Secret War Introduction

A Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game Event by Mark Meredith, Andrew Gatlin and Felipe Mascarenhas. Based on the Secret War Mini-Series by Brian Michael Bendis and Gabriele Dell’Otto

When Nick Fury discovers a disturbing connection between many of Marvel’s deadliest villains, he assembles a ragtag team of the Marvel Universe’s most misunderstood heroes for a secret mission to do what the U.S. government could never allow…

Doctor Doom has been overthrown in Latveria. Lucia Von Bardas, supported by the United States government, has stepped up to rule the country. However, Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD, has discovered something sinister afoot. Many of the tech-based villains in the US are carrying millions of dollars worth of equipment, more equipment than they can ever afford. When Fury meets with the president to break the news, he’s brushed off.

Fury’s hand is forced, and he recruits a team of heroes, under the table, to infiltrate Latveria and overthrow Von Bardas, making an example of her. When the mission is finished, Castle Von Doom destroyed and Von Bardas dead, Fury wipes the memories of the heroes.

One year later, one of the heroes ends up in the hospital. Now, the heroes are racing against the clock to discover who it is that is trying to kill them and why.

This Event is not broken up into Acts as is the standard. Instead, it is divided up into Past scenes and Present scenes. Past scenes are unlocked through the spending of Plot Points by the heroes, as they begin to realize what happened.

To facilitate this, each player will be given a Condition Tracker, which tracks Stress and Trauma of all heroes, but divided up into Past and Future. These can be downloaded in the Resources section of the site, or directly here.

This Event, we predict, should take about 4-5 two-hour long sessions, depending on the speed of your group, and is best for 3-6 characters. We recommend at least one player play as Nick Fury, as this will make things easier on the part of the Watcher. If no one chooses to be Fury, he will be run as a Watcher character. Andrew has come up with a PDF entitled “What Fury Knows“, which should be given to the player who plays Nick Fury.

PREPARING FOR THIS EVENT

Ensure you read over the whole event before attempting to run this game. For those of you following along here on the blog, that won’t be possible, but once it’s all out there, it’s what we’re going to recommend. There’s a lot to take in, and it can be tricky to manage.

Ensure that everyone has a Condition Tracker (as seen above) as well as a Datafile.

As we said before, it’s recommended that someone play Nick Fury. Daisy Johnson is also heavily suggested, though Nick Fury can take down the castle with pre-planted explosives if you need the castle to come down and don’t have her on hand.

Make sure your players have gotten a chance to look over the Event Milestones, as well as the Character Milestones, and have selected them.

STRUCTURE OF THE EVENT

As stated before, the Event is divided up into Past and Present scenes. The story begins in the Present, and doesn’t switch to the Past until Plot Points have been spent to unlock it. You should inform the players of this, so that they can spend the PP when they feel they need to. Plot Points can only be spent when it makes sense within the story to step back into the Past.

Also note that just because the players are seeing the events of the past, doesn’t mean the heroes are remembering the events of the past.

• Past scenes involve the recruitment and travel to Latveria, as well as the actual attack on Castle Von Doom.
• Present scenes involve the heroes being ambushed, fighting massive hordes of villains, and culminating in the return of Lucia Von Bardas.

Each scene from the Past requires a certain number of Plot Points to unlock, as detailed at the beginning of that scene. Players can each chip in Plot Points to unlock the scenes.

The doom Pool begins as 2D8 (High Stakes) in the Past and 2D10 (Catastrophic) in the Present.

MILESTONES FOR THIS EVENT

There are four Milestones associated with this Event. At the beginning of the Event, players may choose one of these Milestones. Two are from the Past, two from the Present. A player can only fulfill the requirement to gain the XP during the time period they’ve chosen.

This means that if you’ve chosen a Past Milestone, you won’t get XP for completing one of the requirements in the Present, and vice versa.

Friday, we’ll present you with the Milestones for each of the heroes. Players can choose from those as well, but can only ever have two Milestones at any given time.

PAST

PRESENT

We’ll have the actual scenes rolling out soon, so keep your eyes open. Hopefully, this provokes a lot of thought, discussion, and people wanting to run this!

About Mark

Mark is a military veteran, game designer, a believer in the oxford comma, and an all-around nerd.

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