So, I ran five 4-hour sessions of Worlds in Perils at Gencon and had a lot of fun with it. Having 18 characters for players to choose from kept it from getting repetitive. Play went pretty smooth, and I have to say that it’s currently my first choice in super hero RPGs.
Having said that, there were a few issues we ran into that were awkward and could probably use some clarification or rewriting for the next edition.
The most glaring issue I ran into was powers that cause immobilization, like freezing, telekinesis, and paralysis attacks. Once a villain or a hero had the paralyzed condition, especially if it was assigned as a critical, it basically locked down the character/villain regardless of how many conditions they had left. I was able to work around it for the most part, but some villains, especially the brawler types, had no way to become unparalyzed on their own.
The second issue we had revolved around certain powers not syncing up very well with an attribute. For example: One character had the ability to bring drawings to life and it wasn’t always obvious what ability to use. For the most part I had the player use Maneuver. It wasn’t a terrible hinderance, but I felt like I was just making things up as I went.
Some other thing that was only issues due to the sessions being one-shots.
Getting Drive books open was nearly impossible. The first 3 times I ran the game, only one player got their drive book open. The last 2 session I had the players start with their Drive Books already opened and we just explained how that happened during pre-play. It made a big difference and multiple players were able to open their Drive Moves and use them to good effect. I’m sure this is not an issue in a campaign.
I do have a few questions unrelated to the sessions I ran, but I will save those for another post.
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Those are good questions. Mind control would be another effect that I would wonder how to represent without it being too powerful. Does the user need to get “Partially mind-controlled” as critical conditions a few times before being under mind control, with the idea being that it’s the equivalent, from the character’s perspective, of being unconscious? Immobilization could work the same way: first an arm is immobilized, then a leg, etc. That would make achieving immobilization of a character more difficult, while at the same time making it more impressive if a villain/hero manages to pull it off in one shot, so to speak.
Another question that came up was, if you roll a 10+ on a takedown, can you apply 3 minor conditions to the same target? And if so, can the EIC likewise apply 3 minor conditions as a single Hard Move?
I was allowing it.
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So powers that would instantly take enemies out of the action, like mind control or immobilization, I treat differently depending on the character and how they go about inflicting those kinds of Conditions.
First off, we can treat their “hold” over a character differently depending on the severity of the Condition, with a Critical Condition being something like complete control, and a Minor Condition something tenuous. No matter what Condition it is, it’s also going to depend where the power is on the character’s Powers Profile as well – if it’s Simple, Difficult, or whatever for them to do.
If it’s Immobilization in the form of Mind Control, depending on the severity, I’ll treat it like any other Condition – can the bad guy shrug it off? How powerful is he? Remember that literally any sentient being on the planet has will-power of some kind, so is going to be acting against it. For a Minor Condition I’ll tell them that they are struggling against it and your hold on them is waning – do you want to try and lock them down? It’s getting painful, you’re going to have to Defy Danger. If It’s a more severe Condition, then I’d probably transfer the Condition to something else – you see him start to struggle against your control, blood trickles down his nose and his actions are slow and deliberate. I had one player who put a Severe Condition on a Heavy Hitter (he was a lower level Prof X basically) and I had the Heavy Hitter recover from it, but he lost all memories of who he was and what he was doing there. He actually ended up joining them and helping them take down the Mastermind later.
Other times I said that ok, he’s immobilized in the physical world as you pull him into your psychic mindscape. What does it look like in there? And then I had them fight on that psychic plane, so his body was getting pummeled, but only for as long as the psychic character was willing to fight and take Conditions from him in the mindscape. That was cool as well.
I think it’s also totally fine to say that, yeah that worked really well this time – you lock them down and you guys totally win the day. But the Mastermind learns from that and takes steps to make them threats (the bad guys should always be a threat to the heroes) by equipping them with psychic dampeners the heroes have to take out for the psychic to get in first, or reduces psychic Conditions, etc. You can have Prof X in the game, but you need to make sure that you can still present challenges and have them go up against threatening stuff.
In comics though it’s always a strain for characters to do that stuff – I think you can threaten their hold over their enemies fairly easily. Make moves that try to disrupt their concentration, or that challenge the player with their strength of body or will, or have enemies that are also psychic and can fight back, etc.
As for Take Down and 3 Minor Conditions – I allow it but only when the Conditions are different – I make them work for it having them tell me what that looks like. You can’t put 3 Minor Conditions that are all “Beat Up” or something boring like that – the fiction still has to support the moves you make and vice versa. Likewise for the EIC – multiple Conditions are fine, as long as that makes sense in the fiction.
Oh, and thanks for taking the time to run so much Worlds in Peril and Gen Con Matthew Gwinn. It’s really awesome that the game had a presence even when I was all the way over here in Korea!
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Thanks for running that last minute pickup game for us. Had a great time playing and getting to talk to you afterwards.
You’re welcome. I had a blast running for everyone
For effects like Mind Control or Entangle, I’ve gone to Sieze Control, or, in some instances, Defy Danger. Take for example, a villain using mind control on a hero. Hero rolls Sieze Control, likely with Influence as the modifier. The holds: keep control of own mind for a hold, prevent lingering “grogginess” for a hold, put opponent at a disadvantage for a hold. Or, go with Defy Danger: 10+ means hero avoids being controlled, 6-7 means you avoid being controlled, but at an ugly cost (villain learns secret identity, villains turns to bystander instead, mental “feedback” causes a Freaky Friday mind-swap!!!)
Avoiding Paralysis or Entangle would prob by Defy Danger: on a 10+, you avoid the effect, or burst through the restraints, on a 6-9 you can get out, but at cost (break a piece of worn or held equipment, hurt yourself with a minor condition, tear your suit embarrassingly and end up with the image posted online, etc)
Yeah, Seize Control is a good way to go for straight up Mind Control rather than trying to do harm and such. Good stuff Matt Dickson 🙂
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Thanks for asking this question. I’m bringing WiP to Big Bad Con, I think starting with a Drive book open will be a good ad hoc rule for a con or one-shot.
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