essential to a D&D campaign, but it is full of good and useful stuff that can definitely enhance a campaign. The reason I'm doing this now is that a lot of this material wasn't used in my previous campaign and is only showing up in the one I'm running currently.

We open with a 20 page chapter about the Feywild. This is good for players who may not own the Manual of the Planes and other more DM-focused books that discuss this stuff. Assuming your campaign uses the concept, of course.

New Races:

• Hamadryad or just "Dryad" in my opinion. If the Wilden in PHB3 were too plant-y for you, here's an actual Dryad racial choice. The mechanics are good and the background is interesting so it seems solid to me.

• Pixie - hey, a tiny-sized PC race! With Flight! And the racial ability to throw pixie dust on a friend to let them fly for a round! I'm not kidding about that last one either! There is a certain type of player that will instantly gravitate towards this kind of character, probably as a bard or a rogue. It's a great addition.

• Satyr - whoa, hey, wasn't someone looking for a Satyr as a racial choice a while back? Again, the mechanics are fine and the background is interesting

One thing these options do is make a 4E Mythic Greece campaign even more playable, as there is more mechanical support that is properly flavored. 

New Class Options:

• Berserker (Barbarian) - Between the PHB2 barbarian and the Battlerager Fighter from Martial Power I thought we had this covered but apparently not. He's more Martial and less Primal, with a mix of both in his powers. He's a mix of Defender and Striker as well as he has an Essentials-Knight style Defender Aura but he loses that when he flips out and rages and I have to admit I kind of like that mechanically to reflect a certain kind of character. Basically he rages whenever he uses a Primal power and though he loses the aura he gets a damage bonus to his melee basic attacks and some Martial powers. In a nod to old school barbarians he also has to pick a type of homeland which grants certain benefits. So mechanically he can play Defender - I probably would not want him as the primary defender but he would be fine as a second - then he can flip into boosted damage mode and start really hurting people. I don't know that he does as much peak damage as a Ranger or Rogue but considering that his At-Wills will be doing Weapon + Str + d8 I think his overall damage output looks pretty good. The total package is a lot like an old school barbarian, though without the aversion to magic: light armor, high hit points, high mobility, and a high damage output. I am tempted to play one of these myself.

• Skald (Bard) - This looks like another nod to the old school, and the AD&D Bard that was a sort of prestige class at the back of the original PHB. "Arcane and Martial Leader" - yep. Solid weapon choices and armor up to chainmail - yep. An aura 5 for his healing abilty and a lot of his powers represent his singing - yeah, I like this. I think someone might have played the old Bard's Tale computer game from Interplay too, as his At-Will powers are minor actions that give a boost to an ally within the aura. Many of his encounter and daily attack powers have a debuff effect while his utility powers tend to be ally buffs. I don't think I have seen any other class where so many of their powers are no actions, minor actions, reactions, and interrupts - SOP for this class appears to be making a basic melee (with Charisma instead of Strength) as a standard and then using powers as needed to orchestrate the battle. It's certainly a different style of character when it comes to mechanics and I am intrigued by how it would work in play.

• Protector (Druid) - This is a summoning-centric druid. He is not going to be a strong melee combatant based on the class mechanics, but he gets to bring a friend who is all about the hand to hand fight. This summoning power takes the place of the normal daily attack powers and by 9th level the druid can do it 3 times per day. The summoned beastie gets nastier at level 15 and again at level 29 (which I think is awfully late to upgrade - why not 25?) Most of his At-Will powers are ranged  One other component of his powers is an encounter ability to pop the 4E version of entangle which as a minor could be used to lock an enemy down while the summoned beastie chews on them. I see a typical routine of Summon Ally - Nature Growth on round 1 followed next round by Spirit Briar (an At-Will that inflicts poison damage on an enemy that ends its next turn adjacent to a chosen ally - like maybe a summoned animal). He's supposed to be a Controller but I don't see all that many control type powers and quite a few of them are single-target. Several powers are Close Burst which seem like a bad idea for a lightly armored low hit point non-melee character. He does get more Wall powers than most other classes and again, that could be useful for penning in enemies to be eaten by your beastie. I don't know what it is with Druids in this edition but to me they seem to be the most difficult class to design, as quite a few of the options for Druid types just seem lacking in my opinion. This one doesn't look terrible but I would need to see it in play to really be convinced that it's great - at the very least it's stronger than the PHB2 Druid in most ways.

• Witch (Wizard) - you lose the spellbook, gain a familiar (which grants some abilities and does some of the same things as a spellbook but better), and you get to pick lightside or darkside witch for some minor effects. Also, at level 5 you can turn someone into a frog! There are some fun looking powers in this list. Interestingly, a lot of the powers are melee/close blast/close burst, and I don't think this class is as tough as a Dragon Sorcerer, so that could spell trouble. There are some ranged abilities in there, but they are the minority. There is a lot of damage here for a Controller and a fair number of make-the-enemy-hit-a-buddy type powers as well and those are usually fun. I like it - I don't think it's as versatile as a typical Wizard or Mage but it does a lot of damage and has interesting extra effects - moreso than a typical Sorcerer, which is what it really feels like, the non-book magic tosser.

After classes we get Themes. These are a nice addition to 4E as another layer of character information besides race & class. They usually have something to do with ancestry or culture and have a stronger mechanical effect than a background in most cases. I do have experience with these as one of my players is running a Warlord with the Fey Beast Tamer theme, which means he runs around with a baby owlbear. It's been a source of much humor and it does give the party another body on the table when things get nasty and it could develop in some interesting ways down the road. There are 4 Feywild-related Themes in this book and I would allow any of them in my gae if they appealed to someone.

• Beyond this we have 4 Paragon Paths and 3 Epic Destinies, all largely related to the classes in this book. 

• The Feats include more options for familiars among other things. 

• There is a Feywild gear section that has a lot of interesting non-magical equipment. An example would be cold iron shackles - a fey creature bound by them can't teleport. Not a magic item, just an interesting thing to have around.

• There are some actual magical items and they are cool too like "Bottled Twilight" - open it and you have Dim Light within 10 squares of the bottle for the rest of the encounter. Flavorful and useful - just like it should be. There is also a selection of non-item magical gifts for the alternative rewards crowd.

Then we get to the last section of the book and it's the one I was the most surprised to see. It's called "Build Your Story" and it's a random background generator like the old Central Casting books. It's also Feywild-specific. It starts with "Upbringing" and you can roll or choose from the entries on the table and each option directs you to pick one of several other options, winding thru about 15 pages of material including civilized lands, wilderness areas, dark lands, and various events that may happen during the characters earlier life. Some of them involve skill or stat checks and making or failing those rolls affects the next section you go to in the book. This is all meant to be done prior to choosing your class and skills and such and it's a cool little tool to include in a book like this. Sure, a lot of players will come to the table with a concept ready to go, but if you want to get into details like place names and a sequence of events it's a handy little thing to help fill in some background.

As you might be able to tell by now I liked this book a lot. There is good background material, interesting mechanical variations, and just a whole lot of "good" and not anything that I see as useless or overpowered. I'd call that a win. It's a shame that we didn't have a nice long run of books like this one.

Perspective: Looking at some of the reviews that came out at the time the book was released - oh, more Essentials-vs.-non-Essentials 4.5E talk spilling over into reviews. What a waste of energy that turned out to be. In general most reviewers seemed to like this book better than the shadow book. Lots of fears about the Pixie being overpowered - I'm not so sure. Much love for the Berserker and mixed feelings about the rest. It's nice to be validated in some ways by reviews from a year ago. I think most people were encouraged by the quality of this book and had high hopes for the future of 4E material. Well, they did for a month or two longer anyway. Such a shame that the designers really got going just as the game was set to come to an end.