Advice on my first Wild Talents session

[beej]

So I've planned my first Wild Talents session..the first Wild Talents game I've ever been involved in.   Its set in the Kerberos Club setting.  Victorian Era London, their all 'right Brits..with super powers.  I'm running this Tuesday night any thoughts or advice would be gladly welcomed.

- Selection 1

Heroes are invited to a special charity gala of child prodigy painters and the loaning of the Mona Lisa to the British Museum.  During the gala opening, the Mona Lisa goes missing and is replaced by a perfect copy including the cloths, except the assistant curator is in place of mona lisa.  The police are summoned and the group is detained in a side gallery for questioning along with rest of the attendance in various rooms.  Eventually the group realizes something is wrong when a long time goes by and they don't hear anyone outside.  Leaving the gallery they start wandering the halls and find the police and gala attendees are now in the paintings.  All the exists from the art wing of the museum are also sealed. 

They then stumble upon Mona Lisa wandering the halls with a pistol.  She confirms that she is Mona Lisa and that after 500 hundred years she wants to "Have a little fun." and starts with target practice by shooting at the group.  She's a BBEG, the pistol is a spray weapon that doesn't need to be reloaded.  I'll impress upon them that they'll need to run.  Once they get the hint and flee, they will have to sneak around a dozen French Napoleonic soldiers patrolling the halls.

- section 2 -

Bypassing the French soldiers, they sneak into a gallery and close the doors behind them.  In the gallery with them are two men braced against closed doors, holding back what sounds like against snarling beast.   One is Mister Leon (from the Kerberos Club book) and other bares a striking resemblance to the 10th Doctor....

They order the group upstairs to a gallery where Raphael's St. Michael is.  Either someone will roll a high enough Int or they go upstairs and realize that the painting is of the archangel St. Michael battling demons.   The group must beat down small demons spawning from it and figure out that they have to either slash the painting or remove it from the wall to stem the tide of demons.

- section 3 -

After the demon fight on that floor, they find a small blond girl (Charity Dale) hiding in a side office.  She's terrified that everything that is going on is her fault.  She tells them that When she draws and paints, sometimes they come to life.  Her painting is the grand prize winner in the charity event and is in the museum.  She takes them to it.  It is a painting of an ethereal blond woman floating in space, wrapped in a robe made of nebula.  The painting is called Supul Sulam, which is Malus Lupus backwards.  The group realize their invitations were from a Ms. Sulam.  Either the group will ask the girl to try and animate her painting or if they don't French soldiers were burst in and attack.  In the process the of the fight they group will notice that the ethereal woman slowly starts to move when the girl is in danger.  The group will hopefully try to encourage the girl to try and control the ethereal figure.   We then enter a skill challenge where the group uses their skills to bolster the girl's confidence in herself, thereby strengthening her control of the painting and its power. 

 - section 4 -

With the girl and the ethereal figure, the group heads out.  They hear a great commotion from the centerel atrium and find Mister Leon and the Doctor cornered by Napoleon, Mona Lisa and a huge demonic multi headed, multi horned beast.  The Beast sences the Etheral figure and springs to attack it.  Napolean hops on his horse ala the painting Napoleon Crossing the Alps and leaps up to the group.  Meanwhile below Leon and the Doctor square off against Mona Lisa.   The group must battle Napoleon while bostering Charity Dale's confidence with rolls so she can use the ethereal figure to defeat the beast.   Once the beast is defeated everything blurs and reality turns back to normal, all the paints return to their canvas and people leave the paintings they are trapped in.  Everyone is confused and disoriented except Leon, the Doctor, the girl and the group.  The group with npcs dash out of the museum at Leon's urging.  Once safly away Leon and Doc thank everyone for their help.  Leon tells the group they will soon being hearing from the Kerberos Club for what they did today and disappears in a swirl of leaves.  The Doc thanks them and saunters off.   Just before he rounds the corner he tells them he's the Doctor and the game ends for the night and I hit the Doctor Who them.    I know I know. 

The explaniation as to why the paintings came alive will be given once they meet with the Kerberos Club the session after this one.


So suggestions, thoughts?

-- edit --

I stole this premise from Dr Who fanfic.  http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7098591/1/The_Blonde_Girl

I blame Senior Tomas Church for all this insanity.  His talk of writing fanfic there that got me to visit the site in the first place.

[clockworkjoe]

sounds like a good setup - of course I don't know how your players will react - for example some groups may stand and fight mona lisa to the death in the first encounter. Be prepared to adjust the plot and don't anticipate their reactions too much.

[beej]

So last night our group played our first game, it was glorious.  Players are kinda pissed that the game is potentially so lethal but love all the snick nasty power creation.

But we had rules questions that I wasn't sure of.

Player rolls  3x5 to block and 3x6 to attack.    GM (me) rolls 5x9 to just attack.  Obviously my attack blew through the player's attack.  Does my attack also disrupt the player's attack?

[Tadanori Oyama]

It slows it down but it doesn't disrupt it. As I read the rules he looses 1 from his highest set because he got hit. So he's left with 2x6 and 3x5. Unless your body hit floored him he can still use either set to attack.

[clockworkjoe]

You lose 1 width from each attack you suffer so Tad is right. If the player was hit by another attack, his attack would be ruined.

Also note that the player's attack goes off at width 2 not 3.

[Tadanori Oyama]

So you lose 1 from all your sets, not just your highest?

[SageNytell]

Rules as written, you lose one die from your highest set.

Man, much as I love messing with this system, I royally screwed up the campaign I tried to run. I wanted to go for superspies in the 1930s, something like LoXG meets X-Men First Class, but I decided to try and make things 'simpler' I would keep the players to a 175 point buy and not explain the Stability system. Man, did that backfire. I'll post my first (and only) three games some time on the AP board.

Beej, did you record your game?

[clockworkjoe]

yeah WT is a very front loaded system. Very elegant when you understand it but man is there a learning curve.

[beej]

Cool.

Another question, this concerns character.  One of my player is going the No Will option.  How does that factor in with trauma checks and what not?  If he has no will to loose, then no matter what he rolls he can do whatever he wants as far as I can tell.

[Tadanori Oyama]

He has no Will and no Base Will? Cus if he has no Will than I'm pretty sure that it comes off of Base Will.

If he has neither form of Will than he'd still suffer any conditional limitations based on failing the stability roll.

[beej]

As a GM, how do I mechanically use suppressing fire  on players instead of npcs? IE if players are running toward enemies and said enemies use suppressing fire, do the players roll something different than npcs would?

[Tadanori Oyama]

Stability check and random hit location rolls for the scatter damage I believe. Wait, maybe suppressing fire is just random location, I'm not sure if its scatter damage.

Definitally a stability roll though, since their literally rushing head long at guys firing guns at them. Why did they pick that as their plan of action, anyway?

[beej]

The same gamer logic that compelled them to tackle and shank her in the head the Mona Lisa after she stepped out of a painting and fired a eight shot spray at them with a flint lock pistol.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Personally I would've had whoever has the best throwing arm (or like power) pitch a jug of turpentine at her. Paintings hate that shit.

[beej]

In regards to my no will question, he's going with alternate PC creation option that you have no will.  IE he's immune to psychological attacks and things that affect thought by and stimuli.  What sorts of trauma would then effect him?