Team Zed

It was a hot day, and we were in a cramped apartment. I had stayed up all night reading my new copy of GURPS Supers. My players began shareing the book while I tried to convince them that GURPS was a wonderful system.

After three hours of generating characters our team of All American Superheros, had been assembled. The All American Superheros were:

Phoenix -- An All American do gooder who wanted to fight crime with his super powers. Although his heart was in the right place he had some problems with his super powers. Phoenix was envisioned as a 20 foot tall man, clothed in fire, able to fly across the night sky and burn away evildooers with a single wave of his flaming hammer. He was also the Team's leader, able to rally the troups with the "Phoenix signal" (ala batman).

Unfortunately Phoenix had many problems. First of all, he didn't have enough character points. The first thing to go was the skills. Phoenix didn't have any. Then his giant stature was stripped of increased move, strength, and DR. The Phoenix Fireball was downsized to a paltry 4d6 flame blast. Worst of all the Phoenix had to take extra time to fly. Specificly he had to run and jump for just over two miniutes before he could jump into the air.

In a final killing blow, the phoenix could only use his flame blast when flying. As GM I encouraged the player to consolidate his points into a few useful powers and ordered him to buy some skills. So at a cost of some IQ the character gained a driving skill.

You may be asking yourself, "Where did all the points go?" The answer is that the Phoenix had the amazing ability to blowup and kill everything in a huge area. This ability was only usable durring his death. This actualy proved useful because the GM couldn't let him die anywhere near the other PCs or else the campaign would end.

Henrique -- An All American Evildoer. Right off the bat the character concept was not quite right for the the super team, so I agreed to let him play as the bad guy. He stacked up his character as a super asassin complete with deadly sniper rifles, and an all 20 Characteristic lineup.

Leia -- A French Hobo who liked Cabbages. She could also hack into government files using a new fangled device called a 'modem.' She wasn't realy an All American Hero though.

Tut -- An Ancient Mummy who rose from the grave. Tut could burn very hot, shoot fire and fly.

Wraith -- Another dead guy. His purpose in afterlife was to die or get reborn. As part of his eternal damnation he was perpetualy desolid and camoflauged with chamelion. The only way for him to affect the physical world was by talking.

Since only one of the team members was an American. The All American Super team was renamed "Team Zed." Of course everyone in Team Zed knew that the name 'Team Zed' was pathetic so they tried to change it at many of their meetings but to no avail.

So anyway, here I am with a bunch of GURPS hating players with serious character problems. They take a vote and decide that they want to start playing NOW or they go back to Marvel.

The phoenix is the first to begin. The phoenix is flying over Chicago looking for crime. Through the darkness of night, he sees an explosion from within a reputable bank. He swoops down and lands on top of a biulding across the street so he can get a better view.

Right on cue, the masked men rush out of the bank holding bags full of (stolen) money. They jump into their get away car and the Phoenix makes his move.

Waving his firy hamer, the Phoenix shouts "Stop, or you will face the wrath of the Phoenix!" The crooks speed off in their car.

The Phoenix can only use his flame blast when he is flying so he jumps off of the biulding. "Oh drat!" Peter shouts. "I have to run and jump for two miniutes before I can fly!" I assure the Peter that a two story fall onto pavement isn't automaticaly fatal especialy if you have DR.

As I search for the rules on falling damage. Peter realizes that the Phoenix has no DR. Sweat breaks out on the players brow. He furiously reads thorugh his garbled character sheet untill...

"Aha!" he shouts. "How tall am I?" I explain that his growth power allows him to be any size from normal size to two stories tall. "And how tall is the biulding?" he asks.

Since the biulding is also two stories high, he lands safe as you please. Unfortunately he isn't fast enough to catch the crooks. But he resumes his search for crime

Meanwhile Leia the french Hobo has been chased out of her favorate Cabbage store by Government Goons. Fearing for her life she uses the Museum's phone lines to hack into government files.

The Wraith and the Mummy rise from their graves (which have been disturbed and are about to become a main attraction in the Museum of Natural History). The Wraith smarts off to the Mummy, and the Mummy uses his 12d6 fire blast. The wraith is desolid (and unharmed) but the rest of the Museum storeroom catches on fire.

The Fire attracts the attention of the Phoenix and he bounds to the Museum, smashes in the door and kills the security guards. Then he finds Leia and tries to scare information out of her. She knocks him down and runs away. As she flees she hears the Wraith and Mummy shouting for help. The Mummy takes some quirks (likes his sacred knife, doesn't like damp places, only wears mummification when dead or very sick) and learns to speak American English. ("I wrote it in ink" the player protested "so I can't erase it!")

The Phoenix uses his high Intimidation skill (derived from strength) to asemble the All American Superheros.

Two Chicago Police arrive to check the place out and order Team Zed to surrender. The Phoenix shouts "I am the Phoenix" and grows to giant size while waving his flaming hammer. The Mummy misunderstands the Phoenix and follows his new commander into battle by burning away one of the officers.

The Phoenix gets shot and almost dies (thanks to no DR). In self defense he pounds the Cop into a lifeles goo. Then more cops arrive and set up a defensive line with their cop cars. They order everyone to come out and surrender.

Team Zed agrees on a secret hiding place and runs away except for the Phoenix who goes to negotiate.

Having learned from past lessons the Phoenix grows to giant size shouts "I come in peace!" and THEN shouts "I am the Phoenix" while growing to giant size and waving his flaming hammer in the air.

The cops ask him to surrender and he refuses. He claims that he can explode and destroy Chicago (which he can) and the Cops ask him to leave. "No!" the Phoenix shouts waving his hammer in the air. "I'm an American and I'll surrender as long as I get a fair trial. I'm an honest law abiding citizen and I have nothing to fear from a court of law."

"Phoenix!" shouts the head policeman through the microphone. "I appriciate your integraty. I will personaly see to it that your writ of habius corpus is honored. Since there are security cameras inside there is no chance of a faulty verdict."

"Well!" The Phoenix shouts, waving his flaming hammer. "I can see that you don't want me here so I'm going to leave now."

"Don't you want your fair trial?" the officer asks incredulously.

"No I'm an outcast, you humans will never accept me into your society. I only wanted to help make America strong [my voice is fading as I walk away] and safe for the children ... and God bless ... Apple Pie ... each generation could be ... "

The Cops let him escape because they don't realy want to fight the Phoenix. After all, thats what the national guard is for.

So at the end of the first game session, the super team gathers in their secret apartment and discusses plans.

The Phoenix (as the leader) sets the agenda. "We have to leave Chicago. We arn't wanted here."

The other characters point out that the Phoenix is the one who killed the Security guards and ordered the death of the two police officers and then identified himself to a whole bunch of police, threatened to destroy chicago and then resisted arrest. They also point to the news brief that shows the concerted effort to capture or kill the Phoenix.

"To hell with you then!" The Phonix shouts waving his hammer angrly. "I'm going to Texas to stop crime and there isn't anything you can do to stop me." And with that the Phoenix jumped around for two miniutes and flew out the window.

The rest of Team Zed talked it over, they bought a Semi-Truck and emblazoned it with the Team Zed logo. Then they set out to find the Phoenix. Team Zed and the Phoenix were traveling along the same road the question was could the truck catch up in time?

Peter: How fast can I fly anyway?

Me: What is your flight skill? Did you get super speed like I told you, or are you stuck with the cheep version?

Peter: What's super speed?

Me: The Phoenix is flying from Chicago to Austin Texas at (mumble mumble) 20 miles per hour.

Team Zed:<laughing> Beep beep! Get out of the road!

Make way! horce and buggy commin though!

Ooh! Look daddy! It's a balloon! Can we go back and get it please?

It's a bird, its a water tower, no its the Phoenix!

Try waving your hammer faster!

 Faster than a speeding turtle,
   More powerful than the three amegos,
      Able to leap with concerted effort!
         It's the Phoenix!

Next time: The Phoenix is tricked into destroying a farm. Team Zed continualy fails perception rolls to see the Wraith. Everyone gets 50 character points so they won't be so pathetic.