Post by rune on May 11, 2014 15:47:28 GMT -5
Got the mail about the new game this morning. I decided to purchase it based on my enjoyment with reading Prowlers & Paragons.
When I went to DriveThru to purchase it I saw the art disclaimer that was placed on the book. I have to thank you for making that issue so very transparent and available to anyone who would at least read the information about Paragons! I have often been very frustrated with books that recycle art. I do not often blame small companies in their reuse, but large agencies that sell you a brand new book and then just reuse the art from previous books truly frustrate me.
I hope that there will be some further support for P&P, but I look forward to reading what you guys have done in Paragons! that is different than P&P.
In other news, I ran my first game this weekend of P&P. My gaming group has been running superhero games for a few years now on and off. While we generally use Champions for our modeling, we have played Marvel Heroic RPG (2012), Mutants and Masterminds, and FATE for the game at times. FATE did not go over very well with the group. MHRPG has ups and downs, but we really love some of the aspects of it. MnM is truly a brilliant game, but it can often come down to one roll wins or loses the fight for you which leaves it a bit swingy (though there are built in protections against that). Champions models things with a lot of granularity, and that has good and bad aspects to it.
We enjoyed playing P&P this weekend. My group liked the control over the narrative that they had, but at times they were a little lost on how to use it. I am not certain I was much help on some of them. We played for a few hours with a returning player from previous game joining us for the first time. There is no actual 'team' at this point, just emerging heroes that are working in a similar area. So every session I have to dance them together.
This time I started the returning player, boy genius with a power armor suit named Pulse, off at his day job as a Research Assistant at a lab delving into theoretical teleportation. He got to RP with the two individuals who are in charge of the lab, and got dumped on by one of them a lot ("I am now you GOD, you got that!?"). This developed his dislike for the character immediately, while the 'mad scientist' one of the two he called 'questionably autistic.'
I moved onto the blind darkness user that is a messiah of the monsters, appropriately named The Darkness. He got to investigate a crime that occurred with the theft of a journal delving into occultism from the 1700s, something with his tie to monsters he was very worried about. He checked some things out at the scene of the crime and then hit the library where he was able to make a new acquaintance (something important to his 'stranger in a strange land' character).
The goddess of liberty, Lady Liberty, that plays with us reacted to the crime as well, as the museum curator is a personal friend of hers and has been robbed already this campaign. She RPed with him in both her mundane and superheroic ID. Examined the crime scene and took some fiber samples from a clue that was left behind which the police officers missed. I even had her run into a security guard that was inspired by Stan "The Man" Lee. She made a connection with the assistant to her friend that was convinced her brother had stolen the book.
Pulse went off to start beating up some thugs at a bar. He is just starting out as a superhero and is starting from the bottom to try and find out what happened to the superhero that saved him a short time ago. As he came to the bar an EMP goes off (killing his suit for a short time) and a werewolf appears from the lightning storm (akin to Terminator time travel effect). He fights the werewolf and it disappears. The effect that he sees is similar to what they are theoretically trying to work on in the lab, but it would be successful and on a much bigger scale. He heads back to his lab to do some investigation and finds a hard copy schematic of their device in one of its incarnations missing. He jury rigs up a device to track the electrical surge that he experienced so that he can respond to it next time it goes off.
The Darkness runs into an individual who is beaten badly in the park and gets a warning that the people who beat him up are going to beat up the rest of his friends at a place called Hank's.
Lady Liberty heads down to where the brother would be...you know, Hank's!
At Hank's Frankenstein's monster shows up and a drive by occurs. The heroes are able to save everyone in the bar, but those responsible for the drive by get away. Frankenstein's monster spends most of his time destroying the street outside because The Darkness has taken his nose and is goading him into chasing him.
They find out that the people at the bar are part of a gang known as The Warped, a group of individuals who have mutated in recent months and society really dislikes. They convince the Warped not to respond to the drive by and that the heroes are going to get to the bottom of it.
The story is going to be on hold from that point on until Pulse can join us again (next month). But we will be continuing with P&P with other stories. See how we like it before trying a few of the other games we want to look into!
Edit: Having now only flipped through Paragons! I have to say that I was saddened by the physical look of the book. P&P has a truly beautiful presentation to it that just makes you excited to look at it and get involved in the game. Paragons! has the look of a basic word document with pictures inserted into it. I had hoped for more out of the look of the book after how inspirational P&P was in the look of the PDF.
When I went to DriveThru to purchase it I saw the art disclaimer that was placed on the book. I have to thank you for making that issue so very transparent and available to anyone who would at least read the information about Paragons! I have often been very frustrated with books that recycle art. I do not often blame small companies in their reuse, but large agencies that sell you a brand new book and then just reuse the art from previous books truly frustrate me.
I hope that there will be some further support for P&P, but I look forward to reading what you guys have done in Paragons! that is different than P&P.
In other news, I ran my first game this weekend of P&P. My gaming group has been running superhero games for a few years now on and off. While we generally use Champions for our modeling, we have played Marvel Heroic RPG (2012), Mutants and Masterminds, and FATE for the game at times. FATE did not go over very well with the group. MHRPG has ups and downs, but we really love some of the aspects of it. MnM is truly a brilliant game, but it can often come down to one roll wins or loses the fight for you which leaves it a bit swingy (though there are built in protections against that). Champions models things with a lot of granularity, and that has good and bad aspects to it.
We enjoyed playing P&P this weekend. My group liked the control over the narrative that they had, but at times they were a little lost on how to use it. I am not certain I was much help on some of them. We played for a few hours with a returning player from previous game joining us for the first time. There is no actual 'team' at this point, just emerging heroes that are working in a similar area. So every session I have to dance them together.
This time I started the returning player, boy genius with a power armor suit named Pulse, off at his day job as a Research Assistant at a lab delving into theoretical teleportation. He got to RP with the two individuals who are in charge of the lab, and got dumped on by one of them a lot ("I am now you GOD, you got that!?"). This developed his dislike for the character immediately, while the 'mad scientist' one of the two he called 'questionably autistic.'
I moved onto the blind darkness user that is a messiah of the monsters, appropriately named The Darkness. He got to investigate a crime that occurred with the theft of a journal delving into occultism from the 1700s, something with his tie to monsters he was very worried about. He checked some things out at the scene of the crime and then hit the library where he was able to make a new acquaintance (something important to his 'stranger in a strange land' character).
The goddess of liberty, Lady Liberty, that plays with us reacted to the crime as well, as the museum curator is a personal friend of hers and has been robbed already this campaign. She RPed with him in both her mundane and superheroic ID. Examined the crime scene and took some fiber samples from a clue that was left behind which the police officers missed. I even had her run into a security guard that was inspired by Stan "The Man" Lee. She made a connection with the assistant to her friend that was convinced her brother had stolen the book.
Pulse went off to start beating up some thugs at a bar. He is just starting out as a superhero and is starting from the bottom to try and find out what happened to the superhero that saved him a short time ago. As he came to the bar an EMP goes off (killing his suit for a short time) and a werewolf appears from the lightning storm (akin to Terminator time travel effect). He fights the werewolf and it disappears. The effect that he sees is similar to what they are theoretically trying to work on in the lab, but it would be successful and on a much bigger scale. He heads back to his lab to do some investigation and finds a hard copy schematic of their device in one of its incarnations missing. He jury rigs up a device to track the electrical surge that he experienced so that he can respond to it next time it goes off.
The Darkness runs into an individual who is beaten badly in the park and gets a warning that the people who beat him up are going to beat up the rest of his friends at a place called Hank's.
Lady Liberty heads down to where the brother would be...you know, Hank's!
At Hank's Frankenstein's monster shows up and a drive by occurs. The heroes are able to save everyone in the bar, but those responsible for the drive by get away. Frankenstein's monster spends most of his time destroying the street outside because The Darkness has taken his nose and is goading him into chasing him.
They find out that the people at the bar are part of a gang known as The Warped, a group of individuals who have mutated in recent months and society really dislikes. They convince the Warped not to respond to the drive by and that the heroes are going to get to the bottom of it.
The story is going to be on hold from that point on until Pulse can join us again (next month). But we will be continuing with P&P with other stories. See how we like it before trying a few of the other games we want to look into!
Edit: Having now only flipped through Paragons! I have to say that I was saddened by the physical look of the book. P&P has a truly beautiful presentation to it that just makes you excited to look at it and get involved in the game. Paragons! has the look of a basic word document with pictures inserted into it. I had hoped for more out of the look of the book after how inspirational P&P was in the look of the PDF.
