Step 4a for Writing Super Hero Adventures: Combat Encounters!

Hello heroes! Welcome back to the series I’ve been working on with general advice for Gamemasters looking to design their own super hero adventures. So far we’ve discussed brainstorming, research, villains, and outlines, what I consider the pre-adventure building blocks. These are the things you have to have in place to write a solid story. A story which consists of what I’m going to be talking about today: encounters!

As you may recall in the outline section, I tend to break my games down into a few types of encounters: Combat/Conflict, Challenge/Hazard, Roleplaying, and Investigation. Over the next few posts, I will be going in-depth into these types of encounters and offering you tips and tricks for writing your own. I feel each warrants its own post to make sure we can cover everything I want to for each type.

Today we’re jumping straight into the deep end with combat encounters. Conflict is often the meat and potatoes of not only super hero stories, but tabletop RPGs in general. Players design their characters around the neat ways in which they can stop evildoers. People love punching villains in the face and driving forth their minions with awesome abilities. That being said, every scene in your game should drive the story forward in some way. Combat is more exciting when it has some bearing on the plot and I’ve got more than a few ideas for how to write amazing fight scenes.

Goals

This might be tired advice at this point, but every participant in a battle is there for some reason and they want to win. Something has brought them to this specific fight and they are looking to accomplish their goal. As Gamemaster, it’s up to you to figure out what that driving force is for each participant in the battle and tailor their tactics around that goal. It isn’t exciting for heroes to get into a fight just because. Sure, defeating all of the heroes is a way for the villain to get what they want, but it is rarely the most efficient. I find it helpful for each combat to write down the main villain’s objective and what they’re willing to sacrifice to obtain it. I also write down what the minions are willing to sacrifice for their boss. Mercenaries are generally less likely to fight to the last man than an army of cultists. These goals don’t have to be complicated, but even a simple one will elevate the drama.

I particularly like setting goals that the players can catch on to, because it modifies their tactics and encourages them not to root in place and punch bad guys until everyone is unconscious. If a villain wants to grab a thing and escape, show the players that thing so they can start to play keep away. That is unless your villain is sly and their goal is to distract the heroes while my invisible minion grabs the thing and escapes. Imagine three rounds of combat passing before the villain inexplicably leaves. The heroes will immediately begin investigating the area to see what they missed.

I tend to think of goals as item-based, time-based, location-based, or distraction-based. That is the villain wants to take something, they need to be in a certain place at or for a certain time, they need to occupy a location, or they need to keep the players’ attention off of something else. Each of these goals can apply to any level of villain from lowly henchman up to mastermind, and can be mixed and matched within the same combat for different groups of characters. Tie that goal to the villain’s motivation and you’ll create fights that matter in the grand scheme of the story.

Location, Location, Location

More than most types of encounters, location is vital to combat. Every scene benefits from an interesting setting, but in combat the location should almost be a character in its own right. This is especially true for super hero games where PCs can traverse miles of terrain in a single move action. No one remembers a combat encounter that occurs in a 60×60 square box, but your players will always remember the fight they had in the erupting caldera of an active volcano.

Be on the lookout for opportunities to add a twist to your environments. These can be natural hazards or traps laid by the villain in advance. If the heroes are facing an ice villain, there’s a good chance that character has created slippery floors, walled off areas with glaciers, and generally made the terrain inhospitable to others. The heroes suddenly find themselves in need of cold weather gear, snow shoes, and they might have to resort to alternate routes to get where they want. Routes that no doubt lead to chokepoints the villain has layered extra defenses over.

Not everything has to be a benefit to the villains however. Clever heroes should be able to make use of terrain benefits just as much as their cunning adversaries. These location-specific features can be great moments to highlight and reward characters with unique skill sets. The inventor just so happens to bring the assembly line back online and now robot arms grab villains each round or the magic character can translate and modify the ancient runes on the ruin wall to create a circle of protection for their allies.

I have found it helpful in some of my more iconic locations to actually give the area a pseudo-character sheet and a turn in initiative to make sure the environment is given its due in combat.

Variety

One of the best ways to keep players on their toes is to add a wide variety of combatants with different capabilities. Support your big evil bad guy with all kinds of minions, not just mooks with guns. Minions with strange movement powers like flight or teleportation. Henchmen with effects that disorient or poison the heroes. If the main villain is a big bruiser type, give them a lieutenant that focuses on mind control or illusions. It will go a long way to making the heroes consider their tactics if their opponents occupy different zones of the battlefield and have different strengths to bring to bear. The heroes will have to divide their attention and resources, giving you the chance to design moments for specific characters to shine in each combat. This should be the case in every level of hero game, even street level heroes can face opponents with melee weapons, automatics, shotguns, and rocket launchers.

Variety also gives you the chance to show that the villain or group in question is dynamic. If they have a wide selection of responses to given threats they seem competent and more threatening than just a horde of faceless goons all with the same attack powers. A lot of GMs bring this attention to groups of equal villains, but it should apply to villains with lesser minions as well.

Fail Forward

One final piece of advice that bears mentioning for super hero combat is to remember that heroes are rarely killed by supervillains, even when they lose. In fact, most super hero stories start with the villain beating the hero quite handedly and leaving their body and ego bruised. If a situation arises where the bad guys start winning, don’t initiate a TPK. Have the villains capture the heroes so they can put them in an elaborate death trap and walk away. Make the villain stop for a moment to gloat and monologue about how awesome their evil plan is as the heroes catch their breath. Even in cases where the whole party is knocked unconscious, have them wake up as prisoners and give them the chance to escape. The villains want to win but they understand the value of keeping the heroes alive, and most of them like to get their brag on.

I never let the dice decide when a character dies. Death in super hero stories is supposed to be dramatic and world-shaking. They should not be caused by poor poor die rolls on the part of the players. If a character does fall because of a tough combat scenario, make sure that death is suitably epic. I like to give a player character that is about to die one action before they shuffle off. They can’t use this action to prevent their death, but they can use it to do just about anything else. It lets the player go out in a way that is satisfactory to them. They can get one final attack on the villain, send their allies to safety, and give a badass inspirational line. Anything to give that death more weight.

That’s just a few ideas to get you started building more exciting combat encounters. If you pair this with the article I did about How I Balance My M&M Encounters you’ll have everything you need to begin experimenting in Mutants & Masterminds. The easiest way to get better at designing combat encounters is practice. So I encourage you to take these tips and start playing with your players.

Thank you again for reading and as always, may your hits be crits!

The Multiverse and RPGs #1: Into the PC-Verse

Hello heroes! I wanted to start the new year off with a topic that has not only become near and dear to my heart, but has taken superhero media by storm. The multiverse! This isn’t a new concept in superhero stories, but it does seem to be nestling itself within the zeitgeist at the moment. It seems like there are infinite universes everywhere you look; from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to Legend of Zelda, to Flashpoint, to the Jimmy/Timmy Power Hour. It’s not hard to see why this idea appeals to so many. Writers can showcase new versions of iconic characters. They can introduce scenarios that change the established status quo without consequence to long-standing canon. Fans can finally get the answer to the question, what if Spider-Man was a cartoon pig?

But what does this all mean for tabletop roleplaying games? Is it possible to bring elements of the multiverse into your games? The answer, as with most concepts, is absolutely. The multiverse is a tool you can use to keep your players on their toes, to inject new drama into your stories, and to experiment with fun concept adventures. I’ll be breaking down several multiversal threads that can improve your game over the next few essays.

I first want to talk about a concept which seems to apply to Spider-Man a lot (see Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Into the Spider-Verse.) Essentially, creators tap into the wellspring of nostalgia by having a character team up with themselves. This idea of every character being a version of the same character has always fascinated me from a RPG perspective. I remember hearing about a game at Origins Game Fair where every PC was a character portrayed by Harrison Ford (Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Rick Deckard, Jack Ryan, and a few others) and they were assembled to stop a bunch of Christopher Lee characters. It blew my mind, and got me thinking about what sort of effort would need to go into making something like that happen outside of a con experience. I’ve worked up some advice that I will list below:

Session Zero/Player Engagement

Much like anything else in Gamemastering, preparation is key. First you need to check with your players and see if the idea of playing variants is even interesting to them. If they’re interested, great, we can move on to the planning side of things. You’re going to want to schedule a large chunk of your session zero to discuss the hero everyone is based on. Treat this base character like a group PC. Everyone should have some say in regard to their personality, powers, origin, costume, anything that makes a superhero work. You also want to make sure that this hero has a wide enough archetype that players can take their re-imaginings in a lot of different directions. This shouldn’t be a gimmick character, unless your group is planning on tweaking the gimmick to create their variants—I’m picturing Condiment King, Seasoning King, Deep-Frying King, and Potato King for some reason. I would also have each player pitch a supervillain that this hero goes up against on a regular basis, to give you as the Gamemaster characters that you can make variants of.

In my notes I would say Player A came up with Villain A and I’m going to make a variant of them from Player C’s universe. You won’t have to work as hard if this is a licensed character like Loki or Spider-Man, but it’s vital that you make sure everyone has a firm grasp of the foundational aspects of that character. Nailing this down collectively, ensures that your players can make intentional choices with their changes to the character in ways that are dynamic and true to who that character is. This helps you avoid players coming up with characters that are only connected in the tiniest of ways.

Points of Variation

Good variants live and die based on their point of difference from the original character. Encourage your players to review the foundations of the base character and work on their concept from one slight difference. Power origin is a great place to find a thematically different version of a character. If the base character is a mutant, consider a variant that gains their powers through magic or technology. Move the character into different time periods—medieval, the far future, sword and sandal, or noir are great ideas. Tell the players to consider a genre shift. If the base character is a four-color comic hero, what would they look like as a cartoon character or as a survivor of the post-apocalypse? How do their powers function differently than the base character? Are they the same person as the base character? Are there any NPCs that could be a fun switch ala Spider-Gwen? What animal would be the funniest when combined with their power set? These points of variation are excellent conversation starters that will get your players’ minds churning with possibility.

Specialization

One thing to consider, both from a character and game design perspective, is that each of these characters should have a unique ability they bring to the team up. Even though they are ostensibly the same person, you still want to be able to create scenes that individual players can shine in. This is also a pitfall to avoid in instances where all of the characters have the same power set—like in a Green Lantern campaign for instance. Encourage your players to think of something that only their variant can do and write scenes that are made easier by those abilities.

Sometimes this will be obvious, like giving magical knowledge to the variant with a mystic background and technology to the super science variant, but sometimes it’s more subtle. Perhaps one of the variants is an older, more mature version of the character that has some leadership abilities. Give that character a scene where they get to rally their comrades and help everyone play to their strengths. In terms of character design, you can help your heroes by having them each select a combat role in the group and then build their variant in that direction.

Say the base character is a genius in a battlesuit called Maceria. The base form is a blaster who focuses on ranged attacks. One of the variants can be Maceria-Noir, a hulking monstrosity of steel and steam that tanks damage like none of the others. Then there is Dr. Maceria, an experienced artificer from a fantasy realm who specializes in healing magic. Finally, there’s MAXceria, a brawler from a future where fighting robots are king and he’s outfitted his fists with razor sharp claws and karate chop action.

In conclusion, it can be very exciting for players to delve into variants, either for one session or for a whole story arc. With a little communication and good planning on your part it doesn’t even have to be that difficult to pull off. Keep checking here at USP for more multiverse content coming soon. Thank you for reading and as always may all your hits be crits.

Messing Up As a GM

There is an incredible amount of pressure placed on the Gamemaster in a tabletop roleplaying game group. The GM wears a lot of hats: from storyteller to referee to improviser and many others. When anyone is juggling that many plates, eventually they will drop one, splattering the folks watching and making a big old mess. GMs are human, and humans are imperfect creatures. That doesn’t mean the campaign or even the session is ruined, it just means that you have to pick yourself up and get back to it. No one is the perfect GM all the time, it doesn’t matter how much experience or how much trust your players have in you. I actually messed up in our Netherwar series recently, and I figured it would be helpful to GMs out there to hear what happened and what steps I took to address the issue that I caused.

Let me start by briefly summarizing what happened and explaining how I really stepped in it this time. At the end of Episode 71: Drop the Jupiter, I left my heroes on a cliffhanger. This isn’t unusual for my GM style, and I was heading to New Orleans for my honeymoon the following week, so I really wanted to stick them with something juicy. I had the episode end with Andy’s character Resonant learning that her mother was in trouble in her home dimension of Leifandi and with Jonesy’s character Mortis learning that his fiancé Nick was seemingly taken by force from their home. As a storyteller, I thought this would create an interesting dynamic in the group where they would have to tackle the emotional stakes of who they would help first or force them to split up to try and do both at the same time. I thought that would be a spicy story with lots of potential drama and roleplaying, and that would have been fine if I were writing a book.

Unfortunately, what works when you’re writing a book, doesn’t always come out that way in a group storytelling situation. So I stuck this grenade in their laps and went away for my honeymoon, none the wiser.

When I got back, I settled in to plan out the next stages of the story, thinking about the various ways the heroes might attempt to solve the problem I’d placed before them. I planned possible NPCs that the heroes might enlist to pad out their numbers in case they wanted to split up. I also wrote out some consequences for following either of the leads in different orders. Not with the intention of harming one of the beloved NPCs, but ways that the investigations would be more difficult for whomever was chosen second. Unfortunately, this whole session was going to be tougher than I thought, and was not my best work.

Thirty minutes before the session began, as we were doing our audio/video checks, one of the players said to me that they were frustrated as a player, not as a character. That was not my intention with the split. It is never my intention to frustrate the players. At the end of the day gaming is meant to be a fun escape and chance to tell stories with your friends. What they said really struck me. The player elaborated, stating that they were upset that their character wouldn’t be able to see all of the story beats if they decided to split up. The party would be separated and wouldn’t get to see the insight into either Resonant or Mortis’ backstory, and they believed that what was at stake was forcing them to have to split up.

That all made sense to me, so at that moment I started devising a way that everyone could be in two places at once. We’re playing a magic super hero game, anything can be possible. This was an important decision, because it showcases one of the things I always stress to GMs. Don’t fall so in love with your story that you deprive your players of agency. I could have told the player, I’m sorry, but this is what I have planned, suck it up. But that wouldn’t have resolved the issue, and could have affected that player’s trust in me. So, I came up with a way to progress the story so everyone could see every plot point, but I added a consequence to this solution.

The heroes uncovered a spell that could duplicate them, allowing two parties of PCs to head after both leads at the same time. However one of those groups was Freaky Friday-ed. They had swapped bodies so when we get to that group, they will be playing with one another’s powers, which I think is going to be a blast.

Improvising and adapting to the player’s mood is so crucial as a GM. At the end of the day, if your players are having fun you are doing your job as a GM. I took a situation that was frustrating and I turned it into an opportunity for a fun story beat. The way to do this is by saying “Yes, and” or “No, but” more often than you say no. Don’t be afraid of the ideas that come out of the void and trust in your creativity. Some of my favorite moments in gaming have been off the cuff sparks of inspiration. Improvisation is actually how I got my start working in the TTRPG industry as a writer, but that’s a story for another time.

Unfortunately, the disastrous cliffhanger wasn’t the only issue I had while running the game that night. As I said, it was not my best work as a GM. When we eventually went to Leifandi, I felt personally that I let Andy down. He wrote an amazing blog post about Leifandi which you can find here. A blog post which I should have read closer when I was doing my preparation for the adventure that week. I stress all the time that GMs should include their players in the world-building for the campaign. It helps build player investment in the story and the world, but that only works if you take what they give you and learn it. Ask questions, look for clarification, and do it before you get to the table.

In that session, I leaned on Andy, asking him to describe things, partially because I wanted to give him a chance to show off this shiny thing he made, but also because I didn’t know the material as well as I should. I also got the names incorrect on a few major NPCs which added to this feeling of indifference on my part. I felt after the session that Andy was offended, and rightly so. This leads to the next lesson in cleaning up GM messes, communication and accountability.

In the days after that session, I reached out to Andy so we could have a one on one video chat, so I could A.) Apologize and B.) Get clarification of details so I could fulfil my responsibilities as GM and write accurate flavor text/plotlines. There’s a lot of ego tied up in being a Gamemaster, and you can use that ego to go on a power trip with your friends, or you can admit when you’re wrong and take steps to correct it. Andy was very generous with me, giving me information that I needed and brainstorming the trajectory of the Leifandi story arc that we’re still playing through.

Your players want to have a good time, just as much as you, and it is never you against them as a GM. That little bit of communication and owning the mistake prevented the situation from spiraling further, and I think in the subsequent Leifandi adventures, we’ve hit our stride again as a group. More importantly, I think I have maintained the trust of my players, which is paramount when running an ongoing campaign. I hope my example can help you, if you’re going through a tough time as a GM. Thank you for reading and may your hits always be crits.

Step 2 for Writing Super Hero Adventures: Villains!

This is a continuation of my blog post from a few weeks ago where I’m breaking down my process for designing and running a super hero RPG adventure. In the previous post we talked about determining the purpose of your adventure, brainstorming/writing your synopsis, research, and determining the characters who will be played. Now that you’ve got that pre-work out of the way, it’s time to sit down and really start zeroing in on the real meat of the writing process. I’ll be going over creating villains and their motivations. This honestly deserves a post to itself, because it is CRITICAL to making a memorable super hero story.

Designing a good bad guy is one of my favorite parts of the GM puzzle. There’s nothing like crafting the perfectly punchable face to go up against a team of super heroes. From overarching masterminds to the jobber of the week, there is a wide variety of antagonists to challenge and annoy your PCs. It can be difficult to narrow down exactly what your adventure calls for, but that is one of the most entertaining questions to answer. This is entirely subjective and you’ll need to rely on your GM instinct to select the perfect villain for your story. There are some ways to make this easier though!

So when you’re selecting or designing your villain, especially villains who are supposed to carry an adventure on their own, it’s important to look for three major traits: competency, proactivity, and sympathy. I describe these as such:

• Competency: The villain has the ability to enact their plan and combat the heroes, either directly or with the use of their resources and assets.
• Proactivity: The villain is taking steps to actively pursue their goals and move the plot along. They also have the ability to adapt to changes and obstacles put in their path by the heroes and/or law enforcement.
• Sympathy: There’s something about the villain that is intriguing to the players. I might need a better word for this, but basically the villain has something that the players can latch on to. This can be a complex, understandable motivation, a tragic backstory, a cool costume or powerset, or a wicked sense of humor. Something that makes the villain stick out in the player’s mind.

Antagonists don’t need all three, but aim for at least two. These traits ensure that the villain can carry the adventure, and will have your players talking about them for years to come.

To show this in practice, I’m going to use my Sinister Six example from the previous blog post. For the main villain of this piece, I selected Peter Parker, specifically Peter wearing the Symbiote suit. I could have gone a few different directions based on the synopsis: “The Sinister Six are all that stand between New York and an army of ravenous symbiotes.” I could have chosen Venom (technically I did) or Carnage as ringleaders of this plan, and that would have been fine. They will probably make some kind of appearance in the story as lieutenants of Peter. Based on my research in step 1, I could even go obscure and select Knull, Void Knight, or the symbiote-dragons (I will definitely have symbiote-dragons show up, because that’s cool as hell.) But after looking at all my options, Symbiote Spider-Man was the best choice for my story.

Since I’m working on a one-shot, the villain needs to have the gravitas and power to carry an entire story by themselves. I needed someone iconic, who could strike fear into the hearts of players from the word go. I also needed a villain clever enough to come up with a scheme that could challenge 6 super beings, especially beings as wily as Otto Octavius and Norman Osborn. In a fun bit of irony, players signing up for a Sinister Six game would sit down expecting to fight Spider-Man, and I’m providing that experience with a twist!

So how does Peter fulfill the three requirements I laid out? He is competent. In the comics, Spider-Man routinely takes on the Sinister Six and triumphs. He’s got a versatile power set, experience, and intelligence. All of that is being amplified by his connection to the symbiote, and the way I’m writing it, Peter is going to have a bit of an edge to him. (Cue dancing Toby Maguire scene) The symbiote is going to be using Spidey’s powers, intellect, and perseverance without his morals. Essentially all that great power with none of the responsibility.

The symbiote is also going to be proactive. It’s been using Peter to accomplish its goals of softening up the Earth for the aforementioned symbiote invasion. I won’t reveal too much about its plan, for the sake of not spoiling the game for folks who are signing up for Origins 2021 or 2022. Safe to say, prior to the adventure’s start, Spidey has been ingraining himself with Earth’s mightiest heroes and using his access to ensure they won’t be around when the invasion kicks off. He’s also been traveling around New York, preparing critical systems to fail when the Klyntar arrive. During the adventure, as the Sinister Six move in to hunt a spider, he’s going to be putting obstacles in their way, and reacting to their successes. Proactivity (outside of pregame prep) is largely something that has to be handled during the running of the game, rather than writing, so we’ll talk about that in a future post.

Spider-Man is sympathetic too. He’s an incredibly popular super hero, and the entry point for most fans of the Sinister Six as well. Seeing him break bad because of being overpowered by the symbiote is going to strike a chord with people. Some groups may even decide that killing evil Spider-Man doesn’t count (I could see a Kraven player making this argument) and they’ll rally around the idea of saving Peter while stopping the symbiotes. Or they’ll relish the chance to finally have their favorite Sinister Six villain succeed in their fight against the Webbed-Menace.

However it shakes out, players will gravitate towards Peter as the antagonist. This is a benefit of using popular characters when working in famous universes.

Sympathy is the hardest of these traits to manufacture when creating your own villains. If you don’t have years of comic fandom to fallback on, it falls to you as GM to generate that interest. When designing an antagonist, ask yourself what draws you to some of your favorite villains. Feel free to pull from those characters or tropes, especially if you’re just starting out. When you get comfortable analyzing those popular ideas, you’ll be stronger at creating new ones. Another benefit you have is no one knows your players’ tastes as well as you do. Communicate with them to see what appeals to them from a villain, and design yours along those lines.

So we’ve talked at length about creating or choosing villains for your adventure. They are as much the star of the story as your PCs. Getting this right will lead to you having more memorable adventures. Just remember to make sure your antagonists are competent, proactive, and sympathetic and you will be most of the way there. Next time we’ll talk about outlining your plot and creating an exciting opening scene. Until then, let me know who your favorite villains are and may all your hits be crits!