GenCon sessions notes

[Grimmshade]

I had a blast running MHR at GenCon. If you were a player in one of my games (I was the Watcher with a wife co-Watcher) thanks for being awesome! Every one of my 4 sessions was a unique group of great players.

MWP gave out a free copy of the CW pdf to the player in each group with the most XP at the sessions end, and EVERY time the players all negotiated kindly amongst themselves to give the prize to the person who needed it or deserved it the most.

Some session highlights included:
The Young Avengers rescuing Captain America. Patriot saluted him and Cap saluted back. Cap then said "Now to find my Shield."
Patriot said "Here Sir, you can use mine."

Thor Girl attacking a HAMMER helicarrier, knocking Iron Patriot through the hull, dodging a Unibeam, and then shouting a very awesome line of dialogue that ended in "... I say thee NAY!" before ripping open the armor suit.

Warlock was hilariously played in my New Mutants game. Also in that session, after fighting for a device to stop the big bad, the group talked the bad guy into submission in the last scene.

Hulkling raging out on Taskmaster after seeing Wiccan fall in my last session of the con. Also some earlier hilarious moments with Wiccan "talking" to the group from under a silence field.

These are just some highlights, the sessions were filled with great moments. Fun and inspiring, I thank you all!

[Praedoran]

It was a blast and thanks a lot for getting us into this amazing ruleset. I was Speed from the last session game.

[pksullivan]

I ran three sessions. MODOK's 11 on Thursday afternoon set the bar high for my convention games, despite my printed copy missing a page of milestones I was supposed to hand out. It turns out that four of my six players were from the Roo Sack Gamers podcast and they already have some high praise for our session on the blog. I hope they talk about it on the show. The game was an absolute blast. It's supposed to be a two-act Event but the guys would not stop scheming, betraying, backstabbing, and fighting each other so we only made it through the first act. The secret milestones worked beautifully and our Chameleon (played by Jeff, I believe) managed to resolve both his regular milestone and his secret milestone by walking out on the mission.

It seemed like everyone was scheming and plotting against one another. Armadillo had a grudge against Living Laser and started a brawl in the first five seconds of the game. Mentallo set up the crew for a fall by having elite SHIELD squads lying in wait for when the crew got out with the hypernova. Living Laser was working for Temugin and betrayed the party early on by scouting the ship and sending everyone in the wrong direction. He then found a science lab that restored him to human form but called Temugin and told him where to get the hypernova. Chameleon was working for the head of AIM and spent XP to bring the ultra-adaptoid into play. At the time he was sequestered with Rocket Ranger so I handed the ultra-adaptoid datafile to the Rocket Ranger's player and said, "Surprise!" He took it in stride and made great use of the D12 mimic power. Puma was the only one who didn't actively betray anyone, I think.

Our game came to a dramatic end when Temugin showed up (tipped off by the Living Laser, remember?) and tried to put the psychic whammy on everyone. The ultra-adaptoid copied Living Laser's speed and stole the hypernova, escaping down to the Chinese salt flats. Fade to black. It was awesome.

My New Mutants game was good, everyone had a good time. Things got very epic as they unlocked the new power sets (the Odinpower, the Destroyer, and the Norn Stones). Magik was an absolute killer - ridiculously good rolls and once she had an unlocked power set? Hoo boy. She took out The Sentry with a total of 36 and a D12 base effect by burning the entire load of plot points she'd gathered up through the game. This session was more challenging for me to run because I had one player that demanded a lot of my attention and another who just didn't seem to engage fully. I think I handled it well but it was the least satisfying of the three Marvel games I ran this week.

Lastly, the session of Young Avengers I ran was a good, solid game. The players suffered from some early analysis paralysis. I had tried to play up Nick Fury's stern, parental tone of, "Under no circumstances are you to be noticed, cause an incident, activate the portal, or travel to the negative zone." Come on, guys! You're playing teenagers and I just told you in no uncertain terms what not to do! You really think Fury doesn't know you're all going to ignore him? Why on Earth-616 would he put Hulkling and Thor Girl on a team that is supposed to be subtle? Once Thor Girl finally decided to just rip a vault door off it's hinges and hurl it down the hallway the game really got underway. Interestingly, these players really learned to love assets and complications because of all the sneaking around and stealth stuff from their initial plan. The game also benefitted from me growing up in Wisconsin and being familiar with the Milwaukee Museum of Art, which was the primary setting. I was able to really paint vivid pictures of the scene for the players.

All in all it was a good three games. MODOK's 11 was hands down the best. All the players were aiming directly at their milestones and racking up experience. I can't wait to hear the discussion of the game on the Roo Sack Gamers.

[Grimmshade]

It was a blast and thanks a lot for getting us into this amazing ruleset. I was Speed from the last session game.

Hey man, good to see you here! You took out one of my HAMMER Sharks.
You won the free PDF too, if I am remembering right.

[Praedoran]

Yep, I've been eagerly awaiting it since that game and have already started talking with others about trying to get a group for it. BTW, love the fact that I don't need to have a set party size.

[Phaide]

Were the characters used for these scenarios pre-generated for the adventures? I'm hoping someone posts them up for us to download and run.

[pksullivan]

Yes, all the characters were pre-gens. The four events were: Guardians of the Galaxy, MODOK's 11, New Mutants, and Young Avengers. Each event had eight characters and six seats at the table, meaning there was probably some variation in the line ups through the different slots. Cam provided all the printed materials for the GMs. We got the events by email a little ahead of time so we could prepare.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Bug, Gamora, Groot, Mantis, Nova, Quasar (Phyla Vell), Rocket Raccoon, and Starlord.

MODOK's 11: Armadillo, Chameleon, Deadly Nightshade, Living Laser, Mentallo, Puma, Rocket Racer, and The Spot. My table did not take Deadly Nightshade or The Spot.

New Mutants: Cannonball, Cypher, Magik, Magma, Moonstar, Sunspot, Warlock, and X-23. My table took everyone but Warlock and X-23.

Young Avengers: Hawkeye, Hulkling, Patriot, Speed, Stature, Thor Girl, Vision, and Wiccan. My group had a no-show and left Hawkeye, Stature, and Vision out of the event.

[Phaide]

Wow, those do sound fun. Dear Marvel folks, please post these scenarios.

[Doc Hydrogen]

Man, that sounds like a total blast. I hope that Cam puts up some of that material as DL content, unless it's already part of upcoming events or supplements.

[pksullivan]

There are a few errors on the datafiles I spotted (Hulkling had two affiliations at D10, for instance). Cam would probably want someone to do another editing pass and layout before posting them to match the DLC standards and layout. Right now the events are just text files and the datafiles are just form-filled PDFs and not the lavish full-color treatment we are used to from the good folks at Margaret Weis Productions.

One of the coolest things is that Cam also printed small cards with a picture of the hero. We used those as action markers, flipping them over when that player had taken a turn. The players got to take those home after the game as a nice little keepsake.