Editing SGA 2006 Archive (section)

=The Band of STEEL=
; Game System
: [http://www.peginc.com/Games/Savage%20Worlds/Necessary%20Evil.htm Necessary Evil] (Savage Worlds)
; Pitch
: When all the super heroes of the world are blown to kingdom come by an army of invading aliens who will save the day?  Evil... The only forces left to take on the alien menace are the crafty and self serving super villains!
; Game Master
: Karl Hubbs
; Players
: 6
; Characters
: Dr. Steel, mad scientist (Edmund Metheny)
: Carnivore, time-travelling Jurassic remnant (Johnzo)
: Boneyard, zombie brick (Kevin)
: Madame Shade, voodoo priestess (Laura)
: Warcry, flying blaster and Aztec goddess (Sophie)
: Noise, sonic blaster and speedster (Joe Zurla)
; Date
: February 6, 13, & 20, 2006
; Technical Notes
: PCs were upgraded from Novice to Seasoned between the second and third games.
; Recaps
<blockquote>
<p>In the first episode, the overbearing Dr. Destruction and his
sidekick, the chick with no name, organized a jail break-out from the
V'sori School for Gifted but Ethically Challenged Earthlings (all right,
not its real name.) Dr. D made it pretty clear that Boneyard,
Carnivore, Doctor Steel, Madame Shade, Noise and Warcry were crunchies
but gave them the task of freeing some important villain from the back
cells. In their fetching prison suits, the improvised Band of Steel
managed to free the V.I.P. ("Alive is all we need, he didn't say
unharmed!") Many were wounded, but thanks to Madame Shade and Doctor
Steel, they were healed -- except for Boneyard, on account of him being,
y'know, dead already.</p>

<p>Since then, about a few days had passed. The overbearing Dr. D had
provided a lair of sorts in Star City, and even Boneyard was back to,
um, normal. Doctor Steel had been experimenting in the makeshift lab,
complaining about the facilities. The overbearing Dr. D made an
appearance, demanding that the Band of Steel go to the mainland and free
some super-scientist guy from a V'sori base. He would supply a small
boat and arrange for the communications at the base to be jammed for a
two-hour window. The base was situated overlooking a bluff above the
sea, and used to be a super-villain's lair before the alien invaders
took over. Dr. D gave crude schematics and left the Band of Steel to plot.</p>

<p>The resourceful villains soon came up with a plan that they hoped would
give them the advantage of surprise. Doctor Steel would build a
submarine equipped with a giant drill that would not only take them
unnoticed from the island of Star City to the mainland, but allow them
to tunnel in through the cliff side to the underground laboratory.
Madame Shade would use her magic powers to weaken the concrete
foundations, making it possible to break through, and Noise would use
his sonic powers to keep the operation silent. [Alas, the GM later
declared that you could not keep breaking through concrete silent,
regardless of Noise's power radius.] Carnivore would accompany the
brave submarinodrillonauts to provide fighting abilities; rounding the
submarine crew was Madame Shade's zombi, Joe. Meanwhile, Boneyard
would use his powers to move through the earth and Warcry her flight
abilities to attack the above-ground installations and create a
diversion, thus drawing some of the enemy forces out and away from the
real operation. Madame Shade used her voodoo magic to keep a mental
link with Warcry and coordinate the attack with the break-through to the
underground lair.</p>

<p>Above-ground, Boneyard and Warcry were met by a dozen guards armed with
machine guns (which they soon switched to Herokiller rounds), a handful
of wiredogs [Edmund thinks it was one, I think it was at least a couple
-- does anyone else remember? anyway, wiredogs are, well, super-dogs
wrapped in barbed wire. No, don't ask me, I don't know why!], a
warsphere, and a drone [the latter two are contraptions that shoot ray
gun attacks, which have, as I recall, 2 and 4 Armour Penetration,
respectively. The warsphere is a Wild Card, of power comparable to a
novice character for combat purposes.] Boneyard, being the stalwart
good ol' dead Reb that he is, did a good deal of damage and, just as
importantly, absorbed everything thrown at him without damage [I
think.] Warcry, being a Blaster, was mostly an entertaining sight in
the night sky, receiving the complete and undivided attention of the
drone and the warsphere despite have caused naught but cosmetic damage
to the compound.</p>

<p>Underground, the tunnelers broke in. After a rapid exploration of the
initial contact area and some moderate resistance from the guards, they
came face to face with another posse of guards, another wiredog, another
warsphere [Wild Card] a jack-in-the-box/stretchy super [Novice rank Wild
Card like them], a super armed with an energy glaive [Seasoned rank Wild
Card, much more powerful than them], and a V'sori [power unknown but
likely a Wild Card of moderate-to-high power]. Knowing that this was
their all-or-nothing only chance, Carnivore and Doctor Steel, who were
facing Glaive Guy, quickly agreed on tactics but alas, Glaive Guy got
initiative and wounded both of them in a single action. Noise and Joe
the zombi are the second line, and Madame Shade the third -- a fragile
line. [Everyone in the party, both above and below, was long out of
bennies.]</p>

<p>Up top, Warcry managed to dispatch the warsphere, but was hit in the
same round by the drone, reducing her to -3 [one more hit and she's down
for the count; she can't even fly away until she succeeds at a Spirit
roll.] Will the Band of Steel melt in the forge, or will it break under
the strain?</p>
</blockquote>
; Player Thoughts
<blockquote>
<p>'''[[User:Shosuro Kando|Shosuro Kando]]:''' Since one of the reasons we are playing Necessary Evil is to see how SW does in the Supers genre I thought I would pass along to everyone my
observations based on the last two games.</p>

<p>To sum up, I believe that while Necessary Evil gets marks for being a creative attempt at genre bending, it ultimately fails as a decent simulation of the Supers genre. There are several reasons for this - some specific to the setting, some to the system itself.</p>

# The single greatest setting flaw in Necessary Evil is the Mauser .545 Herokiller. This massive firearm, weighing in at 3d6, AP 3, Heavy, seems to be ubiquitous in the world of Necessary Evil. Player Characters can pick one up from their starting funds, and all guards we have encountered seem to have them. Giving lowly mooks the capability to blow a hole the size of a chicken egg through most characters is a serious genre buster for me, and the fact that an attack that a hero would have to pay 9 Power Points for comes free in the hands of mook guards only adds insult to injury.<br>
# Also in this setting pretty much everyone encountered from mooks on up seems to have Heavy armor. If you neglected to purchase this advantage on your powers during character creation you will soon find yourself asking the GM for a rewrite, as many powers such as blast will simply be useless without it.<br>
# Not all characters are created equal. So far only two characters have achieved unqualified success in the game - Boneyard and Carnivore, the melee fighters. Others have ranged from being moderately effective to being around largely as part of the scenery. This is due partly to the types of scenarios we have thusfar been involved in, but in large part to an imbalance between the effectiveness and cost of some of the powers listed in the game.<br>
# Both the power "Armor" and the power "Super Characteristic: Vigor" cost one point per level. Both will raise your toughness by one.  However, armor is subject to being lowered by the "Armor Piercing" advantage, which virtually everyone seems to have (the aforementioned Herokiller is AP3). Increasing your Toughness by boosting your Vigor doesn't have this problem. Thus it is very much to everyone's advantage to boost their Vigor as high as possible before ever spending points on Armor. All starting characters should have a Vigor of d12 - it's the most cost effective way of avoiding damage.<br>
# Ranged attack is an ability of questionable utility in this setting. Blasters need to spend virtually all of their initial Power Points on their blast power, just to come up to parity with mooks with Herokiller. Particularly at the beginning, when points are tight, it is far more effective to sink them into defenses and just pick up the big guns that will be lying around after your HTH teammates pound a few mooks onto paste.<br>
# Conversely, hand to hand attacks are extremely effective, owing to the fact that a) they are cheaper than ranged attacks, b) they can be purchased to a higher level than ranged attacks, c) they add strength to their damage rolls, d) bad damage rolls can be rerolled with bennies.  For example a typical character spending all of his or her beginning points(10) on a ranged attack can get something like 4d6 AP 1. A typical HTH attack built on 10 pts does 5d6+STR+ bonus of any weapon held - somewhere between 5d6+d4+0 for someone with STR D4 and no weapon, to 5d6+1d12+4 for someone using a great axe. In addition, a majority of the Attack Options are only useful (or only usable) in melee combat.  There are few tactical options for shooting, and fewer still if you're out in the open and not sniping. (FYI the Defend option only affects Parry, so it should have had no affect on the combat with War Cry last game). Things would be even more unbalanced, given that very strong characters can also throw objects, giving them a ranged combat ability.  However, since these attacks would not be considered Heavy, they will bounce off most of the mooks we encounter. I realize that it can be argued that HTH attacks are more limited than ranged attacks and should, therefore, be less expensive. IMHO, however, the difference is already accounted for by the fact that HTH attacks can spend bennies on damage and ranged attacks can't. Making HTH attacks cheaper than ranged attacks is overkill.<br>
# This is primarily an artifact of Savage Worlds as a whole, but the game system is seriously bennie driven. Often the bennies your character does or does not have seem more important than strategy or tactics.<br>
# Not sure whether this is in bounds as an artifact of the setting or whether it is just due to the portions of the plot that have been selected for us so far, but there have been few, if any, opportunities to use non-combat skills or powers so far.<br>

Overall I give the setting some props for originality, but not for game
balance. I don't think that the system is well balanced for a supers
game, and if I were going to start one I would look elsewhere for rules.

This is in no way meant as a criticism of the group - I've had a lot of
fun playing the game on Monday nights and writing about it on other
nights. DOCTOR STEEL SHALL RULE THE WORLD! Until Boneyard beats the
stuffing out of him, of course.

But that's just my opinion, given for free and worth just that I
suppose. Do others have thoughts?

<p>'''[[User:Mechante Anemone|Mechante Anemone]]:''' I have to say this is the most fun group I've played with at the SGA
Monday night games. Ever. People are awesome, funny, in character and
out; they cooperate and work as a team, they're great. My very
favourite sequence so far has been the planning of the attack, which
included -- at Kevin's suggestion -- a montage of building the
submarine. It was hilarious and it felt creative.</p>

<p>I was profoundly disappointed that, with all this cool planning, we had
zero success. We learned at the end that with the radio jamming, the
aliens and their quislings had decided to hide in the basement, leaving
only the regular forces up top, so instead of a useful diversion all we
did was split up our forces. The bad guys (the OTHER bad guys!) were
completely taken by not-surprise. My two cents: I wish that we had been
allowed to get partial success, some small benefit for a lot of neat
planning and enthusiastic team work, not to mention the use of fully
half of Doctor Steel's inventor pool.</p>

<p>As it is, there are three options at the beginning of next game: (1) the
forces remain unaltered and we are all wiped out (mathematically
certain); (2) more bad guys (no, the *OTHER* bad guys!) show up and for
some reason they decide to capture us in order to gloat; (3) the
overbearing Dr. D's forces come and save our butts so he can do the
gloating himself. There is no possible way for us to get out with any
success, our dignity, or (probably) our lives. :-(</p>

Savage World seems to lack a "henchman" level of power, between mooks
(non-Wild Cards, who go down have the first hit, do not have a wild die,
and do not have bennies) and Recurring Archenemies (Wild Cards, who can
be "shaken" then take three wounds before they go down, have a wild die,
and three bennies). It's natural to try filling that with a
novice-level Wild Card, but I think there are a number of middle-term
solutions that could be used. For example:

* give the henchmen one or more extra wound, OR
* give them a wild die, OR
* give them one or more bennies

But not all of these advantages at once.

'''Joe-Prime:''' As a "twist" on the usual Save The World storyline, it gets full
points for creativity. But so far the adventures have neither felt super nor
heroic. both jail break and the save the scientist mission could have been
in any genre anywhere. the only thing that was Super was the level of the
people involved-- everyone involved. guards, mooks, robots-- all of them
were Superpowered and so, in effect, the PC's were not Super in any way,
shape or form.

Yeah, there's a major disconnect in the heavy armor/weapon catagory. The
only things in the core rules that have "heavy armor" are incredibly tough
things like tanks. its supposed to be something that is immune to anything
but a bazooka or something. powered armor should be heavy but mooks should
just take cover like everyone else.

I made a speedster and stuck to my concept of "living amplifier" and picked
the powers that fit the idea as best I could. I noticed that I only had one
heavy attack--I didn't mind being the "mook killer" as it sorta went with
the anarchist lowpower concept. I figured that not +everyone+ had heavy
armor...would they?

Well, they did. Everyone has heavy armor. Everyone. Which means that
effectively heavy attacks arn't special anymore and they're just attacks.
unless you don't have a heavy attack, then you're out in the cold. Which I
have been. Unless I use my explode power (which was picked as a last resort
dramatic power...not a "use over and over" power) I have to pick up a fallen
pistol to hurt ANYONE. Which really sucks considering one of the points of
the character is that he's a living source of sound and shouldn't need to
pick up a gun to hurt anyone. kinda takes the super out of super, if you ask
me.

Karl's been really nice about having the guards use normal rounds until it's
clear they can't hurt you and +then+ switching to HK ammo. but if *I* was a
guard in this world...I'd use the HK's right off...every time. I'm not
blaming Karl. He's doing great keeping it fun with what he has. But unless
there's more to the game that isn't armor-fortified supergoons(tm) and wild
card blaster robots, there's zero point in playing anything that doesn't
have a heavy attack of some kind. And even then, watch out.

Boneyard is a monster. Massive toughness combined with undead/construct is
absolutely unstoppable. Boneyard has a 24 toughness against any sort of
bullets: thats on average of 9 dice of damage to +shake+ him...9 dice of
damage. that's off the scale for handguns.

Now, that's against mundane attacks. If the warsphere went after boneyard,
he's down to a "mere" 11 toughness against the 3d6 attack of the warsphere.
even then it's still better than 1/2 that he won't even flinch.

it's one of those "luck of the draw" things where the wild card blaster goes
after our blaster in an ariel gunfight while boneyard plays with the mooks.
and yes, he was playing with them...they can't hurt him and so it might as
well be a game. it was only kevin's entertaining silly RP that made boneyard
fun-- he certainly wasnt in any danger.

Yeah, if a weapon is a heavy weapon, it shouldn't have AP. either one or the
other. both is just silly. overkill really. and yeah, supposedly those guns
are "Rare and expensive" but as they've been 100% present in both adventures
so far, they're not TOO rare or expensive to be handed out like candy.

I saw sophie trying to be a blaster and she's was cut to ribbons both times.
the core savage worlds rules are brutal where heros are expected to use
tactics and cover and other "not so heroic" things to survive combats. if
you play in genre, you get blown to pieces.

Which isn't in genre..Supers should be super, period. A flying blaster
should be something to be feared, not something that's mowed down by mooks.
standard issue mooks should not have heavy weapons-- a single "captain" with
powered armor and heavy ammo, maybe...but everyone? pleaaase!

Also, for whatever reason, Sophie has gotten the full attention of the wild
card blaster in both adventures-- blasters on blasters is like a gunfight.
the first person shot loses. but then again, she couldn't have switched
roles either as the mooks would have shot her just as dead as the wild card
robot. Blasters simply arn't deadly enough.

Seems like the really killer combo is not far off from carnivore-- super
speed and hth attack. the superspeed gives you a penalty to be hit (by
everything) and the HTH attack punches thru whatever your fighting. toss in
frenzy and wild attack to really abuse the system.

bennies are the "heroic" reserve that makes the heros...well, heroes. but
when you run into enemy wild cards, you quickly get into a betting game
where the first side that runs out of chips loses. you have to chew thru the
bennies before you can start doing any damage. but I think this game so far
has had waay too many wild cards. they're supposed to be rare-- the named
characters that stand out. sure glaive and longarm should be wild cards but
they should be the only wild cards. There should be no wild card mooks or
drones or robots. nothing that's not elite.

I talked with one of the playtesters of the game and he said "once you
get past the hero creation part of it...it gets dull quick...it's just a
long drawn out combat. over and over." and while that's a part of the SW
system (it's a wargame) I think that the whole "underground" part of the
setting could be fleshed out more. As it is so far, the "plot" has been us
going and doing some bigger badders supervillian's grunt work. there's been
no sense of accomplishment or choice in anything we do. I was hoping he was
wrong, but he wasn't.

The only sense of control or choice in the story was was the drilling sub.
that was cool. :)

I think that SW is often a good system to steal from. The hero system is a
good template for quick and yet detailed character creation in a somewhat
low-powered heros world. If I had more time I might try out something of an
experiment-- use the creation rules and ditch/modify the setting so that the
PC's are rightfully bad asses again. just like in the comics, the only real
answer to a super is another super.

the group is great. fun people all around. Karl's done an excellent
job running the game and being both cruel and kind in turn (like a good GM
should) but in this case, the way the story and setting is, I feel neither
super not villianous. it feels oddly, like a game of SW shadowrun-- break in
past the defenses and get the goodies before the guards show up and kill
everyone.

oh wait. There's guards in the room with the scientists. never mind. best we
can hope for is to have someone get the goodies out before everyone dies.
lets hope doctor steel survives. You don't want Noise pushing any buttons in
the submarine. that's got disaster written all over it.
</blockquote>

; Additional GM Thoughts
: