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!’”
A physicist turned adventurer who gained his powers in 1961, Professor Fantastic is behind both FantastInc. Enterprises and the Tomorrow Foundation. Currently ensconced at his arctic hideaway, the Professor is planning to use his super-scientific resources to save the world from alien invasion (an invasion he partially engineered) and the possession of its most prominent super-beings. After stopping the Zarg, Professor Fantastic is certain he will be placed in a position to slowly take control of the Globe. 
On the crashed A.L.P.H.A. Helicarrier
Icons: Actual Play Observations
Last time, I discussed some of the issues I’ve had with Icons’ Character Creation process. Today, after playing a few sessions, I want to share two things I’ve noticed about Icons. First off, Icons might be a better game with a smaller group. In fairness, this is true for a lot of games and I should consider myself lucky that I’ve got a big group filled with people that are currently showing up.
Secondly, the absence of GM dice rolling makes it an odd game to run. Half the time, I wind up staring at my dice and twitching. It’s like suffering from phantom limb syndrome.
Why Size Might Matter
Icons has Aspect mechanics that were somewhat lifted from Fate. The key changes include renaming ‘Fate Points’ ‘Determination’ and modifying the rules for spending Determination in ways that restrict players along genre appropriate lines.
For instance, Players can spend Determination to get a bonus on rolls, but they must have failed at the task first (or only have one chance at it). I’ve heard some complaints about this, but to my mind, it captures that moment in a Supers narrative when Spidey has been flattened, everything looks grim, but he digs deep and saves the day. Without that first failure, there just isn’t a ton of drama when Spidey turns it around.
This is great in theory.
The problem I’m having is that because my group has six players, and each PC has 8 aspects, there’s a veritable ton of Aspects for me to keep track of. Remembering when to compel this many characters is a bit tricky, but I’m doing my best. And while I encourage my players to compel themselves, they rarely do, partly because they are rarely out of Determination.
Among the reasons they are always sitting on a pile of Determination is that my players were lucky when rolling their Abilities and are usually in a big enough group that, no matter the challenge, one of them has a very good chance of meeting it. They can cut through thugs like butter and puzzle out the greatest mystery with a bit of time. As a result, they rarely feel the need to spend Determination and, overall, I’m a little worried that the game isn’t challenging them.
No Roll Playing for the GM
This concern about challenging the Players is compounded by the fact that, like Apocalypse World, the GM never rolls the dice in Icons. Instead the Players roll against a difficulty set by the GM with ties going to the Player. Generally these difficulties are either based on the GM’s call or the statistics of the NPC or object the Players are acting against.
The result is that I always feel like I am reacting to the Players’ actions, which is cool since they should be the heroes of their own story. However, there is something frustrating about the static values of most NPCs, especially major ones. For example, if StarGuard is locked in combat with the Avant Guardians, the difficulty to hit Zorn, the Living Theremin, is always going to be the same from one round to the next. Moreover, his attacks will always be the same difficulty to dodge. This can feel a bit flat and vexing.
Taken together, the excellent Abilities of my group’s PCs, their judicious spending of Determination and having ties break in their favour, it is a real challenge for this GM to challenge them. As a result, I’m cooking up a few ways to keep the game interesting, but so far I’m not super-satisfied.
One option that I’ve caught myself doing is inflating the stats of key NPCs to make them an obstacle for the PCs. To do this with a straight face, I’ve had to stop seeing key NPCs as rival supers made by the same rules as the PCs, and I’ve started looking at them as just a collection of difficulty modifiers and aspects for the Players to roll against.
That still doesn’t scratch the whole ‘everything feels too static’ itch though. To meet that, I’m considering allowing NPCs to invoke aspects to raise the difficulty of beating them by two. I may give myself one Determination point per player at the table (including myself) as a pool to spend along these lines. Alternatively, I could start each session with one or two points and then add to my pool each time a Player spends a determination point.
All in all, my campaign has been fun so far, but I’m still on the fence as to whether it is because of or in spite of Icons’ mechanics.