Adventure Idea

[Uthanar]

My gaming group normally plays Pathfinder, but we have been having people missing and so we were looking to try Mutants and Masterminds. While I used to read comics a lot I have never really played in a super hero game, so I feel a bit uncomfortable with my plot creation ability for it. I came up with this basic game outline for a one shot to try MnM out with my group. I would love to hear feedback on it.

The villain is a Haitian houngan that goes by the moniker Monsieur Marionette. He is a magician, but his real power comes into play when he is able to bind loa to ride in other people's bodies. He pulls this off through a special ritual involving marionettes that he creates. The horses do not remember the events that happened while they were being ridden. Monsieur Marionette (MM for short) has lived within this country for years as a vodun priest. MM has listened to the loa spirits of the area, felt their influence, and tasted the anger that they have. Now he is obsessed with the anger that some of the spirits have and wishes to strike back against the American industrialists that have upset them.

MM is a smart individual who recognizes that his capabilities allow him to work through mediums and potentially never expose himself. He takes time to establish a plan of action that will make him rich and appease the loa that he serves. MM spends time preparing a ritual that will allow him to puppet a number of individuals at one time, these will be his cat's paw. The puppeting will be done by redirecting a large number of loa to other individuals that will act as their horse.

Salvage runs a gang that deals in smuggling covered by his legal salvage and junk business. Salvage is a bit of a mad scientist in addition to his criminal dealings. MM targets Salvage's crew with his ritual, but avoids Salvage himself as MM is uncertain if he will be able to keep control over a strong willed individual like Salvage while he is controlling many individuals.

A charity cruise event is going to be touring the NYC harbor area while a party is thrown for the large yacht's guests to encourage them to open their wallets to the charity that the party is for. NY's wealthy will be on the yacht, some of the same industrialists that MM has devised this plan to strike against. He performs his ritual and gathers Salvage's men to take the passengers of the ship prisoner.

MM's plan is to take the money that the industrialists were donating to the charity as well as rob the passengers. While the donations will be handled digitally, Salvage's crew will also strip the passengers down and pass the lucre over to another group that MM is manipulating.

This second group is a few mid to late teens from the Bronx that are looking to make a name for themselves. MM is not directly controlling them, but has hired them for this pick up through a controlled mediary. These kids are to bring the goods back to the mediary and will be paid for their services. MM never plans on touching these goods and instead is hoping that if any investigation tries to follow the money away from the yacht that it will end with these kids and his mediary, a pawn shop owner who is known to sell stolen goods.

The scenes that I expect to play out are the yacht ride (where I believe one of the heroes will be in her secret identity), the battle against Salvage's crew on the boat, and then following the goods back to the mainland. The heroes would have the venue of visiting Salvage, tracking down the boat that departed with the stolen goods and the kids that were on it, or searching for the stolen goods to show up. They might get an idea that something is not right when Salvage's crew shows no signs of leaving the yacht even after they have robbed everyone (MM is hoping that they will get cleaned up by the authorities) and suspect that there is more going on than a robbery. Later when Salvage's crew has foggy memories, the pawn broker has the same, and the hit on the yacht was not planned by Salvage they should realize that far more is going on. Whether they can find a way to strike back at MM at this time or if that must wait for another day would depend a lot on what they do with everything at that point.

That is a quick outline of what I was thinking. Thoughts? I might be running this on Saturday since it looks like one of our players is missing again. People have characters for a super hero game that we were playing with Champions, but we wanted to try out a few different systems to see which one we liked the most. I am working on converting the characters over to MnM.

Thanks for feedback, and happy gaming.

[Stone Cold Gargoyle]

This sounds like a good setup, and I like Monsieur Marionette.

To add some zip, I'd suggest consulting this list of Loa. MM could give Salvage's gang members powers (perhaps minion-level) based on the various loa.

If this is going to be more than a one-shot, you might develop the relationship between MM and Salvage. Does Salvage have powers? If so, where does he get them?

One potential source of conflict: MM turned Salvage into a horse for a loa, but the loa reached an independent deal with Salvage, leaving him a threat to MM"s control. Perhaps MM has deliberately set this up to get Salvage sent to jail for some reason?

Another thought: Perhaps MM used to be a member of Salvage's gang. Salvage may think that MM is just after leadership of the gang, but MM's goals are (obviously) much larger than control of a bunch of street toughs.

And here's yet another thought: Or perhaps you could turn this around. Perhaps Salvage did intend to carry out this robbery. He and MM are old rivals, but he went to MM for help because he knows there are new heroes in town. Give all his gang members a boost in exchange for a cut of the loot ... but MM decided to use the heist to put Salvage in jail and out of competition with him.

As to the heist itself:

Monsieur Marionette is a Chessmaster. As such, this would be really neat to set up as a Xanatos Gambit, where he's using the heist to accomplish several goals.

I see a number of things he could accomplish with your plotline:

• Hack into the credit-card computers to divert the donated funds to his personal accounts (through intermediaries, of course) OR to the accounts of his rivals to frame them!
• Steal money and valuables from the rich people aboard the boat, sending them through intermediaries to his pawnbroker.
• Start a NYC gang war if he's committing his crimes on somebody else's turf, perhaps even setting up Salvage to take the fall for an "unauthorized" heist.
• Sympathetic magic (like these marionettes) typically relies on obtaining something from the persons to be hexed. MM could use the valuables (particularly if they are family heirlooms) or even hair and spit taken from the victims as foci for future loa possessions.

The beauty of these layered plots is that you can leave clues to all of them around the boat after the initial fight scene is over with. Through their Investigate, Search, Notice, and Knowledge rolls, the heroes could put together one, maybe two of these plots and move to foil them ... then, in the grand tradition of comic books everywhere, you can end the gameplay session with a short cutscene wherein Monsieur Marionette reveals that his ACTUAL goal was whichever one the PCs didn't follow. Or Ye Olde "This is a setback, but victory is within my grasp!" Speech.

[Uthanar]

Thank you very much for the reply Gargoyle. I found your response to be really helpful!

I am aware of the list of Loa (not a lot of the specifics) but hadn't thought about giving some of Salvage's guys powers based on them. I think that is a really good flavor concept to add to this that provides a link back to MM.

Salvage has powers. I viewed him as a mad scientist in junk tech. Going to be putting him and some of the others together today.

Most of all I love the thoughts that you put down about MM and Salvage interaction, and MM's long term goals. Reading the Chessmaster and Xanatos Gambit write ups gave the character a bit more definition. With the powers that I have placed upon him he could be a really cool long term villain who is seen by the public as one of Haiti's hopes for the future.

[Stone Cold Gargoyle]

With the powers that I have placed upon him he could be a really cool long term villain who is seen by the public as one of Haiti's hopes for the future.

Aha! He's a Villain With Good Publicity. TV Tropes is a magnificent source, BTW.

Anyway, glad you liked some of the thoughts. I'd be interested in how things turn out. Incidentally, I like the tech/mystic interaction between MM and Salvage. It gives you a way to cover both angles (science on magic) depending on how your PCs choose to use their knowledge skills.

[Uthanar]

So I added another character into the mix on this. I hope I'm not getting too complex! At the same time it brought one element in a bit closer to the story as it is developing.

One disclaimer, while I use NYC it is not an attempt to say that this is the way things are in NYC. I have never been to NYC and so have no idea. Instead it is an iconic city and lots of stuff can be put there. I am trying to mix bits of reality into the "lies" of game to create a richer environ.

MM is an "honest" Haitian businessman that has only recently begun development in NYC. He has taken an interest in NYC due to the very large Haitian population that live within the city. Sadly there is already someone running Little Haiti, and he goes by the moniker of Big Daddy Voodoo (name taken from a Shadowfist card...that will also be his portrait!).

BDV is a hougan akin to MM, but is of far less power than MM. BDV is also a known gang leader by the police, but they have been unable to get him locked away on anything that would stick to him rather than his minions and lieutenants. MM, who has the face of a good business man, needs to show that he is cleaning up Little Haiti, and so BDV is another target for him, but is not the primary target of this operation.

MM needs to take Salvage out of the situation. Salvage smuggles both guns and people into NYC, but MM does not trust the man machine, and the loa know that they cannot control him due to the cybernetics that he has. So MM needs to remove Salvage and set someone up to take his place that can be trusted or at least controlled when the time is right.

MM performs his ritual to have loa take control of Salvage's men and hit the yacht that is ferrying the rich folks around. I figure that the route will be out to see Ellis and Liberty islands (for when it comes up). Salvages men get onto the yacht and hold people prisoner. While most of these will be minions I think I will use two lieutenants and emphasis the differences that they have due to the loa that are riding them. These two will not only be collecting loot from the people but will rough a few people up. This is a cover for tearing out hair, getting a little blood, and things like that.

At some point a group of Haitian youths will come up on the boat and Salvage's men will pass them the goods. These youths are from Little Haiti and are under the impression that they are doing courier work for BDV through an intermediary. The youths run the goods back to the pawn shop, but the boat that they use is stolen and damaged during their joyride (A CLUE!). The youths pass the goods off to their contact who assures them that he will let his boss know that they were helpful. The panwbroker will then stash one of the sacks of incriminating goods in his shop, while he drops the sack of hair and more personal mementos in another location to be picked up by other minions of MM (though not directly).

If the heroes don't interfere this event will be covered on all the major news networks, and one of those on the yacht will has seen the second boat before the pass off. The storming of the yacht by the harbor police against Salvage's forces will be a bloody battle where both sides and hostages are hurt.

Salvage will see his crew on the news and begin to look into what is going on. He has done work with BDV in the past, and BDV has even provided some 'spiritual' back up when Salvage needed extra muscle. Salvage recognizes the effects in the film that is shown and thinks that BDV has gotten some of his crew to turn against him.

The Haitian youths are likely to end up bragging about what they have done, and that they are about to be in with BDV's gang. This will not only attract attention from numerous sources, but prove to Salvage that BDV is behind what is going on and to BDV that someone is working his territory when they shouldn't be.

Salvage and BDV likely would end up in a gang war, and MM sits back to benefit not only from the stolen money that will not be recovered, but also reap the benefits of gaining a bit more control over his new stomping grounds.

In this redone version of the story (since this is a campaign, just not one that we are playing ATM) MM has nearly no chance of showing up to the heroes. The events are going to be attributed to Salvage and BDV.

Edit: So we are going to be playing at PL 8. I'm thinking that Salvage and BDV are the big bads of the scenario and so should be like PL 10 villains. The lieutenants that they have should probably be like PL 8. Salvages minions that are on the yacht (all hopped up on loa) should probably be strong for minions so PL 5. That would leave most of the minions as PL 3 and 4 when they aren't juicing.

Do those numbers sound about right?

[Stone Cold Gargoyle]

All good stuff.

A couple thoughts:

1) You should give BDV something that distinguishes him from MM so that players don't confuse the two. Perhaps MM is a shadowy mastermind type who recruits catspaws, while BDV takes a more direct hand in things? Or maybe BDV is very overt about his voodoo and uses zombies, while MM goes with loa infusion? Or perhaps BDV maintains power by making deals? Dr. Facilier might be a good model for BDV.

2) To make things even more fun, perhaps MM can be a "good" voodoo priest who helps the heroes for their first couple adventures?

3) One possibility is that BDV and Salvage have long existed in a kind of equipoise. Neither one likes the other, but each is powerful enough that going into full-scale gang war would damage both of them. When MM comes on the scene, he sets out to upset that balance.

4) MM needs a Dragon, I think. Somebody who both provides a plausible alibi for MM and whose battle can be a mid-campaign climax. Possibly an actual loa?

5) Does MM have an overall long-term goal beyond becoming Little Haiti's crimeboss? A couple thoughts: By collecting hair, etc., he could create chaos across New York, start robberies, etc. ... but all of it is a diversion for his REAL EVIL SCHEME, which is to ... I dunno ... maybe awaken a particularly powerful loa? And maybe permanently bind that loa to a particularly powerful body?

[Uthanar]

Well, we got a late start this weekend but fun was had by all. In the morning we made a long trip out to get some super awesome donuts for the day, and then ended up swapping stories about things (including the incredible experience one of my players had at GoRuck). When we did get started I tried to briefly run down the way that the game worked, and mostly stressed that just about anything that they wanted to do can get done in the system. While it was drawn from D20 games, it would not always accomplish things in the D20 fashion.

After covering some things on what had happened since we had last played, we got down to game time.

We started the game session with our not quite super group (they haven't made things really official) a few weeks after they had a very nasty run in with doppelgangers from another dimension. Their resident tech genius, Pulse, and Lady Liberty's technically minded minion, Kyle Gipson, had worked on commlinks since their last adventure and passed them out to the team.

Lady Liberty was dealing with her TA Kyle Gipson (a minion that she has who is well aware of her and the teams super powered hijinks and helps them out with comms, he even has his own super moniker of THE SERVICE!). He brought up that her father had asked if she was going to be able to make it to the charity event to raise money for Cancer research. After checking her schedule she realized that Lexa Livingston did not have anything that she needed to do that evening, and so planned on going on the cruise around the harbor and beyond.

Aces and Pulse were at the hideout that they use in Jersey with The Service where the three of them were spending the afternoon relaxing, drinking, and designing what they termed to be a "Beer Cannon".

The cruise went well until Lexa started to hear the sound of some very loud engines approach. She moved to see what was coming and saw exhaust coming off of three speedboats that were heading straight for the yacht. She made the quick decision that she would be better served in her heroic identity if things did not go well with these individuals that she suspected to be pirates. She moved to where she would not be seen, enacted her Instant Change Feature, and then popped overboard and into the water. Upon getting doused in the water she heard her commlink pop and sizzle as the electronics went out.

Should I have given her a hero point for this? Looking back on it, I was messing with her but at the time it just felt like what an electronic device would do. Writing it now I feel like that sounds like what I'm supposed to give a hero point for.

LL is a flying brick, and therefore pretty poor at stealth. As she is looking at what is going on she surveys with stealth in mind over observation. I provided her a -5 Perception for a +5 Stealth on all checks. She immediately notices that the men who are boarding the yacht are not tying their boats off to the yacht, and while some of them are climbing up others are simply jumping aboard. Knowing that there are too many of them for her to take care of on her own she tries to contact the team and finds her commlink is out. She flies to the three speed boats that are abandoned and drifting to change back to Lexa Livingston so that she can access her phone. She calls The Service to connect her with Pulse and Aces, informs them of the situation and their need to get out to where she is.

Pulse and Aces head out to the marina where they can get a speedboat, but once they are there discover that it is Sunday late afternoon and lots of people are around. This makes them simply stealing a speedboat a bit more difficult as they will be observed, and their press hasn't been too good since they all came onto the scene at the same time as their evil doppelgangers did. The media still hasn't really let that go.

Should I have given a Hero Point to them for this complication? I didn't really push the situation, because I didn't want the adventure to be tied up in "How do we get to LL!?" but instead get to the action on the yacht and the story beyond it.

Aces called for attention from people and tried to convince someone to lend him a boat for an emergency. The onlookers simply watched in disbelief at him and Pulse. One lady came up and started badgering him, apparently an avid fan of an editorialist who had been giving the heroes bad press. Pulse, turning on his loudspeaker, tried to help Aces with his check and the two of them ended up getting an older man to offer them an older speedboat for the day, despite the woman's objections. With that the two heroes were on the water and boating towards the hostage situation.

LL had been trying to survey what was going on and discovered that there were 11 people on deck that were holding hostages. She had noted the "junk tech" factor of the speedboats, and saw that they had a similar look to them. Many of the people had missing body parts that were replaced with scrap pieces that seemed to function well. She noted one of the people on deck to feel like a leader type, and witnessed another swiping credit cards behind his ear.

Time passed while she tried to observe, and even witnessed a Cigarette Boat with some young African American men aboard dressed very casually dock with the yacht for a time and then leave. She had to move away during that exchange for fear of discovery and so was unable to get much information on the other boat. When LL tried to follow it, she quickly discovered that her flight was no match for their boat.

Finally the heroes group up together near the yacht (that has dropped anchor a while after it was boarded). The heroes need to come up with a plan, but fear that moving the boat towards the yacht will provide far too much time for the pirates to react. LL gives information on where she has seen the pirates standing to Aces and Pulse.

Pulse plans on performing a Pulse Leap (powered by his boots) onto the ship, but worries that it will destroy the boat that they have borrowed and promised to return. In fact, the woman who was bad mouthing them said that they would not return the boat! Aces is going to be carried by Pulse, for while he can run a 4 minute mile he has no ability to get to the yacht other than a slow swim. LL plans on swimming over to the boat and then getting the drop on the pirates as Pulse leaps to it. She needs to figure out a way to communicate with them and so takes Pulse's commlink, but worries about the water.

None of the players asked me about something on the boat that they could use to shield the commlink from the water. If they had brought up "This guy was going out, so he probably has his lunch here...lets get the plastic bag from that and wrap this up." I would have agreed without a Hero Point. I brought that up specifically, but since I had brought it up I said that if they wanted to do that they would need to pay me for it!

LL gets into position, Pulse is ready to jump with Aces on his back. Combat is joined!

LL has a Str of 10 and a +6 to hit (PL . Other than that she has a basic "Throw Big Stuff" at +3 to hit and +10 damage. She has a Stamina of 10 and Impervious Toughness 9, but her avoidance defenses are not maxed.
Pulse is balanced on avoidance, toughness, attack, and damage. He has some more options in his attacks than LL does.
Aces is attack and defense favored to simulate the luck powers that he is based on. His standard attack is an 18-20 crit multiattack.

The three of them get to the ship, and while LL isn't really getting beaten up by the bad guys she has a hard time getting through them. The bad guys have a Toughness 8, but only Avoidance 2. My dice are hot, and the players are not. It takes a while before they start putting minions down on the boat. A great time is had during the fight.

I give people a bonus on their attack rolls for super hero appropriate one liners during their turn. If it is a good one I give a +2, if it is an amazing one +5, and if it is just something that they said but no impact they don't net a bonus. I thought that this keeps the environ that I would like to see going, but I do worry that it favors Damage characters over Accuracy. Hm....

Lady Liberty draws fire from a bunch of the minions, but they realize that they can't hurt her as their bullets bounce off of her. Pulse and Aces move towards the leader, and realize that only the woman are still on deck.
Pulse lands on deck with a cried "Yo Ho Ho" and shoots at the leader of the pirates and misses...taking out her bottle of rum! Payne (the leader) on her action bemoans the loss of her liquor, pulls a strange junk tech gun, pulls a lever on it...and nothing happens!

Pulse punches the leader on deck called Payne a number of times, and is unnerved as her body reacts, but the look in her eyes never shows an ounce of the beating his Pulse Suit is laying on her. As Aces moves to go below decks he tells Pulse that the energy Pulse's suit is pushing out is taking the deck out below him.

I gave them a perception check to see this happening. Aces was right next to Pulse and made his check. I wasn't sure if I should just collapse it underneath him and pass him the hero point without the check. So I decided to go that way.

Aces moves inside after firing his pistols in a wild 60 ft. cone taking out 3 of 4 shooters away from any captives. Inside he discovers the other leader of the pirates is coming out. A huge guy with a terminator arm that is called "Grip" by the minion who went into the cabin. Grip clobbers Aces, but not enough to get him into a grapple. Aces stumbles back and I offered the player that I could incap him after the attack and pass him a hero point calling on his Complication of "In Over His Head". He declined, feeling he needed to be in the fight to help.

On Aces next turn he went for Extraordinary Effort combined with his Advantage that improves it and unloaded his guns in a flurry of bullets. Two multiattacks go into Grip (who had All Out Attacked just moments before) and bring the monster down, then Aces swings his smoking Rubber Bullet Guns over to Payne, but isn't able to remove her from the fight. As he finishes his barrage of bullets he hears his guns click empty. Grip's massive body clogs the access point, locking up a number of other pirates behind him.

Pulse downs Payne with another Pulse Punch and then uses his Move Object Power to remove the floor beneath him so that he can get below decks to look for the other hostages. He moves out of the storage room he falls into and his phone rings...and he answers. I pass him a Hero Point as on the other end of the line he hears his loud, obnoxious, and intrusive mother on the other line, "HOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWARD, you never call your MUH-thar."

Pulse's character has grabbed a Complication of Workaholic to show that after the doppelganger encounter where he just started out as a kid looking for some kicks, things have gotten all kinds of real. Now he has completely let his social life slide as he has only been identifying himself by his super activities.

This whole time Liberty has been fighting minions, with not too much success in knocking them down quickly, but they were not hurting her one bit. As I said earlier, my dice were hot!

Aces, needing a gun and knowing that he had shot some men a level up tries to run up Grip's body...and flubs the roll! As he tries to Jackie Chan his way up he shakes loose the behemoth's body, and quickly finds himself tumbling over the edge only to get his leg tied up in a line that keeps him from hitting the water. He dangles helplessly...and passes me a hero point. He tells me that while he is going over that Payne's gun falls over and he catches it. When one of the bad guys come over to cut the line that he is suspended from, he points the gun at them and pulls the trigger. The guy begins to scream in pain and quickly falls off the boat. Whenever they have seen this gun successfully fire they have not seen anything come out of its barrel but always those hit seem to be in pain. In fact, this is the only time that they have seen any of the pirates in any pain. Their bodies have reacted to the hits that have been done to them in the past, but this was the only time that they have screamed or reacted in such a manner.

Below decks Howard is trying to get his mother off the phone, trying to convince her that the "restaurant" he is in is just very loud, and that he is out on a date with a girl. Finally as his suit's early warning system kicks in (Danger Sense) Howard calls out "Mom, I have to go." hangs up on her while he turns and fires on the minion who was sneaking up on him.

Liberty, finally free of the grand melee that she was in for a long time is providing cover for the women to get to the life boats. She even helps her step mother, who is worried about her daughter. Lady Liberty asks what she looks like! Of course the step mother describes Lexa instead of Lady Liberty. Liberty flies over to the chocolate fountain picks it up and hurls it at one of the remaining shooters. The player delivered a line about "Metal dipped chocolate", while I thought the appropriate line would be "You ordered a hot chocolate!?" A chocolate mess covers the deck.

Aces brings down most of the minions that were at one time trapped behind Grips body, but suddenly he pulls the trigger on the gun and nothing happens...then small black smoke starts wafting out the barrel. (It was an Unreliable weapon, and that was his first failure on it.) He looks at the man approaching him and cries, "Liberty, a little help!" He begins to run for Lady Liberty's flying form...only to slip in the chocolate! A hero point was passed out to him for it.

Liberty flies over, grabs the thug and then throws him at the shuffleboard (that was earlier commented to exist by Aces) inventing the new game of ShuffleLuge! She KOs the final minion and ends the ShuffleLuge game with a perfect score, her minion is fully in the triangle without hitting the -20 points zone and she has removed all other teams pucks!

With that the fight winds down. Pulse finds the male hostages, and eventually Lexa is "discovered". She gives her teammates all her valuables (since people have been robbed) and even has Aces pistol whip her in the face to make it look good. After a few attempts that Liberty's divinely empowered reflexes stop (and she barely doesn't turn poor Aces into paste) he finally starts laying into her. His capability to do damage is just past her Impervious Toughness (Imp Tough 9 vs Damage 6). She comes out with a bruise, and doesn't even need to act exhausted from the ordeal because her Extraordinary Effort has left her in that shape. For the Pistol Whipping she did earn the temporary complication Badly Beaten that she can call on later on if she would like.

Finally NY Harbor Police arrive and the captain even thanks the heroes for what they have done. He says that a lot of folks don't know what to think of them, but from what he has learned from talking to the witnesses things would have gotten very ugly if the police had needed to take the yacht.

The heroes discover that the cigarette boat contained 5 young African Americans that picked up a package and spoke in French accents.

Aces and Pulse rode the yacht back to shore, but Pulse Leaped off the yacht before the media frenzy could catch up to them. Later on that night all the heroes were reassembled at their Jersey hideout.

Pulse took a good look at the gun that Aces had been using and ended up taking it apart. He found a strange clear crystal that the lever on the gun would remove from the firing line, place in the firing line, and rotate in the firing line. He is uncertain what kind of crystal it is or what its purpose is for but sees that the battery is feeding directly into the crystal and so it would have been generating whatever effect the gun had.

The group felt a little stuck and so I offered inspiration. All I told them off of it (would give them more if they flubbed it up) was that Aces had skills that would provide clues. They went through his skills and skipped right over his Expertise Police and Streetwise. I then asked what are a bunch of people who break the law together, dress in a similar fashion...I didn't get to finish. Aces said "A gang!" Then he rolled his check, and remembered information about Salvage from his time on the force.

As for the other boat, they think that it might be some warlords men that were making a trade. None of the hostages knew if the men gave a bag to the pirates or not, only that they took a bag. While their plastic was recovered on the ship, none of their other valuables were.

Pulse called up his minion Jerry, an investigative journalist working for the famous Planet Bugle!

Aside: In the setting that we are using while it is 2011 (coming up on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 where most of the super heroes died) print media is still a thriving industry and while papers do publish on line articles they are not near as important as the physical papers.

Jerry is a young investigative journalist and is mainly working with the investigative part and needing to pass things on to more seasoned journalists. However, he is one of the few who are reporting positively about the heroes in his editorials that Planet Bugle is hosting on their website. After Pulse nets more verbal abuse due to not having a social life from Jerry and calling him for help rather than drinks, Jerry agrees to help and Pulse promises him that they will go out the next day.

Finally Aces asks LL if she has a boat that he can give to the guy that they borrowed the boat from. LL is fantastically wealthy, so he figures she is probably good for it. They plan to deliver the boat to the man sometime tomorrow where LL flies in carrying it with Pulse and Aces inside. They also plan to get him a much nicer boat!

That was the game session, and while not too much was covered folks had a fantastic time. I found running MnM to be easy and fun process. While I was putting bad guys together on Friday I thought that it was a pretty fast and painless process that the GM Kit Fast Creation Guide helped with enormously.

Gargoyle was saying he wanted to hear what had gone on, so I posted this up for him, and I hope he enjoyed it. I will put down some more thoughts on the story that I am working on tomorrow probably.

Edit: Oh we ended the night with LL asking if she can use the hideouts shower as she is still chocolate covered in her super hero form (we have her instant change do her hair up, so figured that the chocolate would probably disappear to the ether just like her gear). The Service who has complication Hot for Teacher took one look at her and his jaw fell open. He grabbed onto Aces' shoulder and asked (as Liberty walked out of the room) "What did I just see!?" Pulse asked "Hey Service, what are you looking at!? Keep your eyes up here!" Aces replied for him, "Oh, I just think he was looking at that chocolate covered ---."

Just wanted to share that part too!

[Shoe2]

Sounds like awesome fun, if only I could get a mnm game going around here....

I would definitely gave a hero point for frying the comm in the water, and for that other thing. I'd say too many hero points is better than not enough personally

[Uthanar]

I'm trying to find the time to really write up a nice summary of what has gone on so far and how things are developing, but I'm a bit backlogged on that. I normally have a player who does journals, but she hasn't been doing on for this game. That leaves me trying to put the adventure that occurred 6 months ago (real life time) together into a story format. While we now record our game sessions, back then we weren't doing that, so the story is all by my memory. So it might be a bit before I get to the more current sessions and get the story put together.

I put up a summary of the first weeks game already. The second week Pulse's player was unavailable for game, and so we just ran with Lady Liberty and Aces. We started the week at the hideout in Jersey. With Lady Liberty no longer having a working Comm, The Service and Pulse knew that they needed to work on some replacement Comm devices. Since I had been running Comms as working over a larger area than just 1 mile I used this as a time to introduce that they were too powerful. Pulse's Power Armor works on a mostly undefined and experimental energy known as Pulse Energy. Pulse and the Service used minor Pulse Batteries to power the Comms, but when they brought out their previous experiments and information found that the Hamster that they had hooked up with a Comm Device to see if there were any problems was dead. So Service pulled all Comm Devices and the two of them were out for the session.

The group discussed things for a bit, and ended up heading out to Salvage's Junkyard to look around. I'm not really certain what they were planning as they told me that they were going to Salvage's Junkyard when I asked them what the PLAN was, not their current action.

At Salvage's they got into a massive fight with Junkyard dogs where the luck based character got to unload his Rubber Bullet gun on a number of dogs while Lady Liberty used her Crack the Whip on lots of the clustered animals. At one point she even brought down a junk pile onto a large amount of dogs and her teammate.

When the fight with the dogs was over, Salvage and his on site crew showed up, turned on spotlights onto our heroes and began to inquire what they were doing on the premises. Then they started to talk to him. That threw me for a loop compared to their previous action of B&E onto his premises.

LL used her powerful Persuasion and Attractive Advantage to move the scene from the outside to Salvage's office. There the heroes put on the table what they had seen so far, and that his men on the boat had a very vacant look on their faces unlike his men here. Motivations were obvious on the faces of his men on site, while the ones on the boat never registered anything even pain (except the one time that one of them was hit by a Pain Ray that Aces had used after his own guns ran out of ammo).

Salvage pointed the heroes to a gang lord in Little Haiti known as Big Daddy Voodoo. Explaining that he was a powerful Houngan, and could turn people into ju ju zombies that would do things like what the heroes were relating. He traded them the information for the crystal that was recovered from the Pain Ray gun, as the gun was his property in the first place.

That is where the session ended because my wife's allergies were acting up pretty badly. The next week Pulse was in attendance, but Aces' player was feeling sick. So we still had a 2 Hero table. I didn't have as good of a reason to get Aces to step out as the Comm Device reason I used on Pulse the week before, so I had his character mysteriously slip out after simply telling Pulse that he had to go. It is somewhat in character for Aces to do something like that, and I hope that some of the thoughts on where he went for 2 days that I have will work for the player. For the advancement of the storyline LL was waiting on information from Aces about BDV...BUT THINGS WORKED OUT BETTER THAN POSSIBLE!

Monday morning Aces is gone so Lady Liberty and Pulse delivered the replacement (and much nicer) boat to Mister Ames who had let Pulse and Aces borrow it. While MIster Ames understood that lending the boat to a pair of masked men might mean he wouldn't see it again a reporter that witnessed them borrowing it and promising to have it back to him last night had been by to see what had happened. Mister Ames spoke with her on the fact that he hadn't seen them again, and Terry Thommasson promised him that there would be a piece done in Planet Bugle about this.

Lexa Livingston's phone rang, and Kyle Gipson (aka The Service) her TA was calling her to check if she was making it to class or not, since she was already late. LL immediately took off and flew from Jersey up to Columbia University while Kyle dealt with the class for the time. Upon her arrival at her on campus office LL shifted into her mundane identity of Lexa Livingston and immediately her phone rang. It was her step mother Angela Atwood checking in on Lexa after the piracy both had experienced the day before and to tell her that while Lexa's father and Angela had flown off to Italy in the night after the experience, they realized that they had dinner with the Worthington family scheduled for tonight. Lexa was to take their place, and unlike how she liked to show up at functions, Angela required that she bring a date for proper BGBG seating.

Lexa quickly worked her way off the phone only to receive another call, this time from Pulse wondering what happened to the crystal. When he heard it had been traded away and that he had OKed the trade unknowingly he began a tantrum in the hideout. Lexa got to class and was able to delivery the majority of her lecture. As she exited the classroom Lexa heard a familiar voice call her by a nickname that only one person used, "LEXIST!"

Lexa felt her entire body tense as she turned to see the youngest Worthington, Arik. Arik Worthington is a playboy several years her younger that always used to hang around with Lexa and Willits Worthington. Since puberty Arik had been successful at nearly everything that he had touched in both his personal life and professional life. He had several advanced degrees, as well as patents that provided Arik all the money that he would ever need separate from his family company of Angel Air (Of course Angel Air and Worthington are in the same place!). While Lexa is a restrained person while Arik is a passionate individual who flits from one thing to another and receives public praise for the work he does no matter where he goes. Lexa had been cautious of him since a brief make out session when he was 16 and she 22 under the boardwalk. Lexa's player introduction to the character was happening at the same time as I was telling her most of this information.

The two of them talked about Arik being back in town, and Lexa asked him if he was going to dinner that evening with them. Arik acted surprised by the news and started texting with his phone without really looking at it. Lexa found herself at disadvantage during the conversation a few times, and Arik maneuvered her into saying things she wished she hadn't whether it was too much or simply misworded. Arik casually announced that he secured a Swedish Bikini Model to join him for the evening. As he left Lexa's company, the normally under control woman felt flustered by his sudden appearance back in her life and the way that he had taken control of the conversation.

Lexa ended up getting Howard as a safety date for the evening and sent over a tailor to make him a new suit. Howard went out early in the evening with Jerry (to make up for the fact that he hasn't been around much) and then with Lexa later that night. While their dinner was supposed to be at Aqua, Lexa received a text from Arik minutes before stating that things had been moved to Mario Batali's restaurant of Babbo. When they arrived the group found out that they were to be at the chef's table and Mario (who Arik knew on a first name basis) would be preparing their food for the evening.

While Ambrose and Barbara were supposed to be at the dinner, Arik told Lexa that they had decided to follow her father and Angela to Italy for their dinner, leaving just the "kids" to keep each other company. Arik, Klara (his Swedish Bikini Model date, who is also an Environmental Scientist and holds an additional degree in European History), Howard, Lexa, and Willits sans date share the evening together.

While Howard was invited by Lexa to scare Arik off, the 21 year old quickly develops a man crush with the extremely accomplished and charismatic man. Throughout most of dinner Arik guides the conversation, stylishly and subtly undercutting some of the others, while still making them feel good about themselves. Because it was only Lexa and Howard we were able to make this dinner the focus of the RP session. Lexa (Toughness 10 Goddess) found that unlike any time since her powers manifested she was affected by the liquor that she was drinking in Arik's presence. She quickly cut herself off from the wine, but noticed that her emotions still surged throughout dinner.

The next day Lexa was in class again and her students suddenly seemed to be very distracted from the lecture. She called out one of her students as to what the problem was and was provided some live videos that were being uploaded from a burgeoning riot in Brooklyn, Little Haiti in specific. LL got on the phone to Howard to look into it and that she was stuck in class. Pulse headed out to Brooklyn and ended up tangling with two gangs, one are the Brooklyn Kings who are just being set up as a gang of normals that the heroes can mow through. The other was the MetalHeads, Salvage's crew that was no longer content with waiting for action against BDV by the heroes.

Pulse fights through both the Brooklyn Kings (saving a barber from a savage beating) as well as stopping a vandal, uses his explosion power on a group of the Kings on Harleys, and then fights 8 MetalHeads lead by one who has had a full jaw replacement to look like he has Warhammer 40K ork jaw. The lieutenant gets to Pulse and bites down on him, ripping his suit up, but Pulse makes his Toughness save on a Nat 20 (what he needed).

Pulse ends up getting a lot of warnings on his system about system failures or potential failures, but ends up taking the lieutenant down as well as some of the minions. At that point the remaining minions seem to rage and charge him. By this point actual media crew is on the scene and LL is watching Pulse as he is brought down by the raging gang members. She begins to cry and Kyle jumps up excusing class and saying that he will be handling office hours. Lexa says that she is so affected because Pulse saved her life two days before. Once she is out the door she is flying to Little Haiti, even though it is far off from Columbia University.

She ends up getting to Pulse with his suit broadcasting warnings of "Pulse Breach Imminent". LL dunks the suit into water which electrocutes Pulse and brings down all systems (most of which were in need of repair). Then she helps a lot of the people in the area for a while and Pulse just waits in his suit that has been completely brought down. LL calls Veronica Veers to ask about a doctor who could help Pulse since she doesn't know how bad things are for him. Veronica sends LL to a location where they check Pulse out and find that he is mostly just scrapes and bruises and nothing bad even though he was beat up.

When they get back to the hideout, Pulse starts work on his suit and trying to repair it. Veronica approaches Lexa about the negative press that the PCs have been a victim to and how it is only being exacerbated by the fact that they haven't established a solid working relationship with each other. The three start talking to each other about the problem, and Lexa begins to muse on who she could get to work as their PR agent. While a number of names come to her mind, Arik Worthington she knows would be an excellent representative. (This was totally unexpected turn for me, but it just fit so well!)

LL schedules a meeting with Arik who with only an hour prep time seems to have an excellent handle on the situation that the heroes are in. Arik offers to take their case on as it is a very interesting situation. He brings up a number of the situations that have occurred that they need to address. The first thing that they need to deal with is a man that was injured while Pulse was reacting to the riot. So Arik states that he needs Pulse at the hospital that night for a media event involving him.

After hearing about the conference Pulse is overwhelmed with how much work he has to do to get the suit back together. Veronica calms him down and asks him what the goals he has on the suit are. They end up defining that he needs a suit that looks like it works. She says that she can deal with the weight of the suit and help him walk (without going into any of the specifics) if he can make everything look right.

Pulse attends the media event after being coached by Arik on how things are going to go, and Lexa even attends after Arik asks her to (since Pulse saved her life on the boat). Pulse talks with the barber he rescued briefly and even makes a joke that he might go in someday for a haircut. Arik states that Pulse will be covering all the damages to the Barber's store, and that All Star Barber will be open tomorrow for business, inviting everyone to come on down.

Pulse then moves to speak with the man that was injured by one of the Harley motorcycles after he took the rider out. He had his leg broken. Pulse offers his apologies to the man, and provides paperwork for him to sign that will have Pulse cover all his medical expenses as well as worker's comp, recovery fees, and ensure that his family is properly cared for.

Finally Pulse moves to speak with Lexa Livingston, who thanks Pulse for saving her on Sunday evening. With that Pulse leaves the hospital, and Arik delivers a prepared message to the media, stating that Pulse will be available for questions at a future time.

The whole time that Pulse was at the hospital, his suits motor functions seemed to be functioning, but once he was away from the hospital everything stopped functioning as it had before.

The session closed down with the NPC Veronica Veers who had assembled the heroes together previously calling Lexa for help. She had been onsite at the hospital, and when Lexa got to her, she found the woman drenched with sweat, heavily panting, with her pants suit clinging to her because of the sweat. Veronica asked Lexa to bring her back to the hideout. Veronica has always been seen wearing pantsuits and leather gloves, while Lexa is driving her back to Jersey from Brooklyn at one point looks to see the glove appears flat on the seat.

After getting Veronica back to the hideout and escorted to the door to her room (a door that always remains closed) Lexa leaves to have dinner with Arik, something she agreed to after he spoke with her about his new job and the fact that he had taken the job because of what the heroes had done for her...and that he was working Pro Bono.

The two had a quiet sushi dinner and then Lexa challenged Arik to a rematch of an old drinking contest. Lexa quickly found that she was affected by the sake, and owed Arik an undisclosed favor (as that is what he asked for if he won).

DONE!

What I loved about the second session that I wrote up here is that we got into the personal life of the heroes. It was super nice to have that going on, and the fact that we only had 2 people allowed us to really explore the time with the dinner. However, what I SUPER LOVED was the fact that the environment that had been set up was being pulled on by the players. My wife called up Arik who had just been introduced to help the PCs, even though she doesn't like Arik. Beyond that Veronica Veers (who was set up with the group in their first session) got to develop her story because the players had need of who she was as a super powered individual. It was really nice to see them benefit from the world that we have established!

Now for the twist! Lady Liberty is a Goddess empowered by the bloodline of Columbia. Columbia is the daughter of our world's Roman Goddess Libertas. Since not much is available on Libertas (that I have found) I have made her Athena's daughter through Immaculate Conception (maintaining Athena as a virgin). This gives me a lot to pull on. When we were using Hero System LL set up a Complication that she has an Unknown Enemy acting against her. With that information I made the Enemy Ares.

Arik is the bastard child of Ares and Barbara Worthington! Unlike LL, Arik is aware of his divine parentage and has come to NYC to either win LL to his side (corrupting a Daughter of Columbia to Ares' side) or sacrifice her in the violence that he is planning on bringing to the city in order to attract Ares' attention. Either way, Arik hopes to finally gain attention from his divine father. This provided one more layer to the story that was started in this thread.

While MM is a distant mastermind moving pieces around the board, Arik is going to be the bad guy for the storyline culminating in the 10 year anniversary of 9/11.

I'm hoping to get a much better and more entertaining write up than this. If you made it this far, you deserve a Hero Point!

[Stone Cold Gargoyle]

Sounds fun so far ...