Author: AJ

Gamist: 14%, Simulationist: 29%, Narrativist: 57%. Ah, the irony.

A Hopeful Ending and a New Beginning

We played our final session of The 23rd Letter play test this week, and wrapped up the story of Poppy and her baby.

After recuperating overnight (under Joy’s watchful care, and a handy saline drip), Poppy recovered enough from her ordeal to tell the group about what had happened, which really just confirmed all their suspicions from the previous sessions.

She was a telepath, recruited to be part of The Third Project, a government organisation that worked to keep the public safe from Espers. At first she had thought she was doing the right thing and using her talent for the good of her fellow countryment, but she came to realise that the folks running the Project (or at least her field office in Topeka) were actually working against the best interests of Espers in general, and about a year prior she had started working with a couple of Cells in the Network to supply them with Psilence so that they could avoid capture or detection by the Project.

While pregnant, Poppy realised that the double agent thing really was too much for her to handle along with a baby, so she decided to get out of the Project altogether and slip away into the Network. Her last act was to grab the entire stockpile of Psilence that her office had and bring it with her, but before she could get away, she went into labour. She had the baby, whose name is Anna, but the missing Psilence was noticed and questions started being asked. As soon as she was able, she slipped away. Leaving the Psilence where she’d stashed it, she traveled to St Louis where she was supposed to drop the drugs. Instead, she tried to meet up with the Cell, but the Third Project tracked her down and snatched her. She was able to hide the baby, knowing that help was on the way (and wanting to keep her obviously psychic child out of government hands).

The media was filled with accounts of the ‘Terror Attack’ on the highway from the day before, and Jenny had a meeting arranged for her with Internal Affairs the next week. However, at this point I asked the group if we could go into Downtime to test out those rules, which we did. I’ll handle the open plot points narratively at the start of next session (i.e. what happened in the Internal Affairs meeting, any developments on the location of Clark, etc.)

During Downtime, everyone has the opportunity to spend the Experiences they earned during play, adding new Qualities or Talents, or improving existing Skills, Talents or Attributes. Each member of the group got 12 XP (2 for each session, which is the middle of the road for our guidelines of 1-3). This led to some interesting discussions and changes in how we structure both XP and character creation, so I’m really glad we got a chance to do this part. For example, we discovered that the two very powerful Espers in the group had no real way to improve their Talents, which felt a little disappointing. Both players said they’d rather start a bit less powerful and become better through play. We also discovered that the costs of things was off, so glad we got to address that too.

The Cell used their downtime to shore up their Hideout, choosing to make it large enough for four people to rest in (it starts only large enough for 1, but luckily Bryce has the Builder Quality, allowing him to make an extra upgrade during Downtime). Stress and Heat were reduced for the group (another mechanics discussion and improvement resulted from that!).

A big thank you to my five players and their characters:

  • Stefan – the precog hippie and Cell namesake Richard Moonglow
  • Ellie – the nurse (and Cell mom) Joy Mary Smith
  • Fintan – the pyrokinetic cook/builder Bryce Collins
  • Eve – the mind-reading ‘medium’ and con-artist Vonbella Alexander
  • Sarah – the overworked and overlooked Detective Jenny Blake

The Moonglow Cell will continue to function after a couple weeks break (giving me time to write some more story hooks!) and now has a channel on our Discord to help track actual play.

FASERIP generator

Back when I was running the Watchtower New England game using Marvel Super Heroes’ FASERIP system, I wrote a simple character generator. I found it recently, and thought I’d pop into GitHub in case other folks might find it useful. It generates random characters using the Ultimate Powers rules, which can then be tailored using the rules found in those books. I’ve found that generating a few characters helped inspire some neat NPC and PC ideas, without having to do a ton of dice-rolling and table look up.

Hope you get some use out of it! Here’s a character it just spat out. This guy has some great stats, but a pretty big weakness in Intuition. I’m thinking he’s kinda gullible? As agile as Spiderman, and good at fighting, and smart! He can turn himself into an animal and has danger sense … seems like a fun start 🙂

Form: Mutant

Fighting: RM
Agility: AM
Strength: EX
Endurance: TY
Reason: IN
Intuition: FE
Psyche: IN

Animal Transformation S4: GD
Elemental Conversion* MCo4: EX
Danger Sense M8: EX

FASERIP generator

Venting Pyrokinetics

Our fourth and fifth in-game sessions of the 23rd Letter saw quite a lot of action! I’ll give a brief summary, and then talk about some of the rules that I think were interesting. I’ll put a * and a number on some rules I’m going to talk about at the end.

Everybody woke up in the morning after not having slept very well, and discovered that they had had similar dreams … after some discussion, they determined that maybe the baby’s mother was being held captive somewhere near the Gateway Arch and a McDonalds. Richard (the precog) had an inkling that something big was going to go down, and made a few preparations[*1]. Meanwhile, Vonbella (the telepath) was able to remotely connect to Poppy, the woman in their dreams and the presumed mother of the baby, and find out that she was going to be moved out of the city later today!

Richard (backed up by Jenny the detective) met up with Royal, the Cell’s command and control contact, and got some info that helped fill in some gaps: Poppy had been a double agent within a government Project, secretly working for the Network to help supply them with Psilence (a necessary drug to help reduce Stress). The group pieced together that she’d been compromised and had tried to escape but had been caught, succeeding only in smuggling out her baby (and hiding a stash of Psilence somewhere also). Just as Richard finished up chatting with Royal, Vonbella got an urgent telepathic message from Poppy – she was being moved now!

Luckily, it turned out that she was halfway between Richard/Jenny in one car and Vonbella/Bryce (the pyrokinetic) in another[*1]. Joy (the nurse) had decided to take the baby back to her apartment … thankfully! Both pairs got into their car and tried to use Poppy’s weak telepathic messages to help triangulate her position. They eventually caught up to the SUV that the agents were transporting her in, but by this stage they were all on the freeway and heading out of the city.

Bryce used his powers[*2] to burn out one of the tyres on the government vehicle, causing it pull over onto the shoulder. He and Vonbella pulled in front, and Jenny/Richard pulled in behind. Everyone put on on their clown masks and got ready to for action (well, Vonbella kinda cowered in her seat, but she was there!) (end of session 4)

Two armed and armoured soldiers got out of the vehicle and drew a bead on each car, while a third agent tried to radio for help. Bryce and Vonbella, despite their antagonism, worked together for the greater good by creating a Gestalt[*3] and using Vonbella’s telepathic powers to see through Poppy’s eyes and allow Bryce to target his pyrokinesis to superheat the soldiers’ weapons and the radio, causing everything to be dropped (although bullets were sprayed wildly). The attempt was successful, but given all the Stress that Bryce and Vonbella had, it caused Bryce to Vent[*4] creating a massive pyrokinetic explosion which destroyed the car they were sitting in and sent fiery debris flying across the freeway. Several cars crashed into each other on the other shoulder, and one went spinning wildly out of control and did several flips, killing everyone inside thankfully nobody was killed.[*1] The explosion was enough to kill one of the soldiers, and set a second one on fire. Jenny quickly finished off that one and the third with some skilled shooting, while Richard hustled up to the SUV and helped the heavily sedated Poppy back to Jenny’s car.

Bryce and Vonbella left their “car” (by this stage it was just the two seats they were sitting in, and a large, blackened crater) and hustled into Jenny’s car. They took off before backup could arrive, and found a safe spot to wait for Joy to come pick them up in her minivan–Richard took Jenny’s car and ditched it in the Missisippi, while Jenny reported it stolen, in an attempt to cover their trail.[*5] They got back to Joy’s apartment, fixed Poppy up with a saline drip to help her recover in bed, and that’s where we wrapped session 5.

OK, let’s look at the rules that helped this story move along.

1. Richard is a precog, which means when he wants to see the future, he makes a roll with his ability and each success gives him one ‘preparation’–a secret thing his character has done ahead of time, but that he as a player doesn’t have to think of until the action is actually happening. Richard’s player rolled 3 successes. Where did everyone get clown masks? That was one of his preparations. How come the bad guys were halfway between Richard/Jenny and Bryce/Vonbella? A second preparation (which in Richard’s case is part of his ‘things just happen the way they are meant to’ view on life). The third preparation went on saving the lives of the folks in the car that flipped: Richard had seen it coming and had called the cops to report *that* car stolen earlier that morning. Those poor folks had been hassled by the cops and never made it onto the freeway, but hey–at least they were still alive!

2. Bryce is a Major Pyrokinetic, with 2d12 in his Psychic Talent. However, he and Vonbella were both Stressed (mostly caused by each other!) – Bryce had 2 Stress and Vonbella had 3, so when he rolled to blow out the tyre, he had to roll 2d12 + 5d6 – 1d6 for each Stress in their shared pool: all psychics share their Stress pool when in close proximity. Luckly, he rolled 1 success and 1 bane, which was enough to blow out the tyre, but it also gave him another Stress (rolling a bane on a Psychic talent roll adds a Stress dice), bringing his total Stress up to 3 (and the shared pool to 6!)

3. Now Bryce and Vonbella are working together, they create a Gestalt – a unified effort to use both their powers in a single, combined psychic action. In this case, using Vonbella’s telepathy to view through Poppy’s eyes so that Bryce could easily see the guns and radio and superheat them. Vonbella is a Minor telepath with only 1d6 in her ability, but because the Stress pool is so high, she gets to roll an additional 6d6 and add those on. Each one has the chance of giving her a success, but of course, each one also has the chance of a bane … Bryce also has to roll 6d6 + his 2d12. After both players had rolled, they had 3 successes. They needed 1 success to heat 1 gun, and an extra 2 successes for the extra two targets, so they just made it! However, Bryce had rolled 3 banes, and rolling 2 banes (snake eyes!) on a Psychic Talent roll means that the Esper Vents!

4. What’s a Vent, you ask? Well, it’s those times when psychic stress builds up too much and explodes out of the Esper in a wild and uncontrolled fashion, wreaking havoc on the people and environment close by (but leaving the Esper intact, and now drained of Stress). Sometimes this is pure mental energy, and people around them might get nosebleeds, aneurysms, heart attacks … in Bryce’s case, it was a massive pyrokinetic explosion. To work out the size of the Vent, he adds on the additional Stress he just rolled (3) to the current Stress pool (6) and adding in his psychic power dice (2d12). So, he uses 2d12 + 9d6 to determine much damage is done – every success on that roll will do 1 damage to everything in close proximity! Bear in mind, 3 damage is usually enough to cause a critical injury, so this was a HUGE explosion! Luckily, because she was part of the Gestalt that resulted in the Vent, Vonbella is also unaffected by the explosion. However, the car was more or less vaporized, and the explosion rolled out in a huge fireball … one dice drops for every zone (10m), so there effects felt up to 100m away!

5. The Network Cell tracks a score called Heat, which is a measure of how much external observation and pressure there is on the group and their activities. The group’s Heat score went up by three over the course of this session, 1 for each crime they committed (the freeway shootings/explosion and then ditching a car in the river), and an extra 1 for the extravagance of the explosion–it was certainly newsworthy! The higher the Heat score, the more likely there will be some kind of external interference, in the form of police, feds or worse …

Anyway, we have one last session to do for our playtest, where we will wrap up the story line of Poppy and Baby Blue, and then have some Downtime–more on that in my next write up.

A precog walks into a bar …

Now a few weeks into the first play-test of the 3rd edition of The 23rd Letter, I wanted to post some updates on what’s been going in the game, and a few reflections as both Referee and game designer. First off, let’s talk about the party, which in this edition is by default a Cell in the Network. If you’ve never player T23L before, the Network is the psychic underground, a loosely connected group of people (some psychic, some not) who help each other to survive, and to keep off the government radar. This game is set in St. Louis, Missouri, chosen because it’s a big city, in the middle of the USA, which none of my players have been to.

  • Richard Moonglow – in his mid-50s, Richard lives out of his old VW camper van and would’ve been a hippie if he hadn’t been born two decades late. He is a powerful Precog, but in his worldview “everything just happens the way it was meant to, man.”
  • Clark (NPC) – Clark is a Cryokinetic, an unusual psychic power which allows him to reduce the temperature of things around him. However, just before the start of our game, Clark went missing.
  • Joy Mary Smith – Joy is a nurse in her late 30s working at a local hospital. She first encountered psychics while treating Clark after he was in a car accident–when he regained consciousness, he froze his saline drip! She’s been helping the Cell ever since.
  • Detective Jenny Blake – Jenny works for St. Louis Metro PD, in their Domestic department. She has a chip on her shoulder about being overlooked for promotion or better roles, and helps the Cell partially out of spite for her job. She and Joy are close friends, having met because they are neighbors in their apartment block.
  • Vonbella Alexander – Young, blonde and classically beautiful, Vonbella is a medium, talking to the spirits of the dead to help her clients. In reality, she’s a minor Telepath, who reads her clients’ minds and makes up stories to fleece them of their hard-earned cash. Hey, everyone’s gotta make a living, right?
  • Bryce – Bryce is Clark’s brother and is traveling to St. Louis to find him. He works as a chef, mostly to help cover up the fact that he is Pyrokinetic.

Each player decided for themselves whether to be a psychic (or Esper, as they’re also known) without really talking to anyone else, so we ended up with an interesting mix of three Espers, and two regular folks (or Nulls, as they are sometimes called). We’ve had three sessions after character creation. Our first two sessions were played without Bryce, because his player was unavailable, and Bryce just arrived in the third session.

Session 1

Richard receives a message from Royal, one of his Network contacts. The group meets up at their favourite Waffle House to discuss the message. Clark’s brother is coming to town, which is when the group realizes that they haven’t seen Clark in over a week. The message also instructs the group to collect a package from a drop location. “Blue Monday, 3C, location Bravo.”

Jenny stops by the motel where Clark has been staying, only to discover he checked out a week ago. Some questioning of the staff led her to the lost and found box, where she discovered his copy of Call of Duty for the Xbox, which had been left behind under the bed. Why wouldn’t he pack that?

The group scopes out location Bravo: it’s a warehouse out in the suburbs, and it’s closed (it’s a Sunday). They decide they’ll come back when it’s open, because the message is a little on the cryptic side. Maybe they can just go in and ask for Blue Monday?

Notes: there wasn’t much in the way of psychic activity in this session, although Richard did attempt (and failed) to see if his precognition was telling him anything about Clark or location Bravo. This is when we realized (as game designers) that even though Richard was a Major precog, he was not any likelier to succeed than a Minor precog on the dice roll, and we decided that Major powers should get to roll two dice for their powers rather than just one. This is now so fundamental to how the game works that it was definitely a good call!

Session 2

Richard received a precognitive vision in his dreams, and decided that the right time to visit location Bravo was actually later that night. (As the Referee, having both a Telepath and Precog in the group gives me a lot of opportunity to help shape the story without being railroading too much. I realised I hadn’t given enough info in my cryptic message to be truly useful, so I added this bit in).

The group arrived at the location only to discover that someone had been there before them. Tire tracks in the ground were the first hint, and then the door to the warehouse being broken open was the dead giveaway! They went inside all the same, and in location 3C in the warehouse, in one of shipping company’s cardboard boxes, was a baby, wrapped in a blanket. A hastily scribbled note in the box read “Blue Monday.” The group decided they should smash up the warehouse a bit, figuring that vandalism would be less likely to draw attention than a break-in where nothing was taken. (The Cell received 1 Heat for this, bringing them to 6, enough for the Referee to roll at the end of the session to see if anyone takes an interest in their activities).

Joy and Jenny took the baby to the hospital to check it over for its health, while Richard and Vonbella went to a 24-hour Walmart to buy some baby supplies. They all met back at Joy’s apartment and deliberated about what to do. Eventually they decided to send a message back to Royal to ask for further instructions. While waiting for an answer, they tried to figure out what had happened to Clark, and eventually worked their way into his email account (passwords aren’t as secure as you think, when you have a Telepath for a friend). They discovered he’d posted a personals ad and had been arranged to meet a woman about a week prior. He’d sent no further emails since that date. Jenny took note of the location they were meant to meet for later reference.

The answer came back from Royal by the end of the session. “Split in half. Keep half and drop the other half at location Echo.”

Notes: Joy’s player spent most of the session holding a make-believe baby and trying to keep it soothed. I think there was maybe one or two dice rolls the whole session, and virtually no NPC interaction (apart from the Walmart staff) – the group just roleplayed everything out among themselves and had a blast. As both Referee and game designer, this was very positive feedback! The players know their characters and how their relationships and are happy just acting them out.

Session 3

Vonbella wakes up from some awful dreams, where she’s being interrogated, somewhere near to the Gateway Arch (the big landmark in downtown St. Louis). She tells the group some of it, but it’s pretty vague and the group decides not to take any action.

Bryce arrived in from Florida, after a long bus ride on a Greyhound. Richard picked him up and brought him back to Joy’s apartment, where a very suspicious Vonbella and Jenny interrogated him. At one point, Jenny pulled her gun on him, trying to provoke a reaction (when she did this with Clark, he accidentally froze his coffee!) Bryce, however, was not as easily triggered as his little brother, so Vonbella tried to read his mind, which led to some Pyschic Friction (this is a new mechanic, and basically the Espers push against each other psychically until one of them backs down … or explodes). Both Bryce and Vonbella came off badly from this incident, nursing some aches and pains and generally disliking each other intensely, but Jenny was happy that they’d proven Bryce was an Esper at least.

To help calm things down, Richard takes Bryce to go help in the local soup kitchen, and on the way they send a message to Royal asking for a face-to-face meeting – surely there must be some mistake, nobody could really be suggesting to split the baby in half?! Jenny spends some time during her working day to look at footage of the park where Clark was meant to meet his date, and discovers that Clark was grabbed by two men who injected him with something and tossed him into the back of a van! She immediately panics, and worried that everyone is at equal risk of being grabbed, sends the bug out signal to everyone (which the group agreed would be a picture of a Quokka). Everybody gets their emergency bags and heads out of town to a log cabin near the commune where Richard used to live. On the way, Richard picks up the reply from Royal, with a location for a meeting the next day.

Out in the cabin, Jenny brings the group up to speed. She may have overreacted, but everybody thinks its better safe than sorry. Bryce talks a bit about he and his brother’s past, how his parents were killed because they wouldn’t let Clark be taken by “some guys in suits”, and how Bryce’s talent literally exploded out of him that night. Vonbella makes some off-colour comments about his history, and pisses Bryce off even more, but Richard plays the peacekeeper. Everyone settles in to try to get a night’s sleep before they go back to the city tomorrow.

Notes: Bryce and Vonbella generated a lot of Stress dice on themselves and each other with their Pyschic Friction, so they are tense and angry. This also spills onto Richard because when Espers are close together, they feel each other’s stress. It’s going to be difficult for the group to get any sleep at all tonight …

Watchtower play test reflections

The recent posts about Watchtower were from a one-shot adventure I ran for my son’s gaming group. They’ve been playing (mostly) D&D together regularly for 3-4 years, and it was a good opportunity to test out the rules with a group that had no preconceptions. The players created Talos-class exotics (the middle of the three classes, which is still very powerful). A few things that I learned from this:

* We need to update our skills to reflect the Watchtower world
* Some power stunts are probably too powerful (looking at you, Chronatics)
* Definitely need to write the rules for Prototypes for high tech heroes

However, broadly speaking the system worked as intended, character creation was pretty quick and fun, and the game flowed easily. We’re going to attempt a variant using troupe play, where each of the players creates a trainee (sidekick?) Achilles-class exotic (the lowest class) to be paired with one of the other players, and in this way we get two different Watchtower teams, and the players get to try different powers and power levels.

Watchtower SF: August 4th

Bergs in the Bay!

San Francisco Chronicle

Meteorologists were shocked today when a massive iceberg several miles long appeared off the coast of Marin County, seemingly on a collision course for the Golden Gate Bridge! “This iceberg cannot be a natural occurrence,” said Dr. Karl Limewall, Professor of Climatology at Caltech. “Nothing that large could have traveled from either pole to San Francisco without being spotted.”

Indeed, the Watchtower seemed to agree, dispatching six agents out to the iceberg as soon as it was spotted. It became clear why Windrunner was added to the team recently, as all team members were transported directly through the air rather than via a helicopter as might be more customary. The Chronicle was able to confirm that a combination of extreme digging and strategically placed explosives were able to reduce the iceberg to smaller and more manageable pieces, which were then destroyed or redirected away from the bridge.

Conga-line … of Doom!

San Francisco Examiner, Op. Ed.

Icebergs are one thing, but why is nobody talking about the impromptu parade today that took place in the north of San Francisco? Over 100,000 people “just felt like dancing” and danced all the way up Highway 101 and onto the Golden Gate bridge, completely halting traffic and putting themselves directly into harm’s way. And where was the Watchtower during all this? 110 year old Dr “I’m not a robot” Automaton landed in front of the crowd and shot a few people off into the water, including fellow teammate and old-timer, Captain Crackshot! Seriously, why are our lives in the hands of these geriatrics?

Not that the youngsters were much to be seen, seemingly having to spend all their time flying back and forth to the city to get instructions from the Overmind, Jack Whyte, before blowing up the looming iceberg. Great, happy we didn’t ‘berg the bridge, but are we going to get any answers as to who is controlling the minds of all the so-called Bridge Boogie Brigade? And what is Watchtower doing about it?

Power Outage in Western San Joaquin County

The San Joaquin Valley Sun

Around 800 homes and farms are still without power, following an outage at a local substation earlier this morning. Local officials are working to get power up and running, and they are confident everything will be back to normal within 24 hours. The cause of the outage is being put down to a freak storm, which blew up out of nowhere, dumped a load of rain and lightning and dissipated as quickly as it came. County Sheriff John Watson stated in a press conference earlier today that there was no cause for alarm, and that Watchtower had been alerted as part of standard procedure.

Watchtower SF: some recent headlines

Whyte Buys Watchtower SF

San Francisco Chronicle, July 1st 2022

Jack Whyte, exotic and indestructible billionaire, adds Watchtower SF to his stable of Watchtower franchises. This brings his franchise total to four, starting in 2013 with the NYC franchise, and adding the Twin Cities in ’15 and Miami in ’19. “The San Francisco franchise of the Watchtower has a long history, with many beloved legends on the national and international stage,” said Whyte at press conference today. “I will bring the same level of oversight and investment as at my other franchises, and will work with local law enforcement to help keep the Bay Area and northern California safe from exotic crime.” He was joined at the press conference by several existing Watchtower members, all of whom confirmed they will be staying under the new management. This includes old-timers such as Captain Brian “Crackshot” Thomson, the bulletproof ex-cop; Dr Automaton, the robotic-bodied, long-standing leader of the Watchtower’s primary team; as well as some of the more recent additions like Tyrannus, our first visitor from another galaxy; and the shapeshifting, duplicating Primordial. No other personnel changes were announced. This correspondent hopes that Whyte’s experience, discipline and deep pockets can help prevent another tragedy like we suffered in ’99, when then-Watchtower leader Atomic III turned on the people he was sworn to protect and devastated the downtown area by using a commuter train like a missile. Maybe the new management will finally be able to determine what happened to that team back in the day? Either way, there’s a new sheriff in town.

Tower of Teens?

San Francisco Examiner, July 15th 2022, Op. Ed.

After buying his fourth Watchtower franchise in what is clearly a bid to control the whole company, Jack Whyte today announced that two local teenagers have been added to the roster. One who can control gravity, codenamed Windrunner, and the other who can control time, codenamed Kairos. Seriously, Jack? Are there not enough adult exotics to choose from that you have to employ kids? And do these kids’ parents even know what they are being exposed to? It’s long past time that we introduced laws preventing the exploitation of exotic abilities in people under the age of 21. What’s next, babies who can shoot lasers out of their eyes being used as mobile weapons platforms? The safety of our civilians shouldn’t come at the cost of our youth!

WatchTower: The Game

After many games of WatchTower played using rules from other systems (primarily the classic Marvel Super Heroes game), Matt and I have knuckled down to start writing the actual WatchTower game. We were planning to start a new group and play a Supers game (Godlike was the original proposal), and before you know it we had 12,000 words and all the major system components in place. This will be the first game we’ve written together, and the third published under LateGaming. For me, it’s the one I’ve wanted to write most (it will actually be my first full game, and Matt’s sixth!).

So, what is it?

Matt wrote the background for a supers game back in mid-90s when we played the first iteration, and then a quick primer for a new group that we kicked off in early 2007 that’s a good overview of the background. Most of the blog posts we’ve written under the WatchTower category are about games we’ve run or thoughts we’ve had along the way. It’s a labor of love, because we’ve played the characters and backgrounds multiple times, with different groups, in different countries. It resonates with anyone who enjoys the genre.

What makes it different?

As with all of our games, we value simplicity, flexibility and storytelling. This game reflects those values, and will allow gaming groups to play as any super (or Exotic, as they are known in-world) that they might want to, while having to remain grounded in dealing with real world consequences of what it really means to have powers, and to live in a world where powers exist. The background spans the last 100+ years, allowing for different flavours of game experience, based on the era in which you choose to play. Different classes of campaign are possible also, based on which powers are available in that era and what power level of Exotics you choose to play. The mechanics of character creation are simple and fast, while still having plenty of nuance to allow for interesting stories. This also works in favor of the GM – creating NPCs is a snap, allowing you to focus your energy instead on the flow of the narrative.

When will it be ready?

Ah, the big question! We are getting the mechanics ready to game with our group starting in the next few weeks, and use that as the main play-test. Meanwhile, we (who am I kidding? Matt) will be writing the background material, explanations for the powers, and useful descriptions of the game mechanics. We’ll be commissioning art for our favourite heroes, villains and scenes from the games we’ve played to tie it all together, and that can be the longest turn around for getting the book finished. So, the answer is: 2021, sometime ?

Stay tuned!

WatchTower New England – Episode 3

Robotic Rampage Stopped By Raw Recruits

by Rhonda McAvoy of The Boston Globe
March 18th, 2002

The Prudential Center was subject to a brutal attack this morning at around 8am. Three robotic figures burst out of one of the iconic “Duck Tour” tour buses to go on a deadly rampage through downtown commuters. The three were finally put down by new WatchTower recruits, most notably the terrifying destructive powers of Sapphire and Trace.

17 Bostonians were killed during the attack, and over 80 were injured before WatchTower’s new “B” team arrived on the scene. While it’s unclear what roles the team members play, the two women on the team both used their disintegration powers to great effect, taking care of all three robots in under a minute, and saving us from further death and destruction.

The origin of the robots is still unknown, although an anonymous source at the WatchTower lays the blame at the feet of the Downward Spiral group, known to have been terrorizing important religious sites on the east coast. While many a shopper may worship the almighty dollar at the Pru, it seems unlikely that an anti-Christian group would attack there.

WatchTower New England – Episode 2

Sunday March 17, 2002 (St. Patrick’s Day)

From the log of Karl Maclean, WTNE Controller

8am: New recruits have lasted 24 hours without injury or fatality. Void seems to have settled into a leadership role, and may make a decent long-term recruit should we choose to extend their contract. Seven seems somewhat unreliable and bears closer scrutiny – he’s already made it into the media and seems to bask in attention. Kimono is more reliable but suffers from severe cultural disadvantages here in the US: this is somewhat counterbalanced by his immense powers. Trace is, as expected, insufferably young.

10am: Fifth recruit arrived today from Texas. While he looks good enough to eat, he’s sadly lacking between the ears.

4pm: New team reports a lead on the whereabouts of the old team, due to a tip-off from The Chancer. A previously unknown exotic with dimensional powers trapped and abandoned them in another dimension, with seemingly no way of recovering. Kimono negotiated some kind of agreement with the guy, but it sounds like he was conned. I don’t think Mr Canning will be happy, but then again, I doubt he’d be happy even if they brought back the old team safe and sound. I’ve e-mailed him.

7pm: Got word that we have a sixth exotic joining us tomorrow. No idea who she is or what her abilities are. Christ, it’s like superhero kindergarten.

3am: Yes, Canning is not happy. Big fucking surprise. I’m drawing up permanent contracts just in case.

WatchTower New England Episode 1

WatchTower secretly recruits new members

by Rhonda McAvoy of The Boston Globe
March 17th, 2002

Unknown WatchTower Operative floats over Old Ship Church
Unknown WatchTower Operative floats over Old Ship Church

Three new WatchTower operatives were spotted yesterday in and around the greater metro area. While no information has been forthcoming from the New England franchise, the identity of one of the new recruits has been confirmed as Vanja Mestrovic, also known as Void. Void’s intimidating black and featureless body was seen in Stoughton yesterday morning and in Hingham yesterday afternoon. He was accompanied by two old men of Asian decent, and all were wearing WatchTower clothing.

“Void’s a good guy,” says Jimmy Cortez, who worked with him at Devon Energy, an oil company. “It takes a while to get used to him having eight eyes, but he’s got a heart of gold.” Whether that’s true remains to be seen. Katherine Simmons, manager at Ikea in Stoughton, told us that he was very intimidating. “He walked in here, butt naked, with his two crazy friends and I gotta tell ya, I was scared.” Simmons wasn’t able to tell us anything about why the trio visited her store, as the investigation is still ongoing.

The sightings in Hingham were centered around the Old Ship Church. One of Void’s companions, who identified himself to local tourists as “Seven” levitated up over the church to survey the roof. The third man, wearing a thick Japanese kimono bearing the WatchTower logo, is still to be identified. The minister of the church, Rev. Kenneth H. Read-Brown stated that the WatchTower was there as a precautionary measure, given the recent spate of anti-church exotic crime on the East Coast being perpetrated by the so-called Downward Spiral group.

Does this mean that WTNE has decided to hire more operatives? While it has long been the opinion of this reporter that six is too few, why choose now to recruit? And why the secrecy? As of yet, no-one at WatchTower New England or HQ in San Francisco has been willing to comment on this development.

WatchTower State Coverage and the New England Team

Franchise mapThis map shows all 50 states, and which WatchTower franchise(s) cover each state. Those states which are shaded with two colours have agreements with two franchises, and either will respond depending on availability.

The north-east used to be covered by the WatchTower New York, but a series of blunders a few years ago by the operatives at the time created a split. New England and DC created their own franchises and New York’s influence was reduced considerably and awarded to a different vendor (Jack White). New England’s franchise is owned by a consortium led by commercial real estate magnate, Chris Pfeiffer.

The current New England team (codenames and powers):

  • Claymore – Can detonate objects remotely
  • Silverhawk – Silver-armored fast flier
  • Firewall – Fire generator and manipulator
  • Nimbus – Weather controller
  • Gemini – Creates replicas of herself

The two men on the team (Claymore and Firewall) are both capable of vast amounts of destruction. As a result, they have both loyal followers and loud detractors. To date, they have both sufficiently avoided any collateral damage that would result in the kind of bad publicity which shut down the New York franchise. Some say it’s only a matter of time …

WatchTower Franchise Map

WatchTower LogoThere are currently 10 WatchTower franchises in N. America, with a number of others under consideration by both WatchTower Inc. and various city and state governments. View WatchTower franchises on a map.

Each franchise has its own charter of specific responsibilities (primarily geographical) but in times of crisis, operatives from other franchises will help out. As can be seen on the map, many areas are without direct coverage. Exotic crime tends to be less common in these areas, and support for local law enforcement comes from both Fortress and on an ad-hoc basis from WatchTower (usually with a very hefty hourly fee).

The X-1 visa

The late 80s and early 90s saw an upswing in exotic crime, as beleaguered WatchTower franchises were stretched trying to find members willing and able to combat this rising tide.

In response in 1994, Bill Clinton signed into law the Exotic Foreign Workers Act, which passed with slim majorities in both House and Senate. This law created a new visa, the X-1, which allowed foreign exotics to live and work in the United States on a two-year rolling term. This shored up the immediate needs at the time, and continues to allow WatchTower franchises to bolster their rosters in a hurry.

Some of the conditions of the visa include:

  • Fortress screening (DNA samples, fingerprints, various scans – mechanical and exotic, etc.)
  • Can only accept employment in a role in which their exotic abilities are needed
  • Cannot apply for permanent residency

In return for these fairly stringent conditions, the application is processed fairly quickly (within about six weeks, which is lightning fast for the State Department).

WatchTower New England

All of New England is protected under one WatchTower franchise (WT-NE), which has offices in each of the state capitals (Boston, Hartford, Providence, Montpelier and Augusta) but is headquartered in Boston. To be precise, the HQ is in Cambridge, MA (want to see what it looks like?).

The satellite offices are primarily administrative, although each is known to have the supplies necessary to act as a base of operations for any given action being taken by WT operatives. At any given time, WT-NE employs around 200 people, and between 8 and 12 exotics.

Watch this space for WT-NE making news headlines …

WatchTower – What Everyone Knows

The world is similar to the world we live in now. We have all the same political, social and environmental issues, the same level of media, technology and education, the same strip malls, gas guzzlers and sitcoms.

Origins
People with exotic powers first came to the public eye in the late 50s, with a series of highly publicized crimes perpetrated by someone who could turn themselves invisible. Although this person was never caught, a team of exotic crime-fighters, known as “The American Dream,” was formed to help the people of the United States feel safer at night.

There is still no satisfactory explanation as to the origin of exotic abilities. Roughly 1 in 100,000 people manifests some kind of unexplained ability, ranging from the fairly mundane (such as Martin R. from Dallas, Texas, who can instantly tell the gender of any animal and when it last procreated) to the awesomely destructive that had previously only been the stuff of legend.

WatchTower
Exotic crime rose as more and more super-powered people emerged. In response, some of the original members of The American Dream (with endorsement from then-president Lyndon B. Johnson, along with other political, commercial and popular support) founded an organization named the WatchTower, aimed at fighting crime across the United States.

It quickly became impossible to fight crime over such a vast area, and the WatchTower privatized and branched out into several franchises. Over time this became the de facto standard for cities and/or states to protect themselves against exotic crime. The WatchTower has since spread to the rest of the world, with franchises on every populated continent.

Fortress
Fortress formed at the same time as WatchTower’s privatization. For security’s sake, not much is known about this branch of the government. They detain exotic criminals and are often involved in their apprehension, sometimes working with (and sometimes against) WatchTower operatives. The world’s only known prison for exotic criminals is run by Fortress and it’s location is a closely guarded secret.

Back from hiatus – some new WatchTower

My move to Canada and subsequent birth of my daughter kind of put my gaming on hold, but now I’m back in a regular group and I’m looking to run a WatchTower game with them. This will be my first time doing a bunch of things:

  • Running a supers game
  • Running Marvel system
  • Running WatchTower
  • Running a game for this group

I’m using Marvel for the main reason as we used it in the past: it’s easy to pick up 🙂 It’s been ages since I’ve run anything: with the exception of a brief (and bland) Pendragon scenario in 2007, the last thing I ran was some D&D in 2004 when I was thinking of writing for WotC. Unlike Matt, I don’t have the plug-n-play-GM gene, so I’m intending to put a bunch of prep work into this.

Now all I need to do is switch to polyphasic sleep so I get an extra three or four hours in my day.

D&D 4th Edition … now with more!

I had a poke through a friend’s copy of 4th Edition D&D. It seems it has been genericised to the nth degree, and everything has been made more powerful from the word go. On top of that, alignments have been simplified and there is even the concept of “unaligned” (maybe they read my previous article). More races, more abilities, more, more, more! I remain unconvinced that the gameplay has improved any since the first edition. Can’t be arsed with any more words on the topic.

Current games in development

As mentioned a few posts ago, here is a list of the games that have gone through our idea filter and dropped down into the Book Development stage. If you’re a regular reader, the chances are none of these are of surprise to you, although I’m not sure we’ve blogged about all of them. So, in no particular order, here is the list.

  • Illusion (working title) – Set in the 19th Century, players are in some way involved with a magical stage act. A game of secrets and showmanship, where nothing is ever quite what you expected. Uses a thematic system based on playing cards (although dice-based rules are included).
  • Additional 23rd Letter Material (working title) – The game of psychics and conspiracies. Over the years, we’ve written (and rewritten) a bunch of source material that was never published. The Projects Sourcebook almost saw the light of day, but not quite. This body of work includes detailed information on playing Network and Project campaigns, revised psychic abilities, GM information on the Powers, Terata, and more.
  • War of the Worlds: Earth (working title) – Set after an invasion by Martians which has left physical and ecological devastation. Based on H. G. Well’s “The War of the Worlds”, characters pick up the pieces after that novel. See the War of the Worlds: Earth category for more info.
  • ERIS – The system used by The 23rd Letter, War of the Worlds: Earth and others. This book will be available for free PDF download.
  • 6 – A spy game, set in the height of the Cold War. For advanced role-players only, this game uses a very narrative system and Tiered Play to create intricate plots in an atmosphere of fear and mistrust.

There is no set publish date for any of these, but if there is any game that you’d especially like to see first, please let us know in the comments. War of the Worlds: Earth is likely to be the last of those games to be published, just looking at the amount of work still needing done.