All The Myriad Ways

Man, I am so behind on my Champions recaps I am ashamed. From this point forward, until such time as I have caught up, I shall wear the Hubcap of Shame.

This thing is heavy so let's get to it...

Instead of a full recap of the last two or three adventures (I think it was three but I might be wrong), I am going to summarize and just mention the highlights. That said, this is by no means a short post. Also, stay tuned after the summarization for some notes and news.

The PCs, with recommendations and some assistance from a few NPC allies, came up with the following plan:

Use the interdimensional gateway at our secret headquarters to 'port in optimal parallel Earth versions of themselves (the PCs and other major heroes) or major villains (who are also good on their particular alternate world) and intercept Dys'Dayn, Empress of a Billion Dimensions, before she can make contact with the even-more-evil-than-she-is Dark Seraph. Actually, good plan.*

The newly assembled force travels to Champions Earth Alpha Delta-4 (the Empress' next and last stop before moving on to The Abyss that holds Dark Seraph) where they encounter that worlds heroes who are largely styled after the Charlton Comics heroes and The Watchmen. The majority of Earth AD-4's villains are gangster, cult leaders and mad scientists and it's no exaggeration to say they would have been completely wiped out if the multiversal heroes hadn't shown up.

I let the players play their parallel selves and their own characters if they were assigned to the mission (some were on other missions back on their home Earh). I have to hand it to the guys in that they really had the other versions of themselves act and talk differently from their primary characters. In addition, I had some of them make up their alternate selves. A surprising and subtle favorite was Marcus playing an old version of The Power who had taken the name and costume of his PC's father, The Good Fight and a version of The Power who was Power's sister (The Power has a dependant NPC younger sister on Earth AD-1. On AD-4 the sister inherited the abilities and became The Power).

The battle between Project: UNITY (the PC team) and it's quantum reality cavalry and Empress Dys'Dayn was awesome...and short. If it weren't for some really cool maneuvers on the part of both the heroes and the Empress a like, I think it would have seemed anti-climactic. The sheer number of heroes at the Players' finger tips, their power level and many rolls going in the good guys' favor meant that while it wasn't easy to defeat the Empress, it was pretty fast.

Luckily, inspiration struck! In the aftermath of the battle, one of the NPC allies ( a good version of our own world's biggest baddie) prepares to head home only to discover his arch-enemies have defeated and even killed a few of the heroes of his native Earth. He requests the PCs aid in saving his planet and they agree, heading off to challenge the worst villains of Earth AD-3...Evil Versions of Themselves!!!

What followed isn't over yet but involved some crazy cool encounters and waaay too much thinking. See the * below.

For my part I had a blast finally let my bastard GM side out (a thing I rarely do). I think fast, a talent that aids in my ability to ad lib the majority of every game I run. In addition, I love super heroes comic books and have read a gazillion of the them. Lastly, I know the Champions 4th Edition system better than any of the Players. The result, I used their own abilities in crazy kickass ways that they either hadn't thought of or usually don't do because they're Heroes!

Interestingly, it was Marcus ( who has recently been grinding my gears a bit with his play style, disinterest in teaming up with or helping out the rest of the group and constently griping/obsessing over how-come-everyone-else-is-more-powerful-than-me), who came up with the coolest way to get his evil counterpart out of the picture.

Instead of battling him (the evil The Power), Marcus had the older Power/Good Fight II pretend to be the evil Power from the future. The 'elder version' told 'his younger self' that something crazy was going to go down and the evil Champions were going to get beat up by heroes from other dimensions (essentially true). Now, if the evil Power hides with his sister, dad (The Bad Fight?) and best friend (evil version of the hero Siphon Zero/Revenant), he could emerge after the fight and take over. Basically, sit it out and let the Supers from the other worlds do you the favor of taking out the competition for you. Evil The Power agreed with this plan and has gone underground until the smoke clears.

Wicked clever.

Now...not everything was shiny in the gleaming City of Tomorrow...

*Tempers, attitudes and nerves seemed a bit frayed Saturday. We definitely pushed each others buttons and I was no exception.

For reasons known only to my players...some of them at least...they really enjoy taking time to plan out actions. They will discuss tactics ad nauseum and never pull the trigger on a plan until I go forward, assuming they are ready and indicate something happens. Then it's, "No, no! MaxiMode and Ultramarine were ALREADY outside! We told you they were going to head out."

Going to. Never do. Never, "They leave."

One player in particular, a quantum mechanics and physics buff, will take twenty minutes of real time explaining exactly what his character's power will do. One of the other players eventually got tired of this and said to me, "Is this a Superhero game or a science lesson. Is this Champions or 'Ask 100 Physics Questions' The RPG?"

I love science and am a big of a physics head myself but I had to agree. The whole thing was weakening the momentum of the game. It took far too long to get things done. Finally I had that fellow's character's evil doppelganger teleport in (something the PC can theoretically do but never does) and redirect all the electromagnetism in the room into a blast directed at the PC (something else the PC can do but never does). To his credit, the Player reacted very quickly and the brief back and forth was awesome. Finally, locked in combat with each other, the villainous version never saw another hero sneak up on him and deliver a devastating attack from behind.

In the end, we all talked about it, letting off steam and discussing our differences in game styles and what appeals to us and doesn't. Now, the truth of the matter is our Science Savant is never going to change and start giving us the abridged, layman's terms description of his moves any more than I'm going to start a wiki that goes into meticulous background detail on every person, place or thing in the campaign milieu and its history (I prefer the find-out-as-you-go method as both a player and a GM. You want to know and remember campaign info? Take notes). I do think and feel that, having discussed it out in the open, we get each other a little better. We will, hopefully, be more aware of the others persons opinions and be a little more patient with their idiosyncrasies.

Now that isn't everything that's gone on in the game but that's the major stuff. Well actually there is a side story that is pretty major happening back on our own Earth that the original Power is involved in and I really like where that is going and so does Marcus. Marcus was feeling like he was getting tired and a little annoyed with the game but he also admitted it was partially because he lost his focus and wasn't sure what to do with his character. Now that he has a goal and an investigation to pursue he says his interest in considerably renewed.

All this and I plan on starting Traveller in August!

Oh all the myriad ways...

AD
Barking Alien

DC Adventures - Identity Crisis Part 2

Continuing my overview of the active characters featured in my possible Justice League Academy/Young Justice campaign (after a longer than I wanted hiatus), I thought I'd focus on what's different rather than what's the same. Isn't that the fun part of using an established superhero comic book universe after all?

The largest single change is that the Charlton Comics characters; Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), Captain Atom, Nightshade, Peacemaker, the Question and Peter Cannon/Thunderbolt are all dead. That's right, dead. Along with Maxwell Lord, these characters died during Earth Alpha D-1's version of Final Crisis. While I can't reveal the exact nature of my plans less my potential players read this, anyone who knows me well knows how fond I am of the Charlton characters. They can't really be dead. Can they?

Moving on...a number of characters stand alone on Earth Alpha D-1, with no active membership in any one team (although many of these characters are reserve members or staunch allies of one or more teams). Among the most notable of these are Nightwing (Richard 'Dick' Grayson, the former Robin), Batgirl (Stephanie Brown, formerly Spoiler), the Creeper (Jack Ryder) and Metamorpho (Rex Mason).

Nightwing protects a modified concept for Bludhaven that I have in mind. Batgirl protects Gotham when Batman is with the Justice League and Robin (Tim Drake-Wayne) is with the Teen Titans. The Creeper is a favorite character of mine and while I'm not entirely sure what to do with him yet, rest assured I will find a place for him and it will scare the beejeebers out of my players. As for another old favorite Rex Mason, aka Metamorpho - The Element Man, I plan on using him more like his original incarnation. Picture a jet-setting Indiana Jones meets James Bond type fellow who just happens to look like a shape-shifting freak. His attitude and adventures would be in the vein of Tom Strong crossed with Venture Brothers.

Lastly for this installment are the staff members of the Justice League Academy. For the most part, I decided that in many cases DC has a few too many of the same character running around (quite literally in terms of the Flash) and nothing to do with them. Well on Earth Alpha D-1, those who fight crime do, those who used to teach.

So, the faculty at the Academy that is responsible for teaching the next generation of Justice Leaguers includes a number of former Justice League members. The staff includes: Prof. Ray Palmer (the former/Silver Age Atom, now Project Director and the Head of Operation: Young Justice), Barry Allen (the former/Silver Age Flash, who teaches Forensics and Criminology), Ralph Dibney (the former Elongated Man - not dead on Earth Alpha D-1 - teaches Detective Work and Investigative techniques), John Henry Irons (aka Steel, who I've modified quite a bit. His 'armor' is a super thin nanotech skin that grows over him and gives him all the abilities he has in his comic book armor plus a few more - Irons teaches Advanced Engineering and Quantum Mechanics. He also serves as the teams main go-to guy for anything technological) and Hector Hall (who runs our version of the Danger Room and helps the students learn how to use their powers. Look him up on the Wiki link and you'll see why he's the perfect choice. His assistant is Robert Reed of Dial "H" for Hero for similar reasons).

Wow. That was a lot more than I intended to write. See what happens when you don't post often...you post big! I've got a lot of other ideas swirlin' around in the old noggin but this will have to do for now. I've got a few other unrelated projects brewing too. Like...you'll see.

AD
Barking Alien