[Wids]

Well, that's character death for you. Character permadeath is even worse. At one point, Lenny looked like he was almost in tears after Logan teleported into the bedrock and I had to explain why my hands were tied. Everyone there saw the dice, you know?

But I also remember that, towards the end of my tour in the Air Force, I had gotten my old Marvel Superheroes RPG from Missouri and was set on running a campaign. By then, Lenny was out of the Air Force (under very mysterious circumstances, and considering that he worked in Computer Cryptography, that was a bit unsettling) and so was Kevin, but Rod had decided to start hanging out with us. I tried running an X-Men MSH campaign with each player picking and playing one of the X-Men; Screech picked Wolverine, Dobie picked Nightcrawler, Robert picked Bishop and I think Rod picked Colossus. But that campaign got boring in a hurry, so I switched to a different tack: a Marvel Supervillains campaign, with player-rolled supervillains. Dobie played Whodunit? (an altered human with Mystique-like chameleon powers), Screech played Mr. Four-Armed Bad Guy (a mutant and an idiot savant sort of inventor with four arms), Robert played Blockhead (an altered human with Monstrous Strength, Amazing Endurance and Excellent body armor, but Feeble Reason) and Rod played the Infamous Imp (a little Magic-origin devil with flight and bad luck powers). So for their very first misadventure, they decided to rob a McDonald's (and even if I can't remember every last word verbatim, it all went something like this)....


Me (as the Judge): "So the four of you walk into McDonald's and right up to the cash register. Right away, the cashier starts looking pretty nervous, but she manages to swallow her apprehension and stick to the script. 'Thank you for choosing McDonald's! May I take your order?'"
Dobie (as Whodunit?): "Yeah. This is a robbery! Give me all your ketchup packets!"
Me (as the McDonald's cashier): "...excuse me?"
Dobie (as Whodunit?): "Give me all your ketchup packets!"
Me (as the McDonald's cashier): "Is this a joke?"
Screech (as Mr. Four-Armed Bad Guy): "We're not sure either. But I think you'd better do as we say."
Me (as the McDonald's cashier): "Well...for a moment there, I thought you were gonna take all the cash in the drawer."
Dobie (as Whodunit?): "If we wanted cash, we would have demanded cash! Now give me all your ketchup packets!"
Me: "Okay, so after about five or ten minutes, you guys have taken every ketchup packet in the place: all the packets in the cash register line, the drive-thru window, the lobby, the prep line...not to mention all seven boxes of ketchup packets in the stockroom. The shift manager and all the worker bees are clearly torn between fear and stark, raving confusion as the four of you race for the door and make your escape."
Dobie: "And as soon as I'm at the door, I shout back, 'And don't call the police or we'll be back for the mustard!"

Then they took one of the ketchup packet boxes, emptied all the packets into a pile in the middle of the street, stomped on them furiously and made the mother of all ketchup packet splatters. That was the first time they left the "calling card" for their new supergroup: The Ooey Gooey Screwey Kablooey Bandits. The rest of the ketchup went back to the Splatcave (their secret supervillain headquarters), to be used in a nefarious plot later....

More stuff happened in the meantime, of course.


Screech: "So, let's see what we have here: A bathtub, a washing machine, a toolshed, four traffic cones, three boomboxes, a sawhorse, two sledgehammers, a TI-82 calculator and a dozen rolls of duct tape. One luxury yacht, coming right up! Give me a paint bucket and a popcorn popper and I'll throw in a jacuzzi too!"
--Screech explains how Mr. Four-Armed Bad Guy's main superpower works.


Dobie (teasing Robert about Blockhead): "His idea of subtlety is kicking in the back door!"


Later, the police have surrounded a laundromat, where Mr. Four-Armed Bad Guy and Blockhead are inside, emptying all the money out of the pay phones, coin changers and laundry machines...so that they can buy all the snacks and cola out of the vending machines. The Bandits were just like that, okay?

Me (as a Police Sergeant): "We can see you in there, and we have you surrounded! Come outside slowly with your hands up...and I do mean all of your hands, Four-Armed Bad Guy!"
Screech (in-character): "Hey! That's Mister Four-Armed Bad Guy to you!"

...then...

Me: "Okay, Robert. Roll to hit."
Robert: *rolls while I check the result*
Me (as the Police Sergeant again): "This is your last warning! The SWAT teams are in position! If you don't come out in ten seconds, we're coming in and we won't be nice! Ten! Nine! Holy God! Incoming!"
*a jumbo-load washing machine, thrown through the front window, takes out the sergeant's squad car*
Screech (as Bad Guy): "Now back off, or Blockhead throws the dryer too!"
[Bad Guy and Blockhead proceed to fight their way out from there.]


Me (as the Ultimate Ninja, a rival supervillain who has invaded the Splatcave with his ninja clan): "So we meet at last, Gooey Kablooey...Gooey...Something...Bandits!"
Dobie (as Whodunit?): "Hey, it's Shredder and the Foot Clan! You guys came all this way for nothing, I'm afraid; there aren't any ninja turtles here."
Me (as the Ultimate Ninja): "Fools! I am not that charlatan! I am the Ultimate Ninja, the greatest ninja in the Western Hemisphere! And I have come to claim your Splatcave for the glory of the Ninjatoga Clan!"
Robert (as Blockhead): "Uhhh...ninjas in togas? Where?"
Me (as the Ultimate Ninja): "Do not mock the Ninjatoga Clan, oaf! Now hand over the keys to your base, or there will be trouble!"
Dobie (as Whodunit?): "It's a little too late for that. Hey, if you're not Shredder, can I be Shredder instead?" *morphs into Shredder, then points at the Ultimate Ninja and his ninjas* "Now, my minions! Crush the turtles!"
[The Bandits and a platoon's worth of Mr. Four-Armed Bad Guy's coin-operated robots attack the ninjas. They win after a lengthy battle, but the Ultimate Ninja gets away, yelling about revenge like fleeing villains always do.]


Dobie (as Whodunit?): "Really? Your secret ninja clan headquarters is in the back of a Chinese restaurant?"
Me (as the Ultimate Ninja): "Japanese! Japanese! There are differences, you ignorant gaijin! We sell sushi here!"
--The Ooey Gooey Screwey Kablooey Bandits have cornered their nemesis at last.


Then, with all the junk they plundered from the Japanese restaurant/ninja headquarters, Screech tried building a new super glue rifle with Bad Guy's superpower and rolled a little too well....
Me: "Okay, your glue gun's damage. Roll it."
[Screech rolls d% and gets an Amazing result.]
Me: "That's pretty damned good! I think you just built a hand cannon there. Now roll again for range; you're using exceptional materials in a well-stocked lab, so add a +2 column shift bonus."
[Screech rolls d% and, after the adjustment, gets a Shift X result.]
Me: "Whoa. That glue gun can shoot something in orbit around the moon."
Dobie: "That's going on top of the Splatcave!"


[After committing yet another bizarre crime, the Bandits come home and find four superheroes from the Main Street Minutemen (a minor local superhero group) lying in a heap--in various degrees of injury, immobility and consciousness--about ten feet from the Splatcave's back door.]
Dobie (as Whodunit?): "Huh. I wonder what happened here."
Me: "Just then, you hear a stacatto series of screeches pealing from the second floor as the Splatcave's automated laser gun gauntlet goes off. ZOW ZOW ZOW ZOW! Then a fleshy mass comes bouncing down one of the chutes inside, right before your automated back door opens inward, waits for the chute to deliver its cargo and slams shut with a WHACK!, smacking the Red Hummingbird on top of the heap with her comrades, with tufts of smoke still wafting from the laser burns on her ass."
Dobie (as Whodunit?, to Mr. Four-Armed Bad Guy): "Think we should tell them that we left the front door unlocked?"

True story. Screech had Mr. Four-Armed Bad Guy roll to improve every wall, every door, every window and every security system in the place, and he did a pretty good job of it...for the most part. When he got to the front door, he rolled either an 01 or an 02 (a Feeble result, either way), so it was an ordinary wooden door and it only had a single security camera behind it; the camera was black-and-white and it broke down half the time, so it sucked. Anyone could have kicked in the front door and walked right into the Splatcave with no resistance. Fortunately, everyone assumes that the front door is the most heavily defended part of a base, so no one ever tries breaking in through the front door, right? If they only knew about the Splatcave's one design flaw....


Then along came the Independence Day Parade in New York City, and Captain America was standing on the main float, waving to the crowd. Little did he and the nearby Avengers (who were handling security) suspect that the Bandits were about to initiate their master plan: Operation Humiliate Captain Tight-Pants.

Me: "So at just the right moment, Mr. Four-Armed Bad Guy presses a certain button on his wristwatch. The Burger Mutt float explodes into a shower of confetti and cream cheese, revealing the heavily armed Splatmobile underneath. The triplet sixteen-inch cannons erupt from the Splatmobile's hood and wheel clockwise on their pintel, aiming directly across Times Square. The scattering crowd screams with panic, confusion and dismay as Bad Guy and his triple cannon acquire their target: Captain America!"
Screech: "Fire!"
Me: "Roll it!"
Screech: *rolls something unspeakably high. I think it was a 92 or thereabouts.*
Me: *rolls for Captain America's Block maneuver. Not even close!* "Though he instinctively swings his famous Stars and Stripes shield into position on hearing the report, it avails nothing as a keg's worth of ketchup rings off the topmost edge of Captain America's shield, exploding on impact and absolutely drenching him with a thick, dribbling morass of scarlet ketchup! Everyone and everything within twenty feet of Captain America and his float are also slathered with the ketchup bomb, futilely trying to shake themselves off as the Splatmobile's cannon rotates its second barrel--and its loaded glue bomb--into position. Roll to fire!"
Screech: *rolls and hits again*
Me: "The Super Glue bomb follows the ketchup bomb to its intended target, striking the First Avenger square in his belly and bursting, mingling its contents with the ketchup and covering him with thick, pink super glue." *rolls Cap's Endurance* "But Captain America is still standing, and before the glue can dry, he leaps from the float, shouting "Freedom prevails!", and comes charging at the Splatmobile, cutting a zig-zagging path through the street. The third barrel swivels into position. Roll to fire the feather bomb."
Screech: *rolls and hits again*
Me: "This time, Captain America reels backward as the third shell strikes him square in the forehead, releasing a shower of chicken feathers. As Mr. Four-Armed Bad Guy calculated, the feathers contain the chemical component needed to instantly solidify the super glue, reducing Captain America to an inert mass of ketchup, glue, chicken feathers and super-soldier-serum-powered beef standing in the middle of Times Square. Just then, Bad Guy hears thrusters creasing the heavens over the skyline, and the Splatmobile's alarm starts screaming. 'Warning! Iron Man sighted: 1,200 yards and closing!'"
Screech (as Bad Guy, to Whodunit?): "Quick! Load three more glue bombs!"
Dobie: "I load more glue bombs."
Me: "Whodunit? breaches the cannon and swivels all three barrels around, loading fresh glue bombs as the onboard computer screams, 'Warning! Iron Man, 700 yards and closing!' Sure enough, right as Whodunit? claps the last glue bomb into its chamber, he looks up and sees a gleaming figure of red and gold descending on them from 1 o'clock high."
Dobie: "I slam the cannon closed and get the hell off the hood!"
Screech: "The moment he's clear, I link-fire all three barrels at Iron Man!"
Me: "Roll to hit, but add a +1 column shift."
Screech: *rolls a 50-something, if I recall...good enough*
Me: *rolls Iron Man's Evade and pooches it. I think it was in the teens.* "BOO-BOO-BOOOOOM!!! Moments later, a heavy mass of glue, with a wildly flailing Iron Man trapped in the middle of it, comes zipping low overhead and crashes through the front of the Paramount Theater, much to the horror of many."
Dobie (to Screech): "Holy shit! Did you just take down half the original Avengers?"
Me: *rolling a bunch of ten-siders* "Yes, he did. But he might not be taking down the other half. While the Bandits are cheering themselves on, the back tires leap from the ground as an unstoppable mass thunders down onto the Splatmobile's hood, crumpling the car's front end in the blink of an eye. The people's wails of fear are drowned beneath the clamor of fabled Mjolnir ripping a return path through the chassis and a newly come, bellowing voice from above: 'I say thee NAY, base villains!'"
Screech: "Well...shit. It was fun while it lasted. Who wants to stick around and fight Thor with me?"
Dobie: "Fuck that! I'm already morphing into Joe Schmoe and getting lost in the crowd."
Rod (as Imp): "Me too! You're on your own, white boy!"
Dobie (as Whodunit?): "You can't follow me! I'm Whodunit?!!"
Screech (as Bad Guy): "How about you, Blockhead?"
Robert (as Blockhead) : "Oh, all right. If I have to."
[Thor singlehandedly whooped ass on Blockhead and Mr. Four-Armed Bad Guy, of course. Whodunit? completely got away, and Spider-Man went after Imp, but Imp could fly fast and Spider-Man can't, so screw Spider-Man. Captain America got cleaned up and got back on TV to deliver a rousing speech about never giving up and never backing down from the face of evil, equating the Ooey Gooey Screwey Kablooey Bandits to the likes of AIM and Hydra in the doing, which earned the Bandits a steaming buttload of individual Karma and Supergroup Karma. Bad Guy eventually turned his nasty prison food into another bomb and sprung himself and Blockhead out of jail; unfortunately, their glorious day of triumph was still forever stained with the humiliation of catching an Asgardian beatdown on live TV. Such is the life of a supervillain, I suppose.]