First time MURP'ing in RL

[Jet]

I've been hanging out with RPG players for quite a while, played some Savage Worlds, Warhammer and Cthulhu (which I despise, yet they convinced me to play. Wasnt all that bad though), but all this time I kept quiet about MURPG. Maybe I was afraid they'll ridicule it, maybe they'll hate it for what it is, but lately we've been talking about comic books so much (me and my friend are basically Marvel/DCU guru's for them), I told them about MURPG. I said all the truth there is- that the system is flawed beyond belief, its unbalanced, required tons of House rules to be played correctly... yet I love it for its costumization, simplicity and large emphasis on telling a great story, instead of rolling dice to slay more mobs and get their loot. For some reason, they like it and want to try it out (wrap your head around that!) and Im all a-okay with GMing it.

House rules are no problem, I know plenty I could use to help myself, mechanics will be explained on the go and character creation right now comes down to asking "what do you want to have?" and just making them myself (they'll probably make different characters later anyway, this time by themselves). The catch is, Im still experiancing writers block, so I need help with some scenario.

My basic goal: Make an adventure that seems like "bunch of supervillains appear, fight them", but with more depth to it revealed in the middle, to catch them unaware (Im hoping for some "my god, we killed 'who'?") and hopefully show them that costumed heroes can tell great stories. So yeah, 50-50 drama/action.

What I got so far: It starts with some metahumans attacking a random person on street, in broad daylight. Our heroes get into fight, enemies are either killed/captured or escape, then it turns out that "random person" is a scientist who knew his attackers and claims they're his "patients". He was trying to cure them from their mutant gene, but failed and left them with permanent, painfull scars, which they want to have revenge for. Players should enlist to help him capture them and assist in completing their treatment, returning them to their original state.
Plot twist will appear sooner or later. Sooner if they investigate it further, later if they'll ignore it completely. Truth is, these people arent mutants and he wasnt healing them. They're in fact kidnapped victims used as guinea pigs for his crazy experiments that give humans mutant powers (if they pay attention, they'll notice that their powers are almost identical to X-men and Brotherhood), and he needs heroes to stall them long enough for them to die from exhaustion (failed experiment shortened their life spans to just few days). Once they find out, they'll have to follow the mad scientist and beat him (he perfected his formula and has new meta-bodyguards, along with some powers of his own). Meanwhile, they have dying victims to take care of. Will they mercy-kill them (after getting begged by them to do so), or will they try to find a cure and give them back some will to live? My gut tells me they'll just shoot them and end their misery, but Im hoping for something more.
(I need to give that scientist a name and his own CAD, he seems like a good recurring villain for future campaigns.)

So, any feedback, or is this as perfect as it gets?

[Brainstem]

That should be fine. It's way better than the joke MURPG session I ran with my friends. They took the game a bit too not-seriously for my liking, so I decided to throw the Fantastic Four at them, but reskinned as various cereal mascots. Tony the Tiger was Thing, the Trix Rabbit was Mr. Fanastic, Cap'n Crunch was the Invisible Woman, and Sonny (Cocoa Puffs) was The Human Torch; if you describe things well, the players will get into it and feel super clever for figuring out that the enemies they're fighting are clones of more familiar characters.

Basically, with MURPG, you just need to be very vivid in your descriptions. Be sure to remember that no damage does not equal nothing happened. Consider which defenses get hit and use that to explain the attack. Maybe a character just pumped up Toughness; if a Force Blast doesn't hurt him, that doesn't mean he wasn't sent through a few walls and knocked on the ground under some rubble. Combat is more interesting that way and it makes the players feel like they're actually playing out comic book fights.

[takewithfood]

Jul 21, 2011 17:08:07 GMT -5 Brainstem said:

Basically, with MURPG, you just need to be very vivid in your descriptions. Be sure to remember that no damage does not equal nothing happened. Consider which defenses get hit and use that to explain the attack. Maybe a character just pumped up Toughness; if a Force Blast doesn't hurt him, that doesn't mean he wasn't sent through a few walls and knocked on the ground under some rubble. Combat is more interesting that way and it makes the players feel like they're actually playing out comic book fights.

I think that's some of the best advice right there. Don't assume that a failure to deal damage is a "miss". One of the first good D&D DMs I ever had always described misses as swords glancing off armor and being parried or ducked, which added a lot of tension and made us feel heroic.

~TWF