The end of the Ultimate Posse Campaign
As I mentioned a while back I was pretty sure that my Marvel Heroic Roleplaying campaign was drawing to a close, and rather than just suspend it or worse have it peter out I decided to end it in an intentional manner. I told the group it would likely be the last session, and that I would be tying up a bunch, but not all of the plot strands that had been about in the game. So thusly warned, we gamed last night, and here's the recap (GM's notes in italics)...
Previously...
The Ultimate Posse, a superhero team that came together in the years following an alien invasion of Earth, had managed to infiltrate the Zodiac, a supervillain collective and launch an assault on their space station base from within. Taurus, the leader of the Zodiac, escaped along with Ares (Headstrong) and Cancer (King Crab), and two heroes in disguise--Samkhara who had become "Sagittarius" and the Ferret who was "Libra." Ares had managed to capture Dr. Mind, who was unconscious.
Taurus had revealed to the Zodiac (and therefore the disguised heroes) that he had contacted an alien people called the Prax Empire in hopes of convincing them to ally with him in a conquest of Earth. It turns out that the Celestial, an alien superhero living on Earth, was the Prax's king in exile, and that now he could claim his rightful throne. There's just one problem: the Celestial had been killed in the previous alien invasion of Earth and then later brought back to a semblance of life by Empyrean, who was currently serving the Zodiac as Capricorn.
Opening Scene...
Taurus, Ares, Cancer, Samkhara, and the Ferret find themselves on a heavily wooded mountainside. Taurus fumes that he has been ejected from his home but swears revenge. Then he receives a communication from Empyrean: the alien armada is closer than they believed, and will be here in mere hours. Taurus tells Empyrean to move onto "stage two" of their plan and signs off. Taurus tells his allies to kill Dr. Mind, then meet him at their backup location. He then teleports away.
Samkhara gets the drop on Headstrong, and while the Ferret and Dr. Mind finishes him off Samkhara persuades King Crab to join them instead of siding with Taurus. King Crab agrees to help them if they will help him get home to his own planet. The heroes contact the rest of their team and arrange to be picked up by an UNTIL spaceplane.
When building this scene I had realized that both King Crab and Headstrong were vulnerable to being turned against Taurus. King Crab had always been the "misunderstood monster" in the game, and Headstrong's partner, Arrowhead, had been killed by Taurus a couple of sessions ago. Samkhara's player was thrilled to finally have a chance to roleplay out converting King Crab, which she had been pushing for since he first appeared.
Scene Two
The heroes gather together on the Zodiac's base. They are joined by one of UNTIL's elite agents, the Ginja Ninja. Control, one of UNTIL's three directors, tells the heroes that in addition to Empyrean and this three bodyguards, Metallurge has also escaped. The group also learns that the alien armada is close and that the Prax Empire appears to be same alien race who slaughtered the aliens who had kidnapped Union Galactic (I'll have to fill you in on his convoluted origin later). They also get word that the Vault, the supervillain prison, is under assault. The group has to decide if they want to engage the alien armada in space, head for Greece where Taurus is hiding, or head to the Vault. After some discussion of the merits and pitfalls of splitting the group, they head together to the Vault, having realized that the target is likely the Dark Celestial.
The Ginja Ninja was a friend of my son's who was spending the night. That plan had conflicted with game night, but my son decided to overcome his aversion to "outing"himself as a gamer and invite his friend to the gaming table. The Ginja Ninja was a re-skinned Hawkeye from the Civil War rulebook.
Scene Three
The heroes head to the Vault where they find Bola, Eye Strike, and Brawl leading a gang of other prisoners in a riot on the landing pad of the prison. They quickly dispatch the B-listers (again) and head below. There they find Empyrean and his trio of bodyguards--Viridian, Crimson, and Goldenrod--along with Metallurge. The villains are clearly trying to open the high-security cell of the Dark Celestial. Midway through the lengthy battle, the Ferret and Bubblegum find themselves separated from the group and encounter Interface, who doesn't prove to be much of a challenge. Eventually Metallurge falls to Union Galactic, and Dr. Mind uses his psionic powers to compel Empyrean to flee. However during the battle the Dark Celestial had escaped. Metallurge is exposed to be the super-jerk Lancelot, to the surprise of no one.
As is so often the case in superhero games, psionic abilities remain overpowered, mostly because most PC's and NPC's are built as "physical" combatants. The Posse has two psionicists, however, and they dominated the session. In addition to being a big, crazy battle scene, this was also a chance for the players to see (and say goodbye) to a lot of their favorite villains of the campaign. It's just too bad that Mr. Eternity wasn't around to see Interface again. It also wrapped up the long suspected notion that Metallurge, the armored villain, was the same guy as Lancelot, the armored "hero" who continually riled the team.
I also decided that when the doom pool got 2d12 in it, instead of ending the scene I would have Dark Celestial escape. If they managed to defeat the heroes before then, the Dark Celestial would not appear later in the story. Unfortunately for them, this did not happen.
Scene Four
Back in scene two the heroes had decided to try to lure the alien armada to the space station and then cause it to self-destruct, which worked to destroy most of the alien armada but failed to destroy it completely. A couple of surviving ships were headed for Greece and the likely final showdown. The heroes hustle it by spaceplane to the island of Crete where they see Taurus and a female version of the Celestial talking. She is Celestia, the Celestial's wife and now regent of the Prax Empire in his absence. Taurus is trying to convince her that the authorities of Earth were wrongfully imprisoning her husband, but he had managed his escape. This proves his sincerity in helping the Prax Empire, and that she should help him take over the Earth. The heroes counter-argue that the Celestial loved the Earth and lost his life protecting it, and that it was Taurus' henchmen who had created the abomination known as the Dark Celestial. Just as Celestia is coming around to the heroes' point of view, the Dark Celestial shows up.
What follows is a three way battle between the heroes, the Dark Celestial (who is intent on killing everything on Earth), and the enraged Taurus. While Taurus is overwhelmed by the more "physical" heroes, Samkhara and Dr. Mind manage to do enough emotional damage to the Dark Celestial to drive him off planet. Celestia, horrified by what her husband has become but determined to reclaim and try to save him, pursues him into space.
And...scene. It was kind of fun coming up with the mechanics for how two opponents might try to convince a single person of something. Basically we did it as trying to have both groups overwhelm Celestia emotionally on two different scales (kind of a like a carnival where two people are trying to get their balloon to pop first). Even though the group rolled terribly, my rolls were even worse to the point where it really became funny. If Taurus had won, then the group would have to face Taurus, Celestia, and the Dark Celestia together. Thankfully, they did win and thus Celestia was out of the battle and the Dark Celestial and Taurus would both be Solo, rather than Team.
This battle did prove one of my biggest gripes about MHR--the rules don't really support creating tough Solo villains unless you want to get into having multiple dice in Affiliations, and even that doesn't help that much. Taurus was dogpiled by most of the heroes while Dr. Mind and Samkhara worked the Emotional/Mental damage spectrum on the Dark Celestial.
Afterwards the group got together for a photo and we began our discussion about the upcoming Mass Effect campaign, as well as a couple of other small loose ends about the campaign. The group said that there were several plot lines that they would enjoy revisiting: the magic war between the demons and the Pact, for example. But for now, we move onto other things in a satisfying manner.
Previously...
The Ultimate Posse, a superhero team that came together in the years following an alien invasion of Earth, had managed to infiltrate the Zodiac, a supervillain collective and launch an assault on their space station base from within. Taurus, the leader of the Zodiac, escaped along with Ares (Headstrong) and Cancer (King Crab), and two heroes in disguise--Samkhara who had become "Sagittarius" and the Ferret who was "Libra." Ares had managed to capture Dr. Mind, who was unconscious.
Taurus had revealed to the Zodiac (and therefore the disguised heroes) that he had contacted an alien people called the Prax Empire in hopes of convincing them to ally with him in a conquest of Earth. It turns out that the Celestial, an alien superhero living on Earth, was the Prax's king in exile, and that now he could claim his rightful throne. There's just one problem: the Celestial had been killed in the previous alien invasion of Earth and then later brought back to a semblance of life by Empyrean, who was currently serving the Zodiac as Capricorn.
Opening Scene...
Taurus, Ares, Cancer, Samkhara, and the Ferret find themselves on a heavily wooded mountainside. Taurus fumes that he has been ejected from his home but swears revenge. Then he receives a communication from Empyrean: the alien armada is closer than they believed, and will be here in mere hours. Taurus tells Empyrean to move onto "stage two" of their plan and signs off. Taurus tells his allies to kill Dr. Mind, then meet him at their backup location. He then teleports away.
Samkhara gets the drop on Headstrong, and while the Ferret and Dr. Mind finishes him off Samkhara persuades King Crab to join them instead of siding with Taurus. King Crab agrees to help them if they will help him get home to his own planet. The heroes contact the rest of their team and arrange to be picked up by an UNTIL spaceplane.
When building this scene I had realized that both King Crab and Headstrong were vulnerable to being turned against Taurus. King Crab had always been the "misunderstood monster" in the game, and Headstrong's partner, Arrowhead, had been killed by Taurus a couple of sessions ago. Samkhara's player was thrilled to finally have a chance to roleplay out converting King Crab, which she had been pushing for since he first appeared.
Scene Two
The heroes gather together on the Zodiac's base. They are joined by one of UNTIL's elite agents, the Ginja Ninja. Control, one of UNTIL's three directors, tells the heroes that in addition to Empyrean and this three bodyguards, Metallurge has also escaped. The group also learns that the alien armada is close and that the Prax Empire appears to be same alien race who slaughtered the aliens who had kidnapped Union Galactic (I'll have to fill you in on his convoluted origin later). They also get word that the Vault, the supervillain prison, is under assault. The group has to decide if they want to engage the alien armada in space, head for Greece where Taurus is hiding, or head to the Vault. After some discussion of the merits and pitfalls of splitting the group, they head together to the Vault, having realized that the target is likely the Dark Celestial.
The Ginja Ninja was a friend of my son's who was spending the night. That plan had conflicted with game night, but my son decided to overcome his aversion to "outing"himself as a gamer and invite his friend to the gaming table. The Ginja Ninja was a re-skinned Hawkeye from the Civil War rulebook.
Scene Three
The heroes head to the Vault where they find Bola, Eye Strike, and Brawl leading a gang of other prisoners in a riot on the landing pad of the prison. They quickly dispatch the B-listers (again) and head below. There they find Empyrean and his trio of bodyguards--Viridian, Crimson, and Goldenrod--along with Metallurge. The villains are clearly trying to open the high-security cell of the Dark Celestial. Midway through the lengthy battle, the Ferret and Bubblegum find themselves separated from the group and encounter Interface, who doesn't prove to be much of a challenge. Eventually Metallurge falls to Union Galactic, and Dr. Mind uses his psionic powers to compel Empyrean to flee. However during the battle the Dark Celestial had escaped. Metallurge is exposed to be the super-jerk Lancelot, to the surprise of no one.
As is so often the case in superhero games, psionic abilities remain overpowered, mostly because most PC's and NPC's are built as "physical" combatants. The Posse has two psionicists, however, and they dominated the session. In addition to being a big, crazy battle scene, this was also a chance for the players to see (and say goodbye) to a lot of their favorite villains of the campaign. It's just too bad that Mr. Eternity wasn't around to see Interface again. It also wrapped up the long suspected notion that Metallurge, the armored villain, was the same guy as Lancelot, the armored "hero" who continually riled the team.
I also decided that when the doom pool got 2d12 in it, instead of ending the scene I would have Dark Celestial escape. If they managed to defeat the heroes before then, the Dark Celestial would not appear later in the story. Unfortunately for them, this did not happen.
Scene Four
Back in scene two the heroes had decided to try to lure the alien armada to the space station and then cause it to self-destruct, which worked to destroy most of the alien armada but failed to destroy it completely. A couple of surviving ships were headed for Greece and the likely final showdown. The heroes hustle it by spaceplane to the island of Crete where they see Taurus and a female version of the Celestial talking. She is Celestia, the Celestial's wife and now regent of the Prax Empire in his absence. Taurus is trying to convince her that the authorities of Earth were wrongfully imprisoning her husband, but he had managed his escape. This proves his sincerity in helping the Prax Empire, and that she should help him take over the Earth. The heroes counter-argue that the Celestial loved the Earth and lost his life protecting it, and that it was Taurus' henchmen who had created the abomination known as the Dark Celestial. Just as Celestia is coming around to the heroes' point of view, the Dark Celestial shows up.
What follows is a three way battle between the heroes, the Dark Celestial (who is intent on killing everything on Earth), and the enraged Taurus. While Taurus is overwhelmed by the more "physical" heroes, Samkhara and Dr. Mind manage to do enough emotional damage to the Dark Celestial to drive him off planet. Celestia, horrified by what her husband has become but determined to reclaim and try to save him, pursues him into space.
And...scene. It was kind of fun coming up with the mechanics for how two opponents might try to convince a single person of something. Basically we did it as trying to have both groups overwhelm Celestia emotionally on two different scales (kind of a like a carnival where two people are trying to get their balloon to pop first). Even though the group rolled terribly, my rolls were even worse to the point where it really became funny. If Taurus had won, then the group would have to face Taurus, Celestia, and the Dark Celestia together. Thankfully, they did win and thus Celestia was out of the battle and the Dark Celestial and Taurus would both be Solo, rather than Team.
This battle did prove one of my biggest gripes about MHR--the rules don't really support creating tough Solo villains unless you want to get into having multiple dice in Affiliations, and even that doesn't help that much. Taurus was dogpiled by most of the heroes while Dr. Mind and Samkhara worked the Emotional/Mental damage spectrum on the Dark Celestial.
Afterwards the group got together for a photo and we began our discussion about the upcoming Mass Effect campaign, as well as a couple of other small loose ends about the campaign. The group said that there were several plot lines that they would enjoy revisiting: the magic war between the demons and the Pact, for example. But for now, we move onto other things in a satisfying manner.
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| Left to right: Union Galactic, Dr. Mind, Le Metamorphe's baby, Samkhara, Abrasax, Bubblegum, the Ferret, and the Ginja Ninja. Not pictured: Mr. Eternity and Patchwork |
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