Today was the first meeting of my campaign: The UTOPIA Project. Basically, the PCs are a local branch of super-powered peacekeeping force called the Utopian Defense Organization. Only one member of the party knows that they are the successors to the disgraced and dissolved Systemic Equilbrium Agency. What nobody in the party knows (yet) is that my campaign is based on The Matrix (Hey, come back! I've done plenty to make it my own!); nor do they know that they (and their predecessors) are programs. I'll talk more about the setting as a whole in future updates.
Cast list:
Sok Thorgrimson: A former army member and the only one without any powers.
Equinox: A shadow controller with black ops training and and ex-member of the SEA. He is the only one who knows that such an organization ever existed.
Aizen: A powerful telekinetic with telescopic vision.
Proteus: An extremely versatile mimic.
True Thomas: A warrior of the gods with a magical spear and a portal device.
The PCs' first assignment (Sok was not present initially) was to deal with a powerhouse-type mutant trashing up downtown and ranting like a conspiracy theorist nutjob. Finding him wasn't hard, and despite his prejudices against the party ("You're working for THEM!!!") they managed to talk the mutant, who identified himself as Crazy Train, down. Questioning him, they learned he had been told that everybody in the world was really a brainwashed metahuman, except they could only use their powers if they could wake up, which is what happened to him, and the party wasn't real at all. Party reaction: "Ooookayyyyy. Who told you this?" Crazy Train briefly described the people he had been talking to (grey on grey on grey with grey accessories), but in the middle of the interrogation Aizen spotted the beginnings of a bank robbery a half-mile down the street. Equinox stayed behind to question Crazy Train further while the others ran off to handle the robbery.
Upon seeing the PCs approaching, a lookout promptly alerted those inside, one of whom responded, "You've gotta be kidding! They told me they'd be busy!" At which point it clicked for the players that Crazy Train had been set up as a distraction. A fight quickly broke out, resulting in a higher death toll than I'd anticipated; the party got off without a scratch, but some were more inclined to use lethal force than had been approved by the UDO, and poor handling of a hostage situation led to three civilians dying by shotgun. Sok arrived shortly into the fight, and Thomas used his portals to evacuate the building.
In the meantime, Equinox had convinced Crazy Train to take him to where he had met his informants. Crazy Train led Equinox in the direction of the robbery/fight, pulling up short and observing, "Huh. There they are now." Two extremely grey men stepped out of car and ordered the party to return to base immediately and report a failure or else. Equinox immediately recognized the two men as SEAgents and concealed himself in Crazy Train's shadow before they noticed him.
The ensuing super-brawl...did not go as I anticipated. On the one hand, I learned that I can afford to go much harder on the PCs with the significant fights, as they won decisively (in fact, they caused more harm to themselves that their foes did). On the other hand...it was a fiasco for the Utopian Defense Organization.
Proteus, who had copied Crazy Train's powers and picked up a shotgun from the first bank robber he incapacitated, fired at Agent Sleeper with no effect. Sleeper, in fact, rolled fantastically well on his Toughness saves for most of the fight, although his jets of knockout gas were not so effective. Agent Fritz resisted Aizen's attempts to grab him telekinetically, faked him out, and fired a blast of electricity that sent Aizen flying over the city block. Sok stayed inside the bank and used the last robber he had knocked out as a human shield before finishing him off with a shotgun. Thomas, in the most impressive stunt of the session, used Sok's car to knock Fritz through a portal whose exit was 400 feet up...and finished driving through himself, landing on the Agent. Miraculously, the car was not completely smashed to pieces, and a quick flurry of Hero Point expenditure kept him from breaking half the bones in his body. Proteus charged Sleeper and punched him across the street, making a large wall dent right next to the hole made by a robber previously launched by Aizen. Equinox attempted to snare Sleeper in his own shadow (unsuccessfully), causing the agent to suspect who might be on the scene, while Crazy Train decided, "Screw this! I'm outta here!" and took off. Aizen, deciding he needed a weapon, lifted...the top two stories of an apartment building. Cue screams of, "SOMEBODY SAVE US!" from the abducted and occupied section of building. Equinox tried and failed to use his powers to KO Sleeper, revealing himself in the process to both agents, who failed to hide their recognition of him. Proteus grabbed the totaled car and broke it in half over Sleeper's head to surprisingly little effect...forgetting that True Thomas was STILL INSIDE. He went flying out, and upon recovery, started using his portals to take the barely-conscious Fritz back to base. They did, however, wind up in the path of Crazy Train, who ran over them quite easily in his bid for freedom. Fritz managed to pull himself together just enough to fire another electric blast at Thomas, who dodged and portal-manipulated Crazy Train into trampling Fritz again, knocking the SEAgent unconscious. Sock charged and punched Sleeper to no effect, Proteus clobbered him again with the remaining half of the car (rendering it smithereens), sending Sleeper the rest of the way through the wall (making that side of the building very unstable) to collapse in a pile of rubble. Aizen, who had climbed onto the roof of the bank while still holding the apartment section some 150 feet above him, threw it at the now-distant Crazy Train...forgetting that, due to the two stories' weight, he could only throw it ten feet. Cue massive piece of architecture with civilians inside falling 150 feet onto Aizen's head, crashing through the roof of the bank, falling another 50 feet with him now inside, and then collapsing on top of him under its own weight and damage. Aizen got off luckily in merely being knocked thoroughly unconscious; all the tenants were killed. Equinox asked Sleeper who their assistant was, only to get the response, "Let's think about this logically. Who is the only person present who has displayed the ability to move large objects without touching them?" Equinox then knocked out Sleeper, but not before being threatened, "You should not have gone over." At this point, everyone started heading back to base by different routes (Thomas with Fritz in tow), except for Equinox, who searched through the rubble to find Aizen...and executed him with a knife through the back of the neck for his murders. He then called base directly to give his report. Upon hearing that SEAgents had been involved, their superior's (Douglas Hanson) response was one of shock and, initially, denial. He would not, however, hear a word of Equinox's suggestion that Aizen had been planted to sabotage them, stating that such an occurrence was even more impossible that the SEA's continued existence. Overall, he was very displeased to hear about the collateral damage both in buildings and lives, and as he hung up Equinox caught him muttering, "We can't have another wipe. Not again."
Although the individual SEAgents on the scene have been defeated, taken into custody (Crazy Train escaped and remains at large), and--unbeknownst to the party--completely deleted from UTOPIA, their mission was ultimately to discredit the UDO. And with the party responsible for 3 ruined buildings, 2 criminal deaths, 3 hostage deaths, and 20 bystander deaths, that mission, contrary to what I anticipated, was a resounding success.
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