Power and Responsibility - Issue 8 finally!

[ReeboKesh]

Last week our group started its' first 2nd edition M&M game. The group (from Sydney, AUSTRALIA) have been playing D&D for years, as well as Star Wars, Shadowrun and Earthdawn. Two of the players had played 4 sessions of M&M 1st edition and the other two were initially hesitant to play a superhero RPG, not being fans of the genre. Well after the session they were hooked. Everyone had a blast and so begins our first full time 2nd edition M&M Campaign titled “Power and Responsibility”.

I designed three of the four heroes allowing one player to convert his 1st edition character over. The heroes in this campaign are teens. Their lesser power level, PL 8 with 90 points, reflects this as does their low attack values and small amount of combat feats or none at all in some cases.

The campaign is set in Freedom City but with notable differences:-
• The Freedom League exist but are globe hopping heroes so they are not always around

• Heroes who readily approach the media are excepted, especially those who have been given their super gifts through accidents or technology

• Aliens and mutants are not generally liked by the populace after one too many alien attacks and common fear humans have of those born different i.e. with dangerous mutant powers. The tendency for mutants to hide their powers and try and pass themselves of as normal encourages the stereotype that mutants are dangerous and to be feared. This is currently the case with one of the teen heroes.

• Clairmont Academy is known to the general public as a school of gifted and special children, not a “Sky High” type school. Yes the are mutants there, but the public doesn’t know that.

The Cast: below is some info on the characters, including the hero names and secret identities.

Valkyrie (aka Tiffany Amber McAllister): Tiffany is the powerhouse of the group, Super strong, agile and tough. She can regenerate light damage and is Impervious to physical attacks, even automatic weapons! Tiffany is a mutant. She has yet to reveal her secret to her family and friends fearing that she may be cast out of her perfect life as the rich, prettiest and most popular girl in school. She has aided the others on three occasions but is reluctant to accept the responsibilities that come with the powers she’s been born with.

The Cricket (aka Chris Jenkins): the groups resident Spiderman knockoff – wall crawling, Leaping, heightened agility etc. Also the only one to have already created a costume for themselves and accepted their role as a teen hero when the campaign started. Chris is younger than the other teen heroes at 15 (the others are 16) and he kinda looks up to them and may be developing a crush for fellow team mate, the reluctant hero, Tiffany.

Kid Light, formerly known as Light Boy (aka Declan Reynolds): Kid Light has an Alternate Form of energy (light) and can Fly, become Insubstantial, fire laser Blasts and has control over light itself. He also possesses X-Ray vision and the ability to teleport along fibre optic cables. He’s the classic teen hero trying to do right but making some mistakes along the way.

Shifter and Super Dude, formerly known as The Mighty Morphin Zoolander (aka Zack Bateman). OK, I admit the version of Beast Boy from the Teen Titans cartoon is the inspiration for this character. Zack is an alien shape shifter who can assume blue animal forms with yellow markings. He cannot speak while in animal form so by pure coincidence and clever role-playing from his player, the other heroes think he is actually two different heroes - Shifter an animal themed shape changer whose true from they’ve never seen and Super Dude, the sidekick of Kid Light who can changes his features to appear as other people.

The teens all go to Midtown High and at the start of the campaign know each other only in passing despite sharing some classes.

Next: Power and Responsibility #1. The teen heroes meet for the first time at the Mall but do a little more than just shop!

[nighthunter]

Can't wait to see how your campaign goes.

By the way, the one game of Mutants and Masterminds I played with a group of friends I also played a character called The Cricket so I can't wait to see how yours does.

[Rob_Jedi]

Here's my photoshop effort of doing up Kid Light from a pic from Applegeeks. When he turns to his light form the jacket stays seemingly since he was wearing it during the accident that gave him his powers. I thought it would look cool if he had his logo stencil cut out of it so he shines through. The bandana is new since he got knocked out of light form twice in the last game.

[mancerbear]

Sounds like you got yourself a good team there Mysterio. Looking forward to reading the write-up of the session.

[ReeboKesh]

Power and Responsibility #1.
“The Menace of the Mannequins!” or “Price Check on AAAAARGGGGHHH!”

This write-up is dedicated to mancerbear who wrote the adventure “Costume Jewellery” which was used in this session. It can be found here http://www.atomicthinktank.com/viewtopi ... 07&start=0 Thanks mancerbear.

The players first got to hear a short prologue. I occasional write prologues, epilogues and cut scenes with my games so you’ll find that these write-ups will occasionally have one or two.

Space, truly the final frontier.

At the edge of our Solar System unseen by anyone, a glowing wormhole soundlessly explodes open in the void. A sleek alien craft emerges from the wormhole before it abruptly collapses shut.

Within moments the ship has reached our moon, passing it .The only witness to its passage, the planted flag of one of the proud nations of Earth.
The ship arcs it’s flight path to pass our earth, cloaked from the sight of the hundreds of orbiting satellites. At the closest point to our planet, a smaller craft jettisons from the sleek alien vessel and blasts toward one of the larger land masses. The larger ship accelerates and drops out of sight a moment later. Somewhere near Freedom City and alien has come. To hunt.

How It Played Out: The session began with the teen heroes Tiffany, Chris, Declan and Zack, each heading off to the Millennium Mall after school.

Millennium Mall, one of the largest of its kind in the metro area. The mall holds more than 150 different shops. Despite the presence of a four story parking garage, parking is generally difficult, but not for the figure who has been in the Mall all day. Staring at the clothing shop windows, both male and female, captivated by the figures behind the glass. He wears a black raincoat, despite the fact it hasn’t rained in a week. He presses his hand against the window.

“Soon…”he whispers.

Two female shoppers walk by and notice the figure. One makes a comment to her friend and they both burst out laughing.

The figure sneers at them from over his shoulder. The two woman glance at each other, giggle nervously and quicken their pace. The figure turns back to the window.

“Soon my friends, soon… you will be free.”

Noticing a rent-a-cop walking toward him, the figure turns away and loses himself in a large group of shoppers.

As they shopped each of the heroes witnessed the shop mannequins come to life and begin to attack shoppers for their valuables, smash jewelry shop windows and cause general mayhem. While shopping with her friends, Tiffany is attacked and is pushed over the railing on Level 3 by a mannequin who manages to grab her “sweet 16" necklace. Luckily she manages to grab the ledge and pulls herself back up (GM - well not that the fall would have hurt her with her Impervious Protection Rank 8!).

Zack is up next and a golf wielding mannequin takes a swing at his head and misses. Zack tosses the basket ball he was holding at the mannequin’s head knocking it off. It falls to the ground lifeless once more.

Declan and his friends are busy playing Halo 3 in a gaming store when naked female mannequins chasing female shoppers come rushing in. Declan’s friends panic but he’s the one to take off running, not wanting to assume Light Form where witnesses and security cameras could see.

Lastly, Chris is in Toys R Us shopping for action figures when he’s attacked by none other than the Dark Lord of the Sith himself, Darth Vader! Ok it was a Vader mannequin with a toy lightsaber. Chris gives the former “Sith Lord Who Cried NOOOOOOOOOO!” a shove, knocking it to the ground and putting an end to it’s brief reign of tyranny. Chris grabs the dark helmet, kicks of his shoes and socks and stashes his gear in a back room before leaping out the store to aid the shoppers in trouble, barefoot and wearing a Darth Vader helmet.

Tiffany rushes to her friends aid, rips off the arm of the mannequin who swiped her necklace and proceeds to beat it into lifelessness.

Declan changes to Light Form in a side corridor and rushes back to blast the naked mannequins. Spotting his friends in trouble he passes through another mannequin, blasts it and knocks it into a second mannequin taking them both out. He then rushes out the store to look for others in trouble.

Zack grabs more basket balls and takes out two more with well placed shots to the head. He then decides he needs the right type of weapon to fight these zombies…err mannequins, and roller blades out the sport store towards Wal-Mart. (GM - apparently Wal-Mart sells guns and ammo in the US? Well we made it so…)

Chris takes out another mannequin outside the Toys R Us with a well placed kick and leaps up to the next level.

Tiffany manages to free her friends from the mannequins’ grasp and tells them to run. They don’t hesitate and run to the nearest exit. Tiffany hears more screaming and smashing of glass and decides to help. She grabs a Vera Wang scarf off one of the dummies and wraps it around her face. She decides to head to the Sports store to grab a baggy tracksuit and hooded top, to complete her disguise.

Declan spots a family surrounded by mannequins. The father bravely tries to fight them off. He calls out to the family to duck and burns a Hero point to Cone his Blast power, melting the gang of mannequins where they stand. The family thank him and make for the nearest exit.

Zack takes out another mannequin on his way to Wal-Mart with a well placed kick of his roller-blades. The old lady that was being attacked thanks him as he zooms on by. He reaches Wal-Mart and spots the hanging sign indicating the location the Guns and Ammo department. He gets there to find ten mannequins armed with shotguns and pistols. As one, they turn their heads, cock their weapons and fire at Zack!

TO BE CONTINUED….

[ReeboKesh]

Zack dives behind several shelves as bullets begin flying, assumes the form of a dark blue rat with yellow markings around its eyes, and quickly scurries to safety. (GM – much like Beast Boy, Zack’s animal forms are uniform blue with yellow marking around their eyes, he also cannot speak in animal form, much like the cartoon version of Beast Boy).

Chris begins to look for anyone who may be controlling these mannequins and spots Declan in Light Form. He asks Declan who he is but is ignored. The mannequins begin to gather around Declan trying to hit him. Chris jumps into the midst of the mannequins and breaks one into pieces with a well-placed kick. Declan activates his Control Darkness and drops a globe of darkness around himself and Chris. The mannequins in the darkness stop moving.

Chris burns a Hero Point for inspiration and figures that the security cameras may be how someone is controlling these mannequins. He leaps off looking for one of those vertical shopping mall maps with the "You are Here" arrows.

Declan hovers in the air and moves to hang suspended over Level 2. Alas the mannequins do not follow him as he had hoped, probably because they are still cloaked by his globe of darkness.

Tiffany, Chris and Declan here the sounds of gunfire coming from the Wal-Mart and race off in that direction. Chris makes it first and sees the armed mannequins, Tiffany rushes up as well and the two masked heroes exchange "Who are you?"s.

Meanwhile Zack takes the form of a large blue lion and begins stalking the mannequins turned NRA members. Before he has a chance to pounce, Declan shows up, sees the armed mannequins, who fire uselessly at him, and burns another Hero Point to Cone his Blast, dropping all but three of them. None of the others notice Zack in animal form.

Chris tells Tiffany that he believes someone using the security cameras is controlling the mannequins. Declan over hears the two and decides to Teleport through the fibre optic cables of the nearest security camera straight to the Security Control Room. Chris and Tiffany take out the remaining armed mannequins. The two of them then head to the Security Control Room located a short distance from the Wal-Mart and find the way blocked by over a dozen smiling mannequins.

Zack decides to arm himself with a Desert Eagle and a Glock after putting his clothes back on. (GM - that’s Zack’s Drawback, his clothes don’t change when he assumes animal form but thankfully they don’t rip to shreds either…. Hey it’s comic book realism!).

Chris leaps over the mannequins’ heads with a single bound and heads toward the Security Control Room.

Tiffany rips the nearest courtesy bench from it’s mountings and hurls it at the mannequins, taking out half of them. The rest swarm and grapple her, dragging her to the ground and tearing at her hair and clothing. (GM - this scene reminds me of an old Twilight Zone episode with freaky store mannequins trying to reclaim one of their own. It was as scary in black and white as it was in the colour remake.)

Zack shows up and begins firing at the zombies… err mannequins but is to distracted by Tiffany having most of her clothes ripped off and misses his shots.

Meanwhile Declan appears in the Security Control Room and discovers 6 guards all bound, gagged and blindfolded with duct tape. Suddenly a figure in a black plastic raincoat rises up from behind a table. His head and hands carefully wrapped with duct tape.

"You!" he cries. "How dare you ruin the plans of the great Plasmaster!" "You will suffer for this insolence! Eat plastic death!"

With that the Plasmaster animates several plastic electrical cables, tearing them from their power boards and striking at Declan like spark spitting cobras! The plastic cables pass through Declan’s insubstantial form but the volt’s of electricity at their ends do not.

TO BE CONTINUED….

[Rob_Jedi]

ARGH COBRAS

[mancerbear]

I'm enjoying this very much Mysterio

[Isungr]

Chello!

Very nice....love it.

Just a note...yep, Wal-Mart sells guns and ammo (in the Sports dept.). However, around Y2K (maybe a few years before) they stopped stocking handguns. I ~think~ you can special order them, but I'm not sure, as I buy my firearms at gun shops or shows. the only time I buy anything gun related at Wal Mart is when i need shells on a sunday...lol.

Not that it matters to your excellent campaign...maybe in the FC Universe they never stopped carrying handguns!!!

Tony

[ReeboKesh]

Thanks guys, glad your enjoying reading it as much as we enjoyed playing it. I have another two short adventures to post up and then our next game will be on the 18th Feb. Another teen hero may be added to the mix depending on whether the player in question is allowed to play WHIPCRACK!

Wow Isungr, I guess 10 shotgun packing mannequins would have been a lot scarier!

I'll post the next installment tonight.
Mysterio[/i]

[ReeboKesh]

Through sheer luck, Declan is only stunned by the electrical cables, alas the shock forces him to resume human form and he falls to the ground dazed. Luckily at that precise moment Chris leaps through the Security Room doors and kicks Plamaster bruising him, before leaping away to check on Declan whom he recognises from school.

Recovering from the attack Plasmaster whips out a garbage bag from his raincoat pocket and hurls it at Chris, animating it with his power to control all plastics. Chris looks up and due to the tinted lenses of his Darth Vader helmet is unable to react to the garbage bag that wraps around his head and begins to suffocate him. (GM - I decided to give Plasmaster’s a few new powers so he wouldn’t be an easy beat once the mannequins where defeated. The garbage bag attack was essentially the Suffocate power. His next move was to Snare the two would be heroes with yards of duct tape. Alas he’d never got that chance.

Seeing Plasmaster gloating of the suffocating Chris, Declan quickly resumes Light Form and Dazzles Plasmaster with a burst of strobing lights. Momentarily blinded and unable to see the monitors of the Security Room, the Master of Plastic loses control over his plastic minions. (GM – I felt that giving him a flaw that made his Animate Plastic Power rely on sight gave the players a chance to find him once they figured out he was using the Security Cameras)

Outside the Security Room, the mannequins swarming Tiffany stop moving. With a cry of frustration, she hurls them off, gets to her feet and runs toward the Security Room.

Zack watches in amazement as Tiffany gets up and runs off, wearing only her white socks, pink bra and Smurfette panties. Reluctantly shaking the image from his mind he gives chase.

Tiffany bursts through the Security Room doors and spots the two young heroes and the Plasmaster, who begins regaining his vision. She rushes forward, grabs him by the raincoat and hurls him across the room with a cry of “Your mannequins broke my necklace!”. Plasmaster hits the wall with a thud and slides unconscious, to the floor. Outside police sirens can be heard.

Zack bursts in guns drawn, realises everything’s under control and looks for a place on his person to holster the guns. Declan and Chris convince him to lose the guns and he obliges. Zack motions the others to be quiet so the bound guards don’t hear, then begins pressing the erase button on all the security camera video tapes. The others reluctantly concur that it’s best to be safe than sorry. (GM - I couldn’t fault the logic since the camera’s caught some of them who were unmasked, using their powers)

The teen heroes decide what to do next and Tiffany expresses that she’s going to return to the clothing store and wait for the police. After a moment of blanks stares from the boys she realises she’s in her underwear and scurries out the room. Chris tells the other two to meet him on the roof and heads off to retrieve his gear from the Toys R Us.

The police arrive as Declan, in Light Form and Zack begin unwrapping the guards. Declan using his Precise Laser Blast to cut the tape of the guards without hurting them. They relate their side of the story to the police and hand over the unconscious Plasmaster. Eventually the media arrive and the two heroes are interviewed by Channel 4’s top reporter Tanya Roberts. Declan goes by the name Light Boy and Zack calls himself Super Dude but admits he has no powers and the reporter assumes that he is Light Boy’s sidekick. (GM – this was a very funny scene because Zack’s player was doing all the talking while Light Boy… sorry, Declan, was just standing there, glowing! In fact Zack gave the reporter Declan’s superhero name as Light Boy, which Declan’s player has since changed to Kid Light.)

Eventually the two media hounds meet up on the roof with Chris who had gotten changed into his Cricket costume. The revealed each other’s identity, talked about how hot Tiffany was and promised to catch up at school. (GM – funny thing, during this short meeting, Zack didn’t volunteer to reveal his superpowers and the other two didn’t ask Obviously the players know what he can do but they role-played ignorance exceptionally well)

As for Tiffany, one of the mall guards eventually found her cowering in a change room, gave her some clothes and escorted her to her friends who were waiting outside. If Tiffany’s friends noticed anything strange about her during their ordeal they didn’t bring it up and Tiffany was thankful for it. As far as she was concerned her secret powers, would remain secret for the moment. (GM - Well except from a trio of boys who go to the same school she does.

Thoughts on the session: I’ve got to say, I think M&M brings out more role-playing and character interaction than any other RPG I’ve ever played, and I think I know why. The lack of monsters, dungeons and treasure! All these years of playing D&D all I had to do was throw out those three components and wala! Instant role-playing! Not too mention the genre is an absolute blast and creates so many funny scenes that you think your watching Mystery Men, only funnier.

Oh M&M, where were you 15 years ago?!

Next: Power and Responsibility #2. The teen heroes find themselves at a bank at the exact same time a Heist occurs. Gee, that never happens in the comic books!

[nighthunter]

Truly a hilarious episode. Can't wait to see what happens next. Good luck to Whipcrack I say!

[mancerbear]

Well done Mysterio Good to see tht the Amazing Plasmaster got a good licking too.

The Heist is a good adventure too. I've used it a couple of times myself

[ReeboKesh]

Truly a hilarious episode. Can't wait to see what happens next. Good luck to Whipcrack I say!

Actually Whipcrack is a sound effect for the player in question possibly not playing because he has to spend time with his girlfriend. Get it? It's a personal joke, not his superhero's name, though your post was funny if you thought otherwise.

[ReeboKesh]

YAY! We're back online!
Power and Responsibility #2.
"The Heist" or "So your saying a Blue Elephant stopped the robbery ma’am?"

From the title alone it’s quite obvious that this is a running of the adventure "The Heist" from the M&M 2nd Edition Rulebook. The fact that the teen heroes happen to be in or near the bank when the Heist went down was ‘overlooked’ by the players. I guess there’s an unspoken understanding that in superhero RPGs, occasionally you have to suspend your disbelief for the sake of a fun adventure.

The adventure I ran after this one also has the heroes being in the same place at the same time something bad goes down, but like "Menace of the Mannequins" each character had their reasons for being there. I hope to not have too many coincidences occur in future adventures similar to the set-up for the Heist.

How It Played Out: The session began with the teen heroes Tiffany, Chris, Declan and Zack, in or near the Eastern Seaboard Bank in downtown Freedom City.

Tiffany was in the bank, standing 7th in line, wearing her cheerleader outfit and very late for practice.

Zack was sitting bored out of his skull in his mom’s car parked outside the bank, while his mother was inside doing some banking.

Declan was waiting to use the ATM outside the bank, frustrated that the customer in front of him was acting like if he’d never used an ATM before. (Gee there’s a sense of realism for ya! - GM)

Chris, in his guise as the Cricket was leaping around downtown looking for trouble. Correction, looking to STOP trouble. Though the youngest of the group Chris’s sense of responsibility to use these powers he’s been given is probably the greatest amongst the teen heroes.

This is how the Heist went down. A dark blue van pulled up outside the bank offloading Rant, Rave and their posse of armed thugs. Entering the bank they immediately ordered everyone to the floor and when the rent a cop…sorry security guard tried to reach for his copy of USAToday, Rant let him have it with his vocal Sonic Blast, knocking him out cold.

Cricket spotted the robbers entering and landed on the roof of the bank, crawling upside down through the sliding doors and onto the ceiling. The two thugs by the doors noticed the automatic doors open but failed to look up, shrugging, they concentrated on the terrified customers within the bank.

Outside Declan noticed the robbers enter at the same time the customer at the ATM in front of him walk away leaving his cash hanging from the dispenser. Pocketing the dough (Should he have got a Villain point for that? - GM), Declan sneaks over to see if the van has a driver.

Across the street, Zack too notices what’s going down and opens the car door a little to assume rat form and duck under the car. He crawls to the other side and plans his move.

Inside Cricket leaps down striking Rant but only manages to bruise him before jumping up onto the counter (Cricket’s player made a witty comment at this point but I’ve forgotten what was said. I’m sure he’ll remind me. - GM)

Tiffany decides to use the distraction caused by Cricket to sweet talk one of the thugs into letting her go. Her attempt doesn’t quite have the desired result, so she just gets up and makes a run form it. The thugs turn to shoot but Rant tells them not to "waste their time with her, shoot the bug!"

Tiffany runs around the corner to her car and begins getting changed into her disguise which include a balaclava, trackwear and gloves. She passes Declan outside the bank, he says hi.

Across the road Zack assumes the form of a blue elephant and charges the van. Declan quickly dives out of the way as the cyan pachyderm slams into the van flipping it over. Declan rushes down a side alley and changes into Light Boy.

Inside the bank Rant lets Cricket have it with a Sonic shout but the agile hero leaps out of the way as the counter windows shatter from the deafening sound.

Zack in blue elephant form crashes through the bank doors and knocks two of the thugs to the side. He looks around and spots his mother lying on the floor with the other terrified customers. She gives him a stern look with the shake of her head and then keeps her eyes on the criminals.

Light Boy flies in, narrowly avoiding Zack’s blue elephant rump and blasts some of the thugs.

Finally Tiffany rushes in. Faced with more resistance than they had expected, the pistol packing thugs get serious and open fire on the heroes.
TO BE CONTINUED….