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.

Mutants & Masterminds Character Sheets

M&M

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.

Conversions from Mutants and Masterminds: Princess and Rook

Icons

I was going to do extensive versions of the various Mutants & Masterminds characters and never finished the first two. Well, now I've finished Princess and Rook and there's no reason why people shouldn't have them...but I shan't be doing any organized conversion.

• Princess
• Rook

An experiment with a TiddlyWiki

Icons, M&M

As an experiment, I have started putting the Strange City background in a TiddlyWiki, at: http://jhmcmullen.tiddlyspot.com/. Feel free to look at it there, although you can't get it in a neat package.

I want to use the setting for something on-going (The Flea Family), and the PDF article just got outdated too quickly as I added things. So I'm trying this.

If that's not the correct address, it might be http://jhmcmullen.tiddlyspot.com/index.html.

TiddlySpot is not up-to-date with the latest version of TiddlyWiki, nor is it secure, but it should be adequate for a small personal wiki.

If you can't see it, or if there's a problem, let me know so that I can try to fix it or go looking for a different answer.

EDIT: Alas, the tiddlyspot.com site suffered a catastrophic failure. At this point, one cannot update any information there, so that has paused. It might disappear; these things depend of the vagaries of the software gods.

Doctor Why: Term Paper (Mutants and Masterminds Hero High)

M&M

0. Setup
1. Orientation
2. Pop-Quiz
3. Midterm
4. Term Paper
5. Final

This is a set of very hasty notes. James' tablet died shortly into the session so he won't be posting anything; I'd rather spend my time making sure that everything's in place for the last session, but here's more or less what went down.

Characters

• Geodesic (Dana Mehr)
• Bruiser (Matthew Beady)
• Tech-Head (Clark Wayne)

Alex's player was away.

This session

Nothing had been destroyed for several weeks. Because term papers are due at the same time as the final exam, the two classes before the final are essentially research and q&a sessions, where students can quiz Dr. Why or use the library.

Before the last class before the final, Geodesic gets another visit from Beech and Hunter. Beech gets to the point. "I'm not going to ask if you have possession of one of the coins of Eris because I don't want you to have to lie to me. And, in fact, I'm going to violate several parts of official secrets policy because you're not old enough to swear an oath of secrecy.

"We think he's amassing the coins. The coins are not a product of Eris, they are Eris. And when you get enough coins together—and we don't know what that critical mass is—they fuse and re-create Eris."

Geodesic is cool and in the "interesting if true" camp.

Beech goes on. "The problem is that the coins are a power source. The Pandora technology can convert magical energy into other energy, usually electrical. One coin, split into eight pieces, powers all of the suits of the Power Corps. A pair of coins of Eris powers Mimicon."

Mimicon is the evolution of Replay: the crazed android bent on taking over the world. (It turns out that the robot does not want to destroy all life, but only destroy all non-normal life, and its view of normality excludes all superhumans, disabled people, and aliens...and a number of regular old humans. People with glasses, for instance.)

The reason that Beech is willing to violate the official secrets act is that Mimicon has copied a duplicator. It can reproduce itself, which means it reproduces the coins of Eris.

Which means that critical mass might not be far away.

Geodesic assures them that the coins are safe and not with him.

They give the same information to Tech-Head (in a coffee shop rather than Tech-Head's home).

Tech-Head examines the power source more closely when he gets home and looks at the results of his last scans. It does in fact contain two coins, embedded in something that keeps them a specific distance apart. Apparently the power generation happens in the dielectric space between the coins.

He resolves to wrap the power source in the finest aluminum foil, pop it in a styrofoam cooler, and take it to Geodesic to have it stored away.

In the meantime, Matthew Brady is served. Apparently there is some suspicion that Doctor Why is in the pockets of Big Reconstruction, causing all this damage so that it can be rebuilt. With the construction company's lawyer present, he is supposed to give information to the lawyers Alkahest and Azoth, an old boutique law firm based in Toronto.

The player characters met at class and moved to the library, where there are coves and crannies they can use unobtrusively. They get caught up on each other's lives. When Bruiser mentions the names of the lawyers to Geodesic, Geodesic is immediately concerned: both are terms for the universal solvent desired by alchemists. Tech-Head's answer is to claim that it's Nicholas Flamel screwing around again.

The characters are making good headway on their term paper (a design for a temporary containment system for supervillains, to be used in police stations) when there is the kind of hubbub that involves screaming and people rushing for the exits.

The known supervillain Mastermind has floated into the library. He homed in on the players and wanted two things:

• First, the kids should give him the coins of Eris. (Cue Geodesic heading out to dispose of a certain foil-lined styrofoam container.) Bruiser tries to run interference. It's a good thing that Bruiser is tough because he gets thrown aside at least ones. Poor Geodesic has to do some dancing to get around the lieutenant that Mastermind placed just outside the fire exit, Keres.
• Second, Tech-Head should give the suit back to its intended recipient, Clark Wayne.

Once Tech-Head claims the suit is with its intended recipient, Mastermind is willing to let them go. He'll deal with the coins while they take care of the army of Mimicons descending on the classroom. (The GM might have said “Luke, I am your father.” at one point but that should not be taken as canon.

And in fact, on the way to a sekrit hiding spot on a Thousand Islands,, Geodesic sees four Officer Kit Lawsons out in the parking lot, heading for the classroom.

Tech-Head gets into the classroom first. The "real" Kit Lawson drops his disguise; he's a Mimicon, from the earlier incarnation of the robot. The Mimicon robots have a slight problem with maintaining stable programming, and, well, this one is the duplicate who didn't want to study war no more nor go back and re-joing the collective. So he became a cop who only works PR stuff. Like visiting classrooms. After the Replay thing, he figured everything would be fine, but now the others have come for him.

Dr. Why is still trussed and bound at the front of the room.

Bruiser gets there just before them and blocks the doorway.

By the time the four Kit Lawsons get there, they are a Kit Lawson, an Alex, a Tech-Head, and a Geodesic. Bruiser is not fooled and knocks one down into the stairwell at the far end of the hall. That one never returns.

They switch to their Mimicon forms.

Another Mimicon shows up outside, and Tech-Head began to deal with it while Bruiser was dealing with the three outside.

Fighting and property damage happened.

In the midst of this, Geodesic returns, and ups the amount of property damage.

The Mimicons burst into the classroom.

Tech-Head warns them against the problem of collecting coins in one place. If they keep duplicating and staying in the same place, they could be in danger of being taken over by Eris.

“We already have been,

says one of them, and the floor beneath vanishes, taken apart by the one who got knocked down the stairwell.

Doctor Why and all the Mimicons vanish down the kaleidoscopic tunnel that has appeared there.

The tunnel disappears, leaving only damage.

Cliffhanger.

Pointless things

M & M

My ePub version of the M&M SRD now has chapters 1-5 and chapter 8.

I had intended it for the players who do not have rulebooks from Green Ronin for the Doctor Why campaign, but that has gone much faster than the conversion to ePub. (I'm using the HTML from D20 Hero SRD as the basis, but it has lots and lots of stuff that my ebook generator—Sigil—does not like or obey. So I'm slowly converting it over.

It has been interesting seeing what works on, say, a smartphone (intended target) and what doesn't. I've had to disassemble several tables and convert them to <dl> lists, because the ebook stuff tries to represent it as a big table that flows off the screen.

If I were smart, I'd have done ICONS first. (Actually, if I were really smart, I wouldn't be doing this at all.)

Also, for file size reasons and searchability, I've broken several of the larger chapters (notably the list of archetypes and the power effects and modifiers) into their own sections. So archetypes got shoved to the end of the book, and powers now runs like three chapters: Powers, effect descriptions, modifiers.

Not that the power effect descriptions are done, but it's been a chance to flex my very rusty sed muscles

Dr. Why: Midterm (Mutants and Masterminds Hero High)

M&M

0. Setup
1. Orientation
2. Pop Quiz
3. Midterm
4. Term Paper
5. Final

Characters

PCs

Ages run the gamut from Geodesic (age 14) to Bruiser (age 24)

• Alex Hanson (actually Ak'hanezakhar), the exiled alien princess.
• Bruiser is actually Matthew Brady.
• Geodesic is Dana Mehr, dressed as Kid Dr. Doom.
• Tech-Head we're just calling Tech-Head, but his real name is Clark Wayne.

Innocent bystanders

Watching the VR experiences are Dr. Maya Nayar, Priya's mother, and Technologists Hadir el Haj and Garry Mantish.

Nameless occupants of a nearby building. I think they work for Google.

Villain group: The Manifest

For the players: I'm using the villain names as I created them, which are not the names we called them by in play: I called ersatz Kneebreaker "Fragile"; ersatz Lime Lantern is actually "Bubblewrap;" the teleporter is "Transit;" and the steampunky person is "Cargo." Or Bob, Carla, Lenny, and Sofia, respectively. And they forgot to say their names, or their group names, or explain why they really needed the suit back.

Between classes, we deal with a couple of things.

• Geodesic hides the coin on a near-earth asteroid. His research in the time between classes shows him that no coins have been provably destroyed, but they are disappearing.

• Hunter starts haunting Tech-Head's house. She's not hiding, but she has apparently been told that she's allowed to stand on the sidewalk but not on private property. (Clark waves to her sometimes.) Clark—Tech-head—spends a lot of time in his secret lab, deciphering the secrets of the power source.

• Alex is probably amused by Priya's increasingly desperate attempts to keep the two from meeting.

• Bruiser is getting a lot of flak from coworkers because they are short-handed, now that one of their members has been arrested.

And now we get to the midterm.

The midterm is to be a case study: the students are divided into teams of 4 and put into virtual reality. They get to re-enact a famous superhero battle as the heroes involved, with their own agency to change things moving from none at the beginning to full by halfway through. Afterward the students must answer questions.

Because (a) there are 16 students and not enough VR crèches and (b) something always goes wrong when superheroes go into VR, three teams of four go into the crèches at the Deja View institute downtown (at the intersection of King St. and Charles St., for locals) and the remaining four are a guard. Dr. Why isn't even there; he's at the place where they'll write the test.

Not surprisingly, Our Heroes are put on a team together. They win the draw between teams (well, rock-paper-scissors, actually) and elect to be guard rather than go into the VR crèches in the first round.

If (when) something goes wrong, note that it takes five minutes to safely bring someone out of the VR crèche.

The neurologist who is supervising at Deja View is Priya's mother. The lab is a large room on the ground floor with two exits (one fire, one hall). The crèches are arranged in a clock dial pattern around a central control dais. The room is about a storey and a half all with big tiles in a drop ceiling. (This becomes important later.) (Clearly this is a two-storey room that has been converted.) Dr. Nayar is there with two assistants. It was not clear whether she knows who Alex is.

Everything starts fine, as it usually does. Ten minutes in the exterior wall explodes inward. Standing there are four villains in non-thematic costumes, three in powered armor-ish suits and one not. The suits look like they're variants on those of known villains, like someone was paying them homage or updating them. They are:

• Fragile, wearing an outfit reminiscent of Kneebreaker, a minor-league villain whose schtick was weakening objects like vault doors until he could hit them with a sledge hammer and break them. Keebreaker was a one-and-done villain of a local hero.
• Bubblewrap is wearing a glowing blue-green forcefield reminiscent of the Lime Lantern. The force field is opaque below the neck. Bubblewrap is female.
• Cargo is wearing a very steampunk armor. It doesn't look like it's actually steam powered, but there are whirring gears on the outside (behind Lexan covers). Cargo's goggles are pushed up on his/her/its brow, probably because the eyeholes don't provide a lot of view and the goggles would just reduce it further. The probable power source is mounted on the back and the whole thing seems heavy enough that there are whining servos and gyros every time Cargo moves.
• Transit is in a full-body purple bodysuit (snug but not skin-tight.) There are D-rings all over it, as if he expects to have things strapped to him. He has heavy boots on, and is male. (We cannot tell the gender of the other two.)

Bubblewrap says, "We're just here for his suit. Nobody else needs to be alarmed." She points directly at Tech-Head.

Geodesic's answer is to cover the three innocent bystanders at the central control panel, along with a created tunnel that leads to the interior door.

Tech-Head's answer is to book it for the fire exit and take off. (Tech-Head has flight 6.)

Bubblewrap and Fragile follow. Bubblewrap has flight 7, and Keebreaker has flight 5. (After two rounds, Fragile cannot keep up and turns back to help the others.)

The fight is surprisingly ineffective, because Geodesic is busy maintaining his sorcerous construct, the bystanders are not interested in leaving yet because it takes five minutes to bring people out from the VR, and Transit is just watching, almost as if it was his job to bring people here but not necessarily to fight. Cargo and Bruiser miss each other for a while, but eventually Cargo connects and it becomes obvious that Cargo is stronger and tougher than Bruiser.

The innocent bystander assistants do rock-paper-scissors and the winner leaves (after getting assurances from Dr. Nayar that this won't affect his annual bonus).

Eventually Fragile returns and nothing in the fight gets better. A wild miss from Alex damages a nearby building through the hole in the wall. Geodesic notes the design flaws in Cargo's suit and comments loudly about them. Finally Transit teleports into the construct and threatens to kill the two innocent bystanders if people don't quit.

Geodesic drops the force wall and makes Cargo's helmet unusable, twisting it to one side.

Alex, now berserk, shoots.

And misses, in one of the four ones that Brian (the player) rolled in a row. Ceiling damage, and Dr. Nayar is hurt with the falling debris.

Geodesic does first aid, and Alex shoots again, missing but doing more damage to the nearby building and making it structurally unsound. (Unfortunately, Brian keeps rolling ones.)

Bubblewrap pleads with Tech-Head during the catch-and-escape cycle, saying that Mastermind is really expecting that suit tomorrow. Tech-Head radios the police that an employee of Mastermind is responsible for the property damage. Bubblewrap responds with a loudspeaker announcement that Tech-Head’s suit is stolen.

Having returned, Fragile puts the whammy on Bruiser and Cargo’s next shot dazes him.

Alex blames the villains for hurting her girlfriend’s mother and more collateral damage happens.

Tech-Head dives into a nearby lake and swims upstream, out of sight. Bubblewrap has to guess which of two feeder rivers that Tech-Head goes up but guesses right.

Tech-Head does not surface for fear that Bubblewrap is watching, as she is.

Transit tries to get Geodesic but fails, then teleports Dr. Nayar away.

Fragile falls—I think to Geodesic but I might be incorrect. Transit disappears; Cargo picks up the fallen Fragile to leave at a mind-numbing 100 kilometres per hour but Alex isn’t done yet. She flies to Cargo and damages Cargo’s collateral, then starts riding Fragile and Cargo to the ground.

Transit blips in and moves them to Bubblewrap: Transit, Cargo, Fragile...and Alex. The two unconscious ones fall into the river, Alex can fly, and Transit blips to the nearby sewage treatment plant.

Geodesic and Bruiser spend some time rescuing foolish people who thought being in a nearby building would protect them.

Alex is still angry and still cannot aim, so the water treatment plant takes a tremendous shot. Then Bubblewrap takes a shot, and we discover that Alex can aim (when Brian is not rolling a one).

Geodesic arrives. Bubblewrap deals with Geodesic while Alex is trying to deal with Transit, but she cannot find him.

The sewage treatment plant takes a lot of damage.

Bruiser arrives and they manage to calm Alex down, but Bubblewrap is out of the fight.

Tech-Head notices the three falling figures in the water and drags Cargo to shore.

Geodesic gets Bubblewrap and discovers that the green force-field is generated by a pendant, which his magic detector helpfully tells him is magic because of a coin-shaped object inside.

He spends a lot of time getting the pendant, but he succeeds.

In the meantime, Bruiser gets Fragile.

While their attention is elsewhere, Transit spirits Cargo away.

The four are excused from the mid-term if they want, but Tech-Head insists on taking it anyway because he likes to show how smart he is.

Dr. Why: Pop Quiz (Mutants and Masterminds Hero High)

M&M

0. Setup
1. Orientation
2. Pop Quiz
3. Midterm
4. Term Paper
Final

Characters

We have names!

• Alex Hanson is actually Ak'hanezakhar, exiled alien princess.
• Bruiser is actually Matthew Brady.
• Tech-Head we're just calling Tech-Head (though as stated last time, his normal ID is Clark Wayne)

This session

This information is as I remember it. I might be wrong or have jumbled the chronology; corrections accepted.

Prolog

The first session was on a Wednesday in September. The following Monday morning, at Dana's (Geodesic's) home, he is being home-schooled about the French and Indian Wars when the doorbell rings. It's two agents from the Bureau of Extremely Foreign Affairs: a man and a woman in the kind of bland anonymous suits that get issued rather than purchased. Both visitors are brown-skinned, but his is a normal sort of brown colour and hers reminds one of tree-bark. She is also shorter than he is by more than half a meter. They provide identification (Guy Beech and Fay Hunter). He does the talking. They would like to speak to Dana alone. His mother reluctantly leaves the room.

They suspect that Dr. Why is up to something but they don't know what. They can't tell because Dr. Why has forbidden items like Go-Pros in the class (the mechanism is unknown, but active smartphone cameras or Go-Pros burn out while cyborg and suit mechanisms do not). Dr. Why has forbidden the college from recording any of the classes.

If Dana sees anything out of the ordinary, could he please report it? Sufficient important information could lead to a scholarship at the Canadian university of Dana's choice.

They hand Dana a thick lovely ornate card.

Once they leave, Dana aka Geodesic of course examines it and finds the electronic device inside it. He assumes it is a tracking device and isolates it after memorizing the contact information in case it is someday useful.

The next day, Clark Wayne (Tech-Head) finds the same BEFA agents when he comes home from school. The visit is not quite the same. Possibly being in the vicinity of the power source affects Agent Hunter because she's twitchy in this visit and cannot contain herself toward the end.

Same offer and they're getting ready to leave when she blurts out, “It has a name!” The name, it turns out, is Pandora, and she is on the team because she's a magic sniffer. She can find unshielded magic items. Agent Beech gets her out of there quickly after that.

Clark does some research and there are several things that Pandora might be, but the one that ties most directly to magic is a green energy source that was released in redacted form and then re-classified about twelve hours later. Apparently it opens a gate to another universe and takes the energy from there. Also, the inhabitants are not happy.

Several weeks later, it is time for class.

One guy on the construction crew says that though there is usually a poker game on Wednesday nights (Matthew Brady often goes but it conflicts with this course, so he hasn’t lately) says there is no poker night tonight. “I got a family thing.” The guy sighs: since his mom died a decade ago, dad has not been himself.

Alex has moved in with Attractive Woman Who Was Just There For The Talk At The Beginning—Priya Nayyar—who is somewhat concerned about Alex bringing home a couple for social unification last night. Since “social unification” is indistinguishable from “sexual intercourse” for Alex, Priya is confused and hurt.

“I thought we had a relationship!”

“We do.”

“I let you stay here even though my mother—”

“Your mother must be a lovely person because you are a lovely person.”

Let's just say that Alex is late to the class.

Log

The first half of the class is uneventful. They have dispensed with the Hannibal Lecter mask and the number of security guards is reduced but still non-zero. Officer Kit Lawson is there operating the slides. (Cut-above security guard was there the next week but not this week.)

At break, Alex and Matthew and about half the class head out to get coffee (the school has cooking and restaurant classes, so there is a restaurant and a student-run coffee-bar on campus). It's a slight hike because the classroom is on the second (top) floor of one of the non-auditorium buildings.

Tech-Head has his force field up (because that's what one should do within a hundred meters of Dr. Why) and asks about Pandora.

Dr. Why blandly replies that he knows about the legendary Pandora, who opened the box of troubles.

Geodesic asks if Dr. Why is magical. Dr. Why's response is that he can certainly use magical artifacts, which he sometimes has access to because he knows magical people.

The lights flicker. When they come back to full strength, there are two men standing there wearing costumes. The older one of them announces that Dr. Why will now suffer for what was done to him.

(Tech-Head's response is, “Tell us some backstory.” Answer: A decade ago, Dr. Why's actions killed this man's wife. So Dr. Why is going to pay, and people here are going to die.)

Tech-Head: “And that's where you lost my sympathy. Threatening to kill people who don't have a connection to Dr. Why.”

The older villain says, “Present?”

The younger one is apparently a speedster, and he punches Tech-Head into the next round.

When the rest get back from their break, the guy in the bunny costume (who calls himself "Narcolepus, hopping through your dreams") tries to open the door. He cannot.

Bruiser tries and rips the doorknob off. Alex pokes at the knob on the other side and it falls out of the hole but then thumps softly as it hits the door, being held in place.

The non-PC students wonder what to do. Is it a test? Maybe they should call the police or something?

Bruiser then punches the door. It splinters and then re-forms. It's not intact, it's still shattered, but the pieces have moved back in place like the wall is held in jelly. Bruiser theorizes that someone could jump in before it re-forms, but no one bothered to do that. Bruiser is annoyed.

Alex high-tails it outside to a spot where she can't be seen and flies to the roof, where she puts on a mask and changes clothes to the outfit she thinks will be her superhero outfit. There is a skylight to the classroom.

Inside:

The student who can turn into a big shaggy yeti (or a raven) clutches her head and falls over, unconscious.

Outside:

Bruiser punches the door and then jumps in before it can re-form.

Alex shoots the skylight and attempts to fly in, but fails. (Alex's player rolled several ones during the evening; I believe this was one of them.) She succeeded on her next turn.

Inside:

Then Present, the older man, waves his arms, pointing at each person, and they have to make Will saves. To the people who fail the roll, they are alone in the room.

Geodesic and Bruiser fail their Will saves.

This is taking much longer to recount than I thought. On the plus side, that means my memory is not as bad as I thought; on the minus side, this is tedious, both for you and me. In point form, and less concerned with maintaining a strict account that lists everything:

• Tech-Head can't connect with either of them, but having spied the cool spot in the shape of a woman floating near one corner, decides to concentrate on that. Highlights include throwing some hummus against the wall.
• Narcolepus helpfully shouts through the door handle hole that there's a ghost. He'll try to engage in mental combat.
• Geodesic can't see anyone but can keep up the mental link with Tech-Head he had conveniently set up before the appearance of Past, Present, and Future. With Tech-Head's guidance, he puts Present in a force bubble and squeezes.
• Future and Present demonstrate the castling effect, and then Future vibrates free.
• Bruiser decides to hit the floor and see if he can spot anyone else in the next classroom. This shatters the floor, which then re-forms. Remember that for later.
• Alex enters.
• The ghost that is Past enters Geodesic's body to try to possess him. He is delighted because then his telekinesis that works against spirits is really likely to hit.
• Tech-Head scores a nice shot against Present and suddenly everyone can see everyone else.
• Geodesic moves the ghost sixteen miles away, punching through the create...and the room falls apart. People fell into the classroom below, students were knocked unconscious, Future quit and Present took away his powers...
• At some point, Bruiser became aware of who Future actually was. So far as I recall, he didn't share this knowledge.
• Once Present was knocked out (no defenses, remember), the ghost vanished.

(I have new appreciation for James.)

Epilog

Tech-Head strips Present of nearly everything and finds on him a small gold coin, with a woman's face on one side and what looks like the snake of Asculepius on the other, except the snake is coiled around a torch, not a staff. (I said a sheaf of wheat in the actual session, but apparently Eris is usually depicted with a torch in one hand and a hissing adder in the other, so I take the opportunity to correct myself.) As he looks at it, the woman's face winks at him.

He gives the coin to Geodesic.

As Geodesic looks at it, he clearly hears the woman saying, “What power do you desire?”

NPCs: The rest of the class

Because we might need to know names, here are the other students in the class.

• Not Costumed:
  • Megan Bay (claims that she wants to work with some kind of hero support...maybe emergency services, maybe counselling)
  • Thomas Gelman (quiet, keeps to himself)
  • Sheila Norton
  • Nichole Rodrigues (shapeshifter; vehemently denies this is her real appearance)
  • Douglas Rodgers
  • Chelsea Wolfe
• Costumed:
  • Blue Screen [Vanessa Roberts] light controller but only blue-indigo-violet light.
  • Ms.-mer [Sherry Mack] Presumably some kind of hypnosis or mind-control.
  • No superhero name but goes by Wookiebird [Leah Hopkins]. Changes into either a yeti or a raven.
  • Plus [April Parsons]
  • No superhero name but goes by Gary or Snailien [Virgil Holt] Totem of the snail
  • Narcolepus [Brandon Wright] has some kind of mental powers and can leap.

Past, Present, Future

Because we know Future's actual name (Derek Vandervecken) research shows that his father's name is Gierd Vandervecken and his late mother was Margaret Vandervecken.

Any two of them could swap places: they could castle. (In fact, all three of them could do it but they weren't going to reveal Past until necessary. It was a small accurate Teleport (rank 5, I think) with a medium that limited it to any of the other two.

Future

Future was the speedster archetype from the book with the addition of castling and the shunt or procrastination power: Affliction, does only second degree damage if he gets a second degree result, makes target unaware for the rest of the round, ends automatically, moves target one round into the future. It is an interesting idea but wasn't a fun power to use, so I used it once on a PC and any other time on an NPC.

Arguably this should have been from a level 3 Affliction result.

Present

Present had a rank 10 attack which had this effect: the person affected could not sense anyone else. The person was still there (and could still communicate mentally) but couldn't sense anyone else. I bought it as Illusion, but it occurs to me you might be able to do it as an Affliction. Either way, making sure all the sense are covered is expensive. This had the flaw Concentration, so later when his bell got rung, everyone found themselves back in reality.

Because I gave him no defenses other than his actual toughness (from Stamina 5) and one point of Defensive Roll, I made him hard to hit. I think that was the wrong decision (though thematically justifiable); he should probably have had higher defenses but been easier to hit.

Because the fatherhood, Present, had the coin, he could decide who had powers and who didn't...the coin was essentially a MacGuffin to empower everyone.

Past

Largely things added to the Silver Scream write up. She had poltergeist-like abilities (Move Object) but they didn't come up, per se. She was holding the room together, which I modelled as Create to model telekinesis holding together the classroom, with the limitation that there actually has to be something to hold together, and the flaw Concentration.

Though she had invisibility to all parts of the spectrum, I fudged it and made her visible by IR because she created a cold spot where she was.

Bureau of Extremely Foreign Affairs

In Canada, the Bureau is a subset of the state department, known by various names over its history but "Ministry of Foreign Affairs" is sufficient. It deals with trade and diplomacy with political entities outside Canada. (Other ministries might or might not have departments that deal with parahumans, depending on their remit. The Department of Defense certainly does, and so does labour.)

In this case, they are concerned because while super-science doesn't necessarily fall into their area, magic definitely does. Because magic often involves pantheons of god-like beings with whom we have trade in some fashion. Ever get a boon from a fairy godmother? How is that taxed? Ever moved to an alternate dimension? Will that have diplomatic consequences?

So the agents and bureaucrats of the BEFA tend to be blase about their work and perhaps have an inflated sense of its importance...because unchecked access to alternate civilizations, timelines (the BEFA covers all times before 1867), and technologies. They also occasionally have access to resources that are unusual, like magic sniffer Kay Hunter.

Guy Beech is an attractive man of colour in his mid-thirties, probably raised in Montreal. He's almost six feet tall. His stats are pretty much out of the book, and he's PL 4.

Fay Hunter is an average-looking woman who is also of colour, but the colour seems a bit off. Brown, yes, but it doesn't look like a normal human skin tone. She normally lets Agent Beech do the talking. From her confession and her attitude, we presume that she can find magic sources, or at least those of a particular set, and the presence of at least one of those magic sources agitates her. (She didn't seem agitated at Geodesic's home.) Her ability to detect magic probably gets her leeway in the regimented world of agents.

The Bureau of Extremely Foreign Affairs

M&M

In my games, we sometimes deal with the Bureau of Extremely Foreign Affairs, which started as the Canadian department for dealing with extraterrestrial civilizations. There is a bureaucratic arm and an investigative arm.

For this week's adventure, I have modified the BEFA for superheroes. They are a subdivision of the department of Foreign Affairs, and they deal with extra-normal political entities.

While high technology and super-science might not fall into their remit, magic almost always does. Trade something with fairyland? They deal with the excise taxes. Granted a boon by a Lovecraftian cosmic horror? They put a dollar value on it or determine if it's dangerous to the public safety. They also deal with the local equivalents of Atlantis or Themyscira. Heck, they might be responsible for extradimensional refugees, or be the department that calls your heroes when Galactus arrives. ("He has refused normal methods of communication and I am sure we don't want a repeat of the Thanos issue. The deaths and rebirths alone cause an incredible number of headaches.")

In the Dr. Why adventure, they can occasionally borrow from the Department of Defense a magic-sniffer (who is not without her own problems) to find, say, a previously-shielded magic power source of unknown provenance, which might indicate illegal trade, smuggling, or the existence of a previously-unrealized pantheon.

And just having thought about them this much makes me want to do a short BEFA adventure.

Dr. Why: Orientation (Mutants and Masterminds Hero High)

M&M

0. Setup
1. Orientation
2. Midterm
3. Term Paper
4. Final

Session 1: Orientation

James Nicoll, one of the players, provided this summary of the session. I'll try to provide the GM's view of things, but in point form, maybe emphasizing the things I have to remember for future sessions.

• One of the guards was clearly a physical cut above the usual community college security guard. ("Hired for the occasion" would have been the story if anyone has asked.) That guard conveniently disappeared during the brouhaha. PCs suspected that was either because he caused it or he needed a private place to change into a costume.
• Tech-Head and Geodesic overheard someone being denied entry to backstage. He claimed he thought it was a bathroom (“I really need a bathroom”) Geodesic recognized the mid-forties male as Gabriel duVernay, a local reporter who does print and video, and distrusts corporations, rich people, and supers.
• Princess sat about of the third of the way down the row of seats. Between her and the aisle was an attractive woman of Indian heritage (Priya Nayyar).
• The woman on the other side of Princess claimed to have dated Doctor Why two decades ago; Doctor Why doesn't look any older. When pressed, she admitted that Doctor Why was good in bed. (Her name was Cassidy Graves, not that anyone ever asked.)
• Princess did notice a guy in a bunny costume. Maybe twenty percent of the audience was dressed as a super or had obvious manifestations. On the other hand, the place was also lousy with journalists and fans and thrill-seekers.
• The Power Corps showed up to steal the android because they need the parts. Numbers 1, 2, 4 and 7 showed up. The plan was to go in through the fire exit, steal the android, and get out. Easy.
• They were discovered by Gabriel duVernay, who finally managed to get backstage. He had a scream that was gender-inappropriate.
• There seems to be some family resemblance between the Power Corps armor and Tech-Head's armor.
• Actually getting the power source out was tough: DC 35
• Eventually defeated because it was wireless. Removeed the power source, put it in a Faraday cage, and it had to make a check to see if batteries come online properly. (They didn't; safety feature.)
• Tech-Head stashed the robot's power source in his mom's garage.
• Princess saw Dr. Why slip his hand back into his restraints at the end. This lead to some speculation on the part of the players: was he ready to escape and rescue them if necessary? Or was he running the robot with a stolen and modified XBox controller? (The latter seems unlikely because people would have seen...but hey, maybe.)
• Anyone who acted (the PCs especially, but there are others) got registration/tuition paid for by the foundation that Dr. Why controls (the Alexandrian Lighthouse Foundation).

Bruiser

Bruiser (Pl 8)

STR	STA	AGL	DEX	FGT	INT	AWR	PRE
11	12	3	4	4	1	2	3
Powers
Tough Tough skin: Impervious Toughness 10 Good jumper: Leaping 5 Alt: Earthquake: Damage 8 [Punching the ground; Burst Area, Flaw: Contiguous solid surface] (16 points)
Advantages				Skills
Equipment 6 [he likes stuff], Great Endurance, Diehard, Fast Grab, Improvised Tools, Throwing Mastery 2, Beginner's Luck				Athletics (+11), Close Combat: Punch 1 (+5), Deception (+3), Expertise: Construction 6 (+7), Expertise: Architecture 1 (+2), Insight 2 (+4), Intimidation 4 (+7), Perception (+2), Persuasion (+3), Stealth 2 (+5), Technology 2 (+3), Vehicles 4 (+8)
Equipment
This and the equipment advantage are here mainly because the character is designed as owning things, including a car or laptop or smartphone or gaming system; filled in at the player's whim.
Offense					To Hit	Damage	Init +3
Unarmed					+5	11
Groundsrike (burst, requires contiguous surface)					–	8
Thrown item					+4	12
Defense	Dodge 3	Parry 4	Toughness 12		Fortitude 12		Will 2
Complications
Buy stuff, impress babes The three Fs start with fleeing, and I don't flee. Is this what my life will be?
Power Points	Abilities 80 + Powers 16 + Advantages 11 + Skills 13 + Defenses 0 = Total

Replay

Replay is a mimic android, created as security. It scans individuals nearby, one per round, and copies any powers it can. This is most useful against groups: people are usually immune to their own powers, but not necessarily to the powers of their compatriot.

It does not have the self-learning capacities of the homicidal version: defeat it and it does the same thing again. However, it does have a known problem: it defends the area where it is activated and it scans individuals for an access badge; without the badge, anyone with powers is assumed to be a threat. (People without powers are not assumed to be a threat.)

Some other powers (the flight and the gravity binding field) are always there.

Because Replay's schtick is copying people (notably the PCs) I did not worry about numbers and balance. I gave it some levels so it would (fairly) be a problem even if it hadn't copied anyone's powers, and then let copying do the rest.

Replay (Pl 12)

STR	SA	AGL	DEX	FGT	INT	AWR	PRE
5	–	2	2	2	0	5	0
Powers
Android Tough coating: Protection 10, Impervious 6 Antigrav repulsors: Flight 6 Binding Field: Move object, burst area, flaw: Only down 12 Mimic Mimic (variable, 7/rank, perception, ranged) 12
Advantages				Skills
Beginner's Luck, Eidetic Memory, Evasion 2, Hide in Plain Sight, Improved Initiative 3				Expertise: Superhumans and powers +20, Perception +15, Stealth +10
Offense					To Hit	Damage	Init +14
Unarmed					+2	5
Defense	Dodge 5	Parry 5	Toughness 10 (6)		Fortitude –		Will 5
Complications
Cannot exceed its programming Machine Needs wireless access

Dr Why: Setup (Mutants and Masterminds Hero High)

M&M

This was originally one post. I've broken it into two.

0. Setup
1. Orientation
2. Pop Quiz
3. Midterm
4. Term Paper
5. Final

Because our regular DM is busy for a few weeks, started a small set of adventures using Hero High, though it's set at a community college.

Five sessions: “Orientation”, “Pop Quiz”, “Mid-Term”, “Term Paper”, and “Final Exam”. For various reasons, “Orientation” was mostly combat.

There's a story in my head but the important part is keeping it player-focused. Been a while since I ran M&M, so there were some teething pains. (Another reason why "Orientation" was so combat-heavy.)

The Setup

Famous hero Dr. Wye (or Dr. Why or Dr. Y) decided a year or so ago to avoid certain selected property damage in the aim of improving society. The owner of that property was understandably upset and prosecuted the good doctor. The courts wanted to be seen as tough on this sort of behaviour so they actually sentenced him to jail, with the option of doing community service to lessen his actual jail time.

Apparently, after a number of incidents in the communal areas of the prison, they put him in isolation and then probably begged him to do community service and shorten his inflammatory presence in the prison.

He has agreed to teach a course on superheroing. He is teaching it at the community college and he has made certain stipulations so that people with secret identites can attend and not have it traced back to them. That is, you can register in your probable hero ID, you can pay in cash, textbooks are given away free to those who are still enrolled after the course drop date, and so on. While there might be a record that Mighty Mite (for example) attended the course, no one should be able to tie that to shy college student Parker Peters, who was never in the class.

Available to Know

Expertise: Streetwise or police connections

DC	Description
0	Because of an incident in the dining area, Dr. Wye is kept in isolation. He does have occasional access to the library and the recreation room.
5	It doesn't appear to be a trick. If it's some scheme to get in jail to get someone else, that knowledge is way above any of the people talked to.
10	The police are nervous about their abilit to keep Dr. Why if he decides not to co-operate, so they aren't going to release him from bonds. He's going to give the class while trussed like Hannibal Lecter.
15	As a demonstration of his own hubris, Dr. Why has brought along Replay, the original test version of the android whose later versions became Organon, attempted world destroyer. (Organon has a series of factories world-wide and rebuilds itself without the flaw it had last time.) Replay has many more accessible parts and exploitable problems and does not improve itself. Besides, it's deactivated....nothing could go wrong.

Characters

Because time is short and our sessions are short (we play for two hours, three tops), half the folks didn't want to create characters; instead, they took archetypes from the Hero High book. Of the other two, one created a character and one asked me to create a character. The one I made is below.

The archetypes chosen were Alien Exile and Tech-Head. We don't have any details about the Alien Exile yet except that she seems obsessed with the two factors of Not Appearing Different and sex. (I believe her early exposure to mass media have taught her that everyone asks about sex all the time, and that the proper clothes to wear in all environments are a tube top, shorts, and go-go boots.) The Tech-Head is named Clark Wayne, keeps stuff in his mom's garage, and liberated his power suit without permission. We have tied the suit into the Power Corps and Dr. Why somehow.

For the purposes of this description, the tech-head character will be Tech-Head and the alien exile Princess.

First session actually played October 23, 2019.

Mutants and Masterminds and autofill

M&M

I've been trying to figure out how you'd do an autofill PDF character sheet for Mutants and Masterminds, and the closest I come is an old idea from DC Heroes, where you have a worksheet version to look at various numbers and then in the final version those go away.

At first blush, it seemed simple enough. Something like Fighting is figured at two points per rank, so if you're Fighting 4, that's 8 points. And defenses are one point per rank, so it's just the number of points you spend added to the value of the appropriate attribute. Long but do-able; I wouldn't fit it into the Calculate stage of the PDF because that happens every time you change a field, but you get what I mean.

Except of course adding to Toughness save isn't done directly; it's done either by advantages (like Defensive Roll) or powers (Protection primarily).

And I almost had that figured out when I remembered Enhanced Traits.

If it were just going to be used on the desktop, maybe stuff could be added with dialog boxes, but even PDF Expert doesn't render the dialog boxes for PDF on my phone. So I think the best thing to do is have a worksheet with space for all the various points, so you can see what adds to which value.
The aggregate free-form nature of powers is also a problem. I'm fixing it with terminology: The part I think of as a power is called an effect, like Affliction, Protection, Enhanced Trait, and so on. (In fact, I have Enhanced Trait broken down into several effects.) The conglomeration or aggregate is called a power (alternate effects all go in to make a single power). The sample archetypes have varying numbers of powers:

Archetype	Number of powers	Max effects in one
Battlesuit	1 (Battlesuit array) or 8 (counting “Battlesuit” as a power)	3 (Tactical Computer) or 8 (various Senses)
Construct	3	2
Crimefighter	5	6 (Utility belt)
Energy Controller	6	4 (Energy Control)
Gadgeteer	4
Martial Artist	0
Mimic	1	1
Mystic	3	6 (Spellcasting)
Paragon	4	3 (Invulnerability)
Powerhouse	4	3 (Super-Stamina)
Psychic	5	4 (Telepathy)
Shapeshifter	1	1 (Shapeshift)
Speedster	5	3 (Super-speed)
Warrior	2	4 (Aquatic) or 8 (different Senses)
Weapon Master	2	5 (Super-hearing senses)

I can't even imagine a page layout that allows either the possibility of 8 powers with 8 effects each or 1 or 2 powers and 28 advantages (the number that the Martial Artist has). The Basic Heroes Handbook compromises by leaving space for four powers and some effects...And I might have to compromise, too, saying, great, four powers max, five effects each.
Seems a shame not to be able to do the Crimefighter, though, but life is life. Maybe after I figure out how to do this, I'll be able to wedge it in there.
Anyway, the idea is that there is a separate worksheet...let's say there's a button that makes it visible; select the Create/Edit radio button and you can see it; select the Play button and it goes away with the new values displayed.

Various campaigns

Another reminiscence post. Skip if you want interesting.

I'm trying to remember the campaigns I've run. Some of them were short because they didn't work (the universe-hopping one seemed like a good idea, but it was flawed). Others were short because of gamer ADHD or because people got bored. Not in chronological order.

• The Concorde campaign, which I've talked about before. It was run in Champions, second printing to fourth edition.
• The Wellington campaign, which used DC Heroes 2nd edition and 3rd edition.
• The Patriot City campaign, which used 1st edition Mutants & Masterminds, and took place in Patriot City decades after the events in Freedom Force. 
• The Minotaur campaign, which used 2nd edition Mutants & Masterminds, and used both Freedom City and the city of Bedlam...though it was really more the one adventure.
• The Emerald Knights campaign, which tested out 3rd edition Mutants & Masterminds for us, and which I set in the Concorde universe's version of Detroit, Steel City.
• The Aegis campaign, which used Fantasy Hero (though later I revisited it with CORPS).
• The EABA playtest I did. It was set in the distant future of some other campaign I'd run, though I don't recall which one.
• The Bureau of Extremely Foreign Affairs campaign, which used Espionage and later Danger International, and took place in the far-off years of the 2130.
• The Alderson Disk campaign, which was set in the future of the BEFA campaign and ended when I painted myself into a corner.
• The various ICONS things I've run, set in Halifax, in Toronto (the Hope Prep stuff), in Vancouver, and now in Strange City.

I suspect more will come to me, but those are (I think) the biggies. I don't count the Marvel Heroic playtest or the Masks playtest or the Supers! adventures...they were never campaign-like.

The Fast Antagonist Generator

Sometimes you need a really fast antagonist. So based on 5 minutes thought, here's what I do. This doesn't generate well-rounded opponents, just fast ones. It also doesn't generate themes or names...that's a different thing from this, though I nod to it in the last step.

I've made this moderately generic, so you'll also have to translate into the appropriate stuff for your system. It is probably slanted to ICONS, because that's the system I was thinking of, but I hope it's not slanted too much.

1. Do you need a combat antagonist or a social antagonist? They emphasize different things.
2. Decide on a general level for the antagonist. Maybe you're using Mutants & Masterminds and it's PL, maybe it's the ICONS or FATE chart. The level represents the difficulty for the heroes to defeat, outsmart, or avoid the obstacle. I tend to think in terms of a relative level for combat and an absolute level for social things, but you do you. An absolute level is easier to explain here, so I'll use that in this list.
3. For combat, decide if the character is primarily a melee fighter, a ranged fighter, or a mentalist. Then you want to set the primary abilities for that kind of combat to the difficulty level you've chosen. Maybe it's fighting ability or high martial arts; maybe it's willpower.
4. For combat, pick the power or ability that causes the damage. Maybe it's mind control...this antagonist can take over anyone; maybe it's strength; maybe it's a finely-honed set of concussive beams coming out of the// mouth. Up to you.
5. Again for combat, decide on one of three types of defense: The character has a glass jaw (hard to hit but easy to damage), is average (hard-to-hitness and damage absorption are set to the difficulty level), or is tough (easy to hit but damage absorption is really high).
6. For a social antagonist, you're looking for a character you can't hit, probably because they aren't obviously a villain. This is the area of your crime lords, your unwitting romantic interests, your crippled relatives, or your crusading bosses. So pick a reason that the hero can't use violence to solve the problem--it might be as simple as being in the other non-hero circle of life, or it's the government's representative, or the hero loves the person because it's Aunt April.
7. Socially, I've come up with at least these four types of opponents; pick one.

   Fly in the ointment

   This character interfere's with the hero existence. This is the cub reporter who wants a ride-along to do "a day in the life"; this is the enthusiastic fan; this is the protester (who might shade into the publicist); this is the government official who needs to see the hero in action before he approves the hero.

   Speed bump

   On the opposite side, this obstacle has perfectly reasonable expectations of the hero's secret (or not so secret) identity. This is the girlfriend who expects the hero at her folks' place for her mother's birthday, the boss who wants the hero to work overtime, the hot guy who has decided to give the hero a date but only tonight, the cousin coming into town, the blind date who won't go home.

   Publicist

   The character who speaks out for or against the character and influences them. For best results, the hero should have a personal relationship with the publicist in some form. This is the crusading newspaper publisher, the crime lord who wants to shut the character down, the protesting blogger with the ear of government, the columnist, the mayoral candidate who has made destroying the character part of his election campaign, the Twitter spambot, the fake news articles.

   Investigator

   The charact trying to find out more about the character. This might be incidental to something else ("What did happen on the pier on the night of July 12?") or it might be about the character ("Who is Megaguy?")

8. Given the type of antagonist, you want to improve the appropriate ability/skill to the difficulty level, or provide a quality to provide the motivation, or both.
9. Do that naming and description thing.

A One-Shot Idea: Graduation Exercise

SYSTEM: ANY

Had an idea for a one-shot today. You'd want pre-gens, I think, but I have no experience at one-shots for conventions or whatever.

Some masked adventurer from the forties or even thirties--call him Ulysses Prophet--is well known and is good, his backup plans have backup plans, but even with the life-extension stuff he got from the Lemurians or whatever, he's at the end of his time. Thugs aren't catching him yet, but he's had close calls with some of his arch-foes. So he's been training the player characters, and it's time for the final.

Here's the final: the PCs are locked in the insane asylum with Ulysses' greatest enemies and have to escape without causing harm to the staff, and defeat their main enemy, who will be Ulysses. Equipment will still be on the premises (boxed to be shipped out to the police station). Characters with actual powers are in rooms with power nullifiers.

Ulysses is worried that he might go soft on the characters, so he's had one of the doctors hypnotize him and plant suggestions that he hates the characters. There is a safeword to snap him out of the suggestion, and all of the medical staff know it. (Ulysses isn't stupid.)

Aside from all the clever things that players could think of to escape, here's a freebie: The presence of the PCs makes the asylum over-full, so when the kitchen microwave ovens are turned on, the power to the nullifiers flickers, giving the player one turn with one power. (The microwave ovens have to heat a bunch of meals, so this happens roughly every two minutes for about a half-hour near mealtimes.) A character who is a trained normal will probably find some other way to escape.

You knew there'd be a catch, though, and there are two:

1. As worded, the doctor said that Ulysses has to hear the safeword, which is bad, because one of his early acts as Evil Ulysses was to bomb the secret tunnel that heads out of the asylum left him deaf. He can lipread (of course he can: we're really talking about Evil Batgod) but that won't counteract the hypnosis. Lipreading won't count, telepathy won't count, reading won't count (illusions of sounds sent directly to his brain would count; so would someone managing to heal him and then saying the safeword).
2. Also as worded, the doctor left Ulysses not just hating the captured heroes, but loving the villains, so Ulysses is releasing the villains one by one, testing them for faithfulness, and sending them against the PCs.

Now, is that choice of wording accidental, or is it because the doctor is working for one of the villains locked up in the asylum, maybe the one that Ulysses wouldn't release because he's just too dangerous? Depends on how much play time you have.


I'd probably use the Mutants & Masterminds Providence Asylum map (though I have another old hospital building kicking around here). I'd box up the equipment and put it in the truck delivery area so that equipment characters have to fight there, first, and for some reason there are traps.

Digging a hole for myself...

SYSTEM: Any

There are a couple of superpowers that show in games where I look at them and go, "What?"

Now, these are perfectly cromulent superpowers. They have reasons to exist, and they fill those reasons very well. However, if you have a random character creation system, you look at the power and say, "Hey, maybe I can trade it for a Boost or an Extra."

For me, one such power is Burrowing.

I recognize the utility of it, sometimes. I think that the Troll, in ICONS, should be able to dig himself a hole where he can hide. I think that giant ants should have a way to make their giant anthills, and the machine from The Core should be buildable in your favorite game system.

But man... Burrowing.

Part of the reason is that it's slow. In some one-buttocked attempt at realism, many designers throttle back when it comes to burrowing, just like swimming. "Yes, you can burrow, but only at a speed that is one quarter of your overland movement speed." That's kind of like the M&M game where I suddenly realized that although the bad guy could fly, he could only fly at fifteen kilometers an hour. The heroes just paced him, occasionally whacking him like a beach ball.

We've got a game system where people fire blasts of concussive energy from their eyes, where people have mouths in their hands, where people make plants grow tremendously fast, and you're seriously concerned about how fast they can dig?

It should be a Bugs Bunny cartoon, where the tiny line of dirt is heading at the same speed as a running man. (And seeing the line of dirt is a complication or a limit.) It should be a total surprise when the building suddenly collapses because the hero has removed two meters of topsoil from under the foundation, or that the heroine uses her burrowing claws to trace a circle out on the floor, so they fall through, just like that woman in Underworld escaping.

Another part is that you start down the reasonableness path: well, if he can dig through gravel, maybe he can dig through that fencing that sticks down into the ground. Maybe he can dig through that concrete foundation. Maybe he can dig through that guy's chest...it's no harder than concrete. And the Champions players say, "Well, she can fly, so maybe she can go through water at the same speed. It's only a thousand times thicker." The characters just do it, and occasionally get a bonus when they launch themselves at the target like a cannonball. (This is one of the areas where the existence of bonuses and extras makes it seem like you ought to be able to or not to do something.)

Sometimes I wonder if there should just be a power called Movement, and the player gets to limit it by defining the medium...or doesn't. ("She can fly, and she's just punching her way through the rock.")

A special form of Burrowing might be an incredible knowledge of the sewer system—you know the paths like no one else does, so maybe you can get places no one else can. Your Burrowing level is actually your knowledge of the area. You fail the roll, there is no connection that you can get through. At low levels, that would work quite well, actually.

Or another special form might be a limited form of animal control: you can manage to control the ants and moles and what-have-you that they will make the space for you as you go.

Well, maybe Burrowing isn't so lame. But Dream Control....there's a power that's tough to play in a game....

X-Men...really?

I was listening to the Play On Target podcast, where Lowell Francis interviewed Eloy Lasanta, and Lasanta mentioned his love of the X-Men. I've heard of this love from others and I realized that the superhero RPGs I love (Supers! and ICONS) do a more four-colour setting by default.

I was never a big reader of the X-Men...the proliferation of X-titles in the 1990s was of the reasons I fled to DC (truthfully, I had been a DC child anyway) and then away from comics. But I recognize the basic characters and I see that the powers approach of my favourite games doesn't really reflect the X-Men as I understand them.

Caveats that I might be totally wrong in my understanding so that True Fans(TM) might object. However, this approach might be fruitful in figuring out how you do things to more accurately reflect the comics. It's mostly inspired by Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (it's not influenced by AMP except for what was in the podcast; I don't own AMP and haven't read it).

When I look at them, the characters in the core X-Men and the New Mutants (again, circa the late 1980s and the early 1990s, when I was occasionally looking at the books) are mostly human but with one or two powers that make them different. As humans, they're usually pretty good...Scott Summers is well-trained, Warren Worthington seems to be buff, Kitty Pryde manages well, and so on. (In story, the justification is the danger room and the training.) It's not until later (such as in Excalibur) that you see any disabled heroes. Anyway, the powers are applied differently: a character might freeze a lock or throw iceballs or make an ice wall, but it's one power. We'll call it a theme. This is like the power sets in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.  (I don't have a list of themes handy, but I might edit one in later.)

Both Supers! and ICONS have mechanisms to handle this stunting: Competency dice and determination points.

First, we roll to see how many themes you have. We're going to use 2d6 because we want the bell curve.

Roll	Number of themes
2-6	One power theme (Colossus has the Strength theme; Angel can fly; Cyclops blasts things with his eyebeams)
7-10	Two power themes (Kitty phases and is smart; Wolverine has the healing factor and an animal theme)
11-12	Three power themes (I can't think of examples at this second, but I'm sure they exist. Maybe Cable, who has cybernetics, and the telekinesis, and being from the future and having that kind of knowledge might qualify as a third--I don't know enough about the character to be sure.)

Then we're going to figure out the width of your biggest theme. This is the number of standard expressions of your power. Iceman lucks out because he has three main expressions: ice armor, movement, and the ability to create things out of ice. Colossus has two expressions: strength and durability. (You might be able to call that one in ICONS with Alternate Form.) Cyclops and Angel have a single expression: optic blasts and flight, respectively. (Actually, you could make an argument that Angel's second theme is wealth but I'm not sure I want to go there. Worth considering that wealth might be a power, like any ICONS ability over 6.)

Again, we roll 2d6 for the bell curve:

Roll	Width of theme
2-6	One main expression
7-10	Two main expressions
11-12	Three main expressions

If you have multiple themes, the additional ones only get one main expression. (That's okay: you can stunt on any of these themes.) You get to pick which one might have multiple expressions, if any. You can run all of those main expressions at once. So Iceman, who has three main expressions, can have the armour, the movement, and the attack.

You pick (or roll, on the nonexistent table) your themes. Once you have themes, you can pick or roll main expressions. Those are the powers you normally use, but you can stunt others.

"Great," you say. "But what is the point?"

The point is that it's free to swap expressions or powers within your main theme. (In systems with a finer grain, such as Mutants & Masterminds, you might say that swapping within your theme takes a bit of time, maybe your movement action, but doesn't cost hero points.) To keep extra expressions up simultaneously costs a competency die or a determination point. To stunt in some other theme costs a competency die or a determination point. It costs two dice or points to bring a power into your theme, and you have to have a justification.

By defining the themes, we get to ones where it's difficult to use a power (it's from a different theme according to the homebrew rules we've just put down).  In fact, you can have character generation being constructing your theme, or players can add to the theme with experience. (That's certainly the only way to add powers or expressions to a secondary theme.)

Themes would include a particular animal or being animalistic; darkness; force; light; air; earth; water; fire; plants; movement; telekinesis; mental; decay or corruption; magic; strength; time; body alteration; and so on. A theme has one or more obvious main powers and the set of things that often go with it. A theme has, oh, five to ten powers in it--we're looking for comic book cliches here. Some of them will be contradictory...just don't take them both.

For instance:

Theme	Expressions (powers)
Air	Flight or Gliding, control winds, shielding winds, alternate form (air), gentle fall, shielding
Animal theme	Depends on the animal...Power mimicry specific to animals, Flight, Swimming, Burrowing, Leaping, Claws/fangs, Strength/toughness, Growth/Shrinking, Super-senses (smell, taste, hearing, eagle eyesight, 360 degree vision, sonar, infrared vision, electroception)
Body alteration	Growing, Shrinking, Phasing or Intangibility, Air walking, Density Increase, Duplication, Regeneration, Enhanced Senses, Stretching or Malleability
Mental	Mind reading, Mental link, Mind control, Mental blast, Mind find, Possession, Telekinesis, Precognition
Phasing	Intangibility, Air walking, Enhanced senses, attack by phasing through things, disable electronics
Strength	Strength, Invulnerability, Leaping, Flight, Superbreath, Alternate form that gives strength, Density Increase, Immobility

A given power can show up in more than one theme. There are multiple ways of doing an energy blast: that was the whole point of going to effect-based powers. Here I'm trying to graft a cause back on to those.

Themes might possibly be the character types in the Mutants & Masterminds random character creation system. In Champions terms, everyone gets an elemental control and the ability to stunt within it for free.

This is totally untested, but I think it might work.

Crisis on Christmas, ICONS style

SYSTEM: ICONS

Steve Kenson's Crisis on Christmas is a fine adventure that should be a Rankin/Bass production. But John Holmes asks for an ICONS version. So here's one minute of thought and twenty-nine minutes of typing. I assume you're read the adventure: no context provided here.

Early on, they can encounter Desparia's weather control powers. To create the "Cloud of Despair" (Affliction versus Will, ranged, burst, level 7) and the "Snow Blind" powers (Dazzle, burst, level 5), either stunt them using the "Ice Witch" quality or make them GM fiat: she can do them, but they require additional effort on her part and they won't happen during a fight. (Possibly before.) If you stunt them, it puts more determination points in the pockets of the heroes.

The wolves look something like this:

Name	Wolves
Prowess	4	Intellect	1	Specialties
Coordination	4	Awareness	4	None
Strength	3	Willpower	3	Powers
Determination	-	Stamina	6	1	Life Support (Cold)
Qualities				1	Damage Resistance (shaggy fur)
Unnatural				3	Magical claw and bite Extra: Ignores non-innate Resistance
Pack hunters

Desparia's hobgoblins look something like this:

Name	Hobgoblins
Prowess	5	Intellect	2	Specialties
Coordination	4	Awareness	4	None
Strength	4	Willpower	2	Powers
Determination	-	Stamina	7	1	Life Support (Cold)
Qualities				3	Strike (cudgel) or Blast (crossbow, sling, iceballs)
Unnatural				2	Damage Resistance (armor)
Willing to die for Desparia

The extras for the wolves and hobgoblins might make them tough against your heroes. Feel free to treat them as minions. Shift things around a bit to suit your heroes: maybe the Blast is a bit higher; maybe the Strike is not a damage 5 bashing attack (Strength+1) but a damage 4 Slashing ice sword. If the hobgoblins are not tough enough for your heroes, then add the Quality "Small" to them, and treat them as if they had enough Shrinking for a +1 to hit and evade. (Hobgoblins: The smaller they are, the tougher they are!)

Here's a version of Desparia:

Name	Desparia
Prowess	4	Intellect	4	Specialties
Coordination	3	Awareness	6	Elemental Control Mastery
Strength	3	Willpower	4	Powers
Determination	-	Stamina	7	8	Elemental Control (Cold weather) Damage Resistance
Qualities					Extra: Blast (wintry winds)
Ice Witch					Extra: ESP (ice scrying) Limit: Extra time to cast
Scared and Angry Little Girl					Extra: Binding
Gifted by Mr. Infamy				3	Flight
				1	Life Support (cold)

At the end, when they try to convince Desparia, do it as a balanced Pyramid test...with three failures, it "tips over" (Mr. Infamy has gained the upper hand) and they have to start again after changing something about the situation.

An unfocused rambling look at problem powers

SYSTEM: SUPERS! REd

There's a post on the Supers! board about problem powers, and since I can't get to the board from work, I thought I'd pontificate here.

My first thought, deliberately contrarian, is, "What problem powers?"

In one sense, the player chose it and you agreed to it, so there shouldn't be a problem. An attitude of letting everyone be excellent at something goes a long way toward this—everybody playing wants to be cool at some point, and they should. It's a superhero game, not a game of existential failure. So, yeah, in an ideal world, there would be no problem powers, and you see that in games where the powers are purely narrative.

At least, in some games all powers are equally the same amount of problem—the powers can be limited by the fictional reality more than the game mechanics (or the game mechanics refer to the fictional reality, I guess). Marvel Heroic Roleplaying approaches that kind of game, I think. So does Masks.

But it's not an ideal world. For Supers! and ICONS and Mutants & Masterminds and DC Heroes and so on, there can certainly be problem powers.

I think that problem powers are rare, but if you're in a problem situation, it won't seem that way. Problem powers are really a combination of things, because for some groups or some players, these problems aren't problems at all. It's an intersection of player, GM, character, and the way the power is written.

It seems to me, though, that the problems happen when this power wrecks the fun of players (including the GM). Some powers make things too easy in a way that the GM didn't anticipate; some powers destroy niche protection so that no other character is special; some powers have consequences that are just mind-blowing. This was suggested in the Supers! thread: what if a character with time travel wants to pop back in time to the beginning of the fight and change the conditions? I doubt you planned the fight with that in mind.

Off-hand, I can think of the following problem powers, in no particular order.

Time Control. Usually the base form (speed yourself up or slow others down) isn't too bad...it becomes a pain when you introduce time travel into the mix. What if someone wants to pop back two combat rounds and help himself? What a book-keeping pain.

Telepathy. It's really difficult to run any kind of mystery when the character can casually walk in and read minds. "Ah, Ozymandias killed the Comedian. Concentrate your search there."

Wizardry. How do you preserve any kind of niche protection when one character can do anything?

It's true too that some powers are fun-sucking when taken to the logical extreme. There's a lovely piece out there about how control of feces would be an incredible super power. Or the ability to speed up time on others is horrific if you limit it to chemical reactions, or grant them half the power of the Speed Force but not the "protects your body" part, so they rip themselves in two. Those would be problem powers.

The solutions or workarounds that I've heard of or used are:

• The power is off the table. This is the easiest for the GM to use. If the power+player combination is problematic, don't allow it. As Gerry Saracco said in the thread on the Supers! board, just because the power is in the book doesn't mean you have to allow it. This has the advantage that everyone sees it and everyone understands it. The disadvantages are that cool ideas from non-problem players can be dropped on the floor, or that you didn't know that the power was going to be a problem when you okayed the character.
• The power has limitations. This is the opposite tack and it can be applied retroactively. For some reason, the character can't do those game-breaking things. Steve Kenson has explicitly said this about Super-Speed in Mutants & Masterminds—the superfast character doesn't clean up the entire fight before anyone gets there because that's not the way things happen in the comics. It's a genre limitation.
• There are consequences to the action. Look, if the character casually scans minds, he or she is going to learn some unpleasant things about people, like what people really think of the PC or become the target of a shadowy conspiracy by learning something that was best kept hidden. The character is constantly blipping back in time to fix things? The timestream police come near and want to have a talk with the character...and they have specifically made themselves immune to his powers. (They've had eternity to research them.) Though I hate to use game mechanics for an in-game solution, you could take away a disadvantage (and its points) with the claim that it's entirely consistent with the character that he went back and fixed the problem in another timeline. (That last one seems kind of obnoxious to me, so I doubt I'd use it.)

It can be a very effective way to apply limitations by having the player create them. Say, "Using your timeshift power to travel back in time to the beginning of the fight is too tough for us to do. It's okay if you declare you're stunting duplication or something at the beginning of the fight, but suddenly saying, 'I go back and help myself' doesn't really work. What reason is consistent with what's already happened?"

Reasons could be the idea that you can go back in the past, you just can't be seen and change remembered history (he can timeshift, but he has to be careful not to be seen by the characters, so he puts the item they need in the potted plant...it's effectively a retcon, but the story is that he used his time powers), or it's very difficult to go in the past where you are, or the magic doesn't work that way.

Maybe the power only affects a certain mass, or volume, or the effects last only a turn (every power has a wreck-other's-fun rating that determines how long it lasts?) or it has side-effects that only show up a week later. It might not affect blue things, or green, or work in any room but the one where you did it previously.

If the player determines the reason, they're more likely to be happy with it.

In the meta sense, most people will change if you say, "Dude, you're wrecking everybody else's fun. Find a reason why that won't work." In the X-Men comics, Logan complained and complained about being on a team...but he stayed there. There was always a reason.  (If the player is still looking for ways to make you personally miserable after inventing a limitation, well, why are you playing with this person?)

On the bright side for the player, limitations might give the character more spotlight time. This is the Kryptonite rule: Whatever the character's weakness, it starts to show up much more often in the campaign. If your N-ray vision can't penetrate iridium, there's a lot more iridium in the world. Giving the GM a limitation is an invitation to create situations to your character.

As a GM, you have to be wary of the Kryptonite rule. And that leads to the last "workaround." Sometimes, the PC can just do it, because that's not what this adventure is about.

That's one of the big ones: If the character can do something, letting the character do it is fine, because the adventure is frequently about something else. If the character is super-strong, you never complain, "He lifted that car I put there and de-railed the entire adventure!" You put the car there to give him a chance to show off. If you need him not to move the car or rip the vault door open, then the car is attached to a bomb that will kill all the normals in the area if moved, or the vault door is made of Questonite, or something else.

As a GM, you're already used to thinking about when a power is important. My sense of consistency is such that I don't want a power that waffles in its abilities so I try to enforce consistency, but sometimes we hand-wave in order to get to the real story. ("Yeah, you can find rope in this barren warehouse and tie them up. Now the sigils on the floor tell you....")[1]

EDIT: I've gone back to this several times to try and clean up various sentences. Nothing major, but I do struggle to make this clearer. Partly, of course, because it's a jumbled mess of thinking.

1. I think it's Robinson Crusoe where the hero swims naked out to the shipwreck and then stores useful items in his pockets for the swim back. Revision was less common in the eighteenth century.

Adventure Seeds on a Theme

I have no ideas today, so we're going to take something and I'll riff on it, and see if we can produce one or more adventure seeds that way. This might be a bountiful harvest of ideas or it might be awful; if I edit this, it will be for presentation or spelling, not for content.

American Thanksgiving is coming up, but my (Canadian) Thanksgiving was last month. So, being between Thanksgivings, I'll take that as my theme.

Thanksgiving is traditionally a time of family togetherness. What if some big bad villain escaped from detention but it's actually so that he or she can spend the holidays with the family? Maybe Dad is dying or something, and this might well be the last Thanksgiving they spend together. The villain can't get out without the help of some others, so there's a whole group there (some of whom don't care about the holiday, so they're happy to loot or whatever, and when caught, they point the finger at Villain's family house. It might look like this:

The PCs are looking forward to their own festivities when the Midnight Throne escapes from his maximum security prison, with the help of several supervillain associates (past villains from your campaign or perhaps Dark Silver, Chicle, Solar Flare, and Limpet, to invent some names). Limpet and Chicle are easy enough to catch because they're busy hijacking a teleporter to get out of the nation, and they eventually point to a quiet suburban home, where the Midnight Throne is having Thanksgiving dinner with his two associates and his family. The ensuing fight puts Throne's father in the hospital--will the PCs let Throne go there to say goodbye?

Mind, there might be some juice to be gotten from avoiding a family get-together as well.

Lots of the team is off enjoying Thanksgiving but several people have volunteered to be on watch duty. They don't actually want to go home. The problem is that even the crooks seem to have taken today off. The PCs respond to an environmental emergency, and that's good, but there's still nothing. Else. To do. They're about to break out the D&D books (and really, don't you want to roleplay your heroes roleplaying D&D?) when the alarms go off. Someone is inside the base!

Now, it could be a story where their companions have decided to bring them some turkey and pie, or even one where the villains bring the food, but in the tradition of Kitty Pryde's Christmas, I'd rather it were other-dimensional invaders. The bad news is, there are a lot of mooks. The good news is, the interdimensional gateway has opened in the hallway on the same for as the Disaster Dungeon, where the team does its training. If they can't beat the invading force directly, maybe the Disaster Dungeon can do it (once they disable the safeties).

And I'm out of lunchtime, so there you go.