ICONS: Being Nausated...an alternate technique

Icons

As you know, I do solo plays converting adventures from other systems, and that means sometimes coming up with Icons-appropriate things to do instead of the original. So here's another post about a situation and what an Icons-appropriate solution might be.

An "Icons-appropriate thing" might be a pyramid test, creating an Advantage or Disadvantage, or a succeeding at a test scaled by results rather than a series of tests. That is, instead of saying:

Interrogate thugs

DC	Result
DC 10	The gang is recruiting
DC 15	The gang has superhumans recruited
DC 20	This robbery was to get money to fund the next part of the scheme

It becomes:

Interrogate thugs, Willpower test, Difficulty 3

Result	Information
Failure or marginal success	No info
Moderate success	"The gang is recruiting"
Major sucess	"Our gang is recruiting and we've already got supervillains, so you better watch out"
Massive success	"We're recruited people, even supervillains, and this robbery will pay for the next stuff to come!"

When converting M&M stuff, it's generally fast enough to say DC 10 = Difficulty 3, DC 15 = Diff 4, and so on, adding 1 for every 5 or so (and always adjusting based on what they're actually trying to do; this isn't a blind process).

In Sewer Kings, by Victory Games, I ran across an option to have the heroes nauseated by suddenly going into a sewer (and presumably not a storm sewer, though that can smell bad, too). I don't have my copy of M&M2E handy, so I can't look up the effects of Nauseate rank 4 or rank 8, but I'm guessing that it paralyses them with the smell unless they make a CON roll.

(This analysis is based on that concept. If that's not what Nauseate power did, well, it's wrong for this situation, but the idea might be useful for something you're running.)

In that case, the intent is to have them lose actions until they make the roll, but I looked at it and said, "So what?" They're not meeting the villains until later, and if they can't move, well, they can't meet the villains; at this point there's no time constraint. So blindly substituting Stunning doesn't mean anything.

But creating Trouble — a -2 to any action other than trying to fight the smell — that might be useful.

Plus, Icons has mechanisms for eliminating Trouble. An awful smell might be dealt with by creating a nose covering, by putting on the rebreather the character carries for underwater adventures, by activating the sealed life support systems that aren't normally on, and so on....all of which can be dealt with by a Maneuver or spending a Determination Point.

Instead, my solution was that all players get Trouble (and a Determination Point), manifested as a -2 to any action other than trying to fight the smell. They can use the normal techniques for getting rid of Trouble. (Characters who can't smell or are androids or whatever just bypass this: no Trouble, no DP.)

And, because people get used to terrible smells (even normal people) whether the character does something or not, the Trouble goes away once the character has succeeded at a Pyramid Test, strength tests against difficulty 3 by default but player suggestions encouraged.

This idea can be used for any kind of physical inconvenience that people eventually get used to, like sea sickness or terrible smells. You might adapt it to something like emotional hardening to the unearthly if you were going to run a horror sword-and-sorcery game with Icons.

Hope that's a useful idea for people. I'm sure that's in one of the published adventures, but I seem doomed to re-invent the wheel, so here it is.

Thoughts about Viper’s Nest

Champions

Thinking about the 1982 adventure Viper's Nest for 1st edition Champions.

I've been looking at old adventures, trying to figure out what makes a good superhero adventure. Part of the answer seems to be that you play it at the right age. However, in looking at these old adventures I can't help but think about the difference in games between then and now.

For this adventure, "then" is 1982, the first edition of Champions. I had a certain amount of trepidation looking at this, because I played it, wayyyy back in 1983. It was one of the first (if not the first) superhero games I played and so I was worried that looking at the adventure would spoil old memories.

But, frankly, they can still be good memories, even if we'd do things differently now. And I'll try to judge this without the rose-coloured glasses, but please be understanding if I end up being kinder to the adventure than it deserves; I'm trying not to, but I also don't want to be needlessly cruel.

Some historical context. Champions wasn't the first RPG with superhero elements (that was probably Superhero 2044) or the first full superhero RPG (that was probably Villains and Vigilantes). But it was the first to use an effect-based system, and the first to use point-buy rather than random roll. (That was a big thing for me back then: I wanted to play the character I designed, rather than designing the character based on what the dice threw up.) Some of those innovations are still with us.

The adventure "Crisis at Crusader Citadel" was intended as a tutorial; "Viper's Nest" is intended as a campaign introduction. The conceit of "Crisis" is thin, but the whole thing is intended to get you into two big fights.

"Viper's Nest" has loftier ambitions. It's a higher target and it's not quite as successful. It achieves its goal, but a higher target has higher standards.

(Brief digression already: Like "Crisis," this adventure contains at least one casual death meant to show you how eeeevil the villains are. I honestly don't remember comics in the late 1970s well enough to know if this was a thing. The character giving you information in the introduction gets offed by, it's implied, VIPER.)

There are three interlinked engagements that introduce you to the dastardly villainous society VIPER. Later editions expanded on VIPER, but in first edition, this is what there was. Possibly in a callback to the wargaming roots of RPGs, all three parts are called "engagements" here. They are connected only in that VIPER commits all three. You can either be disappointed that the various parts don't connect, or you can look at them as opportunities that a GM can grasp.

I'm trying to do both, here.

In my brain, engagement one would give the pretext for engagement two, which would provide the information for engagement three. It doesn't.

On the other hand, it gives us three supervillains, a hero agent group (UNTIL), and a villain agent group (VIPER), and a tremendously detailed map, plus an exhortation to make the adventure your own, which is nice.

While "Crisis" gave us notes on the tactical approach of each supervillain in the adventure, "Viper's Nest" talks about the tactics for the group VIPER. This...is more complicated than I cared about; in running it, even though I was running it for myself, I found it necessary to pre-figure how many VIPER agents and who they were in each group (a quarter skirmishers, a quarter overwatch, and half attackers). Very war-game-y.

The VIPER agents are designed so that a powerhouse or paragon character can take them out in one blow. A single punch from a normal human cannot penetrate their force fields. Really, the whole setup says "Minion" to me, so I'd use the minion rule after the first encounter. (In the first, I wouldn't use the minion rule because you want to build up VIPER.)

Incidentally, the adventure provides three villains to use (though there's an option to use some of the villains from the main rulebook). The villains are Brick, a, uh, brick, Bluejay, a flying energy projector, and Cheshire Cat, a teleporting martial artist. What's interesting to me is that although I played the game with Brick in the first engagement (and that's how I ran it for myself...the strong guy can get into the cornerstone if necessary), the villain Bluejay would probably not be used in the second encounter and wouldn't have room to maneuver in the third...so really, Bluejay is the villain to use in the first encounter. The rules never say that, though. If I were thinking about the different engagements instead of rolling villain forces on tables, I'd go Bluejay in the first adventure, Cheshire Cat in the second, and Brick in the third.

The Macguffin for engagement one is a room-temperature superconductor developed before World War II. (As is typical for comic books, no scientists keep notes.) The samples and notes are in the cornerstone of a building which is being torn down. This leads to a big fight with VIPER and possibly one supervillain.

Your trained heroes can also do well here; there's a bulldozer and a crane with a wrecking ball by the partially-demolished building. Even if the bad guy is someone they can't themselves hurt, the wrecking ball will probably hurt them.

Engagement two is an encounter in a park: VIPER is there to capture or kill a defector. (It's the "kill" part that makes Bluejay a bad choice here.) The engagement really lives according to the bystanders that the GM puts in. In this engagement, your obvious heroes, the ones who can't be disguised as normal people, are at a significant disadvantage.

Engagement three is a dungeon crawl. If you loved the detailed maps in "Crisis" you'll love the detailed maps here. I presume that with D&D being the reference point, every adventure had to have a dungeon crawl. That was, essentially, the model. (Also no bathrooms. That was also the model.)

I know you're surprised, but I haven't run out of thoughts yet. I want to talk about sexism and racism.

In one sense, this adventure avoids some of the casual sexism of "Crisis," but that's because it mentions sex almost not at all. All but one of the characters are men, even when it's implied that there are women around (the VIPER base has women's change rooms). There is one woman villain. Her motivation is rather...vague (she wants to fly the suit they've built, and having stolen it, she has no way of turning back). On the other hand, Brick's motivation is "I have amnesia and VIPER was nice to me," which is also kind of vague. Cheshire Cat might have a bit more: "A VIPER accident gave me superpowers and I have a wife to feed. VIPER pays me."

And I don't expect it from something written in 1981, nobody's sexuality is touched on. That's easy to change if you're running it, because there's just this void of assumption. Put something concrete in and it changes. For example, make Brick trans: before the accident, he was AFAB but the accident brought forth his brick persona a manifestation of his inner toughness. The adventure doesn't support that reading, but it doesn't not support it; that sort of thing doesn't enter into the adventure at all.

Race is even worse: there are no known characters of color. They could be: In a modern setting, there's no reason not to have Brick or Bluejay or Cheshire Cat or any of the VIPER or UNTIL agents as people of color. It's very cis-het, very white, very male. All of that can be changed, but you have to decide to put that in.

I lied: one possible NPC is named Vasquez, so some microdiversity there. But (my opinion here) when you have only one character of a gender or type, that character becomes an avatar for everyone of that type. All Latinx characters are by-the-book law enforcement sorts who hate supers. (To be honest, that was a trope in comics.)

Two of a type at least means you can have a good gay and a bad gay, a neat black woman and a messy black woman, a deferential trans Asian man and an outspoken cis Asian woman. It seems to me that’s closer to what we think of as diversity today.

It is a product of its time, but it can be reshaped to fit 2022. And it does a fine job at putting toys in the sandbox, as comics writers have said: it gives you VIPER and UNTIL and supervillains, and a reason for them to be there; it gives you a superconductor of unknown provenance.

It has its flaws, but that's pretty good.

Some ICONS Play

SYSTEM: ICONS

A Sample of Play

In response to nobody, I thought I'd put a small sample of a story (that I'll make up) and how it would play in ICONS terms.

Will'o'whap

For reference, here's Will-o-whap:

Will-o-whap (William Chandler)
PRW	CRD	STR	INT	AWR	WIL	Det.	Stamina
6	4	7	4	5	6	1	13
Specialties			Martial Arts (+1) Mental Resistance (+1)
Powers			Incredible (7) Phasing Extra: Regeneration Extra: Dazzle Extra: Stunning Extra: Affects phased targets Limit: He ends phase in same state as target. (If he had Damage Resistance I wouldn't count it as a limit.) Extra: Burst Good (5) Images Limit: No conscious control
Qualities			Child of the light Arch-enemy: Backstab New at this
Origin			Transformed (+2 to Strength)

He got his powers like ten minutes ago, but the supervillains of SWARM have hostages. (No doubt the accident they caused to show they were serious created him.) He needs to infiltrate their base!

Some Minions

The first fictional bit involves minions, the Bug Patrol.

The Bug Patrol agents are pretty standard:

The Bug Patrol
PRW	CRD	STR	INT	AWR	WIL	Stamina
3	4	4	3	4	3	7
Specialties			Military (+1) Weapon (guns)(+1)
Equipment			Uniform & Goggles: Weak (1) Damage Resistance Extra: Sensory Resistance Limit: Sight only (acts as +2 or level 3) Gun. One of: Great (6) Shooting Extra: Burst; Limit: if Extra is used, takes 5 pages to recharge Great (6) Binding (net) Great (6) Blast, Extra: Affects Phasing, Limit: Takes 5 pages to recharge
Qualities			Minion

And here we go.

Fiction	Game Mechanics
It turns out that I suck at being sneaky; maybe because of the whole "glowing" thing. I came out of the wall to find four Bug Patrol agents pointing pistols at me. And yeah, they had dark goggles on so I couldn't do the whole blind-them thing I had done outside.	Four minions. No one here is really surprised. Initiative: Will'o'whap: CRD + 1d6 = 5+3 = 8 Bug Patrol: CRD + 1d6 = 4+3 = 7 So Will goes first.
I held my hands up. “Hi.” No sound came out, because I was still intangible: I didn't interact with the normal world. But a glowing orange speech bubble appeared that said, “Hi.” Is there a rule that you should have your powers for at least a week before you break into a headquarters? There should be; I didn't know I did that if I talked while intangible. Still, I lunged and stuck my hand through the nearest one. He stiffened and then fell down. We all stiffened for a moment because none of us knew I could do that, and then I got two more. The fourth one shot me with something that hurt and I turned solid.	Will'o'whap jabs his hand through nearest one (Prowess vs Prowess): 6+1d6 vs 3+1d6 = 11 vs 4; a massive success. Because it's a cool thing, now the Bug Patrol members are surprised. He has Burst on the power (anyone in touch range) so he tries them all. His Stunning is against Str, but his Stunning is 7 and Bug Patrol members are strength 4, so he's got to roll quite low to fail the Stun vs. Str roll. The first 3 he hits and stuns, but he misses the fourth. It's the end of the panel so he suddenly discovers that he's tangible; limitation on the power but he doesn't know that. Will's Stamina: 7 (13 - 6) Bug Patrol members standing: 1 (4 - 3)
I grabbed him, which he didn't expect, swung him up against the tiled ceiling and down against the floor. He was out cold.	Will'o'whap manages to grab him (Prowess versus Prowess again). He throws the minion up to the ceiling and the damage from hitting the ceiling knocks him out. (Minion rules; otherwise he'd close to out or out, depending on whether the GM applied damage again from hitting the ground: Strength 7 is 7 damage, minus 1 for the uniform, or 6. That means a fall of 2 or more damage would knock him out. A kind GM would do it.)
I quickly checked the three I had phase-punched. Still breathing, still with a heartbeat. Good. Uh...where is the control room? I asked myself. I smacked myself in the head (gently and figuratively), because being captured would really have been the easiest way to find the control room. Because they take you there to gloat, right? (Or have decades of mass media been lying to me?) Rather than wander aimlessly around the corridors looking for the control room, I decided on a search pattern, spiraling in to the center, and began jogging through walls. (I had one oops moment when I walked through the women's washroom but it was unoccupied. Still, it reminded me of one of the hazards of this power.)	He's got Regeneration, so I assume he's back at full Stamina by now: he gets 7 Stamina every 10 panels, so it seems likely.
One of the rooms was a gym. More specifically, it was a workout room for supers, because I found one there, in full costume. (Memo: don't get a cape; then you have to practice all your moves with the cape. Same for dusters.) She was working on a particular move with a robot and I saw her reach through the robot before she noticed me. Um. She could go intangible too.	This might be a roll of Awareness, or maybe it's a gift. I choose gift, because it makes things so much more uncomfortable. Better stop for a moment and explain (invent?) who she is.

Backstab: a villain for the ages

Well, we know from those Qualities up there that this is going to be his arch-nemesis. I'll use the method in ICONS Assembled to produce an enemy for Will. I roll a 10, so this character is a Reflection, which means Artificial. Hrm. Didn't see that coming.

Backstab (Felicia Night)
PRW	CRD	STR	INT	AWR	WIL	Det.	Stamina
4	5	5	6	6	5	–	10
Specialties			Weapons (Blades) (+1) Stealth (+1)
Powers			Fair (4) Slashing Extra: Phasing Incredible (7) Teleportation Limit: Medium (shadows) Extra: Regeneration Extra: Invisibility in shadows Incredible (7) Life Support (needs "food", affected by vacuum, disease-like things)
Qualities			Escapee from another dimension Hates Will'o'whap Constantly fights her programmed nature
Origin			Artificial (+2 to Strength)

In my head, there's a whole backstory but essentially she was built and programmed as a servant for the alternate-dimension equivalent of Will Chandler. She managed to escape to another dimension, and she's been hardening herself, killing humans: humans who made her, humans who dictated that she live in servitude. And she's programmed to love William Chandler, so she fights against him the hardest of all.

Heck, she probably saw Will at the site and chose him to go into the accident, assuming he'd die.

Will'o'whap knows nothing about this.

Fiction	Game Mechanics
“Hey. Um. Backstab. Big fan.” Not that she could hear me, but the damned speech bubble formed right there by my head. She smiled and grabbed her mouth protector, slipped it into her mouth under the mask. I probably should have charged her but I was wondering if maybe I wanted to run away instead. Then she attacked and the decision was taken out of my hands.	She gets time to prepare, so nobody is surprised. Will's Initative: 7 (4+3) Backstab's Initiative: 6 (5+1) He wastes his move in dithering, so she stabs him. It's Prowess versus Prowess again, and she rolled a 6 and has a +1 from Specialties, for 11; he rolled a 1 and has +1 from Martial arts, so that's 8: A major success. She gets to roll Stun (it's a killing attack) but gets a 1 (for 5) versus his 5 (total 12) so he's not stunned. He is down 4 Stamina, though: her attack is Slashing 4. Will's Stamina: 9 (13-4) Determination: 1 Backstab's Stamina: 10
That hurt but it didn't incapacitate me. It would soon, though; I had to be running on adrenaline. I circled her like it was a bout at the dojo. I considered running but she could turn intangible too. I didn't have much time. Probably sooner rather than later I'd notice the hole in my side. I had to try and distract her. I flared to brilliance, hoping to blind her. I think it worked; her next thrust missed and I chopped at her outstretched arm.	That would be a Dazzle attack, which is Coordination based. He has Coordination 4, she has Coordination 5. He rolls a 5, she rolls a 3, so he has a moderate success. She's dazzled for one page. She rolls a 1 to attack and he rolls a 6: 6 versus 11. That's a massive failure. According to the rules, you get an automatic attack back when someone attacks with Prowess and manages a massive fail. So he automatically gets a moderate success. (It would be smart to disarm her but a moderate success isn't enough to apply the Grab maneuver and I'll demonstrate putting a quality on someone in the next page.) Will's Stamina: 9 Backstab's Stamina: 3 (10 - 7)
She was better than I was, so I had to be smart and lucky. With luck she was still blinded...so I stepped inside the robot she had there, the one that hadn't moved since I had come into the room, and tried very hard to be smaller than it was. I held my breath.	He's trying to apply the Quality "Hidden for ambush" to himself. As GM, I figure it's best done with a Maneuver (a roll) of his Stealth (well, his Coordination because he doesn't have Stealth) versus her Awareness. However, she's recovering from being dazzled, so I'll give him a +2 for his Maneuver. The roll sucks though: he gets a 1 and she gets a 5, for a value of 5 for him and 11 for her.
I've already mentioned the quiet of the ghost world, right? Except this time I could hear her, muffled by her mouth protector. "Come out," she said. "I don't want to hurt Sparbot." Then the robot jumped to one side and she lunged again. I dodged away as fast as I could.	She gives instructions to the robot, then phases to stab him. She gets 7 (from 4+1+2), he gets 8 (from 6+1+1), so he dodges. Barely. He blew his panel again, waiting inside a robot.
All I could do was attack, ghost to ghost. I hit her solidly and she fell down and through the floor. Maybe I should have gone after her — what if she couldn't breathe? — but I thought about the hostages up in the control room and decided that was more important. I took a second, though: I turned solid and checked her tablet and phone, which were lying on the bench. The phone was locked but the tablet wasn't and score! it had a map of the base. I memorized it and headed straight for the control room.	He hits, with 10 (6+4) versus 7 (4+3). That does 7 damage so it knocks her unconscious even if you figure she'd gotten some Stamina back from her regeneration.

Actual play: A solo superhero session

SYSTEM: ICONS

If you follow this link, you get to a PDF of a solo superhero story I just did with the Mythic GME version I've been tinkering with (apparently the Mythic Yahoo group has one similar to it; I can only say that I have never looked at it, but I will now) and ICONS Assembled.

I wrote it mostly as if it were a story because that's what I do, but it should serve as an example of the things that can happen. (It's not a story because it's not focused enough, but random rolls, hey.)

Note that there are lots of errors and inconsistencies, like where I changed a character's name half-way through and might not have gotten all instances. And there's a weird thing in the PDF that I thought I'd gotten rid of, but apparently not.

And it got me to ask for a rules clarification from Steve Kenson, but I'll post that tomorrow.

A solo adventure: Gorilla My Dreams

In honour of Solo Gaming Appreciation Month... (revised as of 2020/03/30 because I reread it and had to work hard to figure some things out)

This one will use a character I already have here, Haemophile. She doesn't have any opponents, so I'll look at her Qualities, which provide surprisingly little help...Ah. Idealizes “normal.” The two possibilities that occur to me are that her opponent is Trained in some way and is planning to give everyone superpowers, or the Gorilla Grodd thing of turning everyone into apes. The first sounds more like what I just did, so we'll go with the second, and use the prime Ape X writeup.

I started this as a test of the story point system I was using and quickly abandoned that, though I did use the four stages. Instead, this adventure used the Icons rules and once the Mythic GME. As is typical with solo stuff I write, tense jumps all over the place.

For convenience, we'll put both characters here. I've slightly modified them for solo play.

Haemophile

Name		Haemophile (Chloe Grace — Birthright)
PRW	CRD	STR	INT	AWR	WIL	STA	DP
5	3	5	3	3	5	10	3
Specialties		Martial Arts (+1), Stealth (+1)
Powers		Good (5) Invisibility Great (6) Slashing Secondary effect: Incredible (7) Affliction
Qualities		Idealizes “normal” because she’s a mutant Mid-level assassin for a shadowy government agency Only she is immune to her poison

Ape X

Name		Ape X (Transformed)
PRW	CRD	STR	INT	AWR	WIL	STA
5	4	6	7	4	7	13
Specialties		Athletics (+1), Mental Resistance Expert (+2), Technology Master (+3), Wrestling (+1)
Powers		Ape senses: Poor (2) Super-senses (Enhanced Hearing, Enhanced Smell) Incredible (7) Telepathy Extra: Mental Blast
Qualities		Genius gorilla Hatred of Humans I will do what’s necessary even if my people hate me for it

Every once in a while I'll put in a status summary, like this:

Haemophile			Ape X
STA	DP	Notes	STA	Notes
10	3	None	13	None

Stage 1: Threat

Chloe is all about the normal, and the most mundane thing I can think of is sorting your clothes at the laundromat. So we'll start there.

The laundromat was a slice of normalcy for Chloe: it and the library were the things that kept the rich filling of weirdness from dripping and staining her... She couldn't figure out what the end of the metaphor should be, except that life was truly a weirdness sandwich. She found that last bra and threw it in the washing machine, then carefully counted out the quarters. She looked at the remainder and counted them. She wouldn't have enough to dry everything. She turned to the woman at the counter—

Everyone turned into a gorilla.

Chloe checked her arm—not hairy.

So everyone had turned into a gorilla except Chloe.

And they didn't notice. The woman (woman-gorilla) at the counter was still flipping through her tabloid.

Chloe looked around. One of the gorillas noticed her and the eyes started to widen—

And then the change flickered off. Everyone was human. The woman rubbed her eyes and went back to chatting with her friend.

And except for Chloe, no one seemed to notice.

This was something beyond her ken: either insanity or a plot. She stepped outside to a private place to make two calls. The first was to Dr. Jessop, her government psychologist. (Killing was hard for Chloe, even though it was her job.) Chloe felt out Dr. Jessop to find out if she—Chloe—was due for hallucinations.

“I think we'd better see you this afternoon. I can stay late tonight.” Dr. Jessop had a warm voice, like honey, and Chloe agreed. After that call, she tapped the phone against her thigh. Then she called her agency handler.

“Go head.” His voice was scratchy and high.

“Everyone just turned into a gorilla,” she said, without preamble. “I already called Dr. Jessop. So if I'm not crazy?”

“I didn't notice anything,” he said.

“No one did.”

He paused a moment and then gave her a name—Dr. Timothy Coop—and an address. “He does all that Kirbytech stuff for the university. He has clearance. You can talk to him.”

Chloe went to the counter. “I'm sorry, but I have to get my kid from the sitter,” she lied. “He's throwing up. My basket's right there. If someone needs the machine, I don't mind if they put the clothes in the basket.” The woman waved her hand without looking up from her tabloid.

She looked better as a gorilla, Chloe thought.

Thus endeth the threat stage. Though I introduced a couple of people the big thing the problem. So points are not as important in this stage, I think.

Haemophile			Ape X
STA	DP	Notes	STA	Notes
10	3	None	13	None

Stage 2. Investigation

Dr. Coop's office was cluttered, decorated with tall piles of books and printouts, and a few dusty pictures of the family. Dr. Coop was sitting at his desk between two pillars of paper and putting away a small flask.

I'm just randomly associating things with characters so that they have motivations to be involved later, if I need them.

Chloe introduced herself, using the cover name that the agency had given her. “What do you know about gorillas?”

He looked straight in her eyes. She could smell the booze. “Nothing,” he said slowly. “Biology was my wife's area.”

“Because earlier today, I saw everyone change into a gorilla.”

His shoulders sagged. “Thank god. I thought I was the only one. You're a mutant, right?”

“No, of course not,” she lied reflexively. “Why would you think that?” Chloe had known she was a mutant since she turned invisible at thirteen. The claws and the poisonous venom had only reinforced that.

“You must be latent. That's okay.” He looked behind her. “Shut the door.” She did. “I'm a mutant,” he told her. “It's a knack for technology. Put something in front of me, and let me touch it, and sooner or later I'll understand it.” He smiled tightly. “Makes me good at my field. But I was teaching a bunch of first-years today, and they all turned into gorillas.”

“So I'm not crazy.”

“Moreau ray. Obscure, but used by a villain in the early 1960s. His only affected one individual, though, and required a tremendous energy input. He stored lightning in capacitors— I digress. You haven't manifested your power?”

“I have...claws,” she admitted. The claws were itching to come out. Side effect of feeling threatened. She slid them out, and then back. Her claws looked small, no longer than the last knuckles of her fingers.

“That's not a lot.” She shrugged. “Okay. Where were you when it happened?”

“South side.”

“Then it looks like it affected at least the city, perhaps more.”

Chloe nodded and pulled out her phone again. “Can you cancel my appointment with Dr. Jessop? I'm not crazy. It looks like at least this city turned into gorillas. Check farther afield.” She put her phone down. “If the area is big enough, it's not my problem.”

“That seems rather un-hero-like.”

Chloe snorted. “Trust me, I am not a superhero.”

A light started to flash. “It's the vault,” said Dr. Coop. “I store high tech items for study, and someone's breaking into it.”

“The police—?”

“They'll be too late. Come on!”

# # #

They ran to the vault—and found a huge gorilla tearing the door from its hinges.

-I'll find it easier to look at the contents without that door,- rumbled the gorilla. They “heard” him but his lips didn't move. He glanced at both of them, and they froze, as if a force had paralyzed their bodies.

Mind Control 7 vs Willpower 5. Major success, so she's controlled for 7 pages. It's a massive success against Dr. Coop.

He left the vault with something the size of a shoebox that had a blue gem fastened on top.

-I can't risk you breaking the power source. You'll stay like that for an hour. That should be enough time.- He looked them up and down. -Interesting. You remember everyone else changing. Well. We'll have to hunt you down once I'm done.-

Chloe is going to use a Quality to try and remove the Controlled condition he has put on her. She'll use her urge to be normal, and it costs a Determination point. Fails. She'll recover in a minute, but he'll get away.

About a minute after he left, Chloe tumbled to the floor. She helped Dr. Coop and then phoned her handler again.

“No, really,” she said. “Now I have the need to know. Tell me everything in your files about the telepathic gorilla.”

# # #

They were sitting in Dr. Coop's office. She had made tea for both of them, and she pressed against the sides of her mug to keep her hands from shaking. “They claim they don't know where he came from, but he represents a troop of hyperintelligent simians.” She saw his hand tremble as he reached for his tea. “You feeling better?”

Dr. Coop grimaced. “It's still an effort to move anything. Thank you for the tea.”

She shrugged. “We were paralyzed by a telepathic gorilla. A cup of tea can't hurt. Hell, I'd drink if there were booze handy.”

Dr. Coop reached into his desk and held out the silver flask. She waved it away.

“I think I have to be alert. What was the box thing he took?”

“I don't know yet. It came out of a crashed spaceship during the Kootlismik invasion. He, the ape, implied that it was a power source, and that's probably correct—I just haven't got to it yet because I have other things with more urgent deadlines.”

“It takes you time? I thought you just, you know, understood things.”

“I always check. I'm afraid that I'll interpret my understanding wrong because I lack the background. A radio is a radio, but if you don't know about radio waves, it's a murder weapon: you drop it in the bathtub with someone and it kills them.”

Chloe nodded. “But you think this thing is a power source?”

Dr. Coop said, “I think he burned out his previous power source. Check for standard power sources. See if any of them went dead.” Chloe just looked at him. “Can't you—?”

“I barely graduated high school,” she lied again. She had never graduated high school, and a GED wasn't really useful for an assassin.

“Right.” He sat down at his computer. “My theory is that he's using some variant of the Moreau ray. Mutants like me—like us—aren't affected because the Moreau ray affects a specific allele, a marker. His ray triggers certain biological changes. Our allele is different...that's why it's a marker.”

“He's making everyone into mutant apes?”

“Sort of.” He scanned the results on his computer. “He tapped into the power mains for the army base.”

“How much more powerful is the thing he took?”

“Assuming it is a power source?”

“He thinks it is.”

“Granted. The weapon it came from vaporized the entire hull of a tank in less than a second.” He scribbled for a second. “Assuming that it does the same number of kilojoules with the same losses for efficiency... I think he could make the change permanent for the seaboard. Possibly the nation.”

She chewed her lip. “Man, we definitely need real superheroes here.”

“Mine is not really a fighting power.”

“Mine is only a fighting power.” Claws flickered out of her fingertips and then she withdrew them. “I hate it.” She sighed. “Where is he now?”

“Who knows? Now he's freed from the need to tap into the power grid.”

“But his lab had to be hooked up originally. The machine, the ray generator, is there. He's smart but he's not super fast.”

“Mechanical lab space, not necessarily official lab space, where he can hook into the army base generators.” Coop got a fadeaway look.

“That's going to be in or near the army base. They won't have lain cable outside the base.”

“Then he's in the vehicle maintenance building or in the underground lab.”

“The underground lab?”

“They have an underground lab. My wife—my ex-wife. She worked there.”

“Of course they have an underground lab.” She rolled her eyes. “It's that simple? Surely someone else has noticed this.”

“Well, you have to have clearance and know about the underground lab.” He printed off a map. “I don't know where the entrance is—I was blindfolded the only time I went there.”

“Super.” She looked at the map. “You're sure no other superheroes have responded to this?”

“They would come to ask me—I am the expert on rays that turn people into gorillas.”

“I guess.” She sighed. “I guess I'm going to an army base.”

# # #

Stage 3: Challenge

It was so easy to get into the army base while invisible that she wondered why they didn't have protection against invisible assassins. Really, she couldn't be the only one.

The blow was entirely unexpected and sent her sprawling along the ground.

Whoops. We suddenly need another character. Fortunately, generating a character in Icons is pretty fast. Let's roll some dice. I'm already assuming that this is whatever the military does to protect against superfolk, so it's a Trained or Gimmick origin, and if Super-Senses doesn't show up, it'll have to be an extra.

Name		APHID: Armor for Parahuman Intrusion and Detection (Gimmick)
PRW	CRD	STR	INT	AWR	WIL	STA
3	4	5	3	4	3	10
Specialties		Military (+1), Weapons (Guns) (+1)
Powers		Exoskeleton: Fair (4) Damage Reduction Glue Gun: Good (5) Binding Taser-light: Average (3) Stunning Sense Array: Average (3) Super-senses (IR vision, Radar sense, Telescopic vision)
Qualities		Military hierarchy Just a guy in a suit Minion (or something else if we need an individual, but we'll start with minion)

Chloe rolled out of the blow, her claws already out. She heard, “Infiltrator, female, invisible to normal sight. Trying plan 51 for guards.” She didn't actually want to know what plan 51 was. She could feel the claws unsheathe.

She spun, staying on the concrete of the side walk. The man wore a light patchwork of armor, a helmet, goggles, and a bulky backpack with a hose that led to a three-barrelled gun. His pistol looked high-tech,too.

The venom trickled from her fingertips.

Haemophile			APHID
STA	DP	Notes	STA	Notes
5	3	None	10	None

Her invisibility had been her only defense, and they saw through it. Now there was nothing left but to go on the offense.

She unsheathed her claws and attacked, aiming for a weak spot in the kevlar coverings.

Seven vs six, so she hits with a moderate hit. Still, it's 6 damage vs his Damage Resistance of 4, and the possibility of Affliction besides. The Affliction doesn't need a roll to hit (it's a secondary effect of the slash), so we test Affliction 7 vs Strength 5. (We could make an argument for Strength 3, but we're just going to go with the easy numbers.) That's a success, 10 vs 8. He loses 7 Stamina.

Haemophile			APHID
STA	DP	Notes	STA	Notes
5	3	None	3	None

He backed away and pulled the trigger on his odd gun. Some kind of gooey fluid gushed out and caught Chloe squarely in the chest. It quickly foamed up and swelled fast, immobilizing her.

But next phase he fails the Affliction test again (6 vs 11), so he falls over unconscious. He will die (good thing help is coming). She has no problem getting her claws into the foam (material hardness 5) but it will take her several panels to cut free.

A question for Mythic: Are there more APHID suits active (yes)? No, so the suits are expensive: they have one per shift per base. I presume they can scramble the other two, but it will take a few minutes.

She became invisible again as she cut herself free. At a glance, it would look like she had freed herself and knocked him out.

Then he shuddered and his chest heaved. She knew he was dying, but she was only free from the waist up. She rocked herself until she fell over, and called into his radio. She hoped it was transmitting. “He's down. Need medical care--full tox kit.” She didn't want an innocent life on her conscience.

She didn't quite have her legs free when the first guards showed up. They quickly formed a circle around the fallen figure, trapping her.

Almost as if they had been trained.

Okay, the military does have ways to deal with invisible assassins.

# # #

Chloe had a couple of thoughts as they led her into one of the buildings. She was handcuffed and surrounded.

She's used a Determination point to recover, so she has only 2 Determination but full Stamina. The Guards are Soldiers from the Icons main rulebook, with the specialties Military and Weapons (Guns): they have a Prowess of 4, a Stamina of 7, and a Strength of 4. If she attacks, I'm going to put her Prowess one lower if she tries to use her claws.

What was with the handcuffs? Didn't they know that all the trendy Hollywood types dictated zip ties now? She knew how to break zip ties. She couldn't break handcuffs. And while she had picked handcuffs once during training, she needed a paperclip or lockpicks, and she'd left the lockpicks back at her apartment.

In her own defence, she had been doing laundry.

And where was the secret lab? How did you get to it? They hadn't conveniently put signs up saying “This Way To Underground Lab.” If she were doing it, she'd put the entrance by the washrooms, so everyone had an excuse for being there. Maybe in the mess hall…everyone went to the mess hall.

Well, she was not going to the mess hall. She was going to the stockade, or the brig, or whatever the Army called it. The soldiers led her into an elevator and three guards squeezed in with her. All of them were wearing night vision goggles presumably so they could see her.

They had guns, but it was a closed space. They couldn't fire. Really, there wasn't going to be a better time. She swivelled at the hips to plant a knee in one gut. Before they could react, she kicked out at another.

She burns another Determination point to get an Advantage that lets her put Burst on her Strike attack, because she's going to attack all three in a flurry of  movement. She hits all three (10 to 5, 10 to 7, and 10 to 6). In terms of slams and stuns, the first is stunned and knocked to zero Stamina, the second and third each get slammed to the floor, and lose 5 Stamina. Since they only have 7, this is bad. (I could do this with them as minions, but I choose not to.)

One was unconscious, and the other two guards were down. They stayed on the floor. Both MPs stay on the ground. They try to grab her ankles to reduce her mobility; both manage marginal successes, so she doesn't get to hit them but she doesn't go down, either.

That sounds like wrestling, and no effect on a marginal success (10:10 and 6:6) She still had the burst stunt up, so they are done in a quick stomp.

As the elevator slowed, she grabbed the handcuff key and freed herself. By the time the door opened, she was invisible. She looked out at the office—or offices, because there were glass windows in the walls. In direct view was a gorilla working at a lab bench. Incongruously, the gorilla wore a lab coat and protective goggles.

Holy crap, she thought. That James Bond stuff about being captured so they'll take you to the boss works. I should have tried it on purpose.

Step 4. Comeback

The gorilla—it had to be the same one as at the university, even though she couldn't distinguish gorillas; you generally meet only one gorilla a day—looked up.

The windows were a clever touch, she thought. He could see you to read your mind, but you couldn't touch him. But, while she was invisible, he couldn't read her mind. She saw the gorilla reach forward to a stud on the wall.

“I've unlocked the doors,” came a man's voice over the loudspeakers, dead of emotion. “Come and get me.” She could see a man near the gorilla mouthing the words. So he used his...minions? Thralls? ...to talk if he could send telepathic messages. The solders and technicians in the room with the gorilla kept working, but the others stayed motionless.

Not for the first time, she wished she could walk through walls.

She got out of the line of sight, grabbed a carbine from a frozen soldier, and fired at the window. The shot was deafening in the room. A filing cabinet behind her in the opposite side of the corridor suddenly dimpled as the bullet entered it. She looked at the window.

A pattern of cracks radiated out, like a starburst, but nothing broke.

“Bulletproof glass,” came the voice over the loudspeaker. “Would you like to come here? Because I'm not going there.”

Great, Chloe thought. She looked around for a shield. The desk wouldn't fit easily inside— Ride one of the wheeled chairs? Ah.

She came up behind a soldier and grabbed him at the belt, holding him in front of her. Sorry about the wedgie, fella. With him as a shield, she moved through the first door.

Once the door had closed behind them, the soldier suddenly moved, drawing his weapon and firing behind himself. He narrowly missed her, but the sudden noise made her drop him.

“See?” came the voice. “They don't want to pass up the improvement that is a simian existence.”

Two punches later the soldier was unconscious, and she quickly stepped away so the gorilla couldn't figure out where she was.

Sorry, guy. Won't do that again, she thought. She didn't risk saying it out loud.

She didn't have to use a shield, she realized: all she had to do was prop open the door. She wriggled along the floor to minimize him seeing her. Dimly she heard the sound of breaking glass, but didn't get up to look. This new room had two doors and some lockers. One door led to a bathroom; the other to a decontamination chamber.

“I'm almost done. Once I flip the switch, you can turn invisible, but you won't be able to hide your hairless self.”

How were people decontaminated? A shower? There were nozzles in the walls and ceiling. She crawled into the decontamination chamber. The gorilla lumbered to the window to look at the room.

The far door didn't open. The voice came over the speaker.

“A safety measure. You can only open one door after the other door is shut. Shall I get that for you?” The open door closed by itself. There were multiple clicks and a hum of electronics.

A fine mist poured out of the nozzles.

“Decontamination,” came the dead voice. “Makes you visible.”

Haemophile			Ape X
STA	DP	Notes	STA	Notes
10	2	Revealed in outline; Decontamination takes three panels (1)	13	None

-Now I can talk to you directly,- came the voice in her head. -You've done quite well, for a hairless one.-

Chloe hammered at the door handle. It didn't budge.

-What's the worst pain you can remember?- She tried not to remember, but she did: third mission, beaten by terrorists. They had broken her arms and legs, and beaten every inch of her—

Haemophile			Ape X
STA	DP	Notes	STA	Notes
3	2	Revealed in outline; Decontamination takes three panels (2)	13	None

It's just my imagination!

She spends a Determination point/Advantage to Recover; she gets 5 Stamina back. And because Ape X stunted the Mental Blast, she gets a Determination point for that. (She doesn't get one again during this fight; the Mental Blast stays stunted until the end of the scene or the fight, whichever comes first.)

Haemophile			Ape X
STA	DP	Notes	STA	Notes
8	2	Revealed in outline; Decontamination takes three panels (2)	13	None

We wash, lather, and repeat for the next panel: she loses 7 from his Mental Blast, gets 5 back by using an Advantage, and then she's in, and invisible.

Haemophile			Ape X
STA	DP	Notes	STA	Notes
6	1	Revealed in outline Decontamination takes three panels (3)	13	None

She yanked the door open and rolled into the room, the decontamination mist billowing around her and then fading. There was glass on the room floor, in front of every human but Chloe. She didn't have time to think about it; the huge fists of the ape came down where she had been just a moment before.

“I can still find you physically by smell,” came the dead voice of the man, echoed over the loudspeakers in other rooms.

Haemophile			Ape X
STA	DP	Notes	STA	Notes
6	1	Invisible Smells like disinfectant	13	None

I'm going to give her a +1 (instead of 2) to her Prowess for being partly invisible, plus the 1 for Martial Arts. So he got a 9, she got a 10. He missed her. When she strikes back, it's just even: a 10 vs a 10. That's marginal, so half damage and I'm going to claim that the side effect (venom) doesn't happen. Three points of stamina.

Haemophile			Ape X
STA	DP	Notes	STA	Notes
6	1	Invisible Smells like disinfectant	10	None

The gorilla gasped. “Ready!” said the man. Every human in the room but Chloe raised a shard of glass, pressed it against his wrist.

Chloe noticed they were going to slice across, as she had done—but she couldn't help thinking about the more effective way to do it.

I will not think of that again. I will not think of that again.

“I will kill every human in this room, unless you reveal yourself to me.” said the loudspeaker.

She burns her last Determination point to recover, for full Stamina.

Chloe looked at them and signed audibly. She placed herself in front of Ape X and flickered into sight, vulnerable to the gorilla's fists.

In fact, this is a tactic: she's making herself vulnerable so that she has an Advantage to use.

Haemophile			Ape X
STA	DP	Notes	STA	Notes
10	0	Smells like disinfectant has 1 Advantage Trouble: open to a hit	10	None

He smiled in his simian way and brought his arm across her face, snapping her sideways...while Chloe jammed her claws into his belly and let the force of his blow drag her claws through his flesh.

She had an effort of 9 (Prowess+Martial Arts+3 on the die), he got a 6 (Prowess+die). She hit him and used her Advantage for +1 in the power, so that's 7 Stamina. He totally succeeded on the Affliction roll, though.

Haemophile			Ape X
STA	DP	Notes	STA	Notes
10	0	Smells like disinfectant	3	None

“Then they'll die!” said the man, his voice cracking with emotion for the first time. Every human but Chloe slashed across their wrists. “You killed them, hero.”

“I am not a hero,” said Chloe, and slashed the gorilla's throat.

A marginal success, but that's enough: the gorilla falls down, unconscious. He wasn't bothered by her venom this time either.

The gorilla fell, bleeding.

The MPs found her kneeling and weeping beside the one soldier she had been too late to save, holding his bloody hand.

She kept her appointment with Dr. Jessop.

Sample of play (ICONS, pt II)

SYSTEM: ICONS

When last we left off, it was with an origin. The second scene is later, once they have their powers. In ICONS, where they were originally rolled, they look like this:

Midden (formerly Dr. Ivey)			Little John (John Seward)
5		Prowess	5
6		Coordination	6
5		Strength	4/7
6		Intellect	3
3		Awareness	6
4		Willpower	4
9		Stamina	8/11
2		Determination	*
Weapons (Guns)		Specialties	Science (Master)
Plant Control	6	Powers	Growth Extra: Phasing Limit: Only when grown	7
Life Support (eat, sleep, pressure, radiation)	4
ESP Limit: Medium (plants)	6
Teleportation Limit: Medium (Plants)	7
The right thing to do is the hard thing to do Mute plant-mound monster Smart about science, dumb about people		Qualities	Career criminal Telepathic link to talk to Midden, under Seward's control Pulls wings off flies, too

For our purposes, Seward has already discovered he can "talk" to Ivey, who cannot talk out loud.

Narrative	Mechanics
Because of their close nature, Seward knew that Midden can teleport, but that he required plants, so he carefully put Ginger on top of a nearby building. Seward refuse to tell Ginger that her fiancé was still alive, because it tortured him more.	Mythic: Is it a residential house? Chaos 5, critically no. Call it a mall near the correctional institute, two stories tall.
Put her down! Midden commanded.	Midden: Determination 2, Stamina 9
If you insist. She has a fifty percent chance of surviving a fall from this height, but if you`re willing to take the risk… replied Seward, still in his giant form.	Little John: Stamina 11
Put her down safely! Oh, safely. Well, why didn't you say so? Seward pounded a hole in the pavement and placed Ginger in the pit.	I say the asphalt is Material 6 for this sort of thing; Strength 7 (+6) vs the ground, which I'm going to say is Strength 6 (+1) Effect 6. He does. There's a nice giant fist-sized pit.
The pit was too deep for Ginger to climb out, even with the rubble at the bottom. The walls were earth and gravel. Seward pulled out his massive hand and laughed. "What power!" he said. "And you can't stop me." Ginger didn't know if he was talking to her or the police; his mumbling through the trip here showed that he was not particularly sane. She huddled out of his sight. Lying there amidst the smells of earth and asphalt, she heard the hissing. Her first thought, insanely, was Snakes. But no; the giant man—Seward—had broken pipes that ran beneath the surface of the road. With luck, she thought, one of them was pumping out water: then she could swim up to the lip as it filled. She searched for the source of the hissing noise. Not water: gas. Gas would fill the hole and she would be unable to breathe. She would suffocate in the hole. She was about to yell when she realized that she didn't want to fill her lungs with this mixture of gas and air. Breathing shallowly, she looked frantically for a different way out. There was a root jutting out, at about waist height. It was crusted with dirt but looked maybe two fingers wide. With luck, she could get her foot on it— It snapped. It was too small to bear her weight.
Ginger was safe. Ivey turned his attention to Seward. Maybe I can't stop you. But I can slow you down. Plants grew wild and swiftly over Seward's feet and legs.	Midden tries to grab Little John with his Plant Control power. To hit is Willpower against Coordination (5+4 vs 6+2). It hits, but it’s only a moderate success. Little John is now -2 to actions (as Wrestling). Midden: 2 Determination Points.
Little John, however, was willing to struggle against the plants.	All he needs is a moderate success to escape this partial hold. Str 7+1 vs Binding/plant control 6+1. Moderate success, so he's free. (He could have shrunk down and escaped that way, but he was relishing the power.)
He pulled and tugged and broke the plants, with the scent of sap released as he tore free. He grinned. Idiot, thought Ivey to himself. Of course he's strong. What if we fight big with big? He teleported to the tree near Little John, but instead of coming out of the tree, he became the tree.	Midden stunts growth off his plant control, using a DP and his Smart about Science aspect. He's now 24 feet tall and nearly as strong as Seward (strength 6 instead of 7).
Seward launched a fierce attack. Midden's plant-like nature diffused most of the blows but the cumulative result was that, for the first time, Midden hurt. His new body could be damaged—	Seward gets to act. He punches Midden: Prowesses and relative sizes are even; Growth grants its level in damage resistance, so Midden has resistance 6. It’s a marginal success, which is half damage, but Midden’s damage resistance soaks that up.
Midden swung and missed, surprised by pain. Seward roared with laughter and attacked again, but Midden was prepared this time, and none of the punches landed.	Bad rolls.
Meanwhile, in the pit, Ginger was surrounded by the stench of gas. Gas is odorless, she thought inanely. They add mercaptans for the smell, and the pit stank. She dimly realized this: You scream or you die. She screamed. She didn't know if each breath she took was air or gas. Had she waited too late? Unconsciousness blanketed her. Midden heard the screams and turned. Seward kicked him hard.	For abandoning the fight to go save his fiancé, Midden gets a Determination Point. Seward hits, and manages a moderate success, so Midden takes 1 Stamina. Midden: Stamina 8, Determination 2
Midden reached for Ginger—but she was unconscious, huddled on the floor of the pit, and his large leafy body was too clumsy to pick her up. He feared all he was doing was pushing her into the ground. Seward took the opportunity to kick him again.	Seward would miss if Midden were paying attention to him. Midden: Stamina 7, Determination 2.
Midden teleported out of the giant body and to the bottom of the pit. He gently picked up Ginger and made his arms grow to gently lift her out of the hole.	Now Midden tries a maneuver, using his Science specialty to think about what plants need to grow, and succeeds spectacularly. He stunts stretching, growing his own plant body.
Seward chuckled like boulders colliding and picked her up again. So long as he carried her, Midden would follow. Seward began to walk away.	Ivey gets a Determination Point for going with his scientist/man nature.
No! He was no further than he had been at the start of this fight: Seward had Ginger and was walking away. Because you're fighting him like a superhero. Fight him like a scientist. Of course. First he had to get Ginger away from him. He remembered the intangibility trick that Seward had pulled back at the apartment complex. All he had to do was attack— Ah. Like that.	That's another maneuver, using his Smart about Science aspect; only a moderate success, so he can't use the Advantage until next page.
He skipped after Seward, teleporting plant to plant, going blocks at a time, pushing himself farther than he had known he could travel. Finally he was ahead of Seward, as Seward was about to pass a tree that was an easy fifty feet tall. Midden appeared in it, and dropped onto Seward. That's your big plan? asked Seward, as he turned intangible. I beat that before. Ginger fell through his intangible hand.	The Advantage is letting him do a Teleport and a catch (next bit).
Midden had been waiting for this: he teleported beneath her—and caught her.	This is a teleport and a catch, so it's difficulty 3+1 for the catch, and Ivey's going to burn a determination point for a +2. (He can, because it's not like he gets a second chance.) This is a Coordination roll. He rolls a +5, for a total effect of 6, a massive success. (It turns out he doesn't need the extra effort, but the Determination Point is still gone.)
Seward tried to stomp them but there was a mass of plants there and he couldn't quite reach them.	Mechanically, Seward just missed, but Midden's reaction roll was high enough that I wanted something to be justified by it.
Ivey set Ginger down and finished weaving the hut of trees and grasses over her.	This is a straightforward use of plant control. The hut has a hole so she can get out, by the way.
Seward, frustrated, kicked at Midden again, but the plants were still in the way.	Seward missed his roll.
Now Ivey looked at Seward and reached out to touch the man’s foot.	Ivey uses tactics: he’s accepting a -2 to being hit for this Advantage, and uses it to stunt Affliction.
A pain stabbed Seward's gut. It grew like a fire, a ball of bright anguish in his stomach.	Seward fails the strength roll. Seward loses 6 Stamina; he's got 5 left.
Seward tried to crush Midden, but the pain was too great—he toppled over when he lifted his foot. Midden watched. No emotion was evident on his monstrous face.	Actually, he just missed, but by enough that I'll grant the falling over.
What--? asked Seward. Your gut fauna. I made them grow. Your body needs to be in balance. There were sirens in the distance. He waved his hand and the hut crumbled away. Ginger would be safe, now. Ivey—now Midden—left.	Seward fails the Strength roll versus the Affliction again, bringing him to -1.

Sample of play (ICONS)

SYSTEM: ICONS

From time to time (okay, twice before) I use the Mythic GME to try out a system for superheroes. My baseline is ICONS so here is how the two little fights/scenes went in ICONS Assembled.

The two scenes involve two characters fighting as normals, and then a second fight after they've had their transformations into supers.

The Origin

The characters are Dr. Alexander Ivey, an unphysical brainiac with a too-lovely-by-half fiancee and a need to do the right thing, and John Seward, a career criminal who has escaped custody by killing his guards, and is trying to hide in the experimental tau reactor on campus:

Dr. Alexander Ivey		John Seward
2	Prowess	3
3	Coordination	3
3	Strength	4
6	Intellect	3
3	Awareness	4
4	Willpower	4
7	Stamina	8
*	Determination	*
Science (Master)	Specialties	Weapons: Guns
	Equipment	Fire axe (Slashing 5, Extra: Bashing 4)
The right thing to do is the hard thing Smart about science, dumb about people	Qualities	Career criminal planner Claustrophobia Sadistic, and pulls wings off flies, too

Narrative	Mechanics
Dr. Alexander Ivey checked the pulse of the correctional officer. Dead, like the other one. The crash alone wouldn't have done it, so presumably they had one or two prisoners for transfer. Poor men. First, why they were here in the first place? Prisoner transfers shouldn't even go by the campus. But Carstairs Avenue was torn up. That’s why. He should wait for the police, but time was of the essence. Where would one man go? The campus was barely populated, this being between semesters. An engineering building, of course—they were in the engineering section—but which one? He peered through his glasses. The little penlight was fine for finding the right key but for spotting a blood trail, because surely the van crash had injured him... There! He followed the spatters without stepping in them—he was mindful of the evidence—until they went through the gate of the safety fence around the experimental reactor. Damn. He texted his fiancé. Ginger would make sure the police came. He should let the police handle it, but he had seen the reactor. Sort of his child, since his math had led to it, and then Simon Rickover had started on the engineering problems. Simon had shown them the current experimental prototype: it was a suitcase-sized thing, all jury-rigged parts. He said it might be self-sustaining. It was small: assuming it really used tau radiation and given the size, the blast might be as large as the whole city, but given that it couldn't even be self-sustaining yet, maybe only the building. Certainly that's what Simon had told the administration. That's why the building had a safety fence around it: as a precaution. A precaution with a cheap padlock. The building had belonged to biology before engineering grew; Ivey didn't know it well, but he knew where the reactor was. He dared not turn on the lights. The beam from the penlight was almost no help, but it showed that the big staircase was clear. Maybe even dusty. He would go to the reactor and, if the prisoner appeared, shut it down. Simon had showed him where the controls were. That would be the safest course for everyone. The need for silence slowed him.	I've treated them as NPCs for the origin, for two reasons: With a proper use of Determination, this fight could go on for a long time, and I don't want that. Come on, I'm doing this solo. Really, they're all NPCs.
Ivey arrived at the reactor—the old greenhouse—just to see someone's foot disappear inside the building.	He just gets it because there's no story otherwise.
All secrecy gone: Ivey ran and threw open the door—	Does Ivey notice? Awareness 3+2 vs Stealth 4+6, No.
The room seemed empty. But he had sworn—	Seward attacks by surprise; Seward is Prowess 3+2, Ivey is 2+1, Seward hits Ivey for 5 Stamina, so he has 1 left. (Seward’s using the fire axe.)
Ivey saw the blow in time to move so the fire axe missed his head but it met his shoulder and the world dimmed for a moment. He heard something crack and feared it was his clavicle—he tried to punch, the way they'd shown him in that one karate class Ginger had dragged him to, but it hurt to move his arm. Another swing and the guy would hit. He could smell the stink of the man's sweat, and the fresh-copper scent of blood. He wrapped his arm against the other man, trying to stay inside the axe's range.	Prowess 2+6 against Prowess 3+5, total Effect of 0. Marginal success. Seward uses his turn to break free (strength vs. strength: 4+6 vs. 3+1. Seward’s free, and because it was a massive success can act again. He swings the fire axe. Seward misses and hits the console.
Ivey charged him, trying to get inside the swing of the fire axe. They slammed against the console. Seward twisted free, and, panting, Seward brought down the axe. Ivey twisted, rolled away, and the axe bit into the console behind his head. Ivey twisted away: pain shot through his shoulder, and blackness ate the edge of his vision. He gasped and staggered upright.	Ivey rushes him, getting a generous +2 because Seward is trying to pull the axe from the console. His attack is 2+5 and Seward’s defense is 3+4, for a marginal hit, so Seward takes a point of stamina but rolls away easily. Ivey takes half of one point, which is none. Seward swings and misses: 3+1 versus 2+6. That’s such an awful miss, I’m going to say the axe got stuck.
When he could see again, Seward was struggling with the axe, yanking to get it out of the console. Sparks flew. Ivey glanced at the screens—the temperature was too high; the tau reactor would blow soon. Ivey tried to warn him, but nothing came out of his mouth when he tried to talk. He was already out of breath. He might be able to knock Seward out, pull him free: no, he didn't have the strength in his arms. The only thing that might move him was the charge.	A failure on Seward’s Strength roll. He’ll have to use his fists.
Ivey lowered his head and charged again, but Seward was ready. Ivey trusted to his speed, though he wobbled as he ran. He missed. Seward tripped him as he went by; he was unconscious as he hit the ground. His last thought was of Ginger: an apology for failing her. Seward grinned. Now he could swap clothes with the goniff and get rid of the prison uniform—	Ivey misses. As he’s sailing by, Seward hits him for a Moderate success. Ivey can’t handle the blow; he’s unconscious.
The reactor exploded.

Well, this has gotten quite long. I'll do the second, super battle tomorrow. I assume I have done something wrong, somewhere, so feel free to let me know about it.