Uncanny Justice 6: Family of Fear

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Family of Fear

The next holiday isn’t until Valentine’s Day, so for January they get this adventure, Fainting Goat Games’ “Festival of Fear” but without a holiday connection.

Still more thoughts about Crisis at Crusader Citadel

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Yeah. So I ran the first half last night, and I have more thoughts. There are tons of spoilers here for a forty-year-old adventure, so be warned.

The session had its ups and down. It dragged. One of the players even talked about the AD&D mindset: plan what you're going to do, down to the number of torches! Do it, but the dice rolls will introduce complications. I think that just kills momentum. It was fine when we had all Saturday to play, but that's not the case for me anymore.

A thing I sometimes do is map an adventure onto the time available and say, “Okay, this is the halfway point and if we’re not here by this point, I have to make adjustments on the fly.” If I had done that, I think it would have been better; I should have said, “It’s really about two fights, we have three-and-a-half hours, we need to be starting the first fight within an hour.” I didn’t do that, so we got through part one in a little over three-and-a-half hours.

(I suppose that’s a kind of railroading, but given the purpose of the session, I think that’s acceptable. In an on-going campaign, I would find some other way that’s less choo-choo.)

We'll skip the real-world stuff that I had no control over, except that sometimes uncontrollable stuff happens.

I don't feel a need to run the second part as-is. I might run the whole thing again some day to try out ideas to streamline it.

I should have realized the setups for the fights drag because I found just that such a slog in solo play. Yes, the adventure seems to be basically a premise for two big fights, but getting the pieces in place is a hassle, and there has to be a better way to do that for 2022 gamers.

Let's briefly re-cap the scenes and what I think they bring to the adventure:

1. Part One:
   • Meet at the Harmon Building. (Get a clue that TEACHER is on the fritz.)
   • Get everything recapped by the reporter in the lobby, plus a bit of additional information. (Info: the name of the detective in charge of the task force, more info about the Crushers.)

   • Maybe be interviewed by the reporter. (Possible plot twist that doesn't pay off anywhere. You could maybe make it pay off; as it is, it gets negated, so it's just a colour point that might eat up a lot of time.)
   • Get to the police station (again, in both solo play and with people, this turned out to be a problem) and meet the detective. (Essentially: “Yes, we'll let you help! Why don't you take over?”) That gets you into the next part...
   • Get maps of Manning Enterprises and plan the ambush (setup).
   • Have a longish fight in the ambush.
2. Part Two:
   • Meet Dr. Patrovich and hear what the real plan is. (Informs you of your next goal.)
   • Meet escaped Crusaders, if any, an plan assault. (More planning.)
   • Fight.

Looking at that, getting to the police station is a hang-up. Both times I've played it, it was a problem: at least one character didn't have real movement powers. In a comic, we'd skip over it (“Minutes later, at the precinct…”) but with players at the table, you have to figure it out.

In retrospect, I might put Broyko, the police detective, at the Harmon Building, being interviewed by the reporter. How do we get to the police station then? Pfft; he’s got a car.

(Okay, in a modern interpretation, I wouldn’t even be in the lobby: I’d have the Crusaders have a website that’s acting weirdly, but the PCs figure out where the next theft will be — it’s not hard — and put the SWAT teams in the mix as plants in the building, and the reporter nearby. Adding more people is not going to make the Manning Enterprises fight crowded: it's already crowded AF, and that gives heroes someone to save. Use the stock characters from the rulebook.)

In a similar way, the fight in the second half rewards a lot of planning, but do you need that with a system like Icons? Retcons can carry a lot of weight here, and I'd give them a temporary Quality like “Intensive planning session” that they can activate for a retcon. (“Ah, we covered this...”)

There are at least two ways to get into the Citadel without being detected. If they need to brute force it, they can. Once they're in the headquarters, that second fight can start.

The storm is never explained, or made evident, besides the possiblity that an escaped Crusader might be dripping wet. If the player character powersets permit, I might even dramatize the storm by having lightning strike Patrovich’s plane and the PCs have to rescue him. It would give them a chance to do something else heroic, introduce the storm, and introduce Dr. Patrovich. It's a thought.

Anyway. Give the players ten minutes to plan. Execute the plan. Anything that they would reasonably have thought of is an Intellect test or an Advantage on the way. Do you remember that or did you think of it? Leave it to chance. Do you really want it to have happened? It’s a retcon.

So maybe it becomes something like:

1. Everybody tries to contact the Crusaders website; all fail to leave a message, so they know something's wrong. You out and out tell them; maybe there's a test in there for people with an appropriate specialty that gives them more information. Everybody gets five minutes of spotlight and they can use computer skills they happen to have.
2. Everybody figures out that the Crushers are probably going to attack the Manning Enterprises that night; you can do that as an Intellect test, or guide them to the info some other way. Maybe one of the heroes is listening to the police band radio; maybe they've researched the thefts; maybe they get the information off a conspiracy website. If some character really doesn't have a way to figure it out, they meet another character who drags them along.
   • Maybe the Crushers aren't hiding that they're going to show up.
   • Heck, maybe the Crushers sent a note: “You haven't been able to stop us yet. Tonight. Manning Enterprises, midnight.” Of course, they show up at ten p.m.
3. At Manning Enterprises, the Crushers show up. You have the fight, along with SWAT teams, Jessica Anderson, and J. B. Curtis, who get to actually show up in this version.
4. Part Two starts with rescuing Dr. Patrovich from some weather-related problem. He tells the heroes the problem...and that there's a deadline: The governor is sending in the military tomorrow at dawn.
5. Ten player minutes to plan, but in story it's half a day of intensive planning. Use retcons at outlined.
6. Fight.

Anyway, it's an idea. (Now that I've started thinking about it, no doubt I'll have ideas about what the various Crushers should actually be doing when the heroes break in. And the issue of how many Crushers versus how many PCs should be addressed.)

I wouldn't necessarily do things like this if it were an adventure about a mystery or one of the characters making a life choice or something like that. But this is an adventure about two big fights.

Thoughts about Crisis at Crusader Citadel

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One of the things I did early in the pandemic is ask people what the best superhero RPG adventures were. I got three answers, really (but feel free to chime in if you have a suggestion):

1. "Crisis at Crusader Citadel" for Villains & Vigilantes
2. "Day of the Octopus" for Marvel Super Heroes aka FASERIP
3. "Assault on Tanghal Tower" for Champions

Being a good sort, I went off and got them, and read them. (I was looking for commonalities in making a good adventure.)

Let me spoil this for you: You need your audience to be thirteen year olds who have just discovered roleplaying.

Still, I have other thoughts, and the adventures are not without merit.

Uncanny Justice 5: Sign of the New Year

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Sidereal Signs of the New Year

Continuing the terrible holidays of Uncanny Justice…

Being a solo play with Abraham Cadavra, Honeybee, and Demiangel. The adventure is Ad Infinitum’s “The Sidereal Schemes of Dr. Zodiac”.

Uncanny Justice 4: What Rough Beast

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What Rough Beast

Slouches From Our Past

Continuing the terrible holidays of Uncanny Justice…

Being a solo play with Abraham Cadavra, Honeybee, and Demiangel. I’m having trouble figuring out a New Year’s adventure, so this is an old Champions adventure slotted into the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. The (reasonably original) HERO version of the adventure is available at http://www.patric.net/morpheus/hero/beast.

Uncanny Justice 3: Panic! At The Museum

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Panic! At The Museum

A Host of Christmas Past

Being a solo play with Abraham Cadavra, Honeybee, and Demiangel. While Devil’s Night took place on Halloween, and A Mastermind Affair happened early in the Christmas season, the events of A Host of Christmas Past take place almost at Christmas. The structure and events come from Fainting Goat Games’ Panic! At The Museum by Chuck Rice. Because I’m interpolating and changing a lot, expect more rambling than usual.

Chapter 1: The Past Is Present

“Why would a place called Plains View give us an award?” asked Bill. “The town doesn’t even have a website. Only found ones for the churches and something called the Plains View Public Museum. I can’t even believe a place called Plains View has a museum.” Bill — Demiangel — took off his sunglasses and scanned the airport crowd. “Abe, I thought you said there’d be a ride.”

Uncanny Justice 2: The Mastermind Affair

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Being a solo play with Abraham Cadabra, Honeybee, and new character Dciteiangel, based on the Icons adventure module, “The Mastermind Affair” by Morgan Davie. This will contain spoilers for the adventure and probably places where I deviate entirely.

As is my wont, I updated all the characters for the Assembled Edition but have removed them from this post. Usually Mr. Kenson also updates them but after I've run things, so our updated might be different.

This begins the last run of solo plays (there are six with Uncanny Justice) and I've received no commentary on them.

(Since I rarely get commentary here, I don't really expect it, but I love it if it shows up.)

Anyway, expect this blog to lie fallow after these solo/actual play pieces are done.

House Rules:

• When using Magic or Gadgets, an Extra adds +2 to the difficulty, a Limit subtracts 2 from the difficulty.
• Superspeed can always be used in place of Coordination for Initiative.
• To make things easier, I roll dice using the 1d6-1d6 method, and compare it to the opposing stat, so Prowess 4 plus Martial Arts versus Prowess 3 becomes 4+1+(dice roll)>/=/<3.

Capsule Review: I ran this with othes when it came out and apparently I was drunk or on medication at the time, because I missed so much. It's a nice adventure, gives you some good pieces to play with later, but can be a stand-alone.

Chapter 1: Trouble on Main Street

Uncanny Justice got there as the police were starting to cordon off the area around the post office and asking the people to stand back. They were unspooling yellow tape to mark the area. People were spilling out of buildings because it was the end of the workday; a few dolts were trying to get into the post office anyway to mail Christmas presents.

Mutants & Masterminds Character Sheets

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Years ago, I did form-fillable versions of the Mutants and Masterminds character sheets, and I made them freely available in this folder. I posted it on one or two Mutants & Masterminds and DC Adventures forums (fora?) and forgot about it.

With the demise of the Atomic Think Tank, a couple of people a week try to get those files (or any of the others in that folder). Thing is, because Google has changed their security setup, the link to those files is obsolete, and it results in a message to me that so-and-so is trying to access the files. On my phone, it's a pain to try and figure out their address and send them the correct current link.

So this post, which I hope has enough terms littered in it for the search engines.

Don't believe for a second that I designed these; I just took versions of what was in the books. Credit for the design goes to Green Ronin.

Because I have permission to change this file, I can go ahead and correct the link if Google changes things again.

• DC Adventures character sheet in black and white, form-fillable
• DC Adventures character sheet in colour (or color), form-fillable
• Mutants & Masterminds character sheet in black and white, form-fillable
• Mutants & Masterminds character sheet in color (or colour), form-fillable

There is other stuff there, but not a huge amount for Mutants & Masterminds. I should probably clean it out, some day.

Uncanny Justice 1: Devil's Night

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“I haven’t forgotten you,” I said. Right before forgetting you.

Here, have a solo play.

Being the first adventure with Abe Cadabra and Honeybee. This was my second attempt at a magic character: I gave him support this time. It worked better, but really they still needed a bit more.

In the next adventure, they get a teammate who is doing community service with a superhero team to work off his fraud charges. I don’t think I ever explain that, but that’s how he joins.