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View Full Version : (Marvel Saga/Actual Play) Avengers B-Team


Tommy Brownell
02-11-2007, 09:58 PM
First, a little background:

The Sideliners is a team that was formed back when we played Marvel Classic, and was converted to Marvel Saga. The team was known for it's bad codenames and lame powers, but somewhere along the way, something happened: The Sideliners got good.

They went from literally being trampled by Juggernaut, to leveling Castle Doom and fending off The Brood.

Despite this, they clung to the team name "The Sideliners - The A-Team of the B-Teams."

When we decided to try to game again, I opted to finally begin running the Masters of Evil Saga adventure series (minus Endgame, since they weren't playing The Thunderbolts).

So tonight, we began Taken to Task, the first chapter in the Masters of Evil series.

The story began with Mindstorm (a telekinetic, weather controlling mutant), Talos (a robot with magnetic control and the ability to shrink) and Unforgiven (a genetically altered wolfman who has recently bonded with a spawn of the Carnage symbiote) being summoned to meet with Dr. Valerie Cooper. Val asked The Sideliners to disband...because they were being tapped to form the new core of The Avengers! Iron Man had led a large squadron of Avengers off-world, and Captain America had gone missing...which prompted The Sideliners to ask "Why us?"

Their answer came in the form of Namor, Quicksilver and Vision, all Avengers who had either worked with, been saved by, or otherwise dealt with The Sideliners and saw what they were capable of. Being three availiable and active Avengers, they voted The Sideliners onto the roster, and added Citizen V (Dallas Riordian) to round out the group. Unfortunately, the Avengers still aren't at full capacity, as Namor is actually busy with other things, and Vision is currently in a holographic form thanks to a nasty bust-up with N'Astirh...an event The Sideliners were actually a part of.

Unfortunately, before The Sideliners could even move out of Four Freedoms Plaza (they moved in after the Thunderbolts obliterated the upper floors), they were summoned to a local bank where Shocker and Scorpion had taken hostages.

Unforgiven flew the Quinjet, carrying him, Talos, Mindstorm, Citizen V, the holographic Vision and Quicksilver to the bank, and hovered overhead. Unforgiven and Talos snuck into the bank and advanced on Shocker and Scorpion, while Citizen V and Mindstorm monitored from the Quinjet. Quicksilver tried to sneak in the back way, but found an adhesive on the floor as he zipped in, and was promptly ambushed by four "skull-faced guys".

Talos tried to sneak up on Scorpion and hammer him with Power Growth, while the invisible Unforgiven leapt to a countertop. Unfortunately, he made too much noise upon landing, and Shocker turned and fired! The Narrator's card was the 10 of Doom, so Shocker's aim was dead on and he blasted Unforgiven just as he became visible! Scorpion noticed the tiny Talos approaching, and managed to dodge his sneak attack, then smashed Talos with his tail! As The Avengers tried to recover, a blinding flash filled the room, even managing to overload Talos' visual sensors!

Talos had left his Avengers Identicard on the floor, transmitting the image to Mindstorm and Citizen V, who now decided to enter the roof access as well. Unfortunately, they were met by the four gun-wielding thugs in skull-faced helmets! They opened fire on Mindstorm and Citizen V, but Mindstorm's telekinetic field and Citizen V's body armor absorbed most of it. Mindstorm blasted one thug with a telekinetic bolt, while Citizen V danced through the hail of gunfire and wrapped up another with a bola. Mindstorm then hurled a blast of air down the corridor, sending the rest of the thugs flying...

With the bank employees getting the loot wrapped up, and Talos and Unforgiven stumbling blindly, Shocker decided to bring the whole building down, which meant the ground was coming out from under Mindstorm and Citizen V! Citizen V tumbled to the ground safely, and Mindstorm caught himself with a gust of air, but they found dozens of images of Scorpion and Shocker running around the bank! Mindstorm tried to telekinetically hold the collapsing roof, but his powers gave out, and Shocker and Scorpion began to fly to safety, with a third figure in between them, though none of the Avengers could get a make on him or her.

The bank collapsed and, while no one was killed, several were injured and The Avengers, on their first mission together, suffered a humiliating black eye.

A medical emergency put an end to the game for the day, but we look to resume within the next two weeks, with The Avengers hopefully redeeming themselves.

Craig Oxbrow
02-12-2007, 07:30 AM
Going FASERIP to SAGA had some strange effects on a Marvel game I was in once, leading me to suspect that the conversion rules are faulty. My second-string psychic was, according to the new system, roughly as powerful as Professor X, and the living metal guy's grossly overstated Endurance didn't translate at all, so even though he had massive armour he could still be knocked out and his player never forgave the system for it...

Tommy Brownell
02-12-2007, 09:49 AM
Going FASERIP to SAGA had some strange effects on a Marvel game I was in once, leading me to suspect that the conversion rules are faulty. My second-string psychic was, according to the new system, roughly as powerful as Professor X, and the living metal guy's grossly overstated Endurance didn't translate at all, so even though he had massive armour he could still be knocked out and his player never forgave the system for it...

The conversion rules are rough, as most conversion rules are. Mindstorm had the Extra Attacks power in Classic, but that basically disappeared in Saga...which was fine by me, since that was almost a "metagame" power anyway.

The thing is, power levels largely did get ramped up in Saga, as a guy with an Energy Blast of 6 can, with a little luck and a good hand, get an action score in the 50s and drop Juggernaut. It's not LIKELY...but it can happen. My group and I definitely consider that a bug and not a feature.

We converted to Saga nearly a decade ago, when it came out, and haven't looked back since...as it's routinely tagged not only as the favorite supers RPG in our group, but the favorite RPG period.

oni no won
02-14-2007, 03:20 PM
This adventure sounds like fun. I'll tag this thread.

Speaking of power lvl in going from classic to SAGA, the latest incarnation, MURPG, seems to have ramped up the power lvl at least from classic too. I have never played SAGA (I do own 3 of the books) so I can't really compare it to SAGA.

Have you and your group tried MURPG? IMO, it has the most versatile character creation. You can create any type of character you want and the powers are such that it is easy to create a new power to your specification. My players really liked that aspect of this game. One really neat thing about SAGA is the stunts. It is a neat way to differentiate your character from others with similiar abilities. MURPG does something similiar by using Lines of XP and options.

Anyway, where appropriate, I hope you will give an explanation of how you or your players came to do such an action. I would like to see how SAGA is run.

Tommy Brownell
02-14-2007, 09:44 PM
We don't really have an interest in MURPG, though I do own it, and have played it online. It just doesn't quite fit the "feel" we prefer.


I'll do my best to make some good notes on how things happen in-game...for instance, Mindstorm and Citizen V weren't supposed to encounter gun-wielding thugs when they entered the bank, but the event on the Narrator's card said "Goons", so it seemed like a good time to toss that complication in.