An internet hate mob can do considerable damage to a hero (or villain’s) reputation and to their Emotional and Mental Stress. The attacks of these dedicated keyboard warriors typically create Assets that others can use to attack and hurt the hero at the centre of the storm in other aspects of their life.
Team: 5D6
Distinctions:
Sociopathic
Hidden
Pack Tactics
Mob Traits
Troll: d8, Outnumber d8
SFX: Thrive on Attention: An attack that tries and fails to harm the mob causes them to increase in size by a D6.
Lone Nut: The Watcher can spend a d12 from the Doom Pool to have one of the mob be genuine and dangerous. They may track down and try to hurt the hero, their friends or family.
I talked to Ed Healy and while it was suggested, I didn’t know it was a debate at the time 🙂
Still, I think I came out pretty well here.
I’m still waiting to hear from Mongoose, but in the meantime:
Grim & Steve are playing a game of STEAMED.
Grim rolls 6 and Steve rolls 10. Steve gets to pick which mech he wants first.
After a large amount of consideration of the various merits of the various mecha, taking so long as to be annoying, Steve chooses the Iron Hunter piloted by Oberst Thule.
A stickler for tradition and always making decisions for reasons other than statistics, Grim choose The Brunel, piloted by Carston McBride.
It’s going to be a nobility Vs working class grudge match!
Secretly they each choose a modification.
Steve chooses High Explosive Mortar. Grim chooses Reinforced Boiler.
Turn One
Grim rolls 6 for Reaction.
Steve rolls 9 for Reaction (the Iron Hunter gets a +1)
Steve goes first.
The two mechs are placed on opposite sides of the Target Board.
Steve knows that range is his big advantage in this fight and his mortar has sufficient range to attack the Brunel. He stays put and fires a mortar shell. He now has five mortar shots left. Rolling 3d6 he gets 5, 5, 6, a devastating blow! That’s six damage on his first shot. It hits the Brunel in the left arm and after taking the armour (1) away from the damage that still leaves five. That arm is hanging by a thread!
Grim knows that he has to close range to have any chance at all, so he uses his speed of 2 to close the distance, reaching the centre of the target. The reinforced boiler means he takes no damage from ‘More Coal’ so he piles it on, hoping to get another movement point. He gets a 4 and fails. Nothing he has, has the range to hit the Iron Hunter, it’s still three spaces away, so his go is over.
Turn Two
Grim rolls 6 for Reaction.
Steve rolls 8 for Reaction.
Steve goes first.
Steve can’t get any further away at the moment and the mortar is still the most effective weapon at this range, so he lets fly with another shell. He only have four shots left now. Rolling his dice he gets 2, 6, 1. That’s one hit but with the mortar that does 2 damage. The Brunel is hit in the right arm this time but only for two points of damage. Once you account for armour it’s barely scratched, having 5 damage left.
Grim closes the distance by another 2 spaces to a range of 1, inside the range of the mortar, and also makes a ‘More Coal’ check, because… hey, why not? It fails again, leaving him one space away. Since the left arm is nearly off, he may as well use the grabber while he has it and lunges, reaching for the Iron Hunter. The grabber gets 6d6 and rolls 3, 4, 5, 4, 2, 4. Only one damage. It hits the Iron Hunter in the left leg but that has armour one, so it just pings off and the grabber’s special effect doesn’t work.
Turn Three
Grim rolls 6 for Reaction.
Steve rolls 12 for Reaction – the bastard.
Steve goes first, again.
Steve cannot back away and it would be risky to try and move through the Brunel, so he swaps from his mortar to his blunderbuss. This does 4d6 -1 for each point of range after the first. At range one that’s all four dice. He rolls 4, 1, 1, 6. One point of damage to the Brunel’s right arm. It pings off the armour.
Grim grins evilly as he closes in to range zero. None of the Iron Hunter’s weapons can work at this range but the Brunel’s are super effective. Grim gives him a smack with the grabber which does 7d6 at range 0. 2, 3, 4, 6, 3, 4, 3 are the rolls. Which is pathetic. The blow strikes the Iron Hunter in the left arm, reducing its damage to 3.
Turn Four
Grim rolls 9 for Reaction.
Steve rolls 13 for Reaction, crushing Grim’s hopes of getting a double-blow in.
Steve needs range and needs it fast. He uses his move of one to move past the Brunel and then tries to push it with ‘More Coal’. He fails and takes damage to each leg and to his torso. Ow. That reduces them to five and seven respectively. He’s only managed one pace away so the mortar is out of the question. It’s going to have to be the blunderbuss. He rolls 1,5,4,4. One hit to the left leg which just ricochets off.
Grim smells potential victory and closes in with the grabber. 5,3, 2, 6, 1, 2, 3. Two damage. It strikes Iron Hunter’s right arm reducing its damage to 2.
Turn Five
Grim rolls 6 for Reaction.
Steve rolls 8 for Reaction.
Steve still desperately needs range and tries to power away. He moves one and fails again on his ‘More Coal’ roll. His legs are now at four damage and his torso six. He has to use the blunderbuss again and only scores one damage to the torso. That’s not going to get through the armour.
Grim remains in pursuit, keeping the range close, and once again employs the grabber (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it). 4, 4, 1, 5, 2, 6, 3. Two damage. This time it hits the torso of the Iron Hunter and is reduced to one damage. Given the torso is already damaged that takes it down to five hits.
Turn Six
Grim rolls 5 for Reaction.
Steve rolls 8 for Reaction.
Steve’s plan is still the same. Run. He figures he can still afford the risk at the moment. He moves another space away and piles on the coal. It fails again reduced to three damage on each leg and four on the torso. He can’t keep this up for much longer. He fires the blunderbuss for no damage at all. Epic fail.
Grim closes the gap once more and smashes with the grabber. 5, 1, 6, 3, 3, 3, 5. Three damage, a tremendous hit to the torso. The armour there drops it to two damage but that drops the torso’s damage to 2. Things are looking dicey for the Iron Hunter.
Turn Seven
Grim rolls 9 for Reaction. Can he possibly get to go first?
Steve rolls 8 for Reaction. Yes he can!
Grim stays put and attempts to finish off the Iron Hunter with his grabber. 1, 5, 5, 2, 2, 1, 2. Two damage to the torso, minus the armour takes it to one hit.
Steve is desperate, it’s time for an all-or nothing try to win. Desperately he piles on ‘More Coal’ and hopes he can actually get some damn luck. Finally! He rolls a 5 and that means his mech doesn’t shake itself to pieces. He moves two spaces and lets off the mortar which is just barely in range. It gets one hit which does two damage to the Brunel’s left leg reducing it to         four damage.
Turn Eight
Grim rolls 9 for Reaction.
Steve rolls 7 for Reaction.
Grim needs to keep Steve in range to finish him off and closes the gap with his Speed 2. That grabber’s still working and probably has the best chance to do the deed so he lashes out with it. 1, 4, 5, 5, 3, 6, 4. That’s three damage to the Iron Hunter’s left leg, two after armour. That leg’s down to two damage.
Steve backs away but daren’t risk another ‘More Coal’ so he just blasts away with the blunderbuss. 5, 2, 4,4. That’s not enough to harm the arm and bounces off harmlessly.
Turn Nine
Grim rolls 3 for Reaction.
Steve rolls 8 for Reaction.
Steve moves another space away and can fire off another mortar round. Fingers crossed he rolls 1, 5, 1. Two damage to the Brunel’s left leg. It’s down to three damage.
Grim closes in once more, scenting a possible kill and lashes out with the grabber: 3, 3, 6, 3, 6, 5, 4. Three damage to the torso. Even with armour that’s enough to rupture the Iron Hunter’s boiler and it falls to pieces.
Victory for Grim!
NB: To speed up games you can make a 5 do 1 damage and a 6 do 2 damage. With the mortar you can count that as 2 and 3.
STEAMED is a simple (very simple) fast-paced board game of Steampunk mecha-duelling action. Take to one of four distinct mecha and try to beat the bolts out of each other.
Up to four players
Requires several six sided dice.
ADAÂ – The advanced, and shapely, mech of genius clacker Lady Emmeline Whitmore.
Brunel – The devastatingly brutal construction mech of Carston McBride
Haido Tian – The rocket-assisted robot of the notorious airpirate Hong Meifeng.
Iron Hunter – The frontline military robot of Prussian noble Oberst Klein Von Thule.
You can buy it on PDF HERE
Hardcopy HERE
If you buy TODAY in hardcopy you can get a 20% discount with the code CHASEUK – so now’s a good time to pick up my other books too!
It will be appearing at your other preferred outlets over the next few days.
All being well I may have this game out by the end of the day. It’s a quick/simple board game of mech-smashing action based on some rules I found while tidying up some notepads. I’d made a game based on Robot Jox (1989! Crotch chainsaw!). Of course, it now has much more of a Steampunk twist.
Here’s a taster in the meantime. The construction mech, The Brunel.
I’ve been trying to think of good ways to represent natural and unnatural disasters in Marvel, things that aren’t that well covered in the main book. The obvious solution is to write them up the same way as one does a large-scale threat. The difference being that this is not an entity (or a mob) being described but, rather a dangerous event or sprawling disaster that needs to be dealt with.
Disasters are statted up as though they were large scale threats, using Doom Pool calculations as a basis for working out how powerful they are. They can have dice removed from their pool by getting an effect higher than their value and can also be defeated by accumulating enough stress against the disaster (event stress) to ‘kill’ it by giving it stress and trauma. Stress has no effect on the power of the disaster and cannot be tapped as a resource, trauma can.
The disaster is mitigated when it is ‘killed’. Its pool cannot be reduced to less than one dice.
One last factor with a disaster is a Doom Clock. This represents how much time (abstractly) that the heroes have to deal with the disaster. The disaster ‘completes’ when it gets enough Doom Clock and that’s done by upgrading dice from the Doom Pool past d12. They fail if they don’t defeat it before the Doom Clock ticks up.
Disaster Scale
Local 2d
Regional 3d
National 4d
International 5d
Global 6d
Standard xd6
High Stakes xd8
Catastrophic xd10
Worldbreaking xd12
High Stakes Disaster – Local Scale
Dice 2d8
Distinctions:
Free Fall
Frantic Passengers
Shaking to Pieces
Disaster Traits:
Dizzying d8
Little Time d8
Doom Clock: OO
Catastrophic Disaster – National Scale
Dice 4d10
Distinctions:
Ground-Shaking
It’s Just too Big
No Communications
Disaster Traits:
Shattered Ruins d10
Secondary Fires d8
Doom Clock:Â OOOO
Here be spoilers!
OK, we’ve got access to the super-duper extended endings now and they make a few things clearer and give you more of a clue to the fate of the galaxy. It’s still not as good as the series deserves but it’s a damn sight better than it was.
The video above links to the extended cut versions of all the endings including the new one, where you basically tell Space Nyarlathotep to fuck off with his bullshit choices.
Fuck You Ending
Shep tells Space Nyarlathotep to fuck off and The Reapers eat everyone. There’s going to be a long guerilla war but in the end all sentient species are boned. Liara’s emergency message may get seen by somebody in the future but sticking to the principle of independence and freedom means you’re boned.
Grims RP Tip: Â Playing from this point is going to be a grindingly depressing campaign but maybe there’s some other hope than the crucible, which is kind of a trap anyway. Victory would come at huge cost though.
Synthesis Ending
Everyone becomes part synthetic and sings in harmony, rebuilding the galaxy and… yeah, I’m throwing up in my mouth already. It’s sweetness and light but it still makes zero damn sense. More disturbingly it hints that the husks retain their memories and higher functions and that once freed from direct control remember who they are. Horrifying.
Grim’s RP Tip: Â Dull. Avoid.
Control Ending
It’s now made explicitly clear that Shep becomes ‘one’ with the Reaper consciousness and guides and controls them. The Reapers become tools of the Shep-AI and repair everything. Shep-AI becomes a sort of galactic dictator. This is still sort of dull to be honest and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.
Grim’s RP Tip: Still dull, but spin on a few years and have the Shep-AI getting corrupt and dangerous and you might have something interesting.
Destruction Ending
Still far and away the best ending in my opinion. In this one you destroy the Reapers and the relays go ‘foom’ to spread the Reaper death signal around the galaxy. It’s now shown explicitly that the relays are NOT destroyed and nor is The Citadel – which was a decision I took in writing up my version. This shit can be repaired and understood. You really don’t need to change much from my previous articles in light of the revised destruction ending.
Grim’s RP Tip: This is the one.
Not an actual comic but on the principle of ‘fuck you guys’ and ‘make art’ here’s some stuff from the debut of our Marvel game. It’s my universe, my world and will reflect my influences and I may start dicking with the rules a bit as time goes on because my preferences are for the less shiny end of the superhero spectrum (Zenith, Wanted, Planetary, The Authority, The Boys and so on).
This game is a semi-open game I’m running on Google Hangouts at the moment (Sundays, 8pm UK time).
The game opens in late January 2013 and since Dec 21 2012 people with ‘abilities’ have been turning up. A large multinational corporation, the ‘Free Group’ has been trying to run down the people with these abilities to recruit them. The head (figurehead) and founder of the company is a comics obsessive, Sir Wallace Maitland, a sort of combination of Richard Branson, Alan Sugar and Sergey Brin.
The Free Group is a sprawling, international company with heavy investment in IT, mass transit, alternative fuels, green technologies, media, internet, computing and information manipulation and gathering. Maitland is abusing his access to locate people with powers and bring them into the Free Group fold. Maitland, like a lot of billionaires, seems to be worried about his legacy and a leaving the world a better place – now that he has more money than he knows what to do with.
Gathering his first group of ‘subjects’ at the Free Tower in Canada Square, London. At the conclusion of the meeting they emerged to discover that the building had been attacked by a cult in service to a guru called ‘Samsara’. Both Maitland and Samsara seem to have taken inspiration from the 2012 cycle but Samsara resented that the world had not ended and blamed progressives like Maitland for not hastening the end. The ‘heroes’ put paid to the hostage situation without losing any hostages to Samsara and his cult and he is now imprisoned, awaiting trial.
The story of heroes is exploding, but shielded by Maitland’s money and power their identities have been kept quiet – for now. It’s only a matter of time but with the Free Group’s PR department at work they may be off to a good start.
Sir Wallace Maitland – ‘Free’ Group Boss & Mastermind
Solo: d10, Buddy d6, Group d8
Distinctions: Brilliant Genius, Affable Chap, Rich & Famous
Powers: Billionaire With a Heart of Gold
Throw Money at it d12, Attack Lawyers d12
SFX: Spend any die from the Doom Pool to keep extra effect and total dice from the above.
Limit: PR Disaster – Shut Down ‘Throw Money at it’ to step up a doom die or add a D6 to the Doom Pool – Or for a Plot Point.
Business Master d10
Science Expert d8
Tech Expert d8
Samsara – The Circle
Solo: D4, Buddy D6, Group D8
Distinctions: Mesmerising, Fanatical
Powers: Cult Leader
Brainwashing: d10, Fire them Up d8
SFX: Inspiring presence, ‘Fire them Up’ asset lasts a scene for all his minions.
Covert Expert d8
Crime Expert d8
Psych Master d10
Cult Goons
Solo: D4, Buddy d6/D6, Team d8/d8/d8
Combat Rookie d6
Guns d6
Suicide Bomb d8
Minis don’t necessarily fit with Agents of SWING as a FATE game, but they can still be useful. That’s why I put out some paper minis.
7TV is a skirmish minis game set in the same kind of world of 60s and 70s action/adventure serials that Agents of SWING is and as such they produce some great stuff and you could even cross over campaigns between the two games.
Check out Crooked Dice. They do good work.
Postmortem Studios 