Review Tuesdays: Space Hulk: Death Angel – The Card Game (2010)

By | Published November 29, 2011

Space Hulk: Death Angel is a quick, cheap and fun co-operative card-based game where players control teams of Space Marines while they explore an abandoned space hulk and battle swarms of alien Gene-Stealers. With options to play with up to six players, as well as solo play rules,

The Gist

Each player controls a number of paired Space Marines, depending upon how many players are playing. Advancing single file through the card created hulk, each turn, the Players can choose whether their teams attack, move or perform a ‘support’ action that grants a re-roll token. Each Space Marine fire team also has a customized special ability that can enhance each move.

As they advance Players need to combat every spawning swarms of Gene-Stealers (think Alien franchise critters). Should a marine be overwhelmed, he is killed and taken out of the game. In addition to this, each turn ends with a special event that can make the Players’ lives a lot easier or a lot harder.

What’s Great

Unsurprising to anyone who has ever purchased an FFG game, the components are gorgegous. More importantly, the game play is fast and easy to learn. The game successfully encourages team work and is a quick, light game to play to with a friend (or in my case spouse).

What’s Not So Great

Space Hulk: Death Angel is one of those games where good strategy is no guarantee for victory, but bad tactics can guarantee death. There is a fair bit of luck involved in playing the game, which is fine by me, but may rankle some players. Moreover, once your Marines start dying, the game gets more difficult in a hurry, so bad decisions early on can make for a pretty brutal loss.

Another issue is that you get a fairly limited number of sections of the ship to move through with the basic game. Although you can purchase expansions, I’m worried that the out-of-the-box options will get same-y pretty quickly.

My only actual complaint is that some of the illustrations in the rule book are less than helpful when figuring out things like how Gene-Stealers move.

Final Thoughts

I picked this up for just under $20 bucks and I think it was a steal. It’s a fast and fun little game for anyone who feels like wiping out some Xenos for about thirty minutes or so.

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TRPBTNTWAs: When Quality Isn’t

By | Published November 28, 2011

A few weeks ago I wrote short response to Monsters and Manuals’ “Things Role Playing Bloggers Tend Not To Write About.” At the time, in response to his request for people to write about their experiences with book binding, I said that it hadn’t really been an issue for me before. Mostly, that’s still true.

But, my beloved and beautiful copy of the 20th Anniversary Edition of Vampire: the Masquerade has some issues and I want to vent.

The book is a beautiful material object. It’s wonderfully bound, the paper quality is high and the illustrations are, to my mind, close to perfect; and when it first arrived the red and black ribbon markers were both attractive and useful.

Now, just over two weeks later, these ribbon markers are coming apart into strings of shredded ribbon, the red ribbon in particular.

In some ways it’s a minor thing. The book is still beautiful. The game still looks solid.

On the other hand it is extraordinarily frustrating that a book that I spent a somewhat silly amount of money on is already coming apart.

This frustration is tempered, however, by my realization that this book has already been used far more than many similarly adorned books. I think most books, especially non-gaming books that are of a similar quality and appearance, take far less of a beating than nearly any RPG. I mean, I can’t imagine purchasing anything that looks like V20 that isn’t a coffee table book or some kind of rarely touched holy book.

My copy of V20, on the other hand has already made about ten trips to and from work in bag, has been showed off on a few occasions and has been used as a step ladder by my son. In the future, I plan to take it to the bar I game at for use in a campaign and will likely get food or booze on it while I look up rules.

So, collector’s item or not, it was going to get bruised and battered. I anticipated that. I didn’t expect it to happen so soon and without misadventure. I don’t expect my RPGs to stay pristine. I use them. I am a little disappointed that this one has problems before I could properly abuse it myself.

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Stuff to Steal From: Running Man (1987)

By | Published November 25, 2011

Today I’d like to bring to your attention a fine film from my childhood: The Running Man starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The premise is a variation of The Most Dangerous Game by way of Stephen King. In a dystopian future dominated by a totalitarian government and obsessed with network TV, prisoners are forced to run for their lives on the game show “Running Man.”

The meat of the film follows Arnold, a fairly bland love interest and a number of other prisoners as they make their way through the ruins of L.A. pursued by a posse of over-the-top, gadget equipped, ‘stalkers.’ The stalkers include appropriately themed villains as the ice-skating Sub-Zero, the fire spewing Fireball and the retired super-patriot (played by Jesse Ventura) Captain Freedom. Witty one-liners and violent deaths aplenty follow.

So why watch this film with an eye towards adapting elements of it for your campaign? Well, besides the gratuitous action and witnessing Arnie at the top of his game, the film offers thieving GMs:

• An easily stolen hook, batch of NPCs and tone for running a ‘deadly game show’ adventure in your current game.
• Engaging and easily adaptable action set-pieces. The ice rink encounter with Sub-Zero, for example, would translate brilliantly into many games.
• The film’s ‘Stalkers’ can be quickly lifted and used in both deadly game show and other roles (they would make excellent bounty hunters, for example).
• The other game shows like “Climbing for Dollars” are also solid fodder for the sadistic GM

While it may seem that the Running Man is only suitable for adaptation to modern and future settings, I think the basic premise can be used in a number of other genres. Some possibilities include:

• Drop the game show aspect and turn it into a straight gladitorial competition enjoyed by decadent nobles.
• Turn the ‘Stalkers’ into well equipped aristocrats looking for the ultimate thrill.
• Change the game show into some sort of contest or ritual to determine the champion of a particular city or cult.
• Tone down the absurd elements and play up the scenario’s basic horror ala Saw.

In the end, The Running Man is a violent, but light-hearted, flick that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s also chalk full of adaptable material for sticky fingered GMs. Most importantly though, the film’s premise and execution is fun. Even if your players know every twist and turn from the film they will almost certainly enjoy running through a deadly game show scenario using their wits and their PCs ablities to try to escape in one piece.

I think that running run your players through the deadly gauntlet of a dangerous game show is a simple joy every GM should get to experience. So relax and steal from this 80s classic.

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StarGuard Session 4 Actual Play

By | Published November 24, 2011

This was one of those sessions where everything felt like it was lurching forward, but very little actually happened in some ways.

C., the player of a Mutant Alien-Space God’s Love-Child known as Brainzor was unable to attend, but Rhea, our Titan turned litigator was able to make it.

The session started off with Rhea being pulled to the mansion in the early hours of the morning to be in attendance for the Zorgology fuelled party that was engineered by Jessica Ga-In in the previous session. Chronos was already at the party and he and all of his duplicates were making the most of it. Cruthu, on the other hand, was hiding out.

I described the party as a wild affair with two main groups. The first were beautiful Zorgologists who were obsequiously out to please the PCs. The second was a huge cluster of A-list celebrities (if they are Scientologist, I painted them as a Zorgologist) that had StarGuard’s producers celebrating.

Golden Hammer and Brainzor, in the meantime, were flying back to mansion at super-sonic speeds in the newly dubbed ‘StarGuard Two,’ a vintage 90s Fantasti-Flyer donated to them by the show’s parent corporation. As they came into a landing, I had Golden Hammer review the news and learn that:

• The media’s hero bashing has spread to nearly every major super-hero and group, with the exception of Professor Fantastic and the Fantastic Family
• The Tomorrow Foundation had issued a statement to the press indicating that they were shocked that two accountants (the same that Brainzor had messed with) had committed suicide after confessing to moving money to radical groups (including Pulsar’s People’s Revolutionary Action Front)

At this point one of my players asked if StarGuard existed just to make the Fantastic Family look good, while another opined that they might exist just to make everyone look bad. It’s always good when your ideas start to take hold.

Golden Hammer and Brainzor landed and joined the party. I stated that Brainzor was offered sugar water and had his other challenges compelled and, consequently, disappears for the rest of the session.

I reminded the Players that Pulsar was slated to meet with the PRAF troops at 11 am that day and then rob the ‘Tans for Tots’ event at 1 pm. Would the PCs continue partying or would they try and get some rest?

Each player then made their choice and, if they had an appropriate challenge I compelled it to encourage them to keep partying. Everyone who kept partying (with the exception of Rhea who can regenerate and Chronos who power stunted his time control to rest) was given a temporary ‘Brutally Hung-Over’ aspect.

The PCs opted to wait until Pulsar and his cronies hit the event, to get better live coverage. Rhea staked out a position on a building overlooking the pier where the event was being held. Cruthu failed to make nice with crowd (she is a hideous freak. Jessica Ga-In brought a Korean boy-band with her causing some interesting roleplay, Chronos started stealing from rich guest using his super-human coordination and time-control. Golden Hammer said he would roll in late.

Rhea, failing an awareness check, did not notice when Pulsar and four PRAF members emerged out of a truck on the other side of the building she was on the roof of. The PRAF members were wearing bulky, ‘Stalinvolk’ Soviet Era battlesuits. Consequently the baddies got the jump on her as the fight broke out.

The fight was long. In fact, it pretty much took up the bulk of the session. The reason for this was some poor rolling on my Players part and a the handful of point of invulnerability I gave to the battlesuits. That said, my Players did look for creative solutions and did ultimately prevail. Highlights included:

• Rhea spending Determination in order to grab Pulsar’s junk through his forcefield and spending more to hang on after he punched her out
• Cruthu placing a lead lid over the ‘Tans for Tots’ contestants to protect them from radiation, but neglecting to put air holes in place
• The horrible deaths of two of Chronos’ duplicates as they cockily leapt off an eight story building and then failed their Coordination roll
• Golden Hammer losing another sports car and then using his transmutation power to cover Pulsar in a material that would cut him off from his solar power source
• Jessica’s concern for the crowd mixed with Ga-In’s ruthless elimination of a PRAF goon
• Rhea’s brutal beating of Pulsar after he was down

As the team started to recover from the fight, a Protect-Jet swooped down and the Protectors, including Rhea’s grand-daughter Artemis, American Agent and War Hammer arrived. The Protectors had been called in with an arrest warrant for Jessica Ga-In and were to detain the remainder of StarGuard as witnesses.

Panicking, Chronos stunted his time powers to get Jessica and himself out of there. Given all the looting that he had done lately, he was sure he was nailed.

The rest of the team postured and were not ready to back down when Rhea jumped in and busted out her legal expertise. Rolling exceptionally well, she managed to make the Protectors back down on legal grounds.

Each PC was then given a chance to do a little investigation or take other actions as they chose. Rhea focused on beating the charges against Jessica. Chronos and Golden Hammer all continued to investigate the Tomorrow Foundation and the other anti-StarGuard leads. Cruthu tried to do some community service to raise the group’s profile.

Jessica Ga-In, on other hand, tracked down Johnny Fantastic, president of Fantast-Inc. Productions (the company that produces StarGuard). I think she meant to question him on why the company was taking such a loss on the show and to tease out any leads as to Fantast-Inc. and the hero bashing that is going on.

Johnny, however, acted like a bit of a pig and Ga-In lashed out (the player said ‘I crush his heart with my telekinesis’).

I could have turned this into a fight. Instead I said ‘yes’ and had her kill Johnny Fantastic, the perpetually twenty-year-old member of America’s First Family of Superdom. Hilarity will ensue.

Finally and impulsively, I cut to Brainzor in the company of the Zorgologists. Brainzor, lured in by sugar water, is exposed to their ‘Echo Test’ to see if he is their Star Child. The test is run and a burst of energy goes into the sky. The Zorgologist’s true appearance as the echo of an Insectile Alien is revealed and it cries out that:

“The prophecy has been fulfilled, Zorg’s child has found the future home of the Zarg! Call the Void Hives, the Invasion must begin!’”

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Review Tuesdays Continued: Runequest II Empires by Lawrence Whitaker, Part Two

By | Published November 23, 2011

This is the second in my two post review of Runequest II Empires. Part one can be found here. Last time I wrote about the product in general. This time, I want to look at what works and what doesn’t.

What’s Great

There are plenty of great random tables here. If you want random events for diplomatic missions that fall apart, events in the heat of great battles or that occur as the seasons change in a feudal holding, you will find them here. The content of the tables are solid and may even be usefully adapted for use as a lifepath system for character creation.

The Empire Mini-Game itself seems pretty solid, but I can’t imagine playing it through with a group of Players in campaign I was running. Similarly, the rules for managing a lordly domain feel like a stripped down version of Pendragon’s winter phase and look like a lot of fun.

What’s Not So Great

There is a lot of potential here, but it just doesn’t hang together. The basic concept of giving nations stats that are very similar to PCs is sound, but the Empire Mini-Game is so complex and on such a huge scale that I can’t help but wonder if a simpler system that could be scaled down to kingdoms, guilds and factions would have been more useful.

The main problem is that Empires takes the actions and capabilities of PCs out of the equation when it comes to running empires, guilds or lordly domains. The core of all the systems in Empires involves an empire (or guild or lordly domain) taking an action that is resolved based on its own stats which then triggers an event that a PC can roll to resolve. At most Empires gives rules on how an Empire’s stats can provide bonuses for PCs during certain situations.

At no point are there any rules covering how a PCs skills or actions can boost an empire or faction or kingdom’s fate. Your PCs may have a master diplomat, a great general and an amazing trader, but no where does Empires cover how these skills can help the organizations the PCs belong to (or rule) thrive. Essentially, the rules for empires, kingdoms, guilds, and factions run parallel to the PCs, which is a huge disappointment.

This is only compounded by the fact that the detailed rules giving stats to an empire’s capabilities and abilities don’t scale down to the factions, guilds and domains covered in the rest of the book.

This is especially glaring when it comes to the resource management aspect of running a lordly domain. The rules in the Building Kingdom’s chapter helps determine exactly how much silver a lord receives each year, as well as the costs associated with building everything from a chapel to a castle. To me, this level of bean-counting is tedious, especially when there is an abstract wealth system in the empire-scale rules only a few chapters earlier in the same book. Why force a dukedom to count every penny when an empire can just roll its commerce stat?

Final Thoughts

Runequest II Empires is the only book for this line that I wish I passed on. In theory it was exactly what I wanted, but in practice it was too modular and detailed for me to find much use for it. I hope that if a similar supplement is put out for RuneQuest Sixth Edition or Legend that it is a bit more robust.

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Review Tuesdays: RuneQuest II Empires by Lawrence Whitaker, Part One

By | Published November 22, 2011

Runequest II Empires is a heartbreaker. The back cover claims that ‘Empires is a complete guide on founding, growing and running your own empire.’ That is something that I really wanted: a supplement that would help my PCs find their roles in my campaign’s city-states, cults and empires. A simple set of rules for when my PCs inevitably seized control of territories and factions.

I knew I wasn’t going to get my platonic ideal of a rule set that goes seamlessly between character and collective, but stoked by RuneQuest II’s outstanding corebook, I thought I’d get something pretty great.

Unfortunately, I found RuneQuest II Empires to consist of a series of oddly disconnected, but extremely detailed, modular rule sets that barely interacted with Player Characters outside of the occasional random table. Instead of a supplement to help with players do things to Empires, I got a supplement that, when it takes Player Characters into account at all, is about things Empires can do to characters.

The Gist

A hardcover book clocking in at 126 pages, Empires is nearly all crunch with the odd piece of art scattered here and there. Roughly 44 pages are devoted to defining, rolling up and playing what I like to call the ‘Empire Mini-Game’ (the ‘Empires Defined,’ ‘Characteristics’, ‘Imperial Economics,’ and ‘Empires at War’ chapters). The remainder of the book covers a number of different topics in the ‘Religion, Magic and Myths,’ ‘Factions and Guilds,’ ‘Imperial Service,’ ‘Building Kingdoms,’ ‘Renown,’ ‘Imperial Characters,’ and ‘Sample Empires’ chapters.

The Empire Mini-Game chapters lay out a set of rules for rolling up empires, working through the economic cycles and pitting them against each other. Empire creation is very similar to character creation, with each empire having a number of characteristics and abilities that can be tested with a percentile roll. The economics chapter takes you through a ‘turn’ of imperial events wherein empires spend wealth in various ways and attempt weather random events. The war chapter provides a combat resolution on an annual campaign scale that pits the abilities and capabilities of one empire against another; it also provides a short section on what adventurers are up to during these titanic battles.

The other chapters have different focuses and barely interact with the Empire Mini-Game rules that dominate the first third of the book. The Magic chapter, for instance, provides guidelines for constructing national myths, has a brief section of religious dominance and lists a number of spells that require large cults to cast. The Factions and Guilds chapter gives a loose outline on how to construct factions and guilds along the lines of the cult creation rules in the Corebook. Its main contribution is the introduction of a ‘Passions’ system that allows players to get a bonus on actions related to things they love or hate.

The Imperial Service and Building Kingdom’s chapters provide random events that noble and Imperial characters can undergo as well as a castle building and domain management system that are puzzlingly unrelated to the Empire Mini-Game.

The Renown chapter provides a reputation system for characters operating inside of Empires that can be easily ported into any game. The chapter on Imperial Characters provides Imperial professions to be used in character creation as well as advice on how to use a representative of an Empire can use its authority to gain skill bonuses. Finally, a few sample empires are stated out in the last chapter of the book.

Next time, I will go through what I thought was great, and not so great in RuneQuest II Empires.

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Old News Mondays: November’s RPG Carnival

By | Published November 21, 2011

They said ‘Yes.’ That is the most insidious trap that any villain has ever sprung on my PCs.

Hosted by Elthos RPG, this month’s RPG Carnival asks us:

“Setting up challenges for RPG Player Characters that make sense in terms of the story is a matter of thinking “What would the villain *really* do?” Learning to think like your villain is a bit tricky because if you think too well then your players may not survive very long, but if you don’t think enough …well, it is just too damn easy. What Tricks-n-Traps have your villains set for those who dare impinge on their turf, or interfer with their nepharious plots? Did the PCs live or die, …or something far far worse?!”

This has really gotten the little hamster wheel that is my mind turning for a couple of reasons. Two things stand out to me. Elthos’ statement that challenging your PCs involves figuring out what the villain would ‘really’ do and the request to describe the traps and tricks you’ve consequently used. To my mind, these two thoughts are almost mutually incompatible.

Rarely, if ever, do the ‘bad guys’ in my games really consider themselves villains. It’s probably a consequence of genre. I rarely run Silver Age Supers or D&D Heroes vs. the Evil Necromancer. As a result cunningly built death-traps designed specifically for my PCs are pretty rare (although I’m working on that for StarGuard).
Consequently, the closest I come to actual traps fall roughly into three categories: Defences, Giving Rope and Saying Yes.

Defences

Everything from the chest designed to shoot a dart if opened, to the undead critters guarding an ancient tomb; anything that is designed to keep people out of a location counts as a defence. It doesn’t matter if it is a dungeon or a secure space facility, if it is secure and designed to be a challenge, it will have defences. Usually these defences will be fairly straightforward, although on occasion this might also involve luring unsuspecting PCs into a more vulnerable position where they can be trapped or slain.

At the end of the day, the defences have to be practical to the task at hand. A highly classified, but largely unmanned, research facility may have all manner of defences to keep people out, but it does need to be designed with some thought to how the individuals at the facility work and live. A temple dedicated to a long forgotten god, on the other hand, may have some obstacles that are designed to test the moral precepts or religious lore of anyone who enters.

Giving Rope

How much rope? Enough rope for the PCs to hang themselves with. My current Icons campaign is, essentially, one big trap involving giving the PCs opportunities to ruin their image on national TV and eventually trigger a crisis that the big bad can save the world from it in a public fashion. If my PCs come after a powerful NPC, the NPC is as likely to pull back and let the PCs swagger after an apparent victory, confident that the PCs will quickly make new enemies that the aggrieved NPC can ally with.

Moreover, by letting the PCs act publicly and not taking any openly dickish actions against them, it’s easy to show why the PCs enemy might be winning over the court of public opinion. There’s nothing better than when the PCs realize that the very actions they’ve taken to thwart the antagonists plan has now turned the community they were protecting against them.

Saying ‘Yes’

You really want that that artefact sword? Why are we fighting? Take it.

I hear you are fighting the Goblin Hordes who are marching south. I know we’ve had our differences in the past, but perhaps we can work together…

Assuming your antagonists aren’t just evil for evil sake, they are working towards a goal and the PCs are in their way. Now while your big bad could just throw ninjas at the problem, sometimes it makes more sense to try and co-opt your opponents. Invite your PCs to a parley and make them an offer.

Nothing big. Not ‘rule the world with me’ big. More like ‘let me help you achieve your goal, and perhaps you can lay-off me’ big. Something that seems small and isn’t too good to be true. Alternatively, let your PCs make a demand (i.e. ‘your cult is no longer welcome in X city’) and have your antagonist say ‘yes.’

If your PCs go along with it, your antagonist can start giving them rope (as above), generally try to compromise them or get closer to them…the better to strike them.

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Stuff to Steal From: Small Town Noir

By | Published November 18, 2011

Small Town Noir is, and probably always will be, one of my favourite blogs.

Each blog entry includes the mug shot of a criminal arrested in New Castle, Pennsylvania and the story behind it. Using local sources, the blog puts the entry’s crime in a historical context and often provides information on the lives of the individuals in the mug shots before and after they were taken. As described on the site “The mug shots on this site were all taken in New Castle, Pennsylvania, between 1930 and 1959, and were rescued from the trash when the town’s police department threw them out. The information that has been used to reconstruct the stories behind the pictures comes mostly from old copies of the local paper, the New Castle News.”

The stark images of each of these apprehended suspects alone make this site worth a visit by anyone running a game set in the 30s, 40s or 50s. It provides a glimpse of the fashions and faces of the kind of hard cases that PCs and NPCs are made of. Moreover, it also provides a healthy stock of names and background stories that can be easily appropriated by a GM who is looking to create a tough NPC with an authentic sounding name and a bit of off-the-shelf history.

Take Ross Paswell and Harold Geary, for instance. In the winter of 1945, this duo, one bounced out of the Navy and the other unable to join, help up a cafe and made off with a relatively trivial amount of cash. Stealing cars and living it up with the girlfriends, the Ross and Harold are a classic pair of human-seeming henchmen that could be dropped into any adventure set in the middle of the 20th century. Ross Paswell is a particularly interesting figure.

His entry recounts his protests against prison conditions and his support of radical social causes thoughout the rest of his long life. A life, it must be said, sprinkled with other crimes ranging from petty to violent. Emerging from prison in the early 70s, Ross went on to work with prisoners and became a model rehabilitator, if also a bit of crank. Were I in need, I think Ross is a tailor made mouthy, smart alec crook who may be a little too smart for his own good. Alternatively, he may be a good PC patron if you were to use him as a model for a charitable man with a chequered past seeking help.

Even if you were playing in a more pulpy or super game, I still think the mug-shots and stories of these suspects can be easily wrapped in more garish costumes and still feel real.

For me, at least, every entry of Small Town Noir is a feast of hard-boiled history that gets my imaginative juices rolling. I look forward to its updates and if you are thinking of running any game set in the middle of the 20th century, ranging from Call of Cthulhu, to any Golden Age or Silver Age supers game, I strongly recommend you subscribe to the RSS feed and get regular inspiration.

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Car Chases, Collateral Damage and Confusion: StarGuard Session 3

By | Published November 17, 2011

Car Chases, Collateral Damage and Confusion reigned during the third session of StarGuard, our Icons campaign.
Once again, A. was unable to appear, so Rhea, our Titan turned avenging legal beagle was not in the game.
This session was fairly loosely structure. I had an opening set-piece and then provided a few hooks for the PCs to pursue. Basically, I trusted that my Players would make interesting things happen, and they didn’t disappoint.

To start off, I did something tricky. I opened the game by describing someone watching recent appearances of StarGuard in the media. I then described the opening set-up:

• Two cars containing one hostage each and some armed robbers are racing up a California Freeway
• One of the robbers is Psi-Skull, a telekinetic whose been doing a lot of smash and grabs
• The other robbers are leaning out their windows and are brandishing weapons
• The getaway cars are being followed by a news copter

The Players then rolled Awareness, and the Player with the highest roll then got to give a suggestion for a new team name, describe where their PC was and resolve one action.

After the first PC was done, I then described a video clip of StarGuard in the media. This done, the next Player then followed the same steps. Once each Player had placed their PC and taken an action, we then played out the action sequence as normal, although I did insert media items where they felt natural.

The media items included:
• Humbolt Pearce, leader of Citizens for a New America, condemning StarGuard as emblematic of the corruption in American Society
• An emotional press conference announcing the radiation poisoning lawsuit against Chronos
• Shaky footage of Jessica Ga-In crippling the helpless Isadora Deadly
• RobotRon being denied bail
• Freedom Flare being arrested for the murder of his wife
• An interview with Roger Biggs (aka War Suit, my Iron Man knock-off) condemning StarGuard’s failure to help the Zorgologists
• A closing speech by Humbolt Pearce describing how dangerous StarGuard is to American society

The actual chase scene turned into a chaotic mess rather quickly. One car was quickly taken out and a hostage saved through a little teamwork. The other hostage wasn’t so lucky, and was a victim of Brainzor’s fancy manoeuvre with their hover-car StarGuard One’s grappling hook and a barrel roll (the result was the car went careening off of the freeway into a nearby house).

When asked about the hostage, Brainzor responded ‘What hostage?’

Psi-Skull was captured, but it was revealed that it was, in fact, In-Ga, an alien from the same species as Ga-In, who was just out for bloody fun in a new body. Not wanting to lock up a fellow alien, Ga-In had In-Ga possess their cameraman and disposed of Psi-Skull’s body.

From here the PCs started to go their own ways.

Brainzor made contact with the Zorgologists and definitely became convinced he is the ‘star child’ they are looking for. This mostly took the form of compelling his love of sugar-water and his using his insect control powers.

Jessica Ga-In took In-Ga to Korea and encouraged him to find a new body there (far away from Jessica). While in Korea, Jessica looked up her favourite K-Pop bands and used her celebrity to meet them. As it turns out, the second most popular Korean boy band happens to be composed of Zorology converts.

Golden Hammer, because of his relationship with Cleopatra Stone, Director of A.L.P.H.A., was given access to some of Pulsar’s captured PRAF henchmen. To start off negotiations, he shrank one and crushed him. From there they started singing like canaries and told him that their outfit was bankrolled by the ‘Tomorrow Foundation’ and they gave up their next gig: robbing the Bluth family charity ‘Tans for Tots.’

Cruthu and Chronos tried to dig up information on who was sponsoring the legal actions taken against them and discovered that this was also being done by the Tomorrow Foundation, a large charitable organization.

Consquently, Brainzor and Golden Hammer flew to New York in order to raid the Tomorrow Foundation’s HQ there while Chronos and Cruthu raided the Foundation’s regional L.A. office.

Cruthu used her stealth to sneak in without setting off any alarms, but Chronos’ rather elaborate plan (involving prostitutes, radiation blasts and leaving an elderly duplicate to deal with the Police) created a bit of noise. That said, they did ultimately get some useful files by using Chronos’ smarts and Cruthu’s Cosmic Powers (she duplicated the ‘Interface’ power)

Brainzor and Golden Hammer were similarly successful, but caused more destruction. In the shadow of Fantast-Inc. Tower, the StarGuard One hovered outside of the Tomorrow Foundation’s 26th story offices. Golden Hammer used his transmutation to melt through the windows while Brainzor physically stayed in the StarGuard One.

Leaving his body behind, Brainzor possessed a female accountant who was working late and had her approach her boss in order to bypass security. This accomplished in the most awkward possible way, Brainzor returned to his body. He did so just in time, as it turned out.

As Golden Hammer entered the office, I compelled his ‘nuclear powered’ aspect and had it set-off a sensor. This meant that he was still rifling through files when War Suit, his rival and my Iron Man knock-off, turned up. A brief fight ensued with a portion of War Suit’s armour being turned into whip cream, the StarGuard One being shot down (and doing a lot of damage when it crashed), and War Suit ultimately backing down.

Meanwhile in Korea, Jessica invited the Zorgologists, all of them, as well as some Korean pop royalty, back to StarGuard mansion for a party. The cultists accepted, all of them. Thus, the session ended with reams of A-list celebrities and pretty cultists partying in the StarGuard Mansion while they waited for Brainzor to return.

Then two epilogues were thrown in.

The first had one of Chronos’ duplicates meeting with Augustus Caesar, leader of the Monkey Mafia. Augustus indirectly learned that Chronos had stolen and pawned goods last session and now he wanted to cut a deal. Augustus provides StarGuard with information about his rivals and Chronos makes sure they don’t hurt his operations.

The second involved In-Ga, the other parasite. It tried to inhabit a host who was also a Zorgologist and failed. Shaken, In-Ga realized it was surrounded by cultists who then combined their mental abilities to paralyse In-Ga and proceeded to devour him.

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Actual Play: Icons – StarGuard Session 2

By | Published November 16, 2011

Lawsuits, cults, massive collateral damage and a former StarGuard member loosely based on Ric Flair. As far as I was concerned, the second session of ‘StarGuard,’ our Icons campaign, had everything. Unfortunately, it also had our first absences.

Rhea’s Player ‘A.’ was unable to attend due to illness and Brainzor’s Player ‘C.’ was similarly afflicted. That meant we were missing our Greek Titan turned lawyer and our Alien Space God’s Mutant Love Child. Inevitably, that also meant that I had came prepared with a courtroom drama plot and a Alien Space God Cult plot. C’est la Guerre.

Having felt that the PCs were breezing through threats when assembled as a group; I started the session off by dividing the PCs into smaller groups and threw them into non-punch-them-in-the-face situations. This worked well and gave each Player a little chance to have the spotlight on their PC and stretch their roleplaying legs a bit.

Now, although I’m jotting down each group’s mini-adventure in pretty big chunks, I want to stress that I intercut between each group frequently giving the whole session a T.V. drama quality. Here’s what went down:

Chronos

Chronos and Phil, the team’s lawyer, met with lawyers from the famed (and shady) firm Lee, Kirby and Byrne. Known for defending super-villains, lawyers from this firm were informing StarGuard that:

a) their client had a tape of Jessica/Ga-In brutally crippling Isadora Deadly after she was no longer a threat and;
b) their client, and a number of others, were filing a class action lawsuit after being exposed to the radiation Chronos gives off.

If StarGuard would settle on the lawsuit and turn Jessica into the authorities, all of this could go away of course…

Cruthu and Jessica/Ga-In

Meanwhile, Cruthu and Jessica/Ga-In were helping battle a wildfire on the edges of Los Angeles. Witnessing them in action, a few heroes of the Protectors (my setting’s Avengers knock-offs) requested they try to get the members of a nearby religious community, the Zorgologists, to evacuate before the fire reaches them, adding that it would help StarGuard’s tarnished image.

Cruthu and Jessica/Ga-In flew to the compound, only to discover that the Zorgologists worship an insect-like Alien Space God and are waiting for the ‘star-child’ to lead them. Jessica let out, in a tone so innocent that it couldn’t be taken innocently, that she ‘had an alien inside her.’ Immediately, the cult leaders began pressuring her to enter their inner sanctum for ‘echo testing.’

Golden Hammer

At the same time, Golden Hammer had an unexpected visitor turn up on his doorstep: former StarGuard leader and famed 80s ‘Confederacy of Justice’ member Freedom Flare. Plagued by drinking, financial and romantic problems, Freedom Flare was replaced on the team by Golden Hammer in Season 3. This led to a downward spiral of drinking and reality TV, including a special wedding episode of Super-Celebrity Intervention.

Not having parted on the best of terms, Gold Hammer is surprised when Flare begs him for help. Flare pleads “they’ll never think to look for me here. You’ve got to believe me, I didn’t kill my wife. woo.” Golden Hammer pours a huge glass of scotch and hands it to Flare, buying time while deciding what to do.

Chronos

Faced with threats of litigation and the Isadora Deadly/Ga-In tape being leaked, Chronos did not cave. Instead he used his time control powers to freeze the inhabitants of the room (including his own lawyer) and dug up that:

a) Lee, Kirby and Byrne’s legal actions were being paid for by the ‘Tomorrow Foundation’
b) StarGuard has been losing money by the bucket load, but Fantast-Inc. Productions is still applying pressure to keep it in the air

This done, Chronos swapped everyone’s underwear, restarted time and created a radiation flash to wipe any electronic devices in the room. Of course, the radiation flash outraged the lawyers and his accuser, resulting in them storming out of the room and promising to go the media. Unfazed, Chronos strolled out of the building and planned to head home, when he saw a plume of smoke and heard smashing a few blocks over.

Cruthu and Jessica/Ga-In

Creeped out by the Zorgologists, Cruthu used her powers awe and intimidate them, but was less successful than she had hoped. Relying on brute force, Cruthu removed herself and Jessica/Ga-In from the compound and left the cultists to fend for themselves. Needless to say, when the Protectors discovered this while they speaking at a press conference, they were unimpressed and expressed their displeasure.

Cruthu and Jessica/Ga-In started to defend themselves at the Protector’s press conference, but were called away by an emergency in downtown L.A.

Golden Hammer

After listening to Freedom Flare explain that after a Zorgologist sponsored rehab session he had a blackout and then discovered that his wife had been murdered, Golden Hammer contacted the authorities and sold Freedom Flare out. A.L.P.H.A. agents arrived on scene and GH flirted with Director Cleopatra Stone for a while before being informed of the incident occurring downtown. Cleopatra offered him a lift and he took it.

Pulsar and the People’s Revolutionary Action Front

The downtown disturbance was Pulsar, a time-lost Soviet Super-Soldier, and a group of self-styled (and very well armed) revolutionaries attacking the ‘Bailout Boutique,’ a boutique owned by the spouses of several important bankers. Being a true believer, Pulsar particularly hates Golden Hammer for selling out the Communist cause.

StarGuard arrived on the scene and, in the resulting chaos:
• Pulsar got away with loot
• The revolutionaries were captured, but they way their vehicle was take down damaged several building and dozens of Occupy L.A. protestors
• One of Chronos’ duplicates stole some of the loot and fenced it at a nearby ‘cash for gold’ shop

Aftermath

As the PCs attempted to say it was a good day’s work, the tape showing Jessica/Ga-In’s crippling of a surrendered foe was given the press, a lawsuit against Chronos was filed and a flock of Zorgologists formed a vigil outside of StarGuard HQ.

Good Times.

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