Hey,

Love the idea of discussing each module like this. Thanks!

I think I have a differing opinion than you, G7 on this one.

I felt that Doc Apoc was anti-climactic after the glory of Death Duel.

Best thing about the module, clearly, is Doc Apoc himself. Love his background, his motivation and his power of choosing 6 powers each day. Great, ground breaking fun.
The problem is everything else in the module. There isn't much to do until you finally meet him (maybe because we didn't have a mystic type in our team).

The natives are mediocre. The Guard robots are a letdown after the innovation of the Doomsday Robot.
If I ran this thing today, I'd have them face 3 or more Doomsday Robots on the island instead.

Great, fun, cool villain but that's about it.

I ranked it "a pretty good game."

I have to agree with both of you about it motering rather slowly.

I guess I rate it so high cause as GM, Dr. A was such a MAJOR VILLAIN!

But I noticed how slow it was as well (after my initial read). I beefed up the amount of Guardians and made a staging area for them.
Also... both Shapeshifter and Iron Maiden escaped the authorities and retreated to the Island... (Where I had a more powerful suit for Iron Maiden, bumping up her Agi, str, ADR and it had a power blast like the Guardian robots -- which I just equated as one she was in the process of building but hadn't finished - oh and it was also aquatic).

The characters were treated to an almost cat-fight between Shapeshifter and Iron Maiden. As both of the women were into Dr A... and Shapeshifter had discovered that Dr A (in my world) favored Iron Maiden because of her technical expertise. Shapeshifter verbally shrewed at Iron Maiden who laughed at what she considered the overly emotional woman. In the end, Iron Maiden ended up the only Destroyer to stay with Dr. A... not that he truely cared about the others.
Shapeshifter in a fit of anger flew away (So none of the chara got a rematch with her).

I also expanded the Temple area... and had an event happen there... There was a cold attack on some of the Crusader members within the chamber (cause they had stupidly split up to try to cover more ground) and the hybrid human/demon Wraith heard a weakened ancient voice utter the name Marduk before they were attacked and it offered him something but it faded and he could not hear what it was. They eventually figured out who Marduke was... which is wholly a different story altogather.

Within the caves of Nacht Island they discovered the insideous Psionic Generator platform (Mine was more massive than the one inside the book - rather than just 5 containers shown... mine was expanded to 45 tubes!), Not only did my heroes discover the Oceanographic Expedition team members... but in my game Dr. A had already started collecting super powered beings, This is how they met a few heroes from all over. Including Skyhawk (Dragon Mag ad, cover of OU), Unicorn (cover of Opponents Unlimited), Pulsar (who was originally just a flying energy shooting hero that was retrofited historically into Pulsar from the Headhunter description) and Shatterman (Dragon Mag ad - who I had made a southern superhero based in the Florida area).

The fight with Dr. A was wonderful... Sister Indigo with her religous disposition and abilities went after him (as she sensed his eViL!!!). Her and the PC brick Titan went to town but soon everyone started getting their butts kicked. Dreamweaver tried to use illusion to displace Titan but Dr A saw right through them... tired of Titan he made a special attack and grabbed him by the foot... and flew off at top speed with him and threw him into the Atlantic Ocean... he flew back and battled the PC Thunderstar (who was trying to catch up) and knocked him out and let him fall into the ocean. Speed Demon had run out on the ocean and he grabbed Thunderstar and Dr. A banked back around and came after him... As fast as Speed Demon was... Dr. A was faster and Speed Demon barely made it to the beach when Dr. A was on him and knocked him badly through a bunch of island trees (Velocity damage alone knocked him out, let alone the damage incurred by the trees), I remember everyone laughing cause the cosmic hero Thunderstar said... "OMG... I was already hurt... I was fine bobbing around in the ocean... I have life support!... Now I even more hurt than before!" LOL
Dr. A continued to pick off the heroes until PC Alloy and Manta Man pulled the team togther. Alloy wrapped himself around Dr. A as the heroes started to beat on him, Titan and Thunderstar got back up and joined the battle and the brick delievered the coup'de'grace! (Speed Demon unfortunately remained unconcious until Sister Indigo could heal him - he was all cool with it. Fact of the game).

I thought it was a fun mod... but I did tweek it to heighten the fun. I think the whole aspect of the Mod is good... which is why I rated it so high (Especially if you step back and look that Death Duel with the Destroyers was his idea).

G7

Our ancient (read=high school) campaign had very simple entries, especially for the earliest issues.  I think when I started doing these write-ups, I was just doing the bare basics (and expanded with a bit more plot details as I went on).  So all I wrote for this one was:

#4 / Islands of Infamy / Sentinels investigate islands off coast of Florida, fight Guardian robots.

#5 / Apocalypse! / Sentinels barely defeat Doctor Apocalypse and destroy his base, stopping his operation.


For our Guardians campaign, in the early days of Justice Force (when the team was called the Enforcers), I gave a bit more detail, though it still ended up encompassing two issues:

#5 – The Island of Doctor Apocalypse – Doctor Apocalypse supervises as a massive underground psionic generator is constructed. Briefed by F.I.S.H., the heroes journey to Nacht Island near Bermuda.  They explore caves, a temple, native villages, an oceanographic base, and a military site, all the while surviving dangers from S.L.A.M. androids, Guardian robots, and explosive missiles.

#6 – Apocalypse Now! – In an epic showdown, the team destroys Doctor Apocalypse’s undersea base with his own missiles and confronts the enraged despot at his villa.  Drawing raw supernatural energy through a mystic gem, the evil mastermind wields terrible power against the three Enforcers, engaging them in a mighty battle.  Eventually, with his plans for a superpowered army ruined, the mad villain departs.

Honestly, G7, you make it much more believable.  I liked your synopsis and would encourage you to put together a thread outlining your campaign (much the way Majestic does his "Guardian Issues summary" thread.)

I voted it as a great game. I'm with Majestic on the issue of defeating Doc. It all depends on how you play the npc and which powers you give him. Yes he can be a combat beast but I feel that's the wrong way to go for a master villain.

One must always have an exit plan to slip the heroes when things start to look bad. I've never understood why people think guys are suppose to make these asinine decisions based on their Boy Scout image or why villains should make bad decisions because they are the bad guy.

Dr. Doom was as egotistical as it gets and he always had an escape route. And speaking of Doom I always had the island swamped with Docs robots so the heroes had to go covert or go home.

Ranger... I couldn't agree more...

But... Remember that you have to try to use the game mechanics within the confines of the story...

Its very easy to write a comic story where one person completely controls the enviroment...

But comic stories are not influenced by outside writers, in this case the surprising, inventive, insane, illogical, hilarious and chaotic outside actions of PCs...

Seriously... What are they sometimes thinking...!?!

My player T, who was the super strong Titan summerized it with this sentence after we were discussing, laughing and basically winding down when I asked him and my brother D playing the cosmic Thunderstar, what were they thinking when they went on a destructive rampage?

T said... "If he wouldn't make it easy to find him... Then we make enough noise, break his toys and We'll bring him to us!"

2 heroes trashing DrA's stuff... Both cat calling him... Doing anything they can to piss him off.

What brought him out?

A reaction on a die roll to something Titan said. (Influenced by Titan's charisma)

We're gonna trash this place like we did your big wind up toy, your stupid Dork-royers, your satellite, your retarded robots... And when we're done... I'm gonna kick your ass and build a beach house and make you serve margaritas in a skirt!

That was the beginning of the fight... DrA appeared... Was smoothly arrogant, devilishly smug and dangerous intentions in his eyes...

While Thunderstar screamed in his radio that they... He had found them...

Play Mortal Combat music now...

FIGHT!!!

...and they did...

DNA Agents was something I had... But I think I used as sporadic filler stuff... Like at Medusa or in the ranks of Intercrime.

Also made some chara the enemies of heroes who were still imprisoned.

DrA was so difficult to hold on to, so to was my Magnet Man and most especially BAD.

The Destroyers remained imprisoned after their one and only escape. Except for Iron Maiden.
DrA didn't give a crap about them.

Now the Crushes did play a role...

Mocker was smashed to nothing by my ex wife's chara of Maxima (the character predates the dragon mag article and the DC one)

Vulture was cured by Medusa.

Teacher discovered an outbound signal when a partial group of the Crusher's included Hornet tried once more to attack the Crusaders.
Enforcer discovered that the signal came from his former employer the Company... Who also sponsored the fictional biocorp that made Vulture.

With Teacher's helping  devise a jamming device, Hornet, Enforcer, Justice(Avenger) and PC Wraith all went after the Company.
In the end after Hornet had destroyed the control device... He betrayed the Crusaders damaging their Jet Helicopter as they defended themselves against the freed mutates that the Company had made (I used aliens from Dawn of the Devil as mutates and used Demons from Devil's Domain instead of Aliens in DotD)... I know... I over explained again!

Shocker was reformed and though he loved Evergreen, he needed to explore information that linked his possible origins to Intercrime and returned to Japan...
I had altered HONOR to suit a story that involved Shocker...
But I never had a chance to play it...

Shrew was never killed... Her sister was.
Shrew was eventually reformed and went back to wrestling with the help of hero PC Titan.
She was kidnapped by Intercrime in a story thread I never finished...

Temper was the most hated member and eventually joined VILE

Mace became leader of the Crushers, with Marionette as 2nd in command.
Bull, FIST, Stormlord and Merc remained... Til Mercs death.

So yeah... I used the Crushers over the Destroyers.