I agree with everything Counterforce just said.  Rewards would be a cool idea, but I'm not wanting this character to progress too quickly.  I need time to develop him in a way that makes sense to me as a writer.  The true joy is just to get to play and write in this game :)

I will give some thought as to what sort of reward might work best with this medium and game.  There's got to be something small but meaningful you could give.

Maybe a side story? A plot point relevant to your character turns up?

All good thoughts, I will address in more detail when I can.

In the meantime, here is a quick question I could really use the answer to.

Do you want to be the first class of your new school or the second?

Having a class above you gives you more adult students to envy, respect and be rivals to.  That said, you only get on chance to be the first class ever.

I am all for us being the first class of this new school format. The testing grounds, so to speak.

I'd been considering something like this for a Fate Condensed game I'm running, based on a reddit post I found at:
https://www.reddit.com/r/FATEr...t_to_encourage_them/

But one of the key things is that incentive should be opened up a bit... I mean... instead of rewarding me for doing the mechanical things you want a player to do, you should reward everyone...  maybe give everyone one free marked slot of Potential?  That way I'm not just doing it for me.

I think I'd prefer to be the first class. After all, if this game lasts long enough, we can always do the second class later. :)

I'm easy either way.  Very vague preference for first class.

I completely agree with you Ricochet.  First class sounds like the most fun :-)

Question 1 (Sponsor):

Given the varied backgrounds of the characters present I think #6 makes the most sense, perhaps some sort of joint project to reduce the tensions and build trust between the various groups/factions. It also leaves room for some interesting interactions later on when those sponsor groups don't see eye-to-eye on matters.


Question 2 (Location):

Since I enjoy roleplaying the outsider's view, given my character's european background, either #1 or #2 would be fine.

A, because I think proximity to urban centers will bring some nice roleplaying opportunites down the road.


Question 3 (First or Second Class):

I'm fine with either. Second class would mean more students, thus more interaction potential, but First Class means everything's still new, so the kinks in the system haven't yet been dealt with (or even found). Also a nice perspective.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:00, Sun 16 May 2021.

One more thought occurs to me regarding classes: if the main game will begin a year after we form our team(s), then there will probably be a junior class below us either way. Might even be an interesting source of plot hooks... one that would be more prominent if we are the first class, I think.

+1.  The players and the characters get to blaze the trail as we all learn the ropes together... :)

Exactly Resonance.  And Counterforce's point is an excellent one too.  We may be paving the way for the junior class that comes after us as well.  Lots of fun and potential for future interactions.

I'm in agreement that we should be the first class.

Reposted from the Bullpen thread...




This message was last edited by the GM at 07:30, Sat 22 May 2021.

More copied from the Bullpen:



Let me know what you would like changed.


This message was last edited by the GM at 08:00, Sun 23 May 2021.

The network of Doors that lead to the Infinite Avengers Mansion are many but the PC heroes know of these.

Pandemonium Door:  The door that leads to the Isle of Demons, the sovereign land owned by the Avengers.  The school presence there is limited to an office and emergency shelter.
Excelsior Door:  This door leads to the Excelsior Campus, the only public campus known to the public.  The Excelsior Campus is in NYC (or at least a suburb) and students attend in their superheroic IDs.   There is not much to this campus, it is more of an interface between the young heroes and the ever-fickle public.

Stanley Door:  The Stanley School for Special Students is a small, private school in the fictional town of Everton, on the coast of Long Island.  This is the primary location for the game so far. The name is meant to evoke the similarly-named Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.  And most campuses in Marvel are named after their founder;  Stanley is the fictional stand-in for Stan Lee. :-)

The 'Hellbent' Gate:  The Hellbent gate is now locked.  It originally linked to the Massachusetts Academy, now revealed as an arm of the Hellfire Club over the past year.  The Hellfire Club's existence and betrayal occurs between the current freeform flashback and the true game start using the Masks rules.  The Hellfire Club and their young students, the Hellions, are now one of the main rivals, if not actual nemesi, of the PC heroes.

The Angels Gate:  This is the gate for the 'West Coast' students, based in Los Angeles.  This is the second largest school in the US, after the Stanley School.  The Stanley and LA students have a healthy rivalry but also have each other's back when the chips are down.

I will get to the other US schools (if any) and the international campuses in a bit.   But we have enough to get on with for now.

I believe at this point everyone has a firm enough idea as to what your character's playbook will be.  If you haven't made up your mind about the playbook or want to change a playbook you had at least mentioned before, let me know.

Otherwise, one determinant of team breakdowns will be the maximum number of duplicated playbooks.  Which, if memory serves, is currently three instances of the Brain playbook.  As playbooks shouldn't be duplicated within a team, this means three teams of roughly (again, IIRC) five team members each.  And that is probably the best team size anyway.

So here is the method I suggest:

One Brain for each team.
For doubled playbooks, a Double in each team until the 'supply' runs out.
Should there be more than one kind of Double, the second kind of Double will skip the second team and be assigned to the third team (allowing the unique combos of First & Second kind of Double in one team, First Double alone in the second  and Second Double alone in the third team)
After that, the singled playbooks will fill the teams, in alphabetical order of username, until the first team is filled up.  Then the second team, then the third and last team.  I will try to divide the teams as evenly as possible but the third team will likely be the 'runt' of the litter, last but in no OTHER way least.

If the above seems confusing, don't worry about it.  It is my math problem and is probably easier shown than explained.  Also, once the teams are set by me, players can swap teams if they can find another player to swap with them.  Again, duplicated playbooks can't be on the same team but we should be able to work it.

In our game world, the team division works like this.

Each team has a dual identity, their 'secret ID' is one of the houses of the Stanley school, their super ID is their super team (which they can name as they wish).  Every team member is assigned to a house, even if they don't actually live on campus.  The houses are actually named after various real-world luminaries of Marvel Comics History, although they have some game backstory as (like most universities) dull bureaucrats who ran the school in some way.

Provisional Houses:
Goodman House (Team 1):  This house is named after Martin Goodman, the original publisher of Timely Comics, the precursor to Marvel Comics.
Kirby House (Team 2):  This house is named after Jack Kirby, the main artist that helped shaped Marvel in the early years.  The team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were unbeatable until their later feud.
Ditko House (Team 3):  This house is named after Steve Ditko, that other artist who helped make early Marvel, very wonderfully trippy.  He set the mood for Doctor Strange.
Thomas House (Team 4):  This house is named after Roy Thomas, one of Marvel's early editors.  This house is possibly for the NPC 'Tween' team.

There may be other houses, on the Stanley campus or others.

Let me know what you think...

People have been working out background connections with other characters.  Players have been asked look at sponsors and hinted at picing one - it seems like we have no actual choice in who our teammates are - so all the connections will need to be re-done and I'm not sure what the current RP directive is for.

Since we have one user playing two characters, alphabetical by username could be an issue.

Yeah, I'm with Gwen on this. We have one team already fully formed, so I say let us works the teams out ourselves.

I suggest: having each brain "lead" a group, (just for team-picking purposes) and have players pick which one they want to go in, then if needed, re-balance until there's an even number.

The only other overlap is two transformed, right?  I don't know what playbook Citizen V is.  Steel Ninja is listed as Brain in the grid but might be switching to Outsider, which reduces our overlap more - and would mean Steel Ninja could group with one of the Brains.  Might be fun to see them with Octopus.

I think we have three evenly sized groups of 5 if we don't count the GMPC & the player that hasn't posted in two weeks.

The Big W strikes me as a very supportive GM with lots of stuff to keep track of, both here and in RL.

I suspect that he will quite likely be open to suggestions.

I also suspect that duplicate playbooks on the same team probably won't be encouraged.

Possibilities I have seen mentioned include creating teams based upon posting frequency, ages, niches, and relationships.

I further suspect that folks may well be taking such things into account when thinking about working out preferred teams themselves.

Therefore, since our Big W is a busy guy, let us suppose that we wanted to make friendly suggestions for team creation.

What teams would you all like to form, assuming that the Big W was persuadable?

Fire away!  :)

for a first pass, if people want to suggest their preferred team here.  I could make some guesses but I'd rather people spoke up.

It's totally fine if these end up lopsided at the beginning - we should make revisions anyway.


Unknown: Citizen V, She-hulk, Arc, Midnight, Stone Cold, Skorpio

If people post their preferences of team or teammate here or in OOC I'll try to update this.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:02, Fri 28 May 2021.

Based on what we discussed in PMs, Counterforce can make a team with Max, Ricochet, Leviathan and Jubilee.

Based upon IC interactions, Gateway and Resonance seem to be decent candidates for teammates...  :)