I'm Going To Break Some News About The New Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game

As far as I know--nobody knows what I'm about to write but me and the chain of people who got it to me, so it's breaking news.

There's a new Marvel superhero RPG. Though playtest kits have been out for at least a year, the final game seems to have come out in early August:

It says its by a longtime industry hack named Matt Forbeck:

But documents I've got suggest it's not.

Apparently the bulk of the game is by Alex Macris, the guy who was (rightly) drummed out of the RPG industry because he worked closely with Breitbart right-wing mouthpiece Milo Yiannopoulos,  and the guy who me and the D&D With Porn Stars crew parted ways with because he hired a transphobe. Yiannopoulos is famous far outside the RPG sphere.

How do I know this? 

Well, basically, because folks in the RPG industry destroyed my life and I had to sue lots of them for defamation, I've spent the last 5 years collecting every piece of information I could on all the worst people in the RPG scene--very much including Macris and Forbeck.

And one of the folks feeding me information happened to be in Macris' discord group, and Macris spilled his guts to them.

Here are the screenshots, Macris is "Archon", the other person is my source (not a native english speaker so that's why the grammar's weird):

These screenshots are pretty much all I know--that and that Macris and Forbeck are both very bad people who have done very bad things in the past.

Obviously if I start asking questions, nobody will answer. But you should.

If anyone in the game press wants to figure out what's going on--Matt Forbeck's website is here.

And his twitter is here.

The dedicated reddit for the game is here.

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Hey You Know What's Fun That You Did Not Know Was Fun?

It was with trepidation that I opened Deadly Fusion. What a terrible cover. Unremembered, unloved, seemingly unread and unreviewed, and not even having DC Heroes’ usual snappy trade-dress, that terrible cover-art it looks doubly off-brand. Was this review just going to be a string of jokes?

It was not. Despite everything, Deadly Fusion turns out to be a really interesting module, and I’d hope to see more things like it or inspired by it.

Like TSR did with their Marvel game Mayfair seems to have decided to let their superhero adventure modules be a place where designers got to experiment with mutant formats and ideas. When you look at old fantasy, horror and sci-fi adventures you see the beginnings of things we still see all the time today—normal scene-chains (sometimes expanding into scene webs), and location-based sandboxes. This isn’t one of those. Like Marvel’s Secret Wars and Nightmares of Futures Past, Deadly Fusion spawned no descendants, and that’s a shame.

New adventure formats are rare, and not enough people complain about it.

Deadly Fusion is called a “match play” and what that means is it’s for two people who both take the role of player sometimes and GM sometimes, specifically here:

-Using one of two books, one player GM’s the other player—as Batman—going through some scenes in Gotham City investigating a plot which eventually leads to the Joker.

-These scenes alternate (every two or three) with the Batman player acting as GM (using the other book) to get Superman through some scenes in Metropolis investigating a plot which eventually leads to Lex Luthor.

-That's most of the adventure. But then for the last section both players then stop and begin reading: the two separate books become separate Choose Your Own Adventure style books with paragraphs ending in choices for their respective characters—you go to the numbered paragraph and read the next thing—with the possibility of skill checks and fights along the way.

-Then the characters (and their players) re-unite fight or talk or both, and then make some decisions together, then finish the Choose Your Own Adventure thing to see what happens.

It’s super weird, and not perfect—especially the end—but surprisingly well-done. The whole thing is enabled by a few interesting techniques:

-First: limiting information. The two-book format, the investigation structure, plus the fact that the two investigations are separate for most of the game gets rid of the problem of the GM-player’s metaknowledge getting in the way of being fair. The Batman character doesn’t have enough information to figure out anything about Batman’s mystery while reading Superman’s and vice versa. The game doesn’t quite stick the landing at the end but it offers some intriguing tools which could’ve probably been leveraged to do it, which we’ll see below.

-Using superheroes. Superheroes don’t much sandbox: if Lois is in trouble, you go save Lois. This allows the GM to be sure that if the PC survives, they’re going to get to the next scene eventually without too many railroad nurses or nudges. 

-Using specific characters: Both of these scenarios wouldn’t work if you had a PC with telepathy, but, no: you have Superman, you have Batman. This allows the creation of very specific scenes and challenges and for the game designer to anticipate—with a fair degree of certainty—the range of outcomes. It also has some fun side-effects, as we’ll see.

You can start to see right away some of the barriers to this kind of adventure catching on, the main one being: this isn’t the kind of writing that can arise organically from normal RPG play. Unlike a typical adventure module or even a ruleset, this kind of match-play requires one person to set it up—including dropping in hidden information for both sides—and then to hand it over to two other people and not participate at all in the resulting game. It has to be a product. It isn’t the kind of thing that’s just an extension of what a GM might make at home for their own campaign.

Also: it’s not re-usable. You play once and pretty much it’s used up. And it requires two GMs. I think in the internet era, however, this could be a very good fit for, say, two RPG internet friends to play on Zoom.

So, the details:

Good

-Great scene: Batman has to interrogate a pawn shop guy behind bullet-proof glass named Gus Rogers. Gus isn’t especially crooked but he thinks Batman’s an idiot and makes fun of him, which seems like a fun thing to roleplay. When the scene gets to the breaking point, Gus runs off, if Batman pursues him he ends up in Crime Alley and has to deal with a My Parents Are Dead flashback. This is the kind of thing you can only do if you are playing an established character and the module really plays it for all it’s worth.

-When Batman gets to the docks ““straddling the littered sidewalks, overweight sailors seasoned with equal parts saltwater and rum, stagger about and decry their sorry plights” then ask batman for a drink. If he gets rough he has to fight

lol

-Because he actually isn’t the villain behind everything, when Batman meets the Joker the Joker’s confused and thinks he’s been drugged and taken to the Batcave. This is a good way to make the Batman player interact with the Joker instead of just immediately punch him.

-The real villain in the end is Brainiac—who wants to blow up Metropolis and Gotham. In the final scenes, if Batman or Superman loses their fight to Luthor or the Joker, then the player takes over Luthor or the Joker and they have to foil Brainiac, because their city is at risk, too—I love that.

Bad

-After explaining the format, both the “Batman” and “Superman” books start with a fake article about getting energy from cold fusion and shouldn’t. There’s no reason the GM needs this information and I can see it spoiling some surprises and challenges for them when they take on the player role—I wonder if someone higher-up asked for this to be put in at the last minute to make it easier to understand the technological plot points that come up later

-They also have a page up front saying what the hero knows about the other hero and about The Joker and Lex Luthor. Like the fake article, I don’t think this serves much purpose except to tip the module’s hand as to who the villains are, but y’know, LotFP hadn’t invented profit-share-modules yet so a freelancer’s gotta hit that word count. (The author's read Dark Knight Returns--Batman thinks Superman’s “patriotism prevents him from making the most of his abilities”.)

-There’s also a place to “Use this section to (secretly) mark your answer to the offer made to you by the Joker/Luthor during Encounter Eight” —to keep it secret from the other player/GM. Nice idea, it shouldn’t be in this part of the book because, again, tipping the module’s hand. You don’t need to know you;ll meet the Joker or Luthor this early.

-A lot of indulging in that mainstream RPG vice: endless statblocks for normal people. Lois Lane has an Aura of 2. Did you know that? I like this bit 

Most notable about Lois are the conflicting aspects of her remarkably resourceful intelligence and her unerring ability to fall directly into deadly criminal schemes.

 Fair.

Also I don’t completely remember what "Aura" is but it has something to do with personality and mystical oomph I am 100% sure Lois has more of it than fucking Jimmy Olsen. Also featured: Cat Grant (who I, who have read almost all comic books, barely have heard of), Margaret Sawyer (who I have never heard of) and Officer William Henderson (ditto). They each get a column of descriptions to themselves but no picture at all, which seems like the opposite of what you’d want had anyone but the writer given a fuck about this module. A lot of the personality information they’re trying to get across so the GM could role-play them could’ve been gotten across in one picture or—better yet—a comic panel where they’re saying some characteristic catch-phrase

-They do some railroading they could very easily have avoided. They basically offer nursing and nudging options to get PCs to move to the next scene, but since DC Heroes offers xp for all kinds of things, the module could easily make it like “If the player correctly follows the clue, they get Hero Points, if Jimmy Olsen has to point it out to them, they don’t”. You lose something for not solving the challenge, but it doesn’t affect the module’s ability to take you to one of the next scenes. Since this is primarily a superhero game (so about role-playing and fights) rather than a detective game (about the convolutions of solving or not solving various riddles on time), and it obviously requires the two players to submit to the unusual format in order to be playable, I think this is a good compromise. Also: Hero Points are a spendable xp stat, so if you don’t solve shit yourself, it does legitimately affect your game later, which is nice, without having to write an endlessly branching octopus module to account for every twist the story might take.

-The Choose-Your-Own Adventure doesn’t quite work. Obviously it’s less fun to have the two friends, after having been talking to each other throughout the game, have to go off separately and do homework—and, more than that, the choices they have to make don’t really offer an interesting range of options or involvement with the mechanics. However, it really seems like some of what they did with each player having information the other didn’t could have been used in another way to make a more interesting and surprising climax. The cover shows Superman and Batman about to fight—which they probably won’t—but I think it would’ve been worth railroading the heroes into fighting if they could’ve made it into an interesting wargame with some secret info on both sides. Or, better yet, ended with them both fighting something that has pre-programmed surprise moves like "In round three, whoever last interacted with Brainiac gets their brain transferred into a pig" etc.

Weird

-In Batman’s endless statblock, perhaps as a deliberate choice, Batman is not carrying “omnigadgets” as he is in the normal DC Heroes rules from this era. Omni-gadgets are a (great) catch-all rule which allow gadgeteering characters to pull out until-then-unexpected pieces of equipment like shark repellent, which is pretty true to the genre. It makes sense that for this adventure, what Batman’s carrying is standardized, like: this is what you have to work with on this day in Gotham. There are also traces of DC Heroes designer Ray Winninger’s maniacal “quantify fucking everything in rules terms” ethos with Batman’s miniature camera described as having the “Recall” power at 3 with the limitation “Only Recalls visual information” instead of just saying it’s a fucking camera. The cassette recorder has Recall: 10 for some reason.

This is clearly a Batman influenced by the Dark Knight Returns era, described as “…a callous and obsessive veteran of a dark and malignant war”. 

-Superman’s statblock: No super-ventriloquism it’s a cover-up. 

-Information on what Superman knows about the Joker, Luthor and Batman (“as ruthless and violent as any proclaimed hero to have ever lived” which seems a little extreme considering Superman lives in a world where Lobo and Brainiac’s son have had their own comic book for a year, but whatever).

-Joker— Motivation: Psychopath. Occupation: Psychopath

-Commisioner Gordon is only one point tougher than Jimmy Olsen I call bullshit.

-Now the adventure begins with the Superman player GMing the Batman player as Bruce Wayne in the mansion: You see the bat-signal but also, to let you know about a separate incident, Alfred tells you that he saw one of the alert buttons blinking while he was dusting the Batcave. Is that really how that works? 

-The map of Gotham City (above) does not look like any map of Gotham City I’ve ever seen.

The current canonical map—which looks like Manhattan only fat and drunk—was drawn, I think, by Eliot R Brown (the guy who did the technical drawings in DC Who’s Who and Marvel’s OHOTMU as well as all those Punisher comic pages where it’s just pictures and technical specs of his guns) for the No Man’s Land storyline.

The current canonical Metropolis looks like Manhattan sideways and, likewise, does not look like the Metropolis in this book.

-The read-aloud text is very purple.

Superman: “The city is a beacon of hope to the teeming millions, representing all that is good and true of the American dream.”

Batman: ““Every single inhabitant of this decaying borough at once envies your strength and hates you for it.” “The store itself reeks of a mingled stench of aged sweat and gun oil.”

I’m going to say something strange: I think the read-aloud text is good in this module. I usually hate read-aloud text but a thing like this where you and a friend pretend to be Batman and Superman is probably best played in a spirit of slightly ironic indulgence (after all, if you play too seriously you just have Batman just call the rest of the Justice League as soon as he sees trouble). Ham it up, read to each other. You don’t have 4 people waiting to start arguing about how to cross the orc moat—I could see it working.

-There’s a minisystem for computer hacking where basically different levels of security have more digits and the better you roll the more of those digits you get for free and the rest you have to guess. It’s a nice idea but the game doesn’t really show why having to brute force the remaining numbers is bad. In theory it’s a time-sink but since, unlike a typical dungeon, the game has no random encounter there’s no particular reason not to say “Ok, I try every digit starting with 1, then every digit starting with 2…”. It would’ve worked fine if they’d put a ticking clock in there.

Now I've said already "Someone should make one of these" and, fine, in writing this I twisted my arm.

I'm getting to work writing and drawing one now. More later.

HOW TO DO A CREEPY VOICE (also, last day of Ennie voting)

Don't breathe through your nose while talking.

Flatten your tongue.

Place the tip of your tongue about a half inch behind your upper teeth, try to touch your upper teeth on either side with the sides of your tongue.

Speak slowly

You want to get metal "vocal fry" (there are youtube videos) the idea is you make a continuous sound out of your throat and pull the muscle at the base of your tongue inward toward the back of the throat as much as you can.

Try not to use the whole range of movement of your mouth when you talk, stick to just moving your lips and the tip of your tongue. Try to keep your mouth relatively closed.

The overall idea is you are channeling a relatively loud sound through a relatively small opening.
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Also, last day of Ennie voting:

For judges:

Rob Monroe
Sean McCoy
Reece Carter

and

A. Miles Davis (Anson Davis)

Best Adventure

Kiel is up with 'Blood in the Chocolate'

Best Electronic Book

Mike Evans is up with Hubris

Best Cartography

Jez  (Red & Pleasant Land) and James Grognardia are up for 'The Cursed Chateau'

Best Free Product

'Santa is Dead' by In Search Of Games, is up.

And Veins of the Earth by Scrap and Patrick (Maze of the Blue Medusa) Stuart is up for;

Best Monster/Adversary

Best Rules

Best Writing

and..

Product of the Year

Vote VoTE

Die Eisen Hexe and The Twisted Man

Die Eisen Hexe and The Twisted Man are members of the Stadt's General Enforcement Squadron Anti-Malefactor Technical Key Unit: Nonlicensed Superhuman Terrorist Watch Elite Reich Kommandos (GESA-MTKU:NSTWERK). 

They were defeated when attempting to prevent a bank robbery by the gang of mutant terrorists known as The Electric Gang but rescued by members of The Frightful, who battled the rebels to a standstill.

(The target numbers are if you're playing where you just roll 3d20 instead of using the Marvel Superheroes chart. 1 success=Green, 2=Yellow, 3=Red.)

DIE EISEN HEXE (the Iron Witch)

F Ty (6) --(target: 17)

A Gd (10)--16

S Pr (4)--18

E Ex (20)--15

R Rm(30)--14

I Am (50)--12

P In(40)--13

Health 40

Karma 120

POWERS

Sorcery--Amazing. Mostly transmutation and curses. There's always a way to break the curse, she'll brag about it.

TALENTS

Occult

THE TWISTED MAN

F Ex (20)--15

A Am(50)--12

S Rm(30)--14

E In(40)--13

R Ty (6)--17

I Gd (10)--16

P Fe (2)--19

Health 140

Karma 18

POWERS

Twisting space--you can't escape from him or where he is without an In (40) Reason FEAT and an Ex (20) Agility Feat. He can drop people into these spaces if they're grappled. Anything that distorts his body distorts the space round him--make an Agility FEAT to avoid it.

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The Frightful and The Trailer

Look a trailer:

Ok, now to some FASERIP:

Veterans of the Stadt's General Enforcement Squadron Anti-Malefactor Technical Key Unit: Nonlicensed Superhuman Terrorist Watch Elite Reich Kommandos (GESA-MTKU:NSTWERK), The Frightful first came to public prominence after confronting a group of mutant animals and metahuman terrorists attempting to escape from a hostage situation created during a screening of Successfully Annihilating Private Ryan.

Thought the Frightful were routed by the combined efforts of Dr Velocity, Hannah Von Berlin and The Shocker, they escaped in their black and yellow drag racer and totally plan to be a pain in the ass again later.

Pierrot Lunaire 

F Am (50)
A In (40)
S Gd (10)
E Ex (20)
R Ex (20)
I Ex (20)
P Gd (10)

Health 120
Karma 50

WEAPONS
Moon bombs: These are annoying white apples that explode in a burst of talc and dust, causing a RM-strength stun result in the form of a blinding coughing fit

TALENTS
Leadership, Martial Arts A-E, Tumbling, Acrobatics, Thrown Weapons

Kleine Nachtmusik

F Pr (4)
A Gd (10)
S Pr (4)
E Ex (20)
R Gd (10)
I Gd (10)
P Ty (6)

Health 38
Karma 26

POWERS
Darkforce generation: AM--can spread darkness in a 500 ft radius for d4 rounds once per day or around a small target (usually one person's head) for 10 rounds

Sonic attack: Atonal terror-musik fills the air causing a Stun check to everyone in hearing range or, each time she is hurt an In (40) strength sonic attack explodes in the attacker's head

Schleimhaut

F In (40)
A Rm (30)
S Rm (30)
E In (40)
R Pr (4)
I Gd (10)
P Ty (6)

Health 140
Karma 20

POWERS
Body Armor: Ex vs physical attacks, Gd vs energy
Slimy skin: Trails a lubricating goo wherever he goes, with In level slipperiness

TALENTS
Wrestling, Hunting, Survival

Schrodinger

F Gd (10)
A Ex (20)
S Gd (10)
E In (40)
R In (40)
I Ex (20)
P Ty (6)

Health 80
Karma 66

POWERS
Indeterminacy--At will, Schrodinger can have a 50% chance of not existing. Practically speaking this means half of all attacks on him randomly have no effect.

WEAPONS
Schrodinger's Box--A small single-use Kirbytech indeterminacy bomb the size of a softball, causes everything within 500' to wink in and out of existence randomly when activated for d4 rounds.

TALENTS
Electronics, Engineering, Physics, Repair/Tinker
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Jeff Grubb's Genius Subplot Rule

Your keynote speaker

Ok, one thing that gets discussed in most superhero game books but is chronically hard to actually wedge into a game is subplots.

Modules generally have villains and scenarios laid out, but the part of the comic where not only does the Flash have to stop the Meteor Men from eating Atlantis but has to rent a tuxedo for his cousin Alf's wedding is not usually written into the game and it's hard to design since--unlike a villain--it has to be individualized to the character and it isn't necessarily easy to play it out since the player doesn't have a clear goal--which can leave the other players going "Ok, how long are you pretending to talk to your landlord before we can go back to the game?"

On the other hand, without these, you lose a dimension of the game--even in a tactical sense. The Kingpin's awesome plan in Born Again wouldn't work if Daredevil didn't have a connection to Karen, Foggy, Ben, et al.

Jeff Grubb solved this problem. Here's how:

That thing in the red box belongs in the Museum of Genius Simple Mechanics right next to Call of Cthulhu's rules for acting insane ("Here are some names of insanities--now act insane until the duration ends").

Making a commitment gets you karma--which is a spendable experience point thing you can use to beat people up or not die or whatever. If you fail your commitment you lose it.

That's it. That's the whole mechanic and it works like a charm. Players invent subplots for themselves and interact with unsuper NPCs all the time.

The genius of it is: it's the only Karma award a player can just get without doing anything hard. So the player is not only incentivized to build out his/her PC's private world, it's the only thing on the table they can be sure they'll be rewarded for--no risk, no waiting for villains to attack, etc. the PC doesn't even have to leave the house to make a commitment.

Example--the players are hunting for Nazi science jerk Arnim Zola:
"Ok I'm a chemist would I know Arnim Zola?"
"Funny you should mention that he spoke at your school a few months ago."
"Can I talk to whoever coordinates the visiting lectures?"
"Sure it's a fellow student" (idk, that's how it worked in art school)
"Ok, I'll call them"
"'Hello, Gwen Stacy speaking?'"
"'Uh...hi Gwen'"
"'Oh it's you--omg, giggle...'"
"Oh god I don't want to go out with her I know she's gonna die"
"There's karma in it..."
"Fuck, ok..."

And then Sleepless the paranoid numbercrunching social leper goes on a date with Gwen Stacy while everyone else is watching the Vault for boats full of supersedatives and I get to attack the movie theater with Ani-Men. And then Sleepless has to pretend to spill popcorn on Gwen so that he can get away to the lobby and fight them. Classic.

Incidentally, this belies the old saw that a game is 'about' what most of its rules are about--this 8-word rule creates immensely complicated situations.

I feel like other games could use a mechanic like this--not every genre, but any one where you want a semi-static social constellation (as opposed to exploration or fast-pitched thriller pacing) to be a part of the game. Like RIFTS+ this mechanic basically gives you Apoc World on the cheap.
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Gotta Remember to Possess More People

Nails matching dice is a thing around here.

5th Ed D&D

Sunday, Jan 31--

There's a 900,000 gp bounty on the party's heads, from that time they single-handedly destroyed a noble elven family in Nornrik for defying Mandy's frost-giant princess girlfriend.

After some pretending to be zealots of the White-Lipped Goddess, The Alice used her "know one secret about anyone per session" ability to figure out that the murder-crowdsourcing survivor of the doomed house of Rath Orlath was hiding in The Devoured Land.

The girls were eager to meet the Amazons Who Ignore The Words of All Men, but so far have only found:

-a severed tongue

-a hunting party seeking a hart whose horns map the flow of the River Slith

-some crates.

One contained a starving snow leopard, another contained a lot of beets and a champion rat named Ribboned Jenny, escaped from the fighting pits of Rotting Crowns.

Ranger rolled a 2 to befriend the snow leopard, then just got bored and shot it, but then a nat 20 to befriend the rat so...you win some you lose some? Now she has a rat.

It was an oddly quiet session, but kind of nice--just enough inertia that it felt like the players were genuinely trekking around a frozen doomforest looking for clues. It nicely built suspense.

AD&D

Monday Feb 1--

Other group: The Inexplicable Isles. They found themselves (inexplicably) in a dungeon with a guy on a platform in the middle of some lava guarding a narrow causeway. The 12th level wizard incinerated him, then appeared in his place, now compelled to guard the causeway from the other PCs.

Yeah so whoever kills the guardian becomes the guardian (and yeah old trope, fucking works too). But Mandy's there so she's like Wait I have the Hammer Of Exorcism!

She has been carrying this thing since 2011 and has never used it. Which is a shame because it is so. Much. Fun.

Basically you have to beat the possessee in the head with the hammer until they're unconscious and then the evil spirit flees. Also: chance of side effects each round.

Which is hard when the patient is a 12th level wizard who doesn't want you to do that and also funny.

So the party take out years of frustration and inferiority complexes on their acid-spitting mutant wizard and grapple him, regrapple him and eventually tie him up beat the bad thing out of him and then it then possesses the barbarian. Who for some reason I can't remember was carrying the wizard down the causeway when it happens. So he throws the wizard down to run back to the platform and guard it, but throws poorly, so the wizard falls in lava. 3d6 damage on top of having already been beaten unconscious, the hallowed wizard was a cocked die away from permadeath in lava.

Now in a miracle of D&D-time, in the other half of the initiative (possessee goes first), Mandy runs over to the wizard (30 feet, half move) casts Heal and heals him (touch spell) as he is in the lava then wins initiative and rolls a crit success to yank him out. Which technically all can happen since as soon as you see a barbarian about to throw a tied up wizard you start running, that makes sense.

They then beat the shit out of the barbarian and wisely fled, leaving the spirit casting around for someone else to possess. Probably gonna go back in, though.

Marvel FASERIP

Tuesday Feb 2--

First session of the Everything Is Terrible.

Hannah Von Berlin, electrical-touching mad scientist played by Actual German Matze goes in search of #1 Most-Wanted Jewish Terrorist (or, if you're not a Nazi: Petty Car Thief) The Shocker.  Instead she finds the masterfully deadpan confused everyman Dr Velocity, who pretends to be The Shocker because Hannah seems insane and can fry people like spit pigs just by touching them.

Meanwhile The Sleepless, a paranoiac with a self-programmable endocrine system discovers an ordinary commuter train harbors Morgenstern the Man Who Fell To Earth Only To Be Put On TV By Fascists Who Claimed He Was A Perfect Aryan From the Future And Is About To Betray Them With Plasma.

In what the GM feels comfortable calling a coincidence, all four witness-, and somewhat participate in-, a high speed chase ending in a 3-cop-car pile-up next to a moving train and then kill a bunch of Stadt cops who can't shoot straight.

For lack of anything better to do, our heroes go look at a massacred underground cell in a brownstone. Then our heroes notice they're being watched...

As the moon rises, Sleepless snipes one of these undercover minders white-van only to discover these are no ordinary plainclothes Gestapo but the might Weremacht, skinchanging man-beasts who can only be harmed by silver!

So a lot of brand-new superheroes are about to be eaten by Nazi secret-police wolves, but then two things happen:

1) Morgenstern asks the neighbors where they keep the good silver

2) -False Patrick wakes up and realizes he missed the first half of the game. The Shocker rolls up in a stolen car. And realizes Hey you may not be able to kill that wolf that stopping short just sent hurtling through the windshield but you can sure park a Mercedes i8 on top of it.

...so, breathing heavily, Dr Velocity, Morgensterm, Hannah Berlin, Sleepless and The Shocker survive their first adventure and are about to find out what's in a van...

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Karma Awards for Crapsack Totalitarian Sandboxes

In a typical superhero world, it's hard to have a sandbox campaign. The real superhero normally must always pursue the greatest threat they can, not a chosen target from a target-rich environment.

Not so totalitarian worlds: if the heroes are undermining the regime, you're back in a target-rich environment, where weighing chance of survival versus juiciness of target in an overall plan makes sense.

This does rather tend to undercut both the moral and social order the traditional superhero game rewards upholding here in what Hannah Arendt called "the world of the dying, in which men are taught they are superfluous through a way of life in which punishment is meted out without connection with crime, in which exploitation is practiced without profit, and where work is performed without product, is a place where senselessness is daily produced anew" you're gonna be doing less rescuing kittens from trees and more punching cops and taking their stuff.

So for my new Marvel campaign, I had to rewrite the standard Karma and Popularity awards. This should also work for other similarly terrible worlds like Days of Future Past or Darkseid's planet Apokolips. Aside from "crime" no longer being a meaningful category, I also slightly lessened the karma loss for failing to stop atrocities since basically all day it's atrocity.

I also threw in some things that just reward the players for being cool.

Karma awards:

Wear a costume in front of enemies/witnesses (ie represent a counterforce): 20

Be visibly stigmatized in front of enemies/witnesses: 15

Major act of photogenic vandalism: 5

Violence against innocent: Stop/Prevent 40

Violence against the innocent: Stop/Prevent in front of witnesses 15 more

Theft against innocent: Stop/Prevent 10

Theft against innocent: Stop/Prevent in front of witnesses: 5 more

National offense: Commit 15

National offence: Commit in front of witnesses 5 more

Local conspiracy:  Commit: 20

Local conspiracy: Commit in front of witnesses: 5 more

National conspiracy:  Commit: 30

National conspiracy: Commit in front of witnesses: 15 more

Global conspiracy:  Commit: 40

Global conspiracy: Commit in front of witnesses: 25 more

Other significant crimes: Commit: 10

Other crimes: Commit in front of witnesses: 5 more

Rescue: 20

Rescue in front of witnesses: 10 more

Multiple rescues (5+): 100

Multiple rescues in front of witnesses: 20 more

Aid anyone visibly stigmatized in any way: 10
...in front of witnesses: 5 more

Defeating foes:

-Remarkable: 30

-Incredible: 40

-Amazing: 50

-Monstrous: 75

-Unearthly: 100

-Shift X: 150

Commit violence against an innocent: -70

Destroy the property of the innocent: -50

Steal from the innocent: -30

Public defeat: -60

Private defeat: -10

Permit violence against the innocent: -10

Permit destruction of the property of the innocent: -5

Permit theft from the innocent: -2

Permit new nationwide disaster: -20

Permit other crime: -5

Permit death of innocent: -all but 10

Noble death: -50

Mysterious death: -50

Self-destruction: -50

Making a commitment: +10

Failing a commitment: -20

Random acts of aid to the underground: +popularity (max 20)

Role-playing (personality tic): +1 until it gets easy

Role-playing (very in character act): +10

Role-playing (so in character it hurts): +15

Awesome plan/idea: +15

I LOL: +5

I LOL and you're in character: +10

Make up something cool that builds the world: +5

Have a rule handy when another player needs it or otherwise lessening the GM's workload: +5

POPULARITY

Popularity scores work in reverse when dealing with anyone loyal to the Stadt.

Defeated in public -5

Accused of crime +5

General good deeds +1

Rescues +2

Witnessed committing crime +10

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Everything Is Terrible FASERIP Character Generation Guide

So these are the character generation notes for my worst-of-all-possible-worlds FASERIP campaign.

Ignore it if you're not making a character for that game.

-If you don't have it, download the Marvel player's handbook here. This character gen system is totally different than what's in the book.

-Think up a concept, if you don't have any ideas you can start here, just ignore all the stuff about points.

-You start with 70 points to put into the basic 7 stats:
Fighting
Agility
Strength
Endurance
Reason
Intuition
Psyche

-...and 50 points to put into powers and talents.

-You may also just think of it as having 120 points total, if you want. I figured the less crunch-oriented among you would appreciate me breaking it down a little further though. An easy way to start is to put 10 in each stat and 50 in some power and then adjust from there.

-That's not a lot. If you want more points you've go to take some Disadvantages, see below.

-Popularity starts at 0, Resources start at Poor (4).

-You can pick any powers you want that fit your concept but because ranges are fucked in the original game and everything is fucked in the Ultimate Powers Book so I may alter the precise parameters of a power before play. If you need ideas, the power list is on p 72.

-Powers cost their rank--so Laser Beam: 30 costs 30. The ranks go 2, 4, 6, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 75, 100, so you can't buy like 86 of something. 6 is average, 100 is like the Hulk's strength.

-Talents (p 89) have no rank and cost 5 each. There are some other talents I've added below.

-Any extra points left over go into Karma.

-Roll your home randomly on a d6

1 Queens--Gain a language.
2 Outer Brooklyn--Gain Drive.
3 Hipster Brooklyn--Gain Trivia (subject of choice).
4 Staten Island--Gain a martial art of your choice.
5 Manhattan--Gain Heir To Fortune or a local hook-up (roll below).
6 Bronx--+1 Endurance rank.

Contacts for Manhattanites (roll d6)

1 Upper East Side/Upper West Side or North Tip
2 The General's Labyrinth (formerly Harlem/Spanish Harlem)
3 Little Italy (bigger now, encompassing Bowery and Soho as well)
4 Azocial Zone (formerly East Village/Lower East Side/West Village/Alphabet City)
5 Neo-Tokyo (formerly Chinatown, Tribeca and Lower Manhattan)
6 Joy Division (formerly Chelsea/Midtown/Hell's Kitchen)

-I'm trying this new thing where instead of rolling d100 and looking at the chart, you roll 3d20 and try to hit a target number as many times as possible. So 0 successes=White, 1=Green, 2=Yellow, 3=Red, so write all these target numbers next to the ranks each time they appear:

Shift 0: Target 20

Feeble 2: Target 19

Pr 4: Target 18

Typical 6: Target 17

Good 10: Target 16

Excellent 20: Target 15

Remarkable 30: Target 14

Incredible 40: Target 13

Amazing 50: Target 12

Monstrous 75: Target 11

Unearthly 100: Target 10

Shift X 150: Target 9

Shift Y 250: Target 8

Shift Z 500: Target 7

New Talents (again, these cost 5 each)

Familiarity (specific area)--This means you know your way around some geographical region. The game starts in New York, now known as Vornheim, so that's a good bet of a place to start. You get a +1 to checks involving finding stuff in the Familiarity place you pick.

Well-travelled--You have been around--you know many places. This works like familiarity only, for the cost of 20 karma (during the game), you can say you're familiar with any one specific normal, populated place on Earth. Like you show up in Boca Raton and spend 20 karma and go "Oh yeah, Boca, I hate this place".

Crime/Insurgency--This is just a catch-all term for a variety of skills like stealing cars and fencing stuff and picking locks and all that. You get a +1 to checks involving these kinds of things when they come up.

Credentials--You still have some official job with the Stadt and, as of the beginning of play, haven't lost it yet.

Drive--You don't need this to just drive unless you're underage but if you've got some Fury Road shit planned, it gives you a +1 to driving stuff.

Pilot mech--You can pilot one of the Automacht's robot war machines. Without this skill you're just pressing buttons and praying.


Disadvantages--You gain points for taking disadvantages


5 pts-- Recognizable: Though not necessarily in trouble yet, you have a distinctive appearance. Any witness would be able to describe you easily. Superceded by Notorious, Visibly Low-Caste, Inhuman-looking, Visibly stigmatized, etc. --don't take those, too, you have to pick one or the other.

5 pts--No papers: You don't have any more major thing that would immediately identify you as an enemy of the Stadt, but if they ask for your papers you don't have them or even a decent forgery. Superceded by Notorious, Inhuman-looking, Visibly stigmatized, etc. --don't take those, too, you have to pick one or the other.

5 Minor Disability--This is a disability serious enough that it might affect some checks. Like missing a finger, bad hearing, blind in one eye, etc.

5 Invisible Stigma -Nobody could tell to look at you, but you fit some category the Stadt considers unfit to live--you're Jewish or gay etc etc. If someone runs your fingerprints, you're immediately caught. Superceded by Notorious, Inhuman-looking, Visibly stigmatized, etc. --don't take those, too, you have to pick one or the other.

5 per thing--Stuff-Based Powers. If you have a power that is based on a piece of equipment extrinsic to you, then you get 5 per each power (or heightened ability) that fits this description. So like if you're ability to see in the dark comes from goggles, well then take 5 points.

Half-price--Pathetic Power. ....and also take half the price off the cost of seeing in the dark, since that's a pretty wimp power. Also fitting this description: water-breathing, don't need to eat, etc. Things that don't really help immediately except in very specific situations.

10, 20, or 30 "Kryptonite"--Your powers are cancelled out by (10) or you start to die if exposed to (20) some substance. If the substance is common, take 10 more. Like Green Lantern would take 20 because his powers are cancelled by yellow and yellow's everywhere. Mon-El would take 30 because he's allergic to lead.

10 Underage. You aren't old enough to go into like bars and if people see you out during school that's like probable cause right there. Can't legally drive.

10 Monolingual. Most people in the Stadt can speak German and English. If you can only speak one of those, take 10.

10 Visibly Low-Caste. You don't look full-on stigmatized, but you look visibly less than the creepy Aryan ideal, meaning Stadt officials will be real dicks to you. Severe acne or just being really short is enough. Superceded by Notorious, Inhuman-looking, Visibly stigmatized, etc. --don't take those, too, you have to pick one or the other.

10 Illiterate. Can't read.

These blue ones overlap, you can't have two of them

15 No Chill. You are extremely traumatized or angry or cowardly or something and so your role-playing awards will tend to be for behaviors that probably are pretty counterproductive, larger-saving-the-world-mission-wise.

15 Zealot. You have a genuine moral or political code you have to live up to ferociously, so your role-playing awards will tend to be for being zealous--perhaps overzealous. Perhaps to the detriment of other priorities.

20 Psychotic. You can't be counted on to make decisions and believe things that make no sense at all.

20 Serious physical disability. Like one arm, in a wheelchair, etc.

20 Visibly Stigmatized--It's obvious on sight you belong to a category of human the Stadt has declared unfit to live. Many people with serious physical disability also have this.

20/30 Notorious-You are a wanted criminal. If the Stadt only knows what you look like in-costume or out of costume that's 20 if they know either way or you wear no regular disguise that's 30.

30 Inhuman-looking. Like The Thing. Any civilian would freak out if they saw you.

40 Catastrophic disability--You're blind, paralyzed, etc.
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As an example I'll use the PC Mandy's playing, a psychic girl...

Fighting: Poor (4)
Agility: Feeble (2)
Strength: Poor (4)
Endurance: Poor (4)
Reason: Excellent (20)
Intuition: Remarkable (30)
Psyche: Incredible (40)

(So that's 104 so far)

Health: (Fighting+Agility+Strength+Endurance=) 14
Karma: (Reason+Intuition+Psyche=) 90 *
Popularity: 0 (You all start at 0)
Resources: RM 30 (Free because Bianca is from the Upper East Side and is an heir)

Powers
Mind reading: Good (10)
Telepathy: Excellent (20)
Mind Control: Remarkable (30)

(So 104+10+20+30=164)

Talents
First Aid (5)
(164+5=169 which means we're 49 pts over the limit)
Heir to Fortune (this one's free because she's from the Upper East Side)

Disadvantages
Underage (12 yrs old) (+10)
Serious physical disability (wheelchair) (+20)
Visibly stigmatized (+20)

(That adds 50 pts which leaves us with 1 extra point left over which goes back into karma, making her new karma score 91.)

(Then we add target numbers, making the final sheet...)

Bianca the Psychic Girl
lives on the Upper East Side

F: Pr (4)       Target 18
A: Fe (2)      Target 19
S: Pr (4)       Target 18
E: Pr (4)       Target 18
R: Ex (20)    Target 15
I: Rm (30)    Target 14
P: In (40)     Target 13

Health: 14
Karma: 91
Popularity: 0
Resources: Rm 30         Target 14

Powers
Mind reading: Gd (10)    Target 16
Telepathy: Ex (20)          Target 15
Mind Control: Rm (30)    Target 14

Talents
First Aid
Heir To Fortune

Disadvantages
Underage (12 yrs old)
Serious physical disability (wheelchair)
Visibly stigmatized
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