A blog about sewing machine repairs,but mainly my hobbies which include old school role playing games, science fiction,films, horror, and general geekery. Sit down and stay a spell.
Showing posts with label Marvel Super Hero Role Playing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marvel Super Hero Role Playing. Show all posts
Tonight we ventured down the classic Marvel Super Heroes Advanced rpg with a full on Halloween adventure one shot! Our mission?! Save Jack Russell The Werewolf By Night from a group of undergound vault dwelling vampire cultists headed by a Dark Sorcerer named Thomas Payne!
This mini one shot started out with me thumbing through 'The Marvel Vampires The Unofficial Canon Project' rpg supplement and the thought about where would vampires actually hide out in Marvel comics New York City?! The answer is easily the Morlock tunnels left over from the mutant massacre back in the Eighties. The question is however where did those tunnels come from in the first place?! The answer of course is the US government used them & then they were 'abandoned'. Actually earsed off the books by government insiders. The Morlock tunnels lead deeply into Subterranea's vaults! You can find the Marvel Vampires The Unofficial Canon Project supplement right here. And you can also find the M6 Werewolf by Night for the Marvel Super Heroes RPG here. Note that I've reviewed both of these supplements here on this blog.
So a vampire cult led by a maniac black magician picked up on this fact. The enabled me too connect the Morlock tunnels with Subterranea by Johnathan Nolan. Jack Russell aka the Werewolf by Night has been on the trail of these vampires and got himself captured by them. Now they plan to drain him dry!
So it was up to our group of Marvel supers to go and save him. First we armed ourselves with day light grenades, stakes, wood swords and more! We've faced vampires in their elements and the results were not pretty! The first thing we had to do was stake the vampire guards set at the Morlock tunnel doors and getting to the Morlock tunnels wasn't easy!
We had to deal with Morlock drug dealers, mole people, and a couple of monsters even before we got to the remains of the Morlock tunnels. We ended here as the weather outside started to pick up!
Baron Blood by John Byrne used without permission.
The Baron was also leading a group of Nazi vampires on a sabotage mission! We handled the situation with our first game in a long while! Fortunately we had the help of Batman & Robin to mop up the vampires! This series of adventures served as prelude to the Marvel Super Heroes rpg Netbook Adventure 'In The Shadows of Evil' Compiled, Written and Designed by Christopher P. Tyne.
We had to report into the Invaders and Captain America about Blood and co. The whole mission had a very WWII prelude mission feel about it. As the Invaders were in town under the warbonds telethon feel. Meeting us was Adam's PC's Doctor Henry Jones
Doctor Jones was there to escort us to the Middle East & a meeting with another group of capes. And then another clandestine meeting with a general about some artifacts. Jones had the details but wasn't saying a word because this mission was way above our paygrade. Note that this isn't the first time I've run 'In The Shadows of Evil' Compiled, Written and Designed by Christopher P. Tyne. But playing the adventure is a whole other ball game. This is a really dangerous adventure!
Given the amount of background, powers, and more on these creatures of the night there's more then enough information to bring not only members of the Russell family & the Drac pack into your Marvel Super Hereos rpg games. These two sourcebooks go over the top with lots of horror done in the Marvel Super Heroes vein. Each of the entries goes deep into lore, powers, abilities and more perfect for dropping into your on going MSH's campaigns. The layout & cartography is easy on these old eyes & the attention to detail should satisfy even the pickiest of MSH players.
Everything within the 'the Unofficial Canon Project... Marvel Vampires" & M6 Werewolf by Night for the Marvel Super Heroes RPG is keyed for actual campaign play from the ground up in the Marvel rpg spirit. The M6 Werewolf By Night is especially good for street level MSH adventures & campaigns with more then a brush with the supernatural is called for. The 'the Unofficial Canon Project... Marvel Vampires" source book should be used with caution because of the nature of vampires in Marvel comics. These creatures of the night have a tendency to overwhelm campaigns with their presence unless this is the focus for such a campagin.
For Bronze age comicbook & MSH fans these two sourcebooks are a no brain to have. They cover their respective subjects very well & for a World War II campaign with a foucs on different aspects of the supernatural they ace it for sure.
"It is the winter of 1943. The world is in the grip of war. Three quarters of the European continent is in ruins, crushed beneath the heel of a German jack-boot. Neither the sands of Africa nor the steppes of Russia are safe from the Nazi scourge. On the other side of the world, the waters of the Pacific run red with blood. While the valiant allies struggle against seemingly overwhelming odds, the dictators in Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo gleefully divide the world amongst themselves for conquest. As the sun sets over europe, freedom is soon to become little more than a fond memory. Welcome, true-believers, to Dreamslayer’s first Classic Marvel Superheroes RolePlaying Game Crossover Extravaganza! In the Shadow of Evil is designed for a Judge and up to eight players. The adventure can be played either on its own or as a prelude to a World War II ongoing adventure."
I have a huge soft spot in my heart for TSR Marvel Super Super Heroes rpg & it seems to remain a classic with a fanatically devoted fan base. I went looking for some inspiration the Classic Marvel Forever website that's one of the most developed fan sites on the internet net & its got a bit of a reputation as a pirate site as well. But what I stumbled upon in the netbook section gave me chills Marvel Super Heroes rpg Netbook Adventure 'In The Shadows of Evil' Compiled, Written and Designed by Christopher P. Tyne.
'In The Shadows of Evil' is a love letter for the Marvel Super Heroes rpg game for everything 80's & 90s fantasy, adventure, & horror film related spun through the lens of a Marvel Super Heroes rpg mini campaign . 'In The Shadows of Evil' features elements of classic 70's Invaders Marvel Comicbook mixed in with an healthy dose of Aliens, Indiana Jones, & much more. All of this goes back to the fact that during the '76 I was reading about Captain America, The Submariner, Union Jack, all going head to head with Baron Blood the vampire Nazi blood sucker! All this while OD&D was being played around my little six year old brain.
Flash forward to 'Eighty four & the first editions of Marvel Super Heroes Rpg which had a huge incarnation of classic Forties Marv erm Timely heroes in the pages of Dragon magazine in the Eighties. Then in the Nineties we got Marvel's Ultimates Avengers & Captain America from which sprang the classic Disney MCU we've all known & loved.
'In The Shadows of Evil' it does it s job of creating a mini World War two cinematic/comic book Marvel Super Heroes game universe for the player's PC's to go to town in! Seriously if your classic Marvel 70's Invader's fan there's plenty of weirdness to sink you teeth into. And it takes the game into the realm of an alternative 90's style Marvel Captain Marvel War World II campaign.
There is a ton of fan service here for the players & its solidly done with some hard love. Everything but the kitchen sink has been thrown in for the Marvel Super Hero rpg player & fan. Personally I'd love to completely & utterly run this! There's even a bit for the classic Clive Barker Hellraiser fan thrown in to boot! That includes me folks btw!
Is 'In The Shadows of Evil' worth the down load?! As a free Marvel Super Heroes min campaign certainly! Is it worth it just for the laughs?! Well actually in my mind this is a tightly written & designed adventure sure there are some flaws but 'In The Shadows of Evil' will provide a year or more's worth of World War II Marvel Super Heroes rpg action!
"The world of Ascendant doesn't begin to diverge from that of our real world until 2012, and the first superheroes don't go public until the Battle of Atlanta in 2018, meaning your player characters will be among the first superhumans to ever don tights and fight crime. The setting is presented as an epistolary novel made up of leaked documents, transcripts, newspaper clippings, and emails that you can print out"
The world of 2020 Ascendant rpg is not that far removed from ours but with some very dangerous additions. The advent of super heroes & villains has led to a total imbalance in the world of Western & Eastern society. The setting of the Ascendant rpg is not simply on the razor's edge it is the razor's edge & its working its way to cut across the throat of the Earth. Ascendant takes the rabid mathmatics of D.C. Heroes & combines it with the mathematics TSR classic Marvel Super Heroes by taking it one step beyond. This game takes the material & mathematical system echos & algorithms of these classic rpg's & then brings them into focus for 2020.
What do I mean by this?! Well look at the hero example presented in the Kickstarter ;
"Up at the top you can see Aurora's Character Points, Power Limit, and Challenge Rating. CharacterPoints (CP) are used to construct characters. An average human has 200 CP. A trained soldier has 240 CP. An exceptionally impressive, formidable and renowned human in the real world has 400 CP. Every 80 CP represents an approximate doubling of the character’s competency across all capabilities. With 940 Character Points, Aurora is one of the 20 most powerful superhumans in the world. Power Limit constrains how characters can allocate their CP and is analogous to class level in a D20 RPG. Challenge Rating shows how powerful a character is relative to a trained soldier. Aurora can defeat 500 US infantry simultaneously - she's a tough woman.
Over on the right, below her image, you'll see Aurora's Primary Attributes: Might (MIG), Agility (AGI), Valor (VAL), Resolve (RES), Insight (INS), and Charisma (CHA). Each of these Primary Attributes are rated in SupermetricPoints (SP). SP are logarithmic; each additional one SP has a value equal to double the amount of the previous SP. Ordinary people have 3 SPs in each of their Primary Attributes, and the most impressive humans typically have no more than 5 SP in any Primary Attribute. With 7 SPs of Agility, Aurora is four times more agile than an Olympic athlete. With 12 SPs of Charisma, Aurora is 500 times more magnetic and alluring than any ordinary person.
To the left of the Primary Attributes are Aurora's Secondary Attributes, which rate factors like Initiative, Passive Spotting Range, Height, Income, and more. With a Flight Speed of 14 SPs, Aurora can fly at Mach 24!
Below the Variable Attributes we list Aurora's Powers. Her most important Power is Agile Light Control. Light Control is a pre-defined PowerSet that allows her to emulate many other powers. (The rules let you build your own power sets if you want, yes!) "
The word Agile in front of Light Control is a modifier that changes how the power works. In this case, it means that Aurora uses her Light Control in conjunction with her Agility rather than her Insight. Between Powers, Power Sets, and Modifiers, there are infinite possibilities available to make virtually any character you can imagine.
Below Powers we've listed Aurora's Skills. Skills can be substituted for Primary Attributes for specific purposes. For instance, Aurora has 14 SPs of Aerial Combat. If she's the target of a ranged attack while she's flying, she can substitute her Aerial Combat score for her Agility score, making her much harder to hit.
Below the Primary Attributes, you can see Aurora's Perks and Drawbacks. Perks function similarly to Feats in a D20 RPG. Some of the most important Perks are the Combat Maneuvers, which allow you to trade damage for accuracy and vice versa. Aurora's got two Combat Maneuvers as well as a host of other Perks related to her status as a celebrity member of the elite Star-Spangled Squadron.
Aurora has a number of minor Drawbacks such as her Code of Honor ("always be fabulous") as well as one very serious Drawback called a VulnerableState. A Vulnerable State models all the situations that can result in heroes becoming weaker or losing their powers. Exposed to meteorites from your homeworld? Caught out of your powered armor? Forgot to recharge your power ring? Not angry enough to turn green? All modeled with Vulnerable State. Aurora's Vulnerable State is that all of her powers are based on her egoistic desire to be a star; if she's ever reduced to 0 Determination, she gets depressed, loses her superpowers, and acquires a host of flaws.
Speaking of Determination, that's one of the game's VariableAttributes. The other one is Health, and both are listed near the top of the sheet. These are like Hit Points in a D20 Game. Unlike the other Attributes, Variable Attributes aren't rated in SP, just in raw numbers, so that when you deal and take damage it's all scaled correctly.
As for how the game itself works, it's so easy even a 200-CP ordinary human can play it! Anytime you want to make an Action, you choose your Action Value (AV) and then subtract the Difficulty Value (DV) to yield a Resolution Value (RV). You then roll 1d100 on the Challenge Action Resolution Table, or CHART, to see your Color Result. The CHART is carefully structured so that the expected values for any AV versus any RV are exactly what they ought to be, given the logarithmic nature of the Attributes. (It's pretty slick if you like math and we'll update on this in more detail later.)
Let's simulate Aurora shooting a Thermal Blast at the blindsighted assassin Helen Killer. Down at the bottom of her sheet, we've listed Aurora's Attacks. Each Attack has an Action Value and a Base Damage. If Aurora fires a Thermal Blast at Helen Killer, her AV for the Attack is 14 SPs and her Base Damage is 256. Her DV for the Attack is Helen's Combat Sense, which happens to be 13 SPs. That gives Aurora an RV of 14 - 13 = +1 on the CHART. Let's say her player rolls a 32. Scanning across the "1" row of the RV (Attack) column, we see that 32 falls into the Yellow range, so Aurora has scored a Yellow result on her Attack.
When you score a Green result when making an Attack, you deal Base Damage, while Yellow, Orange, and Red results increase damage by a factor of 2, 4, or 8. Since Aurora scored a Yellow result she deals 512 points of Damage to Helen Killer. Helen now gets to apply Protection like Forcefield or Invulnerability, then RollWiththeAttack to reduce Damage in exchange for taking on various Conditions like "Dazed" or "Staggered"." So basically what the Ascendant Rpg is doing is bringing the solid adventure background of Bronze Age & Silver Age comics through the extreme lens of today's headlines but warped by the production values of Pulp & solid comic book ideals. Do I think its good?! Yes I do because it takes Ascendant into a level of comic book super heroics that I think that has been missing from the rpg market place for awhile now! Would I actually play this & support it? Yes! Wanna read more on this exciting development in super hero rpging? Go right over to the link below SUPPORT THE KICKSTARTER HERE!
So apparently today was DM appreciation day and my gang of nine players decided to drag me kicking and screaming to the movies to see Captain America Winter Soldier. This was an incredible film. The story line sets a new gold standard for super hero films while really taking in a stab at echoing the political thrillers of the 70's and 80's. The overtones are over arching in this one. Shield is center stage throughout and things may never really be the same again. Many of the elements of this film are tied directly into the first Captain America film. Re watch it before going to see this one
.
This film throws the audience in the deep end of the Marvel Captain America pond and doesn't let up at all. The theater was cheering at certain parts of the film and visuals are very well done. The action never stops with several key plots running at the same time even though this film.The movie is PG -13 film and the violence is pronounced and as extreme as we've seen perhaps a bit more then Avengers. This film stars :
Already we've got a seqeul scheduled for 2016 according to wiki: A sequel set to be directed by the Russo brothers is scheduled for release on May 6, 2016.
The Winter Soldier is a well crafted movie and the plot ideas here are not so much taken from the Winter Soldier Marvel Comic series as they are reworked into the movie Marvel universe to a very well done effect. So far as I've seen everything about this movie lives up to the previous Captain America movie and turns the volume up to eleven.
This film puts Steve Rogers in the driver's seat of the movie and then gives the action over the Black Widow and the Falcon. There's lots happening here and there's still more coming. I've got to see this film a second time to see every single thread in this one.
This is perhaps the best Marvel film that I've seen to date and there are some major tie ins to the other films especially the Avengers and the rest of the movie Marvel universe. The ideas here fly fast, the plot elements are bold and comic book like. This however is one of the darker Marvel films to date and it goes a long way toward capturing the air of paranoia and fear that is in the air right now. That fear is taken and turned into a very loud, fun, and one hell of a ride to take a date to.
The performances here are fun and gritty with just the right level of violence and mayhem to keep things moving very quickly. This is a film that your going to want to see again and again to get everything. This one opens cans of worms and the door for many more things to come from the world of the Marvel movies.
OSR Gaming In The World Of
Captain America The Winter Soldier
If you are playing an old school Marvel Super Heroes Rpg campaign using the Marvel movie assets of these films. There are years of plot hooks and ideas just waiting for a DM & players to exploit. This one has everything from ties at the end of Avengers, Iron man, to loose threads that tie directly into the Agents of Shield television series. The idea of everything from clean up crews of Shield agents to complete rogue elements of mercenary super heroes dealing with the blow back and events of this film are all there. After the events of Winter Soldier there are going to be a boat load of agents questioning their place in the world and Shield. This opens the door to many possibilities for DM's to exploit into full blown campaigns. The elements of Winter Soldier make the inclusion of individuals of exceptional abilities and powers not only a necessity but a need for this world. This is a world that needs heroes and capes like now. The state of things in the aftermath of Captain America is even more shaky and ill suited then the alien invasion of Avengers. While everyone was cheering on Cap and the rest of the cast. I kept looking at the destruction going on throughout the film and thought who besides heroes are going to be able to cope with some of this? Sure the police, military, and more are there but boy a group of PC's sure could get right into the thick of the destruction seen even in the trailers and help. The technology here is bleeding right along the edge of real world into the heights that we've seen in the Marvel movies before. There is some very cool hardware and many of the ideas here might need the touch of a group of super powered individuals to help balance the odds. Seems to me that there is more then enough room to open the door of a couple of Pandora's boxes on some other special Shield projects. Those that might release a couple of second stringers right into mix to help clean thing up and get the world right. All in all I think that Winter Soldier presents a unique opportunity for a DM to get right into the old Marvel Universe and get the ball rolling right away on a campaign in the 'Aftermath of Winter Soldier.' Sounds like a real catchy name for a campaign doesn't it.
This looks like the X men movie that we've been waiting for? Or is it? It's really interesting looking and with so many Marvel properties in the mix now a days things are very busy for an old comic book fan like me. It's nice to see Bryan Singer returning to the directing chair. The reason I say this is because from a cohesion of storyline stand point I've gotten a bit tired of redo's and recons of Marvel properties. I would love to see a tie in with Agents of Shield or some of the other Marvel properties but the problem is that these properties are scattered to the four winds by the various studios. A fact that seems to escape some folks. Here's a break down over HERE
Many of the players here are from the X men First Class movie and as we wander down the movie version of the Days of Future Past, things are starting to look up for this movie. I like what I see with this one. There's a vibe of the humor, pathos, and of a hint of a great movie or its it a great trailer? Hard to tell but I did enjoy First Class so we'll see what happens.
So we're going to get the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in this one and we get another round of Magneto and Charles friend ship tearing the whole tapestry of Earth apart. Will we see a Scarlet Witch tie in with Age Of Ultron? Color me curious to say the least.
My criteria for these films is that they should make me want to run an old school super heroes rpg campaign.
So far things are sounding really solid but I just can't seem to get into the design of the new Sentinels.
There's something classic about the comic Sentinels to me.
The Sentinels look like an I phone or tablet technologies not horrid cybernetic units that are capable of ripping PC's apart.
The one important point here is that the Xmen comic book is classic. And this is a movie and there are all sorts of issues putting onto screen a story line with this many comic fan's expectations. Will they nail it?
That's going to be the real heart and soul of the matter. TSR had a very nifty way of dealing with the marketing that appealed to the fans of the Marvel comic and the game. But it always falls back to this.
The comic book vs the movie is real the issue. The old school Marvel Superheros Heroes rpg had a very nifty time of marketing itself. Especially the Days of Future Past Adventures, they took place within your home town. The dystopianismwas knocking right on your campaign's front door and it was coming to kick your PC's teeth in.
As the adventure story line continued your PC's were hunted, exploited,humiliated, and almost sentinel bate at least a couple of times. That's only in the first adventure BTW and I ran the hell out of this one back in the nether reaches of my misspent youth. Surviving such a programme is isn't easy but the fact that these now classic adventures are available for free makes me very curious to run em and see how they hold up. They're all available right over HERE
