House Rules

A quick list of a few house rules we've been using for our Marvel Heroic campaign:
Using Two Distinctions:

     - A player can use both a character distinction and a scene distinction if they both narratively work. One must be used as a d8 and the other as d4.

Scene Complications:

     - At the set up or anytime during the scene, the Watcher can spend a Doom Die to create a complication assigned to the scene equal to the spent Doom Die. This is an expansion on the CW suggested rule. 

Ascending/Descending Assets and Complications:

     - In certain circumstances, it does not make sense for an asset or complication to last until the end of the scene, though players would like it to last longer than one use (e.g. "Frozen Feet" complication, "Tranquilizer Dart" complication). Ascending Assets are rather rare and most likely occur with elemental control powers. Descending Assets and Complications only cost 1 PP or 1 Doom Die of equal value. To make them ascending, the player must spend 2 PP or 1 Doom Die of equal size to the original trait and a d6 from the Doom Pool.

For the past few months, I have started a Marvel Heroic campaign. After playing a session with a friend, I enjoyed enough to purchase the operations manual and Civil War event book. We started off with some custom characters using the Margaret Weiss' random char. generator: http://www.margaretweis.com/component/content/article/17-downloads/36-bonus-content-updated.

From there, we dived into the Civil War event book: 

This event book provides great scene ideas while also giving options as jumping off points for all original scenes. Here is one of our opening scenes to get the people of the United States thinking about registration. (Disclaimer: we decided not to worry about continuity too heavily).

Act I of Civil War: Furious Avengers

Action Scene: The Hulk's Night Out in NYC

The throw-down of this scene finds Bruce Banner stuck in traffic at Times Square. After a Broadway play with his new lab assistant, Dr. Ashley Rutgers, Banner's limo becomes the target of paid assassin Bullseye's M-16. Bullseye has been paid by a foreign terrorist group to force the Hulk into rampage ending at the UN building a few blocks away. In the intro of the scene, Bullseye targets the car, badly wounding Dr. Rutgers who is now bleeding out. Bullseye then jumps onto his motorcycle that was hidden behind a fake Times Square sidewalk show. Enter our heroes. Banner "Hulk's" out and gives chase, all the while carrying Dr. Rutgers King Kong style.

THE HULK

Solo D10     Buddy D8     Team D6     

Man or Monster?     Engine of Destruction     Green Goliath

GAMMA-CHARGED GENETICS

Enhanced Reflexes: D8      Godlike Durability: D12     Godlike Stamina: D12      Godlike Strength: D12

Leaping: D10     Mystic Sense: D6

SFX: Area Attack: Against multiple targets, for each additional target add a d6 and keep an additional effect die.

Rage-Fueled Might: Spend a die equal to your emotional stress to the doom pool to include your emotional stress in your next action. If your opponent includes your emotional stress in a reaction dice pool, step it up.

Healing Factor: Spend D8 to recover your physical stress and step back physical trauma.

Hulk Smash!: Against a single opponent, double a Gamma-Charged Genetics die. Remove the highest-rolling die and add another die to your total.

Strongest There Is: In a reaction against an opponent using a Strength power trait, spend D6 from the DoomPool or step up your emotional stress to add a die equal to the opponent's Strength to your dice pool.

Limit: Growing Dread: If a pool includes a GAMMA-CHARGED GENETICS power, both 1s and 2s on those dice count as opportunities, but only 1s are excluded from being used for totals or effect dice."

Puny Banner: When you recover all of your emotional stress and trauma, shudown Gamma-Charged Genetics and revert to Banner. Take emotional stress to recover Gamma-Charged Genetics.

     BRUCE BANNER
     Solo: D10    Buddy: D8     Team: D6
     Don't Make Me Angry     Sarcastic Genius
     Specialties: Cosmic Expert: D8     Covert Expert: D8     Medical Master: D10     Science Master: D10

     Tech Master: D10

Specialties: Combat Expert: D8     Menace Master: D10

The Run-Down

Broken down into five rounds, this scene should take 45-60 minutes to run. PC's are assumed to be somewhere near Times Square when they either see or hear the gunshots ring out. Perhaps they see it happen? The most effective tact for this scene is asking the player, "It's a fall Friday night in downtown NYC. Why is your hero there, and what is he/she doing?" Possible answers: patrolling in uniform; eating out in a nearby restaurant; working late in my lab/HQ when I hear the alert on my police scanner. Watcher gives the first action to whomever she wishes, and so begins Round 1.

Round 1: Bullseye will goad the Hulk into fighting him atop the UN HQ building. The first portion of the fight happens along 42nd st as Hulk gives chase (while carrying Ashley) with the Heroes in tow, following Bullseye on his motorcycle. During the next few rounds, Bullseye will attack Hulk with emotional stress. (As the Watcher, you don't have to roll Bullseye's attacks, but if you want the chance involved, go for it!). Our heroes on the other hand, if they want to talk Hulk down, would make Emotional attacks on Hulk's emotional stress to reduce it as per healing and recovery rules in the op's manual (include Hulk's Emo. stress die in your DP rolls against the recovery actions). Of course, they could always try their own methods instead.

Distinctions:

Frightened Pedestrians     Swarming Squad Cars     Low Hanging Trees and Bridge

When he arrives at the UN building, Bullseye will carry out his objective, luring the Hulk into destroying the UN HQ during a UN/International Celebrity banquet which is being held in a scenic ballroom with an NYC view on the 12th floor. Guests of the banquet include personalities like Bono, Ted Turner, and Tony Stark.

Round 2: Depending on what the heroes have done previously, Bullseye arrives at the UN building on this round. Approaching the building he revs up full speed, driving head on at its front wall, driving the motorcycle up the wall about 20ft until it stalls. Then lifting off the motorcycle, he runs a few steps up and begins to climb up the outer wall towards the top. Close behind, the Hulk leaps into an intersection, getting hit by a car. He takes a moment to smack the car off of him, dropping Dr. Rutgers into the intersection, and heads back towards Bullseye bounding off to the UN building as well. At any point in the fight, the Hulk may retaliate against attacking heroes, but Bullseye must make sure the Green monster does not remain distracted for long--whatever it takes.

Round 3: On the Watcher's turn, Bullseye pulls himself up onto the roof, only to be confronted by the Hulk who has jumped onto the roof. Shooting open the roof access door, Bullseye taunts the Hulk into following him down into the UN building. The Hulk Jumps up into the air crashing down into the ballroom where Bullseye crashes through a door a moment later. There Bullseye shoots and fights the Hulk into an even greater rage.

New Distinctions:

Black-Tie Diplomats     Dining Room Tables     Chandelier Lighting

Round 4: By now all our heroes should have caught up and have started bringing the pain. If the Hulk has already been dispatched, Bullseye might try to take a hostage or set off a previously planted device within the building infrastructure--giving the heroes time to save the UN building, of course.

Round 5: Tony Stark has become conspicuously absent, and if the heroes have not yet finished off either foe, Iron Man shows up (CW Event Book p188) and helps the heroes clean up.

Next time, we lead into another build-up action scene in Washington D.C...