Hero Southern Community Solo Session #1: School is in Session!

Below is the first half of my solo ICONS session I did the other night. Because of work and house stuff, I unfortunately have to break the summary down into two halves. Tomorrow I have the day off so I can do more with the blog. Apologies again.

For this, I used 3d6 for my basic GM, where the first is Yes/No, the second is And/But/Neutral, and the third is a Twist die. In addition, I use the GM Apprentice cards for more extensive answers. For rolling up NPCs, I have some of Ennead Games's superhero kits to roll up any superhero teacher that I need. As for ICONS, the only modification I've made is that I'm going with their 1d6-1d6 version of rolling. Basically I roll 1d6-1d6+my modifier against the difficulty (or NPC's modifier, if I'm going against them) and try to roll higher. Since I'm the only one rolling, it makes sense for me to do it this way.

Here we go!

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We begin our adventure with our 'hero' Raul Montanez getting off the bus and arriving at HSC in the early morning. Plastered on his face are bags under his bloodshot eyes, red from the shots of coladas and 'greenery' he took to ease the anxiety. But today was the day he had been waiting for. While it wasn't any of the big academies, HSC was the closest Raul could get to finally getting his shot at the big time. A shot at being a bona fide superhero. Taking in a deep breath and readjusting his back pack, Raul takes his first steps onto the campus.

Taking in the sights, the campus was fairly normal looking for a supposed superhero school. The buildings were all from the 60's and most had bars over the hurricane windows. The lawn was tall and pot holes littered the roads running through the campus. The buildings were covered with make-shift decorations and homemade banners one would see at grade school orientation. A feeling of dread and regret hit Raul in the pit of his stomach, and he wondered if this was really going to get him into one of the bigger academies.

Do I spot any friendly faces?: Yes And

Just when he was contemplating leaving turning back, Raul spotted two friendly looking people at the bulletin board. They were a guy and a girl, both with pale skin, bright red hair, freckles, and similar enough features that they looked like they were siblings. Raul strolled up to them and tried to break the ice.

"Hey there," he said, voice crackling. "Is this were we get our class assignments?"

The guy smiled a goofy grin and nodded, "Yeah man, they got the listings up here." He scratches his short hair and pointed his thumb at the girl. "Me and my sis are first years, so we're hoping we don't get lost in this hole."

His sister shrugged, "Yeah, last thing I need is to make a wrong turn and run into some homeless guy out of his mind on flakka or some shit." She took a drag from her cigarette.

"By the way, I'm Jordan," she offered her hand out to Raul. "And this rude asshole is my twin brother Alexander. Too cool to introduce us."

"Hey, I'm your older brother!" Alex exclaimed, barely taking his eyes off of his phone.

"By like two minutes!" Jordan said. "You always bring that up like it's supposed to matter!"

"Hah, well it's good to meet you guys," Raul interrupted before their bickering could continue. The three continue talking while walking to their first class, trading stories and info. They live out in Miami Shores and apparently have opposite powers, with Alex being able to control ice and Jordan being able to control fire. They take turns showing off a bit before realizing that they are going to be late for their first class.

Do we have the same homeroom?: Yes But

While they had many of the same heroic courses, Raul failed a bunch of his general studies and is stuck in the remedial courses for math and literature. 

The trio make it into Hero Orientation, where they grab their seats at desks from the Reagan era and wait for the teach. Raul looks around to see a fairly large class. Most of the people have to stand since there aren't enough desks.

Do I spot anyone familiar?: Yes But Twist!

Looking around, Raul spotted a face he had hoped to never see again. A tall, muscular young man with a dark, charcoal skin and a buzz fade hair cut shoots Raul a dirty look and approaches him menacingly.

It was fucking Craig.

"Holy shit!" Craig yelled loudly, "They let YOU in here? Shit man, I think I picked the wrong school to go to. How you living, Soggy?"

"*sigh* Hey CJ..." Raul didn't make eye contact. Craig Jacobs was a childhood friend from when they were in diapers. They used to be close, until Craig hit puberty, got buff, and got in with the cool crowd. Since middle school, CJ has been calling Raul 'Soggy' because when Raul's weather powers appeared, it was in the middle of their middle school dance and soaked everyone in the gym, ruining the dance for the whole school. CJ never let him live it down.

"Man, don't be like that," CJ frowned and firmly pushed Raul's shoulder. "Though I guess if I didn't make any of the good schools, I'd be all cranky too."

"Hey, don't forget CJ, you're also here. Sounds like you didn't do so great either." Raul grew a bit of a backbone, getting tired of CJ poking fun at him

Rolling Will vs Will to insult and get a rise out of CJ: Difficulty 6; 4-4+6=6 Success!

CJ's face turned into a scowl and his body armored up, revealing a metallic coating around his whole body. He looked like a human statue made from iron. CJ made a fist and spoke.

"Listen here, I actually passed my entrance exam unlike you, Soggy. I'm just using this to get REAL experience before getting to the big time. And if you got something to say about that, I'll break your face in."

Before Raul could get up, a short, scrawny kid interposed himself between the two. "C'mon guys," the kid said, "the teacher's here! We can't get expelled on the first day!"

CJ sneered at the two, then took his seat. Raul felt that this probably wasn't the end of it.

"Thanks again. I didn't really want to see where that was going," Raul said.

"No problem. Name's Melvin. It's my first year here too. I can't wait to get this started."

The orientation teacher finally walked into the class room, placing his suitcase on the desk and straightening his tie. Raul and his classmates looked in awe as they realized who it was

Rolled a quick NPC with a weird name, but I liked it and decided to roll with it.

"Hello class, I'm Galactic Arm," he said, fixing his mask a bit. He was wearing a normal suit, but still had his mask over his face. "You can just call me Mr. Arm. I'll be your orientation teacher this term."

Galactic Arm was a fairly popular super hero in the day. His right arm was imbued with the powers of the cosmos, and it glowed like a star-studded nebulae. Arm could heal people with it, or launch cosmic blasts with it.

Is he friendly?: Yes And Twist!

"In this course, we'll be discussing the basics of applying your super powers to help others," his smile shone through his mask and one could sense the energy and desire to do good in his voice. "Being a super hero is more than about fighting the bad guys. It's about stopping crime and rescuing innocents. Expecting the unexpected."

Mr. Arm fiddled with some keys in his pant pocket, "And speaking of unexpected, we have a pop quiz for you all. I think you'll like it. Follow me."

The class groaned as they were led to the campus gym. It was the largest and newest building on the campus, capable of housing all kinds of crazy scenarios to test the students on proper rescue procedure. On the way to the gym, Raul and Melvin hooked back up with Alex and Jordan. Melvin spent the walk chattering about his life and powers. His powers included wall climbing, minor leaping, and giving people rashes with his bites. Apparently, Melvin had barely passed his entrance exam, but most of the academies didn't accept him. Most felt his powers simply weren't enough to handle fighting crime, which left Melvin no choice but to enroll in HSC and try to get in that way. Raul felt bad for the poor kid, since he himself wasn't able to pass the power control portion of his exam. Still, there was a sort of camaraderie of taking this last ditch effort to become a superhero.

As the class entered the gym, they are greeted by a gruff old man wearing a Navy inspired outfit with a giant hammer tattooed on his left arm

"Alright kiddos," he said menacingly, "I'm Admiral Hammer and I'm going to be in charge of making sure you all don't die out there on the streets." Hammer was a super strong brick that could swim through water like a torpedo. Raul didn't know much about him beyond that, except that he's been around since the 80's.

"Out there in the real world, villains, criminals, and Mother Nature won't give two shits whether you're too tired or not ready to deal with the day. When disaster hits, you need to be prepared to hit back, twice as hard. So put on yer big kid pants and get in line. We need to see what you can do first."

Hammer pointed to a circle in the dirt and explained that they had to use their powers to launch a baseball as far as possible. Anything went, but the only rule is that they have to stay in the circle.

CJ was the first up, and he transformed into his metallic form. He wound up for the pitch and launched the ball several hundred feet away. The class was impressed and it even caught the attention of Hammer.

"That was some fine throwing, Mr. Jacobs," Hammer nodded at the proud young man. "Mr. Montanez, you're next!"

As Raul walked to the circle, he went passed CJ. CJ bumped his shoulder into Raul on purpose, "Beat that Soggy."

Raul tried to calm his nerves and cupped his hands in front of him with the ball inside. The wind around his hands began to twist and turn, faster and faster until it created a small, horizontal cyclone.

Roll my Wind Blast against a Difficulty 4 to land a good score and Difficulty 8 to beat CJ's score: 4-1+6=9; Moderate Success!

Raul levitated the ball in the twister and launched it like a missile. The ball went passed CJ's marker by a decent enough margin. Raul turned to see Craig's disgruntled face scrunched up. It was worth it just for that, Raul thought.

"Ah, so we got ourselves a weather wizard here, eh?" Hammer looked sufficiently impressed, "Here's hoping you don't kill anyone with that power." Despite his laughing, no one could tell if he was serious or not.

Does anyone beat our score?: No And Twist!

I actually drew a GMA card for this one and got Significant Obstacle of Conflict in a Different Area.

No one is able to beat our score, though many come close. Alex came in last, as he couldn't think of a way to use his ice powers to launch the ball far. Jordan blasted the ball like a rocket and it reached a good football field's length before burning away. With the ball launch done, Hammer spoke.

"Now that we are done with that, it's time for the second part of your test. We've seen your powers, but now we have to see what YOU are made of with a little simulation the teachers came up with." Hammer motioned for the class to follow him.

What's in store for the students? Will Raul's and CJ's rivalry heat up too much and boil over? Will they all survive their first term in HSC? We'll find out next time!

Solo Supers Sandbox Character: Raul Montanez

For my solo game, I have decided to go with ICONS for now. Guardians actually looked really interesting and I may give that a run for a different game. But for now, I'll stick with what's somewhat familiar to me, even if it is FATE based.

Anyways, the elevator pitch of the solo game setting:

"It is 2017 and the world has had superheroes for over a century. Great people with incredible powers that perform mighty feats of heroism patrol the cities of Earth, protecting up from those that would do harm. But all superheroes, especially new ones, have to learn and train from somewhere. There are many great academies to train young adults in the career of superhero.  

This is not one of those academies.

For those that didn't make the grades, have the money, or pass the entrance test, but still want to try to help, there are several community colleges that can pick you up. And that's where our story begins, with a young Miami native named Raul Montanez. He enrolls into Hero Southern Community in Miami, looking to get into the world of superheroes, no matter what it takes."

Here is the character sheet:

Raul Montanez

Origin: Birthright

Attributes

Prowess: 5

Awareness:2

Coordination: 4

Strength: 6

Intelligence: 7

Will: 6

DP: 3

Stamina: 12

Powers

Elemental Control (Weather): Limit (Concentration; +1 DP); 6

Flight (Windrunning): 5

Blast (Hailstorm Blast): 5+1

Reflection (Wind Shear Shield): Limit (Kinetic Only; +2 Power Level); 6

Specialties

Mental Resist: +1

Power (Blast): +1

Qualities

Force of Nature

When it Rains... it Pours!

Raul is a third generation Cuban-American born and raised in Hialeah. He's the first person in his family to manifest a super power, with the ability to control the weather. Raul tried for the Standardized Hero Assessment Exam to get into the big schools, but a lack of control in his power and inability to pay for school meant that he had to go to community college to make his dream come true.

He's 18 and somewhat chunky with a tan complexion and short, curly black hair. A bit on the shorter side.

That's all I have time for today. Long shift at the restaurant, so not much time otherwise. ICONS should be an interesting fit to play. I'll also explain later why I went with college student as opposed to teenage academy like Teen Titans or X-Men.

Musing on Solo Supers

Firstly, a big thank you to +MoonSylver for their huge repository of superhero sandbox links. It's been pretty awesome to sift through this treasure trove of good ideas to get things set up on my end. So, many thanks to Moon.

With that in mind, I have a simplified patrol table for ease of use in the middle of a game. I'm going to be using Alien Shores's table, but paired down to just using a d10. I thought about having different odds of certain crimes depending on the area (industrial vs commercial, slums vs ritzy) but from reading tons and tons of comics, crime of any type can really happen anywhere. And plus, this is more going to be for fast use in the middle of a game, whether it's a solo game or with a group of friends. I am considering a drop-down dice table, but we'll see what time permits. Working at a restaurant next to a movie theater in the summertime means my time is very very limited.

That all said, I haven't quite decided on what to use as a system. I'm going between ICONS, Guardians, and now Supers!, which I hear is really good. ICONS seems good but I just don't like FATE all that much. Guardians is OSR and more familiar to me but seems more limited. Supers! I don't have, and looks really unfamiliar to me, so it'll take time to learn it. I'm down for trying anything new though.

A Solo Superhero Sandbox Scenario?

Switching gears from constant sci-fi and M-Space stuff, lately I've been in the mood for superhero gaming. I blame binge watching Flash season 3 and My Hero Academia with the lady friend. But I don't really want to cancel my M-Space game. So I've decided to try my hand at solo gaming again and do a superhero solo game.

Right now, I'm waffling between using ICONS, a simple hero game reminiscent of FATE done by the Mutants and Masterminds guy, and Guardians, an OSR clone done more in the style of super heroes rather than fantasy. I've played ICONS and liked it, but I also like trying new things and am looking at Guardians. I am looking to keep it simple for ease of solo play, so anything in that style can fit.

I'm going to be taking my notes from a superhero campaign I ran a couple of years ago called Magic City Defenders. In it, I had the players as Miami's first premiere superhero group. There's a map of the different sections of Miami (Overtown, Brickell, Wynwood, etc) that I had planned to use as a sort of patrolling 'hexcrawl'. Basically, the players would patrol a different borough and I would roll a random crime encounter table. The difference between this and fantasy games though is that something would always happen. It was just a matter of how important it was. More often then not, it would be simple stuff like muggings or car jacking, but every so often, there would be a bigger supervillain event that the players would have to contend with. The map of the neighborhoods is below for anyone interested

So with this, I plan on taking those notes and applying them to this superhero solo game. Luckily, ICONS has a fairly robust adventure generator that I can use, even if I use Guardians or some other game. In addition, I have a great catalog of villains from all kinds of systems, from HERO and M&M to ICONS and Savage Worlds. I think I'll have enough to go off of for a good solo campaign. I think I'll start with a premade adventure at first, to get my sea legs again with solo gaming. After that, I'll do more of my own adventuring.

My biggest enemy is time, or lack thereof. With summer here and working at a restaurant next to a movie theater, there is no slow season. People flock to our kitchen while on their way to the next summer blockbuster. And this week is the premier of Spider Man so... it will be a difficult time to say the least. That's partially why my Mythras solo adventure write had been put on hold (the other being bed bugs). I'll have to finish that sooner rather than later.

I think I'll decide on which RPG to use by tonight, though I'm always down to try new games out there. I'm leaning towards ICONS since I've played it before, but Guardians looks like a lot of fun. And I am more familiar with d20 systems. Also I'll post my hero at some point, before I get to the adventure.

Stocking a Solar System's Sum of Stunts and Stories

My current game is a science fiction exploration game, where the players are scouts surveying their new home and getting it ready for colonization. One of the things I've done is that right from the get go, the players have a spaceship that can take them anywhere in the new solar system. Here, there are seven celestial bodies that the players can blast off to. Many of those are either jovian or ice giants with tons of moons to look at. Add in all kinds of asteroids, comets, and other stuff floating out there, and you have a great deal of sites for adventures and discovery.

Of course the difficult part for this is how do we stock all of these for adventure? Much like a standard hexcrawl, you have all kinds of adventure, ruins, and obstacles that are keyed up and ready for the players to stumble upon. However, things get a bit more difficult because now we are dealing with the planetary scale. Planets, moons, hell, even asteroids are much bigger than your standard hexcrawl map. Stocking an entire planet of adventure like that simply isn't viable, let alone an entire solar system. Luckily, I have my way of taking care of that.

First thing I like to do is end a session asking what the players want to do next. It doesn't always happen, as sometimes I like to through stuff at them to react to next session as a cliffhanger, but it's nice to know where your players are going to next. That way you can simply prep for where they are going. So if my space scouts want to travel to Chicken Island next session, then I know that I can prep stuff specific to that area and I won't be wasting any time when I do it. Pretty basic stuff. Still, it's nice to have some stuff ready to roll when things happen in the middle of a session, so we turn to my rule of threes.

For each celestial body, I have three landmarks and three possible adventures, made from three words (a verb, adjective, and noun). We can usually describe planets with 2-3 landmarks or interesting things easily, especially if they aren't Earth like worlds. For example, Mars has red sand, Olympus Mons, and several canals across it. Jupiter has the Great Red Spot, intense radiation, and a great deal of gravity to contend with. I generally write these as tags like you'd see in FATE or DW. All of these can be the source of adventure, or simply add complications to another adventure on the same planet. Imagine trying to rescue a hydrogen freighter in Jupiter, but you have to save them without getting caught in the gravity well yourself. And the good thing about being in a sci fi genre is that thanks to future tech, players can scan for a lot of the potential sites of adventure from their CIC in orbit. So these landmarks can be made readily apparent and easy to spot. It does tend to simplify each planet a bit, but luckily, that's where the 'three words' come in.

So for me, three words are just me generating a verb, adjective, and noun. So for example, I simply will have 'Destroy Large Generator' as an adventure seed. From there, I flesh it out as I see fit. Get creative with how you interpret the seed. For example, your generator could be the fusion power plant on a space ship, a solar generator on an asteroid base, or even the wide leaves of an alien plant that feeds and powers a hive of plant-bugs. It's sci fi so go crazy with it! What I like to use are these verb, adjective, and noun generators for free. But sometimes that gets you some weird combinations that are hard to work with (Quoit Micrococcal Tracheitis?). One thing I use a lot of for developing adventures on the fly are Ennead Games's Adventure Generator Sci Fi and the GM's Apprentice Sci Fi deck. But, as great as those are, you can still keep it free. And you don't even have to use three words. Images are a great way to get some vague icons and interpret them how you wish. I know I've seen a lot of good stuff about Rory's Story Cubes, but if you don't have the scratch, I like using Tangent Zero's Dice for that. I like to roll three or four and have that as my main adventure. Hell, I'll even use a set of tarot cards I have to give me a good set of twists. The important part is, you have a good improv generator that will give you just enough structure and inspiration to craft a good adventure, but vague enough to allow for your creativity to kick in.

Putting this all into use, in my game, I have an extremely hot planet close to the sun. For its three landmark tags, I have "Large basins and mares", "Huge chains of volcanoes", and "One massive crater at the equator". The first landmark is almost like a safe zone for players to land at, but can also house future adventures (things hidden under the basalt flats? a colony appears there and stuff happens?). The second adds the danger, but can have a high reward. There's lava and high temperature everywhere, but there's also a hidden ancient alien facility in the volcano with secrets and mysteries inside. The third is a definite adventure site. What caused the crater? Was it an impact or an explosion? A landmark that makes the players ask questions about it will hook them line and sinker.

From there, I have three 3-word sentences that I generated. "Survey Massive Graveyard", "Destroy Alien Facility", and "Aid Strange Rival". For the first one, I decided to have an orbital graveyard filled with the corpses of large, spaceborn aliens. The second one has that alien facility in the volcanoes. The third one was a bit vague, so I added more using Tangent Zero's dice and created an adventure where the players and a rival scout group go through an old space hulk looking for stuff before the others do. But, things go wrong and it becomes a fight for survival as something vicious lurks in the hulk. Or, thanks to a little Kessler Syndrome, the players and rivals are separated from their shuttle and now have to try and escape the space hulk as it careens into the planet. I like to keep it flexible for this one, as either can be fun. 

There we go. That planet has a decent amount of adventure for a good while, and if they ever want to go back, I can always add more to it. As for the rest of the solar system, it can still be a bit daunting. I generally prep a cache of landmarks and sentences for each body, and then detail it at a later date. Luckily, limits in space travel in my game make it to where the players will generally eyeball the closer planets rather than the far off ones. But with PCs, you never know what they'll do! I also really add specific tags to important bodies. So planets, some moons, and asteroids that are big enough to be interesting (like your Juno and Vesta). But it's good to have some generic sentences and landmarks in case they land on some random Trojan asteroid in Jupiter's orbit.

There's a bit more I do inspired by ACKS, but I think I'll save that for another time. For those that run any sci-fi space-faring sandboxes, how do you set up your adventures for your players? 

Happy Fourth of July

For everyone that celebrates it, hope it's fun time today.

Here's some bread I made for hot dogs today

GMing Challenge: Non-Sapient Wilderness Encounters

The last couple of months has seen me running a really fun sci fi game where the players are part of an expeditionary force going planetside to explore and colonize a lush but dangerous garden world. This is to ensure the survival of a dying human race, suffering from a shattered moon that has made the Earth unlivable for humanity. It's inspired by media such as Interstellar, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and Alpha Centauri/Civ: Beyond Earth. 

So this has been my sci-fi, planet-focuses hex crawl that I have been running. The maps are bigger because the players have an all-terrain, and there are lasers and such, but essentially, it's a good little excursion into surviving a deadly and alien wilderness. Because this is a brand new world that is mostly untouched by civilization (more on that another time), one of the biggest challenges I imposed on myself was to have wilderness encounters that didn't involve ancient ruins, forts, or dungeons. Essentially, nothing built by a sapient species, except for certain things that fit the metaplot of the game (for example, crashed resources pods launched ahead of their expedition). I wanted to make all of the encounters based on the xenowildlife on the planet and showcase a world virtually untouched by advanced civilization.

This proved to be incredibly difficult.

Wilderness encounters were much more limited to either finding evidence of an animal, encountering it, then fight or flight. While there has been some variation here and there, many of the encounters have felt the same sadly. And without intelligent, sapient aliens, there isn't too much in the way of role-playing opportunities. To my players' credit, they have spent a lot of time taming the animals in the wild rather than killing them. But I can really only get so much mileage out of throwing an animal-of-the-week at them and exploration of forests and caves before things get boring.

One solution I did was to take advantage of the fact that it's an alien planet, so I can get away with crazy, gonzo things for the players to explore. I found that I could write up a dungeon as a ruined keep, but then reflavor it as something natural. For example, the players found a massive mound-like structure with several tunnels throughout it, similar to a termite mound. It was essentially one big dungeon, but it was easy to explain as part of the alien wildlife. Same with having trees that grow rooms, or massive vines that excrete a sap that slows the players, or natural burrows of some trap-door predators. I've gotten pretty adept at making these encounters for the game, though I do have a hankering for adding some kind of alien ruins in the future. 

I'm curious how everyone else would do a game of just wildlife and wilderness adventures, with no dungeons, no ruins, and no sapient creatures and structures.