7 Superheroes Walk Into A Bar

...and only 2 of them exchange numbers.

On Sunday, I played in the first session of a Supers game using the Truth & Justice (PDQ) system. The GM wanted the PCs to form a team or band of heroes, which seems perfectly reasonable.

So she asked us to first focus on our mundane secret identities, and make sure that every PC knew at least one other PC. Presumably, that happened. With 7 players, there was enough chaos around the tabletop that I didn't really catch the particulars of how everyone knew each other, and just focused on my own connections.

Then, for our first session, she had us all attending the University Street Fair when some supervillains showed up. That way, in theory, we'd all respond to the imminent danger, and have our super-heroic debut together. Tie the party to one another via a trial by combat.

As you are no doubt already guessing, it didn't really work. 7 PC superheroes arrive on the scene. 2 get into costume and wade into the thick of it. 2 turn invisible and 1 uses astral projection, and essentially keep their presence hidden from everyone. The remaining 2 participate, but do so in low-key "on the sly" ways intended specifically to prevent anyone from figuring out that they are a Super. The fight is over in about 2 rounds, so anyone who was "waiting for the right moment" to make their dynamic entrance just missed out. Bad guys defeated, police show up, everyone goes their separate ways.

This is why so many old D&D campaigns start with "There's a wizard in the corner, and he says he's looking to hire some brave adventurers, and will pay you lots of gold." Of course, at least 20% of those openers result in inter-party bloodshed before you leave the tavern, but at least they're all aware of one another.

Oh well, as they say in the biz: "The show must go on". I imagine a fair amount of meta-wrangling will have to happen before the first real scene of our next session, to get everyone on the same page.

The lesson is thus: Never ever start a campaign with what is supposed to be the party's first meeting or first adventure together.  Starting with the origin story is virtually guaranteed to be more of a problem than it's worth. It sounds great on paper, but in reality it's a minefield.

It works in the movies, but that's only because scriptwriters and film directors have control in ways that GMs don't. A character in a novel can't misbehave and wreck the whole plotline, but a character at the table will do so more often than not. The self-destructive misbehavior meme is a strong one, and often hides behind the phrase: "It's what my character would do!" We'd like to pretend we're above it, but most of us aren't.

Far safer to run your first session from the perspective: "You've all known each other and been working together for about a year now, and have established strong friendships within the party." Several sessions later, when you've established a group dynamic, and gotten everyone's buy-in on how the campaign functions, then you can do a flashback session for an origin story, if you really must.

A Tale Of Two Forums

"A couple years ago, White Wolf released this RPG called Scion. I started a campaign the first chance I got.

At first, I loved it, but I was really bummed how long it took them to release new material for it. Six months out, all they had was one rulebook, and a super-short demo adventure. Their release schedule kept falling apart, and it was frustrating, too, because that first book was at best 1/3rd of the setting and rules. PCs in Scion have a primary stat called that can be rated from 2 to 12, and the first book only covered characters with a rating of 2 to 4. It took them nearly a year to get the second and third books out, IIRC.

Anyhow, I was running the game for that whole time, and a good while later. There were things I loved about it, but the more I analyzed the game, the more it fell apart. I eventually came to the conclusion that the core mechanics were broken, and that later books just compounded those problems. Of course, I was emotionally invested in the game by then, so when I thought about these things, I got fired up.

I spent a lot of time at the Scion forums, posting various house-rules and what have you. What I noticed though, was that I spent less and less time coming up with cool new things to improve my gaming experience (and those of others I interacted with on the forums) and more and more time just venting about the rules and the company. There were things they were doing wrong with Scion, and I just had to let everyone know.

Every topic that came up on the forum, I figured out some way to bring it back around to the things that pissed me off about the game and the direction it was going. I got quite cynical. I knew that I was no longer being helpful to others, and that I was probably just coming off as troll. There they were, trying to post all their cool ideas about a game they loved, and I'd just come along and rain on everyone's parade.

Then, just over a year ago, White Wolf rebooted their forum software. Everyone that wanted to post on the new version of the forum had to build their account all over again. Knowing, as I did, that I had long before ceased to gain enjoyment or serve a useful function at that forum, I declined to make a new account. I just walked away.

Ever since that, I've felt better. Other facets of my life improved, because I was no longer voluntarily subjecting myself and others to my own negativity."

I typed that up at the FFG WFRP forums today, and have not yet decided whether or not to post it. The WFRP 3rd Edition forum has several rather obnoxious posters, who just troll the place, taking every opportunity they can to bitch about the new edition. Half the time they're screaming about how angry they are because the game has only had three releases in 6 months, whereas 2nd Ed has years of sourcebooks. The rest of the time they bitch about how "it's a board game, not an RPG" because it uses colorful cards. Edition wars are part and parcel of the gaming experience, but this is pretty extreme.

And I'm left wondering why the hell do these people think we care? I wish they would just move on, and not linger around a forum that is intended for the enjoyment of a product they don't like. I mean, it's not like there isn't already a really good forum for 2nd Ed WFRP, and for people who just want to rant about how much they hate 3rd Ed. It's called Strike To Stun. And yet, even when they're getting me all fired up by trolling at the only good 3rd Ed forum, I can understand where they're coming from, because my own Scion experience was so like what they are doing.

Eventually, you just need to break the cycle.

I'm glad I finally found the strength to move on and leave Scion behind. I hope they find the strength to do the same for Warhammer's forums. If you hang out at places where people like the same things as you, you'll enjoy your life a lot more, and feel much better about yourself. If you insist on trolling places where other people enjoy things you hate, you can only make everyone (yourself included) feel worse. That's my 2 cents, anyway.

Chipped-in Wage-Slaves

Over at Pair o' Dice, they mentioned the concept of chipped workers in Shadowrun (and the same could be done in Cyberpunk), people who are slaves to the company they work for. A company that never had to train them, they just plugged in a skill chip that guides the worker's hands. Scary, creepy, sci-fi fun. And it's only a few years off.

Talking about it, Scott at Pair o' Dice wrote:

Wageslavery as a Backdrop to the Action

I am not suggesting players take on wage slave characters (although some runners have backgrounds as an ex-wage slave or corporate drone), that would probably be a terribly dull game.

But I gotta say, that actually gave me two really cool campaign ideas that aren't dull at all:

1. A game where the PCs are wage slaves, and some sort of mix-up happens. One day, they show up for work, and their "Assembly Line Efficiency & Company Loyalty" chip has been replaced with a "Urbo-Anarchist Badassery" chip. Or just a Martial Arts chip. You're playing ordinary people who suddenly have a single maxed out skill, which was no doubt slipped to them by someone for some reason. Cue the clues, interspersed with Matrixy fight-scenes. You have to break out of work, with company property still in your head, and the pursue the mystery.
   
2. A game where you don't play the meatbag, you play the AI. I'm a super-spy that only exists as a skill chip. Plug me into a person, and I immediately over-ride their personality as well as tacking on a couple of very important skills. If things go south and I need to lay low, I just convince someone else to try this awesome skill chip instead. You'd play the same character, but have new character sheets and background every time you swapped your plugging. There's some logistics to work out about the couple seconds between unplugging from your current body and getting plugged in to the other, but I'm confident it could be explained in a way that would at least diminish the risks and plot holes. If the persona lingers for a few minutes after the chip is pulled out, for example, or if the last thing you do before unplugging is auto-hypnosis. Every NPC you meet that has a visible chip socket becomes a potential bodysnatching.

Anyhow, the blog post over at Pair o' Dice is pretty cool. Check it out

Monster Summoning VII

One of the blogs I read fairly often mentioned a post on different blog that said:

The otherfun discovery was the spell Monster Summoning VII. Nowadays it's just one link on the great chain of Monster Summoning spells. But when Greyhawk came out the monster charts only had six levels. MS VII buried the needle on the system and referees were supposed to come up with their own list of beloved and wicked monsters that this mighty ninth level magic summoned. I love that.
...
So here's my challenge to all you refs out there: share either in the comments here or on your own blog a custom Ultimate Monster Summoning chart for your campaign. Note that all monsters don't have to be uber-lethal. Packs of Hell Hounds and Displacer Beasts are listed as examples, seemingly just because the authors dig those critters.

My chart, though I'm not sure what campaign this is for...

1. 1 Slaad of each color, and a very disgusted Princess
2. 2d8 Orky Madboyz, + 2d12 Goblins, + 2d30 Snotlings/Squigs/Boars, + More Dakka
3. 2d6 Booster Gangers, each with unique Chrome. They're holding a copy of Morton's List.
   
4. 1d8 Mutant Narwhals (if only 1 appears, he's wearing a parachute)
5. 1d6 Magi, bearing gifts.
   
6. A close blood relative of the PC. If none are known to exist, then Brand is family. And he probably won.
   
7. Ratatosk, the Gossipy Squirrel, riding on (or pursued by) Nidhogg
8. Gemini Incident: One spanner, and 1d10 of his Elders.
9. Brown Jenkins, perched atop the Necronomicon, which is held in the bloody hands of Keziah Mason. Gnarly Hotep is optional.
   
10. An ogre riding an OGRE. Not the other way around - that'd be messy.
    
11. The Clock Tower.
    
12. Roll again, but play the part as if Jack Nance were cast in the role.

More Arcana Wiki Meme

I couldn't believe Arcana Wiki lacked a page on Memes, so I added one. I've felt for a long time that they've got some spectacular gaming potential, and I used them a little in my Scion campaign. It was fun dreaming up ways to color Memes in an RPG:

• Memes could, within the context of an RPG, turn out to be a form of alien life, supernatural creature, or wizardry. It's not just a catchy pop song, it's a mind-warping horror from another world!
• Given a critical threshold of believers, a meme could develop into a Mythago or Egregore.
• A particularly virulent meme could result in a rapid transformation of a society. Consider Dutch Tulipomania in 1637, or the rise of Nazi Germany. In RPG terms, a society "attacked" by a meme could "reverse alignment" in just a few weeks.

That's some heady stuff, and not necessarily easy to work into just any old game.

So, I added a couple of concrete noun pages while I was at it: a page on LeMat Revolvers, and a page on Gyrojets. The wiki's gun page was just a stub, and needed some content. While I'm no firearms expert, those oddball historical guns were something I knew a touch about (and more importantly, I knew what sources to reference for more data) so I could summarize them easily.

My writing about the LeMat last night inspired someone else to put up a page on the Buntline Special, which is an even cooler western firearm that I'd all but forgotten about. I'd forgotten how much fun contributing to a wiki can be.

Gods and Scions as Egregores or Memes

Jake introduced me to the word egregore today. Like syncretic, it's a concept I've been aware of for a while, but for which I've never known the proper name. The Egregore concept, in occult circles, is roughly (very roughly) that ideas have an identity of their own. Sort of like memes meet personification. If enough brain power is spent thinking about something, the something will begin to think. Or more accurately, a spirit or consciousness will form based upon and embodying that concept. We imagine them into being. I love the gaming applications of this.

Imagine a Scion campaign where the Gods are but Egregores or the personification of Memes. It jives perfectly with the games existing concepts of Legend and Fatebinding. I imagine it'd lead to a far lighter and less serious campaign style, almost parody. In addition to Zeus, Thor, Isis, et all, the campaign would also include Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Darth Vader, Bloody Mary, Gandalf, Hannibal Lecter, Samuel Colt, The Beatles, Uncle Sam, Coca Cola, etc. Anything that people believe in, or just spend a lot of time thinking about.

Could these newer entities give birth to Scions? If so, I feel very sorry for the Scion of The Macarena.

On what is the Legend-rating of a Egregore dependent?
If it's how many people are currently aware of them, then that'd make the new Egregores and Memes every bit as powerful as the ancient Gods.
If it's how many generations have spoke of them, then chronological age would directly limit power. This logic would cap the PC's Legend, so I imagine it's not a perfect fit.
If it's how many people have honestly worshiped them, then Gandalf and Coke are kept to low power. Santa, on the other hand, may be able to siphon power from all those little kid's letters.