Capitol City Crime Journal - The Red Report

The Even Heroes Bleed supers campaign continues to be a new, dynamic experience for me. Once again I turned over the Game Master reins to Mettle's player Mike to run an adventure of his own devising. When I get a chance to play instead of run I use my favorite vigilante-NPC of the game, Ultra-Rosa. A gun-toting, martial arts master and gadgeteer wizard with red body armor, an array of firearms and a specially modified red 2018 Chrysler 300. Paid off. A female version of the Punisher basically. 

Today she got to team up with our newest PC hero, the Olympian. He is a flying brick from another world, a human enhanced alien. Straight up Superman vibe except he is way cooler than the Man of Steel, just saying.

We, as a group, took this detour because the PC hero Mr. Zozo couldn't make it. In a couple of weeks I can't play, so then we are looking at the Olympian and Mr. Zozo teaming up. Making me pay attention to the campaign calendar. With all these side quests going on where everything begins to occur has meaning. Since old-school gaming encourages emergent play the game group is getting a wider world to play in and everyone at the table (including the two co-GMs here) do not know where this all leads and what dramatic outcomes await. My strategy is now no matter who can make the game session we have episodes/issues which can always be played.

To keep the story threads in order I've broken the run so far into several "comic book" series. The main comic line is Even Heroes Bleed. All other story lines have to acknowledge this story line as the main story of the campaign. Every PC hero in the game has had to walk the stage in this blockbuster line. Bug, Mettle, Red Runner, Ultra-Rosa, Olympian, Mr. Zozo.

Mike took us on the campaigns first side quest with the Capitol Point Casino Adventures. These adventures (and today's session) are going to fall under the Capitol City Crime Journal: The Red Report. We have had 10 issues now of this vehicle for Ultra-Rosa's exploits when she is being run by me as a player. The Olympian has had a single issue. This was the episode where I ran just him in an adventure against some visiting galactic bounty hunters.

Now, since I cannot make next session we are going to try and continue the adventure we started today (investigating the New Revelations Church and a string of murders) in Mr. Zozo's own comic book, Road to Redemption, featuring the Macabre Mr. Zozo. Pretty nifty. The game is getting really dynamic and all the PCs feel their efforts make a notable difference in the campaign world. The only thing the game suffers (and this is common in all ttrpgs) is how long it takes to play involved adventures. There are so many potentials and intriguing avenues for rich drama, we will never see them all played out. Ah, the frailty of an rpg world. Only so much of the game world gets told, only so many tales will be spun before life changes our real destinies. And we don't know yet what those will be!