Awesome Campaign - Experimental (ACE)

[Zarn]

After hashing out the tone and style of the setting, the next step was hashing out what system to use. Though Esoterrorists was interesting in the sense of mining it for background and Mutants and Masterminds was certainly flexible enough, it was decided to go for Wild Talents 2nd edition.

www.arcdream.com/wildtalents/home.php

Home Organization

van Zandt Enterprises is a part of a chain of (fairly shady) antiques dealers. Working in Acquisitions, the characters meet on a semi-steady basis with Nicholas van Zandt. Nicholas van Zandt is the grandson of the founder of the firm.

So far, Nicholas van Zandt has given a couple of leads to various interesting episodes, and offers the usual 50% of the take while covering food, transport and lodging.

Building a victim Character

• The point base for building a character is 200 points.
  
• Squishy dice are two levels.
  
• Hyperstats or hyperskills may not be purchased unless in line with previous character concept. There will be a (superhuman) side effect, in that it is obvious when a hyperstat or a hyperskill is employed.
  

Session recaps:

I will not be posting recaps of the sessions. This is because anything except the bare bones (posted above) will be filtered through the characters (and hence, the players) and I am loathe to introduce a bias to that process. Also, I'm lazy. Furthermore, Carthage should be destroyed. It already was? Well, two out of three ain't bad.

[Zarn]

Current campaign worksheet, similar to the one in the back of the book.

Setting:

Title: Awesome Campaign - Experimental (ACE)
Summary:
Mostly contemporary real-world, where the normalcy is but a veil on top of the strange stuff going on. X-files, Fringe, Warehouse 13 is similar for tv-series, Planetary and Authority similar for comics, with Dresden Files and so on are somewhat similar for books. Urban "fantasy". The existence of Talents is not known to the world at large.
Location: Global, with a 'home base' of sorts in Brussels.
Date: 2008, May 3rd.

• Red (Historical Inertia)
  
• Gold (Talent Inertia)
  
• Blue (Lovely Pointlessness)
  
• Black (Moral Clarity)
  

Number of Talents:
Distribution of Talents:
Point Range: 200
Role of Talents:

Rules Variants and House Rules

Dice rules: Two levels of squishy dice
Combat rules:
Superpower rules:
Willpower rules:
Other rules:

• Use of Hyperskill and Hyperstat is always obviously superhuman. Hyperskill and Hyperstat may not be purchased unless in line with previously approved character concept.
  
• One Permission is required: Power Theme.
  
• Wealth is a skill (p 48). 2 points per die, 4 points per Hard, 8 points per Wiggle. Characters have money without Wealth, but Wealth is used to simulate throwing wads of cash at a problem.
  

Characters

Who are the player characters? What is their role in the world?

How and why do the wind up working together?

Do they have any overall goals or motivations as a group?

What obstacles keep them from achieving their goals?

How do they relate to the non-Talent world?

How do they relate to other Talents?

Archetypes allowed, disallowed or required?

Superpowers allowed, disallowed or required?

[Zarn]

I'm sorry, I need to cancel the game tomorrow. There's something work related I really should be a part of. I'm hoping we can reschedule to Wednesday or something. I'll keep you posted.

[Zarn]

Well, we'll be trying for tomorrow, Wednesday December 2nd. We'll be starting at about 17:00 hours. I'll be at Imladris about 45 minutes before that, and check whether anyone wants to join me for dinner.

[Zarn]

That completes the first adventure by our lovely band of misfits. I'd say that it was a 'marginal' win, in the sense that there were objectives that could have been fulfilled more thoroughly, but a good show nevertheless, and some insights in how this works along the way. Getting the Daoist senior's help was in particular a very good show.

[Kohr-Ah]

Dec 14, 2009 7:05:24 GMT -5 Zarn said:

That completes the first adventure by our lovely band of misfits. I'd say that it was a 'marginal' win, in the sense that there were objectives that could have been fulfilled more thoroughly, but a good show nevertheless, and some insights in how this works along the way. Getting the Daoist senior's help was in particular a very good show.

From my perspective it seemed like a successful experiment, and I think both the system and setting are interesting enough to warrant further exploration. Consider me signed up for another season if you're planning to run more of this.