OSR Commentary On Reap the Whirlwind (MX3) By Caroline and Warren Spector For Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Rpg

 ""You've been hounded by jack-booted, white-shirted vigilantes. You've been hunted by killer robots."

"You've lived like an animal."
You've had enough.
Now it's time for mutants to fight back, time for the hunted to become the hunters. You've learned to survive, to thrive, by striking from the shadows. A thrust here. A blow there.
Now word has begun to circulate of a mutant with power enough to frighten the sentinels ... of equipment which can give mutants a fighting chance against their oppressors ... of a man with a vision, a vision of a mutant army capable of overwhelming any foe.
You'll strike like a whirlwind and reap what you can. Your lives will never be the same.
The thought appeals to you."

 Reap the Whirlwind (MX3) By Caroline and Warren Spector For Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Rpg amps up the themes & tone of the other modules that we've covered in this series to eleven. The PC's are at the center of the Resistence & come in as experienced operators & agents. The plot according too the MX3 Reap The Whirlwind wiki entry goes something like this;"In Reap the Whirlwind, the player characters must find and free a mutant woman whose power allows her to mask her mutant abilities as well as the abilities of mutants near her from Sentinels. The woman, Gilda Ginsel, was accidentally captured by a Sentinel and is being sent to a research facility where her power will be unmasked unless she is rescued. Once the player characters have freed Gilda, they must make take her to the relative safety of Canada via an Underground Railway, where they will meet up with Nick Fury and Wolverine." 
Make no mistake MX3 Reap The Whirlwind is a campaign module in every sense of the word. Not only are the PC's embroiled in Underground Railroad for mutants smuggling into Canada. But they find themselves  taken to the Canadian headquarters of Stark Enterprises, and have to fight off a cross-border raid by Sentinels.Then there's also the mini adventure in which the PC's have to join a mutant army down in Texas to overwhelm the local Sentinels! 
 Reap the Whirlwind (MX3) is a campaign module in which the world & campaign of Nightmares of Future's Past come vividly alive. The PC's are heavily invested in & a part of this world. They are a party to the future of this Earth in every sense of the word. The MX series of modules isn't for the faint of heart and are highly flexible. Even if the Resistence wins there's going to be decades of rebuilding of the world. 
Are the Future in Flames series modules worth the download especially MX3 Reap The Whirlwind? According to the module's wiki entry;"In The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games, Rick Swan recommended Reap the Whirlwind and the entire "Future in Flames" series as an excellent introduction to the super hero genre, but warned that these adventures were for "ambitious players."" 
We were one group of  "ambitious players." back in '91 or so. We took our PC's and played for through months of operations, assignments, sabotage, heroics and more in order too thwart the Sentinels. We lost a ton of PC's through this series of module but they were a blast. 

Things Among The Oort Cloud - Hostile Rpg Session Report

 At the edge of the Oort Cloud a giant radio telescope has been tethered on a super Earth near the Tyche gas giant. The Eye is a massive radio telescope &  joint collboration between three of the largest mining mega corporations. The Eye is  used to search large swaths of the galaxy for worlds with large swaths of natural resources. The mining mega corporations funded the Eye at the end of the Second Recession. The PC's are playing guard dogs to the exploratory science team.  This blog post picks right up from here on the blog. 

Randy's World is a large super Earth that has an unusually dense alien jungle eco system with tons of alien prehistoric lifeforms. The PC's are exploring a desert section of Randy's World & have found something interesting. There are scattered alien ruins & odd foundations in the middle of the desert. There is also a series of ponds & catch basins filled with organic liquids. These catch basins are surrounded by weird plants that appear no place else on the planet.
 What's really going on?! The fen is actually the holding point for the Things From Another world. There is a nearby hyperspatial gateway that leads to other points at the edge of the galaxy. The party hasn't investigated past the planet's natural resources and just learned about the ruins tonight. 

OSR Commentary On CROM THE BARBARIAN By Jothanathan Nolan For The FASERIPopedia! Rpg

 "Taking as its inspiration Saturday morning science fantasy cartoons and the Golden Age comics era character CROM THE BARBARIAN, this sourcebook brings the full fantasy roleplaying experience to FASERIPopedia!"

"CROM features some of the most startling art and monsters, most exciting characters and settings of any FASERIPopedia game!

A full sandbox chart set is provided to generate detailed "hexes" to explore or fight over as well as a generator for the scattered city-states of CROM's world!

The Bestiary lists cosmic horrors and exotic threats quite unlike the normal and a real challenge even for hyper league superheroes!"

Right, so let's pick it right up from here on the blog.   We're talking Sword, Sorcery, and Super Science! 
CROM THE BARBARIAN By Jothanathan Nolan  For The  FASERIPopedia! Rpg is an incredibly diverse sourcebook. Part Sword & Sorcery sourcebook, part low fantasy  setting & partially a campaign book all in one. Crom the Barbarian is set to take the FASERIPopedia! Rpg in slightly different direction. This is not Conan but instead a completely different character. 

We've used the Crom The Barbarian supplement like a side realm where the PC's have gotten themselves into some real trouble as raiders from Crom's world have given our Marvel Super Heroes rpg & Ascendant rpg players bloody noses. Crom is about as well organized and laidout as other  FASERIPopedia! Rpg (because an editor could go a long way towards getting this material into better shape). That being said there's so much good stuff that gets handed to the players and DM.  FASERIPopedia! Rpg supplements love to cover just about everything about the PC that they can. Crom is no different. 
Here we get a plethora of over arching themings that hit all of the right points for the the FASERIPopedia! Rpg. So for our own campaigns Crom's realm is a realm that is far removed from the normal Earth.
The realm of Crom was last accessed during the Seventies when portals from  Subterraea into Bloodville caused a major rift. This Rift was used by raiders from Crom's world for years in our Ascendant rpg campaign. Villainous goons from Crom's world are much more powerful then the PC's at first thought. And this comes into Crom's scaleable villain and NPC rules.  And then there's Crom's monsters and bad guys whom are designed on the Saturday morning 'Thundarr The Barbarian' model of more power and less brains. 
Crom presents some rather unique challenges to heroes of both Ascendant & FASERIP rpg powered games. 

OSR Review & Commentary On Faster Then Light: Nomad Synthoids By Robert Garitta For Cepheus Engine rpg & Faster Than Light: Nomad Rpg

 "Many science-fiction roleplaying campaigns fall into the standard, trading, good-mercs-beat-the-bad-mercs, shady work for credits, or hunt treasure. The addition of AI, whether robots or Synthoids, can change this dramatically. The presence of Synthoids in a campaign pose some underlying, somewhat uncomfortable, questions: What is it to be human or self-aware? How will humanity treat their children?"

"Given our history as a species, the answer to those questions is not encouraging. We’ve enslaved and oppressed other humans. Non-humans should be wary. Dystopian human societies may view them as slaves or even cannon fodder: send the Synthoid out to see how the monster works! Or stick a gun in a Synthoid’s hands and you have a soldier at a lower price than drafting and training a human."

"More enlightened worlds may welcome Synthoids as partners in their glorious progressivism and are proud that Synthoids are designed to survive and thrive while doing jobs that would break a human. Of course, Synthoids will resist oppression, since they are based on a human design. There will be escapes, riots and perhaps revolts. Humans may learn too late that their servants were really their replacements."

Faster Then Light: Nomad Synthoids By Robert Garitta hit the stands a couple of days ago. Meaning that right out the gate I'm behind in my Cepheus Engine & relatives Rpg reviews. 
Mr.Garitta hits the ground running with a discussion on the ethics of androids and cyber entities. That's not bad for a thirty two page set of rules that allows the DM or players to generate thier own android or artificial person PC. These rules cover the basics and slide easily into your Faster Then Light 2d6 rpg campaigns easily. The rules are fast and on point about the capabilities of androids. 
They hit all of the major resources to add in androids and the like to your 2d6 Science Fiction games. These rules and the entire supplement really cover the plight of the artificial worker or slave in a civilization and what that means per say to the culture. 

Faster Then Light: Nomad Synthoids hits the ground running & covers it subject well. It handles the subject with grace & wit. While giving both player & DM everything that they need to add in artificial people and androids to thier games. This is a no brainer purchase. Because if you've got even a passing interest in androids then Faster Then Light: Nomad Synthoids is for you. 

Intergang Break Out! -- Ascendant Rpg - Session Report

  This session picks right up after a few days have passed and Lady Elizabeth has healed up in Medical. The cartels have invested in bringing a specialist assassin group in the form of Intergang's Super Human divsion's operatives. Intergang decided to bring in thier latest power armor to do a bit of 'shopping' by robbing several of the local credit unions. 
Bludville isn't as important as Metropolis but it's got a lower finiancial profile then the cutting edge cities such as Metropolis or the waning popularity of New York City's Gothem city within a city profile. There was something being stored in one of the banks that Intergang were knocking over. This is when Silver Sable's Wildpack stepped in. The PC's backed off the Wildpack as this was thier collar. 

Intergang has completely gone off the reservation and came up against Silver Sable's Wildpack in tonight's game session. The PC's were minimizing the collateral damage to thier city as power armored Intergang operatives took out the vault. 
The PC's went full tilt against the Intergang operatives and didn't hold back. They took the fight into an abandoned neighborhood that was due for demolition. The crew took down two buildings on the Intergang operatives. Trapping them for Dreadnaught Security to pick up later on. 

This all echoes off from events from Capital City Casefiles #2: Served Cold

This is when Intergang's hitmen closed in with Apocalpyse precision sniper blasters and almost picked off two of our party! They managed to avoid the blasts and then had the ruins around them dumped on thier heads. Here's were we stopped! 

OSR Commentary - Marvel Super Heroes Advanced rpg & MX2 The X- Potential By Mark Acres

 "One Hundred Thousand to Attend Mutant Execution," one headline screams. "Senator Hints at Link Between Mutant, Commie Plots!" shouts another. In the Streets, white-shirted men wearing distinctive armband of the Knights of Genetic Purity march in lockstep, treading underfoot any suspected of being soft on mutants. In the public schools, kindergarten children raise their arms in clenched fist salute of the National American Social Improvement Party and chat the party slogan, "One People, One Blood, One Nation!"

"Is this but a super hero's nightmare? No. This is America; home town U.S.A., 25 to 50 years in the future. In this America, constitutional government is all but gone. Real power is held by the sentinels, a group of powerful robots programmed to seek out and capture or destroy all human mutants and all beings with any hint of super poewrs. Sharing power with the sentinels are a handful of political demagogues who keep the population whipped into a constant frenzy about the mutant menace. Any super heroes who survive in this hostile environment do so by constantly facing the full military, political, and technological might of a new totalitarian state in the making."

Marvel Super Heroes rpg Advanced holds a lot of nosolgia especially from the Nineties. We pick right up from where last left off from MX1 Days of Future Past on the blog here.  From Gates of What if we jumped to our home town right into the arms of The Knights of Genetic purity along with representives of  the National American Social Improvement Party. 
Our party hid right away only to be told that we'd have been killed by the Sentinel purges that swept through New England. As critic James Wallis noted in his review of MX2 The X- Potential;"a change from most Marvel Super Heroes adventures, the player characters are not fighting crime but fighting for their lives."  And fought we did because this was our hometown were the Sentinels had taken hold. Our own hometown is a repair depot and facility for the Sentinels. There were jobs aplenty as long as you don't mind working for the bad guys. 
The representives of  the National American Social Improvement Party run the day to day business of the Sentinels. The rest of the town had two manufacturing plants for parts, weapons, and sensors for the Sentinels. When we gated in the Resistence in our hometown had been crushed. We took thier place almost seemlessly. 
According to the MX2 wiki entry;"The X-Potential is the first of three adventures set in this bleak future. It adds more details of the world, then describes the events that will happen around a large political demonstration over several days. The players are free to intervene as they see fit. At various times, the gamemaster supplies them with front pages of "The Daily Journal"." 
What MX2 The X Potential does is take what we saw in X1 Nightmares of Future Past adventure/supplement and then adds to it by bringing the nightmare to the PC's home town or campaign city. MX2 adds in too the feel of 'the old town goes to Sentinel Hell' and then some. The face of The X-Potential is your PC's faces as the party becomes embroiled in these nightmare campaign world.What this does is give the player's agency and accessibility within the campaign. The struggle for the PC's lives leads there to being much more at stake. These nightmare campaign worlds were places that we adventured in and affected on a much more base and basic level. 
MX 2 The X- Potential shows that the PC's could and would affect the world on a far more campaign effecting level. The PC's actions have significant effects on the campaign world especially thier own home town. There's a dedication here in MX2 that allows the PC's influence to add an extra layer to the player's actions during play.
All in all MX2 The X-Potential is a classic larger then life adventure that hits the vibrarant notes for classic Marvel Super Hereoes rpg Advanced. There's someting really sastifying about busting the heads of Sentinels & destroying thier plans. We played through MX2 The X-Potential many times and it continued to have a solid play value as both adventure and supplement. 

Debts of Honor & Cash - - Trey Causey's Strange Stars - Session Report

 One of the pleasures of using Stars Without Number is being able to make the game work for you as a DM to keep the players engaged. The player's PC's are on Phase World's Grand Arena level looking for a Thrax warrior who was a part of thier crew many moons ago and they heard rumors that he's in the Grand Arena fighting, again. This session picks right up from where we left off last time. 

In Darthx The Destroyer's off hours he's been an instructor and gladiator coach within a seedy Gladiatorial school. He's been working at the Blood  Moon School from Citybook III Deadly Nightside. 

There's  got to be a reason because Darthx had gotten free from his old gladiatorial patron. So what's drawn him back?! Our party has been speculating on this as they made thier way to the Blood Moon school. The connection is that half of our party's fighter types was trained there and came up the ranks as gladiators. 
Darthx is on a suicide path because he's been going against mecha. We dodged   Cabilan mercenaries who wanted our hides quite literally. 
A few ambushes and traps took out four mercenaries with little fanfare. 

Inside the Blood Moon school we made our way to pay our respects to our old coaches & called over Darthx. We found out his old patron had his Thraxu blade  for ransom! Thrax warriors who have such a blade covet them as honor debts for a sum or money.  We pulled our cash and went to the patron. But such a debt was not easy to get out of. Because now we've got to make a cargo run for this guy to get out of the debt.