Alright, it's time for the example of play, which takes up quite a bit of space. It's a quick scenario that teaches the basic rules and gives examples of all the important concepts. All this in less than four pages. It's got an interesting beginning: The first thing the GM asks is 'what are your secret identities?' This actually makes some sense; if you go back to the character creation examples, you'll see that while both Crusader and Starburst have the Secret ID disadvantage, but they aren't actually defined or given names. In this case, the two players define their character's jobs, but not their names. Starburst is a scientist; Crusader is a newspaper reporter.
So, the scenario starts with Crusader's secret ID making a deposit at the bank; Starburst is just bored at work, so he's flying around. Sure, why not? Needless to say, he just happens to be near the same bank that Crusader is in. Just as coincidentally, Ogre shows up with three henchmen intent on robbing the place. The action starts with Crusader ducking into a glass-enclosed cubicle to change into his heroic identity. Meanwhile, Starburst is flying by just in time to see the idling parked truck outside the bank and hear the glass breaking in the bank.
At this point, the GM goes to combat time and uses the Speed Chart. Crusader has a SPD of 6, Starburst 5; Ogre has a 4, and his henchmen all have 2, being treated as normals with average stats. This is done mostly to save time; henchmen really don't need a lot of detail or complicated character generation. Crusader is the only one to go on segment 2, and flips over the cubicle and punches the nearest gunman (Martial Punch). He makes an Acrobatics skill roll and catches the gunman by surprise, reducing his CV to 2 and giving himself a 17 or less to hit. He knocks the gunman out with a single punch, because that's what superheroes do to normals.
Next segment, Starburst flies in and does a Move Through on Ogre from behind. He hits him and does 7D6 damage, which works out to 26 STUN and 8 BODY; Ogre's defenses are enough to reduce that to a mere 3 STUN. Ogre responds by throwing a table at the impertinent hero, which stuns him (he takes 24 STUN after his defenses, which exceeds his CON). Well, that didn't work out well, did it?
Meanwhile, Crusader continues to mow down defenseless henchmen. Before anyone else can react, he takes out two of them with a single kick, knocking one into the other and stunning the second one. Martial Artists are great at taking out mooks, aren't they? But there's still the big guy to deal with, and Crusader turns his attention to Ogre. His attack is about as effective as Starburst's was. Fortunately, he's more nimble than Starburst, and avoids the counterattack. An old lady with a purse knocks out one of the gunmen who is recovering from being stunned. Well, not everyone runs away when the fight starts.
Starburst tries to blast Ogre, which is more effective since the villain's ED is lower than his PD. But it doesn't knock him out, of course. Ogre is a tough cookie. Ogre throws another table, but misses. Realizing how tough Ogre is, Crusader pushes his STR to hit Ogre as hard as he possibly can; he then waits for Starburst to attack so they can strike simultaneously. The tactic works, and they knock Ogre into next week with a two-pronged attack; Starburst likewise pushes his Energy Blast to maximize his damage potential, so the attack is pretty tiring for both of them. But it worked, so who cares, right?
After a snappy quip on the last henchman, the cops show up and the two heroes bask in the glory of the adoration of the press. And they get 2 XP each for the brief scenario. Not a bad bit of work, is it?
So, that's the scenario example. It's a standard one through the first few editions of the game, updated for the changes to the characters over time. But it gets the point across, and has plenty of action to explain the rules. So, it's definitely a good way to introduce the game.
And that will do it for now; I'll be back next time with the rest of page 46, which is about World Building. Stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment