Campaign: First A.C.T.

[Super Squirrel]

The concept behind this campaign is simple. My friends and I rarely have a chance to roleplay, let alone schedule a weekly game. So I came up with the concept of running this system as follows. Each gamer friend creates a 150+100 mutant superhero. Games last under 3 hours and are played when we feel like playing and have the time. The experience system is simplified so that players with more freetime don't gain a power edge over others.

Now on with the show:

[Super Squirrel]

First A.C.T. Issue #1: Lead Sin

The Reptile and Whisper are both equally shocked when they discover a business card with an address and a proposal for work. The card also promises to keep their “secret”. The address is not a building but a construction site. It is very odd in that the building is flooded with more contract workers then necessary and the steel girder frame work is still being put together and yet there is already a team placing up the walls to the ground floor.

Whisper decides to explore the building first. She is a master of breaking through security systems but never steals. There are five basement levels with odd shaped and sized rooms. All of them are devoid of equipment. There is only a handful of contractors working in this part. Most of them are making last minute changes. Some rooms are being cleaned.

Reptile, who arrives a while after Whisper makes the seen, acts like he owns the place and storms into the office. Two contractors are talking with Carl Law. Carl is a well-known, well-respected member of the City Council. Carl notices an invisible individual move into the room. He can only assume it is Whisper.

Formalities are thrown out the window as it is quickly leveled. He is created an experimental program called the Alternative Crime Team or, ACT. ACT will be experimenting with standard law enforcement to use an entire team of mutants instead of mundanes. Whisper and Reptile are the first of four members invited at this time to act as the officers for ACT. There are several other members to the team to serve the other duties such as Public Relations but they are still being called from outside the city. For now, ACT will only have authority in criminal investigations and on scene crime. Because of the nature and the funding, ACT is paid for each case they do, not on standard wages.

Whisper wants to know immediate how the card got into her wallet after Carl points out she is present and he can sense her. Carl explains that he is a mutant himself and demonstrates how he delivered the card by teleporting it between two pages of a dictionary. Whisper agrees to the job as long as Carl never calls her at work or digs into her past.

Reptile accepts the job and jumps right into business asking about cases. There are very little, in fact, at this time. General requests to cut down on gang related crime and a couple of murder investigations. Reptile requests the first on the pile and gets the grandma murder. Fifteen minutes later into the details of the case, the group is interrupted. The bank down the street is being robbed.

Rushing to the seen thanks to Carl Law’s wheels, Whisper and Reptile rush in. A powersuit is standing on top of the counter to the bank forcing a teller to fill a money sack. Whisper throws down the gauntlet making a presence attack. Unphased, Reptile tries the same but also fails. Instead, the powersuit smashes the counter and stuffs the money sack away into a compartment of his armor.

Whisper rushes in and attacks with her energy charged whip. It easily scores a hit but has no effect. Reptile, frustrated that the powersuit covers the man’s face, instead helps get a group of customers moving toward the door. Whisper increases the sensitivity to light for the man in the powersuit, blinding him. The powersuit, meanwhile, tries throwing a plasma wave at Reptile and misses.

Reptile moves up and grabs the powersuit. Whisper does a quick drain of the man’s energy. After the powersuit easily breaks free from the Reptile, he tells Whisper to break the face plate. In a stunning blow, Whisper shatters it with her wakazashi. Reptile jumps on the chance and bites the man’s face, poisoning him.

The rest of the battle passes very quickly for the powersuit. Whisper slows down the powersuit more. However, after the powersuit’s blindness wears off, he picks up the entire counter to the bank and smashes it over Whisper. Reptile, during this time, has “created” an escape route for the trapped tellers.

With everyone’s frustration on high, Reptile and Whisper throw as many blows in as they can. The powersuit, who is now down to SPD 2 and DCV 1 from all the attacks and poison makes a mad dash for the street. He gets only meters from a manhole cover when he gets hit with a leg grab from Whisper’s whip. The powersuit blasts away the manhole cover but gets his arms caught in a grab. Whisper releases his feet and drains him yet again. Finally, the powersuit uses his casual STR and breaks free from Reptile. As he declares his surrender, he tosses a sack of money from his suit into the open manhole cover.

While Reptile keeps him where he is for the eight police officers to arraign him, Whisper goes into the sewer to find the money. The sewer floods with fog and before Whisper can find it, it is gone. Whisper and Reptile head towards the police station for debriefing. The man identifies himself as Lead Sin and offers no further information. Even more annoying is that Lead Sin has no records in any database.

Returning to the base, the team discovers that most of the first floor has been completed and that some training equipment has been loaded into the basement rooms. Carl Law also received a phone call from the bank. Their insurance company has declared they will not pay for the damages caused by the mutant, Reptile, when he smashed the counter to create a pathway. They also claim that the mutants destroyed the front door, despite the fact it was really hit by Lead Sin’s plasma wave.

END First A.C.T. Issue #1

[Super Squirrel]

This issue and all future issues will be posted on http://www.winds.org/~arren/act/ as things go along. I will also be inserting images as I come up with them.

[Super Squirrel]

First ACT #2
Ninja Museum

Reptile and Whisper are enjoying a rental convertable on their way to pick up Sue Lynnell at a suburbon home outside of the city. They reach the home and discover that Suzie is actually a 13 year old girl. While they are perplexed to why they are picking up someone's child, Whisper's phone rings. She lets the voice mail pick it up and then checks the message.

The message for her normal identity, Diane Sky, is from the Museum of Acheological History. They are curious if she has moved up her test on their security system from Wednesday to Monday as the alarm system is currently triggered. Whisper informs that this is not the case and tells them to call the police. Whisper announces they are going on a job.

Immediate investigation of the Museum reveals that their is no apparent sign of forced entry. Whisper quickly and easily bypasses the front door security system and heads in, instinctively stepping over the infrared sensor lines. Reptile reflects on this and walks right through them. Sue follows them in.

Each floor of the museum focuses on a different era of human society. There is the main display located on the outer walls of the museum and there is also the central column that features a glass display that you can see from the edge of a cat walk. The museum is built in such a way that you can climb between floors if you have a way of using the central column. It also allows you to peek up at the next level of the museum and see what era is coming.

From the bottom, it is clear that the robbers entered from the skylight and are using ropes to get to the various levels. Making a judgement call, the team guesses they are on the seventh floor and heads up the stairs. They stealthfully open the door to the floor and discover a group of ninjas. The party moves to intercept them but gets surprised by a group near the stairs.

Two of the ninjas from the other groups jump onto the ropes and start to climb up. The rest of the other group rush in towards the team. Whisper goes for a strike on her ninja with her Wakazashi and scores a powerful blow. Reptile jumps onto a rope to chase up the escaping ninjas. He doesn't get far when he gets hit with one throwing star and another cuts the rope he is on.

Sue attempts a casual strength punch and sends a guy flying back into a display case. He is still standing and awake however and returns to the fight. Whisper runs into some difficultly hitting the ninjas. Reptile lands on the next floor with a very impressive maneuver and rushes back up the stairs to join back in.

For a while, the group is having a difficult time taking out the ninjas but slowly and surely, the dice gods start shining in their favor and the ninjas are taken down through melee. In the end, everyone is bruised up and suffering from some wound or another. The group heads back to the base with the 7 ninjas caught. Over half of the loot was recovered.

Diane Sky, later investigates the museum and points out some major security flaws. They provide her with a very lucrative contract. Sue is provided with a new, temporary residence at the team base and the public is introduced to the newest member of the team. With out a proper name for herself, the press quickly dubs her "The Prodigy Princess."

END First ACT #2

[Super Squirrel]

First ACT #3
Grocery Night

Prof. McArthur and his family were preparing for a trip to get their weekly groceries when an intruder who had broken in through a bedroom window stepped out into the kitchen. He pulled a strange cannon on the family and pulled the trigger.

One Hour Later...

Whisper and the Prodigy Princess are filling out paperwork when the emergency alarm rings. The secretary picks up the phone and learns that the police are in a desperate situation. About three blocks away at the Shop'a'lot they have encountered a problem they can't handle and are requesting that A.C.T. move in and assist the situation. Not asking any details, Whisper and Prodigy race down to the seen.

Outside the Shop'a'lot there is a large crowd and 10 cruisers with policemen behind them with shotguns and service pistols. The Sergeant motions them over to his car and debriefs them. The police was called in regarding a strange disturbance. They encountered a group of four or five individuals who took out three officers before officers were able to take down only one of their number with dozens of shots. They retreated and called in A.C.T.

Whisper and Prodigy head inside through a tear gas filled entry way. Whisper swings with her whip up to the top of a grocery shelf and learns the row location of the disruption. She jumps back down and informs Prodigy. Prodigy runs to the beginning of their aisle while Whisper heads up the middle of the wrong aisle.

Prodigy sees what appears to be a family in the aisle. There is a mother and a father each with their own shopping cart. There is a baby in the mothers arm and an unmoving 15 year old buried in groceries in the fathers shopping cart. However, they are not human. They look like an assortment of household objects fused together to form a human appearance. They are also arguing over what kind of junk cereal to get.

Whisper whips at the father twice while the Prodigy moves in and removes the bullet riddled child and sets him down on the ground. After the second whip, the father catches it and hauls Whisper down to the ground. Meanwhile, the mom who is insistant to get Captain Crunch, hauls the grocery cart over her head and prepares to strike the father. Which she does to no effect.

Whisper throws a couple more whippings into the father and seems to be doing some wearing down but the father goes ballistic and produces a chain gun from nowhere and open fires. Fortunately for Whisper at this point, she is completely invisible. Unfortantely, she is rained down upon with broken cereal boxes and cereal.

During this time, Prodigy had attempted to get the mothers attention. She succeeded in only getting a punch across the face along with a request to not interrupt. She tries to counter punch but misses. Whisper dodges a couple more rounds of fire before the father turns to Prodigy and tries to shot her for striking his wife. The bullets bounce helplessly off her chest.

Whisper swings over and gives Prodigy Princess an energy boost. With the added boost, Prodigy sends the mother flying. Whisper swings back and tries to finish off the father from the other behind. The attack again does a number. However, one of their children appears from around the corner with about seventeen juices crying, "I want some juice!" He throws one and it hits Whisper in the head.

Prodigy and the father square off and after a couple of misses, she finally knocks the father into the aisle and knocks him out. The mother gets Whisper in a grab but gets hit in the head with a juice before she can do anything about it. Whisper moves away from the mom and decides to blind the kid which succeeds. Freaked out that he can't see, the kid pulls out his chain gun and starts blowing up cereal and meat displays. Prodigy decides that the child is a bigger threat and does a move thru sending him into next tuesday.

With only the mother remaining, the two quickly finish her off. Prodigy Princess does her best to hold the baby in a grab and the notify the police to secure the family.

The party investigates and quickly pieces together the mystery. Professor McArthur was working with a coworker on a device that would use light particals to animate objects such as a vacuum cleaner to do things on their own. The device they built was missing when they investigated. The professor and his family were indeed also missing as well as most of their household objects. The coworker is no where to be found.

After looking into the known information on the professor, they learn that he looks remarkly similar to the unidentified Lead Sin (see issue #1) who is still sitting comfortably at jail. The missing professor also has disappeared from his residence and had secret files for modifying the animation device. An audit at the lab reveals that Lead Sin's power suit is missing.

The good news, however, is that the blueprints for the original weapon as well as all of the Professors research notes are available and it is believed that they can restore the professor's family. Unfortunately, the child that had been shot by the police did not become active again and the press began running stories of how the police department killed a famous professor's 15 year old son.

END First ACT #3