[Actual Play] Sonic The Hedgehog one shot

[June Jazz]

I just finished up pulling Watcher duties on a Sonic The Hedgehog adventure for Infrno-con which ended up being six hours long; the first act of a two act mini event. It was glorious.

The Heroes were Sonic The Hedgehog and an original character; a martial artist snake with a checkered past who was a new recruit to the Freedom Fighters. There were supposed to be four players, but one girl got sick and the other guy never answered my PMs.

Sonic had played MHR once before in his first ever tabletop RPG session, the second or third session (I'm not quite sure seeing as I was absent for the actual second session of the game) of a Secret Wars event just about two nights prior. I had the privilege of being in that game as well and it was a blast. So we had a bit of previous experience with each other as players. He chose a pregen I had put up.

Snake Guy was like, the complete opposite. An experienced GM for about seven years; if I recall correctly he mostly plays Pathfinder. We had never played together before and he was totally new to the game. I helped him put together his OC's datafile the week before.

The setup was simple: The Freedom Fighters got a tip that Eggman was about to attack Station Square and the Heroes have to stop him. The two Heroes arrived at the train station and were being showed the ins and outs by the manager of the place (the station being the major way in and out of the city) when Fang The Sniper called them out.

There had been a bounty placed on the Freedom Fighters' heads by Eggman and every two bit criminal wanted a piece of them. After a couple rounds I put Fiona The Fox in the scene as well and the fight actually got interesting. I pulled off a few grandstands where the two villains of the scene butt heads over who got to take out the Freedom Fighters. Fang, the professional with a funny accent, versus Fiona, former Freedom Fighter and leader of the Destructix versus the Heroes.

After a few rounds the fight moved to the apartment where Fiona had perched herself with her anti-material rifle railgun. I tried out emotional combat for the first time ever in the breakout round of the scene. Fiona took an emotional snipe at Sonic using her leverage as his ex-girlfriend. He lobbed the attack right back at her with a cutting remark about betrayal and loss and never giving up. Aw yeah, Sonic!

Then Fang broke down the door and sprayed bullets. If I recall correctly he grazed the OC with a bullet and the fight lasted a couple more rounds until I ended the scene with 2D12 and the cops stormed in; a one sided firefight in a residential area is going to attract that kind of attention.

The one thing I noticed about the OC player's behavior until now was that he was playing like a real life martial artist, not a superhero or even a wushu hero. He was effective to an extent, but he didn't exactly use the system's strengths well. He focused on inflicting various complications on the villains rather than inflicting stress or even stepping up the complications they already had. I think he got it near the end of the first scene though.

As Eggman's armada closed in they had a bit of downtime to prepare in a transition scene. They did not have much in the way of Specialties, so reinforcements and other resources were not in the cards. But they did manage to recover some of the stress that they took before the big fight.

Eggman's armada arrived and sent out air support and this was where I think the system clicked for both of them. They made an awesome teamwork maneuver as the snake guy basically threw Sonic Fastball Special style at the armada's flagship, right into the bridge. Sonic ended up without an effect die to use though, so the asset he made, "Stuff's Smashed," defaulted to a D4. However he kept it around by playing a plot point. Eggman fleed from the bridge and sent out Metal Sonic to keep Sonic busy.

Meanwhile on the ground, Snake Guy dealt with the Badnik Horde. He took it out in a single blow and I decided to take him out of his comfort zone and send out the air support.

So he started playing like Hulk at the climax of the Avengers movie. Leaping around, taking things out in the air, and basically being a badass as he finally got it. Though he still kept to his martial artist (now Hulk As Martial Artist) theme when I lobbed the next villain at him; Sergeant Simian, Fiona's subordinate Destructix member.

Metal and Sonic traded blows and I think this is where Sonic got most of his physical stress in this session. His earlier established asset grew thanks to opportunities and he used that to resourceful effect as he stressed Metal Sonic out physically.

Snake Guy stressed out Simian and then used a jetpack he stole from the air support and rocketed up to the bridge after Sonic, where Eggman was waiting with his Egg Coil; a robotic octopus.

Sonic caught wind of the chaos emerald that powered the flagship and pursued his event milestone, Chaos Is the Constant. He faced off against the security system and I learned a very important lesson...

3D8 is too much to put into a mob! Seriously, this fight dragged on for nearly an hour while Snake Guy got creamed by Eggman thanks to some really unlucky rolls. He reached D10 stress, Eggman had none, before Sonic got there just in time, event unlockable in hand; a Super Sonic powerset.

Two rounds went by and Sonic reached D10 stress too. Since he had only a could PPs he was saving his trump card for the killing blow because the powerset ate up plot points as its limit, like it did rings in the games and comics. But even so, together they ended up putting some hurt on Eggman.

So Sonic finally decided to use his Super Sonic powers and pushed Eggman up to D12 stress before his plot points dried up. Snake Guy delivered the killing blow and the flagship went down.

The players loved it and I had a blast Watching this session. They demanded a follow up, so expect to hear about act two Thursday night/Friday morning as they crash land on Angel Island.

[Duck Call Lass]

Sounds like a fun game!

[Mystrich]

Sounds cool. Any chance of seeing the Sonic datafile?

[June Jazz]

Sounds cool. Any chance of seeing the Sonic datafile?

Certainly. This was made for a one shot event with a limited scope--pretty much a generic, contextless Sonic. If I were adapting say, the Genesis event from the recent comics then I would have probably made some different decisions.

Sonic the Hedgehog
Affiliations
Solo d8
Buddy d10
Team d6

Distinctions
Cool Blue
Free Spirit
Hero of Mobius

Fastest Thing Alive
Supersonic Speed d12, Enhanced Stamina d8, Superhuman Reflexes d10, Spin Dash d10

SFX, Homing Attack: Add a d6 and keep an additional effect die for each additional target.
SFX, Versatile: Split Supersonic Speed into 2d at –1 step, or 3d at –2 steps.

Limit, Exhausted: Shutdown any Fastest Thing Alive power to gain 1 PP. Recover power by activating an opportunity or during a Transition Scene.

Specialties
Acrobatic Master d10, Combat Expert d8, Psych Master d10

Milestones
Star Freedom Fighter
1XP - When you first rush into an action scene Solo.
3XP - When you first take stress when going Solo or dispatch a mob for the first time.
10XP - When you either stress out a villain with at least one d12 in either their power set or in the Doom Pool, OR you call for reinforcements in a Solo fight.