North Florida Avengers: the Dark Side of the Moon's Mightiest Heroes*

I have a Thursday night beer and boardgames group that occasionally dabbles in rpg games, and the irregular Marvel Super Heroes game I run has actually been more common than my supposedly bi-weekly Dungeon Crawl Classics game.

The group started as the Northeast Florida Avengers, based out of Jacksonville, the town we live in. Half the fun is letting the players role-play inconsequential stuff between themselves. They are based out of an office at a strip mall on a highway, they drive a Volvo to adventures and started off as generally ineffective. Over time they've developed their powers in play (thanks to the ingenious Power Stunt system and my lax enforcement of Karma expenditures for stunts), defeated the corrupt Tallahassee Avengers, and managed to overcome anything I've thrown at them.

They defeated a demigod from Atlantis and stole his magic trident.

They defeated hypnotized heroes and a giant robot controlled by The Hisser.

They defeated an alternate reality Sinister Six with the help of Thor.

They defeated the Hisser and the rest of the Tallahassee Avengers when they summoned the Dread Dormammu.

In the most recent session they travelled into space and explored a shattered asteroid prison, known to the resident alien on the team, Starbucks Jones from the Andromeda system. I used this amazing one page dungeon to great success. I've tried to tie sessions to particular characters. In the alternate reality where the Sinister Six had taken over Jacksonville, the team's powered armor hero The Shack was that reality's Spiderman. When Dormammu was summoned, frat-boy turned native american spirit champion The Seminole had visions of warning (though he barely understood them because he doesn't speak the language).

Humor has been a huge part of the game. Everybody is ridiculous. Rex Powercolt is a superstrong shapeshifting mutant that is dumb as a bag of hammers and tries to mate with alpacas. Dr Mighty Mirror buys billboards around town to promote himself (slogan: "You've heard of me"). El Capitan is the only conquistador who found the Fountain of Youth, but hundreds of years later he's an old man in sweats who forgets things. The Shack has slowly been upgrading the team vehicle, so now they have a volvo that can fly in space (and has heated seats).

They've come a long way even though we don't play that regularly. I'm very forgiving with power stunts to expand their powers and I let them raise ranks somewhat arbitrarily. Their name changes to reflect their growth as well. Recently they parked the remains of the interstellar prison asteroid on the lunar surface so they can call themselves the Dark Side of the Moon's Mightiest Heroes. Assuming Black Bolt of the Inhumans doesn't say otherwise. ;)

The Social Aspect of RPGs

I've been thinking a lot about different play styles for different groups of gamers. It seems really important that everybody is on the same page when it comes to playing style. When you think about it, there are lots of variations of playing outside of the actual rules of the system.

How much roleplaying do you do? Do you talk in character a lot? How much table-talk goes on? When a rule disagreement comes up, do you take as long as it needs to resolve it or hand-waive it to keep the pace moving? How much freedom do the players have to create their characters? Do you require backgrounds? How do you feel about PCs with silly names?

These and other issues can have a big impact on the game, but aren't addressed much. Most DM advice you see focuses on rules and setting development. That's great, but RPGs are a social activity and often that gets overlooked. Really, RPGs are pretty unique as a social game because it has a continuity in story and group. Its different from sitting down to play a board game with friends. Players get invested in the game, the campaign, their characters.

I'm going to try to focus on this aspect some more in the future. I know Robin D. Laws has some good stuff to say about really bringing the social, cooperative aspects of the game to the forefront (and he has some good advice in the DMG2).

Another good post I came across just now discusses possible DM traits based on the RIASEC career path model we all took a test on in high school. I think I fall firmly in the Artistic style. I definitely look at DMing as a creative outlet. I like designing campaign worlds and monsters. I can be disorganized and chaotic. I look at the rules as guidelines for creating an experience, and I'm willing to bend them.

Its easy to fall in the trap of building a campaign without taking the players and their characters into account. I'm trying to work on that, especially since I'm new to this group of players. I also assume that differences in play style will work themselves out easily, and finding that's not always the case. Its hard to discuss some of these things up front because there isn't a good vocabulary for a lot of it, and people have different standards based on prior experience. Also, gamers in general aren't the best at social skills. I'm an introvert and hate confrontation, I'd rather not confront issues head-on. But when things bother me they build up and eventually I lose my temper. People can get very defensive about how they view their game--just read any edition war thread online and you see how hostile people get.

Anyway, this is starting to ramble. One last thing: some podcast or blog (can't remember which one) talked about the unwritten social contract of gaming, and I think it needs to be written.

The DM promises to be fair and provide an entertaining game. The players promise to respect the DM's game and respect the other players right to enjoy the game.

Something like that. Keep it friendly.