From a timing perspective, let's take this week to finish selecting characters and getting our datafiles in order. Given that it's a holiday week for most, I don't want to rush. My plan is to kick the game off with a roll of the dice to see how we start. The result may or may not wind up with us all being in the same place at the same time. I'm also going to randomly generate our rolling order for when we need to come up with something. In between rolls is where we can develop and move the story, and do all that wonderful roleplaying.

Assuming it's your turn to post (i.e. everyone's had a turn), it's encouraged that everything we do help to move the story forward. Go ahead and introduce new elements or complications. Feel free to do something that moves it closer to a conclusion. Don't be passive or purely reactive. We're all going to freeform this thing together.

Do we have a reference doc for Mythus, or whatever we're using for the random determination? I'm pretty sure I have an electronic copy somewhere

I'm leaning toward Shroud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_(comics)

I've read millions of comics but I'm not sure I've ever read a comic with him in it. He's just always looked cool. I can have the space to make him whatever I want to play. And he already has a Datafile (which I'll get ready once I break out my CW book).

Shroud teamed up with Spider-Woman I a few times, notably helping the Avengers & Dr. Strange save Jessica Drew from Morgan Le Fey. A few years later, he led The Night Shift as part of his con game on the criminal Underworld. Ironically, most of the Night Shift were Spider-Woman rogues. Double the irony when he dated the second Spider-Woman during CIVIL WAR.

He showed up in the first west coast avengers run. That was during his night shift days.

Hey all. I'll be playing Falcon (Sam Wilson). He's probably not considered D-list, being an Avenger and all, but IMO he's one of the more underrated members of that team. Looking forward to going on this adventure with everybody!

With this lineup, I’m leaning toward Firebird, but she doesn’t have any Milestones listed on her Civil War Datafile. My thoughts were Almost An Avenger and La Espirita. Any suggestions?

I could always go with M. or Moonstone, too. Dazzler would indeed be too weird with Shatterstar around, and we're Mutant-heavy. Satana would be fun, but TOO evil (unless Shroud recruited her for The Night Shift).

Interestingly, Falcon and Torpedo have worked together before. They were both part of the Defenders for a day and were a team with Valkyrie, Stingray, Prowler (and one or two others that I don't remember). Fought against Boomerang, Batroc, Shocker, Toad and a couple others.


I didn't have any Milestones, either, so I just made a couple. I'm not terribly familiar with Firebird, but you should be fine so long as you fit the character well.

I think Firebird is your best bet. You can pretty much play her however you want  and can take milestones to support that. I can help you with them if you need it. Those two you picked SOUND about right (without looking at the details)

And Firebird gives me an excuse to give Texas Twister a guest appearance! :-)

Of the others, I think Dazzler would be second best, especially if you went with 70s disco-dazzler.

Here's a link to the Motif Story Engine system on DriveThrurpg.com:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/p...-Roleplaying-Toolkit

Almost An Avenger
1 XP when you mention a time in the past when you aided the Avengers in a crisis or they helped you.
3 XP when you suffer an Emotional Stress over wanting to join a team or when you refuse to join during a Transition scene.
10 XP when you turn your back on your community to aid your team, or when you leave your team for your social work.

La Espirita
1 XP when you refer to your faith during a mission.
3 XP when you receive a premonition about a supernatural menace.
10 XP when you offer a hero timely aid during a crisis of faith, or abandon your team while experiencing a crisis of faith.


How do these sound? I would also need to make up Milestones for Dazzler, too. I also think that Firebird likely encountered Falcon sometime during the Busiek run on Avengers.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:25, Thu 26 Nov 2020.

Did you want to go with Shroud? Still considering?

Anyone else make a final selection that I've missed?

Also, hey, this is a game. If you find you're not grooving with your initial decision, we can always swap them out later!

Review my Milestones for Firebird, please.

The 1XP is fine. I recommend something along the lines of the following edits for the other two:
3XP the first time in a scene when you create an asset for an ally
10XP when you allow a teammate to be harmed for the sake of helping your community, or you allow your community to be harmed for the sake of helping a teammate.

I'm still not really satisfied with the 10XP one. 10XP should really be a major turning point for the character. The problem I have with the original one is that leaving the team for the community implies to me dropping out of hero work. In that case, the 10XP doesn't really matter. That makes it kind of a non-choice. The one I rewrote attempted to make it more of a choice, but it doesn't make it enough of a dramatic turning point to me.



1XP is fine again.
3XP is kind of hard to define/hit. I'd change it to when you first confront a supernatural menace.
I have the same reservations about the 10XP one here as the other 10XP one. The second choice of abandoning team is kind of turning away from heroing, in which case it's kind of a non-choice. You could adapt this one from Cyclops pretty easily:

 When you refuse help from allies in a desperate situation because the help would undermine your new philosophy or belief violate your faith, or when you abandon your new outlook your faith and you entreat your friends to help you make your life go back to the way it was. for help

Here's a datafile for dazzler that includes a couple of milestones. Those are decent and fitting for the character, at least what I remember of her from the Fall of the Mutants era when I was reading her.

IMO, her powerset is doing a bit much for what I remember her doing. I'd go with:

Light control d8
SFX: absorb sound
SFX: area attack
SFX: dazzling display
SFX: immunity
SFX: unlimited potential photonic blast
Limit: Mutant
Limit: Sound dependent

I also don't see her as an acrobatic expert or a cosmic expert (Cosmic expert I could kind of see just from all the stuff she met as an Xman). Combat expert I could see because superheroes fight so much, and she had danger room training. I probably give her Business expert to cover her entertainer stuff.

https://stuffershack.com/dazzler-marvel-datafile/

Yeah, I think I'm getting more firm on the Shroud -- and I can always switch him out later! I just have to break open the CW book. But still in for this.

I remember Ali absorbing “the sounds of the universe” with some instructions from Galactus that time he recruited her as a Herald. She’d absorbed Klaw, and also Blackbolt’s voice on different occasions, which could reflect that “Unlimited Potential”. Her encounters with Galactus, the Beyonder, Enchantress, and Roma certainly gave her experience with the Cosmic side of Marvel. What about Legal Expert d8? Her dad was a hotshot attorney, and she nearly attended Law School herself, but dropped out to become a singer.

I don't think there is a Legal specialty, and personally, I wouldn't call almost went to law school justification for it. She-hulk would have Legal expert, but probably only expert, and she's a practicing attorney in most stories.

I haven't ever seen cosmic-Dazzler. I would definitely call being a Herald a cosmic thing though and she'd need a huge bump to all her stats for that. I was thinking of "Fall of Mutants" Dazzler, back when she was dating Longshot, circa 1990. I would call absorbing Black Bolt (or more likely Banshee's) scream a power stunt, and/or cover it with her absorption sfx.

She refused the Herald job, but cosmic expertise comes from a character’s personal experience, not just power sets. Dazzler encountered several MU players WAY above her pay grade, so to speak. She’s also died and returned to life at least three times (Secret Wars II, UXM, Excalibur), so she has intensely personal experience with the Cosmic side of Marvel (and Life & Death).

I can’t remember a time when Firebird deliberately let another hero be harmed under those circumstances. Maybe Beyond, I’ll need to reread that miniseries. Covering 10XP is indeed a toughie.



I love the suggestion for 3XP! It covers her initial meeting with Master Pandemonium and her first vision. I see that 10XPs are a work in progress. :-p
This message was last edited by the player at 01:36, Thu 26 Nov 2020.

Anyone wanna take a look at my milestones? I've never actually had to make milestones for a character before.

The idea of milestones is they represent the progression of a character development arc. As you move up the scale, they get bigger, and less frequent. I try to make the 1XP be possible to hit multiple times in a scene. 3XP can be hit once per scene, and 10XP can be hit once. The 10XP one represents the culmination of the character development and represents a big choice that fundamentally alters the character.

You had:



A few questions to consider: is this about achieving public recognition for being a big hero, or is about meeting your own inner criteria? Actually, it would be great if you could bundle those two to together. That's actually a pretty compelling inner conflict - the desire to be *recognized* as a hero vs. the concept that a hero does it because it's the right thing to do, regardless of the recognition.

With those in mind, here's a few prototypes:

public recognition angle:
1XP when you mention your superheroing past
3XP when you score the finishing blow on a foe in a public setting and get mentioned in the media or when you score the finishing blow on a foe out of the public eye and realize it still feels good
10XP when you accept the city's public recognition that you're one of its famous heroes or turn that recognition down because you realize real heroes don't do it for the fame

Another thing to consider is whether you want to make it about comparing yourself to your own idol. e.g.: pick a guy like captain america or iron man and you'll be a hero when you see yourself able to do the same things as them.
1XP when you mention what your idol would do in a particular situation
3XP when you first encounter a foe that you realize your idol has battled before
10XP when you defeat a threat as large as any of your idol's nemeses and realize you have lived up to the idol's reputation, or you fail to defeat a large scale threat and decide you'll never live up to your idol's reputation





This isn't really set up as a character development arc. It seems more like a distinction. You're a hot head. That's who you are. You get pissed off easily and act impulsively. Sometimes that can be a good thing (use the distinction as a d8), sometimes it gets you into trouble (use it as a d4).

To make it a milestone (the way I like to do them), you need to build in some kind of development. Like you're trying to NOT be a hothead. In that case, I'd call it "Anger Management". Hulk might have a milestone along those lines you could emulate.

There's a milestone that I think Punisher has about being too violent. Maybe have a look at that one. Human Torch might have one about being too impulsive that you could pattern off of too.

I'm otherwise coming up short on this one. Some general thoughts:
Make the 1XP something you could hit multiple times in a scene. Something like when you use your hot head distinction (but I don't like that particular one). Maybe it could be when you realize you're acting impulsively and do it anyway. That's pretty close to what you have already.
3XP make it about the aftermath of a situation where you either acted impulsively and something bad happened or you acted cautiously and something good happened
10XP should be the culmination of achieving your anger management or giving it up and leaning into your impulsiveness.

Agreed, that makes more sense for a 10xp milestone that's potentially achievable and still keeps you in the game.

Datafile posted in my character description.

Just to put them out there, I'm interested in using the milestones on Falcon's sheet as they appear in the Civil War manual: