Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, Session 1

Just got back from Watcher-ing my first game of marvel Heroic Roleplaying, and it went great! We played the first act of the Breakout scenario, and it was everyone's first time with this game. I had four players - Kevin was Mister Fantastic, Steve was Beast, Mike was Emma Frost, and Brenna was Iron Man. Emma, Beast, and Reed were at the Raft, eager to find out more about the Sentry who'd receently returned in their minds, while Tony flew in from a posh bar uptown, with a bit of a buzz and a good start towards his demon in a bottle milestone.

Electro blasted Iron Man to the raft, where Count Nefaria was trying to break down the Reinforced Entry Doors, held by Mister Fantastic. After a couple of tries and being stuck in the elevator shaft, Emma fills his mind with feelings of inadequacy while Iron Man prepares a supersonic bull rush. Reed snaps back from the door just in time for Tony Stark, the Human Torpedo, to deal d12+ physical stress in one hit.

After some bantering with the SHIELD guards, the heroes descend the empty elevator shaft to the bottom level, where the Sentry was supposed to be being held. Here they find a couple of lawyers, Nelson and Murdock, trying to fight something off in the dark. While they're distracted by the arriving heroes, Carnage snatches Murdock up into the ventilation shafts, then drops down.

Carnage can't seem to penetrate Iron man's armor or Beast's defensive tactics, so he tries something desperate - he sends a symbiote spawn up into the ventilation shafts to possess Murdock! The red symbiote swirls around Murdock, trying to contain and enslave him. As her fights it, it forms an opening around his mouth and two small horns, similar to his Daredevil costume! The heroes make quick work of Carnage, and help Murdock fight off the possession. Iron Man blasts the symbiote into oblivion, hopefully ridding the world of Carnage forever.

They then travel over to the Sentry's cell, to find him sitting in isolation with the door wide open. They work hard to convince him of the wonderful things he can do for humanity, that his self-imposed exile hasn't really helped anyone, and that there's always a way to use powers positively. Eventually, they succeed and he joins them, though he still seems a bit reserved.

On their way back, another prisoner hails them. "C'mon, guys! You know me! I's Deadpool! Beast, c'mon, I helped you X-guys out all the time! Lemme out!" All Deadpool did is host a party for an old friend of his, Rocky. "He wasn't the president when we met!" was all he'd say about the matter. When the heroes refused (Iron Man actually put his had up to the tiny opening in the door and blasted Deadpool with his repulsor, Deadpool remembered he still had his personal teleporter. With a shout of "Bamf!" and a little teleporter noise, he was off, back to cause chaos in the world above.

Iron Man locates the backup generator on the next floor up, but the stranded inmates there have broken into a SHIELD weapons locker and armed themselves with pistols and makeshift clubs. Iron Man flies ahead of the mob of crazed inmates to activate the generator. While the heroes are dealing with the mob, Crossbones, recently armed, joins the fray. When Tony gets the generator up and running (Stark Technology, obviously,) the inmates are frightened and stampede over the heroes like a herd of cattle. In the midst of this, Emma devotes her energy to making Crossbones' mind explode. She manages to give him a massive headache, taking him out, but no explosion. The Sentry uses Light Control to cow the remaining inmates.

Just then, a SHIELD squad with a manually-operated elevator platform comes down the shaft. "This is a restricted area," they say. "You'll have to come with us." After a completely undeserved tongue-lashing from SHIELD director Maria Hill, our heroes are left to do what they will, knowing most of the supervillains were contained from the Breakout. The Sentry decides that this world does indeed warrant a try, and offers to join whatever team they were a part of.

Lessons learned:

1. Always add the stress of your opponent to combat rolls! We forgot this so many times, it would have made the enemies way easier to defeat.

 2. Use better tactics by the enemies! The scenario was a cakewalk. part of that is I need to break up super-effective teams sometimes, and part is that I need to be ruthless with watcher characters.