Logs 13-25: Heroes Unlimited Part 2A: The Cherry Institute

RPG Advice

My RPG advice for today includes buying craft organizer boxes from an online store, a Wal-Mart type store, or a hobby store. The dice box I bought all those years ago is still with me today, along with two more. I organize my original box with dice sorted by type so any players who need dice can easily grab them during the game and roll them. My extra dice boxes contain sets organized by color.

Logs 13-25: Heroes Unlimited Part 2A: The Cherry Institute

My friends BD, RW, NH, SS, MS, DF, and KL all joined in for the second part of our RPG saga - but not all at once. After they convinced me to GM new adventures with new characters I decided I wanted each person to engage in a solo introductory adventure. That way each new player had a chance to learn the mechanics of the game; the solo intro sessions also allowed us to play out each character’s backstory and establish individual goals before having the character join up with the group.

At this point I was only a sophomore in high school and I still had plenty to learn. My imagination ran wild and the Heroes Unlimited book provided the basis for allowing the players to either pick their abilities or roll randomly for them. At that point I had not yet grown concerned about establishing an adventuring party, thinking about party balance, worrying about jealousies or competitions between players, or even thinking about the possibility that we might want to establish a set schedule to roleplay. We simply gamed when our schedules allowed us to get together and approached the activity as cost-free entertainment.

A disclaimer for the following: I lost my detailed notes from these adventures years ago and I’m guessing for some of these details - but I want to provide a coherent story with these logs so I’m piecing it together as best as possible from my remaining notes.

JerVerse Adventure 13: Introducing Feli

NH and I created her character Feli. I had envisioned a modern sci-fi/fantasy world that I called O-H-M Earth (which stood for Outas-Human-Magi Earth); the Outas were a race of humans with psionic powers and the Magi were a race of humans with magic powers. The ordinary humans needed to compete and thus they created specialized bionic technology to enhance their soldiers. The Outas and Magi hated one another and were on the verge of a war. Feli was the teenage daughter of an Outas agent (named Melissa, Meli for short); Feli didn’t care about her mother’s politics or the coming war because she had fallen in love with a Magi named Bren Fox.

One day, when Feli was hoping to spend time with Bren, she saw what looked like him going into the woods with some other Magi. After a while, she got the nerve to follow after the trail and she found a circle of Magi in a ritual that opened a portal to another dimension. They discovered she was there and, to save herself from being killed by the evil Magi leaders, she ran through the portal before it closed behind her. She ended up on our modern Earth (Earth Prime) in the 1990s. On Earth Prime, Feli befriended the Cherry family that ran the Cherry Research Insitute; teenage Jim Cherry was also running around getting in danger and needing help. Feli rescued him from some thugs using her psionic abilities (which included hydrokinesis powers).

JerVerse Adventure 14: Introducing Glimmer

RW and I made his character Chad a.k.a. Glimmer, who was an animorph mutant (meaning he could turn into different animal forms) working with the Cherry Research Institute (which conducted mutant research and experiments). NH ended up joining us and their characters worked together to save teenage runaway Jim, who turned out to also be a mutant (with the abilities: negate other super powers and multiple lives). Their team also included NPCs Vic (who could transfer his mind into a helicopter or motorcycle) and a hero who called himself the Red Baron (who was actually Alicon Arc, the missing brother of Argonia from the Super Hero Society).

JerVerse Adventure 15: Introducing Linus

SS and I created his character Linus (who was basically a ripoff of Iron-Man but with more of a super spy personality) with techno-specialist skills. Before he got his suit of Iron-Man-like armor, he had to rely on his wits and MacGyver-esque skills to solve problems and keep himself out of danger; his background included growing up as a French executive/embezzeler who used the money he stole for his inventions. He fought off gangsters who wanted to steal his stolen money. Linus saw his opportunity to work with the Cherry Research Institute as a chance to upgrade his own technology and start a new chapter in his life.

JerVerse Adventure 16: Introducing Dr. Lane

MS and I argued a while about her character during creation because she was somewhat obsessed with the Superman-Lois Lane romance story and insisted on naming her character after Lois Lane and I did not want to use names that were directly stolen from copyrighted published material. In the end, I realized the happiness MS got from playing a character named Lois Lane was more important than continuing to press the issue. Besides, her character was a medical doctor with a mystic weapon and nothing like DC’s Lois Lane. Dr. Lane had a short sword that gave her super powers. She found the weapon in a cave in Vancouver, Canada after having visions that led her there. After dealing with some enemies, she found out the Cherry Research Institute was putting together a team and got herself hired on to work with them.

JerVerse Adventure 17: Team Cherry v. Lady Daine

The team from the Cherry Research Institute included Feli, Glimmer, Jim, Linus, and Dr. Lane. They worked together when a threat came from a palace in Africa. An evil lady there named Daine was causing problems. The team managed to stop her evil plans, but they were sucked through a portal to another dimension (where they were effectively “lost in space” on another world, questing to find a way home to Earth Prime).

JerVerse Adventure 18: Introducing Al

My buddy BD knew more about creating characters out of the Heroes Unlimited book than I did and put together an amazing combo for his character Al; he picked energy expulsion and the superpower that let him make force bubbles, which could be either shields or weapons. I came up with a backstory that he was from the world I called Techno-Earth (which was a more technologically advanced version of our Earth) and worked as a government agent/techno-spy with the cover of being a pizza delivery guy. On Techno-Earth, only government-sanctioned technology was legal and Al was one of the agents who was supposed to report on any illegal technology found out in the open. But Al didn’t really care about the government; he was a techno-genius himself and wanted illegal technology to study. He and his spy partner Patryn (who could shapeshift into objects and usually disguised himself as a chair) found some illegal tech and stole it for themselves.

JerVerse Adventure 19: Team Cherry v. The Techno-Police

Feli, Jim, Linus, Glimmer, and Dr. Lane fought through some enemies and ended up on Techno-Earth with no idea how to return home; they also had no clue about the laws against illegal technology or that they were carrying some tech that would get them in trouble since they were not from Techno-Earth. The group took refuge at a residential home where the family had ordered pizza. Al spotted the group and, curious about their tech, offered to help them. In doing so, Al helped them evade the Techno-Police and hide in a warehouse.

JerVerse Adventure 20: Team Cherry v. Scaline Hunters

The team caught the attention of some interdimensional Scaline hunters; the Scalines were lizardfolk warriors from the planet Posnarah [with ideals/philosophies similar to Klingons from Star Trek] who used their interdimensional teleportation and cloaked ship technology to hunt aliens for sport. With teamwork, the group killed off the Scaline hunters and took control of their alien ship; along the way, they had to deal with a dimensional counterpart of Jim who was working with the pizza delivery spy service, who was somehow 3 years older on this version of Earth (so they called him 19-year old Jim, but eventually he went by Gemini to avoid confusion). Al used the info the others gave him and his advanced degree in astrophysics to try to use the Scaline controls to teleport the team back to Earth Prime...

JerVerse Adventure 21: Team Cherry v. King Frederick

Instead of arriving at Earth Prime, the group found themselves on another alternate Earth; this planet featured an evil empire run by King Frederick, the dimensional counterpart of Jim Cherry’s step-father. King Frederick’s head of security was named Toby, but he was a dimensional counterpart of Linus. Linus took Toby’s technology when the team defeated these enemies and teleported away to another dimension. The 19-year old version of Jim tried flirting with Feli, but she told him she was hoping to someday reunite with her lost love Bren Fox.

JerVerse Adventure 22: Team Cherry v. Robot Army

Al teleported the team again, but this time they encountered a world with an evil robot army that was killing the human population. Team Cherry had to go to war with the robots and organize a resistance. They fought and then worked with the dimensional counterpart of the evil alien Comet. Gemini, Linus, and Al were able to use technology to hack into the robots and reprogram them so they would stop attacking. Gemini volunteered to stay behind and help the people rebuild (though he was actually studying the robots so he could create his own robots in the future).

JerVerse Adventure 23: Team Cherry v. Catfolk

The team’s next teleport, as Al continued working on the calculations to get the rest of the group home, brought them to a world with cat-like humanoids. Unfortunately, the team found themselves in dispute with some of the alien catfolk before leaving for their next destination. Ironically, when Gemini came here to join rejoin the group, they had already teleported out.

JerVerse Adventure 24: Team Cherry v. Ancient Meerkats

An ancient group of militaristic meerkat-like humanoids, about 2.5-3.5 feet tall had hidden away on a planet until the team found them. Al was amazed at the tanks, energy bazookas, and explosives used by the chaotic meerkats. While the meerkat clans warred with each other, the group befriended the Godfather-esque clan leader known as the Connected Meerkat (CM for short). They saved CM’s life and he made them “connected” to his “organization.” Secretly, CM was no ordinary ancient meerkat; he was actually the child of both an ancient meerkat and a mystery secret second parent; that was why CM had special powers beyond those of ordinary ancient meerkats.

JerVerse Adventure 25: Total Party Explosion (TPE)

The team teleported once again, but still failed to arrive at Earth Prime. They argued amongst themselves. Glimmer blamed Al and the others and said he was tired of their inability to get home; he used the meerkat-made backpack of explosive he had brought onboard and set off an energy explosion that expanded out covering the entire ship. All of the team members should have died as their ship exploded, but instead they found themselves teleported into an imprisonment “pocket dimension” by ancient creatures with a machine that allowed them to capture people when caught inside a certain energy signature [a.k.a. I didn’t want to let the actions of one player kill off the entire group just because he was annoyed with the plot].

Reflections

I really enjoyed creating different worlds and providing alternate versions of Earth. Most of my players seemed to enjoy the “Lost in Space” concept of the team exploring the universe while trying to find their way home. RW never mentioned that he had grown annoyed with the plot or the pacing of the adventures, but suddenly - BAM - he found a way within the rules to have his character not only kill himself, but the entire party. I never expected a player to behave that way during an adventure, but - looking back - I think he grew jealous of the powers of some of the other characters and wanted everyone to start over.

It was only because of quick thinking on my part that I saved the group; despite the shock, I came up with a new concept for my universe that allowed me to GM-cheat the situation. That new concept gave birth to some huge plot developments. Thus, in some ways, I ought to thank my player - but no, really, he pulled a BS move. I wish he would have just talked to me about the situation outside of the game, or even during the game at that point. Anything would have been better than trying to kill the other player characters.

I also had to figure out what to do if all but one player was available. Do we not play? Do we have that character “guard the ship” while the others go off adventuring together? Does the absent player’s character just wander off or temporarily become an NPC? I learned to ask players for their preference for these situations, but found that they all trusted me or another player to run their characters in their absence.

The second half of this part of the RPG saga included the characters trying to escape from their new location and deal with the ramifications of the imprisonment pocket dimension. I plan to write about those adventures tomorrow...