Action Report - Maltese Falcon homage

[drunkonduty]

A couple of weeks ago I posted asking for advice for CU characters to use in a Maltese Falcon homage.

 

Thanks again for the help there, really appreciated.

 

We finally played the first session of the adventure (damn real life schedules!) and I thought people might appreciate a quick action report from the game.

 

The Heroes for Hire: Bulletproof Samaritan – a kind of low rent Superman; and Hombre Panthera, a shape changer (who can turn into a were-jaguar and a pigeon among other things.)

 

Scene 1: Cateran approaches the Heroes in their Brooklyn office. She tells them her name is Mary Astor (no, neither player so much as blinked. Young folks today.) During the conversation in which she asks them to trail Jos Terhune and help find her (non-existent) sister I mime lighting a cigarette only to have a player mime lighting it for me. I mime putting down the match book. Yay! An important clue in place.

 

Scene 2: The H4H follow up on various (false) leads. This involves a certain amount of cold shoulders from concierges at very expensive hotels and contacting a hacker friend to chase down some leads. One of the Heroes, in his guise as a reporter, approaches Terhune at his 5^th Ave. antiques store and manages to engage him in conversation. Some fun role play but no real progress is made.

 

When Terhune leaves the store at the end of the day they tail him. He eventually leads them to an ally in back of the Plaza Hotel where he changes into the demonic Tartarus! Tartarus flies up 20 floors and starts casing the joint. The heroes confront him and a brawl breaks out. The heroes capture him fairly easily and hand him over to the police. They also inform the hotel of what has gone on outside their 20^th floor.

 

Meanwhile, inside the Plaza, Cateran has broken into the hotel room and gets the Eagle. When the fight breaks out, right outside the window of the room she is burglarising, she decides to stash the Eagle under a room service trolley and leave. She intends to come back and get the Eagle after the brawl and the cops and all that.

 

Scene 3. The Heroes' hacker contact gets back to them with information about “Mary Astor,” the sister, and Terhune. The Heroes realise that she's been playing them but aren't sure what's going on (of course.) They find the match book, it's from the Greenwich Hotel. They stake out the Greenwich the next morning and see Cateran as she comes down and grabs a coffee and a roll from the cafe in the foyer. They begin to follow her as she heads for the door when who should enter but Jos Terhune, back in human form and looking a mess. He spent the night in the cells, in his Tartartus persona, and is pissed off. Never the less he is not here to fight. He tells her “The Fatman is in town.”

 

Scene 4. The Heroes trail Terhune and Cateran back to the Plaza. Cateran tells Terhune he can't come in with her as his dishevelled appearance will make them look suspicious. Terhune is arguing with Cateran when a flight of pigeons, Summoned by a quick thinking Hombre Panthera, craps all over her. She and Terhune leave to get fresh clothes. The Heroes approach the hotel manager and inform her of what's going on. The manager, eager to find the missing item and avoid scandal, agrees to their plan of waiting for Cateran and “stinging” her. Unfortunately the Heroes get too close while Cateran and Terhune are searching the kitchen area and she spots them.

 

 

This is where we had to stop for the night.

 

Now they are in a Mexican stand off. The villains don't want to have super brawl where the Eagle could get damaged. The Heroes shouldn't want to brawl in hotel where they will cause loads of damage and risk lives. But alas, one of my players is the sort to hold grudges and is refusing to listen to any of Cateran's offers of peaceful resolution. His character should have more sense and I'm going to hammer him with the “danger to the lives of many people” thing. If he goes ahead anyway I'll be docking him XP.

 

Hope this has entertained. I'll post the second half when we have played it out.

Cheers all. :-)

[Lord Liaden]

Sounds like you executed the homage through the superheroic filter skillfully and entertainingly. From the point of view of the players' experience, it's probably for the best that they don't yet realize where you lifted this from. But I wonder if they'll ever twig to the source. If referring to "the Fatman" didn't do it, probably not.

[kahuna's bro]

Sounds like you executed the homage through the superheroic filter skillfully and entertainingly. From the point of view of the players' experience, it's probably for the best that they don't yet realize where you lifted this from. But I wonder if they'll ever twig to the source. If referring to "the Fatman" didn't do it, probably not.

or they might  think it means an old tv character

[drunkonduty]

Oh yeah, Jake and the Fatman... I didn't think of that. But, no, I don't think they've made that connection either. Not that it would help.

 

After we've finished I will tell them where I lifted the plot from. You never know, they might watch it and improve themselves as humanbeings. ;-)

 

Thanks for the kind words.

[Uthanar]

Enjoyable read.  Sounds like a fun session to be at. 

[bigbywolfe]

Nice. Thanks for sharing.

[Balabanto]

A couple of weeks ago I posted asking for advice for CU characters to use in a Maltese Falcon homage.

 

Thanks again for the help there, really appreciated.

 

We finally played the first session of the adventure (damn real life schedules!) and I thought people might appreciate a quick action report from the game.

 

The Heroes for Hire: Bulletproof Samaritan – a kind of low rent Superman; and Hombre Panthera, a shape changer (who can turn into a were-jaguar and a pigeon among other things.)

 

Scene 1: Cateran approaches the Heroes in their Brooklyn office. She tells them her name is Mary Astor (no, neither player so much as blinked. Young folks today.) During the conversation in which she asks them to trail Jos Terhune and help find her (non-existent) sister I mime lighting a cigarette only to have a player mime lighting it for me. I mime putting down the match book. Yay! An important clue in place.

 

Scene 2: The H4H follow up on various (false) leads. This involves a certain amount of cold shoulders from concierges at very expensive hotels and contacting a hacker friend to chase down some leads. One of the Heroes, in his guise as a reporter, approaches Terhune at his 5^th Ave. antiques store and manages to engage him in conversation. Some fun role play but no real progress is made.

 

When Terhune leaves the store at the end of the day they tail him. He eventually leads them to an ally in back of the Plaza Hotel where he changes into the demonic Tartarus! Tartarus flies up 20 floors and starts casing the joint. The heroes confront him and a brawl breaks out. The heroes capture him fairly easily and hand him over to the police. They also inform the hotel of what has gone on outside their 20^th floor.

 

Meanwhile, inside the Plaza, Cateran has broken into the hotel room and gets the Eagle. When the fight breaks out, right outside the window of the room she is burglarising, she decides to stash the Eagle under a room service trolley and leave. She intends to come back and get the Eagle after the brawl and the cops and all that.

 

Scene 3. The Heroes' hacker contact gets back to them with information about “Mary Astor,” the sister, and Terhune. The Heroes realise that she's been playing them but aren't sure what's going on (of course.) They find the match book, it's from the Greenwich Hotel. They stake out the Greenwich the next morning and see Cateran as she comes down and grabs a coffee and a roll from the cafe in the foyer. They begin to follow her as she heads for the door when who should enter but Jos Terhune, back in human form and looking a mess. He spent the night in the cells, in his Tartartus persona, and is pissed off. Never the less he is not here to fight. He tells her “The Fatman is in town.”

 

Scene 4. The Heroes trail Terhune and Cateran back to the Plaza. Cateran tells Terhune he can't come in with her as his dishevelled appearance will make them look suspicious. Terhune is arguing with Cateran when a flight of pigeons, Summoned by a quick thinking Hombre Panthera, craps all over her. She and Terhune leave to get fresh clothes. The Heroes approach the hotel manager and inform her of what's going on. The manager, eager to find the missing item and avoid scandal, agrees to their plan of waiting for Cateran and “stinging” her. Unfortunately the Heroes get too close while Cateran and Terhune are searching the kitchen area and she spots them.

 

 

This is where we had to stop for the night.

 

Now they are in a Mexican stand off. The villains don't want to have super brawl where the Eagle could get damaged. The Heroes shouldn't want to brawl in hotel where they will cause loads of damage and risk lives. But alas, one of my players is the sort to hold grudges and is refusing to listen to any of Cateran's offers of peaceful resolution. His character should have more sense and I'm going to hammer him with the “danger to the lives of many people” thing. If he goes ahead anyway I'll be docking him XP.

 

Hope this has entertained. I'll post the second half when we have played it out.

Cheers all. :-)

 

Really? You're going to dock him XP for playing his character the way he thinks it should be played? That's kind of railroady.

[Uthanar]

Really? You're going to dock him XP for playing his character the way he thinks it should be played? That's kind of railroady.

 

I might think that it is part of the campaign buy in of playing super-heroes. 

 

However, that is something that should be stated if it is part of the buy in.  Everyone's game and expectations can be different, ensuring that there is common/understood ground between all parties is very helpful. 

[drunkonduty]

Really? You're going to dock him XP for playing his character the way he thinks it should be played? That's kind of railroady.

 

 

I give points for Role Playing: 1 per session for people who so much as try. PLAYERS decide who their characters are going to be. They take limitations to help model this. The guy has taken a code versus killing. HIS choice for which he got points to play with in character design. If he now decides he doesn't want to role play to the limitation HE chose, I don't give him role playing XP. Thanks for your input.

[Balabanto]

If he wants to overcome it, play by the rules. Those ego rolls are hard to make. Code vs. Killing is not "I might kill someone every time I fire off an energy blast." You have to consider the level of power of the character versus the awareness of his environment. If he paid for common, total, then he has to obey it. If he paid for common strong, then he gets an ego roll.

 

You're making a value judgement about what the complications mean, instead of giving your players some credit for being careful and considering that they might have ways to engage the bad guys without killing bystanders.

[drunkonduty]

This is the last I am going to say on the topic:

 

I'm the GM. Making value judgements on whether or not a player has earned Role Playing XP (or success in the adventure XP or any other XP that is based on non-specific/non-quantifiable outcomes) is my job. It's what I get to do.

 

The player's get to define what they want to role play. I don't decide for them (outside of some broad campaign limits which are reached in conjunction with the players when we set up a campaign.) I am also always very clear that taking a limitation means the player wants the limitation to be a game element with which they and the game world will interact. Be it Galactus as a Hunted or a Code Vs. Killing.

 

As far as I'm concerned someone playing a Superman Expy, with all that Boy-Scout stuff Supes has, who then decides to kick off a super battle with a villain who is trying to do everything all peaceful, while inside a crowded building, with no idea of who or what is on the other  side of any given wall, floor or ceiling is guilty of reckless endangerment at the very least. This is NOT good roleplaying in my book. Therefore I will NOT give XP for it.

[Balabanto]

Trust me when I say this results in a lot of resentment. I'm not saying "You can't penalize the character." What I am saying is that instead of railroading the character, which players hate,, reward him if he figures out a way to trash the villain without hurting anyone, and let the media take care of the disaster if he wrecks the building and hurts people. You have a lot of in-game tools that can be used to demonstrate how dumb something is. But if a player is consistently docked experience points because he thinks that the buy-in is different than yours, either A) He shouldn't have been playing in your game or You should have been more clear about the limitations of your world and how you rule each individual complication.

 

If the villain has ANY sort of criminal record whatsoever, denying the superhero the attempt to apprehend him while he's holding a stolen item is kind of absurd. Heck. He could get on the phone and call the police and have them surround the building, just to make sure this guy can't walk out. There's a LOT of things that this guy can do to bring this turkey to justice right now, or make it a lot harder for him. Unless the villain is "Explodo the Annihilation Man" whose powers regularly turn entire buildings into rubble along with all the inhabitants thereof, (In which case you probably need to re-think the scenario completely) then you should probably consider that a lot of people have a "three strikes" rule. If the guy has a history of doing this, eventually, they're going to take the risk of trashing the guy rather than allowing it to continue to go on.

 

This, by the way, is the problem with ripping off established material. No plan survives contact with the players. I did this once, too. I paid for it through the nose. I'm trying to prevent you from making the same mistake I did.