Thinking PreGens

First off, thanks to you all (especiall Rick Hull) for getting a FB group up and running and for some great conversations so far. Here's the link if you want to jump in.

Now that I am thinking of including pre-generated characters for the introductory adventure, I was first tempted to go pretty generic and go with maybe four elemental heroes or something that would be 'archetypal' in some way. Then I thought I'd just re-print the Young Wardens from the core rules. Then I thought - nah, that's not the game I want. I started to look at my legacy characters, and realized that I have given Monument III, but have barely referenced who Monolith I or II were, and there was my opening. I could put together a team of 'midnight guardians' or somesuch. I then realized that I'd drawn Mr Justice, a PD hero, for someone last week on the Public Domain Heroes FB, and seeing that this guy is a ghost, he'd fit in perfect. I figure I have 2-3 more spaces - I already have Vesper as controlling darkness energy, but I could always add another character who can do that... in some ways, this group would have been a foreshadowing of the group that Doc ultimately ends up with in issues 251-260, which included Zirah and Monolith III. 

- Maybe the apprentice to Eldritch? A young sorcereress might be a good fit. Not sure how a new player would handle magic, since it requires a bit of understanding of how to use the rules and existing frameworks to do cool stuff. I think the more imaginative you are as a player, the more fun magic would be to play - and the less comfortable you are, the more un-fun this could be.

- Gila the Monster doesn't canonically appear for 20+ issues yet, but he would have been a good fit here. I could do an earlier version of Gila... but ah well. Or just a different big lizard dude. He's not that deep. Or go with a golem type here (altough Monument is already the muscle kind of).

- Renegade would not have been terrible, but he appears a hundred issues too late - In retrospect, I should have made him a character who appeared in the first fifty issues. He officially is where he officially is, and I have already committed that once something is published, it is 'canon' and I won't go back and change it. Canonically, Renegade appears for the first time in issue 143 (unless that's Renegade II... DON'T TEMPT ME FRODO). Although.. my use of the phrase 'took on the role of the Renegade' in his opening text leaves me the opening that this was an existing identity... that maybe his uncle had retired from. Oh man. I'm totally doing that. Renegade I is on the team. Sweeet. This is the Renegade of Meridian. I think my original Renegade when I was in middle school had the moon knight gimmick of getting twice as powerful at night - I might keep that, and have him have two stat blocks (daytime and night time) - with maybe an extra perk at the full moon.

- Someone has to have a head for a skull. That seems like a gimme. That or at least a headless horseman of some kind. Or maybe just a skull that floats around. Head and hand of Vecna. Kid Cranium. The Occipital Protuberance.

TL; DR

Let's be honest, I don't know if you really really want to read my six pages of playtest notes so far... but if you do, you do. I mean, it's a pretty comprehensive overview of building the Cataclysm Across the Cosmos so far. I'll summarize below:

I set up the first encounter, which ended up being 8 heroes against Gorgo. The heroes won after three rounds, but almost everyone suffered being felled once, and two characters were felled twice before they were able to drop Gorgo once. I was going to have the battle last for three drops of Gorgo, but I got to see what I wanted to from it, and was able to justify having Doc throw him out to sea story-wise, so it's all good. I had to ret-con the story as I went (no Doc at first, then added Doc), but it was no big deal.

I made a few adjustments on the fly, the biggest one being that a successful hit by a superhero against any foe deals at least 1 hit point. Gorgo's invulnerable of 10 against heroes averaging D12 damage meant that it was very unlikely he was going to suffer damage even if the hero rolled pretty well. Once I upgraded to 'all successful attacks deal at least 1 hp even if they don't', the fight sped up a little bit, and they were able to slowly wear Gorgo down. The complications I added at the beginning of the sequence also helped a bit to mix it up from a straight up fight to some strategy and something to do other than punch the villain. 

I went back and forth a bit on SP, but have realized that I have to limit SPs to the 'main character(s)' only or these battles are going to be quick. If all eight heroes had access to their SPs, they'd all be stunting immediately, doing all sorts of crazy stuff and ripping through Gorgo. Because only Gorgo and Doc had access to SP, it made the fight feel more comic-booky and less gamey, if that makes sense. I don't want it to feel like you're playing a tactical game; I want it to feel like you got dropped into the middle of a comic battle as they happen. In the big comic battles, a lot of characters get regulated to the background, doing their 'default' attack while a few others take center stage. The way I've set up SP here emulates that pretty well.

It was nice to crack out the dice and actually play Stalwart '85 again - it's been a few weeks since I actually played the game. I'm adding the Google Doc to the resources for Stalwart '85 in case people want to read through all this - I expect to continue it as I go.