Thursday, May 30, 2013

Into Trekness...Captain's Holiday

This post is not specifically Star Trek related but does have Star Trek elements to it, so if you came here to learn how to repair the starboard nacelle's warp coil or realign the EM phase harmonic from the plasma manifold so you can reroute the resulting energy surge through the main deflector, well, sorry but that's not what this post is about. Nor is it exactly what Star Trek is about, but we'll get to that another time.

This past weekend, Memorial Day weekend, was filled to the brim with gaming, almost to the point of overflow.

Saturday I ran the 5th (?) session of my monthly Traveller campaign and it rocked. There hasn't been a bad session so far. Oh! Traveller 5th Edition, or T5 as it is often referred to, is in the hands of many kickstarter backers. Get ready to recieve yours soon. Woo hoo!

Sunday with the kids at the Study Center was pretty good, with one young lad doing a manuver so bold that, well, I clapped. Honestly. No adult player I've gamed with in a long while has taken so brave, heroic and foolhardy an action, if ever.

We are playing Marvel Heroic, with the kids using original characters of their own design but the story is set in the Marvel Universe (um, ya'know, like gamer want to do MWP. Just in case you're wondering why it didn't sell better). The group is part of the Avengers Initivative and are discussing their next move onboard a SHIELD Helicarrier after their run in with a rogue Celestial.

A group of (Marvel) supervillains crash land their cloaked jet onto the launch deck of the Helicarrier. Out of the plane steps six villains: Chemistro, Crossbones, the Grey Gargoyle, Mentallo, the Orb and Tigershark. Our tech experts identity the plane as utilizing the same technological specifications often employed by Doctor Doom.

Before any of them can move, our resident shapeshifter, Doctor Zoo, turns himself into Doctor Doom and tells the villains to abort the mission. He informs them that the Helicarrier contains more Superheroes than they thought, including Thor and Ms. Marvel. He goes on to tell them that there is a cloaked plane beneath them, which is how he got there, and instructs them to jump off the Helicarrier to the vehicle below waiting to catch them. A few rolls and some emotional stress later and three of them jump. Plummetting to a hard landing on the ocean surface below I might add.

All that remained were the three toughest...




Our telepathic hero, Mental Mind, tried to mind control one of the villains but failed. Mentallo was now aware of the ruse and looking for a fight. That's when Metal Guard, a very interesting PC hero, runs across the deck and tackles the Grey Gargoyle off the Helicarrier. Yes. He runs into him and keeps going. His intention was A) to surprise his opponent, which definitely worked, B) knock him out when the two of them hit the water and C) have one of his team mates - including a hydrokinetic named Ocean Demon - retrieve him.

See, Metal Guard can control and manipulate metal, any kind of metal. It's not magnetic powers like Magneto it's, hmmm, ferrokinesis? His primary use of this power is to coat himself in Vibranium, so he is nearly invulnerable to direct harm. I say direct because he doesn't turn into metal the way Colossus does. Metal Guard had to hold his breath one he hit the water as his insides were still Human. Cool character, no?

Anyway, fun-fun-fun game. The kids are really getting the hang of Supers.

Let's hope I can say the same for my regular group as I prepare to start up a brand new Champions campaign! What am I crazy?! Yes, very likely that is the case but our Ars Magica game ended (for now) and the guys want to go back to Supers so here we are.

A neat thing about this particular campaign is that it is going to connect to another Champions campaign I will be running set in the same universe. Our once a month Traveller game runs from 12 noon to 6, at which point a couple of the guys have to split but the rest can hang out for another few hours. My idea is that the after-Traveller game with be Champions, focusing on the Justice League/Avengers type team of the setting while the smaller, more regularly meeting group will focus on a more X-Men/Teen Titans scale team.

We'll see. I may have bit off more than I can chew.

Now...Star Trek Into Darkness...

It was made. It was shown in theatres. I went to see it. All of these things are very, very wrong and should not have been done.

On a happier note...this is happening...

MEKTON ZERO! A new edition of Mekton by Mike Pondsmith and R. Talsorian Games!


Are you psyched? 'Cause I am freakin' psyched!

Twenty-three days to go as of this writing and the game is already funded and headed for stretch goal #2! That my friends, is the awesomesauce.


Now someone just has to get the rights to do a new Star Trek RPG, hire me and we can all rest easy.

:)

Back to Star Trek and what lies beyond for Barking Alien coming up next...

AD
Barking Alien





2 comments:

  1. Yeah, I'm definitely in the minority around here about not digging the movie. I posted my own review on my RPG blog.

    Can I just say how much I dig the person quickly posing as Doom and talking half the villains out of attacking?

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  2. Yeah, I thought that was pretty quick thinking myself. It was considered something of a stunt/push since normally he can only turn into animals. His reasoning was, "Well he (Doom) is Human and we're animals."

    That same kid often does crazy stuff that gets the rest of the party hurt in other genres but in Superhero games he seems to have a healthy respect for the power levels of the opponents.

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