2nd session notes and questions:
- Combat went much more swiftly, though there were far fewer combatants.
- The players discovered Karma and, since I've been somewhat generous with it, it's flowing like water. Spent Karma becomes XP, so that's a further incentive. At the moment, this means they rarely fail at anything, but eventually Karma will run low. I remembered the villains have Karma too, but my dice sucked, so it didn't matter much.
- Still struggling with "encounter balance" (which I realize is only a thing if I make it a thing), because they are winning easily. At the moment, that's fun and exciting for them. I just don't want them to eventually be bored. However, it takes a lot for a player to be bored with winning.
- Struggling still to determine when a player's idea is a power use, a stunt, or even a Bullseye attempt. Our sound-projecting hero was facing an air-controlling villain. He wanted to use focused sound to disrupt the air around the villain and make him fall. I decided to rule that a successful Bullseye would force a power check for the villain. Don't know if that was "right" or not.
- I think I'm leaning too hard on Intuition and ignoring Reason and Psyche too much.
- How do you do social skill checks? The heroes are doing a lot of investigating right now and it seems the Popularity and Contacts rules don't give very good chances of success for new heroes. Furthermore, it applies even less if the heroes are questioning people in the Secret IDs. Doing computer research seemed to be a Reason check and intimidating someone seems to be a Psyche check, but are other conversational checks really Intuition? Am I missing something?
A good 2nd session. The players were taking notes, which gives me the freedom to make more detailed plots. Still liking the system very much.
- Combat went much more swiftly, though there were far fewer combatants.
- The players discovered Karma and, since I've been somewhat generous with it, it's flowing like water. Spent Karma becomes XP, so that's a further incentive. At the moment, this means they rarely fail at anything, but eventually Karma will run low. I remembered the villains have Karma too, but my dice sucked, so it didn't matter much.
- Still struggling with "encounter balance" (which I realize is only a thing if I make it a thing), because they are winning easily. At the moment, that's fun and exciting for them. I just don't want them to eventually be bored. However, it takes a lot for a player to be bored with winning.
- Struggling still to determine when a player's idea is a power use, a stunt, or even a Bullseye attempt. Our sound-projecting hero was facing an air-controlling villain. He wanted to use focused sound to disrupt the air around the villain and make him fall. I decided to rule that a successful Bullseye would force a power check for the villain. Don't know if that was "right" or not.
- I think I'm leaning too hard on Intuition and ignoring Reason and Psyche too much.
- How do you do social skill checks? The heroes are doing a lot of investigating right now and it seems the Popularity and Contacts rules don't give very good chances of success for new heroes. Furthermore, it applies even less if the heroes are questioning people in the Secret IDs. Doing computer research seemed to be a Reason check and intimidating someone seems to be a Psyche check, but are other conversational checks really Intuition? Am I missing something?
A good 2nd session. The players were taking notes, which gives me the freedom to make more detailed plots. Still liking the system very much.