From Supers Back To Swords

So we're shifting gears a bit.

Our group has finished the Golden Age part of our Icons Supers campaign (You can read abou the dazzling exploits here).  The next time we dive into Icons we'll be exploring the Silver Age, you know, intelligent apes, commies, alien invasions and cosmic encounters.

Right now, everyone is anxious to get back to the characters they love and our Swords and Wizardry campaign.  So the adventures around The Ruined Tower of Zenopus will be continuing in the next couple of weeks. I have no idea what's gonna happen.

However, tonight we delve into D&D Next.  Corey (who ran a number of the Icons adventures) will be running the Caves of Chaos play-test.  I took a quick peek at the rules this morning and at first glance I have to say it doesn't look too bad.  We'll see how it plays out and I'll have a full report on my impressions of the game soon after.

ICONS Through It's Paces

Our group has just finished it's seventh session of an Icons campaign.  I think we've put the game through it's paces and pushed it's boundaries.  Over the weeks I have expressed some of my opinions of the game.  I wanted to get the group's opinion of the game having been introduced to it.  What are their thoughts on the mechanics, the rules themselves, gameplay etc.

RULES

It seemed overall the general rules-lite supers game had high marks and was enjoyed by all.  With a sense of everyone at the table participating in the game storytelling gave the game an inclusive exciting and fun quality.

"Flexible storytelling, everyone can chime in, or spend determination to retcon stuff. Trust in the story is built between players and 'dm' and we all take ownership of it because we all had a hand in building it." -Clay

This comes off every clear in the rules and in practice it's a blast.  It keeps the GM on his toes and all the players involved.  Even with a linear plot-line it still comes off as very loose with an anything can go feeling.

"...it's a good framework...it needs a lot of role-playing rather than relying on the numbers, (maybe sort of like higher-level D&D?) because the powers get a little silly." -Brian

Also describing things in terms of panels and pages is a stoke of genius in a heroes game.

CHARACTERS

"Character creation is fun. Rolling through the powers to see what comes up is a blast. Also, as a GM, building villains to counter the heroes powers are a lot of fun." - Corey

"Overall the rule set is pretty good and fun to make characters. The only limitations are your imagination." -Mike

 I agree with this 100%.  Coming from Champions back in the day, I wasn't sure how random superhero generation was going to give you an interesting and fun character to play.  Boy, was I wrong!  The character gen is fun, fast and exciting and, IMO, you end up with a lot of unique combinations of powers to flesh out your 'character'.  Like Mike said above;   "The only limitations are your imagination." You do have to go into chargen with an open mind.  Any pre-concieved character ideas will get thrown to the wayside pretty quickly - which can be frustrating for some.  Clay's opinion on this is as follows:

"...character creation is random. I don't like this too much. I really like to nudge around character creation and tweak things a lot. ICONs default creation is random power generation. this create some lopsided teams and goofy powers, making it nearly impossible to start with a theme in mind." -Clay

 POWERS

Overall, the powers provided in ICONS cover just about anything a super can want or need.  The creators captured the color of comic books pretty well with that.  However, some of the powers end up coming off as over-powered or not well defined.  It is a rules lite game but that did cause some rule discussion at the table and research afterwards.  Game flexibility, of course, can help with that summed up by Corey:

"Some are a little hard to handle (Power Leech (power theft) I'm look at you) but balance isn't so important in a game like this." - Corey

That's true.  There is no such thing as balance in this game which is a good thing.  I don't like game balance.  Feeling a sense of looming defeat or death is important in any RPG.  Without it, you're just acting in a play with pre-determined endings.

"Some powers aren't defined well and can easily break a game. They can be house ruled easily enough but if you aren't prepared for it, it can get awkward quickly." - Clay

 GAME MECHANICS

The general game mechanics run on the FATE system.  I had no idea what that was when I started playing the game and I pretty much still don't.  We all felt that the dice rolling was a bit cumbersome and slowed down what otherwise would be an incredibly fast paced game.  Corey seemed to have the biggest issue with it:

"I really don't like the dice mechanics. It almost breaks the game for me. As written in the rules, you have to do four different operations on the dice (subtract one die from the other, add ability score to the result, subtract that result from the opposing value, then see where that result falls on the success chart)....Slam/Stun and the Major/Minor success chart are confusing. Between these and the clunky dice it can really slow down combat." - -Corey

"....though the dicing itself feels a little fiddly sometimes." -Brian  

The rules as written has the heroes rolling all the dice using the method described by Corey to determine outcome.  We switched that to just a single d6 for hero added to ability vs GM rolled d6 added to villain or challenge ability.  That seemed to help the flow quite a bit and received positive reaction from the group:

"Having GM roll one and Player roll one die helps, but it still feels rather clunky." - Corey

"I like the newer dice rules as it makes the game flow better." - Mike

"VS. die rolling, easier and funner in my opinion." - Clay

 That improved the game quite a bit but Major/Minor Slam/Stun rolls, charts and results are still slowing the game down and needs to be streamlined, house-ruled or whatever.  Doing that, however, had us look at changing rolls vs just challenges and other things.  Once the GM started rolling the concept of the heroes rolling everything just flew out the window which didn't necessarily change the feel of the game but other things had to be tweaked slightly.

"I like how everything runs off of the ability scores. If you want to search for something you do an awareness check or hit something you do a prowess check. It's pretty elegant." -Corey

Again that adds to the simplicity of the game and kept things moving forward quickly.  During this game I've come to greatly appreciate a simple d6 gaming system.  I use to love all the different funny looking dice but lately I've been feeling that it's slightly cumbersome.  D6, roll, result, and your done, move on with the story.  I've grown to like that and it brought back memories of my early days with the Holmes Basic D&D set and Traveller.

GAME PLAY

Game-play tended to be fast and loose with everybody having a hand in constructing the story and events in a natural, organic way.  There is plenty of room for characters to think outside the box and for the GM to wing it, in fact, it's almost a must.

"Getting into a situation where you can't hurt your opponent seems like it would be fairly common, since all it needs is someone with a higher defensive skill than anyone's offense...but that comes up in comics a lot, so it's true to the theme. How many villains can really hurt Superman? Not many...so they have to threaten Lois Lane, or turn him into a super-ape, or something." -Brian

Brian brings up a good point.  In comics you cannot always beat a more powerful opponent with fists alone (think the Fantastic Four and Galactus and the Ultimate Nullifier).  This pushes the players to think outside the realms of the character's ability points and the rules and to just make things happen in the game.  Maybe not something many modern gamers are use to but may come more naturally to old-schoolers.

As a campaign, there didn't seem to be a problem with keeping an ongoing story going over a number of sessions. We discussed character 'advancement' a bit and the optional rule that is included in the rule book, slightly modified.  I don't really have a problem with characters not having experience levels to 'advance'.  I'm more interested in the stories that get created around the table.  Not all gamers like this, however. These days players tend to want their character to advance and gain more powers and abilities.  I don't necessarily fall into this camp.  I prefer character growth and change based on their choices and what they experience in game.  Icons does give you the options of character advancement but it's not the focus.  Besides, your heroes are pretty strong to begin with.  How many super-heroes actually gain new powers or abilities in the course of a few adventures?  None.  Maybe over the course of decades of a character's mythology are new powers added, but it is a very slow process. 


FINAL THOUGHTS

Personally I really enjoy the game. With it's quick random character generation, fast combat and loose rules, it reminds me a lot of OD&D or maybe the Holmes or Moldvay rules.  It's a great framework for a heroes game but needs a little additional thought at times and house-rule tweaking to bring it around.  But like OD&D, other Icon gamers have contributed their tweaks to the game and posted them online for others to use.  It may not be for gamers that enjoy fiddling with their character's numbers and having rules for everything or having character level advancement a big part of playing but for me, less is more and simple is better.

As Mike said above:

The only limitations are your imagination.

ICONS: Issue 7

Face To Face With The Iron Cross!

Lord Genovasis - The father of Meta-humans
Automaton - The Mechanical Marvel
Damn Light Bulb - Lowly janitor (formally The Sponge)
The Scarlet Hood - The bane of organized crime and political corruption
Prophylactica - The woman wonder of rubber!
King Cobra

Col.  Francis "Popeye" Sanders 

 We left our heroes in a death match with Professor Drachen's seemingly invincible bodyguard Black Diamond (last issue).  With Col. Sanders down for the count, King Cobra and the DLB (Damn Light Bulb) stood face to face with Black Diamond.  But within moments, the rest of Vanguard 13 arrived (Prophlyactica, Lord Genovasis and Automaton).

Cobra grabbed Black Diamond and began to drain the life out of her with his armored suit while DLB blinded the bodyguard.  Wrapped up by Cobra's skilled wrestling moves she was an easy target for Prophylactica.  Blinded and feeling trapped, Black Diamond leaped into the air with Cobra on her back.    Thinking quick, the wonder woman of rubber stretched out and wrapped Diamond's foot and brought her crashing to the ground.  With the three teaming up on Black Diamond she was soon overcome and put out of commission.

Meanwhile, Automaton and Lord Genovasis rushed towards Professor Drachen and his two victims; All-Star and All American Girl of Vanguard 6.  After a blast from Automaton's laser eyes, Lord Genovasis clocked the Nazi professor out.   Freeing All American Girl, the young side-kick rushed over to the seemingly dead All Star.  After examining the electronic equipment Lord G and Automaton felt that they may be able to save him by reversing the machines of Professor Drachen.  Knowing Lord G's reputation well, All American Girl was wary and didn't want the father of Meta-humans to do any more damage to her companion.  After a brief bout she accepted that Lord Genovasis was All Star's only hope. Automaton comforted her in his own cold mechanical way while Lord G reversed the polarities of the Professor's Meta-rays and attaching  the Damn Light Bulb to the machine blasted All Star. 

All Star revived but was weak and barely conscious.  The grateful All American Girl thanked Vanguard 13 and flew off carrying All Star to seek medical assistance at the rendezvous point.

As Automaton and Lord Genovasis were packing up the machinery,  the whole castle began to shake!  Suddenly, the ceiling burst into rubble and in flies The Iron Cross dragging the defeated  Crusader.  At that moment, Black Diamond regained consciousness and belted Lord Genovasis.  She then grabs Professor Drachen and they escape out through the hole in the ceiling.

A battle ensues with the powerful Iron Cross and, once his weakness is found through his rocket pack, he explodes.

Vanguard 13 gathers up the Archer and as much machinery as they can find and climbs up Prophylactica out through the ceiling and away from the burning lab.

On the surface they find the Ravagers have broken the Nazi's defenses and enter the castle's inner courtyard with about twenty prisoners who are soon executed.

Lord G, King Cobra and Automaton descend once again beneath the castle to find the remaining members of Vanguard 6.  Through the smokey haze they find Hangman beaten and tortured and locked inside a cell.  The Nazi's couldn't break him.  He's wary of his rescuers at first but soon realizes that they are there to aid him.  After Hangman is free, he vows to stay in Germany and wreck his own type of havoc upon the Nazi forces and goes off alone.

Exploring the rest of the now burning laboratory the party splits up.  Lord G and Cobra rescue a jail filled with captive Jews, no doubt destined to be subjects for Professor Drachen's experiments.

On his own, Automaton explores the last couple of smoke filled rooms and discovers strange 'alien' machinery being controlled by a shadowy insect like creature.  The creature turns towards the robot and a devise upon it's head glows but it has no affect upon the mechanical marvel.  In a dim glow, the mysterious creature disappears.

Suddenly, Automaton is blasted from behind by the last member of Vanguard 6, Centurion, who has been brainwashed.  Automaton calls over the radio for aid from his colleagues.  After a fierce battle with Centurion, who almost single-handedly defeats the three members of Vanguard 13, the final member of Vanguard 6 is finally rescued.  With that, the mission in Castle Drachenhaus is completed (well, Professor Drachen did get away).

Vanguard 13 meets at the rendezvous point and leave Germany.

Session Report

This was our last Icons session for now and the conclusion to our Golden Age segment of the campaign.  When next we pick up Icons we'll be in the Silver Age which I'm looking forward to.  The Silver Age should open up a lot of gaming possibility with atomic age villains, commies, cosmic villains, intelligent apes and a more ambiguous roles of good and evil.  It seems that everyone had a good time playing this heroes game though we did run into a few issues from time to time. 

In the next few weeks we'll be play-testing D&D Next (Corey will be running that one) and then we'll be returning to our long lost Swords & Wizardry campaign we haven't played since December.

If you'd like to read more of our Icons Golden Age wrap-up, head on over to the Shore City Chronicle, our Icons campaign news blog

VANGUARD 13 circa 1942:  King Cobra, Automaton, Lord Genovasis, Prophylactica,
The Scarlet Hood, Col. "Popeye" Sanders.  Nate Brown, aka the Sponge, is not pictured.

ICONS Issue 6

OPERATION: DRACHENHAUS!

Having been found neatly lined up on a British beach, with three months unaccounted for, Vanguard 13 recovers in a Royal Army Hospital (see last issue - bliss).

Later, in a secret meeting with Brigadier General Wentworth, the team is briefed on current events.  The Nazis have a new armored villain called The Iron Cross which is wrecking havoc on allied bombing runs over Germany and had even defeated Britian's super-man The Crusader!  Fearing that the Nazis have advanced in their creation of Meta-humans, Vanguard 6 was sent in to infiltrate a known Nazi scientist's castle.  They never returned.  The allies want Vanguard 13 to go behind enemy lines and to discover the fate of Vanguard 6, capture Professor Drachen, and if possible defeat the Iron Cross.

To aid V13, the British have offered the services of The Crusader (looking forward to a rematch with Iron Cross) and The Ravagers, an elite commando team.

The plan decided upon was to airdrop V13 in the valley near Castle Drachenhaus and then, with Prophyaltica's help, scale the cliff face and storm the castle while Crusader and the Ravagers cause a distraction at the main entrance.

However, before leaving, Lord Genovasis, trying to perfect his Meta-human serum doses Nate (The Sponge) and ace reporter Penelope Kirt.  The serum changes Nate from a power absorbing mutant to a being controlling light itself; The Damn Lightbulb!  Penelope Kirt, however.....

So the raid begins, Vanguard 13 is ready at the base of the cliff when they hear explosions going off in the distance - The Ravagers have begun their attack and Crusader is flying around smashing all the spotlights.  Suddenly there is a louder explosion as  a ball of fire blasts upwards from the castle and engages Crusader.  The Iron Cross and Crusader go flying off, battling each other high up in the sky!

Prophylacita stretches herself between two trees and slings King Cobra up to the castle, only her aim was off and Cobra smashes into the cliff wall.  Only his martial art skill keeps him from falling down.  He shouts down to the wonder woman of rubber to just stretch up to the castle and let everyone climb up.  That shouting, however, alerts the Nazi guards who turn a spotlight down upon the heroes and begin firing!  Col. Francis "Popeye" Sanders, climbing up Prophylactia, leaps the rest of the way to the castle wall, face to face with the armed Nazis.  He leaps up and smashes the spotlight  allowing King Cobra to climb up undetected.  Hit with the gunfire, Col. Sanders leaps back down to safety and is quickly healed by The Damn Lightbulb! 

Meanwhile, King Cobra grabs the first gunman and tosses him off the edge of the parapet into the valley below then dodges the gunfire and he grabs a second guard.  Col Sanders leaps back up along with Damn Lightbulb and they finish off the rest of the gunmen.

In a panic, King Cobra slides back down Prophylactica to see if the Nazi he tossed over the wall was still alive - he wasn't.  King Cobra has a code against killing and this affected him quite deeply, keeping him distracted throughout the rest of the mission.

Back up on the castle parapet, Damn Lightbulb and Col. Sanders watch as a number of armed troops rush out of the barracks to join the fighting at the castle entrance.

United once again, King Cobra, Damn Lightbulb and Col. Sanders sneak into the barracks and enter the main courtyard of the castle.  Finding some stairs leading down they come upon the the underground lab of Professor Drachen!  Drachen was watched over by his bodyguard; Black Diamond!  On two slabs and being prepared to be experimented on was Vanguard 6's All Star and his sidekick All-American Girl.  The Archer was roaming around the lab armed with his arrows and apparently working for Prof. Drachen!  Some Nazi-bots (last seen in issue 1) were guarding other doors and locked in cages were three misshapen monstrous human - Jewtants!  The other two members of Vanguard 6; Hangman and Centurion, were nowhere to be found!

Professor Drachen invites his 'guests' to come in but Vanguard 13  just takes that as a cue to leap into action!  Col Sanders leaps across the lab to take on two of the Nazi-bots and lands on the cage holding the Jewtants!  Damn Lightbulb uses his intense blasts of light to disrupt the other two robots while King Cobra rushes The Archer, dodging his net-arrow!

Freeing two of the Jewtants, they turn on their Nazi-bot captors and destroy the robots while the third attacks Col. Sanders.  Cobra takes an explosive arrow to the chest but finishes up the Archer with one punch sending him into the labs machinery starting a fire.  All this while, Black Diamond confidently watches with a slight smirk and when Prof. Drachen has had enough destruction done to his lab unleashes his body guard on the Vanguard!  She happily flies over to King Cobra and gives him a good bash.  Damn Lightbulb blasts her with his light but she seems unaffected by it.  Col. Sanders again leaps across the room and lands directly into Black Diamond bounding off leaving her unharmed.  She gives him a round-house kick sending the super soldier flying!

As the Jewtants battle amongst themselves Black Diamond confidently faces her foes.  How will Vanguard 13 defeat this seemingly indestructible villain!!?!?

Session Report

This was our 6th Icons session.  It seemed to go pretty well.  I'll try to get some feedback from the players on what they think of the game and how they're enjoying it.  Had a bit of a slow start but it got going pretty quickly once the assault began.  Brian, who has been running Nate (aka the Sponge) and known for Tibag Backstabber in out Swords & Wizardry game summed up the session nicely with this email:

Icons proceeded as planned, including a serum-related mutation for the Sponge.
I believe Lord Dijonaise or whatever experimented on Nate because he had no idea he was a member of the team.
"You, unidentified negro" he said. "Try this cheap beer and tell me what you think."
Nate is now a controller of light...with a force field, blast, and light-creation, plus he has strike and healing.
So much for his hatred of the spotlight...now he is the spotlight. "'course it had to be a WHITE light..."
He has renamed himself "the Damn Lightbulb".

Zach unleashed three caged Jews that had been experimented on and mutated by the Nazis...two attacked the Nazis and one went after him...giving last night's session its title:

"Rise of the Jewtants" (comic book pending)

As we left, Black Diamond was about two pages from killing us all handily. Not kidding.

We've been using Determination a bit more but it's still something that has to be brought up and reminded about.  The slams and stuns are still a bit wonky working into the flow of the game.  I think we're going to have to house rule that a bit.  Finally, the players are facing their most powerful opponent yet - seemingly virtually unbeatable.  At the end of the session we were looking at combined attacks and it seemed that it still would be pretty tough to beat Black Diamond.  This could be an instance where a weakness needs to be found over just brawn.

Most of the NPC heroes (Vanguard 6 and the Crusader) that we've used in our sessions (Corey and mine) were picked up from various Icons playing aids including Villainomicon and Hero Pack 1.  Great resources all around.

ICONS Issue 5

DEATH AT 30,000 FEET!!

Lord Genovasis - The father of Meta-humans
Automaton - The Mechanical Marvel
Nate Brown - Lowly janitor (AKA The Sponge)
The Scarlet Hood - The bane of organized crime and political corruption
Prophylactica - The woman wonder of rubber!
King Cobra

Col.  Francis "Popeye" Sanders

Trapped aboard a Nazi airship loaded with stolen American weaponry, Lord Genovasis, Col. Sanders and The Scarlet Hood plan their next move.  They send their new ally, Tarpit, out to beat up the Nazi soldiers who have retreated offering him $5 a head.  Tarpit gladly takes them up on that offer and slushes off.

Meanwhile back at the Vanguard 13 headquarters, General Fairway calls the remaining members together to pursue the airship and aid the team.  Prophylactica, Nate Brown (the Sponge) and a King Cobra running to catch the gyro-copter take off after their companions.

Back in the airship, Lord Genovasis along with Penolope Kirt, the reporter, work their way up to the ship's bridge.  Sliding the door open he's attacked by a blast of fire from Firebat but dodges just in time and fires back with a machine gun.

The Gyro-copter catches up with the airship.  Prophylactica stretches her arms down and lets her companions climb down onto the top of the cockpit.  They see the flaming firebat flying around and King Cobra leaps through the window, summersaulting into a readied battle stance.  The Cobra sees Blitzkrieg running towards him with fists of super-speed while the pilot of the airship, Capt. VonStubbing fries Cobra's brain with a mind blast!

Automaton leaps through the window and attacks VonStubbing with his laser vision but is deflected by Stubbing's forcefield.  Nate, the Sponge, absorbs Blitzkrieg's super speed making her helpless against King Cobra's life drain.

Firebat blasts Lord Genovasis out through the cockpit door rendering him unconscious and turns his sites to King Cobra who continues to get blasted by VonStubbing.

Automaton keeps trying to bash through VonStubbing's force field but finds that any damage that gets through to the pilot makes the ship loose altitude.  VonStubbing is controlling the ship with his mind!

The Sponge then absorbs Firebat's flaming power which lets King Cobra's skilled wrestling wrap the former fiery villain up.  Penelope revives Lord Genovasis who takes the freeze-gun found last issue and blasts the helpless Firebat.

With two villains out of commission, Vanguard 13 demands VonStubbing to surrender.  VonStubbing refuses as he sees that he has the upper-hand as the airship's flight is entirely in control of his mind.  Vanguard 13 discovers that Firebat is VonStubbing's gay-nazi lover and threatens his life unless VonStubbing surrenders.  Fearing for his lover's life and unable to face surrender, VonStubbing,  with a "Heil Hitler" lets go of control of the airship and it plummets into a deadly dive towards the Atlantic ocean!

 The gyro-copter looses connection with the airship and the force of the falling mass of metal rips Prophylactica out into space.  Sponge, thinking fast, absorbs Firebat's power of flight and flies out to seek the wonder woman of rubber.  Lord Genovasis grows to his larger height and bashes through the ceiling of the cockpit.  He then grabs Blitzkrieg and tosses her out of the plummeting airship.  Automaton calculates the probabilities of the best escape out of this situation but discovers that his circuits are running into an unknown variable that show every path leading to the same unknown conclusion.

The Sponge finds Prophylactica and flies her back to the falling airship to have save the rest of the team.  Prophylactica shapes herself into a 'balloon' and Sponge fills her with 'hot air'.  The team grabs hold of Prophylactica and they fly out of the cockpit's hole in the ceiling.  But the everyone's weight is too heavy and they continue to plummet behind the airship which strikes the water with a massive explosion!  The fireball envelopes the helpless team but suddenly they are all enveloped in a blinding white light and then blackness....

Epilogue

Vanguard 13 wakes up in a British army hospital.  Brigadier General Wentworth informs them that their bodies were discovered neatly lined up on a beach a few days ago.  But he also informs them that they have been missing since November 1942.  It is now January 1943!  Vanguard has no memory of their loss of time!

Next:  Operation Drachenhaus!

Read the Shore City Chronicle!

ICONS Issue 4

GANGWAR!!

Lord Genovasis - The father of Meta-humans
Automaton - The Mechanical Marvel
Nate Brown - Lowly janitor (AKA The Sponge)
The Scarlet Hood - The bane of organized crime and political corruption
Prophylactica - The woman wonder of rubber!
King Cobra

Col.  Francis "Popeye" Sanders 

With crime and violence rising in Shore City due to a turf war between rival gangs Vanguard 13 leaps into action!

The Scarlet Hood, following a lead first discovered in the abandoned lab of Mr. Roboto* (see issue 2 – Bashful Bliss), breaks into the upper floors of ACE Enterprises.  There he finds files revealing that ACE is buying up and smuggling arms to Europe.  He also discovers that someone called Dyna is resisting the pressure from ACE.

Suddenly, the door bursts open and in rush four gangster thugs lead by a costumed figure carrying a unique rifle from which sweeps a green ray around the room.
“You cannot escape from Radar!” as the green ray outlines the Hood's invisible form.

Realizing he is discovered and dodging gunfire, he lunges at Radar and smashes the radar-weapon but he is quickly wrapped up by the thugs.

On a rooftop across the street, the mysterious Col. Francis “Popeye” Sanders is keeping a watchful eye on the Scarlet Hood and seeing as the Red Avenger is in trouble, leaps across the wide gap and bursts through the window.  That gives the Hood just the distraction he needed to break free from his captors and pummels the thugs.  As Col. Sanders finishes off the other thug, Radar runs out of the room and shouts; “Do not cross the Mogul!”

Wanted by the police and hearing approaching sirens, the Scarlet Hood turns invisible and leaps out the window leaving Sanders and the defeated hoods.

Later, back at Vanguard 13's headquarters on the Fort Maudlin Army Base, Lord Genovasis is being interviewed by Penelope Kirt when Col. Sanders bursts into the room seeking the Scarlet Hood.  Genovasis covers for his teammate, defending him.  The Hood finally shows up to defend himself against this military backed new-comer.  Suddenly a call comes in.  Lord Genovasis' factory lab is being robbed!

So Genovasis, the Hood, Col. Sanders, and Prophylactica leap into their new e-Vaul van and high tail it to the lab.  At the loading dock they find a bunch of hoods lead by Little Augie Ceaser, the gun-totting gangster monkey!  They open fire on Vanguard 13 as they pile out of the van but Prophylactica expands her body to deflect the bullets and protect her team-mates.

The Hood leaps into action and tries to take out the gun sub-machine gun wielding gangsters, while Col Sanders leaps over to Ceaser and begins pummeling him with his feet.  The Giant Genovasis moves into attack but is stopped by a mysterious beautiful woman, The Mol, whom he instantly falls in love with.  Meanwhile, sneaking out from the back of the e-Vaul van is the reporter Penelope Kirt!

While the battle on the ground turns in favor of Vanguard 13, suddenly from a window burst a flaming figure who swoops down and captures the reporter.  From that same window, drips down an oozing black mass which takes a  humanoid form - Tarpit!  Prophylactica tries to punch Tarpit from a distance but nearly gets her arm caught in his sticky body.  As the flaming figure flies off with the reporter, Tarpit grabs the hood's truck and scales the wall of the building with it and escapes, as does the wounded Little Augie Ceaser!

Col. Sanders tries to leap after the escaping foes but misses and crashes through one of the lab's windows.  The Mol quietly escapes.

After the Hood questions the captured mobsters, they find their next clue at the Night Owl Club.  Disguised as gangster thugs Genovasis, Hood and Sanders enter the club later that night.  There performing on stage is The Mol whom Genovasis once again helplessly falls in love with.  The Hood, not wanting to play any games, spies the Octofather sitting in the corner with his henchmen and brazenly confronts him.  The Octofather is none too pleased but the Hood strikes up a deal.  He'll leave the operations of the Octofather alone for now for information on who the Mogul is and why is he cutting in on the Octofather's territory.  Octofather reluctantly agrees and gives the Hood the address to someone called Dyna.

Following that lead, they meet the elderly, hard of hearing Bernhard Von Kapivar, former member of the Tesla League (Corey was brilliant tying our unfinished 1920's Savage World campaign with our Icons campaign to unify an entire gaming universe.  Now, how can I fit our Swords and Wizardry campaign into this, hmmm.).

They get from Kapivar that the Mogul was trying to hire him and purchase his explosive weapons. He declined and has since faced trouble from the Mogul's henchmen.  He informs the Vanguard of a warehouse on the docks where the weapons are being delivered to.

Genovasis, The Scarlet Hood and Col. Sanders fly off in their gyro-copter to the warehouse.  There they find a number of trucks making deliveries of stolen weapons.  Invisible, the Hood knocks out two of the delivery men and Genovasis and Sanders disguise themselves and the three infiltrate the warehouse.

The weapons were being loaded aboard a high-speed airship with Nazi insignia!  Suddenly, everyone hurries aboard the airship as it takes off from the waterfront warehouse.

Leading the workers is none other than Baron Zero* (last seen in issue 1 - Bliss), guarded by Radar with a repaired radar gun and the flaming foe Firebrand holding Penelope hostage.  Radar scans the loading dock and discovers that the Hood is hiding!  The alarm goes out and the Vanguard leaps into action but so do the villains!  Tarpit traps Col. Sanders in his sticky grip while The Hood takes out some of the gun-men. Suddenly a speeding blur zips past the hood!  Blitzkrieg is back having escaped from the military prison* (introduced in issue 1 and 2 - Bliss).   The battle results in Radar's gun being destroyed, and Sanders and the Hood almost being defeated.  Baron Zero holds a gun to the reporters head but the Hood makes a desperate effort to put Zero out of commission but pays a price for his determined action.  Genovasis talks Tarpit into joining their cause. While the rest of the villains escape to another part of the ship.

Vanguard 13 is victorious though wounded for now but they are trapped within an airship headed who-knows-where, surrounded by enemies!

To Be Continued Next Issue!

Session Thoughts

This was the third session run by Corey and it was a doosey!  This was out usual three hour session but as you can see a heck of a lot went on.  Rules lite games such as Icons (S&W and others) makes this type of game play possible.  Corey had the general concept together but had to improvise some of the situations which came across flawlessly.  A great example of players not knowing what a GM has already planned compared to what the GM improvises.  Again, Icons makes improvising quite easy.  This session had it's ups and downs for the characters which created quite a bit of drama.  He ended the session with a cliff hanger but instead of continuing his story he's passing the duties to someone else.  That's great because the original concept for the campaign was to alternate GM building upon previous session storylines.  This will be a great experiment continuing an actual storyline with a different GM.  I think I'm picking up the next session so I've got some things planned....

Icons: Split Dice

We had an Icons session on Monday (I'll post a recap shortly) and we quickly decided to "split the dice".

I have to say that it made combat move much quicker. I don't think anyone had an issue with rolling only one die as opposed to two - more dice equals more power. Anyway, the original ICONS method of the positive and negative die + ability/power + modifiers then compare for outcome always seemed to slow combat down while the numbers were worked out. With the Split Die roll, add and compare moved things along much quicker. I think we'll be using this from now on.

One other point is that when players have to make a general ability test we were still rolling the positive and negative. Though that worked fine, I thought it was a bit jarring to have the Players roll one die for combat and two dice for general tests. I'm thinking of moving general tests to split dice as well. The GM will then be rolling the 'negative' die in combat and in general tests ('negative' die meaning GM rolls the opposing die and adds the result to the difficulty).

The split dice bring up an interesting element. Since the GM is now rolling all oppositions to the PCs, maybe, just maybe when the GM rolls, his roll will be the 'attack' roll against which the players defense is compared. In other words, outcome switches depending on who is the 'attacker'; the zero no longer
always goes with the hero. The tables turn from giving the heroes the constant advantage to splitting the advantage between the hero and the villain. Not sure how this will play out. Maybe the heroes will become less 'heroic' as they loose that zero goes with the hero advantage. It's a minor thought but it could change the dynamic of the game quite a bit.

Beyond that, we're still a bit stuck on keeping stuns and slams within the flow of the combat. I'm going to re-read the optional rules in the Villainomicon to get some more clarification.

Anyway, the split dice definitely moved the combat forward more quickly.

Vanguard 13: The Characters

We've played three sessions of Icons so far, our fourth scheduled for Monday.  Something that I feel was done perfectly in the game was the random character generation.  Sounds weird in a heroes game but as with classic D&D, the character is what you make of it not what you make your character to be.  I'm not saying there's anything wrong with either approach, it's just that random character gen can give the players and the sessions some really unique situations.

With Icons there is plenty of room to 'flesh' the character out after the random rolls but I feel this process pushes your creativity in coming up with interesting characters that you might not think of coming up with or even playing.  Again, you need a good group of players to 'roll' with this concept and if you've read any of this blog, you'll know we have a pretty good gaming group.

So I'd like you to meet the Vanguard 13 circa 1942!

Automaton: The Mechanical Marvel

Lord Genovasis:  The father of Meta-humans

The Sponge:  A janitor

The Scarlet Hood:  The scourge of the underworld

Prophylactica:  The woman wonder of rubber!

King Cobra

ICONS Issue 3

Enter: The Destructoid!

The Vanguard 13 Roster:

Lord Genovasis - The father of Meta-humans
Automaton - The Mechanical Marvel
Nate Brown - Lowly janitor (AKA The Sponge)
The Scarlet Hood - The bane of organized crime and political corruption
Prophylactica - The woman wonder of rubber!
King Cobra

Last session the Vanguard 13 were lead on a wild goose chase by the notorious Mr. Roboto only to find that he has attacked Shore City with his giant Destructoid robot!

Hi-tailing it back to Shore City in their Gyro-copter, Vanguard 13 is caught in the destruction caused by the rampaging robot. Fired at by the robots canons and machine guns the pilot is mortally wounded. The Gyro-copter begins to go down and Prophylactica tries to slow the fall by stretching her arm out to grab a building but fails to stop the flying machine. Lord Genovasis then leaps out and growing to his 20 foot height slows the fall of the copter.

The Vanguard 13, now on the street and ready to face the advancing robot are attacked by the remotely controlled Automoton along with two other of Mr Roboto's killer robots. Vanguard 13 leaps into action! Prophylactica grabs downed light pole and swings it at the mechanical trio but misses. The Scarlet Hood, while invisible, attempts to subdue their robotic ally as the Sponge and King Cobra destroy the other two.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ninjas materialize out of thin air and attack the group with a focus on King Cobra. The twenty foot Genovasis tries to boot one of them for a field goal but instead falls flat on his back. One of the ninjas tries to slice up Genovasis with extended razor sharp claws but fail to cut through his armor. King Cobra and the Ninjas battle up on a fire escape. All the while Mr Roboto's menacing machine moves closer.

Sponge shoots one of the Ninjas and he goes down, unconscious while the rest are defeated and disappear with a puff of smoke. With two of the ninjas captured, The Sponge steals their teleport powers as Mr Roboto and his Destructoid begin to fire on the group once more. Sponge teleports to inside the robot's control cockpit and begins to battle Mr. Roboto hand to hand while the rest of rushes the fifty foot robot. Fearing that the Sponge will kill Roboto, the Scarlet Hood has Prophylactica slingshot him to the top of the robot so that he can 'save' Roboto for questioning. Finally, as the out of control robot flails around, almost smashing the agile King Cobra, the twenty foot Lord Genovasis pounds the robot in his weak spot (discovered from some blueprints picked up last issue) and the robot goes down.

The Hood questions a very angry Mr. Roboto about clues of the death of the DA (The Scarlet Hood's wife) and gets a mysterious address out of him.

As the terrorized citizens of Shore City begin to come out of hiding they praise the Vanguard 13 as heroes!

As the military begins to clean up the mess and cart the robot back to the Vanguard 13 hanger, General Fairway, who is in charge of Operation Vanguard, praises the group for a job well done and that their government funding is secure.

Vanguard 13 spends the rest of the session repairing Automaton and building a more appropriate base of operations.

Session thoughts:

This was our third Icons session, our second run by Corey. There was a lot of action in this one. The flow of the game, dice rolling and using determination, began to flow better than in the previous sessions. I think we're finally getting the hang of the game. I think there's still some more elements that we have to grab onto to really make the most out of this great little game but we'll get there. Each session has been more fun than the last and this one was a blast.

Looking forward to the next one!

ICONS Session Issue 2: Automaton On The Loose!

Get caught up, true believers, and take a gander at the Shore City Chronicle article of Mr. Roboto's escape from Iron Island Prison then come back here for the second issue of our ICONS session: Automaton On The Loose!

The scene opens at the Fort Mauldin Army Base where Vanguard 13 has set up it's base of operations in a hanger. The villainous Blitzkrieg is in the clink and her brother Panzerfaust is recovering from being shot in the face*. The Vanguard 13 consists of Automaton: the mechanical wonder, Lord Genovasis: the father of Meta-Humans, and Nate Brown - janitor.

Nate and Genovasis were looking over the Panzerfaust's heavy armor while Automaton was working in the lab with Professor Millicent Barnes when in flies Captain Victory of Shore City's Golden Gladiators. He's worried that after Vanguard 13's initial adventure they've just been sitting around wasting government project funds. Capt. Victory has brought in a couple of new recruits for the government sponsored group; King Cobra and Prophylactica the woman wonder of rubber (seriously, that's my wife's character).

Heading up stairs to the lab, Professor Barnes bursts through the door, a disheveled mess. It seems that the micro-controller in Automaton's brain put in place by Mr. Roboto, the mechanical wonder's creator, has been activated and Automaton destroyed the lab and burst through the wall.

Suddenly the base's alarms go off and the group of heroes runs outside. It seems that Blitzkrieg has been set free by Automaton and she's wrecking havoc in the base, cutting down a water tower. The heroes jump into action! Lord Genovasis enlarges to his twenty foot height and tries to stop the water tower from falling, Nate Black (the Sponge) absorbs Blitzkeig's power and she stumbles to the ground and Prophylactica stretches and grabs the speedster's foot preventing her from escaping. King Cobra rescues a couple of wounded soldiers from an endangered ambulance. Oh, and Capt. Victory receives a call from the Gladiators to aid them in an orphanage fire, so he flies off!

No sooner do they apprehend Blitz when Automaton steals a plane and flies off. Luckily for our heroes, Automaton comes built with a homing device. Within moments Vanguard 13 has hopped into a gyro-plane and are in pursuit!

The chase leads Vanguard 13 to an abandoned warehouse where they see a mysterious figure on the roof. Lord Genovasis lifts King Cobra to the roof and the mysterious figure attacks but is quickly defended by the Cobra. The figure is none other than the Scarlet Hood, following a lead connecting a murder with Mr. Roboto which landed him at this very warehouse. It was decided that the Hood would team up with the Vanguard 13.

Exploring the warehouse they find that it is mostly in disarray and abandoned. Nate Brown spies an observation camera keeping tabs on their movements and he proceeds to disable it with a shot from his pistol. Prophylactica discovers an unopened crate inside of which is a heavy electric blaster of an alien design.

Going through a couple of more doors the group hears a metallic clacking sound. The Scarlet Hood's light reveals robotic spiders that attack the heroes with nets and blasts of acid! After a the battle, Vanguard 13 is victorious.

Some more exploration of the warehouse reveals an office with blueprints for a giant fifty foot robot. A future plan of Mr. Roboto or a discarded idea?

Going through one final door brings the superheroes into a darkened and burnt-out observation room lined with visual monitors with cracked screens. In the center of the room is a chair. The chair spins around to reveal MR. ROBOTO!

The Scarlet Hood, now invisible, leaps at the mastermind villain and smacks him in the head with his quarter-staff. Roboto's head goes flying off in a shower of sparks and rolls towards the group.

"Foolish Americans", the robot head says. "You have fallen perfectly into my trap!"

Suddenly the visual monitors click on to reveal Shore City in chaos and citizens run for their lives from some unseen giant foe! Mr. Roboto's fifty foot robot has attacked the city while sending Vanguard 13 on a wild goose chase using Automaton as his pawn!

With that, Lord Genovasis steps on the robotic head, destroying it...


*See our brutal first issue - bliss

The Vanguard Roster:

Lord Genovasis - The father of Meta-humans
Automaton - The Mechanical Marvel
Nate Brown - Lowly janitor (AKA The Sponge)
The Scarlet Hood - The bane of organized crime and political corruption
Prophylactica - The woman wonder of rubber!
King Cobra

Last Night's ICONS Session

So we finally got back to our Icons game last night since our last session in late January.

Since part of the concept of the campaign is to go through rotating GMs (like different writers on a comic book) Corey ran the show. He did a great job expanding upon the previous sessions events and then taking the team off into his own nefarious plot featuring the notorious Mr. Roboto! I'll have a full session report in the next day or two.

The 1942 era team, Vanguard 13, expanded into a full roster of heroes:

Lord Genovasis - The father of Meta-humans
Automaton - The Mechanical Marvel
Nate Brown - Lowly janitor (AKA The Sponge)
The Scarlet Hood - The bane of organized crime and political corruption
Prophylatica - The woman wonder of rubber!
The Cobra - Superhero (don't quite remember what he was)

On to Icons itself....

Again, it's a pretty fast and loose system. In fact, it was commented on that OD&D was loose, Icons is even more sparse than that. And that's true to some extent especially when it comes to the powers. I am even more convinced that with campaign play many of the powers need to be tweaked and house ruled to flesh them out. I think I'll touch on this area in a future post.

Character creation is pretty fast and fun. It's best to not have any concept of a hero and just let the dice create the basic character. There's plenty of room after that to then flesh the rest in.

I'm convinced that this game really brings out a loose, on the fly GMing style. Though the GM can have his plot and villainous situation fleshed out he's best to keep things loose and ready to adapt and improvise the situations. In that sense it's a great learning tool to help GMs break out of a rigid framework. I think that will show itself more as well play out.

For the players, it's pretty open to doing whatever you feel like your character can do. There's not rules for covering every situation but those are the games that I like. Just state it, go with it, and move on.

Corey also gave the session a nice balance of having to use various abilities throughout the adventure and investigation which was nice in having to use more than just your character's powers.

We still had trouble getting into the use of Determination. I did use a point of determination to retcon a flashlight but beyond that, I think we're still all a little vague on how best to incorporate it into game sessions. More sessions should hopefully help with getting that ironed out.

As with last session we were a little rough on the combat results but by the end of the session that became much smoother. Having a month between sessions didn't help with that. With our next session in two weeks that should flow much better.

Overall, I still think it's a great little Supers game - incredibly rules lite but with enough to really give it some teeth. I had a blast playing as a character and not running a session and we all had lots of laughs at the table.

Corey is going to run part two of his adventure next session then we'll move on to the next 'writer'.

Looking forward to it already!

ICONS Villains: Blitzkrieg & Panzerfaust

Out of fascist Germany come the brother and sister team of Blitzkrieg and Panzerfaust. Nazi agents to sabotage the American war effort.

Blitzkrieg
Harriet Hess

Transformed

Prowess 4
Coordination 3
Strength 3
Intellect 4
Awareness 4
Willpower 3

Stamina 6

Specialties
Athletics Expert

Powers
Super-speed 5 (prowess/coordination 5 for defend)
Fast Attack 6 (3 attacks)
Elemental Control 5 (gadget - electrical bombs)

Qualities
Connections: Brother Hans Hess
Motivation: National Socialist, patriotic

Challenges
Personal - distrusts men
Weakness - Always looking out for her brother

Orphaned at a young age during World War I, Harriet Hess and her brother Hans grew up on the streets of Berlin. Always looking out for each other they became the only family they ever known. With Hitler's rise to power, Harriet saw an opportunity to become a part of something and to lash out at those that caused her and her brother hardship. She proved to be a vicious follower of Der Fuehrer's draconian laws. When an opportunity arose to become part of a secret Nazi project to create Uberman based on the research of a Prof. Dickersham Harriet jumped at the chance. One of the few successful experiments in Nazi Germany to date, Harriet was given the powers of super-speed. She took her name, Blitzkrieg, from Germany's strategy of lightening war-fare.

Panzerfaust
Hans Hess

Gimmick

Prowess 5
Coordination 4
Strength 6
Intellect 2
Awareness 3
Willpower 6

Stamina 12

Specialties
Wrestling Expert
Weapons (chest blaster)

Powers
Invulnerability 5 (armor)
Blast 6 (Chest Blaster - explosion)

Qualities
Connections: Sister Harriet Hess

Challenges
Personal - Protects sister at all costs
Weakness - Slow witted

Orphaned at a young age during World War I, Hans Hess and his sister Harriet grew up on the streets of Berlin. Always looking out for each other they became the only family they ever known. When his sister became an agent with the Nazi SS, Hans became her personal muscle. After Harriet became Blitzkreig, the Nazi scientists had a different plan for Hans, he was to become a living war-machine. Thus the armored Panzerfaust was born.

Always working together, Blitzkreig and Panzerfaust were sent to America under the direction of the mysterious Baron Zero to demoralize the Americans and to seek the secrets of other Meta-humans.

Icons Session Issue 1: Vanguard 13

As promised, the session rundown from our first Icons game.

After a brief introduction that went something like this:

1942!

On a brisk spring afternoon in downtown Shore City, the grim populous goes about their business with the ever presence of the war in Europe weighting heavy upon their minds!

In a lecture hall on Tuska Avenue we find Professor Millicent Barnes giving a lecture on her theories of artificial intelligence along with the mechanical marvel of wires, vacuum tubes and pneumatics Automaton!

Professor Barnes: “As you can see, this marvel of wires and vacuum tubes walks on his own, thinks for himself and reasons! Much more 'evolved' that the cold and calculating Mr. Roboto!”

In Stan's Red Cup Cafe, a small coffee shop down the street, we find Nate Brown sipping at a cup of joe and reading the Shore City Chronicle!

Waitress: "Would you like me to warm that up for ya?”

While at not far away at the WEGG Radio studios we find that ace reporter Penelope Kirt interviewing Lord Genovasis, formerly professor Dickersham, the father of Meta-humans!

Penelope Kirt: “Don't you think it's the obligation of meta-humans to support the war effort?”

We got into it with three giant robots attacking the Old Mercantile Exchange on Tuska Avenue (see The Shore City Chronicle for complete details of these metal monsters!).

No sooner had two of the three robots burst into the building in a blaze of gunfire when another metallic being walked out of the Hogarth Lecture Hall across the street and engaged the villainous robot.

The metal being known as Automaton saved a number of citizens from the gunfire of the devious machine before it was taken down by what appeared to be a janitor named Nate Brown, aka the Sponge!

It was then that the infamous Lord Genovasis appeared on the scene.

While preaching his usual rhetoric of meta-human supremacy, he was attacked from behind by the two remaining machines leaving the Mercantile Exchange.

The battle lasted mere moments but the two machines were destroyed and the three mystery men were victorious.

However, the battered and fearful citizens turned their rage upon Automaton and began to attack him but were soon dissuaded by the twenty foot presence of Lord Genovasis.

Before more chaos erupted a convoy of military trucks appeared. After a brief discussion with Col. Buckler and the the three mysterious 'heroes' who were joined by Professor Millicent Barnes, they boarded a military truck and drove off.

The disabled machines were placed onto trucks and hauled away.

Col. Buckler and the trio of heroes arrived at Lord Genovasis' lab. There Buckler revealed that President Roosevelt had started a secret project called Operation: Vanguard. In it, groups of super-heroes would be gathered together to help with the war effort. Roosevelt wanted Lord Genovasis, The Sponge, and Automaton to be the thirteenth Vanguard group to work for the Government. Thus Vanguard 13 was born.

For their first mission, they were to discover where these robots were coming from and put a stop to it.

Automaton had earlier examined one of the defeated robots and found what appeared to be a type of homing device. With that they were able to determine that the robots were being called from a rural area 200 miles south of Shore City.

Hopping on a transport plane, they headed for the area and parachuted down.

They discovered an abandoned farm. Exploring the silo they found it to be just a cover for some kind of metallic wall. Wanting to keep they element of surprise, they entered the barn. Exploring the barn they found that there were grooves in the floor. Automaton found some wires and tried to hot wire the mechanism to open the trap door but was only somewhat successful. Moments later, though, the floor opened up. Nate Brown , aka, the Sponge, leaped away in time to save himself from falling in, Automaton grabbed hold of the edge while Lord G. fell through the opening. He quickly grew to his 20' height to cushion his fall. He helped the other two down into the darkness.

Once down, a mysterious voice crackled over a loudspeaker: “Typical witless Americans. You are no match for Der Fuher's war machines and no match for me, Baron Zero! Now face your end!” And with that, six panels opened on either side of the heroes and out charged Nazi Guard-bots firing machine-guns. The Heroes made quick work of these machines but they were soon joined by a speeding blur assaulting the heroes, Blitzkrieg, and her armored brother Panzerfaust!

The Sponge absorbed Blitzkrieg's speed abilities and soon she was unconsciousness. Her brother Panzerfaust shouted her name and ran to her aid firing his chest blaster at the group. Sponge, taking a gun from Lord G. and using his new found speed to fire round after round at the armored foe, eventually striking him in his only weak spot, his face!

The the two Villains defeated, they heard a rumbling sound as the mysterious Baron Zero took off in a Nazi rocket hidden in the silo.

Thus ended the first adventure of Vanguard 13!

Gameplay Thoughts: ICONS

So last night we had our first session playing ICONS the rules lite super hero rpg.

Every first session of a new rpg is always a little bumpy but we got through it mostly unscathed. Here's my initial thoughts on how the game played through.

The story portion of it went well as did most of the mechanics. We seemed to get a bit stuck on the slams and stuns but it did appear we did it correctly for the most part. The tests against slams and stuns, though simple, slowed us down and took us out of the combat. Though combat was easy it took a bit to get things flowing.

Having the GM not rolling any dice is a bit odd and took a while to get use to. The thing that I like about it is that the GM can just sit back and enjoy manipulating the game and not have to mess with any dice. As GM I did roll for NPC stuns and slams but I think I may bounce that back towards the players. Dunno yet.

The great thing about the game is it's open-ended rules. There's a lot of space for interpretation which is both a good and a bad thing. Taking the rules as is, some powers are extremely powerful - at the moment it seems too powerful while some weren't powerful enough. That caused some conversation at the table that took us out of the game. I guess if you're using ICONS as a one-shot that might not be such a big deal you just kind of play though it and have a good time, but for something more substantial like a campaign, those issues become much more important.

One power that caused us all kind of trouble was Power Theft which turned out to be quite powerful; stealing opponents powers almost at will. The player took the bonus of being able to siphon powers from a distance without having to touch them. Powers stolen are retained for 10 times the level of power in pages (rounds). So Power Theft with a power level of 6 can hold a power for 60 pages (round). Since combat lasts only about 3 to 10 pages, an opponent can be rendered helpless for the combat or even game session. There's no limit, that I can find, on the number of powers that one can steal. Also no mention on which power is siphoned if the opponent has multiple powers. When running a villain, you don't really want to advertise what powers he might have, that should be left up for the players to discover. That can be fixed with a random dice roll.

Also, my issue as a GM was I felt that Power Theft would only work against natural powers and not gadgets or mechanical powers as these were machines mimicking a power and no real power energy would be available. That was a point of debate especially since a good portion of the villains were machines. And any debate at the table takes away from game play.

Other powers that have come up that the rules leave vague or seem to be too weak or too strong are Invisibility and Regeneration. I'll touch on those a bit later.

Also, during gameplay, powers had to be looked up frequently. The way the book is laid-out makes reference a bit of a hassle. I made a number of cheat sheets and downloaded others but the looking up powers were a bit of an issue. It would be nice if they had a simplified version of the powers with quick reference stat blocks that you can reference at a glance, like monster manual stat blocks. I'll have to look at the powers and see what can be worked up.

Beyond those issues, the action and story moved forward and the mechanics did become easier to work with. It is rules lite and fast paced and I think it's perfect for our rotational GM campaign as a game session can be pretty easy to run. I ran my session last night and Corey is up next. We'll see how the game irons out as we progress through the circle. Overall the feelings were pretty positive.

I'll be posting a session summary soon as well as stat blocks of the villains.

Game Prep: ICONS

A few days closer to the start of our ICONS campaign and I'm really looking forward to it. I've brushed up on rules once again and I think we're ready to go on Monday.

Two of the players have rolled up some ICONS heroes, Automaton, the Mechanical Marvel! A wonder of wires, vacuum tubes, and pneumatics! and Lord Genovasis the father of Meta-humans! The character creation process is great in ICONS and these first two PCs really show that off. We should have a pretty full house on Monday with at least three more PCs and we'll start with chargen for the rest of the players.

The general setting for the beginning of this campaign takes place in Shore City in 1942. Shore City is the campaign city created by John Stater found within his Mystery Men! rules. He did a great job setting up that sandbox, fleshing it out with all manner of locations, plot hooks and characters.
To go along with the campaign I created The Shore City Chronicle, a newspaper formatted blog for the rotating GMs to add plot hooks, red herrings, and general campaign color. You can check it out here.

There's an audio file I made to add atmosphere and kick off the campaign as well. You'll find it in one of the columns of the newspaper or at the bottom of this post.

I'll have more next week about our session, characters, villains and thoughts about the play of the game.

ICONS Campaign Preparations

Next week we will have our first ICONS session. Since I will be running the first session, I will be spending this week in final preparation, polishing up my knowledge of the rules, settings, creating some 'props' etc. in the hopes of having everything run smoothly.

The quick summary of what this campaign is about:

• The goal is to create an entire campaign universe through game-play with everyone's input.
• The campaign will start in 1941, the Golden Age of comics, pass through the Silver Age (60's) and then into the bronze age (70's and 80's) and finally end in the modern era.
• This campaign will rotate GMs every session with each GM running one session from each era of comics. When all GMs have run their session within the first era, called a sessions round, we then move to the next era.
• For the most part, sessions will be one-offs but if a session is one that needs to be continued the next GM will take the reigns of the story for the next session. This should be a good exercise in keeping GMs loose with a play-it-by-ear approach.
• The GM order is determined randomly at the end of every session.
• Players are not obligated to GM if they do not desire.
• All GMs will be able to use NPCs and situations that have occurred in all previous sessions.
• GMs have free reign over what their session is about though it must begin by being rooted in the era of the session round.

ICONS seems to be a fairly easy game to run and is pretty rule's lite system. The story progress and game events relies just as much on the players as the GM so there should be a good community aspect at the game table. I'm thinking that this would make GMing the sessions easy for those out of practice or looking to get their feet wet.

I'm hoping that the rules carry themselves well among our seasoned players. I'm thinking it will. After all, any RPG is more than just rules, it's what you as players make it.

I'll be off and on this week posting my game prep.

Happy New Year From The Warlock

Greetings my followers! It has been many cycles since I have spoken as I have been traveling the Outer Rings of Alpha Space and return with tidings of 2012!

I feel that for me, 2012 is going to be a super year and by super I mean in the heroic sense! It seems that the ICONS campaign (which I'm calling Universe) will be moving forward with rotating GMs and all. Sessions beginning in 1942 and working their way up to the present day, whatever that may look like. I'm looking forward to being a GM as well as a player.

Great movies coming out this year including Ridley Scott's Prometheus, The Hobbit (part the first), and the highly anticipated Avengers! Don't forget John Carter too (I wish I can get past that flippin' Disney logo). Thankfully there won't be any new cinematic Conan debacle this year!

Our Swords & Wizardry campaign is still moving forward, clocking in at over two and half years and over 40 sessions now. I wonder if my players will finally come face to face with Zenopus? We'll see, but knowing this lot, they may end up on the other side of the universe before that happens!

So, 2012 looks to be shaping up nicely! Remember, however, there's less then a year until the Eater of Worlds arrives to really f-things up! So until then, Merry New Year and Game On!

ICONS Campaign Creation: Exquisite Corpse Style

Update: This post squeaked out before it was done in the oven. I hope it's not too badly written.

I mentioned that I'd start discussing my ICONS campaign idea so here we go.

I've been running my Swords & Wizardry campaign for just over two years now. We took one break last summer so that I can be a player in a Savage Worlds campaign (which still needs to be completed). Needless to say, I'm getting a bit dry on running a fantasy campaign and a nice change is needed. That is where ICONS will be coming in.

Here's the pitch....

I've learned to let the players create the campaign world while I just fill in what is needed. I love campaign histories too so instead of coming up with this on my own for ICONS (which I really don't want to do), I thought I'd let the group as a whole create this campaign. I also want to be a player more and not be stuck 'behind the screen' so much.

Now ICONS, if you haven't checked it out, is a very rules lite Heroes game. I think it would be easy for anyone to run a session. The mechanics are quite simple leaving all the rolling to the players, that leaves the GM as more of a guide for the session, introducing plots and characters and situations without having to keep all the rules and rolls in his/her head.

I like that. I like that a lot.

So the ICONS campaign will rotate GMs every session. The GM can use whatever the previous GM used such as plot, characters, events etc or just go off on his own tangent. Since most of the sessions will be self-contained there shouldn't be much of a problem. Even if a session is 'to be continued', the next GM can take that story anywhere he wants. Any GM can tap into previous events to spark a session of their own. Think of it as an Exquisite Corpse style of gaming. Everyone GMs and everyone plays. Think of every GM as a comic writer coming in to take over a title.

There will four or five rounds of this. The first round will take place in the Golden Age of comics around the early 1940's, the second round will take place in the Silver Age (the 1960's) while the third will take place in the Bronze Age of comics (70's/80's) and finally modern times. So each GM would run just a single session within one of those ages.

This whole process will create a history rich campaign that any GM can tap into for additional story material. Perhaps a villain from the Golden Age puts himself in suspended animation and returns in the bronze age more powerful than ever? Maybe the outcome of WW II is different than real history which would create a totally different world and scenarios than now? Whatever the case may be, everyone would be involved and invested in the creation of this campaign world.

So I would run the first game session starting in 1942. At the end of that night's session, the remaining players that are interested in running a session all roll a die, we'll say a d12 since it's kind of a lonely die. The highest roll will run the next session which continues the Golden Age era, all the way around until everyone had a turn to run a session then we move on to the Silver Age, etc.

Now I like the idea of not knowing when your GMing turn comes up as it keeps you on your toes, letting your ideas form based on previous sessions. Of course, you can come up with a complete adventure without tapping into anything that happened previously. But my experience with this group is that they're very creative and there's gonna be plenty of things happening that no one else would have thought of but could be a great inspiration.

So that's the general concept. The rest of the group liked the idea too. I'll be fleshing things out a bit more and, of course, posting it here for your reading pleasure!