19th Level

I have a mixed record with superheroes. I love superhero comics, but my success rate with superhero campaigns is rather limited. That said, there will be some superhero entries on this list - games I have had the opportunity to play and enjoy. I had the opportunity to clock some time running an Icons campaign and definitely had a lot of fun. It's clearly a relative of Fate, though with a good dose of TSR's old Marvel Superheroes RPG in the mix as well. Icons does a good job of emulating what you see in a comic book. Characters can slam foes and send them flying. By using Determination, characters can activate Qualities (like Fate Aspects), avoid Trouble, and up their effort to retry failed tests. A character who dies is out of play for at least an issue, but after which may make a miraculous return based on an explanation come up with by the GM and player. No, this is not a gritty simulation of realism. Superman, Captain America, Phoenix, Bucky, Professor X, Doctor D...

“The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them. They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen.” - HP Lovecraft Ghostbusters continues to be a fun campaign for us - it works especially well given we've had a number of sessions where just 2 players plus me have been able to make it of late, with real world issues often causing us to be missing 3 players (our group is currently 5 plus me). Icons was a reasonably fun game, working better than most superhero games I've done but I don't think I've found my "one true superhero game" as yet. Earlier I reflected on BRP being a system that works rather well for me so I might at some point repurpose the campaign material I developed for Superworld from Chaosium (which apparently was the game that George RR Martin was playing that led to the creation of the Wild Cards series). I've been thinking about a setting that I can call my o...

Unearthly Adventure Comics #255 had a cover date of June of 1958 and appeared on newsstands in April of that year. It returned to the science fiction tropes of issue #251, giving the first hints as to the cosmos around Earth. Cast of Characters Robert Builder/The Atomizer - Reporter for the Port Henry Times-Herald, nuclear man granted powers by Trinity nuclear test. Susan Samiel - Widowed reporter for the Port Henry Times-Herald, sorceress. Specializes in binding magic. US-Polaris 1 - Robot space probe invented by Jack Parsons. Altered by aliens and now possessing telekinetic abilities.  Capsule Summary Note - several elements of this are inspired or taken from Fainting Goat Games' The Great Game  Icons supplement.  Robert, Susan, and US-Polaris 1 were setting up the Unwanted's headquarters, located in an underground bunker built by the US government several years ago as part of an abandoned plan for a military base. It had been purchased by ...

Unearthly Adventure Comics #254 had a cover date of May of 1958 and appeared on newsstands in March of that year. It featured the return of Thor to the comic for the first time since 1947's issue #125 featured him returning to the city in an attempt to defeat it with an army of dark elves. Cast of Characters Robert Builder/The Atomizer - Reporter for the Port Henry Times-Herald, nuclear man granted powers by Trinity nuclear test. Susan Samiel - Widowed reporter for the Port Henry Times-Herald, sorceress. Specializes in binding magic. US-Polaris 1 - Robot space probe invented by Jack Parsons. Altered by aliens and now possessing telekinetic abilities.  Y uyu - High Priest of Osiris in the 19th Dynasty. Granted immortality and superior abilities by a mystical Ankh, as well as the ability to summon minions. Capsule Summary Robert and Susan were covering the release of Mario Genco from Port Henry Federal Penitentiary. A gangster active in the 1920s and 30...

After my depressing last post, something a bit easier to digest. I don't do much in the way of pure advertising for a game, but I see that Icons is available at Bundle of Holding for the next two weeks (until June 28 if my math is right). I'm currently having a lot of fun running an Icons game, which makes it the first superhero RPG I've had last more than two sessions in ages. Ten percent of the money made (subtracting payment gateway fees) go to  The Trevor Project , a group providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention for LGBT youth. I'd encourage you to give directly if you can.

My group was discussing a bit about how to make Icons combat a bit more comic-like. It's not so much a matter of house rules as making full use of the rules as written. What I decided to do was a mock combat of one of the PCs vs an Icons-adapted Herzou Demon. US-Polaris 1 drawing by Stephen Pennsi Herzou image from Pathfinder wiki US-Polaris 1 is a space probe launched in 1957 that was "upgraded" by mysterious aliens. It has telekinetic abilities, albeit subject to burnout. The demon has a nasty bite, some great armor, and a chaos blast that does both damage and dazzles. They are atop an elevated train working its way through Port Henry. The demon wants to get into the front car to cause some sort of accident, US-Polaris 1 wants to stop it. Page 1 - Begin  Wanting to end the fight fast, US-Polaris 1 spends its only determination point with the quality "more power" to get an advantage - a power stunt allowing it to use its...

With a cover-date of March 1958 and on newsstands in January of 1958, Unearthly Adventure Comics #252 continued the tales of the Unwanted (as some of the less welcoming newspapers of Port Henry had come to describe them). As with their first tale it had a high science fiction concept, introducing concepts such as time travel and paradoxes to the title. Based on the adventure of the same name written by Steve Kenson. Some text taken from that adventure. Adapted for the Port Henry Campaign. Cast of Characters Robert Builder/The Atomizer - Reporter for the Port Henry Times-Herald, nuclear man granted powers by Trinity nuclear test. Susan Samiel - Widowed reporter for the Port Henry Times-Herald, sorceress. Specializes in binding magic. Heiro Silver Wave/The Cardiff Giant - immortal child of a Delaware Indians and Greek Titan. Able to grow in size and drain energy. US-Polaris 1 - Robot space probe invented by Jack Parsons. Altered by aliens and now possessing telekineti...

In the Icons games I've run thus far I've found myself stumbling a bit on task resolution levels of success and in adjudicating slams, stuns, and kill results. Additionally I've found we've not been doing much with Determination. While Determination isn't as important in Icons as Fate Points are in Fate, I'd still like to get some use out of them. With that in mind I've gone ahead and made a simple PDF capturing these essentials. I figured it might be handy for other folks so enjoy! Icons Screen

Beyond character generation, we've had a pair of sessions running Icons. How is it going so far? I'd say early indications are decent, but the jury is still out. Which, to be honest, is better than my normal track record with superhero gaming. For whatever reason, while I greatly enjoy the superhero genre, I have an incredibly difficult time getting a campaign going in it. As I've mentioned in the past, Icons is a close relative of the Fate RPG. For task resolution you roll a d6 plus some stat and subtract from that the opposition's ability plus a d6. To be honest, the task resolution system isn't doing a ton for me - I suspect because we're doing it on a virtual tabletop. I'm leaning pretty heavily towards using the optional rule of using the task resolution from the original version of Icons, which was Stat +1d6 - 1d6 vs. a difficulty. Mathematically it's the same but involves only a single roll.  While Fate has Aspects, Icons has Qual...

With a cover-date of February 1958 and on newsstands in December of 1957, Unearthly Adventure Comics #251 is regarded as that title's first Silver Age entry. Generally considered to have been written in reaction to the recent Sputnik space launch, it featured exciting new characters such as a robot space probe and an atomic man. As a reminder to the mystical tales it was best known for in the 30s and 40s it also featured a mystical sorceress and an immortal descendant of Greek Titans. Cast of Characters Robert Builder/The Atomizer - Reporter for the Port Henry Times-Herald, nuclear man granted powers by Trinity nuclear test. Susan Samiel - Widowed reporter for the Port Henry Times-Herald, sorceress. Specializes in binding magic. Heiro Silver Wave/The Cardiff Giant - immortal child of a Delaware Indians and Greek Titan. Able to grow in size and drain energy. US-Polaris 1 - Robot space probe invented by Jack Parsons. Altered by aliens and now possessing telekinetic...

We had our first game set in Port Henry last night - not a ton of details about the city played a large part as a lot of the game was taking Icons for a spin for the first time. However, our heroes did stop a vile communist villain from destroying the Port Henry Nuclear Power Plant from going kaboom and that's a good thing. Unearthly Adventure Comics #251 is in the record books. I have been getting a better idea of the city with an eye towards adventure opportunities. You can see the marked up map above, a bit different from the previous version. Some highlights: I pushed the map further east to add some additional islands. One is going to be home to one or more amusement parks, another will be a prison. There's probably room for a monument on one of the islands. I'm contemplating Port Henry being consolidated from multiple cities, a pattern often observed in cities. New York consolidated its five boroughs at the end of the 19th century, Chicago incorporated Hyde...

So in keeping with diving into Icons, let's go ahead and take random character generation out for a spin... Phase 1 - Origin Phase 1 has us rolling for our character's origin... So rolling 2d6 I got an 8, which means my character has a gimmick. Phase 2 - Attributes So for Phase 2 I roll 2d6 and look up on a table for my Prowess, Coordination, Strength, Intellect, Awareness and Willpower. Attribute Roll Adjective Lev el Prowess 10 Great 6 Coordination 6 Fair 4 Strength 6 Fair 4 Intellect 10 Great 6 Awareness 11 Incredible 7 Willpower 9 Great 6 Some extremely impressive mental stats and  pretty bad-ass fighter as well. I can swap any 2 attributes and I can also bump up any mental attribute by 2 but I'm going to hold off for now and see what else I get. It should be noted that my Awareness of 7 (Incredible) counts as a superpower when it comes to determining Determination (the Icons equivalent of Fate Points...

After a number of iterations. I've settled on a game engine for a superhero campaign. In the end I'll be using Steven Kenson's Icons.  For those unfamiliar with Icons, it is a bit of a hybrid of Fate and TSR's Marvel Superheroes RPGs. Let's take a look at a sample character in Icons, an adversary taken from the main rulebook. Fate uses Fate (or Fudge) dice, 4dF. The Fate dice are six sided dice, with 2 sides marked with a plus, 2 with a minus, and 2 blank. A 4dF roll gives a range of -4 to 4. Icons uses a similar mechanic - essentially it involves rolling d6-d6 to generate a range of -5 to 5. Technically the initiator rolls their stat plus a d6 and you subtract from this result an opponent stat or difficulty plus a d6.  Unlike Fate, Icons does not use stress tracks or consequences. It has stamina points which are pretty similar to hit points. For most tasks you roll a d6 plus your ability score or power. Abilities are pretty broad but can get bonu...