Mystery Men! Character Sheets

I've been playing in a Mystery Men! online campaign for the past couple of weeks now and it's been quite enjoyable. It's a great, easy to run/play system. I'm hoping to get a heroes game running this fall.

I thought I'd add to the MM! pool by coming up with some character sheets that have a more comic book feel. In the space for the character illustration I added come figure outlines so you can draw your own hero with a nice foundation. One of the things that I always loved in the original Champions game were the character sheet hero figures to fill in. I also added a character sheet with a blank space so you can completely draw your own or paste an illustration from an online hero generator.

Click on the image to download the pdf file.

Hero 1

Hero 2 Female

Hero 3

Hero 4

Blank Hero

Mystery Men! And My Ass-whoopin'

Yes, that's right. My Mystery Men! character the Firefly (based on a golden-aged hero) got his ass handed to him in the online PBP game I'm playing in. He was taking on TWO baddies, mind you, but I still think his performance was less than heroic - especially with a bunch of innocents in jeopardy.

He did get one good lick in, bashing a sound-blaster guy, but the Pinball dude kept shooting pinballs at me and that was my end.

But after his failure, and with the aid of The Green Mask, the Firefly brushed himself off and went back to his lab to 'invent' some crime-fighting tools.

That's the one really cool thing about Mystery Men! over ICONS; there is plenty of room for character development and improvement. It's built into the system and I like that a lot. It lends itself to more campaign play and not just a one shot evening.

The other thing I really like about MM! are the three character classes; Adventurer, Scientist, Magician. It seemed a bit odd at first but actually works quite well. Firefly's alter ego, Harley Hudson, is a scientist / entomologist and so I went with that class. The cool thing about that class over adventurer is that not only do you get your powers, but you also can have a 'Science Pool' that you can use to 'invent' new powers for each adventure depending on what you think you might need. It gives a lot of flexibility to that character. Of course you need a lab or workshop which costs you points during character creation.

Determined to not make the same mistakes again with this new age of super-villains (after all, Firefly is a golden-aged hero fighting in a Silver-aged campaign world), Firefly added some 'enhancements' to his abilities.

I present to you the Silver-age Firefox!

FIREFLY (Level 7 Scientist)

STR 13 | DEX 7 | CON 5 | INT 7 | WIL 3 | CHA 5 | HP 34 | DC 16 / 20 w-shields | ATK +4 | SPD 3

Powers: Iron Grip, Potent Attack, Jump, Invulnerability I, Super STR +7, Super INT +2, Super DEX +2, Super CON +4, Super CHA +4, Super Speed +1

Gear:
Shield – when activated, wrist guards create small invisible discs which help FF defend against incoming attacks; Can only be used for up to 7 rounds; FF must see the attack coming for them to be affective. DC 16, hp 5
Firecycle
Chest Symbol emits light 60' when controlled by button in belt. DC 10, hp 5
Apartment/lab

Flaw:
Ordinary human.
Joan Burton love interest and reporter.
Wrist shields only last for 7 rounds before needing recharging.
Science Pool: 4,550
Science Pool Gadgets:
Energy Hands Stinger (wristband)
Web Cocoon (wristband)


Now....Bring on the badguys!

More Mystery Men!: Shore City

I've been going through the Superhero RPG Mystery Men! by John Stater and I've been really enjoying this set of rules for a Supers game. Though I have yet to take it out for an actual test-drive, the quick pace, familiar rules-lite system is much to my liking.

The one thing that has just blown me away is the inspired campaign setting that comes with the rules: Shore City. Stater has put together a really fantastic broad-stroke hero's setting that gives you just enough to spark your imagination but without getting bogged down in over-descriptive location and characters. An imaginary industrial city on the Great Lakes, Shore City is filled with all manner of colorful neighborhoods, characters and plot hooks that can keep a campaign going for ages. Rich industrialists, ambitious politicians, gangsters and clever scientists all help to bring this city to life in any style of campaign; whether it be for a gritty street-fighting hero or a powerful cosmic entity. Shore City can cover the gambit with room to spare.

Every good comic hero has as his backdrop a city that is as much a character as himself; Bat-man has Gotham City, Superman has Metropolis, Marvel Comics has all of New York City. The city itself should be a major character and in Shore City you get that.

Reading it I couldn't help but feel that I wanted to dive right in there and cause some havoc or chase some baddies down and there was plenty of room to add enough color of my own. That's a sign of a well written setting.

I've really enjoyed reading this rule set. It's well put together and written with passion of the genre. I'm hoping to get a game started this fall. I'll keep you posted.

Hero Creation: the ARGHs! BAMs! and Crunch! of it all

So I've been looking at the Super's games Mystery Men! and Icons (though I may delve into Supers as well due to high recommendations). I really like Mystery Men! so far and Icons has certain qualities I like as well. But a heroes game all comes down to character creation, now doesn't it?

Mystery Men! uses a character build point system while Icons uses a random character creation. Icons also has a point system thrown in as an afterthought and I'll look at that as well.

There is something to be said about random character creation but for a Supers game I've never been sure how that would work. For me, part of a Supers game is creating a hero you want to play, whether it's your own creation or inspired by a classic comic hero.

So I rolled up an Icons character. I'm not going to get too into the mechanics of the game, I'll just talk about the results. Regardless, Icons uses 2d6 for the most part in it's creation process.

In Icons you go through a 7 step character creation process:

1. Origin
2. Ability Determination
3. Power Determination
4. Specialty Determination
5. Stamina, Background, and Description
6. Aspects (Qualities and Challenges)
7. Game Master Approval

Origin is your base starting point of how you received your powers, ie. trained, birthright, etc. I rolled Gimmick meaning all powers come from devices.

Next I rolled abilities, 3 physical and 3 mental. I ended up with low strength and a very high willpower (mental abilities). Still unsure what this character was going to be so lets see what powers I roll. Hmm, 2 powers, Animation (bringing inanimate objects to life) and Life Support. No real offensive powers. So this guy was going to be some kind of mentalist, in more of a support role, maybe alien (life support) so I choose Mental resistance for a skill.

I was a bit bummed about having a Prof. X type of character but then I thought this over once again and ended up with a brain kept alive in a floating jar of goo. Kinda like Basil Cronus from Godland. This was sounding more like a villain than a hero but really it could go both ways. This guy would be flipping' odd to have in your hero group.

I decided to go with villain and ended up with Hitler's brain in a jar come back to build a 4th reich (yeah, all this talk about Captain America hasn't influenced this at all).

Der Fuhrer's Brain! His brain is kept alive in this floating machine not needing to sleep, eat, or breath and he's protected from the vacuum and pressures of space and the oceans. He plots evils with his big brain and fights by bringing an assortment of inanimate objects to life through his connected machinery to fight his enemies. He's always in fear of having his jar being broken.

I actually kinda liked this guy. I don't know if I would ever have come up with this on my own so there's something to be said about random hero creation. He would even be a weird, freaky super-hero, something interesting to play. I'd take that challenge. Maybe Hitler's brain in a quest for forgiveness and redemption. Interesting and surprising. Either way, we've got some Kirbyesque gaming in this guys future.

One thing I would like to mention in the Icons random CharGen is that a hero can end up being just a bit better than a plain old guy or a superman, which I think is great for a multi-player team. A lot of diversity.

Now on to Mystery Men!

I built a character for an online game I'm participating in being run of the creator of the rules, John Stater. It's a silver-aged era campaign and we were allowed to build a character from scratch or base one off of a public domain golden age hero. I went with the golden age hero Firefly!

Mystery Men! foundation is based on an original fantasy game system so it's quite easy to pick up and create a character. In Myster Men! you get a pool of starting experience points ranging from normal (10,000) to cosmic (200,000). We were playing superhuman so we started with 50,000.

You start by rolling your standard 6 abilities on a 1d6 (yes, a 1d6) than building up from there. You add points to your abilities, use the points to buy powers, equipment, housing and even your character level.

There are three character classes to base your hero on, the adventurer, scientist, and sorcerer. At first I was a bit turned off by this lack of inspirational naming but it turns out to work well as it doesn't leave the class pigeon-holed. It's just a general category that you can just make into whatever you want - a true rules-lite open system and huge plus IMO.

Since Firefly was a scientist and used his knowledge to enhance his natural powers I built him as a scientist class character who still turned out to be quite strong. It was quite easy to match powers to the Firefly comic character, in fact, character creation was quite a breeze and fun. With a character concept in mind, you can pretty much breeze through the process.

FIREFLY (Level 6 Scientist)

The Firefly's real name is Harley Hudson, an entomologist and chemist. He discovered that insects can lift masses greater than their own weight because of their ability to coordinate their muscles. He taught himself to coordinate his muscles as insects do and found himself able to perform amazing feats. He then created a costume and called himself the Firefly. Thus, the Firefly does not possess any real superpowers but is merely a man possessing great physical and mental prowess due to his natural abilities.

Harley Hudson's romantic interest is Joan Burton, a newspaper reporter.

STR 13 | DEX 7 | CON 5 | INT 7 | WIL 3 | CHA 5 | HP 27 | DC 16 | ATK +3 | SPD 3
Powers: Iron Grip, Potent Attack, Jump, Invulnerability I, Super STR +7, Super INT +2, Super DEX +2, Super CON +4, Super CHA +4, Super Speed +1
Gear: Firecycle, chest symbol emits light 60' when controlled by button in belt. DC 10, hp 5 (I rolled a d6 and got 5 but if you want to roll on your own be my guest), Apartment/lab
Flaw: Ordinary human. Joan Burton love interest and reporter.

Finally, I wanted to see how the point system in Icons played out with the same character Firefly. The baseline hero points are 45 and that goes into all of your abilities and power levels. This can be adjusted by the GM, of course, for whatever campaign he/she would like to run.

So with 45 points I was able to create a pretty compatible version of Firefly. Housing and transportation isn't figured into the character cost like it is in Mystery Men! but the system worked better than I thought it would. With multiplayers starting with the same base points it may bring all the heroes into a closer power range with each other but I haven't explored that yet.

Regardless, both games process of character creation was fun and painless and didn't take to much time.

It's time to dive a bit deeper into the game playing aspects of both games and maybe take a look at Supers as well.

Rolling Heroes

All my previous posting about Captain America a couple of weeks ago has got me thinking about running a Supers game. Actually I've been thinking about it for a while now and thought no better time than to dive back into the colorful world of the super-hero.

Back in the day, other than D&D and Top Secret, Champions 1st ed. became one of our regular RPGs. As soon as it came out I scooped it up as I saw no better combination for me than comic book heroes and role-playing games. At the time we loved the chunky rules and building the heroes and villains. The sessions turned into just full on bash-fests but we loved it - not to mention the cool character sheets with the hero figure lightly sketched in for you to finish up.

Late last year I picked up a copy of the old Champions rule book off the interwebs (mine having disappeared many centuries ago) and enjoyed flipping through the familiar pages. Alas, my old brain is not up for working with such a crunchy style game so I began to search for an alternative.

I was looking for something rules-lite. A game with enough rules to play a wide variety of heroes and villains without getting the feeling you're just changing the surface dressing of powers.

We've been playing a Savage Worlds pulp adventure campaign. Though having played Savage Worlds and have been enjoying our sessions I haven't been blown away with the system. Sure it's pretty easy to get going but I was looking for something else. Savage Worlds have a Super Powers Companion supplement for their basic Explorer rules. So that is a possible option but I'm not sold on it.

Right now, what really appeals to me are two sets of rules that are quite different - Icons by Steven Kenson (published by Adamant Entertainment) and Mystery Men! self published by John Stater.

I haven't completed reading both sets of rules yet but here are my initial impressions thus far...

Icons can be a bit pricey for a pdf but that price sometimes fluctuates. Keep an eye on it, you could get lucky. The print version runs about $30 plus shipping. A bit pricey for a cheap-ass gamer such as myself. Mystery Men! offers a free e-book as well as a print on demand for $7.30 (which I will be picking up on my next Lulu order), much more my cup of tea.

Both are rules-lite and seem to be fast paced and loose games.

I enjoy the layouts for both books with Mystery Men! taking a clean layout sprinkled with golden age heroes and images - a nice touch. Icons has more of a modern, Justice League / Bruce Timm look and feel and is in full color which all fits the mood of the game pretty well. The thing I liked about Icons is the terms used for time in the game; when it's your turn it is called a panel, after everyone completes their turn (panels) that's considered a page. A number of pages make up a chapter etc. all of which sticks with the genre. I love that little detail and would use that concept in any heroes game I run.

The main difference is that Icons sports a random generation character creation while Mystery Men! sports the character build.

Having played Champions, I enjoyed the planned character building process and customizing the hero's powers to fit your vision or copy of an existing hero. Mystery Men! seems to capture that pretty well in a much more simplified format. It also seems to give you options to grow your character over time - a big plus for an ongoing campaign.

I've also always enjoyed the random character creation in your typical FRPG (D&D Traveller, etc), but I've always been a bit apprehensive about that process in a heroes game.

So I'm in the process of character creation in both games. I'll post my results later.

For some insight in rolling up Icon characters you can check out Tower of Zenopus recent post.