Just wanted to share my personal experiences with the game so far, 'cause why not.
1. Metro Mayhem - on Friday!
Yeah, I got my physical copies... errr... maybe last week? Recently. So, now that I have proper maps and character sheets and everything, I'm GMing the starter set story this Friday, as a whole-day thing (starting around 11am, well into the evening), to my regular tabletop group. It's gotta be fun. They are not complete novices, as they have tested my own adventure (see below) with them first.
Should anybody has good tips based on personal experience, what they think they should have paid more attention to, did differently, or anything, please share!
2. Defenders of the West Gates - my own Adventure
I have been an organiser on a week-long rpg event (we call it a camp, but whatever) last month, and I had known I wanted to do something INVINCIBLE there. So, I put together an Adventure of my own. It went really well!
I used home-made custom PCs (because I wanted to practice character creation and understanding their powers well), they were Street Defender ranked. I made one character for each role. They are pretty fun.
The story was set in a San Francisco area, lacking a strong superhero presence, where some local heroes decide to team up and defend the region. GDA thinks it's worth testing how the new guys do, so Donalds gets in touch with them to provide provisional support and help them identify key targets for their operations.
My original plans were to start with a simple, disguised GDA training exercise against some Lizard League people, followed by a grand action scene at the San Francisco zoo, where a super-powered eco terrorist frees beasts and sets them against the crowds of visitors. Next, they could have followed the clues to the real mastermind in a tech-company offices (a little grey alien guy whose spaceship crash-landed on earth, and who was testing his mind-control powers on the zoo terrorist before breaking in to this company trying to steal some spare parts for his spaceship). I tentatively planned a final showdown (should the alien guy escape) in his own hidden base, under the Alcatraz.
I have tested the adventure once with my home crowd, and it went pretty well. I definitely did not have time for the Alcatraz scene, so the tech company showdown became the big finale. But still, managed to take it all, with some rules explanations and social scenes, and all. The Lizard League action got way longer than I planned, but decided not to remove it, as it is the one scene mostly reminescent of the Invincible universe. The zoo thing was fun, and the break-in into the tech company HQ was interesting, as the alien guy got control of the various secret security devices, but they could still follow the route where he had broken in before them. Good game.
Then we played the Adventure live in the camp, with a group of unknown players (they did not know each other, either). It was good, although one player really slowed things down, but it was fun. We were running the game way slower, the Lizard League scene took really long (plus a nice social scene involving the heroes discussing the moral implications of accidentally killing the King Lizard with a Double Damage stunt by the brawler hero). So, I decided to simplify things: I've dropped the idea of the little grey alien guy, instead decided that the zoo scene will be a plot by the Lizard League, who were also using mind control (the thugs of King Lizard were mentally controlled through chipped helmets), and who wanted a grand terrorist attack organised by manipulating the super eco guys. The team did a short investigation, trying to find the real target for the terrorsit attack, and they did the Zoo Scene pretty well. All in all, great experience.
I used HeroForge to create a lot of portraits for my home-made PCs, and some key NPCs (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mRUWES ... g7NmkB0x4/), which worked out pretty nice. Had nice character sheets printed, initiative cards, some tokens, character standees (like https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ip8ESz ... Tj5Hozuy_O). I also printed some character boards with the character portrait and name (facing the other players, so each of them remembers who is who) and space for the intiative cards. So, great games!
Thank you again for creating the game, it is a lot of pleasure for me!
